The Word - Symbol-Minded

ColbertNation.com

Justice Ginsburg at Washington Hospital Center

The Washington Post reports:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted to the Washington Hospital Center Thursday after falling ill at the Supreme Court. Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Ginsburg fell ill after receiving an intravenous iron therapy. Arberg said Ginsburg felt better after being attended by a physician at the court, but was taken to the hospital as a precaution.

Ginsburg's health has been a concern since the 76-year-old justice was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this year. In February, doctors removed her spleen and a tiny tumor on her pancreas. Ginsburg said the operation was a complete success, and that she was cancer-free. She underwent what she called a precautionary round of chemotherapy in the spring, but never missed a day of the court's public sessions.

She has kept up a rigorous schedule of speaking engagements and work on the court and has said she does not plan to leave the court for years.

A statement from the court follows:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was taken to the Washington Hospital Center this evening after feeling ill in her Chambers earlier in the day. The Justice felt ill at 4:50 p.m., about an hour after an iron sucrose infusion to treat an iron deficiency anemia that was administered at the Office of the Attending Physician.

The Justice underwent a comprehensive assessment of health in July 2009. This involved medical evaluation, imaging scans, and comprehensive blood tests. The result of this evaluation was that she was in completely normal health with the exception of a low red blood cell count caused by deficiency of iron. Intravenous iron therapy was administered in a standard fashion.

One hour following the completion of this infusion, she felt faint, developed light headedness and fatigue. Medical assistance was summoned from the Office of the Attending Physician and medical evaluation disclosed a slightly low blood pressure which can occur following this treatment. She was monitored at the Court, blood tests were performed and she was found to be in stable health. Fluids were administered and her symptoms improved, but she was taken as a precaution for evaluation at the Washington Hospital Center at approximately 7:45 p.m.

I don't need to tell any progressive how important it is to have Justice Ginsburg on the bench. President Obama recently nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Court, and she was confirmed by the Senate. Justice Sotomayor is a solid moderate, but that's not what we need to counter Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito. Justice Ginsburg is the only liberal on the Court.

Please join me in sending best wishes for a speedy recovery to Justice Ginsburg.

Supreme Court Says Strip Searching Teen Illegal

The tragic deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson have eclipsed what might have otherwise been a very big story -- a US Supreme Court decision that strip searching a teen is illegal. THANK GOODNESS!

The Supreme Court said Thursday school officials acted illegally when they strip-searched an Arizona teenage girl looking for prescription-strength ibuprofen.

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said that school officials violated the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches when they ordered Savana Redding to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear.

Redding was 13 when Safford Middle School officials in rural eastern Arizona conducted the search. They were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.

The school's search of Redding's backpack and outer clothes was permissible, the court said. But the justices said that officials went too far when they asked to search her underwear. [...]

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."

Justice Souter's opinion is what a reasonable person would assume -- and then there is Clarence Thomas.

I have a wicked vision that I simply can't get out of my mind, that of Justice Thomas reading the case in hand, with his other hand firmly planted under his robe. He is such a jack-ass.

In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school settings.

Officials had searched the girl's backpack and found nothing, Thomas said. "It was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look," Thomas said.

No one except Clarence Thomas, the jerk.

Mixed Emotions

President Obama announced his Supreme Court nominee this morning, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. MoveOn says: "Judge Sotomayor embodies the American dream. Born to Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in a South Bronx housing project and was raised from age nine by a single mother, excelling in school and working her way to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University and to become an editor of the Law Journal at Yale Law School."

There is no question she has a compelling personal story, and her selection is historic. If confirmed, she will be the third woman and the first Hispanic to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

And, Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate for her current position, making it challenging for some Republicans to oppose her now.

Her confirmation is likely a done deal, but I do have a couple of concerns. Her record on reproductive justice and church-state separation is thin and somewhat troubling. I will reserve final judgment until the full story on her is revealed.

Is Obama Ready to Name a Justice?

It sounds like it! In the Washington Post today President Obama expands on his criteria for a justice.

President Obama said he is seeking a Supreme Court nominee who understands the "practical day-to-day" implications of rulings, as he pushed back in an interview airing yesterday against criticism of his emphasis on judicial "empathy."

It is "important this is somebody who has common sense and somebody who has a sense of how American society works and how the American people live," he told C-SPAN, in his most extensive public comments yet on his deliberations since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement.

"What I want is not just ivory tower learning," he added. "I want somebody who has the intellectual firepower but also a little bit of a common touch and has a practical sense of how the world works."

Republicans have zeroed in on Obama's comments during the presidential campaign that he would "want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through." They have argued that this is code language for judges who would apply an "activist" agenda not necessarily bound by constitutional constraints.

Liberals really must not let Republicans get away with this "activist justice" bullshit. Their "activist president and vice president" nearly ruined this country. It could take a generation to fix the mess they left behind.

I like that President Obama cited Lilly Ledbetter's story as an example of the kind of judicial temperament he's looking for. Ledbetter was discriminated against at Goodyear Tire. For decades she was paid less than her male counterparts. Any justice with a brain would know that employees rarely know what their co-workers earn. In Ledbetter's case, by the time she did find out it was past the legal deadline to file a discrimination claim.

She lost her Supreme Court case, but Congress has now fixed the problem so other women won't face this same obstacle.

Obama stuck to the same language in the interview while seeking to expand its meaning: He wants a judge who can not only understand the lives of ordinary people, he said, but also grasp the practical consequences of rulings on businesses.

"I said earlier that I thought empathy was an important quality, and I continue to believe that. You have to have not only the intellect to be able to effectively apply the law to cases before you, but you have to be able to stand in somebody's else shoes and see through their eyes and get a sense of how the law might work or not work in practical day-to-day living," he said.

As an example, he cited the Lilly Ledbetter case, in which the court ruled in 2007 that a woman who had suffered pay discrimination, but discovered it after the window for filing suit had passed, could not sue her employer. "I think anybody who has ever worked in a job like that understands that they might not know that they were being discriminated against," Obama said. "It doesn't make sense for their rights to be foreclosed. That's the kind of case where I want a judge not only to be applying the law in front of them but also to understand that as a practical matter."

The nominee will likely be named next week. Let's hope the president makes a good selection, and the Democrats have the spine to stand up to Republicans.

It's Getting Closer!

Watch CBS Videos Online
I see gay people!

Supreme Excitement is About to Begin

It looks like President Obama is about to release the name of his first Supreme Court nominee.

President Obama told senators at a White House meeting yesterday that he would review names of potential Supreme Court nominees over the weekend, leading participants to believe an announcement could come within days, according to senior Senate aides who were briefed on the gathering.

The group included Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee's senior Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.). White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the meeting lasted about 40 minutes.

Gibbs told reporters afterward that Obama reiterated to the group that he "would choose a nominee who respects the Constitution and judicial precedent and also has the good judgment and common sense to reach fair decisions." Obama urged senators to act quickly on the nomination to ensure that the new justice is confirmed before the court's new term begins in October, "with time to prepare beforehand."

Senate aides said Reid told Obama that the goal was a confirmation vote before the Senate departs on its summer recess. The official adjournment date is Aug. 7.

No specific names were discussed, aides said, although Reid and Leahy noted their preference for a justice "with real-life experience."

Who do you think he should select? What will the person selected tell us about the President?

His approval rating is good, so is this the time for President Obama to roll the dice and ask for precisely the nominee he knows his liberal supporters want? Or, will he cave to the Republicans and select someone easy to confirm?

What do you think?

SCOTUS Nominee Poetic Justice?

Or Clarence Thomas's Worst Nightmare

For those of us who lived through the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, Nell Scovell has a terrific idea!

Minutes after NPR reported that Justice David Souter plans to step down from the Supreme Court, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof updated his Facebook status to ponder a replacement: “I think Obama just might appoint Elena Kagan, his new solicitor-general and the former Harvard Law School dean. She’s young, smart, understands politics as well as law. Who would you like to see him appoint?”

Thanks for asking, Nick. I’d like to see President Obama appoint Brandeis University law professor Anita Hill. She’s reasonably young, smart, and—after her ordeal testifying at Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing—she certainly understands politics as well as law.

Now that's the truth!

My first day on staff at the NOW action center we headed out for a Stop Souter rally at the Capitol. Thank goodness we were so wrong.

One of the saddest, and most frustrating, days for me during my time with NOW was the day Clarence Thomas was confirmed by the Senate. I kept asking myself how could Senator Biden have let the hearings get so out of control in regard to the testimony of Anita Hill? And how could Senator Arlen Specter have been such a jerk in his line of questions to her?

We fast forward to find Biden as Senate President and Specter as the new-Dem-on-the-block. As the Church Lady might say: "How convenient."

So what do YOU think about having a "Justice" Anita Hill?

Supreme Decision

My first day on the job at NOW, in 1990, we left the office that morning for a "Stop Souter" rally across from the Capitol. David Souter was an unknown, and women's groups didn't trust the first President Bush to do the right thing. How fortunate for us that we were so wrong.

President Obama announced this afternoon that Justice David H. Souter, the Republican-appointed New England jurist who has become a reliable member of the liberal bloc on the Supreme Court, is retiring and said he will nominate a replacement "who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded."

Justice Souter has proven to be one of the more liberal members of the Court, and his departure probably won't mean much of a change IF President Obama nominates another liberal to take his place.

What Obama COULD do, however, is nominate a woman. We need another woman on the Court, and a few names have already surfaced.

The vacancy gives Obama his first chance to begin reshaping the court but would not likely change the dynamic on a bench that is split fairly evenly between the liberal and conservative blocs, with moderate conservative Justice Anthony M. Kennedy often holding the pivotal role.

Although Obama's choice would probably be far different from the 69-year-old intellectual bachelor from New Hampshire, the replacement will almost surely have a similar ideological outlook. Most court observers also believe Obama would be likely to choose a woman as his first appointment, since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the lone female among the nine justices.

Most often mentioned as possibilities are two appeals judges, Sonia Sotomayor of New York and Diane P. Wood of Chicago, along with Obama's new solicitor general, Elena Kagan. Vice President Biden has been charged with drawing up a list of possible nominees, according to the source close to the court.

Replacement Speculation Begins

Those often mentioned as possibilities are, in no particular order:

Judge Sonia Sotomayor (born 1954), U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Sotomayor was nominated to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in a deal with New York senators in 1991 and elevated to the appeals court in 1998 by President Bill Clinton. She could become the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court. Conservatives have raised questions about her role in upholding a decision by the city of New Haven, Conn., to throw out a firefighter promotions test because no African Americans qualified. The case is now before the Supreme Court.

Judge Diane Wood (born 1950), U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Wood worked at the antitrust division of the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, and she was nominated to the appeals court by Clinton in 1995. She knows Obama from her days as a professor at the University of Chicago law school, where he also taught. Wood, who will turn 60 next year, is the oldest of the candidates frequently mentioned for the court, where the trend has been toward younger justices who would serve for years in the lifetime appointment.

Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw (born 1954), U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Wardlaw worked for the Clinton Justice Department transition team and was nominated by Clinton as a federal judge in 1995, then elevated to the appeals court in 1998. She is a liberal judge on the nation's most liberal appeals court, and she also had a role in a case now before the Supreme Court. She wrote the appeals court decision that said Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old middle school student who was strip-searched in an unsuccessful effort to find drugs.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan (born 1960). Kagan was confirmed by the Senate to her new job in March on a 61-31 vote and has yet to argue a case at the court. Her confirmation process was more difficult than some had predicted, as Republican senators accused her of avoiding their questions. In the background was the thought that Kagan might be Obama's first nominee to the court. She is the former dean of the Harvard Law School, worked in the Clinton administration and worked with Obama, although not closely, at the University of Chicago.

Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears (born 1955). Sears was appointed by then-governor Zell Miller in 1992 and later became the first woman elected in a contested statewide race there. In 2005, she became chief justice, and in the process, became the first African-American woman in the nation to head a state supreme court. Although her current term runs until the end of 2010, Sears has announced she will step down from the job at the end of June.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (born 1959). Granholm (D) has encountered political trouble in her state because of the collapsing economy but was seen as a rising Democratic star. Born in Canada, Granholm is a Harvard Law graduate who served as attorney general before winning election as governor in 2002. She frequently campaigned with Obama during the presidential campaign.

And the list goes on.

The Great License Plate Debate

The last time the Supremes debated license plates it was to decide if New Hampshire could force George Maynard to drive around with plates containing the state's "Live Free or Die" motto.

Usually when we think of courts and license plates it's about the Court deciding whether someone will have to MAKE license plates, so I guess this was a good thing ... or was it?

Proponents of "Choose Life" license plates, often accused of making everything a 'federal case', are taking their case to the Supreme Court.

No one is forced to use the plates, which are available in 19 states and seem intended to appeal to those who oppose abortion rights. They are so-called specialty plates, which are available for an extra fee to people who want to express themselves through their license plates.

Florida started the trend in 1987, when it sold a specialty plate to honor the astronauts who had died in the Challenger space shuttle disaster the year before. It raised millions of dollars for a memorial, and these days the Web site of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles offers many other options, including license plates celebrating Nascar, various sports (“Play Tennis!”) and parents who “make a difference.”

It also sells, for $20 extra, a bright yellow plate with the cartoonish faces of two smiling children and the words “Choose Life.” The state says it raised more than $33 million from specialty plates in the 2007 fiscal year and turned most of the money over to private groups.

The “Choose Life” plate generated about $800,000 that year. A state law requires that the money raised from those plates, after administrative expenses are deducted, be given to adoption agencies. The law forbids sharing the money with groups offering “counseling for or referrals to abortion clinics.”

Now this is where I have a problem with these plates. If a state wants to offer speciality plates as a way to increase revenue, then so be it. I'm not crazy about it, but I could maybe live with it if the money were being used to pay for school books or computers, feed or shelter the homeless, or for the general well being of a community -- you know, for things like roads and stuff.

But I draw the line at making a state agency -- in this case the Department of Motor Vehicles -- merely a funding stream for causes I don't necessarily agree with. I think domestic terrorist groups like the "right to life" organizations proposing these plates need to find some other way to fund their fake agencies/clinics -- or close their doors.

It has been a long trip from “Live Free or Die” to “Choose Life.” The old case involved the question of what the government may force people to say. The new one asks what it must allow people to say.

I think it's more than just about what people are allowed to say. I think it's also about using the government as a funding vehicle (all puns intended) for organizations that would like nothing more than to drive some women over a cliff.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized for Cancer

The Washington Post reports that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery today for pancreatic cancer. It appears the cancer was diagnosed early, which is encouraging. Pancreatic cancer, however, is one of the more aggressive forms of cancer.

Justice Ginsburg is a tireless advocate for many social justice issues I care deeply about. Please join me in extending best wishes to Justice Ginsburg.

Scalia on Bush v. Gore 2000: "Get Over It"

(sorry about the advertising ... geezz)

Scalia repeated his earlier statement that people should “get over” the court’s ruling in 2000 that halted Florida’s vote recount, giving the presidential election to Republican Bush over Democrat Al Gore.



“I say nonsense,” Scalia said, when asked about critics who say the 5-4 ruling was based on politics and not justice. “Get over it. It’s so old by now.” (more)

I agree with Petulant at Shakesville who said: "We'll Get Over It When Conservatives "get over" Roe v. Wade."

The Supremes on Damage Control

Geezz ... should we be surprised that the US Supreme Court is in the "protection" business?

Dana Milbank at Wapo has this to say:

Chief Justice John Roberts was pained.

Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

ANITA HILL: setting the record straight

"... I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me."

Today's New York Times op-ed by Anita Hill is a must read!

In the portion of his book that addresses my role in the Senate hearings into his nomination, Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee ... A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his.

Justice Thomas’s characterization of me is also hobbled by blatant inconsistencies. He claims, for instance, that I was a mediocre employee who had a job in the federal government only because he had “given it” to me. He ignores the reality: I was fully qualified to work in the government, having graduated from Yale Law School (his alma mater, which he calls one of the finest in the country), and passed the District of Columbia Bar exam, one of the toughest in the nation.

Clearly, it is Justice Thomas who is "a mediocre employee" In his time on the Court he has contributed virtually nothing. Of the two, the country would be much better served had Anita Hill been confirmed instead!

Chief Justice Falls

Upon hearing the news that Chief Justice John Roberts was taken to the hospital following a fall today, I couldn't help but wonder if his fall knock any sense into him? According to NBC News, the fall was caused by Roberts having a seizure.

Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure at his summer home in Maine on Monday, causing a fall that resulted in minor scrapes, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

He will remain in a hospital in Maine overnight.

Roberts, 52, was taken by ambulance to the Penobscot Bay Medical Center, where he underwent a "thorough neurological evaluation, which revealed no cause for concern," Arberg said in a statement.

In 1993, Roberts had a similar episode while on a golf course.

Roberts is the the youngest chief justice in more than 200 years and the third-youngest ever to assume the office. Under his leadership the Court has taken a sharp turn to the right.

Sunday Funnies

Supreme Court decision blocks courthouse door for some 'faith-based' lawsuits

Is anyone surprised that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that ordinary taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious groups get federal money?

In a 5-4 decision the Court has blocked a lawsuit by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., challenging the Bush Administration's use of taxpayer funds for conferences which instruct religious groups on how to apply for federal grants.

The majority opinion in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation written by Justice Samuel Alito, appointed to the Court by President Bush, overturned a ruling that allowed the lawsuit to proceed. Bush's other high court appointee, Chief Justice John Roberts, also joined the ruling.

The Associated Press reports:

Taxpayers in the case "set out a parade of horribles that they claim could occur" unless the court stopped the Bush administration initiative, wrote Justice Samuel Alito. "Of course, none of these things has happened."

The justices' decision revolved around a 1968 Supreme Court ruling that enabled taxpayers to challenge government programs that promote religion.

The 1968 decision involved the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which financed teaching and instructional materials in religious schools in low-income areas.
"This case falls outside" the narrow exception allowing such cases to proceed, Alito wrote.

In dissent, Justice David Souter said that the court should have allowed the taxpayer challenge to proceed.

The majority "closes the door on these taxpayers because the executive branch, and not the legislative branch, caused their injury," wrote Souter. "I see no basis for this distinction."

In a press release from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Rev. Barry W. Lynn said:

"Most church-state lawsuits, including those that challenge congressional appropriations for faith-based programs, will not be affected," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State

The outcome of the case before the Supreme Court was disappointing, Lynn said, because "taxpayers should be allowed to challenge public funding of religion, whether the money is allocated by Congress or the White House."

Did anyone really expect this Court to protect the Constitution?

Abortion foes think women need parenting

Imagine being in your mid-30's, you've been out on your own for a decade or more, and suddenly a significant life decision is taken out of your hands and given to a Justice or State Legislature. That is what could happen to women IF anti-abortion advocates have their way.

Encouraged by Justice Kennedy's "whose you daddy" comments in an anti-abortion decision by the Supreme Court last month, abortion foes are working to pass tough new counseling and informed-consent laws intended to harass women seeking abortions. Don't think for a moment that anti-abortion advocates care a wit about women -- they don't. They only care about controlling women's lives.

The New York Times reports:

For many years, the political struggle over abortion was often framed as a starkly binary choice: the interest of the woman, advocated by supporters of abortion rights, versus the interest of the fetus, advocated by opponents of abortion.

But last month’s Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act marked a milestone for a different argument advanced by anti-abortion leaders, one they are increasingly making in state legislatures around the country. They say that abortion, as a rule, is not in the best interest of the woman; that women are often misled or ill-informed about its risks to their own physical or emotional health; and that the interests of the pregnant woman and the fetus are, in fact, the same.

The majority opinion in the court’s 5-to-4 decision explicitly acknowledged this argument, galvanizing anti-abortion forces and setting the stage for an intensifying battle over new abortion restrictions in the states.

Abortion rights advocates who have been asleep at the wheel need to wake up and smell the coffee. It's past time to make the case for why this kind of thinking is not only offensive to women ... but dangerous to women's lives!

Sunday Funnies

Roberts Court right move, wrong for progressives

Women, progressive men, anyone who cares about social justice ought to take a deep breath and prepare for a very long haul.

The Roberts Court has clearly moved to the right -- and this can only spell disaster for women and our reproductive health, for anyone who cares about the separation of church and state, LGBT rights, and a plethora of other social justice issues.

The Washington Post reports:

The Supreme Court's decision signaling a significant reversal in the way it views government restrictions on abortion may also offer a glimpse of how the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will proceed on other controversial issues this term and in the future.

The five justices in the majority came up with an opinion that delighted abortion opponents and outraged abortion rights activists -- and yet, in the view of the court, did not overturn a single precedent or seemingly contradictory ruling.

I disagree. This ruling was contradictory to any other ruling on abortion, because for the first time the Court has said there are no health exceptions for the woman. And what does THAT sound like.

Knowing that we can no longer count on the Court to protect us, we must turn a keen eye to politics. If you have never worked for a candidate, find one you like and volunteer on their campaign. If you have never registered to vote because you thought it didn't matter ... well, it does. If you are registered, but had too much to do to make it to the polls last time, plan to take the day off and go vote.

Everything is political.