http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002903.htmlSandra Day O'Connor rips into GOP, DeLay, Cornyn, and warns of the "beginnings" of dictatorship
NPR's Nina Totenberg aired an amazing story this morning about a talk that just-resigned Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gave at Georgetown University. The first woman to serve on the High Court wouldn't allow her actual words to be broadcast, and that's a shame, because -- based on Totenberg's report -- every American needs to hear what she said. The Reagan appointee who became a moderate and an American icon -- Bush v. Gore notwithstanding -- all but named names in thinly veiled attacks on former House majority leader Tom DeLay and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, and ended with a stunning warning.
O'Connor told her Georgetown audience that judges can make presidents, Congress and governors "really really mad," and that if judges don't make people angry, they aren't doing their job. But she said judicial effectiveness is "premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts." While hailing the American system of rights and privileges, she noted that these don't protect the judiciary, that "people do":
hipsterdufus said:
Pacridge said:If she feels that way I wonder why she retired?
aps said:Hi Pacridge--it's because her husband is ill and she wants to take care of him. I think he may have cancer. I'm proud of her--she has her priorities straight.
Navy Pride said:O'connor was one of the few mistake Reagan made............She was a Conservative before she became a Justice on the SC and then became at best a moderate after she got her appointment...........I think RR would have liked to get that nomination back...........
Navy Pride said:O'connor was one of the few mistake Reagan made............She was a Conservative before she became a Justice on the SC and then became at best a moderate after she got her appointment...........I think RR would have liked to get that nomination back...........
hipsterdufus said:I'll never forgive her for succumbing to pressure and annointing GWB to the presidency in 2000.
Florida Recount Study: Bush Still Wins
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comprehensive study of the 2000 presidential election in Florida suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a statewide vote recount to proceed, Republican candidate George W. Bush would still have been elected president.
The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago conducted the six-month study for a consortium of eight news media companies, including CNN.
...
The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago study was commissioned by eight media companies -- The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, the St. Petersburg Times, The Palm Beach Post, The Washington Post and the Tribune Co., which includes the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun, as well as other papers.
Sandra Day O'Connor said:if judges don't make people angry, they aren't doing their job
Carl said:The Supreme Court merely told the Florida Supreme Court that they couldn't continue recounting ballots in defiance of established State electoral law.
Carl said:They did not annoint anyone, and even had the recounts continued George Bush would have won.
Carl said:The Supreme Court merely told the Florida Supreme Court that they couldn't continue recounting ballots in defiance of established State electoral law. They did not annoint anyone, and even had the recounts continued George Bush would have won.
Even the liberal press has conceded that, as per this CNN Special Report.
Clinging to the 'selected, not elected' mantra is really quite futile, as it requires people to ignore the facts of the matter.
NORC dispatched an army of trained investigators to examine closely every rejected ballot in all 67 Florida counties, including handwritten and punch-card ballots. The NORC team of coders were able to examine about 99 percent of them, but county officials were unable to deliver as many as 2,200 problem ballots to NORC investigators. In addition, the uncertainties of human judgment, combined with some counties' inability to produce the same undervotes and overvotes that they saw last year, create a margin of error that makes the study instructive but not definitive in its findings.
Kandahar said:The United States Supreme Court has no business ruling on state electoral law.
hipsterdufus said:The biggest problem for Gore was the votes that were thrown out.
mixedmedia said:Maybe Ronald Reagan chose her for her wisdom and ability over her party loyalty. Maybe it is impossible for someone to attain the status of Supreme Court justice and maintain true narrow ideological views. If it means anything to you, I think GWB has done well with his choices thus far.
Actually, the Supreme Court based their decision on Bush v. Gore on the 14th Amendment. Strangely enough, their decision stated that this interpretation of the Constitution would be used just this once, but could not be used in the future.Carl said:The Supreme Court entertained an argument that Gore's team should be permitted to violate State electoral law. They ruled that being a Democrat did not place you above the law.
I hardly think there was any "activism" involved in demanding lawful behavior. New laws were not created from the bench, existing laws were not overturned from the bench, new rights were not divined from the bench.
Rather, the parties involved were required to adhere to existing law.
Further research by a coalition of rabid Gore supporters was unable to find enough evidence even to create spin or distortion as to who the actual victor would have been. This matter is settled for those who have even a modicum of intellectual honesty.
I assume you have merely forgotten the thousands of overseas Military absentee ballots the Gore team had nullified...
You may argue the matter all you want. It makes no difference, there are no critics of any credibility that contend that Bush did not fairly defeat Gore in 2000. Not to mention the entire point is long since rendered moot by the election of 2004.
danarhea said:They should concentrate on the Jim Crow felon lists, which took away the right to vote from many blacks in Florida who had not committed any crime, except to have names which were similar to others who were felons..
None of three black voters called as witnesses before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, investigating charges of a "conspiracy" to block minority voters, could show yesterday that they had been denied their right to vote in the Nov. 7 election.
The key leadoff witnesses -John Nelson, the Rev. Willie D. Whiting and Roberta Tucker, all of Tallahassee - testified under oath that they had concerns and had read about problems concerning voter irregularities, but that all of them had voted at their polling precincts.
Mr. Nelson said he saw unmanned police cars near separate polling precincts on Election Day and thought that was "unusual." Mr. Whiting said his name had been purged from the voting rolls after he had wrongly been identified as a felon, but he was allowed to vote after a call to an election supervisor. Miss Tucker said she was stopped at a police roadblock near a polling place, but she was allowed to proceed after producing a valid driver's license.
The commission, which voted unanimously last month to investigate accusations by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People of widespread voter fraud involving minorities, could not explain why no witnesses were called to verify the accusations.
Carl said:The Supreme Court entertained an argument that Gore's team should be permitted to violate State electoral law. They ruled that being a Democrat did not place you above the law.
Carl said:I hardly think there was any "activism" involved in demanding lawful behavior. New laws were not created from the bench, existing laws were not overturned from the bench, new rights were not divined from the bench.
Rather, the parties involved were required to adhere to existing law.
Carl said:Further research by a coalition of rabid Gore supporters was unable to find enough evidence even to create spin or distortion as to who the actual victor would have been. This matter is settled for those who have even a modicum of intellectual honesty.
Carl said:I assume you have merely forgotten the thousands of overseas Military absentee ballots the Gore team had nullified...
Kandahar said:What part of "The US Supreme Court has no business ruling on state electoral laws" did you not understand?
Carl said:Well, I understood it to be an empty assertion on the part of an internet forum contributor. Considering that in fact the parties involved escalated it to the Supreme Court intentionally, through mechanisms that ensured it would be heard by the Supreme Court, I gave your empty assertion faint credence. Clearly, the involved legal advocates intended it to become a Federal issue, and had the opinion that it should be a Federal issue.
I focused on the reality of what actually obtained. Which was not an "annointment", but rather an admonition to observe the law.
As we go forward, please understand that I'm not likely to simply follow along down any obfuscatory or irrelevant tangent that you might offer. Instead, I will most probably stick to what actually *is* in the world. Reality, if you will.
Navy Pride said:Or how about the democratic party throwing out absentee ballots from military people serving overseas......
The SCOTUS had no choice bu to stop the vote in Florida.......The Florida Supreme court (all dems) ruled that the count could go on in the 59 different counties using 59 different standards to interpret how a voters intent............That obviously ciolated the 14th amendment...........
Kandahar said:So they could've ruled that Florida must set a uniform standard for recounting the votes.
Kandahar said:OK, then perhaps you can show me the reality in the US Constitution that gives the Supreme Court the right to rule on elections. Furthermore, perhaps you can show me the reality in the US Constitution that would lead the Supreme Court to the conclusion that they reached.
Carl said:They ruled on whether it was okay to defy the law, because you're Al Gore. They decided that wasn't sufficient justification.
Kandahar said:Funny, I don't remember ever reading any reference to Al Gore in the US Constitution.
Carl said:It's right there next to the part that establishes the 55 mph speed limit on highways.
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