It's always been about the Supreme Court

[NJmaverick]

That's why I fight like hell to keep a Democratic President in the White House and would sooner sit on a rusty saw before helping the GOP by tearing down any Dem who is in the White House.

Laws come and go but the Supreme Court rulings can totally change our nation.


The five conservative judges -- Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, ruled for Citizens United.
The four liberal judges -- Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor, made up the minority.

[alsame]

1. Yep, that's why I could never sit out an election. nt

[BP2]

8. And our new 59-vote Senate vote status also affects who we nominate to the Supreme Court. Grrrr

[alsame]

20. We'll have to see what the Senate mix is after the 2010 elections. And why

we have to work like hell to retain as many seats as possible.

My guess is that it will be relatively easy to get some GOP votes if the replacement is for one of our side (as with Sotomayor). But if one of the fascists have to be replaced, we'll need every vote we can get.

[blue_onyx]

34. But...

There has been speculation that John Paul Stevens will retire this spring. So the issue of voting on a Supreme Court nominee may come into play before the 2010 elections.

[Hippo_Tron]

23. Not really

If your Supreme Court nominee is qualified and scandal free, it's very hard for the opposition party to filibuster the nominee because of identity politics. Sotomayor is a great example of this. Had the GOP opposed her they would've risked alienating both female and Hispanic voters. This is one reason I don't expect to see Obama appointing any white men to the SCOTUS (other than the fact that there are plenty of them already).

[rockymountaindem]

2. You're right on that one

At bottom, I feel like even if virtually every other reason I might have to vote Democratic disappears, that one will remain. Take away the Roberts and Alito nominations and put in whoever Gore would have nominated, and this country would be one major step back from the disaster we're plunging headlong towards with today's ruling.

[Tesha]

3. And those Democrats who refused to fight hard enough to block Republican nominees. (NT)

[NJmaverick]

18. The President does the nominating

That's where you win or lose

[Tesha]

19. And the Republican 41-59 seat majority does the blocking of the nominations.

Just like the Democratic minority could have done.

Tesha

[Cha]

32. Some people like

to run right over your point to make their..perhaps thinking it's more important? Or not.

[Jennicut]

4. Bottom line, that is it right there.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. and THAT is why it DID matter whether Al Gore or George Bush got into the White House!!!!!

This is corporatocracy is just the beginning. Wait..there are still women's rights, gay rights, gun laws and the rest of the Bill of Rights to demolish!!!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. It is also why the Brown Shirt election is so terrible...

...now they can filibuster Obama's other nominees.

[Lilith Velkor]

40. Which is why the Supremes installed Bush in the first place.

Oh wait, you want to blame the hippies for this, right?

[CrispyQ]

6. It is the one last reason to vote for the lesser of two evils. --nt

[NJmaverick]

13. As we have seen today it's a HUGE reason as well

[asdjrocky]

9. So, we're down to that. The court.

What a fucking joke.

[NJmaverick]

10. So you don't care what happened today?

The five conservative judges -- Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, ruled for Citizens United.
The four liberal judges -- Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor, made up the minority.

[Milo_Bloom]

26. NOTHING happened today.

You do realize that practically speaking, NOTHING changed.

Corporations have been donating to candidates via PAC's with donations from Stawmen for years... this just streamlines the process.

The same amount of money will be going to the same people from exactly the same sources.

I don't like the ruling, but from a practical sense.. nothing happened.

[NJmaverick]

28. I don't agree this is huge

with the power granted to them by the activist right wing judges the Corporations can threaten ANY member of Congress with impunity.

[stevenleser]

29. Yeah, I'm trying to decide if we have a chance anymore after this.

More in an OP soon

[Milo_Bloom]

37. They already do.

[AlinPA]

31. Now, there is no limit to how much corporations can give. If each republican house

candidate got $10 million for a race, several big corporations could easily get together the $4.4B to finance them all.

[Milo_Bloom]

38. They were already giving unlimited $

The difference is what they used to do through strawmen, they can now do directly.

[treestar]

22. the SCOTUS is a joke?

[NJmaverick]

24. That's what I would like to know

that had to be one of the strengest comments I have seen here.

[Cosmocat]

39. If it is the one tangible thing - F YES ...

if it is the one thing you can see CLEARLY why even a putrid D, which BO is not, is better than ANY POSSIBLE R ...

Then, yeah, it comes down to the court ...

[tandot]

11. The republican appointees supported it, the Democratic appointees dissented:

Today's decision was supported by five justices who were Republican nominees. They include Kennedy and Roberts along with Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The dissenters included the three Democratic appointees: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. They joined a dissent written by 89-year old Justice John Paul Stevens. Speaking from the bench, he called today's decision "a radical change in the law ... that dramatically enhances the role of corporations and unions -- and the narrow interests they represent -- in determining who will hold public office."

More at link:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-court-corporations22-2010jan22,0,4141508.story

Furthermore:

"Most election-law expert have predicted a court decision freeing corporations will send millions of extra dollars flooding into this fall's contests for Congress. And they predict Republicans will be the main beneficiaries.

(bold added by me)

[NJmaverick]

12. Which is why the repuke judges suddenly became the most activist judges in US history

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Agreed.

The only thing worse than the Supreme Court, is not having that tertiary part of the triumvirate.

[avaistheone1]

15. I would agree with you BUT there were a number of key Democrats who ensured that

conservative Alito and conservative Roberts got those seats on the Supreme Court.

[NJmaverick]

16. They never would have been nominated had there been a Democrat in the White House

[Peacetrain]

17. So true, so true.. My head is spinning at what happened today

And what can happen in the future.

[NJmaverick]

25. The ramifications of this decision are frightening to contemplate

[treestar]

21. Amen!

Imagine the justices that Repukes would put on.

Especially if we did away with the filibuster. I wonder if some of these accusers of wimpery or the 60 votes being and "excuse" are willing to stand by the consequences if we did away with the filibuster.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

27. Yes, at least if we keep Pres. Obama in there the supreme court can potentially be ..

more secure from wild corporate decisions.

[IndianaGreen]

30. We need to get rid of the filibuster!

Obama's nominees to the federal bench must be voted up or down, without being held hostage to one or more senators.

[depakid]

33. Democrats confirmed every one of the current justices

despite knowing or having every reason to know, how they would rule in such cases.

[FrenchieCat]

36. Yes, but look who did the nominating......

and the difference in the rulings based on this.

Supreme Court Judges who voted to give free hand to big corporation to purchase
the next elections, since they can't do anymore Bush vs. Gores are:

Justice Alito (nominated by Bush)
Justice Roberts (nominated by Bush)
Justice Thomas (nominated by Bush)
Justice Scalia (nominated by Reagan)
Justice Kennedy (nominated by Reagan)



Supreme Court Justices who voted AGAINST giving free hand to big corporation to purchase
the next elections:

Justice Sotomayor (nominated by Obama)
Justice Ginsburg (nominated by Clinton)
Justice Breyer (nominated by Clinton)
Justine Stevens (nominated by Ford before partisanship started running amok)



Still on the court and voted "for" Bush vs. Gore

Justice Thomas (nominated by Bush)
Justice Scalia (nominated by Reagan)
Justice Kennedy (nominated by Reagan)

[FrenchieCat]

35. Aye!

[last1standing]

41. So it has nothing to do with illegal wiretapping?

Or funneling trillions into the pockets of the uber-wealthy?

Or denying the rights of full citizenship to people who were born here and pay full taxes?

Or allowing Roe v. Wade to be dismantled piece by piece?

Or expanding wars with no realistic goals?

Or refusing to prosecute known torturers, thereby making it defacto legal?

The only thing we should concern ourselves with is the Supreme Court when all this is going on around us? I think not.

[Arkansas Granny]

42. That's it in a nutshell.

[Orsino]

43. It's about much more than the court...

...but yes, a fix for a rotten justice can take many decades. And the court is perhaps the one area where Dems do an unambiguously better job than Republicans.

Democratic presidents, anyway. Most of our senators have been asleep at the tiller for quite some time.