"Citizens United is an illegitimate decision-by 2 justices who should never have participated in it"

[kpete]

Clarence Thomas and the Politicization of the Supreme Court
user-pic
By Robert Reich - March 4, 2011, 10:09AM

.............

When Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia go to secret political strategy sessions with Republican partisans they jeopardize everything the Supreme Court stands for. They make a mockery of the common sense of Americans.

If it wants to maintain its legitimacy the Court has to appeal to that common sense rather than to partisan politics. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his dissent to Citizens United:

At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

Citizens United is an illegitimate decision, arrived at by at least two justices who should never have participated in it.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/04/clarence_thomas_and_the_politicization_of_the_supr/#more

[Crop Circle]

1. Absolutely - and the Dems should never have approved of Roberts! n/t

[deacon]

2. A travesty. n/t

[Recursion]

3. I still don't get this argument

Were any of the citizens united people involved in any of the Koch meetings?

[robinlynne]

8. They paid a salary to Thomas' wife.

[azul]

4. Just to test the system, and have some fun with these sell-out clowns,

the president should declare these justices as terrorists, for whatever reason he chooses, and hold them incommunicado in Gitmo.

And declare, like Bush did, that his number one job is protect the public (not defend and uphold the constitution). That he is the decider.

What would happen?

[RC]

6. It would set a precedence and the next appointed republican president would use it to

get rid of Obama judges.

[Selatius]

7. Doing it might get the ball rolling on a civil war in future years.

Not the kind of civil war that we had over the North and the South, but the type of civil war that you see between the working classes and the people who support corporate interests and the people on Wall Street who run financial empires. It's all speculative, of course, but also who thought the Libyans would rise up against their dictator a few months ago either?

[lsewpershad]

5. If true

That citizens united is illegitimate why isn't something being done about it? Why is it we, democrats seem so helpless against the repukes?

[snot]

9. Because too many Dem. pols are beholden to the same corporate masters. I.m.h.o.,

the situation re- Thomas is clear-cut. His conduct has led to a clear appearance of impropriety, a breach of his ethical responsibilities.

Even if it were conceivable or forgiveable that he failed for 20 years to understand the requirement that he disclose his wife's income from Citizens United, for him to be involved in deciding a case in which Citizens United was a party constituted a glaring conflict of interest, and his failure to recuse himself is inexcusable. He either lacks any ethical sensibility completely, or he doesn't care.

[krispos42]

10. Yeah, but look how dry out powder is!

:woohoo:

[Exultant Democracy]

11. Too true, too bad that there is no one to hold them accountable. Impeachment starts in the house.

And even then we would need a real super majority in the senate.