We may get a worse Supreme Court justice than Anthony Kennedy was. He wasn't a zealot and he seemed to have acquired a healthy attitude toward gay marriage, possibly from his clerks, and resisted the efforts to get rid of Roe v. Wade. That's about it for the positives. He was responsible for Citizens United and all the wretched reactionary decisions we have seen come down in the past week.
Kennedy was a privileged man from old-time northern California so he never had a need for a union and as a result, distrusted and probably despised them. He signed on to John Roberts's disgraceful conclusion that the Southern states and others which had discriminated against African Americans had changed their ways so we didn't need voting rights clearance of their repressive steps to disenfranchise minority citizens.
Kennedy's Supreme Court, on which he was the only remaining occasional swing vote, also has been perfectly happy to let the Republicans do everything they can to make it harder for people to vote. As a conservative, he's a bit like Potter Stewart, who was also quite conservative, but not a brilliant nut case like Scalia or a sleazebag like Thomas.
It's taken all these years and the #metoo movement to demonstrate that Anita Hill was telling the truth and that the defenders of Thomas, including himself and his outrageous wife who demands apologies from those who insisted on not forgetting his fraud, and that includes the holier-than-thou former minister, Sen. John Danforth of Missouri. Some of us still hold Joe Biden responsible because he let the Republicans run rings around him. I tend to let him off because he's done a lot of good since then.
The Supreme Court is not exactly a great aggregation of legal stars. Most revert to their political backgrounds, as O'Connor and now Kennedy have done, making sure a Republican president gets to replace them. Alito made it through confirmation with the help of some misguided colleagues on the Third Circuit who broke judicial impartiality by testifying for him, led by a nasty little man named Ed Becker. Of course, Gorsuch has been forced on us by the hypocrite Mitch McConnell and is just a down-the-line right winger like his mother, who stood out as an extremist in Reagan's day.
I can't say we have a lot of greatness on the other side either. Most of them are far from being true liberals. They seem progressive only in comparison with the five reactionaries. It seems like we have Van Devanter, Butler, Sutherland, and McReynolds there insofar as the right-wingers are concerned. But we lack the truly progressive and impressive minds of Douglas, Rutledge, Stone, Brandeis, and yes, Earl Warren, who showed you could be a Republican and care about this country, pace Lincoln, and who himself grew as his career moved forward, or Robert H. Jackson, the lawyers' lawyer and justice, who was a conservative Democrat.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Friday, June 8, 2018
'Book Club' and 'R.B.G.'
Two movies we happened to catch lately provided good entertainment and RBG was a very worthwhile experience. Book Club features four actresses d'une certaine age, viz., Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Diane Keaton, and Mary Steenbergen, and the male component isn't bad either: Craig T. Nelson, Ed Begley Jr., Richard Dreyfuss, among them. Not a very great plot and not very well written, but the women are delightful to watch, and I didn't find myself checking my watch.
R.B.G. presents the life story, more or less, of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's definitely well done. We see her from her Brooklyn origins, her school days at Cornell and Harvard Law, two places I have some familiarity with, and then her legal career and her ultimate appointment to the high court by Bill Clinton. Next time you're tempted to accept some derogatory remark about Bill, remember his Supreme Court appoiitnments compared with what we got from Bush II and the present incumbent.
The filmmakers gathered material from a lot of sources and they assembled it skillfully. This kind of documentary can drag but this one doesn't. I'm not sure the Justice is that fascinating in her own right but the picture presents her in a highly attractive and enjoyable manner. It also focuses on the major cases--both those she argued as a women's rights advocate and those she decided as a justice.
It cleverly presents Supreme Court arguments, which is a challenge, since they are not videotaped or otherwise recorded visually. This is the first film or TV show I've seen that actually shows you the Supreme Court courtroom as it really is, and then runs the soundtrack over those shots. The picture leaves you not only a fan of RBG's if you weren't already, but offers a fine picture of her entire career to support the highly positive image it provides.
One note on the always-mentioned surprising friendship between Justices Ginsburg and Scalia: I heard them both speak at a D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference some years ago. Both had served as judges on the circuit. Scalia was already on the Supreme Court. Both followed the standard practice of both justices and judges until quite recently: neither talk contained any content that related to pending cases, or any matter of current or past public interest. Scalia focused on one of his favorite topics: language. Ginsburg had been the chair of the conference and she spent most of her talk thanking her husband and "life partner," Martin, for his support.
Rather than feeling totally disappointed by the lack of content in these remarks, as I was then, I now appreciate that it was a really good idea for judges to stay out of involvement in current issues and controversies. It's better for them to bore you than to sacrifice at least their appearance of disinterestedness.
R.B.G. presents the life story, more or less, of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's definitely well done. We see her from her Brooklyn origins, her school days at Cornell and Harvard Law, two places I have some familiarity with, and then her legal career and her ultimate appointment to the high court by Bill Clinton. Next time you're tempted to accept some derogatory remark about Bill, remember his Supreme Court appoiitnments compared with what we got from Bush II and the present incumbent.
The filmmakers gathered material from a lot of sources and they assembled it skillfully. This kind of documentary can drag but this one doesn't. I'm not sure the Justice is that fascinating in her own right but the picture presents her in a highly attractive and enjoyable manner. It also focuses on the major cases--both those she argued as a women's rights advocate and those she decided as a justice.
It cleverly presents Supreme Court arguments, which is a challenge, since they are not videotaped or otherwise recorded visually. This is the first film or TV show I've seen that actually shows you the Supreme Court courtroom as it really is, and then runs the soundtrack over those shots. The picture leaves you not only a fan of RBG's if you weren't already, but offers a fine picture of her entire career to support the highly positive image it provides.
One note on the always-mentioned surprising friendship between Justices Ginsburg and Scalia: I heard them both speak at a D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference some years ago. Both had served as judges on the circuit. Scalia was already on the Supreme Court. Both followed the standard practice of both justices and judges until quite recently: neither talk contained any content that related to pending cases, or any matter of current or past public interest. Scalia focused on one of his favorite topics: language. Ginsburg had been the chair of the conference and she spent most of her talk thanking her husband and "life partner," Martin, for his support.
Rather than feeling totally disappointed by the lack of content in these remarks, as I was then, I now appreciate that it was a really good idea for judges to stay out of involvement in current issues and controversies. It's better for them to bore you than to sacrifice at least their appearance of disinterestedness.
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