Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Newt says Supreme Court isn't mentioned in Constitution

"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." --U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 1

It's not even dusk, and this is already today's second "Did they really say that?" moment - after bubble gum connoisseur Mitch McConnell criticized the concept of elections.

Newt Gingrich - the elder statesman of GOP fascism - now says the Supreme Court isn't even mentioned in the Constitution. At a speech in Iowa, the egotistical asshole proclaimed, "There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution."

Yes there is, Newt, you idiot. It says in plain English that the powers of the federal judiciary "shall be vested in one Supreme Court" in addition to lower courts. Read the Constitution sometime, Newt.

Gingrich's larger point though was that Congress can and should bar the Supremes from reviewing laws passed by Congress. Um, no. It doesn't work that way. It's called separation of powers, dumbass.

He also falsely claims that the judicial branch is supposed to be the weakest of Uncle Sam's 3 branches. Wrong again. The 3 branches are supposed to be coequal. Since 1995, the legislative branch (largely because of Gingrich) has been by far the most corrupt in aggregate. Why would the Constitution give it more power than other branches?

Gingrich's proposal for unchecked legislative activism isn't sparkling new. GOP presidential frontrunner Michele Bachmann has backed it too, and it goes at least as far back as the '80s when Jesse Helms proposed it. Despite not being a member of Congress, right-wing former Alabama Chief Justice and serial laughingstock Roy Moore ghostwrote a 2004 bill that would have gutted judicial review in church-state separation cases. This bill would have even overturned existing laws and impeached judges who backed separation of church and state.

I think the even larger issue is the phenomenon that seems to be almost unique to modern America: mob rule by elites. Money has corrupted our electoral system so thoroughly that the outcome of elections often moves us further and further from the ideals of democratic republicanism. The system is largely one of right-wingers yelling, claiming to represent us (although they don't), and not giving up until they get their way.

Newt and his Republican revolutionaries of the '90s are the Tea Parties of today - mob rule by the rich.

Elections won't become elections again until money gets out of the system. We can start by ending corporate personhood.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/07/12/266219/gingrich-supreme-court)

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