Conflict of interest on the Supreme Court
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-08-25/conflict-interest-supreme-court
The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of legal justice in America. It has immense power over our lives. It is essential that it’s ethics and impartiality are unimpeachable. But now the looming battle over the federal health care law which is likely to make it to the supreme court before the end of the year is raising concerns over the potential, or at the very least, the “appearance” of a conflict of interest on the court. Justice’s Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan are both facing calls to recuse themselves from proceedings should the law make it to the court. If they don’t, critics says the reputation of the court could be affected for years to come.
Guests
Jeffrey Rosen
professor of law at the George Washington University and legal affairs editor of "The New Republic." He's the author of "The Supreme Court," "The Most Democratic Branch," "The Naked Crowd," and "The Unwanted Gaze."
Jeffrey Toobin
staff writer at The New Yorker; senior legal analyst for CNN, author of "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court" (Doubleday), and former Assistant U.S.Attorney in Brooklyn, New York.
Sherrilyn Ifill
professor, University of Maryland School of Law, co-founder of the Reentry of Ex-Offenders Clinic and author of "On the Courthouse Lawn."
Comments
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The government mandate to buy health care insurance is unconstitutional and here's why.
The Original Meaning of the Commerce Clause
Randy E. Barnett
The U.S. Supreme Court, in recent cases, has attempted to define limits on the Congress's power to regulate commerce among the several states. While Justice Thomas has maintained that the original meaning of "commerce" was limited to the "trade and exchange" of goods and transportation for this purpose, some have argued that he is mistaken and that "commerce" originally included any "gainful activity." Having examined every appearance of the word "commerce" in the records of the Constitutional Convention, the ratification debates, and the Federalist Papers, Professor Barnett finds no surviving example of this term being used in this broader sense. In every appearance where the context suggests a specific usage, the narrow meaning is always employed. Moreover, originalist evidence of the meaning of "among the several States" and "To regulate" also supports a narrow reading of the Commerce Clause. "Among the several States" meant between persons of one state and another; and "To regulate" generally meant "to make regular"-that is, to specify how an activity may be transacted-when applied to domestic commerce, but when applied to foreign trade also included the power to make "prohibitory regulations." In sum, according to the original meaning of the Commerce Clause, Congress has power to specify rules to govern the manner by which people may exchange or trade goods from one state to another, to remove obstructions to domestic trade erected by states, and to both regulate and restrict the flow of goods to and from other nations (and the Indian tribes) for the purpose of promoting the domestic economy and foreign trade.
UChicago ©2004 The University of Chicago Law School®
goods
Definitions (2)
1. Commerce: An inherently useful and relatively scarce tangible item (article, commodity, material, merchandise, supply, wares) produced from agricultural, construction, manufacturing, or mining activities. According to the UN Convention On Contract For The International Sale Of Goods, the term 'good' does not include (1) items bought for personal use, (2) items bought at an auction or foreclosure sale, (3) aircraft or oceangoing vessels.
2. Economics: A commodity, or a physical, tangible item that satisfies some human want or need, or something that people find useful or desirable and make an effort to acquire it. Goods that are scarce (are in limited supply in relation to demand) are called economic goods, whereas those whose supply is unlimited and that require neither payment nor effort to acquire, (such as air) are called free goods
I think it would taint the Diane Rehm Show if mouthy monte doesn't recuse himself. It is obvious he is in a love affair with Oligarchy.
Newspapers either moderate their boards or remove offensive comments. Monte's contributions often border on racism, especially where the President is concerned and are truly offensive to those who disagree with him. I agree that this lowers the credibiity of one of radions most important programs. It would be well to tell monte either to tone it down or to immigrate to the Limbaugh board.
Unlike the Supreme court we should strive to allow a young legal document designed to grow with ITs society AND within ITs laws to DO SO.
All services serve... some for profit, some for gain, and some for noble idea that people be allowed to express their concerns freely, to redress their government re abuse, and to gather in worship OF THEIR CHOSEN God without government oversight.
Unfortunately we must deal with the situation as IT is...
As a monetary conflict existed with previous ruling on corporations by SC and that corpse(tee) ITs money being equal to a REAL person(undeclared income for wife from lobbying plaintiff- not real money only $800000- which 'Justice' 'forgot. Thankfully you or we did not fail to declare as we would go to jail).
And as large corporations easily outspend and outearn) the majority(99% of Americans)- we become metallic objects being turned and buried deeper(screwed).
monte is good troll- er- MANiac. Reminds US why we must fight the dark side(ignorance) and why we will lose.
Oh the humanity.
Any jobs/food for slightly broken comm tech elct tech comp tech other than the illegal opportunities?
Prefer serving God and country. BUT the whole survival thingy WOULD be nice.
Healthy society- ALL cared for... troubled pets abandoned... REAL trouble... pets EATEN... our neighborhood strays ALL gone- burp.
Neighbors have NOT returned from project Soylent Green so that opportunity still pending.
Rooom, bored, AND relocation? WOW.
Yellow and red still in good supply. Some say that is just food coloring. Guaranteed made from froot and vegametes so 'organic'. So must be healthy as Congressional laws mandate IT.
We hear the scoopers coming for society's trash- like US.
Oh that just ICE at neighbors... apparantly our opinions violating secret- semisecret Protect IP law. That'll teach 'em NOT to run an 'open' router.
Lower bandwidth, slower connections, filtered, recorded and supervised(managed?) content. Just like
our founding fathers hoped for... AND the SC will 'protect'.
WAKE UP. Speak up. And find yourself alone and unemployable- BAD Americans.
How was your decade?
Monte- No, not border on racism, railings bent, broke and monte wallowing in racism. But that his ricebowl. Be thankful that his opinion NOT mandated as 'fact'. Yet...
may God have mercy on ALL our souls... as 'our' government WILL NOT. Nor the montes... or antimontes.
Another concise point completed- reputation for short and to the point comments remains... to be broken another day. Or until the Soylent fails.
While I've been inclined to give President Obama the benefit of a doubt because of the vehement, reflexive obstinacy of those opposing him, I think he has been a disappointment in safeguarding our Constitutional rights. From refusing to investigate, let alone prosecute, crimes committed by actors in the previous (illegitimate, unelected) administration, through not dialing back the executive overreaching put into place by Bush the Younger and his henchmen to forcing citizens to buy a pig in a poke that doesn't even accomplish his original stated goals of reducing health care costs and extending availability to all Americans (among his other sins), I'm afraid Mr. Obama, the Constitutional scholar, drew us voters into a bait-and-switch with his Brand Hope and Change campaign happy talk.
All this is background to contrast with this Supreme Court, which seems to me to have squandered any claim it had to legitimacy when it selected King George Junior president in 2000 and anomalously insisted that decision would be unique insofar as it would not serve as grounds for precedent. It has further betrayed the American people with its Citizens United verdict, essentially rendering corporations to more human than human: while they may not be able to vote as individuals, their "free speech rights" as "persons" (money being the language in which a corporate person "speaks") permits them to buy politicians and pay for electoral results directly.
The "conservative" justices promised in their confirmation hearings not to legislate from the bench, but that's apparently what they intended to do all along. The reliably pro-corporate rulings of the Roberts Court and of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia who preceeded the Chief Justice as Supremes show them to be not merely zealots, but criminals in robes, murdering the Constitution they're sworn to uphold decision by decision.
Well said mellifluous. Man's problem is countering the ignorance and/or intentional manipulation that effect our world and its population. Just as the mass's lives are valueless to the extreme right, shortly in time their own lives will also cease. Not because of aging, but because of the depletion of life's needed resources. Our earth's population is growing at a rate that will hasten earth's death, and consequently man's death.
We have the capacity to save our earth and man. We lack the will. Could Christianity rescue us? rita_marvin@sbcglobal.net
Few Americans have any faith in the impartiality of the US Supreme Court. The 2000 US Supreme Court Presidential Selection confirmed our suspicions...then the Corporations are people decision. Aye yi yi
Who has any faith left in their conduct and their decisions?
Judge Thomas is clearly one of the worst judges of all time and has no integrity what's so ever. He should be removed.
monte you have no proof of what you are saying. Commerce in the Constitutional connotation is not the same as in the dictionary.
Clarence Thomas is not just appearance of improperty, he and his wife work as a corrupt duo.
If thinks were logical, there is enough to consider impeachment.
Q: What's the difference between having Alito/Kennedy/Roberts/Scalia/Thomas on the Supreme Court, or having the Chamber of Commerce in control of the judicial branch?
A: Trick question - there isn't one.
There is widespread corruption of institutions by money. Our plutocrats work overtime to maintain this status quo and get return on their investment. This undermines public confidence in the political system
CONgress is the opposite of PROgress - how could we expect the court to be different?
While I am told corporations don't pay taxes, people do, the court is declaring corporations to be people. So, if people pay taxes - not corporations - but corporations are people, where does that leave the human people? At the mercy of the corporations.
Anyone who questions this need only look at where the electric car disappeared to in the 1970's.
Every attempt to move forward from the dominance of oil has been thwarted by the corporation-people - even if it meant only to buy patents and destroy them so never could the energy use move forward beyond the consumption of oil.
We-the-people lose - they-the-corporation-people win, win, win.
It appears that liberals (rebranded as progressives) are petrified that the court will overturn the illegal mandate to purchase insurance, and it should be overturned. If liberals want to add another unsustainable social program to their already lengthy list of failed/failing social programs, they should follow the constitution.
The corporations are just proxy for the top 1% of our population to control our system. If you were someone giving millions of dollars to PACs, you would also expect return on your investment
"It appears that liberals (rebranded as progressives) are petrified that the court will overturn the illegal mandate to purchase insurance, and it should be overturned. If liberals want to add another unsustainable social program to their already lengthy of failed/failing social programs, they should follow the constitution."
It is interesting that all progressive liberal states, with fairly advanced social benefits, are also the most productive and prosperous ones. The poor southern, conservative states are poorest and that includes Texas. These are also easiest to control by our plutocrats and their population is the easiest to herd.
Can anyone tell me where in the constitution it talks about the rights of corporations? Oh yes and where does it say they have more rights to contribute money then me.
One of your guests mentioned that it was a serious matter to submit a motion for recusal - not something to be taken lightly, and therefore it was unlikely to happen frequently.
That seems to be a somewhat naive claim in this age where political motivations trump acting in the best interest of the country, and where the Congress frequently does things - the debt ceiling game of chicken comes to mind - that earlier would have been considered "not something to be taken lightly".
If people have the opportunity to demand recusal it seems obvious that they will use it to influence the outcome of a case. Whether that is ok or not is a different discussion, but it seems shortsighted to think that if the mechanism is in place that people will be overly cautious about using it.
There is no place in the Constitution where corporations are equated with people. Also there is no place where money is equated with free speech.
There is difference between ideological arguments and wife making, literally, money off her husband rulings.
LA Times -
"In January, Common Cause released documents showing that Thomas had attended events funded by conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch. Thomas was even featured in Koch promotional material — along with Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others — for events that sought financial and political support for conservative political causes.
Worse yet, Common Cause discovered that Thomas had failed to disclose a source of income for 13 years on required federal forms. Thomas stated that his wife, Virginia, had no income, when in truth she had hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from conservative organizations, including roughly $700,000 from the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007. Thomas reported "none" in answering specific questions about "spousal non-investment income" on annual forms — answers expressly made "subject to civil and criminal sanctions."
sane wrote:
"monte you have no proof of what you are saying. Commerce in the Constitutional connotation is not the same as in the dictionary."
Answer- I didn't say it was, you need to read both posts! the second post is the definition of "goods" as it relates to commerce, not commerce.
Marvin, I think that if we all acted from a set of ethics grounded in a reverence for all life, that perhaps we could save ourselves. Certainly, some forms of Christian practice would qualify. I would hasten to add that there are too many people who call themselves Christians who merely want to have a Good Book handy to beat other people with. I guess I have more regard for results than I do blanket respect for all religions: I am wary of all all belief systems -- some of which impart wisdom and encourage compassion and bravery -- because of the chauvinism that so often encourages believers of all stripes to persecute others who are different from themselves.
And I fear we're wandering rather far afield from this episode's subject. I note that my original post didn't comment directly on the question of current issues about recusal, and I regret that omission. My impression is that the justices I named are utterly and demonstrably consistently biased toward Big Money and away from workers, voters and the planet. I understand that experts disagree.
Monte, I get that right-wingers would rather call people names and hurl invective than to deal in relevant facts, cogent logic, consistently-applied ethics and specifics. I sometimes find I have occasion to use strong language too, but I try to make sure I'm justified when I wax uncharitably in my characterizations. And no, I don't think there's space here nor time today for me to definitively prove my assertion about the "conservatives'" bias toward Big Money. I use the term in quotes because I fail to see what they're conserving, so I regard it in most cases as a misnomer and a ubiquitous euphemism for something rather more sinister.
Has Toobin read Justice Breyer's opinion about the 2000 Supreme Court Presidential selection? Has he read his opinion?
Diane Rehm Team
think you will be interested in former Ambassador Marc Ginsbergs appearance on C Spans Washington Journal this morning (Thursday) He brought up the "level of hypocrisy" woven into the US and Nato's response to alleged human rights issues in Libya etc but he totally skipped of course the Palestinians. Several callers brought up Israel and the contradictions. Think you mught be interested in that segment
ALSO
Atlantic monthly's/ New America Foundations Steve Clemons was on Rachel Maddows several eveinings ago he mentioned how Al Qeada is allegedly involved with the Libyan Rebels. This morning former US Ambassador Marc Ginsberg was on C Spans Washington Journal discussing LIbya. He mentioned the Libyan weapons that many are concerned about falling into Al Qeada's hands. If it is true that Al Qeada is involved with the Libyan rebels are those weapons all ready in Al Qeada's hands?
What do you know about this? Confusing
On MSNBC's Last Word Chris Hedges (sitting in for O'Donnell)brought up how the MSM skips over the Palestinian human rights issues. Had a J Street rep on. Movement?
When will the MSM go a bit further and start having fact based guest on about the I/P issue? Finkelstein, Barghouti, Noura Erakat, Flynt Leverett?
When?
mellifluous wrote:
"Monte, I get that right-wingers would rather call people names and hurl invective than to deal in relevant facts, cogent logic, consistently-applied ethics and specifics."
Answer- I used YOUR words as a response.
Jeffrey Toobin said so many things that are simply nonsense.
"It's not a big deal."
This is SO wrong. You fix your roof BEFORE the leak gets bigger, because the consequences of a big leak are so bad. The consequences of a bad Supreme Court ruling are disastrous, and almost impossible to fix after the fact.
"The public has a short attention span."
That's a reason not to fix the problem?? The public doesn't know where Afghanistan is, either, so why are we at war there?
And on and on with the muddy thinking. Too much to list.
This is just another example that our country is all about what you can afford. They know the average person can not use our court system so they just do not care what we think.
These people also know there is bias. That is why they only step down when they know a person will be placed in their seat with a similar mind set. Term limits now.
We have alternate jurors. What if we created an alternate supreme court justice. This justice would be available whenever an odd number of justices recused themselves, were ill or incapacitated. The alternate would sit in on all cases in the event of the need for an emergency alternate. This alternate could rotate in when a vacancy became available on the court. This would allow a supreme court justice with experience and relationships on the court to start their term better prepared. We might see a greater variety of nominees outside the legal profession in this event. What do you think?
Thank you
Jeffrey Toobin needs help!
He clearly doesn't understand the concept of "life expectancy at birth" - he just claimed that the founders believed that justices would die "in their 50s because that's what people did then [sic!]"! This is utter nonsense! Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, life" expectancy" for an adult was the biblical "threescore and ten." Many, many public officials lived and remained active into their seventies and even eighties. (E.g., John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were not considered "freaks" for living so long!)
What Toobin doesn't understand is that scientific "life expectancy" is calculated AT BIRTH and in those prior centuries, many infants did not survive and many more children did not survive childhood illnesses like measles and mumps. But life expectancy AT ADULTHOOD was in the 70s or older. If you survived childhood, you could easily have a long full life.
Mellifluous, Thank you, I agree. I mentioned Christianity because it stresses human dignity and respect for all human rights for all humans of our world, including Hitlers. Wealth and power are not measures of achieving eternity. Giving of self including one's own life is required. I wish faith leaders understood.
Monte,
Thus proving my point that you quote. When I used those words, I tried to show reasons why I was calling those justices "criminals in robes". You just switched the names and added the phrase "living constitution" with something about -- I suppose -- your Alzheimer's Reactive Syndrome. Using MY words innocent of their context is exactly the kind of emptily angry reactionary twaddle I was commenting about.
Do you get the difference? When I call people names, I try to show a reason why I think they merit such labels. I read your posts, I saw your definitions but I'm still looking for a cogent point and I still come away with the impression that you live to bash people you think are "liberals" as an ideological reflex or unfortunate compulsion. I don't see that you showed any criminality on the part of the justices you named.
I have other duties to attend to today, so I shan't be able to reply to any further knee-jerks.