OT: Tom DeLay is an a**hole

[pk500]

Does Tom DeLay know any shame? Apparently not. He has relaunched another salvo against Supreme Court Justice Kennedy:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7550959/

Let's see here: One of the most unethical, slimy, unscrupulous members of the U.S. Congress is questioning the integrity and acumen of a member of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Next thing you know Shaquille O'Neal will start offering free-throw shooting advice to Reggie Miller and Earl Boykins.

Take care,
PK

[RobVarak]

pk, you hereby win today's award as Master of the Obvious

[Dave]

I have taken the track of avoiding national politics since it tends to frustrate me even more than our ignorant local politicians here in the Twin Cities...but DeLay's eventual undoing (hopefully) will definitely get my attention.

What a piece of work.

[Brando70]

He is the Republican version of Dan Rostenkowski, but with an extra pinch of self-righteousness to boot. His conduct during the Schiavo affair showed his true colors. When Dick Cheney says, "gee, even I wouldn't threaten judges that disagree with me," then you know your days are numbered.

[pk500]

pk, you hereby win today's award as Master of the Obvious

Indeed.

But the depths of the man's desperation and the levels of slime in his diversionary tactics, trying to direct attention away from his ethical foibles, are something else.

Take care,
PK

[TheMightyPuck]

pk, you hereby win today's award as Master of the Obvious

I was thinking the same thing.

[Bill_Abner]

DeLay isn't JUST an A-hole, he is the epitome of what is wrong with the political climate -- both right and left. People like DeLay do not enhance the discussion, they obliterate it.

[wco81]

Actually, some conservatives have already called out Kennedy. They didn't like his decisions about the anti-sodomy statute in Texas and then a recent decision where he wrote the majority opinion outlawing capital punishment against minors.

Sounds like Delay picked a name whom he knew would raise the ire of some conservatives.

[pk500]

Sounds like Delay picked a name whom he knew would raise the ire of some conservatives.

Considering DeLay is the leader of the GOP majority in the House, isn't that a case of biting the hand that feeds him? Political suicide, in other words?

Wondering out loud.

Take care,
PK

[ruiz00tx]

``Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous,'' DeLay told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. ``And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous.''

Here are a couple of quotes from Delay regarding Kennedy in the article, these two do not seem too out of place or inflamatory in any way they are simply factual. I personally do not think United States Supreme Court Justices, under any circumstances, should look to international law to decide cases in the U.S. We have our own Constitution, I think everyone would agree that the Founding Fathers did a pretty excellent job in creating it, and as long as we are a soveriegn nation we should look to our own Constitution to determine our own laws.

Is that unreasonable?

[XXXIV]

I would consider Delay pathetic .....even in the world of politicians where everyone is lees than human...He would stand out as one of the ratsin any sewer.....

[pk500]

Is that unreasonable?

What is unreasonable is that a politician who is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of ethical slime is using an attack on the U.S. judiciary to deflect attention from his ethical foibles.

It's a desperate act by a total sleazeball. Pure politics with zero intention of reform, regardless of whether judicial reform is even needed. That's what's most unreasonable.

And what's wrong with using international law as <i>context</i> in research? I guess American students in any field shouldn't consider research from other countries because it's already been done in America.

Exactly the kind of narrow-minded thinking espoused by Tom DeLay and his disciples.

Take care,
PK

[wco81]

Here's a Washington Post article about some conservative activists' rhetoric against judges, including Kennedye. Some of the language and the sources from which they draw lessons are quite colorful.
-----------


By Dana Milbank
Saturday, April 9, 2005; Page A03


Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer -- and perhaps a few more bodyguards.

Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse.

Although Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was named to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, he drew the ire of conservatives at a forum on the judiciary. (Lisa Poole -- AP)

Phyllis Schlafly, doyenne of American conservatism, said Kennedy's opinion forbidding capital punishment for juveniles "is a good ground of impeachment." To cheers and applause from those gathered at a downtown Marriott for a conference on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," Schlafly said that Kennedy had not met the "good behavior" requirement for office and that "Congress ought to talk about impeachment."


Next, Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Kennedy "should be the poster boy for impeachment" for citing international norms in his opinions. "If our congressmen and senators do not have the courage to impeach and remove from office Justice Kennedy, they ought to be impeached as well."


Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.

A judge in Atlanta and the husband and mother of a judge in Chicago were murdered in recent weeks. After federal courts spurned a request from Congress to revisit the Terri Schiavo case, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) mused about how a perception that judges are making political decisions could lead people to "engage in violence."

"The people who have been speaking out on this, like Tom DeLay and Senator Cornyn, need to be backed up," Schlafly said to applause yesterday. One worker at the event wore a sticker declaring "Hooray for DeLay."

The conference was organized during the height of the Schiavo controversy by a new group, the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. This was no collection of fringe characters. The two-day program listed two House members; aides to two senators; representatives from the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America; conservative activists Alan Keyes and Morton C. Blackwell; the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents; Alabama's "Ten Commandments" judge, Roy Moore; and DeLay, who canceled to attend the pope's funeral.

The Schlafly session's moderator, Richard Lessner of the American Conservative Union, opened the discussion by decrying a "radical secularist relativist judiciary." It turned more harsh from there.

Schlafly called for passage of a quartet of bills in Congress that would remove courts' power to review religious displays, the Pledge of Allegiance, same-sex marriage and the Boy Scouts. Her speech brought a subtle change in the argument against the courts from emphasizing "activist" judges -- it was, after all, inaction by federal judges that doomed Schiavo -- to "supremacist" judges. "The Constitution is not what the Supreme Court says it is," Schlafly asserted.

Former representative William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) followed Schlafly, saying the country's "principal problem" is not Iraq or the federal budget but whether "we as a people acknowledge that God exists."

Farris then told the crowd he is "sick and tired of having to lobby people I helped get elected." A better-educated citizenry, he said, would know that "Medicare is a bad idea" and that "Social Security is a horrible idea when run by the government." Farris said he would block judicial power by abolishing the concept of binding judicial precedents, by allowing Congress to vacate court decisions, and by impeaching judges such as Kennedy,[/b] who seems to have replaced Justice David H. Souter as the target of conservative ire. "If about 40 of them get impeached, suddenly a lot of these guys would be retiring," he said.

Vieira, a constitutional lawyer who wrote "How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary," escalated the charges, saying a Politburo of "five people on the Supreme Court" has a "revolutionary agenda" rooted in foreign law and situational ethics. Vieira, his eyeglasses strapped to his head with black elastic, decried the "primordial illogic" of the courts.

Invoking Stalin, Vieira delivered the "no man, no problem" line twice for emphasis. "This is not a structural problem we have; this is a problem of personnel," he said. "We are in this mess because we have the wrong people as judges."

A court spokeswoman declined to comment.

[Brando70]

``Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous,'' DeLay told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. ``And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous.''

Here are a couple of quotes from Delay regarding Kennedy in the article, these two do not seem too out of place or inflamatory in any way they are simply factual. I personally do not think United States Supreme Court Justices, under any circumstances, should look to international law to decide cases in the U.S. We have our own Constitution, I think everyone would agree that the Founding Fathers did a pretty excellent job in creating it, and as long as we are a soveriegn nation we should look to our own Constitution to determine our own laws.

Is that unreasonable?

His comments are ironic considering he took trips sponsored by foreign security forces.

BTW, here is the background on the Kennedy ruling:

"In Roper v. Simmons, a case involving Christopher Simmons who was sentenced to death in Missouri for a murder committed when he was 17 years old, the US Supreme Court majority noted the “stark reality” of the USA’s international isolation on this issue. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy pointed out that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a treaty which only the USA and Somalia have failed to ratify, prohibits the use of the death penalty against anyone who was under 18 at the time of the crime. He said that it was 'proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion”, which provided "respected and significant confirmation" of the court’s decision.'"

I don't think DeLay is being factual, he is trying to play into the fear of international control over US governance. What Kennedy seems to be saying is that the court believes execution of minors is wrong, and that international precedent reinforces that decision. He did not solely base it on international law, there were constitutional foundations for it as well.

And DeLay threatened judges (vaguely, but threatened nonetheless) after the Schiavo case, so much that he publicly apologized. That's almost unheard of conduct from a Congressman.

On top of that, the court is not legislating from the bench. They are doing what they are supposed to do -- uphold the rights of individuals against legislation or legislative action that violates those rights. That's why the sodomy law was struck down in Texas -- the court felt the government has no right to come into someone's bedroom and tell two adults how to act. That's why they upheld the Schiavo rulings -- they believed the evidence said Terry Schiavo would not want to be allowed to be kept in a vegatative state, and an act of Congress could not violate that right.

BTW, there is plenty of legal activism in the courts that champions conservative issues, especially deregulation, yet I never here DeLay complaining about that. He is a grandstanding prick, and is following that "dirty Congressman goes down in flames" handbook to the letter.

[blueduke]

Delay is a piker compared to Dem whip Harry Reid yet you won't hear a thing about it from the media.

http://www.latimes.com/la-na-sonsday223 ... &cset=true

http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/20 ... 306315.pdf

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... -headlines

Funny how no one talks about it even though Reid's family took in more ALOT MORE than Delay.

As far as "attacking" Kennedy, nobody was tore up over Reid proclaiming Clarence Thomas is an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. Where was the outrage? Why no "Reid is an a-hole" threads? Heck Scalia called out Kennedy over his looking at other countries court decisions when deciding US constitutional law. That doesn't bother anyone?

[Jared]

Delay is a piker compared to Dem whip Harry Reid yet you won't hear a thing about it from the media.

Funny how no one talks about it even though Reid's family took in more ALOT MORE than Delay.

Dude....you've got three articles on this from the "liberal" LA Times. How is this not hearing a thing about the issue in the media?

As far as "attacking" Kennedy, nobody was tore up over Reid proclaiming Clarence Thomas is an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. Where was the outrage? Why no "Reid is an a-hole" threads? Heck Scalia called out Kennedy over his looking at other countries court decisions when deciding US constitutional law. That doesn't bother anyone?

People can criticize justices...it depends on the content of the criticism and if the criticism crossed the line into veiled threats. Delay said (about the justices in the Schiavo case):

“The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,”

That's just beyond the pale.

[Teal]

Does Tom DeLay know any shame? Apparently not. He has relaunched another salvo against Supreme Court Justice Kennedy:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7550959/

Let's see here: One of the most unethical, slimy, unscrupulous members of the U.S. Congress is questioning the integrity and acumen of a member of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Next thing you know Shaquille O'Neal will start offering free-throw shooting advice to Reggie Miller and Earl Boykins.

Take care,
PK

PK, I'm SHOCKED you would say such a thing...

a politician who is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of ethical slime

Have to disagree with you there, a little, PK...he'd have to slide down beneath the sludge of Ted Kennedy, Pelosi, Jeffords, Reid, Dean, and co...

[Teal]

“The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,”

That's just beyond the pale.

How, exactly is that beyond the pale, when Harry Reid's comments toward Judge Thomas are not?

Is it that one comment is coming from your side, and one is not? Is that how it's judged?

[pk500]

Blue and Teal: You don't find it a bit peculiar that DeLay has launched this attack while he's under scrutiny over purported ethics violations?

You honestly believe that Tom DeLay would be attacking the Supreme Court if his ethics and practices also weren't in question?

I can't believe you're both that gullible.

DeLay not only has a lousy code of ethics, but his sense of timing is horrible, too. A desperate measure by a man desperately trying to cling to power.

Take care,
PK

[FatPitcher]

Judges do legislate from the bench, under the guise of protecting rights, etc. The usual trick is to say, alright, someone's rights are being violated, and here's the only way to fix the situation. Of course, then a law has to be passed that fits the judge's specs. One example is a judge in Texas ruling that prisoners have to have a cell with certain dimensions, because anything smaller would violate their rights.

I don't see the problem with criticizing judges, or legislators, or the president. The judiciary isn't some sacred, infallible entity, and neither are the other branches of government.

As far as DeLay goes...I don't really care. He may be dirty, but so is everyone with power, if I am to believe what I am told. As far as can tell, it's all about scoring political points, just like 95% of "ethical scandals" are. People get outraged, etc. because the media tells them to be, and meanwhile whackjobs like Conyers get a free pass, presumably because you can't score points for your team off someone who's not important.

[spooky157]

As far as DeLay goes...I don't really care. He may be dirty, but so is everyone with power, if I am to believe what I am told. As far as can tell, it's all about scoring political points, just like 95% of "ethical scandals" are. People get outraged, etc. because the media tells them to be, and meanwhile whackjobs like Conyers get a free pass, presumably because you can't score points for your team off someone who's not important.

Substitute Clinton for DeLay in that statement and tell me if that held true for you during the Monica Lewinsky scandal?

[Teal]

Blue and Teal: You don't find it a bit peculiar that DeLay has launched this attack while he's under scrutiny over purported ethics violations?

You honestly believe that Tom DeLay would be attacking the Supreme Court if his ethics and practices also weren't in question?

I can't believe you're both that gullible.

DeLay not only has a lousy code of ethics, but his sense of timing is horrible, too. A desperate measure by a man desperately trying to cling to power.

Take care,
PK

I don't find it peculiar-it's politics as usual- but I'm not a fan of DeLay, so I'm certainly not defending him. His position on judges-apart from whether it's a ploy to deflect his own woes- is not entirely without merit, as FatPitcher said. There is some dirty pool being played on the judicial level. I expect it in the legislative branch with all the posers trying to do not much more than get reelected. I expect the opposite of judges. They are to rule on existing American law and precedent. Period. They are not to legislate from the bench, slip in their own ideologies, or strike down the will of the people by democratic vote.

I wish we'd vote more often on measures, rather than having the politicians and the judiciary left to decide for us all the time. I'm all for represenative government, don't get me wrong, but having some nutjob judge on the lunatic fringe tell me what I will and will not do based upon his or her own predjudices and a finger in the wind of international law or the current fad be the end all, be all of society...

[Jared]

How, exactly is that beyond the pale, when Harry Reid's comments toward Judge Thomas are not?

Is it that one comment is coming from your side, and one is not? Is that how it's judged?

Because it's either saying that these people are damned by God OR it's saying that someone will make them answer for their behavior (i.e. physical violence against the judges). Considering that this was said when the judges in the Schiavo case were getting death threats...this is beyond the pale.

Again...people can criticize judges...that's fine. But either saying they're damned or that someone will make them "answer for their behavior" is crossing a line. If a Democrat said that, I'd also say that it's beyond the pale.

And as for slime...you really want to compare Delay to Pelosi, Jeffords, and Dean? Really? Why...because they're (gasp) liberal? What have they done that puts them into the Delay category?

[Jared]

And by the way....people talk about "nutjob judge(s) on the lunatic fringe" "striking down the will of the people". Any examples? I really want to know exactly what people are complaining about when they talk about this stuff.

[Teal]

And as for slime...you really want to compare Delay to Pelosi, Jeffords, and Dean? Really? Why...because they're (gasp) liberal? What have they done that puts them into the Delay category?

Yes, I'll do that with full confidence. It's not because they are liberal-it's because they are conniving, calculating, opportunistic blowhards who'd rather shut down the government than do what's right by the people. They amount to not much more than idiotic, immature children:"If I can't win, I'm gonna take my ball and go home..."

Oh, BTW...I noticed you didn't defend Ted Kennedy in that response. Good call...