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Monday, April 5, 2010

Screw the little guy

In a revealing quote yesterday Sen. Jon Kyl (R. Arizona) said that the Republicans will filibuster any Supreme Court nominee who “stands up for the little guy”. Justice John Paul Sevens is the most liberal justice and has been hanging on though the Bush years, hoping to retire during a Democratic President. He’s 90 and deserves some time off. I can only imagine what it must be like dealing with the quartet of conservatives every day in an environment where decorum is paramount.

Kyl went on to explain that anyone who stands up for the ‘little guy’ is obviously ideological and therefore not suited to sit on the Supreme Court. Thankfully, conservatives no longer rant about ‘activist’ judges after his favorite foursome turned judicial precedent as well as common reason on its head when it ruled that corporations have the same rights as individuals and can therefore donate unlimited funds to political campaigns.

They have replaced ‘activist’ with ‘ideological’ ignoring the irony that the most rigid ‘ideological’ judges are the conservative foursome. With them, the merits of the case they are hearing are secondary. You can always tell in advance that they will rule against the ‘little guy’. With them, the ‘little guy’, is like the Harlem Globetrotter’s opponents. They never win.

The Supreme Court is no longer about ‘blind Lady Justice” but is rather about ideology. Obama’s first selection, Justice Sotomayor endured calls of being a reverse racist and worse merely because she once said that hailing from a minority immigrant family helped her understand the perspective of ‘the little guy’ Expect more fun and games in the next few months.

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