The Nuclear Option

America’s final fight?

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

4/20/05

http://zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/nuclear.htm

How important is the debate in the Senate next week over getting rid of the so-called "judicial filibuster"? Put it this way: if the GOP prevails on this one, America is finished.

No exaggeration, no hysteria. Just a simple, cold analysis of the situation.

You see, at this point, the far right controls much of America. They control the White House. They control the House of Representatives. They control the counting of votes in elections. They control much of America’s media. They control many of America’s churches.

The only things they don’t have control over are the Senate, wthere the filibuster means 60 votes are needed on key issues and they only have 55 seats, and the Judiciary, where a majority of judges are those picked by Presidents other than members of the Bush clan.

Ending the filibuster would turn the Senate into a rubber stamp, and allow the GOP to pack the courts with every right wing whack job they can dredge up.

For example, there is Priscilla Owen, a right winger who was often at odds with her fellow judges on the Texas Supreme Court, and who, in the name of her crackpot far-right ideology, was accused of "an unconscionable act of judicial activism" by none other than Alberto Gonzales, then counsel to Putsch and now Attorney General. She believes, among other things, that minimum wage, 40 hour work weeks, right to privacy and social security are all unconstitutional, as is anything not mentioned specifically in the Constitution. She was rejected roundly by the Senate in 2002, and normally, that would be the end of it. The Senate had discharged its duty to advise and consent, and the President was obliged to find a judge more suited to the job.

But the administration needs this whirling whack job. They need judges who are willing to ignore law and the Constitution in order to remake the United States into a fascist dictatorship. To this end they need Priscilla Owen, and other treasonous ideologues like her.

Richard A. Griffin, nominee for the 6^th Circuit, is another right wing ideologue who thinks that any right not enumerated in the Constitution can be disparaged. He’s opposed by both Senators in his home state. One of the little ironies behind his nomination is that his father, a Senator in the 60s, used the filibuster to oppose the nomination of Justice Abe Fortas.

William Haynes is nominated for the 4^th Circuit, and his judicial experience is that of clerking for a judge in 1983-4, and beyond that, working for the military as a lawyer when the Republicans held the White House, and for defense contractors when they didn’t. He was most recently involved in the setting up of tribunals for non-citizens brought up on terror charges, and in front of a Senate where even some of the Republicans gaped at him in disbelief, he was unable to answer questions about such minor matters as right to counsel, habeas corpus, right to appeal, or even presumption of innocence. Evidently such matters weren’t considered important.

Putsch wants this creature on the court of next-to-last resort. He needs this creature.

Finally (there are dozens of other examples, though), there’s Janice Rogers Brown. She’s the one the GOP is firing the "nuclear option" over. When she was nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court in 1996, the California State Bar Commission rated her "unqualified" partly because she was "prone to inserting conservative political views into her appellate opinions." Her tenure on the Circuit Court did nothing to allay this concern, and she became noted for some spectacularly eccentric interpretations of American law, claiming that "economic freedom was the same as personal freedom," and that pursuant to that, any property owner should be free to do anything with their property that they wished to do. Anyone who prevented a person from erecting a toxic waste dump, for example, was part of a "kleptocracy" (a term much beloved by the crackpot right, who utterly hate and fear democracy and the social compact) out to destroy personal liberties.

She ruled that society saw no benefit from age discrimination laws, claiming "the hiring and advancement of younger workers serves the public interest as fully as the retention of older, more experienced workers," and that age discrimination complainants "failed to establish [that] the public policy against age discrimination ‘inures to the benefit of the public’…"

You have to love it. Regulations for the general public good are a "kleptocracy," but in this case, a ruling for the general public good is needed in order to prevent old and worn out people from having to lose their jobs to younger, less experienced, and cheaper workers.

The Senate Judicial Committee rejected this nut in 2002, but here she is, back again, pushed by Putsch, who needs nuts like her on the bench. And Bill Frist is taking advantage of that to turn the Senate into a rubber stamp, one in which any party with 51 seats need never concern itself with anything the minority party might think.

A lot of pundits – and quite a few politicians, including former Republican members of the Senate – have warned Frist and his gang of fascist thugs that they won’t always be the majority party, and if they do this, there will come a time when the Democrats will regain control, and then where will the Republicans be?

Of course, Putsch, Frist, et al aren’t worried about that. They don’t intend to ever lose an election, ever again. No matter what happens, no matter what the American people think of them, they will never lose an election again. All they need is to win this one last battle, which will give them control of the Senate, and the Judiciary, and they will never, ever have to worry about losing an election again. No matter how hated they become.

How important is this fight to retain the filibuster?

It is only the fight that either kills America outright, or gives the country one last shot at peacefully throwing off the shackles of fascist tyranny that the GOP wish to install upon us.

That’s all it is.