According to the New York Times, based on an analysis of four sets of political science data, now after five terms, Chief Justice John Roberts’ Supreme Court is “the most conservative one in living memory.” During this time, the Roberts court “issued conservative decisions 58 percent of the time" and, in the last year, that rate increased to 65 percent, the highest since 1953. As Jeffrey Toobin noted last year in an article for The New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party." And now with the additional appointment of Alito, Bush moved the Supreme Court so far to the right that some are wondering when they're going to repeal the minimum wage and child labor laws, as the last uber-conservative court did about 100 years ago. Given that the Supreme Court is the most powerful of the three branches of government - the result of their taking onto themselves a power not given them in the Constitution, the power to declare laws unconstitutional which they asserted in 1803 - it becomes ever more important that there be a Democrat in the White House over the next two terms when it becomes increasingly likely that one of the conservative members of the court will retire.
Except that Obama hasn't
Except that Obama hasn't really addressed the judiciary, has he? Sotomayor is OK. Kagan is a dud. And all the rest of the judicial appointments are non-existent. Sure, it's possibly better than Sarah Palin would do but far less than Obama should be doing. Not enough for me to get excited about him.
As for your clip of Rachel Maddow extolling Obama's great legislative accomplishments, hearing that show was the second to last nail in the coffin for Rachel. The last nail in the coffin was her embedded puff piece in Afghanistan. She has become a hopeless DNC spokesperson. One day she gets invited to lunch at the White House, the next day she's doing pr for the White House. How quickly they become corporatized! I can't listen to her any more. Please, Thom, don't ever go to the White House for lunch.
And btw, LBJ had quite a few REAL accomplishments and prohibition had long been repealed. Medicare? War on Poverty? Some other real ones that I forget but someone else compiled a greaat list that puts Obama to absolute shame. If he doesn't put Elizabeth Warren in that job, I don't know what he's going to run on in 2014 because it will be clear he hates the American people and I won't vote for anyone who hates me.
BARTERING: This is just
BARTERING:
This is just another way the wealthly avoid paying TAXES! Having known a Dentist, also head of School Board, in Redlands, CA. The company I worked for bartered over $20,000 in building materials in trade with the owner's and their family member's dental work.
This was done during the Pappy Bush Years secretly. Now the GOP boldly are spreading this form of tax evasion!
BTW: Not that this has anything to do with this tax evasion, but this Dentist's son murdered another child while in High School....This is just another example of "Family Values"!