Breaking on CNN.
NYT: “NEWS ALERT | 11:08 PM ET
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Has Died, Supreme Court Spokeswoman Says” (No story yet.)
A reporter said he died surrounded by his three grown children at a suburban hospital.
Bush will need to choose not only another justice but also a chief justice. Just for now, let us mourn his passing, no matter the politics. But there is no doubt that I, personally and selfishly, mourn his passing for the implications to this country and the world.
And let us remember BooMan’s words yesterday: “I woke up and read the New York Times and the Washington Post. And, I’m still pissed off. I still think we should march on Washington and demand the resignation or impeachment of Bush and Cheney.”
Now. More than ever. September 24. Sacrifice whatever it takes.
Everything hangs in the balance. As if it didn’t already. Don’t just be. Be there.
There go your rights – straight down the toilet. Damn.
serious global implications.
Our politics go way beyond local.
Let me clarify that thought: I’m not saying that he was a defender of the left’s rights – no damn way. I’m just concerned about the new neocon puppet Bushco will now nominate to replace him.
You need to be concerned about something more. Bush has to appoint a new Chief Justice.
Chief Justic Scalia has a nasty ring to it.
Nasty is definitely the word.
Scalia is abrasive, divisive, and lacks the basic ability to build consensus that any successful Chief Justice must have. He is utterly unqualified for the job.
Which means, of course, that Bush will pick him.
I would use the words—filthy chauvinist pig
We voluntarily cede the United States to Canada.
We cede NOTHING to anyone! Grrrrr
Start building houses up there Catnip. You’ll have lots of new friends soon because we are doomed here.Does that sound over the top? I think not after this week.
Gulp!
Maybe Alberto Gonzales will be your new nominee.
I don’t know how much more the left can take – seriously.
Two vacancies should mean bipartisan compromise . . . and then I woke up.
Holy shit! Died at home in VA.
He was surrounded by his three grown children, at a suburban D.C. hospital.
What a sad week indeed. Saddest of all in a long, long time. 1,000 dead in Iraq, perhaps 10,000 in New Orleans, warfare on the poor in broad daylight and now this.
Is their any chance I can claim refugee status?
How much more crap can possibly be piled on this week?
Please don’t ask that, we might find out. 🙂
Y’all can come to my place. It ain’t much – but it ain’t hell either.
My daughter has been agitating to move to Canada. We might yet take you up on that, Catnip!
Give me some warning so I can clean up the place first.
All we need to ask is that you nudge them to speed up the estimated 3-4 year wait for someone bringing a self-employment business in.
Considering the current state of your country, we should be allowing political refugees at this point as well.
Bush should probably send some of his favorite machinegun-toting “Blackwater USA” mercenaries to Colorado Springs and other enclaves to keep order and prevent the evangelical fascist wingnuts from going completely wild!
Rest in peace Mr Rehnquist.
This changes nothing.
Congress has only one job right now. No new legislation, no appointments. Begin the investigation. The only new legislation that may move forward is for relief and recovery efforts. All else is investigation and continuing resolutions were required to keep the country moving.
The Supreme Court can wait until bush and cheney resign.
Nothing else moves until bush and cheney resign and take their entire damn administration with them.
Rest in peace… this changes nothing.
I will be the first to admit I was no Kerry fan but I got behind the man for one main reason: so Bush would not get the 1 or 2 Supreme Court picks that I knew whoever won in 2004 would get. Having to stomach Scalia and Thomas was beyond the pale, to think there will be 4 of them is intolerable to me.
If this event doesn’t trigger a delay of the Roberts hearings, I don’t know what it would take. A sink hole opening up under the capitol dome? Sorry for the sarcasm. I’m am sorry for Renquist’s death, and quite distressed that we must now also fight against what seems like an inevitable long-term takeover of the Supreme Court.
And this will crowd the administration’s terrible response to America’s worst natural+man-made tragedy off of the front pages of the news. Another great loss for America’s poorest and most vulnerable.
The meme will start tomorrow morning: “there are 2 vacancies on the supreme court, we have to move foward”.
You just know Rove is doing an evil happy dance somewhere – they get two appointments and bush’s terrible response to Katrina will be knocked out of the spotlight.
He’ll also use the opportunity to nominate some knuckle dragging neocon. Someone so repulsive to the left that we’ll lose focus. Screw it we’ll never get a human out of him anyway. Stay focused on how he has let his citizens die in the deep south. How he has abandoned a sane tax code ultimately leading to thousands more dying than had to be and how he is killing our military in Iraq. The bastard bush is all about death.
I think it is called a juggernaut.Just rolling over anyone in it’s way.
Time to stand up, people! I have the funds but not the energy.
Love you all!
Wrote memorandum supporting Plessy v. Ferguson. In Plessy the Court endorsed state supported segregation and established that Jim Crow “separate but equal” principle was constitutional. Chief Justice Rehnquist served as a clerk to Justice Robert Jackson. The memo “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases” advised Justice Jackson to affirm Plessy in future segregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. The memo stated “I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by my `liberal’ colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.” Plessy was later overturned in Brown v. Board of Education. While under oath during his confirmation hearings, Justice Rehnquist denied that the memo reflected his beliefs at the time. One writer wrote that for Justice Rehnquist “it depends on what the definition of `I’ is.” Justice Rehnquist went so far as to attribute his statements to former Supreme Court Justice Jackson. Justice Jackson was deceased at the time and therefore unable to defend himself against these attacks. Elsie Douglas, Justice Jackson’s former secretary, defended her boss sharply and criticized Justice Rehnquist for smearing the name and reputation of Justice Jackson. Justice Rehnquist has been accused of perjury by several scholars for stating to Congress that the memo did not represent his beliefs.
Alan Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 242 – 244 n. 37;
Brad Snyder, How the Conservatives Canonized Brown v. Board of Education, 52 Rutgers L. Rev. 383 (2000);
Jeffrey Rosen, Rehnquist’s Choice, New Yorker, Jan. 11, 1999;
Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Modern Supreme Court, Penguin, 1999, pp. 145 – 146;
Laura Ray, A Law Clerk and His Justice: What William Rehnquist Did Not Learn From Robert Jackson, 29 Indiana L. Rev. 535 (1996);
Warren Weaver, et. al., 8 Men and a Lady: Profiles of the Justices of the Supreme Court, National Press, Inc., 1990; and
Nomination of William H. Rehnquist, of Virginia to be Chief Justice of the United States. 99th Congress, 2nd Session, September 17, 1986, 9:31 p.m., p. s-12831, Vote No. 266, found at www.senate.gov/~rpc/rva/992/992266.html
Justice Rehnquist wrote a proposed constitutional amendment designed to limit the enforcement of Brown v. Board of education
Justice Rehnquist, then President Nixon’s Assistant Attorney General, wrote the memos in March 1970. According to Justice Rehnquist, the amendment was designed to permit northern schools to preserve de facto segregation through “neighborhood schools.” Justice Rehnquist believed the amendment would allow gerrymandering of schools districts even if the neighborhood plan was “adopted by the local school board at least partly because they would make some schools largely white, and others largely black.”
Brad Snyder, How the Conservatives Canonized Brown v. Board of Education, 52 Rutgers L. Rev. 383, 460-61 (2000).
Wrote memorandum endorsing Texas’ “Whites Only” Primaries
Terry v. Adams was case about the rights of blacks to vote in a “private” Texas primary.
Justice Rehnquist while clerking for Justice Jackson wrote in a memo “I take a dim view of this pathological search for discrimination. . . and as a result I now have a mental block against the case.” In a second memo he wrote: “The Constitution does not prevent the majority from banding together, nor does it attaint success in the effort. It is about time the Court faced the fact that the white people of the south don’t like the colored people: the constitution restrains them from effecting thru (sic) state action but it most assuredly did not appoint the Court as a sociological watchdog to rear up every time private discrimination raises its admittedly ugly head.”
Brad Snyder, How the Conservatives Canonized Brown v. Board of Education, 52 Rutgers L. Rev. 383 (2000)
Fought passage of ordinance permitting blacks to enter stores and restaurants.
In 1964, Justice Rehnquist appeared before the Phoenix City Council voicing opposition to the city’s proposed public accommodations ordinance. Additionally, he wrote a letter criticizing the council’s decision to the Arizona Republic after the ordinance was passed.
As Supreme Court Decides Presidency, Chief Justice Rehnquist is Accused of Past Harassment of Black Voters at the Polls, Democracy NOW, (www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20001212.html), December 12, 2000;
Brad Snyder, How the Conservatives Canonized Brown v. Board of Education, 52 Rutgers L. Rev. 383 (2000);
Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Modern Supreme Court, Penguin, 1999, p. 193.
Laura Kay, A Law Clerk and His Justice: What William Rehnquist Did Not Learn From Robert Jackson, 29 Ind. L. Rev. 535, 592 n. 44 (1996).
Public Accommodations Law Passage is Called “Mistake,” Arizona Republic, June 4, 1964(Justice Rehnquist’s letter to editor) cited in 52 Rutgers L. Rev. 383, 494 n. 323.
Harassed minority voters in Arizona.
Several witnesses have stated under oath that Justice Rehnquist harassed minority voters during the early 1960’s. Justice Rehnquist denies he harassed minority voters. James Brosnahan, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix from 1961 to 1963, said in a statement delivered to Congress that on election day in 1962, he and several assistant U.S. attorneys were assigned the task of receiving complaints alleging illegal interference with the voting process. The group received several complaints from precincts in South Phoenix. The precincts were predominately black and Hispanic. The complaints involved Justice Rehnquist. Broshnahan visited one of the precincts. When he arrived he saw Justice Rehnquist. There were reports that poll watchers had to physically push Rehnquist out of polling places to stop him from interfering with the voting rights of the minority citizens.
Alan Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 242 – 244 n. 37;
As Supreme Court Decides Presidency, Chief Justice Rehnquist is Accused of Past Harassment of Black Voters at the Polls, Democracy NOW, (www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20001212.html), December 12, 2000;
Brad Snyder, How the Conservatives Canonized Brown v. Board of Education, 52 Rutgers L. Rev. 383 (2000);
Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Modern Supreme Court, Penguin, 1999, p. 193;
Nadine Cohodas, Strom Thurmond & the Politics of Southern Change, Simon & Shuster, 1993, p. 487;
Statement of James J. Brosnahan to the United States Judiciary Committee, August 1, 1986 found at http://www.thenation.com/special/20010101rehnquist.mhtml
Nomination of William H. Rehnquist, of Virginia to be Chief Justice of the United States, 99th Congress, 2nd Session, September 17, 1986, 9:31 p.m., p, s-12831, Vote No. 266 found at http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/rva/992/992266.html
Owned property containing restrictive covenants barring the sale of his property to nonwhites and Jews. Justice Rehnquist, a sophisticated lawyer, professed ignorance of the restrictive covenant.
Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist, 12/13/2000 http://www.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/The_court_that_throttled_democracy+.shtml(stating that Rehnquist he had two properties (one in suburban Phoenix and one in Virginia) containing discriminatory restrictive covenants);
Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Modern Supreme Court, Penguin, 1999, p. 193;
Nadine Cohodas, Strom Thurmond & the Politics of Southern Change, Simon & Shuster, 1993, p. 487; and
Alan M. Dershowitz, Chutzpah, Simon and Schuster, 1991, p. 115.
Voted to grant Bob Jones University tax exempt status
In 1970, the IRS ruled that Bob Jones could not enjoy tax exempt status because of its racially discriminatory policies. Bob Jones began admitting blacks on a limited basis. Blacks could enroll at the school but only if they were married to other blacks or promised not to date or marry outside the black race. Bob Jones University applied for tax exempt status and was denied. Bob Jones University sued to restore its tax exemption and won. The case then went before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court in a 8-1 decision held that the university’s policy violated deeply accepted views of elementary justice and that it could not enjoy tax exempt status. The Supreme Court, Chief Justice Burger, held that nonprofit private schools that prescribe and enforce racially discriminatory admission standards on the basis of religious doctrine do not qualify as tax‑exempt organizations under the Internal Revenue Code, nor are contributions to such schools deductible as charitable contributions. The sole dissenter was, you guessed it, Justice William Rehnquist.
Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Modern Supreme Court, Penguin, 1999, p. 232;
Lincoln Caplan, The Tenth Justice: The Solicitor General and the Rule of Law, First Vintage Books, 1988, pp. 51-60; and
Bob Jones University v. U.S., 461 U.S. 574 (1983).
memo to CNN:
Yes, the old fart has finally died and, yes, you should be covering it because it will have huge political ramifications, HOWEVER, hundreds of people face death in New Orleans right now, so get back to covering that ASAP.
Someone over at dKos said that CNN put the following up at part of his bio:
Yes, it sucks to be HUMAN, doesn’t it?
MAN, this entire week just keeps gettign better and better. I wish there were some kind of rock I could climb under about now
I’ve been trying not to say much since there just aren;t any words eloquent enough but it’s gettign so i just have to vent…
I’m currently taking an at home history of ethics philosophy course. Is there any chance I could legally force these clowns to take it along with me?
They wouldn’t understand it anyway.
Vent, vent, vent. You’ll feel better. hugs
Thanks, Catnip
hugs back
“President Bush Temporarily Nominates Judge Judy Until A Real Justice Is Confirmed”
MAYBE IT IS GOOD THAT CLONING IS NOT LEGAL UNDER BUSH’S WATCH, otherwise, the headline would read
“George Bush’s Next Supreme Court Nominee Scalia And Thomas CLONE”
But I’m suspicious of the timing of Rehnquist’s death. Why was there no news that he had been admitted into the hospital? I know we were watching Katrina coverage 24/7, but you’d think there would have been at least a little coverage of him being admitted to the hospital. The previous times he had gone to the hospital were covered ad nauseum.
I hate that the Bush Administration has made me think up conspiracy theories, but at this point, I can’t help it.
No it isn’t — unless mine is too. Ithought the same thing when I saw this last night. Supreme Court Justice being admitted to the hospital is news — just highlights the complete and utter failure of our news media to serve us, they do not have our interests at heart, and certainly informing us is not high on their lsit of priorities.
I stopped watching after yesterday morning, because I am very very suspicious of them and now their coverage seems more like exploitation of these people. I guess the initial shock has finally worn off for me.
Some of the Katrina coverage has been excellent. Now I think the RNC talking points are getting out there and mimicced. Campbell Brown had Ray Nagin on and was hammering him about his response to the hurricane and why he didn’t do more to evacuate his citizens and/or provide food/water at the superdome and the convention center.
He DOES share some of the responsibility — he needed to call that damn mandatory evac a LOT earlier than he did, and he needed to make damn sure that there were means to FACILITATE that evac — if that meant getting on the horn with Blanco and arranging for it — he damned well should have.
None of this mitigates the culpability of the feds in the piss poor response after the fact, but certainly much more could have been done before hand as well.
Well, it looks like DC is booked.I called this Am and there is no room!
Shy, do you need a place to stay? I live just outside DC in Arlington and have a guest bedroom and a pullout couch. You are more than welcome to crash at my place. I do have 2 cats though, in case you are allergic.
NO hon, I was making reservations for other people-I can’t be there -except in spirit-Thank you so much for the offer!
You gotta be kidding- my cat sleeps on my head!
Mine does too, but I just need to make people aware.
As for reservations, have you tried Arlington hotels? It is just across the river from DC and most of them are metro accessible.
I was trying to co-ordinate the rooms for Janet and other Boo-tribbers- who were going to be there -but it looks pretty full as of now- I noticed janet said that her bro wanted a room at the same hotel- but thay are booked- which is why I booked it so far in advance!
And Janet’s realname was the only one i had-but it looks pretty full up there anyway- and I am using freebies anyway-so I don’t get priority over ‘paying customers’.
That’s too bad.
Well my offer is out there if anyone wants it. My BF and I are pretty nice people. 🙂
of course you are!
Another scary thing about all of this is the total lack of any commentary by the democrat leadership. Now that the media dam has finally broke against Bush, where are they? Their silence is deafening. Their silence is disgusting and repulsive and downright frightening. It’s now or never.
Yes, where the fuck are they?? How can they be so silent? So meek? Why aren’t they standing up for us? For the people of LA, MS and AL? Demanding that they get the help they need and deserve.
Huh? The Democratic leadership is smart enough to keep their mouths shut. “If you can’t say nothing nice….” Look, Rehnquist was an old dinosaur, he looks good only with Scalia as the alternative. Rehnquist is a perfect example of the judicial consevative too long in his law books and too short out on the street.
I grew up with people who thought they were entitled to the world on a plate. Which, I think is the same asshole mindset that motivates Bu$hies.”We deserve it because WE HAVE it and if you don’t it’s your own fault’. Calvinism.