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Creators.com - Creators Syndicate
It was only two weeks ago that two members of the U.S. Supreme Court testified before Congress on the need to hire a threat-evaluations expert, the first the court has ever employed, to screen the death threats that are regularly received against members of the high court.

Justice Clarence Thomas stated that he was shocked when he discovered the volume of the threats, and the absence of any sophisticated procedure for handling them. We have been living on borrowed time, he said in answer to questions. The total requested appropriation was under $1 million.

Maybe Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, was too busy attacking judges to hear about what Thomas had said. His latest salvo has been to attack conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy for the great “incredibly outrageous” practice of doing his own research on the Internet and consulting international law in making decisions. Now, this attack would be laughable, it is so ridiculous, were it not for the fact that many of those listening don’t know that, and the rhetoric used by DeLay betrays none of the absurdity of its substance.

What is wrong with a justice doing research? The words of the Constitution don’t answer every question raised in every case in the court — in fact, many cases, based on statutes, contracts, regulations and the like, don’t even involve the Constitution.

And as I found, when I went from a year of clerking on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, considered by many to be the top appellate court, to the U.S. Supreme Court, the quality of the briefing actually went down — or at least it became much more uneven.

For many litigants, a Supreme Court appearance is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, akin to a victory in a legal lottery, and the briefs often read this way, a product of the lawyers’ appellate inexperience, thus producing the need for the clerks and the justices to do their own thorough research to ensure that the case is rightly decided.

With staffs that are at most one-quarter the size of the lowliest member of Congress, much of the work actually gets done by the justice himself. When I clerked for Justice Stevens, there were two law clerks, two secretaries, a messenger and him. That was it.

When Stephen Breyer — now a Supreme Court justice himself, but then chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee — and David Boies, his predecessor, came over to Justice Stevens’ chambers to recruit me for the special assistant job on the committee, the thing no one could get over was the contrast between the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Steve had a staff of some 100 or more professionals working for him, and the Supreme Court, where Justice Stevens had a staff of two kids right out of law school.

My bet is Tom DeLay has 20 times as many professionals working for him as Anthony Kennedy does. Minimum.

If DeLay did some research of his own, he might discover that, in a democracy, the rule of law depends on an independent judiciary’s ability to administer the law, and it needs the respect of the citizenry to do that. It doesn’t help when leaders like him, who are under investigation for ethical abuses, cynically try to deflect attention from their own alleged wrongdoing by using the courts as targets. That’s what’s going on here, as DeLay goes from target to target.

But it’s not enough for me to stand up and say it. It’s time Republicans silenced him, because his attacks on the judiciary are dangerous. Whether or not they actually increase the danger to judges, it is enough that they increase the sense of fear, and undermine the rule of law.

Is this what a congressional Republican “leader” should be doing? Former Solicitor General Ted Olson has spoken up, but he’s not a politician and he’s not an elected official. It’s not his job to stand up to DeLay.

The problem for judges in this system is that they can’t fight back. The reason they have life tenure is because they are supposed to be protected from just these sorts of fights. But the truth is, there’s no protection from bullies who don’t play by the rules except others from his own side who will stand up to him and enforce them.

Those voices have yet to be heard from, even though the subtle but real dangers of silence are all too clear.

However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’

— Sen. Barry Goldwater (R)

2 Winona High students put free speech to the test
Two Winona High School students have found themselves in hot water with school officials.

Why? Because after Carrie Rethlefsen attended a performance of the play “The Vagina Monologues” last month, she and Emily Nixon wore buttons to school that read: “I [heart] My Vagina.”

School leaders said that the pin is inappropriate and that the discomfort it causes trumps the girls’ right to free speech. The girls disagree. And despite repeated threats of suspension and expulsion, Rethlefsen has continued to wear her button.

The girls have won support from other students and community members.

brookejerry

Originally uploaded by jerseygrrl.

Thanks to Chrissey for taking such a great picture!

I cannot believe how fucked I might be for my finals.

OY.