Let's Fire the "Supremes"

Let's fire the Supreme Court. Radical, huh.

Let us use a little Socratic dialectic. Not being a scholar or academic ( the two are not one and the same, unfortunately), please humor my simplistic lay definitions.

What is the Supreme Court?
It is the judicial branch of the government.

What is its purpose within the original framework of our nation's founding?
It was included as an arbiter and interpreter of the Constitution.

Would it be true to assume that by these definitions it depends on there being a Consititution. Obviously, if there was no Constitution they would not be needed.

Is the Constitution a written document?
Of course - written in very good English.

Are the Justices of the Supreme Court literate?
Certainly, they're well educated.

If a document is written and we read it what does it mean?
It means what the author or authors of the document who wrote it purported it to mean.

How do we understand what the author(s) meant?
We look at the biography and the writings of the authors
within the historical context of the times.

Has the text of the Constituion changed, except for amendments thus provided for by the document itself?
No, its still the same document

If one reads the document today and substitutes his meaning for the authors, based on the definition just given, is it then the same document?
Well, no, its now the reader's document.

If the document is no longer the "founding fathers's" do you continue to need the Supreme Court which was established to arbiter and interpret their document ?
Well, I don't guess so.

Since the "supremes" are more or less trashing the Constitution, lets legislatively abolish the court as established by the Constitution. Assuming we do need a counterbalance to the executive and legislative branches, let's elect the judges for a limited, but adequate length of time, by popular vote. Since we can keep a President no more than eight years, lets arbitrarily start with an equal time frame for the court.

Then if they want to make "judicial" decisions based on international opinion, foreign court interpretations or the desire to assure a certain outcome, they will at least have to answer to the people who put them there and who can also remove them.

Con-a-Senior Week

The euphuism "con" has long thought to be derived from confidence as in confidence game. I pose that this may not be true. I submit that the "con" comes from the word "congress" There can be ample support for this from a litany of legislation which they have passed. The tax code is a perfect example. In the 1993 tax law - thank you President Clinton- the phase-outs, floors, ceilings etc attached to various deductions and credits resulted in deceitfully limiting these to anyone who had a job , especially if a man and wife were working.

One of the classics is social security. Until 1983 social security was exempt from being taxed as income. At this time the law changed to tax up to 50% for incomes exceeding a certain amount. In 1993 up to 85% could be taxable based on another incremental rate. These amounts were not indexed for inflation.

There is a payroll tax on your income to fund social security. In figuring taxable income this is not deductible, thus you are paying a tax on a tax. I know of no other place in the tax law where a double taxation is involved. Then when you receive the social benefits, which in essence have already been taxed twice, you are taxed again. If you choose to continue working you pay into the fund with more taxes and help pay your benefits received, and of course, are again taxed on that tax. Also, remember, that with the floors not being indexed to inflation that every year that the CPI rises (which is every year) your tax increases.

At the present workers are paying more into the system than what is being paid out. The so called "lock box" surplus is raided by the dear Congress to build a library in West Virginia or refurbish an obsolete train station in Texas.

Then at election time these same members of Congress go home and tell the seniors how they are fighting to protect social security and make their senior constituents more secure. Give me a break. The truth would be "old geezer, send me back to the "hill" so I can screw you again." The least they could do would be to vote for a "Con-a-senior Week". At least it would be on the record and on the calendar.

Can Republicans Govern

We talk about leadership in politics, but is this an appropriate term? What the idealists call leadership is actually, in contemporary American politics a composite of two components. First and foremost it's about power. Second it's about public relations.

Politics is and always has been about power and the ability to use it. The master of the skill I think in my age was Lyndon Johnson. Wheter the applicable component was fear, intimidation, coercion or compromise - or most probably a combination of these he could get things done. The second part is press. The liberal press and TV is still the most predominant form of information disimination. It is not necessarily in what they say but what they may not say, or the place they say it. An example is the recent tie of Anan to the oil for food scandal. The New York Times put this on page six. As it heated up they moved it to page 10. Ditto (maybe different pages) for the Washington Post.

The ability of the Democrats to practically shut down the legislative process with a minority is ridiculous. Whey do they get away with it? At the worst the Rebublicans should make them do the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" bit and keep the floor day and night like the "old timey" filibuster of Huey Long et al.

The media problem may be overcome, but the power problem has to be addressed by Republicans. The failure of the majority to execute the powere they should have exudes weakness. It 's time to act or forget it.