::::::::
In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . .
And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
Attributed to Martin Niemöller
This morning (January 22, 2008), the United States Supreme Court announced without further comment that it would not be hearing the Enron suit, the one that was on behalf of the retirees and other investors who lost from much to all their retirement savings to the shenanigans of George Bush’s most enthusiastic supporters.
Okay, it’s no big deal to you because you weren’t an employee of Enron. Or, perhaps you didn’t have any part of your retirement portfolio in Enron stock. Or, just maybe you don’t care because you weren’t a resident of California or Oregon or Washington when Enron was playing the grid, forcing power outages, all to coerce the residents in those states into it accepting the corporate giant’s obscenely higher per kilowatt hour rates.
Stare decisis is the Latin term, “let the decision stand.” Without some dramatic turn in the composition of the court, all future similar cases will look back on the decision for guidance. Without some dramatic change in the composition of the court, it is now without doubt how future victims of the kinds of abuses made notorious by Enron will be regarded: S-O-L.
This issue has extraordinary moment this election round because John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have propounded loud and boastfully how they regard justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and now retired Chief Justice Richard Rehnqist as the kinds of “conservative” justices they would name to the federal judiciary, should they be elected president.
Once again, I submit that how a relative or an associate or friend votes this November is not something akin to palavering over whether the living room should be painted light cream or off-white. This is serious. It could be for all your marbles, or your entire life savings. We, as in you and me, need to make it clear to those we know precisely how critical it is that a Democrat (Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . I know all about the cries for a 3d party candidate. But I’m calling for an intelligent discussion, not Never-Never Land, I’m flying fairy tales.) be elected to sit in the Oval Office; the only so-labeled candidates we can be absolutely certain will not nominate the sort of moral-liberated miscreants the GOP contenders have already announced they’ll try to install to those lifetime positions.
One other thing we must also do: notify Harry Reid that whatever vacancies might occur on the bench, regardless whether the next president is a Democrat or Republican, conservative nominees need not be sent to the senate for consideration. — Ed Tubbs
