Dear Friend and Reader:
Welcome to the weekend — today, I’ve included an article from Steve Bergstein, a Planet Waves editor who writes the Psychsound column. He is a practicing civil rights attorney who specializes in free speech cases (First Amendment issues). Read below for his comments on the U.S. Supreme Court and how the election will affect it.
Scroll below for the weekend’s aspects and the Oracle.
The 2008 election and the U.S. Supreme Court
By Steve Bergstein
I’m telling you right now. This fall’s presidential election is going to have monumental consequences in any number of areas. What all those areas will be, I know not. But I do know this. The Supreme Court will undergo changes as a result of this election. And if you are one of those people who thinks it does not matter who wins the presidency, then you’d better think again. The Supreme Court is that important.
Many of the civil rights and civil liberties that we take for granted were identified and strengthened by the Supreme Court. When we read about the Court in the media, the focus is usually on abortion, affirmative action, death penalty and other hot-button issues. These issues are important, but they may or may not affect you directly. On the other hand, issues that affect us everyday, including the rights of employees, criminal defendants and political dissenters are handed down all the time. These are the cases that we really have to worry about.
The common response to arguments that the Supreme Court hangs in the balance is that the judges are professionals who will simply apply the law. When John Roberts was nominated to the Court a few years ago, he told the U.S. Senate during his confirmation hearing that he was merely an umpire, like in baseball, calling balls and strikes. But most legal scholars know that nearly every case that comes before the Supreme Court could go either way. That’s because there really are no right answer in the law. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are vaguely written, and Federal laws use words like “reasonable” and other language that create potential loopholes in civil rights.
Since the Supreme Court takes cases primarily to iron out differences in the way that courts around the country rule on certain legal issues, then one way to view Supreme Court rulings is that the legal experts on the Court are simply disagreeing with the legal experts on the lower courts around the country. I can think of few legal issues that cannot go either way in the Supreme Court.
At the moment, there are four liberals and five conservatives on the Court. One of those conservatives, Anthony Kennedy, sometimes tempers the right wing impulses of the other four conservatives. This means that Kennedy is often the fifth vote in 5-4 cases and sometimes he even sides with the liberals. So here’s the problem. The four liberals are older then the five conservatives, and one of them is in his eighties. As one of the better Supreme Court journalists notes:
All nine justices appear to be in good health. But the two oldest–88-year-old John Paul Stevens and 75-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg–are liberals. So is 68-year-old David Souter, who has told friends that he longs to go home to New Hampshire. By contrast, Kennedy and the four conservatives seem reasonable bets to serve another four to eight years or more. Kennedy and conservative firebrand Antonin Scalia are 72. Clarence Thomas, the Court’s most conservative member, Alito, and Roberts are a relatively frisky 60, 58, and 53, respectively. Six of the last eight justices to retire or die in office ranged in age from 79 to 85.
Given this age distribution, a President McCain would have at least one potentially balance-tipping vacancy to fill unless the vigorous Stevens smashes the oldest-serving-justice record set by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who retired at 90. But it’s doubtful that McCain could get the Senate to confirm a nominee with strong conservative credentials, especially to replace one of the liberals or Kennedy.
Replacing any of the older liberals with a young conservative who can serve on the court for 25-30 years means a rock-solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court for the first time in decades. That scares the crap out of civil liberties advocates. That means you should register to vote if you have not done so already, and drive yourself and everyone you know to the polling place in November to vote for Obama, if for no other reason that he can save the Supreme Court and civil liberties in this country. There is nothing more important.
Today’s Oracle takes us to Oct 25, 2002 – Libra – Weekly
Venus moving backwards through Scorpio, a sensitive, restless region of your solar chart, is likely to have you assessing yourself scrupulously. Encounters with your own inner thoughts may prompt the feeling of unusual insecurity followed by deep knowingness, followed by the sense that a thousand little parts of you must die in order for you to be whole and free. This is, of course, my impression of an astrology chart. But in any event, please take it easy on you. Self-evaluation needs to be done very gently. The past needs to be handled like crystal, and it contains important revelations now. Fortunately, people from the past are closer now than they’ve been in many months, and are open to listening.
Saturday 26 July 2008
Mercury (28+ Cancer) quincunx Pluto (28+ Sagittarius Rx)
Mercury (29+ Cancer) sesquiquadrate Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Mars (14+ Virgo) septile Hidalgo (6+ Scorpio)
Mercury (29+ Cancer) sesquiquadrate Juno (14+ Sagittarius Rx)
Ceres (19+ Cancer) quincunx Chiron (19+ Aquarius Rx)
Hidalgo (6+ Scorpio) conjunct Chariklo (5+ Scorpio) – Near Miss Only
Psyche (13+ Scorpio) square Nessus (13+ Aquarius Rx)
Mercury (29+ Cancer) quintile Arachne (11+ Libra)
Sisyphus (13+ Libra) semisquare Orcus (28+ Leo)
Mercury enters Leo (direct)
Mercury (0 Leo) trine Aries Point (0 Aries)
Ceres (19+ Cancer) conjunct Varuna (19+ Cancer)
Mercury (0+ Leo) semisquare Mars (15+ Virgo)
Venus (17+ Leo) trine Quaoar (17+ Sagittarius Rx)
Mars (15+ Virgo) trine Jupiter (15+ Capricorn Rx)
Mercury (1+ Leo) sextile M87 (1+ Libra)
Sunday 27 July 2008
Sisyphus (14+ Libra) sextile Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Pallas (26+ Taurus) quincunx Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Eros (11+ Leo) sesquiquadrate Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Mercury (2+ Leo) sesquiquadrate Quaoar (17+ Sagittarius Rx)
Mercury (2+ Leo) quintile Sisyphus (14+ Libra)
Mercury (2+ Leo) trine Hylonome (2+ Sagittarius Rx)
Apollo (25+ Leo) square Admetos (25+ Taurus)
Eros (12+ Leo) sextile Arachne (12+ Libra)
Atlantis (20+ Libra) septile Orcus (28+ Leo)
Sun (5+ Leo) semisquare Logos (20+ Virgo)