The Supreme Court is a Political Tool, My Post at Bob Murphy's Blog, and Some Israel-Iran Conspiracy Theory

I stumbled across a reference to a rather disturbing USA Today news report yesterday.  The report, which is shocking considering the plain vanilla-like quality of USA Today, probably goes over the head of most of the public who regard the federal government as a fun competition between a jackass and elephant.  From the report:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has twice survived cancer and is regularly subject to speculation about her retirement plans, said Thursday she recently received a clean bill of health.Ginsburg, 78, in response to a question from USA TODAY, said she recently underwent her annual checkup and was in good health.

No, no, that old bat Ginsburg who would keep serving on the bench despite a grand piano falling on her head (I would never advocate for such a thing of course) getting a clean bill of health is not a problem; I am happy she is fine even if she keeps ruining the lives of millions with her asinine judgments.  This is the disturbing part of the report:

Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy wrote in The New Republic magazine last spring that Ginsburg should retire soon to ensure that Democratic President Obama, rather than a possible new GOP president, could appoint her successor. (Kennedy said Stephen Breyer, 73, should also retire.)

Indeed, as Kennedy wrote in a piece titled "The Case for Early Retirement-Why Justices Ginsburg and Breyer Should Retire Immediately":

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer should soon retire. That would be the responsible thing for them to do. Both have served with distinction on the Supreme Court for a substantial period of time; Ginsburg for almost 18 years, Breyer for 17. Both are unlikely to be able to outlast a two-term Republican presidential administration, should one supersede the Obama administration following the 2012 election. (my emphasis)

Responsible? Treating the body of 9 judges who quite literally set the law of the land like a political apparatus to push a leftist agenda is far from responsible.  Kennedy dismisses these charges with, get this, saying "that's just the way things are"

Is such a suggestion an illicit politicization of the Court? No. It is simply a plea for realism, which is often difficult to muster in the face of the idolatry that suffuses popular thinking about the justices and their role in American democracy. There is no question that the justices are often strategic in deciding when to depart the bench, even if they are quiet about their aims. One can confidently assume, for instance, that Justice Antonin Scalia would be especially loath to retire during Obama’s presidency.

I don't know Scalia's thought process but this is probably true.  Scalia long ago destroyed his reputation as a Constitution originalist.  Yet a Harvard law professor like Kennedy, who no doubt worships the sanctity of statism, endorsing such a practice shows just how entrenched rent-seeking becomes in an institution that yields so much power.  He writes:

There is nothing wrong in principle with such a calculation. A justice should have a deep, even passionate, commitment to his or her judicial philosophy and therefore act within his or her lawful powers to advance that perspective. Cloaked with lifetime tenure, federal judges have a unique power to determine when their judicial careers should end and thus possess an important, though oft-overlooked, way of influencing the trajectory of the federal bench. Many federal judges exercise this power by retiring or taking senior status (a form of semi-retirement) when a president sharing their political-juridical values is in office. Thus it is that liberal-leaning justices such as Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter retired during the Clinton and Obama presidencies, while more conservative-leaning justices such as Sandra Day O’Connor, Lewis Powell, and Warren Burger retired during the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II presidencies.

Again, the further proves my point that the Supreme Court has become a clown car for stuffing in those justices who follow either side of the left/right dynamic.  This was never the intention of the Supreme Court of course.  Such fallible men (not women at the time) were supposed to take on the role of incorruptible, saintly beings who put service and country above self interested behavior.  In other words, it was only a pipe dream.  As Alexander Hamilton wrote in regard to the president nominating potential Supreme Court justices in Federalist #76:

The sole and undivided responsibility of one man will naturally beget a livelier sense of duty and a more exact regard to reputation. He will, on this account, feel himself under stronger obligations, and more interested to investigate with care the qualities requisite to the stations to be filled, and to prefer with impartiality the persons who may have the fairest pretensions to them. (my emphasis)

It's hard not to laugh at such a naive assertion.  On the importance of the Supreme Court not becoming united with any of the other branches of government, from Federalist #78:

For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former on the latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation; that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security.  

The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution.

So while the Supreme Court should be separate from the executive and legislative branch, it's appointments must also come from those branches?  And this was expected to be a wonderful success how?

Whether Kennedy knows it or not, his attempt at toeing the fine line between advocating the type of jurors who should sit on the bench of the Supreme Court and promoting the gullible idea that the highest level of the Judicial branch in the U.S. isn't politicized was an epic failure.  It revealed the true nature of the game; get people on the bench who want society shaped in your own view.  When a body that ultimately determines which laws stand and fall in a country becomes a tool for political purposes, the prospect of competing legal systems becomes much more appetizing and practically necessary.
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Not sure if that will turn into something and go anywhere, but we will see.

Bob Murphy finally got around to posting a piece of mine that had a tough time finding a home.  Entitled "Praising the Financial/Economic Punkosphere" here is an excerpt:

In this spirit, I praise what has become the financial/economic punkosphere that consistently challenges the establishment.  The internet has done wonders in the decentralization of information and knowledge.  No longer do ivory tower academics hold all the sway when it comes to economics.  Thanks to this new outlet of blogs, the Federal Reserve has never faced such scrutiny by the public in its almost century-long existence. 

But don’t expect the establishment to take this new movement lying down.  After all, the armchair positions within the higher arches of academia can be put at serious risk if the theories espoused on national television and taught to thousands of youngsters happen to be wrong.  Recently Zerohedge had a kind of “war of words” with economist Nouriel Roubini who is, as John Tamny puts it, “still clinging to his 15 minutes after an economy call that he got right for all the wrong reasons.”  Roubini still grasps to the Keynesian mindset which has ravished the economy and has made the act of saving a virtual sin with super low interest rates and a frightening concentration on the sacred benefits of consumption.

There is something to be said about an economic theory that punishes the savers who are the most unfit for labor, but I will leave that to the punks in the blogosphere who know best.

Unfortunately there was an issue with commenting over at Bob's blog and I am not sure if the lack of comments is due to that or just my lack of popularity.  The latter seems impossible so I will go with the former.

I also wanted to mention this great Justin Raimonda piece over at Antiwar.com which debunks much of the Iran war propaganda going on.

We are told by the Israeli media that there is a big debate going on, with two former top officials – Meir Dagan, recently retired as head of the Mossad, and Yuval Diskin, head of Shin Bet – going so far as to leak the specifics of Bibi’s scheme in order to torpedo the plan. Dagan is said to have remarked that the war plans are "the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard" – and he’s quite right. 

The problem with this alleged plan is that Israel doesn’t have the military capacity to do the job and do it well: Iran’s nuclear facilities are enclosed within hardened sites, and are spread out to such a degree that Israeli war planes would have trouble reaching them. While the Israelis have recently tested a long-range missile that has the capacity to hit Iranian targets, the idea that they could take out all the intended targets in one fell swoop is simply a fantasy. Therefore, this alleged "debate" taking place within the Israeli leadership, complete with a phony "investigation" by Netanyahu into who leaked the nonexistent Israeli attack "plan," is a non-event. The whole thing, in short, is a bluff. 

But who is being bluffed here? Not the Iranians, who are surely aware of Israel’s incapacity. The volume of the war hysteria is being turned up with one purpose in mind: the Israelis want the US to do their dirty work for them. This is a threat aimed not only – or even primarily – at Iran, but at us. 

This has been their modus operandi throughout all the years of the "special relationship": it’s "special" because there is no reciprocity involved. Our unconditional support for the Israeli settler colony has always been an albatross hung ‘round our necks, and never more so than post-9/11, when the need for US allies within the Muslim world is vital. We support them financially, militarily, and politically, while getting absolutely nothing but grief – and more demands – in return.

The show goes on as we will once again be lied into war.  It's pretty much already started via Debkafile:

The sudden rush of military news Wednesday, Nov. 2, is part of an orchestrated Western performance to convince Tehran that the US, Britain and Israel are on the verge of a military operation against its nuclear installations. Directed from Washington, it is meant to warn Iran that the play could become a reality show if it refuses to give up the drive for a nuclear weapon. President Barack Obama may then decide to strike Revolutionary Guards Corps targets, the bulwark of the Islamic regime, and its strategic infrastructure, thereby knocking over the key props holding up the regime of the ayatollahs.

Iran has of course fired back:

TEHRAN, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Israel will learn the true meaning of "hell" if it decides a military strike against Iran is worth the risk, an Iranian national security official said.

If this seriously happens (as it most likely will), Obama supporters are really going to have their work cut out for them trying to reconcile how the man they thought was a true lefty proves to be the puppet of the military industrial complex and Wall Street that he really is.

Update- (ht Big Picture) The Financial Stability Board, a wonderful creation by the G7and major central banks, is out with a list of 29 systematically dangerous global banks.  They are as follows:

Belgium: Dexia
China: Bank of China
France: Banque Populaire, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale
Germany: Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank
Italy: Unicredit
Japan: Mitsubishi, Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsui
Netherlands: ING
Spain: Santander
Sweden: Nordea
Switzerland: Credit Suisse, UBS
UK: Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland
US: Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, State Street, Wells Fargo

This should be a cold slap in the face for those who thought the financial system was saved by the government bailouts and emergency liquidity injections just a few years ago.  For a nice bit of irony, see this great ad via, again, Big Picture:

Corzine had convictions alright; convictions to throw his reputation in the dumpster of history where it belongs.

Update 2- Can't believe I missed this.  To follow up on the Iran-Israel war propaganda, looks like French Prez and playboy Sarkozy did what politicians never do, speak the truth.  From the Telegraph:

An unguarded moment at the G20 is set to pile huge embarrassment on presidents Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The pair were caught out having a private dig at the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during talks last week in Cannes.
Nicolas Sarkozy was caught branding him 'a liar' on a microphone he thought was switched off, while Obama's retort was equally undignified.

Mr Sarkozy is then overheard saying: 'I cannot stand him. He is a liar.'

Happier days: Back in May the pair held hands when Netanyahu came to Paris for a visit

Mr. Obama is reported to have replied: 'You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!'

Obama says he can't stand him but look for his tail to go between his legs as he follows Netany into war.