money talks

I'm ready to scream about the recent Supreme Court decision which grants corporations the same right to donate to political candidates as a individual.

First of all, there's no chance in hell that I'll ever have as much influence over energy policy as Exxon Mobil! So much for equal status between individuals and corporations.

So now the Senate is going to start confirmation hearings on a potential Supreme Court justice. that's pretty important! But what is the media and the congressional committee going to debate.... something that the potential jurist said 20 years ago when they were a college student! Or how about the fact that they went to the University of Chicago law school (Obama did too) 15 years before he was there!

Justice should be blind.... but that doesn't mean that a judge can't have a point of view. It is unrealistic to believe that anybody can be neutral concerning key issues of the day; separation of church and state, abortion rights, the right to bear arms, states' rights etc. We have to believe that judges will put aside their personal opinions when they enter the courtroom and base their decisions on the law and the constitution.

The history of the Supreme Court shows that it is possible for judges of very different political backgrounds to reach the same judicial conclusion.

those were the days! Now all the decisions are straight down party lines.... that's not right. Or a less emotional reaction might be that it is illogical to believe that the present justices could ever be confirmed today if they all had to prove they had no personal beliefs about key issues, or prove that their decisions would not be influenced to a certain degree by their background.

Potential justices should be grilled about their beliefs, experiences and life and they should be free to tell the whole story without fear of being stereotyped. All we can hope for from a judge is that he/she is intelligent, hard working and has a history of being able to work with a wide variety of people and issues. If our justice system works at all... and I think it does for the majority of cases.... than we have to believe that our judges do manage to put aside their personal beliefs when they decide cases.

It really bothers me that recent confirmation hearings do not allow us to get those opinions