John Roberts

You are currently browsing articles tagged John Roberts.

Quick Take On Today’s Supreme Court Ruling

June 28, 2012 in Politics | Permalink

I never noticed until today just how handsome that robe makes you look, Chief Justice Roberts.

  • I’ve been tough on Chief Justice Roberts, but I have to admit it took a lot of guts for a conservative jurist to uphold the Affordable Care Act. Of course, if I was opposed to health-care reform, I might not think “guts” is what he’s full of.
  • Pretty much instantly, a non-politician in Roberts becomes the most interesting political figure in America. At least for awhile.
  • I know health-care reform will be an election-year issue and could possibly be overturned should Mitt Romney become President, but I think going forward the bigger argument will be how do we become more efficient and reduce the costs for all of us.
  • As commendable as saving the auto industry, dismantling Al-Qaeda and other achievements have been, nothing else President Obama has done will have as profoundly a good effect on the lives of Americans as health-care reform. “Obamacare,” which has been used as a derisive term, will ultimately be his proudest legacy. The ballooning number of people without health insurance will be reduced to zero by 2014 if the law isn’t overturned.
  • And remember: People with health insurance don’t face death panels, but people without it potentially do every day.

Tags: ,

“The Court’s Standing With The Public Has Slipped Significantly”

June 8, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Just 44 percent of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing." (Image by Stephen Masker.)

When I was a kid, the Supreme Court was held up to children as an example of high-mindedness at its best. I put up a post recently about the extreme drift we’ve seen in the way the country perceives the Court. And while the diminished view didn’t begin with the Roberts Court, the current iteration has experienced a dramatic cratering in standing. From the New York Times:

“Just 44 percent of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing and three-quarters say the justices’ decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal or political views, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News.

Those findings are a fresh indication that the court’s standing with the public has slipped significantly in the past quarter-century, according to surveys conducted by several polling organizations. Approval was as high as 66 percent in the late 1980s, and by 2000 approached 50 percent.”

Tags:

About The Current United States Supreme Court

April 26, 2012 in Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Justice Roberts: Like Judy Sheindlin without the charm.

There’s been no time in my life when the country has had a Supreme Court of such rancor, such arrogance and such nastiness as the Roberts Court. I’m not talking about Justice Alito showing disdain for President Obama during the State of the Union, though that is symptomatic of the problem. I’m referring more to the mocking, sarcastic, obnoxious, impatient tone of the Justices as they question American citizens who come before them. It’s not just behavior unbecoming of the highest court of the land but decorum that wouldn’t be tolerated in a playground. 

It’s always been a lie that the Constitution is this document that can interpreted with purity, that politics and personal prejudices don’t enter the picture. But the immaturity of numerous members of the current Court makes it dubious that they have the wisdom to sort as best they can through the objective and the subjective. Or that they even have that process as their goal. It may be that the Roberts Court ultimately has the distinction of being the one that makes Americans seriously question the wisdom of lifetime appointments for Justices.•

Judge Judy: I presided over the landmark case of the missing fish stick.

Tags: ,