“The Supreme Court delivered the presidency to George W. Bush, interpreted the Second Amendment to guarantee an individual right to bear arms and allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections. “

October 25th, 2011

I respect Adam Liptak’s work, and realize this is a co-authored piece, but how in the hell can he write a sentence like this? There is so much wrong in this sentence. Really it is unworthy of his usually nuanced byline. Also, I think the ideas of the leading candidates to strip the courts of jurisdiction would be met with universal condemnation at any Federalist Society or Cato gathering. As for term limits, Jack Balkin and may other progressives have advocated such restraints for SCOTUS.

This statement by Gingrich is funny:

“Congress can say, ‘All right, in the future, the Ninth Circuit can meet, but it will have no clerks,’ ” Mr. Gingrich told the Values Voter Summit.  “ ‘By the way, we aren’t going to pay the electric bill for two years. And since you seem to be rendering justice in the dark, you don’t seem to need your law library, either.’ ”

Even if this happened, I’m sure Judge Kozinski would still have law clerks that work for free in the dark, perhaps resorting to pencil and paper.