Objection sustained! Next question.
If this be reason, make the most of it! 
How many rulings that are condemned by conservatives as “activist” amount to restrictions on freedom as opposed to expansions on freedom?
This is the part I find most interesting. If Chairman Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee (for example) wanted to have a hearing on whether Justice Alito was practicing judicial activism, subpoenaed him as a witness and he didn’t show up, then persuaded the rest of Congress to hold Justice Alito in contempt, what happens next? The Senate (Article I) refers it to DOJ (Article II), but if DOJ proceeds with it Justice Alito would have the opportunity to quash the subpoena before – guess what – another (Article III) judge. Checks and balances.
Of course, Congress can impeach and remove judges without a hearing or involvement of the other two branches for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but members of Congress themselves are subject to removal for no reason at all every 2 or 6 years.
As for Gingrich I hope that if he is elected, Congress ignores his suggestions and stays away from involving itself in the individual lawsuits and prosecutions decided by the judicial branch.
No they can’t. The House can begin impeachment proceedings, but there is a full blown trial on the merits in the Senate.
I’m still trying to figure out which case Newt was referring to when he said school children weren’t allowed to pray in school. I know the school itself can’t lead the prayer, but which in which case did an activist judge say the students themselves couldn’t pray?
I assume he’s talking about Lee v. Weisman, where SCOTUS decided that students couldn’t lead prayers either. Well, they can, but the school can’t say “prayer time” and leave them to it; they have to do it on their own time.
Half of me hopes that Newt can take teh nomination from Romney, the other half wants him to flame out early so that ht he can be replaced by Ron Paul or Santorum. For now I’m following the bird in the hand philosophy and rooting for Newt.
He is talking about a ruling by a Texas judge last June.
I don’t know why he’s complaining about that one; it was overturned immediately. The system worked.
Because judges who disagree with Newt should lose their jobs, not just get their decisions overturned. How can we as the public trust a system which allows judges to keep their jobs after making rulings clearly in antipathy to the satisfaction of Newt Gingrich? What’s next? Representatives, generals, journalists? It is only through the omniscient gaze of the Newt that we have endured in these hellish conditions so far.
Blessed be the name of Newt.
So in that case, you agree that the district judge was in error, and was properly corrected by the appeals panel?
In part.
I think he was correct in finding that a a school-sponsored benediction violated the Establishment Clause (regardless of who actually gave it). I think he was wrong in finding that student speakers couldn’t ask the audience to bow their heads and such.
I also don’t think the original plaintiffs should have had standing, but that’s another issue.
There is an interesting article by Eric Posner in Slate where he agrees with some of what Gingrich said and disagrees with him on others. he makes some interesting points.
Dahlia Lithwick has another, less interesting article on this topic in Slate.
I would also like to make the meta point that just discussing these points has already raised the tone of the nomination contest about 1000 percent.
If there were a 2/3 majority in the Senate that was already decided on conviction, could they propose a motion to bypass the trial and just get on with the vote? Or could they vote for severe restrictions on the time allowed to each side to present the case? How easily could they modify the rules of procedure? Once they’ve got 2/3, can’t they do pretty much anything they want?
Either way, this case comes down very close to where we draw the line.
In this case it was a student who wanted to give a prayer, but we’re all agreed that it wouldn’t be appropriate for a member of the school faculty to give a prayer at a public school graduation ceremony, right?
Interesting is itself an interesting word. Here, interesting seems to mean an article with which you agree, where a less interesting one is one with which you disagree. More interesting (heh) is Newt’s formal position paper on the issue (a fifty-four page pdf dated 10-7-11) which lays out his position in detail and makes clear the Face The Nation interview wasn’t a shoot-from-the-hip moment. Newt wants to change the status of judicial rulings.
I think Newt is wrong, both as a matter of history and policy, but THIS is what the discussion should be about.
I said the Posner article is more interesting, because it is more interesting. Lithwick’s article is a rather badly reason defense of Judicial Supremacy. Posner’s article is more balanced analysis about the parts of Gingrich’s that he things are valid and where he falls short. If you didn’t read the whole article, he disagrees with Gingrich.
Judicial supremecy is not supreme. No power of the sword or the purse and all that jazz. Marbury v Madison has been around for a long time and absent a showing that judges have become tyrants, I think this is all bullshit.