The Supreme Court vs. the Constitution

An erstwhile friend, Gerald Walpin, Esq., who I introduced to his wife some 50 years ago, but who ended the friendship soon thereafter, has surfaced, publishing a book titled "The Supreme Court vs. The Constitution," which is available on Amazon. 

Out of an interest in the writings of one out of my past, I bought the book, read it, reviewed it, and published my review on Amazon.

This led to an exchange that I want to share with you. It consists of three parts: My review, Mr. Walpin’s rebuttal, and my sur-rebuttal. 

Publishing all three in one post makes this very long, but for whatever it is worth, here it is. (I am no longer writing for my blog, but continue to post that which I write in other contexts.)

My Review

I have to say that I was deeply disappointed by the quality of this book. While I did not expect to agree with its conclusions, I expected its reasoning and its analysis to be beyond compare. My expectations in this regard derived from the authors undoubtedly brilliant career as is set forth in the latter pages of his book and which did not even mention the author having been awarded the American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Second Circuit.

Unfortunately, while the book gives great pretense to being a scholarly work, boasting 881 end notes, it falls flat not only for its distortions, but for its glaring omissions, not to speak of its inaccuracies. In the final analysis it ends up being no more than a screed in support of its undoubtedly sincerely held opinions. In summary, the book concludes that every Supreme Court decision that Walpin likes is one that is anchored in the Constitution, while every decision it dislikes is denounced as judicial activism, and even as being anchored in the jurist's “personal views”.

In its very early pages (at pages four and five to be exact) the author criticizes Justice John Roberts for having voted to uphold the individual mandate in the Obamacare statute on the ground that it is a Constitutionally permissible tax and asserts that this was, “an interpretation that no other justice joined."

This is quite a remarkable assertion since a glance at the opinion reveals that Justice Ginsburg, with others joining wrote:

“I agree with THE CHIEF JUSTICE that the Anti-Injunction Act does not bar the Court’s consideration of this case, and that the minimum coverage provision is a proper exercise of Congress’ taxing power.”

But quite aside from taking the Chief Justice to task for not striking down a clearly constitutional act of Congress, Mr. Walpin lauds the five Right Wing Justices for having all agreed that the Act does not stand constitutional muster under the Commerce Clause.

On this subject he chooses not to mention the view expressed by President Ronald Reagan’s Solicitor General, Charles Fried:

“Now, is it within the power of Congress? Well, the power of Congress is to regulate interstate commerce. Is health care commerce among the states? Nobody except maybe Clarence Thomas doubts that. So health care is interstate commerce. Is this a regulation of it? Yes. End of story….” [The full transcript of the interview can be found here.] 

Walpin then goes on to assert that the country’s “foundation documents” are “The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution." Now I do not want to belittle the importance of the Declaration of Independence, which was a resounding assertion of the Colonies right to rebel against the British crown. But it has no legal standing in our jurisprudence. It was written long before there was anything resembling a United States. It was published in 1776. Even the Articles of Confederation were not adopted until 1781 and the Constitution, which is the country’s foundational document, was not adopted until 1787. So why does Walpin make this rather far fetched assertion. We find out when we turn to Chapter IV of Walpin’s book. He asserts in the heading to the Chapter, (no less) “FROM GOD AS THE SOURCE OF ALL RIGHT TO THE BANNING OF GOD."

Now Walpin’s problem here is that God in not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. There is no mention of a deity; there is no mention, of “the laws of nature and of nature’s God”; there is no mention of “Divine Providence.”

The only mention in the Constitution of religion is in the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights, known as the “Establishment Clause” and it states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
 religion, …” That’s it. And Walpin devotes a chapter to discussing God in the Constitution and never mentions this inconvenient clause of the Constitution and then berates the Court when it gives voice to this Constitutional mandate.

I could go on chapter after chapter citing these errors of omission and commission, but that would make this review intolerably long. So let me mention just one other deliberate distortion. In discussing the seminal case of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, Walpin gives the impression that the concept of a Right to Privacy was first enunciated in Roe. In fact it was put forth in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) a case that gave constitutional protection to contraception. Why was this not mentioned? I suggest it was because a right to contraception is not controversial.To a large extent Walpin argues for a theory often ascribed to putative Supreme Court Justice Robert Bork known as “Originalism”, which to a large extent acts as though the Constitution had never been amended, the Civil War had never been fought, and particularly the 14th and 15th amendment had never had been enacted. Yet Justice Bork himself appears to now have repudiated this doctrine.

In a book that he co-authored [It can be found here.] there is set forth in its Introduction: 

“Regrettably, but perhaps inevitably, ‘[t]he ink was not yet dry on the Constitution when its revision began.’ Almost immediately, Congress began pressing beyond specifically enumerated powers granted it in Article I. As a result, today, Americans encounter a national government far more expansive than the Framers and men of their generation could ever have imagined…

“Uncertainty stems, in part, from the recognition that the scope of the commerce power has expanded so far beyond the original understanding of that power's boundaries that any attempt to adhere strictly to its original meaning today would likely be futile and inappropriate… “There is no possibility, today, of adhering completely to the original constitutional design. Such a daring plan would require overturning the New Deal, the Great Society, and almost all of the vast network of federal legislation and regulation put in place in the last two-thirds of the twentieth century. It appears that the American people would be overwhelmingly against such a change and no court would attempt to force it upon them.”

And at a later point he goes on to say: “When the world has changed but the underlying constitutional principle remains, the task for those ‘in this generation [is] to discern how the framers' values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply to the world we know.’ The world we know includes the long-standing jurisprudence on the commerce power because ‘[w]hen there is a known principle to be explicated the evolution of a doctrine is inevitable."I wish I could say positive things about a book written by one with such a brilliant career, but alas, I cannot.

Walpin’s Rebuttal:

I thank Mr. Scheller for his candor in conceding that, before he read my book, he had already decided that he would not agree with its conclusions. Significantly, he doesn't even dispute the basic lesson of my book - that a majority of justices have too frequently substituted their personal views for what our Founders intended the Constitution to mean, many times also ruling contrary to earlier Supreme Court precedents.

While I will not spend my time responding to each nit-pick that those who read my book (with a closed mind) claim to find, I will exemplify the basic error in Mr. Scheller's comments by responding to two of his meritless assertions. First, he proclaims that the Declaration Of Independence has "no legal standing in our jurisprudence." That assertion disregards about 200 Supreme Court opinions that cite the Declaration Of Independence. Here is one example, Cotting v. Godard, a 1901 opinion, very telling in its words that directly controvert Mr. Scheller's criticism. First, the Court referred to the Declaration Of Independence as the "first official act of this nation" that "declared" this government's "foundation" - just the word Mr. Scheller chastises me for using. And then the Supreme Court repeated what it had said in an 1886 opinion: "It is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration Of Independence," i.e., the Declaration Of Independence, where relevant, should be considered in deciding the meaning of the Constitution.

Let's also look at the specifics of what Mr. Scheller was arguing when he asserts the current irrelevancy of the Declaration Of Independence. According to him, the Declaration's recognition of God as "the source of all rights" was rejected by the adoption of the Constitution. He fails to explain how the same generation, including eight of the same people who signed the Declaration and were also personally involved in drafting the Constitution, would only 11 years later suddenly discard God from that central place of recognition in our Country. Also, he is forced to ignore, because it cannot be reconciled with his exiling God from our Country, the many examples in my book of our Country's succeeding generations' reaffirmation of the Declaration's recognition of God, in placing "In God We Trust" on our Country's issued money, and choosing it as our Country's motto.

A second Mr. Scheller's meritless attacks on my book: He faults me for "giv[ing] the impression that the concept of a right to privacy was first enunciated in Roe" in 1973. He cites Griswold v. Connecticut, 8 years before Roe, as having given "Constitutional protection to" person's privacy. Mr. Scheller ignores several pages at the beginning of this chapter, where I relate that the Constitution's Bill of Rights created a right to privacy in the specified contexts of those provisions, such as, "the right not to have the privacy of one's home, property, and body violated by any unreasonable search (Fourth Amendment.)" Unlike what Mr. Scheller asserts, the 1965 Griswold case was nothing more than a reaffirmation that the Fourth Amendment protected husbands and wives in their home from an invasion of police to determine if they were using condoms or other birth-control devices. See this language from the Griswold opinion: "The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the `right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses ... against unreasonable searches and seizures," not "allow[ing] the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives." This was a quote from NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U.S. 288, 307. This was consistent with a 1967 Supreme Court decision - 2 years after Griswold that rejected "a general `right of privacy'." Thus, when Roe suddenly "found" a general right to privacy, it was creating a right that the Court, six years before, had ruled did not exist.
Enough said. Mr. Scheller can continue his nit-picking, to which I will no longer respond. I prefer instead to leave the evaluation of my book to those who read it with an open mind.

My Sur-Rebuttal:

Mr. Walpin thanks me for my candor “in conceding that, before (I) read (his) book, (I) had already decided that (I) would not agree with its conclusions. That should not be a surprise to him since, as he well knows, I am thoroughly familiar with his views, but even if I weren’t, the endorsement of his book by Professor Yoo, the author of the infamous torture memo, would have given more than a clue.

But in an age when most people only read that which they expect to agree with, Mr. Walpin should give me credit for reading that which I had every expectation would be opposite to my deeply held views. Be that as it may, Mr. Walpin should thank me, for nothing propels an interest in a book more than controversy, and I note that since I posted my critique the number of people who posted favorable comments on his book went from one to three.

But allow me to respond to Mr. Walpin’s post.

Mr. Walpin writes in his rebuttal: “Significantly, he doesn't even dispute the basic lesson of my book - that a "majority of justices have too frequently substituted their personal views for what our Founders intended the Constitution to mean, many times also ruling contrary to earlier Supreme Court precedents.”

Indeed I do not dispute that a majority of justices have too frequently substituted their personal views for what the Constitution provides, many times also ruling contrary to earlier Supreme Court precedents!” But Walpin turns the situation on its head. It is the Robert and the Rehnquist courts that have consistently used a bare 5-4 majority to strike down years of precedent and been a far more “activist court” than any in recent memory. Allow me to quote from Professor Winkler’s excellent essay to be found on the SCOTUS blog here.

“Since John Roberts became Chief Justice in 2005, the Court has issued one landmark ruling after another. The Roberts Court gave us Citizens United, which struck down longstanding limits on corporate political spending. This Court also allowed new restrictions on women’s right to choose; became the first Supreme Court in American history to strike down a gun control law as a violation of the Second Amendment; effectively outlawed voluntary efforts by public schools to racially integrate; and curtailed the reach of environmental protections.

“In many of these decisions, the Roberts Court overturned or ignored precedent, including Rehnquist Court decisions less than a decade old. Prior to Citizens United, the Supreme Court had explicitly held in two cases that corporate political expenditures could be limited – the most recent of which was handed down in 2003. Six years before the Roberts Court upheld the federal ban on “partial birth” abortion, the Rehnquist Court, which wasn’t known for its liberal leanings, had overturned a nearly identical law.

“Of course, the Roberts Court isn’t the first to overturn precedents and issue major rulings. Yet this Court has been uniquely willing to do so by sharply divided 5-4 majorities. The Warren Court’s Brown decision was famously 9-0. New York Times v. Sullivan, which freed up the media to discuss public figures, was decided by the same margin. Gideon v. Wainwright, on the constitutional right to counsel, and Loving v. Virginia, invaliding bans on interracial marriage, were also unanimous. Even Roe v. Wade was decided by an overwhelming 7-2 vote.”

And this quote from Professor Winkler does not even touch upon the unprecedented decision in Bush v. Gore where the court took the unprecedented step of choosing the next President of the US by a partisan 5-4 decision, nor the very recent decision in SHELBY COUNTY, ALABAMA v. HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL. where the court struck down a statute specifically authorized by the 15th Amendment, which provides: 

“SECTION. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to
 vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by 
any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

SECTION. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this 
article by appropriate legislation.” 

The power was given to Congress to decide what the appropriate remedy is, not the court’s. Yet SCOTUS by 5-4 decided that Congress used bad judgment, and took it upon itself to declare unconstitutional that which the Constitution expressly authorized Congress to decide.

But let me now return to Mr. Walpin’s attack on me. He refutes my contention that the “Declaration of Independence” is not the law of the land and claims “200 Supreme Court opinions that cite the Declaration Of Independence.” He then goes on to say, “Here is one example, Cotting v. Godard, a 1901 opinion, very telling in its words that directly controvert Mr. Scheller's criticism.”

But its words don’t, and it doesn’t.

Allow me to quote from that decision, “such declaration of principles (referring to the Declaration of Independence) may not have the force of organic law, or be made the basis of judicial decision as to the limits of right and duty, …” (Emphasis added).

Did Mr. Walpin think I would not bother to read the decision?

But in insisting that the Declaration of Independence somehow overrules the clear mandate of the Constitution, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion”, he insists on pretending that this language does not exist. He then asks me to explain: “How suddenly (the founders would) discard God from that central place of recognition in our Country”. But they didn’t! They simply said, as the Supreme Court has held, that it is not the Government’s place to be involved in religion. It belongs in the private sphere, and that has served this country well.

But then Walpin goes of the rails on the Courts history on “privacy” and goes from distorting to dissembling.

In writing about the Griswold case, Mr. Walpin writes and I quote “Unlike what Mr. Scheller asserts, the 1965 Griswold case was nothing more than a reaffirmation that the Fourth Amendment protected husbands and wives in their home from an invasion of police to determine if they were using condoms or other birth-control devices.”

But that is patently untrue. The defendants in the Griswold case were charged with, and I quote from the Court’s opinion: “(giving) information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free.” 

And the statute that was before the court in the Griswold case provided in Section 54-196: 

“Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender.”

Does that sound like it was about police invading anybody’s home?

Mr. Walpin accuses me of “nit-picking”. Does the exposure of such fundamental misstatements amount to “nit-picking”?

There should always be room for differences of opinion. But the misrepresentation and/or distortion of facts is inexcusable. This has become far too frequently the realm of our political discourse. I had hoped for something far better from Mr. Walpin, and I still hope for something better from him in the future.

Comments on the above are welcome and will be responded to, but will not be published or posted.

Racism Rears Its Ugly Head In The SCOTUS/The Sequester

The presently constituted Supreme Court has long been criticized for the very activism that was once directed at a more progressive Court, but never before has it given any cause to accuse it of overt racism.

To be sure Robert Bork was rejected for a position on the court in part because in a New Republic article he condemned “the public accommodation sections of the (then) proposed 1964 Civil Rights Act aimed at integrating restaurants, hotels and other businesses” because he “feared that government coercion of private behavior threatened freedom… (ignoring the fact that) restaurateurs were not legally permitted to reject service to well-behaved whites and that the new law intended simply to extend that principle to blacks.”

But this is the first time that a sitting judge has allowed his racist views to escape his lips. During argument on the Constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 Justice Scalia referred to Congress’ near-unanimous re-enactment of the act in 2006 as a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”

Yes, the reader read that right. The right of US citizens to vote is, according to Scalia, a “racial entitlement” totally ignoring that the XIV Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privilege or immunities of citizens of the United States… nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” And in Section 5 of that article: “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Or does Scalia’s doctrine of “Originalism” deny the validity of its amendments.

But what causes him such concern is that the Act of Congress might interfere with “state sovereignty”, which are words not to be found in the Constitution.

But enough said about a Supreme Court justice who claims to be a close adherent to the Constitution.

The Sequester

This is a calamity that has me scratching my head.

It was not so long ago that my friends on the Left were clamoring for the President to allow the country to go over the fiscal cliff unless Republicans caved, and agreed to the President’s proposal that the Bush tax cuts be extended for all except those making over $250,000.

Or in Paul Krugman’s words: “So what should he do? Just say no, and go over the cliff if necessary… This time, nothing very bad will happen to the economy if agreement isn’t reached until a few weeks or even a few months into 2013.” And “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

And the headline on an article in the Atlantic dated November 21, 2012 screamed: “The Fiscal Cliff Is Not as Scary as You Think (but a Bad Deal Should Terrify You).”

But what would have been defined as a bad deal? Well Krugman, and many others define this as:  “where they must agree to large cuts to public investment and social insurance programs like Medicare and Social Security…”

So now we have what amounts to half the Fiscal Cliff. So if the Fiscal Cliff wasn’t so bad then surely the Sequester would be even less disastrous. What does Krugman say? He calls the Sequester “one of the worst policy ideas in our nation’s history.”

Now I happen to agree with Krugman on the Sequester. It is indeed one of the “worst policy ideas in our nation’s history”. It was designed to be! The theory having been that if this terrible idea was the alternative to a balanced approach, the balanced approach would win out. But this theory didn’t take into account the extent of the Republican commitment to protecting the rich and destroying everything that does not fully serve the interests of the rich.
So where does that leave us. Is preventing any changes to Social Security and Medicare really the most important thing on the planet? Certainly, the President should never agree to the Republican plan for these programs which amount to their abolition. But does it follow that all changes must be resisted as the many “liberal” organizations are urging? Or as the Campaign for America’s Future calls it; “the Grand Swindle.”

Whether we like it or not according to the Social Security Administration, in 1940 life expectancy for males (at age 65) was 12.7 years. In 1990 it was 15.3. As I said in my blog post entitled "The President’s re-election (More Discussion)," “I have nothing earlier or later, but if we go back to 1930 and forward to 2015 we can assume that it is double that, or 6 years. 

So an increase to 71 for males would be justified. Or we could consider changing it altogether, to kick in after 40 years of work. This would have the advantage that those who start work earlier, usually the under class, could draw earlier than those going to college, who earn more and are more advantaged. The figure for women as of 1940 are 14.7 and for 1990 19.6, so at the risk of being sexist, it might make sense to have an older eligibility age for women than for men.” but none of my readers thought this worthy of comment and one in fact asked where I got these ridiculous statistics.

But the Social Security Administration isn’t the only source for life expectancy figures. According to the broker Fidelity “In 1935, when the Social Security Administration was founded, the average life expectancy was about 62 years. Today's average life expectancy is over 78 years.”

I am familiar with the argument that blue collar worker’s have a shorter life expectancy than the more affluent, but that is precisely why I think changes along the lines outlined above should be considered. But I would go further. The payroll tax is 6.2 percent on income under $113,700 and an additional 6.2 percent on the employer. That is a bearable tax on middle and upper-income earners, but it is a devastating tax for those making little, and those earning the minimum wage, which at present is nationally $7.25 an hour, or just over $15,000 a year. Many don’t even make the minimum wage. Isn’t it time that we removed this onerous tax from these people, and all those making under $30,000 or even $50,000 and made it, like the income tax, a graduated tax.

Of course the money would have to be made up by such devices, among others, as raising the eligibility age, removing the cap for the tax, increasing the tax on the affluent, taxing those who have other income, e.g. above $100,000, so that they would in effect get no benefits and possibly increasing the benefits for those having no, or little, other income.
These are not reforms that would bring joy to the Right, and therefor are not tenable at this time, but it isn’t time for a conversation, instead of the cry “no changes."

And may not some of the damage done by the sequester be even worse then being flexible on entitlements? For example, according to the White House, the effect of the sequester, just in the Washington area, would mean, “About 2,000 poor children would lose access to early education. In the area of public health, less funding would mean 31,400 fewer HIV tests and thousands of children may not get necessary vaccines in Georgia."
Is there less concern about these effects then about entitlements because these sequester effects would have less impact on the Middle Class? Are the concerns so heavily weighted about entitlements, the concerns of a predominately White Middle class, who are more concerned with their entitlements, than with the effects on the most vulnerable.

It is time to ask that question!!!

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Originalism - A Constitutional doctrine without validity

In my last three commentaries I have been demonstrating how the doctrines propounded by the Right for judicial interpretation are fallacious and downright dishonest. I strongly urge my readers to reread these articles

I would also urge readers to read my analysis on the meaning of a Right wing Supreme Court which I published in October of 2005 under the title, “The Supreme Court - Consequences As New Appointees Shift Its Balance and the short add-on entitled, “The Debate About Supreme Court Nominees”

In these articles I demonstrated that the term activist judges more appropriately applies to the Right Wing of the court which strike down acts of elected legislatures with far greater frequency than the liberal judges and that “calling balls and strikes” is a misnomer which has no place in a realistic understanding of how the Constitution and the laws passes by Congress are interpreted.

Another favorite catch phrase used by the Right is that of “Originalism” by which the Right of the Court and in the Congress claim that they strive to interpret the Constitution by the original intent of the founders. I may be wrong but I believe that the term had its origin with Robert Bork, that highly controversial Reagan nominee to the Court who was denied confirmation by the Senate as being far, far too Right. Yet Bork himself admits that it is a doctrine that in the real world cannot be applied. In a book that he co-authored he writes in its Introduction:

“Regrettably, but perhaps inevitably, ‘[t]he ink was not yet dry on the Constitution when its revision began.’ Almost immediately, Congress began pressing beyond specifically enumerated powers granted it in Article I. As a result, today, Americans encounter a national government far more expansive than the Framers and men of their generation could ever have imagined…

“Uncertainty stems, in part, from the recognition that the scope of the commerce power has expanded so far beyond the original understanding of that power's boundaries that any attempt to adhere strictly to its original meaning today would likely be futile and inappropriate… “There is no possibility, today, of adhering completely to the original constitutional design. Such a daring plan would require overturning the New Deal, the Great Society, and almost all of the vast network of federal legislation and regulation put in place in the last two-thirds of the twentieth century. It appears that the American people would be overwhelmingly against such a change and no court would attempt to force it upon them.”

And at a later point he goes on to say: “When the world has changed but the underlying constitutional principle remains, the task for those ‘in this generation [is] to discern how the framers' values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply to the world we know.’ The world we know includes the long-standing jurisprudence on the commerce power because ‘[w]hen there is a known principle to be explicated the evolution of a doctrine is inevitable."

So much for the claim that liberals on the court are activists and that Right-wingers are originalists. It is a phony paradigm. As I have stated before, judges are human and what they read into the vague text of laws or the Constitution, whether Left or Right, is informed by their backgrounds and their political philosophy. To argue otherwise is either insincere or naïve.

As for the loud cries against using references to foreign law in interpreting the Constitution that too is a misplaced argument. First it is not only the liberal Justices who make such references. Justices Kennedy and O’Connor both appointed by Reagan have supported this.

Secondly when we look to the Declaration of Independence we find the phrase, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” and the Constitution’s Bill of Rights in amendment VII refers to the “common law” which every lawyer knows is a reference to the decisions of British courts preceding the founding of the U.S.

It is again a tempest in a teapot without reason.

Just how little respect for due process the present five Justices of the Right have can be seen in their recent decision in DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE FOR THE THIRD JUDICIAL DISTRICT ET AL. v. OSBORNE which held that a state is not obligated to allow DNA testing where it would conclusively show whether a man convicted of rape was, in fact guilty. See the Washington Post’s story on it here.

In that case the District Court granted Osborne summary judgment, concluding that he had a limited constitutional right to the new testing under the unique and specific facts presented, i.e., that such testing had been unavailable at trial, that it could be accomplished at almost no cost to the State, and that the results were likely to be material. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, relying on the prosecutorial duty to disclose exculpatory evidence under, e.g., Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83.

Finally, I strongly urge those who have an interest in these issues to listen to Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island on Sotmayor nomination, which can be listened to in full here. The speech is 21 minutes long but I think that the investment of your time will be more than rewarded, though the first minute or two will not hold the reader spellbound.

The issues involved in these court decisions in many ways outweigh those pending in the Congress, and I urge you to take the time to read and listen, if you desire an understanding of the forces at work.