Dan Choi Discusses Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy With Hardball's Chris Matthews. Matthews' Does Not Get That Fundamental Human Rights Should Not Depend Upon Winning A Vote!

Dan Choi is right and Chris Mathews is wrong. Mathews does not know the law. He should.  All the Obama administration had to do was not appeal the ruling of the federal court in California which over turned the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"policy. There is no constitutional requirement for the Supreme Court to decide any case. In fact the only way this case could reach the Supreme Court is if the government appealed the Federal District court decision to the Federal Court of Appeals and then the losing party appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. It is sad that Chris Mathews does not understand such a basic concept of American law. The Obama administration's Attorneys General, Eric holder appealed the decision as a matter of tradition, not law.  Generally the executive branch appeals federal court rulings challenging legislative acts. There was no requirement that the Obama administration do this in this case. This was a political decision, not a legal one. I believe it was an immoral, utilitarian choice by the administration.  The administration should be ashamed of its spineless action in the face of such injustice.
John H. Armwood

Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues - NYTimes.com

Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues - NYTimes.com

RICHMOND, Va. — As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

It is the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court, and Mrs. Thomas is just getting started. “Liberty Central will be bigger than the Tea Party movement,” she told Fox News in April, at a Tea Party rally in Atlanta.

But to some people who study judicial ethics, Mrs. Thomas’s activism is raising knotty questions, in particular about her acceptance of large, unidentified contributions for Liberty Central. She began the group in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors. Such tax-exempt groups are supposed to make sure that less than half of their activities are political.

Mrs. Thomas, known as Ginni, declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed without an agreement not to discuss her husband. In written responses to questions, Sarah Field, Liberty Central’s chief operating officer and general counsel, said that Mrs. Thomas is paid by Liberty Central, with the compensation set by the group’s board, and that the group has “internal reviews and protections to ensure that no donor causes a conflict of interest for either Ginni or her husband.”

Nonprofit groups with political agendas like Liberty Central are operating in this election cycle under evolving legal and regulatory standards, most notably the ruling last January by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case, which eased restrictions on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. In that case, Justice Thomas, long an advocate of dismantling campaign finance restrictions, was in the 5-to-4 majority. Wealthy individuals and some corporations, emboldened by the ruling, are giving to such groups to influence the election but still hide their tracks.

Unlike many other conservative nonprofit groups that are pouring donations into television advertising to benefit Republican candidates, Liberty Central has not done so, and it is not clear whether it will.

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Supreme Court, Not What You Thought: Final Part VI,The Warren Years | The Moderate Voice

Image via WikipediaSupreme Court, Not What You Thought: Final Part VI,The Warren Years | The Moderate Voice

When Fred Vinson died in the fall of 1953, with Brown v. Board Of Education still undecided and congress out of session, Earl Warren became the second Chief Justice to reach the position by recess appointment. Not wanting to suffer the fate of George Washington’s recess appointee who went unconfirmed, Warren calculated the impact on southern members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and remained silent on Brown v. Board of Education until his confirmation had been secured.

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