Rights Receive Partial Birth Abortion

Isn't this fun, watching the rightwing tilt of the Supreme Court diminish freedom of speech for schoolkids while making sure corporate rightwing Merkins can trash the opponent right up until the hand takes hold of the voting lever? And did anyone else notice that the right wing brought cases constructed around issues of religiosity to make sure the winger Supremes knew which way was Up?

Presidential elections and judicial selections matter, the Supreme Court demonstrated Monday in a series of 5-4 rulings that underlined the court's move to the right.

President Bush filled two high court openings early in his second term with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. They wrote the main opinions in rulings that relaxed rules on corporate and union political spending, limited students' speech and shielded the White House faith-based program from legal challenge.

Five justices — Roberts, Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — formed the majority in each decision. The court's four liberals, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens, dissented each time.

Kennedy, the only justice in the majority in all 21 of the court's 5-4 decisions this term, has voted with his conservative colleagues more often in recent close cases.
(snip)
The campaign finance ruling, opening the way for deep-pocketed interests to broadcast so-called issue advertising close to elections, was a clear demonstration that changes in the court's lineup can alter a case's outcome.

In 2003, the court upheld the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which included a provision that barred interest groups from running corporate- or union-funded radio and TV ads that mention a candidate's name within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.
(snip)
Separately, Roberts endorsed First Amendment limits in his majority opinion in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case. Schools can regulate student expression that advocates the use of illegal drugs, he said.
The principal of a Juneau, Alaska, high school suspended student John Frederick who displayed the banner at a public event, provoking a civil rights lawsuit.

The court did not go as far as the Bush administration and the school district wanted, allowing schools to tamp down any speech that officials determined ran counter to their educational mission.

Alito wrote the court's opinion that said ordinary taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious charities get a share of federal money. (emphases added)

The "right to life" pretension was seemingly what gave the five neanderthals their cover to remove campaign reform, free speech for students, and give churches the right to your money via your government.

Big money took a step into the ring where it can spend itself into the oblivion of public interest, right up to the election, as long as it can find some other reason possible for running its ad. And that because these justices see themselves as the authority on women's bodies, and the arbiter of their wombs.

Schoolkids, though, lose the right to free speech when it's something to do with drugs, in this instance before the Court using a touch of religiosity to make sure the butter hits the right side of the Court's bread.

And faith based charity is immune to public protest. Your money is not your concern, if it sports that soupcon of the Supremes' favority victim, the Church Almighty.

We are in the soup, indeed. The fatuous five ruled that fetuses are much more important than rights, fear of kids bigger than free speech, and the church can pick your pocket. The Supremes gave a partial birth abortion to a lot of our rights.