Defending Alito on Christmas Eve

The NY Times Christmas Eve anti-Alito editorial is a big vicious lie and a distortion of Alito’s record.

The take on the editorial is that Alito believes that Presidents have infinite power, and because of this you should be very afraid of him. This is utter bull. As a lawyer working for the executive branch, he did his job writing memos supporting the positions his superiors told him to. That’s what lawyers do, advocate for one side or another.

There is one particular case the NY Times editorial mentions, saying “The Supreme Court flatly rejected Judge Alito's view of the law. In a 1985 ruling, the court rightly concluded ...” The blog Confirm Them points out that in the case in question, the Supreme Court decision was 4-3, so Alito's memo could hardly be said to be out in left field.

The only specific judicial decision of Alito’s that the Times editorial comes up with to demonstrate its point is in the following quote:

In his judicial opinions, Judge Alito has shown a lack of respect for Congressional power - notably when he voted to strike down Congress's ban on machine guns as exceeding its constitutional authority.

The above decision points us to the opposite conclusion. As a judge, Alito believes the federal government has only limited powers, making him exactly the kind of justice that freedom loving Americans would want on the Court.

Comments

[mikeca]

Yes, this is what we need. A Supreme Court justice that will stand up for the right of terrorists to buy machine guns, mortars, artillery pieces, and tanks. The war on terror is currently too one sided, with the government having all the big guns. We need to give the terrorists an equal right to arm themselves.

Isn’t that what the framers meant by “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

What is the difference between a militia and a terrorist group anyway?

Get real.

[pierre]

mikeca:

i'm sorry for this and i usually avoid personal attacks, but if you're so stupid and uninformed to understand that the decision you so ignorantly write about was about the congress's authority to legislate under the commerce clause, then you really should go back under what ever rock you crawled from under. the case could have just as easily been about writing pens, staplers or whatever.

too bad that joe biden and the rest of his democratic demogogues use this alito's decision in this case and the utter ignorance of people like you to tarnish this well qualified judge.

[mikeca]

I of course did not read the particular decision being discussed here because you failed to link to it, and I am not about to go search for it.

Obviously you completely failed to understand the point of my comment, and instead chose to engage in name calling because I did not read a decision you did not link too.

We are engaged in a war on terror. There are people in this country or trying to get into this country that want to kill you using the biggest weapons they can get their hand on. Maybe you think you can protect yourself from terrorists on your own, but most people look to the Federal Government to protect them and this country from terrorists and keeping dangerous weapons out of their hands is an important part of that. The last thing we need is one of these wing-nut judges on the Supreme Court who believes that the Federal Government does not have the power to do anything, and thinks he is still living in the 19th century. It does not matter what legal grounds Alito used to come to this conclusion, it is a conclusion that is out of the mainstream of Judicial rulings in the last 50 years and would endanger the safety of every American. This makes him exactly the wrong kind of justice that freedom loving Americans would want on the Court.

[pierre]

Well, the first problem would be that you criticized a decision that you did not read - the problem with this is obvious.

Second, this decision is hardly out of the mainstream of judicial rulings of the last 50 years. In fact, the Supreme Court has actually been moving back towards a view that the commerce clause has meaning. See US v. Lopez, 514 US 549. http://www.agh-attorneys.com/4_us_v_lopez.htm

i can hardly agree that "freedom loving" means that you disregard the constitution when you find its parameters inconvenient. the commerce clause is a part of the constitution and congress must act in regulation of interstate commerce when it legislates (the civil rights cases notwithstanding). suggesting that the congress only has the power to act within its constitutional authority does not mean that congress has the power to do nothing, but only those things permitted by the constitution. that, sir, is the essence of a constitutional government and perhaps democracy itself.

read up on the commerce clause and what it has meant in the past and what it currently means. I suggest emmanuel's constitutional law outline. it has an excellent overview of the issue of the commerce clause and its limits.

[mikeca]

In the Lopez case the SC ruled that possession of a handgun in a school zone did not affect interstate commerce when possession of handguns was permitted in other locations, and so could not be regulated by Congress. The other recent commerce clause case is the medical marijuana case (http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1454.ZO.html), where the court ruled 6-3 that Congress could outlaw growing and possession of marijuana even when a person is growing it for their own personal medical use and when state law specifically allows that.

If the commerce clause allows Congress to outlaw growing marijuana for your personal medical use, then it should allow Congress to outlaw the manufacture or sale of machine guns.

We are fighting terrorism. We need a government that has the power to protect its people.

[pierre]

we're getting closer. good catch with the medical marijuana case. but remember that the issue is whether congress has the authority to legislate.

its fine that you, judge alito and i disagree about the limits imposed by the commerce clause. what is not fine is that you don't understand that the case is not about machine guns or marijuana, but congressional authority.

[Half Sigma]

Prohibiting handguns near schools has nothing to do with fighting terrorism.

[Meg]

Because I do love freedom, and not only my own, I do worry about judges who would construe federal authority too narrowly.

Don't forget that the segregationists of the Jim Crow South also wanted a narrow construction.

Meg