Letters on appointing new Supreme Court justice, campaigning from pulpit, George W. Bush

Now GOP wants to ignore Constitution

For seven years, the Republicans have been accusing President Obama of trampling on the Constitution. So immediately they are calling on him to trample on the Constitution, benefiting them, by not nominating a new U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Article 2 of the Constitution states that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... judges of the Supreme Court.”

Enter Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Guess what? The people did have a voice in this. They elected Barack Obama to be president for eight years. So much for Republicans being strict constitutionalists.

Court seized power

If the fate of a nation rests on a single Supreme Court nomination, that can only mean the court has become too powerful and gone beyond the powers envisioned by our founders. The court’s mission is to interpret law, not act as a dictatorial body unrestrained by the legislature.

By what measure has our Constitution given the court power to bus your children into other neighborhoods, allow abortion or deem homosexual marriage legal? None. The court has seized that extra-constitutional power for itself and acts as a dictatorial body unrestrained by the will of the governed.

Cross out the word “judge” and replace it with “Caesar” or “Fuhrer” and the end has become the same – unelected government officials forcing themselves on an unwilling population. Your life and children have become subjects of social experimentation at the hands of activist judges who not only have ceded to themselves the power of judge but usurped the role of jury and executioner as well.

At what point in our democracy do we apply the brakes to an errant court that has overstepped its constitutional boundary?

GOP obstruction

Do you think for one minute that a sitting Republican president wouldn’t nominate a Supreme Court justice in his last year? Republicans want it their way or no way. They will try to block any nomination the president puts forth, as they have tried to block everything he has put forth for the past seven years.

It is his constitutional duty to nominate a justice. Republicans don’t want a black man to have a successful administration.

It’s pretty bad when the GOP leader in the Senate says, even before Justice Antonin Scalia’s internment, that the president shouldn’t do his job.

OK to share pulpit?

A rather revealing article informed us that Bernie Sanders had to “share the pulpit” with his Democratic rival at an African-American church in Las Vegas on Sunday (Feb. 15 Eagle). Really? Campaigning in a tax-exempt church? Or is it OK for Democrats to openly ignore the frequently misinterpreted principle of separation of church and state?

Shouldn’t this be a case where Americans United for Separation of Church and State promptly and actively gets involved? After all, Americans United has been responsible for court cases and legislation by which religion and religious activity have been effectively stripped from the public scene.

Didn’t keep us safe

I do not agree with Donald Trump on a lot of things, but I agree with him on George W. Bush and Sept. 11. It happened on Bush’s watch, so he did not keep us safe (though he did keep us safe after Sept. 11, 2001).

Jeb Bush will have to accept the fact that his brother did not keep us safe.

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letters on appointing new Supreme Court justice, campaigning from pulpit, George W. Bush."