THE PENDULUM SWINGS: TRUMP IS BITCH SLAPPING THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT

THE TIMES MAKE THE MAN &

CANDIDATE TRUMP IS A PRODUCT OF THESE TIMES

COMMENTARY

(Friday February 26, 2016, NY, NY)  The chickens have come home to roost.  You reap what you sow.  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  What goes around comes around.  You get the point. 

The runway that Trump now occupies going into Super Tuesday was ground initially worked, plowed, and cleared of rocks and stumps by self-righteous blowhards like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and other self-appointed members of the “conscience” of the Conservative wing of the GOP.

Corrupt vile charlatans including Little Bitch Mitch McConnell and his cronies in the Senate and the wing nut Tea Party affiliated cluster of Representatives in the House have worked the steamrollers and pavers without considering even the remote possibility that all their collective outrage and energy would clear the way for a man such as “The Donald” to capture the Republican Party’s nomination.  Their collective fears now appear to be a good, reeking load of karmic rhino shit being dropped on their heads.  Yes, it has taken a while but the public is awake and man, are they angry. 

The rise of Donald Trump as the potential Republican presidential nominee is the direct result of what our federal government has become.  At no time in our history has the divide in Congress been more divisibly toxic, rabidly partisan, viciously infused by crass politics, and dangerously dysfunctional as it is today and has been for the last eight years.  Now, finally, the gig is up.  The blatant corruption and immorality of Congress has been laid bare to the American public.  To this point, some recent events such as the Republican Congressional “leadership” stated position of not even allowing a hearing for any Supreme Court nominee put forth by President Obama amply illustrates their collective disdain for the Constitution and of the duties of their Office.

It is no wonder that a man like Donald Trump has become the front runner in the GOP primary season and very well may take the nomination.  If the times make the man then certainly candidate Trump is a product of this time in American politics.  It has been amusing to witness the uproar and outrage from the GOP “Establishment” as well as the pundit chattering class on the news/infotainment networks that Trump is not only a viable candidate but has been leading virtually every pole since last July.  He has scored three primary victories already and, after next Tuesday, “Super Tuesday”, has may emerge with a substantial number of delegates. 

The pundits and prognosticators become almost apoplectic as they stutter and stammer over the fact that Trump is not conducting his campaign in a “conventional” fashion, has unbridled disdain for them and the entire GOP “Establishment”, and does not speak in “specifics”.  Obviously, for a large percentage of voters, the last things they want to hear are the pandering platitudes, the hollow political rhetoric, and endless blather about the myriad policy issues the candidates spew out but are essentially meaningless, repetitive, and just so much bullshit wrapped in different packaging. This very same Establishment is planning measures to derail, block or otherwise interfere with the primary process as it becomes increasingly clear that Trump might be their standard-bearer.   They should, however, exercise great caution and proceed at their own peril because, unlike any of the other contenders, Trump has and is building on a growing block of loyal voters.  The appearance of GOP dealmakers working to thwart Trump and deny the many who have thus far voted for him, could spell their doom.  It is that mindset, the Washington, DC “knows better” attitude that is among the many points of contention between those elected and those who do the electing.

In what is the best, most concise summary of how the GOP has gotten to where they are, it is in the spot on words of highly regarded Republican media strategist Alex Castellanos who recently commented, “If our self-indulgent Republican party establishment had really wanted to prevent a takeover of the GOP, they should not have gorged on political power while they failed to do anything to prevent the decline of the country. Our leaders could have led. They could have done more than say 'no' to Democrats while offering no alternative.

"They should have stood up for the change Donald Trump is bringing now but they didn’t.

Now, Trump has earned the nomination. He won it, fair and square and we should respect that. Donald Trump whipped the establishment and it is too late for the limp GOP establishment to ask their mommy to step in and rewrite the rules because they were humiliated for their impotence.

If Trump is going to be our nominee, as I believe he is, it is our mission to support Trump and make him the best nominee and president possible."

Every time Mr. Trump insults, offends, belittles, dismisses or otherwise treats some individual or group with open disdain, the professional politicos have loudly insisted that such comments automatically render him unfit for the Office he seeks, mentally unstable, unhinged, unelectable and, by virtue of his own words, self-disqualifying.  It is this very attitude that has allowed the GOP to be in the position they are in. Trump’s boisterous often angry sentiments, broad criticisms railing against the “establishment” and always against the “press” that comprise his rousing boilerplate stump speeches (that are all virtually ad lib, by the way) has been the mortar that has allowed Trump to assemble a solid core constituency, a “base” of his own.

Trump’s hostile takeover approach to securing the support needed to elevate him to the candidacy of the GOP has the entire establishment in Washington, DC scurrying around in confusion and fear that their stranglehold on the machinery of our Democratic Republic is in serious jeopardy.  A Trump victory in the general election would be a powerful mandate, an unmistakable statement from and by the people who have frankly had enough of the same old politicians, the ossified partisan stances of both Parties, and a true measure of just how tough life has become for the middle class, working poor, under employed, dealing with stagnant wages, increased loads of debt, and a dismal outlook for their future and the future of their children.

It is laughable now to see all the hypocrisy of the Far Right for what it is; they created the climate for Trump and are now terrified of him and what his candidacy might mean for their Party.  For what it’s worth all of this couldn’t be happening to a well-deserving group of people.  The GOP Establishment has long played fast and loose with the Constitution and all levers of our governmental apparatus and have supplanted partisan politics for some degree of functional governance.  All the GOP bigwigs are proclaiming Trump’s “blatant” lying which is more than ironic since lies are the very commodities they peddle.

In fairness to Trump let’s imagine he actually becomes our President.  He is a businessman and he would likely have to take a businessman’s approach to the Oval Office. He would be a manager and surround himself with experienced people from various industries and expertise,  delegate a substantial amount of the detailed work, and act as a figurehead, a mouthpiece much as the dimwitted Republican icon Ronald Reagan did.  Yes, he is not a politician and that alone may allow him to break the gridlock in Washington.  Clearly by sheer force of his persona and demonstrated willingness to go after any and every one who gets in his cross-hairs might be what is needed to shake loose the ossified Congress.  He would rail day in and day out directly to the public shaming Congress into action.

However this plays out there has been a tectonic shift in our social and culture underpinnings that are manifest in this poisonous form of politics.  But, it should not come as a surprise given how the GOP has chosen to operate during the past seven years.  Yes, the bill has come due.  Time to pay the piper.

Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2016 © All Rights Reserved

VETERANS DAY 2014

THE UNEQUAL BURDEN
 OF SACRIFICE UNSHARED

A VETERANS DAY COMMENTARY

(Updated Wednesday November 12, 2014)

(Tuesday November 11, 2014, NYC)  It was once the great equalizer, the common experience that was the cementing mortar that held our society together.  When sacrifice is borne by all; shared across all strata of society, it creates a stronger more cohesive nation more prone towards unity than division. 

We are engaged and have been actively fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and other lesser known locales under the auspices of our “war on terror” with an entirely volunteer military.  The generation of combat veterans, young warriors who have seen fierce, brutal battle, represent a mere 1% of their peer group and many of those who volunteered prior to September 11, 2001, had enlisted into the Reserves and National Guard primarily for the educational benefits used to attract young men and women to the military services.  Few, if any signed up for multiple deployments and the stresses that accompany such involvement.

LOOKING BACK: VIETNAM

By January 1973 we were a war weary country; a people who had long past the point of supporting our efforts in the jungles of that far off place that became synonymous with guerrilla warfare and the harsh brutalities of fighting a largely unseen enemy in an environment they knew intimately.  The public, particularly the parents of the young men and women serving in Vietnam were questioning the strategy, tactics and the rationale for continuing this protracted campaign, a campaign that would never grant us a clearly defined victory. 

And it was that year of 1973 on January 27th that President Nixon put a moratorium on the military draft and ultimately did away with it for good.  No longer would our military services be comprised of conscripts; service would from that time forward be voluntary.  Our country lost much in this exchange, perhaps far more than anyone could have realized back in that troubled summer of protest and open defiance of the draft in 1972 that culminated in the complete end of the draft as announced by Nixon on January 27, 1973. By the time the last troops were finally airlifted out of a riotous Saigon on April 30, 1975, the country and military would slowly come to terms with what felt like a defeat but Nixon called “Peace with Honor.”  For much of the nation and the military itself, the after effects known as the “Vietnam Hangover” set in and would ossify our military for years to come.  The military had lost its luster and had been marred by the harsh realities our troops had experienced and witnessed during a war like no one we had seen up to that time in our history.  It would take the military almost two decades to develop new strategies and tactics for guerrilla, “asymmetrical” warfare.

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW

The Vietnam era marked the end of the concept of shared sacrifice.  No longer would young men from every city and town, of every race and creed, from every rung on the socioeconomic ladder forever have memories and at least that one similarity.  The country went from every young man being in “The Service” to a massive retreat from the military and an insidious vilification of Vietnam veterans, the kind of hostility and disdain previous legions of veterans had never experienced.  Those were dark days and it would be many years before the American public found their collectively lost spine and once again were willing to send troops to combat zones. 

But the troops who were sent to fight our battles were often drawn from the lowest caste of society.  The military became a refuge for those without other opportunities, for men and women to escape poverty and perhaps learn a trade of some kind that would allow them to prosper, at least minimally, in civilian life.  However, no matter their points of origin or intentions, they served with courage and valor whenever called upon to do so.

The shared sacrifice and common experience of past generations of veterans has become cheaply replaced by a largely unaffected public who fly the American flag in front of their homes and have “Support our Troops” bumper stickers on their pick-ups as if these are potent symbols of a patriot.  They are no such thing.  Most young people today and their parents wouldn’t think of having a son or daughter enlist in the military.  They have seen what those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq have been through; the multiple deployments because of a shortage of ready and qualified troops, a Veterans Administration system completely unprepared to adequately care for the thousands upon thousands of returning veterans with traumatic limb amputations, brain injuries and other horrific battle wounds as well as the unknown battalions of those who suffer, often in silence, wracked by PTSD, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment and even homelessness. An extremely disturbing and sad fact is that every 65 hours another combat veteran takes his or her own life.

When suicide on that scale becomes the norm there is something institutionally, almost sinfully wrong.  We as a people have not held up our end of "The Pact", the once sacred Covenant that assures our veterans of the care they need.   What are we as a country, as a people, that we stand idly by while tens of thousands of young people suffer these medical and mental maladies and the indignities of hunger, poverty and homelessness?  What is the message we are sending our veterans and anyone considering enlisting?  The answers to these questions say much about our shared neglect and that is directly related to our loss of shared experience.

RE-INSTITUTE THE DRAFT

There was a time when virtually all our elected officials including those in the Senate and House had served in the military.  Those men (those bodies were composed largely of men until the mid-1970’s) who had first-hand experience of the horrors of combat were far more deliberate and reluctant to put American troops “in harm’s way” without a clear threat to our national security or vital national interests.  Former Five Star General and United States President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the famed World War II commander of the European theater of operations, often spoke of the caution that ought to be used before committing our troops to battle.  He also warned of the vast “military–industrial–congressional complex” that was developing towards his last years as President and how war-making was becoming a lucrative endeavor as the Cold War was developing.  Had his prescient warnings been heeded much of American military history over the last 60 years would have been very different.

If the chicken hawks and war-mongers in Congress continue to seek to commit our troops as they see fit, this time of perpetual warfare cannot be sustained solely by enlistees.  It is a matter of simple arithmetic and attrition.  There are only so many active troops available for foreign forays into ill-defined missions without fully understanding the stakes involved or even the facts on the ground, history of the warring factions and why, exactly, are “we” there. Military incursions without a clearly defined and acknowledged "exit strategy" will inevitably devolve into a murky quagmire. Once sucked into a quagmire and "nation building" our formidable military might is reduced to the facts on the ground which are always to our disadvantage. 

On this Veteran’s Day we should spend a moment contemplating the true meaning of the day, reexamine what patriotism means to us, and learn to not be content to blindly follow our elected officials into untenable combat circumstances.  We have intervened enough in the last 13 years.  We should also find it within ourselves the sufficient amount of gratitude that should be bestowed upon all veterans no matter when or where they served.  They are truly the best of us as a people and represent us best as a country.

 Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2014 © All Rights Reserved

JUSTICE MAY BE BLIND BUT SHE SURE IS RIGHTEOUS

HOBBY LOBBY SUPREME COURT VICTORY:

CONTRARY TO THE CONSTITUTION?

The Supreme Court Justices and how they voted

In the Hobby Lobby case yesterday.

TAGS: SUPREME COURT HOBBY LOBBY DECISION,

MAJORITY VOTES AGAINST WOMEN’S HEALTH,

LAW V. DOCTRINE?, CONSERVATIVE VICTORY,

RULING WILL NOT BE “NARROWLY APPLIED”,

EXPOSING HOW MUCH OF THEIR OWN RELIGIOSITY

THEY BRING TO THEIR JOB,REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY,

(Tuesday July 1, 2014 Washington, DC)   In the wake of yesterday’s highly controversial decision in the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), there have been passionate reactions on both sides of the argument.  Obviously the “Religious Right” faction of the Republican Party perceives the ruling as a clear victory while the “Left”, primarily Democrats, envision a dimmer future for women’s health issues. As is so often the case the Court’s 5 – 4 decision broke along Party lines with the majority representing Justices appointed by Republican presidents and the dissenting minority having made it to the Court during Democratic administrations.  Looking beneath this equation one catches a glimpse of the religiosity (or lack thereof) that influences the Justices that is by itself worthy of further examination.  When John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960 there were many who were suspicious of his Catholicism fearing his allegiance to the Pope and Vatican would overly influence his decision making process.  That did not happen at that time but religious influences have ever so slowly come to shroud the political landscape like a creeping ground fog.

Despite our form of jurisprudence as defined in the Constitution and its Amendments, politics is an influential element in our courts on all levels and it is most prominent when one looks at the Supreme Court.  Supreme Court Justices are appointed to a lifelong tenure on the bench; they retire when they want to; there is no method by which to alter the make-up of the Court besides having a president of one Party or other presented with the opportunity to nominate a candidate of his or her own political persuasion if a vacancy occurs during their tenure in the White House.  So, by its very nature SCOTUS is a political body in that each Justice brings a political ideology and philosophy with them to our highest court.  Anyone who doubts this reality need look no further back in our recent history to the Bush v. Gore case.  The Supreme Court literally interfered with the recount of presidential recounts in certain counties in Florida and abruptly shut that process down essentially handing the United States presidency to George W. Bush.  The political aspect of that decision has resulted in the current composition of the Supreme Court in that two of the sitting Justices’ were appointed by President George W. Bush.

A LONG RUNNING CONFLICT

Beginning in the middle of the last century the Supreme Court - and all lower courts in the land - found themselves confronting issues that were not explicitly delineated in the Constitution.  As they faced issues involving ethics and morals as much as the law itself, there developed two brands of judicial identity.  On one hand were the “Strict Constructionists” claiming their position as the “one and only true” application of the Constitution and the volumes of precedents predicated upon Constitutional law.  The other hand held those justices who were inclined to claim the constitutionality of a particular issue using their “interpretation” of the Constitution, known as “loose Constructionism”, were paving roads far afield from the “original intent” of the men who wrote our Constitution. There have been groundbreaking, precedent setting decisions based on the “Framers Intent” which is often derisively viewed as “extra-Constitutional” reasoning by its critics.  After all, as the decades went by an increasing number of SCOTUS cases involved matters the Founding Fathers could never have envisioned and in some of these cases the overarching contention was one of applying Framer’s Intent. 

As this divide became a deeper schism, the strict constitutionalists labelled their opponents as “activist judges” meaning, under a guise of smoke and mirrors, semantics and some degree of theoretical extrapolation, these judges were actually “legislating from the bench” usurping those powers granted only to Congress.  Perhaps each side of this gulf had some merit to their assertions.  After all, the American Constitution was meant to be, as some assert, to be a “living document” allowing for the continued relevance in our ever evolving society.  But was it truly meant to be living?  Those who oppose this interpretation find little, if any, leeway, malleability or room to maneuver when it comes to the Constitution. They hold the Constitution in great esteem and view it to be aging gracefully and adroitly, still vigorously adept enough to handle the complex issues of today.  The other side sees it more of a growing organism that needs to periodically be pulled or pushed in a direction that it might otherwise not find on its own accord as a means of keeping the Constitution relevant as we continue to grow as a Country, develop an increasingly diverse and disparate populace and exist in a cultural/social milieu the Founders could not foresee.   Both viewpoints are each part of the same double-edged sword; their arguments are off-setting in that they cancel each other out.

SHAKING A FOUNDING PRINCIPLE?

We are a country founded on the notion of freedom of religion.  Some of our earliest settlers were fleeing religious oppression in European countries many of which enforced a “State Religion”.  In those countries there was no choice as to whom or what to believe in, pray to, or what catechism to hold allegiance with.  Some of the darkest periods in the history of mankind saw gross atrocities committed in the name of one god or another, one religious view or another, or the usually ill-fated attempts to convert others by force and violence.  It has been written that if God was to appear before us today and hold us account for all of our transgressions committed in His name, He would be appalled.  But human nature seems to predispose us towards beliefs of a higher being, a divine entity, a life force, maker, grand designer or some other superior elder ever watchful over his people.  But, as our Founding Fathers saw with such brilliant crystal clarity, there must be a complete separation between Church and State.  Freedom demands it.

For most of our history the separation of Church and State was accepted unambiguously. While the exact words “separation of Church and State” are not in the Constitution, the First Amendment does say that government shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  It has only been in the last 50 years or so that there have been legal issues with either overt religious questions at their core or some with inclinations encroaching on that hallowed barrier between Church and State that have led to some dubiously ambiguous judgments obscuring that heretofore hallowed barrier.

Since the post-Civil War era of Reconstruction the SCOTUS has had to rule on some very thorny issues with each side of the argument finding some biblical footing.  In some landmark cases such as the Dred Scott Decision where the Court ruled that a slave, even a “freed” slave was not a citizen of the United States their judgment would not stand the test of time.  Years later a different Court in a different time reversed that ruling providing a clear starting point to what would develop into many decades of a Civil Rights movement seeking equality for “all men” no matter the color of their skin.  After all the bruising years of that often bloody movement the first issue with unbridled religious overtones, an issue that plagues us to this very day despite being legalized by the Supreme Court in the seminal Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, is the right for a woman to have an abortion.  Before that case abortions were often performed in unsanitary conditions by untrained practitioners and an untold number of pregnant women died in obscurity sometimes alienated from their families. Many of those survived the “back alley” procedures scarred and unable to conceive due to damage inflicted during the “illegal” aborting a pregnancy by choice.  If there is any point of reference and prominence in the last 40 years of SCOTUS rulings that has ignited a debate between Right and Left, Republican and Democrat it is abortion.  Republicans lean to the “Right to Life” of the unborn child while the Democrats staunchly defend their hard fought “Pro Choice” position which has been the law of the land since 1973.  Despite the legal status of abortion for the last 41 years, it remains one of the most hotly contested issues and, as we saw yesterday, it and other womens health matters such as birth control, remains under attack from a vicious far rightwing faction of the Religious Right as well as “mainstream” Republicans.  It is what both sides consider as a “red meat” issue used to inflame the passions of their respective “base” constituents.

MORALS AND ETHICS

What good are all of our Constitutional rights and the huge body of laws built atop them if, for all intents and purposes, they appear devoid of any sense of morals or ethics.  We live with some laws that outright trump the lowest of the low clearances of morality and ethics with casual ease while wantonly cloaking other more trenchant matters in quasi-sacrosanct absolutes with questionable moral and ethical underpinnings.  We use our Faith as a weapon to bludgeon those of other Faiths, or no apparent faith, or self-proclaimed agnostics and atheists.  Yes, we are a church-going, God-fearing nation of stalwart true believers as long as it all comports well with our affiliations, politics and personal liberties.  If my god is the one “true” god, by virtue of that lone belief, I possess the high moral ground. Where is the moral “high ground”; is it codified in law or doctrine, statutes or dogma?

This thinking begs the question that just because something is or is not legal does that make it – or not – moral and ethical?  This is no rhetorical exercise or verbal sleight of hand; it speaks directly to matters that can deeply impact us as individuals, as American citizens while also impacting all of us as a society.  Most of us will likely never be in a position where our own morals and ethics will have a direct impact on those of another however; there are times when the wider world intersects with our own beliefs.  At such times many would run for the protection of the “law” and hide behind it rather than navigate that intersection alone. 

REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY

If one is to adhere to the “Right to Life” there can be no escaping the fact that that very same live, as yet unborn, once birthed, is automatically imbued with the same rights as any of us are.  The Rightwing zealots battle over an unborn fetus yet deny health care and coverage to the infant.  Holding to the Right to Life one must accept in a moral and ethical sense that there exists as urgent an imperative to see that that newborn is able to be tended to in a proper, humane manner; a manner as detailed in several passages of the Bible.  Protecting a zygote from the nanosecond of conception until birth is one matter; there comes with that “legal protection” a far greater, long termed plethora of responsibilities.  It is obvious that the most rabid of the Right to Lifers are among the most recalcitrant when it comes to the realities and needs that young girls and women face trying to properly provide for and raise that child.  Abortions are often the last recourse for young women many of whom simply have no access to proper health care, housing, nutrition or even the most remedial parenting skills.  So, one cannot truly, morally and ethically be a Pro-Lifer if in fact, you shirk the responsibilities.  Having a Congress populated by older, self-righteous white men crafting laws and bills that neglect, actually blatantly ignore, the very real, basic needs of a young mother and her infant is the apex of hypocrisy.

This latest assault on women’s health care issues focus on having their expenses covered under the insurance coverage provided by the Affordable Care Act derisively called “Obamacare” by its Republican and Conservative opponents.  Since the Supreme Court has yet to have the balance of power to reverse the Roe decision of 1973.  But, if none of the sitting Justices retire providing President Obama with the golden opportunity to put hi mark on the highest court, the day may come when Roe v. Wade is revisited.  In the meantime the Republican Party has vehemently chipped around the edges making it increasingly difficult for women to have access to proper health care including contraception and abortions.  Particularly hard hit are young women eking out a living below the poverty line be they White, African American or Latino.  How so called “Christian Conservatives” can reconcile their proud religiosity with their immoral politics defies all logic.  How these proponents of “small government” time and again insinuate themselves into the reproductive rights of women is another mind twisting logical summersault.   

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion that this ruling was “narrow” in regards to its practical application.  Alito is either unaware of the wider world or he is simply ambivalent, callously indifferent, and disingenuous.  In this day and age it is quite unbelievable that any Supreme Court Justice could actually believe that their decisions can be “narrowly applied”.  The SCOTUS rulings set legal precedent that will no doubt open the floodgates for broader applications concerning what constitutes a “private, sole ownership corporation”, one in which the employers personal beliefs can trump the health care needs of its employees.  Already there are those on the Right gearing up to widen the scope of this ruling.  To think that this decision hasn’t opened a Pandora’s Box and will only bolster and empower those on the Right to pursue further litigation is just dead wrong.  In many states it is already nearly impossible for a woman to get a medical abortion and this Hobby Lobby case will leave even more needy women out in the cold driving some of them to the horrid practices once so common prior to the Roe v. Wade case.

For all the self-professed Christianity of the Right it is stunning that they can be so devoid of conscience.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/06/30/supreme-courts-hobby-lobby-decision-puts-faith-in-compromise/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/30/politics/scotus-obamacare-contraception/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/07/01/the-supreme-courts-hobby-lobby-decision-didnt-overturn-a-single-word-of-obamacare/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/30/hobby-lobby-viagra_n_5543916.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-30/court-birth-control-ruling-opens-door-to-more-challenges.html

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/hobby-lobby-supreme-court-bush-v-gore

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/30/there_was_nothing_limited_about_scotus_hobby_lobby_ruling_why_it_matters_for_everyone/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/supreme-courts-lack-of-re_b_5545989.html

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chemerinsky-ginsburg-should-resign-20140316-story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us/hobby-lobby-case-supreme-court-contraception.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Constitution

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall10/strauss

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

 Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2014 © All Rights Reserved