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Monday, June 27, 2005

Wanniski: Thomas For Chief Justice

Jude Wanniski writes an open letter to Bush asking that Justice Thomas be appointed to replace Justice Rehnquist as Chief Justice. He closes the letter:
Mr. President, if you had already decided against Justice Thomas as I had, please reconsider. There is no one else like him in America. He was born to be Chief Justice at this time of the nation’s life.
Wanniski believes that Thomas' dissent in Kelo V New London (in which Thomas argued that logic required that the court revisit its chain of jurisprudence in the case of the takings clause) will generate support for the appointment:
But after reading Justice Thomas’s dissenting opinion in the New London, Conn. case, I think his wisdom, his judgment and his perspective so clearly fits him to be Chief Justice that the American people would not permit the kind of political firestorm that accompanied his appointment to the Court by your father 15 years ago.
And personally, Wanniski thinks the court crossed a line:
In all my years either reporting on the Supreme Court, as a newspaperman, or following its decisions as a political analyst, I’ve never encountered a decision as brazenly unconstitutional as to be frightening in its implications. My first thought was “this is communism.” Except that the government must still provide monetary compensation that another court would ultimately decide, there is nothing different from a communist expropriation of private property with the good intentions of making things better for the “community” at the expense of the landowners. The New York Times, which predictably hailed the decision under a headline, “The Limits of Property Rights,” sounded more like Pravda in its conclusion: “New London’s development plan may hurt a few small property owners, who will, in any case, be fully compensated. But many more residents are likely to benefit if the city can shore up its tax base and attract badly needed jobs.”
Mugabe in Zimbabwe comes to my mind. In his latest move, he has launched an urban revitalization campaign by bulldozing the shacks and gardens of the urban poor. The drive is called "Drive Out Trash", and apparently in this regime being poor means you are trash:
Police have begun destroying vegetable gardens planted by Zimbabwe's urban poor, extending a demolition campaign that initially targeted shacks and street vendor kiosks.
and:
The crackdown – at a time of food shortages in Zimbabwe – is the latest escalation in the government's monthlong Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, which has seen police torch the shacks of poor city dwellers, arrest street vendors and demolish their kiosks.
According to some insiders, the move is a deliberate political reprisal:
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change has accused the 81-year-old Mugabe of imitating Cambodia's former Pol Pot regime by driving pro-MDC urban voters back to rural areas for "re-education."

It alleges food access is being used as a weapon of political reprisal following March 31 parliamentary elections won by Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.
Communists. I hate 'em. This is how it always ends. But don't worry! The UN is sending an envoy. I'm sure everything will be just fine very soon - or perhaps not:
Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of UN-HABITAT, the global body's housing agency, will spend several days observing the results of "Operation Restore Order," a clean-up campaign that has demolished tens of thousands of homes and shops and left as many as 300,000 people homeless.

"I'm here at the request of the secretary-general to assess the situation here and to see how we can work together to put everything in the way that everybody would like to have them," Ms Tibaijuka, of Tanzania, told reporters.

"We are basically looking at the operation ... and to see the impact and how we can work together to assist all those affected. The secretary-general is of course following the situation with keen interest."
See, Communists hate the poor when they try to develop a way of living and their own political leaders.


Comments:
"My first thought was “this is communism.” "
It is, but for the masses only. The rich get to pass go and ride directly to the elite strata of Old Communism.

I believe we will see just how bad this news is in time.
 
True, Ilona. I am hoping for Thomas as well when the vacancy opens, because he is willing to grab the bull by the horns and admit that they need to correct their previous rulings.
 
Wow, never thought I'd see the day people were clammering for Thomas as chief justice. Very interesting. Thanks for the food for thought.l
 
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