BUSH APPOINTEE in Northern District of New York, Deals Right to Dissent a Death Blow! Options

[Livyjr]

And for anyone just dropping in and wondering what this thread is about, it is a post mortem, perhaps, or an obituary, more likely .....

It is a story about what did happen to one man in America who went into "public service" in America .....

Went into "public service" with a view that being a part of the "public" himself, that you don't screw yourself ....

And you don't sell out those others who are depending upon your integrity to protect and safguard their lives, health and property .....

Which is not true, of course ....

In Rensselaer County in the State of New York, YOU DO SELL OUT YOUR PUBLIC TRUST, OR YOU WILL BE CRUSHED .....

And that is what we are talking about in here ....

What is true ....

What is real ....

And what is not ....

In 1986, April, give or take, a man in the State of New York who was licensed in that state as a professional engineer to protect and safeguard life, health and property in the State of New York received a telephone call from a man named Kenneth Van Praag, the purported Rensselaer County Public Health Director and head of the corrupt Rensselaer County Department of Health in Troy, New York, a small city on the east bank of the Hudson River, north of New York City, and across the river from Albany, New York, the capital of the state ....

"We need an engineer, would you be interested," Van Praag said .....

In reply, the engineer asked Van Praag whether he needed an engineer, or a licensed professional engineer, because they are not the same thing, at least in the State of New York, supposedly ....

"Oh, they told us we had to get a licensed engineer ...", said Van Praag ....

And stop right there, said the engineer ....

"WHO told you that you HAD to get a New York State licensed professional engineer, and WHY ...."

"What do you need the services of a licensed engineer for?"

And that answer was simple - the State of New York had cut off the funding for the environmental health programs of the Rensselaer County Department of Health because of corruption ....

And the County of Rensselaer wanted that money ...

And so ....

A condition to regain that money had been placed upon them by the "state", and Rensselaer County was not happy about that, at all ....

Rensselaer County WANTED the corruption, instead ....

BECAUSE THERE IS NO MONEY IN INTEGRITY .....

ALL THE MONEY IS IN GRAFT, INSTEAD .....

Gain a position of public trust, something to do with law enforcement, or code enforcement, and then SELL PASSES ...

FREE RIDES .....

For a price, of course .....

EXCEPT .....

This one engineer disdained to play the game .....

"If you want the mess cleaned up," said the engineer, "that is one thing ...."

"But I have lived here, and I know what is going on, and so, why should I immerse myself in that sewer of Rensselaer County politics ..."

"OH, NO, NO, NO ....," said Van Praag ......

"There will be no politics involved ....."

And that was a false statement, then, and now .....

Of course there is politics involved ....

Rensselaer County had its funding cut off because of "politics", and any attempt to get that funding restored was going to have to take those "politics" into consideration, because any attempt to get that money restored was going to have insure that the "politics" of the past were stamped out, at least as far as their "grip" on the Rensselaer County Department of Health was concerned .....

And what Rensselaer County wanted was someone who would come in from "outside", which is to say, by all appearances, from outside the sewer of local politics, and then "assure" people that all was now well, while in the meantime, keeping the corruption going with himself as a "PLAYER" .....

A LIAR is what Rensselaer County wanted .....

Someone without integrity .....

Someone who would look the citizens of Rensselaer County in the face, and lie to them that their health department was on the job, keeping them and theirs safe, when in fact, the Rensselaer County Department of Health was not doing its job of keeping groundwater in Rensselaer County safe and secure at all .....

And this is all a matter of public record, of course ....

Thousands upon thousands of pages, by now ....

Is it a unique story in OUR America?

That is hard to tell, of course .....

But is is true, nonetheless, if largely unsung .......

On August 22, 2001, to finally get rid of this engineer, the County of Rensselaer had John Christian Braaten, a man practicing CORPORATE MEDICINE for Northeast Health, Inc. in Troy, New York make out a fruadulent certification that this engineer was mentally ill and dangerous, so that Rensselaer County could then have a New York State Police SWAT Team take this man down, hard, placing him in four-point restraints in front of the gaping eyes of the "neighborhood" for transport to the secure mental health facility that Northeast Health, INC. runs in Troy, where this engineer was to be incarcerated, and TREATED as a mental patient, which is to say, his mind was to be destroyed ....

But Rensselaer County blew it ....

And the man got away .....

Temporarily, anyway .....

For once the net is cast, who really can run far enough to be outside its perimeter when it falls?

VAN PRAAG: This again is Livyjr's letter back to Mr. Clark wherein he describes the purpose of the Sanitary Code and so on.

The end of that particular paragraph he talks about "We are discussing methodology, not an endurance contest."

A little later on, "Your methods should present for review how you propose to evaluate the land."

"Based upon your letter, there appears to be some uncertainty on your part as to how to determine the characteristics of land."

"Until such time as you are able to assess the ability of a site to support human occupation, you will be unable to properly design a subdivision intended for residential purposes."

Again, one engineer to another.

What I consider to be an unprofessional way of dealing with him in escalating the war, so-to-speak, between this department and Mr. Clark.

MAYO: Do you consider this language discourteous?

VAN PRAAG: I DO!

It sets a negative tone within a relationship between an applicant, a developer, and this department, the county.

So ....

This was quite a production, here, this set of hearings that Kenneth Van Praag was testifying at on March 15 and March 16, 1989 ....

They lasted for some thirty days and allegedly cost Rensselaer County some $100,000 to keep them going for that time ....

There were at least two television cameras and news crews there every day, not to mention a reporter from WGY news in Schenectady, New York, the ClearChannels station, and a reporter apiece from the Albany, New York Times Union and the Troy, New York Record newspapers ....

The F.B.I. was there, of course ....

And the DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY was very well represented .....

Every day ....

For all practical purposes, REPUBLICANS Gordon Mayo and Philip Lance had their own TV show going, and the exposure did not harm either one of them ....

Both were to be rewarded by the REPUBLICANS with high-paying state jobs for their perfomrances in this little drama being played out here in these transcript excerpts above .....

And Christine Kapostacey Jansing, the TV Channel 13 anchor in Menands, New York whose "splice job" got the ball rolling for Buono on October 11, 1988 .....

The "splice job" was said to have cemented her reputation for "political reliability" with the REPUBLICANS in the State of New York, and as an alleged result of the success of the "splice job", followed by all the media coverage of the "HEARINGS" themselves, Kapostacey Jansing was to be rewarded with an award and a job with the NETWORK down in New York City ....

And John Buono himself was to be catapulted up to the state stage in the State of New York by the REPUBLICANS for the very public stand he demonstrated in these hearings against what the REPUBLICANS considered "liberal advocacy" on the part of the associate public health engineer in the Rensselaer County Department of Health, and Dr. David Axelrod over in Albany, New York, who was Democrat Mario Cuomo's state Health Commissioner ....

The same Democratically-appointed state Health Commissioner who had cut off the funding for the corrupt Environmental Health programs of the REPUBLICAN-controlled Rensselaer County Department of Health in 1986 .....

And the REPUBLICANS do not forget who has done them a wrong, as they see wrongs being done to them ....

And so ....

Here was Buono's chance to show all the world just where he stood with respect to this spread of "liberalism" in the Environmental Health Division of the Rensselaer County Department of Health - this concept that the Public Health Law and state Sanitary Code were in place to protect the citizens of the State of New York from unscrupulous land developers and speculators - and hence Kenneth Van Praag as his STAR WITNESS on the Six O'Clock news .......

Night after night after night ....

Every day John Buono had his press people down there in the "HEARING ROOM" to hold press briefings to tell the press what witnesses they had presented that day, and what points they had made that day ....

And so ...

This sworn testimony by Mr. Van Praag on March 15 and 16, 1989 was duly noted by those TV cameras and various news reporters ....

And then, it was made the subject of the press briefing ....

"LOOK WHAT WE HAVE PROVED TODAY ...."

Now ....

To whom was that message directed?

And why?

[Livyjr]

"In spite of the laws we have to protect the potential land purchaser, they still remain at the mercy of the 'GLIB TONGUE' and 'FAST TALKER'."

"Perhaps your good offices can use this example in a positive manner by exerting pressure on other governmental agencies to more stringently enforce existing rules and statutes as pertain to those involved in land sales."

"In this manner, perhaps, the future 'Mr. papas' will be saved this hardship."

MAYO: Do you consider this language to be uncomplimentary to a member of the public?

VAN PRAAG: YES!

I DO!

"Salus populi est suprema lex ..."

The welfare of the people IS the highest law .....

"Builder admits to larceny - Scott M. Marchand to pay back more than $300,000 over five years"

By KATE PERRY, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Saturday, January 7, 2006

TROY -- A builder who scammed more than $300,000 from 11 families pleaded guilty Friday, but it will be five years before he pays back all of the money he owes them.

Scott M. Marchand, the 35-year-old president of Wedgewood Builders in Brunswick, faced in Rensselaer County Court nearly all the families he duped in the early 2000s as he admitted to felony grand larceny.

Marchand took money from the families and never finished building their homes.

In some cases he never even started them.

The builder was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Boca Raton, Fla., in September.

He has been in Rensselaer County Jail since.

Judge Robert M. Jacon ordered him to pay $313,801 in restitution over five years, including $20,000 before he's sentenced on March 3.

He will be sentenced to six months in jail, which he already has served, and five years' probation.

Anthony Cerulli said he felt a little bit of closure when Marchand admitted guilt in court, but feels worse for other families.

"Some people had put in thirty, forty, fifty thousand and got nothing," he said.

"A set of plans, and the money was gone."

Cerulli paid Wedgewood $12,500 and only got a foundation at his home site in the North 40 development in Brunswick.

The company went bankrupt in December 2003, and workers walked off the job before any more homes could be completed.

At the same time Marchand was cashing checks from homeowners, he was not paying contractors and suppliers.

When Cerulli tried to purchase the lot where his home was supposed to be built, he learned there was $17,000 worth of liens on the property from subcontractors and the cement company.

The Cerullis ended up living in an apartment for several months while they looked for a different home.

It was a rocky start to what Cerulli called moving up in the world.

The state-employed computer worker, who took the $12,500 from his savings, said he and his wife were looking forward to moving into a nicer neighborhood after their son left for college.

He said Marchand shattered their dream.

Assistant District Attorney Joseph Ahearn said Marchand will stay with family until he is sentenced in March.

After that, he will return to Florida, where he works at an office.

Ahearn said Marchand will make monthly payments to the county probation department and that each family will receive a percentage of the payments.

[Livyjr]

Ah, yes ...

I think I begin to see ....

Definite signs of mental illness emerge here ....

A long psychiatric history has just begun .....

MARCH 15, 1989

MAYO: Mr. Van Praag, I show you County Exhibit number 13 for identification and ask you if you're familiar with this document?

VAN PRAAG: Yes, I am.

MAYO: What exactly is the document, Mr. Van Praag?

VAN PRAAG: This is a memo from Livyjr to County Executive John Buono.

It's dated October 11 regarding integrity of environmental health programs.

This is the memo wherein Livyjr asked the County Executive to define concise chain of command consistent with the Public Health Law.

This is the same memo in which he accuses myself as the Public Health Director and the former engineer here of errors of omission and commission with respect to land use, land fraud, that sort of thing.

And so ....

Here was Buono's chance to show all the world just where he stood with respect to this spread of "liberalism" in the Environmental Health Division of the Rensselaer County Department of Health - this concept that the Public Health Law and state Sanitary Code were in place to protect the citizens of the State of New York from unscrupulous land developers and speculators - and hence Kenneth Van Praag as his STAR WITNESS on the Six O'Clock news .......

Night after night after night ....

Every day John Buono had his press people down there in the "HEARING ROOM" to hold press briefings to tell the press what witnesses they had presented that day, and what points they had made that day ....

And so ...

This sworn testimony by Mr. Van Praag on March 15 and 16, 1989 was duly noted by those TV cameras and various news reporters ....

And the F.B.I. ....

As well as the Office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York ....

And then, it was made the subject of the press briefing ....

"LOOK WHAT WE HAVE PROVED TODAY ...."

Now ....

To whom was that message directed?

And why?

And yes, this does indeed look like a case of pure mental illness arising here .....

But whose?

DATE: October 11, 1988

TO: John Buono, Rensselaer County Executive

FROM: Associate Public Health Engineer, Rensselaer County Health District

SUBJECT: Integrity of Environmental Health Programs

As the Director of the Environmental Health Division, it is my responsibility to certify on behalf of Rensselaer County the integrity of the Code Enforcement Programs to the State of New York for the purpose of payment of our State operating funds.

I have reached a juncture where such certification by myself is no longer feasible.

My certification of our operations is as a licensed professional.

My conduct is governed in large part by Part 29 of the Codes of the Education Department which sets forth the actions deemed to constitute unprofessional conduct on the part of licensed individuals.

Section 29.1(b)(6) defines unprofessional conduct as "willfully making or filing a false report, or failing to file a report required by law or by the Education Department, or willfully impeding or obstructing such filing, or inducing another person to do so."

I can no longer vouch for the integrity of our programs and will not place my professional standing in jeopardy.

It is my professional opinion stated in writing to yourself that the programs I am responsible for have been very seriously undermined and compromised.

As my internal investigation proceeds, the probability of actions for damages against the Department increases, due to errors of omission and commission of former engineers and the Public Health Director.

As the Public Health Law requires me to conduct investigations into incidents involving public health nuisance or hazard, I find myself in the course of such investigation returning to our own files with consistent violation of code on the part of County staff.

[Livyjr]

And yes, this does indeed look like a case of pure mental illness arising here .....

But whose?

DATE: October 11, 1988

TO: John Buono, Rensselaer County Executive

FROM: Associate Public Health Engineer, Rensselaer County Health District

SUBJECT: Integrity of Environmental Health Programs

I have reached a juncture where such certification by myself is no longer feasible.

My certification of our operations is as a licensed professional.

I can no longer vouch for the integrity of our programs and will not place my professional standing in jeopardy.

It is my professional opinion stated in writing to yourself that the programs I am responsible for have been very seriously undermined and compromised.

As my internal investigation proceeds, the probability of actions for damages against the Department increases, due to errors of omission and commission of former engineers and the Public Health Director.

As the Public Health Law requires me to conduct investigations into incidents involving public health nuisance or hazard, I find myself in the course of such investigation returning to our own files with consistent violation of code on the part of County staff.

Yes ....

A wheel does turn here ....

Things have gone full circle .....

Definite signs of mental illness do emerge ......

And it must be true ....

Afterall, a CORPORATE DOCTOR working for Northeast Health, Inc. in Troy, New York has certified it to be so ....

And in this REPUBLICAN-controlled world of OURS, well ....

WHAT MORE NEEDS TO BE SAID?

March 31, 2005

"This Court has attempted to summarize the litany of unintelligible and conclusory allegations in PLAINTIFF's convoluted complaint and attached exhibits."

- Hon. Gary L. Sharpe, District Judge
United States District Court for the Northern District of New York
Albany, New York

[Livyjr]

March 31, 2005

"This Court has attempted to summarize the litany of unintelligible and conclusory allegations in PLAINTIFF's convoluted complaint and attached exhibits."

- Hon. Gary L. Sharpe, District Judge
United States District Court for the Northern District of New York
Albany, New York

"Alito gets boost from Bush before hearing"

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press
Last updated: 9:06 a.m., Monday, January 9, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush sent Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito off to his confirmation hearings Monday with best wishes and a demand that senators "give this man a fair vote and an up or down vote."

Alito faces close questioning by the Judiciary Committee to determine his fitness to be the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice.

But first, he got some last-minute encouragement from the president over breakfast at the White House.

"Sam's got the intellect necessary to bring a lot of class to that court," Bush said as he escorted Alito before news cameras in the Rose Garden.

"He's got the judicial temperament necessary to make sure that the court is a body that interprets the law and doesn't try to write the law."

One of Alito's Democratic critics, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, said he sees tendencies by Alito to defer to the executive branch.

"In an era when the White House is abusing power, has authorized torture and is spying on American citizens, I find your support for an all-powerful executive branch and almost unlimited power for government agents to be deeply troubling," Kennedy said in a pre-released excerpt from his opening statement.

------

On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov

[Livyjr]

It is a simple question, actually, a yes, or a no: 

"Should the head of Janitorial Services for the Rensselaer County Office Building have the unimpeded "constitutional" authority, 24/7, to hinder a New York State licensed professional engineer in the performance of his duties, who at the time in question was investigating alleged professional misconduct in the County of Rensselaer by Rensselaer County State Actor Appellees Carl Richard Aiken, P.E., and Kevin Joseph McGrath, L.S. in connection with a Rensselaer County Department of Health sewage system construction permit issued to appellee Jeffrey Pelletier, by having the unrestrained right to have PLAINTIFF incarcerated at will in the secure mental hospital of Holt's choice, by the simple expedient of Holt calling Fiorino at Samaritan Hospital, and putting in a request for a 9.45 order to be faxed over to Holt at the Rensselaer County Office Building, so Holt can then have the New York State Police seize PLAINTIFF for transport to wherever Holt directs them to go?"
                 
DATED:  July 21, 2005

Respectfully submitted,                                                                 
Appellant Pro Se

The word came to us this morning .....

A telephone call, short and sweet .....

From some person in the Clerk's Office down in New York City ......

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals .....

They buried the appeal with a summary order ....

It's now gone ...

Over ....

As if this person had never existed ....

Just like that .....

All the records, including the F.B.I records, simply go into a limbo ....

As if they never existed .....

"Pataki backs idea of 'Sen. Novello'"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Thursday, January 5, 2006

ALBANY -- A possible bid by state Health Commissioner Dr. Antonia Novello, a former U.S. surgeon general, to challenge U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election effort this year got a boost Wednesday from Republican Gov. George Pataki.

"She'd be a strong candidate if she chose to run," Pataki told The Associated Press shortly before delivering his 12th and final State of the State address.

Pataki's comments came as a new Web site -- http://www.draftnovello.com -- appeared.

It encourages people to back an effort to get Novello into the race.

It was not immediately clear Wednesday who had launched the Web site.

Pataki said he knew nothing about it.

"I can tell you that we're not involved," said Brian Nick, a spokesman for the national Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Novello, a native of Puerto Rico who has never run for public office, could not be reached immediately for comment Wednesday.

"We're not going to comment on political speculation," said state Health Department spokesman Robert Kenny.

[Livyjr]

In Rensselaer County in the State of New York, YOU DO SELL OUT YOUR PUBLIC TRUST, OR YOU WILL BE CRUSHED .....

And that is what we are talking about in here ....

A LIAR is what Rensselaer County wanted .....

Someone without integrity .....

Someone who would look the citizens of Rensselaer County in the face, and lie to them that their health department was on the job, keeping them and theirs safe, when in fact, the Rensselaer County Department of Health was not doing its job of keeping groundwater in Rensselaer County safe and secure at all .....

And this is all a matter of public record, of course ....

Thousands upon thousands of pages, by now ....

Is it a unique story in OUR America?

That is hard to tell, of course .....

But is is true, nonetheless, if largely unsung .......

On August 22, 2001, to finally get rid of this engineer, the County of Rensselaer had John Christian Braaten, a man practicing CORPORATE MEDICINE for Northeast Health, Inc. in Troy, New York make out a fruadulent certification that this engineer was mentally ill and dangerous, so that Rensselaer County could then have a New York State Police SWAT Team take this man down, hard, placing him in four-point restraints in front of the gaping eyes of the "neighborhood" for transport to the secure mental health facility that Northeast Health, INC. runs in Troy, where this engineer was to be incarcerated, and TREATED as a mental patient, which is to say, his mind was to be destroyed ....

And besides one old man in America named Mr. A.B., who alone seems to have any sense of shock and outrage at injustice left in him, does anyone in America even give a damn ......

For in a SUMMARY ORDER which was just published on the INTERNET by the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City in this matter, the Court holds that on August 22, 2001, this engineer was mentally ill and dangerous DESPITE HAVING NO EVIDENCE whatsoever that such is the case ...

NO EVIDENCE .....

Because there is none ....

But notwithstanding, the COURT issued its DECREE, anyway ....

"LET ALL WHO LOOK UPON THIS MAN FROM THIS TIME FORWARD KNOW THAT WE, THE COURT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DO HOLD THIS MAN TO BE MENTALLY ILL AND DANGEROUS ......"

That is a DECREE .....

Or a PRONOUNCEMENT, perhaps ...

And certainly, a CONDEMNATION .....

BY INTENT TO HAVE IT BE SO ......

THE RIGHT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO PUNISH THOSE WHO JUST WON'T DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD ...

Even when what they are told to do is a clear violation of law that will harm the health and well-being of the very people that the licensed engineer was supposed to be watching over ......

That is what we are talking about in here ...

"Alito to Senate: Good Judge Has No Agenda"

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito told senators Monday that good judges don't have an agenda, don't look for partisan outcomes and always "do what the law requires" as the Senate opened hearings on President Bush's choice for the high court.

"A judge can't have any agenda."

"A judge can't have a preferred outcome in any particular case," Alito told the Judiciary Committee in a brief statement in which he made a distinction between judges and attorneys working for clients.

Alito, a conservative jurist on the federal appeals court, would replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a decisive swing vote on abortion, affirmative action and death penalty cases.

If confirmed, Alito would be the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice.

After listening to opening statements from the 18 members of the committee, Alito got his chance to speak and described his Italian immigrant father's background, his mother's work experience and his own academic career.

He told the panel about his legal philosophy.

"The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand," Alito said.

"But a judge can't think that way."

"A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn't have a client."

In his 11-minute statement, the judge gave no indication about how he might respond to the tough questions Democrats have promised on the divisive issues of executive power, abortion and the privacy rights.

Alito said his solemn obligation is to the rule of law and that a judge must do what the law requires.

"No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law," he said.

In a prelude to days of grilling, several committee Democrats expressed misgivings about Alito's 15 years of decisions and opinions as a judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and his writings during his tenure as a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department.

"Your record raises troubling questions about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution — the careful efforts of our Founding Fathers to protect us from a government or a president determined to seize too much power over our lives," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

The hearings opened amid a growing debate over executive authority and Bush's secret decision to order the National Security Agency to wiretap Americans in the terror war.

"In an era when the White House is abusing power, is excusing and authorizing torture and is spying on American citizens, I find Judge Alito's support for an all-powerful executive branch to be genuinely troubling," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Republican Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio offered a counterpoint.

"Your modest approach to judging seems to bode well for our democracy," he said.

The hearings come just months after the Senate confirmed John Roberts as chief justice, and Republicans frequently cited the standard set by Roberts in his hearings for the high court.

Republicans also defended Alito, describing him as a fair-minded and brilliant jurist who would be a welcome addition to the court.

"Sam's got the intellect necessary to bring a lot of class to that court," said Bush in a good-luck sendoff for Alito at the White House.

Alito, said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, "has a reputation for being an exceptional and honest judge devoted to the rule of law, and a man of integrity."

Alito, 55, introduced members of his family — including his wife Martha, sister Rosemary and his son and daughter — and then sat and listened to the opening statements from committee members.

Politics loomed large in the confirmation process, but Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah urged his colleagues to put them aside in assessing Alito's qualifications.

"We must apply a judicial, not a political, standard to this record," Hatch said.

Ten-minute opening statements by the senators — 10 Republicans and eight Democrats — consumed most of the opening session, with direct questioning of Alito scheduled for Tuesday.

Specter has called for a committee vote by Jan. 17.

Republican leaders hope for confirmation by the full Senate on Jan. 20, but Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., would not promise the schedule would hold.

Alito was Bush's second choice to replace O'Connor.

White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew from consideration after conservatives questioned her judicial philosophy and qualifications for the Supreme Court.

Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York cited the conservative response to the two nominations.

"The same critics who called the president on the carpet for naming Harriet Miers have rolled out the red carpet for you," Schumer said.

"We would be remiss if we did not explore why."

Republicans say there is no reason to delay or filibuster Alito.

Senators who have met privately with Alito say he told them that his 1985 written comments maintaining there was no constitutional right to abortion were only part of a job application for the Reagan administration, which opposed abortion.

He wrote in a separate legal memo while at the Justice Department that the department should try to chip away at abortion rights rather than mount an all-out assault.

"We will ask you: 'Do you still "personally believe very strongly that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion?'" Schumer said.

No matter what Alito says, some Democrats will oppose him, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, predicted.

"I am reluctantly inclined to the view that you and any other nominee of this president for the Supreme Court start with no more than 13 votes in this committee, and only 78 votes in the full Senate with a solid, immovable and unpersuadable block of at least 22 votes against you, no matter what you say or do," the statement said.

___

On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov

[Livyjr]

"Alito to Senate: Good Judge Has No Agenda"

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

"No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law," he said.

No person in this country is beneath the law ......

HHHHhhmmmm ....

Well, it is a thought, anyway .....

Or a sentiment ...

Or a hope, perhaps ....

But it is not the truth .....

And it is not a fact .....

As the circumstances being discussed in this thread alone make clear .....

In Rensselaer County in the State of New York, there are several persons at the minimum who are above the law, way beyond the reach of the law, because of how "high and powerful" they are, or how "connected", and there is a large segment, including myself, of course, who are definitely beneath the law, and with no recourse to alter or change that fact of life ....

And this is as a direct result of the federal court system here in the State of New York ....

As a direct result of federal judges ...

Of which this Mr. Alito is one ....

I heard his voice on the radio this morning as he said these words, and when he said the second part, about no one being beneath the law, I heard his voice crack .....

As if he knew the very falseness of his words before he said them ....

So that he had to force the words past his lips, with his jaw muscles and tongue opposing the utterance of the lie .....

[Livyjr]

No person in this country is beneath the law ......

HHHHhhmmmm ....

Well, it is a thought, anyway .....

Or a sentiment ...

Or a hope, perhaps ....

But it is not the truth .....

And it is not a fact .....

And to kind of amplify on that statement ......

Here is some choice rhetoric or DEMAGOGUERY from United States Senator Rick Santorum that serves to bring home that very point ....

Of two Americas .....

One without protection of law ...

And one way beyond the reach of the law itself ...

As is the case in Rensselaer County in the State of new York, right now as we speak these words in this forum ....

"Conservatives, Santorum rally for court reform"

Monday, January 09, 2006

By Maeve Reston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette National Bureau

PHILADELPHIA -- Sen. Rick Santorum joined conservative Christian leaders at a historically black church here yesterday arguing that religious freedom is at risk because of "liberal activist judges" on the Supreme Court and calling for the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

During Justice Sunday III -- a program that organizers said was broadcast to 80 million viewers through Christian broadcast stations and church telecasts -- Mr. Santorum said "extreme liberal judges" are "destroying traditional morality and creating a new moral code."

"The Supreme Court has become the supreme branch of the government imposing its unrestrained will on all of the people," Mr. Santorum said.

"The only way to restore this Republic our founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito who will help replace the hubris of this court with humility and respect for the common sense of the American people."

On the eve of the Judge Alito's confirmation hearings in Washington, Mr. Santorum was also critical of judiciary committee Democrats who he said are poised "to drag these hearings in the gutter."

In a night of prayer, speeches and songs that sometimes shook the rafters at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, speakers decried jurists who have ruled against prayer in schools, the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, or questioned the utterance of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, a founder of the Moral Majority, said the confirmation of Judge Alito would be the culmination of nearly three decades of work to "mobilize people of faith and values."

"We're looking at what we really started working on 30 years ago -- a reconstruction of a court system gone awry," said Mr. Falwell, who praised President Bush for nominating Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Alito.

The Rev. Herbert H. Lusk, who leads Greater Exodus, railed against gay marriage, abortion and what he termed as Christian-bashing, and warned that those who trifle with "people of god" will face consequences.

"Don't fool with the church," said Rev. Lusk, "because the church has buried many a critic, and all the critics we have not buried we're making funeral arrangements for."

Rev. Lusk has been a figure of controversy since he spoke in support of Mr. Bush from his church in 2000 and was subsequently accused by the leader of Americans United for Separation of Church and State of breaking tax regulations that forbid churches from endorsing candidates.

Rev. Lusk has denied any wrongdoing.

The leaders of the two major conservative Christian groups organizing the event, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, gave the evening's strongest defenses of Judge Alito, who currently serves on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Dr. Dobson, who at one point described partial birth abortion as a Nazi-esque procedure, said Judge Alito has made it clear "he will be an originalist... who will not legislate from the bench but who will interpret the constitution."

More than 50 protesters gathered outside the North Philadelphia church, many of them young people, holding signs with messages such as "Want a theocracy -- move to Iran" and "Bigotry is not a family value."

Throughout the evening, some shouted:

"Bush step down -- take Santorum with you."

Thomas J. Glorioso of Chadds Ford, Chester County, said he came specifically to protest Mr. Santorum because of what he interprets as Mr. Santorum's anti-gay agenda.

"He wants religious freedom," said Mr. Glorioso, who described himself as gay, "as long as it's not for me."

Alan Sandals, a Philadelphia lawyer who is one of Mr. Santorum's Democratic challengers, parked a truck outside the church with an enormous television screen that played political ads critical of Santorum during the program.

A campaign spokesman for State Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., a Democrat challenging Mr. Santorum, criticized the Pennsylvania senator for "fiery, divisive rhetoric" at the event.

(Maeve Reston can be reached 202-488-3479 or mreston@nationalpress.com.)

[Livyjr]

"Conservatives, Santorum rally for court reform"

Monday, January 09, 2006

By Maeve Reston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette National Bureau

PHILADELPHIA -- Sen. Rick Santorum joined conservative Christian leaders at a historically black church here yesterday arguing that religious freedom is at risk because of "liberal activist judges" on the Supreme Court and calling for the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

During Justice Sunday III -- a program that organizers said was broadcast to 80 million viewers through Christian broadcast stations and church telecasts -- Mr. Santorum said "extreme liberal judges" are "destroying traditional morality and creating a new moral code."

"The Supreme Court has become the supreme branch of the government imposing its unrestrained will on all of the people," Mr. Santorum said.

"The only way to restore this Republic our founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito who will help replace the hubris of this court with humility and respect for the common sense of the American people."

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, a founder of the Moral Majority, said the confirmation of Judge Alito would be the culmination of nearly three decades of work to "mobilize people of faith and values."

"We're looking at what we really started working on 30 years ago -- a reconstruction of a court system gone awry," said Mr. Falwell, who praised President Bush for nominating Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Alito.

The Rev. Herbert H. Lusk, who leads Greater Exodus, railed against gay marriage, abortion and what he termed as Christian-bashing, and warned that those who trifle with "people of god" will face consequences.

"Don't fool with the church," said Rev. Lusk, "because the church has buried many a critic, and all the critics we have not buried we're making funeral arrangements for."

"Alito Pleases His Republican Backers"

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

43 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is carefully weaving his way through Senate confirmation hearings, saying enough to please his Republican backers while trying not to give Democratic critics any new material to use against his high court nomination.

"I certainly see nothing at this point that would cause me not to vote to confirm," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that questioned Alito during a daylong hearing Tuesday.

Added Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, another committee member, "Barring some unexpected development, I expect to support the nominee."

But Democrats have a different view of the man President Bush picked to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and how he's answering their questions about abortion, presidential war powers, conflict-of-interest issues and other topics they want him to discuss.

"Americans have no better answers than they did at the outset of the hearings," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

And when he does answer, it is "vague, inconsistent, and at times, contradictory testimony to what his record shows," added Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat.

Republicans complained that Democrats have already made up their minds about Alito.

"I do think that there are those who have already decided to vote against your nomination and are looking for some reason to do so," Cornyn said.

"And I think one of the reasons that they may claim is that you've been nonresponsive."

But Democrats appeared unable to stop the nomination, and seemed increasingly unlikely to mount a filibuster in the full Senate.

Questioning was to continue on Wednesday, with Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., taking half-hour turns to start the day.

The committee was then to begin its second round of questioning, with the 18 senators taking 20-minute rounds.

Alito and the senators covered a wide range of contentious issues Tuesday, although the 55-year-old appeals court judge did not stake out any new or controversial positions.

Asked repeatedly about abortion, he assured the committee he would first take previous rulings into account.

At the same time, he stressed that precedent, including the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that established a woman's right to end her pregnancy, is not binding on the high court.

"I would approach the question with an open mind and I would listen to the arguments that were made," Alito said.

Also on abortion, he defended his dissent in a 1991 case in which he voted as a member of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a Pennsylvania law that included a requirement that women seeking abortions notify their husbands.

But he said at least twice during Tuesday's questioning that he had "no agenda" to erase abortion rights, citing as evidence his rulings in two other cases.

When it comes to Americans' liberty, the Bill of Rights applies "in times of war and in times of national crisis," Alito said, although he declined to specify whether Bush acted properly in ordering wiretaps without warrants in selected cases as part of the war on terror.

Leahy first mentioned Alito's membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group that opposed admission of increased numbers of women and minorities.

"I really have no specific recollection of that organization," Alito said, although he did not dispute that he belonged to it.

Democrats used much of their time to try to tear down Alito's past opinions, statements and speeches as a judge and a conservative lawyer for the Reagan administration, while Republicans used much of their time trying to rehabilitate Alito from that criticism.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., pressed Alito on whether he actually told the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that he should not be hearing cases involving investment company Vanguard.

He holds six-figure investments with Vanguard.

"So you don't recall whether you notified them or not?" Feingold asked.

"I do not."

"No," Alito said.

Alito promised the Judiciary Committee at his 1990 confirmation hearing as an appellate judge that he would remove himself from cases involving Vanguard.

His participation in a 2002 Vanguard case was an oversight although he said he didn't do anything wrong, Alito said.

The American Bar Association and his supporters have accepted that explanation.

"If I had to do it over again there are things that I would do differently," Alito said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., meanwhile, pressed Alito on whether he still stands by his 1985 comment that he did not believe the Constitution includes the right to an abortion.

Alito refused to answer the question, saying only that he would have an "open mind" on abortion issues and that he would start from the point of view that previous court decisions should be given weight.

"We can only conclude that if the question came before you it is very likely that you would vote to overrule Roe v. Wade," Schumer said.
___

On the Net:

Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov

The answer to that question about whether he told the Court he should not be involved in anything to do with Vanguard shows a certain ethical looseness about this man ...

That would appeal to REPUBLICANS ....

[Livyjr]

"Alito Pleases His Republican Backers"

By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is carefully weaving his way through Senate confirmation hearings, saying enough to please his Republican backers while trying not to give Democratic critics any new material to use against his high court nomination.

But Democrats have a different view of the man President Bush picked to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and how he's answering their questions about abortion, presidential war powers, conflict-of-interest issues and other topics they want him to discuss.

"Americans have no better answers than they did at the outset of the hearings," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

And when he does answer, it is "vague, inconsistent, and at times, contradictory testimony to what his record shows," added Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat.

This morning on the radio news, Fox, I believe it was, there was played a tape of a portion of the Senate Confirmation Hearing where New York State Senator Charles Schumer was questioning Judge Alito about the Constitution itself, and Judge Alito responded that he could not discuss the Constitution because it might come before him as a United States Supreme Court Justice ...

And I was flabberghasted, myself .....

Flabberghasted at the answer ...

And then flabberghasted that Senator Schumer accepted that as any kind of answer but a ridiculous one ....

As a United States Supreme Court Justice, this man, this REPUBLICAN Judge Alito, would have the United States Constitution before him at all times, open for all the world to see, and heed ....

And he would be an expert on that document, and its history, and its meaning ...

He would be a source of law ....

If he were worthy of such a high position of responsibility here in OUR REPUBLIC OF AMERICA, which does not belong to these militant christians who march with the DEMAGOGUE REPUBLICAN SENATOR SANTORUM in support of this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito ....

As a United States Supreme Court Judge, this man, this REPUBLICAN man, Judge Alito, would be the living embodiment of OUR United States Constitution ...

And the long tradition of law which has descended down to us in OUR times, from the time that United States Constitution became law of the land here in OUR America ...

And this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito, did not seem to know that ...

Or did not care ......

Since the news release above makes it incandescently clear to me that in these hearings, in answering Senator Schumer in the condescending manner this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito has done, that he is posturing for these people who he is beholden to, these REPUBLICAN backers of his, and so, HE IS NOT INDEPENDENT ....

He is not at all independent ...

And so should not be put on the bench of the United States Supreme Court by the United States Senate ....

That simple ....

[Livyjr]

Since the news release above makes it incandescently clear to me that in these hearings, in answering Senator Schumer in the condescending manner this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito has done, that he is posturing for these people who he is beholden to, these REPUBLICAN backers of his, and so, HE IS NOT INDEPENDENT ....

He is not at all independent ...

And so should not be put on the bench of the United States Supreme Court by the United States Senate ....

That simple ....

If this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito, is beholden to these "backers" of his at this point in the proceedings, the "backers" he is very obviously posturing for in these hearings, to "please" them according to the national news, when would he become independent?

And how?

And why?

[Livyjr]

"Conservatives, Santorum rally for court reform"

Monday, January 09, 2006

By Maeve Reston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette National Bureau

PHILADELPHIA -- Sen. Rick Santorum joined conservative Christian leaders at a historically black church here yesterday arguing that religious freedom is at risk because of "liberal activist judges" on the Supreme Court and calling for the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

During Justice Sunday III -- a program that organizers said was broadcast to 80 million viewers through Christian broadcast stations and church telecasts -- Mr. Santorum said "extreme liberal judges" are "destroying traditional morality and creating a new moral code."

"The Supreme Court has become the supreme branch of the government imposing its unrestrained will on all of the people," Mr. Santorum said.

"The only way to restore this Republic our founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito who will help replace the hubris of this court with humility and respect for the common sense of the American people."

How come we have heard nothing in the press in response to these comments by the Most Honorable Senator Santorum?

"The ONLY WAY to RESTORE THIS REPUBLIC ......"

A very pregnant statement, indeed ....

Most especially since the founders had absolutely NO IDEA whatsoever what this nation would turn into once independence from the tyranny of England and its despotic king was gained .....

And that is something that they freely admitted ....

It is like us today talking about what this nation is going to look like even fifty years from now .....

Or twenty .....

One can have hopes ....

One can have dreams ...

One can have goals ...

Or objectives ....

But only the passage of time shall reveal what will be ...

And so .....

WHAT IS THIS HUBRIS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT that this demagogue Santorum is talking about?

Presumably, he and this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito have been in communication concerning this alleged hubris, since the demagogue Santorum definitely sees this man, this REPUBLICAN man, Judge Alito, as the cure for this alleged hubris .....

Because he is "HONORABLE", says the demagogue .....

And yet, outside of the demagogue's ranting demagoguery, We, the American people, have no direct evidence of any of this ....

We have no direct evidence that this Judge Alito is anything at all, and we have no evidence that any judges on the United States Supreme Court in the years since 1975 have been hubristic or dishonorable ....

Unless the source of that "information" is this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito, in which case, the United States Senate would be duty bound to US, the American people, to fully debrief this man, this REPUBLICAN man, this Judge Alito, to find out everything that he knows about this situation, so as to be sure that this one man, this one REPUBLICAN man, this judge Alito, IS THE CURE ....

That is what they, the United States Senate, owe US, the American people ......

And nothing less ....

Although in reality, that is likely what we will get ...

Which is NOTHING at all ....

Nothing but a further mockery and caricature of what the law in OUR America should really be ....

A vehicle to INSURE that no one is above the law, such as Jeffrey Pelletier in this case we are discussing in here, and that no one is beneath the law, such as the PLAINTIFF in this case we are talking about as well ...

Thank you for your patience ....

Thank you for your interest ...

To be continued ....

[Livyjr]

"Alito's wife leaves hearing room in tears" 
 
Associated Press
Last updated: 6:57 p.m., Wednesday, January 11, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The wife of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito left his confirmation hearings in tears Wednesday.
 
Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who had sat behind her husband for hours of questioning over several days, left as her husband was being questioned by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Moments earlier, the senator had asked Alito, "Are you really a closet bigot?"

And here I would have stopped the gentleman from the Palmetto State, this Senator Lindsey Graham, who would be the next President of the United States of America, when he posed this question about being a "closet bigot" to Judge Alito, and I would have said, "No, Senator Graham, there is no evidence that Judge Alito is a closet bigot."

Not at all, in fact!

And Senator Graham, of course, you would know that yourself, which is why you asked this question.

As a "soft ball" ....

A "set-up" pitch ....

To let Judge Alito hit a home-run, in full sight of the home team rooting section ....

The issue, Senator graham, is not what Judge Alito might be in a closet somewhere .....

The issue is what Judge Alito is, right out in plain sight ...

Which is a cypher, a man who will do as his superiors wish or need him to do .....

As opposed to someone who has the courage to be what a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to be, which is a person independent of attachments to an ideology, or a cause ...

Which is to say, an agenda ....

Now, this is not to say that Judge Alito has an agenda .....

And as a cypher, it is likely that he might not ...

But from the evidence before us right now, which is taken right from the mainstream American print media, there is a very strong appearance at the minumum that Judge Alito is himself the tool of those who have a definite agenda, including this Reverend Falwell, and the DEMAGOGUE Santorum ....

And that is something that requires some discussion in these confirmation hearings ...

"Judge Alito, are you aware of these very public statements being made by Senator Santorum, which appear to involve you in what can only be called accusations of dereliction of duty by your superiors on the United States Supreme Court for a period of time stretching back to 1975 or so, which are serious charges indeed?"

Charges so serious that they should get a full airing here in OUR America ...

Rather than being a private topic of conversation between Judge Alito, Senator Santorum and Reverend Jerry Falwell ....

[Livyjr]

"And keep in mind that nothing can harm one of nature's citizens except what harms the city he belongs to."

"And nothing harms that city except what harms its law."

"And there is no so-called misfortune that can do that."

"So long as the law is safe, so is the city - and the citizen."

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

[Livyjr]

"Conservatives, Santorum rally for court reform"

Monday, January 09, 2006

By Maeve Reston, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette National Bureau

PHILADELPHIA -- Sen. Rick Santorum joined conservative Christian leaders at a historically black church here yesterday arguing that religious freedom is at risk because of "liberal activist judges" on the Supreme Court and calling for the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

During Justice Sunday III -- a program that organizers said was broadcast to 80 million viewers through Christian broadcast stations and church telecasts -- Mr. Santorum said "extreme liberal judges" are "destroying traditional morality and creating a new moral code."

"The Supreme Court has become the supreme branch of the government imposing its unrestrained will on all of the people," Mr. Santorum said.

"The only way to restore this Republic our founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito who will help replace the hubris of this court with humility and respect for the common sense of the American people."

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, a founder of the Moral Majority, said the confirmation of Judge Alito would be the culmination of nearly three decades of work to "mobilize people of faith and values."

"We're looking at what we really started working on 30 years ago -- a reconstruction of a court system gone awry," said Mr. Falwell, who praised President Bush for nominating Chief Justice John Roberts and Judge Alito.

FDR's court-packing fiasco

By K. Daniel Glover
web posted July 12, 1999

The Supreme Court.

The title alone lends an air of distinction to that august legal body and its nine justices who sit in judgment on an entire nation.

And indeed, the United States' highest tribunal, more than any other root of America's democratic tree, is revered among the people.

Factions may take issue with a particular decision (the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion, for instance) or heatedly debate the qualifications of a particular justice (as they did with Clarence Thomas in 1991).

But rarely do they agitate against the court as an institution.

The Founding Fathers intentionally tried to insulate the court from the passions of politics, and they largely succeeded.

The Supreme Court at times has become a political lightning rod, yet the few attempts to attack it as an institution typically end in embarrassing failure.

The politically foolish mission of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to "pack" the court with justices favorable to his social policies is a perfect case study.

His plan, virtually dead on arrival on Capitol Hill, faltered 62 years ago this month.

A New Deal battle royal

Roosevelt's animosity toward the Supreme Court emerged in his first presidential term.

Overwhelmingly elected in 1932, he promised a New Deal of social and economic involvement by the government in an America ravaged by the Great Depression.

But the court, most of whose justices were appointed by Republicans, soon began to undo his work by ruling his New Deal laws unconstitutional on 5-4 votes.

In May 1935, the court attacked two laws.

First, it invalidated the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934, a law that had established pensions for railway workers.

Then in a blow to the cornerstone of the New Deal, the court gutted the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933.

Roosevelt lambasted the justices for those rulings.

"We have been relegated to the horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce," he complained.

But his contempt for the conservative-minded court of "Nine Old Men" -- six justices were age 70 or older, and the youngest was 61 -- did not deter them.

In January 1936, the court ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 unconstitutional.

Re-elected to a second term by an even larger majority than in 1932, and given an even larger Democratic edge in Congress, Roosevelt, then the only 20th-century president not to have appointed a Supreme Court justice in four years, began to ponder "the court problem" openly.

He even took a subtle jab at the court in his second inaugural address, saying that Americans "will insist that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry out their will."

In his 1993 book FDR: Into the Storm, 1937-1940, Roosevelt biographer Kenneth S. Davis said commentators of the 1930s described the battle between Roosevelt and the Supreme Court as "the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War."

A confrontation of some sort seemed inevitable, but few people, even among those closest to Roosevelt, expected what came next.

On Jan. 30, 1937, Roosevelt's 55th birthday, the president disclosed to his closest aides a draft bill to reorganize the federal judiciary.

The measure -- mischievously linked to a long-ago proposal by 75-year-old Justice James C. McReynolds -- called for all federal judges to retire by age 70.

If they failed to do so, the president could appoint another judge to serve in tandem with each one older than 70.

The practical effect of the proposal: Roosevelt could have appointed six more Supreme Court justices immediately, increasing the size of the court to 15 members.

A Congress dominated by Democrats undoubtedly would have appointed judges friendly to Roosevelt and his New Deal agenda.

Doomed at the outset

Top aides suggested alternative judicial reforms -- a constitutional amendment allowing a two-thirds vote of Congress to overrule Supreme Court rulings, for example -- but Roosevelt would not budge.

He also downplayed worries about the disingenuousness of his message, which said his bill was the best solution to an alleged judicial backlog rather than a justified attack on an unruly Supreme Court.

Roosevelt pitched his plan to Congress and the public Feb. 5, and the futility of his quest quickly became apparent.

Republicans like Herbert Hoover, whom FDR ousted in the 1932 presidential election, accused Roosevelt of attempting "to pack the court."

But the president's political enemies did far less damage to his cause than his friends.

According to FDR biographer Frank Freidel, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Hatton Sumners (D-TX) made this ominous statement to colleagues about his support of Roosevelt:

"Boys, this is where I cash in my chips."

Other conservative Democrats expressed similar sentiments.

Sen. George Norris (I-NE), who had empanelled a national conference on judicial reform soon after Roosevelt's inaugural, announced his opposition to the court-packing bill, as did liberal Sen. Burton K. Wheeler (D-MT), who ultimately became the measure's most vocal foe.

Even liberal Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the oldest member of the court, privately expressed his opposition.

As the president's confidants had warned, opponents seized on Roosevelt's explanation of why the bill was necessary.

William Allen White, one of the most renowned editorialists of his day, reached this conclusion Feb. 6:

"Because he is adroit and not forthright, he arouses irritating suspicions, probably needlessly, about his ultimate intentions as the leader of his party and the head of government."

Still confident that he could win the public's backing despite opinion polls that indicated otherwise, Roosevelt ignored much of the criticism.

In a March 9 "fireside chat," he acknowledged his true intentions -- to create a Supreme Court that could "understand these modern conditions" -- but it had no measurable influence on public opinion.

Support began to slip after Senate Judiciary Committee hearings later in March, and by June, Roosevelt reluctantly agreed to a compromise that would have allowed him to name just two new justices.

But it was too late.

On June 14, the committee issued a scathing report that called FDR's plan "a needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle … without precedent or justification."

The real winners

The Senate opened debate on the substitute proposal July 2.

But within days, Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson (D-AR), the bill's leading advocate, left the chamber with chest pains.

He, and Roosevelt's court-packing hopes with him, died at home July 14.

On July 22, the Senate voted 70-20 to send the judicial-reform measure back to committee, where all the controversial language was stripped from it.

The Senate passed the revised legislation a week later, and Roosevelt reluctantly signed it into law Aug. 26.

Roosevelt's biographers generally agree that his court-packing scheme robbed him of much of the political capital he had won in two landslide elections.

It also hindered his all-out war on poverty.

But to some extent, the president won his war with the Supreme Court.

First, the court's philosophy began to change even as Congress debated the merits of judicial reform.

Owen J. Roberts, the youngest jurist, began to vote Roosevelt's way in close decisions, giving FDR 5-4 wins rather than losses by the same margin.

Then before long, the "Nine Old Men" began to retire of their own volition, enabling the president to appoint a "Roosevelt court."

Everyone claimed some measure of victory.

But in the end, the American people won the most because the Senate did exactly what its Judiciary Committee had recommended.

The Senate "so emphatically rejected" FDR's court-packing scheme that no similar plan ever has been, or likely ever will be, "presented to the free representatives of the free people of America."

K. Daniel Glover is the associate editor of IntellectualCapital.com and a former editor and reporter at Congressional Quarterly. His "Congress Back Then" feature appears monthly. E-mail him at danny@voxcap.com.

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/art...799fdrcourt.htm

[Livyjr]

Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937

MY FRIENDS, last Thursday I described in detail certain economic problems which everyone admits now face the nation.

For the many messages which have come to me after that speech, and which it is physically impossible to answer individually, I take this means of saying thank you.

Tonight, sitting at my desk in the White House, I make my first radio report to the people in my second term of office.

I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made my first radio report to you.

We were then in the midst of the great banking crisis.

Soon after, with the authority of the Congress, we asked the nation to turn over all of its privately held gold, dollar for dollar, to the government of the United States.

Today's recovery proves how right that policy was.

But when, almost two years later, it came before the Supreme Court its constitutionality was upheld only by a five-to-four vote.

The change of one vote would have thrown all the affairs of this great nation back into hopeless chaos.

In effect, four justices ruled that the right under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh was more sacred than the main objectives of the Constitution to establish an enduring nation.

In 1933 you and I knew that we must never let our economic system get completely out of joint again - that we could not afford to take the risk of another Great Depression.

We also became convinced that the only way to avoid a repetition of those dark days was to have a government with power to prevent and to cure the abuses and the inequalities which had thrown that system out of joint.

We then began a program of remedying those abuses and inequalities - to give balance and stability to our economic system, to make it bomb-proof against the causes of 1929.

Today we are only part-way through that program - and recovery is speeding up to a point where the dangers of 1929 are again becoming possible, not this week or month perhaps, but within a year or two.

National laws are needed to complete that program.

Individual or local or state effort alone cannot protect us in 1937 any better than ten years ago.

It will take time - and plenty of time - to work out our remedies administratively even after legislation is passed.

To complete our program of protection in time, therefore, we cannot delay one moment in making certain that our national government has power to carry through.

Four years ago action did not come until the eleventh hour.

It was almost too late.

If we learned anything from the depression, we will not allow our selves to run around in new circles of futile discussion and debates, always postponing the day of decision.

The American people have learned from the depression.

For in the last three national elections an overwhelming majority of them voted a mandate that the Congress and the president begin the task of providing that protection - not after long years of debate, but now.

The courts, however, have cast doubts on the ability of the elected Congress to protect us against catastrophe by meeting squarely our modern social and economic conditions.

We are at a crisis, a crisis in our ability to proceed with that protection.

It is a quiet crisis.

There are no lines of depositors outside closed banks.

But to the farsighted it is far-reaching in its possibilities of injury to America.

I want to talk with you very simply tonight about the need for present action in this crisis - the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed.

Last Thursday I described the American form of government as a three-horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people so that their field might be plowed.

The three horses are, of course, the three branches of government - the Congress, the executive, and the courts.

Two of the horses, the Congress and the executive, are pulling in unison today; the third is not.

Those who have intimated that the president of the United States is trying to drive that team, overlook the simple fact that the president, as chief executive, is himself one of the three horses.

It is the American people themselves who are in the driver s seat.

It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed.

It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to fall in unison with the other two.

I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks.

Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.

It is an easy document to understand when you remember that it was called into being because the Articles of Confederation under which the original thirteen states tried to operate after the Revolution showed the need of a national government with power enough to handle national problems.

In its Preamble, the Constitution states that it was intended to form a more perfect union and promote the general welfare; and the powers given to the Congress to carry out those purposes can best be described by saying that they were all the powers needed to meet each and every problem which then had a national character and which could not be met by merely local action.

But the framers of the Constitution went further.

Having in mind that in succeeding generations many other problems then undreamed of would become national problems, they gave to the Congress the ample broad powers "to levy taxes . . . and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."

That, my friends, is what I honestly believe to have been the clear and underlying purpose of the patriots who wrote a federal Constitution to create a national government with national power, intended as they said, "to form a more perfect union . . . for ourselves and our posterity."

For nearly twenty years there was no conflict between the Congress and the Court.

Then in 1803 Congress passed a statute which the Court said violated an express provision of the Constitution.

The Court claimed the power to declare it unconstitutional and did so declare it.

But a little later the Court itself admitted that it was an extraordinary power to exercise and through Mr. Justice Washington laid down this limitation upon it: he said, "It is but a decent respect due to the wisdom, the integrity and the patriotism of the legislative body, by which any law is passed, to presume in favor of its validity until its violation of the Constitution is proved beyond all reasonable doubt."

But since the rise of the modern movement for social and economic progress through legislation, the Court has more and more often and more and more boldly asserted a power to veto laws passed by the Congress and by state legislatures in complete disregard of this original limitation which I have just read.

In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside.

The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policymaking body.

When the Congress has sought to stabilize national agriculture, to improve the conditions of labor, to safeguard business against unfair competition, to protect our national resources, and in many other ways, to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the Court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of the Congress - and to approve or disapprove the public policy written into these laws.

That is not only my accusation.

It is the accusation of most distinguished justices of the present Supreme Court.

I have not the time to quote to you all the language used by dissenting justices in many of these cases.

But in the case holding the Railroad Retirement Act unconstitutional, for instance, Chief Justice Hughes said in a dissenting opinion that the majority opinion was "a departure from sound principles," and placed "an unwarranted limitation upon the commerce clause."

And three other justices agreed with him.

In the case of holding the AAA unconstitutional, Justice Stone said of the majority opinion that it was a "tortured construction of the Constitution."

And two other justices agreed with him.

In the case holding the New York minimum wage law unconstitutional, Justice Stone said that the majority were actually reading into the Constitution their own "personal economic predilections," and that if the legislative power is not left free to choose the methods of solving the problems of poverty, subsistence, and health of large numbers in the community, then "government is to be rendered impotent."

And two other justices agreed with him.

In the face of these dissenting opinions, there is no basis for the claim made by some members of the Court that something in the Constitution has compelled them regretfully to thwart the will of the people.

In the face of such dissenting opinions, it is perfectly clear that, as Chief Justice Hughes has said, "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is."

The Court in addition to the proper use of its judicial functions has improperly set itself up as a third house of the Congress - a super-legislature, as one of the justices has called it - reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there.

We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself.

We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself.

We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it.

In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.

I want - as all Americans want - an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution.

That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as written, that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power - in other words by judicial say-so.

It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are universally recognized.

How then could we proceed to perform the mandate given us?

It was said in last year's Democratic platform, and here are the words, "if these problems cannot be effectively solved within the Constitution, we shall seek such clarifying amendments as will assure the power to enact those laws, adequately to regulate commerce, protect public health and safety, and safeguard economic security."

In their words, we said we would seek an amendment only if every other possible means by legislation were to fail.

When I commenced to review the situation with the problem squarely before me, I came by a process of elimination to the conclusion that, short of amendments, the only method which was clearly constitutional, and would at the same time carry out other much needed reforms, was to infuse new blood into all our courts.

We must have men worthy and equipped to carry out impartial justice.

But, at the same time, we must have judges who will bring to the courts a present-day sense of the Constitution - judges who will retain in the courts the judicial functions of a court, and reject the legislative powers which the courts have today assumed.

It is well for us to remember that in forty-five out of the forty-eight states of the Union, judges are chosen not for life but for a period of years.

In many states judges must retire at the age of seventy.

Congress has provided financial security by offering life pensions at full pay for federal judges on all courts who are willing to retire at seventy.

In the case of Supreme Court justices, that pension is $20,000 a year.

But all federal judges, once appointed, can, if they choose, hold office for life, no matter how old they may get to be.

What is my proposal?

It is simply this: whenever a judge or justice of any federal court has reached the age of seventy and does not avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension, a new member shall be appointed by the president then in office, with the approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.

That plan has two chief purposes.

By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I hope, first, to make the administration of all federal justice, from the bottom to the top, speedier and, therefore, less costly; secondly, to bring to the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work.

This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.

The number of judges to be appointed would depend wholly on the decision of present judges now over seventy, or those who would subsequently reach the age of seventy.

If, for instance, any one of the six justices of the Supreme Court now over the age of seventy should retire as provided under the plan, no additional place would be created.

Consequently, although there never can be more than fifteen, there may be only fourteen, or thirteen, or twelve.

And there may be only nine.

There is nothing novel or radical about this idea.

It seeks to maintain the federal bench in full vigor.

It has been discussed and approved by many persons of high authority ever since a similar proposal passed the House of Representatives in 1869.

Why was the age fixed at seventy?

Because the laws of many states, and the practice of the civil service, the regulations of the Army and Navy, and the rules of many of our universities and of almost every great private business enterprise, commonly fix the retirement age at seventy years or less.

The statute would apply to all the courts in the federal system.

There is general approval so far as the lower federal courts are concerned.

The plan has met opposition only so far as the Supreme Court of the United States itself is concerned.

But, my friends, if such a plan is good for the lower courts, it certainly ought to be equally good for the highest Court, from which there is no appeal.

Those opposing this plan have sought to arouse prejudice and fear by crying that I am seeking to "pack" the Supreme Court and that a baneful precedent will be established.

What do they mean by the words "packing the Supreme Court?"

Let me answer this question with a bluntness that will end all honest misunderstanding of my purposes.

If by that phrase "packing the Court" it is charged that I wish to place on the bench spineless puppets who would disregard the law and would decide specific cases as I wished them to be decided, I make this answer: that no president fit for his office would appoint, and no Senate of honorable men fit for their office would confirm, that kind of appointees to the Supreme Court.

But if by that phrase the charge is made that I would appoint and the Senate would confirm justices worthy to sit beside present members of the Court, who understand modern conditions, that I will appoint justices who will not undertake to override the judgment of the Congress on legislative policy, that I will appoint justices who will act as justices and not as legislators - if the appointment of such justices can be called "packing the Courts," then I say that I and with me the vast majority of the American people favor doing just that thing - now.

Is it a dangerous precedent for the Congress to change the number of the justices?

The Congress has always had, and will have, that power.

The number of justices has been changed several times before, in the administrations of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson - both of them signers of the Declaration of Independence - in the administrations of Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant.

I suggest only the addition of justices to the bench in accordance with a clearly defined principle relating to a clearly defined age limit.

Fundamentally, if in the future, America cannot trust the Congress it elects to refrain from abuse of our constitutional usages, democracy will have failed far beyond the importance to democracy of any kind of precedent concerning the judiciary.

We think it so much in the public interest to maintain a vigorous judiciary that we encourage the retirement of elderly judges by offering them a life pension at full salary.

Why then should we leave the fulfillment of this public policy to chance or make it dependent upon the desire or prejudice of any individual justice?

It is the clear intention of our public policy to provide for a constant flow of new and younger blood into the judiciary.

Normally every president appoints a large number of district and circuit judges and a few members of the Supreme Court.

Until my first term practically every president of the United States in our history had appointed at least one member of the Supreme Court.

President Taft appointed five members and named a chief justice; President Wilson, three; President Harding, four, including a chief justice; President Coolidge, one; President Hoover, three including a chief justice.

Such a succession of appointments should have provided a Court well balanced as to age.

But chance and the disinclination of individuals to leave the Supreme bench have now given us a Court in which five justices will be over seventy-five years of age before next June and one over seventy.

Thus a sound public policy has been defeated.

So I now propose that we establish by law an assurance against any such ill-balanced Court in the future.

I propose that hereafter, when a judge reaches the age of seventy, a new and younger judge shall be added to the Court automatically.

In this way I propose to enforce a sound public policy by law instead of leaving the composition of our federal courts, including the highest, to be determined by chance or the personal decision of individuals.

If such a law as I propose is regarded as establishing a new precedent, is it not a most desirable precedent?

Like all lawyers, like all Americans, I regret the necessity of this controversy.

But the welfare of the United States, and indeed of the Constitution itself, is what we all must think about first.

Our difficulty with the Court today rises not from the Court as an institution but from human beings within it.

But we cannot yield our constitutional destiny to the personal judgment of a few men who, being fearful of the future, would deny us the necessary means of dealing with the present.

This plan of mine is no attack on the Court; it seeks to restore the Court to its rightful and historic place in our system of constitutional government and to have it resume its high task of building anew on the Constitution "a system of living law."

The Court itself can best undo what the Court has done.

I have thus explained to you the reasons that lie behind our efforts to secure results by legislation within the Constitution.

I hope that thereby the difficult process of constitutional amendment may be rendered unnecessary.

But let us examine that process.

There are many types of amendment proposed.

Each one is radically different from the other.

But there is no substantial group within the Congress or outside the Congress who are agreed on any single amendment.

I believe that it would take months or years to get substantial agreement upon the type and language of an amendment.

It would take months and years thereafter to get a two-thirds majority in favor of that amendment in both houses of the Congress.

Then would come the long course of ratification by three-quarters of all the states.

No amendment which any powerful economic interests or the leaders of any powerful political party have had reason to oppose has ever been ratified within anything like a reasonable time.[/size]

And remember that thirteen states which contain only 5 percent of the voting population can block ratification even though the thirty-five states with 95 percent of the population are in favor of it.

A very large percentage of newspaper publishers and chambers of commerce and bar associations and manufacturers' associations, who are trying to give the impression today that they really do want a constitutional amendment, would be the very first to exclaim as soon as an amendment was proposed, "Oh! I was for an amendment all right, but this amendment that you've proposed is not the kind of an amendment that I was thinking about."

"And so, I am going to spend my time, my efforts, and my money to block this amendment, although I would be awfully glad to help to get some other kind of an amendment ratified."

Two groups oppose my plan on the ground that they favor a constitutional amendment.

The first includes those who fundamentally object to social and economic legislation along modern lines.

This is the same group who during the recent campaign tried to block the mandate of the people.

And the strategy of that last stand is to suggest the time-consuming process of amendment in order to kill off by delay the legislation demanded by the mandated.

To those people I say, I do not think you will be able long to fool the American people as to your purposes.

The other group is composed of those who honestly believe the amendment process is the best and who would be willing to support a reasonable amendment if they could agree on one.

To them I say, we cannot rely on an amendment as the immediate or only answer to our present difficulties.

When the time comes for action, you will find that many of those who pretend to support you will sabotage any constructive amendment which is proposed.

Look at these strange bedfellows of yours.

When before have you found them really at your side in your fights for progress?

And remember one thing more.

Even if an amendment were passed, and even if in the years to come it were to be ratified, its meaning would depend upon the kind of justices who would be sitting on the Supreme Court bench.

For an amendment, like the rest of the Constitution, is what the justices say it is rather than what its framers or you might hope it is.

This proposal of mine will not infringe in the slightest upon the civil or religious liberties so dear to every American.

My record as governor and as president proves my devotion to those liberties.

You who know me can have no fear that I would tolerate the destruction by any branch of government of any part of our heritage of freedom.

The present attempt by those opposed to progress to play upon the fears of danger to personal liberty brings again to mind that crude and cruel strategy tried by the same opposition to frighten the workers of America in a pay-envelope propaganda against the Social Security law.

The workers were not fooled by that propaganda then.

And the people of America will not be fooled by such propaganda now.

I am in favor of action through legislation:

First, because I believe it can be passed at this session of the Congress.

Second, because it will provide a reinvigorated, liberal-minded judiciary necessary to furnish quicker and cheaper justice from bottom to top.

Third, because it will provide a series of federal courts willing to enforce the Constitution as written, and unwilling to assert legislative powers by writing into it their own political and economic policies.

During the past half-century the balance of power between the three great branches of the federal government has been tipped out of balance by the courts in direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constitution.

It is my purpose to restore that balance.

You who know me will accept my solemn assurance that in a world in which democracy is under attack, I seek to make American democracy succeed.

You and I will do our part.

http://www.hpol.org/fdr/chat

[Livyjr]

Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937
 
MY FRIENDS

I want to talk with you very simply tonight about the need for present action in this crisis - the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed.

Last Thursday I described the American form of government as a three-horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people so that their field might be plowed.

The three horses are, of course, the three branches of government - the Congress, the executive, and the courts.

Two of the horses, the Congress and the executive, are pulling in unison today; the third is not.

Those who have intimated that the president of the United States is trying to drive that team, overlook the simple fact that the president, as chief executive, is himself one of the three horses.

It is the American people themselves who are in the driver s seat.

It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed.

It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to fall in unison with the other two.

I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks.

Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.

It is an easy document to understand when you remember that it was called into being because the Articles of Confederation under which the original thirteen states tried to operate after the Revolution showed the need of a national government with power enough to handle national problems.

In its Preamble, the Constitution states that it was intended to form a more perfect union and promote the general welfare; and the powers given to the Congress to carry out those purposes can best be described by saying that they were all the powers needed to meet each and every problem which then had a national character and which could not be met by merely local action.

But the framers of the Constitution went further.

Having in mind that in succeeding generations many other problems then undreamed of would become national problems, they gave to the Congress the ample broad powers "to levy taxes . . . and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."

That, my friends, is what I honestly believe to have been the clear and underlying purpose of the patriots who wrote a federal Constitution to create a national government with national power, intended as they said, "to form a more perfect union . . . for ourselves and our posterity."

http://www.hpol.org/fdr/chat

It is something for me, a disabled veteran who swore an oath to the Constitution, to read these words of FDR above here almost seventy years after he spoke these words to ALL Americans in the "Fireside Chat" that can be actually listened to by clicking on the link above ....

How comprehensible these words still are .....

And how American these words are as well .....

There is no day in OUR history when these words are not still relevant ....

And that goes for right now, today ....

Here is FDR, himself a lawyer, and the President of the United States as well, giving forth, IN HIS OWN WORDS, WITH HIS OWN VOICE, without a spokesperson telling us what FDR might have meant when he said this or that, about what the United States Constitution should mean to US, the American people, and he is making it very clear that as President of the United States, HE ANSWERS TO US .....

Compare the clarity of the words of FDR above with the muddle that came out of Judge Alito in these last few days, AND MORE TO THE POINT, WHAT MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE ACCEPTED, and one is left with a sense of where this nation has gotten itself to in less than seventy years .....

A place where the courts of the United States of America are now closed off to me, a disabled veteran who took an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution ...

For protecting and safeguarding life, health and property in Rensselaer County in the State of New York .....

Where FDR was Governor from 1928 to 1932 ....

Where he pursued an activist agenda, enhancing the power of state agencies, expanding support for social services and increasing regulatory supervision of business ......

Where he also provided help to the state's agricultural community by passing tax cuts for small farmers, boosting funds for rural education, and initiating the first program in the country that sought to raise commodity prices by taking land out of production ......

Where following the collapse of the Stock Market in 1929, and the onset of the Great Depression, FDR moved slowly away from his fiscal conservatism, and through measures such as the New York State Unemployment Relief Act and the creation of the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA), moved to provide relief to the growing numbers of jobless in the state .......

No corruption, however .....

FDR did not champion corruption ....

And I chose to follow his example .....

What a distance we have come in less than seventy years is all I can now say ....

[Livyjr]

Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937
 
MY FRIENDS

In 1933 you and I knew that we must never let our economic system get completely out of joint again - that we could not afford to take the risk of another Great Depression.

We also became convinced that the only way to avoid a repetition of those dark days was to have a government with power to prevent and to cure the abuses and the inequalities which had thrown that system out of joint.

1937 ......

A time in OUR nation's history ....

And in a lot of ways, a turning point like no other ....

It is said that what is called MODERN AMERICA today grew out of these times in that period .....

There was an America leading up to that point ....

Like a butterfly in a cocoon, perhaps .....

And after, there was another America ...

Like the butterfly emerging ....

SOCIAL LEGISLATION ....

A recognition of responsibility?

And if so, by whom?

And that answer in the State of New York would have had to have been the people of the state itself, since in 1938, the PEOPLE of the State of New York voted on November 8, 1938 to amend the New York State Constitution, the "law of the land" in New York State, by adding Article XVII, entitled "Social Welfare" ....

And section 3 of Article XVII, entitled "Public Health" states in relevant part that:

The protection and promotion of the health of the inhabitants of the state are matters of public concern and provision therefor shall be made by the state and by such of its subdivisions and in such manner, and by such means as the legislature shall from time to time determine.

And EIGHT years later, in 1946, Rensselaer County in the State of New York became the first county in the State of New York to take advantage of the body of law which sprung forth from this Constitutional amendment in 1938 to form itself as a HEALTH DISTRICT, by vote of the PEOPLE of Rensselaer County, so as to be able to provide for THEMSELVES better public health protection in Rensselaer County that the State of New York just could not provide in the rural areas of the state ....

BY THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE ....

In this case that we are talking about in here, where a licensed professional engineer in the State of New York qualified as an associate public health engineer in the State of New York pursuant to section 3 of Article XVII of the New York State Constitution was first assaulted on a public road in broad daylight on videotape by Jeffrey Pelletier of Poestenkill, New York in August of 2001, to deter him from continuing an investigation into alleged corrupt practices by licensed professionals in Rensselaer County, and then declared, SIGHT UNSEEN, to be "mentally ill and dangerous" by John Christian Braaten, a doctor in the State of New York practicing CORPORATE MEDICINE for Northeast health, Inc. in Troy, New York so as to render his testimony on the subject worthless, what has been stripped from us by these federal court rulings we are talking about in here is the WILL OF THE PEOPLE as expressed in the laws of the State of New York AS WRITTEN .....

Laws which are supposed to bind the federal courts in the State of New York just as they bind the citizens and OUR state government ...

Supposedly, anyway ....

To be continued ......

[Livyjr]

By 1946, and this is all public record, of course, easily verified, it was apparent that without decentralization, the State of New York Health Department simply could not provide public health services to all of the citizens of the state who needed or required them, and here I am talking primarily about water supply and sewage disposal, or environmental health, as it is called, although the changes made to the New York State Public Health Law by the Legislature of the State of New York to allow for the creation of county health departments in the state of New York also allowed for those county health departments to be "full service" health departments, with programs like immunizations, and home health nurses, etc.

In 1946, then, the people of Rensselaer County had it put to them in the November elections whether to have Rensselaer County be a county health district, with a county health department and county board of health, and the people of Rensselaer County voted YES ....

YES .....

WE, the PEOPLE OF RENSSELAER COUNTY in the State of New York want better public health protection in the county, and this is how we want that to be accomplished ....

And so ...

Rensselaer County became the very first county in the State of New York in 1946 to take advantage of these newly-enacted provisions of the New York State Public Health Law allowing for the first time in the State of New York the creation of county health departments in rural counties like Rensselaer County was at that time ....

Which was a multi-part process ....

Question One being shall the County of Rensselaer be a HEALTH DISTRICT as such term is defined in the New York State Public Health Law?

Once that HEALTH DISTRICT was approved by the People of Rensselaer County, and it was, the other questions became ones of organization ....

The Health Department of the Rensselaer County Health District came into being ...

A Commissioner of Health, a medical doctor, was appointed .....

A Board of Health with so many doctors as members was appointed .....

And then ....

A Sanitary Code for Rensselaer County was adopted ....

And then, staff were hired to administer and enforce that Sanitary Code ....

And a health department was born ....

And all that then transpired, leading up to this very moment in time, there its origins lie ....

In 1946, with a vote of WE, THE PEOPLE in the County of Rensselaer in the State of New York ....

In accordance with section 3 of Article XVII of the New York State Constitution ....

To be continued ....