While Republicans are expressing great concern that President Obama will appoint a more moderate Justice to the Supreme Court, they continue to attack each other about any occurrence; relevant to the 2016 election or not.

Naturally, the most extreme and misguided is Ted Cruz. Although the American people support every issue, he is complaining about, that doesn’t stop America’s number one obstructionist from attacking everything the American people want.

In an ad attacking the front runner, Donald Trump, Cruz misrepresents virtually everything.

“Life. Marriage. Religious liberty. The Second Amendment. We’re just one Supreme Court justice away from losing them all,” a narrator says to ominous music and shots of the Supreme Court building.

It then flips to a now-infamous Trump interview from 1999 in which he says he’s “very pro-choice” and wouldn’t outlaw late-term abortion.

“We cannot trust Donald Trump with these serious decisions,” the narrator says.

If you are an American, you are likely to support Trump long before you considered Cruz.

Most Americans are pro-choice. It’s not that they believe in abortion, but they do believe in the right of a woman to make choices about her health, and her own body. A large majority of Americans favor same-sex marriage. Only religious extremists oppose the rights of the LGBT community. Once again Cruz is wrong for the GOP and definitely wrong for America. When he speaks of ‘religious freedom,’ he is actually talking about religious dominance and would refuse the rights of anyone but Christians to openly practice their faith.

Not only is President Obama in the right when he nominates a new candidate for the Supreme Court, it his obligation. He must suggest a man or woman who will protect the Constitutional rights of every American, not just a few.

A classic example of how a right wing court bends the Constitution is the 2010 decision regarding Citizens United. When the biased court claimed that ‘corporations are people,’ they intended to allow the purchase of elections by the wealthiest Americans.

Now, here’s the unknown factor in 2016 which has excluded the influence of the wealthy, so far; the leading candidate in the Republican Party is Donald Trump. He is using his own money. For the Democrats, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are virtually ‘neck and neck.’ Sanders does not have a ‘Super PAC,’ and takes only private donations; who knew?

If the Court is unbalanced, the first, fourth, 14^th and 15^th amendments will be challenged, and may be revoked.

The Christian religious right is a lobby. It is one of the owners of the GOP. They would attempt to violate the first amendment and institute a national religion, expressly forbidden by our founding fathers.

The fourth amendment has nearly been revoked entirely. The government and law enforcement are now allowed to ‘search and seize’ anything they wish thanks to provisions in the Patriot Act.

Although the 14^th amendment insures equal protection under the law, conservatives would place the LGBT community back in the dark ages of our nation. Progress demanded and made by the majority would be discounted.

The 15^th amendment forbids the prevention of an individual to vote based on race, creed, or color. Changes in voting laws in red states attempt to prevent or discourage black men and women from casting their ballots.

President Obama must uphold the Constitution and appoint a strong, but fair Justice. If our nation was forced to wait until sometime in 2017, important issues which are scheduled to be heard by the court would simply be ignored; there is a reason the Court has an odd number of Justices.

Op-Ed

By James Turnage

Source

Photo Courtesy of DonkeyHotey

Read ‘James Turnage’ on the free Amazon Kindle App