>>>>Yes, and it was decided precisely along party lines.
>>>>The R appointees went for Bush and the D's for Gore.
>>
>>I "got" the conservative judges predictably voting en bloc and I agree they were GOP appointees... but it's pretty important that a Supreme Court isn't ruling along political lines or "bang" goes one of your pillars of democracy. I don't mind conservative vs liberal opinions but GOP vs Dem? Worrying. I take it you're worried?
>
>I think that the Bush V Gore decision was one of the lowest political moments that this country has seen since the Civil War.

Not exactly close to the top of the list... McCarthyism after WWII, The Trail of Tears 1838, Interment Camps 1942, Vietnam War in the 1960's and 70's, JFK and the Bay of Pigs in 1961, of course Iraq in 2003 ...etc etc etc.


>Any illusions I had about the supreme court flew away (as they should have years before.) They're a bunch of political hacks trying to appear sage while protecting their pensions.

The whole reason that supreme court justices have lifetime appointments is so they're not subject to political pressures and can do their job without worrying about loosing it. As for their pensions, they only need 10 years provided the sum of the justice's age and years of Supreme Court service totals 80....plus they are required to remain active in the legal community, performing a minimum specified amount of judicial obligations every year (assuming they're in relatively good health with no disabilities). The pay if 250,000 - 260,000 so not a tiny paycheck but not exactly a jackpot of money either considering the work. They're pensions are equal to whatever they were making. Point is I wouldn't call these folks 'political hacks protecting their pensions'.

>Here's the kicker. I'd have sided with the R's!
>As I saw it the corruption lay with the D appointees who voted for the recount.
>It should have a unanimous decision.
>However you saw it, though, the outcome showed that it was statistically impossible that that vote was not along party lines.
>
>
>Worried? Not really. The amazing thing about this place is that given enough time, we get things right.

..Assuming that there is anything left ..sure. With Trump and the GOP in power there might not be any plants or animals left thanks to their brilliant ideas and policies, or we might end up in a nuke fight with a dictator over a damn tweet. Some things can get so screwed up that they can't be fixed or undone (like opting out of the Paris Agreement for example - we're forever screwed on that now thanks to the idiocy of Trump)

>I note that the NY Time is finally featuring stories about the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

They've been featuring stories about these all along. Do you subscribe to it? - I'm gather either you don't or you do and just don't read it.

>Not as juicy as a yearbook or an wanted grope or fondle, but people are being murdered in our names while we ponder about Al Franken's future
>And I do worry about that.

It's possible to be concerned about more than one thing at a time. Trump will send out his tweets and insult people to divert attention from the growing Russia probe and the insane Tax plan, he will do the same crap to get you not to think about having sexual predator in office, destroy the EPA and all kinds of other things while you're looking at something else, ..and as you pointed out all this gives you less time to worry about the USA killing all kinds of people overseas and our home-grown gun-toting jackasses doing mass shootings at a rate of more than 1 day in the USA. But you have to worry about it all - after all, you want a guy who thinks 9/11 is god's punishment for sodomy, brandished a gun at his own political rally and is a sexual predator like Roy Moore making decisions on how to fix all this? Ya got to pay attention to it all.

>While contemplating the slavery in his state, Jefferson wrote:
>"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."

Here is another quote by Thomas Jefferson
'Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.' -- ya might want to keep that one in mind the next time you vote for serial liar like Trump, perhaps you will think twice next time.