What Roberts did in inviting Obama would be like if SCOTUS had had a private meeting with Bush before deciding Bush v Gore. If it would be seen as inappropriate AFTER the ruling, it sure as heck should be seen as inappropriate BEFORE the ruling.
And that’s what Roberts did. He scheduled a private, ex parte meeting between SCOTUS and a Presidential candidate with multiple court cases pending before the court.
You may say ho-hum to that; after all, it’s only the rule of law. But people who actually care about ethics - which also involve avoiding any APPEARANCE of bias on the part of a judge - have to wonder why so many of these judges have done so many blatant things.
One dot is just one dot. If it’s just one dot and somebody says it’s a photo of a dog then you call them a conspiracy theorist. If somebody looks at a news photo of a dog - made up of many dots - you don’t point out each dot and say it can’t be an image of a dog because each of those dots is just a dot.
This is really the same thing you tried arguing with Lakin’s case, and with the Nazis. When it’s Lakin you say that all that matters is that one dot - that one order that Lakin was given - and whether it was a dot, whether it was criminal. If it wasn’t criminal then the order is lawful and he has to do it. But if the German soldier is told to turn on the oven the whole print full of dots matters; he should have seen that the oven was full of people who were going to be maliciously killed.
If only the dot matters for Lakin, then only the dot matters for the German soldiers.
I say when you’ve got a bunch of dots they add up to more than just a dot, and you’re a fool if you refuse to look at them all together.
What was “before the Court” at that time was Phil Berg’s petition to Justice Souter for a Writ of Certiorari which had not yet been presented to the full Court.
You might remember that petition as the one that many in the “Obama is ineligible” movement thought was going to “force Obama to reveal his birth certificate to the Supreme Court.” (Obama’s attorneys chose to submit no response at all to Justice Souter, which was their legal privilege).
In case you have forgotten, here’s a FreeRepublic thread on that issue:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2128383/posts
I suppose the case could be made that Justice Souter rather than Justice Alito could have stayed away from the meeting with Obama and Biden, but that’s about it.
As for Lieutenant Colonel Lakin, he announced in advance and with premeditation his intention to disobey not one order but a series of orders which all focused on his movement to a war zone. However to this very day Lakin is following OTHER orders which extend from the exact same Commander-in-Chief under Lakin’s legal theory. For example, when Lakin shows up at his Court Martial, he is following orders. The military tends to look unkindly upon persons in the chain of command who want to decide for themselves which orders they will obey and which orders they won’t obey. Lakin obeys the order to go work at Walter Reed Hospital and he picks up his Barack Obama issued paychecks as well.
I’m just going to take one of your points before addressing anything else. This one:
“First off you are wrong on the facts. Obama was NOT a “presidential candidate.” He had won the election and his Electoral College votes already had been certified by the President of the Senate without objection from any of the 535 members of Congress. Those facts change the scenario quite a bit.”
WRONG. The legal process that was required was never followed. There was never a lawful certification of anything because Dick Cheney never asked for objections as required by law.
Your argument is totally annihilated because of that simple fact.
Obama doesn't issue the paychecks.