[edsheppa]

Nice cherry picking. In the first place, although one meaning of non sequitur is an unsupported or insufficiently supported conclusion, the generally intended meaning is a statement that is unconnected to or has no relevance to the context.

I note that you continue the non sequitur with this statement:

Congress hasn't overruled the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, so therefore Congress has no authority over the Supreme Court

In the second place, I have never made that argument which is clearly false.

In the third place, I have made clear that I'm not talking about Congress but about the governed, the citizens of this country. I have said this twice, once in the post you originally responded to and then again later to make it clear. The point is not subtle so I hope you get it now.

Now, you have found one case which I will accept as an instance of the courts having been ignored. (I am appalled at this case by the way.) Yes, it is clear, and I have not disputed, that the courts have no constitutional power to enforce their decisions. But, surely you are not going to pretend that such an outcome is common. It cannot be because, as I have argued, arbitrarily ignoring court decisions undermines the rule of law and I do think Americans hold that dear. Do you dispute that?

But even so, it is again not the main point. I am talking about effective checks by the governed on the judicial branch. The judicial branch is too far removed from the consent of the governed. They do not serve us but rather their own evolving interpretation of the Constitution. It is a failing of the Framers that this is so.

And please, don't reply if you can't stick to the point or intend to misrepresent my argument again.

[Alberta's Child]

Many folks may not remember that strange incident in Washington DC a couple of years ago, in which David Souter was assaulted and robbed while jogging in a park -- by someone who apparently had no idea who he was and was just out to rob the first person who came along.

If the U.S. Supreme Court had anywhere near the "power" that is ascribed to them by conservative legal experts like Mark Levin and Ann Coulter, that limp-wristed mediocrity wouldn't be out running around in Rock Creek Park without a security detail.

Congress has any number of avenues through which to overturn Supreme Court rulings, and the fact that it has not done (or even broached the subject of possibly doing so) is (to me) compelling evidence that they don't see the Supreme Court as an out-of-control institution hell-bent on diminishing the authority of the legislative and executive branches of government. It's hard to make the case that one branch of government is usurping power from another when the branch whose power is supposedly being usurped isn't even voicing a mild protest about it.

So let's wrap this up with a summary that appears to flow well from a logical standpoint.

1. Congress has any number of perfectly legitimate means at its disposal to deal with the assumption of extra-constitutional powers on the part of the judicial branch of the Federal government.

2. Congress has not acted on even a single one of these means to deal with the assumption of extra-constitutional powers on the part of the judicial branch of the Federal government.

3. Therefore, we can conclude that Congress has no interest in dealing with this assumption of extra-constitutional powers on the part of the judicial branch of the Federal government.

As far as the executive branch is concerned, I would make a compelling case that much of this administration's actions in the conduct of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq has been specifically aimed at eliminating the Federal judiciary as a potential obstacle. The use of civilian contractors for military operations overseas, the use of off-shore detention/processing facilities for enemy prisoners, etc. are pretty much an admission on the part of the executive branch of the U.S. government that the U.S. judiciary can't be trusted to act in the best interests of the country.