Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Some Good News



Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgh is back in court:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to the Supreme Court bench yesterday with a wide smile and a long list of questions for the lawyers appearing before her, resuming her duties less than three weeks after surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Ginsburg, who will turn 76 next month, smiled broadly as she walked into the courtroom with her eight colleagues and turned slightly to look directly at reporters who chronicled her Feb. 5 surgery and diagnosis of early-stage cancer.

She was a vigorous participant in yesterday's two oral arguments, and even teased veteran Supreme Court practitioner Carter Phillips about whether an opinion she wrote in 2003 had misstated the justices' intentions.

I raise my divine winged helmet to her. She's tough. Like a diamond is tough. And her presence was already noted in the decision about guns and domestic violence.

Then Hilda Solis was confirmed as the new Labor Secretary:

U.S. Representative Hilda Solis, the daughter of two union members, was confirmed by a Senate vote today as the nation's 25th labor secretary.

The nomination was approved with bipartisan support after Republicans ended efforts to delay a vote over concerns about her ties to union groups and tax liens on her husband's business. The vote was 80-17.

This is a major change from the Bush administration which ran lots of these departments on the basis of the fox guarding the chicken coops and of course absolutely loathed organized labor. Not organized capitalism, mind you, but only its counterveiling power.