Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

Your column (Thursday) "About that un-elected group of people on the Supreme Court" was interesting.

The idea that President Obama is doing something unusual by questioning the influence of the Supreme Court on legislative decisions is ludicrous to say the least. The republicans have been crying about "activist judges" for over fifty years that I can remember, and denying the right of un-elected judges to overthrow the "will of the people".

President Obama isn't the first or the only sitting politician to object to the actions and opinions of the Supreme Court justices.

Let's not forget that the conservative judges on this court are the same ones who stopped the re-count of the vote in Florida and handed the election over to George Bush.

Newt Gingrich, no liberal by any account, recently suggested that judges, even Supreme Court judges, should be subject to arrest, and should be brought before Congress, by federal marshals if necessary, to "explain" their decisions.

President George Bush said that judicial activists posed a "threat to our democracy" and that their actions "had to stop!"

John McCain said, when the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo had the right to due process, that it was "one of the worst decisions in the history of the court."

President Abraham Lincoln protested that nine individuals, the Supreme Court justices, had no right to overturn the will of the people when the Supreme Court ruled that slavery was legal across the entire United States.

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and his wife have spoken in support of, and taken money from, groups that want to overturn the Affordable Care Act legislation, or ObamaCare as some conservatives like to call it.

From my vantage point, I think that what conservatives really object to is a black man who happens to be president questioning the Supreme Court.

Stephen Breacain

Manteca

April 5, 2012