Category Archives: Supreme Court

The Godfathers In Congress

I don’t know how else to characterize it when politicians believe, and so far get away with, that because they are elected representatives of the people that they are immune from criminal investigations. It’s enough to make Tony Soprano jealous.

The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision limiting law enforcement searches of congressional offices, arguing that the sweep of the ruling last summer may kill ongoing public corruption investigations.

Acting Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre, in a petition filed this week, urged the high court to weigh in on how far the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution goes in insulating members of Congress from legal action. In the meantime, he said, “investigations of corruption in the nation’s capital and elsewhere will be seriously and perhaps fatally stymied.”

Hiding behind the ‘speech or debate’ clause of the Constitution creates a safe haven for criminal behavior. Who thinks that was the intention of the founding fathers?

related links:
U.S. Asks High Court to Nix ‘Speech-or-Debate’ Ruling | Best defense is a good admission? | Jefferson plays the race card | Congressman Indicted In Washington | Nation’s Capitol Is No Safe Haven For Corrupt Politicians

When Justice Is Political

In front of the Supreme Court is a case to determine whether enemy combatants who prefer to kill all nine justices and the other 300 million of us should have the right that all U.S. citizens have, access to habeas corpus rights. This matter was decided once already in 1950 in Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950).

Ignoring precedent, there are still politicians, most of them trying to be president on the Democrat(ic) ticket, that are trying to extend our legal protections to our enemy. While at the same time trying to undercut our troops that are currently fighting for us in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our courts have no place being involved in telling the Commander in Chief or Congress how to conduct an ongoing war, or any war for that matter.

For the first time in American history, an entire panoply of the federal government’s overseas actions directed at foreigners, including surveillance and even use of deadly force, would become subject to constitutional strictures. This would transform the U.S. into a Gulliver, bound by its own judicial strings, on the international stage.

related link: Gitmo Goes To Court

CNN’s Democrat Party Primary Debate Analysis

For those who didn’t see the Democrat debate tonight, after all it was on CNN, here is a recap. It started out with some bickering among the candidates, most of whom took shots at Sen. Clinton’s inability to state a position on giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens. To that and many other questions, Hillary’s response was her usual, ‘the American people know where I stand…’ Oh really? I must have missed it. All of them seemed to be running against Bush, who isn’t running.

On the drivers license subject, some came right out and said, like Gov. Bill Richardson, that yes they should be permitted to have a drivers license. Sen. Barak Obama thought it was a good idea too. Others hid behind the smoke of ‘we need comprehensive immigration reform,’ which is code for amnesty, drivers licenses, and more, but they wouldn’t come out and answer the question whether they should have a drivers license.

All of them wanted out of Iraq, and Iran is also out of the question. The most hawkish on Iran was Hillary who did go so far as to say that we should use diplomacy with Iran but keep the stick. She didn’t elaborate on the stick part. She held true to her belief system which is she hasn’t one. She likes blue ribbon panels to make decisions for her.

Iran brought out the weakness of them all on the subject of the Quds Force, the terrorist-supporting wing of the Iranian military. There seemed to be a consensus that calling them a terrorist organization was not nice, except Hillary. She’s the one who voted in favor of the resolution that labeled them a terrorist organization. She had no where to hide on that one, especially after her drivers license debacle at their last debate.

Wolf Blitzer, host of the debate, joined the ranks of Brian Williams and Tim Russert in qualifying for the Chris Matthews award by not asking or even mentioning the Iranian made 107mm rockets and super penetrating IED’s that are killing ours and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians. A fair question was again ignored, giving way to their diplomatic story line.

John Edwards’ hair looked good. He had trouble completing a sentence that didn’t have the words Bush, Cheney, and neocons in it. Obviously appealing to the Soros wing of their party, but looking very silly for harping on them.

All of them spoke confidently on raising taxes for this that and the other. And on the subject of taxes, another Chris Matthews moment came up. None of them were asked whether they would make permanent the Bush tax cuts due to expire in 2010, which if elected, would be during their first term. Hold on to your wallet or make your escape plan.

On education, Wolf did ask a relevant question. Should exceptional teachers be rewarded with higher pay or bonus incentives? They were in complete agreement in towing the line of the teachers unions with a NO. It was blatantly obvious that the success of the students were not a priority. Hillary surprised me by saying, no, don’t reward good teachers, just fire the bad ones. Another rather stunning revelation was that they couldn’t agree what made a teacher a good teacher. Joe Biden, whose wife is a teacher with a masters and doctorate degree, believes that a good teacher is one who has multiple and higher degrees than just a bachelors degree. No one, not one of them, thought that successful students were relevant in determining whether a teacher was exceptional. Hillary ignored the students’ success by taking the village format. She said all the teachers in a given school should be rewarded if the school does well. Doing well doesn’t mean that the students do well. Doing well by her standards means teachers who teach in the worst of cities or neighborhoods are the ones to be rewarded with higher pay. More like combat pay. Again, no measure of the success of the students was offered. On the subject of education, it is clear that Democrats don’t give a wit about the success of the students, let alone merit pay for a job well done.

One of the funniest and scariest subjects was that of appointments to the Supreme Court. They all wanted an abortion litmus test for potential appointments to the Supreme Court. Abortion is the holy sacrament of the liberals’ political philosophy. None of them seemed at all interested in a strict constructionist type justice. John Edwards said he didn’t want a constitutional scholar on the bench, he wanted ‘a dog catcher’ on the bench. Literally, no exaggeration. I have to give him credit on at least saying what the others wouldn’t say. Which is, they want the supreme court to be filled with justices who don’t know what it is they are supposed to uphold, and who will uphold whatever the democrats want that they can’t get done through the people, the legislature.

After those grueling two hours, I don’t think it is necessary to see any more of their debates. If you see one, you’ve seen them all.

CNN link

UPDATE 11/19/07: ‘undecided’ voters were plants, activists, and Democrat operatives.

Way More Than The Lincoln Bedroom

Who believes that the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill worked, that is, did it accomplish what it was intended to accomplish? Of course not, and right from the start. Now, how effective do you think the ethics legislation just passed is? More importantly, how can Nancy Pelosi claim this as historic legislation? Because she’s Nancy Pelosi of course. Take pay for access
for example.

In a day and at a time when political ethics issues cast a pall on Washington D.C. caused by ‘special interests’ that influence politicians with money (all out of the kindness of their shareholders’ heart), with NO expectation of government decisions favorable to their company, you might be surprised to hear about this. . .

The host committees of 2008’s biggest political gatherings are soliciting corporations, wealthy individuals and others with a lot at stake in government decisions for seven-figure payments. In exchange, the givers receive all sorts of goodies, including access to lawmakers and other politicians. The more money the donors spend, the more access they get.

A million or five will get you a good meal and some face-time with the man, or woman. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It does raise money necessary to conduct a campaign. It just seems like campaign finance reform is the one thing that politicians really don’t want but say they do.

The premise that special interests, aka money, are corrupting the politicians and that laws need to be made to limit the money, totally misses the point. If anyone is corrupt, it is the politician that does a quid pro quo or who otherwise breaks the law in money laundering and/or takes bribes like William Jefferson (D-La) did. It’s not the donor, it’s what the recipient does. Don’t re-elect a crook.

IMHO McCain-Feingold should be repealed. Despite what the SCOTUS says, limiting political speech is unconstitutional. Besides, it doesn’t work anyway.

WaPo: Convention Party Favors Include Face Time

Democrats On Message With Obstruction Of Judiciary

Feeling pumped with less than two years left of the Bush administration, Sen. Charles Schumer holds the line on their shadow legislature, the Supreme Court. Schumer declares that Democrats won’t approve another Bush nominee for the Supreme Court. Saying approving Alito was a mistake.

Schumer voted against confirming Roberts and Alito. In Friday’s speech, he said his greatest regret in the last Congress was not doing more to scuttle Alito.

Can’t you just feel the love of working together?

We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.

They can’t afford? Do you see the arrogance of all of this? That’s democrat-speak for we have to get our shadow legislature back if we have any expectations to subvert the will of the people again.

You have to respect these Democrats for one thing. They do stay focused on their goal. And it has nothing to do with their constitutional responsibilities. We can add ‘obstruct’ to the list of goals. It’s now subpoena, surrender, censor, and obstruct. The administration, the war, talk radio, and the judiciary.

Not By The Color Of Your Skin

Two cases where public schools were using race in determining school admissions and which cases were upheld by two lower courts were overturned by the Supreme Court on Thursday, July 28, 2007.

  1. Seattle, which Roberts said had never been under court orders to desegregate, used race as a tiebreaker in assigning students to schools where one race or another predominated.
  2. Jefferson County, Ky., comprising greater Louisville, had been subject to court-ordered desegregation, but the order was dissolved in 2001 when the district was declared “unitary.” But the district still used race in deciding on transfer requests among schools.

Sounds like a decision that the leader of the old school civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would applaud. Unfortunately, forty years later, Dr. King’s message has been lost in translation. All the Democrat candidates wishing to be President of the United States had a ‘debate’ at the prestigious Howard University, a Black university in Washington, D.C. which by all accounts turned out to be a pander-fest, with a few condescending and outright insulting comments skewed between.

Nobody plays the race card like a liberal, and every one of our Democrat challengers, the ones with the most to lose, stepped up to the plate to call the Supreme Court’s decision as turning back the clock. Here they are, being their usual dishonest and racial-pimping selves. The two items above is all that the court ruled on, those were the only issues. The ‘turning back the clock’ BS is meant to incite racial tension and to focus hate at Republicans and the administration. And judging by the applause of those present, it did just that. That’s way easier than concentrating on having schools that teach kids to be the next generation of leaders instead of the next generation of drop-outs, and all else that goes with that.

In reality, that place so unfamiliar to this bunch of Presidential wanna-bees, no clock was turned back. It went forward. What else could you call them but race pimps when you know that . . .

the Court stopped short of overturning its precedents on either school desegregation or affirmative action, as Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a key separate opinion, said race could still be a consideration in limited instances in devising school programs to end racial isolation and encourage diversity.

Eugene Robinson’s take pretty much sums up how the uninformed can be so dangerous to the even less-informed in matters such as race. The title of his article on this subject? “Blocking The Schoolhouse Door.” From what you’ve learned so far, do you think his story has the right title?

He says the court does not consider promoting racial diversity in the nation’s public schools a particularly worthy goal. Considering worthy goals is not what the court is for. And framing the court in this way to the Black community is more than being dishonest. The court is there to decide the law. Speaking of the Bush administration and the court, Robinson says “all they need to do is win the vote of one of the court’s more moderate members and — voila — history can be unmade.” Inflammatory? Yes. They are the words of an angry but passionate black man. And also theoretical hyperbole that plays the race card like a Stradivarius.

What’s troubling for liberals is that they are beginning to understand how the judiciary interprets the laws, without an agenda, and without creating more laws. They can’t deal with that. They operate by by-passing the legislative branch by using the courts to advance their agenda instead. They exhibit no trust in nor respect for the American people for behaving like that. For Democrats, a judiciary that operates correctly means (politically) mortal defeat for them, unless and until they learn to trust in the people (the legislature) to make the laws, and trust in the courts to base decisions on those laws. No more adding other things you think would be ‘good.’ That’s what legislatures are for.

And more liberal dogma on diversity, Robinson says “I think the educational process benefits from diversity, and all students are better served in an integrated classroom.” He can think that but he’d be wrong. Better education makes better students, not the color of your neighbor. How many whites are at Howard University again? Isn’t that a Black school? Isn’t someone afraid that they won’t learn right if a white kid isn’t sitting next to him?

It is the curriculum and the quality of teaching we can provide our kids that should be the focus. Putting emphasis on the student’s skin color instead of the student, and on the ‘educational process’ instead of the student, does more to appeal to the soft bigotry of low expectations than to educate the student. If the student’s educational interests were the focus, there would be no objection to the school choice concept. Instead, the focus remains a racial issue on one hand and a union issue on the other, and our kids are caught in the middle and dropping out of school.

related links: Australian, Project 21

Freedom Of Speech Prevails

The SCOTUS today ruled in favor of freedom of political speech, shooting down the ridiculous provisions of the sinister McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance ‘Reform’ bill.

Speaking of freedom of speech, and what would happen if the Fairness Doctrine would be revived, here is what you would get, all you would get, regarding today’s decision under the Fairness Doctrine. Which would be represented by ABC news radio reporting it like this today. . .

The Supreme Court today put some restrictions to the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill.

That was it. And that’s all you need to know (as far as the MSM is concerned). That’s those far-right justices (Kennedy?) on the Supreme Court. To be fair, the sentence didn’t mention the ‘far-right’ part, but I’m sure they would have been able to work it in if they could have lengthened the blurb up to maybe 7 seconds, instead of the 3 seconds they actually gave it. The perception is that that bill, as blatantly unconstitutional as it is, by definition, was a good thing, and the courts were coming down against reform.

You see, without the alternative media, internet, and talk radio, you wouldn’t be told the truth about the ruling. The bill was more than restricted, it was neutered. Right there is the difference from what you can know about what’s going on and what you would know about whats going on if that Stalinist Fairness Doctrine ever sees the light of day again.