Posts filed under “Supreme Court”
Balls To You, Mr. Chief Justice
The Supreme Court acted yesterday to prove yet again that the law can, indeed, be quite an ass. According to a 6-3 ruling, it’s a crime to try to persuade groups classified by the US as terrorist organizations to make peace not war: In a case pitting free speech against national security, the Supreme Court [...]
Oh Snap!, SCOTUS Edition
The Supreme Court yesterday handed down a 5-4 decision that minors can’t be sentenced to life without parole if they haven’t killed anyone: The Supreme Court has ruled that teenagers may not be locked up for life without chance of parole if they haven’t killed anyone. By a 5-4 vote Monday, the court says the [...]
McCain Fakes Out Media Matters With 3-d Chess Move
John McCain, who has pretty much reincarnated himself as one of the sorrier hacks in the Republican party, yesterday produced the most embarrassingly misguided attack on Elena Kagan to date. He attacked her for her complicity in a policy that Harvard has followed since Kagan was nine years old: HANNITY: Your reaction to her? Are [...]
Idle Thoughts, SCOTUS Edition
So by all accounts, President Obama will announce this morning that he is nominating Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. It occurs to me it might be both interesting and profitable to make book on which Republican Senator will offer the most absurdly unfair criticism of her nomination. (I would probably back John [...]
The Piece That Passeth All Understanding
Yesterday, CBS News published an online column by Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, and now right-wing blogger, who is best known for being a serial plagiarist. Domenech flatly asserted that Solicitor General Elena Kagan — who is widely regarded as one of the leading candidates on Obama‘s Supreme Court [...]
Bipartisan Supreme Court Victory For Obama Administration
In a Supreme Court case involving Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has won the kind of victory the president should presumably relish. Both sides won, in some sense. In October 2008, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina had ordered that 17 Uighur detainees be released into the US: U.S. District Judge Ricardo [...]
Foreign Money And US Elections
So now there’s a big debate about whether the recent Supreme Court decision really opens the door for foreigners and foreign corporations to spend money to influence US elections: The president, a former teacher of constitutional law, had asserted that the ruling, known informally as Citizens United, would open the floodgates to a torrent of [...]
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Now that the Supreme Court has certified the people-ness of corporations for election purposes, the progressive PR firm Murray Hill Inc. has taken the next logical step to underline the absurdity of that legal reasoning. In the company’s own words: Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow [...]
The Defining Civil Rights Struggle Of The 21st Century
Guess what? Corporations have first amendment rights, just like regular people. And Republicans across the land offered up a mighty chorus of “Glory, glory, hallelujah!” when the Supreme Court righted decades of discrimination by recognizing — and protecting — the essential people-ness of our corporate citizens. Now, at long last, corporations will enjoy a level [...]
The Dysfunctional Politics Of Despair
The last eight years have not been demographically kind to the Republican Party: In 2001, respondents were asked for their party affiliation, and independents were encouraged to pick one of the two major parties. Democrats had the narrowest of leads over the GOP, 45% to 44%. This year, Dems are up to 53%, while Republicans [...]