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 on Monday upheld a federal law that makes it a crime to provide “material support” to foreign terrorist organizations, even if the help takes the form of training for peacefully resolving conflicts.
[...]
David D. Cole, a lawyer for the plaintiffs with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said … “This decision basically says the First Amendment allows making peacemaking and human rights advocacy a crime,” Mr. Cole said.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts said that Americans are actually “free to become members” of terrorist groups.” However:

What they cannot do it (sic; and in the NYT too!) make a contribution to a foreign terrorist organization, even if that contribution takes the form of speech. “Such support,” he wrote, “frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends,” “helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups” and strains “the United States’ relationships with its allies.”

So:
a) It’s now a crime to strain the United States’ relationships with its allies? (If so, perhaps putting a huge strain on the United States’ relationships with its allies, as a certain dimwitted former two-term President indubitably did, qualifies as a high crime?)
b) How, pray, does trying to teach terrorists to make peace not war free up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends?
c) If you just sign up to become a member of a terrorist organization, and do nothing else with or for them, haven’t you just extended them moral support by an act of speech? Haven’t you just helped lend legitimacy to the group? How is this not a contribution takes the form of speech?
d) For that matter, when the US government designates it to be a terrorist organization in the first place, doesn’t that lend much more legitimacy to the group than any act of a private individual could?

Shouldn’t Supreme Court decisions, at the very least, be required to make sense?

Justice Breyer, in dissent, said the activities at issue “involve the communication and advocacy of political ideas and lawful means of achieving political ends.” It is elementary, he went on, that “this speech and association for political purposes is the kind of activity to which the First Amendment ordinarily offers its strongest protection.”

If this is John Roberts’ idea of calling “balls and strikes”, then I have four words for the Chief Justice: “Balls to you, sir!” (Always important to strike the right note of respect, I think.)

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 Constitution requires that young people serving life sentences must at least be considered for release.

The court ruled in the case of Terrance Graham, who was implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17. Graham, now 22, is in prison in Florida, which holds more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for crimes other than homicide.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Kennedy. In a concurring opinion, Justice Stevens (joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor) was rude enough to single out one of their colleagues for ridicule (pdf):

While Justice Thomas would apparently not rule out a death sentence for a $50 theft by a 7-year-old, … the Court wisely rejects his static approach to the law. Standards of decency have evolved since 1980. They will never stop doing so.”

HANNITY: Your reaction to her? Are you likely at this point to support, not support?

MCCAIN: Well, I’ll give the process a chance to work its way through. But I am still outraged. You know the members of the ROTC at Harvard had to go to MIT to do their training. Now here’s a school — the Harvard Law School can produce all of our Supreme Court justices, but Harvard will not allow recruiters to help young men and women serve their country in uniform.
[...]
I am deeply offended that a school that models itself as the finest in the nation, at least they claim that, would not allow recruiters to come on their campus and ROTC to be conducted on their campus.

When exactly did Harvard ask ROTC to leave campus? “In 1969 … primarily out of opposition to the Vietnam war.”

And so pure and red-hot is McCain’s outrage that he has actually been engaged in doing something about elite institutions of learning that will not allow “ROTC to be conducted on their campus”.

He recently infiltrated a covert agent into just such an institution, Columbia University, an agent he provided with a perfect cover story. Purporting to be McCain’s daughter, the agent is ostensibly attending Columbia University like any other student. Her true mission, of course, must be to collect information that is deeply embarrassing or damaging to the university, information that can be used by outraged citizens to twist the university’s arm into restoring the ROTC program.

Sadly, not everyone who is aware of the underlying facts understands what is really going on. Here’s Media Matters, with a totally unwarranted slander:

McCain’s criticisms are incredibly dishonest. For starters, many academic institutions have long held bans on ROTC, including Columbia University, where McCain recently sent his daughter (and his money).

Just McCain playing 3-dimensional chess, guys. And totally faking you out.

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 McCain — on the principle that necessity is the mother of invention, and he seems to perceive it as absolutely necessary to feed right-wing Republicans as much red meat as possible before the primary — unless he is the odds-on favorite, in which case I might flirt with Orrin Hatch.) Please note that only original criticisms count. No credit will be given for simply repeating other people’s original material, such as University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos’ comparison of Kagan to Harriet Miers, who, for many years to come, will continue to walk away with the title of the All-Time Worst Nominee to the Supreme Court.

Talking of absurd, the most absurd comment I have read so far in a serious news outlet on the presumptive nomination came from a NYT article:

Ms. Kagan was also confirmed by the Senate just last year, albeit with 31 no votes, making it harder for Republicans who voted for her in 2009 to vote against her in 2010.

Grown men with an IQ exceeding their age are seriously postulating in print that it is reasonable to hold Senate Republicans to a standard of consistency? At this point in the ongoing Republican Clown Show?

And journalists who the NYT actually pays with real money seriously believe that if you thought someone was qualified to be Solicitor General, then you have no choice but to pronounce them worthy to sit on the Supreme Court?

I also wonder if presumptive runner-up federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland will find much consolation in this analysis:

Judge Garland was widely seen as the most likely alternative to Ms. Kagan and the one most likely to win easy confirmation. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, he had a number of conservatives publicly calling him the best they could hope for from a Democratic president. Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, privately made clear to the president that he considered Judge Garland a good choice, according to people briefed on their conversations.

But Mr. Obama ultimately opted to save Judge Garland for when he faces a more hostile Senate and needs a nominee with more Republican support. Democrats expect to lose seats in this fall’s election, so if another Supreme Court seat comes open next year and Mr. Obama has a substantially thinner margin in the Senate than he has today, Judge Garland would be an obvious choice.

And for all of you who are into composition-of-the-Supreme-Court trivia:

If the Senate confirms Ms. Kagan, who is Jewish, the Supreme Court for the first time will have no Protestant members. In that case, the court would be composed of six justices who are Catholic and three who are Jewish. It also would mean that every member of the court had studied law at Harvard or Yale.

I think that’s just a back-door way of giving George Bush credit for passing up two opportunities to put a Liberty University School of Law graduate on the bench.

*** Update, 11:23 a.m. ***

I guess I’m sadly out of touch with the times.

In addition to gleefully pondering the prospect of making book on who would offer the most absurdly unfair criticism of Kagan’s nomination, I should also have been thinking of the the most absurdly stupid criticism.

I think Ed Whelan — President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a former law clerk to Antonin Scalia — has just taken a commanding early lead by attacking her for not learning to drive until her late 20s. According to Whelan, that should count as a disqualification because it “nicely captures Elena Kagan’s remoteness from the lives of most Americans”. Good grief!

But it’s still early days. I have no doubt that Whelan will have to do considerably better than this if he wants to be a contender in the stretch.

Domenech flatly asserted that Solicitor General Elena Kagan — who is widely regarded as one of the leading candidates on Obama‘s Supreme Court shortlist — is “openly gay”.

Apparently, instead of stealing other people’s stuff, Domenech just makes up stuff now. (And why not? Stealing other people’s stuff gets you fired. Making stuff up gets you on CBS News‘ website.)

Now CBS News didn’t just choose to publish Domenech’s unsubstantiated gossip. When they received strong push-back from the White House, initially they defended his column. It was only much, much later that they declared Domenech’s column to be “nothing but pure and irresponsible speculation on the blogger’s part” and pulled it from their site.

CBS initially refused to pull the posting, prompting Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who is working with the administration on the high court vacancy, to say: “The fact that they’ve chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010.” She said the network was giving a platform to a blogger “with a history of plagiarism” who was “applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers.”

The network deleted the posting Thursday night after Domenech said he was merely repeating a rumor. …

A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said he complained to CBS because the column “made false charges.” Domenech later added an update to the post: “I have to correct my text here to say that Kagan is apparently still closeted — odd, because her female partner is rather well known in Harvard circles.”

CBS executives at first defended the column, noting that it appeared in an opinion section that contains contributions from blogs and publications on the left and right.

Dan Farber, editor in chief of CBSNews.com, said that Domenech’s column “just got through our filters” and that if his staff had seen “a controversial statement like that, we’d want to get more evidence of its accuracy” before publishing it. “But once it is out there,” Farber said, “the better approach is just to address it head-on rather than trying to sweep it under the rug.”

He changed his mind about yanking the column after receiving an e-mail from Domenech, which the blogger also sent to The Washington Post. Farber said in a statement that “after looking at the facts we determined that it was nothing but pure and irresponsible speculation on the blogger’s part.”

I got a huge belly-laugh out of Farber saying: “Domenech’s column “just got through our filters” and that if his staff had seen “a controversial statement like that, we’d want to get more evidence of its accuracy” before publishing it.”

Farber really wants to claim that that’s how CBSNews.com chooses what posts it picks up and publishes on its website? Posts just somehow filter through without anyone on his staff actually, you know, reading them?

*** Update, 8:00 a.m. ***

Here’s an afterthought. Some of you are probably wondering, “What’s the difference between what Domenech did and what CBS News did?”

Glad you asked! Domenech passed on “nothing but pure and irresponsible speculation”. CBS News passed on “nothing but pure and irresponsible speculation” without even reading it.

Like they say, “Vive la difference!” And, of course, “Long live responsible journalism!”

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 M. Urbina issued his ruling in dramatic fashion from the bench in a packed courtroom, saying he was ordering the release of 17 Uighurs because the government provided no proof that they were enemy combatants or security risks. Under the order, the men will live with Uighur families in the Washington area until a more permanent situation can be found.

“Because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause, the government’s continued detention of the [detainees] is unlawful,” Urbina said. “Because separation-of-powers concerns do not trump the very principle upon which this nation was founded — the unalienable right to liberty — the court orders the government to release the [men] into the United States.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overruled this decision in February 2009:

The panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina had erred in ordering the Uighurs’ release into the United States.

Two of the judges, Karen LeCraft Henderson and A. Raymond Randolph, found that Urbina had overstepped his authority in ordering such a remedy. Only the executive branch and Congress have the power to allow people to enter the United States, they said.

“The question here is not whether petitioners should be released, but where,” Randolph wrote, adding that the Supreme Court has long “sustained the exclusive power of the political branches to decide which aliens may, and which aliens may not, enter the United States, and on what terms.”

Lawyers for the Uighurs appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, which was scheduled to hear the case next month. The Obama administration petitioned the court to dismiss the case, due to a material change in circumstances. Judge Urbina’s ruling was based on the fact that no other country was willing to accept the Uighurs, which is no longer true:

“Each of the detainees at issue in this case has received at least one offer of resettlement in another country,” the court said in an unsigned, three-paragraph order. “Most of the detainees have accepted an offer of resettlement; five detainees, however, have rejected two such offers and are still being held at Guantanamo Bay.”

Yesterday, the Supreme Court accepted the Obama administration’s petition and dismissed the case:

The justices, without recorded dissent, agreed with the Obama administration that changed circumstances meant that the challenge, brought by a group of Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs, was not ripe for the court’s consideration.

However, the Supreme Court also rejected the Court of Appeals ruling:

At the same time, the justices wiped out a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that had been challenged by attorneys for the detainees. The ruling said that the judicial branch had no power to release into the United States those cleared of being enemy combatants but who cannot be returned to their home countries for fear of persecution.

So it’s happily ever after for everyone, except for the 5 Uighurs who are still being held at Guantanamo. They had turned down previous resettlement offers, perhaps in the hope they would be admitted to the US. Presumably, they will now seek to accept one of the previous offers. One was from “the island nation of Palau”, the second from an “undisclosed country.”

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 new political spending by corporations, including foreign ones.

But the court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and joined by Justice Alito and three others, specifically said it was not deciding whether foreign corporations have a First Amendment right to advertise for or against American political candidates. A 1996 law currently prohibits foreign nationals or corporations from such efforts.

On the morning after the back-and-forth between the president and the justice, the White House issued a news release citing the minority dissent, by Justice John Paul Stevens, to support the president’s assertion about the impact of the majority opinion.

“If taken seriously, our colleagues’ assumption that the identity of a speaker has no relevance to the Government’s ability to regulate political speech would lead to some remarkable conclusions,” Justice Stevens wrote. “Such an assumption would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by ‘Tokyo Rose’ during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders. More pertinently, it would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans …”

Pressing the sensitive question of foreign influence, Justice Stevens later added that the majority opinion “all but confesses that a categorical approach to speaker identity is untenable when it acknowledges that Congress might be allowed to take measures aimed at ‘preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation’s political process.’ ” The dissent continued: “Such measures have been a part of U. S. campaign finance law for many years.”

But Justice Kennedy, writing for Justice Alito and the rest of the majority, appears to have sought to head off such critiques. Despite the president’s assertion, the majority opinion explicitly sought to leave room for such laws to stand in the wake of the decision. “We need not reach the question,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “of whether the government has a compelling interest in preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our nation’s political process.”

So will or won’t foreign corporations now be able to meddle in our politics? I guess it all depends on the definition of a foreign corporation, doesn’t it?

After all, almost every US corporation has some foreign shareholders (both human and corporate). The law obviously doesn’t say that no US corporation with a minority foreign shareholding may exercise the newly granted election-free-speech rights. I’m not sure if there’s a legally established bright line which determines how high the foreign shareholding has to be before you’re deemed to be a foreign corporation and not allowed to meddle in elections. And I didn’t bother to try to look it up, because I don’t think it even matters.

For example, suppose the bright line is majority ownership, anything over 50%. Well, it’s a well known fact that in most widely held corporations, you can control the corporation even with a minority holding, say 40%. So corporations effectively in control of foreign interests would be able to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence US elections.

Now let’s say the bright line is substantially less than 50%. Let’s make it 25%. And let’s say I’m a wealthy foreigner who bitterly hates the US (or even a terrorist organization, if you like), and is convinced that a Sarah Palin presidency would be a recipe for US self-destruction. And let’s say I want to spend twenty or thirty billion in support of a future Palin presidential campaign.

All I have to do is conceal my true motives, and partner up with some wealthy “Real Americans” who are all gung-ho about Palin. We could take control of an existing US corporation, with me buying 25% of the stock and my gung-ho partners picking up 15%. Then they sit back as silent partners, and let me control the corporation. Once again we have a corporation effectively in control of foreign interests being able to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence US elections.

Alternatively, me and my gung-ho partners can set up a new dummy US corporation in which we are the only shareholders. I take a 25% stake, they take a 75% stake, but they leave the running of the corporation to me. Very little money is put up up front as capital (so almost anyone could be recruited as the silent partners). Huge amounts of money are then siphoned in by me (using any of the many ingenious ways that businessmen have evolved over the ages to siphon money from one corporation to another). And this money is then spent by the corporation to run Palin-for-President ads.

There’s also the well-known dodge of setting up corporations that own corporations that own corporations that own corporations that own… . Put enough dummy shell corporations between an actual corporation and its real owners, incorporate enough of them in impenetrable offshore havens, and it becomes impossible to figure out that the true owner of the final US corporation is actually a foreign individual or corporation.

So I think Justice Kennedy et al are being extremely disingenuous when they blithely declare that their new license for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on US elections can be made to meaningfully exclude foreign interests.

*** Update, 7:35 a.m. ***

It’s worse than I thought:

It’s true that foreign nationals are currently prohibited by law from making independent expenditures in U.S. elections. But that prohibition has little teeth. According to experts, it doesn’t apply to foreign-owned corporations that incorporate in the U.S., or have U.S. subsidiaries — meaning most foreign multinationals likely aren’t covered. So there’s “essentially no difference” between domestic and foreign corporations in terms of their ability to pump money into U.S. elections, says Lisa Gilbert of U.S. PIRG — a view backed by several other advocates of increased regulation.

In the company’s own words:

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress and released its first campaign video on www.youtube.com/user/murrayhillcongress

“Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”

Murray Hill Inc. is believed to be the first “corporate person” to exercise its constitutional right to run for office. As Supreme Court observer Lyle Denniston wrote in his SCOTUSblog, “If anything, the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission conferred new dignity on corporate “persons,” treating them — under the First Amendment free-speech clause — as the equal of human beings.”

Murray Hill Inc. agrees. “The strength of America,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “is in the boardrooms, country clubs and Lear jets of America’s great corporations. We’re saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?”

Murray Hill Inc. plans on spending “top dollar” to protect its investment. “It’s our democracy,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “We bought it, we paid for it, and we’re going to keep it.”

Murray Hill Inc., a diversifying corporation in the Washington, D.C. area, has long held an interest in politics and sees corporate candidacy as an emerging new market.

The campaign’s designated human, Eric Hensal, will help the corporation conform to antiquated “human only” procedures and sign the necessary voter registration and candidacy paperwork. Hensal is excited by this new opportunity. “We want to get in on the ground floor of the democracy market before the whole store is bought by China.”

Murray Hill Inc. plans on filing to run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. Campaign Manager William Klein promises an aggressive, historic campaign that “puts people second” or even third.

Too bad cameras won’t be on hand to capture Alito‘s spontaneous reaction to this news.

Now, at long last, corporations will enjoy a level playing field with you and I when it comes to spending billions of dollars to express ourselves freely on the subject of who should be our judges and legislators and presidents.

However, this new revolution cannot end right here. If our corporate citizens enjoy first amendment rights, any bozo can see that they should enjoy, for example, second amendment rights, as well. After all, in the course of corporate events, it may become necessary at any time for any corporation to bear arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.

We are, of course, not just talking just about the ability to hire armies of armed security guards, or handing over corporate security to Blackwater. Private citizens can apply for gun licenses, they can stockpile arms and ammunition in order to protect their lives and property. Why, pray, should corporate citizens be deprived the same basic right? Why shouldn’t Exxon-Mobil be able to obtain a gun license? Why shouldn’t Goldman-Sachs have a corporate armory? Are corporate lives worthless? If you cut them, do they not bleed red ink? If they suffer fatal injuries to their profits, do they not die? (If a 911 call to Paulson-Bernanke-Geithner results in a miraculous complete recovery which doesn’t even leave any visible scars, that’s just the exception which proves the rule.)

Then, there’s the infamy of our corporate citizens suffering taxation without representation. We all know how reprehensible that is (unless we’re talking of the citizens of Washington, D.C., when it is proper and fitting that they be denied the representation the rest of the country enjoys, because to grant them one lousy Representative in the House would upset the delicate balance between Democrats and Republicans in the House, by creating one more safe Democratic seat).

Surely, no one is going to be so willing to wear their prejudices on their sleeve as to argue that a corporate citizen that pays millions of times the tax that the average human citizen pays should get just one lousy vote? We have to recognize that any sensible interpretation of the principle of equal representation requires that those who suffer greater taxation be afforded greater representation.

So, yes, what the Supreme Court did yesterday deserves to be be celebrated far and wide. But it is only the first real step in a long and painful journey. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a dream. And they will never flag in their tireless struggle for the basic rights that the rest of us take for granted until victory is theirs, and they achieve complete equality for corporate citizens of the United States.

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 have slipped to 39%.

That’s quite a shift. Despite this, the Republican Party continues to, unerringly and unwaveringly, pick the wrong side of practically every political issue.

Americans back Sonia Sotomayor by more than a 2-to-1 margin:

Sixty-two percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say Sotomayor should be confirmed, among the highest levels of support for a high court nominee in polling data back to Robert Bork in 1987. The only numerically higher was 63 percent initial support for Clarence Thomas, which fell when his nomination turned controversial.

Twenty-five percent of Americans say Sotomayor should not be confirmed (pdf).

The Republican Party is staunchly opposed.

Americans back radical healthcare reform by more than a 3-to-1 margin:

The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan — something like Medicare for those under 65 — that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.

The Republican Party is, once again, staunchly opposed.

It’s too easy to dismiss this behavior by saying that it doesn’t make any sense. It obviously makes sense to the leaders of the Republican Party. So it’s much more fruitful to ask: what sense does it possibly make?

Well, it doesn’t make sense if the leaders of the Republican Party are aiming to become a nationally relevant force again. But if they have come to despair of becoming a nationally relevant force any time soon, then the only game left to play is preserve what the Republican Party now is (from further erosion), instead of seeking to expand it to some semblance of what it used to be.

Then, it makes perfect sense not to care about winning over the American people as a whole, but to focus only on retaining the enthusiastic approval of the hardcore base.

And so Republican leaders have long ago given up even trying to play to the entire national audience. They are performing only for the approval of a pitiful minority of Americans. The 25% minority that opposes Sotomayor. The 20% minority that opposes healthcare reform.

That’s the politics you are reduced to when you despair of becoming a nationally relevant force again: the politics of despair.

As a corollary, Republicans have also abandoned all pretense of actually participating in the process of governing this country. Over the weekend, Hilzoy wrote something which exemplifies the complete political dysfunctionality that results (italics hers):

Obviously, if some released detainee commits an act of terror against the US, all hell will break loose. And the costs of that will not be purely political: people might not get health insurance, or we might be unable to act on global warming, if some released detainee decides to blow himself up in an American city.

It’s actually a little worse that that. People might not get health insurance, or we might be unable to act on global warming, even if some released detainee doesn’t decide to blow himself up in an American city. Because Republicans long ago passed the point where they need to be able to point to something to justify their obstructionism.