Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies at 80 730
After 33 years at the bench, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist has passed away at the age of 80 due to thyroid cancer. This comes after the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor from the court over the summer. Rehnquist's passing gives President Bush the opportunity to replace the second justice of his term, this time perhaps to assume the highest role in the judicial system.
Re:Long time justice (Score:2, Informative)
And actually since Rehnquist was already conservative, Bush's nomination probably won't have a tremendous impact from how Rehnquist had sided on most issues.
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Informative)
Did Grokster matter to you? Guess who decided that? It rhymes with "Mupreme Mort". The people who comprise that court have a very important influence on your rights, even online. Child Online Protection Act, Grokster, inevitable decisions on the Patriot Act and the DMCA, to name a few. So, yes, his death is important to your rights online. Sorry for the condescending rant. Well, not really.
Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:YRO? (Score:1, Informative)
gives President Bush the opportunity to replace the second justice of his term
O'Connor was a swing vote. With two vacancies, you can count on Bush getting a good say on who goes in (especially with a congress dominiated by pseudo-Republicans). This means the man who wants schools to teach intelligent design and ban abortion will pick the judges who will be deciding the major law cases of the next 5-10 years.
You can forget about legal abortions and a good many of your rights now.
A scary thought (Score:3, Informative)
Possible replacements include Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
Based on his past memos, that would be one of the scariest things for human rights as a whole.
Re:Obvious issues... (Score:5, Informative)
"In 1797 our government concluded a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:
As the Government of the United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Musselmen--and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history"
NY Times Obituary (Score:3, Informative)
Registration required as usual, but this seems of high enough quality to make it worthwhile.
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Informative)
When someone does that, I start asking them a lot of questions about the Bible -- not what's in it, but when it was written, when the gospels were written, what sources the writers used, and so on. I have yet to meet someone who uses the Bible as an authority and a "that proves it all" source that has any clue about how it was put together and that the process that brought it into its present form is not at all what they think. Most people who quote the Bible to me are fundies, many of whom hate the Roman Catholic Church, and they get REALLY pissed when I can give them enough history to show them it was that very same church that is responsible for what was put in and left out of the Bible.
I know they're stuck in a mindset and won't change, but after bringing it up with me, they usually go away frustrated. I can only hope that they've heard enough that they start to think, instead of quote what they've been told.
Re:Our last sane institution (Score:1, Informative)
http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congressional_His
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item
Look at the party divisions from 1933 to 1945. Of course after this they decided to institute a two term limit for each president since the appointment of eight Supreme Court justices by one presidents gave some people aneurysms.
More power? How do you figure that? (Score:3, Informative)
If Congress passes some law tomorrow that the court wanted to strike down, they could do absolutley nothing about it until a case is brought before them.
So how does a body with no control over the armed forces, and no direct way to influence laws under debate have "more power" than the President?
By design the courts are to be equals with the executive branch. Not superiors, nor does anything they can do tend to lead in that direction.
Dear Ghod, no.... (Score:5, Informative)
Here we go again with this old debate....
Yes, the founders of the United States believed in God -- but this makes them Deists, not necessarily Christians. The Declaration of Independence [archives.gov] does indeed speak of "Nature's God", and refer to mankind being "endowed by their Creator" -- but makes no mention of Christianity.
Furthermore, NOWHERE in the Constitution [archives.gov] do the words "God" or "Christ" appear — a point oft considered conspicuous by omission in favor of "We The People". Rather, specific references are made to separate church and state, requiring within the constituion proper "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States", and in the Bill of Rights [archives.gov] opening with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".
Add in the evidence of the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli as ratified by Congress and as published with little stir in the Press (albeit not as drafted at the treaty table!) which declared "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..." , leads one to believe the Founders were doing their utmost to drag the United States away from the sectarian bloodshed that had divided Europe -- and particularly England -- for centuries.
Jefferson is the source of the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" that the religious right so detest; a man who removed all references to the miracles from his personal transcription of the Gospels; and who felt that his authorship of the Stature of Virginia for Religious Freedom [worldpolicy.org] one of the accomplishments most worthy for noting in his epitaph. Living in Charlottesville and having recently visited Monticello, I feel obliged to assure you that the persistent ground vibrations you can feel standing in front of his tombstone is not the rumble of a passing truck, but Mister Jefferson spinning in his grave from Bush's Presidency. =)
As for your assertion on abortion, while your position is better founded, I suggest you read the actual Roe v. Wade ruling all the way through; your assertion about the rights of the states in the 10th Amendment falls aside explicitly to the later "Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment"... although the court might reasonably revisit such a question, given the strained reasoning used. This makes the abortion war yet another twisted legacy of the debate over our former "peculiar institution."
As to your prime assertion on the legal import of the intent of the founding fathers, I suggest you read Lessig's "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace"... plus a good more of the biographies of those colorful, contestous, and amazingly human founders of ours. Leaving aside Lessig's points on unaddressed assumptions, suggesting they ever had a single unified intent is a slander to their memories and to what they achieved in their struggle to unify in common cause.
Re:McCarthy was right (Score:3, Informative)
in a troubling comment that largely escaped critical media scrutiny or even notice, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared on Black Entertainment Television that U.S. policy toward Chilean Marxist President Salvador Allende in the 1970s was "not a part of American history that we're proud of." Powell appears not to know that in toppling Allende the Chilean military saved Chile from suffering the same fate as South Vietnam with very little loss of life.
WTF!?! No other part of the article mentions Chile. It seems he just stuck in this paragraph to say "OMG! They democratically elected a Socialist! If we hadn't overthrown him, the region would have descended a into military quagmire."
A large chunk of the rest of the article is devoted to a discussion of Aaron Copland's political leanings. Maybe I'm just naive, but I find it astonishing that people consider someone's political opinions as justification for their persecution. The author of the article and the parent poster seem to feel that if McCarthy's targets believed in the Communist ideology then McCarthy must have been right to vilify them. In contrast, I have always believed that the free expression of ideas is to be encouraged.
In summary, this article failed to change my opinions about McCarthy. I still see him as a man who did his best to kill free political expression in the US and I absolutely cannot agree with that.
Re:McCarthy was right (Score:2, Informative)
In other words, if AIM told me the sun rose in the east, I'd check with a compass just to be sure - their version of "accuracy" is hewn from the same wood as "compassionate" conservatism.
Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_in_Media [wikipedia.org]
for a fuller story.
Wrong: On Both Counts (Score:1, Informative)
The Senate voted 97-3 to confirm Ginsburg's nomination, and she took the oath of office on August 10, 1993 [supremecourthistory.org].
After coming agonizingly close to a Supreme Court nomination in 1993, Breyer was President Bill Clinton's choice on May 14, 1994, for the seat vacated by Justice Harry A. Blackmun. True to form, Breyer easily won confirmation, 87-9, in the Senate [supremecourthistory.org].
The Republican's weren't a majority in the Senate (and House) until after the November 1994 elections. The 104th Congress didn't take office until January 1995.
Re:RIP (Score:3, Informative)
Of the 108 Supreme Court Justices, 48 died in office, of whom eight were Chief Justice. Source: Oyez.org [oyez.org].
- William H. Rehnquist (CJ)
- Fred M. Vinson
- Wiley B. Rutledge
- Robert H. Jackson
- Harlan Fiske Stone (CJ)
- Frank Murphy
- Benjamin N. Cardozo
- Edward T. Sanford
- Pierce Butler
- Joseph R. Lamar
- Edward D. White (CJ)
- Horace H. Lurton
- Rufus Peckham
- Howell E. Jackson
- David J. Brewer
- Melville W. Fuller (CJ)
- Lucius Q.C. Lamar
- Samuel Blatchford
- Horace Gray
- Stanley Matthews
- William B. Woods
- John M. Harlan
- Morrison R. Waite (CJ)
- Joseph P. Bradley
- Salmon P. Chase (CJ)
- Samuel F. Miller
- Nathan Clifford
- Levi Woodbury
- Peter V. Daniel
- John McKinley
- John Catron
- Philip P. Barbour
- Roger B. Taney (CJ)
- James M. Wayne
- Henry Baldwin
- John McLean
- Robert Trimble
- Smith Thompson
- Joseph Story
- Thomas Todd
- Brockholst Livingston
- William Johnson
- John Marshall (CJ)
- Bushrod Washington
- William Paterson
- James Iredell
- William Cushing
- James Wilson
Blah blah blah blah lameness filter sucks.Re:YRO? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the Supreme Court decisions are powerless without the executive and legislative branches' active will to adhere to them.
So let me say it loud and clear: THE SUPREME COURT CANNOT ENFORCE ITS OWN RULINGS.
They are only as powerful as the rest of government allow them to be. Recent precedents within the last fifty years give the court its authority, but in its earlier days historians note that its frailty was this very notion that the President and Congress could ignore the court's decisions, and were in no way explicitly required by law to support the court's decision with any consequent action.
Self promotion (Score:4, Informative)
or even:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WilliamRehnquist [wikipedia.org]
But you're right - it depends on where you sit on the fence. I certainly don't feel like he was one of the greatest, not by far.
Re:Rest in peace my friend (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, however he had a very
Rehnquist was almost fanatical in his efforts to reject Separation Of Church And State as some sort of mistaken view by that know-nothing freak Thomas Jefferson. Well one thing that Rehnquist and I agree on is that the formost authority on the meaning of the First Amendment was James Madison. However Rehnquist was quite selectively blind to Madison's many declarations on the subject.
The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State -- James madison March 2, 1819
Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov't in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history -- James Madison circa 1820
Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together -- James Madison July 10, 1822
I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others. -- James Madison March 2, 1819
Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States -- James Madison June 3, 1811
a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.
We are teaching the world the great truth, that Governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson: the Religion flourishes in greater purity without, than with the aid of Government -- July 10, 1822
proved that it[religion] does not need the support of government and it will scarcely be contended that government has suffered by the exemption of religion from its cognizance, or its pecuniary aid. -- James Madison 1832
The settled opinion here is, that religion is essentially distinct from civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both; that there are causes in the human breast which ensure the perpetuity of religion without the aid of the law -- James Madison March 18, 1823
Rehnquist tried to claim that the only thing meant and prohibited by the Establishment Clause was an offical National Church. However Madison made it quite clear that is an absurd construction. Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Ho
Re:The modern political spectrum. (Score:3, Informative)
Ah yes, you clearly understand libertarianism.. oh woops, Libertarians are anti-corporation and for proprietorships and partnerships instead.
The last Libertarian candidate for president even articulated this point in a slashdot interview.
By the way, workers have freedom too.. you could always just not work for a company that doesn't pay you enough, unless you don't have enough skills/education to be "worth it".. or have you not taken an economics class?
Is labor a good or service? Yes? Then the laws of supply and demand affect it.
Re:RIP (Score:1, Informative)
Anyway, the point is that calling the United States a democracy is valid under the historical and current usage of the term. The idea that the term democracy can't refer to an indirect democracy seems to come from some misguided subset of social studies teachers.
Re:The modern political spectrum. (Score:3, Informative)
There's nothing 'far right' about it; in fact, many Libertarian viewpoints will get you thrashed by conservatives.
Libertarians get it from both conservatives and (neo)liberals. Libertarians are like the classical liberalism of Thomas Jefferson and the classical liberals don't look like what's typically called liberal today.
I hope Bush will nominate someone closer to the center than to the left (haha) or right.
FalconRe:Farewell good sir. (Score:3, Informative)
Either way, if it's acceptable for one side to demand a litmus test, then it's perfectly reasonable that the other side will as well.
LK
Re:One more time. (Score:3, Informative)
Even after discussing options to help speed up the relief refforts she requested 24 hours to consider them (according to statements made by NO Mayor Nagins) and then hired a former Clinton advisor to help her save face.
Members of the State government have made statements that she is refusing to give up control to prevent the Feds from being able to point fingers, not because she has a better plan than them. Simply put, she is putting politics infront of peoples lives.
It amazing how people call for more leadership from Bush with one breath (when he legally has no power to act) but when he attempts to actually do what he can, within the bounds of the law, he is accused of trying to just grab power.
People are dieing and all evidence points to the people in direct control (the Governor and to a much lesser degree the Mayor)of the situation being totally incompetant.
It's a perfect example of damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
And the other affected areas don't look as bad, not because of political affiliation, but because their local and state governments have been helping and not impeding rescue efforts.