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.
Obvious issues... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just hope this won't immediatly swing the issues of legal abortion and religious coersion too far to the right when all is said and done. Right wing judges aren't insane, but they are at least as activist on their core issues.
Ryan Fenton
Possibly More then 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be noted that it is possible he will get more then just the two nominations. John Paul Stevens is 85, and could possibly retire or die before the end of GWB's term. The youngest justice at present is Clarence Thomas at 57. So anything can happen in two years.
One more time. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Armageddon is upon us! (Score:3, Interesting)
If the dems want to continue to have a voice in the future of this country they're going to have to get some leadership that can put out a coherent statement of what the party stands for and which has more charisma than a common flatworm. The party is adrift and in disarray right now and they seem to be at a loss as to how to fix things.
The dems have some golden opportunities with a quagmirey war in iraq, energy prices hitting levels that many Americans will find painful and a less-than-satisfactory federal response to the destruction of New Orleans. If they could put forth a coherent plan to deal with all that crap instead of the usual set of talking points that don't mean anything, they could clean up in the next couple of elections. My money is that they won't, though. *sigh*
Re:Rest in peace my friend (Score:2, Interesting)
A Rehnquist Story (Score:5, Interesting)
Nowadays, Washington is dominated by a self-righteous Us-And-Them mentality that makes such friendships impossible. The Supreme Court is sort of resistant to this, but is still pretty bad. And we're all suffering for it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Checks and balances. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:YRO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Obvious issues... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Very Very Sexy Fourteenth Amendment
By: American Dissent Radio
©2005, Chris Cronin
Quoted from their July 10th show. (mp3 [americandissentradio.com])
They have a podcast [americandissentradio.com] and one I enjoy listening to.
Well, the floor of the Senate is about to heat up with sex, sex, sex. Homosexual sex, pornography, abortion after casual sex, sodomy of all kinds, use of contraceptives and sex toys. Washington is about to become lewd, lascivious and downright raunchy. It may even get into S&M. All thanks to that filthy amendment fourteen. Yeah, that's right. We're going to talk about fourteen. Put the kids to bed, and turn the lights down low.
While the First Amendment is the popular one -- the one you bring up when you're friends tell you to shut up already, or when public school boards start quoting Deuteronomy -- the Fourteenth Amendment is the one we invoke when we want to do something so nasty that the law forbids it. Okay, the amendment does more than that, but you've got a jog button on your
So what's so interesting about the Fourteenth Amendment these days? Well, I predict that you are going to hear much about it over the next few weeks as the Senate Judiciary Committee debates Bush's appointed nominee or nominees for the Supreme Court vacancy that's been announced, and for any others that are on the horizon.
Back in 1991, I had pneumonia and was laid up while Anita Hill and her former colleagues were being grilled by the Senate Judiciary committee. I don't know who had the worse week, me, Clarence or Anita. For those who remember that tawdry moment in American judicial history, Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court by George Bush the Elder, when up from Thomas' past came a woman who claimed that he sexually harassed her when they worked together around ten years previously.
What followed was an inept attempt by senators to have a useful discussion about the allegations. The committee held hearings for a week grilling Hill and her colleagues about when Thomas may or may not have made a lewd remark, and whether the remark was original to him, or taken from a book, or Hill's imagination. The phrase "private parts" was uttered often that week. How degrading. Not because senators had to stoop so low, but because they were afraid to say "penis," "pubic hair," "sex organs" or other more accurate phrases. But it was also degrading because it was so unnecessary.###
What the Senate's Judiciary Committee should have done was to simply ask, "These are serious charges, but do we see a tendency for Thomas to either act in this way, or for this kind of personality flaw to corrupt his legal judgment or authority?" I'm not excusing sexual harassment, but simply acknowledging that he-said, she-said contributions to a job interview can be better handled than by entertaining accusations and refutations. Ironically, Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court was to replace Thurgood Marshall, a notorious womanizer. Marshall and William Douglas, both notorious Supreme Court Justice womanizers, served the liberal agenda quite well. What was the sudden problem with womanizing in the Supreme Court? Politics, of course. Prurient opportunism from the left.
Now, come on. You didn't think the left was above the fray, did you?
But aside from that,
Re:How Important is a Chief Justice? (Score:5, Interesting)
But one interesting thing about the CJ position is that he gets to decide who writes the opinions. The WSJ cited several examples of where Rehnquist unexpectedly did an about face and voted for stuff everyone was expecting him to vote against. The tinfoil-hat theory is that he did this because he knew he was going to lose (like 7-2 votes) but he wanted to "limit the damage." So he would side with the winners, then elect himself to write the majority opinion. He would make a legitimate assent, the theory goes, but he would carefully limit it. One of the examples was the Miranda case. Everyone expected him to vote against it, but he didn't. Instead, he wrote the opinion and basically just said "Miranda stands as is," when many of the majority justices actually wanted to expand it.
So if the WSJ's depiction is accurate, the CJ is pretty important. He can't make policy, but he can guide it. I'm sure there are also lots of procedural advantages that are mostly invisible to outsiders, like maybe he gets to decide who talks first in deliberations or something.
The Rehnquist Vacancy: A Non Issue (Score:2, Interesting)
The O'Connor -> Roberts transition is another matter.
Re:Obvious issues... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cool (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a constitutional amendment eliminating slavery. There is no such amendment regarding abortion.
As somebody proposed to me, if lose of upper brain function is considered death, then why not let the opposite of it be considered life. Basically, outlaw Abortion at the point where it can be PROVEN that upper brain functions starts (which is probably somewhere in the 2'nd trimester).
Brain function SHOULD be considered the beginning of life. There is much dispute about when that begins, some claim as early as 8 weeks after conception and others claimed as late as the third trimester(those people had to revise their positions when we had premature babies born before the beginning of the third trimester).
Whatever the case may be, when an EEG detects brain activity, the baby should be safe.
But we also need to return to sensable education and science, such as teaching sex ed with birth control.
I'd even go as far as to advocate universal government subsidized birth control
LK
Re:The Rehnquist Vacancy: A Non Issue (Score:1, Interesting)
There are right-wing people I respect, and there are right-wing people who are ideologues and care nothing for any of the values I hold dear. Any Bush nominee is more likely to be in the latter category, alas. With a Republican senate and congress, he's quite likely to get a radical through; Roberts isn't exactly mild in his views, and most others who have been mentioned are even farther out.
Re:those of us who aren't... (Score:1, Interesting)
The steady increase of tax revanue and bullish stock market is due to Us. Paying a few hundred dollars less in *income* tax does not turn the economy around in any sense, Bush gave the rich huge tax breaks and made us wait out the recession.
Re:Rest in peace my friend (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, it is we the people who are the last line of defense between the constitution and the government. The First and Second Ammendments are what protect our ability to keep the government in check. Too bad that we the prople have forgotten our duty and responsibility to do this.
P.S. Before I forget, since I've seen a few posts screaming about it, the court decision regarding private property was based off state law. The state law of Connecticut allowed the state to use its power of eminent domain for public use or public benefit. This is why the Supreme's made their decision
It's a shame and all that, but.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I know it's a "celebrity" and all that, but I'm still amazed how we (or the news media) don't have the capacity to magnify the loss of one well known person into the loss of thousands of unknowns, and grieve accordingly.
Re:As much as I disliked his attitude... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not saying Rehnquist did this, but it's not good to blindly praise someone who stood by their principles when their principles were bad.
Re:More power? How do you figure that? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd want the right to marry a white/christian woman, but I wouldn't be stupid enough to pretend that it was the "same" right as my neighbour Bob's right to marry a black/muslim woman.
This would be pretty blatant racial and religious discrimination. Don't you see that what you are suggesting is sexual discrimination? The right to "marry the opposite gender" is not an equal right, it is two different rights "the right to marry men" and "the right to marry women". Imagine a law that said "the right to travel in areas designated for your race". It's pretty obvious segregation, even though everyone has the "same" right. Except it isn't, because white people would have different rights than black people.
Whether or not a person could marry Steve depends on the sex of that person, thus it is discrimination based on sex. Perhaps if I put it in the form of an imaginary amendment it will be brilliantly clear:
"The right to marry an individual [Steve] shall not be denied to any individual on the basis of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
What reason is there to like him?
I'm speaking as a Christian here. Is this guy any different from a subversive hellbent on libeling the term "Christian"?
There is no anti-Christian rhetoric here except yours. If Mr. Robertson gets off the air, he will do a great service for Christianity. The religion is not about killing some people and condemning the rest. It's about loving your enemies.
I am still waiting for the day that any (Score:2, Interesting)
The government does this every day.
Corporations have no power over me unless I give it to them - and that is a profound and staggering difference which you are ignoring.