http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/us/24scotus.html
QuoteMs. Kagan gave examples of prohibited conduct. A lawyer would commit a crime, she said, by filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a terrorist group. Helping such a group petition international bodies is also a crime, she added.
Note that Ms. Kagan is not some dumb uneducated wingnut. She is the solicitor general of the United States, appointed by a supposedly liberal president, and arguing in front of the supreme court.
So trying to provide someone accused of terrorism with a fair trial is now terrorism.
You are all doomed, I'll probably die from laughter within the week. :horrormirth:
Interesting. So the money that the Afghan Doctors Association (that my husband and his father belong to) had to pay the Talibs as a bribe to get the hospitals built in Kabul and in the countryside 10 years ago would be prosecutable. This was in my Master's thesis, btw. I recorded the Afghan Doctors Association of So Cal discussing the bribes they were paying the Talibs to get the clinics started up. They had no choice back then.
But now that the situation has OBVIOUSLY changed over there (yeah, uh huh), how do they proceed to weed out that sort of thing? Interesting.
Also: WORST SCOTUS EVAR
That kind of thing is exactly what they're trying to prosecute people for. That they want to extend it to your husbands theoretical lawyers is what makes me laugh till I pass out.
QuoteJustice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court's most consistent defender of First Amendment freedoms, said, "This is a difficult case for me."
Support of any kind, Justice Kennedy said, "will ultimately inure to the benefit of a terrorist organization, and we have a governmental interest in not allowing that."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Funny. The Supreme Court has struck this kind of thing down before. I'm hoping they'll keep doing that.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdan_v._Rumsfeld)
Quote from: articleMilitary commission to try Plaintiff is illegal and lacking the protections required under the Geneva Conventions and United States Uniform Code of Military Justice.
There's other cases, too. Rasul v. Bush, Al Odah v. United States, and Boumediene v. Bush but those specifically deal with Guantanamo detainees, though essentially the same arguments.
Quote from: Demon Sheep on February 25, 2010, 08:55:08 PM
Funny. The Supreme Court has struck this kind of thing down before. I'm hoping they'll keep doing that.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdan_v._Rumsfeld)
Quote from: articleMilitary commission to try Plaintiff is illegal and lacking the protections required under the Geneva Conventions and United States Uniform Code of Military Justice.
There's other cases, too. Rasul v. Bush, Al Odah v. United States, and Boumediene v. Bush but those specifically deal with Guantanamo detainees, though essentially the same arguments.
That's okay. The executive branch will just keep ignoring the court, as it's done for the last 7-8 years.
Stop reminding me.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on February 25, 2010, 07:55:07 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/us/24scotus.html
QuoteMs. Kagan gave examples of prohibited conduct. A lawyer would commit a crime, she said, by filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a terrorist group. Helping such a group petition international bodies is also a crime, she added.
Note that Ms. Kagan is not some dumb uneducated wingnut. She is the solicitor general of the United States, appointed by a supposedly liberal president, and arguing in front of the supreme court.
So trying to provide someone accused of terrorism with a fair trial is now terrorism.
You are all doomed, I'll probably die from laughter within the week. :horrormirth:
Bump, cause Ms. Kagan just got nominated to the Supreme court.
Edit: apparently its not official yet, but some papers are reporting that she will be nominated later today.
Ok, now she's got the nomination officially.
I'm not sure if I should laugh or weep. :horrormirth:
Funniest.
Decade.
Ever.
And we're not even a year into it.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 10, 2010, 06:50:06 PM
And we're not even a year into it.
Yeah, and I don't know how they're going to top busting lawyers for assisting with a defense, but I am certain they will.
:lulz:
We should take bets on how many "liberal" congressmen will stand up and say, "hey, wait a second..."
1 or 2.
Both of them will lose in November.
I checked up on the case in the OP, apparently SCOTUS still hasn't decided if giving accused criminals legal advice is constitutional or not.
Quote from: LMNO on May 10, 2010, 07:03:28 PM
We should take bets on how many "liberal" congressmen will stand up and say, "hey, wait a second..."
Russ Feingold.
And.
Um.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 10, 2010, 07:06:18 PM
1 or 2.
Both of them will lose in November.
I checked up on the case in the OP, apparently SCOTUS still hasn't decided if giving accused criminals legal advice is constitutional or not.
HELLO! SCOTUS! AMENDMENTS V & VI!
:crankey:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 07:28:51 PM
Quote from: LMNO on May 10, 2010, 07:03:28 PM
We should take bets on how many "liberal" congressmen will stand up and say, "hey, wait a second..."
Russ Feingold.
And.
Um.
Maybe Kucinich. Maybe Bernie Sanders.
But they pretty much get ignored anyway so it will fall on deaf ears.
CHANGE!
:lulz:
Dok,
Knows that things getting worse is, technically, change.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:23:55 PM
Dok,
Knows that things getting worse is, technically, change.
your patriotic duty is to fall back on 'hope' then...
Quote from: Iptuous on May 10, 2010, 08:49:06 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:23:55 PM
Dok,
Knows that things getting worse is, technically, change.
your patriotic duty is to fall back on 'hope' then...
No, your patriotic duty is to rat your neighbors out.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:50:44 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on May 10, 2010, 08:49:06 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:23:55 PM
Dok,
Knows that things getting worse is, technically, change.
your patriotic duty is to fall back on 'hope' then...
No, your patriotic duty is to rat your neighbors out.
not only is it patriotic, but i've got the whole cul-de-sac to myself, now!
my kids can ride their bicycles in the street with Safety™!
Quote from: Iptuous on May 10, 2010, 08:57:40 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:50:44 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on May 10, 2010, 08:49:06 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:23:55 PM
Dok,
Knows that things getting worse is, technically, change.
your patriotic duty is to fall back on 'hope' then...
No, your patriotic duty is to rat your neighbors out.
not only is it patriotic, but i've got the whole cul-de-sac to myself, now!
my kids can ride their bicycles in the street with Safety™!
Until your kids turn YOU in, for a gold star and a peppermint candy. All for the Perfect State™.
:argh!: Fuck this. Fuck it twice.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:58:31 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on May 10, 2010, 08:57:40 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:50:44 PM
Quote from: Iptuous on May 10, 2010, 08:49:06 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 10, 2010, 08:23:55 PM
Dok,
Knows that things getting worse is, technically, change.
your patriotic duty is to fall back on 'hope' then...
No, your patriotic duty is to rat your neighbors out.
not only is it patriotic, but i've got the whole cul-de-sac to myself, now!
my kids can ride their bicycles in the street with Safety™!
Until your kids turn YOU in, for a gold star and a peppermint candy. All for the Perfect State™.
Ha!
already thought of that!
i'm making it clear that i have been designated as the sole source of the
mind numbing medically necessary psychoactive drugs that they will require...
if they kill me, then they'll be up the creek, having to face this stark reality on their own.
at least until they start serving Ritalin muffins and Prozac pastries as standard fare in the cafeterias....
Ugh, this is depressing. Other than this particularly dismaying ruling, what is your (plural) take on Kagan?
I can't find anything good about this woman. Maybe its a side effect of being one of the president's top lawyers, and she just gets to argue all the shit cases, but it seems she wants unlimited power for congress and the president (but only if they agree, so Obama voting himself warrantless wiretapping powers when he was in the senate become very important).
Almost everything else I can find when I look her up is things from her confirmation hearing as solicitor general, which is about as reliable as campaign promises.
Quote from: Cramulus on May 11, 2010, 06:04:57 PM
Ugh, this is depressing. Other than this particularly dismaying ruling, what is your (plural) take on Kagan?
"Other than that, we liked Lee Harvey Oswald's resume." :lulz:
Sometimes a single issue is enough to damn a nominee. This is one of those times.
Quote from: Cramulus on May 11, 2010, 06:04:57 PM
Ugh, this is depressing. Other than this particularly dismaying ruling, what is your (plural) take on Kagan?
Here's a good place to start: http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/05/9750-words-on-elena-kagan/
I haven't read it all yet, because it's almost 10,000 words long!
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 11, 2010, 06:22:25 PM
I can't find anything good about this woman. Maybe its a side effect of being one of the president's top lawyers, and she just gets to argue all the shit cases, but it seems she wants unlimited power for congress and the president (but only if they agree, so Obama voting himself warrantless wiretapping powers when he was in the senate become very important).
Almost everything else I can find when I look her up is things from her confirmation hearing as solicitor general, which is about as reliable as campaign promises.
Here, and you're welcome:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/10/32scotus.h29.html?tkn=OZWFm6SQUA6U7teqc8oRyVyfeGrCcIacAW6F&cmp=clp-edweek
QuotePublished Online: May 10, 2010
High Court Pick Has Sparse K-12 Policy Record
By Mark Walsh
President Barack Obama's choice for his second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court—current U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan—is a nonjudge without the record of dealing with education law issues typical of nominees who have served on federal appeals courts.
Nonetheless, the nominee to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, who will retire at age 90 at the end of the current term, had education as part of her portfolio when she served as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 1999.
"She is very smart," said Michael Cohen, who is now the president of Achieve, an education policy organization in Washington and who was an education policy aide to President Clinton during that time. "She did not pretend to be the education policy expert. But she asked thoughtful, probing questions about policy proposals that were under development."
And just days before President Obama introduced her as his nominee for the high court, Ms. Kagan filed an education-related brief with the justices, defending the No Child Left Behind Act against teachers'-union objections that the law constitutes an unfunded federal mandate.
The NCLB law "seeks to improve the academic achievement of disadvantaged students through a combination of flexibility and accountability," Ms. Kagan said in the brief filed in her role as solicitor general. "The act expressly refrains from dictating funding levels, and instead grants states and [school districts] unprecedented flexibility to target federal dollars to meet state and local priorities."
The brief comes in School District of the City of Pontiac v. Duncan (Case No. 09-852), which stems from a major challenge to the federal law organized by the National Education Association. The brief rejects, in forceful language, the union's argument that the law illegally forces states and districts to spend their own money to comply with federal requirements. The case is awaiting a decision by the justices on whether they will grant review.
Ms. Kagan's brief in the Pontiac case is the second in a K-12 education case before the high court that bears her signature. The first was filed in March of last year in a special education case soon after Ms. Kagan had been confirmed as solicitor general.
Though she didn't argue the case of Forest Grove School District v. T.A., and likely had little to do with the brief's preparation, her office's position—that students need not have received special education services in a public school before becoming eligible for private school tuition reimbursement under the proper circumstances—was upheld by the Supreme Court last June.
A 'Trailblazer'
In nominating Ms. Kagan on Monday, President Obama praised her as a "trailblazer," a "superb" solicitor general, and "one of the nation's foremost legal minds."
"Someone as gifted as Elena could easily have settled into a comfortable life in a corporate-law practice," the president said during the East Room ceremony. "Instead, she chose a life of service—service to her students, service to her country, service to the law, and to all those whose lives it shapes."
Democrats in the Senate are hoping to hold confirmation hearings before July 4, although Republicans have yet to go along with that timetable. The president hopes to have a confirmed nominee in place by the opening of the court next term, which begins in October.
Ms. Kagan is a former dean of the Harvard Law School who has championed nondiscrimination in education and improved access to college. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she would be the first nonjudge to join the high court since Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H. Rehnquist became associate justices in 1972.
"Through most of my professional life, I've had the simple joy of teaching—of trying to communicate to students why I so love the law not just because it's challenging and endlessly interesting—although it certainly is that—but because law matters; because it keeps us safe; because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms; and because it is the foundation of our democracy," Ms. Kagan said during the White House event.
Ms. Kagan noted that her mother had been a "proud public schoolteacher," and that her mother and two brothers were "the kind of teachers students remember for the rest of their lives."
Ms. Kagan's mother, Gloria, taught 5th and 6th grade at Hunter College Elementary School in New York City. She died two years ago. Ms. Kagan's brother Marc teaches social studies at the Bronx High School of Science, while her brother Irving teaches the same subject at Hunter College High School. Both were present at the White House on Monday.
Ms. Kagan, 50, is a native of New York City. She attended Hunter College High School, a selective public high school for girls, before graduating from Princeton University in 1981 and Harvard Law School in 1986. She also received a degree from Oxford University in England.
Ms. Kagan clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the high court during the 1987-88 term, in which the most significant education case was Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. In that case, the court held that school administrators had not violated the First Amendment rights of student journalists by ordering articles withheld from a high school newspaper. Justice Marshall joined a vigorous dissent written by Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
Ms. Kagan joined the University of Chicago law faculty in 1991. In 1995, she joined the Clinton administration, initially as an associate White House counsel. In 1997 she became deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council.
In 1999, Ms. Kagan joined the law faculty at Harvard, and she became the dean of the law school in 2003. She is credited with reducing longtime feuds among faculty members and recruiting conservative professors to broaden the school's ideological perspectives.
In a letter to the Judiciary Committee last year, John Payton, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, noted that Ms. Kagan decided upon becoming Harvard law dean to also take the title of Charles Hamilton Houston professor of law. Mr. Houston was a dean of the historically black Howard University's law school in Washington from 1929 to 1935 and was a mentor to Thurgood Marshall in the fight to end segregation in education.
Ms. Kagan's decision to take the chair named for Mr. Houston had "enormous symbolic value but also, more significantly, reflects the real content of her character," Mr. Payton said in his letter. "She combines intellectual depth with curiosity and dynamism."
Military-Recruiter Issue
Ms. Kagan has attracted attention for her handling of recruiting by the U.S. military at Harvard Law School. The federal "don't ask, don't tell" law that permits homosexuals to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation private was challenged by a group of law schools and law faculty members. Harvard Law was not part of the group, but Ms. Kagan joined other Harvard Law faculty members in signing a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court opposing the policy.
Earlier, in keeping with a federal law known as the Solomon Amendment, the federal government threatened to withhold all funding from Harvard University when the law school briefly prohibited military recruiters. Ms. Kagan rescinded the prohibition, writing to students: "I have said before how much I regret making this exception to our antidiscrimination policy. I believe the military's discriminatory employment policy is deeply wrong—both unwise and unjust. And this wrong tears at the fabric of our own community by denying an opportunity to some of our students that other of our students have."
In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights that the Solomon Amendment did not place an unconstitutional condition on the receipt of federal funds and did not violate the law schools' freedom of expressive association.
Vol. 29, Issue 31
Um, jen, with the exception of her spat over the Solomon ammendment (I'll grant her a couple points for that, which moves her up to about negative 9998), that's exactly what I'm talking about, its biographical information, praise from the Obama administration, plus a little bit from her time as solicitor general (teh NCLB bit).
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 11, 2010, 07:32:52 PM
Um, jen, with the exception of her spat over the Solomon ammendment (I'll grant her a couple points for that, which moves her up to about negative 9998), that's exactly what I'm talking about, its biographical information, praise from the Obama administration, plus a little bit from her time as solicitor general (teh NCLB bit).
She uses the law to keep justice away. :lulz: EOS.
(http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/tdomf/144804/KAGAN1.jpg)
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 11, 2010, 07:32:52 PM
Um, jen, with the exception of her spat over the Solomon ammendment (I'll grant her a couple points for that, which moves her up to about negative 9998), that's exactly what I'm talking about, its biographical information, praise from the Obama administration, plus a little bit from her time as solicitor general (teh NCLB bit).
Well, if that's all there is...then that's all there is, right?
In other words, she's not that much of a practitioner as a judge, but more as a lawyer and politician. Or politician's bitch, rather.
*shrug*
Um, that's kinda the point yes. And she's not a judge. Which is the source of the lack of information.
What are you bitching about then? I'm confused. She's not a judge, no one's hiding that.
She's a litigant.
I'm very sorry I posted a very informative article on her non-judging. Again, I'm not sure wtf you're on about. This isn't the first time a non-judge has been appointed to SCOTUS.
Quote from: Jenne on May 11, 2010, 10:46:40 PM
What are you bitching about then? I'm confused. She's not a judge, no one's hiding that.
She's a litigant.
I'm very sorry I posted a very informative article on her non-judging. Again, I'm not sure wtf you're on about. This isn't the first time a non-judge has been appointed to SCOTUS.
Hardly. There have been more than 35 SCOTUS justices who weren't judges.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 11, 2010, 10:47:52 PM
Quote from: Jenne on May 11, 2010, 10:46:40 PM
What are you bitching about then? I'm confused. She's not a judge, no one's hiding that.
She's a litigant.
I'm very sorry I posted a very informative article on her non-judging. Again, I'm not sure wtf you're on about. This isn't the first time a non-judge has been appointed to SCOTUS.
Hardly. There have been more than 35 SCOTUS justices who weren't judges.
Do YOU understand Requia's point here?
Quote from: Jenne on May 11, 2010, 10:54:57 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 11, 2010, 10:47:52 PM
Quote from: Jenne on May 11, 2010, 10:46:40 PM
What are you bitching about then? I'm confused. She's not a judge, no one's hiding that.
She's a litigant.
I'm very sorry I posted a very informative article on her non-judging. Again, I'm not sure wtf you're on about. This isn't the first time a non-judge has been appointed to SCOTUS.
Hardly. There have been more than 35 SCOTUS justices who weren't judges.
Do YOU understand Requia's point here?
No.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 11, 2010, 11:08:07 PM
Quote from: Jenne on May 11, 2010, 10:54:57 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 11, 2010, 10:47:52 PM
Quote from: Jenne on May 11, 2010, 10:46:40 PM
What are you bitching about then? I'm confused. She's not a judge, no one's hiding that.
She's a litigant.
I'm very sorry I posted a very informative article on her non-judging. Again, I'm not sure wtf you're on about. This isn't the first time a non-judge has been appointed to SCOTUS.
Hardly. There have been more than 35 SCOTUS justices who weren't judges.
Do YOU understand Requia's point here?
No.
Good, cuz I tried, man.
I thought Jenne thought Kagan was a judge, apparently i was mistaken.
An interesting point was brought up on NPR the other day.
If you look at the history of judicial nominations, the Republicans typically nominate Hard-Right judges, what happened with Souter notwithstanding.
The Democrats, on the other hand, typically nominate moderate-center judges.
Which means that the court has been shifting further and further right for the past dozen generations or so.
Supposedly, the progressive Dems are pissed at Obama's "safe" choice, having hoped he would neutralize Scalia. Har. Yeah, Obama's taken the "safe" road ever since he came to office...
So, i guess Kagan won the 'indefinite detention' issue with the supremes....
comforting.
:link:?
Quote from: Iptuous on May 18, 2010, 02:18:16 PM
So, i guess Kagan won the 'indefinite detention' issue with the supremes....
comforting.
It's only a matter of time before sho[lifting becomes life in prison.
Ex post facto no less.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 19, 2010, 01:31:44 AM
Quote from: Iptuous on May 18, 2010, 02:18:16 PM
So, i guess Kagan won the 'indefinite detention' issue with the supremes....
comforting.
It's only a matter of time before sho[lifting becomes life in prison.
Ex post facto no less.
Apparently this isn't new, they already said states could do this years ago, this was about whether or not the feds could do it too, even the dissenting opinions find nothing wrong with the effects of the law :horrormirth:.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 19, 2010, 04:42:54 AM
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 19, 2010, 01:31:44 AM
Quote from: Iptuous on May 18, 2010, 02:18:16 PM
So, i guess Kagan won the 'indefinite detention' issue with the supremes....
comforting.
It's only a matter of time before sho[lifting becomes life in prison.
Ex post facto no less.
Apparently this isn't new, they already said states could do this years ago, this was about whether or not the feds could do it too, even the dissenting opinions find nothing wrong with the effects of the law :horrormirth:.
Yeah, i noticed that when i heard them talking about Thomas' descent. all they really said was that they were overstepping their constitutional limits, but they didn't mention him talking about the results of such a policy...
http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/greenwald/~3/-xqM5j9sz6I/kagan
QuoteSince Elena Kagan was confirmed as a Justice of the Supreme Court, the Court has not yet issued any written rulings on appeals it has accepted for review. But there are two cases in which Kagan's actions shed some minimal light on how she is approaching her role -- minimal, though still worth noting, particularly in light of how much time and attention was devoted here to her being named as Justice Stevens' replacement.
On September 23, 41-year-old convicted murderer Teresa Lewis became the first woman executed in the United States in over five years, when the State of Virginia administered a lethal injection into her arm. That occurred only because the Supreme Court, two days earlier refused, by a 7-2 vote, to stay her execution. Lewis' lawyers argued that execution was unjust because "she is borderline mentally retarded, with the intellectual ability of about a 13-year-old," because she "had been used by a much smarter conspirator," because she had no prior history of violence and had been a model prisoner, and because "the two men who fired the shots received life terms." The two "liberal" justices on the Court -- Ginsburg and Sotomayor -- voted to stay the execution, but Elena Kagan voted with Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, and Breyer to allow it to proceed. It's impossible to know for certain how Justice Stevens would have voted, but he did proclaim in a 2008 decision that he believes the death penalty to be unconstitutional pursuant to the Constitutional bar on "cruel and unusual punishment".
Yesterday, a similar pattern emerged. In 2005, two Denver residents were removed from a Bush campaign event solely due to a bumper sticker on their car which read: "No More Blood for Oil." They sued, alleging their First Amendment rights had been violated, but the lower court dismissed the case and the appeals court upheld the dismissal. The Supreme Court yesterday refused to review that dismissal, but in a fairly unusual written opinion dissenting from that refusal, Ginsburg -- joined by Sotomayor -- argued that these ejections constituted a clear violation of these citizens' First Amendment rights which the Court should adjudicate. She wrote: "ejecting them for holding discordant views could only have been a reprisal for the expression conveyed by the bumper sticker." Kagan, again, refused to join those two Justices, siding instead with the conservative bloc and Breyer in voting to refuse the case.
Caution is warranted against reading too much into Kagan's actions, particularly the latter one. There are multiple factors which the Court must consider in deciding which cases to take, and a refusal to review a case does not denote agreement with the outcome in the lower court (of the two decisions, Kagan's refusal to stay the execution is more revealing). Moreover, in both cases, the outcome would not have changed had Kagan joined Ginsburg and Sotomayor, so it's possible that her joining with the majority was merely some sort of strategic calculation to curry favor early on. Still, these two decisions not to join Ginsburg and Sotomayor are substantive ones, and are at least worth noting as very preliminary signs of Kagan's approach on the Court.
OMG, ACTIVIST!
:lulz:
Quotethe death penalty to be unconstitutional pursuant to the Constitutional bar on "cruel and unusual punishment".
That term has been in use since the 1600's in England and late 1700's in the US... and during all that time the Death Penalty has been an accepted form of punishment. If the people writing the 8th Amendment interpreted the Death Penalty as Cruel and Unusual, you would think that they might have ended the practice then... rather than a couple centuries later. I don't disagree that the Death Penalty is a bad idea... but I think Stevens was really reaching with that interpretation.
Also, I'm not sure about the First Amendment one either. The government can't stop you from saying what you want to say... but does telling you to GTFO of a political rally mean that they are stopping you from saying what you want to say? Or, would the First Amendment only protect them if they got tossed in jail for having the bumper sticker?
I think its a shitty thing for the Bush campaign people to do... but I don't know that its a clear violation.
I think judging Kagan based on those two unclear situations would be a bad idea. Her vote wouldn't have changed anything, except that it might make her look like a liberal judge interpreting the Constitution from the bench *add GOP talking Point Crap here*.
Thoughts?
Quote from: Cain on October 14, 2010, 05:14:29 PM
http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/greenwald/~3/-xqM5j9sz6I/kagan
QuoteSince Elena Kagan was confirmed as a Justice of the Supreme Court, the Court has not yet issued any written rulings on appeals it has accepted for review. But there are two cases in which Kagan's actions shed some minimal light on how she is approaching her role -- minimal, though still worth noting, particularly in light of how much time and attention was devoted here to her being named as Justice Stevens' replacement.
On September 23, 41-year-old convicted murderer Teresa Lewis became the first woman executed in the United States in over five years, when the State of Virginia administered a lethal injection into her arm. That occurred only because the Supreme Court, two days earlier refused, by a 7-2 vote, to stay her execution. Lewis' lawyers argued that execution was unjust because "she is borderline mentally retarded, with the intellectual ability of about a 13-year-old," because she "had been used by a much smarter conspirator," because she had no prior history of violence and had been a model prisoner, and because "the two men who fired the shots received life terms." The two "liberal" justices on the Court -- Ginsburg and Sotomayor -- voted to stay the execution, but Elena Kagan voted with Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, and Breyer to allow it to proceed. It's impossible to know for certain how Justice Stevens would have voted, but he did proclaim in a 2008 decision that he believes the death penalty to be unconstitutional pursuant to the Constitutional bar on "cruel and unusual punishment".
Yesterday, a similar pattern emerged. In 2005, two Denver residents were removed from a Bush campaign event solely due to a bumper sticker on their car which read: "No More Blood for Oil." They sued, alleging their First Amendment rights had been violated, but the lower court dismissed the case and the appeals court upheld the dismissal. The Supreme Court yesterday refused to review that dismissal, but in a fairly unusual written opinion dissenting from that refusal, Ginsburg -- joined by Sotomayor -- argued that these ejections constituted a clear violation of these citizens' First Amendment rights which the Court should adjudicate. She wrote: "ejecting them for holding discordant views could only have been a reprisal for the expression conveyed by the bumper sticker." Kagan, again, refused to join those two Justices, siding instead with the conservative bloc and Breyer in voting to refuse the case.
Caution is warranted against reading too much into Kagan's actions, particularly the latter one. There are multiple factors which the Court must consider in deciding which cases to take, and a refusal to review a case does not denote agreement with the outcome in the lower court (of the two decisions, Kagan's refusal to stay the execution is more revealing). Moreover, in both cases, the outcome would not have changed had Kagan joined Ginsburg and Sotomayor, so it's possible that her joining with the majority was merely some sort of strategic calculation to curry favor early on. Still, these two decisions not to join Ginsburg and Sotomayor are substantive ones, and are at least worth noting as very preliminary signs of Kagan's approach on the Court.
Well, I recall people saying similar things about Obama playing centrist in order to pull the biggest ratfuck of all time on the Republicans...and Kagan was picked by Obama, so I'm not holding out any hope of this being some kind of 11th dimensional Zen-chess strategic positioning.
Of course, it is early, and if I'm wrong then I'll be forced to eat humble pie. But her comments on terrorism and the powers of the executive, in addition to this, suggest she's another "socially liberal" Dem party authoritarian, who doesn't care if you're gay or black or Muslim etc, just if you oppose unlimited state power.
Thanks Cain... I like your summation.
No problem. I agree with the need to be cautious...it's just I hear the theory about strategic positioning concerning Donkle politicians and allies so much, I automatically find it suspicious. I also think the reasoning by Judge Stevens is suspect, even if I agree with the overall conclusion, or at least it's practical application.
Quote from: Cain on October 14, 2010, 05:38:49 PM
and Kagan was picked by Obama, so I'm not holding out any hope of this being some kind of 11th dimensional Zen-chess strategic positioning.
:lulz: I am stealing that phrase
Feel free, it's a variation on a phrase I picked up from Ian Welsh, a blogger who uses it to...well, ridicule Democratic partisans, basically. So exactly in the way I do.
Quote from: Ratatosk on October 14, 2010, 05:35:26 PM
Quotethe death penalty to be unconstitutional pursuant to the Constitutional bar on "cruel and unusual punishment".
That term has been in use since the 1600's in England and late 1700's in the US... and during all that time the Death Penalty has been an accepted form of punishment. If the people writing the 8th Amendment interpreted the Death Penalty as Cruel and Unusual, you would think that they might have ended the practice then... rather than a couple centuries later. I don't disagree that the Death Penalty is a bad idea... but I think Stevens was really reaching with that interpretation.
Also, I'm not sure about the First Amendment one either. The government can't stop you from saying what you want to say... but does telling you to GTFO of a political rally mean that they are stopping you from saying what you want to say? Or, would the First Amendment only protect them if they got tossed in jail for having the bumper sticker?
I think its a shitty thing for the Bush campaign people to do... but I don't know that its a clear violation.
I think judging Kagan based on those two unclear situations would be a bad idea. Her vote wouldn't have changed anything, except that it might make her look like a liberal judge interpreting the Constitution from the bench *add GOP talking Point Crap here*.
Thoughts?
Stevens isn't opposed to the death penalty in general, but rather the way it is used.
Interesting Kagan news
QuoteOn May 4, 2009, Harvard Constitutional Law Professor Laurence Tribe wrote a private letter to his former student, President Barack Obama, urging Obama to select fellow Harvard Law Professor (and Dean) Elena Kagan rather than Sonia Sotomayor to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, who had just announced his retirement. That letter was obtained and published yesterday by National Review's Ed Whelan. Tribe argued, in essence, that Sotomayor is not particularly bright ("not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is") while Kagan is breathtakingly brilliant. None of that is surprising: many liberals in the legal community revealingly looked down in scorn upon the perceived lack of intellect of the highly accomplished and intelligent Sotomayor (as Jeffrey Rosen's dissemination of the smears of his anonymous, cowardly "liberal" friends proved), while many Harvard Law Professors instinctively serve as boosters for their fellow Harvard academics. That's all par for the course.
What I think is most notable is the last paragraph of Tribe's letter:
QuoteFor all these reasons, I hope you will reach the conclusion that Elena Kagan should be your first nominee to the Court. And, if I might add a very brief personal note, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm at your first hundred days. I don't underestimate the magnitude of the challenges that remain, and I continue to hope that I can before long come to play a more direct role in helping you to meet those challenges, perhaps in a newly created DOJ position dealing with the rule of law, but my main sentiment at the moment is one of enormous pride and pleasure in being an American at this extraordinary moment in our history.
By the time Tribe wrote that gushing fanboy paragraph, Obama had already asserted the Bush-replicating state secrets privilege in order to protect torture, rendition and warrantless eavesdropping from judicial review; had, as the NYT put it, "told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush's legal team"; The NYT's Charlie Savage had warned "of Obama's "continued support for [] major elements of its predecessor's approach to fighting Al Qaeda," including "continuing the C.I.A.'s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone"; Obama had demanded that there be no investigations of Bush crimes on the ground that we must Look Forward, Not Backward; and the administration had made clear that it intended to preserve and continue Bush's military commissions system (albeit with some revisions).
Given that liberal opinion leaders like Tribe were falling all over themselves in praise of Obama even as he pursued such policies -- rather than speaking out against them as they did under Bush -- is it really any surprise that Obama continued on this path? A mere three weeks after Tribe sent his reverent/employment-seeking letter, Obama announced that he would imprison some detainees at Guantanamo without any trials or tribunals at all -- a policy Tribe had previously denounced as the epitome of tyranny when Bush did it: "We can't put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there." If even the leading liberal Constitutional scholar was sending Obama unqualified love letters as he embraced the worst of the Bush/Cheney policies, why would the President possibly have thought there was any reason to stop? He obviously didn't, and hasn't.
Not all was lost, though. In February of this year, Tribe finally got a job with the Obama administration which he had been so eagerly seeking. It wasn't the one he told the President he wanted -- a position overseeing the "rule of law" (no need for that) -- but rather a newly created position as DOJ adviser "focused on increasing legal access for the poor." There's no question that's an urgently needed function, but a mere two months later, in April, The New York Times reported that Tribe -- like all of the handful of liberals appointed to the administration -- had been relegated to a position of powerlessness and irrelevance.
http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/greenwald/~3/xo84cZjK-bs/tribe