Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Ex Post Facto FISA + Obama presidency = no retroactive immunity
Obama voted for the FISA Bill which keeps in place the original protections for domestic communications but gives retroactive immunity to telecoms who colluded with the Bush Administration's illegal spying on Americans.
When Obama is President, he could direct the DoJ to file a suit claiming pointing out that such Ex Post Facto legislation is blatantly unconstitutional allowing suits to move forward.
I mean, why not?
UPDATE: Russ Feingold doesn't see why not.
Labels: 2008 elections, Bush White House, consitution, obama, supreme court
// posted by Erik @ 7/09/2008 05:23:00 PM
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Friday, June 27, 2008
An unusual lack of understanding of what has been considered cruel
Those right-wingers who congratulate themselves as the keepers of the Constitution in the end have superficial and wrong ideas about our nation's history. David Limbaugh offers a pile of slop for our consumption,
The Supreme Court's barring of the death penalty for child rapists in Kennedy v. Louisiana underscores the hazards in the court's abandonment of moral absolutes in favor of "evolving standards of decency" and the court's unbridled arrogance in substituting its subjective judgment for the legislatively enacted will of the people.
A United States Supreme Court with a majority of Constitution-respecting justices would have evaluated the Louisiana statute in light of the originally understood meaning of the cruel and unusual punishment clause.
I'll pick evolving standards of decency over static moral absolutes any day:
No cruel and unusual punishment is to be inflicted; it is sometimes necessary to hang a man, villains often deserve whipping, and perhaps having their ears cut off; but are we in future to be prevented from inflicting these punishments because they are cruel?
Rep. Samuel Livermore
House of Representatives debate on Amendments to the Constitution
August 17, 1789
Labels: consitution, right wingers, supreme court
// posted by Erik @ 6/27/2008 05:05:00 PM
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