Sotomayor nominated for Supreme Court

While trolls continue their pre-emptive bashing of Judge Sotomayor, she is President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court.

Justice Souter to Retire

When the Supreme Court finishes its docket this June, Justice Souter plans on stepping down.
It is assumed he will stay on the bench until a successor is confirmed by the Senate.
In that case, it is likely he will be staying on until after the 2010 election.
It is too easy to predict what will happen next:
Republicans, [...]

The Best Thought of The Day

Who do you think should be nominated to become the next member of the SCOTUS?
Here’s a thought – How about Anita Hill?  Oh, yeah, baby! That sound you hear is conservative heads explodin’, including one Clarence Thomas.
How about a can of Coke, Mr. Thomas?

President Obama: ‘Day of reckoning has arrived’

There is an awful lot of weight on this man’s shoulders..
President Barack Obama addresses the nation tonight. It’s not really a State of the Union address because he hasn’t been in office long enough, though for all intents and purposes, it is a State of the Union speech.. He delivers a budget blueprint to Congress [...]

Legal Abortion in America: 35 36 Years (Updated)

AP, by David Crary / via International Herald Tribune.
On January 22, 1973, 35 36 years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of Roe v. Wade, establishing the legal right to abortion for women in America. Since that time there have been about 50 million abortions performed in this country, [...]

Supreme Court refuses to hear Mukasey v. ACLU

The Raw Story
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Mukasey v. ACLU is the final nail in the coffin of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA).  An act written so broadly that it would have had the effect of reducing the internet to Romper Room.
Of course, the real purpose of COPA was not protecting children, it [...]

Why Not Trust the Oil Companies?

Photo of tanker oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground Bligh Reef. Eleven million gallons of crude oil spilled into the pristine waters of Prince William Sound on the southern coast of Alaska. At the same time politicians are trying to convince us that we need to give [...]

The larger possible consequences of impeachment being “off the table.”

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Truthout
When Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House in 2006, one of the first things out of her mouth was “impeachment is off the table.” With this sentence she betrayed the American people and [...]

SCORE ONE FOR THE CONSTITUTION

This just in, 2 minutes ago:
The Supreme Court has ruled that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the U.S. Constitution to challenge their detention in civilian courts.
The justices, in a 5-4 ruling Thursday, handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners [...]

Voting Rights Are Too Important to Leave to the States

By Adam Cohen, New York Times (via Truthout)
It’s been almost eight years since that FUBAR election in 2000, but still our voting rights are not protected. In fact, the Supreme Court of the United States recently upheld an Indiana voter ID law, which will disenfranchise many voters.
It would be hard for Florida to surpass [...]

Wayne’s Brain on Capital Punishment

Our Critter Wayne has a great post stemming from the Supreme Court’s baffling ruling in a Kentucky capital punishment case.  Start reading it here, and then finish it up at Pick Wayne’s Brain.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that execution by lethal injection does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”. (Side note, would it not have [...]

Supreme Court allows retiree benefit cuts

David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times
(via The Raw Story)
Have you just turned 65? Have you noticed that your retirement health benefits have evaporated? Hey, no problem! The Supreme Court says it’s ok!
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday gave employers a green light to reduce health benefits for millions of retirees [...]

Kidnapping Legal – No kidding

The United States of America have, for the first time in a court of law, confirmed that kidnapping foreign nationals and bringing them to the US is in fact legal. The practice, thought to be reserved for terrorists, is applicable to everybody prosecuted by US courts, as unexpectedly experienced by Gavin Tollman a member of [...]

The Real News – Reviving Habeus Corpus

TheRealNews interviews Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights on how America lost Habeas Corpus and the upcoming Supreme Court case to reinstate it.
from www.therealnews.com posted with vodpod

Supreme Court to Hear Gun Case

From BBC: The US Supreme Court is to consider an American’s right to bear arms for the first time in nearly 70 years.
It has agreed to rule on whether a ban on handguns by the city of Washington, DC complies with the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. The US capital has banned handguns [...]

SCOTUS Won’t Hear Birth Control Case

Via Think Progress:
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Monday declined to enter a church-state dispute over whether some religious organizations can be forced to pay for workers’ birth-control health insurance benefits, a growing trend in the states.
The court let stand a New York court ruling upholding a state law [...]

New Supreme Court Term Begins Today

From BBC News:
As the US Supreme Court begins a new term, it promises once again to become the stage where America’s ideological battles are played out.
The cases the nine justices have picked to consider range from the use of lethal injection to voter ID laws and the legal rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
The right [...]

Death to Capital Punishment?

The Supreme Court has taken the surprising step of agreeing to determine if lethal injection, the most common method of execution used in the United States today, violates the Eight Amendment ban on Cruel and Unusual Punishment. (The question is about the chemical formula used for the injections.) They agreed to stay the execution of [...]

Two Rights Making a Wrong

From CBS News:
(AP) Attorneys for at least 40 Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been barred from visiting or writing their clients because of a judge’s order dismissing legal challenges to the men’s confinement, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
A Justice Department lawyer informed the attorneys of the new restrictions in an e-mail that cited Thursday’s dismissal [...]