Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Et tu Lexis?

Apparently Tom Delay has just stumbled on to the real cause for judicial (in)activist tyranny/opposition-to-tyranny - THE INTERNETS! From Yahoo

"Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."


There you have it folks, it's the internet that is corrupting our constitution, by, by of all things, allowing Supreme Court justices to quickly and efficiently research case law. Not only that, I heard Lexis is corrupting the Federal bench by with Amazon.com gift certificates, travel coffee mugs and key chains. The more cases the justices read, THE MORE FREE NIC-NACS THEY GET!!!! It's pure quid pro quo man!!! It's like them durn rectangular things with sheets of paper and wierdly arranged letters, only its not of this world, it's sexually digitized a lascivicious ethereal devil's work.


Read more!

Saturday, April 16, 2005

GOP - What you were saying.

Well, it's amazing how quickly a right-winger can turn on a dime (though I'm sure that's not enough a donation to get movement). Just a week after screaming bloody murder (with qualifiers, and cowardly hypotheticals, but still murder) about the tyranny of judges, Bill Frist is ready to step up to the mic and tell some Christian right-wingers how terrible it is that Democrats might oppose their imposition of judicial tyranny by the filibuster.

Well, GOP, I say "What you were saying (minus the pissant death threats from Texas Senators)"

You want a perfectly good example of why a purported minority should have a say in deciding who judges are, consider the sense of disenchantment (right or wrong) expressed by those who opposed Terry Schiavo's passage into that good night. There is a reason why we establish safeguards in our multi-checked and balanced constitution to protect from an overwhelming by a majority. And while it is true that at times the filibuster has been used to deliberate bills which would have accomplished much in ensuring and expanding American freedom, it is also true that the filibuster serves a vital purpose in maintaining a broad consensus in favor of our union.

The purpose of the current threats of filibustering judges are an attempt to heel George Bush's efforts at radicalizing the federal bench, stacking the deck against liberal causes, from voting rights, workplace safety and anti-discrimination laws to the simple belief that some life and death decisions are so private the state should not intervene, no matter how laudable a presumption in favor of life may be.

The Schiavo jihadists are distinctly a minority, if we are to believe the sacrosanct 24 hour, 400 person poll results. Still, it would be a dangerous indifference for there to be no consideration of their views in selecting what is to be an independent judiciary charged with determining rights between individual litigants.

But that is exactly what the Right-wing wants - to ignore the concerns of a large minority, if not majority of Americans in placing judges on the court. While the phrase judicial tyranny has been in vogue on the right of late, it's important to remember that historically tyranny has often been the will imposed on a people by a monarch. Elevating the presidents perogative in making judicial nominations to the divine right of Kings is clearly a recipe for trouble.

Yet here comes infomerical Frist, to tell the half-unread-bible-thumpers that the Schiavo case shows how they are not represented in the judiciary and thus, they should support the imposition by ANY bare majority of its preferred judges on the rest of society.

Apparently, the religious right wing, the cheapest date in American politics, has its dancing shoes on, again.

Read more!