Category Archives: supreme court
Federal Power
A federal judge ruled that the federal government doesn’t have the power to make you go out and buy something you otherwise wouldn’t – health care in this case. The government claims its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce gives it the right to do just that.
Nat Hentoff doesn’t think any clause of the constitution gives the government the right to assassinate its own citizens who become jihadists.
Nasty Free Speech
The creeps who protest at the funerals of dead soldiers appeared before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. They were sued by the father of Matthew Snyder, a marine whose funeral they picketed. The protesters are led by a preacher named Fred Phelps. Their beef is with homosexuality and they claim that dead soldiers are God’s punishment. The thing is, unless the Supreme Being files a brief, they may be well within their rights. A 1988 court ruling, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, unanimously upheld the right to nasty speech unless it can be proven false.
USA Today has a complete story with video.
It’s a Surprise
Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi explain here that you have to pass their 2000 page bills to find out what’s in them.
William Saletan has an interesting piece in Slate detailing how Kagan, while working in the Clinton White House, doctored a report on partial birth abortion by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynocologists. He points out that the report was taken as expert opinion in court rulings. If she gets on the Supreme Court and overturns a ruling because it was based on her original lie, would that make her an activist judge?
Vapid Confirmation Hearing
Elena Kagan doesn’t have much of a legal paper trail. This is considered a good career move for Supreme Court nominees, ever since Robert Bork talked his way out of a job. One footprint she has left, however, is a 15 year old complaint that the Bork-A-Dope strategy has caused confirmation hearings to become “vapid” .
Diversity
Kathleen Parker noticed that if Kagan is confirmed all three women justices will be from New York.
