Politics As Usual

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I submit that we didn't see it in the Warren Court era because conservatives were in the minority during that era. It is only in the last 10 years that conservatives have become the majority.

That's a derivative argument of "because we can."

Not the position I'd have chosen, but if it suits you, fine. Hold it close, and bathe in the warmth of that principled stand.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Just a guess, but maybe the fact that he's been a US Citizen for - oh, I dunno - guessing 20-odd years may have something to do with it.

I think he encountered a little trouble in this regard a few years back.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Isn't that this guy's job?

I thought he wanted to just get rid of having ballots.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
That's a derivative argument of "because we can."

Not the position I'd have chosen, but if it suits you, fine. Hold it close, and bathe in the warmth of that principled stand.

I prefer to phrase it as "there is political support for it."

Do you see this as evil in some way? If one believes that the judiciary has, in some areas (not the constitutionally required areas), thwarted the will of the people, what other choice is there?

I am supportive of the right of gays to marry. But there seems to be something unseemly of this being accomplished for the nation by 5 people sitting in Massachusetts.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I am supportive of the right of gays to marry. But there seems to be something unseemly of this being accomplished for the nation by 5 people sitting in Massachusetts.

Yes, that would suck, if it were true. But it's not. People in Taxachusetts are effected, the rest of us are not. That's the beauty of having such rights being within the perview of the states. I've always thought it odd that Republicans are so against Federal power unless it's being used to enforce their particular beliefs.

[SlaveNoMore]

baltassoc
Yes, that would suck, if it were true. But it's not. People in Taxachusetts are effected, the rest of us are not. That's the beauty of having such rights being within the perview of the states. I've always thought it odd that Republicans are so against Federal power unless it's being used to enforce their particular beliefs.

Except that the Mass Court cited Lawrence as a primary rationale for its findings, depite Justice Kennedy's suggestions that it wouldn't apply in this context, and setting in place a potential precedent for other State courts to follow.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Yes, that would suck, if it were true. But it's not. People in Taxachusetts are effected, the rest of us are not. That's the beauty of having such rights being within the perview of the states. I've always thought it odd that Republicans are so against Federal power unless it's being used to enforce their particular beliefs.

Whether its true or not has not been determined yet. If DOMA is not upheld, it will be true. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the plaintiffs will be able to find at least 1 judge willing to declare it unconstitutional.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Whether its true or not has not been determined yet. If DOMA is not upheld, it will be true. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the plaintiffs will be able to find at least 1 judge willing to declare it unconstitutional.

Isn't it a question of what the Supreme Court thinks? And can someone explain to me a theory under which it's going to be unconstitutional?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Josh Marshall has a post today which contains responses to several of the points club and Slave have made this week:

Robert Novak today has a column crowing about the Senate intel committee report with respect to Joe Wilson and the Niger matter. Nonetheless, he still manages to misstate its findings.

At the head of Novak's column he says that committee Democrats "did not dissent from the committee's findings that Iraq apparently asked about buying yellowcake uranium from Niger."

Dissenting from this finding would admittedly have been a challenge since this is not in fact what the Report said.

As this article by Doyle McManus in today's Los Angeles Times notes, "the committee found that the CIA's statement, in a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, was reasonable' at the time. The committee added, however, that the evidence behind the assertion turned out to be weak, and charged that the CIA failed to make that clear to policymakers."

The truth is that we simply don't know whether the Iraqis ever 'sought' uranium in Niger or Africa in the years leading up to the war, though all the evidence we thought we had for such a claim has turned out to be baseless. (There remains the Brits' evidence which they stand by yet won't disclose, and we'll address that later.) And part of the uncertainty is based on the capaciousness of the term. 'Sought' can mean a lot of things -- everything from purchases and active negotiations to vague feelers which might have been intended to lay the groundwork for later attempted purchases.

One bit of evidence that weighs heavily against such claims that Iraq was hunting about looking for a uranium seller in the years just before the war is the simple fact that Iraq seems -- after a rather intense investigation -- not to have had any active nuclear program, thus rather diminishing the need to go around trying to buy uranium, with all the risks that would involve.

Even that doesn't entirely settle the question, though.

As a very knowledgable intelligence source pointed out to me recently, one of the things the Iraq Survey Group found was that from time to time Saddam would call aside this or that scientist or general and ask something to the effect of, 'If we had to, how long would it take us to restart this or that WMD program?'

(Beneath this there is an even further debate and question as to whether Saddam himself knew the extent of the decrepitude of his own army or just how shuttered his WMD programs were.)

My source's recollection was that the particular instances of this that the Survey Group found related to chemical weapons. But it's not inconceivable that Saddam might at some point have asked a similar question on the nuclear front. And that could explain why Iraq -- which had no active nuclear program -- might nevertheless have put out feelers about the possibilities of uranium purchases.

In any case, this is all theoretical or rather hypothetical -- speculation in the absence of any evidence. One point worth noting is that the Senate Report said the Niger uranium judgment was 'reasonable' as of September 2002 -- the time of the authorship of the NIE.

That was just before the forged documents came into possession of the United States. However, the main evidence that the US had at the time -- that which presumably made the judgment 'reasonable' -- was pair of reports the US had gotten from the Italian intelligence service, SISMI. And as later became clear, those reports were based on the forged documents. In other words, the evidence that made the claim 'reasonable' later turned out to be bogus.

One other point that deserves mention: quite a bit has been made about the portion of the SSCI Report that says that Wilson's wife recommended him for the assignment. As a matter of substance, who recommended Wilson is irrelevant. Yet, Wilson's credibility would be undermined if he said X were true, when in fact he knew Y was the case. The LAT article notes that Plame's bosses at the CIA continue to insist that the idea to send Wilson was not hers, but rather theirs. The Times quotes a 'senior intelligence official' saying that "Her bosses say she did not initiate the idea of her husband going…. They asked her if he'd be willing to go, and she said yes."

What the truth of it is, I don't know. But the larger hullabaloo over this secondary point is simply intended to distract attention from the administration's persistent attempt to use weak and ultimately discredited information to muscle the country into war on a timetable which had precious little to do with preventing any sort of standing threat to the United States.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Isn't it a question of what the Supreme Court thinks?

Ultimately, yes. But what happens in between has consequences.

And can someone explain to me a theory under which it's going to be unconstitutional?

out of my league

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
At the risk of inspiring Not Me to post long quotations from case law in boldface, isn't it Con Law 101 that Congress can prescribe the jurisdiction of the Article III courts only to the extent it isn't granted to the Supreme Court in the Constitution --- i.e., they can only limit the J of courts they "ordain and establish," which is every federal court except the SCOTUS?

Which means if you yank the J of the District and Circuit courts, all you do is multiply the original proceedings in the SCOTUS?

Is that entirely right? For example, diversity jurisdiction. The constitution puts no limits on it: "to controversies . . . between citizens of different states" yet no court has jurisdiction absent a claim above the jurisdictional threshold. Under your question as posited, wouldn't Congress's removal of the lower court's power place all such questions in the Court's original jurisdiction?

Fed. Jur. was an awfully long time ago, and its usefulness was limited to one year long ago, but the constitution places certain types of cases in the Court's original jurisdiction. Other types in its appelate jurisdiction (unless Congress decides otherwise) and allows, but does not require, the federal judicial power to "extend to" a host of enumerated types of cases.

For more, go look at ex parte McCardle and commentary thereupon.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Yes, that would suck, if it were true. But it's not. People in Taxachusetts are effected, the rest of us are not. That's the beauty of having such rights being within the perview of the states. I've always thought it odd that Republicans are so against Federal power unless it's being used to enforce their particular beliefs.

Don't lump all republicans together.

Other people are affected, but only if courts in their states choose to recognize the marriages Taxach. grants.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Except that the Mass Court cited Lawrence as a primary rationale for its findings, depite Justice Kennedy's suggestions that it wouldn't apply in this context, and setting in place a potential precedent for other State courts to follow.

It was a decision on state-law grounds, not federal grounds. So, if another state court finds the reasoning persuasive, blame that other state's court.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Isn't it a question of what the Supreme Court thinks? And can someone explain to me a theory under which it's going to be unconstitutional?

I assume that it will be challenged under the full faith and credit clause. I can marry my first cousin in North Carolina, but I can't in Texas. If I go ahead and marry him in North Carolina and then move to Texas, that marriage is going to be recognized in Texas under the full faith and credit clause.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Isn't it a question of what the Supreme Court thinks? And can someone explain to me a theory under which it's going to be unconstitutional?

I haven't really studied it, but isn't at least the first part, which is essentially a statutory "full faith anc credit" requirement, subject to substantial challenge on the ground that Congress, and not the Court, is empowering itself to decide what a clause of the constitution requires? The Court didn't take to kindly to that approach when there was an effort to create a federal statutory definition of what rights were to be afforded in light of the Miranda ruling. Answer: What the Court says, not Congress.

As for federal recognition, probably harder, but isn't there a rough equivalent of the FFaCC for the federal government? (although I think it's statutory, so statute can overrule a statute)