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Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Legal, but not constitutional: how the government is weasel wording the public about Edward Snowden and the NSA

Posted on 2013.06.11 by winterSmith 18 comments

The Edward Snowden/NSA/PRISM uproar continues, and in the argument over whether or not he’s a Real American Patriot or your basic criminal vigilante the whole fucking point is getting lost. In fact, that argument is precisely the one that the Obama administration and the GOP’s security-state architects want us waging because it distracts us from the actual issue we need

Prediction: Supreme Court will strike down gay marriage bans, and it won’t be close

Posted on 2013.03.25 by winterSmith 3 comments

Gay marriage will finally get its day before the Supreme Court. The issues are legally and culturally complex and the outcome uncertain in the eyes of many observers. I’m no Constitutional scholar, but I think I know what might happen here. I expect that the Court’s left-leaning justices will vote to strike down gay marriage bans (the Defense of Marriage

It’s time for progressives to forget about winning the battle and start concentrating on winning the war

Posted on 2010.11.15 by winterSmith 18 comments

It was Sun Tzu, I believe, who first suggested that in order to win the war, you sometimes have to lose the battle. This precept has been on my mind quite a bit since the results of the recent election began rolling in. For instance… Earlier today one of my political lists was discussing the aftermath of the elections and

When Jesus Attacks! Why don’t we care that the Catholic Church is officially whipping Congress?

Posted on 2010.03.11 by winterSmith 25 comments

Part 2 of 2. (Read part 1…) It’s Time to Separate Church and State, Once and for All If you recall, anti-Catholic prejudice was once a problem for Catholic politicians in the US. John F. Kennedy went so far as to address the issue head-on in his 1960 campaign – probably because he didn’t feel he had much choice. Here’s

Corporation files to run for Congress: important marketing strategy questions remain unanswered

Posted on 2010.01.27 by Bonesparkle 55 comments

The Supreme Court has decreed that corporations are persons and money is speech, so it was only a matter of time before a company decided to exercise its Constitutional right to run for Congress. Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced

Constitution 2.0: Money Talks and Bullshit Walks

Posted on 2010.01.22 by winterSmith Leave a comment

Bad attitude and strange bedfellows at the dawn of the Reich, and What Would Hunter Do, anyway? Ever since five members of the Supreme Court declared the Constitution unconstitutional yesterday morning I’ve been in something of a snit. Along the way, I’ve said a variety of things that struck me as insightful, pithy, even witty. Others, however – bitter, lonely

Politics/Law/Government

Democracy & Elitism 4: equality, opportunity and leveling up the playing field

Posted on 2010.01.04 by winterSmith 79 comments

Pulitzer- and Emmy-winner William Henry‘s famous polemic, In Defense of Elitism (1994), argues that societies can be ranked along a spectrum with “egalitarianism” on one end and “elitism” on the other. He concludes that America, to its detriment, has slid too far in the direction of egalitarianism, and in the process that it has abandoned the elitist impulse that made

Biz: SCOTUS to hear Sarbanes-Oxley challenge

Posted on 2009.05.19 by winterSmith 3 comments

Several years ago, in the wake of Enron and several similar debacles, it was rightfully agreed that we needed to assure more responsible behavior on the part of American corporations. The result was Sarbanes-Oxley, a law that has since been at the center of any number of debates over the difference between “we should do something” and “DO SOMETHING!!!” I’m

Business

A progressive for our times

Posted on 2008.06.24 by Bonesparkle 23 comments

Let’s say this guy was running for president on a third-party ticket: proven track record for getting country out of wars strong foreign policy diplomat who forged stronger relationships with powerful developing (and enemy) nations implemented the first significant federal affirmative action program dramatically increased spending on federal employee salaries organized a daily press event and daily message for the

Supreme Court rules on death penalty

Posted on 2008.06.24 by winterSmith Leave a comment

This just in… Thanks to Mike Smith for passing this link along.

Is America ready for McChange?

Posted on 2008.06.06 by Bonesparkle 3 comments

It was one of this election season’s most surreal moments. Right about the time the other night that Barack Obama was clinching the Democratic nomination, a reanimated corpse Sen. John McCain took the podium in Kenner, Louisiana to regale an audience of literally several on the virtues of … change?