I’m going downtown tonight to see this dude, and of course, I shall be released

4 comments October 27th, 2009

Big surprise! Antonin Scalia says he would have dissented in Brown vs. Board of Education — HEADLINE WRONG, STORY CORRECTED BELOW

11 comments October 27th, 2009

 

  (NOTICE: See UPDATE at the bottom of this post.)

Golly whiz! I never could have predicted THIS:

 In an appearance at the University of Arizona College of Law, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that if he were on the court in 1954, he would have dissented in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that ended school segregation based on race.

 Hmm. I wonder if he also would have dissented in Loving vs. Virginia, the 1964 case that overturned anti-miscegenation laws.

 How about Griswold vs. Connecticut, the 1965 case that overturned a state law prohibiting contraception?

 And which side would he have taken in the Dred Scott Decision?

UPDATE: HuffPo has run a correction, noting that Scalia was misquoted: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/scalia-on-brown-v-board-o_n_335591.html

This guy is quite a charming fellow

4 comments October 27th, 2009

 UPDATE: Since posting this video, I’ve discovered that it’s an entry in a contest organized by the infamous Randall Terry, another charming fellow. Check it out HERE.

Is the opt-out public option the silver bullet?

13 comments October 27th, 2009

 

 It says HERE that Harry Reid only recently came upon the strategy that now seems to hold great promise for passage of health-care reform legislation.

 An excerpt:

 The announcement was a dramatic triumph for the progressive community, which had howled and hissed for months as the prospects for a government-run plan dimmed. But the story behind Reid’s decision has more to do with backroom negotiations behind a hastily proposed idea than with a change in political temperament.

 The compromise proposal that turned out to be the senator’s solution for the public option impasse — allowing states to opt-out of the system — first came to his attention only three weeks ago, an aide confirmed

 POSTSCRIPT: Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I don’t see many states opting out of the public option for very long.

 I can envision an out-migration of lots of people from opt-out states to states that offer the public option. Sparsely-populated conservative states — Wyoming, for example — could ill-afford to lose much of their populace.

 But, as I say, maybe I’m wrong about this.

Obama’s presidency began a year ago next week, more than two months before his inauguration

2 comments October 27th, 2009

 

 Jonathan Alter ARGUES that Barack Obama’s presidency already is a year old, or will be on November 4.

 A few excerpts:

 Election night 2008 went late in Chicago. Many campaign staffers who had spent two years helping Barack Obama get elected celebrated in Grant Park until the wee hours. But if senior aides were under the impression they might get the following day off, they were mistaken. Obama’s transition director, John Podesta, scheduled a senior staff meeting for the next morning, Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 10:30 a.m. Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, figured it would take a half hour, 45 minutes tops, to bat around some scheduling options and maybe even tell a few war stories from the campaign. But the soon-to-be commander in chief had other plans. To him, Wednesday was another workday—or, more precisely, the first day of his presidency…

 Normally a new presidency begins with the inauguration in January. But Barack Obama’s tenure really started in November, a full year ago, when he became the de facto co-president of the United States. Obama couldn’t yet sign bills or issue executive orders. He and his family couldn’t sleep in the White House. Having resigned from the Senate, he was technically a private citizen— a man with no constitutional authority. But these were formalities. For the first time in modern American history, an incoming president made some of the most important decisions of his term—about the economy, mainly, but also about energy, education, and health care—before taking office. If “to govern is to choose,” as John F. Kennedy said, then Obama was already governing.

 ”We only have one president at a time,” Obama insisted repeatedly before he was inaugurated. While this was the right thing to say, it wasn’t really true.