Posts filed under 'U.S. Supreme Court'
August 19th, 2008
During a church forum this past Saturday night, John McCain was asked by Pastor Rick Warren to name the current Supreme Court justices he would not have nominated were he the president.
McCain named Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter (above, left to right) and John Paul Stevens.
Well, McCain wasn’t in the Senate when Stevens was nominated, but he was there when each of the other three came up for confirmation. And he voted for them.
June 26th, 2008
In a decision likely to have an impact on political races this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., is unconstitutional.
UPDATE: HERE’s the prevailing opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia. The case was decided by a 5-4 margin along conservative/liberal ideological lines.
UPDATE II: HERE are highlights from Scalia’s opinion, including his observation that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”
UPDATE III: Andrew Sullivan has a ROUNDUP of reactions from the blogosphere.
UPDATE IV: In the first sentence of this post, I said the court’s gun decision is “likely to have an impact on political races this year.” THIS GUY says the effect will be to take gun control off the table as an issue.
June 19th, 2008
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision.
Details of this stunning development are HERE.
June 18th, 2008
George Will, a conservative commentator who occasionally makes sense, TAKES ISSUE with John McCain over last week’s ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding detainees at Guantanamo.
Will even expresses doubt that McCain has read the court’s opinions and dissents in the case.
“More likely,” he writes, “some clever ignoramus convinced him that this decision could make the Supreme Court — meaning, which candidate would select the best judicial nominees — a campaign issue.”
UPDATE: The McCain camp SEEMS NOT to understand that the next president, no matter who it is, will have to comply with the high court’s ruling in the Gitmo case.
June 12th, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court RULED this morning that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have rights under the U.S. Constitution to challenge their detention in civilian courts.
The scary thing about the ruling, which is a defeat for the Bush administration, is that four of the nine justices (including Chief Justice John Roberts) voted against it.
The decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, has one line that’s likely to become memorable: “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of conservative Republican judicial appointees, how about THIS GUY?
