First my man Bush disappointed me by appointing a honkey boy to replace Renquist. But I held out that at least he would replayce O'Conner with a non-honkey. Now not only does he go totally boring with a honkey chick, he picks one that has no judicial training, or any reason at all for the rest of us to believe that she would make a good supreme court justice. Imagine if he would have done the following:
1. Move Clarence Thomas over to Chief.
2. Add Alberto Gonzolez, the first Hisp-indian (or another Hisp-indian).
3. Add Judith Rogers Brown, the first black chick.
This would have been awesome, and would have helped prove that we don't need Affirmative Action in order for qualified non-honkies to make it up the ladder. I am extremely disappointed.
12 comments:
Paul,
The moves that you recommend are all based on the color/race of the judge. So you believe in affirmative action after all?
Bush stuck to his guns. He believes that white people are inherently more qualified than black folks, or at least more politically expedient.
Why are you against affirmative action for regular folks, but for it in the Supreme Court? You would never catch me arguing that Clarence Thomas is more qualified to be chief because he is black. I don't even think he should be on the court! I would certainly rather see F. Lee Bailey on the court than another Uncle Thomas or Judith Brown.
"Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury." - Michael Franti
I oppose "Affirmative Action" as a law imposed by a government forcing private and public enterprises to meet committe-decided racial quotas, even if those quotas are hidden. This includes giving black and "hispanic" (whatever the hell that means) lots of points on their college entrance applications.
I heartily support human beings fielding their private and public enterprises with a variety of people, and taking special efforts to bring in people different than those already in their enterprise.
I certainly oppose supporting "Affirmative Action" only for black people who think a certain way. Reagan was a conservative. There is no way he would appoint F. Lee Baily or any other liberal.
On what basis do you believe that Bush considers "white people inherently more qualified than black folks"? His failure to name a non-white to either of his two openings does make me less enthusiastic about defending him on this point, though.
If Bush wanted somebody with no judicial experiance, why not a scholar without a law degree, but whose writings indicate that he knows and understand the US Contitution, plus the Federalist Papers? And he's a negro to boot. I could only applaud a person with a mind that concieved the following clear thought:
"There's nothing pleasant about rising prices in the wake of a disaster. My argument is that not allowing the market mechanism to allocate suddenly scarce resources produces the inferior outcome."
The above is from Walter Williams latest jewel of analysis.
You didn't answer my question.
Why do you believe that Bush should impose a racial quota on the Supreme Court but that Congress should not enact laws that do the same for private and public enterprises? Isn't the Supreme Court a public enterprise?
For the same reason that I think that people should listen to Distorted Soul rather than Destiny's Child, but I don't want a law banning Destiny's Child and requireing Distorted Soul. Those of us who oppose Affirmative Action claim that without AA blacks and other non-honkies will do very well in all the areas where they invest their talents. The practice of law is surely one of those areas where many non-honkies have invested themselves. I was looking for Bush to show that non-honkies will make it to the Supreme Court without AA. And I certainly do think that looking among a pool of qualified candidates who agree with Bush on strict constitutionalism, he can see some non-honkey faces, and endeaver to add them to the Supreme Court.
Bush is not a strict constitutionalist. He declared war (which is not within his powers as president), and is requesting the power to institute martial law in case of a "bird-flu" epidemic. Give me a break!
Bush is a fascist who doesn't give a rat's ass about the constitution unless it is in his benefit to use it.
Bush certainly has some fascist aspects, such as the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts. But congress passed those acts. I think that those acts violate the US constitution.
Congress also authorized him to declare war on Iraq, which means that there he did not violate the constitution. I hope that those stupid acts get challenged to the supreme court and overturned.
Congress has no right to transfer the right to declare war to the president.
Congress has the right to authorize the President to order the military to enforce treaties/ cease-fire agreements that congress authorized. I don't know if technically war was officially declared. Please clearly state your case about how it is that Bush violated the US' democratic constitution with regard to his ordering the invasion and occupation of Afgahnistan and Iraq.
Published on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 by TomPaine.com
The First Lie
by John C. Bonifaz
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0128-08.htm
While all of the Democratic presidential candidates (except Sen. Joseph Lieberman) criticize President George W. Bush for his unilateral recklessness in starting a war against Iraq, they are missing a larger point: The invasion was not just reckless. It was unconstitutional.
It is time to set the record straight. The United States Congress never voted for the Iraq war. Rather, Congress voted for a resolution in October 2002 which unlawfully transferred to the president the decision-making power of whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq. The United States Constitution vests the awesome power of deciding whether to send the nation into war solely in the United States Congress.
Those members of Congress-including certain Democratic presidential candidates-who voted for that October resolution cannot now claim that they were deceived, as some of them do. By unlawfully ceding the war-declaring power to the president, they allowed the president to start a war against Iraq based on whatever evidence or whatever lies he chose. The members of Congress who voted for that October resolution are as complicit in this illegal war as is the president himself.
Imagine this: The United States Congress passes a resolution which states: "The President is authorized to levy an income tax on the people of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to pay for subsidies to U.S. oil companies." No amount of legal wrangling could make such a resolution constitutional. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants the power to levy taxes exclusively to the United States Congress.
Now let us turn to reality. In October 2002, Congress passed a resolution which stated: "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and 2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." As he determines to be necessary and appropriate.
Congress cannot transfer to the president its exclusive power to declare war any more than it can transfer its exclusive power to levy taxes. Such a transfer is illegal. These are non-delegable powers held only by the United States Congress.
In drafting the War Powers Clause of Article I, Section 8, the framers of the Constitution set out to create a nation that would be nothing like the model established by European monarchies. They knew the dangers of empowering a single individual to decide whether to send the nation into war. They had sought to make a clean break from the kings and queens of Europe, those rulers who could, of their own accord, send their subjects into battle. That is why the framers wisely decided that only the people, through their elected representatives in Congress, should be entrusted with the power to start a war.
The wars of kings and queens of Europe had brought not only havoc and destruction to the lives of those forced into battle and those left to suffer their loss. They had also brought poverty. They were stark symbols that the subjects living under such monarchies lacked any voice or any control over their destiny.
The War Powers Clause of the Constitution emerged from that collective memory: "Congress shall have power...To declare war... " No other language in the Constitution is as simple and clear.
Thomas Jefferson called it "an effectual check to the Dog of war." George Mason said that he was "for clogging rather than facilitating war." James Wilson stated: "This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large."
Several years after the adoption of the Constitution, James Madison would write: "In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
Some might ask how George W. Bush's war against Iraq is different from other U.S wars. Congress has not declared war since World War II. While some of the U.S. military actions since that time have received the equivalent of a congressional declaration, others have not. There have been other violations of the War Powers Clause of the Constitution.
But today we face an extraordinary moment in United States history. The president of the United States launched a premeditated, first-strike invasion of another country, the likes of which this nation has never before seen. This massive military operation sought to conquer and occupy Iraq for an indefinite period of time. This was not a random act of raw power. It was the first salvo of a new and dangerous U.S. doctrine, a doctrine which advocates the unprovoked invasion and occupation of sovereign nations. This new doctrine threatens to destabilize the world, creating a new world order of chaos and lawlessness.
Now more than ever, the Constitution and the rule of law must apply. And, now more than ever, the truth must be told. The first lie about the Iraq war was not that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or ties to Al Qaeda. The first lie told to the American people is that Congress voted for this war.
In the midst of the rushed congressional debate in October 2002, U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) warned that the resolution under consideration was unconstitutional. "We are handing this over to the President of the United States," Byrd said. "When we do that, we can put up a sign on the top of this Capitol, and we can say: 'Gone home. Gone fishing. Out of business.'" Byrd added: "I never thought I would see the day in these forty-four years I have been in this body... when we would cede this kind of power to any president."
The Iraq war is in direct violation of the United States Constitution. The president and the members of Congress who voted for that October resolution should be held accountable for sending this nation into an illegal war.
It is time to hold up the Constitution to the faces of those who dare to defy it. It is time to demand our country back.
John C. Bonifaz is an attorney in Boston and the author of 'Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush'. (NationBooks-NY, January 2004)
http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec8.html
U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 8
Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Nadir: I think that you have a point here. However, I also think that you are only using this point because you oppose this war. Would you support the war if congress had outright declared war on Iraq? If not, why even bother making the point.
OK, I do agree that you have facts and logic working together in support of your point that the passed by congress regarding Iraq was unconstitutional. However, I am far from 100% convinced that a truly independant and strict supreme court would overturn the law as unconstitutional. In short, I believe that facts and logic can also support the alternative view, that the law conforms to constitutional strictures.
The law pertains only to Iraq, and to enforcement of UN resolutions already endorsed by the US govt (don't know if the president or congress signs on as a party to those). Thus the law provides Bush the congressional endorsement required by the constitution. I would certainly agree with you if the law did not limit itself to Iraq and UN resolutions that involve Iraq. Afterall, those resolutions represent cease-fire agreements attending a previous war declared by congress by the conventional channels that I assume for this discussion you approve (but also assume you have other ways of opposing that original Iraq war).
I would really like to see you using the constitution and the Federalist Papers in order establish your view on the constitutionality of such things as foriegn aid, social security, etc. For that matter, I wish that Bush would do the same for such matters as anti-drug laws, etc.
Let's keep this discussion going of constitutionality and the federalist papers! I have a copy of the federalist papers next to my bed and try to read a few pages a week. I consider it a masterwork. Much better written, useful, and informative than the bible and koran... by a long shot!
Post a Comment