"Activist Judges"

Remember that term? "Activist Judges"? That's the term Republicans threw around loosely in reference to judges that might uphold pro gay marriage laws in states like Massachussetts. Funny how they're pretty much staying away from that term now. Ever since they got Sam Alito (left) and John Roberts (right) onto the Supreme Court the entire judicial system seems to be swayed to their side.

From the Supreme Court on down to lower court judges (we'll get to that in a minute) the Bush Administration has used their power to position themselves to never lose regardless of what laws are broken.

What's worse is they're reshaping our key laws in record time.

Here's a quick scorecard.

-Ruled AGAINST racial integration at schools, thus basically overturning one of the most important cases in our country's history, Brown v. Board of Education.

-Ruled AGAINST freedom of speech, when they determined a kid having a sign that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" was not a freedom of speech issue and ruled in favor of a school punishing him.

-Ruled AGAINST separation of church and state and the establishment clause by ruling that taxpayers could not challenge Bush's faith based initiatives programs.

-Ruled AGAINST Women's Rights by being the first Supreme Court to uphold an abortion ban that allows no exceptions for the health of the woman.

-Ruled AGAINST gender equality in the workplace by restricting the rights of women to sue their employers for gender discrimination.

-Ruled FOR special interests running attack ads against candidates even beyond current government bans

If they're scoring at home that's Right Wing nutcases 6, America and the Constitution 0.

Now it's not just the Republican tilted Supreme Court that is leading the upheaval of rule of law. Obviously we all know what's happening the Justice Department, but it's the lower courts that are packed with Bush Appointees as well and are using their newfound power to assail our basic principles of constitutional establishment.

For example, the ACLU had won a considerable case striking a serious blow against Bush's illegal wiretapping program. It has been deemed illegal by just about every constitutionl scholar alive and is clearly so by the mere fact that Bush purposely sidestepped the FISA courts to do the wiretaps.

Well the Bushies appealed and once at an appellate level they had a 2-1 Republican appointee advantage at, the ACLU and previous ruling were struck down. Score another one against rule of law.

Then there's that wonderful Judge John D. Bates.

He got two high profile cases in the case of five years which his pals in the White House who appointed him got their money's worth.

First he was the judge that ruled that the Comptroller of the GAO had no right to sue for the records of Cheney's super secret Energy Task Force meetings. Of course now we know more about the meetings and how each oil company got individualized meetings while conservation groups were lumped together in short group meetings. It was obvious who the attention was going to. Transcripts of what was actually said at these meetings though still is not available and probably for good reason. As we've seen through pretty much every policy during this Administration's two terms, the oil companies are priority one.

Then today he saved them again. He ruled that Valerie Plame, the covert CIA agent who was actually working in the nuclear counter proliferation unit trying to figure out what Iran has, could not sue Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby and all the cretins in the White House who were involved in leaking her name to the press and ruining her career.

Chalk another one up for the bad guys.

Bates owes his current position to the Bush Administration who appointed him in 2001. Oh, and we get to look forward to this lack of wisdom on the FISA courts now as Republican Chief Justice John Roberts appointed him to that court (in addition to his current duties) in 2006.

But hey the kicker is probably why the guy got the promotion in the first place.

According to his bio:

Judge Bates was on detail as Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997.

So there you have it. He was one of the hacks who hunted down Bill Clinton's sex life in the right wing's attempt to impeach him.

Sadly enough, in Republican bizarro world it all comes back to Clinton.

-Rp

A Quick Note on Scooter's Commutation

I wonder what our forefathers would think of today's America. I'm pretty sure our Fourth President James Madison (right) and George Mason (left) would have gone nuts if they had heard about a President commuting a buddy to keep himself and his own administration's illegal directives from coming out or being fully investigated. Such an obstruction of justice was looked at in pretty harsh terms then and according to the judges and juries in this case, now.

Here's what they both said when they fought vehemently during the Virginia Constitution Ratification for more stringent Impeachment policies for corrupt Presidencies (also here's a link to a terrific article on the Libby topic that includes these quotes as well)

George Mason (1725-1792), the father of the Bill of Rights (1791-2002), argued at the Constitutional Convention in favor of providing the House of Representatives the power of impeachment by pointing out that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection."

James Madison (1751-1836), the father of the U.S. Constitution (1788-2007), added that "if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."

What are we to expect from this Administration though? We know their plans and we know that they have zero regard for the law.

Yet impeachment is off the table.

What a sad state America is on the Fourth of July of our 231st year.

Rp

Balls over Brains

Well today was a banner day for Bush.

First he tells us that every email Karl Rove sent from 2001-2005 was missing. That over 5,000,000 emails in all are missing(from as many as 50 staffers).

Then they followed that up with some amazing audacity. Incredible display of balls if there ever was one.

The House and Senate Judiciary Committees issued subpoenas for the emails and for testimony from key aides.

Bush's response? Piss off! He had Fred Fielding, Bush's White House counsel who should know better than to play this game since he was an assistant to John Dean while working for Richard Nixon during Watergate, send a refusal in return.

They asserted executive privilege, which is supposed to be used only in cases of National Security and have now forced Congress into issuing a Contempt of Congress which will bring this matter to the Supreme Court. Even with nutcase Antonin Scalia on that court, Bush faces long odds that he can win this.

This to me opens the floodgates. Win the court challenge and you have access under the Presidential Records Act to see every email from 2001 to the present. Most should be preserved just because there's no way they were able to completely wipe the servers, workstations, multiple accounts of every single person that ever received these emails. It would be damn near impossible.

Go after the servers and it's endgame. I have a feeling you'd find emails involving the intricate details of every major scandal. The lies of the Iraq War build up, details of the 2004 election scam, agreements to reward campaign contributors with government deals, all sorts of stuff. This becomes a huge can of worms and opens the door to every criminal activity and the details therein that will derail Bush and this cabal of crooks not only from their political lives but possibly from regular life when they face criminal charges.

The Administration thinks executive privilege is available to use anytime they don't want people to know how they were breaking the law. This is apparent because National Security is the only time asserting that privilege is considered acceptable. They even went to the lengths to redact (although very poorly) full emails that were released today to prevent people from knowing what they were up to in the US Attorney scandal. Redactions are supposed to only be used for classified information in intelligence memos that are released to the public.

See for yourself.

As if that wasn't enough they even went a step further today in their attempt to become a full blown dictatorship.

They already want the rights to read your mail, are checking your internet searches and they are illegally wiretapping calls. That wasn't enough apparently for Bush today.

They actually had the balls, especially after telling Congress that they will not submit to their oversight and pulling the lost email stunt and blaming them for the troops not being funded (even when it's Bush not signing the funding bill), to go out and ask Congress to revise the 1978 FISA act and allow them to expand their current surveillance capabilities.

Actually I find it quite ironic. Their current illegal wiretapping program allows the Bush Administration to read YOUR emails, yet they won't let Congress read theirs.

They have completely lost it. To think that Congress will give them an inch on this, let alone open up investigations on the current wiretapping crimes they are committing is foolish.

Of course thinking they can win a court battle with Congress over basic law and the Constitution's assertion that Congress and the White House are co-equal branches of Government, well apparently they don't mind taking up this suicide mission.

But maybe that will be Bush's defense when he faces criminal charges. Insanity. A straight jacket is a lot more apealing than a prison cell when you only pretend to be a tough cowboy and really are a cowardly wimp.

-Rp