Last night, on Rachel Maddow, Barack Obama said the following:
MADDOW: And so, you have the opportunity to say John McCain, George Bush, you're wrong. You also have the opportunity to say, conservatism has been bad for America. But, you haven't gone there either.
Below is the second of four short previews of important cases set to be argued before the Supreme Court over the next two-week period. The first preview, on Wyeth v. Levine, is available here.
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FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (Tuesday, Nov. 4)
Written by Judith E. Schaeffer, Vice President of Constitutional Accountability Center
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution – all passed as the Nation sought to secure the “new birth of freedom” President Lincoln had promised at Gettysburg – give Congress a broad power to protect the constitutional rights conferred by those Amendments. Taking up this mantle, Congress in 1965 passed the Voting Rights Act to protect the right to vote secured by the Fifteenth Amendment.
This coming Monday, November 3, marks the start of the Supreme Court’s next two-week argument session. During this period the Court will hear four cases that are among the most significant the Court will decide this Term.
What follows is the first of four short previews of each of these cases, each highlighting their important Constitutional implications for progressives. After the arguments, we will bring you our thoughts on what transpired before the High Court, so please be sure to check back with us then.
With rancor over the Constitution and the future of the Supreme Court already at dangerously high levels, it’s important to at least fairly characterize the candidates’ positions when it comes to the Court. Today the Drudge Report failed this test spectacularly, with its blaring headline:
2001 OBAMA: TRAGEDY THAT 'REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH' NOT PURSUED BY SUPREME COURT
This morning, the LA Times editorial board addressed an ongoing legal debate over the historic Supreme Court ruling that struck down parts of the D.C. handgun ban.
Last week, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the annual Wriston Lecture at the conservative think-tank the Manhattan Institute, and the Wall Street Journal republished a portion of this lecture on its op-ed page. It’s a fascinating speech that begins with President Kennedy’s call to ask “what you can do for your country” and at times echoes Senator Barack Obama’s call for sacrifice and personal responsibility (no endorsement was forthcoming).
by David Gans, Director of the Constitutional Accountability Center's Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program
This week saw the case of the 17 Chinese Muslims ("Uighurs") unlawfully detained at Guantanamo Bay remain in limbo as the Bush administration continued to delay their release.
The clear winner of yesterday's debate, Joe the (kinda, sorta) plumber, focused a national debate on the wisdom and fairness of progressive taxation -- the idea that those who make more should pay more in taxes. What neither Joe nor anyone else on the political stage seems to recall is that we've had this debate before, 100 years ago, and progressive taxation won so soundly that we passed a Constitutional Amendment, the 16th, to let it go forward.