Over the weekend, Dahlia Lithwick posted an article on Slate about the lack of courage in today’s political debate. Specifically, she discussed the successful efforts of gay marriage opponents to keep cameras out of the courtroom in the trial over California’s Prop 8 and a recent Supreme Court case regarding whether the state of Washington [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Law and Justice'
Willing to Prevent the Downfall of Civilization, So Long As They Don’t Have to Leave the House
June 21st, 2010 · No Comments · AR, Law and Justice, Politics, Supreme Court
Tags: civil rights·Dahlia Lithwick·gay marriage·gay rights·LGBT rights·Maggie Gallagher·political courage·Prop 8·Slate·Supreme Court·The New Republic·victims
Mr. Moonlight
June 18th, 2010 · No Comments · AR, Law and Justice, Politics
Check out my guest post on the Virginia Attorney General’s frivolous anti-health lawsuit. It’s on the blog of the Virginia Organizing Project, a wonderful grassroots organization empowering people in local communities to improve their quality of life.
-AR
Tags: Commerce Clause·health care·health care lawsuits·health care reform·Ken Cuccinelli·Virginia Organizing Project
Other Bills Not Worth Reading
May 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment · AS, Law and Justice, Politics
We have already said a few things here about how dumb Arizona is with its unreadable laws against all things Latino. But lost in the discussion of racial profiling is this other creepy law Jan Brewer signed regarding public school curricula. Arizona schools are now forbidden from having courses which “promote the overthrow [...]
Tags: ACLU·after-school club·Arizona·education·ethnic studies·First Amendment·Immigration·Jan Brewer·Jim Crow·Old South·public education·race·racial bias·racial profiling·racism·segregation·students·Tom Horne·Tuscon·white people
See? It says so right there!
May 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment · AR, Immigration, Law and Justice, Politics, Uncategorized
This post by Monica Potts shows that cries from supporters of Arizona’s abhorrent immigration law that the law’s opponents haven’t even read the bill aren’t quite the smoking gun they’re presented as (regardless of what Jan Brewer’s cheap Kermit rip-off might say.) However, the post does not address the obnoxious argument that’s usually paired [...]
Tags: Arizona·Brown v. Board of Education·conservative logic·Immigration·Jan Brewer·John Yoo·race·racism·SB 1070
Reason Number 14,538 To Miss John Paul Stevens
May 17th, 2010 · No Comments · AR, Law and Justice, Supreme Court
In his brief (1.5 paragraph) concurrence to today’s ruling that life without parole is an unconstitutional sentence for minors for non-homicide offenses, Stevens gives about as perfect and concise a summary of a liberal view of Constitutional interpretation as one could ask for:
Society changes. Knowledge accumulates. We learn, sometimes, from our mistakes. Punishments that did [...]
Tags: constitutional law·Graham v. Florida·John Paul Stevens·juvenile justice·Supreme Court
She Is A Real American
May 15th, 2010 · No Comments · AR, Law School, Law and Justice, Politics, Supreme Court
I could not support more strongly the idea that we need as much diversity as possible on the Supreme Court, and not just along the race/gender/religion/sexual orientation axes that we normally talk about. I understand that it’s difficult to get a cross-section of America on a nine-member body, but any time the president has an [...]
Tags: Bill O'Reilly·Dahlia Lithwick·diversity·Elena Kagan·Ivy League·Kathleen Parker·Paul Waldman·real America·Ruth Bader Ginsburg·Supreme Court·Tea Parties·white men
And Now For Some Genuinely Good News
March 31st, 2010 · No Comments · AS, Immigration, Law and Justice, Politics, Supreme Court
No amount of oil drilling news can ruin my good mood today, not when there are so many shockingly reasonable federal court decisions being announced. The first, Padilla v. Kentucky, finds that bad legal advice about the immigration consequences of a criminal guilty plea constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. This is huge. As one immigrants’ [...]
Tags: Antonin Scalia·Clarence Thomas·criminal law·deportation·drugs·immigrants' rights·Immigration·ineffective assistance of counsel·John McCain·John Paul Stevens·Justice Department·justices·legal advice·N.S.A.·oil drilling·Padilla v. Kentucky·Sixth Amendment·U.S. Constitution·Vaughn Walker·warrantless wiretapping·Wonkette
Oh, a Joke. I Get Jokes.
March 2nd, 2010 · 1 Comment · AR, Law and Justice
One of the more annoying trends in our national discourse occurs whenever someone has said something offensive, and his/her defenders inevitably defend the comment as being a joke, as if jokes cannot be offensive, and claim that any critics should just get a sense of humor.
An even more disturbing example of this framing can be [...]
Tags: Don Imus·jokes·KTLA·Rush Limbaugh·scooping