NewsTrust - U.S. Constitution - Most Recent Stories: Opinion

They're showing what in schools?!

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Glenn Beck - By Glenn Beck - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - The job of the government is to take care of you -- no it's not. They get this idea from the "promote the general welfare" part of the constitution. I can't believe they get it from there because I don't think they ever read it.

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The constitutionality of healthcare

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Erwin Chemerinsky - Oct. 06 (Opinion) - There's nothing illegal about requiring Americans to buy medical insurance. There's nothing illegal about requiring Americans to buy medical insurance.

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Editorial: Animal Cruelty and Free Speech

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Editorial - Oct. 06 (Opinion) - Anyone with an ounce of decency should be tempted to ban animal-abuse videos, but anyone with an appreciation for the First Amendment understands why we cannot.

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Obama’s Dick Cheney Moment

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Benjamin Wittes - Sep. 28 (Opinion) - His decision not to consult Congress on detentions represents a virtually wholesale adoption of Bush’s failed policies.

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Another Feingold Idea

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BuzzFlash - By Jeff Fleischer - Aug. 29 (Opinion) - This amendment is another example of putting country before party, as four of the current appointments owe their jobs to fellow Democrats -- Obama, Clinton, Salazar, and Joe Biden -- getting promoted. Both parties should endorse it. This isn't another divisive amendment designed to fire up voters. It's simply a modest step to empower them.

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Freedom from fear: Why the First Amendment trumps the Second Amendment

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By David Sirota - Aug. 22 (Opinion) - We should worry about gun-toting protesters and public political events. The First Amendment ethos guarantees people — whatever their politics — a fundamental right to participate in their democracy without concern for physical retribution. It is the primary amendment because America was first and foremost created not as a gun-owners' haven, but as a place to shelter citizens from oppression.

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The Seinfeld Hearings

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Randy Barnett: - Jul. 13 (Opinion) - If you suspect this week's Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor will be, like "Seinfeld," a show about nothing, you are probably right. To understand why, we need to revisit an era that remade how lawyers and the public think about law, and especially the Constitution. In the 1930s, academics developed a philosophy they called "legal realism" to undercut judicial resistance to "progressive" statutes such as laws restricting the hours a baker or a woman could work. Legal realism elevated just results over the rule of law. It saw analysis of "the law" as an after-the-fact rationalization that allowed reactionary judges to conceal their empathy for the oppressed. Because legal realists believed judges inevitably made law when they ruled, they thought judges should decide cases with progressive ends in mind.

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Obama Has Become Radical in His Commitment to Secrecy

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Martin Garbus - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - Obama's campaign promise was for a transparent government, yet this past Friday, after 3pm, hoping to avoid the weekend news cycle, his administration announced major events he hoped the public would not see. Denying the public information, rejecting the public's free speech "right to know" has become a pattern of this administration. Obama has become radical in his commitment to secrecy, not totally unlike the Bush administration.

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Free speech vs. surveillance in the digital age

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

dailytidings.com - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 27 (Opinion) - The Chinese government now requires any computer sold there after July 1, 2009, to include software called "Green Dam," which critics say will further empower the government to monitor Internet use. Josh Silver, executive director of media policy group Free Press, says Iran and China should alert us to domestic surveillance issues in the U.S.

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Attorneys Olson & Boies Interviewed About Filing Federal Suit Against Cailf. Prop 8

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC - By Chris Matthews - May. 28 (Interview) - Attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies Interviewed About Filing A Federal Lawsuit Against California Prop 8

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Ted Olson and David Boies on why Prop 8 is unconstitutional

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Hot Air - By Allahpundit - May. 28 (Comment) - As clear and simple a case for attacking marriage laws in the courts as you’re ever likely to hear.

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Fixing America, Erasing Bush

Mon, 25 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By William Rivers Pitt, - May. 25 (Opinion) - issues of torture and secrecy lead directly to the office of the President of the United States, and the manner in which Mr. Obama has proceeded thus far offends the very nature of the nation he presumes to lead. Mr. Obama sang the praises of our founding documents on Thursday, while failing utterly to live up to the oath he swore to them.

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'Thought Crimes' Bill Advances

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Real Clear Politics - By Nat Hentoff - May. 13 (Opinion) - Why is the press remaining mostly silent about the so-called "hate crimes law" that passed in the House on April 29?

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Obama and habeas corpus -- then and now

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Apr. 11 (Opinion) - “Though he has made many promises regarding the need for our country to rejoin the world community of nations, by filing this appeal, President Obama has taken on the defense of one of the Bush administration’s unlawful policies founded on nothing more than the idea that might makes right,” she said.

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Keith Olbermann's scathing criticism of Obama's secrecy/immunity claims

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Apr. 08 (Opinion) - Last night, Keith Olbermann -- who has undoubtedly been one of the most swooning and often-uncritical admirers of Barack Obama of anyone in the country (behavior for which I rather harshly criticized him in the past) -- devoted the first two segments of his show to emphatically lambasting Obama and Eric Holder's DOJ for the story I wrote about on Monday: namely, the Obama administration's use of the radical Bush/Cheney state secrets doctrine and -- worse still -- a brand new claim of "sovereign immunity" to insist that courts lack the authority to decide whether the Bush administration broke the law in illegally spying on Americans. The fact that Keith Olbermann, an intense Obama supporter, spent the first ten minutes of his show attacking Obama for replicating (and, in this instance, actually surpassing) some of the worst Bush/Cheney abuses of executive power and secrecy claims reflects just how extreme is the conduct of the Obama DOJ here.

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How we betrayed the rule of law for the fool's gold of security

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Leonard Pitts Jr. - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - People came out of the McCarthy era marveling at how easily fear and paranoia had stampeded us into surrendering principles that are supposed to define us. Mark my words: We will look back on this era the same way.

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The AIG Clawback: Possibly Unconstitutional, Doubtlessly Imprudent

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Heritage Foundation - By Andrew M. Grossman - Mar. 19 (Opinion) - To that end, the Court has stated that a bill of attainder is any law that inflicts punishment on "named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group" without a judicial trial.[2] The punishment may be of a criminal nature, such as imprisonment or death, or it may be civil, such as denying an individual compensation.[3]

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Would an AIG-Bonus Tax Pass Constitutional Muster?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Ashby Jones - Mar. 18 (Opinion) - Tribe: I do think Congress (and the Executive Branch) could avoid serious Bill of Attainder problems by passing a sufficiently broad law … rather than targeting a closed class of named executives even though the prohibition against Bills of Attainder, unlike that against Ex Post Facto laws, potentially reaches civil as well as criminal penalties.

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A 'Truth Commission' Is Not Enough

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Martin Garbus, - Mar. 13 (Opinion) - The Blue Ribbon commission gets attention and, along with Congressional committees, can get exposures and may help lead to better laws. But they create the danger of interfering and at times making impossible criminal trials of criminals. And they let criminals go unpunished.

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Binding U.S. law requires prosecutions for those who authorize torture

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Jan. 18 (Opinion) - These premises -- conclusively established by undisputed news reports and the statements of the person about to become the country's top law enforcement officer as well as a top Bush official -- are clear, and the conclusions they compel are inescapable. The Bush administration authorized, ordered and practiced torture. The U.S., under Ronald Reagan, legally obligated itself to investigate and prosecute any acts of torture committed by Americans (which includes authorization of torture by high level officials and also includes, under Article 3 of the Convention, acts of "rendering" detainees to countries likely to torture, as the Bush administration unquestionably did).

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Gutting Security: O's Dangerous Anti-Terror Pick

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Family Security Matters - By Dick Morris, Eileen McGann - Jan. 10 (Opinion) - President-elect Barack Obama's appointments to Homeland Security, the Justice Department and now the CIA indicate a virtual abandonment of the War on Terror. As Homeland Security chief, he's named a governor whose only experience has been with the U.S.-Mexican border. His attorney general pick, meanwhile, took the lead in pardoning FALN terrorists. Now he has rounded out his national-security and Justice Department teams by naming ultraliberals.

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No more Guantánamos

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Jameel Jaffer, Ben Wizner - Dec. 09 (Opinion) - To build a system of detention without trial in order to accommodate those torture policies would be a legal and moral catastrophe, a mistake of historic proportions. How an Obama administration chooses to tackle these issues will determine, in large part, the legal legacy of the last eight years. Even the clearest renunciation of torture will be an empty gesture if we simultaneously construct a new detention regime meant to permit prosecutors to rely on torture's fruits. That our justice system prohibits the imprisonment of human beings on the basis of evidence that was beaten, burned, frozen or drowned out of them is evidence of its strength, not its weakness. It is why we call it a "justice system" in the first place.

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Obama should prosecute Bush officials who designed torture policy

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The Progressive - By Michael Ratner - Dec. 03 (Opinion) - One of Barack Obama’s first acts as president should be to instruct his attorney general to appoint an independent prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation of former Bush Administration officials who gave the green light to torture.

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Transcript of RAW's interview with Sen. Feingold

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Raw Story - By Nick Juliano, Russ Feingold - Nov. 24 (Interview) - First off, what do you see as the No. 1 priority that Congress can do and that the administration can do, moving forward? Sen. Russ Feingold: Well, this is a vast subject, and the reason it's a vast subject is that so much damage has been done to the rule of law and to what I consider to be the traditional understanding of the Constitution, by the Bush administration. There are many, many steps that have to be taken. If I could pick one thing, that sort of is the foundation for so much of it, though, it's the repudiation of the claims that this administration has made, under Article II of the Constitution, the commander in chief power, that the President can basically do whatever he wants.

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