e-commentary

The First Amendment was blue-penciled to protect certain individuals and certain (uncertain?) speech rather than to protect free speech.

The New Republican Party is the party of lawlessness and disorder.  And still the party that believes in the credo “spend and spend and spend and spend and spend.”

Stare Decisis is dying — S.Ct.  Ideology is now the benchmark.

Equal Justice under Law is wounded — Bush.  The Pardon, Part I.  First, Bush commutes Libby’s sentence and continues Scooter’s Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and effectively silences him.  Second, as he departs on Marine Corps One, Bush pardons him.  The pardon is a back door absolution of Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanors.  If the sentence really was too long, why did Bush not reduce it to a more appropriate length, say, six months or a year?  Bush did not commute the sentence of prisoners wrongly sentenced to death while he was governor of Texas.

Cases to indict Bush, Cheney and Rove could still be brought after January 20, 2009.  The statutes of limitations will not have run by then.

Nixon considered pardoning himself before he left office, although he was confident that Ford would do his bidding.

Billy C. did not set any high standard with his sale of indulgences particularly to Marc Rich, the crook usually described as a fugitive financier.

Bumper sticker of the week:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.  He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.