I think I am correct that the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits passing retroactive laws, and at least inference the Supreme court from making decisions retroactive.

But when it comes to corporations, and "Civil Rights", it seems the constitution doesn't apply.

I know where the White Collar Criminals can get a foreclosed Laundromat to wash their foul clothes. Maybe sunny side up fried or poached eggs can satisfy too...

Glenn- Great piece! Kennedy noted that such immunity legislation was likely Unconstitutional as well as contrary to the rule of law. It was Unconstitutional because Congress is not authorized to pardon crimes on criminal matters.

I also think that the Banks were trying to do this because they were caught forming an illegal TRUST. Guess what, Glenn! They are doing it again! Citibank, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and others have met at the Treasury to work out an "anti-competition" agreement and mutual aid fund so that they will not have to put foreclosed homes back on the market at deflated prices. Instead they will hold them off the market, to avoid the public and other buyers from obtaining "free market" bargains.

So apparently the government is colluding with tehes financial houses who profited immensely from the Housing Spiral when it was roaring along, but are now losing their shirts for making horrific investments. They, intentionally, allowed individuals and families to acquire mortgages that required no down payments, lacked adequate financial scrutiny as to the buyers assets and income.

So now they are allowed to covertly work together to prevent their competitors from profitting from their foolish risk-taking. Strangely the occupants of those homes are being thrown out...they are not getting the same consideration from the government for the mistakes they took on.

I think that Republican Progressives like Teddy Roosevelt, Robert Taft and Robert La Follette would be tearing their hair out at how much their party has fallen into the hands of corporatist interests!

I'm nodding in agreement when Anonymous @ 12:01 wrote what he wrote to SusanMc.

The electricity went out just as I began to want to respond last eve. I'd have said something shocking?

I'd regret...maybe, later, but I remember what great disrespect I felt toward Kennedy when he'd rail, burp, and just get red nosed...awful, taking on President Carter.

Never have I been able to forget that animal-stupidity show.

Carter was light years, far surpassing the loathing Kennedy disgusting drunk diatribes, in decency. Too many dems are just bourbon burp's with yellow limos. They shy from the truth. I wandered so astray from politics most my life because tempering my opinions was difficult. I shut off current events/news.

I was going through a surge of anger period and just needed to withdrawal from news, lies, and focus energy elsewhere. Home.

If I had false teeth, I'd have thrown them like a lethal grenade.

non-violence.

Enjoy the grindstone! I know the feeling. But it's good to reach the end.

First, isn't there a difference between the telecoms doing something the government asked them to do and the banks merging solely for profit? I understand that there was great profit to be made by the telecoms as well, and that legally they acted in knowing violation of the statutes, but I would still think that government pressure is a pretty big difference between the two. This isn't to refute the piece as a whole, I'm just saying that this seems like a differentiation worth mentioning; devil's advocate and all...

Secondly, I think the subject of anti-trust violations should not be merely incidental to our consideration of the FISA/telecom debacle. One conceptual mechanism for any kind of security is compartmentalism. The idea of partitioning critical systems to prevent anything from collateral damage to cross-seepage or 'creep', to the constitutional Separation of Powers, is an basic principle of any 'working organization'. The use of switches, capacitors, resistors, fuses, etc. in electronics is a good example of a 'working organization'. The components are arranged in a specific order and configuration with the goal of modifying a signal for a specific purpose. Likewise, these physical components are sometimes partitioned to shield against 'signal noise' or electromagnetic interference- or even just heat. The point being, that because of the principles of each component, they must necessarily be arranged specifically; they will not work if they are not organized properly.

The same is true with our societal systems of government, commerce, law, and cultural expression. One problem that Glenn touched on was, 'what to do with these corporations who violate the law?; we cannot bankrupt them, it would be excessive and economically disruptive. But certainly there must be consequences? This question represents the problem: what punishment is appropriate, sufficiently severe yet fair? And what is the proper apparatus to answer these questions? Surely judicial activism as a general concept is undesirable, and we can't have a Zogby poll to mete out justice every time we think it necessary- but some random panel of citizens doesn't seem appropriate either, does it?

The answer, I think, must lie in the Congress- and that is exactly why this is an issue of the highest imaginable importance to our way of life. If you begin shorting circuits or putting components in parallel that aren't designed to work that way, you will destroy what you have created and it will not work . The same is true for our system of government; if corporate interests, the executive branch, and the peoples representatives in Congress begin crossing interests or acting in parallel- or contradiction- to each other, then the society we have constructed for ourselves will fail.

In the end, there should never be a need for retroactive immunity legislation. If our system of law and government goes back and crosses itself- if we have rules and standards that contradict each other- then we can know that these were crafted improperly, or that there was irreconcilable disagreement in the purposes for their design.

The gratuitous arrows at Sen. Kennedy are really very unseemly. He has been for years among the ranks of the half dozen most reliably liberal and outspoken members of the Senate.

Besides, if the best you can do is vent anger that someone from Robert Kennedy and Nicholas Katzenbach's generation doesn't sweep in and save us, then doesn't it reflect poorly on our subsequent generations, not on Ted Kennedy?

In all spheres of liberal core beliefs from the liberal fights for social justice of the Kennedys to the old time spirit of the NAACP and Martin Luther King Jr., to the walks on the moon, to the noblesse oblige of the then rich, what exactly has anybody since done lately? And why do the 70 year olds have to come save your home equity loaned, outsourced, dripping with marketing syrup, electronic heroin addicted, globally warmed, neoconcancerous, war soaked world?