My apologies if someone else said this already--I made it through the first several pages ...

Thanks to whoever it was that posted the ref to Marbury v Madison ... talk about activist judges! Those early SCOTUS seats were filled by the best! (nope, not slamming 'em, just pointing out the precedent)

I have come to the determination over the past several years that an activist judge is simply one who rules against you ... (cf Shiavo case, for example, in which the complaint was made against the FLSC, vs Bush v Gore ....)

Errata

his contempt for advice & consent powers seemed pretty unbounded in this speech.

-- Holly McLachlan

I liked it better with contempt.

May 7th, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers on Wednesday tentatively agreed that national security officials should fully control the expected transfer of research of highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease from an offshore laboratory to the U.S. mainland near livestock.

The Bush administration requested the legal change, which would erode the traditional role of the Agriculture Department in deciding the safest location to research one of the world's most contagious animal viruses. The virus does not infect humans but could devastate livestock herds.

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2008/05/07/D90H30LG1_animal_disease/index.html

"Susan is lecturing me! My poor heart is aflutter!"

Just pointing out that you shouldn't get ideas ahead of your fittingly meagre station. BTW, you are tree-fucking mad, so don't call me Susan. That goes for the backwoods critter Arne as well.

"Of course that's rather rich considering the men you're so bent on supporting can't be trusted to speak in public without a script."

In fairness to them though, they usually can arrive at the correct choice of indefinite article.

Or indeed, try to tutor an internet dwelling smarty-pants in how to use the correct indefinite article.

Susan is lecturing me! My poor heart is aflutter!

Of course that's rather rich considering the men you're so bent on supporting can't be trusted to speak in public without a script.

Small wonder the US is such a laughing stock these days.

Don't bother responding

I'm going back to bed.

-- L.W.M.

This means lwm will disappear and the sock-puppet brigade will come out now.

Good, now you can have that economic summit with yourself!

Damn, I have not smiled and laughed this much since that f'ing Bush II got in the white house. lwm, you are gold!

lwm: "... The Iraqi debacle has nothing to do with the state of our economy ..."

Bwahahahaha!

Jebus H. Christ on a stick, that is the stupidest thing ever written on this blog's comment section! Trillions of inflation in 7 years does not effect the economy, eh? The dollar's collapse is but a small thing!

lwm, you are a hoot and a half. Bring out all your sock-puppets and have a economic summit meeting!

Bwahahahahaha!

Note: I have a deadline and must get back on a project, but I'll read every word of your "summit" when I get the chance. I am looking forward to all the "reasoned and well supported analysis". :-)

As other readers have pointed out there are isolated incidents of egregious judicial activism, but generalizing these isolated incidents to "common and systematic abuse," as McCain charges, would seemingly require specific and compelling evidence. Such compelling evidence often seems to be lacking in charges of SYSTEMATIC judicial activism. I'm willing to consider it, but it is never provided.

More concerning than McCain's support of increased executive power (which should be viewed as a general phenomenon that has been developing since the Nixon administration) is the embedded assumption in his speech that the judiciary should somehow "display interest in the will of the people." A purpose of the judiciary check over the legislature, would seemingly be to protect constitutional rights AGAINST the will of the people especially for minority opinion and/or during times of popular panic and hysteria. "Displaying interest in the will of the people" seems to be exactly what the framers (whom McCain proudly invokes) DID NOT INTEND for the judiciary to do when considering whether or not a law is constitutional. Increased executive power becomes a more prescient concern when the judiciary is reactive to the (often fleeting) will of the people, for the combination allows for and easily suspended or even abolished constitutional rights during times of fear or panic.

You really shouldn't conflate the two as if they are somehow equal.

I didn't. I had no idea third-party candidates had been ruled out of bounds. Certain commenters spoke as though the "other" option was not voting at all, so I assumed ALL candidates were considered unacceptable. This is, after all, not a Democratic Party discussion group.

Obviously you can do whatever you like Baldie. But I think you are kidding yourself. A vote for Obama is a vote for perpetuating the system and the establishment. Period. There hasn't been any significant action taken yet. Why would there be any action taken if Obama is elected? Do whatever you like Baldie. It is a "free" country after all.

Who said anything about voting for Obama? I agree completely that Obama is withing the system and of the system. I don't think I have ever "kidded" myself about that. But I do intend to vote for him, if only so I don't afterward feel like I stood by and did nothing while the world fell apart around me.

I'm going back to bed.

It is called hyperinflation. It is very difficult to avoid at some point when the inflating done by the central government gets out of control. When it happens, this political system is finished.

Perhaps the next one will be better (it has happened), or perhaps worse which happened in Germany once upon a time. But, all empires end in economic failure and we are very close.

The consensus at lunch today (all very liberal Democrat Catholics) was that whoever takes the white house will be blamed for the coming economic collapse.

I shudder to think of the "brain trust" that gathers in your lunchroom. The other day another one of these loons with their bizarre economic conspiracy theories was going on about how the Iraqi occupation has wrecked the economy. The Iraqi debacle has nothing to do with the state of our economy and the wave of municipal bankruptcies that will be sweeping across California first and then probably the rest of the nation. The debt certainly isn't making it easier to dig ourselves out of the enormous hole these insane economic policies started in the late 60's and early 70's but they are not the root cause.

Vallejo Declares Bankruptcy

by: Robert in Monterey

Wed May 07, 2008 at 07:50:24 AM PDT

After months of wrangling and negotiating the city of Vallejo has voted to declare bankruptcy. And to hear the local media tell it, like the San Francisco Chronicle, it is the fault of public workers, not poor political leadership:

After about four hours of discussion and public comment from the standing-room-only crowd, the council voted 7-0 to approve Tanner's recommendation to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection as a means to reorganize its finances, which have been shattered by spiraling public employee salaries and the plummeting housing market....

The city and its public safety unions have been at the bargaining table for about two years. The city is asking for its police and firefighters to take salary, benefit and staff cuts, while the unions say any further cuts would endanger public safety as well as the safety of the police and firefighters.

Vallejo spends 74 percent of its $80 million general fund budget on public safety salaries, significantly higher than the state average. The generous contracts are the result of deals struck in the 1970s, following a police strike that left the city in turmoil.

What is not said here, or anywhere in the article, is the reason for that public safety spending. Vallejo's police and fire services are understaffed - as are many agencies in California, in a little-known but extremely important and widespread phenomenon. City leaders have been loath to hire new workers, but they have also needed the public safety services - so the workers that are on the payroll have been working overtime. And overtime pay is usually always higher than regular pay.

Vallejo, like many California cities, wanted to maintain a high services and low tax environment, and has found this is not possible, especially when an artificially-created bubble bursts. Instead of accepting responsibility and seeking new revenues to balance the city's books without endangering the public, city leaders chose to blame the public workers for the problems and declare bankruptcy instead of avoiding the underlying issues.

To be fair, Vallejo is not in complete control of its own destiny. Decades of state and federal budget cuts, made to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, have had a trickle-down effect of eviscerating services and leaving cities more and more financially exposed as state and federal aid has begun to dry up. It's not exactly as if Bush and Arnold have directly told Vallejo to drop dead but through their inaction in the face of widening government financial crisis, they have achieved the same result.

Vallejo IS the tip of the iceberg, as many cities face similar problems. Some have done the right thing and sought new revenues, like Salinas, and avoided destructive service cuts. Others are following Vallejo down the path of blaming public workers. Without state and federal solutions, this scene may well replay itself again and again across the state in the coming years.

http://calitics.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=71C188095E490D2F956E344FFBB297A6?diaryId=5802

Warren Buffett told Arnie he had to repeal Prop. 13. Arnie told him to shut up. You want your republic back? You had better reacquaint yourselves with what that means, or at least what it meant to the men who founded it.

The actuating principle of a republic was public virtue, virtue meaning manly devotion of one's self to the wellbeing of the public.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?Itemid=267&id=177&option=com_content&task=view