In the last week, the Obama Administration has supported the Bush Administration in a variety of cases to the great disappointment of many civil libertarians, historians, and academics. This includes an effort to kill litigation that has sought millions of missing emails in the Bush Administration.
Category: Constitutional Law
Jangir Sultan, 32 has sued the city of New York after he was allegedly searched 21 times in the subway because of this Middle Eastern appearance. He is actually a New York native of Kashmiri descent.
North Dakota appears intent on triggering another round of litigation in the hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade. North Dakota’s House of Representatives has voted 51-41 to declare that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person. The vote would make abortion murder.
Continue reading “Microscopic People: North Dakota Votes to Give Full Legal Rights to Fertilized Eggs”
Newsweek is reporting that former Attorney General Michael Mukasey delayed a critical internal report on the conduct of senior Justice lawyers in the torture scandal, including Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury. The delayed report not only adds another contradiction to Mukasey’s claims before Congress, but should add pressure on the Obama Administration to stop delaying a criminal investigation into the commission of war crimes by the Bush Administration.
Jonathan Lopez has filed a lawsuit against a professor and Los Angeles City College over his treatment after giving a speech on the Christian view of marriage in speech class. Lopez alleges that Professor John Matteson had made it clear that he supported same-sex marriage. He claims that Matteson allegedly attacked him verbally, refused let him complete his speech, effectively called him a “fascist bastard” and refused to give him a grade (telling him to “ask God” for his grade).
Continue reading “Los Angeles City College Sued Over Christian-Based Presentation in Speech Class”
NATO countries are shocked by the proposal of a leading U.S. military officer on how best to handle drug dealers in Afghanistan. NATO’s senior military commander Gen. John Craddock does not understand why NATO should bother with the need to establish that any given drug dealer is associated with the Taliban. He believes that we should just shoot them all without proof in yet another example of how the United States has emerged as a perceived enemy to the rule of law.
Turley bloggers we have arrived. Stephen Colbert last night embraced my testimony against the D.C. voting rights bill with the type of clinging and infectious hug not seen since the Sadie Hawkins dances at the French Leper Colony.
Continue reading “With Friends Like This . . . : Stephen Colbert Endorses Turley Testimony”
England continues to use criminal laws and travel bans to punish individuals for controversial speech. One such controversial writer, Dutch politician Geert Wilders, now says that he is going to try to get into the country despite a ban to contest the use of such laws to punish free speech. He was invited to visit the country by a member of Parliament.
Continue reading “Right-Wing Dutch Politician Geert Wilders Challenges British Ban Over His Writings”
This has been a uniquely bad week for civil libertarians. The Obama Administration appears to be rushing to dispel any notions that Obama will fight for civil liberties or war crimes investigations. After Eric Holder allegedly assured a senator that there would be no war crimes investigation and seemed to defend Bush policies, Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan, Obama’s Solicitor General nominee, reportedly told a Republican senator that the Administration agreed with Bush that we are “at war” and therefore can hold enemy combatants indefinitely. In the meantime, Obama himself seemed to tie himself in knots when asked about investigating war crimes and leading democrats are again pushing for a symbolic “truth commission.” I discussed these issues in this segment of Countdown this week.
Continue reading “Top Obama Aides Embrace Bush’s War on Terror Rhetoric and Enemy Combatant Policy”
A top aide to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has been arrested for shouting at the “telly” at his gym. The 47-year-old diplomat is accused of shouting “F***ing Israelis, f***ing Jews” while watching news reports of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza last month at the gym.
Continue reading “English Diplomat Arrested for Shouting Anti-Israeli Comments At Gym”
Italy is in the midst of its own Terri Schiavo controversy. Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has intervened to prevent doctors from carrying out the wishes of Eluana Englaro and her family to discontinued life support. Englaro has been in a coma for 17 years after a car crash in 1992. Berlusconi consulted with the Vatican and declared: “This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I’m not a Pontius Pilate.” The prime minister added that one of the things that persuaded him is that she was “in the condition to have babies.”
You would think that Timothy Cole would be a happy man. Texas State District Judge Charles Baird has expunged his conviction of a 1985 rape in Lubbock, Texas of Texas Tech University student Michele Mallin. The problem is that he died in prison ten years ago.
Continue reading “Texas Court Finally Clears Man of Rape . . . . Ten Years After He Died in Prison”
Further entries on Sunday will be delayed due to my deployment on the Cutter U.S.S. Taney (USCGC Taney (WPG/WHEC-37)).
My two eldest sons and I are scheduled to sleep over on the Taney on Saturday night. Men going off to sea on a warship is nothing new, but not since the Fighting Sullivan brothers has one family decided to serve in the same ship.
CIA director nominee Leon Panetta gave startling testimony in his confirmation hearings this week by retracting a statement critical of the Bush Administration’s rendition policy and proclaiming that CIA employees will not be punished for any war crimes that they committed. I discuss the testimony on this segment of Countdown.
Continue reading “Leon Panetta Pledges That No CIA Employees Will Be Prosecuted For War Crimes”
The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a 10-foot inflatable rat. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union was using the giant rat in protests when the officials at the Lawrence Township informed the union that the rat violated a ban on banners, streamers and inflatable signs, except those announcing grand openings. The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that the rat has rights . . . or at least the union under the first amendment.
Continue reading “The Rat Has Rights: 10-Foot Inflatable Rat Prevails in New Jersey Supreme Court”