Supremes Smack Bush Big Time

[Sarge]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/washington/25cnd-texas.html?hp

Mods- I put this here so all can see. You can move it later if you see fit.

[acptulsa]

Score for states rights! Hooray!

[Sarge]

I hope they were trying to tell him something with this paragraph.

"However, the ruling added, “The president’s authority to act, as with the exercise of any governmental power, ‘must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.’ ” The language cited was from a 1952 ruling in which the high court found that President Harry S. Truman did not have the authority to have the federal government seize and run steel mills."

[Kade]

The Supreme Court just stomped on the Constitution, again.

Article VI, Clause 2:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

America is bound here by the Vienna Convention, which stipulates that foreign nationals arrested in a signatory country be allowed meeting with an official consular from their home country. We have used this many times, including recently in the Volz case in Nicaragua.

This decision, even though it allows us to put to death a person for a horrendous crime, is still a bad decision. The Supreme Court is lost to whackos. I'm sorry.

[acptulsa]

Article VI, Clause 2:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

America is bound here by the Vienna Convention, which stipulates that foreign nationals arrested in a signatory country be allowed meeting with an official consular from their home country.

That is an excellent point. Nice to see states' rights upheld and Dubya slapped, but these things may not be worth this.

[Kade]

That is an excellent point. Nice to see states' rights upheld and Dubya slapped, but these things may not be worth this.

The question should be, is executing a foreign national without giving them access to consular officials going to hurt Americans?

Read about the Volz case:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Volz

I'm trying to be open minded about this, in my opinion, Nicaragua had a show trial, and anti-American sentiment allowed them to put Eric Volz in jail without much of a defense. It was the treaties that we had signed that forced the Nicaraguan Government to allow for further consular, and eventually exonerate him. I was involved personally, as Eric is my age and I felt I would have wished someone to talk to and convince my senator to take action.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island had a helping hand in it, but it was because we have these tools.

We sometimes put too much placidity to our power overseas.... when someone else gets in this situation, in another country, we will want these resources to be protected... it's not saying that a consular could have saved this Medellin in this case, but it would have protected Americans abroad, who now must be weary that because Americans are perceived to be willing to ignore binding treaties, their signatory nation could pull the same stunt. In the case of Eric Volz, he would still be rotting in an Nicaraguan Prison and in much worse fashion, it was clear he didn't commit the crime.

[Sarge]

I agree in retrospect he has an excellent point. I agree they should be able to talk to their country. The one opinion commented they should take another look at the case.

On the other hand, I hate to see states rights being taken away.

I just have a problem when they can talk to witnesses to crimes, before we can, if a border patrol agent is involved.

[Kade]

I agree in retrospect he has an excellent point. I agree they should be able to talk to their country. The one opinion commented they should take another look at the case.

On the other hand, I hate to see states rights being taken away.

I just have a problem when they can talk to witnesses to crimes, before we can, if a border patrol agent is involved.

The States are not always the issue, although allowing more state's rights usually furthers personal freedom, as we should hope. It is interesting to note that those that cherish most the bill of rights, including the original author, share a sort of Republican view, that some absolutism exists in protecting freedoms on a large scale, even from State interference.

George Mason held this view, in several of his objections to the original Constitution, the biggest was the exclusion of the Bill of Rights, and the ability to force these rights adopted by all states. He also wanted slavery abolished and at the very least the slave trade to be halted (The augmentation of slaves weakens the states; and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind.)

He also said "Whatever power may be necessary for the National Government a certain portion must necessarily be left in the States. It is impossible for one power to pervade the extreme parts of the U.S. so as to carry equal justice to them."

Like Jefferson, he was favorable to "forcing the issue" if you will of the Bill of Rights to the States.

Famously in his objection of the original draft of the Constitution "there is no Declaration of Rights, and the laws of the general government being paramount to the laws and constitution of the several states, the Declaration of Rights in the separate states are no security."


When the Bill of Rights were finally added, they used George Mason almost verbatim.


I have a post on the other topic about principals on this matter... as George Mason is owed the greatest amount of respect for his influential Virginia Bill of Rights, and his input to both Madison and Jefferson.

Those were Mason's words.

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

[Broadlighter]

I once had a discussion with a Straussian Neo-Con on YouTube. He explained that that Neo-cons regard the notion of national sovereignty as mythological.

Bush's actions in this case demonstrate that belief.

It shows up in a lot of other ways, too.

[idiom]

I imagine if you were arrested in Europe you like to be able to talk to an embassy before you got killed. I mean America is not the Congo yet is it?

[Sarge]

The opinion is now on the news. The SC did take treaty's into consideration.

Note,

(a) While a treaty may constitute an international commitment, it is not binding domestic law unless Congress has enacted statutes implementing it or the treaty itself conveys an intention that it be "self-executing" and is ratified on that basis. See, e.g., Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253, 314. The Avena judgment creates an international law obligation on the part of the United States, but it is not automatically binding domestic law because none of the relevant treaty sources--the Optional Protocol, the U. N. Charter, or the ICJ Statute--creates binding federal law in the absence of implementing legislation, and no such legislation has been enacted.

If one reads the whole opinion, it does sound like they are following the Constitution and not stomping on it.

They failed to enact implementing legislation.

[-lotus-]

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that neither the defendant nor his supporters “have identified a single nation that treats I.C.J. judgments as binding in domestic courts.” (The World Court is formally known as the International Court of Justice.)




/thread

[DFF]

Bush should've know - never, ever mess with Texas. :D