Bruno's Prosecutors Go Soft While Appeal Is On Hold

They fought hard. They proved their case. At the end of a long trial, Joseph Bruno was found guilty of being a corrupt politician and everyone knew it.

However there was a small problem.

Former Senator Bruno was convicted under the federal "Honest Services" law. That means he was found guilty of not disclosing what he did and not for the actual corrupt practices. The intricacy of it all led the judge to allow Bruno to go free while the law itself is being reviewed by the Supreme Court. And now even the attorneys that helped convict the elderly pol are easing off on ensuring he does the time he deserves.

From The Daily Politics:

Federal prosecutors say ex-Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno can stay out of jail while he presses his appeal.

Prosecutors, in a one-sentence letter to Judge Gary Sharpe yesterday, said they would not oppose Bruno's request to remain free while he argues his appeal.[...]

Prosecutors Elizabeth Coombe and William Pericak did not mention the Supreme Court decision in their letter to Sharpe yesterday.

With the mindset of the current Supreme Court leaning towards moneyed interests and against average (see: not wealthy) citizens, the Court will most likely rule in favor of Joe Bruno and swipe the law from the books.

Prosecutors might just be showing signs that their case could ultimately be lost and are giving up on their job to make Bruno pay for his crimes. Unfortunately, at Bruno's advanced age and his image in certain circles of doing great good as an elected official, the man will probably never see the inside of a jail cell.

Elena Kagan: For And Against

As the debate heats up over Barack Obama's choice to replace Supreme Court Justice Stevens, here are two interviews with Lawrence Lessig and Glenn Greenwald. The former argues for her nomination, the latter against. Check them out here:

Cenk Uyugr with Lawrence Lessig:


Cenk then talks with Glenn Greenwald:

Gilliespie Makes Excuses For Bush Not Picking A Woman For The Supreme Court

Whether or not George Bush was seriously considering a woman for the Court when he nominated Samuel Alito, former RNC head and all around GOoPer Ed Gillespie had the worst excuse for Bush not going with a woman. How could he seriously say there were no women out there that were qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice:



I'm sorry but that is just pure unadulterated bullshit.

Will Obama's Pragmatism Show Up On The Supreme Court?

In five months the next term of the Supreme Court will be in session and Justice Souter will no longer be on the bench. Within that amount of time, President Obama will have chosen his replacement with the consent of the Senate and conservatives will have something new to complain about at Fox News, Republican press conferences and the rightwing blogosphere.

The likelihood of a liberal dreamboat such as Justice Albert Gore is far less than slim, much closer to "not a chance." No, the President is a pragmatist and the writing has been on the wall long before Barack went to Washington. Now politics plays a role in all of this too, so Obama will choose someone that is not going to get many complaints from what is left of the moderate conservatives (like Republican Democratic Senator Arlen Specter) or even the typical Republican Senator that is to the right of Specter but to the left of say, someone like Jim DeMint. That is why I think Esquire nailed it several months ago before Obama was elected President.

From Esquire Magazine:

If Obama becomes president, his first nominee to the Supreme Court will likely be Sonia Sotomayor. As a Hispanic woman with 16 years of court experience, Sotomayor would slay two of the court's lack-of-diversity birds with one swift stone. "These are criteria that matter these days. Even Laura Bush was disappointed that her husband didn't name a woman to replace Sandra Day O'Connor," says Mark Tushnet, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard. And because Sotomayor has a reputation for staying behind the scenes and sits on a federal bench known for its centrism, it's likely that she would be able to garner a two-thirds majority in the Senate, even if the Democrats only control an estimated 55 or so seats. Plus there's an insurance measure if the nomination gets too politicized publicly: Sotomayor was appointed to the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1992 by President George H. W. Bush. Says Tushnet, "If you're a Democratic strategist, you can gin up ads that say, 'She was good enough for George H. W. Bush. Why isn't she good enough for Mitch McConnell?' "

Now there are even more Democrats in the Senate, making confirmation far easier when you have Merkley, Hagan, Franken (hopefully soon) and other more liberal newbies who will support the President while their predecessors might not have. However, that partisanship might not even get much play with someone like Sotomayor (even if the nominee isn't ultimately her). Republicans would love to rail against hardcore liberal, but chances are, Obama won't give them the opportunity.

Candidate Obama On Supreme Court Justices

From what seems like a lifetime ago, here's what Barack Obama said about nominating Supreme Court Justices way back when he was one of many Democratic candidates running for the presidency:



Protecting privacy, the vulnerable and those that know about how real issues affect people outside of Washington is exactly what the American people need up on the highest judicial bench in the land.

With Souter Out, Who Will Obama Nominate To The Court?

Last night's big news, that Justice David Souter will be retiring from the Supreme Court has everyone talking. Although he isn't the youngest on the Court, he is certainly much younger than the eldest. Justice Stevens turns 89 this year, making him 20 years older than Souter. Whatever his reason for stepping down, the big question becomes, who will Obama pick to replace him? Although with the story not even a day old, there's already a consensus that the next justice will be a woman.

RawStory has some possible names:

Court experts have said Obama is likely to choose a woman as his first nominee. Among the possible candidates are Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the administration's top courtroom lawyer who argues before the Supreme Court; Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and appeals court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood.

I've personally heard of Elena Kagan and of course Gov. Granholm, but I can't say much about the other two. Whoever he ends up picking, from that list or elsewhere, the battle to get her in will be difficult to say the least. Even with the "60" in the Senate, not all those Democrats are in the liberal/progressive corner. And the forty Republicans will also be making a big stink, for the sake of stinking up the process.

GOP Loses To democracy In Supreme Court Decision

After the election intimidation of Ohio's voters four years ago partially perpetrated by then Secretary of State Blackwell (R-Of course) this year's election officials sought to do better. In order to handle the massive amount of people wanting to exercise their right to vote, Ohio made the process easier by allowing for early voting. In response, the GOP decided to fight it with all their might because to the Republican party, the more people vote, the worse the results get for them. Court after court (except for one) sided with the voters and the new Secretary of State. Finally today that battle is over, as the Supreme Court handed down their decision.

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court sided Friday with Ohio's top elections official in a dispute with the state Republican Party over voter registrations.

The justices overruled a federal appeals court that had ordered Ohio's top elections official to do more to help counties verify voter eligibility.[...]

Ohio Republicans contended the information for counties would help prevent fraud. Brunner said the GOP is trying to disenfranchise voters.

In a brief unsigned opinion, the justices said they were not commenting on whether Ohio is complying with a provision of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that lays out requirements for verifying voter eligibility.

It isn't a slam dunk decision, but it is good enough to enfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters that were denied that right four years ago. Instead of long lines that lasted into the night, now people can vote with ease and not have to deal with roadblocks put between them and the polls.

Palin Shows Ignorance Of The Supreme Court

Except for the Supreme Court ruling legalizing a woman's right to choose, Sarah Palin knows nothing about what the Court has done. That's right, nothing, nada, zip. She wasn't asked if she knew there were nine justices currently sitting, so perhaps she knew what most grade school children are taught. Of course, kids in high school are instructed on Marbury v. Madison, Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education and dozens of other influential cases throughout our history that have helped define us as a nation. One would think and hope a woman that wants to be a heartbeat from the Presidency would know this stuff but sadly, you'd be wrong.

From Politico:

Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

That silence was most likely deafening to Couric and most certainly will be to the American people. We as a nation demand more of our leaders. When those that wish to ascertain power from the consent of the governed can not even recall what it is one of the three co-equal branches of government does is a sad statement for that candidate. Meanwhile on the Democratic ticket, we have Joe Biden, who is well-versed on the Court, including an incredible display of insight and tact that led to the defeat of Robert Bork's nomination to the Court. That contest made Republicans red in the face but no one could deny his commanding presence when it came to fulfilling the Senate's duty to scrutinize the President's pick for the Supreme Court. I seriously wonder if Sarah Palin is aware of that time in our recent history.

In America, Guns Are Used More For Suicide Than Homicide

The majority in the Supreme Court might have thought they were protecting the Second Amendment last week with their controversial ruling, but the evidence across the country shows us something the NRA would rather keep hidden. Far from the myth that guns in the home protect citizens from mortal danger, the reality is that having a gun in the house increases the chance of a suicide or homicide in the home.

From RawStory:

ATLANTA - The Supreme Court's landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens' ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.

Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation's nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was nothing unique about that year — gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.

Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.

In fact, as the article states, crime was reduced after the D.C. ban was instated over 30 years ago. Unfortunately the strength of groups like the NRA have cut into gun control largely thanks to the conservative ideology that has run rampant in our country. Now that the courts have more and more "thinkers" like Antonio Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, we can expect more decisions like this in the future...regardless of the facts in each case.

Guns, Guns And More Guns

The Supreme Court has certainly been very busy this week handing out their judgments on various cases, from ruling on child rape to letting ExxonMobil get away with a slap on the wrist. Today, their big decision was to expand the second amendment like no one has before. The Court struck down a handgun law in Washington, D.C. that stood for more than thirty years and made the N.R.A. jump for joy (and the founding fathers, I assume, roll over in their graves).

From The Huffington Post:

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most federal firearms restrictions intact.

District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty responded with a plan to require residents of the nation's capital to register their handguns. "More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence," Fenty said.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

What Scalia and his merry band of followers forget is that Constitution is a living, breathing document and when the Second Amendment was written, we lived in a much different America. In 1791, Americans protected themselves from various threats that the government was ill-equipped for, now we have a military with a budget of over half a trillion dollars. Early Americans also hunted in greater percentages to feed their families, now most people hunt in the supermarket.

Now this doesn't mean we can't own guns, but there should be certain limits in our (hopefully) more civilized society. The fact is, having more handguns means more people will die, whether it be from random accidents, domestic disputes or whatever.

Supreme Court Sides With ExxonMobil Over Valdez Spill

Anyone that tells you that politics doesn't figure into the courts doesn't know much about what is going on in politics these days. When conservative Republicans appoint ideological judges bent doing whatever they can to help big business no matter how large the fuck up, there is a serious problem going on. The Court itself hangs on a balance now and could get worse if McCain is elected. With another Republican in the White House, it will be easier to see more awful decisions like this from now on.

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out the record $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon Mobil Corp had been ordered to pay for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the nation's worst tanker spill.

By a 5-3 vote, the high court ruled that the punitive damages award should be slashed -- limited by the circumstances of the case to an amount equal to the total relevant compensatory damages of $507.5 million.

The justices overturned a ruling by a U.S. Court of Appeals that had awarded the record punitive damages to about 32,000 commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others harmed by the nation's worst tanker spill.

In the majority opinion, Justice David Souter concluded the $2.5 billion in punitive damages was excessive under federal maritime law, and should be cut to the amount of actual harm.

The only harm here was done by Exxon all those years ago and the Court's decision today. Now ExxonMobil makes $2.5 billion in a matter of days, they could have easily paid the amount of damages stipulated in the lawsuit. The Supreme Court had no business taking up this case, it should have been left to the lower court. For Souter to say that there shouldn't be punitive damages is absurd. Those damages are awarded in cases that span the legal spectrum and to think that fisherman and those that live along the coast weren't traumatized by the man-made ecological disaster is preposterous.

Corporate America is chomping at the bit to see McCain in office (and nominating judges), so they can get away with whatever they see fit in order to profit at everyone else's expense.

Supreme Court Takes A Step Towards Restoring The Constitution

It truly is an amazing time in our country where it took a 5-4 decision to rule the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 unconstitutional. This Act from the last Republican Congress was a smack in the face to the tenets of our democracy, that everyone get a fair trial within the United States. Of course Republicans argued then as did the four dissenters on the Court today (Chief Justice Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia) that Guantanamo Bay isn't technically the United States. Thankfully the other five justices had warm hearts and clearly-thinking heads when they came down with the decision.

From The Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

The extraordinary time is that George Bush is in power, not so much the fact that the United States has enemies that aren't nation-states. We were fighting pirates in the late 1700s off the Barbary Coast and have repelled other threats since then. September 11th does not give Bush the right to strip our Constitution and allow unequal rights to detainees merely because they are not taken to one of the fifty states. We have had Guantanamo in our possession for over 100 years without interruption and in the minds of the five justices (and most Americans) that counts as being under the jurisdiction of the United States.

I Pity The Judge!

When I was a little kid I loved watching the A-Team, maybe it was my 7 yr old mentality, but seeing those four guys blow stuff up was a lot of fun. Out of that pack, the most famous was Mr. T and people still use his lines today. For some reason I thought of his euphemism today when I read about Clarence Thomas' latest interview. It is incredible to me that someone like him sits on the highest court in the country. What he thinks of the other eight justices is telling of his character and what it means to have him on the bench.

From U.S. News:

There's a reason why Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas doesn't talk much from the bench: He thinks judges should be seen and not heard. "My colleagues should shut up!" he says. In a rare scolding of his fellow judges, Thomas Wednesday night took off after those who ask questions and debate cases out loud during oral arguments while defending his own, oft-criticized, silent treatment.

Asked at an event honoring Winston Churchill sponsored by independent Michigan school Hillsdale College if he would talk more from the bench to "give us relief" from the other chatty judges, Thomas said, "I don't think it's my job to give you relief." Thomas noted that through history, most top judges rarely asked questions. "What's changed? Have the laws changed? What's changed? And why are all these questions necessary? That should be the question," he demanded of the near epidemic level of judicial questioning at Supreme Court hearings.

Hmmm, where do I start....First of all the other justices would never disrespect one of their fellows by telling them to "shut up." This isn't the Jerry Springer Show, its the top of the Judiciary branch. Second, judges should ask questions. They are there to make sure laws are followed and are constitutional. If they need to ask questions, then it shows they have active minds. Clearly, Thomas' is shut down like Fort Knox.

Oh and yeah, laws do change. They change all the time, that is why we have legislators to craft bills that fit to our civilized societies. When this country was founded people still found it respectable to have duels with actual pistols. Women didn't vote and Thomas' ancestors were slaves...so um yeah, sorry Clarence, you are absolutely wrong. Putting him on the Supreme Court was one of the bigger mistakes of 1991.

Anita Hill Hits Back

Back when the better Bush was in office (doesn't say much) he nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court bench. The confirmation process was riveting to say the least. The nation watched with amazement as pubic hairs on soda cans made it into the discussion. Nearly twenty years later Thomas came out with a book and he doesn't spare a single liberal, including Anita Hill. Well she didn't let him have the last word, the nation (circa 2007) deserves to hear both sides.

From RawStory:

"I stand by my testimony."

So writes Anita Hill in Tuesday's New York Times, the woman whose sexual harrassment charges unsettled the nomination hearings of Clarence Thomas some 16 years ago.

Addressing his new book, “My Grandfather’s Son," Hill, a Brandeis sociology professor currently in residence at Wellesley, writes, "I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me."

"Justice Thomas offers a litany of unsubstantiated representations and outright smears that Republican senators made about me when I testified before the Judiciary Committee — that I was a “combative left-winger” who was “touchy” and prone to overreacting to “slights,” she says. "A number of independent authors have shown those attacks to be baseless. What’s more, their reports draw on the experiences of others who were familiar with Mr. Thomas’s behavior, and who came forward after the hearings. It’s no longer my word against his."

Like any conservative nut, Thomas clearly forgets the facts that get in the way of portraying himself as a victim. He used racial stereotypes as an excuse for his ridiculous (and illegal) behaviors, not to mention judicial opinions that even make Justice Scalia blush. Blaming his woes on the media isn't going to work either. Black people are ashamed of him and so are many others, including me.

To All Those That Supported The Supreme Court's Decision Yesterday

Chief Justice John Roberts and his four cohorts on the bench overturned Brown v. Board of Education yesterday, setting the country back over fifty years in that regard. In some areas we have already gone back much farther, especially when it comes to the economy and who gets the biggest say. Anyways, in his opinion, he cited Brown v. Board because he does not want the system to be based on race anymore. I concluded that he either lives in a bubble where racism does not exist anymore or that he is basically does not care about minorities. For anyone that thinks racism and segregation is a thing of the past, you need to read this story.

From While Seated:

In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree....

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen."

Black students were assaulted at white parties. A white man drew a loaded rifle on three black teens at a local convenience store. (They wrestled it from him and ran away.) Someone tried to burn down the school, and on December 4th, a fight broke out that led to six black students being charged with attempted murder. To his word, the D.A. pushed for maximum charges, which carry sentences of eighty years. Four of the six are being tried as adults (ages 17 & 18) and two are juveniles....

Now it is being reported that an all-white jury was empaneled to decide the fate of these young men and that the first of six boys was found guilty of aggravated second-degree battery. Welcome back to the time before civil rights ladies and gentlemen. If only this case could be appealed to the Supreme Court, but I doubt John Roberts would have the time to hear it, he's too busy destroying our country and its freedoms.

A Sad Day For America

The Supreme Court set out today to roll us back 53 years and to bygone era where it is ok to segregate schools based on race. The dark days of blatant and in your face racism are coming back, thanks to Justices Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Scalia and Kennedy. The implications of this decision are unfathomable. Equality for all Americans is an essential prerequisite for our democracy and the Supreme Court is against that. Parents Involved in Community Schools Inc. v. Seattle School District and Meredith v. Jefferson County (Ky.) Board of Education is a lengthy term but just as memorable as Brown v. Board of Education.

From The Washington Post:

The court's four liberals delivered a scathing dissent -- twice as long as Roberts's opinion. It said the plurality's decision was, in the words of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who read his opposition from the bench, a "cruel distortion" of the court's landmark decision more than 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, which demanded an end to segregated schools.

"This is a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret," Breyer said.

Roberts, too, had used the decision in Brown as a basis for today's opinion.

"Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin," Roberts wrote. "The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again -- even for very different reasons."

This is already regrettable Justice Breyer. Chief Justice Roberts is either a fool or a villain for using it in his opinion as well. If he thinks that race is not an important hurdle that our society has to overcome even in 2007, his world is limited to the small bubble that shields him from the real world.

I think Roberts is a smart guy, it is hard for a fool to get to lead the highest court in the land. I suspect his motivations for the decision are far more nefarious than we can imagine. He is a neo-con that believes the same way as his masters who helped put him up there. PNAC and those that follow the grand neo-conservative plan want to see government fall back from protecting essential freedoms and protections for minorities (unless that minority is the white wealthy elite).

Democrats have issued warnings that a Bush Presidency would unimaginably alter the Supreme Court for the worse. We had no idea how right they were.

Conservative Pundits Make A Good Point About The Supreme Court

Although I completely disagree politically with the people talking below, I do believe they make a good point about the Court and who our next President is. The 44th President has a chance to replace a few Justices and it is crucial that the right person is selected for the job.

Loitering Is Free Speech

A Supreme Court decision in 1992 deemed loitering and begging a right provided for in the first amendment of the bill of rights. Despite that ruling, hundreds of the less fortunate among us have been arrested for their (in)activity. Eric Hoffstead is now fighting his arrest and his lawyer, Carl D. Birman and now Matthew D. Brinckerhoff are trying to turn the case into a class-action suit. Nearly 800 summons have been issued from June of 2005 to February of 2007, using considerable city resources in order to do so.

From The New York Times:

The United States Supreme Court has struck down several loitering statutes, but it has never considered the particular issue of loitering for the purpose of begging, and whether prohibiting it constitutes a violation of the First Amendment, said Michael C. Dorf, professor of constitutional law at the Columbia University School of Law.

In upholding the 1992 New York City case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said begging constituted “protected communicative conduct, and city streets and parks were classified as a traditional public forum.”

“A lawyer is certainly entitled to make the argument that the lower federal courts have ruled the law unconstitutional and tell the state it should be persuaded by this ruling,” Professor Dorf said. “The state, however, is free to issue a decision based on its own interpretation of the Constitution.”

So even with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the matter is up in the air here in New York. The state contends that these misdemeanors are often accompanied by other crimes, such as Mr. Hoffstead having possessed a crack cocaine pipe at the time.

Instead of using this as an excuse to put the homeless in jail, the situation is evidence that the problem of loitering and begging needs to be dealt with in a more productive manner. It has often been shown that treating and rehabilitating the thousands of people on the streets is more cost efficient from a budgetary perspective. More importantly, it is better from a humanitarian perspective.

Rosie And Barbara Take On The Partial Birth Abortion Ban

If it wasn't for PoliticsTV I wouldn't have seen this segment of The View (or any other segment from the show) that focused on the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Partial Birth Abortion Law of 2003. Rosie O'Donnell gets backed by Barbara Walters as they explain why the decision is so terrible for women's rights and the country itself.

Partial-Birth Abortion Law Upheld By SCOTUS

I've heard some Democrats say that Bush only uses the social conservative issues to rile the base, but not ever really wanting to repeal Roe v. Wade. That is nonsense and Bush's new Supreme Court affirmed it this morning. In a 5-4 decision, the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Act was upheld in Gonzales v. Carhart reversed a ruling made in 2000 that denied a similar bill to be constitutional.

This is a very sad day for those that believe in the right for a woman to choose. Although Roe v. Wade was not specifically overturned, this marks a turning point for the Court in how it views the question of abortion rights. The decision is the first time abortion rights were restricted in the 34 years since the landmark Roe ruling.

The dissenters, led by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, were extremely unhappy:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, speaking out in the courtroom for the dissenters, called the ruling "an alarming decision" that refuses "to take seriously" the Court's 1992 decisions reaffirming most of Roe v. Wade and its 2000 decision in Stenberg v. Carhart striking down a state partial-birth abortion law.

Ginsburg, in a lengthy statement, said "the Court's opinion tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health." She said the federal ban "and the Court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives. A decision of the character the Court makes today should not have staying power."

That final comment, concluding remarks delivered matter-of-factly, clearly was a suggestion that the ruling might not survive new appointments to the Court -- just as the arrival of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and, especially, Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. -- had led to the switch she claimed had come about this time. Ginsburg pointedly noted that the Court is "differently imposed that it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation" -- in Stenberg in 2000.

There is a reason conservatives have been so focused on the judicial system and replacing judges with faithful tools like Justice Roberts and Alito. If not for George Bush, this would not have happened. Yet there are consequences for our actions, and when GWB Jr got elected, we were in for a terrible time. 2009 can not come fast enough. I pray that the time lapses quickly without incidents like this, yet they seem to come all the time.