DailyWrit

The state of Louisiana and attorneys for Patrick Kennedy have filed petitions arguing whether or not the Court should rehear the landmark death penalty case as a result of research oversight. The original petition for rehearing can be found here. You can find the Petitioner’s brief in opposition of rehearing here, the Respondent’s brief in […]

The folks over at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog (creatively named after a textbook published with the same name and written by the same authors) have broken the news of Federal District Judge Paul Cassell’s retirement. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a major issue, but the WSJ law blog highlights the most important part of […]

J. Scott Jennings, the 29-year old aide to Karl Rove, was forced to go in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about the US Attorney Scandal. As soon as I read the title to the New York Times article,”With Rove Absent, Aide Is Grilled by Senate Panel”, I knew it was going […]

I admit that I made a slight mistake in yesterday’s post about Snarlin’ Arlen and his attack on judicial independence- I asserted, without clarifiying, that there was nothing “a Senator can do to a Supreme Court Justice save for pushing for impeachment.”
Some very intelligent people have been arguing that Congress can reign in these rogue […]

As I was doing research for a post about the latest Court-packing plan (suggestion?) and I stumbled across a rather interesting set of events. Here are the facts that I know:
In March of 1937, the Democratic President Andrew Jackson was wrapping up his wildly divisive, eight-year Presidency. His hand picked successor, Martin Van Buren, had […]

Apparently Arlen Specter isn’t particularly happy with the recent Stare Decisis-related performances of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. I’m not exactly sure what he wants to do about it, but it looks like he just wants to take a look at past decisions and remarks from the two Justices and decide whether or not […]

Tom Delay is still firing political missiles into the fray from his blog over at TomDelay.com. Today he posted about Congress’s pork-barrel spending and cited an article from the folks at FreedomWorks. Tom drew particular attention to a few earmarked items in the bill:
$21.4 million for a program educating older adults on a healthy […]

Poor Harry Reid. He went out on a limb and kept the Senate in session way longer than he had to and he got burned. By a vote of 52-47, the Senate rejected the vote for cloture which would have forced a vote on the Reed/Levin Amendment. I’ve been watching sporadically all night and the […]

11:26am EST: Reid Failed by a vote of 52-47. Reed/Levin is now stalled in the Senate. Harry Reid is currently trying to pass a motion to reconsider, but I don’t imagine it will do much.
10:45am EST: Mitch McConnell is calling out the Reed/Levin bill for being vague and unspecific. He repeatedly declares that he doesn’t […]

Let me first admit that I am wildly excited about the idea of a filibuster in the making. I’ve always wanted to see some old-fashioned senatorial glory and the most recent filibusters haven’t lived up to their predecessors. When I first read that Harry Reid was going to push the Republicans to filibustering, I got […]

Earlier this week, Deborah Jeane Palfrey – commonly referred to as the “DC Madam” – released (for public download) an unfathomably long list of phone numbers corresponding to former clients. Those of you unfamiliar with this case will be thrilled to learn that the USDOJ has alleged in the US District Court for the District […]

The drums for withdraw grow louder each day as more and more bad news comes out of Iraq. With 3609 dead and counting, politicians and pundits are calling for withdrawal. Whether named a “redeployment” or the great escape, it’s doubtful that the current level of […]

For the last few days (or maybe I just haven’t read the news in a few days) I’ve been hearing that Cindy Sheehan might be running for congress against Nancy Pelosi. Sheehan declared that if Pelosi doesn’t introduce articles of impeachment in the next two weeks she will be running for office as an independent […]

Every election cycle, the media bemoans the fact that campaigns start earlier than ever. Even at the congressional level, members of the house of representatives who are in contested districts usually begin their reelection campaign right after the previous election ended. In an attempt […]

Facing South is my new favorite blog.
This post (by correctly explaining how Karl Rove’s recent GOP strategy PowerPoint (.pdf) violated the Hatch Act by being presented on federal property) intrigued me. Then I got sucked in by the observation that, in 2008, every southern state save Florida will hold a Senatorial election. Although Rove […]