Kuwait is usually held up as one of the moderate Arab states, not as extreme in pursuing rigid Islamic laws. But its parliament has just passed a law that makes blasphemy in the form of cursing god or Mohammed or even any of his wives an offense punishable with the death penalty. If the emir of Kuwait consents, which he has not done yet, it becomes law. [Read more…]
Whenever the subject of affirmative action in education comes up, it is always assumed that this is used to give preference to under-represented minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans) in admissions to colleges. [Read more…]
As Glenn Greenwald shows, in politics you may be surprised by to whom big money is going, unless you are one of those who recognizes that the US is a one-party oligarchic state in which elections are contests to see who will get the privilege of serving the interests of the ruling class. [Read more…]
In response to my post on the rally by Orthodox Jews warning about the internet, commenter No Light provided a link to a site called UNPIOUS: Voices on the Hasidic Fringe where those fighting to combat sex abuse in the Orthodox community reported their experiences as they protested outside the rally. [Read more…]
While religion as a whole is a negative influence on society, at any given time or location one religion may be worse than the others. There seems to be a general rule that enables one to predict when a religion becomes particularly bad: as soon as that religion becomes the majority in a community and achieves a semblance of state power, it becomes a menace. [Read more…]
Most people would have seen the recent news reports about the US Census Bureau data showing that say that as of July 1, 2011, the number of non-Hispanic white children under age one in the US dropped to below 50% for the first time. [Read more…]
I mentioned a few days ago a hopeful sign in that a US District Court judge Katherine Forrest had ruled that the NDAA, an awful piece of legislation, was unconstitutional. Glenn Greenwald later wrote also hailing the ruling and examining it in more detail. He highlights the fact that the judge rejected all three of the Obama administration’s objections to the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality.
The ruling was a sweeping victory for the plaintiffs, as it rejected each of the Obama DOJ’s three arguments: (1) because none of the plaintiffs has yet been indefinitely detained, they lack “standing” to challenge the statute; (2) even if they have standing, the lack of imminent enforcement against them renders injunctive relief unnecessary; and (3) the NDAA creates no new detention powers beyond what the 2001 AUMF already provides.
Note that it was the standing issue that was used to overturn an earlier federal court ruling that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional.
The standing requirement makes sense in general. If people could bring lawsuits without having suffered any concrete injury, then we would be even more awash in litigation than we are now. But what constitutes a concrete injury has to be judged differently when the issue involves relative intangibles such constitutionally protected freedoms as opposed to (say) defective products.
It is significant that the judge in the NDAA case threw out the ‘standing’ dodge, rejecting the administration claim that the people bringing the case do not have the right to sue since they have not (as yet) suffered any injury the law. Of course, the government then also invokes national security to argue that they should not be forced to reveal if you are being targeted or not. It is a perfect Catch-22: You can’t complain because you cannot show that the law targets you and we, the only ones who know who is being targeted, are not going to tell you if you are or not.
The government will certainly appeal. Unfortunately, the higher courts have been far too sympathetic to the government whenever it claims national security for its abominable actions.
The Obama administration can be characterized by at least three features: vast over-reaching in its claim to executive power, egregiously violating people’s liberties, and indulging in excessive secrecy.
Whistleblowers have provided a valuable service in letting us know what is going on and exposing wrongdoing and the administration has been a vigorous prosecutor of leakers and whistleblowers, demanding access to all manner of private communications from reporters and employees in their efforts to identify and harshly punish anyone who crosses them. [Read more…]
TED talks are well known to policy wonks and geeks. I find many of them quite interesting and have linked to them. But while many people know of them, not so many know that the audience at TED conferences tend to be the well-heeled because it is for members only and the cost of attending can be quite high. [Read more…]