Ruth Bader Ginsburg Diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman currently serving on the Supreme Court, and only the second woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

She is one of my favorite Supreme Court Justices, the only one currently serving to have had a significant impact on American jurisprudence before her appointment. She argued the first six sex discrimination cases ever heard by the all-male Court, and won five of them. She was the chief litigator for the ACLU's Women's Rights Project. It was her idea to bring sex discrimination cases where the injured party was male and cases where the discrimination hurt the family. The most famous example of this approach is the case where a widower received a smaller Social Security benefit than a widow. This the Supreme Court could see as disrimination, and a precedent was set that has benefitted all victims of sex discrimination (most of them female) ever since.

Best wishes to Justice Ginsburg in her second cancer battle. She intends to be on the bench when the Court resumes in three weeks.

NPR: Justice Ginsburg Undergoes Cancer Surgery

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman currently serving on the nation's highest court, underwent surgery Thursday for removal of a cancerous tumor from her pancreas.

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Ginsburg's pancreatic cancer was discovered early, in the course of a routine annual screening, but medical literature says even in this circumstance, a patient's five-year survival chances range from 10 to 30 percent.

[]

The five-year survival rate is 5 percent, with most patients living less than a year. Doctors say this poor survival rate is due in significant part to the fact that cancers of the pancreas are discovered late, when the cancer is very advanced.

Because Ginsburg previously underwent radiation treatment after her colon surgery, she likely will not be able to have radiation treatment a second time. Chemotherapy has not proved to be curative for pancreatic cancer.

Obama's Possible Supreme Court Nominees

Salon.com reviews the possibilities. Their top ten candidates:

Sonia Sotomayor, 54 (I once argued an appellate case in front of her, and my knees-shaking impression was that she was very sparkly and vivacious. And kind.)

Deval Patrick, 52 (my governor!)

Elena Kagan, 48

Merrick Garland, 56

Cass Sunstein, 54

Diane P. Wood, 58

Jennifer Granholm, 49

Leah Ward Sears, 53

Harold Hongju Koh, 53

Ruben Castillo, 54

The Los Angeles Times also reviews the possibilities, and names many from salon.com's list, as well as

Janet Napolitano, 50 (governor of Arizona)

I Can't Wait To See This

Can you name any significant Supreme Court cases?

I can, of course, because I'm a lawyer.

But my nonlawyer family could probably come up with Brown v. Board of Education, Plessy v. Ferguson, Bush v. Gore, and several others. You know, the famous ones. And none of them are running for political office. They could all name athletes with Supreme Court cases. How about Curt Flood and Muhammad Ali?

Bible Spice could only name one Supreme Court case ever. And then there's a looooooooong silence in the interview.

Guess which one? And your first two guesses don't count.

HuffPo: Latest Palin Gaffe: Can't Name Supreme Court Case Other Than Roe V. Wade

Good Advice

I don't usually use this much of an article, but this advice is right on. To persuade you must have boiled your message down to its essence. Then pound it home, for Christ's sake. No time to be wishy-washy.

Leah McElrath Renn, HuffPo: For God's Sake, Get on Message! Ten Tips for the Obama Campaign

1. GET ON MESSAGE AND STAY ON MESSAGE. McCain = Bush, the economy sucks, our national security situation is more dire than ever due to the failed Republican policies. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...

2. STOP REPEATING REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA FOR THEM. If you don't believe that McCain is a maverick, then say what he is. Say he's unpredictable and impulsive in his decision-making and ask people if those are really the qualities that we want in our Commander in Chief.

3. Stop talking about Sarah Palin and rebutting her lies. NOBODY CARES WHAT THE FACTS ARE. They are influenced by her persona -- the impression they take away from her appearances. When you allow yourselves to become distracted and start serving as a Republican fact-checker, you come across as petty and self-congratulating. Same applies to McCain.

4. FOCUS ON OBAMA'S PERSONA AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF. Obama's special gift as a politician is to inspire people's trust -- work it to its fullest. Be hopeful and positive, sure, but also be strong and fierce. Show that Obama's leadership will combine the strength of the sword with the compassion of the chalice. He did a great job of this in his nomination acceptance speech -- but lately his pull-quotes are either wonky-to-the-extreme or on the self-congratulatory side.

5. BOLSTER OBAMA'S COMMANDER IN CHIEF CREDENTIALS. Get as many visuals of you with General Wesley Clark and other leaders in the fields of defense and foreign relations circulating as you can. The Republicans are running on the myth of McCain as a benevolent warrior -- and will be further ratcheting up the fear level in the weeks to come if their convention was any indication (repeated exploitation of 9/11 imagery, hundreds of recapitulations of McCain's POW story, etc.). GET AHEAD OF THIS ISSUE NOW.

6. USE MORE AND BETTER VISUALS in general. Recently, I was in South Carolina and saw, over and over again, one particularly ineffective Obama ad about reworking the US economy to employ more skilled labor again. Not only was the message was too esoteric for the purposes of the final 60 days of the campaign, but the visuals used in the ad were pathetic. Were they perhaps close-up photos of the time-ravaged faces and hands of working class Americans (toward whom the ad was apparently aimed)? No. The most common visual was windmills. Yes, that's right. Windmills. How working class America is supposed to be swayed to vote Democratic when they are viewing ads about windmills is just beyond me. Let's have some ads of a flag draped coffin in close up -- and then multiplied by more than 4000 times. Let's have some ads that feature a close up of a foreclosed home and a family who has been evicted -- then multiply that times however many thousands of foreclosures have taken place. Now those are visual that will reach working class Americans.

7. DON'T BE AFRAID TO GO NEGATIVE. Not all negative campaigns are equal. Describing John McCain as unpredictable, short-tempered and impulsive in his decision-making is a far different field of play than belittling John Kerry's war record. This is a war -- play to win. Once we're back in office, you can be as gracious as you please.

8. KISS: keep it simple, stupid. Every time we Democrats get into the "we're right, so if maybe we just explain it well enough then they'll understand" mode, we lose. The reality is that the vast majority of people feel condescended to when things are "explained" to them. Most people function on "gut" feelings and imagery and understand things best when they are presented in simplified, symbolic and concrete terms. This isn't because most people are stupid, however. It's because life is overwhelming as it is. People do not have the time, attention or inclination to take in and process units of complex information. If we learn nothing else from the influence of Karl Rove, let us at least learn this.

9. THE SUPREME COURT. My God, the stakes are high. Perhaps some ads that delineate how high and use testimonials from women might be in order? We do, after all, need to reach undecided women. My bet is that Sarah Palin's glamour will be a little less appealing once women are reminded that, under a Supreme Court dominated by Republican-appointed judges, their daughters might face a future in which they will not have the freedom to terminate a pregnancy even in the case of rape or incest.

10. GET ON MESSAGE AND STAY ON MESSAGE. McCain = Bush, the economy sucks, our national security situation is more dire than ever due to the failed Republican policies and the loss of the American moral high ground. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...

Exxon-Valdez -- What Really Happened

Under the Supreme Court's other big decision yesterday, he has every right to buy that gun and carry it around in DC. The actual shooting is still barred by law, I think -- you never know how far the 2nd Amendment goes anymore, do you? Is the Exxon-Valdez oil spill the equivalent of a home invasion?

This article about what really happened in the Exxon-Valdez case is important. I saw this all the time in our asbestos practice -- before the asbestos companies took advantage of the bankruptcy laws and screwed all the workers they had poisoned for decades. Lawyers for companies would say right out, this is the most you are ever going to get. You may win at trial, but we'll appeal and you know how conservative the appeals courts are. We'll win on your appeal and your clients will get pennies on the dollar. And that was happening before Bush spent seven years packing the federal courts with even more rightwing nutjobs.

Read the rest of the article to see all the promises the oil companies made to the Alaskan natives to get the use of the Valdez Port, and how all those promises were cynically broken.

GregPalast.com: Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Oil Spill

Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won't have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon's liability by 90% to half a billion. It's so cheap, it's like a permit to spill.

Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty.

But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone.

In San Diego, I met with Exxon's US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, "Admit it; the oil spill's the best thing to happen" to the Natives.

His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it -- and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal - but Natives die.

And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late.

A Bad Day For Democracy

 

The Senate sold out to Bush and the telecoms 80-15 on FISA. Now if the government wants to violate the Constitution, the precedent has been set. All the government has to do is outsource the lawbreaking to a third party, and then Congress ratifies it. The Nuremburg defense is now official U.S. policy. "We were just following orders."

Oh, and Obama, Clinton, and McCain all couldn't be bothered to vote. (Not surprising from McCain, who hasn't voted on anything since April 8th.)

Obama retreated from his previous promise to filibuster any bill with telecom amnesty. He said yesterday that national security trumps amnesty, whatever the hell that means. Tough on terra, I guess. :::sigh::: I always hate the race to the center after the Democratic primary is over.

The Supreme Court threw out most of the Exxon-Valdez punitive damages award to the citizens of Alaska, cutting the already cut-down award from $2.5 billion to 500 million. That's about half a day's profit for Exxon, the richest company in the world. Crime does pay.

These are the days that try liberal's souls.

Go Read

Good news story of the day: the Supreme Court ruled that The Great Writ, the writ of habeas corpus, applies to the Guantanamo Bay prisoners: The Rule of Law Prevailed The prisoners are entitled to challenge their detention in federal court; the Bushies have failed in their attempt to create an extrajudicial SuperMax prison for the world. But it was only a 5-4 decision; our democracy rests on the weary shoulders of 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stephens. Elect Obama, save the Court.

To understand why this is so offensive, you must know that in contemporary jargon, "baby mama" means unwed mother: Fox News calls Michelle Obama "Obama's baby mama"

36-year-old right-wing nutjob Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal keeps getting invited to McCain's house for ribs as a VP candidate. Perhaps he's banished a few spirits while he's there? After all, he's an exorcist! Is Bobby Jindal -- Who May Be On McCain's Veep Shortlist -- An Exorcist?

We all know the corporate media is bought and paid for. And then we see the concrete evidence. David Broder, the supposed "dean of the Washington press corps" is selling his own corpse to speak at coporate events. If they're lucky, he then features their issue in a column. Presstitute. David Broder’s Moonlighting: Post columnist benefits from corporate speaking deals

Excellent Suggestion

James Andrew Miller, WaPo: Next Stop, Supreme Court?

It's likely that the next president will face at least one Supreme Court vacancy. Obama should promise Hillary Clinton, now, that if he wins in November, the vacancy will be hers, making her first on a list of one.

The next Supreme Court justice should be a woman, as Bush appointed no women (and no minorities) to the Court during his tenure, despite the resignation of the first (of two) woman ever to serve on the Court. And Clinton would be an excellent justice, just as she has been an excellent Senator, hard-working and able to build coalitions across the political aisle. We will need someone of her skills to keep the hard-righters on the Court in line over the next few decades.

Chief Justice Roberts Ready To Rule For Exxon

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Victim
Alaska. Dead Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) dead in the snow died of toxic pollution from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Not only have 20% of the people who sued Exxon for the Valdez oil spill 19 years ago died in the meantime, it looks like our Rethug-dominated Supreme Court will rule against the Alaskans. Because what can what one of the richest corporations in the world do to prevent oil spills? (Double-hulled ships, anyone?) The lawyer who argued the case before the Court had some ideas, but they didn't go over well:

Chief Justice John Roberts was pained.

Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

Moral of this story: Not only do we need more Democrats, we need better Democrats. Here are the 22 supposed "Democrats" who voted to put the archconservative Roberts on the Court for the rest of my life:

* Max Baucus (D - MT)
* Jeff Bingaman (D - NM)
* Robert Byrd (D - WV)
* Thomas Carper (D - DE)
* Kent Conrad (D - ND)
* Christopher Dodd (D - CT)
* Byron Dorgan (D - ND)
* Russell Feingold (D - WI)
* Tim Johnson (D - SD)
* Herb Kohl (D - WI)
* Mary Landrieu (D - LA)
* Patrick Leahy (D - VT)
* Carl Levin (D - MI)
* Joseph Lieberman (D - CT)
* Blanche Lincoln (D - AR)
* Patty Murray (D - WA)
* Bill Nelson (D - FL)
* Ben Nelson (D - NE)
* Mark Pryor (D - AR)
* Jay Rockefeller (D - WV)
* Ken Salazar (D - CO)
* Ron Wyden (D - OR)

Thanks a lot, DINOs. I'll give money to any progressive who challenges any of you.

A Fond Adieu

Flickr: Photo by Jonathan Walczak.
To populist candidate John Edwards, who will announce that he is dropping out of the presidential race at 1:00 p.m. in New Orleans.

I loved everything Edwards stood for, but felt his message got lost in his anger. Anger is not a winning political emotion. He would have been better off with a more hopeful message, with a message focusing not on the country's problems but on his solutions.

Speaking of hope, hopefully whichever Democrat wins the race envisions an important job for Edwards. He'd make a great Attorney General. Better yet, I'd love to see him on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court makes law by reviewing the results of trials, and most of the judges on the current court weren't trial lawyers. It would be great to have a real trial lawyer on the court to balance out all the ivory tower and corporate lawyers there now.

And farewell to Elizabeth Edwards too, my favorite of the candidates' spouses. I'd put my money on her in a candidate's spouse debate, even against Bill.

Will he endorse Obama or Hillary? Media reports say not today, but I would expect him to lean towards Obama given the way he defended him in the debates.

Thanks for running a campaign focused on the issues that matter to real Americans. Godspeed John and Elizabeth Edwards.

2007 Is Second Warmest Year Ever

The climate crisis continues unabated. "The Arctic is screaming" says climate scientist Mark Serreze. The Bush Administration position at the climate talks is: Hurry up and wait. Wait until January 20, 2009. Bush will do nothing. He is the greatest do nothing in the history of do nothings. What has he done to stop global warming? Nothing.

And I'd like to give a shout out to the five morons on the Supreme Court who seven years ago today gave us the Master of Disaster George W. Bush as President, over the vote-winner, now Nobel Prize winner Al Gore. Thank you very fucking much for seven years of the plague of Shrub, Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas, Injustice Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy (four appointed by Ronald Raygun, one by Buckfush41). Equal protection, my ass. Equal protection for rich malevolent assholes.

ClimateProgress: NASA: 2007 Second Warmest Year Ever, with Record Warmth Likely by 2010

Through the first 11 months, 2007 is the second warmest year in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean has entered the cool phase of its natural El Niño — La Niña cycle.

… barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years.

[]

The six warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 15 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1988.

DailyMail: World told to act now on climate change as 'Arctic is screaming'

"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, a senior US scientist.

Edited to add, oh, and by the way, American scientists told the American Geophysical Union meeting this week that there may be NO ARCTIC ICE by 2013. That's six years, folks. Wave goodbye to the polar bears.

Chief Justice John Roberts Suffers Seizure

Chief Justice John Roberts, pictured 16 July 2007, was out of danger and unharmed after a fall Monday near his vacation home in the US state of Maine, the Supreme Court said in a statement.(AFP/File/Stephane De Sakutin)

Yesterday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had a seizure while vacationing in Maine. He is only 52 years old. Roberts suffered a previous seizure in 1993 at age 38. There was no public testimony about his seizure during his confirmation hearings, although Senator Spector said yesterday that senators were informed about it.

What does this mean for the future of the court? Probably nothing. His doctors will probably place him on anti-seizure medication. The HuffPo outlines the medical situation thusly:

Medical opinions differed on just what Roberts' seizures mean.

Someone who has had more than one seizure without any other cause is determined to have epilepsy, said Dr. Marc Schlosberg, a neurologist at Washington Hospital Center, who is not involved in the Roberts' case.

Whether Roberts will need anti-seizure medications to prevent another is something he and his doctor will have to decide. But after two seizures, the likelihood of another at some point is greater than 60 percent. "When it's going to occur, obviously nobody knows," Schlosberg said.

The National Institutes of Health's Web site says that "only when a person has had two or more seizures is a person considered to have epilepsy."

Epilepsy is merely a term for a seizure disorder, but it is a loaded term because it makes people think of lots of seizures, cautioned Dr. Edward Mkrdichian, a neurosurgeon at the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch.

Still, Mkrdichian said anyone who has had two otherwise unexplained seizures is at high risk for a third, and that he puts such patients on anti-seizure medications.

"Having two seizures so many years apart without any known culprit is going to be very difficult to figure out," agreed Dr. Max Lee of the Milwaukee Neurological Institute.

I think the guy is a disaster for the Court, but I want him to go out old and bitter, outflanked by all the Democratic appointees to the Court, not to some medical condition.

Supreme Court Guts Brown v. Board of Education

Today, the headline would read "Supreme Court Used to Ban Segregation in Public Schools"
When I wrote "Supreme Court Overturns Brown v. Board of Education" yesterday, I knew that technically that wasn't true. The decision only guts Brown. That's the practical effect. Segregation is de facto OK under the new ruling. So I was overstating the case, just a tad.

But I knew I was on to something when I read this headline in the Wall Street Journal today: Race and the Roberts Court: Brown v. Board of Education has not been overturned. If the cretins writing editorials for the Journal felt the need to write that piece with that headline, you know that the opposite is true. (It's like Bush talking about progress in Iraq. Every time he opens his mouth, you know he's lying.)

And I'd like to pat myself on the back, because I saw this coming two years ago when I wrote this:

Leahy, Kohl and Feingold (D - Spineless) Vote for Roberts (September 22, 2005)

Senate Panel Endorses Roberts's Nomination as Chief Justice

Dear Senators Leahy, Kohl and Feingold:

F**k you. When "Justice" Roberts starts eroding civil rights protection and votes to overturn Roe v. Wade, it's your fault. Spineless bastards.

Sincerely,

truth

And with this post, I'd just like to extend a hearty FUCK YOU to all 22 Democrats who voted for Chief Injustice Roberts, the author of yesterday's horrible decision:

* Max Baucus (D - MT)
* Jeff Bingaman (D - NM)
* Robert Byrd (D - WV)
* Thomas Carper (D - DE)
* Kent Conrad (D - ND)
* Christopher Dodd (D - CT)
* Byron Dorgan (D - ND)
* Russell Feingold (D - WI)
* Tim Johnson (D - SD)
* Herb Kohl (D - WI)
* Mary Landrieu (D - LA)
* Patrick Leahy (D - VT)
* Carl Levin (D - MI)
* Joseph Lieberman (D - CT)
* Blanche Lincoln (D - AR)
* Patty Murray (D - WA)
* Bill Nelson (D - FL)
* Ben Nelson (D - NE)
* Mark Pryor (D - AR)
* Jay Rockefeller (D - WV)
* Ken Salazar (D - CO)
* Ron Wyden (D - OR)

Dumbasses.

Supreme Court Overturns Brown v. Board of Education

George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James Nabrit, congratulating each other, following Supreme Court decision declaring segregation unconstitutional (wikipedia)

Segregation is back. Today the Supreme Court ruled that cities cannot address segregation within their school systems by taking race into account in assigning students to schools. Here's the opinion (pdf file, 185 pages)

In other words, separate is equal. Again.

Chief Injustice Roberts says in his opinion that he's not overturning Brown. Right.

Here's (part of) what Justice Breyer had to say, in dissent:

These cases consider the longstanding efforts of two local school boards to integrate their public schools. The school board plans before us resemble many others adopted in the last 50 years by primary and secondary schools throughout the Nation. All of those plans represent local efforts to bring about the kind of racially integrated education that Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954), long ago promised -- efforts that this Court has repeatedly required, permitted, and encouraged local authorities to undertake. This Court has recognized that the public interests at stake in such cases are "compelling." We have approved of "narrowly tailored" plans that are no less race-conscious than the plans before us. And we have understood that the Constitution permits local communities to adopt desegregation plans even where it does not require them to do so.

The plurality pays inadequate attention to this law, to past opinions' rationales, their language, and the contexts in which they arise. As a result, it reverses course and reaches the wrong conclusion. In doing so, it distorts precedent, it misapplies the relevant constitutional principles, it announces legal rules that will obstruct efforts by state and local governments to deal effectively with the growing resegregation of public schools, it threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of racerelated litigation, and it undermines Brown's promise of integrated primary and secondary education that local communities have sought to make a reality. This cannot be justified in the name of the Equal Protection Clause.

Justice Stevens:

There is a cruel irony in The Chief Justice's reliance on our decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294 (1955). The first sentence in the concluding paragraph of his opinion states: "Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin." This sentence reminds me of Anatole France's observation: "[T]he majestic equality of the la[w], forbid[s] rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." The Chief Justice fails to note that it was only black schoolchildren who were so ordered; indeed, the history books do not tell stories of white children struggling to attend black schools. In this and other ways, The Chief Justice rewrites the history of one of this Court's most important decisions....

The Court has changed significantly since it decided School Comm. of Boston in 1968. It was then more faithful to Brown and more respectful of our precedent than it is today. It is my firm conviction that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today's decision.

The sound you just heard was Thurgood Marshall, who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1953, rolling over in his grave.

SCOTUSblog: Court strikes down school integration plans, ends Term

I hope that the 22 Democrats who voted to put Roberts on the court are sick to their stomachs today.

There's a Shock

Fat cat
Kiplinger.com: Roberts Court Proves Good for Business
Business has a lot to cheer about as the Supreme Court term enters its final month.

Business boasts seven wins and only two losses after the June 4 ruling in Safeco Insurance Co. of America v. Burr decided together with GEICO General Insurance Co. v. Edo, which limited the ability of consumers to sue under a credit-reporting law and came just a week after the court's 5-4 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company Inc. In that case, the justices reversed decades of practice that allowed people to file complaints years after the initial event by insisting on a tight, 180-day timeframe for filing pay discrimination complaints under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which covers employment decisions based on gender, race, religion, national origin, etc. The decision is likely to make it harder to press pay discrimination suits because employees often don't know for several years that other workers are being paid more.

Scalito Court Limits Employment Law

WaPo: Supreme Court Limits Pay Discrimination Suits
Justices Back 180-Day Deadline for Claims

Today the Supreme Court said a worker can be discriminated against for years, and if they sue for back pay, they can only get it for the preceding 180 days before they file suit. This is a massive change in prior precedent, and gives employers an incentive not to tell employees how much their co-workers are paid. How do you know you're being discriminated against if you don't know what everyone else makes? So most employers make a big point of telling employees not to tell each other what they make.

This decision ignores the practical realities of the workplace. Many workers are still on probation for the first 180 days. They're supposed to be figuring out they're being discriminated against, and hiring a lawyer, while they're trying to hold on to a new job? Ridiculous.

''This short deadline reflects Congress's strong preference for the prompt resolution of employment discrimination allegations through voluntary conciliation and cooperation,'' Alito said.

The decision was written by Strip Search Sammy Alito, and we have these weasel Democrats to thank for his presence on the court, because they voted for cloture and let Alito through:

Akaka (HI), Baucus (MT), Bingaman (NM), Byrd (WV), Cantwell (WA), Carper (DE), Conrad (ND), Dorgan (ND), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO)

In dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg calls on Congress to pass legislation overturning this cramped view of discrimination law; let's hope the Democrats in Congress can find a little courage on this one.

Jerry Falwell Did Make History

Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988)

Wikipedia: Hustler Magazine v. Falwell

Legal history, that is, when his award for damages for this Hustler magazine ad was overturned by the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds:

Environment 5, Bush Administration 4

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the EPA must regulate greenhouse gases, pursuant to its statutory authority to regulate pollutants. Hurrah!

Already the decision has had ramifications, as today EPA reopened the state of California's petition for an exemption from the Clean Air Act so that it can reduce tailpipe emissions by 25%. The petition has been sitting in limbo for two years.

Massachusetts et al v. Envivonmental Protection Agency et al, No. 05-1120 (pdf file)

For the environment:

John Paul Stevens, writing for the Court [appointed by Gerald Ford]
Stephen G. Breyer [appointed by Bill Clinton]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg [appointed by Bill Clinton]
Anthony M. Kennedy [appointed by Ronald Reagan]
David H. Souter [appointed by George H.W. Bush]

For the Bush Administration:
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the dissent [appointed by George W. Bush]
Samuel A. Alito Jr. [appointed by George W. Bush]
Antonin Scalia [appointed by Ronald Reagan]
Clarence Thomas [appointed by George H.W. Bush]

The decision begins,

"A well-documented rise in global temperatures has coincided with a significant increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Respected scientists believe the two trends are related. For when carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, it acts like the ceiling of a greenhouse, trapping solar energy and retarding the escape of reflected heat. It is therefore a species--the most important species--of a "greenhouse gas."

WaPo: High Court Faults EPA Inaction on Emissions
Critics of Bush Stance on Warming Claim Victory

The Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration yesterday for refusing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, siding with environmentalists in the court's first examination of the phenomenon of global warming.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate new-vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists say contribute to global warming.

WaPo: The Case of the Term Goes Against the White House

Constitutional Crisis

The new Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who earns $212,100 per year, thinks judge's salaries are far too low. Emperor Chimperhito thinks he can write a memo and suspend the 4th Amendment. Which of these is a 'constitutional crisis'? If you picked the rich guy with the gavel, you understand the plight of the poor beleaguered rich wingnut; if you picked the rich guy with a stolen presidency, you understand the plight of democracy.

I swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and liberty and justice, for which it stands, as long as I get all the moolah I'm entitled to!

CNN: Low pay threatens judiciary, Roberts warns

Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100.

Thirty-eight judges have left the federal bench in the past six years and 17 in the past two years.

The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."

Did Bush have his fingers crossed when he swore to uphold the United States Consitition?

NYDailyNews: W pushes envelope on U.S. spying
New postal law lets Bush peek through your mail

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Tuesday Was a Rotten Anniversary

And I missed it. Tuesday marked the sixth anniversary of the most dishonest Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott: Bush v. Gore.

Lawyers, Guns and Money: A Rotten Anniversary

Today, I am sad to remind everyone, is the sixth anniversary of the grotesque and consequential Bush v. Gore decision, which was delivered in all its steaming feculence by five activist judges who substituted their own political fantasies for the rule of law and rendered a decision that flew in the face of tradition and popular will.

[]...every December 12, we ought to remember the names of the dishonest hacks who buggered the Constitution on behalf of George W. Bush.

And those five were:

Anthony Kennedy
Sandra Day O’Connor
William Rehnquist
Antonin Scalia
Clarence Thomas

They gave us 9/11, the Iraq War, unconstitutional eavesdropping, shit (oh, sorry, e coli) in our vegetables, energy policy by oil comanies, and all the other crap we've been subjected to by the incompetent, corrupt, cronyist Bushco.