Search
RSS Feed
Archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
Blogs Eric Reads
A Case of the Mondays
(Sorry if all these bulleted-list posts seems like cop outs. It’s a busy time of the year.)
- The Senate Democratic caucus vote on whether Holy Joe Lieberman keeps his committee chairmanship is coming up soon. Kagro X reminds us that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, 93% of whose residents voted for Barack Obama, so it would be awfully shitty to let John McCain’s best buddy run the place. Since the Lieberman vote will be done by secret ballot, a fully expect the Democratic Senate majority to cave, just like they’ve been doing for the past couple years. (DailyKos)
- Still-President Bush has the high honor of being the first U.S. President to ever call Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi. Bush called Qadhafi to thank him for agreeing to a claims settlement agreement between the two countries. How dare Bush speak with a foreign leader with preconditions! Surrender!! (First Read)
- Right before the election, Barack Obama sent a letter to a bunch of federal employees telling them about change they can believe in. Basically, the letter explains all of the Bush administration policies that Obama would rescind, like outsourcing government work and censoring science. If it’s undoing something George Bush did, I’m for it. (Washington Post)
- Barack Obama met with John McCain today because he wanted to hear McCain call him “Mr. President-Elect” several times to his face. Oh, and they also released the world’s most generic joint statement. Seriously. It’s only two paragraphs long but it uses a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. On the plus side, there’s a hilariously awkward video of the two talking. Look how hard it is for Obama not to gloat. (Ben Smith/YouTube)
- Lots of racist white people are pissed off that we elected a black man to be president. They can’t handle that the rest of us don’t hate minorities as much as they do and they’re getting angry and violent. Obama has already received more death threats than any other president-elect in American history, and I’m willing to bet that some of that can be blamed on the vitriol of Sarah Palin. It’s not going to be an easy four years for President Obama. (Christian Science Monitor/Austin American-Statesman/Federal News Radio)
Court Overturns DC Gun Ban
Via The Washington Post, the AP is reporting that the Supreme Court has struck down Washington DC’s three decade-old handgun ban.
Details are still rolling in and will be posted as I get them. They’re reporting a 5-4 decision (shocker!), and I’m guessing Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy.
Update 1: Just in, the decision was written by Justice Antonin “Fuck You” Scalia. Apparently the Second Amendment trumps everything else. No surprise there.
Update 2: I win! Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, and Thomas joined Scalia on the opinion. But that was too easy.
Update 3: Transcript (PDF) or oral arguments from the case. (via DKos’ AdamB)
Update 4: The opinion (PDF) is now available. From SCOTUSblog:
In District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), the Court nullified two provisions of the city of Washington’s strict 1976 gun control law: a flat ban on possessing a gun in one’s home, and a requirement that any gun — except one kept at a business — must be unloaded and disassembled or have a trigger lock in place. The Court said it was not passing on a part of the law requiring that guns be licensed. It said that issuing a license to a handgun owner, so the weapon can be used at home, would be a sufficient remedy for the Second Amendment violation of denying any access to a handgun.
While the declaration of the individual right was clear-cut, as was the decision’s nullification of key parts of the Washington, D.C., law, the Court did not lay down a standard for judging the constitutionality of any other federal laws — an omission that the dissenters attacked strongly. Even so, the opinion made it clear that, whatever ultimate test emerge, it probably would be a tough one to meet, at least when self-defense is at issue. As Justice Scalia put it, whatever remains for “future evaluation” about the strength of the right, “it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.”
Update 5: Justice Kennedy’s reasoning behind voting to strike down the gun ban: BEARS!
But who knew that a case testing the scope of the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” would smoke out a secret side of Justice Anthony Kennedy? A side so intensely protective of his right to self-defense that he makes—as I count—four separate references to some mythical “remote settler” who—at the time of the framing of the Constitution—would have needed a gun to “defend himself and his family against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws, wolves and bears, and grizzlies.”
Obamarama
It’s a good day to be Barack Obama.
Those numbers are pretty incredible. He beat Hillary Clinton 2-to-1 in Virginia and Maryland and 3-to-1 in DC, and he won the Latino vote in Virginia. As for the delegate count, CNN’s numbers put him in the lead:
According to NBC Political Director Chuck Todd, Hillary needs to win Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania by about 63% to catch Obama if he wins Wisconsin and Hawaii. How likely is that? Well, probably not very. Let’s compare the number of states that each of them has won with 60% of the vote or more:
Obama:
- Virginia
- Maryland
- Washington, DC
- Illinois
- Georgia
- Washington
- Nebraska
- Minnesota
- Alaska
- Idaho
- Kansas
- North Dakota
- Colorado
Clinton:
- Arkansas
When Barack Obama wins, he really wins. Of the 23 states he’s won, he’s taken over 60% of the votes in more than half of them. With the exception of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton is just eking out Obama for narrow finishes. This race isn’t going to be over until it’s over, but with Clinton’s superdelegates “wavering” and her husband’s ex-campaign staff jumping on the Obama bandwagon, she’s going to have to scramble for big wins on March 4.
Translating Washington Speech
Dana Milbank runs a pretty good column over at the Washington Post called Washington Sketch–one of my recent favorites is on the Congressional hearings on lead in Chinese toys. Today, he’s left his usual venue to head over to the Atlantic, where he’s put together a snarky little phrasebook for visitors to that mosquito-infested swamp on the Potomac called Washington, D.C. Some sample translations:
You are either with us or against us.
You are against us.We identified weapons of mass destruction–related program activities.
We could not find any weapons of mass destruction.The president has always said …
The president is announcing a new position.This should not be a political issue.
My party has a winning political issue.It’s time to stop playing politics.
The other party has a winning political issue.The American people don’t want open-ended fishing expeditions.
A member of my party is being investigated for wrongdoing.Congress must fulfill its constitutional oversight obligation.
A member of the other party is being investigated for wrongdoing.
Check out the rest.