Can you believe how much can happen in less than 2 months?

Well, John Roberts turned out to be the replacement for Justice Renquist, not Justice O'Connor. People are no longer talking about President Bush lying to get us into a war. They are talking about how he has gone too far to protect the American people. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, can we pile anymore crap on the bad news band wagon?

Congratulations to Chief Justice Roberts! While he hoped to serve on the court with the man he once clerked for, I'm sure he didn't expect to be replacing him. Unfortunately this will probably not bring anymore sanity to the court. It's basically the same court that decided it was perfectly fine for local governments to take away private property to give it to other private owners. Which has unfortunately led to a case in Florida where they are pushing out an entire neighborhood to increase their tax revenue. Here are a few articles I've found across the web.


Florida city considers eminent domain - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Riviera Beach eminent domain case draws national spotlight

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Land-use battle rages in Florida

FOXNews.com - Hannity & Colmes - Interview - It Could Happen to You!

FOXNews.com - Hannity & Colmes - Interview - It Could Happen to You!


It looks as though you better not be poor or your local government will take your home. Let's review how the justices voted.

In favor of the Kelo v. New London ruling

• John Paul Stevens - liberal justice
  
• David H. Souter - liberal justice (Damn shame he fooled us)
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg - liberal justice
• Stephen Breyer - liberal justice
• Anthony Kennedy - moderate conservative justice (often a swing vote)

Those who voted against this ruling

• William H. Rehnquist - conservative justice
• Antonin Scalia - conservative justice (some would say ultra-conservative)
  
• Clarence Thomas - conservative justice (see above)
• Sandra Day O'Connor - moderate conservative (often a swing vote)

So we see that the justices split along ideologies again, but to the shock and disappointment of liberal activists the liberal judges voted to take from the poor and give to the rich. So even if (and hopefully when) Samuel Alito is confirmed this ruling will most likely stand. Our only hope at this point is that one of the older justices retires before the next presidential election.

Now what's this about illegal wiretaps? First of all it still has to be decided whether they were illegal or not. Personally, I'm not sure why the NSA didn't take information to the FISA courts after the fact though. Other than that I'm not sure that this was improper. Did people forget that we are actually at war with terrorism and terrorists? While I am unable to find any reference to an official US declaration of war, there is plenty of information on Bin Laden's declaration of war on us. So whether we want it or not, we are at war.

During wartime the requirements for search warrants on suspected enemies ease. It's a fact of life. I find it almost amusing that without all of the facts we have Democratic leaders and media types comparing President Bush to President Nixon. I don't remember people getting this upset when a Florida couple "accidentally" listened to one of Newt Gingrich's cell phone calls and released what they heard to the press.

I also remember hearing that the intelligence community wasn't doing enough to gather information and put it together to combat terrorist's plans here. Now that we've found out that the NSA is trying to do just that, we hear "They've gone too far!" Make your minds up people! Are we not doing enough? Or are we doing too much? No, I don't want civil liberties trampled. I don't want to see anybody else die because of another terror attack either.