March 6, 2006, Welcome to the 21st century
A number of interesting events today.
We'll start with the South Dakota Governor signing a bill purporting to ban virtually all abortions in that state that do not imminently threaten the life of the mother. That's one way to make the courts work.
Speaking of the courts, in a case called FAIR v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court, by an 8-0 holding, rejects arguments by law schools that the military can be barred from recruiting on their campuses while said schools (or their students) receive any federal funding, even though the military does not abide by the schools' policies not to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Although Chief Justice Roberts' explanation based on Congress's constitutional prerogative to raise a military and a minimal connection to freedom of expression is... convoluted... the decision is correct. (Indeed, ominously, the Court held that Congresscan order the law schools to have the military recruit on their campuses... ) That part really wasn't necessary to the holding: Congress can condition its spending, and that would have probably been a sufficient basis for this holding.
And in a lower court, the Government opened its case seeking the death penalty against purported 9-11 plot participant Zaccarias Moussaoui, for misleading investigators in a way to throw them off of a possible discovery of the main 9-11 plot... dangerous area. Moussaoui denies such direct involvement (and frankly, a "but for" causation of his responses to federal questioning as having caused the 9-11 events seems a stretch). But moreso, if misleading investigators can be a death penalty offense, how shall we treat what appears to be misleading of federal investigators by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove, Vice-Presidential Advisor and Chief of Staff Libby and indeed, the Vice-President himself? If such leaks prove to have led to the deaths of American operatives, should their misleading investigators (forget the leaks themselves) be... a death penalty offense? Maybe the poobahs should think this through...
And, out of nowhere, the first President in (literally) centuries not to have vetoed a single bill in over five years in office has asked for authority to have line item vetoes over spending bills. The President seems unconcerned that this, like so many things he proposes, is unconstitutional (and was so held as recently as the Clinton Administration).
As to such concern... why start now?