Product Description
Should the Supreme Court have the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution? The justices on the Supreme Court certainly seem to think so--and their critics say that this position threatens democracy. But Keith Whittington argues that the Court's justices have not simply seized power and circumvented politics. The justices have had power thrust upon them--by politicians, for the benefit of politicians. In this sweeping political history of judicial supremacy in America, Whittington shows that presidents and political leaders of all stripes have worked to put the Court on a pedestal and have encouraged its justices to accept the role of ultimate interpreters of the Constitution.

Whittington examines why presidents have often found judicial supremacy to be in their best interest, why they have rarely assumed responsibility for interpreting the Constitution, and why constitutional leadership has often been passed to the courts. The unprecedented assertiveness of the Rehnquist Court in striking down acts of Congress is only the most recent example of a development that began with the founding generation itself. Presidential bids for constitutional leadership have been rare, but reflect the temporary political advantage in doing so. Far more often, presidents have cooperated in increasing the Court's power and encouraging its activism. Challenging the conventional wisdom that judges have usurped democracy, Whittington shows that judicial supremacy is the product of democratic politics. ... Read more

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Volume two of a history of subverting America, as discovered by a group of former government agents. ... Read more

Product Description
The Insider' - Inside the Secret Teams
Special Operations

The Nature of Secret Team Activity
Intelligence versus Secret Operations
A Simple Coup d' Etat to a Global Mechanism
From the Word of the Law to the Interpretation
"Defense" as a National Military Philosophy
Communications: The Web of the World
Transportation: Anywhere in the World - Now
Special Forces and the Penetration of the Mutual Security
The man who has not lived in the secrecy and intelligence environment-really lived in it and fully experienced it-cannot write accurately about it. There is no substitute for the day to day living of a life in which he tells his best friends and acquaintances, his family and his everyday contacts one story while he lives another. The man who must depend upon research and investigation inevitably falls victim to the many pitfalls of the secret world and of the "cover story" world with its lies and counter-lies.


For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything
secret that shall not be known and come to light... take heed then how you hear...
[Luke 8: 17-18]


ISBN: 978-0-557-68028-3
Publisher: Lulu.com
© Heinz Duthel 2010
'The Insider' - Inside the Secret Teams

http://www.amazon.com/Insider-Inside-Secret-Teams/dp/1409219518/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284591497&sr=1-3
... Read more

Product Description
Title: The American Judiciary

Author: Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD


CONTENTS


PART

CASES CITED.

I. THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE JUDICIAL POWER IN THE UNITED
STATES.

II. THE ORGANIZATION AND PRACTICAL WORKING OF AMERICAN COURTS.


_PART I_


CHAPTER

I. ENGLISH ORIGIN AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN
JUDICIARY.

II. THE SEPARATION OF THE JUDICIAL POWER FROM THE LEGISLATIVE
AND EXECUTIVE IN AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS.

III. THE RELATIONS OF THE JUDICIARY TO THE POLITICAL
DEPARTMENTS OF GOVERNMENT.

IV. THE FORCE OF JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS.

V. THE JUDICIAL POWER OF DEVELOPING UNWRITTEN LAW.

VI. THE JUDICIAL POWER OF INTERPRETING AND DEVELOPING WRITTEN
LAW.

VII. THE JUDICIAL POWER OF DECLARING WHAT HAS THE FORM OF LAW
NOT TO BE LAW.


_PART II_


VIII. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COURTS OF THE STATES.

IX. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES.

X. RELATIONS OF THE STATE JUDICIARY TO THE UNITED STATES,
AND OF THE UNITED STATES JUDICIARY TO THE STATES.

XI. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COURTS OF DIFFERENT STATES.

XII. TRIAL BY JURY.

XIII. FORMALITIES IN JUDICIAL PROCEDURE.

XIV. TRIAL COURTS FOR CIVIL CAUSES.

XV. PROBATE COURTS.

XVI. BANKRUPTCY AND INSOLVENCY COURTS.

XVII. CRIMINAL PROCEDURE.

XVIII. THE EXERCISE OF JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS OUT OF COURT.

XIX. APPELLATE COURTS.

XX. THE ENFORCEMENT OF JUDGMENTS AND PUNISHMENT OF CONTEMPTS
OF COURT.

XXI. JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS IN TERRITORIES SUBJECT TO MARTIAL
LAW.

XXII. APPOINTMENT, TENURE OF OFFICE AND COMPENSATION OF JUDGES.

XXIII. THE CHARACTER OF THE BAR AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE BENCH.

XXIV. THE LAW'S DELAYS.

XXV. THE ATTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE TOWARDS THE JUDICIARY.

INDEX.


* * * * *


TABLE OF CASES


Ableman _v._ Booth
Allinson, Hale _v._
American Insurance Co. _v._ Canter
Ames _v._ Kansas
Ames, Smyth _v._
Andrews, _Ex parte_
Anthes, Commonwealth _v._

Bachert _v._ Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co.
Baldwin, Robertson _v._
Bank, Bardes _v._
Bank of Kentucky, Briscoe _v._
Bank of Mississippi _v._ Duncan
Bank of the U. S., Osborn _v._
Bardes _v._ Bank
Barrows _v._ Bell
Batchelder _v._ Moore
Baxter _v._ Brooks
Baxter, State _v._
Bean _v._ Beckwith
Bean, Beckwith _v._
Beckham, Taylor _v._
Beckwith _v._ Bean
Beckwith, Bean _v._
Bell, Barrows _v._
Bell's Gap R. R. Co., McCloskey _v._
Bernard, Coggs _v._
Biddle, Green _v._
Bidwell, Downes _v._
Bissell _v._ Dickerson
Blacker, Board of Supervisors _v._
Blair _v._ Williams
Blake _v._ McClung
Board of Supervisors _v._ Blacker
Bodley _v._ Gaither
Boffman, Hickman _v._
Bonham's case
Booth _v._ Clark
Booth, Ableman _v._
Borden, Luther _v._
Bowman _v._ Middleton
Boyd _v._ Thayer
Boyd _v._ U. S.
Bradburn, Mincey _v._
Bradley _v._ Fisher
Bradley _v._ New Haven
Bradley, _Ex parte_
Brainerd, Fitch _v._
Branch, _In re_
Brashears, Lapsley _v._
Briggs _v._ Garrett
Brine _v._ Insurance Co.
Briscoe _v._ Bank of Kentucky
Brooks _v._ State
Brooks, Baxter _v._
Brown, Kellogg _v._
Brown, Parkersburg _v._
Bulkley, State _v._
Bull, Calder _v._
Burgess _v._ Seligman
Burr's Trial
Burrows, Nudd _v._
Bush, Perry _v._
Bushnell, _Ex parte_

Calder _v._ Bull
California, Hurtado _v._
Call Publishing Co., Western Union Telegraph Co. _v._
Calvin _v._ Huntley
Canfield _v._ Mitchell
Canter, American Insurance Co. _v._
Carriere, Tua _v._
Cherokee Nation _v._ Georgia,
Chisholm _v._ Georgia
Christmas _v._ Russell
Church _v._ Pearne
City of South Bend _v._ Turner
Claflin _v._ Houseman
Clark, Booth _v._
Clarke's Appeal
Cleveland, Painesville and Eastern R. R. Co., _v._
Pritschau
Clymer, Norris _v._
Cochran, Gernon _v._
Coffin _v._ United States
... Read more

Product Description
George W. Bush's presidency has helped accelerate a renewed interest in the legal or formal bases of presidential power. It is now abundantly clear that presidential power is more than the sum of bargaining, character, and rhetoric. Presidential power also inheres in the Constitution or at least assertions of constitutional powers. Judging Executive Power helps to bring the Constitution and the courts back into the study of the American presidency by introducing students to sixteen important Supreme Court cases that have shaped the power of the American presidency. The cases selected include the removal power, executive privilege, executive immunity, and the line-item veto, with particularly emphasis on a president's wartime powers from the Civil War to the War on Terror. Through introductions and postscripts that accompany each case, landmark judicial opinions are placed in their political and historical contexts, enabling students to understand the political forces that frame and the political consequences that follow from legal arguments and judgments. ... Read more

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From the ancient origins of Just War doctrine to utilitarian and retributive theories of punishment, concepts of proportionality have long been an instrumental part of the rule of law and an essential check on government power. These concepts all embody the fundamental value that government and private actions should not be demonstrably excessive relative to their moral and practical justifications. In the American legal system, despite frequent though unacknowledged use of proportionality principles, there is no general theory of what permits courts to invalidate intrusive measures.

In Proportionality Principles in American Law, two renowned legal scholars seek to advance such a theory. They argue that standards of review should be more clearly and precisely defined, and that in most circumstances every intrusive government measure which limits or threatens individual rights should undergo some degree of proportionality review. Across a wide range of legal contexts, E. Thomas Sullivan and Richard S. Frase identify three basic ways that government measures and private remedies have been found to be disproportionate: relative to fault; relative to alternative means of achieving the same practical purposes; and relative to the likely practical benefits of the measure or remedy. Using this structure, the book examines the origins and contemporary uses of proportionality principles in public law, civil liberties, and the criminal justice system, emphasizing the utility of proportionality principles to guide judicial review of excessive government measures.

By constructing a new framework and a general theory for constitutional judicial review, Proportionality Principles in American Law will help courts more consistently and effectively apply proportionality principles to better serve their vital roles as guardians of individual rights and liberties. ... Read more

Product Description
With the media spotlight on the recent developments concerning the Supreme Court, more and more people have become increasingly interested in the highest court in the land.Who are the justices that run it and how do they make their decisions?

The Psychology of the Supreme Court by Lawrence S. Wrightsman is the first book to thoroughly examine the psychology of Supreme Court decision-making.Dr. Wrightsman's book seeks to help us understand all aspects of the Supreme Court's functioning from a psychological perspective.This timely and comprehensive work addresses many factors of influence including, the background of the justices, how they are nominated and appointed, the role of their law clerks, the power of the Chief Justice, and the day-to-day life in the Court.Dr. Wrightsman uses psychological concepts and research findings from the social sciences to examine the steps of the decision-making process, as well as the ways in which the justices seek to remain collegial in the face of conflict and the degree of predictability in their votes.

Psychologists and scholars, as well as those of us seeking to unravel the mystery of The Supreme Court of the United States will find this book to be an eye-opening read. ... Read more

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In 1986, the Supreme Court's leading conservative, William H. Rehnquist, labeled by Newsweek as "The Court's Mr. Right," was made Chief Justice.Almost immediately, legal scholars, practitioners, and pundits began questioning what his influence would be, and whether he would remake our constitutional corpus in his own image.Would the center hold, or fold? This collected volume, edited by Martin H. Belsky, is the third in a series which includes The Warren Court and The Burger Court, both edited by Bernard Schwartz.It gathers together a distinguished group of scholars, journalists, judges, and practitioners to reflect on the fifteen-year impact of the Rehnquist Court.The work provides an overview of the Rehnquist Court's influence to date, examines in detail the seminal issues confronted by the Court, and places the Court in broad historical perspective.Subjects discussed include First Amendment rights and cyberspace, criminal justice reform, the Court's pattern of constitutional interpretation, the international impact of the Rehnquist Court, and the Supreme Court's increasing interaction with state constitutional law.A comprehensive look at the significant shifts in constitutional jurisprudence under Rehnquist's leadership, this volume illustrates how the Rehnquist Court has brought us almost full-circle from the judge-made revolution of the Warren Court. A must-have for all students of the Court and legal history, this book contains fascinating insights into one of the century's most controversial courts and a legacy still in the making. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Praise for THE REHNQUIST COURT
"This great collection of pieces by distinguished scholars and writers affords a unique opportunity to gain in depth knowledge into the work of the Court since 1986 when William H. Rehnquist became Chief Justice.The reader will gain insight into Rehnquist's leadership and may follow the path of the Court during this period when it has opted to play a smaller role in the lives of our people.Anyone who has an interest in the Court and in the impact of its decisions will enjoy and treasure this book."

--William G. Paul, Past President of the American Bar Association

"If journalism is the first draft of history, this book is the second: an
insightful retrospective on the Rehnquist Supreme Court while it is still in operation. All the themes are fresh as today's headlines: affirmative action, church and state, federalism. When the sun does set on the Rehnquist Court, this book will be the road map for evaluating its place in Supreme Court history."
--Tony Mauro, Supreme Court correspondent, Legal Times

"A valuable collection of essays by distinguished academics, judges, and practitioners documenting how the Rehnquist Court has wrought dramatic changes in constitutional jurisprudence."
--John E. Sexton, Dean, Benjamin F. Butler Professor, New York University School of Law

"The sheer diversity of the contributors and the breadth of their coverage makes THE REHNQUIST COURT a must-have. Distinguished legal academics, both supporters and detractors of the Court's work during the last fifteen years, are represented, as are the multiple perspectives of jurists, practitioners, historians, and journalists. The result is a unique, three-dimensional view of an institution in action, affected by history, politics, and personal dynamics, in addition to precedent.Belsky's collection, of great interest to both law students and legal academics, also should intrigue Court watchers, history buffs with an eye to the legal efforts to confront social problems during the last generation, and others just curious to understand how this most nuanced of institutions - the Supreme Court - really functions."

--Stanley Ingber, Professor of Law, John Jay College of Criminal Justice ... Read more

Product Description
The Second American Revolution: One Way or the Other is a “how-to” manual on restoring Constitutional government.The book offers specific directions on how you, as an individual, can begin to take back America.It is about government reform, drastically shrinking the bloated federal government, which has become a cancer on the body politic. It provides the electricity to re-illuminate Ronald Regan’s vision of America as a “Shining City on a Hill.”

The 2dAmRev focuses initially on the United States Supreme Court, which must be brought under control before any other meaningful reforms can be effective.The “Living Constitution” is anathema to the Rule of Law and permits the Court to amend the Constitution any time five justices on the Court agree on what they want it to say.Illustrations of the Court’s hubris are set out in the justices’ own words from published opinions and speeches.It also shows how the Executive Branch has become a lawmaker—not just a law enforcer as the Constitution intended; it examines the dereliction of Congress in performing their constitutional duties.

2dAmRev will provide specific guidance on what you can do to restore Federalism, and Liberty; it will encourage you to “do something” instead of just complaining about the government.It starts with your own state legislators who live where you live and work where you work.The ruling class in Washington is obviously not listening.Henry Ford said, “If you believe you can do a thing or not, you’re right.”

Let’s take Obama’s “Yes we can!” and make it, “You’re damned right, we can”—restore America!
... Read more

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For better or worse, federal judges in the United States today are asked to resolve some of the nation's most important and contentious public policy issues. Although some hold onto the notion that federal judges are simply neutral arbiters of complex legal questions, the justices who serve on the Supreme Court and the judges who sit on the lower federal bench are in fact crafters of public law. In recent years, for example, the Supreme Court has bolstered the rights of immigrants, endorsed the constitutionality of school vouchers, struck down Washington D.C.'s blanket ban on handgun ownership, and most famously, determined the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. The judiciary now is an active partner in the making of public policy. Judicial selection has been contentious at numerous junctures in American history, but seldom has it seemed more acrimonious and dysfunctional than in recent years. Fewer than half of recent appellate court nominees have been confirmed, and at times over the past few years, over ten percent of the federal bench has sat vacant. Many nominations linger in the Senate for months, even years. All the while, the judiciary's caseload grows."Advice and Dissent" explores the state of the nation's federal judicial selection system-a process beset by deepening partisan polarization, obstructionism, and deterioration of the practice of advice and consent. Focusing on the selection of judges for the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. District Courts, the true workhorses of the federal bench, Sarah A. Binder and Forrest Maltzman reconstruct the history and contemporary practice of advice and consent. They identify the political and institutional causes of conflict over judicial selection over the past sixty years, as well as the consequences of such battles over court appointments. "Advice and Dissent" offers proposals for reforming the institutions of judicial selection, advocating pragmatic reforms that seek to harness the incentives of presidents and senators together. How well lawmakers confront the breakdown in advice and consent will have lasting consequences for the institutional capacity of the U.S. Senate and for the performance of the federal bench. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Real Help in Understanding Lower Federal Court Nominations
We have recently seen an abundance of books on the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justices--I have reviewed a number here on Amazon. This book has a different focus. First, it deals only with the "lower" federal courts, i.e., the district courts and the circuit courts (with the exception of the Federal Circuit). Second, unlike almost all other studies, it does not limit itself to the Senate hearing process on nominations, but looks at the entire process from the current status of the judiciary to presidential selection to final confirmation or rejection. The authors effectively employ a comprehensive "institutional" approach in looking at the Senate confirmation process. The book, written by a law professor and political scientist from George Washington University, amply demonstrates why the Brooking Institution in Washington has achieved such an outstanding reputation as not only being non-partisan but also producing the highest quality of scholarly studies of current issues.

After an initial chapter discussing the 10% vacancy rate on the bench, and the under 60% confirmation rate, the authors move on to a highly informative discussion of the evolution of advice and consent in the Senate. The authors discuss the design of the constitutional convention, and how mandating that each district court be located entirely within a single state impacted on the Senate process. There is some interesting history regarding the development of the famous "blue slip" used by homestate Senators to try and veto nominations, as well as the evolution of senatorial courtesy. Another chapter focuses on how Senators try and influence the choice of nominees, paying particular attention to the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Next the book moves into the heart of the process--the dynamics of Senate confirmation, including the role of the judiciary itself and such recent innovations as the "nuclear option" used to counter filibustering. The book then offers an interesting disussion of the process of creating and locating new judgeships (otherwise known as "judicial pork"). The two final chapters are especially valuable: one deals with the consequences of conflict over judicial nominees in terms of court performance and its effect upon the public standing of the judiciary. The second discusses possible reforms of the Senate process, including creating a committee to make recommendations to the President; placing judicial nominations on a fast track (including a "sliding" cloture scale); and requiring 60 votes for confirmation (which the authors do not support).

The book (which runs some 160 pages of text) is in part historical but also employs some advanced statistical techniques to drive the analysis. Fear not, those not in love with statistics can simply move to the authors' discussion of their findings; nonetheless, the techniques are carefully explained and are somewhat interesting. The study is supported by 29 pages of exceptional notes.This book brings new light and a new, broader institutional focus to the issue of Senate advice and consent.Given the unfortunate confrontational and ideological tone of recent confirmation proceedings, this worthwhile book has arrived just in time.
... Read more

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Deconstructing the Republic argues that the recent deterioration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is due to the Supreme Court's adoption of judicial rationalism and the politics of multiculturalism. These judicial interpositions have reversed the original goals of the VRA and corroded the Founders' republicanism by institutionalizing political identities based on illiberal conceptions of race and ethnicity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Ahh, a written Constitution.Do you remember it?
Anthony Peacock believes, as I do, that our government must be colorblind.When we begin to play favorites, no matter how noble the reason, we also open the door to racial oppression.He shows how the Supreme Court has used the noble purpose of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) to involve itself in the legislative branch and specify redistricting in order to provide racially based, even proportionally based racial representation, in the legislature.

Obviously, Barack Obama is on the opposite side from Mr. Peacock and Ward Connerly supports him.You have to ask yourself what you believe.However, I would ask you to think about the principles of sound government for all rather than what feels good in the moment.

This book as seven chapters and the first compares the Madisonian Constitution versus the Multiculturalist version of republicanism we get today.Chapter 2 looks at the rise of official minorities, and chapter 3 examines reapportionment and judicial rationalism.Chapter 4 looks at the politics of the voting rights act from 1965-1980.The fifth chapter looks at the amendments of VRA that were applied in 1982 and the consequences of those changes.Chapter six looks at some pushback to the multiculuralist philosophy that began in the 1990s.And the last chapter examines the way the court is deconstructing our Constitution post 2000 and turning our government from protecting the individual rights of citizens to addressing the grievances of victims.

In his conclusion, Peacock says, "The 1965 VRA arguably did more than any other federal initiative in history to fulfill the promise of American republicanism through the 1960s.Today, however, that same act has evolved into an initiative that arguably does as much as any other federal mandate to undermine that same republicanism.This current VA - the VRA of second-generation voting rights - requires legislators, judges, and administrators to think in racial terms.Americans now have a choice between maintaining their longstanding Madisonian regime of equality and representation or continuing to undermine that regime with an ersatz multiculturalism that promises more intensified racial antagonism and racial bean-counting in election law in the years to come."

I agree.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

How does America stay true to its constitution in a rapidly changing world?
How does America stay true to its constitution in a rapidly changing world? "Deconstructing the Republic: Voting Rights, The Supreme Court, and the Founders' Republicanism Reconsidered" is a scholarly look at topics of seminal importance for modern political discussions. Written by educated professor Anthony A. Peacock, "Deconstructing the Republic" is grounded in sound arguments, and is of importance to any modern day political discussion. Highly recommended for community library social issues collections.
... Read more

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In the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush and his top advisors declared that the struggle against terrorism would be nothing less than a war–a new kind of war that would require new tactics, new tools, and a new mind-set. Bush’s Law is the unprecedented account of how the Bush administration employed its “war on terror” to mask the most radical remaking of American justice in generations.

On orders from the highest levels of the administration, counterterrorism officials at the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA were asked to play roles they had never played before.But with that unprecedented power, administration officials butted up against–or disregarded altogether–the legal restrictions meant to safeguard Americans’ rights, as they gave legal sanction to covert programs and secret interrogation tactics, a swept up thousands of suspects in the drift net.

Eric Lichtblau, who has covered the Justice Department and national security issues for the duration of the Bush administration, details not only the development of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program–initiated by the vice president’s office in the weeks after 9/11–but also the intense pressure that the White House brought to bear on The New York Times to thwart his story on the program.

Bush’s Law is an unparalleled and authoritative investigative report on the hidden internal struggles over secret programs and policies that tore at the constitutional fabric of the country and, ultimately, brought down an attorney general.




From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Bush's Law: the Remaking of American Justice
This is an excellent overview of the damaging impact of the Bush administration on the Justice Department from the New York Times reporter who has covered the Department over the past decade.He shared a Pulitzer prize for breaking the story of the government's illegal wiretapping of domestic communications.I had been aware of most of the events in the book as stories that made the news, but they were spread out over several years.Not only does Lichblau pull them together, he also adds absorbing context to them.Highly recommended.

Teriffic Book on the Bush-Cheney Assault on the Constitution, the Courts and the Congress
If you think that the hallmark of the Bush administration was to prevent another 9/11 attack on the U.S., you should read this book. In the course of its preventive efforts, the administration diminished our constitutional values, reduced the power of the co-equal judicial and legislative branches, assumed monarchical powers, all without any evidence we have to date that this was necessary to protecting us from another attack. This book documents that the approach, led by Cheney and his sidekick, David Addington, that it was better secretly to rewrite the Constitution than to be sorry.

Well, that is not how the Constitution says the Constitution can be amended. As Benjamin Franklin said, "He who seeks safety at the expense of liberty deserves neither."We have yet to see evidence of a single credible terrorist attack that was prevented by the Draconian measures described and analyzed in this book. But the book presents plenty of evidence that Cheney, Addington and Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, with President Bush's consent, did much to diminish our liberties. And it details how this aggrandizement of power by the political people in the Executive branch fit in with Cheney's long-held belief that there should be few checks and balances on the Presidency.

Read this in conjunction with Jane Mayer's excellent book, "The Dark Side," and see if you don't get a picture that describes Franco's Spain or Mussolini's Italy as well as our own country under the Bush administration. But for the press, especially The New York Times, we might never have learned about much of this, as it was done secretly and with little resistance from the Congress.

Bush's Law is very well researched & written
This book illustrates how George W Bush and his administration have interpreted the US Constitution, its laws and justice. It also spells out some of the administration lawlessness, distrust and evil ways.

If have read other books on how Stalin and later Hitler used their powers to eliminate those that stood-in-their-way and/or opposed them, you might see some parallels.

Hooray for the First Amendment
Everyone knows that there were big changes because of the 9/11 attacks.There had to be legal changes, too, and different ways of investigating crimes.No one disputes that the legal and investigative changes had to come, but the Constitution did not change.Those who were interested in torturing prisoners, or reading our e-mails, or snooping around our closets, had to do legalistic contortions to get their way.There are still those who say that such actions were fully justified, but undoubtedly the abuse of our Bill of Rights is part of the reason the current president has record-level unpopularity ratings.Eric Lichtblau has worked for the _New York Times_, and got a Pulitzer in 2006 for his stories on the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts.The centerpiece of his book, _Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice_ (Pantheon), is an insider's view on how he got that story and especially how the _Times_ only eventually, after much hesitation, printed it.That isn't the only story here, though, as Lichtblau has written a wider account of how the re-interpretation of the laws has made victims of citizens and of administrators who did not willingly accept that the re-interpretations were legal.

Lichtblau writes of the post-9/11 attitude, "This was a war planned in secret at the highest reaches of the Bush administration, with a go-it-alone muscularity that relied at its core on a broad, omnipotent reading of the president's wartime authority."There are a few heroes here who understood that the furious expansion of presidential powers was not just a given, like James Ziglar, the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who objected to ethnic-profile sweeps of Muslim neighborhoods.He called it "a violation of the Constitution, and I'm not going to be part of it," earning the distrust of the administration; he was eventually forced out.Chief among the victims of the surveillance described here is Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer in Oregon whose fingerprints, the FBI said, matched a terrorist bomber in Spain.You would think matching fingerprints was something basic in which the FBI would be expert.Spain tried to warn the FBI off, insisting that the fingerprint didn't match Mayfield's.For false arrest and harassment, Mayfield's family got a $2 million settlement.There were thousands of arrests which eventually showed no connection to terrorism.The expanded wiretap capacity was not constitutionally defensible, but even so, it might have had the practical effect of leading to the arrests of lots of terrorists.This just didn't happen.

The central part of the book, how Lichtblau and fellow reporter James Risen got their Pulitzer-winning story on the NSA wiretapping, gives plenty of details about the hard work of reporting.There are more than a few comparisons to Watergate; there is a Deep Throat figure pointing the pair of reporters in the right direction, for instance, and the administration considered taking a Pentagon Papers-type injunction to keep the _New York Times_ from publishing the story.The sorts of people who accuse Lichtblau of helping the cause of terrorism or who leave him death threat e-mails will miss some of the lessons here.It is not the case that the paper rushed into print with the story; Lichtblau describes how the story was essentially complete by 2004, but the paper sat on it at the request of the administration.It was only a year later, with new evidence that the wiretapping was out of control, that publication happened.The go-ahead was advanced when the staff of the _Times_ negotiating about the decision with the White House discovered that the administration had been lying to the paper about how limited the wiretapping was and how it was universally supported by administration lawyers.(When the story was published, the president attacked the decision to do so, but did not dispute a thing in it."Confirmation didn't come any better than this," Lichtblau notes.)And Lichtblau shows that there were two additional stories about clever ways the government was using to assess communications or money paths of terrorists, but unlike the NSA wiretaps, they had no conflict with the Constitution nor with the right to privacy; not one word of these ever appeared in print.Lichtblau's book is sometimes exciting, although its descriptions of what our government does in our name are often infuriating: our president and his aides executed an eavesdropping program that many of their own lawyers thought unconstitutional, and they lied about it to reporters and to the public, and then they accused the journalists of helping terrorism.There is no advocacy needed for a free press, but a reader closing these pages will have a new appreciation for our First Amendment.

The Truth
Eric Lichtblau, has penned a must read tomb for those seeking truth and reconciliation post Bush. Hopefully enough citizens will read it that the push for a post Bus Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be created to bring accountability to the criminals who have run this country into the ground. ... Read more

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Product Description
What impact do federal courts have on the administrative agencies of the federal government? How do agencies react to the decisions of federal courts? This book answers these questions by examining the responses of federal agencies to the U.S. Courts, revealing what happens inside agencies after courts rule against them. ... Read more

Product Description
Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution challenges the prevailing account of the Supreme Court of the New Deal era, which holds that in the spring of 1937 the Court suddenly abandoned jurisprudential positions it had staked out in such areas as substantive due process and commerce clause doctrine. In this view, the impetus for such a dramatic reversal was provided by external political pressures manifested in FDR's landslide victory in the 1936 election, and by the subsequent Court-packing crisis. Author Barry Cushman, by contrast, discounts the role that political pressure played in securing this "constitutional revolution." Instead, he reorients study of the New Deal Court by focusing attention on the internal dynamics of doctrinal development and the role of New Dealers in seizing opportunities presented by doctrinal change.

Recasting this central story in American constitutional development as a chapter in the history of ideas rather than simply an episode in the history of politics, Cushman offers a thoroughly researched and carefully argued study that recharacterizes the mechanics by which laissez-faire constitutionalism unraveled and finally collapsed during FDR's reign. Identifying previously unseen connections between various lines of doctrine, Cushman charts the manner in which Nebbia v. New York's abandonment of the distinction between public and private enterprise hastened the demise of the doctrinal structure in which that distinction had played a central role. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Rethinking the New Deal Court: The Structure of a Constitutional Revolution
Lots of great info but a pain to read - that author is very proud of his vocabulary

Understanding the Demise of Laissez-Faire Constitutionalism
Excerpted from The Independent Review (Summer 2001) by Andrew R. Rutten

Contrary to popular opinion, argues Cushman, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped protecting private property and freedom of contract years before Roosevelt threatened to pack it. Too often Cushman fails to question the intent of various government regulations, but his analysis of the gradual blurring of the distinction between public and private spheres immeasurably improves our understanding of the demise of laissez-faire constitutionalism.

Careful readers will also notice an irony in Cushman's attempt to draw lessons from his story. Again and again, he tells us to beware the temptation to reduce law to politics; law, he wants us to know, has its own logic. Yet his own account suggests that politics inside the Court is a crucial part of that logic.

...those who are interested in the constitutional history of the United States will want to read this book. They should, however, have handy at least the most important of the decisions Cushman discusses, and they should read carefully-the raw material is dense, and so is the book. In the end, however, they will find they have learned more than they would have imagined, and not just about the period Cushman covers. The real lesson of the book highlights the need for a better understanding of just what it is that judges do and why.

Great Debunking of New Deal Myth
Cushman's book is an outstanding history of the "switch-in-time."He effectively debunks the myth that the Hughes Court did a sudden reversal because of Roosevelt's landslide reelection or his Court-packing plan.Rather, the key decisions that many scholars attribute to Roosevelt pressure had actually occurred before his Court-packing plan became known.In addition, the Court did not fear political pressure because they had survived it before and the majority of Congress did not support Roosevelt's Court-packing plan anyway.After debunking this myth, Cushman goes on to explain the structure of the real revolution, which was the "demise of constitutional federalism" that began with the Nebbia decision in 1934 and flowered in the early 1940s, after Hughes and his old-school colleagues had left the Court.Cushman's book is excellent: his arguments are sound and his writing is eloquent.I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the real history of the Supreme Court during the 1930s. ... Read more

Product Description
Since 9/11, American foreign policy has been guided by grand ideas like tyranny, democracy, and freedom. And yet the course of events has played havoc with the cherished assumptions of hawks and doves alike. The geo-civil war afflicting the Muslim world from Lebanon through Iraq and Afghanistan to Pakistan confronts the West with the need to articulate anew what its political ideas and ideals actually are. In The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy, John Brenkman dissects the rhetoric that has corrupted today's political discourse and abused the idea of freedom and democracy in foreign affairs. Looking back to the original assumptions and contradictions that animate democratic thought, he attempts to resuscitate the language of liberty and give political debate a fresh basis amid the present global turmoil. The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy picks apart the intellectual design and messianic ambitions of the neoconservative American foreign policy articulated by figures such as Robert Kagan and Paul Berman; it casts the same critical eye on a wide range of liberal and leftist thinkers, including Noam Chomsky and Jürgen Habermas, and probes the severe crisis that afflicts progressive political thought. Brenkman draws on the contrary visions of Hobbes, Kant, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, and Isaiah Berlin in order to disclose the new contours of conflict in the age of geo-civil war, and to illuminate the challenges and risks of contemporary democracy. ... Read more

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Court administrators and judges have long acknowledged that culture plays an important role in the function of trial courts. Trial Courts as Organizations provides a comprehensive framework for understanding this organizational culture, along with a set of steps and tools to assess and measure the current and preferred culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Court culture
Ostrom et al try to study the organizational culture of courts applying business-school methodologies about work environments and management. He measures courts in Florida, Minnesota, and California according to two variables: sociability and solidarity. He then classifies them as 1) communal, 2) networked, 3) autonomous, or 4) hierarchical. The results show not just that different courts have different work cultures, but also that this has results for managerial effectiveness. One of the more interesting results is that judicial leadership really does matter in making courts run smoothly.

I do question the reliability of survey data for this type of study - after all, perceptions of organizational efficiency are subjective. However, this book does fill an important gap in the study of public institutions. This book can be read fairly quickly (I finished it in two hours), and it is definitely worth a read if you are interested in courts or the rule of law. ... Read more

Product Description
Judgement Calls tackles one of the most important and controversial legal questions in contemporary America: How should judges interpret the Constitution? Our Constitution contains a great deal of language that is vague, broad, or ambiguous, making its meaning uncertain. Many people believe this uncertainty allows judges too much discretion. They suggest that constitutional adjudication is just politics in disguise, and that judges are legislators in robes who read the Constitution in accordance with their own political views. Some think that political decision making by judges is inevitable, and others think it can be restrained by "strict constructionist" theories like textualism or originalism. But at bottom, both sorts of thinkers believe that judging has to be either tightly constrained and inflexible or purely political and unfettered: There is, they argue, no middle ground.

Farber and Sherry disagree, and in this book they describe and defend that middle ground. They show how judging can be--and often is--both principled and flexible. In other words, they attempt to reconcile the democratic rule of law with the recognition that judges have discretion. They explain how judicial discretion can be exercised responsibly, describe the existing constraints that guide and cabin such discretion, and suggest improvements.

In exploring how constitutional adjudication works in practice (and how it can be made better), Farber and Sherry cover a wide range of topics that are relevant to their thesis and also independently important, including judicial opinion-writing, the use of precedent, the judicial selection process, the structure of the American judiciary, and the nature of legal education. They conclude with a careful look at how the Supreme Court has treated three of the most significant and sensitive constitutional issues: terrorism, abortion, and affirmative action. Timely, trenchant, and carefully argued, Judgment Calls is a welcome addition to the literature on the intersection of constitutional interpretation and American politics. ... Read more

Book Description