Republicans in the House of Representatives have staged a dramatic walk-out from the House chamber in a protest against Democrats. VOA's Dan Robinson reports the event occurred just before a vote on a Democratic resolution to cite one current and one former White House official with contempt of Congress, and as Democrats and President Bush remain deadlocked over controversial surveillance legislation. The walk-out came as the House prepared to vote on the resolution citing former White House counsel Harriet Miers and current chief of staff Joshua Bolten for contempt of congress for failing to obey subpoenas in connection with the controversial dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and 2007.
LOL, too bad the GOP's stopped walikng before they got to the Atlantic ocean... as far as i'm concerned they should all take along walk on a short pier.
i hope they go after all the rest of the criminals we have been subjected to over the last 5 years....
In refusing to allow the two to testify before Congress, President Bush has cited executive privilege, used by presidents to assert that matters in the executive branch involving deliberations with advisers, must remain confidential.
these guys just can't seem to grasp the concept that they work for US..
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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the Congress is planning to pass a law the that retrospectively releases telecomm companies from liability for infringing upon the constitutional rights of the people:
An ex post facto law (from the Latin for "from something done afterward") or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. In reference to criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; or it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in at the time it was committed; or it may change or increase the punishment prescribed for a crime, such as by adding new penalties or extending terms; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime more likely than it would have been at the time of the action for which a defendant is prosecuted. Conversely, a form of ex post facto law commonly known as an amnesty law may decriminalize certain acts or alleviate possible punishments (for example by replacing the death sentence with life-long imprisonment) retroactively.
United States
In the United States, ex post facto laws are prohibited in federal law by Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution and in state law by section 10. Over the years, when deciding ex post facto cases, the United States Supreme Court has referred repeatedly to its ruling in the Calder v. Bull case of 1798, in which Justice Chase established four categories of unconstitutional ex post facto laws. The case dealt with Article I, section 10, since it dealt with a Connecticut state law.
However, not all laws with ex post facto effects have been found to be unconstitutional. One current U.S. law that has an ex post facto effect is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. This law, which imposes new registration requirements on convicted sex offenders, gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to apply the law retroactively.[1] The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Doe (2003) that forcing sex offenders to register their whereabouts at regular intervals and the posting of personal information about them on the Internet does not violate the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws, because compulsory registration of offenders who completed their sentences before new laws requiring compliance went into effect does not constitute a punishment.[2]
Another example is the so-called Lautenburg law where firearms prohibitions were imposed on those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses and subjects of restraining orders (which do not require a criminal conviction). These individuals can now be sentenced to up to 10 years in a federal prison for possession of a firearm, regardless of whether or not the weapon was legally possessed at the time the law was passed. Among those that it is claimed the law has affected is a father who was convicted of a misdemeanor of child abuse despite claims that he had only spanked his child, since anyone convicted of child abuse now faces a lifetime firearms prohibition. The law has been legally upheld because it is considered regulatory, not punitive - it is a status offense.
See also: Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, Bouie v. City of Columbia, Rogers v. Tennessee, and Stogner v. California
seems to me these guys need to go back to law school...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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