Wednesday, July 19, 2006

While Rome burns...

The world is on the verge of global conflagration, and what is occupying the House of Representatives? THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., said America was a nation of God-given inalienable rights and that's why the country is in a war against "radical Islamists." Democrats wouldn't want to "cut and run" in Iraq, he said, "if they understood the importance of those basic principles and that inalienable rights are impossible without a recognition of God and that's why the pledge bill is important and not irrelevant or trivial."

How must we look to the rest of the world? Our president is a neck-massaging simpleton, our foreign policy is in chaos, the government's attitude toward science would cause Clarence Darrow to say that Dayton, Tennessee wasn't all that bad and while the world burns, Congress fiddles with the Pledge of Allegiance.

What a country.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe they can all get together and completely strip the Judicial branch of all power. Now that would be "progress"!

drmagoo said...

Does this even make sense? Can Congress pass a law that the Judicial branch is not allowed to rule on?

What if I promise to replace the word "God" with "Flying Spaghetti Monster"?

Peter said...

Actually, theu can, Doc. Section 2 of Article III provides that "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction....[here comes the good part]..In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Subject to those "original jurisdiction" restrictions, Congress can put things beyond the courts' reach.