Quick Hitt: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court, by the hand of Justice John Paul Stevens, has seen fit to yet again twist the plain written word of both the Constitution and a legislative act of Congress in their decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.  The Constitution is clear that the powers vested in the president as commander-in-chief are his alone.  Concurrently, the Constitution vests the legislative authority in Congress, which passed a law stating that NO detainees in Guantanamo Bay could petition any US federal court (other than the DC Court of Appeals) for a habeas corpus hearing.  Effectively, they removed jurisdiction from the US Supreme Court to hear Hamdan's case for habeas relief.  But in keeping with their "living Constitution" tradition, the Court under Stevens found somewhere in the plain text of the statute that Congress only meant any habeas petitions submitted AFTER the law was passed.  This is completely ridiculous and runs contrary to relevant Supreme Court precedent dating back to the Civil War.

I'll deal more with the issue of the "living Constitution"  in due time as well as my feelings (which are likely quite plain here) on the Supreme Court's vile usurpation of powers vested in the executive and legislative branches.  At this time, we can only hope that Congress will pass another law that is even clearer about their jurisdictional intent as it relates to habeas petitions from Guantanamo prisoners.  Until then, let's hope the Supreme Court and the New York Times don't put our lives in any more danger.