The Supreme Court today, in Kennedy v. Louisiana , found that the Eighth Amendment bars the death sentence of a man who brutally raped his 8-year-old stepdaughter, causing traumatic physical injury (decency doesn’t permit quoting here the Court’s discussion of the facts on p. 2 of its opinion), to say nothing of the emotional trauma. The decision was 5-4, with Justice Kennedy writing the opinion joined by the Court’s liberal bloc. The decision is significant in three major main ways:
1. It essentially bars the death penalty in all cases that do not result in the death of the victim, with the exception of "offenses against the State."
2. It explicitly confirms that the Court’s reliance on an ’evolving national consensus’ against the death penalty in specified circumstances is truly a one-way street; the Court frankly admits that unless there is strong evidence of a national consensus favoring the death penalty for a particular cri...
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POLITICS: Can America Win The War? Yes, We Can!From: baseballcrank.com
Post Date: 2008-05-21 08:12:14
McCain, Obama and the Optimism Gap
One of Barack Obama’s greatest assets has been his appeal to the idealism of young voters and the frustration of grownups disenchanted with the dysfuctional ways of Washington - when prudence and experience says something can’t or shouldn’t be done, or would have awful unintended consequences, Obama’s the guy who says "Yes we can!" Can-do optimism is always popular, and people have come to identify Obama with the ability to eli...
more POLITICS: "I don’t know exactly what’s going on there."From: baseballcrank.com
Post Date: 2008-05-20 18:44:26
Obama stumped on the trail again, and on a question McCain had handled previously . Of course, nuclear power is one of McCain’s pet causes , whereas Obama has been unclear on the concept before .
I was complaining the other day to some friends that these days, Obama seems to be aiming to wear down conservative bloggers by producing more material to beat him up with than any one person could possibly keep up with. He’s beginning to rival Kerry in that regard.
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more BASEBALL: Piazza Hangs ’Em UpFrom: baseballcrank.com
Post Date: 2008-05-20 16:06:27
Mike Piazza, still unsigned, has decided to retire . Piazza could certainly still have been useful, if nothing else as a backup catcher, but obviously preferred not to end his career on that note. He’ll remember his years at Shea fondly:
"Within the eight years I spent in New York, I was able to take a different look at the game of baseball," Piazza said. "I wasn’t just a young kid that was wet behind the ears anymore - I was learning from other veteran guys like Johnny Franco,...
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