Posted on 03/26/2005 12:44:17 PM PST by oremus
As you can see, a comma is not necessary. The context tells you that "honors...for sins against God" simply does not fit.
Likewise, a reprieve is a "delay." What exactly is the UNQUESTIONED meaning of "reprieve....for offenses against the nation?"
It makes sense to pardon for an offense. I'm not so sure it makes sense to reprieve for an offense....especially since reprieve must have a separate meaning from pardon, so it cannot simply be assumed to be a synonymn.
An agile mind can easily avoid an impeachment EVEN when they don't hold a majority in the Congress -- cf. Bill Clinton.
GW, on the other hand, does hold a majority, and he has plausible deniability.
The first amendment does appear to give the government (any and all branches) the authority to grant a petition for a redress of grievances. The first amendment clearly gives to any and all individuals the power to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and thus it would follow that whatever branch of government is approached with that petition could grant it.
I believe that a petition for a redress of grievances would be the only available remedy to a victim of judicial tyranny and I believe it was placed in the Bill of Rights for the specific purpose of creating a check against an unlawful infringement of rights which is either ordered by another branch of government or which is denied by another branch of govenment. It is a remedy of last resort. I believe the Schindlers could have and should have used it. I also believe Bush had the right to grant it. I wonder if he would have had the will. But I'm not going to second guess Bush on this.
The heart of the ruler is in the hand of God.
Got a cite? This sounds fishy to me.
The amendment does say that we can petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It doesn't say at all what that means.
You've got to approach someone with it....why not the president as much as anyone else?
How about the plain language of first amendment? You can't get a better cite than that. (Unless you are some kind of pharisaical legal scholar).
It is clear that if a petition for a redress of grievances is an available remedy under the first amendment, that the "government" (any and all branches) has the power to grant it. And if it is the judical branch one is alleging a greivance against, it would clearly be a violation of the constitution to deny the power to redress that greivance by one of the other branches of government.
Frankly, the idea scares me.
The constitution (as it is actually written) scares a lot of people.
Where do you address a petition for a redress of greivances if your greivance is against the judicial branch of the government? Think about it for a while, and then give me an answer.
There are mechanisms already in place to overrule the Supreme Court, namely, a Constitutional Amendment.
There's certainly no cause to advocate that the President should overrule a court of competant jurisdiction.
The president already has that power in all criminal cases.
The power to grant a redress of grievances is clearly implied and a person has the right to petition any branch of government for that relief.
Jude, you really need to learn to think outside the box.
What's this power to grant a redress of grievances? Does that give the Executive and the Legislature full veto power over every proceeding in every court? If so, what's the point of having a court anyway?
Jude, you really need to learn to think outside the box.
Sure. Let's throw out every concept of Separation of Powers that has ever existed in order to "think outside the box" and overrule any decision we don't like. Let's vest in the President unlimited authority to overrule the courts whenever he likes. Brilliant idea.
I can find no evidence that any authority has ever held that "redress of grievances" constitutes an affirmative grant of power.
Where has this stuff been coming from, anyway? Have I missed a Federalist Society memo or something? Lately, every Republican commentator I've heard of has been advocating the abolition of judicial review, effectively overturning Marbury v. Madison. Frankly, it scares me.
We're not talking about the power to overturn every judicial decision, just those in which an individual's rights have been violated or otherwise denied and in which the judicial branch is the one doing the violating. If not congress or the president, to whom then can this person turn?
BTW, jude, contrary to what legal scholars think, Marbury v. Madison was not written by the hand of God. It is a judicial fiction. It carries weight only because Congress and the president have not seen fit to overrule it.
But the constitution clearly gives the congress the power to do so by limiting the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts. They know it could touch off a constitutional crisis. But there are times when a constitutional crisis is what is needed.
Every party that loses a lawsuit will claim that. There's never been a losing party that said, "Yeah, I got a fair shake from the law. I lost because I had a crappy case." No, they generally find more and more spurious arguments to claim its unconstitutional.
[Marbury v. Madison] carries weight only because Congress and the president have not seen fit to overrule it.
That's because it is clearly Constitutional reasoning. How could the Supreme Court be expected to adjudicate cases "arising under the Constitution," as it is expressly authorized to do, and not have the authority of judicial review? This was Marshall's reasoning in Marbury, and as far as I can see, its unassailable
Secondly, it has never been overruled because, like political parties, it has become an integrated part of the political landscape. Our system would not function without it.
This slippery slope crap doesn't work. Neither congress nor the president is going to bother with meaningless lawsuits. But where the life of a living breathing human being is at stake, there can be no more important an issue than that this greivance be granted. In that sense it is no different from a pardon. If you can claim a "civil equivalent" to a bill of attainder in order to hurry up this woman's execution, then I see nothing wrong with claiming a "civil equivalent" to a pardon in order to save her.
If we apply the same thinking and logic to the "redress of grievances clause" there is nothing in the constition that prohibits the president from granting a redress of grievances under the first amendment. Indeed it is as much an implied power as the Supreme Court's implied power to rule on the constitutionality of acts of congress. Isn't it?
Using the same reasoning behind Marbury, the president could easily and rightly claim this power. Indeed, IMO, the president has always had this power. It is simply that it has never been done before. Perhaps now is the time to test that power and authority. This is as good a case as any.
At that point in time, the governmental body to whom I bring my grievance has an obligation to act according to their office. While the wheels of justice grind slowly in the legislative and the judicial, the whole point of an executive is that he can order an immediate remedy.
The word "redress" does not mean "final solution" as I understand it. It leans more in the direction of: "a process for remedy."
Therefore, the immediate granting of a process of remedy is in the hands of whatever branch is approached. The final solution would be in the hands of "government."
"a process for remedy."
Our government failed. A fellow Christian was murdered by a supposed Christian President, and by supposed Christian judges.
Life is valuable, and the loss of Terri, when she had a loving family wishing to care for her, this is a tragedy that those in the facility, in the police, did not stop the murder.
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