Posted on 03/21/2002 1:29:30 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:39:59 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) --
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Riiiiiight.
Things like "privacy" are so 1900s, aren't they. It's good if your liberal boss gets to find out that he's got a reason to sock it to you. All he has to do is fire up his handy dandy web browser and find out all your particulars.
And that stalker that was giving your daughter such a hard time? Well at least he can be prevented from finding out her address. Yup, easy as pie. All she has to do is not contribute her money where she'd like to see it go.
Did I say privacy was outdated? Well, let me add that chilling the expression of free speech is definitely in vogue!
Oh, goody. A fruitcake who sees Carvilles behind every rock.
BOO!
Scared you, didn't I.
Whatever.
Bush promised more disclosure in his campaign, and he delivered on his promise.
The idea that Ken Starr is not a good attorney is an artifact of Carville and media spin. Just like the idea that Bush - 41 had never seen a supermarket checkout counter, or the the athelete Jerry Ford was clumsy. The fact that you believe it to be true just shows how thoroughly you have been 'spun'.
You make a very bad attempt at it in that case!
Perhaps they would do better if you were the attorney. Just what is your won/lost record arguing cases before the SCOTUS?
If you can find a word, anywhere, where I say that I have 'modeled my persona' on Dictator Sulla, I will eat it. While we are on screennames, aren't you named after a spineless weakling who betrayed his duty for a prostitute, and when she spurned him for what he was, ended up murdering her?
Have you forgotten the 9-0 decision that the Surpremes handed down allowing Paula Jones to have her day in court against a sitting President?
If any cats were to turn up dead, this was the time to kill them!
Looks like they did not.
My concern with all this is the spin that will be portrayed by the Left and the Media. Like it or not, Starr has a polarizing effect.
I can't believe that out of all the learned attorney's in the US, that others were not offered this position. Ken Starr is gifted, but he is not the only gifted attorney.
See my #268 above. The media and the politicians are now irrelevant, it is all lawyers and judges now. The opinion of the public is as relevant as it was in the school prayer cases (i.e. not relevant).
If you read the following, from the web site of the OSG, it would appear that Mr. Olson has some options.
The Solicitor General determines the cases in which Supreme Court review will be sought by the government and the positions the government will take before the Court. The Office's staff attorneys participate in preparing the petitions, briefs, and other papers filed by the government in its Supreme Court litigation. The Solicitor General personally assigns the oral argument of government cases in the Supreme Court. Those cases not argued by the Solicitor General personally are assigned either to an attorney in the Office or to another government attorney. The vast majority of government cases are argued by the Solicitor General or by one of the Office's other attorneys.
Another function of the Office is to review all cases decided adversely to the government in the lower courts to determine whether they should be appealed and, if so, what position should be taken. The Solicitor General also determines whether the government will participate as an amicus curiae, or intervene, in cases in any appellate court.
If it gets to the Supremes he could send a "junior" lawyer in his stead. If the CFR gets thrown out in a lower court he can decide not to appeal it to the Supremes.
In this instance, I doubt that the President would put much pressure on the Solicitor General. If he signs the bill he will have done "his job" and I suspect he couldn't care less if the bill gets overturned - by any court.
Starr Gets in Campaign Finance Fold
Fri Mar 22, 3:06 AM ETBy JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a case expected to move quickly to the Supreme Court, former Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and a group of prominent election law attorneys will argue that campaign finance legislation passed by Congress is unconstitutional.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), the chief opponent of campaign spending limits and the likely lead plaintiff in the case, announced his legal team Thursday. A day earlier, the Senate passed and sent to President Bush (news - web sites) the most extensive changes in campaign finance law in a quarter-century. Starr, who investigated the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky cases that led to the impeachment of President Clinton (news - web sites), will be joined by Floyd Abrams, a well-known First Amendment lawyer, and Kathleen Sullivan, dean of the Stanford Law School.
"These are perilous waters into which the Republic has now sailed," Starr said at a news conference with McConnell, R-Ky.
"The questions are grave, the questions are serious. It is now time for the courts to speak authoritatively to what the Congress has chosen to do."
McConnell said opponents plan to file their lawsuit before a three-judge panel in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., with the expectation that it would move quickly to the Supreme Court.
Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., the chief sponsor of the legislation with Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), said he was confident the bill "will stand on its merits."
Feingold, D-Wis., said supporters would assemble a legal team, but that the Justice Department (news - web sites) would have the primary responsibility for defending the measure once it becomes law.
Bush has said the legislation is flawed but that he would sign it.
McConnell and other opponents contend that large portions of the bill violate First Amendment free speech rights by restricting the political spending of individuals and groups.
Their biggest target is a provision that bars the use of unregulated "soft money" in the final 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election for the broadcast of "issue ads" that mention a candidate by name, often with the purpose of attacking him.
Supporters say anyone can run issue ads as long as they use highly regulated and limited contributions known as "hard money." Under the legislation, the most an individual can contribute in hard money to a candidate per election would be $2,000, double the current ceiling.
A larger issue is the ban on the hundreds of millions of dollars of "soft money" that the national parties receive from corporations, unions and individuals.
"That issue will be raised in this challenge," Abrams said, adding that it was possible that the court would review the stance it has held in this area since 1976.
In 1976, two years after the last major congressional effort to limit political spending, the high court ruled in Buckley v. Valeo that Congress could set limits on political contributions but that limits on spending violated free speech rights.
The campaign finance bill, sponsored in the House by Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., would go into effect on Nov. 6, the day after this year's congressional elections.
McConnell said that his legal team would also include James Bopp, general counsel for the James Madison Center for Free Speech; Bobby Burchfield, an election lawyer who was involved in the Buckley v. Valeo case, and Washington election lawyer Jan Baran.
He said other corporations, unions and interest groups that oppose the bill are also expected to join him as plaintiffs.
For two things:
It raises the hard-money spending limits.
It requires better disclosure of contributions.
You've got to be joking with that last item.
Does disclosure even matter when Republicans show NO interest in doing ANYTHING about the MILLIONS in ILLEGAL money that the democRATS inserted into the last several elections? They have totally ignored the Riady non-refund, in which Clinton and DNC campaign officials DISCLOSED that the money they received from Riady was illegal but claimed they returned it. Problem is ... Riady said they didn't under a plea agreement that he looses if he lies. Riady hasn't lost his plea agreement so he must not be lying ... but I don't see any democRATS even being questioned about their apparent violation of campaign finance laws. Why is that? Are Republicans also planning to use ILLEGAL contributions so they dare not make this an issue?
How about the questions regarding his honesty and impartiality? Can you explain why Starr would allow hundreds of FBI Files, that he himself told the public were illegally acquired and illegal to be in Whitehouse hands, to remain in Whitehouse hands for YEARS after the Whitehouse and FBI said they had been returned. We know that Starr knew this because Ray told us that. Explain that if you think Starr can be relied on to work in our interest.
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