AJLPP-USA Hails Philippine CA Decision To Junk Smith plea for TRO (tags)
The Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines (AJLPP)-USA , today hail the decision of Philippine's Court of Appeals on Tuesday that junked rape convict Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith’s plea to be returned to United States custody. The court’s Special 16th Division denied Smith’s prayer for a temporary restraining order on Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Benjamin Pozon’s decision to keep him at the Makati City Jail, noting that his petition “precisely involves a determination of the regularity of the act of respondent judge… “We do not share with petitioner’s view and that a grave and irreparable injury would befall him pending determination of this petition,” the court ruled. “The long and short of it is that a full-blown trial has been held with all the rights of the accused accorded to hi
Filibuster Wars Power Grab at the Height of the Empire http://rwor.org/a/004/filibuster-wars.htm The Senate was heading for a major showdown, as the Republican majority and Vice President Cheney conspired to strip the Democrat minority of their ability to even filibuster the most extreme judicial nominees. Then, after playing chicken for two weeks, a "Gang of 14" Senators suddenly announced they had reached a "historic compromise based on mutual trust" -- and they announced that they had saved the Senate from destruction. And the media oohed-and-aaaahed over the last minute development. But it quickly became pretty obvious, that nothing here was an obstacle to the most dangerous plans for remaking the courts. And did the compromise "safe the filibuster" as the media said? In fact, the compromise said "If you don't take the filibuster, we promise not to use it." Which, if you think about it, gives the top reactionaries what they want. Part of this "compromise" is that the Democrats immediately stopped their opposition to Precilla Owen and several other of Bush's judicial nominees -- these are people who are literally monsters of an extreme kind, who had been stalled in the Senate (in some cases for years.) So this "compromise" meant that these vultures are headed for powerful courts. And, it is also clear that huge new showdowns lie just ahead -- as the White House and Senate brace for a struggle over putting extreme rightwing judges on the supreme court. The following article (written just before the "compromise" was announced) lays bare the stakes and dynamics of this whole crisis.