In a bizarre Washington Post op-ed ("Surveillance We Can Live With") pitching his ill-conceived NSA eavesdropping compromise, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) shows all of the hallmarks of a man in the throes of severe cognitive dissonance. While essentially pronouncing the illegality of George Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program, he cannot bring himself […]

The Supreme Court's ruling today in the Hamdan case wasn't merely a defeat for the Bush administration's system of military tribunals for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. As ThinkProgress describes, the majority's explicit rejection of broad presidential powers claimed by the White House to be inherent in the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military […]

Tom Delay may have left Congress in disgrace, but the U.S. Supreme Court presented the former Majority Leader with a parting gift on Wednesday. By a 7-2 vote, the Court essentially endorsed Delay's unprecedented Texas Congressional redistricting plan that delivered six new House seats to the Republicans in 2004. The only minor setback for the […]

When it comes to President Bush's illegal domestic spying program, his Republican allies over the last several days have shown that discretion is indeed the better part of valor. From the beginning, the administration's amen corner has aggressive claimed that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) and the wartime Commander-in-Chief powers […]

Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The […]

There are days when the convergence of events can't help but deliver a larger message, to augur change or signal the passing of one era and the start of another. With the coincident confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito and the death of Coretta Scott King, today is one of those days of historical - and […]

The Perrspectives Supreme Court Resource Center has assembled a host of resources providing the background and proceedings of the confirmation hearings for Samuel Alito. In addition to links to the daily hearing transcripts, the Resource Center includes Alito libraries from the New York Times, Washington Post, FindLaw and others. Essential documents are also provided, including […]

The Perrspectives Resource Center has just been expanded to include a new document library for the exploding Bush-NSA Spying Scandal. The NSA Scandal Document Library includes the latest Bush spying scandal news, essential Department of Justice memos and key laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the War Powers Resolution, the 2001 Authorization […]

Karl Rove is widely credited with being "Bush's brain." But when it comes to the administration's dangerous and unprecedented expansion of presidential war powers, John Yoo is the President's mouthpiece. Only 34, Yoo, formerly of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel and now a professor at the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law, […]

The judicial philosophy of Harriet Miers, President Bush's surprise choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, remains a mystery. But what little is known about Miers suggests she is a political operative with some extreme views if not extreme qualifications. In a nutshell, Miers fails Perrspectives' "Three Strikes Test" for the Supreme […]