Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 05, 2011
Transcript:
Kate: Here, Daddy... you'll need these earplugs? Joe: Uh... what for, Kate? Kate: Danae's spent all this week writing new amendments, which I can only assume means she doesn't know what it'll take to get them into the Constitution... so I sent her a link on the process, which she should be getting right about... Danae: SCREEECH!!! Kate: ... now. Joe: Thanks.
comicgos over 13 years ago
Try as the lunatics might - they ain’t changing the constitution!
PhantomPlumber over 13 years ago
@comicgos: Well, not more than 27 times, anyway… ;-)
x_Tech over 13 years ago
That Kate! Now ain’t she just the helpful one?
thirdguy over 13 years ago
The last time I heard a screech like that, I had my brakes checked!
Sandfan over 13 years ago
For those of us whose high school civics are a little rusty:
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/
grapfhics over 13 years ago
There is a 28th in discussion.
rayannina over 13 years ago
That screeching sound, better known as “the cold hard slap of reality” …
lewisbower over 13 years ago
I like the fact that when they pushed the on button, the writers of the Constitution made it very hard to push off.
prrdh over 13 years ago
The Constitution has been nothing but a rhetorical device since Jackson’s Presidency. Since then, it has effectively been whatever the President, speaking for the ‘majority’, says it is. The two-party system has eliminated the independent judiciary by making sure judges need to join either the Jets or the Sharks to get anywhere above JP level.
puddleglum1066 over 13 years ago
Nabuquduriuzhur said, about 8 precedents ago: “True. That is what ‘activist’ judges are for. They just ignore what it says and do what they want…”
I assume that by this you mean such things as rewriting the 14th amendment (the one that was supposed to free the slaves) so that it instead freed the corporations to enslave us all… (actually, it’s unfair to say corporations treat employees as slaves… slave owners made sure their property got fed).
Of course, let’s not leave out the executive branch’s habit of rewriting laws that don’t suit them through the use of things like “signing statements” (first made public by Dubya, but enthusiastically embraced by Obummer). The Prez doesn’t like the law? He just writes up a signing statement saying “I’m not actually going to carry out this law; in fact, I’m going to do just the opposite.”
For that matter, let’s remember the petty bureaucrats who feel free to “re-interpret” the laws when creating the regulations that enforce them. Back in the Clinton days, for instance, Congress passed a small insurance reform bill, one that said your insurance company couldn’t deny coverage just because you participated in a slightly risky recreational activity like hiking, water-skiing, skydiving, motorcycle riding, snowmobiling, etc… The law was quite explicit: no discrimination in this area. The bureaucrats at HHS then wrote the official regulations in such a way as to explicitly enshrine the insurance companies’ right to deny coverage. Oops…
prrdh is, alas, right: the executive branch is treating the Constitution, and to an increasing extent the laws passed by Congress, the way drivers treat the speed limit, as nothing more than a suggestion.
DavidGBA over 13 years ago
Duped by overlooking due process. :D
SuperAndy Premium Member over 13 years ago
Love the motion of their hair and the newspaper in the last panel
WineStar Premium Member over 13 years ago
Glad to see someone point out that we are a nation that has both a Constitution and statutes and case law interpreting those statutes.
However, to say judicial activism started in the 20’s & ‘30’s misses the whole 19th century of activism that started with Mayberry v. Madison.
Most blatant judicial activism lately - the Citizens United case, which had been previous decided and settled law, then the SC requested a rehearing on points that hadn’t even been argued in the lower courts. Really? Really. That is the poster child for an activist court.
Same with the FL federal district judge ruling the entire Health Care Act unconsitituional. A judge is charged with striking down the portions of a law that s/he finds unconsitutional, but leaving the rest intact – not issuing a blanket declaration. Use a scapel, not a sledge hammer.
The politicization of judges is the final nail in the coffin of the Separation of Powers.
junco49 over 13 years ago
Nab:
Would you consider the Supreme Court ruling that corporations can give unlimited funds to political organizations an example of an activist court?
I’m waiting!
MisngNOLA over 13 years ago
jcmckain, plessy v ferguson was settled law, as was brown v board of education, yet those “activist judges” saw fit to re-examine the underlying statutes and reqrite the decisions therein. What I see in the decision you quote and the ones I quoted is if any error is made, it is to err toward the side of freedoms and liberties acruing to the constituency, and away from the government.
Dtroutma over 13 years ago
If stupidity had to be ratified, so many Americans would remain in limbo.
freeholder1 over 13 years ago
You all forgot FDR who tried “stacking’” the SC since there is no number limit on judges. So please don’t pretend it’s only the judiciary’s fault when the execs are the ones who manipulate the placement.
freeholder1 over 13 years ago
So you folks are suggesting Danae save up her ammo and get a judicial appointment?
freeholder1 over 13 years ago
And I compliment us all on the civility of the discussion.
wndrwrthg over 13 years ago
An “activist judge” is someone who rules contrary to my way of thinking.
momazilla over 13 years ago
they are now trying to say that “anchor babies, those born here of immigrante parents, are not citizens. Just goes to show that a good education does not guarantee that you are not STUPID
bmonk over 13 years ago
Just want to say that I love the exclamation points on Danae’s SCREECH!!
jcmckain said, about 6 precedents ago
However, to say judicial activism started in the 20’s & ‘30’s misses the whole 19th century of activism that started with Mayberry v. Madison.
Another famous bit of making policy that comes to mind is when Congress passed the Indian Removal Act (1930), which Jackson signed into law. The act was challenged successfully by the Cherokee Nation in 1832 in the US Supreme Court as Worcester v. Georgia. Despite the Supreme Court decision, Jackson took no action to uphold the Court verdict, and in fact would openly defy it; he was quoted as saying “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!”.
Tucker_Storrs over 13 years ago
Sandfan,
its not highschool civics because RIGHT NOW in my 7TH GRADE CIVICS CLASS were learning about the bill of rights
Tucker_Storrs over 13 years ago
yesterday the entire comic is a pun -
“the right to ‘bear’ arms”
pouncingtiger over 13 years ago
Reality strikes Danae like a bolt of lightning.
TheDOCTOR over 13 years ago
I don’t think the amendment concrning Income Tax (a “temporary tax”) was ever ratified by the proper number of States THEREFORE People have been paying to the IRS Illegally for years.
artybee over 13 years ago
Sorry, Opie. It’s Marbury v. Madison, not Mayberry.
michael.p.pumilia over 13 years ago
I would prefer the Mayberry style of life and law-upholding. Opie sure flourished in that environment.