at least Bush has a sense of humor and the end of the Guidelines...

the most amusingly inept monkey of a president, G.W. Bush invoked the G.W. this week...I wonder if he realized how astonishing his words are given recent events. now that the man is finally reading up on American history (although I am not certain that "Presidents Do the Strangest Things" really counts as educating yourself on historical matters...but hey, it isn't a picture book, and Cheney is too busy covering his ass to read Bush his bedtime stories) he seems rather inclined to compare himself, rather laughingly to anyone that actually studied history, to former leaders of this country in the past. the latest coming on president's day when he declared that the American Revolution is similar to our current predicament...specifically referring to G.W. and what he has come to stand for when he said...

"And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone."

the irony of that statement is astonishing. rationalizing an imperialistic policy of "democratization" (by our rules of course - because if you vote in the wrong folks then you can enjoy a nice little CIA sponsored coup or complete destruction of your nation by american-made death and destruction (our cars may be second rate now...but nobody builds killing machines like america)) and overt interventionist policies by invoking the man that warned against just that on his way out the door. all the while apparently forgetting that "the freedoms we [and by the way...since when did Bush fight in any war? let alone one for independence] secured in our revolution" are being trampelled by the speaker. but then I guess the right to vote and be represented in government, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, the right to jury trial, the right to confront the witnesses against you, the right to counsel, the right to be informed of the charges against you, the right of due process, and all those other fun things the American Revolution is supposed to stand for that this administration gleefully shits on, weren't really any of the freedoms "we" secured.

maybe I don't give the guy enough credit (although, in my defense, it is hard to give a drunk with a curious nasal drip much credit)...maybe he really just does know his history that well...and he can say this with a straight face the day before the provision he championed which does away with habeas corpus is upheld...afterall, "we" technically did not secure that with the revolution, it had been around for a few hundred years already.

the Supreme Court will hear arguments on two cases revisiting the Federal Sentencing Guidelines...the Guidelines are one of my pet peeves, and for those of you who don't know, here is a very brief overview...

people were worried that there was too much variance in sentencing between locales in federal courts (i.e. the same crime in miami did not carry the same sentence in salt lake) and so congress came up with this ridiculous idea to develop a French-like civil law scheme of legislating every possible factor that could go into sentencing and making a chart out of it so that the judge would then have a term of usually about 10 months within which to decide. unfortunately for the Guidelines...there was this little thing called the right to trial by jury that got in the way. a few years ago, the Supreme Court grew some balls and told the state of Washington the sentencing scheme it used (very similar to the Guidelines) was blatantly violative of the right to a jury trial. then came the wonderful clusterfuck of Booker, which declared the Guidelines were crap, but then the majority and the dissent totally swapped and a different set of judges agreed they should remain "advisory"...since then, all around the country the courts are deciding what the hell that means and congress hasn't done shit to remedy the situation (go figure)...and so now we get a couple more cases that should finally do away with this bullshit that has given us sentencing for crack disgustingly higher than for cocaine and tied judges hands in not allowing them to do the right thing, but all to often giving them free rein to do the wrong thing.

(if you haven't figured out I am a bit of a sentencing geek...you are now learning)

I'm throwing my money on a ruling that the Guidelines are "just another sentencing factor" and will slowly fade away...partly because it is the right thing to do...partly because, while Roberts will likely protect Booker, I think Alito will use the opportunity to stick it to the recent Cunningham majority that he tried to warn...and since it was only 5-4 on the advisory bit last time (both of these votes coming from the 5), I'm counting on a swap, just not how most will tell you it is going to happen.

that being said...it is the right thing to do. the sentencing statute is, and always has been, totally unambiguous in that judges must sentence a defendant to a sentence "sufficient, but not greater than necessary" to effectuate a few key sentencing factors (which basically comes down to those age-old American beliefs Bush is trying to shit on...like respect for the law, deterrence, justice, rehabilitation...if you really are interested, look it up - 18 U.S.C. 3553(a)(2)). in making the "sufficient, but not greater than necessary" determination, the statute says they must consider a list of factors...including the no-longer mandatory Guidelines. there is just no way you can read that statute with sixth amendment jurisprudence and come to any other conclusion than the Guidelines are anything but a token mention now. which means we might finally begin getting serious about fixing the disgusting state of our criminal justice and penal system which has made us a joke in the "civilized" world.

that's when I reach for my revolver...