Below The Beltway

While we wait for John McCain and Barack Obama to announce their Vice-Presidential running mates, Matthew Yglesias argues that maybe we should think of getting rid of the Office of Vice-President:
When you think about it, it’s exceedingly odd. The Vice President has no formal role in the conduct of government to speak of. And yet, [...]

Watch the video:

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You have nothing to gain but your freedom.

Today, it comes from Cato’s David Boaz:

Endorsing Barack Obama, Al Gore proclaims:
After eight years in which our constitution has been dishonored and disrespected, we need change.
He has a point. But he should have said sixteen years.
Heh

George Will takes John McCain to task for his recent statement that last week’s Gitmo ruling from the Supreme Court was the “worst decision in history”:
The day after the Supreme Court ruled that detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo are entitled to seek habeas corpus hearings, John McCain called it “one of the worst decisions in the [...]

Bob Barr speaks the truth on the issue of Presidential power grabs:
Doug Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain’s chief policy adviser, recently contended that the Constitution gives the president unilateral authority to spy on Americans without congressional authority. “Along with President George W. Bush, Sen. McCain seems to believe that the president, like the British king of old, [...]

Larry Sabato has shown a penchant in recent years for completely re-writing the United States Constitution notwithstanding the fact that it’s more or less functioned quite well over the past 219 years, and his latest Richmond Times-Dispatch column is no exception.
In it, Sabato goes after a little known part of the Constitution that has been [...]

A promise from Barack Obama:
If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the constitutionality of all the laws and executive orders passed while Republican President George W. Bush has been in office.
Those that don’t pass muster will be overturned, he said.
(…)
“I would [...]

While gay marriage still isn’t legal in New York, the Empire State will now give legal protection to homosexuals legally married under the laws of other states:
ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, [...]

Georgia Congressman Paul Broun announced yesterday that he intends to introduce a Constitutional Amendment that would ban same-sex marriage nationwide:
Georgia Congressman Paul Broun announced Tuesday that he will be introducing a constitutional amendment to prevent same-sex marriage in response to a recent decision by the California Supreme Court that recognizes same-sex marriages.
“Marriage as an institution [...]

Believe it or not, we already know when that will be:
A crucial yet overlooked deadline looms over the Iraq debate: Unless further action is taken, the war will become illegal on Jan. 1, 2009.
Despite protestations to the contrary, Congress clearly understood that it was authorizing the president to intervene militarily when it passed its joint [...]