>I think you're perfectly capable of remembering presidential elections 2000.

Fair enough, I should have remembered Bush Vs. Gore. I'm no law student. However, this seems to be the heart of the suit:

The question before us, however, is whether the recount procedures the Florida Supreme Court has adopted are consistent with its obligation to avoid arbitrary and disparate treatment of the members of its electorate.

It is within the SC mandate, as the highest court in the country, to rule on such matters.

>>>- Signing statements. What has Congress done to assert its authority as the legislative body? Here we have a President who assumes the right to change the laws and the right to enforce them selectively. How was this checked?
>>
>>That "right" doesn't exist. Much has been made of this non-issue.
>
>So if the president exercised a nonexistent right, what happens?

He gets hauled into court, or Congressional committee, to explain himself.

>Yes, something like a power of subpoena for the commission.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up in late 2002 "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks.

Criticisms aside, it seems to me the commission was not charged with doing anything but gathering information and interpreting it. I fail to see how that's an indictment of the system of checks-and-balances in our government.

>If you don't have a problem with them patting themselves on their shoulders and relaxing their own rules, then I suppose that's OK.

Did I say that? All I'm pointing out is that it happens, and again is no strike against the checks-and-balances system.

>So you're saying that judges being treated with corporate funded vacations masked as symposia is actually OK, but may be interpreted wrongly? I wish you never have a case against a corporation which hosted your judge.

The new guidelines say a judge should not attend a seminar in which a financial sponsor provided substantial funding, and the sponsor has a case before the judge, and the seminar's topics are "directly related" to the litigation. Under the previous guidelines, written in 1998, judges were not to attend seminars in which sponsors providing funding were likely to be involved in litigation before the courts and the topics were "likely to be in some manner related" to pending litigation..

That hardly proves what you are saying. IMHO the rules change spells out more clearly what and why, whereas the previous guideline was too open to interpretation.

>Then why are they trying to enact laws to make it legal? Why don't they just wait for the courts?

Because it has already been to the court: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZS.html

>>And that's my central point - you are the one making the argument. I haven't heard any Islamic fundamentalist making it.
>
>Again, I'm not talking about them, but rather about their oponents. And I doubt their word can be heard far without some help.

And there is our disconnect. I'm talking about what IS, based on their own pronouncements. You are talking about what MIGHT be, IF they interpret what happens here in a particular manner.

>So you are sure they never use the behavior of the West to quash any dissent at home?

I would bet on it.

>Somehow I always envision the country where I live to be held to higher standards. And the point I was trying to make is that upholding these standards would help - and that their lowering is counterproductive.

Then my apologies for misinterpreting your previous summary. We will have to agree to disagree at this point, however, because I don't believe it is very fair to judge the country you live in by some nebulous "higher standards". America is not the land of the perfect.