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and I'm sittin' here on Capitol Hill. Etc.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050509-4886.html

Please read the article and at least browse the discussion at the link below it. This bill could very well end up being extremely important and (eventually) change a lot about the US government.

On the surface, the bill is a military spending bill needed to keep our troops going. However, there's a provision in there that allows the director of homeland security to waive all laws in the construction of barriers and roads, and exempt such directives from judicial review, including by the Supreme Court.

That should be enough to get your attention. Follow the link for more details. I again recommend that you read the discussion as I found many enlightening comments there on both sides of the issue.

Hmmm. After reading the article, I'm of course quite opposed to the bill. The Court is there for a reason, after all.

The thing that really puzzles me, though, is the fact that the Framers put that particular clause in the Constitution at all. They went through so much effort to throw in checks and a balances all over the place, and with that one little sentence, Congress can totally negate the Judiciary branch? Does not compute.

It's a check on the Judiciary branch though. I'm not in favor of tying the hands of the Supreme Court, because if you look at their track record, they've been pretty fair. Heck, the Supreme Court probably has the hardest job in all of the government; they have to interpret laws that are sometimes poorly written, can set a precedent with the decisions that they make, and they are supposed to have the full faith of the government.

I'm hoping that clause gets amended real quick. I'm also hoping that before it does, that the Republican controlled Legislature that put the bill together gets bit in their collective asses by it. I'm not pro-Republican, or pro-Democrat. I look out for me, and I don't like what a lot of the Republicans are trying to do.

Plus, the whole idea of tagging a sentence onto a bill at the last minute (thereby not giving the people voting time to review the bill they are voting on) really pisses me off.

Riders, as the hangers-on to a new bill are commonly known, suck in general. There's a very few cases I know of where they've done some good, but most of the time they just suck.

Riders are the primary reason I was in favor of the line-item veto when that issue came up. Then people can truly hold the president responsible for what he signs into law, rather than forcing him to choose between two bad decisions.

I hate pork-barrel legislation.

*update* As a followup, the legislation has indeed passed. Here's what Ars thinks about it: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050511-4895.html

Incidentally, there's a nice article on H1-B visas there too:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050511-4897.html