It’s Bike Month here in Colorado (yeah, we’re off the back on a lot of things, including that). So, lacking official duties, I went for a nice 50-mile ride to Palmer Lake and back.
I rode the Nobilette and took the trail, and it was just about as perfect a day as could be. Just a wee bit of cross/head wind on the way out and mostly tail wind on the way home. Fat city. I celebrated with the leftovers from yesterday’s Memorial Day steak, spuds and broccoli feast and then treated myself to a short nap.
All good things must come to an end, of course. I awakened to find that yet another 5-4 majority of the Supremes has been chiseling away at the Miranda decision again. From The Washington Post:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in the sharpest dissent of her young career on the court, accused the majority of casting aside judicial restraint and creating a rule that marks “a substantial retreat from the protection against compelled self-incrimination” that Miranda established more than 40 years ago.
“Today’s decision turns Miranda upside down,” Sotomayor wrote. “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent, which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak.” She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Well, boys, there you have it. When the deal goes down and the coppers have you in that windowless back room, give out with two quick sentences — “I ain’t sayin’ shit, and I want my lawyer” — and then shut the fuck up. Assuming you ever want to enjoy another glorious June outing on the bike, that is.
Mad Blog Media 
I’m sure Faux News will tear them a new asshole, what with the new activist attitude of the unelected officials. Waiting for it … any day now … I’m sure they’re right on it, once they finish with the Obama’s-the-anti-Christ story.
Steve,
Is that like Fu*k News broadcasting some tidbit about the Indy 500 being full of foreigners? Or is that the Fu*k News that can’t tell a story from a huge sinkhole in Central America? Or is that the Fu*k News who seems to think that they are “Fair & Balanced?”
For once I would hope that someone at some media outlet somewhere would grow a brainstem addition – preferably forward but back would work as well – and think for once!
I won’t say much about the Black Robe Society because I am increasingly feeling that they are better labeled the Black Rube Society. Common sense is apparently not very common in that group.
Now unless you explicitly invoke your right to remain silent, you forfeit your right to remain silent. The only thing it takes to lose a Constitutional right is to be silent. More Constitutional rights have and will continue to be forfeited for the same reason.
Scalia is a pretty smart guy. By that, I mean, his SAT scores were almost as good as mine, he got into some good schools, and he has avoided real work for most of life. But he’s “smart” in that sense of being sufficiently nimble with words to justify that which he already wants to do. It’s not real “smarts.” It’s the kind of smart that our education system came up with so that kids who aren’t good at math can still say they’re good at something.
And I don’t want to over-react, but there’s a danger to so many folks like this taking themselves so seriously. They all seem to end up in law or politics, because no one wants an engineer who’s going to design a highway bridge out of marshmallows and then try to rationalize his decision based on some obscure facts about the chemical binding principles of sugar crystals. It’s folks like this who come up with an ideology, then try to reassemble the world to fit it, facts be damned.
These folks always get caught, but unfortunately We The People are too occupied with making a living and keeping our kids out of trouble to care that much. For instance, you have to be living in a cave not to notice that every since the Supremes got 5 reliable right-of-center votes, no one is screaming about activist judges anymore. Because “activist judge” was always a smoke screen, an ideological position that didn’t reflect reality. An activist judge is just a judge who acts against you. A judge who acts in favor of you is just doing his constitutional duty or taking back America (from who again?) or some other ideological nonsense.
Like I said, Scalia is a smart guy. Ask him to explain a position and he’ll come up with a witty rejoinder and then break the decision down into pieces for you … unless it’s a position that contradicts his larger body of work, in which case, you get a temper tantrum. I’m betting his lecture series days are over, because there’s always a kid in the crowd who calls him on his shit, and he has painted himself into an ideological corner lately.
Gentlemen: Have I missed the point? It seems to me that “Fixed News” should love this ruling. The very-conservative court has now given law enforcement an out. “But judge! He never said he wanted to remain silent, so I got him talking.”
I wonder if the current court has a copy of the Constitution and it’s amendments? I t seems the farther right you go, the more you tailor it to your way of thinking, not the literal translation. Scary times…
Bruce: I forgot to turn on the sarcasm highlighter. I’m sure they loved the ruling, but at the same time, they’re always screaming about activist judges. So if they had any brains, this would be point at which they would explode trying to hold two opposite opinions at the same time.
Patrick: 50 miles, eh? We’ll be x-raying the Nobilette, looking for a McGruber Assist. Is that the 6V lithium battery in your pocket, or are you just glad to see us?
Wouldn’t that battery be on the ‘other side?’ Seeing as how cycling pockets are in the back? So maybe he is not so happy to see you, but wanting to “leave a souvenir.”