The Supreme Court is up to their usual nasty tricks
That same bunch of... jerks who appointed Bush president now upholds the three-strikes law

From today's Washington Post ("California's '3-Strikes' Law Upheld") :

The Supreme Court upheld California's authority to implement the nation's toughest "three strikes and you're out" law yesterday, ruling that a shoplifter's sentence of decades in prison does not necessarily violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

In ruling 5 to 4 that Gary Ewing's sentence of 25 years to life for stealing three golf clubs was a defensible exercise of California's right to fight crime, the court instructed opponents of the increasingly controversial law to seek change in the state legislature, not through the courts.

"To be sure, Ewing's sentence is a long one," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote. "But it reflects a rational legislative judgment, entitled to deference, that offenders who have committed serious or violent felonies and who continue to commit felonies must be incapacitated."

I'm sorry, how is it rational to sentence a man to 25 years to life for stealing a few sticks of wood?

Too bad there's no mandatory sentence for subjecting this country and the rest of the world to the whims of George W... Sigh.