Supreme Court Case of the Week: Gibbons v. Ogden

Case

Thomas Gibbons, Appellant v. Aaron Ogden, Respondent (1824)

Chief Justice

John Marshall

Background

Aaron Ogden had a license to operate a monopolistic steamboat service granted by the State of New York. Thomas Gibbons operated a competing steamboat service on interstate waterways adjacent to the state of New York. Ogden took him to court in the state of New York to prevent him from operating his business, and two levels of New York court agreed with him.

Synopsis

The Supreme Court agreed with Gibbons' lawyers argument that that the Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution (the Commerce Clause) gave Congress the right to regulate commerce extended to "all aspects of it, overriding state laws to the contrary." (from wikipedia)

Vote & Dissenting Opinions

6-0 (with 1 abstaining)

Further Discussion

This case seems pretty straightforward and simple, really. It is an important case, but at least on first glance, appears to be an easy decision. Here's Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 & 3 of the Constitution:

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes

References & Further Reading

http://www.house.gov/house/Constitution/Constitution.html

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1824/1824_0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbons_v._Ogden

Bad Journalism Example

This past Sunday now-VP, Joe Biden, squared off on juxtaposing political talk shows against former-VP, Dick Cheney. Both sides vehemently argued why the Obama administration was/wasn’t handling terrorism correctly.
That is the background.
Here is the topic

Monday morning two journalist from Bloomberg News published an article on the war of words (1). Throughout the article the two journalist report on the fighting and list a half dozen quotes from each person. Then it ends.

Recently, Brent and I have been asking ourselves whether some information needs to be limited to the public. This is a prime example of information I would argue should be limited. What these two journalist did was report that two people got in an argument and that they have authority, so we the public should listen. However, they did not fact check either person or give any information regarding the subject on which the two people were arguing. Is this real journalism? Did it really take both of them to read through the quotes from a 15 minute segment and write them down? Wouldn’t real journalist dug up information one what the two members were saying. For instance, Cheney argued that “Christmas day bomber” should not have been read his Miranda rights Well, journalist, tell me what the Bush administration did under a similar circumstance with the “shoe bomber” back in 2003? Was that suspect read his Miranda rights?

It is my conclusion, then that these two journalist have done nothing but complicate the matter for public. This article could have been replaced telling me that Brad Pitt and Angelina were in an argument, because as far as disseminating information that will help me, a voting citizen, make a decision, this article did nothing.

Source:
1) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a6phLM6zkt8k

Science News: Autism & Vaccines, Soda & Cancer

Two big science stories to address:

1) Last week The Lancet (impact factor 28.4; that’s big) retracted a controversial 1998 article linking MMR vaccinations to the onset of autism after almost 80% of the original authors wrote letters to the journal requesting a retraction.

2) Today in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention there was a study involving 60,500 Chinese and they discovered a link between drinking as little as two (2) cans of soda a week and 80% increase in pancreatic cancer.

Let’s address both of these.

1) http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56008/title/Journal_retracts_flawed_study_linking_MMR_vaccine_and_autism


2) http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/current pg#447