Opinion Forum

Term Limits and Pandora’s Box

February 7th, 2010

By Larry Ennis I think term limits are needed if we are to ever break up the logjam in national politics. However, the only recourse is to amend our Constitution. Such an action is very controversial. The chance of having something be made worse and not better is a genuine concern. Everyone knows or should know [...]

Articles written by Larry Ennis
Tags: amendment, Constitution, Supreme Court, term limits
Categories: History, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

Obama’s State of the Union

January 31st, 2010

By Tom Carter A number of the President’s critics have opined that he didn’t say anything new in the State of the Union Address and mainly tried to rally Democrats to support him. To the contrary, I think three important aspects of the address are pretty clear. The first is what he actually proposed. Politico [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Congress, DADT, health care, Obama, SOTU, Supreme Court
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (6) | Home

Sotomayor and Scalia

July 21st, 2009

Richard Cohen is one of my favorite columnists, not because I always agree with him but because it’s usually interesting to see what he has to say. His column in The Washington Post on July 20 caught my attention because he compared Sonia Sotomayor, soon to warm a chair on the Supreme Court, and Antonin [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Scalia, Sotomayor, Supreme Court
Categories: Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Sotomayor Decision Overturned

June 29th, 2009

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today on Ricci v. DeStefano, an appeal of a decision of a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now a Supreme Court nominee, was a member of the three-judge panel and joined in the decision that has now been overturned. As reported, The Supreme Court [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Law, Ricci v. DeStefano, Sotomayor, Supreme Court
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Gun Battle Continues

June 17th, 2009

The gun control battle isn’t over yet, but the end is getting closer. The Supreme Court is likely to hear a case of some sort before too long that will resolve the question of whether the Second Amendment applies to the states. It may surprise some that not all of the amendments known as the Bill of [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: gun control, Law, Second Amendment, Supreme Court
Categories: History, News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Quirky Justices

June 11th, 2009

Amid the microscopic examination of everything Judge Sonia Sotomayor ever did or said, to include what parts of the pig she enjoys eating, it’s nice to see some reality injected into the conversation. When Arrogance Takes the Bench, a New York Times article by Noah Feldman, does just that. Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: justices, Sotomayor, Supreme Court
Categories: History, Life, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Confirm Sotomayor

June 9th, 2009

David Brooks supports the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Brooks is a veteran journalist and political commentator, now a columnist for The New York Times, in addition to commentating on TV. At the NYT, he’s seen as the resident conservative. He does, indeed, seem like a reincarnation of [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Law, Sotomayor, Supreme Court
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (5) | Home

Our Openly Straight Military

June 9th, 2009

The Supreme Court has rejected the effort to eliminate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military which, if you don’t understand the policy, should mean that the subject of sexual orientation is completely off limits. It doesn’t, however, work that way. Here’s a scenario: Engineman 2nd Class Fred Winters returns to his ship after [...]

Articles written by Harvey Grund
Tags: don't ask don't tell, gay issues, Supreme Court
Categories: Life, Military, Politics | Comments (10) | Home

The Sotomayor Nomination

May 27th, 2009

President Obama has apparently decided that Sonia Sotomayor is the best-qualified non-white female in the country to serve as an associate justice on the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City, has a long and well-documented career as a jurist. By all accounts, [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Senate, Sotomayor, Supreme Court
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (14) | Home

Diversity on the Supreme Court

May 8th, 2009

I noted earlier in A New Supreme Court Justice that diversity is the primary consideration among Democrats for a nominee to replace Associate Justice David H. Souter on the Supreme Court. President Obama is searching for the best legal mind in the country, of course, as long as the possessor of that mind is empathetic, sensitive to the needs of [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: diversity, Law, Supreme Court
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

A New Supreme Court Justice

May 1st, 2009

With the retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice David H. Souter at the end of this Court term, President Obama has his first opportunity to nominate a new Associate Justice. As reported in The Washington Post, President Obama said …he would nominate a replacement who both respects the Constitution and brings “empathy” and “understanding” to [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Law, Obama, Souter, Supreme Court
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (5) | Home