NewsTrust - U.S. Constitution - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

The constitutionality of healthcare

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Erwin Chemerinsky - Oct. 06 (Opinion) - There's nothing illegal about requiring Americans to buy medical insurance. There's nothing illegal about requiring Americans to buy medical insurance.

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Editorial: Animal Cruelty and Free Speech

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Editorial - Oct. 06 (Opinion) - Anyone with an ounce of decency should be tempted to ban animal-abuse videos, but anyone with an appreciation for the First Amendment understands why we cannot.

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Obama’s Dick Cheney Moment

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Benjamin Wittes - Sep. 28 (Opinion) - His decision not to consult Congress on detentions represents a virtually wholesale adoption of Bush’s failed policies.

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Freedom from fear: Why the First Amendment trumps the Second Amendment

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By David Sirota - Aug. 22 (Opinion) - We should worry about gun-toting protesters and public political events. The First Amendment ethos guarantees people — whatever their politics — a fundamental right to participate in their democracy without concern for physical retribution. It is the primary amendment because America was first and foremost created not as a gun-owners' haven, but as a place to shelter citizens from oppression.

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The Seinfeld Hearings

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Randy Barnett: - Jul. 13 (Opinion) - If you suspect this week's Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor will be, like "Seinfeld," a show about nothing, you are probably right. To understand why, we need to revisit an era that remade how lawyers and the public think about law, and especially the Constitution. In the 1930s, academics developed a philosophy they called "legal realism" to undercut judicial resistance to "progressive" statutes such as laws restricting the hours a baker or a woman could work. Legal realism elevated just results over the rule of law. It saw analysis of "the law" as an after-the-fact rationalization that allowed reactionary judges to conceal their empathy for the oppressed. Because legal realists believed judges inevitably made law when they ruled, they thought judges should decide cases with progressive ends in mind.

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Attorneys Olson & Boies Interviewed About Filing Federal Suit Against Cailf. Prop 8

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC - By Chris Matthews - May. 28 (Interview) - Attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies Interviewed About Filing A Federal Lawsuit Against California Prop 8

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How we betrayed the rule of law for the fool's gold of security

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Leonard Pitts Jr. - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - People came out of the McCarthy era marveling at how easily fear and paranoia had stampeded us into surrendering principles that are supposed to define us. Mark my words: We will look back on this era the same way.

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Would an AIG-Bonus Tax Pass Constitutional Muster?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Ashby Jones - Mar. 18 (Opinion) - Tribe: I do think Congress (and the Executive Branch) could avoid serious Bill of Attainder problems by passing a sufficiently broad law … rather than targeting a closed class of named executives even though the prohibition against Bills of Attainder, unlike that against Ex Post Facto laws, potentially reaches civil as well as criminal penalties.

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Modernity, Faith, And Marriage

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Andrew Sullivan - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - The reason the marriage debate is so intense is because neither side seems able to accept that the word "marriage" requires a certain looseness of meaning if it is to remain as a universal, civil institution.

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Church and state: The issue of Prop. 8

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By James Brosnahan - Nov. 09 (Opinion) - Proposition 8 has passed, denying to some the right enjoyed by other citizens in California, the right to marry. Now, the central question for the courts to decide is: Are gays in California equal, or can members of certain churches declare them constitutionally inferior?

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Obama's 'Redistribution' Constitution

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Steven G. Calabresi - Oct. 27 (Opinion) - This raises the question of whether Mr. Obama can in good faith take the presidential oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" as he must do if he is to take office. Does Mr. Obama support the Constitution as it is written, or does he support amendments to guarantee welfare? Is his provision of a "tax cut" to millions of Americans who currently pay no taxes merely a foreshadowing of constitutional rights to welfare, health care, Social Security, vacation time and the redistribution of wealth? Perhaps the candidate ought to be asked to answer these questions before the election rather than after.

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Stung By FISA, Group to Drop Money Bomb

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Aug. 07 (Opinion) - Stung by the recent passage of legislation to expand government surveillance powers, two prominent liberal bloggers are teaming up with right-leaning libertarians on a new political action committee to combat perceived threats to civil liberties. Trevor Lyman, who worked on behalf of the presidential campaign of Representative Ron Paul, spearheaded Mr. Paul's "money bombs" in which thousands of supporters made nearly simultaneous online donations. After those efforts on behalf of Mr. Paul resulted in record fund-raising drives, he is now offering his company's services to the "Strangebedfellows" - named for the left-right coalition - and their effort to raise money for the new AccountabilityNowPAC.

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Congressman Kucinich's Impeachment Resolution, the Parallel to Nixon, and Why Even Nixon's Defenders Finally Abandoned Him

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

FindLaw - By John Dean - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - After the smoking gun tape surfaced, none of these various defenses and strategies were relevant, because no member was prepared to defend Nixon's obvious lies about Watergate. As today's hearings continue, it will be interesting to see if any members of Congress are prepared to defend Bush and Cheney's lies about taking the nation to war in Iraq. Disturbingly, it has been clear for some time that Bush and Cheney did indeed lie - and that their lies fit within a clear, extensive pattern of abuse of power. Yet condemnation from Congressional Republicans has yet to be heard. Sadly, it seems possible that today's Republicans -- unlike Wiggins and the other Nixon apologists who changed their minds when confronted with proven presidential lies -- have no moral lines that they will draw.

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Supreme Slip-Up

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:25:02 -0700

Washington Post - Jul. 06 (Editorial) - When a newspaper gets its facts wrong, it's supposed to publish a correction, and, if someone's reputation has been harmed, a retraction and apology. It can be embarrassing ...

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News Flash: The Constitution Means What It Says

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:55:03 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Randy E. Barnett - Jun. 27 (Opinion) - Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion in yesterday's Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller is historic in its implications and exemplary in its reasoning. A federal ban on an entire class of guns in ordinary use for self-defense - such as the handgun ban adopted by the District of Columbia - is now off the table. Every gun controller's fondest desire has become a constitutional pipe dream.

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Make wearing a flag pin the 28th Amendment

Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - May. 20 (Opinion) - When is the last time you watched a mindless movie that had no redeeming value for you intellectually, but all it did was make you laugh? That perfectly describes the raging debate among voters and the rabid television and radio talk show hosts who love to yell and scream from the top of their lungs, "I'm an American, and by golly, you better show as much appreciation for this country as I do!"

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Justice interrogation memo: Constitution not in play

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Baltimore Sun - By James Oliphant - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - In the March 14, 2003 memo, Yoo says the Constitution was not in play with regard to the interrogations because the Fifth Amendment (which provides for due process of law) and the Eighth Amendment (which prevents the government from employing cruel and usual punishment) does "not extend to alien enemy combatants held abroad.":

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Impeachment: If not now, when?

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:40:32 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Linda Boyd - Nov. 25 (Opinion) - The issue is not about removing Bush and Cheney as much as it is about preserving the Constitution and redeeming the office of the executive. The Constitution is the contract of governance between the people and the government. What happens when major portions of the contract are violated? Congress has failed to call the president and vice president to account, so citizens must turn up the heat. Members of Congress who fail to demand investigations are covering for criminals. Every elected official has sworn an oath to "support and protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic." Anything less than impeachment and a full repudiation of the Bush administration's crimes and violations of the law is a dereliction of duty and a betrayal of the public trust.

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Second Amendment Showdown

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:50:06 -0800

Opinion Journal (WSJ) - By Mike Cox - Nov. 23 (Opinion) - The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case that will affect millions of Americans and could also have an impact on the 2008 elections.

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Impeach Bush? "Not a feasible option"

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 14:32:22 -0700

Kansas City Star - By Steve Kraske - Jul. 22 (Opinion) - "Almost the only thing that could unify Republicans right now would be an attempt to impeach," said Burdett Loomis, a University of Kansas political scientist. "The GOP is starting to come apart on Iraq, starting to come apart on No Child Left Behind, obviously on immigration. From a partisan point of view, why would you want to give them a real incentive to come together?"

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