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Covering The Supreme Court -- from National Review Online

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Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 05:00:54

Cruising with NR, Part II -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Posted on May 20, 2010
So, the second and final installment of these notes from National Review?s Portuguese cruise? For the first installment, go here. Where was I? Doesn?t matter. One day, we cross the Douro River into Spain -- busing (no, not ?bussing,? that would be kissing) to Salamanca...

The Golden Age of Centrism Wasn't So Golden -- By: Michael Barone

Posted on May 20, 2010
Laments about polarization are filling the air -- or at least that part of the air in which friends and family members have political discussions. It has been widely noted that every Republican member of Congress has a voting record to the right of every Democrat and every Democrat is to the left of every Republican...

Kurdistan Notebook -- By: Clifford D. May

Posted on May 20, 2010
Erbil, Iraq -- More than two months after elections, Iraq?s parliamentarians have yet to cobble together a new government. Is this just the messiness that has to be expected in a fledgling democracy? Or, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, have the Iraqis been given a republic that they will be unable to keep?Here in northern Iraq, Kurdish leaders do not claim to know the answer...

The Court's Power Grab -- By: Thomas Sowell

Posted on May 20, 2010
You might think that being a Supreme Court justice would be the top-of-the-line job for someone in the legal profession. But many Supreme Court decisions suggest that too many justices are not satisfied with their role, and seek more sweeping powers as supreme policy-makers, grand second-guessers, or philosopher-kings...

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Marinestan -- By: Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on May 20, 2010
The ten-part HBO series on the Pacific campaign of World War II just ended. That story of island-hopping was mostly about how the old breed of U.S. Marines fought die-hard Japanese infantrymen face to face in places like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Guam, and Okinawa...

Replacing Arlen Specter -- By: Robert Costa

Posted on May 20, 2010
Philadelphia -- Both men have taken on their parties. Both hold Harvard degrees. And they seem to like each other, at least personally. But that?s where the similarities end between the two candidates in Pennsylvania?s Senate race, a clash Karl Rove predicts will ?be among the country?s hardest fought...

The Presidents and the Arizona Law -- By: William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn

Posted on May 20, 2010
We?ve pretty much had it with the attacks on Arizona and the self-debasement of our country by the president. We are the United States and Arizona is our soil, part of our country. Lately, however, there?s been too much denigration of Arizona from the White House, and too much tearing down of Arizona for a law that is -- if anything -- more liberal than the federal law...

A Plan to Save Europe and World Economic Recovery -- By: Larry Kudlow

Posted on May 20, 2010
World and U.S. stock markets are slumping badly as intensified systemic risks from the Greek and European debt-default contagion continue to spread. Disciplinarian markets of stocks, bonds, gold, and currencies are signaling the inadequacy of European Union rescue plans and the global fear that economic recovery will be blunted...

The Technocrats' New Clothes -- By: Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on May 19, 2010
In the last year, many of the dreams of an emerging international elite have imploded -- and this, in a new century that was to usher in a regime of global liberal ecumenism. The lies and academic fraud of Climategate reminded us that it is almost impossible for even disinterested scientists to fathom the complex history of global climate change...

Rand Paul Victorious in Kentucky -- By: Duncan Currie

Posted on May 19, 2010
Why did Rand Paul triumph so easily in the Kentucky GOP Senate primary? The Occam?s Razor answer is that he campaigned as an anti-establishment, libertarian-minded outsider and successfully painted his opponent, Trey Grayson, as the de facto incumbent in the race...

Sticking to the Script -- By: Jonah Goldberg

Posted on May 19, 2010
We are taught to believe that ideology is the enemy of free thought. But that?s not right. Ideology is a mere checklist of principles and priorities. The real enemy of clear thinking is the script. We think the world is supposed to go by a familiar plot...

Cruising with NR, Part I -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Posted on May 19, 2010
Friends, I?m writing you from Oslo (as I did a few weeks ago). But I want to write to you about Portugal, where we?ve just had a National Review cruise. There is another NR cruise taking place there right now. We did back-to-backers. I was on the first one...

The U.S. Department of Blame America First -- By: Michelle Malkin

Posted on May 19, 2010
Back in 1984, when the late Jeane J. Kirkpatrick gave her famous ?Blame America First? speech to the Republican National Convention, liberals at least waited for something bad to happen before blaming America.Today, Obama Democrats have now mastered the treacherous art of the preemptive global apology...

Senate Storm Warning -- By: Tony Blankley

Posted on May 19, 2010
In life, generally, honorable people play by the rules. This is particularly true in the United States Senate, which has historically defined itself by its adherence to its unique rules -- rather than, say, by its representational or proportional nature...

No Reelection for Specter -- By: Robert Costa

Posted on May 19, 2010
Philadelphia -- As Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.) emerged from his maroon sedan here in the West Oak Lane neighborhood, he nimbly avoided the puddles. Then, as if on cue, a nearby church chimed ?Amazing Grace? as he shook hands outside the Simon Recreation Center...

Recapping Pennsylvania's 12th -- By: Jim Geraghty

Posted on May 19, 2010
On Tuesday morning, Republicans who were closely watching the special election in Pennsylvania?s 12th Congressional District -- once represented by John Murtha -- did not offer ironclad, take-it-to-the-bank guarantees that their man Tim Burns was going to win...

Mike Lee for the Right -- By: Ramesh Ponnuru

Posted on May 18, 2010
When Sen. Robert Bennett came in third at the Utah Republican Party?s convention, commentators marveled at the irrationality of conservatives who rejected an incumbent who scored so high on conservative voting scorecards. Mike Lee, one of the candidates who beat Bennett, demonstrated the limitations of those scorecards when he dropped by NR?s offices a few days ago...

Defending Religious Freedom in Full -- By: George Weigel

Posted on May 18, 2010
We have arrived at a unique moment, and just perhaps a critical moment, in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. At the time of the American Revolution, Catholics accounted for less than 1 percent of the population of the 13 colonies -- a tiny population clustered primarily in my native Maryland and a few counties of Pennsylvania...

Calling the Teachers' Union's Bluff in Rhode Island -- By: Frederick M. Hess

Posted on May 18, 2010
There was big news yesterday out of Rhode Island?s Central Falls. In February, Superintendent Fran Gallo fired every teacher at Central Falls High School after they refused to get on board with her efforts to transform the poorly performing school -- the teachers had previously embraced the transformation model, because it would protect their jobs, but then decided they didn?t want any measures that would, you know, actually transform the school...

Governor Freeze -- By: Josh Barro

Posted on May 18, 2010
Last month, Bergen County Education Association officials sent out a memo that closed with a jokey prayer for New Jersey governor Chris Christie to die.What raised the ire of the BCEA?s leaders? Christie?s proposal to balance the state budget without tax increases by cutting $11 billion in spending, including $820 million in funding for local schools -- and his call for teachers to accept a one-year pay freeze so that the funding cuts don?t result in program reductions...

Kagan's Indefensible Crusade -- By: Rich Lowry

Posted on May 18, 2010
Editor?s note: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, kfsreprint@hearstsc.com or phone 800-708-7311, ext. 246.Elena Kagan is a pragmatic moderate because she only briefly obstructed the work of military recruiters at Harvard Law School in defiance of the law...

'Enough Money' -- By: Thomas Sowell

Posted on May 18, 2010
One of the many shallow statements that sound good -- if you don?t stop and think about them -- is that ?at some point, you have made enough money.? The key word in this statement, made recently by Pres. Barack Obama, is ?you.? There is nothing wrong with my deciding how much money is enough for me or your deciding how much money is enough for you, but when politicians think that they should be deciding how much money is enough for other people, that is starting down a very slippery slope...

Polarization May Be Our Best Hope -- By: Mona Charen

Posted on May 18, 2010
Recent liberal laments about the increasing ?polarization? of American political life are as predictable as the seasons. But pleas for centrism ring pretty hollow in light of recent history.The Washington Post editorial board, after noting Sen. Robert Bennett?s loss in Utah and Sen...

An Obvious but Muzzled Truth -- By: Michael Barone

Posted on May 17, 2010
If you want to watch someone squirm, take a look at the two-minute videotape of Attorney General Eric Holder dodging Republican representative Lamar Smith?s question of whether ?radical Islam? motivated the Times Square bomber. Holder, who last year called America ?a nation of cowards? for refusing to talk frankly about race, plainly didn?t want to say what is plain to everyone else, that Faisal Shahzad, back from five months in Waziristan, launched his terror attack because of his Islamist beliefs...

Against Judicial Supremacy -- By: Robert F. Nagel

Posted on May 17, 2010
President Obama had not even signed the health-care bill into law when ten state attorneys general announced that they would challenge its constitutionality in court. Their claim, in part, is that Congress has no power to force individuals to purchase health insurance, because such a requirement is not a regulation of interstate commerce...

Chinese Educators in America -- By: Chester E. Finn Jr.

Posted on May 17, 2010
Are we in the early stages of outsourcing our education system to the same country to which we?ve surrendered our manufacturing sector and entrusted our national debt? That?s probably too dire, at least for now, but the Chinese education ministry has been extending its tentacles worldwide, from the 550 higher-ed programs (?Confucius Institutes?) already operating in 90 countries (including almost 70 on American shores) to the newer but no less worrisome K-12 language programs that are taking the U...

The NRA Convention as a 2012 Cattle Call -- By: Jim Geraghty

Posted on May 17, 2010
Charlotte, N.C. -- The 2012 presidential election wasn?t high on the minds of the NRA convention?s organizers, or of most of the attendees. But mainstream-media voices declared that the speaker lineup ?looks like the conservative roundup for the 2012 GOP primaries,? and it?s hard to imagine a Republican winning the party?s nomination without a reasonably solid record on protecting the Second Amendment...

Obamacare's Avalanche of IRS Paperwork -- By: Deroy Murdock

Posted on May 17, 2010
Pres. Barack Obama promised Americans ?health-care reform.? So far, ?health-care form? is more like it.Obamacare is devolving into the Paper Industry Salvation Act of 2010. This new law spans 2,562 tree-killing pages. Far worse, it will force Americans to spend countless irritating hours completing, transmitting, and filing endless reams of federal paperwork...

Raquel Welch's Sexiest Storyline Yet -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

Posted on May 17, 2010
If you need a quick primer on the birds and the bees, on how a culture has been misled, and on why Carrie and her friends from yet another Sex and the City movie have had miserable, not-so-pretty lives, the woman once declared ?Most Desired Woman? by Playboy can help you out...

Bye Bye, CalWORKs -- By: Stephen Spruiell

Posted on May 17, 2010
In the early 1990s, Bill Clinton campaigned on a promise to ?end welfare as we know it.? Republicans in Congress called his bluff, and the result -- the landmark 1996 welfare-reform bill -- ushered in a decade of plummeting welfare rolls and declining poverty...

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