With their amicus brief in Virginia v. Sebelius an impressive slate of law professors at the Volokh Conspiracy put to rest the meme that there is a “consensus of legal experts” in favor of the constitutionality of the so-called “individual mandate” in the health care reform bill.  (The bizarre contradiction between most progressives’ demand in this area and their horrified response...

WASHINGTON — Here is another piece of conventional wisdom about this year’s election that is being rendered patently false. It’s been said over and over that no Democrats are running on the health care bill. Actually, more and more of them are proudly campaigning on what the plan has achieved — and they should. In a fight for his political life in Wisconsin, Sen. Russ Feingold...

It was revealed on Friday that United States scientists traveled to Guatemala in the 1940s and injected ‘prostitutes, soldiers, prisoners and the mentally ill’, without their consent, with syphilis and gonorrhea. Not surprisingly, the people of that nation are outraged and U.S. officials at the very highest levels are expressing apologies. This morning’s editorial in Guatemala’s Siglo...

Independent political blogger Nancy Hanks of The Hankster and NYC Independence Party chief organizer Cathy Stewart will host a New York City breakfast of coffee, bagels and political conversation – and a preview of raw video footage of Performing the World attendees answering the question: What does democracy mean to you? …in your life, in your city, your country, in the world? Video will be used in...

The Wall Street Journal headline reads: McDonald’s May Drop Health Plan. Of course it turns out not to be true but even if it was – so what?  Let’s look at what the McDonald’s employees might lose. This is not health insurance it’s a scam.  The Basic and Medium plans are no better than no insurance at all.  As you may recall my short ride in an ambulance and 13 hours in the...

Marijuana has a good chance of being legalized in California on election day — and that influx of young or younger voters could even help Democrats at the ballot box. It’s also on the ballot in Colorado. Portugal decriminalized recreational drugs 10 years ago. Are there lessons there for American lawmakers? GO HERE for more on Portugal and its experience.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are out replaying favorite scenes from 2008, but for crowds of Democrats and independent voters, it is as if the sound has been turned off. Their base has gone deaf. “When I talk to Democrats around the country,” the President says in a Rolling Stone interview, “I tell them, ‘Guys, wake up here. We have accomplished an incredible amount in the most adverse...

Will the truth hurt? Alkalized cocoa, corn syrup and artificial vanilla. They’re safe to eat, but are they natural? On Monday, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, the Vermont ice cream brand that is synonymous with funky flavors and environmentally and socially responsible behavior, agreed to phase out its use of the term “All Natural” for ice creams and frozen yogurts that contain processed...

Is President Obama, like so many political shooting stars of hope from the past, destined to fade from the scene as quickly as he emerged? According to Financial Times Deutschland columnist Ines Zottl, “Obama is through – completely finished.” Citing some seldom-heard in English Germany prose, for the Financial Times Deutschland, Ines Zottl writes in part: “A star burns out, and the...

The nation’s body and mind are moving in sync as Americans reject Michelle Obama’s campaign to eat more vegetables even as they disdain her husband’s recipe for a healthier polity. More and more, taste buds and brain cells are responding less and less to subtleties. As the President’s approval ratings hit a new low, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study shows Americans eating...

In this day and age where political operatives try to find bits of video or writings that conflict with an image an opposing candidate is trying to craft, one politician who has made it easy for the other side is Nevada Republican candidate for Senate Sharon Angle — with her comments against social security, fleeing reporters, and deciding only to allow herself to be interviewed by Republican p.r. official...

On Thursday, outside a hardware store in suburban Washington, the Republicans unveiled their platform for the midterm election. Calling their document A Pledge to America, the prologue was full of traditional Republican boilerplate: We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity. We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage,...

Question: How many people will take the time to read through the House Republicans “Pledge to America”? My answer: Not enough. If you remove the political claptrap from the document, what you get is deja vu: We heard this before: Lower taxes, less spending, a return to “core values” and an unlimited national missile defense fund. There is both good and bad in the pledge and a lot of omission, among which...

The nation’s fourth-largest home lender halts evictions of homeowners in 23 states this week. Seems like someone forgot to actually read the paperwork! In a related story, no one on the face of the earth has ever read an entire software licensing agreement before initialing. Ethicists and theologians speculate if engaging in the forced practice of initialing is actually immoral. Particularly when people...

With these two sentences, Missouri’s state lawmakers have appointed themselves to the position of guardians of the mind of God:

Yes, and the actual term is kidnapped children, not ‘child soldiers’… it’s kidnapped children forced by gunpoint from their families and forced to serve evil or else die if they try to run away. Hanging, and skinning the children who try to flee, burning them and hanging their remains to terrify human beings, is the favored act. It’s everywhere, Taliban, Somalia, Kenya, anywhere...

Even the bedbug infestation: conservatives blame it on environmental regulation. I’m waiting for Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich to now somehow tie this into plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero. (Don’t laugh. The absurd is now our reality.)

I cannot speak for 9-11 survivors for I am not one. I am only a walker. A person who walks with people on the way back from hell. I can only give you my understanding of those whose staggering gait I know deeply. I’ve been a post-trauma specialist and psychoanalyst for forty years. I’ve worked with 9-11 survivor families, individuals and first responders from New York and New Jersey who survived...

ACT GREAT by the Persian poet Muhammad Hafez What is the key To untie the knot of your mind’s suffering? What is the ‘secret’ secret To slay the crazed one whom each of us Did wed And who can ruin Our heart’s and eye’s exquisitely tender Landscape? Hafez has found Two emerald words that Restored Me That I now cling to these two words as I would cling to the sacred tresses of my Beloved’s...

A new survey shows that 34 percent of Americans take a daily snooze, setting off lively debate about the benefits to body and mind of a brief break from the pace of digital life. Another study suggests that “an hour’s nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power…it not only refreshes the mind but can make you smarter.” “Almost certainly,” says a research psychologist,...

The above is the title of a superb piece my Liberty Street co-blogger (and dear, cherished friend) Chief has posted there earlier today. It’s well-worth reading in full.

Laying down to catch the sun… These children from age infant to 13 years old were killed during a holiday party, which was held during a bitter labor strike by their parents who were copper miners in Michigan. The miners had been on strike for five months to gain more than $3.50 per day wages, lowering of 10 hours a day required work in a crouch, and to gain more safety inside the mines for the workers....

The Koch brothers are all the news, David and Charles… along with what some call their ‘libertarian’ based outpouring of money so much of which is ‘heavily weighted giving’ to protect their own business interests: oil, lumber, formaldehyde. Well, they earned it. They can give it to whom they wish. Within the law. But some choices seem puzzling. And I dont mean the amounts of sugar...

Could it be that India – with American backing and Afghan connivance – has engineered the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history? And to what end? Most would call it a conspiracy theory, but columnist Ahmed Quraishi of Pakistan’s Pak Tribune is dead serious as he outlines how India, by opening up dams it controls up-river from Pakistan, is intentionally causing flooding that has affected...

Hello there, Dr. E. here. We no longer call people ‘crip’ unless a person nicknamed themselves that… we no longer call people ‘that poor crippled person’ … and until we find a better phrase, we say people who need accommodations to have full access to life, ‘people with special needs.’ I’m one of the Commissioners for the first Special Needs District of...