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A book made up of Supreme Court opinions, even those as entertainingly written as Justice Antonin Scalia's, seems at first blush to be an odd idea. Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice (published by Regnery, a sister company of HUMAN EVENTS) provides plenty of great lines, but to understand and appreciate them requires context, and the context is, well, arguments among lawyers, with all the tedium that implies. And yet, while the ideal reader of this book may be a conservative law student or pre-law student hungry to know what it's all about, there is...

The 2004 election brought significant turnover in the United States Senate. What will the Senate election mean for taxpayers? Because most of the incoming Senators have previous service in the House of Representatives, a comparison can be made of the fiscal records of the outgoing Senators and most of the new Senators.To undertake the analysis, this Issue Brief utilizes the most recent National Taxpayers Union (NTU) Rates Congress grades for outgoing and incoming Senators. Of course, 2003 grades were available for all nine outgoing Senators. Grades were available for six of the nine incoming Senators (Senator-elect Obama (IL), Senator-elect Salazar...

What should be the role of the Federal Government in promoting mental health? This topic will be debated increasingly within the coming year. The presidentially appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a report in July 2003 urging enactment of widespread screening for children to identify and treat mental illnesses. Defenders of constitutional liberties have good reason to be very skeptical of at least one objective.The report in Recommendation 4.2 states: "The key to improving academic achievement is to identify mental health problems early and, when needed, provide appropriate services or links to services. The extent, severity, and far-reaching...

TESTIMONY OF PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY Phyllis Schlafly Bio, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, EAGLE FORUMMrs. SCHLAFLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. The assault on the Defense of Marriage Act has already begun. A lawsuit claiming that the Federal DOMA violates the U.S. Constitution was filed last month in Federal district court in Miami. A similar case claiming that a State DOMA violates the U.S. Constitution is pending in Federal district court in Nebraska, where a Clinton-appointed Federal judge ruled that the case can proceed to trial. The very idea that unelected, unaccountable judges could nullify both other branches of...

The subject of this hearing is the power of Congress over the jurisdiction of lower federal courts and its power over the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. This issue arises in the context of H.R. 3313, which provides: 'No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 1738c of this title or of this section. Neither the Supreme Court nor any court created by Act of Congress shall have any appellate jurisdiction to hear or determine...

House Of Representatives One Hundred Eighth Congress Second SessionSerial No. 92Testimony Of Martin H. Redish, Louis And Harriet Ancel Professor Of Law And Public Policy, Northwestern Law SchoolProfessor Redish is a nationally renowned authority on the subject of Federal jurisdiction. He received his A.B. With honors, with highest honors, in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. Magna cum laude from Harvard law school. He has been described in a review of his book, The Federal Courts in the Political Order, as quote, ''without a doubt the foremost scholar on issues of Federal court jurisdiction in this...

Some conservative groups expressed dismay Tuesday over President Bush’s tolerance of state-sanctioned civil unions between gay people — laws that would grant same-sex partners most or all the rights available to married couples."I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do so," Bush said in an interview aired Tuesday on ABC. Bush acknowledged that his position put him at odds with the Republican platform, which opposes civil unions."Civil unions are a government endorsement of homosexuality," said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute….

Critics of the home-schooling movement continue to snipe at parents who teach their children at home, portraying them as paranoid radicals and, now, potential terrorists. If you can’t beat ’em, smear ’em. Apparently that is the approach adopted by critics of home schooling. One such disturbing example of a smear on the credibility of home-schoolers came in the form of the February 17, 2004 episode of NBC’s Law and Order — Special Victims Unit.In that episode, the criminal, a home-schooling mother, was shown to be a controlling, paranoid, mentally abusive woman who convinced her older son to kill his younger...

Pro aborts say that they want abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare." Pro-lifers vehemently disagree.Abortion, pro-lifers say, can never be safe, certainly not to the child. Nor, they claim, are they safe for the mother, citing the growing literature, demonstrating that even the so-called "medically safe" abortion is dangerous to the mother.Abortion, they vigorously contend, cannot be legal. It is, they assert, murder and contrary to the nation's charter commitment that all human beings are equal and entitled to the inalienable right to life. No court and no legislature can change that.Finally, abortion, they state, will never be rare,...

WASHINGTON – A few minutes into the oral argument over the juvenile death penalty last week at the US Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy posed a question. He wondered whether significant international opposition to juvenile executions should influence how an American justice interprets the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. "Does that have a bearing on what is unusual?" Justice Kennedy askedThe query was aimed at a government lawyer, but it could have just as well been directed to the court itself.How the court approaches Kennedy's question is important for two reasons. First, it highlights an emerging trend on...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- An independent study by an ethics professor at Fuller Theological Seminary who is also trained in statistical analysis finds that, contrary to popular assumption, abortion has risen in the U.S. during George W. Bush's presidency and that the increase is linked to economic policy."Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed," said Glen Stassen, Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical divinity school. Citing connections to rising unemployment and soaring healthcare costs, Stassen noted that "economic policy and abortion are not separate...

HR 4118 IH 108th CONGRESS2d SessionH. R. 4118To ensure that the courts interpret the Constitution in the manner that the Framers intended. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESApril 1, 2004 Mr. PAUL (for himself and Mrs. MUSGRAVE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary A BILLTo ensure that the courts interpret the Constitution in the manner that the Framers intended. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the `American Justice for Americans Citizens...

Another Superman is dead. Not the Superman of my childhood, George Reeves, who was found shot dead by a German Luger in 1959. Although there was no note or other indication that Reeves had killed himself, the police ruled it a suicide. The actor, too identified with his TV role, had become depressed over his inability to find work. It was a sad end for an actor who 20 years earlier had made a tiny splash as one of the charming Tarleton twins courting Scarlet O’Hara. I was fourteen, and my friends and I thought it was funny. Superman killed...

There's no question whom Richard Viguerie wants to see in the White House for the next four years. A founding father of the modern conservative movement, he is foursquare behind President Bush despite what he regards as undue influence from one wing of the GOP, the neoconservatives. In this, Viguerie reflects a hallowed Republican Party tradition: Mute policy differences and unite at election time.But for Viguerie and other conservative leaders, maintaining that discipline this year is harder than usual. The Republicans' united front masks a growing struggle sparked by the president's hawkish and ambitious foreign policy--one that may burst into...

The National Council of Churches recently published "Christian Principles in an Election Year," which identifies "ten non-partisan, biblically based guidelines" for voters in this election year. What are the ten areas of concern? War/conflict, urban decay/poverty, foreign policy, economic justice, racial justice, environmental justice, immigration, health care, and criminal justice. The non-partisan guide makes no mention of "gay marriage" or sanctity of life issues such as abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, or euthanasia.A recent editorial in a conservative Christian magazine did a little better in this regard, but still missed an important opportunity to uphold the Christian tradition. It addressed the...

A certain sort of politician is most annoying when he stands up straight, squares his shoulders, looks out into the distance, and starts lecturing his critics on the separation of church and state and declaring, with the tone of a man giving up a fortune to keep his integrity, that he cannot and will not Impose His Values Upon Others. He is far less a defender of American pluralism than he is a man profoundly ignorant of his calling as a legislator, and a man promoting an intellectual confusion destructive of our common life."I don’t tell church officials what to...

Five ordained clergymen and a deacon visited a public high school in 2002 to teach the student body what the Bible says about homosexuality.Was this a Hallelujah moment?A federal judge this month found that authorities at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, knowingly violated a Christian student's constitutional rights in their zeal to promote the homosexual agenda.Four ministers, a rabbi, and a deacon, as part of the school's annual "Diversity Week," taught the student body that the Bible condones and blesses homosexual activity.Honors student Betsy Hansen, now a college student, tried to speak up for the orthodox Biblical position...

Federal spending has leaped 25 percent since 2001, exceeding $20,000 per household (See Chart 1). Frustrated taxpayers are seeking ways to protect their family budgets from the federal budget. These taxpayers should look to Colorado.In 1992, Colorado citizens revolted against their free-spending lawmakers by petitioning for a referendum to limit the growth of state government to the inflation rate plus the population growth rate. Voters quickly approved the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), ushering in a new era of fiscal responsibility and economic growth. Over the next decade, spending was reined in, taxes plummeted, and the Colorado economy became the...

David Frum tells us that "[w]ar is a great clarifier" because it "forces people to choose sides." It certainly does. For example, it forced us to team up with Joe Stalin in 1941. War forced the U.S. to side with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and the Saudi royal family in the 1990s. Let's not forget that great clarifying moment when the Cold War forced us to fund Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.In the same way, our war against Iraq created political alliances domestically that may have been unnatural, and which now may be falling apart. Specifically, some moderate-to-liberal hawks...

After four years of the largest growth in entitlement and non-defense discretionary spending in over a half-century, conservatives have become disheartened. They now doubt America can ever return to the Founders' and Ronald Reagan's ideal of limiting national government involvement in peoples' lives, so that private citizens and communities can set their own destinies rather than bureaucrats. That this explosion of government took place under a Republican president and Congress seems to end hope for the future, a despair that has been measurable from our readers over the past year.Is there no hope? There has been one positive effect from...