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It has happened before- the issues and the tactics. This article is from the Washington Post March 10, 1985. The 2016, 2020, and 2024 US campaign for president most resembles the 1952 campaign between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. In that campaign Senators Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and Senator Jenner of Indiana made unfounded statements and criticism of of candidate Adlai Stevenson, of Gen. George Marshall, of NATO and aid to war ravaged Europe under the Marshall plan, and by 1958 of Eisenhower for "ruining the party," according to the Washington Post. Edward Jenner, Senator from Indiana 1952-1958, conducted Senate hearings in which he made spectacular criticism of public figures and US policy from 1953 to 1955. Eisenhower was elected as president in 1952 and after considering running as an Independent reluctantly accepted when New York Governor Dewey asked him to do on the Republican party ticket. What is similar is that the issues and tactics used now are reminiscent of issues and tactics in those days in the 1950's, that this is not happening for the first time- it is not new. Both Senator Taft who headed the Republican party at the time and president Eisenhower felt uneasy about this type of criticism. Then as today it was about aid to Europe and NATO. Jenner said America could not afford it and it "would bankrupt America." Jenner also called the US Supreme Court "the most powerful instrument of the communist global conquest by paralysis," and introduced a bill to limit the SC jurisdiction. Jenner said in 1951 on the Senate floor, according to the Washington Post-  "the only choice is to impeach Truman," as "this country is in the hands of a secret inner coterie directed by agents of the Soviet Union." Today's differences are not new, the rhetoric familiar, about NATO, Europe funding, about the SC, about this and the former president, and about isolationism and about extended costly foreign wars, all after a pandemic and climate change in an uneasy atmosphere about the threats to American leadership then from the Soviets now from China. ...

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State based exchanges in New Mexico, Oregon and other states have experienced difficulties setting up and running the exchanges. Many states have turned to the federal government to operate the exchanges.

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George Will points to the most important aspect of Scalia's legacy, that of putting down court opinions mostly in the minority, that could shape decisions by the court in the future. He says Scalia has provided a new generation of students of the law with the basis of future interpretations of the constitution, including chapters of the Federalist Society.

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Pearlstein quotes Dickens in "Oliver Twist," about the law being an ass, and the constitutional law exercize in the Supreme Court of the U.S. giving a sense of a failure of the so-called best and brightest in reasoning out the issues. He points out that a serious problem is that American business which is burdened with high health care costs for employees is seriously missing in this debate after years of complaining about high costs. The National Federation of Independent Businesses is actually one of the plaintiffs questioning the constitutionality of the Obama health care law. Pearlstein says business wanted an end to the fee-for-service medicine that increases consumption of medical services and pushes up cost relentlessly, and that Obama's health care law does this. This is not the case as both Democrats and Republican administrations have failed to resolve this side of the cost issue, and this is the hidden reason for the loss of credibility for both sides in this debate, leaving health care problems to be resolved in future administrations. ...

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Total public and private spending on health care in the U.S. will increase by 6.1% in 2014 compared to 2014 in a revised Commerce Department forecast. The total spending will reach $4.1 trillion in 2014 from $3.9 trillion in 2013. Some of the lower rise in spending than the earlier 7.4% forecast will come from 28 states opting out of Medicaid expansion under the health care overhaul because of a June 2012 Supreme Court ruling. Employers are trying to reduce costs and the public is reducing spending because of the recession. Less generous health plans mean users are paying more out of their own pocket, paying more attention to prices and even postponing care. Growth in health care costs is a about 3.9% a year since 2009 following the recession. The costs increase in 2015 by 5.8%, in 2018 by 5.9% and 2022 by 6.5%, according to U.S. government forecasts, because of enrollment in Medicare for baby boomers. This is still higher than the inflation rate of below 2%.

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Walter Berns, a Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University, describes the difficult situation Lincoln faced, and the different factions from Abolitionists who lost interest in the Union, to Southern slave holding states, and compromise promoting factions, which he had to navigate around to achieve his ultimate purpose. A purpose based on what the Bible and every human sense of right and wrong would say. After the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court stated that slavery was affirmed in the constitution, and there were efforts in the Senate in 1861 to continue with another compromise that allowed slavery to continue and expand in the south, and after secession of some states under his predecessor, Lincoln had to keep saying no to a compromise or any rejection of the union. Even after huge losses, and battle weariness of northern and southern states, Lincoln had to have that deep inner faith, a faith in Almighty God and his purpose for the Union, to reject peace negotiations with the southern states that conceded anything on slavery. ...

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Richard Fausset gives this exceptional account in NYT of the way Hispanics and Whites are coping with changes in a small Alabama town before and after president Obama's executive order on immigration in Nov. 2014.

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Sandra Day O'Connor always carried a copy of the US Constitution with her and worked to expand civic knowledge of the younger generation through iCivics from 2009 when she left the US Supreme Court after 25 years service. As she lies at the Supreme Court after her death at age 93, president Biden who was ranking member of the US Judiciary Committee when O'Connor was nominated in 1981, remembers her as "gracious and wise, civil and principled." Biden said: "One needed not agree with all of O'Connor's decisions to recognize that her principles were "deeply held and of the highest order, and that her desire for civility was genuine... She empowered generations of American women in every part of American life." 

 

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Madras High Court decides that it has no jurisdiction over whether Indian patent law violates WTO guidelines on intellectual property. Novartis had asked the Madras High Court to clarify this point. Indian patent law (2005 patent legislation) states that a drug qualifies for a patent only if it is a new invention or a significant improvement, not a new version of a drug from before 1995. The court upheld this. Novartis's modified version of Gleevec, a leukemia drug, was denied a patent by a Indian court. Was it right in doing so? The Madras High Court affirmed this decision, and it will not be appealed to the Supreme Court.

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Justice Kennedy's Sacramento roots and how this may have given him tolerance and respect for gay people.

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How a bauxite project in Orissa, India, goes all the way to the Supreme Court over environmental objections. The uneven distribution of benefits of industrialization and the protests as India industrializes.