At the time of his retirement in 2010, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court John Paul Stevens was the oldest Justice then serving and the second-oldest serving in the history of the Court. This excerpt, from his latest book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution first appearing in The Washington Post (Apr. 11), offers both clarity and context...

Two headlines; two very different perspectives. The Wall Street Journal:“High Court Ends Limit on Donations” The New York Times:“Supreme Cour Strikes Down Political Donation Cap” In a decision that builds on the 2010 Citizens United case, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision on Wednesday, ruled that placing limits on the total amount of money individuals can donate to political candidates,...

Hold on folks, we’re about to enter The Corporate Zone – that bizzaro world where upholding the law and common sense go to die. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, corporations are not only people entitled to as much free speech as money can buy, but may soon be able to claim that their religious beliefs can determine what...

Last year, NBC News reported that America’s teenagers scoredbelow the international average in math, and only average in science based on a report from a 2012 Program for International Student Assessment. Fortunately, 1,700 science students from around the country did not have time to pay much attention to the study. Each year since 1998, Intel, the computer chip corporation sponsors the Intel Science...

And the Gold medal for keeping the U.S. from another default goes to… House and Senate Republicans for voting for a “clean” debt bill! “The vote to suspend the debt ceiling until mid-March 2015,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Feb. 13), “with no policy measures attached – shows how the House G.O.P. has changed after three bruising years of budget brinkmanship, capped...

Earlier this month, I revisited the case of NSA leaker Edward Snowden. At the time, I wrote, “There is a very real problem… when factual information is incomplete because a story is still evolving…” I thought I’d take a look at some past stories that were, initially, major political and media firestorms, but facts later proved them to be less...

Loveable Duck Dynasty graybeard Phil Robertson has had his “indefinite suspension”… suspended! After Robertson came out in a GQ interview describing homosexual acts in crude terms and labeled it sin, A&E officials suspended him “indefinitely” after the patriarch’s comments embarrassed the cable channel, sponsors and offended much of the L.G.B.T. community. Upon hearing of the suspension, the remaining “cast members” of the Dynasty clan,...

The last time I remember a miracle of this magnitude happening it was 1969. Dubbed the “Miracle Mets,” the New York ballclub never finished higher than ninth place (in a ten-team league) in their first seven seasons. With help from the gods, the Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series in an astonishing five games! The gods must be in...

At the height of the government shutdown last month, during all the fuss and furry, three Republican Senators – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Kelly Ayotte brokered a deal that returned common sense, civility and bipartisanship to Washington. Along with 17 other female Democrat and Republican colleagues, Ayotte, Murkowski and Collins put service ahead of agenda to reopen the government....

John Zogby is a friend and colleague who does a lot of homework when it comes to issues and individuals that matter. Founder of the Zogby Poll, he has accurately predicted several presidential races. His analytical expertise can be found on the opinion pages of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. However, what I appreciate most about John...