The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case today on whether Pleasant Grove City, Utah, violated free speech rights and the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The city allowed a national group to place a Ten Commandments display in a city park but then denied another religious group from placing its own historical display. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that the city was free to ban all displays if it wanted to, but that once it decided to allow the Ten Commandments it had no right to bar the other display. Do you agree?
The Republican base loves Sarah Palin. Independents concluded she wasn’t ready. This flaw can be overcome with time and useful experience.
And there is really no deadline for her interest in national office. Palin is a strikingly young 44 years old. You’re going to hear a lot of buzz about her as a 2012 candidate, but I don’t think that she needs to run in four years. I don’t think that love from the Republican base is going to dissipate. She stepped up to the plate and hit the ball as far as she could this time around, and for about two weeks, she helped achieve the near-impossible: putting McCain ahead in a Democratic year.
- Jim Geraghty, National Review Online
Throughout the entirety of American history, only three losing vice presidential candidates have managed to ever come back and win their parties’ nomination. Many of the losing running mates have discovered that the country is not kind to a loser. Some of the failed candidates, such as Joe Lieberman, Edmund Muskie and John Edwards, made disappointing bids for the presidency in the next election. Others never again succeeded in capturing elective or appointive office.
Palin may be trying to lay the groundwork for 2012, but she should realize that building a campaign based on a losing vice presidential run is a weak place to start.
- Joshua Spivak, MarketWatch.com
It’s good that Barack Obama’s advisers are already working on plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. The detention facility and the legal limbo of its detainees have undermined the United State’s human-rights standing. But closing the facility — which Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have also reportedly supported — is complicated. The Obama team must decide what to do with the detainees and how and where to try some of them. But closing the facility will send a powerful message of change to the world.
Why is this not surprising? Nineteen banks receiving taxpayer bailouts spent $32.4 million lobbying the federal government during the first nine months of this year, USA Today reported. Combined, these banks are receiving $159 billion in bailout aid. And they have no plans to stop lobbying. But as Kathleen Day of the Center for Responsible Lending noted: “It’s ridiculous that the perpetrators of this mess should be the people dictating to Congress how to get out of it.”
Maybe people who gave big money to Barack Obama’s campaign aren’t calling the shots as he prepares to take the oath, but some of the people who raised big money certainly are: Six of the 15 people on his transition team were top fundraisers, bringing in more than $1.4 million for the campaign. Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said transition members “were chosen based on their skills, ability and expertise.” Obama’s not breaking new ground by turning to such players in his victory: According to the group Public Citizen, about one in five big fundraisers for the Bush campaign landed jobs in the Bush administration.
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case today on whether Pleasant Grove City, Utah, violated free speech rights and the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The city allowed a national group to place a Ten Commandments display in a city park but then denied another religious group from placing its own historical display. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that the city was free to ban all displays if it wanted to, but that once it decided to allow the Ten Commandments it had no right to bar the other display. Do you agree?
