AnnotatedOpinions.com

Bicoastal constitutional conundrum: California has what New York wants; New York is trying to throw out what California craves. Is it a case of the grass is greener, or are there lessons to be learned here? [LA Times]

Defer pay and disclose salaries at bailed-out Wall Street firms: If another wealth-destroying financial bubble is to be avoided, the system that rewards short-term windfalls at the expense of long-term financial soundness must be changed. [Boston Globe]

By dodging tough choices, Congress invites failure: Opportunism, cowardice threaten historic reform opportunity. [USA Today]

Cover Health Care With a Tax: Deficits will grow unless taxes increase. [Washington Post]

Strike the ban on violent images: A 1999 federal law that bans the creation, sale, and ownership of depictions of violence against animals is overly broad in that it can be used to criminalize all portrayals of illegal animal cruelty — even those that help expose its horrors. [Boston Globe]

Truth in Advertising, Offline or Online: The F.T.C. must continue to closely monitor online advertising and endorsements, but regulators should focus enforcement on the advertising companies rather than individuals. [New York Times]

A Losing Slogan: “I’m With the Taliban Against America” is not likely to do much for Republicans. [Washington Post]

Nobel dust-up not aimed at making peace [Chicago Tribune]

Obama Peace Prize not without merit [USA Today]

Preventing Age Discrimination: Congress must undo the damage done to age discrimination law by a recent Supreme Court ruling, and put the standards for proving such cases back on a level with other bias cases. [New York Times]

U.N. shifts strategy for nuclear arms control: The emphasis used to be on containing the information needed to build a bomb. Now the focus will be on restricting the materials necessary to make a weapon. [LA Times]

Isn’t Good Sense Part of the Curriculum? Over the last 10 years or so, legitimate concern for the safety of children in school has too often led to poorly thought out, rigidly implemented policies that do more harm than good. [New York Times]

Turkey and Armenia: reconciling history – The two countries must get beyond the 1915-1918 genocide because it’s in both of their interests. [LA Times]

Saving the Last Lions: Big cats are in trouble everywhere, and the biggest threat is our own complacency. [Washington Post] 

Edward Moore Kennedy, 1932-2009

• Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009 [Boston Globe]
• Senator Edward Kennedy: Mr. Kennedy, a master legislator of the modern Senate, insisted that politics be grasped through the prism of human needs. [New York Times]
• The Burden He Carried: Life took Ted Kennedy from being his father’s youngest son to his very own man. [Washington Post]
• The future of Kennedy liberalism: The only way liberalism can die without a Kennedy in the Senate is for Americans to abandon the idea that an active government is in their best interest. That is unlikely to happen. [Boston Globe]
• Kennedy and Chicago [Chicago Tribune]
• A man and a myth: In death, Ted Kennedy will be idealized, his accomplishments lionized, his weaknesses glossed over. If it can happen to Michael Jackson, a mere king of pop, it will surely happen to the last son of Camelot. [Boston Globe]
• Kennedy’s long legacy: The passing of Sen. Edward Moore “Teddy” Kennedy has silenced the greatest liberal voice of the past 50 years and drawn the curtain on an epic generation of a political dynasty. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• The Master Collaborator: Kennedy’s legislative record reflected hard work, bipartisanship and canny hiring. [Washington Post]
• Edward Kennedy: Senate lion/lightning rod The Senate lion/lightning rod fought the good liberal fight with amiable gusto. [Houston Chronicle]
• A virtuoso of American politics: Though Ted Kennedy forever lived in the shadows of his sainted brothers, his legislative accomplishments eclipsed them both. [USA Today]
• He made rights real: As one African-American woman, a former educator, said to me yesterday , “I’m not so sure that the other Kennedy brothers ‘got it’ right here’’ – she pointed to her heart – “about civil rights. Ted Kennedy did. [Boston Globe]
• ‘The country’s conscience’ [USA Today]
• An Accomplished Sequel: Kennedy went from a man of minor missions to the most consequential of the brothers. [Washington Post]
• ‘A publicly moral man’ [USA Today]
• Ted Kennedy’s milestones and missteps: Editorial: The senator leaves a deeper imprint than most presidents, even if tragedies temper his triumphs. [LA Times]
• The Lion Cub of the Senate: Edward Kennedy demonstrated an early grasp of what the Senate required to get things done. [New York Times]
• Goodbye to a Senate giant, my friend, my colleague: Ted Kennedy was a true American icon. [USA Today]
• The true believer: By my lights, Ted Kennedy was wrong about most of the great issues of our time. Yet I have always admired the power and sincerity with which Kennedy pressed his views. [Boston Globe]
• Nation loses fierce partisan who found common ground [USA Today]
• Fighter for civil rights [USA Today]
• The Kennedy Paradox: His own suffering and mistakes led to a humility that made Kennedy a rarity in politics. [Washington Post]
• A champion of causes [USA Today]
• Edward Kennedy: The legacy of a conviction politician. [The Wall Street Journal]

Nevada senseless war on California [LA Times]

Health care reform as a tribute to Edward Moore Kennedy? [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

California Is Failing the Prison Test: The time for ducking the  overcrowded prison problem has clearly passed, but a reform plan approved by the State Senate is in danger of being gutted in the Assembly. [New York Times]

Deficits and taxes: Ben Bernanke has a tough job ahead of him. [USA Today]

A vote for D.C.: Ridiculous wrangling over a gun-control amendment is keeping residents of the District of Columbia from getting a vote in Congress. [LA Times]

Metro: A Bill Comes Due: Among the issues for crash probers should be the price of insufficient revenue. [Washington Post]

Unraveling debate on health care [Chicago Tribune]

Health insurance for all U.S. children would be a bargain, study finds [Houston Chronicle]

Health-Care Deja Vu? There are some reasons for hoping we can avoid the Clintons’ 1993 debacle. [Washington Post]

Voting act lives, for now: The Supreme Court’s decision not to strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act was both a surprise and the best outcome possible. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

The Followers of Neda: A martyred woman symbolizes Iran’s first wave of change and pathway to revolution. [Washington Post]

Court muddies water act [USA Today]

Graduation Dreams: The Dream Act, a bill that would offer citizenship to undocumented high school graduates who completed two years of
college or military service, has languished in Congress for too long. [New York Times]

Saving our forests will reduce global warming [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Obama is right to not saber-rattle on Iran [Chicago Tribune]

Obama’s hitting the exact right note on Iran: Calling for regime change would probably backfire, but condemning the crackdown encourages dissidents while not interfering with internal politics. [LA Times]

A new North Korea strategy: With China’s hand — and U.S. support — Pyongyang could be brought to its knees and given a choice: Watch your economy collapse or give up your nuclear weapons. [USA
Today]

Real Consumer Protection: The Obama administration’s proposal to create a new agency that focuses directly on protecting consumers
from deceptive mortgage practices deserves support in Congress. [New York Times]

Tyranny’s new nightmare: Twitter: As new media spreads its Web worldwide, authoritarians like those in Iran will have a difficult time
maintaining absolute control in the face of the technology’s chaotic
democracy. [LA Times]

Religious freedom unkept vow in U.S. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Paycheck Fairness: President Obama should help push through a bill stalled in Congress aimed at combating gender-based wage discrimination. [New York Times]

New life for fisheries in New England [Boston Globe]

California has to lean harder on Obama: Why aren’t the state’s leaders fighting for real help from the feds? [LA Times]

Health Care Showdown: American voters are ready to change the ailing health care system, and “centrist” Democrats who oppose the public option run the risk of undermining effective reform. [New York Times]

Market won’t fix Rx care [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Good health isn’t cheap: In the last week, a daunting prospect arose for the nation’s troubled health-care system – namely, that it’s too expensive to keep running as is, yet also may be too costly to fix. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Obama’s Iran Dilemma: America’s bottom line must be: no matter how committed we are to negotiation, we are also committed to democracy. [Washington Post]

Financial hall monitors: Since taxpayers are spending so much to stabilize the nation’s financial system, they deserve a regulatory
overhaul that protects them from this kind of failure happening again. [Boston Globe]

Obama Is Right on Iran: Critics suffer from the illusion that the U.S. can have a decisive influence on Iran’s political evolution. [Washington Post]

How to Trust Electronic Voting: Congress should pass a bill introduced by Representative Rush Holt that would ban paperless electronic voting in all federal elections. [New York Times]

Striking right balance on Iran [Chicago Tribune]

Diagnosing the problem: There is fundamental agreement about what needs to be fixed: rising costs, questionable quality of care, and holes in coverage. [LA Times]

Ending a Shell game: Shell Oil settles a public health and environmental lawsuit with the beleaguered people of Nigeria, signaling a welcome end to corporate impunity in the developing world. [Boston Globe]

Ocean Rescue: A well-managed American fisheries system, modeled on the market-based “catch shares” approach, would help address overfishing at home and serve as a global standard. [New York Times]

Super Barack to everyone’s rescue [Chicago Tribune]

The big constitutional convention question: Who’s going to fix California? We could appoint delegates or elect them, but just randomly selecting them might be the most promising idea. [LA Times]

More than mere lunacy: When James Wenneker von Brunn murdered Stephen T. Johns at the Holocaust Memorial Museum earlier this month, history was less made than revealed. [Boston Globe]

Bulldozing our cities may wreck our future: Back-to-nature plans may make financial sense, but are they in society’s best interest? [LA Times] 

Iran election letdown: Sometimes you want something so badly that you convince yourself it is within your grasp even when, in truth, it remains elusive. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Ahmadinejad’s coup d’etat: Obama’s offer to negotiate with the Islamic republic must stand, even if Ahmadinejad remains as president.
The nuclear issue is that important. [Boston Globe]

What now on Iran? Though the validity of its presidential election is in doubt, a hard-line stance by the U.S. seems counterproductive. [LA
Times]

 Iran’s leaders caught in storm they created [Chicago Tribune]

What Do Iranians Want? We can’t know precisely what different parts of the society think. [Washington Post]

Obama’s choice is not to choose on Iran [LA Times]

A Bad Call on Gay Rights: In the presidential campaign, President Obama declared that he would work to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. Now, the administration appears to be defending it. [New York Times]

In regulating tobacco, Congress overcomes industry’s pack of lies [Houston Chronicle]

Texting is not talking: The communication method du jour has a downside for teenagers — and not just for their thumbs and their parents’ wallets. [Boston Globe]

The permanent recession: It’s no secret that America’s educational system doesn’t stack up well with the rest of the world. What’s not as front and center is that this underachieving has a dramatic economic toll, too. [USA Today]

Freedom on a small island with a big heart [Boston Globe]

Climate Trap: If China and the United States cannot agree on a common climate change strategy, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are likely to reach potentially disastrous levels. [New York
Times]

When diabetics would prefer AIDS [Boston Globe]

Curing cancer is within our grasp [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

A Prop. 8 win-win: By substituting ‘civil union’ for ‘marriage’ in state law, both sides could live happily ever after. [LA Times]

The Publishing Judge: The deterrent value of Judge Ricardo M. Urbina’s approach of sentencing the guilty to write books is questionable. [New York Times]

The Return of Capitalism: It’s the most productive economic engine we’ve yet invented — despite the flaws. [Washington
Post]

Some ‘Radical’ If Sonia Sotomayor has an activist agenda, her judicial record is hiding it well. [Washington Post]

The Peril of ‘Buy American’: A provision in the stimulus bill to ensure that taxpayer dollars would be used exclusively to support American jobs could make the global recession worse. [New York Times]

Obama’s Egyptian conundrum: President Obama’s speech in Egypt on Thursday might well be his trickiest yet. [USA Today]

A reprise of ‘Liar Liar’ and the audio recording: Burris’ stint as an Illinois senator should be a short one [Chicago Tribune]

The choice on abortion: rhetorical recklessness or civil expression [LA Times]

F.D.A.’s Secret Files: Greater transparency about how drugs and medical devices are approved will help doctors and consumers understand the risks they face [New York Times]

A Healthy Tax: Taxing drinks loaded with sugar is the right step toward fighting the obesity epidemic. [New York Times]

Watchwords in California’s budget mess: As they deal with the crisis, Republicans should think about San Francisco, 35% and Winston Churchill. Democrats should remember the Golden Rule and Harry Truman. [LA Times]

Judge Sonia Sotomayor

• Right goes berserk over Judge Sonia [Chicago Tribune]
• The complete package: Obama’s top court pick combines sterling credentials and uplifting life story [Houston Chronicle]
• Sotomayor the Centrist: Liberals should support Obama’s nominee, but she’s not one of their own. [Washington Post]
• The Republicans’ Choice: Sonia Sotomayor gives the GOP a chance show it is not narrow-minded. [Washington Post]

Crazy Compensation and the Crisis: We’re all paying now because skewed financial incentives led to too many big bets. [Wall Street Journal]

When Sallie Met Barack: The student loan system is a mess. Why doesn’t the government cut out the middlemen and just lend the money out itself? [New York Times]

Cheney’s Chutzpah: It’s worth reviewing his faulty arguments because there are so many. [Washington Post]

Do race and gender matter for the Supreme Court? A debate [LA Times]

North Korea Tests: Diplomacy — backed by stiff sanctions — is the only hope for walking North Korea back from the brink. [New York Times]

Dangerous dilemma: North Korea’s nuclear testing must bring a swift, firm global response [Houston Chronicle]

When Politicians Talk in Private: Only in Illinois might a politician like Senator Roland Burris claim a clean bill of health from a wiretap that flatly contradicts his initial claim under oath of a clean bill of health. [New York Times]

Don’t fear the truth: Talking Truth Commissions [USA Today]

How California Went Bust: Today’s misery is the work of the proto-Reaganites behind Proposition 13. [Washington Post]

Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal: Liberals and conservatives don’t just think differently, they also feel differently. [New York Times]

All you ever wanted to know about Judge Sotomayor

• Sotomayor’s critics have their work cut out for them [Chicago Tribune]
• Sotomayor, a sound choice [LA Times]
• Sonia’s supreme success [New York Daily News]
• The New Justice [New York Times]
• Every Justice Creates a New Court [New York Times]
• Sotomayor breaks ground, brings ‘life lessons’ debate [USA Today]
• Sotomayor’s Strengths: She’s not a flaming liberal or an intellectual lightweight. [Washington Post]

California’s Prop 8

• California court’s contradictory Prop. 8 decision [LA Times]
• Prop. 8 fight is not over [LA Times]
• A Setback for Equality [New York Times]

The GOP’s Feigned Outrage It takes chutzpah to protest what you’ve created. [Wall Street Journal]

The rough road to the Supreme Court: Since the ’60s, most nominees have had to run a harrowing political gantlet in the Senate. [LA Times]

North Korea’s nuclear testing must bring a swift, firm global response [Houston Chronicle]

Court, cameras, action! Souter’s departure could clear the way for?far more transparency at the Supreme Court [USA Today]

No Victory in Sri Lanka: We support the call for an international investigation into possible war crimes committed by both sides in the country’s civil war. [New York Times]

Obama at Notre Dame: He gave the most radical and conservative speech of his presidency. [Washington Post]

36 Percent Is High Enough: Congress should restore consumer protections by setting a reasonable federal ceiling on interest rates and allowing states to adopt stricter limits if they want to. [New York Times]

Going after the lawyers: Why we should not go after Bybee and Yoo [Chicago Tribune]

Contest of Wills: Will today’s meeting between Obama and Netanyahu inaugurate an era of negotiation and detente, or of deepening conflict, in the Middle East? [Washington Post]

Can Obama meet Netanyahu’s challenge? The Israeli prime minister frustrated President Clinton’s peace efforts; the new president must do better. [LA Times]

Our dark side: Jack Bauer’s America [Chicago Tribune]

The Perfect, the Good, the Planet: The climate change legislation now on the table isn’t the bill we’d ideally want, but it’s vastly better than no bill at all. [New York Times]

Pelosi’s torture predicament: The House speaker’s changing stories on Bush administration briefings on the subject raise more questions than they answer. [LA Times]

Dropout Factories: By focusing on remaking a small number of troubled high schools, the country stands a good chance of keeping in school millions of students who would otherwise drop out. [New York Times]

California’s democracy overload: We’re being asked to vote too often on too many issues that we’re too unqualified to evaluate. [LA Times]

Imagine a Midwest where the arts are compromised. What kind of a life is that? [Chicago Tribune]

Depression Obsession: Renewed interest in the Great Depression is natural — but don’t stretch parallels. [Washington Post]

Erin Go Broke: The lesson of Ireland is that you really, really don’t want to put yourself in a position where you have to punish your economy in order to save your banks. [New York Times]

Obama and the ‘Amnesty’ Trap [Wall Street Journal]

Unreasonable Search: The strip-search of Savana Redding at an Arizona middle school was unnecessary, humiliating and clearly unreasonable. [New York Times] Or maybe not. [Washington Post]

California’s proposed Low Carbon Fuel Standard: It isn’t perfect, but it’s an ambitious and worthy effort. [LA Times]

A World of Problems: What happens when the president can no longer blame Bush for international strife? [Washington Post]

The doctrine of r-e-s-p-e-c-t. [USA Today]

A Real Problem, Here: President Obama should build on the Bush administration’s legacy of fighting AIDS abroad while also shrinking the size of this country’s epidemic. [New York Times]

In decade after Columbine, schools adopt its lessons [USA Today]

Burma Needs Obama: America’s moral leadership is needed now to deal with Burma’s brutal dictatorship. [Washington Post]