AnnotatedOpinions.com

Two hot buttons: Senate and House bills limit coverage for illegal immigrants and abortion. But critics aren’t satisfied. [LA Times]

The Republican Health Plan: The Republican House bill is not reform: it does little to reduce the number of uninsured, and much of the savings on premiums comes from reduced coverage. [New York Times]

As medical costs take over government, Dems duck … [USA Today]

Italy got it right: CIA renditions are wrong – The conviction of 23 Americans in the abduction of Muslim cleric Abu Omar may be largely symbolic, but it sends an important message to the Obama administration. [LA Times]

A Bad Way to Spend Money: Extending the home buyer’s tax credit is wasteful; instead, Congress should help people avoid foreclosure. [New York Times]

A Honduras hijacked by ideology: How Senate Republicans could throw the country into chaos. [Washington Post]

Afghanistan’s forgotten class: After the fall of the Taliban, many Afghan women shed their burqas, opened schools, entered Parliament. [Boston Globe]

Beyond the Spin: Hope didn’t heal the divide: A year after Obama’s election, America’s racial rifts are deep and persistent. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

The vaccine screw-up [Chicago Tribune]

Corzine can blame himself: By Gabriel Gardner There seems to be a consensus developing in the media that this week’s election results suggest a national GOP resurgence. This fails to recognize that the result in New Jersey was actually due to Gov. Corzine’s shortcomings in office. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

GOP at war with itself: Re-education camps with Sarah Palin and Glen Beck? [Washington Post]

What Reagan was really trying to do at the Berlin Wall [LA Times]

Mistrial by Google: Increasingly, courts have had to warn jurors that blogging or searching the Web during trial jeopardizes the very foundations of the judicial system. [Boston Globe]

Tribal Chiefs and the President: President Obama has taken important steps to address the economic and social problems facing American Indians. [New York Times]

Here’s what’s wrong with World Series: It’s still our greatest sports spectacular. But the World Series needs some fixing. So do the American and National League playoffs that lead up to it. [USA Today]

Our heroes, this day and the year-round [USA Today]

Privacy and the Patriot Act: In the aftermath of 9/11, legislators cut legal corners to protect the nation. Congress should amend that now by revising certain expiring provisions of the law. [LA Times]  

Government helps keep consumers safe [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]  

Cheney: Whatever possessed him? The former vice president’s comments only help Obama politically — so much so that one wonders what’s inside Cheney’s head. [Boston Globe]  

Smoking out e-cigarettes: Forget industry protests; the FDA should be regulating the new product. [LA Times]  

The Cover-Up Continues: To ensure that the abuses of the Bush years are never repeated, the Obama administration should stop covering up the painful truths. [New York Times]  

The ticking time bomb on warming: The blur of details and fog of ideological attacks can obscure the truly essential in the current congressional debate about legislation to confront global warming while building a green economy: the stark need for immediate action. [Boston Globe]  

Trading in ‘cap and trade’: Focusing on specific industries rather than capping overall emissions work better for modernizing nations, although it may result in higher greenhouse gas levels in developed countries. [LA Times]  

Any malpractice reforms should put patients first [USA Today]  

After Reform Passes: If the Massachusetts experience is any guide, health care reform will have broad public support once it’s in place. [New York Times]  

Public plan danger: Will Obama allow Congress to use it as an excuse to dodge harder reforms? [Washington Post]  

Hospitals wage war against patient falls: The effort is laudable, as increasing public awareness of these events — and denying payment of related care in some cases — will help reduce them. [Boston Globe]  

Torching the Big Tent: The division of party support for a moderate Republican candidate says much about the Republicans’ glaring misunderstanding of American voters. [New York Times]  

Obama outs Fox, but reveals a big flaw [Chicago Tribune]  

Oklahoma vs. Women: A restraining order granted by an Oklahoma judge that blocks a new flanking maneuver on abortion from going into effect is a victory for reproductive freedom. [New York Times]  

‘Baby Einstein’ flunks the test [USA Today]  

Detainee-abuse photos and democracy: Pending legislation that allows the pictures to be kept secret would grant the government broad authority to evade accountability now and in the future. [LA Times]

How to Waste Money and Ruin the Census: To ensure an accurate count and avoid massive waste, the Senate must strike down  ttempts,
like those from Senators David Vitter and Orrin Hatch, to change the 2010 census. [New York Times]  

‘Balloon Boy’ our punishment [Chicago Tribune]  

Anything to be on TV: The Heenes are perfect for a reality show, assuming they don’t go to jail [Washington Post]  

Reality bites: The hoax about a boy carried off in a weather balloon shows what happens to some parents when the fame and cash of “reality” TV beckon. [Philadelphia Inquirer]  

Falcon and the showman: In incidents like last week’s ‘balloon boy’ caper, we all share some blame when those without shame chase their 15 minutes of fame. [LA Times]  

The Heenes as parents [Chicago Tribune]  

Prescription for pot: The easing of federal pressure on medical marijuana suppliers and users is welcome news. [LA Times]  

End Afghan election crisis first: The Obama Administration should wait until the Afghan election controversy is resolved before making a decision on a new strategy and US troop levels. [Boston Globe]  

The Afghanistan problem: The huge cultural misunderstandings between Western forces and the Afghan people make it unlikely any counterinsurgency mission in the countryside will succeed. [LA Times]  

What Afghan alliance? There is almost no sense anywhere that the war is an international operation. [Washington Post]  

Safety Nets for the Rich: We’ve shoveled money at the rich and given banks and megacorporations everything they’ve wanted for decades but it’s time to realize that trickle-down economics is a fairy tale. [New York Times]  

Copyright: Fairey’s unfair use: Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the Obama “Hope” poster, now admits to having lied about which AP photo he used to create his famous image. [Boston Globe]  

Fighting swine flu: Editorial: The disease strikes hardest at children and young adults, yet the county’s inoculation program mostly neglects schools. [LA Times]  

Debate Is Good for Your Health: After a false start, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and insurers have come to satisfactory middle ground on how beneficiaries can be legally contacted and mobilized. [New York Times]  

Are baby boomers turning into outsiders? [Chicago Tribune]  

Talking to Sudan: If the Obama administration must negotiate with Sudan, and it must, incentives should be granted only for measurable progress, and Khartoum must be held to account for its horrors. [New  York Times]  

An insurgency swells, but Pakistan focuses on India: While violence  rom Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists is on the upswing in  Pakistan, its government and military appear to be lining their defenses against an old foe, India. [Boston Globe]  

Where the Wild Things Are: Psychologists and philosophers tend to gravitate toward very different views of conduct and whether we can truly say that there is such a thing as character. [New York Times]

Grandma’s greener than you: For all the hype about being eco-conscious today, seniors could teach the young about walking the walk rather than just talking the talk. [USA Today]  

Home Alone: President Obama, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Congress must acknowledge the value of after-school programs, and must work to help them thrive — even in hard times. [New York Times]  

Feed hungry, then help them feed themselves [USA Today]  

Irving Kristol

• Three Cheers for Irving: Irving Kristol thrust himself into every ideologically charged battle of his age, but he was able to pick a side without losing his clarity. [New York Times]
• Irving Kristol’s clear thinking: Fond memories and a fierce defense of the godfather of neoconservatives. [LA Times]
• Irving Kristol’s Intellectual Universe [Washington Post]

Tortured logic: Seven former CIA directors present a weak case for asking President Obama to abort a Justice Department inquiry into ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’ [LA Times]

Corporations aren’t people yet: The Supreme Court should not give in to the temptation to use the case involving a stridently anti-Hillary Clinton video as an opportunity to knock down on free-speech grounds longstanding restrictions on corporations’ freedom to fund political activities. [Boston Globe]

The Rights of Corporations: The Supreme Court should recognize that the constitutional rights of corporations should be very limited. [New York Times]

Medicare for all: Expanding the program to include everyone would be a simple, popular way to reform healthcare. [LA Times]

Mission: Downsize – In handling Afghanistan, Obama can’t rely solely on force to stabilize the country. [Washington Post]

No more troops to Afghanistan: With General Stanley A. McChrystal’s report calling for additional troops now public, President Obama will soon have his King Henry moment. [Boston Globe]

Gingrich and the roots of political polarization: When Newt Gingrich arranged for House members to go home for the weekend, a sense of congressional collegiality was replaced by cutthroat competition. [LA Times]

Border Fantasies: The Southwest border fence project is over budget and behind schedule, and won’t absolve Congress of its responsibility to reform immigration laws. [New York Times]

Obama changes tenor of U.S. foreign policy [USA Today]

‘Fertile ground’: Afghanistan needs a legitimate leader before more US troops can be sent. [Chicago Tribune]

Changes in the air: The biggest defeat for the Packers and the Patriots may not be dealt by the Chicago Bears or the New York Jets. The new archrival is global warming. [Boston Globe]

Ms. Smith and the Washington Game: M. Patricia Smith was a smart choice for the Labor Department’s solicitor, and Congress should quickly approve her nomination. [New York Times]

This spring, President Obama reversed himself and decided to block the release of photographs showing the abuse of detainees by the U.S. military. Now, having lost in two lower federal courts, the administration is seeking review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices should decline the invitation. . . .

In her petition to the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan quoted Obama’s warning that releasing the photos would “further inflame anti-American opinion and put our troops in greater danger.” . . .

As we have argued before, suppressing images of atrocities — whether of Nazi concentration camps, lynchings in the American South or “tiger cages” in Vietnam — is an attempt to blot out the
historical record. Besides, the attempt is likely to be unsuccessful, given the history of efforts to block the unauthorized release of embarrassing information. . . .

[AO: So, the president wants to block release of detainee abuse photos because of concern that the photos would "further inflame anti-American opinion and put our troops in greater danger" and how does the LA Time argue against this?

First, the Times argues that this is an attempt to blot out the historical record. No. This is an attempt to avoid further inflaming anti-American opinion that would put our troops in danger.

Next, the Times argues that any attempt to not release the photos will fail because of past instances in which photos have leaked. But, just because there is the possibility that someone will breach national security and release photos blocked by the president is not a reason to release them and put our troops in harms way, is it?

Phew! That was a close call.]

Pass pot research around: For 40 years, federal marijuana studies have been conducted in one place — the University of Mississippi. Contracts should be awarded to several different institutions. [LA Times]

A Stain on Medicine: Health professionals who played a role in torture should be held accountable. [Washington Post]

Republicans’ shameless senior moment: When exactly did the Republicans start operating one of those marketing scams that target the elderly? [Boston Globe]

Rangel has no credibility as Ways and Means chairman [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Healthcare reform bill doesn’t cover elective abortions: If anything, the proposal forces private insurers to go further to fund and account for pregnancy terminations. [LA Times]

Saving the nation: Americans should save more [USA Today]

Losing Will on Afghanistan: Retreating and hoping it will all somehow work out is not a serious strategy. [Washington Post]

Another Astroturf Campaign: The oil lobby has taken a page from the anti-health-care-reform manual in an effort to drum up opposition to climate change legislation in Congress. [New York Times]

Foreign reporters and the risks they run: Journalists sometimes need to make dangerous decisions in order to cover events in repressive regimes that fear independent voices. [LA Times]

Yes, immigrants get sick too: To judge by the way immigrants are denied access to health coverage in the current system, you’d think they were made of Kryptonite. [Boston Globe]

Wal-Mart and healthcare: Obama’s healthcare agenda turns out to be a deal that usually red-state Wal-Mart has decided to buy into. [LA Times]

The M-Word Surfaces in Virginia: Virginia voters will have to decide if the Republican Party candidate, Robert McDonnell, has moderated since his start-up days as a conservative firebrand. [New York Times]

A fitting memorial is back on course: It’s welcome news that the National Park Service has reached agreement with landowners in southwestern Pennsylvania to build a memorial to Flight 93. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Dick Cheney’s Version: The government owes Americans a full investigation into the orders to approve torture, as well as the twisted legal briefs that justified those policies. [New York Times]

Elmo is right: Wash your hands! [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Billing woes: Our system of medical billing is sick — impenetrably complex, in need of reform. [Houston Chronicle]

Health Care That Works: Government, for all its flaws, manages to do some things right, and one area that government intervention has been a step up is in medical care. [New York Times]

Keeping at-risk kids out of jail — it’s an art: ‘Tough on crime’ gang injunctions just funnel teens into jail. But one former gang member knows firsthand how a little care and attention can make a true difference. [LA Times]

Clean up after Agent Orange: Far better than a belated apology from William Calley for the killings at My Lai would be a greater US effort to help the Vietnamese deal with the Agent Orange dioxin left from our years of using herbicides to defoliate and destroy crops in that country. [Boston Globe]

Workers in America, Cheated: Workplace abuses are flourishing in the absence of a working immigration system, where illegal immigrants are vital to the economy but helpless to assert their rights. [New York Times]

Compromise a fading art: The recent death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was certainly a blow to his cherished goal of health-care reform. But it also could mean an end to the art of compromise in Congress. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Aging boomers: Hit the pavement softly – Aging super-athletes are just asking for trouble from their bodies if they push things too much after 50. [Boston Globe]

Honduras: Make it official — it’s a coup. A formal finding would trigger a suspension of U.S. aid. [LA Times]

Reform requires consumer pressure: As the debate over health reform turns toward cost control, there is a debate brewing between two rival camps [Boston Globe]

Cherry tacos anyone? [Chicago Tribune]

The federal debt and the tough choices ahead: Ballooning federal deficits leave Congress in a bind, and the choices get worse the longer it waits. [LA Times]

Bank bailout: success comes with ‘moral hazard’ [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Government: The TARP pans out: As banks and other financial institutions pay back the loans handed out late last year to head off the credit crunch, the federal Treasury is actually making money on  some of the loans. [Boston Globe]

Japan’s new rulers: The long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party is out; can the winning Democratic Party of Japan live up to its leaders’ campaign promises? [LA Times]

Japan’s New Leadership: The end of economic decline and political stagnation will take real leadership, not just trading one group of politicians for another. [New York Times]

Cheney’s dark side – and ours: Either we are above using the same interrogation practices that police states use, or we are not. [Boston Globe]

Obama’s Health Reform Realism: The president’s pragmatic assessment of the prospects and limits of a public option. [Washington Post]

Filling Kennedy’s Seat: Leave it to the voters [Chicago Tribune]

Conservatives, yesterday and today: Sam Tanenhaus’ new book explores the right’s shift from old-school classic conservatism to the revolutionary ‘movement conservatism’ of today. [LA Times]

Take the exit: It’s quitting time for governor of South Carolina It’s quitting time for governor of South Carolina. [Houston Chronicle]

Innocent but Dead: Scientific analysis has shown that Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three children, had in fact been innocent. [New York Times]

Seemed Like a Good Idea . . . – The fires choking Los Angeles remind us of the consequences of our decisions. [Washington Post]

The Afghan experiment [USA Today]

The case for parole reform: Terrible stories like Jaycee Lee Dugard’s should not derail legislation to change the system. [LA Times]

Preparing for the Swine Flu: Our take on the swine flu confusion: An epidemic this fall and winter is likely to infect more people than a normal flu, but the virus will not be abnormally lethal. [New York Times]

. . . Despite President Obama’s fine talk about looking forward, not backward, Attorney General Eric Holder decided this week that the CIA interrogators will face yet another criminal review of conduct that they were assured by the Bush administration was legal. No matter that the same evidence was provided five years ago to career prosecutors, who decided against bringing cases. . . .

Looking back, it’s easy to say the CIA officers should have refused the assignments they suspected would come back to haunt them. But questioning presidential orders isn’t really their job, especially when those orders are backed by Justice Department legal opinions.

What will happen the next time the White House wants the CIA to do something that’s potentially controversial? Well, you know the answer. The CIA officers will want to talk to their lawyers, and maybe then to lawyers from the party out of power. That’s not the ideal mind-set for a modern intelligence service. But the republic will survive.

[AO: Under Nurenberg Principle IV:

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

Need I say more?]

. . . CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. This was after they tried “non-aggressive” techniques and concluded that Mohammed was “withholding imminent threat information.”

 Interrogators revved a power drill while another prisoner was naked and hooded. He was warned that if he did not talk, “we could get your mother in here.” One interrogator choked a captive until he almost passed out, and then was shaken and revived.

On Monday, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder opened a preliminary investigation into whether CIA operatives broke the law in those coercive interrogations of suspected terrorists. He named federal prosecutor John Durham to lead the investigation. . . .

One day, heaven forbid, there may be another attack on American soil. Once again, we will ask CIA and other agents to find out whatever they can, as quickly as possible, to defend this nation. How will they respond?

[AO: They will respond by taking actions they know to be legal. As the president has made clear, no one will be prosecuted for taking actions that was legal at the time. Only those who went beyond approved methods of interrogation will be prosecuted. Think about it this way: what happens if we institute a policy that no CIA agent will be prosecuted, no matter what, when responding in an emergency. That appears to be the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board’s recommendation. That’s an invitation to lawlessness.]