History as Prologue

Tag: Supreme Court

  • Racking ’em up at the Supreme Court

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    Mark Thomas
    in

    The Roberts Supreme Court Pool sharks are portrayed on film much more often than Chief Justices. Perhaps the game of chance involving billiard balls is more familiar to the general public than legal concepts described in Latin. For my money, I’d cast Jackie Gleason to play Chief Justice John Roberts for the same reasons Robert…

  • Defining marriage in the Hoosier State

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    Mark Thomas
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    Defining marriage in the Hoosier State Within the next two weeks, the United States Supreme Court will render holdings in two cases involving secular marriage. The essence of both cases is to what degree a state government or Congress can define which persons can marry which other persons. While states are generally left to define…

  • Media’s memory tested as Supreme Court revisits Voting Rights Act

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    Mark Thomas
    in ,

    “Don’t worry about it.” Those familiar with the early morning events of December 7, 1941, are familiar with this regrettable phrase. When Lieutenant Kermit Tyler dismissed an inexperienced radar operator’s vague report of unidentified aircraft approaching Hawaii on that morning, the response was not unreasonable. However, the failure to consider the overall possibilities of that…

  • Herbert Spencer’s Supreme Court Revenge

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    Mark Thomas
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    In siding with neither his fellow conservatives, nor the more liberal members of the Supreme Court in his opinion upholding the a key element of the affordable Care Act, Chief Justice John Roberts took aim at one of the two most problematic parts of the U.S. Constitutional as viewed by contemporary conservatives. That ominous, deciding…