May 22, 2013 John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang May 20, 2013 Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man? Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting May 13, 2013 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer? Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche May 10, 2013 Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon May 8, 2013 Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges 'Garbage man' in cells could extend life Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility May 6, 2013 Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal May 3, 2013 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert May 1, 2013 Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be April 29, 2013 Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots? Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie April 26, 2013 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen? Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver) The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead April 24, 2013 Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret Top Muslim cleric boycotts inter-faith dialogue conference attended by 'Jews' Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication? Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot April 22, 2013 Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear Hagel, on maiden Middle East visit, arrives in Israel bearing gifts and promises US man departing country arrested on terror charges Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel

Jewish World Review July 7, 2010 / 25 Tamuz 5770 A New Birth of Freedom: The 14th Amendment Restored By Paul Greenberg http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It was expected. The outcome of the Supreme Court's hearing on Chicago's prohibitive handgun law had been predictable since a similar local ordinance was struck down in the nation's capital. The reaction to the decision was predictable, too: Supporters of the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms cheered; the gun-control crowd predicted the worst, as they always do when Americans are allowed to defend themselves and their homes. Once again, we're being told that all hell is going to break loose -- even though it never does as one state after another passes a concealed-carry law. The legal reasoning that led to the court's opinion in McDonald v. Chicago last week was scarcely new. It was a routine Fourteenth Amendment case. All the court had to do was decide whether some right, like the right to bear arms, was covered by the broad language of the amendment. If so, it was deemed "fundamental" and could not be abridged. To use the currently accepted euphemism, it was "incorporated" into the Constitution. As for those rights that aren't, well, they just have to wait their turn -- till public opinion or the court, which can be much the same, changes. It's a wholly arbitrary approach, more a matter of whim than law. Whenever the Supreme Court has to decide which rights make the cut, an almost metaphysical discussion ensues. The arguments may be sophisticated but they're also sophistical, hinging on which rights the justices like and which ones they don't. Rather than clear law. But there's an advantage to such an approach: It allows the court to pick and choose, even cherry-pick, which of our rights it will protect this year. Not even the clear language of the Fourteenth Amendment, deliberately designed to assure the rights of even the least of us, the newly freed slaves after the Civil War, could keep sharp legal minds from finding ways around, through and right past this part of the Constitution. Hence the dubious doctrine of "incorporation" was born, or at least foreshadowed, with the infamous Slaughter-House cases that mainly slaughtered the Fourteenth Amendment. That's how the Fourteenth Amendment has been reduced to protecting due process, rather than the essential rights it ostensibly protects. So that, in this week's extension of Second Amendment rights, four of the justices in the majority could base their decision on the usual, largely arbitrary interpretation of what constitutes due process. But the fifth justice concurring in this decision -- the Hon. Clarence Thomas -- decided he wasn't playing this game any longer. He could read the Fourteenth Amendment and, however long its plain meaning had been ignored, he proposed to resurrect it. In whole -- including its most sweeping and vital provision: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...." And that includes not just the right to bear arms, as in this case, but the whole Bill of Rights and beyond. Justice Thomas actually seems to believe that the Constitution means what it says. And is prepared to uphold it. His 56-page concurrence in this case is also a sweeping history of the interpretation (and misinterpretation) of the Fourteenth Amendment through the years. He reviews the various conniptions of those legal scholars who, in the dubious tradition of the Slaughter-House cases, have sought to cut and trim the Fourteenth Amendment to fit their own passing prejudices. Looking over this history of legal legerdemain, Justice Thomas concludes, plainly, undeniably and courageously: "All of this is a legal fiction. The notion that a constitutional provision that guarantees only 'process' before a person is deprived of life, liberty or property ... strains credulity for even the most casual user of words. Moreover, this fiction is a particularly dangerous one. The one theme that links the court's substantive due process precedents together is their lack of a guiding principle to distinguish 'fundamental' rights that warrant protection from nonfundamental rights that do not.... "I cannot accept a theory of constitutional interpretation that rests on such tenuous footing. This court's substantive due process framework fails to account for both the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the history that led to its adoption, filling that gap with a jurisprudence devoid of a guiding principle. ... I believe this case presents an opportunity to re-examine, and begin the process of restoring, the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment agreed upon by those who ratified it." It's an opportunity Clarence Thomas has seized. With one concurring opinion, he has thrown open a whole, long unused wing of this spacious mansion that is the Fourteenth Amendment. You can almost see the air stir for the first time in more than a century, the dust scatter, and the lines of the clean, elegant beams that undergird our liberties revealed once again in their original simplicity. All because of one justice, one concurrence, one man's adherence to the clear meaning of the English language. No wonder not a single other justice who made up the prevailing side in this case, on different and more diffuse grounds, offered any objection to the straight, undeviating route Clarence Thomas took to their common conclusion. While they were circumnavigating the issues, he cut right through them. And emerged into the light. This not just a landmark legal opinion. It is a history lesson that should be read by every student of the continuing struggle to fulfill the Bill of Rights. Clarence Thomas sees that history through the revealing prism of the black man's struggle against both the legal sophistries of distinguished scholars and the outright terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and such in post-Civil War America. In this opinion, he touches on some of the more notorious massacres and lynchings endured by a people deprived of the means to defend themselves. Which is the fate that awaits any unarmed people. But among the stories of persecution he relates, there is also the enduring hope of redemption: "One man recalled the night during his childhood when his father stood armed at a jail until morning to ward off lynchers. ... The experience left him with a sense, 'not of powerlessness, but of the possibilities of salvation' that came from standing up to intimidation." Of arms and the man Clarence Thomas now has sung anew. What the coming generation of legal scholars or just Americans with an historical consciousness will make of this landmark opinion of his, the one unexpected and literally refreshing part of this whole Supreme Court decision, will be up to them. For liberty always depends on what men will make of it. But the thrill his words engender is palpable. Here's hoping generations of law students to come will feel it, respond to it, and recognize what his words have wrought: The Fourteenth Amendment restored to its original meaning, glory and strength. Paul Greenberg Archives Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here. © 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Jay Ambrose  Michael Barone  Barrywood  Lori Borgman  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Richard Z. Chesnoff  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  Christine Flowers  Frank J. Gaffney  Bernie Goldberg  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Argus Hamilton  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Ron Hart  Nat Hentoff  A. Barton Hinkle  Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ch. Krauthammer  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Ann McFeatters  Dale McFeatters  Dana Milbank  Jeanne Moos  Dick Morris  Jim Mullen  Deroy Murdock  Judge A. Napolitano  Bill O'Reilly  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Star Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Sharon Randall  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Heather Robinson  Debra J. Saunders  Martin Schram  Greg Schwem  Culture Shlock  David Shribman  Roger Simon  Lenore Skenazy  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Ben Stein  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Dan Thomasson  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  ZeitGeist  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo   Lisa Benson  Chip Bok  Dry Bones  John Branch  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  Matt Davies  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Glenn Foden  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Walt Handelsman  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holbert  David Horsey  Lee Judge  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Jimmy Margulies  Jack Ohman  Michael Ramirez  Rob Rogers  Drew Sheneman  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Scott Stantis  Danna Summers  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters   Dan Wasserman  Tech Q&A  Mr. Know-It-All  Ask Doctor K  Richard Lederer  Frugal Living  On Nutrition  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams