Are They Justices -- Or Legislators?

HOME POLITICS NATIONAL NEWS WORLD ECONOMY SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT Joe Conason Carl Hiaasen Connie Schultz E.J. Dionne Gene Lyons Jonathan Alter March 29, 2012 THE BIG STORY, BY E.J. DIONNE Is This America's Courtroom -- Or A Lobbyist's Office? Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature, diving deeply into policy details as if they were members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. READ MORE FEATURED COLUMN: DAVID CAY JOHNSTON Are Americans Losing Their Right To A Landline Phone? The guarantee of landline telephone service at almost any address, a legal right many Americans may not even know they have, is quietly being legislated away in our U.S. state capitals. Unless the new rules are written very carefully, millions of people, urban and rural, will lose basic telephone service or be forced to pay much more for calls. READ MORE FEATURED COLUMN: JIM HIGHTOWER Why The Right Wants To Destroy The U.S. Postal Service Each day, six days a week, letter carriers traverse 4 million miles, toting an average of 563 million pieces of mail, reaching the very doorsteps of our individual homes and workplaces in every single community in America. From the gated enclaves and penthouses of the uber-wealthy to the inner-city ghettos and rural colonias of America's poorest families, the U.S. Postal Service literally delivers. All for 45 cents. The USPS is an unmatched bargain, a civic treasure, a genuine public good that links all people and communities into one nation. So, naturally, it must be destroyed. READ MORE ON THE WEB Do You Know What The Obama Campaign Knows About You? We can't describe the Obama campaign's massive database of information on potential voters with certainty, because the campaign won't talk about it. Citing concerns about letting Republicans learn its tactics, the campaign declined our request for comment -- as it has with other outlets -- about what data the campaign collects and what it's doing with the data. But we were able to get some bits of information. READ MORE SOCIAL SECURITY AND YOU Can My Family Get All Of My Social Security Benefits? The Social Security office told me that my kids will keep getting checks until age 19. And my wife will get Social Security until the youngest one turns 19. But by then, she will be 62, so she will be able to get regular wife's benefits at that point. They also said the total amount we are getting now will never change. Is all of that true? READ MORE SUPREME ISSUE Entire Healthcare Law Jeopardized As Conservatives Dig In The third and final day of Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act saw the conservative majority dancing around the details of completely overturning it. "If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, then the rest of the act cannot stand," said Paul D. Clement, the attorney representing the coalition of business groups and state attorneys general challenging the law. He found a rather receptive audience among the Republican justices. READ MORE CARTOON OF THE DAY   (c) 2012 Eastern Harbor Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 28 West 27th Street, Suite 502 New York, NY 10001

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