Towering inferno

There is a good reason for the U.S. Senate to protect rules of debate on judicial nominees to federal courts: The people deserve to know what views are espoused by those who would help protect our constitutional rights.

For better or worse, confirmation hearings in the Senate are the place where one-sided arguments judged by politicians to be the prerogative of unconstrained power do not hold.

Toxics more valuable than democracy?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Really? It is worth revisiting these cornerstones of our democracy.

Recently, three farm-worker families in a neighborhood of Immokalee gave birth to severely deformed children—one without arms or legs, one without the capacity to keep his tongue from sliding back into his throat, and one without a nose, an ear and with no visible sexual organs. The story was reported in the Palm Beach Post, “Why was Carlitos born this way?”