PUBLIC MARKS with tags government & vote

Each judge was asked to nominate a few programs for the 2006 list of the 10 Most Harmful Government Programs. We then sent them ballots listing the nominated programs. They ranked their choices 1 through 10, with No. 1 being the program they believed to be "most harmful." A program earned 10 points for each No. 1 vote it received, 9 points for each No. 2 vote, and so on. ()()One program that didn't make the list was the "War on Drugs." I think that belongs at No. 1.

Most debate about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has focused on his propensity to vote to overrule Roe v. Wade and the similarity between him and conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. But despite the superficial parallels between the two conservative, Italian-American Catholic jurists, it is important to recognize that Alito has a substantial libertarian dimension to his jurisprudence as well as a conservative one. In several key fields of law, he is more likely than Scalia and other conservatives to be skeptical of assertions of government power. More important, there is much in his record that should appeal to libertarians and -- to a lesser extent -- even left-wing liberals.