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21Sep 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Telemedicine case will find justice

Gazette Column

No matter our stance on controversy de jour, we can agree on the importance of an independent judiciary. No one wants to stand before a judge and wonder if his or her ruling is based on placement of a wet finger in the political winds. We understand all too well, after all, that politicians can be swayed in their mission of what’s in the best interest of society to a stance better summarized as doing right by their political party or a special interest group. The last thing we need or want is our court system to fall under political scrutiny; for each decision, verdict and sentencing to be viewed as some small battle on the path to a politically-motivated goal. This is exactly why the decision this week by…

04Aug 2014 by Lynda Waddington

Bertrand defamation case changes nothing

Gazette Column

Transparency makes attack ads palatable In September 1895, Woodrow Wilson was more than two decades away from his move into the White House and spent a great deal of time studying government via the lens of history. It was at this time, well before history and political science were distinct disciplines, the scholarly Wilson wrote a magazine essay establishing his thoughts on how historians should present their work, summarizing why it is often difficult to see into the past as well as into the future. “The truth of history is a very complex and very occult matter. It consists of things which are invisible as well of things which are visible. It is full of secret motives, and of a chance interplay of trivial and yet determining circumstances; it is…

29Jun 2014 by Lynda Waddington

SCOTUS contraception ruling troubling for women, religion

Gazette Column

Many will be erroneously celebrating the U.S. Supreme Court opinion handed down today in the Hobby Lobby contraception case as a further attempt by the courts to protect religious freedoms or innocent life. It does nothing of the sort. The only “people” the opinion protects are the majority of American corporations. The only religious freedoms it protects are those with which a majority of Court justices agree. The decision — a 5-4 split, saying “closely held corporations” cannot be required to provide contraception coverage for employees if the company has a religious objection — is not limited to the Hobby Lobby corporation. Based on Internal Revenue Service definitions, it will impact about 90 percent of all American businesses, and about 52 percent of the American workforce. Perhaps it should not be surprising…

04Jun 2014 by Lynda Waddington

So much for lessons learned

Gazette Blog

There is one moment in the recent past that has, above everything else, continued to shape and solidify those who identify as liberals, progressives and Democrats: the 2000 presidential contest and the Florida fiasco. If either of the two limited recounts in Florida — one requested by Vice President Al Gore, the other ordered by the Florida Supreme Court — had been completed, it is likely that Republican George W. Bush would have won the state. If, however, a statewide recount of all disputed ballots had taken place, or would have been ordered by the court, the extremely narrow victor in Florida would have been Gore. Those scenarios are courtesy of a study commissioned by several news organizations in late 2001. There were other studies, of course, that provided more scenarios and…