Opinion Columns

There’s a new radio ad for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign airing in Nevada, with endorsements from Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, Reps. Joe Heck and Mark Amodei and former Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury.

About the only line in the new film, “When Mitt Romney Came To Town” that’s pro-capitalism is the first one: “Capitalism made America great.”

We’d all be better off if a Carson City judge sided with a conservative think tank and allowed a lawsuit over the separation-of-powers clause to proceed.

Let’s get a few things straight.

For all the pride Iowa takes in its first-in-the-nation caucus, for all the attention the state’s voters get from candidates, for all of the column inches and broadcast hours consumed by reporting stories before, during and after voting, the impact is almost entirely rhetorical.

Usually, odd-numbered years aren’t that great for political news. But 2011 proved to be an exception in some very big ways.

For many people, sitting in a room with a professor of constitutional law — even a noted one, a Harvard graduate — to listen to a lecture about recent cases is a definition of torture prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.