Time again to waste incumbents with wasted votes?

Partisan bickering over the federal debt ceiling makes me nostalgic for this moment in American political history, which I witnessed as a resident of Minnesota and helped effect in 1998 as a voter disgusted with both major political parties:



Has the time come for a truly durable third party? Thomas Friedman speaks longingly of the prospect that we might yet witness the rise of the radical center. Nate Silver speculates that popular frustration with the two-party system may have reached a historically significant high-water mark:

A credible independent bid for the presidency is always a long-shot, but might be more viable under these conditions. Or we may simply see a genuine anti-incumbent wave — a much-discussed phenomenon that has rarely occurred in practice — with significant numbers of elected officials in both parties losing office. It is not out of the question that Democrats could lose the White House but take back control of the House of Representatives.

I have long wished that the United States could find a way to break free of its suffocating political duopoly. It's high time to get past first past the bloody post. There's no time like the present, or the 2012 elections, to waste incumbents with wasted votes.

The Fall of the House of Zeus

Reprinted from The Cardinal Lawyer
Justice Bill Cunningham of the Kentucky Supreme Court takes a keen interest in legal education, especially in the ethical training of law students and lawyers. He writes to recommend a book, The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer:

I have just finished reading the book, The Fall of the House of Zeus [The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer], by Curtis Wilkie. It is about the rise and fall of mega lawyer, Dickie Scruggs, of the famed asbestos-tobacco-Katrina lawsuits. The story dramatically relates how greed can transform erstwhile good people and fine people into criminals. If possible, I would make it required reading for every lawyer and law student in Kentucky.