This is one comparison I am really getting tired of: The Obama Administration needs to recall that George W. Bush’s first nominee, Harriet Miers, was withdrawn after twenty-three days under not dissimilar circumstances: insufficient evidence in the nominee’s record to encourage his political base to become enthused about the nominee. First off, John Roberts was […]
The big news today is President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan. I’ll be the first to admin that I don’t really know that much about Kagan. Eliot Spitzer, a long time friend of Kagan’s, was out today giving her big praises. To me, that endorsement is enough to say she […]
The retirement of Justice Stevens is really not good news for those of us on the left: The leading prospects — U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan and federal appellate judges Merrick Garland and Diane Wood — are relative moderates. Kagan has backed strong presidential authority over national security; rulings by Garland and Wood suggest they […]
There has been this new meme developing since the SOTU address that President Obama somehow breeched protocol or tradition by criticizing the Supreme Court’s decision on allowing unlimited money to flow from corporations to campaigns. This seems to be mostly fueled by the right, including some who are also critical of the decision. I wonder […]
CBS is seeing the signs that Justice Stevens term in the Supreme Court could be coming to an end: Justice John Paul Stevens has left some clues he’s planning to retire this year, shortly after he turns 90 years old. He’s only hired one law clerk for next term, for example, and not the four […]
I’ve been thinking about California maybe legalizing marijuana and I had an interesting thought. Would that mean I could have a friend in California buy some then mail it to me? On the surface you would think not, but then lets think further about it. By not letting me do that then states would be […]
Judge Richard Posner thinks that should be the case: Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent . . . What Posner is arguing is insane. Basically he is saying that if I want […]
The Supreme Court issued a 8-1 ruling today that the strip search of a 13 year old girl by school officials was illegal. Clarence Thomas was the only vote for the strip search. Make sure you check his coke can later on today.
Get ready for the news to change over to nonstop Supreme Court coverage. MSNBC is reporting that President Obama will be announcing his pick at 10:15 am today.
This is a big decision: In a stunning 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court today reversed its longstanding bright-line rule which had permitted warrantless car searches after an arrest, even when there was no concern for officer safety or the preservation of evidence. The case is Arizona v Gant. Writing for the majority in this important […]