Akbar Ganji is a journalist and one of Iran’s leading political dissidents. His May 2009 speech to the University of Chicago Law School has recently been posted in the school’s excellent podcast series. The speech delves deeply into different ways of understanding Islam, and Ganji offers some very liberal interpretations which, he says, have substantial support […]
Author Archive | David Kopel
An alternative approach to footnote *
As Orin wisely notes in the immediately preceding post, the typical law review article first footnote disclaimer “all errors are the author’s alone” provides no useful information to the reader. Below are some alternatives which I have used: “All errors are society’s fault.” 29 Hamline L. Rev. 520. “Any errors are the fault of no-one in particular; […]
Paranoid about Paranoids
Ross Douthat pens another excellent column in yesterday’s New York Times. He observes that “obsessing about the paranoia of the masses is often a way for American elites to gloss over their own, entirely nonsymbolic failures.” For example, “Today, establishment liberals would much rather fret about the insanity of the Republican base than reckon with the […]
Obama is too a Christian
Ann Coulter’s column today argues that Obama is not a Muslim; rather, he “is obviously an atheist.” The gist of the argument is “The only evidence for Obama’s Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years….Attending Wright’s church is the conscious, calculated decision to immerse yourself […]
Obama import ban on rifles confirmed
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about an article in the Korea Times reporting that the Obama administration was blocking the import of American-made M1 Garands and M1 Carbines which the South Korean government wished to sell into the U.S. market. The Korea Times reported that an unnamed Korean official said that the American government […]
Tortious refusal to supply hamburger fumes
Apparently a successful cause of action, according to today’s Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Law Firm Hamburger War Heats Up Powerhouse D.C. law firm Steptoe & Johnson has won an order to force a neighboring burger restaurant to stop omitting hamburger fumes into the firm’s air intake system. See and Post Comments: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/08/26/law-firm-hamburger-war-heats-up?mod=djemlawblog_t
Some skepticism about “UnemployedJD”
Today’s Wall Street Journal Law Blog has an article about the “UnemployedJD” blog of an unemployed law graduate. The website begins “My name is Ethan Haines.” The website features a picture of a trim white male who, according to the website, is on a hunger strike to protest his own unemployment and the unemployment of […]
Stop Criticizing President Obama for Playing Golf
In this polarized period of American politics, many people on the Right have been taking cheap shots at President Obama because he plays golf so much. These golf-related criticisms are at least factually accurate, in contrast to the lies that Michael Moore told about George Bush supposedly vacationing much of the time. However, the criticisms of […]
Obama bans over 100,000 rifles
According to The Korea Times, the Obama administration has blocked efforts by the South Korean government to sell over a hundred thousand surplus M1 Garand and Carbine rifles into the United States market. These self-loading were rifles introduced in 1926 and 1941. As rifles, they are especially well-suited to community defense in an emergency, as in […]
ACORN decision explained
The Bill of Attainder clause was among the topics of my Advanced Constitutional Law class last semester, so while I am not an expert on the clause, I’ll try to provide some guidance. First, there are few Supreme Court cases on the clause. Second, Bill of Attainder controversies in the United States never involve the […]
The Individual Health Care Mandate and Enumerated Powers – Event Audio
By David Kopel on August 7, 2010 6:07 pm in Constitutional Law, Federalism, Health Care, Necessary and Proper, Taxing and Spending Clause, Tenth Amendment
The final event at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools was a Federalist Society panel on the constitutionality of the centralized health control law. Participants were Randy Barnett (Georgetown, VC), Jack Balkin (Yale), Gillian Metzger (Columbia), and me (Denver, VC). The moderator was Bradley A. Smith (Capital). Available here. The recording is 93 minutes, although the event itself ran […]
Florida’s brief in health control lawsuit
The brief of Florida and 19 other states, challenging the constitutional of the new health control law, was just filed today. It is a response to the DOJ’s motion to dismiss.
My Senate briefing on Kagan and the McDonald Case
By David Kopel on August 5, 2010 3:20 pm in Constitutional Law, Guns, Kagan Nomination, McDonald v. City of Chicago
It was delivered in late June to the Second Amendment Task Force, a group of Republican Senate aides. (Unfortunately, the Senate’s protocals of partisanship prevent organizations like this from having aides from both parties.) My presentation is here (22 minutes). The presentation by Hans Von Spakovsky, Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is here. And […]
Latin Translation bleg
Would someone like to do a Latin to English translation of Leonado Bruni’s “De Militia”? It’s a 20 page essay from mid-15th century Florence, extolling the militia as the best defense of a free city-state. I can send you the original Latin text, which has been cleaned up so it’s in easily-read printed format, rather […]
Post-Human Humanitarian Law: The Law Of War In The Age Of Robotic Weapons
This interesting essay, by Vik Kanwar of Jindal Global Law School (India), reviews four new books that examine how the laws of warfare may or should change in response to the development of autonomous weapons a/k/a “warbots.”