The New York Court of Appeals has issued its opinion in Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation, an important property rights case. The 6-1 decision upholds the condemnation of numerous properties in Atlantic Yards project area in Brooklyn for the purpose of transferring them to powerful developer Bruce Ratner, who plans to use […]
Archive | November, 2009
Originalism and the Sixth Amendment Right “to have the Assistance of Counsel”
The briefs filed in McDonald v. City of Chicago have raised a lot of questions here about the role of originalism versus stare decisis in constitutional interpretation. Some have argued that stare decisis must give way to correctness on these issues as a matter of constitutional purity: We should always follow the original public meaning […]
DOJ Files Brief Supporting Super-En-Banc in CDT
Yesterday the Justice Department filed its Brief in Support of Rehearing En Banc By the Full Court in United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, the blockbuster computer search and seizure case I have blogged a lot about. From the introduction: The en banc panel’s decision announced sweeping new rules for warrants to search computers that […]
Health bill and gun ownership
Today’s Washington Examiner has an article about the concerns that Gun Owners of America has raised about the health care bill which is currently on the Senate floor. I am quoted therein, and I think that GOA has a good point. The Examiner article concludes with a contrary quote: “It is very clear they are […]
Conservatives Discover Criminal Defendants
The NYT reports on increasing involvement by conservative organizations and business groups on behalf of criminal defendants. While libertarians have long complained about “overcriminalization” and excessive federalization of criminal law, such concerns have gained increasing currency in more traditional conservative circles. This is a good thing. [UPDATE: But not according to Media Matters.] QUICK ADDENDUM: […]
Dean Flier on Health Care Debate
Last week, Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier commented on the debate over health care reform. His article begins: As the dean of Harvard Medical School I am frequently asked to comment on the health-reform debate. I’d give it a failing grade. Instead of forthrightly dealing with the fundamental problems, discussion is dominated by rival […]
Monbiot: Leaked CRU Docs a “Major Blow”
Noted environmental writer George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, calls the leaked documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit a “major blow.” On his website and in The Guardian, he writes: The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of […]
A Pillow that Will Live in Infamy
The following email header appeared in my inbox, courtesy of Skymall.com: Save 20% On Our Infamous Travel Pillow and Much More
Question About E-Mail Delivery Based on RSS Feed
On our old blogging software, we had an option through which each post could be sent to a particular e-mail address; we then hooked that up with an e-mail distribution service, and allowed readers to subscribe to Conspiracy posts by e-mail. Several hundred users in fact did that. I’m re trying to do the same […]
In (Limited) Praise of Right-Wing Populism
I am no fan of populism of either the left or right-wing variety. In my view, most populist movements exploit voter ignorance and irrationality to promote policies that tend to do far more harm than good. That said, I have been pleasantly surprised by the right-wing populist reaction to the economic crisis and Obama’s policies. […]
McDonald amicus: Don’t trust Fairman and Berger
By David Kopel on November 23, 2009 11:39 pm in Constitutional History, Fourteenth Amendment, Legal Scholarship, Supreme Court
Erik S. Jaffe has written a very interesting brief for the CalGuns Foundation. In short, the argument is: “Charles Fairman’s and Raoul Berger’s Work on Fourteenth Amendment Incorporation of the Bill of Rights Is Deeply Flawed, Inaccurate, and Should Not Be Relied Upon by this Court.” To make a long story short, during the latter half of […]
Rules for Aldridge’s Bingham
One of the charming aspects of VC culture was that shortly after Orin invented a drinking game (see 4:38 p.m. post on Nov. 23) based on how often commenter J. Aldridge mentioned John Bingham, readers wanted clarification on the rules. In particular, the rules say that one must take “a drink” whenever J. Aldridge mentions […]
An Emerging Majority for Marijuana Legalization?
The Washington Post reports on growing support for marijuana legalization. The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana — a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 […]
Another reason to be happy you went to law school
Louis Menand’s new article The Ph.D. Problem: On the professionalization of faculty life, doctoral training, and the academy’s self-renewal. Cliff Notes version: the academy (the tenured folks who run things) have every incentive to take in huge numbers of Ph.D. candidates, and turn them into ABD drones to teach undergraduates–even though about half of them will […]
Dear Smith College Seniors Spamming Sites Looking for Survey Participants …
If you look in my previous two posts, you’ll see what I assume are automatically generated surveymonkey.com requests for participants on a study on the media by Smith College students. Let me express to the Smith College students who thought this a good idea, and whatever faculty supervisor approved it, that this is Not a […]