Every once in a while in sports, someone performs at such an incredibly high level that s/he simply elevates him/herself far, far above the crowd of even the most talented competitors — Gretzky at his peak, Babe Ruth, Tiger Woods. At the moment (for those of you who can tear yourself away from March Madness), […]
Archive | March, 2010
Greenspan’s ‘The Crisis’ and Modigliani and Miller
I just finished reading Alan Greenspan’s paper for the spring Brookings economics confab, The Crisis, and then a bunch of reactions around the econo-blogosphere. The paper is well worth reading – it’s time to get beyond the blame game and the mea culpas and mea non-culpas, in order to get to longer term regulatory reform. […]
Ninth Circuit on Medical Evidence
In the recent case of Primiano v. Cook, Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s exclusion of a physician’s expert testimony on the failure of an elbow prosthesis. The plaintiff’s expert, Dr. Weiss, testified that the polyethylene bushing had worn through in less than eight months, “not a usual or expected circumstance.” Though finite, the typical […]
Is Health-Care Reform Constitutional?
As Jonathan notes below, I was invited to write a piece on “Is health-care reform constitutional?” for the Outlook opinion section of today’s Washington Post. For the home page, the editors picked the pithy title, “Commerce Claws.” Here is how it begins: With the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on […]
Super-Powered Copyright Suits
Today’s NYT has an interesting story on the raging copyright battles between Disney, Marvel Comics and the estate of Jack Kirby. Bam! Pow! Whammo!
Constitutional Challenges to the Health Care Bill
Our own Randy Barnett has an article in today’s Washington Post surveying possible constitutional challenges to the health care reform bill, should it pass. As Randy notes, constitutional litigation is inevitable, as several state attorneys general and conservative public interest organizations have already announced their intention to file suit.
Sunday Song Lyric
Alex Chilton died this week at 59. His music did not have much commercial success beyond a few songs recorded with the Box Tops as a teen, (most notably “The Letter”). But his influence was substantial. When I was in college, most of the “cool” bands listed Alex Chilton and Big Star as important influences. […]
House Democratic Leaders Drop “Deem and Pass”
News here.
A Constitutional Slaughter Solution?
Yale’s Jack Balkin is now convinced that Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have found a constitutional way to combine passage of the Senate health care reform bill with revisions to be passed as part of a reconciliation process. In a letter to House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (reproduced here) Balkin writes: Under […]
Oklahoma House of Representatives Proposes Ban on Use of Foreign Law in Oklahoma Courts
The proposal passed the House last week by a vote of 91-2, and is now before the Oklahoma Senate’s Judiciary Committee. Here’s the proposed constitutional amendment, to be submitted to the voters if the Senate agrees: B. Subsection C of this section shall be known as the “Save Our State Amendment”. C. The Courts provided […]
Obama’s Speech at the Patriot Center
If the Washington Post’s report is correct, and 8,000 people turned out, the real news is that two days before the big health care vote, Obama couldn’t fill a 10,000 seat arena at a university with 30,000 students (albeit many part-time), in a state and county Obama won, with many of the seats undoubtedly taken […]
Copyright Action, Singapore Dep’t
The High Court of Singapore has agreed to hear the appeal in an important copyright infringement case against RecordTV (that I blogged about a year or so ago …). It’s an interesting case on several fronts – For one thing, it replicates almost perfectly, on the facts, the very important Cartoon Network v Cablevision case […]
Journalist’s Privilege, Candlestick Maker’s Privilege, “a Curious Unreality,” and Piling Pelion Upon Ossa
An interesting opinion in In re Subpoena to Goldberg (doesn’t Subpoena to Goldberg sound like the title of a Philip Roth novel?), which struck me as unusually concrete and vivid, as well as persuasive on the merits: In 2004, Moshe Saperstein filed suit against the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) in the Southern District of Florida. Saperstein […]
Stringent Constitutional Limits on Anger Management Classes, Anti-Drug/Alcohol-Abuse Classes, or Even Traffic School as Alternatives to Prosecution?
I blogged Wednesday about the Third Circuit’s “sexting” decision, mostly to summarize the reasoning. Now that I’ve had a day to think some more about it, let me now follow up with a brief discussion of the implications First, recall the court’s reasoning: (1) Requiring the girls who were suspected of illegal sexting to go […]
Public Opinion About the Supreme Court
Is the Supreme Court too conservative? Not according to the public, it seems. Specifically, Rasmussen has a new poll out that asked 1,000 likely voters the following question: “In political terms is the Supreme Court too liberal, too conservative, or about right?” Here are the results: Too liberal: 32% About right: 33% Too conservative: 23% […]