Very nice New York Times obituary of Robert Hicks, one of the leaders of the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Louisiana in the 1960s. A good example of how Second Amendment rights were used to protect Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Archive | April, 2010
Debate on constitutionality of Obamacare
This Wednesday, April 28, at the University of Colorado Law School, Wolf Law Building, 7-9. Sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, Boulder Chapter (of which I am a card-carrying member). Arguing for the Obama bill (and against Colorado Attorney General Suthers’ participation in the suit against the bill) will be former Colorado […]
Mayor Bloomberg’s gun show bill
Does much more than just impose background checks small-scale vendors at gun shows. Details here, in this article I wrote for the Saturday Denver Post.
“Philosophically Poorly Timed Earthquake Coincides with ‘Boobquake’”
No, it’s not the Onion. Vanity Fair Daily has the story.
A Thought on American Jewish Demography
I attended my 25th year high school reunion last night. I graduated from the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn. When I attended, my class was approximately 55% Jews of Syrian origin. These Jews haven’t assimiliated into broader American Jewish society, but their religious lifestyles generally fall within the “Conservadox” to “Modern Orthodox” categories. About 25% […]
Drawing Lines in the Commerce Clause Debate on Health Care Reform
I’ve generally stayed at the periphery on the debate over the constitutionality of health care reform, mostly because it’s not something that I particularly enjoy blogging about. As I see it, a lot of the blogging about the legal issues are a weird mix of actual legal analysis and efforts to influence the broader political […]
Is the Health Care Mandate a Direct Tax?
Some have argued that it does not matter whether the individual mandate is a constitutional exercise of the power to regulate “commerce . . . among the several states” because the mandate — or, more properly, the penalty for failing to comply with the requirement to obtain health insurance — is within Congress’ power to […]
Why “Washington, DC”?
Our nation’s capital is known as “Washington, DC.” But that name is kind of redundant, right? After all, “Washington” is the only thing in “DC.” So you can refer to “DC,” or you can refer to “Washington,” but they’re the same thing, at least as long as you make clear you’re not referring to Washington […]
Acquittal in “I Didn’t Know I Was a Felon” Felon-in-Possession Case
I mentioned this Friday, but it was buried in a post on a slightly different facet of the case. And since I blogged about the case when it first arose, I thought I’d also note the result, which some of our readers might find surprising (judging by the comments to the original post). The jury […]
Louisiana Bill Would Outlaw Insulting an Under-17-Year-Old By E-Mail
The Louisiana House bill — passed by a 12-0 vote in committee, and scheduled for floor debate this Wednesday — would make it a crime (up to 6 months in jail for the first offense, up to a year for the second, and up to three years for the third), to transmit by “any … […]
Arabic Language Expertise in the Military
From Prof. Mark Liberman (Language Log): While there’s no question that more interpreters would have been better, I wonder whether deficiencies in military language training bear any significant responsibility for the well-documented problems in managing the American occupation of Iraq…. The most relevant criticism of the U.S. military’s Arabic language training would not, I think, […]
Recess Appointments to Art. III Courts, 1789-2004
When I was in the Office of the Solicitor General, I was the Assistant who worked on the (many) briefs in opposition to cert petitions challenging the recess appointments of Judges William Pryor and Charles Pickering in 2004. In connection with those opps, Bristow Fellow Ileana Ciobanu and I compiled this list using DOJ and […]
Racism and The Tea Partiers
Cathy Young has an interesting column digging deeper into the data. Here’s how it starts: Ever since the “Tea Parties” gained national attention, the debate has raged on whether they are a grass-roots protest movement in the proud tradition of American dissent, or a hysterical mob driven by fear, intolerance and selfishness. Recently, two much-discussed […]
Supreme Court Agrees to Review Constitutionality of Ban on Distributing Violent Video Games to Minors
The opinion below is Video Software Dealers Ass’n v. Schwarzenegger (9th Cir. Feb. 20, 2009) (see here for my brief summary of that opinion). Should be a very important First Amendment case, and on a subject — speech to minors — that the Court has discussed relatively rarely. Hope to have more on this later […]
The District of Potomac
I’d never heard of the federal district court for the District of Potomac until today, but it turns out there was such a court, albeit only briefly, in 1801-02. The District of Potomac included the territory of “Columbia” together with parts of Virginia and Maryland. The new district was set up by Section 21 of […]