There has been some speculation that the President’s willingness to make recess appointments, as he did last week, may have been prompted by the Chief Justice’s suggestion that such appointments could be used to fill seats on the National Labor Relations Board. Last Tuesday, in New Process Steel v. NLRB, the Court heard arguments questioning […]
Archive | 2010
Rehabilitating Pharaoh
Inspired by an Arnold Kling post, I’ve been thinking that we Jews, especially those who consider ourselves Progressives, have been way too hard on Pharaoh in our recounting of the Passover story. Consider Pharaoh’s achievements: (1) Green jobs: The Hebrews built the cities of Pithom and Ramses while emitting no greenhouse gases beyond their own […]
Inside Baseball on Obama Legal Team Deliberations on National Security
By Kenneth Anderson on March 29, 2010 8:05 am in Counter-Terrorism Policy, Libertarianism, Robotics, Targeted Killing, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
Over at Opinio Juris, Julian Ku points to today’s front page NYT story by Charlie Savage detailing secret memos and meetings among the leading lawyers seeking to address national security and terrorism issues, including detentions, drone strikes, the question of armed conflict, and other things. In my posts, I have been focused on the question […]
New York Times Forum: “Is the Health Care Law Unconstitutional?
The New York Times’ online forum Room For Debate has a remarkably fair and balanced discussion of the constitutionality of the health care bill by Jack M. Balkin (Yale Law School), Abbe R. Gluck (Columbia Law School), David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey (counsel in the Florida lawsuit), James F. Blumstein, Vanderbilt Law School, […]
European Libertarians and Federalism
In his post on American libertarians’ support for federalism, which I responded to here, NYU lawprof Rick Hills points out that American libertarian support for federalism may be at odds with the position taken by our European cousins. “European libertarians, to my knowledge,” he writes, “have never liked federalism much.” The divergence between American and […]
Kosher-for-Passover Beer
Yes, there is such a thing: Ramapo Valley Brewery’s Honey Beer, a “Passover Honey Lager.” I’ve never tried it, but the good folks at BeerAdvocate say it’s pretty terrible. Thanks to LeElle Krompass for the link.
Christopher Caldwell on the Pain in Spain
Christopher Caldwell, who writes for the Weekly Standard, the Financial Times, and elsewhere, has an outstanding piece in the WS this week on how the financial situation in Spain came about. His description of the Spanish economy and its reliance on housing construction certainly matches my complete wonderment – bewilderment – at the economy of […]
The Ongoing Debate Over Jewish Fantasy Literature
Jewish Studies Professor Michael Weingrad’s essay “Why there is No Jewish Narnia,” touched off a massive debate over the validity of his claim that there is no Jewish fantasy literature, including my own humble critique. Abigail Nussbaum has posted a helpful roundup of the debate. Weingrad himself responds to his critics here. Like Nussbaum, I […]
A Message from/to Rick Hills
By Randy Barnett on March 28, 2010 7:18 pm in Commerce Clause, Constitutional Theory, Federalism, Fourteenth Amendment
I thought Volokh readers might enjoy an email exchange I had earlier today with NYU lawprof Roderick Hills earlier: Hi Randy — I thought I’d send along a recent blog post at Prawsblog that gives you, Cato, Ilya, etc some flak in a good-natured way. (Brian Galle also has a post on health care federalism […]
Passover and the charination ritual
My law school friend David Markus wrote on Facebook that, as part of his Passover preparation, he had “charoset marinating.” A Facebook friend of his remarked: “Okay, so I haven’t been awake all that long, and I just spent a minute glancing dullishly at the screen wondering what a ‘marmoset charinating’ entailed.” As a service […]
Deterring Cyberattacks
Herb Lin at the National Academies, with whom I had the pleasure of working on the NAS Technology, Policy, Law, and Ethics Regarding U.S. Acquisition and Use of Cyberattack Capabilities report, passes along the following: To stimulate work in this area, the NRC is offering one or more monetary prizes for excellent contributed papers that […]
Assassination, Self-Defense, and the Koh Speech
By Kenneth Anderson on March 28, 2010 5:30 pm in Counter-Terrorism Policy, International Law, Robotics, Targeted Killing, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
(Note: I started composing draft posts about Harold Koh’s important ASIL speech, particularly its discussion of drones and targeted killing, and concluded it would be better not to do a post that would turn into an online article, but instead some shorter posts on particular issues, even if they are somewhat random.) Toward the end […]
Why do Libertarians Like Federalism?
NYU lawprof Roderick Hills, a leading academic expert on federalism, asks why libertarians “care about federalism.” He posits three possible reasons: I have three theories to explain the connection that libertarians draw between federalism and libertarianism, which I’ll label the (a) “feet-voting” theory; (b) “shrink-and-drown” theory; and (c) “insincerity” theory. Hills captures the major libertarian […]
“Nazi Scandal Engulfs Human Rights Watch”
That’s the title of an excellent piece today in the Times of London. Despite the lurid title, the piece is actually a tough-but-fair overview of the various controversies surrounding HRW’s coverage of the Middle East. A taste: Some conflict zones get much more coverage than others. For instance, HRW has published five heavily publicised reports […]
Sunday Song Lyric
What’s the best political song of all time? The folks at the New Statesmen believe it’s “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie. Here are the later lyrics, which are probably less well known than the opening. As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” […]