From State v. Baker (Iowa 2004): The parties stipulated to the facts underlying this appeal. Baker was charged with violating section 720.4 based on a telephone conversation Baker had with Debra Krause, who had recently served as a juror in a criminal proceeding against one Greg Schoo, a friend of Baker. On May 8, 2003, […]
Archive | May, 2012
One of Kipling’s Grimmer Poems
I don’t know why I thought of it today — I like to think I’m not that old, but come to think of it Kipling wasn’t that old when he wrote it either. Maybe he was thinking about someone else in particular, but I’m not; it just came to my mind. In any case, it’s […]
Fourth Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Piracy Case in United States v. Said
I quoted Eugene Kontorovich’s criticism of the district court decision when it came down in August 2010; today, the Fourth Circuit reversed, and handed down another piracy opinion in United States v. Dire, which discusses the legal question in detail. Thanks to Howard Bashman (How Appealing) for the pointer.
Another Switch in Time?
Jennifer Rubin and Kathleen Parker’s columns today have made me think of another Justice Roberts: Justice Owen Roberts, who is famous for having switched his vote to uphold the New Deal programs in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, the 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of minimum wage legislation, which overturned […]
Dark Humor in the 1962 Harvard Alumni Report
Thanks to Boston.com for the pointer. (I don’t know whether this was inserted by the alumnus himself — apparently the norm for the directory — or by someone else.)
The Confederate Flag, the First Amendment, and the ACLU
Apropos yesterday’s Confederate flag / First Amendment post, here’s a story from March: A Delaware Department of Transportation employee had, for 17 years, a decorative plate that said “REDNECK” on a Confederate flag background. A coworker complained, charging “harassment,” and the department threatened him with discipline “if he continued to drive his vehicle with the […]
Lochner and the Individual Mandate Revisited
By Ilya Somin on May 23, 2012 3:28 pm in Economic LIberties, Federalism, Health Care, Individual Mandate, Libertarianism
Various defenders of the individual mandate have long argued that if the Court strikes down the law, it is likely to lead to the resuscitation of Lochner v. New York and the invalidation of a wide range of economic regulations. This meme has most recently been taken up by Jeffrey Rosen, who claims that striking […]
Jennifer Rubin: What the Left is Asking Chief Justice Roberts to Do
President Obama’s two statements urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act came the week after the vote was presumably taken by the justices in conference. Since then we have been subjected to a seemingly endless stream of pundits, professors, and politicians urging the Court for “nonlegal” reasons (see Ilya’s post here) to […]
“More People Die from Guns Than Car Accidents in Michigan”
So states a Detroit Free Press op-ed headline. Here’s an excerpt from the op-ed itself: Michigan is one of 10 states in which gun deaths now outpace motor vehicle deaths, according to a study released Thursday by the Washington, D.C.-based Violence Policy Center. But don’t expect the from-my-cold-dead-hands crowd to embrace the center’s conclusion that […]
No, the Supreme Court is Not Poised to Adopt a Radical Libertarian Agenda, and Certain Commentators Should be Embarrassed for Suggesting Otherwise
Consider each of the following arguments in its historical context: (1) It’s the 1930s. The Scottsboro Boys are represented by a known Communist Party front, beholden to the agenda Josef Stalin and his minions have dictated to the the C.P., including the creation of a separate country for American blacks in the “Black Belt.” The […]
Kathleen Parker: “The Public Trial of Justice Roberts”
Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has a powerful column this morning in the Post. She begins: Novelist John Grisham could hardly spin a more provocative fiction: The president and his surrogates mount an aggressive campaign to intimidate the chief justice of the United States, implying ruin and ridicule should he fail to vote in a pivotal […]
Gun Forfeiture and the Defendant Who “Remarked How Easy It Would Be for Someone to Shoot the President”
From today’s State v. Brek (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. May 22, 2012): In October 2009, defendant worked as a security guard for a private company at Newark Liberty International Airport. Vice–President Biden had recently flown into the airport, and President Obama was scheduled to arrive the next day on Air Force One. Defendant and […]
The TSA Tax
The Hill reports Senate Democrats want to increase air travel fees to make up a shortfall in the Transportation Security Administration’s budget. The stated rationale for the move is that the burden of the TSA should be borne by those who benefit from it, but that’s no reason to charge air travelers.
Guest-Blogging for Megan McArdle
I’ll be among the guest bloggers for Megan McArdle at TheAtlantic.com over the next two weeks. About half the posts will be on environmental stuff, and the other half on Supreme Court stuff. My first post, on property rights and environmental protection is here.
South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna Dewitt Whacks Nikki Haley Pinata
This is pretty shocking: From ABC News: Dewitt told ABC News she has no regrets about the incident and said there was “no ill intent” in what she was doing. Dewitt said her colleagues brought the pinata and were using it as a “memoir” of Haley’s words and actions towards unions in her time […]