Author Archive | David Bernstein

An interesting email from a reader:Concerning your post ‘Interesting findings from the American Jewish Committee survey…’, specifically the question which asks about anti-semitism in the religious right: I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. My father and grandfather were Southern Baptists ministers, my uncle an Assembly of God minister. I was a fervent believer […]

An interesting post from my friend, Capital University law professor David Mayer, who has just started a new blog.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, the 20th, I will be speaking about You Can’t Say That! at Boalt Hall Law School on the UC Berkeley campus at 12:45 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public, and VC readers are invited to come by and say hello (and get a free lunch!)

Too bad Bush decided to use his first judicial recess appointment to appoint Pickering. As I’ve discussed before, Pickering was among the worst of the Bush judicial nominees. UPDATE: Readers have pointed me to this and this article defending Pickering, both of which I had previously read, and neither of which I find exonerates him […]

I just received in my mailbox a copy of Foundation Press’s Constitutional Law Stories, edited by Michael Dorf of Columbia Law School. The book provides in-depth background on fifteen leading constitutional cases; I wrote the chapter on Lochner vs. New York. The other chapters, which I read in draft form, are excellent. The book is […]

Based upon this report, it seems the federal government’s plans to dispose of (read: store for a really, really, really long time) nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain in Nevada may be in trouble. Yesterday’s oral argument in Nevada’s suit challenging the plan seems not to have gone well for the federal government’s attorneys. Specifically, judges […]

Slate has “Bushisms,” which have been ably critiqued by our own Eugene Volokh (see, e.g., here and here). Now NRO has “Deanisms” — but they’re not quite the same thing. Whereas the former are intended to portray the President as inarticulate or uneducated, it seems the latter will portray Dean as a hothead. Of course, […]

I’m teaching the Civil Rights Cases (1883) tomorrow, which invalidated the Civil Right Act of 1875’s prohibition on discrimination by inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement, as beyond Congress’s power under the 13th and 14th Amendments. In debates over Lochner and constitutional protection of economic liberty more generally, liberal scholars will sometimes refer […]

Thanks to Eugene’s defense of me below, but it raises an interesting issue: there are a few folks out there who love to complain about my posts (you know who you are). Others have complained about other Conspirators. [Edit: And I don’t mean occasional disagreement or criticism, I mean, “So and so is ruining the […]

My previous post on Burger King’s “generous” offer to give customers a Whopper without a bun for the same price as a Whopper with a bun reminded me of an even better story about BK. In the days before the Veggie Whopper, at a time when I subscribed to Vegetarian Times, I recall that BK […]

Sometimes, when I ask readers for information about a given topic, I get reader emails beginning with “I’m sure many people have mentioned X …” Sometimes that’s true, in which case I will update my post to note that I now now about “X”. Often, however, the reader who sends this is the only reader […]

Two interesting things about today’s suicide murder in Israel. First, the bombing occurred at a checkpoint for Palestinian workers. While Israel is blamed for “immiserating” the Palestinians by cutting off their jobs, whenever Israel tries to let more Palestinians work, Hamas, Jihad, et al. intentionally target the checkpoints, to force Israel to crack down and […]

It is well-known that opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act warned that it would lead to racial preferences, and that these concerns were pooh-poohed by proponents. I am looking for other examples of warnings by opponents of the Act labled “extremist” or “hysterical” at the time that have been vindicated, whether in the ’64 […]

Interesting piece in Ha’aretz. My girlfriend’s parents and their families were among the thousands o Jews forced to flee Iraq, leaving their (substantial) property behind, 50+ years ago. Her late mother left to her children the deed to the land her father bought for her in Baghdad when she was born.

Drudge links to a report noting that bowing to the low-carb craze, Burger King will now offer bunless Whoppers, for the same price as Whoppers with buns. How is this different then in the past (1) ordering the Whopper, but stating, “no bread please”; or (2) ordering the Whopper, and throwing the bread away, feeding […]