Washington Times: White House officials said that sort of “surpassingly curious reading” called into question Judge Vinson‘s entire ruling. “There’s something thoroughly odd and unconventional about the analysis,” said a White House official who briefed reporters late Monday afternoon, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hmm. I think it’s a bit curious that the White House […]
Author Archive | David Bernstein
Likud versus the Neocons
I’ve pointed out several times before that contrary to mythology created by leftists (e.g., Juan Cole) and paleoconservatives who dislike both right-of-center Israelis and American neoconservatives, the latter are not “Likudniks” and the former are not “neocons.” [“Short and sweet, the Likud is not neoconservative, and neoconservative foreign policy, while pro-Israel and hawkish, is otherwise […]
Talk at Northwestern University Law School Tomorrow
[IMPORTANT UPDATE: Displaying its typical resiliency to snow, D.C. including its airports, has more or less completely shut down, and I won’t be able to get to my scheduled talk at Northwestern.] I’ll be speaking at Northwestern University Law School tomorrow at noon, in Room 175 of the Rubloff building. My talk is sponsored by […]
Fisher v. Texas
By David Bernstein on January 20, 2011 9:26 pm in Affirmative Action, Constitutional Law, Racial Discrimination
As Ilya notes below, the Fifth Circuit has upheld the University of Texas’s racial and ethnic preference practices in Fisher v. Texas. There are a number of interesting aspects of Fisher. One is that the University of Texas-Austin had a very “diverse” class without using preferences. Under the university’s previous, race-neutral system, which included the […]
BBC Objectivity?
In response to Ken’s post below, the idea that the BBC is somehow “objective” compared to American t.v. and radio is laughable. (I’ve blogged about the Beeb here, here, and here. My favorite example is a BBC radio report I heard a couple of years ago. The reporter was in China, reporting on the Chinese […]
Speaking of Wealthy Organizations that Benefit from Unnecessary Rules…
According to the National Law Journal, the ABA is considering dropping its requirement that law school applicants take the LSAT. Loyola Chicago Dean David Yellin, a member of the relevant ABA committee, notes that committee members have also questioned whether the ABA should be making rules that financially benefit the Law School Admission Council—the organization […]
How to Train Your Daughter to Play Piano
Yale lawprof Amy Chua: “Get back to the piano now,” I ordered. “You can’t make me.” “Oh yes, I can.” Back at the piano, [my seven-year-old daughter] Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it […]
Alito in Hawaii
In today’s mail, I received a promotional postcard (part of the genre known as “law porn”) announcing that the University of Hawaii School of Law “Welcomes 2011 Jurist-in-Residence U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., January 24-28, 2011.” I suppose that I’m meant to be impressed that Justice Alito is visiting the law […]
Reminder: Federalist Society Faculty Conference in San Francisco
On Friday, the Federalist Society will be holding its annual faculty conference. One does not need to be a Federalist Society member to attend. Among the events of likely interest to VC readers: a debate between Randy and Orin over the constitutionality of the individual mandate, and a panel on conservative and libertarian alternatives to […]
Kudos to Starwood Preferred Guest
I occasionally post my consumer complaints on this blog, so I should also give credit where it’s due. I recently discovered that I had managed to forfeit 33K Starpoints through inactivity, in part because I had inadvertently opened multiple accounts. While SPG’s phone rep. wasn’t very helpful (she offered me 1K points), a short email […]
Trivia Question
Without Googling or otherwise cheating, where is the only kosher McDonald’s outside of Israel?
More “Life Imitates ‘Rehabilitating Lochner'”
By David Bernstein on December 27, 2010 9:39 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Health Care, Rehabilitating Lochner
In a previous post, I noted that in my forthcoming book, I point out that academics invented the notion of a “Lochner era” in which the U.S. Supreme Court was single-mindedly determined to invalidate all manner of economic regulation. In doing so, they conflated a host of different constitutional provisions–due process, commerce clause, nondelegation doctrine, […]
Constitutional Doctrine and the Constitutionality of Health Care Reform
I’ve been following the debate both at the VC and elsewhere, and find myself somewhat amused at the law professor conceit that the constitutionality of the individual mandate will be determined based on whether the “best” interpretation of USSC precedent supports it or not. Here’s my take: What the opponents of the individual mandate had […]
Life Imitates Rehabilitating Lochner
By David Bernstein on December 13, 2010 9:44 pm in Constitutional History, Health Care, Rehabilitating Lochner
[UPDATE: Not worth responding to a certain obnoxious blogger, but, for those who are interested, feel free to check out the praise for my book from notorious right-wingers (NOT!) Jack Balkin, William Nelson, Mark Tushnet, and G. Edward White.] Rehabilitating Lochner, Conclusion: The longstanding myth of a wildly activist, reactionary Supreme Court imposing a grossly […]
Orin’s Post on Normative and Descriptive Readings of Constitutional Law
Orin writes, We can all agree that there are two different questions: (1) How courts actually have interpreted a provision of the Constitution (and thus how a good lower-court judge would apply it) and (2) How courts should have interpreted that provision based on whatever theory of constitutional interpretation a person adopts. Those are indeed […]