A federal judge in Virginia has declared the Obama administration’s health care reform law unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson is the first judge to rule against the law, which has been upheld by two others in Virginia and Michigan. I’m sure my co-bloggers will have further thoughts.
Author Archive | David Bernstein
Roger Cohen’s “Real Jews” Column
The column, which is receiving a great deal of attention, is about how mainstream Jewish groups are alienating liberal Jews through their intolerance of dissent about Israeli policies. Cohen doesn’t seem to notice the irony of how his column starts: Ira Stup was raised in Philadelphia attending Jewish day school and camps. He found his […]
Congratulations to the New Solicitor General of Texas
my George Mason Law School colleague Jonathan Mitchell. Press release here.
“Cuba’s Jewish Hostage”
The Washington Post has this editorial about Alan Gross, “who passed the holiday in a Cuban military facility, where he has been imprisoned for a year without trial because he tried to help Cuba’s Jews. Mr. Gross, a 61-year-old specialist in international development, traveled to Cuba under a contract from the State Department’s Agency for […]
Lithwick’s History
Lithwick: Traditionally (and what is conservatism if not respect for tradition?) conservatives have railed against “Constitutional tinkering,” while progressives have proposed all manner of amendments—some successful (women’s suffrage), others not (equal rights for women), still others, well, a bit unserious (a ban on “war for any purpose”) Actually, support for women’s suffrage didn’t break down […]
Closed End Funds Regress to the Mean
Back in October 2008, I wrote my first of several posts on closed-end funds: Closed-end mutual funds, which have a fixed number of shares and are traded on stock markets, have been absolutely clobbered by the turmoil in the financial markets. Not only have their underlying net asset values gone done, but many of them […]
Happy Chanukah!
Today is the first day of the holiday. Below is this year’s big Chanukah Youtube hit.
Book Blurbs
Amazon has published the blurbs for my forthcoming “Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights against Progressive Reform.” Blurbs obviously are subject to selection bias, but I still think these are pretty nice. “An exhilarating book full of interesting new perspectives. Rehabilitating Lochner will change the way people think about the transition from the late nineteenth century […]
Since When is Congress Not Part of the U.S. Goverment?
Joe Klein: It is hard to imagine what uber-patriotic Republicans would be doing if Democrats were intervening on behalf of a foreign country against the United States government. But here we have the Republicans, newly tumescent with their House majority, attempting to interpose themselves on the side of Israel against the President. This echoes criticism […]
Speaking of Wikileaks
According to State Department legal advisor and former Yale Law School dean Harold Koh, the Wikileaks document dumps “place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals – from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers to individuals providing information.” The harm to U.S. diplomatic and military interests is said to be quite […]
Sensible Column by Barry Rubin on Airport Security
One key point: the threats to airline security have come from abroad, and the U.S. should be focusing on flights coming from foreign countries. I had been thinking along the same lines. If nothing else, if domestic-based terrorists did want to blow up some planes, but airport security was too intense, what would stop them […]
Saudis and Other Arab States Want U.S. to Attack Iran’s Nuclear Program
So say documents leaked by Wikileaks. This shouldn’t be very surprising, but over the last several years I’ve seen many, many commentators (update: as has Jeffrey Goldberg) claiming that the only parties plugging for U.S. military action against Iran are Israel and its American “Likudnik” supporters. [Update: Omri Ceren provides some examples of “experts” who […]
Dan Solove versus the TSA
Over at Concurring Opinions, G.W. lawprof Dan Solove has some fun with the Playmobil airline screening playset. UPDATE: 21st century Gadsen Flag(H/T Jacob Hornberger via Facebook)
Rehabilitating Lochner Artist
I’ve been getting a lot of compliments on the book cover for my forthcoming “Rehabilitating Lochner” (see below). The concept was my own, but the execution was by New York-based artist Richard Weinstein. He was a pleasure to work with, and charged a quite reasonable fee. I highly recommend him. Richard’s website can be found […]
Interesting Interview with Noam Chomsky
Seriously, it is. But just when you are tempted to take Chomsky a bit seriously, you get a dialogue like this, filled with evasion and absolute double-talk: You believe that the job of the intellectual is to dissent, to speak truth to power, and to wrestle with power. But there is a troubling way in […]