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Author Archive | David Bernstein
Condo Prices down 40% Year Over Year in Miami
according to Bloomberg. Not terribly surprising for the “ground zero of the housing bubble,” and launchplace of Condoflip.com.
Stimulus Idea
No Social Security or Medicare tax for a year. Raise the retirement age by one year starting in 2014. Pure fiscal stimulus, no additional long-term debt.
How I’d Approach the Privileges or Immunities Issue in McDonald
Let’s say someone hired me to write an amicus brief in the McDonald Second Amendment case, and my goal was to get the Court to overrule the SlaughterHouse Cases (holding that the Privileges or Immunities Clause is a virtual nullity) and get the Court to hold that the Clause protects a right to bear arms, […]
Human Rights Watch Update
1. My op-ed about HRW’s problematic Middle East staff appeared in the Examiner newspaper websites. 2. HRW added new members to its Middle East and North Africa advisory board. Surprise, surprise, they include several individuals with a history of anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian political activism, and none with the opposite history. 3. HRW’s Iain Levine, talking […]
Joe Klein Again
Given that Joe Klein has engaged in another tantrum, first repeating the ridiculous charge that Jewish neoconservatives somehow mesmerized John McCain into being unduly confrontational regarding Iran, then launching into expletive-laden tirades against Jamie Kirchik, and finally telling the Washington Post that Jewish neocons sometimes “put the interests of Israel above the interests of the […]
Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity
Here are the results of a very interesting study, which I participated in (along with 30,000 other people). FWIW, I usually pronounce the o in “orange” like “a” in farce, though the longer I’ve lived outside New York, the less consistent I’ve become; call the place that I attend services “synagogue”‘; am proficient in Hebrew; […]
Who Cares?
As noted by Orin below, Marc DeGirolami tries to provide a global answer to that question that often bedevils academics, i.e., who cares? For the reasons that Orin and the commenters suggest, I don’t think DeGirolami’s answer is successful. On the other hand, law professors like myself who write about legal history have good reason […]
An Advance in Criminal Law Theory
“A throng of naked people with jack-o-lanterns on their heads is, by definition, an alarming sight, Chief Beckner says. Therefore, it’s illegal.” UPDATE: On a serious note, Chief Beckner threatened to arrest harmless naked Halloween revelers as sex offenders, which is no laughing matter, an abuse of authority, and should be grounds for his dismissal.
What Kind of People Affiliate with Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division?
This kind: Helena Cobban is on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. In a recent blog post, she took exception to the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb criticizing her because “she likes to compare Israel to Hamas.” (H/T: Richard Landes) Cobban was offended not because Goldfarb was wrong, […]
JStreet–The American Kadima?
The mystery of just what JStreet is, or intends to be, is growing deeper. “The party and the viewpoint that we’re closest to in Israeli politics is actually Kadima,” JStreet’s founder Jeremy Ben-Ami told the Jerusalem Post. (Hat tip: Ilya) You mean the Kadima founded by that old Likudnik*Ariel Sharon, and run by another old […]
Congratulations to GMUSL Class of 2009
July 2009 Bar Passage Rates GMUSL 1st Time Pass: 90.6% GMUSL Overall Pass: 89.1 VA 1st Time Pass: 80.2% VA Overall Pass: 75.4% UPDATE: I got an email inquiring as to whether GMU faculty gear their courses to Virginia law, or national law. The answer is that outside of specific Virginia practice electives, GMU classes […]
Louis Brandeis and the Incorporation Doctrine
By David Bernstein on October 28, 2009 1:28 am in Constitutional History, Freedom of Speech, Supreme Court
I’ve read most of Mel Urofsky’s new biography of Louis Brandeis, and it’s an extremely good, and very informative, book. But I’m afraid that Mel vastly exaggerates Brandeis’s influence on the Supreme Court’s adoption of the “incorporation doctrine”, to wit: (1) p. 618: “Scholars now believe that the Fourteenth Amendment … was intended to extend […]
Why Aren’t Bad Prosecutors Held Accountable?
Radley Balko, whose weekly crime column should be on your reading list, wants to know: As DNA exonerations continue to accumulate across the country, we’re left with some tough questions about accountability for the public officials who put innocent people in prison. Certainly in some cases honest mistakes can be forgiven. But what about cases […]
Yglesias at JStreet
Matthew Yglesias: I was debating with Jon Chait at a J Street panel this morning on the subject of “what does it mean to be pro-Israel?” As expected, we disagreed on a number of points, most of which I was right on and he was wrong on. But one thing he said in his opening […]