Author Archive | David Bernstein

I’ve had previous occasion to blog about “morbidly interesting” anti-Israel blogger Philip Weiss, whose posts I come across occasionally. Morbidly interesting because though of Jewish background, he consistently rails against his own Jewish upbringing and is hostile to most things Jewish (the great exception I’ve noticed being Jewish leftism), has at least one overt anti-Semite […]

No ruling on the merits, but the USSC has granted the stay to allow more time to consider Indiana pension funds’ claim that the deal illegally prioritizes unsecured creditors over holders of secured debt.

Q. How would you describe the political ideology of someone who worked for Michael Dukakis’s campaign, was a cabinet secretay for Bill Clinton, holds a high-level position in the Obama Administration, and, who, when applauded at a Federalist Society meeting, responded “Thank you very much–I think. Let me remind you, I am a Democrat. I […]

Hysterical.

To follow up a bit on Ilya’s post below, I think the survey question is too poorly worded to be used as evidence for or against racism among Jews: “Would you be in favor of a close relative marrying a black?” As Ilya points out, the vast majority of blacks are gentiles, so some fraction […]

N.Y. Times: It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism. But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he […]

I’m rather behind the times, but I just finished watching season 3 of “24.” As you may recall, when Alan Milliken is dying of a heart attack, his wife Julia is about to give him his heart pills when the president’s ex-wife Sherry persuades her not to. Alan, being handicapped, can’t get to the pills […]

The piece by Jeff Rosen that Orin links to below is interesting, and well worth reading, but the part about Obama’s philosophy in appointing Justices is, in a word, fanciful. When Obama decided on his first Supreme Court nominee, he wasn’t looking for the most distinguished appointment, the nominee most likely to create a new […]

Well-deserved, I think. (Click on number 3 on the playlist.) UPDATE: BTW, Boyle sang the same song she sang on her first appearance on Britain’s Got Talent. I understand the tremendous pressure she was under, but I suspect she would have been much more likely to win if she had shown the audience something new.

I’m sure everyone has seen various op-eds, blog posts, and so forth proclaiming that the financial crisis shows that capitalism can’t be left “unregulated”, and that the end of “free market ideology” is nigh. It seems obvious to me, though, that critics are comparing markets (which were far from unregulated) to a hypothetical, rational, efficient, […]

I thought the following informative and rather pointed email from Yale Law Professor Roberta Romano would be of interest to many readers (published with her permission): I thought that I would pass along my reaction to a New York Times article by Gretchen Morgenson in Sunday’s business section….. The article in question flunks Corporate Governance […]

Given my interest in protecting the First Amendment from overzealous anti-discrimination rules, I was heartened to discover Judge Sotomayor’s dissent in Pappas v. Giuliani. As Sotomayor summarized the majority opinion: The Court holds that the government does not violate the First Amendment when it fires a police department employee for racially inflammatory speech – where […]

Tom Goldstein: To Hispanics, the nomination would be an absolutely historic landmark. It really is impossible to overstate its significance. The achievement of a lifetime appointment at the absolute highest levels of the government is a profound event for that community, which in turn is a vital electoral group now and in the future. I’m […]

Is Liberty trying to make itself into a laughingstock? Comments open for four hours. UPDATE: For those who think that Liberty is “standing on principle,” especially with regard to abortion, the especially stupid thing about Liberty’s move is that political parties don’t have fixed principles, they respond to their members and what they think will […]

In my previous post, I linked to something Karl Rove wrote. I’m no fan of Rove’s, who I think was a disaster for liberty-minded Americans in many ways, but that won’t stop me from citing him when his political commentary is relevant. I forgot, however (but the comments reminded me), that to some liberal readers […]