Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Yesterday I had an NRO column on the just-passed House climate bill. Here’s the intro: Last Friday, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a massive climate-change bill that few, if any, members of Congress had actually read. The legislation would impose the first-ever limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and impose a raft of other […]

Tom Goldstein has a thoughtful and interesting post on SCOTUSBlog summarizing the just-sortof-concluded Supreme Court term and looking forward to the next. I think Goldstein overstates the conservative trajectory of the Court; the judiciary’s inertial momentum to the left remains strong, and the Roberts Court, as a whole, is less conservative than many claim. That […]

There is relatively little in Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion that directly addresses the handling of this case by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. There are, however, some interesting passages from some of the other opinions that suggest disagreement with how the Second Circuit panel resolved the case. First, Justice Ginsburg’s dissent […]

While I wait for my copy of Ricci to finish printing, here are some quick thoughts on how this decision could influence the Sotomayor nomination. First, the bottom line: This decision is very unlikely to have a significant effect on the outcome. I find it (almost) inconceivable that she will not be confirmed. A 5-4 […]

In Cuomo v. Clearing House Ass’n, the Supreme Court held, 5-4, that the Comptroller of the Currency’s regulation preempting certain forms of state law enforcement against banks is invalid. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion of the Court, joined by (wait for it), Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer. Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in […]

Justice Kennedy for a 5-4 Court split along ideological lines. The Court reverses outright, and rejects the Obama Administration’s suggestion that the case be vacated and remanded for further proceedings. Justices Scalia and Alito wrote concurring opinions. Justice GInsburg wrote the dissent. More on SCOTUSBlog. UPDATE: The opinion is here — it’s a long one: […]

The conventional wisdom holds that replacing Justice David Souter with Sonia Sotomayor will not have a significant effect on the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. For most high-profile, hot-button issues, this may be correct. Yet for reasons I have noted before (see here and here), I think that Sotomayor’s confirmation could have significant effects, particularly in the […]

Here’s another bear picture from my brief trip to Montana earlier this month. This one is a black bear we saw north of Old Faithful, shortly after our hike to Mystic Falls. My wife took it, so it’s a much better picture.

First there was ReadtheBill.org. Now there’s Just Read the Bill, Already! Could this be a trend?

An NYT story reports that President Obama “spoke out against a provision in the bill that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept global-warming pollution limits.” If so, this is very encouraging. So I consulted the transcript of the interview upon which the Times‘ story was based, and here is what the […]

Remember the Republican “war on science”? The Bush Administration was repeatedly accused of manipulating and suppressing scientific conclusions for scientific gain. While I thought this was politics as usual, others believed this was a concerted attack on scientific inquiry — a “war on science.” (See this chain of posts.) The Obama Administration has expressed concern […]

The Chicago Tribune reports on a brewing scandal at the University of Illinois law school. Government officials pressured U. of I. administrators to admit politically connected but unqualified applicants. Paul Caron rounds up more coverage here. As Brian Leiter notes, many of those attacking U. of I. officials are missing the bigger picture. the University […]

Gregory Mankiw evaluates the risk of a public health care plan. Even if one accepts the president

John Calfee on the dangers of a “public plan” for health insurance: a public plan would possess formidable and perhaps overwhelming competitive advantages — generated not by efficiency but by the artificial advantages of “public” status. This would have two disastrous consequences. The first will be to cause most Americans now covered by private insurance […]

A CEI short film, “The Silence of the Regulated,” in which a Dr. Lecter asks: “You know what you look like to me with your good perfume and blunt white paper? You look like a libertarian.” Having worked for Fred Smith, I found this quite amusing. Your mileage may vary. (LvIP)