Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Chrysler + Fiat = Chooch! The rationale for the bailout was that a bankruptcy would kill car sales, so the government had to step in and negotiate all the bankruptcy-style concessions without actually having a bankruptcy. But Obama was unwilling to get the U.A.W. to make the bankruptcy-style concessions that would be necessary to have […]

Case Western Reserve University will be part of a pilot program in which students in certain classes will have their textbooks loaded on to Amazon Kindles. Amazon will reportedly introduce a new version of the Kindle, with a larger screen and enhanced web browsing capability, for this program. As I understand it, the pilot will […]

USA Today reports that state and local governments now receive more money from the federal government than from their own taxpayers. The sales tax had been the No. 1 source of state and local revenue since the mid-1970s, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Before that, property taxes were the primary source. That changed […]

Glenn Greenwald responds to Jeffrey Rosen’s article on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. My perception of Sotomayor is almost the exact opposite of the picture painted by Rosen. I had a generally low opinion of the intellect of most judges — it’s one of the things I disliked most about the practice of law — but I […]

TheColumbus Dispatch reports that three campaign workers from out of state who registered and voted in Ohio have been fined, given suspended sentences, and placed on probation. I covered this case last fall in these posts. The story also notes that another individual pled guilty for voting twice, and the Franklin County elections board sent […]

In a potentially significant ruling, in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway v. United States, the Supreme Court limited liability for the cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the federal Superfund statute. Justice Stevens, writing for an eight justice majority (all of the justices except for Ginsburg) significantly narrowed the basis upon which companies may […]

Judge Richard Posner must have too much time on his hands, as he has a new blog on economic policy at TheAtlantic.com.

Among the four opinions the Supreme Court handed down today was Arthur Anderson LLP v. Carlisle. Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Gisburg, Breyer, and Alito. Justice Souter dissented, joined by Justice Stevens and the Chief Justice.

Jeff Rosen makes “The Case Against Sotomayor.” in The New Republic. The article, subtitled “Indictments of Obama’s front-runner to replace Souter,” presents a highly unflattering picture of the Second Circuit judge. Here’s a taste: despite the praise from some of her former clerks, and warm words from some of her Second Circuit colleagues, there are […]

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint on his prescription for a “big tent” Republican Party: To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a “big tent” party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — […]

From the Washington Post: Faced with new evidence that utilities across the country are dumping toxic sludge into waterways, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to impose new restrictions on the level of contaminants power plants can discharge. Plants in Florida, Pennsylvania and several other states have flushed wastewater with levels of selenium and other […]

A video of Sonia Sotomayor, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit widely viewed as a short-listed for the Supreme Court, is making the blogospheric rounds. In the clip, she says that the courts of appeals are “where policy is made.” Some seem to think that this is a damning […]

When President Obama first announced his intention to nominate Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, most of the criticism came from the left. (Us VC folk were quite positive, and not just because he’s been a guest blogger.) Now, however, some folks are going after Cass from […]

Bankruptcy attorney Tom Lauria is making incdendiary, and quite disturbing, charges against the Obama White House. On a radio show he claimed that one of his clients, a Chrysler bondholder, was told its reputation would be “destroyed” in the press corps if it did not accede to the Administration’s wishes with regard to Chrysler’s restructuring. […]

From an interesting op-ed in today’s Washington Post by Christina Boyd and Lee Epstein. a diverse Supreme Court isn’t just about a bench that looks like America. This is about jurisprudence, too. In research that we conducted with our colleague Andrew D. Martin, we studied the votes of federal court of appeals judges in many […]