Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Warner Brothers and Fox settled their legal fight over the “Watchmen” movie last week, clearing the way for the movie’s release in March. Fox emerged victorious late Thursday in its effort to get Warner to recognize Fox

It’s been incredibly cold outside in Ohio this past week, which has made me think of cold weather songs. Frank Loesser‘s immortal “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” seemed an obvious choice, particularly with Ricardo Montalban’s death on Wednesday. While originally performed privately, Loesser apparently sold the rights to MGM for use in the film, Neptune’s Daughter, […]

Yesterday the Minerals Management Service (MMS) released its final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind power development in Massachusetts, concluding that the project will have no significant negative environmental consequences. Release of the final EIS clears the way for the MMS to lease a portion of Nantucket Sound to Cape […]

Today’s NYT profiles Dr. Paul Offit, author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. His book is a fervent and detailed defense of childhood vaccination. For daring to challenge the “vaccines cause autism” crowd, he’s been tarred a a “terrorist” and labeled “Dr. Proffit,” which only shows how […]

For two weeks in a row, every NFL playoff game with a “bird team” was won by a bird team. The only bird team to lose last week (the Atlanta Falcons) lost to another bird team (the Arizona Cardinals), and all three bird teams (the Cardinals, Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens) won this weekend as […]

I returned from the AALS to an Ohio blanketed with snow — about a foot in our front walk. This makes Fleet Foxes‘ “White Winter Hymnal” seem like an appropriate choice for this morning. Here are the lyrics: I was following the pack all swallowed in their coats with scarves of red tied

The LA Times reports that Eric Holder actively sought to blunt opposition to President Clinton’s pardon of members of two pro-Puerto Rican independence terrorist groups. New interviews and an examination of previously undisclosed documents indicate that Holder played an active role in changing the position of the Justice Department on the commutations. Holder instructed his […]

Last March, noted trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati suggested there were good reasons to believe that Barack Obama would be a fairly free trade president. Now, however, Bhagwati is concerned. He writes in yesterday’s FT that any such optimism was an “illusion” and it is time to sound the alarm due to the poor free-trade credentials […]

In a speech in Washington, D.C., Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson argued that a carbon tax is preferable to a cap-and-trade system for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. As reported in the WSJ, Tillerson noted that a carbon tax would be a “more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach” than cap-and-trade. “Mr. Tillerson said […]

With little fanfare, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has just released several legal opinions written over the past eight years, most of which concern legal aspects of the war in Iraq or counter-terrorism measures. I suspect the move came because the current Administration decided it was better to release these documents themselves than […]

Who would have thought that President-elect Obama’s plan to nominate Dr. Sanjay Gupta as the next Surgeon General would be so controversial? Paul Krugman thinks Gupta wrongly criticized Michael Moore’s film Sicko and Chris Mooney didn’t like Gupta’s sensationalist coverage of the Raelians’ cloning claims. More signficantly, Rep. John Conyers is seeking to line up […]

One of the few Obama appointments that has me particularly concerned is his selection of John Holdren to be his top science advisor. It’s all well and good that Obama has opted to name several well-respected scientists to his administration (such as Chu at Energy and Lubchenko at NOAA, among others), but in placing Holdren […]

I agree with Todd and Eugene that President-elect Obama has made a good choice to pick Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (and not just because Cass has beena guest blogger). Cass’s work on some issues (such as the Supreme Court and judicial nominations) can be frustrating, […]

President-elect Obama wants Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN and CBS News to be the next Surgeon General. [What? You thought this post was about the other SG?] According to Obama, Gupta “could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice,” according to the Washington Post‘s […]

Professor Dawn Johnsen, tapped by President-elect Obama to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, has quite a few thoughts on the OLC’s institutional role as an enforcer of the rule of law and an intra-executive branch check on executive branch excesses. See, for instance, her article “Faithfully Executing the Laws: Internal Legal Constraints […]