I am puzzled by a few things about the Sarah Palin’s and Joseph Biden’s responses to Katie Couric’s questions about Roe v. Wade and federalism. I found it odd that Palin could not name another Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed. After all, we know that she is aware of at least one Supreme […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Does Ifill Have a Conflict of Interest?
The internet has been buzzing with charges that tonight’s debate moderator, Gwen Ifill, has a conflict of interest because she is writing a book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, that is due to be released on inauguration day in 2009. If nothing else, it creates the appearance of a conflict […]
VP Candidates on Separation of Church and State:
A Daisy Ad for the 21st Century:
A candidate for Congress resurrects the Daisy Ad.
An Increasingly Environmental Term:
The OT 2008 Supreme Court term already had the potential to be quite significant for environmental law with four environmental cases docketed. Then today the Supreme Court added another pair of cases, Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company, et al. v. United States and Shell Oil Company v. United States, concerning the application of […]
A More Modest Ohio Supreme Court:
Several years ago, Ohio Supreme Court races were fiercely contested. Industry, labor and various legal groups sponsored vicious advertisements attacking candidates for the court and justices seeking re-election. One reason for this was because the Ohio Supreme Court had become very active in contentious policy disputes, ranging from education to tort reform. The court held […]
A New Special Prosecutor:
Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to examine potential misconduct by White House and Justice Department officials related to the firing of several U.S. Attorneys. From the Legal Times: Mukasey announced the appointment of career prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate the firings as the report was released Monday. Dannehy, currently the acting U.S. […]
New York Sun RIP:
The New York Sun is closing its doors.
Courts Allow Same-Day Registration, Voting in Ohio:
Both state and federal courts turned away GOP lawsuits challenging Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s decision to allow same-day voter registration and early voting. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld Brunner’s decision 4-3, and two federal courts declined to rule the other way. The NYT reports: The early voting begins Tuesday and runs through Oct. […]
OIG/OPR Report on U.S. Attorney Firings:
The full report from the Justice Department Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility is no available. Here are some excerpts from the lengthy report’s conclusions. In sum, we believe that the process used to remove the nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 was fundamentally flawed. While Presidential appointees can be removed for any […]
Who’s “Qualified” in 2008?
Donald Boudreaux offers this response to Fareed Zakaria’s recent column on Sarah Palin: Fareed Zakaria (author of a truly fine book and columnist for the Washington Post) rightly argues that Sarah Palin is unqualified to be president of the United States (and, hence, by extension, unqualified to be V-P). Mr. Zakaria is correct that Gov. […]
Is the Bailout Bill Better?
Did the revisions to the Bush Administration’s proposed bailout bill improve it? Here’s a highly unscientific Instapoll. One thing is for sure, it’s much longer now — it went from three pages to 110 pages. There’s also lots of fodder for Administrative Law exams.
No Grand Jury for Gonzales:
Today’s WaPo reports: Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales will not be referred to a federal grand jury for his role in the 2006 firings of nine U.S. attorneys, but a long-awaited report to be released today will recommend that a prosecutor continue to probe the involvement of lawmakers and White House officials in the […]
Palin Problems:
I think David Post is engaging in more than a bit of wishful thinking in his post below. We know he’s not a Palin fan, was never a potential McCain supporter, and doesn’t exactly have his finger on the pulse of contemporary conservative thinking. There’s not “something of a drumbeat building” for a Palin withdrawal […]
Justice Alito Gets Out of the Pool:
Today’s New York Times reports that Justice Alito has withdrawn from the cert pool. This means that there are seven justices left in the pool — all but Justices Alito and Stevens. Students of the court say there are costs and benefits to relying on pool memos, which are prepared by smart but relatively inexperienced […]