Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler

Speculation is increasing that former Republican Senator Fred Thompson will enter the presidential race. Some think his name recognition and star quality could vault him into the top tier of presidential contenders. He also has the support of many intelligent conservatives in the blogosphere, such as Professor Bainbridge. One potential consequence of a Thompson campaign […]

Community Rights Counsel continues to attack on privately funded judicial seminars. In this article, CRC calls George Mason University’s Law & Economics Center an “ExxonMobil-funded junketing organization.” According to CRC executive director Douglas Kendall, ExxonMobil contributions “pays for a lot of judicial junkets,” Kendall says. The evidence for this accusation? ExxonMobil gave the LEC $215,000 […]

Like Orin, I was quite skeptical when I heard that Bush Justice Department appointee Monica Goodling planned to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination if called to testify about why the administration decided to remove several U.S. attorneys. Eric Muller is “disgust[ed]” by the Justice Department’s actions, but nonetheless thinks she was justified. As […]

There’s an interesting little story in today’s Washington Post about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s efforts to insert a provision protecting billboard companies from local land-use controls into the bill funding U.S. troops in Iraq and setting a timetable for their withdrawal.

In today’s Washington Post, John Kenney and Bruce Ohr respond to the allegations that the Bush Administration interfered with the federal government’s RICO case against the major tobacco companies. One of us is the senior career official in the Justice Department’s criminal division, has served in the department for 56 years through Democratic and Republican […]

Congress is under significant political pressure to reduce earmarks in appropriations legislation. Profligate spending and excessive earmaking cost Republicans in the 2006 election. Reforms have been promised, but there’s been very little follow through. Indeed, the new Congressional appropriators are conspiring to keep earmarks in but hide them from the public. For years, the Congressional […]

The Washington Post reports that the Supreme Court is issuing opinions at a fairly slow pace this term. It has only issued 23 decisions in argued cases thus far.

Two hundred years ago today, British Parliament passed An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Roger Alford has the details at Opinio Juris.

Mark Graber explains why professors who inflate their students grades aren’t doing them any favors.

Bloc Party completely won me over with their 2005 debut album, Silent Alarm. Think of the Buzzcocks with a Bauhaus sensibility and touch of When in Rome. The album was a commercial success and did well across the Atlantic, but never really caught on here. Bloc Party’s second album, A Weekend in the City, is […]

Here is an interesting essay by Victor Davis Hanson on the extent to which “300” is (and is not) true to historical accounts of the battle of Thermopylae. Although adapted from a Frank Miller graphic novel, the answer is, more than you might have thought. 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, […]

With the Attorneygate scandal continuing unabated, the time was right to renew charges that political appointees in the Bush Justice Department interfered to weaken the federal government’s attempt to sue tobacco companies under Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act. Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a front page article repeating allegations by former Justice Department […]

The American section of AIDP ((L’Association Internationale de Droit Penal/The International Association of Penal Law) has launched a new blog on international criminal law and related issues, including human rights law and counter-terrorism. Contributors include my colleague Michael Scharf, Mark Drumbl of Washington & Lee, Chris Blakesy of UNLV, and Michael Kelly of Creighton, among […]

Morse v. Frederick, the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, captured most of the media attention at the Supreme Court yesterday. The other case on the Court’s Monday docket, Wilkie v. Robbins, is potentially just as significant. One of the issues in the case is whether the Fifth Amendment protects private property owners against retaliation by […]

Eric Muller is in Germany investigating the life and death of his great-uncle Leo, a victim of the Holocaust. In this moving post, Eric relates his discovery of his great-uncle’s WWI medals in a Gestapo file on his uncle in the Bavarian state archive. Eric believes the medals belong to his family. Accordingly, he will […]