It is generally accepted that the Supreme Court’s sex discrimination jurisprudence cannot be reconciled with an originalist interpretation of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment. Originalists and non-originalists alike accept that the original intent of Section One was to preclude racial discrimination against blacks, and that there was no intent to prevent sex discrimination […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Paying Too Much for an Unneeded Smallpox Drug that Can’t Be Tested
This past Spring the federal government awarded $433 million for the development of a new smallpox drug, at an inflated cost, after a non-competitive bid, even though a new drug is unneeded and cannot be tested. Smallpox has been eradicated, for all practical purposes, and the government already has substantial vaccine stockpiles. With no actual […]
LAT on Justice Scalia and Criminal Defendants
David Savage of the LA Times reports that many criminal defendants should be thankful for Justice Scalia. In recent years he has led the charge for more strict enforcement of the Sixth Amendment‘s confrontation clause. This is but one example of how originalist approaches to constitutional interpretation do not always produce “conservative” results. Justice Scalia’s […]
Give Thanks — It’s Good for You
John Tierney explores yet another reason to be grateful: It will make you feel better. Thanksgiving may be the holiday from hell for nutritionists, and it produces plenty of war stories for psychiatrists dealing with drunken family meltdowns. But it has recently become the favorite feast of psychologists studying the consequences of giving thanks. Cultivating […]
Cities Pay for Occupations
The AP reports: During the first two months of the nationwide Occupy protests, the movement that is demanding more out of the wealthiest Americans cost local taxpayers at least $13 million in police overtime and other municipal services, according to a survey by The Associated Press. The heaviest financial burden has fallen upon law enforcement […]
ClimateGate Part Deux – Continued
The NYT on the new release of climate scientists’ emails: The new e-mails appeared remarkably similar to the ones released two years ago just ahead of a similar conference in Copenhagen. They involved the same scientists and many of the same issues, and some of them carried a similar tone: catty remarks by the scientists, […]
Hank Greenberg Challenges Constitutionality of AIG Takeover
Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg is suing the federal government challenging the constitutionality of the AIG takeover. From the WSJ: Mr. Greenberg’s lawyers on Monday sued the U.S. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on behalf of Starr International Co. and other AIG shareholders. The lawsuits accused the Treasury Department and New York […]
ClimateGate — Part Deux?
On the eve of another UN climate summit, it appears that another batch of potentially embarrassing e-mails by various climate scientists have been released to the public. The Guardian reports: The emails appear to be genuine, but the University of East Anglia said the “sheer volume of material” meant it was not yet able to […]
Is a Serial Fabulist Fit to Practice Law?
Stephen Glass, the disgraced writer for The New Republic who penned stories that were too good to be true (and whose exploits inspired the movie “Shattered Glass”) wants to be a lawyer. But is a journalist exposed as a serial fabricator fit to practice law? The New York Bar said no. Now, The Recorder reports, […]
Protecting (the Government’s) Right to a Jury Trial
State legislators in Ohio are considering legislation that would enable criminal prosecutors to insist on a jury trial even when a criminal defendant waives that rate and asks for a bench trial. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: Ohio prosecutors want to change the law to give themselves veto power when a criminal defendant chooses to […]
What Should Law Schools Teach? (What Should the NYT Learn?)
By Jonathan H. Adler on November 20, 2011 1:42 pm in Academia, Law Schools, Legal Profession, Legal Scholarship
Today’s NYT has a lengthy front-page article on legal education suggesting that a major problem with legal education is the failure to teach law students how to practice law. There is something to this complaint — some schools and some legal academics do relatively little to prepare their students for practice and there is much […]
The Less Deadly Catch
The Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” reality show chronicles the exploits of several Alaskan king crab fishing vessels and their crews operating in the Bering Sea. The title for the show derives from the fact that Alaskan king crab fishing is one of the deadliest jobs around. If the environmental conditions weren’t perilous enough, the traditional […]
Another ObamaCare Glitch
As I discussed in this post, the IRS is proposing to give tax credits as premium assistance more broadly than is authorized by the text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Specifically, the law only authorizes such premium assistance for health insurance purchased in state health care exchanges, but the IRS is […]
BREAKING – High Court to Hear Health Care Challenges
By Jonathan H. Adler on November 14, 2011 10:06 am in Health Care, Individual Mandate, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in several of the health care cases, granting the Florida’s, NFIB’s and the federal government’s petitions, including consideration of the Tax Injunction Act issue, and granting extended argument time. I suspect SCOTUSBlog will have a full report shortly. NOTE: Here is SCOTUSBlog’s health care litigation page, and here is […]
The Wages of Cowardice
David French on the Penn State child molestation scandal. It was cowardly for a 6′4″ graduate assistant to witness the rape of a child by an older man and not only take no action to stop it but also not even call the police. It is a symbol of extended adolescence — no, extended infancy […]