Author Archive | Randy Barnett

The Hoover Institution just published a slim engaging paperback Varieties of Conservatism in America. In it you will find essays on “Classical Conservatism” by Mark Henrie and Joseph Bottum, “Neoconservatism” by Jacob Heilbrunn and Tod Lindgren, and “Libertarianism” by Richard Epstein and me. Although I do not consider libertarianism to be a species of modern […]

Ordinarily I would rise to the bait provided by Professor Bainbridge in his post Those Annoying Libertarians. But I have learned that blogging requires not only the time it takes to compose a post. It also involves the time it takes to read email responses, responses by other bloggers, and then to reply. Because I […]

Orin says listening to Charles Fried makes him feel like a 2L. As I had him for Torts, it makes me feel like a 1L.

For the benefit of our law professor readers: From: Carl Monk Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 5:16 PM Subject: 2005 AALS Annual Meeting To: Deans of Member and Fee-Paid Schools and Members of the House of Representatives Greetings to all: Many of you are aware of the fact that the headquarters hotel for the Annual […]

This is a close race, and I’ll certainly agree that Bush may well lose it. But the pro-Kerry inference that some people are drawing from 50-49 exit polls strikes me as mighty odd. I suspect the mathematical margin of error on those polls is at least +/-3%. Add to that the margin of error that […]

On Friday of this week I will be giving a distinguished lecture at Syracuse University School of Law. I will be talking about Restoring the Lost Constitution. Details can be found here.

Now you can read the briefs for Respondents in Ashcroft v. Raich. I am very excited about our brief and am looking forward to the oral argument in the Supreme Court on November 29th. We are also supported by some very thoughtful and powerfully argued amicus briefs. The attorneys in the Solicitor General’s Office now […]

On Friday and Saturday of this week (October 15-16), Boston University School of Law is holding a conference to commemorate the centennial of the landmark Supreme Court case of Lochner v. New York. In Lochner, the Supreme Court held that a state maximum hours laws for bakery workers violated the Due Process Clause of the […]

Some may have noticed that I have been blogging a lot less of late. There are probably several reasons for this, among which is the work I have been doing on Ashcroft v. Raich, the medical cannabis case now before the Supreme Court. Our brief is due in 2 weeks and, this weekend, we made […]

A belated welcome to my friend Jim Lindgren of Northwestern. Jim and I were once on the same faculty at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and it is good to be colleagues again. I am sure the same attention to factual detail that led to Jim’s exposure of the fraudulent gun ownership data of Michael Bellisiles […]

My favorite cop show, The Wire, premiers this Sunday on HBO. The first season of this series was simply the best cop show I had ever seen on television. The second season slipped a tiny bit as it expanded its focus from the Baltimore projects–where real “POL-ice” spend much of their time–to the docks where […]

Farewell, hopefully temporarily, to my co-blogger Jacob Levy. I will miss his posts, but can understand his motivations expressed here. I too have not been blogging much lately both because of other demands on my time and a lack of topics I cared to blog about. Perhaps my posts today evidence that I am getting […]

Rathergate has spawned a new genre of fake Bush memos. Though this form of humor will undoubtedly get very old very rapidly, I thought I would post a few here and add other links as people send them to me–provided they make me at least smile. Memo on Bush Being A-Wall Bush Bribed Officials With […]

Over on Catallarchy, Jonathon Wilde has a very thoughtful discussion of how a polycentric legal order provides genuine checks and balances to prevent abuses of power. Here is how it begins and ends: I have nothing but the highest respect for most of the Founders. They were learned men who integrated the cumulative available knowledge […]

As you all know by now, Alan Keyes has chosen to run for Senator in Illinois. While this not the sort of news item on which I normally comment, I was startled to learn that he chose as his place of residence my home town of Calumet City (and which is also the home town […]