Author Archive | Russell Korobkin

The D.C. Circuit today upheld, for the second time in 16 months, President Obama’s Executive Order permitting the National Institutes of Health to fund human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. The same issue was before the court last year on an appeal of a preliminary injunction that would have halted all federal funding of hESC […]

Time magazine columnist and CNN talking head Fareed Zakaria was suspended last week for plagiarizing a paragraph from Jill LePore’s New Yorker article on gun control and today was reinstated after apologizing and having other work reviewed.  In case you haven’t seen, I reproduce for you LePore’s paragraph followed by the very similar paragraph Zakaria […]

In the spending clause portion of yesterday’s ACA opinions, Justices Kennedy, Scalia, Alito and Thomas offered an interesting perspective that, if ever adopted by a Court majority, could raise serious questions about the viability of the “cooperative federalism.” To begin, let’s assume the principle underlying the limits on the federal government’s spending power, as the […]

As perhaps the only law professor in the country who teaches/studies health law who has not published something on the ACA case, I’ve decided to contribute my two cents today. In today’s opinions, on the Commerce Clause question, the Justices tangled primarily over whether it matters if Congress regulates “activity” that affects interstate commerce – […]

As time grows short and it looks more and more likely that the government will not increase the debt limit by August 2, the question of whom the Treasury Department should pay if it has to make due with current revenues becomes more interesting. There have been a fair number of off-handed comments about this […]

Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a final ruling today in Sherley v. Sebelius, upholding federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research eleven months after creating an uproar in the medical research community by issuing a preliminary injunction halting the funding. The decision came three months […]

Last Friday, the D.C. Circuit voted 2-1 in Sherley v. Sebelius to reverse the preliminary injunction against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research granted by Judge Royce Lamberth of the federal District Court for the District of Columbia. While this seems on its face like a victory for proponents of the research, and was […]

An article in Slate today discusses a recent lawsuit against the website tripadvisor.com for not removing a customer comment that alleged a restaurant was patronized by prostitutes. The author argues, probably correctly, that most consumers will ignore a single outlier comment and look for patterns, and that businesses should be more concerned with trends, such […]

In a post yesterday, I described why I think Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision on Monday that the Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibits the federal government from funding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research is wrong on the merits. Technically, however, the decision was not a ruling on the merits. Lamberth actually granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a […]

Yesterday’s opinion by District Court Judge Royce Lamberth enjoining federal funding of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research sent shockwaves throughout the medical research community. As usual in this area, the implications of the decision, rather than the legal analysis, is getting all the air time. I’ll discuss the statutory interpretation issue on which the […]

Two respected scientific journals today reported that Chinese researchers have created baby mice out of induced pluripotent stem cells (“iPSCs”), an advance that raises difficult ethical questions and could reignite the culture-war battles over stem cell research that have subsided over the last two years. Many conservatives oppose human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, and […]

President Obama released his NCAA basketball tournament predictions yesterday, and what is most noticeable is the complete disrespect the President shows for the Pac-10 conference. Other than games between #8 and #9 seeds — usually considered toss-ups — Obama plays it pretty safe and picks mostly higher seeds (lower numbers). He picks only three upsets […]

but she’s still an intellectual lightweight. Sarah Palin apparently has never heard the phrase “Bush Doctrine.” Sure, the phrase has several potential meanings, but she doesn’t seem to be familiar with any of them. Talk about the look of a deer caught in the headlights. She appears not to understand that Fannie Mae and Freddie […]