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I’m delighted to report that Tim Sandefur will be guest-blogging this coming week about his new book, The Conscience of The Constitution, which has just been published by the Cato Institute. Tim is a principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, a national libertarian public interest legal group that defends economic liberty and private property […]

The insider trading trial of Mathew Martoma has revealed an interesting episode of his earlier life thanks to a motion under Rule 404(b), and specifically the time he was kicked out of Harvard Law School for falsifying his transcript when he applied for appellate clerkships. Martoma (then named Mathew Thomas) altered his law school transcript […]

As it happens, I have a more-than-the-usual-passing interest in the goings-on at the Baseball Hall of Fame this year.  My oldest friend (I say we met in kindergarten, though he seems to think it was 1st grade), Eric Nadel, who has spent the last 30 years or so down in Texas as the voice of […]

In September 2012, noted “horror core” hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse sued the FBI seeking to obtain documents explaining why the federal government labeled ICP fans (aka “Juggalos”) as a “loosely organized hybrid gang” under the National Gang Threat Assessment.  Now, with the help of the ACLU, the ICP is suing the FBI again […]

My colleague Sam Bray is a remedies scholar, which makes him a rarity these days — and he is a remedies scholar who thinks the distinctions between legal remedies and equitable remedies are important and should in large measure be maintained, which makes him doubly rare. He now has a very interesting new paper on […]

Below. I did one of the advanced institute seminars in September, it was excellent. My impression is that “serious (not necessarily Orthodox) Jews” are preferred over other applicants. Interested in the intersection between Jewish and Western thought? Engaged with questions of domestic or foreign policy? The Tikvah Fund is pleased to announced several exciting, stipend-bearing […]

Apropos the “imposing beliefs on others” post — and in particular debates related to abortion — I thought I’d post this excerpt from a Lincoln speech (his Address at a Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Apr. 18, 1864). I’ve long found this to be a thoughtprovoking piece, and a useful reminder that “liberty” in the abstract is […]

In many ways, the U.S. News & World Report op-ed condemning Catholics verges on self-parody. The beginning is pretty telling: Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor just dropped the ball on American women and girls. Et tu, Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Really, we can’t trust you on women’s health and human rights? The lady from the Bronx […]

I was recently interviewed as part of a forthcoming web documentary on the decline and bankruptcy of the once-great city of Detroit. The trailer for the film is here. The production team was excellent and smart and I expect the movie to be terrific. Here’s a photo just before being interviewed.

A federal court in Illinois has recently decided that Sherlock Holmes — or, more precisely, the characters and incidents in the Sherlock Holmes stories published prior to 1923 — have, indeed, finally fallen into the public domain.  Not, mind you, anything post-1923 – but, via the complex workings of the Copyright Act, the pre-1923 stuff […]

The front page of today’s (print edition) New York Times has the following lead headline in the upper right: “Christie Faces Scandal on Traffic Jam Aides Ordered” That strikes me as a very odd headline.  “Facing” a “scandal” is not a reportable fact – is it?  Where, exactly, is this scandal?  The answer, of course, […]

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, reviews foreign investments for national security risks.  It is now beyond doubt that Chinese investment is getting much closer scrutiny from CFIUS.  A total of ten transactions failed to survive review in 2012, according to a just-released Treasury report. That may not sound like […]

The decision is here, with a vigorous dissent by Judge Hamilton. Hat tip: Mike Scarcella. UPDATE: Exchange from comments: Nick: So if Mr. Markadonatos had refused to pay the booking fee, would [he] have been refused booking?Miles: No. He would have been arrested again for violating the ordinance. Another $30.

Matt Blaze, a well-known public cryptographer and NSA critic (but I repeat myself), offered what seemed like a modest concession in the relentless campaign against NSA intelligence gathering: The NSA’s tools are very sharp indeed, even in the presence of communications networks that are well hardened against eavesdropping. How can this be good news? It […]

This is for those of you who like to see and hear your Conspirators rather than just read them: