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The Vegan Sellout List lists the names, addresses, descriptions, and photographs of former vegans, presumably as submitted by current-and-now-outraged vegans. Because nothing says “Come join us” like “And if you leave, we’ll try (but probably fail) to publicly shame you.” See this New York Observer article for more; thanks to Ed Grinberg for the pointer.

I have a new post up on the Reason Foundation website on a recent Fourth Circuit case, North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, and the FTC order that it upheld. Here’s an excerpt: Federal antitrust law enshrines a public-private dichotomy: unlike the private sector, state governments are completely immune from antitrust suits […]

Here is the awful product that so drew so many chief prosecutors’ ire: Horrified yet by the sheer viciousness of it all? I actually thought it was quite funny, but 23 state attorneys general wrote a letter to Urban Outfitters asking that the product be pulled; Urban Outfitters gave in. Here’s the AGs’ argument, likely […]

Well, you don’t see this every day–the chief law enforcement official of the United States (a message sent to DOJ employees) is “delighted” that a federal law was declared unconstitutional.  This was forwarded to me by a DOJ lawyer: From: The Attorney General <The.Attorney.General@usdoj.gov<mailto:The.Attorney.General@usdoj.gov>> Date: June 27, 2013, 7:17:58 PM EDT To: Undisclosed recipients:; Subject: […]

The American Illness: Essays on the Rule of Law, edited by my colleague Frank Buckley, is now available from Yale University Press.  I have a contribution in the book co-authored with Jeremy Kidd of Mercer University Law School.  The list of contributors is impressive to say the least and the papers are uniformly interesting (we […]

Here’s a very interesting panel from earlier in the week in the NSA surveillance programs. I was particularly interested to hear the perspective of Robert Litt, the General Counsel of the Office of the DNI, who begins at the 15:20 mark. Thanks to the LawFare blog for the link.

Often when I listen to NPR, I’ll hear something along the lines of, “Morning Edition is sponsored by the Smith Foundation. The Smith Foundation, working to improve the lives of the disabled.” I always wonder if the purpose of the Foundation is X, why is it donating to something that is clearly non-X, i.e., NPR. […]

I read Tom Wolfe’s “Back to Blood” a little while back and figured I’d pass along my thoughts for anyone who is interested.  I also commend Peter Berkowitz’s review of the book in Policy Review as one I found insightful.  I will try to avoid any spoilers. I’ve read a lot of Tom Wolfe and […]

From the latest classified document release at The Guardian: A top-secret 2009 report by the NSA Inspector General about NSA surveillance and a secret 2007 DOJ memo on some of the legal issues raised by such surveillance. Wow, there’s a lot in there.

Today the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) addressed a novel Fourth Amendment question in Cunninghman v. Department of Labor: If the state suspects that a government employee is submitting false time reports, can it attach a GPS device to the employee’s private car without a warrant in order to track the […]

Here’s Justice Alito’s dissent today (joined by Justice Kennedy) from the Court’s decision to send Marrero v. United States back down to the lower court; note the second to last paragraph: [Court:] The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment […]

This week the Supreme Court struck down a significant federal law. The law was popular when it was enacted, not that long ago, but times have quickly changed and we’re in a different world. By a 5-4 vote, reflecting the usual right/left split, the Court decided that it was time for that law to go. […]

Today the Supreme Court punted on the basic question of whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. But I doubt it will be long before the issue comes back to them. There’s lots of language in Windsor strongly hinting that a majority of the current Court would (eventually) hold that such a right […]

As John noted, the Court unsurprisingly granted cert. in Noel Canning.  The interesting facet is that the Court added a third question: “Whether the President’s recess-appointment power may be exercised when the Senate is convening every three days in pro forma sessions.”  One suspects that the reason for this was that it provides the Court […]