Originalist sin, anyone? The Volokh Conspiracy’s David Post has the scoop: Case or Controversy Requirement? What Case or Controversy Requirement?. As Dave points out, in a post that is, I would say, “thorough”, two of the many “big” decisions handed down by the Supreme Court in its recently concluded “summer session”—Moore v. Harper, shooting down…
Tag: supreme court
Socio-political notes from all over
God Bless Niall Ferguson! (Pretty much) It’s hard to think of anyone I have trashed so consistently and so contemptuously as Niall Ferguson, whom I once grudgingly praised with a thoroughly uncivil leer as a Thelonious Monk-loving slimeball, while also urging readers not to read his then most recent book, whose title will go unmentioned…
Ilya Shapiro: Sometimes he looks like a martyr, sometimes he looks like a dick.
Well, he does! My Cancel-Culture Nightmare Is Over, writes Ilya in the Wall Street Journal, which, I’ve discovered, lets you read a “limited” number of articles for free, which I find convenient, since I would never support such a nauseatingly right-wing rag financially. Sez Ilya My long public nightmare is over. Tomorrow I assume my…
Will the Dobbs debacle help liberals grow up? Well, yeah! In some universe! Probably!
It stands to reason, doesn’t it? If we live in a “multiverse”, containing an infinite number of universes, then surely there would be one in which liberals would respond “rationally” to Justice Alito’s leaked draft majority opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, right? Well, probably. It might depend on whether our particular multiverse…
Passive-aggressive hypocrisy hath made its masterpiece: The Volokh Conspiracy’s conspiracy against the rule of law
The Volokh Conspiracy is a website that describes itself as “Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent”. They forgot to add “Frequently Lukidist”. The eponymous founder of said conspiracy is Eugene Volokh. To call Gene’s c.v. “glittering” is probably the understatement of the decade. A bona fide mathematical genius, he…
Yeah, well, that’s why they called her “Notorious”!
Alternate heads: “The Notorious Katie Couric” and “I didn’t even know Donald Trump had a cranky Jewish aunt!”. Yeah, the fairly shocking news that Saint Ruth’s attitude towards blacks was “We made it on our own; why can’t they?” and then sought to “take back” her own banal sentiments—almost like she didn’t believe in freedom…
George F. Will and “Truth”
Time flies when your country is burning down, doesn’t it? The week after Donald Trump’s many fans took him seriously rather than literally—“March peaceably, folks! But stay strong! And save your country from the greatest crime in history! Only you can do it! And don’t take no for an answer!”—Mr. George F. Will, intent on…
Has Boss Schumer’s Hour Come Round At Last?
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Thus Charles Schumer, senior senator from New York and possible new majority leader of the Senate, to be…
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Yes, she should have retired
Supreme Court justices are the closest thing we have in the U.S. to an aristocracy, maintaining the once-universal situation where the office and the person are one that has otherwise fortunately disappeared. Justice Ginsburg had an extraordinary career, but one must say that the worst part of her life was her delay in leaving office….
Clarence Thomas to Brethren: Why Can’t You Guys Listen to “Reason”?
Why indeed? The Supreme Court recently refused the opportunity to consider a raft of lower court decisions regarding both the Second Amendment and the “qualified immunity” extended to public officials—most “controversially” (that is to say, most inappropriately), as applied to the police— protecting them against law suits for their actions—like blowing someone’s head off for…