Archive for the 'Law' Category

Maybe liberals need a linguist’s help to hide what they’re saying, not to promote it

I found the following paragraph, culled from the San Francisco Chronicle, fascinating (emphasis mine):
From top congressional leaders to online activists, liberals have sought the wisdom of UC Berkeley linguistics Professor George Lakoff for years. They ask him to teach them to do something that conservatives traditionally have done better — frame complex policy into simple, [...]

Defending against legal jihad

One of the lesser known, but very dangerous fronts, in the jihad war against the west is the Islamists’ habit of using our own Western laws against us.  Right now, a front in that particular battle is being waged in Canada, where McMaster University is suing Dr. Paul Williams after he wrote about the peculiar [...]

Maybe I’m not quite as cowardly as I thought I was

One of the main reasons I’ve kept my politics under wraps (stating my views if confronted directly, but not engaging in heated political debate otherwise), is because I’ve been worried that it would affect me professionally.  In my neck of the woods, most of my potential clients had Obama bumper stickers on their cars and [...]

A decent, and prescient, courtroom thriller *UPDATED*

For my birthday, my husband gave me an Amazon Kindle.  It’s a sensible gift for me, since I read voraciously and often find myself waiting around in various places because of carpools.  Since the Kindle fits in my purse, I always have something to read.
The only problem with the Kindle is the expense.  Hardback books [...]

Obama is now citable legal authority

Traditionally, in arguing cases to the court, there have been a very limited number of available types of legal authority:  cases, statutes, administrative rules, and law review articles (with the last being advisory only) have pretty much made up the universe of things the court needs to consider.  In this Age of Obama, though, there’s [...]

Supreme Court: officials cannot be sued for 9/11 reactions *UPDATED*

This just in, over BNO news:
BULLETIN — U.S. SUPREME COURT: SENIOR OFFICIALS CANNOT BE SUED FOR ALLEGED POST 9/11 ABUSE.
This is good news, because current administration figures should not be suing past administration figures for the latter’s conduct in a crisis.  I mean, can you imagine if Eisenhower’s administration had gone gunning for the Roosevelt/Truman [...]

The changing face of the law

I went to law school in the days when students still took notes by hand. When I started practicing law, secretaries had computers at their desks, but no lawyers did. My first law firm used a “Wang” word processing system, which was really nothing more than a typewriter on the screen. The [...]

Well, that’s an interesting point

When I was a young lawyer and an avid Democrat, I was just thrilled that Bill Clinton and his wife were both lawyers. It seemed to vindicate my career decision. As I’ve become less enthralled with being a lawyer, and as the lawyer politicians have proven adept at parsing the truth (”it depends [...]

NY Times shills for sharia law *UPDATED*

From the every first paragraph of a lengthy New York Times Magazine article about Sharia law, you know you’re in for an intellectually dishonest voyage through the multi-culti mindset of the New York Times, this time as put forward by Noah Feldman who is, unsurprisingly, a law professor at that bastion of liberal think, Harvard. [...]

Obama and the judges

Edward Whelan, after pointing out that a President Obama would have the potential to appoint up to six new Supreme Court justices, looks at Obama’s rhetoric about the Constitution and the law, and uses that information to explain clearly what type of justices Obama would appoint:
[I]n setting forth the sort of judges he would appoint, [...]

More on the Archbishop’s foolish idea

Two excellent articles out of England about the folly behind the Archbishop’s idea:
Our British laws are there to protect Muslim women
What parallel sharia means in practice

Sphere: Related Content

Yeah, what she said (plus a little of what I have to say)

I was trying to set up a post that selectively quotes from Melanie Phillips’ articles explaining the utter insanity behind the Archbishop of Canterbury’s muddled remarks about bringing sharia law into the British legal system — but I couldn’t. Each paragraph is so information-packed and important that (a) I couldn’t pick what to quote [...]

The scam what am

If you want to witness the interesting spectacle of my going from a fairly mild mannered, motherly lawyer type, to a screaming, foaming-at-the-mouth harridan, mention one acronym:  MCLE.  This stands for Minimum Continuing Legal Education, which I found an inconvenience when I was a big firm attorney and that I find an economic and time [...]

Another Clinton appointee chisels away at the Patriot Act

I am not conversant with the details of the Patriot Act, nor am I a Constitutional lawyer. I simply find it interesting that, more often than not, when a Federal District Court judge rules something about the Patriot Act unlawful, that judge is a Clinton appointee. The most recent case in point is [...]

It’s a very small world (if you’re a conservative in the Bay Area)

I just read that a federal judge has temporarily canceled the Patriot Act’s wire tapping provisions. I’m very much not a Constitutional lawyer, so I can’t comment on the validity of this decision at a legal level. Immediately upon reading that story, though, I was pretty willing to bet that Judge Victor Marrero, [...]

Using a regulatory howitzer to kill a fly — and destroying freedom in the process

Don Quixote will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think one of the core things about being a libertarian is that you don’t try to control people’s conduct, but you do step in if they break certain clearly stated rules. Indeed, you don’t need to be a libertarian to have that view. [...]

I’ve created a monster

My son’s Nintendo DS crashed and, as it turned out, he hadn’t saved for quite a while.  He lost several special moves and weapons that he’d gathered since the last save.  I suggested (sympathetically) that he might want to save more often.  His response:  “I’m going to sue Nintendo.”  I may be a lawyer, but [...]

Legalize drugs?

DQ here.  I’ll be dropping in while Bookworm is on vacation.  Danny L. picked up on one of my earlier comments and suggested I make a topic out of my belief that we should legalize drugs.  Good idea.  I’d also legalize gambling, prostitution, and other “victimless” crimes.  I take this stand on principle — what [...]

Looking at things like a good lawyer

Sean Hannity isn’t one of my favorite conservative talking heads. He has some good points, but he functions off of an anger and emotionalism that stops just short of (or maybe drifts over into) demagoguery. I thought this was very clearly displayed in his attack last night on Johnny Sutton, the U.S. Attorney [...]

The John Doe Manifesto

You’ve no doubt heard that the Six Imams, as part of their legal strategy, have named as “John Doe” defendants in their lawsuit some of the people who alerted the authorities about the fact that the Imam’s were behaving in a peculiar and threatening way. That threat, to drag citizens into litigation, might have been a [...]

Poor Scooter, Part II

One of the things that T.S. raised in my original Scooter post was that Fitzgerald said that it was wrong to disclose Plame’s identity. Now, as a lawyer, I can tell you that the fact that Fitzgerald said something doesn’t make it so. In fact, nothing a lawyer says is evidence, unless a [...]

A good forum for a law and public policy debate

Do you enjoy debating law and public policy? If so, I’ve got both an opportunity and a challenge for you:
As I have mentioned before on this blog, I am enrolled in a National Security Law class this semester. This class is outstanding; I’m so glad I elected to take it. Currently, we are looking [...]

Should there be a remedy for all wrongs?

One of the catch phrases you learn in law school is that “for every wrong there is a remedy.” This means that anyone with a legitimate grievance can show up in court and get some redress, even if it’s only the symbolic peppercorn. The problem is that, something that redresses the wronged person’s [...]

I am woman, hear me whine

There’s an article in today’s New York Times exposing (again) one of the problems with affirmative action — it elevates nice, ordinary people to situations where they’re bound to fail. This time the focus is on the nation’s top law firms, where African-Americans consistently fail to last:
Thanks to vigorous recruiting and pressure from corporate [...]

A harbinger of what will happen if the Dems take the White House again

I know that many of you are like me in that you’re disgusted with the Republican’s profligacy, as well as with other careless, pandering form’s of government in which Republicans engage. Be assured, though, that “punishing” them at election time, both in 2006 and 2008, will be worse. Why? Because the Dems [...]