Bookworm on Jul 03 2012 | Filed under: Judges, Watcher of Weasels
Tweet If you’d like to see in one place a broad range of opinions about the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare decision (or, more accurately, opinions John Roberts’ intellectual spasm), check out this week’s Watcher’s Council forum. This is a special one, because we not only have a sampling of Council members participating (including me), but we [...]
Bookworm on Jul 01 2012 | Filed under: Conservative ideology, Constitution
Tweet One of my favorite blogfriends sent me a link to John Yoo’s article excoriating Justice Robert’s decision in the harshest terms. Yoo states plainly that the decision spells the end of individualism in America, since it expands the government’s taxing power to encompass everything. Those who seek a silver lining (or ponies or lemonade) [...]
Bookworm on Jul 01 2012 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet You probably know that Glenn Reynolds pointed out that, if the administration is going to go around arguing that ObamaCare isn’t a tax, they’re conceding that it’s unconstitutional. That’s a clever line, but Rhymes With Right explains that the administrations’ strenuous denials also open a pathway to a Supreme Court rehearing.
Bookworm on Jul 01 2012 | Filed under: Tea Parties
Tweet I’m going back and forth whether Roberts was a typical judge (i.e., stupid and unworthy of respect), a brilliant thinker, a chess player, a pawn, etc. Each of you who has commented here has made an excellent point. I agree with all of you, even when you disagree with each other. In other words, [...]
Bookworm on Jun 30 2012 | Filed under: Constitution
Tweet Many people are asserting that, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, the end is near. I see that in op-eds, in blog posts, and in my email box. America’s constitutional experiment is over, they say. They might be right. Or not. But here’s the deal: if we give in to despair now, [...]
Bookworm on Jun 29 2012 | Filed under: Constitution, Government, Judges
Tweet [UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, there is now reason to believe that Roberts issue his opinion for the wrong reasons, not the right ones. If I were to rewrite this post today, I would be less charitable to the man. Nevertheless, putting aside Roberts' motives, I stand by the substance of my post, [...]
Bookworm on Jun 28 2012 | Filed under: Judges, Judicial activism, Presidential elections, Taxes, Tea Parties
Tweet I was driving along in the car and, suddenly, the phrase “Roe v. Wade” popped into my head. In 1973, the Supreme Court waded into what should have been a state-by-state legislative matter, and created the most vicious 39 year fight in America since the Civil War. One side found the decision completely invalid, [...]
Bookworm on Jun 28 2012 | Filed under: Health, Judges, Judicial activism
Tweet I’ve now had the chance to digest myriad analyses of the Roberts decision on ObamaCare. I think I can sum up the various conclusions that liberal and conservative pundits have reached. Here goes: The decision is a victory for Obama and the Democrats because it keeps ObamaCare on the books. However, it’s a victory [...]
Bookworm on Jun 28 2012 | Filed under: Health, Judges, Law, Taxes, Tea Parties
Tweet The Supreme Court opinion on ObamaCare runs to 193 pages. It is the size of a book, only more boring than any book anyone would ever want to read — and that is true despite the fact that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the worst writer on the court, didn’t write it. I’ve been making a [...]
Bookworm on Jun 27 2012 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet The White House and the lapdog media have an unusually depressed, belligerent tone when it comes to the upcoming opinion on Obama Care. They’re even more depressed than they should be given the pathetic showing their case (not their lawyer, but their case) made during oral argument. Put another way, it’s hard to believe [...]
Bookworm on Mar 30 2012 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet In one of his more delightful articles, Jonah Goldberg tackles Justice Ginsburg’s disingenuous claim that the most “conservative” thing the Supreme Court can do is to pick its way through all 2,700 pages of the ObamaCare bill and save all the good bits. After politely decimating Ginsburg’s word choice, Goldberg has this to say: [...]
Bookworm on Mar 28 2012 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet In the days and weeks preceding oral argument before the Supreme Court on ObamaCare, all Democrat (politicians and pundits) and a surprising number of conservatives were convinced that the Supreme Court would sustain ObamaCare. After two and a half days of argument, the conventional wisdom has suddenly shifted. Democrats are sure they’ll lose, and [...]
Bookworm on Mar 27 2012 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet This guy turned out to be a Dope, rather than offering Hope: These Drudge headlines, though, do offer hope, real hope for a resurgent constitutionalism in America: Reminder to self: Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Beware hubris. Don’t put the horse before the cart.
Bookworm on Sep 27 2011 | Filed under: Health
Tweet Back in the 40s or 50s, Esquire Magazine, when it was still a magazine for gentleman, published some quite funny, if very risque cartoons.* One of them showed a gorgeous, voluptuous, obviously purely decorative woman talking on the phone in her apartment. Behind her is a kitchen piled to the ceiling with dirty dishes. [...]
Bookworm on May 14 2010 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet I read E.J. Dionne’s fatuous defense of Kagan in The New Republic, and started formulating a response to his superficial argument comparing Kagan to Roberts. (It was so superficial it almost, but not quite, devolved into “and they’re both homo sapiens.”) Fortunately, I was spared that effort when I read both Paul Mirengoff’s and [...]
Bookworm on May 12 2010 | Filed under: Barack Obama, Judges
Tweet J.C. Arenas on the laundry list of qualifications for Obama’s Supreme Court picks: Obama’s first Supreme Court appointment was Sonia Sotomayor, the Bronx-bred daughter of Puerto Rican parents, who supposedly was a valedictorian student with a deficiency in English and become an Ivy-League educated jurist credited with saving Major League Baseball. Now we have [...]
Bookworm on May 11 2010 | Filed under: GBLT, Judges
Tweet I know that much is being said amongst both Progressives and Conservatives about Kagan’s possible lesbianism. Progressives are mad at her for being in the closet; Conservatives are worried about her orientation affecting her rulings as a Supreme Court judge. Both are completely wrong. Regarding the Progressive’s disdain for Kagan’s decision to keep her [...]
Bookworm on May 10 2010 | Filed under: Judges, Military
Tweet I’d like to analyze a Harvard’s law prof’s defense of a Harvard law dean. The Prof (and ex-dean himself) is Robert Clark, who wrote an op-ed in the WSJ defending Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s approach to the military during her tenure as dean of Harvard Law. He spells out the facts, which I’ll [...]
Bookworm on May 10 2010 | Filed under: Judges, Judicial activism
Tweet To no one’s surprise, Obama nominated Elena Kagan to fill the opening on the Supreme Court. Many have pointed to the fact that she’s never served as a judge before as one of the main reasons Obama did so — she has no paper trail. Since I have a generally low estimation of judges [...]
Bookworm on Aug 03 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Tweet If you are a young lawyer, struggling to learn what a non-responsive answer really looks like, you can’t do better than this question-and-answer session between Jake Tapper and Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs. If Gibbs were any slicker, he’d just ooze right out of the room: TAPPER: Robert, in terms of what Geithner and [...]
Bookworm on Aug 03 2009 | Filed under: Abortion, Gay marriage, Judges, Judicial activism
Tweet Whether you are for or against gay marriage, Robert George issues a sound warning about the dangers that flow from letting the Supreme Court get its hands on the issue: It would be disastrous for the justices to do so [rule against California's Prop. 8 and, by extension, make gay marriage the law of [...]
Bookworm on Jul 17 2009 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet It was a foregone conclusion, but it’s still irksome that the RINOs piled on for Sotomayor. It’s not just that she’s a judicial activist who dislikes self-defense, lies about her record, and shilled for a radical Puerto Rican group. It’s that the hearings showed something very, very specific about her: she’s a complete mediocrity. [...]
Bookworm on Jul 16 2009 | Filed under: Freedom, Judges
Tweet This clip of today’s Sotomayor hearings may just have hit upon the most important constitutional question that faces us all as we confront our devolution into the Obamatopian State. In this segment, Senator Tom Coburn (R., OK) asks Judge Sotomayor whether she agrees that Americans have a basic right to self defense. The ensuing [...]
Bookworm on Jul 14 2009 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet You know that I don’t like judges. I’ve certainly made no secret of that fact, and it’s no doubt a by-product of practicing law in a region crawling with activist judges. Listening to Sotomayor struggle to articulate things — and to avoid her own footprint — in response to Sen. Lindsay Graham’s questioning is [...]
Bookworm on Jul 14 2009 | Filed under: Judges
Tweet The Washington Post is warning Republican senators not to be mean to poor Judge Sotomayor. It’s a funny (inadvertently funny) article, because the Post editors acknowledge that Obama was anything but gracious when he was a Senator; then they explain why, even though he wasn’t gracious, he was right; and then they urge Republicans [...]
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SCOTTtheBADGER on A great parable disguised as a joke
Book on Something to get your Friday off to a good start — and a riff about bad movies and bad education
Spartacus on Richard III’s death, because it paved the way for Henry VIII, was a pivotal moment in British and world history *UPDATED*
Les on The worst thing about those drone strikes is Obama’s moral preening and hypocrisy
Ron19 on Something to get your Friday off to a good start — and a riff about bad movies and bad educationRon19 on Something to get your Friday off to a good start — and a riff about bad movies and bad education
jj on Richard III’s death, because it paved the way for Henry VIII, was a pivotal moment in British and world history *UPDATED*Spartacus on A great parable disguised as a joke
Jose on The worst thing about those drone strikes is Obama’s moral preening and hypocrisy
