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Balkin, Originalism and Theory: Part III

Balkin, Originalism and Theory: Part III

See here and here for Parts I and II.

Barry Friedman and Sara Solow have an idea: let’s stop talking about how to talk about the Constitution (i.e., theory), and just start interpreting the Constitution.  In their contribution to the symposium on Balkin’s Living Originalism, “How to Talk about the Constitution,” Friedman/Solow sets forth the mechanics of their idea:

“For all their intensity,…

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WTHIW Is Going on a Hiatus

WTHIW Is Going on a Hiatus

I’m going to be on about a month-long hiatus, perhaps 45 days.  Nothing untoward, I just have some other commitments that are time consuming such that I cannot put the time and effort into the blog that I want to make it of the quality I expect out of myself.  Don’t worry, I shall return.

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There's a Special Place in Your Dog's Brain for You

There’s a Special Place in Your Dog’s Brain for You

New research (gated) in the journal Behavioural Processes shows that a certain area of a dogs’s brains is “set aside” for the human in their life. (No, not the dog’s “mom” or “dad”; please stop with the anthropomorphization of your dog. It is an animal and not a human).

But I digress. The researchers found:

Five scents were presented (self, familiar human, strange human, familiar dog, strange…

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George Zimmerman Signs Autographs at Orlando Gun Show

George Zimmerman Signs Autographs at Orlando Gun Show

So reports the local news station there. I realize the man is probably hurting for cash, but, as I’ve documented before, the man seems so tone-deaf and “OJish,” that it does appear to occur to him that this is at best tasteless (the photos at least were of him and his dog). Again, mark my words, Zimmerman will end up in prison within the next 5 to 10 years.

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On Flakiness

Forgive the quasi-pretentious title. I’ve been thinking about “flakiness,” the quality of being a flake, for a while and it seems to have some qualities, at least at the broad-brush stroke level, that are worth delineating.

The first thing to notice is that being a flake is on the rise. Indeed, I would submit that flaking’s rise has been concomitant with rise of texting, as opposed to the phone…

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Sunday Ephemera

    -The latest in meaningless political news! Rand Paul won the CPAC straw poll with 31 percent. Ted Cruz got 11 percent of the vote and Christie took 8 percent. Remember when Michelle Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll in 2011? Me neither.

-Radley Balko has a great post on prosecutorial misconductand how the entire criminal prosecution bar seems allergic to accountability. I would submit that…

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Friday Afternoon Fun: BigLaw Indicted, Law Schools Accepting More "Dumb" Students

Friday Afternoon Fun: BigLaw Indicted, Law Schools Accepting More “Dumb” Students

It is not a happy Friday for some former employees of Dewey LeBeouf, a BigLaw shop that imploded a couple years back. As the New York Times reports, the evidence appears pretty overwhelming:

Four men, who were charged by New York prosecutors on Thursday with orchestrating a nearly four-year scheme to manipulate the firm’s books to keep it afloat during the financial crisis, talked openly in…

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Wendy Davis and Texas Primary Results: What We Know Now

Wendy Davis and Texas Primary Results: What We Know Now

Cross-Posted at the Houston Press

Its official: Wendy Davis v. Greg Abbott. Both won their parties’ respective primaries in convincing fashion with Davis garnering nearly 80 percent of the Democratic vote and Abbott prevailing with over 90 percent of Republicans backing him.

Let me take the suspense out of this race: Abbott will win in convincing fashion. As I’ve noted before, there are simply…

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Why Sarah Palin Is the Id of the Tea Party

Why Sarah Palin Is the Id of the Tea Party

Last night on Fox News, Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity:

“People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.”

Before you roll your eyes and say so what? Sarah Palin says a lot of inane things, I submit that this statement is worth some analysis. This statement, as much as any, shows one the…

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Let Clarence Thomas Be

Let Clarence Thomas Be

Jeffrey Toobin’s article criticizing Justice Clarence Thomas as “downright embarrassing” has been got a lot of attention last week, including on the Sunday morning talking heads shows (e.g. CNN’s Reliable Sources). Toobin’s issue is this: Justice Thomas hasn’t asked a question or meaningfully participated in oral argument in eight years. To Toobin, this is an appalling dereliction of his duty as…

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Saturday Ephemera

Saturday Ephemera

-One more data point for corporate oligarchy.  Wall Street lobbying against a bill that has no chance of even passing.

-This might help explain why you’re not that funny.

-Read this, frat bros.

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It's Just a Matter of Time: Gay Rights Wins Again

It’s Just a Matter of Time: Gay Rights Wins Again

Cross-Posted at the Houston Press

Just as arch-conservative Arizona Governor Jan Brewer crumbled to public and political pressure and vetoed Arizona’s so-called “anti-gay legislation,” a Texas federal court judge (Hon. Orlando Garcia) in San Antonio struck downTexas’s ban on same-sex marriage because it violated the equal protection clause — i.e., all citizens must be treated equally by the…

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If You're a Female, Guns in the Home Are Especially Dangerous

If You’re a Female, Guns in the Home Are Especially Dangerous

A new meta-analysis by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine has some surprising and not so surprising findings. As is well-known, the rate of gun ownership is the United States is the highest in the world, and the annual rate of firearm related homicide in the U.S. is one of the highest among Western, industrialized nations. Most homicides in the U.S. occurred within the home: nearly 75…

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"The Free Market is the Best Answer to the Anti-Gay Legislation"

“The Free Market is the Best Answer to the Anti-Gay Legislation”

This is the proposed solution by Mr. W. James Antle III in an op-ed in The American Conservative. Here’s the central thesis of his argument that the free market is the solution to the so-called anti-gay legislation in Kansas and Arizona:

The same logic would seem to apply to participation in same-sex marriage services. If we can allow conscientious objectors to refuse to fight in wars, we can…

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Expect a Few of These Law Schools to Be Shuttering Their Doors Soon(ish)

Expect a Few of These Law Schools to Be Shuttering Their Doors Soon(ish)

The ABA Journal reports that the following law schools have experienced crippling drops in enrollment in the past three years:

University of La Verne (down 66.2%)

Cooley Law School (down 40.6%)

Catholic University (down 39.5%)

New York Law School (down 38.7%)

University of Dayton (down 38.5%)

Pacific McGeorge (down 38.4%)

Widener University-Harrisburg (down 36.9%)

They are all private, save for…

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Privatization and the "Prison Market": The Taxpayer Foots the Bill

Privatization and the “Prison Market”: The Taxpayer Foots the Bill

Cross-Posted at the Houston Press

It’s a well-known and well bemoaned fact that even though Blacks and Latinos (primarily males) are only 30 percent of the overall population, they disproportionately make up 60 percent of the prison population. That’s bad enough news, but a new studyby a UC-Berkeley researcher shows that in private prisons — which play a large role in the carceral system in a…

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Student Loan Debts Tops $1 Trillion Can't afford to buy a house, join the "ownership society", because of your student loans? You are not alone.