During the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times alleged that the Trump campaign had offered to make John Kasich “the most powerful vice president in history,” through a novel division of duties: The vice president “would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.” The president,…
Hollywood these days is investing more and more resources into rebooting old franchises. And not just in movies. Last week, a new blue-ribbon committee to investigate and eliminate sexual harassment in Hollywood announced that its chairwoman would be Anita Hill.
Two years ago, when the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry, Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the court stressed that recognition of such of right would affect no one but the same-sex couples who marry. “Indeed,” Kennedy and his four colleagues stressed in…
Time waits for no man. Though one man waits for no Time. At least, that’s President Trump’s preemptive justification for not winning Time’s “Person of the Year” award this year.
For conservative and libertarian lawyers, the Federalist Society’s annual convention in Washington is the unrivaled social event of the year: a nationwide class reunion, plus prom, plus the Oscars—with after-parties‚ all rolled into one. And it goes on for three days, starting today.
Unaccountable judges sometimes mistake their own policy preferences for the proper rule of decision. And that’s no less true for those who purport to judge the judges—namely, the American Bar Association, in passing judgment on a president’s judicial nominations. The ABA’s own version of “judicial…
“When I was in law teaching,” recalled Antonin Scalia in a speech just days before his 1986 nomination to the Supreme Court, “I was fond of doing what is called ‘teaching against the class’—that is, taking positions that the students were almost certain to disagree with, in order to generate some…
“When I was in law teaching,” recalled Antonin Scalia in a speech just days before his 1986 nomination to the Supreme Court, “I was fond of doing what is called ‘teaching against the class’—that is, taking positions that the students were almost certain to disagree with, in order to generate some…
When the new Congress convened in January, its immediate focus was the administrative state. After passing the Midnight Rules Relief Act to accelerate the process for nullifying the Obama administration’s major regulations, the House promptly passed the REINS Act—the Regulations from the Executive…
"Hard cases," it's often said, "make bad law." They also make for bad legal commentary, especially in the week of a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, where a nominee's critics try to fault him for failing to side with sympathetic litigants—even when the judge was just following the laws that…
In this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court, look for Democrats to criticize Gorsuch for being too deferential to the Trump Administration—and, at the same time, for not being deferential enough to it.
In 2007 and 2008 Senator Barack Obama campaigned against the Bush administration’s use of executive power. But for the next eight years President Obama wielded unilateral power energetically: through his administrative agencies and from his own office—via his "pen" and "phone," as he famously put…
Researching the record of a Supreme Court nominee—for, say, a WEEKLY STANDARD essay—is always a daunting task, because the nominees tend to be federal judges with long paper trails. But the lift seems much lighter when the nominee is a felicitous writer. And Judge Neil Gorsuch certainly qualifies.
In nominating Neil Gorsuch to be the next Supreme Court justice, President Trump could not have found a judge who more starkly dramatizes the constitutional crossroads at which the nation now finds itself. For eight years, the Obama administration and its proponents pressed their progressive…
As soon as the surprise wore off that Donald Trump was elected president, attention turned quickly to Washington's favorite parlor game: Who will serve in President-elect Trump's cabinet and White House? But for all of the speculation about Trump's future chief of staff, Attorney General, Secretary…
Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for a quarter-century. And Jeffrey Toobin has loathed him for nearly all twenty-five of those years. For more than two decades, the New Yorker author and CNN pundit has written of Thomas time and time again in only the most contemptuous terms.
Justice Clarence Thomas's critics have long slandered him as "lazy," simply because he only rarely asks questions during oral arguments. But such criticism is entirely misguided, especially when one considers that Justice Thomas is the Court's most prolific opinion-writer, year in and year out (as…
The January 1973 issue of National Lampoon boasted a now-infamous cover: a man's hand aims a revolver at a wary dog, above the headline: "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."
The Justice Department occupies a very delicate place our constitutional system. On the one hand, the attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president, who can fire his AG any time, for any reason or for no reason at all, which (as Justice Scalia explained) ensures that the people remain a…
When the Smithsonian opened the National Museum of African American History and Culture Museum last week, some of the day's loveliest moments involved President Obama and former President Bush, celebrating the event together with their wives and the American people. And rightly so: the museum is a…
It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Harvey Mansfield's latest "Conversation with Bill Kristol" is a discussion of his wonderful 1993 book, America's Constitutional Soul. But I was all the more pleased to tune in and discover how Kristol begins their discussion: by comparing America's…
In marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of Justice Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court, lawyers and writers have rightly celebrated the judge's remarkable judicial opinions, especially the concurrences in dissents in which JThomas criticizes the Court for failing to vindicate the…
In this week's issue, venturing a thumbnail sketch of Justice Thomas's brand of constitutional interpretation, I noted a significant difference between Justice Thomas and other conservative "originalists": Unlike many "first-generation" originalists, Thomas expressly interprets the Constitution as…
FBI Director James Comey's choice to recommend against the federal prosecution of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has spurred no shortage of commentary, to say the least—including THE WEEKLY STANDARD's editorial this week, "Hillary Skates."
What if the left threw a high-tech lynching and no one came? It happened this spring, although you probably didn’t notice. On April 16, HBO aired Confirmation, a docudrama version of Justice Clarence Thomas's 1991 Senate confirmation hearings—more specifically, of Anita Hill's sexual harassment…
Keith Whitley once sang, "you say it best when you say nothing at all." Today, the Supreme Court hopes we all share that sentiment.
Last week, the Claremont Institute hosted a fascinating panel discussion at the Kirby Center, Hillsdale College's beautiful embassy in Washington. The topic was, of course, Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump would take the Supreme Court seriously. He would appoint solid judicial conservatives to decide cases in accordance with the Constitution’s original meaning. He would not treat the federal courts frivolously, leveraging his judicial appointment power like a bargaining chip to…
As debate continues about the president's eventual nomination to the Supreme Court — or, more specifically, as the President's proponents inside and outside the Senate grind their teeth over the fact that the Constitution doesn't actually require the Senate to spring into action when the President…
In the aftermath of Justice Scalia's untimely passing, the outpouring of remembrances describe his astonishing legal career: a Supreme Court justice, of course, and before that a D.C. Circuit judge, a University of Chicago law professor, and chief of the Ford Administration's Office of Legal…
A few days before Justice Antonin Scalia passed away, I stumbled upon a monograph published in 1979 by the American Enterprise Institute, a debate titled "A Constitutional Convention: How Well Would It Work?" The subject matter, though interesting, paled in comparison to the names of the…
Senator Schumer appeared Sunday on ABC's This Week and responded to suggestions that the Senate might not confirm the lame-duck President's nomination to replace the late Justice Scalia: "show me the clause [in the Constitution] that says [the] president's only president for three years."
Donald Rumsfeld once said that "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." He could have said the same for Presidents—we go to war with the president we have, not the president we might want or wish to have.
Is John Roberts a good judge? Ten years ago, President Bush appointed him chief justice of the United States. His anniversary, coinciding with the Supreme Court’s reconvening last month, naturally caused lawyers, scholars, and politicians to reflect upon his legacy on the Supreme Court.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made news recently, when she said—bragged, it seemed—that she and her fellow liberals on the Court were going out of their way to stifle their individual voices in high-profile cases. When the liberals find themselves on the losing side of a case, she explained, they…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with frequent contributor and legal scholar Adam J. White on the high court's three Monday rulings.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with frequent contributer Adam J. White on the high court's 6-3 ruling in King v. Burwell and why it is even worse than you could imagine.
Had Jeremiah Wright’s antics not forced Barack Obama to expound famously on race in 2008, the most significant speech of his short Senate tenure would have been his 2006 remarks on religion and democracy. Appearing before Call to Renewal’s conference on “Building a Covenant for a New America,”…
Schoolchildren visited the White House this week for the latest installment of the administration's "Every Kid in a Park" initiative. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell joined the fun, tweeting some pictures along with the program's basic mission: "to help more kids experience nature, outdoors ...…
In his latest column expounding the themes of his new book, David Brooks reflects on how naked our public square has become. "As late as 50 years ago," he writes, "Americans could consult lofty authority figures to help them answer" the timeless questions of right and wrong, good and evil. But "all…
When Hillary Clinton first ran for president eight years ago, it was not hard to anticipate problems inherent in the Clintons’ wielding political power while also accepting foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation. “If Hillary became president,” one prominent Democrat observed, “I think…
When arguing before the Supreme Court, a lawyer normally takes pains to convince the Justices that ruling in his or her favor in that particular case would not have dramatic consequences elsewhere. In Hobby Lobby, for example, Paul Clement urged that exempting his clients from part of HHS's…
When arguing before the Supreme Court, a lawyer normally takes pains to convince the Justices that ruling in his or her favor in that particular case would not have dramatic consequences elsewhere. In Hobby Lobby, for example, Paul Clement urged that exempting his clients from part of HHS's…
Watching Hillary Clinton kick off yet another presidential campaign, it's hard to believe that the Clintons once were new on the national political scene. But of course they were new in 1992, a moment captured in War Room, the groundbreaking documentary of the '92 campaign.
As the White House claims that it was caught off-guard by the Clinton email scandal, or that President Obama didn't realize that his emails to hdr22@clintonemail.com weren't landing on State Department servers, it would be good to remind them: you told us so.
According to Miles's Law, "where you stand depends on where you sit." And so when Vice President Joe Biden hyperventilates over Republican senators' criticism of the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran, we must take him with a grain of salt. He used to have a seat in the Senate; now he…
Chief Justice Roberts has said he likes mystery novels; once, as a lower-court judge, he invoked Sherlock Holmes's "dog that didn't bark." But at the King v. Burwell arguments, Roberts himself was in effect the dog that didn't bark, saying far less than expected and thus leaving reporters to puzzle…
At yesterday's oral argument in King v. Burwell, the solicitor general made a surprisingly partisan quip about Congress. It caught many commenters' attention, including law professors Michael Greve and Josh Blackman. As the transcript reads:
Three years ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy voted to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. So it should come as no great surprise that he expressed constitutional concerns in today's ACA case, King v. Burwell.
Not long ago, Harvard Law School's Charles Ogletree told Politico that Eric Holder "is a race man":
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Adam J. White on his blog post "The Constitution Doesn't Let President Close Congress's Doors to Israel."
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming address to Congress, at Congress's invitation, is drawing significant criticism -- that much is no great surprise. What does surprise, however, is one particular criticism: that the event will be not just bad policy, but even unconstitutional.
In last night's State of the Union, President Obama reiterated his call upon Congress to pass a new "AUMF" -- or Authorization for Use of Military Force -- against ISIS, rather than continuing to wage war pursuant to the original 2001 AUMF against al Qaeda and its collaborators.
As the new Congress settles in under Republican control, it can be easy to forget that Republican control of the House of Representatives is a relatively novel concept. Until Newt Gingrich's revolution swept the party into power in 1994, the GOP was accustomed to permanent-minority status.
A few hours before the ball dropped in Times Square, the Supreme Court released Chief Justice Roberts's year-end report on the federal judiciary.
In their final push to enact Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi urged her fellow Democrats to “pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” They probably should have found out first. Now they need the Supreme Court to “find” once again in their favor.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Adam J. White on whether the Halbig challenge can kill Obamacare.
Tuesday’s elections reinforced constitutional checks and balances against the Obama administration’s excesses, but not just in the most obvious way. For all the attention rightly paid to the new Senate majority, there’s another important set of newly elected officials who may soon push back against…
The possibility of Ebola breakouts in major American cities raises difficult questions of public health, public safety, and civil liberties. So it is no great surprise that states' efforts to quarantine persons exposed to the decision would be met with threats of federal lawsuits. More interesting,…
If Mitt Romney had said in 2012 that a second Obama term would bring not just continued economic uncertainty, but also the re-emergence of international terrorist forces, Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, an illegal immigration crisis, a knife-wielding madman in the White House, a beheading in…
Back in the day when it was fashionable for the press to criticize the president and senior military officials for mismanaging a war--that is, from 2003 to 2009--such stories often focused on the colonels, majors, and captains who saw firsthand the practical problems with their superiors' approach…
No columnist rivals Matthew Continetti's ability to contrast so starkly the president's exalted self-image with his actual smallness on the world stage. This morning's installment of his weekly Free Beacon column is perhaps the best example yet. While President Obama announces his arrival at coffee…
Speaker Boehner's proposed constitutional lawsuit against the president doesn't lack critics, including those who doubt that Congress has "standing" to bring such a case in federal court. And it's no surprise to find some conservatives among the critics: Conservative justices and judges were…
Last night, Manny Ramirez hit his first home run as a member of the Cubs—not the Chicago Cubs, but the Iowa Cubs. Manny, one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all time, finds himself in Des Moines, playing for the Cubs' top minor league team. He's in Iowa because he has no where else to go.
After a surprising run of 9-0 decisions, the Supreme Court ended its year the way we've come to expect: with hotly contested 5-4 splits. Most importantly, the Court finally decided Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the closely watched fight over whether the Health and Human Services Department can force…
Two and a half years ago, President Obama tired of the Senate's refusal to confirm several of his nominations. Dissatisfied with the Constitution's general requirement that the president make appointments only after receiving the Senate's "advice and consent," he chose a more direct route. He…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with frequent contributor Adam White on today's Supreme Court rulings.
"Everything reminds Milton of the money supply," Robert Solow once said of his fellow Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman at a symposium. "Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper."
From 2005 through 2008, legal scholars and Democratic politicians heaped relentless scorn upon the Bush administration for arguing that the president's constitutional commander-in-chief powers superseded statutes that might limit his discretion. And so it is quite interesting to watch the Obama…
The new issue of Time presents a stark cover photo of Vladimir Putin, captioned with a succession of titles: once "Premier," then "President," but now "Czar." In analyzing "Putinism," Time's Michael Crowley and Simon Shuster do not hesitate to trace the roots back a century and beyond:
This week, the Supreme Court affirmed a New York town council's tradition of beginning its meetings with a prayer. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the court held, by a bare majority, that the First Amendment's Establishment Clause does not prohibit such prayers led by local clergymen, even when the…
As I noted a few weeks ago, the introduction of widespread instant replay into major league baseball threatened to do serious damage to how the game is played and enjoyed. That damage arrives in ways that replay's proponents simply failed—or refused—to countenance.
We often think of the Constitution as a two-part document: first the original 1787 text, which primarily establishes the government’s structure; and then the amendments, which primarily set forth our rights. But it’s not nearly that simple: Our government’s structure—its federalism and its…
As the Boston Red Sox collected their World Series rings last Friday, Boston faithful had much to be thankful for. And among those to whom they owed more than a little thanks was Bill James, the team's official analytical guru, who enjoyed an increased role in team decision-making after the team…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with attorney and frequent contributor Adam J. White on the Supreme Court's ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC, which repealed parts of federal campaign law pertaining to aggregrate campaign donation limits.
In The Great Debate and elsewhere, Yuval Levin describes the fundamental difference between conservatives and progressives, rooted in the debates of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine:
The Kennedy Center Honors always present an odd spectacle. One of the hottest tickets in town, it brings D.C.'s elites together to sit in black tie and cheer for old rock stars (among others). It's hard to imagine FDR mumbling along to Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," an arm slung around…
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with frequent contributor Adam J. White on the so-called "nuclear option" used today in the United States Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid on judicial nominees that were awaiting an advise and consent vote by the Senate.
It is always nice to find a columnist looking past the political controversy of the moment, to write instead of great men and more permanent things. And so it was a pleasant surprise to find not one but two Bloomberg View columns dedicated to Whittaker Chambers—by Harvard law professor and former…
By now it's an understatement to say—as Senate Democrats said to President Obama yesterday—that Democrats face a national "crisis of confidence" in the Affordable Care Act. And their confidence likely wasn't buttressed by the closing weeks of the Virginia gubernatorial campaign, in which the…
The Supreme Court closed shop weeks ago, not to return until October. And for the third summer in a row, no Supreme Court confirmation fight occupies headlines. But in its absence, President Obama has thrust another court—often called the “second-highest” court in the land—into the spotlight.
To write about the D.C. Circuit this week is to join a much broader discussion about the court's role in American law and policy. Jonathan Adler recently wrote about the court at Volokh.com, expanding upon a piece he wrote for the Environmental Law Institute's Environmental Forum. Michael Greve has…
As Jonathan V. Last observed earlier today, the George Zimmerman trial illustrates the immense power and discretion afforded to state and federal prosecutors.
Much will be written about Chief Justice Roberts's opinion for the court in Hollingsworth v. Perry, holding that supporters of California's Proposition 8 lacked constitutional "standing" to defend in federal court California's ballot initiative against same-sex marriage. (Whether or not same-sex…
While half the country is obsessed with the cases that the Supreme Court is about to decide—not to mention the cases that the Court may or may not take up next—Justice Alito left the Beltway this week for greener pastures. Specifically, he headed south to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas, and…
As Daniel Halper noted earlier today, ex-Energy Secretary Steven Chu raises a lot of eyebrows in his recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, where his defense of the department's loan guarantee program refuses to concede any lessons learned from the Solyndra fiasco.
Despite all of the White House speechwriters’ labors on the Inaugural and State of the Union Addresses, their attempt to define the tone of the president’s second term is unlikely to improve upon the president’s own words, a year ago: “Where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead…
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, portraying the president’s battle to abolish slavery at the end of the Civil War, illustrates one of the fundamental paradoxes inherent in constitutional democracy: that sometimes high principle can be vindicated only through low politicking. In the last week, myriad…
Warren Buffett is by now no stranger to the national debate over federal tax policy. In 2009, he penned a New York Times op-ed calling for "truly major changes in both taxes and outlays." Two years later, he returned to the Times with a widely publicized call for large tax increases on the…
A few years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency lost a string of high-profile lawsuits brought by environmentalists challenging the Bush administration's regulations. And in certain circles, it was fashionable to cite those as proof of the Bush EPA's incompetence if not its utter corruption.
A century ago, progressives were challenged to achieve "Jeffersonian ends by Hamiltonian means." Beginning with Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life, and continuing through the New Deal, Democrats increasingly eschewed state-based populist Jeffersonian democracy and replaced it with FDR's…
In September 2009, President Obama disagreed vehemently with the notion that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate was a tax: "A responsibility to get health insurance is not a tax increase," he told George Stephanopolous. And even on the eve of oral argument, the president's Office of…
For all of the ink spilled over the federal government's haphazard reaction to the 2008 financial crisis, few authors match David Skeel's clarity and insight. In The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and Its (Unintended) Consequences, the University of Pennsylvania law professor…
In this week's New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin criticizes the Supreme Court's handling of Citizens United v. FEC, which affirmed a corporation's First Amendment right to spend money on independent speech on political issues, even when that speech criticizes candidates for office.
"Independent agencies" occupy an odd corner of American government. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Labor Relations Board, Federal Communications Commission, and others are nominally "independent" of the president's control—usually thanks to limits on the president's power to…
Last week, a federal judge in Washington issued a truly extraordinary opinion. Judge Janice Rogers Brown, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, went out of her way to challenge one of bedrock achievements of the 20th Century liberal legal establishment: the de-emphasis of economic…
President Obama has earned much criticism for preemptively challenging the Supreme Court's authority to strike down Obamacare's individual mandate. And deservedly so; his glib ignorance of constitutional history deserves a firm response.
Last week, President Obama clumsily announced that it would be "unprecedented" for the Supreme Court to strike down "a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." This week, his words are already having an effect in the courts—but not the effect he hoped…
Not even a full year into President Obama's first term, Politico observed that he had reached the point of caricature in using the term "unprecedented" to describe basically anything that occurs during his presidency. By now, Americans have learned to shrug off his use of this rhetorical tick.
In light of the bruising that Solicitor General Donald Verrilli took during this week's oral arguments, no one can blame Obamacare's supporters for trying to offer (belatedly) winning answers that the government’s attorney lacked. Two of the early entrants are law professors Akhil Amar and Jeffrey…
After Tuesday's oral arguments, in which Justice Kennedy posed pleasantly tough questions to Solicitor General Verrilli, it was hard for conservatives not to get excited about the prospects for an imminent Supreme Court decision striking down the individual mandate.
Yesterday, we endured an esoteric debate over a jurisdictional statute that practically no one expects to actually affect the Supreme Court's review of Obamacare. Today, by contrast, was the argument we've all been waiting for: the challenge to the constitutional merits of Obamacare's individual…
The solicitor general had an interesting morning. He argued before the Supreme Court's nine justices that Obamacare's individual mandate isn't a "tax"—even though he'll argue tomorrow that the mandate is a "tax." And then the government's top litigator invoked the possibility of incompetent…
Before 1987, Supreme Court nominations were relatively peaceful affairs. Yes, there occasionally were bursts of controversy—the appointment of progressive activist Louis Brandeis in 1916, the promotion of conservative Justice William Rehnquist in 1986—but controversy was the exception, not the…
President Obama’s recent recess appointments have sparked no shortage of legal commentary. Does the president have the power to declare that the Senate is in "recess" in the middle of a session, and then to use his constitutional "recess appointment" power to install disfavored personnel at federal…
Normally, the Constitution requires the president to secure Senate confirmation before appointing cabinet secretaries and equivalent officers to lead federal agencies. But the Constitution carved out one exception to that rule: The president may appoint such an officer without Senate confirmation…
Today, Senate Republicans succeeded in continuing a filibuster of Caitlin Halligan's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The cloture vote on Halligan (who previously served as New York's solicitor general) fell six votes short of the necessary sixty.
American energy policy is increasingly defined in terms of what is prohibited, not what is promoted. Coal, nuclear, and natural “shale” gas all have been hampered by the current administration. And the last three weeks have offered two more examples of how America’s byzantine energy laws and policy…
The passing of Steve Jobs has sparked an immense amount of reflection and appreciation—just as his retirement did months ago, and the publication of Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs will do later this month. But for all the talk of Steve Jobs and the world that he created, attention must be paid…
Michele Bachmann knows that the Constitution prohibits the states from imposing health-insurance mandates. She just doesn't know what part of the Constitution does this. But she's open to suggestions.
Rick Perry's constitutional views are again sparking controversy. As Ruth Marcus notes, Perry previously called for a constitutional amendment to empower Congress to overturn Supreme Court decisions by two-thirds votes.
Campaign events tend not to be the first place to look for nuanced constitutional debate; the Lincoln-Douglas encounters are the exception that proves the rule. So what are the odds that a thoughtful debate would occur not just between candidates of rival parties, or even rival wings of the same…
"At some point this must end. With a permit, or without.” With those words, an exasperated federal judge punctuated his latest decision ordering the Obama administration to process applications to drill for oil and gas offshore. More than a year after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused the…
By now it is well known that President Obama's big government model disproportionately relies on "waivers" to exempt certain companies and unions—disproportionately located in friendly political districts—from the generally applicable requirements of Obamacare. Whether or not the president's new…
This week, climate change activists suffered a major loss at the Supreme Court, which unanimously threw out their highly publicized lawsuit against power companies. Although—or perhaps because—the Court's opinion was clear and direct, the losing activists have sought desperately to spin a loss into…
When the White House announced last week that it would not comply with the requirements of the War Powers Resolution because the Libya operation does not involve "hostilities," eyebrows arched in curiosity. Many observers questioned the administration's conclusion that America's involvement in the…
At last night's debate, one audience member raised the issue of energy infrastructure:
When the Court hears 80 or so cases in a year, not all of them will be interesting. In fact, some of them will be dreadfully boring. Those tend to be known as "telecommunications cases." (The occasional "fleeting expletive" or "wardrobe malfunction" case notwithstanding.)
Judge Frank Easterbrook, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, is known for two things: First, he writes some of the crispest, liveliest opinions that the federal bench has seen in decades. Second, he has absolutely no tolerance for nonsense. Both of these traits were on display…
Washington lawyers are marking their calendars for the D.C. Courts' 36th Annual Judicial Conference. The theme this year is, "Implicit Bias: Recognizing It and Dismantling It."
Harvard Law School professor William Stuntz passed away on Monday at the age of 52. He was widely admired by faculty and students, but readers of THE WEEKLY STANDARD would know him better as an author of essays. In September 2006, at the lowest point in the Iraq War, in the face of ever-increasing…
The New York Times's latest Guantanamo editorial has been rightly criticized for failing to grapple seriously with the problems created by the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush. In that case, the Supreme Court created a constitutional right for detainees to directly challenge…
“Sputnik” was not the only nostalgic moment in the State of the Union address. When President Obama called on Congress to “invest” in “clean energy breakthroughs” that would “translate into clean energy jobs,” he echoed every president since Nixon. In fact, President Obama himself made the same…
Mike Lee, a former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Alito, is an experienced appellate litigator. (He’s the son of President Reagan's legendary solicitor general, Rex Lee, no less.) Lee also served the federal government as an assistant U.S. attorney, and the state government of Utah as Governor Jon…
It's a surprise to see a New York Times columnist call for a restoration of the Constitution in Exile. It's an even bigger surprise to see that the columnist is Linda Greenhouse.
Common Cause embarrassed itself by attempting to disqualify Justices Scalia and Thomas from the Supreme Court's review of Citizens United v. FEC, in Common Cause's last-ditch effort to overturn the Court's year-old pro-free speech decision. Ben Smith's report demonstrates precisely how unfounded…
In a new editorial, the New York Times frets that when it comes to the Supreme Court's current business docket, too many corporations are hiring lawyers that are just too effective, experienced, and well-respected. Or, in the Times's words, too many "former lawyers in the Justice Department’s…
For days, Democrats have made clear their displeasure with the Republican leadership's decision to begin the new House term with a reading of the U.S. Constitution. But Democrats' specific grievance, immediately before the reading commenced, was a surprise: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and…
In a short essay, New York Times editorialist Lincoln Caplan considers the increasingly popular conservative rallying cry, "constitutional conservatism." Caplan unsurprisingly tries to characterize the term as purely negative: "The phrase is used mainly in opposition," a response to perceived…
Legal activist groups filed an extraordinary lawsuit yesterday to prevent the U.S. military and CIA from undertaking the "targeted killing" of persons suspected of posing a terrorist threat to the U.S. The filers are asking the court to block not merely the targeted killing of U.S. citizens…
According to the Washington Examiner, Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli has issued a formal opinion recognizing that state and local law enforcement officers have authority to "inquire into the immigration status of persons stopped or arrested." The opinion, issued in response to a question…
Amid the controversy arising from the federal district court's decision to strike down portions of Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, one must keep in mind the fact that the case is at its most preliminary stage. Judge Bolton, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, did not issue a final…
Although most court-watchers' eyes are fixed on the Supreme Court, it remains prudent to pay attention to the lower courts, too. Law professor Carl Tobias, writing at the National Law Journal, sees two vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and he wants Obama to fill them…
A federal lawsuit is never a laughing matter – especially when the U.S. Department of Justice signs the complaint. But the Obama administration's complaint against Arizona faces serious obstacles in the federal courts.
Jack Goldsmith ranks among the very best conservative legal scholars. He also wins acclaim from liberals, who applauded his criticism of the Bush administration's legal arguments supporting aspects of the nation's response to the attacks of 9/11, during his tenure in President Bush's Justice…
Today the Federal Trade Commission issued its draft report on "the reinvention of journalism." At page 15 of the report, the FTC proposes to provide "direct and indirect" financial assistance to journalists.
After years of litigation arising from the nation's detention of prisoners in the global war on terror, the Supreme Court's decisions confound as much as they clarify -- and none more than Boumediene v. Bush, the 2008 decision in which the Court declared that Guantanamo Bay prisoners could…
In The Promise, a sympathetic account of the Obama administration’s first year, Jonathan Alter reports that the president attempted to entice troubled White House Counsel Greg Craig to gracefully exit the White House by offering him an appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. …
Charlie Savage's byline is familiar to those of us who closely follow coverage of legal issues governing and arising from the global war on terror. His latest New York Times report nominally focuses on the Obama administration's deliberations regarding tough issues of law and war, but its most…
Two years ago, the Supreme Court heard the hotly controversial Heller case, in which it ultimately recognized a personal right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment. That case, which pertained only to federal (and District of Columbia) gun regulations, not state or other local gun…
In inveighing against the Bush administration, Vice President Cheney, and allegations of a recently-terminated CIA program, liberal pundits have repeatedly mischaracterized the legal provision that, they say, renders the administration's alleged conduct illegal. They argue that the Bush…
At today's confirmation hearing, Sen. Kohl asked Judge Sotomayor how she would have decided Kelo v. City of New London, the controversial "eminent domain" case decided by the Supreme Court four years ago. According to National Journal, Judge Sotomayor "dismissed" the question: Kohl asked her about…
Even before their Election Day drubbing, conservatives had begun to reexamine their positions on a variety of issues. Conspicuously absent from the intramural debate, however, has been "originalism"--the theory that judges should decide constitutional cases in accordance with their best estimate of…
AT A RALLY in Iowa on Thursday, John McCain said that Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), should be fired. "Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch," McCain said. "The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment…
The controversy surrounding the status of Michigan's and Florida's presidential-nomination delegates continues. Pundits and critics have examined the actions and decisions of three parties involved, but have overlooked perhaps the most interesting actor in the fray: Barack Obama. His conduct in…
THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING the status of Michigan's and Florida's presidential-nomination delegates continues. Pundits and critics have examined the actions and decisions of three parties involved, but have overlooked perhaps the most interesting actor in the fray: Barack Obama. His conduct in…
JOHN MCCAIN HAS COME UNDER HEAVY FIRE from conservatives critical of his alleged apostasies. To be sure, several of his stances--on tax cuts, illegal immigration, campaign-finance reform--stand at odds with the current mainstream of American conservatism. But his opponents on the right are…
THE LAW takes the long view, and so do its chroniclers--none more so than Linda Greenhouse, New York Times reporter and unofficial doyenne of the Supreme Court press corps. But Greenhouse's recent essay on Chief Justice Roberts exemplifies the risks of racing to write the second draft of history…
FOR ARLEN SPECTER, limits on the right of Guantanamo prisoners to petition for the writ of habeas corpus in federal courts have long been a sore point. When Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Pennsylvania's senior senator grilled him on two interrelated…
THE FIVE-YEAR LEGAL DEBATE over the global war on terror has focused predominantly on first principles: What does our Constitution allow? What does it forbid? But in those five years, three of the Supreme Court's four decisions have rested on statutory, not constitutional, grounds. The recent…
NOW THAT THE SUPREME COURT has ruled against the White House on the military detention of U.S. citizens and the presidential institution of military commissions, the next big legal issue seems to be the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of international communications. Sen. Arlen…
SHORTLY AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, the Treasury Department began to monitor international financial transactions of persons suspected of having terrorist connections. According to Treasury, the program successfully identified terrorists. Like other disclosed counterterrorism programs, the program's…
BEFORE THE DUST SETTLED on the rubble that had been Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's safe house, critics of the Bush administration were already arguing that our latest battlefield success in Iraq had to be measured against the administration's failure to kill Zarqawi back in 2002. But a full understanding…
VIRTUALLY EVERY ASPECT of the war on terror has been met with a lawsuit. Recently the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the ACLU sued the federal government over the NSA's surveillance of international phone calls involving persons inside the United States. They seek court orders ceasing…
THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT in the immigration reform debate occurred not in the Senate's debate on immigration, but rather in the Senate's debate on prescription drugs.
THE SEASON OF ABORTION LITIGATION is in full bloom. South Dakota's passage of a bill banning all abortions has captured most of the headlines, and Mississippi is considering similar legislation. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has quietly decided two abortion cases this term--the first dealing with…