Bench Memos - National Review Online: Federal Judiciary

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Federal Judiciary Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Federal Judiciary

Bench Memos - National Review Online

Covering The Supreme Court -- from National Review Online

Post Frequency: 91/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 05:00:54

Jeff Greene for Senate: Hey, How Bad Can He Be? -- By: Neal B. Freeman

Posted on July 06, 2010
Jacksonville, Fla. -- Seven weeks and $4 million ago, Jeff Greene was unknown to any of the three Floridas -- the liberal south, the swing middle, or the conservative north. What most Floridians know about him today is what he has told them himself in a series of tight-shot TV spots...

The New Black Panther Case: A Conservative Dissent -- By: Abigail Thernstrom

Posted on July 06, 2010
Forget about the New Black Panther Party case; it is very small potatoes. Perhaps the Panthers should have been prosecuted under section 11 (b) of the Voting Rights Act for their actions of November 2008, but the legal standards that must be met to prove voter intimidation -- the charge -- are very high...

Ten Reasons to Oppose Dodd-Frank -- By: The Editors

Posted on July 06, 2010
Shortly after you were sworn in to fill the Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy, you famously declared, ?I?ll be the 41st vote, not the 60th vote.? Your meaning with respect to health care was clear: I will stand between the voters and the federal takeover of health care that they oppose...

June Diary -- By: John Derbyshire

Posted on July 06, 2010
Getting carded I seem to have this conversation around twice a week: Store assistant: That?ll be $6.95. Do you have our Rewards Card? JD: No. SA: Would you like to have one? JD: No thanks. SA: You sure? Ten percent off selected items. JD: I?d rather have my pancreas removed with a pair of pinking shears...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

The Difference between 'World Opinion' and Left-Wing Opinion -- By: Dennis Prager

Posted on July 06, 2010
Here?s a challenge: Can you name one difference between what the media refer to as ?world opinion? and left-wing opinion?Take all the time you need. No matter how much time you take, you probably won?t come up with any examples.Here are examples of major world issues and what is deemed ?world opinion? on them...

Trust the Palestinian Authority? -- By: Daniel Pipes

Posted on July 06, 2010
Under Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization notoriously said one thing to Arab/Muslim audiences and the opposite to Israeli/Western ones, speaking venomously to the former and in dulcet tones to the latter. What about Arafat?s mild-mannered successor, Mahmoud Abbas? Did he break from this pattern of duplicity or continue it?This question has renewed relevance because reports suggest Abbas is ready to offer Israel various territorial compromises; plus, he took unprecedented steps in granting an interview to Israeli journalists and meeting with American Jewish leaders at the S...

Santa Claus and Frank Nitti -- By: Thomas Sowell

Posted on July 06, 2010
People who remember the old comic strip ?Peanuts? will recall an often-repeated situation where Lucy offers to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Then, as Charlie comes running up to kick it, Lucy snatches away the ball, and Charlie Brown loses his balance and goes crashing on his backside...

Defending Arizona -- By: Kris W. Kobach

Posted on July 06, 2010
A law that basically makes a few small, carefully considered changes in police procedure, Arizona?s S.B. 1070, has inspired a vastly disproportionate response. Few laws have ever been so grossly mischaracterized by so many leaders on the left. From President Obama on down, they rushed to the microphone after it was enacted to hyperventilate about an impending police state in Arizona...

Second Thoughts, Part 2 -- By: David Horowitz

Posted on July 05, 2010
In the 1970s, Hitchens adopted a ?second identity,? making more and more frequent trips to America, eventually migrating across the Atlantic and setting up shop at The Nation. It was, as always for him, a two-track engagement. On the one hand there was the America that functioned as the Left?s version of capitalist hell -- a racist, imperialist bastion of international oppression...

Second Thoughts -- By: David Horowitz

Posted on July 05, 2010
AUTHOR?S NOTE: I had just finished this essay when I heard the terrible news that my friend Christopher had a cancer whose prognosis was dire. My heart and thoughts go out to him, as they would to a brother. I have known Christopher as a man of great courage and decency and have an affection for him that is not adequately expressed in the intellectual argument that follows...

The End of an Idea -- By: NRO Staff

Posted on July 05, 2010
Earlier this week, Elena Kagan told senators on the Judiciary Committee that she did not know the meaning of the term ?legal progressive.? Fortunately, in a New York Times Magazine article last week, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman provides Ms. Kagan and the senators a detailed articulation of a progressive vision of constitutional law and thus a précis of what may be at stake as the Senate considers the nomination of Ms...

A Tired and Poor Speech -- By: Michael Barone

Posted on July 05, 2010
?Years before the statue was built,? Barack Obama began the peroration of his July 1 speech on immigration, Emma Lazarus ?imagined what it could mean.?Actually, the French sculptor Bartholdi was at work on the Statue of Liberty before Lazarus published her famous ?give me your tired? poem in 1883...

Who Needs a Woman Speaker? -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

Posted on July 05, 2010
EDITOR?S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through United Media. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact Carmen Puello at cpuello@unitedmedia.com.Usually, people want to stand up and be counted. During the most recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Solicitor General Elena Kagan?s, I wanted to do just the opposite...

Terror - and Candor -- By: Charles Krauthammer

Posted on July 02, 2010
The Fort Hood shooter, the Christmas Day bomber, the Times Square attacker. On May 13, the following exchange occurred at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee:Rep. Lamar Smith (R.,Texas): Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?Attorney General Eric Holder: There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions...

The Business of the Supreme Court -- By: The Editors

Posted on July 02, 2010
The central argument of the Democrats during the Kagan hearings has been that the current Supreme Court is activist on behalf of corporations. This conservative activism hurts the little guy, the argument continues, and Democratic nominees such as Kagan are needed to speak up for them...

Summer Reading Recommendations, Volume Two -- By: NRO Symposium

Posted on July 02, 2010
Hitting the beach? Traveling on a plane? You?ll need some reading material! National Review Online asked Denis Boyles, Orson Scott Card, John Derbyshire, Nancy French, David Gelernter, Jonah Goldberg, Allen Guelzo, C. R. Hardy, Arthur Herman, Hugh Hewitt, Carrie Lukas, William McGurn, Eric Metaxas, Joseph Pearce, John J...

Afghanistan Agonistes -- By: Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on July 02, 2010
The growing consensus is that the United States and its NATO allies cannot prevail in their aim of creating a stable constitutional government in Afghanistan, free of radical Taliban insurrectionists who will facilitate terrorism beyond their borders and seek to reinstitute their medieval theocracy...

Byrd Tributes Go Overboard -- By: Jonah Goldberg

Posted on July 02, 2010
It is a good rule of thumb not to speak ill of the dead. But what to do when a man is celebrated beyond the limits of decorum or common sense? Must we stay silent as others celebrate the beauty and splendor of the emperor?s invisible clothes? You probably know why I ask the question...

What Jefferson Wrought -- By: Rich Lowry

Posted on July 02, 2010
EDITOR?S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext. 246. If only all congressional committees were so inspired...

Making the World More Dangerous -- By: Mona Charen

Posted on July 02, 2010
The timing could hardly have been worse: Just days after President Obama shared a chummy hamburger with Russian president Dmitri Medvedev -- the better to dramatize our newly ?reset? relations -- the FBI announced the arrest of eleven ?deep-cover? spies who have been paid and plied by Moscow Center for decades...

Assimilation and the Founding Fathers -- By: Michelle Malkin

Posted on July 02, 2010
Obama blames ?politics? for the intractable immigration debate. Whose politics? The amnesty mob has taken to ambushing congressional offices this week to scream at lawmakers to choose ?reform? (giving a blanket path to citizenship to millions of illegal aliens) or ?racism? (their description of any and every legislative measure to stiffen sanctions for and deter the acts of border jumping, visa overstaying, and deportation evading)...

The All-American Light Bulb Dims as Freedom Flickers -- By: Deroy Murdock

Posted on July 02, 2010
As the U.S.A. celebrates its 234th birthday, the plight of a quintessentially American innovation says volumes about the state of the union. As American as the grand slam, the Mustang convertible, and the constitutional republic, Thomas Alva Edison?s incandescent light bulb is among this nation?s most enduring gifts to mankind...

Business-Power Neglect -- By: Larry Kudlow

Posted on July 02, 2010
This whole debate about government stimulus versus austerity, and the impact of these policies on economic growth, misses a key point: It is business, not government, that creates jobs.The economic power of business is the missing link in the faux debate that is now raging over spending and deficit policies...

Austerity Will Help After All -- By: Stephen Spruiell

Posted on July 01, 2010
Is Paul Krugman assigning news articles at the New York Times these days? A few weeks ago, Krugman started vigorously arguing against ?fiscal austerity? -- the idea that countries facing down debt crises should start controlling their deficits. Exhibit A in his case against austerity was Ireland...

The Obama Spoils System -- By: Darrell Issa

Posted on July 01, 2010
A disturbing precedent appears likely to emerge from the controversy surrounding the job offers by White House officials to Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak and former Colorado house speaker Andrew Romanoff in exchange for their withdrawal from primary challenges to sitting Democratic United States senators...

Liberals v. Umpires -- By: Ramesh Ponnuru

Posted on July 01, 2010
Umpires are having a rough season. It?s bad enough that their blown calls are getting criticized. Now liberals are calling their very humanity into question.Judging from their writing, the most pressing project for liberal legal writers right now is to discredit Chief Justice John Roberts?s metaphor of the judge as umpire...

Why Endorse McCain? -- By: Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted on July 01, 2010
I haven?t been keeping score, but my sense has been that National Review stays out of Republican congressional primary races, at least most of the time. This is a good thing. It reflects an ethos focused on the strategic direction of the conservative movement rather than tactical politics...

Summer Reading Recommendations, Part One -- By: NRO Symposium

Posted on July 01, 2010
Hitting the beach? Traveling on a plane? You?ll need some reading material! National Review Online asked Denis Boyles, Orson Scott Card, John Derbyshire, Nancy French, David Gelernter, Jonah Goldberg, Allen Guelzo, C. R. Hardy, Arthur Herman, Hugh Hewitt, Carrie Lukas, William McGurn, Eric Metaxas, Joseph Pearce, John J...

A Bipartisan Moment -- By: Clifford D. May

Posted on July 01, 2010
In the film Charlie Wilson?s War, the rich and sexy political activist Joanne Herring asks the eponymous representative from Texas: ?Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?? Wilson deadpans: ?Well, tradition mostly.?So when Congress breaks with tradition and actually says something and then goes on to do something both bold and consistent -- that should not go unremarked...

(Even a Few) Words Matter -- By: Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on July 01, 2010
British prime minister Neville Chamberlain was ecstatic after the Munich Conference of 1938. He bragged that he had coaxed Adolf Hitler into stopping further aggression after the Nazis gobbled up much of Czechoslovakia. Arriving home, Chamberlain proudly displayed Hitler?s signature on the Munich Agreement, exclaiming to adoring crowds, ?I believe it is peace for our time...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Relaxed Standard of Review Applies to Density Variances
The Appellate Division extended to applications for development se...

Review of Charles Fried
Here's my review, in Commonweal, of Charles Fried's recent book, M...

NSEERS - National Security Entry-Exit Registration System
NSEERS - NATIONAL SECURITY ENTRY-EXIT REGISTRATION SYSTEM Special ...

National Episcopal Church Gets Only Limited Intervention In Property Dispute
In Diocese of Central New York v. St. Andrews Episcopal Church, (N...