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

Recognizing Terrorism -- By: Jonah Goldberg

Posted on January 27, 2010
It is always dangerous to mistake your ideological preferences for shrewd political strategy, but that is precisely what President Obama and his advisors have done with the War on Terror.On the right, the prevailing critique of the president?s approach to the War on Terror is that it is both deeply ideological and unserious...

The New Republican -- By: Alex Castellanos

Posted on January 26, 2010
Their party was out of ideas and out of office. It had grown preposterously out of touch, a caricature of economic irresponsibility and elite, Washington-dinner-party values. Then along came Bill Clinton to return Democrats to the political center and teach them how to win...

Did Ben Fold? -- By: NRO Symposium

Posted on January 26, 2010
Is John McCain right to oppose Bernanke?s confirmation? We asked our economics experts if Ben Benanke should become the Fed ex-chairman. BRUCE BARTLETT I think that much opposition to Ben Bernanke among those on both the right and left has less to do with his qualifications than with the desire to blame someone for the Great Recession and many of the policies adopted in response to it by the Federal Reserve and other institutions...

A vanishing, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Posted on January 26, 2010
Readers may remember Gao Zhisheng, the incredibly brave and valuable Chinese human-rights lawyer who was snatched last February -- snatched by the state and then made to disappear. I wrote about him last April, in this column.Interestingly enough, the Chinese Foreign Ministry was asked about Gao last week...

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

Say It in Writing -- By: William F. Gavin

Posted on January 26, 2010
If we want to restore government to its constitutionally prescribed dimensions, we can begin by taking a small but important step: Stop the deification of the presidency in the annual State of the Union address. The next president should communicate the message in writing, as was done from the presidency of Thomas Jefferson to that of William Howard Taft...

The Abdulmutallab Travesty -- By: Rich Lowry

Posted on January 26, 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.Intending to die in the act of destroying a jetliner, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab instead landed alive in Detroit as a kind of message in a bottle from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula...

You Named Your Dog for Coolidge? -- By: Mona Charen

Posted on January 26, 2010
Since the world appears to be self-correcting -- Massachusetts voters have matters in hand, the Supreme Court has come to its senses on the First Amendment, each day brings new revelations that the report of the U.N.?s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was a fraud, and President Obama acknowledges that his agenda has hit a ?buzz saw? -- it?s safe to detour into the personal...

Great Scott! -- By: Thomas Sowell

Posted on January 26, 2010
Some of the most melancholy letters and e-mails that are sent to me are from people who lament that there is nothing they can do about the bad policies that they see ruining this country. They don?t have any media outlet for their opinions, and the letters they send to their congressmen either are ignored or are answered by form letters with weasel words...

Obfuscation after Obfuscation -- By: Bill Burck & Dana Perino

Posted on January 26, 2010
The Justice Department is in full damage-control mode to quell the growing furor about its decision to treat Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant with Miranda rights, a decision we now know was made without consulting the intelligence services whose job it is to protect the country from attacks...

A Mere 15 Months of Warning Signs -- By: Jim Geraghty

Posted on January 26, 2010
Like Scott Brown?s victory in Massachusetts, Beau Biden?s decision�not to�run for the Senate in Delaware was a surprising development that didn?t seem quite so surprising once it actually happened. Sure, a month ago the notion was unthinkable, but recent days make it quite logical, considering the events that preceded it...

Freezing Conditions -- By: The Editors

Posted on January 26, 2010
Even before Scott Brown?s remarkable election to the Senate, the Obama administration was making noises about the need to get serious about the deficit. Last year?s shortfall was $1.4 trillion. This year?s is projected to be $1.35 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected that cumulative deficits over the next ten years will reach $9...

Fed Hedge -- By: Stephen Spruiell

Posted on January 25, 2010
Over the weekend, economist Greg Mankiw posted on his blog a note from a friend who works for the White House. Mankiw?s friend drew a line connecting Obama?s ?populist pivot? following the Massachusetts Senate election to the growing backlash over Ben Bernanke?s reappointment to serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve...

Stop Rushing START -- By: Henry Sokolski

Posted on January 25, 2010
Sometimes, coming late is just as bad as not arriving. Consider the Obama administration?s effort this week to conclude a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Moscow. Begun in April of 2009, negotiations were supposed to produce a treaty before early December...

Step by Step -- By: Lamar Alexander

Posted on January 25, 2010
What are Republicans for? For the Democratic senators who kept asking this question during the health-care debate, the only answer was for Mitch McConnell to roll a wheelbarrow onto the Senate floor with an alternative 2,700-page, comprehensive Republican health-care bill...

Against Zimbabwefication -- By: Kevin Williamson

Posted on January 25, 2010
Zimbabwe ended the past year with deflation. The United States began the new one by electing Scott Brown to put the brakes on Obamacare. These things are not entirely unrelated.��Zimbabwe has for many years been a rich source of black humor for people who are interested in inflation, grotesque misgovernment, and extreme economics...

Turning Point -- By: Conrad Black

Posted on January 25, 2010
The burning question after the Massachusetts Senate election is whether the administration will respond by making a course correction to survive politically, by jettisoning its policy core and cleaning up its methods, or by ?doubling down,? as President Obama has implied, and escalating the ideological and guerrilla war for direction of public policy...

The Wrong Financial Reforms -- By: The Editors

Posted on January 25, 2010
The stench of cheap populism pervades President Obama?s new banking proposals. He wants people to know he?s angry, very angry, at Wall Street. This is the political point of his proposals for a ?Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee? and new limits on the trading activities of banks unveiled last week...

Parents, Be Not Afraid -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

Posted on January 25, 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. It is�heartbreaking. Google ?Anencephaly? and you?ll get all varieties of cold, clinical websites...

High Value -- By: Marc A. Thiessen

Posted on January 25, 2010
In congressional hearings last week, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said that the Obama administration?s High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), not law-enforcement officers, should have been used to interrogate the Christmas Day bomber...

Too Much of a Bad Thing -- By: Mark Steyn

Posted on January 23, 2010
So what went wrong? According to Barack Obama, the problem is he overestimated you dumb rubes? ability to appreciate what he?s been doing for you. ?That I do think is a mistake of mine,? the president told ABC?s George Stephanopoulos. ?I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we?re making a good rational decision here, then people will get it...

The Pro-Life Comeback of 2009 -- By: Michael J. New

Posted on January 22, 2010
In the aftermath of the 2008 election, offering advice to Republicans became a cottage industry among Beltway pundits. For the most part, it was the same advice Republicans always receive when their candidates fare poorly: Moderate your positions on abortion and other social issues and focus on defense and fiscal policy...

Free to Speak -- By: The Editors

Posted on January 22, 2010
Americans have cause to rejoice in the Supreme Court?s landmark decision reaffirming our freedom of association and our freedom of speech. In Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the majority of the Court, led by Justice Kennedy, reaffirmed ?ancient First Amendment principles...

Notes in Moral Theology: Colts vs. Jets -- By: George Weigel

Posted on January 22, 2010
Prior to Super Bowl XLI in 2007, my brother and I engaged in a lengthy theological debate: Was it morally permissible to root for the Indianapolis Colts -- to whom we had been passionately devoted when they were the Baltimore Colts -- in their contest with Da Bears of Chicago? The question was not easily resolved, and it took a great deal of casuistry to reach a reasonable conclusion...

Scaling Back the Favoritocracy -- By: Michael Knox Beran

Posted on January 22, 2010
Kennedyland became Scott Brown Country on Tuesday, but across the border in New York, where I live, it was business as usual. Gov. David Paterson proposed a billion dollars in new sales taxes. The state has blown through all the money it has taken out of our pockets in recent years and now needs more...

How Republicans Can Win the Black Vote -- By: Thomas Sowell

Posted on January 22, 2010
If the Republicans think that they are simply ?due? to start winning elections, perhaps buoyed by the recent polls showing that the public is turning against Democrats in general and the Obama administration in particular, then they may neglect to do the things they need to do if they are to turn their hopes into realities...

Feeling the Heat, Obama Pours Kool-Aid -- By: Jonah Goldberg

Posted on January 22, 2010
Denial, arrogance, and self-pity are ingredients for a pretty toxic cocktail. And yet it seems that the occupants of the White House bunker, shell-shocked by Scott Brown, are coping by mixing all three with a little Kool-Aid.In an interview with ABC?s George Stephanopoulos, the president offered his nuanced analysis of the Bay State G�tterd�mmerung and his first year in office...

The New Catechism -- By: Rich Lowry

Posted on January 22, 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.In the wake of losing Teddy Kennedy?s Senate seat, in an electoral rebuke for the ages, liberaldom has a new catechism...

The Meaning of Brown -- By: Charles Krauthammer

Posted on January 22, 2010
On January 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health-care reform. ?If Republicans want to campaign against what we?ve done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have...

Agenda 21 -- By: Deroy Murdock

Posted on January 22, 2010
Congressional Republicans are right to savor Scott Brown?s stunning Senate victory. Democrat Martha Coakley?s self-destructive gaffes notwithstanding, conservative Republican Brown?s formidable 52 percent to 47 percent win is akin to Rep. Barney Frank surfacing in Salt Lake City and, three weeks later, zooming past a pro-market entrepreneur right into the Senate...

Still Time to Get It Right -- By: Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted on January 22, 2010
?Why not treat him as an enemy combatant?? Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace was pressing John Brennan, President Obama?s top counterterrorism adviser. Umar Abdulmutallab had just tried to kill nearly 300 people aboard Northwest Flight 253 as it descended toward Detroit on Christmas Day...

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...