Academic

?Progressive Originalism?

Posted on March 19, 2009
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article this week about the surge of interest in originalism among constitutional scholars and advocates.  These scholars and advocates focus not on the original constitution, but on the Reconstruction Era, also known as the Second Founding because the Reconstruction Amendments changed our constitution so fundamentally...

March Madness, 65 Teams and A Question of Interpretation

Posted on March 18, 2009
Today is either the eve of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship or Day 2 of the tourmament colloquially known as March Madness.  How the issue should be resolved is an interesting one.  Until several years ago, the NCAA tournament was a 64-team affair...

?Bonuses? and the Effectiveness of Shame

Posted on March 17, 2009
Yeaterday, President Obama instructed Secretary of the Treasury Timothy F. Geithner to take every legal step to prevent A.I.G. from paying out over one hundred and sixty-five million dollars in bonuses.  New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has ordered A...

Tribe?s Invisible Constitution

Posted on March 16, 2009
Constitutional scholars are inclined to dub their favorite conceptions of American constitutionalism as a Constitution of a certain kind.  Here are some examples: the living Constitution, the perfect Constitution, the strategic constitution, the modest  Constitution, the interpretable Constitution, the dynamic Constitution, the settled (or unsettled) Constitution, the sedimentary Constitution, the partial Constitution, the emergency Constitution, [...

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What If Obama Fails?

Posted on March 13, 2009
President Obama is being pilloried by the Left, Right, and Center. The Left doubts that his recovery plan is big enough.  The Right contends that it is far too big, while the Center trembles and wonders why the recovery plan has not yet worked. To his credit President Obama defends is plan while at the [...

Earmarks and Executive Prerogative

Posted on March 12, 2009
In his post a few days ago, Bobby ably discussed earmarks from the congressional perspective.  There is no point in replaying that discussion.  However, it is worthwhile to note that a congresswoman can quite sensibly say, “If a $787 billion stimulus bill is going to be passed, a particular project in my district had better [...

No Town Like Motown

Posted on March 12, 2009
In many ways, the city of Detroit, Michigan, embodies the American dream - and its failings.  In the Twentieth Century, Detroit was a center of industry - and not just any industry.   The American romance with the automobile is central to the American dream, and for much of the Twentieth Century, most of our cars [...

Same-Sex Marriage & the African-American Community

Posted on March 10, 2009
One of the saddest features of the controversy over same-sex marriage, in my estimation, is the African-American community’s overwhelming opposition to legitimizing this practice. Despite the critical constitutional decision in Loving v. Virginia banning laws against miscegenation which in one sense lies at the core of the struggle for civil rights, many African-Americans simply reject [...

The Wisdom of Negotiating with the Taliban

Posted on March 09, 2009
Although not as widely discussed as it should be, there have been reports over the past week of President Obama’s possible endorsement of negotiating with the Taliban. Consider: “[L]ast Friday, in an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Obama opened the door to approaching elements of the Taliban, if his administration?s review recommends it...

Earmarks, Pet Projects, Pork, and Representing the People

Posted on March 06, 2009

Changing our Economic Priorities

Posted on March 05, 2009

Does Limbaugh Have a Point?

Posted on March 04, 2009

?We Are All Judicial Activists Now?

Posted on March 03, 2009

Racism Is Not A Problem In America! No, Not All!

Posted on March 02, 2009

Troubles for Obama

Posted on March 01, 2009

A View from the Left

Posted on February 27, 2009

Taking America Through Lent

Posted on February 26, 2009
Barack Obama gave his first address to Congress on what we typically call Mardi Gras.  Mardi Gras is the day before Lent begins on the Christian holy day Ash Wednesday.  Typically, we think of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) as the day of gorging before the day of reckoning...

Bobby Gindal?s Fallacy/The Republican Party?s Perennial Deception

Posted on February 25, 2009
How many times have we heard that Democrats are for government, while Republicans are for ordinary citizens. What a choice! Between the two who could argue that government is a more comforting, a more deserving institution?  But that’s not the real Republican choice...

Rupert Murdoch ?Apologizes??

Posted on February 24, 2009
Rupert Murdoch apologized for the racist cartoon printed in the New York Post last week. Here’s the best he could do: As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me. Last week, we made a mistake...

The Persistence of Sociopathic Racism

Posted on February 20, 2009
Expect the remnants of sociopathic racism—racism without a sense of shame—to persist even throughout the tenure of one of the most qualified individuals ever to assume the presidency, and, who is also black. Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency has hit the failsafe mark of no return to American apartheid...

The Ghost of FDR

Posted on February 19, 2009
This week, President Obama signed a stimulus bill that is designed to end our country’s downward economic slide.  Given the dire circumstances we are in, you might expect that the Republicans in Congress would be open to the plan suggested by a new president whose victory last fall was based in large part on his [...

Bipartisanship

Posted on February 18, 2009
During and after the battle over the stimulus package, many prominent Republicans complained about a supposed lack of bipartisanship demonstrated by Democrats and President Obama.  Sen. McCain, Sen. Graham and Rep. Boehner all have pointedly noted the very small number of Republicans who voted for the stimulus package, claiming that this proves that the bill [...

Chief Justice Roberts & the Frankenstein Monster

Posted on February 17, 2009
Just when some influential scholars are championing the idea that not all the members of the Court should be lawyers, Chief Justice Roberts embraces the view that it would be good for all the members of the Court to be former federal appellate judges...

Multiple Voices in Dream City

Posted on February 16, 2009
The novelist, Zadie Smith, has a beautiful piece in the New York Review of Books on the multiple voices of biracial individuals.  Indeed, once articulated we can discern multiple voices in everyone or at least those courageous enough to listen to their own multiple and diverse narratives...

Happy Birthday, Abe!

Posted on February 12, 2009
Today is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, an event worthy of at least a moment’s reflection.  Unfortunately, many of the media reports today focus on Lincoln’s death, not his many and significant life accomplishments...

Sixty Votes and the Dark Side of Bipartisanship

Posted on February 11, 2009
A constitutionally troubling concept seems to be gaining currency with those in the government and in the media.  It is that it takes 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation in the Senate.  Of course, the relevant parties understand that only 51 votes are required for the actual passage of legislation...

Naomi Klein Again

Posted on February 10, 2009
Check out this piece on Naomi Klein: “In her best-selling book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein outlines the disturbing trend of governments using crisis as a means for corporate profit-advancement. She cites Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and Pinochet’s Chile as examples of the practice...

Scheming Republicans

Posted on February 09, 2009
Why are congressional Republicans refusing en masse to support President Obama’s stimulus package? Are they sticking to their guns for conscientious reasons? Or are they just playing politics? If they latter they should keep in mind that 74% of the American public believe that President Obama is trying to compromise with the congressional Republicans while [...

When a Supreme Court Justice Becomes Incapacitated?

Posted on February 06, 2009
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been stricken with pancreatic cancer, one of the more virulent forms of that dreadful disease. Her tragedy raises a series of critical questions concerning a short-handed Court. The most obvious question is how does the Court decide cases when it is short-handed?  The answer is fairly clear...

Barack Obama and Post-Equal Protection Equality

Posted on February 05, 2009
Much has been said about the relationship between Barack Obama and former civil rights leaders.  On the one hand, the inauguration was full of parallels between Obama and Martin Luther King.  Obama was said to have realized the dream that King spoke about in the 1963 March on Washington...

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