Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Greece, Greece, I Tell You!

It’s not every day that a law professor has his book quoted by the Supreme Court, and so the University of Baltimore‘s Michael I. Meyerson was understandably intrigued when his 2012 work about the Framers’ views on religion made it into Monday’s decision on public prayer. But the plug from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the […]

The Supreme Court’s Runaway AEDPA Train–And What Can Be Done About It Via Collateral Judicial Review. (Yes, this is technical language, but bear with me. I explain it.)

UPDATE: Elena Kagan served as an Associate White House Council in the Clinton administration in 1995-96, when AEDPA was being drafted and negotiated.   —- “Freedom” does not include actual physical non-imprisonment; to the contrary, “freedom” means states’–or actually, state courts’–and prosecutors’ freedom to violate criminal defendants’ constitutional rights, to their heart’s content. — Me, Angry […]

Welcome Back, Supreme Court Justices! (Well, for the next two weeks, anyway.)

Well, it’s that time of year again—when the Supreme Court justices interrupt their primary careers of flitting around the world (some of them), or at least around the country (the remainder of them), to teach a law school course or two, to instruct high court justices in other countries on how to feign working full-time, […]

John Roberts and Elena Kagan: Mirror Images of Each Other

The second biggest surprise of the day, after the survival of the Affordable Care Act, is that we’ve never really gotten over our collective crush on John Roberts. How else to explain today’s outpouring of praise, not merely for the decision but for the man himself, for his statesmanship and judicial modesty? All these years, […]

Elena Kagan vs. Pat Lykos

by Beverly Mannoriginally posted at The Annarborist Elena Kagan vs. Pat Lykos Dahlia Lithwick, in Slate writes: At the Citizens United [v. Federal Election Commission] argument last fall, Roberts openly criticized Kagan for abandoning one rationale for restricting corporate campaign spending and then pummeled her again in his concurring opinion in the case, dismissing the […]