[T]oday’s victory may have been even more decisive than it looks at first glance. It isn’t just that the Court ruled six-to-three in favor of the government’s position, with John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy joining the Court’s liberals in support of a single, non-splintered decision, though that’s important. It’s also that Roberts’ opinion may have precluded […]

I know for a fact that the alleged facts stated in this New York Times editorial today are false.  Or at least that, contrary to the editorial’s claim, those facts, if true, no longer have any impact on black Americans’ financial status and educational opportunities.  None whatsoever. I know this because I read John Roberts’ and Anthony […]

The chief justice said almost nothing. — Supreme Court Appears Sharply Split in Case on Health Law, Adam Liptak, New York Times Okay, so how well did my predictions from three days ago hold up at the argument yesterday* in King v. Burwell? Well, I got the outcome right, but not the particulars of how it will […]

This speaks for itself.  I’m sure that Kennedy, Roberts and Alito call this ‘freedom’.  I won’t guess at what Sotomayor and Kagan call it.  But what Breyer calls it, or should, is conflict of interest.  Back when Breyer was lead counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, he helped draft the Federal Sentencing Guidelines—a really appalling […]

UPDATE: Wow. That tree limb I walked far out onto in my post below turned out to be sturdy after all.  A postscript is added below. Update posted 10/9 at 10:45 p.m. ____ There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders. Citizens can exercise that […]

The shooting death by police of Ferguson, MO teenager Michael Brown, and what has happened in the aftermath, has been blanketing the news for the past few days. It’s a story about race, but it’s also become a story about the power of the state and how it’s wielded, and against whom. So my question […]

I haven’t read the opinions, concurrence, or dissents in either Hobby Lobby or Harris v. Quinn, so these comments are based on news summaries and quick commentaries by others.  But the biggest surprise in Hobby Lobby, I think, is the express approval, in the opinion and in Kennedy’s concurrence, of HHS’s on-the-fly setup devised in […]

In an email this morning, Bill H asked me whether I know much about a case called Harris v. Quinn, in which the Supreme Court will announce the likely 5-4 majority’s ruling tomorrow.  I responded: I know LOADS about it, Bill, and wrote about it–and about a bizarre comment by Alito during the argument on the […]

Anecdotal evidence, the basis of so much journalism prior to the rise of the data movement and still, to my mind, over-relied upon — is just that: anecdotal. Roughly 65,000 people voted in the Cantor-Brat primary; Brat won by more than 7,200 votes. Assuming that what a non-scientific sample  of 1, 10 or even 100 […]

Uh-oh, hedge fund managers and Goldman Sachs partners.  Obviously, few of you are evangelical Christians.  So this guy, who wants good markets, has his sights set on you.  But, luckily not on that carried-interest tax-benefit thing y’all get to use, praise the Lord. So maybe you hedge-fund types can skip church again this Sunday, after […]