Category Archives: Supreme Court

Antonin Scalia, R.I.P.

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday, practiced a constitutional conservatism that is out-of-step with today's Right. [Credit: lifenews.com]

Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, who died on Sat­ur­day, prac­ticed a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­vatism that is out-of-step with today’s Right. [Cred­it: lifenews.com]

The arc of con­ser­vatism’s decline was traced in the course of a few hours last Sat­ur­day. That after­noon we learned of the pass­ing of a gen­uine con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive, Antonin Scalia. Hours lat­er, we endured anoth­er GOP debate dur­ing which pro­fessed con­ser­v­a­tives trad­ed barbs and insults, now con­sid­ered a suit­able sub­sti­tute for char­ac­ter and sub­stance by a large swath of Repub­li­can vot­ers. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What We Know And Don’t Know About Obamacare

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The White House spent billions last year on efforts like this to promote Obamacare enrollment. How will they do this year? [Credit: Washington Post]

The White House spent bil­lions last year on efforts like this to pro­mote Oba­macare enroll­ment. How will they do this year? [Cred­it: Wash­ing­ton Post]

If you are a law­ful res­i­dent of the Unit­ed States and you lack health insur­ance today, it’s almost cer­tain­ly your fault.  You can’t blame your employ­er, the gov­ern­ment or the insur­ance com­pa­nies.  It’s on you.

That is the last­ing achieve­ment of Oba­macare, whose sec­ond open enroll­ment peri­od began yes­ter­day. Gone are the days when peo­ple with pre-exist­ing med­ical con­di­tions could not find afford­able cov­er­age.   Whether the ends of this achieve­ment, which are unde­ni­ably good, jus­ti­fy the means its sup­port­ers employed to win its enact­ment remains a mat­ter of con­tro­ver­sy. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The President, His Critics And the Politics of Impatience

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What do these two men have in common? More than you might think. [Credit: Politico]

What do these two men have in com­mon? More than you might think. [Cred­it: Politico]

“But what I’m not going to do is just wait.  I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shown a lot of patience…But what we can’t do is just keep on wait­ing.”  Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Novem­ber 5, 2014

The Con­sti­tu­tion offers no rem­e­dy for pres­i­den­tial impa­tience. Pres­i­dents, Mem­bers of Con­gress and judges are some­times con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required to “just keep on wait­ing.”  And that is some­thing office­hold­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties seem increas­ing­ly unwill­ing to do.  When it comes to cir­cum­vent­ing the rules to achieve the polit­i­cal objec­tives of the moment, the Pres­i­dent and some of his most stri­dent con­ser­v­a­tive foes are soulmates.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

War on Women: Dispatches From The Front

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The latest skirmish in the "war on women" took place this past week in the Senate. [Credit: ACLU]

The Sen­ate was the scene last week of the lat­est skir­mish in the war on women, one of sev­er­al con­trived con­tro­ver­sies man­u­fac­tured by the polit­i­cal class. [Cred­it: ACLU]

Resolv­ing con­flicts is a core func­tion of gov­ern­ment.  Incit­ing them is a core com­pe­ten­cy of our polit­i­cal class.

The habit of inflam­ing pas­sions for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es was on dis­play again this week in the US Sen­ate. Wednes­day’s show vote osten­si­bly con­cerned the right of women to receive “free” birth con­trol from their employ­ers.  But the leg­is­la­tion, as its authors sure­ly knew, would not become law.  If it did, it would result, not in employ­ers buy­ing more con­tra­cep­tives for their employ­ees, but in more work­ers los­ing employ­ment-based health insurance.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The NSA And Government’s Gradual And Silent Encroachments

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Federal District Court Judge Richard J. Leon on Monday ruled that NSA monitoring of cellphone traffic is unconstitutional. [Credit: Minority Report Blog]

Fed­er­al Dis­trict Court Judge Richard J. Leon on Mon­day ruled that NSA mon­i­tor­ing of cell­phone traf­fic is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. [Cred­it: Minor­i­ty Report Blog]

On March 5, 1976, Patri­cia McDo­nough was robbed.  She report­ed the crime to the Bal­ti­more police. Soon after, McDo­nough began receiv­ing threat­en­ing and obscene phone calls from a man pur­port­ing to be the rob­ber.  At one point, the caller asked her to step onto her porch.  Short­ly after she did, she saw a 1975 Monte Car­lo dri­ving slow­ly past her home.  She recalled see­ing that same car near the crime scene. She report­ed the tag num­ber to the police, enabling them to iden­ti­fy the own­er as Michael Lee Smith.

The police asked the tele­phone com­pa­ny to install a pen reg­is­ter — an elec­tron­ic device that records all num­bers called from a par­tic­u­lar tele­phone line – to mon­i­tor Smith’s home phone.  The device helped police deter­mine that Smith had placed the offen­sive calls to McDo­nough, lead­ing to his arrest and con­vic­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Cuccinelli Era Is Over

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Ken Cuccinelli fell short last night in his bid to become Governor of Virginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way forward? [Credit: Huffington Post]

Ken Cuc­cinel­li fell short last night in his bid to become Gov­er­nor of Vir­ginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way for­ward? [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Chris Christie and Ter­ry McAu­li­ffe were both sup­posed to win big in their guber­na­to­r­i­al bids. Christie did; McAu­li­ffe didn’t. And that presents Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans with a gen­uine oppor­tu­ni­ty to make crit­i­cal changes to the President’s health care law. If they don’t squan­der it. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

More Than A Website: Will Insurers Prosper Under Obamacare?

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The Bee Gees' "More Than A Woman" was a 70s sensation. In promoting his health care law, the President now has a similar mantra: "More Than A Website." (Credit: AP)

The Bee Gees’ “More Than A Woman” was a 70s sen­sa­tion. In pro­mot­ing his health care law, the Pres­i­dent has adopt­ed a sim­i­lar phrase, remind­ing us that Oba­macare is more than a web­site. (Cred­it: AP)

The Pres­i­den­t’s health care law has had a trou­bled first month, but it is far too soon to know whether its prob­lems will prove last­ing and severe.  Even some of its most fer­vent sup­port­ers, like the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Ezra Klein, acknowl­edge that its defi­cien­cies run deep­er than a clunky web­site.  Oba­macare, the Pres­i­dent reminds us, is more than a web­site, but its prob­lems extend far beyond its 5 mil­lion lines of errant code. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Harry Reid and Government Power Creep

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Why is this man so sad? [Credit: themediahaven.com]

Why is this man so sad? The Sen­ate’s most pow­er­ful man yearns for more pow­er.  [Cred­it: themediahaven.com]

Nobody does sad­ness like Har­ry Reid (D‑NV). His deflat­ed body slumped over the podi­um atop his Sen­ate desk, head shak­ing slow­ly, his faint raspy voice a mix­ture of res­ig­na­tion and exas­per­a­tion, Reid spends much of his time as the Senate’s most pow­er­ful fig­ure bemoan­ing his lack of pow­er. Con­tin­ue read­ing →