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Category Archives: Lawyer stuff

DC Statehood

Friday, October 2, 2020

There’s been some talk lately about making both Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia states in order to increase blue Senators by four and to provide the representation to the people of those areas that they currently lack. I’m all for it, but, being a lawyer, and living in the era of a Supreme […]

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Dershowitz takes unintentional aim at Fox

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Alan Dershowitz is suing CNN because: Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law professor, is seeking $300 million in a federal libel lawsuit against CNN, alleging that the news network attempted to damage his reputation by misrepresenting a statement he made during President Trump’s impeachment trial. … Dershowitz was one of several attorneys who represented Trump […]

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Bad Moon Rising

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

I didn’t practice criminal law, so I never had any reason to bone up on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but the D.C. Circuit’s decision on the Flynn case baffles me. Well, not really. Given the makeup of the panel, I figured it was at least a 50/50 probability. But it’s difficult to see, […]

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How stupid do you have to be to teach at Harvard Law?

Saturday, May 16, 2020

This is truly bizarre. A Harvard Law Professor is representing a couple of presidential electors who claim that they should be free to vote for anyone they want, despite state laws requiring them to vote for the candidate for whom they pledged to vote when they got on the ballot in the first place. But, […]

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Taking the long view

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

You have to hand it to the right wing. It takes the long view.  The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a hugely consequential case that could fundamentally change the rules governing when people with religious objections to a law may ignore that law. Fulton asks whether religious organizations […]

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A few thoughts on our glorious constitution

Monday, January 20, 2020

One of the more ridiculous arguments put forward by the genius’s defenders is that the Democrats are trying to overturn the will of the people and the election of 2016. Let’s set aside the fact that if that argument held water, any impeachment would be off the table, rendering the impeachment clause a dead letter.  […]

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The Turley Defense

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Jonathan Turley, who I used to think was a perfectly reasonable guy when I saw him on the Keith Olbermann show, proffered a Trump defense to the House of Representatives that was, in a word, risible (risible is a word I learned from Monty Python). Now, unlike many, I think Turley was both wrong and (maybe) right. […]

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Reading tea leaves

Friday, October 11, 2019

Some good news today. Sort of. An appeals court voted 2 to 1 that Congress has the right to get Trump’s financial information. Is it a surprise that the 1 was appointed by a certain very stable genius? That single vote is probably the real news, though it will be overlooked for the most part. Before […]

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How to get rid of Kavanaugh (A fantasy)

Monday, September 16, 2019

Kavanaugh’s perjury is back in the news, and there’s some interesting speculation hereabout a way to get rid of Kavanaugh if and when we get a presidential administration that will back such an effort, not a sure thing even if the Democrat wins. (Squinting at you, Joe) Apparently, a few years ago, some right-wing law professors […]

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A learned legal opinion

Friday, February 22, 2019

A few thoughts on the legality of Trump’s emergency!declaration. If we had the same quality of courts we had even 20 years ago, there would probably be little question that the declaration would not survive judicial scrutiny. But we live in a time when the court is very possibly a more partisan and ideological institution […]

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