Skip to content

Category Archives: Lawyer stuff

Taking the long view

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 […]

A few thoughts on our glorious constitution

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.  […]

The Turley Defense

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. […]

Reading tea leaves

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 […]

How to get rid of Kavanaugh (A fantasy)

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 […]

A learned legal opinion

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 […]

A little added gloss

I think Josh Marshall has it pretty much right hereabout the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing Trump’s Muslim ban to remain in effect: Here’s what I take as the crux of today’s majority decision and one which I suspect may come up again in subsequent decisions given President Trump’s behavior … For our purposes today, we […]

A final lesson from the Gilded Age

One more lesson from the Gilded Age, and, since I’ve now finished Richard White’s The Republic for Which It Stands, this will be the last.  This is not so much a parallel to our own age, but a warning of what we may have to come, assuming we survive the present state of affairs. Toward the […]

A new twist on gerrymandering

We’ve all read various news stories about the fact that many of Trump’s policies will adversely and disproportionately affect the idiots who voted for him. Turns out that might not be the case, as Republicans resort to a new twist on one of their favorite ways to insure that the will of the minority prevails. […]

Some more legal musing on Stormy and her pals

Over at Hullabaloo, digby joins Greg Sargent in speculating that Stormy and Trump’s other accusers may spell real trouble for him. Sargent notes that: As CNN’s Collinson points out, this means Trump may be facing a period of pretrial discovery and possibly a deposition, which “could put Trump in a perilous position. I haven’t seen […]