I’m following this story closely. The law blog of the Wall Street Journal has the latest. It seems to be the UC’s Chancellor, Mike Drake, is in — or should be in — hot water. If the latest reports are true, he bowed to outside political pressure, and even admitted behind closed doors (before he denied it publically) that Chemerinsky’s … Read More
Liberal Academia?
Sure: About a week ago, Erwin Chemerinsky, the well-known constitutional law scholar at Duke, signed a contract to be the inaugural Dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine. Yesterday, the Chancellor of the University of Cailfornia at Irvine flew to Durham and fired Chemerinsky, saying that he had not been aware of how Chemerinsky’s … Read More
Conservative With A Conscience
Former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith was a Bush Administration insider, with a stack of conservative credentials. As Glenn Greenwald notes, Goldsmith is “no hero.” He “is a hard-core right-wing ideologue who continues to support many of the administration’s most radical positions, including his view that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not apply to terrorist suspects (the … Read More
Bush V. Gore History
According to a new book on the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin, Justice David Souter nearly resigned in the wake of Bush v. Gore because he was so distraught over the decision that effectively ended the Florida recount and installed Bush as president: Toobin writes that while the other justices tried to put the case behind them, “David Souter alone … Read More
DOJ Investigating Gonzalez For Lying To Congress
Good: The Justice Department’s inspector general indicated yesterday that he is investigating whether departing Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales gave false or misleading testimony to Congress, including whether he lied under oath about warrantless surveillance and the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. I guess it’ll be easier for the DOJ to investigate the DOJ, now that Gonzalez no longer runs … Read More
The Perils Of Not Having A Secret Gay Decoder Ring
It looks like Senator Craig is toast, and I’m shedding no tears. As I stated before, I have no problem with his homosexuality alleged homosexuality. And while cheating on one’s wife is not moral or honorable, I don’t think that alone should disqualify one for public office either. My problem with Craig is that he advocated social policies which were … Read More
More Floats In The GOP “Moral Values” Parade
From Pam Spaulding: Case #1: Minnesota State Rep Mark Olsen. The co-sponsor of a (failed) state marriage amendment to ban gays and lesbians from marrying was convicted by a jury for domestic assault. Olsen cried before news cameras last year when he was charged — he allegedly shoved his wife to the ground several times. He was not sent to … Read More
Somebody’s Lying
Alberto Gonzales (under oath), July 24: "When we got there, I would just say that Mr. Ashcroft did most of the talking. We were there maybe five minutes, five or six minutes. Mr. Ashcroft talked about the legal issues in a lucid form." Today’s Post: Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was "feeble," "barely articulate" and "stressed" moments after a hospital … Read More
Padilla Verdict Announced Soon
Background: The Bush administration accused Padilla after his 2002 arrest of plotting to set off a radioactive bomb. Bush ordered him imprisoned by the military as an "enemy combatant." He languished in jail for years, without so much as a trial (or even an indictment). Amid court challenges to the president’s authority to do that, Padilla was indicted in a … Read More
Supersecret Surveillance
So secret, a court cannot even review it. The Ninth Circuit is looking at a case revolving around supersecret surveillance done with out court oversight of any constitutional safeguards. The Washington Post covers it, and I particularly lliked this part: The bottom line here is the government declares something is a state secret, that’s the end of it. No cases. … Read More
aka “The Fox/Henhouse Law”
Today’s Washington Post: The Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them out, senior government officials said yesterday. The law, which permits intercepting Americans’ calls and e-mails without a warrant if the communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director … Read More
Court Case Of The Day
The Ninth Circuit has held that vote-swap sites are protected by the First Amendment. What’s a vote-swap site? The Ninth Circuit explains: Appellants created two websites, voteswap2000.com and votexchange2000.com, that encouraged people to “swap” their votes and provided email-based mechanisms for doing so. The vote-swap mechanisms enabled third-party supporters in a swing state such as Florida or Ohio to agree … Read More
Bad Excuse
A month or so ago, I wrote about the Florida state congressman Bob Allen (a proud member of the GOP, of course) who was busted for soliciting sex. Specifically, he offered $20 to an undercover police for a blowjob. Not to get a blowjob; Allen paid $20 to give one to the undercover officer. Well, a little more has been … Read More
New Rules
Firedoglake sums up the new wiretapping law that the Democratic-controlled Congress just approved (and Bush signed): Under just some of the revisions, NSA can spy on any call you make to or receive from another country (or a place the AG reasonable believes is to/from another country), without a warrant, as long as Alberto Gonzales and the Director NSA claim … Read More
Chief Justice John Roberts Has Seizure
Here is the video of the seizure, as re-enacted by goats: [H/T/:tbogg]. Roberts is fine, by the way.