The Washington Post has a fascinating article about Tom Goldstein that you can find here. The best quote is definitely the following: White House officials had asked to consult Goldstein on the court vacancy, but by the time he returned from a weekend in Paris, Obama had made his choice. Determined not to miss the [...]

President Obama gave the commencement speech at Notre Dame earlier today and spoke primarily about abortion and other social issues. You can find a full recap from the New York Times here. I don’t ordinarily take note of political speeches coming from the White House, but I have to think about whether or not the [...]

Barack Obama has announced that he will appoint Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagen to be his Solicitor General. The two taught together at the University of Chicago in the early 1990s, and before that she clerked for Abner Mikva on the DC Circuit and Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. She clerked for Marshall [...]

On Monday, in response to a complaint from the United States Department of Justice alleging that Governor Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich had solicited bribes and engaged in a massive conspiracy to commit fraud, the Illinois House voted 113-0 to begin impeachment proceedings. Blagojevich has not yet been indicted. On December 10th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [...]

The Supreme Court appears to have declined review in a case filed against the Secretary of State of New Jersey that sought to nullify Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. The case, which centers on Obama’s citizenship, was not among those for which the Court accepted review on Friday; thus, watchers of the high Court [...]

Tomorrow, the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle will host the 55th Red Mass. Tradition holds that, on the Sunday before the opening of the Court’s October term, the Catholic Church hosts a mass to bring wisdom and guidance to the Justices of the high court. Although the current Court is a 5-4 majority of [...]

All of this John Edwards business has got me thinking about early voting. I am registered to vote in Texas, where Election Codes 81.001 and 82.005 specify that I can ”vote early” – up to seventeen days before any federal election. Say, hypothetically, that John Edwards had rallied for a victory in South Carolina and [...]

I can’t talk much because I’m on a plane waiting to take off at DFW, but this is one news story that hasn’t been given enough attention. I don’t say that because I think it hasn’t gotten enough press – it certainly has. But is anyone paying attention? His driver got 66 months in jail! [...]

Primary and caucus results are all about expectations. Candidates spend the weeks before an election day campaigning hard and attacking their opponents, but they suddenly hit the brakes about 48 hours before the vote and begin setting up low expectations for the results. The point of this move is to create the perception of success, [...]

The Petitioner’s Briefs have been submitted in Al-Odah v. US and Boumediene v. Bush, the two high-profile detainee cases that the court has accepted for review. Thanks to SCOTUSblog, everyone can access the Al-Odah briefs here (Al-Odah) and here (El-Banna) and the Boumediene brief here. I’ll use Al-Odah for the majority of my analysis but [...]