DailyWrit

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 Catholics, […]

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 […]

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 […]

[ October 1, 2007; 10:00 am to 11:00 am. ] On October 1, 2007, the Court will hear the first case of the October 2007 term. Washington State Grange v. Washington Republican Party and its sister case, Washington v. Washington Republican Party, centers around the Washington state law that allows candidates to state their ‘party preference’ as opposed to an all-out party affiliation and its […]

J. Scott Jennings, the 29-year old aide to Karl Rove, was forced to go in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about the US Attorney Scandal. As soon as I read the title to the New York Times article,”With Rove Absent, Aide Is Grilled by Senate Panel”, I knew it was going […]

RedState.com is probably the most legit conservative blog on the ‘net, placing them in a position of legitimacy just above Tom Delay’s Blog and below PerezHilton.com. As a conservative blog, it should surprise no one that they aren’t huge fans of Justice Breyer or any members of the liberal block. Now that conservatives been winning […]

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few hours, Chief Justice Roberts had a seizure at his home in Maine and took quite a fall. He was taken to the hospital for precautionary measures and test but it looks like he’s doing well. According to SCOTUSblog, he had a similar experience in […]

Ann Althouse has a rather interesting article about Justice Steven’s recent speech at the Ninth Circuit’s Judicial Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. Its obvious from the location of this judicial conference that congressmen aren’t the only ones who take junkets. Regardless, this is the most interesting part of her recap:
I think, after all — he’s talking […]

I admit that I made a slight mistake in yesterday’s post about Snarlin’ Arlen and his attack on judicial independence- I asserted, without clarifiying, that there was nothing “a Senator can do to a Supreme Court Justice save for pushing for impeachment.”
Some very intelligent people have been arguing that Congress can reign in these rogue […]

Hilary Clinton’s answer during the Democrat’s most recent debate and an article in the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs got me thinking- What do I want the next President to do with American foreign policy? Well, here are the 10 things that Yao, Gary, and I are looking for:
1) Engage Foreign Leaders- As […]

I’m watching the debate right now and it is wildly mildly exciting. Some of the questions have been mildly humorous but also serious (see: snowman) although most have been stupid or very serious. The best answer thus far has been Barack Obama’s response to whether or not he would work for a minimum wage. Overall, […]

A lot of pundits have been calling for the democrats to make the Court a major campaign issue in light of the massive setback that is known as the 2006 Term. Some argue that democrats need to ‘control the issue’ and take judicial activism to the people. The problem with this notion is that these […]

Poor Harry Reid. He went out on a limb and kept the Senate in session way longer than he had to and he got burned. By a vote of 52-47, the Senate rejected the vote for cloture which would have forced a vote on the Reed/Levin Amendment. I’ve been watching sporadically all night and the […]

I am going absolutely crazy with all the talk of Clarence Thomas and his total perversion of originalism. I’m not one to rant, but this is the closest I will ever come to declaring an absolute- Originalism is NEVER appropriate. Thats right, there is never an instance where it is appropriate to take our noses […]