Category Archives: Law

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Hillary’s Emails

49 Comments

It keeps getting worse:

This would present a huge legal issue for anyone whose name didn’t rhyme with Millary Minton. The Federal Records Act requires work-related communications to go to the National Archive, where the government determines what can and cannot be published for public review. That is why the Obama administration instructed its agencies not to use personal e-mails unless those communications were copied to official accounts, in order to comply with the FRA. Hillary and her team flat-out disregarded those directives and flouted the law in running their own private email system. Now, with records under subpoena by an official committee of Congress, it seems clear that Hillary and her team not only destroyed email subject to the subpoena but tampered with the evidence they did provide.

Any other government official would be looking at jail time for that kind of action. Sandy Berger got caught doing essentially the same thing with official government documents not under subpoena (presumably for the same purpose, to clean up after the Clintons), and traded his law license in exchange for not getting prosecuted. The chances of Hillary Clinton getting investigated for this by the Department of Justice are roughly nil while Barack Obama is President, but it’s certainly a good argument for keeping that authority away from Hillary by ensuring she doesn’t succeed Obama to the White House.

As he notes, if the White House is really unhappy about this, they have a Justice Department to look into that.

OK, stop laughing.

[Late-afternoon update]

The other story the media won’t discuss. Yes, with Bush and Cheney, it was all about Halliburton and oil. But not Hillary and Sid.

History, Law, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

How Republics Die

23 Comments

My thoughts on the most recent judicial atrocities, over at PJMedia.

[Update later afternoon]

Some thoughts from Randy Barnett on “judicial restraint” and Republican judicial appointments.

I know it sounds crazy, but I want judges to follow the Constitution, not the tyrannical majority. I also want them to overturn crap decisions. Stare decisis my ass.

[Update a little while later]

Should we make Justices accountable to the voters?

It seems like a bad idea to me. I agree with Cruz’s diagnosis of the problem, but not his remedy. I think that one of the reasons that impeachment is so toothless is the original wording: “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The Founders had a very clear view of what that meant, but most people today do not, as we discovered during the Clinton impeachment trial. The only successful impeachments and removals I can think of occurred in the context of gross and blatant corruption (Alcee Hastings, who was later re-elected), or actual criminality. The other part of the problem is that, while they were adamantly opposed to political parties and made no Constitutional provision for them whatsoever, they perhaps didn’t anticipate how difficult they would make impeachment (even though court appointments are in theory non-partisan).

I think a better solution might be to amend the Constitution to simply modernize the grounds for impeachment. For instance, “…or, in violation of their oath of office, persistent indifference to the Constitution and the rule of law.”

Who could argue with that? It would be quite entertaining to watch Democrats attempt to argue that office holders shouldn’t have to uphold their oath of office. And if it passed, it would force impeachment trials to actual discuss those arcane concepts.

[Update a few minutes later]

This is sort of similar to proposals to rein in the government by adding the words “and this time we really mean it” to the 9th and 10th amendments against encroachments by the flawed interpretations of the Commerce Clause. It would be a “this time we really mean it” to simply following the Constitution and the rule of law.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Shameless IRS

20 Comments

…is still withholding Lois Lerner’s emails:

Now, according to the most recent filing by Judicial Watch, the IRS asserts that the emails are not records of the IRS. Being a Texan, I’m not 100 percent sure how to pronounce it, but “chutzpah” is the only word to describe this latest assertion. To borrow from Lewis Carroll, “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”

The IRS and its Department of Justice lawyers must be imagining that these emails were not repeatedly sought by Congress and Judicial Watch while in the possession of the IRS. The IRS must be imagining that its own commissioner never lied to Congress, the court and the public about their existence and purported efforts to find them. And it must be imagining that each of its seven filings in Judge Sullivan’s court did not fail to reveal the existence of the backup tapes. It must be imagining that Judge Sullivan won’t remember the lengths to which he and the magistrate went to try to find the emails and any backups. And it is imagining that it can continue stalling and lying indefinitely, while no one in the government is held accountable for far more serious legal infractions than those for which ordinary citizens have been imprisoned.

They’re just trying to run out the clock.

Education, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Senator Gillibrand

5 Comments

She thinks there is no such thing as an innocent man being falsely accused:

She’s suggesting that the criminal justice system isn’t easy enough for accusers. Police and juries won’t throw someone in jail based on nothing but an accusation. Therefore, a kinder, gentler justice system needs to exist to do just that. It is that kind of thinking that has prompted more than 70 male students to sue their universities after being expelled and treated like criminals without evidence — and sometimes with evidence that points to a false accusation.

Ashe Schow is doing yeowoman’s work in continuing to spotlight these Kafkaesque anti-male fascists.

Business, Economics, Education, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

The Law-School Bubble

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How it happened:

The small town lawyer used to loom large in the American psyche. When an American of a certain age pictured a lawyer he thought of Abraham Lincoln, Atticus Finch, Perry Mason, or Matlock.

These lawyers were regular guys who took the business that walked in the door. If you went to law school expecting to be Perry Mason or Matlock you were certainly disappointed by how boring your life was, but not by what you earned.

After L.A. Law and The Firm Americans stopped thinking of lawyers as solo practitioners and somehow decided that all lawyers were good looking, interesting, and super, extra rich. This drew a whole new wave of confused history majors from college to law school, and floated a thirty year boom in the number of law schools, the number of law students, tuition, and profits. This was awesome news for law schools, less so for everyone else.

It didn’t help that it was subsidized by the student-loan program.

Business, Economics, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The National Raisin Reserve

1 Comment

Prepare for life without it:

…it seems likely that this is the end of the National Raisin Reserve, because I doubt the government will be interested in maintaining a program that actually costs taxpayers’ dollars to run, rather than just farmers’ raisins. It may also have an impact on the 20 other crops that are subject to market orders, from almonds to spearmint, though it seems safe to bet that these will be litigated, with the government strenuously arguing that the market orders for these crops are nothing like that nasty, unconstitutional, wrinkly old National Raisin Reserve.

More broadly, this is a welcome move to limit the government’s generally expansive notions of when it may take your property without payment. However, don’t get too excited, because it doesn’t do too much to limit eminent domain where compensation is offered, or “regulatory takings” in which government rules make your property practically worthless, but not quite so worthless that it has to pay you for the lost potential uses.

There’s a lot more work to do, particularly on civil forfeiture.

Business, Education, Health, Law, Political Commentary

SCOTUS

4 Comments

More opinions coming today. Follow live at (where else?) Scotusblog.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Heh. From Amy Howe: “Don’t type the phrase ‘the Ninth Circuit is affirmed’ that often. My fingers rebelled.”

[Update a couple minutes later, scrolling through]

Court ruled against the government in Horne, in favor of the raisin farmers. This is potentially huge. It could be major blow to idiotic anti-market agriculture policies dating back to the Depression.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here is Amy’s round up of today’slast week’s court action, prior to today’s rulings [oops].

[Late-morning PDT update]

Hearing that more decisions will be announced not only on Thursday, but Friday as well. Both King v. Burwell and the same-sex marriage rulings will be huge.

[Late-afternoon update]

Ilya Somin discusses the implications of the Horne ruling:

whatever one thinks about the compensation issue, the Court’s holding on the question of whether a taking has occurred is an important victory for property owners. It ensures that personal property gets the same level of protection as real property under the Takings Clause, and that the government cannot avoid takings liability by giving owners a small share of the proceeds from the disposition of their property.

The ruling also calls into question a number of other similar agricultural cartel schemes run by the federal government. In addition to property owners, consumers of agricultural products are likely to benefit from the decision, if these cartel schemes can no longer operate. Freer competition between producers in these agricultural markets will increase the amount of goods sold, and thereby lower prices. Lowered food prices are of particular benefit to poor and lower-middle class consumers, who generally spend a higher proportion of their income on food than the affluent do.

Republicans don’t emphasize enough how these market interventions by the government hurt the poor. Including minimum wages laws.