Scott Lemieux

The Wall Street Journal, predictably outraged that the Environmental Protection Agency has actually used its authority to regulate carbon emissions, asserts that the agency’s actions are somehow inconsistent with “democratic consent.” The obvious problem here is that Congress has, for decades, been delegating tough environmental choices to the EPA. Setting broad goals of environmental protection […]

Adam Liptak reports that the Supreme Court has vacated a Second Circuit ruling ordering the Defense Department to release photos of abused prisoners abused on U.S. custody. The Court did not rule on the merits of the case but rather ordered the lower court to reconsider the case in light of a law passed by […]

Atrios has the correct response to Kevin Drum‘s rather odd claim that Social Security could somehow be “taken off the table” by instituting some benefit cuts and tax hikes: thinking that Social Security could ever be “reformed” to Fred Hiatt‘s long-term satisfaction will work out about as well as it did under the Reagan administration. […]

I’ve already written too much about Jim Wallis‘ apologia for the odious Stupak-Pitts amendment. Suffice it to say that if we were to take Wallis’ argument seriously, we wouldn’t need health-care reform at all: After all, the current system doesn’t literally ban private insurance for people who can’t afford it, so access must not be […]

In light of Pfizer’s decision to pull out of New London, ending an ugly saga of misguided corporate welfare, several commentators in this New York Times roundtable join any number of others in asserting that this proves that the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision upholding New London’s use of eminent domain was incorrect. With the limited […]

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments (1, 2) yesterday in the criminal justice cases I discussed on Friday, which concern the constitutionality of sentencing minors to life in prison without parole . Dahlia Lithwick tries to count the votes: At the end of two hours, I think I can count three votes for a case-by-case […]

Next week the Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments about two cases in which juveniles were sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides. The most disturbing thing about these cases that is that both sentences seem egregiously unjust even before considering the age of the defendants. One of the convicted teenagers received the draconian […]

To follow up on Adam‘s excellent post, Emily Bazelon raises a useful contrast between Maine and Massachusetts. In both states, a process was in place that would enable laws providing marriage equality to be changed. In the latter, however, the process required more deliberation, and ultimately opponents of same-sex marriage were unable to secure support […]

Although I don’t actually disagree with the bottom line of Adam Liptak‘s account of the lawsuit filed by David Boies and Theodore Olson arguing that California’s odious Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, the structure of the article is atypically odd. It begins by describing the lawyer defending California’s same-sex marriage ban in court pulling a Ross […]