Scott Lemieux

AGAINST UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT. It may not come as a shock that I agree with Matt‘s conclusion that Roewas correctly decided on the merits. (For those who haven’t seen it, I lay out a three-part case for Roe here, here, and here.) Matt makes another important point about the pro-choice anti-Roe crowd who base their claims […]

THE “STATES’ RIGHTS” SCAM. As a follow-up to Garance below, it’s worth noting that in a sane universe yesterday would put an end to the already-silly idea that most Republicans have a strong commitment to state autonomy, or that Republican opposition to the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence is about preserving state power rather than about […]

FOUR THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN READING GONZALES V. CRAHART. As an antidote to the inevitable chorus of fake moderates arguing that yesterday’s abortion case is no big deal, four things to keep in mind as you ponder today’s decision: Don’t take assertions by the Court about whether they’re overturning precedents or not at face value. […]

SELECTIVE OUTRAGE. To follow up on Matt and Atrios, Radley Balko asks his readers if they’ve heard of James Giles. Giles, like the three men in the Duke rape case, was falsely accused of rape. Unlike the Duke men, however, he didn’t have the money to hire top-flight legal counsel and didn’t benefit from attracting […]

THE ABSTINENCE-ONLY FRAUD. You may have heard the shocking news that state-funded moralizing adults telling teenagers not to have sex do not, in fact, prevent teenagers from having sex. Interestingly, several states — not all of them liberal and coastal — have started to turn down the abjectly useless federal funding they’re being offered: In […]

DIMENSIONS OF CORRUPTION. Obviously, Paul Wolfowitz‘s personal corruption is both bad in itself and undermines the anti-corruption principles he’s purportedly trying to bring to the World Bank. As John Cassidy‘s recent profile informs us, however, there’s another major example of his rather selective application of anti-corruption principles. First, there’s his hiring of Bush administration cronies […]

THE VOTER FRAUD FRAUD, PART II. Matt beat me to it, but this is a terrific article in the New York Times about GOP attempts to cover up the fact that voter fraud is a problem of minimal significance, hence depriving them of their ex post facto rationale for suppressing minority votes. And, for the […]

NORMALLY A SCHOLAR IS PLEASED WHEN HER THEORY IS CONFIRMED… Mark Graber passes along this chilling story from the eminent political scientist Walter Murphy, author of the classic Elements of Judicial Strategy and many other major works (including a bestselling novel about a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who becomes Pope to boot!). As […]

ARE YOU SITTING DOWN? Shockingly enough, assertions about operational connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda turn out to be … completely bogus! Who would have thunk it? And just to pre-empt any claims that this is a strawman that nobody ever put forward as a justification for the war anyway, Glenn Reynolds thoughtfully compiled some links […]

STANDING AND EXECUTIVE POWER IN MA. v. E.P.A. I finally got a chance to read MA v. EPA, the recent decision requiring the EPA to reasonably justify its decision not to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (which Ezra discussed in a more timely manner.) The first component of the case is whether […]