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Between 2009 and 2020, Josh published more than 10,000 blog posts. Here, you can access his blog archives.

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2009

Obamlet and Shakespearean Dithering. To surge, or not to surge: that is the question.

October 31st, 2009

LOL, from American Digest, H/T Instapundit:

Obamlet

To surge, or not to surge: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous battles,
Or put down arms against a sea of troubles,
And by withdrawing end them? To retreat: to fight
No more; and by retreat to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To retreat, to leave;
To leave: perchance to lose: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that leaving, what defeat may come
When we have shuffled off this Afghan soil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of a long war;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of polls,
The oppressor’s wrong, the talking head’s contumely,
The pangs of pacifists, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his swift exit make
With a curt order? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary war,
But that the dread that some would cry “defeat,”
That vicious accusation from whose bourn
No politician returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. – Soft you now!
The fair Nobel Committee! Wimps, in thy orisons
Be all my sins forgotten.

Why did Jeremiah Wright visit the White House?

October 31st, 2009

I was just perusing through the visitors to the White House, and am curious what business Reverend Wright  had on March 24, 2009 from 9:30 a.m. – 11:59 a.m. The description of his visit is indicated as a group tour. Kind of odd that President Obama’s formal spiritual leader could only visit the White House with a group.

Update: Apparently someone else, also named Jeremiah Wright, visited the White House. It was not the Chicago reverend. False alarm.

Obama Administration Invokes State Secrets Privilege…Again

October 30th, 2009

From ABC News, Obama Administration Invokes State Secrets Privilege…Again H/T @JakeTapper

The Obama administration invoked the controversial “state secrets” privilege again on Friday, arguing that if U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker were to permit a legal case against the government to proceed, he would be putting national security at risk.

Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement about the case, Shubert et. al v. Obama, that “there is no way for this case to move forward without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence activities that we rely upon to protect the safety of the American people.”

Obama administration officials argued that even addressing or attempting to refute the plaintiffs’ claim would require the administration “to disclose intelligence sources and methods, or the lack thereof.”

Holder said he was invoking the privilege despite having outlined new policies and procedures last month containing new internal and external checks and balances for the Justice Department to follow before invoking the privilege, requiring “a thorough, multi-stage review and rely(ing) upon robust judicial and congressional oversight.”

The statement and legal documents were released in a particularly active Friday afternoon document dump — including stimulus jobs numbers and White House visitors logs.

Holder said the “core claims in this case involve questions about ongoing intelligence operations, and allowing it to proceed would disclose critical activities of high value to the national security of this country.” He insisted the Justice Department was not invoking the privilege “to conceal government misconduct or avoid embarrassment, nor are we invoking it to preserve executive power.”

I try not to post random political topics on this blog, but when politics intersects with National Security law, JoshBlogs covers.

I find it amazing how the role of Commander in Chief suddenly becomes palatable after a party change. Obama repeatedly campaigned on not invoking the states secret privilege.  So much for change we can believe in. Kevin Bankston from EFF concurs:

Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “even though candidate Obama was incredibly critical of both the warrantless wiretapping program and the Bush administration’s abuse of the state secrets privilege.” The EFF is involved in similar litigation in a different case. The Obama-Biden campaign website describes in part “The Problem” as the Bush administration having “invoked a legal tool known as the ‘state secrets’ privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.” But President Obama has invoked the state secrets privilege in a number of cases since taking office.

Punch back twice as hard. Holder asks D.C. Councilman to pull commercial promoting School Vouchers

October 30th, 2009

I am very passionate about school choice. It is tragic what the government, especially in the District of Columbia, has done to public schools. And President Obama has done nothing to help promote voucher programs, while his own children attend the best private schools.

From the Chicago Daily Observer:

Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad.

The 30-second ad, which has been airing on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and News Channel 8 to viewers in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, urges the president to reauthorize the federally-funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that provides vouchers of up to $7,500 for D.C. students to attend private schools.

The ad features Chavous and a young boy–one of 216 students whose scholarships were rescinded by the Department of Education earlier this year when the agency announced no new students would be allowed into the program. The ad also includes an excerpt taken from one of Obama’s campaign statements.

“I saw [Holder] at an event,” said Chavous. “He did ask me in front of others to pull the ad. My response was, ‘No, and I tell you what, if the president does the right thing, not only will we pull it but we will celebrate him.’ ”

Punch back twice as hard.

Primus on the Future of Disparate Impact Post-Ricci, and My Thoughts

October 30th, 2009

Professor Richard Primus posts on SSRN The Future of Disparate Impact (Michigan Law Review, Forthcoming) H/T Legal Theory Blog.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano (i.e., the New Haven firefighters case) foregrounded the question of whether Title VII’s disparate impact standard conflicts with equal protection. This Article shows that there are three ways to read Ricci, one of which is likely fatal to disparate impact doctrine but the other two of which are not.

The article asks that I not cite without permission, so I shall not cite it. But I highly recommend you read it through. Justice Scalia cited Profssor Primus’s article on Equal Protection in Ricci, so I am looking forward to his analysis.

I join the Court’s opinion in full, but write separately to observe that its resolution of this dispute merely postpones the evil day on which the Court will have to confront the question: Whether, or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection? The question is not an easy one. See generally Primus, Equal Protection and Disparate Impact: Round Three, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 493 (2003).

I discuss the aftermath of Ricci in a forthcoming article in the Loyola Law Review, titled Equal Protection from Eminent Domain. Protecting the Home of Olech’s Class of One

The disparate impact analysis came under intense scrutiny in the recent landmark Civil Rights case, Ricci v. DeStefano Although the Supreme Court punted on the issue of whether the disparate analysis impact violates the Constitution, a lone concurring Justice sounded the clarion call.  Like Jacob’s vision of the ladder, Justice Scalia’s concurrence in Ricci presciently portends the “evil day” in which the Court confronts the question of  “[w]hether, or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.”