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When I attempted to download the arguments held before Judge Hudson in EDVA on 10/18/10 from Pacer, I got this message:

TRANSCRIPT of proceedings held on October 18, 2010 before Judge Henry E. Hudson. Court Reporter/Transcriber Krista Liscio, telephone number 804 916-2296. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased through the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained through PACER Redaction Request due 12/7/2010. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 1/7/2011. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 2/5/2011.(liscio, krista) (Entered: 11/07/2010)

Maybe the court reporter simply assumed the Mayans were right, and wouldn’t need to bother? I’ll call tomorrow.

If you have been wondering why I’ve been somewhat quiet of late, I am going through all of the lower court proceedings, including the transcripts, in the ACA cases. I’ve gone through all of NDFL and the 11th Circuit. Now I’m turning to EDVA and CA4.

It’s amazing how much stuff is packed into this case.

Update: A court reporter from EDVA returned my call, and said she could sell me the transcript directly. Congress mandated that the charge is $.90 a page (lol, Congress mandated a price for the transcript of the constitutionality of congress’s mandate). At 80 pages, that is a lot of money! I will try calling the clerk’s office to see why it was not posted on PACER.

Update: I just spoke with the Clerk’s office, and for some reason the transcript was never released. I have a copy, which you can download here. Somehow, no one ever bothered to check if the document was available.

Because Vinnie from Jersey Shore wants to be a politician!

“I want to get into politics,” Vinny says … “So i was gonna go to law school to get involved in politics.”

He added, “I know this sounds stumbling coming out of a club … but I actually have a brain.”

This could be a Jersey Gamechanger.

David Gregory is under some kind of investigation for waving around a 30-round magazine on Meet the Press, which is filmed in Washington, D.C., where possession of such magazines is generally illegal. Doug Mataconis raised an interesting historical bit.

For the record, though, if this is indeed a violation of the law, there isn’t likely to be a “journalistic” exception. Several years ago, another journalist here in the D.C. area faced prosecution after it was discovered that he had images of child pornography on his laptop. As a defense, he claimed that he was investigating the world of underground child pornography for a story he was writing and that he should be entitled to a First Amendment defense. After several hearings and appeals, the defense was rejected and the journalist in question went to Federal Prison. In other words, you cannot violate the law in the practice of  journalism.

Could Gregory possibly use the First Amendment as a defense to what the Second Amendment ought to protect (though Gregory likely disagrees with that construction of the Second Amendment)? In other words, does his journalistic duty as a member of the press give him special protections against gun laws? Hell, if it does, every blogger living in D.C. should cite a 1st Amendment right to possess a 30-round clip.

I have previously blogged about New Jersey’s efforts to offer sports gambling in state, even though it is in clear violation of federal law.

Now MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, and the NCAA are suing New Jersey in D.N.J., after a judge found that the leagues have standing to sue.

David Stern, the long-time commissioner of the NBA, and an attorney, was quite pithy in his comments:

“The one thing I’m certain of is New Jersey has no idea what it’s doing and doesn’t care because all it’s interested in is making a buck or two, and they don’t care that it’s at our potential loss,” Stern said when asked how the advent of sports betting in New Jersey would harm the NBA.

“And wholly apart from the fact that a governor, who’s a former U.S. Attorney, has chosen to attack a federal law which causes me pause for completely different reasons since I’ve at times sworn to similar oaths about upholding the law of the United States,”

Yep, Chris Christie is doing his best John C. Calhoun impression.

Last night I had an odd dream that I was clerking for Judge Posner, but he was on a district court. I was sitting in the seat in front of the bench were the courtroom deputy would sit. Judge Posner started the proceeding, stopped, started to point at someone in the gallery, and ordered that person to be removed from the court. Everyone started looking around confused. No one knew whom Posner was pointing at, so he got off the bench and walked down to point the person out. (I couldn’t tell if that person was being disruptive). The marshalls forcibly removed the person. Then Posner leaned over the bench and told me that I was doing something wrong (not sure what). That’s all I remember.