Jonathan Zasloff

Especially from the Republican side. 1) If you believe, as the Catholic church does and most conservatives do, that abortion is murder, then it is irrelevant whether a woman becomes pregnant through rape or through consensual sex. At the moment of conception, there is a human being with human rights attached to it. It really […]

Four days ago, Ezra Klein reported that Erskine Bowles is the front-runner for Treasury Secretary in a second Obama Administration. It’s hard to think of any plausible Democrat who would be a greater disaster. Bowles has a man-crush on Paul Ryan; his chairman’s mark for his eponymous commission was simply an embarrassment on both political […]

Really. I came across this report from Politico a few weeks ago, and it seemed to sum things up well. The House Agriculture Committee was debating the farm bill, and particularly Republicans’ efforts to decimate the Food Stamp program. Rep. Joe Baca (D-California) protested: As a young father, Rep. Joe Baca had himself relied on […]

My friend and colleague Steve Bainbridge is out with a new article on “Corporate Lawyers as Gatekeepers,” which, if you are interested in corporate law, you should read (Steve is one of the country’s most distinguished scholars in the field). But what piqued my interest when he sent it to me was his offhand remark […]

Well, we all know that Mitt Romney has insulted Palestinians by suggesting that the reason why the Palestinian territories have a worse economy than Israel derives from culture. But then he tried to make up for it by saying this: After Mr. Romney’s remarks drew criticism, his campaign said that The Associated Press had “grossly […]

In the last three days, Mitt Romney and his campaign have: 1) At best lied about and at worst divulged confidential conversations with the Australian foreign minister; 2) Been unable to distinguish “Russia” from “the Soviet Union”; 3) Used crude racial/ethnic stereotyping that even the Torygraph thinks is over-the-top; and now 4) Insulted Great Britain […]

In the wake of the Colorado horrors, lots of people want to know why gun control is not on the national agenda, with the usual responses about feckless liberals. While I certainly never hesitate to castigate the invertebracy of progressives, I think that there is a simpler answer: Violent crime went down. Crime rates are […]

Mitt Romney says that the Australian foreign minister told him that America is in decline and wants Romney policies to bring it back. A few hours later, the Australian foreign ministry states that Romney’s account is “not correct.” In other words, about to head on a foreign trip, Romney has managed to get into a […]

Under current doctrine, the SB 1070 case came out the right way. I hate Section 2(B) – the infamous “papers, please” provision – but it isn’t unconstitutional for state officials to enforce federal law (even federal civil law, which includes immigration) and then turn offenders over to federal officials. Generally speaking, it isn’t an issue, […]

From Justice Alito’s angry dissent in the Supreme Court’s decision invalidating general and mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile murderers: Nothing in the Constitution supports this arrogation of legislative authority. That’s right, Sam. We certainly don’t want to usurp legislative authority. Oh, no. So of course we would never dream of invalidating the Affordable […]