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edited by: Chris Liebenthal, Wisconsin Editor

Shark and Shepherd

  • Finding confirmation in Climatequiddick

    The reaction of bloggers and pundits to Climatequiddick - the hacking and disclosure of e-mails sent and received by climate scientists at East Anglia University - follows two unfortunate patterns.

    On the right, we hear folks proclaiming the end of the debate about anthropogenic global warming. They say, as [...]
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    Posted: November 27, 2009, 9:11am EST

  • Talk Among Yourselves

    Ilya Somin has an interesting post over at the Volokh Conspiracy on right wing populism. It's not so bad, he says, or at least it could be worse. Somin is a libertarian and is cheered by the idea that conservative populism has tended to emphasize limited government over what [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 8:21am EST

  • Shark in the Cities

    Over the weekend, the the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis hosted a conference entitled "Realism in Christian Public Theology: Catholic and Protestant Perspectives." It was an interdisciplinary conference bringing together law professors, theologians, ethicists [...]
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    Posted: November 22, 2009, 9:07am EST

  • How Not to Handle Divorce

    While there is obviously a widely reported matter that prompts this post, it's really not about them other than whatever concern we may have for the people involved. No politics here. Please.

    I have only ever represented one divorce client, but I get a lot of requests for initial [...]
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    Posted: November 21, 2009, 10:56pm EST

  • Yet Another Post on Civility

    I don't often pull comments to a previous post into a new one, but I feel compelled to do so by a comment posted by my WI-Interest editor, Marc Eisen, a lefty who, while he does many other things, has also been hired by a conservative publication (edited by the' [...]
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    Posted: November 19, 2009, 12:36am EST

  • The State House Comes to Milwaukee

    1. Barring some unseen development, it seems highly likely that two Milwaukeeans will square off in the race for Governor. Very few Governors have been from Milwaukee. The last, I believe, was Julius Heil, elected in 1938. And there were few before then.

    2. This seems to me like [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 9:29am EST

  • Lies and the Lying Candidates Who Tell Them*

    * It turns out to be Al Franken.


    For those of you interested in the legal intricacies, I have a post on the Gableman recommendation up at the Marquette University Faculty Blog. But here at the old political blog, I'm wondering if those who are upset by the' [...]
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    Posted: November 17, 2009, 8:37am EST

  • Shark Returns

    I was in DC at the end of last week to attend the National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society for Law & Policy Studies. It's always a great meeting with great panels presenting a diversity of views. That's something that folks who view the Federalist Society as the Opus [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 7:50am EST

  • Hatred in the Name of "Compassion"

    I am sure - or at least I suppose - the Chris Liebenthal is a decent enough guy in real life. Loves his family. Is kind to his friends. Doesn't kick puppies.

    What is it, then, in politics that prompts this kind of inhumane nastiness. If the point' [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 11:03am EST

  • Green Bay Agonistes

    You can occasionally see the precise moments when Packer coaches lose their jobs. For Bart Starr, it was when he stood with folded arms and sat on his timeouts while the Bears ran down the clock and kicked a short field goal to knock the team out of the '83' [...]
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    Posted: November 08, 2009, 9:01pm EST

  • Shame on President Obama

    There are some criticisms of Barack Obama that go too far. For example, I did not share the outrage about his belated reference to the Fort Hood shootings. Yes, it was tone deaf, but that's about it. But his decision not to travel to Berlin for the twentieth anniversay of' [...]
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    Posted: November 08, 2009, 8:48pm EST

  • Public Financing of Supreme Court Races: The Legislature Whacks A Mole

    In a forthcoming article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, I argue ( the metaphor is not original with me) that campaign finance reform is like a game of Whac-A-Mole™ in which the moles always win.

    The state legislature has passed public financing for state [...]
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    Posted: November 06, 2009, 8:41am EST

  • Myron Gordon, R.I.P.

    I only really knew Myron Gordon as a judge on senior status and tried only one case before him. It was a challenge by the NAACP to the method of electing judges in Milwaukee County. The plaintiffs alleged that county wide elections of judges denied black voters the opportunity to [...]
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    Posted: November 05, 2009, 11:47pm EST

  • For Tom Barrett, the Challenge of Staying Put

    George Lightbourn had a great column in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. His point is that Tom Barrett must choose between running for Governor and a mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools. The point is that a mayoral takeover, if it is to accomplish anything, must shake up the' [...]
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    Posted: November 04, 2009, 10:00pm EST

  • Not our fairy tale

    I knew it was a high risk proposition but we decided to go to yesterday's Packer-Vikings game. It was one of those things that could have gone better.

    Brett Favre has certainly got his validation in that he is still an outstanding quarterback. But Aaron Rodgers showed that -' [...]
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    Posted: November 02, 2009, 8:43am EST

  • More on the recusal rules

    I didn't have a lot of time to explain why I think the state supreme court seems to have gotten it right in rejecting a proposed rule changes advanced by the League of Women Voters and retired Justice William Bablitch and in adopting changes advanced by WMC and the Wisconsin' [...]
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    Posted: October 31, 2009, 10:14pm EDT

  • Conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court: Review and Preview

    At the beginning of this semester, I proposed that the law school host a conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Dean Kearney lent his support and we were fortunate enough to obtain the co-sponsorship of the Appellate Practice section of the State Bar of Wisconsin.

    So yesterday we hosted [...]
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    Posted: October 31, 2009, 9:56am EDT

  • SCOWIS Conference Sold Out

    If you snoozed, you lost. Tomorrow's conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court at Marquette University Law School is sold out. Unfortunately, it cannot be podcast due to some technical problems. But you can read the highlights here.' [...]
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    Posted: October 29, 2009, 10:05am EDT

  • The Supreme Court Gets It Right

    It won't surprise anyone that I think the state Supreme Court did the right thing yesterday in rejecting the recusal standard proposed by the League of Women Voters and clarification of what, in and of itself, should not require recusal. The latter was, I think, required by what I think' [...]
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    Posted: October 29, 2009, 9:41am EDT

  • Shark Music: I won't stop

    As I have shamelessly promoted here earlier, this Friday we are holding a conference on the past and future term of the Wisconsin Supreme Court at Marquette University Law School. If you are a lawyer in need of CLE or some one interested in the court or Wisconsin constitution, please [...]
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    Posted: October 27, 2009, 11:34pm EDT

  • Halloween Is Here

    It's the Season of the Witch



    Welcome to My Nightmare



    Well, honey, it's no rock and roll show



    But the beat is coming nearer



    So watch out for the boogie man

    [...]
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    Posted: October 25, 2009, 1:30pm EDT

  • Obama's Fox Folly

    Obama's war on Fox News is just plain stupid. It is, of course, utterly without merit. Fox News offers reportage and shows featuring opinion journalism and interviews hosted by conservatives. The news hours are fairly straightforward and even the opinion shows tend to feature a diverse set of guests. In' [...]
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    Posted: October 23, 2009, 8:12am EDT

  • The court is split, but on what?

    I am not sure what Ed Garvey thinks he knows in suggesting that Mike Gableman's colleagues are split three to three.

    Split on what?

    What to do with the recommendation in the pending disciplinary action? It hasn't been made yet.

    Whether to require [...]
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    Posted: October 21, 2009, 9:20am EDT

  • First Annual Conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court

    Pne of the many reasons blogging has been light to nonexistent here is that I have been organizing a CLE seminar on the Wisconsin Supreme Court which will take place at Marquette University Law School on October 30. If you are a lawyer, we're applying for five CLE credits for' [...]
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    Posted: October 21, 2009, 8:47am EDT

  • When the Answer is No: Constitutional Protection for Faith Healing?

    The tragic case of Kara Neumann highlights one of the problems with robust protection for the free exercise of religion. Kara died of untreated diabetes because her parents chose to pray rather than take her to the doctor. Both have been convicted of second degree reckless homicide. How does [...]
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    Posted: October 14, 2009, 8:29am EDT

  • Sunday Music - Nobel Laureates Division

    The nominees:









    And the winner (because the 15 year old Shark had a crush on her):

    [...]
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    Posted: October 11, 2009, 10:47am EDT

  • Nobel is same old

    Although the award itself was bizarre and self destructive, the debate following Obama's Nobel Day is of a piece with what we've been seeing for quite some time.

    First, there is still the effort - diminishing but still breathing - to hang on to the Transcendent Obama - the [...]
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    Posted: October 11, 2009, 9:26am EDT

  • Norway loves Obama

    At least President Obama had the grace (or at least the political instinct) to acknowledge that he had not really done anything to earn the Nobel Peace Prize. The Prize has been largely devalued by the tendency of the Norwegian politicians who award it to use it for political purposes. [...]
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    Posted: October 09, 2009, 1:35pm EDT

  • Throat clearing at the Times

    Other responsibilities have kept me off the blog, so here's some catching up.

    In a recent column, National Review's Jonah Goldberg observes that one of the political advantages for conservatives is that the left will never take us seriously. They will never try to understand what we are saying [...]
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    Posted: October 02, 2009, 8:45am EDT

  • Shark in Mizzou

    We spent the weekend in Missouri visiting our niece Monica who is a freshman at the University of Missouri in Columbia and watching the Packers play the Rams. Mizzou has a very nice campus and probably the best student rec center that I have ever seen. The Edward R. Jones [...]
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    Posted: September 29, 2009, 8:40am EDT

  • Real man of financial genius?

    It's just too easy to point out the hypocrisy and silliness in the story line about conservative rage and racism. If you want to see expressions of simple outrage over public policy (be it the war in Iraq or the President's health care plan), go to a public meeting. They're' [...]
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    Posted: September 23, 2009, 8:51am EDT

  • Prognostication About a Judicial Ethics Complaint

    Yesterday a three judge panel heard oral arguments on the disciplinary complaint against Justice Michael Gablemen. You can review the offending ad here and my recent discussion of it on Prawfsblawg there.

    There are two rules that are pertinent. The first sentence of 60.06(3)(c) provides "[a]" [...]
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    Posted: September 17, 2009, 7:59am EDT

  • Obama promises what can't be true: Good politics or strategic blunder?

    Does candor work in politics? By any measure, the President's speech on health care last night was chock full of misleading statements, misrepresentations and dubious speculation. We won't require you to change your existing policy even though millions of you will lose it. Mandating preventive care' [...]
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    Posted: September 10, 2009, 8:52am EDT

  • Nasty debate is easy

    This month I am guesting at Prawfsblawg, a national lawprof blog. I posted yesterday on President Obama's speech to schoolchildren. I don't have a problem with a speech, but there is an etiquette that should be followed when a President presumes to speak apolitically in his capacity as head' [...]
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    Posted: September 06, 2009, 9:35am EDT

  • Public option and larger purposes

    In response to my last post on health care, one commenter wonders why I am not reassured by the fact that public education hasn't eliminated private education. Doesn't this show that a public option won't crowd out private coverage?

    I think this compares apples and oranges. A better' [...]
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    Posted: September 02, 2009, 8:46am EDT

  • A public option?

    I've got no objection in principle to government subsidies for day care. We routinely hear that this is something to which we do not devote enough resources. On that point, the story about Latasha Jackson in yesterday's Journal Sentinel is instructive. Unless the fraud that she engaged in was' [...]
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    Posted: August 31, 2009, 9:03am EDT

  • Sunday: Music & Theology

    It's back to school time. The Law School begins classes on Wednesday. This semester I am offering my seminar on Law & Theology, so let's use a theological concept to select our Sunday music. I choose "theodicy" - the attempt to justify God or, to put it in another way, [...]
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    Posted: August 23, 2009, 10:28am EDT

  • Sunday: Music & Theology

    It's back to school time. The Law School begins classes on Wednesday. This semester I am offering my seminar on Law & Theology, so let's use a theological concept to select our Sunday music. I choose "theodicy" - the attempt to justify God or, to put it in another way, [...]
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    Posted: August 23, 2009, 10:28am EDT

  • Would the public option be Freddie or the Post Office: Public Option Talk, part 5

    In my occasional series on health care, I have argued that most of the arguments for a "public option" in the provision of health care either don't withstand scrutiny or are based on questionable assumptions. What doesn't withstand scrutiny is the claim that a public option is needed to "introduce" [...]
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    Posted: August 23, 2009, 8:53am EDT

  • A health care question?

    Before I get back to the health care debate, a thought experiment. Who among us would chose European or Canadian health care if it meant that the technologies and medicines developed in the United States were unavailable to us? Put aside - for a moment - whether you think this [...]
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    Posted: August 20, 2009, 5:21pm EDT

  • Aks not

    Eugene Kane "wonders" what it means if you "ask" about African Americans pronouncing the word as "ax." He is for proper pronunciation but scolds about not singling out particular ethnic groups for incorrect usage and pronunciation, noting that nobody cares about midwesterners who love "da Bears." That is, of [...]
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    Posted: August 18, 2009, 11:30pm EDT

  • Irishfest - The Scattering

    Back to Irishfest in a few minutes. I'll be pouring beer somewhere between 3 and 6 with some other conservative lawyers. Come start a fight. Or better yet, as someone told me last night, "if you have good food, good drink and smart talk, you've got a lot."

    Karen [...]
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    Posted: August 16, 2009, 12:05pm EDT

  • Of Profit and Public Options: Public Option Talk, part 4

    There are two things that proponents of public health care systems are loath to admit. The first is that they all ration care. As noted above, that doesn't distinguish them from a system in which care is privately provided, but the "rationing" that occurs in the latter is by agreement' [...]
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    Posted: August 15, 2009, 9:26am EDT

  • Why Obama is losing the health care debate

    Before continuing my posts on a public option for health coverage, I wanted to stop and comment on the concept of universal coverage. In response to my last post, an anonymous poster says that universal coverage contributes to higher life expectancies in other countries. My response to that is that [...]
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    Posted: August 13, 2009, 9:42pm EDT

  • Irishfest - The Gathering

    Tomorrow begins Irishfest. I am about half Irish and the Reddess is about just barely out of Galway. Irish culture fascinates me because it is at once God-haunted and remarkably earthy. We love our words. In those ways, it represents a quintessential strain in Catholicism.

    But we want [...]
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    Posted: August 13, 2009, 11:37pm EDT

  • Public option talk, part 3.

    To get back to the subject of my last post, anyone who tells you that public health care plans do not ration care or that ObamaCare will not is misinformed.

    If someone tells you that health care is currently rationed, he would be right. Under the current system health [...]
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    Posted: August 12, 2009, 9:39pm EDT

  • Public option talk. part 2

    Supporters of the Obama health plan are livid that Sarah Palin posted a statement suggesting that the plan would result in a "death panel" which might decide whether a baby with Down's Syndrome would receive health care. She is, in consequence, "evil" and a "monster."

    This is [...]
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    Posted: August 12, 2009, 4:40am EDT

  • Getting back in tune

    From my mouth to Dorothy Rabinowitz' ears? Not likely, but she also notices that there is something tone deaf about the Obama administration's reaction to criticism of its health plan. Barack Obama was supposed to be not simply bipartisan, but postpartisan, He was supposed to move us past the' [...]
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    Posted: August 12, 2009, 1:30am EDT

  • Obama and the Democrats are upset about community organizing.

    Who would have thought it?

    This has always been a problem for Obama and is actually reflects a longstanding tension in the American progessivism. Recall Woodrow Wilson's claim that the Constitution, with its separation of powers and checks and balances on government action was outdated and that progressives must [...]
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    Posted: August 09, 2009, 10:44am EDT

  • Public Option talk, part 1

    In the comment thread following Friday's post on health care, I asked why there should be a public option in any insurance exchange? In response, former local blogger Seth Zlotocha pointed to policy rescission - the possibility that an insurance company may rescind coverage after you get sick based on' [...]
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    Posted: August 09, 2009, 10:13am EDT

  • What if you picked a fight and nobody came?

    Jay Bullock wonders why he's not getting any response to a post which, in his view, called "half of the conservative cheddarsphere liars." (Actually, his post attracted a good number of comments for a local blog.) At issue is a list of claims about HR 3200, the Orwellian [...]
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    Posted: August 05, 2009, 8:26pm EDT

  • The Uses of Crying Hate

    For a variety of reasons, I don't want to write about the issues in Appling v. Doyle and am only doing media to discuss the issues presented by the case. I just don't think that going back and forth on the blogs would serve the clients' interest.

    But I' [...]
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    Posted: August 03, 2009, 4:32am EDT

  • Wow, he said.

    In response to yesterday's post about health care, one anonymous commenter (but I think I know who it is) begins with the words "wow Rick wow." What could cause that type of incredulity?

    The commenter argues that a monopsonistic buyer will lower prices for everyone. Not necessarily. Medicare and [...]
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    Posted: August 01, 2009, 9:40am EDT

  • It's almost immoral what they are doing

    So says Speaker Nancy Pelosi about private insurance companies. What is immoral is their desire not to be forced out of business by a monopsonistic competitor who will - by taxpayer subsidy, market power or legal mandate - force prices to a level that drives them out of business.
    [...]
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    Posted: July 31, 2009, 10:52am EDT

  • Dancing into the future

    I just caught a bit of Charlie Sykes discussing - with my wife - the viral video in which a wedding party dances up the aisle to Chris Brown's "Forever." Charlie seemed surprised that she liked it and expressed some certainty that I wouldn't want to do it. I'm not [...]
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    Posted: July 28, 2009, 11:33am EDT

  • Why don't you know who I am?

    I wasn't there when the Cambridge police arrested Henry Louis Gates. Based on the police report, it seems that Gates behaved boorishly. Gates' own version of the event,suggesting that he was arrested because he asked for the officer's name and badge number, seems implausible. Whether he deserved to be arrested [...]
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    Posted: July 27, 2009, 9:22am EDT

  • Missing so many points on health care

    I can't say that President Obama knows little about health care and misunderstands the free market, but, based on his performance at last week's press conference, both seem likely. The notion that there is no competition unless there is a government option is absurd. Although it is not really a' [...]
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    Posted: July 27, 2009, 7:26am EDT

  • Statement of Policy

    I have been retained by the plaintiffs in a case filed today captioned Appling v. Doyle. I will not comment on or accept comments regarding the case on this blog. I am representing clients in the case - it is their litigation and not mine - and that affects what [...]
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    Posted: July 23, 2009, 2:32pm EDT

  • Coulee Catholic: Of loopholes and legislating

    Wednesday, in a case called Coulee Catholic Schools v. Labor and Industry Review Commission, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the "ministerial exception" to state laws prohibiting employment discrimination applied to a teacher in a Catholic grade school. As a result, the teacher's claim against the school for age [...]
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    Posted: July 22, 2009, 8:16pm EDT

  • July 20, 1969 ... and 1944


    July 20, 1969 was the day of a great human accomplishment. Watching the rebroadcast of bits of Cronkite's newscast, I was struck by how much we have lost the sense of wonder that was felt around the world that day and abandoned the sense of [...]
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    Posted: July 20, 2009, 8:52pm EDT

  • Day 4 Reflections - What we can agree on

    Here is something that we can all agree on. Over at PrawfsBlawg, Howard Wasserman of Florida International says that the Sotomayor hearings have been "inane and meaningless." This has been a widely shared reaction among liberal legal academics and lawyers. They are disappointed in (even if they are willing [...]
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    Posted: July 17, 2009, 9:20am EDT

  • Day 3 reflections

    I think one can conclude that Judge Sotomayor is a competent judge, but not an exceptional one. She has made a couple misstatements of the law but I can't imagine that one could be grilled for three days without a few. What she hasn't done is demonstrate a particularly strong [...]
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    Posted: July 16, 2009, 10:03am EDT

  • Day 2 reflections

    Judge Sotomayor will certainly be confirmed. The administration knows it and their hearing strategy is quite clearly to play not to lose.

    But one of the more interesting reactions to Day 2 of the hearings is from those on the legal left who are frustrated by Sotomayor's repetition [...]
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    Posted: July 15, 2009, 8:47am EDT

  • The law and epistemological privilege

    As the Sotomayor hearings proceed, I thought I would turn again to the issues raised by the Judge's oft-cited "wise Latina" speech and similar remarks suggesting that there may be a connection between judicial decision making and the judge's ethnicity and background.

    One common approach is to wonder whether [...]
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    Posted: July 14, 2009, 10:00am EDT

  • Shark with really good graphics

    My column in WI Interest debuts today. I guess they are calling it Culture Con. [...]
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    Posted: July 13, 2009, 5:15pm EDT

  • Hearing reflections - Day One

    Yesterday, the New York Times took on the analogy between judges and umpires. Almost as if in coordination, a number of Democratic Senators riffed on it.

    Of course, judge as umpire is not a perfect analogy. I tend to think it is better expressed in terms of the tale [...]
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    Posted: July 13, 2009, 4:55pm EDT

  • Sunday Night Songs

    Sometimes I get push back for my Sunday musical selections. Why do I it? Because I can. And because I have found out about things I liked in the oddest places and maybe someone else will too.

    Today I turn to my occasional theme of, in my son's words,"quirky" [...]
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    Posted: July 12, 2009, 10:37pm EDT

  • Politics as Total War

    A few years ago, a Department of Defense official called for a boycott of tony law firms that represented - on a pro bono basis - Guantanamo detainees. He was roundly - and I think justly - criticized.

    But his view of politics as total war - [...]
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    Posted: July 11, 2009, 11:26am EDT

  • Lies about lying

    One of the most overused charges in the blogosphere is that someone has "lied." One of my scholarly projects (currently on hold) is a consideration of political lying and when the law might provide a remedy for it. In connection with that, I have given some thought to a taxonomy [...]
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    Posted: July 09, 2009, 10:32am EDT

  • Stereotypes all around

    One of the better bloggers on the left is Michael J. Mathias.* In a recent post regarding the Fred Dooley's "tweet" forwarding a racially derogatory joke about the stimulus package, he writes the following:

    Racially tinged language and jokes are a staple of right-wing talk radio programming like the [...]
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    Posted: July 07, 2009, 7:43am EDT

  • A stake through the heart

    Yesterday's post on Sarah Palin sort of proved its own point. The idea was not that Sarah Palin will - or even should - become the GOP Presidential candidate, but that she represented something that conservatives want and liberals fear. Call it the Great Female Hope - a woman who [...]
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    Posted: July 07, 2009, 7:07am EDT

  • There's something about Sarah


    If Sarah Palin has national political ambitions, I can't see the decision to resign as Governor of Alaska as helping them. When your problem is gravitas and lack of experience, bailing on the principal way to get those things seems like throwing in the towel. My' [...]
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    Posted: July 06, 2009, 9:02am EDT

  • A musical tribute to 1959

    I've been reading Fred Kaplan's book 1959 subtitled the "year that changed everything." When I bought it, the young woman who rang up the sale at the Fox Point Borders pointed out that they also had a book claiming that 1968 was the "year that changed everything." I told her' [...]
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    Posted: July 05, 2009, 12:15pm EDT

  • The Hate Left and Socialist Right

    Back to a series of posts last month on the charge that conservatives have somehow gone over the top, engaging in hateful and exaggerated rhetoric that might even incite violence.

    Paul Krugman thinks opposition to the President's silly cap and trade bill is "treason." Matthew Iglesias [...]
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    Posted: July 02, 2009, 11:11am EDT

  • Ricci Reax

    You can read my reaction to the Ricci decision, along with those of Dave Kopel, Professor Ronald Rotunda, Maureen Martin and others at the Heartland Institute's website. More here when I get a chance. [...]
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    Posted: July 02, 2009, 12:50am EDT

  • More on Sotomayor

    Further to my "dueling" op-ed with Ed Fallone on the Sotomayor nomination, I thought an interesting point is raised by Ed's statement that "over the course of an 11-year career on the appellate bench, during which she participated in more than 100 cases involving race-based claims, Sotomayor voted differently from" [...]
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    Posted: June 29, 2009, 5:12am EDT

  • The Worst Bill Ever

    They say that, in Wisconsin, if you don't like the weather, wait a few hours. In Washington, if you don't like the weather, pass a bill. As Jim Lindgren points out, the House of Representatives has voted to change the weather.

    It's hard to know where to start [...]
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    Posted: June 29, 2009, 4:12am EDT

  • Marquette throw down

    Reflecting his journalistic genius, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Crossroads editor David Haynes agreed that it would be a great idea to run dueling op-eds on the issues surrounding the Sotomayor nomination written by me and my colleague Ed Fallone. (Neither of us saw the other's before publication.) You can read mine [...]
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    Posted: June 27, 2009, 7:54pm EDT

  • Lowry and Krugman agree

    Earlier this week, I blogged about Barack Obama's testy response to a question about a "public option" in his coming health care plan. This is what the President said:

    Why would it drive private insurers out of business? If private insurers say
    that the marketplace provides the best quality [...]
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    Posted: June 26, 2009, 2:54pm EDT

  • Give it a rest

    Patrick Mclheran suggests that, once a Republican gets caught in an embarrassing situation, he becomes a "former" leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination. Charlie Sykes speculates that the only way that he can survive is to become a Democrat.

    Of course, the latter might not work. Governors [...]
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    Posted: June 25, 2009, 8:42am EDT

  • Some candor on health care is in order

    President Obama lost a bit of his famed cool at today's press conference when he was asked about the "public option" in his health care plan crowding out private insurance. It's not logical, he said, if private coverage is better than public coverage, i.e., if those insurers are doing such [...]
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    Posted: June 23, 2009, 10:47pm EDT

  • The trouble with blogs

    Or at least with political blogs is the presumption of bad faith with which we so often interact with each other. I was reminded of this over the past two weekends by the reaction - here and elsewhere - to three posts. The first two were about what I believe [...]
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    Posted: June 20, 2009, 10:39pm EDT

  • Can't help it

    The ethical issues presented when a reporter writes about someone to whom he or she is romantically attracted have, of course, been much in the news. They arise whenever the President is covered by Chris Mathews ("I felt a tingle going up the leg"), Evan Thomas ("He's sort of God"), [...]
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    Posted: June 19, 2009, 9:38am EDT

  • Can't avoid it

    Although I occasionally write on marriage issues and have been a fan of Chief Flynn, my initial reaction was that there is not much that is blogworthy about revelation of his affair with Jessica McBride.

    But this brief post by Jay Bullock has changed my mind. I can't comment' [...]
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    Posted: June 19, 2009, 8:53am EDT

  • The constitutionality of domestic partnership status

    One of the unfortunate aspects of legislative process in Wisconsin is that so much major policy that is either unrelated or tangentially related to appropriations is made in the budget bill. This results in a lack of public scrutiny and debate and, in my view, too much logrolling. It empowers [...]
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    Posted: June 18, 2009, 11:21am EDT

  • In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

    So said Alexis de Tocqueville whose Democracy in America remains one of the most insightful treatments of both ever written.

    That observation is one of the reasons that I am disturbed by the concerted effort of the New York Times and others on the American left to portray some [...]
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    Posted: June 18, 2009, 10:39am EDT

  • Is he being ironic?

    I have been told - by people whose judgment I respect - that left wing bloggers - or at least certain ones - should be dead to me. But, guys, I am an educator and I jest cain't quit you.

    Local lawyer and blogger Mike Plaisted is rather lathered' [...]
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    Posted: June 17, 2009, 8:29am EDT

  • Who do we hate?

    A recent e-mail exchange with Marquette University Law School Dean Joe Kearney raised the following question: What team is a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers supposed to hate? This was the provocative statement:


    My distaste for the Cubs meant that, even if the White Sox had lost to [...]
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    Posted: June 16, 2009, 9:59am EDT

  • The Old Gray Lady ain't what she used to be

    On a Sunday evening, I gather my dogs, pour a glass of wine, fire up the grill and repair to the deck with the Sunday New York Times. For a conservative, this is a guilty pleasure, But this week, I am afraid, it caused me to lose my religion.

    [...]
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    Posted: June 16, 2009, 9:18am EDT

  • What Caperton ought not to mean

    Mayor and Attorney Paul Soglin has revised and extended his remarks on the implication of the Caperton decision. Paul had claimed that Caperton means that "the purchasers of the Ziegler and Gableman seats will watch their pawns sit on the sidelines while a new majority of three out of" [...]
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    Posted: June 14, 2009, 5:29am EDT

  • Is anonymity worth it?

    WisOpinion won't publish the remarks of any writer without his or her name. At the Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog, we won't publish a comment without a full name or valid e-mail address. The idea, I suppose, is that it encourages intellectual responsibility and civility.

    Some of the [...]
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    Posted: June 13, 2009, 4:10pm EDT

  • Don't take our toys

    Tom Foley thinks its funny, I guess, that anyone would question the characterization of National Socialism as a right wing ideology. On this Saturday morning when I should have been revising a law review article, I posted a comment on his blog suggesting a few obvious ways in which National [...]
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    Posted: June 13, 2009, 11:20am EDT

  • It's Big Hate all right

    Paul Krugman thinks that there is a wave of "extremism" and "hate" being fed by the media and political establishment. If there is, he ought to know. He's doing the serving.

    There are three moves here. The first is to pick convenient lunatics who have committed a violent [...]
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    Posted: June 12, 2009, 7:45am EDT

  • Recusal for the goose and gander

    My comments on the Supreme Court's decision in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company are up at the Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog.

    Here I'd like to comment on the triumphalist posts of Bill Christofferson and Paul Soglin, claiming that Justices Annette Ziegler and Justice [...]
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    Posted: June 10, 2009, 7:20am EDT

  • The problem with joint and several liability

    Prior to 1995 amendments to the state statutes, multiple defendants sued by a plaintiff who were found to be negligent (and whose percentage of liability exceeded the plaintiffs) would be "jointly and severally" liable to the plaintiff. This had the potential for anomalous results. A party who was found to [...]
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    Posted: June 08, 2009, 10:06am EDT

  • Columnists mailing it in, Part I

    Writing op-eds is hard. Sometimes they just don't come. That seems to have happened to at least two national columnists last week.

    The always interesting Patrick McIlheran commented on a somewhat injudicious column by Leonard Pitts that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Pitts was upset that' [...]
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    Posted: June 07, 2009, 2:24pm EDT

  • Shark in St. Louis

    I'm back from the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference in St. Louis, where I spoke on a panel discussing state courts and judicial selection. I spoke about the pros and cons of judicial elections and our experience here in Wisconsin. The best line of the day came from, I think, Grover' [...]
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    Posted: June 05, 2009, 8:36am EDT

  • Barack the Bold

    Local blogger Nick Schweitzer wonders - well actually he's pretty sure - about GM bankruptcy and the rule of law. One of his points is the manner in which the proposed reorganization crams down senior creditors in favor of junior ones, e.g., the UAW. Whether a similar move (accomplished' [...]
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    Posted: June 03, 2009, 8:34am EDT

  • Murder is murder

    Those of us who are pro-life ought to denounce the killing of Dr. George Tiller. He was certainly engaged in awful business and I suspect that some will try to make political capital from his death, but it's not possible to promote respect for life in this instance by taking' [...]
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    Posted: June 01, 2009, 8:17am EDT

  • "Guidelines" for the confirmation debate

    A few observations on turns in the Sotomayor debate.

    First, there has been some preliminary skirmishing over her "reversal" rate. While I think that Supreme Court treatment of her decisions can be instructive, a simple calculation of percentage of cases that were reversed is probably not going to get [...]
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    Posted: June 01, 2009, 7:54am EDT
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