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The Court After Scalia

The term’s defining event was the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Everyone wonders how his successor will affect the future of the Supreme Court. Very soon after his demise, political controversy erupted when Senate Republicans announced that no nominee to replace Scalia would be . . . . Continue Reading »

Obergefell and the New Gnosticism

For decades, the Sexual Revolution was supposed to be about freedom. Today, it is about coercion. Once, it sought to free our sexual choices from restrictive laws and unwanted consequences. Now, it seeks to free our sexual choices from other people's disapproval. Continue Reading »

Persevere and Learn (and Persevere)

The disaster of this presidential election is a long time in coming—it will spawn disasters beyond our imagining—and yet it remains our responsibility to persevere and make the best of our challenges and opportunities as they come upon us.The first thing is to steel ourselves for a disaster in . . . . Continue Reading »

The Nomination Debate

A week ago, the White House confirmed President Obama’s intentions to “fulfill his constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor to Justice Scalia.” The President echoed those words a day later, promising to provide the Senate with an “indisputably qualified” nominee. For their . . . . Continue Reading »

The Terminators

Canada’s pending legislation on euthanasia and assisted suicide raises a question: What shall we call people who are legally involved in the destruction of human life—particularly those who do the actual killing? Shall we call them medical executioners? They are indeed executioners, as none can . . . . Continue Reading »

Looking Toward November 8

To redeploy a phrase from President Ford, our “long national nightmare”—in this case, the semi-permanent presidential campaign—will be over in eleven months, or at least suspended for a year or so. It’s not been an altogether edifying show to date; one may hope that, as the fields get . . . . Continue Reading »

On Posner's Wards

Richard Posner, a judge of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in a New York Times op-ed co-authored December 2 with Law Professor Eric Segall, takes Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to task for threatening America with a “majoritarian theocracy” because of his repeated . . . . Continue Reading »

The Wreckage of Obergefell

Every generation, it seems, has its paradigm-defining Supreme Court case: a decision (or series of decisions) that determines the jurisprudential ethos and frames the judicial, political, and academic debate for the next quarter century or so. A landmark case of this sort also marks an ending, . . . . Continue Reading »

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