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Late Halloween Riddle

What is black and white but leaves law-literate liberals shrieking and gibbering with fright? The anti-Obamacare brief from the public interest law arm of the Claremont Institute! I.e., for liberals, the ultimate CLAREMONSTER!!! . . . . Continue Reading »

As Justice Kennedy Said …

When Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court in 2006, observers predicted that Anthony Kennedy would quickly become the key figure in the nation’s jurisprudence. And recent terms have confirmed those predictions: Across a wide range of controversial constitutional issues, . . . . Continue Reading »

Conciliating Hatred

These days, if you announce that the Supreme Court is doing politics rather than law you will provoke more yawns than protests. But what sort of politics is the Court doing? Justice Antonin Scalia frequently charges the Court with stepping out of its judicial role and taking sides in the culture . . . . Continue Reading »

Lincoln on Judicial Despotism

After the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education ordering the desegregation of public schools in Topeka, Kansas, lawsuits promptly were brought to dismantle legally sanctioned segregation in other states. One of these was Arkansas. There, Governor Orville Faubus and . . . . Continue Reading »

The End of Democracy? Our Judicial Oligarchy

This last term of the Supreme Court brought home to us with fresh clarity what it means to be ruled by an oligarchy. The most important moral, political, and cultural decisions affecting our lives are steadily being removed from democratic control. Only Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas . . . . Continue Reading »

Liberalism vs. Religious Freedom

Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases that Define the Debate over Church and State terry eastland november 1995, eerdmans, $31.50For all their concern about the rise of anti-democrats in post-Soviet Russia, when it comes to the decisive excellence of the American regime our . . . . Continue Reading »

Religion and the Court 1993

Religious litigants claimed victories in all four cases involving religious freedom to reach the Supreme Court this past term. Far from clear, however, is whether any of these hard-fought legal wins represents significant progress for citizens resisting the cultural forces bent on constricting the . . . . Continue Reading »

Nihilism and the End of Law

When President Bush nominated Judge Clarence Thomas to a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court, liberals opposed to confirming the nomination at first directed critical scrutiny to statements the nominee had made in favor of employing “natural law” in constitutional interpretation. The . . . . Continue Reading »

A Common Enemy, A Common Cause

On June 24, 1992 the Supreme Court handed down Lee v. Weisman, a decision that declares officially sponsored prayer at the graduation exercises of government schools to be unconstitutional. The following article is the previously unpublished text of an address given by Father John Courtney . . . . Continue Reading »

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