Various news sources in America and abroad are reporting that the United States has Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Salaiman Abu Ghaith, in custody. Abu Ghaith acted as an al-Qaeda spokesman, with possible involvement in terrorist attacks against the U.S., including 9/11. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit …
This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced a potential filibuster deal that, among other problematic provisions, limits post-cloture debate on federal district court nominees (and non-Cabinet-level officials). Senators currently have up to 30 hours of post-cloture debate on the merits of …
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a General Counsel and legal staff to ensure that the agency’s actions are lawful. Did they take the day off last Thursday? We have to question whether the department lawyers were consulted at all about the “Information Memorandum” issued by HHS …
Today’s Supreme Court decision on Obamacare—though it is tragic with regard to statutory interpretation and health care policy—has two significant constitutional silver linings. At the constitutional level, the stakes are much more significant and resistant to political influence. In short, the American people may elect new representatives to repeal Obamacare, …
Today’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of nonunion workers in Knox v. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) significantly strengthens nonunion members’ First Amendment rights not to contribute to union political activities. California requires state employees who choose not to join a government union to nonetheless pay the union for expenses …
As a strong defender of executive power (when properly exercised) and executive privilege (when properly invoked), I am concerned when claims of executive power or privilege are abused for any reason—especially if they are invoked to shield potential wrongdoing. In addition to shielding the wrongdoing, it jeopardizes the very executive …
The Court’s morning session concentrated on whether, if the individual mandate is held unconstitutional (as looks increasingly likely after yesterday’s argument), it can be cleanly severed from the rest of ObamaCare, and if not, what other portions of the act must the Court strike down with it. The Court’s afternoon …
The packed hearing room of the Supreme Court was a who’s who of lawyers and political leaders this morning, all of whom witnessed what was an undeniably bad day for the Obama Administration and its defense of the President’s health care law. Paul Clement and Michael Carvin, attorneys representing those …
Call it the main event: after a day puzzling over whether Obamacare’s fines on those who don’t buy insurance constitute a tax or a penalty—an important threshold issue, to be sure, but one that hasn’t quite captured the public’s imagination—the Court today will hear oral argument regarding one of the …
The biggest news from the Supreme Court’s oral argument on Obamacare today is that no justice indicated he or she would be troubled reaching the merits of the larger constitutional challenges to the law. The issue today was whether the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) would bar the Court from considering the …
