I am just now beginning to make my way through the Iraq Study Group report issued today. I wanted to raise one small but interesting issue relating to Justice O'Connor's service on the study group. We all know various historical examples in which a sitting or former justice served an important political function (John Jay, Robert Jackson, Earl...
Say what you will about the Independent's politics, the paper knows how to make a point. Today's cover: ...
Having enjoyed my experience flying on a variety of foreign airlines, I for one would welcome increased foreign investment and competition in the still-struggling, always annoying U.S. airline industry. Yesterday, the U.S. Transportation Department took a large step back from its earlier efforts to globalize the U.S. airline industry by withdrawing a proposed rule that would have allowed some...
Otherwise, not too much change here. US Citizenship and Immigration Services (the inheritor of the "benefits" side of the INS - who ever thought we'd miss it) has unveiled a new version of the so-called civics test administered to naturalization applicants, many years in the offing which will be used on a pilot basis in select markets over the...
The U.S. space agency NASA announced plans yesterday to establish a permanent base on the moon by 2020. Other than its enormous cost, this seems sufficiently remote in time as to cause little international reaction. Unlike the new island Duncan noted last week, no nation has yet claimed sovereignty over the Moon as a whole under traditional principles...
See this op-ed in the L.A. Times. Interesting that even Catholic countries are getting on this bandwagon. Immigration law is likely to be a flashpoint on the question, as the U.S. persists in refusing to recognize same-sex relationships for purposes of preferential admission. ...
There has been some chatter recently in the blogosphere (at TNR’s Open University, and here, here, and here) and elsewhere about reviving the draft or some other sort of mandatory national service. Almost of all this is coming from center-left Democrats. Charlie Rangel has been talking this up for some time, and has reintroduced a bill which would...
Steve Clemons of The Washington Note has a number of interesting thoughts on the winners, losers, and implications of Bolton's resignation:1. John Bolton's resignation reflects a loss of ground by Jesse Helms' inspired 'pugnacious nationalists'. It is also a clear loss for Vice President Cheney and his loyal followers. Jim Lobe captures this quite well in a piece he has...
For those of you who have too much time on your hands, a translated version of the verdict -- all 300 pages of it! -- is available exclusively on the Grotian Moment blog here. I hope to post my thoughts on the verdict next week. It will take me that long to read the damn thing! ...
This really seals it. John Bolton's controversial tenure as U.N. Ambassador is over. I still don't understand why Bolton was so loved by conservatives or so reviled by liberals. He didn't accomplish much that deserves conservative support nor did he do anything that explains the liberal vitriol directed against him. Nor is his position as U.N. Ambassador,...
To the best of my knowledge the issue of constitutional comparativism did not come up in the voluntary school integration cases that were argued today. (Please correct me if I am wrong. See transcripts here and here). But there were two important amici briefs that squarely presented the issue. (See here for the brief of Human Rights...
Augusto Pinochet has received last rights following a heart attack. Although still alive, he appears to be in imminent danger of death. If he dies, it will bring one of the darkest chapters in Chilean history to an unsatisfying end; as I have noted before, courts have only recently begun to strip Pinochet of the general immunity he...
