Legal Commentary

Is it Medina or "Neither of the Other Two" who's "coming on strong" for the Texas GOP gubernatorial nomination?

Posted on February 10, 2010
After a long blogging hiatus, I wrote last Friday about the 2010 Texas gubernatorial race. I was dismissive of the chances of GOP candidate Debra Medina, who's identified with both the Tea Party movement and, perhaps less closely, with the 2008 enthusiasts over Ron Paul's presidential candidacy...

Beldar handicaps Perry vs. Hutchison vs. White

Posted on February 05, 2010
Regarding Glenn Reynolds? item, linking a Los Angeles Times blog post, about a new Rasmussen Reports Poll suggesting that in the 2010 Texas gubernatorial race, either incumbent Rick Perry, retiring U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, or self-identified Tea Party supporter Debra Medina would defeat the likely Democratic challenger, Bill White: It?s way, way too early to handicap the final Texas...

Blame where due

Posted on October 02, 2009
Of course, it's entirely George W. Bush's fault that Chicago didn't get the 2016 Olympic Games. ******* UPDATE (Fri Oct 2 @ 12:32 p.m.): I wrote the one-sentence post above as a joke, based just on reading a news headline on my Blackberry over lunch. But when I turned to the New York Times' report on the International Olympic Committee's...

NY appellate court throws Gunga Dan vs. CBS lawsuit out of court in its entirety

Posted on September 29, 2009
Just before last Christmas, in my most recent post about Dan Rather's much-publicized lawsuit against CBS, I explained that CBS' lead lawyer ? my former law partner Jim Quinn ? was operating under an unfortunate set of circumstances, as a result of which it was virtually certain that the case wouldn't shed any further or more definitive light on the...

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In the Obama Administration, closing "Guantanamo was everyone's part-time job"

Posted on September 25, 2009
If you need another reason to question the Obama Administration's basic ability to provide the single most important function of the federal government ? keeping America safe from foreign enemies ? read this WaPo story. The Spin True to form, the WaPo's writers and editors carefully withhold the screamingly obvious judgment that drips from the facts they report, and indeed,...

End legislative malpractice by amending the Constitution

Posted on September 23, 2009
From University of Tennessee constitutional law professor Glenn Reynolds, aka InstaPundit, an item with which I fiercely agree: DAVID POST: Should Lawmakers, Um, Read the Laws They?re Voting On? Sounds like something you?d ask in a third-grade civics class...

Mike Leach's misplaced pique

Posted on September 20, 2009
Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach threw a middle-sized fit Saturday night during Tech's 34-24 loss to the Texas Longhorns, insisting that the officials had improperly frustrated an attempted trick play by the Red Raiders. According to the Dallas Morning News: Texas Tech coach Mike Leach was upset with the officials at halftime...

Obama's arrogance hits new heights, with no limit in sight

Posted on September 20, 2009
The President of the United States and his senior staff have bragged to the New York Times that they have asked the sitting governor of the State of New York, David Paterson, to drop out of the 2010 New York gubernatorial race. Speaking for attribution but not under their own names, "two senior administration officials and a New York Democratic...

Beldar summarizes Obama's health care address to Congress

Posted on September 09, 2009
Once upon a time - on a magic day when the calendars all said "Oh, nine! Oh, nine! Oh nine!" - King Canute rode on his Magic Pony down the aisle of the Wizards' Castle until he reached the pretty blue carpet at the bottom. Even though he wasn't at the seashore, when he climbed down from his pony, the...

You know you're an SOB when ...

Posted on August 31, 2009
Funniest quote I've read in the Houston Chronicle in some time: ?It doesn't matter if you have a snowsuit on - if you're touching customers, they're touching you - they're a sexually oriented business,? Geffin told the judge. ?You can call yourself a restaurant, you can call yourself an ice cream truck, but if your drawing card is topless dancers,...

Thoughts on the death of Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009)

Posted on August 26, 2009
I extend my condolences to the family and friends and partisans and allies and admirers of Sen. Edward M. ("Ted") Kennedy (D-MA) upon his passing. Alas, my first two reactions to the news were not flattering to him, and indeed they are likely to annoy many of those to whom I've just extended my condolences...

"Sotomayor & Associates" ... meh, who cares?

Posted on July 08, 2009
Nothing has happened since May 26 to make me change my initial take on Pres. Obama's nomination of U.S. Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill Justice Souter's seat on the Supreme Court. (That take, in short, was this: Obama would never nominate anyone of whom I approved, and Judge Sotomayor, if confirmed, will vote the same way as Souter has,...

In memorium: James Dillard Dyer, Jr. (12/24/22 to 6/22/09)

Posted on June 22, 2009
[As written and released today for publication in the Lamesa [Texas] Press-Reporter and other west Texas publications, by his family:] Lamesa native and life-long resident James Dillard Dyer, Jr. ? a World War II veteran who became a long-time merchant and civic leader ? died peacefully in his sleep during the early morning hours of Monday, June 22, 2009...

POTUS as the Great Defender of the Faith

Posted on June 05, 2009
Did you have the same reaction that I did back in 2001 when - in an official speech specifically directed to the Christian world during one of his trips to the Middle East, a speech whose official theme was "A New Beginning" - President George W. Bush firmly rejected the constitutional separation of church and state, and instead proclaimed that...

Beldar's initial take on the Sotomayor nomination

Posted on May 26, 2009
Elections have consequences and, as he's prone to remind us, Obama won. I firmly believe that the President of the United States has the right to choose who he wants as his nominees to the Supreme Court, and that the Senate, in its advice and consent role, ought to confirm those nominees unless they're objectively unqualified...

Supermax prisons' no-escape record doesn't answer concerns about moving Gitmo terrorists onto U.S. soil

Posted on May 20, 2009
I'm already very tired of hearing the stupidest new talking point of the mainstream media: "Why worry about bringing terrorists from Gitmo to the mainland U.S., when we've never had a single escape from a federal 'Supermax' prison?" Duh. This is the sort of 9/10/01 thinking, the sort of "treat global terrorism like a domestic law enforcement problem," that is...

Obama's budget: "Smart people" decided "what we need to do," with no limits and no concern about revenues or deficits

Posted on May 14, 2009
It's a couple of weeks old now, but I just caught up enough in my magazine reading to reach Ryan Lizza's article in the May 4th New Yorker entitled Money Talks, a report on how the Obama Administration has gone about preparing the federal budget. And as is so often the case in New Yorker articles, what stuns me about...

Beldar on Posner on conservatism

Posted on May 13, 2009
U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit is a fine jurist, and a profound thinker and writer on matters economic and legal. To the extent he and Barack Obama rubbed an occasional elbow as part-time faculty at Chicago Law School, he's probably as close to a "conservative" as the latter encountered ? but that's very much a comment...

Star ____?

Posted on May 10, 2009
In anticipation of my going to see the new movie tomorrow, I have this simple question for you all: Star Trek or Star Wars?Make it so: Star TrekThe Force is with me: Star Wars pollcode.com free polls

Great competitors among Rockets and Greyhounds

Posted on May 10, 2009
Most Houston sports fans, including me, are reveling in one of the most satisfying Houston Rockets wins in many years ? a thorough drubbing of the perpetual rockstar team of the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers, by a final score of 99-87 that somewhat conceals the Rockets' overall domination (including a 29-point lead in the early fourth quarter)...

Holocaust 2

Posted on May 08, 2009
Even in this long winter of discontent for conservatives, I am optimistic about America. Even this early on, it's obvious to me that the Obama Administration is wearing clown shoes. Just like Hollywood tries to make Tom Cruise look 6' 2" through creative camera angles, shot composition, and discretely hidden wooden boxes and ramps, the mainstream media will continue to...

Review: Lowry & Korman's "Banquo's Ghosts"

Posted on May 06, 2009
I adore a good spy novel. When I was in grade school, my mother (of all people) turned me on to Ian Fleming's James Bond books. (She had to telephone the local librarian to confirm that it was okay for me to check books out of the "adult" section.) And I've liked, and read, the genre ever since...

OMG! Like, before he was 30, Obama was a law review editor! ZOMG-OMG!!1!

Posted on May 03, 2009
From the New York Times: Many American presidents have been lawyers, but almost none have come to office with Barack Obama?s knowledge of the Supreme Court. Before he was 30, he was editing articles by eminent legal scholars on the court?s decisions. I'm sure the ghost of William Howard Taft, who'd been a judge on the U...

Another well-crafted but foolish paragraph of Peggy Noonan's with which I disagree

Posted on May 03, 2009
Peggy Noonan can surely do better than allusions to '70s soft-rock hits like this one, even when she's right on the substance: ... [Obama's] presentation [during the past week] was low-key, authoritative, and had the look and feel of moderation. When you can give this impression while some of your decisions?for instance, on the legitimate cost and reach of government?are...

Why I celebrate Chrysler Corporation's petition for Chapter 11 reorganization

Posted on May 02, 2009
Count me as one person entirely unsurprised to read that representatives of the Obama Administration were making outrageous and improper threats to the Chrysler bondholders whose refusal to capitulate ended up in Chrysler's Chapter 11 filing. White & Case bankruptcy lawyer Tom Lauria gave a radio interview to Detroit talk radio host Frank Beckman, portions of which are transcribed here,...

Lines that cannot have come from a conservative's pen

Posted on April 30, 2009
Quoth Kathleen Parker (italics hers, boldface mine): As a recovering obsessive-compulsive, the past 100 days have been a torture of quantification. How?s he doing SO far? Is he the change we?ve been waiting for? Is Barack Obama really a centrist, as so many (including I) had hoped? Or is he one of them dadgum fascist-Marxist-commie-Moozlems?! Obama is who he said...

Specter

Posted on April 28, 2009
The Obama Administration and the Democratic Party have just welcomed a hand grenade, sans pin, on board their bandwagon. Anyone who ever counts on Arlen Specter for anything is likely to be disappointed. There have been many precedents to prove this: The only thing Specter has ever been reliable at is being unreliable...

NYT again misreports maximum potential penalty that could have been sought against surviving Somali pirate

Posted on April 22, 2009
U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that the surviving Somali pirate captured by the U.S. Navy after attempting to hijack the M/V Maersk Alabama, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, will stand trial as an adult...

Review: Beldar & kids see "Duplicity"

Posted on April 19, 2009
"Twisty!" That's the one-word verdict of my son Adam on the corporate espionage thriller, Duplicity, which he, my daughter Molly, and I saw early this afternoon. Molly and I not only joined in that verdict, but concurred with Adam's degree of substantial satisfaction in pronouncing it...

Libs scrape the bottom of a stinky, stinky barrel to recycle Spitzer

Posted on April 17, 2009
Anyone who actually believes that disgraced whoremonger and cosmically comical hypocrite Eliot Spitzer has "mastered the art of the recovery," and that he's now been "rehabilitated," is simply delusional. Anyone who's trying to persuade you of that is someone with an extremely liberal agenda ? and someone who's in an ill-concealed panic because they see how thin their team's bench...

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