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Federal Judiciary

Bench Memos - National Review Online

Covering The Supreme Court -- from National Review Online

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Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 05:00:54

One Bad Mess, Two Decent Plans

Posted on November 22, 2010
The Democrats run from a Democrat?s deficit plan. Is there any chance we can come to grips with our short-term and long-term fiscal problems -- the huge current federal budget deficit and the huge looming increases in entitlement spending? Maybe so...

All-American Cornucopia of Gratitude

Posted on November 22, 2010
My Southern Thanksgiving with Phyllis Schlafly on the Cayman Islands I've spent the last week on a fundraising cruise for National Review. We dropped by the Cayman Islands, Grand Turk, and Cozumel...

An Airport-Security Alternative

Posted on November 20, 2010
Full-body scanners should be part of TSA?s toolkit, but their use should be targeted. Airport security is a necessary evil. It can be intrusive, even humiliating. But it's also the last chance we have to stop al-Qaeda from smuggling weapons onto our airplanes...

How Should Terrorists Be Tried?

Posted on November 20, 2010
Neither military commissions nor civilian courts are right for the job, but a compromise option is there for the taking. Omar Khadr is an al-Qaeda terrorist who killed one American soldier and maimed another...

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The Path to Economic Disaster

Posted on November 19, 2010
There?s still time to turn around. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's plan to buy back $600 billion of outstanding U.S. Treasury bonds is an astonishing act of brinkmanship, splendid in its boldness, perhaps, but in fact, insane...

Where Are the Conservative Novelists?

Posted on November 19, 2010
Think about the politics of today?s universities, and it is not surprising that creative-writing programs produce so few conservatives. Toward the end of the question-and-answer period at a recent talk of mine at the local Barnes & Noble, an audience member stood up and asked, 'Are readers of your novels ever surprised to discover you're a conservative?' The natural response is that there's no inherent tension between conservative thought and literary expression -- even if not everyone realizes it...

Pelosi in the Wilderness

Posted on November 19, 2010
It's hard to lead a House minority that belongs to the same party as the president. Nancy Pelosi will soon return to the job of minority leader, which she held under President Bush before becoming speaker...

A Time for Strength?

Posted on November 19, 2010
The president must fight terror with firmness, not vacillation. The acquittal this week of Ahmed Ghailani, the first former Guantanamo (Gitmo) detainee to be tried in a civilian court, on all but one of more than 280 charges of conspiracy and murder in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was a stunning reminder of the consequences of two years of naïve and dangerous national-security policies by the Obama administration...

Cool, Dispassionate Reason

Posted on November 19, 2010
A review of <i>Cool It.</i> Skeptics of cap-and-trade have found their cinematic answer to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in Bjorn Lomborg's new documentary, Cool It. Lomborg, 45, has an innocent-sounding résumé: He is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a Danish think tank that researches cost-effective ways for governments to spend aid money...

Eric Holder's War

Posted on November 19, 2010
A courtroom is the wrong place to fight it. The Obama administration wants us to believe that one out of 285 ain't bad. A jury in New York acquitted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani on 284 out of 285 charges for his part in the murder of 224 people in the U...

Obama?s Power-Mad Cell-Phone Czar

Posted on November 19, 2010
He wants to require devices that disable phones in cars. America is in debt past its eyeballs. Unemployment remains stuck near double digits. Small and large businesses, unions and insurers are all clamoring for Obamacare waivers in droves...

Don?t Touch My Junk

Posted on November 19, 2010
The junk man?s revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who's ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube -- where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a 'flotation device' -- has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac, and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond...

Why Sarah Palin Shouldn?t Run

Posted on November 19, 2010
Give her a TV show, not the presidency. By telling Barbara Walters that she thinks she can defeat President Obama, Sarah Palin has dimmed hopes cherished by sensible Republicans that she might decide against a run for the White House in 2012...

Stop Slamming China

Posted on November 19, 2010
It?s foolish for Obama to bash America?s principal supplier and lead banker. President Obama should lay off China. The only thing keeping U.S. capitalism afloat these days is Chinese Communism...

How to Reform Islam

Posted on November 18, 2010
Self-criticism is the key. I have often argued that one of the redemptive graces of Western civilization is self-criticism, a deeply ingrained habit that has enabled Western man to reflect, to adjust, to improve his beliefs, to correct and change his situation -- in short, to reform...

Mitch Daniels's Next Hurdle

Posted on November 18, 2010
Cutting Indiana?s budget even further will be hard, but a newly Republican legislature will help. Right after the 2008 general election, in which Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Indiana since Lyndon Johnson, Gov...

Republican Reading

Posted on November 18, 2010
As in 1994, the GOP House takeover was fueled by books and ideas. But this time the reading list is deeper and more varied. In 1994, the last time the Republicans wrested control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats, Newt Gingrich was the intellectual and political force behind the takeover...

Blue Collars, Red Voters

Posted on November 18, 2010
From the November 29, 2010, issue of NR. Less than two years after a Time magazine cover proclaimed Republicans an 'Endangered Species,' the GOP is back in black. With its largest number of House seats since the election of 1946 and its largest number of state legislative seats since 1928, the Republican party seems to have repopulated its native environment...

The Fed?s $600 Billion Bond Buy Lays an Egg Here and Abroad

Posted on November 18, 2010
Can the Fed persist in a policy that has stirred such scathing criticism? I don't claim to be an expert on monetary policy or international finance, but I've been astonished by the degree of disrespect expressed here and abroad toward the latest economic policies of President Barack Obama and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke...

Slow START

Posted on November 18, 2010
Should a lame-duck Congress ratify a treaty with Russia? Should the Tea Party weigh in? You don't need to be in the Tea Party to believe that members of Congress ought to read and understand bills before signing them into law...

The George W. Bush Fixation

Posted on November 18, 2010
Obama?s fixation on his predecessor could consume his presidency. Barack Obama remains fixated on George W. Bush. For nearly two years, President Obama and his team have prefaced their explanations for the tough economy, the tough finances, and the tough situation abroad with a 'Bush did it' chorus...

A Compromise Verdict, and No Winners

Posted on November 18, 2010
The Ghailani verdict was irrational, but no more so than the decision to try him as a civilian in the first place. A federal jury in Manhattan has returned what is transparently a compromise verdict in the terrorism trial of Ahmed Ghailani...

Now More than Ever

Posted on November 18, 2010
The present age demands a clearinghouse of traditional ideas. From the Corner to its daily collection of articles, National Review Online is a forum for center-right thought, but 'center-right' implies no party line...

The GOP?s Budget Cowardice

Posted on November 17, 2010
Republicans need to get serious about fiscal responsibility. The draft proposal offered last week by the chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was only the first shot in what is expected to be a very long war over how to eliminate the federal deficit and begin paying down our national debt...

Thus Does the Economy Grow

Posted on November 17, 2010
From the November 29, 2010, issue of NR. The American people did not give power to congressional Republicans; they took it away from congressional Democrats. Republicans now have an opportunity to prove that they deserve majority status -- that they can operate not just as an opposition party, but as responsible leaders who are willing to make hard choices and solve problems...

A Candidate?s Education

Posted on November 17, 2010
An inside look at how neophyte Ron Johnson learned the ropes. In early April of 2010, Michelle Litjens, the chairwoman of the Winnebago County Republican party, found a local guy who was thinking of running for the U...

Without You, We?d Be Kaput

Posted on November 17, 2010
As Bill Buckley used to say, ?We exist to make a point, not a profit.? Can you stand one more pitch, from one more National Review guy? (And when I say 'guy,' I certainly don't mean to exclude National Review gals...

Schakowsky?s Lack of Principle

Posted on November 17, 2010
The Illinois Democrat has proposed a deficit-reduction plan that would achieve the opposite of its supposed purposes. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) has come out with her own alternative to the Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction plan...

American Rights,
American Responsibilities

Posted on November 17, 2010
Big government invites corruption and imperils the generosity of the American spirit. In America today, we need to trust ourselves — not look to others to take care of us. As a society, we bloom when we allow individuals to work hard and enjoy what they can achieve...

Where?s My Obamacare Waiver?

Posted on November 17, 2010
Everyone should get the break that Big Labor is getting. More than 1 million Americans have escaped the clutches of the Democrats' destructive federal health-care law. Lucky them. Their employers and labor representatives wisely applied for Obamacare waivers earlier this fall and got out while the getting was good...

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