Morning Docket: 10.12.07
* Al Gore, law school dropout, wins Nobel Peace Prize. [WSJ Law Blog; Washington Post; New York Times]
* Houston crime lab drops the ball, again. [CNN]
* Iraqi families sue Blackwater in U.S. court. [CNN]
* Lithwick's take on the interesting SCOTUS case, Medellin v. Texas. [Slate]
* McCartney-Mills divorce settlement could break records. [MSNBC]
* After typo, infants in Arkansas can't not be allowed to marry. [CNN]
(9) Comments
Posted In: Celebrities, Crime, Dahlia Lithwick, Deaths, Divorce Train Wrecks, Environmental Law, Iraq, Morning Docket, Rape, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Weddings
so kids can marry, but society will crumble if two men do.
Lat - Lookin' forward to November 8. Thanks for coming!
Al Gore invented global warming... and the Internets.
Question: what firm is going to represent Blackwater I wonder? I mean, would its awful reputation perhaps make firms question defending it? Maybe GD&C perhaps, or some other neocon shop?
YES, fifth post.
Guys, I know you heart Lithwick, but Slate has no credibility whatsoever. They quote Wikipedia as a source for their articles, and most of their articles are factually incorrect separate from that. One article regarding John Ford's The Searchers (considered one of the top 5 movies of all time) got basic facts about the movie absolutely wrong--facts that showed the author hadn't even bothered to watch the movie. And that's just one easy example.
Slate has no credibility. Linking to it decreases this blog's credibility. If Lithwick wants to be on AbovetheLaw.com, she can work for an employer that isn't the National Enquirer of Yuppie Lefties.
Heh. Arkansas.
On this Medellin case, what's Bush's impetus for taking the position he takes? Obviously he doesn't care about Medellin himself, and similarly, I don't think he's particularly interested in giving effect to international treaties, so why is he in this fight? I don't think he's just after expanding executive power for the sake of executive power, particularly this late in his presidency, so he must think that a beneficial ruling here will support something else he plans on doing. I don't think that he thinks he will ever have meaningful control directly over state courts even if he were to succeed in this case - that's too constitutionally problematic. So is it this line of questioning that Clement went down about it not being the ICJ judgment but the Presidential order giving effect to it that really matters in this case (and as Lithwick and Scalia suggested that then any Presidential memo has the force of law)? Or is there another point to win here for the President I'm missing?
The Federalist Society has the Texas Solicitor General with a really neat overview of the case. I recommend it.