What About Clients? isn't a popular legal blog. It's terrible.

"Have laid off associates been working on their Visual resume and posted it to YouTube?:

Elie, for GOD'S SAKE proofread and think about what you're writing! All ten thousand of the laid-off associates are working on ONE single resume to post IT to YouTube?!

Jesus.

Update: "it" fixed to "them"....

You can't really blame Clinton for don't ask, don't tell. He wanted to lift the ban on gays in the military, but he didn't have congressional support to do so. Don't ask, don't tell was the best that he could do.

Hey Elie, even if you agree with substantive due process abortion jurisprudence, it is still quite literally a made up right that is not in the constitution.

Sotomayoar bareback!!!

ELIE, please post your law school transcript. You are a “journalist” and a legal commentator; you should have nothing to hide. I think we would all like to know what kind of grades you received. ELIE, please post your law school transcript.

Let's do one better and eliminate anonymous voting! That way we can actually intimidate people into voting against their conscience rather merely bullying them into silence.

Wow elie I couldn't even get past the first few paragraphs as it quickly turned into a race-bating diatribe. Forget the fact that you're disgustingly obese and can't write to save your life. Your racism and intolerance is what makes you so intolerable.

"...with you same-sex partner..."

YOUR same-sex partner. Dummy.

8 = Andy Martin

Clinton's also "basically in support" of straight marriage.

...except for that whole fidelity stuff.

LOL. Lithwick a star legal commentator. The funniest thing I've heard all day.

testes

Elie, you're meangingless diatribe makes you sound like yet another white hating house negro. I know that you believe that you have somehow been wronged by whitie, but admission into Harvard through affirmative action doesn';t qualify for your level of bitchitude.

And that you have token white friends does not make you any less of a contemptuous racist.

Elie, you douche,

A person could logically believe in a privacy right that doesn't include abortion.

"A popular legal blog is officially ending anonymous comments"

Guess no worries about that here, eh Roxanna?

8=16=Jeff Sessions

Elie, did you really learn at HLS that the "right to privacy" has something to do with the internet? If so, ask for your money back.

The made-up, extra-Constitutional, so-called "right to privacy" is a right to contraception (Griswold), abortion (Roe) and sodomy (Lawrence). It has nothing to do with the internet or any other notion of "privacy" floating around in your head.

God, has no one heard of a penumbra?

Does the Constitution grant me a penumbra to bitch slap Elie for his poorly written racist rants?

You can kiss my white Republican ass, Mystal. Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!

I clicked on Elie's True/Slant link, saw that his column is subtitled "The Black Side," and closed the page.

Just too beaten down to fight through more double standards.

It isn't so much that the right to the abortion is in the constitution, but rather it's forcing women to keep an unwanted fetus inside her body that is in violation of the constitution.

25 - Cite me that constitutional reference, please.

I've got a better argument: If you don't want to run the risk of a fetus inside your body, then keep your knees together.

Elie, Kash and Dave--Are most ATL readers Chinese and Singaporean dissidents? Dan

26: It's clearly implied in the third amendment.

No, but seriously, due process.

-25

28 -

By its very terms, due process is a PROCEDURAL requirement (e.g., notice and hearing) to be employed before one can be legally deprived of life, liberty, or property.

You, on the other hand, must be referring to that judge-made legal fiction known as "substantive due process." You know, that get-out-of-jail-free card that liberal justices invented to circumvent constitutional limitations on their ability to impose their subjective viewpoints.

Elie, you're meangingless diatribe makes you sound like yet another white hating house negro.

______

except house niggers weren't the "whitie" haters, the field niggers were.

if you are going to make stupid false equivalencies of white privilege and black self-worth, at least get your category of negro correct.

I second 24. The second I saw "The Black Side" I closed it. Let me guess.... whites suck, blacks rule, whitey is evil, blacks are the pure race, blah blah blah. We get it Elie, you're black, you hate whites, and you're racist. Honestly? I don't care.

MysTTTal, I don't think a "landslide" means what you think it means. If you want to see landslide elections, look at 1972 and 1984. Or even 1980 and 1988. See the difference between those years and 2008? Now don't make a fool of yourself again, but that might be expecting too much.

I have a bad case of emanations--remedy anyone/

The law commentators are all the law-proles I hated in Law School.

29, judge-made fictions are called the LAW OF THE LAND. So you don't like it. We all have our grievances with certain judgements. For example, I can all-cap the words "badges and incidents of slavery" but, thanks to judges, those words never meant anything at all.

32 - don't be foolish. America is clearly an entirely different place because 53% of 63% of eligible voters chose a young, charismatic, eloquent guy over an old fossil.

I made it past the trite "The Black Side" title, all the way to the point where Elie, in yet another profound moment of ignorance that he is famous for, actually implied that George H.W. Bush was conservative. Really?? I mean, really? You think he was a conservative, Elie? Isn't your B.A. in poli sci??

Then there's the total break down in logic where Elie implies that because Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing had mutterings of racism, that that means Jeff Sessions must have ACTUALLY been racist, and so has no moral ground to call Sotomayor racist. What??

Stupidest opinion I have read today: "if you believe in a right to privacy, you are probably going to support abortion." I hate to think I'd even need to explain why that statement is so intensely moronic, so I won't bother, because it speaks for itself.

Yet, it was immediately followed by an even dumber thought: "If you don’t believe in such a right, it becomes harder to defend abortion on a constitutional level." Elie, in case you haven't noticed, it's hard to defend abortion-on-demand as a constitutional right EVEN IF you believe in a right to privacy, simply because the logical leaps that need to be made to get to Roe from Griswold, et al., is such a large one, that legal scholars have spilled gallons of ink debating the matter. If you don't realize that -- regardless of whether or not you agree with Roe/Casey -- then you have no business blogging about legal issues of any kind.

"[Sotomayor] said of the wise Latina comment: “It was bad.”

I’m glad she cleared that up. That should be the last we hear about Sotomayor being racist, right?"

Elie, if then Judge Alito earnestly said, in any context, "I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black woman who hasn’t lived that life" would you be okay if he was able to arrest all further inquiry into the comment by sheepishly declaring, "it was bad"? God, I hate you, Elie.

34 -

Devastating legal analysis. "So you don't like it. We all have our grievances with certain judgments." Brilliant textual argument as to the validity of what amounts to a contradiction in terms (i.e., "substantive" due process).

Then again, responding to a textual argument with what amounts to "Shut up and bite the pillow" is just par for the liberal course. I guess I should be thrilled that I wasn't attacked by the three-pronged racist/hate-monger/homophobe ninja move.

That's progress for the progressives.

Do I have a 14th Amendment Privacy right to be free from hiring Black people in my work place, or simply my 1rst Amendment Right of Association as incorporated via the 14th Amendment?

Silly 38.

When it comes to race, you don't look to the Constitution - you make it up as you go along! That way, we can use arbitrary tests like "disparate impact" and fancy phrases like "narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling interest" to achieve a de facto quota system.

It's really fun and easy.

Wait, a guy whose "marriage" was a sham and whose behavior in office made a mockery of the institution of marriage also happens to support homosexual "marriage"??? I am shocked!!

37, "Due Process means notice and hearing because it's PROCEDURAL" is not a textual argument. Your contradiction in terms presumes you know what the term means, when the meaning of term is what is at issue.

But down to beeswax now. What is the point of having a procedure if the government doesn't have to meet a substantive burden before gainsaying your will or taking your liberty in that procedure? Totalitarian country courts have lots of procedures, but the processes all end the same way.
So where does that substance come from and is any of it truly fundamental? See how your dictionary runs out of gas when the going gets tough.

Anyway, reasonable people disagree about SDP, but its pretty ridiculous to say the doctrine is flawed because it's a "judge-made fiction." Constitutional Law is 100% judge-made and none of it is a fiction.

I demand that SCOTUS and the Obama administration compensate those whose slave property were stolen by the gov'ment, and give all of us back our god-damned right to Contract!

41 -

Asserting that the phrase "due process of law" means the process of law that you are due before your rights can be deprived is absolutely a textual argument. In fact, it's plain on its face. The Court has never denied the application of procedural rights to due process; rather, the controversy centers around the application of substantive determinations of reasonableness, or what is now known as substantive due process.

Your second paragraph perfectly illustrates how far this country has strayed from its roots. The Constitution, and more particularly the Bill of Rights, enumerates substantive restraints on the power of the federal government. These are the substantive protections afforded to what the Framers considered fundamental rights (e.g., the Takings Clause for property, Search & Seizure for privacy, etc.). The 10th Amendment, although rarely enforced, was meant to limit the power of the federal government in favor of the states. But we've lost touch with the concept of federalism, where local representatives are more in touch with the sentiments of the people and more likely to accurately represent their interests. And after all this, if the federal government acts in a manner displeasing to the people, we can always exercise our vote to affect change.

It is one thing to interpret the words of our founding documents in a sincere effort to decipher their original meaning, but it's quite another to impute buzz words to an ancient document in an ostensible effort to decide a case based on ideology. While judges "say what the law is," they are not given cart blanche to conjure up "penumbras" or "substantive due process" to suit their needs. This is judicial activism. This is judge-made law.

41,

Your analysis begs the question in two ways: first, that the problem you raise is actually 'addressed' by the Clause in question. Asking "what is the point" does not prove a function. Second, even if it performed that function, it does not follow that the Clause grants particular RIGHTS to perform that function (rather than simply being a restraint on government; and no, rights are not merely the flip-side of government inability/restrictions).

Sure, SDP is part of our law. The question is, however, whether it is a perversion of the Rule of Law.

43,

I like my response better

44

Wow, the repugs/racists are out in full force tonight...

46 = typical democrat failure of a response

"It isn't so much that the right to the abortion is in the constitution, but rather it's forcing women to keep an unwanted fetus inside her body that is in violation of the constitution."

And did th Constitution force that same woman to put an unwanted penis inside her vagina and allow that penis to ejaculate? Actions have consequences and ending the life of a future human should not be permissible in a developed society.

Its so easy for black kids from Livingston and white kids from Ohio to call all white republicans racists. Its the easy way to ameliorate their deep-rooted intellectual ineptitude.

They never bother to consider or realize the numbers of whites in this country who haven't a single ancestral figure even remotely connected to the slavery system they so abhor. Rather, they presume that "being white" renders one the beneficiary of same, despite the fact that they too, including blacks, are beneficiaries of that system. I purposefully doubt that any of you would rather have been reared in Monroevia or Soweto.

Reading Elie's jabbering on T/S is like shoving a drinking straw up your nose.

I think abortion falls under the takings clause. The government cannot take a woman's womb as its own property, and force it to be an incubator, without providing just compensation. On a related note, this of course would also necessitate universal healthcare.