* Noticed the big changes in US News' law school rankings? Here's your primer. [Reuters]
* When pigs cause splits: Who knew pork could fragment SCOTUS so? [Slate]
* Not only are the incessant conversations about the debt ceiling annoying — the whole concept of the ceiling could be unconstitional. [Vox]
* Bearing witness is hard enough without having to deal with a judge's unwelcome remarks. [ABA Journal]
* Guess which state doubled down on it being okay to own a gun before your first beer? [Reuters]
* The fiscal impasse in our nation’s capital is over! The government shutdown is over! Obamaphones for everyone!!!!! [Washington Post]
* Tim Geithner was recently deposed as part of a lawsuit alleging that the government bailout of AIG was unconstitutional. Muammar Gaddafi was less recently deposed as part of a coup alleging that his female bodyguards were unconstitutionally sexy. [Fox Business]
* Berkeley Bird Beheader begins boot bivouac. [Fox5 Vegas via Las Vegas Law Blog]
* Cory Booker (Yale Law ’97) won a Senate seat last night, promptly bumping Lat from the cover of the next Yale Law alumni magazine. It was the Halloween issue — the annual Boo Haven edition. [ABC News]
* Mark Cuban was acquitted of insider trading charges yesterday. In related news, this basset hound loves fans. [CBS News]
* Brooklyn Law faces a possible debt downgrade from Standard & Poor’s. The school’s unemployed graduates, substandard and poor, have yet to weigh in. [Crain's New York Business]
* In other law school news, Chicago-Kent announces an interesting new initiative (with a Whopper of a name). [IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law (press release)]
* “There are no magic bullets here.” Caught in a “trilemma,” President Obama is up against the wall and is running out of options. He soon might be forced to choose the least unconstitutional solution to the nation’s problems. [Bloomberg]
* During the government shutdown, it certainly wouldn’t be worth it for furloughed employees to hire lawyers to fight their “essential” versus “non-essential” determinations — please, like they’ll be able to afford legal representation right now. [National Law Journal]
* It seems some partners at both Dentons and McKenna Long & Aldridge aren’t fans of a possible tie-up, so they’re heading for the hills as fast as they can. Perhaps it simply wasn’t meant to be? [Am Law Daily]
* It’s time for our favorite show, As the Weil Turns! Partners from various offices are departing for other Biglaw firms, and we can now confirm that Steven Peck is a new face at Proskauer. [Law360 (sub. req.)]
* We told you last week that Matthew Martens of Fabulous Fab fame would be leaving the SEC, but now we know where he’s landing. Congrats on your new home at WilmerHale. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* Ohio is the latest state to offer “hazy” abortion restrictions that skirt the very edge of Supreme Court jurisprudence in order to make women feel guilty about their own right to choose. [New York Times]
* “Without makeup she looks like the Joker in Batman.” Joan Rivers is locked in a $15 million condo catfight with a Canadian socialite who isn’t afraid to pull punches. Meow! [New York Daily News]
* “We’re in uncharted territory right now.” The federal courts made it through the first week of the shutdown, but they’re approaching “here be dragons” land in terms of funding. [National Law Journal]
* “It would be the most interesting case in decades.” Legal experts (read: law professors from T14s) debate whether President Obama can ignore the debt ceiling for much longer. [New York Times]
* People are getting out of Biglaw while the getting’s good. Reed Smith’s global managing partner is leaving the firm for a general counsel gig after 13 years at the helm. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]
* Law firm leaders met to discuss how to empower women attorneys, and agreed it’s wise to parade them around in front of clients. Getting to work on those clients’ cases is another question. [Blog of Legal Times]
* No debacles here, contrary to past precedent: Kasowitz Benson poached two superior legal minds from NBCUniversal and welcomed them to the firm to open an entertainment litigation practice. [Bloomberg]
* Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers want their client’s prison restrictions to be lifted and are raising a slew of constitutional claims. We think the members of his fan club are the only ones feeling sorry for him. [CNN]
* The NBA is suing its players for failing to negotiate in good faith. Funny, I think the players are acting with the same “good faith” NBA owners do when they steal teams from loving fan bases or hold cities hostage until they build new arenas. [WSJ Law Blog] * Having a drunk woman angrily […]
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There was one cut in the debt ceiling deal that really illustrates how little the president cares for his young, college-educated constituents. To save about $26.3 billion dollars, the debt ceiling deal eliminates the graduate student loan subsidy. Education certainly seems like a surefire way to kill one's economic future....
Havoc on the Hill has an excellent visualization about how this debt ceiling thing went down. It’s funny. It’s funnier if this thing gets passed. Check it out. The Great Debt Ceiling Debate [Havoc on the Hill]
* This whole debt crisis has been a little like Deal or No Deal, except that show had a much better host. Howie Mandel can get people to make a deal with the banker in under 60 minutes. Obama? Not so much. [POLITICO] * Real life intellectual property matters be damned, because even virtual horses […]
* I’m flying this weekend for the first time in over a year (it couldn’t be avoided). I’ll need to brush up on what rights I still retain during air travel. As long as I acknowledge TSA’s droit du seigneur to my wife, I’m allowed to carry an unopened water bottle on board, right? [Legal […]
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* I want Congress to stop risking Armageddon with this debt ceiling thing. But our new Dealbreaker writer, Matt Levine, thinks our leaders are being crazy, crazy like a fox. [Dealbreaker] * Look, the way to deal with racial profiling is to stop racial profiling, not to prohibit companies from doing criminal background checks on […]
The impasse over the debt ceiling continues. Could an obscure provision of the Fourteenth Amendment ride to the rescue of President Obama? Legal scholars discuss.
