Federal Judge Alex Kozinski Retires Over Sexual Harassment Accusations

He was hated by many on the left and they wanted him gone. And now they got their wish.

Hot Air: Judge Kozinski Retires

Alex Kozinski was a Reagan appointee and tended to be libertarian. For the 9th Circuit, that is pretty good. I am sorry to see him go from the 9th Circuit, but it does open up a new spot to be filled by President Donald Trump.  

Instapundit: Glenn Reynolds suggests Eugene Volokh to replace Kozinski

EBL: When is Al Franken resigning? (Dems seem ok with Gropey Franken staying on) and Perv Chris Matthews

Kozinski on Sixty Minutes 

Powerline: Today's Pervnado Chronicle 

Legal Insurrection: Another vacancy on the 9th Circuit

Instapundit: Democrats changing their mind about Gropey Al Franken

TOM: FL Trans-Update, Love Wins in FL, Rape County, and Ragey Jill Filipovic

President Trump's Conservative Picks For The Court Of Appeals

Scalia is likely pleased...

Powerline: Trump Selects Conservatives For Courts Of Appeal

Volokh Conspiracy: Jonathan Alder: President Trump putting forward strong conservative nominees

NRO: Who Is Amy Coney Barrett?

Federalist Society: Professor Amy Coney Barrett

Joan Larsen, Michigan Supreme Court 

Of course when it comes to GOP Judicial Picks, you can never really know until they go up the Supreme Court. But I know this, we are way better off with Trump's judicial picks than those picks going on in that Alternative Universe where Hillary won.

Hot Air: Here Come The Judges

NYT: Trump's Conservative Picks

NRO: Jonathan Adler: Here come the Judges? and Trump picks

AP: Trump moves to get more conservatives judges on the courts

Don Surber: Here Comes The Judges (Immigration, Illegal Aliens)

Instapundit: Trump to nominate 10 Federal Judges, Pack the Supreme Court?

Rule 5 and FMJRA

Garland, Texas Shooting and Cultural Cowardice

Garland Would Be Murderers Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi

Instapundit: Eugene Volokh: How Elton Simpson got acquitted previously on terrorist related charge.

Instapundit: Cowards and censors lose one: Charlie Hebdo receives free speech award, ISIS gathering in Mexico on the Texas border?, Charlie Hebdo censorship controversy at University of Minnesota,  and our morally corrupt ruling class

AoSHQ: SJW media blame the victim and not the attackers and Megyn Kelly shoots down Bill O'Reilly's cowardly stance, and the idiocy of "Sure people have a right to free speech, but…" 

EBL: Blaming the victims of jihadi terror and Jihadis come to Texas

Pam Geller, the law enforcement/guards, and event participants are heroes (no if, ands, or buts)

Drudge Report
TOM: Terror in Texas

Daily News: ISIS vows to kill Geller
Protein Wisdom: Punch Back Twice as Hard

Regular Right Guy: Muslim Radical identified
SooperMexican: ISIS vows terror campaign, names five targets

Legal Insurrection: The media's struggle to understand free speech
Breitbart: Geller calls out cowardly conservatives and vows another free speech event

American Power Blog: LA Times pushes "moral equivalence" in connection with attack

Eugene Volokh: Islamo-Non-Phobia and the Value of Defiance

Wombat: JWF: Media attacks Geller while ISIS calls for her slaughter
Regular Right Guy: Trump said what?
Instapundit: ISIS declares war on Pam Geller (my money is on Pam)
Legal Insurrection: Chris Cuomo is an idiot
Instapundit: Ban Hate Speech!
Twitchy: Winner of contest shuns media that won't show his drawing
American Power Blog: This is a war…
Camp of the Saints: @BoschFawstin standing tall: Profiles in Real Courage
Wombat: Gateway Pundit: Iman says Pam Geller should be slaughtered…

#CartoonsAreNotTheProblem pic.twitter.com/oUKIMTQ9Ps

— Brad Thor (@BradThor) May 6, 2015

Instapundit: AoSHQ is right (why so many talking heads dismiss Pam Geller)

Obamacare and the Supreme Court: What will John Roberts do with this case?

Allahpundit asks: Which way will Roberts go on this?

I am not so sure I agree with all of Allahpundit's analysis. While I do not have a huge amount of faith of the Chief Justice being the swing vote to gut Obamacare, I would not dismiss it out of hand. Given John Robert's opinion on the last Supreme Court Obamacare challenge, I could see the possibility of him applying a strict construction standard* and going the other way on this case (and Jonathan Alder at Volokh sees the possibility of the Court reaffirming the principal that IRS lacks the authority to authorize such tax credits where Congress failed to do so). Here's for hoping, anyway.  

Update:

More from AoSHQ

The Corner/Veronica de Rugy

Bench Memos/Ed Whelan

A chance to redeem himself?

Reason: Obamacare back on trial

Legal Insurrection

Instapundit: Don't chicken out Chief Justice!

Instapundit: Don't wimp out either!

*in reading and applying a statute as it is written.  

Just to be clear, SCOTUS took the case from the 4th Cir (King) that upheld subsidies, not the DC Cir Halbig case that struck them down.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) November 7, 2014

Law Blog Rankings: Congratulations to Instapundit, Volokh Conspiracy, Legal Insurrection and the Tax Professor Blog!

Rankings for Law Professor Blogs

Last Years Rankings

h/t Legal Insurrection

Unanimous Supreme Court declares President Obama's recess appointments illegal

Rebuke

So perhaps that Boehner lawsuit about Obama's illegal executive orders is not such a bad idea?

Other Supreme Court news: Unanimous decision striking down Massachusetts abortion clinic "buffer zones"

E.J. Dionne gets schooled over Friedrich Hayek and The Road To Serfdom

Koko the Sign Language Using Gorilla

E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Instapundit and The Other McCain both have this story by Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy (not hosted by the Dionne's own paper the Washington Post) on how E.J. Dionne got schooled (by his own comments) writing about Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. It is pretty apparent that Dionne never read the Road to Serfdom and is completely ignorant of what that book is about.

Instapundit's post prompted this comment by me:

Richard McEnroe at TOM had this gem of a comment about Dionne...

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: Finds that the Right to Bear (Carry) Arms is Enshrined in the Constitution; The State May Prohibit Open Carry, or Concealed Carry, But Not Both

I bet Kitty Genovese wished she had a right to bear arms...

Ace,  Gabe Malor, and Volokh Conspiracy had this breaking news. And it is good news.  The opinion is here.  It is three judges in the Ninth Circuit (not the whole panel, and one in dissent), but it has implications well beyond that.

Whether this particular case goes up or not (and it very well may go up), this issue is certainly going back to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Eugene Volokh: Some more analysis... and So what is next in this case?

Update:
Legal Insurrection
Volokh Conspiracy: San Diego Sheriff not seeking en banc review...(interesting appeal analysis with various states and cases).  

Bill Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act over turned by Supreme Court in 5-4 decision...

I am not surprised.  Kennedy writes opinion.  No jurisdiction to review Proposition 8.  

As I predicted on DOMA (http://t.co/khhC0jb7sx) and Prop 8 (http://t.co/zV5P0yeGaI). Go me!
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 26, 2013

Update:
DaTechGuy The Prop 8 decision is worse than you think...  (being from a one party People's Democratic Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he knows)
Bill and Hillary did not focus on the past history of DOMA
Wombat's Live at Five: Long Struggle Ahead on Marriage Debate

Confusion over "Miranda Rights" and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's interrogation and subsequent clamming up...

Ace, relying on Orin Kerr over at Volokh Conspiracy, does a great job explaining the wide spread confusion regarding Miranda and what it means.  So some magistrate judge (and for those of you who don't know that is the federal equivalent of a State Court commissioner or junior judge) decided to read Miranda "rights" to Dzhokhar and he stopped talking.

Will it make a big difference in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's murder trial?  Probably not.  I do not think investigators ever intended to use his admissions of doing it against him (they have proof of his involvement).  The goal of this was to find out who else was involved in this bombing: so as to prevent future bombings.  And to make sure all culpable people involved in these murders and mayhem are rounded up and prosecuted.  And this decision by this magistrate might have a big impact on that.

Update:
Who made the decision to send in the Magistrate Judge?
Breitbart is also asking questions...

A suggestion for our GOP Congress to do immediately on Obamacare...

Daniel Bernstein makes this suggestion at Volokh Conspiracy:

If I were a Republican Congressman I’d schedule a new vote in the House on the individual mandate, but replace the “penalty language” with language specifically acknowledging that the “penalty” is actually a tax. If the Democrats vote “aye,” they’ve acknowledged breaking the Obama pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. If the Democrats–specifically those who already voted for the mandate–vote “nay”, what becomes of the tax argument in future litigation?

h/t The Anchoress 

I respectfully disagree with the Anchoress' position on the Roberts' ruling (I do not like the ruling).  I am also not sure of what "future litigation" there will be. The Supreme Court has ruled.  I doubt any votes will change.  But politically it makes sense to put Democrats in a tough position.

From Smitty at TOM:  Ott finds humor in the decision...

It is this sort of thinking that got us in this mess...

The economics of the death star.  

I do not want to be too critical of this thought experiment,  

and beyond the economics are also the physics of it,  and people have thought about how it works,

but if you do not pay attention to the details you end up with this mess:

Prior EBL Posts:

• It is all Greek to me (or our Big Fat Greek Economy)
• Working Hard? Suckas
• Mark Steyn:  Thanks for ruining my weekend...
• Why we are so screwed:  The U.S. Economy and Medical entitlements...
• Hope?