Bush to Nominate Alito to Supreme Court

Initial report by Ron Fournier of the Associated Press.

More at Bench Memos.

Social Security and the Insurance Illusion

Will Wilkinson in The Freeman [PDF]

Science, Technology, and The Public Interest

New Atlantis says The Public Interest, perhaps the greatest policy journal in modern American history, was shuttered this spring after forty years. Starting with its first issue, The Public Interest paid serious attention to the questions raised by modern science and technology, and we are pleased to offer excerpts from some of its best articles on everything from the IQ debate to the evils of automobiles to the political significance of the Internet.

Cultural Intelligence

Dr. Julia Riva in Studies in Intelligence reviews Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures by P. Christopher Earley and Soon Ang

The End of the Population Movement

Adam Werbach in The American Prospect says The challenge isn't population control. It's sustainable development, built upon the emancipation of women and economic opportunity.

Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction

Gene Callahan in The Independent Review reviews Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction by Paul Franco.

When the Post Banned Anonymous Sources

Ben H. Bagdikian in American Journalism Review recounts that Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee once decided the paper should no longer use unnamed sources.

The Post's competitors, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, published important news stories that the Post did not have. The paper's readers were deprived of significant information. For a fierce competitor like Bradlee, that was intolerable.

The experiment ended after two days.

Looking in the Wrong Place

Marci Kanstoroom in Education Next

Lack of support sinks nomination

Craig Gilbert reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

[Harriet] Miers is one of only 11 nominations to be withdrawn in the history of Supreme Court confirmations, according to a background paper prepared by the Congressional Research Service. She is the first official nominee to be withdrawn from consideration for the court since 1968. Douglas Ginsburg was pulled by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, but he was never formally nominated.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Amy Kolz in The American Lawyer says If there's a message in its annual survey, it's that associates want to be heard.

A Progressive's Progress

Steven F. Hayward in the Claremont Review of Books reviews Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays by Christopher Hitchens.

Beyond parody at the Times

Notes and Comment in The New Criterion

The truth is, deterioration at the [The New York] Times is a rich subject, full of cautionary tales about how a great liberal institution can go rancid by making a caricature of its principles and adulterating its work.

'We haven't experienced this in forever'

Shamus Toomey, et al., in today's Chicago Sun-Times,

It's been so long since a Chicago team won the World Series that the last time around the mayor was a Republican.

Panel votes to create agency with broad powers to fight corruption

Patrick Marley reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

One day after former state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala was convicted of two felonies, the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted Wednesday to create a new agency with broad powers to investigate and prosecute politicians for violating ethics and elections laws. ...

The bill (SB 1) would merge the state Ethics Board and Elections Board into the new Government Accountability Board, which would have an enforcement division that, unlike the current boards, could prosecute politicians for criminal violations.

One lead-paint defendant settles

Jamaal Abdul-Alim reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that after remand from the state Supreme Court (see this earlier post), one of the lead pigment manufacturers sued on the expanded risk-contribution theory has settled for $35,000.

Capitol Update For the Week Of October 17, 2005

Our State Bar's legislative newsletter headlines its report of the veto of the "Conscience Clause" bill as "Governor Doyle Says 'No' to State Republicans' Efforts to Curb Patients' Rights." It reports,

Governor Doyle used his veto pen to stop legislation that would have allowed health care professionals to place their own political beliefs above consideration of the health of the patient.

In other news,
- Senator Stepp to Step Down
- Med Mal Reforms on the Fast Track

Compromise restores some courts funding

Dave Umhoefer reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the the Milwaukee County Board's Finance and Audit Committee voted 4 to 3 for an additional $2.9 million for court operations, and to not eliminate any positions. The amount is not enough to pay all the current positions through the fiscal year.

Miers Withdraws

Here is her letter to President Bush [PDF] (via Kathryn Jean Lopez at Bench Memos).

P.S. as Charles Krauthammer predicted.

P.P.S. Hugh Hewitt's anticipatory post-mortem.

Courts tussle shows reality of fiscal crisis

Patrick McIlheran writes in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

These aren't county services causing this pain. It's the county's pension system. The contribution the county was supposed to make next year, $46 million, is about what taxpayers will be levied to pay for all parks and public infrastructure. But while parks mean picnics, pensions mean your money goes off to frolic in Arizona. The county could raise taxes 15% and accomplish nothing but stasis in terms of services. How can anyone conceive of voters doing this?

Assembly passes malpractice caps

Stacy Forster reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the bill would limit general damages to $450,000 for adults and $550,000 for children. It appears it would have a two-thirds majority if all representatives voted, and voted on an override as they would vote on the bill.

The Senate

passed a constitutional amendment that would limit Wisconsin governors from using the partial veto to create new sentences by combining other parts of the budget language.

A bill to supersede municipal ordinances on smoking in restaurants was removed from consideration.

Miers meeting leaves Feingold feeling 'frustrated'

Court nominee's responses reveal little, he says, according to this report by Craig Gilbert in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In today's Washington Post, Jo Becker finds In Speeches From 1990s, Clues About Miers.
(via PowerLine)

Easing liability for the liable

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorializes,

The threat of a lawsuit acts as a major check on reckless conduct by businesses.

Including, hypothetically, the newspaper business?

Have Wisconsin Policymakers Forgotten Their Economics?

By Scott Niederjohn and Mark Schug in Wisconsin Interest [PDF]

On the AFL-CIO Split

Stanley Aronowitz in Logos Summer 2005

While attacking [AFL-CIO President John] Sweeney's penchant to, in [Teamster's President James] Hoffa's words "throw money at the Democrats" (the AFL-CIO gave more than $200 millions to John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign), SEIU [Service Employees International Union] donated more than $65 million to the campaign.

Chvala reaches plea deal in corruption case

Steven Walters and Patrick Marley report in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Court records showed Monday that prosecutors and lawyers for former Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Charles Chvala have struck a deal to resolve 19 felony corruption charges - a deal in which, sources said, Chvala will plead guilty to at least two felonies that could send him to prison.

Here is the story from the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times.

The Wisconsin Court System: Demystifying the Judicial Branch

Robin Ryan and Amanda Todd in the State of Wisconsin Blue Book 2005-2006
(via Wisconsin Courts Headlines)

De Novo

The October 2005 issue of the newsletter of our State Bar's Appellate Practice Section includes
- Chairperson's Report, by Michael S. Heffernan of Foley & Lardner
- In Chambers - Judge Paul B. Higginbotham, Court of Appeals - District IV, profiled by Nicholas C. Zales of Zales Law Office
- A Supreme Court Appointment Up Close: State v. Love, by Colleen D. Ball of Appellate Counsel, S.C.
- By the Numbers: Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Statistics
- Changes at the Court of Appeals

On budgets and burdens, court systems are a tale of two counties

David Doege tells of the best of times and the worst of times in the Circuit Courts of Waukesha and Milwaukee aCounties in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Milwaukee courts being faced with a unique challenge

A. John Voelker, director of state courts, writes in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the current Milwaukee County budget controversy.

The debate about which governmental entity should fund the circuit courts has continued for many years - possibly longer than Wisconsin has existed. The counties have provided funding for the trial courts since territorial days.

Like any public policy debate, the discussion is worth having in a thoughtful, deliberate manner that takes into account not just short-term savings but long-term results.

In 2002, the Supreme Court appointed a Committee on Court Financing with the charge to identify an effective and responsible financing system to support court services.

In February 2004, the committee - composed of judges, court staff, members of the business community, county officials and others - issued its recommendations in a 71-page report.

The report reflects the difficult decisions that must be made and the issues that must be considered in any thoughtful, meaningful debate on funding the courts.

Rethinking lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices

This Ronald Brownstein column from the Los Angeles Times
appeared in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Keeping it clean

Don Behm and Steve Schultze write in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on new concerns that polluted rivers locally are more due to storm water runoff than sanitary sewers.

The accompanying chart of the number of sewer overflows and their causes again raises the question why combined sewers weren't seperated rather than excavating the "deep tunnels" for overflow.

Democrats find that merlot might not be not for everyone

Michael Powell and Sonya Geis of The Associated Press write in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

DNC [Democratic National Committee] Chairman Howard Dean has relied on the merlot description several times recently as he travels about the nation talking to Democrats. In mid-September, Dean spoke to some deep-pocketed Democrats from the island of Manhattan. Afterward, a Democrat wrote a memo sharing highlights from Dean's talk.

"The DNC has identified four critical segments of the U.S. electorate," this attendee wrote. "Merlot Democrats: We are the base."

Hasn't Gov. Dean seen Sideways?

Don't Call Them Slackers

Amy Kolz in The American Lawyer says Associates see red at the notion that they aren't working hard.

Europe's Not Working

Olaf Gersemann in The American Enterprise says The economies of the major countries on the European continent are basket cases. And unfortunately, there's not much hope of prosperity returning soon. Continental voters just won't accept a Thatcher/Reagan-style revolution.

The Real Mao

Nicholas D. Kristof in The New York Times reviews Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.

My Dog or Your Child? Ethical Dilemmas and the Hierarchy of Moral Value

Dr. Steven Best in Impact on his speech at the University of Iowa after an Animal Liberation Front raid on its Psychology Department laboratory.

But despite the Sturm und Drang of the occasion, it was my parenthetical response to the burning house question during the Q&A-whereby I said I would save my dog over a human stranger-that made headlines in newspapers and blogs throughout the nation.

MPS board members rally 'round and 'round the flag

Alan J. Borsuk writes in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Thursday's vote by the Milwaukee school board to open its meetings by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and having a student make a presentation about the U.S. Constitution.

Since this decision was controversial, perhaps the board could consider a Wisconsin Constitution twofer, instead? First, open the meetings by reciting the Preamble,

We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, form a more perfect government, insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare, do establish this constitution.

Second, have a student make a presentation about some other section, like Section 3 of Article X,

The legislature shall provide by law for the establishment of district schools, which shall be as nearly uniform as practicable; and such schools shall be free and without charge for tuition to all children between the ages of 4 and 20 years; and no sectarian instruction shall be allowed therein; but the legislature by law may, for the purpose of religious instruction outside the district schools, authorize the release of students during regular school hours.

Support Choice, Not Roe

This Richard Cohen Washington Post column appeared in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Whatever the case, the very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision -- the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution -- strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.

Although he still favors permitting abortion as a matter of policy.

In passing he says,

As a layman, it's hard for me to raise profound constitutional objections to the decision.

If constitutional objections are beyond a layman, then what of "We the People" and the consent of the governed?

We're All Environmentalists Now

Mark Schmitt in The American Prospect says It isn't environmentalism that died. What expired was progressive politics based on single-issue interest groups.

Hugo Chavez and His Bolivarian Revolution

Julian Brookes interviews Richard Gott in Mother Jones

MJ: Do you have a sense-for that matter, does he have a sense-of what he means by "21st century socialism"?

RG: No, I don't think he does. He is keen on buzzwords like "participation," he talks a lot about "participatory democracy," but he hasn't really fleshed out these ideas. He likes the idea that workers' representatives should be on the boards of companies, which is quite an old-fashioned and interesting idea. But he's not particularly interested in trade unions themselves becoming a significant force. He's a very unusual leftist in the sense that he's not much interested in trade unions or political parties.

God: Another Four-Letter Word?

Nathan Glazer in Education Next reviews Does God Belong in Public Schools? by Kent Greenawalt, and Between Memory and Vision: The Case for Faith-Based Schooling by Steven C. Vryhof.

How eminent domain ran amok

Carla T. Main in Policy Review on Kelo and the debate over economic development takings

'An Unknowable Atom of Human Flesh'

Henry Hyde and Joe Barton in New Atlantis on the Ethics of Stem Cell Research

How Wide the Divide?

Thomas C. Berg in Books and Culture reviews Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem--And What We Should Do About It by Noah Feldman, A proposal for compromise between "value evangelicals" and "legal secularists" on church-state issues.

Mao & the Maoists

Keith Windschuttle in The New Criterion on A new look at the legacy of one of the twentieth century's most brutal killers.

The Mental Ward

Churchill, that is, whose scheduled appearances today and tomorrow at DePaul University are the subject of this weblog.
(via InstaPundit)

Catholic High School Teacher Forced Out over Flag

Matthew Rothschild in his "McCarthyism Watch" column in The Progressive reports on the firing of Stephen Kobasa from his job teaching English at Kolbe Cathedral High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Kobasa does not believe there should be an American flag in his classroom.

The diocese disagreed, believing there should be an American flag in the classroom, and that it was their classroom, not his.

A Dish Best Served Cold

Andrew Longstreth in The American Lawyer says How William Lerach used his Enron class action suit to get revenge on an old foe

Outsourcing Our Children

F. Carolyn Graglia in the Claremont Review of Books reviews Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes by Mary Eberstadt.

The Soulless World of Tom Wolfe

Telford Work in The New Pantagruel reviews I Am Charlotte Simmons

In thrall to the gun industry

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorializes on pending federal legislation.

The latest example is the rush to give the firearms industry a privilege no other industry enjoys: special protection from lawsuits.

What about the newspaper industry?

An Intelligent Design for Education

Jacob Sullum in Reason

Both of these cases are ostensibly about the separation of church and state. But they also highlight the need for the separation of school and state.

When schools are run by the government, the details of ninth-grade biology classes, the propriety of patriotic rituals, and every other educational issue--ranging from how to teach math and reading to the contents of vending machines--becomes a political issue. Even when the arguments don't end up in court, they generate acrimony and resentment that could be avoided if education were entirely a private matter.

Happy Talk

David Lips in American Outlook reviews The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook.

The War Over the Iraq War

In the debate over Iraq, few figures argue with more passion than pro-war writer Christopher Hitchens and the anti-war British Member of Parliament George Galloway. In this heated exchange, adapted in Foreign Policy from a recent debate, the two polemicists lock horns on the morality and wisdom of the mission in Iraq.

Europe, America, and Politics Without God

Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal interviews George Weigel, author most recently of The Cube and the Cathedral.
(via Open Book)

Capitol Update Newsletter, week of October 10, 2005

Our State Bar reports on its opposition to changes in the Wisconsin Consumer Act: "Legislature attempts to roll-back protections for Wisconsin Consumers."

At the request of the Public Interest Law Section, the State Bar's Board of Governors has chosen to oppose provisions in companion bills AB 587 and SB 268, the so-called "Rent-to-Own" legislation and AB 594. The bills would allow for self-help repossession, where merchants will be able to repossess a debtor's property without a replevin action.

Also in this report, the federal waiver permitting continuation of the state SeniorCare prescription drug program, the "Fairness in Litigation Act" to prevent AG "litigation in lieu of legislation," and the Medical Malpractice Reform Task Force recommendations to the Speaker of the State Assembly.

National Lawyers Convention November 10-12, 2005 Washington DC

July 9, 2005 marked the twentieth anniversary of the historic speech given by then-Attorney General Edwin Meese III before the American Bar Association, in which he urged that the Court be guided by a "jurisprudence of original intention." General Meese's remarks sparked vigorous public debate on the question of constitutional interpretation, a debate that continues today.

To commemorate General Meese's speech and further the debate, the theme of the Federalist Society's 2005 National Lawyers Convention is Originalism.

Here is more information and online registration.

Stormy Waters

Carol M. Swain in Prospect

But the inevitable corollary to the outrage about the government's failures in the face of Katrina has been a frenzy of victimhood and demagoguery that, if allowed to dictate black expectations and government policy, will serve only to deepen the country's race problems. For socially and economically, the American blacks of New Orleans are not typical of blacks elsewhere in the country. If Katrina becomes an excuse for perpetuating the cycle of welfare addiction, corruption and social irresponsibility that have long made New Orleans the poster child for what is wrong with America's ghettos, a great tragedy will have happened in vain.

Was Dr. Benjamin Church a Traitor?

Tara Dirst and Allan Kulikoff in Common-Place note A new way to find out.

Abolishing Social Security--Through Real Privatization!

Richard M. Ebeling in The Freeman says If the revenues from the sales of government lands and the accompanying mineral rights were to come even close to their current estimated market values, their privatization would equal the projected present value of all Society Security obligations over the next 75 years. [PDF]

Karl Rove's Garage Proves to Be Typical

Darlene Superville of the Associated Press reports.

Rove's wife, Darby, raised the white garage door one morning last week to show journalists outside the million-dollar brick home that the deputy chief of staff, assistant to the president and senior adviser wasn't home.

(via Drudge Report)

Judgment Call

John Fund in Opinion Journal concludes,

If Ms. Miers is confirmed, it will reinforce the popular belief that the Supreme Court is more about political outcomes than the rule of law.

(via Open Book)

Budget cuts would have huge impact on Milwaukee courts

Also in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, David Westrup, vice president of the Milwaukee Bar Association, wrote on behalf of the Milwaukee Bar Association Board of Directors.

The proposed county budget reflects costly commitments inherited from previous administrations, and the electorate understandably wants to hold the line on taxes.

The proposed budget appears to be a good faith attempt to respond to those pressures.

Nevertheless, the proposed cuts to a court system that already is operating too close to the bone will cost this community far more than these cuts can save in the short run.

A kind word for Harriet Miers

William Rusher in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel comes to praise the nominee, but instead buries the rule of law.

... the lifetime nature of a Supreme Court appointment makes it possible for a justice, once confirmed, to vote entirely as he pleases, betraying in the process all those who put him on the court.

Everyone going back to 1776.

"How the Feds Are Subverting Our Rights and Liberties"

James Bovard, of the Cato Institute and the Future of Freedom Foundation will speak on this topic to the Wisconsin Forum on Thursday, October 20, 2005, at the Milwaukee Athletic Club. There will be a Social Hour 5:30 p.m., Dinner at 6:30 p.m., followed by the speaker. Admission is $45.00. Reservations are required, an must be made by October 18th. Contact Barbara Treick, Administrator, by telphone or fax at (262) 781-6001, or by email

The Wall Street Journal called Mr. Bovard "the roving inspector general of the modern State...." The National Review said of him, "It is always refreshing to find a man who takes his freedom straight."

James Bovard, who serves as a policy advisor to the Future of Freedom Foundation, is a frequent contributor to American Spectator, Investor's Business Daily, and Playboy. He has also written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reader's Digest, New Republic, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Newsweek. He is the author of eight books on topics of freedom and civil liberties.

How Race Wrecked Liberalism

James Nuechterlein in First Things reviews Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America by Nick Kotz

Explaining Postmodernism

Marcus Verhaegh in The Independent Review reviews Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen R. C. Hicks

Missed opportunities

Mark Bauerlein in The New Criterion reviews The shame of the nation by Jonathan Kozol.

Expect to pay more user fees

Amy Rinard wrote in the October 13, 2005 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on how municipalities are dealing with the new state limits on property taxes.

Garbage fees, storm water fees and fire protection fees are being enacted throughout the state. Waukesha is developing a property assessor fee, Eau Claire a gas pump inspection fee. In Oconomowoc, aldermen are considering a first in the state: a road use fee.

Abuse suits spur insurance fights

Ameet Sachdev's piece in the Chicago Tribune of October 9, 2005 has a local angle.

At least two dioceses, Milwaukee and Covington, Ky., have gone to court to enforce their insurance contracts. ...

But in Milwaukee the insurers have not been willing to accept responsibility for the costs of legal defense and future settlements or judgments, the archdiocese charged in a suit filed in April 2004.

That suit names about 50 insurers, including Continental Casualty Co., a unit of Chicago-based CNA Insurance, which have issued policies to the archdiocese since the 1960s.

The archdiocese is asking the court to confirm its coverage before moving ahead with the abuse claims, church spokeswoman Kathleen Hohl said.

Insurance firms declined to talk about the coverage disputes because they generally don't comment on individual claims.

Enron Lives

Clark S. Judge in Hoover Digest says The first step in fixing Social Security? Keeping honest books.

Emotional Correctness

Bruce S. Thornton in Commentary reviews One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance by Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel.