Author: Burt Likko

Participating in democracy is futile. Your vote, by itself, doesn’t matter. No, what you need is seven friends. Then, the eight of you can determine the outcome of an all-eyes-on-you election like the 2012 Iowa...

I’d like to raise a subject for discussion that is not that walking, talking amalgamation of ambiguity that goes by the name of “Ron Paul” because I think there’s plenty of talk about him going on...

The next installment of my Great Cases series is available at my sub-blog. Today’s offering — Fletcher v. Peck. I offer you political corruption, the origin story of the states of Alabama and Mississippi, and...

Today is the first day of Saturnalia. I nominate Jaybird to serve as our Lord of Misrule. Eat, drink, and be merry, fellow Ordinaries! Gamble in public, sing naked, and clap your hands in...

Joining what I hope will be a chorus of obituaries today: What’s important in life? Good Scotch, friends, laughter, and speaking your mind forcefully and gracefully. Requiescat in pace, Christopher Hitchens.

At my sub-blog, I have begun a series of analyses of significant cases in U.S. Supreme Court history. If you’re interested, please drop by and peruse my gloss on Marbury v. Madison. (I described...

Following up on a story I discussed in October and again in November, concerning a Latin cross atop a municipal water tower in the Western Tennessee town of Whiteville, the Freedom From Religion Foundation...

Attempting to arrest his meteoric flameout from the GOP’s good graces, Rick Perry is running this ad on TV in Iowa: I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need...

I wanted to share a quick thought about E.D. Kain’s very recent column at Forbes, but (sorry, Erik) commenting at Forbes is a laborious process which I have never successfully completed. I’m not even...

Over the past month or so, several parts of Iran have begun looking like scenes from a Michael Bay movie. Looks like a lot of nuclear enrichment and missile sties. Is this espionage? If so,...

Today is “Opposite Day” here at the League. My favorite subject here is Constitutional law and I typically take a textualist approach to the subject. So in the spirit of the day, I offer...

A collapse of the Eurozone would be a disaster of 1929-like proportions. But what’s for us in the United States to do about it? The Eurozone is a bigger economy than the USA, and...

I’m enjoying the process of deflagging quotes. Today, I came across an article on Slate describing what are portrayed as theocratic tendencies among Republican Presidential candidates. So without referencing the original Slate article with...

Inspired by Tod Kelly’s claim that we U.S. Americans are really closer to one another politically than we think, following is a quiz. All remarks are taken from the speeches of either John McCain...

Coming to the silver screen in summer 2012: Atlas Shrugged, Part 2.

I’ve opined several times before that the legal concept of “standing” should be interpreted broadly, particularly in the realm of Constitutional law, with an eye towards encouraging litigation of disputes on their merits. Too...

In an exchange Tuesday up on the main page, wardsmith asked me if I thought voters had a right to privacy. I smelled a rhetorical trap coming because the answer seemed so obvious —...

I’m getting ready to throw the End-Of-Prohibition Party. So of course I’m thinking of old standards. Bear in mind that the original of this one was in 1928 in German, but didn’t make it...

It takes four Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to bring a case onto the docket. Typically when fewer than four indicate they want to review a case, the case dies a quiet death...