Outside the Beltway

In a decision released yesterday. the New Jersey Supreme Court clarified the journalist/blogger distinction somewhat.

So, Anthony Weiner is a lying dick. Does it matter?

Both sides in the John Edwards case are heading into uncharted territory.

A system designed to protect the innocent has instead become a menagerie to imprison them. A legal code designed to proscribe specific behavior has instead become a vast, vague, and unpredictable invitation to selective enforcement.

Desperate women are finding some horrific ways to terminate their pregnancies. Some are being arrested for it.

Another appellate panel heard arguments on the Constitutionality of the health care reform law this week.

Glenn Greenwald asks two questions about the cases of Osama bin Laden and Ratko Mladic. Helpfully, the second answers the first.

A bizarre legal case from Italy.

The next shoe has dropped in the battle between campaign finance laws and the 1st Amendment.

Former Serbian commander Ratko Mladic has been arrested for alleged war crimes committed in the 1990s.

The 4th Circuit has asked for supplemental briefs on an issue that could put a quick end to the lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act.

Stephen Colbert has been running an ongoing shtick in which he’s trying to start a political action committee, gets letters from his Viacom bosses poo-pooing the idea, and then inviting his lawyer on to explain ways to get around these concerns.

Prisons can be so overcrowded as to constitute cruel and inhuman punishment.

We’ve reached a turning point in the debate over same-sex marriage.

A judge granted Dominique Strauss-Kahn bail on Thursday, allowing the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund to be freed from Rikers Island to stay in a Manhattan apartment while his sexual assault case is pending.

Once again, Congressional abdication has led to an Executive Branch power grab.

Ben Stein seems to have been out to lunch when he wrote his column about Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Some French politicians and intellectuals seem offended that Dominique Strauss-Kahn is being treated like a common criminal.

Are we safer in high population areas?

Academic publishers want to end the Fair Use of scholarly journal articles in the classroom.

Thanks to an appearance on Hardball we’ve got another story about a 47 year old law.

For as long as the notion of individual rights has existed, one of them has been the sanctity one’s home. As of Thursday, that’s no longer true in Indiana.

Amanda Marcotte argues that society secretly sympathizes with rapists.

Is the war in Libya illegal?

When you look at it a little more closely, the Texas cheerleader case looks to be a case of bad lawyering.

The 60 day deadline for Presidential discretion under the War Powers Act will expire next week. Congress won’t do anything about it.

The first round of appellate arguments over the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act took place today in Richmond, Virginia.

A Texas high school student who was kicked off her high school’s cheerleading squad after refusing to cheer for her rapist had her lawsuit dismissed as frivolous and was ordered to pay $45,000 in legal fees.

Local newspapers in Belgium inexplicably don’t want to be linked by Google and are using copyright law rather than a robots.txt file to enforce their wishes.