"If my rule-breaking is ethical and safe (and Idaho-legal), why does it annoy anyone?"

Asks Randy Cohen , the original NYT "ethicist," who admits to treating stop signals as yield signals when he's on his bicycle....

"A second Obama term could kill the Second Amendment."

Says James Taranto , inviting Obamans to make gun control a big campaign issue. The Supreme Court's recent cases finding an individual r...

What happens if states turn down the Medicaid expansion money and decline to set up the health-insurance exchanges.

Michael D. Tanner explains the surprisingly extreme consequences. [I]f a state doesn't expand its Medicaid program, most of those who wo...

How Chief Justice Roberts reenvisioned the individual mandate as a tax... and how he avoided the question of congressional accountability.

After going through the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Spending Clause, I'm finally going to read the taxing ...

"Were the matter up to me, I would vote to grant the petition for certiorari in order to reconsider Citizens United..."

"... or, at least, its application in this case. But given the Court’s per curiam disposition, I do not see a significant possibility o...

"Zelda Fitzgerald was a Chaos Muppet. So, I must tell you, is Justice Stephen Breyer."

Dahlia Lithwick is doing Muppet Theory. Via Throwing Things .

The Supreme Court's new double jeopardy case divided 6-3 on gender lines: was this "some sort of gender-related 'empathy'"?

Lawprof Mark Tushnet wonders , noting the dissent limited to the 3 female Justices — Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor — and expressing the bel...

The Solicitor General argues that failure to comply with the requirement to buy health insurance does not equal a violation of federal law.

I'm at page 47 of the transcript ( PDF ) of this morning's oral argument, as the Justices explore whether they are dealing with the ...

The Supreme Court Justices "seemed to be all on the same page looking for a way to go ahead and decide the case even though they had different views on what theory to use."

A first report from today's oral argument about the applicability of the Anti-Injunction Act to the Obamacare litigation. Kevin Russell ...

"Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed last week by an intruder armed with a machete..."

At the Justice's vacation home on the Caribbean island of Nevis.

"Voters Are Gung-Ho for Use of Drones But Not Over the United States."

76% favor the use of drones to kill terrorists, but when asked about using drones for surveillance — not even killing — only 9% are drone-fr...

"We wish the people of Wisconsin would take care of their own business and leave us, and [Big Mountain Jesus], totally alone."

A 50-year-old statue in Montana, put up by the local Knights of Columbus to honor soldiers who had seen statues like this while serving in I...

Prof. Chemerinsky says Justice Ginsburg "has in her power the ability to prevent a real shift in the balance of power on the court."

"On the other hand, there's the personal. How do you decide to leave the United States Supreme Court?" Wow! How much of this k...

In the violent video games case, Scalia notes the irony of Alito's strenuous effort to describe the "astounding" violence.

From the majority opinion in the just-decided case of Brown, Governor of California v. Entertainment Merchants Association: JUSTICE ALITO ha...

I'm Bloggingheadsing with Dahlia Lithwick... and it's all about law.

The episode is titled "Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter" — which is the title of the Tina Turner song I pointed at in my post ab...

Justice Breyer on "the tweeter": "I get requests. Can we follow you... That's very nice. Somebody would like to follow me. It's quite flattering."

He doesn't think it's a good idea. But he doesn't know how to turn it off... the "tweeter." (The tweeter? Cue Tina Tur...

"Her womb was a barren desert in which my seed could find no purchase."

April finally comes up with the quote that my quote from Larry Tribe reminded her of. I was riffing on "Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth G...

“Neither Steve Breyer nor Ruth Ginsburg has much of a purchase on Tony Kennedy’s mind.”

That's actually the most embarrassing sentence in Larry Tribe's letter to Obam a about who to nominate to the Supreme Court. I love ...

Justice Breyer responds to pushback.

Or something. (Whatever happened to refusing to comment on issues that might reach the Court in real cases? Or is that just get-through-the-...

Did Justice Breyer actually say anything about the right to burn the Koran?

Here's the colloquy from today's "Good Morning America": STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, when we spoke several years ago, you t...