Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
Posts tagged as:
Cato has posted the audio of my appearance with Jim Bohannon on his highly ranked national radio show to discuss Schools for Misrule.
P.S. Thanks also to Kyle Graham for the mention in his post on historical trends in law school curriculum.
{ 0 comments }
I’ve got a new opinion piece up at the Daily Caller correcting some of the Washington Post’s persistent misconceptions about self-defense law, on both its editorial and reporting sides. Sample:
… how [Post reporters] Fisher and Eggen do stack their lead anecdote. Their opening paragraphs tell of a youth who innocently “knocked at the wrong door” and was greeted by an irate homeowner who, seemingly without reason or provocation, blasted him in the chest, only to be set free by the police, since in Florida, the victim’s father sorrowfully avers, it seems “the shooter’s word is the law.”
Pretty horrifying, right? It takes 17 paragraphs of unrelated matter before the first scraps of the other side of the story emerge: it was 4 a.m. and the youth, bipolar and “blitzed” on alcohol that night, was ignoring repeated pleas to leave a property with a young mother and baby inside; the husband/shooter (whom the Post never managed to reach for his side of the story) told police that he had asked his wife to call 911, which hadn’t shown up; that he had warned the intruder many times, and fired only after being “lurched” at; he was then arrested, “but Assistant State Attorney Manny Garcia concluded that his actions were ‘justified.’”
You can read the whole thing here.
Also, correspondent Lee Pacchia interviewed me at Bloomberg Law about the law’s application to the Trayvon Martin case in a 9 minute+ segment posted today. More commentary from my Cato Institute colleague Tim Lynch at Jurist. Earlier here.
{ 2 comments }
I just joined listeners at San Diego’s KOGO to talk about the FDA/USDA initiative to regulate salt content in food, about which you can read here and here. Deadline for filing comments is tomorrow; the most direct link I know of for doing so is here (use “Individual Consumer” as category of comment unless that doesn’t apply).
I joined the radio host yesterday evening to talk about how sexual harassment law works in practice, in light of the reports that presidential candidate Herman Cain was a target in two employee actions alleging “inappropriate” conduct. More on the “hostile environment” branch of harassment law here.
I joined the host on Connecticut’s WTIC Thursday morning to discuss President Obama’s proposed ban on employer discrimination against unemployed job applicants:
For more on this bad proposal, check out Charles Lane, Washington Post (“really bad idea that will probably destroy jobs in a misguided effort to save them”); Richard Epstein/Hoover (“most ghastly” element of jobs plan), Mickey Kaus (“Worst idea in the speech? …a museum-quality case of liberal legalism ignoring the economic cost of the mechanisms of liberal legalism”), Steve Chapman (“may very well have a positive impact on hiring. Just not in America”), Neil Munro, Adler/Volokh, Business Insider, Ted Frank/PoL, NYT “Room for Debate”, Dan Indiviglio/The Atlantic (“While this is a lovely political talking point, it won’t cut unemployment and could even make matters worse for jobless Americans”), Atlantic Wire, Tim Cavanaugh/Reason, Jay Goltz/NYT “You’re the Boss” (“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”), National Review, Kerry Picket/Washington Times (Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill.: “If it takes lawsuits to get work opportunities, then so be it”), earlier (& welcome Tim Cavanaugh/Reason “Hit and Run” readers).
{ 4 comments }
Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry interviewed me about my new book Schools for Misrule and you can hear the resulting podcast here (& RedState, Big Government, Twitter mentions).
I’ll be on the radio a lot today talking about the Supreme Court’s Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision. That includes a bunch of Fox Radio stations at various times between 7 and 11 a.m. EDT, and then the “C4″ (Clarence Mitchell IV) show on Baltimore’s WBAL, scheduled for 1:35. More on the Dukes decision here and here.
P.S.: The station lineup includes: KURV (McAllen, TX), WHBC (Canton, OH), WSCC (Charleston, SC), WHAS (Louisville, KY), WERC (Birmingham, AL), WTRC (South Bend, IN), WGST (Atlanta, GA), WSJK (Champaign, IL), WOAI (San Antonio, TX), WSYR (Syracuse, NY), WLNI (Lynchburg, VA), KLIF (Dallas, TX), WTKS (Savannah, GA), WIND (Chicago, IL), KOGO (San Diego, CA), KCOL (Fort Collins, CO), and WAJR (Morgantown, WV).
I’m set to join Ron Smith this morning at 10:35 a.m. on Baltimore’s WBAL to discuss the federal government’s role in food and nutrition. And C-SPAN has posted the video of my Monday appearance on “Washington Journal” on the same subject. More in my new post at Cato at Liberty.
I’ve got a new opinion piece up at the Daily Caller on the USDA’s new nutritional chart. And tune in to C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” on Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. Eastern when I’m scheduled to be a guest on this subject.
More: Link to C-SPAN video here, and more at Cato at Liberty.
{ 4 comments }
“It’s refreshing to find a show that can demonstrate to litigation-happy America that it’s possible, even desirable, to amicably resolve disputes without going to court.” [Radley Balko, Reason, on USA Network's "Fairly Legal"] More: Abnormal Use interview with show creator Michael Sardo (via its update).
{ 4 comments }
C-SPAN2′s popular “BookTV” has had my Schools for Misrule presentation in rotation in recent weeks and will be airing it again Saturday night/Sunday morning, specifically 1:30 a.m. Sunday Eastern Time. (Although their blurb erroneously identifies me as being with the Manhattan Institute, I’ve been with Cato for more than a year now.) You can buy the book here.
Just out: one of the most serious and wide-ranging podcasts yet on my new book, Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America. I’m interviewed by James Haynes of the Society’s Professional Responsibility & Legal Education Practice Group Executive Committee and Baltimore Federalist Society Lawyers Chapter. It’s 53:25 minutes in length and you can listen here. Thanks also to the 100+ Facebook users so far who’ve “liked” the podcast.
At his Chronicle of Higher Education blog, Peter Wood of the National Association of Scholars takes a look at ideologically adventurous law school clinics and has this to say along the way (another version):
The hard-left politicization of law schools is surely the larger matter. Walter Olson’s new book, Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America, covers the matter so well that I don’t see much to add.
Hudson Institute scholar Tevi Troy interviewed me 
for the New Books in Public Policy podcast series and you can listen to the results here. Also online now is my appearance on Ronn Owens’ San Francisco-based radio show last month. And this recent Nielsen roundup of Hardcover Law bestsellers had Schools for Misrule at #9, down from #8 the week before.
David Kopel of the Independence Institute interviews my Cato Institute colleague Ilya Shapiro on Cato’s active amicus-filing program, ObamaCare challenges, “Libertarian ConLaw 101,” and more. You can listen here.
Last week I was a guest on one of talk radio’s enduring institutions, the Jim Bohannon show on Westwood One, to discuss my new book Schools for Misrule. I always have a great time on Jim’s show and this was no exception; you can listen here. Also last week, I joined the African American Conservatives show on BlogTalkRadio, and you can hear the results here. And Bernard Chapin (Chapin’s Inferno), who is among other things a contributor to Pajamas Media, liked the book and gave it a video review on his YouTube channel.
I’ll be in Dallas over the next day or two to speak with leaders of conservative/libertarian legal groups at the Heritage Foundation’s annual get-together (invitation event).
I’m scheduled to join Jim Bohannon tonight on his radio show, 11 p.m. Eastern, to discuss my new book. It’s one of the best and most popular shows out there, so be sure to check local listings and tune in.
I’m scheduled to be a guest on two of the nation’s leading radio programs, both California-based: Dennis Prager’s today (Tuesday) (broadcast times vary; find a station), and Ronn Owens at San Francisco’s KGO AM 810 tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11 a.m. Pacific. Tune in and listen!
P.S. Both shows were a pleasure; host Prager generously singled out the book as “so devastating” and “mandatory reading,” and said it was “difficult to overstate the importance of this book.”
{ 1 comment }
Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.
Get your copy today! My new book tackles the question of why so many bad ideas come from the law schools. "Cutting-edge commentary, hard-hitting, witty, astute." -- Publisher's Weekly. "Excellent... A fine dissection of these strangely powerful institutions" -- Wall Street Journal.