MISSISSIPPI FLAG GOES TO SCOTUS | Exit Interview With Posner | DOJ Takes The Cake
September 11, 2017
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed when 19 al-Qaida hijackers seized control of four jetliners, crashing two of them into New York’s World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania.
WANT TO FLAG THIS
|The Supreme Court has been asked to consider whether Mississippi’s state flag promotes white supremacy and violates the equal protection rights of black Mississippians because it features the Confederate battle flag in its upper left corner. Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reports that Mississippi didn’t even bother to file a response to the Supreme Court petition. But last month SCOTUS told the state it wanted to know more, and to file a brief. The petitioner and a part-time municipal judge, CARLOS E. MOORE, said, “So at least somebody at the Supreme Court does not think it is frivolous.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of The Washington Post notes that although a federal court has yet again ruled against PRESIDENT TRUMP’S travel ban, none of its legal challenges may matter because a significant portion of the ban will likely expire by the time it reaches the Supreme Court on October 10. WaPo: “Let’s hope that, despite its choice to appeal the injunction, the Justice Department’s silence on the ban’s expiration is a sign that the government recognizes the opportunity to take the graceful way out.”
EXIT INTERVIEW
|“JUDGE RICHARD A. POSNER, whose restless intellect, withering candor and superhuman output made him among the most provocative figures in American law in the last half-century, recently announced his retirement.” That’s Adam Liptak with The New York Times who conducted what he’s calling an “exit interview” with Posner to understand why the legal giant is stepping down and what he plans to do next.
TAKING THE CAKE
|For The Economist, Steven Mazie covers the Justice Department’s decision to back a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. Mazie writes that it isn’t the DOJ’s “finest work.”
ON THE ROAD
|This evening, JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG is scheduled to visit Chicago and speak at Roosevelt University as part of a program focusing on themes of law, social justice and the American Dream. The event is a conversation between Ginsburg and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Ann Claire Williams.
OTHER NEWS
Senators Take Fire Over Questions For Catholic Judicial Nominee
POLITICO“At least two prominent university presidents are accusing senators of religious bias for challenging a Catholic judicial nominee over her faith-driven views during a confirmation hearing last week.”