Liberal Supreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring. On social issues, this makes little difference: whoever replaces him will satisfy liberal litmus tests, like supporting racial preferences and partial-birth abortion the way Souter did.

But on economics, where Souter was more moderate, it will matter a lot: Souter was willing to occasionally overturn excessive punitive damage awards, and overturn state regulations that were preempted by federal law (like in Watters v. Wachovia (2007), where I filed a brief on behalf of economists and law professors). Some…

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President-elect Obama is poised to appoint Eric Holder as the next attorney general. I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, Holder blatantly lied during the Elian Gonzalez fiasco. And he schemed to bring about the infamous pardon by Bill Clinton of fugitive financier Marc Rich, to the dismay of federal prosecutors and disgust of even hard-core Clinton supporters and liberal lawmakers.

On the other hand, his being appointed reduces the likelihood that a wacko like Charles Ogletree, the Harvard law professor…

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Earlier, I wrote about Obama’s possible appointment of Charles Ogletree, who believes that America is a racist country that is to blame for 9/11, to be assistant attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division.

Some commentators, like the award-winning journalist A. Barton Hinkle, wondered whether I wasn’t overstating Ogletree’s links to Obama (by calling him Obama’s “top adviser” on race), given his out-of-the-mainstream views.

Actually, it seems that I understated Ogletree’s links to Obama and possible role in the Obama Administration.…

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From the polls, it looks like Obama will be our next president.  So who will he be appointing to high office? 

Deval Patrick, who avidly backed censorship and racial quotas, has been suggested for the Supreme Court.  Ed Whelan looks at his left-wing record of pushing racial quotas, which drew criticism from even from liberal judges and liberal Senators like Carol Moseley Braun, and suggests that other choices would be better. 

Patrick, who has also been suggested as a potential attorney general, has claimed that speech opposing halfway houses for substance…

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