New technologies are always a mixed blessing, their potential for good carrying with it the risk of evil. The deep challenge for a democracy is to develop legal rules, social practices and institutional arrangements that, at some reasonable cost, separate good from bad behavior. The exponential improvement in computation and communication technologies over the past […]

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The most recent news from Ferguson concerns what Eric Holder has rightly called the “ambush shooting” of two police officers outside the city’s police department. This incident occurred in the wake of two detailed reports released by the Department of Justice. The first report deals in depth with the shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. […]

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The greatest advances in local transportation are driven by innovation companies like Uber and Lyft.  Their new platform technology allows for a scalable network that links drivers to consumers in real time, by supplying simultaneous two-way information on such key matters as vehicle type, price, and anticipated place and time of pickup and drop off.  […]

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“The world is building more cities, faster than ever before. China used more cement in the last three years than the United States used in the entire 20th century. By 2050, India will need new urban infrastructure to house an additional 404 million people — a task comparable to building every city in the United States in […]

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One of the most anticipated cases of the Supreme Court’s 2014-2015 term is King v. Burwell. In it, the Supreme Court is confronted with what should be a straightforward question of statutory interpretation about the scope of subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Section 1311 of the ACA states that “each state shall, not […]

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This past week, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a contentious employment discrimination case, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores. The conflict arose when Samantha Elauf, a Muslim teenager, applied for a position as a sales-floor employee for Abercrombie & Fitch. Abercrombie has always referred to its sales-floor employees as […]

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Germany and Greece have both wisely blinked on how best to renegotiate Greece’s outsized debt to its reluctant playmates inside the European currency union. The present fix will last for only four months, which means that the unresolved issues will surge to the fore yet again if some long-term solution is not crafted in the […]

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When it comes to foreign policy, President Barack Obama’s intentions and plans are unclear even to himself. The President’s indecision can be seen in his effort to authorize the use of military force “against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” a plan that has been met with strong opposition on both sides of the aisle.

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On February 5, 2015, Republican Bob Goodlatte introduced his so-called “Innovation Act” for patent reform on behalf of a bipartisan coalition of House members.  The Act is a replica of the 2013 bill that passed the House but did not make it into law.  This new proposed legislation comes hard on the heels of the passage of the 2011 American […]

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Under the Obama Administration, the National Labor Relations Board has taken strong pro-union stances on collective bargaining. One of its most salient initiatives has been its recent effort to expand the definition of an “employer” under the National Labor Relations Act. Thus on December 19, 2014, Richard Griffin, the NLRB’s General Counsel, issued a short […]

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