Okay, as promised, here is the real Trash Talk for the weekend. college and pro football, tennis and Formula One; what more could you ask for?

With the long anticipated retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, it was important for President Obama to appoint and get confirmed a new justice so there would not only be a full compliment of justices on the court, but to insure the ideological balance of the court was maintained. By selecting Elena Kagan, Obama certainly [...]

Here’s where Jack Goldsmith’s op-ed, purporting to offer a solution to the Gitmo problem, breaks down (see Spencer’s take on it here). Civilian trials for terrorists have also proven difficult. They gathered disfavor when Attorney General Eric Holder said he would prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged Sept. 11 plotters in civilian court in [...]

Remember that Vanity Fair tell all in which Erik Prince offered new details about Blackwater ops? Though Michael Hayden has suggested Prince made up some of the details, it seemed to be a form of graymail targeted at those who approved Blackwater ops now under criminal investigation. Apparently, there’s a long form version. Erik Prince, [...]

Take out yer false teeth mama, it is time for the hitting to begin again; it’s the season opener in the NFL, Saints and Vikings!

Last week, the US put the Tehrek-i-Taliban Pakistan on its official terrorist lists and charged its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, with something that was almost certainly not a crime. Oddly, though, DOJ did not charge Mehsud which actions they verbally alleged he committed that actually are a crime: conspiring with Faisal Shahzad in his attempted bombing [...]

Almost a year ago, Obama offended DC’s chattering class for appearing on Univision’s Sunday show, Al Punto, but not appearing on Fox News Sunday. But as I noted at the time, Al Punto is actually a more popular show than Fox’s Sunday swill. And, as it turns out, the White House can justify blowing off [...]

Who knew the world of journalism had the same kind of revolving door as government does? But apparently, if you build a reporting beat entirely around portraying the views of top corporate representatives as the only views that count, and if your newspaper pimps you out as the “play” in a Pay2Play scandal, then you, [...]

In 2002, I taught the Argentine film La hora de los hornos (it was a media and narrative class–I wasn’t just proselytizing radical leftist ideology). The second most famous scene from the movie starts at 3:14, but it is very disturbing. I thought the film would get students to think about the degree to which [...]

This–a decision in the Jeppesen Dataplan suit upholding the government’s invocation of state secrets–is really bad news. This case requires us to address the difficult balance the state secrets doctrine strikes between fundamental principles of our liberty, including justice, transparency, accountability and national security. Although as judges we strive to honor all of these principles, [...]