Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has hired fewer law clerks than usual, generating speculation that the leader of the court's liberals will retire next year. If Stevens does step down, he would give President Barack Obama his second high court opening in two years. Obama chose Justice Sonia Sotomayor for the court when Justice David Souter announced his retirement in May. Souter's failure to hire clerks was the first signal that he was contemplating leaving the court. Stevens, 89, joined the court in 1975 and is the second-oldest justice in the court's history, after Oliver Wendell Holmes....

I sense intellectual deterioration of the once-vital conservative movement in the United States. As I shall explain, this may be a testament to its success. Until the late 1960s (when I was in my late twenties), I was barely conscious of the existence of a conservative movement. It was obscure and marginal, symbolized by figures like Barry Goldwater (slaughtered by Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 presidential election), Ayn Rand, Russell Kirk, and William Buckley--figures who had no appeal for me. More powerful conservative thinkers, such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, and other distinguished conservative economists, such as George Stigler,...

A new study shows that states that consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption. "When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School. However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds. "Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things...

Stinking of booze, Ivy League irritant Charles Claudio Simpkins, 24, allegedly climbed into the back of a police cruiser dispersing night crawlers from the Theater District early Saturday morning and in a refreshing new twist on “Do you know who I am?” demanded of officers, “(Expletive) you, give me a (expletive) ride, I work for the district attorney’s office.” Simpkins, a politically active conservative, is in his final year at Harvard Law School and - until his bust on charges of being disorderly and resisting arrest - was hand-picked by Harvard to be an intern in Suffolk District Attorney Daniel...

A promising Harvard Law School standout told cops during a bizarre drunken tirade that he would “lie and cheat” to ruin them if - as a future attorney - he ever calls them to a witness stand, police said. “A statement like that really has no place in the practice of law,” said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley, who took Charles Claudio Simpkins on last fall as an intern and will now prosecute him on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. A police report states that Simpkins, 24, made the threat early Saturday morning, just...