Appellate review is not a magic wand and we undermine public confidence in the judicial process when we make it look like it is.

Just to prove that even the silliest idea can be pursued to its illogical conclusion, Legal Realism spawned Critical Legal Studies.

In a very real sense, the Constitution is our compact with history . . . [but] the Constitution can maintain that compact and serve as the lodestar of our political system only if its terms are binding on us. To the extent we depart from the document's language and rely instead on generalities that we see written between the lines, we rob the Constitution of its binding force and give free reign to the fashions and passions of the day.

I was born under Communism. I know what it's like to live in a system where you can't speak, you have to whisper. Where the state is so pervasive and so intrusive.

[Y]ou wonder why anyone would make the mistake of calling it the Commerce Clause instead of the 'Hey, you -can-do-whatever-you-feel-like Clause?

Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture.

It's not that unusual for presidents to take strong positions on cases decided by the court. But you know, Lesley, that's why the Constitution wisely gave us life tenure. They can talk about us, but they can't remove us.