Bill Blum
Bill Blum is a former administrative law judge and death penalty defense attorney. He is the author of three legal thrillers published by Penguin/Putnam and a contributing writer for California Lawyer Magazine. His non-fiction work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, ranging from The Nation and The Progressive to the Los Angeles Times, the L.A. Weekly and Los Angeles Magazine.
Articles by this author
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Views Tuesday, July 31, 2018 Paul Manafort and the Five Stages of 'Mueller Derangement Syndrome' There’s one thing you can count on when the first of two scheduled trials involving former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort gets underway this week in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Va. No, it’s not that Manafort, who faces 18 felony counts of financial fraud and tax evasion, will be... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, July 17, 2018 Supreme Court Update: Kavanaugh Is No Kennedy, and Kennedy Was No Centrist There is a growing consensus among legal commentators that D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh will move the Supreme Court sharply to the right should the Senate confirm his nomination. Kavanaugh is a loyal Republican operative who has championed conservative causes at every step of his professional... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, July 10, 2018 Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court Pick, Will Drive U.S. Law Hard to the Right President Trump announced the nomination of ultraconservative District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday night. Short of selecting 7th Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a religious zealot who belongs to the fringe Catholic cult People for Praise and was... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, July 03, 2018 It’s Time to Use the 'F' Word to Describe Trump Is Donald Trump a fascist? With each passing news cycle, more people here and abroad are asking the question. On a trip to Berlin in early June, my wife and I were pressed for answers in spontaneous encounters with cab drivers, waiters, hotel clerks and sundry others. Regardless of occupation,... Read more |
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Views Thursday, June 14, 2018 Supremes Give Stamp of Approval to Voter Suppression In a 5-4 decision released June 11, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Ohio law that provides for the removal of infrequent voters from the state’s election rolls. On the surface, the court’s majority opinion in Husted v. A. Phillip Randolph Institute is a highly technical analysis of whether Ohio’s... Read more |
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Views Monday, May 21, 2018 Trump, the NRA, Mass Shootings and the American Culture of Death “ A fish rots from the head down.” — Ancient proverb of disputed origin Another week has come and gone, and with it, another mass shooting. The American culture of death marches on, fueled by our obscene stockpiles of lethal weaponry and stoked by the divisions, alienation, hatred and fear that... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, May 08, 2018 History Lesson for Democrats: Think Winning Elections, Not Impeaching Trump On a steamy day in July 1787, in the midst of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the 55 state delegates who would come to be known as the Founding Fathers turned their attention to the issue of presidential impeachment. Many weighed in on the subject, both pro and con, but none more... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, February 27, 2018 Is Janus the Final Chapter of the Right’s War on Unions? If the oral arguments heard by the Supreme Court on February 26 in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 give any indication of the ultimate ruling, public employee unions across the country are destined for a crushing defeat. That defeat, should it come... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, December 27, 2017 Six Major Legal Battles of 2017 Will Persist in 2018 Every American president influences the course of our law and legal institutions through Supreme Court appointments or by pushing legislation and executive orders. But few have had as much impact in one year as the current occupant of the White House, Donald J. Trump. An intemperate, burgeoning... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 31, 2017 Panic in Trumpland, But Clinton Camp Should Be Wary It’s no longer a rumor. The first grand jury indictment drafted by Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been filed. As expected by many who have followed Mueller’s work since his appointment in May , Paul Manafort Jr., Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign manager, has... Read more |