Friday news & notes (UPDATED)

UPDATE -- CONGRATULATIONS to Alicia Valle.  Today is her formal investiture at the courthouse. 

1.  The comments to the last post got interesting.  Go weigh in.

2.  Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog spoke to the Federal Bar Association in Miami on Wednesday.  It was a great talk to a packed house.  She said that if she and Tom Goldstein sell the blog, they plan on staying on to continue their roles in running it.

3.  Ted Cruz says the Obama administration is taking "radical" positions before the Supreme Court because it loses 9-0 a lot.  From the BLT:

According to Cruz, who headed Morgan Lewis & Bockius’s Supreme Court and appellate practice until his was elected to the Senate in 2012, the Obama administration is not pursuing “reasonable litigating positions within the bounds of ordinary discourse. These positions are extreme, and they are united by one thing: an embrace of unchecked federal government power.”

As an example, he pointed to U.S. v. Jones, which involved the government’s bid to place a GPS tracking device on a suspected drug dealer’s car without a warrant. “If the Obama Justice Department had prevailed, the federal government would be able to electronically track all of our movements,” he said. “Let me mention an aside. For those of you who have cell phones, please leave them on. I want to make sure President Obama hears everything I say.”

4.  Russell Adler was suspended for 90 days.  From the Sun-Sentinel:

Adler's lawyer, Fred Haddad, called the suspension an overreaction to misconduct that would have resulted in a reprimand if Adler had not been connected to Rothstein.
"This all comes about because he was, like millions of others, wounded by Rothstein," Haddad said. "Russell Adler has been very successful after leaving that firm. He'll be back, when this suspension is over, same as ever – on top, trying cases and winning."
It's still not clear whether Adler will face criminal charges in connection with his association with Rothstein, who is serving a 50-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to federal charges in 2010.
Adler agreed to pay $350,000 to settle a civil suit in 2011 filed by bankruptcy attorneys looking to recover money for investors scammed by Rothstein's firm.
"Who knows what the feds are going to do," said Haddad, who challenged Rothstein's credibility as a witness who could implicate others in his wrongdoing. "He's less reliable now than when he was a lawyer. He can't be trusted."

Gotta love Fred Haddad. 

5.  It's the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg address, and lots of people are giving their rendition of it here.  (I'd like to hear Haddad!).  You can watch Crist, Rubio, Wasserman-Schultz, and even Alyssa Milano.  I like this Colbert rendition: