At the time that I write this review, Captain America: Brave New World is one of the least popular Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films of all time. It has a mediocre Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 53 percent and, at the box office, is underperforming last year’s flop from the studio, Ant-Man and the Wasp: […]
In 2022, I wrote an article for Reason predicting that it was only a matter of time before selling flavored tobacco products landed an American behind bars. Almost three years later, that day has arrived in Massachusetts. According to a press release from the Middlesex district attorney and the Department of Revenue, the owner of […]
Thomas Clear, the defense attorney at the center of Albuquerque’s police corruption scandal, pleaded guilty this week to federal bribery, extortion, and racketeering charges. Clear’s plea agreement indicates that his long-running arrangement with local police officers, who took bribes in exchange for making DWI cases disappear, goes back further and involves more people than was […]
Last May, at the start of a court hearing conducted over Zoom, David Russell brought what he felt was a pressing matter to the judge’s attention. “I had two friends that were going to testify on my behalf, Vassil Vutov and John Mayo, and I don’t see them,” the 44-year-old computer programmer pointed out. “In […]
In 2018 and 2020, California adopted laws requiring corporations headquartered in the state to diversify their Boards of Directors. Specifically, the laws required that Boards include female representation and a minimum number of people from under-represented racial, ethnic or sexual orientation background. These laws did not survive long. They were successfully challenged in state and […]
The culling within the federal government: Mass layoffs have begun, with most of the some 200,000 probationary employees expected to be terminated in the coming days, mostly from the departments of Energy and Veteran Affairs, but also some from the Small Business Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, the Department of […]
From Appeal of P.M. & E.M., decided Tuesday by the N.Y. Commissioner of Education (Betty Rosa): Petitioners challenge a determination of the Board of Education of the Mount Pleasant Central School District (“respondent”) imposing discipline on their child (the “student”)…. The student attended ninth grade in respondent’s high school at the time of the events […]
Generally speaking, the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes the government from appealing an acquittal (whether an acquittal by a jury or by a judge). Once you’re acquitted, you’re off the hook, even if the trial judge erred in instructing the jury, in deciding whether there was sufficient evidence, in admitting evidence, in refusing to admit evidence, […]
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hosted a hearing on Thursday to discuss eliminating waste by the foreign aid bureaucracy. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.) objected to the 90-day pause on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on the grounds that doing so would hurt American farmers. Of all the arguments that […]
Trump has now implemented chapter 4 from “How to Be an Authoritarian”: assure all other government officials that if they cooperate with you they will be effectively immune from federal criminal prosecution for bribery and corruption (and, presumably, other malfeasance). DOJ orders the US Attorney for SDNY to drop the bribery and corruption charges against […]