Last month, police officers in College Park, Georgia detained Charles Read for felony assault charges, alleging that he kicked down his ex-girlfriend’s door and attempted to strangle her. The only problem? Read is paraplegic—and has been for more than 20 years. Despite the obvious discrepancy, police officers still handcuffed Read and tried to take him […]
New on the Short Circuit podcast: We recorded an episode at our tenth anniversary show last week. Hear from Eugene Volokh and Raffi Melkonian about video dissents and one arbitration to rule them all. California assesses a tax on in-state hospitals that it uses to generate matching federal Medicaid funding and then distributes the funds as […]
The Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. J.G.G. divested Judge Boasberg of the jurisdiction to further adjudicate the matter. It also cast in serious doubt whether he could continue his contempt proceedings against the executive branch. Earlier this week, I wrote “it is not clear if the District Court has power to hold the executive branch in […]
The Trump administration insists that its crackdown on pro-Palestinian students is not an attack on freedom of thought. “This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in defense of detaining Columbia University protest […]
On Wednesday evening, in Yost v. Brown, Justice Brett Kavanaugh entered a stay of a district court order in requiring Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to publish two contest ballot initiative summaries. Justice Kavanaugh also called for a response by next Wednesday. The underlying dispute concerns the wording of the ballot initiative summary prepared by […]
For the second time in a week, all nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court have rejected a sweeping assertion of executive power made by President Donald Trump in a case arising from Trump’s unilateral efforts to deport aliens from the United States. The first rejection came on April 7, when the Supreme Court unanimously […]
Derek Thompson, a senior writer at The Atlantic and co-author (with Ezra Klein) of Abundance: The New Politics of Growth, joins this episode of Just Asking Questions to make the case that if Democrats want to win in the future, they must first learn to build. In this conversation, Thompson challenges Democrats to reimagine themselves […]
Can you avoid the cost of tariffs by buying only American-made products? Will tariffs promote domestic manufacturing while filling federal tax coffers? Is free trade killing jobs? No, no, and certainly not, explains Daniel Hannan, a conservative member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom and president of the Institute for Free Trade. […]
A very interesting analysis at Executive Functions by Prof. Jack Goldsmith (Harvard), a leading scholar of executive power and of the separation of powers; an excerpt, though you should read the whole thing: I have heard from a few people in recent days who think the Supreme Court is cowering before the Trump administration or, […]
After months of politicians fighting, Mississippi has joined a small club of nine other states in passing legislation eliminating the state income tax—an outcome that will benefit Mississippians and hopefully encourage other states to follow suit. House Bill 1, also known as the “Build Up Mississippi Act,” will phase out the Magnolia State’s income tax. […]