[ad_1] President Obama and Sonia Sotomayor in 2009 (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty) 1983—In a separate concurring opinion (in State v. Hunt), Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals offers her view that the Tennessee constitution is best read as protecting obscenity. Daughtrey recognizes, alas, that the state supreme court has rejected her reading

[ad_1] Former Vice President Joe Biden departs after speaking about the U.S. economy during a campaign event in Dunmore, Pa., July 9, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) Populists argue that Americans can do anything, build anything, and achieve anything. But the happy reality is that we’re lucky enough not to need to. For decades, politicians have been

[ad_1] (simpson33/iStock/Getty Images Plus) Federal judges in Tennessee and Georgia blocked restrictive abortion bans in both states on Monday. District Judge Steve Jones ruled unconstitutional Georgia’s “heartbeat” law, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, around six weeks of pregnancy. Jones previously temporarily blocked the law, which was never implemented, in October. The law

[ad_1] Roger Stone, former campaign adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., November 13, 2019. (Yara Nardi/Reuters) President Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s prison term was announced Friday night in the middle of a congressional recess, and very few congressional Republicans have taken it upon themselves to weigh

[ad_1] People take part in a protest to defund the police in a place they are calling the “City Hall Autonomous Zone” in support of “Black Lives Matter” in New York, N.Y., June 30, 2020. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters) Gun-control advocates have reason to worry that their support for the police will make them the next casualty

[ad_1] The Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., January 21, 2020 (Will Dunham/Reuters) After a Supreme Court term that ended with three major victories for religious liberty over the span of ten days, this is a good time to take stock of how far the Court has come in this area under the current majority. For

[ad_1] Students exit a bus at Venice High School in Los Angeles, Calif., December 2015. (Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters) The Los Angeles and San Diego school districts announced Monday that they will not return to in-person classes next month but will begin the school year with online-only classes over coronavirus concerns. In Los Angeles, students will start

[ad_1] A correction officer patrols outside the Federal Correctional Institution, as Daniel Lewis Lee is set to be put to death in the first federal execution in 17 years, in Terre Haute, Ind., July 13, 2020. (Bryan Woolston/Reuters) I have a column on the homepage about the Justice Department’s attempt to carry out the death

[ad_1] NYPD officers outside Trump Tower in New York, July 13, 2020. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Before the last few weeks, many Americans had probably never heard of “qualified immunity.” But as a result of the nationwide protests against abusive policing, this esoteric legal doctrine is now widely understood as a significant impediment to the sound enforcement

[ad_1] Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., July 24, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) A top prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced Monday that he is writing a book that will document the “mistakes” the team made over the course of their nearly two-year

[ad_1] It’s been widely assumed or asserted that Chief Justice Roberts assigned Justice Gorsuch the task of writing the majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Court ruled by a vote of 6 to 3 that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status constitutes discrimination “because of … sex”

[ad_1] Disney Springs shoppers wear face masks and Disney-themed clothing while Walt Disney World conducts a phased reopening from coronavirus restrictions in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., July 11, 2020. (Octavio Jones/Reuters) Florida set a record for the highest single-day total of new coronavirus cases on Sunday, with 15,299 new infections, surpassing the previous high of

[ad_1] A Christian group marches towards Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s house to support anti-extradition bill protesters in Hong Kong, China, August 30, 2019. (Danish Siddiqui/Reuters) The restrictions under which they may practice their faith increasingly resemble those of their coreligionists living in the mainland. Hong Kong’s Christians fear reprisals from China’s Communist Party. A national-security

[ad_1] Roger Stone, January 31, 2019 (Leah Millis/Reuters) President Trump has commuted the sentence of Roger Stone. The timing, late on Friday, suggests internal embarrassment over the move, and we wish there were more. The commutation is a move fully within the president’s powers and in keeping with the long-established pattern of presidents’ pardoning or

[ad_1] Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) 2009—In an interview in the New York Times Magazine, Justice Ginsburg offers this, er, interesting comment why she was “surprised” by the Court’s 1980 decision in Harris v. McRae, which ruled that the Hyde Amendment’s exclusion of nontherapeutic abortions from Medicaid reimbursement was constitutionally permissible: Frankly I

[ad_1] Roger Stone celebrates his commutation outside his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., July 10, 2020. (Joe Skipper/Reuters) One-time defenders of unsavory Clinton and Obama pardons are outraged by the president’s commutation of his old associate’s 40-month sentence. Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother for felony distribution of cocaine. And a key witness in the

[ad_1] Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Elena Kagan prior to the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., February 4, 2020 (Leah Millis/Reuters) The Court’s decision in Chiafalo v. Washington seems sure to intensify the partisan fight over the Electoral College’s future. Whither the Electoral College? The Supreme

[ad_1] (Alexkx3/iStock/Getty Images Plus) A born editor and humanitarian democrat, he aimed to use foreign policy to improve people’s lives. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE O wen Harries, a proud Welsh Australian, was laid to rest yesterday in the brilliant sunshine of Macquarie Park in Sydney, Australia, where he had emigrated from what he felt was a

[ad_1] Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asks a question during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Police Use of Force and Community Relations” in Washington, D.C., June 16, 2020. (Tom Williams/Pool via Reuters) Senator Ted Cruz warned the Trump administration not to include a “road to citizenship” for DACA recipients, after Trump implied one was coming

[ad_1] Michael Flynn departs a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., December 1, 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Newly released documents in the Michael Flynn case include a January 2017 DOJ draft memo that states “FBI leadership” decided against showing Flynn transcripts of his calls with the Russian ambassador in the White House interview that led to

[ad_1] The Chinese and Hong Kong flags flutter at the office of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in Beijing, China, June 3, 2020. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters) The law could give Beijing new tools to silence its critics abroad. The Chinese Communist Party’s new security law has criminalized subversion, secession, terrorism, and

[ad_1] A sign for BlackRock Inc. hangs above their building in New York, July 16, 2018. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Politically motivated shareholder activism violates the fiduciary responsibility of investment managers. In recent years, politically motivated investors have criticized BlackRock, the largest institutional fund manager in the world, for investments they consider unsavory, such as those in fossil-fuels

[ad_1] A deli closed due to the coronavirus outbreak in Brooklyn, N.Y., March 26, 2020. (Stephen Yang/Reuters) The Ohio Democratic Party applied for and received $334,000 in coronavirus-relief funds slated to buoy businesses that are struggling during the pandemic despite criticizing the Trump administration program as inadequate. A campaign-finance report disclosed the $333,867 loan, which

[ad_1] Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at Delaware State University in Dover, Del., June 5, 2020. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) His economic nationalism rests on the same basic assumptions as Trump’s. And those assumptions are erroneous. A promise of economic nationalism, an expensive infrastructure bill that’s really a

[ad_1] Amazon boxes stacked for delivery in New York City (Mike Segar/Reuters) Update: Amazon released a statement saying that an email to employees telling them to delete TikTok from their phones was sent out “in error.” “This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error. There is no change to our policies right

[ad_1] Trump announced in a tweet this morning that he directed the Treasury Department to consider removing the tax-exempt status of universities. Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education. Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2020

[ad_1] The Chief Justice is a minimalist, not a liberal Earlier this week, I had an op-ed in the New York Times, “This Is the Real John Roberts,” explaining why the voting pattern we have seen from Chief Justice John Roberts should not be too surprising. While there are exceptions, I think the Chief Justice has

[ad_1] New York Police Department (NYPD) officers form a line near City Hall in lower Manhattan, in New York City, July 1, 2020. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) Making special exceptions for police officers at the expense of the victims of their abuse is just plain wrong. In their telling, populist conservatives fight for the little guy, not

[ad_1] The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., January 19, 2020. (Will Dunham/Reuters) When the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo to strike down a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have hospital-admitting privileges, it dealt a blow to the pro-life movement. However, while disappointing, “this was not a decision

[ad_1] A tourist holds a “Make America Great Again” hat outside the White House, August 2, 2018. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) The disconnect between the two most powerful slogans in our politics and what little substance they hide is not just demoralizing, but dangerous. The two most powerful political slogans of our era are “Make America Great