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Presidential Bribery and the Clear Statement Rule in Trump v. United States: Revisiting Issues From The First Trump Impeachment and the Mueller Investigation
Today the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Trump v. United States, the presidential immunity case. Much of the argument concerned issues left unresolved during the Trump presidency. First, during the Mueller investigation, it was alleged that Trump violated the federal obstruction of justice statute. I, and others, countered that a criminal statute should only […]
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SCOTUS Weighs the Risk of Presidential Timidity Against the Risk of Presidential Impunity
Without “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for their “official acts,” Donald Trump’s lawyer told the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, presidents will be afraid to do their jobs. “If a president can be charged, put on trial, and imprisoned for his most controversial decisions as soon as he leaves office, that looming threat will distort […]
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Texas Public Colleges Crack Down on Peaceful Anti-Israel Protests
As pro-Palestine demonstrations erupt at college campuses across the nation, several public colleges in Texas have come under fire for cracking down on peaceful protests. While public universities are bound by the First Amendment, a March executive order by Gov. Greg Abbot forces colleges to suppress antisemitic speech, seemingly motivating some of the universities’ responses […]
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New Evidence that Making Legal Migration Easier Reduces Illegal Border Crossings
(Miguel Juarez Lugo/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom) I and others have long argued that making legal migration easier is the best way to reduce disorder at the border. To a large extent, this basic Economics 101: if a much-coveted good or service is banned or severely restricted, that predictably creates a large black market. Thus, just as alcohol prohibition […]
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NOAA Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Are Not Evidence of Climate Change
“Billion-dollar weather and climate disasters broke U.S. record in 2023, NOAA says,” reported PBS earlier this year. “NOAA: US sees record number of billion-dollar weather, climate disasters in 2023,” observed Fox Weather. “U.S. Hit by Record Number of High-Cost Disasters in 2023,” declared The New York Times. These and many more headlines were based on […]
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Judge Acquits Backpage Co-Founder Michael Lacey on Most Counts
A federal judge has acquitted Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey of dozens of counts, including a majority of those on which federal prosecutors planned to retry Lacey later this year. U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa also acquitted former Backpage executives Jed Brunst and Scott Spear on multiple counts of which they were convicted by a jury […]
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David Beito: Was FDR a Tyrant?
Why has President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s dark side been hidden? Scholars consistently rank FDR as one of America’s greatest presidents. The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey ranked him number two, below Lincoln, and respondents to the Siena College Research Institute studies have ranked him number one in six out of seven survey years. Perhaps it’s […]
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Greenpeace Crusade Will Blind and Kill Children
Greenpeace and other anti-biotech activist groups have logged a win in a crusade that could ultimately blind and kill thousands of children annually. How? By persuading the Court of Appeals of the Philippines to issue a scientifically ignorant and morally hideous decision to ban the planting of vitamin A–enriched golden rice. The objective result will […]
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The Kentucky Legislature Removed The Governor’s Power To Temporarily Appoint A Senator
Back in August 2023, I wrote about a potential Seventeenth Amendment conflict in Kentucky. Under Kentucky law, in the event of a Senate vacancy, the Governor could only appoint a temporary Senator of the same political party as the former Senator. The Kentucky Legislature has a Republican super-majority with a Democratic Governor. And the Governor […]
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Nina Jankowicz, Disinformation Czar, Is Back in Action
In a recent newsletter, I fretted that disinformation experts keep failing upward into ever greater positions of prominence, even when their underlying research comes under serious scrutiny. This week, The New York Times commented on—and contributed to—the most compelling example of this phenomenon: Nina Jankowicz, who has returned from exile to launch a new disinformation-tracking […]
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