The recent flurry of pardons issued by our outgoing and incoming presidents raises a question I’ve pondered from time to time but never resolved: Can (and should) presidents grant clemency to deserving people who committed no crime but nevertheless find themselves condemned to perpetual misery and impecunity for committing putatively “civil” violations prosecuted by federal…

The Forest of Laws The Department of Justice’s litigators have decided that management of the Minneapolis police department may no longer remain where the law says it must remain. This must be so, they say, because they are on the hunt for policing patterns and practices that allegedly produce racially disparate results.  No one wants…

Public commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in SEC v. Jarkesy is an unusually stark litmus test of political and legal perspectives of the commentariat. Progressives sound a drumbeat of conspiracy, destruction, mayhem and even ruin against a lively background of originalists, libertarians, and conservatives shooting off fireworks and cannons or popping champagne to celebrate. …

Meta announced that it will discontinue its fact-checking program, which it will replace with a Community Notes model akin to that utilized by X (formerly known as Twitter).  Free speech proponents are celebrating this policy change as effectively ending viewpoint-based censorship on Meta’s social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads).  To accompany Meta’s written statement,…

Nearly a century ago, Justice Brandeis warned: “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.  Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers.  The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal,…

Assuming it does not simply abolish the Department of Education, the Trump Administration will have to fix the mess left by President Biden’s repeated unlawful (and unsuccessful) attempts to cancel student loans. The biggest challenge may be the fallout from the illegal Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, which lowers participants’ monthly payments to virtually…