Opinion
Have the SEC’s Delay Tactics Made Its Petition for Rulemaking Process Vulnerable to Challenge? A Look at In re Coinbase Inc. and SEC’s Nullification of 5 U.S.C. § 553(e) by Inaction
Last week, Coinbase launched its first counteroffensive against the Securities Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) aggressive enforcement posturing in the cryptoeconomy. The cryptocurrency trading platform filed a petition for writ of mandamus asking the Third Circuit to...
The Student-Loan Suspension Is Also Illegal
The Biden administration’s attempt to forgive $400 billion in outstanding student loan debt through administrative fiat has come under richly deserved fire, with its fate now in the hands of the Supreme Court. But an equally unlawful companion giveaway has thus far...
America’s Censorship Regime Goes on Trial
Ernest Ramirez, a car-wash technician in a small, south Texas town, led a simple but fulfilling life with his son, Ernesto Junior. Junior was a “wonderful child, full of smiles.” Ramirez had raised his son alone; he’d never known his own father and sought to provide...
SEC Fines for Flutter and Rio Tinto Are Outside its Jurisdiction
This month the Securities and Exchange Commission announced two settlements that illustrate the agency’s largely unchecked power to shake down companies with astronomical penalties that far exceed statutory limits set by Congress. The broader scandal is that these...
The CFPB Is on Life Support
The Supreme Court in late February granted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) request to review Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America, a constitutional challenge to CFPB’s funding structure. CFPB’s...
How A Terrorist Victim Can Help The Supreme Court Address Section 230
In 2015, Nohemi Gonzalez—a 23-year-old American studying in Paris—was gunned down by Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists while dining at La Belle Equipe bistro. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider these wrenching facts of Gonzales v. Google on Feb. 21. Bound up with...
The White House Covid Censorship Machine
Newly released documents show that the White House has played a major role in censoring Americans on social media. Email exchanges between Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital media, and social-media executives prove the companies put Covid censorship...
How the Supreme Court Set the Stage for the Jan. 6 Riot
On the second anniversary of the invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, it’s worth considering how politics—and especially presidential elections—have increasingly become like warfare. A pair of developments—one legislative, one administrative—have raised the...
Is Social-Media Censorship a Crime?
Amid growing revelations about government involvement in social-media censorship, it’s no longer enough to talk simply about tech censorship. The problem should be understood as gov-tech censorship. The Biden White House has threatened tech companies and federal...
Welcome to the SEC’s ‘Hotel California’ Docket
Questioning a government lawyer earlier this month, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts referenced “a series of cases that are a constellation around some fairly basic propositions” concerning agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade...