Monday Open Thread
What's on your mind?
Month: March 2025
Second Amendment Roundup: Supreme Court Decides VanDerStok
Narrow decision leaves ATF regulation in limbo.
Defending Student Deportations, Marco Rubio Equates Writing an Anti-Israel Op-Ed With Starting a Riot
The detention of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk illustrates the startling breadth of the authority the secretary of state is invoking.
Peter Navarro Says Tariffs Will Be a $6 Trillion Tax Increase, but Also a Tax Cut
If true, then these tariffs would be the biggest peacetime tax increase in American history.
Judge James C. Ho: "Fighters, Climbers, and the War for the Judiciary"
Remarks delivered at the Texas A&M Journal of Law & Civil Governance Banquet
The Best Thing About the Proposed California Initiative Named After Luigi Mangione Is the Title
The ballot proposition would effectively require health insurers to cover all treatments at any price.
Who Is the 'Top Missile Guy' the U.S. Killed in Yemen?
For an administration that likes to show off successful assassinations, the Trump team has been surprisingly tight-lipped about the Houthi commanders they targeted.
Don't Count on Quitting Social Media To Make Your Life Better
A new meta-analysis finds “no significant effects of social media abstinence interventions on positive affect, negative affect, or life satisfaction.”
For the First Time in 80 Years, the U.S. Denies Mexico's Request for Water
The escalating dispute threatens Mexican farmers—and American consumers.
The Hidden Politics of Whiskey Prices
Donald Trump is determined to make everything from Canadian whiskey to Mexican avocados more expensive. Can anyone stop him?
88 Problems for Kurt Lash
Evan Bernick's first in a series of guest-blogging post: Part I of a critique of an important defense of the constitutionality of Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship.
Evan Bernick, Guest-Blogging About Birthright Citizenship
Bernick is a leading academic expert on the Fourteenth Amendment.
"The 2024 Presidential Campaign Saw a Massive Disinformation and Misinformation Campaign, …
which likely helped bring the current administration into power."
Convicting Boeing for Its Deadly Crime Becomes Simple Under the "Judicial Admission" Doctrine
In its deferred prosecution agreement, Boeing stipulated to an agreed statement of facts demonstrating that it is guilty.
To Remain Canadian, Our Northern Neighbors Should Become a Little More American
Canada long relied on the U.S. for protection. Now it needs to rediscover self-reliance.
Comic: The Bottom-Up POV of Jane Jacobs
Challenging the common knowledge of urban planning
Universities Should Challenge Trump's Speech-Based Deportations of Students in Court [Updated]
A lawsuit brought by universities could potentially be much more effective than leaving individual students to fend for themselves.
Harvard Law School v. Vermeule
Dueling letters from 90+ members of the HLS faculty and Adrian Vermeule
Lee Kovarsky on the Venue Issue in the Alien Enemies Act Case
A leading expert on habeas corpus explains why the Trump Administration is wrong to claim the case must be heard in Texas, rather than Washington, DC.
A Rendezvous With Humphrey
The Justices have had plenty of time to think about how to resolve Humphrey's Executor and should not punt.
Coastal Judges Play Keep-Away From The Fifth Circuit
The Trump administration detains individuals in Texas and Louisiana, yet federal courts on the Amtrak Corridor continue to exercise jurisdiction.
Challenging Trump's Tariffs Under the Major Question Doctrine
Georgetown law Prof. Jennifer Hillman explains why Trump's tariffs are vulnerable to challenge on this basis.
The WilmerHale Complaint
Paul Clement and Erin Murphy brilliantly defend what shouldn't need defending, but does
Rise of the Samurai Lawyers
An economist explores how a stable and relatively just legal order emerged in medieval Japan.
Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal
Facsimile fun, federal funding freezes, and fateful photos.
Marco Rubio Says He's Revoked 300 Student Visas Over Campus Activism
"We're looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up," Rubio said in a Thursday press conference.
Michael Ramsey's "The Originalist Case Against the Insular Cases"
An important new article explains why the Supreme Court's precedents denying many constitutional rights to residents of America's overseas territories are wrong.
Pam Bondi Aims To Revive a Moribund Legal Process for Restoring Gun Rights
A new Justice Department rule could help "prohibited persons" who pose no threat to public safety.
Paul Clement's Argument Against the Executive Order Targeting the WilmerHale Law Firm
It's a lawyer's argument, not an attempt at objective analysis. But I think that on balance it is generally quite correct, and powerfully framed.
Federalist Society Webinar on "The California Wildfires and America's Housing Shortage"
The panelists included M. Nolan Gray, Jennifer Hernandez, and myself.
Trump Is Sabotaging His 'Drill, Baby, Drill' Agenda
When the government picks energy winners, consumers lose.
Sixth Circuit Won't Hear Pre-Final-Judgment Appeal in Case Alleging Ohio School "Encouraged Young Children to Become Transgender …
and then lied to parents about what was happening." Because some claims remain undecided in trial court, the court of appeals holds it lacks jurisdiction over the appeal.
The 'Meritocracy' Lie
Two months after he was inaugurated, Trump has smashed many of the government's silly DEI rules. But he hasn't created a new age of meritocracy.
Ghiblifying the Fent Trafficker Deportation
Plus: New York state cut off from federal funding, Phil Magness on tariffs for JAQ, and more...
Black Student Expelled for Sexual Assault of White Classmate Seeks Pseudonymity Partly Because "Interracial Sexual Relationships …
between White women and Black men are the subject of heightened prejudice and violent responses that create a tangible risk of retaliation and animus against him."
