Courts

Federal Judge Strikes Down Voter Citizenship Checks

Privacy Protections or Roadblock to Election Integrity? On Monday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked key federal tools meant to help states verify whether people on the voter rolls are actually U.S. citizens. The ruling in League of Women Voters v. Department of Homeland Security vacates the 2025 updates to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements—better known as SAVE. For those of us who’ve spent years watching how government systems either protect or undermine self-government, this isn’t just another administrative-law skirmish. It strikes at the heart of federalism, election integrity, and whether outdated privacy statutes from the Watergate era can…

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Old Billy Was Right

Democrats Judicial Threats and the Erosion of Institutional Guardrails The more I think about it, Old Billy was right. Let’s kill all the lawyers, kill ’em tonight. So sang the Eagles in their 1994 hit “Get Over It,” cleverly nodding to Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 and the infamous line from Jack Cade’s rebellion. Don Henley and Glenn Frey weren’t calling for literal violence — they were mocking entitlement, victimhood, and the instinct to tear down the rules (and the rule-makers) when life doesn’t deliver the desired outcome. More than three decades later, that same impulse is playing out in real…

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Third Circuit Panel Draws the Line

Why the Third Circuit's Khalil Ruling Advances Justice in Immigration Enforcement In a landscape where immigration policy has become a battlefield of legal maneuvers, ideological clashes, and administrative chaos, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a much-needed dose of procedural clarity today in Khalil v. President of the United States. This 2-1 panel opinion, penned per curiam by Judges Thomas M. Hardiman, Stephanos Bibas, and Arianna J. Freeman, isn't just a win for the Trump administration-it's a reaffirmation that the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) means what it says: Challenges to removal proceedings belong in streamlined channels, not endless district-court…

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Minnesota Throws Hail Mary at ICE

How Federal Plenary Power Dooms Minnesota's Complaint In Minneapolis, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul have filed an 80-page complaint against the Trump administration's Operation Metro Surge. The suit-State of Minnesota et al. v. Noem et al.-frames the deployment of roughly 2,000 DHS agents as a "federal invasion," complete with "militarized raids" and political payback. It's bold, loud, and almost certainly doomed. From an originalist standpoint, this is another round of blue-state resistance that will hit the brick wall of federal supremacy. The Constitution's text and history allocate immigration authority squarely to the national…

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Tipping Point

The Powder Keg Awaits-Republicans Must Go Full Throttle In my September 9 column, "Justice in the Uncivil Society," I exposed the festering wound of "suicidal empathy"-a cultural cancer that coddles criminals while spitting in the face of the innocent, birthing vigilante fantasies from Dirty Harry to The Punisher. I warned that this progressive obsession, peddled by elites who’d rather hug a felon than protect a family, was unraveling civil society. Today, mere weeks later, that unraveling has hit a breaking point-a powder keg primed by soft-on-crime judges, Democrat demagogues screaming "Nazi!" and "Gestapo!" to incite rage, and a refusal to renounce…

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The AI Moratorium is Unconstitutional

Constitutional Concerns Surrounding the AI Moratorium in the Senate Budget Reconciliation Bill Introduction The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has introduced novel challenges to child safety online, particularly through AI-generated content like deepfake pornography and harmful chatbot interactions. States have historically played a critical role in regulating content to protect minors, as affirmed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton (606 U.S. (2025)), which upheld Texas’s H.B. 1181, a law requiring age verification for websites hosting content deemed obscene for minors. However, a proposed 10-year moratorium on state AI laws, embedded in the U.S.…

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Midweek Mugwumps

Quick Takes: Midweek Mugwumps This week’s political landscape is marked by opportunism, constitutional missteps, and national security concerns. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s flirtation with switching parties reveals a career driven by leverage rather than loyalty, while Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett’s calls for impeachment and war consultation expose Democratic infighting and constitutional ignorance. Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy’s defiance of a Supreme Court ruling undermines the executive’s deportation efforts, threatening the rule of law. Finally, the Biden administration’s release of 729 Iranian nationals at the border raises alarms about vetting failures, amplifying risks in a tense U.S.-Iran climate.…

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Fisking the NY Times on Skrmetti

A Fisking of The New York Times’ Article on United States v. Skrmetti: A Synthesized Narrative The New York Times article, “How a Landmark Case on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors Was Built on Flawed Politics and Uncertain Science”, published on June 19, 2025, provides a detailed account of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors. The piece frames the ruling as a significant setback for transgender rights, attributing it to a conservative backlash and a strategic misstep by transgender advocates. While the article offers a nuanced perspective, blending…

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Summary of Newsom v. Trump, 9th Circuit Stay

Summary of Newsom v. Trump from an Originalist Perspective From an originalist perspective, which emphasizes interpreting the Constitution based on its original meaning at the time of ratification, the Ninth Circuit's decision in Newsom v. Trump (filed June 19, 2025) aligns with the constitutional framework of federal authority over the militia as understood in 1787-1788, particularly through the lens of Congress’s enumerated powers and historical judicial interpretations like Martin v. Mott (1827). Below is a summary of the case through this perspective: Summary of the Case The State of California and Governor Gavin Newsom challenged President Donald J. Trump’s invocation of…

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An Originalist Analysis of United States v. Skrmetti

An Originalist Analysis of United States v. Skrmetti Balancing Constitutional Text and State Authority Introduction On June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, upheld Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which bans gender-affirming medical treatments, such as puberty blockers and hormones, for minors with gender dysphoria. The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, applied rational basis review, finding the law constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by classifying based on age and medical purpose, not sex or transgender status. Concurring opinions by Justices Thomas, Barrett, and Alito, and…

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