ArcaMax

Ron DeSantis, who officially launched his presidential campaign last week, presents himself as a champion of individual freedom against overweening government. But as governor of Florida, DeSantis has repeatedly contradicted that stance by blurring the line between state and private action, a distinction that is crucial to protecting civil ...Read more

On March 15, 2020, two days after then-President Donald Trump declared a national COVID-19 emergency, Cornell law professor Michael Dorf urged Congress to impose a nationwide lockdown and suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Congress never took either of those constitutionally dubious steps, which Dorf said were necessary to "save the nation."

...Read more

Sometime this month or next, the Supreme Court is expected to tell President Joe Biden that he can't forgive $400 billion in student loan debt without congressional authorization. That plan is one of several ways in which Biden has embraced an expansive view of executive power that elevates his own preferences above the law.

Unfortunately, ...Read more

After the mass shooting that killed eight people at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, last Saturday, President Joe Biden said that horrifying crime reinforced the case for "enacting universal background checks." Yet the perpetrator, who was killed by a police officer at the scene, had been licensed as an armed security guard, which means he ...Read more

Three days after Washington became the 10th state to enact an "assault weapon" ban, a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a similar law in Illinois. That decision, which was published last Friday, may signal the demise of a long-running public policy fraud that falsely depicts an arbitrarily defined category of semi-automatic ...Read more

The last time I spoke at Cornell University, the turnout was tiny but attentive. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who graduated from Cornell a few years before I did, attracted a much larger crowd when she visited the campus in November, but her talk was repeatedly interrupted by loud and angry protesters, and she left in frustration ...Read more

Since the New York indictment of Donald Trump was unsealed last week, critics across the political spectrum have noted the legal problems with transforming one hush payment into 34 felonies. But in assessing the seriousness of this case, it is also relevant to ask who was injured by the former president's actions, a question that poses more of...Read more

Three decades ago, Congress enacted a law that seemed commonsensical: It prohibits gun possession by people who are subject to restraining orders aimed at preventing domestic violence. But as the legal battle over that rule shows, its intuitive appeal is complicated by the reality that judges often issue such orders without any credible ...Read more

This week, in response to mass demonstrations and a nascent general strike, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed legislative consideration of his right-wing coalition's judicial reform agenda. Both sides in the acrimonious battle over that plan say they are defending democracy, which is a misleading way to frame an issue that should...Read more

Last month, I noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had repeatedly exaggerated the scientific evidence supporting face mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Facebook attached a warning to that column, which it said was "missing context" and "could mislead people."

According to an alliance of social media platforms, ...Read more

The form that Louisville, Kentucky, police officers use when they seek search warrants includes a list of possible justifications, such as the expectation that stolen property, tools of crime, or other evidence of illegal activity will be discovered. In one case recently highlighted by the U.S. Department of Justice, an officer checked "other" ...Read more

During his 2022 State of the Union address, President Joe Biden promised he would "keep doing everything in my power" to eliminate "ghost guns you can buy online and assemble at home." But Biden actually tried to do something that was not in his power: He purported to ban that previously legal business by administrative decree, ...Read more