Politics, Moderate
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Promising to Restore 'Law and Order,' Trump Falsely Claims Crime Is Rising: The Most Notable Recent Increase Happened on His Watch, When Homicides Spiked
"Our crime rate is going up," former President Donald Trump claimed during the Republican National Convention last week, when he vowed to "Make America Safe Once Again." Yet the most notable recent increase in the homicide rate happened on Trump's watch, and violent crime has been falling since then.
That gap between Republican rhetoric and ...Read more
A Ruling in Favor of DIY Distillers Affirms Limits on Congressional Power: A Federal Judge Rejected the Government's Excuses for Banning Home Production of Liquor
If you search for "home still" on Amazon, you will see a bunch of products that are explicitly advertised as tools for producing liquor. But while it is legal to make beer, cider or wine at home for your own consumption or to share with friends, unlicensed production of distilled spirits remains a federal felony punishable by up to five years ...Read more
Determined to Avoid Presidential Paralysis, SCOTUS Endorses Presidential Impunity: We Need Not Conjure 'Extreme Hypotheticals' to Understand the Danger Posed by an 'Energetic Executive' Who Feels Free to Flout the Law
Challenging the federal indictment stemming from his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump argued that former presidents can be prosecuted for "official acts" only if they are first impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate based on the same conduct. While rejecting that claim last week, ...Read more
Two SCOTUS Cases Show How an Unaccountable Administrative State Hurts 'Ordinary People': Contrary to Progressive Criticism, Curtailing Bureaucratic Power Is Not About Protecting the 'Wealthy and Powerful'
After the U.S. Supreme Court curtailed the powers of federal agencies in two cases last week, progressive critics predictably complained that the decisions favored "big business," "corporate interests" and "the wealthy and powerful." That gloss overlooked the reality that people with little wealth or power frequently are forced to contend with...Read more
Has SCOTUS Replaced One Kind of Unbridled Discretion With Another in Second Amendment Cases? Although Critics Say the Court's Current Approach Is Unworkable, It Has Been Undeniably Effective at Defeating Constitutionally Dubious Gun Regulations
Two years ago, New York Times columnist David French complains, the Supreme Court "created a jurisprudential mess that scrambled American gun laws" by saying they must be "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." Last week, French suggests, the court drew back from the precipice when it upheld a federal law ...Read more
Critics Fundamentally Misconstrue the Supreme Court's Bump Stock Ruling: The Case Hinged on the ATF's Statutory Authority, Not the Second Amendment
After the Supreme Court overturned the Trump administration's bump stock ban last week, critics complained that the justices had interpreted the Second Amendment in a way that rules out perfectly reasonable gun regulations. That was an odd complaint, because the case did not involve the Second Amendment.
The Court's decision upheld an ...Read more
Trump's Abortion Dilemma: The 'Most Pro-Life President in American History' Cannot Please Hardline Activists Without Alienating Voters
When former President Donald Trump agreed to address a conference hosted by an organization that opposes abortion in all circumstances, President Joe Biden's campaign cited the appearance as evidence of Trump's extremism on the issue. But in his brief recorded remarks at the Danbury Institute's Life & Liberty Forum in Indianapolis on Monday, ...Read more
Donald Trump and Hunter Biden Face the Illogical Consequences of an Arbitrary Gun Law: Their Cases Illustrate the Injustice of Taking Away People's Second Amendment Rights Based on Nonviolent Crimes
On the heels of a New York conviction that stripped former President Donald Trump of his Second Amendment rights, a federal jury in Delaware is considering whether Hunter Biden violated three gun laws when he bought a revolver in 2018. If Biden is convicted of those felonies, he also will lose the constitutional right to armed self-defense.
...Read more
Trump Decries Disproportionate Drug Penalties While Threatening Dealers With Death: The Former and Possibly Future President Hopes Voters Will Overlook His Incoherence
President Joe Biden "was a key figure in passing the 1994 Crime Bill, which disproportionately harmed Black communities through harsh sentencing laws and increased incarceration rates," former President Donald Trump's campaign reminded voters last week. If elected, Trump promised in a speech at the Libertarian National Convention two days ...Read more
Biden Decries a 'Failed Approach to Marijuana' but Sticks With It: Rescheduling Does Not Resolve the Conflict Between Federal Pot Prohibition and State Rejection of That Policy
For half a century, critics have argued marijuana does not belong in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, a category supposedly reserved for drugs that cannot be used safely even under a doctor's supervision due to their high potential for abuse and lack of accepted medical applications. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice ...Read more
The 'Heart' of Alvin Bragg's Case Against Trump Is Misdirection: Contrary to What Prosecutors Say, the Former President Is Not Charged With 'Conspiracy' or 'Election Fraud'
Porn star Stormy Daniels says she had sex with former President Donald Trump at a Lake Tahoe hotel in July 2006. To keep her from telling that story, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen says, "the boss" instructed him to pay Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says that ...Read more
Ron DeSantis Says Letting People Buy Cultivated Meat Is Like Forcing Them to Eat Bugs: Florida's Protectionist Ban on the Nascent Industry Sacrifices Conservative Principles in the Name of a Culture War That Politicizes Everything
It is not yet clear whether the alternative protein products known variously as "lab-grown," "cell-cultivated" or "cultured" meat will deliver the environmental benefits touted by their boosters or when they will be appealing and cheap enough to be competitive with conventional poultry, beef and pork. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis already has ...Read more
Journalism Is Not a Crime, Even When It Offends the Government: Julian Assange and Priscilla Villarreal Were Both Arrested for Publishing Information That Government Officials Wanted to Conceal
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been imprisoned in London for five years, while Texas journalist Priscilla Villarreal was only briefly detained at the Webb County Jail. But both were arrested for publishing information that government officials wanted to conceal.
Assange and Villarreal argue that criminalizing such conduct violates the ...Read more
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