Articles by Bookmark

Trump’s Under-the-Radar Deportation Court Gambit

Some government actions are loud on purpose. Others slip by quietly, wrapped in procedural language that feels too technical to worry about. This week’s immigration news falls squarely into the second category. The Justice Department has taken steps to activate a special deportation tribunal...

House panel subpoenas three nonprofits in Singham funding probe

The House Ways and Means Committee has escalated an investigation into what it describes as a far-left influence-and-funding network, issuing subpoenas to three nonprofits after Chairman Rep. Jason Smith said earlier requests yielded no responsive records. Smith, a Missouri Republican, is focusing...

Trump’s Under-the-Radar Deportation Court Play

Most immigration crackdowns are loud on purpose. Raids. Press conferences. Big numbers. But some of the most unsettling moves are the ones that happen quietly, on paperwork most people will never see. This month, the Trump administration took a step that should make anyone who cares about...

Answering the Door Armed: The Fourth Amendment Trap

There are constitutional questions that live comfortably in textbooks, and then there are constitutional questions that show up on your porch, under a flashing blue light, when your heart rate is already climbing. Here is one of those questions: Can you put on a holstered handgun before you answer...

DOJ Targets U.S. Virgin Islands Magazine Ban

When people talk about the Second Amendment, they usually picture a debate playing out in a state legislature or a federal court somewhere on the mainland. This week, that familiar argument landed in a place many Americans rarely think about in constitutional terms: the U.S. Virgin Islands. On...

Home Whiskey, Home Weed, and the Commerce Clause

One of the Constitution’s most practical, day-to-day powers is also one of its most slippery: Congress’s authority “ to regulate Commerce…among the several States .” That short phrase, the Commerce Clause, helps determine what you can buy, sell, ship, grow, brew, and sometimes even what you can do...

Why Discovery Gets Aggressive in Trump’s $10B CBS Lawsuit

When Donald Trump sued CBS for $10 billion over a 60 Minutes segment, the most predictable fight was never going to be about cable-news commentary. It was going to be about proof: if you demand a number that large in a civil case, you invite the other side to ask hard questions about your math. In...

Alien Terrorist Removal Court Explained: Visas, Speech, and Removal Power

Some government powers feel absolute until you look closely at how they are built. The federal government has broad authority over immigration. It can deny visas. It can remove noncitizens. It can treat certain noncitizens as national security threats. But in practice, the executive still has to...

DOJ Religious Liberty Guidance, Explained

When the Department of Justice releases “religious liberty guidance,” it is not passing a new law. It is issuing an internal policy document that tells executive branch lawyers and program officials how DOJ believes the Constitution and federal statutes should be applied before the next lawsuit...

Why SSI Is Suddenly Everywhere: August Dates, New SSA Tools, and a Childhood Disability Fix

Supplemental Security Income is the kind of phrase you usually hear only in a benefits office. Then late July hits, and it turns into kitchen-table questions: When does the check arrive? How do I file? What happens when my child turns 18 on paper? Right now, three SSI storylines are colliding: the...

Are Sanctuary Cities Constitutional?

“Sanctuary city” sounds like a moral label. In court, it is usually something much more technical: a fight over who has to do the work. Immigration law and removal decisions are federal power. But the day-to-day machinery of policing and jail operations is mostly state and local. That tension is...

What Is a Congressional Criminal Referral?

A “criminal referral” from Congress sounds like the beginning of a prosecution. It is not. It is closer to a formal request backed by an allegation: a committee says, in writing, that it believes evidence suggests a federal crime, and it asks the Department of Justice to take a look. That...

When War Injuries Go Quiet

In civics class, students always wanted to argue about the big questions of war. When can a president strike? Who has the power to declare? What counts as self-defense? But the grown-up fight is often smaller, quieter, and in some ways more revealing: who gets to know what war costs and when. This...

A $95,000 Plane for a 6-Pack: The Supreme Court Takes an Eighth Amendment Forfeiture Case

It is hard to teach the Bill of Rights as a set of living limits on power, and then watch a case like this drift across the legal landscape for more than a decade. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the challenge of Ken Jouppi, a retired 82-year-old Alaska bush pilot whose $95,000 Cessna...

Can the President Order Military Strikes Without Congress?

The modern argument over war powers usually starts with a simple sentence: the president is commander in chief. Then someone points to a different simple sentence: Congress declares war. Those two ideas can coexist, but they do not always fit neatly together, especially when a president threatens...

What Is Birth Tourism? Birthright Citizenship and the 14th Amendment Explained

“Birth tourism” is the term commonly used for a practice critics often describe as a loophole. A nonresident travels to the United States late in pregnancy, gives birth here, and returns home. The goal is straightforward: if the baby is a U.S. citizen at birth, that status can matter later, from...

Who Can Legally Vote in U.S. Elections? Citizenship Rules Explained

Every election cycle, a familiar alarm goes off: foreigners are voting . Sometimes the claim is exaggerated. Sometimes it is a real administrative failure, like a voter-registration system that let non-citizens slip onto the rolls. But the legal question underneath the heat is steady and...

Hegseth vs. the Senate: War Funding, Oversight, and the Constitution’s Hardest Question

Two different clips from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s July 21, 2026 Senate testimony went viral for two different reasons. In one, he accused senators of moral theater: sending multiple supplemental packages abroad while, in his telling, treating urgent funding for American troops as a partisan...

Congress vs. the Smithsonian: Politeness, Objectivity, and “White Supremacy Culture”

You can tell what a political moment is really about by what it chooses as its symbol. This week’s symbol was not a statue, or a painting, or a disputed line on a placard. It was the word politeness . In a House hearing on July 21, 2026, Rep. Brandon Gill questioned Anthea Hartig, the director of...

Smithfield Foods, Chinese Ownership, and the ICE Raid Argument

Smithfield Foods is trending for a reason that sounds like a punchline but is actually a civics exam: What happens when the nation’s biggest pork processor is owned by a foreign company, relies on an industry labor model that routinely draws immigration scrutiny, and becomes the target of viral...