The U.S. Constitution

A Primary Win and a Prison List

Here is the question that should make every American, left, right, and exhausted in the middle, sit up straight: what happens to constitutional democracy when a candidate runs not on laws they plan to pass, but on people they plan to punish? In a South Texas Democratic primary that spilled into a...

John Morgan’s 2024 Autopsy: DEI, Transgender Sports, and the Border

Every losing party does a version of the same thing after Election Day. It convenes a postmortem, produces a document, and promises that the next cycle will be different. The idea is simple: if we can diagnose the failure precisely enough, we can treat it next time. John Morgan, a longtime...

Tulsi Gabbard Resigns as Director of National Intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard is resigning from her position as Director of National Intelligence, notifying President Donald Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office Friday that she needs to step away from government service to support her husband through a serious illness. Her last day at the Office of the...

Passport Photo Sizes

Passport photos are one of those small details that can slow down an application faster than people expect. The photo rules are not universal. Each country sets its own standard dimensions, cropping expectations, and technical requirements, and even a “close enough” print from a retail photo...

Passport Photo Sizes by Country (20 English-Official Nations)

Passport photos look simple, but they can still slow down an application if they do not meet the specs. In many systems, a non-compliant photo triggers a request to resubmit before processing can continue. The tricky part is that there is no single global standard. One country may want a 2 × 2...

Trump’s ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Fund: Constitutional Fix or New Problem?

A new Justice Department move is drawing intense criticism and, understandably, a lot of public confusion. The department has announced a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund meant to compensate people who say they are victims of “lawfare and weaponization” by the federal government....

Supreme Court Sends Two Voting Rights Act Cases Back Down

When people picture the Supreme Court at work, they often imagine a dramatic, final decision: a big ruling, a clear winner, and a clear loser. But some of the Court’s most consequential moves are quieter. This week, the justices issued brief orders in two Voting Rights Act cases that did not...

The Supreme Court’s Worst Decisions (and Why They Never Really Die)

We treat Supreme Court decisions like tombstones. Chiseled in stone. Final. Settled. But the Court’s worst moments do not stay buried. Even when a case is “overruled,” the reasoning that powered it can linger in the legal bloodstream, ready to reappear in a new body with a new name. So when...

A DOJ Addendum That Would Block IRS Audits of Trump

There are plenty of ways a legal settlement can end a dispute. What is far harder to justify, in a system built on equal treatment, is a settlement term that appears to place one person and his businesses outside the reach of routine tax enforcement for years already on file. That is the concern...

Virginia’s Assault Firearm Ban and the Post-Bruen Court Test

Virginia’s new “assault firearm” law is now the subject of a federal constitutional challenge, and it arrives at a moment when Second Amendment litigation follows a very different roadmap than it did just a few years ago. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the...

Trump Targets Thomas Massie

Every so often, American politics gives us a clean civics lesson. Not a tidy one. A real one. The kind with sharp elbows and clear consequences. In Kentucky, Representative Thomas Massie is staring down exactly that kind of lesson. With the Republican primary set for Tuesday, President Donald Trump...

Graham’s Warning to GOP Dissenters

Political parties are coalitions until they are not. At some point, a coalition stops being a loose agreement about goals and becomes a discipline system. Rewards flow to those who help the leader. Penalties land on those who do not. Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested the Republican Party is operating...

Supreme Court Blocks Va. Democrats’ Bid to Restore Voter-Approved Maps

The Supreme Court issued a one-sentence emergency order that ends Virginia Democrats’ bid to revive voter-approved redistricting changes . The practical effect is straightforward: the 2021 congressional map stays in place , maintaining a narrow GOP edge. The justices offered no explanation and no...

What Are RICO Charges?

When you hear that someone is facing “RICO charges,” it often sounds like a prosecutor just opened a trap door labeled organized crime and dropped the defendant through it. But RICO is not a magical super-crime. It is a statute, passed in 1970, that lets prosecutors connect the dots between...

“Don’t Let Them Hide FOX News” and the First Amendment

You are on Fox News. The page dims. A centered popup takes over the screen in dark blue with Fox branding and a warning that sounds less like marketing and more like mobilization: “Don’t Let Them Hide FOX News.” Under it: “Take control of your search.” The call to action is specific. A...

When the Supreme Court Stops Deferring to Congress

One of the most important choices the Supreme Court makes is not just what the Constitution means, but how confident the Court must be before it invalidates a law passed by Congress. That choice has a name: judicial deference . Deference can sound like a dusty courtroom custom, but it is really a...

McMorrow’s Water Bills and the Politics of Shutoffs

Mallory McMorrow is building a U.S. Senate campaign around affordability and the idea that basic necessities should not be rationed by wealth. But at her Royal Oak-area property, her own water account became a quiet case study in how quickly “policy” turns into “practice.” Records show...

Can SCOTUS Overturn the Federal Home Distilling Felony?

Here is the uncomfortable civics question hiding inside a very American hobby: can Congress turn what you do in your own kitchen into a federal felony, not because it is inherently harmful, but because it might make taxes harder to collect? For more than a century and a half, federal law has said...

Jacksonville’s Gun Log Lawsuit and the Meaning of “Registration”

“Registration” sounds like a bureaucratic word. A form. A checkbox. A harmless administrative ritual. But in American gun politics and American gun law, registration is not neutral vocabulary. It is a loaded category. It can mean everything from a city guard writing down a visitor’s name to a...

Evanston to Send $25,000 Reparations Payments to 44 Residents

Evanston, Illinois is preparing to send a new round of publicly funded reparations payments: $25,000 each to 44 residents. The city’s reparations committee has said the payments are meant to help cover housing expenses , and that additional recipients are lined up behind them as money becomes...