“‘It is … the natural enemy of our home-bred form of government, and ought to awaken the resistance of all legislative and judicial departments, and the detestation of every person not enriched by this ruinous commerce.’ That warning came from John Taylor of Caroline over two centuries ago. The subject: What we now call ‘legislating from the bench.’ He wrote an entire book smacking down Chief Justice John Marshall, who followed Alexander Hamilton’s playbook to twist the necessary and proper clause into a blank check to justify creating a national bank. Taylor saw exactly where this was heading. Judges rewriting the Constitution to create unlimited federal power.” (01/14/26)
“I went down an ugly rabbit hole the other day. In case you didn’t know, the Department of Labor is pursuing a … novel digital marketing campaign. It posts pictures of 1930s-style graphics of clean-cut young white men with captions like ‘Build Your Homeland’s Future!’ ‘Your Nation Needs You!’ and ‘American Workers First!’ Maybe because I recently rewatched The Man in the High Castle, I’m a bit over-primed to find them creepy. The department has been doing this for a while, and I’ve largely ignored the posts, intentionally. So much of what this administration does is a kind of trolling. They want people to complain so they can then say, ‘See! Our critics are anti-white!’ or ‘Look at what their TDS has caused them to get mad at now! These are inspired by Norman Rockwell!’ But then over the weekend Labor put out this doozy …” (01/14/26)
“On Tuesday, January 20, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Wolford v. Lopez, which concerns whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that Hawaii may prohibit the carrying of handguns by permit holders on private property open to the public unless the property owner affirmatively gives express permission. The Ninth Circuit upheld the ban under Bruen based on the existence of merely two purported historical analogues, a 1771 New Jersey law on poaching and an 1865 Louisiana Black Code law.” (01/14/26)
“Most familiar with recent world history are aware of the role the Brown Shirts in the corrupting of the German Weimar Republic into the Dritte (Third) Reich. In similar ways, various ‘private’ groups and militias have been instrumental in overthrowing governments and in propping up other governments. At the same time, ‘non-governmental organizations’ (NGO) are viewed by government and media as organizations that support social, humanitarian, or environmental issues. And a very good thing. While most are ‘non-profit,’ even NGOs can be organized as a for-profit entity. Most are considered charities and enjoy 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Yet, they are (supposedly) organized independently from any government.” (01/14/26)
“The president went from praising ‘the wars we never get into’ to seeing how many the US can get into, and prominent members of his base are eating it up.” (01/14/26)
“There is a difference between leverage and lunacy. To wit: asking the world’s most elite and secretive special operations force to brainstorm ways to ‘attack’ an island three times the size of Texas populated by roughly 56,000 people, most of whom already host and love American troops, is lunacy. Yet here we are. President Trump has reportedly tasked the U.S. military with providing ‘options’ regarding Greenland — specifically requesting that the Joint Special Operations Command develop potential military scenarios. The implication — left vague but unmistakable — is that where diplomacy, money, and basic common sense have failed, force might somehow accomplish Trump’s longstanding fixation on acquiring the world’s largest island from Denmark, a NATO ally. If true, Trump’s request doesn’t merely reflect a misunderstanding of geopolitics.” (01/14/26)
“My theory is this: Sometime over the holidays, someone got to Donald Trump and told him he would lose the midterm elections badly if he did not offer something to the public to deal with affordability concerns. The traditional policy playbook for such things on the conservative side would either do nothing or make things actively worse. So this search for an affordability agenda has led Trump into the waiting arms of progressive populism, sort of. The result has been … strange. Over the past couple of weeks, Trump has called for banning corporate investors from purchasing homes. He has directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities to lower mortgage interest rates. He has insisted on a one-year cap on credit card interest rates to 10 percent, and endorsed a bipartisan bill to inject competition into credit card markets to reduce excessive swipe fees merchants pay.” (01/15/25)
“Facts mattered to the man who told us ‘facts don’t matter.’ Ideas, principles, arguments — these mattered, too. Which is probably what I will remember most about Scott Adams, who died yesterday.” (01/14/26)
“I’ve previously discussed surprising results around tolerance for hypothetical controversial speakers, which we assess by asking whether students would allow those speakers on campus, including the fact that men are substantially more tolerant — so much so, in fact, that men are often more tolerant of their political enemies than women are of their own allies. These results have left me wondering what, if anything, can be done to make people more tolerant. One possible answer is education. One would hope, for instance, that studying philosophy teaches people to engage in open debate and meet ideas they disagree with using rational argument rather than censorship. But is that true? That question isn’t easy to definitively answer using our data, but one way to approach an answer is by looking at which majors have students who are unusually tolerant.” (01/14/26)
