The argument against imposing cash bail for pre-trial release of people accused of crimes was straightforward: The crime and personal characteristics of the accused didn’t matter. If you had the cash, you went home. If you didn’t, you sat in jail. It was, to a great degree, unfair and ineffective. Even worse, it was extremely expensive, holding individuals charged with petty offenses in jail at great public expense for pretty much no reason.

After all, what was the grave fear that someone would drink in public again if cut loose? The key justification for bail was to compel defendants to return to court as required. The one thing the experiment proved was that for the most part, they did. Indeed, the biggest factor was the reminder text of the next court appearance. Few people wanted to be saddled with a bench warrant and most were willing to confront their accusation and take the punch, whether deserved or not. Continue reading →

The State of Illinois had a big win, and Trump a big loss, on the shadow docket in Trump v. Illinois, where a 6-3 Supreme Court refused to allow the federalized National Guard to be deployed. Woo hoo? Much as the outcome may have brought smiles and tears to their respective teams, the rationale behind the ruling hasn’t gotten much scrutiny outside of the legal academy. And it is, well, surprising, peculiar and, quite frankly, not the most useful reasoning. Ilya Somin explains.

The official rationale for Trump’s use of the National Guard here is the supposed need to counter anti-ICE protests in the Chicago area, some of which had allegedly included elements of violence. In order to deploy the Guard, Trump invoked 10 U.S.C. Section 12406, which can only be used to federalize state National Guard forces and employ them for law enforcement in one of the following situations:

1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation; Continue reading →

Traditions are what binds us together. Merry Christmas to all.

To the dismay of many, I’ve long been a fan of Chesterton’s Fence, the concept that one ought to know why a fence was put up before tearing it down. Among the reasons why others disagree is that it means things people want done now have to wait until the analysis is completed. Whether that thing is the deportation of all immigrants, legal or not, or the eradication of language that might offend, it’s a stumbling block for people on both ends of the political spectrum.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

==H.L. Mencken

People know what they want and they want it now. Some would call this immediate gratification. Some would call this the death of deliberative thought. Some would even call this the tyranny of process. Continue reading →

In the New York Times, Ezra Klein writes that the Trump “vibe shift” is dead.

The Trump vibe shift was American culture and institutions moving toward President Trump and Trumpism with a force unexplained by his narrow electoral victory. It was Mark Zuckerberg donning a chain and saying that the corporate world was too hostile to “masculine energy.” It was corporate executives using Trump as an excuse to wrest control of their companies back from their workers. It was the belief that Trump’s 2024 coalition — which stretched from Stephen Miller and Laura Loomer to Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Joe Rogan and Tulsi Gabbard — was the arrival of something new rather than, as many thought in 2016, the final heave of something old.

As 2025 closes, Trump’s polling sits in the low 40s, with some surveys showing him tumbling into the 30s. Democrats routed Republicans across the year’s elections, winning governorships in New Jersey and Virginia easily and overperforming in virtually every race they contested.

Continue reading →

Connect the dots. David Ellison’s Skydance bought Paramount, which owned the Columbia Broadcasting System, which produced, inter alia, the news magazine “60 Minutes,”* and now wants to add Warner Bros. Discovery to his stable, which had agreed to be acquired by Netflix, in a hostile bid. To accomplish this, Ellison sought to use his relationship with Trump to box out Netflix and gain the inside track to approval of a takeover.

Not long ago, Trump touted his friendship with Ellison and his expectation that CBS, in general, and 60 Minutes, in particular, would treat him with greater acquiescence than it had in the past. All that changed, however, when 60 Minutes aired a segment on Marjorie Taylor (or Traitor, as Trump prefers) Greene, who did not have nice things to say about her former idol. Trump was not pleased. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: This is a guest post by Madison, Wisconsin, criminal defense lawyer Christopher Van Wagner.

There’s blood in political and judicial waters in Wisconsin today. Some of the blood has been shed by a sitting elected judge, targeted by DOJ and yesterday found guilty by a federal jury of felony crime. But this is not a horror story. This is not about whether a certain judge is guilty or not. This is about whether she can be removed from the bench, now, later, ever.

The simple answer is she can be. But there is no simple way to remove her. The full answer requires discussion of the four separate ways to boot a sitting elected Wisconsin judge off the bench.

Here are the four ways to do so. Continue reading →

There is a law. It required full disclosure within 30 days. On the one hand, the Department of Justice announced on the morning of the 30th day that it would not comply with the law, as if the law gave them an option. On the other hand, most of what was disclosed was already disclosed, other than some pictures of a young Bill Clinton which, to no one’s surprise, were one of the few things unredacted.

On the third hand, without explanation or justification, this is much of what the DoJ produced:

So?

Dear SJ:

What follows is my annual attempt at a Christmas letter. Normally this is set to Tom Lehrer’s “Christmas Carol.” With the passing of that beloved humorist last year, I thought long and hard about whether I’d use it again this season. I’ve decided to do just that as it’s my way of honoring him. So Mr. Lehrer: will you do the honors?

Christmastime is here by golly, disapproval would be folly
Deck the halls with hunks of holly, fill the cup and don’t say when! Continue reading →

During his bellicose address to the nation, Trump announced that he is sending every member of the United States military a check in the amount of $1776 as a “warrior dividend.” While most of us don’t have any particular problem with giving our military a bonus payment, per se, this payment raises a host of issues, not the least of which is why is he doing this?

President Donald Trump’s promise Wednesday to pay troops a “warrior dividend” bonus is actually a military housing stipend already approved by Congress, and not a generous new White House program.

The rebrand, confirmed by a senior administration official and two congressional officials, follows a pattern for the president, who has previously claimed credit for routine military pay increases that weren’t his doing.

Continue reading →