The news that progressives dreaded for years came to pass last night: Justice Ginsburg died. An icon of the liberal wing of the Court, her passing hands President Trump another seat on the Supreme Court. To progressives, this signals the end of the Court as a bastion of justice and defender of minority rights for…
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The High Density Debate Comes to Indiana’s “Progressive” Oasis, and the outcome is not close
A few months ago, while listening to a Freakanomics Radio episode about why rent control does not work, I heard things that made me think long and hard about our conversation in Bloomington, Indiana about affordable housing. Full disclosure: I don’t know anything about any of this. I am not an economist, nor am I…
What do North Carolina Judges Know that Supreme Court Justices Do Not?
Last week, a three-judge court in North Carolina did the unthinkable: it struck down a state redistricting plan on partisan gerrymandering grounds. This plucky little court held, in light of the overwhelming factual record chock-full of crass and extreme examples of partisan behavior, that the plan violated the law. Doing the heavy lifting was a…
Statehood for Puerto Rico and DC?
I listened with great interest to a recent conversation in 538’s Politics Podcast about the political status of Washington, DC and, by implication, Puerto Rico. The title of the podcast asked, “Should Washington, D.C., Be The 51st State?” This is an incredibly important question, for reasons of politics, constitutional law, and democratic theory as applied…
What’s wrong with “open borders”?
Any chance he gets, President Trump assails critics of his immigration policies as advocates of “open borders.” Unsurprisingly, he is wrong as a matter of fact; the United States does not have open borders, and the Democratic Party is not arguing for opening them. But what exactly is wrong with open borders? No, really. What exactly…
Baking with the Bible
In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Justice Kennedy chastised the Commission for its apparent hostility towards religion and persons of faith. Kennedy’s evidence boiled down to the following statement from a commissioner: Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it…
Eichmann at the Southern Border
This is the picture of a two-year-old child crying as she and her mother are detained at the US-Mexico border. This is now the policy of the Trump administration. These “animals” continue to “infest” our country, so we must deter them by any means necessary. The New York Daily News put it best: “Callous. Soulless….
How do we make sense of Cuba (and Puerto Rico)?
Cuba y Puerto Rico son de un pájaro las dos alas, reciben flores o balas sobre el mismo corazón… I had thought about Cuba for a very long time, probably for as long as I can remember. When you grow up in Puerto Rico, Cuba is not the rogue nation that the United States…
