The Jeffrey Epstein saga has produced an almost endless supply of sealed files, suspicious timing, institutional embarrassment, political opportunism, and questions that refuse to die. This week, however, a federal judge answered one question quite firmly: Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction is staying put. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected Maxwell’s attempt to overturn her five…
The Federal Marijuana Pivot
For decades, the federal government treated marijuana like it belonged in the same category as the most dangerous drugs on the planet: no medical value, high abuse potential, end of discussion. That stance held firm even as states legalized it, doctors prescribed it, and millions of Americans quietly (or not so quietly) incorporated it into…
The Supreme Court Revives Qualified Immunity (Again)
A recent decision from the Supreme Court has dropped us right back into one of the most stubborn legal debates in modern America: qualified immunity. If you’re feeling a sense of déjà vu, that’s because this issue never really goes away. It just rotates through new fact patterns, new plaintiffs, and new frustrations. At the…
Breonna Taylor, Broken Chains of Causation, and the Case That Collapsed
Six years after the death of Breonna Taylor, the Justice Department has moved to dismiss the remaining charges against the officers accused of falsifying the warrant used in the raid on her apartment. And if you blinked, you might have missed just how significant that is. This wasn’t just a procedural hiccup or a minor…
Trump’s “Shield of the Americas”: Bold Strategy or Just Another War on Drugs?
Every few decades, Washington rediscovers something that most Americans already know: drug cartels are violent, wealthy, and deeply embedded in international networks that are extremely difficult to dismantle. The rediscovery is usually followed by a familiar sequence of events: stern speeches, bold promises, and a new policy initiative with a name designed to sound decisive.…
Why Is the DOJ Tracking Lawmakers’ Epstein File Searches?
The latest eyebrow-raising twist in the Epstein saga isn’t just about what’s buried inside the files. It’s about reports that the Department of Justice has been tracking lawmakers’ searches of those very records, monitoring who’s looking, and possibly what they’re looking for. Let that sink in. Members of Congress—people with oversight authority over federal agencies—access…
Howard Lutnick and the Long, Uncomfortable Shadow of Jeffrey Epstein
Let’s just say it plainly: no one wants their name anywhere near Jeffrey Epstein’s. Not in a headline. Not in a footnote. Not even in the same paragraph. And yet here we are, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick facing renewed scrutiny over past associations within elite financial and social circles where Epstein also operated. Now,…
History, Power, and the Peril of Governing by Spectacle
The controversy surrounding President Trump’s attempted National Guard deployments to major U.S. cities is not merely a skirmish over public safety policy. It is a revealing moment about how power is exercised, justified, and constrained in a constitutional republic, and about what happens when political theater collides with historical and legal reality. At its core,…
Justice That Takes Life Seriously: Why the Death Penalty Remains Morally Just
Donald Trump’s renewed push to expand and emphasize the death penalty, particularly for murder, has reignited a debate that is often framed almost entirely in emotional or political terms. Yet beneath the rhetoric lies a far more serious moral question: does justice require that the taking of innocent human life be met with the most…
Restoring Accountability: A Pauline Diagnosis for America
If the Apostle Paul were alive today — which, theologically speaking, he most certainly is, just not in Washington, D.C. — he would probably take one long look at our national headlines, sigh deeply, and begin writing another epistle. Not to the Corinthians this time, nor the Galatians, nor the Thessalonians, but perhaps “Paul, an…
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