President Trump’s proposal to suspend the federal gas tax comes at a politically obvious moment. Gas prices have surged amid the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian pressure, and ordinary Americans are getting clobbered at the pump. Trump floated the idea after prices rose past $4.50 per gallon, while the federal gas…
The Major Richard Star Act: Weighing Promise, Principle, and Price
The fight over the Major Richard Star Act is one of those rare Washington debates where the moral case is pretty simple, even if the budget math isn’t. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently voiced support for the bill during Senate questioning, saying the administration supports the Act after Sen. Richard Blumenthal pressed him on the…
Trump, Germany, and the Cost of a Feud
When foreign policy starts to look less like long-range strategy and more like a high-stakes personality clash, it’s worth pausing and asking whether the adults are still in the room. That’s the uncomfortable backdrop to President Trump’s reported order to withdraw roughly 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany, a move unfolding amid a heated dispute with…
War, Power, and the Constitution: Who Actually Gets to Pull the Trigger?
On Friday, President Trump claimed that the War Powers Resolution is “totally unconstitutional.” That’s not exactly a mild critique. That’s the political equivalent of flipping the table and saying the rulebook itself is illegitimate. The War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 in the shadow of the Vietnam War, was Congress’s attempt to rein in a…
When Pills, Power, and Policy Collide
A federal court decision to block telehealth prescriptions for mifepristone might sound, at first glance, like one of those niche regulatory tweaks that only healthcare lawyers and policy wonks get excited about. But in reality, this is a ruling with massive ripple effects legally, culturally, and morally. To understand why, you have to look at…
Opening the Retirement Investment Floodgates
President Trump’s executive order on retirement benefits is a meaningful shift in how Americans might be allowed to invest their long-term savings. At its core, the order aims to expand the universe of investment options available within retirement accounts, especially those tied to employer-sponsored plans. Traditionally, these plans have been limited to relatively straightforward, regulated…
When “Protecting Voters” Becomes “Sorting by Race”
Yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Court to strike down certain majority-minority congressional districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering has landed like a political thunderclap, though not exactly a surprising one. If you’ve been watching the Court’s trajectory on race-conscious policymaking, this feels less like a sudden detour and more like the next logical mile marker. Still,…
Lock Them Up or Not? The Fight Over Mandatory Detention
The legal fight over mandatory detention isn’t just about one policy tweak. It’s about the basic rules of the game when the government decides who gets to stay free and who sits in detention while their case plays out. Under the Trump administration’s policy, certain noncitizens—often those with past criminal convictions or specific immigration violations—could…
The Supreme Court, Geofence Warrants, and the Future of Privacy
The Supreme Court is weighing a case that could reshape how police investigate crimes in the digital age and, more importantly, how far the government can go in collecting data on ordinary people who aren’t suspected of doing anything wrong. At its core, the debate is about whether law enforcement should be allowed to use…
Roundup, Regulation, and the Limits of Liability
At first glance, the lawsuit against Monsanto looks like a familiar story: a plaintiff claims that exposure to Roundup caused serious illness, a jury hears the evidence, and a multimillion-dollar company gets told to write a check. That’s the kind of David-versus-Goliath narrative that tends to resonate emotionally and politically. But peel back that surface…
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