Gov. Josh Stein said he’ll veto House Bill 377 Monday, saying it would have a “chilling effect” on judicial independence in North Carolina. The bill, simply titled “2026 Court Changes,” would give the state Supreme Court the power to censure, publicly reprimand, suspend or remove judges at its discretion, even if the Judicial Standards Commission […]
Greetings, and happy Friday!
I love saving money at the gas pump, but I fear the precedent Gov. Mike Braun is setting by ignoring state law in favor of unilateral executive power. And so should lawmakers. His gas tax holiday could turn into a loss of eight months in road funding — all without the involvement of the legislative […]
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane County courts have delayed most civil and criminal proceedings through Tuesday as the Spokane Area Fires continue to impact the region, but officials say the courts are not closed and the Spokane County Clerk's Office remains open.
Americans’ trust in the judiciary and the justice system is eroding at every level. From the U.S. Supreme Court to state courts across the country, polls show sharply declining public confidence in courts as trustworthy institutions. The response from many special interest groups and politicians has been to try to politicize these institutions further, and […]
Scholarly surveys, discussions and polls have consistently revealed a clear consensus: the leadership capacity of the founding generation — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton and Madison — is unrivaled by any subsequent coterie of American statesman. It is true that these same academic conversations reflect agreement that Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt stand atop the list of America’s greatest presidents, with founding chief executives such as Washington and Jefferson closely on their heels, but there is, it seems, no generation of political leaders across 250 years that is comparable to those who launched the American Revolution, drafted the Declaration of Independence and wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The evolution in America of rationales for the cascading growth of presidential power, which began in earnest in the post-war world and followed a trajectory through the expression of the Imperial Presidency before reaching new heights in President Donald Trump’s authoritarian pretensions, has long found traction in the misappropriation and misuse of Justice Robert H. Jackson’s famous aphorism, “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.”
One of the grave consequences for American constitutionalism of the untrammeled concentration of power in the hands of President Donald Trump — the putative goal of Project 2025 — is his total control over the Department of Justice. There is no separation between President Trump and his Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former criminal defense lawyer, no independence between the White House and the DOJ. What Trump wants, Trump gets — the governing principle of authoritarianism.
