Articles

Every year, millions of kids wake up on Christmas to find that jolly old St. Nick has rendered his verdict on their performance over the past 12 months. Most think of Christmas morning as a time of joy and merriment; in reality, it’s merely the sentencing phase of a kangaroo court overseen by an out-of-touch … ...

At Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax, Virginia, it no longer matters that one of the eighth graders applying for admission this fall has been building robots in his garage since he was 10, or that another won her middle school’s Math Olympiad last year and dreams of working for NASA someday. All that matters … ...

In 2018, accordionist Tony Barilla wrote in the Houston Press about his quest to play music on the city’s street corners—a quest that led him into a frustrating maze of bureaucracy. Busking was outright banned in most of Houston. Musicians could play in public spaces only if they didn’t accept tips.   Tony was happy … ...

The federal government is giving away billions of dollars in taxpayer money to help Americans nationwide who are struggling to pay mortgages. But in Georgia and Oklahoma, whether homeowners are eligible for assistance depends on their skin color. In both Atlanta and Oklahoma City, for example, a couple making $95,000 a year can receive tens … ...

As support swelled for America’s independence from England, an open question puzzled some hesitant colonists: Who will lead the new country? Thomas Paine had an answer: “In America, the law is king.” And so began a legal tradition like no other. Our written Constitution of limited and enumerated powers put forth a revolutionary id ...

In Alameda County, California, a pandemic-era eviction ban has been in place for almost three years, even though COVID no longer poses the same threat it once did. As a result, “mom and pop” landlords have found themselves losing their livelihoods and dealing with problematic, and sometimes violent, tenants with no way to get rid ̷ ...

The in-house courts of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are not just at odds with the separation of powers, they also don’t serve their alleged purpose of efficient justice. In Federalist 47, James Madison, quoting Montesquieu, warned that government would become an oppressor if the prosecutor were “joined” with the ju ...

Two hundred and four. That’s how many times the word “diversity” came up during the recent marathon Supreme Court oral arguments over whether to end affirmative action in college admissions. With characteristic bluntness, Justice Clarence Thomas remarked about midway through that, “I’ve heard the word ‘diversity̵ ...

If you owe someone $14, should they be entitled to take a $100 bill out of your wallet and keep the change? Obviously not. Yet in a dozen states and the nation’s capital, the government collects delinquent real estate taxes that way. Take, for example, 93-year-old Geraldine Tyler. When she failed to pay approximately $2,300 … ...