The Docket : June 12, 2026
The Docket is PLF's weekly newsletter covering the cases, clients, and policy battles shaping the future of liberty in America. You can catch up on last week's Docket here and subscribe below to receive future editions in your inbox. A new blog honors the late Gordon S. Wood; the Sabey family shares the harrowing story of their ch ...
A blatant violation of the separation of powers
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." James Madison wrote these words in The Federalist 47 in 1788 after the Constitutional Convention had deliberately divided the three main powers of government among thr ...
Remembering Gordon S. Wood and the idea of America
This week, America lost one of the foremost historians of the American Founding with the passing of Brown University professor Gordon S. Wood. For half a century, Wood helped shape how scholars and ordinary people understood the Revolution, the Founding Fathers, and the ideas that united 13 British colonies into one nation. Through his work, ...
For veteran Floyd Johnson, justice delayed is justice denied
Floyd Johnson served in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 1985 and was honorably discharged after a training exercise in Germany turned deadly. Decades later, while incarcerated in Florida, he was diagnosed with PTSD. The VA rates disabilities on a scale from 0% to 100%, measuring how severely a condition impairs a veteran's ability to function in dail ...
Wall Street Journal : It Isn’t Romantic When the Labor Department Says ‘Your Mine’
Is a truck-repair shop a mine? Yes, according to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In a divided decision, the D.C. Circuit ruled that KC Transport's maintenance facility in Emmett, W.Va.—a gravel lot serving as a repair shop—qualifies as a "mine" under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act. This means the Mine Saf ...
The Hill : America’s mineral dependence is dangerous and unnecessary
America is not heavily dependent on oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, yet disruption there has still shocked our economy. Imagine the consequences if we were more dependent. In critical minerals, that vulnerability is real: The U.S. is heavily import-reliant for dozens of minerals essential to modern life. For several of them, more than ...
Washington Examiner : Backdoor rulemaking— The government’s obsession with guidance
Federal agencies repeatedly govern Americans through documents that are not supposed to carry the force of law. In theory, these "guidance documents" should merely explain how an agency is interpreting existing statutes and regulations. In practice, however, they often function as a shortcut around the lawmaking and rulemaking processes. That sh ...
American Heroes : The government took their children at 1 a.m. Without a warrant
Most parents assume that if the government wants to take their children, it first has to convince a judge. Josh Sabey and Sarah Perkins learned otherwise. A mere 36 hours after Sarah took their infant son to the emergency room for a fever, child welfare and police officers arrived at their door in the middle of the night and took their two yo ...
Why a fund for young innovators is challenging California’s intrusive reporting mandate
There are thousands of venture capital firms competing to find promising tech startups, but remarkably few cater specifically to young college dropouts. In 2015, Michael Gibson and Danielle Strachman cofounded 1517 Fund with a specific mission in mind: to invest in young, renegade dropouts and "sci-fi scientists" developing tomorrow's breakthrough ...