A nicely crafted passage from Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence defending of the “major questions doctrine” (the principle that “ambiguous language” in a statute shouldn’t be seen as delegating “highly consequential power” to the Executive Branch, even if it can be read as delegating lesser power) in today’s tariffs case. And here are the two following sentences:

We delude ourselves, too, if we think that power will accumulate safely and only in the hands of dispassionate “people … found in agencies.” Even if unelected agency officials were uniquely immune to the desire for more power (an unserious assumption), they report to elected Presidents who can claim no such modesty.

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President Donald Trump’s use of sweeping “emergency” powers to impose tariffs is unlawful, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

In an opinion released Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts said that Trump’s unprecedented use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to place tariffs on many U.S. imports extended beyond the president’s “legitimate” powers. The ruling affects tariffs imposed in February 2025 against goods from Canada, China, and Mexico, as well as the larger set of tariffs Trump announced in April.

The final decision was effectively a 6–3 ruling that said the IEEPA statute did not authorize the president to impose tariffs. However, the majority appears to be split on its reasoning for reaching that conclusion. Roberts was joined in his opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson filed a concurring opinion.

Both Roberts and Gorsuch (who filed a concurring opinion of his own) leaned strongly into the so-called major questions doctrine, which says that significant policy matters must be settled by Congress.

“There is no exception to the major questions doctrine for emergency statutes,” Roberts wrote. “Nor does the fact that tariffs implicate foreign affairs render the doctrine inapplicable.”

The Learning Resources v. Trump case rolled together multiple lawsuits filed by a group of small businesses and some state attorneys general. It has been widely seen as an important test case not only for presidential tariff powers but also for the Supreme Court’s willingness to defend the separation of powers against Trump’s expansive executive actions. 

Friday’s much-anticipated ruling caps a monthslong legal saga that saw the Trump administration lose at the Court of International Trade, a federal appeals court, and now at the Supreme Court. On each occasion, the legal system has balked at the idea that a president may use IEEPA to impose tariffs when the text of the 1977 law plainly does not authorize tariffs. 

At oral arguments in November, the Trump administration faced tough questions from the Supreme Court’s liberal and conservative wings over its reading of IEEPA. The administration argued that the law allows presidents to “regulate” trade and that, therefore, tariffs were permissible.

The Supreme Court did not buy that argument.

“While taxes may accomplish regulatory ends, it does not follow that the power to regulate includes the power to tax as a means of regulation,” Roberts wrote. “Indeed, when Congress addresses both the power to regulate and the power to tax, it does so separately and expressly. That it did not do so here is strong evidence that ‘regulate’ in IEEPA does not include taxation.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that “this case presents one straightforward question of statutory interpretation: Does Congress’s explicit grant of authority in IEEPA for the President to ‘regulate…importation’ of foreign goods in declared national emergencies authorize the President to impose tariffs? The answer is a clear yes.”

The ruling will likely kick off a number of new legal and political fights. The Trump administration could move to reimpose the tariffs under a different statute (there are several options, though none allow such broad action as IEEPA), or could ask Congress to amend the IEEPA law to give presidents the powers that Trump seeks.

Meanwhile, importers that paid the IEEPA tariffs will seek to be reimbursed for those costs. That will cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars and could start more legal fights, as the White House has signaled that refunds may not be given.

Those are issues to be settled another day. The most important part of Friday’s ruling is the Supreme Court’s recognition that executive powers have limits and that congressional authority over trade policy remains intact. A victory for the administration would have dealt a death blow to that constitutional arrangement. 

“We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs,” Roberts wrote. “We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

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Today, the Supreme Court decided our case challenging Donald Trump’s massive IEEPA tariffs. In a 6-3 decision, Court rightly ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the President the power to “impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time.” It’s a major victory for the constitutional separation of powers, for the rule of law, for free trade, and for the millions of American consumers and businesses enduring higher taxes and higher prices as a result of these tariffs.

Our case was filed by Liberty Justice Center and myself on behalf of five small US businesses. We were later joined by prominent Supreme Court litigators Michael McConnell and Neal Katyal. Michael became our chief counsel for the Supreme Court phase of the litigation, and Neal skillfully conducted the oral argument before both the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court. A case that had its origins in a blog post laying out some legal theories and another one recruiting potential clients went all the way to the Supreme Court and culminated in an important victory.  Earlier, we prevailed in the US Court of International Trade (the trial court with jurisdiction over cases involving trade policy) and again in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the Court, which concludes that IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate” importation in response to an emergency that qualifies as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US economy, national security, or foreign policy, does not include the power to impose tariffs. He, Justice Neil Gorsuch, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett also based their conclusion in part on the major questions doctrine, which  requires Congress to “speak clearly” when authorizing the executive to make “decisions of vast economic and political significance.”  The three liberal justices – (Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson) did not join this part the opinion, because they argued that ordinary principles of statutory interpretation were enough to resolve the case.

The Supreme Court today also decided a case against the tariffs brought by 12 states led by the state of Oregon (they prevailed, too). The court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction the Learning Resources cases, because they held it should have been filed in the US Court of International Trade (where we filed ours).

The implications of the ruling for future administration efforts to impose tariffs are not completely clear. But I believe it will not be possible for the president to replicate the massive, sweeping worldwide tariffs he tried to do under IEEPA. Today’s ruling also signals that a majority of the Supreme Court is skeptical of claims of virtually unlimited delegation of tariff power to the president.

I want to commend the Liberty Justice Center and their litigation team led by Jeffrey Schwab for bringing this case at a time few other groups were willing to do so, and Michael and Neal and their respective firms for their extraordinary work in conducting the appellate phase of the litigation. I also want to recognize our clients for their courage in joining this cause, and enduring the resulting public and media scrutiny, and the potential risk of retaliation by the administration. Many others – too many to list here – also deserve credit and thanks. It was an honor to have played a modest role in this case, myself.

I will likely have more to say later. In the meantime, for a compendium of my previous writings related to the tariff litigation, see here.

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Read it here. I’m just starting it.

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I testified on the subject yesterday, together with other leading scholars, such as Michael Dorf (Cornell), Benjamin Eidelson (Harvard), and Genevieve Lakier (Chicago); you can see the written statements here, and more on the hearing here. I thought I’d pass along my statement, which I imagine won’t be at all surprising to long-time readers:

Dear Commission Members:

I was asked to testify about how the First Amendment affects the government’s ability to deal with anti-Semitism on college campuses. Here are my general thoughts.

[1.] No First Amendment Exception for Hate Speech

The First Amendment protects all viewpoints, including anti-Semitic and otherwise prejudiced ones. There is no First Amendment exception for “hate speech,” advocacy or defense of genocide, or other such views. And that extends even o generally available government benefit programs: The government, for instance, can’t exclude “[s]peech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground” from trademark registration.[1] Nor can this be evaded by recharacterizing the expression of such viewpoints as “harassment.”[2] “There is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

And this is an important protection for all speakers. For instance, the lack of any exception for speech that supposedly promotes “genocide” protects pro-Hamas speakers—but it also protects pro-Israel speakers who seek to defend Israeli actions in Gaza, despite claims that those actions themselves constitute “genocide” of Palestinians. I personally generally support Israel’s right to exist, and I think that this means that Israel must be able to try to destroy those who have attacked it (such as Hamas), even when the attackers deliberately hide among civilian populations who will then inevitably be killed or injured in the resulting war. But speech defending Israeli actions (and even calling for harsher actions) is constitutionally protected regardless of whether university administrators or judges agree with me. Likewise for speech condemning Israel or even praising Hamas.

Likewise, there is no exception for speech calling for the armed destruction of a foreign nation. Again, I believe Israel has a right to exist, but others disagree—and we are all equally protected by the First Amendment, as are those who would call for, for instance, armed attack on North Korea, Iran, and any other country.

[2.] Public Universities Can’t Restrict Student Speech Based on Viewpoint

This First Amendment protection also means that public universities generally can’t suppress student speech on the grounds that it expresses disfavored views, including views that are perceived as racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-trans, and so on.[3] Indeed, they can’t even exclude “discriminatory” “viewpoint[s]” from student group funding programs.[4] Many private universities have, I think wisely, also agreed to be bound by these principles. (The law in California, where I live, also imposes such a requirement on most private universities.[5])

[3.] The Federal Government May Not Pressure Public or Private Universities to Restrict Student Speech Based on Viewpoint

Such First Amendment protection also means that the federal government can’t pressure universities, public or private, to suppress student speech on the grounds that it expresses such views. The federal government cannot, for instance, cut off federal funds to universities on the grounds that they allow such views. And federal courts can’t impose liability under Title VI on universities on the grounds that they allow such views. This is just a reflection of the broader First Amendment principle that,

A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead. In doing so, she can rely on the merits and force of her ideas, the strength of her convictions, and her ability to inspire others. What she cannot do, however, is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.[6]

“That a private institution … is generally free to regulate its students’ speech without regard for the First Amendment … is irrelevant to the question of whether Congress may compel it to do so via the threat of civil liability under Title VI.”[7]

“However noble the objective of nondiscrimination, institutions cannot be threatened with civil liability for declining to censor First Amendment protected speech.”[8] Because of this, courts “do not construe Title VI as requiring a university to quash protected speech.”[9] In particular, “requiring [a private university] to restrict students’ expression merely because those students opposed Israel and favored the Palestinian cause would infringe upon [the university’s] freedom to encourage, rather than suppress, a vigorous exchange of ideas.”[10]

[4.] Universities May Restrict Speech That Falls Within First Amendment Exceptions

The First Amendment, however, does not protect speech that falls within First Amendment exceptions, such as for

• “true threats” of illegal conduct;[11]
• incitement of imminent illegal conduct that is intended to likely to cause such conduct;[12]
• solicitation of specific illegal conduct against specific targets that is intended to cause such conduct (even if it not imminent or likely);[13]
• “fighting words,” defined as face-to-face personal insults that are likely to provoke a fight.[14]

Likewise, though more controversially, I think the First Amendment sometimes does not protected unwanted speech said to a particular person, in circumstances where it is clear that the person does not want to hear such speech. In the Supreme Court’s words, “no one has a right to press even ‘good’ ideas on an unwilling recipient.”[15]

Thus, the government may impose consequences for such constitutionally unprotected speech or constitutionally unprotected conduct (through disciplinary measures imposed by a public university, through withdrawal of federal funds, or through Title IX liability) when the speech or conduct is severe and pervasive enough to create a hostile, abusive, or offensive educational environment based on race, national origin, sex, or the like. Thus, for instance, if a university tolerates threats of violence against, say, black students or Jewish students or Israeli students or white students or Arab-American students, it might be subject to withdrawal of federal funds or liability, if the incidents are severe and pervasive enough. Likewise if it tolerates actual violence, or solicitation of violence, or targeted one-to-one harassment, or discrimination in grading or class assignments, or some mix of these.

[5.] Universities May Also Impose Content-Neutral Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions on Speech

The First Amendment also does not preclude public universities’ content-neutral enforcement of content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech that are aimed at preventing physical disruption of the main business of universities, which is education. The government can, for instance, ban

• loud noise where students are studying;
• encampments through which students (or others) occupy university property that other students are equally entitled to use;[16]
• blocking of passages and building entrances; or
• intrusion into faculty and administration offices.

Indeed, because the First Amendment requires that any such policies be enforced neutrally, as well as written neutrally, universities can’t tolerate open violations of these policies: If a universities, for instance, allows pro-Palestinian groups to violate these policies, it would have to do the same for (just to give a few examples) anti-abortion groups, anti-immigration groups, white supremacist groups, and anyone else.[17]

Indeed, giving a de facto exemption from content-neutral rules to protesters who express anti-Semitic or anti-Israel views—when it seems unlikely that such an exemption would have been given to protesters who violate the rules while expressing, say, anti-black or anti-gay views—would itself convey a message to Jewish or Israeli students that they are unwelcome. A university can and should protect anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli speech equally with other speech, and that certainly doesn’t mean the university supports such speech. But when it protects such speech more than it would protect other speech, it would be sending a message that university leaders (or at least a considerable subset of such leaders) implicitly endorse such speech, by giving it specially favored treatment.

[6.] Universities May and Should Protect Speakers from Disruption

In particular, the First Amendment doesn’t prevent universities from protecting speakers from disruption, whether the disruption stems from threats, physical obstruction, noise, or other such behavior. That is a form of permissible content-neutral restriction on the time, place, and manner of speech. Universities would likely not allow, for instance, pro-civil-rights speakers to be shouted down by white supremacists, or pro-abortion-rights speakers to be shouted down by anti-abortion protesters. They likewise shouldn’t allow pro-Israel­ (or pro-Palestinian) speakers to be shouted down by hecklers.

Indeed, universities ought to provide such protection, as part of their educational mission of promoting reasoned discussion and debate. And they should provide it equally to all speakers, without charging extra security fees for certain speakers based on their controversial views.[18]

[7.] Universities May Speak Out Against Anti-Semitic Speech, but Have No Obligation to Speak Out on Foreign Conflicts or Atrocities

The First Amendment does not prevent universities from speaking out against anti-Semitic speech, and certainly not from speaking out against speech that violates neutral campus rules. But Title VI doesn’t require that universities engage in such speech, and it certainly doesn’t require that they more broadly take a stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or even that they condemn Hamas atrocities. Indeed, it cannot require that, since that would be an impermissible speech compulsion; speech compulsions are generally just as unconstitutional as speech restrictions. “The First Amendment guarantees ‘freedom of speech,’ a term necessarily comprising the decision of both what to say and what not to say.”[19] “There is no basis whatsoever, either under Title VI, nor within the confines of the First Amendment, for a court to hold a college administrator liable for failing to convey a specific message that students would have liked to see.”[20]

Indeed, I think that on balance it is better if universities stay away as much as possible from such commentary on contested political and social questions, whether foreign or domestic (even if it is sometimes necessary for universities to speak out as to specific misconduct by students or others on campus). Here as on other questions, I think the Kalven Report from the University of Chicago offers helpful guidance, in generally calling for “a heavy presumption against the university … expressing opinions on the political and social issues of the day.”[21]

[8.] Universities Should Encourage Reasoned, Thoughtful Debate

Universities, should, however, affirmatively encourage reasoned, thoughtful discussion on matters related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as on other matters. Indeed, if university leaders believe that students aren’t hearing enough from both sides on the matter, the universities should themselves organize panels and debates that offer thoughtful, balanced analysis of these issues. Such reasoned discourse, presented with the imprimatur of the university, can offer a model for students to think about such matters, and can in some measure counteract the prejudice and hostility that other groups may be seeking to sow.

[1] Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218, 246 (2017) (lead opin.).

[2] Stand With Us Center for Legal Justice v. MIT, 158 F.4th 1, 15 (1st Cir. 2025); Saxe v. State Coll. Area Sch. Dist., 240 F.3d 200, 204 (3d Cir. 2001) (Alito, J.); Rodriguez v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll. Dist., 605 F.3d 703, 708 (9th Cir. 2010).

[3] See, e.g., Dambrot v. Central Michigan Univ., 55 F.3d 1177, 1184–85 (6th Cir. 1995); DeJohn v. Temple Univ., 537 F.3d 301, 316–17, 320 (3d Cir. 2008); McCauley v. Univ. of V.I., 618 F.3d 232, 237–38, 250 (3d Cir. 2010); Iota Xi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity v. George Mason Univ., 993 F.3d 386, 388–89, 391, 393 (4th Cir. 1993). See also, e.g., Rodriguez v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll. Dist., 605 F.3d 703, 710 (9th Cir. 2010) (“Free speech has been a powerful force for the spread of equality under the law; we must not squelch that freedom because it may also be harnessed by those who promote retrograde or unattractive ways of thought. We therefore doubt that a college professor’s expression on a matter of public concern, directed to the college community, could ever constitute unlawful harassment and justify the judicial intervention that plaintiffs seek.”).

[4] Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 561 U.S. 661, 696 n.26 (2010).

[5] Cal. Educ. Code § 94367.

[6] NRA v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 188 (2026).

[7] Gartenberg v. Cooper Union, 765 F. Supp. 3d 245, 261 (S.D.N.Y. 2025).

[8] Landau v. Corp. of Haverford Coll., 789 F. Supp. 3d 401 (E.D. Pa. 2025).

[9] Stand With Us Center for Legal Justice v. MIT, 158 F.4th 1, 11–12 (1st Cir. 2025).

[10] Id.

[11] Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023).

[12] Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

[13] United States v. Hansen, 599 U.S. 762 (2023); United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008).

[14] Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942); Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518 (1972).

[15] Rowan v. Post Office Dep’t, 397 U.S. 728, 738 (1970).

[16] See generally Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288 (1984).

[17] See, e.g., Hoye v. City of Oakland, 653 F.3d 835, 849 (9th Cir. 2011) (holding that the government violated the First Amendment in its “enforcement and application” of a facially neutral speech restriction, when the restriction was applied against anti-abortion speakers but not other speakers).

[18] See Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992); Sonnier v. Crain, 613 F.3d 436, 447–48 (5th Cir. 2010) (applying Forsyth County to public universities), reaffirmed in relevant part on rehearing, 634 F.3d 778, 778–79 (5th Cir. 2011).

[19] See Riley v. National Federation of Blind of N.C., Inc., 487 U.S. 781, 796–97 (1988).

[20] Landau v. Corp. of Haverford Coll., 789 F. Supp. 3d 401, 418 (E.D. Pa. 2025).

[21] See https:/‌/‌www.thefire.org/‌sites/‌default/‌files/‌2023/‌10/‌Kalven%20Report.pdf.

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I want to believe. In a podcast interview last week, former President Barack Obama said that he believes aliens are real, a shocking statement that interviewer Brian Tyler Cohen maddeningly did not follow up on.

Obama later clarified that he was making a general statement about his belief in the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial life in our vast universe, not that he’d seen flying saucers at Area 51.

Nevertheless, the former president’s remarks generated a lot of “um…what?” reactions on social media.

Not to be outdone by his first-term predecessor, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that he would be ordering the release of government documents related to extraterrestrials, UFOs, and more.

Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and…

— Commentary: Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) February 20, 2026

A troll, a distraction, or an excuse to arrest Obama? After tariffs and flashing, unconstitutional military actions, there’s nothing Trump and his administration love better than promising the release of troves of heretofore secret documents, only to fail to procure the really good stuff.

That’s obviously the case with the Epstein files, which, admittedly, Trump himself was never super keen on releasing, even though many of his supporters and key administration officials were.

We’ve also been down this road when he said he’d order the release of John F. Kennedy files in his first term, before backtracking on that promise. Eventually, he made good on his promise in his second term, although the released documents produced few “bombshells.”

The Trump administration has loudly declared a lab leak in Wuhan to be the true origin of COVID-19, while failing to release additional documentation and security assessments that could shed more light on the U.S. government’s role in funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

All that’s to say, Trump promising the release of UFO files is par for the course. Don’t be surprised if he ends up not following through on any substantive document dump.

Maybe it’s all just a big troll. But since we live in more paranoid times, one can imagine a couple more strategic/sinister explanations for why the president is talking about classified UFO documents now.

Currently, the U.S. is engaged in a massive buildup of military forces in the Middle East in what increasingly appears to be a prelude to a giant air war with Iran.

Is all this UFO chatter just a way to distract people before we plunge into yet another forever war, a la The Whitest Kids You Know sketch?

“Just a thought, more of a shot in the dark, but uh we wouldn’t happen to be invading Iran today would we?” https://t.co/CcYVRiBbmf pic.twitter.com/H4n5NOqQo8

— Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania (@LPPAorg) February 20, 2026

Or maybe Trump is talking about UFOs because he wants an excuse to prosecute Obama. He recently told Fox News‘ Peter Doocy that Obama made a “big mistake” by releasing classified documents on aliens and UFOs.

TRUMP tells @pdoocy OBAMA "gave classified information" on UFO's and aliens.

"He’s not supposed to be doing that. But I don’t know if they’re real or not… I can tell you he gave classified information. He made a big mistake.”

— Aishah Hasnie (@aishahhasnie) February 19, 2026

On the other hand, Trump needs no real strategic rationale to stir the pot by saying unhinged things. Maybe the reason he promised to release UFO files is that it’s Thursday.

---

Scenes from San Francisco: You can’t look down a street in S.F. anymore without seeing a driverless Waymo, so much so that I actually saw a little Waymo traffic jam yesterday.

It’s a little hard to tell from the picture, but the front Waymo has stopped in the middle of the street for no explicable reason. Behind it, two more Waymos are patiently waiting for it to get moving. Eventually, they follow the other human-piloted cars and drive around the immobile vehicle.

Impressive as these vehicles are, clearly it’s going to take a little while to work out all the kinks. In the meantime, we might want to program them to beep their horns and swear at the other Waymos.

---

QUICK LINKS

• We finally have the details of Trump’s restrictions on large investor ownership of single-family homes. The biggest immediate takeaway is that the restrictions are intended to apply to entities owning 100 or more homes, which is a much lower threshold than some were expecting. “Institutional investors” are normally defined as those owning 1,000 or more homes.

There it is: Details on Trump's proposed ban on large investors. Highlights:

1) Defined as 100+ homes which means the ban impacts far more regional investors than institutions.

2) Exempts build to rent construction and homes needy heavy repair (which most individual buyers… pic.twitter.com/NNj39TOIYg

— Jay Parsons (@jayparsons) February 20, 2026

• How bad is censorship in the United Kingdom? They’re starting to censor the ads making fun of censorship.

The United Kingdom is escalating its censorship and mass surveillance. When Mullvad tried to criticise this with the TV ad “And Then?”, it was banned on British television. pic.twitter.com/qJG0tt7U41

— Mullvad.net (@mullvadnet) February 18, 2026

• The number of families and unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. southern border has dropped to basically zero in Trump’s second term.

Now that asylum/protection at the US-Mexico border is gone (illegal but true), and now that suffering abuse inside the US is probable, only 627 child/family migrants entered Border Patrol custody in January—the fewest for which we have records (since October 2011). pic.twitter.com/asDHf4N3j6

— Adam Isacson (@adam_wola) February 20, 2026

• More government lies, courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security.

From CNN's @michaeldamianw @alex_leedsmatts: "The Department of Homeland Security admitted that its website featuring what it calls the 'worst of the worst' arrested immigrants was rife with errors and changed the site this week after receiving questions from CNN about it."…

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 19, 2026

• Speaking of, people should read C.J. Ciaramella’s article saying bon voyage to one of the biggest liars of them all, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
• Virginia’s new governor just got the worst job in politics.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger will deliver Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union address.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 19, 2026

• Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, had his home searched by police after his arrest for suspicion of misconduct in public office, a charge related to his connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Read Matthew Petti’s reporting on the disgraced royal’s connections to Epstein here and here.

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The Sedition Act of 1798 famously expired on March 3, 1801, and purported to punish false and malicious statements about the Federalist President John Adams and the majority-Federalist Congress, not about the Democratic-Republican Vice-President Thomas Jefferson. This is often mentioned as evidence of the Federalists’ partisanship in enacting the Act.

But (and this is much less well-known) it turns out that the Federalists tried to reenact the Act in January and February 1801, when it would have outlawed criticism of the newly-elected Democratic-Republican President and Congress. (At the time, the lame-duck session of Congress lasted until March 3.) The bill was defeated in the House by a 53-49 vote; nearly all Federalists voted for it, and all Republicans voted against it. The four Federalists who voted against consisted of one (George Dent) who voted against the 1798 Act, two who weren’t in the House for the 1798 Act vote, and one who was in the House in 1798 but didn’t vote.

The Federalists’ stated arguments (see 10 Annals Cong. 916-939) seemed to chiefly be

1. malicious falsehoods about the government are dangerous and valueless and deserve to be suppressed,
2. the Sedition Act had actually been enforced properly, and thus merited renewal, and
3. the Act protects speech by limiting common-law seditious libel to falsehoods, and by fixing a modest penalty for seditious libel.

The first and the third arguments were much like the ones offered originally in 1798.

Now there might have been some political posturing there, and perhaps the Federalists thought they had to do this to prevent charges of hypocrisy, even if deep down they wouldn’t have supported the renewal. They might also have thought they had little to lose from the renewal, given the expectation that the new Administration would not enforce the law, given its militant hostility to the law in the past. Or, as with most human decisions, many legislators might have more than one reason for their votes. Still, I think on balance the positions of both the supporters and the opponents seemed quite consistent between 1798 and 1801.

To be sure, the arguments for the law strike me as mistaken: I think it’s good that the Act wasn’t renewed. Integrity, like loyalty, is an important virtue, but not the only important virtue—wisdom in determining the right policy is another, even when that means changing course from an earlier decision. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Still, it is on balance a virtue; legislative judgment shouldn’t be just about whose ox is being gored. And the Sedition Act incident strikes me as a good story to remember this virtue by.

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2/20/1933: The 21st Amendment is submitted to the states.

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Given the cost of caring for an aging population in an era of high-tech but expensive treatments, it’s no wonder healthcare reform occupies a lot of space in political conversations. But the devil is in the details, and “reform” means different things to different people. For progressives who see government intervention as the solution to every problem so long as they’re in charge, reform involves some variation on Medicare for All, extending existing government programs for retirees and disabled people to everybody. Interestingly, Canada also calls its state-dominated medical system “Medicare,” and it has big problems.

Long Delays for New Drugs

“Canadians wait, on average, more than 65 weeks longer for access to new medicines than Europeans and 90 weeks more than Americans,” according to the summary of a recent study by Kristina Acri, chair of the Department of Economics and Business at Colorado College, and Lauren Asaad of Canada’s Fraser Institute.

The study, published by Fraser, points out that “of the 194 drugs approved both in Canada and the United States between 2019/20 and 2024/25, the FDA granted approval an average of 636 days earlier (median of 371 days) than Health Canada for drugs subject to standard review. Of the 174 drugs approved in both the EU and Canada between 2019/20 to 2024/25, the EU granted approval earlier by an average of 459 days (median of 211 days) than Canada for drugs subject to standard review.”

According to Acri and Asaad, “the majority of this delay is in the submission of new drugs for approval in Canada” for a variety of reasons, a big part of which is “market attractiveness including price controls and formulary requirements, rules on drug pricing, regulatory and administrative burdens, and public and private insurance policies.” Drug price controls, in particular, discourage introduction of new medicines because pharmaceutical companies fear returns won’t cover their outlays.

“Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board conducts cost-benefit analyses of each new drug introduced in the country. If the PMPRB determines that the cost of a medication is too high, it can order the manufacturer to reduce the price,” Pacific Research Institute CEO and former Canadian Sally Pipes wrote for Forbes in 2022. “Thanks to its policies, Canadians lack access to cutting-edge drugs. Of the 290 new medications introduced between 2011 and 2018, just 44% were available to Canadians.” By contrast, Americans had access to 89 percent of those drugs.

Acri and Asaad also note that Health Canada’s drug approval process is, amazingly, less efficient than that of the notoriously bureaucratic FDA, though more efficient than that of the European Medicines Agency. That regulatory gauntlet contributes to the relative unattractiveness of the Canadian market.

A 90-week delay in approving drugs doesn’t have to be the end of the world, nor does access to fewer drugs if decent substitutes are available. The real test is in the consequences of delays and reduced options – and those consequences are unpleasant.

“Within the existing system, Canadians experience worse health outcomes and have access to fewer therapeutic options,” add Acri and Asaad. “In addition, Canadians face higher health-care costs as a direct result of the mismanagement and delays in the drug approval processes.”

State Intervention Means Limited Access to Care

As it turns out, delayed access to new medicines is only one way the Canadian system rations healthcare through time. As Fraser’s Mackenzie Moir and Bacchus Barua reported in 2024, “waiting for treatment has become a defining characteristic of Canadian health care….Specialist physicians surveyed report a median waiting time of 30.0 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment—longer than the wait of 27.7 weeks reported in 2023. This year’s wait time is the longest wait time recorded in this survey’s history and is 222% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks.”

A 2020 Commonwealth Fund survey found that just 38 percent of Canadian respondents “waited less than 4 weeks for an appointment after they were advised to see or decided to see a specialist” compared to 69 percent of Americans. Sixty-two percent of Canadians “waited less than 4 months for non-emergency or elective surgery after they were advised they needed it” compared to 92 percent of Americans.

Government interference in medicine might reduce monetary costs. But “savings” come at the expense of access to doctors, diagnostics, and medicines. That’s true not just in Canada, but elsewhere.

“State health insurance patients are struggling to see their doctors towards the end of every quarter, while privately insured patients get easy access,” Germany’s government-funded Deutsche Welle reported in 2018 of that country’s healthcare woes. “State health insurance companies only reimburse the full cost of certain treatments up to a particular number of patients or a particular monetary value….Once that budget has been exhausted for the quarter, doctors slow down—and sometimes even shut their practices altogether.”

Of course, the U.S. has its own problems, hence the never-ending search for various flavors of “reform.” As of December 2025, according to Pew Research, two-thirds of Americans “say the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage,” though only about one in three want a single government-run program along the lines of “Medicare for All” or Canada’s system.

Dump Government Intervention in Favor of Health Freedom

Like his Democratic predecessor, Republican President Donald Trump has emphasized efforts to control healthcare costs, including pressure on pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices. That’s likely to be a crowd-pleaser in the short term, but the Canadian experience suggests it will ultimately mean reduced access to medicines. “The result will be less pharmaceutical innovation and fewer lifesaving drugs,” Pipes warned in her Forbes piece about the dangers of introducing drug price controls to the U.S.

Other reforms proposed by the Trump administration are more promising, especially changing prescription requirements so that more drugs are available over the counter. That would reduce barriers to introducing and selling medicines.

Better yet is Sen. Rand Paul’s (R–Ky.) “Health Marketplace and Savings Accounts for All Act,” which would reduce government in healthcare while expanding individual choice and control over spending. The legislation dramatically raises the annual contribution cap on tax-advantaged Health Savings Accounts, expands what they can pay for, and extends HSA eligibility to everybody. Unfortunately, it appears stalled in Congress.

There are no magic solutions to the problem of high-cost care, only different ways of dealing with expenses. But state intervention just replaces monetary costs with delays and lost opportunities. Freeing people to make their own decisions and spend their own dollars is the way to go.

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In The Outer Worlds 2, everything goes back to antitrust. Like the first game in the series, this first-person shooter is set in the far future in an alternate timeline in which William McKinley was not assassinated. As a result, Theodore Roosevelt was never president and the trustbusting of America’s early 20th century never happened. The result, in the game’s alternate timeline, is a future defined by sprawling mega corporations of almost comical scope and power.

The game plays its corporate-controlled scenario for winks and laughs, extrapolating and exaggerating the power of unregulated corporations as they reach into space via interstellar colonies. The first game featured a war between a home goods company called Auntie Cleo’s and a colonial supply company called Spacer’s Choice. In the post-war sequel, they’ve merged into an even more powerful entity, Auntie’s Choice.

The game’s satire of corporate rule is often funny. But it’s so over the top that it undermines its point: In the game world’s dystopia, corporate control is so complete and inescapable that it functions like authoritarian government power. Turns out that’s what everyone dislikes.

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