The Economist (behind a paywall): “Ted Cruz, a conservative senator from Texas, set a particularly striking example of consistency recently on free speech. … He couched his defence of speech not in high principle but in instrumental terms: ‘It might… Continue reading

This week’s essays include the following: Today, with an international perspective, from Cora Chan on Liberal Enclaves inside repressive regimes. Cora is a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. Ned blogged about this essay earlier today.  ”… Continue reading

Very interesting perspective from Cora Chan, a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, as part of the NYU Law Democracy Project’s “100 ideas for 100 days” series. The essay addresses “subnational regions that enjoy substantially more… Continue reading

Courthouse News Service: “The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on Thursday on the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s exemption from the transparency requirements of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. … “Assistant Wisconsin Attorney General Brian… Continue reading

CBS News has a lengthy report on this disturbing breach. “Contacted by CBS News, the NPRC told CBS News that a technician did not follow standard operating procedures for releasing records, and should only have released portions eligible under FOIA… Continue reading

After observing that the grand jury declined to indict on one charge, POLITICO’s Playbook goes on to note: “POLITICO legal columnist Ankush Khardori writes in to say that he’s ‘honestly surprised that the DOJ managed to get this past a… Continue reading

Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein for POLITICO: “A grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicted Comey on Thursday on two felony charges stemming from Comey’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020 about the FBI’s investigation into links between… Continue reading

N.Y. Times: “A federal grand jury in Virginia has indicted James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, a culmination of President Trump’s relentless effort to exact retribution for investigating his 2016 presidential campaign over possible ties to Russia, according to… Continue reading

Justin blogged on this development earlier today. Here’s the N.Y. Times story on it. The story includes the response in Pennsylvania: “Al Schmidt, the secretary of state in Pennsylvania and a Republican, said in a statement Thursday afternoon that he… Continue reading

Josh Douglas’s essay for the Washington Monthly: “State courts committed to upholding the ideals of democratic representation within their state constitutions should adopt a presumption of unlawful partisanship for a mid-decade redistricting and invalidate these maps. Three aspects of … Continue reading

A new AEI report by Kevin R. Kosar, Jack Santucci, and Jaehun Lee on the new proportional representation system adopted by Portland, Oregon. I’m looking forward to reading the report. Meanwhile, the “key points” summary provided by the authors indicates… Continue reading

N.Y. Times reports: “The official’s directive, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times, goes as far as to list possible charges prosecutors could file, ranging from arson to material support of terrorism. The memo suggests… Continue reading

The 2020 presidential elections in Belarus were considered fraudulent by most Western democracies. Despite massive support for opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, which independent monitors believe was around 70%, the official results were presented as favoring the country’s long-time president, Alyaksandr… Continue reading

The opening sentence of George Packer’s sobering new essay in The Atlantic: “We are living in an authoritarian state.” After detailing “the features of the modern authoritarian state,” he writes: “Every one of them exists today in this country.”… Continue reading