The mid-twentieth-century generation experienced the boom of journalism as an effective “fourth estate” and guarantor of freedoms. Contemporary generations are witnessing its death. The fourth estate, a term which Edmund Burke allegedly coined, quickly became an essential pillar of modern democracies: information is what allows individuals to fully exercise their rights and defend themselves against the overwhelming power of the...

　　Artificial intelligence is improving both quickly and in ways that increasingly matter for legal practice and legal education. One of the most important developments has been the rise of reasoning models to supplement large language models (LLMs). Earlier, LLMs were best understood as systems for fast, fluent text generation. But newer reasoning models are designed to spend more time on...

　　This year marks the centennial of zoning in the United States, when the Supreme Court upheld comprehensive municipal land-use restrictions over the claims of property owners. The decision, Euclid v. Ambler Realty, was a milestone in the progressives’ campaign to overcome constitutional impediments to their plans for social engineering. In the ensuing century, zoning fundamentally altered the geography of American...

　　Crisp against the gloaming, a bugle sounds a rising then falling strain. 　　It’s 5 pm. It’s cold. Yet in the nation’s capital, something embers. While DC’s iPhone-occupied evening toilers and travelers scurry about to their next diversion, the lone uniformed Doughboy standing at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue signals a time-honored but incongruous musical thought of reflection for day’s ending. 　　My feet...

　　On May 7, elections were held in England, Scotland, and Wales. These were for some of the local council spots in England as well as for electing the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales.  　　Thanks in part to its lack of a written constitution, there is no formal, or judicially-overseen, model of federalism in the UK. Parliamentary sovereignty lies at...

　　Is there an essential identity, “Americanness,” to which society might demand conformity, or is the essence of Americanness really the rejection of all such demands? For decades, the mainstream view has tended towards the latter as the answer. 　　Now, though, this mainstream view is being challenged. Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas are each currently litigating laws that require the Ten Commandments...

　　“An Empire is an aggregate of many states,” Edmund Burke informed the British House of Commons on March 22, 1775. On that day, Burke pleaded for conciliation with America. He beseeched supporters of Lord North’s government to think “more in favor of prudent management, than of force” in the quest to keep America for King George III. Having ignored Burke’s...

　　Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are huge, with $7.8 trillion in assets and $7.6 trillion in liabilities. They are an essential part of the finances of the US government. But we do not find them as part of the government’s consolidated financial statements. We should. 　　This is due not only to their sheer size but also because of the giant...

　　In May 1897, the Arkansas Gazette placed an unusual scene on its front page. Alongside a sketch of Little Rock’s new B’nai Israel synagogue, the paper described the dedication in vivid detail: the governor rose to speak, Christians filled the pews, and Rabbi Charles Rubenstein read aloud the United States Constitution from within the sanctuary. “Representatives of the national, state,...

　　The “girlboss” is back. The term, popularized in the 2014 book Girlboss, once positively connoted a woman who adopted traditional male-coded modes of doing business, but without discarding her aesthetic femininity. Very much a compliment to Sheryl Sandberg’s advice to Lean In (2013), the theory behind girl-bossing was that differences between women and men were mostly aesthetic and stylistic, not...

　　As President Donald Trump prepares for the upcoming summit in Beijing with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, Taiwan has entered the forefront of American discourse again. Some Americans fear that the two leaders will emerge with a grand bargain that undercuts the island democracy’s freedom of action. Others might wish the Taiwanese well, but they see little reason for Americans to...

　　The United States has reached a milestone, and unfortunately, it’s not one to celebrate. For the first time outside a genuine crisis, Americas national debt now exceeds the size of its entire economy. There is nothing magical about the 100% line; its more of a psychological threshold than a hard cliff. Indeed, debt hawks have sounded alarms for years, and...