Courts Checking POTUS

Many posts have discussed the independence of the judiciary.

Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Feuer:

A judge has thrown out two of their most high-profile indictments.

Grand juries have repeatedly refused to charge those they are targeting.

And now, in the wake of a lacerating ruling by a federal judge derailing an inquiry into the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, officials at the Justice Department have encountered an even more profound problem: Prosecutors are floundering in the most basic steps of criminal investigations into those President Trump wants scrutinized.

The latest setback in the president’s retribution campaign came on Friday when Judge James E. Boasberg of Federal District Court in Washington quashed grand jury subpoenas to the central bank for information about the renovations underway at its headquarters and Mr. Powell’s testimony to Congress about them.

The U.S. attorney overseeing the case, Mr. Trump’s longtime friend and ally Jeanine Pirro, has vowed to appeal the decision and cast Judge Boasberg, who has clashed with the Trump administration, as an activist. And an appeals court could ultimately overturn the decision.

...

As a general rule, prosecutors are given great leeway in issuing grand jury subpoenas, a common tool in the early stages of investigations. Unlike search warrants, they do not require a finding of probable cause by a judge that there might be evidence a crime was committed.

But Judge Boasberg found that Ms. Pirro’s office did not even meet the extremely low threshold needed to send the subpoenas, ruling there was “essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime.”

...

Judge Boasberg explicitly acknowledged the reality of Mr. Trump’s revenge campaign, writing that the president had urged the Justice Department to investigate his adversaries and adding that the department’s prosecutors had listened. In and of itself, it was an extraordinary acknowledgment. Citing a Supreme Court case, he wrote that “judges ‘are not required to exhibit a naïveté from which ordinary citizens are free.’”

JUST IN: Trump unleashes two big rants against #SCOTUS & Boasberg, judge who blocked the Powell grand jury subpoena. Trump's deep-seated grudge against the justices is clear, particularly for not intervening in 2020 election pic.twitter.com/7d9rPknrmL

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) March 16, 2026

Policy Schools Are Short on Conservative Voices

Many posts have discussed the politics of colleges and universities in the United States.

Frederick Hess at AEI:

It’d be good for everyone if there were a deeper bench of Republican policy professionals who really knew how government works. That’s why it’s such a big problem that the nation’s public policy schools serve as owned-and-operated subsidiaries of the Democratic Party.

Faculty at leading programs lean lopsidedly to the left; unsurprisingly, they emphasize predictable priorities, such as prison reform, homelessness, or healthcare. The technocratic progressives are joined by colleagues who go further still, recasting policy debates in identity-driven and baldly ideological terms to “expose” systemic racism and the evils of U.S. capitalism.

Right-leaning priorities are routinely marginalized or dismissed as backward-looking, as is the case with immigration enforcement, entitlement reform, educational choice, or tax-cutting. As a result of this bias, a broad swath of aspiring conservative policy professionals has sensibly opted to avoid these programs altogether. The result: Republicans are short on skilled policy professionals, while left-leaning students and scholars operate in a blue bubble in which they too rarely engage with those who think differently.

Hegseth Endorses War Crime

 María Teresita Armstrong-Matta at Raw Story:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's offhand remark that the U.S. would show "no quarter, no mercy for our enemies," in Iran. In military context, "no quarter" means killing enemy combatants without allowing surrender.

This alarmed legal experts, who warned the statement could constitute a war crime. Even just saying it could count as a violation of international law and U.S. military code, they added.

Wall Street Journal national security reporter Alex Ward flagged the comment as violating international humanitarian law under the Geneva Convention.

Claremont McKenna College professor Jack Pitney cited the Defense Department's own Law of War Manual, which explicitly forbids declaring no quarter will be given. International Crisis Group senior adviser Brian Finucane, a former U.S. government war crimes lawyer, stated that even declaring no quarter constitutes a war crime punishable by up to life imprisonment under the DoD Manual for Military Commissions.

Stanford law professor Tom Dannenbaum confirmed declaring no quarter is prohibited under international humanitarian law and itself amounts to a war crime.


Watch the video below.

It violates international law. \

It violates the DOD manual on the law of war.

It violates US Code.

At Just Security,  Daniel Mauer offers the Secretary of Defense some hypothetical legal advice:

. War Crime liability under 18 U.S.C. 2441:

a. The U.S. War Crimes statute makes it a federal offense to commit a “war crime,” subject to being “fined … or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.”

b. The statute defines “war crime” by incorporating those offenses described as “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions or its additional protocols and acts specifically “prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV.”

c. As stated above, Article 23(d) in that Annex is unambiguous: “it is especially forbidden . . . [t]o declare that no quarter will be given.”

d. In describing ongoing and future combat operations in the current international armed conflict between the United States and Iran, your statement “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” likely violates Art. 23(d) of the Annex to Hague IV and thereby violates 18 U.S.C. § 2441. This interpretation is reinforced when your remarks are considered alongside your previous public comments about the Rules of Engagement, “maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” and the laws of armed conflict noted above in para. 2.b.

e. An intention to merely cause panic and terror within the Iranian armed forces is not a defense because Article 23(d) prohibits the “declar[ation] that no quarter will be given.” It is a speech offense; under normal principles of criminal law, a command to unlawfully kill another person, even if never performed, is still prohibited (“Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal” – see 18 U.S.C. § 2). Whether the order is ever consummated by your subordinates is immaterial to your criminal exposure under 18 U.S.C. § 2441.

f. Any U.S. servicemember who interprets your comments as an order and who subsequently commands, directs, orders, or gives “no quarter” to Iranian forces will be exposed to criminal liability under Article 118, UCMJ, for murder (a premeditated killing of another with no legal justification or excuse). Such an order is “patently” or “manifestly” unlawful; therefore, a servicemember accused of murder for ordering or giving “no quarter” cannot raise an “obedience to orders” defense in their court-martial. Alternatively, servicemembers would also be exposed to prosecution in U.S. district court for violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2441.

What Is Madisonianism?

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

 Jay Cost, "What Does It Mean to Be Madisonian? at AEI:

• Today, the word Madisonian is automatically paired with the American constitutional order, particularly the nexus of Federalist 10 and 51—the popular sovereignty of an extended republic mitigated by institutional mechanisms to temper majority factions.
• While that is arguably a fair characterization of the constitutional system, it misrepresents James Madison’s political position at the time of the Constitution’s drafting. Madison’s Federalist 10 defends the Constitution on grounds on which he privately criticized it, and Federalist 51 employs classical republican ideas his original theory did not heavily rely on.
• While Madison in retirement praised the Constitution as a whole, a more precise vocabulary would distinguish the “Publian” Madison from the authentically Madisonian position of 1787.
• The constitutional system advances Madisonian commitments like democratic governance, deliberation, and consensus—not through the means Madison preferred in 1787 but through the practical accommodations with classical republicanism that he eventually embraced.

From the essay:

From a broader perspective, while the Constitution does not embody the democratic republic to nearly the extent that Madison had hoped, it likely does so much more than it would have had Madison not been involved. His Virginia Plan set the agenda for the early portion of the convention and oriented the delegates to a national plan of government. His insistence on a democratically elected House of Representatives rebutted many delegates who thought states should appoint House members. His staunch defense of proportional representation in both chambers of Congress limited the power of the small states in only the Senate. For instance, William Paterson’s New Jersey Plan would have retained the unicameral Congress of the Articles of Confederation, with votes apportioned equally among the states.33 Madison also opposed demands by delegates sympathetic to commercial interests to entrench representation based on property and many of the demands from his fellow Southerners on protection for the slaveholding interest. He may have failed to create a constitution that reflected his aspirations of a national, democratic republic, but the finished product does reflect that view in part, thanks to his aspirations. In that sense, the Constitution is Madisonian.

Service and Career Readiness

Many posts have discussed volunteering and civic virtue.

To repeat the obvious: correlation is not causation.  Perhaps service does improve career readiness.  But there is a very plausible alternative explanation for these correlations.  Bright, ambitious kids know that service looks good on a college application or a resume.  That is, they serve because they are primed to succeed, not the other way around.

From Gallup:

A nationally representative survey of more than 3,000 U.S. youth ages 12-25, conducted by The Allstate Foundation and Gallup, finds that youth service is linked to positive outcomes in the areas of career readiness, connection and resilience.

Eighty-two percent of youth say they have participated in at least some form of service. Youth who serve report feeling prepared for a future career, connected to their community and able to handle whatever comes their way, with the greatest benefits seen among those who engage deeply or take on leadership roles.

The study also outlines practical steps for expanding opportunities and impact. The findings are based on a Gallup Panel web study conducted Nov. 17–Dec. 1, 2025, with a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points.

From the report:

• Engaging in service is linked to greater reported benefits in the areas of career readiness, connection and resilience. Key examples include:
• Career readiness: Half of young people (52%) report that service activities had a somewhat (38%) or very (14%) positive impact on feeling prepared for a future career.
• Connection: Seventy-nine percent of young people report that service activities had a somewhat (47%) or very (32%) positive impact on feeling connected to their community.
• Resilience: Youth with service experience are more likely to say they can handle whatever comes their way (66% vs. 52%).

 

Morality and Bellief in God

Many posts have discussed international views of religion.

Jonathan Evans at Pew:

Nearly everyone in Indonesia (99%), as well as the vast majority of people in Kenya (94%), India (85%) and South Africa (80%), say it’s necessary to believe in God to be moral.

By contrast, in about a dozen countries, two-thirds of adults or more say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral. This includes the United States (68%), Poland (80%), Spain (84%) and Sweden (89%).

In some countries – including the U.S. – declining shares of people say it’s necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values, according to the survey.

In the U.S., we’ve asked this question 18 times since 2002. That includes eight surveys conducted online using our American Trends Panel and 10 surveys conducted by telephone.

From 2002 through 2011, Americans were split fairly evenly or tilted toward the view that people need to believe in God to be moral and have good values.

Starting in 2014, however, Americans have been more likely to say the opposite – that belief in God is not necessary to be moral. Since 2020, about two-thirds of U.S. adults have taken this position.

Pardon Lobbying

 Many posts have addressed the president's pardon power.

A pardon industry has arisen during the Trump years.

Kenneth Vogel at NYT:

It is based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to Mr. Trump’s politics or grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a low likelihood of recidivism.

A growing number of practitioners promise access in this murky enterprise, but some also may exaggerate their effectiveness to elicit payments from clients desperate to avoid incarceration. Pardon seekers routinely offer to pay as much as $1 million or more, often with bonus payments triggered by a successful outcome, according to lobbying filings and people familiar with the fees.

This transactional approach to clemency has been welcomed by white-collar offenders like those serving time at the Otisville camp, a minimum-security facility about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan.

Many of its inmates cheered Mr. Trump’s election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who shares their grievances about the unfairness of financial crime prosecutions like the one that led to his own conviction, according to four people familiar with conversations at Otisville.

Over the course of his first term and the first year of his second, Mr. Trump has granted pardons or commutations to at least nine inmates who served at Otisville’s camp or the adjacent medium-security prison. That includes two inmates who were freed after Mr. Schwartz from the minimum-security camp, which typically houses about 100 inmates.