Plea Bargaining

Many posts have discussed the American legal system.

Jacob Sullum at Reason:

Criminal defendants make similar calculations every day, which explains why about 95 percent of felony convictions in the United States are based on guilty pleas. In federal courts, the percentage is even higher: about 98 percent in fiscal year 2025, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

It is not hard to understand why criminal defendants almost never opt for trials. "At the federal level," the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers reports, "trial sentences are roughly three times higher than plea sentences for the same crime on average and sometimes as much as eight or ten times higher." The threat of a "trial penalty," which may include additional charges as well as longer sentences, has transformed a constitutional right into a legal fiction. While TV shows and movies still depict trials as the standard way criminal cases are handled, such showdowns have become vanishingly rare in the real world.

As the Supreme Court acknowledged in 2012, "criminal justice today is for the most part a system of pleas, not a system of trials." You might think the Court would have something to say about that situation. But for more than half a century, it was unfazed by the replacement of trials with plea bargains, which it described as "highly desirable" and "an essential component of the administration of justice." That attitude gave prosecutors free rein to coerce guilty pleas by threatening defendants with severe consequences if they insisted on making the government prove its case.

Grievances

 Many posts have discussed the Founding.

Ryan Goodman, Jack Palmer-Coole, Siven Watt and Simone Lipkind at Just Security:

Americans commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year. As many in the United States and around the world reflect on the words in the solemn document, it will be readily apparent how the actions of the monarch that prompted the “grievances” of the settlers are echoed by the actions taken by the current presidential administration in its first year and a half. 

We believe there is an important history lesson in simply reading, and rereading, the Declaration and reflecting on the current times in the United States. In the passages below, the text of the Declaration is annotated with the words of federal judges in 52 court cases involving the current administration. We have identified 17 of the 27 grievances with a contemporary analog.

Over the past months, different studies published at Just Security have closely documented how the federal courts have adjudicated Americans’ attempts to vindicate their rights against administration policies. The gravity of the judges’ conclusions are sobering. Indeed, reading the Declaration and their words side-by-side shows how much the very fabric of the American social contract is being tested. Today’s federal judiciary, no less than the signatories of the Declaration 250 years ago, is speaking to the current generation about the foundational needs of a functional and representative American democracy, with meaningful checks and balances, and above all, a commitment to the rule of law.

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Grievance 16: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
Grievance 17: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

Historical grievance: The Boston Port Act (1774) shut down Boston Harbor, the Restraining Acts (1775) barred New England from trading outside the British Empire, and the Prohibitory Act (1775) prohibited American trade altogether (Grievance 16). The Sugar Act (1764), Stamp Act (1765), and Townshend Acts (1767) imposed direct taxation on the colonies without their consent or representation in Parliament (Grievance 17).
Contemporary translation: Executive restriction of international trade (Grievance 16); and executive imposition of tariffs (considered a tax by the Supreme Court) without congressional authorization (Grievance 17).
Strength of contemporary analog: Strong.

“Based on two words separated by 16 others in Section 1702(a)(1)(B) of IEEPA — ‘regulate’ and ‘importation’ — the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution sets forth the powers of the Legislative Branch. The first Clause of that provision specifies that ‘The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.’ It is no accident that this power appears first. The power to tax was, Alexander Hamilton explained, ‘the most important of the authorities proposed to be conferred upon the Union.’ It is both a ‘power to destroy’ and a power ‘necessary to the existence and prosperity of a nation’ — ‘the one great power upon which the whole national fabric is based.‘

The power to impose tariffs is ‘very clear[ly] … a branch of the taxing power.’ ‘A tariff,’ after all, ‘is a tax levied on imported goods and services.’ And tariffs ‘raise[] revenue’ — the defining feature of a tax
…
Recognizing the taxing power’s unique importance, and having just fought a revolution motivated in large part by ‘taxation without representation,’ the Framers gave Congress ‘alone … access to the pockets of the people.’ see also Declaration of Independence ¶19[sic]. … They did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch.”

“We are therefore skeptical that in IEEPA — and IEEPA alone — Congress hid a delegation of its birth-right power to tax within the quotidian power to ‘regulate.'”

— Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. (W. Bush appointee) — IEEPA as a basis for presidential tariff power (link to Supreme Court opinion)

Nonbelievers on Capitol Hill

Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.

Mark Z. Barabak at LAT:

[California Democratic House Member Jared] Huffman is the rare American — one of only about 10% or so — who flatly state they do not believe in God, or any higher power for that matter. What makes him rarer still is his place in Congress. Huffman, who represents a sprawling slice of Northern California, reaching from the Bay Area to the Oregon border, is one of just four members (out of more than 500) who are openly agnostic or religiously unaffiliated.

He is, by far, the most outspoken.

Huffman, who publicly revealed his nonreligious status in 2017, helped form the Congressional Freethought Caucus, which consists of about three dozen members of various religious stripe, each dedicated to the proposition that church and state should be distinct. He’s written a book, due out next month, raising an alarm and summoning Americans to fight the rising tide of Christian nationalism roiling our divided land.

An overwhelming favorite to win an eighth congressional term in November, Huffman, a Democrat, calls himself a humanist and described it this way:

“To me, it means good without God. It means you don’t need the inducement or fear of an afterlife to have a moral framework and to know your place in the universe. You’re sort of at peace with the reality that, as far as we know, this is it. You get one time around.

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Ignoring the counsel of family, friends and political advisors who, to a person, warned against it, Huffman revealed his religious disbelief in a series of statements and interviews in November 2017. At the time, the only member of Congress to ever publicly come out as an atheist was Rep. Pete Stark, who announced his sentiments in 2007; though the Fremont Democrat was reelected twice, he was eventually defeated by a Democratic rival who turned his lack of faith against him.

That rival was Eric Swalwell; make of it what you will.

Huffman braced for political blowback. There was none, though he’s gotten death threats and plenty of admonishments he’s bound for Hell.

(Meantime, the congressional ranks of the religiously unaffiliated have grown to include Democratic Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona and Emily Randall of Washington and Republican Rep. Abraham Hamadeh of Arizona.)

Gallup January 26, 2024:

Take these numbers with some skepticism.  In the poll, 70% said they would not vote for a convicted felon, but on Election Day, nearly half of voters did so. 

Air Force One

 

Anyone with eyes could tell you the ex-Qatari plane lacks the same countermeasures, as I explained in this video for @Independent https://t.co/sAhaeNuWRi pic.twitter.com/UQLjZygSjg

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) July 11, 2026

Fewer Believe God Granted America a Special Role

 Many posts have discussed patriotism and American exceptionalism. Religion is part of the story.

From PRRI:

Just 44% of Americans agree with the idea that God has granted America a special role in human history, compared with a slim majority who disagree (52%). Agreement with this idea was relatively high in the early and mid-2010s, around 60 percent. Beginning in 2020, however, agreement dropped significantly to 40% and has since remained relatively stable in the low-to-mid 40s through 2026.

The partisan gap on American exceptionalism has widened sharply over the past decade. While Republican agreement that God has granted America a special role has remained relatively stable — dipping from 75% in 2012 to 63% in 2022, with about seven in ten agreeing today — Democratic support has collapsed, falling from 60% to just 27%. Independents declined as well, hitting a low of 35% in 2020 before a modest recovery to 40% in 2026.

In 2012, majorities of nearly all religious groups agreed that God has granted America a special role in human history. Today, only four religious subgroups hold this view. Most Latter-day Saints (80%), white evangelical Protestants (75%), Hispanic Protestants (64%), and Black Protestants (52%) agree that God has a special role for America. By contrast, less than half of every other major religious group agrees with this statement, including 49% of white Catholics, 47% of white mainline/ non-evangelical Protestants, 44% of Hispanic Catholics, 34% of Jewish Americans, 32% of other non-Christians, and only 21% of religiously unaffiliated Americans. Since 2022, white evangelical Protestants (from 68%) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (from 16%) have become more likely to agree. 

Prayer and the Continental Congress

Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.

From Tikvah:

In September of 1774, the First Continental Congress gathered at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. The delegates were divided by geography, culture, and religion—uncertain whether so fractious a body could act as one. When a proposal to open with prayer met with resistance, Samuel Adams rose and declared he would pray with any man who was a friend of his country—and they opened the session with Psalm 35. Rabbi Soloveichik reflects on what that moment reveals about the Hebrew Bible in American civic life, illustrating how faith serves not as a source of division, but as the unifying foundation of our national covenant.

Tocqueville and Dogs

Many posts have discussed social capital, volunteering and civic virtue.

Tocqueville (p.189 of the Lawrence/Mayer edition) on neighbors in the United States:

If some obstacle blocks the public road halting the circulation of traffic, the neighbors at once form a deliberative body; this improvised assembly produces an executive authority which remedies the trouble before anyone has thought of the possibility of some previously constituted authority beyond that of those concerned. Where enjoyment is concerned, people associate to make the festivities grander and more orderly. 

Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, and Avery Shields at the Survey Center on American Life:

Being out and about is a good way to meet your neighbors. One of the strongest predictors of neighborly interaction is also the most obvious: spending time in the neighborhood. Americans who report that they take walks or run through their neighborhood are much more likely to converse with neighbors. A majority (55 percent) of Americans who walk around their neighborhood at least once a week say they talk to their neighbors at least a few times a week. Americans who walk less often report much less neighborly interaction. The share of Americans who talk with their neighbors at least weekly is only 29 percent among those who walk only once or a few times a year and 19 percent among those who do not walk around their neighborhood at all.

Dog ownership is also associated with increased social engagement with neighbors, but only for those who walk their dog. Half of Americans who own a dog and walk it regularly report that they talk with their neighbors at least a few times a week. In contrast, only 33 percent of dog owners who do not walk their pets say they talk to neighbors this often.