Peddled as a means of saving old people too poor to afford medical coverage in their declining years, Medicare is more of a creation of America’s weird tax code, which rewarded offering health insurance as a benefit to current employees, often unavailable to those who move on to new jobs or retirement. Since then, it has largely displaced private alternatives even as it consumes an ever larger share of the federal budget—and of GDP. As it is, the […]

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Everything’s computer! But not at the IRS. “The upheaval at the IRS is already having real impacts,” reports The Washington Post, referring to plans (already underway) to reduce the workforce by half. “Sources familiar with the agency report that its level of phone service is falling, in part because employees are spending their time waiting to use shared computers to respond to [the Department of Government Efficiency’s] requests for weekly emails detailing their work. (Not all IRS employees are […]

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Cartoon depicting congressional debate over the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. (NA)   Media reports indicate the Trump Administration may be about to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as a tool to facilitate deportation: The Trump administration is expected to invoke a sweeping wartime authority to speed up the president’s mass deportation pledge in the coming days, according to four sources familiar with the discussions. The little-known 18th-century law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, gives […]

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From Moshoures v. City of North Myrtle Beach, decided today by Fourth Circuit Judge Toby Heytens, joined by Judges Albert Diaz and Julius Richardson: A city ordinance makes it a crime “to broadcast obscene, profane or vulgar language from any commercial property” above certain volumes at certain times. A bar owner sued, arguing the ordinance violates the First Amendment. This appeal involves only the portion of the ordinance restricting “vulgar” language. [The district court enjoined the “profane” language […]

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President Donald Trump, who imposed punitive tariffs on Mexico this week, complains that our southern neighbor is not doing enough to stop illegal drugs from crossing the border. Mexico has a similar complaint about the United States, as reflected in a case the Supreme Court heard the same day the tariffs took effect. Officially, the Mexican government sued American gun manufacturers, blaming them for “aiding and abetting” the trafficking of firearms to drug cartels. But its real beef is with […]

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