This week, the Supreme Court will consider President Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. Separately, the Justice Department has issued subpoenas in a criminal investigation involving Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Together, they raise a more urgent question—why does the Court continue to tolerate such sweeping unilateral power in the presidency? It’s the same question the Framers of...

Not long ago, I stopped watching the national news. I told myself I was stepping away from the noise and the churn for some peace of mind. But reading a daily paper doesn’t guarantee a complete sense of calm; it simply delivers the chaos in longer form: page after page of anger, violence, grievance, retribution, and my-way-or-the-highway governance. It is...

First an update: Not long ago, 60 Minutes, the CBS news program, pulled a segment a few hours before it was set to air. The report, by veteran correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, examined conditions inside CECOT—the massive maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The story was vetted by executives and attorneys. And then, without public explanation, it was removed from the broadcast...

I first read Clarence Darrow for an American Jurisprudence class in college and have returned to his work several times since. He is widely regarded as one of the most intellectually and morally impressive attorneys in American legal history. And he spent his career standing beside people most of the country didn’t want to see. Darrow, the legendary Chicago defense...

On October 7, 2025, Pam Bondi, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, appeared before a Senate oversight committee and refused to answer question after question, so many, in fact, that committee member Adam Schiff was compelled to read them aloud. It was an extraordinary moment, not of legal restraint or principled caution, but of open arrogance, an unmistakable display of...

In June 1790, I attended an extraordinary dinner. Through a tear in the fabric of time, I found myself seated at a small table with three revolutionary figures: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. While the dinner itself was real, it was reconstructed by author Charles A. Cerami in Dinner at Mr. Jefferson’s. Even if the precise words spoken...

For nearly sixty years, the CBS News program 60 Minutes has stood as one of the few remaining institutions in American journalism recognized as serious, independent, and unafraid of difficult subjects. Its authority was never theatrical. It came from persistence, restraint, and the belief that citizens deserve to see uncomfortable facts and decide for themselves what they mean. That legacy...

I’ll be back on January 5th. Later that night, Emily returned home, warmed her hands around a cup of tea, and set the original lantern on her windowsill—lit, as it had been meant to be. She unfolded the letter once more. Outside, snow drifted across the quiet street. Then she saw one lantern glow. Then another, and another, until the...

Emily returned to the attic the next evening. The attic felt different, not mysterious, purposeful. She unlocked the small door again and stood for a moment, looking at the shelves lined with lanterns. She counted at least twenty-four before she stopped. They had not been forgotten. They had been prepared. One by one, she carried the lanterns down carefully, setting...

In the winter of his century, Charles Dickens walked a London powered by industry but running short on warmth. People moved past one another as if connection were a luxury they could no longer afford. Wealth and want lived on opposite sides of the same street, and compassion, even at Christmas time, was showing signs of strain. Dickens wrote his...