“First, the men at the center of the 60 Minutes segment were in fact shipped off to CECOT without any sort of judicial review. Second, even after the Supreme Court ruled that alleged “alien enemies” have a due process right to challenge their removal via habeas corpus petitions, the administration made that option nearly impossible to pursue in practice, as the Court subsequently recognized. Third, the government maintains that federal courts have, at most, a highly circumscribed role in these cases, saying they have no authority to question Trump’s historically unprecedented invocation of the AEA against alleged gang members.
Trump’s assertion of unreviewable power under the AEA is part of a broader pattern that became clear during his first year in office. He has made similar claims regarding his tariffs and National Guard deployments. In these and other cases, Trump’s position undermines civil liberties, the rule of law, and the separation of powers by attacking the crucial role that the judicial branch plays in making sure that presidents respect statutory and constitutional limits on their authority.”
The Minneapolis police chief said that ICE’s irresponsible behavior is creating great strain on the city’s police force. So is people’s aggressive antagonization and anger at ICE.
Viewing the incident where the ICE officer killed a woman, the chief said ICE officers appeared to create a situation that was dangerous and acted against good policing.
He made tough progress to rebuild the Minneapolis police department after the George Floyd protests, and he fears that ICE tactics are going to create a huge setback.
Early on, there was a real disagreement between specialists on the origin on Covid, with some supporting natural origins and some supporting a lab leak. But that debate is now essentially over. With more data carefully examined, the evidence best supports natural origins.
The virus was initially repeatedly found in a specific animal market, and even a specific stall that appeared to be the source. For a lab leak to be the source, the person or people who leaked the virus would have to have repeatedly visited that market every time they leaked it and nowhere else so that it looked like that market was the source.
“For locals, the guard members’ effect on crime remains debatable, but the accompanying checkpoints and stops have been uncontroversially disruptive. The oddest part of the spectacle is captured in the photos that follow. Uniformed and armed men and women from across the country can be seen all over the city wielding leaf blowers, hoses, and brooms as they do municipal chores—tasks for which they are surely overqualified.
The deployment is costing taxpayers between $1 million and $1.5 million per day. But over Thanksgiving weekend, the cost rose sharply: A close-range ambush near Farragut Square killed 20-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and left 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe in critical condition. The Trump administration immediately pledged to send in 500 more guard members. This act will further scramble the already confused logic about the necessity and utility of National Guard presence in American cities.”
“The HHS stressed on Monday that all 17 vaccines, including those no longer recommended for all children, will still be covered at no out-of-pocket cost to patients by government and private health insurance plans.”
“The National Park Service (NPS) owns five golf courses across three properties in the nation’s capital: East Potomac Park Golf Course (home to three courses), Langston Golf Course, and Rock Creek Park Golf Course. If that seems like a weird thing for the federal government to do, you’re right—but it’s common in the D.C. area, where the NPS might also own your favorite concert venue or theater, parkways on your commute, your marina, or the park in the traffic circle a block from your office.
All that federal control means the president might suddenly take an interest in, and mess with, your favorite hobby.
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“National Links Trust has done everything it promised, and the Trump administration isn’t retaking control of D.C.’s public golf courses to make them nicer and more affordable for taxpayers,” according to sports business writer Joe Pompliano, who reviewed the lease. “They are doing it to create an upscale venue that can host a Ryder Cup, replacing the promise of affordable golf with prices most taxpayers cannot afford.”
In short, the government said it needed help fixing the golf courses. National Links Trust got a 50-year lease to do so. Government red tape made it hard to do the work quickly. Then the Trump administration had a shiny (possibly far-fetched) idea, blamed National Links Trust for not going fast enough, and cut off the lease. That’s not exactly going to encourage more nonprofits or private contractors to work with the administration, or possibly with the government in general.”
“In an economy, prices are signals. Interest rates are the price of money, and they give the authorities a clue about how to manage the federal budget. If interest rates are too high, the market is telling the government it is spending too much. If interest rates are too low (like they were a few years ago), the markets are telling the government that it is spending too little (if such a thing is possible).
Right now, the government is spending too much. If the central bank were to cap the interest rate, its usefulness as a price signal would disappear. The government can borrow an unlimited amount of money with no immediate consequences but with one big long-term consequence: inflation.”
“Two of Mamdani’s executive orders directly address that latter goal. One creates a Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED) task force dedicated to identifying and removing bureaucratic barriers to new housing construction and leasing.
The second creates the Land Inventory Fast Track (LIFT) task force that will identify city land that can be used for housing construction.
Both are fine ideas. They’re also not exactly novel.
Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, likewise convened task forces to speed up the city’s permitting process and to identify city-owned land that could be used for housing.
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Perhaps a Mamdani administration will be able to squeeze more juice out of new task forces.
But as the Manhattan Institute’s Eric Kober details in a new report, substantially increasing new supply will require more comprehensive legislative changes to city zoning and permitting laws.
The end goal of those reforms, like many of the zoning reforms the City Council passed under the Adams administration, is to induce private developers to add more units to the housing-starved city.
Several of Mamdani’s other initial housing moves may well make them less likely to do that.
On his first day in office, Mamdani appointed Cea Weaver, a tenant activist and one of his campaign advisers, to lead the city’s Office to Protect Tenants.
A few days later, the New York Post reported on Weaver’s long history of hard-left social media commentary. She’s called for seizing private property and derided homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy.”
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In addition to appointing Weaver, Mamdani has directed city agencies to host a series of “rent ripoff” hearings, in which tenants will be given a public forum to complain about conditions in their buildings.
Mamdani, beginning his administration by appointing communists and scheduling housing struggle sessions designed to demonize landlords, might not be the most surprising development. It’s not entirely unprecedented either. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio liked to talk about seizing private property from time to time.
It’s nevertheless worrisome for anyone who does care about private property protections. It’s also maddeningly hypocritical.
Weaver was a primary proponent of New York’s 2019 rent stabilization law that made it much more difficult for landlords to fund maintenance and building improvements through higher rents.
As recent lawsuits and reports have highlighted, the result has been declining housing quality and a growing number of units sitting empty because their owners cannot finance needed, often city-mandated repairs.
Neither Mamdani nor Weaver can expropriate private housing all by themselves. The U.S. Constitution provides some protection against that. They can, however, scapegoat landlords for problems that are caused by overbearing regulation.
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Housing production has plummeted in Montgomery County, Maryland, which borders Washington, D.C., following the implementation of a local rent control ordinance.
In 2023, the county council approved a rent control policy that caps annual rent increases at the lesser of inflation plus 3 percent or 6 percent.
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multifamily housing permits have fallen by some 96 percent since the implementation of rent control. County planning officials report that the multifamily projects that are getting permitted are generally for-sale units.”