David J. Bier discusses his blog post, “Trump Has Cut Legal Immigration More Than Illegal Immigration,” on PBS NewsHour April 14, 2026

PBS NewsHour has @davidjbier.bsky.social on to talk about Trump's push against legal immigration

Schmidt v. City of Norfolk Brief: Automated License Plate Readers Commit Fourth Amendment Searches Now, two residents are suing, arguing that this sweeping, warrantless tracking of their daily movements amounts to unconstitutional surveillance under the Fourth Amendment.

Norfolk, Va. has deployed nearly 200 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) across the city, storing the data for weeks in a sweeping system of warrantless surveillance. Fourth Amendment constraints are sorely needed, argues Cato amicus brief in Schmidt v. City of Norfolk [Matthew Cavedon]

Canada’s 215 Imaginary Martyrs How will Canadian journalists cover the five-year anniversary of the 2021 ‘unmarked-graves’ social panic without admitting their complicity in promoting a fake story?

How will Canadian journalists cover the five-year anniversary of the 2021 ‘unmarked-graves’ social panic without admitting their complicity in promoting a fake story?

EU top court strikes down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ+ rules Viktor Orbán had banned mentions of homosexuality in media accessible to children and outlawed Pride marches.

Odd timing to make Peter Magyar deal with this in the immediate aftermath of his win, but clearly it was coming given how blatantly the Orban law clashed with EU principles www.politico.eu/article/eu-t...

The EU Court of Justice: the Hungarian LGBTI law violates the right to non-discrimination, freedom of expression and private life/information.

For the very first time, the Court uses the values in Article 2 TEU as a stand alone basis.

Ready to go new government!

curia.europa.eu/site/upload/...

Live by the Crank, Die by the Crank Right-wing conspiracy theorists are turning on Trump.

From Deep State to Deep Sat’: some MAGA figures say Trump’s erratic behavior is evidence that he may be possessed by demons [Nick Catoggio, @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social]

I saw that. My reading is that the FTC is trying to cut its losses by retreating, and that’s a good sign, though it would be a still better sign if the court cut off their line of retreat so as to make a lesson of them.

It got things it wanted against the ad agencies by threatening to block mergers. It wanted different things in its direct attack on Media Matters, and it’s giving up hope of a favorable ruling on that.

Encouraging development in one of the Trump administration’s attacks on free speech. Proud that my Cato colleagues filed an amicus brief.

The side dish was baked thinly sliced potatoes and zucchini, but it wasn’t really meant to be eaten in combination. I imagine the pan leavings of the chicken will find some use tomorrow.

Chicken in pot.

Chicken thighs in a tagine-like preparation with onions, cinnamon, ginger and handfuls of chopped cilantro. #CookSky #Foodsky #BlueskySupperClub

My sense that a Trump cabinet pick will prove disastrous is usually borne out, although sometimes they prove disastrous in ways different from what I expected.

Your State-by-State Guide to the 2026 Supreme Court Elections - Bolts Abortion, redistricting, and ballot access remain heated issues as voters face dozens of supreme court races across 32 states this year.

Previewing this year’s state supreme court elections

What's in the New Executive Order on Elections? • Bipartisan Policy Center When President Joe Biden signed an executive order on elections in 2021, we wrote: Presidents don’t have much of a role in how elections are run—and that’s a good thing. Last month, President Donald T...

Good @bipartisanpolicy.org issue brief on Trump's attempt to meddle with mail voting, useful especially on the three different lists of persons he wants created, which have no clear interrelationship and rely in some cases on compilation of data not available in any accurate and up to date form.

The Supreme Court ruled against 'informal censorship' 6 decades ago but officials are still jawboning The Court's 1963 ruling in Bantam Books v. Sullivan is freshly relevant in light of recent efforts to restrict speech through government intimidation.

Also, Jacob Sullum has a piece revisiting the classic 1963 Supreme Court case on improper government "jawboning" for removal of First-Amendment-protected speech, which pitted Bantam Books against a Rhode Island morality commission.

And while causation was central, the difficulty for the plaintiffs was that they couldn't persuasively separate the losses from platforms' voluntary actions to shun them from those attributable to the government's improper pressure for platforms to do this more rapidly and decisively.

You're missing the point. The gov't took a swing at the subjects' 1A right to speak. The Court majority found the punch didn't provably connect with the targets' jaws. Injunctive relief was not to be had because it was unlikely the offense would be repeated. No need to ask latter Q on your theory.

No, that's not true. The plaintiffs lost because of inability to show injury and other necessary elements of standing. The six-Justice majority did not dispute, nor do I, that some of the administration's actions constituted improper pressure.

🚨 NEW TODAY🚨
The @CatoInstitute "Handbook on Affordability," featuring more than 100 policy recommendations to lower the cost of housing, healthcare, education, childcare, energy, transportation, food, everyday essentials , & more:
www.cato.org/handbook-aff...

Conservatives condemned Biden appointees, and not without reason, for using pressure to get social media platforms to take down user content otherwise protected by the First Amendment. But a court has now found that the Trump administration did exactly that to user content reporting ICE sightings.

the penne opticon

Conservatives want the government to pay Americans to get married and have kids A Heritage Foundation report proposes tax credits and family accounts to incentivize family formation.

"Government-backed marriage programs don't have a stellar success rate." All undaunted, a Heritage Foundation report "is advocating a reorientation of the entire federal government toward favoring married parents above everyone else." [@enbrown.bsky.social]

Trump’s Psychedelic Order Speeds Research—but Not Access Trump’s executive order may accelerate research, but outdated regulations still stand between patients and treatment.

Despite the latest welcome gesture from Washington, therapeutic use of psychedelics continues to be hobbled by decades of misguided drug policy and unsuitable regulatory structures. More fundamental changes are needed [Jeffrey Singer, Cato]

blog.dividedargument.com/p/the-non-sc...

Call for Papers: Historical Arguments for Sullivan's Actual Malice Test FIRE invites paper proposals for a research workshop examining historical frameworks for modern First Amendment jurisprudence, and specifically the “actual malice” test outlined by the Supreme Court i...

FIRE is doing a call for papers on the historical roots of the actual malice doctrine in New York Times v. Sullivan, a case the Supreme Court might revisit in some future term.

‘Blue Power’ and the rise of police union politics Stuart Schrader's new book details how police unions became a dominant force in U.S. politics.

Police unions are now potent political forces at the local, state, and national levels, and their largely successful effort to immunize themselves from oversight is one of the great political coups in recent American history. @cjciaramella.bsky.social reviews a Hopkins professor's new book

‘Blue Power’ and the rise of police union politics Stuart Schrader's new book details how police unions became a dominant force in U.S. politics.

"In Baltimore, Commissioner Donald Pomerlau had an intelligence unit that kept tabs on officers and civilians who were of interest to him. Asked by a reporter if his intelligence unit spied on elected officials, Pomerleau responded, 'Just the blacks.'"

"Let's Fly to Earth from a Distance" - Duille A stunning museum - quality print of "Let's Fly to Earth from a Distance" by Russian artist El Lissitzky from 1920. We ship worldwide.

“Let’s Fly to Earth from a Distance” (1920) by El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890-1941)

SCOTUS Should Put the Freeze on Congressional Abdication Congress created a cap-and-trade system for refrigerants, but it didn’t decide who would receive the allowances to be traded in the first place. That violates the separation of powers.

When Congress delegates power to Executive agencies, it's supposed to furnish an “intelligible principle” to govern the exercise of delegated authority. Lawmakers ignored this duty in 2020 when they created a new program for the EPA to administer, argues a Cato cert amicus brief. [Thomas Berry +2]

Pharms v. United States Brief: Judges Shouldn't Sentence People for Things the Jury Found They Didn't Do The Cato Institute filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to take up this case and grant this petition for certiorari to end the practice of acquitted conduct sentencing.

"The jury was specifically asked whether Mr. Pharms fired a weapon. The jury said no." And yet "the district judge sentenced Mr. Pharms as if he had used a firearm, lengthening the sentence... a common practice called acquitted conduct sentencing." Cato cert amicus asks reversal [Matthew Cavedon]