Dorf on Law

In a  2008 paper  titled “Conspiracy Theories,” Cass R. Sunstein and Adrien Vermeule described the key dilemma involved in a government responding to a conspiracy theory. As they put it, “Ignoring the theory allows its proponents to draw ominous inferences from the government’s silence,” but “to rebut the theory may be to legitimate it.” This is fairly intuitive: if your belief is that the government is covering something up, any denial is just more proof to you of the coverup. Sunstein and Vermeule propose “cognitive infiltration” as a solution to this dilemma. Their idea is in many ways as dystopian as it sounds: the government would send in agents to the breeding grounds of conspiracy theories (in the modern day, perhaps 4Chan or Truth Social) where the agents would raise doubts and reveal logical holes in the freshly coalescing theories.  Sunstein and Vermeule were primarily concerned about conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11th terrorist attacks from...

An astonishing event occurred last week at the University of Texas. Justice Clarence Thomas gave a speech in which he accused progressives of betraying the core principles of the Declaration of Independence. He said that: Progressivism has made many inroads in our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever…. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our Declaration was based. Many progressives expressed admiration for each of them shortly before their governments killed tens of millions of people. Others have criticized Thomas's bizarre view of history, so I want to make a different point. The event was hosted and paid for by The University of Texas School of Civic Leadership, a part of the University funded at least in par...

I have spent a fair bit of time over the past year or so pondering a surprisingly difficult and recurring question: Does it matter which specific people work for the Trump regime, such that personnel changes could make a difference in what happens to people in the US and around the world? Last month, for example, I opined that removing now-former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem would make no substantive difference to the horrors of Trump's ongoing anti-immigration atrocities.  (To be clear, those atrocities are also being visited upon non-immigrant US citizens who are being racially profiled -- with the blessing of the Republican appointees to the US Supreme Court.)  In that piece, I wrote that "the question here is what would change if Noem were no longer in office (via impeachment or any other means, such as being fired for some reason).  The answer is nothing." Over time, I have begun to think of this as a nearly universal rule of Trumpism: Nobody matters, because someon...

Two of the major US stock indices hit record highs yesterday (and are up again today, although markets are still open), even as the Iran war looks more and more like a quagmire and consumer sentiment is at an all-time low .  How could that be happening?  I will eventually get around to refusing to answer that question, but I will begin this column with a digression. There are some truly terrible jobs out there.  Some are shockingly dangerous, such as logging and roofing.  Some are deeply unpleasant as an assault on the senses, such as sanitation workers and " professional armpit sniffers " for deodorant companies.  Some are possibly even more unpleasant as an assault on one's sanity, such as staffers for politicians and late-night TV hosts who watch right-wing cranks on podcasts and cable news for a living. That said, one of the most pointless, soul-deadening jobs that I can imagine is being the person who has to try to explain why stock markets went up or down ...

In 1868, Congress passed a law forbidding home distilleries. That law remains on the books today. It is codified as 26 U.S.C. § 5178 (b). Last week, a unanimous 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the law is unconstitutional  because it exceeds the powers granted to Congress. As I shall explain, in light of a key concession by the government, that holding is arguably correct. As I shall also explain, the concession was a blunder, and while the outcome of the case is defensible, much of the Fifth Circuit opinion is not. Let's start with the statute's text. As relevant here, it provides: "No distilled spirits plant for the production of distilled spirits shall be located in any dwelling house, in any shed, yard, or inclosure connected with any dwelling house . . . ." Although codified in Title 26, which is the Internal Revenue Code, and thus arguably an exercise of the power of Congress to impose taxes (about which more in a moment...

As Winston Churchill tells the story in volume 1 of his history of World War II, The Gathering Storm , in 1935 Stalin was asked by French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval whether he, Stalin, might support Catholicism in Russia. "It would help me so much with the Pope," Laval says. "Oho!" Stalin replies. "The Pope! How many divisions has he got?" (Emphasis in original). Whether or not true, the tale is more about Stalin's character than it is meant to be instructive in the ways of realpolitik. At the time of Stalin's quip, Pius XI was Pope, and he more forcefully and loudly condemned the rise of Nazism than did his successor Pius XII, whose papacy began in 1939. Had Pius XI lived longer, the Church might have played a more active role in combating Nazism despite having no army--although historical counterfactuals are necessarily purely speculative. Donald Trump is a funhouse mirror version of a Rennaissance man: he is impressively ignorant about just ...

I highly recommend a new book of essays edited by Geoffrey Stone and Lee Bollinger called "Money, Politics, and the First Amendment."   Numerous election law experts contributed to this volume canvassing the Supreme Court's election law decisions dealing with the negative effects of money on free and fair elections. Most of the essays are critical of the Court's decisions and how they have contributed to the sorry state of our democracy. The entire book is well-worth reading. In this post, I want to highlight one of the essays written by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and his son Alex called "Getting it Wrong: The Supreme Court and Campaign Finance." This essay is concise, persuasive, accessible, and with pinpoint precision demonstrates the severe harms caused by the Court's use of the First Amendment to limit legislative efforts to offset the distorting effects of the free flow of money on our election system. The authors make clear that they are not arguing th...

Would anyone who moved out of the United States before the onset of the current dystopia be so crazy as to move back?  In " Emerald Farewell ," published here on Dorf on Law two months ago, I revealed that at least one such crazy person exists.  It is I.  In that column, I mostly limited myself to offering a broad assessment of Dublin, which was my final foreign stop before returning to the US at the end of 2025.  I concluded with this somewhat snarky comment about Ireland: "It's a great place to visit. Full stop." In that column, I also teased a future  Verdict column: In an upcoming column on  Verdict  (from which I have been on leave), I will explain in some detail the pluses and minuses of expatriation in all of their gory, practical detail.  That column will also include my attempt to respond to those who might be saying, "Wait, you were actually out, and you  chose  to return now?" That new column, published this morning, is...