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Alright, let’s talk about the most comforting fantasy of 2026: law school as a lifeboat . Not a yacht. Not a speedboat. A lifeboat. Slightly cracked, overcrowded, expensive to board, and launched directly into waters where the sharks have recently learned how to code. Over the past two years, law school applications have surged more than 40%. Lecture halls are filling up. LSAT prep companies are thriving. Admissions consultants are booked solid. And somewhere, a freshly minted college graduate is saying the quiet part out loud: “At least a JD feels… solid.” That feeling— solid —is doing a lot of emotional labor right now. Because this isn’t really about a sudden, collective passion for torts, contracts, or the beauty of Bluebook citations. This is about fear. Specifically, the kind of fear that creeps in when you send out 200 job applications, hear nothing back, and then watch an AI demo casually perform half the tasks you thought made you employable. Welcome to the AI hiring stor...

Ohio voters said yes to legal marijuana in 2023. A clear, loud 57% said: “Hey, maybe adults can handle a plant without the government fainting into a lace handkerchief.” Fast-forward one year, and the Ohio Statehouse has decided to reinterpret “yes” as “yes, but only if you follow 47 new rules, carry your weed like radioactive plutonium, and resist the demonic temptation to buy the cheaper stuff across the border.” Welcome to Ohio, the land where democracy is respected until it becomes inconvenient. Senate Bill 56 — the new legislation racing through the Statehouse like it’s late for a dentist appointment — aims to “clarify” marijuana rules. And by clarify, lawmakers apparently mean rebuild criminal penalties from scratch, wrap them in a bow, and insist it’s all for your own good . NORML — the oldest marijuana advocacy group in the country and the unofficial Support Group for People Shocked by Statehouse Creativity — has called this effort “recriminalization.” And after readi...

Picture this: it’s another sunny afternoon in Sacramento — the air smells faintly of lobbyist cologne and freshly printed ethics guidelines. The marble floors of the Capitol gleam, reflecting the moral ambiguity of those who pace them. And just when it looked like business as usual — politicians pretending to serve the public while quietly networking for their post-political careers — boom: Governor Gavin Newsom signs a law that basically says, “Hey, you have to tell people when you’re selling out.” Welcome to Assembly Bill 1286 , the legislative equivalent of installing a Ring camera in a den of foxes — except the foxes voted unanimously to approve it. Act I: CalMatters Catches the Cookie Jar Moment It all started when CalMatters , that rare unicorn of California journalism that still believes in investigative reporting, dropped a story exposing a delightful little oversight in state ethics law. Turns out lawmakers could be out there — oh, I don’t know — negotiating cushy private-...

When Your Cop Fantasy Collides with the Constitution It finally happened. A federal judge had to break it to Donald Trump, like a kindergarten teacher explaining crayons aren’t food: you can’t just deploy the U.S. military in Los Angeles because you feel like playing sheriff of America. Judge Charles Breyer—no relation to Justice Stephen Breyer, though both share the ability to read—ruled that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated the Posse Comitatus Act. That’s the dusty old 19th-century law that says, in short, “the military isn’t your personal police force, you orange-tinted aspiring strongman.” This wasn’t a minor technical foul. Breyer’s 52-page ruling was the legal equivalent of slapping Trump across the face with a rolled-up Constitution and saying, “Sit down, Donny. You’re out of your jurisdiction.” The Posse Comitatus Act: Because We Learned from Ulysses S. Grant Let’s back up. The Posse Comitatus Act dates to 1878, when Congress decided that maybe, just maybe...

Ah, the European Commission's Rule of Law Report 2025 —fresh off the press, with all the ceremonial optimism of a Eurovision opener and all the actual teeth of a gummy bear. Six years into this grand annual exercise in “please behave,” and we’re once again reminded that democracy is like your grandma’s antique teacups: fragile, cracked in some places, and if you drop it—well, good luck gluing that back together with statements, summits, and strongly-worded recommendations. Let’s not be rude, though. The Commission did put in the effort. They produced another hefty report filled with words like “dialogue,” “resilience,” and “institutional capacity,” which are basically Brussels-speak for “we’re trying, okay?” And while some countries are apparently climbing the reform ladder, others are still hanging from the bottom rung with both hands tied behind their backs—possibly by their own governments. But let’s dive in. What does this report tell us about the state of law, order, and g...

Well, well, well. Donald J. Trump, a man whose name is as synonymous with "unfiltered content" as it is with gold-plated everything, just signed the TAKE IT DOWN Act into law on May 19, 2025. Yes, you read that right. Trump — the same guy who spent years pretending lawsuits, subpoenas, and moral compasses were mere suggestions — has now championed a law that protects people from nonconsensual porn . The full name? S.146, the “Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act.” That’s a mouthful, which is exactly the kind of phrase this law is trying to prevent from being paired with your face in an AI-generated video you never agreed to. The acronym is TAKE IT DOWN , which is either the result of a brilliant staffer who moonlights in public relations, or the most ironically self-owning title in legislative history. Let’s unpack this digital Trojan horse of decency — with all the snark it deserves. A Law Against the ...