The Post-Partisan Emporium

By Zachary Stieber January 6, 2023 A West Virginia law that prohibits people from participating on single-sex sports teams that don’t match their biological sex is constitutional, a judge ruled on Jan. 5. West Virginia House Bill 3293 ( pdf ), or the Save Women’s Sports Bill, was passed by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Jim Justice in 2021. The bill states that there are “inherent differences between biological males and biological females” and that “biological males would displace females to a substantial extent if permitted to compete on teams designated for biological females, as recognized in Clark v. Ariz. Interscholastic Ass’n (9th Cir. 1982).” The bill says that a person born male cannot participate in female sports, and vice versa. A biological male child with the initials B.P.J., who was 11 at the time, filed a lawsuit after the law’s passage. B.P.J. identifies as female and wanted to participate in female sports at a middle school,

State Power And the temptation of anarchism Carlos Ramalhete Image © Nieuw I do understand anarchists. Even more so rich anarchists. In a way, a First-World anarchist is like someone who only knew an abusive father, and ends up rejecting the very concept of family. If I lived in a place where all laws a Modern state tries to promulgate were enforced, the anarchist temptation would be indeed strong. Fortunately, I live in a country whose language has no expression for “law enforcement”, and where laws can “stick” (that is, be accepted and obeyed) or not. Most of them don’t, and absolutely nobody in Brazil would ever consider the possibility of mistaking mere State-promulgated laws for moral precepts. The problem, though, is not laws by themselves, but the whole package: the function of the State, its powers, its limits if any, what  Law  (or  a   law ) happens to be, and so on. As always, there is a long story; a quite big chunk of History leading to the present situation. That’s the st

(Here they go again!) Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) went on CNN’s “Don Lemon Tonight” to tout the work of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th riot. In that interview, Schiff declared that the Committee has enough evidence showing former President Donald Trump “engaged in likely multiple criminal acts.” While vague on the specific crimes, Schiff emphasized that the Justice Department did not have to wait any further to launch a criminal investigation based on what has already been disclosed. While the Committee has disclosed new evidence in the form of videotapes and testimony, it has not presented new material evidence of criminal acts in my view. That could still come but the first two hearings largely focused on a “conspiracy” to challenge the election certification and allegations that Trump knew that there was no compelling evidence of widespread election fraud. If there is evidence of criminal conduct by former president Trump or others, most of us would supp

The Takeover of America's Legal System The kids didn't grow out of it. Aaron Sibarium (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) If you are a Common Sense reader, you are by now highly aware of the phenomenon of institutional capture. From the start, we have covered the ongoing saga of how America’s most important institutions have been transformed by an illiberal ideology—and have come to betray their own missions. Medicine .  Hollywood .  Education . The reason we exist is because of the  takeover of newspapers  like The New York Times. Ok, so we’ve lost a lot. A whole lot. But at least we haven’t lost the law. That’s how we comforted ourselves. The law would be the bulwark against this nonsense. The rest we could work on building anew. But what if the country’s legal system was changing just like everything else? Today, Aaron Sibarium, a reporter who has consistently been  ahead of the pack  on this beat, offers a groundbreaking piece on how the legal system in America, as one prominent li