January 17 Update

Jan 19, 2026

I have been busy with the NYSBA Annual meeting, so I have not had a chance to send updates this week. Let me begin to restart the process.

 

Please look at and consider whether you are comfortable liking and/or reposting my most recent LinkedIn postings entitled,

 

  • Our Rule of Law and State Criminal Prosecutions of ICE Agents, which shows that those agents may be prosecuted in state courts.  The post is available generally and at the Alumni network site. T Law Fare published an item by Carolyn Shapiro entitled, Minnesota Can Prosecute Jonathan Ross—But It May Not Be Easy that I am ampifying. https://lnkd.in/e7GhdiFd

 

 

You may wish to look at the following audios/videos:

 

 

  • January 14, 2026 The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart segment entitled, Trump’s Domination Politics with Fareed Zakaria. This is described as the Trump administration continues to operate with unchecked power, Jon is joined by Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” Together, they explore how Trump has flouted the rule of law at home and abroad, investigate how his approach to Venezuela and international relations fits into his unifying theory of power, and discuss where this philosophy might ultimately lead. A replay is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq2VgWv0J-g

 

 

 

 

  • January 16, 2026 Paul Krugman segment entitled, Claudia Sahm on the Federal Reserve, the Economy, and the Hunting of Jay Powell. A replay and transcript are available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K3gZKyj_Jg

 

  • January 16, 2026 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert segment entitled. “We’re In A Moral Crisis” – Jon Meacham On America’s Fragile Democratic Experiment. This is described as Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham argues that the authors of the Constitution anticipated that authoritarian leaders would one day seek to corrupt the principles on which this country was founded.  A replay and transcript are available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y05B0-7Sd_c

 

You may wish to look at the following recent litigation documents:

 

 

  • January 14, 2026 U.S. Supreme Court in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections opinion holding a political candidate has the right to challenge the rules governing the vote count of mail-in ballots after the day of the election in the candidate’s election. Judge Roberts wrote the opinion and stated
    • Candidates, in short, are not “mere bystanders” in their own elections. Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA, 606 U. S. 100, 110 (2025). They have an obvious personal stake in how the result is determined and regarded. Departures from the preordained rules cause them particularized and concrete harm.5 The same is true of competitors in other contests. Each runner in a 100-meter dash, for example, would suffer if the race were unexpectedly extended to 105 meters. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 90. Whether a particular runner expects to finish strong or fall off the pace in the final five meters, all would be deprived of the chance to compete for the prize that the rules define. The fastest to run 105 meters has not won the 100-meter dash. And in much the same way, an unlawful extension of vote counting deprives candidates of the opportunity to compete for election under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Justice Jackson in her dissent that Justice Sotomayor joined, argued

  • The majority’s primary failing is its refusal to recognize that the alleged injury it identifies—the suffering that results from an unfair electoral process—is not particular to candidate-plaintiffs. The importance of the particularity requirement cannot be overstated, for it is this requirement that “prevents the judicial process from becoming no more than a vehicle for the vindication of the value interests of concerned bystanders.” United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), 412 U. S. 669, 687 (1973). Such a result is incompatible with our constitutional design, which recognizes that “‘abstract questions of wide public significance’” are “most appropriately addressed in the representative branches.” Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 475 (1982) (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 500 (1975)). In other words, the particularity requirement ensures that the Judiciary stays in its proper lane, leaving to the people’s representatives the prerogative to decide questions of broad importance in the absence of a litigant with a “direct stake in the outcome.” Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 740 (1972). As such, litigants without a direct stake—i.e., those who assert no more than “generalized grievances about the conduct of government”—cannot satisfy the “case or controversy aspect of standing.” Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 479 (internal quotation marks omitted).

 

  • January 15, 2026 opinion of the U.S. Court Of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Khalil v. President ordering the dismissal of a lawsuit Khalil filed challenging his detention after finding that federal immigration law stripped the lower court of jurisdiction over his claims.  The majority summarized their opinion as follows
    • Our conclusion about habeas jurisdiction requires us to answer a second question: Did the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) strip the New Jersey District Court of subject matter jurisdiction? It did. Because the INA channels “[j]udicial review of all questions of law . . . arising from any action taken or proceeding brought to remove an alien from the United States” into a single petition for review filed with a federal court of appeals, we hold that the District Court lacked jurisdiction over Khalil’s removal proceedings. 8 U.S.C. §1252(b)(9).

The dissented focused on the following issues

    • “The loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976); Schrader v. Dist. Att’y of York Cnty., 74 F.4th 120, 128 (3d Cir. 2023); Ne. Pa. Freethought Soc’y v. Cnty. of Lackawanna Transit Sys., 938 F.3d 424, 442 (3d Cir. 2019).9  So when Khalil alleged the loss of his First Amendment freedoms while in detention, he alleged an irreparable injury. And when the District Court made a factual finding that Khalil’s speech was being chilled, that resolved the question of irreparable harm.10
    • To halt the irreparable harm Khalil suffered during his detention, the District Court entered an injunction and authorized Khalil’s release on bail. Today, we do not reach whether all requirements for the injunction and bail order were satisfied, but no one disputes the central basis for those orders: Khalil was being irreparably harmed while detained. Nor does anyone dispute that those irreparable harms will resume the moment when Khalil’s preliminary injunction and bail order are vacated. So Khalil sought (and fleetingly obtained) “relief that courts cannot meaningfully provide alongside review of a final order of removal.”11 E.O.H.C., 950 F.3d at 186. His claims are now-or-never claims.

 

 

You may wish to look at the following items:

 

  • January 12, 2026 Vox column by Eric Levitz entitled, The author observes
    • According to such thinkers, there are no coherent principles that bind the left and right’s various positions. No timeless precept compels conservatives to be both anti-abortion and pro-tax cuts — or progressives to be both anti-gun and pro-environment.
    • Rather, in this view, it is contingent historical alliances, not age-old moral philosophies, that explain each side’s motley assortment of issue stances: In the mid-20th century, Christian traditionalists happened to form a coalition with libertarian businessmen inside the GOP. Conservatives consequently discovered that banning abortion and cutting taxes were both indispensable for preserving America’s founding values.

The author concludes

    • In this respect, the Lewises’ book is edifying. If some of the left and right’s positions reflect contingent alliances — rather than timeless truths — then neither side has a basis for presuming the uniform righteousness of its current stances.
    • Given this reality, any political community that wishes for its policy positions to be genuinely principled — which is to say, conducive to its avowed objectives in both theory and practice — will need to encourage heterodoxy within its ranks. If progressives and conservatives feel that they can contest their faction’s orthodoxies without risking excommunication, then each camp will be more likely to detect its own errors and hypocrisies. If intellectual conformity is the price of factional belonging, then the left and right are bound to unwittingly undermine their own values.
    • In other words, for progressives or conservatives to develop anything resembling a perfectly principled platform, they must first recognize that none exists.