Jack Fruchtman
The Supreme Court Term: winners and losers
With the closing of the 2023-2024 Supreme Court term, it is critically important for Vineyarders to know who came out on top and who...
A study in contrasts: Two firearms cases
Island hunters and gun owners will be very interested in two cases the Supreme Court ruled on last month involving the possession of firearms....
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ‘is here to stay’
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren. As a Harvard Law professor, she spearheaded the drive to protect consumers...
The new EPA emissions rule
On April 25, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued far-reaching new rules concerning coal-fired power plants: They must capture the air pollution that they...
The migrants on the bridge: A follow-up
Anyone who casually follows the news knows that on March 26, a 984-foot container ship sailing under a Singaporean flag smashed into the Francis...
The more immigrants we have, the better off we will be
As the Island population grew during the Covid-19 pandemic, an accompanying increase occurred in its demographic makeup as the recent Martha’s Vineyard Commission’s statistical...
Assessing the 2017 Trump tax cuts
In 2017, President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It was his signature achievement. Now that several years have passed...
Congress’s disgrace: the failure to reform immigration
Congress once again failed to resolve the critical immigration problem plaguing the southern border of the United States. Thousands of undocumented migrants are crossing...
The court and the E.P.A., yet again
The Supreme Court has another chance to reduce the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency when it hears a challenge to its regulatory authority...
Trump eligibility and the Anderson petition
In its Jan. 11 edition, my op-ed in The MV Times reviewed the Trump argument before the Supreme Court to allow him to appear...
Presidential eligibility and the Supreme Court
News first broke last September that two highly conservative law professors argued that Donald J. Trump was no longer eligible to run for president...
The supreme court adds three (maybe four) to its schedule
Like most government agencies, the U.S. Supreme Court winds down its schedule as the Christmas and New Year’s season draws closer. The last day...
Two deaths, two different lives, a retrospective
Two deaths, Henry Kissinger at 100 on Nov. 29 and Sandra Day O’Connor, 93, two days later, mark the end of an era. Few...
Religion in America today
The First Amendment’s two religion clauses require the government to “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”...
Undermining the federal agencies
An effort is underway to undermine the authority of federal regulatory agencies, some 100 of them. Scholars call these agencies the foundation of the...
The Dover Amendment and the turf battle
In his Sept. 5 decision, Land Court Judge Kevin T. Smith interpreted the so-called Dover Amendment (G.L. c. 40A, § 3) to reject the...
Does the Fourteenth Amendment disqualify Donald J. Trump?
In an extraordinary law review article, two highly respected and quite conservative law professors argue that former President Donald J. Trump is ineligible to...
Caution! Danger ahead!
Miles Taylor, a national security expert and lifelong conservative Republican, who served admirably and skillfully in the Trump administration, visited the Bunch of Grapes...
The Supreme Court’s 2022–23 term
Republican attempts to control congressional redistricting through gerrymandering and efforts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election rest on a long-discredited argument: “the independent state...
The Supreme Court’s 2022–23 term
On June 30, in one of the last cases the Supreme Court decided this past term, the conservative majority again showed its power when...