prior probability

Although the text of Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution specifically empowers the Congress (not the president) to set import tariffs (“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises …”), it turns out the legislative branch began delegating this power to the president during FDR’s quasi-dictatorship in the 1930s and 40s. (See here, for example, for an introduction to U.S. tariff policy.) As a result, the constitutional question we should be asking instead is this: Does the Congress have the authority to delegate any of its “Article I” powers to another branch of government in the first place? Perhaps it is time for courts to revisit the non-delegation doctrine, though good luck with that, since it turns out that Congress has also delegated most of its lawmaking powers to a plethora of regulatory agencies! (Bonus links: Ilya Somin, Adrian Vermeule, and William Funk.)

I will address some legal aspects of Trump’s executive order imposing tariffs on imports from our main trading partners (Mexico, Canada, and China) in my next post; in the meantime, today’s “Monday map” post is dedicated to my hometown: Los Angeles, California. Bonus link: Photographer Nicholas White surveys some of the most popular graffiti styles found on the streets of L.A. in this photo-essay.

Pictured below (from left to right) is principal Dr Rodriguez, yours truly, my youngest daughter Adys Ann, and my wife Sydjia. Our daughter won her school’s spelling bee two years in a row! School motto: “Work Hard. Play Hard. Pray Hard.”

See also this tweet by @wwwojtekk.

The worst offenders were FDR (pictured above), who signed over 3,700 Executive Orders or EOs (see link below), including the infamous Japanese internment order; Woodrow Wilson (1,803 EOs); and Calvin Coolidge (1,203 EOs). By way of comparison, Donald Trump has signed 40 EOs thus far into his second term (see here).

My colleague and friend Brian Frye has just posted @IpseDixitPod #807, which features Sarah Fackrell (Chicago-Kent) discussing her new law review article “The Counterfeit Sham“. Among other things, Professor Fackrell explains why design patent infringement is different from counterfeiting.

Below is the first map that I ever posted to this blog, an “Internet population map” first published on 13 October 2013 (see here). In summary, this map uses data from 2008 to illustrate the raw number of Internet users in each country as well as the percentage of the population in each country with Internet access. I wonder what this map would look like today?

This catchy song was recorded by Winny, a Nigerian singer-songwriter, and features Thutmose, a Nigerian-American hip-hop artist based in Brooklyn.