Subject-Verb agreement issues even preplex Supreme Court Justices!

 

Another real-life practice example for ACT/SAT prep from a Supreme Court decision.  This one is from "Trump v. Slaughter, " the "can a President fire a member of an independent agency" case.

In the released version of this decision, the highlighted words below read "It was".

This is a typical "subject-verb agreement" example you will find on the ACT test, for certain.  The hard part is to hunt for the subject in this sentence.

Originally written, "If it was" was the intro to the sentence.  Ask yourself what is being referred to?  The "political branches", specifically "branches".  Branches is plural, so it needs a plural verb to maintain continuity in the sentence.

These mistakes are hard for students (and everyone else, including Supreme Court Justices!!) to catch, especially when the subject is not directly linked to the verb.

NEW Washington State law streamlines the Senior and/or Disabled Property Tax Exemption Qualified Expenses requirement...

In March 2026, Washington enacted updated requirements for the Senior and/or Disabled Property Tax Exemption. 

There are quite a few changes, but I believe the most convenient one is the way they require you to report qualified expenses to reduce your "gross income" to qualify for an exemption level based on your gross income.

You now get a choice between itemizing each and every qualified expense OR taking a $7,500 deductible.  One but not the other.

If there are 2 "co-tenants" living in the house, each gets $7,500 for a total $15,000 deductible.  Screenshot of relevant line in the law below.

IF your actual expenses are GREATER than the deductible, you can take the greater of the two.

If you don't have many expenses, this is great. If you hate to keep track of expenses, this is great too.

Washington State property tax relief for disabled veterans just got more generous for more veterans...

Washington State has overhauled its property tax exemption requirements, effective in the 2026 tax year (for property taxes due in 2027).   

Many/most of the changes provide POSITIVE outcomes for recipients.  

One group I will focus on today is "disabled Veterans".  Before this new law was enacted in March 2026, the disability rating to qualify for the exemption was 80%.  Going forward, it will be 40%. 

This will allow more veterans to meet the first qualification for the exemption.  But there is more...

A qualified veteran must still meet the "Gross Income" requirements.  This gets a bit more complicated, and I won't go into the details in this posting.  Each county in Washington State has different income requirements based on that county's "median household income." HERE is the link that shows preliminary income requirements for each county in Washington.

So for now, if you are a veteran with a 40% or higher disability rating AND meet at least the "Tier 3" income requirement in your county, you will get at least a 50% reduction in your property tax rate (depends on your county) and maybe MORE depending on your income bracket (link cited above).

It won't make you rich, but it will provide some financial relief!

""Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up"". Does this include a "geofence"?

 The above is a quote from GK Chesterton (see short video HERE).

Bottom line on the parameters for what constitutes a 4th Amendment search of "persons."

"...Thus, a Fourth Amendment search occurs when the government infringes on either a property interest, or a reasonable expectation of privacy...."

This quote comes from the "cert petition" for an upcoming Supreme Court case on the legality of a "geofence" search warrant. I was not aware of such a thing before, but the case is very interesting.

Do you have (1) a "property interest" in the location data that Google et al collect from your phone, and (2) do you have an "expectation of privacy" in/from the "third party" use of certain cell phone data?

The case is "Chatrie vs US," and the question presented that the Supreme Court will address is:

"Whether the execution of the geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment."

IRAC Method of Case Briefing.

I am not a lawyer; I just play one while sitting on my sofa. Apparently, this is a basic first-year law school technique that students learn to structure legal arguments. 

I have watched quite a few videos on the "IRAC" method, and the one below makes the concept easiest to understand, in my opinion. BRYNODC is an awesome source for legal news and information and is the best "explainer" I have found.  

Information Source for this Slide

 Here is the video I used to construct the slide:

French President Macron is paging Machiavelli:‘To be free, one must be feared’

I had to do a double-take when I read the headline in this article:

‘To be free, one must be feared’

Here are a couple of excerpts from Machiavelli's "The Prince"

“it is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”...

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli

SCOTUS: Trump vs Cook and "INM" meaning

I listened to the oral argument in "Trump v Cook", the attempted firing of a member of the governing council of the US Federal Reserve Board.  I kept hearing a reference to the initials "IMN".  One of the frustrating things, but an understandable one, of trying to follow an oral argument: the use of "inside baseball" shorthand often used by the Justices and the lawyers. 

I had to look it up:

In the legal context of the 2026 Supreme Court case Trump v. Cook, the acronym INM refers to the removal standard of Inefficiency, Neglect of duty, or Malfeasance in office. 

This standard is a central point of debate in the case, which centers on President Trump’s attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. 

The crux of the case centers on the meaning of two words: "for cause".

Statutory Requirement “for cause”:
The Federal Reserve Act permits removal of a governor only “for cause,” but it does not define what “for cause” means. The parties dispute whether that standard includes things such as inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office, or whether conduct unrelated to official duties can qualify. (source HERE)

Capaciousness: A word I cannot live up to...

Since retiring from teaching, I have become a student of the Supreme Court.  I am receiving a fairly comprehensive education in many respects.

I have to look up the definition of words not generally used in everyday conversations. As such, I have to look up "capacious" every time I hear/read it, which is quite often in the language of the Supreme Court.  

Given one of the general uses of the term, I get the irony of having to look it up every time:

"High Capacity: Emphasizes the ability to contain or retain more than average, rather than just having a large area"

The core consumer and elasticity: A visual representation of "Thinking at the Margin"

The brief presentation above illustrates the concept of "relative elasticity," which is often implicit in articles describing specific economic conditions.  The excerpt below, which caught my eye, is from this article on the struggles  the fast food chain "Jack in the Box" is facing. 

"While Jack in the Box has its fans, it’s fair to say the chain lacks enough of a dedicated audience to keep it successful during difficult financial periods.  Jack in the Box draws casual, occasional (sometimes inebriated) diners, especially in social or late-night contexts. That audience exists, but it’s too small and intermittent to drive lasting success...."

 "Dedicated audience" suggests consumers who prefer Jack in the Box fare regardless of other choices in the fast food category.  Their demand is relatively inelastic.  

This core consumer is vital to the financial success of any business.  The goal is to enlarge this core to capture consumers who are not as dedicated----relatively MORE ELASTIC in their demand.

I think the above short presentation I made vividly illustartes the concept.  Helps me visualize the economic concept of ELASTICITY.

Wondering what the "Tariff Case" (Learning Resources vs Trump) is all about? Can sum it up in one word...

"regulate". Yup, that's about it.  What is the meaning of "regulate" in the context of the IEEP, Article 1 taxing authority (Section 8 enumerated power) and Article 2 Presidential power to conduct foreign policy. 

The image below is the relevant part of the "IEEP.  The definition of "regulate" and whether it includes the authority for the President to levy tariffs (read that "a tax") is at the heart of a major part of the issue.  

Learning Resources says the IEEP does not use the word/concept "Tariff", so there is no authority to do so. Their claim is that the IEEP was an attempt to limit Presidential power in this area.

The Trump Administration says the word "regulate" implies explicitly the authority to levy tariffs, given that the other prescriptive verbs that follow regulate don't specifically say "quotas," but they, historically, have been used to impose such quotas on foreign goods.

I look forward to attending this oral argument next week at the US Supreme Court! 

Say Hello to my fellow 65 year olds. You are going to see a lot of us for the next 30 years...

While the graphic below is physically hard to read (it seems they could have made the differences a little more stark), the lesson it teaches is clear:  Demographics are and will be, for a long time, a large driver of the Federal Budget (Social Security/Medicare, etc.) 

I turned 65 this year, so you can see I am at the forefront of the "gray tsunami" that will continue to build and crest over the next 30 years.  This will have a continued impact on the Federal Budget and social policy for at least another generation.

From The Congressional Budget Office, "The Long-Term Budget Outlook: 2025 to 2055"

The share of the population age 65 or older is projected to increase over the coming decades, continuing a long-standing trend (see Figure 3-2). From 2015 to 2024, that share rose from 14.4 percent to 17.9 percent, driven mainly by the aging of members of the large baby boom generation that was born between 1946 and 1964. The percentage of the population age 65 or older continues to increase in CBO’s projections, rising from 18.3 percent in 2025 to 21.2 percent in 2035 and 23.4 percent in 2055.

I won the lottery! Well, not THAT one. but The Supreme Court seat lottery.

I was just notified that I "won" a guaranteed seat (through the Supreme Court pilot program to allocate public seats) to observe the oral argument in the case of "Learning Resources vs Trump" on Wednesday, November 5.  The soon-to-be famous/infamous "tariff case".  

I have been to Washington, DC, before, but not to the Supreme Court to even visit.

This is a "bucket list" item for me, so I am happy to have the chance to witness the discussion on an important case.

As with many cases that have political and economic impact, I suspect they scheduled this one as the only one that day because it will be a lengthy oral argument.

I guess I will get my "lottery payment", and then some, in history and drama.

Here is the cert petition from Learning Resources

Here is the response to the cert petition from the Government (Trump's position)

  

Birthright Citizenship: Reaching back into legal history. Blackstone edition...

This recent scholarship on the issue of Birthright Citizenship is worth a read if you are interested in the topic.  It errs (with historical evidence) on the side that Birthright Citizenship is a thing and is both explicit/implied (both can be true) in the 14th Amendment.

Source:  Divided Argument

Without Domicile or Allegiance: Gypsies and Birthright Citizenship, by Gerard Magliocca: “This Essay argues that the invocations of gypsies (or Roma) during the debates on the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment drew on Blackstone’s discussion of them in his Commentaries and means that legal immigration status, domicile, and allegiance are not requirements for birth citizenship in the United States.” Another important entry in defense of the (correct) conventional wisdom on birthright citizenship.

Even the Supreme Court wrestles with "Lie vs Lay"

Supreme Court issues revisions of opinions when there are mistakes in spelling, grammar, or other relatively minor errors in construction.  Given the number ot times these opinions are passed around to each Justice (and their clerks), I am surprised any serious mistakes are not caught and corrected.

Pictured below (page 10 of the document), is one we can all feel--- the difference between "Lay vs Lie".  This correction is in the case of "Trump vs CASA," the recent birthright/injunction case.

English teachers, if you find this, enjoy!  :)

The Declaration of Independence: More on the significance of "necessity" in the document

The Declaration of Independence is one of my favorite documents.  In the course of learning about it, I have discovered that individual words and phrases were carefully selected to convey the meaning intended.  Words that, if one did not know the historical meaning and context, would not mean very much.

I came across a pamphlet written in 1648, during the English Civil War (1640-1651). I can't verify that Thomas Jefferson read this particular pamphlet, but the two phrases below are remarkably similar in wording and meaning.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,"---From the Declaration

This is from the Pamphlet "The Mournful Cries of Many Thousand Poor Tradesmen (Anonymous)

"O Parliament men, and soldiers! Necessity dissolves all laws and government, and Hunger will break through stone walls, tender mothers will sooner devour you, than the fruit of their own womb, and hunger regards no swords nor cannons. It may be some great oppressors intends tumults that they may escape in a crowd, but your food may then be wanting as well as ours, and your arms will be hard diet. O hark, hark at our doors how our children cry Bread, bread, bread, and we now with bleeding hearts, cry, once more to you, pity, pity, an oppressed enslaved people: carry our cries in the large petition to the Parliament, and tell them if they be still deaf the tears of the oppressed will wash away the foundations of their houses. Amen, Amen so be it."

Notice the similarities? King George III would be very familiar with this language when he first read the Declaration!  Jefferson channeled the writings of  John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others.  Why not this one too?

Here is another post I did on the importance of the word "necessity" in the Declaration.