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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026

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Presume government is acting legally until ruled otherwise by courts or presume government they're acting illegally and prevent government from doing anything until they affirmatively prove their case.

Does this seem like a good description of Caetano turning to Calce?

I know the process arguments: Caetano was a per curiam, not a ruling; the eventual decision in a different case after the state mooted Caetano only bound Massachusetts (and arguably not even them); yada yada standing self-mooting yada. But those are only arguments about how the process got here. They say nothing about whether the process is reasonable or correct.

Because it seems wildly insufficient to affirmatively prove that the government's acting illegally. Caetano did that in 2016.

And people clearly believe that, for rights they care about, and sometimes even for stupid shit like people appreciating the view of a building. Courts are quite happy to throw out preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders, even post-CASA and even where the government is quite likely to win the eventual case. We have processes that could be used to evaluate whether new, poorly-defined, and likely unconstitutional laws should go into effect or be delayed. They just aren't: see Illinois v. Due Process for a trivial example that SCOTUS didn't care about either.