WASHINGTON / Reuters US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy provided a temporary reprieve for President Trump’s order blocking most refugees from entering the United States, putting on hold a lower court’s ruling loosening the prohibition. Kennedy’s action gave the nine justices more time to consider the Justice Department’s challenge filed to the lower court’s decision allowing entry to refugees from …

“Congress has been dropping in relative power along a descending curve of 60 years’ duration, with the rate of fall markedly increased since 1933. … The fall of the American Congress seems to be correlated with a more general historical transformation toward political and social forms within which the representative assembly — the major political organism of post-Renaissance Western civilization …

The Trump administration is looking to ease financial-strength requirements for big banks, on the grounds that they’ve already done enough to avert another crisis. But how much safer have they really become? In recent posts, I’ve offered some less-than-encouraging evidence. Levels of loss-absorbing equity, although higher than before the crisis, still fall far short of what’s needed. And despite the …