Most everyone, critics and supporters alike, who commented on the Fourth of July celebration on the Mall, missed the central point President Trump was making in his hour-long address. More important, they miss something essential about the Declaration of Independence: its nationalism. For nations to become independent, that is to give birth to
American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp last week called for Chief Justice John Roberts’ impeachment over his vote with four liberal justices to deny the Trump Administration a total victory on whether the Census could include a question on citizenship. Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes is the Trump White House communications director, goes too
If it’s true that “natural right is dynamite,” as political philosopher Leo Strauss wrote, then Justice Clarence Thomas just went nuclear on the abortion debate. While Thomas’s concurring opinion in Box v. Planned Parenthood has received considerable commentary, his deepening of the judicial and, hence, the political debate over abortion demands further elaboration.
The revival of reparations talk signals an opportunity for a serious discussion of the revival of republican self-government or strong citizenship. Instead, we get the blithe attitudes of Democrats and the grumbling about handouts from Republicans which signal the bipartisan lack of seriousness—a deficiency also characterizing disputes over immigration and “diversity.” The best
On the one hand, the second part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report reads like a brief opposing presidential powers in a separation of powers dispute. But even more, it reads like a justification for a bill of attainder or an ex post facto law—two forbidden forms of legislation in the Constitution (Article
At the passing of a priest, age 91, who was also a profound scholar and inspiring teacher, one expects to see praise of his dozens of books, hundreds of writings, 60 years’ worth of lectures, and generations of students. In the case of Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., the longtime Georgetown University political
The best book on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report—and one that few people have actually seen—came out in January. In fact, the most relevant chapter was published originally in 1992, in an academic journal, and that article was based on a conference paper delivered in 1984. The book is John Marini’s Unmasking
Michael Anton, author of the most consequential pro-Trump article written during the 2016 campaign, “The Flight 93 Election,” returns with a short, 97-page book, After the Flight 93 Election. Besides his original 4,300 word essay—the entirety of which Rush Limbaugh read on-air to an electrified audience shortly after it appeared in September 2016—Anton
In his farewell address, President Ronald Reagan recalled a Vietnamese refugee who upon leaving his leaky boat for the American rescue ship, yelled out, “Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.” That image of American military power in the cause of justice is replicated in the stormy seas raised by administrative state today:
No mere spectacle, President Trump’s State of the Union address will set the course of his campaign into 2020. The basic divide he sees—whether this is how he would characterize it or not—concerns the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Does the American Founding celebrate recognizing an equality that calls us to expand
