New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has made a much-heralded case for removal of four Confederate monuments he suddenly found the cause of great evils. “The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity,” he observes. But he arrogantly concludes that now we can “make straight a wrong turn we made many
“Donald Trump is not being reasonable…. But, then, man does not live by reason alone, fortunately. Trump, who believes that excess can be a virtue, is as American as Manhattan’s skyline, which expresses the Republic’s erupting energies. He says the skyscraper is necessary because it is unnecessary. He believes architectural exuberance is good
In one of the wealthiest, most highly-educated counties in America, two illegal immigrants raped a 14 year-old girl during school hours. The crime occurred March 16 at Rockville High School, a few blocks from where I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. The nationally reported crime cries out to have its true national significance exposed,
Supreme Court justices sometimes devise overly clever “tests” in their opinions to determine the constitutionality of a law or government action. Here’s my one-pronged (and multi-part) Supreme Court minimal competency test, derived from Abraham Lincoln’s critique of Chief Justice Taney’s opinion in Dred Scot: Was Lincoln right in making the Declaration of Independence the basis of constitutional government?
Jesse Merriam makes an attractive case for a more principled and thereby, he hopes, more successful approach for conservatives arguing religious liberty cases in the courts. He is concerned in particular with State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers, involving a florist who cited her Christian beliefs in refusing to make a floral arrangement for a same-sex
As Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg spoke of America by referring to the four score and seven years that had passed since its birth, President Trump envisioned an America twelve score and 10 from its birth; its 250th birthday, or sestercentennial. That would place us in 2026, a year and a half following an eight-year Trump presidency. Our
The battle over the administrative state is joined. In remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, presidential advisor Stephen Bannon called for the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee elected as its chairman the very embodiment of the administrative state: former Obama Administration Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez.
Critics who suggest that there is something "constitutional" missing from Trump's rhetoric are missing the principles for the articles. Finally, a president upholds his oath and defends the Constitution against its enemies, domestic as well as foreign. Donald Trump’s inaugural address horrified his typical critics—the media, various conservative and liberal pundits, and sundry
In a recent interview with Bill Kristol and in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, Justice Clarence Thomas twice mentioned his first mentors on the American Constitution—John Marini and me. We worked for Thomas back in the late 1980s, when he was chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Given Justice Thomas’s celebration of 25-years on
In recent days, a series of particularly cogent and well-delivered Donald Trump speeches prompted media speculation about his “change of course” and the new direction of his campaign. Though they seem more like distillation than departure to me, it is true that the seriousness and the clarity of the speeches is striking and a
