President Trump has pledged to use military force if governors and mayors are unable to pacify cities across the country. As more stores, government buildings, and monuments are burned or razed, troop deployments to Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Los Angeles, or New York are still possible. President Trump has the legal power to use the armed […]
Archives
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President Trump & the Limits of Legal Power
03 Jun 2020
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The President and the Pandemic
15 Apr 2020
I have the ultimate authority. President Donald Trump, April 13, 2020 Mt. Trump was built with a shovel. It started with “rapists and thieves,” which was quickly followed by “I like people who weren’t captured.” The dirt pile became a hill and grew into an overwhelming peak. “I got a beautiful letter.” “Mexico is gonna […]
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Mr. Trump’s Just Pardon
19 Feb 2020
In 1987, Michael Milken committed an unpardonable sin; he was reported to have made over half a billion dollars in income as the lead high-yield bond trader for Drexel Burnham Lambert (DBL). This is a fantastic amount today, of course, but in 1987 it was beyond comprehension. How could any one man do that? Clearly […]
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**Over several posts, I hope to look at 1) what the Constitution says about impeachment, 2) presidential impeachments in history, and 3) how President Trump’s actions should be judged in light of the Constitution, history, and other standards frequently brought to bear.** The third presidential impeachment trial unfolds before us. Our Senators will soon cast […]
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**Over several posts, I hope to look at 1) what the Constitution says about impeachment, 2) presidential impeachments in history, and 3) how President Trump’s actions should be judged in light of the Constitution, history, and other standards frequently brought to bear.** Impeachment is often described as the nuclear weapon of the legislative arsenal. Though […]
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President Trump’s impeachment and trial, like everything else with his administration, defies dispassionate analysis. The partisan trenches are deep and the tenets of objectivity bring few rewards. Social media encourages extreme opinions, and more traditional media outlets narrowcast to their ideological adherents. Academia is also a mixed bag of reliability. I can hardly claim to […]
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Christianity Today, a magazine founded by Billy Graham, published an editorial by Mark Galli calling for President Trump’s removal from office. The magazine tends to stay away from partisan politics, but President Trump’s actions, and his continued evangelical support, were enough for the magazine to depart from precedent. Galli sees President Trump’s actions around Ukraine […]
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Some Preliminary Thoughts on Trump’s Impeachment
19 Dec 2019
For only the third time in our history, a President of the United States has been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. Senate will conduct a trial some time next month. Like Presidents Johnson and Clinton, President Trump will almost certainly be acquitted in the Senate, but his presidency will be defined, […]
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Trump: Anointed or Ordained?
04 Dec 2019
Rick Perry, former Secretary of Energy and Governor of Texas, created a kerfuffle recently when he claimed during an interview that Donald Trump was “ordained by God” to be President of the United States. This theme has been around since candidate Trump sought to woo evangelicals as an acceptable alternative to not only Hillary Clinton, […]
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Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Three days will determine the fate of the presidency. If the Trump Administration ends in disgrace, and that is a large if, these three days will mark the beginning of the end. If President Trump emerges victorious in 2020 and seizes another term in office, these were the days when the Democrats […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach