What is going on with Obamacare, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act?  Spirits were high about quick action in the House and even the Senate.  Ideas have not been lacking—there are several plans out there to replace the present law.  The obstacle seems to be the usual collective suspect—politicians and their obsessive worry about […]

President Trump issued a very broad executive order yesterday, banning immigration for up to 120 days, and including so-called “Green Card” holders, holders of permanent visas.  This order was effective immediately and almost immediately protests erupted.  Moreover, several Federal judges have issued temporary injunctions against the order’s application to certain individuals.  Political types on roughly […]

I decided to forego a few cases in my constitutional law course so that we might watch history. Twitter played a live feed of the festivities and I got to class just before Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath of office. Squeezed between two students in the back row, I tried to see Pres. Trump’s […]

I wanted to post on Friday, but somehow I thought I ought to give supporters of Mr. Trump at least a day to enjoy his inauguration before critiquing him as our new president.  So, here we are on Monday morning and we’re now in the brave new world of Trump. His inauguration speech was nationalist […]

Well, Donald Trump is now officially our president.  He delivered an interesting and a bit controversial inaugural speech yesterday, which I would like to try my hand at analyzing.  Before I do, may I mention others’ comments on it.  George Will called it “a most dreadful inaugural address” (National Review Online, January 21, 2017) and […]

I am sitting in the San Antonio airport, waiting for my flight back home, reflecting on an excellent Values and Capitalism retreat here and–the subject of this blog–my walk yesterday.  My goal was to walk to a bookstore about two miles from my downtown hotel.  I had mapped it out using Googlemaps and set out […]

Reports surfaced last night that set the social media world on fire. Apparently, President Obama and President-Elect Trump were briefed on information obtained by a former British intelligence agent who put together a file of opposition research. The file and the information is not classified, nor is it the product of our intelligence agencies. The […]

I have written on this blog before about the importance of the liberal arts, but I now have an interesting negative example of how universities have been marginalizing not only the liberal arts but also American civilization in particular.  Let me begin with a quote from this article by Ian Tuttle in the National Review […]

Director Dennis Villeneuve has crafted a masterpiece, a science fiction film that turns its gaze from the stars and into the corners of the human condition. Arrival deserves to stand alongside the best of the genre, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Interstellar, Contact, and Blade Runner. As I’ve written before, science fiction is at its […]

If you want to read a classic insider narrative of the degeneration and dysfunction of a large and powerful (and unlimited) federal bureaucracy, read here: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443227/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-tragic-failures.  The article chronicles the work of one highly placed lawyer in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau  before it was slapped hard by the Federal courts. I have frequently written about […]