At the Democratic candidate debate last week, Bernie Sanders was asked how big government should be.  His response was illuminating, as was Hillary Clinton’s response to Sanders’ answer.  Here is part of what he said: WOODRUFF: “And, welcome back to this PBS Newshour debate, Democratic debate, here in Milwaukee. Let’s get right to the questions.  Senator […]

Many will write better and more personal things about Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court Justice who died today. I did not have him as a professor. I did not clerk for him. I encountered Scalia as a graduate student getting a first taste of constitutional law. Dr. John Maltese, my professor at the University of […]

OK, my moral outrage over the Obama administration has come to a new plateau.  Is it not enough that his administration has embraced social chaos in the gender/identity wars, continues to support killing millions of unborn children (all of this both home and abroad), and seemingly tries to strangle any possible economic growth ?  Now […]

OK, today I am going to get into a “wonky” mode and address an issue that always has bothered me when my mind is jogged.  Today the issue is strict scrutiny.  What, you may ask, is that?  Strict Scrutiny (SS) is a principle applied by Federal courts that first distinguishes between the importance attached to […]

It’s time for another book review.  I am reading several books but just finished one by Larry Siedentop, entitled Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Penguin, 2014, 434 pages).  The author has a fascinating and somewhat counterintuitive thesis that what we call “Liberalism” ( I will capitalize the word) was really “created” by […]

In my previous post, I suggested progressive taxation was not Biblical, and challenged readers to convince me I was wrong.  In the voluminous follow up comments, I didn’t see any Biblical arguments for progressive taxation.  However several posters suggested that there was not Biblical support for any method of taxation (regressive, proportional or progressive).  In […]

By any reasonable measure, Marco Rubio struggled, mightily, during parts of the G.O.P. debate on Saturday night. Chris Christie savaged the Florida Senator for his inexperience and his reliance on canned talking points. Rubio responded, to a degree, with canned talking points, thereby demonstrating Christie’s basic critique that Rubio is an empty suit, similar to […]

OK, President Obama spoke at an Islamic mosque yesterday.  I say “so what.”  But hear me out.  I have no issue with him speaking to any religious group in his capacity as president of the United States.  Even what he said, at least as reported, was not particularly problematic. He said for example, that Islam […]

In the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Sanders lost to Mrs. Clinton on all the major issues except income inequality, as reported in the WSJ (gated): The pollsters asked caucus-goers to choose one of four issues that mattered most to them in voting for a candidate. Mrs. Clinton easily won on health care, terrorism, and even the economy […]

What an interesting post and discussion in the comment section on progressive taxation.  I hope Jeff Haymond doesn’t mind.  Let me just add a little on the philosophical and ethical side, since the theological/Biblical has been pretty well covered and the economic problems have also been addressed.  One word raised several times in the “Comment” […]