The Unintended Consequences of Mainstreaming By George W. Liebmann Anyone assessing the very appropriate questions posed by the organizers of this symposium should focus on an underappreciated piece of federal legislation: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed during the first Bush administration. While the disabilities act for adults was a humane measure […]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Robert Bork: Judicial Activist Twins
The American Conservative, September 9, 2019 by George Liebmann It is fashionable for Americans and Europeans alike to think of Donald Trump as an aberration—a fluke thrown up by the obtuseness of an insulated ruling class for sponsoring an unattractive candidate like Hillary Clinton. Many believe that once the lessons of Trump are absorbed […]
The Filibuster, According to Robert Taft by George W. Liebmann Public congressional approval ratings have rarely been above 20% since 2012 and currently stand at 15.3%. This is a result of the manifest inability of the Senate to enact significant legislation by reason of the three-fifths cloture rule. Speaking of filibusters in 1946, the then […]
Epidemics of Ideas By George Liebmann The greatest of American judges, Learned Hand, warned of Americans’ susceptibility to epidemics of ideas. His concerns about media concentration led him to impose public utility standards on the Associated Press in a famous antitrust case in recognition of the non-economic interests at stake. Judge Robert Bork and his […]
A Tale of Two Commissions by George Liebmann Those amazed by the parlous state of today’s Democratic Party can find its roots in the fate of two national commission reports of twenty years ago. National commission reports are not usually brought by the stork. These bodies are usually created by Presidents for their own purposes. […]
A Sense of Proportion by George W. Liebmann The Democratic Party is distinguished by its almost exclusive focus on identity politics. Its Republican adversaries offer opposition to any tax increases and ritualistic nationalism. The contending forces have in common the absence of any sense of proportion. Consider immigration. One faction envisages closed borders, mass deportations, […]
REMARKS OF GEORGE W. LIEBMANN BEFORE THE MENCKEN SOCIETY, AT THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MENCKEN DAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2017 MENCKEN ON CHURCH AND STATE I am honored to be asked to deliver this talk, but in some measure your presence here is due to false advertising. I am a lawyer who has written about constitutional […]
REMARKS OF GEORGE W. LIEBMANN BEFORE THE MENCKEN SOCIETY, AT THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MENCKEN DAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2017 MENCKEN ON CHURCH AND STATE I am honored to be asked to deliver this talk, but in some measure your presence here is due to false advertising. I am a lawyer who has written about constitutional […]
To the Editor: Once this City had a newspaperman, H. L. Mencken, who deemed it his duty to quench public passions, not to feed them, and who fought the Anti-Saloon League and Prohibition Amendment, lynching, and the Red Scare. Today it has editors who in at least six disgraceful editorials and without any fair discussion […]