Some Emergency Powers Need Congress’s OK

Some Emergency Powers Need Congress’s OK   by George W. Liebmann   Regarding the suggestion by David B. Rivkin ‘Jr. and Charles Stimson in “A Constitutional Guide to Emergency Powers” (op-ed, March 20) that • “widespread noncompliance with federal quarantines and travel bans promulgated under the Public Health Service Act may qualify as an insurrection.” […]

The Unintended Consequences of ‘Mainstreaming’

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 […]

The Filibuster: According to Robert Taft

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

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 […]

The Secular Case for Abortion Restrictions

The Secular Case for Abortion Restrictions by George W. Liebmann The 45 years that have elapsed since Roe v. Wade have seen no diminution of the abortion controversy. Laurence Tribe, Roe’s only academic defender at the time of its rendition has assured us that it is “a clash of absolutes.” The absolutes are Justice Kennedy’s […]

A Tale of Two Commissions

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

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, […]

America’s Paramount Foreign Policy Goal: Minimizing Refugees

G. Liebmann,   http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-paramount-foreign-policy-goal-minimizing-refugees/   www.theamericanconservative.com,December 1, 2017

More Than A French Feminist

RIP: Simone Veil: More Than a French Feminist by George W. Liebmann   theamericanconservative.com, July 24,2017 The recent death of Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor who as French Health Minister in the centrist Gisgard d’Estaing government was the sponsor of a liberalizing French abortion law, and who thereafter was the first President of the European […]

Eleven Suggestions for a Populist Agenda

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-populist-agenda-eleven-suggestions/   A Populist Agenda? Eleven Suggestions by George W. Liebmann President Trump’s victory has been ascribed to a recognition on his part, and that of Steven Bannon, that identity politics was a game that any number can play. Alternatively, it has been ascribed to their recognition of three social deficits: 1) trade-induced unemployment, especially […]