Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Robert Bork: Activist Twins
September 28th, 2019
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Robert Bork: Judicial Activist Twins
Trump Won’t Be the Last President of His Kind
September 9th, 2019
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 […]
Book Review: Richard Evans, Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History
April 4th, 2019
Richard J. Evans, Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History (London and Boston: Little, Brown, 2019, 785pp. by George W. Liebmann This is a massive biography of a economic historian whose popular fame rests on his having been made one of 65 Companions of Honour by the Queen while remaining a member of the Communist Party […]
The Filibuster: According to Robert Taft
February 14th, 2019
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
January 28th, 2019
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
January 1st, 2019
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
January 1st, 2019
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. […]
The ‘Five Policemen’ Revisited
November 22nd, 2018
The “Five Policemen” Revisited by George W. Liebmann “THE PRESIDENT then turned to the third organization which he termed “The Four Policemen,” namely the Soviet Union, United States, Great Britain and China. This organization would have the power to deal immediately with any threat to the peace and any sudden emergency which requires this action. […]
A Sense of Proportion
November 10th, 2018
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, […]
Mencken on Church and State
May 25th, 2018
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 […]