The Federal Takeover of Local Law Enforcement America’s Founders warned against national police, for good reason. by George W. Liebmann The American Conservative, July 6, 2017 Few propositions about American history are clearer than that the framers of our Constitution wanted to preclude the creation of a national law-enforcement authority in any way resembling […]
Thornton Revisited? by George W. Liebmann Baltimore Sun, July 6, 2016 A Commission under the chairmanship of former University of Maryland Chancellor William Kirwan has been studying the ‘adequacy’ of financing of Maryland’s K-12 education system. Creation of the commission was provided for in 2002 ; it is carefully composed of only two designees […]
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-legislatures-are-polarized-between-extreme-factions/?print=1 Judicial Control of Gerrymandering: A “Quack Cure-All” by George W. Liebmann Believers in government by judicial thunderbolt look to a case, Gill v. Whitford (No.16-1161), making its way to the Supreme Court as a possible vehicle for judicial control of legislative gerrymandering. It will be recalled that the reapportionment decisions of the 1960s unlike […]
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/john-paton-davies-foreign-policy-prophet/ A Prophet Remembered John Paton Davies’ memoir, China Hand, was posthumously published, to some critical acclaim, several years ago. His name is usually bracketed with other, more left-wing ‘defrocked diplomats’ of the Mc Carthy period, including O. Edmund Clubb, Owen Lattimore, and John Stewart Service. The later lives of these folk are mostly remembered […]
K-12 Public Education Reform: A 19-Point Check List, The American Conservative, May 11, 2017 by George W. Liebmann The last forty years of controversy over education reform has largely involved argument from fixed positions. Reformers have aimed at the heart of teacher-union power by seeking to establish charter schools and voucher programs and by attempts […]
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 […]
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/17-rules-for-foreign-interventions/ 17 Rules for Foreign Interventions Lessons from America’s lost wars By George Liebmann April 17, 2017 After trillions of dollars spent, thousands of dead and wounded, and the creation of myriad new terrorist enemies, Washington could learn a few lessons when considering future interventions. 1. Do not attempt to establish […]
To: Baltimore.consent.decree@USdoj.gov I make these comments only because I have been a public critic of this ‘Consent Decree’ and do not wish silence to be taken as acquiescence. I shall not appear at the April 6 hearing, unauthorized by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, since, like others before it in this Court’s Housing case, […]
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-judicial-appointments-20170130-story.html The Cloning of Judges The inception of the Trump administration when there are a hundred vacancies on the lower federal courts presages unedifying controversies about ‘pop issues.’ Our contemporary Senators have little interest in permanent things: enforcement of horizontal and vertical separation of powers, protection of procedural due process , and predictability in the […]
Introduction of Senate President Thomas “Mike” Miller, Library Company of the Baltimore Bar, November 7, 2016 We have in the course of our lecture series never before honored a practising legislator, a species usually held in as much esteem as the proprietors of sausage factories. I do not know Senator Miller well, but he like […]