Academic Commentary

Between elections, the fallacy that one can not criminally prosecute a sitting President leads us to a situation where the only recognized path to address alleged Presidential criminality during their term is impeachment. The prognosticators now tell us that the House will vote to impeach President Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress [...]

The coming invigoration of the non-delegation doctrine, long-declared dead, is now nearly certain. In a recent statement, Justice Kavanaugh signaled his interest in revisiting the long-dormant doctrine in a future case. But, while Justice Kavanaugh’s statement all but confirms that the Court will breathe life into the non-delegation doctrine sometime soon, questions still remain about [...]

Myths, often ancient traditional stories that are designed to prescribe moral or traditional values, are fantastical but also highly rational. That is because myths describe a commonly manifested belief on the way we view the world. In 1992, Professor Jane Rutherford utilised the myth of Robin Hood in order to make a point about the [...]

Suppose someone posts a message on social media suggesting he might shoot up a movie theatre, and punctuates the point with a photo in which he is holding an AK-47-style rifle. Can the government temporarily confiscate the person’s firearms, in order to ensure that he does not pose a threat to himself or members of [...]

Impeachment has always been a combustible mix of constitutional law and constitutional politics, but the way in which impeachment integrates law and politics has evolved from the framing of the Constitution to the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth century and may be further evolving at present. The framers designed an impeachment system that would [...]

For those inclined to question whether Donald Trump would actually be so brazen as to straight up take over the apparatus of U.S. foreign policy purely to boost his own reelection prospects, bear this in mind. We already know that Donald Trump is willing to hijack an entity organized to serve the public interest and [...]

Nine years ago, President Obama signed into law a bill proscribing the distribution of so-called “animal crush” videos, which are depictions of a practice that is as disturbing as it sounds: the killing of animals (puppies, kittens, mice, bunnies, goats, and others) slowly and excruciatingly, often by provocatively-dressed women who stand on the animals while [...]

As we await the Supreme Court’s decision on whether under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation, I suggest that the Justices listen to both the Missouri Supreme Court and the jury in the “heartland” state of Missouri. The jury [...]

What does it mean to discriminate because of sex? The answer to that question has become increasingly important to gay and lesbian employees challenging employment discrimination under federal and state laws. Take the case of Keith Wildhaber, a St. Louis County, Missouri police officer, who, in October 2019, won a lawsuit he filed against his [...]

There’s a joke about a group of friends finishing up their meal at a local restaurant. One friend puts down the cutlery, pushes back the chair, and declares with conviction: “this food was bad and the portions were too small.” And so it is with the Paris Climate Change agreement. The Paris Agreement is bad [...]