Posts Tagged ‘Constitution’
What Happens When the President Gets Sick?
The recent news of positive COVID-19 tests for a valet for President Trump and an aide to Vice President Pence revive a thorny question: What happens if the president gets sick? As shown by the corona-related illness of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the virus can incapacitate those in high office. What happens if we…
Read MoreUp Next: G. Washington, America's Master Politician
I’ve just signed with a Penguin imprint, New American Library, to write a book about The Big Guy — GWash himself, the Master of Mount Vernon, the man-myth who was indisputably the key figure in the founding of the United States and without whom, well, things would have gone very different and a whole lot…
Read MoreThe Porteous Articles
With the Senate impeachment trial of Judge G. Thomas Porteous of New Orleans coming up in August, I took a swing at the impeachment articles against Porteous in an item on Huffington Post. Although Judge Porteous has a lot of conduct to explain, there are some constitutional issues surrounding the articles against him, including: Whether…
Read MoreHow Would You Change the Constitution?
With the anniversary of the beginning of the Constitutional Convention drawing nigh (May 25), I started thinking about ways in which we should be changing the Constitution. I posted a first cut on that today at Huffington Post.
Read MoreChina and the Fourteenth Amendment
Most countries default on their debt now and again, but the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution says that the United States won’t. When President Obama visited China, I started to wonder about the significance of this guarantee to the massive to Chinese investment in U.S. government debt. Then I started wondering how good that guarantee…
Read MoreImpeachment Season
We started this year of impeachment with Governor Blago in Illinois. Then federal Judge Sam Kent in Houston went down. And now Gov. Mark Sanford of South Caroline — he of the Appalachian Trail euphemism — may be next up on the impeachment hit parade. My musings on this impeachment surfeit are at Huffington Post.
Read MoreElectoral College Mumbo-Jumbo
The electoral college is a barnacle on American democracy. I argued this point in The Summer of 1787, and in a piece in the Los Angeles Times last year. The delegates to the Philadephia Convention liked the electoral college for the reason I don’t: it defeats democracy. They hoped that the electors would be wise…
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