[Noah Feldman] Trump’s hotel lodges constitutional problem

President-elect Donald Trump is poised to violate the foreign emoluments clause of the US Constitution, at least according to the chief ethics lawyer of the George W. Bush administration. The idea is that when foreign officials stay in a Trump International Hotel to ingratiate themselves with the president, they’ll be giving him an emolument -- that is, a form of payment -- in violation of Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US Constitution. And the Washington Post recently reported that Trump

Nov. 23, 2016

[Ana Palacio] Europe is on the ropes

On Nov. 8, as Donald Trump was sealing his shocking victory in the United States presidential election, a conference in Brussels commemorated the legacy of the late Vaclav Havel, the first post-communist president of Czechoslovakia (and later the Czech Republic). As the world enters the Trump era, that legacy could not be more important, especially for Europe.It is hard to imagine two figures more different than Havel and Trump. The former was an artist and intellectual who fought his entire lif

Nov. 22, 2016

[Albert R. Hunt] Trump needs to earn his mandate

The tens of thousands of nonviolent protesters taking to the streets against Donald Trump are exercising their constitutional rights. But they are wrong to declare that Trump is not their president. He won legitimately and -- support him or not -- he will be president of all Americans. That’s not sufficient for his chief cheerleaders. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Trump’s designated White House chief of staff, asserted that the president-elect won a “historic landslide”

Nov. 22, 2016

Some common sense amid the bombast: Trump’s big league bet on jobs

If you’re able to think past President-elect Donald Trump’s nasty campaign bluster (we hear yoga and kitten videos help), you’ll discover something soothing, even exciting in his electioneering promises to create jobs: Elements of his economic plan could boost growth and standards of living here and nationwide.This is potentially good news for millions of jobs-starved Americans.There are huge caveats. Trump has not been good on details, he’s a serial exaggerator, and he’s completely out to sea i

Nov. 22, 2016

Obama’s contradictory clemency

When it comes to executive clemency, Barack Obama is straight out of a Charles Dickens novel. He is the best of presidents and the worst of presidents. With his presidency in its final weeks, his record on leniency to those convicted of crimes is one that continues to puzzle.Obama has long been critical of lengthy sentences imposed on drug offenders under laws that treated crimes involving crack cocaine more harshly than those involving powder cocaine. In 2010 he signed a law reducing the dispar

Nov. 21, 2016

[Jay Ambrose] Critics give Trump’s excesses a run for the money

Years ago, I was looking at a tabloid front page while waiting in a checkout line in a supermarket and was struck by a headline: “Devil Escapes From Hell.”I laughed but have not been laughing so much lately as the venerable New York Times has done its own highbrow version of such miswrought journalism with reference to Donald Trump.The Times has not been wrong in seeing much to fear in a presidential candidate whose egregious excesses badly demeaned the whole electoral process. It has been wrong

Nov. 21, 2016

[Peter Singer] The case for legalizing sex work

Sex work is, as the saying goes, the world’s oldest profession – except that the saying uses “prostitution” instead of “sex work.” The change to a less pejorative term is warranted by a shift in attitudes toward sex workers that contributed to Amnesty International’s decision in May to urge governments to repeal laws criminalizing the exchange of sex for money by consenting adults.Amnesty International’s appeal was met by a storm of opposition – some of it from people who were evidently failing

Nov. 20, 2016

[Kara Alaimo] Here’s an idea for Trump: hire the most competent people

When President-elect Donald Trump visited the White House last week, he was reportedly surprised to learn that he’ll need to replace nearly the entire staff. While Trump is said to have promised jobs to his small campaign team, research suggests that he should try a revolutionary approach to staffing his administration: replacing political appointees with civil servants.Today, an incoming US president must fill about 4,000 jobs -- double the number from the mid-20th century. While political appo

Nov. 20, 2016

World watching US uneasily

It isn’t just many Americans who are astonished and fearful about the election of Donald Trump as their next president. A sense of foreboding has also gripped America’s longtime allies.Their concern is understandable. In his statements about foreign policy during the campaign, Trump often displayed an ignorance of the facts, an unjustified self-confidence — he famously said that “I know more about ISIS than the generals do” — and a failure to appreciate the value of the alliances the United Stat

Nov. 20, 2016

Downsize the imperial presidency

There was a moment during Barack Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address that spoke volumes about the state of our government. The president said he would like to work with Congress, but he made it clear he was not about to let mere legislators impede his policy ambitions. “So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do,” he told those lawmakers.You might have expected them to rise up en masse to protest

Nov. 18, 2016

[Le Hong Hiep] Unshackling ASEAN

As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations approaches its 50th anniversary next year, its failure to reach a consensus regarding Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea has raised concerns throughout the region. Although the requirement that all decisions be made by consensus enables disparate member states to unite while protecting their national interests, it also limits ASEAN’s effectiveness in dealing with emerging security threats.The consensus rule explains why ASEAN failed to

Nov. 17, 2016