The Problem with Presidential Narratives and the Need for Humility

As the situation in Afghanistan worsens, the President has continued to maintain that our withdrawal has mostly gone as planned. He has claimed that the significant problems aren’t ours; they are traceable to an Afghan government that wasn’t willing to stand up to the Taliban. Even if this account is correct, it still fails to solve Biden’s difficulties. As we watch the Kabul airport first fill with people, then fill with people on the outside, then fall victim to what was a predictable terrorist attack, it’s hard to believe that this was the plan. Why couldn’t the evacuation of American … Continue reading The Problem with Presidential Narratives and the Need for Humility

Legal Authority and the Eviction Moratorium

The Washington Post reports that progressive Democrats have “erupt[ed] in fury” at the Biden Administration because the Centers for Disease Control did not renew its moratorium on evictions. The Administration’s critics may be right on the policy, but they are wrong on the law. The difference matters. The CDC imposed the moratorium as a public health measure, worrying that a wave of evictions resulting from the economic devastation of the early pandemic would trigger community spread of the coronavirus. The Supreme Court has indicated the executive branch has no further authority. The CDC has no free-ranging economic power, nor should … Continue reading Legal Authority and the Eviction Moratorium

Podcast with Benjamin Kleinerman on Executive Power and the Constitution

Shameless self-promotion: I was involved in a podcast on The ResistanceDashboard concentrating on both my earlier work on discretionary executive power and on the Trump presidency. We also talk about the aims of and reason for The Constitutionalist. Although I’ve never been a committed conservative, I would nonetheless resist his enlistment of me into the progressive cause. The Trump era creates new alliances. As I’ve said before, if the Trump era makes progressives more attentive to constitutionalism then I think Trump had at least one benefit. Continue reading Podcast with Benjamin Kleinerman on Executive Power and the Constitution