Presidential Power

December 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Judge Scarsi to Joe Biden

Featured image It is unusual for judges to respond to political attacks or to correct the public record in controversial cases. Judge Mark Scarsi has now done so with a blistering response to the big lies of President Biden in the statement that preceded Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden. The White House has posted the text of the statement and pardon online. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to the charges against him in »
February 20, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Coolidge: Last of the Founding-Era Presidents

Featured image Since it is President’s Day, I thought I might as well post up my prepared remarks presented last Friday in Washington at the Coolidge Foundation conference that marked the centennial of Calvin Coolidge’s ascension to the White House following the death of Warren Harding. Amity Shlaes, Coolidge’s best biographer, challenged me to make the case that Coolidge belongs on Mount Rushmore, which I was only too happy to accept. As »
March 17, 2022 — Steven Hayward

Is Yale the Most Embarrassing Elite University?

Featured image The competition is stiff, but it is increasingly apparent that Yale University is the front-runner for the question of the most embarrassing elite university. Scott reports below on the latest disgrace of Yale Law School, but let’s not forget the key moment in Yale’s descent in 2015. In this regard I’m delighted to pass along a recent video finding—the work of Good Kid Productions, which is the brainchild of Rob »
January 13, 2020 — Steven Hayward

The Power Line Show, Ep. 162: Stephen Knott on “The Lost Soul of the American Presidency”

Featured image This week’s guest is Stephen F. Knott of the Naval War College, discussing his terrific new book, The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal, just out from University Press of Kansas. Knott, one of the nation’s pre-eminent scholars of Alexander Hamilton, thinks the American presidency has slipped from the modest republican design of the Founders almost from the very beginning, starting with »
February 18, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff

Trump’s emergency declaration, John Yoo’s take

Featured image Over the weekend, I linked to Jack Goldsmith’s article on President Trump’s use of national emergency power to come up with the money to build more border fencing. Goldsmith took no position at this early date on the legality of Trump’s move. However, his initial view is that hysteria over it is misplaced and that Trump’s legal position is plausible. John Yoo goes further. He finds that the law is »
February 16, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff

Hold the hysteria over Trump’s emergency declaration

Featured image President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency and move funds around to pay for more wall building is certain to be challenged in court. The case almost surely will arrive at the Supreme Court. When it does, Trump may not have five votes. Chief Justice Roberts, and conceivably others among the five center-right Justices, may be quite skeptical of this use of executive power as, indeed, are a number »