“ELKHORN—A woman who son was shot and killed by a Walworth County sheriff’s deputy in 2012 has settled her lawsuit against the county and deputy for $1.1 million. Nancy Brown, mother of 22-year-old John Brown, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee in May 2013 alleging Deputy Wayne Blanchard used excessive force when he…
Law
Authoritarianism, Law, Liberty, Trump
A Grand Coalition Forms
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Conservative Jennifer Rubin describes, in E Pluribus Unum vs. Trump, both the building coalition against Trump and the powerful nature of that coalition. She’s right that what seemed unlikely a few weeks ago is real now: Just a couple of weeks ago, critics of post-inaugural protesters argued the anti-President Trump movement lacked coherence. Too many small,…
Federal Government, Kakistocracy, Law, Trump
David Frum Asks: Should a Patriotic American Work for Donald Trump?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Conservative David Frum (with whom a libertarian would have many differences) yet asks and answers rightly the question, Should a Patriotic American Work for Donald Trump? Frum draws a distinction between personal service to Trump and government positions that are removed from the president: A law-abiding person will want to stay as far as possible…
America, Authoritarianism, Law, Liberty, Trump
Principled Conservatives Organize Against Trump
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One needn’t be a conservative to admire the efforts of thoughtful conservatives to organize against Trump. Evan McMullin and Mindy Flynn have now launched Stand Up Republic to resist the Trump agenda from a conservative vantage. Jennifer Rubin reports on this in Evan McMullin makes a splash by going after Trump and Putin. Above, I’ve…
America, Authoritarianism, Ethnicity, Law, Liberty, Religion
Against a Registry
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Kakistocracy, Law, Liberty, Trump
Distillation for a Resistance (First Edition)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
We’re early in this new political era, with a long time ahead of us, and there’s a need to get a sense of one’s bearings. (The sound way to approach the new politics that has overcome America through the three-thousand-year traditional of liberty to be found in many places, the Online Library of Liberty being…
America, Authoritarianism, Enforcement, Law, Liberty, Military, Tyranny
Gingrich’s Defense of a Self-Pardoning Administration: From Bad (12.19) to Much Worse (12.21)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
On the Diane Rehm Show of 12.19.16, former Speaker of the House Gingrich offered that a Trump Administration could simply pardon its own advisors to remove those advisors’ unlawful conflicts of interest: I think in the case of the president, he has a broad ability to organize the White House the way he wants to. He…
America, Law, Liberty
Declaration Over Pledge
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Federal Government, Freedom of Speech, Law, Liberty, Trump
The Work of the Next Several Years
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Charles Blow writes of the work ahead for those many citizens who now find themselves compelled to defend their rights: I fully understand that elevated outrage is hard to maintain. It’s exhausting. But the alternative is surrender to national nihilism and the welcoming of woe. The next four years could be epochal years in the history…
Law, Liberty, Right-wing Populism
Republicanism Without Principle
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Writing at Commentary, Noah Rothman has a short, but powerfully insightful, post entitled Republicanism without Principle. The essay is, immediately, about Trump and the Republican party, but it applies as nicely to republicanism as a form of government under the pressure of radical populism. (It’s worth noting that Commentary is a conservative publication; one finds…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Law, University
Answer of Telfer and Edmonds to Former Coach Fader’s Federal Lawsuit
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In August, Timothy Fader, the former wrestling coach at UW-Whitewater, filed a federal lawsuit against former chancellor Richard Telfer and then-Athletic Director Amy Edmonds (she has since been demoted), alleging defamation & constructive termination stemming from a dismissal because Fader reported an alleged sexual assault committed by a recruit directly to Whitewater police rather than a…
History, Immigration, Law, Liberty
Trump Surrogate Defends Precedent of Internment Camps
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Carl Higbie, a Trump surrogate, while speaking to Megyn Kelly on Fox News suggested the internment of the Japanese during the Second World War as a precedent for a registry of Muslim immigrants to America. Kelly rightly rejected the precedent, as the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War and the Korematsu decision…
Elections, Law
Getting Protest Hashtags (#NotMyPresident) Half Right
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Columnist Paula Dvorak, writing at the Washington Post, contends that saying “saying #notmypresident is the same as saying #notmyconstitution or #notmycountry or #notmyAmerica.” See, Stop protesting democracy. Saying #notmypresident is the same as saying #notmyconstitution. Dvorak is only right about the first two hashtag phrases – she overreaches on the others. It’s true that #notmypresident is…
History, Law, Liberty, Politics, Presidential race 2016, Trump
Kevin Drum on Trump and the End of Reconstruction
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Blogging at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum – like many of us, of whatever politics – seems uncertain about the consequences of a Trump Administration. (In fairness, much has happened in a short time, and it’s hard to make sense of it all.) Still, Drum’s thinking has shifted significantly over the last few days, in ways…