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  • News & article

    Impeachment worth the wait in unruly Zimbabwe

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 22/11/2017

    » When you get rid of your dictator, is it important to follow the rules? That delicate question is dominating the transition-in-progress in Zimbabwe, where long-time President Robert Mugabe has refused to step down despite the demands of the public, the army and his own political party.

  • News & article

    The US shutdown's domino effect

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 08/01/2019

    » President Donald Trump, in a meeting with congressional Democrats on Friday said he was prepared for the partial government shutdown to continue for months -- or even years -- if he doesn't get the money he wants for a wall along the Mexican border. It's not hard to see how that prediction comes true. Both sides have framed the issue such that a victory for one side on funding a border wall entails defeat for the other. Neither side has much incentive to compromise.

  • News & article

    Clean power plan done and dusted

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 12/10/2017

    » Several state attorneys general have announced they will sue to block the Environmental Protection Agency's rollback of former president Barack Obama's signature Clean Power Plan. Can they win? And should they? The answer to both questions is no, but not because of anything inherently wrong with the plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants. Although administrative decisions must be rational, they are permitted to reflect the president's political priorities and beliefs. Donald Trump won the election, and now he gets to impose his pro-coal environmental vision. That may be terrible for the earth, but it's good for democracy.

  • News & article

    Spain, Iraq failing their secessionists

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 05/10/2017

    » The secession of a region without constitutional authority is a big deal, as referendums in Catalonia and Kurdistan have shown in the last week. To get a sense of the possible consequences, think of the US Civil War, which started because Southern states insisted they could secede while Northern states said such a right was nowhere in the US Constitution.

  • News & article

    Comey's firing is a crisis of American rule of law

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 11/05/2017

    » It's not a constitutional crisis. Technically, President Donald Trump was within his constitutional rights on Tuesday when he fired FBI Director James Comey. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is part of the executive branch, not an independent agency. But the firing did violate a powerful unwritten norm: that the director serves a 10-year, nonrenewable term and is fired only for good cause.

  • News & article

    Syria's Kurds work all the angles for autonomy

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 17/05/2017

    » Outside the headlines, something remarkable is going on in Syria. The Kurds, making a long-term play for an autonomous region, seem to have decided that their best bet is to buy it from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And the US is signaling that it may be on-board -- a startling reflection of its pro-Russian, anti-Turkish policy.

  • News & article

    Trump's self-destructive bravado

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 02/02/2017

    » The Monday night massacre -- as President Donald Trump's firing of acting Attorney-General Sally Yates was inevitably called -- lacked the grand madness of Richard Nixon's famous firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Oct 20, 1973, which prompted the resignations of the attorney-general and the deputy attorney-general.

  • News & article

    Constitutional crisis a risk in the UK

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 30/06/2016

    » The phrase "constitutional crisis" looms large over the aftermath of Britain's vote to leave the EU. The possibility of such a crisis has been invoked in connection with what would happen if the Scottish parliament refuses to approve Britain's withdrawal; what might happen if Britain's main parliament should ignore the results of the Brexit referendum; and the possible consequences of taking seriously the popular petition calling for a second vote on the basis of a new "rule" requiring a 60% approval and 75% turnout on EU-related matters.

  • News & article

    Sex offenders shouldn't have a right to use Facebook

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 14/05/2016

    » North Carolina bans registered sex offenders from Facebook. Unsurprisingly, a sex offender wants the Supreme Court to strike down the law. Perhaps more surprisingly, he has support from 16 notable professors of constitutional law -- from left, right and centre.

  • News & article

    The protests in Tunisia are different this time around

    News, Noah Feldman, Published on 02/02/2016

    » Events in Tunisia look, on the surface, like a replay of 2011. A frustrated, unemployed man killed himself on Jan 17 in an act of protest that was intended to remind everyone of the self-immolation of a fruit seller that set off the Arab Spring. Protests then spread from city to city. They focused on rampant unemployment, which was one of the concerns of the protesters last time. Eventually, the government had to call a curfew to make the protests die down, which they eventually did.

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