December 17, 2025 · 10:29 am

WHO THE HELL WAS HUMPHREY?

Whether you are a lawyer or just interested in the law, chances are you have heard of Humphrey’s Executor. It seems that the case is always mentioned whenever pundits debate President Trump’s power to fire members of federal agencies.

Supporters of Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, formerly a member of the Federal Trade Commission, cite the Humphrey’s Executor decision to contest Trump’s right to terminate her. In that 1935 case, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that an FTC commissioner can be fired only “for cause,” which under the FTC Act is defined as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance.” Disagreement over policy, according to the Court’s holding, is not a sufficient basis for termination.

Trump’s supporters contend that the FTC, like all federal agencies, is part of the executive branch of the federal government. All members of that agency must be answerable to the President since he is the head of the executive branch. Otherwise, the federal agencies would constitute an unconstitutional fourth branch of government. They urge the Supreme Court to overrule Humphrey’s Executor.

But just who was this fellow Humphrey?

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November 7, 2025 · 9:01 am

WHY ISRAEL INNOVATES

In the summer of 2025, Israelis had cause for despair. Forty eight living and dead hostages languished in Gaza. In the wake of Israel’s military response to the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and for a former Defense Minister on charges of war crimes. Israeli tourists were advised by their government to avoid conspicuous signs of “Israeliness” while abroad and to refrain from posting their whereabouts on social media. Following the murders of two Jewish worshippers at a Manchester synagogue in the United Kingdom, Police in Birmingham, citing fears of further violence, announced that Israeli fans would be barred from attending a League Europa soccer match.

Amid the distress, and hardly noticed by the hostile world outside its borders, Israel’s Tel Aviv University announced that it was preparing to perform the world’s first human spinal cord implant.

Over 15 million people worldwide live with spinal cord injuries, preventing them from walking. Unlike other human tissues, spinal cord neurons cannot naturally regenerate. The implant procedure, if successful, will replace damaged spinal cord material with lab-grown material that will fuse with tissue above and below the injury, creating new pathways for nerve signals to travel.

This pioneering medical procedure would merit attention under any circumstances. But the fact that it emerged from a tiny country ostracized by much of the world, and under attack on many fronts by terrorist bands, makes it all the more extraordinary. This is especially so because the spinal cord advance is only one of a number of healthcare innovations emanating from Israel at the very time it endures international ostracism and confronts threats to its survival.

Many of these dramatic advances have arisen from its war with Hamas. As the New York Post reported last year:

From surgical robots that remove bullets and shrapnel to 3D-printed prosthetics tailored for rapid deployment, to a battlefield burn treatment developed from pineapples, [Israeli] technologies are redefining modern medicine and saving lives. 

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September 29, 2025 · 4:48 pm

THE FUTURE OF MAGA IS ERIKA

On a warm spring evening in 1974, the music critic Jon Landau watched a performance at the Harvard Square Theater, and wrote: “I have the seen the future of rock and roll, and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” On a hot summer day in September 2025, about 200,000 people attended the Charlie Kirk memorial, and over 20 million watched on cable and online.  Many of the witnesses likely came away thinking: “I have seen the future of the MAGA movement, and its name is Erika Kirk.”

Erika Kirk is the widow of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, but she is much, much more than that. She is a woman of impressive and eclectic accomplishments in her own right.  

While playing NCAA Division II basketball in college, she earned dual degrees in political science and international relations. After graduating college, she earned a third degree, in American Legal Studies. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Biblical Studies.  

She was crowned Miss Arizona at the age of 23, and represented the state in the Miss USA Pageant.

Ten years ago, she founded Biblein365, a ministry program that helps its members read the Bible in one year. It claims to have 180,000 participants. She runs her own faith-based clothing company, hosts a podcast focused on Biblical leadership, and reportedly works as a real-estate agent.

On top of that, she is the mother of two young children.

On September 12, two days after the assassination, she was unanimously chosen to take his place as CEO and Board Chair of Turning Point USA. This was not a big surprise. Before his death, her husband had discussed just such a succession plan with Turning Point executives.

But what happened nine days later, at the packed State Farm Stadium, was a surprise, at least to those who knew her only as Charlie Kirk’s widow. The event was planned as a memorial to Charlie Kirk. But it also turned out to be an opportunity for the potential heirs apparent to MAGA leader Donald Trump to showcase their talents. One might even say it was a kind of MAGA movement beauty pageant. Erika Kirk, who knows a thing or two about beauty pageants, demonstrated to a vast audience that she is equipped and inclined to take on the leadership, not just of Turning Point USA, but of the MAGA movement itself.

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August 30, 2025 · 2:42 pm

THE COPYRIGHT ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN

When Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, died in 1910, the New York Times deemed him the greatest humorist and satirist in the English-speaking world.  William Faulkner later went beyond that accolade, and called him “the father of American literature.”

There is another lesser known area in which superlatives are due. He was the most fervid and imaginative champion of copyright law this country has ever produced.

In his magisterial  biography, Ron Chernow characterizes Twain’s attitude toward copyright law as “militant.” Chernow likes the adjective so much that he uses it three times.  And it is proper to do so. For while all writers wish to maximize their copyright protection, none have been as combative as Twain in attempting to stretch the boundaries of that legal doctrine.

For most of his life, his attempts failed. But he never gave up. In the end, he succeeded.

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August 12, 2025 · 1:04 pm

THE LURE OF PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD

In the past few weeks, several Western countries have announced that they intend to recognize a Palestinian state. France led the way. On July 26, President Emmanuel Macron, in a letter posted on X, announced that France would recognize a Palestinian state when the UN General Assembly meets in September. Three days later, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that his country too would extend recognition in September at the UN, unless Israel agreed to a cease fire, withdrew from Gaza, and halted West Bank settlements.  The next day, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a similar statement. Australia quickly followed suit. At the same time, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that his country would make a formal decision in September. There is no doubt what that decision will be.

Each of these governments believes that recognizing a Palestinian state will advance the cause of peace in the Middle East. Each is wrong.

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July 17, 2025 · 4:05 pm

DWARFS AT LARGE

The first thing one notices are the eyes. They peer at the viewer with an audacity bordering on insolence. They say plainly that the soul behind those eyes is the equal of any viewer. In fact, in their somewhat intolerant way, they suggest that he may be the viewer’s superior.

Only when the viewer backs up and sees the portrait in whole, does he notice that Sebastián de Morra, the artist’s subject, is a dwarf.

Sebastián de Morra, Museo del Prado

Dwarfs, or “little persons” as some prefer to be called, were in the news last year, thanks to the controversy over Disney’s Snow White. Actor Peter Dinklage, who has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia, denounced Disney for its plans to make “that fucking backward story of seven dwarves living in the cave.” Immediately following his criticism, a number of high profile writers and activists piled on, supporting his outrage.

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June 15, 2025 · 8:52 am

THE NEW KKK

On April 13, 2025, Cody Allen Balmer set fire to the residence of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shaprio, while he and his family slept upstairs. That evening, the family had celebrated Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the liberation of the Hebrew people.

On May 21, 2025, Elias Rodriguez murdered Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two young employees of the Israeli embassy who were about to be engaged to be married. They died outside the Capitol Jewish Museum, as they left a Young Diplomats events organized by the American Jewish Committee.

On June 1, 2025, Mohamed Sabry Soliman used a makeshift flamethrower and homemade Molotov cocktails in an attempt to incinerate Jewish community members in their weekly gathering to raise awareness of the plight of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas. He burned 15 people, one of them an 88-year old Holocaust survivor.

None of these murderers or would-be murderers concealed their motives. Balmer told the police: “Shapiro needs to know that [Balmer] … will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” He added: “You all know where to find me. I’m not hiding, and I will confess to everything that I had done.” Rodriguez proclaimed: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza …. ”  As the police took him into custody, he pulled out a red keffiyeh and chanted “Free, free Palestine!” Soliman yelled  “Free Palestine” during the attack and later told authorities that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”

Most pro-Palestinian demonstrators are not violent. But a minority are, and as recent events attest, they pose a real danger to the nation. Their violence has been compared to the lethal actions of the 1960s radicals, who resorted to assassination and bombs to protest the Vietnam War.

But there is another forerunner to today’s violent pro-Palestinian movement, one that not only constitutes a precedent, but may also provide guidance on how to counteract it.

That forerunner is the Ku Klux Klan.

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May 6, 2025 · 5:28 pm

HARVARD LOOKS IN THE MIRROR

Last week, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias issued its long awaited report. The Task Force was established in January 2024 by then-Interim President Alan Garber, and assigned to “identify causes of and contributing factors to anti-Jewish behaviors on campus; evaluate evidence regarding the characteristics and frequency of these behaviors; and recommend approaches to combat antisemitism and its impact on campus.”

There was much to identify, and it could be discovered by looking in the mirror.

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April 12, 2025 · 3:21 pm

THE LAUGHINGSTOCK PRESIDENCY

It is safer to be feared than loved, observed Niccolò Machiavelli (a man who knew more of one than the other). Donald Trump may soon learn that it is safer to be hated than ridiculed.

President Trump has never enjoyed wide popularity. He began his second term with an initial approval rating lower than any other incoming president since such polling began in 1953.  And that relatively low number was higher than any rating he enjoyed in his first term, when he became the only president in the history of Gallup polling to never break the 50% approval level.  Yet he has remained a force to be reckoned with because he is very good at handling hostility.

But handling hate is one thing. Handling laughter is another.

As we approach the second quarter of the first year of Trump’s second term, the biggest threat to his administration’s success is coming into focus. It is not resistance. It is not revulsion. It is ridicule. The Trump administration is in danger of becoming a laughingstock.

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March 25, 2025 · 6:45 pm

NO, WE ARE NOT IN A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

Is the nation facing a constitutional crisis?

“Sure are!” say any number of pundits. According to Adam Liptak of the New York Times, the question is not whether such a crisis exists, but rather how that crisis “will transform the nation.” Presumably, badly.  And to his colleague Jamelle Bouie, the actions of President Trump are not just “unconstitutional,” they are “anti-constitutional,” because they “reject the basic premise of constitutionalism.” In other words, asking whether Trump’s actions are merely unconstitutional should trigger the response: “We should only be so lucky.”

The truth is less dramatic. We are not facing a constitutional “crisis.” Rather, we are seeing exactly the kind of inter-branch conflict our Constitution was designed to foster.

The level of discourse about a possible constitutional crisis would benefit if those wishing to opine were first required to read the Constitution. Not just the first ten amendments, commonly known as the Bill of Rights. The actual original un-amended document ratified in 1788.

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