A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

Trump Could Get Tossed Off the Ballot…by Two Law Professors

Stranger things have happened.

Breaking news: Donald Trump should be barred from the presidency.

That’s not me speaking, or Democratic politicians, or progressive activists. It’s two influential conservative legal scholars, Professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, in a University of Pennsylvania Law Review article. Other leading conservative lawyers have backed their view, making Trump’s disqualification more than a hypothetical possibility.

This sounds incredible. Since when can scholars control the course of our democracy? But the authors’ argument could get serious attention from our conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which could well make the final call on the matter.

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From a Glass House to a Courthouse

Jack Smith is doing his job. The rest is up to us.

Finally.

Yesterday, a grand jury indicted Donald Trump for, in essence, trying to gut American democracy. In securing that indictment, Special Counsel Jack Smith launched a case of unprecedented importance to our country.

I’d thought that I might greet the news with relief that the inevitable has come to pass, or despair over what Trump’s abuses signify, or trepidation over the societal ruptures that await us.

But I feel something far more stirring. Not quite elation.

Pride.

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“We Got the Bas***d!”

Trump Loses. Women and Justice Win.

Shortly after arriving in the Philippines in 1987, a year after the peaceful uprising known as People Power deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos, I attended a Manila meeting of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations. I recall the discussion somehow turning to the former strongman. Reflecting on both People Power and the longer-term, unflinching opposition that fueled his fall, the PCFR chair declared, “We got the bas***d!”

From Manila to Manhattan

The same sentiments cross my mind as I reflect on the results of E. Jean Carroll’s case against Donald Trump. In the legal equivalent of a New York minute – less than three hours of deliberations – a Manhattan jury held him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

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Ukraine: It’s the End of the World as We Know It. Here’s Why I Feel (Kinda Sorta) Fine.

Yes, despair at Ukrainians' suffering. But their struggles, and ours, do not end here.

Tough, horrifying, unprecedented times indeed. Especially for Ukraine, but also for the world. But not all is lost.

Through my international development consulting and research, I’ve had sporadic contact with Ukraine and a smattering of its citizens over the years. Here are a few scattered recollections and impressions, followed by some speculation on where we go from here.

Bling and blandness in a newly independent state

First visiting the country in 1996, when it was still a newly independent state in the wake of the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, I joined a U.S. Government-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) delegation looking to build contacts with and democracy-oriented training for political party personnel there. I was just an observer, along for the ride to learn about how the NDI operates and to advise it on how to evaluate those operations.

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