The key foreign relations component of President Bush's State of the Union speech last night was the global march of democracy. It is now beyond dispute that this issue is the key to his foreign relations agenda for the second term. As he put it, "Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer, and so we will...
If you earn income on a research expedition in Antarctica, can you claim a tax exemption for foreign earned income? The tax regulations allow an exclusion from gross income for any foreign earned income, but the latter term is defined as residency for a qualified period in a "foreign country."The United States Tax Court ruled this week in Arnett v....
Joel Stein has a piece in the L.A. Times this week entitled "Warriors and Wusses" that takes to task anyone who supports our troops in Iraq. Here is an excerpt: "I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're...
Ever wonder how disease spreads? Apparently not unlike the way currency travels. As reported here and here, scientists are modeling the anticipated spread of the Avian Flu based on how currency changes hands. On this website you can track the movement of money in your pocket. For example, this particular dollar has travelled 4,191 Miles in...
There is substantial commentary on the Internet and in mainstream media that is expressing cautious optimism about Hamas' victory in Palestine. The essence of these sentiments is that Hamas in power will not be the same as Hamas in opposition. I hope they are right.Before expressing optimism about what might be, let's look at what is. As the New York...
Having personally known and admired Jack Goldsmith for years, I always suspected that there was more than meets the eye in his very short-lived tenure at the Office of Legal Counsel. We now have one public version of what transpired with Goldsmith at OLC in a Newsweek article entitled "Palace Revolt." The story appears to be based almost totally on...
The World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland has to be one of the most fascinating events on the planet. Apart from the fact that it is in Davos, Switzerland (one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the world, and I speak from personal experience), it is filled to the brim with an amazing line-up of guests and speakers. A...
"They underestimate the power and appeal of freedom. We've heard it suggested that ...
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has an important essay in the New York Review of Books on what he describes as the "opportunistic" genocide of Darfur. Having just returned from Sudan, he paints an utterly depressing picture: "In my years as a journalist, I thought I had seen a full kaleidoscope of horrors, from babies dying of malaria...
One of the issues rarely addressed in the debate on reliance on foreign authority to interpret constitutional guarantees is what attitude lower courts should take with respect to the question. As most scholars know, the Missouri Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons relied on foreign authority in flagrantly departing from Supreme Court precedent in Stanford to hold that the juvenile...
In case you missed it, President Bush offered a major foreign policy speech yesterday that, among other things, outlined his strategy for the war on terror. It is a long speech that discusses numerous foreign policy issues, but a key component was his summary of the strategy to defeat terrorism: (1) choke off the funding; (2) challenge states that harbor...
Our own Peggy McGuiness has just published an article in the Missouri Law Review on "The Internationalism of Justice Blackmun." When an international scholar thinks of Justice Blackmun a few cases quickly come to mind: Mitsubishi v. Soler, Aerospatiale, Sale, Goldwater, etc. But as McGuiness outlines, his impact on internationalism is far greater than a few odd cases. It also...
