Political Law

Since America's founding, the US Supreme Court had issued a vast number of decisions on a staggeringly wide variety of subjects. And hundreds of judges have occupied the bench. Yet as Cass R. Sunstein, the eminent legal scholar and best-selling co-author of Nudge, points out, almost every one of the Justices fits into a very small number of types regardless of ideology: the hero, the soldier, the minimalist, and the mute.

When Clarence Thomas joined the Supreme Court in 1991, he found with dismay that it was interpreting a very different Constitution from the one the framers had written - the one that had established a federal government manned by the people's own elected representatives, charged with protecting citizens' inborn rights while leaving them free to work out their individual happiness themselves, in their families, communities, and states.

■絶対に損をしたくない！トラブルも避けたい！ 絶対に損しない、トラブルにならない、 ベストな相続・贈与対策を 税金も法律もみんなまとめて解説した《入門書》です。 平成27年１月１日以降の相続に適用される 相続税・贈与税の大改正については みなさん否応なしに関心を持たれていると思います。 1 平成６年の改正以来20年以上も据え置かれていた基礎控除が６割の水準に引き上げられた 2 相続税の最高税率の引上げ 3...

When Richard Nixon campaigned for the presidency in 1968, he promised to change the Supreme Court. With four appointments to the court, including Warren E. Burger as the chief justice, he did just that. In 1969 the Burger Court succeeded the famously liberal Warren Court, which had significantly expanded civil liberties and was despised by conservatives across the country.

Over the last 30 years, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies has grown from a small group of disaffected conservative law students into an organization with extraordinary influence over American law and politics. Although the organization is unknown to the average citizen, this group of intellectuals has managed to monopolize the selection of federal judges, take over the Department of Justice, and control legal policy in the White House.

Legal luminary Burt Neuborne argues that the structure of the First Amendment as well as of the entire Bill of Rights was more intentional than most people realize, beginning with the internal freedom of conscience and working outward to freedom of expression and finally freedom of public association. This design, Neuborne argues, was not to protect discrete individual rights - such as the rights of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer delivers an impassioned argument for the proper role of America’s highest judicial body. Examining historic and contemporary decisions by the Court, Breyer highlights the rulings that have bolstered public confidence as well as the missteps that have triggered distrust. What emerges is a unique approach - certain to be admired for years to come - to interpreting the Constitution.

They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. Scorpions tells the story of four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.

For decades, James MacGregor Burns has been one of the great masters of the study of power and leadership in America. Now he turns his eye to an institution of government that he believes has become more powerful---and more partisan---than the Founding Fathers ever intended: the Supreme Court. Much as we would like to believe that the Court remains aloof from ideological politics, Packing the Court reveals how often justices behave like politicians in robes.

Wild Democracy calls for a more anarchic, more courageous democracy. This is an ethic for people who know the rights they hold, and who struggle to rule themselves. This is an ethic for unfinished revolutions; an ethic for those who will not be mastered. This is an ethic for those who hold fast to the rights they have by nature.

When we think of Constitutional law, we invariably think of the US Supreme Court and the federal court system. Yet much of our constitutional law is not made at the federal level. In 51 Imperfect Solutions, US Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton argues that American Constitutional law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal Constitution, in protecting individual liberties.

In this dispatch from exile, Hong Kong political activist Nathan Law explores the meaning of freedom - and shows how easily freedoms can be eroded or dismantled. Freedom is fragile - it is not a given, and each generation must fight to protect it, whether in emerging democracies or in the Western world, where freedom is too often taken for granted.

Walter Frank tackles, in a comprehensive but lively manner, subjects rarely treated in one volume. Aiming at both the general listener and students of political science, law, or history, Frank begins with a brief discussion of the nature of constitutional law and why the Court divides so closely on many issues. He then proceeds to an analysis of the Constitution and subsequent amendments, placing them in their historical context.

In Prosecuting the President, Andrew Coan offers a highly engaging look at the long, mostly forgotten history of special prosecutors in American politics. For more than a century, special prosecutors have struck fear into the hearts of presidents, who have the power to fire them at any time. How could this be, Coan asks? And how could the nation entrust such a high responsibility to such subordinate officials? With vivid storytelling and historical examples, Coan demonstrates that special prosecutors can do much to protect the rule of law under the right circumstances.

For the first time, best-selling author James B. Stewart sifts these conflicting accounts to present a clear-eyed view of what exactly happened inside the FBI in the lead-up to the 2016 election, drawing on scores of interviews with key FBI, Department of Justice, and White House officials and voluminous transcripts, notes, and internal reports. In full detail, this is the dramatic saga of the FBI’s simultaneous investigations of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—the first time in American history the FBI has been thrust into the middle of both parties' presidential campaigns.

Although Montaigne’s writing resists easy analysis, Montaigne includes seven essays before he even explicitly states the purpose of the Essays. Manent finds in it a subtle unity, and demonstrates both the philosophical depth of Montaigne’s reflections and the distinctive and even radical character of his central ideas.

Why are Muslim men portrayed as inherently violent? Does the veil violate women's rights? Is Islam stopping Muslims from integrating? Across western societies, Muslims are more misunderstood than any other minority. But what does it mean to believe in Islam today, to have forged your beliefs and identity in the shadow of 9/11 and the War on Terror? Exploding stereotypes from both inside and outside the faith, The Muslim Problem shows that while we may think we know all about Islam we are often wrong about even the most basic facts.

The president of the National Bar Association and one of the most distinguished civil rights attorneys working today reflects on the landmark cases he has battled - including representing Trayvon Martin’s family - and offers a disturbing look at how the justice system is used to promote injustice in this memoir and clarion call as shocking and important as the best sellers Just Mercy and Slavery by Another Name and Ava DuVernay’s film 13th.

Twenty-nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln has spent his entire adult life running from his past - from the poverty of the dirt-floor log cabin where he was raised, from the dominion of his uneducated father, and from a failed early courtship. But now, Lincoln's past is racing back to haunt him. It is the summer of 1838, and Springfield is embroiled in a tumultuous, violent political season. All of Springfield's elite have gathered at a grand party to celebrate the Fourth of July. Spirits are high - until a prominent local politician is assassinated in the midst of fireworks.

Reading Ten Minutes from Normal, one is instantly absorbed in what it's like to be a "normal" person who goes to work at the White House as a part of the president's inner circle. Told in Karen Hughes's disarmingly down-to-earth, warm, often funny, and frank voice, the book is a remarkable blend of an ordinary woman's life, with all its compromises and everyday decisions, and a keenly insightful look at American politics and America's forty-third president.