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WARTIME PRESIDENTS ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT DEFY THE SUPREME COURT
EDITORIAL NOTES:
Richard H. Fallon Jr. (Harvard Law Professor of Constitutional Law) addressed the question whether any President is obligated to follow Supreme Court decisions when Prof. Fallon gave the 41st annual William H. Leary Lecture at the U/U Law School on 10/26/2006.
The transcript was polished and then published in the U/U Law Review (the article follows below but is available on line in Adobe format at http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/dire ... bliography). Among assistants whom Prof. Fallon thanked in his introductory footnote is Prof. Jack Goldsmith who, we know from our Lichtblau book, withdrew and replaced the famous Dept/Justice torture and warantless wiretap memos.
Prof. Fallon (BA Yale 1975, Rhodes Scholar 1975-1977, JD Yale Law School 1980) has written extensively on Constitutional Law and was voted the most outstanding faculty member by two different graduating classes (2001 and 2006) despite being only one of 222 HLS faculty members.
He focuses on three possible answers, while emphasizing that none of them is required – (1) the President must honor decisions only insofar as they relate to the parties actually involved in the law suit; (2) the President must honor the principles involved in every Supreme Court decision regardless of whether a party to the law suit is involved in the situation at hand; and (3) the President (and also Congress) can decide for themselves what the Constitution means subject (in the case of the President) only to the “checks and balances” of being impeached by Congress or turned out of office at the next election.
Prof. Fallon gives great weight to what past Presidents have done, for example –
(1) Thomas Jefferson defying a court order to produce documents;
(2) Thomas Jefferson ordering Secretary of State (and later President) James Madison to refuse to acknowledge the court’s jurisdiction in the famous case of “Marbury v. Madison” while standing ready to defy the Supreme Court if it ruled adversely (it didn’t)
(3) Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812 refusing to assist in enforcing a Supreme Court order against the State of Georgia to release a prisoner with his famous statement “John Marshall (Chief Justice) has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”
(4) Abraham Lincoln defying the Supreme Court’s decision requiring him to release a Confederate soldier.
(5) Franklin Roosevelt telling the Supreme Court in advance that he would defy any decision that Nazi agents should receive civilian trials, rather than be executed expeditiously pursuant to military tribunals (even though one of the Nazi agents was a U.S. citizen) – following which the Supreme Court “knuckled under” in their decision!!!
Enjoy!!!
EXECUTIVE POWER AND THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION
Richard H. Fallon, Jr. (Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School)
As published in the University of Utah Law Review.
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Introductory Footnote = I am grateful for extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts by David Barron, Jack Goldsmith, and John Manning. Martin Kurzweil provided excellent research assistance. This Article is based on the forty-first annual William H. Leary Lecture, delivered at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, on October 26, 2006.
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I. INTRODUCTION
Is the President always constitutionally obliged to obey judicial decisions determining the rights of named parties in lawsuits?
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Footnote 1 = This is just one of the questions subsumed under the more general question of whether the President is entitled to engage in extrajudicial constitutional interpretation or, alternatively, has an obligation to follow judicial interpretations of the Constitution. For discussions of the broader question, see, for example, Larry Alexander & Frederick Schauer, On Extrajudicial Constitutional Interpretation, 110 HARV. L. REV. 1359 (1997); Neal Devins & Louis Fisher, Judicial Exclusivity and Political Instability, 84 VA. L. REV. 83 (1998); John Harrison, The Role of the Legislative and Executive Branches in Interpreting the Constitution, 73 CORNELL L. REV. 371 (1988); Sanford Levinson, Could Meese Be Right This Time?, 61 TUL. L. REV. 1071 (1987); and Michael W. McConnell, Institutions and Interpretation: A Critique of City of Boerne v. Flores, 111 HARV. L. REV. 153 (1997). According to one useful taxonomy, occasions for executive interpretation of the law, and thus issues involving executive obligations to accept judicial interpretations as binding, fall into four categories:
(1) pardons and vetoes issued on constitutional grounds . . . ; (2) nonexecution of statutes the executive deems unconstitutional . . . ; (3) nonacquiescence by the executive branch in the legal rule announced by the courts as the governing rule for the executive branch, except when enforcing the judgment in that particular case . . . ; and . . . (4) nonexecution of court judgments even in the particular case where rendered . . . . Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Most Dangerous Branch: The Executive Power to Say What the Law Is, 83 GEO. L.J. 217, 263–64 (1994).
Even otherwise ardent academic champions of presidential authority to interpret the Constitution have generally acknowledged a presidential obligation to enforce judicial judgments rendered in particular cases. See, e.g., Frank H. Easterbrook, Presidential Review, 40 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 905, 926–27 (1990); Edwin Meese III, The Law of the Constitution, 61 TUL. L. REV. 979, 988–89 (1987). Professor Paulsen is the most prominent defender of a residual presidential power to decline to obey or enforce judicial orders even as applied to the cases in which they are issued. See Paulsen, supra, at 223, 226.
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This question is a narrow one, concerned solely with executive obligations to obey or enforce judicial judgments, not with whether the President must conform in all respects and in all matters to what the courts say.
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Footnote 2 = See Edward A. Hartnett, A Matter of Judgment, Not a Matter of Opinion, 74 N.Y.U. L. REV. 123, 126 (1999) (“The operative legal act performed by a court is the entry of a judgment; an opinion is simply an explanation of reasons for that judgment.”).
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To be slightly more concrete, I am thus concerned only with such questions as whether, if a court orders the executive branch to release a prisoner, the President must obey the order even if the President conscientiously believes the order to be mistaken as a matter of law. Or, to take just one more example, if a court orders the President to stop tapping the phones of named individuals, does the Constitution oblige the President to desist, even if the President believes that the court erred, and possibly erred disastrously, in its determination of executive authority?
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Footnote 3 = I take the question whether the President has a duty to obey judicial judgments to be the question whether a final judicial judgment in a litigated matter conclusively determines the President’s legal obligations with respect to the rights and obligations of the parties. In other words, as I shall use the term, the question whether the President has a duty to obey judicial judgments is the question of whether the President would violate the law if he failed to obey. This is a more exacting usage of the term duty than that employed by Professors Alexander and Schauer, see supra note 1, at 1362–66 & n.13, who appear to equate the question of whether officials have a duty to obey judicial judgments with the question of whether a judicial judgment gives them a legal reason (that may be of greater or lesser weight) that they would not otherwise have to behave as the court directs. I do not, however, equate the question of legal obligation with the question of moral obligation. See infra notes 87–94 and accompanying text. In other words, I take seriously the possibility that there may be rare circumstances in which it would be morally appropriate, all things considered, for a President to disobey the law.
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Despite the narrowness of this topic, I believe that examining it may yield some general insights not only about timely issues of constitutional law, but also about our constitutional order more generally.
For purposes of thinking about the outer limits of executive power under the Constitution, among the most important and intriguing cases in constitutional history is Ex parte Merryman.
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Footnote 4 = 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9487).
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At stake in Merryman was the constitutional authority of the President to declare martial law in the crucial border state of Maryland—which connected Washington, D.C., to the north—in the immediate run-up to the Civil War and, having done so, to detain a suspected Confederate without judicial trial.
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Footnote 5 = Id. at 147–48.
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The more technical legal question was whether the President had behaved lawfully when he purported to suspend the capacity of the courts to issue writs of habeas corpus—the legal device by which courts would otherwise be able to order executive officials to release prisoners whose detention was not authorized by law.
The Constitution specifically contemplates that “[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus . . . [may be suspended] when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
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Footnote 6 = U.S. CONST. art. I, § 9, cl. 2.
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But the Suspension Clause appears in Article I, which enumerates the powers of Congress and imposes general limitations on the state and national governments, rather than in Article II, which vests powers in the President. Ruling in his capacity as circuit judge, Chief Justice Roger Taney concluded in Merryman that only Congress, not the President, could validly suspend the judicial power and obligation to issue writs of habeas corpus.
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Footnote 7 = See Merryman, 17 F. Cas. at 148.
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Accordingly, he ordered that the prisoner Merryman, whose detention Congress had not purported to authorize, must be released. In addition, he directed that a copy of his decision should be delivered personally to President Abraham Lincoln “to determine what measures he will take to cause the civil process of the United States to be respected and enforced.”
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Footnote 8 = Id. at 153.
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President Lincoln chose to defy the Chief Justice’s decision. As Lincoln explained in a message to Congress several months later, he believed that the Chief Justice had misread the Constitution.
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Footnote 9 = See Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session (July 4, 1861), in 4 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 421, 429–31 (Roy P. Basler ed., 1953).
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Although the provision for habeas corpus relief could be interpreted literally and in isolation to preclude presidential suspension of the writ, even in times of emergency, Lincoln thought this too narrow a construction of a Constitution that Chief Justice John Marshall had once described as “intended to endure for ages” and thus, necessarily, as designed to be adaptable to various crises in human affairs.
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Footnote 10 = See M’Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 415 (1819).
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Because the Suspension Clause “was plainly made for a dangerous emergency,” Lincoln wrote, “it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended, that in every case, the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together; the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.”
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Footnote 11 = Lincoln, supra note 9, at 431.
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Regardless of how one judges Lincoln’s substantive argument that the Suspension Clause should be interpreted to permit presidential suspension in urgent cases, it evades—rather than addresses—another, equally pressing issue about the nature of the Constitution and presidential authority under it. Was the President legally bound, or not, to accede to the ruling of the judicial branch that Merryman could not lawfully be detained under the Constitution and laws of the United States? It is this very basic issue regarding the nature of the United States Constitution and the roles of the executive branch, the courts, and ultimately the people of the United States under the Constitution that I want to explore.
As is perhaps obvious, the question of executive branch obligations to obey judicial decrees has potentially direct implications for current events. We live in a time of what is often described as an ongoing war against terrorism. In the context of that war, the executive branch has asserted far-reaching claims of inherent authority to pursue policies that have not been authorized, and sometimes even to take action that has been forbidden, by Congress.
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Footnote 12 = See, e.g., Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 126 S. Ct. 2749, 2774-75 (2006) (holding that the President lacked authority to employ military commissions on terms forbidden by Congress); James Risen & Eric Lichtblau, Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 16, 2005, at A1 (“Mr. Bush’s executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States—including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners—is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches . . . .”); Memorandum from Jay S. Bybee, Assistant Attorney Gen., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, to Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney Gen., U.S. Dep’t of Justice 31 (Aug. 1, 2002), available at http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/ ... intlaw.htm (follow “August 1, 2002: Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee: Memo to Mr. Gonzales” hyperlink) (arguing that application of a U.S. anti-torture law to the President’s conduct of the war on terror that “interferes with the president’s direction of such core war matters as detention and interrogation of enemy combatants thus would be unconstitutional”).
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The immanent logic of the Bush administration’s position may imply that the President could also, under the Constitution, lawfully refuse to obey a judicial order. I hasten to add, however, that both my subject and my analysis are general, involving the Lincoln administration as much as the Bush administration.
I should make one more preliminary, methodological point before proceeding further. The question whether the President is bound by what the courts say cannot be answered merely by looking at what the courts have said.
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Footnote 13 = At least since Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958), the Supreme Court has maintained that Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), established that “the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution” and that “that principle has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system.” Cooper, 358 U.S. at 18.
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To proceed in this way would presuppose the answer to the question in issue by assuming that the courts, rather than the President, always have ultimate authority under the Constitution to define, if not enforce, the President’s constitutional powers and duties. The question whether judicial rulings bind the President requires a deeper inquiry. Does the Constitution, by its nature, make courts the ultimate judges of their own authority on every constitutional question, including the question of their authority to bind the President? Or does the Constitution reserve some questions about the reach of judicial authority for the President or, in Larry Kramer’s phrase, for “the people themselves”?
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Footnote 14 = See generally LARRY D. KRAMER, THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES: POPULAR CONSTITUTIONALISM AND JUDICIAL REVIEW (2004).
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II. SOME CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
It may help to begin substantive analysis with what I take to be common ground. Although we often think of the Constitution as a charter of governmental powers and a guarantee of individual liberties, we skip an important step—evident to all upon reflection—when we do so. The most basic function of the Constitution is to constitute the United States of America as a nation and the people living under the Constitution as a political community. The Constitution achieves this effect partly by establishing offices and conferring powers on officeholders. At a deeper level, however, the Constitution binds together people living in geographically disparate regions and constitutes them as members of a single nation, united by their understanding of themselves as fellow citizens with a shared political history and a common future.
Through its constitutive effects, the Constitution creates an agreed framework for legal and political argument.
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Footnote 15 = See generally David A. Strass, Common Law, Common Ground, and Jefferson’s Principle, 112 YALE L.J. 1717 (2003) (explaining the Constitution’s function as a focal point for argument).
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We argue about what powers the President has under the Constitution, not what powers the President would have under a different or better Constitution. In thinking about presidential power, we also appeal to our nation’s history and traditions. We parse the history books to discover what past presidents did, with special attention to the practices of such giants as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. In contemporary constitutional debates about the separation of powers, we often ascribe nearly as much significance to what past, great presidents have done as to judicial precedents.
The tale of what courts have done is also relevant to contemporary arguments about executive and judicial power. Crucial to our understanding are such well-known cases as Marbury v. Madison (Footnote 17 = 5 U.S. at 137) and Brown v. Board of Education (Footnote 17 = 347 U.S. 483 (1954)) in which courts seem to have served the nation well. But we also point to other cases as cautionary tales. In this category lie Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the Supreme Court held that Congress had no power to limit the spread of slavery and ruled that African-Americans were incapable of becoming citizens of the United States (Footnote 18 = 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 406–07, 450–51 (1857); Lochner v. New York (Footnote 19 = 198 U.S. 45 (1905)), which exemplified a one-time judicial disposition to strike down economic regulatory legislation; and many others.
There is no consensus, I think, about where to locate Ex parte Merryman (Footnote 20 = 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9487)), in which Abraham Lincoln, arguably our greatest President, defied a clear judicial order from the Chief Justice of the United States. Surely, however, Merryman has not been widely embraced as reflective of the way that we normally do, or should, expect our presidents to behave under the Constitution.
In light of our history, I think that most of us expect that the executive branch will, and indeed is constitutionally obliged to, obey judicial judgments at least in the absence of extraordinary circumstances. Indeed, a number of testing cases in which the President has yielded to judicial authority are often cited as epitomizing the status of the United States as a nation subject to the rule of law.
United States v. Nixon, the “Nixon Tapes” case (Footnote 21 = 418 U.S. 683 (1974)), fits this mold. In 1974 many of the former top aides to President Richard Nixon were under criminal indictment. The President himself was suspected of covering up their wrongdoing and, more ominously, of having abused the powers of his office to harm his political enemies. In this context, a special prosecutor subpoenaed a number of secretly recorded tapes of oval office conversations potentially pertinent to his criminal investigation (Footnote 22 = Id. at 686). The President initially resisted, claiming a constitutional privilege to maintain the confidentiality of his give-and-take with his advisors (Footnote 23 = Id. at 705). Yet when the Supreme Court directed Nixon to give up the tapes, he promptly did so. His accession to the judicial judgment was widely hailed as a vindication of the premise that ours is a government of laws and not of men.
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Footnote 24 = See, e.g., Kenneth Karst, A Powerful Reminder that the Law Is Supreme, L.A. TIMES, July 28, 1974, at pt. V (“The popular response to the decision has been almost universally favorable. The principle of government under law, it seems, is not a partisan issue.”); Cox Says Ruling Affirms Cornerstones of Liberty, N.Y. TIMES, July 25, 1974, at 23 (citing Archibald Cox’s view that the Court’s decision and Nixon’s acquiescence vindicate the view that the President is under the law); The Court and the President, L.A. TIMES, July 25, 1974, at C6 (“The sum of the court’s action and the President’s acceptance of it is a credit to the American system of government.”).
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Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (Footnote 25 = 343 U.S. 579 (1952)) stands in the same tradition. In that case President Harry Truman had taken over the nation’s steel mills to forestall a strike and work stoppage in the midst of the Korean War. But Truman acted without congressional authorization, and the mill owners sued to challenge his initiative. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the steel industry and against Truman, Truman dutifully complied with the Court’s edict. The judgment of history has been that the Court’s decision marked a triumph for the rule of law and for the idea that no official, not even the President, is above the law.
The Supreme Court also claimed to vindicate the rule of law in Cooper v. Aaron (Footnote 26 = 358 U.S. 1 (1958)). In Cooper, which grew out of resistance by state and local officials to a court order to desegregate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Court “unanimously reaffirmed” its decision in Brown (Footnote 27 = Id. at 19). Going a step further, the Justices rebuked the defendants for maintaining that they were not bound by Brown because they had not been parties to that earlier case. “[T]he federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution,” the Court said (Footnote 28 = Id. at 18). Its interpretation of the Constitution in Brown was thus “the supreme law of the land,” the Court continued, and “[e]very state legislator and executive and judicial officer” was therefore obliged to obey its ruling (Footnote 29 = Id ).
Although there are important elements of continuity between Cooper and the other cases discussed thus far, it should also be evident that Cooper adds two additional variables. At issue in the other cases was whether the executive branch must necessarily obey a judicial order in a particular case. In Cooper, the Supreme Court claimed the authority to bind state and local officials as well (Footnote 30 = See id. at 17-18). What is more important, Cooper maintained that the obligation of obedience to Supreme Court decisions extends beyond the parties in the particular case before it (Footnote 31 = See id). The Court’s more general pronouncements of legal principles, the Justices said, bind all governmental officials in all future cases (Footnote 32 = See id).
Cooper’s claim of judicial authority to pronounce principles that everyone is obliged to accept and follow thereafter is a very heady one, which has stirred debate ever since. Cooper’s reasoning implies that it is wrong for public officials even to take steps to provoke the Supreme Court to reconsider constitutional rulings that those officials conscientiously believe to have been in error. For example, it would rule out official actions challenging the Court to reexamine Dred Scott (Footnote 33 = Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 19 (How.) 393 (1856)), or Lochner (Footnote 34 = Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)), or, in the modern day, Roe v. Wade (Footnote 35 = 410 U.S. 113 (1973)).
Before examining that position more closely, however, I want to make clear that the historical record reveals some important cases of presidential resistance even to the more limited claim with which I am most directly concerned—the claim that presidents must at least obey and enforce judicial rulings in particular cases. Although presidents have almost always acceded to judicial judgments determining the rights and obligations of named parties, there have been instances in which presidents either refused to obey, or let it be known that they would refuse to obey, specific judicial directives. Indeed, some of our greatest presidents adopted postures of defiance of judicial authority in cases in which they thought that large principles or important consequences were at stake. Thomas Jefferson refused to honor a subpoena duces tecum ordering him to provide documentary evidence in the criminal trial of his former Vice President and political enemy Aaron Burr.
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Footnote 36 = See William M. Meigs, The Independence of the Departments of Government, 23
AM. L. REV. 594, 595 (1889). The complex chain of events including at least two judicial subpoenas is laid out in Paul A. Freund, The Supreme Court, 1973 Term—Foreword: Presidential Privilege, 88 HARV. L. REV. 13, 24–30 (1974). Although Jefferson took steps to comply with what he took to be his obligations under the law, he insisted that the judgment concerning those obligations was his to make, and his compliance with one, if not both, of the subpoenas appears to have been less than total. Jefferson framed his claim of entitlement to resist the subpoenas as involving the independence of the branches of government:
But would the executive be independent of the judiciary, if he were subject to the commands of the latter, and to imprisonment for disobedience; if the several courts could bandy him from pillar to post, keep him constantly trudging from north to south to east to west, and withdraw him entirely from his constitutional duties?
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to George Hay (June 20, 1807), in 11 THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 239, 241 (Albert Ellery Bergh ed., 1905).
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Jefferson also directed his Secretary of State James Madison to refuse to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in Marbury v. Madison (Footnote 37 = 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)), and it is widely and credibly reported that Jefferson had resolved to defy any Court order granting relief to William Marbury.
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Footnote 38 = See, e.g., 3 ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, THE LIFE OF JOHN MARSHALL: CONFLICT AND CONSTRUCTION, 1800–15, at 126–27 (1919); Dean Alfange, Jr., Marbury v. Madison and Original Understandings of Judicial Review: In Defense of Traditional Wisdom, 1993 SUP. CT. REV. 329, 383; see also Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. John Adams (Sept. 11, 1804), in 11 THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, supra note 36, at 49, 50 (“[N]othing in the Constitution has given [the judiciary] a right to decide for the Executive, more than to the Executive to decide for them.”).
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Andrew Jackson had a history of actual, threatened, or reported defiance of court rulings. As a general in the army, Jackson disobeyed a judicial order while occupying the City of New Orleans during the War of 1812.
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Footnote 39 = See Abraham D. Sofaer, Emergency Power and the Hero of New Orleans, 2 CARDOZO L. REV. 233, 242–49 (1981); Ingrid Brunk Wuerth, The President’s Power to Detain “Enemy Combatants”: Modern Lessons from Mr. Madison’s Forgotten War, 98 NW. U. L. REV. 1567, 1612–13 (2004).
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As President, Jackson is also reported to have said he would refuse to assist in enforcing the Supreme Court’s decree in Worcester v. Georgia, which ordered the State of Georgia to release a prisoner on the ground that his detention violated a federal treaty.
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Footnote 40 = 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515, 562-63 (1832). More specifically, the Court’s decision overturned a state criminal conviction and ordered the release of a prisoner on the ground that a federal treaty had withdrawn the State of Georgia’s power to enforce its legislation in Cherokee territory. Id. The issue in Worcester was highly politically charged due to its location in an ongoing national debate about the desirability and legality of the “removal” of Native American tribes from the eastern states despite federal treaties and laws guaranteeing tribal rights to their lands. See generally Joseph C. Burke, The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Politics, and Morality, 21 STAN. L. REV. 500 (1969) (describing the context of Worcester v. Georgia).
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According to well-polished legend, Jackson’s response upon learning of the Court’s ruling was: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”
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Footnote 41 = Burke, supra note 40, at 525; see also III–IV G. EDWARD WHITE, HISTORY OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: THE MARSHALL COURT AND CULTURAL CHANGE, 1815–35, at 737 (1988) (quoting Jackson as “noting in correspondence that the decision had ‘fell stillborne’”). It is admittedly a matter of some controversy whether Jackson actually made this statement. See Burke, supra note 40, at 525. It is clear, however, that anti-Jackson newspapers quickly began to berate him for not enforcing the Supreme Court’s decision. See id. at 524. Also clear, though sometimes overlooked, is that Jackson’s well-known defense of the view that judicial decisions did not bind the President, which he advanced in explaining his decision to veto a bill re-chartering the Bank of the United States, “was written at a time when the opposition press was denouncing Jackson for refusing to enforce the Worcester decision.” Id. at 528. In his much-quoted veto message, Jackson proclaimed that the President and the judicial branch were “coordinate authorities” and that “the Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution.” Andrew Jackson, Veto Message (July 10, 1832), in 3 A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS 1145 (James D. Richardson I ed., 1897). In the Worcester case itself, no need for federal enforcement of the judgment ultimately arose because the Governor of Georgia pardoned the defendant and thereby avoided any imminent collision between state and federal authority. See Edwin A. Miles, After John Marshall’s Decision: Worcester v. Georgia and the Nullification Crisis, 39 J. S. HIST. 519, 534–43 (1973) (explaining, inter alia, the wish of Georgia’s governor not to appear to be siding with the state of South Carolina in the contemporaneous “nullification” controversy).
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Franklin Roosevelt, whose frustrations with the Supreme Court ultimately led him to try to “pack” it,42 had prepared a message to the nation explaining that he would not obey the Court’s ruling in the so-called “Gold Clause Cases.”43
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Footnote 42 = See generally WILLIAM E. LEUCHTENBURG, THE SUPREME COURT REBORN: THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION IN THE AGE OF ROOSEVELT 82–162 (discussing the Court-packing episode and its aftermath).
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Footnote 43 = See id. at 87–88. The formal captions of the Gold Clause Cases were Nortz v. United States, 294 U.S. 317 (1935); Perry v. United States, 294 U.S. 330 (1935); and Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 294 U.S. 240 (1935).
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That message went undelivered only because the Court upheld Roosevelt’s decision to take the nation off the gold standard (Footnote 44 = See Perry, 294 U.S. at 354-58; Norman, 294 U.S. at 314-16). Even after the Court was dominated by New Dealers, Roosevelt threatened to defy an anticipated adverse decision in at least one notorious instance. The threat came in the wartime case of Ex parte Quirin, which involved the authority of the executive branch to use a military commission, rather than an Article III court, to try admitted Nazi agents who had sneaked into the United States as war criminals (Footnote 45 = 317 U.S. 1, 7–9 (1942)). Roosevelt wanted swift, military executions. Intent on having his way, he let it be known to the Supreme Court that
he would refuse to obey any decision granting the German soldiers judicial trials,46 even though the prisoners had been apprehended and detained in the United States, even though one of the detainees was an American citizen (despite his membership in the German army), and even though there was no impediment to a trial in a civilian court (Footnote 47 = Quirin, 317 U.S. at 7–9).
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Footnote 46 = See Bruce Ackerman, Don’t Panic, LONDON REV. BOOKS, Feb. 27, 2002, at 15, 15–16; see also WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS, THE COURT YEARS, 1939–1975: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS 138–39 (1980) (“The Attorney General, Francis Biddle, told the Court that the claims of the saboteurs were so frivolous, the Army was going to go ahead and execute the men whatever the Court did.”); David J. Danelski, The Saboteurs’ Case, 1 J. SUP. CT. HIST. 61, 69 (1996) (noting that Justice Owen Roberts, who had been asked by the Chief Justice to preside at the Justices’ conference prior to oral argument in Quirin, “told his colleagues that [Attorney General] Biddle feared that F.D.R. would execute the petitioners despite any Court action” and that the Chief Justice thereupon opined that “[t]hat would be a terrible thing”); Neal K. Katyal & Laurence H. Tribe, Waging War, Deciding Guilt: Trying the Military Tribunals, 111 YALE L.J. 1259, 1291 (2001) (“t also appears that some highly questionable ex parte arm-twisting by the executive may have spurred the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision.”).
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Roosevelt was never put to the test only because the Supreme Court acceded to his will.
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Footnote 48 = In what Justice Antonin Scalia has recently described as “not [the] Court’s finest hour,” Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 569 (2004), the Quirin Court ruled against the petitioners and in favor of the government in a brief per curiam opinion issued on the very next day after oral argument, 317 U.S. at 21. The Justices handed down opinions purporting to explain their decision several months later, after the petitioners had already been tried by military tribunals and executed. Danelski, supra note 46, at 71–73.
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Finally, there remains the case of Abraham Lincoln. I have already described Lincoln’s actions in Ex parte Merryman.49 I shall say more about Merryman and Lincoln’s views concerning executive obligations to obey judicial decrees below. First, however, it may be useful to put in place some templates for thinking about the obligation of the President, if any, to obey judicial decrees.
III. JUDICIAL POWER AND EXECUTIVE OBLIGATION: THREE MODELS
In thinking about executive and judicial power under the Constitution, and in particular about presidential obligations to obey judicial decrees, it may help to begin with three well-known positions—the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model, the Finality of Judgments Model, and the Political Constitution Model.
A. The Pure Judicial Supremacy Model
The Pure Judicial Supremacy Model endorses all of the claims of judicial power asserted by the Supreme Court in Cooper v. Aaron (Footnote 50 = 358 U.S. 1 (1958)). Under this model, it is the distinctive province and duty of the judicial branch to say what the law is. What is more, after the judicial branch has spoken, it is the obligation of the political branches to conform not only to the judgments of the judiciary, but also to the principles of law on which the judicial branch rested its conclusion.
To frame the position slightly more specifically, the Judicial Supremacy Model postulates that even in cases not actually litigated in court, executive officials should strive to interpret and apply the Constitution in the way that they would expect the Supreme Court to interpret and apply the Constitution in light of pertinent judicial precedents. If pertinent precedents indicate the Court would answer a question one way, the President should treat that answer as authoritative in nearly all contexts, with the narrow exceptions involving such inherently discretionary presidential functions as vetoing legislation and issuing pardons (Footnote 51 = See, e.g., Paulsen, supra note 1, at 264–65). For example, if it is clear the Supreme Court would uphold a claim of legal right, then the executive should honor that claim without subjecting an aggrieved party to the burden of litigation. Similarly, if the Court would regard a statute as constitutional, then it is a law that Article II requires the President to “faithfully execute,” even if the President would otherwise think the statute unconstitutional. Under the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model, it is thus an a fortiori case that the President must obey final judicial judgments determining the rights and obligations of the parties in particular controversies.
Support for the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model comes from two quite different sets of premises. Probably the most common defense reflects idealized notions that constitutional law stands above and distinct from the politics in which elected officials characteristically and perhaps incorrigibly engage; that it is the function of courts to reach decisions on grounds of principle, not expediency or popularity; and that once courts have spoken, efforts by the political branches to resist the full sweep of judicial interpretations of the Constitution, no matter how broadly framed, would somehow enmesh constitutional law in the hubbub of pragmatic and partisan argument that it is the function of constitutional law to transcend. In the early years of the republic, prominent champions of judicial review, including John Marshall, appear to have held one version of this position, anchored in the belief that law and politics both could and should be kept categorically distinct.
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Footnote 52 = See G. Edward White, Historicizing Judicial Scrutiny, 57 S.C. L. REV. 1, 8–16 (2005) (describing the “republican” views that Marshall espoused).
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In contemporary debates, Ronald Dworkin has famously championed the position that although judicial decisions are inevitably political in a broad, non-partisan sense, judges have a capacity for making decisions of principle, as distinguished from policy or expediency, that fit them uniquely for the office of constitutional interpretation.
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Footnote 53 = See Ronald Dworkin, The Forum of Principle, 56 N.Y.U. L. REV. 469 (1981), reprinted in RONALD DWORKIN, A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE 33–71 (1985); see also Dale Carpenter, Judicial Supremacy and Its Discontents, 20 CONST. COMMENT. 405, 425 (2003) (asserting that courts are more likely than the President to adhere to “constitutional principle” in the face of contrary public opinion).
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Recently Larry Alexander and Fred Schauer advanced a more pragmatic defense of the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model.
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Footnote 54 = See Alexander & Schauer, supra note 1, at 1359; see also Larry Alexander & Frederick Schauer, Defending Judicial Supremacy: A Reply, 17 CONST. COMMENT. 455, 455–58 (2000) (reiterating and defending their earlier claims).
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Their argument rests on the premise that a central task of law, including constitutional law, is to “settle authoritatively what is to be done.” (Footnote 55 = Alexander & Schauer, supra note 1, at 1371). According to Alexander and Schauer, due respect for law’s “settlement function” (Footnote 56 = Id. at 1372) requires acknowledgment that the law has one authoritative expositor.
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Footnote 57 = See id. at 1377 (“The reasons for having laws and a constitution that is treated as law are accordingly also reasons for establishing one interpreter’s interpretation as authoritative.”).
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Under the Constitution, they argue, the authoritative expositor is the judicial branch. Other officials, including the President, should therefore accept judicial interpretations as binding.
B. The Finality of Judgments Model
Like the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model, the Finality of Judgments Model insists that the separation of powers established by the Constitution requires executive obedience of the judgments of courts in particular cases. According to the Finality of Judgments Model, however, the obligation of obedience extends only to judicial judgments, not to the broader propositions of law—potentially applicable to myriad other cases—on which courts rest their decisions. To describe this position as a “model” would, admittedly, be misleading for many purposes, for it leaves open a large number of important and controverted questions.
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Footnote 58 = For efforts to work out nuanced positions, see, for example, Dawn E. Johnsen, Functional Departmentalism and Nonjudicial Interpretation: Who Determines Constitutional Meaning?, 67 L. & CONTEMP. PROBS. 105, 110–20 (2004); David A. Strauss, Presidential Interpretation of the Constitution, 15 CARDOZO L. REV. 113, 127–34 (1993).
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Prominent among these is whether the President should give great deference to the judgments of the judicial branch — although reserving final, independent judgment about whether to follow them 59 — in some or all cases to which the rationale of the judicial precedents would extend.60
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Footnote 59 = (Footnote 59 = I thus distinguish the notion that the executive branch should accord deference to the judgments of courts, in the sense of displaying respectful openness to being persuaded by them about what legal obligations the executive has, from the notion that the executive is conclusively bound as a matter of law to obey or enforce judicial judgments in particular cases. See supra note 1.
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Footnote 60 = If the demand for further specification were pressed, the Finality of Judgments Model would undoubtedly fracture into a multitude of sub-models, each providing a different account of the President’s obligations of deference in response to diverse questions in diverse circumstances.
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Nevertheless, the Finality of Judgments Model suffices for my present purpose of exploring the extent, if any, to which judicial judgments impose a categorical obligation of obedience on the executive branch. The Finality of Judgments Model provides a sharp answer to this question by deeming the President bound to obey, without exercise of further independent judgment, only in the case in which a judicial judgment is actually rendered.
In technical legal terms, the Finality of Judgments Model roots judicial authority in the power and obligation to decide individual cases.
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Footnote 61 = See, e.g., Easterbrook, supra note 1, at 926; Harrison, supra note 1, at 373; Hartnett, supra note 2, at 147–48.
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According to the most familiar defense, the constitutional power to decide cases implies the power to decide cases finally or authoritatively, but it need not imply a broader power of the courts, with a single decision, to settle matters of great political and constitutional moment decisively and for all time.
In constitutional history, the most prominent and eloquent champion of the Finality of Judgments Model was Abraham Lincoln (notwithstanding his decision not to obey Chief Justice Taney’s ruling in Ex parte Merryman). Lincoln’s best known public statements followed the Supreme Court’s decision in the infamous Dred Scott case, in which the Supreme Court, in the course of rejecting Scott’s claim to have been emancipated from slavery, ruled more broadly that African-Americans were incapable of attaining citizenship, that Congress lacked the capacity to ban slavery in the territories, and that legislative efforts to confer free status on those held as slaves would violate the Constitution by depriving slave owners of property without due process of law.
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Footnote 62 = Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, at 404-06, 410, 416, 446-52 (1857). Although my summary of the holding of Dred Scott is fairly standard and meant to be non-controversial, there has been a debate from the beginning about which parts of the Court’s opinion were dicta and which where part of the holding. See Mark A. Graber, Desperately Ducking Slavery: Dred Scott and Contemporary Constitutional Theory, 14 CONST. COMMENT. 271, 275 (1997).
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Lincoln accepted the Court’s ruling as controlling the rights and obligations of the parties immediately before it, but he denied that it could foreclose continuing efforts by those with other views to press their anti-slavery agenda, either through politics or in the courts.
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Footnote 63 = Lincoln’s fullest statement of his position came in a debate during his 1858 senatorial contest with Stephen Douglas:
We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will decide him to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or one thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled; but we nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule which shall be binding upon the voter, to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall be finding upon the members of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in that way . . . . We propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new judicial rule established upon this subject.
Abraham Lincoln, Sixth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas, at Quincy, Ill. (Oct. 13, 1858), in 3 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, supra note 9, at 245–55.
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A court, he said, could not deprive the people of their right to be “their own rulers.”
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Footnote 64 = Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address—Final Text (Mar. 4, 1861), in 4 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, supra note 9, at 262, 268.
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There is a tension built into Lincoln’s view and into the Finality of Judgments Model more generally. This model accepts that there is no sharp divide between constitutional interpretation and political judgment, at least in some cases. Because of the importance of political judgment, opportunities of the people to influence the courts cannot be foreclosed. At the same time, the Finality of Judgments Model insists that constitutional law truly is law, in a distinctive sense, and that, at a minimum, judicial rulings in particular cases must be viewed as numbering among the “Laws” of the United States that the President is bound by Article II of the Constitution to “faithfully execute.”
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Footnote 65 = See U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3 (providing that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”).
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C. The Political Constitution Model
Although judicial pronouncements in recent decades characteristically reflect the premises of the Finality of Judgments Model or more often the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model, those two models have not swept the field. According to the Political Constitution Model, each of the three branches of the national government gets to determine for itself what the Constitution means.
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Footnote 66 = KRAMER, supra note 14, at 170–72 (tracing this view, which he calls “departmentalism,” through American constitutional history and contending that it enjoyed wide currency well into the nineteenth century). Dean Kramer endorses this view himself, as does Professor Paulsen. See Paulsen, supra note 1, at 223, 226.
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Congress determines whether a law is constitutional when it enacts the law. Courts determine whether a law is constitutional when they are asked to enforce it. But a judicial ruling does not necessarily bind the executive. This is not to say the executive should give no deference to the judicial decision. In the ordinary run of cases, Professors Alexander and Schauer may be right about the importance of achieving
a final and authoritative, even if sub-optimal, resolution of constitutional issues (Footnote 67 = See Alexander & Schauer, supra note 1, at 1371-74). Nevertheless, the Political Constitution Model distinguishes displays of deference from acknowledgments of binding legal authority. In important cases, it maintains, the President retains a constitutional prerogative to defy even a direct judicial mandate.
To many in the modern era, the Political Constitution Model’s “departmental” approach—under which each branch of government has an independent responsibility for constitutional interpretation—may look unruly and even un-lawlike.
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Footnote 68 = See, e.g., Larry Alexander & Lawrence B. Solum, Popular? Constitutionalism?, 118 HARV. L. REV. 1594, 1635–37 (2005) (reviewing KRAMER, supra note 14) (criticizing “robust popular constitutionalism” that would invite other branches of government to reject judicial interpretations of the Constitution and call for ultimate resolution of disputed constitutional issues by “the people themselves” on this ground). But see Keith E. Whittington, Extrajudicial Constitutional Interpretation: Three Objections and Responses, 80 N.C. L. REV. 773, 779 (2002) (answering objection to independent extrajudicial constitutional interpretation).
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But the departmental approach has an inherent logic, rooted in its view of the nature of the Constitution and of constitutional law. According to the Political Constitution Model, the Constitution is not so much the repository of settled legal truths that should be applied by courts in a disinterested way as it is a political structure, the full implications of which frequently cannot be resolved without further argument and political judgment, sometimes of a pragmatic character. Insofar as the Constitution invites political contest over its meaning or proper applications, it becomes plausible to think that inter-branch disagreements about the Constitution are a species of political dispute that ought to be resolved through politics, not judicial mandate.
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Footnote 69 = See KRAMER, supra note 14, at 233–41 (championing the view that final authority to interpret the Constitution should rest with the people); cf. ADAM TOMKINS, PUBLIC LAW 18 (2003) (defining a “political constitution” as “one in which those who exercise political power . . . are held to constitutional account through political means, and through political institutions”).
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For an adherent of the Political Constitution Model, Lincoln’s position in Merryman may be exemplary.
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Footnote 70 = Indeed, Professor Paulsen refers to presidential power to refuse to obey judicial decisions as “the Merryman power” and terms Merryman “the most famous case illustrating the proposition” that the President possesses an independent power of constitutional interpretation even after the judicial branch has ruled on a particular case. Paulsen, supra note 1, at 223 n.16; see also Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Merryman Power and the Dilemma of Autonomous Executive Branch Interpretation, 15 CARDOZO L. REV. 81, 91–95 (1993). There is a partial irony here, arising from Lincoln’s well-known championing of the Finality of Judgments Model in the aftermath of the Dred Scott case.
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According to this model, Lincoln, who had been lawfully elected and had taken an oath of office to preserve and defend the Constitution, was entitled to decide for himself what the Constitution permitted and required and to act accordingly: certainly the Constitution did not oblige him to accede to a judicial ruling that he thought not only erroneous, but also threatening to the Constitution’s continued force and existence.
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Footnote 71 = Lincoln framed the issue in exactly these terms. See Lincoln, supra note 9, at 430 (“[A]re all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”).
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We can also imagine how the Political Constitution Model would bear on issues involving the constitutional obligations of the Bush administration. The Political Constitution Model would by no means imply that the Bush administration was right about any particular substantive question of constitutional legality. Administration officials may be wrong in their claims about the substantive powers of the executive branch and about the rights of citizens and indeed of non-citizens subject to the reach of executive power. Nor would the Political Constitution Model necessarily imply that the President could rightly engage in secret defiance of seemingly applicable laws or judicial authorities.
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Footnote 72 =
One recent example of secret defiance of an applicable statute may come from the policies of the Bush administration in secretly wiretapping individuals located in the United States without warrants. See Risen & Lichtblau, supra note 12, at A1. See generally John Cary Sims, What NSA Is Doing . . . and Why It’s Illegal, 33 HASTINGS CONST. L.Q. 106 (2006). Ordinarily, 18 U.S.C. § 2511 (2006) requires the government to seek a warrant before intercepting electronic communications within the United States. Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (“FISA”) allows the government to avoid the warrant requirement when seeking to intercept communications between foreign powers or their agents, see Pub. L. No. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783 (codified as amended at 50 U.S.C. §§ 1801–1863), FISA itself generally mandates that before the government can begin wiretapping, it must submit an application to a special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISC”) for a determination of probable cause that the surveillance targets are foreign powers or agents, see 50 U.S.C. §§ 1803–1805. On tips from concerned officials, and after a year’s worth of negotiations with the Bush administration, the New York Times reported the sketchy details of an executive order issued just months after September 11, 2001, that authorized the National Security Agency to intercept communications between individuals in the United States and abroad without seeking a warrant from FISC. See Risen & Lichtblau, supra note 12, at A1. The program was kept strictly confidential: outside of the administration, only a small group of congressional representatives knew of the program. Id. After the surveillance was revealed, the President and other administration officials defended the program by arguing that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (“AUMF”), Pub. L. No. 107-40, § 2(a), 115 Stat. 224 (2001) (codified at 50 U.S.C.A. § 1541 note (Authorization for Use of Military Force)), permitted the President to evade FISA. See Sims, supra, at 130–32. If the AUMF did not give the President this power, the administration argued, then FISA is an unconstitutional abrogation of the President’s inherent war powers. See id. at 133–39. In August 2006, a United States District Court judge in the Eastern District of Michigan rejected these arguments in a suit brought by potential targets of the program; the court held that the surveillance program violated the Fourth Amendment and the constitutional separation of powers, and it enjoined the government from continuing the surveillance. See ACLU v. Nat’l Sec. Agency, 430 F. Supp. 2d 754, 782 (E.D. Mich. 2006). After the ruling, President Bush defended the surveillance program and ordered the Justice Department to file an immediate appeal. See Eric Lichtblau, Bush Predicts Appeals Court Will Lift Ban on Wiretaps, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 19, 2006, at A10.
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If an important aim of the Political Constitution Model is to vest ultimate responsibility for the resolution of constitutional issues in the people themselves, acting through politics and elections, then the President may have an obligation to take open stands that frame issues for public debate. Nevertheless, subject to a possible requirement of publicity, the Political Constitution Model would suggest the President has the constitutional authority to decide whether he is constitutionally bound to accept the judicial view in any particular case.
IV. THE PRESIDENT’S OBLIGATION TO OBEY FINAL JUDICIAL JUDGMENTS
The question how we ought to choose among these and other models of judicial and executive power under the Constitution is a hard one, to which the Constitution’s text and history yield no clear answer. By nearly all accounts, two constitutional provisions are centrally pertinent. Article II, section 3 makes it the obligation of the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” (Footnote 73 = U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3.) This reference to “the Laws” might subsume judicial judgments, which have it as their purpose to apply the Constitution and laws of the United States, but the inference is not linguistically necessary. The President’s duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” raises the question: the laws as interpreted by which branch?
The other most relevant textual provision is Article III, section 2, which provides that “[t]he judicial Power shall extend to all Cases . . . arising under” the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States (Footnote 74 = U.S. CONST. art III, § 2, cl. 1). As noted above, it is arguable that the power to decide cases necessarily implies the power to decide them authoritatively (Footnote 75 = See supra note 61 and accompanying text), and authority in some cases depends on executive obedience. As Alexander Hamilton famously wrote in The Federalist No. 78, the judicial branch possesses “neither FORCE nor WILL . . . and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.”
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Footnote 76 = THE FEDERALIST NO. 78, at 433 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961).
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Nevertheless, the historical support for the position that presidents must always obey and enforce judicial judgments is less than wholly unequivocal, as I have indicated already. Some of our greatest presidents took a contrary view. Larry
Kramer’s recent historical work suggests that many other Americans did also in the
early years of constitutional history.
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Footnote 77 = See KRAMER, supra note 14, at 109, 207–26 (describing a “departmental” view according to which each branch of government must interpret the Constitution for itself and noting the gradual decline of that view).
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With the Constitution’s text and history being less than utterly conclusive, any choice among models of executive and judicial power should be informed by a normative judgment about which would be best in the sense of giving us the most desirable structure of government for the future.
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Footnote 78 = See RONALD DWORKIN, LAW’S EMPIRE 254–58 (1885) (summarizing judges’ obligation to find “the best constructive interpretation” of pertinent legal materials).
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Reading the Constitution in light of normative concerns illuminated by history, I believe the Finality of Judgments Model not only fits the text of Articles II and III tolerably well, but also reflects a better accommodation of competing considerations than either the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model or the Political Constitution Model. The Finality of Judgments Model accords the judicial branch a more potent check against executive overreaching than does the Political Constitution Model, and I welcome that result. Judicial decisions must have at least some degree of authoritativeness, including a capacity to bind the executive, for the judiciary—which lacks the power of “either the sword or the purse”79 – to be a genuinely co-equal branch in a government subject to the rule of law.80
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Footnote 79 = THE FEDERALIST NO. 78, supra note 76, at 433.
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Footnote 80 = For a critical discussion of the rule-of-law ideal, see Richard H. Fallon, Jr., “The Rule of Law” as a Concept in Constitutional Discourse, 97 COLUM. L. REV. 1 (1997).
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To my mind, it would be troubling indeed to allow the President to determine the outer limits of presidential power, especially in cases involving the individual liberty of citizens. Too many forces and incentives are likely to conduce to executive overreaching, especially in times of perceived crisis, and to an overvaluation of security in comparison with liberty.
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Footnote 81 = But cf. ERIC POSNER & ADRIAN VERMEULE, TERROR IN THE BALANCE 62–63 (Mark Tushnet ed., 2007) (arguing that fear can produce cognitive benefits and not just distortions).
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In this context the metaphor of checks and balances seems apt: the courts should be able to check the executive especially when it intrudes on citizens’ liberty.
At the same time, it seems a virtue of the Finality of Judgments Model that it leaves room for the accommodation of practical needs and popular sensibilities by allowing those who disagree with judicial decisions, including executive officials, to press the Supreme Court to reconsider its positions. When the Court’s stance is clear and resolute, resistance will be predictably futile, and executive officials proceeding in constitutional good faith should typically spare everyone the trouble and expense of litigation before a well-settled doctrine is once again enforced by the courts.
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Footnote 82 = Cf. Samuel Estreicher & Richard L. Revesz, Nonacquiescence by Federal Administrative Agencies, 98 YALE L.J. 679, 725 (1989) (noting that the obligation of administrative agencies to acquiesce in judicial decisions that they oppose by accepting them as generally binding may depend on whether the judicially articulated law is in flux).
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But in matters of great practical moment or high constitutional principle—such as those involved in Dred Scott (Footnote 83 = 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857)), Lochner v. New York (Footnote 84 = 198 U.S. 45 (1905)), and, some would say, Roe v. Wade (Footnote 85 = 410 U.S. 113 (1973)) — the Pure Judicial Supremacy Model cedes more to courts than I would wish to cede. At the very least, politically accountable officials should be able to provoke the courts to reconsider issues with respect to which popular majorities find judicial rulings to be deeply objectionable. Continuing deliberation reflecting a broad range of views is frequently better than quick, once-and-for-all decisions by a small group, including the Justices of the Supreme Court.
In making these claims for the Finality of Judgments Model, I must acknowledge that my argument necessarily depends on tendencies and probabilities, not timeless truths. There is no denying that courts may sometimes err, and indeed may err disastrously, in their decisions of cases. Accordingly, it might seem prudent to qualify any endorsement of the Finality of Judgments Model with an exception for cases in which the courts commit grave errors. Under this imagined qualification, the President would be obliged to accede to judicial rulings in particular cases unless, in the President’s judgment, doing so would have unusually bad or even catastrophic consequences for the nation. Ex parte Merryman might appear to exemplify a case in which this proposed exception would apply (Footnote 86 = 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9487)). If the judicial branch issued a disastrously dangerous ruling, showing itself unworthy of trust to make the decision it had reached, could it not then be said that the President had no constitutional obligation to obey, even though it would be his duty to obey judicial rulings in all other contexts for reasons expressed by the Finality of Judgments Model?
Tempting though it may be to draw this conclusion, the supporting argument moves in an unpersuasive circle. Any ultimate decision maker may err. It is no good to say that a decision maker is ultimate except when it errs, or even when it errs disastrously, for there is no clear, uncontroversial criterion of error. Ultimately, the Constitution must entrust decisions to one or another institution despite the possibility of mistake or abuse.
Recognizing that there is no perfect solution to the question of how power should be allocated between the judiciary and the President, I thus reaffirm what I have said already: we would do better, overall, to recognize that when the courts issue their judgments in particular cases, their determinations bind the executive branch with respect to those cases as a matter of constitutional law. Asserted in some contexts, this conclusion might appear banal. In debates about judicial power to bind the executive in matters bearing on national security, however, it has bite. It entails that the Bush administration would violate the Constitution if it defied a judicial order in any future case. It also implies that Lincoln, perhaps our greatest President, behaved unconstitutionally in Ex parte Merryman.
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- ↳ Discussion Outline - When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives - Aug 16
- ↳ Original Proposal - When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives - Aug 16
- ↳ Participant Comments - When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives - Aug 16
- ↳ Reference Materials - When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives - Aug 16
- ↳ Discussion Outline – The U.S. Supreme Court vs. Lower-Court National Injunctions – July 19
- ↳ Original Proposal – The U.S. Supreme Court vs. Lower-Court National Injunctions – July 19
- ↳ Participant Comments – The U.S. Supreme Court vs. Lower-Court National Injunctions – July 19
- ↳ 6/21/2023: The Safer Communities Act of 2022 Proves To Be A Cruel Hoax Vis-a-vis Preventing School Shootings
- ↳ Reference Materials – The U.S. Supreme Court vs. Lower-Court National Injunctions – July 19
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Rabbi Van Lanckton’s 16 Gun-Safety Ideas, Providing Our Schools The Same Protection As Airports & Office Buildings, Etc. – June 21
- ↳ Original Proposal – Rabbi Van Lanckton’s 16 Gun-Safety Ideas, Providing Our Schools The Same Protection As Airports & Office Buildings, Etc. – June 21
- ↳ Participant Comments – Rabbi Van Lanckton’s 16 Gun-Safety Ideas, Providing Our Schools The Same Protection As Airports & Office Buildings, Etc. – June 21
- ↳ Reference Materials – Rabbi Van Lanckton’s 16 Gun-Safety Ideas, Providing Our Schools The Same Protection As Airports & Office Buildings, Etc. – June 21
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Oliver Stone’s “Nuclear Now” + “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow” – May 17
- ↳ Original Proposal – Oliver Stone’s “Nuclear Now” + “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow” – May 17
- ↳ Participant Comments – Oliver Stone’s “Nuclear Now” + “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow” – May 17
- ↳ Reference Materials – Oliver Stone’s “Nuclear Now” + “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow” – May 17
- ↳ Meeting Report – “Marked for Life: One Man’s Fight for Justice from the Inside” – April 19
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Marked for Life: One Man's Fight for Justice from the Inside – April 19
- ↳ Original Proposal – Marked for Life: One Man's Fight for Justice from the Inside – April 19
- ↳ Participant Comments – Marked for Life: One Man's Fight for Justice from the Inside – April 19
- ↳ Reference Materials – Marked for Life: One Man's Fight for Justice from the Inside – April 19
- ↳ Discussion Outline – The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure – March 15
- ↳ Original Proposal – The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure – March 15
- ↳ Participant Comments – The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure – March 15
- ↳ Reference Materials – The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure – March 15
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, and the Rush to War by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Robert Latiff – Feb 15
- ↳ Original Proposal – Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, and the Rush to War by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Robert Latiff – Feb 15
- ↳ Participant Comments – Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, and the Rush to War by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Robert Latiff – Feb 15
- ↳ Reference Materials – Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, and the Rush to War by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Robert Latiff – Feb 15
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “Bibi: My Story” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Jan 18
- ↳ Original Proposal – “Bibi: My Story” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Jan 18
- ↳ Participant Comments – “Bibi: My Story” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Jan 18
- ↳ Reference Materials – “Bibi: My Story” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Jan 18
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” by Prof. Niall Ferguson (husband of Ayaan Hirsi Ali) – Dec 14
- ↳ Original Proposal – “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” by Prof. Niall Ferguson (husband of Ayaan Hirsi Ali) – Dec 14
- ↳ Participant Comments – “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” by Prof. Niall Ferguson (husband of Ayaan Hirsi Ali) – Dec 14
- ↳ Reference Materials – “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe” by Prof. Niall Ferguson (husband of Ayaan Hirsi Ali) – Dec 14
- ↳ Discussion Outline – A Pox On Both Former Sen. Phil Gramm and Pres. Biden Re Jonathan Kozol’s “Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” – Nov 16
- ↳ Original Proposal – A Pox On Both Former Sen. Phil Gramm and Pres. Biden Re Jonathan Kozol’s “Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” – Nov 16
- ↳ Participant Comments – A Pox On Both Former Sen. Phil Gramm and Pres. Biden Re Jonathan Kozol’s “Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” – Nov 16
- ↳ Reference Materials – A Pox On Both Former Sen. Phil Gramm and Pres. Biden Re Jonathan Kozol’s “Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” – Nov 16
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green – Oct 19
- ↳ Original Proposal – Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green – Oct 19
- ↳ Participant Comments – Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green – Oct 19
- ↳ Reference Materials – Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green – Oct 19
- ↳ Discussion Outline – What We Owe The Future by Oxford U. Prof. William MacAskill – Sept 21
- ↳ Original Proposal – What We Owe The Future by Oxford U. Prof. William MacAskill – Sept 21
- ↳ Participant Comments – What We Owe The Future by Oxford U. Prof. William MacAskill – Sept 21
- ↳ Reference Materials – What We Owe The Future by Oxford U. Prof. William MacAskill – Sept 21
- ↳ Discussion Outline - “The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults” by Prof. Mark Bauerlein - Aug 17
- ↳ Original Proposal - “The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults” by Prof. Mark Bauerlein - Aug 17
- ↳ Participant Comments - “The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults” by Prof. Mark Bauerlein - Aug 17
- ↳ Reference Materials - “The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults” by Prof. Mark Bauerlein - Aug 17
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Climate Change and "How The World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going" by Prof. Vaclav Smil - July 20
- ↳ Original Proposal - Climate Change and "How The World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going" by Prof. Vaclav Smil - July 20
- ↳ Participant Comments - Climate Change and "How The World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going" by Prof. Vaclav Smil - July 20
- ↳ Reference Materials - Climate Change and "How The World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We’re Going" by Vaclav Smil - July 20
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents - Oprah’s Book Club – June 15
- ↳ Original Proposal – Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents - Oprah’s Book Club – June 15
- ↳ Participant Comments – Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents - Oprah’s Book Club – June 15
- ↳ Reference Materials – Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents - Oprah’s Book Club – June 15
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” by Peter Schweizer – May 18
- ↳ Original Proposal – “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” by Peter Schweizer – May 18
- ↳ Participant Comments – “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” by Peter Schweizer – May 18
- ↳ Reference Materials – “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” by Peter Schweizer – May 18
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The Dying Concept of Citizenship & America’s Southern Border – April 20
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Dying Concept of Citizenship & America’s Southern Border – April 20
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Dying Concept of Citizenship & America’s Southern Border – April 20
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Dying Concept of Citizenship & America’s Southern Border – April 20
- ↳ Public-Policy Letters Sent to the European Union President & the NATO Secretary General – America’s 1994 Written & Signed Guarantee Of Ukraine’s Independence and Territorial Integrity For Ukraine Surrendering Its 1,900 Nuclear Missiles – March 16
- ↳ Discussion Outline – America’s 1994 Written & Signed Guarantee Of Ukraine’s Independence and Territorial Integrity For Ukraine Surrendering Its 1,900 Nuclear Missiles – March 16
- ↳ Original Proposal – America’s 1994 Written & Signed Guarantee Of Ukraine’s Independence and Territorial Integrity For Ukraine Surrendering Its 1,900 Nuclear Missiles – March 16
- ↳ Participant Comments – America’s 1994 Written & Signed Guarantee Of Ukraine’s Independence and Territorial Integrity For Ukraine Surrendering Its 1,900 Nuclear Missiles – March 16
- ↳ Short Quiz and Suggested Answers – America’s 1994 Written & Signed Guarantee Of Ukraine’s Independence and Territorial Integrity For Ukraine Surrendering Its 1,900 Nuclear Missiles – March 16
- ↳ Reference Materials – America’s 1994 Written & Signed Guarantee Of Ukraine’s Independence and Territorial Integrity For Ukraine Surrendering Its 1,900 Nuclear Missiles – March 16
- ↳ Discussion Outline – NYC Harvard Club Book Promotion – “Our Broken Elections: How the Left Changed the Way You Vote” – Feb 16
- ↳ Original Proposal – NYC Harvard Club Book Promotion – “Our Broken Elections: How the Left Changed the Way You Vote” – Feb 16
- ↳ Participant Comments – NYC Harvard Club Book Promotion - “Our Broken Elections: How the Left Changed the Way You Vote” – Feb 16
- ↳ Reference Materials – NYC Harvard Club Book Promotion – “Our Broken Elections: How the Left Changed the Way You Vote” – Feb 16
- ↳ Discussion Outline – The Deficit Myth by Democratic Party Economic Guru, Prof. Stephanie Kelton – Jan 19
- ↳ Original Proposal – The Deficit Myth by Democratic Party Economic Guru, Prof. Stephanie Kelton – Jan 19
- ↳ Discussion Outline – President Obama’s Dept of Energy Under-Secretary for Science (Prof. Steven Koonin) on “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” – Dec 8
- ↳ Participant Comments – The Deficit Myth by Democratic Party Economic Guru, Prof. Stephanie Kelton – Jan 19
- ↳ Reference Materials – The Deficit Myth by Democratic Party Economic Guru, Prof. Stephanie Kelton – Jan 19
- ↳ Original Proposal – President Obama’s Dept of Energy Under-Secretary for Science (Prof. Steven Koonin) on “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” – Dec 8
- ↳ Participant Comments – President Obama’s Dept of Energy Under-Secretary for Science (Prof. Steven Koonin) on “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” – Dec 8
- ↳ Reference Materials – President Obama’s Dept of Energy Under-Secretary for Science (Prof. Steven Koonin) on “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” – Dec 8
- ↳ CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS SECTION
- ↳ Discussion Outline – An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science Of The Immune System – Nov 10
- ↳ Original Proposal – An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science Of The Immune System – Nov 10
- ↳ Participant Comments – An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science Of The Immune System – Nov 10
- ↳ Reference Materials – An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science Of The Immune System – Nov 10
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Revisiting The Issue Of Charter Schools: Stanford University vs. Stanford’s Hoover Institution – Oct 13
- ↳ Original Proposal – Revisiting The Issue Of Charter Schools: Stanford University vs. Stanford’s Hoover Institution – Oct 13
- ↳ Participant Comments – Revisiting The Issue Of Charter Schools: Stanford University vs. Stanford’s Hoover Institution – Oct 13
- ↳ Reference Materials – Revisiting The Issue Of Charter Schools: Stanford University vs. Stanford’s Hoover Institution – Oct 13
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell – Sept 8
- ↳ Original Proposal – Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell – Sept 8
- ↳ Participant Comments – Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell – Sept 8
- ↳ Reference Materials – Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell – Sept 8
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The Non-Partisan Public-Policy Issues of Whether, For Example, Michael Lewis’ “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story” Is A Classic Political “Hit Piece” and Whether, As Such, It Should Be (vs. Is) Protected by Freedom Of Speech - Aug 11
- ↳ Original Proposal – The Non-Partisan Public-Policy Issues of Whether, For Example, Michael Lewis’ “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story” Is A Classic Political “Hit Piece” and Whether, As Such, It Should Be (vs. Is) Protected by “Freedom Of Speech” – Aug 11
- ↳ Participant Comments – The Non-Partisan Public-Policy Issues of Whether, For Example, Michael Lewis’ “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story” Is A Classic Political “Hit Piece” and Whether, As Such, It Should Be (vs. Is) Protected by Freedom Of Speech – Aug 11
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “1620: A Critical Response To The 1619 Project” by Peter Wood – July 14
- ↳ Reference Materials – The Non-Partisan Public-Policy Issues of Whether, For Example, Michael Lewis’ “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story” Is A Classic Political “Hit Piece” and Whether, As Such, It Should Be (vs. Is) Protected by Freedom Of Speech – Aug 11
- ↳ Original Proposal – “1620: A Critical Response To The 1619 Project” by Peter Wood – July 14
- ↳ Participant Comments – “1620: A Critical Response To The 1619 Project” by Peter Wood – July 14
- ↳ Reference Materials – “1620: A Critical Response To The 1619 Project” by Peter Wood – July 14
- ↳ Meeting Report – “Predict & Surveil: Data, Discretion & the Future of Policing” by Prof. Sarah Brayne – June 9
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “Predict & Surveil: Data, Discretion & the Future of Policing” by Prof. Sarah Brayne – June 9
- ↳ Original Proposal – “Predict & Surveil: Data, Discretion & the Future of Policing” by Prof. Sarah Brayne – June 9
- ↳ Participant Comments – “Predict & Surveil: Data, Discretion & the Future of Policing” by Prof. Sarah Brayne – June 9
- ↳ Resource Materials – “Predict & Surveil: Data, Discretion & the Future of Policing” by Prof. Sarah Brayne – June 9
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need” by Bill Gates – May 12
- ↳ Original Proposal – “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need” by Bill Gates – May 12
- ↳ Participant Comments – “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need” by Bill Gates – May 12
- ↳ Reference Materials – “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need” by Bill Gates – May 12
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “Cancel Culture: The Latest Attack on Free Speech and Due Process” by Prof. Alan Dershowitz – April 7
- ↳ Original Proposal – “Cancel Culture: The Latest Attack on Free Speech and Due Process” by Prof. Alan Dershowitz – April 7
- ↳ Participant Comments – “Cancel Culture: The Latest Attack on Free Speech and Due Process” by Prof. Alan Dershowitz – April 7
- ↳ Reference Materials – “Cancel Culture: The Latest Attack on Free Speech and Due Process” by Prof. Alan Dershowitz – April 7
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “The New Map: Energy, Climate & the Clash of Nations” by Pulitzer-Prize Winner Daniel Yergin – March 10
- ↳ Original Proposal – “The New Map: Energy, Climate & the Clash of Nations” by Pulitzer-Prize Winner Daniel Yergin – March 10
- ↳ Participant Comments – “The New Map: Energy, Climate & the Clash of Nations” by Pulitzer-Prize Winner Daniel Yergin – March 10
- ↳ Resource Materials – “The New Map: Energy, Climate & the Clash of Nations” by Pulitzer-Prize Winner Daniel Yergin – March 10
- ↳ Discussion Outline - “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Prof. Steven Pinker – Feb 10
- ↳ Reference Materials - “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Prof. Steven Pinker – Feb 10
- ↳ Original Proposal - “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Prof. Steven Pinker – Feb 10
- ↳ Participant Comments - “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Prof. Steven Pinker – Feb 10
- ↳ Meeting Report – Civilization: The West and the Rest by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Jan 13
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Civilization: The West and the Rest by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Jan 13
- ↳ Original Proposal – Civilization: The West and the Rest by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Jan 13
- ↳ Participant Comments – Civilization: The West and the Rest by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Jan 13
- ↳ Reference Materials – Civilization: The West and the Rest by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Jan 13
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Great Society: A New History by Amity Shlaes - Dec 9
- ↳ Original Proposal - Great Society: A New History by Amity Shlaes - Dec 9
- ↳ Participant Comments - Great Society: A New History by Amity Shlaes - Dec 9
- ↳ Reference Materials - Great Society: A New History by Amity Shlaes - Dec 9
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “The Square and The Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook” by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Nov 11
- ↳ Original Proposal – “The Square and The Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook” by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Nov 11
- ↳ Participant Comments – “The Square and The Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook” by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Nov 11
- ↳ Reference Materials – “The Square and The Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook” by Prof. Niall Ferguson – Nov 11
- ↳ Discussion Outline – The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs and Behaviors By Stanford U. Prof Matthew Jackson – Oct 14
- ↳ Original Proposal – The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs and Behaviors By Stanford U. Prof Matthew Jackson – Oct 14
- ↳ Participant Comments – The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs and Behaviors By Stanford U. Prof Matthew Jackson – Oct 14
- ↳ Reference Materials – The Human Network: How Your Social Position Determines Your Power, Beliefs and Behaviors By Stanford U. Prof Matthew Jackson – Oct 14
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King by Prof. Peniel Joseph - Sep 9
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King by Prof. Peniel Joseph - Sep 9
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King by Prof. Peniel Joseph - Sep 9
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King by Prof. Peniel Joseph - Sep 9
- ↳ Discussion Outline – "Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope" by Pulitzer-Prize Winners Sheryl WuDunn and Husband, NY Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof – Aug 12
- ↳ Original Proposal – "Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope" by Pulitzer-Prize Winners Sheryl WuDunn and Husband, NY Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof – Aug 12
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “The Age of Addiction” by Prof. David Courtwright – July 8
- ↳ Participant Comments – "Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope" by Pulitzer-Prize Winners Sheryl WuDunn and Husband, NY Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof – Aug 12
- ↳ Reference Materials – "Tightrope: Americans Reaching For Hope" by Pulitzer-Prize Winners Sheryl WuDunn and Husband, NY Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof – Aug 12
- ↳ Participant Comments – “The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business” by Prof. David Courtwright – July 8
- ↳ Original Proposal – “The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business” by Prof. David Courtwright – July 8
- ↳ Reference Materials – “The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business” by Prof. David Courtwright – July 8
- ↳ 6/3/2020: CALL TO ACTION – ONLY 10 MINUTES NEEDED FOR YOU TO PARTICIPATE – “SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION” E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO ADDRESS THE ROOT CAUSE OF RACISM (VS. ONLY A MERE SYMPTOM) – AMERICA’S PERMANENT 30% UNDER-CASTE
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Jonathan Kozol “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” and Free Tuition for Public Colleges and Vocational Schools – June 3
- ↳ Original Proposal – Jonathan Kozol “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” and Free Tuition for Public Colleges and Vocational Schools – Mtg Date TBD
- ↳ Participant Comments – Jonathan Kozol “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” and Free Tuition for Public Colleges and Vocational Schools – Mtg Date TBD
- ↳ Reference Materials – Jonathan Kozol “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America” and Free Tuition for Public Colleges and Vocational Schools – June 3
- ↳ Mail Campaign to ABC’s The View – Money in Politics – March 18
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Money in Politics – March 18
- ↳ Original Proposal - Money in Politics: Michael Bloomberg & Tom Steyer, et al. - March 18
- ↳ Participant Comments - Money in Politics: Michael Bloomberg & Tom Steyer, et al. - March 18
- ↳ Meeting WED Evening Feb 19 – Proposed E-mail Campaign Re “Hunger in America” – Your Opportunity To Strike A Blow For BASIC HUMAN DECENCY
- ↳ Feb 19 Meeting Report – Proposed E-mail Campaign Re “Hunger in America”
- ↳ Original Proposal – Utah Taxing Groceries of Our Neighbors Living on Less Than $2.00/Day – Feb 19
- ↳ Participant Comments – Utah Taxing Groceries of Our Neighbors Living on Less Than $2.00/Day – Feb 19
- ↳ Reference Materials – Utah Taxing Groceries of Our Neighbors Living on Less Than $2.00/Day – Feb 19
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED FOR YOU TO PARTICIPATE – “SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION” E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO SOLVE THE PALESTINIAN ISSUE (AND AVOID “THE TWILIGHT OF THE HUMANS” - Jan 15
- ↳ Original Proposal – “REPRISE: A Marshall-Type Plan For Palestinians” – Jan 15
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – “REPRISE: A Marshall-Type Plan For Palestinians” – Jan 15
- ↳ Participant Comments – “REPRISE: A Marshall-Type Plan For Palestinians” – Jan 15
- ↳ Reference Materials – “REPRISE: A Marshall-Type Plan For Palestinians” – Jan 15
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – “SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION” E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO SAVE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT $86 BILLION/YEAR BY ADOPTING MEDICARE-FOR-ALL – (only 5 minutes needed to participate)
- ↳ Discussion Outline – “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care And How To Fix It” by Johns Hopkins Surgeon and Prof. of Health Policy Marty Markary – Dec 11
- ↳ Participant Comments – “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care And How To Fix It” by Johns Hopkins Surgeon and Prof. of Health Policy Marty Markary – Dec 11
- ↳ Original Proposal – “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care And How To Fix It” by Johns Hopkins Surgeon and Prof. of Health Policy Marty Markary – Dec 11
- ↳ Reference Materials – “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care And How To Fix It” by Johns Hopkins Surgeon and Prof. of Health Policy Marty Markary – Dec 11
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – “SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION” E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT POSSIBLE GLOBAL-WARMING SOLUTION (HYDROGEN EXTRACTION) FROM BEING KILLED!!! – (only 5 minutes needed to participate)
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Possible Global Warming Solution (Hydrogen Extraction) In Danger Of Being Killed!!! - Nov 13
- ↳ Original Proposal - Possible Global Warming Solution (Hydrogen Extraction) In Danger Of Being Killed!!! - Nov 13
- ↳ Participant Comments - Possible Global Warming Solution (Hydrogen Extraction) In Danger Of Being Killed!!! - Nov 13
- ↳ Reference Materials - Possible Global Warming Solution (Hydrogen Extraction) In Danger Of Being Killed!!! - Nov 13
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - “Tech Titans Of China: How China’s Tech Sector Is Challenging The World By Innovating Faster, Working Harder and Going Global by Rebecca A. Fannin – Oct 16
- ↳ Original Proposal - “Tech Titans Of China: How China’s Tech Sector Is Challenging The World By Innovating Faster, Working Harder and Going Global by Rebecca A. Fannin – Oct 16
- ↳ Participant Comments - “Tech Titans Of China: How China’s Tech Sector Is Challenging The World By Innovating Faster, Working Harder and Going Global by Rebecca A. Fannin - Oct 16
- ↳ Reference Materials - “Tech Titans Of China: How China’s Tech Sector Is Challenging The World By Innovating Faster, Working Harder and Going Global by Rebecca A. Fannin - Oct 16
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – Six-Degrees-Of-Separation-Email-Campaign – A Suggestion To President Trump Re How To Support the United Nations 19-year Campaign Against “Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women and Children” – only 5 minutes needed to participate
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery - Sep 18
- ↳ Original Proposal – Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery – Sep 18
- ↳ Participant Comments – Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery – Sep 18
- ↳ Reference Materials – Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery – Sep 18
- ↳ Participant Comments – Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson – July 31
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson – July 31
- ↳ Original Proposal – Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson – July 31
- ↳ Reference Materials – Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson – July 31
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline -- "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” -- June 13
- ↳ Original Proposal -- "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” -- June 13
- ↳ Short Quiz -- "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” -- June 13
- ↳ Reference Materials -- "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” -- June 13
- ↳ The Quartet – Three E-mail Campaigns “Approved” – May 16
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - "The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789" by Prof. Joseph J. Ellis – May 16
- ↳ Original Proposal - "The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789" by Prof. Joseph J. Ellis – May 16
- ↳ Reference Materials – "The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789" by Prof. Joseph J. Ellis – May 16
- ↳ Participant Comments – "The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789" by Prof. Joseph J. Ellis – May 16
- ↳ Cancellation of Official Status of April 11 Meeting on Joseph Califano’s “Our Damaged Democracy: We The People Must Act” + John Karls’ Research on Harvard as “Cambridge University in New England” 1636-1816
- ↳ Original Proposal - Our Damaged Democracy: We The People Must Act by Joseph Califano Jr. - April 11
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – “SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION” E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO HOLD CHINA RESPONSIBLE FOR NORTH KOREAN ACTIONS (only 5 minutes needed to participate)
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - “American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power and the End of History” by Prof. Salvatore Babones - March 14
- ↳ Original Proposal - “American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power and the End of History” by Prof. Salvatore Babones - March 14
- ↳ Participant Comments - “American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power and the End of History” by Prof. Salvatore Babones - March 14
- ↳ Reference Materials - “American Tianxia: Chinese Money, American Power and the End of History” by Prof. Salvatore Babones - March 14
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” - Feb 7
- ↳ Original Proposal - “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” - Feb 7
- ↳ Participant Comments - “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” - Feb 7
- ↳ Reference Materials - “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” - Feb 7
- ↳ Meeting Cancellation - The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue Collar Conservatism - Jan 10
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue Collar Conservatism - Jan 10
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue Collar Conservatism - Jan 10
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Dec 13
- ↳ Original Proposal - Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Dec 13
- ↳ Participant Comments - Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Dec 13
- ↳ Reference Materials - Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Dec 13
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning by the American Right: A Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide - Nov 8
- ↳ Original Proposal - Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning by the American Right: A Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide - Nov 8
- ↳ Participant Comments - Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning by the American Right: A Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide - Nov 8
- ↳ Reference Materials - Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning by the American Right: A Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide - Nov 8
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System by T.R. Reid – Oct 4
- ↳ Original Proposal - A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System by T.R. Reid – Oct 4
- ↳ Participant Comments - A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System by T.R. Reid – Oct 4
- ↳ Reference Materials - A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System by T.R. Reid – Oct 4
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - The War On Cops: How the New Attack on Law & Order Makes Everyone Less Safe by Heather MacDonald - Sep 6
- ↳ Original Proposal - The War On Cops: How the New Attack on Law & Order Makes Everyone Less Safe by Heather MacDonald - Sep 6
- ↳ Participant Comments - The War On Cops: How the New Attack on Law & Order Makes Everyone Less Safe by Heather MacDonald - Sep 6
- ↳ Reference Materials - The War On Cops: How the New Attack on Law & Order Makes Everyone Less Safe by Heather MacDonald - Sep 6
- ↳ Meeting Cancellation - American Amnesia: How The War On American Government Led Us To Forget What Made America Prosper – For Aug 9
- ↳ Original Proposal - American Amnesia: How The War On American Government Led Us To Forget What Made America Prosper – For Aug 9
- ↳ Reference Materials - American Amnesia: How The War On American Government Led Us To Forget What Made America Prosper – For Aug 9
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – "SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION" E-MAIL CAMPAIGN RE SAVING THE U.S. GOV $300 BILLION/YEAR BY ENACTING “MEDICARE FOR ALL” – (only 5 minutes needed to participate)
- ↳ Original Proposal - An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal – For July 12
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal – For July 12
- ↳ Participant Comments - An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal – For July 12
- ↳ Reference Materials - An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal – For July 12
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything by Rosa Brooks – June 7
- ↳ Original Proposal - How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything by Rosa Brooks – June 7
- ↳ Participant Comments - How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything by Rosa Brooks – June 7
- ↳ Reference Materials - How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything by Rosa Brooks – June 7
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Authoritarian Rule by Our Intelligence Services – May 10
- ↳ Original Proposal – Authoritarian Rule by Our Intelligence Services – May 10
- ↳ Participant Comments – Authoritarian Rule by Our Intelligence Services – May 10
- ↳ Reference Materials – Authoritarian Rule by Our Intelligence Services – May 10
- ↳ April 12 Meeting Cancellation
- ↳ Original Proposal - Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide To Thriving in an Age of Accelerations – For April 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide To Thriving in an Age of Accelerations – For April 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide To Thriving in an Age of Accelerations – For April 12th
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Killing Millions of Sesame Street Miss Piggy’s For The Human Organs – March 8
- ↳ Original Proposal – Killing Millions of Sesame Street Miss Piggy’s For The Human Organs – March 8
- ↳ Participant Comments – Killing Millions of Sesame Street Miss Piggy’s For The Human Organs – March 8
- ↳ Original Proposal Reference Materials – Killing Millions of Sesame Street Miss Piggy’s For The Human Organs – March 8
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION - OPPOSING THE WANTON DESTRUCTION OF GREAT SALT LAKE – FEB 8TH
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The Mormon Church Condoning The Wanton Destruction Of Great Salt Lake – Feb 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Mormon Church Condoning The Wanton Destruction Of Great Salt Lake – Feb 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Mormon Church Condoning The Wanton Destruction Of Great Salt Lake – Feb 8th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Mormon Church Condoning The Wanton Destruction Of Great Salt Lake – Feb 8th
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In The End – Jan 11
- ↳ Original Proposal – Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In The End – Jan 11
- ↳ Participant Comments – Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In The End – Jan 11
- ↳ Reference Materials – Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In The End – Jan 11
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business – Dec 14
- ↳ Original Proposal - Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business – Dec 14
- ↳ Participant Comments - Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business – Dec 14
- ↳ Reference Materials - Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business – Dec 14
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State – Nov 16
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State – Nov 16
- ↳ Participant Comments – The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State – Nov 16
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State – Nov 16
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why - Oct 19
- ↳ Participant Comments – Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why - Oct 19
- ↳ Original Proposal - Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why - Oct 19
- ↳ Reference Materials – Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why - Oct 19
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis - Sep 14
- ↳ Original Proposal – Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis - Sep 14
- ↳ Participant Comments – Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis - Sep 14
- ↳ Reference Materials – Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis - Sep 14
- ↳ Discussion Outline - San Bernardino and The F.B.I. vs. Apple – Aug 10
- ↳ Original Proposal – San Bernardino and The F.B.I. vs. Apple – Aug 10
- ↳ Original Proposal – How The Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and The Threat To Democracy – July 13
- ↳ Participant Comments – San Bernardino and The F.B.I. vs. Apple – Aug 10
- ↳ Reference Materials – San Bernardino and The F.B.I. vs. Apple – Aug 10
- ↳ Reference Materials – How The Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and The Threat To Democracy – July 13
- ↳ Cancellation – How The Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and The Threat To Democracy – July 13
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – 5 Easy Theses: Commonsense Solutions to America’s Greatest Economic Challenges – June 15
- ↳ Original Proposal – 5 Easy Theses: Commonsense Solutions to America’s Greatest Economic Challenges – June 15
- ↳ Participant Comments - 5 Easy Theses: Commonsense Solutions to America’s Greatest Economic Challenges – June 15
- ↳ Reference Materials – 5 Easy Theses: Commonsense Solutions to America’s Greatest Economic Challenges – June 15
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City – May 18
- ↳ Original Proposal – Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City – May 18
- ↳ Participant Comments – Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City – May 18
- ↳ Reference Materials – Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City – May 18
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right – April 20
- ↳ Original Proposal – Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right – April 20
- ↳ Participant Comments – Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right – April 20
- ↳ Reference Materials – Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right – April 20
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – March 16
- ↳ Original Proposal - Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – March 16
- ↳ Reference Materials - Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – March 16
- ↳ Participant Comments – Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – March 16
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – Capitalism vs. The Climate – Feb 17
- ↳ Participant Comments – Capitalism vs. The Climate – Feb 17
- ↳ Original Proposal – Capitalism vs. The Climate – Feb 17
- ↳ Reference Materials - Capitalism vs. The Climate – Feb 17
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History – Jan 13
- ↳ Original Proposal – The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History – Jan 13
- ↳ Participant Comments – The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History – Jan 13
- ↳ Reference Materials – The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History – Jan 13
- ↳ Original Proposal – Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich – Dec 16
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich – Dec 16
- ↳ Participant Comments – Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich – Dec 16
- ↳ Reference Materials - Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich – Dec 16
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession - Nov 18
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession - Nov 18
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession - Nov 18
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession - Nov 18
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller – Oct 14
- ↳ Original Proposal - Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller – Oct 14
- ↳ Participant Comments - Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller – Oct 14
- ↳ Reference Materials - Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller – Oct 14
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - The Impending Adverse Impact Of New Technology on Employment and Income Inequality – Sep 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Impending Adverse Impact Of New Technology on Employment and Income Inequality – Sep 9th
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Impending Adverse Impact Of New Technology on Employment and Income Inequality – Sep 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Impending Adverse Impact Of New Technology on Employment and Income Inequality – Sep 9th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – Joan Walsh’s “What’s the Matter with White People?” – Aug 12
- ↳ Original Proposal – Joan Walsh’s “What’s the Matter with White People?” – Aug 12
- ↳ Participant Comments – Joan Walsh’s “What’s the Matter with White People?” – Aug 12
- ↳ Reference Materials – Joan Walsh’s “What’s the Matter with White People?” – Aug 12
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran – July 15
- ↳ Original Proposal – The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran – July 15
- ↳ Participant Comments – The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran – July 15
- ↳ Reference Materials – The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran – July 15
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – "SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION" E-MAIL CAMPAIGN – POPE FRANCIS AND 23% OF U.S. CHILDREN IN POVERTY
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - The Hoax of the School-Privatization Movement - June 17
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Hoax of the School-Privatization Movement - June 17
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Why Foreign-Government Corruption Threatens Global Security – May 13
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Hoax of the School-Privatization Movement - June 17……………………………………… AMERICA’S APARTHEID “JUSTICE” SYSTEM -- BALTIMORE, AMERICAN INNER-CITIES AND TOM BRADY
- ↳ Original Proposal - Why Foreign-Government Corruption Threatens Global Security – May 13
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Hoax of the School-Privatization Movement - June 17
- ↳ Participant Comments - Why Foreign-Government Corruption Threatens Global Security – May 13
- ↳ Reference Materials - Why Foreign-Government Corruption Threatens Global Security – May 13
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Corruption in America - April 8
- ↳ Original Proposal - Corruption in America – April 8
- ↳ Participant Comments - Corruption in America – April 8
- ↳ Reference Materials - Corruption in America – April 8
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Leon Panetta’s Worthy Fights and President Obama’s Military Force Authorization - March 11
- ↳ Original Proposal - Leon Panetta’s Worthy Fights and President Obama’s Military Force Authorization - March 11
- ↳ Original Proposal - Losing Our Way: An Intimate Portrait of a Troubled America - Feb 11
- ↳ Participant Comments - Leon Panetta’s Worthy Fights and President Obama’s Military Force Authorization - March 11
- ↳ Reference Materials - Leon Panetta’s Worthy Fights and President Obama’s Military Force Authorization - March 11
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Losing Our Way: An Intimate Portraith of a Troubled America - Feb 11
- ↳ Participant Comments - Losing Our Way: An Intimate Portrait of a Troubled America – Feb 11
- ↳ Reference Materials - Losing Our Way: An Intimate Portrait of a Troubled America – Feb 11
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Hillary Distancing Herself From Pres. Obama Re The Islamic State - For Sep 3
- ↳ Original Proposal - Hillary Distancing Herself From Pres. Obama Re The Islamic State - For Sep 3
- ↳ Participant Comments - Hillary Distancing Herself From Pres. Obama Re The Islamic State - For Sep 3
- ↳ Reference Materials - Hillary Distancing Herself From Pres. Obama Re The Islamic State - For Sep 3
- ↳ Original Proposal - American Exceptionalism: Fact or Fiction??? - Aug 6th
- ↳ Participant Comments - American Exceptionalism: Fact or Fiction??? - Aug 6th
- ↳ MEETING CANCELLATION + SABBATICAL
- ↳ MEETING CANCELLATION + SABBATICAL (Continued)
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Hoax of the School-Privatization Movement - May 7th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline -- NUCLEAR FUSION AND 50 MORE YEARS WANDERING IN THE WILDERNESS SHUNNING THE PROMISED LAND -- Apr 9th
- ↳ Do-It-Yourself-Six-Degrees-Of-Separation-Email-Campaign -- Nuclear Fusion and 50 More Years Wandering in the Wilderness Shunning the Promised Land
- ↳ Participant Comments -- Nuclear Fusion and 50 More Years Wandering in the Wilderness Shunning the Promised Land -- April 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials -- Nuclear Fusion and 50 More Years Wandering in the Wilderness Shunning the Promised Land -- April 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal -- Nuclear Fusion and 50 More Years Wandering in the Wilderness Shunning the Promised Land -- April 9th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era – March 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era – March 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era – March 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era – March 12th
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – "SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION" E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA – RENEWING 1968 EXECUTIVE ORDER 11387 TO HALT THE EXPORT OF AMERICAN JOBS
- ↳ Discussion Outline – 12 Years A Slave, the 1853 autobiography of a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington DC in 1841 and sold into slavery, which became a famous part of the Abolitionist Movement – Feb 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal – 12 Years A Slave, the 1853 autobiography of a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington DC in 1841 and sold into slavery, which became a famous part of the Abolitionist Movement – Feb 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments – 12 Years A Slave, the 1853 autobiography of a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington DC in 1841 and sold into slavery, which became a famous part of the Abolitionist Movement – Feb 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials – 12 Years A Slave, the 1853 autobiography of a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington DC in 1841 and sold into slavery, which became a famous part of the Abolitionist Movement – Feb 12th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the U.S., and An Epic History of Misunderstanding – Jan 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the U.S., and An Epic History of Misunderstanding – Jan 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the U.S., and An Epic History of Misunderstanding – Jan 8th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the U.S., and An Epic History of Misunderstanding – Jan 8th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline – Third-Trimester Abortions – Dec. 11th
- ↳ Original Proposal – Third-Trimester Abortions – Dec. 11th
- ↳ Participant Comments – Third-Trimester Abortions – Dec. 11th
- ↳ Reference Materials – Third-Trimester Abortions – Dec. 11th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Will Ayatollah Khomenei Destroy The World??? - Nov 13
- ↳ Original Proposal - Who Is Ayatollah Khamenei by an Iranian Journalist/Dissident - Nov 13
- ↳ Participant Comments - Who Is Ayatollah Khamenei by an Iranian Journalist/Dissident - Nov 13
- ↳ Reference Materials - Who Is Ayatollah Khamenei by an Iranian Journalist/Dissident - Nov 13
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea - Oct 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea - Oct 9th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea - Oct 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea - Oct 9th
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION - SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA REGARDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THORIUM AS THE GREEN ENERGY SOURCE FOR THE FUTURE WHICH WILL, INTER ALIA, SOLVE OCEANIC ACIDIFICATION
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION - SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA REGARDING THE ENFORCEMENT OF OCEAN CONSERVATION
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Oceana by Ted Danson - Sep 11
- ↳ Original Proposal - Oceana by Ted Danson - Sep 11
- ↳ Participant Comments - Oceana by Ted Danson - Sep 11
- ↳ Reference Materials - Oceana by Ted Danson - Sep 11
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Our Current House-Of-Cards National Banking System - Aug 14
- ↳ Original Proposal - Our Current House-Of-Cards National Banking System - Aug 14
- ↳ Participant Comments - Our Current House-Of-Cards National Banking System - Aug 14
- ↳ ELLEN BIRRELL & JIM HUTCHINS – RSVP’S FOR AUG 14
- ↳ Reference Materials - Our Current House-Of-Cards National Banking System - Aug 14
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The Thistle and The Drone - July 10th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Thistle and The Drone - July 10th
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Thistle and The Drone - July 10th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Thistle and The Drone - July 10th
- ↳ Meeting Cancellation - The New Digital Age by Google's Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen - June 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The New Digital Age by Google's Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen - June 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - The New Digital Age by Google's Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen - June 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The New Digital Age by Google's Eric Schmidt & Jared Cohen - June 12th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Federal Bailouts of Illinois and Detroit, Etc., Etc., Etc. - May 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Federal Bailouts of Illinois and Detroit, Etc., Etc., Etc. - May 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Federal Bailouts of Illinois and Detroit, Etc., Etc., Etc. – May 8th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Salt-Sugar-Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us – April 10th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Federal Bailouts of Illinois and Detroit, Etc., Etc., Etc. – May 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Salt-Sugar-Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us – April 10th
- ↳ Participant Comments – Salt-Sugar-Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us – April 10th
- ↳ Reference Materials – Salt-Sugar-Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us – April 10th
- ↳ UNOFFICIAL SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA REGARDING ANNUAL DEFICITS AND ACCUMULATED DEBT
- ↳ Discussion Outline - How To Regain America's Competitive Edge And Boost Our Global Standing - March 13th
- ↳ Original Proposal – How To Regain America’s Competitive Edge And Boost Our Global Standing – March 13th
- ↳ Participant Comments - How To Regain America’s Competitive Edge And Boost Our Global Standing – March 13th
- ↳ Reference Materials - How To Regain America’s Competitive Edge And Boost Our Global Standing – March 13th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - John Brennan's Nomination To Head The CIA - Feb 6th
- ↳ Original Proposal - John Brennan's Nomination To Head The CIA - Feb 6th
- ↳ Participant Comments - John Brennan's Nomination To Head The CIA - Feb 6th
- ↳ Reference Materials - John Brennan's Nomination To Head The CIA - Feb 6th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Assisted Suicide - Jan 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Assisted Suicide - Jan 9th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Assisted Suicide - Jan 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Assisted Suicide - Jan 9th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - It's Even Worse Than It Looks by Mann + Ornstein - Dec 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - It's Even Worse Than It Looks By Mann + Ornstein - Dec 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - It's Even Worse Than It Looks By Mann + Ornstein - Dec 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials - It's Even Worse Than It Looks By Mann + Ornstein - Dec 12th
- ↳ SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO PRINCETON ECONOMICS NOBEL-LAUREATE PROF. AND NY TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST PAUL KRUGMAN – YOUR HELP DESPERATELY NEEDED TO AVERT ANOTHER ECONOMIC MELTDOWN - ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The Price of Inequality - Nov. 14th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Price of Inequality - November 14th
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Price of Inequality - November 14th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Price of Inequality - November 14th
- ↳ SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO D.O.E. SECRETARY CHU – R&D FOR THORIUM, THE GREEN ENERGY SOURCE FOR THE FUTURE - ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Thorium: The Green Energy Source For The Future – October 10th
- ↳ Original Proposal – Thorium: The Green Energy Source For The Future – October 10th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Thorium: The Green Energy Source For The Future – October 10th
- ↳ SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN FOR PROSECUTION OF BILL AND MELINDA GATES AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT FOR "CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY" (only 5 minutes needed to participate)
- ↳ Reference Materials - Thorium: The Green Energy Source For The Future – October 10th
- ↳ Discussion Outline – DOES CALLING A RATTLESNAKE A CANARY SOLVE THE PROBLEM IF THE “CANARY” BITES YOU??? – September 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Gates Foundation Crimes Against US Education Policy – September 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Gates Foundation Crimes Against US Education Policy – September 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Gates Foundation Crimes Against US Education Policy – September 12th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Winner-Take-All-Politics – August 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal – Winner-Take-All-Politics – August 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments – Winner-Take-All-Politics – August 8th
- ↳ Reference Materials – Winner-Take-All-Politics – August 8th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Gates Foundation's "Crimes Against Humanity" - July 11th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - July 11th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - July 11th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - July 11th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - How Invisible Policies Undermine American Democracy - June 13th
- ↳ Original Proposal - How Invisible Governmental Policies Undermine American Democracy - June 13th
- ↳ Participant Comments - How Invisible Governmental Policies Undermine American Democracy - June 13th
- ↳ Discussion Outline -- Merchants of Doubt -- May 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - How Invisible Governmental Policies Undermine American Democracy - June 13th
- ↳ Participant Comments -- Merchants of Doubt -- May 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal -- Merchants of Doubt -- May 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Merchants of Doubt - May 9th
- ↳ Discussion Outline -- The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government -- April 11th
- ↳ Original Proposal -- The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government -- April 11th
- ↳ Participant Comments -- The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government -- April 11th
- ↳ Reference Materials -- The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government -- April 11th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Insight Into Life In North Korea - The Orphan Master's Son by Prof. Adam Johnson - March 14th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Insight Into Life In North Korea - The Orphan Master's Son by Prof. Adam Johnson - March 14th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Insight Into Life In North Korea - The Orphan Master's Son by Prof. Adam Johnson - March 14th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Insight Into Life In North Korea - The Orphan Master's Son by Prof. Adam Johnson - March 14th
- ↳ Discussion Outline – Real Politik (aka National Interest) and Libya vs. Iran -- Feb 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal -- Real Politik (aka National Interest) and Libya vs. Iran -- Feb 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments -- Real Politik (aka National Interest) and Libya vs. Iran -- Feb 8th
- ↳ Reference Materials -- Real Politik (aka National Interest) and Libya vs. Iran -- Feb 8th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History Of The Financial Crisis - Jan 11th
- ↳ Original Proposal - All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History Of The Financial Crisis - Jan11
- ↳ Participant Comments - All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History Of The Financial Crisis - Jan 11
- ↳ Reference Materials - All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History Of The Financial Crisis - Jan 11
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION -- "SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION" E-MAIL CAMPAIGN = TRillions Being Printed To Bail Out Foreign Banks and Governments -- (ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE)
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Balanced-Budget Amendments & Redeeming National Debt With “Wallpaper” In Both Europe and the U.S. - December 14th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Balanced-Budget Amendments & Redeeming National Debt With “Wallpaper” In Both Europe and the U.S. - December 14th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Balanced-Budget Amendments & Redeeming National Debt With “Wallpaper” In Both Europe and the U.S. - December 14th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Balanced-Budget Amendments & Redeeming National Debt With “Wallpaper” In Both Europe and the U.S. - December 14th
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION -- "SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION" E-MAIL CAMPAIGN = Benefiting American Taxpayers For The Scientific Discoveries Of Basic Research They Have Financed -- (ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE)
- ↳ Discussion Outline - That Used To Be Us By Thomas Friedman - Nov 9th
- ↳ Participant Comments - That Used To Be Us By Thomas Friedman - Nov 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal - That Used To Be Us By Thomas Friedman - Nov 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - That Used To Be Us By Thomas Friedman - Nov 9th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Can The Middle Class Be Saved - Oct 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Can The Middle Class Be Saved? - Oct 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Can The Middle Class Be Saved - Oct 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Can The Middle Class Be Saved? - Oct 12th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Even Silence Has An End by Ingrid Betencourt - Sep 14th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Even Silence Has An End by Ingrid Betencourt - Sep 14th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Even Silence Has An End by Ingrid Betancourt - Sep 14th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Even Silence Has An End by Ingrid Betancourt - Sep 14th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour - August 10th
- ↳ Original Proposal – Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour – August 10th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour - August 10th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour - August 10th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - America's Climate Problem, The Way Forward - July 13th
- ↳ Original Proposal - America's Climate Problem, The Way Forward - July 13th
- ↳ Participant Comments - America's Climate Problem, The Way Forward - July 13th
- ↳ Reference Materials - America's Climate Problem, The Way Forward - July 13th
- ↳ Post-Meeting Discussion - Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power - June 15th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power - June 15th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power - June 15th
- ↳ DO-IT-YOURSELF SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION-E-MAIL-CAMPAIGN = Insuring The Survival Of The Democratic Party Following A Nuclear Attack On The U.S. By Terrorists - ONLY-5-MINUTES-REQUIRED-TO-PARTICIPATE
- ↳ Participant Comments - Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power - June 15th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power - June 15th
- ↳ SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION-E-MAIL-CAMPAIGNS = Taxing-Corporate-Profits-From-Exporting-American-Jobs + Benefitting-American-Taxpayers-For-The-Scientific-Discoveries-Of-Basic-Research-They-Have-Financed - ONLY-5-MINUTES-REQUIRED-TO-PARTICIPATE
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Debtor Nation: The History Of America In Red Ink - May 11th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Debtor Nation: The History Of America In Red Ink - for May 11th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Debtor Nation: The History Of America In Red Ink - for May 11th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink - for May 11th
- ↳ DO-IT-YOURSELF SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN – Apr.13th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - President Obama’s Nuclear Stand Post-Japan - April 13th
- ↳ Participant Comments - President Obama’s Nuclear Stand Post-Japan - April 13th
- ↳ Original Proposal - President Obama’s Nuclear Stand Post-Japan - April 13th
- ↳ Reference Materials - President Obama’s Nuclear Stand Post-Japan - April 13th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Religious Freedom And National Security - Mar 16th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Religious Freedom And National Security - Mar 16th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Religious Freedom And National Security - Mar 16th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Religious Freedom And National Security - Mar 16th
- ↳ DO-IT-YOURSELF SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGN – Feb 9th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Reports By Two Deficit-Reduction Commissions - Feb 9
- ↳ Original Proposal - Reports By Two Deficit-Reduction Commissions - Feb 9
- ↳ Participant Comments - Reports By Two Deficit-Reduction Commissions - Feb 9
- ↳ Reference Materials - Reports By Two Deficit-Reduction Commissions - Feb 9
- ↳ Discussion Outline - Making Our Democracy Work by US Supreme Ct Justice Stephen Breyer - Jan 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Making Our Democracy Work by US Supreme Ct Justice Stephen Breyer - Jan 12th
- ↳ Post-Meeting Participant Comments - Making Our Democracy Work by US Supreme Ct Justice Stephen Breyer - Jan 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Making Our Democracy Work by US Supreme Ct Justice Stephen Breyer - Jan 12th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Making Our Democracy Work by US Supreme Ct Justice Stephen Breyer - Jan 12th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - The US Gov's "Kill List" To Assassinate US Citizens in Yemen - Dec 15th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The US Gov's "Kill List" To Assassinate US Citizens in Yemen - Dec 15th
- ↳ Participant Comments - The US Gov's "Kill List" To Assassinate US Citizens in Yemen - Dec 15th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The US Gov's "Kill List" To Assassinate US Citizens in Yemen - Dec 15th
- ↳ Unofficial Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign - Obama's Wars - Nov. 10th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward - Nov 10th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward - Nov 10th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward - Nov. 10th
- ↳ Discussion Outline -- Murder City – What Does Juarez say about our future? -- Oct 13th
- ↳ Original Proposal - MurderCity - What does Juarez say about our future? - Oct 13th
- ↳ Participant Comments - MurderCity: What does Juarez say about our future? - Oct 13th
- ↳ Reference Materials - MurderCity: What does Juarez say about our future? - Oct 13th
- ↳ Discussion Outline - - The Big Sort: Why The Clustering Of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart - Sep. 15th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Big Sort: Why The Clustering Of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart - Sep. 15th
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Big Sort: Why The Clustering Of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart - Sep. 15th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Big Sort: Why The Clustering Of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart - Sep. 15th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Greg Mortenson's Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, In Afghanistan and Pakistan - August 11th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Greg Mortenson's Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, In Afghanistan and Pakistan - August 11th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Greg Mortenson's Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, In Afghanistan and Pakistan - August 11th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Greg Mortenson's Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, In Afghanistan and Pakistan - August 11th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America And How To Get It Back - July 14th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America And How To Get It Back - July 14th
- ↳ Participant Comments - "The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America And How To Get It Back" - July 14th
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How To Get It Back - July 14th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Arizona's New Immigration Law - June 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Arizona's New Immigration Law - June 9th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Arizona's New Immigration Law - June 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Arizona's New Immigration Law - June 9th
- ↳ Meeting Cancellation - After Iran Gets The Bomb (Foreign Affairs Magazine Lead Article) - May 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - After Iran Gets The Bomb (Foreign Affairs Magazine Lead Article) - May 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - After Iran Gets The Bomb (Foreign Affairs Magazine Lead Article) - May 12th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - "The Shock Doctrine: Rise of Disaster Capitalism" - April 14
- ↳ Reference Materials - After Iran Gets The Bomb (Foreign Affairs Magazine Lead Article) - May 12th
- ↳ Original Proposal - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - April 14
- ↳ Participant Comments - "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" - April 14
- ↳ Reference Materials - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - April 14
- ↳ “SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION” CALL TO ACTION = The Supreme Court’s Recent Corporate-Campaign-Contribution Decision - (ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE)
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - US Supreme Court 1/21/2010 Decision on Campaign Contributions by Corporations - March 10
- ↳ Original Proposal - U.S. Supreme Court 1/21/2010 Decision on Campaign Contributions by Corporations - March 10
- ↳ Participant Comments - U.S. Supreme Court 1/21/2010 Decision on Campaign Contributions by Corporations - March 10
- ↳ Reference Materials - U.S. Supreme Court 1/21/2010 Decision on Campaign Contributions by Corporations - March 10
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - When China Rules The World - Feb 10th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Martin Jacques' "When China Rules The World" - Feb. 10th
- ↳ Reference Mats + Participant Comments - When China Rules the World - Feb 10th -- including Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz and the NY Times Book Review on "When China Rules The World"
- ↳ “SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION” CALL TO ACTION = The ONLY Way To Transform The Prevailing SINGLE-DIGIT Inner-City High School Graduation Rates to 65%-70% And Beyond - (ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE)
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Oprah Winfrey's "Precious" - Jan. 13th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Continuing Our Oprah Tradition With "Precious" – Jan 13th
- ↳ Participant Comments and Reference Materials - Continuing Our Oprah Tradition With “Precious” – Jan 13th
- ↳ “SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION” CALL TO ACTION = Eliminating Unemployment With A “National Security Work Force” (ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE)
- ↳ Original Proposal - Dorothy Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer-Prize Winning "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II" - Dec. 9
- ↳ Participant Comments and Reference Materials - Dorothy Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer-Prize Winning "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II" - Dec. 9
- ↳ "SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION" CALL TO ACTION - General Motors & the EPA Perpetrating Fraud Re the Chevrolet Volt (ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE)
- ↳ Original Proposal - General Motors + the EPA Perpetrating Fraud Re the Chevrolet Volt - Nov 18
- ↳ Participant Comments - General Motors and the EPA Perpetrating Fraud Re the Chevrolet Volt - Nov 18
- ↳ Reference Materials – General Motors and the EPA Perpetrating Fraud Re the Chevrolet Volt – Nov 18
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION - "American Policy Toward Palestinians = The Key to Middle-East Peace" - ONLY 5 MINUTES NEEDED TO PARTICIPATE
- ↳ Original Proposal - American Policy Toward Israel - Oct 14th
- ↳ Participant Comments - American Policy Toward Israel - Oct 14th
- ↳ Reference Materials - American Policy Toward Israel - Oct 14th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Health Care/Insurance Reform - Sep. 9th
- ↳ Bill Lee's Original Proposal - Health-Care (or Health-Insurance) Reform - Sep 9th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Health-Care (Health-Insurance) Reform - Sep 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Health-Care (Health-Insurance) Reform - Sep 9th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Three Cups of Tea - August 12th
- ↳ Participant Comments - "Three Cups of Tea" - Aug. 12th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - How to Change The World - July 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal - How To Change The World - July 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments - How To Change The World - July 8th
- ↳ Original Proposal - Come Home America - June 10
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Come Home America - June 10
- ↳ Reference Materials - How To Change The World - July 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments - Come Home America - June 10
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION - The ONLY Way To Transform SINGLE-DIGIT Inner-City High School Graduation Rates to 65%-70% - Only 5 Minutes Needed to Answer the Call to Action
- ↳ The Banking Imbroglio - Come Home America - June 10
- ↳ Reference Materials - Come Home America - June 10
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - A Report Card for U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan - May 13
- ↳ Original Proposal - A Report Card for US Education Secretary Arne Duncan - May 13
- ↳ Participant Comments - A Report Card for US Education Secretary Arne Duncan - May 13
- ↳ Reference Materials - A Report Card for US Education Secretary Arne Duncan - May 13
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION – Human Intelligence vs. Surging in Afghanistan From 17,000 U.S. Troops to 70,000 and Beyond
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Afghanistan, President Obama's Vietnam and Pakistan, His Cambodia - April 8
- ↳ Original Proposal - Afghanistan, Pres. Obama's Vietnam and Pakistan, His Cambodia - April 8
- ↳ Participant Comments - Afghanistan, Pres. Obama's Vietnam and Pakistan, His Cambodia - April 8
- ↳ Reference Materials - Afghanistan, Pres. Obama's Vietnam and Pakistan, His Cambodia - April 8
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - How Should Pres. Obama Reform Health Care - March 11
- ↳ Original Proposal - How Should Pres. Obama Reform Health Care - March 11
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Saving the Democratic Party from Extinction: Foreign Policy - Feb. 11
- ↳ Participant Comments - How Should Pres. Obama Reform Health Care - March 11
- ↳ Feb. 11 Topic = Saving the Democratic Party from Extinction - Foreign Policy
- ↳ Report of the 2007 Democratic Congress' Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism - Feb. 11
- ↳ Participant Comments - Saving the Democratic Party from Extinction/Foreign Policy - Feb. 11
- ↳ Other Background Mats - Saving the Democratic Party from Extinction/Foreign Policy - Feb. 11
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION - Separate BUT UNEQUAL Public Schools
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Leaving Children Behind - Jan. 14
- ↳ January 14th Topic = Leaving Children Behind
- ↳ Background Mats + Participant Comments - Leaving Children Behind - Jan. 14
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - "It's The Economy, Stupid" - Dec. 10th
- ↳ Text - 2007 Supreme Court Reversal of School Integration - Leaving Children Behind - Jan. 14
- ↳ December 10th Meeting = "It's The Economy, Stupid"
- ↳ Participant Comments - "It's The Economy, Stupid" - Dec. 10th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Al Gore's Challenge to America - Nov. 12
- ↳ Reference Materials - "It's The Economy, Stupid" - Dec. 10th
- ↳ CALL TO ACTION - Al Gore's 10-Year Challenge to America
- ↳ Participant Comments - Al Gore's Challenge to America - for Nov. 12
- ↳ Additional Ref Materials - Al Gore's Challenge to America - for Nov. 12
- ↳ Text of Al Gore's July 17th Challenge To Re-Power America's Electricity Grid Within 10 Years - For Nov. 12
- ↳ To Go "Beyond The Call of Duty" - Info About Three Background Books - For Nov. 12
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Team of Rivals - Oct. 8
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Barack Obama's Bible - Sep 10
- ↳ Participant Comments - "Team of Rivals - Oct 8
- ↳ Participant Comments - "Barack Obama's Bible = Rules for Radicals" - Sep 10
- ↳ Ref Mats - "Barack Obama's Bible = Rules for Radicals" - Sep 10
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Aug 13
- ↳ Comments of Participants - Obama From Promise to Power - Aug 13
- ↳ Reference Mats - Obama From Promise to Power - Aug 13
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Everything About Oil - July 9th
- ↳ Comments of Participants - Everything About Oil - July 9th
- ↳ Reference Materials - Everything About Oil - July 9th
- ↳ Tim Russert Eulogies
- ↳ A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System by T.R. Reid – Oct 4
- ↳ Reference Materials – Revisiting The Issue Of Charter Schools: Stanford University vs. Stanford’s Hoover Institution – Oct 13
- ↳ Original Proposal - Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans by Peter Schweizer - April 17
- ↳ July Meeting - Possible Topics (historical)
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - "Infidel" - June 11
- ↳ “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali – for June 11
- ↳ Comments of Participants - "Infidel" - June 11th
- ↳ Reference Materials - "Infidel" - June 11th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Bush's Law - May 14
- ↳ Eric Lichtblau's “Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice” – May 14
- ↳ Participant Comments - "Bush's Law" - May 14
- ↳ Reference Materials - "Bush's Law" - May 14
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Apr 9th
- ↳ Clone Rights: Involuntary Soldiers, Sex Slaves, Human "Lab Rats" Etc. - Apr 9
- ↳ Participant Comments/Ref Mats - Clone Rights for Apr 9
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Mar 13
- ↳ Critiques of Benezir Bhutto’s “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West” - Mar 13th
- ↳ Benazir Bhutto's "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West" - for Mar. 13
- ↳ Comments of Participants - Mar. 13
- ↳ Background Materials - Mar. 13
- ↳ DRINKing Liberally Presentation - Fri Eve Feb 29
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Feb 14th
- ↳ Proposed Solution to The Cesspool that is Washington DC - for Feb 14
- ↳ "The Best Gov Money Can Buy: Bribery and Extortion" - Text of Original Proposal for Feb 14
- ↳ Participant Comments - The Best Gov Money Can Buy: Bribery & Extortion - Feb 14th
- ↳ Illegal “Bribe” vs. “Legal” Campaign Contribution - Feb 14th
- ↳ Background Mats - The Best Gov Money Can Buy: Bribery & Extortion - Feb 14th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Jan 10th
- ↳ Illegal Immigration = Topic for Jan 10th
- ↳ Participant Comments on Immigration - Jan 10th
- ↳ Leading Dem Candidates on Immigration - Jan 10
- ↳ Leading Rep Candidates on Immigration - Jan 10
- ↳ Reference Materials - Immigration - Jan 10
- ↳ Call to Action - Meeting Report for Dec 13th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Dec 13th
- ↳ Hillary's Bashing Bush as "Soft on Iran" - for Dec 13
- ↳ Is War With Iran Inevitable??? - Topic for Dec 13
- ↳ Action v. Deterrance (+ Detente) - for Dec 13
- ↳ Bombing Syria 9/6/2007 Re Iran & N Korea - for Dec 13
- ↳ Participant Comments Re War With Iran - for Dec 13
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Nov 8th
- ↳ Ref Mats - Osama's Fatwa To Nuke 10 Million Americans - Dec 13
- ↳ The Controversy That Is Bill Cosby for Nov 8th
- ↳ The KKK - "All The Best People In Society Belonged" - for Nov. 8th
- ↳ Participant Comments - School Integration & The Jena Six - for Nov 8th
- ↳ Background Mats - School Integration & The Jena Six - for Nov 8th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Oct 11th
- ↳ Participant Comments Re Global Warming for Oct 11th
- ↳ Suggested Background Materials Re Global Warming for Oct 11th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Sep 6th
- ↳ Suggested Discussion Outline - Aug 2d
- ↳ Comments of Participants - Universal Health Care for Aug 2nd
- ↳ Suggested Background Materials on Universal Health Care for Aug. 2d
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