As we enter into 2026, the year is shaping up to be an crucial one for American democracy. On July 4, we will mark the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, and the November midterm elections may well determine the future of our republic. As AAROL prepares to meet the moment, we’re excited to share some […]
By AAROL Member Homer E. Moyer, Jr.
Imagine for a moment if we could call upon Abraham Lincoln today and ask him to share his thoughts about the challenges our country faces in this anniversary year. What if we asked simply that he update for today the iconic speech he gave at Gettysburg?
Although we can never have his response to that fanciful request, we as a country might well benefit by trying to imagine — admittedly presumptuously — a current version of that short, historic address. Taking cues from what he did say in 1863, preserving much of its elegance, and remembering the national pain of our Civil War and its long aftermath, the original — with lined-out deletions — and an imagined, updated version might look something like the following.
Guest Post by Ted Jonas. On April 30, 2024, just before midnight, I was grabbed from the midst of a massive pro-Europe, anti-Russian demonstration in downtown Tbilisi by a phalanx of masked Georgian police, dragged, beaten, and thrown into an unmarked van. After 30 years in the country, the news that “well-known lawyer” Ted Jonas […]
By AAROL Member Nicolas Mansfield. Last month a trial jury in the federal district court of Washington, DC acquitted a man for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent. The case had become a local cause célèbre because it took place during the Trump administration’s takeover of local law enforcement in the nation’s capital and […]
By AAROL Member Neil Weinstein. Courts in the U.S. are losing their luster. The approval rating of our courts, especially the Supreme Court, is at an all-time low — in part because of the Supreme Court’s seemingly reflexive acceptance of the Trump Administration’s applications, decided almost always through its “emergency” or “shadow” docket via orders […]
By AAROL Member Homer E. Moyer, Jr. Next year we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our becoming an independent nation, and in just a few days (September 17th) we will commemorate a less celebrated, but no less important anniversary—”Constitution Day,” the day delegates gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia signed our Constitution. Both milestones […]
By AAROL Member Malcolm Russell-Einhorn. Against the backdrop of America’s Constitution Day on September 17, many pundits and ordinary citizens have asked whether the country is approaching, or in, a constitutional crisis. After all, in recent months, the nation has witnessed the Trump Administration flooding the zone of federal governance with scores of legally dubious, […]
Guest Post by Alain G. Norman, MSc, JD September 17th is Constitution Day, a day to remember and celebrate the remarkable American Constitution and Bill of Rights, which have, for some 250 years, served as a touchstone for those “yearning to breathe free,” as the poet put it, both in the United States and around […]
Guest Post by Jim Moliterno By 2004, when I was invited to participate in my first justice-building project abroad, I had already spent 22 years teaching and writing about lawyer and judicial ethics issues in the US. I was already a tenured, full professor at the College of William & Mary Law School. I thought […]
Guest post by Howard Fenton In 1996 I traveled to the newly independent Ukraine to talk with Ukrainian judges about American administrative law. The Ohio Supreme Court had contracted with USAID to provide training to the judges across the full range of American law utilizing Ohio judges and law professors. I volunteered to lecture on […]
