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First Keynote Address: The Two Impeachments of Donald J. Trump
Get PDFI believe that violation of the Emoluments Clauses was the original sin of the Trump Administration, and it began essentially on the first day of Trump in office when he said he was not going to give up his more than 150 businesses. He was not going to stop doing business with foreign governments, and he was not taking any pledge about refusing to take money from the federal government. The Foreign Emoluments Clause states that no president, no federal official, may accept presents or emoluments – which are payments – offices or titles of any kind whatsoever from a foreign government without the consent of the Congress. And yet Donald Trump immediately began taking at the Trump Hotel in Washington, which I call the Washington Emolument, and at other hotels, and at the golf courses and in other business ventures around the world, all kinds of money from foreign governments. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars began to pour in from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, from China, from a whole bunch of governments around the world. Because this was such a flagrant departure from U.S. history, we were unprepared to deal with it. We didn’t have a process for dealing with it. I’m afraid a lot of the Democrats felt it was too complicated for people to understand. Some of it was even just the word “emoluments,” which is multi-syllabic, and I think we foolishly succumb to the idea that it was too complicated for people to understand. When most Americans can understand a good scam and a good grift when they see it
Should the Great Food Transformation be Fake-Meat Free? Considering Strategies for a Future of Food that is Kinder to People, Animals, and the Planet
Get PDFIn 2019, former Trump White House adviser Sebastian Gorka infamously denounced advocates of the Green New Deal with the pithy admonishment, “They want to take away your hamburgers.” This rhetoric is ironic given that none of the politicians supporting the Deal have suggested widescale adoption of vegan diets, much less any laws or policies restricting the consumption of animal-based meat. However, given our species’ broken relationship to food, perhaps they should. The 2019 EAT-Lancet Commission Food in the Anthropocene report laid bare the scope of our current global predicament, warning that “[g]lobal food production threatens climate stability and ecosystem resilience and constitutes the single largest driver of environmental degradation and transgression of planetary boundaries. Taken together the outcome is dire.” The report argues that “global efforts are urgently needed to collectively transform diets and food production” and that, ultimately, “what is needed is rapid adoption of numerous changes and unprecedented global collaboration and commitment: nothing less than a Great Food Transformation.
Creating Sustainable Food Systems with Trademarks and Technology
Get PDFA geographical indication (GI) is a type of trademark that conveys the geographical origin and unique characteristics of a specialty product. Well-known examples of geographical indications include Champagne and Roquefort cheese. Numerous case studies from across the globe underscore the benefits that geographical indications can contribute to rural regions, such as increased job production, repopulation of rural areas, visibility, and renewed local pride. An international treaty called the Geneva Act grants intellectual property protection for geographical indications on a worldwide basis. Notably, the U.S. is not a party to this treaty and takes a hostile stance towards the use of geographical indications, especially when they are used to protect food names many Americans consider to be generic. This article disagrees with that policy position and argues that geographical indications should be leveraged in the U.S. to incentivize the creation of new and sustainable product markets and to revitalize economic development in rural areas, such as Appalachia. This article also discusses two novel ways to achieve this objective: (1) forming decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to legally structure GI collectives; and (2) using blockchain tracing to maintain quality control of high-quality, GI-denominated products
Saving Family Farms from Eliminated Step-Up in Basis
Get PDFTo achieve tax equality, lawmakers have proposed eliminating the step-up in basis for assets passing through an estate at death. Closing the loophole would indeed tax the rich, but it would also impact middle-class Americans, including full-time farmers. Farmers would incur large tax liability, inhibiting their ability to earn a living exclusively on the farm. Eliminating step-up in basis is a volatile issue that lawmakers have considered implementing to achieve tax equality. This article will present the history of the step-up in basis debate and analyze past efforts to close the step-up in basis loophole. That history informs recent tax amendment propositions and their problematic effect on full-time farmers. Finally, the article proposes alternatives and protections for full-time farmers so that the agricultural community will not be adversely affected by a measure intended to achieve tax equality
Children Sentenced to Die in Prison: Why a Lifetime Behind Bars is No Longer Justified for Juvenile Offenders
Get PDFBrett Jones turned fifteen years old the summer before he was set to start high school. Twenty-three days later, he was arrested and charged as an adult. Now, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. In the United States, a fifteen-year-old child cannot legally vote, drink alcohol, or – in most states – drive a car without adult supervision. That same fifteen-year-old, however, who is not considered responsible enough to buy a ticket to an R-rated movie, may be sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole (“LWOP”). Not only is the United States the only nation which permits LWOP sentences for fifteen-year-olds, but the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Brett Jones’s case makes it clear that a sentencing judge does not even need to find that juveniles like Jones are “irreparably corrupt” or incapable of reform before imposing the harshest sentence available
Third Party Arbitration Funding and Islamic Shari’a: Friends Not Foes
Get PDFInternational arbitration exacts considerable monetary costs. In response, new mechanisms have emerged to eliminate the risks of these costs. One of these mechanisms is Third-Party Funding (TPF). Claimants may consider TPF where they cannot afford the costs of arbitration or to spread their risks and take the claim costs off their corporate balance sheets. It enables the poorly funded party to pursue its claim on an equal footing with the well-funded one. Recently, TPF has acquired great attention that made it a revolutionary development in the practice of international arbitration. The practice of TPF has moved from common law jurisdictions to civil law ones, some of which are based, even partially, on Islamic Shari’a (Shari’a); a movement that requires a response from an Islamic perspective. This Article accordingly responds to this movement, considers the legitimacy of TPF arrangements from an Islamic perspective, and advocates for an Islamic TPF funding model
ADR Provisions to Inoculate the Vaccine Industry from Governmental IP Takings
Get PDFIt started with a cough. It continued with a fever. After several days of treatment with over-the-counter medications without improvement, it became clear that Victor Villarroel Saavedra, an unvaccinated but otherwise in good health Bolivian physician, had contracted COVID-19 in the summer of 2020. By this point, Victor’s options were limited: seek at-home care or go to the hospital. After a few days of in-home care with nasal canal oxygen and nursing/physician oversight, he was eventually transferred to a hospital where he passed within the week. This all could have been avoided with a simple jab in the otherwise healthy man, which would have nearly eliminated his risk of death and significantly reduced his risk of hospitalization. However, Bolivia is without vaccinations originating from most developed countries (MDC) such as the US, UK, CAN, or from the EU, although its government has tried to obtain them. Distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine to least developed countries (LDCs) like Bolivia has been sluggish to non-existent, leading to the needless deaths of many of the world’s most medically vulnerable populations
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996: The Antiquated Law in Need of Reform
Get PDFImagine a world without the information sharing-giants of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or Reddit. It is nearly impossible to go a day without some type of exposure to content created, published, and shared on such platforms. A world without these platforms would bear a striking resemblance to the world in 1996, when Congress passed the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”). The CDA, often referred to as “the 26 words that made the internet,” states that “[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” In short, the CDA is a federal law that prevents websites, blogs, forums, and other sources of online information from being held liable for their users’ speech. The legal protections established in § 230 of the CDA are unique to the United States—European nations, Canada, Japan, and the vast majority of other countries do not provide such safeguards to internet companies. Despite the high levels of internet access in these countries, the largest and most prominent online services are located in the United States. Section 230 makes the United States desirable as a safe haven for internet providers who wish to provide controversial or politicized speech with a legal platform and environment which is favorable to free expression
Not For Sale: Why Congress Should Act to Counter the Trend of Massive Corporate Acquisitions of Real Estate
Get PDFThe concept that property ownership is a right of the American people has been a bedrock principle of the United States ever since its founding. Property ownership was regarded by the Founding Fathers as an essential right for the American people to truly be independent and free. Throughout the United States’ history, property ownership has remained a core principle of American society, from being one of the natural rights that set the foundation of the nation, to form the most critical components of the “American Dream” through the 20th century and into the present. However, the prospects of owning property and the American Dream itself are un-der duress recently companies like Black Rock and powerful individuals like Bill Gates making massive acquisitions of houses and land. This trend is problematic because if such entities can swoop into real estate markets and buy up land and homes while the rest of the country struggles to meet that kind of buying potential, the prospects of Americans owning their own property and exercising this “right of free people” is in great jeopardy. Put simply, many Americans are already strug-gling–from loans, oversaturated markets for well-paying jobs, the decline of tradi-tional industries that raised the American people, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. If the current trend of corporations and wealthy business moguls buying up real estate continues, there may hardly be much left for the average American to aspire to in the end. However, if we preemptively act to protect the average Amer-ican and the prospect of owning real property, the American Dream will live on. The goal of this article is to evaluate proposed solutions and seek to offer a viable solution that will protect average Americans seeking the American Dream by pre-serving fair competition and lowering the rising barriers of entry in the real estate and housing markets