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Martin Powers

Constitution
Resisting Rotten Leadership: from Mencius to Robert Reich

Resisting Rotten Leadership: from Mencius to Robert Reich

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Writing in The Guardian this past weekend Robert Reich spoke common sense: Trump’s nonfeasance goes far beyond an absence of leadership or inattention to traditional norms and roles. In a time of national trauma, [Trump] has relinquished the core duties and responsibilities of the presidency. He is no […]

China
How China's Han Empire Predicted America’s Imperial Decay

How China’s Han Empire Predicted America’s Imperial Decay

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – The Han dynasty’s collapse is an abject lesson in imperial decay that prefigures in alarming ways our own national decline. Bad policies replaced professionalism with cronyism and compromised formal checks on administration. Three years of the Trump administration can be compared with Han Imperial decline point for point. […]

China
Medieval Guilt by Association?  Trump/ Miller denied Stimulus Checks to US Citizens whose Partners lack SSN

Medieval Guilt by Association? Trump/ Miller denied Stimulus Checks to US Citizens whose Partners lack SSN

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – According to the Chicago Sun-Times Trump is being sued for denying stimulus checks to U.S. citizens who file jointly with spouses lacking a social security number. Assuming the administration regards unregistered aliens as “illegal”, this would be tantamount to guilt by association for their spouses. Many legal immigrants […]

China
The Real Danger behind Trump's "China Virus" Mantra

The Real Danger behind Trump’s “China Virus” Mantra

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – The “China-Virus” mantra illustrates well this administration’s habit of responding to challenges by branding people as ethnic, religious, or political types ranked good or bad, us or them. Not a few have dismissed this practice, rightly, as racist, scapegoating, or just off the point, but the administration’s groupthink […]

Constitution
How to Prevent Trump’s Masked Monarchy

How to Prevent Trump’s Masked Monarchy

Martin Powers

By Martin Powers | – Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Even before impeachment proceedings began, online bloggers recognized a penchant for monarchical or autocratic pretensions in the Trump Whitehouse. Thomas Jefferson foresaw such dangers and had a word for it: “masked monarchy.” While Jefferson believed that our “government (is) better calculated than others […]

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