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Executive Privilege

Last Monday, we chose “executive privilege” (in the context of the Federal government) as the topic for Monday, 20 December. I found a pretty comprehensive article on the subject in Wikipedia.

There are a number of ways I can think of to approach this topic, including:

Who should be able to assert executive privilege, and under what circumstances?

In particular, should a former president (he who shall not be named) or a former member of the executive branch be able to assert executive privilege, and under what circumstances?

Do the answers to the previous questions change, depending on which branch of government (Congress or the judiciary) has subpoenaed testimony or documents over which the privilege is asserted? If so, why?

Under what circumstances should a claim of executive privilege be deemed to have been waived, for example by prior publication? Would the waiver apply only in the case of prior publication by the person claiming the privilege?

I’m sure there are other questions that can be raised about executive privilege.

This Op-Ed piece in the New York Times prompted this week’s topic, which is something like:

Has the recent evolution of our political and cultural views changed our views on the role of “manliness” in American society? Assuming we think so, how so? What’s good about this evolution? What’s not so good?

The above NYT piece starts with a reference to an address by Senator Josh Hawley on “The Left’s Attack on Men in America” [video and transcript].

Here are links to three other articles on the Hawley speech (or related subject matter):

• Politico: “Why Republicans Can’t Stop Talking About Masculinity” [link, PDF]
• The Independent (UK): “Madison Cawthorn calls for mothers to raise ‘monster’ men in terrifying speech against ‘demasculation'” [link, PDF]
• Axios: “Sen. Josh Hawley defends speech on porn and video games” [link, PDF]

…that the United States is the most dangerous country in the world.

When this subject was first suggested, lots of other countries that are (I think) more dangerous to live in came to mind. But many of them don’t have the global power and influence that the U.S. does. So there are a few dimensions of “dangerous” to discuss.

We’ll see where it goes!