The Attainder Clause Prohibits Senate Expulsion of Al Franken and Roy Moore.

And Even if it didn’t their expulsion would still be unconstitutional, and even if it weren’t it would still be a sin against sound political theory

The Status of Women in Anthony Trollope's Science Fiction

Although we are now well past the seventh decade of the 20^th Century, there may still be some instruction in reflecting on the long-range predictions about the 1980s made by a leading light of English letters. Everybody knows George Orwell’s pessimistic vision 35 years in advance of 1984. Anthony Trollope’s 1880 imaginings a century into the future are familiar to at best a thousandth as many. Trollope was, however, a widely published and sometimes celebrated literary figure. There are more than twenty pages of mostly Trollope works on Amazon.

Proving Abandoned and Malignant Heart Murder: The Zarate Case

The gunshot death of Kathryn Steinle on San Francisco’s Pier 14 in July, 2015, became a chief exhibit in Candidate Trump’s “bad hombre” attacks against sanctuary cities. The claim that San Francisco would be a safer place were it not a sanctuary city is almost certainly wrong as is the claim that unlawful immigrants have a higher percentage of bad hombres than the general population. I will not, however, further discuss those well discussed issues.

My focus will be on the murder trial now under way and in particular on proof of the element of “malice aforethought” for second degree murder in California. (The charge is not first degree murder because it is not alleged that it met any of the special requirements of that offense “. . . a weapon of mass destruction, . . . poison, . . . torture,  . . . arson, rape, carjacking, …” California Penal Code Sec. 189.) The question in my mind is whether there is any way that the prosecution can prove second degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt and whether this offense should even have been charged.

Not knowing what you are sure of: e.g. “π + e is irrational.”

It is as unexceptionable as philosophical principles ever are that we can claim to have knowledge if, in addition to belief, we have the proper sort of justification. It seems we can have excellent justification for believing that that π + e  is irrational, leading to high confidence that it is. Yet no mathematician would say that we know the sum is irrational. Why is that?

What Antifa Gets Right, and Wrong

Antifa groups are not centrally organized and do not have established doctrines.  There are, however, common themes and practices that warrant some praise and some condemnation.

The Right to Drown Out Speakers

If you don’t want to risk being drowned out by opponents, don’t hold a rally on the Boston Commons.

David Hume on Emoluments

The top-five-all-time-philosopher David Hume did not actually interpret the Emolument Clauses of the United States Constitution, which will not surprise you when you recall that he died two months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Hume did, however, leave us a little evidence of the usage of “emoluments”  from one of the eighteenth century’s most literate and astute pens: