Stephen Gottlieb

Professor, Albany Law School and Commentator at WAMC, Northeast Public Radio

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Articles

Mr. Trump is making up powers he does not have

1 week ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

Trump keeps trying to rule by executive order, including, most recently, defunding public broadcasting. Someone I know was trying to differentiate what Trump is doing by executive order and what other presidents have done. So let me explain. Presidents have no power, zero, to rule by executive order. They have the power to execute the laws. Execute means to carry out. That’s all.
Trumping the Peace Corps

2 weeks ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

Trumps’s government efficiency staff went through Peace Corps offices recently. Trump tried to dismantle the Peace Corps in his first term. And he has already “eliminate[d] key pillars of America's soft power,” including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Voice of America and attacked the depth of knowledge and experience at the State Department.
It's us

3 weeks ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

The difference between dictatorship and democracy is us! Are we willing to obey the dictator? It’s easy to pin the blame for dictatorship on a Hitler or a Trump but everything depends on our willingness to obey. Everyone has a job to do, and if we define our jobs as obedience, it’s all over. It’s our willingness to let people pick people off the street or out of their homes or jobs without courts, without due process, or any process.
Market manipulation, inflation and Donald Trump

1 month ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

My wife spotted a note in Facebook that Trump’s tariff manipulations were making his billionaire friends much wealthier. The person posting suggested that billionaires had the money to invest when the market goes down and then sell when it goes up. I think there are several more pieces to what is going on. First, raising tariffs predictably lowers market prices by making business more expensive.
Trump's danger to most of us

1 month ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

Why did Trump’s Air Force try to scrub videos and records of the excellent and celebrated Tuskegee Airmen and Navajo Code Talkers in World War II? Many pilots, sailors and troops were happy to get their support. And why scrub the World War II Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs? My mother-in-law served in the Women’s Army Corps as a nurse. Lot of soldiers were happy to see her. Trump wasn’t a hero and doesn’t understand patriotism. Why’d Trump try to erase Black athletes from military websites?
The Golden Rule

1 month ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

I’ve been talking a lot about how we get along with each other and with the world. My commentary has embraced teamwork, caring for each other, people who are black, white, brown and yellow, and foreign relations, peoples from different countries. Perhaps some of you realized that I was also talking about shared religious obligations. What the Jews call the Tanakh, Christians call the Old Testament. And Muslims also hold the Torah, the first five books of Moses, as sacred.
Trump's version of executive power

1 month ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

Mr. Trump and his Republican allies claim his “executive power” means he can do whatever he wants. To put it simply, that’s nuts. The Constitution’s Article II vests “The executive Power” in the President. They interpret the word “executive” as all encompassing.
Trump's corruption

2 months ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

Do you care if presidents are corrupt, take gifts, bribes or benefits for official acts? Think it’s no concern of yours? I’d like to convince you that presidential corruption can hit you very hard. Needing to grease palms makes things more expensive or out of reach. If law enforcement is for sale, you’re competing against higher bidders, criminals and criminal gangs. Undermining dedication to the rule of law invites gangs of thieves.
Yiddish for politicians

2 months ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

Let me begin by saying I don’t speak Yiddish or understand more than a few words. My parents did their best to prevent me from learning it – they wanted me to be 100% American. But they spoke it when they didn’t want me to understand what they were saying or with people, like some of my aunts, who’d come from the old country and were much more comfortable with Yiddish than English.
Why WAMC matters to the war in the middle east

2 months ago | wamc.org | Stephen Gottlieb

Let me give an example of why this station matters. I offered a Jewish publication an article based on commentary I delivered to this WAMC audience before the fund drive, that Netanyahu was endangering the future of Israel, doing harm to American Jewry, and we, Americans, should object. John Walbridge calls it The Slow Suicide of the State of Israel.