Tara Helfman is a legal scholar who contributed to The Weekly Standard between 2015 and 2017. Her articles focused on constitutional law, presidential power, and governance, including pieces on executive authority and advice to the incoming Trump administration on conflicts of interest.
The seal of the president of the United States features an eagle clutching the arrows of war in its left talon and the olive branch of peace in its right, a fitting symbol of the expansive powers of the American executive. But one might just as well have substituted a pen and a telephone to…
The seal of the president of the United States features an eagle clutching the arrows of war in its left talon and the olive branch of peace in its right, a fitting symbol of the expansive powers of the American executive. But one might just as well have substituted a pen and a telephone to…
Now that Donald Trump has won the presidency, one of his transition team's top priorities should be ensuring that the candidate who came to power on a pledge to drain the federal swamp of corruption and self-dealing is not pulled into the mire upon his inauguration. The problem is not Trump's…
The American university, once idealized as an ivory tower, is at risk of becoming an ideological echo chamber. Once scholars gazed out at a distant world from their monastic perch, debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Now scholars seem to gaze out at the world from a single…
In explaining the process of design to an audience at Harvard, Charles Eames once resorted to parable. In India, he explained, people of the lowest caste would eat off banana leaves. People a bit higher up the social scale would eat off a ceramic dish whose shape was inspired by the banana leaf.…