Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America

 

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President Trump has been peppering the White House website with short messages around the theme of the 2050th Anniversary of the Republic. I have posted comments to some of them. The exercise is important; it would be more important if the mechanisms for projecting these messages out were perhaps more robust, and if some were to weave the aggregation of these messages together into a coherent narrative. But that may be coming. 

Many of the messages speak to important figures from the history of the Republic and equally important events that mark the history of the Republic. The most recent message  takes a slightly different turn. It focuses on a normative source of the Republic's values: Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America. It was timed to coincide with the "America Reads the Bible" initiative, a seven-day, 24/7 public reading of the entire Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—hosted at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., from April 18–25, 2026. 

The point of the message was t6o underscore what had been taken as a given as late as  three quarters of a century ago but now seems to have been overtaken by (cultural/ideological) events--specifically that from " Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World and the first permanent English-speaking settlement at Jamestown to our founding in 1776 and to the present day, the Bible has been indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America). More importantly, the even older notion, one that was an important element of social and religious life especially among elements of the Christian community, that the United States, and the Republic created to embody its values, was to represent the purification and the striving for perfection from out of the miasma and corruption of the places from which the people of the United States were drawn   (a good portion of them, anyway).   "Nearly 400 years ago, a decade after the arrival of the Mayflower, the legendary John Winthrop powerfully invoked Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew:  “We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.  The eyes of all people are upon us,” Winthrop said, imploring his fellow Christian settlers to stand as a beacon of faith for all the world to see." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America). 

That concept, of the Republic as the incarnation of the "city upon a hill", drawn from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14-15 ("14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.") KJV) had receded back into religion and (as Foucault liked to remind us of the way elites abstracted and essentialized them into a statistic) the "population", for a long period after Winthrop. Until the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. "A shining city on a hill. Ronald Reagan loved the phrase. He used it over and over again, perhaps most notably in his 1989 presidential farewell address." 

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. (David Fromm, "Is America Still the ‘Shining City on a Hill’?: If the eyes of all people are upon America now, they are not witnessing an edifying spectacle", The Atlantic (1 January 2021)).

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 Indeed, the President reminded on in his message: "And at the height of the Cold War and the righteous crusade that he led to defeat atheistic communism, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed 1983 to be the Year of the Bible." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America). The object here is to remind one of the strong connection between the Bible, and Biblical cognitive orientations, as an inextricably important part of the fabric, at least historically, of the political life of the Republic.  In a period in which the fundamental political line is built on the theme of a restoration to a golden age, that historical connection is an important element. "Together, we will honor Holy Scripture, renew our faith, usher in a historic resurgence of religion on American shores, and rededicate the United States as one Nation under God." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America).

Reflections on Department of Justice "Corporate Enforcement Policy for All Criminal Cases" (March 2026)

 

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In March 2026, the Justice Department of the United States distributed a revised policy document: Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy. 

By the admission in the text of the document itself. it constitute one of a number of documents in the galaxy of text that purports to be functionally regulatory but that at the same time vigorous denies its own purpose and existence ("This policy is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create, any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any person." Ibid., note 1).  It is a textual object that denies its own text and in the denial, projected outward to its targets, reinforces its textual objectivity through effect  rather than through the force of its text. That is it is text mediated by and through the techno.bureaucrats which, within their apparatus, and authorized through the projection of other text, can exercise a discretion to do or not do things or take decisions which affect the objects toward which the guidance on discretionary decision making is projected.  

This policy that is not law, this guidance that has no formal effect, on those to whom it is directed (the techno-bureaucrats) but effectively serves as notice of the probability that it will play a role in the way in which these techno-bureaucrats exercise discretion (and are thus protected against claims of abuse of administrative power in decision making) by those onto whom it is projected (the actors or processes with respect to which discretionary authority may be exercised in accordance with authoritative task delegating such authority). That, of course, is the essence of the framework of legality around which a complex and sophisticated techno-bureaucracy is constituted. It is one in which law itself is reduced to delegations of empowerment, and in which the levers of policy and guidance (without the effect of law) can be used to guide the application of legally constituted power by those onto whom such authority is vested.  The administrative state, then, clothed in legality, is operated through webs of policy/guidance, that are not law but have the effect of law not as a positive force but as a prophylactic against accountability with respect to actions taken under color of law.  

In this case, the focus is on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The purpose is to induce behaviors among the class of persons and transactions against which prosecutorial discretion is exercised without  the bother of mandating these behaviors through law or law making (subject to its own constraints and democratic accountability), that effectively compel behavior that the law does not technically require. None of this is new; all of it a marker of the times in the sense that the notion of legality, and its systems, has, over the course of the last several centuries continued to adhere to the cantillation of an ancient ideological ideal even as the basic structures and operations of the systems from which that ideal arose shifted from  law as command, to legality as framework within which command shifted from text to administrative decision making within guided frameworks. 

The subject of all of this is the guiding management of corporate governance, especially as a function of governmental oversight. While the ultimate object is legal compliance--with the heart of sovereign authority, its criminal law, its direct object was to reshape the forms and expectations of corporate governance through a series of punishments and rewards masquerading as policy (The New Legislation: Prosecutorial Discretion Guidelines and Corporate Compliance ("The temptations to move toward this shift of authority from the rule of law to the law of the exercise of discretion is especially irresistible where the prosecutorial organs of state power seek to protect against corruption or to further the governmentalization of enterprises through the institution of internal law systems (in the American parlance--compliance and monitoring programs designed to prevent, mitigate and avoid unlawful behaviors).  ")). In 2023, I thought about it this way: 

Pix Credit--"The Office (1999)

One of the most interesting development among those fixated on the enterprise of law has been the way that the formal structures of law making have been dissolving under the acid drip that is shift from law-command institutions (the classical operating mode of the state) to institutional systems grounded in the exercise of administrative discretion conferred on officials by law. Law, in effect, at least its classical expression, has retreated, and in its place one finds the administrator, the official, the individual (or soon the automated generative and sentient AI program) applying, enforcing, or embellishing the  structure or system making "command" of law. In the process, the direct interface between the individual who bears the burden of law (the objects of compliance) and those who impose it (traditionally legislatures and the judiciary) has also changed. The administrator--and increasingly the prosecutor--now stand between the individual and classical law. And the modalities of law do not reach the individual burdened with the responsibility for compliance. Rather, and increasingly, law's command--elaborated through the structures of regulatory governance (and effectuated through the exercise of administrative discretion)--is increasingly delegated to the individuals and entities  whose compliance are their object (e.g., here).  As a result--public legalities now wear two faces.  On the one hand, they are charged with overseeing compliance by the objects of regulation; on the other they oversee that compliance both by exercising discretion in enforcement, and by elaborating the conditions under which that discretion is to be exercised.  * * * None of this suggests judgment. None of this is sinister. It follows inevitably from the changing character of the state, and of the managerial expectations of public bodies. The incentive in compliance environments is to increasingly narrow private choice (and risk calculus) substituting for it the public policy choices of the state expressed through the administration of objectives-based regulation by its officials. ("Modern Times"--The Rise of State Managed Enterprises and the Role of the National Procuratorate in Market Economies like the United States)

 A change of Administration appears not to have slowed the pace of this transformation, though perhaps it is now targeted differently. It is with this in mind that one can read the Department of Justice Press Release which is meant (as is the style of these announcements in the current era)  to crow about some spectacular advance that brings joy to the masses:

The Department of Justice released today the first-ever Department-wide corporate enforcement policy for criminal matters, promoting uniformity, predictability, and fairness in how it pursues white-collar cases to protect the American people. “This Department of Justice is committed to transparency and fairness, and our first-ever Department-wide corporate enforcement policy is yet another example of that,” said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “ * * * “The Criminal Division has a long and storied history of corporate enforcement, and the corporate enforcement policy announced today takes the principles the Division has long promoted — disclosure, cooperation, and remediation — and applies them uniformly across the Department,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “* * * The Department-wide Corporate Enforcement Policy (CEP) provides concrete benefits to incentivize companies to voluntarily disclose discovered misconduct, cooperate with our investigations, and timely and appropriately remediate the wrongdoing. (Press Release: Department of Justice Releases First-Ever Corporate Enforcement Policy for All Criminal Cases)

Its substance has been analyzed by some of the major law firms (example here). The effects on corporate governance within a compliance framework, however remains the same. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made that clear enough: “Well-intentioned businesses know that, across the Department, they will be rewarded when they self-disclose wrongdoing, cooperate with our investigations, and remediate the misconduct. But for those that do not, make no mistake — we will not hesitate to seek appropriate resolutions against companies and individuals alike that perpetrate white collar offenses that harm American interests.” (Press Release)

The text of the Press Release and the Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy follow below.

 

Circulating Discussion Draft: "Blockchain Regulatory Systems—Conceptual and Operational Challenges"

 

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My co-author, Daniil Rose and I are delighted to circulate a discussion draft of a recently roughed out essay: Blockchain Regulatory Systems—Conceptual and Operational Challenges. The Abstract  gives one a fairly clear idea of our aim:

Abstract: This article challenges one of the most common assumptions in contemporary blockchain discourse: that code can be understood as a “rule” analogous to law. It argues instead that code is better conceived as a system, an environment, or even an ecology of layered rule frameworks through which regulation is produced, translated, and enforced. In the process of its creation, the human and human systemicity is displaced and subordinated. In the blockchain context, what is often described as the “Rule of Code” is not a singular rule of or by code but an interactive multilingual system of command that follows its own logic. From that premise, the article reorients the debate between Rule of Law and Rule of or by Code. The real conflict is not between two neatly opposing sovereigns, but between different regulatory ecologies that organize meaning in fundamentally different ways. The paper begins by framing blockchain as more than a technical tool, introducing it as a site where law, code, language, semiotics, and governance intersect in ways that unsettle conventional regulatory assumptions. It then develops its core argument through a series of analytical sections on the threats to the Rule of Code, the relationship between legitimacy and coded systems, and what the authors call the “Sacher-Torte” model, which shows how blockchain operates through layered communicative and regulatory environments rather than a single rule structure. Finally, the paper turns to the dialectic between traditional legal ordering and coded systems, concluding that the real challenge is not choosing between law and code, but understanding how human regulation can still operate at the points where these distinct systems meet and produce effects in the world.

The discussion draft may be accessed SSRN HERE; it may also be accessed on my personal website here: BACKER_ROSE_v1_Rule_of_Code_Blockchain4-2026. It follows below. Engagement always welcome.

 

CfP: "Metaphor and Legal Interpretation: A Rhizomatic Mapping of Law" International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

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I am delighted to pass along this announcement from my friend and colleague Ann Wagner (Lille) about an exciting call for papers (CfP) for a special issue of the Participating journal: International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique: Metaphor and Legal Interpretation: A Rhizomatic Mapping of Law. Here is the overview:

This special issue invites contributions that explore the role of metaphor in legal interpretation through the lens of law as a rhizomatic system of meaning. Moving beyond traditional, hierarchical conceptions of law as a stable structure of norms, this collection approaches law as a dynamic, non-linear, and semiotic process—one that is continuously reconfigured through interpretive practice. At the core of this project lies the proposition that metaphor is not merely a stylistic or rhetorical feature of legal language, but a fundamental cognitive and semiotic mechanism through which legal meaning is produced, structured, and transformed. Legal concepts such as rights, duties, responsibility, balance, and justice are not accessed directly; rather, they are mediated through metaphorical mappings that shape how they are understood, applied, and contested.

By situating legal interpretation within a rhizomatic framework, this issue reconceptualizes interpretation as a distributed and evolving process unfolding across multiple sites: judicial reasoning, legal doctrine, normative texts, and broader discursive environments. Legal meaning emerges through networks of connections, ruptures, translations, and reconfigurations, reflecting the multiplicity and fluidity of contemporary legal phenomena.

Suggested Topics: We welcome submissions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes:

--Metaphor as a cognitive and semiotic structure in legal reasoning
--The role of metaphor in judicial decision-making and doctrinal development
--Rhizomatic models of law and non-linear approaches to legal interpretation
--Metaphor and the construction of legal concepts (e.g., rights, sovereignty, responsibility)
--Dominant and alternative metaphors in legal discourse
--The transformative and disruptive potential of metaphor in law
--Legal semiotics and metaphor
--Philosophical hermeneutics and metaphor in legal interpretation
--Cognitive linguistics approaches to law
--Critical legal theory perspectives on metaphor and meaning
--Empirical analyses of metaphor in legal texts, judgments, or practice
--The role of metaphor in mediating between abstract legal norms and social realities

The full CfP follows below and may be accessed HERE. 

 

Full transcript of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," April 12, 2026

 

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Lately  Margaret Brennan, perhaps despite herself and the apparatus within which she is embedded, has produced some very interesting exchanges in the form of interviews, or what passes for interviews these days on the old school television show, "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," a baby boomer legacy project that has been restyled to survive even as  that demographic fades into history. See, for example,  Transactional Empire; or the Problem of Language When Merchant-Types Try to Speak to Old Guard Public Official-Types: Reflections on the Transcript of Secretary of State Marco Rubio on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Jan. 4, 2026.

That show and its interview style remains critically important for  illustrating both the merchant-type approach to analytics and action of the Trump Administration and some of its allies, as well as the difficulty for merchant-transactional-types to communicate with the old-guard inhabitants of the cognitive cages of reality shaping that marked the old era of vanguardist, institutional (nomenklatura) types--and vice versa. That challenge was brought out in the interview given by Secretary of State Rubio  in ways that skewed, and by skewing exposed the position of the writers and perhaps the network (but that is such an ordinary occurrence that it hardly merits mention--except to the extent that it, too, exposes the conceptual rift that makes communication between ancien regime and revolutionary cognitive approaches so difficult)) and their conceptual and reality rationalizing presumptions and those of  some of the people they interview. 

This enlightening incomprehensibility was also very much evident in the most interesting interview  by Margaret Brennan of  Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter. It is particularly interesting for exposing the communicative and conceptual gulfs that exist among the traditional techno-institutionalist type mindset (Interviewer Brennan) discussing issues with a transactional/warrior type (Ambassador Leiter) around the driving influence of the transactional/merchant type (U.S. President Trump) with respect to the shaping, analysis, and future of the US/Israel military confrontation with the Government of Iran. The wrinkle here is the difference between a transactional-merchant and a transactional-warrior type. They appear to share much of the orienting premises especially with respect to the iterative, mimetic and transactional character of relations that are more focused on deal making rather than broader institutional arrangements about which, at the margins, both types are indifferent (except to the extent that it threatens the environment in which transactional relationships may be undertaken. But where the deal may be  privileged among transactional-merchant types,  to be enforced and realized through transactional win-win expectations, the transactional warrior type approaches the transactional space as the privileged concept, the protection (or in the case of Israel the construction) of which serves as a predicate for the deal making which is the forte and driving impulse of the transactional merchant. This is enforced and maintained through military action--backgrounded within the cognitive cages of the transactional merchant but foregrounded for the transactional warrior. 

The transcript follows below.  What stands out most, perhaps understandably, are the gaps in the understanding of critical terms and the expectations built around conflict that separates  both the US transactionalist/merchant and techno-institutionalist from the transactional/warrior. In that respect the discussion about Lebanon and Hezbollah is particularly clarifying.

 

Text of Interview: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Hashem Ahelbarra of Al Jazeera

 

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 On 30 March 2026 Secretary of State was interviewed by Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Hashem Ahelbarra of Al Jazeera, the full text of which follows below. Al Jazeera's website describes Mr. Ahelbarra this way:

"Hashem Ahelbarra is a roving Middle East correspondent for Al Jazeera English. He regularly reports from Afghanistan, Yemen and across the Gulf region. Hashem has covered many of the biggest international news stories in recent years and secured exclusive interviews with many of the major names in world news, including late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and former Liberian president Charles Taylor."

The interview provided an opportunity to meet with a representative of a press organ that  does not have a reputation for uncritical coverage of the Trump Administration, and which projects in important ways into the MENA regions in ways that Western legacy press organs and their instruments cannot do with the same trustworthiness. The transcript of that interview was also projected (in English and Chinese) into China through the US Embassy in Beijing. The English version was complete; the Chinese version was curated to foreground very specific elements of that interview  (马尔科·卢比奥国务卿接受半岛电视台哈希姆·阿赫勒巴拉的采访[摘译] focusing on the Straits of Hormuz, NATO and the possible widening of operations by regional actors within the affected MENA region). The Chinese transcript also follows below. 

 The interview is interesting not just for its focus on the operations against Iran, but also on the nature of the US Israel joint operations (and their relative coordinated autonomy, and the situation in Venezuela and Cuba. Of particular interest ought to be the very very careful language about NATO and its future.

QUESTION:  Do you believe the EU and NATO countries betrayed the U.S. at this crucial moment?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think it was very disappointing.  You have this – and again, look, the President and our country will have to reexamine all of this after this operation is over.  But one of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is it gives us basing rights for contingencies.  It allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe.  And to see that in a time of need – the United States has identified a grave risk to our national security and our national interest, and we needed to conduct this operation, and we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our – of their bases.  And there are other countries that have done that as well. 

And so you ask yourself, “Well, what is in it for the United States?”  And I’ve been a big supporter of NATO and one of the reasons why I’ve been a supporter of NATO is because I believe that these basing rights give us leverage and give us flexibility in operational capability all over the world.  But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement.  That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States.  So all of that is going to have to be reexamined.  All of it’s going to have to be reexamined.

  

段 威 善于通过科学立法解决新问题 [Duan Wei Adeptly Resolving New Issues By Means of Scientific Legislation]

 

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Duan Wei (段 威), Dean and Professor, School of Law, Minzu University of China [中央民族大学法学院院长、教授] has published an interesting essay in  Qiushi [《求是》], Issue 4, 2026. It is entitled 善于通过科学立法解决新问题 [ Adeptly Resolving New Issues By Means of Scientific Legislation]. It is a reminder that the spirit of the 3rd Plenum's development and refinement of the concept of socialist modernization in the New Era of China's historical development has permeated deeply into virtually all aspects of institutional and collective life. That spirit focuses modernization on innovation and high quality production. Though its central focus may be in economic production, it is clear that the spirit of innovation and high quality production is meant to touch on all aspects of collective activity--including the production of legislation. 

To that end, Dean Duan Wei  invokes the concept of 通过科学 (scientific legislation). This is a term that is meant to convey both the spirit of innovation and the high quality production of legislative products to serve their highest purposes--to resolve new issues and in that way effectively contribute to the overall efforts of the nation  toward all around scientific modernization. That, in turn, may help reshape the notion and character of law making, and certainly its crafting--away from politics (the core function of the vanguard Communist Party rather than the legislative organs that are meant to realize or operationalize political decisions conforming to the fundamental political line). This focus on  通过科学 (scientific legislation), then, refocuses legislation from an autonomous activity to one deeply interconnected with all other aspects of socialist modernization, and an important element to ensure its appropriate fulfillment through a facilitating cage of regulation. 

Law, in this sense, assumes its fundamental character as a factor in the production of modernization. In that sense it is both an object and the closing of process that is meant to be efficient wile conforming to the normative parameters within value is assessed and understood. This shows up in four ways in the essay. The first is with respect to the inventory of legislation: "Through scientific legislation, we can resolve the thorny issues inherent in reform. We must uphold the dialectical unity of "breaking" and "establishing": actively and proactively enacting laws where needed, while—on the basis of established laws—timely dismantling outdated provisions where necessary." [通过科学立法破解改革难题。坚持破与立的辩证统一，该立的积极主动立起来，该破的在立的基础上及时破，在破立统一中推动实现改革发展蹄疾步稳。]. This invokes the ancient spirit of Guiguzi's (鬼谷子) rhetoric.

The second shows up as an interconnection between the Chinese Five Year plans (especially that of the 2025 4th Plenum) and its legislative architecture. In that sense  scientific legislation is meant as a means for aligning legislative projects with the general or principal contradiction of the New Era-- The contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and the unbalanced and inadequate development [人民日益增长的美好生活需要和不平衡不充分的发展之间的矛盾]."Through scientific legislation, we can resolve the "bottlenecks" and "chokepoints" hindering high-quality development. Currently, issues such as local protectionism and market fragmentation, "involuted" competition, and disparities in the business environment have emerged as pressing challenges that demand immediate attention." [通过科学立法解决高质量发展的堵点卡点问题。当前，地方保护和市场分割、“内卷式”竞争、营商环境存在差距等，已成为亟须回应的难题。].

The third aligns scientific legislation with the mass line. 群众路线是党的根本路线，这是由我们党的全心全意为人民服务的宗旨所决定的。["The Mass Line is the Party's fundamental guiding principle—a truth dictated by our Party's core purpose: to serve the people wholeheartedly. "]. "Through scientifically grounded legislation, we can effectively respond to the evolving demands of the public. By maintaining a problem-oriented and goal-oriented approach, we can drive the legislative process to extend from the macro level down to the micro level, thereby addressing the public's specific concerns with precision." [通过科学立法回应人民群众新诉求。坚持问题导向、目标导向，推动立法从宏观向微观延伸，精准回应群众关切。例如，针对医疗服务、养老服务、噪声污染防治等具体问题，通过“小切口”立法，精细化解决群众的实际困扰。]

The fourth is manifested in the utilization of law in ways that aligns with socialist development projected abroad. In that sense it is the production and deployment of objects and expectations that align with the  four main pillars of the overall policy initiative to fashion a "community with a shared future for mankind" [人类命运共同体]—Global Development (GDI), Security (GSI), Civilization (GCI), and Governance (GGI). "We will accelerate the development of a legal system applicable extraterritorially, clearly defining its scope, conditions, procedures, and enforcement mechanisms, to ensure that our law enforcement and judicial authorities have a legal basis upon which to act when addressing issues such as cross-border torts, economic and trade disputes, national security, and the protection of overseas interests," [加快推进域外适用的法律体系建设，明确适用的范围、条件、程序和实施机制，使我国执法司法机关在处理跨境侵权、经贸摩擦、国家安全、海外利益保护等问题时有法可依。]. It is this last one that will likely interest foreigners most bit it is also the manifestation that is least comprehensible without a deeper understanding of the first three.

通过科学 (scientific legislation), then, serves as an important signifier, connecting the production of legislation--as object, process, and manifestation of the fundamental line as elaborated in the 3rd and 4th Plenum of the 20th Congress--to socialist modernization, and with that to the fundamental task of Party of State in moving in the right direction along the Socialist Path.   Or, reversing the polarities of that last statement: the 3rd and 4th Plenum objectives will be signified through the intertwining of action and its cage of regulation, to those ends  the concept of  通过科学 (scientific legislation) signifies both. The full text of the essay ion the original Chinese and in an English translation follows below.  

 

Pix credit here (1976; "With Class Struggle as the Key Link, Set Off a New High Tide in Revolutionary Production)

President Trump's Civil War Messaging for Contemporary Battles: "America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of the Surrender at Appomattox"

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 Commemorations of past events sometimes tell one more about the present than the past.  That is certainly evident in recent messages from President Trump. One of the President's key policy and discursive focus is on peace: peace through strength, negotiated peace, peace as a cessation of hostilities, and peace as a transactional device necessary to build ether relationships or solidarity r just a platform for engagement (economic, social, cultural or political). On 9 April, and as part of the America at 250 campaign, the President circulated America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of the Surrender at Appomattox. 

Key themes are well worn--the preservation of the Union, even at the price of war; and the possibility of solidarity in the aftermath of conflict. Perhaps its key text was this:

General Grant understood that rebuilding a united America depended on the terms of surrender. Rather than demanding harsh punishment for General Lee’s men, he offered a unifying message: “The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again.” At last, the war-torn Union began the course for reconstruction and the path to fulfilling the founding principles that first breathed life into our Republic 250 years ago. To this day, the surrender at Appomattox stands as an enduring testament to the resilience of a divided Nation, the strength and resolve of the American people, and the sacred ideals at the heart of our national identity. Today, we recommit to the eternal truth that the United States of America is blessed from on high; bound together by justice; and was, is, and will forever be one Nation under God. (Ibid.) 

Its key elements are meant to be (1) "strength and resolve" (of the people, their national identity as a paramount force, (2) as its expression as justice, and (3)  exogenously tied to religious principle frame the core of the Trump Administration's discursive (re)construction of the Republic. It is a reconstruction aligned with the core element of the present fundamental political line the return to the American golden age (the US version of the Chinese great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" (实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦)) in the current era of historical development. It is one that can be achieved from out the the most violent fracture and assumes that what was ripped apart can be put together where solidarity is privileged over retribution.

But it has another element, one that the President brought out about a year earlier in another Memorandum:  Presidential Message on the 162nd Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. There the message was also clear--it is necessary to assert strength to bring the opponent to the negotiating table--not to obliterate them, but to draw them to a realistic negotiation of peace in the then current circumstances of the parties. "Emboldened by a string of recent Confederate victories, General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia launched an invasion of the North with a set of clear goals: push the fighting from war-torn Virginia past the Mason-Dixon line, defeat the Union troops on their own soil, and force President Abraham Lincoln into peace negotiations." Indeed, that was what both sides sought through strength and resolve. It was not that the strategy was bad; indeed the opposite was true. It was an excellent strategy--unless you lose. In that case one will come to the negotiating table, but with little to negotiate but surrender. Thus both the strategy and its caution--something that ought to be kept in mind in the context of the current conflict between US/Israel and Iran/allies/proxies. Having committed to peace through strength and resolve, it is something of a disaster to lose either one's resolve or to fail to assert strength fully--where the4 object is the negotiating table and peace. That will determine the role of the parties in  the "Appomattox" turn at the end of the US-Iranian conflict.

The full text of the Message follows.

 

CfP and Brief Reflections: "Repositioning Criminal Justice: Critical Reimaginings"

 

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The ancient contests over the goals and methods of criminal justice remains as contested as ever (see, e.g, here). The traditional binary--criminal justice as punitive and as rehabilitative has been enriched by  its ingestion of theory: natural law, critical theoretics, and identity lens (gender, race, nationality, ethnicity), over which frameworks grounded in battles over the meaning and character of foundational ordering principles (justice, privilege, bias, etc.) have added not just nuance to the micro-issue (justice and the individual) but also macro-issues (the structure and power relationships within social an political collectives through a variety of cognitive bases (gender, race, migratory status, etc.), to seek to "reposition" criminal justice, then, requires a deeper engagement in the now complex theoretical and functional (on the ground realities) foundations and structures that infuse debates around shifting from punitive, incarceration-focused models to systems prioritizing community investment, safety, and equity--and vice versa. The further complication, of course is that each of these terms are historically contingent, contextually variable, and the product of values based signification that produces states of discourse in which words  are invested with different meanings, values, and locations in normative systems that measure meaning against their own yardsticks. 

At one position in the spectrum, one might encounter critical reforms that can include abolishing cash bail, reducing pretrial detention, implementing restorative justice, and investing in community resources like mental health services. This approach is conceptualized within cognitive cages that start with the assumption of corrupting forces (race, gender, ethnicity, class (though this one tends to draw far more anemic interest), religion and the like) that embed apparently neutral systems with bias that must be systematically confronted and dismantled. In that context criminal reform is consequential rather than primary--the evidence if dismantling which remains the primary general object. The discourse tends to revolve around its effects in carcereal ecologies: mass incarceration, transitioning towards a system that supports rehabilitation, reentry, and addressing the root causes of crime. At the opposite end of the spectrum one might encounter criminal reforms that are grounded in the moral virtues of punishment and of the protection of society against the systemicity  of abuses of process and the moral force of the criminal law to effectively serve the collective. Rather than hold society accountable for incarceration, this lens inverts the analysis, starting from the premise that public safety ought to be foregrounded and that individuals ought to be held accountable for their behavior--especially those which the society, through law, has sought to suppress. The focus is on social stability and the avoidance of chaos. On the ground these are manifested in the obsession with crime statistics but from an perspective that may be the opposite (or at least discursively incomprehensible or anathema) to those applying a critical lens: public safety in criminal reform focusing on upholding justice, deterrence of future crimes, and ensuring incapacitation of dangerous individuals (as judged by society through its laws). Collective equality tends to be its driver in functional terms--proportional sentencing (with furious debate over and against what one measures proportionality), the value of incarceration as a tool for enhancing collective public safety through incarceration, and the moral value of a public facing (and internalized) embrace of retributive principles. While critical approaches focus on reforming systems (that are corrupted), moral/justice approaches focus on reforming or punishing the individual (who is corrupted). Depending on the starting point, then, the elaboration of analysis, judgment and proposals for assessment and reform will necessarily take very different pathways. 

It is with that in mind that I am delighted pleased to share a call for papers for an upcoming edited collection, Repositioning Criminal Justice: Critical Reimaginings.

This collection explores how criminal justice systems construct and respond to gender—particularly the ways women are othered, criminalised, and shaped by legal and institutional frameworks. We welcome contributions that engage critically with gendered issues in criminal justice from a range of theoretical perspectives, including (but not limited to) Marxist, post/decolonial, socio-legal, critical race, psychoanalytic, and critical legal studies approaches .

Submission details:Abstract (150–200 words) due: 15 May 2026
Full chapter (8,000–9,000 words) due: 26 February 2027

If you are interested in contributing, please send a draft title, abstract, and affiliation to m.beatrice@deakin.edu.au.

CfP follows below. 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Collaboration in Partnership with the African Telecommunications Union: Africa Technology Policy Tracker

 

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The  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Collaboration in Partnership with the African Telecommunications Union have created the Africa Technology Policy Tracker.  This is described as the "first ever continent-wide aggregate of digital economy laws, policies and regulations in Africa" (here).

AfTech is a research and policy tool that advances evidence-based policymaking in Africa’s rapidly evolving digital economy by providing a one-stop repository of national and continental technology frameworks. By cataloging policies across key pillars like digital infrastructure, platforms, skills, and innovation, AfTech makes it easy to explore, compare, and analyze policy actions shaping the continent’s digital future. AfTech offers valuable insights into the diverse approaches countries are taking toward digital governance. Our aim is to enhance visibility on the burgeoning digital policy environment in Africa and for AfTech to become an essential resource that informs decisionmaking, fosters cross-border collaboration, and helps guide the continent toward a more integrated and resilient digital economy. (here).

The focus is on development. This aligns both with the Chinese focus on socialist modernization with atonality characteristics organized around its global programs (the genesis of which was the Belt & Road Initiative) and the America First focus on development through bilateral transactions in markets that expand both production and capacity n home and host states. 

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 The spreadsheet of laws and regulations may be download HERE. 

Jane Munga has also prepared an accompanying policy brief: Africa’s Digital Infrastructure Imperative. The Introduction and "Key Takeaways" follows below.