This chapter explores the Spanish Inquisition’s interest in and attempts at censorship of printed texts with an eye to the steps and nuances of that process. It might appear as if the Spanish Inquisition was a formidable and relentless means of ideological control. Yet inquisitors’ implementation of censorship mandates was inevitably piecemeal because the institution’s personnel and authority were limited. Despite inquisitorial efforts, prohibited texts circulated through the Spanish empire, and bans did not apply equally to all the residents of Spanish territories. Some readers were licensed to consume prohibited texts; some banned texts escaped the libraries of those authorized to own them and circulated among the general reading public; the degree to which Spaniards were affected by the Inquisition’s textual regulations depended on their status. Scholars do not agree on the effects of inquisitorial censorship on Spanish intellectual and cultural life, and it remains a fruitful topic for investigation.

The final three chapters are dedicated to the censors’ third major concern: the representation of government. Chapter 5 focuses on representing monarchies, at home and abroad, through periods when kings were in power in France (until 1792 and from 1814 and 1815) and when they were declared enemies of the state. It examines not only monarchies in major new tragedies, high comedies, or drames for the principal Parisian theatres like the Comédie-Française or the Odéon, but also the afterlives of pre-existing plays like Tartuffe and the opéra-comique Richard, Cœur de Lion, and new propagandistic productions to celebrate the restored monarchy. Such plays encountered bureaucratic censorship, certainly, but also performances despite their bans in places like Caen, Bordeaux, and the Roer and Cantal departments. Additionally, thanks to dynamic lateral censorship from audiences and theatres alike, royal figures could become a thorn in the sides of monarchical and republican or imperial governments alike.

Transplant teams often reject organs offered to their patients for a variety of reasons, including the assessment that the qualities of the organs are too low. Rejections add to cold ischemic time, which makes low-quality organs even less desirable and thus increases the risk of nonuse. Recent changes by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the way it assesses organ procurement organizations (OPOs) and the more credible threat these changes pose to their local monopolies have incentivized the recovery of more low-quality organs. A change in the organizational report card for transplant centers has incentivized lower-volume transplant centers to reject more low-quality organs despite risk adjustment. The OPTN has developed several policies, such as offer filters, that attempt to reduce the number of organ offers transplant centers receive that they are unlikely to accept. The increasing rates of organ nonuse and the recognition that continuous distribution (CD) could help address it or make it worse led to the Expeditious Task Force and the postponement of the finalization of CD proposals for kidneys and pancreases.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution empowers the President to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” The seemingly simple language of this clause in the Constitution obscures a number of complicated questions about the scope and nature of this presidential power. For example – may Congress play a role in a president’s decision on pardons? Can the President grant a pardon for both state and federal crimes? Is the President required to fully pardon someone, or may he place conditions on the pardon? And, can a president pardon himself?

This essay examines the remarkable phenomenon of “life stories,” which the Spanish Inquisition required of its defendants after 1561. The narratives offered by defendants fit into a wider cultural context in two ways. First, they match a rise in autobiographical consciousness which was increasingly present in all sorts of Spanish literature in the sixteenth century. Second, the life stories demanded by Spanish inquisitors also.

Chapter 3 examines what the right’s institutional infrastructure has consisted of and how it has operated. Focusing on this right-wing infrastructure – the set of organizations, institutions, and groups essential to enable, maintain, and enhance rightist political goals and environment – helps us to analyze how different organizations play distinct but interconnected roles, complement one another (albeit conflicting at times), and reinforce their common political causes. During the authoritarian period (1961–87), the mainstream conservative party, state apparatuses, state-sponsored organizations, and conservative media were used by the governments to control citizens and promote state propaganda. Following democratization, state power was decentralized and the possibility of future military coups was eventually ended, but the democratic transition did not completely undo the ancien régime. I argue that, despite the overthrow of formal authoritarianism, the organizational infrastructures that helped sustain past regimes are still present in the post-authoritarian period and play a key role in perpetuating conservative values and obstructing social, political, and economic reforms. By describing how right-wing organizations and state institutions have interacted, formed a broad alliance for shared purposes, and served as the critical bedrock of the right-wing ecosystem, this chapter emphasizes the interactive and relational nature of right-wing entities.

It’s one thing to say a sitting president can be civilly sued for personal capacity conduct, as the Court held in Clinton v. Jones. It’s quite another to say that a sitting president can be indicted for a crime. Or are they so different? The courts have never addressed this question. The Department of Justice (DOJ) in three Office of Legal Counsel memos (1974, 2000, and 2019) answered in the negative. Other lawyers and legal scholars disagree.

In addition to the more debated presidential powers discussed in the previous chapters of this book, the President can also exercise several less controversial powers. Among these powers are the power to seek the opinions of executive officers, the power to appoint ambassadors, federal judges, and other officers of the United States, and the right to provide Congress information on the state of the union.