“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”-- Ninth Amendment to the US Constitution When the Texas legislature decided to engage in the reapportionment of congressional districts...
This week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit -- which sits right below the Supreme Court -- is hearing a case of profound constitutional importance. It is the government’s appeal of a ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade, which...
When the IRS announced two weeks ago that it would not enforce a section of federal law commonly called the Johnson Amendment, many clerics rejoiced. The Johnson Amendment -- named for its author, then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson -- strikes a bargain with charities. You...
Last week, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., invalidated a plea agreement for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been incarcerated at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for 20 years. Mohammed has been charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder in...
“America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy ...She might become the dictatress of the world,But she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.”-- John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) In the middle of his term as Secretary of State, the future president...
We are independent of London, but are we independent of Washington? Is there more freedom when governed by one tyrant 3,000 miles away or by 3,000 tyrants a few miles away? Does government today remotely resemble the values articulated on July 4th 1776? When the...
We have seen this before. A foreign entity attacks American persons or property and the government warns that its sleeper cells have infiltrated the United States and it is somehow necessary to expand the powers of the government and shrink protections for civil...
Has the United States become what President Donald Trump recently condemned? Can the president fight any war he wishes? Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged? These questions...
The deployment of California National Guard troops and active-duty U.S. Marines onto the streets of Los Angeles is an assault on federalism, violates federal law and manifests a dangerous pattern of governmental behavior in defiance of constitutional principles and...
Last week, the Trump administration announced the streamlining of access to illegally seized personal data from unsuspecting Americans, thereby making warrantless domestic spying easier for the spies. Here is the backstory. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S....
All attempts by the government to evaluate the content of speech and deter or punish what the government and its benefactors hate or fear is un-American, unconstitutional and unlawful; and if not stopped, will reduce the American people to serfdom. During the past...
A recent Supreme Court oral argument about the liability of the FBI for invading and terrorizing the wrong home has brought to mind the dark and dangerous history of law enforcement. The practice of British agents rummaging through the private possessions on the...
What if the writ of habeas corpus has been guaranteed to the British since 1215 and to Americans since 1789? What if this encompasses the right of every person who is confined by the government against his or her will to compel the jailer to justify the confinement...
Among the lesser-known holes in the Constitution cut by the Patriot Act of 2001 was the destruction of the “wall” between federal law enforcement and federal spies. The wall was erected in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which statutorily limited...
Last week the FBI arrested a Wisconsin state judge as she was walking into the courthouse where she works. The feds had alerted the media -- but not the judge -- to this event, and they arrived and recorded the arrest. The standard and preferred practice when...
A little over a year ago, I spent a week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a university-like organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last year, the Academy addressed...
“That God, which ever lives and loves,One God, one law, one element,And one far-off divine eventTo which the whole creation moves.”-- Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) When American colonists were oppressed by British monarchs, the word most frequently uttered in...
“No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of [the Constitution’s] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.”-- Ex Parte Milligan, Supreme Court of the United States, 1866....
The U.S. Constitution was crafted in 1787 both to establish a new central government and to limit it. Some of the limitations are direct, some are subtle, and some are hidden. The chief instrument of limitation is the separation of powers, the brainchild of James...
“I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.”-- Voltaire (1694-1778) When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists’ grievances with the British government. Notably absent were...
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