g Threats to the Constitution
Threats to the Constitution

This section is about general concerns about the violation of the U.S. Constitution.  The Constitution seems to be routinely ignored now, even by those at the uppermost levels of our government who have sworn to uphold it.

Recently, extremists on the political left have begun to engage in mocking derision * of the people who point out that most of the 21st Century activities of the federal government are unconstitutional, i.e., they are illegal.  The Constitution will become irrelevant if its violations are consistently ignored.  It may already be too late.

It is probably impossible to expect the return to strictly Constitutional government in our lifetimes, because Americans by and large are comfortable with the status quo.  But strictly speaking, there is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes direct payments to individuals, or the exploration of other planets, or the prosecution of any crime other than counterfeiting, piracy or treason.  Anything outside of the "enumerated powers" of the federal government is supposed to be left up to the states, or to the people.  In other words, if General Electric wants to waste money on a trip to Mars, that's okay, because G.E. isn't taking money out of our paychecks.

Read the Constitution for yourself.  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

Many people who have not read it for themselves would be surprised to learn that "separation of church and state" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.  Nor is the word "immigration".  Nor is there anything about the federal funding for education.  Nor is there any provision for emergency management, for example, cleaning up after a hurricane.  Nor is there anything that would authorize our government to fix other countries' problems, for example, AIDS in Africa.*  All those activities, according to the Constitution, are to be left to the states, private companies, churches, charities, and individual citizens.

Most recently, there is a massive push toward socialized medicine in the United States.  There is nothing at all in the Constitution that would authorize the federal government to take over the medical industry, or to require us to buy health insurance.  People might tend to think that such a move is legal, since the government has just recently taken over General Motors and Chrysler, but those takeovers were illegal, too.

With the newspapers in decline, there may be some temptation to accept "help" from the federal government.  But that is an obvious threat to the First Amendment (isn't it?) and that topic is discussed here.

Related topics on nearby pages

The Nationalization of GM and Chrysler -- unprecedented and unconstitutional.

Obama's so-called czars -- blatantly unconstitutional.

The So-Called Stimulus Bill -- clearly unconstitutional.

The Wall Street Bailout of 2008 -- obviously unconstitutional.

So-called Campaign Finance Reform is unconstitutional.

So-called Affirmative Action is unconstitutional.

Socialized medicine is unconstitutional.

Gun control is unconstitutional.

Social Security is unconstitutional.

I have my doubts about the USA Patriot Act.

It's Time to Scrap NASA because nothing NASA does is authorized by the Constitution.

Poverty and Dependency in America -- Poverty is not the federal government's problem.

Medicare, Medicaid, and Prescription Drug Benefits


The Biden Democrats don't respect the Constitution.  Under the 14th Amendment we are entitled to equal protection of the law.  Racial preferences are prohibited.  The "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" agenda, known as DEI, creates favored groups based on skin color and other arbitrary distinctions.  The 2nd Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" is under attack again.  Biden just announced a "federal center" to support "red flag laws."  Those laws empower bureaucrats and left-wing judges to confiscate a citizen's firearms without notice and a court hearing.  In comparison we have more legal protection against involuntary commitment for insanity.  Our 1st Amendment right of freedom of speech has been diluted by a conspiracy of the Biden Democrats and social media companies who claim that there is a "misinformation" exception from the 1st Amendment.

Ketanji Brown Jackson Defenestrates the First Amendment.  At her confirmation hearings, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson claimed she lacked the expertise to define "woman."  Just two years later, she did not hesitate to redefine the First Amendment and free speech as she advocated for the regime to bulldoze our Constitutional liberties provided they offer sufficiently sanctimonious justifications.  At Monday's oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, Jackson said her "biggest concern" was that the injunction, which prohibits the Biden Administration from colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans, may result in "the First Amendment hamstringing the Government."  This, apparently, was of greater concern to Jackson than the revelations that the Intelligence Community held ongoing meetings with social media companies to coordinate censorship demands, that the White House explicitly demanded the censorship of journalists, and that the Department of Homeland Security was instrumental in manipulating citizens ahead of the 2020 presidential election.  But according to Jackson's outlook, those facts may have actually been encouraging.  She scolded counsel, "Some might say the Government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country."

Justice Jackson Complains First Amendment Is 'Hamstringing' Feds' Censorship Efforts.  Free speech is on trial at the Supreme Court, but Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson is no fan of the First Amendment.  The Constitution, you see, limits the government.  But leftists want unlimited government — which is why they hate the Constitution.  During Monday's oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri, formerly known as Biden v. Missouri, Jackson claimed to oppose any ruling in favor of Americans' constitutional right to free speech if it limited the government's ability to censor that speech via Big Tech.  "My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods," Jackson told Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga.  [Tweet]  Jackson expressed skepticism at reigning in the federal government's unconstitutional censorship pressure campaign because "some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country" that goes far beyond simply posting its own speech or engaging in constitutional means of securing citizens from violence.

The Editor says...
 Justice Jackson apparently doesn't understand the purpose of the Bill of Rights.  Or maybe she does, which would be even worse.

Judge Rules Corporate Transparency Act Unconstitutional.  Feds Enforce It Anyway.  Show of hands:  Does anyone have a small business that survived the COVID-19 lockdowns?  How about the nation's crime spike?  Inflation?  For those of you who may still have your hands up, get ready for yet another piece of aggravating news that may or may not affect you.  It may not, but it probably will.  If you have an LLC, it most definitely will.  Without much fanfare or even notice, on January 1, 2024, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) went into effect.  Depending on your business, you have until January 1, 2025, to file the pertinent data about your business in a Beneficial Ownership Information report with the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCen.  The report lets the government know who owns or controls your company. [...] Are you outraged?  As the old saying goes, you ain't seen nothin' yet.  A judge has ruled that the CTA is unconstitutional.  Despite that, the government is going to go ahead and enforce it.

Criminals in Black Robes.  In Hawaii, a man named Christopher Wilson was charged with a felony for violating three gun laws, but the charges were dismissed by a Hawaii circuit court in 2022.  The court reasoned that the charges against Wilson violated his right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution.  Recently, however, the circuit court's ruling was reversed by the Hawaii Supreme Court. [...] Without a doubt, however, many other states will soon adopt the Aloha standard, and our law schools will incorporate the doctrine in their curricula, along with coursework on micro-aggressions, DEI transgender rights for toddlers, and climate-friendly cuisine.  To me, these Hawaii justices are no more than thugs, and should be treated as such.  Unfortunately, we see criminals in black robes every day and, were we to add in the many corrupt prosecutors who choose the cases heard by justices, we could probably fill a good-sized auditorium with them.

The Aloha Court just overruled the U.S. Supreme Court.  In 2008, the United States Supreme Court decided in the Heller case that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies not just to militias, but also to individual people.  While militias are mentioned in the Amendment, the noun to which the right is granted is the "people."  Individuals are "people."  After Heller, much teeth-gnashing and garment-rending ensued from the left.  They had hoped that the Second Amendment applied only to militias.  There being essentially no legal militias in the country anymore, that would mean the Second Amendment would apply to nobody.  And so, nobody could have guns.  Well, nobody could have guns legally. [...] Heller has been the law of the land for the 15 years since it was decided. [...] Ah, but then came along another Supreme Court.  Namely, the Supreme Court of Hawaii.  Call them the Aloha Court since, as we'll see, they sort of call themselves that.  Like other states, Hawaii has a state constitution.  It's a relatively recent one since Hawaii is a relatively recent state.  It dates to just 1949.  The Hawaii state constitution contains a parallel to the Second Amendment.  In fact, the Hawaii parallel is identical to the Second Amendment with the exception of a couple of inconsequential commas.  Hawaii nonetheless has a state law restricting the carrying of firearms.  A Hawaii resident disobeyed that law.  He was prosecuted.  His defense was that the state law was in violation of the Supreme Court's decision in Heller.  His case went up to the Aloha Court.

Hawaii court says 'spirit of Aloha' supersedes Constitution, Second Amendment.  Hawaii's highest court ruled Wednesday that Second Amendment rights as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court do not extend to Hawaii citizens, citing the "spirit of Aloha."  In the ruling, which was penned by Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins, the court determined that states "retain the authority to require" individuals to hold proper permits before carrying firearms in public.  The decision also concluded that the Hawaii Constitution broadly "does not afford a right to carry firearms in public places for self defense," further pointing to the "spirit of Aloha" and even quoting HBO's TV drama "The Wire."  "Article I, section 17 of the Hawaii Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution," the Hawaii Supreme Court decision states.  "We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court.  We hold that in Hawaii there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public."

Hawaii Defies Bruen Ruling, Voids Second Amendment in Aloha State.  In a remarkable reinterpretation of the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii ruled on Wednesday that an individual exercising rights guaranteed under that Amendment was guilty of violating the state's laws supporting that right.  If that seems counter-intuitive to you, you're not alone.  In its ruling the Supreme Court of the State of Hawaii noted that the wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is identical with the wording in Hawaii's constitution:  ["]Article I, section 17 of the Hawai'i Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.["]  However, the high court in the Aloha State took great pains — 53 pages of them — to reinterpret it:  ["]We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court.  We hold that in Hawai'i there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.["]

Hawaii's Supreme Court Insists There Is No Individual Right to Arms.  In the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms.  It reaffirmed that conclusion two years later in McDonald v. Chicago, which applied the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment.  And in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court held that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" extends beyond the home.  The Hawaii Supreme Court thinks all of those cases were wrongly decided.  In a ruling issued on Wednesday, the court sides with the Heller dissenters by embracing the view that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" — unlike "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" (protected by the First Amendment), "the right of the people" to be secure from "unreasonable searches and seizures" (protected by the Fourth Amendment), and the unspecified rights "retained by the people" under the Ninth Amendment — does not guarantee any individual rights.  Rather, the Hawaii Supreme Court says, the Second Amendment refers to a "collective right" that is relevant only in the context of militia service.

Texas Rebellion?  The issues in Texas have much greater consequence than a mere state's rights issue.  It is a question of national legitimacy.  Is the Constitution the legal and rightful expression of American government or is America now simply a mass of lawless land?  Is the president a dictator who can ignore the laws passed by congress, invite thousands of terrorists and foreign armies in without consequence, or is he bound by the laws as much as the states and the people?  When will the people punish him for this lawlessness?  The Constitution, for all of its flaws, shields the people from the government and serves as a limitation on the powers of the government.  It stands in the way of the power of government and as such has been attacked by government officials from the day it was presented to the people. [...] The issues are simple.  Does the executive branch have the right to ignore laws passed by the congress?  That would violate the separation of powers.  Does the executive branch have the right to forfeit national security simply because it is charged with maintaining it?  That would seem to violate national security, a crime, a felony.  If the executive branch can, and indeed has, violated the laws and endangered the nation, particularly damaging the border states, is it not within the power of those states and the people to defend themselves?

Pelosi Suggests States Can Overrule Constitution and Ban Trump From Presidential Ballot.  Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Sunday suggested the states can overrule the US Constitution and ban Trump from the presidential ballot.  Pelosi appeared on ABC's "This Week" to discuss Trump's Colorado ballot appeal to the US Supreme Court with host George Stephanopoulos.  Last week President Trump asked the US Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to bar him from the 2024 ballot.  The Colorado Supreme Court last month disqualified Trump from the 2024 ballot.

When It Gets Bad Enough. To whatever extent a piece of paper can be a nation, the Constitution was a good effort and the principles it embraced and codified were outstanding, but they were only the principles that pre-existed the Constitution, they were not created by it.  It was the other way around.  I will never give up on those principles and to whatever degree another constitution can be written, or strengthening and putting some draconian penalties for violations of the one that already exists, it's worth a try, but make no mistake, whatever America is to be will be up to Americans to sort out in the next weeks and years as the old one collapses.  The government now in charge largely through violations of the Constitution, in violations of any form of popular democracy, owing its current configuration to communist principles of an autocratic ruler through dictate is not American in principle or ideology, it is Hegelian in nature and function.  Resistance to the government now, is resistance to communism.

Democrats Discover A New 'Threat To Democracy' — The U.S Constitution.  We've been cataloging how the left has taken to labeling every candidate it doesn't like and every policy it opposes a "threat to democracy."  But even we were surprised to see the U.S. Constitution itself added to the list of these threats.  MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell said over the weekend that: "The Constitution has some profoundly anti-democratic, which is to say anti-democracy components, like the Electoral College and the two senators per state, for example."  Mind you, this aired on Sept. 15, just two days before Constitution Day, which this year marked the 236th anniversary of its signing.  O'Donnell was talking to Jamelle Bouie, a New York Timers [sic] columnist, who after nodding his head in agreement with O'Donnell, added that "I think we've witnessed over the last couple years especially with the attempt to overturn the election, the ways that the constitution, its rules, can actually be used against what Americans think identify as a Democracy."

A gun grab to test the waters.  Democrats are testing the waters for a national gun grab.  On Friday in New Mexico, the governor, a Second Amendment foe, tried to take legal guns away from one of her cities. [...] Let no one be fooled:  This is Step One to see if Americans are paying attention and if they have the stones to fight back.  If they are not and don't, this will go national and the Second Amendment will fall.  Democrats are clever.  They won't try this in a large, populous city with national attention.  They will try dying a corner of the fabric first to see if the color is good for the whole garment.  It seems the Guv got national attention anyway, probably because of the outrageousness of the grab.  Our Constitution is a paper document with nothing to protect it from being burned to ashes.  Unless the People rise up against this gun grab, the rest of us will be forever unprotected against what has become The Beast that is governmental overreach.

America's top law schools are openly abandoning the Constitution.  America was founded as a nation that had the rule of law.  The Constitution is the fount of those laws.  It, in turn, looks back to the best of the British legal system.  The Constitution is what has maintained stability in America and, when we've erred as a nation, it's the compass that has put us back on the path of ordered liberty.  And for 250 years, America's lawyers have been the repository of constitutional wisdom and the guardians of the rule of law.  That's why every one of us should be deeply concerned by a report showing that, at the nation's ostensibly "top" law schools, professors are attacking the Constitution and demanding its deletion.

Democrats Have Broken America:  Where's the Outrage?  The Democrats have an ace in the hole in their relentless war on the Constitution — conservative America's reverence for the concept of the rule of the law.  Only their steadfast commitment to this traditional ideal explains why conservatives are allowing Democrats to flagrantly corrupt our judicial system to destroy their opponents and protect themselves.  For all their huffing and puffing, conservatives have effectively taken a let the system play itself out attitude while Democrats nakedly politicize that system through their partisan indictments of former President Trump and their Potemkin Village probes of the Bidens.  These are not statements of opinion.  These are facts.  Part of me is glad that so many legal analysts have spilled so much ink exposing these charades.  But we degrade our country and ourselves when we treat this unspeakable behavior with anything other than horrified contempt.  Every good-faith critique normalizes and legitimizes this profoundly un-American conspiracy.

The scariest poll you'll see this summer.  A majority of Americans — and an overwhelming number of Democrats — no longer support First Amendment protections for free speech.  The government should restrict "false" information online, even if doing so blocks people from "publishing or accessing information," 55 percent of Americans said in a large poll released Thursday.  Only 42 percent disagreed.  The antipathy to free speech represents a sea change in attitudes in just five years.  It is driven by a powerful new hostility to First Amendment rights on the left.

Extremist Democrats are openly calling for the destruction of the Supreme Court.  When spoiled toddlers lose a game, they often try to change the rules or otherwise throw a tantrum.  That's how former President Donald Trump handled losing the 2020 election.  And it's evidently how top progressive members of Congress — who endlessly criticize Trump — are handling a slew of recent defeats at the Supreme Court.  The conservative-majority Supreme Court recently ruled against racial discrimination in college admissions, against President Joe Biden's attempt to twist the law to spend $430 billion on a student loan bailout against Congress's wishes, and against LGBT activists in a free speech case.  Progressive Democrats are not taking these decisions well.  Indeed, they're responding by effectively calling to destroy the Supreme Court as we know it.

We Need a Constitution That Means What It Says.  Take, for instance, the Supreme Court's ruling last week that state legislatures do not have the sole discretion to determine how federal elections will be run in those states.  Instead, state courts are given veto power over the decisions of the legislature.  The mainstream media (and of course their Democratic Party allies) celebrated the court's decision in Moore v. Harper that rejected the so-called "independent state legislature" theory.  The New York Times called the theory "dangerous."  Vox said the ruling was a "big victory for democracy."  Those who supported the independent state legislature "theory" were called extreme, fringe, radical, and worse.  In other words, they were Trump supporters.  The only problem is that if the theory is extreme, then so is the U.S. Constitution, because no matter how much the 6-3 majority insists otherwise, it isn't a theory at all.  It is the plain language of the Constitution.

Shellenberger: The Government Funding Someone Else To Censor Information Is Still A First Amendment Violation.  Michael Shellenberger, who testified at the "Twitter Files" hearing last month, talked to Joe Rogan about working on the project and what they found about how intelligence agencies infiltrated social media companies. [...] "What you're looking at is the apparatus that was created by the war on terror over the last 20 years starting after 9/11," Shellenberger said about the censorship bureaucracy that has appeared recently, and the social ecosystem that supports it.  "Aspen is funded by the U.S. government, Stanford is funded by the U.S. government... We're talking about U.S. government-funded organizations."  "They created something called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security to supposedly protect the media environment from foreign influence.  They created something called the foreign influence task force within the FBI to basically start policing domestic speech on those platforms.  They start organizing all the different social media companies to participate in these meetings."  "If the U.S. government is censoring information, that is obviously a violation of the first amendment.  But if the U.S. government is funding somebody else to censor information, that is also a violation of the first amendment," he said.

Even If You Hate Trump, You Should Be Standing With Him Now.  On Friday, a 33-year-old Trump supporter named Douglass Mackey was convicted of election interference and faces up to ten years in prison for tweeting pro-Trump memes during the 2016 election.  According to a Friday press release from the "Justice" Department, Mackey faces up to ten years in prison for memes such as this.  Vaughn tweeted a photo of what looked like a Hillary ad, but was actually a parody of a Hillary ad.  The caption read:  "Avoid the line.  Vote from home.  Text 'Hillary' to 59925.  Vote for Hillary and be a part of history."  The Justice Unless You Support Trump Department explained that this was a heinous crime because "Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to 'vote' via text message or social media which, in reality, was legally invalid."  That sounds terrible, right?  Yet the Justice Department, according to the Post Millennial, "was unable to provide evidence that anyone was deceived by the meme."  What's more, at least one memester on the other side did exactly the same thing, and was never arrested or tried, and faces no prison time.

The Warnings Unheeded Now Threaten Our Fundamental Freedoms.  The First Amendment is at a critical juncture.  Recent congressional hearings on the Twitter Files brought the matter into full public view.  Freedom of speech and of the press are hanging by a precarious thread.  Do we want a future in which information flows freely, or one in which an information elite controls those flows "for our own good?"  The choices we make over the next few years will determine which of those futures we get.  It's tragic that we have let the problem reach this dangerous state.  What heightens the tragedy, however, is that the war against America's most cherished freedoms was predictable and preventable.  If those of us who value freedom want to win, we're going to need a strategy grounded in a clear understanding of what's happening and why.  The Twitter Files story is shocking.  Allegations that big tech and social media manipulate information have been around for as long as we've had tech and social media companies.  Allegations of bias among the mainstream media are even older.  In recent years, however, both the allegations and the supporting evidence have ratcheted upward to unprecedented levels.

Politico isn't quite sure about the Constitution anymore.  The state of journalism is such that an editor at one of the premier publications covering the federal government apparently doesn't know that the United States is, in fact, a Republic.  A representative democracy that is built upon federal principles where sovereignty is divided among various levels of government with different roles and responsibilities.  Some powers are reserved to the various levels, and with a national legislative branch where both the people as a whole and the states themselves as separate sovereign entities have representation.  There's a handy guide to how this works, and it is called the Constitution of the United States.  There is also an instruction manual called the Federalist Papers, after which the Federalist Society is named.

Obama and Other Democrats Are Destroying the First Amendment by Design.  The Democrat Party is conducting a full-scale attack on the First Amendment and on those who dissent from the Democrat Party line on any and all topics.  Leading the charge is Barack Hussein Obama, with the minions in the Biden regime implementing anti-free-speech campaigns behind the scenes as feverishly as they can be divined.  In a speech given at Stanford University last year, Barack Obama declared himself to be a "First Amendment absolutist" while calling for social media regulations.  The self-described constitutional law professor needs to reread the First Amendment, as well as the Federalist Papers, to understand how the latter recommendation completely contradicts his absolutist claim.

God-given Rights and the Schools.  Our Founding Fathers believed that our rights are inalienable, incapable of being surrendered or transferred, because they are given to us by our Creator.  Our rights do not come from government — they come from God.  Our Founding Fathers recognized that by codifying rights, the definition and scope of the rights becomes legitimate points of debate, hence they did not originally want to write the Bill of Rights. [...] Enumerated rights are a target for government control and regulation.  Consider the current conversations concerning the right of free speech and the right to bear arms.  Free speech is being limited by the arbitrary assertion that only non-offensive speech is permitted.  The right to bear arms is considered acceptable only if the arms are just for sport hunting and are licensed by the government. [...] The devastating increase in the number of adults intentionally undermining the relationship between parents and their children is alarming and must not continue.  I applaud the efforts of legislators seeking to fix this tragedy.  God-given parental rights cannot be enumerated.  The solution lies in laws that define, identify, and punish the offenders.

Senator Cardin: Hate Speech is Not Protected by First Amendment.  Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md) is ending 2022 on an ominous note after declaring that "if you espouse hate... you're not protected under the First Amendment." The statement is obviously untrue, but it is only the latest example of the eroding support for free speech in Congress and the country at large.  It is particularly chilling for one of the nation's most powerful politicians (sworn to "support and defend the Constitution") to show either a lack of knowledge or lack of fealty to the First Amendment.  He is not the first Democratic leader to make this clearly erroneous statement about the Constitution.  Politicians such as Howard Dean have previously voiced the same view.  The First Amendment does not distinguish between types of speech: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."  Indeed, the language was explained most succinctly by Justice Hugo Black in Smith v.  California:  "I read 'no law ... abridging' to mean no law abridging."  While the court has distinguished "fighting words," criminal threats and other narrow categories, it does not bestow the government the open right to strip protection of speech that it deems "hateful."

J6 Committee Member Jamie Raskin Attacks Bedrock of Constitution as 'Danger' to American People.  Members of Congress swear to uphold the Constitution.  As part of the Jan. 6 Committee, Democratic members of Congress called the riot an "attack on democracy" and sought to smear any Republicans who dared to raise questions about the 2020 election as also "attacking democracy."  Now, of course, trying to smear Republicans who raised questions or objected to electors was ridiculous, given that is provided for within the Constitution.  But it was beyond hypocritical given Committee members like Raskin had themselves objected to accepting electors in the past.  Here he is objecting to accepting electors when President Donald Trump was elected.  [Tweet]

Democrat Crime Policies Pave The Way For Destroying Constitutional Rights.  The Democrats' habit of encouraging criminal lawlessness is not merely intended to terrorize the population.  Instead, by removing any accountability for lawless or destructive acts, leftists are making it possible for them to erase both the First and Second Amendments.  Thus, by creating an environment in which it appears that the First and Second Amendments are destructive, they can justify prohibiting those rights.  Elon Musk's recent disclosure of the "Twitter papers" reveals little that we didn't already know to be true about Twitter censoring conservatives and undermining elections at the behest of government agencies and officials.  This behavior reveals unequivocally how leftists see the Constitution as an obstacle.  The danger to their political power arises when people are free to express and protect themselves.  Ultimately, what leftists perceive as the most serious "threat to democracy" is the Bill of Rights itself, especially the first two amendments (speech and the right to bear arms).  Leftist claims to the contrary, the right to speak freely and defend yourself is the essence of democracy.  Voting is an act of free expression, and an armed population preserves that right.  How liberals can justify their blatant inversion of this reality is anyone's guess.  So far, they haven't had to.

One more insult to add on to the Jan. 6 junk pile.  Pelosi's rogue Jan. 6 panel has added to its previous illegitimate actions, violating the terms of the House resolution establishing the committee, by issuing a subpoena to former president Trump.  If this wayward action by this rabid, partisan committee is upheld by the courts, we shall have an unconstitutional amendment to the Constitution providing for parliamentary government, with the president answerable to Congress.  Erased by congressional fiat, supported by the Judiciary, will be the important concept of separation of powers established by the Founding Fathers.  Clearly, the courts must act with prudential speed to put a halt to Pelosi's assault on the Constitution — if the Judiciary is to honor its oath to support, uphold, and defend the Constitution of the United States.  And the Republican members of House and Senate must rise in solidarity to declare their opposition to the rogue nature of Pelosi's puppet panel, comprising its violation of the terms of House Res. 503, the committee's organizing resolution, as well as the blatant disregard of the principle of separation of powers, a key building block of the Constitution.  Systemic hatred of Donald J. Trump is no excuse for tearing down the Constitution and erecting a Potemkin governmental compact in its place, a compact that varies with the whims and prejudices of the leaders of the Democrat party.

Leftists are torching the Constitution for conservatives.  Radicals are determined to ignore the Constitution without doing so publicly, thereby destroying it without actually saying that's what they want to do.  And so the left have simply decided to ignore the constitutional protections that Americans enjoy against governmental overreach.  They hate that the Constitution mandates "due process" for those living under it.  Today, due process is vanishing.  It vanished on January 6 of 2021, when almost a thousand people were arrested and thrown in jail, many kept there to this day without being charged, without being allowed attorneys, and under conditions most often reserved for early French prisons.  A year later, the Justice Department and FBI are still working on charging those involved.  That isn't "due process."  What was done and is still being done to these people is the stuff of Russia, not America.  Merrick Garland has no problem with Beria's "show me the man, and I'll find you the crime."  You don't lock people up because you hate them and then try to find a crime.  There was no legal reason to raid Donald Trump's residence and then go hunting for a crime.  This was sheer malignant revanche.  Christopher Wray finds nothing wrong with suiting up his storm troopers in the FBI to conduct the Mar-a-Lago raid without cause.

What An Article V Convention Might Mean.  Imagine both political parties attending the same national convention, at the same time, with progressive insiders controlling credentials, rules, issues committees, and voting procedures.  Participants would include not just conservative Republicans, but Democrats, RINOs, socialists, Green New Dealers, Supreme Court packers, gun controllers, police de-funders, big spenders, Roe v.  Wade codifiers, teacher unions, Anthony Fauci fans, Electoral College critics, race-obsessed wokesters, social justice warriors, and peaceniks who would balance the federal budget by disbanding the Department of Defense.  What sort of constitution would emerge from delegates who are Anthony Fauci fans, COVID-19 vaxxers, mask mandaters, wokesters, and other progressives and swampy RINOs from the Administrative State?  An Article V convention is not the mechanism to take back and rein in our federal government, it's the principal vehicle to hijack and irrevocably destroy our Republic.  Liberty would doubtlessly survive an Article V Constitutional Convention; it would be the first target of the Administrative State seeking to permanently consolidate its current unconstitutional powers.  Simply put, as Justice Scalia warned before a gathering of the Federalist Society, in Morristown, New Jersey, on May 8, 2015, "A constitutional convention is a horrible idea," adding, "This is not a good century to write a constitution."

Those Who Want to Destroy the Constitution.  On Friday, The New York Times published its latest op-ed calling for the end of the Constitution of the United States.  The authors, Ryan Doerfler and Samuel Moyn, teach law at Harvard and Yale respectively.  They argue that the Left's progress has been stymied by constitutionalism itself.  "The idea of constitutionalism," they correctly write, "is that there needs to be some higher law that is more difficult to change than the rest of the legal order.  Having a constitution is about setting more sacrosanct rules than the ones the legislature can pass day to day."  This, of course, orients the process of law toward the past:  there are certain lines that simply cannot be crossed.  And, as Doerfler and Moyn point out, "constitutionalism of any sort demands extraordinary consensus for meaningful progress."  And herein lies the problem for Doerfler and Moyn: constitutions "misdirect the present into a dispute over what people agreed on once upon a time, not on what the present and future demand for and from those who live now."  The solution, they say, lies in dispensing with the Constitution entirely; the proper solution to the Constitution is in "direct arguments about what fairness or justice demands."

Manchin and Collins Violate Their Oaths by Stressing Un-American Stare Decisis.  If a precedent clearly conforms to the Constitution, then regard for stare decisis is unnecessary for a precedent-aligned ruling; all a justice need do is reference the Constitution and he'll vote incidentally in accordance with the precedent.  If the precedent doesn't conform to the Constitution, it is then illegal and should be overturned, which a justice will vote to do if he, again, references the Constitution.  In other words, exalting stare decisis serves no legitimate purpose.  The people doing so are generally individuals who dislike the Constitution's dictates, but know they could never amend the document (get the people's consent) in accordance with their wishes.  So they instead uphold this notion that convenient "precedent" — i.e., the will of a handful of judges — should supersede the supreme law of the land, the Constitution.

A Democrat finally says out loud what they all think about the Constitution.  The Democrats have made it plenty clear over the years that they don't like the Constitution as written.  They hate free speech, a free press, religion that is free from government intervention, and most of all the Second Amendment and its clear recognition of every citizen's inherent right to bear arms.  Unable to change these principles, they opt for imaginary rights (e.g., abortion, same-sex "marriage") and dream of packing the Supreme Court to circumvent the intentionally cumbersome amendment process.  But they always pay lip service to the Constitution — that is, until Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) spoke openly about his contempt.  He is to be praised for his honesty.

The Editor says...
 No, he is not to be praised, or even commended, for his honesty.  He swore an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; [and] bear true faith and allegiance to the same."  He should be expelled from the Congress immediately, along with any other congressman who feels the same way.

Biden says Second Amendment is 'not absolute' in call to reinstate assault weapons ban.  President Biden said the Second Amendment is "not absolute" in a speech Thursday following a wave of mass shootings across the nation, pleading with to Congress to pass what he called "commonsense" gun control legislation, including reinstating an assault weapons ban, requiring background checks, and limiting magazine capacity.  The president, speaking from the Cross Hall of the White House, told Americans that the issue of restricting access to guns "is one of conscience and common sense."  "For so many of you at home, I want to be very clear — this is not about taking away anyone's guns," the president said.  "It is not about vilifying gun owners.  In fact, we believe we should be treating responsible gun owners as an example of how every gun owner should behave."

How Congress Undermines the Constitution and Federalism.  Upon taking office, members of Congress must "solemnly swear" that they "will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," and "bear true faith and allegiance to the same."  During our first 180-odd years, Washington largely respected the Constitution's safeguards.  But with the advent of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, Congress began a wholesale assumption of the states' responsibilities.

Psaki proclaims the White House controls 'all branches of government'.  Outgoing White House press secretary Jen Psaki has frequently been pressed into action to do damage control over her boss's embarrassing gaffes and, in what may be her final effort to spin away President Joe Biden's mental misfires, she only made matters worse.  On Tuesday [5/10/2022], the "leader" of the free world spoke to the media where he once again sought to duck the blame for the economic woes that Americans are suffering including record gas prices, the worst inflation in four decades, and most recently, a national baby formula shortage which he blamed on COVID and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in more of the same malarkey.

FNC's Turley:  Biden 'Arguably the Most Anti-Free Speech President Since John Adams'.  Monday [5/2/2022], Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley reacted to the Department of Homeland Security's appointment of Nina Jankowicz to run its so-called "Disinformation Governance Board."  Turley said the Biden administration tabbing "one of the most outspoken critics of free speech" to police what it deemed "disinformation" was "telling."  He argued that President Joe Biden was "arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams."  "I think it's telling that the Biden administration went out and recruited one of the most outspoken critics of free speech," Turley stated on "America Reports."

More about the Disinformation Governance Board.

The Irony of Progressive 'Anti-Nationalism'.  Progressive critics like to claim that the Constitution was a great increase in federal power and established the principles of their federalizing vision.  This obscures several important points.  First is that the Constitution is very limited in its federalizing authority.  While it is true that the Constitution increased central power compared to the Articles of Confederation, what is prescribed to the central government in the Constitution is specifically enumerated and limited in nature.  Second, the Constitution repeatedly grants privileges and expansive authority to the states.  "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  The text of the Tenth Amendment is very clear and precise especially when read in the context of the entire Constitution.  Since the Constitution expressly enumerates the power delegated to the new federal government, everything not expressed in it is to be left "to the States" and "the people."

A Black Guy's Defense of the Constitution.  Recently a leftist journalist from The Nation named Elie Mystal referred to the U.S. Constitution as "trash".  He appeared on The View last Friday to promote his new book "Allow me to Retort:  A Black Guys Guide to the Constitution".  This is the ideological battle in which we are engaged in America.  Mr. Mystal must be commended for having the courage, albeit delusional, to admit to the Country the progressive socialist leftist perspective on the US Constitution.  It is no different than Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, when he asserted that "parents do not have a right to decide what their children are being taught".  The left in America is so emboldened that they no longer feel the need to hide their disdain for this Nation.  The question is, for we, constitutional conservatives, what shall be our response?

Joe Biden: 'The Constitution Is Always Evolving Slightly'.  President Joe Biden met with Senate Judiciary leaders on Tuesday, reminding them that the United States Constitution was "always evolving" in his public remarks at the meeting.  "You know there's always a renewed national debate every time we nominate, any president nominates a justice, because the Constitution is always evolving slightly," Biden said, referring to his upcoming choice of a nominee to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

Have Americans become a people who no longer deserve their Constitution?  "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people."  Only moral and religious people?  Who said that about the Constitution?  Someone who would know:  John Adams, America's first vice president and second president, who served on the First Continental Congress and helped draft the Declaration of Independence.  Adams went on to say immediately thereafter, "It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  In other words, it's "wholly inadequate to the government of" an immoral and godless people.  Sadly, in 2022 there's no shortage of those in America.

How the Courts and Bureaucracy Destroy the Constitution.  It has been building up to this point for the past 250 years.  The U.S. Constitution was originally designed to divide the powers of the federal government among its three different branches (Congress, Executive, and Judiciary).  The 10th Amendment to the Constitution went further and reserved to the States respectively, or to the people "the powers not delegated to the United States."  This separation of powers was intended to prevent a consolidation of power that would inevitably lead to the end of representative government.  James Madison warned of this danger in Federalist No. 47 stating, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

Judge says Chicago police union not allowed to discourage members from getting vaccinated for covid.  Cook County Circuit Judge Cecilia A. Horan has ordered Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara to stop discouraging the city's police force from taking the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) "vaccine."  In Horan's opinion, Catanzara does not have any First Amendment rights when it comes to telling his police officers that getting injected might not be in their best interests.  On Oct. 15 following a lengthy emergency hearing on a request for injunctive relief that was filed by the city early in the day, Horan proclaimed that Catanzara must immediately stop trying to help police officers avoid the deadly clot shot, which stands a good chance of killing them.  Last week, Catanzara urged Chicago police officers to not comply with the city's mandate requiring them to tell the government whether or not they got injected with one of Donald "father of the vaccine" Trump's "Operation Warp Speed" injections.

Shocker: Young Americans sign petition to kill U.S. Constitution.  Ahead of Constitution Day on Friday, dozens of University of Florida students who were asked if they believe the U.S. Constitution is still relevant today signed a petition to abolish it and create a new, "more inclusive" document.  A reporter for Campus Reform found many who believed the nation's founding document is outdated and should be scrapped.  "It has to be," one student said.  "It was written in the late 1700s; it wasn't written for the 21st century."  Another said there are "a lot of outdated things in there that nowadays aren't accepted."  [Video clip]

Arizona Attorney General Condemns Biden Administration's Warning Label On Constitution, Declaration.  Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich condemned the National Archives Records Association's (NARA) decision to label documents with a "harmful language" alert.  Brnovich demanded that NARA immediately remove the warning labels from documents including the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, in a Sept. 10 letter to the agency first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.  The warning labels only serve to further divide Americans, the attorney general said.  "This is shameful action from the National Archives, and the misguided 'alerts' should be taken down immediately," Brnovich wrote to U.S. Archivist David Ferriero.  "There is nothing 'harmful' about our founding documents.  These inspired writings governed the formation of our new country in the late 18th Century and provided the roadmap for it to grow into the greatest nation in history."

The First Amendment and American Greatness.  The First Amendment, that sacred door to the Bill of Rights and Constitution, is the true source of America's greatness and genius.  The First Amendment contains the seeds that inspire humans to greatness: religion, intellect, and liberty.  Our natural condition as humans is to be religious, intellectual, and free.  Precisely because this is the root of American exceptionalism and the greatness of human ingenuity in the United States, the forces of destruction, desecration, and despotism must destroy the very flame that inspires our soul to lofty heights.  That the First Amendment is under siege is an understatement.

I See Free Speech Disappearing Before Our Very Eyes.  [Scroll down]  But now we have a new and devilish threat:  To understand it, we must know that the USA's founding document is the Constitution.  It is a uniquely perfect document, allowing for the maximum of self-government and self-discipline in a world of confusing and aggressive men and women who do not always agree, often function with hatred in their hearts, and sometimes do not wish well for our nation.  But the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, allows us to function anyway, even with all of these shortcomings and dangers.  If the citizenry can be allowed to self-govern, the nation can work.  If the rights of Americans to speak freely, to worship, to petition for a redress of grievances, can be preserved, the nation will survive and flourish.  It was to demolish that framework towards which Al Qaeda worked.  Again, Al Qaeda did not succeed.  But now we have an alliance between the almighty Big Tech Internet companies of this country and the Democrat regime of this country.  Together, they have done the unthinkable: they have hit the citizens with overwhelmingly potent restrictions on free speech.  They have taken away free speech from a man whom they hate — Donald Trump — and preserved it for the most wicked terrorists on the planet:  Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their friends.

Whom Do We Trust?  [Scroll down]  America was founded by those who lost trust in their mother country.  Our Constitution was unique in that it mistrusted the very institutions of governing, with checks and balances codified for the citizens' protection.  It would be wonderful if we could trust the people we charge with our care, but experience reminds us that we can't. [...] The politicians currently in power seek to dismantle the Constitution for America's own good.  They ask us to trust them while most things they do smack of dishonesty.  Their "Noble Lies" are justifiable as a means of achieving their endgame, but their lust for power is the only truth we recognize as true.

Turley says Ron Klain's vaccine retweet is legal issue for Biden: 'Breathtakingly daft'.  Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley called White House chief of staff Ron Klain's recent retweet appearing to praise the Biden administration for executing the "ultimate work-around" for President Biden's recent vaccine mandate "breathtakingly daft."  "The retweet was breathtakingly daft on the eve of litigation over the order.  It is reminiscent of President Biden admitting that his own White House counsel and their preferred legal experts all said that the eviction moratorium extension was likely unconstitutional," Turley told Fox News on Friday [9/10/2021].  "Courts will now be asked to ignore the admission and uphold a self-admitted evasion of constitutional limits," Turley added.  The "problem is that the thing being 'worked around' is the Constitution."

Ted Cruz Nails Ron Klain for Accidentally Revealing Intent to Skirt Constitution on Vaccine Mandate.  Joe Biden made it clear, once again, that he doesn't care about the Constitution and the legality of what he does, he only cares about getting what he wants in a stunning dictatorial effort to mandate vaccines on approximately 100 million Americans.  He's mandating it on all federal employees and all contractors who have business with the government.  He's mandating vaccines or constant testing for any private business that has more than 100 employees, declaring an emergency rule under OSHA, which would apply to about 80 million people.  Finally, he's also imposing mandatory vaccines on about 17 million people who work for health facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid.  If a private business were to violate this mandate, it could also face fines of up to $14,000 for each offense.  But the Biden Administration knows this is of dubious legality and they essentially just admitted the OSHA effort is an effort to make an end-run around the Constitution.

Ending UnConstitutional Actions.  The Constitution is clear on the powers of Congress.  And those powers exist solely to run a government.  They do not exist to "give people stuff" or "make lives easier".  Or even to enable the "pursuit of happiness".  That's in the Declaration of Independence:  not the Constitution.  The point is this:  some laws passed by Congress and some SCOTUS decisions just don't pass muster.  The Defense of Marriage Act was abhorrent to the Constitution because the Constitution is silent on marriage.  Therefore, since new law cannot be "made up out of whole cloth", it is unconstitutional to set any rules on marriage.  For the same reason, the SCOTUS Obergefell v Hodges decision is also unconstitutional.  And because the Constitution is silent on medical procedures, the SCOTUS Roe v Wade decision is also abhorrent to the Constitution.  Simply put, the "right to choose" is not enumerated in the text of the Constitution or in any of the Amendments.  This may all seem cruel and heartless but it isn't.  The very fact that these debates exist means that they are based on opinion — and hotly contested opinions should never be the basis of either a law or a judicial decision.

Biden's Unprecedented Attack on the Constitution.  Joe Biden certainly isn't the first president to violate his oath of office, but he might be the first in memory to openly brag about doing it.  As Biden announced a new "eviction moratorium," he informed Americans that the "bulk of constitutional scholars" would say the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eviction moratorium is "not likely to pass constitutional muster."  Not likely?  It already failed.  In June, Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the majority Supreme Court that the CDC "exceeded its existing statutory authority," even though he allowed the order to sunset.  The president admitted as much, noting that the new moratorium is meant to give the administration time to act on "rental assistance" before the court again shuts it down.  What stops Biden from stalling and trying a third time?  A 10th time?  Biden admitted to the media that he would be circumventing the courts, the law, and his oath of office, in which he promised, to the best of his ability, to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," not to infringe on the property rights of Americans to placate crackpot socialists in his party.

Goodbye, America:  We no longer have a Constitution.  For months now, we had known that the tech powers were watching us and suppressing any dissident speech against the current administration.  I have seen it up close and personal.  But what was argued was that the First Amendment to the Constitution protected us only against Congress and the executive branch suppressing free speech.  It did not protect us from private enterprises, even very large private enterprises like Amazon or Google or Facebook, keeping tabs on citizens and shutting them out of the internet-sphere if they expressed views contradicting the views and policies of the Biden-Harris-Big Tech Party.  True, there was one big case involving a large steel company suppressing free speech by its workers, and the Supreme Court ruled that such a big company suppressing free speech on its company properties was indeed a violation of the First Amendment.  But that was rare indeed.  Now, in the year 2021, the iron curtain has come down hard.  With Big Internet Tech and the White House now admittedly colluding to identify and suppress dissidents, even completely nonviolent dissidents, we no longer have a Constitution.

A Coup Against The Constitution?  The Constitution is under attack!  Both left and right have claimed this so many times it's easy to chalk it up to hyperbole and stop listening.  But what would it look like if an internal coup against the Constitution of the United States were, in fact, underway?  Specifically, what would be the signs that an attempt to fundamentally transform the country really was dismantling our Constitutional system and protections?  What would the statist left do differently if they were staging a coup themselves or inciting an actual insurrection from the right in response?  Let's look at some of the things going on right now and you can decide for yourself. [...]

Joe Biden Said The Bill of Rights is NOT "Absolute".  Earlier today Joe Biden raised some eyebrows when he said "no amendment to the constitution is absolute."  The first ten amendments to the constitution are commonly known as "The Bill of Rights."  The occupant of the oval office, and head of the executive branch, saying the Bill of Rights is not absolute, should be challenged immediately to qualify that statement.

Biden Declares Second Amendment Not 'Absolute'.  In a press conference Thursday, President Biden unveiled the proposed executive orders on gun control.  "Nothing I'm about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment" Biden declared.  Addressing potential opposition, Biden added, "they're phone arguments suggesting that these are Second Amendment rights in what we're talking about."  In an immediate contradiction, Biden then stated his position that "no amendment to the Constitution is absolute."  How can you not impinge upon something that is not absolute?  Biden attempted to give an example by saying "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theater and call it freedom of speech."  As his example pertains to the Second Amendment, he said, "from the very beginning of the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren't allowed to have weapons."  Biden's administration announced six gun control initiatives.

Globalist dogma means the end of America, and for many that's the goal.  John Fonte has written an excellent article called "End Nationalism, End America."  For many on the left, that's the point.  They may dislike nationalism, but what they really can't stand is America.  Their target isn't the nation state; it's our nation state.  That's why they want to cede as much of our sovereignty as they can get away with to international bodies. [...] Left-liberals don't just dislike American culture, people, institutions, and mores.  They dislike our Constitution. [...] Ceding sovereignty to international bodies is a way to negate the Constitution.

Why Election Integrity Matters.  [Scroll down]  Incredibly, while the Founders knew nothing about cars, televisions, mobile phones, or the Internet, the mechanisms they put in place largely survived Time's march.  But for all of their familiarity with the dark sides of man's nature, even the Founding Fathers, possibly the greatest assembly of men to ever come together in history, couldn't foresee the darkness that lay ahead with the Democrat party of the 21st century.  Today, America sits and watches as Democrats essentially send the Constitution through the shredder.  Emboldened by a pusillanimous Supreme Court, Democrats with H.R. 1, seek to undermine the Constitution's very foundation:  Voting integrity by the governed.  They seek to codify arrangements that, by their very nature, are intended to eviscerate the notion of vote integrity.
  •   Voter ID:  Eliminated.
  •   Mail-in voting:  Mandated.
  •   Maintenance of accurate voter rolls:  Outlawed.
  •   Same-day registration:  Required.
  •   Ballot harvesting:  Allowed.
These anti-integrity initiatives, and many more, will be codified under H.R. 1, with the goal of giving Democrats end-to-end control over voting in the United States.  Once they achieve this, they will control every branch and every element of the federal government in perpetuity.  And given that they back a regulatory state that never met a freedom it didn't want to regulate, they will control every aspect of the lives of formerly free Americans.

The Attacks on the Second Amendment Became Attacks on the First Amendment.  Conservatives had long predicted that the attacks on the Second Amendment would eventually turn into attacks on the First Amendment.  Liberals used to ridicule that until they turned leftward and joined the attack.  The premise of the attacks on the First Amendment are familiar.  Speech is dangerous.  Not everyone ought to be able to exercise it without proper supervision.  Surely the Framers hadn't anticipated the internet and would have agreed that disinformation needs to be restrained because it leads to conspiracy theories and insurrections.  And there's no better way to defang conspiracy theories than by ruthlessly suppressing them.  That has never led to an insurrection or deep paranoia about the government in the history of mankind.  The old parodies of Second Amendment attacks have been wholly embraced by the Democrat establishment.  A contingent of the Left, led by Glenn Greenwald, have gone on the attack, because they don't trust a Democrat establishment with full power over speech not to use that power to crush enemies to the Left.

The Real Constitutional Crisis is Upon Us.  The Supreme Court is supposed to be our bulwark against encroachments on the Constitution.  The justices are not only to be the interpreters of the Constitution, but also its guardians.  They are the robed scholars intended to understand the Constitution inside and out, and to ensure the nation remains faithful to it.  They are granted lifetime appointments so that they may remain above petty politics.  Justices are intended to be free of party affiliation so that they may defend the Constitution — independent of outside influences.  Somewhere along the line, the Supreme Court decided that it not only wanted to keep the Constitution relevant, but it wanted the Constitution to evolve with the times.  Suddenly, we had an evolving Constitution (I hate the term "living Constitution").  We've now been introduced to "penumbras" and "emanations" — which are just legal-speak for, "We know what the Founders meant, even though they didn't write it down."  And with that, fidelity to the Constitution has been lost.

Leftist Journalist Claims the US Constitution Itself is a 'Racist Document' solely because of when and who wrote it.  Elie Mystal:  "I believe that the Constitution is a racist document.  I believe that it was written in — it was written at a time when the people were racist, it was written to support a white supremacists state.  And that's — and it's structurally still that document."  [Video clip]

Without Our Constitution, We're Under Occupation.  I don't know if fed up Americans will rise up in the near future and defend their liberties against an ever more abusive and oppressive system of government, but I do know that 2020 has revealed vividly the post-constitutional wilderness the nation has entered.  Not since the days of slavery or internment have federal and local governments attacked the natural rights and freedoms of individual Americans so concertedly as they have this past year.  Arbitrary house arrests; the denial of religious freedoms; the closing of private businesses without any equitable measures of compensation; the intentional disregard for the destruction of private property while anarchists are given general grants of immunity; and the absolute refusal by governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general, and judges to provide for and ensure free and fair elections have combined to produce a lawless year in the United States.

Cuomo signs bill banning sale of Confederate flags.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law aimed at banning the sale of "hate symbols" such as the Confederate flag or the swastika on state property — even while admitting the new edict might clash with the First Amendment and be struck down as unconstitutional.  The new law — effective immediately — prohibits the sale of hate symbols on public grounds including state and local fairs, and also severely limits their display unless deemed relevant to serving an educational or historical purpose.  But Cuomo said the rule likely needs "certain technical changes" so the Empire State doesn't get caught treading upon free speech protections codified in the Constitution's First Amendment.

The Left's War on the Constitution.  [Scroll down]  A good example is how "progressives" re-invented the Commerce Clause — the provision by which the Constitution grants Congress authority to "regulate Commerce . . . among the several States."  When the Constitution was adopted, the term "regulate commerce" meant regulation (1) of trade among merchants and (2) of certain incidental activities, such as payment methods and transportation.  This is pretty much how the courts understood the Commerce Clause for the ensuing 150 years.  During the 1930s and 1940s, however, a "progressive" Supreme Court issued a series of opinions holding that the Commerce Clause (allegedly augmented by the Necessary and Proper Clause) enabled Congress to control the entire economy — including activities the Founders thought quite distinct from "commerce," such as manufacturing and insurance.  Liberal professors backed the court's decisions with books marshaling cherry-picked materials to "prove" that Congress's Commerce Power was almost unlimited.

Judge Grants Injunction Barring Grace Community Church From Constitutional Right To Worship.  Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff of the Los Angeles Superior Court issued a preliminary injunction Thursday [9/10/2020] that prohibits Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church from "conducting, participating in, or attending any indoor worship services."  The ban also extends to services held outside "unless onerous restrictions are followed."  Since the church first began meeting in-person and defying local lockdown orders in July, Los Angeles County officials have threatened fines, arrest, and even terminated the lease held between the church and the county for parking lot space claiming health and safety concerns.

Opening up churches is NOT just about my faith.  It's my right!  The freedom of religion.  The freedom of speech.  The freedom of the press.  The right to assembly.  The right to petition the government.  These are the first five freedoms outlined and guaranteed by the First Amendment.  Of all the rights we are guaranteed, these are the first and arguably the most important of any of the freedoms recognized by our government.  But, they do more than just act as rail guards around the government's inevitable attempts to overreach into our lives.  They do more than just beat back the government's insatiable and ferocious appetite for control.  These essential rights also acknowledge out loud, for everyone to hear, that we are human.  As such, we are not the property of emperors or would-be kings or queens.  We belong to ourselves.  But a strange and dubious thing is happening under COVID-19 lockdowns.  Of these five basic human rights only one is not being questioned.  Only one is allowed to operate with impunity.  That is, the freedom of the press.

America's New State-Run Church.  For what seems an eternity, one of the ongoing accusations leveled by secularists against Christians and the Church was that Christians kept their heads in the clouds.  Believers have been told they have been too heavenly minded to be any earthly good, that they needed to be where the action really was, directing their energies to down-to-earth, pragmatic deeds.  So it is with some astonishment that the faithful see Governor John Carney of Delaware, along with other state governors such as California's Gavin Newsom, order church leaders and congregants to keep their nonessential heads in the tech cloud.  Carney's recommendation?  "Do your best to practice your faith virtually."  No matter how virtuous or sentimental their motives, the almost complete capitulation of priests and pastors to banishment by government leaders like Carney has been astonishing.  Few have meaningfully protested the exile of the Church into the cloud.  In fact, nearly all churches voluntarily have closed their sanctuaries and ascended into cyberspace.

Gavin Newsom responds to Justice Department warning over church closures.  After receiving a formal warning from the United States Justice Department over church closures, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state is "weeks away" from allowing in-person religious services to resume.  A group of federal attorneys wrote a letter to Newsom warning him that prolonged church closures likely violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment due to the fact that similar non-religious businesses are receiving the green light to reopen in Stage 2.

The First Amendment [is] Suffering Under PC Attack.  The First Amendment is beyond doubt under attack.  The five freedoms protected by this most critical Amendment are the freedoms of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly; the Coronavirus crisis has challenged every one.  People are forbidden from congregating and worshiping as they choose.  Those who speak against the set media narrative are pilloried.  For example, try posting information about the China virus and see how long your posts remain up.  Press agencies that do not kowtow to the World Health Organization are censored by big tech.  When protesters tried to assemble and to petition the state government of Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared that they could not.  This Coronavirus crisis has exposed the fragility of our relationship with our rights.  But it is not the first such attack.

Coronavirus Crisis:  Our Civil Liberties Are Being Crushed By Authoritarian Edicts.  Driven by fear, panic, and irrational reliance on deeply flawed statistical "models," state governors and local leaders have dangerously jeopardized more than 200 years of constitutional rights and civil liberties with their imposition of mandatory mass quarantine orders.  No exigent circumstances, however well-intentioned, can justify many of these authoritarian tactics employed to fight the COVID-19 contagion.  While it is true that the law authorizes states to respond aggressively during health emergencies, such actions have limits.  Restrictions must be rational, consistent, and justified.  Power is abused when the government orders quarantines that are arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable because they arguably violate the 5th and 14th Amendments' rights of Due Process and Equal Protection.  Some actions have violated the Bill of Rights.

Liberals Versus the Constitution.  It was jarring to the ears to hear Democrats piously invoking the words and "original intent" of the Founders during the impeachment farce, because as everyone knows liberals would re-write the Constitution wholesale if they had the power to do so.  The list of things they despise in our Constitution is quite long, i.e. get rid of the electoral college, abolish the Senate, etc.  I've seen lists with as many as 25 or more specific changes liberals want. [...] All the proposed "reforms" have one main thing in common:  they are all designed to make it easier for liberals to win.

Virginia Democrats Push Legislation to Make Criticism of Government Officials a Criminal Offense.  In the wake of the Virginia gun rights rally on Monday, Democrats in the Capitol are not slowing down their push for tyranny.  They are moving a bill through the legislature that would effectively criminalize dissent against Governor Blackface Northam and other state government officials.  House Bill 1627 was introduced by Delegate Jeffrey M. Bourne last week.  The legislation "provides that certain crimes relating to threats and harassment may be prosecuted in the City of Richmond if the victim is the Governor, Governor-elect, Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor-elect, Attorney General, or Attorney General-elect, a member or employee of the General Assembly, a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, or a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia."  Language in the bill explicitly criminalizes free speech, in what would constitute a blatant attack on the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.

Democrats trying to thwart Constitution with Equality Act.  The politicians promoting the Equality Act not only are derelict in their duty to protect constitutional rights, they are actively working to overthrow the constraints placed on them by the First Amendment.  These legislators are behaving more like oppressive Chinese leaders than America's founding statesmen who risked their own lives to protect the God-given rights of the people.  That's why the new watered-down version of the Equality Act — erroneously called the Fairness for All Act, which is sponsored and backed by at least eight Republicans — is such a colossal blunder.  While it would carve out speech exemptions for religious institutions, it still would control the speech and actions of ordinary American citizens.

The Impeachment Hearings Threaten the First Amendment.  The only good thing about the Democrat shift from Russia to Ukraine is that the issue has shifted from the limits of free speech to the limits of executive authority.  Unlike the First Amendment, the separation of powers is at least a legitimate topic for a power struggle between the branches of government.  But the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment report continued the ongoing Dem war on attorney-client confidentiality by illegally demanding phone records for Rudy Giuliani, the President's lawyer, from AT&T (the parent company of CNN), which they then also used to track phone calls by Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova, also Trump's lawyers.  (The harassment campaign against Alan Dershowitz, who has vigorously defended Trump in public, also appears to be part of the pattern.)

Sharia and the Constitution.  Not all who claim to follow Sharia really do.  But Sharia calls for those who do not follow Sharia to be murdered, mutilated, tortured, raped, enslaved, repressed, and terrorized.  American law prohibits almost all of what is authorized by Sharia.  There is no moral equivalence between Sharia and Judeo-Christian morality.  There is no place for Sharia in America or in any society that strives to advance civilization.  Yet in America, criminally negligent officials violate American law by unlawfully permitting adherents to Sharia to hold sworn office as congressional representatives, judges, police officials, and other public offices.  Law prohibits anyone to hold any sworn office who does not swear full allegiance to the Constitution, yet hordes of adherents to Sharia are unlawfully permitted to hold sworn office, whose allegiance is to a set of laws diametrically opposed to the Constitution.

The New Nihilists:  Political Nihilism and the Progressive Movement in America.  The rise of progressivism had a lasting effect on the nation, as president after president followed Teddy's lead and sought to expand the power and scope of the federal government.  Wilson, who advocated a Darwinian approach to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, gave us the progressive income and estate tax.  FDR instituted the New Deal, and LBJ advanced the Great Society, waged the War on Poverty, and launched Medicare.  Not to be outdone, Bill Clinton signed the job-killing North American Free Trade Agreement; Richard Nixon established the EPA and OSHA; Jimmy Carter developed the Departments of Education and Energy; and George W. Bush created Homeland Security, the Transportation Safety Administration, and No Child Left Behind.

Rampant disrespect for the oath of office has become the norm.  Unless a winning candidate takes the oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, he cannot take office.  But there is more to the law than that.  In order to take office, a candidate who has won an election must take the oath honestly, free of perjury, and without reservation.  If a candidate takes the oath with the intent not to keep the oath, the oath is invalid, and the candidate is ineligible to hold office, per the law.  Yet the governments of America are rife with officials who violate their oath.  Not only that, but candidates are permitted to take the oath, and then to take office, about whom it is well known before the fact that they do not bear allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.  How is this known?  In many cases, the candidates tell us frankly that they are opposed to all that.  But even though they tell us, no one in authority is willing to prevent them from taking office, as per the requirement of the law and common sense.  That is a major problem.

Democrats vs. the Constitution.  One of the more shocking aspects of last week's Democratic debate was the cavalier manner in which the Constitution was treated.  Beto O'Rourke said he intends to confiscate guns that were legally purchased by law-abiding Americans, and put out a t-shirt to that effect immediately after the debate.  Kamala Harris said the same thing, and when Joe Biden pointed out that the government lacks power to do what she proposed, she laughed at him.

Dem Rep. Clyburn: 'Not Too Sure' the Bill of Rights Would Pass Today.  Sunday on MSNBC, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) wondered if the Bill of Rights would pass in today's "climate."  Clyburn said based off of conversations he has all the time, he believes there would be "strong support against the Bill of Rights" among people who would like to see many of the guarantees "uprooted."

Schumer Calls for Amending First Amendment to Limit Political Speech.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D.-N.Y., has determined there is too much political speech in the United States coming from sources he cannot abide.  So, he stood in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, along with Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D.-Ill., to announce he is backing Democratic New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall's proposal to amend the First Amendment.  The First Amendment, as it now stands, includes 10 unambiguous words about freedom of speech.  "Congress," it says, "shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."  Schumer and Udall do not like this sweeping restraint on government power.  There are speakers whose speech they want to abridge.  The Bill of Rights — as correctly interpreted by the Supreme Court — stands in their way.  So, they are seeking to change it.

41% of college students believe hate speech should not be protected by the Constitution.  Some 41 percent of college students say hate speech shouldn't be protected under the First Amendment, according to a new survey.  Just 58 percent said that hate speech should be protected under the amendment, which guarantees American's a right to freedom of speech, according to the survey of 4,407 students by the Miami-based Knight Foundation.

New effort launches to democratically elect the vice president in 2020.  There's a national push for voters to elect the U.S. vice presidentseparately from the president.  Vice.run, is a campaign that seeks to create a separate and independent ballot line for the vice president in 2020. The group is trying to collect — from all 50 states — voter signatures and pledges in support of the separate vice president election.  "An independently-elected vice president would give American voters a new level of direct control over who serves in the White House," Vice.run says on its website.

The Editor says...
 Fractionalized governments are unstable.  Maybe that's the point.

McConnell warns AOC, Schumer, Pelosi aim to 'blow up' Constitution to get their way.  Three weeks after a dejected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ripped the Senate Republican leader for orchestrating the death of her "Green New Deal," Sen. Mitch McConnell has struck back, accusing the first term House member and top Democrats of waging an "economic culture war" against red America.  In a sweeping blow against growing Democratic efforts to squelch conservative voices and force progressive policies and programs on a wary nation, McConnell warned that the Left is ready to "blow up" decades of rules to get their way on issues like the environment and government-financed healthcare.  "Progressives are openly acknowledging they'll never get their agenda through the constitutional machinery as it's operated for centuries, so they've concluded it's the constitutional machinery that has to go.  Change the rules if you can't win otherwise," he said in a well-received speech at Hillsdale College late Monday [4/15/2019].

Trump isn't the biggest threat to the Constitution.  Democrats are.  Ever since Trump took office, Democrats have been telling us he is an authoritarian who threatens our system of government.  Well, today it is Democrats who are declaring war on the Constitution.  Leading Democrats are promising that, if elected in 2020, they will abolish the Electoral College and might also pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices — allowing them to marginalize Americans who do not support their increasingly radical agenda and impose it on an unwilling nation.

Making Constitutional Law Great Again.  In Federalist 45, Madison assured readers that "the states will retain under the proposed Constitution a very extensive portion of active sovereignty."  Madison described the government to be formed by the proposed Constitution as dual sovereignty, constituting a "federal" rather than a "national" government.  The Constitution took effect, and the federal government began to operate on behalf of the participating states, upon the ratification of the first nine states.

Beto's Constitutional Folly.  This is a variation on a theme I've heard countless times on the left — often in response to arguments over originalism and (more recently) in response to anger at the very structure of our government itself.  Why shackle ourselves to the wisdom of the distant past?  How could the Founders have foreseen the challenges of the present?  It's worth taking these questions seriously.  After all, the Constitution isn't the Bible.  It's not the holy and inspired Word of God, and if its terms and structure are hurting our Republic, they can and should be amended.  But I'd submit that, when one examines the United States and considers the failings that render our politics so dysfunctional, we in fact do have 18th-century answers to our 21st-century challenges and that many of our dysfunctions are the result of abandoning the Constitution, not of embracing it.  We've failed because we've refused to be managed by the "principles that were set down 230-plus years ago."

Beto O'Rourke Questions 'Principles' of Constitution: 'Does This Still Work?'.  Former Congressman and potential 2020 Democratic nominee Beto O'Rourke questioned the "principles" of the U.S. Constitution on Wednesday, arguing that its usefulness is the "question of the moment.  In an interview with The Washington Post, O'Rourke was asked if he believes the U.S. is capable of "dramatically [changing] its approach to a whole host of issues" or whether he holds a "dismal suspicion that the country is now incapable of implementing sweeping change."

Beto O'Rourke questions relevance of Constitution, principles 'set down 230-plus years ago'.  Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke recently questioned the modern-day relevance of the U.S. Constitution and whether the country should still be governed by "the same principles that were set down 230-plus years ago." [...] "Can an empire like ours with military presence in over 170 countries around the globe, with trading relationships ... and security agreements in every continent, can it still be managed by the same principles that were set down 230-plus years ago?" Mr. O'Rourke reportedly asked.

California Dem Ted Lieu say he would 'love to regulate' speech, bemoans US Constitution that prohibits him.  California Democrat Ted Lieu bemoaned on Wednesday that though he would "love to be able to regulate the content of speech," including that on Fox News, he can't do it because of the U.S. Constitution.  Lieu made the comments during an interview about the testimony of Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, where he dismissed the allegations that the tech giant amplifies negative stories about Republican lawmakers, saying "if you want positive search results, do positive things."  CNN host Brianna Keilar praised Lieu for his performance but asked whether other Democrats should have used the committee to press Google on conspiracy theories that spread on their platforms.

Congressman:  "I Would Love To ... Regulate The Content Of Speech".  You know, often we react to things emotionally and would love to "regulate" others on things we disagree with, and the representatives of the people are human.  Fortunately, our forefathers put in plain English the First Amendment that specifically states "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech."  Yet, they have done it on so many occasions in violation of their oaths of office and criminal acts against the people.  Now, California Democrat Congressman Ted Lieu says he would love to regulate speech too.  "I would love to be able to regulate the content of speech.  The First Amendment prevents me from doing so..."  Lieu told CNN concerning the testimony of Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

John Dingell's plan for America?  Let's abolish the U.S. Senate.  Former Rep. John Dingell, who served in Congress longer than anybody ever, has a plan for improving politics immediately:  abolish the U.S. Senate.  Writing in a new biography, "The Dean:  The Best Seat in the House," Dingell, 92, makes a case for changing the Constitution to get rid of the upper chamber, criticizing the 18th Century idea that the smallest states have the same number of senators as California.  While it may have made sense in the late 1700s that "Rhode Island needed two U.S. senators to protect itself from being bullied by Massachusetts" at a time when there were only 13 states and 4 million Americans, Dingell says, "today in a nation of more than 325 million and 37 additional states, not only is that structure antiquated, it's downright dangerous."

10 American Treasures:  A Very Personal and Subjective list.  [#1] The Constitution/The Bill of Rights:  The words written on these documents are the basis of American exceptionalism.  The core issues are the guaranteed rights of the individual and keeping government at bay.  We haven't always been successful at meeting these standards, but at least they have provided an ideal to emulate and to strive for.  Our Constitution is under increasing attack from the left that is using identity politics, political fraud and the freedoms that that the Constitution guarantees to try and kill it.  But as long as we as a nation can remain faithful to these ideals, we have a chance to maintain our greatness and to be the beacon of hope for the world.

Democrats vs. the Constitution.  Having taken control of the House of Representatives, the Democrats face an enormous and perhaps insurmountable political barrier to achieving their agenda.  It's not the Republicans.  It's the Constitution.  "Kill the Constitution" would not be a winning campaign slogan for the Democrats, and you will rarely hear an American politician running against the Constitution as such.  But it is the Constitution and the American constitutional order — not Senator McConnell — that currently vexes them.

Democrats' latest excuse:  Blame the Constitution.  Democrats suffered a stinging loss in the fight over Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, and have concluded that the constitutional system is to blame.  You see, if only the Founders hadn't forged the Great Compromise between large states and small states at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, giving each state equal representation in the US Senate, they would have defeated Brett Kavanaugh handily.  It's only because smaller red states have two senators just like larger blue states that the judge got confirmed.

NBC's Ken Dilanian:  North Dakota, New York Having Same Number of Senate Votes 'Has to Change'.  Ken Dilanian, a reporter for NBC News, tweeted on Monday [10/8/2018] that the idea of North Dakota and New York having the same amount of senators "has to change" because of the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  "It may not happen in our lifetimes, but the idea that North Dakota and New York get the same representation in the Senate has to change," Dilanian tweeted, linking to a Washington Post article about the confirmation of Kavanaugh.

Undermining the Supreme Court is incredibly dangerous.  What does it look like when the Supreme Court loses its legitimacy?  We don't want to find out.  Now that Brett Kavanaugh has been appointed to the court after a long and incredibly messy confirmation process, some have suggested this is the moment the institution loses its standing in the eyes of the American public. [...] For more than 200 years, the Supreme Court has served as the final word, more or less, on the hot constitutional issues of the day.  But that power, known as "judicial supremacy," isn't written into the Constitution — the court claimed it back in 1803 in Marbury v.  Madison.  Americans have mostly agreed to go along with it ever since.  But what if they didn't?  There are already rumblings on the left that it's time to stop letting the court have the last word.

Democrats' Hostility to the Constitution Laid Bare.  One of the more revealing moments in the Democrats' Judiciary Committee clown show was when Kamala Harris sneeringly referred to the Constitution as "that book that you [Judge Kavanaugh] carry."  Harris is her generation's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:  ridiculously far-left, quite good-looking, and utterly ill-informed. [...] When liberals like Kamala Harris refer to "the Constitution," they don't mean the actual written document — "that book that you carry" — they mean an unrestricted charter that gives liberals the right to rule over the rest of us, via the judiciary.  Which, of course, nullifies the whole point of having a written Constitution.

Kamala Harris Dismisses Kavanaugh's Pocket Constitution: 'That Book You Carry'.  Democratic Senator Kamala Harris referred to SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh's pocket Constitution as "that book you carry" on Thursday [9/6/2018].  Harris was listing what she believes to be unenumerated rights that are not explicitly listed in the U.S. Constitution and asked Kavanaugh which ones he would get rid of.  "I'm gonna ask you about unenumerated rights," Harris said.  "'Unenumerated rights' is a phrase that lawyers use but I wanna make clear what we're talking about.  It means rights that are protected by the Constitution even though they're not specifically mentioned by the Constitution."  "So they're not in that book that you carry," she said derisively.

There Are No Conservative Judges.  Dishonest judges, who view their role as "improving" society, have a very Louis XIV view of their authority.  As such, they believe that they have the authority to impose whatever they deem best on America.  While they pretend, for political purposes, that their activist rulings are based on the law, the reality is that their methodology, the "living" Constitution, allows them to claim that pretty much anything is based on the Constitution.  It would seem clear to all that if the Constitution was viewed by the courts, the presidents, and Congress for over 100 years saying something is illegal, it's impossible that the intent of the people who ratified the Constitution was that that thing is in fact legal.

Seattle cracks down on renters, free speech — and common sense.  Good luck trying to rent an apartment.  The Seattle City Council seems to think the right to speak is a privilege it can grant or withhold at its pleasure.  It has slapped a year-long ban on the use of certain housing websites that allow renters to place bids on advertised rental housing, while it reviews the sites.  Officials say they fear the sites might violate local housing laws or inflate housing costs, so the City Council wants to study the sites while forbidding their use in the meantime.  While city leaders try to figure things out, landlords are barred from posting ads on the sites, and renters can't even do a simple search for Seattle housing on the sites.  This is a clear restriction of speech protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Are There Any Adults Left in Washington, D.C.?  As America approaches her 250th birthday, her instruction manual, the U.S. Constitution, is under assault as never before.  The First Amendment is under attack by campus speech police and social media, censoring and deciding which political statements are welcomed and which are verboten.  The Second Amendment is threatened by leftist elitists happy to ban guns for the law-abiding as long as they can have armed guards protecting themselves and their families from the criminals who don't give a whit about whatever gun laws the left proposes.  It's not only the Bill of Rights under assault, but also Article Two of the Constitution — specifically, the first section, detailing how a president is elected to a four-year term.

7 Forces Driving America Toward Civil War.  [#1] A Post-Constitutional Era:  Liberals don't believe in the Constitution.  Typically they deny this, but that's exactly what a "living" Constitution means.  You make it up as you go along.  The Founders foresaw the instability and danger that would be created by this approach, which is why they wanted us to be a constitutional republic, not a democracy.  Unfortunately, America has in many ways already become a post-constitutional democracy and we're one liberal judge away from abandoning the Constitution altogether.

Biden: 'The 2nd Amendment Is Being Very Badly Interpreted' — There Is 'Prostitution of the 2nd Amendment'.  During a discussion at the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden stated that the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted "badly" and the nation has decided it can't ignore the "prostitution" of the amendment.  Biden said, "I think there's a 2nd Amendment.  I think the 2nd Amendment is being very badly interpreted.  It's not consistent with what they're — our founders intended, in my view.  You saw Justice John Paul Stevens say that we should — because it's been so prostituted, we should repeal the 2nd Amendment.  It was about a standing militia.  It's a long story.  I won't go into all the legal side of that having taught it in law school.  But there's rational or irrational policy."

Assault On The Constitution.  I'm a former TV news reporter in Washington, DC.  I wrote and produced these reports utilizing many sources including the Conservative Treehouse and the government documents it's published.  This report focuses on the Obama administration's Illegal spying of the Trump Campaign.  It includes discussion of the FISA warrant and the House and Senate investigations of the executive branch's misleading search warrant application to the FISA Court.  Former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova says he expects former top FBI officials to be charged criminally.  [Video clip]

Liberals Hate Constitutional Government.  We should be grateful to Ryan Cooper for acknowledging so forthrightly in The Week what has been obvious to conservatives for a long, long time — liberals really really hate the Constitution, because limited government is an impediment to their endless dreams of ruling over us more completely and fixing every human problem[.]  [His article is called,] "America's Constitution is terrible.  Let's throw it out and start over."  Cooper makes five main points, some of which merely expose his constitutional illiteracy.

Post-Constitutional America and the Second Amendment.  In a series of articles I wrote last week about post-Constitutional America, I mentioned how everyday Americans have grown complacent with their God-given rights and how this has led to a growing acceptance of the idea that Constitutional rights are negotiable if the government gives them something in return.  The consequences of this mindset has been devastating.  Freedom of speech is silenced on college campuses in the name of political correctness.  Freedom of the press is threatened by the White House and Congress.  Freedom of religion is under attack by politicians and pro-LGBT radicals.  Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is compromised at the hands of a growing police state.  Now, with incidents of mass shootings dominating the headlines, a new threat has risen — the willingness to surrender the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in exchange for a little bit of safety.

Student leader says the First Amendment doesn't apply to Ben Shapiro.  Earlier this month, when Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro went to the University of Utah to deliver a speech, he was greeted by a mob of leftist student protesters demanding that he not be allowed to speak.  Dan Harris of ABC's Nightline was also there to film a segment with Shapiro, which aired on Friday [10/20/2017].  Harris also interviewed students and faculty at the University of Utah about Shapiro's speech.  In one of the most stunning and infuriating displays ever of honest, unashamed progressivism, the leader of the student organization opposing Shapiro's First Amendment right to speak, Sean Taylor, outright states that Ben Shapiro should not have the right to speech and that the Constitution is not a "relevant" document.

Our Constitutional Crisis Has Nothing to Do with James Comey.  The "central function" of our Constitution has always been to limit the authority of the federal government, and to clearly enumerate the "few and defined" powers of the federal government to be held in contrast to the "numerous and indefinite" power of state governments, as James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 45.  Yet today, a great many of the things that we consider to be within the federal government's purview are absolute affronts to the Constitution, and particularly the Tenth Amendment, which Thomas Jefferson held to be the foundation of the Constitution.

Former FEC Chairwoman Calls for 'Regulations' of Political Speech on the Internet.  The former Federal Election Commission chairwoman Ann M. Ravel says that political speech must be controlled on social media.  She presented her remarks in a speech at UC Berkeley, calling for regulations against "fake news."  Speaking at an event called "Future of Democracy," Ravel argued the proliferation of "fake news" and political advertising on platforms like Facebook influenced elections.  She warned that the lack of disclosure by the creators of these campaigns was becoming a huge problem.  "We know that there's a lot of campaigning that's moved to the internet, whether it's through fake news or just outright advertising and there is almost no regulation of this, very little," she said.  "And so that the disclosure that we expect as to who is behind campaigns is not going to exist soon"

N.Y. bill would require people to remove 'inaccurate,' 'irrelevant,' 'inadequate' or 'excessive' statements about others.  [U]nder this bill, newspapers, scholarly works, copies of books on Google Books and Amazon, online encyclopedias (Wikipedia and others) — all would have to be censored whenever a judge and jury found (or the author expected them to find) that the speech was "no longer material to current public debate or discourse" (except when it was "related to convicted felonies" or "legal matters relating to violence" in which the subject played a "central and substantial" role).  And of course the bill contains no exception even for material of genuine historical interest; after all, such speech would have to be removed if it was "no longer material to current public debate."  [...] But the deeper problem with the bill is simply that it aims to censor what people say, under a broad, vague test based on what the government thinks the public should or shouldn't be discussing.

Pelosi:  Amend the First Amendment.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed a movement announced by other congressional Democrats on Wednesday [2/22/2017] to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow Congress to regulate political speech when it is engaged in by corporations as opposed to individuals.

Against "Judicial Engagement".  The death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia last year created an unexpected vacancy on the badly split Supreme Court, which throughout the presidential campaign focused attention on the importance of the Court and the selection of Scalia's successor.  "I feel strongly that the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy," said Hillary Clinton in the final debate.  Advocating desirable policy outcomes without even mentioning the Constitution itself, as Clinton did in the debate, is a hallmark of the "living Constitution" philosophy, which has prevailed among liberals since the New Deal.

President Obama Says U.S. Constitution 'Just a Piece of Parchment'.  President Obama, as he concluded his farewell address in Chicago on Tuesday, called the U.S. Constitution "just a piece of parchment."  "Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift," said Obama.  "But it's really just a piece of parchment."  "It has no power on its own," he went on.  "We the people give it power.  We the people give it meaning with our participation and with the choices that we make and the alliances that we forge..."

Oath, Shmoath.  I've long argued that the only impeachable offense committed by George W. Bush was when he signed McCain-Feingold into law while admitting that he thought parts of it were unconstitutional.  The president takes an oath to protect the Constitution every bit as binding as the one the Supreme Court Justices take.  If you're president or a member of Congress it is a violation of your oath to green-light an unconstitutional act, whether or not you think the Supreme Court will fix it.

A Coup Against the Constitution.  A New York Times editorial Monday [11/7/2016] on the Senate's role in the confirmation process not only gets it wrong, the analysis betrays a fundamental liberal disagreement with the U.S. Constitution. [...] Specifically, the editorial casts the suggestion that the Senate has a role to play in deciding who is ultimately confirmed to serve on the Supreme Court as a radical departure from how the American Republic was meant to work.  It does so by an absurd suggestion that the Senate's decision not to rubber stamp a president's nominee would be equivalent with Al Gore's refusing to abide by the Supreme Court's decision settling the 2000 presidential election — had he done so.  This is not how the Constitution works.

Federal Judge Sees Little Value in Studying Constitution in Law School.  Judge Richard Posner (shown) is perhaps the most quoted and most significant federal appellate court judge in the country, and his recent comments (which he has attempted to "clarify") are illustrative of the differing views on the role of the federal judiciary in the current presidential campaign.  In a brief article published recently in Slate, Posner was highly critical of American law schools.  Among his criticisms was a dismissal of a need to study the meaning of the Constitution.  "I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries — well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments)," he wrote.  "Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century."

Kansas woman who claimed police told her to stop praying in her home fights court ruling.  [Mary Anne] Sause, a retired Catholic nurse on disability and rape survivor, was at home on the night of Nov. 22, 2013, when two police officers approached her door and demanded to be allowed in.  Sause said the officers did not identify themselves, and she could not see them through her broken peephole, so she did not open her door.  The officers left, but returned later and demanded that Sause let them in.  When Sause came to the door and the officers asked why she didn't answer the first time, she showed them a copy of a pocket Constitution given to her by her congressman.  One officer laughed and said, "That's just a piece of paper" that "doesn't work here," while still not explaining the reason for their presence at her home.

On Its 229th Birthday, Our Constitution Hangs by a Thread.  The Framers kept the Constitution short; it is only 4,440 words.  The Framers wrote it in a way so that the voters could read it and understand it, and then use it as the yardstick by which to measure all their elected leaders.  By reading it, the voters would know what the powers of government are and what their rights as citizens are, and compel government officials to respect both.  That's why originalism — the view that the words of the Constitution must be interpreted according to the original public meaning of its words, the meaning which ordinary Americans understood those words to carry — is the only legitimate way to interpret the Supreme Law of the Land.  Anything less subverts the will of the American people and the democratic process.

This constitutional crisis is CRUSHING us, but there's one way to break free.  On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine delegates to the Constitutional Convention from 12 states signed the document establishing the most effective form of government ever known to man. [...] Sadly, over two centuries later, almost every word of that document has been contorted beyond recognition, flipping our system of governance on its head.  There are numerous facets to the severe constitutional crisis we are confronted with today, and a myriad of culprits to blame for the source of this crisis.  But perhaps the biggest crisis we face is the one resulting from the collapse of representative democracy — with Congress becoming impotent, and the federal executive and judiciary crushing the states while stealing the sovereignty of the nation, states, and individual citizens.

No, the Constitution Is Not Racist, Sexist, or Outdated.  In an interview with Breitbart News, noted Heritage Foundation constitutional expert David Azerrad tackles some prominent myths about the Constitution — falsehoods that are being propagated in America's classrooms and on its college campuses.  The director of the Heritage Foundation's B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics, Azerrad observes, "Many of the myths have just permeated the culture to a point where people just take it as a matter of fact."

The Obama legacy:  An assault on the Bill of Rights.  The Bill of Rights is a barricade protecting Americans from their government.  Part of President Obama's legacy will be that he inflicted damage on that barricade, eroding freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, the right to bear arms and the right to due process.  Through his political arguments, executive actions and political leadership, Obama has taken some of the holes punched by previous presidents and made them broader or more permanent.  This means that after Obama leaves office, people will be more easily silenced, killed or disarmed by their own government.  Obama is leaving behind a public less protected from state power.

Judge Richard Posner: 'No value' in studying the U.S. Constitution.  Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner sees "absolutely no value" in studying the U.S. Constitution because "eighteenth-century guys" couldn't have possibly foreseen the culture and technology of today.  In a recent op-ed for Slate, Judge Posner, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, argued that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post-Civil War amendments "do not speak to today."

After Trying to Kill 1st, Democrats Move on to 2nd and 5th Amendments.  In September of 2014, Senate Democrats voted to repeal the First Amendment.  They were enraged by a Supreme Court decision holding that ordinary constitutional protections for free speech prohibited the government from punishing political activists who had shown a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election.  This was a straightforward case of classical political speech — critics of Mrs. Clinton arguing that she'd make a poor president and distributing a film making that case — and Democrats, including every single Democrat in the Senate, insisted that that isn't what the First Amendment is intended to protect.  They started at the beginning, and are making their way down the Bill of Rights, with the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.

Joe Manchin laments Fifth Amendment: 'Due process is what's killing us right now'.  West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin told an MSNBC panel on Thursday that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is "killing us" in terms of preventing gun violence.  Mr. Manchin, a Democrat, referred to due process as an inconvenient "firewall" when it comes to denying Americans firearms.

Hillary Wants to Make It Illegal to Criticize Her.  Hillary was right, Citizens United involved a movie that was critical of her.  The Supreme Court held that the federal government couldn't constitutionally bar the movie from being shown, regardless of whether an election campaign was in progress.  If Citizens United is overturned, as Hillary wants, it would mean that the federal government can make it illegal to criticize Mrs. Clinton (or any other politician) in a movie, book, pamphlet, etc.

Charge: FEC Dems would ban Drudge, NYT, free media on election eve.  The war between Republicans and Democrats on the politically splintered Federal Election Commission flared late Monday when a Republican commissioner and former chairman charged that the panel's Democrats want to regulate the press and end free election media.  The moves by Democrats "signal an active regulatory effort within the agency, caution press organizations to look over their shoulders, and chill the free exercise of press activity," said Republican Lee E. Goodman in a statement on a recent FEC split vote.  On that vote, the Democrats voted as a block to punish the maker of an anti-Obama movie distributed free before the 2012 election.

Dems on FEC Target Corporations in Attempt to 'Blunt' First Amendment.  Democrats on the Federal Election Commission are pushing proposals critics say would disenfranchise many Americans from the political process.  FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, has put forth a proposal that she says targets foreign national influence through corporations.  Weintraub's rule would require every entity accepting political contributions from corporations to verify that the corporations are associations of United States citizens.  Additionally, she asked for a rulemaking document that would require those making independent expenditures and electioneering communications to certify that any individual or corporate resources used are not owned or controlled by foreign nationals.

An Open Letter to Trump Supporters.  After eight years of Barak Obama, America is on the brink of destruction and in grave danger of no longer being that Shining City on the Hill that is a beacon of hope for the world.  Basic freedoms like the ability to say what we please, to openly live out our faiths, and to raise our children as we see fit are disappearing before our very eyes.  If we do not get this election right, our children and grandchildren will live under the strong fist of government and their opportunity to thrive will be diminished.  Our very Constitution is in peril.  Please hear me:  if we do not elect someone who both understands the Constitution and has a proven record of working to restore and preserve the Bill of Rights, we will lose those rights.

We Must Not Destroy the Constitution to Save It.  It deeply troubles me that Trump supporters, most of whom are Republican voters, seem unconcerned about Trump's seeming indifference to many political issues and the scheme of limited government enshrined in the Constitution.  "That's not important to us.  What matters is that he has a lifelong record of getting things done."  They argue that things have so deteriorated that they cannot be fixed through ordinary means. [...] Sorry, but it doesn't work like that.  If we ignore the Constitution, ostensibly to save it, we'll never get it back.  And that means we'll never get America back, no matter how often we repeat the slogan, "make America great again."

Make the Supreme Court an election issue.  Conservatives ought to use Obama's selection of a Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Scalia as an opportunity to challenge the role federal courts generally and the Supreme Court specifically have assumed as the super-legislative body that can overrule all other parts of federal and state government in our republic.  This is not want the Constitution intended at all.  The Supreme Court seized this power on its own. [...] The Supreme Court simply invents what it wants the Constitution to mean and then declares its whims to be the meaning of the Constitution.  The Constitution was written, of course, so that it was easy to understand — that was the idea.  Members of Congress, who pass federal laws, take the same oath to respect the Constitution as do Supreme Court justices.  In those cases where the Constitution is unclear and needs to be changed, there is a clear process for doing that, which requires a super-majority of state legislatures to ratify any proposed amendments.  The practical effect of rogue and limitless federal judicial activism is that the amendment process, which was once recognized as the only process for changing the Constitution, has effectively died.

A Most Menacing Attack on the United States Constitution.  The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has roused debate about the role of the Constitution of the United States.  Justice Scalia placed a high value on the U.S. Constitution, but for years, he had been fighting a losing battle to defend America's founding document.  Back in 1997, Scalia acknowledged:  "I am now something of a dodo bird among jurists and legal scholars.  You can fire a cannon in the faculty lounge of any major law school in the country and not strike an originalist."

Donald Trump, Enemy of the Constitution.  Can you name the single most unconstitutional thing Donald Trump has proposed or endorsed so far in the 2016 presidential race?  Not an easy question to answer, is it?  Do you start with Trump's efforts to suppress immigration by gutting the 14th Amendment?  Or do you perhaps point to Trump's long war on the Fifth Amendment and its protections for property rights, as exemplified by Trump's embrace of boundless eminent domain powers for the government and Trump's own shameful record of seeking to personally profit when government officials seize homes and businesses and then hand the bulldozed land over to crony capitalist real estate developers?  Either of the above could serve as an answer to my opening question.  But when it comes to Trump's unconstitutional agenda, there are plenty of other noxious options to choose from.

Messing With the Constitution.  In recent years, a small but growing number of people have advocated a convention of states to propose amendments to the Constitution of the United States.  The reaction to the proposal has been hostile, out of all proportion to either the originality or the danger of such a convention.  The political left has been especially vehement in its denunciations of what they call "messing with the Constitution."  A recent proposal by Governor Greg Abbott of Texas to hold a Constitutional convention of states has been denounced by the Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and nationally by an editorial in the liberal "USA Today."

House Democrats Move to Criminalize Criticism of Islam.  December 17, 2015 ought henceforth to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment.  Sponsored by among others, Muslim Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, as well as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Loretta Sanchez, Charles Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Kennedy, Al Green, Judy Chu, Debbie Dingell, Niki Tsongas, John Conyers, José Serrano, Hank Johnson, and many others, House Resolution 569 condemns "violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States."  The Resolution has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Hillary Clinton Hit on Trump Is Her Latest Attack on Freedom of Speech.  Hillary Clinton's claim during the last Democratic debate that the Islamic State (ISIS) is "showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims to recruit more radical jihadists" was swiftly proven wrong.  In reality, the latest Islamic State video features Barack Obama ("liar") and her husband ("fornicator"), but never mentions Trump.  More disquieting than its inaccuracy, however, is the fact that Hillary's claim shows that one of the people most likely to be the next president of the United States is a foe of the freedom of speech, the cornerstone of any free society.

Ed Schultz Denigrates Constitution as Old 'Piece of Paper' That is 'Totally Outdated'.  Got a soft spot for the oldest written constitution in the world, the one for which every president upon taking office must swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend?  Then you're clearly a "jackass" according to Ed Schultz, who joins a long sordid list of lefties who can't hide their contempt for the founding charter that George Washington once described as "a guide which I will never abandon."  Yes, he was the Father of our Country, but clearly didn't have a clue.

Democrats Empower Citizens to Restrict Constitutional Rights.  The contempt President Obama has for established order in Federal government, particularly in the manner in which he has ignored Congress, is well known.  He has also stated that if he doesn't like a law written by Congress, such as any law dealing with immigration, he will just ignore their proposed bills and declare his own by Executive Order.  Democrats have now empowered citizens to decide when and where other citizens may exercise their constitutional rights.  This is most clearly illustrated in how government treats the rights of storeowners with regard to same sex marriage and concealed carry laws.  Examples abound.  In Colorado when a bakery refused to bake a cake for a same sex wedding, the state court ruled against the baker.  The government has made sure that no bakery, florist or pizza place may refuse to serve a same sex couple.

First Amendment under siege: Government should ban speech that offends minorities, millennials say.  Forty percent of millennials support government censorship of speech offensive to minority groups, according to a survey released Friday [11/20/2015].  The Pew Research Center found that millennials were the most likely of any age group to agree that government should have the authority to stop people from saying things that offend minorities, while Democrats were nearly twice as likely as Republicans to favor such bans.  The result comes amid a growing campus movement to ban "microaggressions" and create "safe spaces" free from statements deemed offensive to "marginalized" groups, including racial, ethnic and LGBT minorities.

Poll: 40 Percent Of Millennials Want Speech Censored.  A new Pew Research Center poll shows that 40 percent of American Millennials (ages 18-34) are likely to support government prevention of public statements offensive to minorities.

The First Amendment Is Dying.  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; Unless we're talking about a white chocolate-paneled cake for a gay wedding or perpetual funding for 'women's health' clinics, because it's the 'right thing to do.' [...] Or of the press; unless the press invades safe spaces designated by mobs or writes about incorrect topics at incorrect times.  And to petition the Government for a redress of grievances; unless they are members of pre-designated special interests groups, they should report to the IRS before doing so.  That's pretty much the state of the First Amendment today.

Obama Administration: Constitution's Treaty Clause Is Dead.  Asked the right question, a suspect will often incriminate himself.  Asked why the Iran deal isn't a treaty, Secretary of State John Kerry basically answered it's because we've killed the Constitution.  It's been quipped that the "Living Constitution" liberals believe in so deeply means that the real Constitution is dead.  Its words as written can be twisted by judges, and the non-existent — such as rights to abortion and same-sex marriage — can be found written between its lines by the Supreme Court.  But Secretary Kerry, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday [7/28/2015], pumped another bullet into the legal foundation of the American system of government ratified by We the People nearly 227 years ago.

Say Hello to the 'Identity Person' and Goodbye to Your Rights.  [Scroll down]  Faced with a seemingly intractable problem, Kennedy "solved" it by creating a new legal notion called "identity."  Kennedy understood "identity" could not be a protected class either, so instead he chose to make a person's identity a "liberty."  Neat trick, huh? In a work of legal reasoning and scholarship straight out of the fortune cookie school, Kennedy turned an inchoate physical urge into a person's identity, and then found (not in the wording of the Constitution) that a person's right to choose an identity is a fundamental liberty under the 14th Amendment.  This bit of legal legerdemain will be a fount of endless mischief, so much so that it could prove to be single most devastating insult to the Constitution the Republic has yet endured.

WaPo Columnist: Racist Anti-Obama Tweets 'Make You Question' 1st Amendment.  Liberal Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart opined on Twitter that some of the racist and hateful tweets directed toward President Obama were enough to "make you question your support for 1st Amendment."

Homeland Chief: Fourth Amendment 'Beyond My Competence'.  Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, a man with sweeping power to invade the property rights and privacy of every American using judge-less warrants to search and seize records, has a Fourth Amendment problem:  he doesn't really know it. [...] Apparently, ignorance of the law is an excuse if you run a massive federal bureaucracy with sweeping police state powers.

This is Why Liberty Dies.  In our nation, we have built a rather impressive framework to restrain the government: our Constitution.  Though it has been interpreted into meaninglessness, in many ways, it is still given lip service and is still the ultimate law of the land.  However, there is one glaring hole that is currently being exploited to make an end-run around its remaining provisions:  the rise of the Federal Bureaucracy.

The Democratic assault on free speech.  Everybody's for free speech — until somebody says something he doesn't like.  But the genius of the First Amendment is that it is so direct and plain that even a lawyer or a judge can understand it.  The amendment does not guarantee thoughtful speech, polite speech or even responsible speech.  The Founding Fathers wanted to say only that speech must be free, unfettered and at liberty to flower.  The guarantee is unique among nations, and it sounds so good that a lot of politicians in other nations pay it lip service but are aghast if their constituents want to try it at home.

States Move Forward With Plan To Alter Constitution.  A very important meeting is being held in Washington this week, but career politicians, lobbyists and most in the media don't want you to know about it.  More than 100 state legislators from around the country are meeting at the Naval Heritage Center.  The Assembly of State Legislatures (ASL) will discuss the rules for the first-ever Article V Constitutional amendment convention.  This is their third meeting.  They're preparing to take on Washington, and Congress doesn't like it.

Another City Forced to Obey the Bill of Rights.  Park City, Utah, officials were the latest in a series of local governments that have been forced to respect the Constitution by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).  SAF has run up an impressive number of legal wins to protect second amendment rights.  It has become the ACLU of the gun culture.  In the Park City case, the city had adopted local laws in direct violation of the second amendment and Utah state preemption law.

Is there a legal difference between a few thousand illegals amnestied and 5 million?  I'm not a Constitutional scholar, nor even a lawyer.  But you and I can both read.  Perhaps the most incredible aspect of the Constitution is that it was written not so that lawyers would only understand it, but so that ordinary people could easily grasp the concepts involved and understand their rights and the limits of government power.  If scholars can justify what Obama is doing as Constitutional, then our reading of what the Constitution says is no longer valid and the document itself has become irrelevant.

Houston Demands Oversight Of Sermons.  Officials with the city of Houston, Texas, who are defending a controversial ordinance that would allow men to use women's restrooms now have demanded to see the sermons preached by several area pastors.  The recent move came in a subpoena from the city to pastors for copies of their sermons and other communications in the city's legal defense of a "non-discrimination" measure that allows "gender-confused" people to use public restrooms designated for the opposite sex.  A lawsuit challenging Houston's move alleges the city violated its own charter in its adoption of the Equal Rights Ordinance, which in May designated homosexuals and transgender persons as a protected class.

Even in Houston, Texas, You Will Be Made to Care.  Houston, TX is not thought of as a bastion of liberalism, but it has gone quite rapidly off the deep end.  Earlier this year, Houston's City Council voted on non-discrimination legislation that provides equal protection to the entire swath of the BLTGCZQDLMAO alphabet silliness.  In short, if a guy decides he's a girl and wants to go hang out in the girl's bathroom, it is a-okay in Houston, or it would be except the law will not be enforced pending a court challenge.

Big Brother in Texas: Houston Demands Pastors Turn Over Sermon Notes, Private Communications.  After decades of warnings on the right about liberal politicians threatening religious liberty, a Democratic mayor in Texas is now subpoenaing pastors to turn over their sermons.  Houston city officials are demanding that city pastors opposed to Houston's "Bathroom Bill" — "a law that allows members of the opposite sex into each other's restrooms" — turn over sermon notes and "communications with church members" to ascertain which pastors have (or haven't) "opposed or criticized the city."

City of Houston demands pastors turn over sermons.  The [C]ity of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city's first openly lesbian mayor.  And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.  "The city's subpoena of sermons and other pastoral communications is both needless and unprecedented," Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Christina Holcomb said in a statement.  "The city council and its attorneys are engaging in an inquisition designed to stifle any critique of its actions."

Wanted: An attorney general committed to the Constitution.  It is no secret that the Obama administration has demonstrated questionable commitment to the rule of law.  It has undermined the separation of powers by disregarding congressional enactments while pushing executive power far beyond its constitutional boundaries.  It has further undermined limited government by disregarding federalism and pushing Washington-knows-best legislation that far exceeds anything the Founding Fathers could have conceived.

Leading Dem Insider: Save America, Scrap The Constitution.  Harry Reid is a determined radical, intent on limiting freedom, overturning American traditions, and remaking our institutions in the name of crushing the opposition and empowering the left.  His attempt to amend the First Amendment to curb free speech is a natural extension of his obliteration of longstanding Senate rules that promote deliberation and minority input.  But Reid seems almost moderate by left-wing Democrat standards.  Take Donna Brazile, vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee for voter registration and participation.  For her, eviscerating the First Amendment is small potatoes; she wants to scrap the entire U.S. Constitution.

Targeting the Constitution.  It is now well known that the IRS targeted tea party organizations.  What is less well known, but perhaps even more scandalous, is that the IRS also targeted those who would educate their fellow citizens about the United States Constitution. [...] Grass-roots organizations around the country, such as the Linchpins of Liberty (Tennessee), the Spirit of Freedom Institute (Wyoming), and the Constitutional Organization of Liberty (Pennsylvania), allege that they were singled out for special scrutiny at least in part for their work in constitutional education.  There may have been many more.

GOP blocks Democrats' push to rewrite First Amendment campaign spending.  A Democratic election year push to amend the Constitution and roll back campaign-spending free speech rights ran out of steam Thursday [9/11/2014] and fell victim to a Senate filibuster.  Holding the vote, even in defeat, was a major political goal for Democrats during the two-week session of Congress.  They hope the fight will help them rally their base ahead of November's elections, arguing that changing the Constitution is needed to prevent wealthy conservatives from improperly influencing elections.

Ted Cruz: 'Saturday Night Live' Skits Illegal Under New Campaign Finance Proposal.  A new proposal for campaign finance reform would make Saturday Night Live's political skits illegal, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has warned.  The Senate is debating a proposal to add a constitutional amendment allowing Congress reverse a 2010 Supreme Court decision and restore limits on corporate campaign spending.  Republicans say the proposal, put forward by Dems, is an attack on free speech.

New York's 'shut up' rule.  Keep quiet.  That's the message being sent by New York State Board of Elections, which disregarded the First Amendment to enact new "emergency regulations" on political speech that could become permanent at the end of this month.  Intended to regulate spending by independent groups during campaign season, the regulations are so expansive that almost anyone, citizen or organization, hoping to have their say on any issue could find themselves in bureaucratic dire straits.

The Constitution Lives in Ferguson.  [Scroll down]  Liberals can't stand the Constitution.  No less than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg advised Egyptians caught in the chaos of a dictatorship that "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a Constitution in the year 2012."  Former Justice John Paul Stevens has written a book titled Six Amendments:  How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, in which, as noted by Richard Wolf in USA Today Stevens would "reduce gun violence, abolish the death penalty, restrict political campaign spending, limit states' independence and make Congress more competitive and less combative."  And, of course, there is that now much cited 2001 radio interview with State Senator Obama in which he complains that "the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties."

Federalizing the police:
 FBI to hit Chicago streets to combat gangs.  [Michael Sneed] has learned that the feds plan to dispatch 65 FBI agents to the streets in high-crime areas on the South and West Sides in an all-out battle against gang crime.  The 65 feds are part of a group of 100 Chicago agents already assigned to curb gang and violent crimes.  "This is a new tactic the FBI is using in fighting crime," an FBI spokeswoman said, "by working in a concentrated area and a concentrated time on the street — although the FBI has been working hand in hand and day in and day out with the police department."

FEC chairman warns book publishers at risk of regulation at heated meeting.  The Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission warned Wednesday [7/23/2014] that his agency colleagues could try to regulate book publishers, during a heated session over a forthcoming book by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan.  During the meeting, the FEC declined to definitively spare book publishers from the reach of campaign finance rules.  This triggered a clash between Republican and Democratic members, with Chairman Lee Goodman warning that the deadlock could represent a "chill" for constitutional free-press rights.

FEC chair warns of chilling regulations, book ban on conservative publishers.  The chairman of the Federal Election Commission today blasted Democratic colleagues opposed to his effort to protect conservative media after they imposed rules on the publisher of Rep. Paul Ryan's new book, opening the door to future book regulations — or even a ban.

Justice Kennedy says Constitution 'flawed document'.  Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wasn't out to make news when he addressed the annual conference of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and devoted most of his 50-minute speech to the Magna Carta, which turns 800 years old in 2015.  But Kennedy did let on that he doesn't belong to the school of Constitution-worshipers who base their legal doctrines on what they glean to be the original, literal meaning of every word and phrase in the nation's founding document.

Forty-six Democrat Senators Want to Change our Laws Strictly for Politics.  In a bare-faced political move, forty-six elected Democrats in our United States Senate; that's eighty-seven percent of all Democrats, are willing to make a change to our most predominant, most revered and oldest established legal document, the United States Constitution, all for their desire for more political power in our government.  These self-loathing discriminators, just for personal gain, would change the most important document in the American arsenal of judicial decrees, destroying any and all credence in the minds of the American people.  They would ban free speech for Americans if they chose not to like it.  No political discourse would ever reach our newspapers or airwaves if those Democrats chose to block it.  Two sides to every political discussion would be gone forever if banned by our Constitution as the Democrats are successful in their banning efforts.

Obama executive actions seen as threat to Constitution.  A prominent law professor and avowed supporter of the Obama White House will tell the House on Wednesday that the president has created one of the biggest constitutional crises in the country's history and will endorse House Republicans' effort to sue to rein him in.  Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, will say President Obama is trampling the founders' vision for the country in his push to circumvent Congress, and he will demand Republicans and Democrats alike forget their party labels to unify against this White House's power grab.

Senate Democrats look to rewrite First Amendment in fight to limit campaign cash.  Saying the foundations of democracy are threatened, Senate Democrats took the first step Tuesday [6/3/2014] to rewrite the First Amendment, holding a hearing to rally support for their proposed constitutional change that would give government the power to ban all spending on political campaigns.  The effort drew vows of resistance from Republicans, who harangued Democrats for abandoning free speech rights for political gain.  Republican lawmakers said the solution was for Democrats to improve their arguments, not to silence their critics in an assault on fundamental freedoms.

ACLU Rejects Amendment to Corral Campaign Spending.  Democrats pushing for a constitutional amendment that would give government the authority to regulate political spending by outside groups will do so without one traditional ally at their side.

Democrats Try to Repeal First Amendment.  Today [6/3/2014] in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Democrats held a hearing on Tom Udall's proposal to gut the First Amendment by allowing Congress to prohibit or restrict participation in political campaigns.  The Democrats like to say that the amendment would reverse the effect of the Citizens United and McCutcheon cases, but in fact it goes much farther than that.  The amendment, which is favored by Harry Reid and most Senate Democrats, would give Congress unprecedented power to limit debate on public issues in the context of elections.  You really have to read the proposed amendment to understand how radical it is.

VA hospital hides Jesus behind curtain.  Some folks in Iron Mountain became infuriated earlier this month when they discovered that statues of Jesus and Mary, along with a cross and altar, were hidden behind a curtain in the chapel of the VA hospital there.  The chapel still has stained glass windows, though for how long is unclear.  A VA hospital spokesman told me they are still trying to figure out what to do with the windows.  The decision to hide the religious icons came after the National Chaplain Center conducted an on-site inspection and determined the hospital's chapel was not in compliance with government regulations.
[Emphasis added.]

Sign Regulations and the Threat to Free Speech.  In 2006, auto shop owner Wayne Weatherbee decided to expand his business by purchasing a vacant lot that had once held another auto shop dating back to the 1940s.  But zoning officials in the city of Clermont, Florida, determined that Weatherbee's plans for the lot clashed with the city's aesthetic agenda and zoning regulations, so they asked him to first obtain a special permit before doing what he wanted with his own property.  Rather than apply for said permit, Weatherbee posted a dozen signs on his lot criticizing city officials, including the city manager and chief of police.

Harry Reid's Crusade Against the Koch Brothers Threatens Your Free Speech.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promised the Senate will take up a proposed constitutional amendment this year that would radically alter the First Amendment.  The Senate resolution would allow Congress to limit fundraising and spending on election campaigns and independent political speech.  Reid and others insist restricting the amount of money that may be raised and spent on political speech is not the same as limiting speech.  That's like saying that limiting the amount of newsprint a newspaper can buy does not limit its speech.

Woman issued citation by authorities for Facebook comment.  Christine Adamski said she was surprised last week when she received a citation in the mail for a comment she made on Facebook, but she also knew immediately she wasn't going to pay it.  Adamski, 25, opened the $50 ticket from the Will County Forest Preserve District last week and read the letter alleging she had used a dog park without a proper permit.  The citation arrived at her Bolingbrook home with a letter explaining the ticket, an application for a dog park permit as well as a copy of her social media post "admitting her guilt."  "I laughed," Adamski said Thursday.  "I was like, this is totally untrue.  Obviously I'm not going to pay this."

Let's uphold (and honor!) the Constitution.  Some would say that the Constitution has already been twisted beyond recognition by activist judges, congressional chicanery and tyrannical presidents, but I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt here, and affirm that the genius of the Founders still holds our nation together despite the best efforts of our worst citizens to draw us apart.  You can all provide your own examples of laws that have been passed by the Congress, affirmed by the courts and executed by the president, which on their face would be self-evidently unconstitutional were it possible for such decisions to be based on the plain words of the Constitution rather than the convenience and connivance of our governors.

Ted Cruz: Democratic Senators Want to 'Repeal the First Amendment'.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told attendees at a Family Research Council pastors retreat that Senate Democrats want to limit free speech through amending the Constitution.  "When you think it can't get any worse, it does," Cruz said at the FRC's Watchmen on the Wall 2014 event in Washington, D.C. on Thursday [5/22/2014].  "This year, I'm sorry to tell you, the United States Senate is going to be voting on a constitutional amendment to repeal the First Amendment."  Calling these "perilous, perilous times," Cruz said Senate Democrats have said they are ready to vote on the amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 19 — "an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections."

First Amendment's worst enemies are in nation's capital.  [Scroll down]  The Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard reported Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee Goodman's warning that "there are impulses in the government every day to second-guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers."  There have already been several proposals before the FEC to regulate conservative media outlets, Goodman said.  The proposals were defeated, but only because the FEC is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.  The Democrats voted for the proposals.

FEC chairman warns agency's desire to regulate media 'alive and well'.  The chairman of the Federal Election Commission warned Wednesday that officials at the agency want to start regulating the media, despite a longstanding congressional ban on doing so.  "The impulse to regulate the media within the FEC is alive and well," Chairman Lee E. Goodman told FoxNews.com in an interview.  Goodman pointed to several recent decisions and developments that stoke concerns about the commission — which is supposed to regulate money in federal elections — sticking its nose in the affairs of the press.

FEC chair warns that conservative media like Drudge Report and Sean Hannity face regulation — like PACs.  Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media's exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.  "I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers," warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview.  "The right has begun to break the left's media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications," he added.

FEC Chairman Warns Conservative Media Could Be Regulated Like PACs.  As conservative media grows, the head of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is warning that he thinks liberals will look for ways to regulate conservative news outlets just like they do political PACs.  Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman is vowing to fight back against such regulations by putting a stop to efforts to undermine the media's exemptions from federal election laws.

FEC chair warns that conservative media like Drudge Report and Sean Hannity face regulation — like PACs.  Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media's exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.

Supreme Court: Pennsylvania cops no longer need a warrant to search citizens' vehicles.  Pennsylvania police officers no longer need a warrant to search a citizen's vehicle, according to a recent state Supreme Court opinion.  The high court's opinion, released Tuesday [4/29/2014], is being called a drastic change in citizens' rights and police powers.  Previously, citizens could refuse an officer's request to search a vehicle.  In most cases, the officer would then need a warrant — signed by a judge — to conduct the search.  That's no longer the case, according to the opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery.  The ruling, passed on a 4-2 vote, was made in regard to an appeal from a 2010 vehicle stop in Philadelphia.

Breathtaking Finding.  Fifty-five percent of likely voter respondents tell Rasmussen that the federals should review political ads and candidates' statements and punish those who make inaccurate statements about their opponents.  (We'd need a new agency, call it the Ministry of Political Truth, to oversee this brave new government power.  Perhaps it could be headquartered in Benghazi.)  I would comment on this, except that it leaves me speechless.

Suit Against SAFE Act Claims it Allows 'Warrantless' Police Searches.  The registry process of New York's SAFE Act allows for warrantless police searches into gun owners' homes, a violation of the Fourth Amendment, according to plaintiffs of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Eastern District.  The law firm representing plaintiff Gabriel Razzano argues the registry process is "essentially secret and results in a mandatory, warrantless Penal Law 400 gun removal visit from police."  "The entire purpose of the registry is a sham to permit intrusions into a person's home on consent without a warrant for a 'gun removal,'" La Reddola, Lester and Associates said in a release.  "The entire registry and database seek to justify warrantless police searches, which my client and I now believe to be the real purpose of the SAFE Act."

Burlington voters opt to give up gun rights, gut state preemption.  Three City of Burlington resolutions were passed by voters Tuesday, Vermont's WPTZ News Channel 5 reported this morning.  The measures are now headed to the state legislature, where it will be decided if municipalities will be given the power to override state preemption protections.  Voters chose to allow authorities to seize firearms at domestic investigations (Yes: 5,579 / No: 2,066), ban firearms from establishments that serve liquor (Yes: 5,194 / No: 2,517), and require firearms in the home to be locked up (Yes: 4,351 / No: 2,971) in an election that marks the latest battle in a long campaign being waged between "progressive" Burlington Council members working with Gun Sense Vermont, and the Vermont Federation of Sportmen's Clubs.

Our Shredded Constitution, Part I: Free Exercise of Religion.  Too many Americans today do not ask whether government defends our rights; instead, they ask, why government should allow Americans to exercise their rights.  The result has been a complete shredding of American rights altogether.  The Bill of Rights is now a relic of what it once represented, a Swiss cheese of liberty.

Obama's Trifecta.  In its violations of the First Amendment, the Obama administration has consistently relied upon self-serving definitions of press, religion, and political speech.  Holder justified violating Rosen's press freedom on the grounds that he somehow wasn't acting as a legitimate member of the press.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has arrogated to herself the right to determine what is and what is not a "religion."  She claims the HHS mandate doesn't violate religious freedom since groups that serve the public aren't religious according to her criteria.  She declared at the time of the mandate's release that only purely sectarian groups are deemed religious under Obamacare and thus worthy of an exemption.  The Federal Election Commission plays the same game on what constitutes political speech, defining the concept ever more narrowly to justify restrictions on ordinary participation.

Harvard writer: Free speech threatens liberalism and must be destroyed.  If this Harvard University student got her way, free speech on campus would be abolished and professors with dissenting views fired, because radical leftism is the only permissible political philosophy and the First Amendment is a barrier preventing modern colleges from fulfilling their proper role as indoctrination camps.  Her name is Sandra Korn.  She is a senior at Harvard and columnist for the Harvard Crimson.  In a recent column, Korn unambiguously insisted that the university should stop guaranteeing professors and students the right to hold controversial views and pursue research that challenges liberalism.

The FCC Can Have My Pen and My Microphone When They Pry Them From My Cold, Dead Hands.  While it looks like the FCC has at least temporarily backed down from their threats of putting monitors into newsrooms, we haven't seen the last of it.  This has been a dream of liberals for a long time.  "According to the research design presented to the FCC by a government contractor named Social Solutions International Inc.," writes RealClearPolitics, "it wasn't just television stations, either:  Internet news organizations and newspapers were to be included in this information sweep, as if that were actually in the FCC's purview."

More about the FCC.

The FCC Plan To Police The Newsrooms.  The FCC has cooked up a plan to place "researchers" in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made.  Any questions as to why the U.S. is falling in the free press rankings?

President Obama Is Giving Conservatives All The Tools They Need To Transform The Country.  As any civics class teacher knows, the way American government is supposed to work according to the U.S. Constitution is that Congress makes laws, and then the executive branch executes them (that's why it's called the executive branch).  It can't decide what provisions it wants to enforce or not.  The reason for that is pretty obvious:  if the executive branch can decide willy-nilly to enforce or not enforce whatever legislative provisions it wants, it is, in effect — and in reality — enacting its own legislation.

The Left's War on the Free Press.  As anyone who has been paying attention knows, the left isn't terribly fond of the free press because the free press makes the narrative harder to control.  That's why you end up with "thought leaders" like Paul Krugman bemoaning the fact that his preferred narrative is "up for argument."  Krugman's lament is benign in comparison to a pair of other complaints aired this weekend.

Treaties Don't Trump the Constitution.  Can the President and Senate invest the federal government with new powers not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution simply by signing and ratifying a treaty?  Can the treaty power be used to override the Tenth Amendment and render it a dead letter?  Those issues will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on November 5, 2013, in the case of Bond v. United States.

Ted Cruz criticizes DOJ for arguing international treaty can trump the Constitution.  Justice Department attorneys are advancing an argument at the Supreme Court that could allow the government to invoke international treaties as a legal basis for policies such as gun control that conflict with the U.S. Constitution, according to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.  Their argument is that a law implementing an international treaty signed by the U.S. allows the federal government to prosecute a criminal case that would normally be handled by state or local authorities.  That is a dangerous argument, according to Cruz.

Exclusive: Feds confiscate investigative reporter's confidential files during raid.  A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

Silencing dissent by SWATing messengers of truth.  [Scroll down]  Ms. Hudson is now speaking out because of what the agents of this Gestapo-like tactic took from her home.  While the search warrant was limited to any alleged guns on the premises — again — stemming from a quarter-century old incident reportedly involving her husband, their reach well exceeded their authority.  What was taken from the home of Audrey Hudson was more valuable than any gun.  What was taken from Audrey Hudson, in addition to her freedoms as an American citizen and a Pulitzer Prize nominee for her journalistic prowess, were her pages of notes and names of sources inside and outside of government who had confidentially provided her information over the years.

Checking Your Kids' School Assignments.  Have you checked your kids' school assignments lately?  You might be shocked if you do.  Sixth-grade children in a history class in the Bryant School District in Arkansas (whose website brags that the district "has embraced" Common Core standards) were assigned a project to update the U.S. Bill of Rights because it is "outdated."  They were instructed to "prioritize, revise, omit two and add two amendments."

Houston, We Have a Problem.  The Senate, at the behest of the White House, is now working on a bill to allow the president to raise the debt ceiling on his own — granting powers to the president that are specifically reserved to the House of Representatives by the Constitution.  This is not a small matter.  This is a Republic, not an Autocracy.

The U.S. Constitution has no Teeth.  As the Obama Administration works around the Constitution and performs thousands of acts that are in direct defiance of constitutional law and established legislative practice, the emerging issue is that it does not appear to be a crime to defy the Constitution.  The U.S. Code, the list of Federal laws, has many laws that can be used in Federal court to take employers to court, for example, for discriminating against minorities, or violating the voting rights act.  But with regard to purely Constitutional issues, such as the First Amendment violations of the IRS, there doesn't seem to be any teeth in the Constitution.  There is no codified way to fight these abuses.

Freedom of the Press is now an Entitlement?  Diane Feinstein and a few other well meaning Senators are in the process of defining who qualifies for 1st Amendment rights, or privileges as she put it, as the Senate Judiciary Committee attempts to iron out a "shield law for reporters or journalists" from having to divulge their sources.  This rush for an immediate fix regarding the press has nothing to do with a recent scandal in which the NSA ran rough shod over individual rights or private records and which the Justice Department claimed to have no knowledge; no there's no connection, move along.

Senate Panel OKs Measure Defining a Journalist.  A Senate panel on Thursday approved a measure defining a journalist, which had been an obstacle to broader media shield legislation designed to protect reporters and the news media from having to reveal their sources.

There Ought To Be No Law.  As I've written elsewhere, under the guise of "protection," the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party is moving toward its real goal of licensing journalists and creating an American version of Britain's Official Secrets Act.  The Senate bill has nothing to do with protecting journalists, and everything to do with the Government Class protecting itself from those who would expose its activities.  Having successfully co-opted what used to be the national media — so much so that there is now a veritable revolving door between Washington and old-media institutions — Congress now seeks to shut down via exclusion all those who do not toe the party line.

Who's a journalist?  The bill is supposed to protect journalists by defining who get the protection accorded to the Fourth Estate.  I get that.  But it's not up to the government to define who is, and who is not, a journalist, especially in an era when "reporting" covers everything from being a beat jocket at a paper to being a guy who records something on his cellphone and distributes the news via YouTube.

Enacting the Liberty Amendments.  Without getting into the detail of the potential disputes over the procedures for an Article V convention, it is certain that, even if two thirds of the States were to call for a convention, it would be tied up in litigation for years.  And if it was ever able to convene, it would likely turn out to be the largest convocation of leftist law professors ever assembled, who would dominate the media coverage and assure that no amendments would issue which would accomplish anything sought by constitutional conservatives.

Sen. Feinstein Threatens Press Freedom.  [Scroll down]  Someone is lying, and of the two sides, the government has a much worse track record.  [Senator Dianne] Feinstein would only protect the anonymous sources of what she would call "real journalists," those being paid by an "established news organization."  The law would still have had direct bearing on the James Rosen case, and that of homophonic New York Times reporter James Risen.  But Feinstein would exclude bloggers, an entirely arbitrary, meritless distinction.

Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin Wants Government to Decide Who Qualifies as a Real Journalist.  What qualifies as "legitimate journalism" or a "news website" in Durbin's mind?  Anyone can tweet something that constitutes news and the broadcast of which can be deemed journalism.  Tweets of ordinary citizens molested by the TSA have become news stories.  As we've seen repeatedly over the past several decades, so-called journalists can bury stories harmful to powerful politicians or pet causes.

No right to silence.  Monday's decision scales back the Miranda decision.  Not only can your words be used against you, but the Supreme Court says your silence can be, as well.  Genovevo Salinas found this out after he was questioned by Houston police regarding the 1992 murder of two brothers.

Goodbye 5th Amendment? Supremes rule silence can be used in court.  In a 5-4 decision regarding Salinas v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a potential defendant's silence can be used against them during police interviews prior to arrest and reading of Miranda rights.  In 1992, Genovevo Salinas voluntarily entered a Houston police station to discuss the murder of two brothers, Juan and Hector Garza.  He complied with officer's questions, but when asked whether shotgun casings would match his firearm, he fell silent.  Texas prosecutors convinced jurors that his silence was an admission of guilt.

Americans who cherish freedom must push back against government surveillance.  On Thursday, I held a news conference announcing my intent to pursue legal action against the federal government for infringing on Americans' Fourth Amendment rights.  The National Security Agency's collection of Verizon's client data probably only scratches the surface.  A court order that allows the government to obtain a billion records a day and does not name an individual target is clearly beyond the scope of the Fourth Amendment, which states clearly that warrants must be specific to the person and the place.

NSA out of control: We the people at fault.  Today, the front page of every major national news website is featuring reactions to Glenn Greenwald's explosive report on the FISA court order that "requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries."  That means that the government is collecting information on every call made on Verizon's service, regardless of probable cause or any suspicion that the parties have committed a crime.  The Fourth Amendment was written specifically to prohibit this activity by the government.  But they're doing it, unapologetically.

More about domestic surveillance.

The U.S. Constitution.  America is a country that bases its political system on three equally important governing bodies:  the legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch.  This arrangement comes directly from the U.S. Constitution.  The U.S. Constitution has been the supreme law of the U.S. since September 17, 1787.  This was eleven years after the U.S. got its independence from England.

Durbin wonders: Does [the] First Amendment apply to bloggers, Twitter?  Thanks to the Obama administration's attacks on the Associated Press and its representation in federal court that Fox News' James Rosen is a spy for asking questions, one has to wonder whether the First Amendment applies to anyone in the Age of Hope and Change.

Glenn Beck: If Police Get Drones, 'The 2nd Amendment Is Absolutely Dead'.  Senator Rand Paul's media tour following his "misunderestimated" statements on drones brought him to Glenn Beck's radio show Friday, where the two men discussed the prospects of a terrifying future where police cars have "robotic firing arms" that take down criminals with the push of a button.  If that ever happens, Beck told Paul, "the Second Amendment is absolutely dead."

Mayor Bloomberg's Personal Reading Of Constitution.  New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that in light of the Boston Marathon bombing, our interpretation of the Constitution will "have to change."  Americans should be appalled at such a statement.

Michael Bloomberg's creepy authoritarianism.  So, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg believes that the public's interpretation of the Constitution must evolve in the face of terror attacks such as the one in Boston.  "You're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days," the man explained, "and our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."  Of course he thinks they do.  That's why we have constitutions — so they can be changed in tumultuous times.

Bloomberg wants you to give up liberty to acquire a little temporary safety — with no guarantees.
 Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will 'Have to Change' After Boston Bombing.  In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday [4/22/2013] the country's interpretation of the Constitution will "have to change" to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.  "The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry," Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown.  "But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will.  And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."

That Pesky Constitution.  It wasn't too terribly long ago that talk of dismantling this country's most sacred document would get you labeled a crackpot.  But now?  Well, it's apparently fine.  Never mind that lawyers are sworn to uphold the Constitution.

A direct threat to the 1st and 10th Amendments:
 Law would fire sheriffs for defying gun control measures.  Supporters of the 380 sheriffs in 15 states who so far have vowed to defy new state and federal gun control laws claim that legislation is starting to pop up around the nation to fire any state elected or appointed law enforcement official who doesn't obey federal orders.  The first effort emerged in Texas.  Legislation proposed by Dallas Democratic Rep. Yvonne Davis would remove any sheriff or law enforcement officer who refuses to enforce state or federal laws.  What's more, it would remove any elected or appointed law enforcement officer for simply stating or signing any document stating that they will not obey federal orders.

Appeals Court Curbs Border Agents' Carte Blanche Power to Search Your Gadgets.  A federal appeals court for the first time ruled Friday [3/8/2013] that U.S. border agents do not have carte blanche authority to search the cellphones, tablets and laptops of travelers entering the country  — a "watershed" decision in the court's own terms and one at odds with the policies of the President Barack Obama administration.

9th Circuit Appeals Court: 4th Amendment Applies At The Border.  For many years we've written about how troubling it is that Homeland Security agents are able to search the contents of electronic devices, such as computers and phones at the border, without any reason.  The 4th Amendment only allows reasonable searches, usually with a warrant.  But the general argument has long been that, when you're at the border, you're not in the country and the 4th Amendment doesn't apply.

WA Dems Sponsor Bill Allowing Police to Search Gun owners' Homes.  In a mistake that probably wasn't a mistake, a Washington state bill sponsored by liberal Democrats contained a little-noticed provision that would have called for the police to have the right to search private citizens' home once per year if they own certain types of guns.

What Our Society Has Become.  The United States Constitution, and its concepts of limited government, State sovereignty, liberty, and a political system governed by the people is being tossed aside as nothing more than an archaic obstacle to progress.  Federalized, our schools have become indoctrination centers that spit out compliant citizens hailing that central government is the new god of the new age.  Television programs, all the way down to the cute little yellow feathered Street for toddlers, reinforces the mental programming of the youngsters, and the news media and entertainment industry reinforce the teachings not only for the children, but to ensure the proper re-education of the older folks that might still remember what America was like when it was still truly free.

20 Reasons America Is Becoming An Increasingly Nonfunctional Society.  [#16]  Our entire society is based on a Constitution that is being systematically ignored, distorted, and treated as optional by the populace, our politicians, and even the judges who are sworn to enforce it.

Congress has a Constitution problem — many don't understand document.  Under rules that the new Republican majority put into place, each House member introducing a bill must cite specific parts of the Constitution that they think grant Congress the authority to take the action they are proposing.  The first year's worth of action was less than inspiring for adherents of the founding document:  Many lawmakers ignored the rule, while others sliced and diced the clauses to justify what they were trying to do.  One thumbed his nose at the exercise altogether, saying it's up to the courts, not Congress, to determine what is constitutional.

Dangerous Times.  When the media openly question the right of Tea Parties to exist, they are telling us they really want single-party rule.  That's why they want to abolish the free political opposition.  They are political control freaks, totally contrary to American history and tradition.  That is why they want to dump the US Constitution.

Dispensing with the Constitution.  It was Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist 69, who explained that an American president must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."  The "take care" clause in the Constitution that he was defending is a cornerstone of the Founders' vision of limited and divided government.  It was one of the many bulwarks against tyranny that were built into the remarkable structure that has ensured our freedom over the past two-and-a-half centuries.  In that structure, a president may only refuse to enforce a law if it is plainly unconstitutional, a power that is as antique as it is rarely employed.

Trying to nudge the Constitution out of place.  Will 2013 come to be known as the year of presidential decree?  The year the president ignored Congress, changed the rules of government, and put into place whatever policies he saw fit? [...] During his first term, President Obama issued executive orders in lieu of laws passed by Congress, signed executive agreements with foreign countries in lieu of treaties ratified by the Senate, and formulated burdensome regulations with little legislative justification.

Cruz: Liberals Should Be Concerned About An "Imperial" And "Nixonian" President.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tells Sean Hannity that President Obama has "drunk the kool-aid" and believes he can do nothing wrong since he got reelected. [...] Cruz also tells Hannity that disregarding the constraints of the Constitution is a "pattern" with Obama and that it's only going to get worse in a second term.

Left's Desire To Weaken Constitution Endangers American Freedom.  During the debate over ObamaCare — a massive, budget-busting entitlement funded with money our country doesn't have — former New Jersey Judge Andrew Napolitano pointedly challenged then-U.S. Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., regarding the constitutionality of this socialized medicine monstrosity.  Clyburn's response?  "There's nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do," he said.  Therein lies the root of our problem.

Who Would Dare Veto the Sandy Bill?  In the late 19th century we had a president empowered by the same Constitution we have now, who felt its limitations mattered.  Today's politicians, judges, academia and mainstream media are unashamed to openly defy the Constitution, circumvent it, or declare it outdated and irrelevant — while at the same time seeking to publicly shame those who strive to adhere to it, or at the very least hesitate to spend what our treasury doesn't hold.

White House 'blocks use of pictures of Malia and Sasha Obama on the beach'.  Paparazzi shots of Malia and Sasha Obama have been blocked by the White House after a photographer reportedly stumbled across the girls on a public beach in Hawaii. [...] Secret service agents, who were accompanying the girls on their walk, immediately approached the photographer and asked for identification.  They allowed the man to keep his camera but gave him a stern warning to stop photographing the first daughters.

An Appeal for Dictatorship Comes Out of the Closet at the New York Times.  True to form, the New York Times saw out 2012 by publishing another apology for dictatorship.  In his op-ed, Louis Michael Seidman — Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University — argues that the Constitution should be abandoned.  The suggestion is so preposterous that it is tempting to dismiss the article altogether, but to do so would be to miss some very revealing implications.  The article is not so much a suggestion of constitutional reform as an open call for dictatorship.

The Editor says...
 Rather than abandoning the Constitution, let's abandon the New York Times.

Vanity Fair: Second Amendment 'Must Be Removed from the Constitution'.  On January 2, Vanity Fair ran an all-out attack on the constitution, the 2nd Amendment, and common sense in a column by Kurt Eichenwald titled, "Let's Repeal the Second Amendment."  Eichenwald's approach consists of attacking the NRA, arguing that gun owners avoid discussing more gun control by saying they don't want to "politicize" shootings, and taking the standard progressive position that there wasn't really a right to keep and bear arms until Justice Antonin Scalia created one in recent Supreme Court decisions.

Unmitigated propaganda in the New York Times:
 Let's Give Up on the Constitution.  As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is.

The Editor says...
 The writer of the article immediately above is identified by the New York Times as "a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University," which tells us a lot about the potential for anti-American indoctrination at Georgetown.  He never gets around to his alternatives to the Constitution, but apparently he would prefer that the America-hating Marxist, Barack H. Obama, be pronounced America's not-so-benevolent dictator, bypassing the ballot box.  The whole article sounds like sedition to me.

Subverting the Constitution.  Louis Michael Seidman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University, is no fringe figure.  He is a pillar of the left wing legal establishment, graduate of Harvard Law, former clerk for Thurgood Marshall, and notable figure in the Leftist "critical legal theory" movement. [...] Seidman has taken to the pages of the daily bible of the progressive establishment, the New York Times, to lend respectability to a movement to subvert the Constitution, and turn to an undefined system which inevitably means the loss of our safeguards against tyranny.  All expressed in superficially reassuring prose.

Hey! Let's have a 'Burn the Constitution Day!'  I don't believe the Constitution is holy writ nor do I think that the Founders had all the answers for today's America.  But all public officials and members of the military swear fealty to our founding document for a reason; it is the most visible, the most tangible representation of our sovereignty as a nation.  We don't have kings, or castles, or ancient ruins to which we can point and say our sovereignty lies within.  It is the Constitution that unites us as a people.  And positing the notion that we should just throw it away is outrageously stupid and disquietingly radical.

Georgetown Law professor: Scrap 'archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil' Constitution.  Georgetown Law professor Louis Michael Seidman writes that the time has come to scrap the Constitution.  In an op-ed published in the New York Times Monday, Seidman, a constitutional law professor, claimed that the nation's foundational document is the real impediment to progress and solutions to America's troubles.

Give Up On The Constitution? The Political Left Already Has.  For many, the Constitution is the barrier that blocks government from trampling a free people.  Yet many on the political left see it as a hurdle to their ambitions.  Consider the constitutional law professor who wants to kill it.

Dem Rep. Hank Johnson: Amend Constitution to Restrict Freedom of Speech.  Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) says, "corporations control the patterns of thinking" in the United States and that the Bill of Rights to the Constitution should be amended so that the government is given the power to restrict freedom of speech.  "We need a constitutional amendment to allow the legislature to control the so-called free speech rights of corporations," said Johnson.

Obama's DOJ Can't Say Criticizing Religion Will Remain Legal.  [A recent exchange], between Representative Trent Franks and Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, occurred in late July, but is particularly relevant today.  Representatvie Franks tries to extract an assurance from Perez that the Obama administration will not push a proposal to criminalize speech "against any religion."  He has a tough time doing so.

DoJ Civil Rights Division chief can't commit to protecting free speech.  Via Eliana Johnson and Michael Totten, the question that Rep. Trent Franks asked Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez in July shouldn't be very difficult to answer — especially for the man who heads up the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and who swore to uphold the Constitution when taking that job. [...] If you read the First Amendment, the answer is simple.  Perez, however, does a two-minute dodge while Franks asks it four times.

On Bourbon Street, party but don't preach at night.  The ordinance passed in October bans spreading "any social, political or religious message between the hours of sunset and sunrise."  City officials say it's a public safety measure to keep people moving at night along the crowded, raunchy strip.  During the Southern Decadence festival over Labor Day weekend, a group of nearly 10 street preachers were arrested.

We Don't Need No Stinking Warrant: The Disturbing, Unchecked Rise of the Administrative Subpoena.  Meet the administrative subpoena:  With a federal official's signature, banks, hospitals, bookstores, telecommunications companies and even utilities and internet service providers — virtually all businesses — are required to hand over sensitive data on individuals or corporations, as long as a government agent declares the information is relevant to an investigation.  Via a wide range of laws, Congress has authorized the government to bypass the Fourth Amendment — the constitutional guard against unreasonable searches and seizures that requires a probable-cause warrant signed by a judge.

Obama, Holder Sledgehammer the First Amendment.  [Scroll down]  Gallup has every First Amendment right that other media outlets have.  It will be interesting to see if any other media organizations side against Obama's apparent heavy-handed attempt to stifle Gallup's voice.

DOJ Official Won't Say Whether Justice Department Would 'Criminalize Speech against Any Religion'.  Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez refused to say Thursday whether the Justice Department would ever "entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion."  During a House subcommittee hearing examining fairness in voting rights enforcement, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, referenced an article detailing a meeting between top Justice Department officials and Islamist advocates, where the advocates reportedly lobbied officials for "a legal declaration that U.S. citizens' criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination."

Chuck Schumer: There Should Be Limits to the First Amendment.  While debating the DISCLOSE Act last night [7/17/2012] on the Senate floor, New York Senator Chuck Schumer called for restrictions on the First Amendment, citing other laws and regulations already in place in the United States that do so.

Dislike soda bans? Then restore the Constitution.  The debates surrounding this question, and other constitutional issues like executive privileges and orders, are instructive.  Not only have Americans learned more about the Constitution, we've discovered that many lawmakers neither understand nor respect the document they're sworn to uphold.  Even worse, we have leaders intent on fundamentally transforming the relationship between the citizen and government in a manner the Constitution doesn't allow.  By allowing these politicians to create and impose solutions better left to sovereign states and individuals, we permit their government-driven agenda to trump our liberties and their Leviathan government to limit our choices and make our decisions.  This is not the fulfillment of our Founder's dream — it's their nightmare.

Constitution 101.  The Republican Study Committee (RSC) analyzes the constitutional statements for every bill and joint resolution introduced and sends out a weekly email highlighting the "most questionable."  Last week, it selected Rep. Andre Carson, Indiana Democrat, for justifying his bill to authorize the president to award a gold medal on behalf of Congress to boxer Muhammad Ali by citing irrelevant constitutional clauses, including the one giving Congress the right to set its governing rules and expel members.

Jim McGovern's War on the Constitution.  It is hard to overstate how radical and dangerous the People's Rights Amendment would be.  It would overturn Citizens United, all right — along with much of the freedom Americans have always taken for granted.  All of them would lose their constitutional rights, including freedom of speech and of the press, if US Rep. Jim McGovern's "People's Rights Amendment" were adopted.

Obama Policies Are Clearing a Path for a Dictator.  Podesta's Center for American Progress in their definitive essay, The Power of the President, Recommendations to Advance Progressive Change subtly outlines a virtual blueprint for a U.S. Presidency that rules by fiat, ignoring the laws of the nation.  Their reasoning is that Congress has failed to act, but that is nothing more than an excuse to circumvent our Constitution.  With obfuscating language, it says that the President should use the powers he has to ignore Congress and the confines of the Constitution.  It outlines a plan for an extremely powerful Executive Branch.

Keep the First Amendment.  The phrase "stunning development" is used far too often in our politics, but here is an item that can be described in no other way:  Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats, frustrated by the fact that the Bill of Rights interferes with their desire to muzzle their political opponents, have proposed to repeal the First Amendment.  That is precisely what the so-called People's Rights Amendment would do.

Shredding the Constitution.  The Obama administration has expanded its executive branch powers under a comprehensive czar system and myriad executive orders.  Meanwhile, Congress quietly passes questionable legislation with the potential to limit personal freedoms — and U.S. agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), engage in activities that raise serious concerns about constitutional violations.  Even local law enforcement officials have become increasingly intrusive and hostile to civil liberties.

What If the Government Rejects the Constitution?  What if the government regards the Constitution as merely a guideline to be referred to from time to time, or a myth to be foisted upon the voters, but not as a historic delegation of power that lawfully limits the federal government?  What if Congress knows that most of what it regulates puts it outside the confines of the Constitution, but it does whatever it can get away with?  What if the feds don't think that the Constitution was written to keep them off the people's backs?  What if there's no substantial difference between the two major political parties?

Central Radio Company
Norfolk, Virginia Attempts To Silence Free Speech.  Something terrible is underway in Norfolk, Virginia, that should disturb all Americans who value property rights and free speech.  Central Radio Company, which first opened 78 years ago and has been at its current location of 1083 West 39th Street for 50 years, is currently under siege.  First officials at the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority attempted to seize their property in order to transfer it to Old Dominion University, which currently has no specific site development plan for Central Radio's property.  The owners of the company, Bob Wilson and Kelly Dickinson, rightfully objected to the eminent domain proceedings.  They then commissioned a 375-square-foot banner (left) and hung it on their building to protest the taking.

Pushed out and shut up: 78-year-old business fights back against eminent domain, censorship.  One business's eminent domain nightmare has also turned into a case about protection under the First Amendment.  Central Radio Company, a small business in Norfolk, Va., may soon become a victim of eminent domain, but in the meantime it has also been ordered to remove a giant banner protesting the impending seizure.

Sign code as a weapon.  A drearily familiar dialectic is on display here:  Government is behaving badly in order to silence protests of other bad behavior.  It is violating the Constitution's First Amendment, stifling speech about its violation of the Fifth Amendment, as it was properly construed until 2005.

Constitutional Convention Can Not Be Controlled.  A [Constitutional Convention] has no oversight or rules other than those made by the actual participating delegates themselves.  There are no rules for selecting delegates.  Once a [Constitutional Convention] is called for by the legal number of states, as laid out in Article V of the Constitution, It is the duty of Congress to call for one.  Period.  That's as far as it goes.

Is the CIA in your kitchen?  The war on drugs has regrettably weakened the intended protections of the Fourth Amendment, and the Patriot Act — which permits federal agents to write their own search warrants — has dealt it a serious blow.  That act, which has not yet been ruled upon by the Supreme Court, fortunately has not yet animated the Supreme Court's privacy jurisprudence.  Last year, the court invalidated the police use of warrantless heat-seeking devices aimed at the home, and it will probably soon invalidate the warrantless use of GPS devices secretly planted by cops in cars. ... Relying on the Patriot Act, federal agents have written their own search warrants just like the British soldiers did [in the 18th century].  They have done this more than 250,000 times since 2001.

Oust Obama.  Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta recently gave congressional testimony saying that the United States no longer needs the approval or consent of Congress before launching a major military offensive.  In particular, Mr. Panetta — to the amazement of Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican — argued that the administration needs only "international permission" to engage in war.  In other words, Mr. Panetta stressed that international approval from the United Nations or NATO trumps the sovereign authority of Congress.

Congress Passes Bill Severely Curtailing First Amendment Liberties.  A bill has just passed the House and the Senate that criminalizes protests anywhere near the presence of a designated government official.  On Monday [2/27/2012], the U.S. House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously (388-3) in favor of H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011.  As part of this legislation, Congress expressly forbids trespass onto the grounds of the White House.  Many likely believe that such a law already existed and they are right.  The controversial aspect of this bill's restatement of that statute is that it expands the scope of the federal government's authority to bring charges against those deemed trespassers at any location placed provisionally under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service.  The present state of the law prosecutes White House trespassers under a local Washington, D.C. ordinance.  Prior to this latest federal action, violation of this ordinance was a misdemeanor.

Protests Near Secret Service Protected Folk Effectively Outlawed.  In case you question the value of having a Justin Amash or a Ron Paul in the House of Representatives, they were two of only three votes against H.R. 347, the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011." ... Although [Secret Service] protection isn't extended to just everybody, making it a federal offense to even accidently disrupt an event attended by a person with such status essentially crushes whatever currently remains of the right to assemble and peacefully protest.

Boxer: Insurance rights trumps religious rights.  Senator Boxer warned yesterday [2/14/2012] that if the HHS contraception mandate was repealed it would set a dangerous precedence of religious rights trumping the right to be insured.

Wash Post Journalist: 'Maybe the Founders Were Wrong' to Guarantee Free Exercise of Religion.  Washington Post political writer Melinda Henneberger shockingly stated, Wednesday [2/8/2012], that "maybe the Founders were wrong" to guarantee religious liberty.  Henneberger appeared on Hardball to discuss the Obama administration's decision to force the Catholic Church to provide birth control in health care.

The Gospel According to Obama:  [Scroll down]  Our quaint Constitution grants special autonomy to religious institutions.  Accordingly, it would be a mockery of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment if, for example, the Catholic Church were required by law to freely provide such "health-care services" (in secularist parlance) as contraception, sterilization, and pharmacological abortion — to which Catholicism is doctrinally opposed as a grave contravention of its teachings about the sanctity of life.  Ah.  But there would be no such Free Exercise violation if the institutions so mandated are deemed, by regulatory fiat, not religious.

End of the Constitution: Obamacare birth-control mandate would defeat the First Amendment.  Mr. Obama is not simply an inept, liberal president in the mold of Jimmy Carter.  He is an ideological revolutionary who seeks to sweep away traditional America.  The American war of independence did not just overthrow British imperial domination.  The Founders forged something almost unique in history: a nation devoted to individual liberty, Christian civilization and federalism.  The rule of men was replaced by the rule of law.  The linchpin was constitutional government based on the separation of powers and checks and balances.  The American system is entirely predicated on the Constitution.  Once the Constitution becomes meaningless or just an inconvenient piece of paper, the American experiment is over.  The republic is dead.

Mark Levin: We're Living In A Post-Constitutional America.  We are not a representative republic really in the true sense anymore.  We have this massive administrative state with, you know, hundreds of thousands if not several million bureaucrats who are making laws and issuing them every day, 80,000 pages last year.  So that's not a representative republic.

Obama Wins Georgia Ballot Challenge.  [Scroll down]  Opponents of the controversial birthright citizenship practice should also take note, since Judge Malihi's opinion further entrenches the notion that every baby born on U.S. soil, regardless of the citizenship or domicile of its parents (presumably even an "anchor baby" or "birth tourist" baby) is a "natural born" citizen.

New York's Long-Distance Body Scanners Challenge 4th Amendment.  The NYPD, sometimes referred to as the world's "seventh largest army" with 35,000 uniformed officers, already does a brisk business frisking potential suspects, with little pushback.  In the first quarter of last year, 161,000 New Yorkers were stopped and interrogated, with more than nine out of 10 of them found to be innocent.  And there are cameras already in place everywhere:  in Manhattan alone there are more than 2,000 surveillance cameras watching for alleged miscreants.

Mark Levin: You Cannot Have This EPA and a Constitution.  "The purpose of the Constitution is to have a limited central government where the sovereignty remains with the individual and the people and the states," said Levin.  "The purpose of utopianism is the opposite of all that.  It's a relative handful of masterminds and their massive army of bureaucrats and their experts advising them from the colleges and so forth on how to run society.  "You cannot have an EPA and a Constitution at the same time doing what this EPA is doing," Levin told CNSNews.com.  "You cannot have an NLRB deciding who gets to work where, how, and when, and at the same time follow the Constitution," he said.

Obama's naked thuggery.  After all these years it took a great constitutional scholar who had spent a life cloistered in academia and street work to utterly rape our most cherished Constitution.  This business of bypassing the Senate to pick "recess" appointments to positions most Americans have never heard of may seem trivial.  It is anything but.  What Barack Obama has done has been to disembowel the U.S. Senate and shred the most carefully worded document in the history of civilized society.

Oops, she did it again.  Nancy Pelosi is "glad" that President Obama ignored the Advice and Consent requirement of the Constitution on his recent appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the new bureaucratic beast, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Ms. Pelosi has shown her contempt for the Constitution before.  When asked where in the Constitution she found the power to pass Obamacare, Pelosi said, "Are you serious?"  President Obama shows a similar contempt about whether the Constitution constrains him.

Obama's Standing Army of Regulators among Us.  The Third Amendment, prohibiting the quartering of government troops in peacetime in private homes, seems irrelevant in modern times.  Yet how is the intrusion of government regulators into every corner of our lives substantively different from quartering troops in our homes without our consent?  While Americans have clashed in sharp debate over taxation from the very beginning, government regulation has, oddly enough, escaped scrutiny.  Yet regulators' destruction of a vibrant economy by strangling industry and commerce while depriving owners of their private property rights is as toxic and pervasive as taxation.

Is the Supreme Court a Constitution-free zone?  On January 11, 2008, police arrested 80 protesters at the Supreme Court.  Why is the Supreme Court — of all places — off limits to protest? ... The Constitution protects the right to peaceful protests.  The Supreme Court exists to protect the Constitution.  Banning protests at the Supreme Court is at best a mixed signal; at worse, hypocrisy.

Dont Hold Your Breath for a 28th Amendment.  With no fanfare, the country in August quietly passed a peculiar milestone:  The 14,746th day since Congress last proposed a successful amendment to the Constitution, officially becoming the second-longest such dry spell in history and raising questions about when, if ever, the next amendment will pass.

What Will Happen When the People Realize that the Constitution Is No More?  Dishonest, manipulative, agenda-consumed politicians who hold power will not easily surrender that power.  Today, an overwhelmingly "progressive" mainstream media feed progressive politicians' lies as truth directly to the people, thereby reinforcing the lies, giving the lies credibility in the minds of a mostly gullible electorate.  The education establishment distorts school curricula and softens the brains of the young, creating sponges eager to soak up the media-reinforced political untruths.  But when the growing awareness of this nastiness reaches a critical mass, just what kind of ugly revolt will America be in for?

What Constitutionalism Means.  The Supreme Court has amended the Constitution hundreds of times, in ways large and small, by reinterpreting its provisions, almost always to serve progressive ends.  American constitutional law now includes restrictions on police procedure, regulations on permissible school-discipline policies, minute if unpredictable edicts about the proper placement of municipal displays involving religion, and rights to solicit and perform abortion at any stage of pregnancy.  In each case, Americans had spent decades living under the relevant constitutional provisions without anyone's imagining that they commanded what the Court now says they command.

OC Couple Threatened With $500-Per-Meeting Fines For Home Bible Study.  An Orange County couple has been ordered to stop holding a Bible study in their home on the grounds that the meeting violates a city ordinance as a "church" and not as a private gathering.  Homeowners Chuck and Stephanie Fromm, of San Juan Capistrano, were fined $300 earlier this month for holding what city officials called "a regular gathering of more than three people".  That type of meeting would require a conditional use permit as defined by the city, according to Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), the couple's legal representation.

On the Rule of Law.  Freedom is lost by degrees, and the deepest erosions usually take place during times of economic hardship, when those who favor expanding the sphere of government abuse a crisis to persuade free citizens that they should trade in a little of their liberty for empty promises of greater economic security.

The foreign-born candidate.  Can a foreign-born citizen run for president?  The Federal Election Commission thinks so.  Earlier this month, commission members agreed that Abdul K. Hassan, a Guyana-born naturalized U.S. citizen, could qualify as a presidential candidate.  In an advisory opinion, the commission concluded that Mr. Hassan may be considered a candidate and could solicit funds to support his campaign.  However, he would be ineligible for federal matching funds.

Bearing No Faith or Allegiance to the Constitution.  Too many members of Congress regard the Constitution as an obstacle, not as a sacrosanct document they must support and defend.  They bear little faith, and less allegiance, to its directives.  The Constitution, now a "living" document, has devolved into a legislative and bureaucratic playground where anything goes.

Is the new "Super Congress" Constitutional?  A number of constitutionalists have warned that the new "Super Congress" — technically a joint committee of Congress — may be unconstitutional.  The new entity will be created out of the Obama-Boehner debt limit deal.  "It smells," Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) told Fox News August 1.  "I just don't understand why Congress is so willing to give up its responsibilities to 12 people.... It's a reflection that they don't have answers."

An obvious violation of the First Amendment:
 Cartoonist Faces Prosecution for Videos Mocking Police.  In Washington, a cartoonist is possibly facing jail time for a series of animated Internet videos that mock police officers.  The cartoonist, who goes by the name Mr. Fiddlesticks, is being investigated for alleged "cyberstalking," a crime in Washington.

Busting Posse Comitatus: Military Cops Arrest Civilians in Florida City.  In Homestead, Florida, Posse Comitatus is dead.  The Air Force now responds to civilian crime in the small city, population around 30,000.  "Here at Homestead Air Reserve Base we have the Crime Stop hotline that allows anyone either on base or off the installation to anonymously report a crime," explains the Homestead Air Reserve Base website.

What is Liberty, That We May Defend It?  Is American Liberty under attack?  Perhaps more so than any time since the Revolution. ... The Constitution is displayed as an elaborate, ancient joke.  Politicians present themselves as gods, above error, who dismiss dissent as if it were the babble of infants.  Between irrational new laws, and the government's refusal to enforce common sense rules, Americans feel trapped and betrayed by increasingly tyrannical leaders.

Dallas turns to extortion to preserve petty sign ordinance.  If the government can dictate what you can put in your own window, there's no limit to what it can do. ... [A Dallas] ordinance specifies that no sign may appear in the upper two-thirds portion of any window or glass door.  In the space that remains, signage may not take up more than 15 percent of the available window space.  The ordinance carefully carves out an exemption for artistic and political speech.  So a gigantic "Vote Obama" sign is acceptable, but one that states "20 percent off on Wednesdays" is not.

FCC report finds serious shortage in local reporting.  Newspapers have seen a sharp drop in revenue because of the weakening economy and a shift by advertisers to free or cheaper alternatives on the Internet.

The Editor says...
 That may or may not be the whole truth of the matter, but even if it is, that's not the government's problem.

Dangerous precedent for press.  A little more than a week ago, Vice President Joe Biden traveled to fundraisers in two battleground-state cities, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.  Neither stop included the White House press corps; requests by local media to cover the events were denied by the vice president's press office.

The Indiana Supreme Court Guts the Fourth Amendment.  A ruling by the state of Indiana's Supreme Court last Thursday [5/12/2011] in Barnes vs. Indiana has seemingly vacated the Constitution's Fourth Amendment provision against unreasonable search and seizure.  The case involved a domestic dispute and the Court ruled 3-2 that police can force their way into a person's home without a warrant if they deem such entry is necessary.

Everybody Out Of The Pool.  If the mainstream media had any gumption at all, they would vigorously protest the strange, new self-appointed arbiter of "fair" press coverage as an implicit threat to their own capacity to cover the news fairly.  What the White House has done by telling the Boston Herald it can no longer send a pool reporter to cover local campaign events on behalf of the media is another baby step toward state control of the media, using the carrot of access against the stick of exile.

Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home.  Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday [5/12/2011] that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.  In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

Supreme Court gives police a new entryway into homes.  The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision in a Kentucky case, says police officers who loudly knock on a door in search of illegal drugs and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Department of Pre-Crime.  Moral of this story:  If you hear the cops at the door, quietly get off the john, and whatever you do, don't flush.  Read the whole account of the case, which ought to get your blood boiling.

Indiana Sheriff: If We Need to Conduct Random House to House Searches We Will.  According to Newton County Sheriff, Don Hartman Sr., random house to house searches are now possible and could be helpful following the Barnes v. State of Indiana Supreme Court ruling issued on May 12th, 2011.  When asked three separate times due to the astounding callousness as it relates to trampling the inherent natural rights of Americans, he emphatically indicated that he would use random house to house checks, adding he felt people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal.

Giving too much license to cops.  A series of recent court rulings, including one this week from the US Supreme Court, appear to erode one of our bedrock defenses against the arbitrary, abusive power of the state.  At risk:  the Fourth Amendment guarantee to all American citizens of the right to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

Home Insecurity.  While the U.S. Supreme Court said police may force their way into a home to prevent the destruction of evidence, the Indiana Supreme Court, in a less noticed decision issued the week before, said police may force their way into a home for any reason or no reason at all.  Although the victim of an illegal search can challenge it in court after the fact, three of the five justices agreed, "there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers."  They thereby nullified a principle of common law that is centuries old, arguably dating back to the Magna Carta.

US Police State Begins Exponential Expansion.  The recent Indiana Supreme Court ruling against the US Constitution, rendering the Fourth Amendment null and void in that State by patently leftist activist judges, is only the latest unconscionable step in a series of actions designed to unravel each and every portion of the Bill of Rights.  It is also one of the latest actions designed to compliment and enhance the already jack-booted Obama police State march into our States, our cities and homes.

Rally held in protest of 'unlawful police entry' ruling by Indiana Supreme Court.  Protesters showed up on the south steps of the Indiana Statehouse Wednesday [5/25/2011], to rally against a controversial ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court.  The ruling, which allows police to enter your home without a warrant, sparked threatening emails and phone calls from those angry with the court's decision.

High court urged to rethink ruling on resisting police.  A group of 71 state lawmakers is asking the Indiana Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling that says people don't have the right to resist police officers who enter their homes illegally.

Rep. Bob Hasegawa wants to tax newspapers based upon content.  Rep. Bob Hasegawa, D-Seattle, ... has introduced an amendment to a bill that would result in differing rates of taxation for newspapers based upon their editorial content.  This is a stupid and patently unconstitutional bit of legislative foolishness, and Hasegawa should be so ashamed of himself that he should resign in disgrace.

Hasegawa wants to tax newspapers based on their editorial content?  [Scroll down]  I don't see much difference between those two approaches to media criticism and that of the Obama administration's attempts through the FCC to "help" newspapers and "quality journalism" survive in the digital era because what always follows federal assistance is federal control.

Obama's ineligibility:  The oath of office for US President is unique.  No other Federal official is required to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.  The President is the custodian of the Constitution, the fundamental laws governing our country. ... Obama, in his first act as President, dishonored the oath of office by accepting a position for which he was not eligible.  It was not a demonstration of "preserve, protect and defend", but more likely an initial step towards radically transforming the country by undermining the foundation upon which it is based.  Without the Constitution, there is no linchpin for the rule of law and the enforcement of law becomes an arbitrary tool of the state.  It is a recipe for tyranny.

Were Americans set up by the press and then scammed by the Congress?  In April 2008, it appears that a political deal was struck between the Democrats and Republicans that would provide cover for both McCain and Obama on the issue of eligibility.  That would also explain the continuing conspiracy of silence by our political elite.  Because SR 511 has no force of law, Congress protected itself from legal consequences, but by political fiat they could do a "quick and dirty" amendment to the Constitution.  My fellow Americans ... we've been had.

The Patent Bill is Unconstitutional.  The biggest issue for many new members of Congress and tea partiers is trying to hold the federal government within its constitutional limits.  Unfortunately, the House now seems poised to pass a law in direct violation of the Constitution.  One of the most valuable individual rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution is the right of "inventors" to own "the exclusive right" to their "discoveries" for "limited times."  This right was set forth in Article I, Section 8, years before the rights to freedom of speech and religion were added.

Another Democrat That Hates the US Constitution.  Making it easier every day to assert that Democrats hate the U.S. Constitution, once again we find a Democrat in Congress expressing disgust with the law of the land.  This time extremist, left-wing Democrat Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D, CA) was heard complaining to a lefty radio host that many of her new colleagues are just too ... concerned with whether or not the actions of Congress are Constitutional.

Congresswoman Feigns Southern Accent to Deride Tea Party Lawmakers.  A Democratic congresswoman, frustrated with her interactions with a new class of Tea Party-backed conservative lawmakers, mocked them this week by talking in a Southern accent and referring to them as "Moe," during an interview on nationally syndicated radio show.  Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., told liberal host Stephanie Miller that every time she tries approaching one of the 87 freshman lawmakers in an effort to build relationships, they're always complaining about something being unconstitutional.

Breyer's Baloney:  Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, plugging his book "Making Our Democracy Work," says the Constitution should be adapted to modern times.  Sorry, your honor, that's not how our republic works.

WA Democrat: 'I'm Tired of Reading the Constitution and All the Silly Things'.  Be proud, Washington's 7th congressional district, as your congressman, Jim McDermott, expresses his exasperation of "silly stuff" like "reading the Constitution."

Tennessee bill lists Shariah as felony.  Tennessee is considering making it a felony to follow some versions of the Islamic code known as Shariah, the most severe measure yet put forth by a national movement whose members believe extremist Muslims want Shariah to supersede the Constitution.

The Vanishing Constitution.  The federal government has increasingly assumed unlimited powers and acted against the will of the people.  When they can't legislate, they regulate.  The attitude is:  We know you don't want it, but we are going to force it on you anyway.  Who are you to know what is best for you?  You are just a pesky voter.  We are entitled to discount what you say because you cannot possibly grasp our progressive agenda.  Progressives began the gradual erosion of constitutional principles around the beginning of the 20th century.  The goal?  To impose their superior wisdom on the rest of us.  The way progressives measure progress is by moving up from the vision of the founding fathers.  But the Constitution gets in the way with its restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government.  So it must be bypassed.

A Warning About Things to Come.  Have you seen the television pictures of the tens of thousands of demonstrators at the Wisconsin State Capitol who are protesting proposed budget cuts for state employees?  If so, you've had an advance peek at the sort of demonstrations that will take place if state legislatures are foolish enough to pass resolutions asking Congress to call a national convention to consider amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

How Should We Interpret the Constitution?  The Constitution is plainly written.  It was intended to be easy to understand.  The Constitution is also short.  Why do we need a process for interpreting the Constitution?  If we have such a process for divining the meaning of the Constitution, why should that process be secret deliberations of nine judges who are effectively unaccountable to the people?  The issue, after ObamaCare, has become more than academic.

The "Judicial Activism" Ploy.  The new definition of "judicial activism" defines it as declaring laws unconstitutional.  It is a simpler, easily quantifiable definition.  You don't need to ask whether Congress exceeded its authority under the Constitution.  That key question can be sidestepped by simply calling the judge a "judicial activist."  A judge who lets politicians do whatever they want to, whether or not it violates the Constitution, never has to worry about being called a judicial activist by the left or by most of the media.  But the rest of us have to worry about what is going to happen to this country if politicians can get away with ignoring the Constitution.

Florida Bar vs. Free Press.  According to Mark A. Adams, writing for The Daily Censored, a news blog affiliated with Project Censored, "The Florida Bar has proposed a new rule to eliminate coverage of court proceedings by citizen journalists."  Outstanding investigative journalism by Adams has uncovered this proposed rule which would allow only an employee of a "traditional media outlet" or an official court reporter to bring audio or video recording equipment into a court room.  Not even a laptop computer would escape this infringement of free speech.

Durbin:  Obama Administration Should Enforce Obamacare Anyway.  Following a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the constitutionality of the new health care law, Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told CNSNews.com that the Obama administration should continue enforcing the health care law despite federal judge Roger Vinson's ruling that it is unconstitutional.

More about the various legal challenges and court decisions opposing Obamacare.

7 Non-Political Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives:  Conservatives believe that we need to try to interpret the Constitution in the way that the Founders intended it to be read and if we want to change it, then we need to pass a Constitutional Amendment.  Liberals believe in a "living Constitution," which is functionally no different than believing in no Constitution at all.

Preserving States' Rights and the Constitution.  It is a grim fact of history that strong central governments have gone hand in hand with horror.  Nazis, very quickly, essentially ended the system of strong state governments in Germany.  The Soviet Union was also ruled with an iron hand from Moscow, and the destruction of whole peoples followed its central policies.  The closer people are to the elected officials governing them, the more freedom flourishes.  The more remote the government, the less citizens feel like equals and the more they seem like cattle.  That is why the Founding Fathers considered states' rights as absolutely indispensable to the purposes of our nation.

Why States Must Nullify Unconstitutional Acts of Congress.  The U.S. Constitution, which created the federal government, permits Congress to make laws only on those few objects which are listed in the Constitution.  The objects on which Congress has authority to make laws applicable throughout our Country are itemized at Art. I, Sec. 8, clauses 1-16 (and in a few of the Amendments).  Since the Federalist Papers are the most authoritative commentary on the true meaning of the Constitution, let us see what those Papers say about the extent of Congress' legislative powers.

The Hate Speech Inquisition.  There isn't a shred of evidence that deranged Tucson massacre suspect Jared Loughner ever listened to talk radio or cared about illegal immigration.  Indeed, after 300 exhaustive interviews, the feds "remain stumped" about his motives, according to Tuesday's Washington Post.  But that hasn't stopped a coalition of power-grabbing politicians, progressive activists and open-borders lobbyists from plying their quack cure for the American body politic:  government-sponsored speech suppression.

Mourning in America.  [Scroll down]  The timing of the [Tucson] tragedy fell right into the left's area of expertise:  Exploiting a crisis for political leverage by blaming it on the opposition, particularly those like Sarah Palin and conservative radio commentators who are perceived as threats to the very survival of liberalism.  In addition to blame, their strategy is always to work toward shredding the U.S. Constitution, in this instance to stomp on the first and second amendments by seeking to limit the free speech of conservatives and to take away the right to own a gun.

We Don't Fetishize the Constitution; We Dread Tyranny.  What we recognize is that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.  That is, what it says must be followed, until the text is amended or a new basic law enacted.  Because a Constitution that is not knowable, a Constitution that is twisty-stretchy and dictated by the needs of the moment, is no Constitution at all.  When the law becomes whatever the current ruling clique decrees, then we have taken the first step (and middle, and last) on the road to serfdom.

Another Stupid Idea from the Donkey Side of the Aisle:  Should someone send Rep. Robert Brady a copy of the First Amendment?  According to The Hill, the Democratic lawmaker "plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress."

U.S. Congressman Slanders the Constitution.  For more than 200 years, Americans have revered the Constitution as the law of the land, but the GOP and tea party heralding of the document in recent months — and the planned recitation on the House floor Thursday — have caused some Democrats to worry that the charter is being misconstrued as the immutable word of God.  "They are reading it like a sacred text," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the outgoing chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties, who has studied and memorized the Constitution with talmudic intensity.

The Constitutional Hypocrisy of the Left.  The fact is that the Democratic Party and the political Left in this country use the Constitution as nothing less than an instrument of pure demagoguery.  When it suits them to cite it, they do; when it suits them to ignore it, they do; and when neither alternative suits them, they invent phrases out of whole cloth (e.g., "separation of church and state," "jury of one's peers," "freedom of expression," "right to privacy") that exist nowhere in the Constitution and invest these phrases with constitutional authority.

Read it again, John.  I thought it was a good idea for the Constitution to be read aloud on the floor of the House of Representatives as that body kicked off its new session. ... But what seemed like a good idea turned out to be a great one.  For instead of good naturedly going along with the exercise, or suffering in silence, a number of leftists publicly displayed their lack of comfort with, if not contempt for, the Constitution.  Thus, the public received its clearest indication to date that the left regards the words of the Constitution as an impediment to its agenda.

Liberal distaste for the Constitution.  The Constitution was read at the opening of the new session of the House of Representatives yesterday [1/5/2011].  What was most remarkable about this was the almost hysterical opposition from congressional Democrats and left-wing commentators.  In what should have been a united celebration of the nation's foundation document in a period of partisan rancor, liberals instead reinforced the view that they are profoundly uncomfortable with the essential truths underlying American freedom.

Constitution stands for underlying values, principles.  I salute the Republicans of the 112th Congress for their initiative to restore the U.S. Constitution to its legitimate place of prominence in our public discourse.  Reading it aloud at Congress' opening session and requiring members to cite constitutional authority when introducing new legislation are great ideas.  It will help highlight that the real debate is about the underlying defining principles of our nation that the Constitution exists to protect.

Is the Constitution Senile?  The congressional Republicans' decision to read the Constitution aloud on the floor of Congress has forced some Constitution-contemptuous liberals further out of the closet, which is an instructive development to behold. ... Liberals will mock conservatives for their stodgy nationalism and their fealty to a document that is more than 200 years old.  But their arrogance and mockery just serve to confirm their disrespect for our founding institutions.

Congress Rediscovers the Constitution.  The House Republican majority has said it will require members to cite the specific authority for any bill they introduce.

America's Timeless Constitution.  In an interview last Thursday on MSNBC, Post blogger Ezra Klein complained that "the text" of the U.S. Constitution "is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending on what they want to get done."  He also claimed, without challenge from the MSNBC host, that the Constitution "has no binding power on anything."

Bill of Rights a forgotten document.  According to a survey conducted earlier this month for the Bill of Rights Institute by Harris Interactive, for example, nearly half of the American people — some 42 percent — believe that the communist phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is part of one of the more important documents in American history.  Through ignorance and forgotten history, Karl Marx has morphed into James Madison in the mind of the American people.  Other aspects of the survey are equally disconcerting, though not necessarily surprising.  Fifty-five percent do not realize that education is not a First Amendment right; despite no such guarantee anywhere in either the Bill of Rights or the body of the original Constitution.

2010: The Year They Came for the Constitution.  [Scroll down]  Time after time, when asked about the constitutionality of their congressional machinations, Democrat legends had a never-ending outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease.  No human being could possibly ascertain whether a bill could be considered constitutional if he or she had never even read the bill.  Yet, over and over again, Democrat Congress members were caught on tape saying exactly that — that they had not even read the bills they were voting on.  This despicable lackadaisical attitude on the part of our lawmakers came into perfect focus the day a giddy-with-power Nancy Pelosi met with reporters just after she had performed the legislative-blitzkrieg passage of ObamaCare.  Still flush with the thrill of pyrrhic victory, Speaker Pelosi was asked whether the bill, especially the individual mandate, was constitutional.  Her response will be remembered in constitutional infamy:  "Are you serious?  Are you serious?"

Messing With Texas:  The federal agency declares Texas unfit to regulate its own greenhouse gas emissions and seizes control of the permitting process.  Jobs, states' rights and the 2012 presidential election are all involved.

Obamacare's unbridled bullying power must end.  Authority to enforce the law is inherent in police powers.  Enforcement means investigations into violations of law.  Given Obamacare's "unbridled" police powers, it would be a historic, massive expansion of government authority to investigate or audit businesses and households.  The power to investigate is the power to bully and deprive people of rights, which is why government investigations are subject to the Fourth Amendment.  Protections under the Fourth Amendment, however, have eroded as Congress expanded use of its powers to regulate interstate commerce.

Political End Runs.  The Constitution of the United States begins with the words "We the people."  But neither the Constitution nor "we the people" will mean anything if politicians and judges can continue to do end runs around both.  Bills passed too fast for anyone to read them are blatant examples of these end runs. ... The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution, by voting out those who promote end runs around it.

The Constitution keeps getting in the way of the left's agenda.  On December 13, 2010, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson signed a Memorandum Opinion declaring unconstitutional a key provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 — better known as ObamaCare. ... The core issue examined by Judge Hudson was whether or not Congress has the power to regulate — and tax — a citizen's decision not to participate in interstate commerce, to wit, the purchase of insurance.  Judge Henry correctly points out in his decision that no reported case from any federal appellate court in history has extended the Commerce Clause to include the regulation of a person's decision not to purchase a product — notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce.

Constitutional Health Care.  The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were not written and ratified by the states for the purpose of allowing congressmen free rein to control every aspect of our daily lives.  They were written for the opposite purpose of leaving Americans free.  ObamaCare flagrantly violates that principle.

Rep. Bachmann: Tax Bill Violates Article 1, Section 7 of U.S. Constitution.  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told CNS News that the tax bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday [12/15/2010] violates the U.S. Constitution.  "Article 1, section 7 says that all revenue bills originate in the House and that is our province and, of course, this originated in the Senate," she told CNS News in an interview Wednesday [12/15/2010] on Capitol Hill.

TSA New Enemies List.  The TSA's policy is simply to ignore and overrule the Fourth Amendment, and to resort to brute force.  This is what it regularly tells travelers who question the policy.  It and the DHS will sooner or later decide to ignore and overrule the First Amendment, or freedom of speech.  It can claim that my writing — or anyone else's writing, no matter how calmly or emotionally composed — has caused others to oppose or "disrupt" the TSA's policies.  Whether the actions of those so inspired or so persuaded are criminal in nature, or lawful actions taken under the mantle of the Fourth Amendment, is irrelevant.  The threat implied in that directive is there are certain individuals and organizations that must sooner or later be silenced.

Another Victory for Islamic Jihad Courtesy of the TSA.  [TSA] security procedures are egalitarian in nature and treat all travelers as suspects — except Muslims.  One could even make an argument that the TSA is also violating the Fifth Amendment, without even affording Americans the benefit of a grand jury.  Suspicion of having committed a crime necessarily implies a possible indictment.  But who are one's judges?  Rent-a-cops.  This is not the horrible death that jihadists wish upon infidels, but it is the next best thing.

ObamaCare overreach.  Federal District Court Judge Henry Hudson's ruling yesterday that Congress can't compel Americans to buy health insurance ought to be required reading for Congress members.  They take an oath to uphold the US Constitution, but most members are ignorant of what the document says and routinely enact laws without giving the Constitution a moment's thought.

Resolution to be introduced demanding all legislation cite Constitutional authorization.  New Jersey Republican Rep. Scott Garrett plans to introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives Tuesday [12/7/2010] that would require all legislation to cite an enumerated power in the Constitution that grants authority for the bill's mandate.  Garrett, founder and chairman of the House Constitution Caucus, told The Daily Caller that the resolution is the direct result of the American people's expressed desire for Congress to return to its Constitutional roots.

Leasing Your Life From The State.  The right to own property is actually one of the most intellectually challenging aspects of our Constitutional system, as evidenced by how easily people are willing to abandon the defense of that right for others.  There is towering public outrage at the merest suggestion of compromised First Amendment rights for millionaire actors or musicians, but nary a peep at the idea those same millionaires don't have the right to pass their full estates — built with already-taxed earnings — along to their children.  You don't "own" anything that can be taken away from you when you're no longer alive to defend it.

Power Corrupts.  From the passage of ObamaCare to the offensive TSA screenings, this country's citizens have seen the Constitution trampled upon with little to no acknowledgment that such actions would have caused our forefathers to board a ship to a far-off land in search of liberty and freedom.

FCC Commissioner Calls For Greater Regulation of News Media.  In a Wednesday [12/1/2010] interview on BBC World News America, liberal FCC Commissioner Michael Copps told correspondent Katty Kay:  "I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now.... we are going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions about the future direction of their country."

FCC proposal to regulate news draws fire.  Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) pushed back on Monday [12/6/2010] against a contention by a Democratic FCC commissioner that the government should create new regulations to promote diversity in news programming.  Barton was reacting to a proposal made last week by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who in a speech suggested that broadcasters be subject to a new "public values test" every four years.

A Tyrant's Thinking.  A member of the Federal Communications Commission appears to want Washington in control of broadcast news.  What a shame that people with such ideas are placed in positions of power.

Why the TSA pat-downs and body scans are unconstitutional.  In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 32 percent of respondents said they objected to the full-body scans, although 50 percent were opposed to the pat-downs offered as an alternative.  That means opponents of the new measures will have to shift their efforts from the airports to the courts.  One advocacy group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, has already filed a lawsuit, calling the body scanners unconstitutional.  Could this challenge succeed?

U.S. Airports a "Constitutional Twilight Zone".  Much of the opposition to airport body scanners invokes the Constitution; one company is even selling pasties emblazoned with the Fourth Amendment to protect passengers' dignity while passing through scanners.  But the Fourth Amendment, along with most of the Constitution, does not apply in the airport the same way it does in most public spaces.  U.S. airports are a Constitutional "twilight zone" — the rights you have in the outside morph once you step inside the terminal, and it has been this way long before September 11.

Stopping Judicial Imperialism.  If judges are going to act like politicians, then they should be voted out like politicians.  Results of the recent elections showed that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with "public servants" who act as if they are public masters.  This went beyond the usual objections to particular policies.  It was the fact that policies were crammed down our throats, whether we liked them or not. In fact, laws were passed so fast that nobody had time to read them.  Whether these policies were good, bad, or indifferent, the way they were imposed represented a more fundamental threat to the very principles of a self-governing people established by the Constitution of the United States.  Arrogant politicians who do this are dismantling the Constitution piecemeal — which is to say, they are dismantling America.

The U.S. Constitution:  An Agreement by States.  Initially, it must be stated that if there were no Constitution, there would be no United States and, for that matter, no federal government.  The several states at the time of the drafting of the Constitution were each as separate and sovereign as France, Poland, or Germany today.  Recognizing that by virtue of their small size and common borders, there were efficiencies to be realized in such areas as Postal Service, post roads, common defense, border control, international relations, and commerce between and among the states, they entered into a partnership — a business arrangement, if you will — to provide those services necessary to the common protection and promotion of the betterment (the general welfare) of the states as a group and individually.  The partnership agreement is better known by its title:  The United States Constitution.

TSA 'Strip and Grope': Meet the Fourth Amendment.  [Scroll down]  Do these sorts of things violate our rights to be secure in our persons against unreasonable searches?  No act of Congress gave TSA agents the power to do these things; the Congress delegated various powers to the TSA and the TSA developed the procedures, evidently with no little or no adult supervision and even less consideration given to the Fourth Amendment.  It appears that substantial discretion is left to low-level TSA employees in deciding what is "reasonable" — substantially more than is left to more "ordinary" and often better-trained law enforcement officers in deciding whether there is reasonable cause to think that a crime has been or is being committed.

More about the TSA's abusive and invasive searches.

De Facto Shariah Law in America.  Is the United States today a de facto shariah state?  A close look at recent events points to some alarming conclusions about the tenets of shariah law taking hold in our once-proud constitutional republic and the unwitting, unequal application of existing U.S. laws.  The result is that when it comes to religious expression, Muslims now enjoy more freedom of religion and speech under our Bill of Rights than non-Muslims.  Equal protection under the laws of our country holds for Muslims far better than for non-Muslims.  Several recent examples illustrate this point.

Elasticity always has its limits.
 NPR is unconstitutional.  Much has been said lately about the Commerce Clause in regards to Obamacare.  What about the Commerce Clause in relation to NPR?  Undoubtably, if NPR's funding is constitutionally justified, it's done using the Commerce Clause with an assist from the "Elastic" Clause.  Everything's done that way.  The founders might as well have taken Article 1, Section 8 and said:  "Congress can do whatever."  But they didn't.  The Commerce Clause states that Congress has the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States," not to get involved in private business.

Full spending ahead.  [Scroll down]  If the Constitution doesn't say the Congress or President can do it, then they can't!  Unfortunately for us — for We the People — this amendment is utterly ignored by the government it is supposed to restrain.  So, dear citizen, please take a look at Section 8 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution.  It's not hard to do so.  The section runs to less than a page of printed material.

Barack Obama Is No James Madison.  Unfortunately, the ideal of a federal government limited by enumerated powers has eroded, slowly at first but gaining speed and momentum over the years, especially the last two.  Thus, when a reporter for CNSNews asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last September if the Constitution allowed the federal government to require everyone to have health insurance or pay a fine, her response was, "Are you serious?  Are you serious?"  That's why we need a Constitution Day now more than ever!

Our Contemptible Congress.  Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., responding to a question during a town hall meeting, said he's "not worried about the Constitution."  That was in response to a question about the constitutionality of Obamacare.  He told his constituents that the Constitution guaranteed each of us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  Of course, our Constitution guarantees no such thing.  The expression "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is found in our Declaration of Independence.

War On Citizenship.  A U.S. Court of Appeals has invalidated an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to vote in state and federal elections.  Not only our borders but our voting booths are wide open.

Silencing the Opposition.  The Obama administration has been itching for a way to control the flow of information for almost a year, and multiple approaches have been tried.  But all of these approaches have run into the same snag:  the First Amendment.  President Obama began by creating his own Ministry of Truth, headed up by Cass Sunstein...

Honor the Constitution's limits.  Today's 223rd anniversary of the promulgation of the U.S. Constitution occurs as Americans increasingly insist the federal government honor constitutional limits on federal power.  The backlash against overweening government is boiling over in the Tea Party movement, town-hall meetings, demonstrations on the National Mall and in polling data.

A Party of 'No' Means 'Yes' to Liberty.  Progressives denounce conservative Republicans as the "Party of No," as if they were ignorant and thoughtless. ... It is true that the Bill of Rights of the Constitution denominates a number of significant matters which the federal government is not allowed to control.  Thank Goodness!  Therein lay our freedoms, all of which are positive!  Conservative Republicans are derided by progressives for saying "no" to their liberal/socialistic agenda without offering alternatives.  The Conservative reply should be, "Thank you very much!  We say "YES!" to our Constitutional directives!

Dismantling America.  It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government.  How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?  To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another.

Abridging Too Far.  Philadelphia is charging bloggers $300 for a "privilege" license.  In the city where the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the Constitution signed, a right has become a privilege.  The scheme went virtually unreported until the Philadelphia City Paper ran a story last week noting that the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in what local tax attorney Michael Mandale terms "activity for profit."

Taking back the Constitution piece by piece.  Improvements [to the Constitution] have come in the form of amendments that accomplished the abolition of slavery and giving women the right to vote.  Those were both long overdue by the time they passed.  But there have also been mistakes made in the amendment process, including the prohibition of alcohol and the decision to turn senators into panderers by making them directly electable by the people instead of through the choice of each state's legislature.  With more than a hundred years of monkey-wrenching the prime law of the land through "progressive" court decisions, there is also lots of damage to undo that is based on "precedent" rather than the plain language of the Constitution.

America's Slipping Grasp on Self-Governance.  The accelerating pace of America's deconstitutionalization is no coincidence.  Over time, the political attacks on our system have become more brazen, while built-in protections have been torn down.  We are now in the precarious position of meeting our tyranny's strongest push with freedom's weakest defense (institutionally speaking).  We face a tough road to recapture our vanishing right to self-government.

Taking Back Our Constitution.  Americans, the Constitution of the United States of America doesn't belong to us anymore.  We have let our guard down one too many times with regard to our constitutional responsibilities, rights, and liberties, and now elected politicians control the document. ... It took a long time for Congress and the government to amass these powers that they have taken from us, and they certainly won't relinquish them as easily as we gave them up.  But with unflinching purpose, we must begin to take the Constitution back, as well as reimpose limits on congressional powers, for the sake of future Americans.

Government 'for the people' turned upside down.  Abraham Lincoln closed his powerful Gettysburg Address during the Civil War by calling for a new resolve "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."  But today, 147 years after Lincoln spoke, the nation is struggling with another identity crisis:  Our federal government is growing excessively large, tax-hungry, intrusive, and overbearing, contrary to the desires of most "of the people" and contrary to the basic limited-government principles written into the U.S. Constitution.

Abolishing the First Amendment.  Last week, the House of Representatives passed the dishonestly named DISCLOSE Act after weeks of backroom dealings and closed-door meetings.  The bill, which aggressively attempts to limit the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans, was brought to a floor vote after a 45-page amendment was dropped into it the previous evening in the Rules Committee.  For a bill supposedly aimed at disclosure, the process by which it was passed was anything but transparent.

The Tenth Amendment Protects Our Liberty.  The Tenth Amendment embodied a revolutionary concept.  Written just a few years after we had won our independence from Britain, the Constitution fundamentally changed the relationship between people and government.  For millennia, the source of power and authority had always been kings and government, and rights were seen as gifts by grace from the Monarch.  The Constitution inverted that understanding, with sovereignty beginning in the American people — beginning with We the People — and power given to government only to a limited degree.

Second attack on the First Amendment.  Democrats are committed to attacking our First Amendment rights by passing a bill that will limit freedom of speech for groups with whom they disagree. ... The most troubling aspect of this is that the Democrats are fully aware that this legislation will not hold up to the scrutiny of the Supreme Court but, if passed, would have major implications on the upcoming elections because the court probably would not address the issue before November.  This Saul Alinsky-type approach is obvious:  Its goal is to take away our rights as Americans.

To Save the Constitution, Liberals Must First Destroy It.  Although Ray Bradbury's dystopic world of Fahrenheit 451 book banning has not yet become reality, that day may arrive sooner rather than later in view of the Obama administration's rush to control not only physical property such as banks, auto manufacturers, hospitals, drug companies and the like, but also intellectual real estate such as thoughts and ideas.

Constitution of No.  When a reporter asked House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) during a press conference last year where the Constitution granted Congress the authority to enact an individual health-insurance mandate, she answered, "Are you serious?  Are you serious?"  Speaker Pelosi then dismissed the question and moved on to the next reporter.  This exchange illustrates the way "yes we can" liberals treat the Constitution:  They simply ignore it when it gets in the way of their big-government bailouts and takeovers.

Free Speech:  Use It or Lose It.  Recently, independent journalism and blogging have come under attack on multiple fronts.  Congress is considering a new DISCLOSE Act that could force bloggers to file reports with the government stating whether their political speech was coordinated with efforts by corporations or labor unions — whereas traditional news media such as newspapers, magazines, and TV/radio would be exempt.

Health Care Statists on the March.  The American Medical Association's top journal publishes an article calling for startling change to our medical and political system.  Not content with passage of recent health care reform, doctors Samuel Sessions and Allan Detsky suggest that US citizens ignore the literal meaning of the Constitution.  This would allow health reformers to transform the US medical system with fewer roadblocks.

Pity the Constitution.  To the century-old debate about whether the Constitution is "living" or static, we may now add yet another argument, an even more woeful assault on the founding document of our country. ... There's a perfectly reasonable devolution from an established Constitution to a living Constitution to a populist legal system.  The question becomes, if the Constitution is "living," who's breathing life into it?  And with what intentions?

Which political party wants to take away your right to own a gun?
 Ohio Democratic Party unsuccessfully tries to get gun records.  The Ohio Democratic Party tried unsuccessfully this week to get information on all people licensed to carry concealed weapons in the Buckeye State.  The state party sent letters to Ohio's 88 sheriffs requesting the names and addresses of permit holders and the dates the licenses were issued.  Ohio has about 211,000 permit holders.

How Did We Get There?  [Scroll down]  Today, it is estimated that two-thirds to three-fourths of federal government expenditures do not have a foundation in its enumerated powers, and nearly all of the regulatory agencies are without any Constitutional foundation.  How did we get there? ... The Tea Party has made a start on the reclamation effort.  It seems to recognize that every dollar spent by the federal government is extracted under threat of imprisonment from one of our fellow citizens.  The journey back to liberty will be long, and it will be difficult.

Michigan Considers Law to License Journalists.  A Michigan lawmaker wants to license reporters to ensure they're credible and vet them for "good moral character."  Senator Bruce Patterson is introducing legislation that will regulate reporters much like the state does with hairdressers, auto mechanics and plumbers.

Why not License Politicians Seeking Public Office?  State Senator Bruce Patterson of Michigan recently rocked the journalism trade with a proposal that would establish a state licensing board for journalists. ... Although Patterson's legislative proposal is not likely to become law any where soon, his reasoning and logic could give rise to another terrific idea:  Why not license politicians seeking public office?

Senate to vote on Obama's power grab.  On Thursday, the Senate will vote on S.J.Res.26, a resolution to block EPA from usurping powers never delegated to it by Congress.  Failure means allowing EPA to go forward, apparently in flagrant violation of our constitutional traditions simply because too many in Congress desire, but can't bear to take responsibility for, more of the Obama agenda.

Lay claim to Constitution — or lose it?  One of the most worrisome social trends today is that many Americans no longer claim ownership of the Constitution.  Every time I write about some constitutional issue, I inevitably hear from some smug liberal scoffing at how "Frank the Constitutional Scholar" knows more than the judges and congressmen who reign in Washington.  Apparently we are supposed to be comfortable with the idea of letting President Obama, Harry Reid and the judges they appoint and confirm tell us what the Constitution means.

Bloggers Beware — They're Coming After You!.  Just when you thought it was safe to start expressing your right to free speech, Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a vote on a new piece of legislation to blatantly undermine the First Amendment.  Known as the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), this bill — written by the head of the Democrats' congressional campaign committee — is their response to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

It's the Constitution that's Radicalizing Our Politicians.  [Scroll down]  Before the passage of the 17th Amendment, members of the Senate were chosen by state legislatures to be the agents of those sovereign governments in Washington, D.C., much like ambassadors today at the United Nations.  While a member of the House would represent the intemperate passions of the people as citizens, a senator would represent the very different interests of the people's state governments.  The interests of the two bodies were purposefully not aligned — their constituencies were different.  The 17th Amendment allowed for the direct election of senators by the citizens of each state.  What the U.S. had prior to 1913 was a bicameral legislature competing bill-by-bill for the direction and scope of the federal government.  Now that both representatives and senators have an identical interest (pandering to the citizenry), Congress is one herd of cattle in two pens.

Constitution in decline.  It's time to reform our administrative state.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was right when she said Congress would have to "pass the health care bill so you can find out what's in it."  That's because the health care bill, like most major laws passed by Congress over the past hundred years, isn't really a law.  Rather, Obamacare is a series of assignments to bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services.  It is emblematic of what scholars call the administrative state, where legislative, executive and judicial powers are delegated to unaccountable experts sequestered in a fourth branch of government.

Seven Reasons Government Has Become Completely Dysfunctional in America.  [Scroll down]  Why do you think we so seldom pass constitutional amendments any more?  In all honesty, it's because Congress and even many of the judges in our court system pay so little attention to the Constitution that they just do anything they want.  That's the biggest reason why our government does so many things slowly, stupidly, and inefficiently:  it's because our system of government was supposed to preclude the government from doing those things in the first place.

Saving Guam from Capsizing All in a Day's Work for U.S. Congressmen.  If anything, the Constitution has been nothing but a menace to politicians.  Because of it, we're currently stuck with democracy.  Thus the morons who make up America actually have power, which is why politicians can't just ignore them and do their important work.  Luckily, as more and more of the economy is controlled by the government and thus politicians, democracy can do less and less damage to the politicians' plans.  Thus this disconnect will become less and less relevant, as citizens will lack the power to do anything with their inane objections.

Congress Has Become an Institution of the Useless.  With the approval rating of the current congressional gaggle hovering somewhere in the single digits, one has to ask:  Can't we do better than this for $174,000 a year and the best benefits package in America?  It takes one's breath away to see the blatant disregard so many of our senators and representatives have for the very Constitution they have sworn to defend.

What kind of nation have we become?  The issue is whether the politicians have violated their oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.  If they have, is anyone going to enforce the law and prosecute these people for this crime?

The States Must Rise Again.  The Constitution is the contract the American people have with one another, and enumerated in it are the rights and responsibilities of all those party to it.  But it has one serious flaw.  It only works if you actually abide by it.

Should Obama Be Impeached?  Obama is purposely undermining the US Constitution.  In doing so, his actions make unstable every institution and office below the presidency, since the Constitution is the foundation of every government power and official decision.

Meet Your Lords and Masters.  There was a time in this country when the government of the United States followed the Constitution and had greatly limited powers.  Today, the Constitution is largely ignored and our Congress can do almost anything it wants — and it does just that.

Government can't force people to buy insurance they don't want.  It is not part of my job as Colorado Attorney General to tell our Congressional delegation how best to reform the nation's health care system.  And I don't see it as my role to opine whether the Patient Protection and Affordability Health Care Act is good public policy.  It is my job however, to defend states' rights and the constitutional rights of Colorado citizens when the federal government oversteps its bounds.

Who owns you?  The risk of 'unlimited submission'.  Thanks to the "judgment" of Congress that it can "create" new rights "ex nihili" (out of nothing) — namely the peculiar right to be forced to buy health insurance — the states, and the individual citizens therein, have fallen under the "dominion, absolute and unlimited," of the federal government.  You will not find anything like this power of Congress in the Constitution, which is why more than a dozen state attorneys general have already filed suits to block the health-care bill from taking effect.

ObamaCare and the Constitution :  The constitutional challenges to ObamaCare have come quickly, and the media are portraying them mostly as hopeless gestures — the political equivalent of Civil War re-enactors.  Discussion over:  You lost, deal with it.  The press corps never dismissed the legal challenges to the war on terror so easily...

Tell Us The Total.  One of the many reasons why so many North Carolinians opposed the ObamaCare legislation is that the process that yielded it was full of backroom deals, prevarication, and confusion.  A republican form of government requires both clarity and transparency on the part of public officials, to whom voters have granted the coercive power of government only grudgingly, with important restrictions and reservations.  You may have seen a list of these restrictions and reservations.  It's colloquially known as the United States Constitution.

The Looting of America:  [Scroll down]  Our enemies aren't necessarily Democrats, and our salvation doesn't automatically reside with Republicans.  Our enemy is corruption, and both parties have a demonstrated spectacular lust for it.  That corruption is enabled by the enormous power concentrated in our oversized, unconstitutional federal government.  Our only hope is fielding and electing candidates determined to drive the federal beast back into its constitutional cage.  The "Roman holiday" is over.  Either we turn away from our porn, drugs, and games and restore our republic, or we board the cattle cars to the gulag.

The Interstate Commerce Clause and the Kitchen Sink:  Despite what liberals want you to believe, the Constitution actually gives very few powers to the federal government; and if that power is not specifically spelled out, it was meant to go to the states.  Let's dispense with the supremacy clause.  Democrats are insisting that federal law always trumps state law when there is a conflict.  (Apparently, that doesn't apply in Chicago when the issue is the 2nd Amendment, however).

Congress and the incredible shrinking Constitution.  The House of Representatives [voted] on the SENATE health-care bill, which is illegal.  The Constitution mandates that "all Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."  What happened in this case is that the Senate took an unrelated bill that originated in the House, amended it by completely removing the previous provisions and then substituting 2,400 pages of bureaucracy-creating, money-stealing, rights-restricting health-care reform.  This is a blatant end run around the Constitution, and means that Congress can do anything it wants.

The Originalist Perspective.  Written constitutionalism implies that those who make, interpret, and enforce the law ought to be guided by the meaning of the United States Constitution — the supreme law of the land — as it was originally written.  This view came to be seriously eroded over the course of the last century with the rise of the theory of the Constitution as a "living document" with no fixed meaning, subject to changing interpretations according to the spirit of the times.

The Meaning Of The Constitution.  Part of the reason for the Constitution's enduring strength is that it is the complement of the Declaration of Independence.  The Declaration provided the philosophical basis for a government that exercises legitimate power by "the consent of the governed," and it defined the conditions of a free people, whose rights and liberty are derived from their Creator.  The Constitution delineated the structure of government and the rules for its operation, consistent with the creed of human liberty proclaimed in the Declaration.

Rules Committee meeting descends into chaos.  At the House Rules Committee meeting, Democrats desperate to pass their national health care plan are running into the barrier of basic civics. ... I just talked with a Republican rules expert, and it appears that there is nothing in the rules of the House that will prevent Democrats from scheduling the vote for the amendments package before the vote on the Senate bill itself — that is, voting to amend the law before it becomes law.

Pence:  Dems 'So Desperate' to Pass Health Care They'll 'Trample Upon The Constitution'.  Republican Conference Chairman Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said Thursday [3/18/2010] that the Democrats' plan to pass the Senate health care bill without a formal vote in the House goes against "our system of government" and shows that Democrats are willing to "trample upon the Constitution itself."

Turning America Into a Banana Republic.  America was a democratic constitutional republic, governed by the rule of law, a beacon of liberty to the entire world.  But no more.  After just one year of Barack Obama's fundamental change, aided by the far left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco, and the easily confused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, America has been transformed from a Constitutional Republic into a Banana Republic.

The Wisdom of Conservatism:  [Thomas Jefferson] favored the kind of government that was established by the U.S. Constitution, the kind of government that was intended to protect individual freedom and to secure peace.  However, over the last hundred years, the government has morphed into a limitless monster swallowing up individual freedom, encouraging irresponsibility, restricting economic growth and creating terrible problems in its wake.

Obama vs. the 10th Amendment.  Not surprisingly, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released last Friday [2/26/2010] revealed that 56 percent of Americans think the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to their rights and freedoms.  Particularly apropos here is the feds' health care violation of the 10th Amendment, which is part of our Bill of Rights and was ratified Dec. 15, 1791.  The amendment says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The Constitution:  Another Victim of Obamacare.  Reports have come out today [3/12/2010] that the Parliamentarian has not ruled that the President must sign a law before it is considered a law for reconciliation purposes.  First, they came up with a strategy to get Obamacare passed in the House without the House ever voting on the bill, now they have come up with a strategy and a ruling to get the Obamacare bill to qualify as law without the President signing the law.

The Left's Great Motivator:  The Constitution was established to protect individual rights and liberties against a coercive government.  Indeed, it protects the very smallest minority in this country:  the individual. ... However, the leftist ideologue dismisses the Constitution's original intent and meaning, as it constrains the leftist's pursuit of ideological supremacy.  To confiscate a person's property, redistribute wealth, restrict free speech, or force a person to purchase a product would violate the very principle the Constitution was established upon.

Obama, the Scourge of the Constitution.  Barack Obama taught a University of Chicago Law School course on the U.S. Constitution. ... Presumably, he knows something about the Constitution, but that has not prevented him from ignoring parts of it that he finds inconvenient and undermining others.

Privacy.  In a hearing at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in an effort to overturn a lower court ruling, the Administration argued that a cell phone user has no expectation of privacy therefore the government can subpoena any and all cell phone records at any time for virtually any reason without the need for search warrant issued by a judge. ... Is the real motive to spy on US citizens?  On the surface it certainly appears so.

Police push for warrantless searches of cell phones.  This is an important legal question that remains unresolved:  as our gadgets store more and more information about us, including our appointments, correspondence, and personal photos and videos, what rules should police investigators be required to follow?  The Obama administration and many local prosecutors' answer is that warrantless searches are perfectly constitutional during arrests.

Conservative Leaders Against the Unconstitutional Individual Mandate.  Mandating that individuals must obtain health insurance, and imposing any penalty — civil or criminal — on any private citizen for not purchasing health insurance is not authorized by any provision of the U.S. Constitution.  As such, it is unconstitutional, and should not survive a court challenge on that issue.  Supporters of the legislation have incorrectly contended that the legal justification for the mandate is authorized by the Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause, or the Taxing and Spending Clause.  Given that this mandate provision is essential to Obamacare; its unconstitutionality renders the entire program untenable.

The Editor says...
 Don't get too confident that the Supreme Court will naturally find Obamacare to be unconstitutional, especially if he can put another couple of leftists on the court before this question comes up.  Remember, President George W. Bush signed "campaign finance reform"* into law assuming the Supreme Court would throw it out, and of course, they didn't, and we're stuck with it.

The Constitutional Crisis and the Security Crisis.  [Scroll down]  First, there is the matter of the ongoing constitutional crisis that, as al-Qaeda's attempted Christmas Day attack amply demonstrates, is now endangering our nation.  The Constitution gives the political branches plenary responsibility for the conduct of war. The conduct of war includes the detention, trial, or release of enemy combatants. The federal courts have no role except the one they have usurped.  This brazen power grab flouts the bedrock constitutional separation of powers, and the political branches do not have to abide it.  Indeed, as national defense is their chief responsibility, it is their duty not to abide it.

Reid Bill Says Future Congresses Cannot Repeal Parts of Reid Bill.  Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pointed out some rather astounding language in the Senate health care bill during floor remarks tonight.  First, he noted that there are a number of changes to Senate rules in the bill — and it's supposed to take a 2/3 vote to change the rules.  And then he pointed out that the Reid bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses. ... The Democrats aren't playing by the rules; they may be violating the Constitution.

Richard Epstein:  The Reid Bill Is Blatantly Unconstitutional.  At PointOfLaw.com, the distinguished University of Chicago constitutional scholar Richard Epstein provides a painstaking, withering analysis of the healthcare legislation wending its way through the Senate.  He concludes that it is clearly unconstitutional.  The essay is lengthy and, in places, complex; but it is brilliantly done, accessible, and compelling.

Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional.  Senator Orrin Hatch has long urged that the legislation is unconstitutional for its overreaching on individual choice.  This paper focuses on the constitutional question in the ratemaking context, by comparison to analogous regulations in the context of public-utility regulation.

Health Care Not In Constitution.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein says it comes under the Commerce Clause. Rep. Steny Hoyer says it's mandated by the "general welfare" clause.  Despite liberal wishes, health care is not a right.  The "living Constitution" that Democrats and their court appointees have given us may be the death of our freedoms.  Their constitution adapts to the times and serves the whims of the elitists.  The Constitution is supposed to limit government powers.  It does not allow government to do anything it feels like doing.

Constitutionally, the next time.  Thanks in great part to the new, alternative and social media, people are talking and writing about the Constitution — certainly more than I've seen in my lifetime.

A Minority View:  Constitutional Contempt.  At Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Oct. 29th press conference, a CNS News reporter asked, "Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?"  Speaker Pelosi responded, "Are you serious?  Are you serious?"  The reporter said, "Yes, yes, I am."  Not responding further, Pelosi shook her head and took a question from another reporter.

[Dispensing] with the Constitution?  Much has been made recently of the unconstitutionality of federal health care reform, especially a government-run system (the "public option") that could devolve into a "single-payer" system.  The main objection is that the federal government has no authority to operate a health care system.  Indeed, the 9th and 10th Amendments forbid it, according to Larrey Anderson of American Thinker.

Freedom or slavery?  You make the call.  Health-care reform?  Let's call it what it is — theft.  Or if you prefer, "redistribution of wealth."  The problem is, no matter what you call it, too many Americans are in favor of requisitioning money from other Americans to pay for the health care of strangers.  And they don't care if it is legal or not.  That's because most Americans have not bothered to educate themselves about the principles on which our country was founded, nor about the rocks on which it will founder if it abandons those principles.

What our founders couldn't foresee.  This once-great nation is coming apart at the seams. ... This wonderful system has survived the rough and tough tumble of political discourse for more than two hundred years.  It survived because, despite their differences, the vast majority of Americans were in absolute agreement about the purpose and goals of the government created by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. ... [But now,] Only a handful of Americans are aware of these enumerated powers, or where to find them.  Today, the federal government is as dictatorial as King George ever was...

Filibustering to Preserve the Constitution.  There is no question that [David] Hamilton, a former fundraiser for ACORN and board member of the ACLU, is a radical.  He has plainly said that judges have the right to amend the Constitution by writing "a series of footnotes to the Constitution."  Hamilton believes judges have the ability to make the law and has demonstrated his determination to implement his own views on social issues instead of following the precedents of the Supreme Court.  He was chastised by the Seventh Circuit for refusing for seven years to allow Indiana to implement an informed consent abortion law despite the Supreme Court's approval of such laws.  Even the ABA rated him as "not qualified" when he was first proposed for a federal district court judgeship.

Can the 10th Amendment save us?  Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess?  Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

Sen. Hatch Questions Constitutionality of Obamacare.  Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has served in the Senate for 33 years and is a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not believe the Democrats' health-care reform plan is constitutionally justifiable, noting that if the federal government can force Americans to buy health insurance "then there is literally nothing the federal government can't force us to do."

You Might Be a Constitutionalist if...  [#1]  You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that every congressman, senator, President, and Supreme Court justice is required to obey the U.S. Constitution.  [#2]  You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe that before the United States invades and occupies another country, Congress must first declare war.  [#3]  You might be a Constitutionalist if you believe the federal government should live within its means, like everyone else is forced to do.

Pelosi Rebuffs Constitutional Question.  [Judge Andrew] Napolitano says Congress has conveniently forgotten that the federal government was granted specific enumerated powers, limited by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  The power to regulate interstate commerce was intended to keep regular the trade between states and eliminate unfair in-state advantages.  Stretching the interpretation of interstate commerce regulation that Pelosi and others are attempting to do, and applying it to a very intimate matter like health care is far beyond the scope of the Commerce Clause.

No Health Care in the Constitution.  Notice that the Constitution doesn't say the "general welfare of the citizens of the United States."  It says "general Welfare of the United States."  This clause only gives the Congress the power to raise money to defend the country and pay for the day-to-day operations of the government.  It says nothing at all about building bridges to nowhere, or paving bike paths, or spending money on any other kind of pork barrel project — including health care.

Nor does the Constitution authorize the exploration of other planets.

Silencing Voices for School Choice.  President Obama isn't taking kindly to a television ad that criticizes his opposition to a popular scholarship program for poor children, and his administration wants the ad pulled.  Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad.

Where does the Constitution Authorize Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance?  [Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick] Leahy, whose committee is responsible for vetting Supreme Court nominees, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution Congress is specifically granted the authority to require that every American purchase health insurance.  Leahy answered by saying that "nobody questions" Congress' authority for such an action.

Pelosi:  'Are You Serious?' When Asked About Constitutional Authority.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not explain where Congress gets the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance, when asked by CNSNews.com, and dismissed the query with the response, "Are you serious?  Are you serious?"

In response to the same question...
 Sen. Ben Nelson:  'I'm Not Going to Be Able to Answer That Question'.  Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) told CNSNews.com that because he is not a constitutional scholar he was "not going to be able to answer that question" of where specifically the Constitution authorizes Congress to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance.

Dems Shred The Constitution.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says it's constitutional to mandate insurance coverage.  Congress, he insists, has "broad authority" to make us buy things to provide for the "general welfare."  Democrats' Alice In Wonderland interpretation of what they consider to be a "living Constitution," where words mean what they say they mean based on political considerations, gets more bizarre by the minute.

Rule of Law versus Legislative Orders.  The reason baseball games end peaceably, and players and team owners are generally satisfied with the process, whether they win or lose, is that baseball rules are known in advance.  They apply to all players.  They are fixed, and umpires don't make up rules as they go along. ... That Americans have become ruled by orders and special privileges helps explain all the lobbyists, money, and graft in Washington.  We've moved away from a government with limited powers, as our Founders envisioned, to one with awesome powers.

The Education of Congressman Hoyer.  Congress is moving closer to enacting a law requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says that this is "like paying taxes."  He's right about that.  But Hoyer made this statement as part of an effort to justify the health-care mandate on constitutional grounds.  Here he indicates that he doesn't understand the Constitution that he took an oath to support.  When asked what power the Constitution gives to Congress to enact this legislation, Hoyer claimed that it came from the Constitution's "general welfare" clause.

Do Not Blame Barack.  [Scroll down]  When I hear the [tea party] protesters complain about the violation of the Constitution, I have to wonder we [sic] they've been.  Did they miss the activist 1947 "separation of church and state ruling"?  Have they learned about FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society?  Don't they realize that the federal government long ago exceeded its constitutional bounds?  Where is the constitutional mandate for Uncle Scam to involve itself in and/or fund housing, food stamps, farm subsidies, Medicaid, global-warming research, mass transit, and school sports programs?

Mandatory Insurance Is Unconstitutional.  Federal legislation requiring that every American have health insurance is part of all the major health-care reform plans now being considered in Washington.  Such a mandate, however, would expand the federal government's authority over individual Americans to an unprecedented degree.  It is also profoundly unconstitutional.

Czarist Washington.  The Framers of the Constitution knew that the document founding our democracy must be the anchor of liberty and the blueprint for its preservation. Wisely, they provided a balance of powers to ensure that no individual and no single arm of government could ever wield unchecked authority against the American people.

Did someone mention President Obama's czars?

Health-Care Reform and the Constitution.  Last week, I asked South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, where in the Constitution it authorizes the federal government to regulate the delivery of health care.  He replied:  "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do."  Then he shot back:  "How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?"  Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers.  He also seems to have overlooked the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress's powers only to those granted in the Constitution.

Constitution Day — What Constitution?  Americans are slow to rile, but in the end it will come down to millions of them preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States, thus their freedom and liberty, by any and all means.  What we are witnessing today is nothing less than an avalanche of freedom that has been triggered by a government who has lost all allegiance to the constitutional limits on its power and a collection of traitors who have thumbed their collective noses at the consent of the governed.

The Left's new enemy:  'Tenthers'.  Some on the left see them as radical and infinitely more dangerous than the birthers. ... Who are the dastardly people who are now unhinging the left?  They are the "Tenthers," those who believe the 10th Amendment — reserving to the states and the people all powers not delegated to the federal government nor prohibited to the states — isn't dead letter.

The Editor says...
 Scoff at the Constitution if you like, but you'll miss it when it's gone.

Is Health Care Reform Constitutional?  Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance?  And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?

The Brevity Act:  Time for a 28th Amendment.  Earlier this year, Congress passed a "Stimulus" Bill.  It was 973 pages long.  This past Friday, the House passed a "Climate Change" Bill.  It was more than 1200 pages long.  This got me wondering:  how long, exactly, is our Constitution?  How many pages did it take our country's founders to lay out the structure and functions of our Federal Government?

Congress Needs A Read-The-Bill Bill.  Lawmakers voted on the stimulus and global warming bills without having read either.  Eventually they'll vote on health care legislation that could fund unrelated items.  Time to end this systemic fraud.  The stimulus bill, signed into law less than a month after Barack Obama took office, reached 1,434 pages and will eventually cost the nation more than $1 trillion.

Bailing Out of the Constitution.  It is high time Americans heard an argument that might turn a vague national uneasiness into a vivid awareness of something going very wrong.  The argument is that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) is unconstitutional.

It ain't America no more.  In America, school security guards don't get to revise the First Amendment to suit their whims.  Nobody does.  But that's exactly what happened at a Reston town-hall meeting sponsored by Alexandria Democratic Rep. James P. Moran last week.  Fairfax County Public School Security Officer Wesley Cheeks Jr. took it upon himself to decide that one sign — among a panoply found outside the event — crossed the line.

Is the United States of America Doomed?  America has faced grave crises previously:  the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Depression, Fascism, and Communism.  In every instance, we managed to prevail.  But with diminishing self-esteem prevalent, it is easy to be pessimistic about our prevailing again.  And yet we have ammunition in this battle that Europe lacks — such as, God-fearing people, a formidable military, guns in the closet, talk radio and of course our Constitution.

Majority believe government is doing too much.  A new Gallup poll shows that the number of people who believe government has its hand in too many areas of American life has reached its highest point in more than a decade.

Americans More Likely to Say Government Doing Too Much.  Americans are more likely today than in the recent past to believe that government is taking on too much responsibility for solving the nation's problems and is over-regulating business.  New Gallup data show that 57% of Americans say the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to businesses and individuals, and 45% say there is too much government regulation of business.  Both reflect the highest such readings in more than a decade.

Introducing the Tenth Amendment.  The question to be explored is this.  By what authority does the federal government intervene in health care?  Ah, the stumper!  This is the kind of question that reduces arguments to sputtering. ... The idea that government (whatever that is) exists to fix problems (whatever they are) is so ingrained in the common mentality that the very question of what is proper is not even considered.  Surely only cranks and constitutional fossils would ever go there!  But, of course, our founding fathers started there.

Health Care and the Ailing Constitution.  Here's the question I didn't get a chance to ask President Obama when he stopped by Montana recently.  So far as I know, no one else has asked it of him either:  "If the federal role in health care is not enumerated in the Constitution, and it isn't, then shouldn't it be reserved to the states or the people as guaranteed by the 10th Amendment?"

Charity and the good ol' Constitution.  "Where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?"  It might be a question out of today's headlines, but it isn't. ... That question was asked not of President Obama nor of Sen. Max Baucus or Rep. Nancy Pelosi, but of the less well-known Tennessee congressman, David Crockett.

Mark of the True Conservative.  As on his radio show, so in this book, [Mark] Levin is unapologetic in his indictment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and successive generations of FDR acolytes — including LBJ and BHO — for perpetrating a "counterrevolution" against the limited government prescribed by our Constitution and for creating and expanding a welfare state that breeds dependency in the people and that — if not soon dismantled — will bankrupt our nation.

America's True Genius.  The Founding Fathers designed our Constitution so as to make it very difficult to bring about significant changes.  New legislation requires majorities in both houses of Congress followed by a presidential signature. ... This suggests the Founding Fathers were suspicious of quick and easy change.  The actual genius of America, and what makes our country unique, is precisely the opposite of change.

Has the US Run Amuck Constitutionally?  The Ninth and 10th amendments specify that the federal government may not do anything that isn't spelled out in the Constitution.  That is why, after citing 200 pages of constitutional abuses and violations by our government, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano concludes in his book "Constitutional Chaos" that the whole government has run amuck constitutionally, and we must question and be leery of its future motivations and decisions.

The easiest way to add two more Democratic Senators.
 Statehood for D.C.?  The District [of Columbia] was allotted a delegate in 1970 precisely because the Constitution doesn't permit it to be given a representative.  In 1978, Congress passed a constitutional amendment to grant the District a representative and senators because a statute couldn't grant the representation.  The amendment failed when only 16 states ratified it within seven years.

Congress needs tutorial on the U.S. Constitution.  Some federal employees are griping because a new law requires them to take a 25-minute tutorial on the U.S. Constitution.  Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., … deserves our thanks for this great idea because most Americans, including public officials, are abysmally ignorant of the text and the meaning of our Constitution.  The only thing the matter with his law is that he should have required a constitutional tutorial to be taken by judges and members of Congress.

The Lincoln Legacy Revisited.  The Founding Fathers established the Constitutional Union as a voluntary agreement among the several states, subordinate to The Declaration of Independence, which never mentions the nation as a singular entity, but instead repeatedly references the states as sovereign bodies, unanimously asserting their independence.

Signing Away Our Constitution:  The Bush administration ... has adopted the use of the signing statement, affixed to legislation when signed into law, as a means by which the legislative power may be more fully exercised by the office of the president, despite and against the Constitution's sole delegation of this power to Congress.

No child left behind — Republican ode to socialism.  The Constitution grants no authority for the federal government to be involved in education, and for good reason:  centralizing all learning in one distant spot is a stupid, narrow, dangerous, communist idea, one which has throughout all the world's history led to despotism and slavery.  Thus our forefathers limited federal power to a few necessary objects like national defense and foreign policy, and not at all to education.

Is it permissible?  In February 1887, President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing a bill appropriating money to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said, "I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."

Back to the Constitution.  "The Heritage Guide to the Constitution" is an essential reference book for anyone interested in our nation or in democracy in general.

Is Anything Not Interstate Commerce?  It is doubtful a single member of Congress — except Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican — truly wants a Supreme Court that is serious about the Constitution's limits on congressional power.

A living Constitution for a dying Republic:  FDR's extra-constitutional exploits opened the door for the judiciary to … read into the Constitution what was necessary to make it conform to the demands of the prevailing political will.

The issue here isn't medical marijuana, it's the Tenth Amendment.
 The high cost of nuances:  The question before the Supreme Court was not whether allowing the medicinal use of marijuana was a good policy or a bad policy. The legal question was whether Congress had the authority under the Constitution to regulate something that happened entirely within the boundaries of a given state.

Watergate and the Weather Underground:  It was Nixon, after all, who (in defiance of the Constitution) created the Environmental Protection Agency.  He signed the law creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; enacted wage and price controls; expanded the size and reach of the "civil rights" enforcement bureaucracy; and in manifold other ways abetted the growth of the regulatory leviathan.  Compared to the routine crimes against the Constitution committed by Nixon by way of official policy, Watergate was little more than a series of silly pranks.

The Federal Monopoly:  Both sides in the actual Civil War were engaged in subjugation.  The South was protecting chattel slavery; the North was denying the right of secession on which this country was founded.  At the time the Constitution was adopted, several states, including Virginia and New York, ratified it on the express condition that they might withdraw from the Union at any time they deemed it in their interest to do so.

"We the People":  A Mandate or a Motto?  Article V of the Constitution provides the process by which the Constitution may be amended.  That process does not permit the judiciary to do so by issuing rulings that contradict the Constitution or by creating "constitutional" rights that do not exist in the Constitution.  When that happens, as can be seen in some of this year's Supreme Court decisions, it is a government of men and not of laws.  Consequently, "We the People" ceases to be a mandate and is reduced to a mere motto bereft of meaning.

Parting company is an option:  Every single bit of evidence shows that states have a right to secede.  There's absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits secession.  What stops secession is the brute force of a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861.

Support the Liberty Bill Act  and put the Constitution on our dollars.  Four years ago students from Liberty Middle School in Ashland, Virginia developed a presentation about the Constitution.  In working with the kids, their teacher, Randy Wright, had a thought:  wouldn't it be great if our dollars carried a copy of the Constitution on back?  The kids liked the idea so much they decided to push politicians at all levels to make it happen.
( http://www.libertydollarbill.org - the Liberty Bill Act web site. )

Eradicating the Constitution:  Socialism is not in desperate retreat, as falsely proclaimed by the establishment press.  On the contrary, it moves forward confidently, aggressively and, for the most part, uncontested everywhere in the world.

Nelson bill would abolish Electoral College.  Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College on Friday [6/6/2008], less than a week after the Democrats settled on how to handle delegates from Florida at their national convention.  "It's time for Congress to really give Americans the power of one-person, one-vote, instead of the political machinery selecting candidates and electing our president," Nelson said in a release announcing the amendment.

Crime Fighters vs. the Constitution.  The authors of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act did not even pretend they were exercising powers granted by the Constitution.  This week the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether they were, focusing on a provision of the 2006 law that permits civil commitment of federal prisoners deemed to be "sexually dangerous."  Such preventive detention is bad enough when states do it, since it keeps people locked up indefinitely after they have completed their sentences, based not on crimes they have committed but on crimes they might commit.  The federal version is even worse.

The Lawless State:  Sometimes the deepest changes in a political system sneak in almost unnoticed.  So it has been in the United States, which has quietly shifted from being a decentralized federal republic to being a centralized democracy. … If the Founding Fathers could see us now, they'd surely ask, "How on earth did you get yourselves into this mess?"  We've managed to do nearly everything the Constitution was designed to prevent us from doing.

None Dare Call It Fascism.  Fascism operates under the principle of "might makes right," through the exercise of raw, naked governmental police power.  In America today, the increasingly rough-shod violation of constitutional rights by government agents in the name of "protecting the environment" or the "war on drugs" is an indication of how far we are proceeding in this direction.

Let's do some detective work.  Today's White House proposes and Congress taxes and spends for anything they can muster a majority vote on.  My investigative query is:  Were the Founders and previous congressmen and presidents, who could not find constitutional authority for today's bread and circuses, just plain stupid and ignorant?

Getting back our liberties:  We all have a moral obligation to pay our share for constitutionally mandated functions of the federal government, but we have no such obligation to have Congress take the earnings of one American and give them to another American.  Forcing one American to serve the purposes of another is one way slavery can be defined.

Job security:  Americans have suffered decades of nutty decisions from the Supreme Court.  At the present time our precious American values are on the line, as arrogant judges decide for the rest of us how we should live our lives.  Now they purport to tell us how we can worship our God even though the Constitution clearly forbids their meddling.

The Price of Incremental Lawlessness:  Article X of the Bill of Rights prohibits the federal government from authority to regulate our lives in any areas other than what is specifically given the federal government by the Constitution.  Where in the Constitution is the federal government given power to regulate education, medical care, social welfare, or the private ownership of guns?

Back to Basics:  Our founding fathers gave us a Constitutional Republic.  Because of them, we were born free.  Nevertheless, we could die slaves because we have lost sight of basic truths.

A Citizen's Guide to the Constitution.  Needless to say, the roles and relationships of the people, the states, and the federal government to each other are still an issue 230 years later, and they are the subject of numerous other provisions of the Constitution that [Seth] Lipsky annotates in an equally interesting fashion.

Bookmark and Share

The Bill of Rights is Taking a Beating

You may be interested in reading The Fourth Amendment, with legal notes.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart

Ministry of Truth, Obama-style.  President Obama has been agitating for the authority to criminalize political opponents since he took office.  First there was the raft of DHS reports profiling conservatives as terrorists.  Then came the push for a new fairness doctrine, subsequently refined to be achieved in diversity regulations to be imposed on local radio stations.  Following these attacks on free speech was the much debated hate crimes legislation, considered by many to be a back-door path to silencing critics of the administration.  But, while dangerous to free speech, none of these draconian policies could do as much damage as new regulatory czar Cass Sunstein's shocking proposal to ban "falsehoods" — a term left up to the Obama administration to define.  If Sunstein succeeds, free speech will be truly dead in America.

FTC has no business in media business.  There is nothing in the Constitution — zero, nada — that authorizes government to fund private news organizations, to choose "certain types of news organizations" for special tax favors, or to define what are "optimal amounts and types of journalism," most especially not including "public affairs coverage."  People in journalism had better wake up now before this funeral train for press freedom leaves the station.

Publisher Accuses Reid of 'Bullying' Nevada Newspaper.  The publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told his advertising director he wants the newspaper "out of business."

Court OKs barring religious tunes at graduation.  A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday [9/8/2009] upheld a school district's refusal to let a band play a religious piece at a high school graduation, saying the superintendent had reasonably decided to avoid a constitutional controversy by ordering a secular program.

Computers, Customs, and You.  Without a warrant, probable cause or even the faintest suspicion, US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) may decide to search your computer and all its files, your cell phone, and iPod when you return home from abroad.  It offers the usual excuse for eviscerating the Fourth Amendment:  "Our ability to inspect what is coming into the United States is central to keeping dangerous people and things from entering the country and harming the American people."  Actually, its ability to inspect is harming the American people since Customs' warrantless rummaging sends some victims to prison.

Bozell to FTC:  Keep Your Paws Out of the News Media.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced plans for a two-day workshop in December to examine the state of the news industry — which could lead to recommendations for legislation to regulate print, television, and even online media on everything from changes in anti-trust land copyright law to media tax breaks.  Some of the proposals being pushed by opinion leaders include direct government funding of media outlets...

FTC Plans to Study Journalism's Woes — and That's a Problem.  The Federal Trade Commission is scheduling public workshops on the media — two full days to examine the problems of journalism.  Please permit me to be subtle:  What a DUMB idea!!!  This is the Federal Trade Commission we're talking about.

End Run on Free Speech.  [Some] analyses treat free speech as not an inherent good but as a merely instrumental good, something justified by serving other ends — therefore something to be balanced against, and abridged to advance, other goods.  The good for which Zephyr Teachout would regulate speech is combating corruption, which, as she understands it, encompasses most of contemporary politics.  A visiting law professor at Duke, writing in the Cornell Law Review, she makes an astonishingly far-reaching argument for emancipating government from First Amendment restrictions on its powers to regulate political speech — speech about the government's composition and conduct.

The ID Passes on Pass ID.  Once again our federal government is trampling all over the U.S. Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment, as well as sacrificing our right to privacy and our beloved belief that an individual is innocent until found guilty by a court of law.  By mandating certain criteria and information, specifically biometric information (fingerprints and digital facial recognition friendly photos), be contained on state issued drivers licenses, the federal government dictates to the states of the Republic what is to be the purview of the states and the states alone.

School prayer charges stir protests.  Students, teachers and local pastors are protesting over a court case involving a northern Florida school principal and an athletic director who are facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail over their offer of a mealtime prayer.

Against the Rulers of Darkness.  We are involved in a war. It is a war between differing political ideologies, mind-sets, and world-views. ... At its heart, it is a war between spirituality and egoism, a war between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong.  As I write this, two Florida teachers may lose their retirement benefits, and spend six months in jail for their "flagrant" violation of the First Amendment.  Their crime?  They said Grace before eating a meal, while on school grounds.

Rediscovering the 10th Amendment — Too Little, Too Late.  In describing the constant blatant assault on the Constitution, one hardly knows where to start.  The federal government runs Social Security, a 50-state Ponzi scheme that makes Bernie Madoff look like an underachiever.  What about Medicaid?  It is a federal/state program of health care for the poor.  What about the Department of Education?  It unconstitutionally involves the federal government in state-run education and comes with rules and mandates attached to the money.

Cooperate, Or Else!  In a free society, the criminal laws are supposed to be clear so that citizens will know what conduct is prohibited.  With the Hiibel ruling, the Supreme Court has created a situation where ordinary Americans cannot be sure if they are invoking their constitutionally-guaranteed rights or whether they are committing a crime.

A clear violation of the 4th amendment:
 Workers coming inside to assess a home's worth.  Don't look now, but that could be the Norfolk real estate assessor at your door.  Not content with merely taking a gander at the exterior of your abode, and factoring in building permits and sales of comparable houses, Deborah Bunn and her lieutenants want to snoop around inside to determine your castle's worth.

Picking us off one at a time.  Every week, 15 women gathered at Diane Reiter's Denver home for Bible study, prayer and dinner.  There was no loud music, speeches or other noise.  Nonetheless, the Denver zoning administration served Reiter with a cease-and-desist order citing a municipal ordinance that prohibits more than one "prayer meeting" a month in a private home.

Conveniently Tightening the Noose:  State Senator Moe Keller (D-Jefferson) has introduced a bill, SB 48, that would outlaw the right of citizens to use the telephone to alert their fellows to actions taking place in the Legislature!  Unless you, the citizen, had "a prior relationship" with people being contacted, it would be illegal.  That's right, general citizen alerts are specifically verboten.

Volunteer:  Vets Hospital Taking Away Freedom of Religion, Speech.  It's a house of worship with none of the symbols.  There are no crosses or Bibles on display at the Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center chapel.  Blinds cover elaborate stained glass windows.  The reason is a federal policy from the 1950s, but one volunteer says it has been taken too far.  Laud Pitt plans to hand out Christmas cards at the hospital Tuesday.  But to do it, he says, he'll have to be escorted by the chaplain.

MIT Students Gagged by Federal Court Judge.  Three students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were ordered this morning [8/9/2008] by a federal court judge to cancel their scheduled presentation about vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system, violating their First Amendment right to discuss their important research.

Update:
 Boston judge tosses MIT students' gag order.  U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole, Jr., vacated the temporary 10-day gag order that another judge had instituted against the three MIT students who were prevented from presenting a talk on security vulnerabilities in the Boston subway's fare tickets and cards.  The judge also threw out a request by the MBTA to expand the restraining order.

Gun nonsense in Mississippi.  Jackson, Mississippi Mayor Frank Melton has received extensive criticism for his unusual approach to fighting crime.  Melton has accompanied police officers as they conduct warrantless searches of homes, cars, and individuals.  The mayor has even placed private citizens in "protective custody" without alerting the local district attorney.  They may call it "protective custody" in Jackson, but it looks more like kidnapping from where I'm sitting.

The DC Gun Ban:  Understand that residents of DC can be convicted of a felony and put in prison simply for having a gun in their home, even if they live in a very dangerous neighborhood.  The DC gun ban is no joke, and the legal challenges to the ban are not simply academic exercises.  People's lives and safety are at stake.  Gun control historically serves as a gateway to tyranny.  Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control.

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border.  Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.  Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Editor says...
 This is clearly a violation of the Fourth Amendment, in the absence of probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

Public Pressure Mounts Against Invasive Border Searches.  Random, invasive laptop searches and other digital privacy violations at the U.S. border are facing increasing pressure from the public and Congress.  One of the big complaints EFF and others have had is the lack of information and accountability about the intrusive examination of computer files, cell phone directories, and other private information — and the indiscriminate copying of that data — as Americans come back home from overseas.

Unsuspected travelers' laptops may be detained at border.  This rings all alarm bells (also, the words 'police state' come to mind).  I think that anyone who is considering traveling to the US should think twice before doing so.  I wonder what would happen to anyone who has the 'wrong' combination of digital data and paperwork on him ...

Now They'll Take Your Laptop.  [Scroll down slowly]  Being "randomly" wanded and frisked at an airport-security checkpoint is bad enough, but at least the inconvenience is brief.  But the new seizure policy essentially keeps law-abiding business travelers, with their entire professional lives on laptops, hostage to a government agency and prevents them from doing their jobs -- again, all without a hint of probable cause.  That's more than an annoyance:  It's official theft of your ability to make a living.

It sounds like Big Brother is waiting at the airport.


"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."


LA bans racist 'N-word'.  Los Angeles on Friday [11/09/2007] voted to ban the racist "N-word" with city councillors saying they hope the symbolic gesture will stop people from using the epithet in any context. … America's much-cherished constitutional right to free speech means anyone using the insult within Los Angeles is not committing a crime.  An identical measure has already been passed in New York.

The Editor says...
 Some words are offensive to some people; some are offensive to nearly everybody.  But their use is protected by the First Amendment, even if the speaker lacks self control and common decency.

The End of "The Right to Remain Silent":  Every kid who has watched a re-run of TV cop shows knows that "you have the right to remain silent" when the police come knocking.  Except that, now, you don't.  In Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District of Nevada, the Supreme Court, in one stroke, turned Justice Jackson's advice on its head, and turned generations of TV cop shows into so much false advertising.  Silence, said the Court, is not only not privileged:  it can get you thrown in jail.

Court rules home worship OK.  A federal court ruled a Florida county cannot prohibit a rabbi from holding prayer and worship services in his own home.  Rabbi Joseph Konikov of Orlando was faced with two land-use ordinance violations filed by Orange County.

[Why was that even debatable?]

"Speak English" sign ruling appealed.  A tavern owner is asking a state agency to reconsider a controversial ruling that declared as discriminatory a sign that says, "For Service Speak English." … If the ruling stands, tavern owner Tom Ullum could be ordered to remove the sign, undergo diversity training and pay for anti-discrimination advertising.

Vehicle Searches Allowed on Ferries, The Fourth Amendment Notwithstanding.  Steve Reinmuth, senior deputy attorney general, said that constitutional prohibition was preempted by an order the Coast Guard issued June 21 [2004].  Rear Adm. Jeffrey Garrett, commander of the Coast Guard's 13th District, said the order requires Washington State Ferries to comply with all federal maritime-security requirements effective July 1 — including physical inspections, if necessary.  He would not provide a copy of the order, again citing security concerns.

 Editor's Note:   This is particularly interesting.  Not only has the Coast Guard issued an order superseding the Fourth Amendment, they won't even publish the order.  How are Americans expected to obey laws that can't be made public?

A blow to the Fourth Amendment.  With one "stroke of the pen" the protection We the People have enjoyed against "unreasonable searches and seizures," which has stood for well more than two centuries, has been blue-lined into oblivion, at least in three states of the union.  Police are now free in virtually every instance, to search a person's home or office without a warrant, and without any cause to believe there is contraband therein or a reasonable belief they are in danger.

End election-law nonsense.  We're riding a camel here of destructive impingements on the First Amendment. … I say, pile on the incursions, pile on the devaluing of our rights.  Pile it all on until finally, hopefully, we can break this camel's back.

September 11th Used as Catalyst for Assault on Bill Of Rights?  "The dreadful attacks of September 11th were just the beginning of more attacks against Americans.  The horrific loss of life turned out to be the justification for both parties to annihilate the Bill of Rights," said Constitution Party National Committee Chairman Jim Clymer.

Federal aid fuels spending by states.  State and local governments have used big increases in federal aid to help cover higher spending since 2000, a move away from the tradition of using local taxes to pay for local programs.

The Editor says...
 This is a blow to the 10th Amendment.  Federal money always has strings attached.  Speaking of the 10th Amendment...

Do More Cops Equal Less Crime?  [Scroll down] Leading the charge is Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who sponsored that bill and is pushing legislation to hire another 50,000 officers, at a cost of $3.6 billion over six years, under the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. … The sponsors suggest the Bush administration has abdicated its crime-fighting duties by not providing funds for additional hiring.  What they conveniently forget is that the program was supposed to be a temporary boost rather than a permanent obligation.  Local law enforcement has historically been the responsibility of cities and counties, not the federal government.

Why Ignore Supreme Court's Threat To Free Press?  Having spent years as a newspaper reporter and editor, I am proud to be called an "ink-stained wretch."  But I am mystified by the newsroom silence about a legal dagger aimed at the heart of the First Amendment and the free press.

Court Opens Door To Searches Without Warrants.  It's a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone:  Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business.  Leaders in law enforcement say it will keep officers safe, but others argue it's a privilege that could be abused.

Our Republic on the Ropes:  I join the chorus of voices condemning the assault that Congress and the Supreme Court have inflicted on the First Amendment — on our most essential, fundamental speech:  the ability to criticize our elected officials.

The Federalization of Medicine.  [Scroll down] Even though three months of surveillance produced no evidence he had sold or given away any medication, and even though he'd been prescribed the same dosages for years, the weight of the drugs alone (which, ironically, mostly contained acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol) was enough to provoke the mandatory minimum sentence.  While [Richard] Paey was in prison, officials refilled a morphine pump that he had fitted during the course of the proceedings.  That pump, paid for by the state of Florida, delivered over the course of each 48 hour period a larger dose of opioid medication than Paey had been convicted of possessing in the first place.

The Editor says...
 The story above is included here because the case shows how the 9th and 10th Amendments are being routinely ignored by the federal government.

Warrants as a Security Countermeasure.  More and more, we are living in a society where we are all tracked automatically all of the time.  We can all be tracked by our cell phones.  E-ZPass tracks cars at tunnels and bridges.  [In Dallas, they're called Toll Tags.]  Security cameras record us.  Our purchases are tracked by banks and credit card companies, our telephone calls by phone companies, our Internet surfing habits by Web site operators.  The Department of Justice claims that it needs these, and other, search powers to combat terrorism.

The Liberal Assault on Freedom of Speech:  America has less freedom of speech today than it has ever had in its history.  Yet it is widely believed that it has more.

Quartered Among Us:  Through various pretexts, the military is gradually interjecting itself into domestic law enforcement in contravention of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Maryland Police Say Disabled Man Has "No Good Reason" For Handgun:  The State of Maryland has denied a physically disabled citizen a permit to carry a concealed handgun because he does not have a "good and substantial reason" to be armed.

Stories of Anguish at the Hands of Police:  Nine stories of abuse at the hands of California policemen.

State Inserts Itself Into Church Dispute:  In a highly unusual move, the Iowa Supreme Court has decided to get involved in a church-related defamation case.  At issue is the use of the phrase "spirit of Satan."

Defend your family, go to jail.  A Brooklyn man who shot and wounded an intruder while defending his family will spend three days in Rikers Island, the same jail housing the burglar who terrorized his home, because he owns an unregistered gun.

Top Ten Campus Follies of 2002:  [For example] An American University student was pinned down and handcuffed outside a Tipper Gore speech by plainclothes campus police who refused to identify themselves.  The student was charged with stealing Gore's intellectual property by videotaping her speech, which was open to the public.

The feds are drunk with their power.  Colorado is being blackmailed with its own tax dollars to lower the Blood Alcohol Content allowed while driving.

Forced Drugging Case Headed to Supreme Court:  For more than four years, Missouri dentist Charles Sell has waited in a federal prison for his trial on charges of Medicaid fraud, and the delay is attributed to the government's persistent argument that Sell is not mentally competent to stand trial unless he is forcibly drugged.

The other terrorism:  There's no real war on drugs, but it sounds and looks good.  The half-hearted attempt, the resultant crime and costs to society provide fuel for the drug-legalization crowd.

California police state:  The totalitarians are fully in control of America's largest state.  The California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 last Thursday [1/24/2002] that police in the state may search cars if a driver fails to produce a license or registration, regardless of whether the officer has a warrant.

More Injustice on the Way:  Gene Healy, a Cato Institute scholar, recently provided a thorough exploration of the unintended consequences of the new Bush-Ashcroft plan to federalize gun crimes, known as the Project Safe Neighborhoods program.  The unintended consequences of this law are frightening.

Temptation averted:  no "Lord's Prayer" at Woodbine.  Woodbine [Iowa] High School was the center of attention Sunday over whether "The Lord's Prayer" would find its way into its graduation ceremony.  In the end, the song didn't.  School officials, graduates and the community abided by a federal judge's decision to ban the song following a lawsuit by two sophomore choir members from an atheist family.

Anti-gun Rep. Waxman Tries to Boot TV Cameraman From House Hearing:  Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., tried unsuccessfully Thursday [4/18/2002] to have an accredited TV news photographer thrown out of a House subcommittee hearing.  The hearing focused on whether to limit liability lawsuits against gun makers.  Waxman, who favors gun control, insisted the cameraman was videotaping on behalf of the National Rifle Association.

Accounts of Press Censorship Surface in Washington:  At least two accounts of credentialed members of the news media being ordered not to take photographs or record videotape from public sidewalks in non-secure areas were learned of Friday.

Federal Judge Orders Ten Commandments Removed:  Threatened by fines, residents of a small town in Indiana say they were forced to remove a monument displaying the Ten Commandments from the lawn of the local courthouse, after a federal judge ruled on behalf of the state's civil liberties union.

Couple Sues to Continue Home Prayer Sessions after the local zoning board ordered them to stop holding prayer services in their home.

Sting Operations and the Separation of Powers:  To detect and prosecute laws prohibiting victimless crimes, government typically curtails civil liberties and, by standing in for a real victim, creates opportunities for abuse and corruption in sting operations.  Sometimes, prosecution of these crimes is furthered by offering various considerations to one member of the conspiracy at the expense of the others.  This would normally be called bribery and subornation of perjury and is likely illegal, although commonplace.

The Death of Talk Radio:  With Bush in the White House, talk radio gets a reprieve, but not a pardon.  The new man to watch is Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.  Concerned that no liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh has yet appeared on the national scene, Daschle and his disciples may yet attempt to return to the Bad Old Days of government control of radio talk.

Back to Abuse of Power
Back to the Home page

Document location http://akdart.com/abu5.html
Updated April 2, 2024.

©2024 by Andrew K. Dart