Tag: the constitution

Trump administration drops effort against law firms after judges find president’s orders unconstitutional

The Justice Department on Monday dropped the fight over President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting firms he disliked, conceding to unanimous rulings from federal judges that found the orders violated the fundamental tenets of the Constitution.

The targeted firms included Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey and Jenner & Block. They had fought back against executive orders by Trump that took aim at their security clearances, government contracts and access to government buildings due to their clientele and hiring.

Perkins Coie has represented high-profile Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; WilmerHale employed former special counsel Robert Mueller after he investigated Trump; and Jenner & Block hired Andrew Weissmann, who was a part of Mueller’s team.

The firms, which stood up to the administration at a time when many other major law firms caved, welcomed the administration’s capitulation.

“As we said from the outset, our challenge to the unlawful Executive Order was about defending our clients’ constitutional right to retain the counsel of their choosing and defending the rule of law. We are pleased these foundational principles were vindicated,” a WilmerHale spokesperson said in a statement Monday.

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The Incremental Loss of Freedom

Last week, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, ruled that the problem of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is so acute and vast, and the Fourth Amendment so burdensome and time-consuming, that it should cut some constitutional corners. 

The federal judiciary is supposed to be in the business of protecting the rights of individuals from infringement by Congress or the president or the states. In this case, the court saw fit to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to trample the sacred American right to be left alone.

How sacred? Well, James Madison, who was largely responsible for crafting the new Constitution and stewarding it through the states, realized a few years later — after Congress created the First National Bank — that the government would need some restraints. 

The restraints were cataloged in the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment, which protects privacy, has some of the most precise Madisonian language in the Constitution in order to enshrine privacy and protect it from the government.

To prevent the new government from doing what British soldiers and agents had done to the colonists, the Fourth Amendment prohibits general warrants which had authorized the bearer to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found. 

The amendment recognizes that our rights come from our humanity — not from the government — and they are inalienable unless and until we give them up by violating someone else’s natural rights.

This concept of rights as integral to humanity was articulated by Aristotle, refined by Augustine, codified by Aquinas, modernized by John Locke, embraced by the Continental Congress and Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and made part of the Constitution in the Ninth Amendment by Madison and the ratifiers.

The Fourth Amendment requires that if the government wants to search or seize any “persons, houses, papers, (or) effects,” it needs to be investigating a crime and it must have probable cause to believe that in those papers, houses or effects or on those persons is evidence of criminal behavior.

Then the government must present its probable cause to a judge under oath. If the judge agrees that the presentation does constitute probable cause of crime, the judge can sign either a search or an arrest warrant; and the warrant must particularly describe the places to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

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Government Unchained: The Year The Constitution Lost Its Guardrails

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”—Abraham Lincoln

We now live in a nation where constitutional rights exist in theory, not in practice.

Yet what good are rights on paper when every branch of government is allowed to ignore, circumvent, chip away at or hollow them out in practice?

Two hundred and thirty-four years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791, the safeguards meant to shield “We the people” from government abuse are barely recognizable.

In ways the Founders could scarcely have imagined—and would never have tolerated—the safeguards meant to restrain government overreach have become little more than empty platitudes.

America’s founders understood that power corrupts and absolute power—especially when it comes to power-hungry governments fixated on amassing institutional power at the expense of individual freedoms—corrupts absolutely. That’s why they insisted on binding down the government “with the chains of the Constitution.”

In 2025, those chains have been cut link by link.

These links were not severed in secret. They snapped under the weight of executive orders issued without congressional authority, judicial doctrines that shield misconduct from accountability, and a Congress that no longer defends its own constitutional prerogatives.

If Americans are finally learning the true significance of constitutional limits, it is because the government keeps violating them—and daring anyone to stop it. Time and again, the message is being drummed into our heads that constitutional limits no longer apply when they inconvenience those in power.

Any government that treats rights as privileges—contingent on economic status, citizenship, race, orientation, religious beliefs, or political alignment—has already abandoned the Bill of Rights.

And a government that does so with the courts’ blessing is not a constitutional republic.

When rights become privileges, what we are left with is a two-tier system of freedom: those afforded the privilege of enjoying their constitutional rights vs. those targeted for exercising those same rights.

The Bill of Rights was intended as a bulwark. Each amendment was drafted as a barrier against a specific form of tyranny.

In 2025, every one of those barriers buckled under the weight of government corruption, political expediency, partisan politics, and institutional neglect.

The following is what it looked like to live without the protections of the Bill of Rights in the American police state.

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Consolidation: George Mason’s Core Anti-Federalist Warning

“A monarchy, or a corrupt tyrannical aristocracy.”

That, George Mason warned, is what the Constitution would produce. His objections to ratification became the foundation for some of the most influential Anti-Federalist arguments.

Born 300 years ago today, December 11, 1725, Mason was one of the most influential political thinkers and leaders of the American Revolution. It would be hard to exaggerate the impact of his Virginia Declaration of Rights, which served as the foundation for the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights – and other constitutional documents around the world.

But today, on the 300th anniversary of his birth, we are exploring his forgotten warnings about the Constitution during the ratification debates. They focus almost completely on his core fear that the new system would centralize power in a national government and destroy liberty.

Mason did not start as an opponent, but he grew sharply dissatisfied with the Convention’s direction, especially after the compromise to allow the international slave trade to continue. As the Convention neared its end, he famously declared that he would rather “chop off his right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands.”

His public objections quickly became a rallying cry and a platform for critics of the Constitution, echoed throughout the ratification debates.

THE CORE WARNING: CONSOLIDATION

Mason’s primary objection? Consolidation – the fundamental shift from a union of sovereign states (a confederation) to a centralized national government. This, he warned, was a rejection of the principles of the American Revolution.

“The very idea of converting what was formerly a confederation, to a consolidated Government, is totally subversive of every principle which has hitherto governed us.”

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Public School Slaps ‘Does Not Endorse’ Stickers on US Constitution, Declaration of Independence

Only in today’s education climate could a public school district accidentally label the Constitution and Declaration of Independence as materials it “does not endorse.”

Yet that is exactly what happened in Anchorage, Alaska, earlier this month.

Anchorage Daily News reported that the Anchorage School District placed non-endorsement stickers on booklets containing the founding documents.

A parent posted a photo of the label on Nov. 3. The sticker read, “The Anchorage School District does not endorse these materials or the viewpoint expressed in them.”

The picture spread quickly across social media. Too many parents to count were rightly outraged that such a warning appeared on the most essential texts in American civic life.

District representative MJ Thim said the label was placed on the booklets erroneously.

Thim explained that the stickers are normally used for flyers and posters from outside organizations.

“This was our mistake,” he wrote in an email.

Thim said the stickers were used because that is standard practice for items that are not official district publications.

He said the district will review its procedures to make sure this does not happen again.

Thim also emphasized that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence are taught in every school. He said these documents “reflect the values we want every student to understand.”

Parents, however, found the incident troubling.

Karen Waldron, who posted the image on Facebook, said she was “honestly stunned.” She noted that these are not controversial documents, but the very foundation of our government.

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Leftists Admit They Can’t Win Without Rewriting The Constitution

Seldom does a headline simultaneously proclaim impotency and promise utter destruction, but The New York Times managed it: “Abolish the Senate. End the Electoral College. Pack the Court.”

To be fair, this was not an opinion piece per se but a partial transcript of an episode of Ross Douthat’s Interesting Times podcast, where Douthat interviewed Osita Nwanevu, a contributing editor at The New Republic, a columnist at The Guardian, and a research fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. The occasion was Nwanevu’s first book, The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.

Nwanevu’s book is free of original argumentation. His example of why the Senate is “anti-democratic” is that California, a state that could be “one of the 40 largest countries in the world,” only has two senators, which gives a state like Wyoming “about 60, or more than 60, times the representation than people in California.”

And don’t try to say California’s 52-member delegation in the House of Representatives — the largest in the House by far — evens things out: “The Senate shapes the judiciary, it shapes the executive branch, and obviously, it’s a veto point for the passage of even ordinary legislation.” Thus, Nwanevu argues, “we have a fundamental piece of our system that flouts basic democratic principles.”

Never mind that the House originates all monied bills, or that all impeachments must originate in the House, or that House and Senate must both pass a bill before it sees the president’s desk.

His ideas for “saving democracy” are just as moldy. Create new states (his nominees, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., are the usual suspects). Stuff the Supreme Court. Have a national, popular vote for president. The same ideas the left has been repeating for years now. Nwanevu is just the latest parrot to sing the same song for the choir.

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The Unelected Magistrate Judges Undermining Trump And Rule Of Law Are Completely Unconstitutional

As the legal wrangling continues over a magistrate judge’s decision to release accused human trafficker Kilmar Abrego Garcia from federal custody, it’s worth taking a closer look not just at the role of Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in this case, but at the broader system of magistrate judges across the country. Contrary to widespread perception, reinforced by misleading media coverage, these judges wield extraordinary power despite having no constitutional standing under Article III.

Garcia is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was deported there. Democrats and their media allies turned his case into a political flashpoint. Garcia was ultimately returned to the United States, where he was promptly arrested on two federal counts related to human smuggling.

One aspect of his case has gone largely unnoticed: Magistrate Judge Holmes’ authority to make critical decisions in a case with national political implications.

Despite being referred to as a “federal judge” by corporate media outlets such as The New York Times, Holmes is not an Article III judge under the U.S. Constitution, which requires that federal judges be nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and granted life tenure. Holmes meets none of these conditions. She was appointed by other judges, not elected officials, and she serves a renewable term, not a lifetime post.

Yet she holds immense power to approve arrests, authorize surveillance, and issue rulings that can shape lives, sway political outcomes, and alter the course of national events.

Her role in the Garcia case is just the latest reminder of how much judicial authority has been delegated to unelected magistrates operating outside the constitutional framework and how little scrutiny that quiet power grab has received.

Another example is Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who authorized the brazenly political FBI raid on President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022. He, too, sits outside the Constitution’s judicial framework, yet signed off on what may have been the most consequential search warrant in modern American history. And he did so with the full legal authority of a real judge, despite never having been through the vetting, scrutiny, or constitutional process required of one.

The American people are told they live under a government of checks and balances, where power is diffused and public officials are held accountable through a transparent process. The rise of magistrate judges represents a dangerous end-run around that system. These bureaucrats now wield a level of authority that the Framers never envisioned.

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The Constitution Won’t Save US From Trump’s War Idiocy

On June 21, US president Donald Trump ordered airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. You may have heard. As I write this, we’re in the “boasting about how splendid it all is” phase of Trump’s cyclical foreign policy approach.

Phase One: Pretend to be “anti-war” and feverishly “negotiating” to avoid escalation of this or that long-term conflict.

Phase Two:  Escalate.

Phase Three: Brag about what a genius he is.

Phase Four: Backtrack and maybe whine a little when it blows up in his face – or, rather, in the faces of the troops he puts in harm’s way.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll get the usual Phase Four (a la the ignominious but long overdue US surrender in Afghanistan after his “surge,” the Iranian strikes on US bases in Iraq after his operation to murder Iranian general  Qasem Soleimani, etc.), or whether he’ll really screw the pooch and set the Middle East on fire this time when the Iranians retaliate.

In the meantime, let’s talk about the US Constitution.

This morning, I received an email from Defending Rights and Dissent, a pro-Constitution organization with a history stretching back to the era of McCarthyism.  Subject line: “Trump shreds the Constitution. Bombs Iran. TAKE ACTION.”

DRAD wants you to write “your” US Representative and US Senators, urging them to support a “War Powers Resolution” requiring Trump to stand down, on the clear and irrefutable constitutional claim that only Congress has the authority to declare war and that Trump’s actions are therefore illegal.

Okay, yeah, I did that.

But realistically, Congress isn’t any more likely to reassert its power over US war-making this time around than it did with Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and numerous other belligerent actions/involvements.

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General Welfare Clause: The Truth They Never Teach

“It would be ABSURD to say … Congress may do what they please.”

That was James Madison, obliterating the modern lie that the general Welfare Clause is a blank check for almost unlimited power.

But that’s exactly how it’s treated and used today.

The general Welfare clause had a clear, limited meaning when the Constitution was ratified – and both Madison and Jefferson warned exactly what would happen if it got twisted into something more.

Spoiler alert: They weren’t just right. They were prophetic.

WHAT THE CONSTITUTION ACTUALLY SAYS

“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
-Article I, Section 8, Clause 1

Legal scholar Rob Natelson has explained just how badly this clause has been twisted from its original meaning.

“The General Welfare Clause is one of the two principal constitutional pillars supporting the modern federal welfare state – the other being the Commerce Clause.”

Today, politicians and judges treat this clause as permission to spend money on virtually anything – as long as they claim it’s for the “general welfare.”

But that interpretation is flat-out wrong – and Natelson made that clear.

“The General Welfare Clause is said to include an implied spending power used to justify federal spending programs and the regulatory conditions attached to them.” 

In fact, that’s why many now refer to it as something else entirely.

“For that reason, the General Welfare Clause sometimes is called the Spending Clause.”

But the clause wasn’t written to authorize everything – it was written to limit Congress. To block favoritism. To keep spending within constitutional bounds.

“The General Welfare Clause is more than a mere ‘non-grant’ of spending power.”

Then he dropped the hammer.

“It was intended to be a sweeping denial of power – specifically, it was intended to impose on Congress a standard of impartiality borrowed from the law of trusts, thereby limiting the legislature’s capacity to ‘play favorites’ with federal tax money.”

A STRICT RESTRAINT ON POWER

In 1831, James Madison made it clear that the general Welfare clause wasn’t a blank check – it was a limit.

“With respect to the words ‘General welfare’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them.”

In other words, the clause doesn’t authorize taxing for whatever Congress wants – only for purposes tied directly to the enumerated powers.

Madison followed with a direct warning – about what would happen if “general Welfare” were twisted into a broad, open-ended power.

“To take them in a literal and unlimited sense, would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character, which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its Creators.”

Thomas Jefferson agreed. The general Welfare clause granted no independent power – it was tied to the powers delegated in the Constitution.

“our tenet ever was … that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated”

Jefferson ripped apart the claim that the clause gave Congress broad power for anything it wanted.

“As it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers” 

That meant no power for anything outside the Constitution’s list.

“so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action: consequently that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money”

That was the bottom line: specific powers = specific limits.

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The United States Of Tyranny: America Is Becoming A Constitution-Free Zone

“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”—James Madison

It’s no joke: America is becoming a Constitution-free zone.

Little by little, our rights are being whittled down in the name of national security.

Where do you draw the line?

How much tyranny will Americans tolerate in the name of national security?

At what point does this slippery slope of power grabs lead to dictatorship?

Will we let border police trample on the rights of everyone they encounter, including legal residents and citizens? Turn a blind eye when men, women and children are forcibly detained by gangs of plainclothes agents and made to disappear? Will we accept a national ID card that enables the government to target individuals and groups it deems undesirable? Will we tolerate AI-powered surveillance cameras and drones that track us more effectively than they protect us? Will we censor ourselves, fearing that any expression of dissent will mark us as anti-government?

Will we abandon the constitutional principles our founders fought for? This is the bargain the police state demands of us.

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