National Review : The First Amendment Applies to the Doctor’s Office, Too
The First Amendment protects more than our right to criticize our leaders. It also protects our livelihoods, and sometimes even our very lives. A case scheduled to be heard next week before the Supreme Court may decide whether the government can shut off that lifeline. The Court should side with freedom. Free speech saved Jun Abell's life. At 18 ...
Constitution Day 2025 — Let the experiment continue
To be an American means to be both scientist and subject in the grandest political experiment in human history. The American experiment set out to solve a timeless riddle: how do we empower people to govern us without abandoning our individual rights? The American founders' answer was an experiment that had never been tried before: a written consti ...
The Hill : Freedom will keep the city lights shining
The other side of the pond dropped into a brief but sobering relapse into the dark ages. Spain and Portugal suffered a massive electricity shortage in April, plunging them into darkness. It is no coincidence that this occurred only days after the country announced that so-called renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro) had supplied all the country' ...
Can the government ban medical advice? SCOTUS may decide
The First Amendment right to speak includes the oft-forgotten right to listen. Few know it, but this right to receive information hides in the shadow of a controversial case now before the Supreme Court called Chiles v. Salazar. How the Court resolves Chiles will affect the rights of millions of patients to seek and receive medical advice. In Ch ...
We need to sell more federal land
Senator Mike Lee stepped onto a political land mine when he proposed the federal government sell a tiny pinch of the 640 million acres that it owns, most of it west of the Rockies. Politicos from left and right condemned the proposal as a betrayal of a grand heritage. I too have an issue with Senator Lee's proposal: It doesn't go far enough. Not on ...
American Banker : Federal snooping enabled by the Bank Secrecy Act has gone too far
Money talks, and the government listens. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, federal authorities can turn any bank account into a window on our private spending. But that may soon change. A family business in Texas, represented by Pacific Legal Foundation, has just sued to restore financial privacy. The Bank Secrecy Act authorizes the Treasury Departmen ...
President Trump and Elon Musk are wrong to threaten judges with impeachment
DOGE has grand plans to shrink bureaucracy, but the ride has been bumpy. Those bumps include court decisions that have slowed the president's efforts to cut government waste. But frustrated DOGE fans should not forget that courts play a vital role in achieving DOGE's goal of limited government. For now, there is no love lost between DOGE and som ...
State courts struggle to apply Penn Central test to regulatory takings
If the government severely restricts your use of your property, should you receive "just compensation," as promised in the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause? That's the question presented in regulatory takings cases, in which the property owner still owns the property but cannot make full use of it. In Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's well-worn words ...
National Review : It’s Time to Reclaim the West from Federal Control
Legend says the outlaw Butch Cassidy hid vast stashes of loot across the West. But those still hunting for Cassidy's treasure could join the Wild Bunch in outlaw status. Hunting for buried treasure on federal lands, it turns out, is a federal crime, and almost all the West where Cassidy roamed is federal land. But that's not all. If you were to ...