Constitution

Madison, who would become known as the “Father of the Constitution,” argued that in a pure democracy, “there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.”

The purpose of a constitution is to define the structure and rules by which a government operates. In the case of the United States Constitution, those rules are—contra to most other such constitutions—explicitly designed to limit the government’s authority.

Their deepest fear was an ignorant citizenry—a public that could be handed liberty and squander it because they lacked the mental tools to defend it. The Founders understood something that gets lost in the monument-and-marble version of history: a republic is not a structure. It’s a practice. And practices die when people forget how to perform them.

The Iran Strikes Are Constitutional. That’s Not The Interesting Question.

Anti-Federalists, who feared a powerful central government, demanded greater assurances.

There are arguments on both sides, many of which are fact-specific and depend on constantly changing circumstances.

Requiring that a president conduct himself within the bounds of the law does not somehow “diminish the votes of the citizens who elected him.”

Would a determined executive ever fall back in the end on the core power asymmetry between the two branches—it has guns, and the judges don’t?

Not a day goes by when the New York Times does not manufacture some maudlin defense of the put-upon minions of the tax-funded managerial class. In this worldview, the agencies are always right, whereas any elected or appointed person seeking to rein them in or terminate them is attacking the “public interest.”

Had one of the individuals at the Constitutional Convention said, “Should we write in a power for the government to lend money?” the reply from everyone else would have been “No.”

If the Supreme Court were to grant review, it would have to consider two issues: the first is whether this state-imposed fine and others like it are covered by the Eighth Amendment; if so, the second issue would be whether the fine of $464 million is excessive.

The gradual rise of the 4th branch of government (the administrative “deep state” bureaucracy) which is very much the most powerful branch – has reduced the American political process to mere theater as compared with the real activity of government, which rests with the permanent bureaucracy. 

Justice Gorsuch rules against the dictatorship by the administrative state, in favor of the system established by the Constitution’s framers.

While one political group may not benefit from the filibuster on a current issue, they may find it very valuable protection in the future. Senator Warren be warned: You may not like the consequences of your campaign.