ArcaMax

Has the United States become what President Donald Trump recently condemned? Can the president fight any war he wishes? Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged?

These questions should be central to a debate over the U.S. involvement in Ukraine, Gaza and ...Read more

The deployment of California National Guard troops and active-duty U.S. Marines onto the streets of Los Angeles is an assault on federalism, violates federal law and manifests a dangerous pattern of governmental behavior in defiance of constitutional principles and the rule of law.

None of this was the case until President Donald Trump, against...Read more

Last week, the Trump administration announced the streamlining of access to illegally seized personal data from unsuspecting Americans, thereby making warrantless domestic spying easier for the spies.

Here is the backstory.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to privacy. Like other amendments in the Bill of ...Read more

All attempts by the government to evaluate the content of speech and deter or punish what the government and its benefactors hate or fear is un-American, unconstitutional and unlawful; and if not stopped, will reduce the American people to serfdom.

During the past three months, the Trump administration has sought to withhold the delivery of ...Read more

A recent Supreme Court oral argument about the liability of the FBI for invading and terrorizing the wrong home has brought to mind the dark and dangerous history of law enforcement.

The practice of British agents rummaging through the private possessions on the private property of anyone against that person's will was a significant ...Read more

What if the writ of habeas corpus has been guaranteed to the British since 1215 and to Americans since 1789? What if this encompasses the right of every person who is confined by the government against his or her will to compel the jailer to justify the confinement before a neutral judge?

What if this right is personal and individual and ...Read more

Among the lesser-known holes in the Constitution cut by the Patriot Act of 2001 was the destruction of the "wall" between federal law enforcement and federal spies. The wall was erected in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which statutorily limited all federal domestic spying to that which was authorized by the Foreign ...Read more

Last week the FBI arrested a Wisconsin state judge as she was walking into the courthouse where she works. The feds had alerted the media -- but not the judge -- to this event, and they arrived and recorded the arrest.

The standard and preferred practice when arresting a nonviolent person who is a public official with deep roots in the ...Read more

A little over a year ago, I spent a week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a university-like organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last year, the Academy addressed the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas on the 750th anniversary of his death.

This...Read more

"That God, which ever lives and loves,

One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off divine event

To which the whole creation moves."

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

When American colonists were oppressed by British monarchs, the word most frequently uttered in pamphlets, editorials and sermons was not "safety" or "taxes"; it ...Read more

"No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of [the Constitution's] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."

-- Ex Parte Milligan, Supreme Court of the United States, 1866.

President Donald Trump has recently imposed a national sales tax on ...Read more

The U.S. Constitution was crafted in 1787 both to establish a new central government and to limit it. Some of the limitations are direct, some are subtle, and some are hidden. The chief instrument of limitation is the separation of powers, the brainchild of James Madison.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia called the separation of powers the most ...Read more

"I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it."

-- Voltaire (1694-1778)

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists' grievances with the British government. Notably absent were any complaints about infringement upon speech.

In those days, ...Read more