The Constitution Study podcast

In one of the many cases against Donald Trump, his attorney’s are claiming that he cannot be criminally charged for an act he performed in his official capacity as President. Why? Because of something called Presidential Immunity. Is there such a thing as Presidential immunity? If so, where is it stated in the Constitution? Or is the idea Presidential immunity just the latest attempt to turn the President of the United States into a king?

Maine's governor allowed an unconstitutional piece of legislation to become "law" without her signature. LD 1578, An Act to Adopt an Interstate Compact to Elect the President of the United States by National Popular Vote is not only foolish and unconstitutional, but the latest attempt to change the United States from a union of republics into a monolithic democracy. It seems, just as with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments in 1913, states are not only willing to give up their sovereignty, but deprive their citizens of their rights in pursuit of socialism. After all, I believe it was Vladimir Lenin who said "Democracy is indispensable to socialism."

A policy statement released by the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget effectively made a very bold statement, that the Constitution of the United States was a threat to national security. Does this not remind you of the saying from Benjamin Franklin? “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” Benjamin Franklin Are the American people willing to give up their right to be free from unreasonable searches for the promise of national security?

If there is a boogie man in the anti-gun community, it’s got to be the National Rifle Association. Accused of complicity in almost every gun crime from gang violence to mass murder, the NRA has become the lightning rod for the vitriol of those whose fear of firearms has grown to an irrational state. What happens though, when government actors advice others about the dangers of doing business with such a company? Is it merely warning of the dangers of sleeping with dogs, or an attempt to use their power to intimidate others into abandoning those they otherwise would do business with? The case of NRA v Vullo is just such a case?

Listen, my children, and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Most of us who grew up here in America learned about the battles of Lexington and Concorde from this Longfellow poem. Who does not remember, "One if by land, and two if by sea;" or Paul Revere's cries of "The British are coming! The British are coming!"? Most of the stories we have heard are not true. Whether poetic license or outright propaganda has been lost to history. However, the story behind those battles is not only well worth the telling, but of great importance to anyone today who still claims the title American.

I have a lot of issues with TikTok, and it’s one social media platform I refuse to use. However, when I look at how Congress plans to deal with this problem, I see even more. I’ve also read and listened to several commentators about the bill, and find even more problems with their suggestions. So what do We the People do when our representatives in Congress have a personal vendetta against a foreign company?

The word “choice” has all but been taken over by the pro-abortion crowd, but that is not what I want to discuss here today. Recent history, both public and private, has displayed the fundamental function choice plays in a person’s independence, liberty, and freedom. Yet said history has shown that many of the American people have given up the ability to choose, placing that responsibility on others. By doing so, people have voluntarily abandoned their position as free citizens in order to become enslaved subjects to those who do the choosing for them.

The gun grabbers in Congress are at it again. Attempts to disarm the American people have only been moderately successful over the past few years. So a bill was recently introduced in the House of Representatives entitled “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act of 2024”. This bill wants to make it a crime for private citizens to work together to defend their rights. If this bill were to become law some day, even training together could not only get you fined, but placed in jail, possibly for life. Have these members of Congress forgotten that our war of independence was started by an attempt by the British governor of Massachusetts' attempt to disarm the people? That the the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought by private citizens who formed a militia? Or could it be that they just don’t care about our rights and the Constitution, and are just looking for another way to subjugate the American people?

As April 15th approaches, and people spend valuable time and money on filing their income tax return. While plenty of people grouse and complain about paying income taxes, most don’t realize that the cause of their pain is the actions of the states back in 1913. When the states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment they did more than just help the feds collect income taxes, they fundamentally changed the republic for the worse.

When can you sue the government? What started out as an erroneous credit report filing has turned into the heart of the question brought before the Supreme Court in the case Department Of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service V. Kirtz (USDA v. Kirtz). However, what the court found, and how it got there, points to a serious flaw in the constitutional education of lawyers and judges throughout this nation.

Every four years, the United States goes through the ritual of electing a President. I use the term ritual for two reasons. First, most Americans' understanding of the election process is based in custom or rites rather than the law. Second, most of the customs Americans follow directly contradict the actual process of electing a President of the United States.

I've spoken repeatedly about the unconstitutionality of most mask mandates. Recently, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was asked to review two cases where people were punished for attending school board meetings while refusing to wear masks. Sadly, the cases, as described in the Circuit Court opinion, seem poorly founded, thus leading to decisions against the plaintiffs. I think a closer look will not only show the flaws in the case, but help others build better ones in the future.

while looking through recent oral arguments at the Supreme Court, I stumbled across the case FBI v. Fikre. At first, I thought it was another simple procedural case, but something about it caught my attention. The oral arguments held before the Supreme Court were about whether Mr. Fikre's case that his rights were violated when he was placed on the No Fly List was no moot because he ad been removed from the list. As I stated looking deeper into the case though, I found intrigue worthing of a Grisham novel.

I propose that all board elections for non-profit corporations should be run by the state at taxpayer expense. After all, we already have taxpayer funded elections for private organizations. We call them “Primaries”. While this year's presidential primary is pretty much a fait accompli, there are still hundreds, if not thousands of primary elections that will be held over the next few months. In some cases the race is so partisan that the primary effectively decides the race and the general election is moot. What is the purpose of these taxpayer funded private elections? Why to limit your choices on election day of course. So why do we keep paying for someone else to take away our choices?

For decades, Congress has been turning over more and more lawmaking power to the Executive Branch. Frequently this is done by legislation giving the head of some agency or department the power to establish rules which have the force of law. What happens when the legislation doesn't explicitly say that such-and-such department has the power to make a certain rule? To deal with this, courts have come up with something called "Chevron Deference". While the case Loper Bright Enterprises, v Gina Raimondo, Secretary Of Commerce deals with who pays the salaries of federal observers on fishing boards, a more fundamental questioning of the court's deference to government agencies interpretation of law is the cornerstone of the petitioner's arguments.

Have you noticed how often the government of the United States decides how you should live your life? It seems everything from food and drugs to the lightbulbs in your home are regulated by Uncle Sam. And whenever some bureaucrat deems it necessary, they simply roll out another "rule" or "regulation" to clamp down on the American people. It seems though, that one of those agencies may have bitten off more than they could chew, at least according to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In the case Louisiana, et. al. v. U.S. Department of Energy the court decided that one of the DOE's rules was illegal, but was it unconstitutional?

Although I've talked about the recent attempts to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot on the radio program, I realized I haven't taken the time to do an in-depth article here. I apologize for taking so long to broach this extremely important topic in this venue. Unless you've been hiding from everything politics in the United States, you are aware that there are actors in several states that have sued in their state courts to disqualify Donald Trump from being on their states primary election ballot for President of the United States. As of this writing, in only two states, Colorado and Maine, have those actors found some measure of success. While this case will undoubtably find its way to the Supreme Court, this truly is a state issue, even though it has national importance.

One of the most common ways for an American to seek a redress for some grievance is to file a law suit. This has made the United States a very litigious society. I was not able to determine the number of lawsuits filed, but in 2023 there were more attorneys in the United States (1.33 million) than doctors (1.08 million). As you might imagine, it is unlikely that all of these lawsuits are legitimate. Take for examples the case of Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer. In this case, Acheson Hotels claims that Deborah Laufer filed a lawsuit against them not because she was harmed by their hotel, but because she is an activist using the Americans with Disability Act to harass companies who do not advertise whether or not they have handicapped accessible rooms. While the Supreme Court found that the case was moot, both the facts of the case and the courts decision points to what appears to be a case of Ms. Laufer using lawsuits for both revenge and profit.

There are certain words that are so commonly used we think they have a universal understanding. One of those words is "income". Think about it, what is income? Your paycheck? Dividends on your investments? Profits from your business? When does an increase on the value of something you own become "income"? The answer to that question is important to more than just the parties in the case Moore v. United States, but to just about every American. Can the United States tax you, as income, for the value of something you have not sold yet?

I don't "do" New Years Resolutions. To me, they're one step above a campaign promise. (At least you intend to keep your resolutions.) That said, the beginning of a new year is a good time to consider your future. What plans do you have for the new year? While I do not make New Years Resolutions, if you do, here are a few ideas I think you should consider.