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1 month ago | 
lawliberty.org | Robert G. Natelson |John Berlau |George Hawley |Asheesh Agarwal
Even before President Trump invoked powers under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, the historical meaning of “alien enemy” had become a topic of controversy, because the distinction between an alien enemy and an alien friend is also relevant in the context of immigration and birthright citizenship.
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1 month ago | 
lawliberty.org | Titus Techera |Helen Dale |Thomas Powers |Robert G. Natelson
Bob Dylan is, as I have previously written for Law & Liberty, America’s “definitive post-war artist.” The new James Mangold movie, A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Dylan in the first part of his career, 1961–65, proves just how important the musician is to American culture. The first time Chalamet’s Dylan talks about himself and fame he suggests one has to be a freak, like in a carnival, certainly, something people can’t look away from.
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1 month ago | 
lawliberty.org | Samuel Gregg |Helen Dale |Thomas Powers |Robert G. Natelson
From the late-seventeenth century onwards, recognizably liberal ideas steadily moved to the center of Western philosophical, political, legal, and economic debates. Since that time, the same ideas have been subject to sustained critique from across the political spectrum.
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1 month ago | 
lawliberty.org | Helen Dale |Thomas Powers |Robert G. Natelson |Mark Pulliam
If I were to describe the four thousand people who attended the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship 2025 Conference last week—added to a who’s who of speakers—the phrase that comes to mind is “Counter-Elites Assemble,” with a nod to 2012’s The Avengers. Given London’s ExCeL is approximately the size and scale of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, the sense that one was in an airport minus the planes was palpable. The place is huge, and so for those three days were the personalities it (barely) contained.
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1 month ago | 
lawliberty.org | John O. McGinnis |Thomas Powers |Robert G. Natelson |Mark Pulliam
Nearly every law school in the country is effectively under the thumb of the American Bar Association (ABA). The ABA’s power rests on its role as the recognized accreditor for law schools through the federal Department of Education. This official endorsement effectively determines whether students can obtain federal loans and whether state courts or bar associations will grant those schools the stamp of approval.
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1 month ago | 
lawliberty.org | Michael Lucchese |Samuel Gregg |Thomas Powers |Robert G. Natelson
Samuel Gregg has written a powerful assessment of the challenges facing the free society today—clearly the “true friends of liberty” have many causes to be worried. Triumphant illiberal forces on the left and right alike have little use for constitutions, free government, or even the American tradition itself.
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1 month ago | 
lawliberty.org | Victoria Amelina |Nadya Williams |Thomas Powers |Robert G. Natelson
In the gym of a Ukrainian kindergarten named Fairy Tale, there is a shell hole. It happened on February 17, 2022—a week before Russian tanks rolled over the border and this round of the invasion officially began. It presaged worse to come—more tearing of any imagined border between the fairytale world, where the wicked are always punished, and this world, where the evils of war are all too real.
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2 months ago | 
lawliberty.org | Robert G. Natelson |Mark Pulliam |Rachel Lu |Amy Swearer
February 20, 2025 USAID grants may have cracked constitutional spending limits. The new Department of Government Efficiency informs us that the federal government, through its Agency for International Development (AID), has been distributing taxpayer money for condoms in Gaza, DEI in Serbia and Ireland, and transgender stage productions in Columbia and Peru.
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Jan 6, 2025 | 
billingsgazette.com | Robert G. Natelson
Defenders of the Montana Supreme Court’s ultra-activist decisions claim the justices are simply enforcing the state constitution. The court’s detractors also sometimes blame the state constitution. But both sides are wrong. Although the 1972 Montana Constitution has its faults, it does not justify the court’s behavior. This article explains why. As a constitutional scholar, I know that crucial to interpreting a constitution is how the document was explained to the people who ratified it.
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Dec 2, 2024 | 
constitution.congress.gov | Robert G. Natelson
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To establish Post Offices and post Roads; . . . The Articles of Confederation provided Congress with the sole and exclusive . . . power of . . . establishing post offices.1 During the Constitutional Convention, the Committee on Detail proposed similar language providing that [t]he Legislature of the United States shall have the power . . .
