August 11, 2026

While the world watches, the world’s largest debtor quibbles…

“The longer Congress fails to act, the more we risk that investors here and around the world will lose confidence in our ability to meet our commitments and our obligations,” Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders. via Geithner warns U.S. to hit debt ceiling by May 16 | Reuters. Meanwhile, in Congress: A […]

Atlas Shrugged coming to a theater near you. Not a minute too soon.

More than fifty years after Ayn Rand argued that government could tear an economy apart by trying to “do good,” her hallmark novel Atlas Shrugged is coming to at theater near you. Some think it’s not a minute too soon. “Being conversant in Ayn Rand’s classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government […]

Never mind wise: is war on Libya even constitutional?

We’ve been at war with Libya for about a week. The question here is not whether we should be at war with Libya, but rather, does the President have the right to take us to war with Libya absent a provocation against the United States? Giving the power to go to war to Congress, the […]

State Falling Apart? Repeal the First Amendment!

State Falling Apart? Repeal the First Amendment! Senate Joint Memorial 8007 [in the Washington state legislature] requests Congress to pass an amendment declaring that corporations are not persons so that their speech can be restricted.The reason, according to the Memorialists, is that corporations cannot vote and therefore should not be protected by the First Amendment. But […]

Guest Post: Holly Richardson’s “Article V Convention vs Con-Con”

By hollyonthehill Arguments against a Constitutional Convention (also called a Con-Con) are plentiful and rightly so. The last Constitutional Convention resulted in a new government. Opening up the Constitution could be like opening Pandora’s box. But. What happens with a federal government that is out of control? Representative Ken Ivory says that the distinct line between […]

The answer to why Americans are OK with more spending

Yesterday, just before the State of the Union speech, I had an insightful conversation with a family member. This person is taking his first class in political science, something like a Polisci 101 class. He called me to ask some questions for an assignment he was working on. “What does ‘non-security, discretionary spending’ mean,” he […]

The Commerce Clause argument in Virginia v. Sebelius, among others

Yesterday, the headlines shouted that individual mandate of the Affordable Health Care for America Act (let’s just call it “the Act” for short) was found unconstitutional by a federal court in Virginia. (see my short post on it here) Partisan critics of the ruling were quick to point out that there have already been two cases […]