How many of you know about the Johnson Amendment? If you’ve ever donated to a church or other charity, you’ve been impacted by this amendment. This limitation on freedom of speech has been in effect for over 70 years. And now, the House of Representatives is trying to remedy this infringement.

There will always be tension between our desire for privacy and safety. We're all for privacy, until we find that an invasion of said privacy could have stopped some terrible event. But are we willing to trade our privacy for safety? “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” --Benjamin Franklin In the case of SCHOLL and BEDNARZ v. Illinois State Police the privacy question revolves around automatic license place readers (ALPRs) and what makes a search reasonable.

I don’t know which of the three branches of government does the most to infringe on your rights. Take, for example, the recent Supreme Court decision in the case Bondi v. Vanderstok, where Mr. Vanderstok challenged the recent regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives redefining weapons parts kits as firearms. It seems the Supreme Court has a hard time reading either the law or the Constitution.

Imagine you are stopped by law enforcement. Maybe you were doing something wrong, maybe not. At this point, when you are in the custody of law enforcement, whose safety matters more, yours or the officers? In the 2017 Fourth Circuit case United States v. Robinson, while not specifically put this way, the question came up, does officer safety trump your right against unreasonable search and seizure, even your own safety?

As a lifelong gun owner, I understand the awesome responsibility of owning a weapon. After getting my concealed carry license many years ago, I came to understand the greater responsibility of having a deadly weapon on my person. But as a constitutional scholar, I’ve come to realize just how badly states are infringing on our rights, simply because we decide to exercise one of them. Today, I want to talk about “duty to inform” laws. After all, if the presence of a firearm is a threat to officer safety, than the officer’s firearm is a threat to my safety.

Ibriam Kendi is often quoted as saying “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” But is that true? Above the main entrance to the Supreme Court is a promise chiseled into the marble façade, “equal justice under law”. How can we have equal justice under law if one side is always discriminating against another? Enter the case of Ames v. OH Dept. of Youth Services, where Marlean Ames claims she was discriminated in her job because of her sexual orientation. What makes this case uniques is, Ms. Ames is heterosexual, and the Sixth Circuit claimed that ment she had a higher burden of proof than a homosexual.

Free speech jurisprudence has rested on shaky ground for decades in this country. Looking back at cases like Hill v. Colorado, Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Austin, and Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health has left a confusing and contradictory morass of precedence, most if not all of it contradicting the Constitution of the United States. With the recent case Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, Illinois, the court had the opportunity to set the record straight once and for all. Instead, the court whiffed, and declined to even head the case.

In poker there’s a move called “Buying the pot”. This is when one person makes a very large bet in an attempt to discourage others from continuing the hand. But what if we’re not talking poker? What if we’re talking permit fees for the use of your own land? That is exactly what George Sheetz sued the County of El Dorado California for.