John Marshall is considered to be America’s greatest Chief Justice. However, he is often misrepresented—both by fans and opponents—as an early model for big-government, liberal judicial activism. Learn the facts from a leading constitutional scholar in this four-part audio series. Part I: Marshall’s early life and his contributions to the ratificat…

Just click on the title you want to hear! New: The entire series: How the States May Respond to Illegal Immigration Part I: Why the Situation at the Southern Border is an “Invasion” as the Constitution Uses the Word Part II: State War Powers Part III: What the State May Do When Waging Defensive War Part IV: Federal Preemption and Interference Part …

For an audio version of this essay read by the author, please click here. This essay was first published in the Jan. 13, 2024 Epoch Times. Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV of this series on how states may respond to illegal immigration summarized war powers retained by the states. Those installments explained how states can use those powers t…

For an audio version of this essay read by the author, please click here. This essay was first published in the Jan. 12, 2024 Epoch Times. Part I of this series showed that the unauthorized mass migration into states at the Southern border qualifies as an “invasion” as the Constitution uses the term. That Part also pointed to a constitutional canar…

For an audio version of this essay read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the Jan. 10, 2024 Epoch Times. Part I and Part II in this series explained that: The Constitution grants the federal government the exclusive power to wage offensive war; but the states as well as the federal government may wage defensive war; the…

For an audio version of this essay read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the Jan. 9, 2024 Epoch Times. Part I of this series showed that under the Constitution, an “invasion” triggers powers and obligations for both federal and state governments. It also showed that mass unauthorized immigration at the Southern border …

To hear an audio version of this essay read by the author, please click here. his essay was first published in the Jan. 8, 2024 Epoch Times. As unauthorized foreigners continue to flood across the Southern border, state officials continue to cast about for solutions. In normal times, the federal government would remedy the problem. But these are no…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. A common tactic among opponents of an amendments convention is to label it a “constitutional convention,” and then claim that a constitutional convention is inherently unlimited. The fact that courts have repeatedly limited constitutional conventions seems not to have occurred to them. New scholar…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. A version of this essay first appeared in the December 28, 2023 Epoch Times. Can former President Donald Trump be disqualified from another presidential term? The answer to that question partly hinges on the answer to this one: Does the “disqualification” language in the Constitution’s 14th amendm…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the Dec. 18, 2023 Epoch Times. Former President Donald Trump has said that, if he is re-elected, he may use the militia or armed forces to suppress violence and looting. His legal basis consists of five sections of federal law collectively called the “Insurrection Act.…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the Dec. 21, 2023 Epoch Times. There were two fundamental flaws in the Colorado Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision removing former President Donald Trump from the Colorado 2024 election ballot. The first was that the justices reversed the lower court without seriously addres…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the December 12, 2023 Epoch Times. The Hamas terror attack of October 7 triggered an overwhelming display of support among American Christians for Jews and for Israel. This continues a long history of support, dating back to the American Founding. As a Jew, I gratefull…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. This essay was first published in the December 4, 2023 Epoch Times. One of the few ways the people can check an overreaching judiciary is by passing constitutional amendments. At the federal level, the people reversed U.S. Supreme Court decisions through the 11th, 14th, and 26th amendments. At the…

Above: The Constitution’s definition of “natural born” derives from that of the British Empire For an audio read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the Nov. 27, 2023 Epoch Times. The Constitution says that only a “natural born citizen” may be president. Throughout history, political partisans have accused opposing candid…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the Nov. 20, 2023 Epoch Times. When I said in a TV interview that I didn’t know who won the 2020 presidential election, I was expressing a view similar to that held by a very large cohort of Americans. That didn’t stop two left-leaning news websites from targeting me l…

By Rob Natelson For an audio version of this article by the author, please click here. Just ten years ago, I posted an essay in this space reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On re-reading it, I find almost nothing I would change. I still recommend the article. When I wrote ten years ago, the news m…

For an audio reading by the author, please click here. A version of this essay was first published in the Nov. 12, 2023 Epoch Times. The movement for a national convention of states recently got a boost when a formerly-skeptical national think tank issued a paper in support. The paper is entitled “Reconsidering the Wisdom of an Article V Convention…

For an audio read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the Nov. 3, 2023 Epoch Times. The past three installments have explained why so many of America’s colleges and universities are dysfunctional. This final installment focuses on some possible reforms. (There are others.) Reform #1: Get the Feds out of Higher Education R…

For an audio version read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the October 31, 2023 Epoch Times. This past week, eleven Jewish students were threatened and besieged by a mob of Hamas sympathizers at Cooper Union University in New York City. This is one of the incidents of campus pro-terrorist activities that have more and …

Above: Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis For an audio version of this essay read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the October 25, 2023 Epoch Times. Jenna Ellis, young attorney and formerly a Colorado Christian University professor, has pleaded guilty to a single count of “aiding and abetting false statements a…

For an audio version read by the author, please click here. This essay was first published in the Oct. 23, 2023 Epoch Times. The first installment in this series explained that colleges and universities have been centers of orthodoxy and intolerance far more than they have been havens of tolerance and free inquiry. It also explained that the concep…

by Rob Natelson For an audio version read by the author, please click here. This essay was first published in the Oct. 19, 2023 Epoch Times. Massive displays of support for Hamas terrorism on the nation’s campuses has forced even the most disengaged to witness the poison infecting America’s colleges and universities. In this series, I explain why o…

For an audio version of this article read by the author, please click here. Update: The research article discussing this issue has now been published by a scholarly law journal. It is located here (pdf form) and here (html form). This essay first appeared in the October 9, 2023 Epoch Times. If you have read my Epoch Times series, “How the Supreme C…

To hear an audio version of this essay read by the author, please click here. A two-part version of this essay was published in the Sept. 19, 2023 Epoch Times: Part I and Part II Amid much media hullabaloo, a group called “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington” (CREW) recently filed a petition in a Colorado trial court demanding that…

Above: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R.-Calif.) This essay first appeared in the Sept. 15, 2023 Epoch Times. For an audio version read by the author, please click here. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Joe Biden. “Impeachment,” of course, doesn’t necessarily mean removal from office. Im…

For an audio version of this article read by the author, please click here. This article first appeared in Townhall.com. A column in the liberal internet magazine Slate offers an insight into how the other half thinks and lives. By the “other half,” I mean those who live in the lefty bubble—who have no understanding of conservative ideas and don’t …

For an audio version of this article read by the author, please click here. This article first appeared in Townhall.com. New testimony linking President Joe Biden to a “pay to play” bribery scheme raises the question of how history will assess his tenure in office. Admittedly, it is risky to compare the performance of modern presidents against thei…

by Rob Natelson To listen to an audio version read by the author please click here. This article first appeared in Complete Colorado. In my last column for Complete Colorado, I examined how the “progressives” running Lakewood—Colorado’s fifth largest city—are failing to carry out a basic municipal responsibility: enforcing state and local anti-nois…

Above: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s opinion For an audio version read by the author, please click here. This essay was first published in the July 13, 2023 Epoch Times. Among the Supreme Court cases decided this year, none has been more misunderstood than Moore v. Harper (pdf). The Moore case illustrates how difficult some of the co…

For an audio version read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the July 6, 2023 Epoch Times. This two-part series thumbnails the 10 most important constitutional cases in the Supreme Court’s October 2022 term, which ended on June 30. They relate the gist of each case and whether it was based on constitutional (“originalist…

For an audio version read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the July 5, 2023 Epoch Times. This essay and the following one thumbnail the 10 most important constitutional cases in the Supreme Court’s “October 2022 term,” which ended on June 30. They relate the gist of each case and whether it was based on constitutional …

To hear the author present an audio version, please click here. This article was first published in the Federalist Society Blog. On the last day of its recent term, the Supreme Court decided 303 Creative v. Elenis. In my view, the Court’s disposition was correct. But it was rendered more difficult by confusion over how the Constitution’s First Amen…

To hear an audio by the author, please click here. This article was first published in the Federalist Society Blog. A Supreme Court ruling, like many other things, may not be quite what it seems. At point here is the Court’s unanimous May 25 decision in Tyler v. Hennepin County: Initially, it looks like a clear victory for property rights and const…

Above: An Indian treaty. To here the author read an audio version, please click here. This article first appeared in the Federalist Society Blog. Indian law, including Indian constitutional law, is famously chaotic. With the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Arizona v. Navajo Nation, it just got more so. Although the Court likely reached the correct …

by Rob Natelson To hear the author in an audio version, please click here. Knowledgeable commentators who have defended former President Donald Trump—Prof. Jonathan Turley, for one—acknowledge that the new federal indictment is a major problem. These and other attacks on Trump have his most fervent supporters saying that American institutions have …

To hear the author read an audio version of this article, please click here. This post first appeared in the June 21, 2023 Federalist Society blog On June 15, the Supreme Court issued Haaland v. Brackeen. Among other issues, the Court addressed the scope of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. Specifically, it upheld the federal Indian Child Welfare…

You can hear an audio by the author by clicking here. This essay first appeared in the Jun. 12, 2020 Epoch Times. Justice Clarence Thomas frequently uses concurring and dissenting opinions to explain the Constitution’s fundamental principles. The latest example is his June 8 dissent in Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County v. Talevski (pdf). I…

To hear an audio of the author reading this column, please click here. This article first appeared in Complete Colorado. Ten minutes before midnight on June 10, I was awakened by a blast of engine noise coming from the Sixth Avenue Freeway in Lakewood. It was deafening even though we live at least a half mile from the freeway. This was not normal v…

To hear this essay read by the author, please click here. This essay first appeared in the June 8, 2023 Epoch Times. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (pdf) follows a pattern common since the court’s Obamacare decisions: The justices trimmed back a government agency’s overreach, but failed to address the…

To hear an audio of this file, please click here. This column first appeared in the June 6, 2023 Epoch Times. In the next few weeks, the Supreme Court will be finishing up its October Term. The term gets its name from the fact that it begins Oct. 1. The next few columns will unpack some of the court’s most important decisions. I will be focusing mo…

To listen to an audio of this article, please click here. Advocates of the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) have lost an effort to get their amendment “certified” by the Archivist of the United States. On Feb. 28, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a request from two states for a “writ of mandamus” (a…

To hear the author read this posting, please click here. This essay was first published in the May 11, 2023 Epoch Times. The Supreme Court will not be announcing its decisions in most of this year’s big cases until June or early July. But the court recently agreed to consider a case that could trim the power of the “deep state.” The “deep state” is…

This essay was first published in the May 16, 2023 Epoch Times. Click here for an audio version, read by Rob Natelson. Some Senate Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to “use” the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit by executive decree. For example, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) stated: “The 14th Amendment is not anyone’s first choice. The fir…

This audio commentary by Rob Natelson is based in part on two essays he wrote for the Epoch Times’s “Defending the Constitution” Series. It lasts about 17 minutes. Listen here. The post Audio: No, the Constitution is not racist—and never was. first appeared on Independence Institute. The post Audio: No, the Constitution is not racist—and never was.…

Above: Rob Natelson during one of his many return trips to Montana. Listen to the author reading this column here. Some in the national mainstream media are suggesting that the Montana legislature punished a transgender state representative for being transgender. That is a fabrication. Indeed, another “nonbinary” lawmaker has participated fully in …

To hear this article read by the author, please click here. Above: V-P Mike Pence resisted demands that he delay the electoral vote count. In January 2021, amidst the controversy over the disputed presidential election, President Donald Trump’s legal team and many of his supporters argued that the Constitution gave Vice President Mike Pence free re…

The Civics Alliance, a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to improving America’s civics education, has created American Birthright: The Civics Alliance’s Model K-12 Social Studies Standards. The Civics Alliance is a project of the National Association of Scholars. Pam Benigno, director of Independence Institute’s Education Policy …