The Bill of Rights has helped create what is arguably the freest enduring society in history. It wasn’t always that way. The original Constitution didn’t have a Bill of Rights. Once the Bill of Rights was added, it didn’t apply for a century to state governments. As recently as 90 years ago, no one had
Today’s conservative Roberts Court is a bastion of First Amendment freedom as was the liberal Warren Court half a century ago. But the winners are different. Establishment insiders win today whereas outsiders won most often during the Warren years. On its 200th birthday in 1991, the First Amendment had developed into a powerful shield against
From afar, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s attempt to prosecute a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter looks like the folly of a vindictive politician who doesn’t understand computers or the First Amendment. But it is more serious than that. A governor trying to prosecute a journalist for reporting publicly available information poses a serious threat to press
The right to assemble is as American as apple pie. It is written in the First Amendment — “the right of the people to peaceably assemble.” The American Revolution followed high-spirited protests in the colonies. But legal experts say that police tactics at mass demonstrations are threatening the right to assemble. Kettling protesters, spraying them
Attorney General Merrick Garland should act on the contempt case against Steve Bannon, Justice Stephen Breyer should retire, Democratic senators Diane Feinstein and Patrick Leahy are getting old, the filibuster should be retained but reformed and former Attorney General Eric Holder was too slow to release the report clearing former Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson. Those
