Author Archive

John Whitehead

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He is the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State and The Change Manifesto.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has essentially handed the government a free pass to violate the Constitution—without paying the price. The 7-2 decision in Lackey v. Stinnie could gut civil rights enforcement and leave victims without access to justice. In reversing the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling, the Supreme Court majority has …

“You want to defend the United States of America, then defend it with the tools it supplies you with—its Constitution.”— Seven Days in May (1964) Anyone who wants to put America first needs to start by putting the Constitution first. This should be non-negotiable. Winning an election does not give President Trump—or …

“We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore. Mr. President, it’s too much.’”—Donald Trump Almost one month into the Trump presidency, and the Constitution and the entire section on the various branches of …

WASHINGTON, DC — The Rutherford Institute is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hold Facebook accountable for conspiring with the government to censor and suppress speech. Weighing in before the U.S. Supreme Court with an amicus brief in Children’s Health Defense v. Meta, The Rutherford Institute argues that Meta …

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest — forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”—Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism This …

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — A battle over the separation of church and state is brewing in Isabella County, Michigan, where the local sheriff’s office is facing demands to remove a “Blessed are the peacekeepers for they shall be called the children of God” quote from the wall of its new …

“This is what militaries do during coups: you capture the major targets, with government buildings high on the list, and you take over communications and other systems.”—Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian on fascism and authoritarian leaders How something is done is just as important as why something is done. To suggest that …

WASHINGTON, DC —The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to protect homeowners from warrantless searches by police based merely on a suspicion that a person on probation or parole resides on the premises. In refusing to hear an appeal in Bailey v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court …

“Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.”—Justice Neil Gorsuch That didn’t take long. Within days of Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights disappeared from the White House’s website. While the …

“No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”—George Orwell, Animal Farm It cost the American taxpayer $24 million to find …