About ACRU Staff

The American Constitutional Rights Union (ACRU) is dedicated to defending the constitutional rights of all Americans. ACRU stands against harmful, anti-constitutional ideologies that have taken hold in our nation’s courts, culture, and bureaucracies. We defend and promote free speech, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, and national sovereignty.

Social Security Disaster

By |2011-10-05T12:29:49-04:00October 5th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published October 5, 2011 on Townhall.com.

Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and Ponzi scheme, are under siege. Acknowledgment of Social Security’s problems is not the same as calling for the abandonment of its recipients. Instead, it’s a call to take actions now, while there’s time to avert a disaster. Let’s look at it.

The term was derived from the scheme created during the 1920s by Charles Ponzi, a poor but enterprising […]

Court Opens Terms with Question of Standing

By |2011-10-04T23:40:49-04:00October 4th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published October 4, 2011 on The Washington Examiner website.

Can private parties sue to enforce a federal statute when Congress does not say so? That’s what the Supreme Court is deciding in a case heard on the opening day of its current term.

The court’s first case this term involves Medicaid. The justices considered if Medicaid recipients can sue when a state cuts Medicaid payments, or instead if that is a matter left to federal and state governments to sort out.

The case is actually three consolidated cases from various Medicaid recipients in California, […]

ACRU Files Amicus Brief Defending Property Owner's Right to Build

By |2011-10-03T00:23:52-04:00October 3rd, 2011|

September 30, 2011 – Petitioners Chantell and Michael Sackett purchased a residential lot in a residential neighborhood, zoned and permitted by local authorities for construction of their home. After they began earthwork preparatory to such construction, they received a Compliance Order from the EPA effectively ruling that moving around dry earth and fill materials on their residential lot to begin their homebuilding project somehow involved discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States in violation of the Clean Water Act. The Sacketts were denied any hearing to contest the Compliance Order by the EPA and by the lower federal courts. In late March, […]

ACRU Defends Property Owner's Right to Build

By |2011-10-03T00:03:31-04:00October 3rd, 2011|

The ACRU is defending property rights in the important Fifth Amendment case of Sackett v. EPA. In this case, Idaho couple Chantell and Michael Sackett purchased a lot in a residential neighborhood, zoned and permitted by local authorities for construction of their home. After they began earthwork in preparation to construction, they received a Compliance Order from the EPA effectively ruling that moving around dry earth and fill materials on their residential lot to begin their homebuilding project somehow involved discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States in violation of the Clean Water Act.

That meant that not only could they […]

Texas Hold 'Em Unfolds in El Paso

By |2011-10-02T23:17:20-04:00October 2nd, 2011|

This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published October 3, 2011 in The Washington Times.

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue spoke for many politicians on Tuesday when she suggested suspending congressional elections for two years to give the politicians a free hand without voter input.

“You want people who don’t worry about the next election,” Mrs. Perdue, a Democrat elected in 2008, said to a Rotary Club gathering. Although a tape of the speech reveals that she made the statement in a serious manner, she later insisted she had been joking.

But the insularity of elected officials is […]

DOJ's Muslim Affirmation

By |2011-10-02T22:47:47-04:00October 2nd, 2011|

This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Jan LaRue was published October 1, 2011 on the American Thinker website.

When a Muslim is charged with terrorism, the Muslim “community” gets a warm and fuzzy affirmation from the U.S. Department of Justice. See here, here, and here. Other cultures, communities, and religions, not so much.

The U.S. Attorney’s office for Massachusetts announced Tuesday the arrest of a U.S. citizen for allegedly plotting with al Qaeda to blow up the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon:

A 26-year-old Ashland man […]

Full Docket as Supreme Court Term Begins

By |2020-04-23T21:54:02-04:00September 30th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published September 29, 2011 on The Washington Examiner website.

Monday, Oct. 3, marks the start of the annual term for the Supreme Court of the United States. Most of the court’s docket was set as of this week’s preterm conference, painting a picture of what to expect this year.

On their first day, the justices will hear a case on whether private parties have standing to sue states over Medicaid funding, or whether only the federal government can do so. This could prove decisive in many lawsuits, such as Planned Parenthood’s fight to keep subsidies […]

Economic Growth, Not Income Redistribution, Is What Helps Us All

By |2011-09-29T17:50:22-04:00September 29th, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel and Senior Fellow for the Carleson Center for Public Policy (CCPP) Peter Ferrara was published September 29, 2011 on Forbes.com.

President Obama is proving a fundamental economic principle proven as well by President Reagan, though in the opposite way. That principle is that economic growth provides vastly greater benefits for working people and the poor than redistribution. It is economic growth that is the key to prosperity and the good life for the middle class, working people, and the poor.

President Obama’s policies have been all about redistribution, spreading the wealth as he […]

The Financial Mess in the US and Europe

By |2011-09-29T13:57:02-04:00September 29th, 2011|

This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published September 28, 2011 on Townhall.com.

What’s the common thread between Europe’s financial mess, particularly among the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), and the financial mess in the U.S.? That question could be more easily answered if we asked instead: What’s necessary to cure the financial mess in Europe and the U.S.? If European governments and the U.S. Congress ceased the practice of giving people what they have not earned, budgets would be more than balanced. For government to guarantee a person a right […]

Holding Obama's Party Accountable

By |2011-09-28T09:25:33-04:00September 28th, 2011|

This column by ACRU General Counsel and Senior Fellow for the Carleson Center for Public Policy (CCPP) Peter Ferrara was published September 28, 2011 on The American Spectator website.

Barack Obama is on a far worse political trajectory than Jimmy Carter was. First, the Democrats lost Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat to a Republican in ultraliberal Massachusetts who campaigned against Kennedy’s signature issue of national health insurance. Nothing that dramatic happened while Carter was President.

Then Democrats suffered historic, grievous losses in the 2010 midterm elections, with a New Deal size loss in the House of 63 seats, and a loss of 6 seats in […]

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