The Islamic Republic of Iran presents a sustained and multifaceted national security threat to the United States. That threat is not confined to a single weapon system or a single battlefield. It includes Iran’s nuclear ambitions and missile capabilities, its support for proxy forces across the Middle East, its direct and indirect threats to U.S. personnel and installations, and its willingness to engage in regional escalation to achieve strategic ends. Recent reports of coor

In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 32, Jesus tells his disciples, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” This is no casual remark. It is a foundational claim about the nature of freedom itself — that liberty is inseparable from truth. President Ronald Reagan, a statesman who grasped the religious roots of American liberty, once said, “Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.” Both Scripture and

On The Drew Mariani Show this week, Professor William Wagner addressed the deeply emotional and legally complex question of grandparents’ visitation rights in light of a recent Boston Globe investigation into an ongoing Rhode Island Family Court case. The Globe article highlighted a dispute in which a grieving set of grandparents sought court-ordered contact with their young granddaughter over the objections of her father. Professor Wagner began by acknowledging the prof

The President's Executive Order Confronting the Cuban Threat The President of the United States recently issued an Executive Order Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba. This Executive Order declares that the policies and actions of the Cuban government constitute an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and foreign policy and, accordingly, declares a national emergency to confront that threat. It authorizes the establishmen

Separation of Powers, Sovereignty, and National Security Abstract At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a growing movement in American legal thought urged courts to align constitutional interpretation with evolving international norms. Foreign judicial decisions, international declarations, and global “consensus” were increasingly cited in domestic adjudication. Some federal courts expanded the use of customary international law as a source of enforceable federal cl

The Constitutional Doctrine of Standing in the Context of Parental Rights Across our nation, a quiet but profound constitutional conflict is unfolding. It is not confined to distant federal agencies or obscure regulatory codes. It is happening in families. In living rooms. In conversations between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. It is unfolding in the deeply personal, often painful moments when parents seek to guide their children through adolescence, identity strugg

By the Hon. William Wagner (Ret) The reported impending execution of a 19-year-old Iranian wrestling champion, allegedly for participation in peaceful anti-government protests, is more than a tragic human rights crisis. It is also a window into the growing convergence of international human rights law, U.S. statutory sanctions policy, and an increasingly tense national security posture toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. The U.S. State Department’s public demand that Iran h

Hon. Wm Wagner (Ret) recently authored the Statement of the State Bar of Michigan Religious Liberty Law Section condemning disruption of church service. Click below to read the official RLS Position Statement: The Religious Liberty Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan solemnly condemns the recent disruption of a worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where demonstrators entered the sanctuary during the course of a religious service and effectively halted

January 27 On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we pause to remember one of the darkest chapters in human history—the systematic, state-sponsored annihilation of six million Jewish men, women, and children, and the persecution and murder of millions of others, carried out with chilling deliberation under the Nazi regime. The Holocaust stands as a permanent warning of what occurs when law is severed from moral truth, when the inherent dignity of the human person is deni

Revisiting the Insights of a Professor, Civil Rights Leader, Journalist, and Friend of MLK Jr. On the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2004, I had the privilege of interviewing and hosting Roger Wilkins [i] , now with the Lord, who shared not as a distant commentator but as a man who knew Dr. King well and who, with sobriety and affection, tried to “draw some lessons” from King’s life appropriate for us today. Today, on MLK Day 2026, I publish online, for the first

A Rebuttal to the Leftist Report, In Harm’s Way — Exposing the Flaws in Research, Law, and Logic Behind the Call to Repeal Michigan’s Parental Consent Statute In recent years, Michigan has emerged as a focal point of a national effort to dismantle long-standing parental involvement requirements in abortion law. This article offers a comprehensive rebuttal to In Harm’s Way: How Michigan’s Forced Parental Consent for Abortion Law Hurts Young People, a report published by the A

Clergy content casting Mary as the “main character” of the Christmas story, infers she possessed the power to abort Jesus. This recast provides a revealing case study of a broader theological and jurisprudential shift. Drawing on constitutional theory, natural law, Christian theology, and historical precedent, the Article argues that such framing reflects the ascendancy of a secular progressive humanist worldview grounded in radical personal autonomy rather than unalienable r

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with chi

In December 2025, the White House released its National Security Strategy (NSS), a document that does more than outline foreign-policy priorities—it signals a fundamental rethinking of the purpose of American power. Departing from decades of globalist assumptions, the Strategy rejects the notion that the United States exists to manage the world’s problems and instead reasserts a more traditional understanding of national security as the protection of a sovereign republic, its

There is a real problem with the media in our country. A staggeringly low 28% of people say that they trust the news media. How did we move away from serving the people that we are reporting for? This number is at an all-time low, down from a high of 72% in 1976 and more recently 45% in 2018. With the polarized state of our country, the number is likely to decline. But how have we, as the news, come so far from where we began? There are numerous issues that I have with the me

By the Hon. William Wagner (Ret.) Executive summary Nigeria stands at a crossroads between social collapse and constitutional renewal. The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), in its statement “Peace in Nigeria: Moving from Fragility to Stability,” offers an urgent, morally lucid, and legally grounded diagnosis of Nigeria’s spiraling insecurity and repression. The instant Issue Brief amplifies this warning and calls the international community to attend to it. This

By Hon. William Wagner (Ret.) “I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1 Each Thanksgiving, we American citizens do something quietly radical: we pause a nation that never stops moving, and we give thanks—publicly, communally, and often in language that acknowledges God. That custom is older than stuffed turkey and older than the football. It is woven into the culture and the deeply rooted cultural history and

By Hon. William Wagner (Ret) WFFC Distinguished Chair for Faith & Freedom, Spring Arbor University Executive Summary Violent attacks and hate crimes against Christians in Europe rose sharply in 2024, according to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) —data first brought to international attention through reporting by The Christian Post. While the total number of incidents decreased slightly from the previous year, the severity

By the Hon. William Wagner (Ret.) WFFC Distinguished Chair for Faith & Freedom, Spring Arbor University Abstract This Issue Brief contends that Federal involvement in education rests on unstable constitutional ground and that renewed efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (ED) highlight, rather than resolve, deep structural questions about federalism, ordered liberty, and religious freedom. Drawing on constitutional text, original meaning, historical practice,

The Michigan Department of Education’s most recent revision of the Health Education Standards represents not merely administrative fine-tuning, but a wholesale ideological shift in the purpose and scope of health instruction in Michigan schools. The Board voted to approve the updated health-education/sex-education standards on Thursday, November 13, 2025. The magnitude and nature of these changes raise profound constitutional concerns—particularly regarding parental rights, l