In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court has issued one of the most important administrative law decisions in years. It overrules a famous precedent called Humphrey’s Executor, which had protected some independent agency commissioners from being fired by the president.

President Trump removed two members of Federal Trade Commission over policy disagreements. But federal law says commissioners can be fired only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misconduct. So the fired commissioners sued.

The Supreme Court held that the statutory limits on presidential removal violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. And the Court was right. If public officials exercise executive power but answer to no elected president on matters of policy, they’re no longer accountable to the voters. That creates an unelected governing class — an oligarchy, really — that’s protected by law. And that’s fundamentally un-American.

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As the nation approaches our 250th anniversary, it’s important for us to take a moment to recognize and appreciate the role that Christianity played in the foundation of the American experiment.

Broadly speaking, there is simply no question that the basic worldview behind the foundation of our republic was the biblical worldview of Christianity.

And it didn’t begin here exclusively, but it goes way back in history into the great foundations of Western civilization.

Is America a Christian nation in terms of explicit constitutional arrangement? No. But I think it's safe to say it wasn’t considered necessary at that point for such a claim to be made.

Our Founders did not foresee a secular age coming, but in that secular age there are now important arguments to be made—arguments about the meaning and the dignity of life, about marriage and family and religious liberty.

As we mark 250 years, it’s up to us now to continue to make those arguments and to make them loudly, make them we must.

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As you celebrate this 4th of July weekend, I hope you get time to slow down and relax. Enjoy the day with friends, family, and loved ones in your world. As you do, remember that even these things are the fruits of freedom, the benefits of a stable government, civilizational order.

For 250 years—a quarter of a millennium now—our nation has benefitted from these gifts.

Yes: There is plenty to be concerned about as we look at the health of our nation in recent days. We are—and this is not hyperbole—more polarized today than the upheavals I lived through in the late ’60s and early 1970s.

We have a lot of work to do.

And yet—I really believe this—we have a lot to be thankful for.

America is still as my old friend, Bill Bennett has said the last best hope.

On behalf of Salem Media, have a great 4th of July.

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