Free Republic

Political bridge-building is usually considered a good thing, but when the “bridge” you are building is the abridgement of the separation of powers, not so much. More Obama Domestic Abuse: Now Look What You Made Me Do… on tap. In an alarming development, word comes from Mark Levin and others in Congress that the President is prepping to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally. You know — usurping the power of the purse granted solely to Congress. That ladies and gentlemen, is impeachment worthy. Mark Levin gets it and America better pay attention: OBAMA: “An economic shutdown, that results from Default,...

I've had an idea how to get the Budget process fixed, and maybe Capitol Hill as well: I have a genuinely bi-partisan solution to the underlying budget problem. An Amendment to the Constitution. With the following terms: A budget, NOT a continuing resolution, must be passed by the House and submitted to the Senate by June 1st of every year. The Senate must hold a vote on the budget by July 1st of every year. If the House and Senate cannot agree on a budget, they MUST go into conference on the budget on the next business day, and neither...

Practically everyone I know agrees that strictly obey the Constitution and that is why those that oppose the calling forth of Article V Convention are Constitutional hypocrites. You can not support the Constitution while at the same time rejecting the provisions of Article V. The Article V Convention was what the method the founders provided to insure the people would be able to control the government and prevent their abuse of power. There have already been more than 34 states that have petitioned Congress for an Article V Convention Even though the requisite numbers of states has been reached Congress...

America is in a constitutional crisis as well as an economic crisis. The problem is not just Barack Obama. It is the entire Democrat party, which has been taken over by Marxists (that is a literal truth and not just hyperbole), and which caused and continues to perpetuate both crises.

There are two methods to propose amendments to the Constitution. Congress is in a perpetual “convention” with the power to propose amendments to the Constitution. The reality, however, is that Congress will never propose an amendment that reduces the power of Washington. That is why the Founders developed a second method to propose amendments. The Founders knew the federal government might one day become drunk with the abuses of power. The most important check to this power is the Article V provision that gives the states the ability to call a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the...

Irritated by Starbucks’ decision to remain neutral and not ban lawful carry, anti-Second Amendment organizations in North Carolina have developed plans to boycott the chain this Saturday. Dubbing their misguided effort “Skip Starbuck’s Saturday” antis hope to punish the brand nationwide. “As North Carolina’s HB 937 is implemented, it will become increasingly important for us to clearly stand behind restaurants who do not interfere with expanded carry under state law,” - the Ammoland.com resource stated, which is, as the site name clearly indicates, the advocate of the Second Amendment. They also claimed that they needed to show that North Carolina...

In his new book—The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic—nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin, who served as chief of staff in the Reagan Justice Department, argues that the Constitution should be amended to put tax day and election day back to back. “I would move tax day to the day before election day,” Levin said in an interview on CNSNews.com’s Online With Terry Jeffrey. “I think this is very important, because if you’ll notice, election day and tax day are about as far apart as they can get, like seven months apart,” said Levin. “So we’re voting on the...

So I tune into to the Zimmerman trial and watching the closing arguments I can't help but think this whole thing is contrived. The prosecutor, in his closing, is presenting possibilities of theories, multiple, and asking the jury to choose from some weird buffet of the circumstances. When you want to make your case you are specific in your accusation and theory of what exactly happened. This is the weirdest closing I have ever seen. When you close, in prosecuting, you claim very specifically what happened not some bland, rambling, theory. He is presenting a variety of scenarios by inference....

The Third Amendment, which forbids “the quartering of soldiers” in private homes in peacetime without the owner’s consent, is often the butt of jokes among lawyers, because it generates so little litigation. But the Amendment has come up in this ongoing Nevada case, along with the Fourth Amendment and state law claims [HT: my former student Michael Mortorano]: SNIP “On the morning of July 10th, 2011, officers from the Henderson Police Department responded to a domestic violence call at a neighbor’s residence,” the Mitchells say in the complaint. It continues: “At 10:45 a.m. defendant Officer Christopher Worley (HPD) contacted plaintiff...

The Case for a Federalism Amendment How the Tea Partiers can make Washington pay attention. By RANDY E. BARNETT In response to an unprecedented expansion of federal power, citizens have held hundreds of "tea party" rallies around the country, and various states are considering "sovereignty resolutions" invoking the Constitution's Ninth and Tenth Amendments. For example, Michigan's proposal urges "the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States." Article V provides that, "on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states," Congress...

Ted Cruz' rebuttal to the Gang of 8 and Marco "turncoat" Rubio.

That was quick. Moments After DOMA Ruling today by the Supreme Court- Plaintiff Sandy Stier in the Prop 8 case promised to keep pushing until gay marriage is legal in all states. “We want to thank the justices for overturning DOMA. It is so, so important for us and all families. And, we thank the justices for letting us get married in California. But that’s not enough. It’s gotta go nationwide. And we can’t wait for that day.“(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

Late Friday, Steve King the Iowa Congressman, called Mark Levin's show and discussed the 1,190+ page Senate bill as rewritten to include Sen. Corker's amendment. As Jeff Sessions said earlier on Mark's show, it is so full of holes it won't hold water. In other words, it is carefully drafted so as avoid building the fence and to avoid deporting illegals and contains other despicable loopholes. In fact, King and Levin are afraid that it designed to stop nothing other than future attempts to stop the flow of illegal aliens.

Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.) That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at...

Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. (An Internet Protocol address is a series of digits that can identify an individual computer.) That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at...

New data from law enforcement agencies across the country has confirmed what EFF has long been afraid of: while police are routinely using cell phone location tracking information, only a handful of agencies are bothering to obtain search warrants. Since 2005, we've been beating the drum loudly, warning that the government's attempts to track a person's physical location through their cell phone requires a search warrant. As we've said again and again, because cell phone tracking can give the government a snapshot of a person's life through their movements, a search warrant is necessary to safeguard against privacy intrusions.

EXPLODING THE PHONE The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell PHIL LAPSLEY Grove Press New York [pp. 92-97] If there were no billing records for fraudulent calls, there was no way to know how many fraudulent calls there were or how long they lasted. And that meant AT&T was gazing into the abyss. Say the phone company catches some college students with electronic boxes. Fantastic! But elation is soon replaced by worry. Is that all of them? Or is that just the tip of the iceberg? Are there another ten college students doing it? A...

So I'm watching the news today and start seeing our illustrious Bureaucrats Out Right Lying about what they collect and what they don't.   They tell us today they don't collect locations of cell phone trawled for in pursuit of a target named in a warrant.   I want you to understand when they issue a warrant, many times, with "Reasonable Cause" They are violating the Constitution by: 1.  Using "Reasonable Cause" as the basis for a warrant.  The Constitution requires no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.   2.  supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the...

Freepers! Feel free to make the case for why the NSA, DOJ, DEA or FBI have any moral, legitimate, lawful, legal or Constitutional right to your private information for any reason given such Accidental or intentional purpose. Further, make the case when they collect your information why they are entitled to peruse it or store it for (5) five years or even a nanosecond.

Hepting v. AT&T is a United States class action lawsuit filed in January 2006 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against the telecommunications company AT&T, in which the EFF alleges that AT&T permitted and assisted the National Security Agency (NSA) in unlawfully monitoring the communications of the United States, including AT&T customers, businesses and third parties whose communications were routed through AT&T's network, as well as Voice over IP telephone calls routed via the Internet.   Quick excerpt: capable of monitoring billions of bits of Internet traffic a second, including the playback of telephone calls routed on the Internet, and...