Free Republic

On Jan. 17, in response to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s theft of U.S. intelligence secrets and concerns over the NSA’s bulk metadata collection, President Obama issued a Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-28) that neither strengthens American security nor enhances Americans’ privacy. To the contrary, it undermines our intelligence capabilities in service of a novel cause: foreign privacy interests. All nations collect and analyze foreign communications or signals, what is known as “signals intelligence.” American technological prowess has produced the world’s most abundant stream of signals intelligence, thwarting plots against the U.S. and saving lives. PPD-28 threatens American safety...

The Constitution, many of us learned in grade school, assigns the legislative power to the legislative branch, not the executive. The Constitution also commands that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Unfortunately, President Obama either missed that lesson or considers it inapplicable to his own administration. Thus, his promise-cum-threat, made in the heat of last year’s campaign: “Where Republicans refuse to cooperate on things that I know are good for the American people, I will continue to look for ways to do it administratively and work around Congress.” Obama has delivered on his promise and worked...

Later this month the Supreme Court will hear a case that should resolve how much latitude presidents have to make recess appointments to federal offices that otherwise require Senate confirmation. The boundary of this power has never been decided by the high court. Yet the entire scheme of the U.S. Constitution—which is based on a separation of powers, enforced through checks and balances to safeguard individual liberty—is at stake. Noel Canning v. NLRB involves several recess appointments President Obama made to the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 4, 2012. The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., correctly held that...

For at least half a century, judicial restraint has been the clarion call of the conservative legal movement. After the Warren Court era, Roe v. Wade, and very nearly a “right” to welfare benefits, it was not surprising that conservatives would seek to rein in judicial self-aggrandizement. The principal conservative response was to promote judicial deference: Judges should resist the temptation to legislate from the bench and “defer” to the political branches. Unfortunately, time has shown that this response was too blunt. Particularly in constitutional cases, judicial deference has led to a steady expansion of government power. This, in turn,...

The unfolding IRS scandal is a symptom, not the disease. For decades, campaign-finance reform zealots have sought to limit core political speech through spending limits and disclosure requirements. More recently, they have claimed that it is wrong and dangerous for tax-exempt entities to engage in political speech. The Obama administration shares these views, especially when conservative, small-government organizations are involved, and the IRS clearly got the message. While the agency must be investigated and reformed, the ultimate cure for these abuses is to unshackle political speech by all groups, including tax-exempt ones, from arbitrary and unconstitutional government regulation. Beginning in...

A Colorado judge's threatened contempt sanctions against Fox News investigative reporter Jana Winter—who refuses to reveal a confidential news source—has refocused public attention on how journalists operate. News must often be gathered from confidential sources, or not at all. Given how vital is the freedom of the press in a democracy, that confidentiality must be maintained. It is time that Congress recognize this and enact legislation that enables journalists to protect their confidential sources and newsgathering materials. Ms. Winter covered the July 20, 2012 mass shooting that killed 12 people and injured 58 others in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater....

Those who support stricter gun control fear that the passage of time since the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School will result in further watering-down of measures. They should not, however, discount the risk that attempts to shave a few weeks or months off the usual legislative process will result in bad laws, with unintended and lasting consequences. While pro-gun forces may overstate the case against expanded background checks — they are not, for example, a prelude to disarming the citizenry — President Obama and his allies have understated the difficult legal questions posed by extending the background-check...

Two weeks ago, a unanimous Supreme Court rebuffed the Securities and Exchange Commission Gabelli v. SEC. The SEC maintained that its enforcement actions for fines under the Investment Advisers Act weren't subject to the five-year statute of limitations. This wasn't the first time the courts have pushed back a federal agency for overreaching. It won't be the last. But the SEC's audacity prompts a broader policy question: What good is accomplished by imposing monetary penalties on corporations, as the agency attempted to do in Gabelli? The answer is that when such penalties are sought by the government, they probably do...

Could there be a better illustration of the cultural divide over firearms than the White House photograph of our skeet-shooting president? Clay pigeons are launched into the air, but the president's smoking shotgun is level with the ground. This is not a man who is comfortable around guns. And that goes a long way toward explaining his gun-control agenda. Lack of informed presidential leadership aside, there is a gulf between those Americans who view guns as invaluable tools for self-defense, both against private wrongdoers and a potentially tyrannical government, and those who regard that concept as hopelessly archaic and even...

I cannot believe there are people out there who think we should get rid of the Constitution. The crazy part is, they want to get rid of the document but keep all of the provisions! Professor Seidman really struggles to defend his points in this video, at least David Rivkin was there to be the voice reason.

Three false arguments, pushed hard by the Obama administration and accepted on faith by the media and much of the political establishment, must be laid to rest if the American people are to understand the issues at stake in the federal "debt ceiling" debate. The first is that Congress's failure to raise the debt ceiling—the amount of money the federal government is authorized to borrow at any given time—will cause a default on the national debt. The second is that federal entitlement programs are constitutionally protected from spending cuts. The third is that the president can raise the debt ceiling...

Is Roger Ailes clerking for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia? One might be forgiven for thinking so following last week’s oral arguments on the health-care law before the nation’s highest court. As has been pointed out elsewhere, some of Scalia’s questions from the bench made use of the tone and even the diction of the attacks on the Affordable Care Act frequently heard on Fox News and conservative talk-radio shows. After Scalia picked up on the idea that a government empowered to have its citizens buy health insurance or face a penalty may also strong arm them into buy some...

Last Friday, the White House announced that it would revise the controversial ObamaCare birth-control mandate to address religious-liberty concerns. Its proposed modifications are a farce. The Department of Health and Human Services would still require employers with religious objections to select an insurance company to provide contraceptives and drugs that induce abortions to its employees. The employers would pay for the drugs through higher premiums. For those employers that self-insure, like the Archdiocese of Washington, the farce is even more blatant. The birth-control coverage mandate violates the First Amendment's bar against the "free exercise" of religion. But it also violates...

The Obama media is hiding the truth. We must push back against the media's smear campaign before it is too late. They successfully took down Herman Cain and have started attacking Newt, Perry and others. Do not forget what they did to Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, Christine O'Donnell, George Allen, Scott Walker and dozens of others? They will not rest until they re-elect their "chosen one," Barack Obama. Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/P8Wg4NYXVhM

Why did the United States apologize to the family of Al Qaeda Propagandist Samir Khan? David Rivkin debates Sally Kohn, Founder of Movement Vision, on America Live with Megyn Kelly on Fox News.

Cindy Bryan, Mississippi House of Representatives candidate (D-91), has always said her priority is bringing jobs to her district. That’s exactly what she has demonstrated in her “listening campaign,” traveling throughout her district and meeting voters from all walks of life. Waging a strong campaign in a district traditionally taken for granted as a Democrat stronghold, Bryan has now been chosen one of the “Best Candidates for Job Creation” by Mississippi’s Business and Industry Political Education Committee (BIPEC). “I’m very proud to receive this recognition from BIPEC and our state’s leading employers,” Bryan said. “Since my days as a mayor,...

Mississippi District 91 House of Representatives candidate Cindy Bryan has been waging a strong campaign against Democrat Bob Evans—but few observers expected the results of a recent independent poll. Conducted September 20 through 26, the poll of likely voters found that Bryan, a fiscally conservative Republican focused on job growth, leads the incumbent Evans by 9.4 percentage points, more than twice the margin of error. Thirty-five percent of the voters polled in a representative sample of the district favored Bryan, while 25.6% favored Bob Evans. Since the lead is greater than twice the poll’s 4 point margin of error, Bryan’s...

District 91 House of Representatives candidate Cindy Bryan is committed to bringing jobs to Mississippi and to her district—something her opponent, Democrat Bob Evans, has neglected to do. Now Bryan’s campaign is gaining momentum rapidly, particularly since a leading industry advocate gave her a resounding endorsement. The Mississippi Manufacturers Association Political Action Committee (MMA PAC) recognized Bryan’s commitment to business and jobs. When she served as mayor of New Hebron, Bryan demonstrated her ability to obtain significant resources to improve the local economy. The MMA PAC endorsement follows on the heels of another critical endorsement—by the Associated Contractors of Mississippi,...

The city of Jerusalem has been fought over for nearly 3,000 years and remains one of the most contentious places on Earth. This fall, the battle will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The case—Zivotofsky v. Clinton, brought by the parents of Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky, a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem on October 17, 2002—involves a 2002 effort by Congress to force U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. It sought to do so by, among other things, requiring the State Department to identify Israel as the place of birth on passports issued to U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem. The high...

Only Congress has constitutional authority to establish U.S. immigration policy, and fundamental reform requires legislative action. Thus the administration’s recent announcement that deportation will be sought only for undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States violates the separation of powers and is unconstitutional. No president, of course, can hope to expel every undocumented person in the United States — they number perhaps upward of 11 million people. Human and financial resources to identify, apprehend, process and promptly deport millions have been lacking for years as has, arguably, the political will to do so. In this environment, immigration...