Free Republic

In the most comprehensive judicial opinion to date, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last week ruled (2-1) that Congress cannot compel Americans to buy and maintain health insurance. Unlike the Florida district court that earlier found ObamaCare unconstitutional, the 11th Circuit did not invalidate the entire law. But it likewise reaffirmed the fundamental constitutional rule that our federal government is one of enumerated powers with judicially enforceable limits. Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 in order to guarantee near-universal health-insurance coverage. According to this law, individuals...

The debt-ceiling crisis has prompted predictable media laments about how partisan and dysfunctional our political system has become. But if the process leading to the current deal was a "spectacle" and a "three-ring circus," as Obama adviser David Plouffe put it, the show's impresarios are none other than James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Our messy political system is working exactly the way our Founders intended it to. To the extent House members were the most intransigent during the process—a matter of opinion, in any case—they were meant to be. The House of Representatives is the "popular branch," as described in...

At least four Democratic senators are advocating legal action against News Corp. for allegedly violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by paying British police for information. Former Department of Justice attorneys David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey argue that legislation enacted to police bribery in government contracting is not applicable to news gathering.

The United States cannot constitutionally default on its existing public debt even if the debt ceiling is not raised, constitutional scholar and attorney David Rivkin said during a Federalist Society news event. Instead, he said, the country should focus on the fiscal responsibility of new borrowing. “The United States, to put it more clearly, is one of the few countries in the world that is technically incapable of defaulting on its public debts, so we cannot have a situation like in Greece or Portugal or Ireland, ” Rivkin, co-chairman of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism, said during a telephone...

Republican House candidate Cindy Bryan does not rattle easily. When a mean-looking, five-foot rattlesnake was recently found at the home of a friend, she simply grabbed a hoe and killed the venomous reptile with a few good whacks. Voters of the 91st district are hoping she will take the same fearlessness with her to the House of Representatives, and Bryan would be happy to oblige. "I am telling the establishment in Jackson, to those who campaign one way and govern another, I will be a citizen-legislator -- not afraid to do the dirty work of cutting out the go-along-to-get-along mentality,”...

Ever since the War Powers Resolution became law, presidents have made clear that — whatever its reporting requirements may be — it does not and cannot limit their constitutional authority as chief executive and commander in chief to commit U.S. forces into armed conflicts around the world. Indeed, although numerous reports have been made to Congress after the deployment of U.S. troops, no president has accepted that the War Powers Resolution governs each and every use of American military force, or that it requires any specific congressional authorization before the president can send U.S. forces into harm’s way or can...

Former White House lawyer, David B. Rivkin, Jr. is having quite a run. On the heels of his national success planning and leading the lawsuit by 26 plaintiff states challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Rivkin is being honored as one of the best law firm writers in America. The prestigious 2011 Burton Award for Legal Achievement has been awarded to Rivkin for his Washington Post article, “Why the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy is Doomed,” which ran in the Feb. 13, 2010 edition. The article, written by Rivkin and his Baker Hostetler law colleague Lee A. Casey,...

With three important anti-terrorism tools set to expire, conservatives shouldn’t allow themselves to be misled by inconsistent constitutionalists over what our nation’s fundamental law requires. Put differently, why should politicians who voted for constitutional monstrosities like Obamacare have any particular credibility when it comes to national security? And yet each time portions of the PATRIOT Act or related legislation comes up for reauthorization, we’re treated to long-winded harangues, heavy on paranoia but light on case citations, by opponents suddenly interested in checking federal power. Short on specifics and specific abuses, they claim the provisions requiring reauthorization violate the civil liberties...

Watch this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9N3nJdsTAE

The Campaigner-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama launched his $1 billion re-election campaign yesterday. This is the first shot in what will be the most important battle in modern day politics and one that will determine the future of our great republic. Consider this: In just 2 years, Obama took over much of the American healthcare system, auto industry, banking industry, housing industry and student loan industry among others. His Administration’s pro-European style government added a whopping $3.6 TRILLION to the national debt. THIS WAS JUST TWO YEARS! Now just imagine what 8 years would bring. His campaign is expected to break...

Earlier today pollster Frank Luntz critiqued our union ad on Fox News. The conclusion derived from his focus group of Democrat, Republican and Independent voters was that OUR AD WORKS! No other ad has worked this effectively during this polarizing debate. We have been testing ads in Wisconsin for the last two months and almost all of them have failed... Either they appeal to Republican partisans or Democrat partisans but not both until the Republican Trust [GOP Trust] came in. This is one of the rare times in American politics today when a very clear, very tough message appeals across...

The Obama administration, however, has not suggested anything so ambitious. The stated goal is to enforce a U.N. Security Council approved “no-fly zone” as a means of limiting Gaddafi’s ability to attack his citizens. The United States has a right and an obligation as a U.N. member assisting in the implementation of a binding Security Council resolution to take this action — and it is not of a character that would constitutionally require Congress’s approval. If the president later concludes that Gaddafi should be removed by American arms — no small matter given the nation’s other military commitments in Afghanistan...

Washington based GOP super think tank known as Crossroads GPS plans to file a federal lawsuit Wednesday in D.C. District Court against the Department of Health and Human Services. Woohoo!

"As the years go by, if Obamacare is allowed to stand, tens of millions of American will become enrolled in publicly subsidized coverage." - Jim Capretta

“While The Obamacare Disaster as a whole provides sound analysis of the Affordable Care Act, on the very first page is a particularly troubling sentence: “Most of the bill’s provisions, except its taxes, do no go into effect until 2014.” On this fundamental point, Ferrara is flat-out wrong.”

The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of informing Congress that it will no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for federal purposes as “the legal union between one man and one woman.”

National security expert Scott Wheeler talks about the future of Libya and its relations with the United States, as well as the little known connections between President Obama and Qaddafi. Check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv541LNWE6s

“It’s good to allow them to work out their own problems rather than a one-size-fits-all federal government, dumb-ass program. It really is an awful piece of crap.” – Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on POTUS Obama’s health care law.

Reported by the AP on Thursday, Alaska governor Sean Parnell (R) said "the state of Alaska will not pursue unlawful activity to implement a federal health care regime that has been declared unconstitutional by a federal court." Parnell becomes the second governor to refuse the implementation of POTUS Obama's health care law.