Free Republic

In his dazzling revolutionary polemic, Common Sense, Thomas Paine explained in no uncertain terms that in America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. John Adams put this a little more pithily a few years later, distilling into the new constitution of Massachusetts an ancient English value: This state, Adams wrote, would be “a government of laws and not of men.” Adams’s axiom has become American scripture; an impulsively recalled maxim of liberty to which all men...

<p>As a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more draconian laws.</p> <p>Traditionally — meaning before Barack Obama — that’s how laws were changed: We have a problem, we hold hearings, we find some new arrangement, which is ratified by Congress and signed by the president.</p>

Obama Suggests Only Lawyers Understand the Constitution July 29, 2013 - 2:28 PM By Elizabeth Harrington (CNSNews.com) --President Obama suggested in an interview with the New York Times that was published on Saturday that you need to be a lawyer to understand the U.S. Constitution. The president made the suggestion when talking about members of Congress who have argued he does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally suspend enforcement of parts of the Obamacare law. The Times asked Obama if he “consulted” with his lawyer when making the decision to suspend the employer mandate, which would require businesses with...

We've seen examples of the Executive behaving badly in the past, and the checks and balances have held. But never have we seen the extent of bad behavior that this administration has demonstrated. It's refused to enforce laws duly passed by Congress (Immigration, DOMA) It's discriminated in enforcing civil rights laws. (black panthers) It's ignored court orders. It's performed illegal gun running operations. It's used executive order to create law outside of the legislative including laws that were specifically rejected by the legislative branch. It's lied to Congress on multiple occasions. It's engaged in War without Congressional approval and even...

A federal judge gave a skeptical reception Wednesday to the Obama administration’s arguments that the courts should stay out of the dispute over the Justice Department’s refusal to turn over some Operation Fast and Furious-related documents to a House committee. Last June, the fight led President Barack Obama to assert executive privilege over the records of the controversial gun trafficking investigation, and to House votes finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson spent most of an hour-and-a-half hearing Wednesday

Over the course of the last month, while Americans were distracted with the threat of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and the devastation wrought by the Boston bombings, President Obama was quietly working behind the scenes to craft laws and regulations that will further erode the Second Amendment. Congress, and thus We the People, may have unequivocally rejected federal legislation in March which aimed to outlaw most semi-automatic rifles, restrict magazine capacity, and force national registration, but that didn’t stop the President from ceding regulatory control over firearms importation to the United Nations just two weeks later. What the...

Joe Biden says the president of the United States is preparing to take "executive actions" to deal with guns. BuzzFeed reports: Vice President Biden told White House allies in the gun control fight Thursday that President Obama will be announcing new executive actions on gun violence in the days after the Senate voted down a gun violence bill. On a conference call with "stakeholders," Biden told gun control advocates that the fight is not over and that eventual action on gun control will come. Press were not invited to the conference call; a participant provided BuzzFeed with access. "Look I...

President Obama is considering a series of new executive actions aimed at working around a recalcitrant Congress, including policies that could allow struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages, provide new protections for gays and lesbians, make buildings more energy-efficient and toughen regulations for coal-fired power plants, according to people outside the White House involved in discussions on the issues. **SNIP** The administration declined to provide details on timing of the possible actions; one White House official said the moves to boost housing, retrofit buildings, offer same-sex protections or issue new environmental rules were not imminent. Obama may touch on some...

An “Open letter to all Federal Firearms Licensees” released Wednesday by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Firearms and Explosives Industry Division Chief Chad J. Yoder fulfills one of the 23 executive actions President Barack Obama announced at Wednesday’s signing, but does so by pressuring dealers who are dependent on ATF approval for their economic survival to “volunteer,” while increasing their liability and exposure for infractions. “Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers” Obama said, not making clear he was going to be making a...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On January 16, 2013, President Barack Obama unveiled 23 Executive Actions that his administration plans to take on schools and guns. To be sure, none of these gun control initiatives would have prevented the Connecticut school massacre from occurring in December, although the restrictions will greatly infringe upon the rights of law-abiding Americans. MEMO FROM: Michael Hammond, GOA legislative counsel RE: Obama’s Gun Control Proposals DATE: January 16, 2013 THE PRESIDENT’S EXECUTIVE ACTIONS Here’s a brief list of Obama’s Executive Orders and my comments: (1) Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available...

So Obama released his Executive Orders to Prevent Maniacs From Being Maniacs today.  I’ve taken the time to translate the summaries into plain English below: 1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. Tell the government to follow the law. 2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system. Tell the regulators to stop the stupid and useless regulations. 3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the...

1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system. 2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system. 3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system. 4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks. 5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full...

The latest executive order (EO) emanating from the White House October 9 now claims the power to freeze all bank accounts and stop any related financial transactions that a “sanctioned person” may own or try to perform — all in the name of “Iran Sanctions.” Titled an “Executive Order from the President regarding Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions…” the order says that if an individual is declared by the president, the secretary of state, or the secretary of the treasury to be a “sanctioned person,” he (or she) will be unable to obtain access to his accounts, will be...

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks. In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family. Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in. Gray told The Daily...

Earlier this week, we wrote about how the White House was working on an executive order to act as a "stand in" for cybersecurity legislation that has so far failed to pass Congress (CISPA passed in the House, but a different effort, the Cybersecurity Act, failed in the Senate, and it would have been difficult to get the two houses aligned anyway). Last weekend Jason Miller from Federal News Radio wrote about a draft he saw... but failed to share the actual draft. We got our hands on a draft (and confirmed what it was with multiple sources) and wanted...

BHO has made more liberal (no pun intended) use of executive orders than any president in my memory, perhaps in history. He has, self-admittedly, done things that are not even within the powers of the executive branch to push through regulations that have crippled industries if not destroyed them outright. Here's the easy part: reverse all of them. Every one. Of course the pundits will scream their heads off in way they did not when Obama was making his illegal power grab. Even the conservative-leaning politicians and talking heads will whine about 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. Romney...

On July 19, 2012, the House Judiciary Committee asked DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano about the administration's DREAM Act executive amnesty. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), who chairs the Immigration Subcommittee, asked Sec. Napolitano how many illegal aliens would receive work permits while millions of Americans were out of work. He had to ask the questions four times before getting an answer. Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith asked Sec. Napolitano if students who qualify would have to provide a certified school transcript. She said, they're "still working on the details."

A venture capital executive with ties to defunct solar company Solyndra has been hired as the new chief of the Defense Department program heading up the Pentagon’s renewable energy push. Arati Prabhakar, a former partner at U.S. Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that backed Solyndra, has been named the new director of DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Prabhakaker will administer DARPA’s roughly $3 billion budget, some of which will likely continue funding projects in renewable energy. While there is no indication that Prabhakar was involved with Solyndra during her time at USVP, her appointment to...

Should disaster strike the U.S., the secretary of Homeland Security will be in charge of re-establishing and prioritizing communications to ensure the continuation of the federal government, according to a new executive order from President Barack Obama. The executive order, signed on Friday, once again expands the powers of the Department of Homeland Security — this time to include the handling of communications during a national security event or natural disaster. The order also allows for DHS to re-establish communications “through the use of commercial, government, and privately owned communications resources, when appropriate.”

For Washington, this is definitely not the best of times. The town is suffering from a power outage. The evidence is hard to miss, from Washington’s weeklong struggle to cope with storm damage that knocked out electricity across the region to President Obama’s inability to awaken the economy, as reflected once again in June’s pathetic jobs report. To make matters worse, Washington is out of sync with the country, at least with the noncoastal parts. The usual response is to unleash the president so he can rally America to Washington’s purposes. But the bully pulpit hasn’t been effective since Ronald...