Free Republic

On Monday morning, my coffee was tainted, thanks to Drudge, by a story he posted in large letters at the top of his site. It was a stomach-turning, New York Times piece from Sunday that crowed about the Dear Leader Barack Obama (or whatever his name is) unilaterally deciding that he is proudly using his Executive powers to bypass Congress. Never mind that the Executive branch does not have the power to bypass Congress in matters unrelated to the limited confines of Executive authority, and even among the Executive powers, the President must have the consent of Congress in certain...

Candidate for Senate Dan Liljenquist (left) pledged to The New American that should he be elected to the U.S. Senate he will offer legislation explicitly repealing the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In a press conference held on April 24 at 2:00 p.m. (MDT), the former Utah State Senator and current GOP challenger to six-term Senator Orrin Hatch described the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA as “an overreach and a violation of the Bill of Rights.” He said that had he been in office when Congress voted to pass the NDAA he would have...

In today’s NYT, Charlie Savage reports on how President Obama evolved from a fierce critic of unilateral exercise of executive power to a proponent. As a senator and presidential candidate, he had criticized George W. Bush for flouting the role of Congress. And during his first two years in the White House, when Democrats controlled Congress, Mr. Obama largely worked through the legislative process to achieve his domestic policy goals. But increasingly in recent months, the administration has been seeking ways to act without Congress.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A finance executive at MF Global Holdings Ltd invoked her right against self-incrimination as lawmakers heard from officials who played critical roles in the final days of the futures brokerage, when a huge and still unexplained shortfall in customer money surfaced. Assistant Treasurer Edith O'Brien, believed to have been involved in authorizing a $175 million transfer that may have included customer funds, three days before MF Global's bankruptcy filing on October 31, declined to testify on Wednesday. "On advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based on my constitutional right," she told subcommittee chairman Randy Neugebauer...

White House: Martial Law Executive Order 'Standard and Routine' White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed the idea today that a recent executive order issued was 'martial law', and called it 'standard and routine'

Resources Preparedness” executive order: Power grab or mere update? posted at 10:30 am on March 18, 2012 by Ed Morrissey We’re getting a lot of e-mail this weekend about an executive order issued on Friday afternoon by President Obama titled “National Defense Resources Preparedness.” While the timing of the EO is curious — why send it out on a Friday afternoon when an administration is usually trying to sneak bad news past the media? — the general impact of it is negligible. This EO simply updates another EO (12919) that had been in place since June 1994, and amended several...

On March 16th, President Obama signed a new Executive Order which expands upon a prior order issued in 1950 for Disaster Preparedness, and gives the office of the President complete control over all the resources in the United States in times of war or emergency. The National Defense Resources Preparedness order gives the Executive Branch the power to control and allocate energy, production, transportation, food, and even water resources by decree under the auspices of national defense and national security. The order is not limited to wartime implementation, as one of the order's functions includes the command and control of...

In the 13 years since he suffered a string of political setbacks and quit the third most powerful job in Washington, Newt Gingrich has been busily laying the foundation for a comeback to an even grander perch. On any given day, the former Speaker of the House can be found on a chartered jet headed to Iowa to train future GOP candidates through his American Solutions group, or in Phoenix discussing ways to lower health-care costs with drug makers through his for-profit Center for Health Transformation. He might also be in Philadelphia, narrating a film produced by Gingrich Productions, or...

Rick Perry established a new gold standard for hawkish foreign policy at Saturday night’s GOP debate in New Hampshire. Not only is he mad President Obama withdrew US forces, he wants to put them back on the ground there immediately. “I would send troops back into Iraq,” Rick Perry told a New Hampshire audience at Saturday night’s GOP debate, warning that without yet another military operation in Iraq it would fall under the influence of neighboring Iran. “I think it’s a huge error for us,” he said. “We’re going to see Iran in my opinion, move back in at literally...

No wonder he had to circumvent Congress to enact this disaster. (The Hill) — President Obama on Thursday will unveil a summer-jobs initiative that the White House says is already on track to create 180,000 “work opportunities” in the private sector in 2012. That is the number of opportunities, which includes mentoring and unpaid internships, that companies have told the administration they are willing to create. Some 70,000 jobs are paid, the White House says. The initiative was hatched after Congress failed to approve a $1.5 billion summer-jobs fund that President Obama had been seeking as part of the American...

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama is ready to take “small, medium and large” actions without the consent of Congress, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. Carney on Tuesday explained further Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” strategy of addressing problems without Congress. This would be done through executive orders and other actions Carney said.

Texas Governor Rick Perry is playing up his status as a “Washington outsider” in a new TV ad released today, which will air on broadcast and cable TV in Iowa. The ad flashes a picture of the four current or former members of Congress running against Perry in the Republican presidential race: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, Texas Representative Ron Paul, and Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann. “If Washington’s the problem, why trust a congressman to fix it?” the announcer says. The announcer says Perry’s opponents have spent a combined 63 years in Congress “leaving us...

Iowa's evangelicals appear to be headed toward splitting their vote at the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, even as some of the candidates scrambling for their votes seek to siphon support from the others. When the Family Leader announced last week it wasn't weighing in as an organization on this year's Republican race, what appeared to be the last chance to try to swing the support of this important group of voters to a single candidate faded away. Of course, the results won't be known until Jan. 3, but polls say Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep....

While Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s challenge to Rick Perry for a $10,000 bet seemed like a throwaway line in the last debate, The Hill sees it as emblematic of a cracking of Romney’s previously impenetrable veneer. ....Some GOP heavyweights are surprised that Gingrich has been able to rattle Romney. “I admit, it’s shocking. They’re thrown a little bit,” a Republican strategist told The Hill. “The entire strategy of the campaign has been steady, steady. Let everyone come up and down around you, and when the dust settles, the steady candidate wins. Now it’s settled, and it’s not the case.”...

.... As recently as two weeks ago, the Gingrich campaign was apparently unable to name 40 New Hampshire supporters of his presidential campaign. Candidates needed to file their slates of 20 delegates to the National Convention, along with 20 alternates, with the Secretary of State by November 18. The Gingrich campaign filed a partial slate of 14 delegates and 13 alternates, leaving 13 slots vacant. Among the 27 names Gingrich listed are three members of his staff. Rick Santorum (12 delegates and 12 alternates) and Michele Bachmann (18 delegates) also filed partial slates. Gary Johnson (10 delegates and one alternate)...

Watch the video concerning an executive order that was passed quietly this summer that everyone should be aware of.

On Saturday, June 2nd, in Committee of the Whole, as James Madison recorded in his Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, the Founders were continuing the previous day’s debate regarding a proposed plan for the Executive branch, its constitution, relation to the Legislative branch, method of election, funding, and such. Doctor Benjamin Franklin asked permission from the Committee to read a prepared speech, “being very sensitive to the effect of age on his memory.” Below, without too much editing except to break the paragraphs into smaller segments for easier internet reading, is his speech: It is...

On Friday night, Herman Cain was a fly and David Letterman was the spider cordially inviting Cain to "step into my parlor." Didn't Cain or any of his advisors see the potential for disaster in Cain appearing on Letterman's show? Didn't anybody say, "Herman, don't go in there! It's a trap!"? I desperately don't want to be seen as one of those just itching for clear proof that Herman Cain's candidacy is over. But it's hard to have watched Cain on Letterman and not come to the conclusion that neither Cain nor his advisors have sufficiently good judgment for him...

It’s a perennial complaint from Texas Gov. Rick Perry: The federal government places far too many restrictions on how states can run Medicaid, the entitlement program that provides health care to low-income Americans. “We know for a fact that, given that freedom, the states can do a better job of delivering health care,” Perry said in a Republican debate last month. He’s endorsed turning the entitlement program into a block grant and flirted with having Texas drop out of it altogether. But back in Texas, Perry is actually pursuing a highly technocratic and pragmatic attempt at Medicaid reform that doesn’t...

LAS VEGAS - Rick Perry is sitting comfortably on a plush sofa in a hotel far from the strip that put the sin in "Sin City." It's the day after another presidential debate, and if the flat-screen in front of him were on, he'd hear plenty of appraisals of whether a new fiery approach helped his pursuit of the highest office in the land or hurt him more. Instead, he's talking about his boyhood in Texas, his time in the Air Force and a wiener dog named Lucy. He is, here in suite 6118 of the Red Rock resort, relaxed...