Free Republic

It is a macabre choice to make - and almost unique to some inmates on Utah's death row: would you be injected with toxic chemicals, or shot in the heart? But, amid cries of outrage against the southwestern state bringing death by firing quad back into law, almost half of those due to die that way have picked the punishment themselves. Ron Lafferty, who slit the throats of his sister-in-law and her baby daughter in 1984, is one of three who has opted to die by the bullet. Two others in Utah's eight-strong death row have made the same choice,...

The Ohio Senate just passed legislation that would require oversight and fee limitations when the state Attorney General hires private attorneys on contingency fee. Where other government-hired servicers are required to submit public proposals and bid for contracts, attorneys have long been able to sidestep this transparency and strike deals out of the public eye. The Ohio legislation, similar to the ALEC Private Attorney Retention Sunshine Act, would put an end to this discrepancy. Since the tobacco litigation of the 1990’s, private attorneys have brought innovative litigation to Attorneys General offices seeking to bring their lawsuits with state authority and...

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to Wisconsin’s voter ID law, which it had previously kept from going into effect before November’s elections. The court’s decision not to review a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the law was a victory for Gov. Scott Walker (R) and perhaps other states that have tightened voting procedures to require additional identification.

The temptation for many will be to cave or compromise. The temptation even for the faithful will be to retreat into our churches and cloisters. In 2004, same-sex “marriage” came to Massachusetts. Contrary to the claim that such laws would usher in an age of “tolerance,” the law immediately became a legal club to beat unwilling participants. Catholic charities bravely refused to place orphans in same-sex homes, because it was contrary to their mission. Unfortunately, they stopped doing adoptions in the state. This cannot be our precedent. What they should have done is to say, “We are called to place...

Screen shot 2015-03-13 at 09.38.36.jpgThe U.S. State Department clearly has a firm grasp of the reality of the jihad threat. Of course, it is bound as a matter of policy to deny and downplay that threat, so gaffes like this are bound to happen. “Internet gaffe by US government as UK extremist’s sharia law photo used in free speech ad,” by Martin Beckford and Abul Taher, Daily Mail, March 15, 2015: The US government has made a bizarre internet gaffe by posting a British Muslim extremist’s photograph of veiled women calling for sharia law, citing it as an inspirational example...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says President Barack Obama’s Attorney General nominee, Loretta Lynch, is unfit to be the nation’s top lawyer because of her support for executive amnesty and other positions she’s taken, the governor’s spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski tells Breitbart News.“Given Loretta Lynch’s failure to commit to protect Americans from the president’s lawless executive overreach, that even he said nearly two dozen times, she is not fit to serve as the nation’s Attorney General,” Kukowski said in an email.Walker is in New Hampshire,the first in the nation primary state,on Friday, meeting with—among other—former Sen. Scott Brown(R-MA)—who narrowly lost to Sen....

Saint Thomas Aquinas, The Angelic Doctor The grammar of existence is bound up in the Law and it is and always has been for us to read reality rightly, to hear rightly, to speak rightly, and with human reason to discover the law by which we are to live if we are to live out our intended purpose. There is no conversation more necessary in the present age than the dialogue on the meaning of law. It is in manÂ’s nature to bind himself to principles in the form of rules that guide human action. These rules are the laws...

A man convicted of fatally stabbing a Pittsburgh police dog has been sentenced to 17 years, 9 months to 44 years in prison. A judge said Tuesday that John Lewis Rush must also serve 8 years of probation following his release. Channel 11's Jennifer Tomazic reports the judge sentenced John Rush on each charge and the sentence will run consecutively. The 22-year-old Stowe Township resident was convicted in December of torturing a police animal, aggravated assault on the dog's handler, who was stabbed in a shoulder, and three other officers and other offenses. Police say Rush stabbed the dog in...

Montgomery, AL – In a historic ruling, the Supreme Court of Alabama in a 7-1 decision has affirmed natural marriage and ordered Alabama’s probate judges to immediately stop issuing illegal marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The ruling represents a significant shift of momentum in the same-sex marriage agenda, and is a direct challenge to the orders of U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade, who in January purported to overturn Alabama’s marriage laws. The ruling of the Alabama Supreme Court offers the most forceful and clearly articulated rebuttal to date of the imaginative arguments for same-sex “marriage” employed by federal courts....

While speaking at a town hall meeting Wednesday night at Florida International University, President Obama clearly indicated that he believes he is the final authority on law in this country. He will not tolerate dissent. "If Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I'm doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote, because I'm absolutely confident that what we're doing is the right thing to do," he told a group organized by Democratic Rep. Jose Diaz-Balart.

South Carolina announced Tuesday, February 25th that the state would be closing a minimum security prison. This will be the second minimum security prison closing in South Carolina within a year, and is the result of declining recidivism rates—the rate at which offenders relapse into criminal behavior. In 2010, South Carolina passed significant criminal justice reforms following the suggestions of the South Carolina Sentencing Reform Commission, established to address the high recidivism rates, large prison populations and growing correctional costs. The South Carolina legislature passed the Omnibus Crime Reduction and Sentencing Reform Act of 2010 to address the identified issues....

Enough is enough. It is time to speak out. "Islam is innocent” is an incomplete sentence. Introspection is needed, for, if we shy away from reality, the alternative will be more images like those we witnessed last Tuesday night, when brave Lt. Muath Al Kasasbeh was burnt to death in a cage.

Linda Greenhouse, a New York Times Supreme Court reporter, stunningly suggests in a recent article that the justices need to be scolded into “reading the briefs” in a pending case. She concludes with an astonishing rhetorical flourish: Like Lucille Ball, the Court will “have a great deal of explaining to do” if it fails to rule in the manner she suggests. It takes a lot of chutzpah to admonish the Supreme Court in such fashion. If someone is going to do so, she had better make certain that her facts are correct, and that her legal arguments are unimpeachable. Unfortunately,...

Last week, jury selection began in the case against James Holmes for the 2012 Aurora, Colorado theater shooting. Deliberations on jury selection alone could last until May or June and trial could last another five months. The jurors chosen will have to grapple with intense emotional and legal questions over this extended period of time. And because of Colorado’s outdated jury wage laws, the jurors may also have to face significant financial stress. In lengthy trials, Colorado law only offers $50 per day to jurors, many of whom may have to rely on this compensation instead of their salaries or...

Yep. I'm PIMPING A BLOG! Don is probably a cousin of mine, haven't exactly sorted out all the begats and begots. If I'm correct in my research his direct ancestor Abraham Honaker made the gorgeous flintlock rifle I've talked about in other threads. Don just uploaded this video, it's worth watching. Don is another old curmudgeon, and us curmudgeons stick together, blood kin or not.

Federal Government Issued Nearly 5.5 Million Work Permits to Foreign Nationals Since 2009 More than 5.46 million foreign nationals received work permits from the federal government since 2009, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies. Data uncovered from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency reveal that approximately 982,000 work permits were given to illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals unqualified for admission, most of whom crossed the border without inspection http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/397713/report-federal-government-issued-nearly-55-million-work-permits-foreign-nationals-2009 The remarkable number of work permits granted by the federal government to law-breaking aliens better explains how all net jobs growth since 2007 has...

......just days after the American electorate gave Republicans strong majorities in both chambers of Congress, President Obama thumbed his nose at several million voters by issuing an executive order effectively granting amnesty to 5 million–plus immigrants residing in the United States illegally. That lawless action was, naturally, supported by Attorney General Eric Holder, whose primary contribution as head of the Department of Justice for six years has been to grant specious legal imprimatur to the president’s various usurpations of legislative power. Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, nominated to be Mr. Holder’s replacement, has proven...

California has a way of living up to the worst regulatory expectations, as grocery shoppers across the country are discovering. The state’s latest animal-rights march is levying a punishing new food tax on the nation’s poor. Egg prices are soaring in California, where the USDA says the average price for a dozen jumbo eggs is $3.16, up from $1.18 a dozen a year ago, and in some parts of the state it’s more than $5. (SNIP) The state legislature realized this would put home-state farmers at a disadvantage, so in 2010 it compounded the problem by requiring that eggs imported...

It was only a matter of time before it actually happened. In Colorado, where Masterpiece Cakeshop has been cited by the state for refusing to make wedding cakes for gay couples, a man has filed a complaint with the state that a different bakery has refused to make him a cake, violating public accommodation laws. In this case, though, the man claims religious discrimination for a bakery's refusal to make a cake that's not quite so love-affirming. ...."He wanted us to write God hates …" she trails. "Just really radical stuff against gays." "He wouldn't allow me to make a...

DON'T trust the cops? Call the “peace” patrol. A Muslim preacher in The Bronx is behind the Community Peace Patrol Officers — a neighborhood-watch group that helps teenagers who don’t want to listen to police. “There are lots of times where kids don’t like law enforcement because they were born and raised in a situation where ­[police] are their enemies,” said Sheikh Moussa Drammeh.