Free Republic

A Brownsville family is stepping up their quest for answers in the death of an ICE against killed by a weapon linked to the "Fast & Furious" scandal. The family of slain U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jaime Zapata held a press conference in Brownsville on Friday morning. Zapata's mother Mary Zapata says they still don't have answers more than year after her son's February 2011 murder in San Luis Potosi. Zetas drug cartel leader Julian Espinoza-Zapata (aka "El Piolin") is facing federal charges in Washington DC but little other information about the case has come out. Fast...

Three months ago, I quoted George Jonas on the 30th anniversary of Canada's ghastly "Charter of Rights and Freedoms": "There seems to be an inverse relationship between written instruments of freedom, such as a Charter, and freedom itself," wrote Jonas. "It's as if freedom were too fragile to be put into words: If you write down your rights and freedoms, you lose them." For longer than one might have expected, the U.S. Constitution was a happy exception to that general rule – until, that is, the contortions required to reconcile a republic of limited government with the ambitions of statism...

Will Republicans repeal Obamacare next January -- or ever? Don't hold your breath. Mainstream politicians of both parties are addicted to corporate campaign contributions -- and who knows what other kinds of bribes? -- so what we will get will be a pathetic, cosmetic "reform" of Rotarian Socialist medicine. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If you want to restore the liberty of the American people, you will need to change the United States Constitution. And you will have to do that by constitutional convention and state-by-state ratification, because there is no way that Congress will vote...

I should first add that it is just not George Will making this mistake, and that others have pointed out the legal inconsistency. Justice Roberts is asserting that Congress has the authority to tax, and of course this is true. Roberts and the left side of the court point out the congress passes taxes all the time on your phone bill, driving a car, etc. But this is not a tax on any activity, it is a tax on a lack of activity. A precise lack of activity to be sure, but a lack of activity. The ramifications for this...

Star Trek legend William Shatner was left nursing a bruised ego when his trousers fell down during an airport security check in front of dozens of fellow travellers.

COLUMBUS -- Opponents of the federal health-care law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court cannot use the Ohio Constitution to stand in the way of its implementation here, the state's top lawyer said on Thursday. Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine, who joined the multistate challenge to the law after taking office last year, said a state constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters last year cannot trump federal law. "You certainly cannot override what the United States Supreme Court did today," he said. Maurice Thompson, director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, wrote the state constitutional amendment that generally prohibits...

The biggest issue that many people had in the debate leading up to the passage of the Obamacare legislation was the fact that most Representatives and Senators who would be voting on the bill didn’t bother to read the legislation they would be voting on. Congressman John Conyer actually asked what good it would do to read the bill because the Congress still wouldn’t know what was in it unless they each hired two lawyers, and Nancy Pelosi famously quipped “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” But what went underreported in my opinion was...

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Now on Rush. Claims that Obama is threatening to veto military appropriations unless Congress raises TRICARE fees for active and reserve military and their families. Rush's take: to force military off of TRICARE and into his desired single payer Obamacare, to be announced after the election.

I think it is time for the states to call for a Constitutional Convention. The Congress, the Executive and now the Supreme Court has overstepped their bounds. For my first amendment: Each Justice of the Supreme Court shall serve two terms only of two years duration. They shall stand for election by vote of the Electoral College. Comments: As we see in this SCOTUS decision, the SCOTUS can do so much damage in such a short period that their terms should be reviewed every two years. Additional Amendment: Neither the Congress, nor the Executive nor the Courts in aggregate shall...

Anonymous sources presented secret wiretap applications last week to the chairman of the Congressional committee which could spell disaster to Attorney General Eric Holder’s Fast and Furious defense. The evidence reveal high-level Department of Justice officials approved the “gun walking” tactics that could have led to the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The committee has been trying for 15-months to get information from Holder, who has used every legal, and arguably illegal means, to stall the committee from furthering their investigation with information from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The suspects drove away from the scene in a dark, regular-cab pickup truck. The last four digits of the truck’s license plate are 3330, according to witnesses at the scene. Police across the region are on the lookout following an attempted abduction on the Virginia Tech campus Friday morning in which two men tried to drag a woman into a pickup truck, according to the Virginia Tech Police. Maj. Kevin L. Foust said the woman, who has not been identified, was crossing Henderson Lawn from College Avenue to Alumni Mall about 2:15 a.m. when two men approached her. Police said...

In his deciding opinion in the cases challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare), Chief Justice John Roberts first says the mandate in the law requiring individuals to buy health insurance is not a tax. Then he says it is a tax. He upholds the individual mandate—as a tax, not a penalty—as the law of the land. But then says it would not be "unlawful" for Americans to violate the law's mandate that they "shall" buy health insurance--as long as they are willing to pay the "penalty" for not obeying the law. Roberts first examines the question...

In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record. The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe. The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech...

Three months ago, I quoted George Jonas on the 30th anniversary of Canada's ghastly "Charter of Rights and Freedoms": "There seems to be an inverse relationship between written instruments of freedom, such as a Charter, and freedom itself," wrote Jonas. "It's as if freedom were too fragile to be put into words: If you write down your rights and freedoms, you lose them." For longer than one might have expected, the U.S. Constitution was a happy exception to that general rule – until, that is, the contortions required to reconcile a republic of limited government with the ambitions of statism...

Our regular gardening threadmasters seem to be busy, so I'm posting one to start us off with. If anybody has the ping list, please use it!

After five years of marriage, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are getting a divorce, PEOPLE has learned exclusively. "This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family," says Holmes's attorney Jonathan Wolfe. "Katie's primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter's best interest."

CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt's president-elect Mohammed Morsi has vowed to free the blind sheik jailed in the U.S. for a plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

The House on Friday morning rejected a Democratic resolution citing House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) for running a biased investigation against Attorney General Eric Holder, and for conducting a "witch-hunt" against Holder. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) brought up the resolution saying Issa's investigation "discredits the integrity of the House," after which Republicans quickly made a motion to table the resolution. That GOP motion was approved on a 259-161 vote. More than 20 Democrats voted with Republicans.