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The US Supreme Court is chickening out and taking a step back from the entire NSA scandal. Rather than making a final decision on whether the bulk telephone metadata surveillance program is constitutional, the Supreme Court has decided to decline the case. Instead, the Court has now left lower courts to contradict each other over the legality of this particular NSA surveillance program. One court, for instance, has described the metadata program as an “almost-Orwellian” effort. In fact, this particular petition brought to the Supreme Court concerns precisely a decision given out by US District Judge Richard Leon, who also...

MARK LEVIN: We are witnessing a gradual, quiet COUP! Posted on Jan 14, 2014 at 6:57 PM Mark Levin opened his show today livid over Obama’s announcement that he will ignore the legislature and use his pen to write executive orders. He says the separation of powers are the key to our Republic and yet today Obama just announced that he would assume lawmaking powers via executive orders. Mark Levin says what’s going on here is that we are witnessing a gradual, quiet coup: He’s just announced that he is going to assume lawmaking powers. He does not recognize the...

A stern President Obama lectured Republicans on Thursday, one day after they accepted a Democrat deal to end the government shutdown and raise the debt limit until Feb. 7—getting nothing in return. The president suggested that the system of checks and balances invoked by tea party Republicans in an attempt to defund Obamacare is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. “Let’s work together to make government work better, instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse,” Obama said. …

One of the things which has so *maddened* conservatives during the oh-so-dolorous-and-slow Chinese water torture of the Obama administration, is the way that the Administration seems to be "above the law" or "unaccountable"; and at that, not only in a Nixonian sense, but in a Louis XIV sense ("L'état, c'est moi"). Look back at some of the initial scandals and/or muckraking topics from the first term, or from the campaign against Romney: "They acted stupidly" / beer summit The non-prosecution of the Black Panthers for voter intimidation The brouhaha over the "birth certificate" The non-closure of Club Gitmo The run-up...

Who would have guessed that one of the most warmongering presidents would be a liberal Democrat who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize? Obama has gotten away with a secret escalating drone war because the left and their fifth column in the media have mostly turned a blind eye, just like they have with Obama's expanded ground war in Afghanistan, not wanting to criticize a fellow leftist in power. Obama is not the pacifist he pretends to be. The executive branch's escalating drone strike program has been taking place in secret now for over 10 years, all ostensibly justified...

Liberal fascism, anyone? Add Barney Frank to the list of Thomas Friedman and Ray LaHood who regret that in the United States, that darn Constitution gets in the way of the enlightened class imposing its will on the rest of us benighted peons. Sparring with Mario Bartiromo on CNBC this afternoon, Dem congressman Frank, expressing frustration at his inability to get through legislation he favors, lamented: "unfortunately, under this American system of government, you have these checks and balances." Yeah, so unfortunate. If only Barney could be king for a day. View the video here.

In December, 2007, the Boston Globe published a Q&A with then-candidate Barack Obama in which the subject of Executive War Powers was addressed. "In what circumstances, if any," Charlie Savage asked, "would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress?" Mr. Obama's answer was unequivocal in its condemnation of unilateral executive action relating to war: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. . . . In instances of self-defense,...

The Obama administration wants to soften the impact of bills speeding through Congress that would impose heavy new taxes on Wall Street bonuses. But some potential allies in the Senate are reluctant to cooperate, fearing the political consequences of watering down the legislation. Financial-industry officials launched a campaign Friday to fight back but are finding their hands tied: Anti-Wall Street sentiment following the American International Group Inc. bonus payouts is making it difficult to reach once-friendly lawmakers to make their case. Key senators and their staffers, nervous about appearing to support the industry, are refusing all meetings, and, in some...

In the comments to yesterday's jury nullification piece (yes, I read your comments) Smitty was especially on-point when he said, "The real problem might be toleration, or more accurately, the lack of it. We wish our preferred freedoms to be respected, while applauding governmental crackdowns upon those freedoms we dislike or are indifferent to." Frankly that's been an ongoing hurdle in the effort to preserve and extend liberty. Until pot-smokers and gun owners and low-taxers and sexual minorities recognize that liberty is indivisible and that we're all in this together, we're going to be picked off piecemeal by government officials...

ANNAPOLIS (AP) — Maryland's highest court yesterday rejected a case filed by Republican lawmakers to overturn taxes approved during last year's special General Assembly session. The suit by the lawmakers and a Carroll County businessman stated the Democrat-controlled Assembly violated a constitutional provision when the Senate took a long break without permission of the House. As a result, they said, the whole session was invalid. During the session, lawmakers raised more than $1.3 billion in new taxes to help close a budget shortfall. The state Court of Appeals rejected the claim without comment after a hearing Tuesday. A longer ruling...

It wasn’t long ago that most conspiracy theories came from conservatives. The right, after all gave our country the John Birch Society. But these days, liberals have a virtual monopoly on loony ideas -- and they seem to be getting crazier all the time. For example, in case you haven’t noticed, the United States is sliding into fascism. Well, not sliding, actually. We’re being driven into fascism. By you-know-who. “Beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society,” Naomi Wolf wrote this year in Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “There is essentially...

RICHMOND — House Republicans today rejected Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s nomination of former labor leader Daniel LeBlanc to be secretary of the commonwealth, marking the first time legislators have denied a governor an appointee to his cabinet.LeBlanc, was defeated on a party-line 55-42 vote with Republicans saying the former president of the state AFL-CIO could not be trusted to protect Virginia’s right-to-work law which bars compulsory union membership.Kaine, a Democrat, was visibly angered during a meeting with reporters. He noted that none of the House’s complaints against LeBlanc were shared by the Senate, which confirmed the nominee by a 40-0...

Rally in defense of marriage Alan Keyes May 14, 2004 Boston, Massachusetts Well, I'm here. It's one of those times when one can be grateful to God for traveling mercies. Absolutely. I certainly am. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on preliminaries, because I know you all have been here a long time. I think we come together obviously on occasion of great and deep critical importance to this state and to the country--though I have to tell you that, looking at the way some folks respond to it in our politics, I'm not sure they appreciate...

They Said It Considering the treatment President Bush's judicial nominees have received from Senate Democrats, I thought you might find it interesting to read what they had to say about the Senate's constitutional duty of "advice and consent" concerning judicial nominations when their president was making nominations. You may have seen these in my daily First Look column this week, but here they are again, for good measure. --Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.): I hope we will have a chance to vote on them, not just in committee . . . but on the floor of the Senate. That is what...

MAD ABOUT US! The History Chant In 1400 and 92 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Tell us more, tell us more About US. U.S., That's US. Tell us more. We're mad, we're mad About history, U.S. history, Hopping mad. Rap US up, Rap US up. Who can tell us more Of our history? You can. I can. American. American!Columbus knew that the earth was round. He sailed west for the East and a New World was found. Tell us more, tell us more, ETC.From the Old World more explorers came From England and Holland, and France and Spain. Tell us...