Free Republic

Overblown alarm over reasonable gun-control laws proposed in statehouses across the country has led to a movement by various local governments declaring themselves Second Amendment “sanctuaries” — vowing to establish local jurisdictions where state gun laws that they view as unconstitutional will not be enforced. These resolutions, to the extent they conflict with state law, lack legal effect: In Tazewell County, Va., for example, the “Sanctuary Resolution” approved by the board of supervisors purports to prohibit any county employee from enforcing, and any county funds from being used for the enforcement of, new state gun laws the county deems unconstitutional....

Former Attorney General Janet Reno and seven other former Justice Department officials filed court papers Monday arguing that the Bush administration is setting a dangerous precedent by trying a suspected terrorist outside the court system. It was the first time that Reno, attorney general in the Clinton administration, has spoken out against the administration's policies on terrorism detainees, underscoring how contentious the court fight over the nation's new military commissions law has become. Former attorneys general rarely file court papers challenging administration policy. Suspected al-Qaida sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is the only detainee being held in the United...

The Democrats claim they want to treat terrorism as a criminal law problem, but when we give them an American citizen convicted of aiding terrorists – as happened this week – a Democrat judge gives her a slap on the wrist. Or he was going to give her a wrist slap until someone told him that wrist slapping was banned under the Geneva Conventions, so he let the wrist off with a warning. Last year, a New York jury found Lynne Stewart guilty of helping her former client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with his Egyptian-based group of murderous terrorists,...

THE U.S. COURT of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit discovered a new constitutional right yesterday: "the right of a mentally competent, terminally ill adult patient to access potentially life-saving post-Phase I investigational new drugs, upon a doctor's advice, even where that medication carries risks for the patient" and has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. If you don't remember reading those particular words in the founding charter, don't kick yourself. An ideologically eclectic panel of the normally sober D.C. Circuit pulled this "right" out of thin air. If the full court, or the Supreme Court, doesn't take...

The Clinton-appointed federal judge who tossed out half the government's death penalty case against convicted 9/11 "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui on Tuesday has a history of liberal rulings and was once named by Sen. Bob Dole to the "Clinton Hall of Shame." Even before Judge Leonie Brinkema decimated the government's case by ruling that evidence from key witnesses had been tainted by prosecutorial misconduct, veteran terrorism prosecutor Andrew McCarthy warned Brinkema not to overreact. Writing about the furor over the prosecution's blunder on NationalReviewOnline Monday, McCarthy said: "It is a tempest in a teapot that is obviously being blown out...

Note: for those who haven't followed the story, this is the federal district judge in California who has ruled that lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment because the murdering scumbag might suffer. Michael Morales had breakfast this morning. He will have lunch. He will have dinner. He will continue to breathe. Terri hasn't been able to do any of those things for over two decades. ========================================================================== Fogel, Jeremy D. Born 1949 in San Francisco, CA Federal Judicial Service:U. S. District Court, Northern District of CaliforniaNominated by William J. Clinton on September 8, 1997, to a seat vacated by Robert...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - A federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities of hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move which would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of those who have been imprisoned there. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York ordered the Defense Department to release uncensored transcripts of detainee hearings, which contain the names of detainees in custody and those who have been held and later released. Previously released documents have had identities and other details...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO - The state on Tuesday postponed indefinitely the execution of a condemned killer amid a court battle over the state's method of lethal injection and the role doctors may play in the death chamber.</p> <p>State officials notified the federal courts they would be unable to comply with a judge's order to have a lethal dose of barbiturate administered to Michael Morales by a medical professional in the execution chamber, a spokeswoman for the federal courts told The Associated Press.</p>

On Thursday, a federal judge decided that Americans' safety and security takes a back-seat to a left-wing groups' right to view and promulgate top secret National Security Agency documents relating to the terrorism surveillance program. In this case, one of the left-wing groups has direct ties to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who was forced to step down from his perch on the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1987 over allegations he leaked classified information to news reporters. Just one lawyer wearing black robes has usurped the authority of the Commander-in-Chief to wage war as he believes it should be waged. As...

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge ruled Tuesday that California must change its lethal injection method for the execution of Michael Morales next week because the current mix of drugs may constitute cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose declined to immediately postpone Morales' Feb. 21 scheduled execution, but he ordered the state to either have an expert present to ensure he's unconscious from a sedative or replace a three-drug death potion with a lethal dose of barbiturate.

WASHINGTON, February 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The February edition of the Jewish bimonthly magazine, Moment, carries an excerpt from a book by Abigail Pogrebin, Stars of David; the book details conversations Pogrebin had with 62 famous Jews.  The excerpt features Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of Pogrebin's subjects.  What Ginsburg had to say about Christianity was noted by Catholic League president Bill Donohue:"In the January 30 edition of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, Abigail Pogrebin was asked which Jewish persons have left a 'profound impression' on her.  She answered, 'I will never forget Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg saying,...

BREAKING ON THE AP WIRE: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

Seattle -- A federal judge who struck down a Bush administration decision to ease logging restrictions last summer issued an injunction Monday blocking as many as 144 timber sales in three states. The sales in Washington, Oregon and northern California had been approved under the administration's decision to stop requiring that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management look for and protect rare plants and animals before logging on 5.5 million acres covered by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. The Bush administration eliminated the so-called "survey and manage" rule in spring 2004 as part of a legal settlement with...

A federal judge Friday ordered the Legislature to spend more money on education for students learning English and said he will impose fines starting at $500,000 a day late next month if deadlines aren't met. U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins also ruled that the estimated 160,000 Arizona students learning English will be able to get high school diplomas without passing the state's graduation test until they've had time to prepare in adequately funded programs. Plaintiffs claim the state's AIMS test is unfair to students learning English because of shortcomings in programs intended to improve their skills in the language....

While New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has virtually gone into hiding - as have many other Democrats - regarding whether or not Terri Schiavo should be starved to death, ex-President Bill Clinton was reportedly was "egging on" one of Hillary's colleagues to support federal intervention to rescue Schiavo. Reports CBS's Dottie Lynch: "[Sen. Tom Harkin] forged the coalition with Republicans Frist, Santorum, Martinez and, according to two sources, had the support of former President Clinton for his actions. While Mr. Clinton apparently didn't talk to Harkin until after the vote, one source described Mr. Clinton as 'egging him on.'" It...

The Terri Schiavo case has been a perfect media storm and an object lesson. For the media, it served as a metaphor for much of what divides us: pro-life versus pro-choice; religious versus secular; wife versus husband versus parents/in-laws; church versus state. Many religious leaders (and certain members of Congress) at first distinguished themselves by standing on principle and appealing to the state to preserve Terri Schiavo's life. But a few called for defying authority, suggesting Florida officials disobey court orders, "rescue" Terri from her hospice bed and reinsert her feeding tube. The Miami Herald reported Saturday that agents of...

Democrats have joyfully jabbed conservatives who have hoped to use any potentially legitimate path of government power to save Terri Schiavo. "Don't you like limited government?" "What about federalism?" "I thought you hated judicial activism!" There is some validity to these criticisms. Not as much as the Democrats would like, considering that states' rights was their strongest issue for a long time, but some validity nonetheless. If I were going to suggest the Republican distinctive, I would say it's the dignity of the individual in a moral universe. Fits with being against slavery, for the women's vote, against socialism, for...

WHY THE TERRI SCHINDLER-SCHIAVO CASE MATTERS JPFO does not take an official position on issues such as the "right to die" or when it might be ethical to disconnect a brain-dead person from artificial life-support. But JPFO does care deeply about how governments use power against defenseless innocent people. The genesis of JPFO came with the observation that the Nazis rendered the Jews and others powerless by enforcing "gun control" laws. Our first book, "Gun Control": Gateway to Tyranny, was the first major work to prove the connection between German victim disarmament laws and the destruction of 12 million victims...

PINELLAS PARK, Florida (CNN) -- Terri Schiavo's husband has asked that an autopsy be performed on his wife after she dies so that a full report can be done on the extent of her brain damage, an attorney for Michael Schiavo said Monday. Attorney George Felos said the autopsy will be performed by Dr. Jon Thogmartin, the chief medical examiner of Pinellas County.

<p>I watch nourishment flowing into a slim tube that runs through a neat, round, surgically created orifice in Ms Schiavo's abdomen, and I'm almost envious. What effortless intake! Due to a congenital neuro-muscular disease, I am having trouble swallowing, and it's a constant struggle to get by mouth the calories my skinny body needs. For whatever reason, I'm still trying, but I know a tube is in my future. So, possibly, is speechlessness. That's a scary thought. If I couldn't speak for myself, would I want to die? If I become uncommunicative, a passive object of other people's care, should I hope my brain goes soft and leaves me in peace?</p>