|
Latest Articles: U.S. Constitution
10 George Orwell Quotes That Predicted America Today
Post Date: 2015-03-12 07:25:53 by Deckard
3 Comments
George Orwell, author of 1984, had tremendous insight on how the global elite would dominate society, and he predicted the current political climate in America today as you’ll see from this list by Justin King of the Anti-Media: George Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era. Some of his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of understanding an enlightened mind can have about the future. 1) “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” Though many in the modern age have the will to ...
Iranian FM Zarif to 47 GOP Senators: You’re ignorant of international law
Post Date: 2015-03-11 00:23:57 by out damned spot
3 Comments
How dare they try to get in the way of a perfectly good appeasement agreement? The audacity! “Iranian FM Zarif to U.S. Senators: You Are Ignorant Of International Law,” Tehran Times, March 10, 2015: TEHRAN – The Iranian foreign minister on Monday reacted to an open letter to Iran’s leaders by 47 U.S. Republican senators who had warned Tehran that any nuclear deal that the Islamic Republic signs with President Barack Obama’s administration won’t last after Obama leaves office. Mohammad Javad Zarif said the letter lacks “legal validity” and shows that the signatories of the letter are “ignorant of international law[.]” “In our view ...
Federal Judge Orders Investigation into Illegal Acts By the Obama Administration
Post Date: 2015-03-10 23:48:19 by out damned spot
7 Comments
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen is not amused. The man who served Obama with an injunction preventing his illegal amnesty plans to see that Obama is not amused either. He has ordered that the administration be investigated over misleading him on amnesty and work permits for “Dreamers.” The administration told the judge they wouldn’t issue anymore work permits for new dreamers, when the fact is they have issued over 100,000 of them. The investigation will include a finding of whether the lawyers who handled the case for Obama knew of the illegal maneuver. If so, they will face disbarment or worse. This has even more impact on the Obama administration than they are used to. ...
Fusionism and Federalism
Post Date: 2015-03-09 17:22:04 by tpaine
2 Comments
www.libertylawsite.org Fusionism and Federalism Classical Liberalism, Federalism, Frank Meyer, traditional conservatism I spent the weekend at an excellent conference on the work of Frank S. Meyer, a leading post-war thinker of the right. His major effort has generally been called fusionism –an attempt to marry classical liberalism and traditional conservatism. But he himself did not claim the term “fusionism”: that was a label others affixed. He saw himself as revealing the complementary nature of liberty and tradition rather than creating a new alloy out of disparate materials. For Meyer, liberty was the end of politics, and that fact could be apprehended by reason. But ...
Justice Thomas on the nondelegation doctrine and separation of powers
Post Date: 2015-03-09 13:57:40 by tpaine
4 Comments
Justice Thomas on the nondelegation doctrine and separation of powers Today’s decision in Dep’t of Transportation v. Ass’n of American Railroads deals primarily with whether Amtrak should be considered a private entity or a governmental one — the Court unanimously says it’s governmental. Sasha’s post, which I highly recommend, discusses the case in much more detail. Justice Thomas, though, has a long and detailed dissent about the separation of powers and the nondelegation doctrine. I can’t do it justice in a short post, but here is how it closes (paragraph break added): In this case, Congress has permitted a corporation subject only to limited ...
Florida City Government Now Sending “Spies” into Churches!
Post Date: 2015-03-07 22:36:48 by out damned spot
7 Comments
In what sounds like a chapter out of Orwell’s 1984, the city of Lake Worth in Florida has been involved in some disgusting deals of late. The city started down a dark and unconstitutional road when they began demanding that any church operating in their town acquire a business license to operate. The fact that this requirement quite obviously violates the First Amendment in multiple ways (freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly) did not deter the city from pushing forward in their persecution. The city didn’t stop with their draconian regulations though… they went much further. The city was so worried about the dangers posed by Christianity that they ...
More on “The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Constitutionalism
Post Date: 2015-03-07 12:57:43 by tpaine
0 Comments
More on “The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Constitutionalism” At the National Review website, conservative commentator Carl Eric Scott has some interesting thoughts on “The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Constitutionalism,” a recent article I coauthored with David Bernstein. Scott is extremely generous in his praise of the article, for which I am very grateful. But he also offers some criticisms, particularly the following: Over and over, the paper stresses libertarian influence upon, commonalities with, and hopes for eventual agreement on certain issues with, the liberal jurist mainstream. By contrast it says little or nothing of libertarian influence upon, ...
Alabama Supreme Court Orders Judges to Stop Gay Marriages
Post Date: 2015-03-03 22:04:03 by Pridie.Nones
6 Comments
The Supreme Court of Alabama ordered all the state's probate judges late Tuesday to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the latest salvo in a growing legal battle in Alabama over whether the decisions of federal justices trump those made by state judges. The clash of federal rights versus state rights is also playing out nationwide as states opposed to same-sex marriage argue that federal courts can't throw out state gay marriage bans. The legal tempest comes months before the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether or not gays and lesbians can get married nationwide. In Alabama, a series of state and federal judges have gone back and forth over the ...
HOUSE VOTES DOWN STOP-GAP DHS FUNDING BILL, DHS SHUTDOWN HOURS AWAY [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2015-02-27 18:52:33 by out damned spot
44 Comments
The House voted down a three-week, short term Department of Homeland Security funding bill Friday afternoon. The measure failed on a vote of 203-224 with 52 Republicans voting against the measure. The three-week measure was intended as a stop-gap to allow the House and Senate time to reconcile their divergent DHS appropriations bills without a DHS shutdown. Funding for DHS expires at midnight. Last month the House passed a DHS funding bill with provisions to block President Obama’s executive amnesty. When the bill reached the Senate, Democrats spent much of the month of February refusing to allow debate on it because they opposed the immigration provisions. After nearly a month ...
If You're Not "Sovereign", You're Servile
Post Date: 2015-02-27 10:17:14 by Deckard
1 Comments
Ultima ratio Regum: Where the State exists, the law does not. Like most epithets of its kind, the expression “sovereign citizen” is more frequently used than defined. One of the many luxuries the Regime provides for itself is the option of defining criminal categories so vaguely that no organizational alignments are necessary. In this way, one can be accused of participating in a “terrorist movement” or seditious conspiracy on the basis of imputed affinity, rather than proven conduct.Eric Matthew Frein, the Pennsylvania “survivalist” charged with murdering one State Trooper and wounding another in an ambush, has been described as a “sovereign ...
Pop Quiz: How Many Constitutional Rights Have We Lost?
Post Date: 2015-02-27 05:40:17 by Deckard
8 Comments
Painting by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.comHow Many Constitutional Freedoms Have We Lost? This post explains the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution – and provides a scorecard on the extent of the loss of each right. (This is an updated version of an essay we wrote in February. Unfortunately, a lot of information has come out since then.) First Amendment The 1st Amendment protects speech, religion, assembly and the press: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people ...
Edward Snowden's Libertarian Moment: We "will remove from governments the ability to interfere with [our] rights"
Post Date: 2015-02-25 13:17:19 by Deckard
16 Comments
Via Mark Sletten comes this thread from yesterday's Ask Me Anything session at Reddit that featured Edward Snowden, Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras, and journalist Glenn Greenwald. The question posed to Snowden: What's the best way to make NSA spying an issue in the 2016 Presidential Election? It seems like while it was a big deal in 2013, ISIS and other events have put it on the back burner for now in the media and general public. What are your ideas for how to bring it back to the forefront? His answer is well worth reading in full (I've posted it after the jump), but its essence is a full-throated defense of classical liberal and libertarian theorizing not just ...
Google Is Calling the FBI’s Attempt to Expand Their ‘Hacking Power’ a Huge Constitutional Threat
Post Date: 2015-02-21 22:47:22 by out damned spot
1 Comments
Global tech giant Google submitted public court comments this week calling the FBI’s new plan for obtaining digital search warrants a “serious and complex” constitutional concern. Google’s comments are warning of a new Justice Department program that would allow judges more flexibility in approval of search warrants for electronic data. Click for Full Text!
“The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Constitutionalism”
Post Date: 2015-02-20 19:29:28 by tpaine
1 Comments
Our new article on “The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Constitutionalism” Co-blogger David Bernstein and I recently published an article on “The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Constitutionalism” in Law and Contemporary Problems. The article is now available on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Libertarian constitutional thought is a distinctly minority position among scholars and jurists, one that at first glance has little connection with either modern Supreme Court jurisprudence or the liberalism that remains dominant in the legal academy. However, libertarian ideas have more in common with mainstream constitutional thought than at first meets the eye. They have also had ...
Sheriff Honors his Oath, Stands Down IRS & U.S. Marshals from Seizing Citizen’s Property
Post Date: 2015-02-18 08:56:51 by Deckard
12 Comments
Carlsbad, New Mexico – Wilsan Baughman is a law-abiding citizen who on Dec. 16, 2014, was alarmed to find her home surrounded by heavily armed federal agents. According to Baughman, around 9:30 a.m. while home alone with her infant son, U.S. Marshal’s broke into her home with guns drawn, demanding her and her 1-year-old son vacate the premises. “He told me, ‘Get out and get your stuff and do it today, or we’re going to lock it up here,’” Baughman said, according the Albuquerque Journal. “I’m just a simple tenant and they treated me like a drug lord.” Baughman was surprised to discover that the federal agents were there to seize her home for ...
Judge Torruella calls on courts to “reevaluate” Commerce Clause decisions
Post Date: 2015-02-17 16:15:05 by tpaine
36 Comments
Judge Torruella calls on courts to “reevaluate” Commerce Clause decisions The constitutional power to regulate “commerce . . . among the several states” continues to serve as a broad catch-all basis for federal authority over intrastate activity. Federal statutes routinely assert federal jurisdiction over run-of-the-mill crimes based upon any connection to interstate commerce, no matter how tenuous. Courts, for their part, have been extremely permissive, allowing federal prosecution on the barest showing of a connection to commerce. Not all judges are happy with these developments, nor do all judges believe the courts’ permissive approach is consistent with ...
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott: ‘Federal Judge Just Granted My Request to Halt Obama’s Executive Amnesty Order Nationwide’
Post Date: 2015-02-17 01:07:31 by out damned spot
10 Comments
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Monday night that a federal judge has “granted” his request to “halt” President Barack Obama’s “Executive Amnesty Order” across the country. *Greg Abbott ✔ @GregAbbott_TX BREAKING: Federal Judge just granted my request to halt Obama's Executive Amnesty Order Nationwide. More later. #txlege #tcot @TexasGOP Time reporter Zeke Miller later published the temporary injunction order handed down by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas online. The order of temporary injunction states: “The reasons for this injunction are set out in detail in the accompanying Memorandum Opinion ...
On Orin Kerr and the Constitution across borders
Post Date: 2015-02-16 11:07:56 by tpaine
0 Comments
On Orin Kerr and the Constitution across borders As faithful readers of the VC know, Orin Kerr and I occasionally disagree about questions of Internet law, an area where our interests overlap considerably. But Orin’s recently-published paper on “The Fourth Amendment and the Global Internet” is a must-read - authoritative and comprehensive, a terrific resource for anyone thinking seriously about what Orin calls “the clash between the territorial Fourth Amendment and the global Internet” – application of 4th Amednment doctrine to Internet communications, and the many difficulties of “adapt[ing] to the reality of a global network in which suspects, victims, ...
THE MAJORITARIAN FABLE
Post Date: 2015-02-14 10:55:20 by tpaine
0 Comments
The majoritarian fable On Law & Liberty Greg Weiner has posted Who Are the Guardians of the Natural Rights Polity? in which he makes the following observations: Either judges are better at identifying rights (or, in Barnett’s case, reasonable uses of the police power) than the rest of us—or they aren’t. If they aren’t, of course, the issue ought to be a matter of disputation in institutions arranged to encourage majorities to behave reasonably (emphasis added). . . . [I]s there any reason to believe judges will make better decisions about rights, or about reasonable uses of the police power, than majorities so situated? . . . One is that citizens’ errors ...
The Fourth Amendment Is Dead
Post Date: 2015-02-14 10:23:03 by Deckard
13 Comments
By James Baxter, NMA President The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution has been strangled with convoluted legal rationalizations, riddled with bullets in the form of Supreme Court decisions and drawn and quartered by “creative” law enforcement interpretations. This old and oft referred to amendment, an attempt to protect the privacy and property rights of individuals, is dead. Driving any more nails into its rotted casket is a redundant waste of time, but the US Supreme Court persists. For motorists, or anyone on a public road or sidewalk, the illusion of personal privacy is but a dim memory. Random searches, based on the flimsiest excuses, roadblocks, “frisking” ...
Question for a Friday Evening: What is the difference between Hoarding and Preparing?
Post Date: 2015-02-13 20:56:04 by Pridie.Nones
21 Comments
The other day I read someone discuss "hoarding." So, I have a question: What is the difference between Hoarding and Preparing? Is it illegal to prepare for a disaster, say beyond a 30 day period?
The govt reads all your old emails and doesn't need a warrant
Post Date: 2015-02-13 09:12:25 by Deckard
4 Comments
If you don't clean out your email in-box every month, here’s some incentive: The federal government can read any emails that are more than six months old without a warrant.That means, the NSA, DHS, FBI etc., are spying on all your old emails. Little known to most Americans, ambiguous language in a communications law passed in 1986 extends Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure only to electronic communications sent or received fewer than 180 days ago. The language, known as the “180-day rule,” allows government officials to treat any emails, text messages or documents stored on remote servers – popularly known as the cloud – ...
Residency Requirements for Handgun Purchases Deemed Unconstitutional ('68 GCA, Brady Act)
Post Date: 2015-02-12 14:51:47 by Hondo68
7 Comments
Well, Duh! A federal court in Texas has ruled that residency requirement for handgun purchases is unconstitutional. The ruling smacked down gun grabbing Attorney General Eric Holder's claim that banning handguns outside of a person's state of residence is not a violation of the Second Amendment. The Washington Times reports: In the case, federally licensed firearms dealer Frederic Russell Mance Jr. of Texas and gun buyers Tracey and Andrew Hanson sued Mr. Holder and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director B. Todd Jones claiming the federal ban on the sale of handguns outside of one's state stops the formation of a national handgun market. The Hansons, ...
A Worthless Piece of Paper
Post Date: 2015-02-12 10:56:58 by Deckard
27 Comments
President George W. Bush was fond of saying that “9/11 changed everything.” He used that one-liner often as a purported moral basis to justify the radical restructuring of federal law and the federal assault on personal liberties over which he presided. He cast aside his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution; he rejected his oath to enforce all federal laws faithfully; and he moved the government decidedly in the direction of secret laws, secret procedures and secret courts. During his presidency, Congress enacted the Patriot Act. This legislation permits federal agents to write their own search warrants when those warrants are served on custodians of records ...
Protecting natural rights by policing the police power
Post Date: 2015-02-09 17:37:15 by tpaine
27 Comments
Protecting natural rights by policing the police power On the Law & Liberty Blog, Richard Reinsch has a reply to my earlier post Another defender of “judicial restraint” attacks a straw man. In my post I tried to explain how the natural rights background of the Constitution — as expressly recognized in the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments — does not require judges to identify particular rights and elevate them to some high standard of scrutiny. Instead, judges need only identify in a general way the appropriate purposes of government and then examine particular laws to see if they are reasonable means of pursuing these purposes. In his reply, Dissenting from ...
Latest [Newer] 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [Older]
|
