Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) says that the newly launched Congressional Full Employment Caucus will “give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign.” Jackson Lee made the statement while gathered with Democrats on January 29th to announce the establishment of the Full Employment Caucus. “We will be answering the call of all of America because people need work and we’re not doing right by them by creating work,” Jackson Lee said. “I believe this caucus will put us on the right path and we’ll give President Obama a number of executive orders that he...

Biden: W.H. readies 19 executive actions on guns By: Reid J. Epstein January 14, 2013 06:49 PM EST The White House has identified 19 executive actions for President Barack Obama to move unilaterally on gun control, Vice President Joe Biden told a group of House Democrats on Monday, the administration’s first definitive statements about its response to last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Later this week, Obama will formally announce his proposals to reduce gun violence, which are expected to include renewal of the assault weapons ban, universal background checks and prohibition of high-capacity magazine clips. But...

The liberal Center for American Progress doesn’t believe significant GOP gains in the House and Senate should stop the President from implementing more of his polices. The group released a report Tuesday suggesting ways Obama can bypass Congress to accomplish a progressive agenda, and it cites the president’s power as commander-in-chief to make its point. “I think most of the conversation since the election has been about how President Obama adjusts to the new situation on Capitol Hill,” Center for American Progress head and former Bill Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta told the Daily Caller. “While that’s an important...

A federal appellate judge expressed deep skepticism Monday about the Justice Department's lawsuit over Arizona's new immigration law, leaving uncertain the Obama administration's chances of stopping the law from taking effect. Judge John T. Noonan Jr. grilled administration lawyers at a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. He took aim at the core of the Justice Department's argument: that the Arizona statute is "preempted" by federal law and is especially troublesome because it requires mandatory immigration status checks in certain circumstances. "I've read your brief, I've read the District Court opinion, I've heard your interchange...

The Obama administration told Congress to find a way to regulate greenhouse gases -- or else. Last month, Congress refused: Democratic leaders in the Senate declined to take up climate legislation before their August break, which means it looks effectively dead for this session. Now the White House is stuck with "or else." The Environmental Protection Agency will soon begin regulating greenhouse gases factory by factory, power plant by power plant. That could be unwieldy, expensive and unpopular -- even President Obama has said it's not his preferred solution. But for now, it's his only option. The next few months...

Boulder's elected leaders are expected to decide next week whether to draft and vote on a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. For the past few weeks, activists have been showing up at Boulder City Council meetings, carrying signs, handing out "impeach" pins and asking City Council members to take up such a resolution. Similar measures have passed in cities across the country, including Detroit and Telluride.

It is a title that would be sure to bring either fear or cheer to many Americans, depending on your political leanings: Supreme Court Justice Bill Clinton. That provocative possibility has long been whispered in legal and political circles ever since Sen. Hillary Clinton became a viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now a respected conservative law professor has openly predicted a future President Clinton would name her husband to the high court if a vacancy occurred. Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec said, "The former president would be intrigued by court service and many would cheer him on." Kmiec...

Resistance by partisan ”shadow warriors” at the Department of State has limited the president’s options and is bringing us dangerously close to a military showdown with Iran, former Bush administration official John Bolton told Newsmax in an exclusive interview. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice initially had planned to provide significant aid to the pro-democracy movement in Iran, as a means of giving the president more policy options, Bolton said. But resistance by the State Department bureaucracy crippled the programs and rendered them ineffective. “[T]he outcome has been no overt program of support for democracy and no clandestine program to overthrow...

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved contempt resolutions against Karl Rove, the former top aide to President Bush, and Joshua Bolten, the current White House chief of staff. The vote was 12-8. The criminal contempt resolutions now move to the Senate floor, although no action on them is expected until next year. Sen. Alren Specter (R-Pa.), ranking member of Judiciary, voted in favor of issuing the contempt resolutions, saying the committee's oversight responsibilities must be upheld. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) also supported the resolutions. "It is a vote that I would prefer not to make," Specter said. "It is a...

  Shadow Warriors   By Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Kenneth R. Timmerman, the New York Times bestselling author of Countdown to Crisis, The French Betrayal of America, Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America, and Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq. In 2006 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his groundbreaking reporting on Iran ’s nuclear weapons program. He is the author of the new book, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender. FP: Kenneth Timmerman, welcome to Frontpage...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Polk County judge has struck down Iowa's law preserving marriage for only a man and a woman. He ordered the county recorder's office to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Six gay and lesbian couples went to court for the right to legally marry in Iowa. Lamda Legal filed a lawsuit in 2005 on behalf of the couples in Iowa, saying they deserve equal protection under the law. Des Moines laywer Dennis Johnson represented six gay couples who filed the lawsuit after they were denied marriage licenses, and he says Hanson's ruling is a moral...

HARTFORD, Conn. - The state Supreme Court on Monday took up the issue of gay marriage in Connecticut, the first state in the nation to pass a civil unions law without court intervention. Eight gay and lesbian couples, unhappy with civil unions, are suing over the state's refusal to grant them marriage licenses. They want the court to rule that the state's marriage law is unconstitutional because it applies only to heterosexual couples and denies gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage. The state argues that Connecticut's 2005 civil unions law gives the couples the equality they...

Over the past decade and a half, U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson has become the one of the most important figures in the state in setting prison policy, or at least trying to change it. Henderson's rulings have placed the judge firmly in control over issues ranging from use of force at Pelican Bay State Prison to internal discipline to improving medical care. They've also put him in position to direct billions in state spending into the correctional system -- with no legislative oversight. The 72-year-old judge's career has just been chronicled in Abby Ginzberg's documentary, "Soul of Justice:...

A Ketchikan judge on Monday set aside guilty verdicts returned by a jury against the activist group Greenpeace and the captain of its boat for violating state environmental regulations during a 2004 visit to Alaska. District Court Judge Kevin Miller provided little reason for his unusual order acquitting the Greenpeace defendants except that, in his judgment, the evidence did not support the guilty verdicts."The decision to remove these verdicts from the province of the jury is one that this court does not take lightly," Miller wrote.Miller presided over the jury trial and was responding to a post-verdict request by the...

A federal judge Thursday struck down Nebraska's ban on gay marriage, saying the measure interferes not only with the rights of gay couples but also with those of foster parents, adopted children and people in a host of other living arrangements. The constitutional amendment, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, was passed overwhelmingly by the voters in November 2000. U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon said the ban "imposes significant burdens on both the expressive and intimate associational rights" of gays "and creates a significant barrier to the plaintiffs' right to petition or to participate...

Virginia Court Strikes Down Law Against Sex By Singles POSTED: 4:20 pm EST January 14, 2005 RICHMOND, Va. -- The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down an archaic and rarely enforced state law prohibiting sex between unmarried people. The unanimous ruling strongly suggests that a separate anti-sodomy law in Virginia also is unconstitutional, although that statute is not directly affected. The justices based their ruling on a U.S. Supreme Court decision voiding an anti-sodomy law in Texas. "This case directly affects only the fornication law but makes it absolutely clear how the court would rule were the sodomy law...

Sound Transit can continue to collect its motor-vehicle excise tax, even though the tax was repealed by Initiative 776 two years ago, a judge ruled today. King County Superior Court Judge Mary Yu agreed with Sound Transit's argument that ending the tax now would unconstitutionally interfere with a contract it signed with purchasers of agency bonds in 1999. In that contract, Sound Transit promised to keep collecting the 0.3 percent tax until the bonds are paid off. That isn't scheduled to occur until 2028, and over the next 24 years the tax will generate far more revenue than the $350...

Amendment Banning La. Gay Marriage Tossed By ADAM NOSSITER, Associated Press Writer BATON ROUGE, La. - A state judge Tuesday threw out a Louisiana constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, less than three weeks after it was overwhelmingly approved by the voters. District Judge William Morvant said the amendment was flawed as drawn up by the Legislature because it had more than one purpose: banning not only gay marriage but also civil unions. Michael Johnson (news - web sites), an attorney for supporters of the amendment, said he will appeal the ruling. A gay rights group challenged the amendment on several...

federal judge has followed his leftist compatriots down a steep slope, and compared the current president of the United States with Hitler and Mussolini, reports the New York Sun. Not only does he call the election of George W. Bush in 2000 - through the electoral process upon which this country's elections are based - illegitimate, Guido Calabresi went on to juxtapose President Bush with two of the most vile dictators the world has ever known. In Calabresi's own words: "In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States ... somebody came to power as a...

About 100 teenagers — armed with ear-splitting screams and hand-lettered signs — rallied Saturday in Westwood in support of marriage for same-sex couples. "It's important for everyone to be able to live the way they want to," said Kate Heller, 16, a student at Winward School in West Los Angeles. Two teens from Winward's new Gay-Straight Alliance, Sarah Freed, 17, and Joe Goldman, 14, organized the Federal Building rally, which drew students, gay and straight, from high schools across Orange, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, along with parents, teachers and a fluffy white poodle. John Duran, mayor of West Hollywood,...