Free Republic

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his rivals for the Republican nomination will face a tough crowd when they address the religious conservatives at the Values Voter Summit starting Friday. “I think what we can expect is a lot of folks talking about how dissatisfied they are with the choices they have,” former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said. Giuliani’s positions on abortion and gay rights continue to dog him as he looks for support within the leadership of the religious conservative movement, and those leaders say they want to hear more from the former mayor this weekend than...

Candidate Says U.S. Must Return To Basics. Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson said Thursday that he's ready to work hard in Iowa to make up for lost time. Thompson was in Des Moines a day after announcing his White House run. He said he still has enough time to get out his message. "The preliminaries are over, the game is beginning as far as I'm concerned and I'm looking forward to it," he said. He said he skipped the debates in an effort to reach more people. "I want to reach them as directly as I...

Conservative Republicans disenchanted with their presidential options dream that Fred Dalton Thompson is the Great Right Hope for 2008. Fans of the 65-year-old actor and former Tennessee senator call him a Southern-fried Ronald Reagan clone with impressive name recognition and a folksy appeal who can unite the party - and beat Hillary Clinton. It won't be a cakewalk for Thompson, who, after several false starts, will launch his candidacy Thursday via his I'mWithFred Web site. He's starting unusually late, has had trouble raising cash and has been soporific in recent testing-the-water outings. "The wow factor is gone," a Republican operative...

Friday, August 17, 2007 Nix That [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From Team Thompson: I'm afraid CNN story you linked mischaracterized Thompson's comment on gay marriage. They've since altered the story....without noting the change. For the record, the Thompson camp has officially noted that "Fred Thompson does not support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage." He supports the rights of States to choose their marriage law for themselves. The Thompson camp issued this statement: In an interview with CNN today, former Senator Fred Thompson’s position on constitutional amendments concerning gay marriage was unclear. Thompson believes that states should be able to...

The summary below is excerpted from a hostile source but I still like what I hear: Thompson, who is expected to enter the presidential race formally in September, but plans to campaign in Iowa on Friday, was not known as a big-ideas guy and was hardly a heavy-hitter when it came to legislation during his Senate career from 1994 to 2002. Still, he was considered a reliably conservative vote on economic, security and social issues alike. He backed Bush's tax cuts, a prohibition on a late-term abortion procedure and voted to give the president the authority to invade Iraq. More...

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. made it clear as he began taking questions at yesterday's National Italian American Foundation luncheon that he couldn't reveal any of the Supreme Court's forthcoming opinions. But did he at least give a hint? Two of the court's biggest remaining cases focus on the First Amendment, and while Alito didn't mention either, he did make it clear that any restrictions on speech face a high hurdle with him. "I'm a very strong believer in the First Amendment and the right of people to speak and to write," Alito said in response to a question of...

"THE President of the United States is to be "commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States WHEN CALLED INTO THE ACTUAL SERVICE of the United States." The propriety of this provision is so evident in itself, and it is, at the same time, so consonant to the precedents of the State constitutions in general, that little need be said to explain or enforce it. Even those of them which have, in other respects, coupled the chief magistrate with a council, have for the most part concentrated the military authority...

Last week US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in Detroit, Michigan, ruled that the National Security Agency’s overseas communications intercept program was unconstitutional. This is tied for the worst decision I’ve ever read, in 36 years as a member of the bar, both federal and state. Dozens of pundits have already written about aspects of her decision that are egregiously wrong. Even the august New York Times, which opposes the NSA program and favors Judge Taylor’s result, still has called her opinion “badly reasoned.” It’s important that lawyers, legal writers, and experienced laymen be able to recognize a thoroughly incompetent...

History has attributed to the War of 1812 the label of "The Second War for American Independence". It is regarded as an American victory not because of any military achievement, but because it etched American independence from Britain in stone. In contemporary terms, the war was a disaster, with the British easily occupying Detroit, chasing a fleeing President Madison from the capital, and setting many public landmarks ablaze. It was during this conflict that great anti-war opposition in the North East led to the Hartford Convention. Small-minded men of the waning Federalist Party, who never got over the ascendancy of...

Last February, as rumors swirled about the failing health of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a team of conservative grass-roots organizers, public relations specialists and legal strategists met to prepare a battle plan to ensure any vacancies were filled by like-minded jurists. The team recruited conservative lawyers to study the records of 18 potential nominees — including Judges John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — and trained more than three dozen lawyers across the country to respond to news reports on the president's eventual pick. "We boxed them in," one lawyer present during the strategy meetings said...

Q: Why is Roe v. Wade not considered constitutional law? I'll tackle this question since I have received three similar ones since the Alito hearing's began. A woman can be said to have a right to abortion just as much as she would have a right to decide on a root canal. The problem though is, it isn't neither a constitutional or federal issue -- but an issue of the people through their own State legislative process to determine. The US Constitution did not invest any jurisdiction with the federal government or the Supreme Court over the life and liberties...

This past week (January 11) marked the 251st anniversary of the birth of Alexander Hamilton, whom Richard Brookhiser described as the greatest of the Founders except for George Washington. Hamilton's detractors, beginning with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams did not deny his greatness, but feared his motives. They described him as a lover of monarchy whose goal was to corrupt the republican virtue of the American people by means of his economic schemes. Since then, many writers, reflecting the view of his contemporary adversaries, have depicted Hamilton as the "prince of darkness" in a Manichean struggle with Thomas...

 Ladies and gentlemen, Democrats of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, welcome to this introductory tour of the North American federalist in his natural habitat. We hope that by getting to know the 10-toed American federalist a bit better this afternoon, you'll avoid, in the future, some of the errors and missteps that have thus far plagued your efforts to understand, question, and possibly impugn them at confirmation hearings. Sen. Feinstein, please do try to keep up with the tour. We ask that you listen carefully as we debunk some of the stereotypes and myths you may have heard about...

It looks like the third time was the charm for the Federalist Society. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has long been an active participant in the conservative legal society, an influential group that sometimes goes to great lengths to play down its influence. Alito has been a member for at least 15 years and has spoken before both the national organization and its student chapters on a number of occasions. That's a welcome change for the group after the last two Supreme Court nominations: -John Roberts, the new chief justice, is well-liked by Federalist Society members but belatedly denied he'd...

Founder's Quote:"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution, which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all." —George Washington Make your voice be heard TODAY! Please join fellow Patriots and sign "A citizen petition to restore Constitutional integrity to government, and entreat the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches to confine their actions to comport with the limits of Constitutional law." Petition Text: To President George Bush, Speaker of the House...

Imagine if Bill Clinton had nominated his personal attorney and White House counsel to a post on the U.S. Supreme Court. Somehow, I can't imagine my conservative friends supporting the nominee – particularly if there were questions about controversial documents being destroyed that might actually shed light on scandals of the past. The stunning series of articles by WND columnist Jerome Corsi, raising serious and nagging questions about Harriet Miers' role as chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission and the cover-up of the way that story intersects with George W. Bush's National Guard service, points up why this kind of...

This old language is a tough read, so I'm gonna add some bolded headings which quickly summarize the paragraphs that follow. Maybe this helps, maybe not. To the People of the State of New York: Hamilton quotes Article 2 THE President is "to nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution. But the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as...

WASHINGTON -- Mentioning the little-known Judge Edith Brown Clement as front-runner for the Supreme Court vacancy was not a ploy to obscure the eventual selection of Judge John Roberts. She was the real runner-up, after evoking mixed reviews from conservatives. President Bush was very much impressed with Clement during his interview with her, and sources say he gave her a White House tour. However, anti-abortion activists were not happy, contending that she has no record on their issue. Clement's supporters say she is very well thought of by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia and that she would follow his lead on...

Everyone knows that, like all good Republican lawyers, John G. Roberts Jr. is a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative law and public policy organization where right-of-center types meet to denounce liberalism and angle for jobs in the Bush administration. And practically everyone -- CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times and, just yesterday, The Washington Post -- has reported Roberts's membership as a fact. One liberal group opposed to Roberts's nomination, the Alliance for Justice, has noted it on its Web site. But they are wrong. John Roberts is not, in fact, a member of the Federalist Society,...

The birth of this nation was not without its labor pains. Right from the start there was dissension among the Founding Fathers - especially when it came to drafting a new constitution. The “federalists,” stressing the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation, called for a stronger national government. The “antifederalists,” on the other hand, believed that this centralization of power could only lead to tyranny. States’ rights advocate Richard Henry Lee saw the inherent problems of what the federalists were proposing: “To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should...