Free Republic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHERIFF JOE! Arpaio is 80 today, and if it's true that "80 is the new 60" then Joe is far outperforming most 60 year olds as well. Sheriff Joe's department captures an astounding 25% of ALL illegal aliens apprehended in the U.S. every year - 80% of whom are caught heading to states OTHER than AZ. So not only is Joe keeping alien criminals off AZ streets, but also off of streets near YOU. Joe is the biggest symbol we've got in the war against illegal immigration, and now against a corrupt Attorney General and administration trying to...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a reputation for being totally mute during oral arguments – at least during the past six years. There may be a reason for that. The Supreme Court's most silent justice spoke at an event in Charlotte, N.C. on Friday, revealing that he would do away with oral arguments if he could, the Charlotte Observer reports. Thomas spoke at the unveiling of a portrait of David Sentelle, who's a chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and an ex-Charlotte resident. “In Judge Sentelle I discerned a fellow displaced Southerner,”...

As the world awaits the Supreme Court's ruling on ObamaCare, there's a larger story that the pundits are missing: the court's rejection of the Obama administration's increasingly extreme claims on behalf of unlimited federal power. This term alone, the high court has ruled unanimously against the government on religious liberty, criminal procedure and property rights. When the administration can't get even a single one of the liberal justices to agree with it in these unrelated areas of the law, that's a sign there's something wrong with its constitutional vision.

The Constitution created a national government of limited, enumerated powers. Over the years the Supreme Court dismantled many of the original barriers to expansive government. Now the President and the left-wing legal establishment are lobbying the Court to ratify the unprecedented power grab known as Obamacare. America’s health care system is a mess. However, there were better options than a federal takeover through the misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Which is why a majority of Americans continue to oppose the law and support its repeal. Moreover, Obamacare exceeded the federal government’s authority. States have what is known as...

“Until we address the crisis of the failure of our institutions to resolve the significant challenges we face, don’t expect progress on any of them.” Could any statement be more decidedly emblematic of leftist doctrine than the claim that only government and its institutions are equipped to solve the problems of life? Never mind that these are usually problems created by government in its endless quest to solve longstanding problems previously created by government! (1) Two months ago, Barack Obama’s signature “Affordable Care Act” made an unexpected appearance before the United States Supreme Court. Unexpected, that is, because few if...

Amity Shlaes should be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for her epic history of the Great Depression: The Forgotten Man. But, she won't. She won't because she portrays an historical and economically sound assessment of the facts of the Great Depression rather than the whitewashed history taught in our schools. Much like the Obama Administration's profligate spending and castigation of the court, FDR greatly expanded government spending during his first term and used the Commerce Clause to attempt to regulate private businesses. The Schechter brothers were butchers, the middle-men between the farmer who raised chickens and the retail stores...

Two New York legislators have taken a page from the playbook of aspiring internet regulator Joe Lieberman by sponsoring a bill which would make the posting of anonymous comments illegal. The bill written by Republican State Senators Dean Murray and Thomas O’Mara states: “A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his…name to the post and confirms that his…IP address, legal name and home address are accurate. All web site administrators shall have a contact number or e-mail address for...

Two months ago, Barack Obama decided he could intimidate the United States Supreme Court into finding his namesake healthcare plan Constitutional. Overturning the Affordable Care Act “…would amount to an unprecedented, extraordinary step of judicial activism” said the President at a rare White House news conference, adding “…I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress.” (1) Though someone with the hyper-arrogant mentality of the Manchurian Candidate doesn’t really need a reason to direct this sort of...

A little more than a year ago, Harvard Law School Prof. Randall Kennedy sounded the alarm. “Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer should soon retire,” Kennedy wrote in the pages of The New Republic. “That would be the responsible thing for them to do.” If they didn’t, Kennedy warned, and “if Obama loses, they will have contributed to a disaster.” As the presidential race heats up, and the Supreme Court justices settle into their chambers to write their last and most consequential rulings of the 2011-12 term—from health care to immigration—Kennedy’s question once again seems relevant, even revelatory: most...

The case involves Malaika Brooks, who was seven months pregnant and driving her 11-year-old son to school in Seattle when she was pulled over for speeding. The police say she was going 32 miles per hour in a school zone; the speed limit was 20. Ms. Brooks said she would accept a ticket but drew the line at signing it, which state law required at the time. Ms. Brooks thought, wrongly, that signing was an acknowledgment of guilt. Refusing to sign was a crime, and the two officers on the scene summoned a sergeant, who instructed them to arrest Ms....

In his latest display of his full USA federal government dictatorship over both the American people and the former co-branches of government, Dictator Obama is warning the Supreme Court to either rule in his favor or face severe consequences. Fox News’ Martha McCallum advised Thursday that the Obama Administration has been quietly sending missives to the Supreme Court threatening that if it doesn’t rule in his favor on ObamaCare, Medicare will face disruption and “chaos.” Therefore, if SCOTUS rules in favor of the US Constitution, Obama & Co will begin its campaign to either destroy Medicare or make those on...

Dictator Obama Issues New Threat to Supreme Court over ObamaCare In his latest display of his full USA federal government dictatorship over both the American people and the former co-branches of government, Dictator Obama is warning the Supreme Court to either rule in his favor or face severe consequences. Fox News’ Martha McCallum advised Thursday that the Obama Administration has been quietly sending missives to the Supreme Court threatening that if it doesn’t rule in his favor on ObamaCare, Medicare will face disruption and “chaos.” Therefore, if SCOTUS rules in favor of the US Constitution, Obama & Co will begin...

"In a second term," Mitt Romney darkly warned in a speech to the National Rifle Association last month, President Obama "would be unrestrained by the demands of reelection." ...His only specific prediction was that Obama would "remake" the Supreme Court. .... At the end of 2012, we'll face what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke calls "the fiscal cliff": The Bush tax cuts are set to expire, the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts initiated when the deficit "supercommittee" failed to reach a deal are set to begin, we're expected to hit the debt ceiling again, and many other programs and...

President Obama wants to destroy America. This isn’t hyperbole; it is fact. This is the essence of the administration’s lawsuit against Arizona. Recently, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the constitutionality of Arizona’s immigration law, known as SB 1070. The measure was passed by the state Legislature and signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. Opinion polls consistently show a strong majority of Arizonans supports SB 1070. Hence, the administration is seeking to overturn the democratic will of the people. Mr. Obama wants to subordinate states’ rights to the growing federal Leviathan.

With U.S. policymakers distracted by the situation in Honduras, Nicaragua continues to move toward authoritarianism. On October 19, a Nicaraguan Supreme Court panel overturned a constitutional provision limiting presidents to two non-consecutive terms in office. The ruling will allow incumbent Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega--the Sandinista party leader, former Soviet client, vociferous critic of the United States, and current Hugo Chávez acolyte--to run for another term in 2011. If there were any doubts that Nicaraguan democracy is slowly being extinguished, this latest development should remove them. The Nicaraguan Supreme Court is composed of 16 members. Thanks to a political deal made...

We haven’t been doing so good lately with our Supremes arguments. First the slap down in Sackett vs. EPA, then the Obamacare arguments, which were so painful they were handing out prescription pain-killers outside chambers, and now, more judicial rough-up – by our friends no less – on the Arizona Immigration Law? Even the wise Latina had a hard time understanding the wisdom of the Solicitor General’s arguments: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: General, I’m terribly confused by your answer. O.K.? And I don’t know that you’re focusing in on what I believe my colleagues are trying to get to. Can I get...

The Supreme Court of the United States appears likely to uphold some of the key provisions in the Arizona Immigration law. This comes on the heels of the SCOTUS signaling that they will likely be striking down Obamacare, specifically because of problems with the individual mandate. This would be a slap in the face to the Obama Administration and would add to the list of Obama's failed understanding of the Constitution and States Rights. On protecting the Border, President Obama is forgetting his American history. One of the main reasons listed in the US Declaration of Independence as reason for separation from Great Britian was...

(Reuters) - The Supreme Court was deep into arguments over Arizona's new immigration law on Wednesday when the high court's first Hispanic justice focused on how difficult it could be for police officers to determine whether someone they stop is in the United States legally. "What information does your (federal) system have?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli as she methodically extracted a core element of the Obama administration's case against the state of Arizona. "How does that database tell you that someone is illegal as opposed to a citizen?" asked Sotomayor, 57, born in the Bronx...

A cross that was first erected nearly 80 years ago by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in honor of the heroes of World War I will finally be allowed to stand. More than a decade after the ACLU originally sued to have the cross memorial removed from public land, a case which ended up at the Supreme Court, a federal judge has approved a settlement of the case allowing the cross to remain. The ACLJ has been fighting to allow this cross to stand for years - an important war memorial in honor of those who have heroically served in...

The court must decide whether Arizona went too far with a crackdown that includes ordering police to routinely check the legal residency status of people they stop. The court's ruling answer this election year could ignite Capitol Hill, other states and, especially, Hispanic voters.