Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a good friend of the Constitution and We the People, has sent President Obama a powerful letter co-signed by 20 senators. The letter spells out many unlawful aspects of Obama’s recent announcement that he will not enforce U.S. laws against young illegal aliens and will reward their illegal status with residency and work permits.

Grassley doesn’t mince words in his letter. He accuses Obama of taking an action for which he lacks legal authority, is contrary to his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” is an affront to representative government and the legislative process in bypassing Congress, and is an inappropriate use of executive power.

Grassley points out that Obama has full knowledge that his action was unlawful. Just last year, Obama stated, “This notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true. … We live in a democracy. You have to pass bills through the legislature, and then I can sign it.”

Here are a few of the 29 questions, slightly paraphrased and condensed, which Grassley asked the president to answer.

Why has your position on your legal authority changed? Did you consult with attorneys about this and get a legal opinion and, if so, please provide copies of those legal opinions and emails? How will you treat the parents and others who deliberately violated federal immigration law by illegally bringing these young people into the U.S.?

Read More at GOPUSA. By Phyllis Schlafly.

This morning, we have once again been reminded that our system of checks and balances no longer functions for the good of the American people.

Nine lawyers in the Supreme Court, hiding behind legalese written by other lawyers, have decided that Americans, through our various states, have no right to either enforce the sovereignty and security of our borders or demand that the federal government’s lawyers do so.

We don’t count in the cynical view of the lawyers who have wormed their way into controlling our lives essentially “because WE say so.” Oh, they claim the United States Constitution sanctions and supports their denial of our rights of self-defense, but the truth is they have stolen away the power of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution by bowing to claims that what is abundantly obvious is not at all obvious. In effect, the Supreme Court has cynically asked us: “Who are you going to believe: us or your lying eyes?”

To say this was not a political interpretation of law twisted to favor those who would erase our borders and open the floodgates of the world to our midst is the type of infuriating insult we have to take with us as we vote to correct what has happened to our government from top to bottom. This decision ought to be carried like a “bloody shirt” by every American who is alarmed by the ever-quickening pace of the destruction of our freedoms.

Read More at Western Journalism. By Kevin “Coach” Collins.

Photo Credit: Laura Padgett (Creative Commons)

A stunning chart that shows the entire economic history of the world’s most powerful countries over the past 2,000 years has been released by investment bank JP Morgan.

Viewed as a whole, the graph shows the creeping restoration of Asian economic supremacy as the rest-of-the-world catches up to the West and surpasses its levels of industrialisation.

Charting the globe’s 10 major powers since the time of Jesus, the graph can be broken down by simply applying a cut off point at around the 1800 AD mark.

That was the birth of the Industrial Revolution in the UK and when taken into account, everything to the left of that mark can bee seen as economic power through sheer size of population and to the right is the effect of mass production on a country’s economic output.

One feature of the simple graph is to show that up until around 1500 AD India and China accounted for between 50 and 60 percent of the world’s economy until the late 18th century when the Industrial Revolution rendered countries with large populations, just countries with the largest populations.

Read More at dailymail.co.uk. By James Nye.

Our national debt has risen by more than $5 trillion during Obama’s administration, more than what it increased under all previous 43 presidents combined.

The number of Americans on food stamps has risen from 32 million to over 46.4 million in Obama’s three years in office.

At $3.59, the average price of gasoline is $ 1.74 MORE than it was the day Barack Obama was sworn in.

Twenty two percent of American children live in poverty, the highest level in 30 years.

For forty straight months (every single full month of Obama’s reign), unemployment has been 8%.

Forty two percent of American workers are living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Fifty three percent of college graduates under 25 are either unemployed or under-employed.

 Read More at Western Journalism. By Kevin “Coach”Collins.

WASHINGTON – Secret negotiations involving dozens of countries preparing for a United Nations summit on international telecommunications could lead to changes in a global treaty that would diminish the Internet’s role in economic growth and restrict the free flow of information.

The U.S. delegation to the World Conference on International Telecommunications to be held in Dubai in December has vowed to block any proposals from Russia and other countries that they believe threaten the Internet’s current governing structure or give tacit approval to online censorship.

But those assurances have failed to ease fears that bureaucratic tinkering with the treaty could damage the world’s most powerful engine for exchanging information, creating jobs and even launching revolutions, according to legal experts and civil liberties advocates who have been tracking the discussions. Social networks played a key role in the Arab Spring uprisings that last year upended regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.

Russia, for example, has proposed language that requires member states to ensure the public has unrestricted access and use of international telecommunication services “except in cases where international telecommunication services are used for the purpose of interfering in the internal affairs or undermining the sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity and public safety of other states, or to divulge information of a sensitive nature,” according to a May 3 U.N. document that details the various proposals for amending the treaty.

The wording of this provision could allow a country to repress political opposition while citing a U.N. treaty as the basis for doing so. The provision also appears to contradict Article 19 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says people shall have the right to access information “through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Read More at Fox News. Associated Press.