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Sorry, Mr. Obama, The Constitution is Not Negotiable (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

In the United States, we are supposed to have a government that is limited with its parameters established by our Constitution. This notion that the federal government can monitor everyone’s phone data is a major departure from how Americans have traditionally viewed the role of government.

If this is acceptable practice, as the White House and many in both parties now say it is, then there are literally no constitutional protections that can be guaranteed anymore to citizens.

In the name of security, say our leaders, the Constitution has become negotiable. This is what the White House is saying when it defends the National Security Agency’s gathering of Verizon’s client data en masse, or what President Obama calls a “modest encroachment” on our rights, as he assures us that “Nobody is listening to your phone calls.”

Perhaps he can also assure us that nobody at the Internal Revenue Service is targeting political dissidents.

Perhaps he can assure us that nobody at the Justice Department is seizing reporters’ phone records.

Read more from this story HERE.

Constitutional Sheriff of the Year Awarded for Encouraging Citizens to Arm Themselves

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Photo Credit: WND

The cop who told the citizens of Milwaukee to arm themselves against violent criminals has now been crowned the “Constitutional Sheriff of the Year.”

Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. received the award Friday at the annual convention of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, or CSPOA, in St. Charles, Mo.

Clarke became national news in January when he released a Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office public service announcement inviting citizens to join him in the fight against crime by learning to defend themselves from it.

“Simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” the PSA states. “You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed or you can fight back. But are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We’re partners now. Can I count on you?”

Members of the CSPOA were so impressed with Clarke’s PSA, and his defense under blistering scrutiny since releasing it, not even a tornado could stop them from giving him the award.

Read more from this story HERE.

Former IRS Head Can’t Describe 1st or 2nd Amendments of Constitution (+video)

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Photo Credit: APThings got awkward during the House Oversight Committee’s second IRS hearing on Wednesday when Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI), while seemingly making a larger point, couldn’t get former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman to acknowledge certain amendments to the Constitution…

“You know those amendments. The Constitutional amendments,” Bentivolio said matter of factly. “You know the First, you know the Second, and you know the 19th.”

“I don’t necessarily have the Constitution memorized, sir.”

“Okay, well, they’re pretty general in what each one is. Like the First Amendment is the freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. First Amendment, right?”

“I really can’t recite the Constitution, sir,” Shulman concluded.

Read more from this story HERE.

President Obama Is Not Doing His Job

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Photo Credit: White House FlickrGovernment is bad for personal freedom. That argument is premised upon the truism that everything government does interferes with freedom because it either prohibits or compels. Everything it owns it has taken from others. Much of what it says is divorced from the truth. President Obama, like President George W. Bush, has argued that his first job is to keep America safe, and if he impairs personal freedom in the process, that is a small price to pay for safety. Many of my colleagues in the media on the left and right have bought this argument, notwithstanding its fallacies.

Until now.

This past week, we learned that the IRS has targeted for additional scrutiny the tax exemption applications of groups with whose messages it disagrees. We also learned that the Department of Justice obtained the personal telephone records of hundreds of reporters and editors employed by the Associated Press without a search warrant issued by a judge. And during this past week we learned that the White House, the Department of State and the CIA all engaged in a conspiracy of disinformation so that the official version of events of what caused the murders of four Americans at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, would not impair Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.

The common threads in all of this government secrecy and lying are a general rejection of government’s moral obligation to tell the truth, a disturbing yet brazen willingness to evade and avoid the restrictions the Constitution has deliberately built around government, and a glib admission that the government can do as it pleases so long as it can politically get away with it.

The Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause requires that the government treat all similarly situated entities in a similar manner. The Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits the government from using the speech and expressive activities of persons in America as a basis for the disparate treatment of them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rear Admiral Will Not Back Down From ‘My Right Under the Constitution’ to Share Faith

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Faith in the military took center stage Thursday at the 62nd observance of the National Day of Prayer in Washington, D.C, as lawmakers and faith leaders gathered on Capitol Hill.

After a series of speakers addressed those gathered at the Cannon Office Building, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. William D. Lee, took the microphone to represent Americans serving in the military. Lee told the crowd he had 10 minutes of carefully prepared remarks, but he decided to leave them in his chair and “speak from the heart” instead. Lee, who described himself as “a man of deep abiding faith who happens to wear a uniform,” went on to defy any efforts to stop military personnel from openly sharing their Christian faith—a topic sparking widespread controversy in the media this week. (See “Religious battle lines” by Edward Lee Pitts.)

Lee mentioned last year’s record high number of military suicides, 349—roughly one per day—and said every 65 minutes a military veteran will take his or her own life. “I want you to remember that number,” he said.

He recounted a recent meeting with a 24-year-old soldier who had attempted suicide but survived his self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Lee said when he heard the man’s story, he knew the rules said he should send the man to a chaplain, but his heart said to give him a Bible.

“The lawyers tell me that if I do that, I’m crossing the line,” Lee said. “I’m so glad I’ve crossed that line so many times.”

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Senators Say Constitution Doesn't Apply to Bombing Suspect

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Photo Credit: Vjeran Pavic

By Jeremy Herb and Mike Lillis. Two powerful GOP senators are calling on the Obama administration to treat the captured suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings as an “enemy combatant” and deny him counsel even though he is reportedly an American citizen.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, captured Friday night outside Boston after a tense daylong manhunt, should be questioned for intelligence purposes and not read his Miranda rights.

“It is clear the events we have seen over the past few days in Boston were an attempt to kill American citizens and terrorize a major American city,” McCain and Graham said late Friday in a joint statement. “The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorist trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans.”

With Tsarnaev in custody, the lawmakers said, “the last thing we should want is for him to remain silent.”

“We need to know about any possible future attacks which could take additional American lives,” they said. “The least of our worries is a criminal trial which will likely be held years from now.” Read more from this story HERE.

ACLU calls for Miranda rights for Boston bombing suspect

By Mike Lillis. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is calling for the Obama administration to read the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings his legal rights.

The Department of Justice indicated Friday that the administration would not read 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights, citing a public safety exception.

But Anthony Romero, the ACLU’s executive director, said Saturday that the immediate threat is over and that Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year, should now be treated like any other suspected criminal.

“Every criminal defendant is entitled to be read Miranda rights,” Romero said in a statement. “The public safety exception should be read narrowly. It applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is not an open-ended exception to the Miranda rule.”

Tsarnaev was captured Friday night in the Boston suburb of Watertown after leading law enforcers on a tense, day-long manhunt that captured the attention of the nation and locked down much of Greater Boston. Read more from this story HERE.

President Obama Would Get 3 Terms Under Pending House Resolution

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Americans around the nation were shocked Friday as they heard about H.J.Res. 15. H.J.Res 15 proposes an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment. This would remove the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President. Rep. José Serrano (D- NY15) introduced the controversial joint resolution on Friday, the second day of the 2013 legislative session…

The last President to serve more than two terms was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt served three full terms as President and was elected to a fourth term. Roosevelt died 83 days into his fourth term in office.

Congress passed the Twenty-second Amendment on March 21, 1947. The required number of states ratified it in 1951.

Read more from this story HERE.

NJ Mother Pressured Turn Over Her Guns, Charged With ‘Terroristic Threats’ After Reading The Constitution At Tax Dispute Assembly

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A New Jersey mother was arrested and told to turn over her guns after reading the Constitution and peacefully protesting at a tax dispute forum, she says.

Photo Credit: the Hart family

Eileen Hart was with her husband Keith and her 7-year-old daughter on Saturday at the Gloucester Community Center to dispute a mandatory home re-evaluation that would roughly double her property value (and therefore dramatically increase her rates), objecting on multiple grounds. As an Orthodox Jew, she refused to have the inspectors in her home when her husband was away at work. As an American citizen, she objected to the seemingly arbitrary reappraisal, noting that she is not planning on selling her home and hasn’t renovated her kitchen in 30 years.

But at the forum, Hart was allegedly told that since she didn’t let the inspectors into her home, they had a right to “assume” its value under the New Jersey state constitution.

“How could they assume that my value had doubled when there is absolutely no housing market?” she asked TheBlaze rhetorically over the phone. “There is basically no GDP growth.”

After Hart started citing the Constitution, a representative of Appraisal Systems, Inc.– the company contracted by the state to conduct appraisals– started “freaking out,” she said, and called for Gloucester County tax assessor Robyn Glocker-Hammond.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Republicans Launch ‘2nd Amendment Initiative’ v. Obama Gun Agenda

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Photo Credit: Rep. Stutzman’s officeThe House Republican Study Committee (RSC) has launched a Second Amendment Initiative for the 113th Congress under the leadership of Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Third District) to counter what they believe is President Barack Obama’s “out-of-touch agenda” on gun control.

In a press release, RSC Chairman Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Indiana) asserted that the president’s “radical anti-gun agenda is a threat to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

“Efforts to take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans will not reduce crime or prevent criminals from breaking the law,” Scalise said. “We will not allow President Obama and liberals in Congress to take away our right to bear arms.”

The president, according to Politico, has reined in major gun prohibition groups to concentrate on pushing new measures, including so-called “universal background checks” and a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and their original capacity magazines. Politico, quoting unnamed sources, noted that none of the participants will openly discuss what goes on in meetings at the White House with Bruce Reed, chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden.

In exchange for what amounts to obedience to the Obama agenda, these groups, Politico reported, have “a voice in the discussions, a role in whatever final agreement is made and weekly meetings at the White House…”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Overstepped Constitutional Authority, Federal Court Rules

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Photo Credit: BreitbartPresident Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by making appointments when the Senate was on a break last year, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court’s broad ruling would sharply limit the power that presidents throughout history have used to make recess appointments in the face of Senate opposition and inaction.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit flatly rejected the Obama administration’s rationale for appointing three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) while the Senate was on a holiday break.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle sharply criticized the administration’s interpretation of when recess appointments may be made, saying it would give the president “free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.” He added, “This cannot be the law.”

The Post notes that, due to a number of other similar lawsuits winding their way through the courts, this case is likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. But for now, the court has ruled that the appointments are illicit. You can review the full decision here.

The ruling is an extraordinary slap down of President Obama’s power grab. Next time you hear a liberal tell you that President Obama is a moderate or “pragmatic,” recall the appellate panel’s analysis of Obama’s legal justification for appointing these czars without the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate – Obama’s legal arguments “would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement.”

Read more from this story HERE.