First Principles

Steve Sebelius wrote a nice piece – from the left, no less – which correctly points out the tremendous danger of President Obama’s completely lawless non-recess recess appointment of Richard Cordray to be the Director of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  But then Sebelius tries to find a Constitutional fig leaf for the [...]

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Republicans in Clark County have been up in arms over some new election regulations being pushed through by the Secretary of State’s Office over the holidays.  I admit, the timing is very suspicious, and should alone raise all kinds of red flags.  But the article on it is frustrating, because nowhere is there any hint [...]

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Mitt Romney has always been my default candidate in this race.  He’s acceptable, good enough, has some points about him I really like, could beat Obama, and ultimately would be a vastly better President than the current one.  And his resume is full of taking economically failing institutions and slashing their waste until they’re successful [...]

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I missed last Thursday’s debate where Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann took aim at the Supreme Court, and indeed, the Federal Judiciary generally.  But since then Newt has kept at it, and his answers make me incredibly nervous. The principle of limited government means that government must be strictly limited – even if you like [...]

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I keep thinking about Christina Green, the 9 year old girl who was murdered in Tuscon this weekend. I think about how many political events I’ve been to, and how many times my family has been with me.  I think about my own little girl.  I think of the many drawers full of felony cases [...]

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The Constitution is not a difficult document to read, or even to understand.  Sure, there has been much debate over the years.  But in the last 80 years or so, much of the debate is not about what it means, but about how to get around what it means without actually amending the document. But [...]

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This last weekend my wife and I went to a Christmas party, and on the way to drop off the little one, we passed the DUI checkpoint on Kietzke.  It was 6:30 PM, and the line of delayed cars stretched for blocks.  Anyone turning around was pulled over for evading the checkpoint, which is a [...]

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University of Chicago Law Professor Richard Epstein makes Virginia v. Sebelius easy to understand for anyone who cares to actually understand the Constitutional (as opposed to policy) arguments against ObamaCare: The key successful move for Virginia was that it found a way to sidestep the well known 1942 decision of the Supreme Court in Wickard [...]

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But when he’s done in court, he should get rid of the policy altogether.

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Attorney General Cortez-Masto’s decision to ignore the Governor’s request and to not join over one third of the Union in a Constitutional challenge against ObamaCare is a travesty.  The threat to our country and to our state particularly is real and immediate, and our participation in the lawsuit is critical to the rule of law [...]

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Well, no big surprises.  He made the same promises that he made a year ago, and the only difference is that now we can be even more sure he won’t keep any of them. The big takeaway from me on this was just how unserious this speech was. 

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Obama has declared the program a “success.” But what does that mean?  Consider: Congress authorized $1 Billion for the program, and expected it to last until November.  It didn’t make it past the first week of August.  This is an important thing to consider when considering the President’s own spending and deficit projections. That first [...]

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Note:  I wrote most of this before President Obama announced his Sotomayor nomination.  Stand by for more on that in the coming days. A friend of mine from law school recently posted this article from The Gawker on Facebook.  Ordinarily, my friend, although I usually disagree with him, posts interesting and thought provoking links.  Alas, [...]

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What do you call it when a gift is forced on you, “for your own good” as well as the good of your family and neighbors? And then what happens when you try to give that gift back, and aren’t allowed to? What happens when the response to the attempt to give that gift back [...]

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Today, Obama signed the uber-porky federal budget, which is plenty bad enough at a time when the federal government needs more than ever to watch every penny.  But along with it, he included a signing statement declaring that he considered 5 of the provisions he was signing into law unconstitutional, and would not enforce them. [...]

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During the Bush Administration, there were a few members of the military who deserted their country and their brothers in arms.  In order to justify their treason, they decided on their own that the Iraq war was Unconstitutional.  Their legal reasoning was absurd, but more importantly, they didn’t have the authority or standing to make [...]

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Amused Cynic points out this centuries-old but all-too-relevant warning from James Madison in Federalist No. 61: It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; [...]

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A lot has been already made about Barack Obama’s lament that “economic justice” and “redistribution of wealth” wasn’t a priority for the Warren Court.  (I’ve even heard some people call his arguments “conservative” because he suggests that the courts may not be the best places to achieve such re-distribution.)  Not enough has been made, to [...]

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I got a campaign call yesterday from a supporter of local pawn shop manager and proud pit bull owner James Smack, a self-proclaimed “Constitutionalist” running against Dean Heller for his Congressional seat in the Republican primary.  He’s a Ron Paul type, and I’m not, so I politely told his supporter I was voting for the [...]

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