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A Physician's Take on the "Death Panel" Revelation
Over the Christmas holiday weekend, The New York Times revealed that the Obama Administration's Medicare Regulators have enacted new regulatory guidelines, in complete defiance of Congress, that will result in Health Care providers receiving payment to give annual “end-of-life counseling” to their patients. As a physician, I can tell you that we doctors do routinely have end-of-life discussions with our patients. This is a necessary part of our job. But we do it when it is appropriate and in...

Read It and Weep
How the Tea Party's fetish for the Constitution as written may get it in trouble. By Dahlia Lithwick Slate.com Posted Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2011 A reading of the Constitution during a Tea Party Patriots rallyMembers of the Tea Party are really into the Constitution. We know this because on Thursday, House Republicans propose to read the document from start to finish on the House floor, and they also propose to pass a rule requiring that every piece of new Legislation identify the source of its cons...

2011: Year of the Constitution
Congress’s first public act after getting sworn in tomorrow will be a reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House — apparently the first time this has been done in the history of the Republic.  This symbolic closely parallels a new rule the Republican House majority is implementing: members will now have to cite specific Constitutional Authority for any bill they introduce. As Roger Pilon explains in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, this focus on the Constitut...

Congress Rediscovers the Constitution
If the new Congress to be sworn in on Wednesday is the Tea Party’s cardinal achievement so far, its most symbolic achievement will unfold the next day, when the first order of business in the House will be a reading, aloud, of the Constitution - by all accounts, for the first time in the nation’s history. I discuss this issue more fully in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. Let me add simply this: Symbols are important. When the House votes next week to rescind ObamaCare...

It Helps to See Your Thoughts in Black and White
From American Spectator Follow the Rule of Law The 2010 Midterm Elections represent a resounding Referendum on the Obama Administration. Voters turned out to repudiate policies with which they disagreed. At the forefront of voter displeasure were the new administration’s massive spending and the ever-burgeoning National Debt. However, many voters also expressed concern that the Obama Administration was taking actions that were at odds with fundamental principles of law. The coming year r...

Harper chooses fresh spokesman for a stale environmental policy
Last updated Tuesday, Jan. 04, 2011 8:55PM EST With the Obama Administration taking its first concrete steps toward fighting Global Warming, Stephen Harper had a perfect opportunity to use his cabinet shuffle as a springboard for a new approach to the environment. Instead, the Prime Minister chose a fresh spokesman to sell the status quo. While the Conservatives have moved to control automobile emissions and to protect environmentally sensitive spaces, the government refuses to make combatting c...

New at Reason: Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer on the Death Panel Revelation
Before passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last year, Congress removed a provision that would have financially rewarded Health Care providers for having annual end-of-life counseling discussions with patients. Over the Christmas holiday weekend, The New York Times revealed that the Obama Administration’s Medicare Regulators have restored this highly Controversial provision through new regulatory guidelines. In other words, writes Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer, the Executive Branch ...

Police-Created Exigent Circumstances in Kentucky v. King
Next week, the Supreme Court will be hearing oral argument in Kentucky v. King, a potentially significant case on the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment. The exigent circumstances exception is a longstanding exception to the warrant requirement, but the Supreme Court has carefully avoided saying what the actual test is for exigent circumstances.  The King case is on a specific aspect of the exception — when police conduct creates exigent circumstances, which ...

Cross In Calif. Public Park Found Unconstitutional
A war Memorial Cross in a San Diego public park is Unconstitutional because it conveys a message of government Endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a two-decade-old case. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the unanimous decision in the dispute over the 29-foot cross, which was dedicated in 1954 in honor of Korean War Veterans. The court said modifications could be made to make it constitutional, but it didn't specify what those change...

Appeals Court Says Cross on Federal Land Unconstitutional
The Memorial Cross at the center of a 22-year Legal Battle was ruled Unconstitutional on Tuesday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Mount Soledad memorial cross, located in the desert near La Jolla, Calif., was built in 1952 to honor American Veterans of the Korean War. In its ruling the court said the 43-foot cross conveys a message of government Endorsement of religion that violates the Constitution. The American Civil Liberties Union has fought to have the cross removed. They have a...

NYT editorial: There He Goes Again
Justice Antonin Scalia has a knack for drawing unflattering light to himself and the Supreme Court. Recall, for example, when he refused to recuse himself from a case involving the energy Task Force run by Dick Cheney, his friend and duck-hunting companion, when Mr. Cheney was vice president. Justice Scalia is now getting attention for his outlandish view, expressed in an interview in the magazine California Lawyer, that the promise of equal protection in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment do...

Let's stop pretending the Constitution is sacred
Will Conservatives restore America to Constitutional Government? The new Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has promised not only to begin the new congressional session by reading the Constitution in its entirety, but also to require that every new piece of Legislation cite the passage in the federal Constitution that authorizes it. These gestures are certain to please the Conservatives of the Tea Party movement who are the ascendant force in Republican Primary Elections. But ...

Outsourcing Democracy
The 112th Congress opens today with a reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives. Hopefully, the lawmakers pay special attention to Article 1, where the Founders outlined the powers of Congress. These include coining money, declaring war, and making law. The past century or so has witnessed Congress outsource these and other powers to the Federal Reserve, the regulatory Bureaucracy, the Executive Branch, and the courts. This is bad news for the American People, whose direct rol...

Contract from America
I was involved in the formation of the Contract from America. I found their site early on in the process and added my voice and ideas to the many citizens who worked on this. Our main themes were individual liberty, Limited Government and economic freedom. To achieve these goals, we listed the top ten “planks” that would be required of any Candidate that we would support. I received an email yesterday: We Applaud Republican Congress for Instituting Top Idea in the “Contract from Americ

Prop 8: Back to the California Supreme Court
The fate of Prop 8 has moved through the federal legal system with relative speed --- until now. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is kicking a dicey and important procedural question --- whether propopents of the California ban on same-sex marriage actually have standing to appeal --- to the state Supreme Court. They argue that it is better left to that court to provide clarity on a matter of state Constitutional Law. Last month, during oral arguments, they r...

Obamacare: When Obama LIKES Imposing Higher Costs on The Poor
My friend George Scoville, who works for the Cato Institute, asked a question that really does go to show the left’s hypocrisy. This time the question reveals a “feature” of ObamaCare that tends to expose hypocrisy so large that an ambulance could drive through it. (See how I said “ambulance” there to keep with the whole medical theme?)...

Filibuster Reform May Be Unconstitutional
The left has been messaging for over a year that the Senate should abolish the Filibuster.  They now are desperate to seize complete control of one chamber of the federal legislature so they can play defense against Speaker of the House John Boehner’s (R-OH) conservative agenda and lock Senate Republicans out of the legislative process.  Now is the time and the liberals are ready to pull the trigger of what some call the “Nuclear Option” to restrict the

Signing Away Guantnamo
Over at ProPublica, Dafna Linzer has a story on discussions within the Obama Administration about issuing a signing statement with the new defense bill, in which the President would say that he won’t follow some of its provisions. The parts of the law he wants to ignore involve a ban on the Military using any money to bring accused Terrorists from Guantánamo to the United States for trial, and on the transfer of any Prisoners to third countries without what amounts to prophesies about...

Steven Cohen: Congress and the Coming Fact Free Climate Policy Debate
As EPA moves to regulate greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act, the symbolic politics of fact free fear are picking up predictable steam. New York Times reporter John Broder observed in a piece filed on December 30th that: "With the Federal Government set to regulate climate-altering gases from factories and Power Plants for the first time, the Obama Administration and the new Congress are headed for a clash that carries substantial risks for both sides." Broder outlines the political stak...

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup
Today marks the re-launch the SEPP web site, www.sepp.org. The web site is on a new server with an exceptional software system that allows great flexibility and features that were not available on the previous system, to include advanced search options. One can now view current and past TWTWs on www.sepp.org. These will be updated consistently. Significant work remains to be done so parts of the site will be under construction for some time. Please bear with us. Within a few months we expect to ...

VACATION OVER: Obama to use executive powers...
President Obama challenged congressional Republicans to embrace the "shared responsibility" of governance even as the White House appears ready to use unilateral executive powers to battle Capitol Hill. With Republicans taking over the House and increasing their number in the Senate, Obama faces the possibility of having his agenda stalled with limited room to maneuver -- making for tough sledding in the two years leading up to his 2012 re-election bid. In response, Obama is expected to make mo...

Yes, Obama Will Skirt Congress to Enact His Agenda
This isn’t exactly new news, but plenty of people were probably busy over the holidays and may not be aware of what President Obama has in store for us. He’s calling on Congress to be Bipartisan and work with him. But he’s not taking his own advice. President Obama challenged congressional Republicans to embrace the “shared responsibility” of governance even as the White House appears ready to use unilateral executive powers to battle Capitol Hill. With Republica...

Limited Powers
Regarding “ObamaCare and the General Welfare Clause” (op-ed, Dec. 27) by Randy E. Barnett and David G. Oedel: The wonder is that this key statement could need any help considering that 221 years ago James Madison clearly identified some common misunderstandings of the general welfare clause and explained what the Founders meant, clearly, thoughtfully, and I’m sure he felt finally, when in Federalist Number 41 he wrote: “Some . . . have grounded a very fierce attack agains...

Joy Behars Stupid Question
It has often been said that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it’s never stupid to seek answers, but it’s not hard to come up with examples of inane inquiries. Consider a recent gem from the cantankerous Joy Behar. In a discussion with leftist radio talker Bill Press, she marveled at the anticipated reading of the entire U.S. Constitution from the House floor. Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand? If ever t...

Birthright citizenship looms as next immigration battle
NOGALES, Ariz. -- Of the 50 or so women bused to this border town on a recent morning to be deported back to Mexico, Inez Vasquez, eight months pregnant, stood out. "All I want is a better life," she said after the Border Patrol discovered her hiding in the bushes on the Arizona side of the border with her husband, her young son and her very pronounced abdomen. The next big Immigration battle looming centers on Illegal Immigrants' offspring, who are granted automatic Citizenship like all other...