“Conscience is the most sacred of all property.” James Madison Yet another aspect of the American Affordable Care Act has caused the Obama Administration to come-a-cropper with the United States Constitution. The act has already inspired a dense thicket of law suits over its individual mandate provision that forces people to buy insurance or pay a penalty tax for not so doing. Recently, Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sibelius, has added more fuel to the legal bonfire that has erupted over ObamaCare

On November 14, 2011, the Supreme Court agreed to review the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care act. The central question is, What limits does the Constitution — specifically, the Commerce Clause — impose upon the federal government’s exercise of power? This health-care act is the defining legislation of the president’s term, and the issue of limited government is at the very heart of the debate between Obama and his opponents

As the implementation of Obamacare rolls into high gear, we’ve been given insight into how it will be implemented in general. On January 20, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would not exempt health plans provided by non-profit religious employers from the requirement to provide “contraceptive services.” … Today the department is announcing that the final rule on preventive health services will ensure that women with health insurance coverage will have access to the full range of the Institute of Medicine’s recommended preventive services, including all FDA -approved forms of contraception.

When Pliny the Younger was a provincial governor in the Roman Empire, he wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan asking whether he should execute Christians who refused to burn incense in worship of the emperor. Pliny, in keeping with the customs of the empire, did not care about forcing Christians to believe that the emperor was a god.

Mitch McConnell wanted you to know he was livid on Thursday. The Senate was about to Greece the wheels for adding yet another trillion and change to President Obama’s yet-again tapped-out credit card. “More spending, more debt,” brayed the minority leader.

You would think that with one of the weakest economic recoveries on record, President Obama would be desperately searching for ways to promote economic growth. It is, after all, an election year

By: Susan Jones (CNSNews.com) – Witnesses told a House panel on Wednesday that the Obama administration’s definition of a “religious employer” under Obamacare must change immediately, or else Catholic and other read more

Liberals had a dim view of Herman Cain’s character long before this week. They automatically ascribed bad motives to him and to his GOP supporters.

At the Heritage Foundation last week, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan demonstrated why he doesn’t need to be running for President to be framing the debate for 2012. He delivered there on October 26 a breathtakingly beautiful speech on Saving the American Idea, which defines the Spirit of 2012.

Saw a headline that made me smile, I swear: “Obama’s team banks on his ‘regular guy’ appeal.” (Article here .) Our president, regular guy? Where? An Antioch faculty lounge

To much hype, the Obama administration has issued an executive order (EO), allegedly designed to reduce the growing problem of drug shortages. This is undoubtedly a complex subject and there are a variety of factors at work, but the text of the EO reveals something quite different from what most reports suggest, namely that the administration plans to work with industry to make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to address the problem of product shortages.

The Islamic democracy project is nothing if not beguiling. From Clinton’s Orwellian “peace process” through Bush’s cloying “freedom agenda” to Obama’s contortion of an Islamist ascendancy into “the Arab Spring,” the dream teems with self-congratulation, so much so that its debilitating downsides go unseen and unaddressed.

A lot of people seem startled that President Obama just announced that 100 US troops are going to central Africa to aid in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army, a loathsome group that has been brutally terrorizing the region for 24 years. But it’s actually not that surprising, and is in fact explicitly authorized by an act of Congress (which is more than we can say for the intervention in Libya). The Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 establishes , among other things, that US policy includes providing political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lord’s Resistance Army, to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield in the continued absence of a negotiated solution, and to disarm and demobilize the remaining Lord’s Resistance Army fighters; The bill passed with no real opposition — by unanimous consent in the Senate, and by voice vote in the House.

Obama visits Michigan to tout his “jobs plan” and his auto bailout. ( NYT ) Republicans are holding a House committee hearing on Solyndra; Steven Chu is not testifying. ( The Hill ) A clash is ahead for Occupy Wall Street and the city of New York after Mayor Bloomberg said they’re going to clean up the park the protesters are camped out in.

I’m not a number. I’m not a line item on a budget. And I’m definitely not a pushover.

There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

Quin Hillyer thinks Eric Holder should not hold on as Attorney General. I read his piece and find little with which to disagree. Nevertheless, I think Holder should stay

A little while back, I composed a list of the ten greatest “state-actor” threats to American security interests, both at home and abroad. I ranked Iran #2, given their reckless bellicosity, nuclear ambitions and willingness to fight America by proxy

The U.S. Postal Service has faced serious budget shortfalls in recent years and is looking at a long-term problem as mail volume declines. However, that’s not the primary reason that USPS’ budget is in crisis

F.H.