OREGON SHERIFF: EXEC. ORDERS THAT OFFEND CONSTITUTION WILL NOT BE ENFORCED

◼ Linn County Oregon Sheriff Tim Mueller cut right to the chase in an open letter to Vice President Biden on January 14: "Any federal regulation enacted by Congress or executive order...offending the constitutional rights of my citizens will not be enforced by me or my deputies." - Awr Hawkins/Breitbart

Elsewhere in the letter, Mueller touched on the key problem American citizens are now facing, as gun-grabbers use the crimes of a few to justify taking away the liberties of many:

We are Americans. We must not allow, nor will we tolerate, the actions of criminals, no matter how heinous the crimes, to prompt politicians to enact laws that will infringe upon the liberties of responsible citizens who have broken no laws.
Muller closed his letter thus: "In summary, it is the position of this Sheriff that I refuse to participate, or stand idly by, while my citizens are turned into criminals due to the unconstitutional actions of misguided politicians."

Reporter Mocks Carney: 'I'm Not Going to Indulge Your West Wing Fantasies'

◼ White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to mock a reporter for asking a question he didn't like. The reporter, in turn, mocked Carney, the White House spokesman, telling him, "I'm not going to indulge your West Wing fantasies."

Journalists, Politicians Refuse to Post Lawn Sign saying "HOME IS PROUDLY GUN FREE"

◼ What I most admire about James O’Keefe… - Michelle Malkin

As you all know, several newspapers over the years have endangered law-abiding gun owners under the guise of transparency and public service by publishing databases of registered concealed handgun permit holders (see an early example on this blog from 2007). After the horrible Newtown massacre,The Journal News in New York and the Star-Ledger in New Jersey took it upon themselves to demonize law-abiding gun owners and provide free road maps to criminals.

O’Keefe and his Project Veritas took it upon themselves to visit some of these journalists, as well as liberal MSNBC anti-gunner Toure’ and Eric Holder’s residence.

Watch:



◼ Over the last few weeks, our citizen journalists visited the homes of well-known reporters who advocate FOR gun control measures. - Project Veritas

Debt Ceiling: Default Not at Issue, Federal Spending Is

◼ President Obama is expected to make his case for a debt ceiling increase at a press conference this morning. The development comes as House Republicans are reportedly weighing “default” and “government shutdown.” While it’s encouraging that conservatives are gearing up for a fight, it’s important that policymakers and the public keep those two terms straight. - J.D. Foster, Ph.D./Heritage

Default. The only way the federal government would default on its debt in the event the debt ceiling remains unchanged is for the Treasury to choose to default—an utterly implausible eventuality. Suggestions to the contrary in the press and elsewhere are simply inaccurate and shameful.

The amount of debt the federal government is allowed to issue is set by statute.

Federal spending is similarly established by law. Treasury is at once prohibited by law from issuing additional debt above the limit and obligated by law to spend certain amounts for designated purposes. The Treasury has certain tools it can use to muddle through once the debt ceiling is reached, but these terms are limited and are expected to be exhausted toward the end of February.

If the federal government exhausted its financial management tools, then government spending would be limited to incoming receipts. At that point, the law setting a debt limit and the laws in place directing government spending would conflict—something would have to give.

Hume: ‘Strikingly aggressive and partisan’ Obama looking to deepen problems for GOP

◼ On Monday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” senior Fox political analyst Brit Hume said that President Barack Obama’s tone in his press conference earlier in the day was unusually partisan, especially for a time when there is no election campaign underway. The speech “was strikingly aggressive and partisan,” he said. - Daily Caller

“If you heard it and you didn’t know when it was, you might think that the election campaign was still in full swing,” Hume said. “I mean it was unusually partisan. Most presidents, you know, they may make sort of quiet references to the other party. This president is more directly partisan under normal circumstance than any other president than I can remember. And I think he senses that the Republican Party is in bad order with the public and that if he can deepen that problem for them, it softens them up to do things his way. But it is striking. He was strikingly aggressive and partisan.”

Hume also said the upcoming debt ceiling fight will be better for the GOP than the recent fiscal cliff fight, though Obama’s willingness to attack was more evidence of “a real partisan brawl” to come.

“This is a place where the Republicans have more leverage than they did in the recent fight over the so-called fiscal cliff,” Hume said. “What was at the center of that was the fact that the law already was going to raise taxes on everybody. And that was the fact of life Republicans really never could get around, which is why they basically, you know, had to go along for what — by the time they voted on it — was a tax cut for most people. This situation is different: The debt ceiling doesn’t get raised by itself; and it has to be done, and everybody knows it eventually has to be done. So they understand it’s not a popular step, as the president’s own vote against it shows. They’re trying to extract some spending cuts as a price for that. And the president is accusing them of wanting to, you know, leave the lame, the blind and the children and the elderly people out in the cold. This is a real partisan brawl.”

Judge Napolitano: President Obama ‘Absolutely’ Cannot Use the 14th Amendment to Raise the Debt Ceiling

◼ Some Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have called on President Obama to use the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in order to raise the debt ceiling without Congressional approval. (Video) - FOX News Insider

The 14th Amendment reads: “validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

The debt ceiling of $16.4 trillion is set to hit again on March 1, and a report last week found that it could actually be reached as early as Feb. 15.

So does the U.S. Constitution actually give President Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling? Stuart Varney asked the question to Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox Business Network this morning.

“Absolutely not,” said Napolitano. “Because the Constitution itself says that only Congress can raise money, only Congress can spend money, and only Congress can borrow money. The president knows that. Every single president – from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama – when they want to raise money, goes to the Congress and gets permission for it.”

...Napolitano said the phrase of the Constitution cited by Pelosi and others is not being used in the right context.

“The 14th Amendment is one of the three post-Civil War amendments,” he explained. “So in order for the seceding southern states to return to the union, they had to agree to adopt the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. The 14th Amendment says ‘the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned,’ because one of the debts that the federal government still had to pay after the Civil War was the debt incurred by fighting the Civil War. And who was going to pay that? The returning southern states, as well as the northern states. … (The 14th Amendment) prevented (the southern states) from saying ‘we’re not going to pay.’”