Provided courtesy of the Committee for American Resource Self-Reliance

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Environmental Protection Agency had "no legal basis" to disapprove a Texas plan for implementing federal air-quality standards, a federal appeals court said.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the agency to reconsider the Texas regulations and "limit its review" to ensuring that they meet the "minimal" Clean Air Act requirements that govern state implementation plans.

"If Texas's regulations satisfy those basic requirements, the EPA must approve them," the court said in its 22-page ruling this week.

The EPA rejected Texas' rules on minor new-source review permits in September 2010, saying they didn't meet Clean Air Act requirements. The Texas attorney general, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and businesses sued the EPA, challenging the ruling.

The EPA failed to identify any provisions of the law that the Texas program violated, the appeals court said. The agency also missed a deadline to rule on the Texas permit plan, the court said.

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"Every word employed in the Constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or judicial research. They are instruments of a practical nature, rounded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. The people make them, the people adopt them, the people must be supposed to read them, with the help of common-sense, and cannot be presumed to admit in them any recondite meaning or any extraordinary gloss."  

-- Joseph Story, Constitution (5th ed.) 345, SS 451.

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

-- Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789

"What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them ... the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers."

-- James Madison, Federalist No. 44, 1788

The government is operating under a flawed understanding about human nature.

theTrumpet.com

February 22, 2012

by JOEL HILLIKER

Crucial question: Do you think human nature is fundamentally good—or evil?

The difference between these two opposing views forms the heart of a crisis in the United States right now.

The common liberal view of human nature is that it is fundamentally good and should be given room to flourish. The biblical and realist view is that it is fundamentally evil and must be conscientiously governed.

Thankfully, America’s Founders took the latter view. As a result, the system of government they created has stood for over two centuries and done much to guarantee the nation’s success.

They realized that government is necessary in order to check the evils of human nature in society. They also recognized—having fought and bled in order to free themselves from a tyrant—that firm limits on power are needed in order to check the evils of human nature within the government.

. . . .

In the Constitution, the American Founders established a system that successfully governs the government. 

. . . .

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Alan Keyes counters 'religious freedom' claim regarding contraceptive mandate

WorldNetDaily.com

Alan Keyes

In my WND column last Friday, I pointed out that “every assertion of a fundamental human right necessarily relies in turn upon an assertion about what is right.” Today this fact is more often than not ignored, even by Americans who profess to be ardent defenders of the liberty America’s founders intended to establish and preserve. Madison succinctly summarized the founders’ understanding when he said that “Justice is the end of government, it is the end of civil society. …” But the Declaration of Independence makes clear that the end or aim of the institution of government is to secure God-endowed unalienable rights. (“To secure these rights governments are instituted among men. …”) Justice is thus identified with the security (safe existence) of unalienable rights, because both are identified as the singular end or aim of government. (If A=C and B=C, then A=B.)

This appears even more plainly when we recall that the root of justice (Latin “iustus”) is right (Latin “ius” or “ious”). But in the context of the Declaration’s stated purpose for government, God endows right (i.e., He provides the “income” that establishes it; He determines what goes into it; He is the source of its conceptual substance or meaning). In the Declaration America’s founders declare that the colonies “are, and of right ought to be free and independent States. …” Their free condition is thus identified as a matter or right, a consequence of the substance or meaning which God endows their nature. By invoking their natural right they invoke the authority of the Creator, which is its source and substantiation.

Since the founders’ assertion of freedom invokes the authority of the Creator, the validity of the assertion depends on its conformity with the substance or meaning of right established by that authority. But this dependency has a consequence. It restricts the assertion of freedom within boundaries determined by this conformity to God-endowed right. Freedom is therefore not an unlimited potential for action. The assertion of freedom is valid only for action in conformity with the substance or meaning of right as established (endowed) by the Creator.

By this straightforward logic Abraham Lincoln was bound to conclude that one cannot have the right to do what is wrong. If it is wrong, for instance, to murder innocent people, one cannot claim to do so as a matter of right. If it is wrong, by enslaving them, to violate their God-endowed liberty, one cannot claim to do so as a matter of right.

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American Minute with Bill Federer

George Washington was born FEBRUARY 22, 1732.

He was unanimously chosen as the Army's Commander-in-Chief, unanimously chosen as President of the Constitutional Convention, and unanimously chosen as the first U.S. President.

After having the Declaration of Independence read to his troops, General Washington ordered chaplains placed in each regiment, stating:

"The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country."

General Washington stated at Valley Forge, May 2, 1778:

"To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian."

To the Delaware Indian Chiefs who brought three youths to be trained in American schools, General Washington stated, May 12, 1779:

"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ."

As recorded in The Writings of George Washington (March 10, 1778, 11:83-84, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934), record George Washington's order:

"At a General Court Marshall whereof Colo. Tupper was President...Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom's Regiment tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier;

Secondly, For Perjury in swearing to false Accounts, found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of 5th. Article 18th Section of the Articles of War and do sentence him to be dismiss'd the service with Infamy.

His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Liett. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return."

In his Farewell Address, 1796, Washington stated:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.

In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness."