Free Republic

Here's the question asked in my September 2000 column titled "It's Time To Part Company": "If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?" The problem that our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows....

As the Supreme Court weighs a decision on Arizona's controversial immigration law this summer, a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows that more than half of Americans see the law as "about right." The legislation, which was signed into law in April 2010, is considered among the most stringent immigration laws in the nation. It requires Arizona law enforcement members to check the citizenship status of anyone they believe appears to be an undocumented immigrant -- and has incited much controversy about whether or not it effectively legalizes racial profiling in a state with a heavy Latino population. According...

The Department of Justice thinks it can “order” Florida to stop removing illegal non citizens from her voter registration rolls. The Sunshine State announced it will ignore the “order.” Let’s see Barack Obama and Eric Holder back it up. The fight over States’ rights versus the strength of an all powerful central government has been set in motion: the fuse is lit. Since Barack Obama and his Chicago thugs forced bribed and tricked Obamacare into “law” real America has been on a collision course with him. This latest attack on our freedoms will likely only be settled by a courtroom...

ST. LOUIS — U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Wildwood, a candidate for U.S. Senate from Missouri, provided a new twist on a recent argument when he said during a Friday debate he would favor repealing the 17th Amendment. That 1913 addendum to the U.S. Constitution allows state voters to elect U.S. senators rather than having state legislatures appoint them. “I’m very concerned about states’ rights, and if I were to lean one way or the other it would be leaning going back to repeal,” Akin said during a debate sponsored by Springfield television station KY3. The repeal of the 17th Amendment...

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into law a package of tax increases Tuesday targeting six-figure earners, tobacco users and companies engaged in real estate transactions to cover record spending on education. In a two-hour ceremony, it was easily the most recognizable measure O’Malley (D) signed but hardly the most popular. Rather, union members, minorities and interest groups crowded the State House to celebrate more than 200 lesser-known and often narrowly tailored bills. They passed the General Assembly with little fanfare but, taken together, will color the state’s social and political identity a slightly deeper shade of blue. The bills included...

Rep. James Clyburn, the House Democrat's third-ranking leader, said on MSNBC's Daily Rundown Monday that the question of legal recognition of marriage between same-sex couples should not be left to state laws, but instead ought to be decided at the national level, a position that puts him at odds with President Barack Obama.Clyburn told NBC's Chuck Todd, "If we consider this to be a civil right, and I do, I don't think civil rights ought to be left up to a state-by-state approach. I think we should have a national policy on this."

Obama on Monday defended his view that gay couples should have the right to marry, saying that the country has never gone wrong when it “expanded rights and responsibilities to everybody.” “That doesn’t weaken families. That strengthens families,” he told gay and lesbian supporters and others at a fundraiser hosted by singer Ricky Martin and the LGBT Leadership Council. “It’s the right thing to do.” The remarks were his first to such an audience since he announced his personal support for same-sex marriage last week. They came on a day that Obama was making a targeted appeal to three core...

Three of the four candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Virginia agree that efforts to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – which authorizes the direct election of senators – are impractical at best. In post-debate interviews in Roanoke on Saturday, where all four candidates participated in a forum sponsored by the Republican Party of Virginia, the candidates expressed their views on the 17th Amendment in response to questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner. ‘Repeal Amendment’ alternative Jamie Radtke said that she does not think the repeal efforts are viable, “so I’ve been...

Oklahoma is the only state where Obama did not carry one single county in the last presidential election...not a single one! Take a look: Lately, while a lot of attention has been focused on Arizona 's new immigration law, and a good one it is... LOOK WHAT OKLAHOMA IS DOING Oklahoma passed an amendment,, 37 to 9, to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. But, hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values...! HB 1330, so... Guess what..........Oklahoma...

Candidate for Senate Dan Liljenquist (left) pledged to The New American that should he be elected to the U.S. Senate he will offer legislation explicitly repealing the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In a press conference held on April 24 at 2:00 p.m. (MDT), the former Utah State Senator and current GOP challenger to six-term Senator Orrin Hatch described the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA as “an overreach and a violation of the Bill of Rights.” He said that had he been in office when Congress voted to pass the NDAA he would have...

This was posted on one of GaryNorth.com forums. The battle for America’s political soul is always fought on the battlefield of federal politics. That’s why conservatives lose, generation after generation.” Dr. North, would you please elaborate on this, why you believe the battle for America’s political soul is fought in Federal politics and why it is that conservatives continue to lose, generation after generation? From the time of the ratification of the United States Constitution, American politics shifted to the national level. One of the things that I realized late in my career, even though I had been trained as...

Although negotiations over a package of tax increases and a proposed casino collapsed Monday night, the Maryland General Assembly passed a lot of bills this session — 791, to be exact. Of those, 96 percent were passed in the last week, including hundreds in the hours and minutes before midnight on Monday. Here are some highlights from the 90-day session’s last day: STORMWATER FEE The Senate spent much of the session’s waning hours fiercely debating a stormwater fee bill that was on few people’s radar earlier in the session. The bill requires localities to fund projects to reduce polluted runoff...

In a showdown between the Obama Administration and the “Town Too Tough to Die,” the U.S. Forest Service is refusing to allow the City of Tombstone to repair its mountain spring water infrastructure after the 2011 Monument Fire destroyed pipelines and catchments. Despite Gov. Jan Brewer’s declared state of emergency to empower Tombstone to restore its municipal water supply, the feds continue to block Tombstone, citing the Wilderness Act, which was passed decades after Tombstone secured the water rights. The Forest Service's decision risks the lives and properties of Tombstone residents and tourists due to the loss of adequate fire...

We are told that it is up to the Supreme Court to determine what laws are constitutional, but that is hardly in line with the limiting principles offered by the U.S. Constitution. That power the courts claim to have is called Judicial Review, and it is addressed nowhere in the Constitution. In fact, the federal courts seized that power for themselves through an opinion written by Justice John Marshall in the Marbury v. Madison case of 1803. Yes, that’s right, the courts gave that power to themselves. By deciding if laws are constitutional, and since the Supreme Court is a...

When a 1942 Supreme Court decision that most people never heard of makes the front page of the New York Times in 2012, you know that something unusual is going on. What makes that 1942 case — Wickard v. Filburn — important today is that it stretched the federal government's power so far that the Obama administration is using it as an argument to claim before today's Supreme Court that it has the legal authority to impose ObamaCare mandates on individuals. Roscoe Filburn was an Ohio farmer who grew some wheat to feed his family and some farm animals....

The federal government will stop funding a Texas health program that serves 130,000 low-income women because of a state law that bars abortion-affiliated clinics from getting public money, a top U.S. health official said Friday. The federal money, which covers 90 percent of the state's $40 million program, will be phased out between May and September because the law violates federal regulations requiring that women have a choice in medical care, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said during a trip to Houston.

With his presidential aspirations riding on support in the Deep South, NewtGingrich opened his final one-week dash to the crucial Georgia primary on Wednesday with a states' rights plea laden with racial symbolism. His setting was the chamber of Georgia’s House of Representatives. From the rostrum, Gingrich told lawmakers that he would fight for a “very strong” states'-rights platform at the RepublicanParty’s national convention this summer in Tampa,Fla. “I want to return power back home to an extraordinary degree,” said Gingrich, a former U.S. House speaker who represented Georgia in Congress for 20 years. For generations, politicians in the South...

Newt Gingrich addresses the NRA in a way that No Other presidential candidate has before in 24 yrs. Every single website is saturating their news post attempting to downplay Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign. This all-out effort is proof positive that this man is at the right time in the right place. We need somebody like Newt Gingrich that can go into Washington and go to work on day one. All the other presidential candidates are a mere learn on the job apprentices compared to Newt Gingrich.

At CPAC, Texas Gov. Rick Perry quipped, “I haven’t left the fight; I just went home, reloaded my Mag and am fighting on a different front.” Clearly, he wasn’t kidding. Texas today cut Medicaid funding to abortion providers — even though the administration threatened to cut the state’s funding if it did so. The Daily Caller reports: On Thursday, Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Thomas Suehs signed a rule at the behest of lawmakers and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott that will formally ban Planned Parenthood affiliates and other abortion providers from participating in Texas’ Women’s Health Program.The administration...

The measure has the backing of the Senate's top two leaders -- President Pro Tem Tommie Williams, R-Lyons, and Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock -- who have signed on as co-sponsors. "The federal government has excessively abused the authority of state and local governments for some time," Albers said, explaining why he sponsored the proposal. SR 889 has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee.