Free Republic

A Sacramento-based legal group has joined Virginia’s battle against the federal health care overhaul, filing an amicus brief in federal court in Richmond supporting the argument being advanced by Virginia Attorney general Ken Cuccinelli. The Pacific Legal Foundation “friend of the court” brief argues, like Cuccinelli, that the insurance mandate provision of the new health care law violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause by ordering individual citizens to buy a good or service or face a fine.

Helena, Mont. (AP) - A federal magistrate is recommending dismissal of a lawsuit filed by eight states seeking freedom from federal gun laws. The recommendation now goes to the federal judge hearing the case. The states argue they should decide which rules would control the sale and purchase of guns and paraphernalia made inside their borders. The federal magistrate sided Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Justice and gun control advocates who say the courts have already decided that Congress can set standards on such items as guns through its power to regulate interstate commerce. The states in the lawsuit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WjaddBoTgI

Americans have now learned about the extreme views of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court. Kagan’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee contained much clear evidence of her expansive view of federal power and her lack of respect for the 2nd Amendment. Kagan’s views on the Commerce Clause and Americans’ right to “keep and bear arms” make her unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. Senators should filibuster her nomination to stop her sitting on the highest court in the land. Much has been made of Kagan’s banning military recruiting from the campus of the...

Remember when the Commerce Clause challenge to the individual insurance mandate was dismissed by all serious and knowledgeable constitutional law professors and Nancy Pelosi as “frivolous”? Well, as Jonathan notes below, the administration is now apparently telling the New York Times that the individual insurance “requirement” and “penalty” is really an exercise of the Tax Power of Congress. "Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations." Let that sink in...

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Hatch calls Kagan filibuster 'dirty thing to do' By Eric Zimmermann - 07/01/10 12:19 PM ET A Republican filibuster of Elena Kagan would be "an unheard of, dirty thing to do," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Thursday. Hatch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told ABC News's "Topline" today that his party won't prevent an up-or-down vote on Obama's SCOTUS nominee. "Republicans aren't going to filibuster her," he said.

(Congress shall have the power: ) "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" — Article 1, Section 8, United States Constitution Take a good, long look at the above "commerce clause," my fellow Americans. As far as the American left is concerned, it is the vehicle by which tyranny can imposed on the citizenry of the United States. Too strong a contention? Not at all. Our Democratically- controlled Congress has made it clear that "commerce" is a term so flexible it can be "regulated" — even when it literally doesn't exist....

The central conceit of the Left is their regard for outcome above principle, results above rights. “Progressivism” repackages the age-old idea that society has a collective right superior to the individual’s. We saw this in the argument for universal health care, where the Left regarded the outcome of “universal coverage” above the principle of personal liberty. Unfortunately, this conceit is not limited to the Left. Social conservatives are willing to borrow à la carte from statist arguments when the results suit their taste. No issue evokes this phenomenon more than drug control policy. NewsRealBlog hosted much debate on the legalization...

In an effort to please union backers ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is quietly trying to nationalize rules governing every police, fire and first responder union in the nation. Through the benignly named Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (H.R.413), Reid wants all first responders represented by collective bargaining rules emanating from Washington D.C. Naturally this legislation is being pushed as a matter of "national security." Democrats' union supporters will greatly benefit from nationalized rules for police and fire unions. This plan would replace with federal rules state laws on collective bargaining between state and...

Last week, with little fanfare, among the ever deteriorating oil spill crisis, the White House quietly noted the issuance of an executive order "Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council", in which the president, citing the “authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America” is now actively engaging in "lifestyle behavior modification" for American citizens that do not exhibit "healthy behavior." At least initially, the 8 main verticals of focus will include: smoking cessation; proper nutrition; appropriate exercise

Seeing that George Soros and Sting are working together to “end the drug war” puts me in mind of a story an Army buddy who works in the DEA told me about busting in the door of a drug house only to find three occupants – the oldest four years old, having been left in charge while his “parents” went out to score meth. Yeah, drug use is a victimless crime – if you ignore the victims. Apparently not content to subsidize the whining of the nonentities at Media Matters, Soros is taking a break from his adventures in currency...

Voter dissatisfaction with Republicans and Democrats is at historic levels, and the tea-party movement is hoping to play kingmaker in the November elections. The country’s current breed of discontent is ideal for the tea parties, because economic concerns are foremost, allowing the movement to sidestep the divisions between its libertarian and conservative wings. As the elections near, however, voters will want to know where the party stands not just on the economy but on social issues. A perfect illustration is drug policy, where conservatives advocate continued prohibition but libertarians argue for legalization. Which way should the tea party lean when...

The newest legal brief in a court challenge to Obamacare, the president's nationalization of health care across the U.S., says the Constitution simply doesn't allow the federal government to demand a payment for not doing something. The case was brought by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of several individuals. It challenges the government's plan to force individuals to buy health-care insurance and pay for abortions, among other issues, or be penalized. It was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and seeks an injunction to halt the plan. Named as defendants in the...

California voters favor the legalization of marijuana for personal use 49 percent to 41 percent, according to a LA Times/USC poll. The measure will appear on the November ballot. However, one-third of backers say they favor it only “somewhat.” A poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California found the measure in a statistical dead heat, 49 percent to 48 percent.

Rand Paul has taken a principled — but politically incorrect — position, for which he’s being pilloried. the Supreme Court upheld the 1964 act, the law has a disputable constitutional pedigree. The Civil Rights Act addresses the conduct of private individuals, so it is not easily shoehorned into the 14th Amendment, which constrains only government conduct. And the act has nothing to do with reducing state-imposed obstacles to the free flow of interstate trade — so it should not have been legitimized under an original understanding of the commerce clause. The remedy in such cases is either to amend the...

RICHMOND, Va. – President Barack Obama's administration on Monday asked a federal judge in Virginia to dismiss the state's lawsuit alleging Congress overstepped its constitutional bounds with the new health care reform law. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius argued in a motion filed hours before a midnight deadline that the law is well within the scope of the Constitution's Commerce Clause. Virginia's Republican attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Richmond less than eight hours after Congress enacted the law. It argues that requiring people to buy health coverage or pay a fee exceeds...

The federal government is arguing in a gun-rights case pending in federal court in Montana that state plans to exempt in-state guns from various federal requirements themselves make the laws void, because the growing movement certainly would impact "interstate commerce." The government continues to argue to the court that the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution should be the guiding rule for the coming decision. The argument plays down the significance of both the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the 10th Amendment provision that reserves to states all prerogatives not specifically granted the federal government in the Constitution....

Come November, Californians will have the chance to legalize marijuana for the specific purpose of raising revenues via taxes. We all knew that it would be just a matter of time before the same individuals would get enough signatures to put the legalization of marijuana up for a vote by the California citizens. It is a bit ironic when you consider how militant the same individuals wanting marijuana legalized have gone on a witch hunt against tobacco products. The attack on the tobacco industry began over 50 years ago when the Surgeon General forced the tobacco company's to label...

The Federal Fat Police:Bill Would Require Government to Track Body Mass of American Children Thursday, May 13, 2010 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) - A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are. The will would require states that receive federal dollars for health programs to track the Body Mass Index of children ages 2 through 18 annually through records collected by their health care providers. The legislation also requires the states to pass that data on to the Department of...