Free Republic

A few years ago, a group of Iowa Republicans claimed the legitimate 13th Amendment to the Constitution was “missing.” The debate is part of a historical detective story with some surprising twists that is still taking place.

The defendant in the second amendment case in the Northern Mariana Islands anticipates that the law will be ruled unconstitutional.  From mvariety.com: District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona will preside over a hearing for the motion for summary judgment on March 5, 2015. Anticipating an unfavorable ruling from the federal court, Deleon Guerrero and Zarones have asked the Legislature to act “swiftly without hesitation” in passing an alternative gun control law. The Northern Mariana Islands (NMI) have one of the most restrictive gun control laws of any jurisdiction in the territories of the...

The building national movement for a constitutional convention to block President Obama’s executive orders got a huge boost Thursday when leading advocate Mark Levin urged state lawmakers to throttle all of Washington, including Republicans. He described a nation that is morphing into a “post-constitutional” crisis where state legislatures are “irrelevant,” and the president and Congress do whatever they want, and nobody in Washington provides checks and balances. “We have a president of the United States who says, ‘Hey, Congress won’t act. I will.’ Excuse me? Well what’s that? Sounds like a runaway convention to me,” he said. Ditto for Republicans....

In an ironic twist, the long-awaited sequel to the cult classic “Dumb and Dumber” opened as Americans discovered that in the eyes of our political class, we’re like the film’s low-IQ duo — “stupid voters.” Caught dropping truth bombs in a series of videos, MIT professor and Obamacare co-architect Jonathan Gruber describes how policymakers hid the Affordable Care Act’s true nature. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter,” Gruber chortled, since “that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.” But who’s the dunce, considering Gruber is now persona non grata in capitals where he’s earned millions...

1) When the executive branch has effectively become the legislative branch 2) When the notions of secure borders and national sovereignty are considered thinly-veiled euphemisms for racial hatred 3) When justice means determining a person is guilty before seeing any evidence, then rioting, looting and destroying property when said person does not even make it to trial 4) When those who riot, loot and destroy property are considered freedom-fighters, and those who peacefully assemble are considered radical extremists ... 10) When countries like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, but yours does...

At this moment, Mark Levin is speaking to a breakfast gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council. Afterward, at 9:30 AM, he will join a Convention of the States Policy Workshop. On his radio show, he has been openly critical of state legislators for not doing their duty, to demand an amendments convention. I can only assume that videos will be available in the near future. The question of the desirability of a convention, so often expressed at FreeRepublic, is entirely separate from the legal issue of congress’ obligations under Article V*. More than two-thirds of the states have made...

Illinois State lawmakers have joined several other states to call for a Constitutional Convention to amend the U.S. Constitution when it comes to campaign finance reform. During debate on the House floor Wednesday, State Rep. Chapa LaVia said calls for the convention are to address campaign finance and the scope cannot go farther than that. But outgoing State Rep. Mike Bost, who recently won an election to the U.S. House, says once the door is opened, anything is possible. “Once you open and you do a Constitutional convention, it is not going to be and cannot be focused just on...

Did President Obama change the law or not when he unilaterally decided that millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. would be protected against deportation? Until this week, both the president and White House staff insisted that Obama did not change the law and indeed could not change the law without the cooperation of Congress. Obama's move was just a revision of executive branch enforcement priorities, according to the official White House line. A Justice Department memo backed up the president's contention. "This notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true," Obama said at...

No topic beats the frequency of politics at Free Republic. Since the national government has become ubiquitous in our lives from beginning to end, it follows we should pay attention to what our masters are doing. Yes, masters. On November 20th, 2014, Obama made clear the midterm trouncing of Hisself and his party would have no effect on his approach to governing. Nearly as disappointing, but not shocking was the limp GOPE response to Obama’s declaration. In a speech designed for all North America, (minus Canadians and Americans) Barack Hussein Obama crossed America’s Rubicon and decreed his lawmaking powers. Dressed...

Rising frustration with Washington and conservative electoral victories across much of the U.S. are feeding a movement in favor of something America hasn't done in 227 years: Hold a convention to rewrite the Constitution. Although it's still not likely to be successful, the effort is more serious than before: Already, more than two dozen states have called for a convention. There are two ways to change or amend the founding document. The usual method is for an adjustment to win approval from two-thirds of the Congress and then be ratified by three-quarters of the states. There have been 27 amendments...

Under pressure from the base, republicans in congress are scrambling to deal with Obama’s latest high crime. Rest assured whatever the GOP does will be designed to minimize electoral threats to their reelection in 2016, and ignore the well-being of our republic. Perhaps they will cut funding to that which they never appropriated funds in the first place. How about a lawsuit? Impeach? Forget it. Whatever they do will not deal with the tyranny, the precedent of executive law making that will endure after 2016 for the next president to exploit. The framers gave us legal, constitutional means to deal...

Park City, Utah, officials were the latest in a series of local governments that have been forced to respect the Constitution by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).   SAF has run up an impressive number of legal wins to protect second amendment rights.   It has become the ACLU of the gun culture.   In the Park City case, the city had adopted local laws in direct violation of the second amendment and Utah state preemption law.  The city law prohibited all use and possession of firearms; all carrying of concealed weapons; carrying of loaded guns inside a vehicle; showing a gun...

I don’t know about everybody else, butt I’m suffering from a case of PTSD  - Post Thanksgiving Stuffing Disorder. I’m in serious need of some rest and recuperation. So what do you say we play a little game?The rules are simple: after eating your leftover unindicted turkey sandwich, watch this video of Big Guy bragging to his newest constituents that he just broke “changed the law…”Then, let me know what other law you’d like to see the next Republican President break change? The suggestion with the highest number of “likes” wins.Just to get things rolling, let me toss one out...

Conservatives are not split as to whether or not Obama and his ministers have committed high crimes. We are split over what to do about it. There is no question Obama has gathered arbitrary powers within the executive branch to make, ignore, modify congressional statutes at his whim. His administrative agencies, a shadow army of lawgivers whose identities (sans Gruber) are kept quiet and out of public view, issue dozens of unconstitutional and imperial diktats every year. OTOH, what is certain is that impeachment of American presidents is unfortunately an historic rarity. Taken all together, impeachment is largely viewed as...

We could allow each new "authorization" from the Oval Office scofflaw to undermine our nation, or we could meet the challenge by effectively applying our Constitution Immigration reform, Keystone XL, net neutrality, ObamaCare manipulation (Gruber disclosures), bankrupting coal, bankrupting business... Don’t forget the president’s encouraging the choreographed protests that followed the grand jury’s lack of an indictment of Officer Darren Wilson and Obama’s champion Eric Holder’s unwillingness to accept the ruling. With every one of these issues the president has had a field day challenging not just Congress, but the vast majority of the American People. And he does it...

Army Corps of Engineers Administered Land In the Ninth Circuit federal court of appeals, District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that the second amendment does not stop at the boundary of land administered by  the Army Corps of Engineers.   There are millions of acres of wild land and waters involved, as the Corps of Engineers administers enormous projects across America on the waterways. In the 11th Circuit, Judge Harold Murphy in Georgia has ruled that the second amendment does not apply on land administered by the Corps, because the land is all considered "sensitive", like a courtroom, or...

Shortly after communist-mentored Barack Obama was elected to the White House in 2008, I asked a brother at a family gathering, "Who's going to be president of the United States in 20 years?" Without hesitating, he said, "Barack Obama." More informed than most people I'd asked, he instantly got the drift of my question. As I was thinking through the implications of the de facto communist coup that precipitated the question, however, I was struck with a realization that gave me some degree of hope in the face of our nation's heightened peril. Although no major communist strongman in the...

I vaguely recall from Gibbon, or maybe it was from a high school class, that the Roman Empire didn’t go out with a bang. With a nod to Alaric and his Visigoths of 410 AD, there really isn’t a singular event to mark the beginning of the long slide. In broad strokes it is fair to say that Roman society declined together, simultaneously with government. For centuries, Roman citizenship was a precious possession, a jewel of unsurpassed value. As such it was held closely and kept in short supply, for among other privileges, the Roman citizen wasn’t taxed. He was...

On freerepublic, people were discussing the recent legal victory, where a federal judge ruled that people who already had guns had no reason to wait through a 10 day California waiting period.  The law was first passed in 1923.  He ruled that the law infringed on second amendment rights.  The KG9 Kid wrote, from freerepublic.com: I'm sorry, but I read of these little 'victories' by the CalGuns Foundation in their thoroughly anti-gun state and cannot help but compare them to some WWII Japanese radio broadcast that exclaims that the Imperial Japanese Navy now has now deployed the first rocket-powered...

What makes a tyrant? Dictionary.com defines tyrant thus: A sovereign or other ruler who uses power oppressively or unjustly. In 1776 the 13 American colonies declared independence from just such a tyrant. Eleven years later the same 13 states came together to write a Constitution that was specifically crafted to thwart the emergence of a new tyrant. The laws were to be written in Congress, where discussion, debate and competing factions would keep them from consistently favoring one constituency over another. In turn those laws were to be executed by the President whose constituency was the whole country. That separation...