Free Republic

MSNBC political commentator and author George Will said Wednesday on “The Beat” that the Republican base needed to be quarantined because they were “addicted to furiousness.” Melber said, “What has happened to this moderate Republican Party?”Will said, “Well, it’s one thing to be for limited government. It’s one thing to be as the founders were, for a government of limited delegated and enumerated powers. This, however, is beyond politics. This is clinical psychology we have to consult.

President Trump issued a warning to California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, threatening federal intervention if Newsom is unable to solve his state's homeless crisis. "Governor Gavin N has done a really bad job on taking care of the homeless population in California. If he can’t fix the problem, the Federal Govt. will get involved!" Trump tweeted. The Golden State has led the nation in the number of homeless people with an estimated total of over 129,972 in January 2018, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] report. Just over 68 percent of the homeless population in...

Donald Trump's concept of the federal government's proper role ought to make any conservative cringe. Last week, the GOP's leading candidate answered a question from an Afghanistan veteran named Robert Kitelinger who asked, "In your opinion, what are the top three functions of the United States government?" Trump listed security, healthcare, and education. He said something a little different in August 2015 when he listed his top priorities as the military, veterans and jobs. These two statements are not necessarily irreconcilable of course. In August 2015 he was speaking about what his own priorities as president would be, while in...

After years of running up against unconstitutional federal education mandates imposed on states using bribes and bludgeoning from Washington, D.C., a group of parents and grassroots education activists from across America is launching a fresh effort to shut down the U.S. Department of Education once and for all. The mission: "Stop Fed Ed." In the crosshairs is everything from dumbed-down "standards" such as the Obama-backed Common Core nationalization of schooling and associated federal testing regimes, to the deeply controversial federal data gathering and data mining encouraged and financed largely by the feds. The group hopes to pressure Congress into ending...

The U.S. government was not instituted to take care of you. It was not instituted to feed you. It was not instituted to provide you with health care or insurance. It was not instituted to provide income for you in your old age. It was not instituted to educate you or your children. It was not instituted to dictate how your land could be used. It was not instituted to provide subsidies or special favors to some individuals and businesses. It was not instituted to prevent you from being offended. It was not instituted to provide charity programs for the...

Sounds like the very definition of elitism. The elites in Washington DC, most of whom have never set foot in Nevada (outside a casino), controlling what the local citizens can or cannot do on the land within their state boundaries? This is not the way America was intended to be governed. Ever heard of local control? Self-government? States rights? To many of us out here in the West, pursuit of happiness means ranching, farming, logging, mining, drilling, hunting, fishing, or just living in and enjoying God's great outdoors. It's un-American and unconstitutional for unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington DC to...

From the beginning of America, formed as a representative republic, states rights has always been at the forefront of the discussion. The founders of our country intentionally created a weak federal government because they feared what an all-powerful central authority would be capable of. The powers that were not granted specifically to the federal government were left to the states, or to the people. The Tenth Amendment sets that in stone. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Taken...

What does it take to win a Pulitzer Prize or write editorials for the Washington Post? Hard to say [though being a liberal certainly helps], but familiarity with the basic constitutional principles upon which our country was founded is apparently not required. On today's Morning Joe, Pulitzer Prize winner and Washington Post editorialist Jonathan Capehart apologized to Senator Tom Coburn for being unfamiliar with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Enumerated Powers clause. As you'll see from the clip, Capehart's befuddlement regarding the clause seemed to extend beyond the specific article number to the very principle that it...

....Were I to wager on the question (which may turn out to be an exercise in reading the mind of Anthony Kennedy), I would expect the Court to uphold the individual mandate. But the day that it does will be a tragic one for the Republic. The reason will not be the survival of ObamaCare. It is, I think, a poorly conceived proposal that will do more harm than good. As written, it seems likely to fail and, if not abandoned, may well lead to a single payer system. But we have survived worse. It will be tragic because the...

The Enumerated Powers Act (EPA) requires that every bill must specify its source of Constitutional authority. This would prove very embarrassing to Congress, because there is no Constitutional authority for most of what they pass.

Here is an excellent video on Article 1 Section 8. This is something that every citizen should watch and share! Find the link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF-pRo_Z2MEAs Madison stated in Federalist No. 45: Powers delegated to the Federal government are few and definedPowers remaining in the State governments are numerous and indefinite Too many in representatives (and citizens) do not understand the authority granted unto congress; this authority is defined in the Constitution with the 18 enumerated powers (Article 1 Section 8). Really starting at the beginning of the 1900s legislators, presidents, bureaucrats, and justices have bastardized the meaning, intent, and interpretation...

From YouTube

As a reminder of the federal government's limited powers, 20 representatives want to ensure that every single piece of legislation passing through Congress includes a statement citing specific constitutional authority for enacting it. Sponsored by Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., H.R. 450, or the Enumerated Powers Act, states, "Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. …" When he introduced the proposal Jan....

Some rice farmers from congressman Ron Paul's district were in his office the other day, asking for this and that from the federal government. The affable Republican from south Texas listened nicely, then forwarded their requests to the appropriate House committee. It may or may not satisfy their requests in some bill dispensing largesse to agricultural interests. Then Paul will vote against the bill. He believes, with more stubbornness than evidence, that the federal government is a government of strictly enumerated powers, and nowhere in the Constitution's enumeration (Article I, Section 8) can he find any reference to rice. So...

Starting this year, every educational institution receiving federal aid must teach about the U.S. Constitution on the September 17 anniversary of its signing (September 16 in 2005...) The requirement is ironic, given that it came from the Senate's leading Constitutional scholar, yet clearly conflicts with the Constitution, and on many grounds. Last year, Senator Robert Byrd (D.-W.Va.) inserted it into a spending bill packed with pork that was blatantly inconsistent with Americans' general welfare, which is the Constitution's rationale. There is nothing in the document that permits the federal government to tell local schools what they can and cannot teach....

Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that trade in illicit drugs is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Richard Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who...

No Clause for Celebration USA -- In its recent decision upholding the federal government's authority to pluck marijuana from the hands of desperately ill people who use it as a medicine, the U.S. Supreme Court noted in passing that "most domestic drug regulations prior to 1970 generally came in the guise of revenue laws." That's a puzzling fact if, as the Court now insists, the power to "regulate Commerce...among the several States" includes the power to ban certain plants and their products from backyards and dresser drawers throughout the nation. As the Court explained, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937...

Missing from the debate over Alabama's Ten Commandments Monument is any serious discussion about the Ninth Amendment and its role in preserving the independence of state governments.In the midst of all of the flap about Judge Roy Moore and his monument to the Ten Commandments, virtually everyone is concentrating on the issue of religious freedom and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Even Judge Moore appears to have done the same thing. Of course, the ACLU and their collective flunkies have done the same in this and every other such controversy by placing religion and the Establishment Clause squarely in...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and five Republican co-sponsors are pushing a bill in Congress that would require every new law created to specify which part of the U.S. Constitution it derives its power from. The Enumerated Powers Act, or HR 384, seeks a closer look at the issue of federalism, or the role of the national government in creating laws outside of its constitutional authority. The Constitutional Authority clause of the Enumerated Powers Act states that "each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment...

February 20, 2003 The congressional offices in Washington are slow and quiet because members of Congress are in their home districts. Now is a good time to stir activity and make noise on Capitol Hill. Let's give the members of Congress plenty to read and do when they return to Washington next week. Eight pieces of legislation are posted on our Web site: 1. Stop Terrorism Before it Starts 2. Stop Identity Theft, No National ID 3. Restore Workers' Freedom, Right to Work 4. Restore States' Rights, Second & Tenth Amend. 5. Restore Enumerated Powers 6. Repeal Tax Hike on...