Free Republic

Viewed from Washington, which often is the last to learn about important developments, opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative still seems as small as the biblical cloud that ariseth out of the sea, no larger than a man’s hand. Soon, however, this education policy will fill a significant portion of the political sky. The Common Core represents the ideas of several national organizations (of governors and school officials) about what and how children should learn. It is the thin end of an enormous wedge. It is designed to advance in primary and secondary education the general progressive agenda...

With the endless gridlock of modern Washington, it’s tempting to want to ditch the whole American constitutional system and install a king, who could at least get things done. This is essentially what David Brooks is proposing in his column this month, though he doesn’t quite come out and say it. Brooks is right that gridlock is stifling desperately needed policy innovation and reform, but is wrong about the cause and solution for it. The problem is too much power and authority is centralized in the federal government. The solution is to look to the states, which are already a...

Washington (CNN) – The heated debate over the Washington Redskins name has now moved beyond living rooms and corporate offices to the U.S. government itself, with one agency making an unequivocal ruling that the term "Redskins" is offensive slang. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected an application to trademark the name "Redskins Hog Rind," writing that the term "Redskins" is "a derogatory slang term that refers to, and is considered offensive by, American Indians." The agency cited five definitions from online dictionaries - from The Oxford Dictionary to Yahoo – that labeled the word as offensive or disparaging. In...

MARIJUANA users celebrated yesterday as Colorado became the first US state to allow retail cannabis sales, putting it in the vanguard of efforts across the country to legalise the drug. The western state famous for its ski resorts and mountain vistas has issued 348 retail licences - including for small pot shops - that make it legal to sell up to 28g of pot to people aged 21 or older. Washington state will follow Colorado later this year. Iraq war veteran Sean Azzariti was the first person to legally purchase cannabis for recreational use in the US. "It's an absolute...

A federal judge struck down Utah’s same-sex marriage ban Friday in a decision that marks a drastic shift toward gay marriage in a conservative state where the Mormon church has long been against it. The decision set off an immediate frenzy as the clerk in the state’s most populous county began issuing marriage licenses to dozens of gay couples while state officials took steps to appeal the ruling and halt the process. Cheers erupted as the mayor of Salt Lake City led one of the state’s first gay wedding ceremonies in an office building about three miles from the headquarters...

There is a local connection to a national effort aimed at amending the U.S. Constitution through the convention process.. Amending the Constitution is not an easy task. It requires either a two-thirds vote by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate; or, a national convention requested by two-thirds – 34 – of the 50 states. The Arizona Legislature adopted a resolution in 2012 calling for a nat, What do these lawmakers want to change? A website that lists all of the state legislators involved in the effort points to re-establishing federalism and limiting the growth of the federal...

The Obama administration, in refusing to challenge the legalization of marijuana in some states, is ignoring its duty to enforce federal law that is asserted in the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Professor Melvyn Levitsky, a former U.S. ambassador who now teaches at the University of Michigan, said of the ballot initiatives in the states of Colorado and Washington "I'm concerned about the federal government cherry-picking federal law, deciding which federal laws it's going to enforce."

I just don’t get why Republicans, even conservatives, can’t seem to get their sound-bites wrapped around ZeroCare. The reason HHS keeps jacking "standards" is to raise the price of insurance such that people choose to pay the penalty and fund their own care. If they have a problem, they'll just have to rely upon Medicaid. It’s a twofer: a tax increase on the middle class with Medicaid becoming the default single-payer system. Middle class Americans will get the same "coverage" (or worse) than illegal aliens. It's equality and social justice for all you little people all in one swell foop!...

This past September, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new proposed rule under the auspices of the Clean Air Act (CAA) limiting carbon emissions from power plants built in the future. EPA is currently working on developing similar regulations targeting existing fossil fuel fired power plants which are expected to be announced in June 2014. Over the past couple of weeks, EPA has hosted 11 listening sessions around the country ostensibly soliciting ideas from the public to help determine what the best way to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants under the CAA is. There has been...

French Catholics criticised a constitutional court judgment denying local officials the right to opt out of conducting same-sex marriages. Antoine Renard, president of France’s National Federation of Catholic Family Associations, charged that the court was operating under political pressure in issuing its decision. “This ruling could have dramatic consequences for religious freedom both here and abroad,” he said. “It also suggests the French Constitution is old-fashioned and needs verification.” Renard’s comments came as representatives of 20,000 French mayors prepared a series of appeals against the court’s judgment on October 18 that, in effect, rejected calls for a conscience clause to...

The House Oversight Committee wants to find out why the Park Service behaved so bizarrely. ... Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a former prosecutor, almost drove National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis into incoherence with his relentless questioning. Gowdy wanted to know why Jarvis had allowed “pot-smoking” Occupy Wall Street protesters to camp overnight illegally in Washington’s McPherson Square park for 100 days, yet put up barricades to keep veterans out of war memorials on the first day of the shutdown. By not issuing a single citation to the Occupy campers, Gowdy argued, the Park Service was treating them...

Frustration with the federal government is nationwide. From Maine to California, folks are fed up with Washington’s health care “reform,” immigration “reform,” financial “reform,” and countless other missteps. But these issues are mere symptoms. The disease runs much deeper, right to the heart of the American system of government. The shutdown, for example, was the result of an issue much larger than the health care debate. As Colorado State Senator Kevin Lundberg explains, the shutdown was caused by a disregard for one of the most important concepts in American government: federalism. Federalism is a political structure in which power is...

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case that will help determine whether there are, in fact, constitutional protections from the ability of states to impose tax burdens on other states. ALEC has filed an amicus curiae brief as part of a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to a New York state law enacted in 2008 that considers an out-of-state company to be an in-state resident for tax collection purposes if the company receives a referral for a commission from any in-state resident...

Mount Vernon is open. Our parking lots are now open. The barricade was placed in front of Mount Vernon’s parking lots for a short period (less than 3 hours). Once the National Park Service realized that we own the parking lots, the barricades were removed immediately. Anything you can do to help get the word out that Mount Vernon and its parking lots are open would be much appreciated!

A few days ago CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin, speaking about the Republican House bill defunding Obamacare, commented, “Certainly not the way the Founding Fathers maybe drew this thing up.” It’s certainly a surprise to hear an anchor on CNN, an organization biased in favor of progressives, appealing to the authority of the Constitution. For a century the progressives have been telling us that the Constitution is an outmoded document from a different age, and needs to be “modernized” to meet the challenges of a new world. Listen to Woodrow Wilson in his 1913 book The New Freedom. “I am ....

A Baltimore-area police chief is reviewing the arrest of a man who rose at a town hall-style meeting to challenge the national Common Core standards and wound up in an angry confrontation with an off-duty police officer. Robert Small,46,showed up at the public forum Thursday night in Towson,but when he began asking questions about Common Core, the police officer,who was providing security at the meeting,shut him down. “My question is how does lowering educational standards prepare kids for ... college,because that’s what it’s all about?” Small asked in a scene caught on videotape. But audience members had been told to...

Obamacare is the “law of the land,” except where it’s not. The states have historically been unable to resist the federal government, except when they did. The Supreme Court says that states can’t nullify federal laws, but they do it anyway. These are the confused conclusions of a recent piece on state resistance to Obamacare by Stateline staff writer, Michael Ollove. It’s hard to determine if the article is a criticism of the principle of nullification or not, because of the conflicting messages it contains. As best I can tell, Ollove’s analysis boils down to three points. First, Obamacare is...

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently wrote a book, "Why John Roberts Was Wrong About Healthcare", which is an excellent and compelling read. Besides providing a gripping argument as to why Justice Roberts was wrong on the ObamaCare ruling, Lee also gives an excellent history and background on the Court and the health care decision itself. American Thinker had the privilege of interviewing the Senator about his book and ObamaCare. His two main arguments in the book point out how ObamaCare has made federalism extravagant and that there appears to no longer be a separation of power among branches. Senator Lee...

A U.S. district judge has ordered a clerk in the state of Ohio to recognize a same-sex “marriage” conducted in another state, because the state's constitutional amendment defining marriages does “likely violate the U.S. Constitution.” U.S. District Magistrate Timothy Black declared in his opinion on Monday that the “purpose served by” the amendment in “treating same-sex married couples differently than opposite-sex married couples is the same improper purpose that failed in Windsor and in Romer: ‘to impose inequality’ and to make gay citizens unequal under the law.”

Federal judge blocks lawsuits against Detroit’s bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes stopped three lawsuits threatening to undo the city’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing. Detroit retirees had argued that the bankruptcy could dimish their pensions. DETROIT — A federal judge agreed with Detroit on Wednesday and stopped any lawsuits challenging the city's bankruptcy, declaring his courtroom the exclusive venue for legal action in the largest filing by a local government in U.S. history. The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes was a major victory for Detroit, especially after an Ingham County judge last week said that Gov. Rick Snyder ignored the...