Free Republic

When a military veteran gets to teach, both school and vet experience culture shock. “Federalism and civil society are dying in practice because they are dying in our social vision, unnoticed and unmourned,” Chris Bray writes in The American Conservative. “My long-simmering sense of this loss became clear as I recently did that most frightening of tasks: grading history exams.” “I was teaching a class on the Gilded Age, a course that traces the decline of what the historian Robert Wiebe described as a nation of ‘island communities.’” Students ignored the largely successful efforts of private voluntary associations to address...

Conservative talkradio host Mark Levin made news Thursday when he addressed the annual conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a "non-partisan membership association of state lawmakers," and it wasn't just because he reiterated his call for an Article V "Convention of the States" to propose new amendments to the Constitution. Levin's call for an Article V Convention of the States has been well known since the publication of his best-selling book, The Liberty Amendments, more than a year ago. On Thursday, Levin framed the Article V Convention of the States as the beginning of the process in which...

Obama asked Congress on Monday for $263 million for the federal response to the civil rights upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri, and is setting up a task force to study how to improve modern-day policing. The funds would pay for body cameras for police officers to use and expand training for law enforcement in an attempt to build trust in communities such as Ferguson, where a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the August shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, the White House said... The $263 million would be spread over three years and would...

....Obama will discuss the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, Monday with his Cabinet, civil rights leaders, law enforcement officials and others.

State sovereignty at its most basic is the ability of a state to control its own land. Earlier this month, 95 state and locally elected officials joined a variety of experts from 14 states in Salt Lake City to draft and ratify a statement calling for land currently held by the federal government to be transferred to the states. Officials at the summit included Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell; Utah Speaker of the House Becky Lockhart and state Senator Jennifer Fielder of Montana. The statement, which was ratified unanimously at the gathering, calls for the federal government to honor the...

All I have to say is: God Bless MY Lt. Gov. (the man who I want as our ~next~ NC Governor). Looks like we finally have someone with guts who understands the true role of Federalism!! Just goes to show (along with the ruling yesterday out of Puerto Rico-along with their public rally for real marriage). That it's not too late on this issue!

IntroductionFederalism, or States’ Rights, has a long and honored history. To define terms, Federalism involves the assignment of powers between the entities that make up a federation and the federal authority created by those entities to act on behalf of that federation. In the United States Constitution, the people delegated certain enumerated powers to the federal government for the sake of operating a federated union. The 10th Amendment was put in place to insure that the federal government would never assume powers not delegated to it. It reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor...

Over the last several decades, Washington has passed laws and promulgated regulations that diminish the ability of states to govern as envisioned by our nation’s founders. Meanwhile, across this great nation, governors are balancing budgets, reforming and reducing taxes, reducing the state regulatory burden and implementing novel programs to serve their citizens. In many respects, governors are doing this despite roadblocks put up by the federal government and bureaucrats in Washington. There is only so much that we can do at the state level. Federal regulations drive the costs of goods and services and those costs are then born by...

"I have long believed that a crucial part missing from this national discussion is England. "We have heard the voice of Scotland - and now the millions of voices of England must also be heard. "The question of English votes for English laws - the so-called West Lothian question -requires a decisive answer. "So, just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and...

In 2014, voters in Colorado and Washington state voted to legalize marijuana possession within their states. This November, voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia will get the chance to follow suit. Voters in Florida will also decide whether to join the approximately 20 states which allow marijuana possession and use for medicinal purposes. Whatever these states decide, however, marijuana will remain illegal under federal law. Conservative Republicans often talk about the need to constrain the power of the federal government. On everything from environmental regulation to education policy, Republican officeholders argue that individual states should be able...

It may sound pedestrian to point out, but it’s critical to restate why it’s so important that our nation is called the United States of America, and not simply America. The full name emphasizes that the Founders viewed the nation not as one monolithic entity but as a union of sovereign entities delegating limited powers to a central government. To preserve this balance, the Founders put a number of checks in the U.S. Constitution, most notably creating the Senate, which allows for equal membership from every state, thus preventing states with larger populations from running roughshod over the interests of...

The 2013 legislative session saw a strong trend of states cutting various taxes, as 18 states passed net tax cuts into law. When one-third of the country cuts taxes, it is clear economic growth is a top priority for states digging out of a dismal economy. The cuts range from a nearly complete overhaul of a state’s tax code to a few small changes. North Carolina enacted the year’s biggest tax cut as part of a comprehensive reform package. The measures will be phased in over a period of several years, with taxes cut by $500 million during the first...

From school board races to Senate primaries, the education reform package known as Common Core is proving uncommonly divisive this campaign season, popping up as an issue in primary elections all over the country. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Republican, cites opposition to Common Core as a key reason for her endorsement of state Rep. Chris McDaniel over incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi’s hotly contested Republican Senate primary. Former Oklahoma state House Speaker T.W. Shannon, a Republican, says Obama administration pressure on states to adopt Common Core “is a prime example of why I’m running for the Senate.”

I have argued since I first began writing and speaking on this issue that the First Amendment restrains only the actions of Congress. The first word in the First Amendment, after all, is the word "Congress." "Congress shall make no law..." The Founders quite intentionally were not imposing restraints on what a state could do in offering prayers before legislative assemblies, or what a city could do in erecting Ten Commandments monuments, or what a school could do in offering prayer and Bible reading over the intercom or at graduation. Congress and Congress alone is bound down by the chains...

More than three years ago, I wrote that the Department of Transportation should be dismantled for the simple reason that we’ll get better roads at lower cost with the federalist approach of returning responsibility to state and local governments. I echoed those sentiments in this CNBC interview. Dan Mitchell Arguing to Get Washington out of the Transportation SectorSince there’s only an opportunity to exchange soundbites in these interviews, let me elaborate on some of the reasons why transportation should be a state and local responsibility. 1. Washington involvement is a recipe for pork and corruption. Lawmakers in Congress – including...

KXNT photo illustration (shooting scene image courtesy Las Vegas Review-Journal) (LAS VEGAS, KXNT, ASSOCIATED PRESS)–A funeral service was held in NOrth Las Vegas for the man who died at the hands of BLM agents during a skirmish in Red Rock Canyon in February. The service for D’Andre Berghardt Jr. took place at Nehemiah Ministries Christian Church. Berghardt was moving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to begin working with his brother when he was shot and killed Feb. 14. Jacob Hafter, a lawyer representing the family says that various delays, including the forensic examination of Berghardt’s body, contributed to...

The Obama administration plans to use tens of millions in federal financial aid as leverage to reward teacher training programs that produce teachers who routinely raise student test scores — and to drive the rest out of business. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will announce the revival of a push to regulate hundreds of teacher preparation programs Friday at a town hall meeting with White House policy director Cecilia Muñoz. He plans to release a draft regulation by summer and aims to enact it within a year.

"This brewing spat started on Monday night, when Stewart mocked Hannity for supporting Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy in his battle against the federal BLM. Hannity hit back on Tuesday night. On Wednesday's show, Stewart walked through Hannity's criticisms and showed why the Fox News star is tossing his verbal stones from a glass house."

A poignant resignation letter that Colorado Springs teacher Pauline Hawkins wrote and posted on her blog Monday talks about her love of teaching and the pride she has in her students, colleagues, school and district.... At the heart of her distress are the new Common Core standards, low teacher pay in Colorado and endless testing and teaching to the test, which she and many others believe is making students fail rather than succeed.

The Ukrainian government has offered sweeping autonomous powers to restive, pro-Moscow regions of the country, in an attempt to hold its head above water against Moscow, without a source of revenue or a viable army. Acting prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told regional leaders and businessmen Friday, April 11, in the eastern town of Donetsk, where pro-Russian separatists have declared a People’s Republic, that he is ready for parliament to consider a law on referendums. The referendum staged by Crimea last month caused the region to join the Russian Federation and practically precipitated the revival of the Cold War. The devolution...