Free Republic

The Justice Department determined that North Carolina’s bathroom policy -using the bathroom that matches your biological sex- is in violation of federal civil rights law. Reports speculate the feds might try to restrict funding to North Carolina or pursue legal action if they don’t change the policy, though the Justice Department hasn’t commented either way. North Carolina State House Speaker Tim Moore has made it clear, he will not be intimidated.

Floridians will decide this November whether to allow medical marijuana in the state. On Wednesday, a constitutional amendment to legalize the drug gained enough signed petitions to qualify for the ballot next November. If passed, the amendment would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for people with “debilitating conditions” such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy or multiple sclerosis. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article56931218.html#storylink=cpy

Today, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill to authorize the farming, and production of industrial hemp in the state for commercial purposes, setting the foundation to nullify in practice the unconstitutional federal prohibition on the same. The vote was 98-0. Introduced by Del. Brenda Pogge (R-Norge), House Bill 699 (HB699) would amend current state law on hemp by removing a provision that authorized the licensing of hemp farming only upon approval of the federal government.

See Abbott: Texas to Block Syrian Refugee Resettlement "Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that Texas would refuse Syrian refugees after a terrorist attack in Paris killed more than 120 people. "Given the tragic attacks in Paris and the threats we have already seen, Texas cannot participate in any program that will result in Syrian refugees,any one of whom could be connected to terrorism, being resettled in Texas," Abbott wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama." I contend that the power to regulate immigration is a power exercised by the original 13 States and preexisted our existing Constitution. I further...

Another day, another controversy. Medical marijuana activists are rightly upset over comments DEA head, Chuck Rosenberg, made to reporters last week.During a Q&A, he talked about his stance on medical marijuana. "What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal because it's not. We can have an intellectually honest debate about whether we should legalize something that is bad and dangerous, but don't call it medicine -- that is a joke." Right, so you want to have an intellectual debate prefaced with medical marijuana is a joke. Want to clarify that bit a more? "There are pieces...

There were several important victories in the fight to protect the Second Amendment from federal attack during the 2015 legislative session. This sets the stage for further action to nullify in practice federal infringement on the right to keep and bear arms in 2016. In light of the recent murders at an Oregon college, Obama is once more trying to use a vicious crime as an excuse to violate our natural right to self-defense via executive orders. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have both stated they intend to introduce gun control measures such as magazine capacity limits, background checks and...

The Supreme Court and States' Tenth Amendment Rights The Constitution created a Union. That Union was of the several States, and the Constitution was written to join those States into a confederation, with a federal government that dealt only within the powers and authorities defined in the document. The autonomy of states was assured within the Constitution, though doubts arose as to whether the federal government might attempt to secure more power than was intended and granted to it. The most significant clarification of that intent was laid out in the Preamble to the Bill of Rights. A preamble sets...

The victors of war write its history in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light. That explains the considerable historical ignorance about our war of 1861 and panic over the Confederate flag. To create better understanding, we have to start a bit before the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the war between the Colonies and Great Britain. Its first article declared the 13 Colonies “to be free, sovereign and independent states.” These 13 sovereign nations came together in 1787 as principals and created the federal government as their agent. Principals have always...

Most Americans believe that the federal government stands absolutely supreme. Nobody can question its dictates. Nobody can refuse its edicts. Nobody can resist its commands. This is simply not true. Laws passed in pursuance of the Constitution do stand as the supreme law of the land. But that doesn’t in any way imply the federal government lords over everything and everybody in America.

Many people are looking at the recent Supreme Court decisions about ObamaCare and same-sex marriage in terms of whether they think these are good or bad policies. That is certainly a legitimate concern, for both those who favor those policies and those who oppose them. But there is a deeper and more long-lasting impact of these decisions that raise the question whether we are still living in America, where "we the people" are supposed to decide what kind of society we want, not have our betters impose their notions on us. The Constitution of the United States says that the...

Trashing the Tenth Amendment. Let’s refresh our memories about exactly what the Tenth Amendment says: 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. That is not ambiguous. If the Constitution doesn’t expressly grant the federal government a power or expressly prohibit the states from exercising that same power, then the states and not the federal government have that power. But in both the ObamaCare ruling and the gay marriage ruling last week, the Supreme Court ruled as if the Tenth...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court asked Monday for the Obama administration’s views on whether Oklahoma and Nebraska should be able to sue Colorado over its marijuana laws. The court sometimes asks the solicitor general — the president’s advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court — for input on a case justices potentially will hear.

Chief Justice Roberts has long been troubled by the idea that courts might short-circuit a democratic debate over marriage equality by imposing a constitutional right to marry by judicial fiat. In his dissent from the Windsor case in 2013, he wrote that he was reluctant to “tar the political branches with the brush of bigotry” without convincing evidence that a law’s “principal purpose was to codify malice.” He might vote to uphold same-sex-marriage bans on the grounds that the people, not judges, should decide the future of marriage.

We have to view the powers of Congress and the 10th Amendment as sort of two sides of the same coin. The 10th Amendment says in effect that any power that’s not given to Congress is retained by the states or by the people. And so that begs the question: What powers are given to Congress? And if any of those powers in isolation or all of those powers hooked together are open-ended — if they’re limitless – then the Tenth Amendment means nothing. Now generally we don’t look at any provision of the Constitution with an eye toward saying...

Ted Cruz is personally against the legalization of marijuana but the Republican presidential candidate said this weekend that he believes states have the right to put decriminalization laws on the books if they want - even though they directly conflict with federal law. Cruz implied during a conversation with Daily Mail Online on Saturday that if he ascended to the highest elected office he wouldn't make his attorney general enforce federal laws pertaining to marijuana in states that have approved sales and consumption of the drug. The position stands in contrast to the views of at least three of his...

In our federal system, states should be able to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Friday joined an amicus brief on behalf of 57 members of Congress in support of the right of states to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The brief was filed in four cases that the Supreme Court will jointly hear on April 28, 2015, in which same-sex couples challenge the marriage laws of Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and Kentucky, all of which were upheld by the U.S....

Since the early days of the Republic, the question of how gambling is regulated has largely been a right reserved for the states. However, this week members of Congress will discuss legislation that would overturn state laws pertaining to gambling within their borders and create a federal ban, preventing states from legalizing online gambling in the future. They claim it is to protect minors, those with addictions, and states that do not want online gambling available to their citizens. This measure will achieve none of those goals. Rather, it will undermine federalism and drive problem gambling underground. Proponents of the...

A bipartisan effort to legalize medical marijuana at the federal level is now underway in both Houses of Congress, and its sponsors acknowledge they face an uphill climb to passage - but they believe the public is on their side. "Polls show that at least 86 percent of Americans say medical marijuana should be available," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee, in an interview with CBS News. "Legislators rarely lead, they generally follow. I guess it's called cultural lag...Eventually, people in Congress start catching up." Cohen and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would reclassify marijuana as...

States across the land have legalized marijuana for medical – and, in some cases, recreational – use, but conflicts with strict federal anti-drug laws have left patients, other users, doctors, marijuana businesses and the banks and landlords with commercial relationships to those businesses vulnerable to federal raids and prosecution. A new bill introduced by Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would solve this problem by simply respecting states’ rights. Medical marijuana has been legalized in 23 states and the District of Columbia, but that has not stopped federal agencies from aggressively – and inconsistently –...

It is a matter of record that the Constitution was ratified as a strict, narrowly-defined enumeration of federal powers. Anything not specifically spelled out in it as a federal power is a federal power that does not exist, and that must be left to the state and local levels. The Framers identified each Congressional power in Article I, Section 8 (why would they do this if the General Welfare and Commerce clauses granted Congress a blank check to do whatever it wants?), and even added the 10th Amendment to further clarify that this is all it is authorized to do...