Free Republic

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will roll back an Obama-era policy that gave states leeway to allow marijuana for recreational purposes. Two sources with knowledge of the decision confirmed to The Hill that Sessions will rescind the so-called Cole memo, which ordered U.S. attorneys in states where marijuana has been legalized to deprioritize prosecution of marijuana-related cases. The Associated Press first reported the decision. Sessions, a vocal critic of marijuana legalization, has hinted for months that he would move to crack down on the growing cannabis market. Sessions, since taking over as head of the Justice Department, has appeared to show...

New Jersey Gov.-elect Phil Murphy said he would legalize marijuana within 100 days of taking office in January, and his Tuesday win makes a Democrat-packed statehouse the only obstacle. Supporters feel confident it will happen, but legalization foes plan to campaign for Democratic defections as the other side debates different visions for reform. Legalization in the state — across the river from both New York City and Philadelphia — would be significant geographically, but also because no state has passed legalization legislatively, despite Gallup putting national support at 64 percent.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on Nevada becoming the fifth state in the U.S. with stores selling marijuana for recreational purposes (all times local): Minnesota resident Edgar Rosas Lorenzo on Saturday flew with his family to Sin City for a wedding. But even before he checked in to his hotel, he stopped at a pot dispensary on the Las Vegas Strip. The 21-year-old says he learned of the legalization of recreational marijuana in Nevada while he was at the airport waiting for his flight to depart. He waited in line about 40 minutes before he could buy one-eighth of...

A true test for liberty minded politicians is facing them this Congress.  The idea of federalism as it applies to medical marijuana laws in the states.  The self-proclaimed champions of federalism will have their commitment to the idea tested when they are called on to vote on a measure protecting federalism as part of the appropriations process this fall.There is bipartisan support for the idea of federalism. On May 18, 2017, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) put out a press release that committed the chamber to the idea of federalism:Federalism is not...

Led by an outspoken legalization opponent, Jeff Sessions' Justice Department is reviewing federal marijuana policy, with significant changes possible soon. Almost nothing about the review process is publicly known and key players in the policy debate have not been contacted. The outcome of the review could devastate a multibillion-dollar industry and countermand the will of voters in eight states if the Obama administration's permissive stance on non-medical sales is reversed.

President Trump, we need to go to Mars. That is all.

A "law enforcement action". Will be live-streamed. 3:30 Eastern. https://www.justice.gov/live-stream

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.