Free Republic

A bill introduced in the South Dakota state legislature would grant the state’s attorney general the authority to determine whether President Joe Biden’s executive orders are constitutional and potentially nullify them at the state level. The proposed legislation, which describes itself as an act to “authorize the review of certain executive orders issued by the President of the United States,” was sponsored by a group of 15 Republican lawmakers, including 2 state senators. If passed as written, the bill would allow the Executive Board of the Legislative Research Council to review any executive order, which by nature requires no approval...

With President-elect Joe Biden set to assume office and two newly-elected Georgia Democrat senators poised to be sworn in on Wednesday, Texas Republicans are preparing to mount a flurry of legal challenges to push back against the incoming administration’s progressive agenda.The Biden administration has signaled a left-leaning agenda on energy, taxes, immigration, health care, and other priorities. Biden has vowed to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and take far-reaching steps on climate change, including seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030 and effectively ending them by around 2050, sparking existential fears from the fossil fuel industry, a...

Convention of States Almost everyone knows that our federal government is on a dangerous course. The unsustainable debt combined with crushing regulations on states and businesses is a recipe for disaster. What is less known is that the Founders gave state legislatures the power to act as a final check on abuses of power by Washington, DC. Article V of the U.S. Constitution authorizes the state legislatures to call a convention for proposing needed amendments to the Constitution. This process does not require the consent of the federal government in Washington, DC. The Convention of States Project; a national effort...

On a warm September day in 1787, Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Franklin was leaving what has come to be known as The Constitutional Convention. Originally it was simply the Philadelphia Convention, which was intended solely to improve upon the Articles of Confederation, the prevailing government of the time. As legend has it, a man approached him and demanded, “What have you wrought?” to which Franklin succinctly replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin, known for so many famous quotes he could make Yogi Berra appear to be a mute, delivered that day what might...

Abortion is front and center of most political debates currently. The recent wave of pro-Life legislation in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, and Mississippi have good intentions from good people, but the approach is fundamentally flawed. They are trying to legislate something which essentially does not belong to that domain. The abortion issue is fundamentally not political, and Conservatives should not follow the examples of the totalitarian left who try to legislate toward the erosion of Capitalism on their path to Socialism. These recent pro-Life laws take aim only at the Supreme Court. They are states’ answers to Roe v....

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” — The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 Divorce is hard, but it’s easier than cutting the brake lines on your wife’s car. It is long past time for an amicable divorce of the United States of America. There is simply no common ground with the Left anymore. We are now the couple screaming at each other all night, every night as the kids hide in their room. We cannot come together, but we do not...

Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) issued a final rule Wednesday designed to thwart state efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. The rule bans withholding federal funds from the abortion giant’s affiliates and other entities that perform abortion for any reason other than the ability to provide Title X “family planning” services, and is scheduled to take effect two days prior to President-elect Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration. The regulation is in direct response to the effort of more than a dozen states to defund Planned Parenthood, and was set up by HHS to entail a laborious process to...

Field & Stream: Q&A: Donald Trump on Guns, Hunting, and Conservation https://t.co/RFR63RSq38 pic.twitter.com/WkvIrTSSGy— Field & Stream (@FieldandStream) January 22, 2016 Some news to report out of Las Vegas where Donald Trump sat down with Field & Stream magazine for an interview during the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s annual SHOT Show.First up, the GOP front-runner came out against letting states control public lands now run by the federal government saying, “I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do”:This is what they’re talking about, with...

This week, Tennessee became the 25th state to join a lawsuit against the president’s executive amnesty order. The lawsuit may work, but there’s another, more direct, and considerably more interesting redress against executive overreach. Proposed in 1798 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed into law by President John Adams. The A&S Acts comprised four bills that increased the federal government’s power to shut up dissenters; most noxious was a provision that permitted the prosecution of anyone who said anything about the government that the government considered “seditious.” Fourteen...

After the recent Bundy Ranch episode by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Texans are becoming more concerned about the BLM’s focus on 90,000 acres along a 116 mile stretch of the Texas/Oklahoma boundary. The BLM is reviewing the possible federal takeover and ownership of privately-held lands which have been deeded property for generations of Texas landowners. Sid Miller, former Texas State Representative and Republican candidate for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, has since made the matter a campaign issue to Breitbart Texas. “In Texas,” Miller says, “the BLM is attempting a repeat of an action taken over 30 years ago...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Imagine the scenario: A federal agent attempts to arrest someone for illegally selling a machine gun. Instead, the federal agent is arrested — charged in a state court with the crime of enforcing federal gun laws. Farfetched? Not as much as you might think. The scenario would become conceivable if legislation passed by Missouri's Republican-led Legislature is signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. The Missouri legislation is perhaps the most extreme example of a states' rights movement that has been spreading across the nation. States are increasingly adopting laws that purport to nullify...

Thanks to ubiquitous if imperfectly honest press coverage, most Americans know about the IRS scandal involving tax-exempt applications from various Tea Party groups. The public is still, however, getting the mushroom treatment on two other outrages by that rogue agency. The media have devoted scant coverage to its theft of 60 million medical records, now the subject of a class action lawsuit, and they have been all but silent regarding the illegal IRS scheme to fund Obamacare’s federal insurance exchanges. As scary as is the medical record theft..... the more important of these two additional scandals involves IRS skullduggery relating...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to promote the efficient administration of Federal elections and to improve the experience of all voters, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Establishment. There is established the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (Commission). Sec. 2. Membership. (a) The Commission shall be composed of not more than nine members appointed by the President. The members shall be drawn from among distinguished individuals with knowledge about or experience in the administration of State or local elections, as...

Missouri Democrats propose law giving gun owners 90 days to turn in weapons Gun control February 14, 2013 By: Joe Newby Missouri Democrats have introduced a measure that if passed into law, would give owners of certain types of "assault" weapons 90 days to either turn them in to authorities, disable them or ship them out of the state, Jim Hoft reported at the Gateway Pundit Thursday.

Police investigate assault, shooting in Highland apartment (Armed homeowner) News-Democrat (BY ELIZABETH DONALD) Posted: 02/11/2013 5:12 PM An alleged intruder was hospitalized with gunshot wounds after apparently pushing into a home and assaulting two women. The 33-year-old man is accused of forcing his way into an apartment in the 2600 block of Eagle Way Drive at about 3:30 a.m. The apartment building was home to two sisters, Debi Keeney and Donna Carlyle. The man allegedly attacked the women while demanding money, and Keeney shot him with a small-caliber derringer-style revolver.

The Obama administration on Friday responded to the wave of secession petitions that spread online following the November election, preaching unity over division and saying there’s no right to secede. “In a nation of 300 million people — each with their own set of deeply-held beliefs — democracy can be noisy and controversial. And that’s a good thing. Free and open debate is what makes this country work, and many people around the world risk their lives every day for the liberties we often take for granted,” wrote Jon Carson, director of the Office of Public Engagement. “But as much...

(CNSNews.com) – Nearly one-quarter of Americans believe that states have the right to secede, according to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports -- up 10 percentage points in two years. The latest poll is just one of many that shows that Americans have “serious and growing concern about the federal government,” according to Scott Rasmussen, founder and president of Rasmussen Reports. According to the phone survey released Sunday, 24 percent of Americans believe that states should be able to withdraw from the United States to form their own country, if they want. Nearly 60 percent (59) of Americans say they...

The federal government on Friday extended its deadline for hotel and guesthouse owners to make pools accessible to people with disabilities. It was good news for Florida Keys lodging owners, many of them still scratching their heads over how to interpret the new rules. The previous deadline for compliance was Monday, but it has been postponed until Jan. 31, according to documents published Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice, which administers the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act. The extension was granted as a result of questions, confusion and concerns about the requirements of the pool accessibility rules that require...

President Obama's Minnesota campaign waded into the state's marriage amendment fight on Monday with a statement saying the president opposes the proposal that would define marriage only as the union of a man and woman. Obama for America's Minnesota communications director, Kristin Sosanie, said in a news release that "while the President does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples. That's what the Minnesota ballot initiative would do -- it would single out and...

If you go out to dinner at a local Margarita's restaurant, it is hard to miss one of the most popular dishes — the fajitas. The unmistakable sizzling, popping sound of a cracking hot plate covered in steak draws attention from diners throughout the restaurant, and that sound is an integral part of the dining experience. But no one would order fajitas if all they got was the noise — we enjoy the sizzle, but what we really want is the steak. While several of the candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination have proven themselves more than capable of producing...