Free Republic

No Child Left Behind is an example of why the 'one size fits all' mentality is an improper way to govern. Placing standardizations as well as allocating specific resources at the federal level is not working. Our education system is decaying. With increasing costs and decreasing scores it is clear that reform is necessary to ensure that the future of our nation have the knowledge and skills to compete in a global economy. Chairman Kline of the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee is sponsoring two pieces of legislation to address this issue. The two bills reform federal education...

Could there be a real awakening - the removal of the Establishment's shackles from elected officials and their votes - if Americans vote in a non-Romney nominee? I imagine the GOP Establishment cringes at the idea - the spectacle and sense of power that would create [shrink government; states' rights, remove Federal Agencies.....] in "We the People!" This conservative "revolution" could have positive consequences outside of the Executive. Will our elected officials' loyalty return to their constituents and away from their fear of party leadership's power over their re-election fate? Will they remember who they serve? Will more conservatives rally...

Amidst flowery February orations, in retrospect, the Civil Rights movement’s main beneficiary appears to be Washington. State segregation ceased, which is well, but forced federal integration remains, well, wrong. Washington rightly overturned denials of freedom oppressing southern blacks, but did so by infringing on others’ liberties elsewhere. En route, civil rights became the sine qua non of American statism. Civil rights legislation provided the primary catalyst for government’s escalation since WWII. Sadly, the Civil Rights Act brought neither legal equality as proposed in theory; nor equality of outcomes to which the Left strove in practice. The CRA failed doubly. First,...

On February 13, a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at eminent domain abuse sailed through both houses of the Virginia General Assembly. This legislative action qualifies the amendment for a plebiscite vote in November. The amendment would stipulate that compensation resulting from eminent domain seizures include lost profits and access in addition to the value of the underlying real estate. This change has the support of Virginia property rights advocates including Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. If enacted, this constitutional amendment would strike at the heart of the 2005 Supreme Court decision Kelo v. City of New London. This ruling allowed government...

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, in her State of the State Address, outlined a bold plan for tax reform focused on reducing rates and consolidating Oklahoma’s seven tax brackets. The plan would end Oklahoma’s complicated seven bracket income tax structure that begins taxing on the first penny any Oklahoman earns, instead replacing the structure with three brackets – Oklahoman’s making below $15,000 a year would pay a 0-percent rate, those making under $35,000 would pay a 2.25-percent rate, and those making $35,000 and above would pay a 3.5-percent rate. The Tax Foundation ranks Oklahoma as 38th in the nation in terms...

Nowhere is the haughtiness of American politics better displayed than with our dueling former Speakers. The latest love spat between Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi illuminates America’s sorry political state. She keeps coyly insinuating she knows something and will time its release for maximum damage. It appears Mr. Gingrich is finished anyway, and I’m no fan. His infidelities trouble me. His overarching concern seems to be Newt Gingrich, a not uncommon trait in politicians, but hardly the attribute of a transcendent leader. His prior associations with Mrs. Pelosi promoting Cap and Trade and frequent policy flip-flops reveal an unscrupulous opportunist....

This February, let's acknowledge several forgotten heroes from black history. We ought to laud those who actually strove for what the laundered historical ledger pronounces as the all-encompassing intent of the civil rights movement: laws affording equal protection regardless of race. Sadly, these stalwarts in the struggle against segregation have been consigned to historical obscurity by the politically correct acclaim for their resentment-fomenting rivals. Popular culture extols Marxists like W.E.B. Du Bois, despite his repeated praise for Stalin and Mao, even while he despised everything America represents. Dubois's heritage is best perpetuated by Jeremiah Wright, Jessie Jackson, and Al Sharpton...

Last year the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals once again used the Clean Water Act to bludgeon industry and property owners. In Georgia-Pacific West, Inc. v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the nation’s most infamous appellate court held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been misinterpreting its own regulations for more than three decades. The EPA has traditionally considered the cultivation of trees to be an agricultural activity. The jurists of the Ninth Circuit have determined that they have the expertise to overrule decades of regulatory precedent and deem forestry a manufacturing activity. Unfortunately for the two and half million...

Last week, two hundred thousand Bostonians were nearly apoplectic over the threat of a TV blackout that could have caused them to miss their beloved Patriots playing in this year’s Super Bowl. A deal reached between DirecTV and Sunbeam Television, which owns the local broadcasting affiliate carrying the game, means it will go on. However, consumers directing their anger at content and cable providers are often unaware that most of the fault lies with government retransmission rules. TV blackouts are unfortunately nothing new, the occasional result of negotiations between broadcasters and content providers, and the cable, satellite, and telcos that...

It's Christmas in the geeky budget world today. While everyone else is thinking about the Florida GOP primary, DC budget and tax wonks are reading the annual "CBO Budget and Economic Outlook." Here's my three takeaways after reading the report. They are by no means exhaustive: 1. If all scheduled tax increases are avoided, tax revenues will still come in at historical levels. CBO has to use a "current services baseline," which means they have to assume that Congress will let the path of current law run its course. That means that Obamacare is implemented, the 2001/2003 tax relief goes...

An administrative law judge in Georgia could decide as early as this week whether voters in the state convinced him Barack Obama’s name should be removed from the 2012 presidential ballot because he is not qualified to hold the office. But win, lose or draw, the fight isn’t going to be over, as other cases are erupting across the nation, with challenges being raised anew even in Obama’s own adopted political network in Illinois. The Georgia hearing was before Judge Michael Malihi, and while none of the lawyers who appeared in the proceedings was willing to predict what the decision...

Americans face many stark choices in the 2012 election for President but the starkest of all is whether or not they want their President to be bound by the Constitution and act within the law or to act as a dictator outside the bounds of the Constitution and the law. Given Obama’s behaviour and stated intentions, the choice cannot be more stark for Americans…do they want to live in a dictatorship with Obama as the dictator or do they want to live in a free country where their leader is accountable to the people and the country’s institutions and not...

Population increase is a natural sign of political health. By that measure, Baltimore has been sick a long time. Six straight decades of depopulation have reduced the city by a third. The "experts" assert that immigration is the key to a population rebound. In his Persian Letters, Montesquieu reflects on the fate of the great cities of Constantinople and Isfahan: "People, attracted for a thousand reasons, ought to flock to them from every direction. Yet they are decaying internally and would long since have perished, had not their sovereigns in almost every century caused entire new nations to enter and...

Longstanding tension between Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Democratic President Barack Obama flared into the public spotlight Wednesday just after Air Force One touched down in Phoenix. Brewer, who was on the tarmac to greet Obama, hand-delivered a letter before engaging the president "intensely" for several minutes, including pointing her finger directly at him, according to Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown, acting as a pool reporter for other media outlets.

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.” – Lord Acton Americans have long been blessed. We’ve never been perfect but this cynical, politically correct age tends to harp more on our deficiencies than highlight the astounding prosperity that a generally free society brought. Today, some of our youth assume wealth their birthright while disparaging its capitalist wellspring. America’s heritage was one of free markets with limited, constitutional government. Independence was born less from revolution than a defense of historic liberties based on innate, natural rights. The founding vision affirmed tradition...

On January 12, the Indiana Senate Committee on Corrections, Criminal, & Civil Matters passed Senate Bill 54, an important step in the fight against eminent domain abuse. This legislation would mandate that state universities seeking to acquire private business property to compensate the business owner for estimated future earnings in addition to the traditional fair market value of the property. Senate Bill 54 is the brainchild of State Senator Doug Eckerty (R-Yorktown) and was prompted by the plight of a Muncie, Indiana businessman who found himself in competition with the biggest of all big businesses, the government. For the last...

CARSON CITY — Synthetic drugs that mirror cocaine and marijuana are showing up more often in Nevada, and some state legislators are unhappy that the state Pharmacy Board has not taken action to ban them. Assemblywoman April Mastroluca, chairwoman of the Legislative Committee on Health Care, said it’s been almost a year since the 2011 Legislature discussed the problem and she is frustrated the Pharmacy Board had not adopted a regulation to prohibit the “synthetic cannabinoids and bath salts.”

“State [of Minnesota] not rushing to act on Vikings stadium,” fretted the January 13 headline of a column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. New Jersey billionaire Zygi Wilf, owner of the Minnesota Vikings, is seeking about $700 million in taxpayers’ money to build his team a new stadium in the state. The $700 million would be roughly split between state and local taxpayers. Members of one proposed site for the stadium have been especially disgruntled by Wilf’s request to take their money for his business. A group in Ramsey County, which includes the state capital of St. Paul, has collected...

II is submitting not merely one, but two separate brief to the U.S. Supreme Court opposing Obamacare. One will show why the mandate that individuals buy government-approved insurance is unconstitutional. The other shows that Obamacare’s Medicaid mandates imposed on states also are unconstitutional. The Medicaid brief, to be filed in just a few days, addresses a part of Obamacare overshadowed by the individual mandate—but just as damaging to our federal republic, and just as clearly unconstitutional. Obamacare requires all states to greatly expand government health care within their states or lose ALL Medicaid funding—or at least a portion thereof to...

A Judge has ruled that the ballot will stand as is for the Virginia primary with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney as the only candidates in the presidential primary. In a 22 page ruling the Judge basically said that the Plaintiff’s: Perry,Gingrich,Santorum,Huntsman waited too long to file their request for an injunction. The Judge said: “In essense, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair,” Judge Gibney pulled no punches here: “They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago; the limitations on circulators affected them as soon as they began to circulate petitions. The...

The feds continue to target medical marijuana dispensaries which otherwise are operating in accordance with state law. In Colorado federal prosecutors gave 23 dispensaries which are operating within 1,000 feet of a school 45 days to shut down or face criminal prosecution as reported by John Ingold for The Denver Post. They issued an identical ultimatum to medical marijuana dispensaries in California last October. The threats are not idle. The feds yesterday filed suit "to seize the building of a Sacramento dispensary, charging the marijuana store violated federal laws against drug transactions near schools" as reported by Peter Hecht for...

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) - Federal District Court Judge John Gibney ruled against Texas Governor Rick Perry and other Republican presidential candidates who sued in an effort to appear on the ballot for the Virginia Republican primary in March. Judge Gibney announced the ruling Friday afternoon in Richmond, Virginia.[CLICK HERE: Read the judge's order] The suit was originally filed by Texas Governor Rick Perry. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Jon Hunstman later joined the challenge. According to court documents, the Republican candidates failed to meet the 10,000 signature petition requirements to get on the ballot. Mitt Romney and Ron Paul met...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's part-time Congress proposal has become the blueprint for a bill Rep. Timothy Johnson, an Illinois Republican, will introduce next week. The Citizen Legislators Act would limit the days Congress works to five per month, or 60 business days per session. It also would cut the salaries of representatives and senators in half. But like Perry's plan, Johnson's bill allows members to have jobs outside of Congress. The caveat is that their income cannot be earned as "a result of the privilege of their office, such as speaking tours, lobbying and consulting." Like Perry, Johnson says he...

SOCORRO, N.M. January 10, 2012 – As oil companies deploy hundreds of wells in northeast Pennsylvania to tap into the lucrative “shale gas” deposits, many are weighing the environmental impacts, the economic outlook and the regulatory climate related to the latest bonanza in domestic natural gas production.

Judge Malihi Denied Obama's Motion to Dismiss in Georgia Ballot Access Challenge: Granted Powell's and Swensson's Motion for Separate Hearings Farrar-Welden-Swensson-Powell v Obama, Motion to Dismiss by Obama is Denied, Georgia Ballot Access Challenge Excerpts from Judge Michael Malihi in the Order for Obama's Motion to Dismiss: "Statutory provisions must be read as they are written, and this Court finds that the cases cited by Defendant are not controlling." "Code Section 21-2-5(a) states that "every candidate for federal and state office" must meet the qualifications for holding that particular office, and this Court has seen no case law limiting this...

UPDATE: An Alabama Court has announced that it will hear arguments as to whether Barack Hussein Obama II is in fact eligible to appear on the State Presidential Primary Ballot. Several Alabama citizens have filed a lawsuit within the Alabama Circuit Court to "prevent certification of President Barack Obama for 2012 Alabama ballot access pending final hearing based on factual evidentiary hearings."

David Stilwell and a band of motorcyclists parked their bikes Friday afternoon close to the Long John Silver's on Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway. Nearby, a group of Metro Police — also on motorcycles — waited. Stilwell, joined by about 10 of his friends wearing black leather jackets, some with firearms resting in holsters on their hips, stood along the sidewalk waving signs that read "Police Checkpoint Ahead." But up ahead wasn't a typical DUI checkpoint; the officers on Flamingo Road were pulling over drivers on cellphones. "Police enforcement should be up front," said Stilwell, of Las Vegas.

Last year saw a slew of states review telecommunications laws designed for a bygone era. Tennessee phased out special charges for in-state long distance calls that subsidized phone companies. Florida and Kansas now allow companies subject to price regulations to better compete with new, less regulated providers. Increased competition has resulted from convergence in the industry, as providers once broken into segregated markets (e.g., cable TV, local and long distance phone, wireless, etc.) now all offer similar broadband phone and video services, or at least a pipe to get them. However, state laws have been slow to change, regulating some...

Hey gents, have you ever found yourself jealous of Captain James T. Kirk and his, …er intergalactic conquests? Do you longingly watch Jabba the Hutt’s dancing slave (her name is Oola, if you’re interested) and wonder, what if? Do you long to go where no man has gone before? Well, once a new sci-fi brothel opens in Nevada, you can. Nevada is the only state that allows legal prostitution, and there are two dozen licensed brothels in the state,

URGENT: PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AT THIS LINK to show you Stand With Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and AGAINST the political witchhunt of Obama's Department of Justice. This Administration and its open-borders allies La Raza, MALDEF and the ACLU, will stop at nothing to try and destroy the most prominent national symbol in the fight against illegal immigration. Sheriff Joe will not back down. Please sign the petition to show we stand behind him. [UPDATE: The ACLU already has a petition calling for Arpaio's resignation with 16,911 signatures, and rising fast as LA RAZA and The People for the American Way...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's campaign has gotten its court date in Virginia. U.S. District Judge John Gibney Jr. has set a hearing on the validity of Virginia's primary ballot for Jan 13th. Before that hearing, the judge is requiring that the Perry campaign reach out to the other Republican candidates, to see if they would be interested in joining either side of the suit. Perry Communications director Ray Sullivan says the campaign will "respect and abide by that order." In fact, Sullivan says Perry would "welcome other candidate involvement." Virginia has some of the country's toughest ballot requirements. Only two...

U.S. District Court in Virginia Expedites Rick Perry’s Ballot Access Lawsuit Richard Winger December 29th, 2011 U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney of Virginia has set a hearing in Rick Perry’s presidential primary ballot access lawsuit. He will consider Perry’s request for injunctive relief on January 13. In the meantime, he has established a briefing schedule, and also has instructed attorneys for Perry to communicate with all other Republican presidential primary candidates who had filed a declaration of candidacy, to explain to them how they may intervene in the lawsuit. This shows foresight and thoughtfulness on the part of...

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles— Federal judges have blocked strict new immigration laws adopted by conservative legislatures in half a dozen states, including a ruling last week that said South Carolina may not set up a "street-level dragnet" to stop and arrest illegal immigrants. But immigrant rights advocates who have cheered those rulings may soon find their luck has run out as those rulings head for the Supreme Court. Legal experts believe the high court's conservative majority will take a sharply different approach. So far, lower-court judges have mostly sided with the Obama administration, ruling, as U.S. District Judge...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry today filed an emergency motion in U.S. District Court in Richmond seeking an injunction ordering the State Board of Elections to print presidential primary ballots with his name. Perry filed suit in federal court Tuesday challenging his exclusion from the March 6 primary ballot, naming the three members of the elections board and Pat Mullins, chairman of the state Republican Party. Perry is urging a judge to bar the elections board and Mullins from enforcing the state residency requirement for people who collect petition signatures for ballot access.

Perry's lawyers said a preliminary injunction was necessary since the deadline to print ballots in Virginia will be in two to three weeks. “In the absence of a preliminary injunction, plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm,” per filing. The case is Perry v. Judd, 3:11-cv-856, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond.

One of Newt Gingrich’s first acts as president, if he is elected, will be to drop all of the Justice Department’s lawsuits against states -- including the federal government’s lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s new immigration law. “It’s pretty outrageous when the federal government fails to do its job and then attacks the states for trying to fill the gap created by the federal government,” Gingrich said on the back porch of the Blue Marlin in the Vista after speaking to a crowd of about 300 people for about an hour. Thursday, a federal judge threw out three sections of South...

PHOENIX - The Homeland Security Department will use 50 immigration agents to screen jail inmates in Arizona's most populous county after it revoked the sheriff's authority to access its systems, the agency said Monday in a letter to U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl. ................

Gov. Rick Perry began his 42-city bus tour on a rather populist note Wednesday, saying a diagram of the country’s problems would be a straight line between Washington, D.C. and Wall Street. Perry has been struggling in the polls for months but hopes a tour of Iowa’s small towns in the three weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 can lift him back to the front of the pack. “I hope some of you are taking a second look,” Perry said. Perry is trying to sell himself as the true Washington outsider in the Republican race, and...

Border Justice: As the administration proposes unmanned border entry and halving our National Guard force on the border, the Supreme Court agrees to tackle Arizona's tough immigration law in an election year. Arizona wasn't around when the original 13 states formed the federal government knowing there were certain things it could do best, such as the constitutional mandate to provide for the common defense and protect our borders. National and border security involves not only deterring foreign armies armed with tanks, but also protecting our borders from an invasion involving ladders and pickup trucks. That, Arizona argued when it passed...

The Obama administration has turned down a request from Texas to run its Title X family planning program, funded with federal taxpayer dollars, without funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The adminsitration sent a letter to inform the Texas Health and Human Services Commission of its intent to deny a request to extend the Medicaid Women’s Health Program if Texas complies with its law banning contractors “that perform or promote elective abortions or affiliate with entities that perform or promote elective abortions.” Earlier this year, Texas yanked about $64 million in funding from Planned Parenthood and directed the funds to...

Here he goes again. Idaho Rep. Dennis Lake, Chair of the powerful Revenue and Taxation Committee, is poised to introduce a massive tobacco tax increase in 2012. The proposal is being supported by a coalition of special interests lobbying for higher taxes. Lake has unsuccessfully agitated for higher tobacco taxes consistently in the past. Rather than take on the difficult decisions and prioritization expected of a legislator, Rep. Lake is content to erode Idaho's competitiveness by raising taxes. In fact, he has essentially deemed the pro-tax coalition his puppetmaster: 'Lake told IdahoReporter.com Monday that is he serving as an “errand...

Supreme Court to settle election district scuffle in Texas as a map signed by Rick Perry is accused of diluting minority voting power Texas’ March primary will likely be delayed after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked the use of state legislative and congressional district maps that were drawn by federal judges. The court issued a brief order late Friday that applies to electoral maps drawn by federal judges in San Antonio for the Texas Legislature and Congress that would have ensured minorities made up the majority in three additional Texas congressional districts. The justices said they will hear...

Justice Department Warns Alabama Law Enforcers On Immigration By Pete Williams and Kari Huus The Justice Department has sent a letter to dozens of local law enforcement agencies in Alabama that receive federal money, warning them that they risk losing that funding if they're not careful in how they enforce the state's tough new immigration law. The Obama administration has already sued the state, claiming that the law is unconstitutional. Now it's keeping the pressure on by addressing how the law is carried out. The law, HB56 passed by the Alabama Legislature in June, attempts to combat illegal immigration by...

...Brown was unable to pass the largest state tax increase in U.S. history earlier this year because legislative Republicans, whose votes were needed due to California's 2/3rds vote requirement to raise taxes, kept their pledge to constituents to oppose any and all efforts to raise taxes. So Brown is now going out to collect signatures, with financial backing of government sector unions and Hollywood, to put an income and sales tax hike on the ballot. (Side note: Brown should hire ATR to consult him, because as we told him back in January, his tax hikes wouldn’t get through the legislature...

I understand that the NAACP opposes voter-ID laws. Given the long history of fighting against uses of state law to deny blacks and other minorities the franchise until the Civil Rights Movement prevailed, their deep skepticism over proposed stricter enforcement of eligibility laws can’t help but recall echoes of voter suppression in their communities, even if the new laws are innocent of any racial animus. We still have plenty of mistrust that will take generations to undo, especially given that we still have those with living memories of having been denied the right to vote. Still, if the NAACP wants...

Last night on Fox News’ candidate forum, Governor MItt Romney defaulted to quoting David Brooks from the New York Times. There’s why Herman Cain’s supporters will be looking at Gingrich and Perry. In fact, last night a number of Cain’s Iowa staff moved to Rick Perry. Rick Perry will get another look. He will get another look because while the grassroots and Republican voters in general are moving to Gingrich, conservative leaders around the country are rapidly running up their watch towers to light fires against Gingrich. They remember him from the 90′s and they don’t trust him. Rick Perry...

Watch the preview for the rules and a little insight about the questions and the questioners. Short commercial ad first. Six candidates are participating. Eddie Haskell Hunstman has declined the invitation. Herman Cain suspended his campaign today and will not participate.

If the Republican presidential contenders wish to remain truthful to their rhetoric of decentralization of power in Washington, they should take a break from wooing social conservatives and stand for states' rights in regard to gay marriage. Because many likely Iowa caucus-goers describe themselves as very conservative on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, many candidates feel they need to reach out to the far-right if they plan to get the presidential nod. However, a staunch, conservative position on social issues will likely hurt them in the long run, because it undermines their more-appealing small-government policies.... The three...

CARSON CITY – A conservative Nevada think tank today filed a complaint in district court against Sen. Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, saying the separation of powers clause in the state constitution prohibits government employees from serving in the Legislature. Denis works for the state Public Utilities Commission as a computer technician. Attorney Joseph Becker with the Nevada Policy Research Institute’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation said his client William Pojunis is qualified to perform, and would like to apply for, Denis’ job.

Perry is nearly perfect with regards to his gun record.