Free Republic

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...