Townhall: Federalism doesn’t pause during a pandemic

Federalism doesn’t pause during a pandemic

Timothy Snowball

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Posted: May 04, 2020

As the COVID-19 lockdowns continues to grind on in most states, President Trump has signaled an intense desire for state governors to reopen their respective states. This pressure has ranged from the subtle to the overt. In one particularly alarming development, the president even went so far as to declare that the decision to lift the current stay at home orders is his to make, not state governors.

“The authority of the president of the United States” over reopening state economies “is total,” according to President Trump. “I have the ultimate authority.”

While the president’s remarks are no doubt intended to offset the already sizeable damage done to a large portion of the electorate’s economic prospects, any action taken by the federal government must account for the separation of powers built into our system of federalism.

Under the American system of federalism, the primary power to combat COVID-19 rests with the states, not the federal government or the president.

Read the rest of the article at Townhall.com...

Taking Back ‘We the People’ From the Left

Constitutional populism, from Barry Goldwater to Donald Trump, built the modern right and changed the world.

By LEE EDWARDS • April 23, 2019 } LINK

Modern American populism grounded in the Constitution has been a major force in American politics, especially in the conservative movement, for nearly six decades. Since the Draft Goldwater Committee of 1962 to 1963, constitutional populism has helped to shape the politics of American conservatism and its chosen political instrument, the Republican Party. Populism on the Left as personified by Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is far different—with its socialist, secular, globalist, and utopian roots.

Read this at TheAmericanConservative.com... 

SSN: SCOTUS Just Made a Landmark Ruling that Reins in the Power of Government

SCOTUS Just Made a Landmark Ruling that Reins in the Power of Government

By 

MIKE HUCKABEE

February 25, 2019 - 8:00am  

It got little attention on such a busy news day, but the Supreme Court issued a landmark rulinglast Wednesday for property rights.

The court unanimously ruled that the Eighth Amendment protection against excessive fines in cases of individuals charged or convicted of a crime applies not only to the federal government but also to the states’ seizure of property and other assets.

The particular case involved someone who was convicted for dealing drugs. Indiana authorities seized and auctioned off his Land Rover, even though it was not purchased with drug money, on grounds that he used it to commit crimes by driving it while dealing drugs (with that kind of tenuous connection, they could have seized his sneakers, too.)

READ THE ARTICLE IN Sunshine State News...

Mike Huckabee, a resident of Seaside, is a Christian minister who served as the governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007 and was a Republican candidate for president in the primaries of both 2008 and 2016.  This column appeared Sunday on explainlife.com.

Justice Kavanaugh and the path of the law

OCTOBER 8, 2018 | BY MARK MILLER | SENIOR ATTORNEY

Over the the last several months, I repeatedly have been asked what a Justice Kavanaugh would mean both for PLF cases specifically and the law in general. Now that the possibility has become reality, let’s consider the answers to those questions and a few other questions posed by his recent Senate confirmation.

READ the entire post at PLF  

TIME: The FBI Is in Crisis. It's Worse Than You Think

The FBI Is in Crisis. It's Worse Than You Think

By ERIC LICHTBLAU 

May 3, 2018

In normal times, the televisions are humming at the FBI’s 56 field offices nationwide, piping in the latest news as agents work their investigations. But these days, some agents say, the TVs are often off to avoid the crush of bad stories about the FBI itself. The bureau, which is used to making headlines for nabbing crooks, has been grabbing the spotlight for unwanted reasons: fired leaders, texts between lovers and, most of all, attacks by President Trump. “I don’t care what channel it’s on,” says Tom O’Connor, a veteran investigator in Washington who leads the FBI Agents Association. “All you hear is negative stuff about the FBI … It gets depressing.” 

Many view Trump’s attacks as self-serving: he has called the renowned agency an “embarrassment to our country” and its investigations of his business and political dealings a “witch hunt.” But as much as the bureau’s roughly 14,000 special agents might like to tune out the news, internal and external reports have found lapses throughout the agency, and longtime observers, looking past the partisan haze, see a troubling picture: something really is wrong at the FBI.

Read the article at Time.com... 

Tennessee Bill Would Allow Customers to Opt Out of Smart Meters, Undermine Federal Program

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Jan. 23, 2018) – A bill introduced in the Tennessee Senate would allow customers to opt out of installing “smart meter” technology on their homes and businesses without penalty. Passage of this bill would enable Tennesseans to protect their own privacy, and it would take a step toward blocking a federal program in effect.

Sen. Mark Green (R-Clarksville) introduced Senate Bill 1679 (SB1679) on Jan. 18. The legislation would ensure utility customers can easily opt-out of smart meter programs.

Smart meters monitor home energy usage in minute detail in real time. The devices transmit data to the utility company where it gets stored in databases. Anybody with access to the data can download it for analysts. Without specific criteria limiting access to the data, these devices create significant privacy issues. Smart meters can also be used to remotely limit power usage during peak hours.

SB1679 would prohibit utilities from installing a smart meter on a home or business without the customer’s written and signed consent. It would also prohibit utilities from punishing customers who refuse to install smart meters by discontinuing service or charging a fee. Under the proposed law, utilities could not charge a customer for removing an existing smart meter.

Privacy Concerns

The proliferation of smart meters creates significant privacy concerns. The data collected can tell anybody who holds it a great deal about what goes on inside a home. It can reveal when residents are at home, asleep or on vacation. It can also pinpoint “unusual” energy use, and could someday serve to help enforce “energy usage” regulations. The ACLU summarized the privacy issues surrounding smart meters in a recent report.

“The temptation to use the information that will be collected from customers for something other than managing electrical loads will be strong – as it has been for cell phone tracking data and GPS information. Police may want to know your general comings and goings or whether you’re growing marijuana in your basement under grow lights. Advertisers will want the information to sell you a new washing machine to replace the energy hog you got as a wedding present 20 years ago. Information flowing in a smart grid will become more and more ‘granular’ as the system develops.”

The privacy issues aren’t merely theoretical. According to information obtained by the California ACLU, utility companies in the state have disclosed information gathered by smart meters on thousands of customers. San Diego Gas and Electric alone disclosed data on more than 4,000 customers. The vast majority of disclosures were in response to subpoenas by government agencies “often in drug enforcement cases or efforts to find specific individuals,” according to SFGate.

“Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network watchdog group, said the sheer number of data disclosures made by SDG&E raised the possibility that government agencies wanted to sift through large amounts of data looking for patterns, rather than conducting targeted investigations.”

No Smart Meter, No Data

Refusing to allow a smart meter on your property is the only sure-fire way to ensure your energy use data won’t fall into the hands of government agents or private marketers, or end up stored in some kind of government database. Passage of SB1679 would make opting out a legal option for Tennesseans and give them control over their own privacy.

Impact on Federal Program

The federal government serves as a major source of funding for smart meters. A 2009 program through the U.S. Department of Energy distributed $4.5 billion for smart grid technology. The initial projects were expected to fund the installation of 1.8 million smart meters over three years.

The federal government lacks any constitutional authority to fund smart grid technology. The easiest way to nullify such programs is to simply not participate. SB1679 would make that possible. If enough states pass similar legislation, and enough people opt out, the program will go nowhere.

We’ve seen a similar opt-out movement undermining Common Core in New York. Opting out follows a strategy James Madison advised in Federalist #46. “Refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” provides a powerful means to fight back against government overreach. Such actions in multiple states would likely be effective in bringing down federal smart meter programs.

WHAT’S NEXT

SB1679 had not been referred to a committee at the time of this report. Once it receives a committee assignment, it will need to pass by a majority vote before moving forward in the legislative process.

LINK

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Mike Maharrey

Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center.He proudly resides
in the original home of the Principles of '98 - Kentucky.See his blog archive here and his article archive here.He is the
author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE

The Humanitarian Hoax of Common Core: Killing America with kindness, hoax 19

The Humanitarian Hoax of Common Core: Killing America with kindness, hoax 19
By Linda Goudsmit

January 16, 2018

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Obama, the humanitarian huckster-in-chief, weakened the United States for eight years presenting his crippling Common Core advocacy as altruistic when in fact it was designed for destruction. His legacy, the Leftist Democrat Party with its "Resistance" movement, is the party of the Humanitarian Hoax attempting to destroy the capitalist infrastructure of American democracy and replace it with socialism.

Common Core is a deliberate information war targeting American children. It is a deceitful campaign to undermine established American Judeo-Christian cultural norms celebrating patriotism, the meritocracy, and American sovereignty. The Leftist/Islamist axis is promoting collectivism in preparation for one-world government. This is how it works...

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT RENEWAMERICA.COM...

U.S. Constitution: Article I, Section 10

Section 10.

No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

SOURCE: Cornell Law Library

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We herein observe that governors and other officials representing any state or any geographical subsidiary of this Nation who enter into any agreement or "accord" (treaty, alliance, compact or confederation) with any foreign power, organization of nations or similar conferences and which pledge compliance with schemes, "voluntarily" or otherwise, to reduce "carbon emissions" within the United States, may be impeached for the offense of failing to comply with and to support the Constitution of the United States in conformance with the Oath of Office each has taken upon their installation to office. 

jjm

FEE: The Income Tax Implies that Government Owns You

The Income Tax Implies that Government Owns You

The income tax is enshrined into law but it is an idea that stands in total contradiction to the driving force behind the American Revolution and the idea of freedom itself. We desperately need a serious national movement to get rid of it – not reform it, not replace it, not flatten it or refocus its sting from this group to that. It just needs to go.

The great essayist Frank Chodorov once described the income tax as the root of all evil. His target was not the tax itself, but the principle behind it. Since its implementation in 1913, he wrote, "The government says to the citizen: 'Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide.”

He really does have a point. That's evil. When Congress ratified the 16th Amendment on Feb. 3, 1913, there was a sense in which all private income in the U.S. was nationalized. What was not taxed from then on was a favor granted unto us, and continues to be so.

This is implied in the text of the amendment itself: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

No Limits
Where are the limits? There weren't any. There was some discussion about putting a limit on the tax, but it seemed unnecessary. Only 1% of the income earners would end up paying about 1% to the government. Everyone else was initially untouched. Who really cares that the rich have to pay a bit more, right? They can afford it.

This perspective totally misunderstands the true nature of government, which always wants more money and more power and will stop at nothing to get both. The 16th Amendment was more than a modern additive to an antique document. It was a new philosophy of the fiscal life of the entire country.

Today, the ruling elite no longer bothers with things like amendments. But back in the day, it was different. The amendment was made necessary because of previous court decisions that stated what was once considered a bottom-line presumption of the free society: Government cannot tax personal property. What you make is your own. You get to keep the product of your labors. Government can tax sales, perhaps, or raise money through tariffs on goods coming in and out of the country. But your bank account is off-limits.

The amendment changed that idea. In the beginning, it applied to very few people. This was one reason it passed. It was pitched as a replacement tax, not a new money raiser. After all the havoc caused by the divisive tariffs of the 19th century, this sounded like a great deal to many people, particularly Southerners and Westerners fed up with paying such high prices for manufactured goods while seeing their trading relations with foreign consumers disrupted.

People who supported it – and they were not so much the left but the right-wing populists of the time – imagined that the tax would hit the robber baron class of industrialists in the North. And that it did. Their fortunes began to dwindle, and their confidence in their ability to amass and retain intergenerational fortunes began to wane.

Limit to Accumulation
We all know the stories of how the grandchildren of the Gilded Age tycoons squandered their family heritage in the 1920s and failed to carry on the tradition. Well, it is hardly surprising. The government put a timetable and limit on accumulation. Private families and individuals would no longer be permitted to exist except in subjugation to the taxing state. The kids left their private estates to live in the cities, put off marriage, stopped bothering with all that hearth and home stuff. Time horizons shortened, and the Jazz Age began.

Class warfare was part of the deal from the beginning. The income tax turned the social fabric of the country into a giant lifetime boat, with everyone arguing about who had to be thrown overboard so that others might live.

The demon in the beginning was the rich. That remained true until the 1930s, when FDR changed the deal. Suddenly, the income would be collected, but taxed in a different way. It would be taken from everyone, but a portion would be given back late in life as a permanent income stream. Thus was the payroll tax born. This tax today is far more significant than the income tax.

The class warfare unleashed all those years ago continues today. One side wants to tax the rich. The other side finds it appalling that the percentage of people who pay no income tax has risen from 30% to nearly 50%. Now we see the appalling spectacle of Republicans regarding this as a disgrace that must change. They have joined the political classes that seek advancement by hurting people.

The Payroll Tax
It's extremely strange that the payroll tax is rarely considered in this debate. The poor, the middle class and the rich are all being hammered by payroll taxes that fund failed programs that provide no security and few benefits at all.

It's impossible to take seriously the claims that the income tax doesn't harm wealth creation. When Congress wants to discourage something – smoking, imports, selling stocks or whatever – they know what to do: Tax it. Tax income, and on the margin, you discourage people from earning it.

Tax debates are always about "reform" – which always means a slight shift in who pays what, with an eye to raising ever more money for the government. A far better solution would be to forget the whole thing and return to the original idea of a free society: You get to keep what you earn or inherit. That means nothing short of abolishing the great mistake of 1913.

Forget the flat tax. The only just solution is no tax on incomes ever.

But let's say that one day we actually become safe from the income tax collectors and something like blessed peace arrives. There is still another problem that emerged in 1913. Congress created the Federal Reserve, which eventually developed the power to create all the money that government would ever need, even without taxing.

For the practical running of the affairs of the state, the Fed is far worse than the income tax. It creates the more-insidious tax because it is so sneaky. In a strange way, it has made all the debates about taxation superfluous. Denying the government revenue does nothing to curb its appetites for our liberties and property. The Fed has managed to make it impossible to starve the beast.

Chodorov was correct about the evil of the income tax. Its passage signaled the beginning of a century of despotism. Our property is no longer safe. Our income is not our own. We are legally obligated to turn over whatever our masters say we owe them. You can fudge this point: None of this is compatible with the old liberal idea of freedom.

You doubt it? Listen to Thomas Jefferson from his inaugural address of 1801. What he said then remains true today:"…what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one more thing, fellow citizens a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."
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Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books. He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Excerpts from American Enterprise Institute’s Panel Discussion on Article V with Panelist Antonin Scalia

Excerpts from American Enterprise Institute’s Panel Discussion on Article V with Panelist Antonin Scalia

May 23, 1979 

p. 5

MR. DALY: All right. Professor Scalia, Richard Rovere in the New Yorker, suggested that the convention method of amendment might reinstate segregation and even slavery, throw out much or all of the Bill of Rights, eliminate the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, reverse any Supreme Court decision the members didn't like, and perhaps for good measure, eliminate the Supreme Court, itself. [Laughter.] Now, what would you anticipate from an unlimited convention?

ANTONIN SCALIA, professor of law, University of Chicago: I suppose it might even pass a bill of attainder to hang Richard Rovere. [Laughter.] All those things are possible, I suppose, just as it is possible that the Congress tomorrow might pass a law abolishing social security as of the next day, or eliminating Christmas. Such things are possible, remotely possible. I have no fear that such extreme proposals would come out of a constitutional convention. Surely, whether that risk is sufficient to cause anyone to be opposed to a constitutional convention depends on how high we think the risk is and how necessary we think the convention is. If we thought the Congress were not necessary for any other purpose, the risk that it might abolish social security would probably be enough to tell its members to go home. So, it really comes down to whether we think a constitutional convention is necessary. I think it is necessary for some purposes, and I am willing to accept what seems to me a minimal risk of intemperate action.The founders inserted this alternative method of obtaining constitutional amendments because they knew the Congress would be unwilling to give attention to many issues the people are concerned with, particularly those involving restrictions on the federal government's own power. The founders foresaw that and they provided the convention as a remedy. If the only way to get that convention is to take this minimal risk, then it is a reasonable one.

*** Read the rest... 

National Security Experts Seek Public Debate of Proposed Changes to Military Commissions

National Security Experts Seek Public Debate of Proposed Changes to Military Commissions

·         May 11, 2016

·         Issue: Counter-Terrorism Policies & Practices

·         Sub-Issue: Detention & Prosecution of Terrorist Suspects

Twenty-five national security experts from across the political spectrum want Congress to hold public hearings before making changes to the law for prosecuting suspected terrorists in military commissions.

Military commission proceedings have been underway at Guantanamo Bay since 2011 for six detainees accused of planning the 9/11 attacks, and one accused of plotting the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, with the anticipated trials still several years away.  The government is seeking the death penalty against six of the defendants.  In mid-April, the Department of Defense asked Congress to consider several amendments to the Military Commissions Act it said would improve the efficiency of the process.

“There are real problems with the military commissions, but the proposed amendments to the MCA do not address them—and in some cases raise serious constitutional concerns,” the experts wrote in a May 10 statement to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is considering the changes requested by the Pentagon as part of the annual defense authorization legislation.  The experts are all members of The Constitution Project’s bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee or the Task Force on Detainee Treatment.

“Fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks and the Cole bombing, it is perfectly understandable that the government, the families of the victims and public would be frustrated by the glacial pace of bringing these alleged perpetrators to justice,” said TCP President Virginia Sloan in a press release.  “But tinkering around the edges of an unfixable law, especially without full public discussion, is not the solution,” she said.  Instead, Sloan suggested Congress drop its opposition to trying the cases in federal court.

The statement notes that more people have been convicted on terrorism-related charges in federal court – and are currently incarcerated in federal prison – than the entire remaining population at Guantanamo.  In comparison, military commissions have obtained only eight convictions, four of which were subsequently overturned by a federal appeals court.  Military commissions cost $91 million a year.

LINK TO The Constitution Project (original post)

The Crisis of the American Idea

by (Senator) Ben Sasse

We face great challenges at this moment in history. We face cyber threats. We face a resurgent Russia under Vladimir Putin. We face a jihadi threat. We face the growing threat of nonstate actors, who now can carry out massive attacks and are as able to play on the global stage as state actors. We face the exploding costs of our entitlement programs.

All these challenges are acute, but another dangerous trend is attracting less notice: The crisis of confidence in, and the growing unawareness of, the American idea.

What is the American idea? The American Founding made the bold claim that most peoples and most governments in the history of the world had been wrong about the nature of power and the nature of freedom. Sure, there were moments in history when certain city-states advanced some conception of liberty, but most people in human history said that might makes right: If you have a monopoly on power, you can do what you want. Everyone else in those societies was not a citizen but a dependent subject. If you lived in such a society, you needed the king to give you rights. The passive assumption was prohibition. The passive assumption was that if I want to start a business, I need a charter because it is illegal to run that business unless the king has sanctioned it. Therefore, I go and supplicate before the king in his court, and he decides whether to give me the right to start that business.

Today we would say that is bizarre. The voluntary transaction between two people is the very nature of freedom. The American Founders saw that denying people their freedom is fundamentally wrong because it does not comport with the dignity of people who are created in the image of God. People have been endowed with certain inalienable rights. God gives us those rights; government does not.

Government is merely a tool. It provides a framework for ordered liberty so that free people can live fully flowering lives.

This is why Ronald Reagan said that the American Founders “brought about the only true revolution that has ever taken place in man’s history.” Previous revolutions “simply exchanged one set of rulers for another set of rulers,” Reagan said. But America’s Founders did something different: They developed and fought for “the idea that you and I have within ourselves the God-given right and the ability to determine our own destiny.”

Cruz Pledges to Ignore Unconstitutional Obergefell Decision

CRISIS MAGAZINE

Why Breitbart is Wrong About Refugees

Liberty First by KrisAnne Hall

America is suffering from a disease called federal supremacy. It obviously is not limited by political party or ideology. It is why we must support Liberty over security, Principle over party, and Truth over our favorite personality...and media.

Dan Bongino: Is Obama's Govt Too Big to Fail?

The organized far-left frequently discusses the "30-Front War" on your individual liberty and I breakdown just how far President Obama has advanced the ball in this "War."

 

http://blog.bongino.com/

The Jefferson Statement

On September 11, 2014, some of our nation’s finest legal minds convened at The Jefferson Hotel in Washington, D.C., to engage in a full, robust discussion of the Convention of States Project.  The participants—including former members of the Reagan administration, seasoned Supreme Court litigators, and Ivy League professors—discussed and debated arguments for and against the use of Article V to restrain federal power and evaluated its potential to be used safely and effectively. 

The hotel, which is four blocks from the White House, was the ideal location for this conversation.  In fact, the hotel’s namesake, Thomas Jefferson, believed Article V should be used to “correct breaches of the Constitution.”

In this historic location, these renowned legal experts discussed how to effectively use the Constitution to save the Constitution. Several hours later, they had achieved consensus and endorsed the Convention of States Project.  

They specifically rejected the argument that a Convention of States is likely to be misused or improperly controlled by Congress, concluding instead that the mechanism provided by the Founders is safe.  Moreover, they shared the conviction that Article V provides the only constitutionally effective means to restore our federal system. 

In an era of quick fixes, press conferences, and spin, this meeting was designed to go to the root of the problems that ail our nation.  Thankfully, these constitutional experts saw the potential and the hope our Founders gave us even as they were forming our country.

The conclusions of these prestigious experts are memorialized in The Jefferson Statement, which is reproduced here.  The names and biographical information of the endorsers, who have formed a “Legal Board of Reference” for the Convention of States Project, are listed below the Statement.  

The Jefferson Statement

Democrats and Republicans Alike Get the Supremacy Clause Wrong

by Matthew Sickmeier

When the issue of federal power over states’ rights come into the forefront, Democrats are quick to cite the supremacy clause as beyond debate.  Yet, Republicans often use the same talking points.  When GOP policies need that extra “federal muscle,” Republicans imitate their political opponents and claim federal law as supreme without question.

Case in point, Rep.Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) are making the case that a legalization initiativeover marijuana in D.C would be trumped by Federal power if passed by voters. 

“I’m kind of naive, I guess. I thought federal law trumped state and local law. I thought that’s why we had a supremacy clause,” Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, told The Hill on Friday.

While Congress has special jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, the problem is the general statement from Gowdy that federal law, by its existence, simply trumps all state and local law.

These defenders look to the supremacy clause as their four aces, but omit the text  itself.  “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme law of the land…” (emphasis added)

Simply put, laws are only supreme if such power is delegated to the Federal Government in the Constitution.  Anything not expressly delegated is left to the States and the people thereof vis–à–vis the 10th Amendment.  As Hamilton wrote in Federalist #33 “It will not, I presume, have escaped observation that it expressly confines this supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitution….”

If a federal law is “not in pursuance” of the Constitution, it’s therefore null and void.  Game, set, match …how’s that for four aces?

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Matthew Sickmeier

Matthew Sickmeier is a Tenth Amendment volunteer blogger.He writes and contributes from Georgia.

Technorati Tags: state sovereignty

Money Has Corrupted Our Political System And Threatens The Republic

by Kirk F. MacKenzie
Founder of Defend Rural America^TM

April 29, 2014

© 2014 Kirk F. MacKenzie.

All rights reserved.

Our Efforts Are Being Blocked

I fear our efforts to take our country back are being obstructed, and from the very people that should be representing our interests. These obstructionists, no matter how patriotic or constitutional they might believe themselves to be, threaten our Republic. Every single group within our Restoration Movement, no matter the specific issue that it is focused on―common core education, stack-and-pack housing, high-speed rail, regional government, agriculture, mining, forestry, property rights, access to public lands, environment, etc.―is called upon to unite in one common goal we must all share: the restoration of truly constitutional county and state governments. We either restore local constitutional government, or suffer global governance.

The Invisible Divide

My conclusion is based upon the extensive number of meetings, presentations, conversations, and travels I have participated in over the past three years. There is an invisible divide between the People and many if not most of our Representatives. The People are ready to solve fundamental, systemic problems. Our Representatives, however, will only go so far. That divide is not always expressed openly and publicly, but can be discerned from non-discussion and non-action on issues such as the fraudulent and enslaving nature of our monetary system, to name but one, a topic considered to be the electrified third rail of politics. I fear the full and immediate use of a state's existing jurisdiction may be another.

Money Used To Bypass Our Constitution (Read more…)

Sitting on Our Hands

by Shona Darress

For the past week or so we have been watching what has been happening in Kiev in Ukraine and in the last few days, watching in despair as so many of the brave demonstrators died. We are also seeing much the same thing happening in Venezuela. In the past year we have seen this happen in several other countries as the people of those countries rose up and threw out their corrupt and tyrannical governments. So this evening we were watching 'Braveheart' and saw how the Scots rose up against the English for their freedom. I was sitting there and wondering why all these other countries are rising up against their tyrannical governments and we in this country are blithely sitting on our hands doing nothing while this country slides rapidly into tyranny.

Why don't the people rise up like they have done in other countries? Then it hit me, the people of those other countries have had a taste of freedom and they know what tyranny is. The people of this country have never known anything but freedom and they have no idea what tyranny is. How in the world do we wake the average Joe up to what is happening here when they have been so spoiled by freedom that they no longer have any idea what tyranny is like?

Americans are so complacent and take their freedoms for granted and just cannot believe that they are on the cusp of loosing them for good.

BuzzNet Tags: liberty,citizenship

CSPOA JAN 2014 RESOLUTION #tcot

The following was drafted at a meeting of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) on Jan 24, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada and approved by the members present.  We encourage all sheriffs, peace officers and those in public office to sign with us. We also welcome the signatures of all other U.S. citizens.

To add your name, download a printable version, print it, sign it, scan it and submit it here.

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Resolution
Of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association

Pursuant to the powers and duties bestowed upon us by our citizens, the undersigned do hereby resolve that any Federal officer, agent, or employee, regardless of supposed congressional authorization, is required to obey and observe limitations consisting of the enumerated powers as detailed within Article 1 Section 8 of the U S Constitution and the Bill Of Rights.