Tenth Amendment Center

by Bob Barr
Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, July 25, 2008
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of this Committee, on which I was privileged to serve throughout my eight years as a Member of the House of Representatives, it is an honor to appear today to speak on the importance of the separation of powers in [...]

Cross-Posted from DailyKos.com with permission of the author, Crashing Vor
Watching Keith [Olbermann] just now, I heard him mention Antonin “Nino” Scalia’s dissenting opinion from today’s ruling in regards habeas corpus rights for detainees.
The lowlight of Justice Scalia’s opinion was the paragraph:
“The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will [...]

by Ivan Eland
More memos recently have surfaced that were written early in the Bush administration by John C. Yoo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — the man who gave us the administration’s horrifyingly narrow definition of torture. As difficult as it is to believe, the recently released memos are even scarier than [...]

This week, Rep. Ron Paul introduced HR 3835 – the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007. This bill, if passed, would go a long way towards restoring liberty and the constitution in this country, and eliminate a number of “laws” that were enacted beyond the Constitution’s limit on federal power.

George Bush has formally presented an expansion of NAFTA to Peru. And, under FastTrack “rules,”Congress cannot amend the legislation.
What does this mean? Well, it’s quite simple. Under Fast Track, the president has the authority to ignore the will of Congress in negotiating new trade agreements.

A recent OpEd by Mario Cuomo in the Los Angeles Times, What The Constitution Says About Iraq, gave some surprisingly good analysis of how the Iraq war is a direct violation of the constitution. Here’s a few tidbits:

Reports from the UK are talking about a British General lambasting US policy failures in Iraq. From the Guardian:
The bitter transatlantic row over Iraq intensified as another key British general lambasted the US for bungling the aftermath of the invasion.
Major General Tim Cross, the most senior UK officer involved in the post-war planning, said Washington’s [...]

Kevin Gutzman’s new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, might be the best available overview of the principles of limited government as espoused by the Tenth Amendment.
After reading this book, you’ll see quite clearly that the original constitution has very little in common with how this government is run today (if you haven’t [...]

by Rep. Ron Paul
Recently, the General Accounting Office studied nineteen instances where the President issued so-called “signing statements.” In such statements, the President essentially begins the process of interpreting legislation – up to and including declaring provisions unconstitutional—hence often refusing to enforce them.
The GAO study found that in nearly 1/3 of the cases studied, [...]

DIGG This
The framers of the Constitution attempted to balance the power of the President as commander-in-chief with that of Congress, the representatives of the People. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives to the Executive Branch the command of the nation’s armed forces, while Article I, Section 8 gives to the Legislative [...]