Horowitz: DeSantis’ state compact against ESG is the blueprint to fighting federal-corporate fascism



While we all slept for a number of years past, the federal government has worked with global governments and corporations to remake our society, economy, culture, laws, and policy. More recently, these governments and corporations have built an enforcement mechanism against anyone on the wrong side of “total state” values. It’s a trap of human life, liberty, and property that is seemingly incorrigible save one escape hatch that still remains in Madison’s original design. Now Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is utilizing that escape hatch and plowing a path for using it on every other important issue of our time.

In announcing a 19-state alliance against the environmental, social, and corporate governance jihad on American values and liberties, DeSantis has actually done something more significant and impactful than potentially running for president. Many of us believe the federal government is irremediably broken. But what do you do when your own government turns on you and violates the essence of the social compact on every issue that matters pertaining to the core tenets of establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty?

You push back using the doctrine of the lowest magistrate through a coalition of state governments. On Thursday, DeSantis announced that he had formed an alliance with the governors of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming to take a number of actions to interpose against Biden’s ESG agenda. Florida’s legislation, which presumably would be echoed in other states, per the joint letter with the other 18 governors, includes the following objectives detailed in the governor’s one-pager:

  • Prohibiting big banks, trusts, and other financial institutions from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs — including their support for securing the border, owning a firearm, and increasing our energy independence.
  • Prohibiting the financial sector from considering so-called “social credit scores” in banking and lending practices that aim to prevent Floridians from obtaining loans, lines of credit, and bank accounts.
  • Prohibiting banks that engage in corporate activism from holding government funds as a qualified public depository.
  • Prohibiting the use of ESG in all investment decisions at the state and local levels, ensuring that fund managers only consider financial factors that maximize the highest rate of return.
  • Prohibiting all state and local entities, including direct support organizations, from considering, giving preference to, or requesting information about ESG as part of the procurement and contracting process.
  • Prohibiting the use of ESG factors by state and local governments when issuing bonds, including a contract prohibition on rating agencies whose ESG ratings negatively impact the issuer’s bond ratings.
  • Directing the attorney general and commissioner of financial regulation to enforce these provisions to the fullest extent of the law.

Taken together, these measures would effectively create a constitutional sanctuary for human rights and the First Amendment in a large swath of the country. But more importantly, this cross-state cooperation to interpose against federal-corporate tyranny is the blueprint for freedom on many other issues.

For example, states should work together to push back against the biomedical tyranny by agreeing to prohibit mandates, contact tracing, sharing immunization status, and helping or promoting in any way a dangerous therapeutic the FDA champions in the future. Indeed, DeSantis has created his own medical committee to shadow-box the CDC and has called on other states to join.

As it relates to global warming and the assault on our fuel, food, cars, and so many vital products, states should create a compact to disregard the “climate security state” and invite people to produce and utilize God’s given resources. Instead, unfortunately, red-state governors are embracing the global warming agenda even more than blue states, at least in terms of utilization of “green” energy.

On immigration, DeSantis has previously called for cross-state cooperation to repatriate illegal aliens back to Mexico. Any takers among the governors?

Undoubtedly, as a student of “The Federalist Papers,” DeSantis is familiar with Madison’s prescription against federal tyranny, articulated in Federalist #46. So, what did he expect to happen in the nightmare scenario when the federal government became a replica of King George … and then some?

The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.

In other words, public outrage, state and local officials refusing to enforce, and correspondence with counterparts in other states together in unison would prevail over federal tyranny. It was quite evident to the founders that the more states there were united in opposition, the harder it would be for the federal government to succeed in controlling the people.

On ESG and many other issues (such as vaccine mandates), this era of tyranny involves co-opting the corporate world to impose the restrictions on life and liberty that the government often shies away from imposing directly. By creating a permanent state alliance against ESG and its malignant offshoots, states will even up the political market, so to speak, and force companies to think twice about where the political winds are blowing. It will create a counter-force and deterrent against their foray into politics and, worse, human rights abuses. Absent a strong and united reaction from the states, these companies have no incentive to buck the federal overtures to them that prompt them to defy market values, by pushing either terrible products, policies, or mandates on the people.

Inaction on the part of GOP governors is not an option. Absent a strong force to utilize the levers of power we have to interpose against the tyranny, the federal government, working with global governments, will seed its values and eventually fascistic control over our lives, through the so-called private sector, in all 50 states. COVID was a painful lesson in this new “public-private partnership.” Human rights violations and unconstitutional power-grabs that the federal government encourages must be met with equal and opposing force from red-state governments.

Even with strong anticipation that he will enter the presidential race, DeSantis highlighted the fact that a good president alone will not save us, nor do we have to wait until 2025 to live freely. “It’s not all just about who ends up running for president,” said DeSantis in a recent interview with Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade. “That’s important, because I think nationally, we need a change in direction, but I think our individual states do have the capacity to drive the national agenda. You know Florida drove the national agenda on so many things – on having kids in school during COVID, on opposing the employer vax mandates … we’ve led the way. I’d like to see a competition amongst all the red states, about, you know, who can kind of outdo each other. So I do think it’s a blueprint for other states. I do think it can be applied nationally, but it’s less about me than about, I think, the underlying principles that we need to restore our country.”

He's absolutely right. This is not about him and the presidency, just like it shouldn’t be about other candidates aspiring to that office or even the office itself. If conservative voters and talkers would only pressure the elected officials in areas they control to utilize the levers of power they wield today and indefinitely into the future in deep red states, much of the debate over 2024 would become moot.

Florida ranked #1 nationwide in fiscal and economic freedom, #2 in education freedom by prominent think tank



On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted, "Florida ranks #1 among the states for economic freedom!" This ranking refers to the Cato Institute's "Freedom in the 50 States" index of personal and economic freedom.

William Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, and Jason Sorens, director of the Center for Ethics in Society at Saint Anselm College, authored the libertarian think tank's report, which determined that Florida was #1 in economic freedom, #1 in fiscal freedom, #2 in education freedom, and #2 overall for freedom in the Union.

\u201cFlorida ranks #1 among the states for economic freedom! \n\nhttps://t.co/eFxr8wVOSt\u201d
— Ron DeSantis (@Ron DeSantis) 1661799600

Freedom, as conceived by the Cato Institute authors, is predicated upon a framework of individual rights, in which individuals "should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others." This understanding is informed, in part, by "the natural-rights liberal thought of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Robert Nozick."

Variables and freedom defined

As it pertains to fiscal policy, Florida's relative freedom ranking was calculated on the basis of of the following policy variables:

  • state taxation;
  • location taxation;
  • government consumption and investment;
  • government employment;
  • government debt; and
  • cash and security assets.

"Florida's state-level tax collections are more than 1.5 standard deviations below the national average," the report indicated. "Government consumption and debt are lower than average."

Despite Florida's position in the top spots for economic and fiscal freedom on the index, the think tank nevertheless recommended that Florida "decentralize taxing and spending powers from counties to municipalities and make it easy for municipalities to control their own school districts."

For education freedom, Florida's top-five ranking reflects a number of variables, including: public school choice; homeschoolers' curriculum control; compulsory school years; and the mandatory state approval of private schools.

The data the rankings rely upon reflect code laws enacted as of January 1, 2020, as well as tax, asset, and debt information collected and analyzed going as far back as 2019. Consequently, actions taken by the DeSantis administration in 2022 — such as the Parental Rights in Education bill — are not reflected in the present rankings.

Based on the index's criteria, many of the state's recent freedom-focused initiatives might secure for Florida a higher freedom ranking in subsequent reports. By the same token, since the Cato Institute is markedly libertarian and not socially conservative (as evidenced by its upgrade of Florida for personal freedom after the nationalization of gay marriage), Florida's abortion law may be cited as grounds for a potential downgrade.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The top five states extolling and protecting freedom so defined are (in this order): New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, and South Dakota.

The worst five states overall, in terms of the freedoms enjoyed by the Americans living in them, are: Oregon (#46, down six spots since 2020), New Jersey (#47), California (#48), Hawaii (#49), and New York (#50).

California, for instance, sits second to last because it is "one of the highest-taxed states in the country" and "one of the worst states on land-use freedom." According to the report, "California is a classic left-wing state on social issues" wherein gun rights "are among the weakest in the country and have been weakened consistently over time."

Gov. Kathy Hochul's New York has sat dead last in the nation on the freedom index for over 20 years. Whereas some Democrat states have middling personal freedom and low economic freedom, New York allegedly performs poorly in both dimensions.

All of the governors in the top five states are Republicans, with the exception of Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak. All of the governors in the worst five states are Democrats.

Horowitz: The blueprint for states to protect citizens from FBI and IRS tyranny



What do you do when the cops become the robbers? When federal law enforcement is now criminalizing conservatives, their existence, and their political beliefs and is willing to use all of its taxpayer-funded resources, technology, and manpower to investigate, entrap, surveil, and infiltrate conservative political activists to the point of criminalizing basic First Amendment rights? These are questions many of us never thought we’d be confronted with in our lifetime, but they are upon us and demand immediate practical answers.

With the FBI raiding people’s homes and infiltrating anti-COVID fascist groups and trying to get them to kidnap the Michigan governor, we cannot simply wait for Republicans to take back the House and possibly hold some hearings. We need to confront power with power. Republicans hold the trifecta of government in nearly half the states, and it’s time they use it in the way Madison envisioned.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the Democrats suddenly authorized the hiring of 87,000 more IRS agents. It’s not to ensure that Pfizer isn’t avoiding tax loopholes. It’s to turn all political opponents of the regime into “J6ers,” and the surest way to find nebulous crimes or entrapment to bring the FBI into their lives is to empower the IRS to use the tax code against small business owners. But of course, only the ones who speak out against the new current hotness of the regime.

\u201cthey're training 87,000 more of these \n\nhttps://t.co/4HfejkaClX\u201d
— Citizen Free Press (@Citizen Free Press) 1660743669

Madison made it very clear during the 1798 nullification debate that “the states who are parties therto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of evil.” But decades into the trend of states being obsequious doormats to the federal government, it’s hard for any one individual elected official to take on the feds alone. However, as I’ve explained before, Madison articulated a more comprehensive blueprint for interposition a decade earlier in Federalist #46. He made it clear that it would have to be the governor and the legislature working together, most likely in a large state (think Florida or Texas), and then bind together with other states to do the same, all the while, harnessing the morality, law, and popular sentiment to delegitimize the federal policy.

“The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments;” wrote Madison. “[A]nd where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.”

So, the first step is to build outrage among the people by exposing the repugnance of the federal acts and delegitimizing their policy in the minds of the citizenry. Then, the governor and legislature, preferably working with adjacent states, work to shield the people from the feds so that they could safely refuse to cooperate with “officers of the union.” Madison predicted that interposition across state lines “in unison” would create an insurmountable obstruction against federal tyranny.

Madison also predicted that the states working together and fanning popular sentiment against the feds would create a synergistic momentum of resistance that would leave the feds with few options for enforcement:

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.



Florida’s elected Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis has outlined a superlative plan to push back against IRS lawlessness that, if followed by multiple states, would echo Madison’s successful recipe for interposing against federal tyranny.

  1. “The state of Florida can require state chartered banks to generate a regular report on IRS engagement.” Patronis explains that this information will help warn the public and the state about the nature of the IRS targets. This is the first step in interposition, which is building public support and exposing the repugnance of the federal actions. We live in an information war. A big part of the fed’s current success is that it does its work quietly over time and then the first people hear of its investigations is from the vantage point of the smear against the people themselves, typically leaked to their favorite media outlets. Slowly over time, the truth comes out as we have seen with January 6 and the Whitmer kidnapping plot, but the damage of “insurrectionists” had already been done. In this same way, the IRS could be caught in the act before it is ready with its PR machine. The same strategy could be applied against the FBI, ATF, and other agencies by the states working with sheriffs to report and analyze federal actions taken against citizens to see if there is a pattern of political discrimination and even persecution.
  2. “Establish a Civil Liability Trust Fund to help small businesses defend themselves, or even sue the IRS in cases of politically motivated audits or federal overreach.” What we’ve learned from Jan. 6 is that political dissidents are on their own and often can’t receive legal help. In this case, the state would actively pay for those targeted by political persecution.
  3. “Create a license at the state level so new IRS agents are required to register in order to access account information.” Patronis explains that the process would vet out the backgrounds of the agents to make sure they are not motivated by woke ideology. The names of the operatives in the state would also be made public. This will keep the officers in line and work to delegitimize wayward officers and their actions, further bolstering a scenario of citizens rebuffing “officers of the union” when appropriate. Again, this licensing process could be used for FBI, DHS, and ATF agents as well in some circumstances.
  4. “Establish criminal penalties for enforcing laws based on viewpoint or political discrimination.” This is the trigger – where the state can show the feds who is boss. Any IRS, FBI, or ATF agent caught prima facie targeting people for their political beliefs would suffer criminal penalties.

I would add that states need a criminal statute specifically prohibiting federal law enforcement from engaging in conspiracies to entrap citizens in criminal activity. We now know based on the trial in the Whitmer kidnapping plot that the FBI concocted the entire plan and conspired to coerce a few lost souls into joining their plot. The same way it is criminal for citizens to engage in this activity, it should be prohibited for the feds to do the same.

If Republicans are unable or unwilling to push back against such immoral and illegal behavior in GOP supermajority states, do you really have confidence D.C. Republicans will properly deter the political persecutions at a federal level with mere control of the House?

Horowitz: How GOP governors must stop the OSHA clot-shot mandate in its tracks



It's not shocking that many blue-state voters swept Democrats out of power in favor of Republicans in parts of the country previously untouchable by the GOP. Nor is it shocking that Biden responded to the election drubbing by doubling down on his tyrannical policies. What is shocking, however, is the lack of GOP resolve to completely neutralize the needle rape mandate even in red states, other than crying to the courts for help.

It was for this very moment that our founders created a layered federalist system. If one entity seized the federal power, the states would remain a check and balance on unconstitutional behavior. Governors would be wise to meet at a conference and declare that any mandate on the people or businesses of their states is null and void. That is exactly what our founders would have done.

Too many people erroneously interpret Article VI's Supremacy Clause as a green light for any action taken by the federal government to supersede state law. However, they are forgetting one phrase of that clause. Article VI, Clause 2 states, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land." In other words, something that is clearly out of the bounds of federal powers enumerated in Art. I Sec. 8, even if passed by Congress, much less a rogue federal agency like OSHA, is not supreme over state law.

It's not that our founders never envisioned that a president might want to act like a tyrant; it's that they never saw states and the people rolling over and being obsequious to every tyrannical executive edict. Even Alexander Hamilton, the greatest proponent of a robust federal government, made it very clear that unconstitutional edicts would be ignored by the states without having to cry to the federal courts, which the founders feared might also be in cahoots with the federal executive. "It will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land," wrote Hamilton in Federalist #33. "These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such."

Hamilton reiterated this point in Federalist #78: "There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid." Again, he said this about a legislative act – imagine what he would think of a bureaucratic act affecting bodily integrity.

Madison even went so far as to suggest that people would take up arms. In Federalist #46, he stated that in the event of the federal government clamping down on individual rights even with a military (much less career OSHA bureaucrats), "the State governments with the people on their side would be able to repel the danger" via the power of "citizens with arms in their hands"who would be fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by [state] governments possessing their affections and confidence."

During the North Carolina ratification convention, many delegates were particularly skeptical of ceding power to the federal government and were concerned about the creation of a dictatorship that would crush the state. James Iredell, the lead federalist in the state, who eventually became an original member of the Supreme Court, laughed off the notion that the federal government could succeed when the state and the majority of the people unify behind opposing it. In a speech before the convention on July 29, 1788, he conceded that with the creation of any new government you run the risk of abuse, but that should not cause concern because "the only resource against usurpation is the inherent right of the people to prevent its exercise. This is the case in all free governments in the world." He predicted, "The people will resist if the government usurp powers not delegated to it."

Commenting on the Guarantee Clause of Art. IV, Section 4, whereby the federal government must guarantee the states "a republican form of government," Tench Coxe made it clear that any usurpation of republicanism would be treated as treason by those who perpetrate it. "From thence it follows, that any man or body of men, however rich or powerful, who shall make an alteration in the form of government of any state, whereby the powers thereof shall be attempted to be taken out of the hands of the people at large, will stand guilty of high treason," declared the Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

Well, here we are today, with an unelected federal agency proclaiming a mandate on the businesses and bodies of citizens in all 50 states with power that clearly could never have been vested in any government, much less the national government. The Biden administration is mandating that we place something into our bodies that has already proven unsafe and 100% ineffective for its stated purpose of stopping transmission of COVID-19. If our founders' vision of states serving as a check on federal tyranny is not actualized here, especially in light of 19 months of executive edicts without a legislative process, then we should cease calling ourselves a free society.

How is it that governors in states with supermajorities in the legislature and where Biden has a dismally low approval rating are scared to simply say NO? Merely filing a lawsuit and exempting just state government employees from the mandate is not good enough. They need to counterbalance the federal mandate on business with an even stronger mandate to overrule it.

Here is a way they can effectively push back against the feds with a united front, beginning with the convening of special sessions of their respective state legislatures:

  • Not only ban business mandates in state law, but offer employees a cause of action in state court to sue for damages (with no caps) for vaccine injury or injury from mask-wearing. That will outweigh the magnitude of federal fines on the other side.
  • Force businesses, with the threat of fines, that decide to listen to the feds to at least apply federal workplace injury law that OSHA is blatantly ignoring. Pursuant to 29 CFR 1904, employers are required to record side effects of workers who are vaccinated by mandate. OSHA publicly admitted that in order to "encourage COVID-19 vaccinations" and because the agency does not "wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination," it is suspending this requirement through May 2022. States must promise to enforce this law.
  • While threatening companies with the stick of lawsuits, states should offer the carrot of paying for any potential federal fines levied against the businesses by OSHA.
  • Make it a felony for anyone to share information about vaccination status with the federal government. This is similar to what New York did with its "Green Light" law, making it a felony to share information with ICE. If blue states could do this for illegal alien sex offenders, in violation of legitimate federal immigration powers, then most certainly states can do this to protect American rights in the face of immoral and illegal human rights violations. Page 135 of the OSHA edict "requires that employers provide employees and their designated representatives access to relevant exposure and medical records" of other employees. Such an act needs to be punishable with 10 years in prison.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously wrote in his letter from the Birmingham jail, "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." It's that simple. We are sick of these Republican governors stating that something is immoral and unlawful but then countenancing even the most immoral and unconstitutional executive edicts as if they are constitutional statutes. It's to match their rhetoric with deeds.

Horowitz: What we expect from GOP governors and legislators in this crisis



This is it. This is why our founders created a layered approach to government — for this very nightmare scenario we are confronted with today. The question is whether the Republican governors and legislators will rise to the occasion.

We all knew this was coming. Yesterday, the Biden regime announced a full federal requirement to get the waning, leaky, and risky COVID shots that are so ineffective that they already need a third shot. In following Israel's lead, the Biden administration is not only mandating the shot on the federal workforce, but anyone who works for a private company with more than 100 employees. But the difference is that, unlike in Israel, we have state governors who can and must interpose between the feds and the people.

There has quite literally never been anything this tyrannical foisted upon us in our lifetime. The shots come with a tremendous amount of risk, particularly to those who already had the virus, which in parts of the country is already a majority of people. They haven't even fully studied the effects on pregnant women, menstrual cycles, and myocarditis in young people, yet the mandate is preceding the science.

At the same time, it is very likely that the mass vaccination with a leaky vaccine is causing a quasi-Marek's disease enhancement syndrome, which can make the virus even worse, under what is known as the "imperfect vaccine hypothesis." As PBS noted in a 2015 article on the leaky chicken vaccine, which causes vaccinated birds to transmit the virus to unvaccinated birds and kill them with higher viral loads, the Marek's disease vaccine "has helped this chicken virus become uniquely virulent." Sound similar to what we are experiencing today in Israel with a worse viral spread than ever before?

As PBS noted, "To test the imperfect vaccine hypothesis in humans, you would need [to] monitor the vaccine response for either a large or isolated population for a long time. … Does the vaccine merely reduce symptoms, or does it also keep patients from getting infected and transmitting the virus?"

Well, we already have the answer to that in the first human vaccine in human history to not only be used in middle of a pandemic, but to be leaky and very narrow spectrum. How can this be continued without first ruling out the growing prospect that the mass vaccination with a flawed shot is making the pandemic worse?

This is where the red states come into play. Republicans hold 27 governorships, 23 trifectas, and 19 supermajorities in state legislatures. The governors in those states must immediately convene emergency sessions of the state legislatures and request that they pass a bill prohibiting the implementation of the federal mandate within the states. While they are at it, they should also punish any medical board or pharmacy that gets in the way of the true solution to COVID, which is early treatment with cheap repurposed drugs. To put teeth into their new state laws, legislators must empower state troopers and the National Guard to arrest any federal employee or agent seeking to enforce a mandate violating human rights.

How much longer will these elected Republicans sit out the Super Bowl of liberty vs. tyranny? These same governors and state legislatures allowed our economies to be destroyed, trillions of dollars to be flushed on worthless and painful voodoo measures, and individual liberty to be crushed, only to make the virus worse than ever before. They got the lockdowns, they got the masks, and they got endless payouts to Big Pharma for dangerous drugs like remdesivir while crushing any cheap therapeutics. Now, they have very high vaccination rates in most parts of the country and are demanding boosters. They had their chance to experiment with our liberties; now it's time for any red state worth its name to pull the plug on the tyranny.

No, "see you in court" is not the appropriate response to this tyranny, Gov. Noem. More must be done.

South Dakota will stand up to defend freedom. @JoeBiden see you in court.

— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) 1631218458.0

The courts have already greenlit vaccine mandates. They have not only sided with COVID fascism for a year and a half — including blocking lifesaving treatment for people without options — they are now upholding "rights" of county governments to violate people's bodily integrity. So, the same courts that ignore any lawsuit on mask and vaccine mandates will immediately grant an injunction to county governments who seek to upend decisions made by governors and state legislatures to protect freedom.

Indeed, the courts are part of the problem. If the federal government declared that all employers must ban people of a certain race or creed from employment, would state governments cry to the courts? No! The governors would discover their executive powers and teach a civics lesson in Federalist #33. In that essay, written by none other than Alexander Hamilton, the chief proponent of federal power himself makes it clear that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution only applies to lawful federal powers.

"It will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land," wrote Hamilton in Federalist #33.

James Madison in Federalist #46 explains the recipe for how to accomplish this. Madison predicted that a federal encroachment would easily be mitigated by state action, because "the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand." What is the winning formula?

The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.

Indeed, this is what happened with the sanctuary movement for illegal aliens. There is no more legitimate federal power than protecting the national sovereignty from invaders, yet the states that were united behind protecting illegal aliens were able to thwart ICE at every turn. Deportations in California plummeted to a near standstill during Trump's presidency because of the success of this movement. Ultimately, local government predominates ... when it wants to.

So, if leftist local governments are capable of creating a sanctuary on behalf of illegal alien sex offenders and gang members, why can't Republicans secure a sanctuary to protect the bodily integrity of Americans?

Horowitz: North Dakota legislators introduce bill to block Biden’s illegal executive edicts



"All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people, and they have a right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require." ~Sec. 2, North Dakota Declaration of Rights

A group of North Dakota legislators have taken up the call for states to reassert control over the Constitution, as the Biden regime continues to rule by executive fiat, often promulgating unconstitutional orders infringing upon civil rights. This is the key to thwarting a wholesale slide into national despotism and ensuring that there are some places for Americans to go and enjoy the blessings of liberty. The question is whether leaders in those legislative chambers as well as Gov. Doug Burgum will pick up the mantle, not to mention Republicans in other states.

Recently, Rep. Tom Kading and eight other Republicans in the North Dakota House introduced HB 1164, which would task the attorney general with reviewing the constitutionality of the president's executive orders. If any of his orders are deemed to be unlawful, this bill would prohibit any state or county agency or publicly funded organization from enforcing the edict.

The list of issues covered under the bill are:

  1. Pandemics or other health emergencies.
  2. The regulation of natural resources, including coal and oil.
  3. The regulation of the agriculture industry.
  4. The use of land.
  5. The regulation of the financial sector as it relates to environmental, social, or governance standards.
  6. The regulation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Thus, an easy first candidate for such legislation is Biden's recent mask mandate, which unconstitutionally prohibits humans breathing without cloths on their mouths and noses inside any public transportation, including in-state ride-shares and taxis. The CDC created an entire criminal offense for something that never passed Congress.

What if Congress decides to pass a bill that is unconstitutional? HB 1282, introduced by Rep. Sebastian Ertelt, would take this a step farther by proposing a "Committee on Neutralization of Federal Laws" to recommend whether a given law or regulation is unconstitutional. Upon the recommendation of this committee, consisting of state legislative leadership and their appointees, the legislature would pass a concurrent resolution on whether to nullify the law or edict. Until the resolution is passed, state and county agencies would be prohibited from enforcing the law or regulation at issue.

These bills should serve as a model for all 31 GOP-controlled legislatures, especially in the 23 states where there are also Republican governors. I hear so many conservatives acting despondent and either resigned to tyranny or calling for secession or even a civil war. But the solution implied in these bills would keep the union loosely intact while peacefully maintaining a constitutional sanctuary for those who still value constitutional freedoms. This is the best way to peacefully and gradually separate blue and red America into their respective cultural, economic, and governing choices so we can live together more agreeably as a federal union.

North Dakota Republicans control the Senate 40-7 and the House 80-14. If this were a Democrat state passing a sanctuary bill for illegal aliens, the bill would pass in a day. Given that the rights of American citizens are on the line, Senate leaders Randy Burckhard and Rich Wardner should bring this bill to the Senate floor, and Speaker Kim Koppelman should bring the bill to the House floor immediately. North Dakota has an opportunity to lead the nation in liberty, if only all the Republicans in the state would govern the way they campaign.

Madison predicted in Federalist #46 that a federal encroachment would easily be mitigated by state action, because "the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand." What is the winning formula?

The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.

In other words, public outrage, state and local officials refusing to enforce it, and correspondence with counterparts in other states together in unison would prevail over federal tyranny.

South Dakota already has a similar bill to HB 1164 targeting Biden's executive lawmaking. Rep. Aaron Aylward of Harrisburg, South Dakota, introduced HB 1194, which would set up an executive board to review the constitutionality of executive orders pertaining to the six issues laid out in the North Dakota legislation. With a 32-3 majority in the Senate and a 62-8 majority in the House, South Dakota Republicans have the strongest majorities since the Eisenhower era. The Dakotas, as well as many other parts of the country, can easily become constitutional sanctuaries.

Additionally, county commissions, prosecutors, and sheriffs should also seek to criminalize enforcement of unconstitutional edicts at the county level.

Let's be very clear: The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution subordinates states to follow only laws that are pursuant to the Constitution on issues that were given over to the federal government to determine. However, if the federal government blatantly violates the Constitution, especially in a way that harms individual liberty, even Alexander Hamilton, the great supporter of a powerful national government, said that states should ignore it. "It will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land," wrote Hamilton in Federalist #33. "These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such."

Well, if it was good enough for Hamilton, it should be good enough for states with strong Republican majorities in the legislature.

There is no doubt that Biden's presidency will take a bite out of our economy, especially with his cancelation of the international pipeline going through North Dakota. But if tyranny itself takes root and grows within the boundaries of these solid red states, then we as conservatives have nobody to blame but ourselves and our own complacency.

CNN, NBC, CBS, AP All Project Biden Winner Of Presidential Election

Four major news outlets projected on Saturday that Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the the presidential election. While votes in key states such as Georgia are Read More