The Congress of the United States has shown very little respect for the Constitution in recent years. Were it to abide strictly by the role outlined for it by the founding fathers, the Legislative Branch of our government would have to relinquish any number of its powers in a variety of areas. The primary problem with our Congress is that it has increasingly become a collection of career politicians rather than a body representative of its constituency. Every increase in power at the Federal level must be brought about by a usurpation of state and local sovereignty and, more alarmingly, personal liberty.

The Federal prohibition of sports wagering which was enacted a few years back is of very dubious Constitutionality. Were it not for the grandfather clause, which allowed it to remain legal in jurisdictions in which it already existed, it would have certainly been struck down as unconstitutional on a number of different fronts. Ironically, the Nevada gaming industry wasnt too concerned at the passage of this law; indeed, they certainly liked the fact that they could go about business as usual while potential competition from other states for the sports wagering dollar was completely curtailed.

Unfortunately, the mere fact that a proposed law or initiative is unconstitutional offers little protection for the citizenry. In fact one of the most important concepts in the Constitution”that of the right to sovereignty and self-determination of the individual states”is one of the most frequently abused. For those of you not up on the Constitution (and if youre not, you certainly should be), lets consider the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Under the 10th Amendment, unless the power in question has been expressly given to the Federal government by the Constitution, and/or unless it has expressly been prohibited to the states to govern as it sees fit. If an individual state chooses not to regulate a certain activity, it is the right of each individual citizen to make their own decision.

So, here exactly does the Constitution delegate to the Federal government the right to make policy on sports gambling? The answer is that it doesnt, and it is very questionable that they have the Constitutional authority to do so.

The entire premise of a social contract between a government and the governed is that individuals give up a certain degree of personal liberty for a certain degree of protection. The problem is that too many Americans are willing to give up just about any freedom for even the illusory promise of protection. With each additional law intended to protect us from this or that the Federal government becomes larger and more powerful and the rights of the sovereign states”and the individuals that comprise them”are shrinking and being weakened.

Ross Everett is a freelance writer and highly respected authority on NFL football betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

The event is surrounded by security, terror threats and controversy but what has been overlooked is the amount of people jumping on the bandwagon and capitalising on the visit with souvenirs and commemorative gifts. But as you would expect, there is a lot of junk on offer which has been designed to make a cheap buck out of all the pontiff’s supporters. Street vendors are offering baseball caps for up to 20. And many are flogging pilgrims t-shirts with the option to customise with the name of their church.

I can’t imagine why this matters, but the answers revealed by Professor Robin Dunbar this week are that most people have around 150 friends of which only five belong to their inner circle – friends they see at least once a week and who will offer emotional support when needed. On that basis, I have no close friends at all, for living in the country I see nobody except the gardener “at least once a week”. But even those who do manage to do so are doomed to lose a couple of them if they have the misfortune to fall in love.

Blair may be on the defensive here because he has often been criticised by orthodox Catholics for supporting legal abortion and same-sex unions. So he cites Newman again as saying that there can never be an end to the development of church doctrine and that all doctrine must enjoy the consensus of the whole “body of the faithful” to be considered infallible. “I doubt if this voice is yet taken seriously enough on moral questions, or if we have yet fully digested the implications of these ideas,” Blair writes. “The tendency of some religious leaders to bundle a large number of different ideas into a bag marked ‘secularism’, then treat it as a sinister package, is divisive in pluralist societies.”

After being informed of the arrests, the Pope confirmed he would continue with his arrangements which will be unaffected by the developments. Hundreds of police officers are involved in the multi million pound operations to protect the pope on his visit along with Vatican security and members of the Swiss Guard.

The sale of unique gifts and novelty gifts is said to be worth tens of millions of pounds during the Pope’s first ever state visit to the UK.