Category Archives: Federal Intrusion

Will it pass?

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For a number of years now, ‘Pubs have filed Right-to-Work (RTW) bills in the legislature. This year is no different. If I’ve counted correctly, three bills have been filed that address RTW, one, a partial implementation, was filed by a St. Louis democrat.

RTW has failed in the past. Narrowly, each time and each year the margin narrows toward success. Will this be the year when Missouri finally passes a true, not some watered down ineffectual version, Right-to-Work bill?

Maybe.

All three bills have successfully passed out of committee. Speaker John Diehl has placed all three on the House calendar for a floor vote. The two bills sponsored by ‘Pubs are nearly identical. The democrat version limits RTW to the construction trades only.

The unions believe they have enough legislators in their pocket to block RTW again. They cite a number of ‘Pub union shills newly elected last November. I note most of them are from the eastern side of the state, primarily around St. Louis.

The unions have gone so far as to put at least one legislator, a democrat, on their payroll. I’d call that an ethics violation. Will the ethics committee? Doubtful. It cuts too close to home for many legislators on the eastern side of the state.

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Obama’s feud with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu led him to send for partisan assistance to Bibi’s opponent in the upcoming Israeli election. The fued wasn’t just about Netanyahu’s upcoming speech before Congress. It’s a knife fight in a darkened room.

Israeli Election Update: U.S. Intervention Appears to Backfire

Likud takes its largest lead yet, shortly after news broke of the Obama administration trying to sandbag Netanyahu.

February 9, 2015 – 1:00 pm

Israeli polling published Friday seems to indicate that the Obama administration’s push to remove Binyamin Netanyahu from power and to replace him with the more pliable Yitzhak (“Buji”) Herzog is backfiring. The intervention was first reported by the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz just over a week ago.

This is how the numbers look as of Friday:

zarmi_israel_poll_numbers_2-9-15-1

This is the most significant lead either of the front-runners has had since this election cycle began. Previously, Likud or HaMachane haTziyoni had led the other by only one or two seats. If the final election results look like this, the most likely governing coalition will involve Likud, HaBayit haYehudi, Yahadut haTorah, Kulanu, Shas, and Yachad (64 seats out of a total 120).

It should be noted that such a coalition, incorporating not only the right-wing Bayit Yehudi but also the nationalistic Yachad, would be on a collision course with the EU and U.S. as the party platforms now stand.

Yachad in particular would tie Netanyahu’s hands and limit his flexibility in ways he would not find congenial. The Yachad party is comprised of three elements: loyalists of former Shas head Eli Yishai, who heads the list; religious Zionist elements disappointed with the secular nationalistic constitution forced upon Bayit Yehudi by Naftali Bennett, who in consequence left that party under Yoni Chetboun; and the radically national ‘Otzma Yehudit faction, who had not joined HaBayit haYehudi when Bennett created the current party out of two smaller, earlier ones because it was insufficiently nationalistic for them.

A split between the Yishai/Chetboun faction and ‘Otzma Yehudit under the strains of coalitionary negotiations appears likely, which would yield a smaller but more wieldy coalition for Netanyahu (probably 62 seats as of this writing).

Obama’s incompetency abounds. The Israeli Parliament has no two-party system. Like most similar governments, governance is by a coalition of small parties constantly in turmoil. Such a government has great difficulty getting anything done. On the other hand, it is much easier to remove a political leader who alienates the country. All-in-all, I still like our bicameral system better.

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If the Obama and his pet chairman at the FCC have their way, the Internet, as we have know it for its free-wheeling ways, will soon be gone. Net-neutrality is coming via regulation. The dems have failed to pass Net-neutrality in Congress. Now, Obama will implement it via regulation.

Republican FCC Member Warns Net Neutrality Is Not Neutral

Chriss W. Street 9 Feb 2015
Ajit Pai, the sole Republican Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), inferred in a Tweet that President Barack Obama’s secret, 332-page “Net Neutrality” document is a scheme for federal micro-managing of the Internet to extract billions in new taxes from consumers and again enforce progressives’ idea of honest, equitable, and balanced content fairness.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently acknowledged that the two Democrats on the commission had decided to avoid Congressional input regarding the Internet by adopting President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1934 Communications Act to regulate the Internet with the same federal control as the old AT&T customer monopoly. To make sure that libertarian advocates would remain in the dark, Wheeler “embargoed” release of any of the specifics in the new administrative “policy” that will act as law.

The FCC legislation that was passed eighty-one years ago by the most leftist Congress in American history to ban companies from participating in “unjust or unreasonable discrimination” when providing phone services to customers.

But in 1949, the Democrat-dominated Commission implemented the “Fairness Doctrine” that required holders of media broadcast licenses to present “issues of public importance” in a manner that is “honest, equitable, and balanced” in the “Commission’s view. It would take 39 years before a conservative Congress could overturn a policy that hijacked the mainstream media to kowtow to liberals or face loss of their licenses.

If the Internet economy was a country, it would rank fifth, behind only the U.S., China, Japan, and India. Economic activity on the Internet totals $4.2 trillion, and almost half of the earth’s 7 billion people are already connected to the Web.

Ajit Pai’s description of “President Obama’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet” sounds Orwellian. He tweeted a picture of himself holding the 332-page plan just below a picture of a smiling Barack Obama with a comment, “I wish the public could see what’s inside.” The implication depicted Obama as George Orwell’s “Big Brother.”

Pai also released a statement: “President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works,” he said. “The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband… These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.”

Pai had previously observed that he was concerned about the plan would hinder broadband investment, slow network speed and expansion, limit outgrowth to rural areas of the country, and reduce Internet service provider (ISP) competition.

“The plan saddles small, independent businesses and entrepreneurs with heavy-handed regulations that will push them out of the market,” Pai said. “As a result, Americans will have fewer broadband choices. This is no accident. Title II was designed to regulate a monopoly. If we impose that model on a vibrant broadband marketplace, a highly regulated monopoly is what we’ll get.”

Pai’s confrontational comments came after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler penned an op-ed in Wired Magazine detailing his spin on the core aspects of the Democrat’s desire to lump ISPs under the amended Title II of the 1996 Telecommunications Act — which was used to break-up the AT&T telephone monopoly into four regional Bell companies at the dawn of the digital age.

“Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC,” Wheeler wrote on Wednesday. “These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services.”

Pai responded that the “Courts have twice thrown out the FCC’s attempts at Internet regulation” during the Obama Administration. On January 14, 2014, the D.C. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals struck down most of the FCC’s November 2011 net neutrality rules. The Appellate Court vacated the FCC’s “anti-discrimination” and “anti-blocking” as essentially discriminatory and blocking in an attempt to again give the FCC political appointees the power to dictate what they believe is honest, equitable, and balanced.

Pai said that after a year of debates responding to the courts twice striking down FCC efforts to regulate the Internet, “There’s no reason to think that the third time will be the charm. Even a cursory look at the plan reveals glaring legal flaws that are sure to mire the agency in the muck of litigation for a long, long time.”

Pai promised he would make further comments as he reviews the plan himself in the next two weeks in the run-up to the FCC’s public vote on February 26. He has blamed the two Democrat Commissioners’ for their dismissal of any negotiations with Congressional Republicans in setting the “basic rules” governing Internet access.

As Breitbart has highlighted before, turning the Internet into a “telephone service” would “empower an intrusive public sector that thrives on high taxes, heavy-handed controls and the status quo.”

The real purpose for these regulation is to enable the FedGov to regulate content on the internet, i.e., to impose censorship. Do not be mislead by democrats, there is nothing ‘neutral’ about this. It’s nothing less than an attempt to nationalize internet access and censor content.

Many people are concerned about the intrusiveness of social media like Facebook. If these new FCC regulations are enabled, Facebook will the least of your privacy concerns.

Just as an FYI, you have to pay a tax in the UK to have access to the internet. In times past, you actually had to have a license to have a webserver, a website, or a phone in the UK. I ‘think’ the latter has loosened up a bit. Maybe.

When federal bureaucrats control our internet, internet access taxes and licensing will not be far behind.

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Friday Follies for January 23, 2015

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Under the tag line of, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” comes this tidbit from Politico. Given their continuing failures in reporting news, CNN is in discussion with changing Anderson Cooper’s 360 program to a game show. We all know that CNN has not been a news channel since the first Gulf War when their lead anchor, Bernard Shaw, had hysterics in Bagdad at the start of the Gulf War I air war. I suppose it’s only reasonable that CNN comes out of the closet and admits it hasn’t been a news channel and moves on.

CNN developing political game show

By DYLAN BYERS, 1/21/15 2:42 PM EST

CNN is producing a new political game show hosted by Anderson Cooper, TVNewser reports.

The show, which is set to air on Presidents’ Day, will be a quiz-style program focused on presidential politics. If the show is a success, CNN is likely to produce future episodes.

We’ve reached out to CNN for more details and will update here if and when we hear back.

CNN, like MSNBC, has drifted so far from reality that nothing they do now surprises me.

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The Jubilee has come! Eric Holder actually changes DoJ policy in favor of the states. The FedGov will no longer usurp state and local asset forfeiture cases. In many of those cases, the state and local law was more restrictive than federal law. The DoJ would takeover cases then give local PDs a cut-of-the-action. Theft by government order. I’ve never liked asset forfeiture until the accused has actually been convicted and sentenced. Even then the laws are too broad; seizing accounts and assets unrelated to the actual crime(s).

Holder Has Made It Harder for Federal Government to Legally Seize Your Property

Jason Snead / / Andrew Kloster / /

In a stunning announcement last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Department of Justice would immediately stop “adopting” state civil asset forfeiture cases. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement came exactly one week after leaders on Capitol Hill called on him to halt the controversial program as a step toward broader reform of the nation’s civil forfeiture system.

Before today’s announcement, federal agencies could take over, or “adopt,” forfeiture cases from local or state law enforcement agencies. In other words, state or local law enforcement personnel would seize property and then turn it over to the federal government to process.

Pursuant to agreements with the federal government, once the property was successfully forfeited in federal court, the originating state or local agency got a portion of the proceeds, potentially as high as 80 percent. That money had to be used for law enforcement operations, placing it beyond the control of local governments and state legislators.

The program became the subject of controversy for effectively allowing local agencies to circumvent restrictive state laws in favor of the potentially more lucrative federal route, raising serious federalism and good government concerns. Even where states had strong procedural safeguards for property owners or limitations on the use of forfeiture funds, law enforcement could partner with the federal government and use federal rules to seize property and make use of the profits.

Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., and John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote that “these seizures might circumvent state forfeiture law restrictions, create improper incentives on the part of state and local law enforcement, and unnecessarily burden our federal authorities.”

Apparently responding to these concerns, the attorney general’s new policy bars federal authorities from adopting local or state seizures of “vehicles, valuables, cash and other monetary instruments.” The AG was able to make this change unilaterally because the statutes underlying federal civil forfeiture made the equitable sharing payments optional. The Department of Justice has the authority to craft, and to change, the rules of the program. The Treasury Department, which operates its own forfeiture fund, announced its forfeiture operations will conform to the same guidelines as those laid out by Holder.

The article continues with an explanation of exceptions under Holder’s new directive. All-in-all, it’s a step in the right direction.

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Ya just gotta love Dave Clark. Who’s he? He’s the black, conservative, Milwaukee County Sheriff who won his last election despite the efforts of liberals who hate black conservatives. He does not hesitate to make his opinions known. This time the subject was Al Sharpton.

David Clarke, Wisconsin sheriff: ‘Al Sharpton ought to go back into the gutter he came from’

By Cheryl K. Chumley – The Washington Times – Thursday, January 22, 2015
http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2014/12/10/david-clarke_s878x473.jpg?de75613b37228017a9f5cb3e6ff07328005a3223

Milwaukee’s tough-talking black sheriff, David Clarke, argued this week that white Americans have “made great strides” in healing race relations, and that sooner or later they’re going to grow tired of having their noses “rubbed in the past sins of slavery.”

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke didn’t pull any punches in his assessment of the Rev. Al Sharpton — who vowed to keep fighting for justice for slain Ferguson teen Michael Brown, despite the feds’ decision to drop a civil rights investigation — and characterized him on national television as less than intelligent and unworthy of respect.

“The grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, got it right,” Sheriff Clarke said, during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “Officer [Darren] Wilson has been exonerated. The thing I want to know is how does he get his reputation back?”

Sheriff Clarke then directed anger at Mr. Sharpton, who spoke sharply in the wake of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Wilson, a former police officer, on civil rights charges.

Sic’em Dave!

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Former Speaker of the House, Tom Delay.

Tom Delay may be out of Congress, but the libs failed to defeat him. The Texas Supreme Court ended the Travis County (Austin, TX) democrat prosecutor’s vendetta against Delay. He’s back now with a review of Obama’s SOTU speech earlier this week.

In Obama’s speech, a conservative call to arms

By Tom DeLay – – Thursday, January 22, 2015

I found President Obama’s State of the Union address this week infuriating — and exhilarating.

It was infuriating for all the usual reasons. For all the talk that this time things would be different, in the first State of the Union speech since the American people repudiated his entire agenda we got the same old Mr. Obama, arrogant, disdainful, defiant of the new Republican majorities and of the voters who sent them to Washington. Had there been a referee on the premises, he would have thrown a flag for taunting.

It was perhaps the most in-your-face speech of this kind that I have ever heard, and I felt for the Republican lawmakers who had to sit through it, knowing that the television cameras were ready to pick up any scowl, eye roll or failure to join a “spontaneous” standing ovation. (It must have been especially tough for House Speaker John Boehner, who had to preserve his dignity and remain polite while Joe Biden was bouncing up and down like a manic jack-in-the box behind the president.)

The president either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that his party badly lost the elections. He’s not listening to the American people, as was evident in the very first minutes of his speech when he laid out the same old tired agenda that dragged down the Democrats in the first place. When President Clinton got a similar repudiation in the 1990s, at least he had the smarts to cooperate — sometimes kicking and screaming — with our new Republican majorities to get items like welfare reform passed. Things worked out so well that now Mr. Clinton brags about the things we forced him to accept.

That’s clearly not Mr. Obama’s way. What we got instead was one of the most misguided, frankly unconstitutional speeches ever given by an American president. The president called for universal child care, gender pay equity, guaranteed paid sick leave for workers, a higher minimum wage, free community college and new rules to make labor unions stronger — not one of which is the responsibility of the federal government under the Constitution. Then he laid out all the things he’s ready to veto if he doesn’t get his way — not exactly the bipartisan outreach that his advisers said was coming.

Even more infuriating — if possible — was Mr. Obama’s boasting about how far we have allegedly come under his watch. He bragged of bringing down the federal deficit in recent years when it was his uncontrolled — and unconstitutional — spending and taxing that ran up the deficit and debt in the first place. The official unemployment rate is down, but only because 90 million Americans have grown so discouraged that they’ve dropped out of the labor market altogether.

The president says he wants to turn his attention to stagnant wages and income inequality, apparently oblivious to the fact that wages aren’t going up precisely because there is a vast army of nonworkers out there saturating the job market. And income inequality will never be “fixed” by taxing the job producers more and giving the money to people who aren’t working. That approach has failed everywhere it has been tried.

The president’s victory lap was even more incredible when you consider the full plate of crises beyond our borders, from Russia and Iran to Yemen, Nigeria and Syria — the easily foreseen consequences of an administration that brags of “leading from behind.” The president claims the “shadow of crisis” has passed, but that’s not true to anyone who has been paying attention.

So why the exhilaration, you ask?

The more I listened to the speech, the more I was convinced that the president is handing the Republicans an incredible opportunity. He’s not backing down from his disastrous progressive agenda, and that means conservatives cannot afford to back down from theirs.

New Sen. Joni Ernst struck a nice, hopeful tone in her official rebuttal speech, but building the Keystone pipeline and getting more help to vets is not a full agenda. The joint House-Senate Republican retreat last week was another missed opportunity to pre-empt the president’s liberal agenda, to put a true constitutional conservative program on the table and force this president to react.

But Mr. Obama’s speech made it crystal clear that Republicans have no alternative to confrontation, a clash that should last through the 2016 election. Facing a delusional and defiant president, this is no time for conservatives to play small-ball. We need a bold agenda that presents an alternative to the left. We need real, pro-growth tax reform. We need to repeal Obamacare — now. We need to slash spending. We need to defund the president’s illegal executive actions, starting with his amnesty for illegal immigrants. We have to show we respect life and traditional values.

There can be no debate about it any more. Barack Obama has made it unmistakably clear he wants a fight.

We should give him one.

Well said, Tom. Well said.

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Did you know…?

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…that the 2nd Amendment does not protect hunting nor hunters? According to one Federal Judge, it does not.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140509023613/vsbattles/images/8/8f/Elmer_fudd-2.jpgHave you heard the term, “Zumbo” or “Fudd?” It refers to the cartoon character, Elmer Fudd. Second Amendment rights activists use it in another form.

Fudd: Slang term for a “casual” gun owner; eg; a person who typically only owns guns for hunting or shotgun sports and does not truly believe in the true premise of the second amendment. These people also generally treat owners/users of so called “non sporting” firearms like handguns or semiautomatic rifles with unwarranted scorn or contempt.

I’ve not heard of any Second Amendment supporter use the term. I can understand how it could be used when we have hunters and hunter advocates support gun control. If it doesn’t affect hunting and hunters, they aren’t concerned. After all, an AR isn’t a hunting rifle (tell that to numerous varmint hunters!)

A legal case about hunting came before a Judge. The hunters attempted to use the 2nd Amendment in their case. The Judge ruled the 2nd Amendment didn’t apply to hunting.

Judge Rules That The Second Amendment Doesn’t Protect Hunting

Posted by on June 19, 2014 at 5:29 pm

“Fudd” isn’t exactly a term of endearment.

Fudds are generally uninterested in the Second Amendment, and are therefore the favorite of anti-gun politicians and the news media, like this collection of Fudds in a recent Jamie Tarabay article used to attack the National Rifle Association. They could generally care less about fighting for gun rights, because they assume that their guns are safe.

How is that working out for you now, Elmer?

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by a hunters’ group that had challenged Pennsylvania’s long-standing ban on Sunday hunting, saying she saw no proof the hunters’ constitutionally protected rights were being harmed.

U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane made the ruling in a suit brought by the Lancaster County-based Hunters United for Sunday Hunting against the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the agency that enforces the state’s game code.

Kane said she could find no proof that courts have extended Second Amendment protections to include recreational hunting. She also found that the hunters could not prove that the law unfairly discriminated between classes of hunters or that the ban on Sunday hunting violates their religious freedoms.

As stunning as this is for the Fudds, the ruling must be even more perplexing for gun control cultists. They’ve spent the last 30 or more years arguing that if the Second Amendment applied at all outside of their collectivist interpretation, then surely, the Second Amendment only applied for the purposes of hunting.

Now a federal judge has knocked over that strawman, and stomped that sucker flat.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this ruling registers with the gun controllers—my guess is that they’ll ignore it entirely, since it is inconvenient—but even more interesting to see if this has any effect on the Fudds, who are probably going to find out that they aren’t the “protected species” that they always assumed that they were.

When you hear hunters support gun control, tell them about this. They have as much invested in a strong 2nd Amendment as do the rest of us.

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Acts of Defiance

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de·fi·ance
diˈfīəns/
noun
noun: defiance
1.
open resistance; bold disobedience.
“the demonstration was held in defiance of official warnings”

synonyms:

resistance, opposition, noncompliance, disobedience, insubordination, dissent, recalcitrance, subversion, rebellion

The country has been watching an act of defiance in Nevada for the last week. That confrontation between citizens and members of the federal government has subsided…for now. There was another act of defiance occurring in New York. That one received little attention from the media.

The state of New York requires gun owners to register certain firearms. Compliance to that law, known as the SAFE Act, has been low. Protesters to that law met outside the office of State Senator Mark Grisanti to protest the act.

Shredding SAFE Act Registration Forms In New York

By: Caleb Howe (Diary)  |  April 15th, 2014 at 05:10 PM

On Tuesday in upstate New York, outside the office of State Senator Mark Grisanti, gun owners gathered in protest. Together they shredded their SAFE Act registration cards to signify their non-compliance with the controversial new law. Grisanti is a Republican who helped to pass the SAFE Act, including by offering up changes to the bill to make it bipartisan.

Human Events wrote last week about a recent SAFE Act protest that had a huge turnout, and involved many of the same people and groups as the rally on Tuesday, where gun owners intend to shred their registration forms as a form of protest. One of the organizers, Rus Thompson of TEA New York, was recently interviewed about this event, and discussed in depth the reasoning behind the shredding.

Gun owners across the state have been speaking out and protesting the SAFE Act from the beginning. As Bearing Arms reported yesterday, as many as one million are refusing to register their weapons.

Non-compliance of the ban is expected to be between 90%-99%, but a provision in the NY SAFE Act prevents registration data from being shared with the public.

Non-compliance in the neighboring state of Connecticut is thought to be in excess of 85%, with an estimated 80,000-100,000 gun owners refusing to register their firearms. Connecticut State Police have made no move to enforce their law four months after their registration deadline, fearing possible armed resistance.

Conservative estimates are that at least 300,000 and as many as one million New Yorkers will likewise practice civil disobedience and refuse to comply with the registration requirement.

The Shredding Registration event has a Facebook page here, and was covered live by a local Buffalo talk radio station here.

The defiance in New York isn’t limited to gun owners. Some officials—county Sheriffs, have declared they won’t enforce the law, either.

Despite deadline, protesters ‘will not comply’ with SAFE Act

Registration deadline for law was Tuesday

By Lou Michel | News Staff Reporter , T.J. Pignataro | News Staff Reporter | @TJPignataro | Google+, on April 15, 2014 – 8:30 PM, updated April 16, 2014 at 2:04 AM

Rus Thompson, a tea party activist, shreds the state assault weapon registration form during a rally Tuesday outside the Mahoney State Building.

Rus Thompson, a tea party activist, shreds the state assault weapon registration form during a rally Tuesday outside the Mahoney State Building. Harry Scull Jr. /Buffalo News

Owners of assault-style weapons were supposed to have registered their guns by Tuesday.

But there is no way of knowing exactly how many of these weapons there are in the state and how many were registered under the NY SAFE Act.

The state refuses to say how many were registered, claiming it is confidential information protected by the law.

Gun-rights advocates estimate compliance will be less than 10 percent.

And in Erie County, the sheriff says he will not force his deputies to enforce registration.

“Theoretically, any law enforcement officer who encounters anyone with this type of gun at a minimum is supposed to record the serial number and the individual’s identity and report it to Albany,” Sheriff Timothy B. Howard said.

But will his deputies do that?

“I don’t know. I am not encouraging them to do it. At the same time, their own consciences should be their guide. I am not forcing my conscience on them. That is a decision they should make,” Howard said.

The sheriff’s opposition sits well with roughly 70 opponents of the law who gathered outside the Walter J. Mahoney State Office Building in downtown Buffalo late Tuesday afternoon to shred State Police registration forms for assault weapons.

It was seen as a form of civil disobedience to a law that opponents say was hastily drafted some 16 months ago in response to the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn., where 20 elementary school children and six adults were slain by a heavily armed gunman.

But rather than make the public safer, opponents contend the law’s main accomplishment has been to create a new classification of criminals – individuals who out of conscience refuse to register their assault weapons because they believe the law overstepped their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The column continues at the website. The Erie County Sheriff echoes the sentiments of many law enforcement officials across the country. “Will…shall I comply with a law that is clearly unenforceable and does nothing more than make criminals out of formerly law-abiding citizens?”

The New York Sheriffs Organization has examined the SAFE Act and has found a number of flaws and inconsistencies. They noted these flaws on their website and point out that a number of the Act’s provisions are unenforceable and produce undue burden of their offices and other agencies and institutions.

Three acts of defiance with days of one another: the Bundy Ranch vs. the BLM, gun owners of New York vs. the SAFE Act, and the NY Erie County Sheriff versus that same SAFE Act. When you add the defiance of many states against Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, the refusal of those same states to create state exchanges, a person could reasonably expect more acts of defiance to occur at any time, any where.

 

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Bye, Bye Incandescents

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By this time next week, the 40 and 60watt incandescent light bulb will be illegal—another strike against us by liberals (and a ‘Pub) utilizing pseudo-science. We are being forced, at the point of the federal ‘gun’, to, once again, buy products we don’t want. In this particular case, it is expensive compact florescent light-bulbs (CFL) and LED bulbs.

I received a ‘sample’ CFL in the mail. It was supposed to replace my usual 60watt bulb. The sender, our local power company, said the bulb would last longer and be cheaper over the long run. The bulb lasted less than a year, the same longevity my 60watt incandescents, and, as I read the accompanying material, would turn my home into a toxic waste dump if I broke the CFL. CFLs contain mercury, a heavy-metal, toxic element.

Not only that, I couldn’t drop it in the trash when it dies. What am I to do with a dead CFL? Sneak out in the middle of the night and toss it in a dumpster somewhere, I suppose.

On top of it all, the LED replacements are more expensive. They may last longer, but the bluish tinted light is unnatural and frankly, strains my eyes.

The Heritage Foundation released a reminder today and this continuing federal tyranny. The motivation behind the bans of incandescent bulb was not efficiency. It was nothing more than a federal power-grab.

Time to Stock Up on Incandescent Bulbs Before They Go Out Permanently

December 26, 2013 at 6:30 am

If your New Year’s resolution is to change your light bulbs, don’t worry—the federal government’s here to help.

Beginning January 1, 2014, the federal government will ban the use of 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs. The light bulb has become a symbol in the fight for consumer freedom and against unnecessary governmental interference into the lives of the American people.

MB12.26_v2 - light bulbs

In 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law an energy bill that placed stringent efficiency requirements on ordinary incandescent bulbs in an attempt to have them completely eliminated by 2014. The law phased out 100-watt and 75-watt incandescent bulbs last year.

Proponents of government-imposed efficiency standards and regulations will say, “So what? There are still plenty of lighting options on the shelves at Home Depot; we’re saving families money; and we’re reducing harmful climate change emissions.”

The “so what” is that the federal government is taking decisions out of the hands of families and businesses, destroying jobs, and restricting consumer choice in the market. We all have a wide variety of preferences regarding light bulbs. It is not the role of the federal government to override those preferences with what it believes is in our best interest.

Families understand how energy costs impact their lives and make decisions accordingly. Energy efficiency has improved dramatically over the past six decades—long before any national energy efficiency mandates.

If families and firms are not buying the most energy-efficient appliance or technology, it is not that they are acting irrationally; they simply have budget constraints or other preferences such as comfort, convenience, and product quality. A family may know that buying an energy-efficient product will save them money in the long term, but they have to prioritize their short-term expenses. Those families operating from paycheck to paycheck may want to opt for a cheaper light bulb and more food instead of a more expensive light bulb and less food.

Some may read this and think: Chill out—it’s just a light bulb. But it’s not just a light bulb. Take a look at the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program. Basically anything that uses electricity or water in your home or business is subject to an efficiency regulation.

When the market drives energy efficiency, it saves consumers money. The more the federal government takes away decisions that are better left to businesses and families, the worse off we’re going to be.

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Pre-Revoluntionary America

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Today’s post title is taken from an article that appeared in PJ Media. It mirrors concerns that I have and have spoken about for several years. The author of the column, Roger L. Simon, is polite and uses the term, “Revolution.” I’m not so polite. I have used another term, “Civil War.”

I’ve always been a student of history. There are many books written about the Civil War, and, now that we’ve reached its 150th anniversary, the Battle of Gettysburg. There are few books written, except for scholarly pieces not written for public consumption, the delve into the conditions and forces that lead to that civil war. Yes, slavery was an issue. For some, a major issue, but it wasn’t the only one. State’s Rights and Sovereignty played significant part as well. At least from the Southern side. However, the trends and acts of government that lead to the first civil war, mirror trends today, namely the further erosion of state’s rights, power and sovereignty. Instead of slavery, we now have governmental dependence…another form of slavery, but to the FedGov, the new substitute for slaveowners.

Please believe, I’m no advocate of revolution, or rebellion, or armed resistance to the federal government. But when the federal government itself violates the constitution, acts lawlessly, fails to enforce existing law while extorting compliance with federal regulations that have no basis in law, when the federal government ignores federal court orders that limits the power of government, our options and peaceful alternatives become more and more limited.

The article, “Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th?” written by Roger L. Simon, was mentioned on Mark Levin’s radio show yesterday. Levin spoke for some time on the subject and about the article. In fact, he read it over the air.

Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th?

Roger L. Simon, July 2nd, 2013 – 12:23 am

As we approach July 4, 2013, is America in a pre-revolutionary state? Are we headed for a Tahrir Square of our own with the attendant mammoth social turmoil, possibly even violence.

Could it happen here?

We are two-thirds of the way into the most incompetent presidency in our history. People everywhere are fed up. Even many of the so-called liberals who propelled Barack Obama into office have stopped defending him in the face of an unprecedented number of scandals coming at us one after the other like hideous monsters in some non-stop computer game.

And now looming is the monster of monsters, ObamaCare, the healthcare reform almost no one wanted and fewer understood.

It will be administered by the Internal Revenue Service, an organization that has been revealed to be a kind of post-modern American Gestapo, asking not just to examine our accounting books but the books we read. What could be more totalitarian than that?

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal warns the costs of ObamaCare are close to tripling what were promised, and the number of doctors in our country is rapidly diminishing. No more “My son, the doctor!” It doesn’t pay.

And young people most of all will not be able to afford escalating health insurance costs and will end up paying the fine to the IRS, simultaneously bankrupting the health system and enhancing the brutal power of the IRS — all this while unemployment numbers remain near historical highs.

No one knows how many have given up looking for work while crony capitalist friends of the administration enrich themselves on mythological clean-energy projects.

In fact, everywhere we look on this July Fourth sees a great civilization in decline. And much of that decline can be laid at the foot of the incumbent. Especially his own people, African Americans, have suffered.  Their unemployment numbers are catastrophic, their real needs ignored while hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson, and, sadly, even the president fan the flames of non-existent racism.

Tahrir Square anyone?

Ironically, if our society enters a revolutionary phase, liberals will find themselves in the role of the Islamists, defending a shopworn and reactionary ideology on religious grounds, because it is only their faith that holds their ideas together at this point.

The facts of the American decline tell us otherwise. We don’t need the contempt of Vladimir Putin to remind us how bad things are and that the seeming result of the end of the Cold War is that American presidents are now mocked by the second coming of the KGB (not that it was ever gone).

We all know the famous Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times!

We certainly are, and I am of two minds about it. Like so many Americans, I have lived a comfortable, privileged life, vastly so compared to most of human history.

But I am filled with foreboding about what’s to come, indeed about what is already here. When I look at the masses swarming in Tahrir Square, I am at once repelled and attracted, repelled because, to be honest, I find their culture more than a bit crazy, but attracted because I know something is seriously wrong, not just in Egypt but in the USA.

Perhaps the most interesting quote from this article is, “Ironically, if our society enters a revolutionary phase, liberals will find themselves in the role of the Islamists, defending a shopworn and reactionary ideology on religious grounds, because it is only their faith that holds their ideas together at this point.”

We conservatives have our point of faith, our political doctrine, the U. S. Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers. For those of us who are believers, we also have our Bibles. The liberals who oppose us have their own religious views, environmentalism, humanism, and, contrary to their claims, Marxs’ Das Kapital.

Karl Marx thought that capitalism inevitably lead to economic collapse. History has proved him wrong. It is his theories, when applied to government, that has failed. Note the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the communist governments in Eastern Europe. Liberals here and in Europe believe their versions will work…as long as they don’t run out of other people’s money.

We’re fast approaching a point where we will either run out of money, or, the people will rebel in some form and refuse to allow more spending. The failure of the so-called Farm Bill in June, was an example of the latter. Unfortunately, the feds will continue to spend at the previous rate—fed by the last “continuing resolution.”

If you read the article at PJ Media, the comments are worth reading as well. George B, said:

The revolution won’t be people heading to the streets with guns. The revolution happens when the people who have been following the rules simply quit obeying the federal government. The revolution will be millions of independent contractors working for cash or barter and not reporting income. Just like the 55 mph speed limit was the object of ridicule before it was repealed, the whole system of big stupid government comes crashing down if enough people ignore it and simply quit paying.

I could easily see ObamaCare causing the return of cash payment for medical services. What happens if doctors find cash business is profitable while government managed 3rd party payer medicine is not? What if many thousands of small businesses simply “Go Mexican” and drop out of the regulated economy?

If everyone in the federal government was suddenly cut off from the rest of the country, would life end? No. Most of the day-to-day useful things done by government happen at the local level. It has to be one of the biggest fears of the ruling class that a majority of the people discover that they can live just fine without intervention from the national government.

It is the fear of social collapse, of anarchy, that restrains the people…so far. If the tyranny of and opposition to the federal government reaches a level where that fear of social collapse is less that allowing the FedGov to continue as-is, then we will reach the state where non-compliance is more palatable than compliance. At that point, the union ceases to exists.

As we go out to celebrate the Fourth of July (Note: the Declaration of Independence was approved on the 2nd of July), let us celebrate that we are still able to do so.

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Clandestine Government

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I’m back, after a brief hiatus. I’m have been having some health reviews—test, physicals, etc., one of those things everyone should do on a regular basis.

I’ve been lax. I can’t remember when I had a complete physical. I have learned that physicals aren’t completed in one day. No, it’s one test here, another test there, some can be done with a blood test—and more than once when they forget to check off a particular item to be tested. Some are embarrassing, like mine yesterday. That one went well and I won’t need to repeat that one for five years.

All this has disrupted my schedule. I hope, now, the disruptions will become fewer…and less often.

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I see the…I’m at a loss what to call them. They are dems, of course, but also more. They’re libs, too, but not just being liberals. Infiltrators? Yes, that, they are. They’ve been infiltrating government and our public institutions since the 1930s. Communists? That’s, while accurate, is blasé. I believe Marxists is the current term. Usurpers? That’s what they want to do.

What do you call those who wish to destroy our country, heritage, our republican form of government, our liberty? A good question. However, we cannot deny that they exist and have an agenda.

We see more and more evidence everyday, from the lies about Benghazi, the overt support for radical Islamics inside and outside the government, the attacks on Christian heritage and conservatism, using government agencies to intimidate political opposition, using government to coerce individuals to submit to bureaucratic regulations, many that may have no supporting law.

Yesterday, another piece of clandestine government was uncovered. A separate, secret layer of communication outside the official means of communication within government. Federal law requires all emails in, from, between government agencies to be archived and available to the public via FOIA, Freedom Of Information Act. Obama and his faction created a secret communication system, an illegal system, using a private e-mail platform and refused to make those e-mails public as required by law. Unless, of course, those wanting the emails pony-up $1,000,000…maybe.

We, here in Cass County, have had experience with clandestine government. With the election of responsible Commissioners last Fall, our county government is restoring trust in our local politics.

In earlier years, county government was government by oligarchy. A small group, of both parties, played fast and loose with contracts, money, and some actions appear to have been fraudulent and those involved guilty of conspiracy. Those allegations are under investigation by a number of agencies including the FBI.

Now, look at the changes that have been made to make county government open—and responsible to, county voters.

  • County Commission meeting are regularly scheduled and announced in advance.
  • Information packets of business to be conducted and agendas are released before commission meetings including supporting documents of the topics to be discussed.
  • Commission meeting minutes are posted publicly and available on CDs for a small fee. The county clerk is required by law to record the minutes of commission meetings. However in prior years, the minutes were frequently late and their contents did not always agree with the memories of those meetings from spectators. In some instances, the minutes were altered, after the fact, by request of some commissioners, some have claimed. Those claims have been echoed by some of the county’s elected officials.

How different is our county government to that of the FedGov? A local government where we have elected officials dedicated to open government compared to the one in Washington, DC, where both parties, in the Administration and in Congress, work diligently to conceal their true motives and actions.

None of the activities being disclosed recently in Washington is surprising. We know the agencies and policies have been in place for decades—supported by both parties. The question now is how can we remove those impediments, remove the obstacles that hinder our liberties and our ability to reduce the power of federal agencies, and make government responsible to citizens?

That is a question that I have do not have an answer.

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