The Road to Tyranny is All Downhill From Here

You don't need me to tell you that the federal government was originally designed to be much smaller and much less powerful than it is today.  (Well... maybe some of you do.)  Certainly the founding fathers intended it to be far less intrusive and costly.  But today we have arrived at a point where the federal government micro-manages numerous little details, including a law — the Comprehensive Energy Policy Act of 1994 — requiring that new toilets use only 1.6 gallons per flush.  (As long as swimming pools are legal and golf courses are irrigated with drinking water, 1.6 gallon toilets should not be mandatory.)  Very gradually, more and more laws and regulatory agencies are being created, and one day even the most gullible citizen will wake up and realize that he is ruled by tyrants.

All the material about the USA Patriot Act is now on a page of its own.  The material about the invasion of the Food Police now has its own page, too.  (See other related links at the bottom of this page.)


Ministry of Truth, Obama-style.  President Obama has been agitating for the authority to criminalize political opponents since he took office.  First there was the raft of DHS reports profiling conservatives as terrorists.  Then came the push for a new fairness doctrine, subsequently refined to be achieved in diversity regulations to be imposed on local radio stations.  Following these attacks on free speech was the much debated hate crimes legislation, considered by many to be a back-door path to silencing critics of the administration.  But, while dangerous to free speech, none of these draconian policies could do as much damage as new regulatory czar Cass Sunstein's shocking proposal to ban "falsehoods" — a term left up to the Obama administration to define.  If Sunstein succeeds, free speech will be truly dead in America.

Can Obama and Congress Order You to Buy Broccoli?  Can President Barack Obama and Congress enact legislation that orders Americans to buy broccoli?  If so, where did they get that authority?  What provision in the Constitution empowers the federal government to order an individual to buy a product he does not want?  This is not a question about nutrition.  It is not a question about whether broccoli is good for you or about the relative merits of broccoli versus other foods.  It is a question about the constitutional limits on the power of the federal government.  It is a question about freedom.

Where does the Constitution Authorize Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance?  [Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick] Leahy, whose committee is responsible for vetting Supreme Court nominees, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution Congress is specifically granted the authority to require that every American purchase health insurance.  Leahy answered by saying that "nobody questions" Congress' authority for such an action.

Pelosi:  'Are You Serious?' When Asked About Constitutional Authority.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not explain where Congress gets the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance, when asked by CNSNews.com, and dismissed the query with the response, "Are you serious?  Are you serious?"

Constitutionality of health overhaul questioned.  On top of all the other obstacles facing President Obama in his quest to pass health reform is this one:  Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to require uninsured Americans to buy medical insurance or impose a tax penalty if they refuse?

Show Me the Bill!  Do you think Congress should vote on bills without reading them?  How about voting on bills that don't even exist yet, except in fragments?  The Senate Finance Committee [voted] on a massive health care reform bill on Tuesday [10/13/2009] allegedly authored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).  A glaring, outrageous, unreported fact is that the bill's actual text has been kept secret.  No one actually knows what's in it — not even the senators who [were] told to vote for it.

California Assembly Expunges Santa Barbara Drilling Vote.  The California State Assembly is refusing to provide the names of assemblymen who voted to ban oil recovery off the coast of Santa Barbara.  Twenty-eight members supported the ban, but their votes cannot be found in the official state database.  Assembly leaders expunged the votes in order to spare lawmakers running for re-election an official record of their controversial decision.

The Editor says...
 How can we have a representative government if the legislators conduct secret ballots?

Tribe's secrecy should concern community.  [Scroll down]  Tribal officers are fully empowered to make felony arrests of anyone in the county, to lodge those suspects in the Isabella County Jail, and to pursue criminal charges under Michigan law.  And, as it now stands, they have the ability to do so in secrecy.

The Editor says...
 Secret police and tyranny go hand in hand.

Wabash Valley woman didn't realize second cold medicine purchase violated drug laws.  When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.  Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won't endure the same embarrassment she still is facing.

Buy too much cold medicine, go to jail.  [Sally] Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy.  Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week's time.

Every Drop of Water in America.  Some in the federal government want to exert control over ... every drop of water in America.  It is an attack on private property and it is emblematic of the real agenda of environmentalists.  It is Communism.  The American Land Rights Association recently issued a notice.  "Having been slapped down by the U.S. Supreme Court's two recent decisions that the words 'navigable waters' in the Clean Water Act limited federal agencies to regulation of navigable waters only, Democrats and liberal Republicans in Congress are striking back."

State of 'emergency'?  We're living in it.  Wednesday [9/23/2009], the Legislature approved Ted Kennedy's deathbed wish to repeal his 2004 nondeathbed wish to take away a (Republican) governor's power to appoint an interim senator.  See, now that the governor is a Democrat, the law is an "abomination."  The vote to change Teddy's law for Teddy was 24-16 in the Senate, 95-57 in the House.  That's not two-thirds.  But pay no attention to that pesky Constitution.  We'll just have the governor decide it's an "emergency."

Declaration Of Orders We Will Not Obey.  Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, peace officers, fire-fighters, and veterans who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic ... and meant it.

A Destructive Toy Story Made in Washington.  Last Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee finally held a hearing on the highly controversial Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the children's-product-safety law that took effect on Feb. 10.  Chairman Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) allowed a single witness:  Inez Tenenbaum, the newly installed chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), who, like himself, is a strong advocate of the law.  Not one of the thousands of craftspeople, retailers and small manufacturers the law has sent reeling was permitted to testify.

New Government Policy Imposes Strict Standards on Garage Sales Nationwide.  Americans who slap $1 pricetags on their used possessions at garage sales or bazaar events risk being slapped with fines of up to $15 million, thanks to a new government campaign.  The "Resale Round-up," launched by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, enforces new limits on lead in children's products and makes it illegal to sell any items that don't meet those limits or have been recalled for any other reason.

Not Going Down Without a Fight.  [Scroll down]  Well, then, came along another government obstacle.  A law passed in 2008, called CPSIA, takes away my right to hand-create many things for children without third-party laboratory testing. ... I have purchased crafting items all my life.  I know who these people are.  Their cloth, their beads, their talent is American.  Toys, dresses, books, and such items are not meant for eating, and that is how these poisons are transferred.  We all want our children to be safe, but why punish those that have played by the rules and have their lives and blood invested in this?

Starting today, it is illegal not to recycle plastic bottles.  Starting today [10/1/2009], that old soda bottle and empty milk jug are no longer just garbage.  They must be recycled.  A new state law is taking effect that prohibits all plastic bottles from being disposed of in landfills.  Supporters of the law say it will boost North Carolina's burgeoning recycling industry, which has an unmet demand for old bottles that can be converted into new goods.

Oath Keepers organizer sees need to sound an alarm.  A vociferous group of Americans is warning that the country is not just headed in the wrong direction — but over a cliff.  They are mainstream media commentators, like Fox News' Glenn Beck.  They are religious leaders, like "Bible Answer Man" Hank Hanegraaff, who told radio listeners last month that "socialism and fascism" were "slipping quietly through the back door."  And they are everyday people like Rand Cardwell.

Sweet And Sour.  Government can't be allowed to use its taxation powers for an illegitimate purpose like directing the behavior of the populace. ... We've already let the government criminalize tobacco, fossil fuels and trans fat.  Will we now let Washington add sugar to its index of forbidden substances?

Home-schooler ordered to attend public school.  A New Hampshire court ordered a home-schooled Christian girl to attend a public school this week after a judge criticized the "rigidity" of her mother's religious views and said the 10-year-old needed to consider other worldviews as she matures.  Ever since the judge's ruling came out in July, the case has aroused the interest of home-schooling groups nationwide, who have asked why a court has the power to decide whether someone's religious views are too extreme.

The Editor says...
 This is an issue far greater than home schooling.  No judge has the authority to rule on the merits of any person's religious values or beliefs.

Topeka Cracks Down On Unlicensed Bicycles.  Topeka police are warning local bicycle owners they could face up to $76 in fines and court costs if they're caught pedaling unlicensed bikes.  Already this year 27 cyclists have received citations that include a $10 fine plus $66 court costs for riding unlicensed bikes.

Pay Czar Collects Firms' Proposals.  For years, the question of what constitutes fair and appropriate compensation for top business executives has been debated by legislators, corporate directors and activist shareholders.  Now, for the first time, a government voice will have a real say in what that pay should be.

Health Care Reform Is About Control, Not Health.  Liberals have always been fixated on controlling people. In America, they accomplish this through taxation, regulation, and unrelenting appeals to our leftist-dominated court system.  And when these avenues prove unsuccessful, liberals don't give up, they simply look for a covert means to reach their original goal.  ObamaCare is just such a covert means.

The Pay Czar's Power Grab:  Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg's official government title is "Special Master for Compensation." ... Asked by Reuters whether his powers include reaching back and revoking bonuses awarded to financial industry executives before his office was created earlier this year, Feinberg asserted broad and binding authorities — including the ability to "claw back" money already paid out. ... House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank has yapped all year long about extending pay curbs to all financial institutions and perhaps to all U.S. companies.

Did someone mention Obama's so-called czars?

School prayer charges stir protests.  Students, teachers and local pastors are protesting over a court case involving a northern Florida school principal and an athletic director who are facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail over their offer of a mealtime prayer.

This Can't Be the Same Country I Grew Up In.  [Scroll down]  I mean, we've got czars now.  Czars like John Holdren, who has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.  The latest is the nominee for regulatory czar, a Harvard Law professor named Cass Sunstein, who is a friend of Obama's and embraces the ever-so-popular "senior death discount" that calculates the lives of younger people as having a greater value than those of the elderly.  And he also believes in giving legal rights for livestock, wildlife and pets so they can file lawsuits.  Human rights for livestock?  This is not the America I grew up in.

Why the Founding Fathers Were "Birthers":  [Scroll down slowly]  There are TWO reasons why the "birther" movement is EXPLODING instead of going away, despite daily attacks and name calling from the lamestream press.  The Constitution, including Article II Section I either stands or it doesn't.  The people are watching the utter hourly destruction of their nation in Washington DC and they need a peaceful way to end that destruction legally, before things become violent.  The flaw in the left's plan to change the Unites States into a secular socialist One World Order is they have foolishly underestimated the desire for freedom and liberty in the hearts and minds of most Americans.

Health bill proposal for 'home visitation' sparks Big Brother fears.  A proposal for a government program that would send nurses into the homes of low-income women to counsel them about their pregnancies and parenting skills failed to gain support in Congress this year, but has been revived in the health care legislation.  The language, buried deep in the 1,000-plus-page House health care reform bill, has bipartisan support, though it never had enough backing to pass the House or Senate on its own.

Obama DOJ Threatened Oklahoma Over English-Only Vote.  The Obama administration believes that an inability to speak English is a civil right.  It is even more distressing that the administration, legally speaking, may be right.  In April President Obama's Department of Justice threatened to cut off federal funding to Oklahoma if that state's voters approve a state constitutional amendment making English Oklahoma's official language, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) revealed.

The Editor says...
 The State of Oklahoma has a choice:  Take a handout from the federal government, or live in freedom.  Where did the federal government get the money it threatens to withhold?  The federal government has no money of its own — it is entirely parasitic.  Does anyone really believe that the U.S. government will cut off the State of Oklahoma from all federal funds while withholding taxes from Oklahomans' paychecks?  I say, call their bluff!

Senate Bill Would Fine People More Than $1,000 for Refusing Health Care Coverage.  Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Obama's top domestic priority.  The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years.

U.S. Government Is After Your Pocket Knives, Second Amendment Group Warns.  Second Amendment supporters are warning Americans about what they call an "unwarranted knife grab by Customs agents."  On May 21, the Customs and Border Protection Agency proposed revoking earlier rulings that said "assisted opening knives" — including pocket knives — are not switchblades.  The proposed new rule would expand the definition of "switchblade" to include knives that are opened with one hand as well as old-fashioned slip-joint knives, even the type of folding knives that Boy Scouts typically carry.

Bid to expand knife ban doesn't cut it with critics.  Hunters, whittlers and Boy Scouts, beware — your knives may soon be on the government's chopping block.  The Obama administration wants to expand the 50-year-old ban on importing "switchblades" to include folding knives that can be opened with one hand, stirring fears the government may on the path to outlawing most pocket knives.

Health Care Bill Will Fund State Vaccine Teams to Conduct 'Interventions' in Private Homes.  There is a knock at the front door.  Peeking through the window, a mother sees a man and a woman, both in uniform.  They are agents of health-care reform.  "Excuse me, ma'am," says the man.  "Our records show that your eleven-year-old daughter has not been immunized for genital warts."  "And your four-year-old still needs the chicken-pox vaccine," says the woman.

No HAPI Ending.  The respect the federal government has for the American electorate, at least the amount it shows, has reached a new low.  The Healthy Americans Private Insurance plan, which incidentally goes by the acronym "HAPI," is the new plan the federal government has devised to force us to pay more in taxes and take a handout whether we want it or not. ... To put it bluntly, the federal government is saying we must enroll our family members and ourselves in a health insurance plan... or else.

Cap-and-Tax:  Government vs. America.  There is still time to stop the legislative monstrosity known as the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill before the Senate approves it.  But for that to happen, Americans must learn how bad it is. ... The American Issues Project has exposed Section 204 of the bill, called the "Building Energy Performance Labeling Program," which gives the federal government unprecedented authority over your home.  AIP says the section mandates that new homes be 30 percent more energy-efficient than the current building code on the very day the law is signed.  The requirement increases to 50 percent by 2014 and continues to increase until 2030.

Climate bill gives huge powers to government.  In less than a year, we have witnessed a government takeover of banks and lending institutions, a presidential firing of an executive at a major corporation — General Motors — and the toppling of established U.S. bankruptcy laws to the benefit of the president's political allies.  But this breathtaking claim of power may pale in comparison to the impact Americans will feel from enactment of the so-called American Clean Energy and Security Law, which has been passed by the Democratic-controlled House.

Green nonsense.  Waxman-Markey contains unpleasant surprises for Americans, including a provision which could prevent homeowners from selling their homes if they aren't retrofitted to meet federal "green" guidelines.  But the House passed the 1,400-page bill before its members had an opportunity to read it, much less ponder its implications.  Let's pray the Senate is more responsible.

Rep. Hastings' Amendment a "Disturbing Piece of Legislation"?  Approximately two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed an amendment, introduced by Congressman Alcee Hastings, that would prohibit people affiliated with hate groups from joining the military.  The amendment is one of dozens tacked on to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 — the bill that OKs money to be spent on the armed forces.  The full bill passed the House and the companion bill was read aloud today [7/7/2009] in the Senate.

Alcee Hastings Paves the Way for Concentration Camps.  In the near future, voicing opposition to the radical left agenda being rammed down our country's throat could land you in a concentration camp.  Now's a good time to start resisting what liberals are doing to this country, because it won't be getting any easier.

Political opposition is not a hate crime.  Legislation quietly making its way through Congress would give the White House power to categorize political opponents as hate groups and even send Americans to detention centers on abandoned military bases. ... Section 2(b)4 allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the camps "to meet other appropriate needs" — none of which are specified.  This is the kind of blank check that Congress should never, ever sign. ... It's not paranoid to be extremely wary of legislation that would give two unelected government officials power to legally declare someone a "domestic terrorist" and send them to a government-run camp.  After all, the federal government has done exactly this sort of thing before.

233 Years Later, a New Independence Push.  President Obama and Speaker Pelosi have an ambitious agenda that, if implemented, would make Americans more dependent on their government than ever before — certainly more than our Founding Fathers would have envisioned.  From socialized medicine, ownership of car companies and large monetary infusions into failing private sector entities to federal control of our nation's energy and education sectors, the U.S. government is rapidly become increasingly powerful and increasingly intrusive.

Say NO to a Constitutional Convention.  What if Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi had the opportunity to re-write the United States Constitution?  What if the hordes of big-government liberals had the opportunity to write the Supreme Law of Land?  What would this document include?  I can guarantee that it will include provisions that make America look like Socialized Europe on a fast track to collectivism and statism.  If Conservatives join in the fight for a Constitutional Convention, we will be handing over the keys to the kingdom.

We the People Need a Tyranny Czar.  America's system of checks and balances, designed to safeguard against tyranny, is in shambles.  Thus, our tyrannical president, committed to replacing free and private enterprise with government run socialism, is able to do so, virtually at will.  That same tyrannical president is able to downgrade national defense, drive the nation to the cusp of financial ruin, and trash the best health care system in the world in favor of a government run HMO, again virtually unchallenged.

The regulation of essential elements of life.  The EPA is now considering designating CO2 a dangerous pollutant.  The regulation of essential elements of life by our government scares me.  It should scare us all.  I am devastated by the notion that our own government founded on freedom would regulate and control the most fundamental aspects of life on earth. ... We generally have too much water where we don't need it and too little where we do.  Are you planning to regulate water also? ... Carbon dioxide is just as essential to life as water and oxygen.  Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than oxygen or water.

We've heard this Washington song before.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made history Wednesday [6/17/2009] by barring Republicans from offering any amendments to spending legislation.  This has never been done before in the entire history of the U.S. House of Representatives.
totalitarian
Many Of Today's Americans Love Government.  The path we're embarked upon, in the name of good, is a familiar one.  The unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism did not begin in the '30s and '40s with the men usually associated with those names.  Those horrors were simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the name of "social justice."  In Germany, it led to the Enabling Act of 1933:  Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation and, after all, who could be against a remedy to relieve distress?  Decent but misguided Germans, who would have cringed at the thought of what Nazi Germany would become, succumbed to Hitler's charisma.  Today's Americans, enticed, perhaps enchanted, by charismatic speeches, are ceding so much power to Washington, and like yesteryear's Germans are building the Trojan Horse for a future tyrant.

Man, 81, charged for clearing pothole for repair.  An Ohio man said he chipped away loose material to prepare a pothole for repair and thought he was helping the city, not breaking the law.  An undercover police officer spotted 81-year-old James Stacy in the street near Stacy's home with a pickax and a broom last week.

Video Shows Philly Officer Bullying Woman.  When Agnes Lawless and three friends were inside a Lukoil convenience store in the Northeast at 3 a.m. last August, they'd all but forgotten the fender-bender in which they'd been involved moments earlier.  There was little damage, and the other driver had left the scene, near Northeast Philadelphia Airport.  What they didn't know was that they'd been rear-ended by the son of a police officer who was on duty, and dad was about to get involved.

Couple: County Trying To Stop Home Bible Studies.  A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines they continued to hold bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Land Grab, Air Grab, Water Grab — S 787.  The CWA (Clean Water Act) regulates point source pollution discharges into "waters of the United States."  The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase "waters of the United States" to exclude isolated waters, such as ponds, intermittent streams, and wetlands which do not have a "significant nexus" to a navigable waterway.  These bodies of water are not regulated by the CWA.  S 787 would change the CWA to significantly broaden the scope of the bill.

Judicial 'Activism' Isn't the Issue.  The growing dispute between conservatives and liberals over the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor obscures a more troubling point of agreement:  The government should almost always win.  Many conservatives who think of themselves as proponents of limited government would be surprised to discover that conservative judges begin their constitutional analyses in almost every context by placing a thumb firmly on the government side of the scale.

What's my pay, Mr. Czar?  The financial community clearly needed to revise compensation systems to shift incentives for executives, managers, traders and others from one-year to longer term.  And just as clearly, it needed to curtail salaries and golden parachutes that bore no realistic connection to executive value-added.  But that's not government's role.  Entertainers and athletes make too much, too.  But that's not the government's business, either.

Obama Butters Them Up In Cairo.  At one point, Obama fretted over the rise of new power that, to the horror of civilized people, exudes an obsessed and twisted view of "sexuality" and "mindless violence."  Islamo-fascism?  No, the Internet.  The guy is confronting one of the most evil and relentless mindsets in the history of man and he finds room in his big address to whine about the Internet — by far a greater tool for freedom than anything else.

'Job-Creating' Ordinance Makes Negligence of 'Green' Audit Criminal.  The government is continuing to encroach on freedoms more and more in the name of climate change.  Case in point:  An ordinance that went into effect June 1 stating if you sell your home in Austin, Texas and you fail to get a clean energy "green" audit, you will likely face criminal charges.  According to an ordinance passed by the Austin City Council in November 2008, any home 10 years or older will require an "Energy Conservation Audit.

The state despotic.  Would it even be possible to hold the American revolution today?  The Boston Tea Party?  Imagine if George III had been able to sit in his palace across the ocean, look at the security-camera footage, press a button, and freeze the bank accounts of everyone there.  Oh, well, we won't be needing another revolt, will we?  But the consequence of funding the metastasization of government through the confiscation of the fruits of the citizen's labor is the remorseless shriveling of liberty.

Pelosi appeals for China's help on climate change.  U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Beijing on Thursday [5/25/2009] to cooperate on climate change, calling a safe environment a basic human right. ... "We have so much room for improvement," she said.  "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

Don't call it 'socialism'!  The government effectively owns General Motors and controls Chrysler, and the president is deciding what kind of cars they can make.  Uncle Sam owns majority stakes in American International Group, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and controls large chunks of the banking industry.  Also, President Obama wants government to take over the business of student loans.  And he's pushing for nationalized health care.  Meanwhile, his Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that it reserves the right to regulate any economic activity that has a "carbon footprint."  Just last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said climate change requires that "every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory."  Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the Financial Services Committee, has his eye on regulating executive pay.

You'll Love Diversity — Or Else.  Racial and ethnic diversity is the key to happiness, success in the global marketplace and, not least, an interesting life.  So we are told in a batch of new "fair housing" radio ads that are the sort of treacly propaganda that cause sober drivers to run off the road.  Presented as a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, the ads were produced by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a private, nonprofit group whose stated purpose is to make sure the act is properly implemented.  The act bans housing discrimination and imposes stiff penalties for those who get caught.

Democracy and Majority Rule.  Democracy and majority rule give an aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny.  Think about it.  How many decisions in our day-to-day lives would we like to be made through majority rule or the democratic process? ... What about whether you drive a Chevrolet or a Ford, or whether your Easter dinner is turkey or ham?  Were such decisions made in the political arena, most of us would deem it tyranny.  Why isn't it also tyranny for the democratic process to mandate what type of light bulbs we use, how many gallons of water to flush toilets or whether money should be taken out of our paycheck for retirement?

Step Away From the Vehicle.  In August 1999 police saw Rodney Gant pull into the driveway of his Tucson home and arrested him for driving with a suspended license.  After handcuffing Gant and locking him in a cruiser, Officer Todd Griffith searched his car, finding a bag of cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat.  When he was asked at an evidentiary hearing why he searched the car, Griffith replied, "Because the law says we can do it."  Not anymore.

Tennessee Speeders Could Get Fingerprinted.  Motorists stopped for traffic violations in Tennessee could be fingerprinted if state lawmakers approve a bill pending in the legislature.  Currently, when drivers are cited during traffic stops, police officers ask for the driver's signature on the ticket, but the proposed bill would allow police departments to eliminate signatures and collect fingerprints.

FCC's Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts.  You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.  That's the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters.  And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

Brown calls 1996 anti-affirmative action law unconstitutional.  Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown has told the California Supreme Court that Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action measure passed by voters in 1996, violates the U.S. Constitution.  The state attorney general's stance marks the second time in six months that he has determined that ballot measures approved by California voters were unconstitutional.

Iowa, A Great Place To Be From.  The state in which I was born and raised has become the latest judicial laboratory for deviant social policy.  In a unanimous vote last week, the Iowa Supreme Court created the "right" to same-sex marriage.  As is always the case, the voters had no direct say in the matter.  Their state senators and representatives had acted responsibly on the matter several years ago by defining marriage as what it is — a union of one man and one woman.  But that no longer matters in America, where we now live not in a representative republic but rather under a left-wing judicial oligarchy.

Anything that isn't mandatory is now prohibited.
 Hundreds of laws kick in Monday.  In California, driving with people in the trunk will be illegal.  In Alabama, landlords will have to provide livable conditions for tenants.  Illinois agencies will have to provide people to answer phones, not just automated messages.  These are among the hundreds of laws that will take effect Monday [1/1/2007].  Each New Year's Day, a flurry of legal experiments begin that shape Americans' lives.  The U.S. government spends twice as much money as state and local governments combined, but state government has the greatest effect on Americans' everyday lives — how they drive, how they get married and divorced, how they hunt and fish, and how they buy cigarettes and beer.

Some strings attached.  Last month, Congress enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, popularly called "the stimulus plan."  It gives billions of dollars to the states, but the gift has strings attached.  One of its unique provisions changes state constitutions!  That provision is unconstitutional, and its defect raises problems about the whole enterprise.  The aphorism, he who pays the piper calls the tune, is one that Congress understands quite well.  If the state accepts funds, it also accepts a host of restrictions.

Hayward begins ticketing for smoking in public.  Lighted cigarettes meant lightened purses and wallets for smokers who were caught puffing in public this week, as the city began enforcement of a smoking ban that technically went into effect last summer.  The law, passed by the City Council last May, mandates a $50 fine for smoking on sidewalks, streets and other public places, including a 20-foot no smoking zone around outdoor patio areas of restaurants and bars, as well as parks, sports fields, playgrounds and municipal parking lots.  That zone also applies to windows, doors and ventilation ducts.

Out West, Catching Raindrops Can Make You an Outlaw.  Every raincloud that passes over her eastern Colorado ranch tempts state Rep. Marsha Looper to break the law.  A long, hard drought has settled across the land, and on those rare occasions when the sky opens, Ms. Looper longs to set out some rain barrels to collect the bounty for future use.  She'd like to use the rain to grow hothouse tomatoes.  But she refrains.  "I don't want to get thrown in jail," she explains.

Taking a bite out of crime...
 Pennsylvania Pie Fight:  State Cracks Down on Baked Goods.  On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church.  That's when the trouble started.  A state inspector, there for an annual checkup on the church's kitchen, spied the desserts.  After it was determined that the pies were home-baked, the inspector decreed they couldn't be sold.

Good Ideas.  Thomas Jefferson advised, "Whensoever the General (federal) Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."  That bit of Jeffersonian advice is dangerous.  While Congress does not have constitutional authority for most of what it does, it does have police and military power to inflict great pain and punishment for disobedience.

How To Peacefully Subdue a Monster!  It took 232 years for the American government to turn into a monster, but a monster it is.  It is a vicious, mostly mindless monster with a thousand tentacles that reach into every portion of our lives and the tentacles grow back if you cut one off.  It is a monster that once was controlled by rules, but it has grown so powerful, it now re-writes the rules to serve itself.  It is a monster with a ferocious appetite, an appetite for your money.

Every American Is Now a Criminal!  You think you are a law abiding citizen, don't you?  Think again!  You have been, you are now, and you will continue to break the law for the rest of your life, because there are too many laws, with millions more laws to follow.  Many of these laws are totally unconstitutional but have never been challenged in the courts.  Sometimes you break the law without any knowledge of it, even though ignorance of the law is not an excuse, if you are caught.  But worse, millions are breaking the law because they are convinced the laws are illegal, or just plain stupid.  With more people intentionally breaking the law, eventually the rule of law breaks down, as does our Republic.  The examples of stupid laws would fill volumes.  Examples of conflicting laws would fill even more volumes.

How Free Are We Really?  There is neither such thing as a people with complete freedom nor one completely bereft of it; it's a matter of degree.  While many realize this, few understand that there is a barometer with which liberty can be measured:  The number of laws in existence.  By definition, a law is the removal of a freedom, as it dictates that there is something you cannot or must do. ... Every year our nation enacts more and more laws but hardly ever rescinds any, which means every year we become progressively less free.  I call this "creeping totalitarianism."

Ignorance reigns supreme.  With limited thinking abilities and knowledge of our heritage, we Americans set ourselves up as easy prey for charlatans, hustlers and quacks.  If we don't know the constitutional limits placed on Congress and the White House, politicians can do just about anything they wish to control our lives, from deciding what kind of light bulbs we can use to whether the government can take over our health care system or bailout failing businesses.  We just think Congress can do anything upon which they can get a majority vote.

Farmers beware:  Big Brother may be watching.  Eastern Shore soybean farmer Steve VanKesteren learned that the hard way when he was charged with taking two red-tailed hawks, a violation of the federal Migratory Bird Act.  The evidence against him was a video recording showing him dispatching the birds with an ax.  Game wardens had put a hidden camera in a tree, pointed at VanKesteren's soybean fields, after receiving a complaint about protected birds getting caught in predator traps.

The Editor asks...
 Where are all those people who were so upset about domestic surveillance a few years ago?

Prohibition's Second Act:  Last week saw the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.  In Washington, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) — a group of former cops and drug-war veterans who have soured on America's war on drugs — gathered to celebrate the anniversary, and to argue for an end to America's current prohibition on marijuana and more serious drugs.  Essentially, they believe that the war on drugs creates criminals.

This War is Not the Answer.  I believe it is long past time to end the War on Drugs.  That's not because I approve of drug use or have any desire to encourage it.  But this particular war has already gone on longer than the ones in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, put together, with no end in sight and far less to show for it.

Controversial measure would require DNA sampling at arrest.  Suspects arrested in cases as minor as shoplifting would have to give a DNA sample before they are even charged with a crime if a controversial proposal is approved by the Legislature.  State criminal defense groups and the American Civil Liberties Union say the House bill is unconstitutional.  It would mandate that police or jail staff collect DNA from all adults and juveniles arrested on suspicion of a felony or gross misdemeanor.

Toy-gun sales ban advances to House.  A bill aimed at reducing the risk of children getting shot by police cleared a state House of Representatives committee Thursday [3/26/2009] but some questioned whether it would do anything.  House Bill 2160 by Rep. Fred Allen, D-Little Rock, would ban the sale of certain toy guns.

Where have you gone, Sheriff Taylor?  [Scroll down]  Not long ago I reported on an even more absurd case, in Shreveport, Louisiana.  There, the police chief cooked up this hare-brained idea of holding gas station employees and owners criminally liable in cases where drivers drive away without paying.  I can almost hear your incredulity. ... Well, you see, the chief got the town council to require station attendants to make their customers pre-pay.  If they don't, and the driver drives off without paying, then the attendant is also a criminal!  This sort of regulation of everyday life is all too common.  The basic idea is to scribble out a criminal code to make it easy for law enforcement.

In Australia, don't take pictures of the police.
 Mobile phone seizure an 'abuse of police powers'.  A man detained and threatened with arrest under the Terrorism Act for filming police on his mobile phone says police abused their powers.  Nick Holmes a Court ... said police forcibly took his BlackBerry phone and threatened him with arrest both under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act and for allegedly disobeying a police directive.

Legislative Preoccupation with Licensing Needs Repair.  While many Texas families rightfully fear violent criminals and child predators, no police alert has yet gone out for an interior decorator on the loose.  Yet, as the Legislature continues to produce solutions in search of problems, a pending bill would criminalize thousands of interior decorators.  This legislation is part of a raft of bills that would license new occupations ranging from interior designers to auto mechanics, forcing those who do not qualify to choose between committing a crime and earning a living.

Do You Have a License to Move that Chair?  In 22 states, including Arkansas, it is illegal to call yourself an interior designer without going through an arduous and expensive certification process.  In Nevada, it's illegal to do interior design without a license.  That's right, advising someone about drapes could land you in the hoosegow.  Like many states, Arkansas has an Interior Design Board.  The sole purpose of this board is to register interior designers.

Exposing the Connecticut and Oklahoma Interior Design Cartels.  The attempted cartelization of the interior design industry by industry insiders represents one of the most flagrant affronts to economic liberty IJ [the Institute for Justice] has ever encountered, and we are making the most of it.

Red tape snarls interior designers.  Susan Roberts can design you a gorgeous living room or a charming kitchen, but don't call her an "interior designer" — she could be fined $500 and spend a year in jail.

Horse Teeth Floaters' Constitutional Lawsuit Will Proceed.  Unlike human teeth, horses' teeth grow throughout their lives.  This causes sharp points to develop along their molars that must be filed down (or "floated") periodically, which levels the teeth and helps ensure that the horse can eat properly.  Historically, this practice has been provided by non-veterinarian specialists called "floaters," just as horses' hooves are taken care of by non-veterinarian farriers.

Our way lost.  Liberty is the result of much sacrifice, suffering, and labor.  It often has to be defended with bloodshed.  It is that precious.  Yet we quietly sit by and let government continually encroach upon our liberties without so much as a whimper.  Higher taxes strangle our personal freedom.  The Fairness Doctrine threatens to replace viable media content with a government-mandated mix of information.  Local city councils condemn private property "for the public good" while all they really want is to increase the tax revenue they receive off said property.

King Bloomberg.  When Mayor Bloomberg deployed his vast personal and political power to overturn the term limits law, he began to demystify the public relations image he had purchased at considerable expense.  It was only then that New Yorkers began to recognize the danger of making Gotham's wealthiest man its chief executive.  That recognition is the reason his approval rating slipped by nine points in the latest Marist poll.  The public chose a mayor; they didn't expect an elected monarch.

Next Up for Nationalization:  the Internet.  Following the nationalization of investment banks, Fannie and Freddie, consumer banks, and private insurance companies, taxpayers are likely asking:  What's left for the federal government to nationalize?  How about the Internet?  Network neutrality, or net neutrality, is the beneficent-sounding name for sweeping new government regulatory power that would prohibit Internet service providers from innovating in their own networks.

The Emerging Surveillance State:  The new FISA bill allows the federal government to compel many more types of companies and individuals to grant the government access to our communications without a warrant.  The provisions in the legislation designed to protect Americans from warrantless surveillance are full of loopholes and ambiguities.  There is no blanket prohibition against listening in on all American citizens without a warrant.  We have been told that this power to listen in on communications is legal and only targets terrorists.  But if what these companies are being compelled to do is legal, why is it necessary to grant them immunity?  If what they did in the past was legal and proper, why is it necessary to grant them retroactive immunity?

Tyranny In the Name of Progress:
 California court bans religious objections to same-sex pregnancies.  Once again, judges in California have taken sides in the culture wars.  On Monday [8/18/2008], in North Coast Women's Care v. Benitez, the Golden State's highest court ruled that doctors may not rely on their religious principles to refuse in-vitro fertilization for same-sex couples.  The decision runs roughshod over the First Amendment's free-exercise clause, seeking to supplant Judeo-Christian principles with the state-imposed religion of secularism.  This is a false choice under the federal Constitution, which makes room for both.

Servile Nation.  The janitor who cleans up a shopping mall in exchange for a paycheck is to be disdained as someone seeking his own economic benefit, while an AmeriCorps "volunteer" who cleans up a public park in exchange for money extorted from taxpayers at gunpoint is to be celebrated as the embodiment of the Common Good.  Yes, they both perform the same function, but only the labor of the latter has been consecrated through the exercise of government coercion.

Police in Thought Pursuit.  Denuded of euphemisms and code words, the Act aims to identify and stigmatize persons and groups who hold thoughts the government decrees correlate with homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition to the Patriot Act or the suspension of the Great Writ of habeas corpus.  The Act will inexorably culminate in a government listing of homegrown terrorists or terrorist organizations without due process; a complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas that ostensibly further "violent radicalization;" and a blacklisting of persons who have intersected with either list.  Political discourse will be chilled and needed challenges to conventional wisdom will flag.  There are no better examples of sinister congressional folly.

Suddenly, Denver is 'like a police state'.  They're calling it "Gitmo on the Platte."  With riot police on every downtown corner, security helicopters whomping overhead, news that police had secretly converted a northeast Denver warehouse into a detention centre enraged protesters and civil libertarians here yesterday who hoped for a different message with Barack Obama's Democrats in town.

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors.  Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.  Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

ABC Reporter's Attorneys Want All Charges Dropped.  Lawyers for an ABC reporter and civil rights groups are demanding that Denver police drop all charges against a reporter who was arrested yesterday [8/27/2008] while trying to shoot video on a public sidewalk outside the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.

A D.C. police state.  There is a neighborhood adjacent to Capitol Hill in Washington that is under siege.  But the police can't turn things around on their own.  On any given day, residents and visitors to the Trinidad area of Northeast are forced to traverse unfamiliar streets because D.C. police have barricaded the neighborhood as an anti-crime tactic — and when law enforcers accomplish that they are intent and in effect creating a police state in the nation's capital.

Nation's Capital Implements Measures Violating Rights & Property.  In order to curb the crime in the Trinidad neighborhood of Northeast, Washington, DC, police established "Neighborhood Safety Zones" where checkpoints were set up blocking access.  It's bad enough if law enforcement just about literally points a gun at the head of everyone coming into the neighborhood compelling motorists to permit officers to ransack through vehicles regardless of whether or not anything suspicious is going on.  However, things have gone beyond the limits of conscience when American citizens that have neither been convicted nor accused of a crime are then forbidden from proceeding down a free public street.

Update:
 Appeals court rejects DC police checkpoints.  A federal appeals court said Friday [7/10/2009] that police checkpoints in a crime-plagued Washington neighborhood are unconstitutional and ordered a lower court to reconsider its refusal to block the program.

The Court defers to plain language.  Adrian Fenty, the mayor of Washington, said he would direct the D.C. cops to figure out a way around the [Supreme Court's] decision [upholding the Second Amendment]. … And why shouldn't he be cheerful about the actual effect of the decision?  Once the cops have a computerized list of gun owners, they can draw up a map showing where each of those owners lives.  Bureaucrats like maps with a lot of little colored pins.  This makes Big Brother's oversight easier.

Astro's arrest leads to Galveston PD internal probe.  Police have begun an internal investigation of a weekend confrontation between police and members of a wedding party that led to the arrest of Astros pitcher Brandon Backe.  Witnesses said Monday [10/6/2008] that police needlessly beat, Tasered and pepper-sprayed wedding guests who were trying to comply with police commands during an incident in which officers arrested 10 people, including Backe, at an outdoor bar at the San Luis Hotel on Seawall Boulevard.

Americans drop dead as police get Taser-happy.  Even though the news is inundated with stories of people dying after being stunned by Tasers, police departments all over the nation are adding the electric-shock weapons to their arsenals, convinced the benefits outweigh the risks.

Cops pay 3 a.m. visit to tell man his door is unlocked.  A Lakeville man says he feels violated after two police officers woke him up at 3 a.m. to tell him his door was unlocked.  Their surprise visit was part of a public service campaign to remind residents to secure their homes to prevent thefts.

The Editor says...
 This is just inexcusable conduct on the part of the local cops.  Leaving the door to one's house unlocked is not a crime, and with no evidence of a crime in progress, the police had no right to enter the house.  It is the police officers who were violating the law in this case, and if they were to face civil liability for their actions, it would go a long way toward preventing the spread of this behavior.  If these "public service campaign[s]" go unchallenged, police departments in other cities will try them out.

Boiled Frog Alert ...
 High Court Rules on Illegal Searches.  The Supreme Court affirmed Wednesday [4/23/2008] that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law.

The Editor says...
 The way I see it, this ruling opens the door for the police to make "traffic stops" for no reason at all, hoping to find drugs or firearms in someone's car. This ruling effectively drains the life out of the Fourth Amendment.

When I Was a Boy, America Was a Better Place.  When I was a boy, America was a freer society than it is today.  If Americans had been told the extent and number of laws that would govern their speech and behavior within one generation, they would have been certain that they were being told about some dictatorship, not the Land of the Free.

45 days in jail for selling bacon-wrapped hot dogs.  "Bacon is a potentially hazardous food," says Terrence Powell of the LA County Health Department.  Continue selling bacon dogs without county-approved equipment and you risk fines and jail time.  Palacios knows all about that.  She spent 45 days in the slammer for selling bacon dogs, and with the lost time from work, fines, and attorney's fees, she fears she might lose the house that bacon dogs helped buy.

Machine Gun-Toting Officers To Patrol NYC Subway.  The NYPD is pulling out all the stops to beef up safety of the subways.  On Thursday it launched a new anti-terror effort called "Operation Torch," but the cost of the program is raising some eyebrows.  The NYPD's new firepower consists of cops with Mp5 submachine guns, rifles, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs.

Abuse of Power in Texas:  The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, a misnamed bureaucracy if ever there was one, has demanded the children seized by the state and placed in foster care be immunized immediately against the wishes of their mothers, who fear negative effects.  Ahh, but those mothers are no longer mothers, explains Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the department.  "We're the legal parents of the children, and we would like for them to be immunized," he said.

Boston police jump the gun with "Safe Homes".  The police department in that Massachusetts city has just launched an initiative that exhibits a cynical disregard for the rights of the citizenry, even as it cleverly cloaks the program in language pretending to protect the people toward whom it is directed.  I refer to the "Safe Homes Initiative," with its slick brochures and smooth rhetoric.

FBI compiling big database of physical traits.  The FBI has embarked on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.  Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns already are flowing into FBI systems….

Who Will Control Your Thermostat?  In California, we have 236 pages of state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency, known as Title 24. … What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a "programmable communicating thermostat" or PCT.  Every new home and every change to existing homes' central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision.  Each PCT will be fitted with a "non-removable " FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose.  During "price events" those changes are limited to ±4°F. and you would be able to manually override the changes.  During "emergency events" the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them.  In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control.

The Editor says...
 I can think of a couple of ways to defeat that FM receiver without touching it.  And I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before some hacker figures out how to shut off (or turn on) every air conditioner in town.

California Seeks Thermostat Control.  Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.

The Editor continues...
 Scroll down to the end of the article to see a quote from Nicole Tam, a spokeswoman for PG&E, who claims that the thermostat control signals are hacker-proof because they "are encrypted and encoded".  What a relief!  We all know that no encryption scheme has ever been cracked by hackers.

California Proposes Taking Control of Thermostats.  The California Energy Commission has proposed requiring thermostats that allow the government to control the temperature of homes and businesses in case of high energy prices or shortages, a measure that some critics are calling "draconian."

Update:
 Public Outrage Throttles California Plan to Control Home Thermostats.  Powered by a wave of public outrage that transcended party lines, California citizens have forced regulators at the California Energy Commission to abandon plans to control thermostat settings in private homes.  The Energy Commission had attempted to slip the thermostat provision into Title 24, a 236-page set of rules covering energy efficiency mandates on building construction.

Hillary's plan for economic ruin:  [Scroll down] This supposed deficiency of governmental intervention gets no support from a glance at the Federal Register, which includes tens of thousands of pages of new, old and proposed rules.  Nor does it help the thesis to note the cost of implementation, $1.1 trillion annually, according to the Small Business Administration.  All of this may seem as nothing to Clinton, but some fret that these endless, frequently obnoxious and sometimes pointless rules impose thousands of dollars on an average family each year, steal liberty from individuals and inflict mayhem as they goosestep their way across the business landscape.

The Taxpayer Frog In the IRS Pot:  There were few enough federal regulations in 1900 that the government did not do anything special to keep track of them.  That changed in the middle of the New Deal.  The Federal Register, the master list of federal regulations, came into existence in 1936.  In that year it had 2,620 pages of regulations.  The next year it had 3,450.  In the year 2000, it had 83,294 pages.

Magnum, P.C.?  New Texas Law Limits Computer Repair To Licensed Private Investigators Under the new law enacted in 2007, Texas has put computer repair shops on notice that they had better watch their backs any time they work on a computer.  If a computer repair technician without a government-issued private investigator's license takes any actions that the government deems to be an "investigation," he may be subject to criminal penalties of up to one year in jail and a $4,000 fine, as well as civil penalties of up to $10,000.  The definition of "investigation" is very broad and encompasses many common computer repair tasks.

Stores reward hybrid drivers with choice parking spaces.  Wheelchair users and others with limited mobility have long had access to prime parking spaces.  Then expectant mothers got their own special spots.  Now some stores are setting aside coveted parking close to the door for fuel-efficient hybrids.

The Editor says...
 How about "black only" parking spots?  That would be cheaper than reparations.  No, I'm not kidding.  Big Brother keeps making subtle changes in order to assist the needy or reward certain types of behavior.  Reserved parking places for certain disadvantaged minorities — and now hybrid car owners — is just an example.  The tax code is full of these little incentives.  But by putting these restrictions in place, in many cases the government is engaging in exactly the sort of discrimination it pretends to oppose.

Cigarette surveillance program begins today.  Starting today [9/27/2007], state Department of Revenue agents will begin stopping Tennessee motorists spotted buying large quantities of cigarettes in border states, then charging them with a crime and, in some cases, seizing their cars.  Critics say the new "cigarette surveillance program" amounts to the use of "police state" tactics and wrongfully interferes with interstate commerce.

Have Gun, Won't Travel.  The Gun-Free School Zones Act … made it a federal crime punishable by five years in prison to possess a gun within 1,000 feet of a school. … According to an analysis by gun control scholar Alan Korwin, the gun-free zones created by the statute cover so much of Phoenix and Cleveland that they are impossible for people traveling in those cities to avoid. The upshot, he says, is that "virtually all public travel with firearms is now a violation of law."

The Editor says...
 Don't tell me that effect was just an "unintended consequence" of the law.  And don't tell me the 1000-foot radius will never be increased.

Pro-Gun Liberals?  The entire government machine is based on force or the threat of violence.  If I don't pay my property taxes, the government sends out a bunch of guys with guns to kick me out of my house.  If I don't claim all of my income on my "voluntary" federal income tax return, then you send out the guys with guns to put me in jail for tax evasion.

Behavior Worth Medicating?  Twelve adults gathered in a small, closed courtroom to decide how many powerful, anti-psychotic drugs that the child, who is currently in the custody of the state, would be required to take. … The verdict:  the little guy would be forced to take anti-psychotic drugs Risperdal, Concerta, and Seroquel, plus the stimulant Clonidine and the anti-anxiety drug Klonopin.  This outcome begs the question of whether a six-year-old child, let alone children as young as three, can be diagnosed as psychotic.  And, whether children should be drugged by potions so powerful that most of them are not approved by the FDA for use in children.

FDA Takes Tyranny to the Heartland.  In this age of almighty government, nearly every blade of grass is regulated, oftentimes heavy-handedly, as Michigan farmer Richard Hebron found out when the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA), on Oct. 13, 2006, carried out a highly orchestrated sting operation against him for transporting unpasteurized, unprocessed milk of the highest quality to enthusiastic consumers.  That day, his wife also was served a warrant in the dragnet.

When Your Only Tool is Coercion, Every Problem Looks Like Too Much Freedom.  There is a famous saying that when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem look like a nail.  For politicians, bureaucrats, and many activists when the only tool they have is coercion the cause of every problem looks like too much freedom.  And make no mistake; if you are committed to accomplishing your social goals by using government power, then, by definition, your only tool is the hammer of coercion.  As George Washington pointed out in his second inaugural address:  "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force."  And when people choose to use government to accomplish their goals they are choosing to use force, not reason and certainly not eloquence.

A Gift from Divided Government.  The [Federal Elections Commission] from its very formation was a blatant grab at power by those who detest individual liberty and fundamental freedoms.  Taken to its logical extensions, the FEC is an outright repeal of the First Amendment's right to free speech.  When all political communication is regulated by politically appointed hacks, when only favored entities are allowed to engage in political action, when some people are severely limited in what they can say or do while others are given a free hand to do as they please, freedom ceases to exist.

The census has grown beyond its bounds.  While the Patriot Act and National Security Agency wiretapping have received enormous attention and criticism from the mainstream media, another federal agency has been quietly gathering far more personal information about U.S. residents than those laws ever can.  And this unreported project affects thousands more people.  Our inquisitive federal government has been demanding that selected U.S. residents answer 73 nosy questions.  They are threatened with a fine of $5,000 for failure to respond.

Data Disseminated by Federal Agencies Can't Be Challenged, Court Rules.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on March 6 ruled the Salt Institute, a nonprofit association of salt producers that provides public information on behalf of its members, lacked standing to bring a lawsuit challenging government-disseminated misinformation about alleged health risks of salt.  Because it is difficult to imagine a plaintiff who would suffer greater harm from erroneous data about the adverse health effects of salt than the Salt Institute itself, the decision raises grave questions about the public accountability of government agencies.

Chicken farmers protest homeland security rules over propane tanks.  Are chicken coops the next battleground in the war on terror?  Poultry growers are protesting proposed regulations from the Department of Homeland Security that would label propane gas a "chemical of interest" and require anybody with 7,500 pounds or more of the fuel to register with the agency.  At that amount, poultry farmers who use propane to heat chicken houses would have to fill out the forms.

UK Police Can Now Demand Encryption Keys.  Under a new law that went into effect this month, it is now a crime to refuse to turn a decryption key over to the police. … "The Home Office has steadfastly proclaimed that the law is aimed at catching terrorists, pedophiles, and hardened criminals — all parties which the UK government contents are rather adept at using encryption to cover up their activities."  We heard the same thing from FBI Director Louis Freeh in 1993.  I called them "The Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse" — terrorists, drug dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers — and they have been used to justify all sorts of new police powers.

Car Payment Late?  Big Brother Won't Let the Engine Start.  Rashida Redd punched in a six-digit code in her Pontiac Grand Prix and got a new lease on life. … The device, the size of a cigarette pack and mounted under the dashboard, flashes green if she has made a car payment on time.  If she misses her $94 weekly payment, it won't let her car start.

[Obviously, if a loan company can do that today, it won't be long before such a device is standard equipment.  This would enable the state to put the brakes, so to speak, on people with unpaid traffic tickets.]

1984 sticks its camel nose under the Catholic cafeteria's door.  Big Brother dishes up mealtime regulations for students — but how did "sexual orientation" get on the menu?  A poster in a Catholic School cafeteria states that discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited.  Literally "cafeteria Catholics."

U.S. Supreme Court destroys the right to private property.  The U.S. Supreme Court [has] ruled in Kelo v. City of New London that local governments can seize private property for private development even when that property is not "put into use for the general public."

Property Rights Devastated by Supreme Court Ruling.  Any government 'purpose' means homes get bulldozed.

More opinions about this terrible Supreme Court decision can be found here.

"Robed Masters" Usurping Control of U.S. Government, Says Bauer.  Phyllis Hamilton is a federal district court judge in San Francisco — but Gary Bauer says she must believe herself to be a "higher authority" than the elected officials in Congress and the president himself.  How else, he wonders, could the Clinton appointee justify striking down a ban on partial-birth abortion that was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Bush?

Study:  Distraction Behind Most Car Crashes.  Those sleep-deprived, multitasking drivers — clutching cell phones, fiddling with their radios or applying lipstick — apparently are involved in an awful lot of crashes.  Distracted drivers were involved in nearly eight out of 10 collisions or near-crashes, says a study released Thursday [4/20/2006] by the government.

 Editor's Note:   Obviously this "study" was published to generate popular demand for a new law against driving while distracted.  It won't fix the problem, but it will give the cops another excuse to search your car for drugs and weapons.  When an objectionable commercial comes on the radio, am I supposed to pull over and stop before changing the station?

This brings up another point:  Have you seen the inside of a police car lately?  Besides the lights and sirens and multi-channel two-way radios, they have computer terminals through which they receive almost all their instructions from the dispatcher.  (Not to mention car-to-car text messages about where they're going to eat lunch.)  Some have GPS maps that show the location of other police cars as well as their own.  The cops are in no position to judge others as distracted drivers.

Statistics disprove the "study" cited above.
 Cellphones and Distracted Drivers:  Cellphones have gone from a rare luxury to ubiquitous in the last ten years.  Yet over the same time period, automobile accidents have declined steadily:  from 1994 to 2004 the fatality rate per 100 million miles has gone from 1.73 to 1.44, and the injury rate from 139 to 94.  For cars (which are the most common vehicles) the numbers for fatal crashes went from 2.07 to 1.57, injury crashes from 191 to 123, and property-only crashes from 351 to 260 over the same period.

Consent Decrees:  The Other Judicial Activism.  This loss of self-rule has come in the form of mandates passed by Congress over the last three decades which drastically impact our state and local governments. ... From 1970 to 1999 Congress passed 67 such mandates, the majority of them unfunded.  These mandates created a profusion of new rights in our country covering everything from rights for prison inmates to accessibility rights for people with disabilities to the right of everyone to breathe clean air.

A Truth Obama Won't Tell:  This episode … proves the impossibility of talking sense on the subject of illicit drugs during a political campaign.  That course of action would mean admitting the inadmissible:  that the prohibition of cannabis has been cruel, wasteful and fraudulent.  Cruel because it leads to the arrest of nearly 700,000 people a year for mere possession of a substance that is comparatively benign.  Wasteful because it expends billions of dollars in police, court and correctional resources that could be deployed against dangerous predators.  Fraudulent because it hasn't solved anything:  According to the federal government, nearly 100 million Americans have tried the stuff.

City may ban little baggies.  Tiny plastic bags used to sell small quantities of heroin, crack cocaine, marijuana and other drugs would be banned in Chicago, under a crackdown advanced Tuesday by a City Council committee.  Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) persuaded the Health Committee to ban possession of "self-sealing plastic bags under two inches in either height or width," after picking up 15 of the bags on a recent Sunday afternoon stroll through a West Side park.

The Editor says...
 Why not also ban larger baggies, paper envelopes, shoeboxes, glove compartments, and any other storage device that might possibly hold drugs?  It is obvious (to me) that the war on drugs isn't really about the drugs -- it is about control.

Repeal the Bradley Amendment.  When our supposedly compassionate federal government pokes its nose into areas that, under our principle of federalism, should be none of its business, the result is often unintended consequences, gross injustices, and of course massive costs.

Roy Moore, the Imperial Congress, and the Rule of Law.  Only such a person as Roy Moore could be expected to possess the courage and steadfastness sufficient to tackle the difficult issues threatening to cripple America and eradicate its future.  Win or lose, he is showing the nation what needs to be done if it is to have any hope of restoration.

US-VISIT:  Documents obtained by EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department of Homeland Security show that US-VISIT has resulted in many cases of mistaken identity.  Commercial aircrew members, vacationers, and businesspersons have all been delayed by the gaffes.  The problems caused unnecessary delays in the visitors' travels and resulted in the improper flagging of crewmembers by government watch lists.

EPIC's US-VISIT page:  US-VISIT includes the interfacing and integration of over twenty existing systems.  Among the systems used by US-VISIT are:  the Arrival Departure Information System, Advance Passenger Information System, Computer Linked Application Information Management System 3, Interagency Border Inspection System, Automated Biometric Identification System, Student Exchange Visitor Information System, and Consular Consolidated Database.  Some of these data systems contain more personal information than US-VISIT needs to operate.  Some of them also contain information about United States citizens and lawful permanent residents, not just foreign nationals subject to the US-VISIT program.

Chutzpah 1, Citizens 0.  With all the whining and carping about the balance of power between this branch of government and that, why is there nary a peep about the most fundamental of constitutional balances, that between the government and the people?

The highest security in inauguration history.  Sharpshooters will be deployed on roofs, while bomb-sniffing dogs will work the streets.  Electronic sensors will be used to detect chemical or biological weapons.  Anti-abortion protesters have been warned to leave their crosses at home.  Parade performers will have security escorts to the bathroom, and they've been ordered not to look directly at President Bush or make any sudden movements while passing the reviewing stand.

Apochryphal, yet believable:
 Will Your Safe Deposit Box Be Seized During The Next Emergency?  What you can do now to protect your valuables.

Forget Spy vs. Spy — This is Cops vs. Cops.  The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious.  The police had herded them into pens.  Stopped them from handing out fliers.  Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks.  Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.  Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984."

Orwell Today  compares the world George Orwell described in "1984" with the world we are living in today.

Are we having fun yet?.  I've lived under dictator Francisco Franco in Spain when the Guardia Civil routinely stood on street corners with automatic weapons … But I've never experienced anything like American security in the land of the free.  It was chillingly ironic listening to President George W. Bush talk about liberty, a word he used about 15 times in his inaugural address – and our mission to help others liberate themselves – while we were being frisked, filmed and watched by snipers.

A Man's Home is Uncle Sam's Castle.  Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but not when the law wants your possessions. … This is why principle matters, folks.  Not too many complained when the EEOC sued business after business for alleged discrimination, or when the nanny state foisted mandate after mandate upon them.  But one thing leads to another.  Compromise the principle of private property rights and you've created a slippery slope, one of whose steeper drop-offs is called eminent domain, and at whose terminus can be found the netherworld of tyranny.

Reno's Raid on the Rule of Law.  Janet Reno's illegal seizure of Elian Gonzalez – in essence, a hit-and-run raid on the rule of law – threatens the liberty and safety of every American.

Elián's Odyssey.  In the story of a small Cuban boy is reflected the ordeal of our age – the struggle of truth and liberty versus lies and tyranny.

In Some States, Wine Shipment Is a Felony.  Interstate wine shipments using a common carrier, from a winery to an adult consumer 21 years or older, are prohibited in 24 states.

Judge's jailing of 20 in cell phone flap upheld.  A Niagara Falls City Court judge who jailed 20 defendants after a cell phone or wristwatch alarm went off in his court last year was acting within his judicial authority, a federal district judge has ruled.

What's in the Secret VEIL Test Results?  I wrote last week about how the analog hole bill would mandate use of the secret VEIL technology.  Because the law would require compliance with the VEIL specification, that spec would effectively be part of the law.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think there's something wrong when Congress is considering a secret bill that would impose a secret law.  We're talking about television here, not national security.

Taking a bite out of crime:
Lemonade stand wins fight with city.  The St. Louis Health Department closed a curbside lemonade stand run by two little girls, ages 10 and 12.  A Health Department inspector told them they didn't have the proper business licenses and were selling unsafe ice cubes.  The girls were using powdered lemonade mix with ice cubes bought from a store.

Sweet Lemonade Kid $lapped.  Three sourpuss Parks Department agents put the squeeze on a 10-year-old girl in Riverside Park yesterday, slapping the tyke with a $50 ticket for hawking lemonade without a permit.  Clementine Lee, who lives just blocks from the Upper West Side park, had dreamed of opening a lemonade stand since last year and took advantage of yesterday's beautiful weather to set up shop.

Teen's Worm Sales Squished by Connecticut Town.  For the last three summers, 13-year-old Joey Cadieux has headed outside with his flashlight on rainy nights to collect nightcrawlers from his yard.  Purchased by passing fishermen for $2.50 a dozen, the wriggling worms brought him $7 to $10 in a good month, just enough for bike trips to his favorite neighborhood pizza joint.  But when a town official recently objected to his stenciled black-and-white "nite crawlers" yard sign, Joey's business got the hook.

The War on Pot:  As the nation's "drug czar," John Walters is supposed to be saving us from the ravages of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine.  At least that was the original sales pitch for the "war on drugs" in the 1980s.  But the war has evolved into largely a fight against marijuana, which no one has ever claimed is a hard drug.  Walters is nonetheless committed, Ahab-like, to arresting every marijuana smoker in the country whom law enforcement can lay its hands on.

The left's vision:  Santa Monica, California, has decreed a fine of $2,500 a day for not cutting your hedges!  Has someone discovered some terrible health hazard or other danger from hedges that are too high?  Not at all.  The politicians who run Santa Monica have simply decided that people should not be able to build a high wall of hedges around themselves.

The Creeping Militarization of the Home Front:  Deploying troops on the home front is very different from waging war abroad.  Soldiers are trained to kill, whereas civilian peace officers are trained to respect constitutional rights and to use force only as a last resort.  That fundamental distinction explains why Americans have long resisted the use of standing armies to keep the domestic peace.  Unfortunately, plans are afoot to change that time-honored policy.

Big Brother Not Only Watches Us, It Toys with Our Children.  Lego, for example, in 2003 began marketing a plastic construction set depicting a police 18-wheeler housing a surveillance unit, complete with monitoring devices and control panels to track movements of little Lego citizens. … While the Lego surveillance play set is — according to the company — oriented toward 8-year-olds, a rival company, Playmobil, which produces plastic figures for younger darlings, apparently has determined there is a market for toys teaching 4-year-olds the benefit of submitting oneself to intrusive police searches.

Armed and dangerous:  Federal agencies expanding use of firepower BATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, even the National Park Service and Department of Health and Human Services — all have their own SWAT teams.

Sheriff Lott's New Toy.  The Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff's Department just obtained an armored personnel carrier, complete with a belt-fed, .50-cal turreted machine gun.  Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle "The Peacemaker," and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it's generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will "save lives."  Can we call this overkill, yet?

The S.W.A.T Chronicles:  A large collection of police force terror stories.

Botched Paramilitary Police Raids:  An Epidemic of "Isolated Incidents".  Map shows where incidents have occurred resulting in death or injury of a police officer, death of a nonviolent offender, raid on an innocent suspect, unnecessary raids on doctors and sick people, and other examples of paramilitary police excess.

Misdemeanor Mistakes and Felony Forgetfulness.  It was a cool, clear October day in Washington, D.C., when the closing bell rang and twelve-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth ran out the door of Alice Deal Junior High School.  She stopped at a fast-food restaurant for an order of hot French fries and then headed for home.  Ansche took the escalator down into the Tenleytown/American University Metrorail station to catch her train.  In the station, she ate a single French fry.  Moments later, the junior high student was in handcuffs and headed for jail.

Update:
 Court Dismisses Case of Girl Arrested for Eating French Fries in DC Metro.  While chastising metro officials for creating such a "foolish" operating procedure as the one mandating arrest for juveniles found eating, drinking or smoking in a metro station, District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan dismissed the case of a 12-year-old girl who was arrested for eating a French fry on the Washington, D.C. Metro.  Judge Sullivan stated that once probable cause of a violation had been established by Metro police, Hedgepeth had "no fundamental right to freedom from physical restraint."  Rutherford Institute attorneys intend to appeal the district court's ruling to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

License Plate "Guns" and Privacy:  New Haven police have a new law enforcement tool:  a license-plate scanner.  Similar to a radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars and links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner.  Right now the police check if there are any taxes owed on the car, if the car or license plate is stolen, and if the car is unregistered or uninsured.  A car that comes up positive is towed.

Overthrowing the Constitution and Subverting Representative Democracy.  Too many judges can no longer be counted on to reach rational and reasonable decisions based on the law.  Instead, too many judges now regularly issue decisions based on the absurd and the fanciful.  To make matters worse, these same judges impose their political views on the rest of us through anti-democratic and politically unaccountable means and then they tell us the Constitution made them do it.

The open secret — who runs the show?  The legislative staffs at the federal level as well as in the states have far more power than it is polite to talk about.  Usually, politicians fear bringing the subject up.  They don't want us to realize how much they rely upon their professional staffs to keep cranking out their never-ending batches of half-baked legislation.  They only bring it up when they have to:  when a goofy provision just seems too goofy even for Congress.  Or when their careers are threatened with term limits.

Criminalizing Dissent:  The FBI's Project Megiddo, which warns against millennial terrorism, paints constitutionalists, devout Christians, hate groups, and militias with the same broad strokes.

The Lady in Red Tape:  Judy Hooper loves doughnuts.  That's one of the reasons she opened a bakery in Evanston, Illinois.  It's a small shop, bringing in about $50,000 in profits annually.  That's not enough to make her rich, but the challenge of running a small business and her talent for baking keep this 35-year-old Chicago native busy.  Ask Hooper about OSHA, however, and her face glazes over with disdain.  A 1994 inspection of her 30-person bakery by OSHA officials left Hooper with $13,000 in frivolous fines.  Her infractions included a failure to warn employees of the hazards of household dishwashing liquid.  To recoup the cost of the fines, she would have to sell 260,000 doughnuts, or 10,400 cakes, or 1,040,000 cookies.

Federal Regulations Back to Near-Record Levels.  Federal government regulators issued 4,148 new rules in the 71,269-page Federal Register in 2003, 19 fewer than they did in 2002.  The cost of those rules appears nowhere in the federal budget.  According to the Federal Register, the five most active rule-producing agencies — the Departments of Treasury, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency — account for 46 percent of the rules under consideration.

Time to stop the flood of federal regulation.  According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute's just-updated annual snapshot of federal regulations — "Ten Thousand Commandments" — the federal government spent $49.1 billion to enforce regulations in 2008, costing businesses $1.17 trillion to comply.  In other words, businesses are being forced to allocate vast sums of money and time to comply with the federal government's bewilderingly complex rules and mandates.

Ten Thousand Commandments (2004 Edition): An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State (2004 Edition).  The five most active rule-producing agencies (the Departments of Treasury, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency) account for 46 percent of rules under consideration.  Of the 4,266 regulations now in the works, 859 affect small business.  Regulatory costs of $869 billion are equivalent to 7.9 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, estimated at $10,980 billion for 2003.

Ten Thousand Commandments (2003 Edition).  The federal government funds programs in three primary ways.  The first is by raising taxes to pay for new programs.  The second is by borrowing money to pay for them.  The third way the government funds its programs is by regulating.  That is, rather than pay directly and book the expense of a new initiative, it can require that the private sector and lower level governments pay.  By regulating, the government can carry out desired programs but avoid using tax dollars to fund them.  That process sometimes allows Congress to escape accountability and to blame agencies for costs.

Ten Thousand Commandments (2002 Edition).

Ten Thousand Commandments (2001 Edition).

Ten Thousand Commandments (1999 Edition).  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alone expects to issue 462 of the 4,560 planned rules.  The EPA's rules now in the pipeline will cost at least $3.5 billion annually.  Fewer than half of the EPA's prioritized $100 million rules are accompanied by benefit estimates.



"If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments."

— G.K. Chesterton [1] [2]          




The Universal National Service Act of 2003:  New draft legislation will take your daughters as well as your sons.

Automatic registration for the draft:  The Texas DPS is going to automatically register 18 to 26 year old males with the US Selective Service (military draft) when they apply for or renew a Texas driver's license.

 Editor's Note:   This raises some important questions.  How many state agencies use their leverage to gather information for federal agencies?  And what other agencies will begin using this technique?

Draft Registration for 15-year-olds?  "There may be no 'plans' for a national military draft, but that hasn't kept Louisiana from registering teenagers too young to serve in case conditions change," reported the Town Talk of Alexandria, Louisiana, on November 13.  Local resident Larry Chevalier "was alarmed when his 16-year-old son Nathan had to register with the Selective Service System in order to get a driver's license."

The Action is in the Reaction.  The terrorist leaders and their sponsors are providing the pretext for the U.S. government to institute police-state measures.

What Can Be Done:  The answer to terrorism lies not in granting Gestapo-like police powers to the federal government but in restoring legitimate internal security measures.

Supreme Court Urged to Rule Against Sentencing Guidelines.  The Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court urging it to affirm a pair of lower court rulings that held that the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines are unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment's guarantee to a right to trial.  If the Court agrees with WLF, as many legal observers believe it will, Congress will likely revamp the controversial guidelines which have mandated draconian sentences even for minor regulatory offenses.

Suspending Habeas Corpus:  The Bush administration claims the power to detain "enemy combatants" indefinitely without trial, a suspension of the Habeas Corpus guarantee on which our justice system is founded.

The Gangster State:  In a free society, the police protect citizens, but in a police state, they protect government from its citizens.  This police state mindset is now more deeply entrenched under Bush than Clinton.

Victims of Over-Zealous Police Officers:  No one disputes the fact that seat belts save lives.  Most states, therefore, have buckle-up laws that make it a misdemeanor to drive with being properly belted.  However, in Texas, the Transportation Code not only permits a police officer to stop a driver for the non-use of seat belts, it also permits the officer to arrest the driver for violating that law.  Gail Atwater was one of those unfortunate Texans.

Running From the Police — Is It Sufficient For A Stop?  In a 5-4 decision decided in January, the United States Supreme Court effectively dished up more power onto the plates of law enforcement officers, giving them the authority to detain a person who flees at the mere sight of a policeman.

Drug War Crimes:  The Consequences of Prohibition.  Jeffrey A. Miron, Professor of Economics at Boston University contends that the war on drugs has been more effective in fostering corruption among public officials than in reducing drug consumption.

Criminalizing business:  If you create enough laws, everyone will be a criminal.

Criminalizing business:  part II.  A recent column in the San Francisco Chronicle vividly illustrates the anti-business mindset of many Californians.  It dealt with the fact that Wal-Mart lost a referendum to allow the retailer to put a store in Inglewood, California.  According to the Chronicle columnist, Wal-Mart was "trying to bully its way into another targeted community."  Putting an issue to a vote is called "bullying" when business does it, and the community where it wants to locate is called a "target."

Ruled by scoundrels:  The more federal control over education, the worse it becomes.  The Endangered Species Act has attacked and trivialized private property rights.  CAFE standards, by forcing auto companies to produce lighter, and hence less safe cars, have cost thousands of highway fatalities, and it goes on and on.

Parting company is an option:  Every single bit of evidence shows that states have a right to secede.  There's absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits secession.  What stops secession is the brute force of a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861.

Flower power:  Free the florists!  Last year Sandy Meadows, who supervises the floral department at an Albertson's supermarket in Baton Rouge, was filling in at another Albertson's store that had lost its florist when she was visited by an inspector from the Louisiana Horticulture Commission.  He told her she'd have to throw out the seven arrangements she had produced that morning if she wanted to avoid a $250 citation for practicing floristry without a license.

Police Arrest NH Man For Giving a Manicure Without a License.  A self-proclaimed manicurist decided to open for business in Concord [NH] on Monday [5/9/2005] without the state's approval, attacking state licensing laws with a nail file.  Michael Fisher, 23, of Newmarket, N.H., was arrested and charged with violating the state's license law.  He said he organized the protest to call attention to what he said are needless obstacles facing small businesses in the state. … The manicure performed without a license was undertaken right outside the state Board of Barbering, Cosmetology and Esthetics office.

Roy Moore, Chief Justice No More.  Many side issues have divided the Christian community on this case, so we must remember that the true enemy here is the judicial tyranny that is forcing a secular religion on our public life and discourse.  That is the battle we need to focus on.

Bill would allow FBI to collect DNA from anyone arrested.  The law, if enacted, would be the greatest single expansion of the federal government's power to collect and use DNA since the FBI's national database was created in 1992.

The danger of DNA:  It isn't foolproof forensics.  Although best known for clearing the wrongfully convicted, DNA evidence has linked innocent people to crimes.  In the lab, it can be contaminated or mislabeled; samples can be switched.  In the courtroom, its significance has been overstated by lawyers or misunderstood by jurors.

Liberate Drug Dogs and end modern prohibition.  The Matheson case points out the lack of credibility of drug dogs and their employers.  Drug dogs are often used as ruses to violate the constitutional rights of humans.  Drug dogs are like humans in that they must be taught to approach peaceful people and search them, so that they can be arrested, handcuffed and imprisoned for decades under modern prohibition.  That is not an easy trick to teach a dog.  It's easier to teach humans.

Godfather government, meet yer maker.  Making new homes "affordable" by putting a gun to home builders' heads is criminal.

Shattered Dreams:  100 Stories of Government Abuse.  This publication highlights how regulations that are poorly written and/or inflexibly enforced can overwhelm, intimidate, bankrupt or otherwise harm average Americans.  It features situations related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, building codes, INS, IRS, the Endangered Species Act, OSHA, Indian Affairs, zoning, property rights issues, etc.

Shattered Dreams:  100 Stories of Government Abuse.  Download the entire book in PDF format.  (518 k-bytes and well worth it.)

The People Versus LaLa Wang:  Wang is the founder of MLX.com, an interactive portal site that allows customers to access a real-time database of real estate listings.  In her years as a real estate broker, Wang never faced a single consumer complaint.  But her perfect record and satisfied customer base did nothing to dissuade the New York Department of State from trying to shut down her business.

Taxing Times in California:  The Depths to which his California has Fallen.  Stories of taxpayer abuse at the hands of the IRS were once so common as to be cliché, but Gil Hyatt recently discovered that California's state taxing authorities can be even nastier.

Arrested for catching a mouse?  A California law requires a trapping license in order to kill mice.  The Animal Protection Institute of Sacramento pushed the bill, which mandates anyone who takes furbearing mammals or non-game animals must purchase a trapping license by passing a complex test and paying a fee of $78.50, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Four Myths About Muslims:  Day after day the "war on terror" brings more misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.  Most security measures are either window dressings for public consumption or usurpations of civil liberties by power-hungry elements within the bowels of bureaucracy.

Upload a File, Go to Prison.  Two congressmen introduce a bill to criminalize the uploading of copyright works to peer-to-peer networks.  The penalty:  five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.  Critics say the law goes too far.

Commerce clause abuse:  The original purpose of the Commerce Clause was primarily a means to eliminate trade barriers among the states.  They didn't intend for the Commerce Clause to govern so much of our lives.

Dependent on D.C.:  The Supreme Court's 1942 decision in Wickard vs. Filburn gave Congress the power to regulate anything.  In that case, the Court remarkably held that the interstate commerce clause could be used to regulate an individual farmer's wheat production for his family's consumption.

A Grand Façade:  How the Grand Jury Was Captured by Government.  Some over-reaching prosecutors have been able to pervert the grand jury, whose original purpose was to check prosecutorial power, into an inquisitorial bulldozer that enhances the power of government and now runs roughshod over the constitutional rights of citizens.

Why they no longer treat us with respect:  Once the kind of folks who think of themselves as "the government" have had a couple of generations to get used to their monopoly on armed force and coercion, they quickly tire of pretending to act as our "servants."

How a mantra ate justice:  The Wenatchee witch hunt gained its opportunity from a liberal mantra that three out of four children are subjected to sex abuse by a parent, close relative or child-care provider.  This mantra spawned federal legislation, Child Protective Services (an unaccountable agency with broad powers), an industry of child advocates and therapists with financial incentives to find sex abuse in Johnny's football bruises, and special prosecutorial units that need cases.  These mechanisms for the miscarriage of justice are in place in every city and town in the United States.

The Expanding Federal Police Power:  Nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government authority over ordinary crimes.  In America, crime fighting is the responsibility of state and local government.  But despite the lack of constitutional authorization, federal policymakers continually try to involve themselves in crime fighting. [PDF]

CALEA:  These Are Not Your Father's Wiretaps.  Privacy advocates fear that the FBI's need to monitor Internet Age technologies, such as voice over IP, will give it far too sweeping powers.

Vanishing Liberties:  Where's the Press?  On March 18 [2003], the Associated Press reported that at John Carroll University, in a Cleveland suburb, Justice Antonin Scalia said that "most of the rights you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires" because "the Constitution just sets minimums."  Accordingly, in wartime, Scalia emphasized, "the protections will be ratcheted down to the constitutional minimum."

Former Watergate "Plumber" Attacks Government Regulations:  At one time, people could rake the leaves and burn them in a barrel, ride a bicycle without a helmet, drive a car without a seatbelt and walk down the street holding a shotgun.

Due Process Vanishes in Thin Air.  The aviation list, intended to catch terrorists before they board planes, has persistently and widely snagged innocent American travelers, according to government documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Another crackdown on homeschoolers?  California legislation sparked concerns parents could face child-abuse charges.

Social Services Investigations:  The Removal of Children From The Home.  Parents in the United States are subject to increasing government involvement in their lives as they seek to properly raise their children.  Administrative agencies of the government, which are created by statute to carry out broad directives such as maintaining the health and welfare of minor children, are given more and more discretion in performing those duties.  [PDF]

Pull CNN's Plug.  It's fundamentally wrong for our public airport authorities to force a trapped general audience to watch and hear a constant stream of lies and propaganda.

Why the Pentagon Wants to Spy on Your Shopping:  Did you realize the Pentagon will soon know about every gun, book, magazine, Twinkie, condom and everything else you buy?  The reason for the massive database:  to seek "patterns indicative of terrorist activity," defense officials said [recently].


The FEMA Subsection:

FEMA appears to be up to something.  Their mission is evidently more important than just mopping up after a hurricane.

Just try to get close to one of the FEMA regional headquarters buildings and you'll see what I mean.  People who have seen it have told me that the FEMA office in Denton, Texas, has security measures in place that you would expect to see only at Fort Knox.  Shortwave antennas are all around it, there are several no-nonsense guards on duty, and almost all of the facility is deep underground.

Region 5 Center, Denton, TX:  An article from May, 1961 about the hardened underground facility in Denton, one of several built around the country.  The building in Denton was originally part of a "continuity of government" plan in the event of an all-out nuclear war.

Apparently there are many people who think that FEMA is a sinister, secretive, very costly, and dangerously powerful agency.

The latest:
 FEMA says it can't show return on $29 billion in spending.  Federal Emergency Management Agency deputy administrator Timothy Manning told a congressional panel today [10/27/2009] that his organization had spent $5 million during the last 18 months reviewing how it spent $29 billion since 2002, but still doesn't know what it got for the money.

FEMA is using the FOIA to dig itself into a deeper hole.  If there were an award for the least popular federal agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would probably be a near-unanimous choice, thanks to the barrage of negative media it received during the Hurricane Katrina debacle.

A Flood of Federal Disasters.  News flash:  It often snows in Syracuse.  And it rains.  Even floods, sometimes.  Another news flash:  these are not federal disasters.  Or, at least, they shouldn't be.  But these days, far too many things are labeled as federal disasters — often weeks or even months later.

Why Are Internment Camps Being Built?  The Internet is abuzz with news about the construction of internment camps all across America. ... For starters, all anyone need do to begin a serious investigation of the subject of internment camps is Google the phrase "FEMA Camps."  There is more than enough evidence in that search engine alone to keep one busy with some in-depth private investigation of the subject for quite a while.

FEMA camps:  Not just for April fools anymore.  There have been a lot of stories over the years and even photos of detention facilities and special train cars for transporting dissidents.  We have generally avoided them because, even if true, they only revealed the government's "endgame strategies" and we were not yet in the endgame.  But things are different now.

The National Guard wants Internment/Resettlement Specialists.  The skills you'll learn as a Internment/Resettlement Specialist will help prepare you for a future with federal, state, county or city law enforcement agencies.  You might also be able to pursue a career as a security guard with industrial firms, airports or other businesses and institutions.

A disastrous history.  Jimmy Carter in 1979 tried to make sense of disaster relief by establishing FEMA via executive order.  He stated that the new structure would "permit more rational decisions of the relative costs and benefits of alternative approaches to disasters."  Carter was wrong:  Presidents kept reacting politically, and local and state officials kept passing the buck and asking for bucks.

The Secret National Cops.  U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, questions the use of "traditional tools" as they were wielded in her own bailiwick. Chenoweth, whose congressional district includes Clearwater County, blasted the FEMA agents for behaving "like a bull in a china shop."  "I understand that FEMA has an important responsibility to ensure that federal funds are handled consistent with law, but … FEMA has proceeded against a local government and private citizens in a threatening manner," she wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno.  "It is exactly this type of unnecessary, heavy-handed show of force that feeds the distrust of the federal government."

FEMA's Plan for Mass Destruction Attacks:  Of Course It's True.  Let me state for the record that FEMA is moving ahead with plans to create temporary cities that could handle millions of Americans after mass destruction attacks on U.S. cities.  Though the agency has denied the program to some of our readers and has made misleading claims about NewsMax's original story to members of the press, the basic facts of the story remain unchallenged.

The FEMA raid at Orofino, Idaho.  At 7 a.m. on July 18th, two employees at the [Clearwater County, Idaho] flood control center were startled by a group of men in dark attire and bullet-proof vests and sidearms.  According to various accounts, the frightened employees, thinking they were under assault by a gang of thugs, locked the door and called the sheriff, Nick Albers.  Nancy Butler, a reporter for the weekly Clearwater Tribune, told Sarah Foster of the Internet newspaper World Net Daily that the behavior of the FEMA agents was "totally uncalled for."  "They didn't just come over and knock on the door — they came running over the hill at the back of the building and crawling through the sagebrush.  The whole scenario just floored me."

Federal Emergency Management Agency:  Some people have referred to it as the "secret government" of the United States.  It is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars.  This government organization has more power than the President of the United States or the Congress, it has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution.  Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it was not even created under Constitutional law by the Congress.  It was a product of a Presidential Executive Order.  A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry.

(Same article as above from an alternate source:  FEMA - The Secret Government.)

The Disaster Agency.  Most Americans had never even heard of this obscure government agency before syndicated columnist Jack Anderson reported in October 1984 that FEMA had prepared bizarre "standby legislation" that would, in the event of a national crisis, "suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively eliminate private property, abolish free enterprise, and generally clamp Americans in a totalitarian vise."  In any self-respecting banana republic, such a document might be called a blueprint for a coup d'etat.  FEMA called it "national security" planning.

COG stands for surprising assault on democracy.  An elite group of former Clinton advisers and former public officials from both major political parties gathered recently at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., to announce their proposal to convert the House of Representatives from an elected body to an appointed body in the event of a national emergency.

FEMA Concentration and Internment Camps:  There over 600 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners.  They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty.  These camps are to be operated by FEMA should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States.

Lists of FEMA radio frequencies:  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Mount Weather Underground Complex.  Just 46 miles from Washington DC, a mysterious and secretive underground military base exists, located deep inside a mountain near the rural town of Bluemont, Virginia.  Here lies Mount Weather, also known as the Western Virginia Office of Controlled Conflict Operations.

Mount Weather and Underground Bases.  Mount Weather is the self-sustaining underground command center for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  The facility is the operational center — the hub — of approximately 100 other Federal Relocation Centers, most of which are concentrated in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.  Together this network of underground facilities constitutes the backbone of America's "Continuity of Government" program.

Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret.  Deployed civilians are not permitted to take their families, and under penalty of prosecution they may not tell anyone where they are going or why.  "They're on a 'business trip,' that's all," said one official involved in the effort.  The two sites of the shadow government make use of local geological features to render them highly secure.  They are well stocked with food, water, medicine and other consumable supplies, and are capable of generating their own power.

Site R is secure, but it's not undisclosed.  Site R, with its six-stories of underground offices, subterranean water reservoir, and banks of mysterious antennas, dishes and massive, steel doors, has been a designated backup command center since it was hewn out of the mountain in 1951.

Disaster aid boondoggle  Hurricane Frances made landfall more than 100 miles north of Miami-Dade County earlier this year.  But that didn't stop thousands of residents there from getting nearly $28 million in federal disaster aid.  Top winds reached only 47 mph in Miami-Dade County during the Labor Day weekend storm, so damages were limited to some fallen power lines and uprooted trees, according to FEMA and other disaster-relief officials.  Yet residents used their relief checks to buy more than 5,000 televisions allegedly destroyed by Frances, as well as 1,440 air conditioners, 1,360 twin beds, 1,311 washers and dryers, and 831 dining sets.

Not taking no for an answer, Houston mayor seizes old warehouse.  The owner declined Wednesday [9/7/2005] to lease or rent the building as offices for FEMA, so Mayor Bill White commandeered the building.

 Editor's Note:   This is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, since Houston is hundreds of miles away from the area damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

FEMA versus Wal-Mart:  Many people who think that government is the answer to our problems do not bother to check out the evidence.  But it can be eye-opening to compare how private businesses responded to hurricane Katrina and how local, state and national governments responded.

FEMA Strikes Again!  Although the effort was trumpeted in the media as an example of grassroots ingenuity in the face of disaster, local officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency have nixed an attempt by Houston activists to set up a low-power radio station at the Astrodome that would have broadcast Hurricane Katrina relief information for evacuees.

 Editor's Note:   FEMA's excuses for this action are numerous and each is transparently false.  The micro-power broadcasting issue is all about control.  The government can't afford to allow even one watt of unlicensed broadcasting, because it would open a door that could never be closed again.  The FCC has been fighting this battle for decades.

Hundreds of millions paid to people untouched by disasters.  The federal government's mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe is only the latest bungling in a national disaster response system that for years has been fraught with waste and fraud.  A South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation has found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency in five years poured at least $330 million into communities that were spared the devastating effects of fires, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes.

FEMA Should Be Shut Down.  What if there was no such thing as FEMA?  I asked myself that question after reading about the Federal Emergency Management Agency's bungled efforts to serve the poor and suffering in the area formerly known as New Orleans. … FEMA's boorish behavior underscores it real purpose, which is always to spend its budget and get good press doing it, because such activities will reflect well on the public sector.

Katrina victims required to use Microsoft Internet Explorer.  It's clear to me that they've engineered a web system that is:  (a) Extraordinarily over-engineered to work under only one browser, and (b) Nonfunctional under that browser.  This, I conclude, is simply another example of FEMA incompetence.

The Secret National Cops:  Who are federal inspectors general, and why are they pointing guns at us?  U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, questions the use of "traditional tools" as they were wielded in her own bailiwick.  Chenoweth, whose congressional district includes Clearwater County, blasted the FEMA agents for behaving "like a bull in a china shop."  "I understand that FEMA has an important responsibility to ensure that federal funds are handled consistent with law, but … FEMA has proceeded against a local government and private citizens in a threatening manner," she wrote to Attorney General Janet Reno.  "It is exactly this type of unnecessary, heavy-handed show of force that feeds the distrust of the federal government."

FEMA guilty of religious discrimination?  The Alliance Defense Fund is concerned about Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) refusing to help churches in the aftermath of disasters.  Paragould, Arkansas, was recently declared a disaster area after being hit by a severe ice storm.  Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), says a local church assisted FEMA officials in their relief efforts, but FEMA did not return the favor.

There is a lot more to be learned from FEMA's handling of Hurricane Katrina.


Conservatives Go on the Offense:  The privacy issue was discussed in terms of making certain that any information the government can gather on law-abiding citizens in the name of national security is information you would not mind falling into the hands of Hillary Clinton should she someday become president or attorney general.

Not paranoid?  You're not paying attention then.  Experience tells us that freedoms once lost are difficult to regain and that government policies once in place take on lives of their own.  If ever there were a time for a pre-emptive strike, this is it.  Best to say "Hell no" before it's no longer permissible to protest.

An Ominous New Era:  Regulation by Litigation.  Regulating industries is a slow and cumbersome process, frustrating for officials because it often fails to achieve the results they want.  So the Environmental Protection Agency has come up with a new strategy, one that turns the Constitution on its head and gives unelected regulators the power of the sovereign.  It's called regulation-by-litigation, and a lot of industries had better watch out.

Homeschoolers get a knock on the door from police:  A public school superintendent [in Illinois] has sent police in squad cars to the houses of homeschooling families to deliver his demand that they appear for a "pre-trial hearing" to prove they are in compliance with the law.

Children flee homeschool cop:  When the doorbell rings at the Channell residence in Spring Valley, Ill., 10-year-old Aaron and 11-year-old Christopher run for cover.  The homeschooled boys have been on edge, says their father Roger, since a truant officer came to the family's front door Oct. 3 and warned, "I could have your children taken away."

Be Careful What You Write:  On September 1, 2002, I wrote a column critical of the way screening is carried out at U.S. airports ("A U.S. Police State").  Since that time I have been on ten flights.  On every one of those ten flights I have been "selected" for "random" searches by the same airline screeners I criticized.  Surely this was a coincidence!

Combating federal tyranny:  No one has a moral obligation to obey unconstitutional laws.  That's not to say there isn't a compelling case for obedience to unconstitutional laws:  the brutal force of the federal government to coerce obedience.

Making Citizens the Enemy:  Seasoned travelers have concluded that the real purpose of U.S. airport "security" is to establish a precedent for unreasonable and warrantless searches.  By making citizens the enemy, the suspension of civil liberties that is imposed on air travelers can be extended to pedestrians, motorists, and people in their homes and hotel rooms.  Terrorists can endanger some of us, but the war on terror endangers us all.  How much more can the Constitution be diminished before it is completely replaced by arbitrary government power?

Threats to the Rule of Law in America:  Where there's rule of law, human initiative flourishes.  Rule of law refers to freedom of contract and enforcement of contracts, protection of private property, stability of laws, a requirement that all persons, private individuals and government officials are subject to the same laws, and most importantly, limitation of the authority of government.

Another example of boiled frogs:  Viewcrime:  [In Great Britain,] TV dealers are required by law to collect the names and addresses of people who buy televisions.  This info then goes into a giant database.  Let me be perfectly clear.  This is mandatory.  This is about watching television.

FBI Spy Plane Circling Bloomington, Indiana:  The FBI said that the plane is being used in monitoring people who might have terrorist connections. Earlier, when aviation officials disclosed that the aircraft was conducting surveillance, the FBI had denied any link to the plane.

Does FDA Regulation Violate the Constitution?  From the orange juice we drink to begin our day, to the lunch we eat at a restaurant, to the wine we consume in the evening, the federal Food and Drug Administration regulates what nutritional and health information food and drug manufacturers can share with us. When Ocean Spray's Web site recently provided information and links to health research regarding juice consumption, the FDA threatened to seize the company's inventory, because the agency had not approved the "health claims."

States Refuse to Kowtow to Sovereignty-Destroying Globalist Court:  [Officials in] Oklahoma said Monday [2/10/2003] it would proceed with plans to execute a Mexican national despite claims by the World Court that it cannot.  Texas has already said it would ignore the globalist court's death stays for Mexicans on its death row.  The World Court at The Hague last week "ordered" the states not to execute three Mexicans — two in Texas, one in Oklahoma — until it resolved a suit filed by Mexico.

The Back Room Deal to Destroy America:  A group of U.S. Senators have conspired to destroy local zoning throughout the United States of America.  The "Community Character Act" authorizes the use of federal money so that un-elected environmentalists can advance their extreme-left political agenda.

Virginia County Aims to Ban Lights on Private Property:  In Loudoun County, VA, the local government is considering a proposal to ban the use of outdoor lights at night.  This is not a joke.  Soon, homeowners and small businesses in Loudoun County may have to turn off their lights, or face penalties.  No more Christmas lights.  No more security lights to ward off would-be attackers and thieves.  No more lights alerting customers that an establishment is "open."

 Editor's Note:   There is obviously more to this story than they're saying, but it is still worth reading.

Bill would give governors absolute power:  Could state governors order the collection of all data and records on citizens, ban firearms, take control of private property and quarantine entire cities?  The answer is yes — if governors and state legislatures adopted a new "model" bill currently under consideration.

Trust in government?  Americans need to understand that government is, has been and always will be the gravest threat to freedom we face.

American Contempt for the Rule of Law:  Most Americans have no inkling of what rule of law means.  We think it means obedience to whatever laws Congress enacts and the president signs.  That's a tragedy.

Citizens Tethered to a Democratic Leash Called Tyranny:  Democracy gives an aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny.

Forest Service orders removal of poles flying American flag.  The Forest Service has told California vacationers to remove poles flying the U.S. flag from property the service has leased to them.

Feds Seek "Dictatorial Powers" on Health Care:  The federal government is pushing your state legislature to give your governor and health officials sweeping powers that threaten your freedoms.  The so-called Model Emergency Health Powers Act would let the government do everything from seizing private property to forcing vaccinations.

Crackdown on Jaywalking Shows We Have Too Many Laws.  If they remember freer times, or if the state propaganda has been efficient enough, people forget laws are not pious wishes.  If the jaywalker does not stop when the cop accosts him, he will be forced to.  If he resists, he will be beaten down.  If he is really threatening, he will be shot.  The same will happen to one who does not pay the fine and resists the bailiff.  Legal coercion is an advantage when applied to murder, rape and theft but becomes a mark of tyranny when it deals with peaceful behaviour or minor incivilities.

Leftist Lawmakers Want Feds to Oversee Local Development — and Your Life:  While the nation's attention is focused on the war on terrorism, S. 975, the Community Character Act, seeks to implement a Clinton executive order that the leftist establishment could use to dictate what you can own, what you can drive, the kind of home in which you can live — a mammoth intrusiveness into your life.

County Criminalizes Smoking at Home:  A suburb of Washington, D.C., has adopted one of the toughest smoking rules in the country, bringing anti-tobacco laws into people's homes.  Under the terms of an ordinance approved Tuesday [11/20/2001] by the Montgomery County (Md.) Council, people smoking in their own homes could be fined as much as $750, if cigarette smoke bothers their neighbors.

Bill Would Put Tobacco Under FDA Control.  In what appears to be the best chance since public health groups started pushing for it in the 1970s, Congress is poised to regulate tobacco, a product linked to 1,200 deaths each day but sold largely unfettered for centuries.

Hillary's Nuke Safety Scheme Would Evacuate 20 Million:  Clinton is pushing for an expansion of the evacuation zone from the present 10 miles to 50 miles, putting New York City, 30 miles away, and its 8 million residents within the zone.  This would require the evacuation of all 20 million people in that zone in the event of an emergency at Indian Point.

The Arrogance of Bureaucratic Power:  People who went through depression and war do not understand how bureaucrats could deny their children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren the ability to live where they were born and to put food on the table.

America's Criminal Class:  The Congress of the United States:  A five-part series on the collection of rogues, scoundrels and crooks who occupy the House and Senate.

Part five in the series:  A long tradition of corruption and ambivalence:  "You have reached a special place in life and in American history," Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi told a recent class of freshmen Senators and Congressman.  "Treat it with respect."  But too many members of both the House and Senate treat their "special place in life and in American history" as a license to steal, living large at taxpayer expense, ignoring laws that apply to ordinary Americans and betraying the trust of the public that put them there.

Absolute Power: The Legacy of Corruption in the Clinton-Reno Justice Department  by David Limbaugh

Rethinking Romans 13:  Pastor Greg A. Dixon chides Christians to combat corrupt government.  In recent years, Christians have interpreted Romans 13 as a command for unlimited submission to government by God.  Many have allowed government to become god without even knowing.

Federal Propaganda for Kids:  The federal government is cranking out propaganda and it has nothing to do with the war on terrorism.  It has everything to do with indoctrinating your kids.  Federal agencies are using taxpayer-funded Web sites to bypass parents and instill their tech-savvy children with heavy doses of big government activism.

CPS Harasses Family Whose House Burns Down:  The social worker refused to explain the allegations to the parents, and insisted that she needed to interview the children separately with no other party present.

 Editor's Note:   The Home School Legal Defense Association runs into abuses of power all the time.  Here is a state-by-state roundup of their recent experiences.

Dependent on D.C.:  The Rise of Federal Control over the Lives of Ordinary Americans  by Charlotte Twight.  Manipulation of the rules of a game can determine the outcome.  It's true of sports and it's true of government.  In an important new contribution to the study of American government, economist and historian Charlotte Twight applies this insight to document both the history of government's growth and the techniques by which politicians and bureaucrats have manipulated the rules of the game to increase their powers and make them more difficult to roll back.  In the process, politicians make Americans dependent on government, and more like passive supplicants than active citizens.  Twight explains in clear language how Americans have been robbed of their independence.

Documentary film:  911:  The Road to Tyranny:  The government needed a crisis to convince the people to willingly give up their liberty in exchange for safety.  911 the Road to Tyranny documents the ruthless history of governments orchestrating terrorist attacks against their own people to scare them into total submission.

"The shift from personal autonomy to dependence on government is perhaps the defining characteristic of modern American politics.  In the span of barely one lifetime, a nation grounded in ideals of individual liberty has been transformed into one in which federal decisions control even such personal matters as what health care we buy -- a nation now so bound up in detailed laws and regulation that no one can know what all the rules are, let alone comply with them."

– Charlotte Twight  


Review of A Nation of Sheep:  Dependent on D.C.  Rule of law means there's governance by known general rules, equality before the law, certainty of the law, a permanent legal framework and independent judicial review of administrative decisions.  These specifications of the rule of law have been emasculated.  No one can possibly know the thousands of pages of rules published by the IRS, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of pages of laws applicable to health care, banking, education, pensions, agriculture, ad infinitum.

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