
Since when does the Attorney General of the
United States get involved in child custody cases? Since when are automatic weapons required
to settle such cases?
 In 1949, this definition of "terrorism" could be
found on page 1346 of Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language.
 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1970, page 911.
This page is written for the benefit of people who have absolute faith
and trust in the government. Perhaps you know people who believe the
government can do no wrong. People who believe that the government
never lies. People who believe that every good and perfect
thing comes from the federal government. One fellow I know
comes to mind. When the government declares it illegal to
inhale, he will be the first person in town to turn blue. And
he will probably be the first person in town with a bar code on his
forehead. He will take the government's side in any argument, because
the government is his god. To him, and others like him,
the situation shown in the photo above is perfectly normal.
Here is some of the evidence that the federal government
and some state governments have too much power and
too little restraint. In fact, much of this web site is
devoted to the never-ending task of spotlighting abusive government
and bad ideas. Tyranny is defined as the cruel and oppressive government,
and that is exactly what is described in some of the news items shown below.
Subsections:
The Road to Tyranny is All Downhill From Here
Money Down the Drain
Snitch on Your Neighbor
The TIPS program
Know Your Customer
Obama's "snitch on your neighbor" program: The 2009 version.
The Homeland Security report on right wingers
Incompetence and Absurd Application of the Law
Uncle Sam loses stuff -- especially guns and laptop computers.
Uncle Sam is afraid to say what he means
The Steven Hatfill / Anthrax Investigation
Threats to the Constitution
The Bill of Rights is Taking a Beating
Property Rights and Property Seizures ...
including commentary about the Supreme Court's Kelo decision.
Invasion of Privacy (includes numerous subtopics)
The Government's Role as Overprotective Nanny
... including The Smoking Section
... and Governor Perry's Vaccination Mandate
The use of Traffic Signals as Fundraisers ... as well as seat belt laws and speed traps.
Taxes and The IRS ...
specifically, Cigarette taxes and
The Proposed "Odometer Tax"
The Americans with Disabilities Act
The Endangered Species Act
The USA Patriot Act
Waco
Waco II
Ruby Ridge
FEMA -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency
Other Items of Interest
Additional pages on similarly irritating subjects:
Zero-Tolerance
The Invasion of the Food Police
The War vs. Liberty and Freedom
Gun Control
Pork Barrel Politics
Carnivore & Echelon
Hate Crime Laws
The Proposed National ID Card
Featured articles:
Barack and the Bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy is liberalism's strong right arm. Liberalism would not exist as it does today without
it — it would have nothing of the reach or durability that it now possesses. Government
bureaucracy forms a kind of shadow universe, in which each human activity has its department or agency to
oversee and manipulate it — a massive structure established over decades, with no real purpose
but to perpetuate itself.
[Emphasis added.]
Another Marylander Arrested
for Recording the Police. The city of Annapolis, Maryland recently received a Homeland Security
grant for 20 new surveillance cameras in the downtown area. The city of Baltimore already has nearly
500. According to the watchdog site PhotoEnforced, the state of Maryland has at least 375 red light
cameras and 80 speed cameras. Your government is watching you, Marylanders. But don't think
for a second that it's going to tolerate you watching back.
California's Man-Made Drought.
On a springtime drive through the Central Valley, it's hard not to notice how federal and state governments
are hell-bent on destroying the state's top export — almonds — and everything else in
the nation's most productive farmland. Instead of pink blossoms and green shoots along Highway 5 in
April, vast spans from Bakersfield to Fresno sit bone-dry. Brown grass, dead orchards and lifeless
grapevine skeletons stretch for miles for lack of water.
The Fine Pursuit of Exposing
Corruption. In a disturbing case of politically motivated retaliation, prominent Beverly Hills attorney
Dr. Richard Fine has been incarcerated in coercive solitary confinement for close to fourteen months at the Los Angeles
County Men's Jail. That confinement will continue under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. ... Dr. Fine's plight
demonstrates the grim fate of those who come forward in good faith to expose malfeasance, public or private.
Bailout Bill Would Require Banks to Track and Report Personal Checking
Accounts to Feds. It's amazing to watch the civil libertarians hide when Democrats propose the
most sweeping intrusions of privacy in generations. In addition to the litany of bad policies contained
in the Dodd Financial Reform bill is this nugget on pages 1039-1040. In short, it extends government
reach to every deposit account of every citizen.
FCC Lets Hollywood Turn Off Your Output
Jacks. Hollywood will soon have the power to remotely disable the analog outputs on your set-top
box, under a decision by federal regulators on Friday [5/7/2010] intended to prevent home recording of new
movie releases. The move by the Federal Communications Commission grants cable and satellite providers
the power to block consumers from viewing just-released movies in an analog format through a process known as
Selectable Output Control.
The Editor says...
Digital television and software-controlled receivers are some of the most powerful tools ever put in
the hands of Big Brother. If the government can turn output jacks on and off, it can also take
control of the channel selection and the power switch, just like the telescreens
in 1984.
More
about The Technology and Politics of Broadcasting.
The Fossilization of
America. [Scroll down] Bureaucrats gain control of government programs by feeding on ideals.
No doubt the program I was involved in began, as most do, as an attempt to reflect the sincere ideals of the American
public. However, when bureaucrats implement programs, ideals are their first victims. ... This self-preservation
ethic leads to increasing organizational size and a corresponding growth in government. The larger the
organization, the less likely it is that the original ideals generating programs will be attained. In fact,
attaining these ideals would be counterproductive as this would result in the termination of the program.
Organizational inertia is the ultimate result and the actual goal of all bureaucrats.
The NoVa Police Blackout.
The Fairfax County Police Department — along with the neighboring municipal police departments of
Arlington and Alexandria — are among the most secretive, least transparent law enforcement agencies
in the country. And local political leaders don't seem particularly concerned about it.
Government Is the
Biggest Lawbreaker. Measured just by the number of victims, there is no close second place
to government as the biggest lawbreaker. Measured in terms of impact, government lawbreaking is
disabling our entire society. When an individual or collection of individuals (such as a business)
violates the law, there are victims who are harmed directly, and the law provides remedies. ... When
government breaks the law, not just individuals, but entire industries are often the direct victims.
Debt's All,
Folks. Federal programs grow like Paul Bunyan and live far beyond their usefulness.
There is simply no incentive to cut programs or staff, which would signal loss of power and prestige.
Government managers face no profit motive or expectant stockholders. Businesses and households cut back
if they overspend. The government just comes up with more ways to tax us, and in increasingly
sneaky fashion. Have you looked at your phone bill lately?
Why Fear Big Government?
[Scroll down] On the more mundane level, this week I saw the following examples of government exemption.
A local police car randomly did a running stop at a 4-way intersection (should I have called 911?); a city bus
driver (very common) cell phoning against California law (report him to the cop running the intersection?); a
city garbage truck spewing trash out its top as it sped down Freeway 41 (call his cousins at the state EPA?).
We are all routinely pulled over for any of the above infractions. But the larger the government, the
more its power, and so the more its employees feel that they are royal and exempt from enforcement. In
other words, big government creates millions who feel the law does not pertain to themselves. Ask Tom Daschle,
Duke Cunningham, Chris Dodd, or Timothy Geithner. The result is an increasingly lawless society.
Hundreds
of regulatory bodies under scrutiny by N.J. Gov. Christie. Governor Christie has set his sights
on the hundreds of regulatory boards whose jurisdiction is scattered throughout the state. They run
airports and regulate charity bingo. They borrow money to build schools and try to ban bikini waxes.
They provide "soft landings" — complete with fat salaries and pensions — to allies of the
politically powerful. And they spend billions of public dollars every year.
Homeland Security Collected Information on Wisconsin
Abortion, Pro-Life Activists. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat
assessment of local pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year, even though
they did not pose a threat to national security.
The Taser's Edge. Argue
with a cop — indeed, do anything other than submit immediately to his any and every command — and
you risk being shot through with 50,000 volts of "non-lethal" (but sometimes not) Attitude Adjuster.
It's happening all around the country, to people who likely never saw it coming or even conceived that such a
thing could happen to them.
The Forced March to Mediocrity.
The perverted, and yes, un-American, pieces of legislation oozing their way through the halls of Congress over
the past few years have taken advantage of our "lack of duty" to govern ourselves. We now find ourselves
in a predicament that we have been warned of countless times, over decades, generations, and centuries... no
longer are Americans a self-governed citizenry, we are virtually dictated to by that which we are supposed to
control.
Happy Upside-down Day, America. The
dream of limited government, personal freedom and liberty, rugged individualism, and self-sufficiency that our
forefathers fought and died for is rapidly disappearing in 2009. It is once again a world turned upside
down. Our federal government is turning into the very type of heavy-handed, unaccountable, and disrespectful
government our forefathers despised, fought against, and warned us to avoid.
Public service or self-service? In a
free market, as Forbes magazine says, your reward is a function of how much you contribute to the economy,
but in a regulated market it's how much you contribute to politicians. Sound familiar? It should,
especially to Californians. In New York, it is the reason a taxi cab license is worth $600,000 (because
of fares rigged by paid-off politicians). In California, the cost of a vast range of services gets skewed
by high pay and benefits for public employees.
Ending Corruption
in Washington. [Scroll down slowly] The only way to get rid of such corruption is to
deprive Congress of its vast regulatory powers. There is truly no reason why politicians should
superintend any portion of the private sphere. Finance, health care, energy, housing, farming,
and all the rest should be left wholly to the market, since the market invariably delivers goods and
services in the most economical and cost-efficient manner. Every time politicians decide to
regulate, they only make matters worse.
More government
won't work. Government is bigger than ever and controls more aspects of American life
than at any time in U.S. history. Last year, the federal government ate $3.52 trillion out
of a $13.2 trillion economy. ... A basic problem with a future dominated by ever-expanding government
is that bureaucracies are hobbled by waste, fraud and abuse. Government simply does not work
well. Freedom works, but the more government that exists, the less freedom we have.
Why
Government Agencies Take on a Life of Their Own: As soon as a proposed budget cut looms, as if on
cue governments start threatening to shut down the police force, fire department, and schools. Since almost
nobody wants to do without cops, firemen, or teachers, this is a highly effective tactic most of the time —
although oddly enough, governments always seem to find a way to hold on to the Special Executive Assistants For
Airport Graft, to say nothing of the odd Georgia Road and Tollway Authority.
Gun Nuts at 30,000 Feet? [Scroll down]
After the flight landed, the marshals nailed another terrorist suspect — Robert "Bob" Rajcoomar.
He was handcuffed and taken into custody because, as TSA spokesman David Steigman later explained, Rajcoomar, "to
the best of our knowledge, had been observing too closely." ... When the plane landed, Rajcoomar recalled, "One
of these marshals came down to me and said, 'Head down, hands over your head!' They pushed my head down,
told me to bend down." Rajcoomar said one of the marshals told him, "We didn't like the way you looked" and
"We didn't like the way you looked at us." Some air marshals apparently think of themselves as minor-league
deities whom no mortal should be permitted to directly observe.
Nothing
to fear but we citizens. According to yesterday's Herald, Boston City Hall has been testing
ePanicButton software. "[City] workers would be able to hit a button on their computer or push a pedal
on the floor to summon help if an angry taxpayer storms into City Hall or if someone arguing a parking ticket
gets out of hand," the Herald reported. ... Consider the thousands of businesses around New England that
provide customer service or take customer complaints. Now consider how few of them fear their customers
to the point of emergency panic systems.
"When the people fear their government
there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
APF and Hardin Constitution Violations.
A Livingston state representative is questioning whether Hardin officials and American Police Force have violated
the Montana constitution. Representative Robert Ebinger says he became aware of the situation after
Cascade and Park County law enforcement officials came to him asking questions about APF. ... "No armed
person or persons or body of men shall be brought into the state for the presentation of the peace or the
suppression of domestic violence unless the application of the legislature or of the governor when the
legislature cannot be convened," said Ebinger while reading the constitution word for word.
California jail
entrepreneur has checkered past. Michael Hilton showed up in Hardin, Mont., last week,
presenting himself as an economic savior, the man who would take over the town's $27 million
jail — empty since it was built as a development project in 2007 — and provide 200 new
jobs in the process. He wore a military style uniform, and as a gesture to local law enforcement
offered up the use of three Mercedes SUVs.
Mystery 'Police' Force Has Small Montana City on Edge.
When two brand new, shiny black Mercedes SUVs bearing a "Hardin Police Department" logo drove through the main thoroughfare
of Hardin, Mont., last week, people took notice. "How many police forces have Mercedes?" said Charlene Warren, a local
business owner who has lived in Hardin for more than half a century. "That threw up a red flag."
Military helicopters land in Rolesville
field. Three Chinook military helicopters set down in a Rolesville field Monday afternoon,
witnesses said. People reported seeing the helicopters flying low and slow over Holly Springs,
downtown Raleigh and elsewhere in Wake County. A viewer told WRAL News they came to rest off Rogers
Road about half a mile from U.S. Highway 401.
The Editor asks...
Isn't that what Fort Hood is for? Why must this be done in a small town?
The Tipping Point?
We are living in a surreal age of $2 trillion annual deficits, in which we just casually talk about "more stimulus",
"reforming health care", "fixing education", "cap-and-trade", while fighting two wars abroad — all the while "not
raising taxes on 95% of Americans" — all predicated on the idea that "they" will always be willing and able to
create new wealth and now hand over two-thirds and more of it to an ever-expanding government.
High Court Curbs Power of Police to Search
Cars. The Supreme Court ruled that police couldn't search the car of a person arrested unless the
officer's safety was threatened or there was reason to think the car contained evidence of a crime, reviving a
constitutional protection against unreasonable searches. The court effectively closed a loophole opened
in a 1981 opinion that has been widely interpreted to allow police, without a warrant, to search cars — as
well as bags or containers within them — when they arrest a driver or passenger.
Congress
killing us softly with laws and red tape. For the past 20 years, I have advised landowners,
homebuilders and energy companies on the intricacies of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.
Both are complex statutes supplemented by dense volumes of regulations and administered by confusing agencies
that have state and local counterparts applying state and local versions of the similar laws and rules.
The costs of these regulatory regimes are enormous, but dimly, if at all, understood by the public. The
highest-sounding rhetoric surrounds both laws, but, even as they accomplish important environmental goals,
they also operate to batter tens of thousands of Americans every year.
The Coming of
the Fourth American Republic. The appropriations committees and their pork barrels are the most obvious
example of rule by special interest, but not always the most important. Whole departments are dedicated to special
interests — Labor, Education, Energy. Money is important, but regulation is every bit as useful,
especially because regulations can shift property rights from third parties without going through the budget process.
For example, environmentalists successfully combined a vaguely worded Endangered Species Act with control of the Fish and
Wildlife Service to shift the costs of their no-development ethic onto random land-owners, regardless of costs, benefits,
or fairness.
Let's 'Restructure' Washington While
We're at It. The federal government is a giant Rube Goldberg machine that not only wastes
hundreds of billions of dollars each year but also burdens local governments and the private sector with
legal requirements that no longer serve the public good. Congress should take its own advice and
retool Washington.
Demonizing
America's 86th most proftable industry. When Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a sidekick decided
to intimidate CEOs in the health insurance industry, it wasn't just another instance of shabby politics, but an
imperious, anti-democratic abuse of power, an attempt to put the fear of the almighty federal government in
the hearts and minds of American citizens.
Former Chicago Cops Admit to Invading Homes and
Stealing. Four former members of a now-disbanded Chicago police unit have admitted they used to
barge into people's homes and steal money.
In England:
Arrests are being made 'to expand
DNA files'. Police are routinely arresting people simply to record their DNA profiles on the national
database, according to a report published today. It also states that three quarters of young black men are on the
database. The finding risks stigmatising a whole section of society, the equality watchdog has warned.
Also in England:
'Stunned' Driver Fined For Blowing His Nose. A motorist
has told Sky News of his disbelief at being fined for blowing his nose while his vehicle was at a standstill.
Michael Mancini had stopped his van in traffic and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. When he moved off,
he was pulled over by police who told him he had not been in control of his vehicle.
The Editor says...
Don't worry, Michael, that's what juries are for. (How difficult can it be to maintain control of
a stationary car?) This case shows what can happen when traffic cops become self-important badge-happy
goons.
The Attorney General and the Black Panthers
This subsection is now on a page of its own,
located here.
Stop and Think. Really.
Stop and think. What does your government actually do for you? ... In short, nothing tangible in
the room is a "gift" from the government. Not one thing. (This is true even if you happen to work for the
government and are situated in a government owned building. All of the work on the building was subcontracted.
All of the items in the building were privately produced.)
Many Of Today's Americans Love Government.
Congressional efforts to create "affordable housing" have created today's financial calamity. Congress props up
failed enterprises such as Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service with huge cash subsidies, and subsidies in the forms of
special tax treatment and monopoly rights. I can't think of anything that Congress does well yet we Americans
call for them to take greater control over important areas of our lives. I don't think that stupidity, ignorance
or insanity explains the love that many Americans hold for government; it's far more sinister and perhaps hopeless.
I'll give a few examples to make my case.
FBI Defends Disruptive Raids on Texas Data
Centers. The FBI on Tuesday [4/7/2009] defended its raids on at least two data centers in Texas, in which agents
carted out equipment and disrupted service to hundreds of businesses. The raids were part of an investigation
prompted by complaints from AT&T and Verizon about unpaid bills allegedly owed by some data center customers,
according to court records. One data center owner charges that the telecoms are using the FBI to collect
debts that should be resolved in civil court. But on Tuesday, an FBI spokesman disputed that charge.
Democrats: It's
OK When We Politicize the Justice Department. The "politicization" of the Justice Department was
one of many aspects of the Bush administration which the Obama administration was going to cure. But it appears
that while the party of the administration has changed, we are seeing a level of political meddling at the Justice
Department which the Bush administration never remotely approached. First, we had word that Eric Holder overruled
the career attorney lawyers' research on the issue of voting rights for the District of Columbia. Now we learn that
political appointees have overturned the work of career attorneys attempting to prevent voter intimidation by the New
Black Panther Party.
Who pressured Justice to drop
case against voter intimidation in Philly? After screaming for 8 years about Bush "politicizing" the Justice
Department, it appears that there is a clear cut case of interference in a legitimate prosecution of the New Black Panther
Party for intimidating voters at a polling station in 2008 by Obama appointees.
Charges
Against 'New Black Panthers' Dropped by Obama Justice Dept.. Charges brought against three
members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense under the Bush administration have been dropped by the
Obama Justice Department, FOX News has learned. The charges stemmed from an incident at a Philadelphia
polling place on Election Day 2008 when three members of the party were accused of trying to threaten voters
and block poll and campaign workers by the threat of force — one even brandishing what prosecutors
call a deadly weapon.
Protecting Black Panthers.
Imagine if Ku Klux Klan members had stood menacingly in military uniforms, with nightsticks, in front of a
polling place. Add to it that they had hurled racial threats and insults at voters who tried to enter.
Now suppose that the government, backed by a nationally televised video of the event, had won a court case
against the Klansmen except for the perfunctory filing of a single, simple document — but that an incoming
Republican administration had moved to voluntarily dismiss the already-won case. Surely that would
have been front-page news, with a number of firings at the Justice Department. The flip side of
this scenario is occurring right now.
Civil Rights: Who are the "Cowards"? On
taking office as Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder stated that America is a nation of "cowards"
when it comes to race and that he would commit the Department of Justice to making civil rights cases a top
priority. President Obama himself promised to "reinvigorate federal civil rights enforcement," especially by
prosecuting cases of voting discrimination against blacks. On May 15 Obama's Department of Justice
quashed a civil rights case involving voter intimidation by blacks in Philadelphia on election day, 2008.
The U.S. Department of
Injustice. Let's examine the uproar over Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to protect hate-mongering thugs
who harassed and bullied precinct workers and voters on Election Day in Philadelphia. Oh, wait. There's been no
uproar. Let me tell you why.
A young boy serves a life
sentence. He's just a normal, average, typical 12-year-old boy. If the normal, average,
typical 12-year-old boy has the world's longest-reigning dictator drop by every year for his birthday,
that is. Elian Gonzalez was shipped into the waiting arms of Fidel Castro in 2000. The
delivery man was Bill Clinton, who used a SWAT team armed with submachine guns to assure everyone's compliance.
Elian Gonzalez joins Cuba's youth
Communists. The Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle eight years ago has joined Cuba's
Young Communist Union. Elian Gonzalez said he will never let down ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul
Castro, according to the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde.
Elian
Gonzalez back in news again. Here's a name I didn't think I'd hear again, but remember Elian Gonzalez, whose
story transfixed our nation eight years ago in an international custody fight between the U.S. and Cuba? Now comes the
news that the 14-year-old has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union, according to the Associated Press.
Janet Reno's Show of Force. How would you
respond to a 30 second warning at 5:00 AM? This is barely enough time to wake up and gather your wits in order
to deal with a threatening, armed contingent wearing body armor and banging at the door. Was this just
another way for the INS to paint the family as non-cooperative, giving them the excuse to use a battering ram
to break their way in?
Anita Dunn — Pots and Kettles.
On April 16, 2000, viewers of CBS' 60 Minutes saw Dan Rather interviewing Elian Gonzalez' father, Juan Miguel
Gonzalez. ... Here's what America didn't see: "Most of the questions Dan Rather was asking Elian's father during
that 60 Minutes interview were being handed to him by Gregory Craig," recalls Pedro Porro, who served as
Rather's in-studio translator during the taping of the famous interview.
A Decade of Defiance.
Let us give the last word about the gloriously diverse past decade of American law to an unlikely mouthpiece:
Lazaro Gonzales, Elian's effervescent uncle, who came into our lives nearly 10 years ago, at the start of the
21st Century. Told that Janet Reno's federal agents were on their way to his town outside Miami to seize young
Elian, Lazaro famously said he wouldn't hand over the kid. "Not in Opa Locka, not in any locka," Lazaro
declared, in Spanish no less, in an epic comment that was as funny as it was serious.
Update:
Now 16, Elian Gonzalez shown at
Cuba youth meeting. Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez
wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.
Anniversary
of an Outrage. Castro's Stalinist regime just released pictures of 16-year-old Elian Gonzalez,
resplendent in the uniform of a Communist Party youth. The timing of the photo-release may coincide with
the 11th anniversary of Elian's shanghaiing from the U.S., which hits on the 22nd of this month.
Bill
Clinton in Miami compares Elian case to kidnapping. Former President Bill Clinton said
Saturday [4/17/2010] he had no regrets over sending Elian Gonzalez back to live with his father in Cuba,
and would order a federal raid on Little Havana all over again.
The Chicago Way is
Piracy, Too. While they don't use grappling hooks to board merchant ships, the Chicago Way pirates
do have their hooks in the merchants, nevertheless. The Chicago Way is a political system run by kleptocrats
who demand tribute from merchants whenever the merchants want to do something. If they want to get a building
permit or win a lucrative contract at O'Hare Airport, they must pay tribute.
Your
government in secret. Thom Rae wants to know why his town is spending $1 million to
keep a second-run theater afloat. Kevin and Anne Barber want to know what happened to the principal
who forced their 8th grader and his classmates to kneel painfully on a gym floor during a lecture on
respect. Patricia and Joel Garza want to know why so many secrets surround the investigation into the
crash that killed their grown son. They all want answers. The answer they all got was "no."
Chicago
City Hall routinely denies requests for public documents. The Daley administration routinely denies
requests for documents that could shed light on how the mayor really runs the city.
Colorado Governor Signs She-Male Restroom Bill.
This bill makes all public accommodations — including public restrooms and locker rooms in the state —
"gender free." This law now means that anyone who identifies as the opposite sex, can freely access public facilities
formerly reserved for a single sex. Sexual predators can now enter women's restrooms and claim they have a sexual
identity different from their birth sex. It makes it legal for drag queens, cross-dressers and anyone else with a
serious Gender Identity Disorder to use opposite sex restrooms and locker rooms. But it goes further. It defines
"public accommodations" as including malls, restaurants, schools, and small businesses.
The Taxpayer Frog In the
IRS Pot: In 1900 federal spending was $0.5 billion. In 2000 it was $1,789 billion.
Those amounts translated to 2.5% of GDP in 1900 and 21% in 2000. Government spending at all levels in the
U.S. was 36.5% of GDP in 2006. That 2.5% of GDP that could sustain the entire federal government in 1900
is not even enough to cover the Medicare program today. The Medicare program, by the way, did not exist
in 1900; it was established in 1965.
Nearly eight years in prison
without a trial. Whatever happened to the right of an accused to have a speedy trial? Once
a successful dentist in St. Louis County who treated many indigent patients, Charles Thomas Sell was accused of
Medicaid fraud in 1997. Although he has never hurt anyone, and a federal court held that he poses no
danger to those around him, prison officials frequently placed him in solitary confinement for periods that
totaled nearly two years.
Woman jailed for refusing
court-required psych exam. An Iowa grandmother has been banished to jail, including a night
in isolation, after refusing to give in to a judge's demand that she submit to a psychiatric exam and take
psychotropic drugs if prescribed to mitigate her opposition to abortion, her husband has confirmed.
Would Your Beliefs Brand You A
'Homegrown' Terrorist? H.R. 1955, titled the Violent Radicalization and
Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 allows the government to target Americans and
actually calls "thought" crimes "homegrown terrorism". Part of the bill (Section 899A)
employs extremely vague terminology ("violent radicalization") to describe the promoting of
any belief system that the government considers "extremist".
The Editor says...
Under H.R. 1955 it is a crime to "intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian
population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social
objectives". Such a crime is depicted in the photo at the top of this page.
'Thought Crimes,' HR 1955 Passed.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955, titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. It was passed with 404 votes in favor. ... This is a "Thought Crime"
bill of the type so often discussed in an Orwellian context. It specifically targets the civilian
population of the United States. It defines "Violent Radicalization" as promoting any belief system that
the government considers to be extremist. "Homegrown Terrorism" and "Violent Radicalization" are defined
as thought crimes. Since the bill does not provide a specific definition of extremist belief system, it
will be whatever the government at any given time deems it to be.
The Senate Could Vote on the "Thought Crimes" Bill Soon!
It should be remembered that following the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Clinton administration blamed not just
the indicted perpetrators, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, but also all those who had like
McVeigh, Nichols and Fortier protested against the government's deadly actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Time magazine and other media organs joined the administration in charging that these "anti-government"
protesters were actually "ideational co-conspirators" with the OKC bombers. Like President Clinton,
President Bush now equates opposition to his policies, especially concerning the War in Iraq and the "War on
Terror," as unpatriotic, or even treasonable.
Bullies,
Muggers, Sneak Thieves, and Con Men. The beginning of political wisdom is the realization
that despite everything you've always been taught, the government is not really on your side; indeed, it is
out to get you. Sometimes government functionaries and their private-sector supporters want simply to
bully you, to dictate what you must do and what you must not do, regardless of whether anybody benefits from
your compliance with these senseless, malicious directives. The drug laws are the best current
example, among many others, of the government as bully.
America's Injustice System Is
Criminal. In the US the wrongful conviction rate is extremely high. One reason is that
hardly any of the convicted have had a jury trial. No peers have heard the evidence against them and
found them guilty. In the US criminal justice (sic) system, more than 95% of all felony cases are
settled with a plea bargain.
Armed and dangerous: Federal agencies expanding
the use of firepower. During the late morning of January 14, 1997, 20 heavily armed federal
agents and local sheriff's deputies descended from a military helicopter onto rocky Santa Cruz Island off the
California coast. As snipers moved into position along the ridge tops to secure the perimeter of the
attack area, other agents staged dynamic entries into the buildings — rousting 15-year-old Crystal
Graybeel who was sleeping late in her cabin. The agency responsible for all this was not the BATF, nor
the FBI, nor any other agency typically associated with such "dynamic entries." This raid was the work of
the National Park Service. At a time when elected legislative bodies from city councils to Congress have
been passing laws that restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, federal agencies
within the executive branch have been quietly authorizing dramatically increased numbers of armed
personnel — often heavily armed with military-style assault weapons. Today, there are nearly
60,000 federal agents trained and authorized to enforce the over 3,000 criminal laws Congress has passed over
the years, plus the hundreds of thousands of regulations which now carry criminal penalties.
The EPA's Swat Team: Hubert Vidrine, a
manager at a refinery plant, was at work when FBI and EPA Criminal Division Agents stormed into his place of
business using M-16s and police dogs. His alleged crime was storing waste covered by the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) without obtaining a permit. Just wait, it gets better...
How To Survive The Coming Martial Law In America.
Some patriots in the government have already let it leak that local police organizations are aggressively
recruiting US Marines still on active duty to leave the military and immediately become police officers... with
little or no training. These Marines have been trained not to protect and serve but to kill quickly and
efficiently. Let's face it, traditional armies are trained to dispatch enemies with vicious efficiency... and
that's why local police have always been trained differently. Local police have traditionally been
trained to protect and serve with respect for the rights of the citizens. But things have changed
dramatically in this country.
U.N.
Troops Preparing for Martial Law In America — Who Is FEMA Really? Is it far fetched
to imagine that these U.N. "peace keeping" forces would be used against American citizens? The 502nd,
another unit from Fort Campbell Kentucky, is shown here arriving as peacekeepers in Somalia wearing their U.N.
blue berets and insignia. Shortly thereafter this same unit the 502nd was in Arkansas practicing house
to house searches and seizures in a joint U.N. training mission called "Agile Provider" in the Spring of 1994.
Criminalizing everyone.
"You don't need to know. You can't know." That's what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told
when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.
The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris' longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they
emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.
The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with — get this — the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
The
Unlikely Orchid Smuggler: A Case Study in Overcriminalization. George Norris, an elderly
retiree, had turned his orchid hobby into a part-time business run from the greenhouse in back of his home.
He would import orchids from abroad — South Africa, Brazil, Peru — and resell them at
plant shows and to local enthusiasts. He never made more than a few thousand dollars a year from his
orchid business, but it kept him engaged and provided a little extra money — an especially important
thing as his wife, Kathy, neared retirement from her job managing a local mediation clinic. Their life
would take a turn for the worse on the bright fall morning of October 28, 2003, when federal agents,
clad in protective Kevlar and bearing guns, raided his home, seizing his belongings and setting the gears in
motion for a federal prosecution and jail time.
Computer
snafu is behind at least 50 'raids' on Brooklyn couple's home. Blame it on a computer.
Embarrassed cops on Thursday [3/18/2010] cited a "computer glitch" as the reason police targeted the home
of an elderly, law-abiding couple more than 50 times in futile hunts for bad guys.
The raid on Mayor Cheye Calvo's house
To paraphrase Ray Donovan, where do they go to get their dogs back?
Prince George's raid prompts
call for probe. When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers,
hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying
beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.
What police left
behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct.
Police raid Maryland
mayor's home and kill his dogs. Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed
to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table. Suddenly, police with guns
drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened
package.
Mayor Cleared In Raid
That Killed Dogs. A small-town mayor whose dogs were killed in a drug raid was cleared of
any wrongdoing after police had been reluctant to rule out his involvement in drug smuggling or apologize
for the violent incident.
Update:
Time to rein in police SWAT teams.
[Scroll down] Ah, but it's so much easier and so much more fun to barrel into someone's house with big guns and
storm trooper uniforms. The proliferation of SWAT deployments in this country is stunning, up from 3,000
a year in the mid-1980s to more than 40,000 now, according to Peter Kraske, who studies the militarization of
policing as a criminal-justice professor at Eastern Kentucky University. ... "Telling the people that these
officers followed procedure and did nothing wrong sends a chilling message," [Cheye] Calvo says. "And
then we wonder why people who live in high-crime areas don't trust the police. They treated us like
animals. They were not there to protect and serve, they were there to search and destroy."
Another update:
SWAT Gone Wild in Maryland. Late last
month, Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo took the unusual step of filing a civil rights lawsuit
against the police department of his own county. The suit stems from a 2008 SWAT team raid on Calvo's
house that resulted in the shooting deaths of his two black Labrador retrievers. In pushing back against
the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Prince George's County police department, the mayor is helping
expose a more widespread pattern of law enforcement carelessness and callousness throughout the state
of Maryland.
4.5 SWAT Raids Per Day.
Over the last six months of 2009, SWAT teams were deployed 804 times in the state of Maryland, or about
4.5 times per day. In Prince George's County alone, with its 850,000 residents, a SWAT team was
deployed about once per day. According to a Baltimore Sun analysis, 94 percent of the state's SWAT
deployments were used to serve search or arrest warrants, leaving just 6 percent in response to the kinds of
barricades, bank robberies, hostage takings, and emergency situations for which SWAT teams were originally
intended.
Cops Employing Robbers: [Ryan]
Frederick's case is only one recent example of the inherent danger and disproportionate absurdity of using
violent, forced-entry police tactics to serve nonviolent drug warrants. This raid on a man with no prior
criminal record left a police officer dead, his wife widowed, and his children without a father, while
effectively ruining Ryan Frederick's life. He's facing one count of capital murder for the shooting
of [Detective Jarrod] Shivers, a felony drug distribution charge, and a charge of using a weapon during
the commission of a drug crime.
D.C.
family wins suit over raid on home. A Capitol Hill family won a lawsuit against the D.C.
government after their row house was raided in a search for evidence that their renovation plans violated the
city's historic preservation laws. About a dozen police officers and D.C. Consumer and Regulatory
Affairs inspectors searched the home of Laura Elkins and John Robbins four years ago, entering the bedrooms of
their teenage children who were home sick from school, and searching through drawers, behind furniture and
under carpets.
Available in the airport gift shop.
Big Brother endorses
these playthings. Two years ago in this column, I lamented the fact that toy manufacturers were
cashing in on society's headlong rush toward constant and ubiquitous surveillance. I highlighted a Lego
construction set that included, as part of a police 18-wheeler, a surveillance and monitoring unit. I
also noted a plastic "play set," manufactured and marketed by Playmobil, depicting a police officer wanding a
civilian figure as pretend belongings go through a pretend X-ray machine. This trend toward "play"
search and surveillance has continued, and now includes a functioning toy metal detector.
The Gangster State:
A recent incident in San Diego illustrates that there isn't nearly enough distance separating the federal government
from the criminal underworld. According to the local NBC television affiliate, four gunmen disguised as federal
agents conducting a drug raid "invaded a home near the San Ysidro border crossing…. Investigators
say the gunmen were dressed as agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms." What is surprising
is not that the criminals chose to disguise their home invasion as a federal raid, but rather that this sort of
thing hasn't happened more often.
Kathryn Johnston: A Year Later.
When police forced their way into Johnston's home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she
was about to be robbed. The police opened fire, and killed her. Shortly after the shooting, the
police alleged that they had paid an informant to buy drugs from Ms. Johnston's home. They said she
fired at them first, and wounded two officers. And they alleged they found marijuana in her
home. We now know that these were all lies. In fact, everything about the Kathryn Johnston
murder was corrupt.
Sometimes 'sorry' doesn't cut
it. A SWAT team from the Milwaukee Police Department burst into Denise Berndsen's
apartment and turned the place upside down looking for evidence of child porn. Oops. The
man they were targeting had moved out five weeks earlier. Instead they roughed up Berndsen,
who had returned home from back surgery that day, her 74-year-old father, and a man she had just
started dating and who for a few terrifying minutes wondered what he got himself into.
The Rise of a Judicial
Dictatorship: The Warren Court launched a social, cultural and moral revolution and began openly
to dictate to what had been a self-governing people. Under this dictatorship, radically secularist and
egalitarian, America's public schools were as de-Christianized as thoroughly as in the Soviet Union.
There
is No War on Drugs! Why does the War on Some Drugs and Users continue despite the obvious
failure of every tactic tried by prohibitionists? Could it be that the illegal drug trade engenders
such massive untraceable black market profits and forms of social control that the Warriors really do not
want the War to end? When one takes the endless tales of corruption, greed and lies on the part of
so many Drug Warriors into consideration, it isn't such a stretch of the imagination.
Powder and crack
cocaine: Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about a case in which the judge
refused to impose the notoriously high sentence required for crack cocaine, Kimbrough v. U.S. While the
case doesn't challenge the sentencing disparity directly, it calls attention to the statute that punishes
crack cocaine with sentences 100 times greater than for powder cocaine, despite the fact that there is no
difference in the chemical makeup of the two forms of cocaine.
Drug
Laws' Absence of Justice. You've probably read about the disparity in federal mandatory minimum
sentences before. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 mandated a five-year minimum sentence for possession
of 5 grams of crack cocaine or 500 grams of powdered cocaine. Civil rights groups have attacked
the 100-1 volume disparity on racial grounds. The U.S. Sentencing Commission found that more than
80 percent of crack offenders are black, while some 80 percent of powdered cocaine offenders
are white.
The War on Drugs is No Laughing Matter. Alcohol
did not create Al Capone's gang violence in the hometown of our current president. Prohibition did.
Marijuana does not create murderous drug cartels in Mexico. America's War on Drugs does.
This could happen here, too ...
Couple
plan to sue RCMP over 911 reaction. A North Vancouver couple has complained to District of North
Vancouver council and said they will sue the North Vancouver RCMP after officers responded to their hang-up
911 call by breaking down their door, making a forceful arrest and jailing them overnight when the couple
refused to allow a house-search. ... North Vancouver resident Marget Lieder said that in the early
evening of Oct. 25 she was having wine with her partner and a guest when she misdialed the
emergency number, meaning to call 411 instead. … "I don't want my privacy to be invaded just
because I misdial a number," she said.
Incidentally, there could be at least 100 Ways to Mis-Dial 911.
Pentagon wants new spying powers
in the US. The Pentagon says it won't spy on "innocent" Americans, but critics say
past record shows this is false.
Monitoring Americans: There is a proper role for
police in a free society. They are needed to protect lives and property, to respond in emergencies, and
investigate crimes — and the NYPD and America's other local police departments have long served admirably
and honorably in this role. But in a militarized society, one in which the police are no longer
accountable to local civil authorities and become instead an instrument of a central government in
Washington, the central government could be expected to abuse its newfound law-enforcement powers.
Cheney won't tell
how much he keeps secret. A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003,
requires all agencies and "any other entity within the executive branch" to provide an annual accounting of
their classification of documents … but [Vice President] Cheney insists he is exempt.
I guess the telephone is out of the question...
Passport customers fume over
parking fees. Getting a passport was already starting to get pricey for Mary Simpson. In
March, she paid $97 for the passport application fee, plus another $60 to expedite it. She's expecting
to fork over $80 in gas for the trip from San Antonio to find out in person the status of her application.
Then, the parking sign declares "$10."
City
may banish TV dishes from view. The Boston City Council, citing a proliferation of satellite
television dishes across the city, is considering banning the devices from the front of buildings. Saying
that the dishes are potentially dangerous and increasingly hard to overlook in parts of the city where some
buildings are festooned with them, councilors plan to consider a measure to confine the satellite television
receivers to the back of buildings, out of public view.
[Potentially dangerous? How?]
The
Runaway Train That Hit Scooter Libby. With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
[Patrick J.] Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it,
to make a mountain out of a molehill.
[This investigation] would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq
war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the
popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition — a
vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement.
N.J. Governor's SUV Went
91 Mph Before Crash. The SUV carrying Gov. Jon S. Corzine was traveling about
91 mph moments before it crashed, Superintendent of State Police Col. Rick Fuentes said
Tuesday [4/17/2007]. The governor was critically injured when the vehicle crashed into a
guardrail on the Garden State Parkway just north of Atlantic City last week. He apparently
was not wearing his seat belt as he rode in the front passenger's seat.
[The car is going 91 mph, and he's not wearing a seat belt. Oh, but that's
okay because he's the governor after all, and a state trooper was driving. Who's
going to tell him to slow down?]
Frustration over Corzine
not buckling up. Last year, New Jersey law officers ticketed 271,182 people for not wearing seat
belts. This year, one seat-belt violator stands out: Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who was critically
injured in an automobile accident last week. … State police said Trooper Robert Rasinski, Corzine's
driver, was wearing a seat belt and received minor injuries in the wreck, while Corzine aide Samantha Gordon
was riding in the back seat without a seat belt and received minor injuries.
Virginia Introduces $3550 Speeding Ticket.
Virginia legislator introduces new speeding ticket tax that boosts penalties beyond $3550, driving business to
his traffic law firm.
Highway Robbery: One definition
of injustice is grossly disproportionate punishment. You don't put people into prison for a year because
they jaywalked. So what do we make of Virginia's new "civil remedial fines" that slam ordinary motorists
with thousand-dollar fines (payable in "three easy installments") for relatively minor traffic violations? ... We
all know of broad avenues that seem to drop for no apparent reason from 55 to 35 mph -- typically,
with a motorcycle cop hiding behind a bush just beyond where the drop goes into force. It has always been
unfair. Now, it's egregious.
All the material about "Corporate Social Responsibility"
has been moved here.
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.
Ruled by
scoundrels. The March 10 [2003] issue of Human Events carried a special report on the 10 most
outrageous government programs. … The Legal Services Corp. headed the list, followed closely by
the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act and the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Rounding out the
list were: Americorps, Endangered Species Act, No Child Left Behind Act, Amtrak, Corporate
Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, Title X Family Planning Act, and the provision of welfare
payments to non-citizens and illegal aliens.
FCC Compliance
and the Station Engineer. Broadcasting may not be unique in this, but it certainly presents
a severe case of a regulated industry. My view is that at least 13 layers of regulation burden
broadcasting. The layers go by names like FCC, FAA, OSHA, BOCA, DOJ, Copyright Tribunal,
Homeland Security, etc.
Colleges
Protest Call to Upgrade Online Systems. The federal government, vastly extending the
reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies
and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement
authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.
City of Seattle
may ban microwave popcorn. First, Washington State banned indoor public smoking. Now, the
City of Seattle may ban employees from making microwave popcorn. No kidding. A memo from the Fleets
and Facilities Department addressed to "Employees at Civic Center Buildings" says there has been several
evacuations in recent years due smoke alarms being tripped by burning popcorn.
Man risks five years jail time for using open WiFi
connection. A Michigan man who was caught using a coffee shop's unsecured WiFi connection while
sitting in the car park was fined $400 and ordered to do 40 hours community service. But he could
have received a 5-year jail term, as the state law which covers this is part of a 1979 anti-hacking bill which
makes this a felony.
Investigate
the CIA. Political correctness reigns in the U.S. government at every level, and the
CIA is no exception. The result is an agency that is conducting a steady leak campaign against
President Bush designed to discredit the Iraq war and undermine the war on terror.
How
someone else's meth habit leaves you with a runny nose: Under the Combat Meth
Act, which Congress is expected to pass soon, you too can be treated like a criminal the next
time you have nasal congestion, thereby doing your part to help achieve a drug-free society.
Hoover wanted to put 12,000 in
jail. A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI from 1924 to
1972, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison about 12,000 Americans whom he suspected of disloyalty.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It
envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.
FBI Examines Pastor's Sermons On
Culture. Nov. 23, 2004, started out like any other normal morning for Randy Steele, senior
pastor at Southwest Christian Church in Mount Vernon, Ill., a town about 80 miles southeast of
St. Louis. … The Pastor was questioned by the FBI over the way he talked about abortion
from a biblical perspective.
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