The Road to Tyranny is All Downhill From Here
and the end of the road isn't far away.

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.

Subtopics on this or other pages:

Abuse of Power by Ordinary Cops
The Disinformation Governance Board, also known as the Ministry of Truth
The incident at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021
USA Patriot Act
The 2020 Coronavirus
Operation Choke Point and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Obamacare opens the door to tyranny
The Invasion of the Food Police
Domestic surveillance
Obama's use of HUD to forcibly integrate wealthy neighborhoods
Operation Jade Helm 15
The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act
Obama vs Gibson Guitar



Subsection about the Disinformation Governance Board, also known as the Ministry of Truth

This subsection has quickly moved to a page of its own, located here.



Operation Choke Point 2.0: How the Feds Are Seeking to 'Debank' Targeted Industries.  A federal initiative that began during the Obama administration with the goal of debanking certain industries disfavored by federal officials has apparently been resurrected and is taking aim at cryptocurrencies.  Operation Choke Point was started by the U.S. Dept. of Justice in 2013 as a way to put pressure on banks to sever their ties, without due process, with legal businesses like gun dealers, cannabis dispensaries and payday lenders which the administration found objectionable.  That initiative was ended by President Trump in 2017 but under the Biden administration, it appears that Operation Choke Point 2.0 has begun with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sending letters to U.S. banks in 2022, urging them to "pause all crypto-related activity."  Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Fox Business that the regulatory abuse is real and that President-elect Trump will put an end to this type of regulatory abuse.

Jordan Peterson moves to US over bill that could turn Canada into 'totalitarian hellhole'.  Controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson has fled Canada as liberals push to pass legislation that he says will suppress free speech and turn the country into a "totalitarian hellhole."  Speaking in a recent episode of his daughter's show, "The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast," Peterson said he opted to move to the US over the contentious bill, C-63, and ongoing feud with the College of Psychologists of Ontario.  "The issue with the College of Psychologists is very annoying, to say the least, and the new legislation that the liberals are attempting to push through, Bill C-63, we'd all be living in a totalitarian hellhole if it passes," Peterson said.

23andMe must secure its DNA databases immediately.  23andMe, born from the techno-optimism of the Human Genome Project, revolutionized direct-to-consumer genetic testing.  But with its valuation now in freefall, mounting layoffs and its board resigning en masse, 23andMe's imminent failure raises a critical question:  What will happen to the sensitive genetic data of its 15 million customers?  This is not just 23andMe's reckoning; it's a warning for the customers of the entire direct-to-customer endeavor, which has long struggled to balance rapid innovation and profits with robust consumer protections.  Your DNA — an immutable blueprint of your identity — could be sold, shared with unknown entities or exploited for targeted advertising and product development without your consent.

The Editor says...
The article above appears on The Hill.  Capitalism, advertising, and "product development" are not the danger here.  Big-government tyrants would have a field day with a database containing everybody's DNA.

Why Didn't They Steal It?  The United Nations 2030 plan intends massive land confiscation.  It will eviscerate property rights across the board.  That land will be divided up and parcelled out to globalist interests like the Chinese, like Bill Gates, to any malignant plutocrat, to exploit and manage.  Farmers and rural people will be reduced to serfdom on leased lands.  Kinda like the Middle Ages.  Home owners to renters from Blackrock. [...] In every sector, that is the plan.  No small business, no self-determination, no property rights, rent everything from a faceless, nameless, placeless, unaccountable mega-corp controlled by a central government.  Think I'm exaggerating?  Look at this.  This is flat-out bullying. [...]

Australian Police Now Can Randomly Wand People With Metal Detectors.  Under new laws that came into effect this week, police in New South Wales (the state in Australia, Sydney is the capital) now have the power to randomly "wand" people with metal detectors in public places.  This law already existed in another state but was rolled out nationwide in Australia after a mass stabbing in Sydney last year.  Back in 2001, New South Wales passed a similar law giving police the power to randomly sniff people with drug detection dogs at pubs, train stations and music festivals.  Fast forward to today and every weekend you'll see operations where large numbers of police will raid pubs and bring the dog around to sniff people.  Same deal at train stations.  You'll regularly see operations where a dog will be randomly sniffing commuters while large numbers of police stand around and watch.  [Video clip]

Biden Regime Quietly Extends COVID-19 'Emergency Declaration' to Shield Big Pharma and mRNA Vaccine Makers.  The Biden administration has quietly extended a controversial "emergency declaration" under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act until December 31, 2029.  "Secretary Becerra signed the 12th amendment to the declaration under the PREP Act for COVID-19 Medical Countermeasures.  The Secretary issues this amendment pursuant to section 319F-3 of the Public Health Service Act to extend the duration of the Declaration to December 31, 2029, and to republish the Declaration in full," according to the announcement.  The timing?  Conveniently, it ensures that Big Pharma and mRNA vaccine makers remain shielded from liability throughout President Trump's second term and beyond.

The Editor says...
If a genuine emergency exists, why would they keep it quiet?

Nuts and Bolts of Federal Censorship.  The enormity of the forces brought against free speech cannot be understood simply by looking at any individual organization, like Facebook, because it's a web of deceit incorporated by tax dollars to inhibit free speech on a global scale, but primarily against the Western nations who largely have free speech, rather than against truly authoritarian societies that don't need it, they do that as a matter of practice.  I recently watched [a] Joe Rogan interview of Mike Benz largely to delve into the encyclopedic knowledge of Benz, who has an understanding of the interlocking efforts of the CIA and numerous other government agencies to bring the color revolutions to America.  It's long, but well worth the time to establish a baseline of knowledge on how deep and how extensive the effort to control the people's voices goes.  Couched in national security, it's aim is to stifle any other point of view than the proffered truths they espouse.

How Loper Bright Gives Trump the Tools to Dismantle the Bureaucratic State.  America's body of laws has swollen into an unwieldy labyrinth that even the most seasoned civil servant struggles to navigate.  From the 9,745 pages of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in 1950 to a staggering 200,000 pages by 2023, the explosion in regulatory output has fundamentally altered the landscape of governance.  For every page of statutory law passed by Congress, federal agencies have added over 20 pages of additional regulations and rules, illustrating the enormity of the administrative state.  A glance at more recent data suggests this trend has only accelerated, marking an exponential rise in regulatory expansion over the last few decades.  This is not just a matter of red tape — it is a crisis of democratic governance and accountability[.]

NJ lawyer tossed out of town council meeting for waving American flag to protest new ban.  A New Jersey lawyer was tossed out of a town council meeting by cops last week for waving an American flag to protest a "stupid" new rule that bans so-called "props" from being used during the meetings.  Joel Bassoff, a local resident and attorney, was ordered removed from the Edison Township Council meeting after he pulled out Old Glory while addressing council members on Nov. 25, footage obtained by New Brunswick Today shows.  Bassoff was among the slew of furious locals who were voicing their objections to the township's new ordinance that prohibits them from using any props — including the flag and even the US Constitution — during the public comment section of town meetings.  "I'm holding up an American flag to represent the constitutional values," Bassoff said during the meeting as Council President Nishith Patel banged his gavel to give him an official warning.

New Jersey Town Bans American Flag From Council Meetings, Police Remove Citizen.  The Edison, New Jersey, Township Council has ignited backlash from residents following the adoption of new rules restricting public behavior at council meetings, including a ban on the use of American flags as "props" during public comments.  The new measures, which also limit speaking time and impose strict rules on decorum, have been met with strong opposition from community members.  According to a report by My Central Jersey, the ordinance restricts individuals addressing the council to four minutes and eliminates rebuttal comments.  It also prohibits offensive or abusive language, disruptive behavior, and the use of costumes during council meetings.  The most contentious rule, however, is the ban on displaying the American flag, the U.S. Constitution, or other items deemed to be "props" while addressing the council.  At last week's council meeting, residents voiced their frustration with the new rules, accusing the council of stifling free expression and limiting criticism.

Confected emergencies and the new world order.  Big problems require big governments to solve.  Also: "big government" requires big problems to solve.  And this big problem with the climate is now conveniently being claimed at a time when the biggest government conceivable is being created before our eyes — a supranational entity, or world order, that demolishes the nation state and its democratic institutions, and arrogates to itself the power to regulate every aspect of the lives, behaviour, speech, and thought of every person on the planet.  Such an extraordinary social project requires extraordinary social transformations.  Ubiquitous, omnipresent surveillance.  Programmable money, linked to social credit scores, that algorithmically punishes and excludes non-conforming citizens from society.  High levels of docility.  High levels of tolerance for authoritarian control measures.  High levels of tolerance for the suspension and destruction of fragile rights and freedoms of movement, association, and speech that have taken centuries to win from government, and required wars to defend.  Destruction of the social bonds between citizens that confer immunity to authoritarianism.  Ultimately, the removal from the language of the means even to conceive of, much less express, unauthorised thought.

Are Vaccine Passports Just Around the Corner?  The U.S., Canada and Mexico launched a joint pandemic preparedness initiative they said will unite the countries' public health agencies around a "One Health" approach to addressing future pandemics.  A critic of the new initiative warned the plan may empower the World Health Organization (WHO) — the architect of the original One Health Initiative — to impose global control measures like vaccine passports and new policies targeting the "infodemic."  "Because this is an initiative from the WHO, I am deeply concerned," said Nicolas Hulscher, an epidemiologist and fellow at the McCullough Foundation.  "They appear to be seeking domain over plants, animals, and humans — globalized, central control over public health policies in all participating countries."

The WHO's Road to Totalitarianism.  [Scroll down]  To understand this, one has to get to grips with the mode of rule called totalitarian government, of course, but I doubt whether most people have an adequate grasp of full-fledged totalitarian rule, despite recently experiencing it to a certain degree under 'pandemic' conditions.  Should the amendments proposed by the WHO be accepted in May, the citizens of the world would be subjected to unadulterated totalitarianism, however, so it is worthwhile exploring the full implications of this 'anonymous' mode of governance here.  This is done in the hope that, if representatives of the people — which is what they are supposed to be — in legislative bodies around the world were to read this article, as well as others related to the same topic, they would think twice before supporting a motion or bill which would, in effect, grant the WHO the right to usurp the sovereignty of member nations.  The recent developments in the state of Louisiana in the US, which amount to the rejection of the WHO's authority, should be an inspiration to other states and countries to follow its example.

An Electoral Awakening Worth Celebrating.  [Scroll down]  It seems asinine now, but during the height of the COVID insanity, governments convinced most Westerners that scientific debate was somehow damaging to the advancement of human knowledge.  We were ridiculously close to the imposition of pandemic passports that would have effectively monitored Westerners' movements and speech at all times.  The Biden-Harris regime moved quickly to mandate COVID shots, punish workers who refused, and establish "quarantine" camps for those who resisted.  Totalitarianism returned not with Nazi troops brandishing rifles but with white-coated medical doctors insisting that we relinquish our liberties and obey the scriptures of dogmatic "expertise."  A strange thing happened on the way to tyranny, though.  A lot of people who had previously consented to their own COVID confinement shared a stunning revelation:  governments are much less interested in saving citizens from COVID than they are in using COVID as a pretext for controlling citizens.  It was a monumental shift in social consciousness and another "aha!" advance for the "Great Awakening."

Biden-Harris Administration Surreptitiously Signs Up for UN World Governance, Internet Censorship.  On September 22, unnoticed by most Americans, the Biden-Harris administration adopted the United Nations Pact for the Future to transform global governance, which introduces the foundations of a world government.  There was no debate, no media coverage, no press releases, and no interviews about the Biden-Harris administration's surrender of United States sovereignty to the UN.  Americans were apparently not supposed to find out.  The UN bragged that the pact is the "most comprehensive agreement in many years" describing it as "covering entirely new areas and addressing issues where no consensus has been reached for decades."  This is concerning.  At the Summit of the Future in September 2024, world leaders passed the UN's Pact for the Future to transform global governance, the Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations.  These agreements usher in a dystopian future, where the UN — an active supporter of terrorism and arguably the world's most corrupt international entity, led by socialists, communists and dictatorships — in partnership with the unelected and unaccountable World Economic Forum, led by Klaus Schwab and his covey of billionaire business leaders, is given unprecedented power over the peoples of sovereign countries, who have had no say whatsoever on the contents of this pact, because it has been kept hidden from them.

Harris-Biden try to put the US under United Nations sovereignty.  When five different people send you a link, you know that something very important has happened, even if the drive-by media aren't trumpeting it on their outlets.  In this case, it's Robert Williams' report at the Gatestone Institute that, in September, the Harris-Biden administration, without fanfare, adopted a UN pact that gives the UN and the World Economic Forum ("WEF") control over American speech, foreign policy, and, possibly, internal sovereignty.  Thankfully, while the administration can sign someone's name on the dotted line, the Constitution means that signature is invalid.  But we're not in the clear:  That invalidity works only if we don't have a government that acts as if the UN pact applies.

Licensed to Kill:  Not James Bond, But Our Department of Defense.  On October 18, 2024, Law Enforcement Today had the following headline, which passed by almost unnoticed: "DoD secretly reauthorizes bill that would allow military intervention domestically... and adds ability to use deadly force."  The reissue of Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 5240.01 was quietly put into effect on September 27, 2024, six weeks before our presidential election.  It is a formalized license to kill.  Why?  Because the Democrat party has determined that civil unrest is bad after condoning the 2020 "mostly peaceful" riots that consumed much of our nation in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.  It provides protection for the military to kill under clear cover of authority.  Imagine the outcry if this had occurred under Donald Trump.  This directive was not necessary.

The Biden Regime Has Just Issued a Very Suspicious Directive Permitting Military Intervention in US Domestic Affairs.  The Department of Homeland Security has flagged individuals questioning COVID-19 origins, vaccine efficacy, and election integrity as potential domestic terrorism threats.  Is a coup being set in place?  A new Department of Defense directive 5240.01 issued September 27, 2024, just prior to the November presidential election allows the US military to use lethal force against American citizens in assisting police authorities in domestic disturbances.  A report on this development lists these civil liberties concerns:  Right to protest:  There are fears that expanded authority could suppress legitimate protests.  Privacy rights:  Increased military involvement in domestic intelligence gathering could infringe on privacy.  Due process:  The military's role in law enforcement could bypass standard due process protections.  Freedom of speech:  The broad definition of "national security threats" could target individuals for their political beliefs.  Civilian control:  The expanded military role could erode civilian oversight of the military.

Is Kamala Harris Bent on Killing Free Speech?  Signs Say 'Yes'.  Kamala Harris' Labour Party advisor's #1 priority is killing Twitter.  We can't let the proles speak.  Only the vanguard of the proletariat and their Pravda media propagandists can be allowed to have a say, lest the dirty dumb demos quit doing what they are told.  [Advertisement]  Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker have the scoop, and it is just as scary as you think.  The campaign to destroy free speech is in full swing, and they are executing the plan.  [Tweet]  I have written a lot about censorship because, in the long run, it may present the greatest threat to our freedom.  If we have free speech, we can at least fight back.  We can make an appeal to reason.  The key to Democrat power has been control over the flow of information, and the left has a near monopoly on distributing information.  As much as the public now distrusts the media, we still need to be armed with facts.  Facebook is controlled.  TikTok is controlled.  The so-called "mainstream media" has turned into a brainwashing tool.  Twitter stands alone as a place where you and I can speak relatively freely.  That is why the European Union, the UK, Ireland, Brazil, China, and all the totalitarians in the world are hell-bent on killing it.

It's the Great Reversal, Not the Great Reset.  [Scroll down]  Also of note is the existence of over 700 detention camps that have been built across the United States over the last twenty-plus years to provide "national essential functions" in the event of "catastrophic emergencies" under the control of the President and the Department of Homeland Security (of which FEMA is a part).  These facilities have been used sporadically in response to natural disasters.  Still, watchdog groups point out the likelihood of these facilities being used to detain American citizens for resistance and alleged crimes against the state, similar to what happened to many J6 attendees who acted in good faith of their First Amendment rights but ended up being incarcerated.

The Editor says...
The FEMA camps are not being used for the incarceration of violent illegal aliens, or Chinese invaders, or Venezuelan/Mexican gangs (Tren de Aragua, MS-13, et al), or Middle-eastern Muslim terrorists.  They are apparently reserved for those who step out of line and raise their objections about stolen elections, replacement workers, mysterious fires, license plate readers, a national ID card, face recognition machines, and the elimination of cash.  In other words, FEMA is not on your side.

Walz claims Trump 'will use the U.S. Army against people who disagree with him'.  It is abundantly clear that Democrats will use any and all departments of the federal government — departments that they have weaponized — against not only Trump, but any and all who have the temerity to disagree with them.  On anything.  From jailing, without charge, several 'Jan. 6ers' who were peacefully standing around the Capitol Building, to trying to game the system in every election, to conducting massive armed early morning raids on the likes of Roger Stone, to trying to imprison or kill Trump through inadequate security or possibly something worse, Democrats make it clear that they will not put up with any dissent.  You know, in order to 'save our democracy.'  They are not just elite exploiters of gaslighting and purveyors of projection, they are natural born totalitarians.  Let's look at what's really happening now.  Inarguably.  First, the Obama-Biden-Harris administration authorized labeling concerned parents at school board meetings, Christians, and patriots as "domestic terrorists."  Then it purged the military of conservatives, Christians, and patriots.  They also spied on Latin mass goers among the Catholics as potential terrorists.  These steps were planned and necessary precursors to the remarkable — and horrifying — Federal Directive just issued, that would allow the U.S. military to potentially use lethal force against American citizens on their own soil.

Democrats Are a Major Threat to Free Speech; Trump Isn't.  The Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has threatened to sic the Justice Department on social media platforms that "profit off hate."  That was in 2019.  Her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has said that "there's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech."  That was in 2022.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has said that the government needs to figure out how to "rein in the media environment."  That was in 2021.  Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, has suggested that Americans who share misinformation should be criminally charged.  That was a month ago.  The former Secretary of State John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has worried about the First Amendment being a "major block" to stopping "disinformation."  That was two weeks ago.

Biden/Harris Regime Authorizes Military to Kill Us.  A candidate as conspicuously awful as Kamala Harris, representing a degenerate ruling class antithetical to the American people, is not likely to win a fair election against a successful former president, no matter how heavy a thumb the MSM and Big Tech lay on the scale.  Other arrangements may have been made.  The preposterous hype over January 6 that Democrats dragged out for years was more than an attempt to discredit Trump through association with unruly supporters.  Democrats have been laying the groundwork to respond with draconian force against those who protest against election fraud.  Coming just before the election, this may be more groundwork:  ["]Biden's corrupt Department of Justice has issued orders authorizing the U.S. military to use lethal force against American citizens as a video clip of Kamala Harris fantasizing about using force to censor free speech goes viral.["]  Cackala has made her authoritarianism explicit:  [Video clip]

The Dems vs. Free Speech.  Decades ago, humor about being imprisoned for supporting the "wrong" individual or expressing an "unapproved" idea would have seemed preposterous.  When satirists joked about repression, they had to cite Communist regimes or dictatorships, or Nazi Germany.  But now the repression is closer to home.  The 'Twitter Files' series revealed how the U.S. government worked closely with the social media giant to repress 'unapproved' ideas and to suppress accounts challenging the government.  A Twitter user, Douglass Mackey, was recently sentenced to seven months in prison.  Mackey was originally charged in early 2021, was convicted in March of conspiring to deprive others of their right to vote, and faced up to 10 years in prison.  What was Mackey's crime?  He shared a satirical meme that the state deemed as election interference.

Biden-Harris Admin Paves Way For Bureaucrats To Take Gender-Confused Kids From 'Non-Affirming' Parents.  "Transphobia is child abuse," Alex Roque, who runs the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBTQ youth in New York City, asserted on a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) webinar last fall.  In less than three minutes, he cast a vision for completely transforming child protective systems nationwide.  Family rejection of a child's gender identity cannot be dismissed as a personal view, he argued.  Non-affirmation must be treated as abuse.  "If they were denying them food or denying them access to school or denying other things, there would be headlines," Roque continued.  "There would be prosecution."  Among gender activists the Biden-Harris administration has enlisted to shape its policies, Roque's definition of abuse is not fringe, and his vision for reshaping the system is not hypothetical.

Nobody Fights for a World Economic Forum Flag.  One of the peculiar things about our stark civil divide is that Americans who are extremely unhappy with the direction of our country are more likely to wave the U.S. flag than those actually steering the country on its current course.  Consider how strange that is!  When the civil rights movement and anti-war protests reached their peak over half a century ago, hippies, peaceniks, revolutionaries, agitators, and anarchists burned the American flag whenever they got the chance.  They bought in to the revisionist narratives of Marxist historians, who taught an entire generation of young people that America is an evil, imperialist, exploitative, genocidal, fascist, slaveholding nation that can never be redeemed.  These students, in turn, grew up to become the current custodians of the federal government.

Correcting Many Usurpations.  We know there's going to be cheating in the 2024 election.  The fact that the whole of the communist propaganda establishment of the MSM have shielded past election fraud and are actively denying current evidence of the same, ensures that outcome.  None of the apparatus to cheat in the 2020 election has been dismantled and one-time emergency measures during Covid are still being used though there is no longer any deterrent to people assembling to vote on a single day as always before in the history of the nation.  The larger extent of state governments have simply ignored the issue for four years, overlooking in excess of 100% voter turnout, an impossibility even at 100%, much less at 113%, but it will happen again and no one will take a serious look at the facts of it.  This is not even about election integrity.  This election, if stolen, must be addressed by the people.  This cannot be a method of running a free nation.  Call it anything else you want, but a free nation, it is not.  Hopefully the American ideals of freedom will win out, but I'm not sure of that, either.

The impenetrable arrogance of the left media.  Those who support Harris do so because they loathe Trump.  Why do they hate him?  He is a threat to the way they've been doing things for probably a hundred years.  It seems pretty clear that the "deep state" does actually run the country, faceless, nameless operators who care nothing at all for the American people.  They care about keeping their own gravy train rolling.  They value their wealth, their lofty positions in government, and the power they wield.  They, whomever they are, have controlled Biden and will control Harris, a woman who cannot put a coherent sentence together.  They do not care about her lack of qualifications.  They, (Hillary, John Kerry, Kamala Harris, etc.), very much want to put into place the authoritarian government they've long dreamed about, one in which they control everything, especially speech that is in opposition to their goal.  We cannot let that happen.  Vote like your life depends on it because it does.

Liberals Call on Biden to Commit Unconstitutional Acts in his Final Days.  With the end of the Biden Administration in sight, liberal pundits seem to be striving to prove that the only difference between a lawbreaker and a law-abiding citizen is the ability to get away with the crime.  Popular figures on the left from Michael Moore to Keith Olbermann are calling on President Joe Biden to commit overtly unlawful acts in his final 100 days in office, including targeting his political opponents.  In one of the few statements of Moore with which I agree, he stated that this is "no joke."  It certainly is not. It is the same logic used by looters that they have a license for illegality.  However, this constitutional looting would endanger not just the Constitution but the country as a whole if Biden were to heed this advice.  In a posting on Substack, Moore told Biden that it was time to yield to temptation and check off a liberal 13-item "bucket list" of demands, tossing aside questions of legality or constitutionality in the process.

Isn't he one of the people who call Trump "a threat to democracy?"
Michael Moore calls on Biden to cut out Congress, enact sweeping left-wing policies in final days of presidency.  Progressive filmmaker Michael Moore called on President Biden to use his remaining time in office to enact a host of liberal policies "with a simple stroke or two of your presidential pen."  "Some people are now calling you a 'lame duck' president — but then it occurred to me today:  You're not done," Moore wrote.  "You've still got 100 days left in office!"  "You don't answer to anyone," he added.  "For the first time in over 50 years, you don't have to campaign for anything.  You are the opposite of lame, Joe.  And you are not a duck."  "The Supreme Court has just granted you super powers — AND immunity!" Moore wrote, mocking the July Supreme Court decision that found a president is immune from prosecution for official acts.

A brutalist regime dies in absurdity, illogic, and circus animals passing for leaders.  The disaster in North Carolina continues to instruct, the primary take-away being that the government is malignant beyond our imagination and people are going to have to save themselves.  The Appalachias are filled with the most degraded and outcast of human ethnic groups [...] and all of them vote, over and over again, for not-socialist-oppression because the State sends its stupidest most heartless crusader lefties to "help" Appalachia, and then allows vulture-corporations to ride roughshod.  Appalachia is rich we have found out, in not just coal, but the power for a new century, with lithium and quartz crystal.  The day after the hurricane hit, industry was pulling permits, humans and villages having conveniently vanished.  The muggles bray about climate change; real people are looking hard at geoengineering and just what "tools" the National Security State is using on us.  What is HAARP up to?  What [...] are they doing at CERN?  The rumors are persistent and everywhere.  There is no suppressing the truth; too many scientists are out there, like Ross Perot in 1991, with charts and graphs and basic physics explaining for anyone listening.  We know government and corporations are in so much debt, they will kill to pay it down.

DOD's Kathleen Hicks issues new directive authorizing military to use 'lethal force' when assisting local law enforcement in its operations.  Kathleen Hicks is the Deputy Secretary of Defense, or Lloyd Austin's right-hand gal, and on September 27, the agency issued a new directive, approved by Hicks, that authorized U.S. military personnel to use "lethal force" when "assisting" local law enforcement in its operations.  Hopefully your local police chief isn't corrupt, and your sheriff isn't a George Soros purchase! [...] So what does it look like when militarized federal agents get involved in matters of local law enforcement?  Well, Ruby Ridge and Waco, to name a few.

New 'Transparency' Act Forces Small Businesses To Register Personal Data With Federal Law Enforcement.  The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is an aggressive domestic program to federally register millions of unsuspecting small business owners under the guise of an "anti-money laundering initiative."  By the end of this year, Americans will be required to hand over their small businesses' private data — such as owners' names and home addresses — to the federal government's law enforcement database, operated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), housed under the Department of the Treasury.  Such small businesses include limited liability companies, corporations, "and any other entities created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office in the United States."  They will also be required to turn over personal data, which can include uploading their driver's license, passport, marriage certificate, and other non-business related information, into this law enforcement database.  This needs to be a front and center campaign issue to protect more than 33 million small business owners, who employ 61 million Americans.

Postbellum, not Antebellum. This election will be rigged, is being rigged as citizens wait to vote, so we know, or should know, by history, what electing Kamala Harris would be:  an end to the old republic and in much more heinous and terrible ways than ever before.  She has made it clear that ending the constitutional protections of the individual is her goal and by winning the election she would have a mandate to do so.  As the Vice President, however ungainly obtained, she would be able to move into the Oval Office immediately, retain all secretaries in their positions and proceed with the rape of the nation apace.

Is 2024 America's Last Election?  More Americans are awakening to the warnings of Elon Musk.  In a speech at Trump's triumphant return to Butler, Pennsylvania, Musk unequivocally stated: "President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution.  He must win to preserve America."  Over the past month Musk has repeatedly posted: "If Trump is not elected, this will be the last election."  These statements are not hyperbole, but grim reality.  Elon Musk, as do many naturalized legal immigrants, understands that the United States is unique among all nations past and present and that in 2024 America is sitting precariously on the edge of a precipice.  If the ever-growing legion of Marxists in the ruling class and their subsidiary, the Democrat Party, were to prevail again in 2024, this cabal, with their disdain for their fellow citizens, will irrevocably transform this nation into a despotic one-party socialist oligarchy and make certain that future elections will be meaningless.

Devils Prey On Angels.  The government, especially the federal government, is a bully.  Their bluff and bluster is an illusion that only works on the peaceful and law-abiding, who are inclined to do the reasonable thing and would do so in the absence of any government at all. [...] That is, until they witness for themselves the hostility of their own government, the heartlessness of it, the outright contempt their paid servants exhibit.  It gets worse as they watch, stunned, shamed by their actions.  [T]hey see their fellow citizens martyred in the most horrific ways, stranded on rooftops, children wandering aimless crying out for missing parents, with all rescue flights grounded, as if to starve and dehydrate them out of existence.  Rumors suggest the government wants them dead, to confiscate the land for lithium that abounds there and pure crystal; things needed for battery and chip manufacturing; things that help satisfy their zero-emission narratives required to enslave the people in a power-starved future.  Are they really that evil, their neighbors, their teachers, their fellow citizens?  The answer is in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, where they've exposed their hatreds and made unwilling martyrs of one's neighbors, friends and family members; treated them like debris to be bulldozed out of the way, with troops frozen on the ground, helicopters sitting idle and those who seek to help threatened and their supplies stolen.  For what purpose, other than to deny life-saving supplies to the stranded?  This is the level of hatred they have for those not willing to accept their version of "democracy" which is spelled "communism."

Are We All Criminals Now?  In other words, there has to be a moment when citizens accept that the State sees them as common criminals.  The price for speaking our minds will not stop with censorship.  It will not stop with de-banking.  It will not stop with professional blacklisting.  It will not stop with the J6 political prisoners.  It will not stop with all the Republican attorneys who have been disbarred and prosecuted for fighting election fraud.  It will not stop with the DOJ's efforts to imprison President Trump.  It will not stop with all the servicemembers whose military careers came to an end because they refused to submit to the government's experimental "vaccines."  Like a loose thread coming undone, the State will continue to yank at our freedoms until we are left naked.

Helene and the totalitarian urge.  Before Hurricane Helene hit, the Chief of the Okeechobee.  FL Police Department, Donald Hagan, issued a declaration which, among other things, banned the sale of guns and ammo, and restricted gun possession to the police and military.  Thankfully, Americans were outraged, Hagan went into hiding and police and city officials quickly backpedaled.  The ban was apparently never enforced.  One suspects gun and ammo sales increased just to figuratively spit in Hagan's eye.  Americans are like that.  [Tweet]  Why would anyone think to ban guns during a natural disaster?  For public safety?  Denying the public the means to protect themselves when every public institution has broken down makes them safer?  Who thinks that way?  Government officials too full of themselves and too impressed with their own power.

You Are Not Safe From Your Own Government.  Your government has gone after parents, Christians, conservatives, and more, and in various ways meant to intimidate, threaten, and silence them.  Our government has attempted to create entire departments whose sole purpose is to quell free speech.  They recently attempted to infuse the IRS with billions and billions of dollars, most of which was meant to boost its "enforcement" capabilities.  This is the government that attempted to coerce and intimidate you into injecting yourself with an unproven vaccine that did, in fact, harm a lot of people.  This is the same government that, even now, makes stripping you of your Second Amendment rights one of its priorities.  This is the same government that, as I write this, is importing dangerous illegals from south of the border and dropping them off in American neighborhoods.  None of this that I'm saying now is hyperbolic.  It's actually happening.

Canada is fining the Amish $300,000 for not downloading a COVID app.  A month ago, news broke that, up in Canada, Justin Trudeau's government is fining the Amish community $300,000 ($222,660 American dollars).  Their crime?  They didn't download the government's COVID app.  The twist, of course, is that the Amish don't have smartphones.  They eschew all modern technology.  This story has made almost no headlines, but it's important because it's a preview of coming attractions if Kamala becomes president.  This is what leftists do.  Acting for your own good, they destroy you.  As anyone who has watched either Witness or Weird Al Yankovich's brilliant Amish Paradise knows, the Amish lifestyle does not embrace modernity.  To hark back to another American pop culture moment, the Amish have "no phone, no lights, no motor car, not a single luxury.  Like Robinson Crusoe, it's primitive as can be."  This is not because the Amish are victims.  They have embraced a lifestyle of pre-modern simplicity because their faith calls upon them to live this way.  However, in Canada, religious beliefs are not a defense against a massively overreaching government.

Walz Education Appointee Calls for the Overthrow of the U.S..  Brian Lozenski, an associate professor of urban and multicultural education at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., was appointed by Governor Tim Walz's state education department to help write the statewide "implementation framework" (similar to a curriculum) for Minnesota's new "ethnic studies" standards.  It now emerges that Lozenski has called for the "overthrow" of the United States.  Lozenski is no outlier.  On the contrary, he has been the leading voice advocating the addition of a radical version of "ethnic studies" to Minnesota's social-studies standards (citizenship and government, economics, geography, history, and now ethnic studies).  Lozenski is also the key organizer and thought leader for the radical leftist advocacy groups that Governor Walz has effectively put in charge of rewriting Minnesota's social-studies standards.  While Lozenski's call for the overthrow of the United States is the clearest expression of his radical stance to date, it's hardly surprising.

Making a House seat an inheritance.  [Scroll down]  It is impossible to imagine the unthinkable because once you've imagined it, it becomes thinkable.  But the phrase reflects the sloppy thinking behind this effort.  The [Washington] Post said, "To address such a scenario, these four House members — two Republicans and two Democrats — are pushing an unlikely solution: a constitutional amendment that would allow members to be replaced quickly in the event of a mass-casualty event.  "In addition to ensuring uninterrupted representation for constituents, the amendment would discourage attempts to use violence to sway the balance of power in the House."  So the problem according to the newspaper is that a bunch of congressmen die and the House speakership changes.  Congress says the only solution is to let incumbent congressmen pick their successor.  Obviously, we cannot wait and hold funerals and let voters choose the replacement.  No, no, no.  We must allow the officeholder to pass the public office to his heir.

A Note to the Temporary Oppressors.  [Scroll down]  Let me be clear, anyone in government, or otherwise coerced by it, who seek to silence or punish free speech, free thought or free association are guilty of 18 U.S. Code 241 Conspiracy against rights, which states:  [Text omitted for brevity.]  This is what I think of when I see videos of a sheriff's deputy standing behind two federal agents at a person's door wanting to talk to them about a social media post.  The very act of a police organization, federal, state or local inquiring about an exercise of free speech is by definition intimidation.  Any social media site who censor's an act of free speech is likewise a conspirator.  To me, the response should be to look at the deputy and inquire if he is part of the conspiracy or if he's going to take the offenders into custody as the crime was committed in his presence.  Get names, badge numbers and be willing to file charges on the spot.

An Active X User Is Visited By The Feds Over Social Media Posts, They Refuse To Indentify Themselves Before Being Forced To Leave.  A man filmed two U.S. federal agents as they approached him to ask about posts he'd made on social media, leading to them being publicly shamed for targeting a First Amendment-protected activity.  In a viral video, X user Jeremy Kauffman filmed as two plain-clothes agents approached his front porch requesting he not film them, as the citizen asked for their full names while notifying them he intended to post the interaction online.  After appearing thoroughly embarrassed, the agents eventually departed while the man chided them, saying, "You know Americans that believe in the Constitution think you're laughable.  You go home and you think about what you did today.  Go home and think about it.  You coward."  It's unclear what social media post prompted the visit.  [Video clip]

The Right to Bear Memes.  January 27, 2021, was an ordinary morning that turned into a nightmare when FBI agents rolled up at my doorstep at 7 am.  Before I knew it, I was facing the reality of a funny joke on social media spiraling into a fight for my life.  I'm Doug Mackey, better known to some by my old online persona, 'Ricky Vaughn', and for the past three-and-a-half years I have been prosecuted for 'election interference' after posting a satirical meme in November 2016 about voting by text.  The case against me was never just about a meme; it was a test case to see just how far the regime could push a lawfare scheme aimed at silencing political dissent and free speech.  Last week, the UK government pushed the same idea even further, handing out lengthy prison sentences for posts on social media that draw attention to the consequences of UK policies of mass migration.  In the USA, I was patient zero.  Later, the Biden/Harris DOJ used the precedent of my example to go after pro-life campaigners and even President Trump.

Casualties of the Replacement.  This is a new phase, an evolution in the attempted conquest of the United States.  Whole revolutions are made up of small battles that indicate the general direction of the war.  The unmistakable loss of control of their illegal pets is just one small indication that they hold a slim leash on them.  Having been brought in, paid and allowed to establish their gangs here with some future promise of orders, they might not care about those orders, who they come from or what they're expected to do.  This was quite foreseeable, inevitable, and to some degree the parents of this chaos, the DOJ and DHS, aren't bothered by it.  It's incidental to what they've proposed for either directly before or after the election.  The fact that they have not one care about the safety or security of the people is astounding in itself and condemns all who have allowed the outlaw regime to continue to a charge of treason.

In Scotland, You Can Be Thrown In Prison For 7 Years If You Misgender Someone.  The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.  The maximum penalty is a prison sentence of seven years.  A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, "that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive," with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the protected characteristics.  [Video clip]

Harris Wants to Take All Freedoms Away.  Free speech is under attack across the globe.  Last week, a Brazilian judge shut down X for refusing to obey government censorship demands; France arrested Pavel Durov, CEO of the unregulated app Telegram; and a Hong Kong court convicted two journalists of sedition for publishing material critical of the government.  The U.S. is the next front in the battle over free speech.  Voters here must decide if they want the government to limit what they can hear and read, the scientific information they can get, and the political views they're exposed to.  That's Vice President Kamala Harris' definition of "freedom."  Harris claims she's campaigning for freedom, but her track record shows she's the enemy of the most important freedom: free speech.  She uses government power to muzzle those who disagree with her.

Left Wants Another American Revolution.  [Scroll down]  Their real issue is that the Constitution, and especially its first 10 amendments — referred to as the Bill of Rights — places restrictions on the government in favor of the people, rather than the government restricting the people.  They want to restrict what cars we drive, where and how we live, what we eat, how we prepare our meals and wash the dishes.  Progressives even want to restrict our speech — what we may and may not say — despite the clear language of the First Amendment, and deny us the private ownership of firearms, despite the clear language of the Second Amendment.  And to make sure we're living by their rules and restrictions, they want to be able to search our homes without a warrant, in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.  Police and national guardsmen did exactly that after Hurricane Katrina.  They marched en masse, going door-to-door with weapons drawn in Democratic Party-run New Orleans and Democratic Party-run Louisiana, to seize privately-owned firearms.  Citizens were kept in handcuffs outside their homes while their property was being searched.  This video is frightening — you can't believe this happened in America.  Afterwards the National Rifle Association had to actually sue the city and the state on behalf of the gun owners for the return of their legally held weapons.  That's exactly how fragile our rights are, even with the Constitution in place.

Elon Musk, RFK claim Kamala Harris wants to shut down X unless site conforms to government oversight.  X owner Elon Musk and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed on social media that Vice President Kamala Harris would want to "shut down" X if it can't be made to conform to government oversight.  The two figures backing former President Trump shared a clip from an interview Harris had with CNN in 2019 after a Democratic presidential primary debate, where she blasted social media sites for "directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight and regulation," something she said "has to stop."  "Translation:  If they don't police content to conform to government-approved narratives, they will be shut down," Kennedy said, characterizing Harris' statements from the five-year-old clip.

Brazil's ban on X is a taste of things to come.  X, the social-media giant owned by Elon Musk, has officially been banned in Brazil.  Last night, X failed to meet a deadline set by a Supreme Court judge to block vast swathes of content and appoint a local legal representative for the company.  It has now gone offline to its 22 million Brazilian users — roughly one tenth of the national population.  The Brazilian elites loathe X for precisely the same reason as the elites across the rest of the democratic world do — they blame it for the spread of so-called disinformation, particularly since it was taken over by Musk and its content-moderation policies were relaxed.  Just as disinformation has been blamed for Brexit in the UK and Trump's election in the US, it is blamed in Brazil for the 2018 election of right-wing firebrand Jair Bolsonaro — and especially for his supporters' storming of the Brazilian congress in 2023 after he failed to win re-election (a kind of 'January 6' tribute act).  Essentially, elites believe that fake news, by boosting populist movements, poses a direct challenge to their rule.

Daddy Government Is Afraid of His Rebellious Children.  Dictatorships, monarchies, and constitutional republics, it seems, all love to turn their rulers into daddy and mommy figures.  Why wouldn't they?  There is a great deal of perceived authority and omniscience ascribed to parents.  Who else could get away with answering, "Why should I do that?" with this one-two punch:  because I'm your mother, and I said so.  That's the kind of power that governments adore.  How come we have to change our doctors and embrace socialized medicine?  Barack:  because I said so.  Why can't we talk about mail-in-ballot fraud and stolen elections?  Pelosi's J6 committee:  because we said so.  Why can't we exercise free speech and engage in vigorous debate?  Disinformation Governance Board:  because we said so.  Why can't we enforce existing immigration law and secure America's borders?  D.C.'s Uniparty and corporate paymasters:  because we said so.  Why should we elect an unlikable and incompetent politician just because she's a woman?  Hillary and Kamala:  because we said so.

The World Just Took A Giant Leap Toward Totalitarianism.  The world took a giant leap forward into totalitarianism yesterday as the Brazilian government blocked X, formerly Twitter, and threatened to fine its citizens $8,900 per day if they use it.  Brazil, the world's sixth largest nation by population, now joins North Korea, China, and Iran in the list of countries that have banned X.  It is the 12th largest economy in the world and the superpower of the global South.  It doesn't matter whether or not you care about Brazil.  Its totalitarianism is at risk of spreading around the world.  Yet neither President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, nor anyone else in the US government has formally denounced the censorship.  That's probably because Biden, Harris, and Democrats not only support the censorship but have also been directly funding it.  [Video clip]

Federal judge backs school:  Student cannot wear 'Let's Go Brandon' hoodie.  A federal judge has sided with a Michigan school district in that it was right to order a student to remove a hoodie with the phrase "Let's Go Brandon!" on it.  "Le's [sic] Go Brandon" (in)famously came about in October of 2022 after NASCAR driver Brandon Brown won his first race. [...] According to Jonathan Turley's blog, plaintiff "D.A.," a student at Tri County Middle School, was told last spring by Assistant Principal Andrew Buikema (pictured) and teacher Wendy Bradford to take off his "Let's Go Brandon!" hoodie as it violated school dress code.

Switzerland: The End of Free Speech.  While all eyes are on the U.K. at the moment due to their Orwellian crack down on freedom of expression — to the point of jailing people for memes and stickers — and on France as we await more information on Pavel Durov's arrest, free speech is under unprecedented attack in Switzerland as well.  A friend of mine, who goes by the pseudonym "Barbouille" on X, has just been fined the hefty amount of CHF 4'800, approx $5'700 — for a tweet.  His crime?  Calling out the indoctrination of children being taught what LGBTQI... stands for in a classroom, under a video posted by another account on March 24, 2023. [...] Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated case.  One man based in Bern, "Mr. Bern" (for the purpose of this article), was also ordered to pay a hefty fine for the "crime" of posting a comment critical of the LGBTQ+ doctrine on Facebook.  Responding to post by a member of our National Council, Andreas Glamer, Mr. Bern wrote (translated from German):  "If you dig up the LGBTQI after 200 years, you will only find men and women based on the skeletons.  Everything else is a mental illness that has been brought up through the curriculum!"  This comment landed him directly at the cantonal police of Bern station, where he was interrogated by officials for "discrimination and incitement to hatred" according to the same art. 261bis.

The Last Election Before the War.  This election, if seen for what it is, is an expression of wills.  It's a choice of regular order or communist rule.  Since the pandemic, we've seen the private armies of the globalists, our police forces and sheriff's offices, impose rules and dictates sent down from on high.  These were not laws and they were not acting lawfully.  We have suffered the surveillance, the monitoring of our actions, the visits by the secret police concerning social media posts.  We have seen censorship for our views that were ultimately proven true, not the misguided, antigovernment screeds they were proclaimed by a biased and criminally negligent press.  We now see people going to prison here and elsewhere for things they've said, especially when true.  Pavel Durov, CEO of Instagram, has been arrested in France for things other people have said.  These are the dark days of communisms showing themselves in real time, across the globe, so there can be no doubt as to the future under Harris/Obama.

Progressivism Makes the World Smaller, In A Bad Way.  There are people in prison right now just for posting memes, or simply for being in the vicinity of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. We've all seen the stories.  But at least, as of now, we still have the thinnest veneer of a Constitution to protect us, though, clearly, if it rests in the hands of a progressive judge, all is lost.  How tragic that you have to hope you get a non-progressive judge to have even a prayer of a fair trial.  We can thank Mitch McConnell and our garbage Senate Republicans for gaveling through dozens upon dozens of judicial nominees when Obama was president for the current spate of tyranny on the bench.  And why did the Republicans do it?  All in the name of "governing."  We should just call "governing" what it is:  Uniparty capitulation to corruption.  That's what "governing" is nowadays.

The death of free speech in Britain.  In Michel Houellebecq's satirical novel Soumission, the French elite submits to Islamic rule rather than accept a National Front government.  Nine years after its publication, submission seems more imminent on this side of the English Channel.  My American friends are surprised to learn there's no equivalent to the First Amendment in Britain.  They have forgotten a free press was one of the things their ancestors rebelled to establish in the US.  Free speech is a much more recent thing in the UK.  If it was born in the 1960s, it seems to be dying in the 2020s.  After the recent riots, people were given prison sentences for posting words and images on social media.  In some cases, the illegal incitement to violence was obvious.  Julie Sweeney, 53, got a 15-month sentence for a Facebook comment: 'Blow the mosque up with the adults in it.'  Lee Dunn, 51, on the other hand, got eight weeks for sharing three images of Asian-looking men with captions such as 'Coming to a town near you'.

Garland Makes An Example Of J6 Protesters To Shut Up Anyone Else Who Might Question Elections.  Attorney General Merrick Garland boasted on Friday how his office has prosecuted nearly 1,500 Americans for protesting the 2020 election, warning others they may face similar lawfare should they raise any concerns about the administration of the upcoming November election.  Speaking at a press briefing, Garland essentially said the Jan. 6 prosecutions should serve to remind Americans what happens if they raise questions about an election.  "I think our prosecutions have made clear what we think about people who try to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, which is [an] essential and fundamental element of our democracy.  A quibble about whether we have 1,500 or slightly less than 1,500 — but we have way more than 1400 now — prosecutions.  We have a substantial number of convictions," Garland boasted.

Telegram Founder's Arrest Signals Dangerous Times for Online Free Speech.  Picture this:  A tech billionaire, who's made his fortune building a platform that prioritizes privacy and free speech, is arrested at a Paris airport.  Sounds like the plot of a dystopian thriller, right?  Except it's real life.  Pavel Durov, the brain behind Telegram, found himself in handcuffs at Le Bourget airport over the weekend, marking another dark chapter in the ongoing war against free speech.  What's Durov's crime, you ask?  Well, it depends on which bureaucrat you ask.  According to the official indictment, he's guilty of everything short of kicking puppies — fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, encouraging terrorism, and, just for good measure, "cyberbullying."  The French authorities must have felt ambitious that day, throwing in the entire criminal code just to be sure.  Let's not forget that this whole circus started because Durov reportedly had the support free speech.  Apparently, in 2024, that's enough to get you a one-way ticket to a Parisian jail cell.  Durov's detention has been extended by 96 hours.  Because, you know, it takes a while to figure out which of these ludicrous charges will stick when the real crime was defending free speech.

French President Macron Says Arrest of Telegram CEO is Not Political (Yes, it is).  Within the larger Western Intelligence Community and government control system overall, there is always internal communication and coordination amid the primary players (the G7 and G20 crowd).  No government does anything against a major communication player or Big Tech voice without the other governmental leaders having fore knowledge.  The U.S State Dept and Biden administration knew the French government were going to arrest Pavel Durov.  The context and the issues behind the justification are ridiculous.  Is Tim Cook now responsible for criminals who organize bank robberies on Apple iPhones?

Everyone Hates Fascism Except the Government.  Another way to think of this is to ask a simple question:  what is the greatest threat to any political system?  Is it the threat of foreign invasion?  Economic depression?  Disease?  Of course not.  It is the possibility that those controlled by the system will overthrow those doing the controlling.  Every government in the world — communist dictatorship, theocratic regime, or so-called constitutional republic — claims to be working for the people.  But when the "elites" of those governments speak behind closed doors, their efforts are directed toward subduing the people.  Governments invest in the illusion that their power is limitless and that the people have no other choice but to obey.  Whenever common people recognize that they are the ones with inherent power, the government's illusion of control is shattered, the system is upended, and a new era with novel organizing principles arrives.

In England:
Silent prayer could soon become a crime.  The previous UK government's record on free speech was unimpressive, but at least some of its ministers had the right instincts.  In a short seven weeks, the new Labour government has already trashed the Conservatives' Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 and given a post-riots nod and wink to the police and CPS to make examples of those posting their hateful views online.  As if that wasn't bad enough, home secretary Yvette Cooper now intends to make buffer zones around abortion clinics even more restrictive.  Last year, MPs forced through an amendment to the Public Order Act 2023 to add Section 9.  This banned any act within 150 metres of an abortion clinic that might influence a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy.  Though aimed at putting an end to the noisy religious demonstrations that had become a feature outside clinics, the law went way beyond this.

Also in England:
Britain, Which Birthed American Ideas About Liberty, Has Embraced Despotism.  Seeking to curtail what it claims is misinformation and incitement, the government warned the British citizenry, "You may be committing a crime if you repost, repeat or amplify a message which is false, threatening, or stirs up racial / religious hatred."  They also warned potential anti-immigration protesters, "We're watching you."  So basically, the government decides what's false, threatening, or hate speech, and if you post anything about it online, you could end up in jail.  And if threatening Brits' freedom of speech wasn't enough, the government threatened online platforms (and Musk) if they allowed prohibited speech.  Nor did the government stop there.  It promised to extradite citizens of other countries if they engage in such prohibited online speech, even if not in Britain at the time.  And because there's not enough room in British jails to hold all of these anti-immigration "racists," the government plans to release 5,000 criminals from jail to make room for those guilty of "wrongthink."  While the Tories are responsible for the unfettered immigration over the last three decades, July's election, which put Labour in power, represented a leap in transforming Britain into a tyranny.  A free Britain, which took over 1,000 years to evolve, essentially became a Stalinist police state in less than two months.

Europe's plot to regulate political speech in America.  Eighty years ago, the U.S. government launched a war bond campaign featuring a painting by artist Norman Rockwell in the struggle against the authoritarian threat from Europe.  The picture they chose was Rockwell's Freedom of Speech depicting a man rising to speak his mind at a local council meeting in Vermont.  The image rallied the nation around what Louis Brandeis called our "indispensable right."  Now, that very right is again under attack from another European government, which is claiming the right to censor what Americans are allowed to say about politics, science and other subjects.  Indeed, the threat from the European Union may succeed in curtailing American freedom to an extent that the Axis powers could not have imagined.  They may win, and our leaders have not said a thing yet about it.

Government, in a rout.  For example, in the U.K., it is now apparently illegal to speak out against illegals, or to question mass immigration at all.  An elderly man was recently arrested for making "improper" comments on his Facebook page.  Going forward, if someone is even "remotely involved," whatever that means, they could be dragged before a court.  In recent years, citizens have been arrested for distributing flyers questioning the efficacy of coronavirus vaccines and silently praying outside of an abortion clinic. [...] Australians — and others — will likely soon have to utilize a digital ID before being allowed to access the internet.  That would make it much easier to police speech.  In France, police recently arrested several Christians... for protesting attacks on Christians.  Ironically, the six were members of a group that dared to traverse the streets of Paris in a bus sporting a sign saying "Stop Attacks On Christians." [...] And, in America, the government has tried time and again to silence its political opposition, going so far as jailing those who had the audacity to be in the vicinity of "The People's House" on Jan. 6.

Senegalese EU Kommissar Threatens Elon Musk.  Before I comment further, I ask you to take a look at Thierry Breton's X Bio, and ask yourselves whether he looks normal to you? [...] What?  Interviewing the former President of the United States risks the "amplification of potentially harmful content" says the mealy-faced Brussels weirdo?  Who is he?  He goes on to threaten Musk in a truly sinister and Orwellian letter which was obviously written with vast input from lavishly paid EU lawyers.  [This is followed by an unflattering biography of Thierry Breton.]

Will Democrats Repeat the Fraud of 2020?  A recent joint CISA and FBI press release warned of potential "attacks on election infrastructure that support election operations, which could hinder public access to election information."  This was immediately followed by assurances that these attacks would "not impact the security or integrity of election processes."  Essentially, the same FBI that raided President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and recently cast doubt on whether he was actually shot is now telling us that, although we may not have live access to election night results — an unprecedented situation in American history, especially just four years after a highly controversial election — we can trust the results whenever they eventually appear on our television sets without question.

The London police commissioner is out here threatening to extradite and imprison people in other countries for hate speech.  It's no secret that England now has entire departments dedicated to scanning social media for "hate speech" so they can imprison their citizens. [...] Here's the London police commissioner threatening the entire world that if you break English law on social media, they will extradite and imprison you.  [Tweet with video clip]

Here comes the free speech crackdown — which we must resist.  "One of the most dangerous trends of our times", said American writer Thomas Sowell, "is making the truth socially unacceptable, or even illegal, with 'hate speech' laws".  And this is exactly what is taking place in Britain.  Ever since the riots and protests erupted on Britain's streets, I've argued consistently, much like Labour and liberals argued during the Black Lives Matter protests, in 2020, that we need to address the root cause.  But this is not what Keir Starmer and the Labour government are saying.  Instead, much like we saw when a radical Islamist murdered Sir David Amess, when what should have been a national debate about how to squash radical Islamism turned into an utterly bizarre debate about "online safety", Labour and the elite class are using the unrest to launch a further crackdown on free speech and, ultimately, democracy.

The Disaster Lottery.  The system now, especially since the enactment of the Patriot Act, that can be used to label anyone a terrorist and subject them to any amount of horrors dreamed up by the blue-suited tyrants, is designed to suppress the one legitimate means of expressing discontent left, the protest.  It is, as always before in human history, the interest of the government to stifle and deter criticism at all costs.  It didn't work very well in early America, but it has been refined and with the ubiquitous surveillance state, much more efficient.  So, what is left?  Revolution, or in this case, counter-revolution.  The actual revolution was a slow-moving, incremental imposition and deprivation of rights over an extended period of time during which the courts fiddled with definitions of clear and plain words to mean the exact opposite.  Bravo, it's a feat of self-deception that will stand for centuries as an example of governmental lunacy.

Britain Is Now a Totalitarian State.  We can safely declare, without exaggeration or hyperbole, that Britain is now a totalitarian state.  The ruling machine may not yet have the absolute control that Stalin did, but it's not for lack of trying.  The British government's hysterical Chicken Little response to online support for this past week's rioting is proof enough for anyone paying attention that it attaches no value whatsoever to Western principles like freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.  Here's a video of an elderly man being arrested in his home for "improper use" of social media for "some comments that [he] made" on his Facebook page.  The two Stasi thugs masquerading as police officers are doing the dirty work for a government that, not too long ago, declared that "just following orders" was not an excuse for human rights violations.  And yet...  This is where Britain is now, and if there's a definition for it other than "totalitarian," I'm open for suggestions.

Video Shows How Scary A Place North Korea Is — Just Kidding, This Is The UK.  When dozens of Muslims raped over one thousand underaged British girls, no cops were on the case.  When thousands rioted during BLM violence, the UK police went after white Brits with British flags and Jews with yamicas.  [Video clip]

Harris/Walz would take away your Free Speech and here's how they would do it.  Elon Musk is a champion for the First Amendment.  Shockingly, even The Atlantic gets it.  It's no exaggeration to assert that Musk saved free speech with X but it remains under attack here and abroad.  There appears to be a worldwide effort to stifle free speech, in Canada and especially in the UK.  This is the state of affairs in Britain today.  There is no First Amendment in the UK and this is the consequence of not having one.  Brits are under attack by their own government for "wrongthink", meaning any opinion divergent from the state position.  And, much like the Russians and the Chinese, they're imprisoning the dissidents.  Fascism reigns.  [Numerous tweets, some with video clips.]

Calling Your Tongue Your Own.  Very scary things are happening in the United Kingdom.  Sir Mark Rowley, Met Police Commissioner, has threatened to jail U.S. citizens over online posts he deems hateful or disinformation.  At the same time, the UK is openly enforcing a two-tier system of justice where antisemitic rioters, pro-jihadi and pro-open borders thugs are given free rein to terrorize citizens, and those who object are beaten and jailed.  One jurist has, in fact, just sentenced someone for being a just a looker-on and even retweets of anything the UK overlords object to subjects one to arrest.  I'm not worried about Rowley's threat because, unlike the UK, the Founders recognized that without free speech citizens have no agency in their own governance.  Recognizing its importance, they made the right to free speech the very First Amendment to the Constitution.  If conduct in the U.S. is not illegal, no extradition request could be honored.  But it is clear that many Democrats, like their autocratic Labour counterparts in the UK, would love to muzzle us and they have put forth untenable definitions of the parameters of this right.

Yucky UK.  U.K. officials do not like dissent.  They do not like free speech.  And they certainly do not like it when ordinary citizens criticize the government.  For these reasons, the authoritarians across the pond caution their domestic serfs: "Think before you post."  Included in that ominous threat is the promise that the Crown will come after anyone for "inciting hatred" online.  What is "hatred"?  Why, that's for government functionaries to decide and for lowly commoners to find out!  In a bit of cowardly arm-twisting meant both to encourage community snitching and to terrify concerned family members, Big Brother underscores its warning with this doozy:  "Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences." [...] Native Brits are upset that foreign nationals are committing crimes, and domestic police officers are using their resources to incarcerate citizens for voicing their concerns.  Violent crime is okay, but denouncing violent crime is not.  How surreal is that?

UK Prepares to Go Full Fascist in Crackdown on Internet.  Labour Party politician Councillor Ricky Jones spoke to a "Peace Rally" on Wednesday and proceeded to call for the killing of "far-right rioters."  [Tweet with video clip] [...] It will soon be illegal to express views against migration in Great Britain.  There have already been several arrests of people who opposed migration online.  Anil Kanti "Neil" Basu, who served as the top counter-terror police officer said anti-migration riots should be treated as "terrorism."  "I think we have seen serious acts of violence designed to cause terror to a section of our community," he told the BBC.  And Prime Minister Keir Starmer made an explicit threat that the age of free speech in England was coming to an end.  The Guardian reports that he said "we're going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder."  Starmer said there would be "sentencing for online behavior" in courts today, and also said "whether you're directly involved or whether you're remotely involved, you're culpable, and you will be put before the court."

The State Is Not Your Friend!  Right now, the United Kingdom is barreling toward totalitarianism.  After a second-generation immigrant reportedly murdered several children in a vicious stabbing attack last week, native Brits took to the streets to denounce their country's criminally dangerous open borders. [...] The problem, according to the ruling Establishment, is not that open border immigration policies have led to marked increases in violent crime and cultural hostility, but rather that ordinary citizens have begun to express their displeasure. [...] This exercise in raw tyranny follows Big Brother's favorite playbook.  First, the government creates a problem that harms ordinary citizens.  Next, authorities pretend that no problem actually exists.  Eventually, citizens are forced to take matters into their own hands.  Finally, the government uses public outrage as an excuse to expand its own powers.

Sky News Warns Brits That Even Sharing Something The Government Doesn't Like Can Land You In The Slammer.  Sky News claims Retweeting could "potentially be a criminal offense" in the UK.  [Video clip]

The British Government Is Paying Farmers To Kill Their Crops.  If it seems the Governments of the world are trying to kill their own populations, it's most likely true.  [Video clip]

This is how we fall to tyranny.  [Scroll down]  If the government has the authority to restrict "intimidating," or "threatening" speech, how long before they decided criticism of the government or certain approved parties counts regardless of what that speech actually is?  We've seen plenty of people refer to being bullied, threatened, attacked, and a host of other things because they spoke publicly and were criticized for it.  Giving the government power over who can say what to any degree is a recipe for disaster.  But these people actually want this.  Granted, it's a third as opposed to two-thirds or anything like that, but anything more than three people is alarming.  And the idea that more than half think the First Amendment goes too far in any manner is even more disturbing.

The Democrat Party is the Greatest Threat to America.  The greatest threat to the survival of the United States as founded is not offshore but within its borders:  the Democrat Party controlled by the Obama-led Marxist faction.  Indicative of this dominance are the machinations surrounding the 2020 and the 2024 elections, which has brought this wing of the party to the final stages of achieving its long-term goal of transforming America into a one-party socialist oligarchy.  The American Left has long understood that in order to transform the United States, they would have to control one of two major political parties.  The Left-leaning Democrat Party, thanks to the socialist sympathies of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, was the obvious target.  The turmoil of the 1960s allowed the Marxists to accelerate this process as they focused on brazenly infiltrating the higher-education establishment.  By the 1990s they succeeded in dominating this vital societal institution and turning out legions of Marxist/socialist sympathizers to permeate the media and entertainment complex as well as their ultimate target — the Democrat Party.

Washington DC family lose custody of their autistic son, 16, after refusing to let him transition to a girl.  A military family who lost custody of their autistic son after they refused to transition his gender are suing a major DC hospital.  The family said their boy had never shown any desire to become a girl until, at 16, he was hospitalized for self-harming after a bitter breakup with his girlfriend in 2021.  Staff at Children's National Hospital informed the family that he wanted to be female and should be referred to using she/her pronouns going forward, the suit claims.

Four factions vying for control of America.  [Scroll down]  The third faction is exemplified by the fifty-one intelligence agency heads who signed a letter falsely insinuating that Trump is the favored candidate of the Russian dictatorship.  They successfully deceived much of the voting public in the 2020 election and are credited with handing Biden the White House.  Because they operate in secret, the intelligence agencies (which include the FBI and the CIA) have enormous powers, both constitutional and otherwise.  As Democrat Chuck Schumer famously warned, if you cross the agencies, they have "six ways from Sunday" of getting you.  It is not an idle threat.  The intelligence agencies have lethal weapons at their disposal, and they operate with impunity when their self-interest is credibly threatened.  It is no mere conspiracy theory to characterize them as the puppeteers of government.  Make no mistake:  the dark state will not tolerate any serious imposition on its power.  None.

Court Orders City to Pay Woman Over $31,000 After She Was Punished for Controversial Election Sign.  The city of Lakeland, Tennessee, fined a woman for a political sign she placed on her lawn in the middle of January.  Now, the city is the one paying her, to the tune of $31,000.  When Julie Pereira first placed the sign on her lawn in the middle of January, she was trying to send a nonpartisan message to both major U.S. political parties:  She didn't like their candidates, WMC-TV reported.

Terrorist attacks in America: just a matter of time?  [Scroll down]  In the meantime the FBI is busy harassing Americans who dare to blow the whistle about DEI madness and incompetence in the FBI, and the FBI and DHS are always busy pursuing religious Americans, Trump supporters and Americans who are serving or have served in the military.  Why would our national security apparatus be after them?  Why, they're the most dangerous domestic terrorist risks!  Shouldn't that be obvious?  The priorities of those charged with keeping Americans safe are equally obvious.  [Tweet]

US Army Base Holds Training Class Calling Pro-Life Orgs 'Terrorist Groups'.  A U.S. Army base in North Carolina previously held a training class in which pro-life organizations were described explicitly as "terrorist groups."  The training class included a presentation that featured a slide deck listing the pro-life groups National Right to Life and Operation Rescue as terrorist organizations at Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, the Fort confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.  The Fort condemned the slides on Thursday and claimed that the deck was put together by a garrison employee who was not authorized to use them for the presentation.

Stand up for Steve Bannon lest it be you next.  On July 1, 2024, the US detained its most prominent political prisoner; its most obvious political prisoner probably since the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in World War 2.  [Advertisement]  On July 1 2024, podcaster, entrepreneur, former Navy officer, and political advisor to President Trump, Stephen K Bannon, "surrendered," in his words, to authorities, to begin serving four months' incarceration at Danbury Federal Prison.  FCI — Federal Correctional Institution - Danbury, in Danbury, Connecticut, is a serious prison.  The handbook, which all inmates receive, reveals a range of minute restrictions on liberty, and even on any adult decision-making, that characterizes strict incarceration.  [Advertisement]  Stephen K. Bannon, now one of the loudest and most powerful dissident voices in America in our time, will have no access at all to the internet, according to FCI Danbury inmates' handbook.  Could that one condition alone be the actual end-goal of this sentence, so assiduously sought?

Orwell Hits The Highway:  Starting This Month Cars In Britain Will Have "Speed Limiters".  It's bad enough cars are all basically equipped with GPS homing devices — and some now even with driver-facing cameras that can monitor you while you drive — but now some vehicles in Britain are being equipped with "speed limiters".  Starting Sunday, July 7, 2024, all new vehicles in the EU must be equipped with Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems due to a new safety regulation, according to the Daily Mail.  Although this law doesn't apply in Britain, most vehicles sold in the UK will still have the speed-limiting technology installed by manufacturers.  As the Daily Mail explains, Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology can automatically restrict a vehicle's speed using GPS, satellite navigation, and speed-sign recognition cameras.  If the vehicle exceeds the speed limit, ISA reduces engine power to comply with the legal limit.

Cast Away Illusions and Prepare for Struggle.  The hour is already very late.  We are ruled by a regime that deeply hates and fears the bulk of its own people, and is demonstrably willing to do whatever it takes to retain power.  A regime that characterizes its political opposition as "extremists" and "domestic terrorists," and uses its security services to surveil and intimidate even the most ordinary dissenting citizens, treating them as enemies of the state.  One that wields the law as a weapon, flagrantly showcasing a two-tier legal system as it routinely seeks to arrest, humiliate, and destroy its political enemies while shielding its friends and foot soldiers from accountability.  A regime that now holds hundreds of political prisoners.  That has turned the tools of its military counterinsurgency apparatus on its own people.  That colludes with the world's most powerful technology and media companies to establish vast systems of mass censorship, propaganda, and reality distortion.  That has successfully corrupted nearly every public and private institution with a distinctly totalitarian state ideology.

Report: DHS Group Called Being 'Religious' An 'Indicator' Of Domestic Terrorism.  President Joe Biden's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) brainstormed about infiltrating local communities to spy on Americans, and suggested being "religious" or "in the military" was an "indicator of extremists and terrorism," excerpts of documents obtained by America First Legal (AFL) purportedly show.  These excerpts, released Thursday by AFL, purport to show how in 2023, the DHS's newly created "Homeland Intelligence Experts Group" looked for ways to expand their spying on American citizens, including by trying to "get into local communities in a non-threatening way" to get fellow Americans to tattle tale on their neighbors.  The committee, on which John Brennan and James Clapper — both notorious for their participation in the Russia-collusion hoax as well as for falsely claiming Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation — sat, also suggested religious Americans, members of the military, and Trump supporters were possible security threats, according to segments of the documents released by AFL.

We Are Being Pushed Towards Revolution — Niel Oliver & Tucker.  [Video clip only.]

Author Elizabeth Nickson: 'If not stopped, Greens will become the most brutal oppressors & genocidal maniacs in human history'.  [Scroll down]  It'll take a couple of decades, but our world will be a slave state run by criminals, just like my gorgeous province that both sets of paternal great grandparents settled in the 1880's when there were 4,000 people in Vancouver.  They built the water systems, clear cut the neighborhoods, built churches, founded schools and the hospital and made a welcoming city replete with one hundred years of peace and prosperity.  Now, fathers are knifed in front of their children outside of Starbucks, and people lie on streets dying from fentanyl and native women are so desperate they prostitute themselves to serial killers, organ harvesters and slavers.  All that goodness extinguished under violence and greed and, above all, the wilful ignorance of the comfortable.  Many, many cities are experiencing the same and under COP28 it will get worse.  The cartels will pay for everything: science, health care, education, pensions and they will take a piece of each and determine what is allowed to happen.  They will own energy, they will own health, they will own education.  Because our entire culture will have fallen.  No one will make money beyond their pittance, allowance, that makes it possible to buy cheap consumer goods from their slave factories in Asia and Africa.  There will be no independent businesses, there will be no "local" economies.  We will be an enslaved earth.

The State's Best-Kept Secret.  First, some basics:  [#1] We are all under State rule, meaning under the rule of a monopoly of force that most people cherish in principle as a necessary precondition for civilization, however that might be defined.  Monopoly, meaning "single seller," meaning no competition allowed, is regarded as wrong by most people.  Yet it is saluted worldwide when it arrives in the form of a State.  [#2] States extract their funding by force, called taxation. [...] [#3] State rulers, being relatively small in number, need allies, and it acquires these by dispensing favors or issuing often tacit threats. [...] [#4] As they expand, States need more funding than they dare collect with taxes, so they legalize a counterfeiting operation and call it a central bank.  The American public was told a central bank was needed to eliminate those embarrassing Panics of the 19th century and the one in 1907.  So we got one.  Today it's usually called the Fed. [...] As a presidential candidate Ron Paul educated the public in the destructiveness of the federal reserve but the public has gone back to sleep.

The Feds Are Itching to J6 Us Again.  After New York's sham "justice" system procured a ridiculous felony conviction against President Trump, a lot of leftist commentators predicted that his supporters would erupt in violent mayhem.  When MAGA Americans failed to riot in the streets like Antifa goons and pro-Hamas jihadists, it was easy to sense Democrats' disappointment.  Biden's campaign has been desperate for an explosive J6 or Charlottesville incident to use to slander Trump's voters as violent extremists.  MAGA did not take the bait.  This was a wise decision.  Although millions of Americans are deeply offended by the Democrats' lawfare tactics and justifiably worried that prosecutors' political targeting has irreparably damaged the rule of law, they must also avoid stepping into new traps that could jeopardize their freedom.  As the Gestapo FBI and the Democrat-led Deep State become more desperate to rig the 2024 election in Biden's favor, they will seek to create situations that enrage MAGA voters.

FBI housecleaning.  Special Agent candidates are subject to background and security checks proctologists would think excessive.  No one — with the probable exception of diversity hires — becomes an FBI agent without being vetted up one side and down the other.  So why would the FBI open security investigations into people who had already been fully vetted?  Are they investigating people they have reason to believe have betrayed the United States?  People who have violated their oath of office?  People working for hostile foreign governments — spies?  People who have committed crimes?  No.  They're removing people they consider politically unreliable.  You know, Normal Americans, people who take the Constitution and rule of law seriously, people who think something's wrong when FBI SWAT teams arrest grandmothers at 0500 for praying outside abortion clinics.  They're people who think FBI agents have better things to do than harassing citizens who stood on the grass near the Capital on January 6. Worse, to the FBI's thinking, they're people who might speak up about the unethical and illegal actions of superiors.

In shocking litmus test, FBI security inquiry tried to unmask employee's Trump support, memos show.  FBI officials conducting a top-secret security clearance review for a longtime employee asked witnesses whether that employee was known to support former President Donald Trump, if he had expressed concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine or had attended a Second Amendment rally, according to internal memos that prompted a complaint to the Justice Department's internal watchdog alleging political bias inside the bureau.  The employee's security clearance was revoked months after the interviews, which confirmed his support for Trump and gun rights and his concerns about the COVID vaccine, according to the documents obtained by Just the News.  The memos show that agents for the FBI's Security Division asked at least three witnesses in spring 2022 whether the employee, whose name and job title was redacted from the memos, had been known to "vocalize support for President Trump" or "vocalize objections to Covid-19 vaccination."  Agents ascertained from at least one witness that the worker, in fact, had declined to get the coronavirus inoculation.

Federal court rules conservative kids have no free speech rights.  In a ruling that completely contradicts long standing court rulings that had insisted the first amendment allowed students to wear T-shirts and armbands with whatever political statements they wished, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on June 9, 2024 ruled that a Massachusetts middle school had the right to censor and ban a 12-year-old boy wearing a shirt that said "There are only two genders."  This story is a follow-up of a blacklist story from May 2023.  At that time 12-year-old Liam Morrison was forced to leave Nichols Middle School when he refused to remove his T-shirt that said "There are only two genders."  He later came to class with the T-shirt shown in the picture to the right, with the words "only two" covered with the word "censored."  He was once again sent home, and subsequently his parents sued.

Good and Evil.  For millennia, we in the West have stood for a particular outlook on life.  Longing for freedom, honoring the word (as in oratory and logical proof), and godly at the same time, we have integrated structural elements from Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Jewish worship.  These pillars of Western civilization, as we know it, have now begun to tremble.  Our own world is breaking up under the triadic advance of (a) tyrannical imperialism, (b) Islamic supremacism, and (c) revolutionary totalitarianism.  Apparently, we have to prepare for another world order.  It looks as if we, the heirs of both Western Christianity and the ideas of the Enlightenment, the people of the free world, are about to lose our "unalienable rights".  As things stand, our "life" and "pursuit of happiness", in the words of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, with "liberty" in any meaningful sense being excluded beforehand, may ultimately depend on the benevolence of foreign masters.

Three Reasons There's Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles.  The last thing any government wants is an incident like what happened with the Canadian truckers rebelling against vaccine mandates.  Had the Canadian truckers' vehicles been EVs, the government would have been able to stamp out the resistance much easier.  Here's the bottom line.  The people really in charge do not want the average person to have genuine freedom of movement or access to independent power sources.  They want to know everything, keep you dependent, and have the ability to control everything, just like how a farmer would with his cattle.  They think of you in similar terms.  That's why gasoline vehicles have to go and why they are trying to herd us into EVs.  To summarize, EVs are not green, cannot compete with gas cars without enormous government support, and are probably a crucial piece of the emerging high-tech control grid.  The solution is simple: eliminate all government subsidies and support and let EVs compete on their own merits in a totally free market.  But that's unlikely to happen.

Will All Real Republicans Please Speak Up?  It is a fair question to ask how we got to a condition in this country where one party is using law enforcement, the courts, and intelligence agencies to attack, and in some cases imprison, its political opponents.  The term now used to describe this is "lawfare."  It means the use of law and the court system to both attack and destroy your political opposition.  What cannot be realized at the ballot box can now be achieved through the manipulation of the law.  Little thought seems to have gone into the long-term implications for the respect for law as an institution and what damage this does to the democratic process.  Or more pessimistically, what they are doing is fully understood and the aim is to create a one-party state.  Is this all part of the Obama plan to "fundamentally transform America?"  Yes, we think it is.  Equally galling, is this is largely being done by those most pious about "protecting democracy."

The Global War on Food.  Of all the crazy agendas hitting the news in the last few years, one of the most insane is the war on food.  You'd think, since everyone needs to eat, this critical component of human existence would be exempt from bureaucratic oversight; but no.  Instead, we're being led to believe that food production is somehow evil and must be scaled back for the good of the planet.  After all, control the food and you control the people.

Civil War if Trump Goes to Prison?  [Scroll down]  Accelerationism here is "the goal of hastening the cataclysmic end of economic, political, and social systems so as to more rapidly bring about what is seen as an inevitable end-times collapse." [...] If you want to see real accelerationism in action, all you have to do is look at our southern border.  Joe Biden and the liberal Democrats are paying for mass illegal immigration with taxpayer money.  They want to use the illegal alien surge to add congressional districts in blue states.  They want to make the illegals citizens and allow them to vote.  The idea is to create a perpetual one-party left-wing national government.  This is large-scale social change in a short time frame.

The Hidden Agenda Behind Lockdowns.  [Scroll down]  But some of the more insidious threats to American freedom are moving forward without needing a state of emergency.  The official response to the "climate crisis" offers countless examples.  If ongoing pandemics condemn Americans to recurrent lockdowns (a word once only used in the context of maximum security prisons, but to which we are now completely desensitized), it is to save the climate that might inform how our cells are designed.  They're not pretty.  Across America, single family homes with yards are being outlawed.  New construction is prohibited and existing suburbs are being rezoned.  This is to reduce "greenhouse gas," despite weak arguments that low density housing causes more "greenhouse gas," even if you think "greenhouse gas" is a real problem.  More generally, a whole new genre of creative accounting has been invented, called "carbon accounting," whereby corporations, along with state and local governments, are now required to calculate how they will reduce their "carbon footprint."  Failure to do so results in the loss of subsidies and grants, as well as access to investment capital.  Carbon accounting encompasses every imaginable aspect of life.

No more than spectators?  Today we are witnessing the final stages of Western civilization.  The agents of destruction (the Marxist Left) have seized control of all levers of power, social and institutional.  One after another the avenues of redress of grievances have been shut down.  Academia and the press, as well as Hollywood, have reshaped public opinion.  The system of checks and balances, so precious to our freedom, has been dissolved into an all-powerful executive branch.  The legislative branch is mere window dressing much like the Roman Senate under Caesar while the judicial branch has become another bureaucracy accountable only to the executive.  The Marxist Left feels no need to hide its true intentions of fundamentally transforming our constitutional republic into a communist welfare state.  The mask has come off because the transformation is complete.  Political prisoners are held without trial while rival politicians are victims of show trials.  The FBI, CIA, Justice and State departments are mere toys in the hand of the executive.  The Supreme Court is neutered by outright physical threats from the unchecked mob.

All 7 conditions for an American color revolution have been met.  There are seven conditions that must be met for a color revolution to successfully topple a government, and it all must revolve around a national election.  The timing couldn't be more ripe as America heads into one of the most tumultuous and important elections we've seen in our lifetime.  Not only that, but according to Glenn Beck, we currently meet all seven conditions.  The first condition is a "semi-autocratic regime."  "We're not a fully autocratic regime, and that's not what you need.  You need a semi-autocratic regime," Glenn explains.  The second condition is an "unpopular incumbent."  As Joe Biden's disastrous polls reflect, we can definitely check that one off on the list.  The checklist goes on, with number three being a "united and organized opposition" and number four "an ability to quickly drive home the point that voting results were falsified," which then begets number five:  "media to inform people about the falsified vote."  [Video clip]

Time to Take a Side and Make a Stand.  [O]ur government is currently full of the most criminally imperfect people in our country, and that must change!  Right now, a growing majority of Americans across the political spectrum see Trump as that agent of change; and the more the corrupt government tries to prevent him from running, the more patriotic Americans rush to his side in a growing revolt against that maniacal anti-American corruption.  The simple truth is, Americans see themselves in Trump, someone under massive assault by our corrupt weaponized government, fighting for his life against an all-powerful cabal of international criminals and global Marxist misfits.  They know that whatever our government can do to a high-profile billionaire, they can do even worse to any opponent, and they will.  The left has made it personal now, and they have no rules of engagement, no conscience, and no shame!

WHO Do You Think You Are?  For those unfamiliar with its origins, the WHO was created by the UN during World War II with the goal of establishing  complete planetary control ...  a one world government ... a "global body to coordinate international health efforts."  The decision-making arm of the WHO is the World Health Assembly (WHA), which is comprised of representatives from all 194 member states, including the US.  The first WHA convened in 1948 in (where else?) Switzerland, which is famously neutral and therefore unlikely to host routine meetings of megalomaniacs hell bent on governing the entire globe's populace or anything.  Thanks for the impartiality, Switzerland!  The WHO's autocratic, unscrupulous, unelected leaders believe that they and they alone are competent and capable enough of orchestrating a coordinated world-wide response to the next pandemic, the one  they are right this minute arranging  they've all but guaranteed us.  The nefarious Treaty That Tanked (A Midwestern Doctor penned a brilliant detailing of the miserable thing which I highly recommend reading) would have granted these goons the power to not only "prevent, detect, and respond to pandemics," but to determine what constitutes a pandemic in the first place.

Corrupt Judge Says Jury Can Convict Trump Without Agreeing on Crime.  Closing arguments in former President Donald Trump's Manhattan "hush money" trial begin today, and the judge gave the jury the green light to convict him without agreeing on the underlying 'predicate' crime he committed.  First, into the legal weeds:  Trump's being charged for labeling "hush money" payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels as "legal fees."  That alone is just a misdemeanor crime, and the statute of limitations has already expired. [...] Judge Juan Merchan sided with the prosecution and ruled that the jury does not need to agree on the alleged felony in order to find Trump guilty.

Welcome To The Future, Where Your Tools Become Your Masters.  There are few driving experiences more irritating than having a drama queen in your passenger seat.  She (and it's always a she) doesn't even have to say anything.  Clutching the grab handle as you take the on-ramp, sharply inhaling as you beat a red light, glancing nervously out the window as you change lanes — these subtle critiques are enough to enrage even a patient man.  And if California has its way, soon you'll have an automated scold riding shotgun at all times, even when you're driving alone.  [Advertisement]  A new bill, "which passed its first vote in the state Senate on Tuesday," would require that "all new cars sold in the state by 2032 to beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph," The Associated Press explains.  The proposed "one-time visual and audio signal" works by comparing the car's speedometer reading and GPS coordinates to a database of speed limit data in real time.  And because California accounts for such a large share of the U.S. market, automakers would end up adding this feature to every single car that rolls off the line.  [Tweet]

A global Technocracy is priming the population for "Disease X," more totalitarianism and depopulation.  Pandemic bird flu, "Disease X" and the latest COVID-19 strain KP.2 are creeping into the headlines.  A global technocracy is priming the population for more totalitarian control systems, the normalization of election interference, a central bank digital currency, continuous bioweapon experiments and much worse.  No one is being held accountable for the coronavirus gain-of-function experiments that are culpable for COVID-19 and the ongoing vaccine injury crisis.  Gain-of-function bioweapon development continues around the world, and despite Russia making efforts to stop these predatory schemes in Ukraine, there are very limited judicial and military efforts to shut these biological threats down in China, Africa and the US.  The bio-terror complex, propped up by the most nefarious sects of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Institutes of Health, (NIH) continues unabated, with plans to create new diseases and new "cures" that denigrate the individual and exploit the population.

Sinking the Republic.  Authoritarian rule is needed to drive small businesses out of business.  To what extent the federal government has been able to control small businesses through the EPA, OHSA and the like, is due to an inherent communism built into the bureaucratic dictatorship that has developed in the Untied States under the current constitution.  Though it is unconstitutional and has even been ruled as such at times, the EPA and now the ATF have been able to institute their own regulations, without the approval of congress, that gives them extraordinary power.  That's the unconstitutional part of what they've been able to implement.  A climate-change emergency is likely on the horizon to give them even more power to control small business, or eradicate it.

What has Biden accomplished in his presidency?  Devastation.  Biden and his sycophants in the media sing his praises on a daily basis, pretending he has been an effective president.  In fact, all he has accomplished is desecration on every level. [...] The administration and its propagandists in the media pretend that wind and solar are viable.  They are not.  They can only provide 4% of what is needed.  EVs are proving to be a disaster as well.  There are not now, nor will there likely be any time soon, enough electricity to charge the EVs the left demands we buy.  Green energy is a pipe dream and/or a plot to keep us imprisoned in 15 minute cities, no cars allowed.  That is their ultimate plan:  We will own nothing and like it.  They want travel restricted for all but themselves, the self-appointed elites.  They are working on restricting meat, for us, but not for them, of course.

No driving on the weekends?  Germany's transport minister (and progressive politician), Volker Wissing, last month vowed to ban driving on weekends to meet Germany's climate-related goals.  It's either do that or else he wants the ruling coalition to pass more restrictions within the Climate Protection Act come July.  According to the German newspaper BILD, as cited by Politico, Wissing penned a letter to the coalition's parliamentary group leaders, in which he bemoaned the fact that the reforms haven't yet been approved.  Wissing, whose initials are ironically those of Germany's most famous auto maker told BILD, according to the Politico report that: "This serves neither the climate nor the reputation of the federal government."  He added that reducing traffic to achieve climate goals would mandate measures such as "comprehensive and indefinite driving bans on Saturdays and Sundays."  A government telling its citizens that they can't drive on weekends would seem like a hard sell at best, but then again we obeyed similar — and even more intrusive — measures during the COVID pandemic lockdowns.

The Deep State and Globalism.  [Scroll down]  By 1980 it was hardly a secret that change agents had infiltrated major American institutions, intent on undermining this country's culture and dismantling the America we all knew.  It triggered a culture war, and as the 20th century waned it became evident that the drive to change this country included grooming Americans for life in a global society (a project for the U.N.?).  That objective was in fact announced publicly in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush when he declared (with a straight face), that a New World Order was coming that would end wars and establish peace throughout the world.  In essence this was a recycling of the mission of the 1920 League of Nations that failed because the U.S. would not sign on.  In 1945 the idea of global governance was resurrected with the launching of the United Nations, resuming the challenge to national sovereignty.  I watched, dumbfounded, as the commander in chief of our country stood ready to cede the sovereignty of the United States to a ruling authority above it.

Eliminating Cash in Australia ASAP.  Australia has turned so far to the LEFT they have become the NUMBER ONE censoring free speech in the world, all to keep their agenda moving forward.  As an Australian resident, you are taxed on your worldwide income.  This means you must declare all income you receive from foreign sources in your income tax return.  The government wants two years in prison for anyone who paid for anything with more than $10,000 in cash.  Australians have been blocked by Amazon from buying anything from their US site because the government has effectively imposed a tariff of 10% on anything an Australian may purchase under $1,000 from the internet overseas.  The government directed Banks to hand over any information on the unexplained wealth of a convicted person in Australia.  The socialists are insane down under.  They want to impose that when you die, nothing goes to your children — it all should belong to the government.

The Editor says...
Be-hive yourself, or they'll put you in Jile!

Covid Fearmongering Worked So Well, The Government Is Now Creating A Poultry Panic.  In 2020, the supply chain experienced disruptions that no one in my generation had ever seen.  It became even more apparent to those who believe in the power of self-reliance that it is up to us to take care of ourselves.  Backyard farming began booming, along with an increased interest in raising chickens.  Since then, efforts to balance self-sustainable lifestyles have been threatened.  Government interference in normal healthy practices continues to grow amid concerns over "public safety." [...] In 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) unveiled its "People's Garden Initiative."  This encouraged Americans to register their backyard, school, and community gardens and is still being presented as a beneficial collaboration.  But if you read the full breakdown, it advances "equity" and other "DEI" and Green New Deal initiatives that reek of a government takeover.

Compulsory smart meters crucial to fight 'real and growing risk' of drought, experts warn.  Smart water meters must be made compulsory across all households to protect the UK against climate change, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has warned.  The government agency is urging ministers to ramp up the rollout of devices, as it claims water supplies were becoming one of the country's biggest challenges.  Without smart water meters, the NIC said the UK is at heightened risk of drought.  In its latest report, NIC officials said water companies should have the power to compel all homes to accept smart meters as part of a "concerted campaign to reduce water demand".  The UK used about 10 [billion] litres of water a day in 1960 but that has since risen to around 15 [billion].

The Editor says...
[#1] As long as golf courses are irrigated with drinking water, and every city has a municipal swimming pool, and my sprinkler system hasn't been turned on in years, don't talk to me about my water consumption.  [#2] Only a few years ago, when anyone warned about "smart meters," they were referring to electric meters.  Now there are also controversies about "smart" gas meters and "smart" water meters.  Notice that when the government wants to implement an intrusive and objectionable change, they call it "smart" so nobody can complain about it.  For example, "smart cities," in which you can barely move from one place to another.

The QR code society is no longer a conspiracy theory.  Yesterday evening [5/13/2024] at 20:00 UTC, this alert was received by many residents of Paris[.]  [Illustration:  Screenshot?]  The message was accompanied by a shrill ringtone even for cell phones that were turned in silent mode[.]  Let's hope the French people continue the trend of taking to the streets in massive protests when the government starts going haywire[.]  Meanwhile, QR code society is no longer a conspiracy theory[.]

NY Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Gunsmithing Hobby.  Brooklyn man Dexter Taylor was sentenced to ten years in prison for building his own firearms as a hobby without a license.  He is a software engineer with a slew of hobbies.  Mr. Taylor was found guilty of 13 counts of criminal possession of a firearm by a biased jury and judge.  The judge wouldn't let him defend himself based on the Second Amendment.  The court disallowed Second Amendment defenses, with the judge stating: "It doesn't exist here."  And you thought the 2A was good everywhere.  Well, not in New York City.

New government study: 'Cooking emissions' the missing piece of the climate change puzzle, will impact 'air quality management' policy.  The smell of meat on the grill is a "pleasing aroma" or a "sweet savour" to the God of the Torah and the Holy Bible, but to the climate "scientists" at the NOAA's Chemical Sciences Laboratory, it's indicative of "volatile" compounds in the air, a sign of "urban air pollution" that needs regulating, and they're calling it: "cooking emissions."  A little over a week ago, the NOAA published a report that summarized the results of a years-long taxpayer-funded study which ostensibly solved a mystery behind "unrecognized and underappreciated" sources of air pollution in the cities — too many people cooking their food before they eat it, and no, I'm not joking; [...]

Will the Supreme Court Let This Crisis Go to Waste?  The Democrats used their control of the Legislative and Executive Branches to attempt "fundamental transformation" of all three branches of government.  They came within two Senate votes of changing the nature of our government for decades — if not forever.  Had Senators Manchin and Sinema not balked, the Dems would have packed the Supreme Court, added two liberal states to the Union, and nationalized elections.  During all of this, the Supreme Court's power to stand against "fundamental transformation" was waning.  When the Court attempted to constrain Executive overreach (i.e., student loan forgiveness), the president simply ignored it.  Democrat strategists are even arguing that "Popular Constitutionalism" is a legitimate way to interpret the Constitution.  They insist that the president has the authority to interpret the Constitution and may read into it whatever he wishes.  They say the president can decide that the Dobbs decision was incorrect and declare that the Constitution provides an inalienable right to abortion.  "Popular Constitutionalism" is a giant red light that if the justices stay out of our current political civil war, the Court may become its first casualty.  We are at a constitutional cliff.  The Court aided our descent into banana republic status when it chose restraint over aggressive defense of the Constitution.

Climate lockdowns next?  Since the COVID scare worked so well for the left, could a climate lockdown be next?  We all vividly recall the absurd COVID lockdowns.  While they had no effect on the spread of illness, the imposed restrictions certainly proved that a large segment of the population was easily compelled to come to heel and submit to the government's outrageous demands. [...] It was a 1987 UN document entitled, Our Common Future, that officially introduced CO2 as not only the cause of global warming but a threat to world peace and an agent of economic inequality.  Since then, the elites at the World Economic Forum have provided muscle for the United Nation's plans.  In fact, a man the WEF describes as an agenda contributor, Yuval Noah Harari, pompously declared, "You can stop all flights, you can lockdown entire countries," to combat climate change.  Climate lockdowns have been discussed by Democrats for several years.  Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced the Climate Emergency Act of 2021, co-sponsored by 62 congressional Democrats.

Government mandates that your car 'monitor' your behavior.  H.R. 3684, an "infrastructure" bill signed by Joe Biden in 2021 included a provision mandating expanded monitoring of folks as they drive an automobile.  And henceforth the intrusive technologies will be required in all new vehicles being manufactured and sold in the U.S.  New vehicles will be required to have passive monitoring systems to assess each driver's behavior.  An algorithm will determine if the driver is too impaired to operate the vehicle.  If so, the vehicle will either be disabled, or some as yet unexplained system or entity will take control of it.  Several obvious questions arise.  What will constitute "impairment?"  Who or what might take control of the vehicle, and in what specific circumstances?  And how?

Supreme Court Lays the Groundwork for Cops to Chill First Amendment Activity, Retaliate Against Nonviolent Protesters.  In a case with far-reaching implications across the political spectrum for free speech and the right to protest, the U.S. Supreme Court is allowing a case to move forward that could hold a protest organizer liable for the independent actions of another protester, ultimately undermining the right to organize non-violent protests.  Warning that the outcome of the case could affect a wide range of protests related to abortion, gun rights, and pandemic mandates, as well as former President Trump's liability for the events that occurred on January 6, 2021, The Rutherford Institute had filed an amicus brief in Mckesson v. Doe calling on the Supreme Court to ensure that people who lead protests, political or otherwise, without intending to incite violence are not held civilly liable for the actions of others who engage in violent criminal activities at those protests.

America's Jenga Tower of Power.  Mirroring the Soviet system that collapsed thirty years ago, the U.S. government mistakenly believes that it can maintain control by exerting tremendous pressure on all of society's constituent blocs.  It spies on Christian churches.  It threatens parents who refuse to let the State program their children in Marxist indoctrination plants posing as schools.  It punishes businesses that refuse to engage in pronoun games and other renditions of "transgender" madness.  It discriminates against white people (especially white men) who prioritize individual liberty over political correctness.  It micromanages every market transaction by regulating the supplies and costs of available energies.  It churns out countless new laws, rules, and regulations that are too byzantine for citizens and businesses to understand.  In other words, the U.S. government has replicated the Soviet system's blueprint for making every citizen a criminal beholden to the mercies of the State.  This kind of top-heavy society is the exact opposite of America as founded.

Zero GOP.  It is clear that the people in the white working and middle class no longer have any options at the ballot box save for one.  That option is to abandon the party that claims to represent their interest and thus abandon a system that mocks the very notion of representative government.  Zeroing out the Republican side of the equation is the only way to break the cycle of madness.  That is the show this week.  A big part of it is about how the system works and why there is no voting your way to a better result.  The two parties, in collusion with the donor class, have rigged the game in such a way that voting no longer matters, other than to confirm to the parties that the rubes continue to be fooled.  Negating that last part may be the only peaceful way of initiating a reform cycle.

Feds Demand Employers Use Workers' Preferred Pronouns or Face Punishment.  The federal government warned employers that if they don't use workers' preferred pronouns or stop them from using bathrooms that align with their 'gender identity' they will face punishment.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Monday updated its guidance on workplace harassment to cover transgender, non-binary and other LGBTQ workers.  The Democrat-led EEOC voted 2-3 on Friday to update its guidance.  Employers can find themselves in court if they do not follow the new anti-bias laws and fail to adhere to the EEOC guidelines.

DoD employee tells O'Keefe citizens should be forced to relinquish their firearms.  James O'Keefe recently released an undercover video in which Jason Beck, a Department of Defense employee, asserts that firearms owners should have their guns confiscated.  By force.  By the National Guard.  [Video clip]  Constitution?  What Constitution?  Individual rights?  Pshaw!  The DoD employee casually noted that he "would like to do some work on the state's monopoly on violence."  When asked what state's monopoly on violence meant he replied, "It's the idea that the state, meaning the country, uh, is the only sort of legitimate purveyor of violence ..."  Anyone else feel a chill?  Speaking of that pesky Second Amendment's protection of firearm ownership, Beck stated: "I think we should repeal it and take them all away.  You have to take them."  He then implied that the National Guard would need to be employed, and that those in it would have to follow "lawfully given orders."  Except that the order to ignore the Second Amendment and forcefully take private property from law-abiding citizens could not be a "lawfully given order."

Biden terrifyingly grows ranks of government spies.  On April 20, Edward Snowden declared, "America lost something important today, and hardly anyone heard.  The headlines of state-aligned media screech and crow about the nefarious designs of your fellow citizens and the necessity of foreign wars without end, but find few words for a crime against the Constitution."  The NSA whistleblower was referring to the United States Senate reauthorizing and expanding surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  President Joe Biden circulated a memo that cast the Fourth Amendment right to privacy as a "threat to national security."  Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Attorney General Merrick Garland called members of Congress to ensure that they voted to give spy agencies renewed power.  Specifically, "Patriot Act 2.0," as Representative Zoe Lofgren called it, broadened the definition of service providers and exponentially increased the power that the government has to force numerous business and industries to aid warrantless surveillance.

Secret and Sneaky Negotiations Over the Pandemic Treaty.  James Roguski has deep concerns about the latest leaked draft discussion of the Pandemic Treaty the World Health Organization wants passed by 194 nations in May.  In the leaked proposed draft of the "resolution" to be presented to the 77th World Health Assembly, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body seems to want to mandate the Director-General "to implement with immediate effect" specific articles of the proposed "Pandemic Agreement."  Why is it vital for the Director-General "to implement with immediate effect" the specified articles?  Are the insiders aware of details that are likely to appear in the final document before those details are made public?

German politician calls for the state to issue "revocable social media licenses" for the privilege of commenting online.  You may remember this man.  His name is Mario Voigt, and he is the head of the centre-right CDU in Thüringen.  He made national headlines a few weeks ago for grievously threatening German democracy by agreeing to debate his AfD counterpart Björn Höcke on national television.  Because the AfD in general and Höcke in particular are antidemocratic fascists, allowing them anywhere near a microphone is very likely to destroy our entire system of government, that is what a weak and failed state we have here in Germany.  The duel between our leading Thuringian politicians was all but unwatchable, as indeed almost all political debates turn out to be.  While Höcke could've acquitted himself better, Voigt's performance was flat, uninspired and profoundly banal.  Among other things, the man suffers from a peculiar rodentine aspect; he bites his way stiffly through bland preformulated arguments like a squirrel chewing a stale nut or a beaver gnawing through saplings.

Generating the "national will" to give up our civil and human rights on the altar of pandemic safety.  The 21st Century ushered in a well-coordinated push to generate fear about:
  [#1]   a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic,
  [#2]   jumps of deadly viruses from animals to humans ("spillover," zoonoses and epizootics were the new terms to be mastered), and
  [#3]   biologic warfare threats
The 2002-3 SARS outbreak and the Avian influenza (bird flu) outbreak — both beginning shortly after the anthrax letters — were hyped to the max to generate fear of pandemics and biological warfare.  How many people did these infectious diseases kill in the US and around the world?
  [#1]   The anthrax letters caused 5 human deaths, all in the US.
  [#2]   SARS-1 caused under 800 deaths around the world.  There were 27 US cases designated as SARS-1 and not a single US death.
  [#3]   Avian flu is said to have caused 463 deaths total in the entire world over the past 20 years, according to the WHO.  Only 2 Americans have been identified as having an illness associated with avian flu, and both were very minor.  Not a single American has died from avian flu.  The recent case of conjunctivitis is recovering.
The CDC and mainstream media claim that avian flu has killed over 100 million chickens.  It has not.  USDA rules have forced growers to cull over 100 million chickens.  When one chicken has a positive PCR test for bird flu, every chicken in the chicken house (and sometimes all those on the farm) must be killed.  Was that test even accurate?

Biden Gives Us Climate Corps, Climate Emergency Diktat Is Next.  We have the Palestinians trying to kill all the Jews; the border is wide open, inflation is soaring, and energy is skyrocketing, but have no fear.  Biden established Climate Corps.  Appropriately, the genius of the House, AOC introduced it, saying it is the single biggest federal investment in tackling the [fake] climate crisis.  "Investment" means taxes.  The government doesn't have any money.  They're starting with 2,000 young workers.  It will be an indoctrination organization.  [Tweet with video clip]  Donald Trump established the Space Corps, and Biden organized tree huggers.  Marc Morano, founder of Climate Depot, said they are again discussing a climate emergency declaration that would give Joe Biden 130 new powers.  [Tweet]

At First I Wasn't Willing To Believe This.  For those who don't view videos and don't click links, Îles-de-la-Madeleine, a small community in Canada, attempted to institute a municipal ordinance that requires all persons, resident or transient, to carry a QR code with them, and to show it upon exiting the municipal limits.  Persons who are:
  •   Not residents, or:
  •   Unable or unwilling to present the QR code
...would be charged a "$30 tourist fee" upon exiting the city.  In effect, the municipal council tried to claim ownership of the little city. [...] Remember all the foofaurauw over "15-minute cities?"  You're looking at exactly what their proponents intend to do... to you.  [Video clip]

Comrade, You Must Show a QR Code to Leave Your Home.  A few short years ago the events in the following video would have been dismissed as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory.  However, it seems we now live in a tinfoil-hat reality.  Or at least the Canadians do:  The municipality of Îles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec has implemented a new regulation requiring anyone who wants to leave the islands to display a QR code.  [Video clip]

Only a crazy person makes plans to inflict an emergency on everybody else.
President Biden Plans Climate Emergency Impacting Energy Industry.  U.S. President Joe Biden plans to declare a "national climate emergency" in what critics say is an effort to block American energy development while appeasing his environmentalist donor base, Worthy News learned Wednesday.  Biden's top advisers have resumed talks on declaring such an emergency "to reduce carbon dioxide emissions" ahead of upcoming presidential elections, according to sources familiar with the meetings.  The declaration would give Biden wartime powers to limit oil and liquefied natural gas exports, suspending offshore drilling and halting the industry's ability to transport its products via pipelines and trains.  "The average American is certainly not demanding a climate emergency declaration.  It's the losing team of left-wing Democrat activists and the shrinking base of elites who are," U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart said in published remarks.

Marxist Health Officials Want You Committed.  A good deal of research on homelessness, addiction, suicide, and murder suggests that the trend toward deinstitutionalization since the 1960s has produced tragic results.  On the other hand, I am extremely leery of returning certain involuntary commitment powers back to psychiatrists and government health "experts" when both professional communities pray at the altar of Marx.  Just as the Patriot Act was sold as a necessary national security measure before proving to be a grotesquely unconstitutional domestic surveillance weapon used against American citizens, empowering the federal government with renewed authority to fight mental illness sounds reasonable in theory but will most likely result in a substantial number of MAGA Americans being forcibly disarmed, prejudicially labeled, and involuntarily confined.  After all, in the eyes of a Marxist counselor or judge, is anyone more "dangerous" than an enthusiastic supporter of President Trump?  Sadly, J6 political prisoners know that answer all too well.

Preparing to Win.  The American identity and national way of life stand on the brink of total disintegration, dependency, and slavery. [...] Emergency preparedness is a big trend of our day, because nearly everyone recognizes the precarious position of our entire society.  This kind of preparedness is wise and reasonable in these times, but it is only a short-term solution.  When disaster strikes it will not be short-lived.  The government will use it as a bridge to total enslavement.  The governments will grasp their power long after the emergency is over, and it is this long game that God-fearing people must win.

Bank of America says nothing about whether it debanks for political views.  Famously 'woke' Bank of America has been on the hot seat among a group of state attorneys general, who've demanded information about whom it debanks and why, charging that they target conservatives and faith communities. [...] In what looks like a direct political hit, they've found themselves in the news for debanking leading Constitutional scholar John Eastman without explanation after he had been a faithful customer for 40 years, who is well-known for serving as President Trump's lawyer and advisor during the events of January 6.  USAA, another bank, this one known for serving the military community, also debanked Eastman without explanation, which looked pretty political.

Congressional Spending Goes Full Weimar.  It has become a speculative game in the blogosphere to predict what black swan calamities could lead to a breakdown in civil order and the imposition of some form of martial law.  Wars and rumors of war abound.  We have already seen a container ship mysteriously knocking down a bridge and closing a key port.  Other such scenarios include massive cyber-attacks that shut down the grid and block communication and transportation networks nationwide.  The speculation on the variations of such events is virtually endless.  However, one crisis is no black swan and is entirely expected, already happening, and growing in scale by the day.  That would be the ballooning debt crisis.  If Washington does not change its free-spending ways, the debt will become a catastrophe of devastating proportions that will tear the nation apart.  So long as Congress continues its multi-trillion-dollar deficit spending, we will have a financial death spiral, similar to events a century ago in the Weimar Republic of Germany.

John Eastman says Bank of America, USAA will not tell him why he was debanked.  Former attorney to Donald Trump, John Eastman, alleged that both Bank of America and USAA have debanked him, closing his accounts in the aftermath of his involvement in advising Trump around the 2020 election.  According to an exclusive report by the Daily Caller, in September 2023, Bank of America sent a letter to Eastman informing him of the closure of his bank accounts.  Following this, USAA, two months later, notified Eastman of the closure of his accounts with the company.  USAA cited its Depository Agreement as the basis for its decision, citing its right to "no longer do banking business" with customers.  "We may close your account for any reason without advance notice.  We may require you to give us a minimum of seven (7) calendar days advance written notice when you intend to close your account by withdrawing your funds," USAA's Depository Agreement states.

The Kill Switch.  Soon the government might shut down your car.  President Joe Biden's new infrastructure gives bureaucrats that power.  You probably didn't hear about that because when media covered it, few mentioned the requirement that by 2026, every American car must "monitor" the driver, determine if he is impaired and, if so, "limit vehicle operation."  Rep. Thomas Massie objected, complaining that the law makes government "judge, jury and executioner on such a fundamental right!"  Congress approved the law anyway.  A USA Today "fact check" told readers, don't worry, "There's no kill switch in Biden's bill."  "They didn't read it, because it's there!" says automotive engineer and former vintage race car driver Lauren Fix in my new video.  The clause is buried under Section 24220 of the law.  USA Today's "fact" check didn't lie, exactly.  It acknowledged that the law requires "new cars to have technology that identifies if a driver is impaired and prevents operation."  Apparently, they just didn't like the term "kill switch."  But it is a kill switch.

Canada: The Royal Bank Won't Let You Withdraw Your Own Money Without An Interrogation First.  Apparently, you can't even withdraw your own money from the Royal Bank of Canada without being thoroughly interrogated.  How is it any of their business what you do with your money?  [Video clip]

Bank of America accused of religious and political 'discrimination' by 'de-banking' or refusing to service Trump supporters.  A dozen Republican-led states plan to send a letter to Bank of America demanding an explanation for why it allegedly de-banked Christian and other conservative groups.  The letter obtained first by DailyMail.com, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, demands that the financial institution turn over documents related to its account cancellation policies and requested that the bank update its terms of services to not discriminate against clients with certain political or religious beliefs.  The notice comes after it was revealed that Bank of America sent the FBI and U.S. Treasury private consumer financial data to help the agencies investigate crimes related to the January 6 Capitol protest.

New regulation requires all chicken owners to register with government.  All chicken owners will soon be forced to register with the United Kingdom government or face up to six months in prison or a £5,000 fine.  The government's new regulations come as the country tries to prevent another bird flu outbreak.  "Under the changes announced last month, there will be new requirements for all bird keepers — regardless of the size of their flock — to officially register their birds," a Bolton Council press release stated.

The Editor says...
Tyranny is worse than the bird flu, or any other disease.  The story above is about the U.K., but it could easily happen here, too.  Many years ago I harbored a chicken who just showed up in my yard one day.  I fed her, she laid eggs, and I ate them.  One day she disappeared as mysteriously as she arrived.  Was I a "chicken owner" in that brief time?  Do you think I would rush down to the courthouse to register as a chicken owner?  New regulations like this are all about registration fees and new taxes.  They are also about controlling the food supply.  Socialist governments do not want you to be self-sufficient.

Yes, They Want to Shut Down Free Speech.  If you want to see the future of free speech in the United States, look to Brazil today.  Speech that runs contrary to the existing regime of Brazillian President Lula da Silva is being criminalized.  The restrictions grow tighter by the day.  I feel it in my own contacts with my friends there, with whom I've been in touch for many years.  They fear even answering texts.  This is because they cannot know from one day to the next which tech platforms are going to be cooperating with the regime and which are resisting.  They fear even getting on the internet without a VPN.  Tragically, the tech platforms themselves have proven to be incredibly unprincipled throughout this entire period.  In both the United States and Brazil, most have gone along with the censorship push, even to the point of cheering it on.

Corruption Is Treason.  The Western societies should not be worrying about politics, they should be worrying about survival.  The globalist elite are not pushing their policies on Middle-Eastern, African or Asian societies, they are focused on the West.  The reason, I believe, is that the West has allowed their people to have a say in government and if there is to be a world government, that has to be abolished.  It is much easier to command people than convince them, especially in a world where the truth can be so easily researched as it can now.

Why are states and counties declaring emergencies for the solar eclipse?  [Scroll down past numerous tweets]  A lot of it is tied back to the creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979 by President Carter.  The federal government doesn't have jurisdiction at the local level (in principle, at least), so local jurisdictions declaring emergencies is basically the first step of a formal invite for state and federal manpower to come in and help fix a particular problem.  Since we have super-short term memories, let me remind you that this happened for the 2017 eclipse too. [...] If there's a conspiracy here, it's the observation that using a process meant for true emergencies as a "Get out of Jail Free Card" for every inconvenience is really [read:  REALLY] bad for a free society that doesn't want rule by martial law.

The Editor says...
Solar eclipses happen every few years, but there has almost never been so much hype about an eclipse before.  The eclipse of August 21, 2017, was apparenly good for the news media, because they are really talking up this one, and that is what's causing "emergency" declarations all along the eclipse's path.

Time is Running Out to Save Western Civilization.  The U.S. is moving quickly towards a centralized state.  Our liberties, our culture, and our national greatness are being subverted.  Subverted by a corrupt, clever, twisted, amorphous blob of powerful people.  Most of the old media, the new technocratic media (i.e.,: Facebook and Google), one entire political party, part of the other party, along with the unelected bureaucracies and spy agencies of the U.S. are all a part of this blob.  Evil that's difficult to overcome.  What this blob is doing is not new.  These current evils have often been repeated.  During the French Revolution, Robespierre et al. terrorized their population, and thought they could control people, not just what they did, but what they thought.  Their ideas turned bloody.  Would our elites repeat those evils to retain power?  Yes.  Consider the horrid treatment of the J6 prisoners and the Trump family as a beginning.  More recently, the Soviet state and its satellites controlled their citizens in horrible ways.  China has been doing the same since the Cultural Revolution and continues today.  This is not new.  Unchecked tyranny corrupts, causing massive harm.

Here's the Tweet That Led to the FBI Visiting a Texas Woman's Home.  Is this going to become a regular occurrence?  If so, it's chilling, but it'll be documented as every home has a Ring cam system or a variation of it.  If you don't have one, it's best to invest in one for home security purposes and recording potential run-ins with federal agents.  A Texas woman, 'Kam St.  Martin,' was visited by an FBI agent for a tweet pinned on her profile.  She called out the justice system for letting her cousin's alleged murderer out on probation.  The visit was recorded, but the FBI also reportedly visited the victim's family as well:  [Tweets]  The FBI being viewed as Biden's Gestapo grows every day.  These antics are out of control and will continue until we get a new president.  It dovetails off an incident in Oklahoma, where three FBI agents visited a woman over the anti-Biden posts she shared on Facebook.  [Tweet]

Would You Still Want to Drive.  What if you had to obey — to the letter — every single traffic law, from no-right-on red to no-passing if the pass requires "speeding," even a little bit?  How about no "speeding," ever?  You drive the speed limit, period.  No faster, ever.  Imagine your car enforcing traffic laws — by not allowing you to ignore them.  Well, that's coming.  In fact, it's already here, in bits and pieces that will likely all be coming together.  In order to make most of us not want to drive anymore — much less make monthly payments for the privilege.

Did You Know That You Have an ESG Score and it Can Be Used Against You?  Until today, I didn't realize that individuals are now being assigned ESG scores that some institutions use to decide whether they will do business with a person.  I obviously knew about ESG scores that huge investment firms are using to force corporations to conform to ideological demands.  I knew that in some cases, prominent individuals or troublemakers have been blackballed by banks and other firms.  And, of course, I know that some companies that sell politically incorrect items are getting deplatformed by PayPal and even web providers.  But I didn't know that an industry has sprung up to analyze individuals' purchases, carbon footprint, and other characteristics to inform banks and other businesses regarding whether they should do business with you.  [Tweet]

Feds are now hunting down Americans who simply viewed "certain" YouTube videos.  We've all cracked jokes about how our "Google searches" might one day land us behind bars, not realizing we were pretty much on the nose.  Welcome to Biden's version of 1984.  A recent report reveals that if you tuned into certain YouTube videos last year, the feds are now curious about who you are.  A US federal court has ordered Google to reveal the identities of tens of thousands of viewers who watched specific videos within a set period.  Let freedom ring, right?  Day by day, it feels like we're inching closer to a North Korea-style surveillance state, and it doesn't seem like it's going to ease up.  Securing the White House in 2024 is critical, but even then, we have to wonder:  have we crossed a point of no return?

Biden Admin's Anti-Gun 'Red Flag Center' Violates Both Constitution and Statute.  A Democrat-controlled Congress gave the Biden administration the ability to block-grant funds for enforcement of "red flag" laws in several states, but the Biden administration has proceeded to take the next illogical step, violating both the Constitution and the statute passed by Congress to implement their "National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center."  On Thursday, Dr. John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) made the case why this "resource center" needs to be shut down immediately.

'Very, Very Dangerous': Ron Paul Tells Tucker Americans Should Prepare For 'Black Swan' Event.  Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas warned Tucker Carlson in a Tuesday evening interview that a so-called "black swan" event would "pop up" and Americans needed to prepare.  Paul, who served 12 terms in Congress in three stints, discussed the war in Ukraine, attacks on his foreign policy views and the risk of World War III in the interview with Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation.  Paul warned that education is necessary for those seeking to get through the event.  "I think we're reaching this point where some sudden thing is going to happen," Paul told Carlson.  "I believe in that theory of the black swan.  It's going to pop up and it's not going to be controllable."  [Video clip]

Are 'Brown Shirt' laws coming to America?  In a recent move that has ignited both support and controversy, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed a series of bills that would have potentially opened the door for illegal immigrants to serve as police officers.  This decision stands in stark contrast to the policies we might have seen under former Governor Ralph Northam, highlighting a pivotal moment in the ongoing debate over immigration policy and law enforcement qualifications in the United States. [...] The concern is that by potentially lowering the standards or altering the prerequisites for those in law enforcement roles to include individuals who are not legally residing in the country, states could inadvertently undermine the authority and legitimacy of their police forces.  Such measures, critics argue, could lead to a scenario where the enforcement of laws is influenced by political and ideological considerations rather than the principles of justice and equality under the law.

Courts Demand Info About People Who Viewed Specific YouTube Videos.  Federal authorities have reportedly ordered Google to provide information about viewers of select YouTube videos, including their names, addresses, and phone numbers, as well as provide information about video viewers who weren't signed into YouTube while watching.  The requests are raising alarms for privacy experts who say the requests are unconstitutional and are "transforming search warrants into digital dragnets" by potentially targeting individuals who are not associated with a crime based simply on what they may have watched online.  Specifically, authorities have reportedly asked for information about individuals who watched certain videos on the site between Jan. 1-8, 2023[,] as part of an investigation into "elonmuskwhm."  The authorities also requested the user activity for those accounts.  According to Forbes, the investigation into elonmuskwhm is focused on that individual selling Bitcoin for cash, which is a violation of money laundering laws.  The sale also constitutes an unlicensed money-transferring business.

If you watched certain YouTube videos, investigators demanded your data from Google.  If you've ever jokingly wondered if your search or viewing history is going to "put you on some kind of list," your concern may be more than warranted.  In now unsealed court documents reviewed by Forbes, Google was ordered to hand over the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and user activity of Youtube accounts and IP addresses that watched select YouTube videos, part of a larger criminal investigation by federal investigators. [...] Privacy experts, however, are worried about the kind of precedent the court's order creates, citing concerns over the protections of the first and fourth amendments.  "This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants into digital dragnets," executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Albert Fox-Cahn told the publication.  "It's unconstitutional, it's terrifying, and it's happening every day."

Change in America.  The Founders believed the people should have some say in how their lives were governed:  No taxation without representation.  Now virtually everything that can be done to strip away the political power of the American people is being done.  This is what is beneath the intense political friction that permeates our society.  The legacy press will acknowledge the deep divisions, but it will never address the real causes — the elephant in the room.  Instead, Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and PBS News will use their vast communication power to convince us that something else is occurring.  Fake news.  And then there is Donald Trump.  We are a nation of laws, the press and the Washington establishment say again and again.  Yet Trump has stood against the permanent elites, the permanent establishment, the permanent institutions.  This is why they hate him so.  He has provided a voice to many who have believed for a very long time that the system is rigged.  We don't have voice.  We don't have say.  It's all an insider deal.  The swamp.

Biden Justice Department Launches National "Red Flag" Center to Track Sketchy Gun Owners.  The DOJ has announced a national center to monitor and assist states with Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO), otherwise known as "Red Flag" laws and procedures to monitor gun owners and confiscate firearms from sketchy owners.  According to the announcement, the intent is to help states remove dangerous firearms from people who are identified as "at risk" to perpetrate violence.  "The launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center will provide our partners across the country with valuable resources to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

Republicans blast Biden admin's 'Red Flag Operation' as one that will 'violate' Second Amendment rights.  Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Florida on Saturday where she will tout a Biden administration effort to provide "training and technical assistance" to individuals "responsible for implementing laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a threat to themselves or others."  The new program drew immediate backlash from some Republicans who called the effort a "massive Red Flag Operation."  The National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center, according to a Saturday Department of Justice press release, will specifically provide assistance to law enforcement officials, prosecutors, attorneys, judges, clinicians, victim service and social service providers, community organizations and behavioral health professionals.

The Commoner World After Conservatism 3.0.  What on Earth is going on?  We have GOP congressmen quitting early.  Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) resigned last week, and Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) resigned the week before.  Then there is MTG trying to blow up the House of Representatives with a motion to vacate the chair.  Can you spell chaos? [...] Used to be the Left was anti-war.  Now they are all in on color revolutions and ground wars in Eastern Europe.  They used to hate the CIA with a passion.  Now they expect the "intelligence community" to help social media track down and deplatform "disinformation."  Can you spell "authoritarian?"

A Red Flag Center for 'Dangerous' Gun Owners (You).  Joe Biden apparently thinks he isn't going to make it to a second term.  On Saturday, his attorney general announced a new resource program for Red Flag laws across America that will go on long after Biden is no longer in the White House.  Congressman Thomas Massie sounded the alarm, asking:  "What [...] is this evil?  A Federal Red Flag center; We did not authorize this.  Announced, of course, just hours after the omnibus passes."  [Tweet]  We don't know at this point that such a program was contained in the omnibus bill, in part, because so many people were trying to access it online and the site was down, and nobody read it and alerted Americans.  But Massie states that Congress didn't approve this.

The Editor says...
Sometimes you have to pass the bill to find out what's in it.  Next time, vote NO until you've had a chance to read it.  The big rush to vote on thousand-page bills is obviously part of the plan.

Governments Are Creating A Fake Hate Panic To Censor, Interfere In Elections, And Imprison Their Political Enemies.  It's alarming what's happening in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Brazil, and the EU[.]  The US and other governments around the world are hyping hate in order to weaponize the government against their political enemies.  Ever since the 2019 shooting in New Zealand, governments have been using so-called hate speech, fake news, and misinformation as justifications for censorship.  In Ireland, the government is pushing hate speech legislation that would allow police to invade homes and seize phones and computers.  In Canada, Justin Trudeau is pushing legislation that would allow the government to sentence individuals to life in prison for things they said.  [Video clip]

Biden Regime Launches Federal Gun-Grab Operation.  The Biden Regime on Saturday morning continued its attack on the Second Amendment and launched a federal gun-grab operation to keep firearms out the hands of people who "pose a threat to themselves and others."  "The Justice Department launched the National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center (the Center) which will provide training and technical assistance to law enforcement officials, prosecutors, attorneys, judges, clinicians, victim service and social service providers, community organizations, and behavioral health professionals responsible for implementing laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a threat to themselves or others[,"] the DOJ announced on Saturday [3/23/2024].  US Attorney General Merrick Garland said the ERPO program will work with partners across the country to use "every tool" to 'protect communities from gun violence.'

DOJ: 'National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center' Will Help Enforce Red Flag Laws.  "Red Flag Laws" are another arrow in the quiver of anti-Second Amendment activists and politicians, and while they are of questionable constitutionality, that hasn't stopped various states and localities from passing these laws.  On Saturday, the Justice Department announced the formation of a "National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center" to help train local officials to enforce these laws. [...] The Vice President has weighed in, presumably, on this same effort:  [Tweet:  "President Biden and I have invested $750M to help states implement red flag laws that save lives.  Today, I am calling on every state to take action, and we are launching a national red flag resource center to assist."]  President Biden and VP Harris have not "invested" one red cent; they are instead spending taxpayers' money, not their own, as the VP implies in this statement.

Free Speech... For Sale or Rent.  Oral arguments were given today on the First Amendment cases concerning the government influencing social media sites to ban and censor speech. [...] Justice Jackson probably made the worst case and exposed herself as someone who has little or no understanding of the principles of the First Amendment, but obviously subscribed to Obama's definition of the Bill of Rights as a Bill of Negative Rights in that they told the government what it cannot do.  She asked "if these people are giving false information, are suggesting that the government can do nothing about that?" (paraphrased) If you understand the ideology of these communists, there's nothing the government can't do and therefore the Bill of Rights negate the ability of government to do whatever it wants.  Yes!  Absolutely right.  First of all, I argue that the Bill of Rights contain rights the people have over the government, in spite of it, regardless of it and in that sense Obama is right, but that's the whole point.  It does tell the government what it cannot do, but that doesn't make it a "negative right" it makes it a right of the people rather than a right of the government.  It would be a right of the people, even if there were no government at all.

Democrats Cannot Win a Fraud-Free Election.  Under Biden, Americans are seeing unprecedented weaponization.  Jack Smith was appointed special counsel in the classified documents and January 6th indictments of President Trump, both widely viewed to be politically motivated.  Smith was directly appointed by Biden's Attorney General, Merrick Garland.  Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis met directly with the Biden administration shortly before prosecuting Trump for election interference.  In the New York-based hush money case, Matthew Colangelo, who previously targeted Trump during his time in the New York AG's office, recently left the Biden/Garland DoJ and joined Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's team that is targeting Trump.  Beyond targeting the preferred candidate of millions of Americans, Biden's FBI has also targeted traditional Catholics, labeling them as potential violent extremists, in addition to Biden's White House encouraging major social media platforms to violate the First Amendment by removing posts they disagreed with.  When push comes to shove, voters vote for what is best for their health, safety, and finances over rhetoric or personality.  This means only a high-level voter fraud operation will allow this agenda to continue.

Consequences Minus Truth.  This Monday, the Supreme Court will entertain oral arguments on the case Missouri, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al.  The integrity of the First Amendment hinges on the decision.  Do we have freedom of speech as set forth in the Constitution?  Or is it conditional on how government officials feel about some set of circumstances?  At issue specifically is the government's conduct in coercing social media companies to censor opinion in order to suppress so-called "vaccine hesitancy" and to manipulate public debate in the 2020 election.  Government lawyers have argued that they were merely "communicating" with Twitter, Facebook, Google, and others about "public health disinformation and election conspiracies."  You can reasonably suppose that this was our government's effort to disable the truth, especially as it conflicted with its own policy and activities — from supporting BLM riots to enabling election fraud to mandating dubious vaccines.  Former employees of the FBI and the CIA were directly implanted in social media companies to oversee the carrying-out of censorship orders from their old headquarters.

The dismantling of America.  Inflation, purposefully foolish monetary policy, confiscatory tax policy, manipulated interest rates, and energy policies designed to be very costly are all intended to steal our wealth.  "Fair Share" tax schemes fleece the wealthy while the Earned Income Tax Credit pays the poor back much more than they contributed.  We pay people to be lazy while strangling the producers, innovators, entrepreneurs and risk-takers with regulations, prohibitions, and artificial barriers.  Once personal transportation ends, and it will if we go 100% electric, with it goes our freedom of movement.  Add to that a digitized currency and all personal freedom is gone.  Anonymity passes into history and everything you do and everywhere you go becomes data.  Once we become a part of a vast database, that data can be parsed, analyzed, manipulated, sold, and reorganized.

New America:  Guilty Until Further Notice.  This article continues a discussion on the U.S. government's use of neuroscience and directed energy to develop weapons which can secretly affect the brain and body from a remote location without requiring surgically implanted neural technologies.  Government scientists during the Obama-Biden Administration described plans for large remote surveillance systems which determine a person's intentions, potentially including surveilling and affecting brain activity.  Importantly, U.S. government scientists suggested the remote detection of covert intent technologies and their planned "larger systems of systems" could have dual uses in the civilian economy, including "crowd control, antidrug and anticrime operations, border security, and ensuring the security of government and private personnel and property."  Emphasis should be on the use of remote and secret technologies for "anticrime operations" in the previous quotation; the U.S. government suggested using remote and secret technologies which potentially affect the human brain and/or body to prevent crime, not necessarily to solve crimes already committed.

HR7521 — TikTok Ban Assurances and Those Who Remember Patriot Act Assurances.  Serendipitously, or not — depending on who you talk to, I was previously scheduled to be in DC at the moment of inflection for the passage of HR7521, the proverbial "TikToK Ban Law."  Allow me to encapsulate the issues and present the point of those who say there is nothing to worry about.  First, the context that should matter (it doesn't because the USIC are in charge here) is that every element that preceded the passage of the Patriot Act is being duplicated in the passage of the TikTok ban.  Which is to say, everyone is deferring to this ridiculous need to support USA National Security.  We The People have been burned by this approach before, yet so many refuse to see the similarity.

More about the Patriot Act.

Tyranny Is Rising as Freedom Falls.  The U.S. military is being used to patrol subway stations and police the U.S.-Mexico border, supposedly in the name of national security.  The financial sector is being used to carry out broad surveillance of Americans' private financial data, while the entertainment sector is being tapped to inform on video game enthusiasts with a penchant for violent, potentially extremist content, all in an alleged effort to uncover individuals subscribing to anti-government sentiments[.]  Public and private venues are being equipped with sophisticated surveillance technologies, including biometric and facial recognition software, to track Americans wherever they go and whatever they do.  Space satellites with powerful overhead surveillance cameras will render privacy null and void.  This is the state of our nation that no is talking about — not the politicians, not the courts, and not Congress:  the government's power grabs are growing bolder, while the rights of the citizenry continue to be trampled under foot.

Trudeau Demands Life In Prison For Speech Crimes.  To protect children from sexual exploitation, Canada must pass the Online Harms Act, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government. "I am the parent of two young boys," said Justice Minister Arif Virani.  "I will do whatever I can to ensure their digital world is as safe as the neighborhood we live in.  Children are vulnerable online.  They need to be protected from online sexual exploitation, hate, and cyberbullying."  But Virani's bill is totally unnecessary to protect children.  Its real goal is to allow judges to sentence adults to prison for life for things they've said and for up to a year for crimes they haven't committed but that the government fears they might commit in the future.  As such, Trudeau and Virani's Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) is the most shocking of all the totalitarian, illiberal, and anti-Enlightenment pieces of legislation that have been introduced in the Western world in decades.

The New York Fire Department goes full North Korean on dissidents.  A state Attorney General is supposed to enforce the law impartially for the benefit of all citizens.  However, New York's AG, Letitia James, ran on an inherently political platform, vowing that she would destroy President Trump — and she's tried to keep that promise.  No wonder, then, that when she spoke at a Fire Department of New York ("FDNY") promotion ceremony on Thursday, she got a political response from the assembled crowd:  Boos.  Now, the FDNY has gone full North Korean:  Those who booed must turn themselves in for punishment and reeducation or be "hunted down." [...] In a healthy, free society, the commissioner might send around a memo reminding the firefighters that they should behave with grace at a promotion ceremony out of respect for those being promoted.  However, neither New York State nor New York City is a free society anymore.

FDNY Is Hunting Down Firefighters Who Booed Letitia James to Be 'Educated'.  New York Attorney General Letitia James showed up at a New York City Fire Department promotion ceremony on Thursday and found out just how her obsessive Captain-Ahab-esque persecution of Donald Trump resonated with the workforce.  The diverse crowd gathered at the Christian Cultural Center's Brooklyn Campus to recognize the promotion of 65 uniformed members, 29 members of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, and 34 civilian employees.  James spoke against a backdrop of the chant of TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!  According to documents leaked to the @ViralNewsNYC account, the FDNY is about to engage in retribution against all those who booed or heckled James.  [Tweet]

FDNY Firefighters Who Booed Tyrant AG Letitia James Ordered to Surrender or Risk Being Hunted Down — Will Face Punishment and Reeducation.  Members of the New York Fire Department (FDNY) who are fed-up with Trump-hating fascist attorney general Letitia James during a recent promotion ceremony are now facing severe consequences.  The Gateway Pundit first reported the incident wherein a wave of boos and chants supporting President Trump overshadowed the event.  A large group of firefighters made their stance perfectly clear during Thursday's New York Fire Department (FDNY) promotion ceremony regarding James's inquisition of President Trump.  After honoring FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, James's speech was effectively drowned out by LOUD pro-Trump chants in the crowd.  She struggles a bit to find her words amidst the commotion.

Buying Guns and Bibles Might Just Get You Debanked.  Imagine you walk into your local bank, check in hand, only to discover that the checking account you opened just a few weeks ago is inaccessible.  It's been restricted and marked for closure.  When you ask why, the teller shrugs.  The computer screen in front of her tells her she can't give you any other information.  That's what happened to one of the founders of the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF) in May 2022. When the organization, co-founded by former Sen. Samuel Brownback to promote religious freedom, tried to ask JPMorgan Chase why its account had been closed, all it was able to elicit were frustratingly vague replies.

Central Banks and Domestic Spies.  Central banks and espionage agencies are insidious threats to any free people.  The former manipulate the value of money, and the latter manipulate the perceived truthfulness of information.  Both ostensibly work for the broader public's "best interest," but as is true of all institutions, they ultimately serve the interests of those people who run them.  Spies and bankers should not have so much power over free citizens.  Both institutions are not only plainly anti-democratic but also inherently authoritarian.  The central banker says, "Free markets cannot be trusted to direct the flow of goods and services, so a small collection of experts must be empowered to manipulate markets at their discretion."  The spy agency says, "Free peoples cannot be trusted to make wise decisions based upon available information, so a small collection of experts must be empowered to manipulate what the public knows."  In both instances, freedom is diminished.

Brilliant: Let's haul the National Guard into the New York subway.  "Now, finally, something is being done" is the reiterated reaction from the thinkers on the left and, disappointingly, the thinkers on the right.  Both sides have shouted about government overreach, and now everyone is nodding for the National Guard to police the New York City subways.  But why not resume allowing the local police to do their job?  Why not let judges do their jobs by ending bail reform?  Why does local crime need to be outsourced to the National Guard when it had been handled effectively at the local level in years past?  Would there not be enough officers available now? [...] Like a small business, the local police are being pushed aside by the bigger, supposedly more capable National Guard.  And who created this problem of criminals being out and about in high volume and conditioned to getting a "never go to jail and stay free" card?  Now that the Munchausen government can solve crime in place of local police, will we ever get our police presence back at the local level?  And where does the outsourcing of our problems stop?

Martial Law In NYC?  National Guard deployed to subway stations in NYC.  [Tweet with video clip]

Canada's Government Considering Jailing People Who 'Might' Commit a Hate Crime.  There are a lot of reasons to be grateful to be an American.  For all our nations' ongoing issues — a senile President, a corrupt Congress, uncontrolled borders, major cities slipping into a new dark age — at least we aren't (yet) being tossed in jail for something we might do.  That may not be the case in Canada much longer, where their Parliament is considering a law allowing judges to place someone under house arrest if the judge thinks they might commit a "hate crime." [...] Can no one in Ottawa see what a serious and slippery slope Canada is perching on here?  Forget any pretense of due process or presumption of innocence, which Canada doesn't guarantee in any case; now a judge will be able to order you confined — sure, to your own home, but confined — and maybe electronically monitored, for wrongthink.  There's just no other way to interpret this abomination.

They're talking about house arrest for people who have wrong thoughts — before any crime is committed.
Canada considers house arrest for people at risk of committing hate crimes.  Justin Trudeau's government has proposed a law giving judges the power to put someone under house arrest if they fear they could commit a hate crime.  Critics have warned the "draconian" bill is an overreach of power and could stifle free speech and difficult discussions.  But Canada's justice minister defended the measure, claiming it would be an "important" tool to help protect potential victims.  An online harms bill introduced by the Liberals last week proposed a string of laws to protect children and prosecute hate crimes.  One of the suggested measures would give judges the ability to put people under house arrest who they worry could commit a hate crime in the future.  The person could also be made to wear an electronic tag if the attorney-general requested it.  Arif Virani, the justice minister, said the measures could prove "very important" in restraining the behaviour of someone who might be targeting minority groups.  "[If] there's a genuine fear of an escalation, then an individual or group could come forward and seek a peace bond against them and to prevent them from doing certain things," Mr Virani said.

Send Your Neighbor To Prison For "WrongSpeak," Get $2,000 From Taxpayers in State of Washington.  A bill has moved through the Washington State Senate and House, and is headed to Governor Jay Inslee's desk.  Since he is an extreme Leftist with no respect for others, Inslee is expected to sign this bill, thus creating a statute that violates at least the following constitutional rights:  1) The right to confront your accuser; 2) Freedom of Speech; 3) Freedom of Thought, which is implied in the First Amendment; 4) Freedom of Religion; 5) Freedom of the Press, to name a few that quickly come to mind.  Senate Bill 5427, after it is signed into law, would allow private individuals (note: this is not limited to American citizens) to report "bias incidents" to the State Attorney General's Office, with the possibility of receiving up to $2,000 of taxpayers money for this noncriminal incident.  The bill was very clear:  this is a non-crime which they will then forward to local law enforcement to investigate.  What's to investigate?  No crime, no investigation.  The Progressives & Marxists who sponsored this bill say it is intended to help "victims of hate crimes" before a crime even happens.

Climate Newspeak.  A few weeks ago, Charlie Angus took to the floor of the Canadian Parliament to propose Bill C-372, otherwise known as the Fossil Fuels Advertising Act.  Angus is a quintessential member of the Canadian political left and a backbencher in the New Democratic Party (NDP), the junior partner in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority government.  As a private member's bill — one that is not proposed by a minister nor formally backed by the full weight of the government's machinery — Bill C-372 stands virtually no chance of becoming law.  Angus' gambit nonetheless served its primary purpose, creating a burst of global headlines due to its sheer audacity. [...] It would be easy to dismiss Angus as just another wingnut politician pushing forward a crazy concept that few support.  Unfortunately, neither condition is true.  Angus has a long and relatively distinguished career in Canadian politics — he finished runner-up to lead the national New Democratic Party in 2017, for example — and many in Western society have become far too flippant about bending the awesome powers of government and monopolistic social media platforms to suppress speech they don't like.

Preparing Canada's Future as North Korea.  One scarcely knows where to begin in documenting the errors, scandals, and misadventures of Justin Trudeau's Liberal regime.  The problem is, one scarcely knows where to end.  The outrages just keep on coming.  Trudeau has come in for much caustic criticism of late, as a growing number of ordinary citizens and the independent media have expressed their justified suspicion and resentment of an overbearing and increasingly despotic administration.  The issues at stake are features, not bugs.  The list of noxious measures, lapses, and deeds that tarnish Trudeau's record include:  [List of scandals]  Deserving separate mention for the magnitude of their effect are Trudeau's two most recent legislative atrocities.  Bill C-367 proposes to arrest Christians for quoting portions of the Bible in public, to charge pastors with a "hate crime" when they preach against certain sins, and to close churches if government does not approve of the liturgy.

U.S. Government Legalized Weather Modification Activities in 1971.  Besides a desire for power to corrupt in these government jobs, absolutely powerful government jobs likely attract already absolutely corrupt people.  Government employees might already be corrupt before they attain power, and it is the absolute power which attracts them to government positions.  And, of course, it is the ability to act with almost complete secrecy which results in "absolute power."  Such secrecy is likely sought after by corrupt persons.  Simply observe how often government employees or others make billions to trillions of dollars appear out of nowhere and give that money to other governments or to secretly operating entities like the FBI.  Who would be able to prevent FBI or other government employees from taking a couple million dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars here or there?  Or, what about the potential to secretly get revenge on groups of people?  For example, FBI targeting Catholics; how many corrupt Americans might be motivated to work for the FBI if they can secretly get revenge on Catholics?

Psychological and Cognitive Warfare on Citizens.  I'd like to tell you about the thing that bothers me the most right now. [...] It's the willingness of governments to deploy modern cognitive and psychological warfare tools and technologies against their own citizenry in combination and particular with the power of modern big tech.  We're all perplexed by what has happened over the last four years, and I think we've all had this gradual series of small awakenings.  We have the privilege, as a friend of mine put it to me the other day, of being able right now to go down these various rabbit holes, these various journeys in fact discovery, and discuss them among ourselves.  We all find these little tiny factoids of truth in a sea of lies, and we carefully gather those little bits of truth and share them with each other and talk about their deep inner meaning and the implications.  We don't think that in five years we may not even be able to do that.

Are Democrats Toying With the Idea of Not Certifying a Trump Win?  I don't know why this surprises me at this point but it does.  The Democrats who spent four years complaining about constitutional norms and Jan. 6 now seem to by toying with the idea that if Trump wins the 2024 election, they can refuse to certify the vote.  Attorney Jason Murray, who argued Colorado's case to keep Trump off the ballot thinks there could be a constitutional crisis in our future. [...] In the Colorado case, the court clearly didn't like the idea that a state could throw a candidate off the ballot on its own initiative.  Instead the Justices left this call to Congress.  But that means, in theory, an incoming Democratic Congress could vote to decide Trump is ineligible under the 14th amendment.  They could effectively overrule the decision of the voters which would surely create a whole new level of chaos.

Here's what America does not need:  another secret court:
New Data Protection Review Court gets its first panel of judges — including Eric Holder.  The Biden administration named the first panel of judges to a new data court mandated by a deal with the EU, and it includes a familiar name — Eric Holder, the attorney general under former President Barack Obama.  The Data Protection Review Court was created through an executive order President Joe Biden signed in 2022 that was designed to comply with Europe's data-privacy regulations.  It will review cases filed by EU residents alleging the US government is violating American regulations by digitally surveilling them.

The Editor says...
Whatever the ostensible purpose of this secret court is now, I predict the "mission creep" will begin shortly, and it will be used against U.S. citizens.

The American Stasi Controls What You Hear And See To Control What You Think And Do.  It's tempting to look at Big Tech, corporate media, and federal agencies as distinct industries and entities with their own goals and organizational structures, but that's not the right way to analyze them in 2024.  In reality, they are just different systems within the same organism, similar to how eyes, ears, and legs are all part of a human body.  They have different roles and functions, but all are subordinate to the same overarching goal:  total power.  In 2024, these entities all function as part of a single system:  the American Stasi.  Recall that the Stasi was the oppressive spying and law enforcement regime deployed by the Soviet Union against the people of East Germany.  The American regime today is every bit as corrupt and deceitful as the Soviet Stasi was during the Cold War.  Big Tech and the federal surveillance system work hand in glove to manipulate what you see, hear, and think.  The surveillance state spies on you constantly if you engage in activities it detests:  going to church or speaking out at a school board meeting, for example.  It develops and deploys complex technologies used to manipulate your perception of reality.

Constitutional rights crushed as lockdown protester found guilty of violating COVID-19 stay-at-home order.  An Ontario man challenging harshly imposed COVID-19-related lockdown restrictions since 2020 has been found guilty nearly three years later.  Graham Walker's alleged crime is peacefully assembling, protesting, and distributing press materials in front of Cobourg's Victoria Hall, at a time when Premier Doug Ford had declared a third state of emergency and stay-at-home order since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.  [Tweet]

Canada's New Democratic Party introduces bill that would prescribe jail terms for speaking well of fossil fuels.  An NDP bill is seeking to criminalize the "promotion" of fossil fuels, and prescribe jail time even for Canadians who say scientifically true things such as how burning natural gas is cleaner than burning coal.  C-372, also known as the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act, was tabled Monday as a private member's bill by Charlie Angus, the MP for Timmins-James Bay and a longtime member of the NDP caucus.  "Today, I am proud to rise and introduce a bill that would make illegal false advertising by the oil and gas industry," Angus announced in the House of Commons.

2024 Is the Last Year of Free Speech and Democracy in the Western World.  Don't let the alarmist sound of this column's title put you off.  It is not a "conspiracy theory."  This column is a factual report as you will see if you read on.  Everyone needs to understand that the ruling elite in the US are implementing a decision to redefine democracy in a way that eliminates democracy, makes Congress superfluous, voting pointless, and discards the Constitution as an outdated document inconsistent with the power the ruling elite intend to wield over Americans and the rest of the world.  The decision has been made to redefine democracy from the will of the people to protecting "the sanctity of democratic institutions."  Precisely, what are "democratic institutions"?  They are not the institutions, such as Congress and representative government or the rule of law and an independent judiciary, that we currently regard as democratic institutions.  "Democratic institutions" are the institutions of the censorship industry, such as the military/security complex, State Department, NATO, CIA, FBI, IMF, World Bank, NGOs, the Atlantic Council, the Aspen Institute, the presstitutes, Black Rock, JP Morgan/Chase and other of the consensus-building institutions that set agendas and control the narratives.  To express disagreement with the consensus these elite institutions build is considered to be "an attack on democracy."  In other words, "democracy" is the property of the elite institutions, and the sanctity of these elite institutions must be protected from the people defined by Hillary Clinton as "the Trump deplorables."  The will of the people is eliminated from the picture.

The End of Democracy: "What I'm Describing is Military Rule".  If you wish to understand how democracy ended in the United States and the European Union, please watch this interview with Tucker Carlson and Mike Benz.  It is full of the most stunning revelations that I have heard in a very long time. [...] Honestly, it is critical that this video be seen by as many people as possible.  So, please share this video interview and transcript. [...] [W]hat Mike Benz is describing is functionally a silent coup by the US Military and the Deep State.  And yes, Barack Obama's fingerprints are all over this.

The Military Junta Called "The Democracy".  On Saturday night I watched Tucker Carlson's interview with Michael Benz, the link sent to me by a reader, and found out that I have, like many others, been a warrior against a military junta that has taken over our government. [...] I have, for a long time, tried to make the distinction to my readers that being an American was different from being a citizen of the United States of America.  The land is America, the governing body is the United States.  The interview detailed a timeline of events that have led to a military coup waged by a specific group of actors in the intelligence community (IC) and the DOD, placing our destinies and the destiny of America in the hands of a greater international community including the WEF and the UN with sympathetic actors in the EU for assistance.  When these compromised politicians speak of "the democracy" they are speaking of this cabal who through manipulation of social media are able to inspire or put down color revolutions in any nation in the world and after 2016, Trump's election, they began to utilize those same means of overthrowing governments here in the United States and have effectively altered the outcome of elections, both here and abroad.  A lot of people had to know of this cabal or be threatened by it in order for NONE of the evidence of election interference to be heard in court, or given any credibility.

"If You Want To Control People, You Have To Control The CO2".  As farmer protests rage across Europe, Dutch MP Rob Roos sits down with The HighWire's Del Bigtree to discuss the climate scam pushed by radical globalist elites in the Western world to seize more power and control.  "They [elites] go against family values.  They go against natural food.  They go against freedom — because if you have to buy an electric car.  They're almost twice as expensive — and people cannot buy that — it's not about the car — it's about you can't go anywhere and must depend on public transportation," Roos explained.  He said, "It's also digitalization — what we see is the digital identity and central bank digital currency — this is all about a new form of communism."  "If you want to control the people, you have to control the CO2 — because everything we do in life, breathing, living, traveling, eating, and everything we do in life leads to CO2 emissions.  And if you can control the CO2, you can control the people," Roos said.  He further explained that the ultimate control comes when globalists connect people's digital identities to the central bank's digital currency.

How US Intel Agencies Manipulate Media & the Public.  U.S. intelligence agencies tried to sabotage Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin, but this interference with the press by the CIA and other agencies is nothing new, explains The New American magazine's Alex Newman on this episode of Behind The Deep State.  Two key schemes, Project Mockingbird and Operation Mockingbird, saw these rogue actors spying on journalists and even putting them on the payroll to push propaganda.  The CIA has even been caught spying on Congress as it investigated the intelligence community's shady tactics, not to mention the all-out war U.S. intelligence operatives waged against President Donald Trump and members of his inner circle.  This must stop but that will not happen until those responsible are held accountable with the law, warns Newman.  [Video clip]

Germany announces wide-ranging plans to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of political dissidents.  Alternative für Deutschland find themselves in the targets of our nominally democratic priesthood not because they are extremely right-wing, or racist, or xenophobic or anything like that.  Politically, they're hardly different from the CDU of the 1980s.  Their real crime is having achieved enough strength to threaten the establishment ecosystem. [...] The once-dominant centre-right CDU, meanwhile, will find itself unable to form workable governments with partners on the left, and thus without any excuse not to enact the mild nationalism that a clear majority of voters demand, and that is so deeply out of fashion with our globalist rulers.  This is the purpose of the unceasing, astroturfed agitation "against the right" that the establishment have visited upon Germany for over a month now.  The protests have not worked to destroy support for the AfD, so now they are being repurposed as a license to take enforcement action against "right-wing extremism."

A Western Consensus Is Brewing.  There is an understandable tendency to look at the growth of government-directed censorship, warrantless surveillance, and political persecution as proof that Americans will soon be under the yoke of full-fledged totalitarianism.  That is a real and threatening possibility.  However, petulant and steel-booted policies meant to terrorize and dishearten citizens also reflect a growing fear among the "ruling elite."  You do not spend three years hunting down patriotic grandmas and selfless veterans who attended the J6 protest for free and fair elections unless you are terrified that a critical mass of people sees rampant election fraud as a Uniparty weapon for maintaining illegitimate control.  You do not set up "disinformation" review boards or pretend public debate is a "threat to national security" unless you are frightened of what ordinary people have to say.  You do not spy on people's financial transactions, text messages, and social media posts unless you view every single American as a danger to the State.  Rapid technological advancements have given government authorities unsavory tools for pursuing unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral policies against the American people, but those authorities would not be so openly hostile to the public or flagrantly dismissive of their constitutional obligations if they were not already afraid.  They should be.  The single greatest social transformation in several centuries is occurring right now.  A transnational consensus is growing among ordinary citizens that coercive government is dangerous wherever it exists.

Put A 'Kill Switch' On Gov't Bureaucrats, Not Our Cars.  A provision in the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2021 directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to come up with a rule by this year requiring new cars to have "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology."  The law describes this tech as being able to "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle" and "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected."  Critics immediately raised privacy, cost, and reliability concerns any such "monitoring" system would raise, only to be reassured by the mainstream press that this was much ado about nothing.  The provision was meant only to keep drunk drivers off the road.  The fact checkers also said that law enforcement and government agencies wouldn't be notified of an impaired driver or ever be able to remotely disable your car.  Phew.  But the law doesn't specifically forbid such systems from communicating with third parties or allowing them to shut down cars remotely.  And you can bet that cops, government agencies, insurance companies, and who knows who else will all want access to it.

CNN Op-Ed Has a Big Idea — Carbon Passports for the Peasants.  The propaganda to restrict the peasant's travel is heating up.  The author of a CNN article, It's time to limit how often we can travel abroad — 'carbon passports' may be the answer, claimed the article was strictly his opinion, not CNN's.  He wrote:  ["]By the end of July, international tourist arrivals globally reached 84% of pre-pandemic levels.  In some European countries, such as France, Denmark and Ireland, tourism demand even surpassed its pre-pandemic level.  This may be great news economically, but there's concern that a return to the status quo is already showing dire environmental and social consequences.["]  As is typical of the leftist globalists, he wants to take something important away from the peasants — tourism.

Our Crazy Cousins North Of The Border.  If there ever were a sign that Canada has gone cuckoo, it has to be a bill introduced in Parliament that would censor speech about fossil fuel.  No, we're not joking, though we hope the bill's author is.  We fear, however, he isn't.  One Charlie Angus, a New Democratic Party member of the House of Commons from Timmins — James Bay in Ontario, has brought before that chamber Bill C-372.  It clearly states that "it is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element or the production of a fossil fuel except as authorized by the provisions of this Act or of the regulations."  Under the legislation, it is further "prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel or the production of a fossil fuel ... in a manner that states or suggests that a fossil fuel or the practices of a producer or of the fossil fuel industry would lead to positive outcomes in relation to the environment, the health of Canadians, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples or the Canadian or global economy; or ... by using terms, expressions, logos, symbols or illustrations that are prohibited by the regulations."  Does "nuts" adequately describe the thinking behind this bill?

All Our Elections are Stolen.  It is Why Nothing Works Without Money Printing.  [Fani] Willis is done.  Trump is the nominee and Trump is the next president.  No one is taking him off the ballot.  All the cases are done.  Jack Smith, who was dreamed up in Central Casting as fierce Marxist show trial runner, is done.  Trump is the next President.  UBS is saying it, the street is saying it, the World Economic Forum is saying it.  He is running substantially ahead of Biden in every swing state.  Biden, despite being near vegetable, will not leave so that another Noble Black Woman can run, and neither will the most loathed Noble Black Woman in America leave the VP spot, so that someone with a brain can campaign. [...] Did we really think the World Economic Forum would allow free elections?  They are on record saying democracy cannot defeat Catastrophic Climate Change.  They have, at their fingers, the most brilliant strategists in the world, the most brilliant digital geniuses.  Of course they have been working the American election system for more than a decade.  Up and down the ticket, they have been shunting the world towards their policies, their ideas, their ghastly plan for the world.

Why Is The Left Suddenly Talking About A 'Coup' At The Ballot Box?  For the past three years, the left has claimed Donald Trump lied about the 2020 election and then attempted an insurrection on Jan. 6 to overturn the results.  But now that Trump is leading in polls, the left is talking ominously about a "coup."  Pay attention, because if Trump wins in 2024, this will be how the left tries to stop him from getting anything done.  At a protest in Washington, D.C., a week ago — organized by a group that calls itself "Stop the Coup 2025" — Markus Batchelor, the national political director of People for the American Way, told the crowd that "Jan. 6 was just a dress rehearsal."  So is this group predicting Trump will try to take over in 2025 even if Biden wins reelection?  Not exactly.  He went on to say that coups "don't need weapons to succeed." He said that "coups can be committed by pen and paper," "coups can be committed at the ballot," and "coups can be committed by seemingly democratic processes."

Democrats Work To Strip All Opponents Of Representation In Court.  After the chaotic 2020 election, leftist organizations began filing ethics and even criminal complaints against lawyers who opposed Democrats in election litigation.  Democrats have recently expanded these tactics to lawyers who cross Democrats on any policy area.  "Their most sweeping goal is to discourage and chill lawyers from representing Republicans and conservatives, particularly in election law cases.  They want to apply a much higher standard to them in order to punish them," says attorney Jim Bopp Jr., who defeated a politically motivated ethics complaint after representing Wisconsin Special Counsel Michael Gableman over his 2020 investigation that unearthed "widespread election fraud."  Disciplining conservative, or simply neutral, lawyers can strip Democrats' opponents of high-quality legal defense, erasing justice by skewing the legal playing field.  Most notorious, of course, is former President Donald Trump's difficulties securing counsel to defend against the multiple lawsuits attempting to bankrupt him and ban voters from selecting him on the ballot.

Biden and the Border.  To me what's astonishing is how unpopular with everyone the immigration policies of the Administration — and a good chunk of the GOP — are.  Open borders are unpopular with blacks, whites, rural and urban voters, and, really, just a vast bipartisan majority.  But like "climate change," another priority of the ruling class without matching popular support, the borders stay open.  Why?  Because our ruling class seeks, in Bertolt Brecht's famous phrase, "to dissolve the populace and elect another."

Globalists Will Use Carbon Controls To Stop You From Growing Your Own Food.  In early 2020 in the midst of the covid lockdowns, blue states run by leftist governors pursued mandates with extreme prejudice.  In red states like Montana, after the first month or two most of us simply ignored the restrictions and went on with life as usual.  It was clear that covid was not the threat federal authorities made it out to be.  However, in states like Michigan the vice was squeezed tighter and tighter under the direction of shady leaders like Gretchen Whitmer.  Whitmer used covid as an opportunity to institute some bizarre limitations on the public, including a mandate barring larger stores from selling seeds and garden supplies to customers.  "If you're not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store," Whitmer said when announcing her order.  The leftist governor was fine with purchases of lottery tickets and liquor, but not gardening tools and seeds.  She never gave a logical reason why she targeted garden supplies, but most people in the preparedness community understood very well what this was all about:  This was a beta-test for wider restrictions on food independence.

Will 2024 Be the Most Dangerous Election of Our Lifetime?  While this year's election will certainly be important, I'd argue that 2008 was the most important election in our lifetime.  That's the year in which we were offered a fork in the road, and we chose the "fundamentally transform America" left turn.  We've just been looking for the "transform it back" off-ramp ever since.  However, I am willing to say that 2024 is likely to be the most dangerous election in our lifetime.  The deep state has invested a lot to prevent us from "changing it back," and appears to have no limits on what it's willing to do to that end.  We got a glimpse of how our bureaucratic overlords view the voters in 2016; when the DoJ, FBI, and CIA worked to influence the election.  When their gal failed to win, they continued their efforts to unseat our electoral choice.  But all of that was just a warmup for January 6, when they took things to a whole new level.

American Tyranny Is Here and it's Real.  If the American experiment in self-government is unprecedented (as the founders, as well as Lincoln, believed) then its transformation into something unjust and oppressive would also be unprecedented.  To notice the signs of America's descent into illiberalism — assuming such a thing can be contemplated — it would not be sufficient merely to examine the historical record of how totalitarianism emerged in Europe and Asia.  Gabriel Schoenfeld commits this very error, and disparages the legitimate concerns of millions of citizens, in a long essay for Lawfare titled "Is the United States Totalitarian?" [...] Before meeting Schoenfeld's argument on its own terms, a few words should be said on the logical sophistry he employs in dismissing his opposition.  Schoenfeld relies on a set of criteria developed in 1956 by political scientists Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carl Friedrich.  To classify a totalitarian regime, they identified six characteristics: "an all-encompassing ideology, a single party, a terroristic police, a communications monopoly, a weapons monopoly, and a centrally directed economy."  In Schoenfeld's reassuring estimation, not "a single one of them obtains in the United States" today.

If Anyone Needs to Explain Why They Need Guns, It's the EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency isn't traditionally associated with ranged weaponry, but the federal government has spent almost $620,000 since 2018 to buy guns, ammunition, and more for EPA employees.  Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that between 2018 and 2022, the EPA spent close to $400,000 of federal funds just on ammunition.  That came after the EPA purchased 500,000 rounds of ammo and 600 guns from 2010-2017.  Over $100,000 went to buying armor for EPA employees.  Funds were also used for "optical sighting and ranging equipment," for "night vision equipment" and "security vehicles."

WEF Totalitarians Seek to Euthanize the West.  For over a century, humanity has endured one form of barbarous totalitarianism after the next.  It slithers into unsuspecting countries — often hiding behind the mask of democratic elections.  It misrepresents itself as just one political party of many before announcing itself as the only party for all.  It seeks to eliminate opponents in stages:  first it proselytizes, then it intimidates, and finally it murders.  With a couple hundred million victims over the last century alone, it is a governing philosophy that specializes in mass executions, dank prison cells, killing fields, and concentration camps.  Totalitarianism infiltrates society with lies and builds nothing but the machinery of death.  With the Earth still wet from so much blood, Western governments now seek to turn the twenty-first century into the twentieth century's even bloodier reflection.

Report: Feds Plan to Make Trucker Convoy Another "Insurrection".  Lara Logan wrote on X that the truckers should be very concerned. "Be aware — numerous sources indicate the federal govt is planning to try make this another fake "insurrection" and go after people in the convoy the same way they targeted people for exercising their constitutional rights on January 6th.  They are already tracing and tracking people through their phones, iPads etc."  [Tweet]  Tucker spoke with one of the convoy's leaders, Dr. Pete Chambers and Ken Paxton.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Texas will not give up, and he's unsure what the federal government expects Texas to do.  They aren't going to help them work with bad people to invade our country.

Potential D.C. Jurors Say 'Trump Must Be Stopped At All Costs' Suggesting Fair Trial Is Impossible.  A new poll suggests it will be nearly impossible for former President Donald Trump to receive a fair trial, free of partisan bias, in Washington, D.C.  The survey, conducted from January 1st through the 8th by Triton Polling and Research, indicates there is likely a high level of political bias among the potential jury pool — especially towards individuals accused of participating in the January 6th, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.  Triton polled 422 "jury eligible" residents in the nation's capital, with 27.5 percent of those surveyed saying those who participated in the January 6th protest are "insurrectionists."  An additional 13 percent said protestors were "criminals," while 14.9 percent said they were "domestic terrorists," and 11.6 percent called the participants "traitors."

President Biden [is being] Urged to Seize Texas National Guard.  On Wednesday, Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX) called on President Biden to "seize" the Texas National Guard by calling them into Federal service, removing them from the command and control of the State of Texas.  This is presumably in response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott's defiant tone towards the Biden Administration on closing the border. [...] This idea by Rep. Castro raises some interesting questions:
  [#1]  Were the President to activate the Texas National Guard under Title 10, what would their orders be?  To assist federal officers in throwing open the gates?
  [#2]  What happens if members of the Texas National Guard refuse activation and instead continue to follow the orders of TX-ANG officers and Governor Abbott?
  [#3]  What if the Texas Guard splits, and former comrades end up facing each other across that red line?
  [#4]  If the Pentagon sends federal troops, how willing are they going to be to confront other Americans to allow the continued invasion of the country?
  [#5]  Is there any possibility that there may be open conflict between Texas and federal officials?
I'm no wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, but this is the kind of thing that civil wars start over.

U.S. citizens are heavily regulated and monitored, but illegals are free of mandates, regulations and bureaucratic harassment.  Joe Biden's Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, is working with Customs and Border Protection to allow illegal aliens to fly without proper identification.  This is in contrast to the treatment of U.S. citizens, who are required to show identification at airports before they are allowed to board a flight.  The New York Post reported that while U.S. citizens are required to show a passport or a valid form of identification to travel by plane both domestically and internationally, signs at various airports claim that the TSA and CBP are collaborating to enable illegal immigrants to travel without any ID.  As Americans find out about this double standard, they're understandably not happy about it.  But until this article in the NY Post, there's been very little information about this secret program to allow illegals to fly unidentified.  I've always said that the creation of TSA and Homeland Security under George W. Bush had nothing to do with safety or security and everything to do with controlling people.  This two-tiered system proves it.

Senate Bill Proposes To Expand Penalties For "Hate" Crimes:  Government Judgement Of What You Think Could Earn You A RICO Charge.  Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 359.  A bill which if enacted would expand scope and penalties for so-called "hate crimes."  The Bill could include provisions triggering RICO charges in certain cases.  Citizens find this particularly troubling given what many say is a gross misuse of RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) charges against the 19 defendants charged by Fani Willis, including President Trump.  Courts have often struggled with "hate crime" cases as many say "one man cannot know the mind of another man."  Hate crime statutes have also been challenged as a violation of free speech in the U.S.  John Albers downplayed the possibly of infringing on Free Speech but observers labelled this as a hollow promise since authorities would never know the actual intent of citizens they would be forced to draw inference which could in many cases be flawed.

Americans Are Fighting For Control Of Federal Powers That Shouldn't Exist.  It's no secret that politics in the United States is growing increasingly acrimonious — to the point that a 2022 poll found 43% of Americans think a civil war is a least somewhat likely in the next decade.  But here's what few people realize:  The intensity of our division springs from a federal government operating far beyond the limits of the Constitution — fueling a fight for control over powers that were never supposed to exist at the national level. [...] To rattle off just a random fistful of the federal government's unauthorized undertakings and entities — brace yourself — there is zero constitutional authority for the Social Security, Medicare, federal drug prohibitions, the Small Business Administration, crop subsidies, the Department of Labor, automotive fuel efficiency standards, climate regulations, the Federal Reserve, union regulation, housing subsidies, the Department of Agriculture, workplace regulations, the Department of Education, federal student loans, the Food and Drug Administration, food stamps, unemployment insurance or light bulb regulations.

Minds To Think.  The United States is without a political leader.  The State Department, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and all other federal agencies are being run by their heads, or deputies while we seem inexorably headed to worldwide conflict.  There is no accountability to be found and we're headed for a cliff, because we are no longer a constitutional republic.  The arrogance and hostility toward the people, the patriots, by their own government is unparalleled.  They treat us like the enemy, because to them, we are.  When patriots tire of it, have lost enough that they finally see it, it might be too late.  Or, it might be the start of the bloodiest uprising in the history of the world.  The cost will be enormous.  The truth is, at this precarious point in our history, either Russia or China, or both could put an end to us anytime they wanted.  That's a fact and they could do it simply by taking out the grid.

Biden's Secret Internet Surveillance Court — But Really, It Seems Like a Filtering System.  A revelatory article in Politico discusses a secret tribunal that Joe Biden has created to act as an arbiter in the space between the USA internet and the EU user privacy rules.  However, if you apply the Occam's Razor perspective, you might discover the tribunal or secret court is really just an arbiter of content, a "filtering system".  Those who do not pretend have long ago realized the systems deployed to control information and communication will always be the priority.  You cannot intentionally abuse a victim and yet allow them to have uncontrolled contact with family, the abuser needs to keep the victim isolated.  The same is true for government in their need to control information that might expose their purpose.  Recently European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said controlling information was the #1 priority of the WEF group for 2024.  That makes sense, when you consider that organized pushback would be counter to their agenda.  The western alliance of nations is collaboratively focused on definitions to help with their disinformation, misinformation and malinformation agenda.

'Their' Democracy:  Tyranny Comes to the US.  I am angered that Americans are being conditioned to loathe our shared history and the very people who made our modern country possible.  Even our founding documents have been labeled potentially harmful.  Make no mistake: these actions are happening because of unscrupulous politicians, bureaucrats, and others who are intentionally destroying our nation's heritage to obtain greater power, control, and wealth. [...] To combat their perceived scourge of heritage America, they forced DIE and other race-based initiatives.  They supported violent aggression by BLM and ANTIFA while vigorously pursuing and prosecuting Trump-supporters.  At the same time, they hid evidence of J6 defendants' innocence and conspired to persecute their political rivals.  They improperly used government agencies to monitor Catholic churches and parental groups.  They used federal money to coerce social media to inhibit free speech and abused their government positions to intimidate much of the public into taking an experimental injection.  They justified their unconstitutional actions under the banner of promoting their democracy.  Furthermore, in defending their democracy, they weaponized government by asserting national security.

Head WEF Nazi Klaus Schwab Says There Will Be No Need For Elections, AI Will Choose For You.  World Economic Forum founder and chairman Klaus Schwab showed his true Nazi colors today at Davos, saying that nations will soon no longer need to bother holding "elections" because voters could easily be replaced by artificial intelligence.  AI is more than capable of choosing a nation's leaders, he said.  Schwab made the bone-chilling comments during a WEF interview with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, which was posted to X by Ezra Levant of Rebel News.  [Video clip]

What the WEF Has in Store For You.  One of the things I keep pointing out about the transnational elite is that, for the most part, they aren't hiding who they are and what they want.  It's not some deep, dark conspiracy.  They are proud of what they are doing.  You can go to the websites of major corporations, universities, our federal government, or most conveniently the World Economic Forum and see what kind of dystopia they have planned for you.  Basically, it boils down to this:  let your betters run your lives, and by the way, we are your betters.  If you find it surprising that people with such an offensive attitude are so open about their intentions, you shouldn't be.  Oligarchs have, for time immemorial, said pretty much the same thing.  Sometimes they say it with a "it's good for you to listen to us" spin, and sometimes it's with the more menacing "you will do what we say if you know what is good for you" spin.  But the message is pretty much the same.

Lawmakers and others are 'secretly' plotting a military mutiny if Trump is elected.  Mutiny is on the menu should Trump win again.  That's according to an allegedly "secret" plan, that's being widely trumpeted on NBC News, for the military to refuse to follow orders from Trump.  Part of this is pre-election posturing, but part of this is entirely consistent with the post-Obama military, up to and including the execrable Mark "White Rage" Milley. [...] And don't doubt that there are many in the military who will go along with this planned mutiny.  As I wrote years ago on my own blog, the military leadership, shaped by years of Obama's efforts to remove traditional American values from the Pentagon, hates Trump.  Gen. Mark "White Rage" Milley's time as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reflects this mindset.

Blue State Dems Aren't Hiding It Anymore, Move Closer to Forcing American Homeowners to Shelter Illegals.  We've written recently about New York and other blue states making life more and more inconvenient for American citizens living there, over the (at least in their way of thinking) more urgent needs of illegal aliens, who continue to stream daily across our southern border.  A story that continues to linger in my mind is the one from a few days ago, about New York City making high school kids return to the remote learning model from COVID lockdowns -- so that undocumented people who were being sheltered in tents could bunk down inside the school gym during bad weather.  That didn't fly with many people, [...]

Are You an Enemy of the State? Most likely.  [Scroll down]  Why pick on you?  What if they did decide to make an example of you, an inconspicuous promoter of seditious thoughts?  The big guys have money and influence to defend themselves.  You have nothing.  You would be at their mercy, and they have no mercy.  Would you stand your ground or crumble like a sandcastle during a tsunami?  Would you wave your First Amendment rights at their weapons, or would you forget your own name?  Your story would shake the social media world, exactly their reason for attacking you.  Is it really worth your life to defy the state?

Next Comes Billeting Illegal Aliens in Our Homes.  First they ask; soon they tell.  Before our eyes, Democrats are handing over our country to the unlawful foreign invaders they have invited to pour across the undefended border from every unsavory corner of the globe.  Why wouldn't they do the same with our homes?  The Third Amendment protects us from being forced to quarter soldiers.  But this may not apply to the highly irregular troops Democrats have brought in to fundamentally transform the country.  Nor will anything else in the Constitution apply if they succeed.

Texas Rancher Says US Government Facilitating Plans For a Planned Food Shortage and Depopulation.  [Transcript]nbsp; "Hey, everybody.  This is Shad Sullivan coming to you from the headwaters of Bitter Creek, Archer County, North Texas.  We have to talk.  State officials will be assisting to help identify potential alternative markets if a producer is unable to move animals and if necessary, advise and assist on depopulation and disposal methods.  Ladies and gentlemen, we are plowing under vegetable crops from coast to coast.  We are euthanizing millions of chickens.  We are aborting sows and burying feeder pigs.  We are dumping milk by the hundreds of thousands of gallons, and now they are preparing us to depopulate the fat cattle ready to harvest.  [Video clip]

When Lawyers Defending Their Clients Become the Accused.  Lawyers throughout America are being subjected to these very ordeals due to their participation in cases related to the 2020 presidential election.  One of the principal groups pursuing this strategy operates under the name "The 65 Project."  The group targets lawyers who litigated 2020 election irregularities or represented President Donald Trump.  It does this by filing complaints against them in state bar associations, contending not only that the lawsuits were meritless but that anyone involved in them should be sanctioned — up to and including disbarment.  This may be the first time in our nation's history that election controversies have denigrated into such "lawfare."  Election controversies are not uncommon, and heretofore, they have not led to such actions by disciplinary bodies.

Have No Fear, 'Big Brother' Is On Duty.  What if the "Big Brother" of Orwell's 1984 dystopia weren't a person or a computer, but rather a neural network of millions of bureaucratic synapses working in harmony to serve the hive, rather than the citizens?  Would it look different from what we are witnessing now?  If the public came to the realization that "Big Brother" were a menace, to what lengths would our master go to protect itself?  Would it...
  •   Deny us our electoral choices — to defend democracy?
  •   Censor freedom of expression — to protect us from disinformation?
  •   Steal our property rights — so we can "own nothing and be happy"?
  •   Deluge us with foreign invaders — for "cultural enrichment" of course?
  •   Cancel our freedom of association — to prevent the spread of viruses and diseases?
  •   Undermine our freedom of religion — to eradicate "white supremacy" and "Judeo-Christian extremism" and usher in an "equitable" arbiter of good and evil like... a benevolent Big Brother?
  •   Attempt the removal of our elected leadership — because the left views the Constitution and its limits as just that sacred?
  •   Prosecute and imprison non-criminals — because "insurrection" almost killed "democracy"?
The hive would surely like us to maintain the illusion of self-governance.

Trudeau's Police Arrest Rebel News Reporter for Asking a Question.  David Menzies, a reporter for Canada's conservative Rebel News Network, was arrested Monday for asking Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland a question after a police officer accused him of assault in what appears to be a fabricated charge.  Video of the event, posted by Rebel News chief Ezra Levant, went viral on Monday.  It shows Menzies asking Freeland about Canada's refusal to label Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) as a terrorist organization — an ordinary question.  As Menzies walks down a public sidewalk, keeping pace with the Deputy Prime Minister, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stands in his way — then begins executing an arrest, claiming that Menzies "assaulted" him.

Democrats Want Criminals To Vote, But No Ballot Access For Trump.  Although former President Donald Trump hasn't been convicted of a crime despite two impeachments, FBI investigations, and myriad prosecutions, Democrats want him stripped from ballots while their party supports ballot access for criminals.  The official who unilaterally stripped Trump from the ballot in Maine did so based on her personal view that "Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use" on Jan. 6, 2021.  She is not a judge, and even if she were, such a pronouncement would be contrary to law.  Trump's much-viewed public statements on that day were not a clear incitement to violence, and therefore are First Amendment-protected speech.  Leftists are criminalizing speech by claiming it equals violence, breaking constitutional standards.  The claim is belied by the facts:  The vast majority of people listening to Trump that day were not incited to violence.  There's plenty of evidence that incitement occurred instead among the proportionally few rioters.  Claiming Trump incited insurrection is a political projection intended to promote a one-party state.

DOJ Threatens to Charge "Thousands" More J6 Trespassers.  In a brazen act of political theater worthy of an ethics investigation, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves gave an hourlong rehash of the events of January 6 to a handful of reporters last week.  Graves, a Biden 2020 campaign advisor who was appointed by Biden in November 2021, is overseeing the Department of Justice's unprecedented and ongoing criminal investigation into the four-hour disturbance that has so far resulted in the arrest of more than 1,200 Americans.  Acting more like a partisan member of the January 6 Select Committee than an unbiased government prosecutor, Graves used inflammatory — and in some instances inaccurate — language to describe what happened that afternoon and his office's continued pursuit of the perpetrators.  "On January 6, 2021, the United States lost control of the grounds around its Capitol and most of the Capitol itself," Graves said from his office on January 4, the same day Joe Biden released his first campaign ad featuring several clips of the Capitol protest.  "In scenes reminiscent of a medieval battle, officers engaged in hand-to-hand combat with members of the invading force.'

No More J6s.  [Scroll down]  Learn About False-Flag Operations.  There's nothing at all new about any of this.  The Soviets pulled off this kind of thing repeatedly, and with great success, going back to the 1920s.  The CIA, FBI, MI6, Mossad, and numerous domestic law-enforcement outfits have done the same.  Familiarize yourself with this history, to help you recognize the methods and techniques. [...] Don't be a Media Puppet.  There is nothing that media lefties enjoy more than destroying an unwary grassroots conservative on the air.  This can range from trick questions in on-the-spot interviews up to reportage on the exact type of scam event that we're discussing here.  Ask yourself: has a single legacy media source reported honestly concerning Jan. 6? Don't let them make a fool of you. [...] The Authorities are Not on Your Side.  Don't think for a minute that the cops — whether local, state, or whatever — will be in your corner and will understand your point of view.  Nearly half the "conspirators" who set out to "kidnap" the Witch of Lansing were undercover FBI operatives.  In a sane world, that case would have been dismissed immediately on grounds of entrapment, but we don't live in one of those.  There will be no cavalry riding to the rescue.

Pelosi says states, not voters, should be able to decide who is on a ballot.  Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just stunned viewers on national television by admitting that she thinks states should decide who's allowed to run for president of the United States.  This would give states like California the ability to drop former President Trump from the ballot if she got her way.  Many feel her actions aren't about protecting "democracy" but about pure, unadulterated power.  Pelosi told CNN's Dana Bash on Thursday that although "martyr" Donald Trump could be the beneficiary from the "raw politics" of being removed from state presidential ballots, it's the "kitchen table issues" that are important to American voters.

Amish Farm Raided by Government in Move Described as 'Lawless ... Patently Illegal'.  State employees, including members of the Pennsylvania State Police, raided Amos Miller's Lancaster County farm Thursday, reportedly as a result of an investigation into the farmer's supposed violations of state food safety codes.  The raid was conducted under the authority of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, along with the state police, according to the Lancaster Patriot.  Miller, the farmer, has been involved in a long dispute with both the state and federal governments over food and meat inspection and health safety guidelines after officials have accused him of selling dangerous food that doesn't meet inspection standards.

New York law attacks religious freedom.  A New York statute targeting Chick-fil-A for its Christian faith turns American history — and Constitutional law — upside down.  The "Rest Stop Restaurant Act" seeks to compel food service providers to stay open seven days a week in publicly-owned rest areas and other facilities, or be denied contracts to provide services.  This is not merely an attack on the faith of a private business chain; it is an open war against fundamental constitutional liberties.  Historically, American colonies widely implemented "Blue Laws" that forbade trade on the Sabbath day — Sundays.  Blue Laws compelled days of rest:  New York banned Sunday sales of goods in 1656, and enacted the first official "state Sabbath law" with the "Statute for Suppressing Immorality" of 1778. [...] New York's insulting effort to compel Sunday openings is constitutionally dead on arrival as it collides headlong into solid legal precedent.  Braunfeld and other precedents banned Jewish merchants from selling their goods on Sunday; now New York seeks to do the exact reverse.

Former Kentucky Clerk Ordered to Pay $260,000 in Legal Fees after Refusing to Issue Marriage License to Same-Sex Couples.  A former county clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, must pay a total of $260,104 in legal fees and expenses to a same-sex couple whom Davis denied a marriage license because of her religious beliefs.  The new sum is in addition to the $100,000 in damages a jury ruled Davis must pay to the couple who sued, David Ermold and David Moore.  The Davis case gained international notoriety in 2015 when she was jailed for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple.  Davis maintained that she had been faced with a "seemingly impossible choice" between following her conscience and losing her freedom.  A Democrat and a Christian who was elected to the post of Rowan county clerk in 2014, Davis surged into the spotlight when she refused to issue licenses after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.  After defying a federal court order and losing a string of appeals, she was jailed for five days in 2015.

If it all goes wrong, with whom will the police side?  Should our government decide "our democracy" is in imminent danger and it's necessary to suppress dangerous insurrectionists like Catholics and soccer moms, would America's federal, state and local police play along?  It has long been common knowledge Federal agencies have been stockpiling enormous quantities of mil-spec arms, ammunition and other gear.  Agencies like the Railroad Retirement Board, Department of Education and Fish and Wildlife Service have automatic weapon-armed SWAT teams.  Apparently, railroad retirees, federal education grant applicants and Trout are a greater threat to "our democracy" than anyone imagined.

The Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting rule and the surveillance state.  The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act created the Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting rule to ostensibly target money laundering.  Beginning January 1, 2024, the Act mandates U.S. companies, regardless of size, to register their beneficial and controlling owners with the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).  FinCEN claims the corporate ownership database will be used exclusively to identify anonymous shell companies involved in money laundering and terrorist activities.  Once again, like the Patriot Act, it grants surveillance powers violating the Constitution.  There is no provision for judicial oversight to protect individual rights as if that ever mattered.

2024: Do We Hit the Iceberg or Finally Change Course?  Furthermore, more Americans than ever finally recognize that the United States is not a country that supports free markets but rather a central bank-directed financial cartel that regulates labor, commodities, and transactions so stringently that there is nothing outside of the government's (or Wall Street's) economic control.  Taxing Americans' labor, forcing them to use an inflation-driven paper currency, and encumbering their ownership of real property are not policies for encouraging middle class prosperity; they are chains meant to create debt-anchored, government-dependent slaves.

Crimes of Fashion.  Sometimes, we are governed by considerations that fly below the radar.  Take de-risking, also known as de-banking.  It "is the closure of people's or organizations' bank accounts by banks who perceive the account holders to pose a financial, legal, regulatory, or reputational risk to the bank."  Ostensibly, its chief use is to keep money launderers and criminals out of banks.  But "reputational risk" is an elastic term, and it is sometimes used to keep social undesirables out.  On occasion, de-risking takes on the appearance of snobbery.  Take the Nigel Farage Coutts bank scandal.  It "occurred in June 2023 when the private bank Coutts closed the account held by the British broadcaster and former politician Nigel Farage.  NatWest, the owner of Coutts, initially claimed that he failed to meet the Coutts eligibility criteria of holding £1,000,000 or more in his account, following the expiry of his mortgage."  ["]It was later revealed that Farage's account was closed in part as Coutts felt that his beliefs and values did not align with theirs.  In an internal dossier, Coutts wrote that he 'is at best seen as xenophobic and pandering to racists' and considered a 'disingenuous grifter'.["]

No Man is a Digital Island.  Over the last few decades, we've watched as technology has rapidly outpaced our ability to understand it and much of it is due to digitalization.  We've seen facial/fingerprint recognition, holography and RFID (radio frequency identification) become the new 'policemen' of our society, as we sleepwalk towards the future where personal identification/tracking and unchecked surveillance replace our right to be left alone.  This march to that brave new world is not limited to North America; it's everywhere, even in small countries like Denmark that embraced a system of "My ID" as a digital key to access nearly everything.

Climate Expert Blasts Biden Admin For Bypassing Voters To Impose Green Agenda.  Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano blasted President Joe Biden for bypassing American voters to enact his environmental agenda.  The Biden administration signed on to a pledge to start "transitioning away from fossil fuels" at the United Nations COP28 climate summit Dec. 13.  "Do we need to abolish the gas-powered car?  We've never voted on it in the United States," Morano told former Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin and "The Bottom Line" guest host Kelly O'Grady.

Catherine Herridge Predicts a "Black Swan Event" in 2024.  Hey, remember when Catherine Herridge was a Fox News national security expert?  She was too real and legit for them so they decided not to offer her a new contract.  Now she's rather muted at CBS, but did make a scary claim today:  2024 will see what's call a "Black Swan Event", which means 'A National Security Crisis with Unpredictable High Impact'.  Communists and the rioters have been hinting at this for years.  Is 2024 really the year?  2024 sure seems to be a potentially interesting year, to say the least, and I'm not just talking about the November election.  Catherine Herridge is no news hack either.  I don't know [how] she leans politically (unlike the rest of the media).  I would take her warning very seriously.  The desperate Biden regime is willing to try anything to destablize this country.  I mean, 12,000 illegal border crossing per day and nothing is done or said by feckless, weak Republicans?

The road to autocracy.  Ernst Nolte's Three Faces of Fascism examined the three devastating ideologies that led to the undermining of European democracy in the 1930s.  Today, democratic life is also under threat — and there are also three basic forms that this authoritarian threat takes.  The most pervasive comes from the so-called progressive left.  The second represents the reactionary response from the right.  These two forces are like cats or snakes forced into bags, biting, clawing and spitting at each other.  The most dangerous form of potential autocracy, however, comes not from these extremes, but from the corporate oligarchs.  Although they often mimic the cultural memes of the left, the oligarchs, who constitute some of the world's richest people, certainly do not favour a socialist revolution.  Today, the left revels most in intellectual vandalism, cancelling contrary ideas and shouting down dissenting voices.  These 'progressives' have achieved virtual control of many key institutions — notably, the education system, the cultural industry and much of the media.

Democrats in Four States Decide to Have Only Joe Biden on the Primary Ballot.  Four states — Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Massachusetts — have decided to force voters with a single option for the Democratic primaries:  Joe Biden.  The decision, which effectively crowns Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in those states without primary contestation, has incited allegations of disenfranchisement and questions about the democratic process within the party.  The true threat to the demise of our democracy lies with the Democrats, not Donald Trump.  The communist party will now decide the Democratic Party's nominee and who they install into the White House.  The Florida Democratic Executive Committee announced that in the upcoming primary elections, the ballot will only feature the name of Joe Biden, effectively excluding any potential challengers within the party.

Secession Without Secession.  [Scroll down]  This is how the United States comes apart.  In fact, it's how it should come apart and if governors had a better understanding of their place in history, they would not be so reluctant to separate from the United States.  Almost all of the failures of the republic are caused by an increase in population.  Representatives used to represent 30,000 people, now they represent 750,000 people.  That gives each representative an extraordinary amount of power and dilutes the impact one person or group can have on their actions.  It makes the congressional delegation easier to control by fewer influences, because they represent huge blocks of citizens.  It's to the point that one powerful organization can control nearly a million people by supporting one individual.  That's insane and renders the voices of the masses irrelevant.  It's even worse in the Senate, now a popular vote, they represent up to seven or eight million.  The federal government was designed for a population of three million.

We Are in an Abusive Relationship.  We The People now appear to be in an abusive relationship with government.  In all abusive relationships there is a common set of behaviors; the DC control system is following a familiar pattern.  My recent research trips helped me to understand exactly how severe and deep this shift has become.  Certain abusers distort reality in the mind of their victims through gaslighting.  Essentially manipulative and strategic lying, to make the abused think something, perhaps even their reality, is completely different.  Our government institutions and those who control the information flow into media have been doing exactly that.  The examples are numerous, but the deliberateness began to take a severe tone with the COVID-19 fiats.  In my opinion, it was our willingness to buy into the false frameworks surrounding the COVID-19 hysteria, that really opened the eyes of possibility in the mind of powerful people within our government.  We accepted too much; we allowed too much; we willingly accepted an almost totalitarian state in response.  The rules themselves were ridiculous.

Morano: UN 'is literally psychotic... We have to say NO to idea of Net Zero!'  "Since March of 2020, the whole world has changed.  They are lusting after what they saw in COVID.  And the most significant thing of this COP 28 happened about a week before COP 28[.]  And that's when a couple of hundred medical journals urged the World Health Organization to declare climate change a public health threat.  The idea here is to bring this under public health authority.  So if you could declare a COVID emergency or you can declare any kind of public health pandemic you can now call climate change as part of that and that's what they're looking for — to bypass democracy."

Doctor Exposes the 'Biggest Hoax' in Medicine Outside of COVID.  The COVID hoax has made many of us look closer at the whole healthcare system and the entire concept of the biomedical model of health.  What we have been overwhelmingly finding, to put it in a nutshell, is that we have been putting our faith in a system that has shown that it puts wealth over health.  We are merely customers, not patients, and the best customers are those who have a subscription to their products.  It is therefore refreshing and much appreciated when we see doctors who have taken their oaths seriously and are dissenting voices against the corrupt system, Dr. Paul Marik, who is the second most published critical care physician in the world, is one such doctor and says "The medical system will kill you[,]" and has exposed the 'Biggest Hoax' in medicine outside of COVID. [...] "We have a big problem," said Dr. Marik.  "And what you may not know is the life expectancy of Americans has gone down in the last three years — by three years.  And how did that happen?  Well, according to the White House, it's global warming.  The only explanation they have."

Leftists And The 'Imperial Presidency'.  [Scroll down]  Unfortunately, the Supreme Court decided to ignore that original meaning in 1936, when it ruled in United States v. Butler that "general welfare" was a separate power.  The net effect of that decision was that Congress was no longer limited in its spending.  Literally everything was on the table, and it hasn't yet been possible to put that genie back in the bottle.  The Court whisked away James Madison's original argument that the phrase "provide for the general welfare" simply explained how the list of enumerated powers should be understood.  FDR enjoyed that freedom in implementing his New Deal programs, including Social Security (which is neither).  But perhaps the Greatest Leap Forward came with Barack Obama.  Obama asserted that because Congress wouldn't do the things he wanted on immigration, he'd do his own thing.

How Far Will The Climate Cult Go?  "How we live, heat, get around, travel and what we eat could soon no longer be an individual decision, but increasingly be dictated by the state," says Kristina Schröder, who served under German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  Germany's Federal Family Minister from 2009 to 2013 regards the pandemic restrictions as "a blueprint for the climate movement on how to enforce fundamental restrictions on basic rights" and is "convinced that large sections of the climate protection movement are also fighting our way of living and our economy at least as much as they are fighting climate change."  She is also persuaded that "if a technical solution were to be found tomorrow that would allow us to render CO2 harmless overall, large sections of the radical climate protection movement would not be relieved, but disappointed."

Australians To Be 'Fined' For Using Cash.  The new governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has warned that access to cash will become harder for Australians and that banks and other users of banknotes or coins should face fees for moving it around.  Michele Bullock suggested that having cash users bear additional costs "would aid" the country of 26.5 million people moving towards a cashless society.  Speaking at this week's Australian Payments Network Summit, Bullock also said Australians may need to travel further to access cash services in the future.  She noticed that cash access points, including bank branches and automated teller machines (ATMs), continue to disappear.  "The declining use of cash is ... challenging the provision of retail cash services," she stressed in published remarks.  "This has been evident in the significant reduction in the number of cash access points over recent years, including ATMs and bank branches."

'Juror And The Executioner': Thomas Massie Presses DOT Official On 'Kill Switch' Mandate.  Republican Rep. Thomas Massie grilled a Transportation Department official over a federal "kill switch" mandate for automobiles during a congressional hearing Wednesday.  The mandate for automobile manufacturers to include a "kill switch" to address impaired driving was included as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill President Joe Biden signed into law in 2021.  Massie's amendment to kill the mandate was defeated by the House of Representatives Nov. 7 by a 229-201 vote. [...] The "kill switch" technology would disable a car if it determined the driver is intoxicated or otherwise impaired through the use of sensors in the vehicle that monitor for abnormal movements by the driver.

Making a crime out of something that is not a crime:
Washington state Democrat bill would jail people for using new gas leaf blowers.  Washington state Democrats are proposing to outlaw new gas-powered lawn equipment, like leaf blowers, with legislation that could land violators in jail. [...] Under the proposed law, the Washington state Department of Ecology would have a Jan. 1, 2026, deadline to "adopt rules to prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new outdoor power equipment."  The bill carries limited exemptions for gas-powered equipment used by government agencies and for commercial or residential use when there is no "suitable zero emissions outdoor power equipment technology" available.

Blue State Dems Introduce Law That Could Jail People For Using Gas Powered Lawn Mowers.  Two Democratic Washington state representatives pre-filed a bill on Dec. 5 that would make operating a gas-powered lawn mower or leaf blower a gross misdemeanor punishable by jail time, a fine or both.  State Reps.  Amy Walen and Liz Berry authored a bill to be considered in their state's upcoming legislative session that would ban "gasoline-powered and diesel-powered landscaping and other outdoor power equipment," a group that includes common lawn care tools like lawn mowers, weed whackers, pressure washers and snow blowers, among others.  Violating the new law would be punishable "by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for up to three hundred sixty-four days, or by both for each separate violation."

The Perversion of FISA and FISC.  When Congress passed The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, it sought to provide judicial and congressional oversight of foreign intelligence surveillance activities while maintaining the secrecy necessary to effectively monitor national security threats.  In theory, FISA sets out procedures for physical and electronic surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence information.  Initially, FISA addressed only electronic surveillance, but was significantly amended to include programs monitoring Internet communications, trap and trace devices, physical searches, and business records.  This bill also set-up the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).  This is a special U.S. Federal court that holds nonpublic sessions to consider issuing search warrants under FISA.  Proceedings before the FISC are ex parte.  "Ex parte" means that the government is the only party present.  So individuals being tried in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are not even aware that they are being judged and they have no right to an attorney.  This includes US citizens who may have had information gathered up in the FISA net.  These are often large data sweeps through their Internet communications monitoring, AI/machine learning — algorithmic searches as well as trap and trace devices.  FISA violations occur at a rate of more than 4,000 per year and these illegal data collection practices and warrants must end.

FBI tells Newsweek that Trump supporters are enemies of the state and must be secretly tracked, monitored, investigated.  According to an October 4 report in Newsweek, "the federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbance around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter:  Donald Trump's army of MAGA followers."  Notice the term "army."  There's a sinister purpose behind that word.  The government, in cooperation with its corporate partners at Newsweek, are trying to paint a picture of an organized military force ready to go to war with Trump as its leader.  As a member of the conservative movement in America, I can tell you that it is the most unorganized, disjointed and fragmented movement in the country.  It is not in any way monolithic and as such poses no threat to the government or anyone else.  But this is who our government has targeted for monitoring and tracking.  They're not worried about the Chinese men of military age pouring over the open border at a rate of 2,000 to 4,000 per month under Biden.  They're not worried about Iranian sleeper cells.  NO, they're worried about American citizens on the Trump team who want to see their candidate in the White House.

Leo Varadkar's Ireland is flirting with a new form of totalitarianism.  Irish author Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize on Sunday.  His novel, Prophet Song, imagines an Ireland that has fallen under Right-wing totalitarian control, and begins with members of the new secret police rapping on the door of a union leader to interrogate him for "sowing discord and unrest" against the government.  Novelists are free to dream up all manner of fictional scenarios, however far-fetched.  The irony is that this is the exact opposite of what is happening in Ireland right now.  The government in Dublin is indeed introducing extraordinary new legislation to restrict freedom of speech.  But it's not horrid Right-wingers conspiring to suppress nice, decent liberals.  It's nice, decent liberals scrambling to stamp out the opinions of what they call the "far-Right".  And far from being alarmed by this assault on basic freedoms, the broad swathe of progressive opinion in Ireland is fully behind it, including most voices in the broadcast and print media, and every major party.

Where's America's Conor McGregor?  Western governments around the globe, bastions of free speech and liberty, towers of diversity of thought and dedicated to truth have been compromised by a globalist sect determined to destroy the unification, the coalescing behind these values that has taken place over a couple of centuries.  These governments that rose on the power of these simple principles have rejected the will of the people, first with their responses to the pandemic, which I contend were tests of how far they could go before encountering violence.  Second, they allowed unrestricted immigration from third-world nations, mostly Islamic.  Another test as to these nation's religious dedication, another fail.  Third, they forced an untested, deadly vaccine on the populace through police-enforced mandates.  Fourth, to thwart the expression of the people against such measures they rigged elections, not just in the U.S., but other nations as well.  With no other civilized option left to the people who had been punished by these trials, the governments have identified them as "violent domestic terrorists" in what would otherwise be considered faithful patriots fighting for liberty and justice.  Here in America, it's obvious that it is not coincidental, it's designed to condition a people into a compliant public ready to accept totalitarian control.  If that doesn't get the results they want, they will be, and currently are, using economic measures to force compliance.  These are the issues that break a nation in two, that expose the people to the harshest of possible futures.

We've Seen This Move to Get Us Out of Cars Before.  When President Barack Obama named retiring Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., to serve as his administration's secretary of transportation, LaHood brought with him a vision for changing the way Americans moved from one place to another.  It would start with empowering the government to monitor how many miles Americans drove.  "We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," LaHood told The Associated Press in a Feb. 19, 2009, interview.  "What I see this administration doing is this — thinking outside the box on how we fund our infrastructure in America," he said.  Even the Obama administration, however, did not fully embrace what LaHood was suggesting[.]

Fascists in Government Want Control of Your Car.  Fascism is top-down dictatorial leadership with centralized control and a rejection of liberties.  If you think the Biden Administration is concerned about your liberties, they are — especially ensuring that there's less of them.  Slipped into Biden's infrastructure bill was clause mandating KILL SWITCHES on all cars made after 2026.  Representative Thomas Massie tried getting congress to cancel that mandate, but apparently most of folks we elect to represent us in DC don't give a rat's patootie about your liberties, either.  Massie's amendment failed.  We're told the kill switch will prevent drunk driving by automatically disabling a vehicle if the driver is impaired.  What they're NOT telling us is that the device will also monitor in-car conversations — and that it can be hacked, so not just the government, but anyone can shut down your vehicle remotely.  Government officials will even be able to monitor your speed and issue you speeding tickets, regardless of circumstances.  [Video clip]

Now Big Brother Wants to Control the Gas Pedal in Your Car.  Just when you thought there were no parts of your life not already under the thumb of the federal government, a new idea emerges.  This time it comes from the National Transportation Safety Board and it involves outsiders having control of the gas pedal in your car.  While you're driving, of course.  The proposal from the NTSB is to install "intelligent speed assistance" tech in all cars, a system that uses a car's GPS location and local speed limit postings "to help ensure safe and legal speeds."  What the NTSB wants is to require systems that "warn" when a driver is speeding, as well as systems that "make it more difficult, but not impossible, to increase the speed of a vehicle" as well as electronic limits on vehicles so they "fully prevent drivers from exceeding the speed limit."

Whose National Security?  When one takes the totality of goings-on in government today, I don't know how to interpret it any other way than the government intends to attack patriotic American citizens at some point in the future.  Perhaps, like January 6th, they intend to pull off a large-scale false flag in order to impose martial law and set about the elimination of the patriotic to install a different governmental system.  This is a time, when threats are not only pervasive and some terrorist attacks have been carried out against the nation, that the government typically is determined to increase patriotism through propaganda in order to secure a sufficient available fighting force.  This government is not at all interested in doing that, but exactly the opposite.  They spend their time trying to prevent any displays of patriotism whatsoever.  Anything that smacks of fighting tyranny and preserving freedom are assaulted and criminalized.

Biden Casts Doubt on Polls, Laying Groundwork To Delegitimize 2024 Election.  There's still a long way to go before Election Day in 2024, but President Joe Biden is already dismissing polls that show him losing to Donald Trump as inaccurate, raising the specter that if he loses next November he will argue the election was not legitimate. [...] The president is immensely unpopular.  Biden's job approval numbers are underwater even in deep-blue states such as California.  Just 39 percent of Americans approve of his job performance, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week.  This is dangerous.  Biden's refusal to accept the results of these polls — conducted in part by the esteemed and unassailable journalists at the New York Times — is a dog whistle to his extremist supporters that threatens the very principles on which our cherished democracy was founded.  Biden's strategy is clear:  Convince his base — comprising associate professors, multiple home owners, corporate lawyers, and suburban wine moms — that it is not possible for him to lose a fair and legitimate election in 2024.  Therefore, if he loses, it must be, by definition, illegitimate.

Transportation Safety Board Proposes Dystopian Technology To Limit Your Speed While Driving.  The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling on "intelligent speed assistance technology" (ISA) to be mandatory "in all new cars" after a fatal accident in Nevada killed nine people.  In a press release last week, the federal agency outlined how ISA "uses a car's GPS location compared with a database of posted speed limits and its onboard cameras to help ensure safe and legal speeds."  "Passive ISA systems warn a driver when the vehicle exceeds the speed limit through visual, sound, or haptic alerts, and the driver is responsible for slowing the car," the agency explained.  "Active systems include mechanisms that make it more difficult, but not impossible, to increase the speed of a vehicle above the posted speed limit and those that electronically limit the speed of the vehicle to fully prevent drivers from exceeding the speed limit."

The Editor says...
[#1] This is like geo-fencing.  It is an idea that assumes that the system operates without errors at all times; for example, nothing can go wrong with the Global Positioning System, or this system won't know where you are, and your car will probably slow to a crawl or just stop.  [#2] Making cars obey the speed limit will put a lot of deputies out of work in Doorknob County, Oklahoma.  [#3] This system only works if it knows where you are at all times.  Do you want the government to know where you are all the time?  (Even George Orwell couldn't have predicted such a system.)  What if the government makes it illegal to go for a Sunday drive around the lake?  What if the government decides that you should only drive 100 miles a month, because driving your gas-engine car is ruining the earth?  What if the government decides to tax all the miles you drive, using this system which they initially claimed was just for enforcing the speed limit?  (Mission creep happens.)  What if you happen to drive though some distant city right before an anti-government protest breaks out?  Will you automatically be put on the list of outside agitators?  [#4] If such a tracking system is put on my car, and I put foil over the GPS antenna, so nobody knows where I go, will I be sent to prison?

Why we are sleepwalking into tyranny.  The world is heading quite rapidly toward tyranny.  We are in a revolutionary period that will dramatically change civilization.  Few people understand the gravity of our situation.  Here are some of the reasons why the majority of people seem oblivious to the danger. [...] Globalist leaders wish to put an end to national sovereignty, enforce a "New World Order," control information, put an end to free speech, give the WHO worldwide dictatorial power on major health choices, ban our only reliable sources of energy, and impose a digital currency that will allow complete monitoring and control of every single citizen with a Chinese-style social credit system.  At home, the U.S. is in the "looting the treasury phase" of empire collapse.  Our military is weak, woke, and overextended.  The dominant media function as a branch of the Democrat party.  The upper levels of the Justice Department also function as a branch of the Democrat party.

The U.S. Government is Secretly Stealing Newborn Babies DNA — Is This Tied to Creating a Biometric Digital ID?  A lawsuit has been filed by the Institute for Justice over a state program in New Jersey that has been obtaining, and secretly holding onto, blood from newborn babies.  The Institute for Justice explained in a press release it is representing two sets of parents in the case.  The state claims it can use the DNA from the babies' blood samples for any reason, without informed consent from parents.  The case charges that state law in New Jersey demands that when babies are born, blood be taken and tested for various diseases.  This same demand exists in all states.  But, according to the attorneys representing the parents, what makes New Jersey different is that, "after the testing is over, New Jersey's Department of Health keeps the leftover blood for 23 years.  The state does not ask parents for their consent to keep their babies' blood, failing to even inform parents that it will hold on to the residual blood.

The Federal 'Kill Switch' Signals Our Surrender To Tech Overlords.  The last public action performed by John Adams came on June 30, 1826, just a few days before the founder's death.  Asked by George Whitney for a Fourth of July toast, the former president offered, "Independence forever!" No more, no less.  You can't get more American than that.  Yet independence is the very thing being choked out of us at an ever-quickening gait.  And Congress just gave that horse another sharp kick in the ribs.  The House of Representatives' failure to spike a federal "kill switch" mandate means that outside of a political miracle, all new vehicles from 2026 onward will be required to incorporate "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology."  It will "passively monitor the performance of a driver" and automatically disable the vehicle "if impairment is detected."  In other words:  You will no longer have control of your car.  Some outside entity — human or program — could, at any time, make it inoperable.

If You Oppose Tyranny, You're on the FBI's AGAAVE List.  As if locking up J6 protesters for their political beliefs and repeatedly arresting President Trump for opposing the Deep State had not been big enough clues, America's KGB goon squad revealed last month that it has a whole new domestic terrorism category specifically created to target MAGA voters:  Anti-Government, Anti-Authority, Violent Extremists.  (Fist bump to any reader who sees "AGAAVE" and immediately thinks that it must be Tequila Tuesday somewhere.)  It's always disconcerting to find more proof that the FBI is every bit the dangerous, psychopathic, anti-American organization that it appears.  Whenever I refer to it as the "Fascist Bureau of Intimidation," a little voice in my head asks, "Is that entirely fair?"  Then I see how it's AGAAVE'd half the population onto a terrorist watchlist, and I realize that I'm not being critical enough.  This agency is Soviet Russia's Cheka secret police through and through.  It just goes to show what a commie-curious, shock troop — loving, Big Brother monstrosity the United States Leviathan has become when its "premier" law enforcement agency thinks people opposed to authoritarianism are the real problem.

Democrats [are] determined to transform America into a one-party state.  Democrats cling to power like a bulldog on a chew toy.  This is why the Biden administration sends shock troops to the homes of elderly political opponents such as Roger Stone in the early morning hours and pulls them out of bed in front of their families.  Biden learned from watching the Clintons.  And, like the Clinton (and Obama) administrations, the Biden administration is pathetically weak in dealing with its geopolitical adversaries, but second to none in disposing of its domestic political foes.  To wit:  Biden's minions have been harassing former President Trump for years now and may yet send him to prison.  They have also ruthlessly targeted Trump's supporters, MAGA members — and anyone in a red hat near the Capitol on January 6 — many of whom are still in jail.  They are hounding erstwhile "America's Mayor," Rudy Guliani, for performing his job as Trump's lawyer in defense of Trump's Constitutionally protected right to free speech and to question election results.  They would like to see Giuliani, too, in prison.

Why we are sleepwalking into tyranny.  History is a story of the rise and fall of civilizations.  Tyranny, poverty, and servitude are the normal state of mankind, and it would not be difficult at all to return to that state.  The pattern of history is that humans make some progress, and then evil men do evil things and stupid men do stupid things, and the civilization crumbles.  The normalcy bias can stop people from seeing this.  You may have confidence in constant improvement because the people you know are good, productive people who are kind to others.  You assume that most people are like that.  But you need to notice that there are also evil people who have decided that their role is to manage your life.  They are self-appointed shepherds, and they see you as their sheep.  This is the essence of tyranny.  If these evil people are also foolish, they may think that they can manage the world economy and force all the "little" people to act in a way that creates utopia:  a great leap forward.  Centrally managed economies have been tried many times.  They always fail, often spectacularly.

Threats to the United States now at a Whole New Level.  The deep-state plan may include allowing terrorist attacks in the U.S. homeland to justify the imposition of a lockdown and then a shutdown of the November 2024 election.  That is unequivocally not an option.  America has lived through many wars, including the Civil War, which brought unprecedented destruction to the southern states — and we never considered delaying or cancelling elections.  Instead, we must use the opportunity of troubled times to defend the homeland and ensure we have honest elections no matter what the circumstances.

Stop Drinking the Political Kool-Aid, America:  Voting Will Not Save Us.  We are one year out from the 2024 presidential election and as usual, the American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us.  Yet what is being staged is not an election.  It's a con game, [...] We're being duped into believing that this mockery of a choice between two candidates who are equally unfit for office actually translates to having some say in how the government is run.  To the contrary, this particular con game is part of a long-running, elaborate scam to keep the Deep State in power and leave the populace deluded, distracted and incapable of demanding accountability, transparency and decency from the government and its cohorts.

House Republicans Help Dems Preserve 'Kill Switch' Mandate That Could Shut Down Your Car.  House Republicans failed to defund a federal "kill switch" mandate Tuesday night requiring all vehicles produced in 2026 and onward to feature technology that can automatically disable the vehicle "if impairment is detected."  This lays the groundwork for corporate and government access to monitor and interfere with personal movement.  By a vote of 229 to 201, the lower chamber rejected an amendment proposed by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie to defund the mandate embedded in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.  Massie's measure received 210 "no" votes from Democrats and 19 from Republicans.  Just two Democrats supported the amendment and 199 Republicans voted for it.  Eight members did not participate in the late-night vote.  [Tweet]  The 2021 infrastructure law passed by Congress requires car manufactures to include "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology" as "standard equipment" in vehicles.  The provision requires such technology to "passively monitor the performance of a driver" and "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected."

Dinesh D'Souza's Film 'Police State' Is Warning Cry for Americans.  Dinesh D'Souza's newest film, "Police State," chronicles the real-life stories of everyday Americans who have endured the wrath of a weaponized government and of the whistleblowers who are exposing its abuse of power.  The film will be shown Wednesday at a red-carpet event at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump's estate in Palm Beach, Florida.  Trump, who is currently facing 91 felony charges in four separate cases, is the police state's primary target, according to D'Souza.  Ahead of the Mar-a-Lago screening, D'Souza spoke with The Daily Signal about why he embarked on this project and how he hopes the film will awaken Americans to this troubling reality.  [Video clip]

IRS Can Enter 'Anyone's House at Any Time': Abuse Detailed in New Weaponization Report.  An IRS agent showed up at the door of a Marion County, Ohio, woman and lied about his reason for being there.  Once inside, the Internal Revnue Service agent, purporting to be named Bill Haus, began to harass and intimidate the taxpayer, according to a congressional report released Friday.  The woman called a lawyer, who told the IRS agent to leave the home since the taxpayer had gotten no prior notice of unpaid taxes.  "I am an IRS agent.  I can be at and go into anyone's house at any time I want to be," responded the agent, who was using a phony name, according to the report from the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.  Under pressure from Congress, the IRS discontinued its policy of unannounced home visits in July.

Is America On Life Support?  The US Constitution does not use the term "democracy.["]  The United States is a representative republic.  A republic if we can keep it, said Benjamin Franklin.  It is a republic in which the people do not openly elect the president.  But as the recent events unfolded, I couldn't help but feel like the system I had once held in such high regard was crumbling around me.  The naked truth is that many politicians are paid agents, dancing to the tune of lobbyists and special interest groups.  It is a harsh realization, and I am disillusioned and annoyed. [...] Ultimately, the naked truth was that our democracy was a fragile and imperfect system, but it was also a resilient one.  It could withstand the onslaught of corruption and greed if enough of us were willing to fight for it.

The Editor says...
Oh yes, go out and fight for it.  But not on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.  Fight for your country, but don't make a fuss at your local school board meeting, or you'll be investigated by the FBI and the IRS.  Fight the corrupt political system, but not if your name is Donald Trump, Douglass Mackey, or Matt Taibbi.  Resist the totalitarians at every turn, but you'd better wear a face mask if they tell you to.  Confront your elected officials and keep them straight, but don't even think about questioning the outcome of a suspicious election, or they'll destroy you.  Just as Mike Lindell.  It is too late to "work within the system" to get this country back on track and restore it to what it was in 1950.  I will let you make your own inferences about the few remaining remedies.

In the Mouth of Marxist Madness.  [Scroll down]  Of course, if Orwell prophetically captured the malicious spirit of our present age, it was Aldous Huxley who foresaw its moral degradation.  He understood that promiscuity, drug addiction, and other pleasure-seeking obsessions are not only gateways to eroding religious conviction but also the perfect tools for any authoritarian government seeking to keep the public mentally enslaved and subdued.  If a free-thinking individual can be relegated to a hallucinogenic state of narcotic dependency, then that person will never again possess the free will to challenge anything.  If adolescents can be taught to embrace a revolving door of sexual partners while joyfully "shouting their abortions," then they can be prevented from ever creating stable families of their own.  Healthy marriages produce happy families with thoughtful children who, in turn, grow to be self-sufficient, productive adults.  Governments that require their citizens to be obedient are strongest when those citizens remain dependent upon government for life.  Drug-addled, psychologically confused adults who are incapable of taking care of their own families are the perfect candidates for government enslavement.

Nearly half of Biden voters want government to regulate speech.  According to recent polling by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, nearly half of President Joe Biden's supporters believe the government should clamp down on objectionable speech.  That's right, among individuals intending to vote for Biden in 2024, 47% think "the government should regulate or restrict the expression of views considered discriminatory or offensive."  Considered "discriminatory or offensive" by whom, exactly?  Sadly, the results weren't a whole lot different for supporters of Donald Trump, 35% of whom purport to believe the government should exercise this control.

22 Years of Blowback from the USA Patriot Act.  If you stop holding the government accountable to the rule of law, the only laws it abides by will be the ones used to clamp down on the citizenry.  Having failed to hold government officials accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the American people have found themselves saddled with a government that skirts, flouts and violates the Constitution with little consequence.  Overcriminalization, asset forfeiture schemes, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, warrantless surveillance, SWAT team raids, indefinite detentions, covert agencies, and secret courts are just a few of the egregious practices carried out by a government that operates beyond the reach of the law.

State governments collect the DNA of nearly every newborn baby in the U.S..  Most new parents have no idea that by the time they leave the hospital with their newborn, a sample of their child's blood has already been sent to the state government.  Depending on the state, the government may store and use their child's blood for anywhere from months to indefinitely — and not only is it legal, it's actually mandated by law.  Each American state has its own newborn screening program through which healthcare professionals who deliver babies are required to collect a blood sample in order to test for rare genetic or metabolic diseases.  Only in two states, Maryland and Minnesota, are healthcare practitioners even required to obtain parental consent.  Wyoming law technically requires parents' "written consent," but is worded vaguely enough that in practice, it amounts to a system that must be opted-out of rather than opted into.

Douglass Mackey Given 7 Month Prison Sentence Over Hillary Clinton Meme From 2016 Election Season.  Douglass Mackey, also known online as "Ricky Vaughn", has been sentenced to 7 months in prison for distributing a Hillary Clinton meme during the 2016 Presidential Election season.  The meme was a fake flyer instructing people to vote by text for the former First Lady.  This was considered to be a form of election interference by a judge and he was sentenced to prison for it.  However, there are clear examples of other people doing the exact same thing for the other "side" and these people were never even charged.  One woman wore a "MAGA" hat, stood in front of "MAGA" signs, and proceeded to tell Trump supporters a false way to vote.  She was never even questioned.  Trump supporters, and also just rational people, see the treatment of Mackey as a clear example of the two-tiered justice system.

HHS employees who resist Biden's transgender pronoun mandate will be fired.  After alerting the public last week to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) newly issued transgender pronoun mandate, Roger Severino, the former director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights during the Trump administration, has published the document online after HHS failed to make it public, refusing even to disclose the policy to Congress.  The "Gender Identity Non-Discrimination and Inclusion Policy for Employees and Applicants" requires HHS' 80,000 employees to affirm transgender and non-binary coworkers' self-proclaimed "identity," no matter what his or her conscience might dictate.

A Lawless Justice System Is The Perfect Tool For Criminalizing Opposition To Democrats.  Democrats' successful 100-year war against the rule of law in America made it possible for a court to ban Democrats' top opponent from criticizing them Monday.  Because the United States is, in multiple aspects, effectively lawless after years of leftist-detonated norms and institutions, Democrats are now free to not just threaten Donald Trump with several hundred years in prison but anyone they so choose to target.  Not only must Trump spend millions in multiple venues for the crime of effectively publicly disagreeing with Democrats, but as of Monday, he is gagged from talking about this situation.  That means merely being a party to a lawsuit has erased his First Amendment rights.  [Tweet]  Prosecutors are well aware that they can convict just about anyone they want.  That's partly because American laws and regulations are now so voluminous that enforcement depends on discretion: picking and choosing whom to go after.  The law has ballooned far beyond punishing things everyone knows are wrong to being used as a social control tool.

Beware Clinton's Deprogram Program.  Hillary Clinton recently branded Trump supporters "cult extremists" and proclaimed that "at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members."  To disregard this announcement would be a serious mistake, and there's a back story here. [...] Hillary Clinton is the mouthpiece of the globalist-deep state-Democrat axis.  After her 2016 proclamation, the Russia hoax grew apace and lingers on still.  Clinton also charged that Trump supporters were afflicted with various "phobias."  Her deprogramming quest is a belch from the Soviet Union, which tossed dissenters into mental asylums.  The style of the Biden Junta is full-on Stalinist, with show-trials, pre-dawn raids, imprisonment without trial, media censorship and so forth.  Clinton's "formal deprogramming" will make a good fit.  Watch for details in the days ahead.

It's '1984' all over again in Biden's 'Police State'.  The Global Day of Jihad didn't live up to its apocalyptic promise Friday.  But if it had, it's doubtful that the FBI would have been much use, since it's so distracted with an exaggerated domestic terrorism crisis in which conservatives are the bad guys and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a terrorist attack worse than 9/11.  This is the "ultra-MAGA-semi-fascist" threat Joe Biden likes to rail against and that he needs for his election campaign to divide the country further, and to justify indicting his main political rival, locking up Donald Trump supporters, and imposing an Orwellian level of mass surveillance, censorship and ideological indoctrination on Americans.  The "Police State" being created by this president, or those pulling his strings, is the title of a chilling new documentary by conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, which opens next week in New York and theaters across the country.  D'Souza's contention is that America is in danger of turning into a police state, an opaque and woke version of the authoritarian regimes in China or North Korea — and a recent Rasmussen poll shows that more than two-thirds of Americans agree.

Close the Border.  The American people, at least the reader, has to start getting tough.  Those in the government are not your enemies, because they don't even give you the respect of being a human being. [...] If it affects the American citizen, they refuse to do anything to make it better.  What are they doing then?  They are passing aid packages to Ukraine, Israel, Iran and the Palestinians.  They are passing aid packages that go to NGOs that organize the caravans flooding the borders.  The FBI is designating patriots as "domestic terrorists" so they can come after them with brutal force.  It's not enough that you've paid for your own destruction, it isn't happening fast enough and they want to speed it up.  In order to show how dangerous white men are, they're labeling every criminal of color as "white" to pump up the statistics of "white" crime and justify their assault on the American patriots.  At the same time, they are totally ignoring all of the legitimate terrorist threats.

The Cult of Our Betters.  What could be the single overriding thread superseding all others, tying all narratives together?  It is that we face a ruling cult with no moral rudder and no identifiable corporate or organizational hierarchy, and that allows it to operate in the shadows.  This cult exists to accumulate power and destroy its enemies. [...] The continued success of this cult, which is a progressive cult, requires never-ending indoctrination on subjects like 'sustainability' (code for the climate change agenda), 'shared' governance, and an end to conflict.  This is to be achieved through pacification of the masses, controlling their ability to exist as independent, free-thinking citizens.  Our freedoms began eroding decades ago as we allowed our leaders to bargain away our economy, sovereignty, individual rights, and more.  Not a whit of this could have happened without the media's complicity and the death of investigative journalism.

America at the Crossroads:  A Free Republic or a Police State?  We now learn that the Biden administration's Department of Homeland Security has officially categorized Trump supporters — the so-called members of MAGA — as "domestic terrorists."  Additionally, the FBI has formed a secret task force that appears nonpartisan, but actually operates in unprecedented ways that depart from prior focus on cells, anarchist, militia and violence-prone groups, and now focus on people who may be peaceful but identify with anti-government and anti-authority thinking.  FBI sources acknowledge that these new categories and task force have been created to target MAGA and Trump supporters.  Not coincidentally, Hillary Clinton has reappeared just as this new information surfaces in a lengthy Newsweek article by William Arkin.  In media interviews she labels Trump supporters a cult, and suggests that there needs to be "a formal deprogramming of these cult members."  Hillary must favor a police state, as it's the only way such a mass deprogramming could be undertaken.

An Old Man Looks at America.  [Scroll down]  Were the CIA, FBI, and Justice Dept. always this corrupt?  Perhaps.  (I'm a born cynic.)  But at least, in the past, they tried to cover up their shenanigans by publicly apologizing, instituting reforms, and promising to do better.  You could sleep at night and possibly dream that those agencies were on your side.  Now, woe to him who offends the Deep State!  Trump-supporters, the pro-lifers, Latin Mass-loving Catholics, those who question either the '20 election (see bad joke, voting) or the historically awful government response to COVID-19 — all are domestic terrorists spreading misinformation, committing stochastic violence, and the #1 threat to America, according to the FBI and the odious Merrick Garland, our height- and ethics-challenged attorney general.  Worst of all, the above-named agencies don't even attempt to hide their treachery.  They laugh in your face as they continue trying to destroy Donald Trump for nigh unto nine years now.  They'll break down your door and jail you for trying to protect an unborn baby.  They'll gladly sue or audit you to death if you have the wrong political views.  Don't take my word for it; ask Mike Lindell.

America's Armageddon.  Americans live in a bubble of bliss.  We are very myopic, short sighted, and for the most part live in the moment.  Few of us plan anything more than a week out, less years, or even decades.  If you ask Americans, most believe our freedoms will be sustained forever.  Few fully understand or comprehend how thin the line is between tyranny and freedom.  Even fewer understand that diligence and constant tending to those freedoms is required and that to ensure freedom for future generations requires that "all" sacrifice.  There is a balance — or state of equilibrium  — that exists between good and evil which can shift suddenly. [...] Do we truly realize that our nation is no longer an island of freedom separated by two oceans, but a land that is now borderless, with millions of illegal aliens invading?  Do we understand this chaos, anarchy, and total disregard for our laws — in a nation that is based on laws — is aided by an internal insurgency that is hell bent on altering the fabric of our nation for the sole purpose of obtaining absolute power?

Hillary Clinton's call for 'deprogramming' of Trump supporters is no joke, it's alarming.  In a recent CNN interview, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for "formal deprogramming" of what she terms as the "MAGA cult."  Formal?  Did she mean government-sponsored deprogramming?  This is not the first time the left is calling for deprogramming of the right.  In 2021, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., proposed using taxpayer funds to deprogram white supremacists, a code name for conservatives and MAGA Republicans.  The list of others calling for deprogramming also includes Katie Couric, former CBS News and NBC "Today" host, who told Bill Maher in 2021: "And the question is, how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump."  Why such a call for deprogramming?  After the thorough demonization of Donald Trump, the left has been totally dismayed that his supporters still stand behind him with unwavering conviction.  The only option left for the left is to demonize all conservatives and MAGA Republicans as extremists, as white supremacists, or as threats to "our democracy" — in other words, enemies of the state.

Hundreds of Canadians Have Been Debanked In The Last Five Years, Report Shows.  A sweeping de-banking wave has swept across Canada, affecting over 800 citizens in its tide since 2018, a number which includes hundreds who rallied behind the banner of the Freedom Convoy.  Data unearthed through an access-to-information request by Blacklock's Reporter unveiled a disturbing pattern where 837 individuals found the doors of their banks slammed shut on them over a span of five years.  The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada was brought into the loop through grievances lodged with regulatory bodies, shedding light on financial strangulation that bypassed cases of validated terrorism and money laundering.  In a deeper dive into the numbers, it's revealed that the financial shackles tightened around 267 bank accounts and 170 Bitcoin wallets belonging to Freedom Convoy supporters, ensnaring an estimated $7.8 million.

Hillary Clinton Goes With the Pho.  Hillary Clinton recently told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that supporters of Donald Trump were "cult extremists" and "at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members." [...] That is what the former First Lady is preaching, at a time when the FBI regards anyone less than worshipful of Joe Biden as a domestic terrorist, violent extremists and so forth.  Hillary Clinton didn't specify what "formal deprogramming" looks like, but as Mark Hendrickson explains, there are models from recent times.  "One Soviet technique of oppression was to declare that dissidents were insane.  They were then incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals where they were tormented and tortured.  Some were used as human guinea pigs for dangerous experiments."

10 Ways Democrats Are Already Rigging the 2024 Election.  Another facet of so-called "law enforcement" agencies' election interference is their blatant targeting of conservatives.  Within the past few years, the FBI has been caught directing its fire at parents attending school board meetings, Catholics who attend Latin Mass, and innocent pro-lifers, to name a few.  Given these actions, it wasn't shocking when Newsweek reported on Wednesday that the agency is gearing up to single out supporters of former President Donald Trump as "domestic terrorists" ahead of the 2024 contest.  As The Federalist's Jordan Boyd reported, "Testimony from more than a 'dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism' to Newsweek confirmed that this increase in targeting was born out of the FBI's decision to lump Trump supporters into its expanded definition of 'domestic extremism.'"

FBI Quietly Created New Category of Extremism Ahead of 2024 Election to Include Trump-MAGA Supporters.  The FBI is beyond repair.  As the 2024 election season heats up the FBI has created a new terrorism category to include Trump supporters.  This is taking place at the same time the Biden regime is targeting President Trump with over 91 indictments on bogus criminal acts in several states.  And it occurs as the demented President screams about MAGA during his public speeches. [...] FBI whistleblower Steve Friend weighed in on the latest admission by the Deep State.  Steve Friend calls for the indictment and arrest of every single FBI and DOJ executive who took part in this scam and to abolish the FBI!  "Glad to see Newsweek reporting that everything I blew the whistle about is accurate.  The FBI used January 6th to manipulate and artificially boost its domestic terrorism stats."

DHS Designates President Trump Supporters as Domestic Violent Extremists?  The claim by Newsweek is rather alarming — that the Dept of Homeland Security and FBI consider President Trump supporters as domestic violent extremists (DVE's) in combination with official designation from the FBI as "domestic terrorists."  There's nothing within the article, the citations or the quotes from multiple anonymous officials within the domestic surveillance system, that will seem a surprise if you take away the hyperbolic use of adjectives and descriptive statements.  Yes, to the Newsweek readers, anyone who would challenge their worldview or political position is dangerous; after all, these are the same people who equate words with violence.  Remember, DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas recently announced a quasi-government panel that would be the arbiters of definitions.  In essence, the braintrust who will define activity to be compatible with the rules and restrictions on speech.  Officially the group is called the "Homeland Intelligence Experts Group"; unofficially Mayorkas has selected the domestic speech police.

Biden's FBI has classified MAGA as terrorists.  A shocking new Newsweek investigative report reveals that the FBI has classified Trump and his supporters as domestic terrorists.  They couch their classification in "nonpartisan" terms, but even they — anonymously, of course — admit that their investigative efforts are directed at the MAGA movement.  The predicate for this is, of course, January 6th's riot at the Capitol.  Even classifying that event as terrorism is ridiculous on its face, as are the sentences aimed at people who for the most part were nothing but trespassers.  I hold no fondness for the riot, which I think was shameful, but practically speaking nothing the rioters did could possibly be negatively compared to what the 2020 George Floyd rioters did.  Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y committed the same crime that many of the January 6th rioters were convicted and sentenced for.  I think we can expect that he will not be deemed a terrorist.

Fifth Circuit to DHS: Shut down Big Brother.  Looks like another federal court doesn't support the idea that Homeland Security's writ includes America's "cognitive infrastructure."  In a unanimous ruling yesterday, the Fifth Circuit expanded bars on the Biden administration's Big Brother censorship activities, blocking the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from any speech-policing communication with private-sector media platforms.  This comes from a further review of Missouri v Biden, which the Supreme Court will also take up in an ill-advised appeal by the administration to an earlier ruling: [...]

They Are That Evil.  We are facing the end of the United States of America no matter what we do, or don't do.  The financial situation just got worse with the passage of the Continuing Resolution (CR) and only more inflation can come of it.  There is no political will to stop the disastrous spending put into every congressional bill.  The BRICs nations will benefit from this act, more aid and comfort to those trying to destroy the US, but the competing nations are doing so because they recognize the insanity that has gripped the officers of our ship of state.  Those nations see as well as most citizens that the United States is acting in increasingly irrational and self-harmful ways, taking their investments down with it, so they've stopped buying our debt and started liquidating our bonds as a defensive measure against our recklessness.  Americans can not just continue to use the means and methods that have always worked before, they no longer work.  Elections, legal action, petitions, protests and revolts have been hijacked, turned into criminal activities instead of political expressions of disapproval.  That ensures the United States can do nothing other than collapse, taking all of us down into the dark, cold sea.

The New Rules for Radicals.  It is a reflection of these volatile times that the Supreme Court's First Amendment ruling in Brandenburg v. Ohio echoes in the back of my mind whenever I sit down to write.  In that case, the Court defended inflammatory speech from government punishment unless it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."  How the government defines "lawless action," though, is quickly changing.  Just being a concerned parent opposed to a school board's sexualized curriculum can make an otherwise law-abiding American a potential "domestic terrorist" in the eyes of the FBI.  Today, the federal Leviathan is neck-deep in the ugly business of propaganda and censorship.  It persecutes J6 election protesters for their political beliefs.  It seeks to imprison President Trump for the "crime" of having delivered a political speech.  Congress engages in Soviet show trials devoid of due process or exculpatory defense but rife with unsupported accusation and criminal innuendo.

CRTC takes major step forward to modernize Canada's broadcasting framework.  Today, the CRTC [Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission] is advancing its regulatory plan to modernize Canada's broadcasting framework and ensure online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content.  On May 12, 2023, the CRTC launched its first public consultations.  After thoroughly examining all the evidence on the public record, including over 200 interventions, the CRTC is issuing its first two decisions.  First, the CRTC is setting out which online streaming services need to provide information about their activities in Canada.  Online streaming services that operate in Canada, offer broadcasting content, and earn $10 million or more in annual revenues will need to complete a registration form by November 28, 2023.  Registration collects basic information, is only required once and can be completed in just a few steps.  Second, the CRTC is setting conditions for online streaming services to operate in Canada.  These conditions take effect today and require certain online streaming services to provide the CRTC with information related to their content and subscribership.

Under Biden, America Is becoming a police state.  According to a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports, 72 percent of likely voters are concerned that the federal government is devolving into a "tyrannical government that engages in mass surveillance, censorship, ideological indoctrination, and targeting of political opponents," aka a "police state." [...] Based on a small sample of the scores of egregious actions of the Biden administration, it makes total sense that most Americans believe the Democrats are responsible for the nation's decline from a constitutional republic on the road to despotism.

The cartels who run the world.  The European Union is a cartel.  The oil industry is cartel.  The FDA and the CDC are cartels.  Everyone knows about the Mexican drug cartels.  They are the cartels that run Mexico, control our southern border and, since Joe Biden took office, have become fabulously wealthy trafficking women and children as well as drugs into the U.S.  They benefit financially from every migrant they allow to cross into the United States.  The migrants pay, they are given wristbands that are their permission slip to cross the border.  When the oleaginous Alexander Mayorkas testified under oath that he had no idea what those wristbands were, he blatantly lied, as he has numerous times since.  Bottom line?  The Biden administration has willingly relinquished control of our southern border to these Mexican drug cartels.  As a collective, they are a vicious, brutal enterprise that operates on one rationale:  Our way or death.

Democrats Have Become The Party Of Authoritarianism.  They Only Understand Power.  [Scroll down]  Or again consider the role of Biden's Justice Department and FBI in protecting Hunter Biden and the president from congressional investigations that are, as of this writing, still uncovering [substantial] evidence of corruption connected to Hunter's overseas business schemes.  Just this week we learned that two payments totaling more than a quarter-million dollars were wired to Hunter Biden from China, and the beneficiary address listed on the wires was Joe Biden's home address in Delaware.  (At the time the wires were sent, Hunter was living in California.)  Surely, you might be thinking, not even the most rabid partisans on the left can think that this is justice, or that this will end well for the country.  Surely they see the danger of supporting a politicized federal law enforcement bureaucracy that criminalizes the opposition and uses the justice system as a weapon.  Even if they don't denounce it publicly, certainly they're talking amongst themselves about how terrible this is and how to stop it.  Right?  Wrong.  To think this way is to misunderstand Democrats and the left completely.  No, they're not worried about any of this.  No, they don't want it to stop, they want it to continue and intensify.  They don't want justice, they want power.

More Than One-Third of Democrat Voters Think Americans Have 'Too Much Freedom'.  According to a recent RealClearPolitics poll, more than three out of 10 Democrat voters think the people of America enjoy "too much freedom."  Imagine that: a substantial percentage of the Democrat Party — AKA: the party of "tolerance" and "inclusion" — wants to deny free speech or censor the First Amendment rights of people who don't believe as they believe.

Rebranding Tyranny.  Most confrontational journalism these days centers in the cities, on gender issues, the vaccine, the lying liars in government at every level, the Big Game in DC, the Great Game in geopolitics, but out here?  This is the real game.  If these people lose this fight, every generation from now on will be busted down to serf.  In every country.  If America falls, so does the world.  I do not exaggerate.  You will have no right of self determination.  Every mouthful will be measured and every outbreath taxed.  You will be monitored everywhere you go, and you will be mind controlled through your media.  You will own nothing.  Because right now, it is ALL being taken, acre by acre by acre.  One billion acres by 2030.  Another by 2050.

The Democrats Will Never Do That in America!  In repeated articles on Townhall and my personal substack, I have clearly explained the philosophic and ideological foundations of modern Leftism.  And I have shown, from history, where it comes from and why they believe what they do.  I have given historical example after historical example after historical example of the monstrous crimes the Left has perpetrated in the last 200 years — and I've hardly even started. [...] Just keep in mind Hitler couldn't kill massive numbers of Jews until AFTER he came to power.  Stalin couldn't institute his Great Terror until AFTER he came to power.  Mao couldn't collectivize agriculture and create a great famine or have a "cultural revolution" until AFTER he came to power.  Pol Pot couldn't kill 25-30% of Cambodians until AFTER he came to power.  But once they did gain totalitarian power, these Leftists DID do these things.  That's what history teaches us that Leftists/socialists do.  So, please explain to me WHY Democrats/Leftists in America WON'T do these things if they ever gain totalitarian power in our country.

Are We Preparing For A Coup?  "The Homeland Intelligence Experts Group is being formed at a time of unprecedented challenge, with the U.S. intelligence enterprise facing threats from a range of malign actors, to include foreign nation-state adversaries, domestic violent extremists, cybercriminals, drug-trafficking cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations," said Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Ken Wainstein recently.  "The Experts Group will be an invaluable asset as we navigate through this evolving threat and operating environment and continue to strengthen our efforts to protect the Homeland."  Who are these "experts"?  Among them are some familiar names:  John Brennan — former head of the CIA.  One of the people at the heart of Crossfire Hurricane and most of the efforts to topple Trump from power.  James Clapper — maybe second only to Brennan in his commitment to crushing the MAGA movement and preserving the Deep State.  Like Brennan a signatory to the infamous "spy letter" which falsely branded Hunter's laptop as Russian disinformation.  Paul Kolbe — a former CIA officer and also one of the guys who signed the letter branding Hunter's laptop as a fake.  The remainder are a predictable collection of individuals who have spent their lives in permanent Washington and want above all else to make sure no real change ever occurs.

The Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.  [Scroll down]  DHS has created a Homeland intelligence Experts Group to deal with national security issues.  Appointed to this group are James Clapper, John Brennan, and Paul Kolbe, former intelligence officers who signed the October 2020 letter deceptively implying the Hunter Biden laptop was "Russian disinformation."  Kanekoa the Great asks the question on every thinking person's mind:  "Why select intelligence officials who intentionally spread misinformation to sway a U.S. election for a role in a DHS Expert Group tasked with national security??  Shouldn't they be losing their security clearances?"  Also selected for this group by DHS head Alejandro Mayorkas is Tashina Guahar who oversaw the fraudulent Carter Page FISA — the fake claim that set off the illegal surveillance into the Trump campaign.  They're just trying humiliate us by showing they fear no consequences for what they've done.

The curse of corporate culture.  If you were to do an internet search, you'd find mostly positive statements about the benefits of corporate culture.  Then again, if you were to look for a book about the evils of communism published in China, Cuba, or Venezuela — you'd come up empty-handed.  There's also the term "corporate socialism."  Enlightened management knows what is best for the workers — including what they do after work.  After all, everybody belongs to a team.  It is all about team work.  I once attended a trade association meeting where a representative from a company located in Berkeley addressed the attendees and bragged about how his company cared so much for its workers.  Not only were they not allowed to smoke at work, but they couldn't do it at home, either.

The demise of the simple drive.  If we were of a mind to, my husband and I could fill up our car with gas, get a pocketful of cash, grab a map and just take off.  We could stop anywhere we wanted, whenever we wanted until we felt like coming home.  We could just top up with more gas and keep going.  America is full of fabulous sights to see and things to do.  We have plains, mountains, rodeos, state fairs, big places, little places — all waiting for you to drop by.  Sounds simple; it always has been.  It requires, however, many freedoms we have always taken for granted.  There is a problem with this innocent little outing.  This is Klaus Schwab and his Davos buds' worst nightmare and they want to put an end to such capricious expressions of free will.

20 common functions of American life the government wants to regulate, restrict or outright ban.  [Scroll down]  All of the 20 items have one thing in common — they allow us to live our lives independent of the government.  Once the government claims a right to regulate, restrict or ban these items and actions, the powers that be — the oligarchs — know we will become totally dependent on the system for our survival.  Food, water, energy, money, healthcare and the freedom of movement will all be 100 percent controlled.  Some hospitals are already requiring patients and visitors to have a face scan before they can be treated or enter and visit their sick loved one.  You don't agree, you don't get into the hospital.  These face scans are also being done at most international airports across the U.S.  You don't agree, you're not allowed on board the flight.  The same facial recognition systems are also being installed at sports stadiums and other large-venue entertainment complexes.  It won't be long before a digitized biometric scan of one type or another is required for you to "prove your identity" before being allowed to enter a store or restaurant.  That will include grocery stores.  They'll say it's to protect us.  It's always for our own safety, security and convenience.  That's the way the beast system works.

Jacinda Ardern Denounces Free Speech at United Nations.  Covid tyrant Jacinda Ardern is no longer in power.  However, she remains a menace to freedom.  Watch her hold forth at the comparably pernicious United Nations regarding the need to suppress dissident speech — or as authoritarian moonbats call it, "mis- and disinformation":  [Tweet with video clip]

Globalist UN Official Calls for More Controls Over Speech, Greater Censorship of the Masses.  Melissa Fleming is the "Chief Communicator" for the United Nations since 2019.  Her bio on her substack page says she promotes a peaceful, sustainable, just and humane world.  This is how she describes herself.  In real life she is anything but that.  Fleming is a power-obsessed narcissist whose goal is to contral everything that you think, read, or hear.  Fleming went viral this week on social media after a recent speech she made was made public.  The woman is a stone-cold tyrant.  Worse than that she is too arrogant to see how vicious she sounds to the masses.  And she claims her expertise is communications?

Homeland Security awards $20 million in grants to help identify Americans as potential 'extremists'.  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced on September 6 that $20 million in federal grants (your tax dollars) will be handed out to 34 organizations to "prevent targeted violence and terrorism."  Since today is the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, you might think these 34 organizations will be focused on al-Qaeda, ISIS or the Iranian Republican Guard Corps.  But you would be wrong.  They are focused on Americans who dissent from the prevailing narratives coming out of the federal government and its collaborating partners in the corporate media and major social media platforms.  Whether it's Covid and vaccines, the war in Ukraine, immigration, the Second Amendment, LGBTQ ideology and child-gender confusion, the integrity of our elections, or the issue of protecting life in the womb, you are no longer allowed to hold dissenting opinions and voice them publicly in America.  If you do, your own government will take note and consider you a potential "violent extremist" and terrorist.

A gun grab to test the waters.  Democrats are testing the waters for a national gun grab.  On Friday in New Mexico, the governor, a Second Amendment foe, tried to take legal guns away from one of her cities. [...] Let no one be fooled:  This is Step One to see if Americans are paying attention and if they have the stones to fight back.  If they are not and don't, this will go national and the Second Amendment will fall.  Democrats are clever.  They won't try this in a large, populous city with national attention.  They will try dying a corner of the fabric first to see if the color is good for the whole garment.  It seems the Guv got national attention anyway, probably because of the outrageousness of the grab.  Our Constitution is a paper document with nothing to protect it from being burned to ashes.  Unless the People rise up against this gun grab, the rest of us will be forever unprotected against what has become The Beast that is governmental overreach.

When a governor does something so blatantly unconsitutional, what's the point?  Is she just making a name for herself?
NM Gov cancels 2nd Amendment in Albuquerque.  We should rightly call what happened in New Mexico yesterday outrageous, but things like this are happening so often these days that some of us may have started to become numb to it.  Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order suspending the right of citizens to carry firearms across the City of Albuquerque and the surrounding county for thirty days.  She claimed the ability to do this by declaring a state of emergency in the area and seizing emergency powers under that premise.  The "emergency" in question was a spate of shootings in the city in recent weeks.  The Governor plans to have the state police enforce the order, likely because the city's Chief of Police has already refused to enforce it and the County Sheriff immediately said he was "uneasy" about the order.

What Will America Be Like Under Biden's Digital Dollar?  Look At Communist China.  President Joe Biden issued a sweeping executive order last year on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which "places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC."  The Biden administration and its corporate media echo chamber want Americans to focus only on CBDC's many benefits.  But experiences in China, a nation that launched a digital currency in 2020, have shown that a CBDC considerably expands government power at the expense of individual freedom.  China's digital currency, e-CNY, differs significantly from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.  For instance, neither central banks nor governments have the power to program or manage Bitcoin.  The total amount of Bitcoin was capped at 21  million by its mysterious creator.  Such a finite supply gives Bitcoin its anti-inflation property.  While Bitcoin transactions are transparent for all to see, users remain anonymous.

Arming the 14th Amendment Against Trump Voters.  Within minutes after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot began, the Democrats, the corporate media, and countless progressive law professors unanimously declared that it was an "insurrection."  Inevitably, they accused then-President Trump of inciting this purported uprising in order to overthrow the 2020 election.  Most Americans, however, saw the mayhem merely as a protest that devolved into a riot.  Then the other shoe dropped.  The people promoting the "insurrection" narrative developed an intense interest in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies anyone from holding public office at the federal or state level if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States."  Not coincidentally, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives used this as a pretext for impeaching then-President Trump for "incitement of insurrection."  The Senate acquitted him, of course, and speculation about the 14th Amendment died down.

Buttigieg's 'Equity' Team Seeks to End 'Racist' Private Car Ownership: 'All Cars Are Bad'.  Democrat President Joe Biden's "woke" Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has formed a team of "equity experts" that seeks to end private car ownership.  Buttigieg has been busy allocating tax dollars to appoint a group of "leading experts" to advise him on "transportation equity."  Several members of Buttigieg's Marxist "equity" team argue that cars cause "climate change" and "promote racism" and therefore should be phased out.  The target is not just traditional gas-powered vehicles, however, as the "experts" insist that "all cars are bad," including EVs.  Earlier this month, Buttigieg appointed 24 new members to his Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity.

The Editor says...
If "all cars are bad," how do Washington bureaucrats get to work?

Retired social worker, 73, is quizzed in her own home by hate-crime police for taking a photo of a STICKER.  Police officers quizzed a pensioner in her home on suspicion of a hate crime after she stopped in the street to take a photo of a sticker which said: 'Keep males out of women-only spaces.'  The sticker had been placed on to a LGBT+ pride poster which had the slogan Stand By Your Trans.  Officers told the 73-year-old retired social worker that she had been identified from CCTV footage.  The woman told The Mail on Sunday she was 'in a state of shock' when officers arrived at her door.  The incident [...] comes after fury over police forces failing to send officers to investigate burglaries and other serious crimes.

The Biggest Missed Story of the 21st Century.  Here it is:  the biggest missed story of this century is the incredible dumbing down of the American public, to the point where a cripplingly large portion of the adult population is no longer willing or able to exercise independent critical thinking in order to take decisive action on a wide range of issues that shape the direction of our economy, culture, and personal freedoms.  Indeed, too lazy and unmotivated to analyze readily available, credible data, far too many people have ceded their personal independence to government dictates — dictates clearly designed to increase government control over the population, rather than having been put in place for the genuine good of the people.

Why is the IRS Buying .40-Caliber Submachine Guns?  When the corporate media asked the IRS why it needed automatic weapons, millions of rounds of ammunition and heavily armed staffers trained in the "use of force," they said it was for "administrative reasons."  But we now know that the globalists are not just arming the IRS, along with just about every other federal agency.  They are militarizing these agencies to the hilt with military-grade weapons not available to American citizens.  Why, for instance, would the IRS need armored vehicles, flash-bang grenades loaded with tear gas, and .40-caliber submachine guns?  The IRS has been arming up for at least ten years.

DHS: No Return to Pre-9/11 Freedom.  Ever.  Looking back over the last 10 years and thinking about where many of us were and how we felt when the towers fell is surreal.  These are sad thoughts.  But what I find even more saddening is the fact that we have allowed our country to become more and more of a police state over the last 10 years.  And apparently, the end is not in site, and will likely only become worse.  When the Department of Homeland Security was launched after 9/11 and the Patriot Act was launched as a bill that would last only 4 years, many freedom loving Americans squabbled.  Most turned to those rebels and told them to "shut up," that it was necessary to protect America.  Then we allowed the TSA to militarize our airports and treat us like cattle.  Then came the unsecured and blatant violation of personal privacy when travelers data was being collected.  And of course the full body pat downs of children and full-body scans.

Tyrants Make De-Tyrannification a Criminal Act?  By definition, tyrants are those who, for whatever reason, have been empowered to write, interpret, and enforce any such laws as they alone may feel are even remotely necessary and appropriate for them to protect and retain their power.  Now, with that definition in mind, consider the notable recent efforts of people like of Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Jack Smith, i.e. politically-motivated prosecutors who are working in service to their tyrant overlords by aggressively and blatantly taking advantage of an inexcusable two-tiered system of justice to take down the ideological foes of their expanding totalitarian regime.  Which, in turn, is necessarily placing a fear-based constraint on everybody else's right to speak freely about how to best protest, and hopefully eradicate, this metastasizing cultural cancer that is threatening to strangle (completely) our God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

AI and the Elites.  Vernor Vinge, an outsized influence on infotech culture, once speculated that a truly efficient totalitarian system wouldn't consist of jackbooted secret police and continuous surveillance but in fact would scarcely be evident.  Things would just happen to enemies of the state, accidents that nobody could predict or explain.  For instance, an individual presenting a problem for the powers would order something for dinner that arrives chock full of botulin toxin, injected in the lab that transforms insect proteins into edible food.  As the toxin hits, his phone, internet, and monitoring equipment all go down.  After the job is done, they all come back up, their logs edited to show nothing at all unusual.  When the body is discovered, there's no evidence of anything out of the ordinary.  Death by misadventure.  What ya gonna do?  And so it would go on, day after day, year after year, the bonds growing ever tighter, and nobody even noticing.

You can vote all you want, but the rulers will do whatever they choose.
Executive Orders and the End of Liberty.  On August 1, 2023, it became "illegal" to manufacture or sell incandescent light bulbs anywhere in the United States, and consumers are left with no choice but to purchase LED bulbs.  Incandescent bulbs were a previously legal product about which no public outcry had arisen.  No law was actually passed anywhere.  The decision was made solely by the executive branch of the federal government.  Congress did not vote.  There was no consensus for any such thing.  A staple consumer item has disappeared from store shelves everywhere. [...] The light bulb ban is not the only example of government excess by mere decree.  Electric cars are slowly being imposed on us with no legislation and no general consensus.  Pandemic lockdowns were imposed despite legislative and public opposition.  A new example has surfaced this month in Boston, where the mayor has unilaterally banned new construction on municipal buildings that would use fossil fuels.  This ban was accomplished through an executive order instead of through City Council. [...] We are fighting for the liberties with which we were born.  The issue is no less than tyranny.

If you live in one of these cities, your meat and milk supply might be in danger.  According to a recent article by thefederalist.com's Evita Duffy-Alfonso, fourteen major American cities are part of a globalist climate organization known as the "C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group."  The group has an "ambitious target" of "0 kg [of] meat consumption," "0 kg [of] dairy consumption," "3 new clothing items per person per year," "0 private vehicles" owned, and "1 short-haul return flight (less than 1500 km) every 3 years per person."  You read that correctly: the group has the stated goal of effectively banning meat and dairy consumption — and private vehicle ownership — by 2030.  The shocking and dystopian goals can be found in a report titled "The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5° C World," which was originally published in 2019 and purportedly re-emphasized in 2023.  The C40 group is led — and largely funded — by Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg and comprises almost 100 cities across the world.

14 US cities initiate new globalist climate plan in partnership with Soros and the Clintons.  The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is a globalist enterprise with at least 14 partners right here in the U.S., and, they have set an "ambitious target" to convince the masses to give up meat, dairy, and private car ownership, as well as almost all flights, to supposedly save the planet and control temperatures forever around the current level.  So 14 leftist cities in the U.S. have signed on to this commitment to take away freedom of choice from their citizens, while people suffer under rampant crime and children perform poorly in schools, but their priority is to take away milk, meat, and gas-powered cars.  Got it.  Major funders and partners of the organization include George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Clinton Foundation, and The World Bank.  Michael Bloomberg, the president of the group, is himself transported via gas-guzzling private jets and limousines, to his many mansions around the world.

14 American Cities Agree to Go Full-Marxist, End Dairy, Meat, and Cars by 2030.  The so-called "great" reset involves more than just giving up voting privileges.  It calls for a steady loss of liberties until you "own nothing and are happy."  The truly nauseating angle here is that a portion of our population can't wait to surrender their freedoms, largely for no other reason than to "stick it" to those of us who respect the Constitution and the liberties it confers to We the People.  In other words, leftist harpies are willing to give up their cars, meat, coffee creamer, and whatever else it takes to look at us and say, "Ha-ha!" We'll see who has the last laugh when Dylan Mulvaney and I are in a gulag, scrapping for the last rotting cabbage.

These 14 American Cities Have A 'Target' Of Banning Meat, Dairy, And Private Vehicles By 2030.  Fourteen major American cities are part of a globalist climate organization known as the "C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group," which has an "ambitious target" by the year 2030 of "0 kg [of] meat consumption," "0 kg [of] dairy consumption," "3 new clothing items per person per year," "0 private vehicles" owned, and "1 short-haul return flight (less than 1500 km) every 3 years per person."  C40's dystopian goals can be found in its "The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World" report, which was published in 2019 and reportedly reemphasized in 2023. The organization is headed and largely funded by Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg.  Nearly 100 cities across the world make up the organization, and its American members include Austin, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Seattle.  Media coverage of C40 Cities' goals has been relatively sparse.  The few media personalities and news outlets who have discussed it have been heavily attacked by the corporate "fact-checkers."

Christianity and the Globalist Agenda.  There's plenty out there to defy these days.  One big piece at a time, the whole world is coming under the control of fewer and fewer people.  That is inherently suspect, but their avowed and allegedly benign objectives make matters far worse.  Just two hedge funds, Vanguard and Blackrock, with combined assets well over $20 trillion, are the biggest shareholders in 88 percent of the companies on the S&P 500.  These massive wealth managers work in concert with the World Economic Forum, the World Federation of Advertisers, and other transnational institutions to, as Ben Shapiro documents in a must-watch video, "create a universal framework full of guidelines and ratings designed to enforce approved narratives."  And what is the purpose and objective of these narratives?  In a 30,000 word essay, "The China Convergence" published earlier this month on Substack, author N.S. Lyons writes:  "The less the people are willing and able to practice self-governance individually and collectively, the more formal rules and systems of external authority will step in to micromanage what they want and how they behave."

Biden administration best understood as a junta.  I have come to realize that the Biden administration is nothing but a junta.  Those who constitute it are the opposite of the Founders.  They don't believe in limited government — of, by, and for the people.  They do not believe in objectivity — or freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.  They do not believe in "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects," or in their right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures."  (Just ask Roger Stone or Donald Trump.)  Nor do they believe in equality under the law, the people's right to a "speedy and public trial" by a jury of one's peers (just ask Donald Trump), natural law, etc., etc.  And they certainly don't believe that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  In fact, in recent years, they appear increasingly to disdain all these concepts...because they obviously increasingly disdain those who disagree with them and/or who could stand in the way of the ever-increasing power and control they have over others — power and control they revel in and believe they richly deserve.  They do believe in a Supreme Ruler.  But they believe they are that Supreme Ruler.  They believe they have the right — indeed, duty — to rule over the "deplorables" in rural areas and flyover country.  Preposterously, they purport to believe that their ideas and policies must be implemented, whether the rest of us like it or not... if we are to "save our democracy."  There is nothing less democratic — or more deplorable — than that.

"Climate emergency" declaration = endless dictatorship.  As many leaders obsess about summer temperatures that are predictably a little warmer than they used to be — given the gradual warming trend and El Nino year — we are hearing more calls for the Biden Admin to declare a "climate emergency."  This would be a catastrophic decision.  A government "emergency" declaration is a temporary increase in power that should only be used if a problem meets 3 criteria:
  •   Dire:  Unusually deadly
  •   Temporary:  Of limited duration
  •   In our control:  Actually solvable by our government
"Climate emergency" is none of these.

Domestic Enemies of the Constitution and the American People.  The political process is, by design, contentious.  Through this tension, the extremes of governance were supposed to be restrained, leading to gradual change, reliable policies, a degree of bipartisanship, and a predictable market economy.  There were always exceptions to the rule, but 9/11 was different, and it opened the door to profound changes in how we engaged the world and the way we viewed our own.  Unprecedented permanent powers were created to surveil Americans citizens, secret intelligence courts were established and normalized, and America's role as guarantor of inalienable rights was no more.  The beginning of the rift between the government and its people results directly from massively increased spending and subsequent actions taken to "protect us," which could also be construed as "control us" — it's a fine line between "for your safety" and "for your enslavement."  Politicians and agencies like the FBI exploited their new mandate to "protect and defend" to increase their power and prestige; today, we live with weaponized bureaucracies and two-tiered justice.

A Climate For Absolute Power.  There are so many slip-ups and absurdities coming out of [Joe Biden's] mouth that it's hard to keep up.  But one recent gaffe stands out:  The president said last week during an interview with the Weather Channel that he had already "practically speaking" declared a climate emergency.  He of course hasn't, but should he or another president do so, they would in effect also be declaring themselves to be an American kaiser who could issue tyrannical edicts with absolute power.  They would be able to autocratically "deploy around 130 different powers," says Climate Depot's Marc Morano.  Operating under emergency climate powers, a president could halt "the export of crude oil ... phase out all exports and imports of fossil fuels entirely ... stop issuing permits for offshore oil and gas wells under already existing leases and halt all drilling immediately ... marshaling funding under the DPA to deploy clean energy — for example, rooftop solar installations on low-income housing," according to Morano.  He, or she, could also implement lockdowns similar to those forced on us during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Comparing the Tactics of the Dems to the Nazis is No Longer Seen as Unreasonable.  So far, we've documented 24 startling and uncomfortable ways the Democrat Party Emulates the Nazi Party.  We've done a lot so far and unfortunately; two factors see the task stretching off into the distance.  The very disturbing problem we face is that the combination of current events and research reveals even more similarities making the task a never-ending process that seems to go on forever.  It's to the point of having a sense of dread at the thought of researching these facts, knowing that more commonalities will crop up. [...] The bad news is that with a century-long difference in technology, today's left is turning out to be far worse than the Nazis in some respects.  There is nothing more terrifying at this point than the thought that history is repeating itself and will make the Nazis look tame by comparison.

WEF to Google founder:  Why do we need elections when we know what the result will be?  [Tweet with video clip]

Devin Nunes:  David Weiss is Another John Durham Protective Silo - The Deep State Operation Tracks Back to Obama Weaponizing Intel and DOJ.  This interview segment is almost as if Devin Nunes reads here.  The former House Intel Committee chairman outlines the appointment of David Weiss as another DC silo creation similar in construct to John Durham.  Obviously, Nunes is correct.  Additionally, as Nunes accurately outlines the entire weaponization process traces back to when Barack Obama took office and unleashed the apparatus of the intelligence agencies to target domestic political opposition.  At the same time, Obama's AG Eric Holder created the DOJ National Security Division and then weaponized surveillance under the auspices of FARA and FISA Courts to target one side of the political dynamic.  [Video clip]  Elevator Speech:
  [#1]   The Patriot Act turned the intel surveillance radar from foreign searches for terrorists to domestic searches for terrorists.
  [#2]   Obama/Biden then redefined what is a "terrorist" to include their political opposition.

No US Presidential Election in 2024?  In January 2023, US special counsel Jack Smith applied for and received a subpoena for Twitter, specifically for all of Donald Trump's utterances at the site through the years, including the ones he may have never published.  Note: the subpoena came long after Trump left Twitter. [...] Trump left Twitter (was cancelled) on Jan 8 2021, Elon Musk bought it on October 27 2022, and renamed it "X" in late July 2023.  Just so we get our horses and dogs in line.  Special counsel Jack Smith received his Twitter/Trump subpoena with the added provision that it had to be entirely secret, not even Twitter or Trump could know.  US District Court Judge Beryll Howell gave Smith what he wanted, agreeing that if Trump's years-old Twitter past was known, he would become a flight risk.  But both Smith and Howell knew this was absolute nonsense.  Not only is Twitter the last place you turn to when you have nefarious secrets to hide (it's the opposite!), but the man is running for President[...]!  And because of some 5 year old (or so) tweets he would pack in the family and disappear to an (underground) bungalow on Vanatua, never to be heard from again?  I would put this down as the moment when it became impossible for the US to have a presidential election in 2024.  We've had some 8 years of this anti-Trump circus now, non-stop, Hillary, Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Robert Mueller, yada yada yada, but I don't think we've reached the point before where the elections might as well be cancelled.  We're there now though.  And that is a BIG point.  We've let it come far too far.

They Break Every Family, Every Town, Every Country.  This is the second in an August series about the Head of the Snake, an examination of the cabal that is behind the Great Reset, the Covid and Global Warming hoaxes, and every profit-bonanza war of the last thirty, if not 500 years, but especially Ukraine.  They call themselves by a proliferation of names: the Olympians, the Elect, Bilderbergers, the 300, demi-gods, the Black Nobility, other silly secret names that must not be spoken.  They are secret because their intent is evil.  They practice the occult — foolish and irresponsible — they are "Masons" of the crazy branch, a cult that operates entirely in the dark and entirely for themselves.  They are as power-hungry as Hillary Clinton and far more corrupt than she or Biden or his dreadful son.

White House Teases Climate Emergency:  Says Every Big Storm a Result of Global Warming!  Is this really where we're headed?  A national emergency for climate change?  It's become abundantly clear that the Biden administration is now considering COVID-style lockdowns with the idea of exploiting weather conditions as a pretext for exerting more control over the American people.  During a recent CNN interview, John Kirby suggested President Biden treats the supposed climate crisis with "all the due gravity and seriousness."  What does that even mean?  Is it another clever way to prepare the masses for yet another assault on our freedoms, this time under the guise of "climate emergencies"?


        " 'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded."
F.A. Hayek               


Biden Is Moving to a Climate Emergency with 130 New Powers.  If Joe Biden declares a climate emergency, he would have 130 new powers, including the power to lock us all down.  He admits he has declared a national emergency, "practically speaking."  During an interview with The Weather Channel on Tuesday aired on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said that "Practically speaking," he's "already" declared a national emergency on climate change. [...] In light of the Maui fires, the media is pushing Joe Biden to declare an official climate emergency.  If Biden declares a 'Climate Emergency,' he would seize 130 new powers.  Among them would be COVID-style lockdowns that bypass democracy and human rights.

The Editor says...
The Constitution does not include the word emergency.  And even if it did, bad weather is not a national emergency.  One fire in Hawaii is not a national emergency.  This is a power grab on the part of the anonymous commie puppeteers who operate Joe Biden.

If Biden declares a 'Climate Emergency,' he would seize 130 new powers.  "The Biden administration believes that when democracy fails to achieve its climate goals, it's time to bypass democracy and Congress and follow the COVID model.  Climate activists have lusted after the COVID lockdowns as the model for climate lockdowns.  The plan is to declare a 'climate emergency,' toss out elected representatives and follow China's one-party rule model by implementing energy restrictions through the bureaucracy.  They don't need no stinkin' democracy.  Throughout history, emergency declarations have been used and abused to crush freedom.  For those who loved how unelected officials ruled our lives under COVID lockdowns, prepare for the attempts to make climate lockdowns permanent.

Chase bank politically cancels the accounts of several doctors, their families, and their employees.  They're coming for you next:  Continuing what increasingly appears to be its bank policy, JP Morgan Chase bank suddenly and without warning or reason recently canceled the bank accounts of several doctors, their families, and their employees, apparently because these doctors don't abide by the lockdown policies and medical health advice of our government.

Schwab's Daughter Confirms COVID was a Precursor to Climate Lockdowns.  Nicole Schwab, the offspring of World Economic Forum mastermind Klaus Schwab, admitted that COVID was simply a precursor for coming climate lockdowns.  In the leaked video above from a June 2020 panel discussion in Switzerland, Nicole comments that COVID proved the world could strongly shift once people felt an extreme threat to their livelihoods.  She notes that policymakers now have more power post-COVID, and changes need not be incremental.

Democrats Are Dancing the Totalitarian Two-Step.  Democrats and corporate media throw around terms like 'fascism' and 'dictatorship' as a means of stifling discussion of anyone they disagree with. [...] When it comes to totalitarianism, I am afraid we are there.  America as a beacon of freedom and liberty may be in hospice care, barely alive, with little hope of survival or healing.  COVID was a good example of "complete control and regulation over public and private life."  DEI and wokeism is much the same.  Then there is political dissent.  Socialist historian Howard Zinn proclaimed, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."  Socialist two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton echoed, "We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration."  The Biden-Garland-Obama junta took a 180 by criminalizing free speech and dissent.

A Country Descending into Madness.  [Scroll down]  Make no mistake: today's voluntarily enslaved press adores totalitarianism just as much as the totalitarians in office do.  I do not like the current state of our nation.  Our government spies on us without cause.  The administrative bureaucracy enforces regulatory edicts without any constitutional authority or consent from the people.  Heavily armed federal agencies intimidate Americans with the threat of physical violence.  The corrupt Department of (in)Justice continues to wage legal warfare against the ruling regime's political enemies.  These are all forms of tyranny that America's Founders risked their lives to reject.  Such injustices will not stand.  I am glad to be alive during this moment in history — when ordinary people have a chance to rectify past abuses and set America back upon a righteous course.  Our adversaries talk about a "Great Reset" that will launch the United States and other Western nations into a new era of technocratic State control over citizens.

The Antichrist System Is Being Positioned Right Before Our Eyes.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 190 countries. [...] An IMF staff report dated March 29, 2023, said, "The global central banking community is actively exploring Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which may have a fundamental impact on both domestic and international economic and financial stability."  This report also said, "Over 40 countries have approached the IMF to request assistance through CBDC capacity development."  A recent CBDC survey "covered a record 81 central banks, representing close to 76 percent of the world's population and 94 percent of global economic output.  The survey found that nine out of 10 central banks are now exploring CBDCs, with half developing or running concrete experiments."

Climate Change is Not High on Our List.  It disturbs me to hear privileged coastal elites, including U.N. secretary general António Guterres, complain about the Earth's climate having reached the "boiling point."  Today's temperatures are less than what my grandparents and parents experienced in the 1930s and no more than what I grew up with — without air-conditioning — in the 1950s, a decade that was called the "Little Dust Bowl," and for good reason. [...] The real crisis today, as a thoughtful piece in Britain's Telegraph newspaper points out, is not the "boiling point" — an absurdity, since at sea level water boils at 212 degrees, while the highest temperature ever recorded on earth is 134 degrees (in Death Valley, California).  The real danger is that the political elite will use climate change as a pretext to seize total control of the economy and of our private lives, and that working people like my grandparents and myself will be forced into climate change servitude.  That means dictating where we live, what car we must drive, what we learn in school, how businesses operate, how retirement savings are invested, what can be spoken in public or private, and thousands of other aspects of everyday life.  That is the essence of totalitarianism, and it is exactly what climate alarmists wish to impose.

At this point, why not bypass the legal niceties and just put Trump in jail?  The Biden Administration has clearly given up on the idea that the federal government exists to do anything but satisfy Joe Biden's whims.  So why not get it over with?  Throw Donald Trump in jail without due process, construct reeducation camps, and rename the FBI the Stasi? [...] If we lived in a free country with a working press there would at least be some outcry.  Stories about the corruption would be printed and crusading journalists would be ringing alarm bells about the destruction of democracy.  Actually, on that latter point, they are doing precisely that, only they are blaming the Republicans for not buckling to the inevitable.  The current definition of "democracy" is simply complying with anything the Left wants to impose on us.

Energy industry fears Biden to declare climate emergency, seize powers like COVID pandemic.  President Joe Biden appears to be facing increasing demands to declare a climate emergency, like the one declared for the COVID-19 pandemic that had a devastating impact on the country, warns a top advocate for the U.S. oil and gas industry.  "They're leaning to that direction," U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart recently told Just the News.  "If you grant the president's emergency powers to declare a climate emergency, it's just like COVID."  Stewart also said such a declaration would give the president "vast and unchecked authority to shut down everything from communications to infrastructure."  He said infrastructure would include water and electricity, and that Biden also could freeze assets under such a declaration.  The White House COVID emergency that was declared by President Trump in 2020 resulted in the closing of U.S. borders and required a vaccination for federal government employees.  In the following months and years, with many businesses also shuttered, the country plunged into record unemployment and inflation.

The Risk That Americans Are Too Busy To Notice Our Dying Liberties.  In a perfect world, no one would have to pay much attention to the government because it would be run like a well-oiled machine in the background that wouldn't cause any trouble.  But that's not how governments work.  Our Founding Fathers knew that, which is why they gave us a government of separated powers with staggered terms for those responsible for exercising them.  But even such a near-perfect document cannot stand forever in the face of avarice and the lust for power.  That greed and lust for power is the defining characteristic of what we call the Swamp.  And it was enabled by a plethora of acts that strengthened and emboldened the apparatchiks who man it.

De-banking has begun in the US.  I have written a couple times about the de-banking scandal in the UK, where Coutts Bank apparently has dropped thousands of customers for being politically incorrect.  This came to light because they took on a target too big to ignore:  Nigel Farage, a GBN broadcaster and leader in the Brexit movement.  He had been a member of the European Parliament and founded the UK Independence Party, which transformed into the Brexit Party.  In other words, Farage is a big deal in Britain.  Lots of people love him, and lots of people hate him, including every single member of the establishment.  Britons, though, hated that Farage and other people with views unpopular to the establishment could simply be exiled from the modern economy based upon the whims of bank executives, so scandal erupted and the fallout is still raining down.

WEF advisor:  COVID is a model for making change.  One of the "conspiracy theories" the media derides is the idea that the elite wants a "Great Reset," despite the fact that Klaus Schwab wrote a book about it, Prince Charles made a video promoting it, the WEF has a huge website dedicated to it, and everybody in the elite seems to be executing the plan.  But if you listen to the MSM, all those private planes flying to Davos to discuss how to make our lives miserable just happen to be a busy day at a ski resort.  And nobody wants you to eat bugs, either, although you DO know they are tasty and nutritious, racist!

The scariest poll you'll see this summer.  A majority of Americans — and an overwhelming number of Democrats — no longer support First Amendment protections for free speech.  The government should restrict "false" information online, even if doing so blocks people from "publishing or accessing information," 55 percent of Americans said in a large poll released Thursday.  Only 42 percent disagreed.  The antipathy to free speech represents a sea change in attitudes in just five years.  It is driven by a powerful new hostility to First Amendment rights on the left.

The Final Countdown: Agenda 2030 on the March.  King Charles III insists that we have only six years left to "save the planet."  (p)Resident Biden is spending tens of billions of dollars to ensure that high-speed broadband internet access is universal within the U.S. and its territories by 2030.  Intelligence analysts continue to predict that China will invade and conquer Taiwan no later than 2030.  Four Electoral Court judges in Brazil have banned former president Jair Bolsonaro — an anti-globalist conservative — from office for eight years.  The Department of (in)Justice and political activists posing as prosecutors in New York and Georgia are doing everything in their illegitimate powers to prevent President Trump's return to the White House — a reality that would derail the Deep State's Marxist globalism this decade.  It seems as if all the great powers of the world are marching in lockstep toward the same Zero Hour.  Global industry must be immediately reorganized in order to avert "climate" disaster.  Americans must be universally chained to an online system that can monitor their movements, control their digital assets, assess their compliance with "vaccine" and "global warming" mandates, and feed them "approved" information.  Free countries such as Taiwan must be absorbed by communist dictatorships.  Outspoken nationalists who oppose one-world government must be deposed or jailed permanently.  Mark your calendars and prepare accordingly, because 2030 sure looks as though it will be a doozy!

California scheming.  If you liked the coronavirus lockdowns, you'll love the coming climate lockdowns.  Leftists sure liked the former, noting that animals reclaimed some urban areas and the skies were clearer and bluer.  Government pandemic policies forced millions of Americans to work from home, and this could become the permanent norm if special carbon taxes are put in place. [...] Drive to work in a car?  You are subject to special taxes.  Travel by plane?  Ditto.  Moreover, your children will be impacted by climate lockdowns, too.  For example, schools may frequently impose online only school days.  In the U.S., California-style rolling blackouts will become the norm across the fruited plain due to failed green energy policies.  With the abolition of "fossil fuels" and nuclear power, consumers will be prevented from purchasing new gasoline-powered cars, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and chainsaws.  Nor will many soon be able to obtain or afford gas stoves, water heaters, and air-conditioners.  California will ban the sale of gasoline cars in less than 13 years, because, you know, the internal combustion engine is E-V-I-L.  Despite the fact that it has arguably led to more freedom and prosperity than any other invention in the history of the world.

[The] Left [is] Now Pushing Biden to Ignore Supreme Court Decisions He Disagrees With.  Two radical left "scholars" have crawled from underneath the rocks where they were hiding and are now openly advocating the end of "judicial review."  That's the theory that the Supreme Court has the last word on constitutional issues and that all must obey their decisions — including, and especially, presidents.  The doctrine dates back to the 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision, where Chief Justice John Marshall decided the ultimate question of power: is an act of Congress or the Constitution the supreme law of the land?  But now, Harvard law Prof. Mark Tushnet and political scientist Aaron Belkin are advocating for something they're calling "Popular Constitutionalism" to give Joe Biden the dubious authority to ignore or disobey Supreme Court decisions.

Michigan Charges 16 People — Average Age 69 — for Believing Trump Won.  Sixteen Republicans in Michigan — including former state co-chairwoman Meshawn Maddock — are being prosecuted by Democrat Attorney General Dana Nessel for putting themselves forward as alternative electors after the 2020 election results were contested.  AG Nessel accuses the would-be electors — who average out at 69 years old between them — of having "undermined the public's faith in the integrity of our elections," and has hit each of them with eight felonies, among them forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery, and election law forgery.  Several of the charges carry prison terms of up to 14 years.  "Undoubtedly, there will be those who claim these charges are political in nature, but where there is overwhelming evidence of guilt in respect to multiple crimes, the most political act I could engage in as a prosecutor would be to take no action at all," the Democrat claimed.

Son of Canadian pastor facing prison for sermon blasts Trudeau before EU Parliament, draws standing ovation.  The son of a Canadian pastor drew raucous applause from the European Parliament earlier this month when he pleaded for international pressure in the case of his father, who potentially faces 10 years in prison after delivering a sermon to truckers blocking the U.S.-Canada border last year.  "I am here today in desperation, a cry for help," Nathaniel Pawlowski, 23, told members of the EU Parliament on July 4.  "I would like to stand here and tell you all the things about freedom and democracy that I like, but I no longer know those things."  "They have been taken away from us Canadians.  Canada has fallen."

Biden Proposal Would Give Foreign Climate Group Veto Power Over U.S. Military Contracts.  A new Biden administration rule aimed at reducing carbon emissions would give approval authority over large U.S. defense contracts to a little-known British environmentalist group that just incorporated two weeks ago.  Under the White House's proposed rule change, a London-based group called the Science Based Targets Initiative that is funded by the Democratic Party's main dark money network would be responsible for approving the carbon emissions reduction plans of large federal contractors.  The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) is a fee-based service that helps companies set emissions reduction targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and verifies their progress.  But its foreign status and murky financial background raise questions about the Biden administration's decision to outsource its vetting process to the group.  Critics say the proposal would give SBTi enormous veto power over American defense contracts and access to potentially sensitive data about U.S. military suppliers.

Will Someone Please Wake Me From This Nightmare?  I worked with many Democrats for several years and considered them to be both logical and sane.  Yet, what is happening in America right now in mostly Democrat-led states and cities is neither logical nor sane.  It has to be obvious to any thinking person that if America continues down our present path, we will be easy game for a foreign power, and our great republic will be destroyed.  This has to stop, and it begins with some patriotic American Democrats re-taking control of their party and stop this madness.  This is not just a nightmare that will go away when we awake.  This is a terrible national condition that must be remedied before it is too late.  Things are moving so rapidly toward destruction that we may not survive until the next election.  We have to wake up from this madness.

Progressivism's Rejection of Civil Rights.  When it comes to protecting religious freedom in America, forget about the civil rights community.  Just like President Biden, these groups have now surrendered to progressive ideologies, unwilling to defend anyone who disagrees with them — even if the opposition is grounded in sincerely held religious belief.  A look at this past Supreme Court term proves this point.  Take, for example, the recent case involving Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer who wanted to expand her business to offer wedding websites for couples celebrating traditional marriage.  Smith went to court, concerned that Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), a broadly defined public accommodations law outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation could compel her to design websites for same-sex weddings.  Smith explained that she had no problem working for gay clients, but that she couldn't use her talents to celebrate unions that were at odds with her beliefs.

Fighting back against Smart Cities.  So-called "smart city" technology includes ultra-high resolution, internet-connected cameras, license-plate readers, facial-recognition scanners and speakers.  It will set the framework for digital eyes and ears to spy on citizens 24/7, uploading personal data in real time to be perused and analyzed by law enforcement, financial decision-makers and other third-party stakeholders. [...] The tools of the surveillance state, however, are not just being installed in major cities and international airports.  Kootenai County in North Idaho is also up against a smart city plan.  And the city of Jackson, Wyoming, last week became the latest to install AI-powered mass surveillance cameras. [...] The purpose is not to save lives but to control behavior and effectively cripple Americans' longstanding freedom of movement.  The long-term plan is to entirely automate all transportation, using driverless cars, kill switches and social-credit scoring systems to define and limit the extent to which individuals are allowed to travel.  Essentially, all transportation will be public transportation.

A State of Martial Law: America Is a Military Dictatorship Disguised as a Democracy.  The events of recent years have all been part of a master plan to shut us up and preemptively shut us down: by making peaceful revolution impossible and violent revolution inevitable.  The powers-that-be want an excuse to lockdown the nation and throw the switch to all-out martial law.  This is how it begins.  As John Lennon warned, "When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system's game.  The establishment will irritate you — pull your beard, flick your face — to make you fight.  Because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you."  Already, discontent is growing.

An Infinite Number Of Days To Flatten The CO2 Curve.  [Scroll down]  How would the government deal with a climate emergency outside of placing limits on our movements as a free people?  Another sign that we are being softened up to take whatever punishment the political left decides to mete out was last week's maniacal media coverage of "the hottest day ever."  CNN vomited out nonsense about "record-break global temperatures" that were likely the "highest in 'at least 100,000 years.'"  The Washington Post screeched that "Earth is at its hottest in thousands of years," and proclaimed that "climate denialism" has been "burnt to a crisp."  It was all meant to stir up fear and continue the conditioning of the West for the next round of policy shackles.  We regret that it will have its intended effect on many, even though, as our friend Steve Milloy from junkscience.com wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "the notion of 'average global temperature' is meaningless."

Enough!  You have to hotwire the system if you want to be free, if you want a republic, or even a democracy, because they don't want you to have anything.  Ever.  You are at once their most feared adversary and their most contemptible nuisance.  Only you can decide which will invade their private thoughts.  I don't know what anyone else is waiting for.  They have nothing good in the works.  All they focus on right now is how to push you father, hurt you more, make you lash out intemperately, uncontrollably, and even when you don't, like January 6th, they will pretend that you did.  All the weight of the federal government and corporate society is now against you.  Those who criticize capitalism are the capitalists, actively punishing you for being American.  The more you cling to traditional thought, traditional expectations, the more you draw their ire.

Intrusive bankers and government overreach.  It is 11:40 on a Thursday morning when I decide to go to my bank.  I will deposit a check which I received as a result of a real estate sale.  I also want to withdraw money which I deposited long ago, from the same account because I have some purchases in mind that I would prefer to make in cash; nothing illicit, illegal, or out of the ordinary. [...] The minutes start passing.  She checks this.  She checks that.  A line begins to form behind me.  She asks me to sign a couple things.  Okay, fine.  Now I'm thinking, alright, in a minute or two, I'll be out of here.  Instead, she picks up the phone and dials someone in the bank.  She turns back to me and says that her supervisor wants to know what the money is for. [...] When she tells me that her supervisor needs to know what the money is for, matter-of-factly and without hesitation, I say to her that it's none of his business.

Meat, Plane Rides, and Clothes Are Gone in 2030, Say WEF Commie Prags.  The World Economic Forum (WEF) is, thankfully, not being secretive about its plans to enslave us.  Unfortunately for humankind, we are once again ignoring the tyrants looking to take over the world.  Hitler's book Mein Kampf outlined exactly what the budding dictator planned to do.  Germany let him out of prison anyway.  Guess what happened?  Everything he wrote about in Mein Kampf.  Our would-be masters at the WEF have a detailed strategy regarding what you eat, where you go, how you get there, and what you're going to wear.  And they plan to kick their tyranny into high gear by 2030.  For starters, you'll eat roughly 35 lbs. of meat per year under the WEF's "progressive" goal.  That's down from the 252 lbs. of meat the average American consumes annually as of today, which means our meat consumption will be roughly 14% of what it normally is.  If the misers at the WEF hit their "ambitious" goal, you won't taste another steak again as of 2030.

A spy in your pocket.  You knew it was coming.  I knew it was coming.  But cell phones are so darn convenient that we have been crossing our fingers and hoping it wouldn't happen.  You phone will be (already is?) spying on you.  Well, the future is here in France.  A bill just passed that will allow the government to secretly turn on your phone's camera and microphone without your knowledge.  As of now, the power to do this legally will be restricted by the need for a judge's assent, but if you think that this limitation will be respected and that it never will change, I have news for you:  your privacy is gone.  [Tweet] [...] The list of abuses the FBI has engaged in over the past few years is impressive.  Illegal searches, lying to the FISA court, opening an investigation into a presidential candidate/president based upon no evidence, intimidation of activists...   [Tweet with video clip]  Books will be written about the corruption of the intelligence apparat in the United States in the past decade or two, and the US has more legal protections for citizens than most countries.  But the abuses of power go unpunished, and when they do they multiply.  Now France is openly sanctioning turning your expensive cell phone into a snitch, and you can bet that governments around the world have been doing this for a long time without anybody knowing.

WEF Partner Aimed to 'End' 'Private Car Ownership' to Save the Planet.  The World Economic Forum (WEF) isn't the only entity planning for a world where you "own nothing, have no privacy" and enjoy it — or else.  WEF's partner Arup Group released a 2019 report pontificating, "private car ownership needs to end."  This was allegedly going to solve the fake "crisis" of climate change, which has supposedly been about to cause global apocalypse for 50 years now.  But give up your car, you stupid peasant, and trust the experts.  Arup Group, which is listed as a partner by the insidious World Economic Forum, released a 2019 report demanding that consumption of clothing, cars, electronics, and food has to change — for everyone except the elites, presumably — or climate change will kill us all.  The report touts "net zero" carbon goals, totally ignoring the fact that carbon is absolutely essential for life on Earth.  Indeed, increased carbon actually helps plants — including food crops — thrive, and humans and animals need it too.  But neither Arup nor WEF is interested in objective science, only in a narrative that impoverishes most citizens and gives the elites exponentially more control.

The U.N. Is Planning To Seize Global 'Emergency' Powers With Biden's Support.  In September 2024, less than two months before the next U.S. presidential election, the United Nations will host a landmark "Summit of the Future," where member nations will adopt a Pact for the Future.  The agreement will solidify numerous policy reforms offered by the U.N. over the past two years as part of its sweeping Our Common Agenda platform.  Although there are numerous radical proposals included in the agenda, perhaps none are more important than the U.N. plan for a new "emergency platform," a stunning proposal to give the U.N. significant powers in the event of future "global shocks," such as another worldwide pandemic.  Many of the details of the U.N. emergency platform were laid out in a March 2023 policy paper titled "Strengthening the International Response to Complex Global Shocks — An Emergency Platform."

Conservative Failure and the Administrative State.  James Landis is widely credited with crafting the theoretical architecture supporting President Roosevelt's radical reconstruction — and expansion — of the federal government.  Landis shrewdly both established and legitimized the regulatory state, including Roosevelt's creation of new federal administrative agencies, by offering the regulatory state as the solution to the problem of modern governance:  the administrative state "is, in essence, our generation's answer to the inadequacy of the judicial and legislative process."  The Landis premise took concrete shape through Roosevelt's expansion of the regulatory state, and in doing so, it brought to fruition Woodrow Wilson's progressive intellectual project: rule by experts, insulated from the popular will[.]

The Traitor Class.  What America is up against is unlike anything we have ever encountered or experienced.  It has the potential of being more bloody than the Civil War and more threatening than both world wars.  But now we face an army of traitors... a traitor class, domestic enemies working behind the scenes in shadow.  They are dividing our country, destroying our freedom, our democratic republic, our sovereignty, our Judeo Christian values, our morality, the family unit, our culture, even our monuments to American heroes.  They are spending us into oblivion as Cloward and Piven envisioned.  The traitors are accomplishing this because they are getting no opposition.  A lot of people are confused.  They think it is just politics.  It is not just politics.  The Left is planning to deliver The United States to the New World Order in the next very few years and they are on schedule.  They are globalists, more loyal to their political party and to globalism than they are to their country.  They number in the many hundreds, maybe thousands.  They have taken over the Executive Branch, the Justice Department, certainly the FBI.  Half of the Senate and half of the House.  Almost the entire school system is teaching values contrary to our culture and religion

From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare.  A survey by the Cato Institute finds 29 percent of Americans aged 18-29 respond affirmatively when asked, "Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity?"  In 1791, the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed building a "panopticon" in which people's behavior could be monitored at all times.  But Bentham's panopticon was meant to be a prison.  A sizable segment of Generation Z would like to call it home.  Millennials are almost as submissive:  20 percent of the cohort between the ages of 30 and 44 also wants everyone watched.  Among Americans 45 and older, support for such totalitarian surveillance rises no higher than 6 percent.

Politics and the End of Private Lives.  Cancel culture, like most of our contemporary cultural revolution, began in China.  In the aughts, rural Chinese migrated to massive mega-cities whose impossible population densities were matched by the growing interconnection of the internet.  While three quarters of China's population is now on the internet, in 2006 it grew by a quarter to encompass only 10%.  In these cramped quarters, physical and social, there was no room for the individual.  The Chinese internet, unlike its American counterpart, was always centered around social media which is one reason why TikTok is eating Facebook, Twitter and YouTube's lunches.  It was also always mobile.  Chinese commuters on public transportation tapped in their grievances against neighbors, friends, family and random strangers.  And mobs formed to take sides.

Michigan House passes bill making wrong pronouns a felony, fineable up to $10,000.  A recently passed bill in Michigan would make it a felony to intimidate someone by using the wrong gender pronouns.  Michigan's state House of Representatives has passed bill HB 4474, a piece of legislation that criminalizes causing someone to feel threatened by words.  Under the new bill, offenders are "guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or by a fine of not more than $10,000."

Get ready for the war on travel.  This story emerged from an unlikely source involving Glenn Beck's recent vacation to Europe.  As reported at The Blaze, while Beck was overseas he had a disturbing conversation with his travel agent.  He was told, "You should see Europe now while you can."  The reason is that the United Nations has been rolling out "sustainability goals" for the travel industry, particularly when it comes to air travel.  They are trying to force airlines to get to "net zero" in terms of emissions.  As we recently discussed here, the technology doesn't currently exist to achieve net zero for commercial airlines without vastly increasing the cost for travelers.  So the alternative will be to simply shut down air travel for "nonessential" purposes such as tourism, at least for "the little people."

Fight this sinister power grab by the unelected, unaccountable WHO.  THE UK Medical Freedom Alliance is joining grassroots campaign groups in the UK and around the world, with US and UK politicians, in strongly opposing the proposed World Health Organisation Pandemic Treaty (CA+) and the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005).  It is important to understand that these are two separate and unrelated legal instruments, but individually and combined constitute a major power grab and serious threat to national and individual sovereignty from the unelected and unaccountable WHO. There has been no national or international public comment or vote sought as part of the negotiation process, as the public are considered not to be relevant 'stakeholders' in the (largely secretive) negotiation process at the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the WHO.

Fight this sinister power grab by the WHO, Part 3.  There are many red flags in these documents and the underlying ideology.  The WHO make no secret of their lack of concern for ethics and their failure to recognise the innate sanctity and dignity of each human life.  For example, of the many deeply concerning proposed IHR Amendments, one seeks to remove the clause requiring the WHO to uphold 'full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms' of individuals in a declared health emergency.  As things stand, with the WHO merely an advisory body, we have witnessed the most shocking ethical violations over the last three years, as Governments around the world followed their advice in lockstep as if it were law.  Imagine how much worse the situation will be if their advice becomes legally binding on nations under international law.  Medical ethics are vitally important and should be non-negotiable in a civilised society.

California Is Set to Pass Laws Allowing for State-Sanctioned Kidnapping and Required 'Affirmation' of Gender-Confused Kids.  My home state of California is Bizzarroland, totally over the edge.  It was bad enough, but now it has crossed the Rubicon and blown up the bridge and burned the boats.  The Golden State is set to take away parental rights and create a police state where a court and judge must (not may) affirm a child's chosen made-up gender "identity."  But that same California requires permission for a minor to get a tattoo.  Make sense of it.  I can't.  Soon in California, if the Democrat super-majority gets its way, confused children can be taken from a parent(s) and chemically castrated and mutilated at the minor's request.  Think that sounds far-fetched?  It isn't.  Assemblymember named Wendy Carrillo is the author of AB 665.  Eight days ago, during open debate and discussion on her bill, she made the gallery erupt in spontaneous laughter when she said:  ["]We would never move policy that seeks to separate children from their parents.["]  The AP and USA Today are all in for the left, so, of course, they published articles claiming the arguments against are overblown.  No, they are not.  AB 665 will alter the legal landscape and specific language.  What does AB 665 say and ultimately do?  It's the state of California amending the Family Law Code to legally kidnap confused children.

Atlanta Airport goes full dystopian, using digital facial recognition IDs.  World Economic Forum founder and executive director Klaus Schwab heaped praise on the Chinese Communist Party this week for adopting "new COVID control measures" while boosting "social dynamism" at the WEF's Annual Meeting of the New Champions.  We will break down in this article what Schwab means by "social dynamism."  This is important, why?  Because Schwab, a globalist, futurist a transhumanist, holds immense sway over many of our Western politicians in Canada, the U.S., Australia, etc., at both the state and federal levels.  Heads of state and governors of all political stripes, from Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, flock to his meetings in Davos each year.  Kemp told the corporate media he was going to Davos in January 2023 to "sell Georgia."  He no sooner returned and we found out that Georgia became one of the first handful of states to launch a new drivers' license with biometric digital identities using facial recognition software.  This means a QR Code containing personal biometric data, recognizable instantly when your facial features get scanned at ports of call worldwide, will be assigned to every citizen who signs up for this new digital ID.

Michigan is criminalizing opinions.  To say that Michigan has lurched to the left under the leadership of Gretchen Whitmer and the state's liberal majority would be a significant understatement.  But with a new bill passed in the state House this week, they are taking things to a cartoonish level.  If (more likely "when") House Bill 4474 is signed into law, you will literally be able to be thrown into prison for hurting someone's feelings.  This is being hidden under the guise of protecting people from "hate speech," and includes standard liberal online tropes about "feeling threatened."  To be clear, you don't have to actually threaten someone with violence.  They simply need to "feel" threatened by something you say or post online.  There is no word from Governor Whitmer yet as to whether the State Police will be directed to establish a new "thought police" unit.

Michigan state legislature House passes censorship bill to make free speech a felony.  Democrats run the state government of Michigan, with majorities on the House and Senate of the state legislature and Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer with the ability to sign bills into law.  That's why a bill already passed by the State Legislature's House and assigned to committee in the State Senate is so dangerous.  Can you believe five years in prison for speech based on someone's feelings about it?  HB 4474 has a good chance of becoming law, despite its obvious unconstitutionality. [...] Yes, the bill is unconstitutional.  But if it becomes law, it will takes years and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to get it to the Supreme Court for a finding.  IF it makes it there.  Meanwhile, left wing agitation to weaken the Court and drive conservatives from its bench will only intensify.  If they succeed or if mortality intervenes and Democrats get to appoint more justices or even pack the court by expanding it, the constitutional safeguards may crumble in the foreseeable future.

Michigan can now censor you if you hurt someone's feelings.  Michigan's Democratic House passed legislation on Tuesday that enables attorneys to shut down "hate speech."  The new House Bill 4474 is a vague and unconstitutional censorship law that determines "feeling threatened" as reasonable grounds to prosecute offenders.  The punishment for making someone "feel threatened" in Michigan is five years in jail and a $10,000 fine. [...] The problematic language about "feelings" can be found in the bill's definition of "intimidation" as "willful course of conduct, involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened."

Biden [is] weaponizing IRS into a well-armed paramilitary force.  Iowa Senator Joni Ernst introduced a bill last week titled "Why does the IRS Have Guns Act," which would prohibit the IRS from buying or storing guns and ammunition, transfer all IRS firearms to the General Services Administration so they could be auctioned off to licensed gun dealers to reduce the national debt, and move the agency's Criminal Investigation Division to the control of the Justice Department.  "The taxman is fully loaded at the expense of the taxpayer," Ernst said in a statement.  "As the Biden administration has worked to expand the size of the IRS, any further weaponization of this federal agency against hardworking Americans and small businesses is a grave concern.  I'm working to disarm the IRS and return these dollars to address reckless spending in Washington."  While the outcome of Ernst's legislation is not promising — Joe Biden will likely veto her bill, should it ever reach his desk — the Senator's efforts have drawn much needed attention to the massive arsenal that the IRS has amassed — is amassing.

Garland: Questioning the Integrity of the Justice Department Is an Attack on — You Guessed It.  With the sweetheart deal that Hunter Biden just got from federal prosecutors, Attorney General Merrick Garland has once again confirmed that he has taken the Justice Department, which was once the envy of the world for its indefatigable commitment to equal justice for all, and turned it into a squad of legal hit men for foes of the Biden regime and a legal laundromat for the regime's members and cronies, most notably for the alleged president's crackhead influence-peddling son.  Garland himself, however, bristles if you believe your lying eyes on this matter.  On Friday he complained that charges that his Justice Department was doling out frame jobs for dissidents and skates for friends of the regime was a threat to — that's right! — our "democracy."

Resistance.  It's obvious to a great many that the legislature exists only to funnel tax dollars into the pockets of their political allies for which they are endowed with great sums come election time.  In this way they do not represent the people, but their donors and the whole of the government is corrupt.  I don't expect this declaration or designation to mean very much to people while they can still go along to get along.  This post is more to point the way, to establish the understanding of our situation once the banking failures take place, or the war is brought to our shores through their mismanagement of forces and budgets that have been designed for no other purpose than to provide generals with subsequent employment.  It's a wholesale betrayal we're enduring: betrayal of our military leadership, of our legislative bodies, the medical profession, the teaching profession, but more specifically and more intentionally the economic system.

The World Economic Forum and U.N. Agenda 2030.  Many articles are being published about the globalist agenda being put forward by the World Economic Forum and its megalomaniacal leadership, first and foremost Klaus Schwab, but also including Bill Gates and a mysterious figure Dr. Yuval Noah Harari who boasts a Ph.D. from Oxford in world history and now teaches at a university in Jerusalem. [...] He founded a company called Sapienship with his "husband," and they are committed to finding solutions to world problems in the areas of technological disruption, ecological collapse, and global war.  One of Harari's most radical views is that human beings lack free will.  He wrote in the Guardian, "Unfortunately, 'free will' isn't a scientific reality.  It is a myth inherited from Christian theology.  Theologians developed the idea of 'free will' to explain why God is right to punish sinners for their bad choices and reward saints for their good choices...."  Here, free will is not accepted as an almost universal premise, but is "Christian theology."  Patently, this premise is false.

It's Not Just the FBI: The IRS goes into 'Beast Mode'.  We have seen for some time how off-the-rails the FBI has become, a danger to a free society.  More and more evidence now shows it's not just the FBI.  Every federal employee with a badge and gun seems to think he's a law unto himself.  This week the spotlight is on the IRS, and the Congress has to step up and rein the agency in.  While Matt Taibbi was testifying before Congress on the administration's extensive censoring of social media content, the IRS appeared at his door, ostensibly to question him about his taxes, but obviously to intimidate him for showing up government censorship.

This article is somewhat of an infomercial, but it might still be informative.
IRS Agents Are Watching Your Digital Money Transactions.  If you remember, just two years ago, President Joe Biden asked Congress to authorize the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data collection on bank accounts with more than $600 in annual transactions.  But banks and depositors pushed back, and the $600 figure was raised to $10,000.  Everybody was happy.  But guess what didn't change?  The reporting of all digital transactions of $600 or more.  That means that digital payment platforms like Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, Square Cash, and other Digital Wallets are required to report your transactions of $600 or more to the IRS.

If Amazon Thinks You're a Racist, It Will Shut Down Your Smart Home.  We talk a lot about deplatforming, but when a single corporation doesn't just control a site you use, but controls most of your life, everything from your doorbell to your vacuum, your music and your lightbulbs, and it decides that your politics are bad, you've got problems.  That's exactly the situation that people put themselves in when they rely on Amazon or Google Home to control their smart home only to realize that they no longer control their home.  A touchy corporation that celebrates Pride Month and BLM all year round does.  Beware of offending it.

When are enough Americans going to realize our government is a criminal enterprise?  [Scroll down]  Let's skip Obama's history of privilege, his disrespect for his white grandparents who raised him, his communist indoctrination by an earlier mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, and go directly to his promise to transform America.  He was hugely successful!  He mesmerized his acolytes, his disciples.  We are now essentially a police state with institutions — the FBI, CIA, DOJ, IRS — all operating on the Stalinist model, each an arm of the Marxist/Democrat party.  While these so-called progressives have been undermining our Constitutional and Judeo-Christian values since the turn of the last century (Woodrow Wilson was their patron saint), it was Obama that took the move toward tyranny from gradual to suddenly.  Now we are there.  Surveillance, censorship and control is their goal, the Constitution [notwithstanding].  Our law enforcement agencies have interfered to affect the outcome of the last three elections.  They persecute their political opponents with their typical abuse of the law — lawfare — anyone remotely conservative, anyone perceived as a threat to their power is on their radar for destruction.

They Will Turn On You.  Chairman Mao, the unspoken hero of our garbage ruling caste, understood that power flows from the barrel of a gun, and it's not unreasonable to wonder whether the institutions in America that carry guns — law enforcement and the military — and who are supposed to protect us will turn those guns on us if commanded to by the ruling elite.  Stop wondering.  Their answer is that to a greater extent than those of us who grew up in America, when it was a free country before it became our present crypto-leftist tyranny, want to admit, they will.  Right now, they are hiding news that undermines their rule.  They are censoring opponents.  They are locking up political dissidents.  And eventually, when the current junta feels truly threatened by the emerging backlash from patriotic citizens, too many of these alleged protectors will kill for their masters — and I mean more than just the occasional and totally unpunished massacres of unapproved dissidents like at Waco and Ruby Ridge.  Pretty harsh?  It is harsh, but it's not wrong.  Explain why that is the red line they suddenly stop at when they have blasted through the red lines of lying, of censorship, and of framing the opposition using a two-tier justice system.

Foretelling America's Descent into Totalitarianism.  There is nothing to prevent America from becoming another murderous society like Nazi Germany or communist Russia in the 20th century.  The Biden administration has already begun the march toward totalitarianism with its proposals to arm even larger numbers of federal agency employees, including some 60,000 new IRS agents, and with its political militarization of the DOJ, FBI, and CIA.  As a nation, we are on a path to destruction.  Only a clear understanding of the danger can save us.  It is chilling to hear Biden speak of his "defense of democracy," as he does almost daily, when it is his administration's actions that pose the greatest threat to democratic capitalism.

May I see your (digital) papers, please?  The WHO stated it will "take up the European Union (EU) system of digital Covid-19 certification to establish a global system that will help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats."  Negotiations are ongoing right now, including in the United States as to granting the WHO virtually unlimited "emergency" powers in the event of a real or "potential" health emergency.  The agreements being negotiated grant the WHO broad powers to declare such an emergency.  Any bets that it will use that power?  Once everyone is required to have a digital ID, don't expect it to be limited to health.  A Central Bank Digital Currency and Digital Social Credit Score, impacting basically everything you do, are quick to follow.  Expect "May I see your papers?" to become universal.  The Epoch Times noted, "the new vaccine passport has already drawn criticism, with Australian senator Alex Antic saying in a statement that the move is 'just another conspiracy theory coming true.'"

The Climate Lobby Is Openly Plotting To Steal Our Freedom.  During her May 15 speech to The Beyond Growth Conference held by the European Parliament, European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, citing a 1970s de-growth plan published by the Club of Rome, made reference to the European Union's "social market economy" five times in a span of less than 150 words.  A "social market economy," of course, is a reference to the sort of central economic planning engaged in by authoritarian socialist governments throughout history.  "And this is exactly why we put forward our European Green Deal," Von Der Leyen told the conference.  "Building a 21st century clean-energy circular economy is one of the most significant economic challenges of our times."  The agenda of the Beyond Growth Conference focused on devising plans to manage the destruction of economic growth that is a centerpiece of the real agenda of the energy transition.

Your Papers, Please.  The World Health Organization is planning to implement a system of digital health passports or vaccination certificates that will be used to limit the travel and activities of citizens in the event another "pandemic" is declared.  The entity doing the declaring will, of course, be the WHO itself.  The ultimate goal is to enroll every human being on the planet in the new system.  Once it is in place, the architects of global governance will be able to restrict the freedom of movement of the populace.  Coupled with a mandatory digital currency (which means the abolition of cash), it will allow the authorities control what people can buy and where they can buy it.  It will eventually force them out of their motor vehicles, after which they may be induced to move to a 15-minute "smart" city and eat the bugs.

Nearly one in three Gen Zers want the government to install surveillance cameras in everyone's homes.  [Scroll down]  To put it mildly, it is ironic that many of the same people who scream, "My body, my choice!" at conservatives are okay with "My home, your domain!" when it comes to the government.  There are reasons why so many young people purport to believe in Socialism...and appear more afraid of true freedom than of Big Government controlling their lives and watching their every move.  Our educational system — indeed, all of our major institutions — has been entirely captured by the left.  Most have led lives of such ease and softness that they are simultaneously filled with guilt and entitlement.  They have no firsthand knowledge of hardship and sacrifice.  They didn't live through the Cold War.  They are no longer taught about the reality of all communist states, or of the 100+ million people who died at the hands of those states in the last century alone.

Gen Z is surprisingly okay with the idea of 1984-style in-home surveillance by government.  I hadn't seen this survey by the Cato Institute until today but it's really striking.  It seems that a shockingly high percentage of Gen Z would be okay with in-home government surveillance.  If that sounds like something out of George Orwell's 1984, that's exactly how CATO saw it. [...] Given that many American high school students read Orwell's 1984 for English classes, Gen Z should be the group who read it most recently.  Did they somehow miss the message of the novel? [...] So maybe the 1/3 of Gen Z that are fans of Marxism don't really see the problem with in-home government surveillance.  As some on the left like to say, government is just the name for things we do together.  It's definitely worrisome that so much of Gen Z is clueless when it comes to some pretty basic ideas built into the foundation of America.  Then again it's a safe bet most of these people hate America and are squarely in the burn it to the ground camp.

MRC Pyramid
When Did Policing Americans' Thoughts Become Part of Homeland Security?  I've had 24 jobs at last count, ranging from three hours delivering pizza for Domino's to 23 years as a U.S. diplomat.  Now, I finally can add the title of Senior "Far-Right" Fellow to my resume.  Of course, that last part is a joke.  So is "The Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization," a diagram displayed by college professor Michael Loadenthal at a seminar called "Extremism, Rhetoric, and Democratic Precarity" at the University of Dayton in 2021.  In the diagram, bedrock conservative institutions including The Heritage Foundation and the Republican Party form the pyramid's base.  Some obscure, far-right organizations, represented by their logos, occupy the top of the pyramid.  Although Loadenthal recently claimed that the chart "is not meant to imply that engaging with level 1 inherently leads to level 4," it's hard to see what else it conveys.  It looks like level 1 (the base of the Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization) leads inexorably to the levels above it unless you take Loedenthal's reeducation seminars.

The Biden administration is using an anti-terrorism grant program to target Americans with conservative and Christian beliefs.  The Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program provided $352,000 to the PREVENTS-OH initiative at the University of Dayton.  Included in the grant application was a chart, "The Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization," which links well-known conservative organizations to neo-Nazis.  Dan Schneider, vice president of the Media Research Center's Free Speech America, MRC Business, and the external affairs division, joined "The Daily Signal Podcast" to explain what his organization discovered.  "They held a conference even before grant funding was provided, where they specifically used this chart and additional charts to train people on how to subvert organizations like The Heritage Foundation," Schneider said.  "And this sounds like such a conspiracy theory.  It sounds crazy that this is happening, but it really is."

The rise of the despotocracy.  Plato favored rule by oligarchs, persons of distinction, but Plato ignored the potential for what Lord Acton observed about power and corruption:  "Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you super add the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority."  Oligarchy often deteriorates to despotism because many ambitious men are bereft of the virtues and morals essential to a good ruler and political leader.  An oligarch can be good or bad.  The bad ones become despots, who rule in a cruel or oppressive manner.  The concept of self-governance espoused by the founders requires embracing the principles of stoicism.  We have lost what was advocated by the American founders and led John Adams to wisely assert, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.  Morality and virtue are the foundation of our republic and necessary for a society to be free."

You Can't Libertarian Your Way Out of Tyranny.  Libertarians and small-government conservatives may not like it, but the cold truth is that reforming a titanic mega-government is impossible without amassing and using State power.  You have to play the game, and play to win.  Your adversaries most certainly do.  You have to play the game at every level, too.  It's important to organize at the local level and win state and county races, but that doesn't count for much in the long run if the gigantic central government is wholly run by aggressive totalitarian statists.

Fourth Reich disseminates ominous new report on 'environmental policy'.  If you said that climate lockdowns would be next, you might be a conspiracy theorist.  If you're making simple observations and drawing basic conclusions about the world around you, you might be a conspiracy theorist.  If you have even the most rudimentary understanding of big government leftism and limited government conservatism, you might be a conspiracy theorist.  If you make a point to remind your friends and family that reality is consistent and historical precedent is a good barometer for future events, you might be a conspiracy theorist.  If you speak up against the regime, you might be a conspiracy theorist.

FDA Bans Farmers from Caring for Their Own Animals Without Costly Vet Approval.  [Traditionally,] ranchers and farmers large and small have taken care of their livestock with antibiotics and antimicrobials that were available at farm stores.  These medicines treat common illnesses and infections that people who own large animals and livestock are very familiar with and qualified to treat.  They have been trusted to do so for as long as these medicines have been available.  The first chicken antibiotics were introduced in 1948. [...] It would be ridiculous to take a chicken to the vet.  When chickens are sick, you consult with other chicken owners and go buy the needed items to make them well again.  It was a good system.  But NOW, the unelected, unaccountable, faceless, nameless, power-hungry monarchs at the FDA have decided that none of our farmers, ranchers, or hobbyists will be allowed to have those medicines anymore without visiting the vet for a prescription.  This will cost the farmers tens of thousands of dollars a year in added vet bills, which they will then pass onto the consumer, forcing prices even higher during a time of record inflation.

DHS funds program that classifies Republican Party as "far right extremist" organization with links to Nazis.  The DHS has a program that identifies groups involved in "violence and terrorism."  It makes grants to organizations to identify groups and monitor what they are doing.  Makes sense.  Part of their job is preventing terrorism, and you have to know your enemy and follow what they are doing.  Among the groups identified by the University of Dayton involved in "far-right radicalization" are the Heritage Foundation, Fox News, and the Republican Party.  Quillette and Dennis Prager's "Prager U" are even more extreme, just shy of the Nazi Party according to their classification of an "extremism" pyramid.  Breitbart, Turning Point USA, and of course, MAGA are similarly identified.

America's Dangerous Shortage Of Free Thinkers.  Our country has become a conformist society where free expression is rewarded with the swing of a truncheon.  We're on a road that leads to repression, and we are not far from the destination.  This nation owes its existence and its never-seen-before prosperity to free thinkers.  The founders were men of the enlightenment.  They stand in stark contrast to our ruling class of today, a corrupt and depraved cabal of politicians, state media, institutional leaders, militant activists and corporate executives that is hurtling us into an era of darkness.  In the 2020s, the only "truth" is what the narrative, invariably fabricated by the worst people who have ever held power and influence in this country's history, says it is.  We see those yard signs, the ones that proclaim their occupants' unwavering grand tolerance and thirst for diversity.  But we know that those who put up those signs are the most intolerant, limited thinkers among us.  They don't believe in diversity of thought.  Their objective is to force conformity to their way of thinking while immodestly displaying their superior virtue.

Looks Like The Brown Face Of White Supremacy Strikes Again.  The alleged neo-Nazi accused of intentionally ramming a U-Haul truck into a White House security barrier has been identified as 19-year-old Sai Varsith Kandula, The Post has learned.  Kandula, of Chesterfield, Missouri, was identified as the man who smashed the box truck — adorned with a Nazi flag — into barriers along Lafayette Square, just steps from the White House, on Monday night, US Park Police officials said.  He has been charged with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on a president, vice president or family member, as well as assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, trespassing and destruction of federal property, US Park Police said.  [Video clip]

Why We Can't Trust the FBI.  White supremacy, domestic terrorism, and violent extremism are all on the rise, according to the FBI, the news media, and top government officials.  They point to the January 6 Capitol riot, the Patriot Front white supremacists who recently marched in Washington D.C., and yesterday's crash into a security barrier near the White House of a U-Haul truck carrying a Nazi flag.  But there is no evidence that white supremacy, domestic terrorism, and violent extremism are actually on the rise.  By filing multiple January 6 cases rather than a single one, FBI inflated the statistics, as we documented yesterday.  Little is known about the almost entirely masked participants of the Patriot Front, which did not respond to our request for an interview.  And the crash of a 19-year-old man with a Nazi flag into a security barrier is as likely to have resulted from mental illness as political radicalization, as is often the case.

The Editor says...
The "Patriot Front" group appears to be thinly-disguised astroturf.  The 19-year-old who gently "crashed" an empty rental truck into a barrier at the White House appears to be a patsy, much like these guys, and the January 6 riot was apparently an entrapment operation executed by several embedded fellows who look very much like the "Patriot Front" guys, since they're all wearing face masks.  I'm willing to believe they are the very same men.

After Covid: Twelve Challenges for a Shattered World.  [Scroll down]  To muscle the whole population into a particular pattern of action and belief was the core principle of the Covid response.  It was worse than being treated like lab rats: at least scientists don't try to control what the rats think.  It was the ultimate and global experiment in social management under the guise of science.

Education Secretary Cardona Claims Teachers, Not You, Know What Is Best for Your Kid.  Despite Hillary Clinton's idiotic "it takes a village" viewpoint, most Americans believe parents are the final arbiter over their children unless they are demonstrably and dangerously unfit.  The US Supreme Court has stated, "the interest of parents in the care, custody and control of their children — is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court."  In 2020, though, we saw startling revelations of how school systems routinely endangered children by refusing to respect the primacy and even the legitimacy of parental rights.  In Loudoun County, Virginia, we saw how the school system protected sexual predators because they alleged they were "transgender."  We saw a parent arrested for demanding answers about his daughter's forcible sodomizing in a girls' restroom.  We were treated to the pornography mainstreamed into the school curriculum under the guise of "diversity" and "inclusion."  Children have been encouraged to adopt a different gender and lie to their parents about it.  They have been subjected to activities that can only be described as pedophilia grooming exercises.  The more pressure applied by parents and relatively sane elected officials, the more insane these people have become.

Three Times The Left Trampled On Parental Authority This Past Week Alone.  Have you noticed that Democrats and the Left at large are increasingly brazen in their attempt to trample on all parental rights and authority?  This past week alone, we saw three examples of this encroachment from the executive branch all the way down to a Florida teacher.  For example, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the bold claim last Saturday night that states which have banned sex-denial surgery and other gender-rejection care require an all-hands-on-deck response.  "There are more than 600 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation out there," Jean-Pierre said at the GLAAD Media Awards.  "A few hundred of them are anti-trans communities, and that matters because we have to call that out.  And we've never seen this level.  It's historic in the number of pieces of legislation."  Perhaps the response is "historic" because it seems like the Left is attempting to convince the world that child mutilation is good and changing "genders" is real for the first time in history en masse.

Reject the Normalcy Bias.  One of the most powerful tactics in the left's arsenal is leveraging the reluctance of conservatives to accept that the foundational reality of our society has changed.  We are not a free country in the sense we were just a decade ago — [indeed], the Durham Report just showed our ruling caste collectively framing a president they disliked and we all know there will be zero consequences.  But part of the reason is human nature.  The left exploits our normalcy bias, the tendency to assume that things right now are the same as they have always been.  Yet, this is not normal.  This whole political/cultural morass that America has fallen into is the opposite of normal.

The Cataclysm to Come.  The FBI is more likely to go after parents at school board meetings than those threatening the homes of Supreme Court justices.  CIA and FBI directors lie under oath without consequence.  They mislead the public and deceive Congress with stories of fake dossiers.  They contract private news organizations to censor stories they do not like and writers whom they fear.  And the IRS is weaponized against political opponents of the Democrats.

The Ominous Reason Why Biden Keeps Repeating His False Claim About a White Supremacist Threat.  As Ben Bartee noted Saturday [5/13/2023], Old Joe Biden's commencement speech at Howard University "included a hearty condemnation of the alleged scourge of White Supremacy in America."  In fact, the alleged president called white supremacy "the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland."  Then on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary and failed Disinformation Governance Board overlord Alejandro Mayorkas agreed with Old Joe, emphasizing that "domestic violent extremism is our greatest threat right now."  Many other Biden regime officials have said the same thing in the nearly two and a half years now that they have been inflicting themselves upon us.  The reason why they keep making this false claim is clear and ominous. [...] Note how Mayorkas related "anti-government sentiment" to "white supremacy."  Old Joe revealed the game that is being played here last September when he said in his ominous red and black speech that "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic."  This regime aims to criminalize political dissent, and that will require demonizing and stigmatizing fully half of the electorate.

What the WHO has in store for us.  The brilliant and evil Saul Alinsky, in his seminal book Rules for Radicals, said in Rule 4, "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." We are about to get a critical lesson in how the U.S. Constitution is going to be used to destroy America.  The World Health Organization (WHO) is about to do that by getting "emergency" medical powers to control U.S. "healthcare" and much more.  Sadly, that appears inevitable.  Here are some predictions about what's coming.  Their goal will be to do as much irreversible damage as fast as possible to U.S. health care system.  This is for all the marbles.

When reality hits, it will hit hard.  The work ethic has vanished in large portions of the population.  The military cannot find enough recruits.  We are now at the stage of super-saturation, with corruption, debt, and debauchery leading the list.  All this has come about due to one cause — to keep the government in power, at any cost to the people being ruled.  The impending disturbance that will bring it all crashing down cannot be precisely foretold, but that is because there are so many possible events that it is inevitable that one of them will occur.  One need only look at the headlines to see it.  Black swans abound.  Worse yet, many threats are under-reported, or distorted to conceal their true magnitude.  Is it hopeless?  The short answer is yes.  Nothing in the short term can pay off the debt, restore the work ethic, and return public morals to the levels of sanity.

The age of manufactured crises.  The Biden administration seems to have a desire to keep America in a state of perpetual red alert.  This was inevitable given what happened with COVID-19. Fear was used to coerce people into taking actions that they normally never would have.  It compelled usually sane people into being over-reactionaries.  It turned sensible people into self-appointed social police whose aim was to turn the nation into a prison.  The government saw this and savored the opportunity that it represented.  People were willing to surrender their freedoms out of fear.  Our leaders saw they could shove social change down on us and that a large percent of the population would accept it; even welcome it.  No matter how ridiculous the measures that the government advocated, they knew that most people would follow them.  Remember sneeze guards at the checkout of grocery stores, or lines on the floor at Walmart telling you which way to walk down the aisle?  As idiotic as those things were, how many simply complied?  In short, any crisis is camouflage for government totalitarian actions.  Under the guise of trying to fix an emergency, the government will bypass its checks and balances and stomp on rights as a default action.

We Must Defend Self-Defense.  Their wicked plan is perfectly obvious — to criminalize normal people and normalize criminals.  Thieves, bums, losers, junkies, whores, and other trash — they are the heroes in this morally bankrupt morality play, and we normals are the villains.  The first step to fighting back is to see the truth, and the truth is right there.  You just have to be hard enough to accept it and to not allow them to leverage your empathy or compassion into tolerating having to be afraid as some sort of price you owe for the crime of not being a lowlife.  They want us, quiet, complacent, and obedient.  They want a society where we live in fear.

1 In 4 Canadians Agree With Euthanizing The Poor.  Leftist policies start out seemingly reasonable and compassionate before they become totally monstrous.  Initially, there are sympathetic test cases, they started out with arguing that raped 12-year-olds should be able to get an abortion, and then before you know, it's partial-birth abortion for bored celebrities.  Euthanasia was supposed to help those with fatal illnesses suffering a great deal of pain.  And then, in typical fashion, it morphed into killing teenagers and the depressed.  Where to in the Great North?  How about killing the homeless and the poor?

NY Governor says there's no right to self-defense.  It's hard to find any other interpretation of Gov. Kathy Hochul's latest statement about the death of Jordan Neely; the mentally disturbed New York man who died after being placed in a chokehold by a Marine veteran on a NYC subway after allegedly threatening passengers.  Hochul's been taking heat from progressive activists for not immediately condemning the veteran and convicting him in the court of public opinion, as well as for her first statement after the incident, in which she vaguely spoke about "consequences for behavior".  It was unclear whether Hochul was talking about Neely or the veteran, but in her attempt to clarify her earlier remarks she also made it clear that she doesn't think self-defense is ever justified.

A Grand Alliance to Overcome the Elite Betrayal of America.  For the first time in history, the ruling class of a powerful nation has abandoned its fellow citizens.  What is happening in America today is more than a return to feudalism, although the new economic model into which we're being herded is correctly compared to feudalism.  The reality is actually much worse: America's elites view ordinary citizens as no longer necessary.  Because of globalism, they are replaceable.  Because of automation, they are superfluous.  Because of environmentalism, they are unsustainable.  These factors explain what is otherwise inexplicable: Constitutional conservatives and Christians, and the values they profess, are now stigmatized by establishment institutions as often, if not more often, than they are praised.  Nationalism and religious faith empower individuals and communities to resist a ruling class that has abandoned them.  That makes them a threat.  They recognize that the ideology of America's ruling elites is itself leading to disaster.  They recognize that America's elites have decided the nation's middle class is disposable, and this is the real reason they are pushing an agenda of woke degeneracy and extreme environmentalism, designed to lower birthrates and reduce standards of living.

Conservation groups fight back against Biden admin's 'misguided' regulation efforts on hunting, fishing.  New regulations from the Biden administration, in collaboration with environmentalists, would limit hunting and fishing in multiple states across the country.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to publish regulations that would limit the equipment allowed on public refuge properties and expand the area where cost-effective lead ammo and fishing tackle is banned.  International Order of T. Roosevelt (IOTR) Executive Director Luke Hilgemann, is spearheading the effort to get constitutional amendments on the ballot in several states in 2024 to secure the right to hunt and fish across the country.

The 2024 Presidential Election.  America is at a tipping point.  Will we continue the downward spiral into a fascist third-world dictatorship?  Can we change course back to a constitutional republic that values the free will of men and women, freedom of speech and assembly, the rule of law, and equal justice?  Already in the descent to an authoritarian state, free speech is suppressed and thought is censored and replaced by Orwellian New Speak enforced by the thought police.  The free press is transformed into shameless state-run propaganda outlets that run the approved false narrative of the day.  The state takes guns away under the guise of public safety.  The thought enforcers of the state supersede local control of the police.  Scapegoats are created.  Yes, the evil of the 1930s is again rising.

Non-Law Enforcement Agencies Like IRS and EPA Spend Billions on Guns and Ammo, Watchdog Says.  Federal agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency have spent nearly $4 billion in taxpayer funds on guns, ammunition, and other "military-style equipment," a watchdog group found.  Since 2006, "76 rank-and-file agencies" outside "traditional law enforcement entities" or the Department of Defense spent $3.7 billion on "guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment," according to watchdog group Open the Books's summary of its report.  These agencies include the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Small Business Administration, among others that historically have played little to no role in law enforcement activities.

Ireland about to execute free speech as in "kill it off permanently".  This is really Orwellian.  It shouldn't be happening.  People should be rising in horror at the thought but you know our American Progressives are licking their chops at the thought, and they do dip their toes ever so slightly in the fascist water of hate-speech regulation now and again.

Government without Consent Lacks Legitimacy.  [Scroll down]  A government that long ago abandoned any obligation to seek consent from those it claims to control cannot afford to remind Americans that they were once masters of their own fates.  Doing so would risk inciting the passions of the people and turning those now quietly enslaved against their bureaucratic enslavers.  Is it any wonder, then, that the Department of Justice defines anyone who dissents from official government policy as "extreme"?  Diversity of opinion cannot be tolerated within any system predicated on public obedience for its survival.  The events of our day pick up speed.  There is both an awakening among the American people that they have long been deceived about the health of their freedom and an increased urgency among America's permanent ruling class that a new Iron Curtain of control must drop before that awakening turns into outright resistance.  When government authorities choose control as the source of their power, then totalitarianism is the inevitable result.  Neither freedom nor consent can survive in such a system.

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace.  The forces determined to monopolize the public square through censorship, lies, and social pressure have devastated universities and scholarship generally, allowed a corrupt public health bureaucracy to ravage our lives, and stuck us with the most incompetent and corrupt leadership in our history.  There are signs that this monopoly is hitting some bumps in the road, and if you are brave enough you can and should help the cause by fighting to keep your right to speak freely.

The Great Silencing: the Weaponization of Loneliness.  They've been working towards this for decades, the psychopaths that run us.  In The Weaponization of Loneliness, How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer Us, a powerhouse of a book, Stella Morabito points out that between ten and fifteen percent of us are near-psychopaths and they almost always end up in leadership.  Shorn of empathy for anyone but themselves, they see the world as something to master, other people as NPCs, non-playing characters who will obey or die.  They are pitiless and they know best.  I have read no better description of the people destroying our world.  Over and over through history, as Morabito describes, they grab power and destroy the culture, sending it into war and catastrophic depression. [...] Morabito, who spent much of her career at the CIA, and therefore should know, describes in detail the bars of our prison, the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the surveillance devices, the propaganda in its every devious form, and the psychological tricks they are using on us.  Everything has been engineered.  Every single thing you now suffer was planned.  Above all they want you to be lonely, isolated, atomized.  Then you are easy to control.

A Test Case to Expose the Tyranny of the Administrative State.  Let us suppose you draw water and sediment in small quantities from a stream bed.  After removing some solid material, you let the remainder flow back into the stream without adding anything.  Are you polluting the stream?  Common sense dictates one answer.  But an overzealous Idaho green group and a federal court do not see it that way.  So Shannon Poe, a suction dredge miner, ended up paying a $150,000 fine after a citizen suit was brought against him in 2018 by the Idaho Conservation League (ICL).  Technically, the fine, imposed by Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Raymond E. Patricco in September 2022, was for not obtaining permits for suction mining (NPDES permit IDG370000).  Which means the activity isn't banned outright as polluting.  But before that, Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald E. Bush (see page 11 of his judgement) had determined that "the very nature of Mr. Poe's suction dredge mining added pollutants to the South Fork Clearwater River."  In March this year, Poe appealed the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  He is being defended by the pro bono law firm Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF).

SEC Seeks to Impose Costly, Ideologically-Driven Climate Regulations on U.S. Corporations.  Working through the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Biden administration is quietly but persistently implementing global warming (aka "climate change") regulations that will force U.S. corporations to implement costly audit and control procedures for a wide range of CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions that result from their company's operations.  We are witnessing a bureaucratically imposed restructuring of capitalism to comply with an ideologically driven Net Zero Emissions (NZE) policy.  The restructuring aims to impose neo-Marxist "public good" restraints on private corporations through White House-issued executive orders and federal agency rulemaking, not congressional legislation.  Suppose the SEC is successful in this effort.  In that case, the U.S. will join the European Union (EU) in hamstringing U.S.-based corporations with profit-inhibiting accounting requirements certain to constrain profitability — all in pursuit of a demonization of CO2 that fact-based climate science fails to support.  The impact on the Earth's climate will be minimal, but the effects on the U.S. economy could be devastating.

'Water is Not a Human Right': WEF Orders Govt's To Begin Rationing Water Into Homes.  Klaus Schwab has openly bragged about his organization's ability to infiltrate governments across the globe.  At the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, he discussed how the WEF's modus operandi is to penetrate governments by installing its "Young Global Leaders."  In recent years, we have seen this modus operandi play out.  The WEF has infiltrated governments across the world, with every left-voting nation firmly under their control.  Make no mistake, these Young Global Leaders, including Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, are working hand-in-glove with Davos to roll out the globalist agenda of the elite.  Now, in a disturbing development, the globalist elite are claiming that water is not a human right and the world's water supplies must be privatized and controlled by the elites.

House Judiciary FISA Hearing to Examine How Spy Powers Have Been 'Weaponized Against' Americans.  The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday will investigate how Section 702, a law that was designed to help combat terrorism, has been "weaponized against" Americans.  Breitbart News first reported that the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next week on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) ahead of Section 702's December reauthorization deadline. [...] A routine audit recently found that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of National Director of Intelligence (ODNI) of Section 702 use found that FBI agents often had political overtones for their search queries of the FISA database.  This includes "the names of a local political party" to see if it had links to foreign intelligence.  The Justice Department reportedly claimed that FBI personnel "misunderstood" the search procedures and that they were "subsequently reminded of how to correctly apply the query rules."

Getting Off the Roller Coaster to Bondage.  Just as the Mesoamerican Aztecs fought drought with human bloodletting, Western socialists know that a lot of innocent people must die for "hope and change."  No tyrant ever said Utopia comes cheaply.  Russia, China, India, and everywhere else where hydrocarbon energies are still valued as instrumental for prosperity and population growth can just sit back, watch the West commit suicide, and wave. [...] If you object to the coming "green" energy — induced mass starvation, the zealots brand you a "climate denier."  If you prefer diplomacy to nuclear Armageddon, you get labeled a "Russian appeaser" or arrested for spreading "disinformation."  If you prefer free expression to government censorship, you're one tweet away from committing the made-up crime of "hate."

How do we make sure totalitarianism doesn't rear its head again?  [Scroll down]  Since their malevolence has no bounds, they innately know that projection, or accusing their opponents of what they are doing, is a perfect way to confuse the situation and get most people to ignore the argument.  They also know that supposedly having a new system of government and a faux noble cause is a great way to engender false plaudits from most people, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said: "To do evil, a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good."  Supposedly saving the planet gives them the cachet to do whatever they want, all for the cause of fighting global cooling, warming, climate change, or whatever climate cause they conjure up.

The Day the Music Died.  [Scroll down]  Recent examples highlight this shift to the authoritarian spectrum, such as the case of Douglass Mackey.  Mackey, also known as meme poster Ricky Vaughn, became famous for his satirical posts that the Left has suggested helped to get Donald Trump elected in 2016.  Mackey most famously created a meme that urged leftist voters to vote for Hillary Clinton by text, a technology that does not exist.  For his efforts, the Eastern District of New York arrested Mackey on Conspiracy Against Rights charges.  Mackey was convicted by a New York City jury and will be sentenced to up to ten years in federal prison.  Critics have noted that Mackey was not the only person to make this satirical joke.  A leftist meme poster named Kristina Wong made an identical joke targeted at Trump supporters in 2016.  As with most authoritarian regimes, political targeting is reserved for the opposition.

No Constitutional Right To Honk Your Car Horn, Court Says.  A federal appeals court says honking isn't First Amendment-protected activity.  There's no constitutional right to honk your car horn, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.  The case involves Susan Porter, who repeatedly honked her car horn while driving past protesters in California in 2017.  A deputy with the San Diego County Sheriff's Office issued Porter a ticket, saying she had violated a state law against misuse of car horns.  Porter pushed back, filing a federal lawsuit in 2018.  In it, she alleged that honking her horn in solidarity with the protesters was protected First Amendment activity and that the California law used to ticket her — which prohibits using a car horn except "when reasonably necessary to insure safe operation" or when used "as a theft alarm system" — was unconstitutional.

When Did the U.S. Become East Germany?  What Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrats in general, much of the over-educated, under-experienced academy, and their many followers want is more like the defunct German Democratic Republic, a puppet of the Soviet regime in Moscow and for 45 years a truly miserable place where a few who had power oppressed the many who didn't.  The GDR was home of the Stasi, the violent and murderous secret police who were rightfully feared; barbed wire; guards who shot their fellow humans fleeing to freedom; sons who turned in their fathers who demonstrated only lukewarm loyalty to the state; impermissible dissent; and a lousy economy.  No, there are no snipers in the U.S. waiting to cut down departing expats nor a secret police, though it's reasonable to wonder just what the overtly politicized FBI has become.  When it's not targeting political opponents, it's plotting to spy on religious congregants.  Vast swaths of the public are today afraid to express their views for fear of being canceled, attacked for not toeing the accepted narrative, sued for adhering to their faith.  How long will it be before dissent is criminalized in this country?

With The Barbarians In The Gates, We May Need Our Own Barbarians.  If you have failed to realize we are living through the most significant social, economic, and political revolution in history, it can only be by a herculean effort in self-deception. [...] That our institutions are corrupt and untrustworthy is beyond doubt.  The CDC brazenly lied about natural immunity, masks, gain-of-function research, vaccine effectiveness, and safety; the same DOJ that eviscerated immigration law, repeatedly manufactured false allegations against a sitting president and raided his home.  A New York City attorney general has indicted a former president, all while actual criminals, both on the streets and in the White House, pillage with impunity.  And SCOTUS, our erstwhile constitutional protector, is denounced even by one of its own justices for "reducing constitutional law to policy-driven value judgments until the last shreds of its legitimacy disappear."  Never before has resistance been so futile.  Protestors, without trial, are simply swept away into the D.C. Gulag Archipelago.  Bank accounts are summarily closed.  Wrong speech, if not censored, will cost you your job, or buy you an armed pre-dawn raid to help get your thinking right.  With a $175 billion annual budget, the Department of Homeland "Security" has established the greatest surveillance state ever to have existed outside of the telescreen in Orwell's dystopian novel 1984.

Supreme Court says you need to pay off other people's student loan debt.  The Supreme Court just handed thousands of student loan borrowers a victory.  The nation's highest court ruled on Thursday in favor of $6 billion in student debt relief for 200,000 borrowers — a result of a settlement from a years-long lawsuit now known as Sweet v. Cardona.  The lawsuit was first filed in 2019 under former President Donald Trump on behalf of borrowers with stalled borrower-defense claims, or claims that borrowers can file if they believe they were defrauded by the school they attended.  If approved, their debt would be wiped out.

COVID shutdowns were just the beginning.  Climate lockdowns are next.  [Scroll down]  Now, for clarification "net zero" means total greenhouse gas emissions (including methane) must be less than their removals (such as from planting trees).  The FIRES report instead focused on an absolute zero target because they recognize the absence of novel revolutionary scalable technologies for 1) capture and removal of these gases; and 2) non-fossil fuel mass transportation and energy production.  In other words, if you realistically want to achieve the net zero target by 2050 you essentially have to go for absolute zero.  My twitter thread highlighted the eye-watering points that the strategy required:
  •   All airports in the U.K. except Heathrow, Belfast, and Glasgow to close by 2030.
  •   No flying at all by 2050.
  •   No new petrol/diesel cars by 2030.
  •   By 2050 road use restricted to 60 percent of today's level.
  •   Food, heating, and energy restricted to 60 percent of today's level by 2050.
  •   Beef and lamb to be phased out by 2050.
I said that, apart from the extreme limitations on personal freedom and travel, this means either a colder, hungrier population or massive depopulation.

A Means of Control.  The separation has begun.  Anyone who hopes to live long enough to engage the enemy has to swim upstream against the many ways they have of killing you in your sleep.  You can't go to the doctor for some surgery, because if they know you're unvaxxed, they'll slip in and vax you through your IV, or give you vaxxed blood in surgery.  There is no hesitance in doing the most unethical things when you're paid by the dose, coerced by the establishment or threatened to lose your career.  They're narrowing the lines of nutrition down to a few reliable sources that they control so they can inject food with the mRNA clot shot.  They're about to roll out their Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to take control of your financial life.  Soon, they'll be able to cut off gasoline purchases if you drive too far, or shut off your car if you're foolish enough to buy one after they put in the kill chip.

For once in your lives fight back!  [Scroll down]  But then, ending mask mandates was as easy as every employee refusing to wear a mask, every customer refusing to put them on.  The Vaxx was easily defeated by people rationally refusing to take an experimental vaccine for a virus that was less deadly than the flu.  Right, none of that happened either, so, once again, when it would only take rational refusal, the idiots, the sheep, the fools will determine my fate, cost me my freedom by their stupid and insipid response to government proposals and demands.  I, like you, am living in a society that will not stand up against the sexualization of our children, the sexual abuse of our kids in their schools where they are not supposed to be learning about sex, but about math, history and science.  They will not stand up against a harmful injection of poison that causes sudden death under extreme physical exertion.  They will not stand up against drag queen story hour in libraries.  If they will not stand up to protect their children, their own lovely offspring, there's no chance they will stand against the digital slavery of the CBDC.

The West Declares War on Itself.  It cannot be stated too often: the most important conflict of our times is that between individual liberty and State control.  National borders, constitutional constraints, legal norms, respect for inviolable rights, and concern for civilian autonomy are evaporating.  Centralized and expansive government control over domestic and foreign populations — without much recognizable distinction separating those two groups — is the State's raison d'être.  People are disposable game pieces for conniving governments to use and abuse.  Call it the implementation of a "new world order" or the "Great Reset" or the West's "Build Back Better" mission to erect a global government with totalitarian-like control, but however it is named, its purpose is nothing less than a war on personhood.  State-sanctioned groupthink will replace free thought; regulated speech will replace free expression; redistributed wealth will replace private property.  The West has, in effect, declared war on its own foundations.

The 'RESTRICT Act' Is About Controlling Online Information By Force.  We have spoken about online censorship, social media silencing content they do not approve of, Google demonetizing websites like ANP that doesn't follow the "authoritative, scientific consensus," but the 'RESTRICT act' takes things to a whole new level.  Stefan Stanford recently described the RESTRICT act, otherwise known as Senate Bill 686, as an attempt at "controlling Internet content," in order to ensure that the "never-ending stream of lies that we've been getting from the government and the mainstream media for the past several decades at least will be the ONLY information that we're 'allowed' to get."

Donald Trump, Tiberius Gracchus, And America's Imminent End.  [Scroll down]  Our Republic has survived for 230 years because most Americans believe in our Constitution and respect the laws that emanate from it.  But the Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper; it's not a gun, it's not an army, it's not police state stormtroopers.  It's a piece of paper that states how the government should operate, limits that government's power, and guarantees the citizens' various inherent liberties and freedoms.  For most of our history, the Constitution's words guided how our nation operated.  Citizens had two ways to change the way the country was governed:  voting and amending the Constitution.  Today, however, neither works.  The former has been undermined by a Democrat party that steals elections under the cover of night and calls you a conspiracy nut when you notice.  The latter isn't even a consideration because the Democrat party and the apparatchiks running the regulatory and security states are no longer constrained by its words.

Victor Davis Hanson: We're in a Revolution.  The fundamental transformation of America promised to us by then-candidate Barack Obama just days ahead of the 2008 presidential election has come to pass.  President Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder intentionally set out to fill the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice with as many liberals as possible.  They worked toward this goal deliberately and methodically.  Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, chronicled their actions in a special investigation series written in 2011 called "Every Single One."  He concluded that the DOJ's Civil Rights Division "was engaging in politicized hiring in the career civil service ranks" and that "it had been unprecedented in scope."

Are You Ready for the Knock on Your Door?  This afternoon, former President Trump surrendered to authorities in New York City.  Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg performed a legal gymnastic stunt worthy of Cirque du Soleil to bring charges against the former president and leading Republican presidential contender.  Whether or not you like Trump, Americans of every stripe should recognize the dangerous territory the United States has wandered into.  For the first time in American history, a former president has been indicted and arraigned in a clear case of political targeting.  CNN and other liberal media outlets have been running wall-to-wall coverage, breathlessly reporting on every move Trump has made in the last 24 hours.  They're clinging to the hope that Trump will be deprived of his liberty and locked up for the rest of his life on bogus charges that don't pass the smell test. [...] Trump has an army of lawyers and the money to defend himself, but do you?

Is Germany persecuting lockdown sceptics?  For much of the pandemic, Michael Ballweg was a thorn in the side of Germany's pro-lockdown establishment.  Now, the 48-year-old businessman has become one of Germany's most famous prisoners.  Ballweg came to public attention in spring 2020 as the face of the protest movement against the government's strict Covid policies.  His organisation's name, 'Querdenken' (thinking outside the box), quickly became synonymous with opposition to lockdown.  Even today, as the Covid measures imposed by then chancellor Angela Merkel are coming under increasing scrutiny, the term Querdenker, which refers to followers of the Querdenken movement, continues to be used as a slur against anyone deemed too critical of the restrictions.

To Everyone Celebrating Trump's Indictment.  The news of former President Donald Trump's indictment by a Manhattan grand jury has been greeted with unabashed glee by Democrats, corporate media outlets, talking heads, and late-night "comedians."  These people clearly have no idea where this kind of politicized prosecution always leads.  Once a ruling regime convinces the citizenry to accept the criminalization of political opposition, the inevitable result is a one-party state that systematically eliminates individual rights.  That's what Trump means when he says:  "They're not after me.  They're after you."  Those who applaud Trump's indictment, or the other spurious attempts to prosecute him, are cheering for the demise of their own right to democratically choose their elected leaders.

Even If You Hate Trump, You Should Be Standing With Him Now.  On Friday, a 33-year-old Trump supporter named Douglass Mackey was convicted of election interference and faces up to ten years in prison for tweeting pro-Trump memes during the 2016 election.  According to a Friday press release from the "Justice" Department, Mackey faces up to ten years in prison for memes such as this.  Vaughn tweeted a photo of what looked like a Hillary ad, but was actually a parody of a Hillary ad.  The caption read:  "Avoid the line.  Vote from home.  Text 'Hillary' to 59925.  Vote for Hillary and be a part of history."  The Justice Unless You Support Trump Department explained that this was a heinous crime because "Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to 'vote' via text message or social media which, in reality, was legally invalid."  That sounds terrible, right?  Yet the Justice Department, according to the Post Millennial, "was unable to provide evidence that anyone was deceived by the meme."  What's more, at least one memester on the other side did exactly the same thing, and was never arrested or tried, and faces no prison time.

Russell Brand Debriefs Matt Taibbi With Some Solid New Intel Surfacing About Larger Internet and Social Media Control Operations.  U.K. cultural and political pundit Russell Brand sits down for an interview with U.S. Twitter File journalist Matt Taibbi, to discuss Taibbi's experience with his recent congressional testimony, the advancement of the 'Restrict Act', and new revelations still coming from his exploration into the Twitter communication files.  After some general overview and sense about the issues in/around congress, at 06:45 of the interview Taibbi begins to highlight new information he is discovering about how the Aspen Institute group was organizing, discussing and planning a larger objective about controlling any/all information on the internet.  [Video clip]

Trump Supporter Found Guilty, Faces Ten Years in Prison for 2016 Anti-Hillary Meme.  Donald Trump has been indicted, essentially for the crime of being Donald Trump and opposing the Left's total hegemony over everything.  But as Trump himself has often warned, they're not really after him, they're after us, and he is just in the way.  A 33-year-old Trump supporter named Douglass Mackey discovered the truth of that adage in the worst possible way on Friday, the first day of America as a Leftist banana republic in which foes of the regime are targeted solely for their opposition to that regime.  Mackey was convicted of election interference and faces up to ten years in prison, all because of a meme he tweeted during the 2016 election.  Yes, you read that right:  a meme.

The Warnings Unheeded Now Threaten Our Fundamental Freedoms.  The First Amendment is at a critical juncture.  Recent congressional hearings on the Twitter Files brought the matter into full public view.  Freedom of speech and of the press are hanging by a precarious thread.  Do we want a future in which information flows freely, or one in which an information elite controls those flows "for our own good?"  The choices we make over the next few years will determine which of those futures we get.  It's tragic that we have let the problem reach this dangerous state.  What heightens the tragedy, however, is that the war against America's most cherished freedoms was predictable and preventable.  If those of us who value freedom want to win, we're going to need a strategy grounded in a clear understanding of what's happening and why.  The Twitter Files story is shocking.  Allegations that big tech and social media manipulate information have been around for as long as we've had tech and social media companies.  Allegations of bias among the mainstream media are even older.  In recent years, however, both the allegations and the supporting evidence have ratcheted upward to unprecedented levels.

Anarcho-Tyranny Unleashed in the United States.  The terms anarchy and tyranny seem like they are in contradiction.  Anarchy means no state.  Tyranny means nothing but state.  What possibly could anarcho-tyranny mean?  It's a phrase coined by the right-Hegelian political theorist Samuel Francis, whose dark worldview was never my cup of tea, to say the least.  Even so, he was insightful, especially concerning the ambitions of the left.  He said that if they get their way, the United States and much of the Western world will descend not to "socialism" classically understood but to anarcho-tyranny, which is arbitrary law as the normal way of conducting public life.  No one can count on any rules.  Everything is fluid and constantly changing.  There is only one feature we can expect:  whatever happens, it will be compulsory; that is, backed by the threat of violence.  The violence can be of the mob but it will be behaving as a proxy for power, like the Red Guard under Mao.  When the mob quiets down, powerful public officials step up to pronounce what they did as good or bad depending on the political priorities of the moment.  Bad mobs (those opposing the left) get locked up but good mobs (those who shout down university speakers or trans activists breaking into the Tennessee Capitol) are defended and valorized.

Banana Time for the Rule of Law.  [Scroll down]  That's the way things are in totalitarian societies.  No jokes allowed, especially not jokes told at the expense of the regime.  Thus it is that North Korea banned sarcasm and irony.  Poor Ludvik suffered for his joke.  But he got off easy compared to Douglass Mackey, a social media "influencer" who wrote under the pen name "Ricky Vaughn."  During the 2016 election cycle, Mackey/Vaughn posted a funny meme urging Hillary voters to "avoid the line and vote from home" by texting "Hillary" to a certain number.  Who would be stupid enough to fall for such a joke?  No one.  But his satire was effective enough to get him banned from the pre-Elon Musk era Twitter.  And the feds thought — or said they thought — that it was part of a "plot to disenfranchise black and women voters."  I guess that shows you what they think of black and women voters.

The Trump Indictment Accelerates America's National Divorce.  In the current phase of the cold civil war, states are consolidating.  One-party Democrat states like California and New York are becoming virtual dictatorships, immune to elections and bent on implementing the most extreme agendas of the furthest Left.  Some Republicans, like Gov. Abbot [sic] in Texas and Gov. DeSantis in Florida, have begun fighting back.  That means it's a bad time to be a Republican in New York or a Democrat in Florida.  As bad as the federal abuses of Russiagate were, none of the feds, whose fabled prosecutors can "indict a ham sandwich" actually went as far as DA Alvin Bragg in Manhattan did.  What that means is that blue states and cities are now more lawless, more biased and more ruthless than federal authorities are.  And that makes sense.  The feds occasionally have to answer to and interact with Republicans who play a role in the national government.  Republicans no longer play a role in New York City or New York State.  There are no brakes on someone like DA Bragg lynching political opponents.  It's the federal layer that will really protect Trump here.  DA Bragg has no case, but even if he manages to get this past a Manhattan jury and judge, this will ultimately fall apart, but not because New York's judiciary can be trusted to do the right thing.  It can't.

Man Who Posted Hillary Clinton Meme Found Guilty of Interfering in 2016 Election.  A man who posted memes about the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election was found guilty of one charge of conspiring against the right to vote on Friday.  "Douglass Mackey, also known as 'Ricky Vaughn,' was convicted today by a federal jury in Brooklyn of the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights stemming from his scheme to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote," reads a statement released by the Eastern District of New York on Friday.  Members of the jury reached the unanimous verdict after a little less than a week of deliberation starting Monday afternoon after a week-long period of arguments.

Tucker Carlson Rips DOJ For 'Shocking Attack' On 'Freedom Of Speech' In Internet 'Troll' Conviction.  Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped the Department of Justice Friday over the conviction of internet "troll" Douglass Mackey for posting memes during the 2016 election.  "After a Manhattan grand jury indicted Joe Biden's rival in the next presidential race, another jury, also in New York, convicted a Republican social media influencer named Douglass Mackey.  What did Mackey do wrong?  Well Douglass Mackey's crime was mocking Hillary Clinton voters online," Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation, said.  "You're seeing on your screen the meme that Mackey posted on Twitter during the 2016 election.  In that meme, Mackey suggests it's possible to vote for president by text message because only Hillary voters could believe something so absurd.  But of course in real life, no one believed that, Mackey's insult did not alter a single vote in the election.  No one has proved otherwise.  The government brought forth not a single victim of this crime.  It couldn't."  [Video clip]

A State of Never-Ending Crisis: The Government Is Fomenting Mass Hysteria.  We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.  This is mind-control in its most sinister form.  With alarming regularity, the nation is being subjected to a spate of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.  This is all part of the Deep State's master plan.  Ask yourselves: why are we being bombarded with crises, distractions, fake news and reality TV politics?  We're being conditioned like lab mice to subsist on a steady diet of bread-and-circus politics and an endless spate of crises.  Caught up in this "crisis of the now," the average person has a hard time keeping up with and remembering all of the "events," manufactured or otherwise, which occur like clockwork in order to keep us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from reality.  All the while, the government continues to amass more power and authority over the citizenry.

A.I., Brain Scans and Cameras: The Spread of Police Surveillance Tech.  A brain wave reader that can detect lies.  Miniaturized cameras that sit inside vape pens and disposable coffee cups.  Massive video cameras that zoom in more than a kilometer to capture faces and license plates.  At a police conference in Dubai in March, new technologies for the security forces of the future were up for sale.  Far from the eyes of the general public, the event provided a rare look at what tools are now available to law enforcement around the world: better and harder-to-detect surveillance, facial recognition software that automatically tracks individuals across cities and computers to break into phones.  Advances in artificial intelligence, drones and facial recognition have created an increasingly global police surveillance business.  Israeli hacking software, American investigation tools and Chinese computer vision algorithms can all be bought and mixed together to make a snooping cocktail of startling effectiveness.

Finance and the 'Great Reset'.  Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Academia, Big Government, and its Media Complex have all failed us.  Now Big Finance, which is made up of "too big to fail" banks — such as JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo — appear ready and willing to help the Fed roll out a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).  CBDCs will be presented as a technological development that provides more convenience and security than physical currency.  But make no mistake a CBDC is more social control than currency.  A CBDC would end freedom and the privacy of consumer choice in the U.S.  It would politicize the economy — distorting and undermining the efficient allocation of resources by directing capital to government-favored sectors and defunding out of favor industries.  Just two weeks after the failure of two major banks — Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and the forced bailout of a third, First Republic Bank — the second largest cluster of bank failures in American history, the Fed undertook "stabilization" measures that will benefit large money center banks at the expense of smaller banks.

The one-world beast system is roaring into reality, but is anyone listening?  [Donald] Trump is the perfect polarizing figure to distract Americans at this key moment in history.  Keep your gaze on him and you're guaranteed to miss the bigger picture.  This has to do with the fast-approaching beast system, which is marching us toward World War III and economic slavery through cashless payment systems, 24/7 biometric surveillance and even death.  Yes, World War III and mRNA injections will provide the global culling of human populations that Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, the Rockefellers and other powerful interests have been advocating for decades.  With that background, let's get to the main point of this article:  Cashless electronic payment systems that feed on your personal biometric data.  Last week we learned that the restaurant chain Panera Bread is rolling out a new biometric payment option offered by Amazon where customers have their palms scanned with no cash or credit cards necessary.  Now JP Morgan has announced it's also rolling out a new biometric payment system with plans to make it available to all the retail businesses it deals with. [...] As WEF advisor Yuval Noah Harari has already warned us, the next stage in the global technocracy movement is for 24/7 surveillance tools to go "under the skin."  I'm old enough to remember when debit cards were controversial and now we're scanning people's body parts as a mode of payment.  This is just part of the long-planned, incremental evolution toward the full-on cashless society that "conspiracy theorists" have been warning about since at least the 1980s.  They were not wrong; they were just ahead of their time.  The way to defeat this beast, or at least slow it down, is not politically through human messiah figures, but personally through our own human agency.  We must resolve to never comply with these systems.

Jesse Waters Tells Senator Lindsey Graham He's Listed as a Co-Sponsor on the Restrict Act — Graham Has No Idea.  This is a little funny, and simultaneously very sad.  Folks, this is the state of legislative affairs in Washington DC, this is exactly what it was like when I was asking these types of questions.  Senator Lindsey Graham is listed as one of the Republican co-sponsors for Senate Bill 686, the Restrict Act, aka the TikTok ban act.  Fox News host Jesse Waters goes through the bill on live television and then asks Senator Graham why he co-sponsors it.  Lindsey Graham has no idea.  [Video clip]

The RESTRICT Act Is Exactly What It Sounds Like.  The RESTRICT Act is the very definition of a Trojan horse: innocuous on the outside, lethal on the inside.  And it is being wheeled toward the gates, with the help of Republicans in Congress.  Ostensibly, the RESTRICT Act is designed to protect Americans from TikTok — you know, that nifty piece of Chinese spyware masquerading as a fun way to showcase dance videos, asinine behavior, and other things people can live without.  And Congress is interested in protecting the country from bad international actors.  That is because it can be done via the RESTRICT Act, which will do far more than keep TikTok off of your phone or tablet.  How much more?  More than you want or even thought possible, even under this administration.  The RESTRICT Act goes after anyone whom the powers that be deem a threat.  That determination is made by the secretary of commerce.  A threat can include people abroad and U.S. citizens.

The RESTRICT Act did not surface in a vacuum.  [Thread reader]  The "TicTok ban" legislation (SB686), which is a fraudulent auspice for total internet control by the intelligence community, comes from within bipartisan legislation spearheaded by the aligned interests of Senator Warner, the SSCI and DHS.  None of this is accidental, and the legislative branch is walking into the creation of an online control mechanism that has nothing whatsoever to do with banning TikTok.  Preceding the Restrict Act, on March 2, 2023, the people in control of the Joe Biden administration officially announced that government control of internet content was now officially a part of the national security apparatus.  If you have followed the history of how the Fourth Branch of Government has been created, you will immediately recognize the intent of this new framework.

Could the RESTRICT Act Criminalize the Use of VPNs?  Would the RESTRICT Act — a.k.a. the TikTok ban bill — criminalize the use of VPNs?  That's the rumor floating around about the legislation, which was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) earlier this month.  Warner's office has said his bill wouldn't do this, but its broad language leaves room for doubt.  And the act is still insanely far-reaching and could have a huge range of deleterious effects, even if it doesn't criminalize people using a VPN to access TikTok.

New Mexico School Boards Association Administrator: Parents Have No Rights In Public Education.  A New Mexico School Boards Association instructor sees no role for parents in guiding their children's public school education.  On Tuesday, the parental rights group "Freedom Families United" published audio tape of a New Mexican school board administrator speaking to members of local school boards.  "Parents do not have a fundamental right to tell you how public school teaches their child," New Mexico School Boards Association Trainer Andrew Sanchez said in December.  "Parental rights end when you decide to send your kids to public school.  What you teach this generation that will soon be voting are going to be instrumental to the future of us as a democracy and as society goes forward."

Socialism in Our Schools.  Over the past several decades, we have gotten so used to government in our lives that we do not even consider that there might be other ways to deal with issues.  In our town, our public hospital is the largest industry in the county.  Little by little, our hospital has taken over local clinics and some medical offices, such that almost all medical care has some relationship to the hospital, and thus hospital policies.  Whatever the hospital requires of its staff and patients, it also requires of the regional clinics.  Now this same hospital is going to become a 501(c)(3) organization so that the citizens of our county will have nothing to say about what the hospital does.  It does not seem to appear to anyone that in the past, most hospitals were private, or owned and directed by religious and charitable organizations.  The more centralized the hospital becomes, the more control it has over the lives of the patients who use the hospital.

Biden Regime Even Wanted to Censor Private Text Messages.  The Biden regime has already abundantly established that it has no patience for dissent.  The Twitter Files show regime lackeys pressuring Twitter, along with other social media giants, to silence people who dared question, among other things, its COVID-19 narrative — yes, the one that has been shown to have been full of holes all along.  But as is so often the case these days, it gets worse.  Now it has come to light that the Biden White House actually pressured Meta to censor private WhatsApp texts that dared to express disagreement from the regime's line.  Yes, private texts.

American Tyranny?  Perfectly Normal.  Abortion is a clear example of normalization.  It became a hot topic decades ago, talked about in news, on social media, in Hollywood (desensitization phase).  Terms were revamped (language control phase).  Now it's "women's health," not "abortion," "pro-choice," not "pro-abortion," "fetuses" and "clumps of cells," not "babies."  Over time, killing one's own child was no longer untenable, but a normal part of society, even seen as a woman's right.  Using these same tactics, homosexual and transgender behavior once recognized as "abnormal" (3%) has also been mainstreamed.  Again, it was gay rights everywhere — the news, entertainment, parades (phase 1).  Again it was language appropriation, where behavior outside the norm can no longer be called abnormal, where a man with a male physique who says he's a really a woman cannot be called delusional (phase 2).  Indeed, words like "abnormal" or "delusional" are now hate speech.  If you dare speak these words, you'll be ostracized by groups, labeled a homophobe, a hate-monger.

New Report Shows Extensive Biden Admin Collusion to Classify Parents as Terrorists.  A new report published by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and House Judiciary Committee shows extensive collusion between the Biden administration and the National School Board Association.  The partnership came as the group drafted a letter calling on the Department of Justice to classify parents as domestic terrorists.  The letter also asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the Patriot Act, implemented after 9/11, to go after parents expressing criticism over school lockdowns, critical race theory and inappropriate sexual content in the classroom.  "Internal Executive Branch documents indicate that the Biden Administration's use of federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources is an example of government weaponization against American parents.  If the Justice Department performed any due diligence prior to the issuance of the Attorney General's memorandum, it would have understood clearly and forcefully that federal intervention was unwarranted.  Because that due diligence did not occur — and the Administration acted out of political motivations rather than for law-enforcement reasons — parents around the country had FBI "assessments" opened into them," the report states.

The Worst Prison Is the One You Don't Know You're In.  In Schwab's technocracy, the rulers won't send you to a physical gulag.  An algorithm will declare your opinions to be hate speech or racist, and you'll find yourself in a digital gulag, cut off from your bank account, employment, housing and from buying and selling.  In China, they "disappear" people.  We haven't gone that far in the West.  Instead, as we saw during COVID, those who disagree are slandered, silenced and removed from positions of authority.  For example, think of the treatment of the thousands in the medical community who signed the Great Barrington Declaration, opposing lockdowns, masking, vaccine mandates and passports, and other COVID-era rules and restrictions.  Did these scientists get fair play on the evening news, or were they ignored and silenced by social media companies?  Have these 14,000 scientists been exonerated?  Nearly every one of them was a victim of cancel culture.

The U.S. Government Is Building A Vast Surveillance And Speech Suppression Web Around Every American.  Our government is preparing to monitor every word Americans say on the internet — the speech of journalists, politicians, religious organizations, advocacy groups, and even private citizens.  Should those conversations conflict with the government's viewpoint about what is in the best interests of our country and her citizens, that speech will be silenced.  While the "Twitter Files" offer a glimpse into the government's efforts to censor disfavored viewpoints, what we have seen is nothing compared to what is planned, as the details of hundreds of federal awards lay bare.  Research by The Federalist reveals our tax dollars are funding the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) technology that will allow the government to easily discover "problematic" speech and track Americans reading or partaking in such conversations.  Then, in partnership with Big Tech, Big Business, and media outlets, the government will ensure the speech is censored, under the guise of combatting "misinformation" and "disinformation."

Federal Reserve announces July launch of central bank digital currency infrastructure.  The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced a July launch of its FedNow service, which will enable all U.S. banks to offer instant payments 24/7, and will constitute the infrastructure of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by linking each banking node directly to the Federal Reserve, according to financial experts.  FedNow "will enable all the banks — any bank in the United States, not just the big ones — to offer instantly available funds in real-time payments to their customers", explained Fed Chair Jerome Powell before the House Financial Services Committee on March 8.  According to a Federal Reserve press release, "many early adopters" plan on using the FedNow service in July upon its launch, "including a diverse mix of financial institutions of all sizes, the largest processors, and the U.S. Treasury."

The FBI Showed Up on the Behest of Pfizer to Question a NY Woman About Her Anti-Vax Comments on Social Media.  Three days ago, the FBI paid a visit to a woman in New York following a complaint from Pfizer about her anti-vax comments on social media.  During the interrogation, the FBI repeatedly asked the woman the same questions, seemingly in an attempt to irritate her.  The agents' demeanor was described as stand-offish, adding to the woman's frustration.  Unfortunately, we do not have any further details at this time, and it's unclear why the FBI was involved in this matter.  [Video clip]

Hochul Goes Full Despot with Maoist-Like Quarantine 'Procedures'.  On March 10, Brownstone Institute Fellow Bobbie Anne Cox was the lead plaintiff attorney in challenging New York Governor Kathy Hochul's "Isolation and Quarantine Procedures." Without proof of exposure to a communicable disease, Hochul's procedures allowed the Department of Health to pick and choose which New Yorkers to quarantine.  One can imagine how this would be used against political opponents.

It's up to states and counties to fight the World Health Organization.  There is an urgent immediate need for specially crafted county ordinances and state laws to protect American citizens from the totalitarian dictates of the international World Health Organization (WHO). As early as May 2023, due to a voluntary loss of U.S. sovereignty by the Biden administration, the WHO will have authority to dictate medical practice and treatments in America under WHO-declared pandemic situations, which can be manufactured at will by WHO supporters and intermediaries.  In other words, WHO "elite" leaders and supporters (who include the Chinese Communist Party) will be able to dictate what American physicians, hospitals, health care workers, etc. can and cannot do during a pandemic.  It is well documented that the so-called global "elites" plan to establish a one-world government (the "Great Reset") primarily through the health dictates and mandates of the WHO.  For all concerned patriotic Americans, this is an untenable development that must be fought tooth and nail.

Australia to Become The First Country Since China To Implement A Digital-ID and Surveillance State.  Ministers from Australia's federal government have agreed to a deal with their state and territory counterparts to include digital credentials in the new national digital identity system, reports the Australian Financial Review.  The agreement paves the way for driver's licenses and occupational credentials to be recognized across the country, and to store their credentials in a digital wallet, all based on international standards.  "The move to bring identity and credentials together is world leading," NSW Digital Minister Victor Dominello told AFR Weekend.  He credits federal finance minister Katy Gallagher for bringing the sides together.

People Behind Biden Announce Creation of Formal National Surveillance State, Yet No One Seems Bothered.  On March 2, 2023, the people in control of the Joe Biden administration officially announced that government control of internet content was now officially a part of the national security apparatus.  If you have followed the history of how the Fourth Branch of Government has been created, you will immediately recognize the intent of this new framework.  The "National Cybersecurity Strategy" aligns with, supports, and works in concert with a total U.S. surveillance system, where definitions of information are then applied to "cybersecurity" and communication vectors.  This policy is both a surveillance system and an information filtration prism where the government will decide what is information, disinformation, misinformation and malinformation, then act upon it.  In part, this appears to be a response to the revelations around government influence of social media, the Twitter Files.  Now we see the formalization of the intent.  The government will be the arbiter of truth and cyber security, not the communication platforms or private companies.  This announcement puts the government in control.

The FBI Targeted Patriotic Conservatives Exercising Their First Amendment Rights:  'They're All Bleeping Terrorists'.  Antifa?  Black Lives Matter?  Come on, man!  You'll find it comforting to know that the FBI has been busy tracking the real terrorists that threaten the safety of every decent, law-abiding American today: people who traveled to Washington for Trump's rally against election fraud on Jan. 6, 2021, and Americans who dare to oppose the relentless sacrifices to Moloch that are the cornerstone of the Democrat Party's program.  The FBI has become so thoroughly corrupt and politicized that its agents apparently have no problem serving as attack dogs for the Left's sinister agenda.

It Looks as if the Justice Department Probably Has Spies in Catholic Churches.  In a heated exchange with Gestapo chief Merrick Garland at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) directly challenged Garland's viciously corrupt and politicized "Justice" Department, and zeroed in on the once-respected agency's targeting of traditionalist Roman Catholics.  While Garland maintained, in the teeth of the available evidence, that the department is not actually targeting Catholics, he claimed not to know how many spies and informants the feds have in those hotbeds of terrorism, traditional Catholic parishes.  In other words, he didn't say they didn't have any such spies and informants.  So if you're Catholic, be watchful:  the guy in the pew behind you could be taking notes.

Is Resistance Futile?  The various components of our society — political and military leadership, corporate America, the medical/pharmaceutical field, and our judicial and electoral systems — seem to have been absorbed into a collective, even if we are not completely certain as to their full leadership.  The WEF?  China?  Cartels?  Democrat-Marxists?  Or a collection of them all?  The "Present-Day Borg" (PDB) used the COVID pandemic and lockdowns, and later the vaccines, to gain control over every aspect of our lives.  Our energy, water, and food supplies are under attack from our current administration (either willing traitors or plain incompetents) or through saboteurs coming across our wide-open borders.  Their control of our schools offer our children dumbed down educations with altered history, sexual confusion, and a complete absence of creative or logical thinking.  Our scientists have been co-opted to produce pre-determined results that advance the false narratives like "global warming," while any evidence to the contrary is "fact-checked" as false.  They intimidate through lies and deception, using our own legal system to accuse others of false crimes to silence opposition.  Their use of technology to brainwash and overpower us — Big Tech propaganda, censorship, and surveillance — is very Borg-like.

Can the Biden Administration Force Us to Let the World Health Organization Call the Shots When There Is a Pandemic?  [Scroll down]  The zero draft appears to endow the WHO with the authority to "declare and manage a global pandemic emergency," according to the Epoch Times.  "Once a health emergency is declared, all signatories, including the United States, would submit to the authority of the WHO regarding treatments, government regulations such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates, global supply chains, and monitoring and surveillance of populations."  David Bell, a public health physician and a former WHO staffer, told the news outlet that these people "want to see a centralized, vaccine-and-medication-based response, and a very restrictive response in terms of controlling populations."  He added: "They get to decide what is a health emergency, and they are putting in place a surveillance mechanism that will ensure that there are potential emergencies to declare."  This is part of a two-pronged approach to global pandemics.  The World Health Assembly launched an initiative to develop new global pandemic regulations that would also overrule the laws of member states.  "The World Health Assembly is the rule-making body of the WHO, comprised of representatives from the member states," the Epoch Times explained.  "Both [initiatives] are fatally dangerous," said Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law.  "Either one or both would set up a worldwide medical police state under the control of the WHO, and in particular WHO Director-General Tedros."

The Greens Aren't Just Coming for Your Gas-Powered Car — They're Coming for All Cars.  Late last month, Joe Biden was mocked for posting a photo of himself in an electric vehicle (a GMC Hummer) that costs $110,000 and up.  And for touting a $7,500 federal tax credit that doesn't apply to vehicles that cost over $80,000. In other words, the 46th president was ripped for confirming the stereotype that electric cars are a vanity passion for rich green liberals.  But what was less noticed, at least by the right, was that left-wing greens didn't like Biden's photo-op, either.  You see, Middle Class Joe insists that he wants to replace internal-combustion vehicles with electric vehicles (EV), but the hardcore greens — including those within his own administration — want to get rid of cars, period.

Don't Bow Down to a Dictatorial Government.  America Is a Prison Disguised as Paradise.  Government eyes are watching you.  They see your every move: what you read, how much you spend, where you go, with whom you interact, when you wake up in the morning, what you're watching on television and reading on the internet.  Every move you make is being monitored, mined for data, crunched, and tabulated in order to amass a profile of who you are, what makes you tick, and how best to control you when and if it becomes necessary to bring you in line.  When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you've got nothing to worry about if you've got nothing to hide no longer applies.  Apart from the obvious dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, we're approaching a time in which we will be forced to choose between bowing down in obedience to the dictates of the government — i.e., the law, or whatever a government official deems the law to be — and maintaining our individuality, integrity and independence.

Canadian Police Seek Law Forcing People To Hand Over Computer Passwords.  The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) want computer users to hand over their encrypted passwords.  At their annual conference on Tuesday, the CACP passed a resolution demanding a new law that would force people to hand over their computer passwords with a judge's consent.  Joe Oliver, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said that criminal behavior goes undetected online because perpetrators are "going dark," hiding behind the anonymity of the internet.  "The victims in the digital space are real," he said.  "Canada's law and policing capabilities must keep pace with the evolution of technology."

Britain risks 'sleepwalking into a surveillance state' — CCTV watchdog.  The UK has too many CCTV cameras and the public is ignorant of the true extent of snooping, the government's surveillance tsar has warned.  Tony Porter, the UK's Surveillance Camera Commissioner, said many of Britain's millions of cameras are useless when it comes to combating crime.  In a biting critique, he said Europeans are shocked the British public readily accepts the number of cameras we have, adding we need a public debate and greater regulation.

Democrats Pass Laws to Destroy Suburbs.  In the name of "equity," the Biden administration and state Democrats have declared war on the suburbs:  ["]The Biden administration and Democrats in New York, Connecticut and other states are fighting local zoning laws in order to build high-rise apartment buildings with "affordable" units in tree-lined, single-family neighborhoods.  All in the name of equity, meaning everyone can live in a tranquil suburb, whether they've earned the money to pay for it or not.  The Biden administration announced Jan. 19 that it will require all towns across the U.S. to submit "Equity Plans" showing how they will make it possible for low-income people to live there by providing affordable housing, transportation and other resources.  Towns that don't meet the cookie-cutter requirement for economic diversity will lose federal funding.["]  The left's seething hatred of the suburbs is readily apparent in popular culture, where movies regularly portray these tranquil, tree-lined neighborhoods as hotbeds of racism, repression, sexual dysfunction, and hatred.

The Left's Righteous Tyrants.  Tyrants once rose to power the old-fashioned way:  defeating the opposition on the battlefield or at the faux ballot box.  Despite their atrocities, these despots at least had some swagger — perhaps a way with the ladies, a good sense of humor, strong persuasive abilities, commanding verbal skills, pride in their appearance.  Not so with modern-day martinets.  Our 21st-century tyrants possess nothing more than useless degrees from woke institutions and deep contempt for at least half the country, likely born out of a lifetime of social isolation.  History, after all, shows that outcasts often seek revenge against their childhood tormentors later in life.  Such appears to be the case with the former Twitter executives who testified before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.  Unimpressive by every measure — looks, personality, intellect, persuasiveness, grasp of the facts — the Twitter Four should serve as a reminder of what the defenders of freedom are up against.  Thankfully, our enemies, while powerful for now, have the mental, physical, and emotional appeal of overcooked spaghetti.

CVS fires nurse for refusing to violate her religious beliefs.  Despite accommodating nurse practitioner Robyn Strader's religious beliefs for more than six years, CVS fired her on October 31, 2021 after suddenly deciding that the Christian religion was no longer valid and no employees could cite it when it came time to prescribe drugs.  ["]Robyn worked at a CVS MinuteClinic in Keller, Texas since 2015. Robyn sought a religious accommodation because prescribing any medications that could intentionally end the development or life of an unborn child would force her to violate her beliefs.  For six-and-a-half years, the company accommodated her without a problem. [...] ["] Strader is now suing, with the non-profit legal firm First Liberty representing her.  The complaint demands Strader's full restitution, including back pay and punitive damages, noting that such a policy not only violates federal civil rights law, it also violates several Texas laws, including one that protects employees from religious discrimination and a second that exempts medical personnel from participating in abortion or abortion-related procedures if his or her religion forbids it.

Democrats know fences work.
Fence Goes Back Up At Capitol Ahead Of Biden SOTU Address.  Democrats claim walls don't work and are racist, except when they think they need them.  Ahead of Biden's state of the union address on Tuesday night, the fence has gone back up at the Capitol Building.  The same fencing Democrat put up after J6.  What's the point?  Who are they trying to keep out?

Gov't Documents Reveal CDC Is Building Huge 'List' of People Who Refuse Vaccines.  People who refuse Covid-19 vaccinations are put on a list and tracked by the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to bombshell federal government records.  According to the shocking video obtained by National File, unvaccinated people are quietly tracked when they go to the doctor's office or to the hospital due to a quiet new program proposed and implemented by the CDC.  The new program is designed to "track people who are not immunized or only partially immunized."  Doctors will now report those who refuse COVID vaccination as delinquent in a huge database.  They will do this by using ICD-10 codes.

Now the Left Is Coming for Your Pickup Trucks, America — and Their 'Logic' Couldn't Be More Ridiculous.  Rather than "only" coming after our evil, planet-destroying passenger cars, the left is targeting our pickup trucks as well, my fellow Americans.  Moreover, the idiocy is neither new nor driven only by the left's hatred of internal combustion engines.  As I first reported in January 2021 — and this is laugh-out-loud hysterical — pickup trucks not only brazenly project "petromasculinity"; they're also the personification (or would that be "truckification"?) of "glorification of violence and domination."  Incidentally, one of the many benefits enjoyed by conservative political pundits is never having to make [stuff] up; the left's got you covered on a regular basis.

The Editor says...
"Petromasculinity" made automobiles feasible, and made America a superpower, beginning in about 1942.

None Dare Call It Treason; None Dare Call Them Traitors — Part one.  In today's climate - in the political Left's version of America and its present environment - if you question a vote/election outcome - no matter the empirical observations of corruption readily made - in words far softer than high-profile Democrats' words in the past regarding elections, theft, so-called illegitimacies - you're an "insurrectionist," and an enemy of "democracy."  If you simply believe in "The Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave" you are dangerous, and an "enemy."  If you believe in a cohesive country, not one sliced and diced into "victims" and "victimizers," not one where every special-interest group gets to blast their bright lights into your face (adherents to LGBTQIA+, BLM, CRT, ESG, NWO, WEF, etc.) you are a racist, a sexist, a misogynist, a neo-Nazi, or just a Nazi, alt-Right...  a bad person.  You can even be gay, etc., and NOT supporting of the burgeoning MAP movement ("minor attracted persons"), and you are antithetical to the madness of the Left, and the Democrat party, and therefore an enemy.  Well.  This is inarguable:  If our government calls any of us "enemies," then surely that government becomes an enemy to those people.  That is not a seditious statement:  That is simply fact.  Only fools would relax within a government's definition of them as "enemies."  And it can happen to anybody: political persuasions and parties are no protection.  We've already slid into Banana Republic territory with the Trump raid, and we're accelerating our slide into a socialist/communist/totalitarian hellhole by the day.

Feds adapting AI used to silence ISIS to combat American dissent on vaccines, elections.  The government's campaign to fight "misinformation" has expanded to adapt military-grade artificial intelligence once used to silence the Islamic State (ISIS) to quickly identify and censor American dissent on issues like vaccine safety and election integrity, according to grant documents and cyber experts.  The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded several million dollars in grants recently to universities and private firms to develop tools eerily similar to those developed in 2011 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program.  DARPA said those tools were used "to help identify misinformation or deception campaigns and counter them with truthful information," beginning with the Arab Spring uprisings in the the Middle East that spawned ISIS over a decade ago.

What Are the Limits of Your Obedience?  [Video clip only]

California Lawmakers Move to Tax People Who Have Left the State.  California lawmakers appear intent on making the Eagles song Hotel California a reality[,] at least when it comes to taxes for those who try to flee the state.  At the Hotel California, "you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!" With soaring costs and a massive $24 billion deficit, the state is also facing an exodus of people leaving the state.  The solution?  Convert the state into a tax Venus flytrap:  not only impose a wealth tax on those caught in the state but tax those who try to leave.  The new bill introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Alex Lee would impose an extra annual 1.5% tax on those with a "worldwide net worth" above $1 billion, starting as early as January 2024.  The law has a cynical bait-and-switch provision.  The billionaire tax is just meant for the initial packaging and passage.  It can therefore be sold as a "billionaire's tax."  However, in two years, the threshold drops to a worldwide net worth exceeding $50 million.

Neil Oliver Discusses the Climate Change Quest for Utopia.  For his weekly monologue, Neil Oliver outlines the insufferable fools that are constructing the path to Agenda 2030 and the World Economic Forum dictates that form the baseline to "save the planet" from climate change.  As you listen or read the word picture that Oliver paints, you might remember the CTH article from over a decade ago about what the "fundamental change" Barack Obama was outlining, really meant.  Well, here we are, a decade closer to the utopian goal — and the picture is now close enough for all to see.  [Video clip]

Tony Blair Wants National Databases to Track Vaccination Status for a 'Whole Slew' of Future Vaccines.  Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair called for a "digital infrastructure" to track vaccination status at Davos 2023.  A conference hosted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) is indeed an appropriate venue for Blair's most inappropriate demand, since WEF previously released its plan for a digital ID required to do or buy anything.  "You need to know who's been vaccinated and who hasn't been," Blair exclaimed.  "You've got to have the proper digital infrastructure."  WEF's digital ID would essentially be a social credit score, as the ID would be required to access social media and government benefits, vote, open bank accounts, book travel, shop, access healthcare and insurance, own electronic devices, and make online purchases, among many other applications.  If you want to know how that turns out, look at Communist China.  WEF has already partnered with the Dutch and Canadian governments to roll out a digital ID, and Tony Blair seems to be ready, willing, and eager to assist WEF as well.

During Remarks at World Economic Forum FBI Director Chris Wray Talks About Success in Combatting Pre-Criminal Activity.  The FBI is a criminal investigative agency.  Meaning, a crime is committed, and the FBI mission is to investigate it, solve it, and bring the information to the justice department for pursuit.  At least that was the customary role of the FBI as it was/is commonly discussed.  However, please note that in Director Wray's remarks, every element of the FBI mission is framed around "prevention" of criminal activity, or what we would call pre-crimes. [...] Now, what I am asking readers to do is to realize when the fundamental mission of an investigative agency changes from investigating the aftermath of criminal activity, to the prevention of criminal activity, we as a society open ourselves up to having severe restrictions on our liberty.  After all, just about everything that we now see as an infringement on freedom, is some form of a proactive action by government.  Change the mission from the investigation of crime to the prevention of crime, and the entire apparatus of the mission fundamentally changes.  Criminals are no longer the target when you are preventing crimes.  Criminals are only targets in the aftermath of crime.  When you are preventing crime, everyone that could commit a crime is the new mission target.  Everyone, regardless of their connection to — or association with — criminal activity, is now a potential criminal.  Potential criminals must be monitored.  Potential criminals are now the target.  You are a potential criminal.

Has COVID Backlash Sparked a Movement?  Friends of freedom generally agree about four points:
  [#1]   Protections for expansive individual liberty and respect for limited government are essential for the promotion of human rights, self-determination, and prosperity.
  [#2]   Over the course of American history, the U.S. government has strayed far beyond the original limitations of its enumerated powers as set forth in the Constitution.
  [#3]   Globalism, international government, plutocracy, rule by "elite" experts, unchecked bureaucracy, and the steady erosion of inalienable rights all work to maximize the power of centralized authority while minimizing the power of individual citizens.
  [#4]   The most important conflict raging today is between individual liberty and coercive State control.
Where defenders of liberty disagree is in their assessment of the future.  Some believe that so much ground has now been lost in humanity's centuries-long struggle for freedom that centralized government control over each individual is all but certain.

Will Joe Biden's latest COVID 'big con' spark a second American Revolution?  The Stamp Act was used to impose tyrannical authority of the British aristocracy on colonials, the proto-Americans.  COVID was the hammer Democrats employed to impose their will on We the People.  Using a spurious COVID health crisis as justification, Washington elites suppressed the Bill of Rights, imposed quasi-martial law, and re-imposed a tyranny we rebelled against 247 years ago. Evidence clearly shows that Washington consistently lied about COVID — it was magnificent scam.  They ginned up a virus that was as dangerous to most Americans as the seasonal flu — it was not bubonic plague.  COVID was a danger only to the immunocompromised and the elderly.  Numbers of "COVID deaths" were greatly exaggerated.  Autopsy studies and CDC demographic data show that 73 percent to 88 percent of those listed as COVID deaths were people who died not from COVID but with COVID, and because of pre-existing life threatening conditions.  Dr. Anthony Fauci urged parents to vaccinate their children, in whom the risk of death from COVID was less than 0.03 percent.  Meanwhile, adverse impacts of mRNA vaccines were falsified, hidden and suppressed.  Masks don't work.  Lockdowns, social isolation, and school closures not only didn't work, but had catastrophic consequences.  More than 200,000 small businesses closed in the first year of COVID.  Children, especially the poor, lost two years of schooling.  Democrats knew this and yet pounded away with danger warnings and mandates or advisories that violated the Bill of Rights.  They abrogated the rule of law.

Most of the media don't mind a president who rules like a dictator, so long as he is a leftist.  In 2021, when Joe took office, Democrats had complete control of Congress, yet he decided on day one to act like a dictator anyway.  We didn't see the media call him a dictator or talk about abuse of power, and separation of duties, so Joe got away with it.  Biden decided unilaterally to ignore immigration laws and to stop enforcing the border.  Literally millions of illegals streamed in.  If the president didn't want immigration laws enforced, his politicized Justice Department was happy to comply.  One of Biden's main goals was to destroy energy-producing companies, so he stopped a critical pipeline and put severe limits on drilling on public lands.  Energy prices took off.  Biden said that the Constitution prevented him from forgiving student loans but he is continuously trying to do that anyway.  We hear few complaints from Democrats about abuse of power and separation of powers.  It always helps a dictator if he has a deep state that serve as essentially campaign workers and a politicized Justice Department led by a person who will do what he is told.  If the teacher's union wanted schools to be closed, Joe's CDC was at their beck and call, happily regurgitating their talking points.

Democrat Introduces Legislation to Make White People Criticizing Minorities a Federal Crime.  Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, long in the running for being the vapidest member of Congress (oops, did I just commit a crime?), has introduced legislation that could make political criticism by white people against minorities a federal crime.  In what can only be called a convoluted mess, the bill proposes that a white person who "vilifies" any non-white person and has their words end up on social media, accessible by "persons who are predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime," would themselves be committing a federal crime.  [Tweet]  The provision is so broad that you could drive a Mack truck through it.  What is a "white supremacy-inspired hate crime" under this statute?  How is "replacement theory" defined?

A Revolution in the Minds of the People.  I have a guttural revulsion to one-world-government types who seek to rule the world by turning domestic populations against themselves.  "Divide and conquer" is the only strategy they know, and oppression disguised as altruism is the only outcome they bring.  They speak obsessively about racism not because they seek racial peace, but rather because the exploitation of such petty, ancient hatreds distracts people from the real problems those with power continue to create.  They preach about "climate change" not because they fear that our planet is coming to an end, but because scaring humanity into handing governments complete control over the use of energy hands governments complete control over humanity as well.  They hyperventilate over COVID variants today not because they seek to save lives, but because they seek to monitor and manipulate every movement of every life from here on out.

Get Ready for 'Climate Change Death' Tracking.  Anyone following the regime's playbook already understands that when you disagree with it, you'll be accused of killing someone.  Don't take the vaccine, don't lock down, or don't wear a mask — you're killing grandma.  Question voting and balloting procedures, and your words will provoke a deadly insurrection.  Suggest that a man can't get pregnant, and you're guilty of stochastic terrorism.  The regime characterizes conservatives as killers for their opinions, yet its partisans celebrate abortion up to parturition.  It wants to let murderers out of jail, and is now moving to destigmatize the "dignified" culling of the elderly and infirm.  Climate change is the platform from which the regime seeks to achieve power by creating a rationale for laws and regulations that dictate where and how people can move, live, purchase, and work.  So it makes sense that climate change would re-emerge as a priority just as the world moves on from a pandemic, where the body count of those dying "from" or "with" Covid was used to justify repressive policies such as lockdowns, shutdowns, election process changes, and the prevention of the practice of your religious faith.

The Idaho murders criminal investigation was using chilling surveillance tools.  The charging documents so far revealed in the University of Idaho students' murder investigation are both comforting and chilling.  I suspect that I am far from alone in having gotten impatient with the length of time we saw no signs of progress in media, and may have made some unkind assumptions about the investigatory prowess of the small town police department that was the first agency on the scene.  So, it is reassuring that the alleged perp of the horrific crime is under arrest and was methodically kept under surveillance [...] And yet, it is disconcerting that the highly politicized and anti-conservative FBI is able to track our movements with surveillance videos and cell phone pings and match our DNA to a sample in its possession even if we've never had a DNA test ourselves, using relatives that have subscribed to 23 and Me, or otherwise have entered DNA databases that police can access.

How About A Kill Switch To Shut Down Washington?  Kris Kristofferson said that "freedom" is "just another word for nothin' left to lose."  To the political left, freedom is an abomination that must be defined and controlled by the ruling class elites.  And what better way to do that than to crack down on automobile travel?  Cars are a favorite target of all progressives and most Democrats.  No human invention has increased freedom as much as the automobile.  That's why they have chosen to go to war on cars.  It's a long-term campaign that will take decades to finish.  But there are victories along the way, and one of them was won in Washington with the help of Republicans.  According to Bob Barr, a former federal prosecutor and congressman from Georgia, the infrastructure bill the president signed a little more than a year ago includes "a little-noticed 'safety' measure that will take effect in five years."  It "amounts to a 'vehicle kill switch,'" Barr wrote in the Daily Caller, and every car built after 2026 has to have one.

Jordan Peterson sentenced to reeducation training.  Canada doesn't have reeducation camps — yet.  But Justin Trudeau's Canada is making progress towards becoming China's North American twin.  Compliance with the ideological diktats of the intelligentsia is apparently a requirement in order to keep your job these days.  Yesterday Jordan Peterson revealed and the College of Ontario Psychologists acknowledged that he has been "sentenced" to mandatory retraining in order to retain his license to practice clinical psychology in Canada.  [Tweet]  Just in case you didn't know, Pierre Poilievre is the leader of the opposition Conservative Party in Canada, meaning that Jordan Peterson is literally being punished for criticizing the current Prime Minister and retweeting the statement of his political opponent — and a mainstream one at that.  The claim is that Jordan Peterson's social media statements caused some unspecified "harm" to patients through his social media statements.  This is the kind of "harm" and "trauma" we hear of all the time these days:  people claiming to be traumatized by the existence of opinions to which they do not agree.

Governments have learnt that fear works — and that is truly terrifying.  As the year in which life officially returned to normal comes to an end, we must ask an uncomfortable question.  What on earth just happened?  We have lived through a period of what would once have been the unthinkable suspension of basic freedoms:  interventions by the state into personal life that even most totalitarian governments would not have dared to impose.  And we, along with most (not all) of the democratic societies of the West, accepted it.  Before that era slips into the fog of convenient forgetfulness, it is absolutely imperative that we — the country as a whole — hold a thorough post hoc examination, because our governing classes have certainly learnt something they will remember.  The critical lesson that has been indelibly absorbed by people in power, and those who advise them, is that fear works.  There is, it turns out, almost nothing that a population (even one as brave and insouciant as Britain's) will not give up if they are systematically, relentlessly frightened.

A Plan for Rescuing America.  Americans who have taken off their blinders now realize that our country is systematically being disassembled from the inside.  Our laws, our morals, our views about life, family and justice, have been under assault for the last 40 years.  Our basic freedoms of speech and religion are almost gone along with the right to bear arms.  The institutions that we trusted and relied on to keep us safe have been corrupted.  A majority of the press, the media, corporations, doctors, scientists, our education system, and social media now actively work against the best interests of the United States.  Our justice system has been so compromised that a citizen can be given solitary confinement for two years for the political equivalent of jay-walking — without a trial — and a violent criminal with a mile-long rap sheet who attempts murder on a senior citizen is released by a Soros-controlled prosecutor within hours.

Law Will Install Kill Switches In All New Cars.  According to an article written by former U.S. Representative Bob Barr, hidden away in the recently passed infrastructure bill, the very one I warned before would negatively impact drivers across the country if it were to pass, is a measure to install vehicle kill switches into every new car, truck, and SUV sold in this country.  The regulation likely won't be enforced for five years, so maybe there's time to do something about this.  As we've seen both in this country and others recently, what constitutes "law-abiding" can change drastically overnight.  For example, in September a car was pulled over in New Zealand and the occupants arrested when police discovered the trunk was full of Kentucky Fried Chicken meals.  They were smuggling the fast food to customers in locked-down Auckland, against quarantine measures.  Yet not too long before, delivering restaurant orders to people was considered a reputable, legal activity.  It gets even better:  Barr points out that the bill, which has been signed into law by President Biden, states that the kill switch, which is referred to as a safety device, must "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired." In other words, Big Brother will constantly be monitoring how you drive.  If you do something the system has been programmed to recognize as driver impairment, your car could just shut off, which could be incredibly dangerous.  There is the possibility the kill switch program might measure your driving as impaired, then when you try to start the car up again the engine won't fire up.  That would potentially leave you stranded.

Senator Cardin: Hate Speech is Not Protected by First Amendment.  Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md) is ending 2022 on an ominous note after declaring that "if you espouse hate... you're not protected under the First Amendment." The statement is obviously untrue, but it is only the latest example of the eroding support for free speech in Congress and the country at large.  It is particularly chilling for one of the nation's most powerful politicians (sworn to "support and defend the Constitution") to show either a lack of knowledge or lack of fealty to the First Amendment.  He is not the first Democratic leader to make this clearly erroneous statement about the Constitution.  Politicians such as Howard Dean have previously voiced the same view.  The First Amendment does not distinguish between types of speech: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."  Indeed, the language was explained most succinctly by Justice Hugo Black in Smith v.  California:  "I read 'no law ... abridging' to mean no law abridging."  While the court has distinguished "fighting words," criminal threats and other narrow categories, it does not bestow the government the open right to strip protection of speech that it deems "hateful."

New Video Explores How the Pandemic Unveiled the Worst Among Us.  The narrator reviews how during the pandemic, many people mistakenly acted as though they were suddenly deputized police officers enforcing real laws.  Interspersed with personal experiences, the video forces you to remember your own.  In my case, it was the waif of a teenage girl behind the deli counter shouting, "I cannot serve you unless you put a mask on!"  (I didn't go back for six months.)  Then there was the tour guide in Massachusetts who threatened to have our open-air bus, which was packed with tourists, completely stopped because my mask had fallen below my nose.  And of course, who can forget the young teens in the Adirondacks, who militaristically demanded I fill out my name and address before I could jump in the lake on a scorching hot day.  In each case, it seemed like their hardness came easily; that they even relished their new authoritarian roles. [...] The video then airs footage of those "six feet apart" footstep signs that magically appeared on commercial floors around the world.  (Something of which we surprisingly had no shortage.)  Then there were the arrows instructing us in one-way foot traffic.  If you want the limited science behind that, you can find it in Science Direct.  And if you think they are done with their social experiments like COVID foot traffic patterns, think again.

The Editor says...
I was ejected from Costco because I wasn't wearing a mask — in late summer 2021, long after it was common knowledge that masks do no good.  Of course I've never returned; and of course they don't care, but I'm not going back.

COVID Tyranny: Federal Judge Rules 'Public Safety' Overrides Personal Medical Autonomy.  A federal judge seated in Montana, The Honorable Donald W. Molloy, recently ruled that "public safety" trumps individual autonomy over what gets injected into your body.  [Video clip]  The vague, undefined "hardships" that Judge Molloy references presumably include heart inflammation (myocarditis) (previously derided as "conspiracy theory" in corporate media), neurological conditions such as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), and other serious health consequences.  [Tweet]  This judge's ruling is tantamount to medical terrorism for the sake of social engineering and Big Pharma profiteering — literally the most morally repugnant function that a government could serve.  The absurdity and immorality of Judge Molloy's ruling are compounded by the fact that, despite the Public Health lie in the early days of the rollout that the jab stops transmission, we know now that it does not.  In fact, Pfizer never even tested whether their shots stop transmission before introducing them to market.  [Video clip]

NYC Mayor Declares "Big Brother is Protecting You".  New York City Mayor Eric Adams responded to criticism over increasing the use of facial recognition technology by declaring, "Big Brother is protecting you!"  Adams made the comments in response to elected officials who expressed concerns that using such technology could lead to an all-pervasive surveillance state.  Blaming his predecessor Bill de Blasio, Adams asserted that New Yorkers felt they were living in a "state of lawlessness" and that his priority was to "stabilise" the situation.  Facial recognition technology uses surveillance cameras to flag up individuals who appear on databases of criminal suspects when they enter certain public locations, although the technology is far from perfect.

Biden's Unopposed Imposition of Stalinism.  While conservatives tend to be more tolerant of different viewpoints, the progressive liberals who have taken over the Democrat Party want to completely eradicate anyone with an incompatible vision.  Censorship of opposing views has become the official modus operandi of the federal government.  "Joe Biden's partisan political enemies," said Tucker Carlson, "are now officially enemies of the state."  The government is collaborating with social media to crack down on private communication when it is critical of Biden's policies.  "The Biden administration considers censorship applicable to private speech," said Tucker Carlson.  "What you say in private, when you're alone with your phone.  You won't be able to say or read what you want because the Democrats intend to control the flow of information.  Nothing that questions official regime policy will reach you."  Soon Biden's minions will be listening to all your phone calls and emails, and monitoring your social media posts as they do in China.  No private communication of prohibited ideas will be allowed.

Oxford residents will soon be prisoners of their own neighborhoods.  This is one of those stories that you're certain is from the Babylon Bee, and that is stunning in its implications when it turns out to be the truth.  In this case, the truth is that, in accordance with UN and WEF climate recommendations, the city of Oxford (home to the famed university) approved plans mandating that citizens may not drive more than 15 minutes distance from their homes without permission.  It's called the "15 Minute City" and is intended to reduce auto emissions.  Mostly, though, it will reduce liberty, which is what climate change madness has always been about.

Whither Canada?  Canada has been much on my mind these days, weeks, months, and years, not only because I am a Canadian citizen, but because, like many of my American friends, I am witnessing firsthand the destruction of a country.  The current prime minister's campaign, amounting to a kind of jihad, to destabilize the nation and create the world's first "post-national state" proceeds on many levels.  Among them, as I have previously catalogued, are a burgeoning national debt, a series of repressive bills making their way through parliament, a prohibitive and unnecessary carbon tax, the deliberate destruction of the energy sector, the impending rollout of digital ID surveillance technology, and the notorious invoking of the deeply flawed and inappropriate Emergencies Act to deal with the Truckers' Freedom Convoy protesting the vaccine mandates.  This last travesty was compounded by the government's striking a Commission of Inquiry in which it set its own terms and appointed its own Commissioner.  PM Justin Trudeau's declared purpose of protecting Canadians' health via the vaxx mandates by, among other initiatives, attacking the Truckers as violent, racist, and homophobic was a false-flag operation.

British Woman Arrested for Thinking Silent Prayers Inside Perimeter of Public Area Where Only Lawful Thoughts are Permitted.  Mrs Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, aged 45, was not doing anything except standing inside an area under what local officials call a "Public Spaces Protection Order."  Within these designated areas protest is not permitted.  Prayer is considered an act of protesting.  Mrs. Vaughan-Spruce was standing alone, in silence.  However, she was thinking prayerful thoughts without speaking.  As a consequence, her cognitive state — thinking about prayer — was in violation of the protection order.  A police officer arrived and questioned Mrs. Vaughan-Spruce about her thoughts.  Mrs. Vaughan-Spruce told the police officer the truth, she was thinking about prayers.  The police officer arrested Mrs. Vaughan-Spruce for violating the Public Spaces Protection Order with her thoughts.

Update:
'Forbidden Prayer': Charges Dropped Against UK Woman Who Prayed Silently.  Police in Birmingham, England have dropped criminal charges against the director of March for Life UK for praying silently "in her head" near an abortion clinic that was closed at the time of her arrest.  But Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who was arrested in December, said she still wants her day in court to pursue full dismissal of her charges in light of claims by authorities that criminal prosecution for her silent prayers could resume at a later date.  "It can't be right that I was arrested and made a criminal, only for praying in my head on a public street" Vaughan-Spruce stated in a press release.

Biden admin funding AI research to detect and censor "microaggressions".  Here's one part of the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan passed last year that few people apparently read.  The bill included more than half a million dollars in grants for tech researchers to develop artificial intelligence algorithms capable of identifying and suppressing "microaggressions" in social media posts.  Part of the money was quietly gifted to researchers at the University of Washington earlier this year and they expect to receive the rest of it in coming years as the development work proceeds.  You may find yourself wondering how the federal government wound up handing out taxpayer money to develop ways to automatically censor the free speech of its citizens.  It's a great question.

Oregon bans sales of new gas-powered passenger cars by 2035.  Policymakers for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality on Monday approved a rule that prohibits the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles in Oregon by 2035.  The effort comes as Oregon plans to cut climate-warming emissions by 50% by 2035 and by 90% by 2050, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.  The transportation sector accounts for nearly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon.

The Editor says...
I thought Greta Thunberg said we would experience a worldwide climate catastrophe by 2031.  Is she also making plans for 2035?

Jordan Peterson Warns the Left Is Planning a 'Totalitarian Social Credit System'.  The Left has been slowly pushing a socialist agenda in the U.S. for some time.  However, it wasn't until the Covid-19 pandemic that Americans began to realize it.  During an interview with Australia's Sky News, anti-woke thinker Jordan Peterson warned that a "totalitarian credit system" is coming to western countries.  When asked if he thinks what happened during Covid could usher in a version of a social credit system, Peterson answered that it is "highly probable."  "And that it will be accepted by many people?" the reporter asked.  "They won't even notice," Peterson said. "You can't believe how much people don't know these things."  Peterson talked about how society could easily be fooled into thinking it was a system made to make them feel like it was done for their sake.

For two years now we have been witnessing a global coup d'état.  [Threat reader]  ...in which a financial and ideological elite has succeeded in seizing control of part of national governments, public and private institutions, the media, the judiciary, politicians and religious leaders.  All of these, without distinction, have become enslaved to these new masters who ensure power, money and social affirmation to their accomplices.  Fundamental rights, which up until yesterday were presented as inviolable, have been trampled underfoot in the name of an emergency:  today a health emergency, tomorrow an ecological emergency, and after that an internet emergency.  This global coup d'état deprives citizens of any possibility of defense, since the legislative, executive, and judicial powers are complicit in the violation of law, justice, and the purpose for which they exist.  It is a global coup d'état because this criminal attack against citizens extends to the whole world, with very rare exceptions.  It is a world war, where the enemies are all of us, even those who unwittingly have not yet understood the significance of what is happening.  It is a war fought not with weapons but with illegitimate rules, wicked economic policies, and intolerable limitations of natural rights.  Supranational organizations, financed in large measure by the conspirators of this coup d'état, are interfering in the government of individual nations and in the lives, relationships, and health of billions of people.  They are doing it for money, certainly, but even more so in order to centralize power so as to establish a planetary dictatorship.  It is the Great Reset of the World Economic Forum, the Agenda 2030 of the United Nations.

Controlling the Department of Justice.  The Founders of this nation would never have agreed to the creation of the Department of Justice.  They were extraordinarily skeptical of a large federal government and adamantly opposed to a federal law enforcement role.  Except for treason, the concept of federal crimes was not even mentioned in the Constitution. [...] Today the Department of Justice is a colossus with over 117,000 employees spending in excess of $46 Billion per year with its tentacles in virtually every aspect of American life.  The legal justification for all this is that Congress has created over 4,500 federal crimes in the U.S. Code and more than 300,000 federal crimes dispersed throughout 110,000 final rules (regulations) in the Federal Register.  This gives unscrupulous prosecutors and their staffs a near-endless source of arcane crimes to choose from in pursuing vendettas or political agendas.

The United States of Fascist America.  Fascism is a political ideology which, unfortunately, is mischaracterized by both media and academia.  For example, Wikipedia describes fascism as, "A far right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, central autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."  The definition is mostly correct, except for the first words, claiming fascism is a "far right" ideology.  Hitler was considered a fascist but his party, contrary to the political science experts (disguised as journalists), was far left.  The Nazi Party is the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party.  Note the name "socialist," an ideology of the left, not the right.  Another famous fascist, Benito Mussolini further clarified, "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power."  That's where America is now, corporate and government power merging into a totalitarian behemoth, crushing any and all dissent.

A Foundation of Sand.  The FBI and the rest of the Deep State's witch hunts against innocent Trump supporters and associates are well documented.  If you do not know that our governmental institutions are perfectly partisan and corrupt, no quantity or quality of evidence will convince you at this point.  The evidence is overwhelming that the federal KGB/FBI is more than willing to both cover up the crimes of consummate Cultural Marxists while prosecuting the non-crimes of anyone who would dare mock or flout the sacred rites of the wokeshevik creed, or undermine, no matter how trivially, the interests of the Washington regime, to the extent those matters are separable.  Not only is the FBI not interested in the Biden family's many crimes, some of which are fairly serious, it is even farming out its dirty work to its agents and assets in the corporate world (CEOs, CFOs, general counsels at Twitter) so as to protect the state criminals at the helm of the imperial regime in Washington.  It is of course still quite sensible to acknowledge that the "rule of law" has been lost, because it has been devoured by partisans in the media and in law enforcement, but it is more fruitful to wonder whether the "rule of law" is even possible in a nation such as ours.  A government as power-hungry and corrupt as ours minds not the laws, but perhaps more importantly, a critical mass of our own people have grown hyperpolarized and hyperracialized, not merely resentful and cynical, but downright disdainful of large portions of their fellow Americans.  No one is really and truly safe from the law now.

Climate Lockdowns: It's Real.  Local authorities in Oxford tried to 'fact check' an article claiming they're imposing de facto 'climate lockdowns', but ended basically admitting that's exactly what they're doing.  [Video clip]

Does your government control you, or do you control your government?  Too much is happening, simultaneously, not to see a grand scheme leading to destruction — or, if a leftist, transformation.  The irony is that our form of government, called a constitutional republic, has been far more successful than their idea, called totalitarianism or communism, which has failed every time and in every nation that tried it.  Yet many are trying central control, again — not because it helps the citizen.  Quite the opposite:  communism helps the elite few who are in control.  Why would a free person give up freedom for control?  For safety, freebies, handouts, fear?  The question demands an answer.  The dividing line is stark:  does your government control you, or do you control your government?

The Long Con.  We are the victim of policies that sound good and feel good but have the opposite effect, all by design.  Too many examples of what amounts to malign intent should be readily visible to all.  I have come to realize that our basic foundational teachings, our tribal law, and the social acclimatization that evolved over eons, no longer work. [...] Voting is no longer determinative.  Our votes don't matter, which goes a long way to explaining why people, despite their anger and frustration, are passive.  Law-abiding citizens feel there's nothing they can do short of taking to the streets.  The sole exception to law-abiding passivity is education because parents are galvanized on their children's behalf.  Local governments feel vulnerable because the Federal government is constantly testing the limits of what it can overtly do.  Gov. Youngkin's win in Virginia was a setback for government, but don't think for a moment that parents won the war.  The career Woke bureaucrats who really believe those are not your children but, instead, are theirs are just weathering the storm and then they'll be back with a vengeance.

A Corrupt, Evil Regime Intent on Imprisoning Trump.  Gunrunner, never-charged criminal, political hack, and perpetually aggrieved former attorney general Eric Holder is back, bloviating about President Trump being imminently arrested.  Given that we live in post-Republic times and that the Department of (in)Justice has exhibited no shame or remorse in its years-long campaign of political persecution and partisan double-standards, I'll take Obama's contemptible "wingman" at his word just this once.  So Democrats, Establishment Republicans, and the Deep State Leviathan plan on humiliating President Trump by frog-marching him before the world and tossing him in the clink.  So what?  They've been telegraphing this play for months, if not years.  We get it.  The U.S. government is irredeemably corrupt, we've officially entered banana republic territory, and all the worst tyrants in D.C. plan on rounding up and punishing anyone brave enough to fight back or dissent.

Mark Levin: We are moving toward a Democratic-run police state.  [Video clip]

Elon Musk's Twitter Reckoning Exposes a Nation Dying of Autoimmune Disease.  We all owe a debt of gratitude to Elon Musk.  That brave and civic-minded innovator actually believes in the founding creed of his adopted nation, America.  He proved that with his purchase of Twitter and his insistence just this Friday on exposing that platform's filthy secrets.  Musk showed us that, by 2020, Twitter had gone from a free speech space to a prime tool for coercion and thought control, in coordination with our country's degenerate ruling class and corrupt secret police.  Social media in America are no freer than the newspapers in North Korea, or the Internet in Iran.  Musk released Twitter's internal records to left-wing whistleblower journalist (and First Amendment purist) Matt Taibbi.

The FBI has disturbingly broad authority to commit crimes and violence.  Previous articles mentioned FBI, intelligence community, local police, and/or other government use of secret methods, secret technologies, and "otherwise illegal activity."  It is probably obvious that government and non-government use of secret police methods and technologies, potentially including "biosurveillance" technologies that remotely affect or monitor the human brain or body, is contrary to democracy.  Some methods and technologies might be properly labeled as torture.  And reasonable people might demand those within government, and non-government persons who cooperate with them, not be permitted to operate with such secrecy. [...] When studying U.S. federal laws, guidelines, and documents, one discovers that the U.S. federal and local governments may have used secret hoaxes, methods, and technologies on Americans for many years.  Such methods and technologies caused, and could currently be causing, significant harm.

New Zealand Fights to Remove Baby From Parents Who Refuse 'Tainted Vaccinated' Blood For Child's Operation.  In New Zealand, a terrifying situation has arisen around a four-month-old baby who has to undergo life-saving heart surgery The baby's parents, Sam and Cole, have asked the hospital not to use vaccinated blood in their child Will's operation.  Their baby has pulmonary valve stenosis and needs immediate surgery.  Instead of their request being granted, the state is fighting to strip them of their parental rights and seize control of their child.  The baby's parents recently explained their position during an interview with Liz Gunn, a broadcaster from New Zealand who herself has raised concerns about the safety of the experimental "vaccines."

FBI tracked Jan. 6 protesters' location even if phones were in airplane mode: report.  Government entities can track individuals' smartphone geolocation data even when there's no cell service or if phones are in airplane mode, according to technology website Wired.  The confirmation came in a report about the FBI's tactics to find participants in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.  In a November 28 report, Wired investigative science and technology reporter Mark Harris highlighted evidence uncovered from January 6 court records.  According to the filings, FBI officials served a bevy of so-called "geofence warrants" to Google to access smartphone location data belonging to individuals suspected of taking part in the riot.

If Big Brother And Big Tech Can Team Up To Violate Political Opponents' Privacy Over J6, They Can Do The Same To You.  Google gave the feds the personal data of nearly 1,500 individuals based on cell phone location data indicating their presence near the Capitol complex on Jan. 6, 2021.  The Department of Justice sought substantially more information, as well, according to a recent court filing, including data on Jan. 6 cell phone users wholly outside the Capitol.  These facts, coupled with Google's apparent disregard for the privacy rights of its customers, expose the potential for the government and Big Tech to collaboratively target political enemies.  In response to the riot that erupted inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, following a rally at the National Mall and a peaceful protest outside the Capitol, the Department of Justice launched a massive investigation seeking to identify and prosecute the individuals who committed crimes that day.  Just a week after the Jan. 6 riot, "the government sought and was granted a 'geofence' warrant for data held by Google."

The UN wants you to know that words are weapons now, and they lead to cruelty and violence.  It's pretty easy to see where The UN is headed with this new little campaign of theirs.  [Tweet]  Yes, the old "sticks and stones" saying no longer applies in the world of the snowflake.  Because hateful words are literal violence now, and they may actually hurt worse than sticks and stones.  Just listen to Texas Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee:  [Tweet] [...] So whatever you do, don't take this "speech is violence" stuff seriously.  It's just another weapon they're using in an attempt to squash our resistance.

From a Time When Communism Was Taught Right.  We have seen social media platforms ban freedom of speech.  We have seen certain journalists excluded from press conferences in Arizona and then watched the journalists be herded off government property by deputy sheriffs.  Later, these same journalists were tracked by flying drones like what we have seen the Chinese Communist Party employ against its COVID-19 dissidents.  The American news media frequently slant or omit the true news of the day.  The American viewer has been fed a steady diet of propaganda.  We have seen false stories about "Russia, Russia, Russia"; the "Big Lie"; and "J6."  Peaceful American citizens, including many veterans who fought to protect our rights, are being held in the District of Columbia jail in terrible conditions and without being formally charged.  Over two years have passed, and many still have not had a speedy trial.

Elections — and therefore consent and popular sovereignty — are no longer meaningful.  First, even if conducted legitimately, elections no longer reflect the will of the people.  Set aside for the moment any concerns about outright fraud and ballot tampering.  The steady growth of the administrative state since the 1960s means that bureaucracy has become increasingly indifferent to — even openly hostile to — the will of the people over the last half-century.  A clear majority of Americans, including Democrats (at least until recently), has been demanding and voting for comprehensive immigration reform, including strict control of the border, for decades.  The Republican establishment in Congress — which made its peace with the deep state some time ago — has made numerous promises to fix this problem, and broken them all, always finding a reason for "amnesty now, enforcement later."  The decision about who gets to be part of the political community was the basic principle of popular sovereignty in the founders' social compact theory.  To the degree that the elites have simply ignored the American people on this point, neither the United States as a nation nor its citizens can still be considered a sovereign people.  Of course, that is only one obvious example.  In thousands of other ways, the federal bureaucracy ignores the deliberate wishes of the American people.  The regulators, administrators, and policymakers in the alphabet soup of federal agencies set the rules and impose their collective will as they see fit.

Are You Freer than You Were Two Years Ago?  Make no mistake:  it is despotism that we face in Biden's proposal to double the size of the IRS; in the political weaponization of the FBI, CIA, and DOJ; in the amassing of information by technology giants; in the corporate surrender to woke ideologies; in the takeover of schools by progressive activists; in the proliferation of "hate speech" laws; in the self-censorship that so many Americans practice to appease political correctness; and in the influence of media on our thinking.  We live in an age of fear and conformity, and those who are weak have become enslaved and have willingly relinquished their freedom to the powerful forces of government, media, "expert" opinion, and corporate venality.  The practical effects of this despotism can be seen everywhere.  Rising taxes are used to transfer more and more of an individual's earnings to government, where it is used with little accountability to enrich those who support ever greater government spending and who make campaign donations to ensure this happens.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete the Totalitarian State.  In the U.S., we have now completed the second straight election in which COVID-era mail-in ballots and statistically questionable results have upended races days after their supposed conclusion.  When Americans point out rampant ballot insecurity, the lack of signature verification, and strange vote patterns inconsistent with prior local races, government officials target concerned citizens rather than scrutinizing suspect elections.  The people who insist that "democracy" must defeat "authoritarianism" at all costs are the same ones who authoritatively dismiss election concerns and demean unconvinced citizens as "deniers."

Big Brother's Heating & Cooling Service.  As the global energy crisis drags on, the responses to it are going to get more authoritarian.  Here's an example:  the government of Japan are looking into the possibility of remotely adjusting the temperature in private homes which are deemed too warm or cool.  Japan, as the article notes, is hot and humid in the summer and can be chilly in the winter.  The idea of an "Energy Conservation Subcommittee" huddled in a government building in Tokyo somewhere deciding on the optimal temperature of every home in a country of 125 million people should make the citizenry sweat.  Or give them chills, as the case may be.

John Kerry Spills the Beans at U.N.'s COP27 Meeting: They Want to Replace Capitalism with a New Economic System.  The World Economic Forum's climate change agenda was "modeled" off the effort to roll out vaccines during the Covid pandemic, John Kerry said during a COP27 panel discussion in Egypt on Tuesday.  That means we can all look forward to high-pressure, coercive government tactics, and not only from the government but from corporate elites.  Appearing alongside WEF President Børge Brende and various corporate executives, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said that it is urgent for the private sector to pair with governments to realize the goal of preventing the global temperature from rising and to save lives in the allegedly looming global climate crisis, Breitbart reported.  Kerry said in a speech before the panel:  "We have an enormous challenge before us to bring to scale new technologies and to harness the deeply capable capacity of private sector entrepreneurs in order to bring them to the table because without it, no government has enough money... we need everybody behind this."  King Charles has made similar statements, that we need nations to pool their resources and raise a trillion dollars to combat climate change.
[Emphasis added.]

Transcommunism is coming.  [The] "Known Traveler Digital Identity (KTDI)" was a pilot project of the WEF in 2018. Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada is a Young Global Leader of the WEF.  The other partner in Canada's KTDI programme, by the way, is the Dutch government.  That includes Sigrid Kaag (D66), an 'agenda contributor' to the WEF.  Kaag is pretty much the Netherlands' shadow prime minister and finance minister.  She reported a few days ago that she wants to oblige banks to put all transactions above 100 euros into a large database, under the guise of fighting fiscal fraud.  That in itself is a huge breach of privacy law.  The Dutch government's plan to track almost all transactions of its citizens could also be a preparatory step towards the implementation of a digital central bank currency (Central Bank Digital Currency).  That digital euro is again not a fairy tale of conspiracy thinkers, but was also previously announced by the European Central Bank.  Such a digital Euro, centrally controlled by the ECB is the prelude to a total social control society on the Chinese model.  With it, every financial transaction can not only be monitored but then adjusted or even banned.  Linked to credit or debit cards, your spending patterns can be accurately tracked.  Linked to your "Covid Safe" card or app (which will be soon renamed as a Health Certificate) your money can be blocked in case of 'undesirable behavior'.  Bought too much meat or avocados from Africa this month causing your carbon footprint to go into the red?  Then your digital money for these products will be blocked.  Put too many bottles of Moët et Chandon Champagne in your shopping basket while your digital health certificate knows you have high blood pressure?  "Better not drink any more alcohol this month anyway" your digital money will say to you.  Anyone who already takes a plane once in a while will not be able to book their next flight if as a result your 'CO2 plane points' have been exceeded.  Airmiles will suddenly take on a whole new meaning.

Joe Biden and the Cost of Living.  Today we face a federal government of 2 million workers backed by a military of 1.2 million and state and local force of 7.4 million — altogether 18% of U.S. workers.  Big Government is also supported by 34.1 million workers in education and health services, most of them government-funded, and millions of others in media, entertainment, and liberal non-profits.  This enormous bloc of government-funded workers, much of it now unionized, is a reliable supporter of expanded government funding and power.  Every day, the American people are more enslaved by this behemoth, and the odds of regaining our true freedom become slimmer.  Tens of millions now accept the socialist tenet that government has the right to seize whatever it likes and to direct not just the economy, but the personal lives of its citizens.  We are no longer on the road to serfdom — we are already there.

Biden's DOJ 'Weaponizing' Law To Arrest 'Political Enemies,' Former Official Says.  The Biden administration is "weaponizing" the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to go after pro-life activists, an attorney who served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama told the Daily Caller.  "The left is out for blood, and Biden's base is demanding prosecutions and the DOJ is providing them," said Roger Severino, who served as an attorney at the Department of Justice's Civil Rights division, the same division that enforces the FACE Act.  The Biden administration has charged at least 16 pro-life activists with a maximum of 11 years in prison for alleged violations of the act, which prohibits obstructing people seeking reproduction services.  Pro-life activist Mark Houck allegedly pushed an abortion escort to the ground after a verbal confrontation.  FBI agents swarmed Houck's house and took him away at gunpoint months after the initial charges against him were dropped.

Police: National or Local?  [O]ur federal government has no constitutional authority for any general police powers.  Nevertheless, according to the latest data available from the federal Department of Justice (DOJ), the federal police force has expanded to 136,815 officers in 90 federal agencies.  Virtually every federal agency now has its own SWAT-style paramilitary "police" unit to enforce its edicts and "protect the homeland": the Departments of State, Education, Agriculture, Energy, and Treasury, for instance, and agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Social Security Administration, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, etc.  Not to mention the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, the Federal Protective Police Service, the Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  And recently, in one fell swoop, the Biden administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress have pushed through legislation that would soon add 87,000 federal IRS agents with badges and guns!  Alarmingly, while the federal constabulary has been ballooning to unprecedented size, our local law-enforcement agencies are shrinking due to radical Marxist "defund the police" campaigns.

Federal Advisory Group Suggested Charging All Employees Of Libertarian Think Tanks With Treason.  A federal advisory group recommended members of two libertarian think tanks be charged with treason in 2020, according to documents released Tuesday by the Cato Institute.  MARAD, a federal agency tasked with stewarding the U.S. maritime industry under the Department of Transportation, provided Cato with a series of documents as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which Cato said was a monthslong process only completed after MARAD missed several deadlines and was threatened with legal action.  The documents reveal that a subcommittee within MARAD comprised of both federal government employees and private individuals, known as the Marine Transportation System National Advisory Committee (MTSNAC), recommended in March 2020 that the government "charge all past and present members of the Cato and Mercatus Institutes with treason," which the Cato Institute alleges is due to their criticism of a controversial law regulating maritime trade known as the Jones Act.

The American Stasi State.  [Scroll down] When Joe Biden stands before an ominous and extremely dark backdrop to castigate millions of Americans as extremists, fascists, threats, and enemies, we have crossed an extremely dangerous Rubicon.  This is the mantra of the real fascists, socialists, Marxists, and yes, communists, to disparage their political opposition, dehumanizing them, and setting them up for a "by any means necessary" agenda of suppression, silencing, and eradication.  America is becoming a Stasi state.  Over the past year, we have seen parents who resisted the indoctrination of their children be attacked.  How interesting it is that the National Association of School Boards, of which many state school boards are members, wrote a letter to the U.S. Attorney General demanding that parents showing up at school board meetings be designated as domestic terrorists.  And even in the Lone Star State of Texas, we had two dads arrested in their homes, before their families, at night, in Round Rock, Texas, all because they spoke up about transparency and their disagreement with the current superintendent.

The FBI Vs.  The People.  America's principal law enforcement agency, the FBI, has declared yet another war.  It's just like the war on drugs, the war on organized crime, and the war on terrorism from decades past — but this time, the bureau's enemy is average Americans who are not Democrats.  That's not a mere Republican talking point.  Indeed, few Republican officials are talking about the FBI at all, despite the bureau's repeated use of Stasi tactics to intimidate their constituents.  No, this is now a fact of American life. [...] In every case, the FBI terrorized the families and neighbors of these men, threatening to break down the door and enter with guns drawn at their wives and children.  The charges are a farce, but if convicted, they and their "co-conspirators" in the abortion clinic protests could face over a decade in prison.  Those of us who watched the FBI's behavior during the Trump presidency and especially after Jan. 6 were not surprised that the bureau has now turned its sights on the peaceful pro-life movement.

Biden Executive Order Abolishes Constitutional Safeguards Against Spying on Americans.  Joe Biden unilaterally abolished protections preventing the federal government from spying on Americans without a warrant.  A presidential memorandum on an executive order issued on October 7, entitled "Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities," admits that the EO removes the "the safeguards for personal information collected through signals intelligence established by Presidential Policy Directive 28 of January 17, 2014 (Signals Intelligence Activities) (PPD-28)...."  After expressly revoking the previously enacted protections against collection of domestic surveillance data without a warrant, the Biden order declares that "Signals intelligence activities shall be authorized by statute or by Executive Order, proclamation, or other Presidential directive and undertaken in accordance with the Constitution and with applicable statutes and Executive Orders, proclamations, and other Presidential directives."  Only two of the items in that list — statutes and the Constitution — have the force of law in the United States.  The latter of those two legal documents explicitly declares in fact that "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States...."  That very clear language not only grants exclusive power to Congress to make laws for the union, but by implication denies such authority to the president of the United States!  Therefore, Mr. Biden, your executive orders, proclamations, and directives are of no legal effect in the union.

Democrat labels National Right to Life Committee an 'extremist group'.  Nevada Democrat senator Catherine Cortez Masto labeled the National Right to Life Committee an "extremist group" in a recent campaign ad attacking the group's endorsement of her Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt.  The ad brands National Right to Life a "powerful extremist group" because it is urging Congress to pass what the ad terms a "national abortion ban."  In response, the organization issued a statement to TheBlaze in which it said, "National Right to Life does not want babies to die and supports measures to support the lives of mothers and their unborn children.  Catherine Cortez Masto is the extremist who wants unlimited abortion even late in pregnancy and paid for by taxpayer dollars."

Virginia Lawmaker Introduces Bill That Would Allow The State To Remove Children From Parents If They Don't Affirm Their Pretend Gender.  As the battle over parental rights and protections for LGBT students heats up in Virginia, one state delegate said she will introduce a bill in the legislature's next session that would make it a crime for a parent or guardian not to affirm their child's sexual orientation or gender identity.  The move is in response to Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin's updated "model policies" on transgender students, which require students to use bathrooms and join sports teams based on their sex at birth, as opposed to their gender identity.  Democratic Virginia Delegate Elizabeth Guzman told WJLA on Thursday she will introduce a bill that will expand the state's definition of child abuse and neglect to include parents and guardian [sic] who do not affirm their LGBT children.

The Editor says...
Little kids have stupid ideas and they are almost always wrong when their ideas are non-conformist in any way.  "Affirming" their stupidity is just plain nuts.

The War for Internet Freedom Has Just Begun.  [Scroll down] Without the increased monopolization of internet service providers, cloud computing facilities, and online banking and commerce giants, regulatory agencies could never throttle the free flow of information so unabashedly.  For thirty years, governments and institutions have slowly constructed a crystal prison of sorts — a beautiful digital world that draws the masses in only to control them.  It's a system designed behind the alluring façade of freedom, yet ultimately grounded in the centralized government of suffocating tyranny.  To be sure, many people will gladly accept their new chains.  They will hand back their internet freedoms and free speech for as little as a shiny new phone and promise never again to question what they're told.  Yet hundreds of millions — if not billions — of people have learned to think more independently than ever before these last three decades.  They have seen past the curtain of controlled speech and know that corrupt government actors manipulate their thoughts from the other side.  And now that they know what they know, a great many of these people will obstinately refuse ever to be lulled back to sleep.  The internet helped free the world.  Governments want that freedom back.  What happens next is for the people to decide.

Leaked FBI Email Shows Government Now Requiring Firearm Retailers To Provide Home Addresses Of Customers.  After the recent abuse of power by the FBI, gun owners have every reason in the world to be distrustful of the federal government.  The same FBI that just raided the home of the White House's political opponent now wants to "review" gun permit records of private citizens.  During a Senate hearing this week, the FBI Director refused to answer questions as to why the FBI wants to collect sensitive information on concealed carry permit holders.  Federal agencies like the FBI and the ATF that are waging war on your constitutional rights MUST be stopped.

How the Enemy Plans Disasters.  We all know, to our cost, how the enemies of humanity used the so-called covid "pandemic" to try to destroy us.  They imposed draconian shutdowns on the economy, pressured and in many cases ordered us to take killer vaccines and blocked young people from the contact with their friends they need to grow up properly.  Some people, such as the monster "Dr." Anthony Fauci, would like to shut us down again. [...] But the situation is even worse than we thought.  Michael Rectenwald has written a brilliant new book, The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda, and in it he shows how the anti-human plotted to use a pandemic to impose totalitarianism on us.  I'm going to talk about some of his findings, and then combine this with evidence that the "pandemic" was made in America.  The implication of this is mind-blowing.  Rectenwald first identifies a person and the group he founded behind the "Great Reset."  The person is Klaus Schwab and the group is his World Economic Forum. [...] In terms of economics and monetary policy, the Great Reset amounts to a great consolidation of wealth, on the one hand, and the planned issuance of universal basic income (UBI) on the other.  Its goals include a shift to a central bank digital currency (CBDC), including a consolidated centralization of banking and bank accounts, the possibility of immediate real-time taxation, negative interest rates, and centralized surveillance and control over spending, debt, and savings.

Gates Foundation gives $200 million to help establish global digital ID system of surveillance.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently pledged $1.27 billion toward the United Nations' openly pro-abortion 2030 Agenda goals, with $200 million going directly to aid in the creation of an invasive global digital ID system.  According to a September 21 press release published on the Gates Foundation's website, the $200 million package will be used to create an infrastructure that "encompasses tools such as interoperable payment systems, digital ID, data-sharing systems, and civil registry databases" that purports to make countries "more resilient to crises such as food shortages, public health threats, and climate change, as well as to aid in pandemic and economic recovery."  The 2030 Agenda was adopted by the UN in 2015 and establishes a set of 17 goals that are rooted in Marxist theory.  These goals, set to be achieved by 2030, aim to control the population through abortion and contraception, reduce fossil fuel consumption supposedly for the sake of the climate, and instigate a global ID system in which people's every move will be tracked and monitored.

Canada's Dilemma.  Canada is in serious trouble.  To arrive at that conclusion, all one need do is pay attention.  In evident violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms embedded in the Constitution, essential to a functioning democracy, Canada was one of the few countries in the world determined to coerce vaccine mandates and impose possibly illegal travel apps and quarantine protocols.  These measures have been paused, but the government obviously maintains the right to re-impose them at a moment's notice. [...] Undeterred in his march toward despotic rule, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is poised to introduce a digital currency, which will give the government financial control of banking and discretionary spending at the expense of private citizens and consumers.  He is simultaneously engaged in implementing a Digital Identity Program, associated with the World Economic Forum's Known Traveler Digital Identity initiative, on the way toward establishing a Social Credit State which Trudeau blazons as "the most advanced digital jurisdiction in the world."

Biden's DOJ Threatening Pro-Life Protesters w/11 Years in Jail for Civil Disobedience.  By way of some context, the Biden regime knocked down its jail time request for two leftist lawyers who torched a police car with a Molotov cocktail during the Black Lives Matter race riots to 18-24 months even though there was no reason to do so.  But as part of its Jihad against pro-life protesters, the Biden regime is using the FACE Act to target pro-life protesters for actions that are technically illegal, but fall well within civil disobedience norms and don't involve torching anything.  And seeking 11 years in prison.

USDA Now Asking People to Register Their Vegetable Gardens for National Database.  In a move that has many folks scratching their heads, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has renewed its push for the People's Garden Initiative which now includes registering vegetable gardens nationwide.  According to the USDA, the move is to foster a "more diverse and resilient local food system to empower communities to address issues like nutrition access and climate change."  But those who have been following the USDA closely for years know that they couldn't care less about your health and nutrition. [...] While a handful of folks inside the USDA may have well-meaning intentions behind this program, the behemoth organization's track record and history clearly indicate that the overwhelming majority of them do not care about your health.  Not only do they not care about your health but most of their farm and food budget goes toward subsidizing products that directly harm your health.  So, skepticism over a national garden database run by this organization is entirely warranted.  As the world teeters on the verge of nuclear war and economic collapse, remember that in times of war and economic downturns, food is more valuable than gold.

Medical Associations Ask Biden's DOJ to Investigate Individuals [who are] Against Transgender Surgeries for Children.  Three of the nation's leading medical associations asked President Joe Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate and prosecute journalists and parents who are concerned with hospitals and physicians who provide transgender surgeries to minors.  The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and Children's Hospital Association sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to "take swift action to investigate and prosecute" those who allegedly threaten or target hospitals and physicians who provide transgender surgery to minors.

Our Own Little Hills.  This summer, Donald Trump, a former United States President, had his home raided by armed FBI agents.  It was asked afterwards that if a former U.S. President could have his home raided, how long will it be until this administration unleashes them onto the American public.  Well, now we know that answer.  Recently, a father of seven also had his home raided by armed FBI agents, and was subsequently arrested.  And what was his crime?  Did he murder somebody?  No.  Did he firebomb a business, church, police station or government building?  No.  Did he desecrate government property?  No.  Nothing even remotely close.  He simply shoved away a raving lunatic who was screaming at and harassing his child, a reaction most fathers would perform in the same situation.  Now, please explain to me how that warrants an armed raid by FBI agents.  Is this really where we are now as a country?  It's hard to fathom.  Unfortunately, his only crime was that he wasn't in lockstep with the State's mandated narrative.  Think about that for a minute.  This man's home was raided as a result of a "thought crime."

How the Federal Reserve is using the 'green transition' as a pretext to build an American Social Credit System.  The Federal Reserve has offered a green light for the first component of an agenda dedicated to turning the American financial system in a complete censorship and surveillance regime, and all indications are that they intend to install further intrusions on liberty into the U.S. Dollar system under the guise of saving the planet from "climate change."  The Dossier reported last week on The Federal Reserve's "pilot exercise" that is slated to both begin and conclude in 2023.  In the piece, we discuss how what has become commonly referred to as ESG, or the climate change agenda, or the "green transition," is acting as a trojan horse for the continuing centralization and the increasing of surveillance in the American financial system.  Across the West, this movement is now acting as the chief catalyst for the implementation of Chinese Communist Party-like social credit score systems.

Report: China Opens 'Overseas Police Stations' in US and Canada to Monitor Its Citizens Living Abroad.  As reported by The New York Post, China has opened dozens of "overseas police service stations" around the world to monitor its citizens living abroad, including one location in New York City and three in Toronto.  Never-learning Europe is home to most of the police stations, including locations in London, Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest, Paris, Madrid, and Frankfurt.  In all, there are 54 such stations in 30 different countries.  Meanwhile, ruthless ChiCom dictator Xi Jinping undoubtedly continues to shake his head in wonder as the stupid continues to unfold across multiple international spectrums.  According to the report, China is attempting to "combat the growing issue of fraud and telecommunication fraud by Chinese nationals living abroad," and is running operations that have resulted in 230,000 Chinese nationals being "persuaded to return" to China "voluntarily" over the last year to face criminal prosecution.

Inflation, Shutdowns, and Trending Authoritarianism — Yes, They Are Connected.  Inflation has been summed up as "too much money chasing too few goods."  Some contend that the recent uptick in price inflation is the result of an expansion of the money supply, and they date the start of that expansion back to the Spring of 2020.  That's when the Federal Reserve began pumping trillions of newly-minted Fed dollars into the economy.  The Fed's money printing continued into 2022.  Our current inflation, it would then seem, might just be due to "too much money."  If you recall, the reason for the Fed's massive money-printing was the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.  The trillions in new money were for the government shutdowns of the economy.  Keep in mind that it was the states that shut down the economy, not the federal government.  No government can deny people their ability to make a living without giving them the means to survive.  Unlike the federal government, the states don't have a central bank that can create money.  But with the $2.2 trillion Cares Act, Congress rode to the rescue and accommodated the states with the money to pay for their shutdowns.  So, the states shut down their economies, Congress backstopped the states, and the Fed provided the money.

New Zealand prime minister condemned for calling to regulate free speech as a 'weapon of war' at UN.  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was blasted for comparing free speech online to "weapons of war" in a recent speech to the U.N. that critics called "authoritarian."  At the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, Ardern announced a new initiative "to help improve research and understanding of how a person's online experiences are curated by automated processes," saying the work, done in partnership with companies and non-profits, will be "important in understanding more about mis- and disinformation online — A challenge that we must as leaders address."  The prime minister acknowledged that calling to regulate speech online in any way can seem problematic.

DHS Funds Leftist Orgs to Study 'Radicalization,' 'White Supremacy' in Video Games.  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which recently said that questioning official narratives on matters like coronavirus policies constitutes a terrorist threat, has awarded nearly $700,000 to left-wing researchers to study radicalization in video games, with a focus on "white supremacy."  "Over the past decade, video games have increasingly become focal points of social activity and identity creation for adolescents and young adults," said DHS in its press release announcing the grant.

The Editor says...
Perhaps instead they should look for black supremacy in the "knockout game," which is a big-city sport these days.

All It Takes Is One Hero.  [Scroll down] While this social revolution burns, it is important to remember two truths: (1) the more vulnerable the globalist totalitarians are, the more vindictive and cruel they will become, and (2) the more destructive they become, the more consequential every single voice will be.  We see the first point clearly today as ventriloquist dummy Joe Biden, his financial and political puppeteers, and the permanent bureaucratic Deep State exercising raw power behind the curtain all work together to portray freedom-minded, pro-Constitution Americans as security threats undeserving of free speech, equal protection under the law, holding elective office, or exercising civil rights.  We see it when the fake president's speechwriters vilify half the country as racists and when Hillary Clinton slanders worshipful Christians praising God as instead executing a Nazi salute.  We see it as Facebook and Twitter openly work with government agents to censor and punish conservative speech.  We see it as Big Tech monopolies, Big Media conglomerates, and financial heavyweights work to blacklist, deplatform, and demonetize any entrepreneur not willing to bow before the new "woke" clergy or pay homage to their race-based, trans-obsessed, climate-crusading, Big Government bottom line.  Anyone who dares fight back against the globalists' cultural cesspool and New World Order must be destroyed.

Are We Just One Big Storm Away Climate Lockdowns?  While we never thought that the coronavirus pandemic was engineered to soften us up for harsher climate lockdowns to come later, we did note that our ruling class was watching our reactions to its repressive rules to see how far it could go the next time.  Today we're alarmed that "the next time" might be here soon.  In November 2020, we said we were afraid that the country was being conditioned to just take whatever is dished out by power-hungry officials, elected and unelected, and were troubled that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, could say "now is the time to do what you're told" with minimal condemnation and no demands that he be fired.  Nearly two years later, it's clear that our concerns were justified.

DOJ Harasses Citizens for Exercising Their First Amendment Rights.  The Justice Department has hit the Eagle Forum of Alabama with a voluminous subpoena that violates the organization's First Amendment rights to speak freely, engage in the political process, and talk to their elected representatives.  It's an intimidation tactic, pure and simple, and shows just how partisan the department has become.  This out-of-control behavior should scare every citizen and volunteer organization, no matter where they stand on the political or social spectrum.  Eagle Forum is a very small non-profit in Alabama.  It only has one full-time employee and a second, part-time employee.  Virtually all of its work on issues of interest to its members is done by volunteers.

The DOJ and FBI are beyond fixing.  Republicans and conservatives like to say that we must reform the Justice Department and FBI.  I disagree.  If we win the majority in Congress, they both need to be gone.  That means completely gone, with no attempt to reform or rebuild them.  That may sound like an overreach but the time to restore our constitutional republic is upon us.  Do any of us really believe that we are somehow safer or more secure with an intact DOJ and FBI? They are irredeemably corrupt.  Weeding out some of the more sinister miscreants within those organizations will not change the culture that has evolved over the past few decades.  We have already tried that, and it made matters worse.  We should thank Barack Obama and Joe Biden for clearly illustrating to the American people the dangers inherent in an enforcement arm of the federal government.  We are now living in a police state that will, through intimidation and force, move the country toward one-party rule and totalitarianism.

The Coming Outlawing of the Republican Party.  Republicans want to hold the majority and co-exist with Democrats, while Democrats, under the influence of the Left, want to eliminate Republicans.  This fundamental difference between the two sides was on display during Biden's fascist rant in Philadelphia where he denounced half the country as a threat to democracy.  And it would be a mistake to imagine that all the talk of a "threat to democracy" is mere rhetoric.  Another basic difference between the two parties is that Republicans are politically unserious.  Politicians, pundits and influencers spend so much time virtue signaling that they think words don't matter.  Democrats are quite serious.  The Republican refusal to take them at their word, to believe that their histrionic rhetoric represents a serious policy agenda, is why things are so bad.  Surely, Beltway GOP figures will reassure, Democrats aren't serious about adding states, Supreme Court seats, a trillion dollar coin or using unlimited dictatorial executive authority.  But what if they are?

Connections, Facebook Spies on Private Messages and DHS Uses Private Chats Against J6 Detainees.  This 'surveillance system' has been of great interest to CTH for several years, in part because it is a key aspect of the domestic intelligence system now operating as a functioning part of the Fourth Branch of Government.  The overwhelming majority of the investigative resources within the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) are used in this whole of network monitoring system.  I cannot emphasize the importance of the connections enough.  Surveillance of domestic communication, to include surveillance of all social media platforms, is now the primary mission of DHS. The information is gathered by social media, funneled by direct portals into the DHS network then distributed to DOJ-NSD and FBI officials as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  This communication surveillance network is what DHS, created as an outcome of the Patriot Act, is all about.

The art of destroying a nation.  [Scroll down] The point is that regardless of your political position, race, sex, or religion, this country was founded on the principles of free speech, freedom to practice your faith, and freedom to raise your family with the values you hold dear.  Nowhere in the Constitution was it written that your freedoms are based on the narrative of the times.  Unfortunately, there are people in power who do not believe that your rights are inalienable.  They manipulate with false narratives and fuel a mob mentality to strip them from you.  This mob mentality is destroying individual thought and common sense — not to mention causing rampant crime, violence, and destruction of private property and businesses.

California Conservatives, Beware: Newsom's 'Commission on the State of Hate' Is More Nefarious Than It Seems.  Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., on Tuesday announced five appointments to his new Commission on the State of Hate, and they don't bode well for conservatives in the Golden State.  According to Newsom's office, the commission will "assess data on hate crimes in California, provide resources for victims, and make policy recommendations to better protect civil rights."  The commission aims to help all Californians, but Newsom has nominated a slate of Democrats and activists — without including a single Republican — to serve on it.  Worse, one of the top nominees has a history at the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Those four words should send a shiver down the spine of conservatives.  While the Southern Poverty Law Center began as a public interest legal nonprofit representing poor people in the South, it has long since morphed into a far-left smear factory, branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations "hate groups" and placing them on a map alongside the Ku Klux Klan.  It brands socially conservative organizations "anti-LGBT hate groups" and national security nonprofits "anti-Muslim hate groups."

Audits, Recounts, and the Secret Ballot.  [Scroll down] Why not just give up the secret ballot, if it makes it impossible to properly audit an election?  A quick scan of recent news stories provides our answer:
  •   Dozens of unknown private citizens languished in jail for over a year, for trespassing at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, uncharged because there's nothing serious enough to charge them for, but kept in jail to "justify" a national political attack on their movement.
  •   The FBI issued a flurry of subpoenas to forty Trump allies such as businessman Mike Lindell, less than two months before the midterms.
  •   Donald Trump himself, a former president, had his house raided and documents seized on a sham warrant signed by a judge with a conflict of interest as big as one of Trump's hotels.
  •   DoJ whistleblowers revealed to the New York Post that the FBI and Meta colluded to illegally gather and study American civilians' private 'facebook messages' in a broad-based and ultimately fruitless attempt to find conservatives on whom they could stick a "domestic terrorist" label.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.  We have the secret ballot for a reason.  Individual Americans have the right to be free of risk that the political class might single them out for harassment, denial of government services, or worse.  As we've seen, such retaliation by a vindictive state can range from refusing your garbage pickup and shutting off your water, to ransacking your home with a politically-motivated search warrant or locking you up.

Shut up, they explained.  President Biden has already mused that the US government has F-15s ready to go should they be needed to suppress the MAGA crowd.  They have even invented a term for people who think and talk like you and me: stochastic terrorists.  A quick search on Google for the term "stochastic terrorism" (the neologism being used to describe the violence of unapproved speech) shows a disturbing growth in the use of the term.  (Stochastic terrorism:  "The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random.")  [Illustration]  Fear not, readers.  The Brookings Institution is here to root out stochastic terrorism and aid in its suppression.  And since we live in the Internet age, it may yet be possible to avoid the use of using Hellfire missiles and drones and resort to less kinetic tactics, such as deplatforming the offenders.  After all, hunting down and killing these dangerous free thinkers should only be a last resort.  They are now rating podcasts in a manner that is reminiscent of the Chinese Social Credit score.

The Biden Administration Isn't Interested In Governing But In Criminalizing The Opposition.  Just to be clear: the Jan. 6 committee Democrats are proposing that anyone who thinks there was fraud in the 2020 election, anyone who thinks the election was something less than perfect, is fair game for hauling before the committee, being harassed by the FBI, having his property confiscated, maybe even indicted.  In their world, having the wrong opinion about the election is tantamount to a crime.  You might even get a visit from the FBI — better not delete your emails or destroy your devices.  (That only works if your last name rhymes with Flinton.)  Whatever the committee ends up doing, rest assured it is part of a larger effort to go beyond mere political theater and use the levers of government power to ensure that Trump cannot run again, that his supporters are under investigation, and that anyone who disagrees with the regime about the last election has a target on their back.

Attention Conservatives: They're Coming For Your Podcasts Next.  Conservatives have found a way to communicate that is free from Big Tech censors.  But how long will it last?  Over the weekend, the liberal Brookings Institution released what it calls "a tool to monitor political broadcasts" on increasingly popular podcasts.  Why?  To combat "misinformation."  Brookings treats the growth of podcasts the way Count Floyd would describe one of his movies on the classic Monster Chiller Horror Theater sketch on SCTV.  "Ooh, that's scary, kids, scary!"  Podcasts, it warns, "played a central role in disseminating election fraud narratives in the lead up to January 6."  Scary, kids!

Now, they are coming for your car.  The automobile is arguably the most liberating invention in history, or at least is in the top five of all time.  It allows people to travel anywhere at any time at fast speeds.  The increase in mobility from mass auto ownership has been a major driver of increased incomes and wealth.  One of the best ways to help low-income people out of poverty is to get them a car so they can drive to jobs that may be located far outside their neighborhoods.  Perhaps it is the very independence and autonomy that cars give individuals that the collectivists on the left hate.  Liberals have been trying to push Americans into mass transit buses and trains for decades to no avail.  Today, less than 5% of all trips are using mass transit.  Except for those in major congested cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, everyone wants their own car.  Under the new California law, after 2035, you will have to either buy and drive an electric vehicle, take the bus or lace up your sneakers and walk to work.

What is the Conservative plan to deal with Biden's fourth reich?  The time has come for a coalition of governors, attorneys general, and state legislators to demonstrate the power of broad-based federalism to interpose against extreme federal tyranny.  Many conservative commentators have finally woken up to smell the stench of the Fourth Reich following Biden's speech targeting political opposition, reminiscent of the authoritarian language of past dictators.  However, they should have been awake since March 2020, when our government declared de facto martial law on our lives, liberty, and property and used our bodies as lab rats with an ever-growing list of experimental therapies.  They should have awoken from their slumber after Americans were targeted with solitary confinement and disproportionate punishment for zero or nebulous crimes at the Capitol on January 6, after months of killing, rioting, and looting by BLM with impunity.  If Biden's speech is really to be a turning point in this one-sided cold war that is heating up, conservatives should resolve to use the power they already wield over Republican governors and demand united action for states to protect constitutional rights from this thuggish Biden administration and national security deep state apparatus that threatens our liberties more than any foreign enemy in our history.  Rather than making idle promises of winning back the House with RINOs or winning back the presidency years from now when it's too late, we should be demanding action now from 20 or so GOP trifecta-controlled state governments.  If they fail to take action now, then the entire point of federal elections with divided government is moot.

Democrats Dangerously Copy The Tactics Of Famous Fascists.  [Scroll down] When Americans stood up to school boards, complaining about their children being exposed to sexualization in schools or being accused of being racists because of the color of their skin, Biden's Justice Department branded them as terrorists.  The Biden administration's threatening, intimidating, and jailing of its opposition set the backdrop for Joe Biden's extraordinary speech on September 1, when he stated, "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic."  This was not a campaign speech; this was the President officially addressing American citizens... and calling 70 million of them terrorists.  This brings us back to Germany in 1932.

The regime of censorship being imposed on the internet  ... by a consortium of DC Dems, billionaire-funded "disinformation experts," the US Security State, and liberal employees of media corporations — is dangerously intensifying in ways I believe are not adequately understood.  A series of "crises" have been cynically and aggressively exploited to inexorably restrict the range of permitted views, and expand pretexts for online silencing and deplatforming.  Trump's election, Russiagate, 1/6, COVID and war in Ukraine all fostered new methods of repression. [...] It is astonishing to watch Dems and their allies in media corporations posture as opponents of "fascism" -- while their main goal is to unite state and corporate power to censor their critics and degrade the internet into an increasingly repressive weapon of information control.  A major myth that must be quickly dismantled:  political censorship is not the by-product of autonomous choices of Big Tech companies.  This is happening because DC Dems and the US Security State are threatening reprisals if they refuse.  [Thread reader]

Thousands of Xcel customers [are] locked out of thermostats during 'energy emergency'emergency.  During the dog days of summer, it's important to keep your home cool.  But when thousands of Xcel customers in Colorado tried adjusting their thermostats Tuesday, they learned they had no control over the temperatures in their own homes.  Temperatures climbed into the 90s Tuesday, which is why Tony Talarico tried to crank up the air conditioning in his partner's Arvada home.  "I mean, it was 90 out, and it was right during the peak period," Talarico said.  "It was hot."  That's when he saw a message on the thermostat stating the temperature was locked due to an "energy emergency."

22,000 Colorado Households Lose Control of Their Home Thermostats During Heat Wave as Power Company Locks Out Air Conditioning Use.  Comrades, a heatwave hit the Colorado region Tuesday with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees.  Indoor temperatures began climbing, and when formerly free-range residents attempted to adjust their air conditioning, they discovered they were locked out from control in their own home as the power company took over.

The American Gestapo.  The DOJ has been weaponized for years, and every single one of our 18 intelligence agencies is likewise politicized, including our military.  Many are funded by largely classified budgets.  Agencies you'd never suspect would need firearms are now armed. [...] The Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the IRS are three of the largest and most dangerous agencies to citizens of the once free republic, and they're all heavily armed.

It's All Rigged Beyond Imagination.  The failing intelligence deep state regime is desperately trying to save itself by provoking an armed uprising that can be blamed on conservatives and Trump supporters.  They need this revolt to bury the damning facts that are now emerging about the FBI's election interference (Hunter Biden's laptop), covid vaccines killing people (the dead bodies are becoming too numerous to ignore) and the shocking truth about the engineered collapse of food, energy and supply chains worldwide.  (People will starve and freeze this winter, all across western nations.)  The people are waking up like never before, which means the deep state must try to invoke more violence than ever before.  This is why the narrative is being promulgated that claims conservatives are "semi-fascists," even though the real fascism comes from the radical Left that rigged the election, destroyed America's economy with covid lockdowns and shattered the First Amendment by ordering Big Tech to censor all dissenting views.  Now, the deep state wants to bait Americans into an armed, violent uprising.  They're got the tools to achieve it, too, since deep state jerk-offs are, in fact, master baiters.  The coming indictment of President Trump is part of the provocation scheme designed to whip up the American people into an emotional state of revolt.  And if that's not enough, my sources tell me Democrats are making a highly organized attempt to rig the 2022 midterms and maintain control over both the House of the Senate, after which gun confiscation laws will be passed and signed into law to further provoke American conservatives into an attempted uprising.

The Trouble With Trudeau.  As a graduate of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Young Global Leaders Programme and a disciple of its founder Klaus Schwab, Trudeau enjoys an intimate relationship with the proponents of the Great Reset that seeks to replace the successful free-market system of Western nations with an oligarchic model of top-down governance and corporatist domination, presumably for the benefit of all its "stakeholders."  What could go wrong?  Plenty.  The WEF is obviously in a close, symbiotic relation with the CCP.  It touts the necessity of constant surveillance to ensure compliance with its mandates and decrees, an agenda, in Jeffrey Tucker's words, of "technocratic central planning rooted in deep suspicion of basic tenets of freedom."  The human being will be subject to enhanced biosecurity protocols, synthetic biology, detector algorithms, advanced AI, and genetic editing.  The object is total control over the life of the individual, allowing the government to monitor all one's activities — where we travel, what we buy, how we spend, where we save and invest, what we write, where we work, how many booster shots we have received, and so on.  If we donate to the "wrong" cause or run afoul of social media, our credit card or passport can be instantly invalidated.  The state's credentialing system is all-powerful.

Who are the Good Guys?  There are actions and events contemplated by the ruling Democrats that threaten us at our most basic level.  For example, the doubling of the size of the IRS is a profound political statement.  On one hand, it's a statement that the government needs more of your money, that even with record-high tax receipts, it's not enough.  On the other hand, it's a statement of control.  You may remember last year the Biden proposal to give the IRS routine access to your bank accounts.  Public opinion was so universally against this draconian idea that it was quietly dropped.  Having been stymied there, Biden and the Democrats created an omnibus spending bill that is much more about control of the populace and staying in power than anything having to do with bringing down inflation.

There Are Now More Armed Bureaucrats Than There Are U.S. Marines.  The IRS has stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition in recent years, including 621 shotguns, 539 long-barrel rifles and 15 submachine guns.  The Veterans Administration (VA) purchased 11 million rounds of ammunition (equivalent to 2,800 rounds for each of their officers), along with camouflage uniforms, riot helmets and shields, specialized image enhancement devices and tactical lighting.  The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acquired 4 million rounds of ammunition, in addition to 1,300 guns, including five submachine guns and 189 automatic firearms for its Office of Inspector General.  According to an in-depth report on "The Militarization of the U.S. Executive Agencies," the Social Security Administration secured 800,000 rounds of ammunition for their special agents, as well as armor and guns.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) owns 600 guns.  And the Smithsonian now employs 620-armed "special agents."

All Republicans are now terrorists.  Last week, Financial Times Associate Editor Edward Luce tweeted that Republicans are the most "dangerous" political force in the world, bar none. "I've covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world," he said, and "I have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today's Republicans.  Nothing close."  Former CIA Director Michael Hayden chimed in immediately and said, "I agree."  This past Tuesday, Democrat adviser Kurt Bardella called all Republicans a "domestic terrorist cell."  MSNBC's Tiffany Cross agreed and said there should be no distinction between Republicans and "right-wing extremists."  At the same time, Peter Wehner, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, likened the Republican Party to a "dagger pointed at the throat of American democracy."  All this while the FBI Director Christopher Wray added that any American flying the Gadsden — "Don't Tread On Me" — flag is suspect of violent extremism.

Unconstitutional security state targets Trump.  [The federal government] knows no bounds and has assumed powers nowhere granted in the Constitution by the sheer force of its own will.  It has created a security state, replete with three lettered acronymic-named agencies — FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA, DIA — that are nowhere recognized in the Constitution, regularly break the written and moral laws, and are themselves far more dangerous to human freedom than the folks they pursue.  How many laws have the feds broken?  Ha.  No one knows how many criminal laws Congress has enacted.  Estimates range from 4,400 to 5,500.  How can this be?  For starters, members of Congress in both parties rarely if ever read the legislation they enact.  House members were given 15 minutes to read the 132-page Patriot Act, which passed overwhelmingly.  And much federal law is so convoluted that a simple reading leaves even an experienced lawyer and judge bewildered as to how many different behaviors were made criminal by the statute in question.

Think the FBI Deserves the Benefit of the Doubt?  Whistleblowers claim the FBI is inflating the number of "domestic violent extremism" cases to fit President Biden's overarching narrative that home-grown extremism is the nation's worst national security threat.  "From recent protected disclosures, we have learned that FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as 'domestic violent extremism' even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in July, detailing whistleblower allegations in a letter to Wray.  "Given the narrative pushed by the Biden Administration that domestic violent extremism is the 'greatest threat' facing our country, the revelation that the FBI may be artificially padding domestic terrorism data is scandalous."

The Justice System Has Gone Beria.  The DOJ's and FBI's recent actions have opened my eyes.  American justice isn't blind.  The system is rigged, no longer along racial (or religious) lines but along political ideology.  The DOJ has a two-tiered justice system — one system that targets and is onerously harsh on Republicans and conservatives while being lax and protective of Democrats and liberals.  This unequal justice has been in place for at least 10 years but has gotten much worse since President Trump's arrival.  A recent survey (last week) by the Trafalgar Group found that 79% of Americans believe we have two tiers of justice — one system for politicians and D.C. insiders and another system for everyone else.  The belief in unequal justice holds true for Democrats (67%), Republicans (88%), and Independents (77%).  Unequal justice is not just in law enforcement, it's everywhere — every major institution is aligned to empower, and keep in power, the Democrat regime.  The entire federal bureaucracy, media, academia, business, Big Tech, Big Pharma, and the military are fully aligned to keep Democrats in power.

Toward a Saner Government.  [Scroll down]  Millions upon millions of people the world over are not buying.  They know that the New World Order of these new messiahs, now being rammed down their throats, means global dictatorship, headed by enemies of humanity.  By their actions, the promoters of this Orwellian dystopia have proved that their qualifications for improving life on earth is nonexistent.  From the evidence, and lately from their rhetoric, it is obvious that their empathy for fellow human beings approaches zero.  People still able to think will not follow leaders that have no use for them except as slaves.  Let it sink in that it was the plight of such tyranny that formed this nation and endowed it with protections against its recurrence.  Yes, I speak of a constitutional republic, now under ruthless attack.

Will the United States Exist After November?  The Nazi serving as US Attorney General says he is going to get the warrant unsealed that he used as the justification for the aggressive invasion of President Trump's home by a weaponized and politicized FBI, essentially frame up artists for the corrupt Democrat party.  The question the Nazi attorney general doesn't answer, and the question the presstitutes studiously avoid asking, is why was the warrant containing the probable cause for the unprecedented invasion of an American president's home sealed in the first place?  Little doubt the official explanation will be a lie, one that the presstitutes will repeat endlessly in their attempt to turn the lie into truth via repetition, just as they did with "Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction," "Assad's use of chemical weapons," ad infinitum.  My take on the situation is that there is no probable cause.

[It Will Be As If] America Never Existed.  It is possible (not certain, but possible) that within the next 20 years or so, the United States will no longer exist.  That would be a great setback for human liberty.  The end of the American republic would most likely mean the end of self-government all over the globe — the beginning of a new dark age.  The United States, even now, is the world's greatest example of constitutional democracy, and if the cause of freedom fails here, it probably will not survive anywhere.  More than that, however, the end of liberty on these shores would most likely mean the end of any memory of America.  The United States would not simply cease to exist; it would never have existed at all.  What I mean by that is not only the Orwellian idea of rewriting history.  That theme has become almost a cliché nowadays.  Certainly, propaganda such as the "1619 Project" and the daily efforts by the establishment media to shape the narrative, are essential to the woke oligarchy's power.  "Who controls the past controls the future," Orwell observed, "who controls the present controls the past."  What I want to explore, however, is something less obvious and more insidious.

The complete Sovietization of the Democrat party.  The Democrats are so determined to destroy Trump, they are willing to reveal their true colors:  They are all Stalinist communists now.  They've just rammed through a nearly $800 billion bill that will obviously exacerbate inflation, as well as transform the IRS into a Gestapo-like agency, armed and dangerous to all Americans but for the very wealthy.  Small businesses that survived the lockdowns will now be stamped out by the higher taxes, audits, and regulations within this destructive bill.  The billions of green agenda requirements in the bill will force us all into energy deficits that will further devastate our already ruined economy and our quality of life.  That is their goal, their endgame.

Gadsden flag
FBI Training Materials Designate Gadsden Flag and Historic American Symbols as Evidence of Militia Violent Extremists.  Project Veritas has obtained whistleblower materials from official FBI training and instruction, highlighting images that are defined as evidence of Militia Violent Extremists or MVE's.  Among the material now identified by the FBI as extreme are pictures of the Gadsden flag, Betsy Ross flag, Patriot symbols, Molon Labe and a host of other historic images that are now defined as evidence of Militia Violent Extremism.


FBI Whistleblower Leaks Bureau's 'Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide' on 'Militia Violent Extremists' Citing Ashli Babbitt as MVE Martyr.  Project Veritas released a newly leaked document today provided by an FBI whistleblower, which shows how the Bureau classifies American citizens it deems to be potential "Militia Violent Extremists" [MVEs].  In the document, the FBI cites symbols, images, phrases, events, and individuals that agents should look out for when identifying alleged domestic terrorists.  The "Unclassified/Law Enforcement Sensitive" document says it is for "FBI Internal Use Only."  Of note, under the "Symbols" section, is a prominent citation of the Second Amendment, where it explains that "MVEs justify their existence with the Second Amendment, due to the mention of a 'well regulated Militia,' as well as the right to bear arms."  Right below that, under the "Commonly Referenced Historical Imagery and Quotes" section, Revolutionary War images such as the Gadsden Flag and the Betsy Ross Flag are listed.  Each flag displayed in the document comes with a brief description of what it means.

The FBI classes constitutional American values and images as violent extremism.  Yesterday [8/2/2022], Project Veritas published a leaked internal FBI document in which the FBI sets out the hallmarks of suspected "militia violent extremists."  Unsurprisingly, in Joe Biden's America, those indicia significantly overlap with broadly-held, longstanding conservative values.

When The Just Go to Prison.  Daniel Hale, dressed in a khaki uniform, his hair cut short and sporting a long, neatly groomed brown beard, is seated behind a plexiglass screen, speaking into a telephone receiver at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois. [...] Hale is one of a few dozen people of conscience who have sacrificed their careers and their freedom to inform the public about government crimes, fraud and lies.  Rather than investigate the crimes that are exposed and hold those who carried them out to account, the two ruling parties wage war on all who speak out.  These men and women of conscience are the lifeblood of journalism.  Reporters cannot document abuses of power without them.  The silence on the part of the press over Hale's imprisonment, as well as the persecution and imprisonment of other champions of an open society, such as Julian Assange, is stunningly shortsighted.  If our most important public servants, those with the courage to inform the public, continue to be criminalized at this rate, we will cement in place total censorship, resulting in a world where the abuses and crimes of the powerful are shrouded in darkness.

Washington D.C. Is Run By the Enemies of the American People.  The accumulation of excessive power has made the federal government a self-serving and self-preserving entity unaccountable to the American people and operating outside of constitutional constraints.  The U.S. government has become a corrupt one-party state, composed of mutually supportive Democrat and Republican politicians, administered by a permanent dictatorial bureaucracy, all controlled by transnational interests, who plunder American assets for personal power and profit, while attempting to maintain the illusion of democracy. Once exposed, when blatant and outrageous lies are no longer sufficient to soothe the electorate into complacency, such a government must curtail freedom and oppress the people in order to retain power.  The politically contaminated Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have created a two-tier justice system, in which those serving the one-party state are never held accountable for their crimes, while opponents of federal overreach and malfeasance are treated like Soviet-era political prisoners without rights or due process.

'Build Back Better' Bill Would Fund 86,000 Additional IRS Agents To Sic On American Taxpayers.  If you think that Democrats' tax-and-spending bill wouldn't expand government, have I got news for you.  Believe it or not, the Build Back Better legislation would more than double the size of the IRS.  That's one of the hidden details in the agreement that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., cut with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., behind closed doors.  And of course, Democrats want to ram it through Congress within a matter of days.  As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., once said about another big-government scheme, "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."  The draft bill contains an $80 billion "investment" in the Internal Revenue Service.  Of that amount, more than half, or over $45.6 billion, will go towards enforcement activities.  Even as it doles out such vast sums for the IRS, the bill contains only a few short pages of text explaining the provisions.  In other words, the IRS will have a relatively wide berth to spend the new funding as it likes.

Trust the Artificial Intelligence Part One.  Even before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, faith in institutions was at an all-time low — and falling.  In 2022, trust in organized religion was more than four times higher than in Congress.  No branch of government was trusted by more than 50% of the public except the military, not even the police.  Yet this loss in institutional trust coincided with unprecedented demands by institutions for a vast increase in power.  These included the power to regulate nearly anything in the name of stopping the climate from changing; the power to redefine society by proclaiming new 'Woke' values; and the power to control mass movement and require mandatory medication to control a pandemic.  Finally, institutions demanded the power to 'check facts' in any speech and 'de-platform' anyone suspected of uttering misinformation, thus insulating themselves against criticism.

Did You Hear the One about U.S. Internment Camps?  As soon as you see the title, you know you're in trouble — "Army Field Manual 3-39.40: Internment and Resettlement Operations."  When you click on the link, as thousands already have, you get a 326-page PDF describing how the U.S. military would go about imprisoning and relocating massive populations — it's a best-practice document for rounding up thousands of militants in a foreign country or in the event of a massive terrorist attack or natural disaster on U.S. soil.  Wait, what was that last part?  A handful of references to domestic applications — the prospective internment and resettlement of U.S. citizens — have fueled the spread of FM 3-39.40 like wildfire through the world of online political dissent, where it is being discussed by everyone from the Patriot movement on the right to Occupy on the left to Anonymous, anarchists, organized racists, survivalists, and plain old conspiracy theorists in between.

What Biden's 'climate change emergency' is REALLY about.  Glenn Beck reveals how climate academics and activists have been gaming this out for years.  They know exactly what they are going to do once Biden pulls the trigger.  So many scary options become available once a national emergency is declared.  [Video clip]

The Psyop of the Great Collapse and the New Social Contract.  [Scroll down]  But it suddenly hit me that what "they" are telling us through the press is never an accident — it is always propaganda.  Which means that the fear they are creating about the "coming crisis" is THE POINT — at least for the moment.  Very similar to what "they" did during the Corona scare, "they" are now using new kinds of boogeymen.  From a psyop perspective it is completely independent from whether, and to what extent, the heralded next threat is unreal (Covid) or somewhat more real (total collapse) — the point is to keep the populace on edge.  It is about shaping a master and servant type of psychological relationship between the state and its subjects.

The Ultimate Goal:  Perpetual Dumbing Down of All Society in Order to Create a Slave State Ruled by the Few.  What must it be like to live in a state of mind where everything that happens in this human life is thought to be natural, unplanned, coincidence, or somehow unavoidable?  The requirement for this devoid state of unconsciousness, is to exist in a world of cliches and regurgitation of the thoughts of others; mostly strangers.  This is the belief of the masses, not because they had no choice in the matter, or spontaneously chose to be so trusting, but because they have been conditioned for generations to act and accept the propagandized lies fed to them throughout their lives by those state players with very nefarious agendas.  All this deceit is but a programed mass marketing of disinformation, an indoctrination of the many for the benefit of the few, through a plethora of brainwashing techniques.  The only cure for such a circumstance as this, is to first learn to accept that something is terribly amiss, and then find the courage to search for the truth.  This requires real research and education, not the 'schooling' that most all have been subject to since birth, and this is why those who never accept and always question false authority, continue to write, speak, and plead with their fellow men in an attempt to wake the sleeping giant that is the general population.  All that is necessary in order to see some light, should one really desire to see the light, is to understand that evil exists, and that it exists almost everywhere.

WEF Calls for an End to Private Car Ownership.  The World Economic Forum (WEF) is calling for the end of private car ownership in the name of saving the world from climate change by reducing the need for green tech resources.  "We need a clean energy revolution, and we need it now," the WEF begins its article.  According to the WEF, critical metals, such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel — all of which are used in "clean energy technologies" — are in short supply.  And while the WEF says recycling old tech that uses these metals could lessen the impact of shortages, it's simply not enough.

The Editor says...
Wait a minute.  They were going to save the world from global warming by switching to "green tech resources," and now they want to save the world from global warming by "reducing the need for green tech resources."  Here's how to reduce the demand for "green tech resources:"  Go back to gasoline!  Then deal with global warming when it becomes a tangible problem — which will never happen.

Biden Pledges Increases in OSHA Workplace Inspections as Part of Climate Change Compliance System.  Joe Biden has pledged to increase his use of executive power in order to deconstruct the U.S. energy system and recreate a Green New Deal energy economy using windmills and solar power to generate electricity.  Today, Biden kicked-off the first round of executive orders.  [Tweet]  The first round of executive orders is essentially payments to low income Americans for the increased costs of Biden's new energy programs.

Canada's 'expert' panel recommends the mentally ill be candidates for euthanasia.  Canada's medical assistance in dying (MAiD) law is already the most permissive euthanasia and assisted-suicide legislation in the world.  Understandably controversial in itself, there are many horror stories surrounding its implementation. [...] To some degree, mental illness is in the eye of the beholder.  It can be quite subjective and has historically been used as a tool to advance totalitarian political agendas.  Hence, the gulags and "re-education camps."  Don't believe in global warming?  Are you an anti-vaxxer?  Trump supporter?!  Didn't vote for  Xi jinping  Justin Trudeau?  Driving an 18-wheeler in a "Freedom Convoy?"  Then you are, sadly, mentally ill.

Covid and Climate Change:  Wake up, before it's too late.  [Scroll down]  All the years I spent arguing over technical details trying to persuade our "useful idiot" politicians to see sense were a total waste of effort.  The climate change scam finally makes sense when you accept it has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with a supra-governmental Malthusian agenda of de-industrialisation and de-population, a long-term plan of attack relative to the quick-fire Covid "plandemic" attack.  Reiner Fuellmich and his colleagues have done a brilliant job of joining all the dots to expose this reality.

There's No Despot So Tyrannical As A Green Politician.  Reports of unrest over environmental policies from the Netherlands and Sri Lanka are much more than novelty news.  What is happening in both spots is a lesson that has to be learned quickly.  If not, there's deep trouble ahead.  Dutch farmers, whose history of crop yields puts them among the most productive in the world, continue to protest rules that limit their use of nitrogen, a nutrient in commercial fertilizers that converts to nitrous oxide, which is feared as a greenhouse gas.  Officials expected them to cut use 50% nationally, which means in some regions, the reductions will be as high as 95%.  The crippled farmers, their survival under attack, are, as they should be, revolting.

A Recipe for Biden Authoritarianism.  [Scroll down]  Biden on Saturday signed what some call the most significant gun control measure in decades, a bipartisan compromise that includes a provision to help states put in place red flag laws making it easier for authorities to confiscate weapons from those adjudged as dangerous.  Despite the Supreme Court's ruling Friday upholding the Second Amendment, we know that the Biden administration will unfairly use anything and everything at its disposal to drive its narrative and silence political opponents.  That's part of the reason the Department of Homeland Security's short-lived "disinformation" board received such deserved pushback from many Americans.  Although DHS officially paused its Disinformation Governance Board, let's not be so naïve as to believe the board was the be-all, end-all of the Biden administration's thought control efforts.

Under Biden's DHS, all dissenters are now 'domestic extremists'.  The problem with fundamentally transforming a great, freedom-loving nation into something else is that not everyone is in favor of the idea.  Building support for your position with a better argument than your detractors can be a slow, frustrating process.  The faster, more Machiavellian route is to declare your critics to be enemies of the state, deserving of both marginalization from decent society and denial of their basic rights as citizens.  In its goal to make America more amenable to a ubiquitous, Big Brother-like federal government and its corresponding illiberal policies, the current occupants of White House and its tentacle agencies have borrowed the tactics of some of history's most oppressive despots.  The result will be a chilling effect on free speech and the airing of legitimate grievances against our government.

Neil Oliver:  The Great Resetters are Intent on Retaining Post-Pandemic Power and Control Through Fear and Finance.  Neil Oliver uses language to hack the great red pill vending machine and feed the masses.  In his weekly monologue today, Oliver notes the great resetters, the alliance of multinational corporations and government leaders, are intent on using fear and finance to build the post-covid control mechanisms over the people within western society.  Create massive costs, destabilize the people, manipulate the crisis and leave the common family left trying to figure out what is happening.  Government and bankers using fear and finance respectively; both leveraged against the people, while drumbeating the continued nonsense of climate change and the need to 'save the planet'.  [Video clip]

The Citizenry's Willingness to Surrender their Freedoms Risks a Potential Dissolution or Civil War.  Over the past two decades, far too many citizens of the United States have willingly surrendered their rights and freedoms and now they are on the cusp of being unrestorable.  This erosion and voluntary forfeiture have empowered the ruling elites/radical left.  Ominous societal conditions have been created that risk national dissolution or a civil war.  Three events in the past twenty-one years have been the primary catalysts that have accelerated and exacerbated this seemingly irreversible outcome.  The first: the reaction to the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001; the second: the election of Barack Obama; and the third: the lockdown and medical tyranny of the Chinese Coronavirus Pandemic.  After the events of September 11, 2001, Congress, with no outcry from the populace and near unanimous agreement from both political parties, passed the Patriot Act and other legislation.  These laws expanded the definition of terrorism and the government's ability to define, at their whim, what "terrorism" is.  Further, the government was granted near unlimited power to combat whatever was defined as "terrorism."  Within less than ten years that power was turned against the American people and new catch phrases began to be used by the ruling class: "white supremacy" and "domestic terrorism".  A new era was spawned which allowed the government to use its newly acquired powers to spy on and intimidate innocent Americans at home and abroad.

Team of Fools:  Biden's Cabinet Picks Prove He is Unfit to Lead.  [Scroll down]  Attorney General Merrick Garland is Biden's henchman for the administration's 1984 agenda.  Garland has made it clear that parents protesting the woke indoctrination of their children are domestic terrorists.  He has directed the FBI and U.S. attorney offices to crack down on parents by characterizing their protests, which are completely legal, as crimes.  "Attorney General Garland is weaponizing the DOJ," said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, "by using the FBI to pursue concerned parents and silence them through intimidation."  Garland has referred to January 6th as an "invasion."  He said it was the most dangerous threat to American democracy ever.  According to Steve McCann in American Thinker, Garland identified the protestors as "domestic extremists," which has become a euphemism for Republicans.  "He wants you to believe and wants history to record," said Tucker Carlson, "that January 6th was an attempted insurrection by white supremacist revolutionaries bent on taking over this country.  Because of January 6th, we must now use law enforcement and military force to arrest, imprison, and otherwise crush anyone who leads opposition to Joe Biden's government.  That's their position," said Carlson.  "They say it out loud."

The Left Is Already Proving How Dangerous Red Flag Laws Are.  A "red flag law" is something that, on the surface, seems like a common-sense idea.  How often have we wondered why authorities hadn't taken weapons away from someone who had clearly indicated that they were dangerous and intent on doing harm.  Uvalde, Parkland, and Buffalo are just a few examples of mass shootings that could have been prevented if action had been taken against an individual clearly signaling their disturbed minds to those around them.  However, once you start to notice the talk around red flag laws, you start to see the holes and flaws in the idea.  It's important to remember that a red flag law is effectively a societal nod to strip someone of their 2nd Amendment right, not because they committed a crime, but because you think they might.

I am going to post a note here I received this morning from a January Sixther.  [Thread reader]  I am a husband and father who has zero criminal history... And I am looking at years in prison AFTER I took a plea.  You may ask why would people take a plea if they are innocent?  Innocent has nothing to do with this as my lawyer has told over and over again.  This is payback.  There are only a handful of representatives in DC that care about us.  The vast majority couldn't care less.  They secretly despise Trump and anyone on the 6th as well.  The DOJ knows this.  There will be no reform of this government.  There will be no going back.  All there is now is the path ahead.  But that path will never lead back to the country we once were.  I watched for 4 years as our government that I pay taxes for, try to impeach and even oust our president with sheer impunity.  Hillary's smearing stunt morphed into a coup that lasted Trumps entire term.  Then I watched the election get stolen from the American people.  So I went to DC to support the way I thought best.  I wasn't violent, I didn't break anything, I didn't steal anything and that doesn't matter.  I lost my 6 figure income, friends, and my family is a wreck.  I had the FBI in my home, I was brought before a judge in shackles.  And I am a lucky one.  I got to remain free till sentencing.  So this is the country that I now live in.  Where the powerful few can attack an elected president attempting to removing him for 4 years and where elections no longer matter.

If You're Reading This Message, You're Ready to Resist Tyranny.  All around us the government Leviathan is feeding and growing.  Center for Disease Control bureaucrats are already defending their unconstitutional pandemic powers as necessary tools that should be permanently "institutionalized."  The U.S. government openly targets citizens for engaging in "unacceptable" speech or holding "unapproved" political views.  Stricter gun laws are barreling toward us.  The national security surveillance state is pervasive.  Treasury and finance ministers are working with their central banks to devise digital currencies for the public that will eventually allow them to sequester citizens' accounts in ways just as bereft of due process as those utilized by the "rules-based international order" to seize Russia's foreign currency reserves as punishment for invading Ukraine.  The Davos Death Cult is using the pretense of a "climate emergency" to justify tracking every individual's personal carbon consumption (i.e., surveilling and cataloguing all human movements, sources of income, associations, and experiences).  Biden's Commie House of Horrors is intentionally unleashing runaway inflation, so that citizens become entirely dependent upon government for personal survival.  Even a cursory glance at humanity's chess board, then, reveals that those with wealth and power are racing to corral the rest of us before we appreciate what's at stake.

The Real Reason the Government Wants to Give the Poor 'Affordable Internet'.  The Biden administration recently signed off on a generous $65 billion in public money for "more accessible and affordable internet" to "close the digital divide": [...] "Health" and "safety" are almost always the excuses for installing digital dystopian surveillance, censorship, and social control systems because public policy think tanks (aided by behavioral psychologists) have determined that these are the most tactical selling points to gain compliance.  COVID-19 is the currently favored justification for universal internet access.  Global connection, for example, is necessary for the effective rollout of "COVID-19 public alert systems," which will function like weather forecasts to determine when digital plantation slaves will be allowed to congregate with one another based on a computer-produced risk assessment:  "The COVID-19 Enforcement and Intervention Team (CEIT) has developed a comprehensive public messaging campaign...  Municipalities, particularly those in higher-risk categories, are strongly encouraged to utilize their public alert systems to keep residents up-to-date and to reinforce public health messages that will mitigate the spread of the virus in their communities."  Your smartphone — and, later on, your implanted digital web interface — will now determine when you're permitted to leave your home.

Our government's executive branch is deliberately destroying liberty.  We live in a bewildering time, not because events are unclear or cause and effect uncertain, but because the status quo is so jarring that we can hardly bring ourselves to face it:  The executive branch of the United States government is waging war on the American nation.  And I mean that quite literally.  The executive branch is seeking to destroy the nation so the national elite can slip a slave collar around the neck of the American survivors, thus clearing the way for the international elite (Schwab, Gates, Xi, Soros, etc.) to slip a slave collar around the neck of the planet.

Canada plans to follow in the path of the world's worst dictators.  Canada's government, headed by its prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has introduced drastic anti-gun legislation that, if passed, will mean (in Trudeau's words) that "it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer, or import handguns anywhere in Canada."  This is one more step in Canada's mostly relentless push (only slightly alleviated during the Stephen Harper administration) to bring all weapons under government control.  This never ends well for a nation's people.

PM Trudeau:  "It Will No Longer Be Possible To Buy, Sell, Transfer, Or Import Handguns Anywhere In Canada".  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with reporters in Ottawa following his government's tabling of new legislation on gun control.  He is joined by federal ministers Marco Mendicino (public safety), David Lametti (justice), Marci Ien (women and gender equality and youth), and Bill Blair (emergency preparedness), as well as several victims of gun violence.  Among the measures proposed in Bill C-21 are the implementation of a national freeze on the importing, buying, selling, and transferring of handguns; the revoking of firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment; and the imposing of increased criminal penalties for gun smuggling and trafficking.

Revealed: Government's secret plans for apocalyptic events included total takeover or shut down of citizens' communication networks.  Newly disclosed documents have revealed the United States government's plans in the event of a potential apocalypses — which include putting the kibosh on all civilian communications during wartime.  The previously classified files, obtained by the NYU nonpartisan nonprofit the Brennan Center for Justice, detail wartime powers the president can enact in the case of a national emergency — such as a nuclear attack.  The center obtained the 500 pages files through a Freedom of Information Act request.  A further 6,000 pages were kept classified.  Several of the files, which were all penned during the administration of George W. Bush, detail a law that permits the president to take over or shut down communications networks in wartime.  The policy, called the Communications Act, asserts that 'during the continuance of a war in which the United States is engaged, the President is authorized, if he finds it necessary for the national defense and security,' to nix civilians' means of communication.

The Editor says...
That only works if everyone obeys the rules.  Does anyone with a CB radio care about FCC rules?

Really Big Brother:  WHO Pandemic Treaty Readies Global Vaccine Passport System.  In the biggest story few are talking about, the World Health Organization has announced plans for an international pandemic treaty that may involve a digital passport and digital ID system.  The treaty would also grant the WHO new governing authority over all 194 UN member states.  The World Health Organization, who totally botched COVID and failed to get tough on China, wants more power to make more decisions over more territories than ever before.  How's that sound?  Members of the House Freedom Caucus, led by Republican Reps.  Scott Perry (R-PA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), have written a letter to President Joe Biden demanding he oppose the global pandemic treaty or "at the very least, push serious reforms."

The Elites Have Every Intention Of Controlling Our Lives.  From the world's largest gathering of hypocrites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, we have learned that a personal carbon footprint tracker is in the works.  In the wrong hands, it would be the equivalent of the ankle monitors used to ensure that criminal offenders don't escape their house arrest.  "We're developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their whole carbon footprint," J. Michael Evans, president of Alibaba Group USA, said Tuesday while on a panel discussion on responsible consumption.  "What does that mean?  Where they are traveling.  How they are traveling.  What are they eating.  What they are consuming on the platform."  This will excite the virtue signalers who will be happy to post their carbon footprint scores on social media.  But for the rest of us, those still wishing to live freely, who don't want elites establishing the limits of "responsible consumption," it's deeply troubling.

Defending Sovereignty: The Fight of our Lifetime.  [Scroll down]  And one hard truth learned by the first Trump administration is that the executive branch lacks the power and authority required to replace the entrenched bureaucrats that have become the ruling lords and ladies of the new inverted Totalitarian reality which is the entrenched Federal bureaucracy.  In this new Federal reality, where the culture of government institutions and agencies is damaged beyond repair, real change cannot occur by replacing one figurehead for another.  Corrupted policy can't be easily replaced with good policy.  The ideology, the rule of law, the subverted corporatist regulations are baked in.  The system is rigged.  The unknown (or known) bureaucrats controlling the levers aren't going to let go of that easily.

Proposed Safety Rules Would Give Feds More Control Over Your Car.  Federal regulators are considering new vehicle safety features and requesting public comments about the immediate changes, but it's the agency's future proposals under development that could give pause to consumers who are concerned about privacy.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulates the auto industry in numerous ways, including the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), which provides consumer information on the safety performance of new vehicles through a star rating system found on the manufacturer's window sticker.  The new features under consideration for NCAP include blind spot detection, blind spot intervention, lane-keeping support, and pedestrian automatic emergency braking.  NHTSA is accepting public comments about the changes through June 8.  But in the supplemental material included in the public comment document, NHTSA also revealed several smart technology features that the agency is developing for future NCAP updates.

Is the COVID Pandemic about to Get Ugly?  For a pandemic to be brought under control, a sufficient part of the population needs to acquire sterilizing immunity so that transmission among individuals can be minimized and herd immunity of the whole population can be achieved.  COVID mass vaccinations have been a medical disaster in the U.S. and many other countries because the vaccines allow high levels of transmission of the virus and block our innate and naturally acquired immunity.  As a result of this high level of COVID infection spread, the current lull in virulence (severe outcomes and deaths) will soon skyrocket to levels far higher than 2020.  This warning that the pandemic is "far from over" comes from Geert Vanden Bossche, a well known vaccinologist based in Belgium who has been ringing alarm bells for over a year.  Geert is not alone in coming to this conclusion, but he is one of the few prominent researchers speaking out.

The True Evil of the World Economic Forum.  Whenever I listen to Klaus Schwab and his Davos Death Cult buddies openly discuss their plans for world domination, I always think, "Are we really going to let another power-hungry German walk us into global conflagration?" For a while there, I believed that Western allies had endured enough death and slaughter from the first two world wars to forge an informal understanding among themselves that uncontrolled German megalomania invariably leads to malignant outcomes for all.  Then came German reunification, and the nation's inevitable economic dominance over all of Europe assured its status as the most powerful member of the European Union. [...] Still, the Americans, Canadians, and Brits would never sit idly by while German powerbrokers remake the world in their image, right?  Wrong!  Just listen to Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, and Boris Johnson all parroting that same Build Back Better Boobery in unison, as if they operated under the influence of some nefarious hive mind.  At first, hearing world leaders squawk identical World Economic Forum talking points was disconcerting.  Then it was nauseating.  Now it just makes them sound like walking, talking robots all under the WEF's control.

Democrats Are Attempting To Jam Through A New Patriot Act That Will Target American Conservatives.  Democrats never let a good crisis go to waste.  After the tragic shooting in Buffalo that left ten dead and three injured, they are renewing calls to pass a bill that will expand the FBI and Department of Homeland Security's powers to investigate domestic terrorism.  Some Republicans were initially supportive of the bill, but after Democrats made a last-minute change to the definition of domestic terrorism that makes it extremely vague, most came out in opposition to it.  RINO warmonger Adam Kinzinger (R-Il.) was the sole Republican to vote in favor of the bill in the House.

Automobile 'kill switch' law [will be] to spy on and control Americans.  The "kill switch law" would potentially allow law enforcement to shut one's car off remotely, and also to track the car's metrics, location, and possibly even passenger load.  The mandate was included under the pretext of helping to cut down on drunk driving while also preventing high-speed chases from occurring.  Such backdoor kill switches work through cars being continuously connected to wireless networks.  Many, if not most, new cars (and virtually all electric cars) already come standard with wireless capability.  Indeed, General Motors pioneered in-car (internet) connectivity more than a decade ago.  It is possible that the law could be challenged or repealed by a future federal government, as privacy issues with the mandate are glaring and obvious.

Tucker Carlson Warns America That Biden is About to Hand the WHO Immense Power Over Our Lives.  Fox News host Tucker Carlson is warning Americans about an ominous 'pandemic treaty' that would hand the World Health Organization immense power over Americans' lives.  [Video clip]  "So what will this operational control mean?" Carlson said.  "Let's be specific right off the bat.  The treaty demands, quote, 'national and global coordinated actions to address the misinformation, disinformation and stigmatization that undermine public health.'  Oh, here we go.  Right to censorship."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Announces Police Unit to Combat 'Hate Speech'.  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Wednesday announced plans to create a police unit designed to, in part, combat "hate speech" in the wake of the tragic shooting in Buffalo, promising to "confront this epidemic head-on."  "We're proposing a comprehensive plan to combat domestic terrorism, strengthen state gun laws, & investigate social media platforms promoting violent extremism," Hochul announced Wednesday.

House Passes Domestic Terrorism Bill to Use the FBI to Silence Conservatives Who Disagree With Them.  House Democrats on Wednesday [5/18/2022] passed a Domestic terrorism bill to silence conservatives and those Americans who disagree with them.  Democrats used the mass shooting by a lunatic on Saturday in Buffalo, New York to justify the legislation that will allow the FBI to continue to spy on and harass conservatives and critics of their radical agenda.  The new law is nothing new, throughout history brutal regimes have suppressed criticism from their detractors.  And the Biden regime has been cracking down on conservatives who attended the January 6 protests in Washington DC. Dozens of Trump supporters still languish in prison and many of the political prisoners did not participate in any violence.  Many did not even enter the US Capitol that day.

When Attorney General Merrick Garland's goon squad came for parents.  Last fall, Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the House Judiciary Committee that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not using counterterrorism statutes to investigate parents who were exercising their First Amendment rights at local school board meetings.  Last week, the House Judiciary Committee produced evidence that Garland's FBI was doing just that.  [Video clip]

Joe Biden vs.  We the People.  The Biden Administration last June unveiled its "National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism."  Despite its anodyne-sounding name, the "national strategy" was anything but anodyne.  The pamphlet represented the logical culmination of the Left's cynical use of the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot as a means of ginning up large-scale, nationwide anti-Republican/anti-Trump voter sentiment.  The result, evinced again by Attorney General Merrick Garland's disgraceful October 2021 memo directing the FBI to intrude on local school board meetings and crack down on anti-critical race theory parental revolts, has been a roiling cold war waged by the ruling class against us "deplorables" and our political "wrong-think."  Now, seven months after Garland's infamous October 4 memo, the better question to ask is not whether Joe Biden is engaged in a cold war merely against the "deplorables."  We know the answer to that is yes.  Instead, the more relevant question is whether the Biden Administration is now engaged in a cold war against a broader target:  the entire American citizenry.

Biden's 'Kill Switch' For Every Car Threatens Our Freedom Of Movement.  The federal gov't and silicon valley are looking to clamp down on your freedom of movement.  Your ability to move about as you please does not fit with their goals for the future of our world.  Automotive-related freedoms, including access to fuel, allow us to be free to move without the permission of silicon valley and the federal government.  Automotive freedoms are not only hobby related; they are essential to preventing yet another step along the road to serfdom at the hands of woke corporations and federal bureaucrats.  Biden recently signed into law a requirement that all vehicles produced after 2026 be fitted with a remote kill switch.  Electric vehicles are already equipped with this capability via internet-connected "superchargers."  These corporations can sell you a product for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, then prevent you from using them.  Worse yet, if the law is not challenged or repealed, these kill switches will have a "back door" that allows government agencies to shut your vehicle off remotely as well.

Exposing the Left's Destructive Education Agenda:  They're 'Coming for Your Children'.  Beginning with the 2021 gubernatorial election in Virginia — in which Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe for all practical purposes vowed to keep parents out of the classroom, saying, "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach" — parents began to realize the Democratic Party wanted to leave them behind.  President Joe Biden echoed that sentiment April 27 while speaking to a group of Teachers of the Year, when he told them:  "They're all our children. ... They're not somebody else's children.  They're like yours when they're in the classroom."  Politics aside, the issue at hand is protecting our children from radical ideologies and preserving a parent's right to be a parent.  But the left wants to have a stranglehold on education, to keep parents on the sidelines, and to force them to co-parent with the government, while driving a wedge between parent and child.

Whistleblowers Allege FBI Investigated Parents Opposed to School COVID-19 Policies.  Whistleblowers have alleged that the FBI conducted dozens of investigations into American parents who expressed opposition to schools' COVID-19 mandates, and labeled them with a "threat tag," House Judiciary Committee Republicans claimed in a letter on Wednesday [5/11/2022].  Reps.  Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote in a letter to the Justice Department that the "brave whistleblowers" from the FBI had informed them that the agency had reportedly created an internal threat tag called "EDUOFFICIALS" in October 2021 to track alleged threats against school boards, following an Oct. 4 directive from Attorney General Merrick Garland.  That directive came in response to a request from the National School Boards Association asking that the federal government use counterterrorism tools, including the Patriot Act, to target parents at school board meetings, the representatives wrote.

Psaki proclaims the White House controls 'all branches of government'.  Outgoing White House press secretary Jen Psaki has frequently been pressed into action to do damage control over her boss's embarrassing gaffes and, in what may be her final effort to spin away President Joe Biden's mental misfires, she only made matters worse.  On Tuesday [5/10/2022], the "leader" of the free world spoke to the media where he once again sought to duck the blame for the economic woes that Americans are suffering including record gas prices, the worst inflation in four decades, and most recently, a national baby formula shortage which he blamed on COVID and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in more of the same malarkey.

Disinformation Panels, Control over Social Media Content and Now DOJ Environmental Justice.  Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum.  This point is where many people get confused.  Prior to 9/11/01 the greatest threat to government was considered to be from outside the U.S, vis-a-vis terrorism.  After 9/11/01 the greatest threat was redefined, Americans were now considered the threat, the enemy tracking radar was turned around to look inside America.  In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.  DHS and ODNI were created because Americans were now the threat to government.  Stop.  Pause.  Think.  You are taking off your shoes at the airports because YOU are the threat.  You pass through body scanners because YOU are the threat.  Stop.  Pause.  Think.  How does that define your relationship with government?

Do We Draw the Line at a US Ministry of Truth?  The whole farce of setting up an all-powerful Department of Disinformation (whose only purpose will be to spread disinformation) would be downright comical if we were given a moment's rest to laugh in between the Biden regime's outrageous daily attacks on what's left of the Constitution.  The First Amendment — right at the top, so no future tyrants could miss it — is obviously meaningless if government censors must first approve acceptable speech.  By far and without equivocation, the most important speech deserving of protection from the treachery of government overreach is that speech which the government decries as disinformation!  The First Amendment isn't there for the protection of cookie recipes and weather reports (although those are protected, too).  It's there to make sure that when officials in the federal government betray their oaths and seize illegitimate power for themselves, there are opposing voices that can beat those usurpers down with words before violence becomes inevitable.

'They are all our children': Biden sparks fury from parents by telling teachers that kids are 'yours when they're in the classroom'.  President Joe Biden has reignited the fire among already outraged parents after claiming their children don't belong to them 'when they're in the classroom.'  'They're all our children,' he said Wednesday, addressing educators at the 2022 Teacher of the Year ceremony hosted by the White House.  'They are not somebody's else children.  They're like yours when they're in the classroom.'  Biden also took aim at parents and Republican legislators who have spearheaded efforts to ban books and bar sexually explicit or overly politically correct curriculum.

Jack's Magic Coffee Shop Reports 2nd Quarter Financials, Net Operating Loss of $128 Million.  [Scroll down]  After the Patriot Act was triggered, not coincidentally only six weeks after 9/11, a slow and dangerous fuse was lit that ends with the intelligence apparatus being granted a massive amount of power.  The problem with assembled power is always what happens when a Machiavellian network takes control over that power and begins the process to weaponize the tools for their own malicious benefit.  That is exactly what Barack Obama was all about.  The Obama network took pre-assembled intelligence weapons we should never have allowed to be created, and turned those weapons into tools for his radical and fundamental change.  The target was the essential fabric of our nation.  Ultimately, this corrupt political process gave power to create the Fourth Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch.  From that perspective the fundamental change was successful.

Prepping the Mind.  Many see the troubles coming.  The economics are unsustainable, the energy (with their successful plan) is unsustainable, the culture that made America great is being eaten alive by massive waves of illegal immigration from the southern border; a farming capacity that's been systematically dismantled, an oil industry that's under constant assault to either production or distribution and you have a world where one must prepare for the worst, part of that is prepping the mind.  Discussions on this blog of the communist infiltration into all sectors of government is meant to do just that.  These people are not the county clerks and state employees of the 1950s television shows and movies.  They aren't just petty little tyrants with the power to make one knuckle under, they're enemy combatants inside the lines.  Nothing should have made that more apparent than the past year of lockdowns where some unelected "health official" systematically destroyed capitalism and small business in America with the stroke of a pen or the breath of a command.

Under Attack By Spectre — This Is No Drill.  Their scheme has many names;  The New World Order (NWO), Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, The Great Reset.  The cabal is determined to return the planet to medieval serfdom, except without sovereign nations.  They will establish world government, and a universal religion, deciding what you are to believe.  The world population will be kept below 500 million or 'in balance' as the globalists say.  Genetics will be controlled and regulated.  The current population is around 7.9 billion... what to do, what to do.  They will merge digital, physical, and biological systems (gene modification/eugenics injections aka COVID shots), and rely on technological surveillance rather than the rule of law to make people compliant.  Without much thought, over half the population of the United States have agreed to become the first test subjects.  Insurance companies are alarmed that excess deaths are up by 40%, associated with COVID-19 directly or indirectly.  Their goal is simple, the billionaires (gentry) get to keep what they own, everyone else, the commoners/peasants/serfs, surrender their property, and privacy (everyone will be tagged) for the good of the planet, of course.  They insist you will own nothing and be happy.  All accomplished by 2030.  So they say.

America [is] Moving From A Permission Society To A Repressive Regime.  Last month, the Energy Department announced it was taking public comments on efficiency standards for residential air conditioners and pool heaters that are intended to "to help consumers save on their utility bills."  The "savings" angle, though, feels more like cover for the department's deeper agenda, which is its "commitment to reaching net zero carbon emissions."  The Democrats who for now dominate policy making in Washington believe there is nothing so private that they cannot regulate, nothing so personal that it can't be intruded upon.  The only question is the pace of the arrogation of our freedoms.  They have to be taken down in increments, so that the country won't notice the slippery slope toward tyranny.  In many cases, often regarding energy and conservation policies, restrictions are even celebrated by the loudest factions to help numb the public to the constant attacks on liberty.

Biden Wants to Regulate Everything — Even Your Air Conditioning.  President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi want to regulate any gadget or appliance with an electric switch that turns on in your house or your driveway.  New Department of Energy rules will dictate the amount of water that comes out of your showerhead, how much warm air comes out of your heater and how much cool air comes out of air conditioners.  There is even talk about gadgets monitoring your home's temperature in the winter and summer months.  How is any of this the government's business?

Reporters call for White House to 'simply ignore' Supreme Court decisions.  Some reporters are calling on President Biden to ignore Supreme Court decisions that they believe are politically motivated.  On Wednesday, the Supreme Court temporarily reinstated a Trump-era that limits the power of the states to block energy projects that can potentially pollute rivers, streams and other waterways.  In a split 5-4 decision, the justices overturned a lower court judge's order to throw out the rule until the Biden administration can implement a new rule which is expected in spring 2023.

In Vermont, a Raw Attack on Free Speech.  Vermont's social justice legislators have launched a transparent and illegal assault against free speech liberties.  Vermont's Senate has amended the state's assault statute mightily.  S.265 seeks to heighten penalties for threatening with the ["]intent to terrify, intimidate, or unlawfully influence the conduct of a candidate for public office, public servant, election official, or public employee in any decision, opinion, recommendation, vote, or other exercise of discretion taken in capacity as a candidate for public office, public servant, election official, or public employee, or with the intent to retaliate against a candidate for public office, public servant, election official, or public employee for any previous action taken in capacity as a candidate for public office, public servant, election official, or public employee, shall be imprisoned not more than two years or fined not more than $2,000.00, or both.["]  In other words, Vermont seeks to send citizens to jail for threatening political leaders for twice as long as if they physically assaulted them!

The New Authoritarians.  [Scroll down]  During lockdowns and vaccine mandates, tech and pharmaceutical companies made astronomical profits and were aided and abetted at every turn by their pajama-class foot soldiers.  While lockdowns plunged millions of Americans into conditions of unemployment, despair, and hunger, it gave professionals a luxury:  a time to rest at home and be free from stressors like commuting.  As billionaires saw their wealth surge, the upper-middle class stayed silent or complicit. [...] This silencing had serious repercussions.  It is now commonly acknowledged, for example, that school closures were a mistake, but those who spoke up early lost friends, jobs, and opportunities.  What is dismissed as cancel culture is actually central to the authoritarian project.  A new idea ("flatten the curve," "save Grandma," "two weeks to stop the spread") can be introduced at any moment, and if it's framed as morally necessary and unquestionable, it will receive resounding support from the most well-educated class.

Neil Oliver Emphasizes — Once You See the Weaponized Political Corruption, You Cannot Unsee It.  In his weekly monologue, Neil Oliver takes the stories we have outlined on these pages over the past week and weaves them into a comprehensive context.  Once you see the manipulation and lies from government, you can never unsee them.  However, the opposite is also true; once you see the truth, you can never not see it — and that sets up a very specific situation.  Once you know the truth about a series of events or issues, you can easily see the people who pretend not to know it.  I think the reason I like Oliver is because he uses metaphors and analogies in his monologues to connect issues to a picture of what they really mean.  I try to do the same in writing.  Oliver takes the recent information and shows how it is all connected.  From COVID madness to the western govt lies, that drive us toward war with Russia, it's all connected; and we can see it.  [Video clip]

Digital Money and Liberty.  One thing learned from the COVID-19 medical tyranny was there were a couple of libertarians in Congress, but there were no Constitutional conservatives anywhere in Washington, D.C.  Further, the 2020 election highlighted that one of the two major political parties has abandoned classical liberalism in lieu of progressivism.  Progressivism having no limits, progressives have devolved into fascists.  This fascism embraces socialism with government control of nominally private businesses by means of regulations and taxes.  Also, by its nature, progressive fascism is intolerant of political opponents and free speech.

The Real 'Reset' Is Coming.  President Joe Biden believes the Ukraine war will mark the start of a "new world order."  In the middle of the COVID global pandemic, Klaus Schwab and global elites likewise announced a "great reset."  Accordingly, the nations of the world would have to surrender their sovereignty to an international body of experts.  They would enlighten us on taxes, diversity and green policies.  When former President Donald Trump got elected in 2016, marquee journalists announced partisan reporting would have to displace the old, supposedly disinterested approach to the news.  There is a common theme here.  In normal times progressives worry that they do not have public support for their policies.  Only in crises do they feel that the political Left and media can merge to use apocalyptic times to ram through usually unpopular approaches to foreign and domestic problems.

First, They Came For Our Cars ....  If government authorities can shut down an economy and rob Americans of their freedom with lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates over a virus, then they can, and will, do the same for a crisis, either real or manufactured, in the future.  This was a common warning over the last two years that was of course considered misinformation, disinformation, and just plain nonsense by what has become known as the laptop class. [...] The International Energy Agency has introduced a 10-point plan "to ease strains and price pain" brought on by low oil supply due to the war in Ukraine.  The Paris-based organization that is reliably on the left, as it isn't explicitly right-wing, suggests "Car-free Sundays in cities," "Alternate private car access to roads in large cities," and "reinforcement" of "the adoption of electric and more efficient vehicles."  The IEA also wants lower speed limits, less business travel, and more public transportation.  The plan, says Climate Depot's Marc Morano, "sounds an awful lot like an energy version of COVID lockdowns."

More Than 100 People [in Germany] Have Their Homes Raided by Police After Insulting Politicians Online.  Tuesday [3/22/2022], German officials searched and questioned more than a hundred individuals for hate speech on social media during election campaigns of 2021.  More than 600 statements were analyzed and checked for criminal contents, according to police chief Holger Muench, The Local reported.  "Freedom of expression reaches its limits as soon as it comes to defamation, insults and threats," Muench said.  With Tuesday's action, he said officials are making it clear that "anyone who posts hate speech must expect the police to show up at their door," he said.

We Will Delete You.  Before beating a hasty retreat, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went where no world leader has gone before.  Last month, he became the first Western leader to wield the financial system as a push-button weapon of government enforcement against opinions and behaviors that he found politically distasteful or inconvenient.  This is an entirely new form of power, which much of the world has not even begun to reckon with — but which may well define our politics in the years to come.  The unification of finance and technology has allowed for new forms of trade, commerce, and business.  The ability to make purchases worldwide, bank from home, do taxes on your couch, and get faster approval for financial instruments like mortgages makes our lives easier.  But all of this comes with a catch:  The same technology that delivers instant banking and worldwide access to things we like also creates the possibility for abuse of power the likes of which we have never seen.

Man Told by an Officer That He Could Enter the Capitol on Jan. 6 Now Faces 20 Years in Prison.  On Jan. 6, 2021, a protestor, 40-year-old Brady Knowlton, says that an officer at the Capitol told "You can go in, as long as you don't break anything."  At 2:35 p.m., Knowlton did, entering through the Upper West Terrace doors.  He looked around inside the building, walked through the Rotunda, lobby, and Senate chamber gallery, obeyed the officer's injunction not to break anything, and left the building at 2:53 p.m.  For that, Knowlton now faces twenty years in prison in Old Joe Biden's vengeful banana republic.

The Three Cs Preventing Total State Control.  If you were a time-traveling supervillain intent on world domination, how might you change the past in order to seize total control of the present?  I'd get rid of the personal automobile, unsupervised cash transactions, and uncontrolled mass communication.  If you take away freedom of movement, freedom of commerce, and freedom of speech, then you can keep people isolated, dependent on government welfare, and ignorant of any ideas that might threaten the power of the State.  Cars, cash, and communication are tools for promoting and protecting freedom, so if your goal is total State control over the individual, the three big Cs must go.  Is it a coincidence, then, that Western governments today seem committed to following that very playbook?

Conformity and 'Community': Fertile Ground for Tyranny.  Many were shocked to witness the Canadian government's brutal suppression of the truckers' protest against vaccine mandates.  Previously, draconian lockdowns oppressed many more Canadians, resulting in the arrest of pastors for holding church services. [...] These days unthinking conformity is on the rise.  In Canada and elsewhere, the Orwellian euphemism often used to promote a type of enforced, top-down conformity is "community."  It really does not denote any real community but rather the mass of people who submit meekly to high-handed authoritarian decrees.  Consequently, they are rewarded with official and social approval.  The rest can be ostracized as selfish misfits and troublemakers.

First, Do Some Harm.  Until now, the people in full control of the minds of our youth have been the army of 31-year-old TikTok-and-Adderall addicts with multiple piercings and furry fetishes and baroque multisyllabic pronouns who seem to work at every preschool and elementary school in the country.  I don't know where these weirdos come from, but I want to thank the China-owned TikTok app for giving them a platform on which to expose themselves. [...] But don't get too comfortable.  A new, even more powerful enemy has entered the game: the pediatric industrial complex.  This battle is going to be more difficult.  Why?  Because if your school is bad, at least you can switch schools or homeschool.  But unless you went to med school and can write prescriptions, stitch a wound, and reset a dislocated shoulder, you can't home-doctor.  Teaching multiplication is one thing, diagnosing pediatric cancer is quite another.

Texas Congressman Warns Of Biden's Illegal Federal Gun Registry.  Representative Michael Cloud (R-TX) is raising awareness on a growing problem within America:  The State's violation of God-given, natural rights to protect life, liberty, and property.  Representative Cloud made a recent appearance on NTD's Capitol Report and shared some alarming news about the encroachment of the federal government to monitor, track, record, and potentially act upon knowledge of gun sales and purchases.  It seems obvious that in the wrong hands, information about gun ownership could quickly turn into a bloody mess.  Would guns be outrageously taxed?  Confiscated?  To what end would they pursue goals of civilian disarmament?

Bedford: We Gave Away Our Freedoms 2 Years Ago, And The GOP Won't Get Them Back.  "It wasn't a virus which is not going to go away; it was the human action, the things we've surrendered," Federalist Senior Editor Christopher Bedford told Tucker Carlson on Fox News.  "And all across the entire Western world, our relationships with our own teachers, our relationships with our politicians, with our media, with our police, with our priests, even with our children and our parents have been fundamentally altered in a way that was largely chosen by our elites.  Forced upon us in a completely hypocritical fashion."  [Video clip]

Whose Democracy Is This, Anyway?  Democrats have been insisting that "our democracy is under attack" ever since Donald Trump's upset election in 2016. [...] It's the official position of the Biden administration that January 6 conclusively proves questioning the election outcome or any other talk that "sow[s] discord or undermine[s] public trust in U.S. government institutions" guarantees more right-wing "[m]ass casualty attacks."  This is their pretext to justify police-state tactics against any political opponent they choose. [...] Neither the Left nor their lapdog media can endure hoi polloi challenging their official narratives.  This is why so many Joe Biden speeches feature scripted outbursts of faux rage that he's "sick of this stuff" and his "patience is wearing thin."  But the Left has worn the people's patience even thinner — by unleashing a hundred official narratives that have, virtually every one, been exposed as cynical hoaxes.  They've picked the wrong time to break ground for their dreamed-of Ministry of Truth.

Does Anyone Recognize This Country Anymore?  The left, especially its progressive wing of radicals that is taking over the Democratic Party, wants America to be just another country, yet one in which a loud, power-hungry, elitist mob, with the support of an army of useful idiots, rules over everyone else.  The current remaking of America differs from the 1960s upheaval in a number of ways.  The most prominent, though, would be today's war on the First Amendment.  The desire to control speech, and eventually thought, has created a dynamic in which Big Tech acts as a government agent to censor speech unapproved by the ruling class.  "A growing number of governments are asserting their authority over tech firms, often forcing the businesses to comply with online censorship and surveillance," reports Freedom House.  "These developments have contributed to an unprecedented assault on free expression online, causing global internet freedom to decline for an 11th consecutive year."

New Rules on Extremism — DHS Will Target Anyone Who Believes Election Was Stolen or Who Challenged Fauci's Everchanging COVID Narrative.  In Joe Biden's first year in office over 2 million illegal aliens from dozens of countries walked into the United States across the southern border.  The numbers this year look even greater.  Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Mayorkas immediately opened up the US southern border after they came into office.  Biden also set another record.  Only 59,011 illegals were deported his first year in office.  This was the lowest number since 1995.

The Real Reason Why Biden Wants to Spend Billions on Pre-K.  During his State of the Union Address, President Biden rebranded the failed Build Back Better bill as his bill that would cut inflation, grow the economy, lower costs, and lower deficits.  Then he added that his plan would include universal — free — "Pre-K for every 3- and 4-year-old."  This is appealing to families struggling with high daycare costs so they can work.  Others wrongly believe that children need to be in formal school as early as possible.  Few Americans realize that government control over the rearing and education of young children is a key communist goal for turning our nation toward totalitarianism.

If You Thought The COVID Thought Police Were Bad, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.  The COVID pandemic unleashed Big Tech censors in a big way.  Day after day, a handful of 20-something Silicon Valley leftists tweaked their algorithms to block, demonetize, and de-platform anyone who dared say anything that wasn't in sync with government talking points, on the grounds that such "misinformation" posed a serious threat to public health. [...] Already, Big Tech is sharpening its algorithms to go after the next target — imposing speech codes regarding "climate science."  A new report from a United Nations global warming "working group" complains that "misinformation" spread on social media poses a dire threat to humans because it's contributing to "delayed action."  "Rhetoric and misinformation on climate change and the deliberate undermining of science have contributed to misperceptions of the scientific consensus, uncertainty, disregarded risk and urgency, and dissent," the report says, and "has sowed uncertainty, and impeded recognition of risk."

In Wisconsin, a fight over whether children belong to the state or the parents.  In 1991, the European release of Zero Wing, a Sega video game, contained a now-classic badly translated phrase:  "All your base are belong to us."  In the massive battle shaping up across America, public school districts are metaphorically carrying a banner saying "All your children are belong to us" in their battle against parents over children's gender (not to mention racial issues).  What's happening in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, exemplifies this battle and can be summed up in a sentence from a staff training session:  "[P]arents are not entitled to know their kids' [gender] identities.  That knowledge must be earned."  That arrogant message came from a "professional development facilitator guide" that was used in the school district at a staff development session: [...]

Researchers Working On Algorithm To Diagnose You With Mental Illness Based On Internet Posts.  Researchers at liberal Dartmouth College have created an artificial intelligence model that identifies mental illnesses based on Reddit discussions, the college announced.  Critics of the AI modelling claim its another step on the path to introducing a social credit score, like China, in which citizens are controlled.  Others claim the AI model will pave the way for citizens and internet users to be imprisoned in "cyber Gulags" for daring to disagree with mainstream media narratives.

Google, Apple cut off access to ordinary Russians, meaning they can do the same to Americans at any time.  In another ominous sign that the big tech behemoths have way too much power and control over the lives of ordinary people, Apple and Google have now cut off Russians from their payment platforms, which is already causing mayhem in their country.  As noted by Irish journalist Jason Corcoran in a tweeted image, commuters at Moscow's Metro Station had difficulty paying for their ride after they discovered the platforms no longer functioned.  "Apple Pay and Google Pay no longer work on Moscow's metro system, leading to long queues as people fumble about for cash," tweeted Corcoran.

Surgeon General Asks Social Media Companies for Target List of COVID Skeptics and Influencers.  Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, Vice Admiral, U.S. Public Health Service Surgeon General of the United States, is married to a woman named Dr. Alice Tu Chen.  If you look into the past of the surgeon general's wife, you will discover Alice Chen is essentially a ghost — from the perspective of: who were her parents, where is her family?  The lack of early childhood, parental and familial history is a key characteristic of CCP plants in the U.S.  When the U.S. Dept of Justice recently announced they were dropping the Chinese spy initiative, a program to review how CCP officials had been working for years to seed the U.S. with Chinese operatives, indications are the DOJ motive was connected to serious internal discoveries surrounding the wife of the U.S. Surgeon General, Alice Chen.  I do not say this lightly.  Unfortunately, a tangential outcome from eliminating the FBI "China Initiative', is recognizing we now have a completely compromised U.S. Surgeon General who is a controlled mechanism for the Fourth Branch of Government to leverage.

Rebellion To Tyrants Is Obedience To God.  As repugnant as Western governments' responses have been to COVID, traditional friends of freedom have been equally disheartening.  Civil rights groups have remained silent while the Bill of Rights is trampled, or worse, they have encouraged the government's abusive tyranny as in the best interests of the "common good."  Journalists have continued to prove their worthlessness in keeping government institutions in check by refusing to question, let alone investigate, the "facts" health agencies assert or the effectiveness of blunt force government-imposed "solutions."  The Globe and Mail has gone so far as to demonize the "ugly side of freedom" embraced by those who simply want the State to leave them alone.  And perhaps most disappointing of all, church leaders have, with few exceptions, abandoned their flocks by submitting to lockdowns and other unconstitutional bars against religious gatherings in the misguided belief that civil authorities must be unquestionably obeyed.

Things Are Getting Worse, Not Better.  Easily distracted by wall-to-wall news coverage of the latest crisis and conveniently diverted by news cycles that change every few days, Americans remain oblivious to the many governmental abuses that are still wreaking havoc on our freedoms: police shootings of unarmed individuals, invasive surveillance, roadside blood draws, roadside strip searches, SWAT team raids gone awry, the military industrial complex's costly wars, pork barrel spending, pre-crime laws, civil asset forfeiture, fusion centers, militarization, armed drones, smart policing carried out by AI robots, courts that march in lockstep with the police state, schools that function as indoctrination centers, and bureaucrats that keep the Deep State in power.  These are dangerous times for America and the world.

Walling Off Washington From the Great Unwashed.  Recently, after meeting with congressional Democrats, the United States Capitol Police initiated "extra security" precautions for Tuesday's State of the Union address.  The USCP is coordinating with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police, the United States Park Police, the Secret Service and the National Guard.  Included in their preparations is the construction of a 7-foot fence around the Capitol building and the deployment of 50 tactical military vehicles.  The purported need for all this security involves "The People's Convoy," a procession of truckers crossing the country to protest the ongoing use of COVID-19 as a pretext for restricting American civil liberties.  Never mind that the convoy's press release says it won't arrive in the Beltway area until days after the SOTU is delivered, and that it won't enter the District of Columbia, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is monitoring the situation "very closely."

GOP Senators Object To Proposal To Label Mask Objectors 'Terrorists'.  More than half a dozen Republican senators penned a letter last week demanding the Department of Justice (DOJ) reject a request to stamp those who protest airplane mask mandates as "terrorists."  Earlier this month, Delta Air Lines' CEO Ed Bastian asked the DOJ to add travelers convicted of "unruly" conduct to a new "no-fly" list barring access to commercial air transport.  Such conduct warranting the same expulsion granted to suspected terrorists include those who've resisted compliance with mask requirements, which made up nearly three-quarters of airplane disputes last year, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration published by CNBC.  "Like other airlines, Delta maintains its own no-fly list for anyone who disrupts onboard safety or refuses to comply with crew instructions," Bastian wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Tuesday doubling down on his request.

Saying You're 'Colorblind' About Race Is Now Considered Racist By The Federal Government.  A race-based training program used by federal agencies claims, among other things, that saying one is "colorblind" to race is itself racist.  The training is part of a newly revealed federal diversity program that greatly expands on previously critical race theory trainings within the federal government, the Washington Examiner reported.  Part of the expansion comes in the form of opposing "microaggressions," or words and actions by one person that unintentionally upset another.  As the Examiner noted, training provided to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says that offering a black student a basketball is considered offensive.  "Not only are federal workers urged to consider what they say, but also how their comments are received.  In one chart, a white male is shown saying he is 'colorblind.'  The black woman shown beside, however, takes as an insult that the white is denying her 'racial/cultural being,'" the Examiner reported.  "And, it advised men, don't interrupt a woman speaking because they hear, 'Women's ideas are not valued.'"

The State's Monopoly on Violence.  [Scroll down]  I live in downtown Toronto and everywhere I go I see police cars blocking of intersections, impeding or actually stopping traffic.  There are so many of them that even the vehicles of parking constables and court agents have been commandeered into use.  They haven't recruited the dog catchers yet — at least not in Toronto but in Ottawa they have indeed started impounding the truckers' pets under the pretense that the truckers are unable to take care of them.  There is no truckers convoy here in Toronto.  For some months now there have been entirely peaceful marches, first protesting vaccine mandates and then demanding freedom in general, that have ended up in front of the provincial legislature.  These police cars are a warning:  don't start up because if you do, we are ready for you with the entire force of the state.  What they say is that the state has a monopoly on violence and will do everything it can to preserve it.

Cops, convoys, conservatives, and tyranny.  [Scroll down]  The behavior of the Canadian cops against the truckers and their supporters is shameful and alarming.  And I fear that we'll see the same thing in the U.S.  We've already seen examples of it, like parents being manhandled and branded as domestic terrorists for daring to criticize school boards.  What's all the more shameful and alarming, not to mention ironic, is that the ordinary citizens being targeted by police are the very people who supported the police when they were being ambushed and murdered and police stations were being burned; [...] If a law were to pass tomorrow making it illegal to be left-handed, I fear that SWAT teams would be knocking down doors and dragging out anyone suspected of being, or harboring, a southpaw.  Tyranny is difficult to impose without heavy-handed enforcement.  What we've seen in Canada, and what I fear we'll see even more of in the U.S., causes one to no longer wonder where a tyrannical regime manages to find its Gestapo, its Stasi, its jackbooted thugs; they're already in place, uniformed, armed and well-regimented.

Canada Isn't Alone in Using Debanking As a Weapon Against Political Opponents.  Canada may be the future for many Americans.  The Canadian government is freezing the bank accounts of truckers involved in the freedom protest.  But on Thursday, they went even further, freezing the bank accounts and blocking credit cards and crypto wallets for people and institutions in Canada who donated to support the truckers.  Without credit cards or checks and no access to financial institutions, people better hope that they have lots of cash at home.  This is being done even without court orders.  It is bad enough that financial institutions freeze donors' accounts.  Still, to get an idea of how extreme this is, they are punishing people who donated to the truckers even before the Trudeau government condemned the truckers' actions.  But this isn't just something that happens in our neighbor Canada.  Indeed, Biden is using all the regulatory tools at his disposal to "debank" those industries he doesn't like.

America Has Two Major Political Parties:  The Republicans And The Authoritarians.  Yearning to breathe free has become an offense in Canada punishable by arrest.  The extreme measures taken by boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in breaking up the truckers' protest should appall every person in this country.  But one group of Americans overwhelmingly approves of Trudeau's jackbooted crackdown.  In another time they'd be called the agents of tyranny, but for now they're still known as Democrats.  Rather than sitting down with the truckers demonstrating in Ottawa to civilly discuss their grievances and seek a peaceful end to their takeover of the capital's downtown, Trudeau instead launched "an unprecedented violation of civil rights."  A "giant security force" was "amassed to quell the demonstration," writes Canadian Laura Koot, managing editor of The National, which covers the Middle East.  She went "from feeling great pride for my home country to being filled with shame and horror" in the course of a week.

France Deactivates 4 Million Vaccine Passports.  This past week, the French Government began deactivating the vaccine passports of nearly four million double-vaxxed citizens because they still have not taken the booster, according to France News 24.  Individuals who have had their passes taken away will effectively be relegated to unvaxxed status and no longer be able to engage in most aspects of society.  Although some are willing to take the booster, most were caught completely off guard when they checked their app and found their privileges had been revoked.

Tyranny: Canadian Parliament Votes for Emergencies Act Motion.  The Canadian Parliament voted Monday night to approve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's motion to invoke the Emergencies Act by a vote of 185 for and 151 against.  Trudeau invoked the Act, an unprecedented move, last week claiming it necessary to dispel peaceful protests linked to the Freedom Convoy movement, which is demanding an end to civil rights violations by the Trudeau government allegedly necessary to fight the Chinese coronavirus.  At press time on Monday, no active Freedom Convoy protests exist anywhere in Canada.  The motion to uphold the invocation of emergency powers by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passed in a vote in the Canadian House of Commons on Monday, with the Liberal Party and the NDP and other allies garnering 181 votes for the motion.

The Permanent Emergency.  In Ottawa, the Totalitarian Mammy-Singer continues his trashing of Canadian norms and institutions.  During Friday afternoon's Clubland Q&A, we heard that our colleague and sometime guest-host Andrew Lawton had been pepper-sprayed by the shameful Ottawa coppers.  He had to go to emergency, and was eventually discharged from hospital just before dawn on Saturday.  Andrew being Andrew, he got straight back to work reporting what was happening on the streets around Parliament — and promptly caught a second hit from the peelers.  He is now boasting that he has strong "natural immunity" to pepper.  It isn't really funny, though, is it?  As officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police put it in a leaked "group chat", "Time for the protestors to hear our jackboots on the ground."  These and other remarks by constables purporting to enjoy the equine trampling of an elderly woman are now being "investigated" by the RCMP.  But there doesn't really seem to be a lot to "investigate", does there?  Police brutality is out in the open — because two percent of those who see it are outraged, and everyone else just gets the message and figures, "Whoa, better keep my head down till the storm passes..."  It won't.

Canadian Communists and Socialists Unite to Declare Support for Emergency War Declaration Against Canadian Citizens, Parliament Approves Emergency Act 185 to 151.  The Communists (NDP) and the Socialists (LPC) united in the Canadian House of Parliament today [2/21/2022] to vote their support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's deployment of the Emergency War Measures Act.  The vote was 185 in support and 151 against, as the Canadian government now officially declares war against citizens who protested against government.  The parliamentary support of the Emergency War Measures Act now gives the government the authority to hunt down their political opposition, arrest any dissident member who may have petitioned their government with grievances against the covid mandates, and begin seizing the financial assets of anyone who might still challenge the government mandates of Justin Trudeau.

Canadian Parliament Votes to Extend Emergencies Act for 30 Days.  The Canadian House of Commons voted Monday night to approve a 30-day extension of the Emergencies Act, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently invoked for the first time since its passage in 1988 to quash the trucker blockade in Ottawa protesting the cross-border vaccine mandate.  After hours of debate, the vote on the "motion for confirmation of the declaration of emergency" passed along partisan lines, with 185 members voting "yay" and 151 members voting "nay."  The vast majority of Liberal and New Democratic Leader party members voted to extend the law, and the vast majority of Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois voted to suspend it.

The Fall of Canada, The Danger in the US: Understanding Martial Law.  [Scroll down]  Parliamentarians in Canada do not seem to understand that now their former colleague, Justin Trudeau, can arrest not just truckers, whose lawful protest has been declared illegal, but also the Parliamentarians themselves.  This is, sadly, the next step in this kind of drama, historically.  It is an extraordinarily dangerous sign that Parliament is not seated.  When the Australian Parliament was suspended, by the time they reconvened, their powers had been dramatically curtailed.  Tyrants seek to normalize the convening of Parliaments as "optional" or to suspend normal Parliamentary processes long enough to hollow out a legislative body's deliberative powers, and to ensure that when and if a Parliament (or a Congress, for that matter) meets again, it will be merely a ceremonial assembly.  Parliamentarians in Canada also do not seem to understand that "dictator" is no longer rhetorical.  A member of Parliament was shushed when he cried out this epithet, but the fact is that this is not a slur at this point.  Justin Trudeau is by definition now in fact a dictator.

Is Canada Becoming Cuba?  Last week, for only the second time in Canadian history other than wartime — the first time was under Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, the other Marxist to govern Canada — Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act.  This statute enables a Canadian prime minister to suspend fundamental human rights and rule as a dictator.  The CBC described in detail how Trudeau is using the Emergencies Act to destroy the lives of Canadian dissidents.  This should be read carefully.  Such policies have never been enacted by a Western country against its own citizens (with the extremely rare exceptions of those actively engaged in terrorism):  "Using powers granted under the Emergencies Act, the federal government has directed banks and other financial institutions to stop doing business with people associated with the anti-vaccine mandate convoy occupying the nation's capital.  The government's new directive, called the 'emergency economic measures order,' goes beyond asking banks to simply stop transferring funds to protest organizers.  The government wants banks to stop doing business with some people altogether.["]

Poll: Majority Of Democrats Back Trudeau's Crackdown, Freezing Bank Accounts Of Truckers.  A majority of likely Democratic voters support Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's use of emergency powers to crack down on Freedom Convoy protesters last week.  A new poll from Trafalgar Group and Convention of States Action and provided exclusively to The Daily Wire shows that 55% of likely general election voters disapprove of Trudeau's handling of the protesters.  Thirty-five percent approve of Trudeau's heavy-handed tactics and 10% said they were unaware of what was happening north of the U.S. border.  Trafalgar Group surveyed 1080 likely general election voters from February 18-20 after Trudeau brought federal, provincial, and local law enforcement into Ottawa to forcibly clear out hundreds of protesters and dozens of vehicles from Parliament Hill and surrounding areas.  The poll's margin of error is 3%.

The Democrats Are Turning America into the New Venezuela.  The Bill of Rights is very clear and does not have any stipulations pertaining to the Second Amendment.  There are no conditions attached to the Second Amendment, such as the type of firearm, number of bullets in the magazine, caliber size, manufacturer, or how many firearms you can have on you or in your home.  The Second Amendment clearly states that the citizens of the United States have the right to keep and bear arms.  It's that simple.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  The Democrats use every opportunity, no matter how minuscule the connection might be, to oppose the right to keep and bear arms for law-abiding citizens. [...] All dictatorships start this way: take control away from the people, make them defenseless, own them.  It's modern-day slavery.  It's not slavery as in a private master and slave.  It's the state owning its people.  Gun control is people control and the taxpayers pay for it.  This is the truth and it's up to you what you do with it but demand your God-given right to keep and bear arms and to freedom of speech.

Requiem for a Nation.  It may seem hard to believe that America's neighbor to the north is now a full-fledged, up-and-running police state.  Heavily-armed police are arresting and, in some cases, roughing up, severely beating, and trampling with horses members of the truckers' Freedom Convoy in Ottawa as well as bystanders.  The country has gone off the rails.  Justin Trudeau's ineffable Justice Minister David Lametti is on record threatening those who hold the wrong political views that they are liable to have their bank accounts seized.  "If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars to this kind of thing," he said, "then you ought to be worried."  The assumption that Trump has something to do with Canadian trucker donations seems particularly unhinged.  Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who sits on the board of Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum — an obvious conflict of interest — has moved to freeze the bank accounts and other financial instruments of the "protesters" and private citizens who have donated to the trucker fund.

UN Planes In Ontario, North Bay - Shocked Canadians Believe They Carry The "Green Shirt" Officers In Ottawa.  Who would have thought that Canada would ever be a spark plug for a freedom movement against tyranny?  Everything started when Ottawa's police chief was ousted amid criticism of his inaction against the trucker protests that have paralyzed Canada's capital for over two weeks, while the number of blockades maintained by demonstrators at the U.S. border dropped to just one.  The twin developments came a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked Canada's Emergencies Act and threatened to take tough legal and financial measures to end the unrest in Ottawa and beyond by protesters decrying the country's COVID-19 restrictions and Trudeau's government.  Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly lost his job after failing to move decisively against the bumper-to-bumper demonstration by hundreds of truck drivers according to the mainstream media.  Local sources alleged that he just didn't want to follow orders that would require stomping on Canada's democracy!

NWO goons
The Reason for the Police Violence in Ottawa is Not What You Think.  The black clad army of mercenaries and police brutalizing a peaceful protest in Ottawa this weekend has been planned for years.  It is overkill for a reason.  It is theatre.  It is an othering, a willful flagrant statement on the future of the working class everywhere.  It instructs them:  you will die.  If not now, then sometime in the next ten years.  Your towns will be gutted, your jobs will evaporate, you will scramble for pennies until you fall over dead and your children will have nothing to look forward to.  You are Tutsi, you are Jew, you are Kulak, you are compromador, you are Othered.  You are headed for the slagheap of history.  Fight back and you will be deemed domestic terrorists and encamped indefinitely.  This week, Canada's intelligentsia unmasked themselves as fully on side of this demonic enterprise, competing to hate on the truckers.


A Social Credit System Arrives in Canada.  For the past three weeks, thousands of truckers have gathered in Ottawa and along the Canada-America border in protest of Covid restrictions and mandates.  Rather than engage with them or listen to their concerns, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first denounced them as having "unacceptable views."  Then he demonized them as white supremacists, racists, and "swastika wavers."  On Monday, the rhetoric turned to action when Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act.  This heretofore-unused 1988 law gives the government virtually unlimited power for 30 days to deal with a crisis.  Invoking the law under the present circumstance would require the threat or use of "serious violence," yet the vast majority of protesters have been entirely peaceful — playing "We Are the World" and waving Maple Leaf flags.  Indeed, the government has made little attempt to justify the need for emergency powers beyond Trudeau's frequent bemoaning of the truckers' alleged "hateful rhetoric."  His public safety minister Marco Mendocino stated that such extraordinary measures were necessary due to "intimidation, harassment, and expressions of hate."  Perhaps he doesn't realize that none of these are listed in the law as valid reasons to invoke it.  Trudeau escalated things further on Tuesday night, when he issued a new directive called the Emergency Economic Measures Order.

Canadian MP says single mom on minimum wage has had her bank account frozen for donating $50 to Freedom Convoy.  A Canadian MP says the bank account of a single mom with a minimum wage job has been frozen after she donated $50 to Freedom Convoy.  Conservative lawmaker Mark Strahl says the mom, named only as Briane, has had her life ruined for donating the small sum to the anti-vaccine mandates protest.  Strahl shared Brianne's story as concerns grow that scores of ordinary people will no longer be able to pay for food and basics after their accounts were frozen for donating to a group of protesters.

The Left Goes Full Orwell.  "Freedom," warned the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is funded by the Trudeau government, is a word that has "become common among far-right groups."  To prove its point, the CBC quoted Elisabeth Anker, a George Washington University prof, who claimed that freedom is a "slippery concept" and that those on the right want "violent" freedoms that reject being "bound by norms of equality" or "norms to remedy inequality." [...] In George Orwell's 1984, the Ministry of Truth is decorated with party slogans that include, "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength." The organization was based on the actual British Ministry of Information which Orwell had a great deal of experience with while working for the wartime BBC even while his wife worked for the Ministry's censorship division.  Orwell would not have been in the least surprised by state media trotting out an academic who regularly appears on state media (including that of totalitarian nations such as Qatar) to explain that freedom is really a very naughty thing even as the state crushes a "Freedom Convoy" using emergency powers that were meant to deal with wartime emergencies, not peaceful protests.  But "Freedom is Slavery" propaganda has become extremely ubiquitous on the Left.

MSNBC Reporter Admits Democratic Base Doesn't Want to Go Back to 'Normal'.  This is really a remarkable admission from MSNBC reporter Alex Seitz-Wald, who gave a grim assessment of the Democrats' challenge in lifting COVID-19 restrictions across the board and returning the United States to some sense of "normal."  A recent poll showed a whopping 65% of Democrats who believe it "too early to rescind mask mandates" as opposed to just 20% of Republicans who think that way.  How does that mesh with Democratic governors who are in the process of lifting mask mandates in their states?

With media targeting truckers' donors, say goodbye to anonymous free speech.  In Canada, first the doxing, then the struggle session.  This week, one of the most popular small-donor fundraising sites for the Canadian truckers protesting the COVID vaccine mandates, GiveSendGo, was hacked.  The names of donors were shared with the public.  We know about this mostly because erstwhile news organizations, such as Reuters, have showered attention on the breach as if they were providing a public service.  Indeed, many of the same outlets that refused to report specifics about the Hunter Biden email scoop in 2020 (though the story was obtained in a completely ethical journalistic manner) or share specifics from the Democratic National Committee email hacks in 2016 (illegally obtained, but with high news value) have no compunction highlighting a site that takes aim at ordinary people who have done nothing but engage in political dissent.

The Power of the Powerless Is Real.  The growing tyranny in the West has not happened overnight.  It did not suddenly arrive at our doorsteps with the Chinese Flu.  It has been a nightmare decades in the making.  The difference today is that previously slumbering citizens once sublimely content in the normal humdrum of their lives are waking up to realize that the enemies from our past have returned with a vengeance.  Free speech is treated as dangerous.  Western governments, corporations, and social media platforms engage in rampant censorship.  Race and sexual identity are used as the defining attributes of a person to the exclusion of talent, character, and achievement.  Teachers' unions openly demand the right to indoctrinate children according to the interests of the State.  Parents are threatened for believing that their children belong to them.  The criminal justice system is used as a place to punish political opponents and to protect political friends.  Religious expression is outlawed.  Leftists' "secularized religion" is imposed.  Freedom is disparaged as "right-wing."  Coercion has replaced consent.  Victimhood has replaced virtue.  Conformity has replaced individuality.  "Correct" thinking has replaced freethinking.  "Social justice" has replaced real justice.  And the protection of government has become more important than the protection of human rights.

The Democracy Disconnect in Canada Highlights a Big Mistake Conservatives Make.  Somewhere there is a radical called Saul Alinsky, the trainer of modern revolutionary communists and political leftists — who dedicated his training manual to Lucifer, smiling as he watches the results of his teachings.  Unfortunately, we have not yet seen the worst of what is to come from this.  Allow me to highlight the point with two easily referenced examples from Canadian media (infiltrated with ideological stenographers) and contemplate the larger message against government saying we must "defend our democracy" while removing political protest.  Notice the evolution of the collective narrative in just a few days.  The word "freedom" is extremist (Feb 13) ... Conservatives are "extremist" (Feb 18)  [Tweets]  When "freedom and liberty" are defined as extremism, conservatives become defined as extremists.  See how that works?  Yes, linguistic judo and ideological training provided by Saul Alinsky, in his rules for radicals.  In essence, Alinsky taught the budding communists to define the opposition, isolate them, ridicule them and marginalize them.

The Message to Canadian Truckdrivers from Archbishop Vigano is Even More Important Today.  "If we do not limit ourselves to consider what happened in individual nations, but broaden our gaze to what has happened everywhere, your protest, dear Canadian truck-driver friends, joins a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the new world order on the rubble of nation states, through the Great Reset, designed by the World Economic Forum and by the United Nations under the name of Agenda 2030.  And we know that many heads of government have participated in Klaus Schwab's School for Young Leaders, the so-called Global Leaders for Tomorrow."  [Video clip]

Ottawa Police Chief "It is now unlawful to protest against government, 100 checkpoints have been established".  The interim police chief of Ottawa, Comrade Steve Bell, made it clear today that he and the residents of Ottawa are "sick" of the protesters.  Therefore, effective immediately, no Canadian citizen will be permitted to access, enter or walk lawfully in the downtown Ottawa area.  "100 police checkpoints have been established" Bell said, and citizens are being questioned about the reason for their travel.  Additionally, within his current authority as the regional guard for government, he has been authorized to offer "safe passage" out of the area for any current protestor or dissident supporter.  However, if people do not exit the area within this current window of amnesty, the safety of the remaining citizens cannot be guaranteed as heavily armed tactical operations begin.

Police in Ottawa make mass arrests, beat protesters as Trudeau's crackdown continues.  In the wake of the Trudeau administration invoking emergency powers that allow the police to act outside of their normal scope, authorities are moving in on downtown Ottawa on Friday, making arrests and, in some cases, being physically violent with protestors.  Ottawa police have reported that at least 70 people have been arrested thus far.  In the video, police can be seen treating a protestor brutally.  At one point, an officer rams his knee into the man's torso repeatedly, causing him to collapse eventually.  [Video clip]

Justin Trudeau:  Fidel Castro's Son.  The rumors have been circulating for years:  it's easy to find side-by-side photographic comparisons of Fidel Castro and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, showing the strong physical resemblance between the two.  This rattles the establishment media to the extent that they "debunk" it regularly.  Last Saturday, the New York Times ran a piece entitled:  "An old falsehood resurfaces:  that Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro's son."  On Tuesday, the Daily Beast chimed in with "Truckers Resurrect Bananas Theory About Trudeau's Real Dad."  True to form for the establishment media, neither addressed the points journalist Karen Leibowitcz made in favor of the claim in 2020, but while the question is interesting, what is far more important is that whatever the true story of his parentage may be, in bringing authoritarian rule to Canada, Justin Trudeau has now shown himself to be the ideological son of Fidel Castro.  No one should be surprised by this.  Trudeau has a long record of affinity for authoritarian governments.

Have At 'Em, Antifa!  The New Free Speech.  [Scroll down]  have long maintained that the left never truly cared about free speech.  They merely pretended to in order to protect the people they actually supported:  communists and pornographers.  That was the sort of "speech" that used to get banned.  But today, the speech that gets banned includes statements like:  There are only two genders; Maybe we shouldn't defund the police; Affirmative action is unjust; Masks don't work — No they work!  No, they don't work! Also, apparently, speech asserting that mass immigration has not been an unalloyed good for our country, contributing to our prosperity, cohesiveness and happiness.  One of Justice William Brennan's hallowed quotes is:  "[T]he government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."  Those stirring words were in defense of flag-burning.  And here's a famous one from Justice William O. Douglas:  "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions.  It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."  That was about communists.  But ever since conservative speech became the target of censors, liberals adore governmental suppression of speech.

If We Had a Real President, Here's How He (or She) Would React to Trudeau's War on Canadians' Freedom.  [Scroll down]  This fictional president would remind Trudeau that the entire Anglo-American political tradition going back to the Magna Carta in 1215 has been a trajectory of the recognition of the rights of the individual, as well as limitations on the powers of government as a guard against tyrannical rulers making questionable use of vaguely worded laws in order to crush their opponents and preserve themselves in power.  He would scold the Canadian for trampling upon that tradition, and quote some ringing words from Ronald Reagan or Alexander Solzhenitsyn about how tyranny crushes the human spirit and must be resisted.  Then the real president would get down to business.  He would issue a warning:  if Trudeau seizes the truckers' bank accounts, Canadian assets in the United States will likewise be frozen until the Canadian government returns the funds to the truckers.

Trudeau Officially Enacts Autocratic 'Emergency Powers,' Gives Surreal Press Conference.  As RedState reported earlier, Justin Trudeau announced on Monday plans to enact so-called "emergency powers" under Canada's Emergency Act to target the Freedom Convoy.  For their part, the truckers have pledged to "hold the line" in the face of government aggression.  Now, Trudeau has officially followed through, giving an insane press conference detailing the measures that are going to be used.  [Tweets] [...] It's not an overstatement to call this move communistic and Orwellian.  I'm confident in saying that if this were a non-Western country, there'd be an international outcry and calls for sanctions.  Think about it.  Canada is literally labeling peaceful protesters as terrorists and enacting emergency powers to smash dissent via imprisonment.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Expected to Invoke Emergency War Measures Act to Break up Freedom Protests.  Rather than remove any of the Canadian government restrictions and rules surrounding COVID-19 mandates, media are reporting that at 4:30pm today Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will instead invoke the Emergency Act, formerly the War Measures Act, to take emergency action to quell the 'Freedom Protests' taking place in Canada.  This is a rather remarkable development highlighting the severity of the totalitarian mindset behind the governing Liberal party in Canada.  The current Emergency Act has never before been used.

Newton, the Third Law of Motion, and Canadian Truckers.  Governments in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have been three of the worst offenders when it comes to attacking citizens' basic liberties.  To be sure, while most countries in the world have experienced varied degrees of restrictions, Canada has created one of the more potent cocktails of lockdowns, mask requirements, social distancing requirements, vaccine mandates, vaccine passport mandates, travel restrictions, contact tracing, quarantining, surveillance and policing.  Canada, notoriously has become one of the first to take steps towards building COVID camps.  The Canadian government announced last summer that it was funding the construction of four "isolation sites" where "people who have COVID-19 — or have been exposed to it — access safe isolation accommodations to keep themselves and their community safe."  Translation:  The government is building camps where people who test positive can be coerced into "voluntarily" leaving their own homes and placed in sites under lock-and-key until they check after being deemed by the government no longer a threat to public health and safety.

Trudeau Channels His Inner Daddy, Fidel Castro.  Last week, two memes started in response to Justin Trudeau's authoritarianism.  Let's Go Brandeau! is a thing now.  It's a brilliant frozen-north variation of Let's Go Brandon.  The second was the tongue-in-cheek claim that Justin Trudeau is the illegitimate love-child of Fidel Castro.  AP and The New York Times refuted this claim.  I don't know which is funnier, the meme or the fact-checking clowns at AP and NYT.  In any event, on Monday, Trudeau channeled his inner Castro and invoked emergency powers.  He's shutting down protests that don't align with his autocratic, authoritarian mandates.

Canada and the tyranny of emergencies.  Monday [2/14/2022], Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared a "state of emergency" against his own citizens in what has become the latest fashionable trend to crush dissent and demand obedience to the state. [...] Such a declaration sets a dangerous precedent, whereby Charter Rights, the Canadian version of the U.S.'s Bill of Rights, can now be sidestepped at the whim of a single individual.  Is there any historical proposition more dangerous than a powerful apparatchik revoking your rights under the pretense of necessity?

Canadian State Media Declare Freedom is Racist.  The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), a media entity funded by the Canadian government, announces today that "freedom" is a word used by extremist "far-right" groups.  These are the same labeled groups the Canadian government has called racist and worse.  Yes, the official position from the Canadian state media is that freedom is racist.

Maryland Legislature Considers Creating 'Advisory Council' to Collect Data on Homeschoolers.  If we have learned anything about left-wing cultural revolutionaries over the past few years and decades, it's that they insist that all conform to their view of "diversity."  All are welcome, except for those who disagree.  That's why it's so troubling to see government authorities rope in, and attempt to control, people attempting to maintain their independence.  Maryland Delegate Sheila Ruth, a Baltimore County Democrat, recently proposed legislation in the Maryland House of Delegates that would create a deeply worrisome "advisory council" to watch over and gather data on homeschool families.  The 16-seat council would be staffed by four political appointees, four government officials, and eight members of the homeschool community.  It would "gather information on the needs of homeschool parents and homeschool umbrella schools," and would effectively sweep homeschool parents under the wing of a government agency.

Our Greatest Domestic Threat:  Pro-Government Extremists.  Though alarming and depressing, we can no longer avoid recognizing that America's greatest domestic threat is from pro-government extremists.  We rue that pro-government extremists caused immense destruction during their less-than-"peaceful protests" in 2020; and we witness the continuing damage caused by their neurotic, totalitarian response to a plethora of problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.  Indeed, what makes the pro-government extremists so dangerous is their far greater numbers than their anti-government extremist counterparts.  Their noxious ideology that the citizen is subordinate to the omnipotent state is incessantly "normalized" and propagandized by their corporate media comrades.  Worse, their pro-government extremism is being indoctrinated throughout American public and private institutions, including K-12 education, higher education, and the military.

The soft, sweet voices of tyranny.  In 2020, after George Floyd's drug usage saw him die while in police custody, the trend I noticed was that women, especially White leftist women, were at the leading edge of hysterical craziness when it came to matters of race.  Now, in 2022, it's occurred to me that women are also at the leading edge of something else:  They're the soft, sweet voices of despotic policing.  The first time I saw it, although I didn't note it very strongly, was in April 2021, when Pastor Pawlowski, in Canada, kicked out the police who were trying to shut down his Passover service before Easter.  As you can see, while the male police officers are hanging back, they've put a woman in front to let Pastor Padlowski know that the police are going to get him:  [Video clip]  We saw it again when customers in Corduroy Restaurant, a Vancouver restaurant, kicked out health inspectors. [...] I know that there are other, similar, videos out there.  My point is that this is tyranny with a smile, a soft, feminine smile.

New Homeland Security Terrorism Bulletin Targets Freedom of Speech in America.  [W]ith rare exceptions (think George Washington declining to seek a third term as President), the tendency of those in power is always to seek as much of it as possible, especially when it's combined with the ever-present totalitarian temptation of the Left.  A generation later, James Madison warned that greater dangers to liberty are found in the quiet and gradual expanse of government power:  "There are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."  The response of the federal and many state governments to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates this reality in multiple ways.  President Joe Biden cannot let go of mask mandates supported by scant scientific evidence, and his administration continues urging Big Tech to silence anybody on social media who says anything remotely critical of the CDC.  This has produced a situation in which the national Democratic leadership has succumbed to temptation and indeed has become addicted.

Canada is slipping further down the slope to tyranny.  On last night's [2/11/2022] episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra discussed Canada's authoritarian ways as of late, and how the country is currently at a point of slipping even further down the slope toward all-out tyranny.  Here's one recent example:  A police officer, with a uniform and a badge and a gun, going unannounced and unprompted to a private citizen's house to "talk to them" about a peaceful protest they were going to attend. [...] So the police are going door to door surprising people by letting them know they're being spied on.  That's what that was.

Trudeau is getting dangerous but the truckers still have options.  Tucker Carlson had a somewhat ebullient segment about the fact that the Canadian truckers represent the rise of the ordinary people, while the response from Canada's leadership class bespeaks fear and helplessness.  I'm sorry to say that I believe Tucker is wrong and that things are getting very dangerous for the truckers.  They still have options but, whenever you have to depend on the goodwill of a tyrant, his police state, and his military, things aren't going well.  That's especially true of Canada because, on May 1, 2020, Canadians gave up their guns.

Americans who question government now 'threat actors,' DHS Says.  A new federal terror advisory contains a threat assessment that characterizes Americans who "mislead" others into questioning government-approved messages as being on par with terrorists.  That is as anti-American messaging as could be imagined.  America was founded on questioning governments, foreign and domestic.  And that has been her saving grace, the reason for her unique success.  The assessment specifically identifies those who engage in "the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions" as "threat actors."  It also cites "widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19" as having a deleterious effect on government institutions.  Actually, it's the actions of government institutions that often have a deleterious effect on (people's views of) government institutions... and on the people.  But, no matter, our First Amendment rights are out the window.  1984 is here.  "Wrong-thought" has been criminalized.

They're Coming For You.  You Know That, Right?  A chilling Rasmussen survey taken only last month found fifty-five percent of Democrats surveyed supported fines for those who wouldn't get the COVID shot.  Fifty-nine percent of Democrats said citizens who wouldn't take the shot should be confined at home.  Worse still, forty-five percent of Democrats favor designated detention facilities for those who won't take the shot while forty-seven percent believe government should permanently track said "offenders."  Most disturbing, nearly half of Democrats think government should imprison those who publicly QUESTION the efficacy of the shot through traditional broadcast and social media. [...] It's not just anti-shot celebrities the left wants to crush.  Doctors who proscribe off-label use drugs are losing their jobs and reputations.

'White supremacy' is the left's hammer, and you're the nail.  [Scroll down]  In the meantime, they perfected their systems of perpetrating election fraud by 2020.  The fix was in.  The perpetually nasty Biden was installed by a cabal who knew well that he was suffering from dementia but thought they could manage him as they moved ahead with the Obama agenda:  destroy America as founded. [...] Along the way, though, far too many of the American people refused to go along with their carefully crafted plans.  Millions never believed the Russia hoax or any of the other invented tales of suspect criminality with which the left tried to malign President Trump.  They knew better, in part because common sense still prevails in some quarters outside the D.C. swamp and both coasts.  What to do about those Trump people?  Easy:  Accuse them all of being white supremacists.  That will stick.  So the talking points were distributed, and in the blink of an eye, all Trump-supporters were and are white supremacists.

Canadian Army Major Blows the Whistle on the Treason of the Canadian Government Officials.  WhistleBlower Canadian Army Major Stephen Chledowski is ready to fight for the freedom of Canadians back home after serving in Afghanistan.  'These governments are now focused on our Children' he says as he explains that the governments throughout Canada are doing everything they can to harm the children while silencing anyone who points out the truth about the death jabs.  He then calls on other Canadian military members to stand up to the tyranny imposed by the tyrants running the nation.  Listen to his full speech.  'We cannot let freedom die with this generation'.  [Video clip]

DHS Says COVID Misinformation Is Inspiring Terrorism, But It Won't Provide Any Evidence.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refused to provide evidence to support its claims that COVID-19 "misinformation" and "false or misleading narratives" inspired violent terrorism during 2021.  DHS issued a terrorism advisory bulletin Monday [2/7/2022] warning that of the dangers of online misinformation, which the agency said has been exploited by "threat actors" and to inspire acts of terrorism.  "The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors," DHS said in the bulletin.  "These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence."

DHS: American Thought Police.  The Department of Homeland Security, which under the Biden Administration routinely lets watch-listed terrorists cross the southern border unmolested, and which approved entry to the United States for Colleyville Synagogue hostage-taker Malik Faisal Akram despite his being known to British authorities as a terror risk, has taken upon its broad bureaucratic shoulders an even more challenging job.  Stopping the flow of MDM.  MDM isn't the latest flavor of fentanyl, produced by the Communist Chinese regime for sale to Mexican drug cartels, and now the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 to 45.  No, MDM stands for mis- dis- and mal-information, the latest government acronym from which you must be protected.

Trump Warns Biden Backed DHS Is Calling "Conspiracy Theorists" Terrorists.  What's the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth?  Usually, just a time span of six months.  All throughout the pandemic, information that was labeled as misinformation and conspiracy theories ended up being true.  Just to name a few, the Wuhan Lab Leak Theory, Natural Immunity being more protective than Covid-19 vaccines, cloth masks being ineffective, and more.  Well, Trump knows that "conspiracy theorists" most of the time are people who don't buy into the corporate media's narrative, and called out the Biden administration for calling conspiracy theorists domestic terrorists.  In a Bulletin sent by the Department of Defense through their National Terrorism Advisory System, the DHS declared that anyone who spreads misinformation or disinformation is a threat to America's security.  The Bulletin by the DHS would go on to say that anyone who spreads disinformation regarding voter fraud is also a threat to the United States Democracy and could cause an uprising that could destroy American institutions.

Time to worry: the Biden government is redefining core principles.  [Scroll down]  The terrorists are no longer radical student groups seeking to blow up the government (groups such as the Weathermen, which Obama's mentor, Bill Ayers, founded) or Islamic fundamentalist groups seeking a new caliphate bathed in American blood.  The new terrorist threat is... you.  It's now official government policy that "misinformation" — which means disagreeing with the Biden administration, the media, and tech tyrants — is proto-terrorism. [...] As Thomas Lifson wrote yesterday, this "sounds precisely like a prelude to a totalitarian crackdown on political dissent...."  Regarding COVID, as Democrats are finally turning on masks (except for masking students, who are least at risk), we can confidently say that every single bit of "information" that the Biden administration pushed out was, in fact, misinformation:  The administration (and its holdovers from the Trump presidency) were wrong about the virus's origins (or lied about them), about therapeutics, about masks, about lockdowns, and about the vaccines' efficacy.  Everything they said was wrong.  But if you doubted or still doubt them, you are a terror threat.

'There's No Law': Physician Experienced in Investigating Biological Warfare Challenges Medical Board's Misinformation Allegation.  Though Dr. Meryl Nass, a board-certified internal medicine physician, has been untangling narratives of dis- and misinformation long before COVID-19, it wasn't until recently that her license was temporarily suspended under the allegation that she is now spreading it.  Her research has brought her before Congress and state legislatures to give testimonies on bioterrorism, Gulf War syndrome, and vaccine safety.  Throughout her career, she's consulted for international health and intelligence agencies regarding prevention, investigation, and mitigation of chemical and biological warfare and pandemics.  She spent three years investigating what had been deemed a naturally occurring anthrax outbreak during Rhodesia's civil war.  Nass was able to prove that it was due to biological warfare, with her findings published in a 1992 paper that marked a new achievement in scientific research.

Biden Dept of Homeland Security Identifies the First Amendment as Biggest U.S. Terrorist Threat.  Dissent is a risk to the totalitarian state; that's also why communists always ban religion.  Totalitarianism needs total control.  Free speech is antithetical to that control.  The natural evolution of any totalitarian state is to use the justification of security as a method for that control; hence, the U.S. received The Patriot Act, and all of the longer-term slippery slope consequences that are never fully discussed at the outset.  I digress.  So, here we are today — facing a U.S. Dept of Homeland Security (DHS), under the current control of the far left, stating that free speech is now the biggest domestic threat for terrorism.  Whereby the voices to target are those voices who might: "sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence."  Undermine trust in government, as defined by anyone who does not blindly trust the policies from Biden administration, and you are now subject to be labeled a terrorist.

Group targets DHS threat bulletin citing false, misleading narratives in domestic terror warning.  A watchdog group is pressing the Department of Homeland Security to disclose its methods behind a new domestic terrorism threat bulletin that warns of "the proliferation of false or misleading narratives" as a cause of undermining public trust in the federal government.  The Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) said it will file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the basis for the DHS bulletin.  The group said the Biden administration's policy involves "the use of the domestic security state to potentially target political opponents, squash free speech and deliver federal dollars to special interest allies."

DHS issues heightened terror threat citing 'mis- dis- and mal-information' on election fraud and COVID-19.  The Department of Homeland Security issued a Bulletin on Tuesday that sounds precisely like a prelude to a totalitarian crackdown on political dissent from the preferred narratives of the Biden regime and the deep state.  Read the opening of the summary:  ["]The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.  These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.["]  Translation:  criticize us and you are encouraging terrorism.  The obvious corollary is that you, who dare disagree with the regime, are a terroristic threat.

Insider Leak, Canadian Federal Police Likely to Begin Mass Arrests in Ottawa Very Soon.  The Ottawa Freedom Convoy protests are exposing too many hypocrisies of the leftist Canadian government and their faux conservative opposition.  It is only a matter of time before both wings of the Federal UniParty vulture known as Parliament sanction an aggressive federal response.  An insider within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), essentially the Canadian federal police force, has leaked some of the details.  The leaked plan as outlined in this video warning {Direct Rumble Link} does seem to be authentic and aligns with the statements from federal ministers inside the administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Ottawa Police Issuing a Tyrannical Edict Which May End the Freedom Convoy.  There's bad news for the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa Sunday [2/6/2022].  The government has been trying to figure out how to do in the Freedom Convoy movement.  They've tried to go after their support, by getting GoFundMe to pull their ability to raise money.  While they headed off GoFundMe, which went along with the government's tyrannical aims, the truckers were able to get another fundraiser started with a different site, GiveSendGo.  Plus they're receiving all kinds of donations from food to gas, personally, right on the front line in Ottawa.  Now, the police are trying to go after those donations of gas and propane that have been sustaining them to run their trucks and help cook their food in the freezing cold.

Washington State Governor's Plot to Criminalize Election Fraud Complaints Moves Forward.  In 2020, Democrat governors and their underlings used COVID-19 as the excuse to change election laws, many times using emergency powers sans legislature, expand mail-in balloting, and remove what few security measures remained, such as signature matching.  Recently, a state court ruled that Pennsylvania election changes by fiat were illegal under the state constitution.  These aren't lies.  They happened.  They may have changed the results of the election.  The take over of local elections offices by Mark Zuckerberg's "Zuck Bucks" also continues to fuel complaints.  But Washington's Gov. Inslee believes people seeking or holding elective office who complain about election chicanery should be punished for holding those wrong-thoughts.  They should be silenced and maybe even jailed for up to a year.  In Inslee's bill, loudly complaining about election fraud that accused complainers knew was bogus, as adjudged by a "jury" according to the governor, could lead to violence.  The person who uttered the words should go to jail, he reasons.  Inslee has never said these words in response to the Antifa and BLM riots during the election of 2016 and 2017 to depose the democratically elected Donald Trump.

From 1984 to 2022.  [Scroll down]  In 2022, embattled Americans are beginning to understand the parallels.  America's liberty and prosperity have drawn immigrants from around the world.  When liberty and prosperity were thriving as never before, Governor Andrew Cuomo countered that America was "never that great," but for the political class there was more to it.  From the start, they contend, America was nothing more than a bastion of racist oppression, founded to preserve and expand slavery.  Like the Party's take on capitalism, America had never produced anything of value.  So down came the statues, inscriptions and "anything that might throw light on the past."  As in 1984, America's founding documents are pure crimethink.  Teacher unions now force feed this propaganda in the schools and when parents object, the Department of Justice calls them domestic terrorists.  The January 6 protesters are held without bail and without trial.  Embattled Americans now face shortages of basic goods, surging energy prices, and rampant inflation.

This Is Not America, Part II.  A little more than a year ago, about nine months into the pandemic, we expressed concern about what had become of our country.  Had it become a nation of elitists vs. the rest?  A culture that had given up on itself?  A land of censorship?  A nation in which policies and political orientation are not merely matters of disagreement but causes of internal and irreconcilable turmoil? [...] The pandemic turned out to be the ideal opportunity for the authoritarians and smug self-appointed superiors among us to continue to split us apart, accrue more power unto themselves, marginalize dissenters, force compliance with a narrative of the deranged, crack down on speech, and use fear as a means of control.  No longer does the U.S. reflect the founders' vision of a nation of free people.  It more closely resembles a junior high school, where status is craved, and the unpopular kids are bullied and cast aside.

Pam Popper: How to Win the War Against Tyranny.  Pam Popper is the president of Wellness Forum Health and cofounder of Make Americans Free Again, which plays a significant role in the fight to help preserve American freedoms.  An important part of that task is building a powerful community and, as noted by Popper, "COVID has brought some people together who probably should know each other better," and that includes us.  Popper and I are aligned with respect to our desire to educate the public about fundamental health principles, including foundational basics for preventing and treating COVID-19.  We are also in agreement that the COVID pandemic is a cover for something else entirely — a global takeover by powerful and profit-hungry interests.

RFK, Jr. — Crackpot or Cassandra?  [Scroll down]  Kennedy simply states the obvious:  it is increasingly difficult to evade or escape a malign government or to even have our own thoughts about government diktats, when tracking and surveillance technologies allow governments to quash dissent in ways that were not technologically achievable for past fascist regimes.  If you didn't know it was RFK, Jr. speaking, you'd think the words that follow are from Rand Paul or Josh Hawley:  [Quote omitted for brevity]  I have never been a fan of RFK, Jr. and I don't agree with his stance on vaccines in general and against the pharmaceutical companies in toto.  However, public pushback against the mandates and restrictions for over two years has exposed grave flaws in our public health policies and regulatory checks and balances, calling into question the trustworthiness of the NIH, CDC, NIAID, and the FDA.  We have seen firsthand the harm they can do when fully shrouded from legal responsibility and are tempted by billions.

Consent of the governed.  Dependence on government and all its "free stuff" has superseded the ability of people to take care of themselves.  Without the benevolent largesse of government, the people cannot survive.  This could be said of any government anywhere.  Canada, our ally and friend to the north, knowingly or not, is engaged in a reckoning.  Have the people become so corrupted as to need despotic government being incapable of any other, or not?  One side, the Freedom Convoy, is saying they are capable of taking care of themselves.  They don't need government micromanagement.  More importantly, they are reminding themselves and their government, that government governs only with and by the consent of the people. [...] The leader of Canada is saying over a million citizens are a fringe minority.  Worse, the fringe minority's views are unacceptable to the government.  Worst of all, the unacceptable views and actions of the fringe minority are harming other citizens, and imperiling everyone's freedom, rights and values.

Government Expands List of Unvaccinated, Now Tracking Both Medical and Religious Exemptions.  The Commerce Department is going to keep a record of all employees seeking a medical exemption from President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate, under a proposed regulation.  The new rule, placed on the Federal Register on Tuesday, will be the subject of public comment until March 28.  The proposal comes as the Biden administration considers keeping a list of workers who apply for religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate for federal employees.  The Commerce Department has about 47,000 employees and an $11.4 billion annual budget.  The new rule would undermine the personal freedom of federal employees, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a critic of federal COVID-19 policies, said.  "As I have said repeatedly, these pointless vaccine mandates are a direct violation of the personal freedom of Americans," Johnson told The Daily Signal in a written statement.  "Treating COVID-19 medical exemptions as 'disability accommodations' shows how little the Biden administration and the COVID gods value liberty and informed consent."

The Capitol Police Are Spying on Members of Congress, and the Details Are Incredibly Disturbing.  The events of January 6th have been used as a pretense by partisans for all kinds of insanity over the last year.  From playing fortification theater with the Capitol Building to the government constantly pretending "domestic extremists" are the nation's biggest threat, the game is simple:  To make Republicans who had nothing to do with that day feel political pain.  Another move that caused concern when it occurred was Nancy Pelosi's elevation of the United States Capitol Police to some kind of personal, partisan defense force, including funding offices all over the country used to gather data on those that just so happen to be political opponents.  Now, we are learning just how far that operation goes, and the details are incredibly disturbing.

Is the second American Civil War nearing its conclusion?  Leftists, through a combination of brilliant projectionist strategy and callously evil use of their political opponents' naïvité, decency, and tolerance, have transformed America's institutions.  They have weaponized them and used them against their less aggressive fellow citizens. [...] They are attempting a final push now, one in which they intend to grant the District of Columbia (meaning themselves) two senators, eliminate the filibuster (meaning the ability of the minority party to have any say in governance), pack the Supreme Court (meaning they are chagrinned that this is the one body that they don't fully control at present), and nationalize elections by banning the requirement of identification in every state (meaning they can steal every election going forward... in perpetuity).

"Select Committee on January 6th" Is Above the Law and Beyond Review.  [Scroll down]  Americans assume that if the government wants something from you in your home a search warrant will issue after a judge has reviewed and approved it.  Or, if the government wants your records through a third party via subpoena, the government will issue that subpoena to a third party and the citizen will get a copy.  Only under exigent circumstance (imminent threat) will the person not be notified.  Usually, a citizen may then object via judicial review.  But the J6 committee it has declared that there is no authority above it, that it is beyond judicial scrutiny.  In short, it has the power of an inquisition and its members are inquisitors.  Take the case of Taylor Budowich.  He was connected to Trump's reelection campaign.  He held no government position.  He submitted to the committee's questions and produced requested documents.  He thought, he had nothing to hide.  He was not involved in the J6 riot.  He appeared before the committee lawyers and gave testimony.  At the same time and without his knowledge the committee had subpoenaed his JP Morgan bank records.  He wasn't informed until it was too late and JP Morgan, with counsel from Loretta Lynch (yes that Loretta Lynch) told Budowich it was producing his documents notwithstanding his objections.  The production date was clearly a set-up — December 24th, a date that the court was closed.

Is An Iron Curtain Closing Around America?  Did you think you'd ever live to see the day when America would side with Communist Cuba over freedom-fighters who finally stood up to their authoritarian government?  We saw that in 2021.  Given the noble anti-Communist history of these United States, that's a heartbreaking moment.  More heart-breaking if that's possible is that there are those who still can't see it.  They have bought into the notion that ideas are dangerous and must be stifled.  It is not coincidental that the same people have been desensitized to somehow accept violence and civil unrest as forms of "free expression."  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Congress's 1/6 Committee Claims Absolute Power as it Investigates Citizens With No Judicial Limits.  In its ongoing attempt to investigate and gather information about private U.S. citizens, the Congressional 1/6 Committee is claiming virtually absolute powers that not even the FBI or other law enforcement agencies enjoy.  Indeed, lawyers for the committee have been explicitly arguing that nothing proscribes or limits their authority to obtain data regarding whichever citizens they target and, even more radically, that the checks imposed on the FBI (such as the requirement to obtain judicial authorization for secret subpoenas) do not apply to the committee.  As we have previously reported and as civil liberties groups have warned, there are serious constitutional doubts about the existence of the committee itself.  Under the Constitution and McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases interpreting it, the power to investigate crimes lies with the executive branch, supervised by the judiciary, and not with Congress.  Congress does have the power to conduct investigations, but that power is limited to two narrow categories:  1) when doing so is designed to assist in its law-making duties (e.g., directing executives of oil companies to testify when considering new environmental laws) and 2) in order to exert oversight over the executive branch.  What Congress is barred from doing, as two McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases ruled, is exactly what the 1/6 committee is now doing: conducting a separate, parallel criminal investigation in order to uncover political crimes committed by private citizens. [...] This abuse of power is not merely abstract.  The Congressional 1/6 Committee has been secretly obtaining private information about American citizens en masse:  telephone records, email logs, internet and browsing history, and banking transactions.  And it has done so without any limitations or safeguards:  no judicial oversight, no need for warrants, no legal limitations of any kind.

DOJ Calls Parents "Domestic Terrorists".  Parents who are standing up against the masking of their children at school board meetings are being threatened.  Attorney General Merrick Garland admits he took the word of the National School Boards Administration that parents voicing concerns at their local school board meetings should be targeted as "domestic terrorists."  Citing an increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation's government run schools, AG Garland met with federal, state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement leaders to discuss strategies for addressing this "disturbing trend."  What?  Parents concerned for their children is a "disturbing trend?"  However, when Garland was questioned by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), not one citing of intimidation or violence could be shown by parents across the USA against any school board members.

CNN Asks if Government Should Take Over Food and Gas Prices.  History may not always repeat, but it rhymes.  As seen in just about every situation where socialism and government intervention in the market economy of any nation is triggered, eventually you get to the point where government solutions to their created crisis take center stage.  We have seen this exact scenario repeated in the former Soviet Union, Poland, Europe, Cuba and more recently Venezuela.  The triggers are the same, and the outcomes are identical.  Now, as unbelievable as it may seem, Joe Biden's socialist policies have triggered the discussion in the United States.  CTH warned this was going to become a narrative; and we saw the first signs of it at the White House podium on January 12th.

Michigan Democrats tell parents they are NOT 'clients' of public schools, that children should be taught 'what society needs them to know'.  Michigan Democrats were heavily criticized over the weekend for telling parents that they are not 'clients' of public schools and that public education teaches kids what society 'needs them to know.'  A Facebook post on Saturday shared by the state's Democrats on their official page blasted the idea that parents should be involved in what public school teach their children.  The post was taken down on Monday morning following heavy disapproval.  'Not sure where this "parents-should-control-what-is-taught-in-schools-because-they-are-our-kids" is originating, but parents do have the option to send their kids to a hand-selected private school at their own expense if this is what they desire,' the post read.

Salt Lake Tribune editorial board calls for deploying National Guard to keep unvaxxed in their homes.  The entire Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board got together and published an op-ed Saturday that has many wondering if we are still living in America.  According to the Board — the whole Board, mind you — Salt Lake City is no longer a "truly civilized place."  If it were, the Board contends, Utah Governor Spencer Cox would find a way to enlist the National Guard in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.  "Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor's next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere," the board wrote.  "But it may be too late for that, politically and medically."  Apparently, the editorial board at the Salt Lake Tribune is frustrated by their government officials — "mostly but not exclusively Republicans" the Board notes with disdain — and their obsession with the Constitution.

Google Executive in Charge of 'Tackling Disinformation' Becomes DHS Senior Leader.  A past senior aide to former President Barack Obama, who became a Google executive in charge of "tackling disinformation", has joined the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a senior leader from this week.  Kristie Canegallo, who was vice president of Trust and Safety in Google beginning March 2018, was appointed chief of staff in DHS on Monday.  "I am excited to share with you that Kristie Canegallo will join our Department as our new Chief of Staff on January 10, 2022," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.  "I have worked closely with Kristie in the past and know firsthand that she will be a great colleague and of tremendous support to us all," Mayorkas said.

Comply!
Brilliant Agitprop Appears in Washington DC.  Some brilliant, soviet era inspired agitprop showed up in Washington DC overnight highlighting the agenda of the current Joe Biden administration.  No one knows who the artist is.


The Extreme Left Has Finally Admitted Their End Game for Your Children.  The radical left of the United States is also a tyrannical force with a draconian will, and it too has a goal of bringing your children under their control.  They've been attempting to do so without your knowledge for some time, but now, at least one of them is openly admitting that your children should belong to them.  According to Joe Mathews at the VCStar, despite California Governor Gavin Newsom's "equity" promise that big tech has signed onto, parents are still in the way.  According to Mathews, parents with more privilege tend to hand that privilege down to their children who then compound it and turn it into more wealth, establishing haves amidst others that remain have nots after not having been born into privilege.  His solution?  Illegalize parenting.

Turning the Tables on Our Tyrants.  [Scroll down]  The government's substantial success in forcing society to obey its demands has stemmed from its strategically patient yet endlessly advancing agenda to replace freedom with tyranny.  Mandates did not come all at once; they came bit by bit.  It's just a couple weeks in lockdown.  It's just a mask.  It's just a couple months of remote learning. [...] Likewise, instead of forcing people into compliance all at once, mandates have targeted small subparts of the larger population, while the majority not affected by those orders have remained relatively silent.  One age group at a time has been pushed toward accepting mRNA treatment — from the very oldest in society to the workers to the schoolchildren, and now finally to the newborns.  One profession at a time has been coerced into submitting to the government's demands — from the military to federal workers to health care workers to third-party federal contractors to public unions to private unions to companies with over a hundred workers and, of course, one day soon, to all workers generally.  The exceptions to this "long march" through the professions have only served to show which workers still hold enough political clout to buck (at least temporarily) the authoritarians' demands.  Our armed forces, it turns out, have so little leverage that no exceptions have been made for their conscientious objections.  Postal workers, public school teachers (the same ones hypocritically clamoring for their young students to be injected with mRNA treatments), and other traditional interest group voting blocs for the Democrat party have fared much better.

Why Are They Building A Wall Around The White House?  The last year has seen a lot of construction making its way around the White House, and after the fountain on the South Lawn was renovated a month or two ago we had a bit of a break.  That ended today though as the construction crews moved into the North Lawn and surrounded the fountain with barriers and hoarding in preparation for some new construction at the White House.  Construction like this has been ongoing for over a year at the White House, but they generally move in small bits.  [Video clip]

Army will conduct a two-week 'guerilla [sic] war' training exercise in the woods of North Carolina to teach Special Forces how to overthrow an 'illegitimate government'.  Young Army soldiers will be battling 'seasoned freedom fighters' across two dozen North Carolina counties in a two-week 'guerrilla warfare exercise' where they attempt to overthrow an 'illegitimate government'.  News of the training exercise comes just days after the anniversary of the Capitol riot and as the Justice Department announces the creation of a new 'domestic terrorism' unit to tackle what officials said is an 'elevated threat from domestic violent extremists'.  Some questioned the close timing of the events, while others went further with fears that the Biden administration is 'preparing for American Uprising'.  'Biden's military wargames fighting and killing American "Freedom Fighters" in guerilla (sic) warfare,' one Twitter user posted in reaction to news of the guerilla warfare training on US soil.

The Editor says...
To put it another way, the military will decide if the government is illegitimate.  Sounds like Central America.

The Real Battle Over Education.  When Democrat Terry McAuliffe said he didn't want parents to have influence over their children's education, it wasn't a gaffe; he meant it.  The new totalitarians cannot abide by freedom, especially freedom of education which ensures parents have influence over their children's education and, therefore, future.  The allies of the new totalitarians, however, agree with McAuliffe and other Bolsheviks.  The real reason is because education shapes and molds people; if the educational juggernaut has complete control over education, they have complete control over the next generation, and, therefore, complete control over the future of American society.  Education, as envisioned by leftists, is about control.  It's about power.  It's about propaganda.  It's about ensuring their vision of remaking society is safe and secure.

Biden Administration Making Lists of Religious Vaccine Objectors.  A tiny administrative agency in the District of Columbia announced a new policy Tuesday that will likely serve as a model for a whole-of-government push to assemble lists of Americans who object on religious grounds to a COVID-19 vaccine.  The Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia — a federal independent entity that assists officers in the District of Columbia courts in formulating release recommendations and providing supervision and services to defendants awaiting trial — announced a new records system that will store the names and "personal religious information" of all employees who make "religious accommodation requests for religious exception from the federally mandated vaccination requirement."  The announcement does not explain why the agency needs to create this list except to say that it will "assist the Agency in the collecting, storing, dissemination, and disposal of employee religious exemption request information collected and maintained by the Agency."  In other words, the list will help the agency make a list.  The announcement also does not say what the agency will do with this information after it has decided an employee's religious accommodation request.

Biden administration planning lists of employees seeking 'religious' vaccine exemptions.  An obscure federal agency has proposed creating a database capturing the names and "personal religious information" of government employees who submit "religious accommodation requests" to be exempted from the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  At least seven other federal agencies, including five Cabinet departments, are apparently setting up similar "personal religious information" databases, according to an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in the District.  The federal Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia, or CSOSA, published a "notice of a new system of records" in the Federal Register on Tuesday [1/11/2022].  The agency, which supervises defendants awaiting trial as well as parolees, aims to "reduce recidivism" and "integrate offenders into the community by connecting them with resources and interventions."

Biden's Education Secretary Solicited the Infamous Letter Likening Angry Parents to Domestic Terrorists.  The facts of this shameful case are generally well known: the National School Boards Association (NSBA) wrote to the FBI, asking it to investigate as "domestic terrorism"protests at school board meetings against the introduction of Critical Race Theory into public school curricula.  That was bad enough, but now the story has gotten even worse.  On Tuesday, Fox News revealed that "Education Secretary Miguel Cardona solicited the much-criticized letter from the National School Boards Association that compared protesting parents to domestic terrorists," according to an email exchange it had reviewed.

Bill Filed In Washington Would Authorize 'Strike Force' To 'Involuntarily Detain' Unvaccinated Families.  The Washington State Board of Health may soon amend state law to authorize the involuntary detainment of residents as young as 5 years old in Covid-19 "internment camps" for failing to comply with the state's experimental vaccine mandate.  WAC 246-100-040, a proposed revision to include Covid protocol under the state's Communicable and Certain Other Diseases act, outlines "Procedures for isolation or quarantine."  The measure would allow local health officers "at his or her sole discretion" to "issue an emergency detention order causing a person or group of persons to be immediately detained for purposes of isolation or quarantine."

CDC Website Reveals Police Power Will be Used at Quarantine Stations for the "Benefit of Society".  The CDC stated on its website (last reviewed Sept. 2021) that to control the spread of disease within their borders, states have laws to enforce the use of isolation and quarantine.  The law also includes the use of police power functions in their quarantine stations.  "In addition to serving as medical functions, isolation and quarantine also are "police power" functions, derived from the right of the state to take action affecting individuals for the benefit of society," CDC stated on their website.

Will the COVID Pandemic Cause a Big Government 'Ratchet Effect'?  In his classic book, Crisis and Leviathan, economic historian Robert Higgs introduced a key concept that he called "the ratchet effect."  Higgs noted that the power of government grows during times of crisis, such as war or national depression, but that once the crisis passes, the newly acquired power of the State doesn't recede back to its original level. [...] The COVID pandemic appears to supply yet another pretext for the move towards bigger and more authoritarian government.  The toll on personal and economic liberty has been great and the deleterious effects may linger far longer than the virus.

Democratic Governor Calls For Criminalizing "Lying" About Election Results.  For years, I have lamented how the Democratic party has embraced censorship and the criminalization of speech.  I come from a liberal Democratic family in Chicago and the Democratic Party once championed free speech as the defining value of the party.  Democratic politicians now lead calls for censorship to silence their opponents and corporate regulations to protect citizens from dangerous choices in reading material.  The same concerns were raised this week after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee called for the criminalization of "lies" about election results.  Inslee wants to convict people who raise election challenges or allegations.  Such a law would threaten political speech and create a chilling effect for those who want to raise such concerns in contested elections.  Inslee made his comments as part of the Jan. 6th anniversary.  It appears to follow Speaker Nancy Pelosi's directive for Democrats to "preserve the narrative" of that day.

Gov. Inslee proposes bill making it illegal for elected leaders, candidates to spread election fraud lies.  Gov. Jay Inslee proposed new legislation on Thursday [1/6/2022], which would make it a misdemeanor for elected leaders or candidates to spread unfounded allegations of voter fraud.  Speaking on the one-year anniversary of the now-infamous U.S. Capitol riot, Inslee opined that "the threat to our democracy is just as dangerous on January 6, 2022, as it was a year ago."  "I think we do need to do much more than commemorate this day of infamy," he said as part of the Associated Press' 2022 legislative preview.  "I think we need to realize that this is a continuing effort to continue the 'big lie,' to cast doubt on the fundamental workings of our democracy — we simply have to realize the nature of this challenge."

The Editor says...
The candidates and officials will still be able to "spread unfounded allegations" (lie) about anything else, but questioning an obviously stolen election will be strictly forbidden.  This sounds like the easiest way to commit voting fraud:  Cheat all you like, then prohibit any dissent.

Gates, Fauci, and Daszak charged with Genocide in Court Filing.  [Scroll down]  Klaus Schwab, a wickedly intelligent, perhaps diabolical German with double doctorate degrees in Economics and Engineering, is the founder of the World Economic Forum, a club for the wealthiest percentile of the world's corporate and political elite.  He is a power broker who has groomed many presidents, prime ministers, and tech CEOs who now view him with reverence and unswerving loyalty.  Schwab, an economist, and technocrat has befriended many nations, most significantly China's Xi Jinping, who delivered a key speech at Davos.  He praised his vision of a New World Order.  On January 25, 2021, Klaus Schwab vowed his support for Xi Jinping with these words, "Mr. President (Xi Jinping) I believe this is the best time to reset our policies and to work, jointly, for a peaceful and prosperous world.  We all welcome now, his excellency, Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China."

Australia Has Fallen! What the Leftist in Control Say and What they Do are Two Separate Things.  Australia has officiall fallen.  The nation is now a certified police state, citizens are being rounded up and thrown into concentration camps simply because they don't want to put a deadly jab into their body that has resulted in MILLIONS of health issues and deaths across the globe.  Listen to the statements made by just one of the madmen currently in control of the country down under and look at the visuals, what he says he cares about and what he's orchestrating are completely conflicting.  These globalists think they can rule with an iron fist and that the militaries and police units around the world will fall in and comply, based on the fact police and military members are fleeing in droves, looks like they're wrong and the backlash is already happening.  [Video clip]

What The Climate Scare And Pandemic Fearmongering Have In Common.  [Scroll down]  We're not fully convinced the lockdowns were conspiratorial dry runs to accustom the world to future restrictions handed down under the guise of "fighting" global warming.  But as we said when the lockdowns were still relatively new, "observant and cunning politicians have gone to school" and were thinking over the possibility they could "use the pretext of a climate emergency to control Americans and break the back of capitalism."  The ingredients are all present.  A teen activist whose name isn't Greta Thunberg has put down on paper what many are thinking when she wrote "if we can shut the world down to stop a virus, that also means it is possible to do the same for climate change."  It's the sort of superficial statement that earns her points from a puerile media, ever-mugging politicians, and the adults among us who haven't outgrown their insecure high school aspirations to be popular.  And an idea many will run with.  The chilling fact there is much to be afraid of — not of a falling sky or a virus that we hope is on the wane, but of those eager to stir up dread and anxiety so they exercise the raw power they covet.

New Law Will Install Kill Switches In All New Cars.  According to an article written by former U.S. Representative Bob Barr, hidden away in the recently passed infrastructure bill, the very one I warned before would negatively impact drivers across the country if it were to pass, is a measure to install vehicle kill switches into every new car, truck, and SUV sold in this country.  The regulation likely won't be enforced for five years, so maybe there's time to do something about this.  As we've seen both in this country and others recently, what constitutes "law-abiding" can change drastically overnight.  For example, in September a car was pulled over in New Zealand and the occupants arrested when police discovered the trunk was full of Kentucky Fried Chicken meals.  They were smuggling the fast food to customers in locked-down Auckland, against quarantine measures.  Yet not too long before, delivering restaurant orders to people was considered a reputable, legal activity.

The Vaccine Passport Pathway to a Social Credit System.  Simply put the vaccine programs are really population control programs, because by pushing vaccines the elites are pushing vaccine passports which are the first step to creating digital ID numbers on a software platform where every subject's personal information will eventually end up.  Control of information means control of the subjects.  The real-life model for this is the Chinese social credit system.  This system is, through the totalitarian perspective, a brilliant combination of national digital identification numbers combined with high surveillance technology all controlled by advanced artificial intelligence.  Each Chinese subject is branded with a digital number and the surveillance state can follow his employment, medical, criminal and schooling records, his online browsing records, his voiced political views, and even the places he visits through GPS positioning technology. If the subject so much as jaywalks across a street, it will likely be picked up by one of the millions of surveillance cameras installed in Chinese cities and run through face recognition software.

Police State?  Genocide?  Could It Happen Here?  There are many examples in recent years of individuals losing their jobs, having their businesses boycotted, and getting their social media accounts cancelled or suspended because they promoted conservative ideas, supported Biblical standards, or refused to bow down to the demands of the woke culture.  The dehumanization process of conservatives and traditional Christians as "others" and "enemies" is rapidly increasing.  The more it continues to happen, the more many in the media insist that it isn't happening.  A friend of mine recently stated that this can't go on much longer, that millions of Americans are going to stand up against the cancel culture, censorship, and the marginalization of traditional values.  I nodded my head when she said it, but I don't think I really believed it.  When you have a society that is already in the process of banning words, burning Bibles, and allowing four-year-olds to choose their gender, you have a society that has pretty much already jumped the shark.  When you have millions who have sunk so far down the rabbit hole that they actually believe this is "progress," you realize Rome has been burning for a while now.

Tyranny in the Name of Climate Change.  A recent paper published by Cambridge University Press titled "Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change" is raising serious and worrisome questions about the role of academia in our national political debate on climate change.  The paper was written by Ross Mittiga, who self-describes as an "assistant professor of political theory at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, specializing in climate ethics." He also labels himself an "environmentalist, vegan, and occasional gadfly."  Mittiga's paper explicitly argues society must prioritize climate action over democratic principles and adopt an authoritarian government if society fails to politically act on climate change.  Or, in the words of the political left:  "my way or the highway."  This is disturbing because it completely ignores the will of the people to self-govern, favoring a totalitarian approach in order to tackle what Mittiag deems a "climate crisis."

Constitutional Peril in Defense Secretary's Straw Man on Extremism in Military.  You'd be forgiven for thinking there's a pandemic of extremism among our military members after watching our military leaders testify on the issue or listening to the mainstream media.  When all the smoke clears, an objective assessment doesn't support that conclusion, and no report to date has delivered any data to indicate otherwise.  Indeed, the secretary's own spokesperson reported that prohibited extremist activity amounted to "fewer than 100 incidents" over the past year.  That's in a force of more than 2 million men and women.  Moreover, responding to a request in 2018 from then-Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the Department of Defense reported only 27 incidents of extremist activity over the previous five years.  The Pentagon's vigorous response to these underwhelming numbers includes actions to consider changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, better information sharing with law enforcement, screening of service members, and increased training and education.

Biden Says He Is Ready to Trigger Mandatory Vaccine Requirement for Air Travel as Soon as Fauci Tells Him.  If you listen to most champagne socialists, they will tell you they believe airline travel has become too affordable and just about anyone is able to fly now.  For a few decades this has been a source of consternation amid the Democrat cocktail party class, whenever the subject is approached.  It stands to reason the people behind Joe Biden will eventually concede the issue of mandatory vaccine passports for domestic air travel to the administrative state and their donors amid the Branch Covidians.  They're in the same group circles where Anthony Fauci is venerated and appreciated.  However, I doubt it will happen until after the U.S. universal passport system, the vaccination ID, is put into place — because currently, the airline companies would stand to lose too much revenue.

The Absurdity Continues:  A Test For All Seasons.  The current administration just announced that they are going to provide 500 million test kits for Covid.  These kits will be distributed to the general public somehow and will test for something in some way associated with Covid.  Pardon my skepticism, but I have to wonder just what they will be testing, and what will they do with the results. [...] For starters, which kind of test will be distributed?  Will the tests detect current, active infections, or will they only report that someone might have a current infection, or they might have recovered from one in the past?  If they don't detect an active infection, the only useful result they can provide is to indicate what fraction of the population has recovered and is now immune — in other words, where do we stand on herd immunity.  If the tests are the sort to detect an active case, and samples have to be sent to a lab for processing, I would expect that there would be a significant period between the time the samples were collected, and the labs worked through a massive backlog of tests.  It would, at that point, be likely that someone infected would have already recovered, or died.  Again, what would be the point of the test?

The Editor says...
This sounds like an easy way for the government to collect DNA samples from everybody.  Thee bureaucrats really don't care if you have a virus or not.  If you're sick, there's nothing the federal government can do about it.  Wholesale DNA collection is the simplest and most logical explanation for the "home testing" scam.

The Establishment Wants to Crush You Uppity Peasants.  [Scroll down]  And it's even less tolerable because "Let's Go, Brandon" is a manifestation of the class warfare that increasingly characterizes American society.  It's the cry of the working class, bold and joyous, utterly uncontrollable.  It has energy and cheer, while the pathetic moaning of the ruling caste's spokescreatures is rote, boring, and bereft of any power.  The regime-approved memes our elite's minions repeat on cable and in social media are the chant of serfs.  So, the garbage regime and it's ridiculous legacy media minions must try to stifle this rebellion.  They especially hate that this in no Astroturf meme passed around on some media server list after being decreed from on high.  LGB is infinitely more dangerous.  It's an organic response that is not pushed or guided, but that evolved totally outside the approved channels.  They hate it because it is not theirs, and because they cannot direct it or tame it.  So they try to squelch it.  But it will come back even stronger.  And worse, we'll be laughing at them as we repeat it.

Fauci Is Just a Bureaucrat.  Franz Kafka's stories are described as surreal or dreamlike.  In fact the chief distinguishing characteristic is perpetual instability:  The narrator in a Kafka story accepts whatever new situation he faces with unquestioning compliance. [...] Bureaucracy is a permanent decoupling of activity from morality.  A bureaucrat isn't paid to understand the rules he enforces or the forms he is required to have you fill out.  There is no "why" involved in his life, and so he allows no common sense or flexibility to inform his actions.  Bureaucracy is there for its own sake; it is its own justification.  Bureaucrats are often called civil servants, but in reality they provide no service at all:  It is you, the individual citizen, who must come to serve them, to follow their instructions, to bend the knee and do exactly what they say, as a token of submission to the powers that be.  Otherwise no license, no permit, no job.

Defining 'insurrection' down.  An Oregon father of four cheerfully told President Joe Biden, "Merry Christmas, and let's go Brandon!"  This may not be our country's proudest moment, but it is not exactly a threat to the republic either.  Still, it has some in the liberal media freaking out beyond anything rational.  When Jared Schmeck called into the NORAD Santa Tracker on Christmas Eve, as he does every year with his children, he was not expecting to be connected directly to the president nor did he know his call was being livestreamed by the White House.  At the end of the brief conversation, however, after, Biden told him his children had to be in bed by 9 or Santa wouldn't come, Schmeck said, "Merry Christmas, and let's go Brandon!"  The latter half of that sentence, of course, is a popular and amusing catchphrase disparaging Biden.  Was the statement juvenile?  Yes.  Uncivil?  Sure.  But was it an act of violence?  Well, The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein seems to think so.  Asked about the call on CNN, Brownstein said, "I don't think it is about incivility.  I think it is fundamentally about insurrection."

Dad Who Pranked Joe Biden Says It's Important to 'Voice Disapproval'.  We've done a fair amount of coverage on the story of Jared Schmeck — how he managed to troll Joe Biden during a NORAD Santa-tracking call that he and his kids had with Joe and Jill Biden on Christmas Eve by slipping in a "Let's go, Brandon" at the end of the call.  This caused a meltdown from folks on the left claiming it was somehow so offensive, with many of these folks being the very same folks who, for years, had called President Donald Trump every name under the sun and uttered all types of calumny against him.  They weren't disturbed by "Let's go, Brandon." They were more disturbed that Biden repeated it and agreed with it, showing how completely out of it he was.  For the sin of revealing how broken Joe Biden was, folks on the left then resolved to doxx the man and destroy his life.  He's received threats and people have been trying to hurt his family's business.

Biden's comments about air travel create massive instability in America.  If Democrats aren't intentionally trying to destroy America, they're certainly doing a good job by accident. [...] COVID has jettisoned the deliberation and stability that the Founders envisioned for a constitutional American republic.  Instead, we have a gerontocracy:  government by old people scared of a virus, desperate for power, disdainful of ordinary Americans, and deeply corrupt, whether morally or financially.

The White House's Vaccine Threats Aren't To Keep You Safe.  They're To Keep You In Line.  By now, you've likely seen or heard the latest coronavirus messaging from the White House, which President Joe Biden is scheduled to talk about again later on Tuesday.  The president gave the first doomsday message for the unvaxxed, COVID response chief Jeff Zients repeated it, and chief of staff Ron Klain doubled down on it, so the comments were no slip of the tongue.  This is the administration's official line.  "We are intent on not letting omicron disrupt work and school for the vaccinated.  You've done the right thing, and we will get through this.  For the unvaccinated, you're looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm," Zients said, one day after Biden made nearly identical comments.  This messaging is problematic for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is its remarkable ability to further harden 50 percent of the country against the so-called "unity" president, who has shaped up to be leagues more divisive than his predecessor.  But buried under the latest "dark winter" threat is an admission from the Biden White House that its detractors have been right about its aims all along.  The contrast between the in-group and the out-group isn't that one is rid of the virus while the other isn't.  The difference is that one has "done the right thing."

Liking a Facebook Post Could Get Service Members Punished Under Pentagon 'Extremism' Policy.  Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby announced a new "extremism" policy being rolled out by the Pentagon under President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday [12/20/2021] that the Department of Defense says provides "increased clarity" on what amounts to "extremist activities" or "prohibited activity" by service members.  While Kirby "emphasized" that "the Department is focused on prohibited activity, not on a particular ideology, thought or political orientation," the new guidelines create a broad definition for "active participation."

Concentration Camps for the unvaccinated are coming to New York State.  The National Pulse In the next legislative session beginning January 5th, 2022, the New York Senate and Assembly could vote on a bill that would grant permissions to remove and detain cases, contacts, carriers, or anyone suspected of presenting a "significant threat to public health" and remove them from public life on an indefinite basis.  Bill A416 presents a serious risk to the basic liberties of all Americans in the state of New York, including their right to choose whether or not to receive medical treatment and vaccinations related to thus far undetermined contagious diseases.  The bill gives the Governor of New York, his or her delegates — including but not limited to the commissioner and heads of local health departments — the right to remove and detain any individuals or groups of people through issuing a single order.  The orders only have to include the individual's name(s) or "reasonably specific descriptions of the individuals or groups."

New York Legislation Provides for [the] Indefinite Detention of [the] Unvaccinated at [the] Governor's Whim.  In the next legislative session beginning January 5th, 2022, the New York Senate and Assembly could vote on a bill that would grant permissions to remove and detain cases, contacts, carriers, or anyone suspected of presenting a "significant threat to public health" and remove them from public life on an indefinite basis.  Bill A416 presents a serious risk to the basic liberties of all Americans in the state of New York, including their right to choose whether or not to receive medical treatment and vaccinations related to thus far undetermined contagious diseases.  The bill gives the Governor of New York, his or her delegates — including but not limited to the commissioner and heads of local health departments — the right to remove and detain any individuals or groups of people through issuing a single order.  The orders only have to include the individual's name(s) or "reasonably specific descriptions of the individuals or groups."

The New York legislature is poised to hand massive power to the governor.  In roughly three weeks, the New York state legislature will vote on Bill A416, which will give the New York governor (in this case, the power-mad Kathy Hochul), as well as the governor's delegates (i.e., New York's administrative state) the power to indefinitely detain anyone the governor or her agencies deem a "significant threat to public health."  Despite the broad power states have, this violates the Constitution.  At a practical level, it should scare the pants off every American.  There is absolutely no doubt that, under our Constitution, the states have powers that the federal government lacks.  The federal government is explicitly a creature of very limited powers, while the Tenth Amendment makes it clear that those limited powers not reserved to the federal government belong to the state "or to the people."  The Tenth Amendment, however, does not mean that states can play the dictator.  Indeed, since the Civil War, states have been subject to the same constraints as the federal government when it comes to using its police power over the people within its borders.  Thus, the second sentence in the Fourteenth Amendment states explicitly that ["]No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.["]

New York State Assembly Advancing Legislation to Create Involuntary COVID Quarantine Camps.  There are a lot of really good people in upstate New York and outside the boundaries of that crazy city they are best known for.  The New York state assembly passing a bill to set up involuntary COVID quarantine camps needs to be stopped right now.  This is nuts.  The bill is obtuse in the extreme, and grants the state permission to remove and detain someone defined as "a significant threat to public health."  Those of you who have watched the creation of Quarantine Camps in Australia, and those who noted the ongoing activity in Australia seems designed to be a beta test for the USA, will quickly see the common thread with this proposal in New York.

The Great Reset Crowd's Overreach Will Come Back to Bite Them.  So-called "democracies" around the world have proven during these last two years of COVID-1984 just how authoritarian their leaders really are.  They censor, compel, threaten, intimidate, and dole out physical and emotional punishments in as arbitrary and terrifying a manner as any mad king. [...] No matter how absurd the State's "politically correct" declarations, disagreement is now routinely labeled fascist.  If you disagree with the lie that boys can be girls, you're a fascist!  If you think killing the economy to change the weather is insane, you're a fascist!  Paradoxically, the only way not to be a fascist is to abide by everything the State decrees.  Only by believing and repeating everything our Western "elites" say are you then rewarded with their permission to be "free."  All they do is lie, call it truth, and wait for applause.  It's sickening stuff and the kind of shameless rhetorical tripe that only politicians can stomach.  However, this "Great Reset" planned takeover of the world through the subterfuge of a "health emergency" is beginning to sever the globalists' hypnotic control over the people, and those in power seem blind to what's surely coming next.

You Can No Longer Buy Gasoline In Australia Without Scanning A QR Code So The Gov Knows Exactly What You're Doing At All Times.  Just when you thought Australia could not get anymore dystopian, or Chinese, along comes the QR code checking scheme.  Watch as this guy is denied the ability to pay for his gas at a BP station with his credit card unless he first scans the QR code.  The owner of the station refuses him the ability to pay unless he tells the government where he is, what he's buying and how much.  Australia passed the mandatory QR code check-ins for businesses, used to aid COVID-19 contact tracing efforts but many question the massive privacy issues that come with such a program.  [Video clip]

Nine German Jackboot Thug Cops Bully And Take Away 80 Year Old Granny For Not Identifying Herself.  The optics of 9 giant cops putting a finger in the face of an 80-year-old granny while gripping her wrist is beyond these thugs.  This video has gone viral over Twitter and Facebook showing a gang of cops surrounding this elderly woman because she refused to give them her ID.  A police van is seen towards the end of the video pulling up to the curb and grandma is taken away as if she was a common street thug.  [Video clip]

The Opposite of Tyranny Is Not Democracy.  A big part of the "Great Reset" is its orchestrated campaign to condition people into believing they have no natural rights separate from and paramount to the mandates of government.  Most neoliberal nations no longer talk about the global ideological struggle once pitting "free" and "controlled" states against each other.  Why?  Because that distinction makes little sense when Australia is hunting down citizens for fleeing its quarantine concentration camps and Finland is putting Christianity on trial. [...] Sure, you can practice your faith, engage in commerce to make a living, and associate with like-minded citizens to protest the policies of your government.  Except during a pandemic.  Then all bets are off.  You didn't know that super-secret carve-out to your rights?  It's for your own good.  We're trying to save lives here! [...] Our priests inform us that there are new pandemics of uncontrollable racism and unpredictable weather heading our way, and you've figured out what happens during government-declared pandemics, right?  That's correct — all your rights get put back into storage for use at a later time.  So sorry.

This Is a Test You Need to Fail.  [Scroll down]  COVID-19 is a vital part of the project.  It remains the most monstrous human experiment in history, against every law, from every civilized country, including the Nuremberg Code.  After reading reports from several top COVID-19 experts, who are not afraid to speak, the reason for COVID-19 was the vaccine, not the other way around.  COVID-19 and the vaccine were used to introduce spike protein, a contrived, dangerous toxin, to kill off billions of people without anyone noticing it.  Now we have an engineered virus and a mandated vaccine.  The exposure to spike protein (the virus, vaccines, boosters) causes death within days for some (mandated to not be blamed on the vaccine until after 14 days), months and probably years for others.  But the cause and when the death took place is so diverse as to hide the culprit.  If people died immediately after the jab, people would know why.  Although few autopsies have been given after a COVID death, of the ones they did, the find was remarkable... spike protein was in every organ of the body.  The spike protein exacerbates every weakness in the body, so some die of heart attack, some cancer, some pneumonia, diabetes, any number of illnesses.  So, the death cannot be blamed on COVID or the vaccine.

Australia Has Fallen.  Is Our Nation Next?  Regular readers of world events have long since understood this fact — that Australia has turned into a fascist state reminiscent of The Children of Men.  Throughout the course of the past two years, we've witnessed the death of free speech in what was once a (relatively) free nation.  We've seen pregnant women arrested in front of their screaming children for Facebook posts which organized ACTUAL peaceful anti-slavery protests.  Police entered her home, told her she had broken the law for doing so, and took her away an hour before she had her ultrasound.  You can see the video of it below.  Your blood will boil.  [Video clip]

European Union Debates Reconstituting Nazi Medical Policy With Mandatory Medical Procedures and Abolishing Nuremberg Code.  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has taken the leading elements of a dark time in history and now openly advocates for their repetition.  Can these people not hear themselves?  This is madness.  Mrs. von der Leyen's husband is Heiko von der Leyen, the Director of the US biotech company Orgenesis which specializes in medical research to include cell and gene therapies.  Mr. Heiko von der Leyen organizes the scientific experiments, and then his wife Ursula advocates for forced vaccinations for all citizens within the European Union; and the removal of the prohibitive Nuremberg Code.  This would be a twisted and sick plot within a science fiction movie; however, it is very real.  Austria has already announced compulsory COVID vaccinations which will be enforced starting in February of 2022.  Greece has recently decided to fine all unvaccinated citizens €100 (£85) a month for their non compliance, and Germany announced Thursday a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated, as its leaders backed plans for mandatory vaccinations in the coming months.  Germany's incoming Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he supports compulsory vaccinations beginning in March 2022.  These European leaders are insane.

This information may come in handy someday.
Escape:  How to Evade Trackers and Tracking Dogs.  I wanted to share with you a few tips on evasion and how to avoid enemy capture when you are being searched for by canines and professional trackers.  As a kid, I used to track deer through the swamp.  Little did I know that what I was doing was preparing myself to be a human tracker as an adult. [...] A dog can be a great friend but it can also be used against you.  Dogs can be trained to track you for lengthy distances.  This is why evasion tactics are covered in the SERE training.  In the field application, tracker dogs are used while the trainees employ the survival skills of navigation, and how to get water, food, and warmth as they track their way through the wilderness.  Proper timing is also a key factor since it's not just about survival but also about evasion.  Beating dogs in their tracking is not an easy task unlike what you might have seen in Hollywood films.  The dogs don't bark; they only run as they sniff and the only time the canines bark is when you are on sight.  At this point, evading is quite tricky since your hideout is already revealed.

The Frogs Have Begun Fleeing the Government's Boiling Pot.  The federal government spies on every email, text, and call you make.  It uses your phone's location services to pinpoint where you are at all times.  It knows which I.P. addresses are associated with online comments that have been deemed "politically incorrect."  Its partnerships with Amazon and Walmart let it know what you're reading and buying.  Its partnerships with Google and Facebook let it know what you're thinking.  Its partnerships with Twitter and Hollywood allow it to censor unapproved messages before too many brains have the opportunity to consider new thoughts.  Its alliance with credit card companies allows it to track all your financial transactions and thereby understand your habits, preferences, choices, and addictions.  Its alliance with cellular companies allows it to monitor all your movements, contacts, and associations.  And all of these consumer comforts that are used by the "national security" surveillance state to watch everyone in real time constantly measure every American's potential for subversiveness, even when that American is engaged in the most mundane things during the course of an ordinary day.

Build Back Bummer:  Biden's Spending Spree Includes a Kill Switch for Your Car.  Remember the good ol' days of the Affordable Care Act?  Remember when Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the bill to learn what was in it?  Yeah, that was great, wasn't it?  Good times.  Well, hold on to your seatbelts, sports fans.  Biden's infrastructure bill promises to be an even bigger piñata filled with objects usually found in your cat's litterbox.  According to an op-ed by former Georgia Representative Bob Barr, the package contains a well-hidden item:  kill switches in cars.  Ostensibly, the device, whatever it is, will passively monitor the driver for indications of impaired operation and turn the car off if it decides there is a problem.  If that isn't enough overreach for you, get a load of this:  The system can be accessed by third parties.

Build Back Bummer:  Biden's Spending Spree Includes a Kill Switch for Your Car.  Remember the good ol' days of the Affordable Care Act?  Remember when Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the bill to learn what was in it?  Yeah, that was great, wasn't it?  Good times.  Well, hold on to your seatbelts, sports fans.  Biden's infrastructure bill promises to be an even bigger piñata filled with objects usually found in your cat's litterbox.  According to an op-ed by former Georgia Representative Bob Barr, the package contains a well-hidden item:  kill switches in cars.  Ostensibly, the device, whatever it is, will passively monitor the driver for indications of impaired operation and turn the car off if it decides there is a problem.  If that isn't enough overreach for you, get a load of this:  The system can be accessed by third parties.

DOJ Prosecutors Using Grand Jury to Subpoena Financial Records of 2020 Election Audit Groups.  The Washington Post is writing a story today [11/30/2021] about federal prosecutors using grand juries to subpoena the financial records of individuals and groups who were associated with the 2020 election audit efforts.  The motives here are very predictable. [...] The specifics of this first report surround attorney Sidney Powell and her 'Defend The Republic' organization, one of several individuals and groups who were raising money to support 2020 election audits.  The Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, and Patrick Byrne network are under review.  As you review the article it is important to note few key elements:  (1) The subpoena document's were leaked to the Washington Post by someone inside the investigation; that speaks toward the larger motive of the DOJ/FBI effort itself.  (2) The specific DOJ prosecutors are the same ones working hand-in-glove with the J6 committee.

CDC orders all US airlines to turn over names of passengers who've been in eight African countries facing travel restrictions due to the Omicron variant.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is ordering all airlines to turn over the names and other information of passengers who arrived in the U.S. from eight countries that are facing travel restrictions[.]  The directive, first reported on Wednesday by Reuters, has been issued in an effort to quickly identify and stop the spread of the Omicron variant.  The countries include Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

CNBC Pundit Calls Unvaxxed People "Psychotic", Demands U.S. Military Hunt Them Down, Force Vaccine or Force Quarantine.  This is one of the people inside the inner circle of Nancy Pelosi, a good personal friend.  As you watch this short video segment ask yourself about the mental stability of a person who would advocate publicly for American citizens to be hunted down by the U.S. military, vaccinated against their will or forcibly quarantined.  This was actually broadcast to the CNBC audience.  In a twisted display of irony, financial pundit Jim Cramer calls unvaccinated people "psychotic"?  [Video clip]

Domestic Travel Ban for Unvaccinated 'Not Off the Table' Says Psaki.  Even though Biden suspended his vaccine mandate for federal workers to save himself a few approval points, he's nevertheless looking for alternative ways to "force" people to get vaccinated, and a domestic travel ban is one such possibility. [...] However, like his vaccine mandate, a ban on domestic travel is also unconstitutional, as it is guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.  Unfortunately, the Biden administration doesn't even consider the Constitution as a guideline, let alone a set of rules.

Why Do People Willingly Sacrifice Their Freedom?  In the video above, Mattias Desmet, professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium, reviews the societal conditions under which a population ends up willingly sacrificing their freedom.  Desmet, who also has a master's degree in statistics, discovered peculiar anomalies in statistical analyses done during the COVID pandemic, which made him realize our global society is starting to enter a "mass formation" state, a type of "collective hypnosis" required for the rise of a totalitarian regime.  In this Aubrey Marcus podcast interview, Desmet reviews the step-by-step formula that results in this collective hypnosis, and how this formula has been deployed on the global population over the past two years.

Armed agents in Texas school district arrest concerned parents in their own homes.  The Round Rock Independent School District (RRISD) in Texas is using its own armed agents to arrest parents who speak out against the school board's policies, according to Christopher Rufo in the City Journal.  Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said:  "The battle lines are clear:  on one side, the Biden administration, public school bureaucrats, and their armed agents; on the other, parents and families who oppose school closures, mask mandates, critical race theory and corruption.  Public school officials have demonstrated a willingness to use police power to silence and intimidate their opponents."

On The Use Of Fear As A Government Tactic.  Perhaps a public debate on governmental lying and manipulation through the purveying of fear is about to begin.  God willing, it will.  I raise this hope because of a remarkable article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph (UK).  Excerpts follow.  No comment seems required, except the obvious:  This has been a Global phenomenon.  Which means:  coordinated.

Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was 'totalitarian', admit scientists.  Scientists on a committee that encouraged the use of fear to control people's behaviour during the Covid pandemic have admitted its work was "unethical" and "totalitarian".  Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) expressed regret about the tactics in a new book about the role of psychology in the Government's Covid-19 response.  SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase "the perceived level of personal threat" from Covid-19 because "a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened".  Gavin Morgan, a psychologist on the team, said:  "Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical.  Using fear smacks of totalitarianism.  It's not an ethical stance for any modern government.  By nature I am an optimistic person, but all this has given me a more pessimistic view of people."

Republicans Sound Alarm:  Claim ATF Moving Toward Gun Registry.  More than 50 Republican House members are warning the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, (ATF) may be quietly working behind the scenes to put a gun registry in place.  FOX News reports Rep. Mike Cloud (R-TX) and 50 of his colleagues sent a letter to ATF Director Marvin Richardson earlier this week, and used the letter to sound the alarm on a possible registry.  The Republicans warned that a proposed ATF rule change would put in place a requirement that Federal Firearm License holders (FFLs) preserve firearm transaction records that are beyond 20 years old.  McCloud warns that no such requirement currently exists, and instituting one effectively creates a de facto registry based off gun sales.

Destroying Democracy by 'Saving Democracy'.  Following the September 11 Attacks, it was common to hear liberals and Democrats bemoan the erasure of civil liberties by the federal government as the War on Terror ratcheted up.  The CIA, FBI, and other apparatuses of the security-surveillance state were assailed for their abuses of Constitutional civil liberties.  Now, however, these same people — sans a few — are mostly quiet.  In fact, they're not merely quiet anymore, many openly endorse letting loose the hounds of the security state on fellow Americans whom they deem their enemies. [...] They claim to be "saving democracy."  They claim to support "multiculturalism."  They claim to defend "diverse opinions." Except they don't.  They only democracy they care about is their propagandistic democracy; by forcing the majority of Americans to comply with their views they claim the democratic spirit lives on.

Too many religious institutions failed the COVID test.  What's been so disheartening during the past 20 months is the willingness with which religious institutions have gone along with the states' mandates.  In Canada, Rev. Artur Pawlowski has fought back, but no representatives from major religions have supported his efforts.  He embarrasses, rather than inspires, them.  The virtue of COVID is that it has separated the wheat from the chaff.  To the leftists, the people who are chaff are those who refuse to wear masks and get shots.  However, in the grander scheme of things, the chaff is those people who have used the virus as an opportunity for despotism and those people — including men and women of God — who have happily gone along with it.

California County Issues Mask Mandate for Private Homes Ahead of Thanksgiving.  Santa Cruz County in California issued a mask mandate for all indoor settings, including private homes, ahead of the holiday season.  The mandate went into effect at 11:59 p.m. on November 21 and requires "all individuals to wear a face covering when indoors regardless of vaccination status."  "Unfortunately, a potential winter surge appears to be a significant threat to the health and safety of our community," said Santa Cruz County Health Officer Dr. Gail Newel in the announcement.

The Editor says...
They're telling you what you can do inside your house because of a "potential winter surge" of a disease that's so terrible, many people don't even know they have it.  If you're going to live in fear of a "potential winter surge," you should at least be afraid of something that is likely to happen, and much more likely to affect us all.  Like a winter surge in the price of gasoline.

Unvax Tax:  Expert Proposes Monthly Fines for the Unvaccinated.  Vice President of the Lower Austrian Medical Association Gerrit Loibl has suggested that the government should levy a monthly fine of up to €100 to anyone unvaccinated.  Loibl has suggested that those who have not been vaccinated should pay between €90 and €100 (£78-£84/$90-$113) per month to the government, claiming that the amount is based on the current tax on tobacco products.

The Editor says...
It's only a hundred dollars.  In Austria, you could spend that much on a tank of gas.  And this tax will never increase, right?

Leaked HHS Memo Reveals Biden Admin Seeks to Strip Americans of Religious Protections.  A leaked memo from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reveals plans by the Biden administration to make changes to Americans' First Amendment rights and other religious liberty protections.  The internal memo describes plans to "sign delegation of authority on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and religion clause of the First Amendment" to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).  It's a move that Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford believes will undo religious liberty protections and disregard the First Amendment.

My Hippie Vietnam War Professor Was Right About the Dangers of the Patriot Act.  [Scroll down]  Currently, the federal government is isolating and targeting very different enemies of the state than it was in 2001, to say the least.  Among these are soccer moms who don't like their sons being taught that their sex and skin color makes them guilty of some ancestral sin that justifies their having become the victims of perpetual discrimination in applying to college or a job.  They are fathers who don't like the idea that a 16-year-old boy who is pretending that he's a girl can share a shower with his 16-year-old daughter after volleyball practice.  They are parents who don't like that their elementary schoolchildren are being told that they may truly be something other than a boy or a girl, or that they should sexually experiment upon themselves.  They are racial minorities who don't like that their sons and daughters are being taught that they're perpetual victims in America, or that phantom impediments to success are oppressing them.  And many among all of those parents take issue with their children being taught that their race is anything more than an immutable trait that is profoundly unimportant relative to kindness, intelligence, work ethic, and what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to as "character" when relating his famous dream to the American people.  Today, the federal enforcement mechanisms meant to combat terrorism, including those of the Patriot Act, are being used against all of those Americans with whom a clear majority ideologically and politically agree.

How do you teach millions of people to obey the State?  [Scroll down]  I would ask those people who do not yet see clearly what is going on in the United States to ask themselves whether they have less or more freedom than they did two years ago and, if they're old enough, whether they have less or more freedom than they did before the national security surveillance state came into existence after 9/11.  And then I would ask one more question:  in the last century of the U.S. government claiming new powers for itself during some "emergency crisis" sold to the American people as a temporary expedience, has any of those "emergency powers" over the people ever been relinquished?  Governments, by their nature, will illegitimately accrue power until the people they insist on ruling have had enough and begin pushing back.  That, too, is an unequivocal yet painful lesson remembered and relinquished by man through the centuries.  Again, that is where we are today.

FBI Used Unnecessary Brute Force On America's Mom Founder.  Sherronna Bishop tells of horrific FBI harassment during a raid on her home, and abuse of her children.  [Video clip]

Mother Describes FBI Raiding Her Home For Speaking Out Against Election Fraud & Radical School Boards.  A Colorado mother explained a harrowing account of the FBI raiding her home for speaking out against far-left officials on her local city council.  Sherronna Bishop, founder of activist group America's Mom, joined Steve Bannon's War Room on Saturday to describe how a SWAT team rammed down her door and terrorized her children as they handcuffed her and dragged her away on Tuesday.  "I have always been available, and yet they chose to come to my home in this way: break down my door, terrorize my family, and put me in cuffs," Bishop said.

Showdown! Will the Cops and Military Go Along With This?  [Of course they will!]  [Video clip]

First Mom Raided By FBI Since October 4th DOJ Memorandum?  An FBI SWAT team raided the home of an activist mother of three in Colorado on Tuesday, Nov. 16, knocking down her door, bursting into the house and handcuffing her while she was homeschooling her children.  This is the first known case of the federal government making good on its promise to not only intimidate but actually carry out a raid on a mom who was involved in her local school board politics, said Brannon Howse, who interviewed Sheronna Bishop on his live broadcast at Lindell TV Wednesday night. [...] The U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland issued an Oct. 4 memorandum directing federal, state and local law enforcement to look for parents to prosecute nationwide who may have made "threats" and made "harassing" phone calls to school board members nationwide, equating such parents to domestic terrorists.  Now a mother, Sheronna Bishop of Grand Junction, Colorado, has felt the brute force of the FBI's heavily armed SWAT unit used against her family.

The Ten Stages of Genocide Are Hitting a Little Too Close to Home.  [Stage 7] Preparation:  The victims of future mass killing are identified, separated, and forced to wear distinguishing symbols.  You didn't think the Biden regime was collecting information on gun-owners in order to fight crime, did you?  You didn't think using the Post Office to spy on Americans' social media accounts was for their own good, right?  Why are Democrats pushing so hard to expand the IRS's snooping powers into every American's checking account?  The U.S. government is busy making its list and deciding right now whether you've been naughty or nice.  [Stage 8] Persecution:  Governments begin forcing members of victim groups into special camps.  If Australia's or Canada's efforts to build internment camps for the "unvaccinated" seem like foreign news, perhaps the state of Washington's efforts to do the same thing should pique Americans' interest.  How does one distinguish among quarantine, internment, and concentration camps anyway?

The Continued American Awakening of The FBI as an Official Enforcement Mechanism of The Fourth Branch of Government.  The FBI is a U.S. version of the Russian "State Police"; and the FBI is deployed — almost exclusively — to attack domestic enemies of those who control government; while they protect the interests of the U.S. Fourth Branch of Government.  That is the clear and accurate domestic prism to contextualize their perceived mission: "domestic violent extremists pose the greatest threat" to their objective.  Put another way, "We The People", who fight against government abuse and usurpation, are the FBI's actual and literal enemy.  Let me be very clear with another brutally obvious example.  Antifa could not exist as an organization; capable to organize and carry out violent attacks against their targets; without the full support of the FBI.  If the FBI wanted to arrest members of Antifa, who are actually conducting violence, they could do it easily — with little effort.  It is the absence of any action by the FBI toward Antifa, that tells us the FBI is enabling that violent extremist behavior to continue.  Once you accept that transparent point of truth; then, you realize the FBI definition of domestic violent extremism is something else entirely.  The FBI is not a law enforcement or investigative division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  The FBI is a political weapon of a larger institution that is now focused almost entirely toward supporting a radical communist agenda to destroy civil society in the United States.

Yes, Austria will lock down all of the unvaccinated... permanently?  It appears that Austria and Australia will soon have more in common than most of the letters in their names.  We previously learned that unvaccinated Australians will be looking at being essentially confined to their homes for the foreseeable future following sweeping new government mandates.  But now the government of Austria is preparing to follow suit.  Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg made the unofficial announcement on Friday [11/12/2021], with an official order expected in the next few days.  After seeing another surge in new COVID cases, Austria's government had already put a number of restrictions in place, but under the new order, there won't be any wiggle room left.  Also, the number of people under mandatory vaccination orders is being expanded.  The lockdown order initially only covers two regions, but on Sunday they plan to take it nationwide.

Six Details That Reveal [the] Long Reach of Biden's Vaccine Mandate.  President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for private employers often is described as requiring employees of large companies either to be vaccinated or be tested weekly.  But when you dig into the details, the mandate is far more invasive than that.  Nonvaccinated employees must wear masks, even if they are being tested weekly.  Employers must maintain records of employees' vaccination status.  Employees who lie to their employers about their vaccination status could face up to five years imprisonment, while employers who do not comply with the mandate face fines of $13,653 per violation.  The Biden administration is trying to make noncompliance with the federal government's legally dubious vaccine mandate a dangerous proposition for employers and employees.  "We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin," Biden said in a Sept. 9 speech in which he announced the coming vaccine mandate.  The Labor Department then issued an emergency rule that requires businesses and other organizations with 100 or more employees to get a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.  The mandate is intended to supersede state laws.

What Is an America that Holds Prisoners Indefinitely without Charging Them?  The U.S. is facing a serious constitutional crisis over the handling of the cases of defendants in the Jan. 6 so-called "insurrection" in Washington, D.C. to protest the presidential election modus operandi and the results.  Those being held for many months without a trial are being denied their habeas corpus rights under the U.S. Constitution and even dating back to English law hundreds of years before our Constitution was implemented.  Not only are they being incarcerated without having had a trial, but there is some evidence that they are being mistreated or are being held 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, which is a punishment accorded only the most dangerous criminals, such as serial killers and terrorists.  What are habeas corpus rights?  According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "[h]abeas corpus is a fundamental right in the Constitution that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment.  Translated from Latin it means 'show me the body.'  Habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument to safeguard individual freedom against arbitrary executive power."  A citizen must be charged and cannot be held indefinitely.  A charge requires a trial, and, if found guilty in a trial, there is a sentence for a specific amount of time.

Australians Beg The World For Help.  Australia, as we once knew it, no longer exists.  Australians are no longer 'young and free.'  Instead, Australians are discriminated against, pitted against each other, blackmailed, pressured, beaten, and stripped of their rights.  It has become a country where you can no longer move and speak freely.  Protesting is prohibited, police officers must enforce controversial measures to keep their jobs, and police shoot protesters in the back as they run away.  Doctors and nurses who speak out lose their license to practice medicine, and others lose their jobs if they refuse "the jab."  More and more children are isolated and attempting suicide.

How did we get here?  Can this mess be fixed?  We have entered a dark age.  Truth, not always abundantly obvious, has been increasingly shrouded thanks to the growing cynicism and polarization of our day.  The condition is getting worse by the day. [...] The president of the United States, unable to persuade half the nation of his "truth" about the only solution to the threat of COVID, has resorted to force.  You will wear a mask.  You will distance yourself from other human beings.  You will be injected with an experimental drug despite its adverse effects on health in the short term and utterly unknown and unknowable effects in the long term.  End of discussion.  How far has this thinking been extended?  In previous diktats from on high, there have been exceptions allowed for conscience and religious beliefs.  Not on Joe Biden's watch.  The path was cleared for this tyranny by the medical establishment, media, Big Tech, and corporate America suppressing all dissenting views.  Freedom of speech has morphed into freedom to agree.

Vaccine Mandates — What's the End Game?  Vaccine passports and QR codes are already balkanizing the world, creating a new group of socio-economic pariahs, blocking the unalienable rights of many for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Other countries are taking an even more extreme approach.  Unvaccinated Australians will remain in virtual prison until at least 2023, their key freedoms eliminated.  Similar restrictions are in place in Germany, and America is following suit.  Will this all be temporary or permanent?  Eventually herd immunity will be reached via natural infection and vaccinations and such draconian restrictions will no longer be necessary.  Or will they?  Power is addictive, an aphrodisiac to those charged with representing their people.  Now it's vaccines, but what next?  Once a population is compliant, beaten down by fear and shame, they are less likely to resist present and future controls, regardless of founding documents or natural law.  Law enforcement and the military can squash any pockets of rebellion, as we know from history, whether Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, or Mao's China.  The courts may temporarily halt the mandates, but there will be appeals, likely all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and there is no way of predicting how that will end.  Do mandates even matter if companies are taking it upon themselves to enforce vaccinations with the noncompliant being fired?

The Biden Regime Will Turn the Military on the People Unless We Push Back.  "The coldest of all cold monsters." That is what the modern state is.  Nietzsche's devastating analysis in Thus Spoke Zarathustra hit the nail on the head:  the state is an engine of death.  It wages war on the people, its agents are "annihilators" who seek the destruction of everything vital and potent.  All who witnessed the last 18 months of the COVID regime and the biomedical tyranny imposed by Joe Biden and his handlers implicitly understand what Nietzsche meant.  The bureaucrats who make up the arm of the state, who serve this cold monster, hate the people.  They make their lives miserable.  Lockdowns, vax mandates, mask orders, critical race theory in schools, transgender bathrooms ... the list goes on and on.  Ritual humiliation is the point.  The agents of state power see themselves as the rightful masters of the people.  To these creatures of the institutions, citizens are nothing but human resources to be bent to their malformed will.  This perverse view extends even to the American military.  The time is coming, soon, in which the armed forces will be turned openly against the people.  The Biden inauguration lockdown in D.C. — replete with checkpoints, thousands of national guardsmen, and the full weight of the nation's security apparatus — was only a taste of things to come.

One minute before midnight
One Minute Before Midnight.  The clock shows one minute before midnight.  This is it.  No exaggeration.  But that clock isn't illustrating the time Earth has left until it is consumed by man-caused climate change.  Instead, it is telling us how little time remains before the United States, erstwhile land of the free and home of the brave, becomes just another sterile authoritarian state.  Before it is too late to reign in a tyrannical government that has made a mockery of the Founders' vision of limited government of, by, and for the people.  A government that is now openly of, by, and for itself.  A government that is rapidly becoming as opaque, dishonest and abusive as those it used to challenge and even fight.


Second-Class Citizens in Biden's America.  A definition of a second-class citizen is a person belonging to a social, economic, or political group whose rights and opportunities are inferior to those of the dominant group in society.  We are witnessing the societal standing of a large segment of the American people being increasingly diminished by the policies of the Biden administration and numerous current events.  Consequently, the collective standing of today's so-called deplorables is being increasingly relegated by our political system to expendables.  Big Government aligned with left-leaning Big Business, the permanent Administrative State, the mainstream media, Big Tech and social media, the entertainment world, and our educational and academic establishments is in the process of radically transforming our way of government and ultimately the nature of our society.  The parties mentioned above collectively are often referred to as the elites, the Establishment, or the Deep State.  On the other hand, the deplorables constitute a large segment of all middle- and working-class Americans.

Rise of the Vaccine Bullies.  [Scroll down]  Fast-forward to 2021, and the positional bullies unite behind a propaganda success: the "pandemic."  As bullies are wont to do, they bark orders that hurt people, destroy lives.  School districts close schools, rob kids of a normal childhood, take away once-in-a-lifetime occasions like proms and graduations, inflict long-term damage to kids' education and future earnings.  Governors order states shut down for weeks, months.  On reopening, they parcel out freedom, just certain businesses and partial openings.  This reign of terror closed 200,000 businesses for good — not just storefronts, but real people, real incomes stolen, real lives destroyed.  However, those tyrannical crackdowns were just a prelude to the big push, the real exercise of control over the people, the vaccine.  They started out asking nicely, but then orders started to fly.  Federal workers, military, have to take the jab.  Then corporatism (economic fascism) rears its ugly head when companies team up with government to issue ultimatums.  You want to eat, you want your kids to have a home and clothes, you want health insurance for your family, then you will take the jab.  No excuses, no exceptions.

How Much Would You Like to Be a Serf?  While the idea of "lords and ladies" may seem like ancient history, the fact is that the reactionary thinking of the court intelligentsia is still very much with us.  The leaders of today's Democrat party view themselves as more intelligent and entitled than the mass of deplorables whom they were born to govern.  Not just that:  The intelligentsia is determined to eliminate the middle class, whose values and political interests are so much opposed to their own insistence on centralized control.  To this end, today's progressives are doing all they can to block the path to the middle class — a path that expanded dramatically under President Trump.  It is not in the left's interest to have a broad, inquisitive, educated, assertive middle class demanding the right to govern themselves.

The Danger for Mankind Is Not the Climate, but Toleration of a Devious Policy that Uses Climate To Destroy Us!  All the symptoms of a collapsing system are right before our eyes, if we care to see them:  an economic system in which the balance between cost and benefit is totally out of balance, an accelerating hyperinflation that devours our earnings, a good healthcare system that only the rich can afford, an education system that teaches neither excellence nor moral values, an out-of-control woke culture that turns people against each other, a disastrous geopolitical confrontation policy against alleged rivals — and the list could go on and on!  All these manifestations of crisis have a common cause:  We in the West are living under the dictatorship of a financial oligarchy, for which the common good is nonexistent, and whose sole interest is to maximize its own privileges.  An oligarchy that needs "endless wars" to generate income for its military-industrial complex, and promotes the production and distribution of mind-destroying drugs, both illegal and legalized, the latter because the financial system would have collapsed long ago without the input of laundered drug money.  And given that this system is now hopelessly bankrupt, the entire economic and financial system is now supposed to be converted to so-called green technologies in a final great coup — the Great Reset.  Under the pretext of climate protection, the motto for this conversion is "Shifting the Trillions."  And it's happening now!

Obama's Police State Dream Is Coming True.  The U.S. Capitol Police have been authorized to open field offices in two states, Florida and California, ostensibly to investigate threats against members of Congress.  A Capitol Police spokesperson said additional field offices will be opening, prompting fears of a massive federal law enforcement overreach:  the nightmare scenario of a police state.  I predict the Capitol Police expansion is a move toward abolishing all state and local law enforcement agencies, and replacing them with a nationwide federal law enforcement presence.  Why?  Because according to Democrats, state and local police departments are racist institutions that keep the boot of white supremacy on the neck of black America.

New Hampshire and Pennsylvania Join Ohio, Missouri and Withdraw from the National School Boards Association.  Four states have decided to terminate their National School Boards Association membership over a letter comparing the parents to domestic terrorists.  The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Ohio and Missouri School Board Associations terminated their membership with the NSBA.  The New Hampshire School Boards Association is the latest to leave the NSBA after it sent a letter to Biden that begs him to use federal law enforcement agencies against parents and investigate them for "domestic terrorism and hate crime threats."  The National School Board was so outraged that parents were speaking out in defense of their children that they shamelessly urged the DOJ to use the Patriot Act, among other "enforceable actions" against them.

Montana Memo Revealed:  DOJ Blueprint to Persecute and Intimidate Parents.  During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday [10/27/2021], Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that he does not intend to retract an October 4 Department of Justice directive vowing to target parents at school board meetings.  The DOJ directive was based fully on a September 29 letter signed by Viola M. Garcia, EdD and Chip Slaven, Esq. from the National School Board Association (NSBA).  After much pushback, the NSBA stated on October 22 that they "regret and apologize for the letter."  Despite the NSBA apology, Attorney General Merrick Garland is doubling down on his quest to persecute and intimidate parents.  Garland also denied knowing about a memo originating in Montana from the Acting United States Attorney's office.

Virginia mother says feds, helicopter showed up at school board meeting and she's received 'daily threats'.  A mother of six in Fairfax County, Virginia said Wednesday that federal agents, including unmarked vehicles and a helicopter, were present at a recent local school board meeting.  "This is something that is incredible in America and it's ridiculously un-American," said Stacy Langton during an appearance on "Fox & Friends."  Langton shared a photo on Twitter of a Department of Homeland Security vehicle as well as several "ghost cars," which could have been either unmarked local or federal vehicles.  In addition, Langton said a helicopter flew overhead, shining its spotlight down on the event.

Will Governments Survive the Coming Peasant Revolt?  Let's talk big picture here.  Why has the world been turned on its head these last few years?  Why does it seem as if everything true is labeled false and everything false is labeled true? [...] Let's start with three premises:
  [#1]   All governing systems (political, financial, technocratic) operate to preserve and expand their power.
  [#2]   Catastrophic governing failure leads to complete loss of power for those in charge.
  [#3]   Governing systems in the process of failing compensate by eliminating competition and increasing overall control.
In other words, even the most free and dynamic social systems degrade over time as the people who govern those systems distort them in pursuit of greater personal wealth and power.  Corrupted systems eventually lead to breakdown and collapse.  As collapse nears, social systems become so vulnerable to unsanctioned actions and ideas that they close themselves off.  Freedom is replaced with tyranny.  This is by design.

MSNBC host agrees:  Unvaccinated should be denied access to basic goods and services.  MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan supports segregating those who are unvaccinated against the coronavirus and denying them access to basic goods and services.  Remember, folks:  It's about public health.  It's definitely not a new-age religious cult whose most zealous adherents believe the path to salvation is through punishing the wicked "unbelievers."  Hasan's comments in support of isolating the unvaccinated came this week in reference to public remarks made by left-wing luminary Noam Chomsky (he's still alive, by the way).  Chomsky said this week during an interview with Curt Jaimunga that the issue of vaccine mandates — that is, forcing the unvaccinated to accept vaccines or face a specific set of consequences — is a "mixed story."  He suggested there must be some compromise struck between individual liberties and public health, adding that society itself should form a sort of "social convention" wherein the unvaccinated are pushed into isolation.

Our Phoney War.  A blitzkrieg was launched against us in 2020, beginning with a virus, progressing to censorship of medical information, loss of livelihoods, coerced inoculation, and now threatening control of our lives by electronic passports.  The "vaccines" must be universally accepted, against medical contraindications, moral objections, and whether or not they cause death and debilitating injuries.  We gamely agreed to two weeks to flatten the curve, and now it's been two years, with no signs of retreat.  Evil is a tapeworm; it never gets enough.  If American institutions and agencies are deliberately deceiving and manipulating us, that's not poor judgment; that's evil.  If the pandemic was planned, if the virus was lab-engineered, if news of effective treatments was silenced to create conditions into which a lucrative vaccine could be introduced, and if that vaccine causes more damage than good while being forced on the population... that's evil on a grand scale.  It is utterly futile to hope that it will go away on its own and allow us to have our "normality" back. [...] War has been declared, not by a foreign enemy, but by the very domestic institutions we have trusted in the past.

Are Parents a National Security Threat?  In case you've not heard, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has mobilized against a new and unprecedented "threat" of "criminal conduct" facing the nation.  So grave is this menace that the FBI has marshaled the National Threat Operations Center (NTOC), the DOJ's Criminal Division, National Security Division, Civil Rights Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, the Community Relations Service, and the Office of Justice Programs.  What's provoked such a massive federal response?  Is it the mass infiltration of our southern borders, Cartel criminal enterprises, child-sex traffickers, Antifa-inspired riots in our inner cities, or the biggest jump in American homicide rates in 60 years?  Sorry, but none of these actual woes are considered sufficiently serious for such sweeping federal action.  It's taken something far more ominous:  parents of school-aged children.  Specifically, the DOJ is worried about vocal parents at school board meetings upset over critical race theory (CRT) indoctrination being imposed on their kids in public schools.

Chomsky: Starve The Unvaxxed Into Submission.  Leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky in a recent interview endorsed segregating the unvaccinated from society and denying them food in a neo-Bolshevik Holodomor 2.0 strategy to starve them into submission.  "Such people have to be — they should have the decency to remove themselves from the community, if they refuse to do that, then measures have to be taken to safeguard the community from them," Chomsky told the Primo Radical YouTube show over the weekend.  "Then comes the practical question that you asked:  How can we get food to them?  Well, that's actually their problem."   "Of course, if they really become destitute then yes you have to move in with some measure to secure their survival, just as you do with people in jail," Chomsky said.

No matter what the public wants, crises typically leave the state more powerful.  Americans who notice an increase in the size and intrusiveness of government since COVID-19 first appeared in headlines may wonder whether this will be a permanent condition.  The short answer:  probably.  History suggests that we're unlikely to see government fully return to its preexisting constraints even after everybody agrees the pandemic has passed along with whatever debatable need there might have been for officials to expand their reach.  But that lingering inflation of state power will continue over the objections of a public that has lost its taste for an activist state. [...] In 2020, as politicians warned that we faced death by this new disease unless we shuttered businesses, sheltered indoors, and avoided one another, a rare majority of 54 percent thought government should take on a more active role.  The only other time Gallup has registered a popular preference for bigger government was 20 years ago, which is a hint at the dynamic that's at play. [...] That surge in trust in government resulted in the Patriot Act and the Transportation Security Administration.  Which is to say, the public was quickly disabused of the notion that the state was worthy of such trust.

The Pandemic in Perpetuity.  [Scroll down]  But in the context of the pandemic, many of the justifications for lockdowns and mandates contain the seeds of something darker.  Rather than a coherent vision of the scope and purpose of political freedom, the invocations of everything from "civil liberties" to "public health" often read more like ideological window dressing for the raw assertion of power.  We have learned many things about ourselves, and one another, in the course of the past year and a half.  The coronavirus has taught us that at least some portion of our country — although it is difficult to discern exactly how much — is now distinctly uncomfortable with the kind of freedoms that Americans enjoyed before March 2020.

National School Board Association Apologizes for Its Part in Attorney General's 'Domestic Terrorist' Letter.  In this week's Congressional Oversight hearings, Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked about the infamous letter which labeled parents who express opposition to a school board's agenda as "domestic terrorists." [...] After much fallout from the letter and the testimony pointing to NSBA coordinating with the White House, the organization has issued [...] an apology. [...] While it's commendable that they reinforce the importance of a parent's role in their child's education and their right to be part of the decisions about said education, this full-throated support of parents should have been issued by NSBA months ago, especially after the mess in Loudoun County, instead of the condemnation they sent.  This is a self-inflicted wound, and something they should have been smart enough to avoid.

Where's the apology from the Attorney General?
National School Boards Association Apologizes for Letter Comparing Parents to Terrorists.  The National School Boards Association has apologized for a letter that called on the Biden administration to investigate whether alleged threats against school-board members constituted domestic terrorism.  The NSBA Board of Directors apologized in a memorandum to members on Friday.  The initial letter, sent on September 29, asked the administration to investigate whether alleged threats to school-board members, over masking policies and "propaganda purporting the false inclusion of critical race theory" in lessons, necessitated federal investigation.

The DOJ Targets Domestic Terrorists — AKA Angry Americans.  Merrick Garland is taking political weaponization of the DoJ to a whole new level.  It started with the National Association of School Boards (NASB) asking the DoJ for protection against protesting parents.  You know, those parents who have objections to making gender fluid racists out of their children.  They should know that what schools choose to teach their kids is none of their business — just ask Terry McAuliffe.  Luckily, the NASB's union backers have been paying for influence for many years.  Now they're cashing in their chits for a little consideration.  The NASB has asked that the DoJ treat misbehaving parents as domestic terrorists, with the full capabilities of the Patriot Act brought to bear.

AG Garland's testimony only begs more questions.  Why is DOJ monitoring parents?  The Attorney General insists there was nothing to be worried about because the FBI would simply be monitoring what these parents say or do at school meetings.  Promises of such "unobtrusive" investigations or operations ignore the obvious: any national enforcement or monitoring effort is, by definition, obtrusive — particularly when it comes to free speech.  Garland's testimony came after the Justice Department announced that it would initiate a national effort to "address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff," including "open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response."

Deleted Government Report Celebrates How Public Loves to "Conform".  A deleted government report exploring how to make the public alter its behavior to accept the new 'green economy' reveals how COVID-19 restrictions have created a population with a "deep set reverence" for authority and a "powerful tendency to conform."  The report was inadvertently published by the British government before being hastily pulled down, but numerous journalists were able to retrieve its contents.  The document explored how to weaponize behavioral psychology to 'nudge' the public into supporting measures and adopting behavior without them explicitly knowing they're being manipulated.  The investigation found that the same techniques the government used to force people into accepting lockdown could be used to make them change their lifestyles in the name of preventing climate change.

Democrats aim to make anyone who disagrees with them an enemy of the state.  Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-The Moon) made the Democratic position clear Thursday:  If you're not with us, you're terrorists.  During his opening statement for the Attorney General Merrick Garland hearing, Nadler said there was no difference between the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and parents who are angry about what is being taught in schools.  "This growth in extremist ideology is echoed in an epidemic of violence and intimidation directed at our health care professionals, teachers, essential workers, school board members and election workers," Nadler said.  Nadler, a partisan loon who spent the past four years stirring up every conspiracy theory against President Trump, claimed there was a "broader pattern" here, including "the growing threats of violence against public servants."

White House Knew About Letter That Compared Parents to Domestic Terrorists.  The country's largest school board association collaborated with the Biden White House before sending a controversial letter calling on the FBI to investigate parents as potential domestic terrorists, according to previously unreported emails.  The emails, obtained by Parents Defending Education through public records requests and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, reveal that the National School Board Association's president and CEO sent the letter to Biden on Sept. 29 without approval from the organization's board.  The letter said that the acts of some parents at school board meetings across the country could be considered "a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes."  The emails also show that the White House asked the association for examples of threats against school board members days before Attorney General Merrick Garland created a task force of officials from the FBI and the Justice Department to determine how to prosecute alleged crimes at school board meetings.

The Specter of One World Government Looms Large.  The U.N.'s Agenda 2030 is still in place, and the clock is ticking toward its empowerment — only eight years and two-plus months to go.  This Agenda is for a new world government, which will implement the policies of the Agenda.  This new government on our horizon explains many of the failures in policies in these first months of the Biden administration.  The failures are based not so much on mistakes as on deliberate sabotage to weaken our country, dilute the power that undergirds our sovereignty, and prepare us to accept one world government.  The seed ideas for Agenda 2030 began with Pres.  Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations in his Fourteen Points at the end of WWI. [...] With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, all right-thinking persons can see that Woodrow Wilson's first giant step toward globalism was rightly rejected.  The League was a complete failure in terms of bringing peace to the world.  To the German Nazi government, the League was a joke.

Chicago Mayor says police union is trying to 'induce an insurrection'.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently said the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police were trying to "induce an insurrection" by pushing back against vaccine mandates.  Au contraire.  It is Mayor Lightfoot that is trying to subvert the Constitution, take away personal autonomy and — ironically — institute a police state.  Tyrannical Democrats — and there don't appear to be many that don't fit that description today — are now accusing any group of people standing up for their inherent rights of fomenting an "insurrection."  A few hundred people walking through the Capitol wearing MAGA hats or Viking horns?  Insurrection!  A handful of parents vociferously disagreeing with a school board's attempt to shamelessly indoctrinate their kids?  Insurrection!  A union of public safety officers publicly stating that they own their own bodies?  Insurrection!  Forget to put your car license tabs on by the expiration date?  Insurrection!  For the same reasons, Democrats and their media sycophants now label anything with which they disagree "misinformation."  This is the most dangerous time in American history since the Civil War.

Judge says Chicago police union not allowed to discourage members from getting vaccinated for covid.  Cook County Circuit Judge Cecilia A. Horan has ordered Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara to stop discouraging the city's police force from taking the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) "vaccine."  In Horan's opinion, Catanzara does not have any First Amendment rights when it comes to telling his police officers that getting injected might not be in their best interests.  On Oct. 15 following a lengthy emergency hearing on a request for injunctive relief that was filed by the city early in the day, Horan proclaimed that Catanzara must immediately stop trying to help police officers avoid the deadly clot shot, which stands a good chance of killing them.  Last week, Catanzara urged Chicago police officers to not comply with the city's mandate requiring them to tell the government whether or not they got injected with one of Donald "father of the vaccine" Trump's "Operation Warp Speed" injections.

'Australia going full CCP': Aussies look to crack down on bikers, require tattoos to be covered.  Western Australia, an Australian state that comprises 32.9 percent of the continent, is being compared to Nazi Germany or Communist China over a controversial new proposal to ban biker gang members from showing off their tattoos or hanging out together in public.  Set to be voted on by the Parliament of Western Australia sometime soon, the Unlawful Consorting and Prohibited Insignia Bill explicitly stipulates that biker gang members are "banned from wearing their patches and associating with one another in public."  The Sydney Morning Herald notes that a "patch" includes any type of "insignia, including tattoos."

Parents aren't Terrorists, Mr. President.  They're Americans with Something to Say.  [Scroll down]  They are not insurrectionists.  They are not terrorists.  They are parents.  All of this, CRT and its offshoots, the sheer racism of it, the arrogance of the educrats and the White House putting the federal squeeze on dissenting parents, would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.  If you had prophesized the things I'm writing about now, you'd have been considered a madman with a tin-foil hat.  But all this is certainly thinkable now, isn't it?  Because it's happening now.  And there is an effort by legacy, corporate media — which tells itself it speaks truth to power but serves as the thought guardians of the regime — to downplay what's going on at school boards.

US Civil Rights Commissioners Ask Blistering Questions About Garland Labeling Parents as 'Domestic Terrorists'.  The more I see Attorney General Merrick Garland in action the more I count America's lucky stars that the then-Senate Majority Leader kept this guy [...] away from the United States Supreme Court — which no doubt still angers the chief law enforcement official of our country.  Shudder the thought.  Before we continue, let's get one thing straight.  While the Attorney General serves at the pleasure of the president of the United States and is the chief legal counsel of the President, the Attorney General is not the president's personal lawyer nor that of the president's party; the Attorney General is the federal government's chief lawyer.  That applied to Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr under Trump — much to Trump's chagrin — and it applies to Merrick Garland, as he has admitted.  The problem being Garland is not practicing what he preaches.  And now "the rest of the story." [...]

Democrats face growing storm over IRS reporting provision.  Democrats are facing a firestorm of criticism over a proposal to increase the amount of bank account information reported to the IRS, posing a challenge as they craft their wide-ranging social spending bill.  The proposal is a top priority of the Biden administration, which argues it will help the IRS go after wealthy tax cheats.  But it has come under a barrage of attacks from banks and Republicans, who say it raises significant privacy concerns.  Financial institutions have been mobilizing their customers to speak out against the proposal to lawmakers.

School Boards and Idiots.  We were puzzled by Garland's preposterous memorandum ordering the FBI to investigate angry parents showing up at school board meetings as "domestic terrorists," but AFL, in a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, makes a credible series of factual assertions about the genesis of this outrageous order.  The AFL correctly reminds that the "Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized "parents' right to control and direct the education of their own children." They note the large, ongoing protests by parents against Critical Race Theory indoctrination, "anti-religious and anti-family gender ideology," and forced masking and online education mandates.  The genesis of the Garland memorandum in AFL's telling was an effort of Biden-supporting outfits, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, to intimidate dissenting parents. [...] Inside the Department of Justice, staff raised concerns about legal and constitutional authority to interfere with parent protests.  The outside group chosen to provide a colorable nexus for interfering with those rights was the National School Boards Association, which wrote to Garland citing the Patriot Act and demanding federal aid.  Within days, on October 4, Garland made public his memorandum.

Bill Ayers, a Familiar Face in the Birth of Critical Race Theory.  After Attorney General Merrick Garland sicced the FBI on unruly parents protesting Critical Race Theory (CRT) at school board meetings, it came to light that Garland had a dog in the fight.  That dog is son-in-law Xan Tanner, co-founder of Panorama Education, a leading distributor of CRT materials.  Among the materials Panorama has recommended for educators is an essay by terrorist emeritus and Obama pal Bill Ayers. [...] What Ayers thinks would matter less were it not for his outsized influence on the educational philosophy of former president Barack Obama.  Were Obama merely a former president, his thinking would not matter much, either.  But Obama may be more than that.  Even Tucker Carlson has openly speculated that Obama is the guy running the show at the White House.  What seems clear is that Joe Biden is not.

State votes to withdraw from National School Boards Assoc. over 'domestic terror' letter.  The Pennsylvania School Boards Association is one of 11 state school boards that are officially disavowing the National School Boards Association for asking the FBI to label parents protesting educational policies at school board meetings as "domestic terrorists."  In a statement following a vote to cancel membership in the National School Boards Association, the PSBA noted that the recent letter to President Joe Biden that seemed to suggest concerned parents could be considered "domestic terrorists" was the "final straw" in the decision to exit the national school board group.

Schools Group That Urged Attorney General's Anti-Parent Initiative Has Ties to Democrats, Unions.  The National School Boards Association, which urged the Biden administration to use federal law enforcement to investigate parents who speak out on local education matters as potential domestic terrorists, has political ties to the Democratic Party and labor unions.  The national association represents members of locally elected school boards, which usually are officially nonpartisan, and is a federation of state school board associations.  Although most funding for the National School Boards Association comes from state school boards, the National Education Association — the nation's largest teachers union and a major donor to Democrat candidates — contributed in the past two years.  The teachers union contributed $68,000 to the national association in 2020 and $50,000 in 2019, according to union reports to the Labor Department.

We can't sit this out: we're dealing with a 'criminal conspiracy' to usher in global socialism.  Jeremy Isaacs' The World at War includes an interview in which Hitler's personal secretary, Traudl Junge, reports that the Führer, in his last days, replied to a question about the future of Germany as follows:  "I believe there will not any more be a National Socialist Party; the idea will die with me.  But maybe in a hundred years or so there will arise another National Socialist idea, like a religion."  It has not yet been a hundred years, but I begin to see what Hitler meant.  From the South Pacific to the North Atlantic, even democratic countries such as Australia and Canada are rapidly going full Nazi.  We've been living for eighteen months now under a "health emergency" in which rule by fiat has replaced the rule of law.  In Australia, rubber bullets are flying to suppress resistance to this perpetual state of exception.

Democrats warn of 'threat to democracy' to deceive public into accepting their tyranny.  Ever since Donald Trump announced he was running for president, Democrats have crafted the narrative that our country's democracy was under attack.  Obviously, this was meant to do nothing but emotionally trigger voters, either through fear or anger.  Yet, while they peddle this message to the public, they are doing everything they can to silence dissent — a core American value.  The most recent example of this is the Justice Department weaponizing the FBI to go after parents who have challenged school boards over what their children are learning in schools.  Attorney General Merrick Garland has ordered the FBI to work with each U.S. attorney and "convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district within 30 days of the issuance of this memorandum" to develop strategies to "address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff."

Congress' Access to Individuals' Private Communications:  The Jan. 6 Committee's Troubling Precedent.  In late August, the special House committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol took the first steps toward subpoenaing the communications records of private citizens involved in rallies to protest certification of the election, as well as Republican lawmakers whose role in the events of Jan. 6th has come into question.  The committee asked the companies to preserve these records for now.  House minority leader Kevin McCarthy reacted with outrage, tweeting:  "If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States."  He warned ominously that "a Republican majority will not forget."  Progressive commentators were quick to point out that McCarthy himself, by threatening reprisal against companies that cooperate with the requests, might be violating the law against obstructing congressional investigations.  But underlying McCarthy's shameful attempt to bully the companies into noncompliance is a legitimate question about the scope of Congress's authority to obtain private information.

The police and sheriffs protect us.  Or do they?  Will they?  Ostensibly democratic governments around the world have reacted shamefully to the spread of COVID, with law enforcement personnel helping them abuse their power.  What has happened in New Zealand and parts of Australia is truly frightening.  Those two formerly free and democratic nations have seen the exercise of cruel totalitarianism in the past months.  Despite the fact that lockdowns have not mitigated the spread of COVID anywhere in the world, despite the failure of mask mandates to affect the number of cases when compared to regions without mask mandates, some states in Australia and all of N.Z. have continued the most rigid restrictions, and their citizens are suffering the consequences.

Australia Building Quarantine Camps for 'Ongoing Operations'.  Despite some states tentatively beginning to lift lockdown restrictions, Australian authorities are building quarantine camps that won't be completed until next year in order to prepare for "ongoing operations" and to house those "who have not had access to vaccination."  According to ABC Australia, one such 1,000-bed quarantine facility at Wellcamp Airport outside Toowoomba will be fully completed by the end of March 2022.  "At this stage, the cabins will be used by domestic travellers returning from COVID hotspots," states the report.  However, it also makes clear that the camp will be used for "ongoing operations" and will be a source of employment for the local area.

Parents Aren't Domestic Terrorists.  It is probably an understatement to say that when one group designates another as a terrorist organization, diplomatic relations between the two become strained. [...] So it's not surprising that parent groups around the country have reacted strongly to the National School Board Association's September 29 letter to Joe Biden invoking the PATRIOT Act to combat the "domestic terrorism" of concerned parents speaking out at school board meetings. and Attorney General Merrick Garland's response.  After reading the Department of Justice letter, Asra Nomani, vice president of investigations and strategy at Parents Defending Education tweeted:  "US Attorney General issued a declaration of war on parents."  It has come to this.  There has been a declaration of war on parents.  The reason?  Parents are complaining about an education system that seems like it has declared war on their children and on the American way of life.

Large Canadian Town Bars Unvaccinated Couples From Getting Married.  After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Government imposed one of the most restrictive vaccine mandates in the developed world, one Canadian town has taken medical tyranny to the next level by refusing to grant marriage licenses to couples that aren't fully vaccinated.  The Town of Oakville, Ontario, a small city with more than 200,000 residents, will not allow a couple to apply for a marriage license unless they both show proof of full vaccination.

Revolt of the masses:  The left has overplayed its hand.  I think the left is realizing it has a tiger by the tail.  The people are getting uppity.  Parents are assailing school boards over critical race theory and transgender madness.  So much so that the Biden Justice Department is sending out the FBI to investigate whether, as the National School Boards Association bombastically charges, some parents are guilty of "domestic terrorism and hate crimes."  Boy, it's lucky for those BLM/Antifa rioters in 2020 that they refrained from badmouthing teachers and school officials while torching the cities.  Their "peaceful protests" might have been investigated.  Meanwhile, former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bag man who is running again for his old job, stated, "I'm not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions."  He added, "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach."  This stuff ticks off parents, and GOP candidate Glenn Youngkin is taking full advantage.  He is running ads accurately depicting Mr. McAuliffe as an authoritarian, anti-parent elitist.

Loudoun County schools are worse even than you imagined.  We've written before about the madness in the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS), most recently when it comes to parents protesting LGBTQ pornography in the school system's libraries.  There've also been newsworthy moments when parents spoke out about Critical Race Theory in the school district.  One of the most explosive moments occurred when the school board, tired of having angry parents (i.e., voters) yell at them, called the cops, with several arrests, including that of one man getting physically dragged out.  It now turns out that the man was protesting the fact that the school's policies led to a boy in a skirt sexually assaulting his daughter in a girl's bathroom. [...] On June 22, Scott Smith, a White plumber was filmed as the police arrested him and dragged him out of an LCPS board meeting.  It was his arrest, writes Rosiak, that the National School Boards Association cited when it sought the federal help that AG Merrick Garland so willingly gave, referred to as a possible form of "domestic terrorism."

Timeline of The Great Reset, Remaking the World Into a 1984 Dystopia.  There is an excellent timeline of The Great Reset at The Sociables.  It's very informative, complete with videos and links.  The following is simply a brief overview of the timeline.  It is worthwhile to look at the full article which traces it from The Great Reset's foundation in 2014 on, until its present incarnation.  It's 2014 and a technocrat Nazi has an idea for a great reset of the world economy.  It will work if the entire planet is in on it, Tim Hinchliffe, editor of The Sociables writes.  A pandemic could make it happen.  "The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future," Klaus Schwab, President of the World Economic Forum (WEF) said.  It took Schwab and the Davos elite about six years to watch their great reset ideology grow from a tiny Swiss seed in 2014 to a European super-flower pollinating the entire globe in 2020.

AG Merrick Garland is at war with American families.  Only a fool pokes a mama bear, but that's Merrick Garland for you.  The attorney general thought to be such a moderate that 20 Republicans confirmed his nomination turns out to be a radical ideologue hellbent on targeting President Biden's political foes.  He is injecting himself into the front lines of every culture war, from pregnant "people" to school board meetings.  But Garland's ominous memo last week directing the FBI to investigate parents as domestic terror threats was a big mistake.  He cited no evidence for what he claims is a "disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence" against school boards.  His memo was a shocking abuse of his office on behalf of left-wing activists who have been using schools as brainwashing factories for future social justice warriors.  It was designed to intimidate parents and stop them advocating for their children.

Threatening Memo From Attorney General Merrick Garland to Parents Comes With Serious Conflict of Interest.  Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a threatening memo on Monday calling on the FBI to address "violent threats against school officials and teachers."  It was an obvious shot at parents who oppose schools and school boards that promote woke ideology and critical race theory in classrooms that exploded this year.  Somehow, the story gets even worse.  [Video clip]  Fox News reported that Garland's son-in-law is the co-founder of Panorama Education, a company that works with school boards to promote "culturally responsive training" and other ideas associated with critical race theory.  According to Parents Defending Education, a nonprofit education watchdog group, Panorama received a $1.8 million contract to conduct "social and emotional learning" monitoring in Fairfax County Public Schools that collected data on students.  Asra Nomani, vice president of investigations and strategy at Parents Defending Education, tweeted out more details about the Garland connection.  [Tweet]

Victoria Police Show Up To Home To Question Man About Facebook Photo Of Him At Protest 6 Months Ago.  The lunacy never ends in Victoria.  These 2 coppers showed up at this guy's house to ask if he's the individual in the Facebook photo from a protest over months ago.  You can hear how exacerbated the man is over the absurd questioning.  The man is not accused of being violent, just the fact he might have been there half a year ago is justification enough for these cops to interrogate him.  [Video clip]

New South Wales Australia Officially Celebrates Their First Day of Apartheid with The Introduction of Two Classes of Citizens.  According to almost all Australian media today [10/10/2021] the birds are singing louder, the sun is warmer, the skies have parted and angelic music resounds from the heavens and proclaims — "Freedom Day is here".  Yes, after months of government mandated, police enforced, hibernation and strict COVID isolation, millions of formerly free citizens can open their windows and doors for the first time.  However, they step out of their homes while crossing a new threshold that can never be reversed.  They enter a new era of apartheid, as only vaccinated individuals are permitted to engage in this "Freedom Day" society.  Every venue in New South Wales is under strict legal mandate and government forced compliance to ban all non-vaccinated persons from their facilities.

Garland Just Tipped Over the Dominos.  A couple of years ago, an interview in The Nation with a radical feminist explained that if you "want to dismantle capitalism" then you have to "abolish the family."  It is worth keeping that in mind as the little drama of Merrick Garland versus the parents of America unfolds.  I wrote about the attorney general's absurd but troubling memorandum shortly after it was released on October 4.  As all the world knows (but only some precincts of the world admit), Garland threatened to mobilize the entire police power of the state against parents.  Why?  Because parents across the country have suddenly woken up to the wokeness haunting their schools and poisoning the minds of their children.  The school boards, many of which are staffed by leftists, are pushing the Marxist ideology of critical race theory, virtue-signaling mask mandates, and forcing noisome gender identity politics on primary and secondary school students.

Merrick Garland's problems with his son-in-law just got worse.  Over the last few months, as COVID brought classrooms into American homes, parents learned that their children are being taught Critical Race Theory (i.e., Whites are evil; Blacks are pathetic) and magical thinking about gender, as well as being forced to wear masks that don't protect against disease, but do interfere with children's health, learning, and socialization.  Their vigorous complaints saw the National School Board Association suggest they're "domestic terrorists" and Merrick Garland answer the call.  We learned, too, that Merrick Garland's son-in-law, through his company, Panorama Education, sells CRT materials to public schools.  And yesterday, it turned out that Panorama is also spreading material calling Trump and his supporters "white supremacists."  Alexander "Xan" Tanner, a very White man, is married to Merrick Garland's daughter.  Tanner co-founded Panorama Education, which purports to provide a data platform that delves into students' psychosocial issues in order to help schools intervene in problems and improve the school climate.  In a word, it's creepy.

Education firm founded by AG Merrick Garland's son-in-law issued 'resource' for teachers that claims supporters of Donald Trump are white supremacists.  An education firm that was co-founded by the son-in-law of US Attorney General and former Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is under fire for issuing resources that claims former President Trump's supporters are white supremacists.  Alexander 'Xan' Tanner, 30, is a founder and the president of Panorama Education, an analytical software and services company in Boston.  He married Attorney General Garland's daughter Rebecca in 2018.  Panorama recently put out a workshop which deals with systemic racism.

The True Merrick Garland.  Conservatives generally don't respect Mitch McConnell and for good reason, but he sure did this country a favor blocking Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination.  It turns out, the soft-spoken Attorney General carries a huge stick labeled "domestic terrorists" that he isn't afraid to wield against average Americans to deprive them of a slew of civil rights. [...] [I]nstead of fidelity to the Constitution, Garland's fidelity is to the power accorded him as America's chief law enforcement officer.  He comports himself as a rank partisan, places targets on his political enemies, and uses the full power of his office to track them down and lock them up.  His June 2021 National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism provided his DOJ with a roadmap for cracking down on constitutionally-protected speech and assembly, and the legitimate airing of grievances from a handful of individuals who rioted for a few hours on January 6th.

Exposing the Left's Border Scam Is Now a 'Hate Crime'.  Like Prohibition-era bootleggers unloading barrels of whiskey in broad daylight, the anti-borders Left has been flouting the law in public for decades as it enables a vast and profitable human trafficking operation through south Texas.  In today's gaslit, no-accountability culture, the problem isn't finding the crime, but in naming the perpetrators and exposing their motives.  Financial gain is obviously a big incentive in the immigration scam against America.  Numerous beneficiaries include the cartels that traffic the people, "charities" that get a piece of the action for moving the human cargo throughout the country, and stateside businesses that reap the benefit of cheap foreign labor.  These parties seem largely indifferent to being called out for their roles in the scam.  It comes from a confidence in knowing that, regardless of who knows what, the operation will roll on without so much as a speed bump.

DOJ Attack On Parent Protest Movement Was Pre-Arranged Ambush, Says Letter Seeking Inspector General Investigation.  If you haven't figured it out by now, the Department of Justice at the highest level up to and including Attorney General Merrick Garland, is using its enormous police power to intimidate opponents of the Biden administration by branding such opponents as domestic terrorists.  We covered Garland's intimidation tactics on July 16, 2021, and again on October 5, 2021.  That latter post concerned Garland's October 4 memo targeting parents protesting at school board meetings. [...] Garland issued a memo bringing together a law enforcement coalition to go after supposed threats to school boards from parents protesting Critical Race Theory teaching and Covid mask and vaccine mandates.  Where is the evidence of widespread or coordinated violence such that a federal and state joint national effort is needed?  In fact, where is the evidence of violence at all?  If there are isolated instances, local law enforcement is equipped and appropriate to deal with it.

Critics question Garland's school board crackdown after son-in-law revealed as social justice education kingpin.  Attorney General Merrick Garland, who earlier this week injected the FBI into the nationwide debate over far-left local school curriculums, has a son-in-law whose company has gotten rich peddling K-12 educational materials obsessed with "systemic racism," "intersectionality," and white supremacy.  Alexander "Xan" Tanner, who married Garland's daughter Rebecca in 2018, is the co-founder and president of Panorama Education, a major player in the teacher training and curriculum industry.  Panorama pushes race-focused surveys and conducts trainings on systemic oppression, white supremacy, unconscious bias, and intersectionality — all under the rubric of "Social-Emotional Learning."

Rand Paul's Warning to Americans: 'Be Afraid of Your Government'.  In the wake of Attorney General Merrick Garland's announcement that he plans to sic the FBI on concerned parents who speak out at school board meetings against critical race theory and COVID restrictions, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blasted the Biden administration and said Americans should "be afraid of your government."  "Moms at school boards are being told that they're criminals, potential domestic terrorists, for the crime of dissent, and I think criminalizing dissent is something that we should all be appalled with," Paul told Fox News.  Garland claimed that there has been a "disturbing trend" of teachers being threatened or harassed.  PJ Media's Megan Fox looked into these allegations and concluded they're mostly bunk.  When asked what he would tell Americans concerned that they'll end up on some government list if they "say the wrong thing" at their local school board meeting, Paul didn't mince words.  "I would say be afraid.  Be afraid of your government," he responded.

Democrats/Media Deploy Same "Eliminationist Narrative" Against School Parents As They Did Against Tea Party.  Merrick Garland disgracefully weaponized DOJ/FBI and national law enforcement against parents protesting Critical Race teaching and mask mandates.  This pure political intimidation.  The mainsteam media also is running with the false claim pushed by the National School Boards Association that the protests are the "equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes."  In Rhode Island, the statewide school committee association is gathering information about protests and promising to coordinate with the FBI.  We have seen this movie before.  It's the "eliminationist narrative" used against the Tea Party and Trump supporters.  We covered the Tea Party false accusations at the time, where the media blamed every act of violence on Tea Party supporters even though such claims never had evidence and turned out to be false.

Across America, Parents Refuse To Be Intimidated By Biden's Attorney General Labeling Them Domestic Terrorists.  Local mother Stacy Langton stood before the Fairfax County School Board in a suburb of the nation's capital two weeks ago, boldly exposing explicit examples of child porn and pedophilia in library books in area schools, available to children as young as 12 years old.  Langton's witness ended in mayhem because the school board failed to do something very simple:  listen to the stakeholders — and taxpayers — who are parents.  Board members rudely interrupted Langton during her two minutes of allotted speaking time and called a hasty recess, a board member later incorrectly claiming that he faced two "exorcisms" by parents praying during the meeting.  "Shame!  Shame!  Shame!" shouted parents, horrified at the cowardice of the board members.  Now, however, instead of recognizing Langton for the hero that she is for protecting children, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a declaration of war on America's parents.

"Militia Violent Extremists" Added To A Growing List Of 9 Violent Domestic Extremists Groups.  The absurdity of Homeland Security's creation of another 'domestic extremist group' is countered only by the mass media's pandering of anything terror related.  The FBI describes how they allegedly investigate terrorism in America by mentioning domestic extremism 5 times on their website.  "The Bureau works closely with its partners to neutralize terrorist cells and operatives here in the United States, to help dismantle extremist networks worldwide, and to cut off financing and other forms of support provided to foreign terrorist organizations."  The word extremist, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, means "someone who has beliefs that most people think are unreasonable and unacceptable."  Merriam Webster defines extremist as a "belief in and support for ideas that are very far from what most people consider correct or reasonable."  This fits in nicely with the FBI's term "Black Identity Extremism" which they used until the BLM protests of 2020, when they were forced to appear to be politically correct and change their terminology.

DeSantis Throws Down the Gauntlet:  Confronts Garland on Troubling FBI Announcement.  Attorney General Merrick Garland made a stunning announcement about having the FBI and U.S. Attorneys' Offices coordinate with federal, state, and local law enforcement to deal with "threats" of violence against school boards and people working in schools.  This immediately prompted cries from critics that Garland was trying to suppress people objecting to pandemic restrictions and CRT — two of the hot button issues that have caused many people to come out and object at school board meetings.  While Garland spoke about "threats," he didn't identify any threats or concerns which would qualify as federal criminal action requiring such interference in the parents' rights to express themselves.  Indeed, the announcement seemed like an effort to basically chill their rights to speak.  Normally, if there was any actual "threat," it would come within the purview of local law enforcement.

White House Weaponizes DOJ Against Parents.  Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a memorandum instructing the FBI and U.S. attorney's offices "to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district" in order to discuss "threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff."  What threats?  Well, that isn't clear.  Garland's creepy memo makes a vague reference to "a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence" that seem to have occurred primarily in the fevered imagination of Viola M. Garcia, president of the NSBA and author of a bizarre 6-page letter written to our president requesting a joint review by no fewer than five federal agencies: [...] Oddly, considering its length, this missive cites a surprisingly small number of minor incidents that few reasonable people would consider sinister enough to justify an intervention by the Department of Justice.  In reality, most of the abusive behavior in school board meetings is directed at parents.  School boards routinely mute parent microphones during public meetings and abruptly halt meetings to prevent parents from speaking.  In one case, an entire school board had to resign after mocking parents during a virtual meeting.  This notion that parents are getting above themselves by speaking out at school board meetings is, not coincidentally, all too similar to the position adopted by the big teachers' unions.

AG Merrick Garland's Daughter [is] Married to [the] Co-Founder of [a] Company Selling Critical Race Theory Resource Material to School Districts.  U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently instructed the FBI to begin investigating parents who confront school board administrators over Critical Race Theory indoctrination material.  The U.S. Department of Justice issued a memorandum to the FBI instructing them to initiate investigations of any parent attending a local school board meeting who might be viewed as confrontational, intimidating or harassing.  Attorney General Merrick Garland's daughter is Rebecca Garland.  In 2018 Rebecca Garland married Xan Tanner.  Mr. Xan Tanner is the current co-founder of a controversial education service company called Panorama Education.  Panorama Education is the "social learning" resource material provider to school districts and teachers that teach Critical Race Theory.

DOJ creates task force to silence parents critical of public school boards.  The Department of Justice announced a directive to potentially influence the ability of parents to exercise their First Amendment rights.  Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the DOJ's new order in a statement on Monday [10/4/2021].  The agency cited an alleged increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence made against school board members and teachers by parents in public schools nationwide.  This comes after the National School Boards Association claimed in a letter to the White House public schools and their staff were in "immediate danger."  "Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation's core values," Garland expressed in the released statement.  "Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety."

'This is what a domestic terrorist looks like?' Parents slam FBI in CRT-foe crackdown.  Parents and politicians are slamming the Department of Justice's decision to bring in the FBI to investigate a spike in "threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff," saying the Biden administration is likening their protests of "woke" policies such as Critical Race Theory — as well as mandatory mask wearing — to "domestic terrorism."  "Dear @TheJusticeDept Merrick Garland and @FBI Director Christopher Wray," Asra Nomani, vice president of investigations and strategy at Parents Defending Education, posted on Twitter.  "This is what a domestic terrorist looks like?  You are criminalizing parenting, and you owe the people of America a swift apology."  She sarcastically signed the missive, "'Domestic Terrorist,' Asra Nomani."  Nomani's group has been researching how school boards across the US implement "woke" ideas into curricula, such as critical race theory.  In recent months, dozens of parents have taken a stand in school board meetings against the teaching of Critical Race Theory in classrooms and to protest mask mandates, causing some to wonder what the FBI and DOJ are actually investigating.

Merrick Garland threatens America's parents.  Anyone who still doubts that "moderate" Merrick Garland's Justice Department is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the far left should check out the news that Garland has threatened to investigate and prosecute parents who vigorously protest against school boards and teachers intent on indoctrinating school children in the racist, anti-American teachings of Critical Race Theory.  Garland did so through this memorandum.  Garland claims that free-speech principles must yield when they represent "efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views."  Andy McCarthy notes an implicit exception if the individuals happen to be Sen. Sinema or Sen. Manchin.  The implicit exception is broader.  It extends to Republican officials, whom Maxine Waters urged her followers to intimidate in public.  And it extends to conservative college students and the speakers they invite to campus only to be shouted down and sometimes physically attacked.  (Garland's memo cites no evidence of physical attacks on school board members, much less a pattern of such attacks.)

How left-wing protesters are justified, but angry moms are 'domestic terrorists'.  When is a protester "angry and justified" and when are they a "domestic terrorist"?  It all depends on how far left they are.  This week, activists stalked Sen. Krysten Simena into a women's restroom at Arizona State University, where the senator teaches a class.  Angry that she won't vote for the Democrat's unprecedented $3.5 trillion reconciliation mega-bill, the protesters filmed her walking into a bathroom stall.  The same liberal commentators and politicians who were wringing their hands over "civility" in politics under Donald Trump suddenly had an array of justifications. [...] Which brings us to Attorney General Merrick Garland's unconscionable directive to the FBI and U.S. Attorneys' Offices to investigate parents who are protesting school boards over critical race theory and mask mandates.  The National School Boards Association had asked for federal assistance for recent threats against educators, likening it to "domestic terrorism."  If parents are threatening school board members with violence, then absolutely the police should be called.  But it's not a federal case.

Attorney General Garland Abuses Power He Doesn't Have to Threaten Parents.  Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on Monday directing the Department of Justice and the FBI to "launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel."  The Garland memo looks like an effort to use the FBI to threaten and silence parents who are outspoken opponents of critical race theory in schools.  That alone would be a stunning partisan abuse of power.  What Garland has done, however, is even more disgraceful.  Maybe Garland doesn't actually intend to use the FBI to go after parents — maybe he knows that he doesn't have that power.  In that case, he's trying to trick parents into thinking that he does.  This tactic, he hopes, will suppress parents' free speech, and throw a bone to a powerful ally of his political party.  Even a few FBI agents questioning parents may be enough to convince others that standing up for their values is not worth the risk.

The FBI Somehow Manages to Become an Even Bigger Joke.  Yesterday, RedState reported on the disturbing announcement by the DOJ that the FBI would now be effectively treating school board protests as domestic terror threats.  The insanity of that can't be overstated.  To the extent that there's been unruliness at some local meetings, I'm unaware of a single serious threat, and even if there has been a physical altercation or two in this massive country of 330 million people, that hardly qualifies as a terrorist threat.  But the suppression of speech through intimidation is the point, and it's something we've seen repeatedly from Democrat presidents. [...] Yet, today [10/5/2021] the FBI managed to make an even bigger joke of itself.  During a hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace pressed an official who admitted that they do not even track Antifa violence.  Yet, he knew exactly how many cases involving "militias" there were.  [Tweet with video clip]  Antifa is by far the most visible domestic terrorist threat in the nation.  They run the streets of Portland and have committed overt acts of violence in cities across the country, including murder.  Yet, the FBI doesn't even see them as worthy of keeping up with?  That's an incredibly [bad] admission that confirms what a lot of us have suspected.  Namely, that the FBI seems to only care about domestic terrorism when it fits a certain mold, specifically a right-wing one.

The U.S Attorney General is siccing the FBI on disgruntled parents.  George Floyd's drug overdose while under police restraint gave the leftists populating American schools license to put their Critical Race Theory and transgender agendas on overdrive in American schools.  Parents have responded with protests at school board meetings ([Links to examples]).  In turn, school boards want to silence parents.  They've put limitations on their speech, cut their mics, and arrested them.  I'm certain that some parents have sent nasty letters or left angry phone messages. [...] But when parents are horrified by what public schools are teaching their children — Whites are inferior, kids can magically change sex, and masks forever — that's a different story.

AG Merrick Garland Orders FBI to Combat 'Threats of Violence' Against Public School Officials.  Days after a national organization representing school board officials lamented to the Biden administration about "hate groups" intimidating education officials, Attorney General Merrick Garland has directed the FBI to combat "threats of violence" against administrators.  Without citing specific cases, in a memorandum issued on Monday [10/4/2021], Merrick Garland expressed concern about a "disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation's public schools."

Biden's Justice Department Announces It Considers School Board Protests to Be Threats and Promises Action.  The struggle of parents to prevent school boards from sanctioning racial discrimination and stereotyping and imposing profoundly stupid Wuhan virus mitigation measures, like masking elementary school kids, has led to school board meetings becoming something of a battleground in the culture wars.  School board members and educrats do not like being challenged or held to account by the rubes who elected them, and so they are claiming the mantle of victimhood.  Yesterday, I posted about a letter written by the president of the National School Boards Association... yes, there is such a thing... demanding that Joe Biden use the full force of the federal government to stop parents from speaking out.

Biden's militarized executive agencies.  The Obama-Biden administration stockpiled an arsenal of high-powered weapons in the Executive Branch based on the vision of a civilian national security force.  The stockpile can outfit an army.  The Biden regime controls the trigger to the arsenal.  "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set.  We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded," Obama said on July 2, 2008.  Non-profit OpentheBooks released a comprehensive oversight report earlier this year titled "The Militarization of The U.S. Executive Agencies".  The report estimated "that there are now more federal officers with firearm authority (200,000+) than U.S. Marines (186,000)."  It's the fulfillment of Obama's well-funded prophecy.

The Militarization of The U.S. Executive Agencies.  Over the past couple of decades, the size, scope, and power of the federal government has dramatically grown.  For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) owns 600 guns.  There are 458 'Special Office of Inspector General Agents' within Health and Human Services (HHS) armed with sophisticated weaponry and trained by military Special Forces contractors.  The special agents at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are equipped with machine guns and AR15s.  Even the Smithsonian Institution now employs 620-armed 'special agents,' up from zero officers (2008).  But these security forces pale in comparison to the Department of Homeland Security.  DHS owns 259,891 guns (not including the Transportation Security Administration which doesn't offer disclosure).  Why does the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) need 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition?  Why did HHS purchase four million rounds over the last eight years and stockpile five submachine guns?  And what about the 800,000 rounds purchased by the Social Security Administration (SSA)?  Conservatives argue that it is hypocritical for political leaders to criticize private gun-ownership while simultaneously equipping non-military agencies with hollow-point bullets and military style equipment.  Progressives, on the other hand, have raised concerns about militarizing police agencies with tank-like vehicles and heavy weapons.  Our organization, at OpenTheBooks.com, is dedicated to bringing this information into the public square, so We The People can become a more informed electorate.

Anthony Fauci on Forced Vaccines:  "You Have to Give Up Your Individual Rights for The Greater Good of Society".  It's always right there, just below the surface.  Wait long enough and you will see it.  Obama's,"You didn't build that", is one recent example.  Hillary Clinton's, "It takes a village" is another.  Today, Anthony Fauci says you do not have "individual rights", you have collective rights and responsibilities to the greater good of society.  This vile little worm with a thirst for power is nothing more than a Fabian Socialist.

American Liberty Must Not Become Coronavirus Casualty.  When announcing his nationwide vaccine mandate, President Joe Biden declared, "This is not about freedom." But for Americans who live outside the Beltway, it is absolutely about freedom, because America is about freedom.  Yes, the coronavirus is still with us.  Yes, it is still potentially dangerous, particularly to vulnerable Americans.  But the need long since has passed for extraordinary measures such as lockdowns, mask mandates, and other restrictions on American liberty.  In a country with competent leaders, all such measures — most especially the forced vaccinations for COVID-19 recently ordered by Biden — would be repealed, and Americans would be allowed to return to their normal lives.

Biden must reject using the PATRIOT Act to suppress angry parents' opinions.  [Scroll down]  The abandonment of in-person instruction by teachers unions was very revealing.  It showed that unions are powerful organizations with no concern at all for children's education.  The learning loss they have caused has harmed schoolchildren.  On the other hand, though, a forced increase of involvement in their children's day-to-day education experience has also helped parents wake up to the inanities that certain far-left school boards are forcing upon their children.  The school boards are not happy about the scrutiny.  They have in some cases tried to keep parents out of public meetings.  They are so out of touch and so entitled that they resent being held accountable by irate parents who have started showing up at these meetings.  Parents are unhappy at having their children indoctrinated with toxic racialist ideologies such as critical race theory, which attempts to make children feel bad about the color of their skin.  They have raised the problem of pornographic materials and even child pornography that has been made available in some school libraries, supposedly in the name of tolerance for alternate lifestyles.  Some parents have also come to meetings upset about school mask mandates that have little or no scientific basis.

Australia in chaos amid corruption charges and lockdowns.  One of the more common questions that's been making the rounds lately, particularly in terms of how various countries are handling their pandemic responses, is "what [...] is happening to Australia?"  The most heavily populated states in the country have been imposing some of the harshest lockdowns and COVID restrictions in the world, with videos emerging showing police firing rubber bullets into crowds, macing elderly women, and beating people down in the streets, all for the crime of being outdoors without permission.  But now even more chaos down under is making headlines.  The main focus seems to be on the state of New South Wales, home to Sydney, the country's largest city.  Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been the author of some of the harshest COVID lockdowns and mandates anywhere and large protests have been common.  But in just the past couple of days, the NSW government has undergone a complete upheaval and it's not being driven solely by opposition to the state's COVID policies.

They Can't Win if We Won't Surrender.  The pandemic was the alarm that wakes us up before the building burns down around us.  It gave us a glimpse of a future without liberty.
  •   Autocratic orders
  •   Draconian restrictions
  •   Unequal treatment under the law
  •   Fraudulent elections
  •   Blatant disregard of the Constitution
Thankfully, COVID gave us a taste of tyranny on the cheap.  America didn't become a Cuba or Venezuela to experience it.  The pandemic has shown us how important and fragile liberty is.  I'll never take it for granted again.  I suspect a great number of patriots feel the same way.  We're seeing an awakening all across America.

Australia: Police Want No Fly Zones Over Massive Anti-Government Protests.  Police in Australia are pushing for the government to declare no-fly zones over the sites of mass protests to discourage more people from rising up and joining those already on the streets raging against the medical tyranny being imposed upon the country.  Gideon Rozner, the Director of Policy at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, documented the details to Tucker Carlson.  "The fact is the coronavirus has completely changed the relationship between government and citizenship in this country.  It has overwhelmed every check and balance in our system," Rozner urged.  "This is a radically new era we've seen in Australia," he continued, adding "The police in my home state of Victoria asked the Federal Civil Aviation Authority to declare a no-fly zone over Melbourne so commercial media outlets couldn't film the protests in case people saw how big they were and went down and joined in."

Now There are Whispers in D.C. That Biden is About to Issue Vaccine Passport Mandate for Interstate Travel.  The Biden administration is poised to make its next unconstitutional power grab in the former of a 'vaccine mandate' for interstate travel within the United States, according to reports on Capitol Hill.  Congressional Republican lawmakers are attempting to get ahead of the forthcoming expected decree by introducing legislation to block an executive order or directive.  "In a Wednesday speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), joined by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), introduced legislation that would bar the Biden administration from implementing vaccine passports requirements for interstate travel," the Epoch Times reported.

Sen. Rick Scott Introduces Bill to Ban Vax Passports for Interstate Travel.  In a Wednesday [9/29/2021] speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), joined by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), introduced legislation that would bar the Biden administration from implementing vaccine passports requirements for interstate travel.  Scott began by praising the Trump administration for its quick development of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccine, which he noted has been very successful.  But, he continued, "government should not issue [mandates]" as President Joe Biden has done.  As localities and states join the federal government in issuing various vaccine mandates and vaccine passport requirements, Scott said that "Americans are sick and tired of the government telling them what to do.  And the American people are more than capable of making the right decision to protect them, their family, and their neighbors."

COVID-19 Detention Camps:  Are Government Round-Ups of Resistors in Our Future?  This is what we know:  the government has the means, the muscle and the motivation to detain individuals who resist its orders and do not comply with its mandates in a vast array of prisons, detention centers, and FEMA concentration camps paid for with taxpayer dollars.  It's just a matter of time.  It no longer matters what the hot-button issue might be (vaccine mandates, immigration, gun rights, abortion, same-sex marriage, healthcare, criticizing the government, protesting election results, etc.) or which party is wielding its power like a hammer.  The groundwork has already been laid.  Under the indefinite detention provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the President and the military can detain and imprison American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a terrorist.  So it should come as no surprise that merely criticizing the government or objecting to a COVID-19 vaccine could get you labeled as a terrorist.  After all, it doesn't take much to be considered a terrorist anymore, especially given that the government likes to use the words "anti-government," "extremist" and "terrorist" interchangeably.

House Democrats Quietly Insert a Ten-Fold Increase in OSHA [Fines] into 3.5 Trillion Human Infrastructure Reconciliation Bill.  Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are attempting to change the OSHA fines within the section of labor law that applies directly to the mandatory COVID vaccine.  The scale of the fines is massive against any business that does not comply with the anticipated OSHA rule which is yet unannounced; and they are attempting to slip the OSHA change into the massive $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill.  If this OSHA change becomes law, the Biden administration will force American businesses to choose between vaccinating their employees, testing them weekly for Covid-19, or going bankrupt under crippling OSHA fines.

After a Murder Over Mask-Wearing, Authorities Are Cracking Down on COVID Skeptics on Telegram.  After a gas station cashier was killed following an argument over mask wearing, the German government started pressuring social media platforms to censor groups over what has become known as "corona misinformation."  The State of Thüringen's Interior Minister George Mair specifically called for the urgent regulation and classification of Telegram as a social network in order to foist new rules on the platform.  Currently the "Netzwerdurchsetzungsgesetz" law in Germany requires social media platforms to delete whatever the government deems as "criminal" content, and even to report them to the Federal Criminal Policy Agency (Bundeskriminalamt).  Platforms such as Telegram, however, have typically been excluded as they are not classified as social networks but as messaging platforms.  Telegram has also been under pressure in the US, for what globalist policy makers call the spread of "misinformation" and for "coordinating" the January 6 "insurrection".

Australian Man Films Massive Battalion Of Stormtroopers Marching Through The Streets For The Media, Tackle A Man For No Reason, Then Go After Him For Filming.  The dystopian nightmare gets turned up another notch in the penal colony known as Australia as this citizen filmed a large battalion of uniformed stormtroopers, complete with an armored vehicled, storm through a street for no apparent reason other than for the media.  There was no protest in this area at all so the cops must have wanted some good clips for the evening news.  They even tackled and arrested a man on the sidewalk before rushing the man filming.  The live video goes out just as they tackled him.

We're coming up on the bad part of the 'cycle of democracy'.  The cycle of democracy is attributed to Scottish economist Alexander Tytler:  ["]A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.  From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.["]  With the restoration of Gavin Newsom to his California governorship through the failing 2021 recall process, the state cements its trajectory of collapse.

Watch As Australian Jackboot Thugs Surround And Terrorize Two Grannies Sitting On A Bench.  Dramatic footage has captured a bizarre stand-off between five police officers and two elderly women sitting on a Melbourne park bench.  The video posted to YouTube on Sunday showed the officers surrounding the two women as one of them said firmly:  "No, I'm not standing up".  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
I guess Australia has completely given up on their tourism industry.  Even if the Covid insanity ends tomorrow, who would want to visit a country where the rulers are so heavy-handed and the police are ruthless and completely devoid of common sense?  the worst tyrants in history only needed a few dozen goons like these guys to set up a miserable situation for everyone.

Australian Brown Shirts Disgracefully Arrest Couple For Not Wearing Masks, Wife Screams And Cries In Terror.  Police arrest a couple for not wearing a mask while they walked down the beach.  This was part of the protest held along St Kilda Beach.  It appears that 16 cops performed the NO MASK arrest in Victoria Australia.  Watch how the Non-masked Media photographers are left alone.  [Video clip]

FBI Director:  Ban Encryption to Counter Domestic Extremism.  FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Sept. 21 that restrictions on encrypted chat services are needed to combat domestic terrorism — a claim that has been disputed by a wide array of tech companies, industry associations, and privacy groups, as well as other government agencies.  Wray made the remarks during the Senate Committee on Homeland Security's counterterrorism hearing.  "I can't overstate the impact of default encryption and the role it's playing, including on terrorism," Wray said in response to a question from Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) about what tools Congress can give law enforcement to counter domestic extremism.  "The information that will allow us to separate the wheat from the chaff, in terms of social media, is being able to — with lawful process — get access to those communications, where most of the meaningful discussions of the violence is occurring."

The Editor says...
[#1] If all the FBI wants to do is combat bona fide terrorists and anarchists, especially Islamic terrorists, I wish them all the best.  But recent history shows they're much more interested in right-wing rednecks than suicidal Muslims.  The FBI is mainly interested in protecting the government, not the citizens.  There's a big difference.  [#2] Just wait til you see the government's new definition of "encryption."  No, I haven't heard anything, but it's obvious that if the government bans encryption, that ban will be expanded (by changing the dictionary) to include everything from ROT13 to Base64 to the Morse Code.  U.S. citizens have the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," and sometimes my "papers and effects" include email, and sometimes my email is cryptic, if not encrypted.  Keeping my personal communications from prying eyes is the difference between a first-class letter and a postcard.  See "If you really think somebody is reading your email" on this page.  Also read the page about domestic surveillance.

More about the FBI.

For The Public Health.  [Video clips]

FDA Employee Caught on Tape Advocating for Nazi-Like Registry for Unvaccinated, and Shooting Blacks With COVID Blow Darts.  A U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employee was caught on tape advocating for a Nazi-like response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with forced vaccinations, and a registry for all unvaccinated Americans.  In Part Two of Project Veritas' COVID vaccine investigative series, FDA economist Taylor Lee literally called for the United States government to emulate Nazi Germany to force the COVID injections on vaccine skeptics.  "Census goes door-to-door if you don't respond.  So, we have the infrastructure to do it [forced COVID vaccinations].  I mean, it'll cost a ton of money.  But I think, at that point, I think there needs to be a registry of people who aren't vaccinated.  Although that's sounding very Germany," Lee admitted.

They Intend to Destroy America.  Perhaps the best thing about Barack Obama being elected President and serving two terms, along with Democrats' deranged reaction to Donald Trump's election is the radicals are no longer in hiding.  They are now saying out loud, in public and in broad daylight, things that nobody in Bill Clinton's administration would ever have said or admitted.  Now, we can clearly identify the enemy in plain sight, who is not just inside the gate but entrenched throughout our vital national institutions.  These radicals are not slowing down, they are "pedal to the metal" and accelerating.  Time is critical.  We must resist them at every opportunity, locally and nationally, and let them know we will not shirk our duty to stand for Freedom.

Freedom today in the US is an illusion.  [Thread reader]  We live in fear not liberty.  We self-censor/hide/give up our rights & stopped fighting because we think we won't win.  When we lose faith in our govt/elections/law enforcement/media/institutions — that's what they want.  It's easier for them.  Easier to burn it all to the ground & implement whatever is planned.  No Church?  No police?  No freedom of speech?  No choice on vaccines or anything else?  No diversity of thought?  No critical thinking?  No right to question anything deemed a "violation of community standards"?  They are counting on us to do the job for them.  That's why it's good to be disillusioned — recognizing where we are is the first step to not being deceived.  The truth is the only thing that counts.  It cannot be altered.  If we start there smarter people than me will figure it out.  But there's no white knight, no magic pill.  No one coming to save us.  No one screaming about Americans in solitary confinement who've not been convicted of a crime.  No one stopping the banks closing accounts, no one closing the border or even talking about national security.

DHS Touts Counter-Domestic Extremism Plan, But Rights Groups Fear Threats to Civil Liberties.  Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is touting a raft of new programs aimed to combat domestic extremism — many of which are raising red flags among interest groups across the political spectrum.  The new DHS plans follow a March intelligence community report that deems white supremacy and violent domestic extremism as the most dangerous terror threat to the homeland.  Mayorkas made similar statements at a Sept. 21 Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on counterterrorism.  "Today, U.S.-based lone actors and small groups, including homegrown violent extremists and domestic violent extremists — who are inspired by a broad range of ideological motivations — pose the most significant and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country," he said.  These "broad range of ideological motivations" include "racial bias, perceived government overreach, conspiracy theories promoting violence, and false narratives about unsubstantiated fraud in the 2020 presidential election[.]"

The Editor says...
Questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election and expressing concern about government overreach have nothing to do with white supremacy.  The secretary is conflating several unrelated and irrelevant groups of people in order to crack down on our right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, among other things.  Contesting the outcome of a very fishy election is not a crime.

Trouble in Vegas — Clark County Commission Declares COVID Misinformation A Public Health Emergency.  In reality, "misinformation" and "disinformation" doesn't exist — there is just information you accept, and information you do not accept.  You were not born with the requirement to believe everything you are told.  Rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive.  That said, the Clark County commission in Nevada voted today to establish "COVID misinformation" as a public health emergency, clearing the way for the largest (and most notoriously corrupt) county in Nevada to create ordinances blocking any form of speech they consider adverse to their approved narrative.

The Great Reset and COVID.  The global elites' response to the pandemic and climate change is the same:  the Great Reset (GR).  Those pushing the GR are attempting to impose socialism worldwide, especially on energy production and use. [...] The government response to the pandemic was a test case in the effort to impose the GR whole cloth.  The elites tested how much freedom they could seize before people began to push back.  Instead of tracing the virus and isolating those with COVID-19, as had been done to great effect during past pandemics, the government locked down people who weren't sick "for the good of all."  As one anti-lockdown activist told Fox News, "Quarantine is when you restrict movement of sick people.  Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people."  If the GR comes to pass, it will be too late for people to do anything about it.  Any resistance will be castigated by sheeple on social media and in the mainstream media.  Social media will shut down the accounts of any who object and silence their voices.

The Melbourne Tinderbox and Why Americans Should Pay Attention.  An inflection point has been reached in Australia with the government COVID-19 lockdowns, forced vaccinations and now, vaccine passports. [...] Things recently came to a head when the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, began outlining the rules and regulations for opening society back up after almost a year of total lockdown.  The always futile attempt to block the COVID-19 virus through a policy known as "COVID-ZERO" was abandoned.  The new approach is to open up society and the economy by forcing everyone to take the vaccine, and then allowing only the vaccinated to participate in the economy as varying percentages of the population are double-vaxxed, and admittedly, later, booster-vaxxed.  Vaccination passports will be required to work, shop, attend events and essentially live in the New World Order Premier Andrews has created for the citizens of Victoria.  The day after Andrews outlined the new rules — the working class, who have been locked down and compliant to this point, finally had enough.

Fauci:  Vaccine Mandates for Domestic Travel 'on the Table and Under Consideration'.  Fauci:  "I am not going to get ahead of the President.  I told others when they asked, and I will repeat it for you, that it is on the table and under consideration.  There are going to be a lot of factors going into that.  I have expressed that I would be in favor of that if the President decides to do that and if the individuals involved in advising him are in favor of doing that, I would be in favor of doing that."  [Video clip]

They Intend to Destroy America.  Nearly every network evening news and local news broadcast begins with a "COVID-19 Update" and another sales pitch to get the vaccine or to scare and shame the unvaccinated.  Government health agencies and bureaucracies focus only on vaccines of waning effectiveness, and that is killing people.  Still, they insist we must get vaccinated or we'll get lockdowns, masks, and every other mandated measure they can think of.  The installed administration is now exerting top-down control of preventative medicines and is aggressively seizing monoclonal antibody treatments from states that use them to distribute "equitably" to states that don't.  It's all meant to make us do as we are told, and it proves the long-held assertions among conservatives that socialized medicine equals rationing of medicine and care, and lets the government decide who lives or dies.  Resist.

Is America Heading Towards Authoritarianism?  The occupant of the White House is possibly senile and certainly incompetent.  He cluelessly wades from one crisis to another.  It began with the illegal immigration crisis on the Southern border where there was a mass influx of illegal immigrants.  They were then surreptitiously transferred to other states. [...] COVID-19 is being used as an excuse to infringe upon civil liberties, restrict movement, mandate masks, and mandate vaccines.  Employees in government and beyond being compelled to be vaccinated to retain employment.  School children are compelled to wear masks.  Landlords were prevented from the eviction of tenants during the pandemic. [...] There are civilians in jail for the Jan. 6 demonstrations on Capitol Hill with reports that they are in Gitmo-like conditions. [...] To summarize, the governing class now believes that they are the ruling class who own the power.  They look at the public as subjects who need to be permanently controlled.  They see freedom as a luxury they grant to obedient citizens rather than the right of every citizen.  They look at their opposition among the citizenry with disdain as pests who need to be crushed.

Our 'Boy Who Cried Wolf' Government.  A 74-year-old woman lies on her back, writhing in pain and clearly in distress on a blacktop road in Melbourne, Australia.  Two police officers stand over her.  Are they coming to her rescue and bringing her to her feet?  No, they're dousing her with two separate streams of pepper-spray while keeping their free hands on military batons in case the tortured septuagenarian somehow springs up in attack mode to wrestle down the pair of twenty-something jackboots "just following orders."  The woman had been participating in a freedom march against Australia's COVID-1984 insanity, but the government proved that Grandma was no match for goon squad brute force.  Forget chivalry and common sense. [...] You can't scare schoolchildren into wearing face masks for the next ten years in order to "save Granny" while getting caught clubbing and macing Granny in the street.  That contradiction just won't do.  Yet contradictions abound, and normal people are opening their eyes long enough to notice.  That's no good for the powers that be. [...] An avalanche of mendacity and treachery landing on them all at once, and the narrative engineers have real problems on their hands.  You knock Granny on the pavement and nearly kill her for "her own good," however, and the jig is up.

CDC covid camps have no plans to allow healthy people to leave.  There is a very clear pattern beginning to form with the American government's Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) agenda.  We have seen this pattern before, perhaps most recently with World War II and the infamous concentration camps where the "unclean" were sent to be "sanitized."  This time around, a scary virus from China (or Fort Detrick?) is the excuse for hauling off the "dangerous" to internment facilities where they can be "cleansed" of the virus and released back into society — or will they?  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has introduced a "Green Zone" plan that involves "shielding" certain people in "humanitarian settings" in order to protect against Chinese Virus infection.  Reading between the lines, though, reveals that there is absolutely nothing humanitarian about any of it.  The "interim" plan from the CDC, as we reported, involves relocating and isolating individuals to supposedly "stop the spread" of the Fauci Flu.  This sounds eerily similar to the Nazi propaganda back in the 1930s.

We Are in a War for America's Soul.  [Scroll down]  Ideological subversion has four stages and follows the Hegelian dialectic, a tactic long exploited by Marxists and Fascists to control people.
  •   Stage 1: Demoralization.  This is the destruction of faith in the government and society.  Believing that society is broken, systems are failing, and patriotism is evil are three key beliefs that are promoted to create guilt.  This leads to the acceptance of radical new ideas because the current structure is believed to be harmful.  Traditional Judeo-Christian morality, classical education, and American patriotism are discarded.
  •   Stage 2: Destabilization.  With the decision-making ability of Americans negatively affected through demoralization, the next step takes a foothold — destabilization of the nation's foundations.  Destabilization causes citizens to believe the worst of what they hear about their nation and form of government.  Supporters of traditional values and foundational structures in the nation are ostracized and even demonized.
  •   Stage 3: Crisis.  The altered values of Americans cut to the root of the current systems.  Upheaval presents opportunities for change.  Once a society is destabilized, it begins to collapse into chaos.  At this point, citizens want the government to provide stability.  We saw this recently as a demoralized and destabilized society responded with fear and panic when a "pandemic" faced our nation.  Americans are willingly trading civil rights and freedoms for authoritarianism and overreach that they believe will keep them safe.  Messaging in all of this is key.  The mainstream media and their tell-a-vision programming play a key role in framing the prescribed narrative as truth.
  •   Stage 4: Normalization.  The "new normal" is a term we have heard constantly lately, and it's an accurate description of what the normalization stage is all about.  When the government and societal structures have changed to restrict liberty, citizens are told the radical transformation is "the way it has to be."  Ironically, it's described as normal when it's not normal at all.  Normalization creates a new baseline for what a nation will accept, value, and promote.  The cycle is complete.
These steps are repeated over and over, bringing a greater result with each cycle until there's a controlled collapse.  America could be on the verge of collapse right now unless we collectively wake up to reality and take a stand to stop tyranny.

How States And Communities Can Fight Back Against Biden's Covid Tyranny.  A war is coming.  I have heard it argued that this war must be avoided; that it is "exactly what the establishment wants." I disagree.  I think globalists like those at the World Economic Forum certainly want enough chaos to provide cover for the implementation of their global "Reset" agenda, but they don't want a full blown rebellion.  They only want events in which the outcome is controllable or predictable — They do not want a massive organized resistance that might surprise them.  Ultimately it doesn't matter because the war is already at our doorstep.  A person has two choices:  Fight or be enslaved.  There is no third option.  There is no walking away.  There is no hiding from it and there is no passive solution to it.  Joe Biden's recent declaration of a federal level nationwide vaccine mandate has all but ensured that conflict is inevitable.  Why?  Because it is the first major step towards a two-tier society in which the unvaxxed are cut out of the economy.  The next step?  Forced vaccinations under threat of fines and imprisonment, the threat of confiscation of one's children, or vaccination at the barrel of a gun.

Today's blacklisted Americans:  Any tenant not vaccinated in Florida apartment complex.  They're coming for you next:  A Florida landlord is now demanding that any future tenant show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or they will be turned away, and any present unvaccinated tenant move when their lease expires.  ["]If you're not vaccinated for COVID-19, you can forget about moving into any of eight apartment complexes in Broward and Miami-Dade counties owned by Santiago A. Alvarez and his family.  And if you're still unvaccinated when it comes time to renew your lease, you'll have to find someplace else to live.["]

It's Time to Fight.  Using four of our own civilian airliners against us, the 9/11 hijackers were able to cause us great, but temporary harm.  Our response to those attacks — I'm speaking here of the so-called PATRIOT Act, forever wars, and our own intel agencies, weaponized against us — have hurt us far more than any hijacker ever could.  All that was just in the first ten years.  Since then, social media giants have gained a stranglehold on internet traffic — and which voices will be allowed to be heard.  Worse, Big Tech is working hand-in-hand with Washington to foster neverending COVID panic.  Their goal is to make the American people willing to accept a permanent curtailment of our liberties.

Something Else [is] Missing.  On September 9th, President Joe Biden made the announcement that all employers with more than 100 employees would be required to enforce a worker vaccine mandate. [...] Almost a week later, and that's the sum total of everything about the biggest economic and workforce disruption in the history of the nation.  That one paragraph posted on September 10th.  Why is this important?  Well, the U.S. Department of Labor website has ZERO mentions of this national mandate.  ZERO, nothing, nada, zilch.  Looking at the OSHA COVID information portal, used by employers and legal execs, will show you the exact same result.  Nothing.  Notice there's no date for DoL or OSHA delivery of any employer guidance or details.  Nothing.  Think about this.  This is the largest nationwide change to employment eligibility requirement in U.S. history.  Nothing else is even close; and yet, if you didn't watch the Biden announcement or read the media discussion about the Biden announcement, you wouldn't be able to find a single detail about it — anywhere.  This is not normal; not even close to normal, even for the federal government.

The Masking of the Servant Class:  Ugly COVID Images From the Met Gala Are Now Commonplace.  From the start of the pandemic, political elites have been repeatedly caught exempting themselves from the restrictive rules they impose on the lives of those over whom they rule.  Governors, mayors, ministers and Speakers of the House have been filmed violating their own COVID protocols in order to dine with their closest lobbyist-friends, enjoy a coddled hair styling in chic salons, or unwind after signing new lockdown and quarantine orders by sneaking away for a weekend getaway with the family. [...] But as is so often the case, the most disturbing aspects of elite behavior are found not in what they have prohibited but rather in what they have decided is permissible.  When it comes to mask mandates, it is now commonplace to see two distinct classes of people:  those who remain maskless as they are served, and those they employ as their servants who must have their faces covered at all times.  Prior to the COVID pandemic, it was difficult to imagine how the enormous chasm between the lives of cultural and political elites and everyone else could be made any larger, yet the pandemic generated a new form of crude cultural segregation:  a series of protocols which ensure that maskless elites need not ever cast eyes upon the faces of their servant class.

The Supreme Court Needs To Stop Unelected Bureaucrats From Making Up Laws.  A new Supreme Court brings new hope to reeling in unchecked federal power.  For the last few decades, the Supreme Court has allowed Congress to delegate unchecked power to unelected agency officials, who are mainly part of the executive branch.  The executive branch has thus legislated through unelected officials and latched onto powers not granted to them via the Constitution.  The most recent example is President Joe Biden's mandate that large employers require their workers to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly.  The executive branch plays a far more significant role in our everyday lives than the Founding Fathers intended.  Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution prescribes that all legislative power lies with Congress.  Why then, has the executive played such a significant role in creating law in recent history?  For example, Biden announced he will look into having the Department of Education, an executive agency, mandate masks for all school children, despite kids facing almost zero risk from Covid-19.

I See Free Speech Disappearing Before Our Very Eyes.  [Scroll down]  But now we have a new and devilish threat:  To understand it, we must know that the USA's founding document is the Constitution.  It is a uniquely perfect document, allowing for the maximum of self-government and self-discipline in a world of confusing and aggressive men and women who do not always agree, often function with hatred in their hearts, and sometimes do not wish well for our nation.  But the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, allows us to function anyway, even with all of these shortcomings and dangers.  If the citizenry can be allowed to self-govern, the nation can work.  If the rights of Americans to speak freely, to worship, to petition for a redress of grievances, can be preserved, the nation will survive and flourish.  It was to demolish that framework towards which Al Qaeda worked.  Again, Al Qaeda did not succeed.  But now we have an alliance between the almighty Big Tech Internet companies of this country and the Democrat regime of this country.  Together, they have done the unthinkable: they have hit the citizens with overwhelmingly potent restrictions on free speech.  They have taken away free speech from a man whom they hate — Donald Trump — and preserved it for the most wicked terrorists on the planet:  Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their friends.

When it comes to vaccine mandates, Biden is counting on OSHA.  On his first day as in the White House, Joe Biden signed an executive order giving OSHA broad power to regulate health and safety in the workplace, particularly regarding COVID-19.  At the time, it was thought that OSHA would enforce face coverings in the workplace.  On Thursday, President Biden announced that companies with more than 100 employees are required to make certain that all employees are vaccinated or have a weekly negative COVID test.  This broad power may indeed be unconstitutional, but OSHA is ideally suited to try to enforce the mandate.  Most people know that OSHA creates detailed rules governing workplaces.  These rules have been enforced using intrusively detailed onsite inspections.  A COVID vaccination rule under this model would be quite difficult to enforce in person.  However, the way OSHA enforces rules has changed.  OSHA now relies on detailed reports from employers rather than onsite inspections.

MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart calls Trump supporters 'more worrisome' than the Taliban or ISIS.  On the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart announced that he believed that Trump supporters are more of a threat than the Taliban or ISIS.  Capehart called out 'MAGA and the domestic threat', which he said was far 'more worrisome than any foreign threat', during an appearance at PBS NewsHour on Friday [9/10/2021].  The Washington Post columnist and news host went on to describe the last several years as 'one giant step forward, and then two giant steps back.'

Lara Logan drops dynamite Fox News segment on Biden's sweeping vaccine mandates.  On Thursday, "President" Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. broke another of his promises by requiring vaccine mandates on most, but not all, American citizens.  The next day, Fox News aired a terrific seven-minute segment by Lara Logan titled "Mandate Nation," and it's really worth watching.  Ms. Logan began the show reporting on new directives to OSHA not to report on COVID vaccine side-effects.  She then segued into recent reports from the U.K. and Israel that report on serious problems with the vaccines.  One feature of the segment that conservatives will appreciate is the montages from other channels, like MSNBC and CNN.  Their "commentators" are so crazed that it's surreal.  These un-American fools actually think Biden "didn't go far enough."  The Biden Mandates are a civil rights issue, and they should appall lovers of freedom.  [Video clip]

Do Your Duty as an American and Do Not Comply.  We live in a time where politicians seem to believe that they are the ultimate authority in the United States and that with a wave of their hand and a scratch of their pen, they can enact unassailable dictates that you have to follow.  This is so far from the truth that you could fit a solar system between them.  There are many laws in the land, with different states containing different laws to follow.  But, the supreme laws are the ones enshrined in the Constitution.  If any laws are issued that conflict with this supreme law of the land, then those laws are invalid and do not have to be followed.  This isn't just the opinion of a freedom-loving American with a penchant for bucking authority, it's also the opinion of the Supreme Court.

Whom Do We Trust?  [Scroll down]  America was founded by those who lost trust in their mother country.  Our Constitution was unique in that it mistrusted the very institutions of governing, with checks and balances codified for the citizens' protection.  It would be wonderful if we could trust the people we charge with our care, but experience reminds us that we can't. [...] The politicians currently in power seek to dismantle the Constitution for America's own good.  They ask us to trust them while most things they do smack of dishonesty.  Their "Noble Lies" are justifiable as a means of achieving their endgame, but their lust for power is the only truth we recognize as true.

Where Are They Trying to Take Us?  [Scroll down]  Think about the larger Green New Deal (goals and objectives), and then contrast those objectives while aligning an overlay map of how federal COVID mitigation rules can be applied as a back door to the EXACT SAME objective.  Far beyond masks and even vaccines:  workspaces being forced to be redesigned.  New rules on labor density.  New rules on labor/manufacturing and office proximity.  New rules on uniforms.  New rules on hand-washing stations.  New rules on sick pay, shift hours, time-off when a COVID infection is detected in the workplace.  Think about everything from rules on surfaces, to rules on packaging, to rules on ALL business operations as an outcome of federal regulatory policy under the guise of CVOID-19 mitigation.  OSHA, Labor, Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, Education, Housing, Health and Human Services, and even federal building permits:  the entire regulatory system and compliance network.  Think about Housing and Urban Development (HUD) having new rules about dwellings and complexes for housing grants.  Population density; the need to move into the suburbs and the confiscation of private property to "ensure the common safety" of the citizens.

Turley says Ron Klain's vaccine retweet is legal issue for Biden: 'Breathtakingly daft'.  Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley called White House chief of staff Ron Klain's recent retweet appearing to praise the Biden administration for executing the "ultimate work-around" for President Biden's recent vaccine mandate "breathtakingly daft."  "The retweet was breathtakingly daft on the eve of litigation over the order.  It is reminiscent of President Biden admitting that his own White House counsel and their preferred legal experts all said that the eviction moratorium extension was likely unconstitutional," Turley told Fox News on Friday [9/10/2021].  "Courts will now be asked to ignore the admission and uphold a self-admitted evasion of constitutional limits," Turley added.  The "problem is that the thing being 'worked around' is the Constitution."

Against Biden's Mandates.  We oppose President Biden's lawless and authoritarian new mandates announced yesterday.  We also denounce his divisive rhetoric toward unvaccinated Americans, his reckless antipathy for federalism, and his threats to usurp state governors.  Contra Mr. Biden, this is entirely about freedom and personal choice.  His proposed executive orders represent nothing less than centralized tyranny, whereby the federal government operates under no legal constraints.  This is government anarchy.  The announced policies — including mandated vaccines for private employers of a certain size, mandated vaccines for all healthcare workers, and mandated vaccines for federal employees — are wildly extraconstitutional and far beyond any executive power imagined in the Constitution.  Of course, the same is true for OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), which (since its magical creation in 1971) laughably claims jurisdiction over working conditions across millions of private US businesses operating on private property.  OSHA is the bludgeon Mr. Biden intends to use against business owners to dictate their arrangements with employees by requiring covid vaccines.

One Line From Biden's Vaccine Mandate Speech Should Make 'Free People' Very Uncomfortable.  During his speech announcing expansive new vaccine mandates on Thursday, President Biden took aim at Republican governors who have continued to value freedom in their responses to Covid-19, threatening to use his "powers" to "get them out."  After blasting the nearly 80 million Americans who have not gotten vaccinated, the president turned his ire to GOP governors, particularly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.  "To make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19," he said.  "Instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, they're ordering mobile morgues for the unvaccinated dying from COVID in their communities.

Biden's Vaccine Mandate Has Nothing To Do With Fighting COVID.  A mandate to fight COVID-19, protests erupted.  And rightly so.  But the real reason Biden chose now to announce it is so he could claim credit for what is already happening with COVID.  In what is almost certainly a vast overreach of his executive authority, Biden declared that he'd develop "an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees, that together employ over 80 million workers, to ensure their work forces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week."  Of course, this mandate will raise constitutional challenges.  Which is no doubt what Biden wants.  After all, if such a move is constitutional — and there are [sic] no shortage of "experts" who say that it is — then [we're in trouble].  Because that would open the door to federal intervention into our daily lives on an unprecedented scale.  All that would be needed is to declare something, anything an "emergency."

Joe Biden Threatens the Unvaccinated and Announces His Unconstitutional Vaccine Mandate in Disturbing, Dictatorial Speech.  Today [9/9/2021], Joe Biden took to the podium and officially announced a vaccine mandate from the federal level hitting all private businesses with over 100 employees.  In making that announcement, he trashed the unvaccinated, threatened them, and generally stoked the flames of division in such a way that should worry everyone.  He also asserted himself as a dictatorial figure, able to push governors "out the way" who push back on his tyrannical orders.  I'll go ahead and say it before we get into the clips:  This is the most disturbing speech I've ever heard from a president.  [Video clip]  Here's the president trashing the unvaccinated in a way that sounds like he's trying to foment a civil war, and no, I'm not kidding.  It's that bad, with him repeatedly talking about anger toward the unvaccinated and blaming them for all of society's ills.  [Video clip]  Later in the speech, he went at the unvaccinated again in threatening fashion.  I was almost in disbelief at his tone and word choice.

Are We Supposed to Not Care When a Senator Wants to Ban Books?  Because the Press Does Not See a Problem.  If you were to make a proposal that a politician should go about calling to take down published works, the initial reaction from many would be to recoil and issue a rebuke.  The concept of the government seeking to silence select individuals runs contrary to our core beliefs.  Yet we have a politician currently calling to take that very action, and the response is so vacant that you have to wonder how far we as a nation have drifted.

National Archives Slaps 'Harmful Content' Warning On Constitution, All Other Founding Documents.  The National Archives Records Administration placed a "harmful content" warning on the Constitution, labeling the governing document of the United States as "harmful or difficult to view."  The warning applies to all documents across the Archives' cataloged website, including the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.  "NARA's records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records," the administration said in a statement.  "As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions.  In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance."

How to Tell What the Government Fears Most.  Every interaction between government and citizen today tests how far individual liberty may be diminished before the public pushes back.  Should authorities have had the power to close businesses and prohibit public gatherings in the name of health?  What if the risk to the public's health is less than one percent?  What if the risk is merely one hundredth of one percent?  If government can interfere with liberty whenever there is any degree of risk, can there be any degree of liberty?  If government can make you afraid of something — imaginary or not — may it then control your life completely in order to guarantee FDR's "freedom from fear"?  Does depending on government to ensure "freedom from fear" not incentivize government to invent new fears that only additional government powers can vanquish?  Does this not subsidize fear with taxpayer dollars and guarantee that government will always strive to make citizens afraid?  Can it really be true that individual liberty should be "allowed" to exist only when there is nothing that can hurt us?

Left Doesn't Just Want to Censor You on Social Media.  It Also Wants to Close Your Bank Accounts.  It is becoming increasingly clear that political leaders on the left and Big Tech are joining arms to not just deplatform dissident voices from social media, but to bar them from the digital space entirely, including from having the ability to make and receive payments online.  In the latest example, Chase Bank reportedly planned to close the credit card account of former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Sept. 18, stating that "continuing the relationship creates possible reputational risk to our company."  While as of Aug. 31, a Chase spokesperson said that they had "made an error and apologized for any inconvenience caused," the initial gesture can't be ignored.  This comes just a couple months after Wells Fargo made the "business decision" to close 2020 Republican Delaware Senate candidate Lauren Witzke's account.  Two of the more prominent digital payment services, PayPal and Stripe, have also become active cancel culture participants.

Reading between the lines in Australia.  [Video clip]

South Australia Directorate Releases New Cell Phone COVID App to Monitor Quarantine Compliance.  People wonder why they should be paying attention to what happens in Australia.  Well, quite simply, if you can identify where the test facility is for technology to merge with totalitarian objectives, it becomes valuable to follow what they do — and then predict what the future might look like for you.  Australia and New Zealand are testing the parameters of merging the objectives of the control state with technology and citizen compliance.  A year ago, the leftists in U.S. media were cheering the COVID responsibility of Kiwis and Aussies.  However, things are starting to take a very dark turn now.  Even the ultra-far-left Atlantic Magazine is starting to become aware, and what they are seeing is becoming worrisome.

Australian state begins use of app that dispatches police if you don't prove your location with selfie within 15 minutes of random check.  Australia has transformed itself from a free society to a police state, using the Covid epidemic [as] an excuse.  Already, the country has all but forbidden international travel, blocking not just the arrival of foreigners (and Australian citizens), but the departure of any of its citizens.  Since it is an island continent, no Berlin Wall has been necessary, but that would presumably not be out of the question where the geography otherwise.

The Masked Ball of Cowardice.  [Scroll down]  Likewise, in October 2020, the WHO's peer-reviewed bulletin showed COVID-19's overall IFR across all age groups to be about 0.23%.  John Ioannidis, the world's most-cited physician, believes the IFR (infection fatality rate) to be lower and published his own peer-reviewed study showing the overall IFR to be about 0.15%.  But in a poll conducted by the Menzies Research Centre, by June 2021 Australians on average estimated their chance of dying if they contracted the virus to be 38%, an overestimation of more than 160-fold.  For the public to be so egregiously misinformed about their actual risk from COVID-19 renders democratic accountability for lockdown measures impossible.  Even more so because, as a study by Cardiff University demonstrated, the primary factor by which citizens judge the threat of COVID-19 is their own government's decision to employ drastic lockdown measures.  "We found that people judge the severity of the COVID-19 threat based on the fact the government imposed a lockdown — in other words, they thought, 'it must be bad if government's taking such drastic measures.'  We also found that the more they judged the risk in this way, the more they supported lockdown."  The policies thus create a feedback loop in which the measures themselves sow the fear that makes citizens to believe their risk of dying from COVID-19 is hundreds of times greater than it really is, which in turn causes them to support more lockdown measures.

Beyond Orwell:  CDC Releases 'Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication'.  The Centers for Disease Control is once again involving itself in an aspect of American life which is absolutely none of its business.  We have watched as the CDC inserted itself in everything from the eviction moratorium to the Superbowl.  Now they want to control your language.  They just released an exhaustive list of words you shouldn't use, in the name of health equity, whatever that is.  Topics include drug abuse, healthcare, homelessness, economic status, immigration, race, sexual orientation, and more.

We hate our government.  A $35K fine for sixty people who gathered in an "illegal" church worship in Sydney.  A group of rescue dogs that were shot by a local council so that rescue center staff would not travel to pick them up under the guise of Covid restrictions.  Police firing rubber bullets at lockdown protestors.  Despotic state premiers refusing the prime minister's call to reopen once 80% vaccination rates are achieved.  Homes of Covid sufferers in South Australia to be marked so that their neighbors can rat them out to police if they breach tyrannical stay at home orders.  Celebrities offered cash payments by government to promote the pro-vaccine propaganda line.  The military ordered onto Sydney streets.  Why are we surprised?  Did anyone think during a plague crisis, real or imagined, that our government would react in any way other than the most stupid, ineffective and damaging?  Look at their prior form over the last sixty years.  At all levels of government, from the federal to the state and to local councils, the results speak for themselves.  A consistent rate of public failure.  And underneath all, a foundation of endemic corruption.

More than a thousand anti-vaxxers march on New York City streets to protest de Blasio's vaccine mandate.  Over 1,000 people flooded New York City streets again to protest the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and then gathered in Columbus Circle where speakers fired up the crowd.  One woman said, 'This is a war call.  This is a fight.  Leave here and do something ... Fight for your rights.'  While the demonstration unfolded Saturday afternoon, Mayor Bill di Blasio's tweeted pictures from Harlem and praised the faith community Hope of Harlem's work at COVID-19 community outreach.  The protest is in reaction to the new requirement for people ages 12 and older to show proof they've received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to get into restaurants or bars, gyms and indoor entertainment such as movies and theaters.  The new mandate — dubbed 'Key to NYC' — went into effect August 17.

The Editor says...
"Key to NYC" implies that you're locked out of the city without the key.  That's not what one should expect to find in a free country.

Woke Soldier Eager to Shoot Americans.  Immediately upon taking his position, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin proclaimed a military stand-down for an ideological purge of those who may not be on board with the authoritarian left's fundamental transformation of America.  The purpose was to finish the work begun by Obama's purge of the officer corps.  If Democrats succeed, the only people left in the military will sound like this sergeant:  [Tweet]  Democrats openly push an agenda likely to lead to another civil war (e.g., seizing unconstitutional federal control of elections to reduce them to farces, packing the Supreme Court).  They do this because they expect to win, since they control the military and have been systematically subverting it.  A victory would allow them to move directly to a postconstitutional Marxist system of government, with those deemed likely to resist incarcerated in gulags.  The humiliating defeat in Afghanistan has taught them nothing about asymmetrical warfare.

'Woke' US soldier threatens Americans, says they 'become the enemy' if they don't obey under martial law.  A video clip of a female U.S. Army soldier who appeared to threaten to shoot American citizens if martial law is ever declared and they refuse to comply with orders has gone viral on social media and triggered widespread backlash.  The clip went viral thanks to Jeremy Darling, a black conservative who posted a snippet of the larger clip to his own TikTok and added his own commentary, warning that the soldier's words "should be cause for concern."  The soldier's words were as follows:  "Understand that if active-duty military actually get deployed within the United States, that weapon is not just pointed at other people, other countries.  It's pointed at you.  If you do not get in your house when I tell you to, you become the enemy.  Martial law."  It's like that, huh?  [Video clip]  Who is this woman?  An investigation revealed that she's a 35-year-old self-identified "lesbian" who goes by the pronouns "she/her."

Active Duty and Retired Navy Members Are Being Told They Cannot "Disrespect" Biden Over Afghanistan Debacle.  Communications from top leadership at the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) shows them instructing active duty and retired service members that they are forbidden from criticizing Joe Biden for his utter incompetence that led to the crisis in Afghanistan.  In an email that was uncovered by the Daily Wire, the Naval Intelligence Chief of staff, Captain Scott Chesbrough, gave current and former members of the Navy a reminder to follow the uniform code that prohibits them from disrespecting senior government leadership, especially if it comes to feeble Ol'-Joe.

An Awfully Convenient Ruse for an Inconvenient Truth.  Imagine being told not to worry about a future without savings because a government-created welfare system would provide retirement funds for all.  Imagine being conned into believing that Social Security is a personal investment that a worker is individually contributing for his own future, only to learn that most workers will never get back what they gave into the system.  Imagine that health care costs have skyrocketed for half a century because a largely unnecessary system of health insurance artificially raised the cost of medical care until only those with insurance could afford care at all.  Imagine being told once again not to worry because the government will interject itself into the doctor-patient relationship permanently by regulating the practice of medicine, subsidizing government-preferred outcomes, rationing treatments, and using tax dollars to pay for now much more expensive health care for anyone in need.

Nancy Pelosi, Bennie Thompson and J6 Committee Start Fishing Expedition — Seeking All Communication From Political Opposition.  Anyone who has followed politics for any amount of time knows the Nancy Pelosi "January 6th Committee" is an opposition research effort under the guise of a House investigation.  The goal is to frame an extremist narrative favorable for the Democrats in the 2022 mid-term election.  That is the entire goal.  What the Mueller probe was to President Trump, the J6 Committee is to the MAGA movement.  Everyone [...] in Washington DC knew Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel for one reason, to target President Trump, weaken his administration and ultimately remove him from office.  Not a single entity in DC did not know that was the goal.  The same is true here.  Everyone in DC knows Nancy Pelosi's J6 committee is intended to target Democrat political opposition.  That is the goal.  That is ONLY the goal.  Not a single entity in DC does not know that is the goal.

Question the Narrative of the Ruling Party.  This incompetent regime couldn't execute a war and withdrawal against real terrorists in Afghanistan, handing over billions of dollars in weapons to them.  But it thinks that people who question arbitrary mask mandates, potential vaccine passports, and have legitimate questions about the 2020 elections are the real terrorists.  The latest Department of Homeland Security bulletin is a prime example of how this administration twists the thoughts and fears of half of the U.S. population into a warning of potential violence.  Conveniently, they neglected to mention any heightened threats of violence as a result of actions taken by organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa.  No, the real threat is people who are tired of wearing masks and question the legitimacy of an extremely suspect presidential election.  The last line in the DHS bulletin warns readers:  "Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions."  Let's be clear:  the DHS bulletin wasn't a bulletin; it was a threat, as in a read-between-the-lines threat.

George W. Bush's CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden calls Trump supporters 'our Taliban'.  A retired top US military general and former CIA chief sparked outrage over the weekend by comparing supporters of former President Donald Trump to the Taliban and calling a suggestion to send 'the MAGA wearing unvaxxed' to Afghanistan a 'good idea.'  Retired four-star Air Force General Michael Hayden on Thursday [8/19/2021] retweeted a split image of armed militants in a caravan of white pickup trucks with the caption 'Their Taliban.' Under that was a picture of cars adorned with Trump 2020 and American flags along a highway.  The second image was captioned 'Our Taliban.'  On Sunday morning Hayden took another swing at the former president's fans.

Massive Unrest as Australia Adopts China's Authoritarian 'COVID-Zero' Approach.  The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting illness, COVID-19, has caused mass hysteria on a global scale.  Perhaps no response is as shocking as what we see in Australia.  The country is included in the group of western democracies globally and among the Five Eyes intelligence community members.  Yet, the nation's response to the pandemic can only be described as authoritarian. [...] Roadblocks began in Sydney on August 15 with the military assisting.  Residents planned anti-lockdown protests in several large cities for the weekend of August 21.  When this came to the attention of law enforcement, David Elliot, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, told the public:  "If you have a loved one you believe is going to protest this weekend, you are obliged to talk them out of it.  If you know someone who attends an illegal gathering this weekend, you must call crime stoppers."  This warning did not deter the protests as thousands of Australians in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane clashed with police.  Reuters reports the arrest of hundreds of protestors and seven police officers sustained injuries.  In Melbourne, protesters broke the police lines.

Guns, Germs, and Feelz.  [Scroll down]  How fast do things go south when ordinary citizens have no effective means of defending themselves from government psychosis?  Just look at New Zealand and Australia, "free" nations with strict gun control that are currently using their militaries to enforce lockdown orders that have essentially placed everyone under house arrest "for his own good."  If people can be stripped of their liberties to live and work as they see fit for a virus that is almost entirely harmless for most people in good health, exactly what potential threat can a well armed government not use to justify enslavement?

Tyranny has Arrived In Australia.  It's getting very expensive to be a human in the former prison colony, now again a prison colony, Australia.  [Video clip]

Something shifted after the election of Barack H Obama in 2008.  [Thread reader]  Something subtle that was quietly taking place in the background that surfaced just slow enough so that most people didn't notice.  But before getting to that, let's first just look at the DHS announcement as presented in their words.  Look at this small sentence and the worldview it expresses:  "Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions."  Notice the word "perceived"?  The government imposed mandates, mask and vaccination requirements are only "perceived government restrictions."  In essence, the chains that bind your expressions of liberty and freedom are merely figments of your imagination.  The needle being forced into the arm of federal workers by the Federal Government is only the perception of a forced medical treatment.  Your perception of what they are doing is the problem.  You must therefore correct your wrong-thoughts to eliminate the wrong perception.  Yes, Dear Leader appreciates your compliance.  Your reluctance to change your perception is what identifies you as an extremist.

DHS List of Terror 'Threats' Should Raise All Kinds of Eyebrows.  Joe Biden's Department of Homeland Security just issued a terror threat advisory which is raising some eyebrows.  Listen, as Lester Holt and Pete Williams describe how the "terror threat advisory" isn't based on any actual threats or plots, but just a lot of "anti-government rhetoric" that includes things like "opposition to COVID measures" like masks and vaccine measures.  [Video clip] [...] So, if there aren't any actual plots or threats, what they're really doing is demonizing free speech, as Tim Young observes, or criticism of government action.  That's a dangerous route to go down.  It also suggests that the DHS is surveilling people to some degree on this subject, another troubling thought, and definitely a slippery slope to go down.  They're also continuing to demonize Trump supporters again, by including them in the advisory that isn't based on any actual threats, with "claims of election fraud, belief Trump can be reinstated."

Fauci: Unvaccinated Need to 'Put Aside' Concerns of Personal Liberty.  Chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday [8/15/2021] on CBS's "Face the Nation" that the vaccine-hesitant should "put aside" their concerns about personal liberty and recognize the "common enemy" is the COVID-19 pandemic.  [Video clip]

Naomi Wolf:  Mandatory Vaccine Passport Could Lead To The End Of Human Liberty In The West.  Author of "The End Of America" Naomi Wolf joined FOX News Channel's Steve Hilton on "The Next Revolution" to warn about "Orwellian" outcomes of the Coronavirus pandemic.  [Transcript:] "Vaccine passport" sounds like a fine thing if you don't understand what these platforms can do.  I'm the CEO of a tech company, I understand what this platform does.  It is not about the vaccine or the virus, it is about your data.  What people need to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all.  What that means is that can be merged with your Paypal account, digital currency, Microsoft is talking about merging it with payment plans, your networks can be sucked up, it geolocates you wherever you go.  All of your medical history can be included — this has already happened in Israel.

A Brief History of the Assault on Conservatives as 'Violent Extremists'.  The assault on conservative Americans began several decades ago with attacks on traditional principles and values.  Belief in individual liberty and responsibility, free enterprise, and the rule of law was willfully conflated with "right-wing extremism."  Pride in America, a desire to protect our borders, and opposition to illegal immigration was branded as xenophobic.  Championing the constitutional right to bear arms was decried as gun-crazed zealotry.  Belief in religion, natural law, and the sanctity of human life was maligned as backward and anachronistic.  This vilification of conservatives has coincided with a deliberate shift from the real threats:  radical Islamic and leftist groups.  Islamic terrorist attacks have been declared as having "nothing to do with Islam" or excused by spurious claims that the perpetrators were mentally ill or misunderstood religious doctrine.  When a military psychiatrist massacred 13 people in Fort Hood yelling 'Allahu akbar', it was dismissed as "workplace violence."  And the violence, arson, destruction of public property, and killing of citizens and police officers unleashed by Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) during the 'Summer of Love' are described as "mostly peaceful protests."

Official U.S. Government Announcement:  If You Question Govt COVID Response You are Considered A Domestic Violent Extremist.  The United States Department of Homeland Security made a quiet and alarming announcement yesterday [8/13/2021], creating the official position of the United States Government under the Joe Biden regime.  According to the statement, if you question the orthodoxy, mandates, or COVID-19 response from the U.S. government, you are now considered a "terrorist", specifically a "Domestic Violent Extremist" (DVE).  This is quite a remarkable development and seems to underpin the tenuous, unstable and fragile disposition of the current regime.  The Department of Homeland Security seems rather paranoid in their need to label anyone who would question the COVID-19 response.  More than half the country would now be defined as dissidents and domestic terrorists within their our homeland.

Socialism Is Modern Fascism.  [Scroll down]  Often, we can no longer even engage in a rational debate with a radical leftist without the latter spraying spittle into our face, flying into an apoplectic rage, and/or attempting to ruin our lives because we dare to disagree.  Biden's task is easy.  He simply has to throw his weight around to muzzle free speech and influence society's cancelation of anyone who dares to speak out and disavow ideas such as critical race theory, defund the police, or vaccine mandates.  You see it in academia, business, sports, pop culture, media.  You see it in your social and family life.  We are no longer allowed to speak our minds.  There is currently no legal ramification, though we are not far from this eventuality.  But the consequences to one's career, one's social status, one's ability to live as a free individual are just as debilitating, if not more so.  We are significantly closer to an ideologically totalitarian state than most are willing to admit.

The Agenda for Serfdom in the Land of the Free.  Agenda 21 was introduced at the U.N. Earth Summit in 1992, along with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), as the "comprehensive blueprint for the reorganization of human society." Together, they toll the death knell for wealth creation and economic and personal liberty, based on the fallacious assumption that development will lead to the extinction of life on Earth.  With top-down controls, they aim to end local power and vest it in a global governance system.  Environment protection is the excuse and weapon for this draconian program to fundamentally transform human lives, force citizens to surrender their liberties, and enforce socialist global control.  The agenda is political.

Mask bullies don't want to persuade you — but to humiliate and rule you.  Law professor Ann Althouse recently reproduced two memes she saw on Facebook.  One read:  "It took 'click it or ticket' to get people to wear a seatbelt.  I wonder if 'mask it or casket' might work." The other said:  "It's a face mask, not a Star of David or pink triangle, you whiny, privileged dolt.  You're not being shoved into a cattle car and taken to camp.  You're going to Walmart for twinkies and Diet Coke.  Grow up."  They're both poor efforts at persuasion, of course:  Generally, calling people names, threatening them and saying they're stupid are ineffective ways of winning them over.  Yet we're seeing more and more of this sort of thing. (And note the casual classism of invoking Walmart, Twinkies and Diet Coke.  Poor white people aren't, in fact, the least-vaccinated group — that would actually be blacks and Hispanics — but bashing working-class whites is considered perfectly decent, almost mandatory.)  Maybe the mask fanatics are just poor persuaders.  But it seems just as likely that they are engaging in poor persuasion because they aren't trying to persuade.  As with so much that goes on in today's society, and especially on social media, this sort of thing isn't aimed at convincing those who disagree, but rather at garnering high-fives from people who agree and, ultimately, creating an ideological veneer for unquestioned elite rule.

The coming Delta lockdown is DESIGNED to invoke nationwide protests so they can be exploited as a backdrop for false flag event.  Within the next 12 days, multiple sources have told us, the pretender-in-chief Joe Biden will announce a nationwide lockdown, fraudulently blaming the "delta" variant and "anti-vaxxers" for the overzealous action.  The lockdown will have no specific end date, and it is likely to be strongly resisted by red states, while blue states will effectively be turned into medical police states with brutal enforcement of the lockdown measures.  Most importantly, the new lockdown will be perceived as so overreaching and totalitarian that nationwide protests will soon commence.  This is actually all part of the plan.  The lockdown push is being engineered to invoke a backlash, even among Leftists who will join conservatives in taking to the streets to protest the medical tyranny.  This backdrop of nationwide protests is the setting needed by the deep state to stage a violent false flag event that I'm told will most likely target a medical facility or medical group of some kind.  The FBI will of course be running this just like they ran the Whitmer "kidnapping" in Michigan as well as the Jan. 6th "capitol siege" false flag operation.

Homeland Insecurity for Conservatives.  The Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks for the purpose of protecting America against terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.  It was not intended to spy on ordinary Americans or track their political affiliations.  But now DHS seems to be spending as much time tracking and prosecuting "domestic terrorism" as it does foreign terrorists and actual criminals, including those gang members who are crossing our southern border every day.  That's the same border that Kamala Harris is in charge of.  An official at DHS stated in May 2021 that "domestic violent extremism poses the most lethal, persistent terrorism-related threat to our homeland today" — that in connection with a new program of monitoring extremism on public social media.  DHS is going to be collecting and analyzing social media data in an effort to identify possible threats.  That seems straightforward enough, except that one often discovers what one is looking for, and recent history suggests that government is tracking conservatives more closely than radical groups like Antifa.

Show Your Papers, New York City Announces Vaccination Passport Needed to Eat at Restaurants or Engage in Private Businesses.  Comrade rebels, effective September 13th, anyone living or visiting New York City who has not been vaccinated will be blocked from entering any private venue, restaurant or indoor facility.  Businesses will be required to operate security checkpoints, where people without proof of vaccinated status will be denied entry.  Your engagement with the system of commerce will now be controlled by the New York Ministry of COVID Compliance.

The Biden Military Witch-hunt.  A manufactured panic over the January 6 rally has provided Biden and his flunkies with an excuse to attack the U.S. military.  The Biden administration has implemented an effort to root out political "extremism" in the military in order to work toward a military with more 'diversity, equity, and inclusion', despite little evidence of any such extremists actually operating within the ranks: [...] The DoD's definition of extremism is so broad and imprecise that some retired officers and military analysts fear it could inadvertently include traditional Catholics, Republicans, and people who aren't racist or violent but simply choose conservative, pro-life politics.  For example, DoD considers "'patriot' extremism" to include any non-extreme position, such as conservative views, religious teachings such as those against abortion or LGBTQ lifestyles, and failure to actively support gay right demonstrations or mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations.  They are therefore legitimate targets for the CEWG [Countering Extremism Working Group].

Amid Union Pushback, Biden's COVID-19 Vaccine Rules Face Legal Challenge Over Coercion.  President Joe Biden touts the support of the business community for his COVID-19 vaccine policy, but leaders of organized labor, which the president identifies as his political base, aren't happy.  Requirements that both federal employees and the employees of federal contractors "attest" to their vaccination status and regularly submit to testing if not vaccinated could face a court challenge, based on the Biden administration's own employment guidelines.  The U.S. government includes about 2.1 million employees and is assisted by more than 4 million contract employees.  Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said in a formal statement:  "Forcing people to undertake a medical procedure is not the American way and is a clear civil rights violation no matter how proponents may seek to justify it."  The American Postal Workers Union also issued a statement, saying "it is not the role of the federal government to mandate vaccinations for the employees we represent."

Australia uses helicopters and the army to enforce its 'Zero Covid' lockdown as thousands of police flood Sydney to enforce the rules.  Australia today [7/31/2021] used helicopters and the army to enforce its 'Zero Covid' lockdown, as thousands of police flooded Sydney city centre to enforce the rules and hand out $500 fines for those not wearing a mask.  Sirens blared across the city and a draconian message was broadcast from the skies, as millions were told:  'This is public health order — do not break rules — you will be found and fines issued.'  Ministers had tried to eliminate all cases through isolation and closed borders, but just 17% of adults have been vaccinated and concerns are now growing over the virus' growing prevalence across the country.

Biden on Vaccine Mandates:  "It's Still a Question Whether the Federal Government Can Mandate the Whole Country... I Don't Know That Yet".  Joe Biden on Thursday delivered remarks on his administration's Covid-19 vaccination efforts.  Biden was asked about vaccine mandates in the private sector.  Joe Biden said he supports vaccine mandates in the private sector then said he isn't sure if the government can implement mandates on a federal level.  "I would like to see them continue to move in that direction... it's still a question whether the Federal government can mandate the whole country.  I don't know that yet," Biden said.

Joe Biden Just Opened the Door for Federally Mandated Vaccinations for Everyone.  One of Joe Biden's handlers should really reign him in.  He made a series of remarks today that ranged from head-scratching to anger-inducing.  At one point, Fox News' Peter Doocy pinned him down on his previous statements on vaccinations and masks, noting that the president is now saying the opposite.  That led to a flailing claim that he didn't say what he said while insisting the science on masks has changed when it simply hasn't.  But one comment involving the vaccines may be Biden's most ill-advised yet.  After being asked about businesses and local communities mandating vaccines, the president opened the door for federally ordered, mandatory vaccinations, not just for government employees, but for all Americans.  He noted that he's not sure if he can do it, though.  [Tweet]

Capitol Police to arrest bare-faced visitors.  "The People's House"?  Not so much.  That was so old-school, so yesterday, so in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Founders.  United States Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger recently announced that Capitol Police will start potentially arresting congressional aides and visitors to the House side of the Capitol if they have the audacity to appear there unmasked. [...] Though the same mandate technically applies to members of Congress, the same strict enforcement will not.  Of course.  Capitol Police, at least those who aren't then giving tearful testimony about how the January 6th protest was worse than Armageddon, will simply be asked to report bare-faced lawmakers to supervising officers "who will, in turn, refer the matter to the House Sergeant at Arms."

Another Scheme To Enlarge An Already Bloated Federal Government.  If Democrats have their way, America will eventually form a Civilian Climate Corps that will hire and train people to save Earth from overheating.  It's exactly what we've come to expect from the party that is obsessed with being an unchallengeable ruling class rather than a participant in our republican style of government. [...] As usual, the Democrats are having a mind-racing fever dream.  In this one they are consumed by visions of spending billions of dollars that aren't theirs, and sending out swarms of climate zealots to harass, lecture, and hector Americans over their use of fossil fuels.  They're likely seeing themselves solidifying a voter bloc so grateful for the party's largess, and so indoctrinated by its growing socialist ideology, that it will help elect Democrats for generations.  Never underestimate how power hungry the party is, nor how determined the progressive wing that's driving its agenda is to transform the U.S. by perpetually adding layers of government control.

The Many Guises Of The Totalitarian Impulse.  Wouldn't it be nice and fair and simple if all the voting systems across the country were the same?  Wouldn't it be nice and fair and simple if every school in the nation were equally as good?  Wouldn't it be nice and fair and simple if everyone had access to robust and identical health care programs? [...] For each of the above notions — among countless others — have something important in common:  The need for centralization; that is, the need for a centralized power to determine and then enforce exactly what equal means.  And that requires people to wield that power.

Sounds like forcible abduction.  Just like you might see in China or North Korea.
Andrew Cuomo:  We Must Knock on Doors, Put People in Cars, 'Drive them and Get that Vaccine in Their Arm'.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Monday [7/26/2021] said it is the community's mission to get more people vaccinated, previewing his administration's desire to knock on doors, put unvaccinated people in cars, and drive them to "get that vaccine in their arm."  "I wear a mask because I care about you.  I get a vaccine because I care about you," Cuomo said, framing compliance to various methods of government coercion as an expression of selflessness.

Biden DOJ Declares COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Legal.  The Biden DOJ ruled that federal law doesn't prohibit public agencies, private business from requiring vaccines for employees[.]  It was only a few months ago that Kamala Harris said she would NEVER take the Trump endorsed vaccine.

The Duplicitous Ruling Elites Have Awakened the American People.  Over the past three decades a sizable majority of the ruling elites have been preoccupied with self-aggrandizement and cohabitation with the Communist Chinese, ignoring the gradual and now complete domination of many of the nation's institutions, and most importantly the Democrat party, by American Marxists.  After a premeditated fraudulent election underwritten by the same credulous elites, and with a witless marionette in the White House, these collectivists have been de facto governing the nation since January 20, 2021.  The past six months have revealed that thanks to these Marxists' mindless allegiance to failed ideology and breathtaking ignorance of the American experience and citizenry combined with the now unmasked duplicity of the ruling elites, there is a massive awakening bubbling to the surface.  This cabal has for the past five years marginalized, physically confronted and repeatedly accused not only the 75+ million Americans who voted for Donald Trump but any American not in lockstep with them of being racists, fascists and white supremacists as well as homophobic, xenophobic and among the vilest people on the face of the earth.

What Vaccines Say about the Precarious State of Our Freedom.  As purportedly "free" countries all over the world get their tyrannical freak on by insisting that every citizen be jabbed with an experimental pharmaceutical cocktail or face the wrath of the Leviathan, I am reminded of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, in which he remarked:  "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive."  Jefferson's point was that ordinary citizens represent a necessary check on the natural abuses of government and the last line of defense against corruption and political tyranny.  Make no mistake:  the writer of the Declaration of Independence saw government as not a benefactor of man's freedom, but rather its adversary.  "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground," Jefferson warned in another letter to Edward Carrington, a distinguished soldier and Virginia statesman.  Free people don't stay free by blindly trusting everything government officials say and do; free people stay free by treating government with great apprehension and even greater suspicion.

A Foretaste of Fascism.  How can we make sense of the Biden administration's project to establish a shadow state in which the federal government achieves its unconstitutional objectives — mask mandates, forced vaccines, suppression of religious freedom and free speech — by recruiting private corporations to do its bidding?  What is the official name for this public-private partnership in opposition to our liberties?  Before I answer this question, let's zoom in on precisely what the administration seeks to do.  It recognizes, of course, that any attempt to impose a nationwide mask mandate or to force Americans to take the vaccine would run into serious constitutional problems.  Where does the Constitution give the federal government the power to require such things?  Nowhere.  Moreover, there are practical obstacles.  How exactly would the federal government go about enforcing such mandates?  It would take a nationwide reporting system of unimaginable complexity to ensure full compliance with a mask mandate.  No less than a national vaccine database would be needed to ensure that all citizens took their compulsory vaccine.  In either case, it's unclear what penalties could be imposed on those who refused.

Big Tech 'Counterterrorism' Org Shifts Focus from Islamic Extremism to 'Far Right'.  Big Tech companies including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Reddit, Verizon, Airbnb, and Mailchimp will expand a project of collusion on "counterterrorism" efforts that target domestic right-wing organizations.  The organization, which initially focused on building a database on content shared by Islamic extremists linked to Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban, will now shift focus to right-wing groups including the Proud Boys.

So the vaccinated are "running out of patience," eh?  It seems as if every day we see another slew of headlines about the Delta variant and "resurgence" of the virus in this or that place.  In reality, even some of these surges involve a number of new positive tests that are still vastly lower than during the height of the pandemic last winter.  Still, there are cities that are bringing back mask mandates and complaining loudly about the slow vaccination rates.  These complaints are being picked up in the liberal media, with the vast majority of the blame being cast at a predictable group:  white, Republican Trump voters.

America Isn't Dead Yet.  The Biden administration is indeed colluding with Big Tech to crush dissent.  But like all previous Democratic attempts to suppress free speech, such as the Sedition Act of 1918, they will ultimately fail.  SCOTUS moves at an excruciatingly glacial pace.  Yet the Roberts Court, for all its faults, has issued an impressive series of rulings that have bolstered the First Amendment.  Republicans in Congress and the state legislatures have been dilatory in responding to the threat, but they are taking action.  Moreover, the Biden administration's collaboration with Big Tech has been so inept that it has itself already doomed that unholy alliance.  When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted, "We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation," she discredited the specious argument that social media platforms aren't bound by the First Amendment because they are private corporations.  Their cooperation with the Biden administration to censor inconvenient viewpoints places them squarely in the category of "state actors" and thus subject to the same First Amendment restraints that bind the government.

Glenn Greenwald:  The Biden Administration Is Launching A "Second War On Terror" Against American Citizens.  Glenn Greenwald discusses reporting that FBI agents were involved more closely in an alleged 2020 plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan than they previously admitted.  [Video clip, transcript]

Sounds Stalinist?  Liberal Media Demands Trump Supporters Undergo Deprogramming.  They can't stand other opinions.  They can't.  They cannot be allowed to live.  The people who hold them must be targeted and smeared.  All must bow before the unholy altar of American progressivism.  If you can't convince them, destroy them, or deprogram them.  That's what The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson and Nikole Hannah-Jones wanted yesterday.  Grabien's Tom Elliott clipped the madness.  People who support Trump are mentally defective, so they must be deprogrammed.  What does that mean?  Sounds Stalinist in the extreme.  It also reeks of Chinese Cultural Revolution underpinnings.  Those who do not believe what we believe are off to the camps.  It's nothing new.  It only exposes the illiberal nature of the progressive Left.  There can be no deviations.  ALL must bow to the narrative.  You must take this position on this issue or risk annihilation.  Ever wonder why so many liberal policies are intrusive and mandatory?  They don't want to bother convincing you anymore, partially because most voters can see on its face that most of what liberal America offers is trash.  That's why you're forced to do things with a gun to your head.

Conservatism Is Over:  A New Vocabulary for a New Right.  [Scroll down]  Surveying American life and government in 2021, the failure of American conservatives cannot be denied.  What we lost was precisely the vision of American governance and virtues that Benjamin Franklin warned us would be a struggle to maintain.  Equality under the law?  Despite successes in recognizing the humanity of previously oppressed minority groups, the free market has enabled a crass commodification of legal representation that ensures many Americans must routinely settle for inferior counsel.  Another sign of bias in the legal institutions is that informed citizens who aren't lawyers can reliably predict the outcome of key cases merely by learning the number of the circuit court before which they will be argued.  But the betrayal of equality under the law isn't only evident in formal court proceedings — it can be seen in things like the increasingly discriminatory affirmative action policies in higher education, or the Biden Administration's overt racial favoritism in allocating COVID relief funds.

To Exert Complete Control, Communist Dictatorships Always Crush Religious Freedom.  Over the last couple of weeks, widespread protests have broken out across the island, with citizens rallying in opposition to the communist regime that's held power for over six decades.  While some explained the demonstrations were primarily due to rising COVID cases and lack of vaccines, it seems there's something deeper driving Cubans to the streets — evident by the fact that many of them are clearly heard shouting "Libertad!" (liberty) and waving the American flag to symbolize their search for freedom.  For Americans, there's an important lesson we must learn from the situation unfolding just ninety miles south of our shores.  That is, a sobering reminder that communist regimes such as the one in Cuba all begin in a similar way:  By crushing and stripping away the religious liberty of its citizens.  Because once a dictatorial, ruling elite succeed at destroying religious freedom and subjugating houses of worship to their power, it's only a matter of time until other fundamental freedoms — economic, political and social — are ripped away as well.  Make no mistake, the unrest we see in Cuba today is the result of religious suppression and a denial of fundamental human freedoms.  It's the outcome of what happens when our freedoms are decided by the government, as opposed to the eternal truth that our rights come from God.

COVID-19: A Weapon to Fundamentally Transform America.  While Americans have been asleep at the wheel, the power brokers were manipulating us into constant societal unrest, with dwindling individual liberties and growing dependency on the government and big corporations.  COVID-19 has been a handy justification for left-leaning politicians to promote and solidify their ideology.  What many Americans were led to believe was well-intentioned concern for our safety and health has turned into a morass of ever-changing rules designed not for our health, but to accustom us to government control of our lives.

Dissent Is the Highest Form of Patriotism... but Not Online.  "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."  It's a phrase that was credited to Thomas Jefferson, but there's no real evidence that he ever said or wrote this popular phrase used quite often by people on the left — when they feel the need to justify their often ludicrous actions against anyone in charge with an "R" next to their name.  The phrase (likely actually born in the '60s) is one that I never truly agreed with.  I don't think dissent is a high form of patriotism, but it is a key element in a free society.  The highest form of patriotism remains to serve, and possibly die for your country.  Any leftist who used the phrase automatically made me think of them as a little high on their own supply.  They aren't that noble.  Funny enough, this cliché of a phrase used to pardon even the most bloody of protests seems to go from virtue to vice in the blink of an eye... when the Democrats are in charge.  Now, all that dissent they were cheerleading a moment ago borders on treason.

The Rank Shame of the FBI's Rank and File.  The FBI's rank and file recently banged down the door of a Florida pastor and his son.  Neither were accused of violent crimes, but the rank and file arrested both of them, taking the pastor's son into custody in front of his three-year-old daughter.  The rank and file terrorized a Lakeland, Florida community by shouting through loudspeakers and using flashbang devices in its pre-dawn raid on the home of three January 6 suspects.  The rank and file arrested a 69-year-old California woman accused of taking photos in the Capitol building for 30 minutes, after members of the rank and file questioned her without an attorney present.  She thought she was helping the rank and file catch the "real" bad guys, only to learn that the rank and file had targeted her as the bad guy for her half-hour of photography.  These types of boorish, melodramatic arrests of by-and-large ordinary Americans have been carried out by the rank and file for more than six months.  The manner of the arrests themselves is clearly punitive, meant to send a clear message: the federal government is powerful, and if you are deemed its enemy, you will feel its wrath. [...] No members of the rank and file FBI, as far as we know, have acknowledged the immorality of what they are being ordered to do — terrorize and embarrass the political opponents of their own bosses.  Not one member of the rank and file FBI has said to himself, "This just isn't right," and turned in his badge and gun in protest.

Goodbye, America:  We no longer have a Constitution.  For months now, we had known that the tech powers were watching us and suppressing any dissident speech against the current administration.  I have seen it up close and personal.  But what was argued was that the First Amendment to the Constitution protected us only against Congress and the executive branch suppressing free speech.  It did not protect us from private enterprises, even very large private enterprises like Amazon or Google or Facebook, keeping tabs on citizens and shutting them out of the internet-sphere if they expressed views contradicting the views and policies of the Biden-Harris-Big Tech Party.  True, there was one big case involving a large steel company suppressing free speech by its workers, and the Supreme Court ruled that such a big company suppressing free speech on its company properties was indeed a violation of the First Amendment.  But that was rare indeed.  Now, in the year 2021, the iron curtain has come down hard.  With Big Internet Tech and the White House now admittedly colluding to identify and suppress dissidents, even completely nonviolent dissidents, we no longer have a Constitution.

Who's Next?  [Scroll down]  Oh yes: they know that parents and school boards across the country are standing up to drive their nasty racialist creed out of local schools.  They know, and they intend to put a stop to it.  It is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes to define political action by the opposition as inherently violent and morally unconscionable.  When one side can riot, loot, and murder with official sanction, while the other cannot so much as organize without risking a summary imprisonment of indefinite duration, there are not really two sides anymore at all.  These are developments which need attention, and vigorous opposition, now.  Tomorrow is too late; today is already getting there.  That is why we are focusing attention on this Strategy, and why we have invited a number of contributors to describe the threat and what can be done about it.

Zombie chimps from heck.  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testifies that "white supremacism" is the biggest current threat to national security.  But the death toll from white supremacist terror acts in the last 50 years is a number approaching zero, whereas Islamic terror victims in America number somewhere around 4,000, including dozens of military victims.  And all of the burning, looting, street violence, and political attacks of recent years have been from Antifa- and Black Lives Matters — aligned agitators.  Furthermore, Blacks are approximately 27 times more likely to commit interracial violence than whites are, so blaming "white supremacy" for anything is insanely irrational.  Yet the military chiefs are openly zeroing their weapons in on the heartland.

The New Orthodoxy: Jurisdiction over your Thoughts.  [Scroll down]  Their problem is that the truth is an ever-fixed mark.  While they cannot transform the truth — the truth, by its very nature, is unchanging — they circumvent this limitation by exercising power over what can be said.  This gives the impression that what can be said is what is supposed to be said, and that what is prohibited must certainly be false.  Not by the merits of the claim but whether the claim is allowed to be communicated or researched or even debated.  This is how falsehoods win over the truth, and how politics corrupts it all.  Reporting on studies of vaccine effectiveness — even by the inventor of the mRNA technology used in some COVID vaccines — are banned from YouTube.  Medical experts and scientists who present evidence and arguments contrary to government-approved thoughts are silenced.  It seems the only authorized information on these platforms is that which is approved by "the CDC, FDA and other local health authorities."  White House press secretary Jen Psaki, expressing the position of the Biden Administration, called for Americans to be banned from all social media platforms if they dare think for themselves and disagree with "science."

The Biden Regime Has Made Us All Enemies of the State.  There's no way to go halfsies on totalitarianism.  Once the government decides it may declare who has rights and who has none, it is a short walk for the government to decide who has life and who has none.  Over 63 million babies have been killed since Roe v Wade, after all, and once you teach a population that a baby is only as alive as a woman chooses, it's not difficult to teach those same people that political opponents are not worthy of life at all.  When individual liberty and private ownership are ridiculed in the name of the "common good," taking life for the "greater good" is never far behind.

Biden's Door to Door Plan to Inoculate Americans.  As if the conflict between American parents, their public school districts, and CDC requirements were not already enough to create a firestorm of unpredictable proportions, President Joe Biden has dramatically increased the stakes by announcing a door-to-door policy to inoculate millions of Americans.  The prospect of a national at-your-front-door vaccination program represents a massive Fourth Amendment assault that threatens the future of the country's Constitutional republic.  As appears to have been the case since Covid was first identified, politics more than the science continues to guide public health decisions rather.  Reputable scientists have connected what has been identified as spike protein bioweapon with what is more commonly referred to as Covid 19; which is not a scientific vaccine yet is still classified by the FDA as an untested Emergency Use Authorization in order to facilitate public usage.  As if Biden's announcement was not enough to cause great clanging alarm bells, WH press secretary Jan Psaki removed any doubt as to the government's true agenda.  Her follow-up to Biden's announcement included reference to the creation of 'strike forces' which removed any benign appearance from what may be shaping up to be the implementation of a nation-wide militarized deployment.

The Rise Of a Secret Unaccountable Police Force in America.  Our founders knew that concentrating too much power in any one federal agency — especially a law enforcement agency — could lead to a tyrannical police state.  It was one of their greatest fears.  After all, they knew a thing or two about tyranny, and it was something they wanted to avoid at all costs. [...] To be clear:
  •   The U.S. Capitol Police operates in secret.
  •   The U.S. Capitol Police is not accountable to the public.
  •   The U.S. Capitol Police has little oversight, given its "personal relationship" with Congress.
  •   The U.S. Capitol Police has a history of operating outside of its scope — such as making drug arrests off capitol grounds.
  •   The U.S. Capitol Police will soon be operating in many states with a mandate that's nebulous at best.
If you add all of these factors together, you end up with a secret police force that is ripe for abuse — a team of modern-day witch hunters willing to do whatever the politicians in charge desire.  It all comes down to whom they consider a threat.  We all know what the Biden/Harris administration and Democratic congressional leaders think of gun owners.  Once you disagree with their gun-confiscation plans you're labeled a "violent extremist."  Are we now going to become the subject of secret police investigations?

The Rise Of a Secret Unaccountable Police Force in America.  There is no doubt that our founders never envisioned a police state that we are faced with today and indeed, it is a police state that is growing.  On top of that, having corrupt politicians, who are out to pad their own wallets, continu[e] to maintain power in the name of serving the people and generally ignore the Constitution and restraints on government, it is not surprising that there is a growing secret, unaccountable police force in America, but really they are not so secretive, just their agenda is secret for the most part.  You know them as the United States Capitol Police (USCP).

Caution:  This article is replete with left-wing bias and government propaganda.
Majority of Covid misinformation came from 12 people, report finds.  The vast majority of Covid-19 anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 people, a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) cited by the White House this week found.  CCDH, a UK/US non-profit and non-governmental organization, found in March that these 12 online personalities they dubbed the "disinformation dozen" have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms, with Facebook having the largest impact.  CCDH analyzed 812,000 Facebook posts and tweets and found 65% came from the disinformation dozen.  Vivek Murthy, US surgeon general, and Joe Biden focused on misinformation around vaccines this week as a driving force of the virus spreading.  On Facebook alone, the dozen are responsible for 73% of all anti-vaccine content, though the vaccines have been deemed safe and effective by the US government and its regulatory agencies.  And 95% of the Covid misinformation reported on these platforms were not removed.

The Editor says...
The government makes rash and highly dubious pronouncements about Covid-19, and then uses it power to silence all dissent.  That's un-American.

Core Constitutional Rights Under Threat From 'Quasi-Totalitarian Movement': Constitutional Scholar.  Rob Natelson, a Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, warned of a "quasi-totalitarian movement" that is threatening the core rights enshrined in the Constitution, from the right to be locally governed to freedom of fair and honest elections.  A leading constitutional scholar whose work has been repeatedly cited in the U.S. Supreme Court cases, Natelson told The Epoch Times that the U.S. Consitution created a federal system in which people could govern themselves in their own states and their own families.  As the federal government became increasingly centralized, however, Americans have lost control of their ability to govern themselves.  "In a federal system, if someone is unhappy with a policy of his state, he can move to another state.  But if the government is unitary, then it's the same everywhere, and that reduces human freedom," he said, noting that the recently defeated election bill H.R.1, also known as the For The People Act, would have threatened the states' freedom to self-govern.

Regime Spokesperson Very Defensive About Americans Knowing the White House is Reviewing Their Social Media.  The Biden regime is becoming increasingly unstable as they attempt to keep control over the American people.  During a terse exchange today, spokesperson Jen Psaki attempts to justify the White House surveillance of American speech saying the Facebook platform users should be "more concerned" with people dying from COVID than having their community speech monitored by the federal government.  When questioned about the U.S. Federal Government now openly admitting Big Brother is watching you, the regime defender responds: "They are more concerned about that, than people dying across the country because of a pandemic where misinformation is traveling on social media platforms?"  Continuing with, "That feels unlikely to me, if you have the data to back that up I'm happy to discuss it."  Fox News journalist Peter [Doocy] asked the regime to name the 12 people on Facebook the White House has identified as problematic for the interests of the state; however, the spokesperson refused to name them, obviously and transparently fearing a lawsuit.

Sebelius: Unvaccinated Americans Should Not Be Allowed to Work, Have Access to Children.  Former Obama administration Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday on CNN's "OutFront" that Americans who have not received a coronavirus vaccine should not be allowed to work or have access to children and be limited on where they are allowed to go.  Sebelius said, "We're in a situation where we have a wildly effective vaccine, multiple choices, lots available, free of charge, and we have folks who are just saying I won't do it.  I think that it's time to say to those folks, it's fine if you don't choose to get vaccinated.  You may not come to work.  You may not have access to a situation where you're going to put my grandchildren in jeopardy.  Where you might kill them, or you might put them in a situation where they're going to carry the virus to someone in a high-risk position."

Geraldo Rivera calls for crackdown on the unvaccinated: 'No work, no school, no in-person shopping'.  One of Fox News Channel's top personalities called for mandatory vaccination against COVID-19, upon threat of forced home isolation.  Geraldo Rivera made the demand Tuesday reacting to a story in the New York Post that nearly one-third of New York's nursing-home workers hadn't been vaccinated.  Mr. Rivera agreed on Twitter that this situation was "absolutely insane" and issued the crackdown demand.

The Editor says...
When the government nags you about getting vaccinations and wearing face masks, that's just an annoying nanny state.  When the government threatens your freedom of association, your ability to buy and sell, your ability to live with your family, and your freedom to move about the country as you please — all because of an overblown illness that you wouldn't have noticed without the help of television news — that's outright tyranny.

State Police Assisting in Hunt for Individuals Making 'False Claims' About 2020 Election.  Michigan residents who make what state officials say are false claims about the 2020 election could end up getting a visit from state troopers.  State Attorney General Dana Nessel and the Michigan State Police are going to investigate claims that some people making fraud allegations about the 2020 election are profiting from those allegations, Bridge Michigan reported Thursday [7/8/2021].  The Republican-led Senate Oversight Committee recently issued a report saying that it did not find systemic fraud in the November election.

Democrats Move to Take Over Your Credit Score and Go Full 'Woke' — Just Like Communist China.  Leftist Democrats, but I repeat myself, are making no secret of their plans to become more like their comrades in China.  They support vaccine passports for COVID mRNA shots in order for people to receive certain social rewards such as going to school or attending a Major League Baseball game, just like the social credit score system in the People's Republic.  Now, Democrats and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, want your FICO score to go full "woke."  They're not even trying to hide it.  USA Today reports that in testimony before Waters's committee on June 29, the counsel for a group called the National Consumer Law Center, Chi Chi Wu, a product of Harvard and Johns Hopkins, gave away the game on how her law-fare grifting group and people like them want to change FICO credit scores.  Wu and her fellow travelers got a warm reception at the three-hour-plus hearing.

Government document instructs vaccine "strike force" teams how to clear buildings, violate trespass laws and flag anti-vaxxers for forced quarantines.  A government document that has recently surfaced offers horrifying details on how door-to-door "strike force" vaccine enforcement teams plan to operate.  Labeled, "Community Health Ambassador Outreach Door Knocking Project," a now-public document published by the government of Lake County, Illinois, instructs "ambassadors" to:
  •   Violate "no soliciting" restrictions and illegally trespass onto private property.
  •   Impersonate Health Dept. officials and attempt to intimidate building managers into consenting to allowing entry for the strike force teams.
  •   Lie to the public and falsely claim covid vaccines are safe by withholding information about serious vaccine side effects, including hospitalizations and deaths.
  •   Clear buildings in military fashion, going floor by floor, wing by wing, knocking on doors and intimidating residents of apartment buildings and residential units.
  •   Recording the locations (address, room number) of anti-vaxxers in order to feed this information into a government database for further action — most likely forced quarantine removal (medical kidnapping).
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki announced last week that the Biden regime would activate door-to-door "strike forces" to coerce more people into getting vaccinated:  [Video clip] [...] Note that these teams are instructed to lie to the public and imply that these are "approved vaccines" which are completely safe.  In truth, none of the covid vaccines are FDA approved, and all of them have been linked to hospitalizations, deaths and a long list of side effects including myocarditis (heart inflammation), heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, muscle tremors, neurological problems and more.

You are Now in the Totalitarian Zone.  In a press release, the Capitol Police, a largely patronage operation designed to protect the Capitol, just received a large boost in its already substantial budget to build regional offices in California and Florida and then in other regions "to investigate threats to members of Congress.  Reason shares my concern about yet another spying operation:  ["]The department does not need to become yet another unaccountable intelligence agency involved in the dubious and often nakedly political project of conducting widespread surveillance on the American people.  Opening field agencies and monitoring "threats to members of Congress" are actions that dilute the Capitol Police's very clear mandate to guard the Capitol building.  The FBI, National Security Agency (NSA), Department of Homeland Security, and CIA are already empowered to investigate threats to political leaders; the federal government does not need to hire additional spymasters for this purpose, especially given that the agencies burdened with doing so have tended to violate the rights of innocent Americans.  But make no mistake:  The Capitol Police has every intention of becoming just like the FBI and the NSA.["]  Even worse, as the Capitol Police force is considered part of Congress, it is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act which means its operations are not transparent or accountable.  That's what has so far kept it from having to divulge the name of the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt.  Neither the Capitol Police nor the FBI has made publicly available the thousands of hours of videos of the January 6 Capitol riot which by now only the most deranged, ill-informed, or partisan continue to claim was an "armed insurrection" or one that resulted in the death of an officer.

The Capitol Police Will Open Offices in the States To 'Investigate Threats to Members of Congress'.  The January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol thrust its police force into a sympathetic national spotlight; like any other government agency, the U.S. Capitol Police has seized this opportunity to expand its mission and acquire additional funding.  Now the Capitol Police plans to build regional field offices in the states:  California and Florida, for starters.  "The Department is also in the process of opening Regional Field Offices in California and Florida with additional regions in the near future to investigate threats to Members of Congress," notes the department in a press release. [...] This development should be vigorously opposed by all civil libertarians.  Unfortunately, funding for the Capitol Police is tied into a larger, fraught political narrative about right-wing threats to law and order.  For many on the right, Trump and his unhinged supporters are the good guys, which makes the Capitol Police the bad guys.  For liberals, it's the reverse.  This has hopelessly scrambled what should have been a clear consensus that the U.S. does not need another domestic spy agency.

Nationalizing the Capitol Police.  Do we really want a nationwide federal police force accountable solely to a small number of legislators, not subject to FOIA and other citizen protections applicable to the executive branch?  The Acting Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police has recently announced the expansion of their federal force into Florida and California.  Two new field offices will be opening in Tampa and San Francisco, due to claims from Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman that the number of threats against sitting Congressmen has doubled in the last year.  However, this isn't D.C.'s first effort to implement a new national police force.  Just last June, House Democrats voted to pass H.R. 7120, an attempt to nationalize state and local police departments across the entire country, disguised as legislation for defunding the police.

That Troubling Expansion of Capitol Police Gets Even Worse With Tech They Plan to Use.  We previously reported on the troubling expansion of satellite offices of the Capitol Police being planned across the country.  Unlike other federal government-related police which are subject to FOIA and part of the executive branch, the Capitol Police are under the control of Congress and not subject to FOIA. So, basically you have a police force controlled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spreading out across the country. [...] Not only will they be setting up across the country, starting first with offices in California and Florida, but they will have military surveillance equipment as they become "an intelligence based protective agency," according to the Washington Times. [...] What's the justification for that, all of the sudden?  All of this because of a three-hour riot?  Why does this not sound like it's just to deal with present threats against members of Congress?  And can we talk about the problems of using such things to spy on Americans — and all the constitutional questions that might raise?

Capitol Police to use Army surveillance system on Americans to 'identify emerging threat'.  The U.S. Capitol Police will begin fielding military surveillance equipment as part of sweeping security upgrades as the police force pivots towards becoming "an intelligence-based protective agency" following the Jan. 6 attack.  Defense Secretary Loyd Austin recently approved the Capitol Police's request for eight Persistent Surveillance Systems Ground - Medium (PSSG-M) units.  The system provides high-definition surveillance video and is enabled with night vision.  The system does not include facial recognition capabilities, according to the Pentagon.  "This technology will be integrated with existing USCP camera infrastructure, providing greater high definition surveillance capacity to meet steady-state mission requirements and help identify emerging threats," the Pentagon said.

Biden Does Not Need A Domestic "Terrorism" Agenda Unless He Is About To Violate American Rights.  The federal government is a kind of self perpetuating blob; a cannibalistic creature that must continue to feed on the public and the systems around it in order to survive, but it also must create reasons for its existence so that it may go on feeding uninterrupted. [...] There are only two real mandates for the government, only two reasons for its existence in our republic:  To secure America's borders from invasion and to protect the freedoms of the citizenry.  That's it.  It is not the job of the government to compel you to take an experimental and questionable covid vaccine over a virus that 99.7% of people will easily survive.  It is not the job of the government to create artificial "social equity" by favoring one group or ethnicity over another.  It is not the job of the government to spy on millions of Americans because they do not agree with the leftist ideology.  It is not the job of government to make war on the very people it is mandated to protect.  Yet, this is exactly what the government is doing today while its totalitarianism is disguised as "humanitarianism".  In other words, they are essentially arguing that they must make war on the people in order to protect the people from themselves.

A Vacuous and Potentially Dangerous Response to Domestic Terrorism.  On June 15, the White House issued a "Fact Sheet:  National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism."  This fact sheet is strangely devoid of facts and is vacuous in the extreme, but it communicates that the present administration sees a connection between defeating terrorism and having a government-controlled economy.  Is it not true that vacuous thoughts presented as though they were serious and careful are almost always dangerous?  Based upon this principle of understanding, the "national strategy" is one of the most dangerous documents I have read in my lifelong study of U.S. history.  The shift from domestic terrorism to much greater control by the federal government of our economy on the last page of the document is the product of a sleight of hand or a verbal shell game.  The reader thinks he is reading about one thing but finds that the Fact Sheet finishes with conclusions about matters not even remotely implied by the title of the report.

Huge, Troubling Expansion of the Capitol Police Coming, Across the Country.  The Capitol is still locked down, still closed to Americans.  One has to ask why.  The Democrats are going to try to use the 'investigation' of the three-hour Capitol riot by a select committee to continue an effort to connect Republicans to the event and bash them going into 2022.  All that is troubling.  But now there's something that perhaps is even more troubling because of the clear potential for abuse.  [Tweet]  According to the New York Times, the U.S. Capitol Police have announced they are now planning to expand operations outside Washington "beginning with the opening of field offices in California and Florida" but the plan is to open "several additional regional offices."  Their spokesman says they need to monitor and quickly investigate threats against lawmakers.

Nancy Pelosi Directs Capitol Hill Security Police Units to Regional Offices in California and Florida, Future Locations Coming.  In a remarkable display of how committed the Democrat party is to utilizing the narrative of domestic extremism for their own benefit, Nancy Pelosi is placing satellite field offices for the DC Capitol Police in key regions around the country.  When we consider the FBI has field offices all over the country, you might ask:  why does the Capitol Hill police need to expand beyond Washington DC?  Essentially, what Nancy Pelosi is doing is expanding the federal law enforcement mechanism of the legislative branch into specific areas where they can investigate political opposition armed with legal authority.  This is a concerning shift in events; however, there is a likelihood such a move is connected to the larger political goal of enhanced federal enforcement to quell any rebellion, while working in concert with the DOJ.

The Biden Administration's domestic terrorism strategy threatens to criminalize conservative speech and thought.  [Scroll down]  To help depict the events of January 6 as terrorism, Democrats and their anti-Trump media allies have repeatedly promoted the misimpression that the perpetrators killed somebody.  The New York Times reported on January 8 that Capitol officer Brian Sicknick died in the melee from getting "struck with a fire extinguisher."  This account of his death was then cited in House Democrats' February trial memorandum to impeach former President Trump.  Throughout the impeachment, Trump's political enemies — from CNN to MSNBC, to the Lincoln Project, to Nancy Pelosi — emphasized that the January 6 attack on the Capitol was a terrorist incident that killed Officer Sicknick.  Even after the official medical examiner concluded in April that Sicknick died from natural causes, President Biden, MSNBC, and CNN have continued to promote the politically self-serving fiction that he was killed in a terrorist attack.  Side with the medical examiner and you are branded a January 6 "truther."

Did You Miss The Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff Labeling Trump Voters Enemies Of The State?  For years, I admired Gen. Mark Milley and defended him in conversations when others attacked him as being too political.  No more.  The breaking point was Milley's recent testimony before Congress.  Others have pointed out much of what was wrong with his testimony.  But the worst part has gone unnoticed and unremarked.  It was not his statement that "thousands of people" assaulted the U.S. Capitol building.  Nor was it his fabrication of "white rage" as the cause for the January 6 riot at the capitol.  It was not even his false equivalency of officers who have studied Mao Zedong in order to understand their enemies with the current exhortations to read unabashed race-baiters and other charlatans, not to understand our enemies, but because many in the government, including in the military, are promoting their propaganda.  No, the most dangerous aspect of this testimony by the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military was validating the use of military personnel and lethal military force against political opponents of the administration.

What if anti-vaxxers decide to 'identify' as being inoculated?  We have surrendered our individual responsibilities to medical "experts" (?) who still debate whether the vaccines are safe or effective.  Why have only about half of the employees at the NIH and CDC accepted the vaccination?  For more than a year, we've relinquished our daily freedoms to the faux security of masks. [...] It's highly likely that denying unvaccinated college students admission to "in person" classes is just the tip of a massive social engineering iceberg.  Visualize, or should I say "identify" as, someone who, in the future, is denied access to public events, city council meetings, restaurants, churches, banks, airline terminals, public transportation, and even walking on sidewalks, because you are deemed irresponsible, uncooperative, and labeled a "contagious threat" to yourself and others.  With one phone call, your doctor, neighbor, co-worker, or government official could put you on a "no-fly," "no-social-events," "no-outdoor-activity," or "no-ballot" list.  Brace yourself, folks, because a vaccination "passport," microchip, or barcode on the forehead could be just around the corner.

Are We Nazi Germany?  Like a lot of Americans, I always assumed that America was safe from the kind of tyranny the German people experienced under the heavy hand of the Third Reich.  There is no way our federal, state, and local governments could restrain and control the American people the way Hitler and his Nazis dominated the German population, I thought.  Yet, for the past eighteen months, that's exactly what has happened in America.  A nation that always prided itself on its independence and individuality was suddenly locked down.  Travel was restricted, schools and businesses were shuttered, we were commanded to wear face masks, voting laws were altered, isolation and quarantines were mandated, and speech was censored by social and mainstream media if Big Tech oligarchs judged what was said or written as "misinformation."  It didn't stop there.  A public health emergency was declared, borders were closed, and large gatherings were forbidden — including church attendance, funerals, and weddings.

What Happened to Honor Among America's Military Leaders?  America's top military leaders have thrust themselves into the national spotlight by their overt politization and cowardly acquiescence to the radicalized Democrat Party.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, in Congressional testimony, defended the teaching and promotion of Marxist based Critical Race Theory throughout the military.  He also linked what he categorized as rampant "White Rage" to the 75+million supporters of President Trump.  The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gilday, defended the Navy-wide dissemination of an anti-White virulently racist screed.  Further, the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, ordered a purge throughout the military of those he considers "extremists" (i.e., the supporters of President Trump) while tacitly agreeing with Joe Biden that the most lethal threat to America is domestic violent extremism, in other words, the untold millions of "White" people that supposedly advocate nearly non-existent "white supremacy".

The lockdown fanatics are moving on to climate change.  Sir David King is a former UK chief scientific adviser to successive New Labour governments, and the founder of Independent SAGE, the self-appointed group of experts offering scientific advice to the UK government and the public on how to handle Covid.  He has now announced he is to convene a new Indie SAGE-like group, this time tackling climate — the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG).  According to the Guardian, CCAG 'will emulate the impact of Independent SAGE' on Covid policymaking and 'advise, warn and criticise global policymakers about the climate and nature crises'.  No doubt, this means that CCAG will attempt to do for climate change what Indie SAGE has done for Covid — that is, drive an alarmist opinion into mainstream public discussion.

Merrick Garland Good and Fully Jumps the Shark With Admission on DOJ Targeting Red States.  The DOJ is completely compromised by partisanship at this point.  That was the conclusion drawn by multiple RedState writers yesterday, who opined about AG Merrick Garland's announced lawsuit against Georgia for their recent election reform law.  The lawsuit itself reads like it was written by a Harvard diversity studies professor.  It makes all sorts of unsubstantiated claims, while presuming that things like the racial makeup of those who voted for the law somehow play into its legality.

How I Got Classified as an Anti-Government Domestic Extremist.  The Biden Administration recently released its National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.  After reading the fact sheet, which was a bit disconcerting, I downloaded the full National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism document.  By the time I finished reading, I was shocked.  Evidently, President Biden thinks I am an anti-government domestic extremist.  But that's not all.  Almost all of my friends and most of the people in the small Southern community where I live are anti-government domestic extremists, too. [...] The reality is there isn't that much politically motivated domestic extremist violence happening in United States.  Sure, there are countless FBI-manufactured plots and Homeland Security fever dreams of internet chatter to scare the public.  But if one excludes Black Lives Matter and Antifa, actual political violence incidents, in a country of 330 million people, are a statistical anomaly.  The extremely rare occurrences — the report mentions six over a 26-year period (including a Black Lives Matter activist misidentified as an anti-government extremist — does not make a domestic terrorism pandemic.

Rudy Giuliani's suspended law license is a warning to Conservatives: the Left's coming for you.  The fact that Rudy Giuliani had his law license suspended in the state of New York should be a warning to us all:  If you believe the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen, the Left is coming for you.  Rudy Giuliani was President Donald Trump's lead attorney in handling the aftermath of the 2020 Election.  While there is debate as to whether he was the most effective in regards to their attempt to expose the stolen election, he is a true patriot who loves this country and did his job furthering the legal recourse his client, the President of the United States, hired him to follow through on.  The Left, however, do not care about reality or the rule of law.  Instead, they care about power.  With the impending Arizona Audit results going to be released soon, it's no wonder that they are doing anything they can to discredit Conservatives and Trump supporters.  What we have to realize about this, as tragic as it is for Rudy, this is a warning shot to the rest of us.  If we continue to hold the line and fight for election integrity, we face similar pressure from the powers-that-be.

Rudy Fires Back at New York Over Suspended Law License.  Rudy Giuliani fired back at the partisan judges who retaliated against him for election fraud claims he made while representing his client Donald Trump after the contested 2020 election.  Giuliani made the comments to Newsmax in an interview with Greg Kelly on Thursday night [6/24/2021]. "This is a Democrat decision by five judges who should be themselves investigated, because they're destroying fairness," Giuliani remarked.  [Video clip]

Lead Georgia Election Critic Condemns New York Supreme Court on Giuliani.  I had already scheduled an interview with Garland Favorito, founder of Voter GA, to discuss the latest judicial decisions in his group's ongoing investigation of possible voter fraud in Georgia during the recent presidential election, when news broke the New York Supreme Court had suspended Rudolph Giuliani's license to practice law in the state.  The written decision — more like a political tract than a legal brief — referenced the Georgia audit.  So, before anything else, I asked Favorito about it, wondering if he had something to say about what happened to the man we used to call "America's mayor."  Did he ever.  At first Favorito simply said, "The New York Supreme Court made false assumptions about Georgia on it and used them improperly against Giuliani."  Then he added:  "The State Farm Arena video they showed, I'm sorry, showed clear violations of Georgia law committed by election officials."

N.Y. Court Revokes Giuliani's Law License For Exposing Election Fraud.  Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer to President Trump, criticized a New York state appeals court decision to suspend his law license.  On Thursday, a the court ruled Giuliani has made "false and misleading statements" regarding voter fraud while defending the 45th president in several swing states after the 2020 election.  While speaking to reporters, Giuliani questioned how the court asserted he lied if he has yet to receive an official hearing.  "If you wanna say I said something irresponsible, you gotta give me a chance to defend myself," he stated.  "I can more than defend myself.  I can show that everything I said was based on a witness.  They have never bothered to check that."

What is Behind Gen. Mark Milley's Righteous Race Sermon?  Look to the New Domestic War on Terror.  The post-WW2 military posture of the U.S. has been endless war.  To enable that, there must always be an existential threat, a new and fresh enemy that can scare a large enough portion of the population with sufficient intensity to make them accept, even plead for, greater military spending, surveillance powers, and continuation of permanent war footing.  Starring in that war-justifying role of villain have been the Communists, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Russia, and an assortment of other fleeting foreign threats.  According to the Pentagon, the U.S. intelligence community, and President Joe Biden, none of those is the greatest national security threat to the United States any longer.  Instead, they all say explicitly and in unison, the gravest menace to American national security is now domestic in nature.  Specifically, it is "domestic extremists" in general — and far-right white supremacist groups in particular — that now pose the greatest threat to the safety of the homeland and to the people who reside in it.  In other words, to justify the current domestic War on Terror that has already provoked billions more in military spending and intensified domestic surveillance, the Pentagon must ratify the narrative that those they are fighting in order to defend the homeland are white supremacist domestic terrorists.  That will not work if white supremacists are small in number or weak and isolated in their organizing capabilities.  To serve the war machine's agenda, they must pose a grave, pervasive and systemic threat.

Charlie Kirk:  Tyrants Want to Overturn Our Constitutional Rights but People Hold Political Power.  The constitutional rights of Americans are under assault from politically biased tyrants who want to use their power to restrict freedom of speech, according to Charlie Kirk, founder and president of conservative student group Turning Point USA[.]  Whether it's from Big Tech and big government working together on censorship, lockdowns restricting church services, or a slew of policies whittling away other freedoms written in the Bill of Rights, the rights of Americans are under assault from nearly all directions.  In an interview with EpochTV's "Crossroads" program, Kirk said the so-called tyrants — including private corporations — will continue to use their power to restrict the constitutional rights of Americans unless people use their political power to" actually check their power and to protect natural rights and freedoms."

Biden tries to turn domestic security into partisan witch hunt.  The day after 9/11, everything changed.  Realizing the nation needed a more integrated, holistic approach to domestic security, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security.  Combating terrorism became job No. 1.  All this came with a caveat.  From the start, Americans remained understandably concerned.  Under the wrong leaders, these powerful instruments of public safety could be turned into weapons for partisan action:  suppressing free speech, invading privacy, denying the right to assemble peacefully, and persecuting political opponents.  Isn't that exactly what the Biden administration is now doing?  The warning signs are certainly all there.  Consider how this administration is politicizing the threat of domestic terrorism.

Biden to gun owners:  If you want to take on the U.S. government, you'd better have F-15s and nukes.  "This isn't the first time Biden's warned the gov't would use every weapon in its arsenal against Americans," quipped Tom Elliott, remembering how Biden said something like this at a rally early last year.  Maybe the Second Amendment should be extended to include F-15s.  Seriously, though, this dumb gun-control talking point is deathless even though it's never been clearer how untrue it is. [...] There are many lessons to be learned from America's adventure in Afghanistan but an easy one is that a crudely equipped force using guerrilla tactics is fully capable of prevailing over one with superior firepower.  That lesson should have been clear already from Vietnam but our experience fighting jihadis in the Middle East leaves no doubt.

Concerned Parents Protesting CRT Arrested After Virginia School Board Meeting Declared Unlawful Assembly.  Parents were arrested while protesting against Critical Race Theory (CRT) and a transgender policy at a Virginia school board meeting Tuesday [6/22/2021].  The meeting in Loudoun County, Virginia abruptly ended after the crowd became too rowdy and was later declared an unlawful assembly, footage posted to Twitter showed.  Two arrests were reportedly made for trespassing after some parents refused to leave.  [Video clip]

Things Explode at School Board Meeting Over CRT, Arrests Are Made.  Things are popping off in Loudon County, VA tonight as the debates over critical race theory and transgender issues in schools heat up.  Over 200 parents signed up to give public comments at a local school board meeting, and things just got crazier from there.  Eventually, an unlawful assembly was declared and several arrests were made. [...] All the crowd did was clap in support of someone's comment.  That's literally the extent of their "eruption," but that was enough for the little tyrants on the school board to shut down the meeting and get the cops involved.

Judge Charges 3 U.S. Marshals After Deputy Marshal Refused To Say If She Was Vaccinated.  A federal judge in South Dakota brought criminal charges of contempt of court and conspiracy to obstruct justice against three U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) officials on Monday in connection with a deputy marshal's refusal to reveal her vaccination status to his court.  In March, U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann tried to require all courthouse employees to be vaccinated, the Associated Press reported.  But U.S. Marshal Daniel Mosteller, who heads up the agency in South Dakota, told Kornmann that wouldn't work because USMS was not requiring its marshals to be vaccinated.

Justice Department domestic terror document could ensnare Biden critics, professor tells Tucker.  A Justice Department dossier called the "National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism" was released this week with much fanfare by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, but one political scientist warns the actual text proves even the most casual critic of the Biden administration could be ensnared in its definition, and therefore face punishment.  On "Tucker Carlson Tonight," Nicholas Giordano — whom host Tucker Carlson described as a government document expert — and who is also a professor at Suffolk Community College in Selden, N.Y., warned that Garland's document is "one of the most concerning" he has ever studied.  "When you look at it, it is clear the [legal] analysts in the field didn't write this document, it was the political appointees trying to push an agenda.  They list three factors to drive domestic terrorism:  the first is racism," he said.  Extrapolating from the fact the term "racism" is never formally defined in the document outside of the idea of White supremacy, Giordano noted that the Biden administration and its political allies include people who believe racism is "inherent" from birth.

If Biden Wants to Paint Trump Supporters as 'Domestic Terrorists,' Ich Bin Ein Inländischer Terroristischen.  Since 20 January 2021, the Hologram's administration has been moving inexorably to curtail the freedoms and liberties of Trump supporters and American patriots in ways that are eerily similar to the pressures exerted by the Soviets on the Allies and German people after World War II:
  •   Just one day after the 6 January occupation of Capitol Hill by rioters, The Hologram himself declared those people to be "domestic terrorists" prior to the completion of any investigation into the matter and set the tone for the persecution that was to come:  [Tweet]
  •   On his very first day in office, The Hologram "directed his national security team to lead a 100-day comprehensive review of U.S. Government efforts to address domestic terrorism."
  •   The 6 January riot at the Capitol was labeled by the Democrat-media complex as an "armed insurrection" despite the FBI's eventual admission that no guns were found among the protestors.
  •   The Democrat-controlled House rushed to impeach President Trump for "inciting the 6 January insurrection" (thankfully, cooler heads prevailed in the US Senate).
  •   DOJ and the FBI launched one of the "largest investigations in American history" to examine the events of 6 January.  Some of 6 January rioters have been incarcerated in the equivalent of solitary confinement while awaiting charges and disposition of their cases. These unfortunate people are uniformly labeled as "domestic terrorists" by leftists on social media.
  •   A purge of "white nationalists and white supremacists" is underway in the US military.  The definitions are elastic.
  •   A Stasi-like committee has been formed in DoD to "investigate" extremist infiltration of the military.  Surely the new deputy inspector general for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military (DIEM) will be objective in investigating extremism and include BLM and Antifa in their definition?  I think not, given that the investigating committee is comprised of left-wing activists and anti-American extremists.
  •   On Tuesday [6/15/2021] the White House "released a report that designates the Jan. 6 Capitol riot a 'domestic terrorist attack' and endorses an internet purge of 'extremist' content."

Enough With the 'White Boy Domestic Terror Threat' Fiction.  [Scroll down]  Now, what happened at the Capitol was inexcusable.  It was not, however, an insurrection.  It was a riot.  The Democrats and the MSM had just spent six months avoiding that word at all costs, so perhaps they'd simply forgotten what it means.  I'll play fair here:  If they want to call the January 6 rioting "terrorism," then we have to brand Antifa and Black Lives Matter as terrorist organizations too.  Given the extent and cost in property and lives of the havoc they've been wreaking since last May, both groups are far and away the more significant terror threats facing us right now.  Sadly, rather than be serious about keeping the country safe, President Puppet wants to play a game of semantics in order to purge more than 74 million Americans from the national political conversation. [...] The biggest threat to freedom right now is a government that's being run by rabid, un-American ideologues who are using an isolated incident to wage a protracted war against anyone who disagrees with them.

Alberta Pastor Jailed Again After Police Helicopter Finds Secret Church Gathering.  A Baptist pastor in Calgary, Alberta, was arrested a second time Monday after a police helicopter discovered where his church had been secretly gathering since authorities locked their building.  Pastor Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church also debated the legal and theological grounds of Alberta's public health orders with the arresting officer, who quoted Jesus twice before driving the pastor to jail while his young children wept.  According to exclusive footage of the incident recorded by Rebel News (video below), officers showed up at Stephens' home to arrest him for allegedly violating a court order by leading an outdoor church service with hundreds of other Christians on June 6.

Biden's Domestic Terror Agenda Confirms Conservatives' Worst Fears.  On Tuesday [6/15/2021], President Joe Biden released a blueprint for his New War on Terror.  In the "National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism," the Biden White House pledges that the administration will combat domestic terrorism "while vigilantly safeguarding peaceful expression of a wide range of views and freedom of political association."  Yet the administration's biases give conservatives good reason to doubt this pledge.  The White House claims that the "two most lethal elements" of domestic terrorism are "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the white race" and "anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists, such as militia violent extremists."

The Editor says...
Joe Biden (or whoever wrote this "blueprint") wants to crack down on the Oath Keepers and the John Birch Society while letting the Islamic terrorists and Mexican gangs do as they please.

Joe Biden Declares War on 'Misinformation' to Prevent Domestic Terrorism.  The White House on Tuesday [6/15/2021] announced an effort to fight "misinformation," arguing it was responsible for radicalizing domestic terrorists in the United States.  "We must work to root out the hatreds that can too often drive violence," President Joe Biden said in a statement expressing the need to take "short-term steps to counter the very real threats of today."  Biden and his administration plan to "counter the polarization often fueled by disinformation, misinformation, and dangerous conspiracy theories online" as part of "supporting an information environment that fosters healthy democratic discourse," according to a fact sheet released to reporters.

The Editor says...
[#1] Who decides when information is mis-information?  [#2] Biden wants "an information environment that fosters healthy democratic discourse," which means he wants to eliminate libertarian and conservative discourse.  [#3] How many domestic terrorists are "radicalized" by what they read on the internet?  I'm guessing the answer is approximately zero.  Certainly not enough cases to justify a government takeover of the internet.

Briefly Noted:  Lockdowns All The Way Down?  ZeroHedge is republishing an interesting piece from Off-Guardian.  The idea is that our Globalist masters, having succeeded with the Covid lockdown — confirmed to their satisfaction that the public can be gaslighted into compliance with almost any restrictions on freedom — are now considering rebranding the Covid lockdown as a Climate lockdown: [...] There's little to no actual science behind any of it, as we've seen for years of one fomented panic after another.

Former Biden Coronavirus Adviser:  Pandemic Was Worse Because Americans Didn't Sacrifice Enough.  Andy Slavitt was Joe Biden's senior adviser to the COVID response team.  He just stepped down from the position last week and now has a new book he's hawking on all the networks, [...] What a coincidence, I'm sure that his leaving isn't at all timed to coincide with the book coming out.  Did it factor into his joining the administration?  This is just wrong to try to profit off the pandemic with a book.  Yes, he's no longer with the Biden team but that doesn't make it any less scummy.  But on top of that all, he's now trying to hype the book by lying about President Donald Trump and actually disparaging the American people.

FBI warns QAnon conspiracy theorists may engage in 'real world violence'.  The FBI has warned that more QAnon conspiracy theorists may be driven to violence and even feel obligated to attack Democrats they believe to be members of a purported cabal of satanic child traffickers.  The predictions appear in an unclassified, two-page threat assessment on QAnon prepared by the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis that became public Monday [6/14/2021].  The assessment, dated June 4, said the involvement of QAnon adherents in the storming of the U.S. Capitol "will continue to act as a catalyst for some to begin accepting the legitimacy of violent action."

FBI Triggers Politically Strategic Narrative, Highlights Q-Anon Supporters as Domestic Violent Extremists.  The left-wing extremist Saul Alinsky famously instructed his radical followers on the best way to attack their political opposition.  Alinsky told his communist crew to "Isolate, Ridicule and Marginalize" their opponents.  In the decades since those first Rules for Radicals were published the instructions have been used and adapted on a continual basis by a growing faction inside the Democrat apparatus.  President Barack Obama then brought an entire cabinet of people who followed those instructions into the federal government and they spread out like fertilizer over the seeded embeds within every institution.  After twelve years of the Obama-led operatives purging a replacing people within government with like-minded followers the cancer of left-wing radicalism metastasized.

An Explanation of Tactics to Fundamentally Transform America.  [Brannon] Howse's documentary contemporizes [Yuri] Bezmenov's warning.  It sets out the twelve-step process of brainwashing aimed at effecting a Marxist revolution in America and illustrates it using events from the coronavirus pandemic.  The twelve steps are:  1) removing principled leadership;  2) encouraging the questioning of values, convictions, and the American worldview;  3) presenting a revisionist history that portrays the free market system as oppressive;  4) propagating moral relativity to cloud the distinction between right and wrong;  5) extolling consensus and collectivism while declaring individualism dangerous;  6) focusing on emotions over facts, reason, and context;  7) fostering anxiety, confusion, social turbulence;  8) concealing the ultimate agenda;  9) using trusted individuals and institutions to enhance credibility;  10) using informants to zero in on those who don't comply;  11) rewarding compliance and punishing dissent; and  12) winning public trust by manufacturing chaos to lay the groundwork for a benevolent-seeming rescue.  With the advent of the Chinese-origin coronavirus, many of those steps were played out as if from a manual — all in the name of "flattening the curve" and ensuring that hospitals are not "overwhelmed."

The DOD's 'Extremism' Working Group Confirms Fears of a Free-Speech Crackdown.  On Wednesday [6/9/2021], First Liberty Institute General Counsel Mike Berry participated in the Department of Defense's (DOD) Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG).  Berry, a former active-duty Marine Corps officer, told PJ Media that the meeting confirmed some of the fears he had expressed in March, specifically about how the military's crackdown on "extremism" threatens service members' free speech.

Our Government Is Evolving into Something Horrifying.  Overall, the key objectives of the current Democratic Party and the Biden administration, with the assistance of these elitist groups, is to undermine the foundations of our country as founded.  They are actively working to replace our political system with one that imposes upon the American people a government empowered to be involved in our lives to a degree that will eventually include dictating our personal thoughts and daily activities.  These groups work vigorously on an ongoing basis and in a coordinated fashion, attacking and devaluing our history, our democratic practices, and our traditions to place us behind a new American version of an Iron Curtain.

The New Domestic War on Terror Has Already Begun — Even Without the New Laws Biden Wants.  Pending Domestic War on Terror legislation favored by the White House — sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — would simply amend the old War on Terror laws, which permitted a wide range of powers to fight foreign terrorist organizations, so as to now allow the U.S. government to also use those powers against groups designated as domestic terror organizations.  Just as was true of the first War on Terror, this second one would thus vest the government with new, wide-ranging powers of surveillance, detention, prosecution and imprisonment, though this time for use against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.  Even while that legislation is pending, the U.S. government is already waging an aggressive new domestic war on terror that has largely flown under the radar.  Grave warnings from DHS are now just as common, vague and unreliable — but also fear-inducing — as they were in the days of Tom Ridge.  Domestic surveillance is also on the rise.

Joe Biden: 'Terrorism from White Supremacy' the 'Most Lethal Threat to the Homeland'.  President Joe Biden asserted Tuesday that terrorism from white supremacy was "the most lethal threat" facing the United States.  Biden spoke about the threat of white supremacy during a speech in Tulsa marking the 100th anniversary of the 1921 race massacre in the Greenwood neighborhood.  "According to the intelligence community, terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today," Biden said.  "Not ISIS.  Not Al Qaeda.  White supremacists."

The Editor says...
How many white supremacists have you ever met?  I'm guessing the answer is zero.  Joe Biden says they're the country's most lethal threat, so there must be a bunch of them.  Where do they meet?  Somewhere on the internet, there must be a long list of places they've attacked and the names of all the non-whites they've killed.  There would also be a web site where additional white supremacists could sign up.  For a group that's so-o-o-o-o dangerous, they sure keep a low profile.

Feds say employers can require workers to get COVID vaccine.  Employers are allowed under federal law to require workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine before they can physically return to the workplace, according to updated guidance issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Friday [5/28/2021].  But they must provide "reasonable accommodations" for workers who refuse the shots because of a disability — including pregnancy — or for religious reasons, the agency said.  The decision may mean unvaccinated employees could be required to wear masks, or to work remotely.  The EEOC's rules also gave the green light to companies offering incentives as a means of encouraging staffers to get vaccinated, as long as the perks are "not so substantial as to be coercive."

The Editor says...
If they can require a Covid-19 vaccine, they could also require you to get a flu shot, or take pills, or submit to any number of other medical treatments.

Get vaccine or be fired? Federal agency affirms companies can force employees to get vaccinated.  The federal government says businesses can mandate that employees get vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter their workplace, and offer incentives for receiving the vaccine.  Meanwhile, legal experts affirmed that being fired for refusing the vaccine is generally legal.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released updated guidance Friday explaining that vaccine mandates do not generally violate equal employment regulations.  "The federal EEO laws do not prevent an employer from requiring all employees physically entering the workplace to be vaccinated for COVID-19, subject to the reasonable accommodation provisions of Title VII and the ADA and other EEO considerations discussed below," the agency said.  "These principles apply if an employee gets the vaccine in the community or from the employer."

Time for a Coalition of Free American States.  [Scroll down]  Have no fear.  We have an Intelligence Community in America that is keeping everyone safe by reading all of our emails and text messages, spying on our phone calls, and generally making sure that any American objecting to the State-enforced political correctness struggle sessions of the day be added to the government's growing list of "extremists."  The same bunch of propagandists who could be counted on to push the Russia hoax for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and who will now make sure that the origins of the Wuhan Virus get covered up for the political benefit of Joe Biden, are the wizards who regularly engage in national disinformation campaigns against the American people for their own good.  Was the CIA lying about Russian bounties being paid for the killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan in order to manipulate White House policy?  Sure.  Is military intelligence pushing UFO sightings today to distract the American people from emerging crises on the horizon?  Maybe.  Is there any check whatsoever on the powers of the Intelligence Community?  Not likely.  Does anyone in Congress seem to care?  Nope.

'Dangerous' New Wave of Censorship Culminating in the US: Dershowitz.  The removal of Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier from the U.S. Space Force this month after he publicly stated his opposition to Marxism and critical race theory is part of a broader, more dangerous new wave of censorship that is culminating in the United States, says constitutional expert Alan Dershowitz.  In an interview with Epoch TV's "Crossroads," Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law School professor, expressed concern over Lohmeier's dismissal, as well as other incidents such as the removal of former President Donald Trump from Twitter, Facebook, and other Big Tech platforms in January following the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.  The Space Force on May 19 relieved Lohmeier from the 11th Space Warning Squadron over allegations that he was "politically partisan" when he denounced the spread of Marxism in the military during an interview.

Ontario is now handing out tickets for shaking hands.  As a Michigander, I live pretty [...] close to the new totalitarian nightmare that is Canada.  Having lived under Queen Gretchen's thumb for the past year, one of the only positives has been looking across the Detroit river and feeling sorry for the citizens of Ontario.  If you're wondering just how far our neighbors to the north have descended into lunacy, they are now issuing tickets for shaking hands.

Your DNA = your data
HSBC Bank_Your DNA Will Be Your Data.  [Video clip]


HSBC [is] openly promoting biometric identification.  This ties directly into the Bill Gates & UN's ID2020 program.  This will be used in the new digital financial system that We have been warned about!

Bloomberg Columnist:  We May Have To Force People To Get Vaccinated.  So much for "my body, my choice."  The authoritarianism of Michael Bloomberg and his flunkies is on full display in a new column at the anti-gun billionaire's personal news network, where columnist Clara Ferreira Marques argues that personal choice and responsibility should take a back seat to government coercion and brute force when it comes to vaccines.  Sticking a needle in people's arms against their will may be "unpalatable," says Marques, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen if large numbers of Americans refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine on their own.

House passes $1.9 billion Capitol security measure creating permanent National Guard force.  The House on Thursday narrowly passed a nearly $2 billion spending package to bolster security in the Capitol in the wake of the destructive and deadly Jan. 6 riot.  Most Republicans opposed the measure, which passed 213-212, with three Democratic members voting "present" and three opposing the bill.  GOP lawmakers cited duplicative spending and objected to a provision that adds the National Guard to the Capitol security force.  It passed a day after Democrats and 35 Republicans voted to create a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot.

It's Not About The Masks:  It's About The Power.  Masks are just another form of power.  The forms of power are unlimited.  Being able to tell you to recycle, to check your privilege, to check this box on this questionnaire are all forms of power.  There are legitimate policy issues that are important for their own sake, but it's also important to recognize a larger trend in which manufacturing compliance and getting people to do anything is itself the point.  A lot of the things that the Left wants people to do really don't matter in and of themselves.  They matter because they can get people to do it.  Compliance is a pattern.  Totalitarian societies drift that way because people become used to obeying.  They don't ask questions.  And they learn to resent those who do.

12 Lessons Learned from Covid-19.  [#1]  Government will use any crisis to take away your rights and give themselves more control, and once you relinquish those rights, you don't get them back.  We are [more than a year] into "15 days to slow the spread" and we still have lockdowns, business restrictions, empty sports stadiums, mask mandates, and other arbitrary, anti-common sense rules that aren't backed by results or science data.  Mask mandates have been in place in nearly every state for months, yet we haven't seen any significant correlational infection rate reduction, certainly not enough to offset the negative health & psychological effects of masks, not to mention their ability to ruin the enjoyment of almost any activity.  Are we going to be forced to wear masks the rest of our lives if we don't find an effective vaccine?  The "new normal" is code for "you're never getting your rights back."

Understanding and Embracing the Role of the 21St-Century American Dissident.  There is a need for the realization that, regardless of our numbers, we are no longer on equal footing with those in control.  We are now dissidents!  We do not have the same voice as our ever-strengthening oppressors, and we do not have the same rights that they enjoy.  As to our being cast in the role of dissidents, we have no choice.  How we conduct ourselves in that role will be the difference between having a chance over the long term to ultimately prevail or having to spend a century or more under the totalitarian's thumb.  We need to understand the role we are in, the most effective course of action we can take, and above all, we must understand and accept our limitations.  A failure to understand and accept limitations will only deepen and prolong our subjugation. [...] People forget that in the early days of Soviet Russia, the country was considered to be a utopian model for many in the West.  The efforts of dissidents like these told the world a different story.  More importantly, it taught their countrymen how to resist and join the fight for freedom over time.

Court Permanently Stops Gavin Newsom From Locking Down Churches.  Today, a California District Court entered an order approving Liberty Counsel's settlement of the lawsuit on behalf of Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry against California Gov. Gavin Newsom.  The full and final settlement was approved today the District Court and thus is the first state-wide permanent injunction in the country against COVID restrictions on churches and places of worship.  Once entered by the District Court, this full settlement will be the first state-wide permanent injunction in the country against COVID restrictions on churches and places of worship.  Under the agreed state-wide permanent injunction, all California churches may hold worship without discriminatory restrictions.  Under the settlement, California may no longer impose discriminatory restrictions upon houses of worship.  The governor must also pay Liberty Counsel $1,350,000 to reimburse attorney's fees and costs.

Vaccine passports blasted as 'stealth move to tyranny'.  The chief of a Minnesota-based health freedom organization is warning about those coming COVID vaccine passports.  They're already commonly being promoted as a fast way for people to gain access to public facilities, airlines and more — with the "passport" confirmation they've taken one of the emergency-use COVID vaccines.  Some states, however, have preemptively acted, creating bans on the public display of private health information.

Jailed Alberta Pastor Released On Bail; Recounts Harsh Imprisonment And Blasts 'Evil' Canadian Politicians.  Pastor Artur Pawlowski, whose arrest for holding church services in defiance of Alberta's Public Health Act drew international attention, recounted his harrowing experience in jail and reiterated his warning to Canadians about growing state tyranny.  Pawlowski, who was released on bail earlier this week, detailed to Rebel News how he was allegedly mistreated by some of the police and prison guards, who he claims physically abused him, mocked his Christian faith, and kept him from talking to his lawyer.

Vaccination is required for participation in a public school activity:
New York School District Says Students Must Show Proof of Vaccination or Negative COVID Test to Attend Prom and Graduation.  Massena Central High School in New York is requiring students to show proof of vaccination or negative COVID tests in order to attend prom or graduation.  The school's principal, Alan C. Oliver, has given seniors a deadline for getting the vaccine in order to be clear to attend.  "The prom is scheduled for June 12.  Graduation has been scheduled for June 25, with a rain date of June 26.  Anyone attending those events must show proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 testing," NNY360 reports.

Dad Facing Jail Time, Banned From Kids' School For Refusing Mask Outside:  If I Have To Sue, I Will.  As reported by The Daily Wire, Rochester, New York father Chad Hummel was arrested last week and charged with criminal trespassing at his son's high school baseball game after he refused to put on a mask, even though the game was outdoors and he was far outside the recommended six-feet social distancing guidance.  Hummel spoke to The Daily Wire on Thursday [5/13/2021] and offered context to the arrest, arguing that he has been specifically targeted by the school due to his past pushback against arbitrary COVID guidance and critical race theory curricula affecting his children.

Tucker Carlson Torches Biden's Mask 'Ultimatum'.  President Joe Biden's declaration Thursday that the unvaccinated would have to continue wearing masks didn't sit well with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who made it abundantly clear that such an "ultimatum" was not "within his powers to demand."  Biden, responding to the Centers for Disease Control's announcement Thursday that vaccinated individuals would no longer need to mask up even in indoor settings, tweeted what he considered a "simple" choice for Americans.  "The rule is now simple:  get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do," Biden (or whoever handles his social media account) wrote.  "The choice is yours."

Semper Tyrannus — Always a Tyrant.  In the information security business, there is a saying that security by obscurity is no security at all — meaning hiding from hackers is not a winning security strategy.  The parallel to this in politics is anonymity is freedom.  In other words, I am free as long as the tyrant doesn't know I exist.  The reality, however, is one can never get small enough or anonymous enough to be free from evil when evil rules the land.  Freedom through anonymity is not real freedom — it's merely an illusion.  Illusions are the bread and butter of the tyrant — for if the masses knew the truth they would be ungovernable and the tyrant's life would be, in Hobbesian terms, a nasty, brutish, and short affair.  Because of this, the tyrant strives to keep the necessary illusions alive in the minds of the common people.  One of the biggest illusions traditional America clings to right now is that it still retains constitutional rights recognized and respected by its government in Washington, D.C.

Oregon Police Officer Under Investigation For Extremist Views — Infraction:  He Carried 'Molon Labe' Key Chain.  The attacks against police; and the attacks against patriotism that connects the social fabric to respecting law and order; are reaching new levels.  The tools and techniques being deployed by Marxist BLM activists are increasingly infiltrating the police units.  The leftists are creating new and ridiculous definitions of what constitutes "extremism" and/or "far right" extremist expression.  This latest example is a case study in using Alinsky weaponizing methods to attack language.

Halt Vaccine Passports!  It is very important that people understand what is happening here.  The intention is to introduce vaccine passports everywhere.  But this is a disguise.  It's a world's first digital common-format, globally-interoperable ID system with an editable health flag (vaccinated Y or N).  It makes no one safer.  If you're vaccinated, you're protected & are not made safer by knowing others immune status.  As in Israel, you will be compelled to present a valid VaxPass in order to access defined facilities or access services.  No VaxPass, you're denied.  This system only needs 50%+ of the adult population to start up because of its huge, coercive power on the unvaccinated.  It's illegal, medical apartheid.

Dramatic Video Shows SWAT Team Arresting Pastor for 'Inciting' People to Attend Church.  It's not getting much play right now, but Canada is an absolute mess.  In some parts of the country, the tyrannical mitigation measures put in place by the government to supposedly combat COVID-19 are so bad that they'd make New York blush.  A dramatic new video has just been released by independent, conservative journalist Ezra Levant of Rebel News showing the arrest of a Christian pastor for "inciting" people to go to church.  Apparently, a SWAT team was used to arrest him after he left his church service.  The churchgoers had initially expelled the police from the church building, but they returned in force.  That led to this dramatic encounter, on what looks like a highway, where Pastor Artur Pawlowski and his brother were taken into custody.  [Video clip]

Calgary police finally got their revenge against Pastor Pawlowski.  Pastor Artur Pawlowski, a resident of Calgary, Canada, has been a thorn in the flesh of Alberta Health Services (which is the equivalent of an American state's health services) since the Covid pandemic began.  Pastor Pawlowski had the temerity to believe that the Canadian Constitution meant it when it said that everyone has a fundamental freedom of conscience, religion, and peaceful assembly.  When the government tried to shut him down over a virus with an average 98% survival rate, he vociferously resisted.  The government got its revenge yesterday [5/8/2021].  Canada has been extraordinarily aggressive in policing its citizens over a virus that has a 98% survival rate.  People who have traveled overseas must stay in designated hotels, where they get abysmal service, for prices that would keep someone comfortably at the Ritz in New York, back in pre-Covid days.

Canada's War on Christians: Police Arrest Pastor for Opening Church; Mosques Operating.  Pastor Artur Pawlowski gained international attention last month for expelling officials from his church in a viral video.  A Canadian Pastor who escaped communism in Poland has been arrested for holding church services during a coronavirus lockdown in Calgary, Canada.  Earlier this month, the Muslim mayor of Calgary Naheed Nenshi called for ramping up punishments for "flagrant" coronavirus lockdown measures.  "You know, these real flagrant violators — Pastor Coates sat in jail for a month — so what do we have to do to make sure we are going after these real flagrant violators?," he asked.  [Video clip]

Man Is Detained And Children Taken Away After He Films Cops Shutting Down Mass In Ireland.  A man named Pat Sweeney, who video recorded the Irish police (Gardai) storming a church in Athlone, Ireland last week has had a police raid at his home at 3.30 am on May 2nd.  A Twitter user, Philip Dwyer, who have posted the series of the events that have happened with the man who recorded the church video said:  ["]Just been contacted by Pat Sweeney, the man who videoed the Gardai in a church in Athlone last week that went viral.  The Gardai have taken his two children from him last night at 3.30 am.  If you are near Longford please head to the Garda station to support him.  Please share this.["]  [Video clip]

Irish Police Break Into Man's Home and Remove His Children at 3 AM After He Films Police Barging In and Shutting Down a Catholic Mass.  The local Garda or Irish police, barged into a Catholic Mass in Athlone, Ireland last weekend and shut down the service.  As you can see from the video, the congregation was sitting rows apart, and even by crazy Dr. Fauci's standards were likely not in danger of infecting others in the church.  One man in the congregation, later identified as Pat Sweeney, decided to film the assault on this Catholic service by the state.  A couple of nights later local Garda stormed the man's home at 3 in the morning and took his children away.

Who Gets To Define What's Patriotic?  ast week, President Joe Biden said it's the patriotic duty of Americans to wear masks while outside.  Years ago, while campaigning as Barack Obama's running mate, he said it was patriotic to pay higher taxes.  It's hard to decide if these statements are more akin to the ramblings of a child or are uncomfortably similar to Third World despots who demand obedience from their subordinated citizens.  Frankly, they're both.  Making a distinction is virtually impossible.

DC Mayor Bans 'Dancing' at Indoor and Outdoor Weddings in Washington.  DC Mayor Muriel Bowser issued new guidelines for residents living in the nation's capital Monday; saying wedding parties can proceed at 25% capacity but guests should remain seated and cannot dance.  "It's insane, it's been an absolute roller coaster," says Stephanie Sadowski, a D.C. wedding planner and owner of SRS Events.  "They want to have a party.  Planning their wedding, they've made concessions along the way, they've reduced, reduced and reduced their guest count in Washington, D.C," she says.

The COVID Passport:  Fascism at Hand.  Naomi Wolf is perfectly accurate warning that the COVID Passport is an unassuming, mild, reasonable-sounding concept that will lead to untold catastrophic civic consequences.  She is way out front, and we should all pay attention to her.  The COVID Passport is the doorway to fascism in your lifetime, on your doorstep, and there may be no turning back once it happens.  Her thesis is this: the COVID Passport creates the platform on which to add all kinds of different data types (information from social media, credit card purchases, whom you were with from your geo location info on the phone) to profile every citizen and then take action against all of them.  Do not think this is far-fetched.  It has begun, and my team was at Ground Zero as it did.  [Video clip]

How Do You Like the Thought of Being Deprogrammed?  Their normal human sympathies have atrophied.  They live in the desert of their own inhuman politics.  They are cold and apparently lack a spiritual life.  Desperate to look down on other people, they take fatuity to a new level.  David Atkins, recently elected as a California member of the Democratic National Committee, mused on Twitter (Nov. 21, 2020):  "How do you deprogram 75 million people who would literally die to stick it to the domestic enemies the teevee and youtube conspiracy vids told them to hate?  No, seriously... how DO you deprogram 75 million people?  Where do you start?  Fox?  Facebook?  We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan.  Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South." [...] Katie Couric, famous TV person, reacted viscerally to this "larger question" when chatting with Bill Maher on his Real Time show (Jan. 19, 2020).  Katie confided her contempt for those who don't agree with her.  She was particularly upset with GOP congressmen.  "It's really bizarre, isn't it, when you think about how AWOL so many of these members of Congress have gotten? ... And the question is, how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump?"

Deep state or police state.  [Scroll down]  Glenn McDonald of Seeker.com warns to "look for these 10 clues when deciding if your government is repressive."  His historically researched list, written in 2013, includes:
  •   Abusing human rights;
  •   Arresting and imprisoning political dissidents;
  •   Censoring access to online content or platforms;
  •   Forbidding citizens from revealing the plight of their state-sanctioned detention;
  •   Leaders who have been in power for decades;
  •   Outlawing or curtailing political representation (read: voting);
  •   Restricting freedom of the press;
  •   Spying and reporting on neighbors to curry favor with the government;
  •   Using electronic surveillance on private citizens or businesses; and,
  •   Using internet companies to gather intelligence about individuals. When Mr. McDonald wrote his article, it was in response to leaks about the NSA spying on Americans.  Still, it's hard to imagine that a mere eight years ago, only two of his examples were explicitly about the United States.  In looking at the list today, nine readily describe the aggressive behaviors of turncoats at all levels of the American government.  Perhaps, all ten are accurate descriptors, and the evidence simply hasn't yet come to light.

Canada has an eerie 'police state' feel lately.  Canada lacks the miracle that is the United States Constitution.  Still, as befits a nation the once-free British founded, it is a country that has traditionally had a few of what we consider to be core English freedoms — freedom of speech, worship, assembly, etc.  Those concepts seem far away now, as Justin Trudeau and the various provincial and municipal governments use COVID as an excuse to crack down on those liberties.  I've written before about Canada's draconian and expensive hotel rule for people returning by air from overseas travel.  It's gotten so bad that people are flying into the U.S. and driving to their home country to avoid the hotel restriction.

How Much Worse Can it Get?  The Democrats under the "Biden" administration have shed any last vestiges of pretense surrounding their desire to utterly remake the United States into some idealized version of their socialistic, utopian land where all the inhabitants' lives are totally controlled and orchestrated by an all-knowing, benevolent government — for the supposed good of the individual, of course. [...] Here's the progressive wish list:
  [#1]   Control the media and thus manipulate the exact message you want the voting public to receive.
  [#2]   Continue to have elections, to maintain the appearance of national self-determination.
  [#3]   Rig those elections in your favor and howl with protest when you're caught doing so.  The media will cover for you and forestall any serious fraud inquires, preserving your stolen elections.  Mountains of bona fide fraud evidence will be ignored and not acted upon.
  [#4]   Admit unrestricted numbers of illegal aliens, all of whom will become your voters, permanently shifting the voter demographic in your favor.
  [#5]   Admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as states, collecting four additional progressive senators in the process.
  [#6]   Eliminate the filibuster, making a simple Senate majority sufficient for passing any initiative, so you can "eliminate debate," as one of your leading voices said so memorably.
Progressives are trying hard to do all of this, right now.  If they should achieve total control, what do they want to impose on the country?  What is their ultimate aim?

Tucker Carlson — Are US Citizens Who Attended the January 6 Protests Now on the "No Fly List"?  [Scroll down]  According to other tweets in [Nicholas J.] Fuentes' timeline, he was at O'Hare Airport earlier today [4/28/2021], attempting to board a flight on United Airlines.  When he was denied boarding, he attempted to board a flight on American Airlines — and was denied boarding there as well.  He then went to Midway Airport and tried — unsuccessfully — to board a Southwest Airlines flight.  He states that he was unable to book a flight or obtain a boarding pass at the kiosk, and was directed by an electronic message to see a Customer Service Representative for the airline.  He claims that he eventually learned that the airlines contacted TSA, and they were advised that he could not board a flight.  According to another Tweet on Fuentes' timeline, he had an encounter with an airline for not wearing what the airline considered a proper mask on December 4, 2020.  But Fuentes claimed that he took eight flights between December 4 and January 7, suggesting that the December 4 episode did not seem to hinder his travel prior to the January 6 protests.

Watch As California Official Forcibly Vaccinate Mentally Challenged People With 'Operation Homebound' Program.  In a video that will disturb most, California officials hold down mentally handicapped patients at an undisclosed home.  Those being forced to vaccinate are seen crying and even trying to escape those administering the shots, who are dressed in ironically paramilitary garb.  One young girl is seen held down on a woman's lap and forcefully injected.  [Video clip]

Dems' domestic-terror bills set their sights on peaceful right-wingers.  Top congressional Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, are pushing new laws to stamp out "domestic terrorism."  But they're targeting only right-wing organizations.  If rioters are looting and setting fires for a leftist cause, that's OK.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has a better approach.  He signed a law Monday that guarantees violent protesters who destroy property or attack cops land in jail.  Regardless of how virtuous their cause.  Unfortunately, Democrats aren't interested in ensuring the public has peace and safety.  Instead, their goal is to label even peaceful right-leaning groups domestic terrorists and put them out of business.  That's un-American.

A Rigged System Can't Last.  You can't win, but that's all part of the plan.  Reason, rules, processes — these are the foundations of a free society, which is why the cultural left is so dead set against them.  A citizen needs to be able to rely on clear rules and fixed processes to vindicate his rights in order to have any rights.  But the rights of free citizens — your rights — are an obstacle to the Lil' Stalins who yearn to rule over us.  If the liberal establishment can create a society where you can't appeal to facts, evidence, or law, then — until the peasants' revolt — its poobahs can wield undisputed, undiluted authority.  That's their dream, a country where you live in terror of them because you can never be sure that what you are doing or failing to do is suddenly going to be criminalized.

Gretchen Whitmer's Crumbling Kingdom.  Last Christmas, Governor Gretchen Whitmer released one of the wildest, most mind-warping videos I've ever seen.  It begins with her shouting, "Thank you for joining us!!" over a Zoom call, before introducing none other than Santa Claus.  Several scripted and possibly terrified children then prompt Santa to talk about how he wears a mask at the North Pole and uses hand sanitizer before eating cookies, all while Whitmer hovers imperiously in the corner like some yuletide Big Brother.  The video ends with her gently informing the tykes that this year they won't be able to visit their grandparents for the holidays.  Watching that, I kept expecting the Soviet national anthem to start playing or Whitmer's eyes to turn into rotating swirls.

The government has to make an example of somebody, to make the rest of us get in line and submit.
Albert Lea wine bar owner, wanted in alleged COVID violations, says she will turn herself in if conditions are met.  Lisa Hanson, an Albert Lea wine bar owner charged with violating COVID-related restrictions, said from an undisclosed location Friday [4/23/2021] that she had no plans to turn herself in until authorities agree to several conditions.  Among those conditions, she said, is getting served by the sheriff with "the proper summons with the charges."  She added that "jurisdiction must be established by the court."  But Freeborn County Sheriff Kurt Freitag said Hanson "is in no position to be making conditions," and called her description of a phone conversation she had with him "lunacy."  Hanson's defiance has caused a small uproar in Albert Lea, a city of 17,400 near the Iowa border where her Interchange Wine and Coffee Bistro is located.  She faces nine misdemeanor criminal counts, each carrying penalties of up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Ontario attempts to go full police state, with police authorized to question and potentially detain you if you leave your house.  Nothing to see here, just our friends to the north trying to suspend liberty and turn the entire province of Ontario into the world's biggest, if most polite, prison camp. [...] In order to effectuate the order, authorities are hoping to turn their police force into a kind of hybrid of prison guards and parole officers.

The marks of the beasts.  The Mark of the Beast from Christian theology is a widely known concept.  This mysterious mark and the symbolism in the book of Revelation have even made their way into popular culture and entertainment.  Many things have been suspected as this mark including Social Security numbers, UPC bar codes, QR codes, and Real ID.  The scary risks of a government placing a mandatory mark on people is not a far-fetched idea.  Throughout history, tyrants and totalitarians have marked people for exclusion and inclusion.  It is easy to imagine a government that would require a marked population to participate in commerce while excluding the unmarked.  It has been done before. [...] We find ourselves in a time in which there are multiple new candidates for government marking.  At the forefront is the proposed Vaccine Passport.  In the most controlling scenario, to fully participate in society, we will need to show our passport as proof that we have been vaccinated against COVID-19.  Those without the mark would be excluded.  In an interesting mix of competing potential marks, implementation would use QR codes on our phones.

H.R. 1 Is the Pillow Over the Face of Federalism.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rightly notes the bill would "federalize state elections."  He observes that the founders, "intentionally excluded Congress and gave state legislatures the authority to run state elections....  The Act opens elections in every state to widespread fraud, mixed messaging, Constitutional violations, and shuttering of speech."  I regret to inform Paxton — along with governors and other officials in many red states who object to the bill — that, in key respects, this fight was already lost more than 100 years ago, with the passage of the 17th Amendment.  That amendment provided for the direct election of senators by popular vote, replacing the founders' plan for having state legislatures choose members of the U.S. Senate.  The system prior to the direct election of senators certainly had its problems. [...] Nevertheless, far more was lost than was gained by cutting the state governments out of the process altogether.  It is not too much to say that direct election of senators — ratified in 1913 — mortally wounded federalism.

Ontario Canada Goes into Full-Blown Police State to Lockdown Over COVID, Complete With Admitted Stasi.  Comrades, the Canadian Ministry of COVID compliance has initiated a complete and total lockdown of Ontario.  Premier Doug Ford alerts comrade citizens they will be stopped, questioned and searched if they are out of their home.  The lockdown is absolute and complete with checkpoints, suspension of civil rights laws and the implementation of a provincial Stasi authority for police to act as enforcement officers for the state.  Do not be alarmed Canadian comrades.  Currently the Ontario enforcement units are not allowed to use deadly force for violations by non-compliant citizens.  The state will determine your economic and social freedom based on your compliance.  The Ontario COVID ministry appreciates your compliance in avoiding the dangerous virus freedom zones; and is thankful for compliant citizens who do not question the complex data analysis that goes into regional scientific tracking systems.

Globalists Will Need Another Crisis In America As Their Reset Agenda Fails.  It might sound like "US exceptionalism" to point this out, but even if the globalist Reset is successful in every other nation on Earth, the globalists are still failures if they can't secure and subjugate the American people.  As I've noted many times in the past, most of the world has been sufficiently disarmed, and even though we are seeing resistance in multiple European nations against forced vaccination legislation and medical tyranny, it is unlikely that they will have the ability to actually repel a full on march into totalitarianism.  Most of Asia, India and Australia are already well under control.  Africa is almost an afterthought, considering Africa is where many suspect vaccines are tested.  America represents the only significant obstacle to the agenda. [...] There are people on this planet that are not satisfied to merely live their lives, take care of their families and make their mark peacefully.  They crave power over all else.  They desperately want control over you, over me, over everything, and they will use any means at their disposal to get it.

'Vaccine Passports': A Trojan Horse To Further Shrink Your Rights?  By far, the worst idea for a post-COVID-19 "reset" is the vaccine passport.  The idea is that anyone who wants to travel, attend a concert or sports event, go to the theater, hold a family gathering, or perhaps even eat in a restaurant will need a "passport" proving they're COVID-19 Clean.  Who knew that authoritarianism would show up wearing a white medical smock?  Don't worry.  They'll tell you that it's all for your safety.  The bogey-man, er, virus, is ready to spring at you again from the dark.  But you really must be able to prove that you're worthy of the privileges of open society before you can take part.  That means vaccine passports.  And, yes, it's being considered, despite White House claims to the contrary.

Our Lost Liberties.  If one can say the pandemic has had any positive side effect, it has been to help us focus on what the loss of liberties looks like.  Such losses do not occur immediately but erode over time as people become increasingly comfortable with government claiming to know what is best for us.  The Biden administration is proceeding on a downward spiral that has ended in lost liberties in nations of the past by seizing increasing amounts of power for itself through a slew of executive orders, without the consent of the people, or Congress.  When announcing his gun control executive orders last week, President Joe Biden referenced the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms.  He claimed his orders do not infringe on that right, but added, "No amendment is absolute."  That is concerning.  He also announced the appointment of a Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court.  A White House press release sought to obscure its real goal — court-packing.

Defense Department's 'extremists' happen to look exactly like Trump voters.  The Biden administration is on the offensive against extremism.  However, it is having trouble defining the term.  The newly installed defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has signed a memo ordering several "immediate actions," including military-wide "stand downs," to weed out "extremism" in the ranks of the military.  Actions also included a review of and update to the DoD's definition of extremism and a review and standardization of the screening questionnaire — "[t]o solicit specific information about current or previous extremist behavior, and to clarify that any demonstrably false answers provided in response could form the basis for punitive action for fraudulent enlistment."  Defense officials said the Pentagon is reversing Trump-era policies that banned transgender people from serving in the military.  The Pentagon will also issue new rules that will broaden transgender people's access to medical care and cosmetic surgery to imitate members of the opposite sex.  Opposition to these policies may be considered extremist.

50 Armed Police Raid Rebel News Reporters Airbnb, Arrest Them for 'Illegal Gathering'.  Approximately fifty heavily armed police raided the hotel where Rebel News reporters were staying in Montreal on Saturday [4/10/2021].  Rebel News reporters Keean Bexte and David Menzies have been detained.  The Canadian conservative outlet said in a statement that "police have sealed off the AirBnb we were staying in with police tape — they say it's a 'crime scene.'"  "Of course it's not.  In fact, when we asked them what the 'crime' was, all they could come up with was that our staying in the hotel was an illegal 'gathering,' contrary to Quebec's lockdown laws," the statement continued.

A Rebel With a Cause, The Battle of Tinhorn Flats.  Tinhorn Flats is the oldest bar in Burbank.  In March of 2020 they shut down in compliance with state guidelines.  They reopened in November 2020, and when the second lockdown was announced their defiance began.  Burbank authorities first cited and fined Tinhorn Flats.  Lucas refused to pay and stayed open.  Burbank authorities cut their utilities.  Lucas brought in generators and stayed open.  Burbank authorities Red tagged his restaurant and locked the doors.  Lucas cut the locks and reopened.  Burbank authorities boarded up the doors and 'red tagged' again as unsafe.  Lucas sawed off the boards and reopened his business.  Burbank police then arrested Lucas.  Lucas made bail and was released.  Regular protests then began to support Lucas.

Pentagon Orders Updated Screening of Military to Identify "Extremist" Outlooks.  Let me be clear:  I fully expect to see the standing U.S. military deployed against any state who stands up against unconstitutional federal demands.  I have made this assertion since the jaw-dropping revelations about the Pentagon during the first impeachment effort in August 2019 and the lack of leadership from the military in removing Lt. Col Alexander Vindman from his compromised position. [...] The majority of the U.S. military rank and file are patriots; America-first nationalists with a patriotic outlook toward the United States as a constitutional republic.  The majority of the military also come from red states.  This is an identified risk to the Obama objective of fundamental change.  Additionally, thanks in large part to a purge during the Obama era, the majority of the flag officers are not in alignment with the rank and file.  This sets the stage for a problem.

How Will the Pentagon Define 'Extremism'?  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is determined to root out "extremism" from the ranks of the military. [...] But Austin has a huge problem.  He has to be able to define "extremism" in such a way as to safeguard our constitutional liberties while rooting out the skinheads, the Klan members, the gangbangers, and violent revolutionaries that make up a small but significant fraction of the armed forces.  What is "extremism"?  What is "extremist ideology"?  Who can be considered "an extremist"?  Is there any definition of "extremism" that isn't subjective?  What criteria will be used to determine who is "extreme"?  Anti-abortion?  Anti-gay marriage?  Devout Christianity?

The missing mandate behind Biden's grandiose plans.  If you are a political leader who wishes to effect "fundamental change" during your lifetime, there are only two ways to achieve that goal: receiving a massive electoral mandate or, failing that, using the government's military force against those citizens who resist fundamental change.  The Democrats, with their grandiose plans for gun control, court-packing, erasing America's sovereign border, and adding new states, are acting as if they have that mandate.  As their desperation to end the filibuster shows, they don't.  That leaves only force.

Joe Biden Said The Bill of Rights is NOT "Absolute".  Earlier today Joe Biden raised some eyebrows when he said "no amendment to the constitution is absolute."  The first ten amendments to the constitution are commonly known as "The Bill of Rights."  The occupant of the oval office, and head of the executive branch, saying the Bill of Rights is not absolute, should be challenged immediately to qualify that statement.

Biden Declares Second Amendment Not 'Absolute'.  In a press conference Thursday, President Biden unveiled the proposed executive orders on gun control.  "Nothing I'm about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment" Biden declared.  Addressing potential opposition, Biden added, "they're phone arguments suggesting that these are Second Amendment rights in what we're talking about."  In an immediate contradiction, Biden then stated his position that "no amendment to the Constitution is absolute."  How can you not impinge upon something that is not absolute?  Biden attempted to give an example by saying "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theater and call it freedom of speech."  As his example pertains to the Second Amendment, he said, "from the very beginning of the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren't allowed to have weapons."  Biden's administration announced six gun control initiatives.

Bill Gates, George Soros Team Up To Form Organization to Combat 'Disinformation'.  The American ruling class is now trying to fight what they are calling "misinformation" and "disinformation" on social media.  A report from NewsBusters reveals that the Aspen Institute Commission on Information is being funded by left-wing billionaires Bill Gates and George Soros, among others, to "fight 'mis- and disinformation.'" [...] It's clear that the ruling class wants to prevent Donald Trump from being the leading face of the Republican Party.  One could also argue that they want to prevent the rise of another Donald Trump.

Cops Swarm Another Canadian Church for COVID Defiance and the Woke Crowd Cheers.  It's hard to know what's more disheartening, cops shutting down a church for daring to meet or the fear-mongering scolds cheering it on.  Worse, this is the second time in mere days that Canadian cops have attempted to intimidate a church for daring to meet with social distancing.  At dawn on Wednesday morning [4/7/2021] in Edmonton, Alberta — in an area that looks like it's the middle of a prairie — Alberta Health Services police and cops with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) swarmed the GraceLife Church to cut off the building from its parishioners.  Police and crews arrived at oh-dark-30 to erect fencing around the church property to send a message that the church would not be able to worship on site until the government gave permission.

How not to cower before the COVID police.  Visually, the video is simple but compelling.  The church is on the second story of a building with a stairway leading directly from the front door up to the place where the congregation assembles.  A masked female spokeswoman has climbed all the stairs.  Behind her are seven police officers, in uniform, and all heavily armed with guns, cuffs, safety vests, and the ubiquitous and useless cheap paper masks.  The woman is trying to speak but there is a voice from behind the camera that thunders "Get out!" No matter what she says, he tells her some variation of "Out!  And don't come back unless you have a warrant." [...]   [Video clip] [...] As for the rest of us, the window of time within which we can act with courage and integrity (and, you'll note, without violence or threats) is closing fast.  If we wait too long, all action will be illegal.

London Has Fallen As Boris'Jackboot Thugs Declare Good Friday Mass As Unlawful.  This lunatic Boris is hell-bent on turning the entire country into a police state in the name of COVID, using cops to take away all human and civil rights of freedom to move, worship etc.  We may have hit the bottom here as London cops barge into Good Friday service and declare it an UNLAWFUL event.  [Video clip]

8 Ways Public Schools Could Further Radicalize When They Finally Re-open.  I think we can infer eight negative outcomes down the pike after a long period of politicized school closures that were never justified by medical science.  I imagine our ruling elites will be happy with such outcomes.  We should be prepared for the following.  [#1] Even More Peer Pressure to Conform:  Our famine of social connection will likely spark a greater tolerance for blind conformity.  There has been a mass starvation for peer connection among students.  Many have been numbed by the drudgery of online learning with no outlets through sports and clubs, no human contact with teachers and peers.  Parents are also starving for a place their kids can engage with others during the workday.  So might they now be willing to swallow anything for some relief?  There's a phrase attributed to Lenin:  "The worse, the better," which means that the more misery people feel, the better it is for the success of communism (or perhaps the "great reset").  The longer people suffer in isolation, the higher the toll and more susceptible they are to depression and self-harm.  So after a long period of social deprivation, they may become far more willing to conform under the slightest of social pressures, no matter what's asked of them.

Ministry of Truth?  Gates/Soros-Funded Org Starts Leftist 'Information Disorder' Commission.  An organization backed with millions of dollars from liberal billionaires Bill Gates and George Soros has launched a commission led by radical liberals to fight "mis- and disinformation."  The commission, dubbed the Aspen Institute Commission on Information Disorder, is co-chaired by leftist Katie Couric Media founder Katie Couric.  Couric recently suggested during a segment with HBO host Bill Maher that "we" should "deprogram" people within former President Donald Trump's "cult."  The commission is also chaired by leftist Rashad Robinson, who leads the Soros-funded and racially charged Color of Change group.  Color of Change was recently behind an effort to defund police foundations.  The last co-chair, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs, had claimed that the 2020 election was "the most secure in history."  Krebs' comment earned him backlash from a senior Department of Homeland Security official, according to Fox News.

Some U.S. Military Leaders Think Some Extremism Is Better Than Others.  The Pentagon has a problem.  Troops throughout the armed forces aren't going along quietly with programming designed to educate them about "extremist" views and activities.  The problem, says military leadership, is that too many enlisted personnel are wondering why last year's violence fueled by Black Lives Matter isn't viewed by their superiors as negatively as the riot at the U.S. Capitol earlier this year.  "This is coming from every echelon that we're talking to," said Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ramón Colón-López.  "Some people may think that, 'all right, so the events of 6 January happened.  How come you're not looking at the situation that was going on in Seattle prior to that?'"  Colón-López presumably means the Nakamura Federal Courthouse in Seattle, Washington.  Last summer, protestors broke into the building, burned an American flag, and graffitied the interior and exterior.  Though there were many similar cases across the country by Black Lives Matter agitators, the most important task is ensuring "military members understand the difference between Seattle and Washington, DC," Colón-López said.

The Commonalities Between the Rise of the Nazis and the Tactics of the American Left Cannot be Ignored.  [Scroll down]  Sixth, in January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.  Within four weeks a mysterious fire broke out in the Reichstag (Congress) Building which they blamed on communist agitators and that this was the opening salvo in a violent coup.  Using this pretext, the Nazis were able to force through the Reichstag The Enabling Act of 1933 in March of the same year.  This law embedded the Nazis as the sole dominant political party and ensured that only the Nazis could win future elections, if any were held.  They were the first modern proponents of never letting a crisis, real or manufactured, to go to waste.  The left and the Democrat party seized upon the disturbances at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to proclaim that it was an "armed insurrection" and the opening salvo in a violent coup attempt by white supremacists.  To further reinforce this false narrative, they theatrically brought in 20,000 National Guard troops and built fortifications around the Capitol building.  Further following in the footsteps of the Nazi Party, the Democrats almost immediately pushed to pass H.R. 1 (euphemistically entitled The For The People Act) which would overturn virtually all existing voter laws, embed the Democrats as the sole dominant political party and ensure that only the Democrats could win future elections.

Our apathy is Why We are in the Situation We are in Now.  We will never be stronger than we are right now at this point in history.  Every day now they are chipping away at our freedoms and taking more control.  The left, this deep state enemy, they are united while our side can't agree on the simplest of things.  It does us no good to fight among ourselves while facing an united enemy.  Our only real disagreements seem to be about strategy.  Most people on our side don't think it is time to go hot, but they also recognize that the odds of getting out of this peacefully are shrinking by the day.

DHS Preparing to Use Private Contractors to "Scour Public Data and Social Media" To Compile Dissident Citizens for Watch and No Fly Lists.  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now getting ready to hire public companies, individual contractors outside government, to scour public data and social media in order to provide information for the new "domestic terror watch lists."  From the description it appears DHS is going to pay "big tech" (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, etc.), via contracts, to hire and organize internal monitoring teams to assist the government by sending information on citizens they deem "dangerous."

A Time to Choose.  Americans sit paralyzed, watching the fabric of a representative republic unravel before their eyes, ignoring this chain reaction while happily checking the bank account to see the latest stimulus check's arrival is but one example of national paralysis. [...] Examining the idea of traditional American values shows that they are under attack.  These values are besieged by a hostile legacy media that mocks them.  They are undermined by legislative agendas that seek to outlaw their practice.  They are belittled by popular shows in a popular culture looking to boost ratings from quick jabs at the leaders elected by traditional-minded Americans.  Just last week, a New York judge removed a child from her mother's custody because the mother — a physician — was not masked while dropping her child off at school.  The most American of traditional values — rugged individualism — wobbles on the ropes from the pummeling onslaught it receives under a carefully coordinated attack by progressives — who, of course, know best how others should behave in all circumstances.

Dem Rep. Schakowsky: 'We're Going to Regulate' Tech Companies, and There Must Be 'Limitations' on User Content.  On Thursday's [3/25/2021] broadcast of MSNBC's "All In," House Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) discussed the subcommittee's hearing with the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter and said that the hearing's purpose was to send the message to tech companies "That we're going to regulate.  We're going to legislate."  And that there "have to be some limitations, not just on advertising."  Schakowsky said of the hearing, "So, the purpose really was, from my point of view, to make sure that the tech companies understood that the day of self-regulation has really ended.  And that, now, it is time for us to regulate, and that we intend to.  That we're going to regulate.  We're going to legislate."

9th Circuit Rules That There Is No Right to Carry a Weapon.  If this is accepted for review by the Supreme Court — and the Supreme Court has shown itself to be extraordinarily cowardly in ducking ruling on big-ticket items — we will find out if we really have a "conservative" court, or if the lawyers recommended by the Professional Class Karens of the Federalist Society are just from the Corporate Wing of the Uniparty.  I suspect the latter.

Report: Team Biden Weighs Declaring Gun Violence a Public Health Emergency.  President Joe Biden's administration is weighing the idea of declaring gun violence as a public health emergency, in order to take dramatic executive action to tackle gun rights.  Biden officials and gun control activists discussed the idea, according to the New York Times, as well as other executive actions that could tackle gun rights nationwide.  If Biden declared a public health emergency, he could shift more funding to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to increase their inspections of gun dealerships.  It would also loosen up available funds for community gun violence programs.

Who's Actually Running This Thing?  [Scroll down]  And what can the individual citizen do?  Simple.  He can make fun of the Biden Administration.  He can tease it, mock it relentlessly, refuse to take it seriously.  This is what the Left fears most.  They cannot tolerate being laughed at.  This is why Mayor de Blasio asked just last week for New Yorkers to report "hateful" or "very hurtful" comments, so he could send the police to peoples' homes to intimidate them:  "I assure, you if an NYPD officer calls you or shows up at your door to ask about something that you did, it makes people think twice."  This is why Orwell used to say that fascism and the goose-step would never work in Britain:  because people would laugh.  Well, they've stopped laughing in Britain and Canada, where one actually can be imprisoned for expressing politically unsound views.

Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Let Cops Enter Homes And Seize Guns Without A Warrant.  The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday [3/24/2021] will hear oral argument in Caniglia v.  Strom, a case that could have sweeping consequences for policing, due process, and mental health, with the Biden Administration and attorneys general from nine states urging the High Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation.  But what would ultimately become a major Fourth Amendment case began with an elderly couple's spat over a coffee mug.

The Feds' Bogus Violent Extremists.  In her first official act as Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines issued a flashing red alert to the country.  Jihadi-like Americans, especially those on the political Right, lurk among us and are plotting to commit vicious crimes such as kidnapping and assasinations.  These "US-based actors" allegedly will be moved to violence based on "narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the US Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories," the March 1, 2021 document claims.  Haines divides "domestic violent extremists," or DVEs, into three categories; a graphic of the U.S. Capitol building sits atop the category entitled "anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists."  That particular brand of terrorist, according to the report, is driven by their "opposition to perceived economic, social, or racial hierarchies or perceived government overreach, negligence, or illegitimacy."  (Perceived?)

Making Americans Your Enemies.  The narrative is here, and it doesn't like you very much.  In recent remarks before members of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, the chief of the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency claimed that domestic extremism has become "part of the cultural mainstream."  Former DHS official and USA Today contributor Elizabeth Neumann agrees:  "Far-Right Extremists went mainstream under Trump."  "Extremists have gone mainstream," echoes journalist Zahra Ahmad.  "Lawyers, realtors and every-day folks make up their ranks."  Ahmad cites a figure suggesting a quarter of Americans hold "ideas incubated by white nationalists."  Not to be left out, NPR warns that white extremism "seeps" into the mainstream.  The Atlantic says the mainstream has gone extremist too.  A study by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats warns that most January 6 "insurrectionists" were mainstream to the extreme: ["]They work as CEOs, shop owners, doctors, lawyers, IT specialists, and accountants.  Strikingly, court documents indicate that only 9 percent are unemployed.  Of the earlier far-right extremist suspects we studied, 61 percent were under 35, 25 percent were unemployed, and almost none worked in white-collar occupations.["]

Dept. of Homeland Security flirting with totalitarianism.  Now that the Department of Justice and FBI are using the 1/6/21 Capitol incursion to demonize all who attended the massive rally that day, imputing "insurrection," "white supremacy," and "extremism" to them, massive political repression may be coming. [...] The No Fly List is an arbitrary means of denying the right to travel long distances quickly to anyone.  While it can be challenged in court, be prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees and wait years for the appeals process to work.  In the meantime, forget about organizing a national political movement, starting a new business, attending distant weddings or funerals, or otherwise living life to its fullest in "the land of the free."  Who is a "domestic extremist"?  Plenty of Democrats think anyone who expresses support for Trump or even Rick DeSantis qualifies, especially if they are Caucasian.  DHS bureaucrats get to apply that label to anyone they want.

The Great Reset Is Just a MacGuffin for Total State Control.  The United States has always presented a roadblock to the ambitions of globalist oligarchs through its one-two punch of a Constitution that clearly constrains the powers of government while empowering the people and an American culture that prides itself on representing the last, best hope for freedom on the planet.  So how do you "reset" America so that it becomes just another socialist country controlled by an elite few?  You undermine America's freedoms by undermining her foundations.  You go to war with the American people.  "White supremacy" is the socialists' "yellowcake uranium."  It's really that simple.  You can't start a war against society without an excuse, and you can't engage in perpetual war unless the excuse chosen is so vague and illusory that it can't possibly be vanquished.  This has always been a particular talent of power-hungry socialists.  They know how to engage their troops in endless battles by choosing inexhaustible targets:  bourgeois materialism, carbon dioxide, hate, whiteness.

Climate change is the perfect tool to justify complete control.  Replacing internal combustion-powered automobiles with E.V.s is policy.  Eventually, they will acknowledge the inherent pollution in battery manufacture, the production of the electricity needed to charge the batteries, and eventual battery disposal.  The goal is to eliminate private transportation in its entirety.  In major cities, roadwork now entails reducing on-street parking while narrowing thoroughfares to increase traffic.  This is a prelude to charging a yearly fee for the privilege of city parking.  Several thousand dollars a year should modify behavior and increase revenues.  The implementation of license fees (also several thousand dollars per annum) for car ownership will come to fruition.  Limiting the right to own a car for people who allow their "social credit score" to decline by saying something untoward about government or authorities on social media, or in public, will also be a tactic.  Next will be restricted usage and a fee per mile driven with driving limited to odd and even days for portions of the population.  Social scores will dictate who is allowed to fly on commercial airliners, with ticket prices including a "carbon fee" commensurate to the seat's percentage of the flight's total carbon cost.  In addition to forcing the price of gasoline to $20 a gallon, the "price of all energy will necessarily have to skyrocket" (Barack Obama).  They will triple or quadruple the price of all energy, whether it be electricity, natural gas, or home heating oil.

Stunning DOJ Hubris — Prosecutor Claims Charges of Sedition Possible in January 6th Protest.  The DOJ and FBI appear to be maintaining an aggressive posture against their political opposition on behalf of the ongoing 'domestic extremist' narrative.  In a remarkable statement prosecutor Michael Sherwin claims that charges of sedition are possible for those who attended the January 6th protest in DC against the outcome of the 2020 election.  Conducting political surveillance, abusing the NSA database by extracting personal information in violation of the fourth amendment, lying to a FISA court to get a title-1 surveillance warrant against Donald Trump's campaign, fabricating a false Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, pushing knowingly false information to the media to support a fraudulent investigation, initiating a special counsel to hide the trail of wrongdoing; and the FBI conducting political operations against the Trump administration, was apparently no big deal.  However, attend a protest against the corrupt interests of the deep state in DC and you are guilty of "sedition."

The American Police State Is Now Forming.  The image of the new wall or fence with razor wire on top that now surrounds the Capitol has been floating across the screen of my mind since it was erected.  Was it erected merely as a response to the horrible events of Jan. 6, and the fear of a right-wing uprising against the anti-Trump Democrats?  Recently, this writer had a breakthrough and understood that this wall is actually an austere reminder that we have entered into a new phase of American history:  the American police state.  The bombast against Trump-supporters now nicknamed "domestic terrorists"; the marching of Guam national Guardsmen to the office of Marjory Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as a demonstration of the legitimacy of Guam as a U.S. entity; the rapid overturning of and de-legitimizing of all Trump policies both domestic and foreign; the emplacement of a transsexual as a higher up in the Health and Human Services Department; the encouragement of a "re-imagining" of police work in our major cities; the non-enforcement of federal laws pertaining to border security and legal entry into the USA; and the racial messages about statues, American history, the teaching of American history, and the need to overturn American society and its traditions are not merely challenges and upheavals to be dealt with.

Stolen elections have consequences.
H.R. 1 is Nothing But a Massive Democrat Power Grab.  Not content with the rigging and manipulation of the 2020 election, or the "fortifying" of it as some leftists have described it, the Democrats are prepared to codify, and are aggressively pushing to codify, the corruption we saw play out in 2020 through H.R. 1.  Now, mind you, this is House Resolution 1 because the very first bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered in the new session was this attempt at election rigging.  Just so we're absolutely clear:  her biggest priority in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis is not helping Americans or small businesses, but making sure to codify corruption.  She even gave it the Orwellian title of the "For the People Act."  What it should be titled is "How to Effect One-Party Rule in America."  To put it mildly, it is a mind-blowing, brazen attempt by Pelosi and the Democrats to annihilate free and fair elections and place the Republican Party in permanent minority status.

Father Arrested, Jailed For Contempt After Referring To His Daughter As 'She'.  On Tuesday, the father of a biological girl who believes she is a boy turned himself into a Canadian court and was subsequently taken to jail after the Attorney General of British Columbia issued an arrest warrant for contempt after the father had insisted on referring to his daughter as his "daughter" and used the pronouns "she" and "her."  Robert Hoogland, from Surrey, British Columbia, has a 14-year-old daughter.  In February 2019, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada ordered that the girl receive testosterone injections without obtaining parental consent.  "The court also declared that if either of her parents referred to her using female pronouns or addressed her by her birth name, they would be considered guilty of family violence," The Federalist noted.

Capitol Investigation Seeks to Criminalize Political Dissent.  In the early hours of March 12, FBI agents in southwestern Florida barricaded a neighborhood to prepare to raid the home of one resident.  Christopher Worrell of Cape Coral was arrested and charged with several counts related to the January 6 Capitol melee.  Even though Worrell had been cooperating with the FBI for two months, the agency nonetheless unleashed a massive, and no doubt costly, display of force to take him into custody. [...] Worrell's arrest is the latest in what the U.S. Department of Justice warned would be an "unprecedented" investigation leading to sedition charges filed against American citizens.  Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged to make the Capitol Breach manhunt his top priority; on his first day in office, he received an update on the investigation from FBI Director Christopher Wray.  Garland has compared January 6 to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, including 15 children.  Roughly 300 people have been arrested so far, many of them transported to Washington, D.C. to await trial and dozens denied bail after federal prosecutors argued the defendants, including a high school senior from Georgia, pose a threat to the nation.  The Capitol Breach probe, the department's official title, is a flagrant political prosecution targeting Trump supporters.  Every display — from heavy-handed FBI raids to a militarized Washington, D.C. — is designed to portray the President Trump's allies as domestic terrorists.

Criminalizing Protest at the Capitol.  Now, our duly re-elected President Trump has been ousted from the office of president by a criminal conspiracy to install Joseph Biden, an usurper, in his place.  To do this, a combination of voter fraud, election fraud, dereliction of duty in the courts, and suppression of conservative speech was employed.  One of the more perfidious examples of the new intolerance for all things connected to an honest assessment of the 2020 election are the mass arrests of people who attended the January 6th rally in Washington D.C.  Two events took place on that day, each initiated by different groups of people on opposite sides of the election integrity issue.  On one side, Trump supporters gathered on the Ellipse to hear the president speak on the subject of election fraud and to show their support.  On the other side, Antifa-led groups met at the Capitol for the purpose of gaining unlawful entry to the building, vandalizing it, and blaming Trump supporters for their actions.  As proof of their goals, they broadcast messages on social media that exposed their plans in enough detail to leave no doubt regarding their intentions.  The Antifa members, all of whom attended the Capitol riot for the purpose of defaming President Trump, wore pro-Trump merchandise to disguise themselves as Trump supporters.  This is well-documented.

Until Lambs Become Lions.  [Scroll down]  We arrived in our current situation because our ruling elites painstakingly prepared the battleground in advance.  In 2012, they amended the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act to permit the domestic dissemination of government propaganda into American newsfeeds.  In 2015, they passed the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Act, which created a cottage industry of government-funded, progressive-leaning CVE consultants and think tanks dedicated to pushing the myth of right-wing "domestic extremism" and "white supremacy."  Employing teachers, healthcare professionals, first responders, and community leaders, the Obama-era CVE mania built a federally controlled and funded local surveillance and intelligence collection apparatus that spans from grade schools to the workplace to the doctor's office.  An apparatus that still uses debunked pseudoscience to classify ordinary Americans' constitutionally protected speech and activities as "pre-terrorism indicators."  Under the pretext of keeping us safe, they passed multiple counterterrorism laws such as the 2001 USA Patriot Act, the 2015 USA Freedom Act, and the various FISA Amendment Acts (2008, 2017, 2018, 2020), which, taken together, authorize warrantless mass surveillance of all American's communications, activities, associations, and business transactions.  In addition to these legislative actions, Americans became apathetic and lost the will to hold their government leaders accountable.  The multi-tier justice system under which we now suffer has been years in the making.

Will [the] Left's Violent Tendencies Lead To U.S. Breakup Or Dictatorship?  [Scroll down]  Now that you've gotten used to being told what to do during the pandemic, the left will test other means of domination.  At some point, our rageful leftist betters will try violence.  As the last year shows, it's probably inevitable.  There's a reason why Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has kept 10,000 National Guard troops ringing the Capitol after the Jan. 6 political demonstrations.  Again, it's not about fear, it's about political control and physical intimidation, the threat of violence.  Last year, the U.S. was wracked by riots and other wanton political destruction by Antifa, Black Lives Matter and other like-minded left-wing extremist groups.  The media largely ignored the hate-driven violence.  Indeed, one famous screen shot that made the rounds on the internet showed a CNN correspondent standing in front of a burning building while blithely describing the protest as "not, generally speaking, unruly."  That echoes how the media routinely described last year's rampages as "mostly peaceful."  It was a lie, pure and simple, the equivalent of a doctor telling a terminal patient's family that the patient is "mostly cancer-free."

Ingraham still searching for 'all rights are suspended during a pandemic' clause in the Constitution.  Fox News host Laura Ingraham laced President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci during her Friday [3/12/2021] opening monologue for their continued reliance on COVID-19 restrictions even though they have proven to be failures.  "Every day we wake up, and it seems like another constitutional right is under threat," Ingraham began.  "The First Amendment, the Second Amendment, even the Fourth Amendment."  She went on to say that many Americans are self-censoring "because they're afraid of the consequences" of speaking out and sharing their own opinions that may run counter to government narratives and cultural groupthink regarding the pandemic and other issues.

World financial leaders want to adopt China's nefarious system to determine credit using a person's internet history.  In a blog post on its website, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposed a system of social credit scoring similar to the kind already in use in Communist China that would determine people's credit eligibility based on internet history, leading to concerns that such a system could be turned against anyone who opposes the will of financial and globalist leaders.  The concepts that the IMF proposes are already being quietly promoted and practiced, notably in China, but also in the U.K., where trials are underway involving widespread covert internet surveillance and data recording.

Will FBI 'Chats' Send Conservatives to Prison?  Across the nation, FBI agents are swooping down upon conservative activists, Trump supporters, and anyone suspected of any tie to the January 6 clash at the Capitol.  Conservative author Candace Owens tweeted on March 3:  "About 10 of my friends who attended Trump's speech but DID NOT go to Capitol building thereafter have had the FBI turn up at their door to ask them why they went to D.C. ... Our FBI is trying to scare conservatives against ever gathering in the future."  Actually, the potential problem is far worse for people targeted by the feds.  FBI chief Christopher Wray, who is scrambling to deliver the indictments that will please his congressional overlords, says the agency is conducting 2,000 domestic terrorism investigations.  Few Americans recognize how badly the legal playing field is tilted against them.  When FBI agents knock on their doors, many Americans won't hesitate to open up because they assume "those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear."  But along with Bureau procedures that are a travesty of due process, the FBI is exploiting a sweeping law that criminalizes casual comments.  Federal agents have the right to lie to you and to put you in prison if you lie to them.  Any citizen who makes even a single-word ("no" or "yes") false utterance to a federal agent faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Are We Still Free?  Possibly the strongest belief I had going into last year and the one I was saddest to lose when I realized it simply wasn't true anymore, was the belief that we were still a free country.  Biden's teleprompter speech Thursday evening paraded his non-belief in the Constitution.  While claiming to be a unity president, not only did he give President Trump and his team zero credit for getting the vaccine fast-tracked and the country supplied with at least 100 million doses, he, Emperor No-Clothes, pronounced that he has decided we might be able to get outside with our close family members for the 4th of July, only if we are good boys and girls.  If the new normal means the Democrats-in-charge will have the power to dictate the nature of small outdoor family gatherings two full months after his goal of getting every willing person vaccinated, then Biden doesn't understand the meaning of Independence Day.

It's time for Red States to start nullifying federal law.  As we all know, the last election was a "tipping point" election on many different levels.  An election won with the use of illegal last-minute changes to state election laws has led to a rogue regime that threatens the very foundations of America.  This is being achieved through highly questionable executive orders, the decimation of the concept of national sovereignty and an attack on fossil fuels, the lifeblood of our economy.  Moreover, Biden is converting our military into a social justice agency and transforming our intelligence services into witch-hunters for conservatives who dared to protest a stolen election.  More alarming is the left's goal to make its political power permanent by granting amnesty to 20-30 million illegal aliens, granting statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, expanding the Supreme Court, and normalizing the censorship of conservatives, not to mention the institutionalizing of election fraud, especially in key swing states.

A Generation Conditioned to Give Up Their Freedom.  As I scrolled through some news articles on Thursday [3/11/2021], one particular article caught my attention.  CNN ran the article and it was talking about a new generation that is being referred to as Gen C or Generation COVID.  The concept is that the global pandemic which has struck our world is creating changes among a generation of kids that are growing and developing through all the craziness.  Throughout the article, several examples were shared of how this pandemic is affecting this 'Gen C' in ways that others may have not experienced in the past.  It spoke of canceled birthday parties, the inability to see family, and more.  Images filled the page showing kids that were in masks, in contact with other people behind glass doors, and images of a child where the parent was creating a TikTok video explaining how the child had yet to know what a playdate was really about.

What Could Go Wrong?  Dallas Launches Database for Businesses Still Requiring Masks.  In my piece on Nevada's Democrat Socialists of America takeover of the Democrat Party in the State, I gave this warning about Texas:  "With the full opening of the state and the lifting of any mask mandates, Texas businesses who are choosing to not maintain mask requirements for their establishments will now become the focus of harassment."  Now the City of Dallas thinks that this is a good idea.

Tucker Carlson RIPS Joe Biden's Speech:  "How Dare you Tell Us Who We Can Spend the Fourth of July With".  Joe Biden delivered his very first address as US President on the anniversary of the COVID lockdowns.  Virtually no one tuned in to the White House's YouTube channel to watch dementia Joe speak gibberish for 20 minutes.  Joe Biden's doom and gloom speech was not inspiring at all.  He lied about Trump and threatened Americans with indefinite lockdowns if we don't wear masks and maintain social distancing.  Biden actually believes he has the authority to tell Americans who we can spend the Fourth of July with.

Biden's scary, boring, and bizarre address to the nation.  [Scroll down]  The main thrust of the speech was that everyone must get the vaccine (the wonderful Biden vaccine).  However, Biden conceded that even with the vaccine, masks and social distancing must continue.  Even with everyone vaccinated, by July 4, maybe we can gather with small groups outdoors.  In other words, even as we're all pumped full of a vaccine, nothing will change.  But we should trust Biden and remember that we're all in this together.  Here's the scariest thing Biden said, although he slipped it in so quickly many may not have noticed (emphasis mine):  "Fourth, in the coming weeks, we will issue further guidance on what you can and cannot do once fully vaccinated to lessen the confusion, to keep people safe, and encourage more people to get vaccinated."  The vaccine, rather than freeing us, will bring us even more tightly under government control as the federal government mandates what [we] can and cannot do.

A Storm Over the American Republic.  [Scroll down]  The right to challenge and criticize, which is an integral part of the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, appears seriously threatened.  The right to defend oneself against charges also appears threatened, and the legal profession dangerous to practice.  Calls for political purges continue.  The leftist organization MoveOn.org has launched a campaign against what it calls the "Treason Caucus" and the expulsion from Congress of Senators described as "complicit in Trump's deadly insurrection."  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — apparently trying to create an equivalence between the worst terrorist attack suffered by the United States on 9/11/2001 and the events of January 6, and seemingly trying to position the government to suppress free speech — has announced that Congress will move to establish a 9/11-type commission.  A member of the Democratic National Committee, David O. Atkins, suggested , "how *do* you deprogram 75 million people?  Where do you start?" and "We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan."  "White supremacists," President Biden announced, "are the greatest domestic terror threat in the US.  It's complex, it's wide-ranging and it's real."

H.R. 1 Is a Partisan Assault on American Democracy.  Late Wednesday night [3/3/2021], the House passed H.R. 1, the "For the People Act."  It passed by ten votes, with every Republican voting against it, as well as Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, who fears that the bill will abolish majority-black districts like his in the Deep South. [...] It would be an understatement to describe H.R. 1 as a radical assault on American democracy, federalism, and free speech.  It is actually several radical left-wing wish lists stuffed into a single 791-page sausage casing.  It would override hundreds of state laws governing the orderly conduct of elections, federalize control of voting and elections to a degree without precedent in American history, end two centuries of state power to draw congressional districts, turn the Federal Elections Commission into a partisan weapon, and massively burden political speech against the government while offering government handouts to congressional campaigns and campus activists.

Masks Are Just Part of the Socialists' Uniform.  [Scroll down]  Mask mandates reflect the American government's descent toward socialism:  Mask mandates are also an illustration of the sharp philosophical divide straining Americans into two camps guided by conflicting worldviews.  In the one are true democrats who believe that all legitimate government power is derived from individual consent, and in the other are true socialists who sanctify the exercise of government power in pursuit of collectivist goals at the expense of individual liberty. [...] For Americans who believe that society should operate freely from government as much as possible and that government action should be reserved to handle only those problems that a cooperative society cannot accomplish on its own, relatively useless government dictates are absolute poison.

Why Election Integrity Matters.  [Scroll down]  Incredibly, while the Founders knew nothing about cars, televisions, mobile phones, or the Internet, the mechanisms they put in place largely survived Time's march.  But for all of their familiarity with the dark sides of man's nature, even the Founding Fathers, possibly the greatest assembly of men to ever come together in history, couldn't foresee the darkness that lay ahead with the Democrat party of the 21st century.  Today, America sits and watches as Democrats essentially send the Constitution through the shredder.  Emboldened by a pusillanimous Supreme Court, Democrats with H.R. 1, seek to undermine the Constitution's very foundation:  Voting integrity by the governed.  They seek to codify arrangements that, by their very nature, are intended to eviscerate the notion of vote integrity.
  •   Voter ID:  Eliminated.
  •   Mail-in voting:  Mandated.
  •   Maintenance of accurate voter rolls:  Outlawed.
  •   Same-day registration:  Required.
  •   Ballot harvesting:  Allowed.
These anti-integrity initiatives, and many more, will be codified under H.R. 1, with the goal of giving Democrats end-to-end control over voting in the United States.  Once they achieve this, they will control every branch and every element of the federal government in perpetuity.  And given that they back a regulatory state that never met a freedom it didn't want to regulate, they will control every aspect of the lives of formerly free Americans.

There is no First Amendment protection in Canada.
Police entered a church to take pictures of congregants illegally gathering ... in Canada.  When you hear of police entering a church gathering to collect information on citizens breaking the law, what country comes to mind?  Perhaps China or North Korea?  Perhaps Yemen or Afghanistan?  Well get ready to redefine your understanding of worldwide persecution, because such a thing just happened in Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

ANYBODY can gather without masks, First Amendment says.
Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks, CDC says.  Fully vaccinated Americans can gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, according to long-awaited guidance from federal health officials.  The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way — in a single household — with people considered at low-risk for severe disease, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the guidance Monday [3/8/2021].

Immunity Passports Bring Back Racial Segregation.  Vaccine passports aren't coming: they're already here.  And while discriminating against people based on their vaccination status is bad enough: the implications are even worse.  A vaccine passport transforms all of society into a two-tier system, but the basis for it isn't a needle, it's a set of government guidelines that were based on identity politics or 'equity'.  From the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to various state equity initiatives, some even worse than the CDC's push to prioritize people by race, the vaccine rollout was designed to put minorities at the head of the line.  These prioritizations were meant to be invisible, using disparate impact to advance groups with the right demographic skew.  The government using race to prioritize medical treatment is horrifying enough, but vaccine passports take the biased vaccine system and embed that bias into everyday areas of life.  The end result is a horrifying cross between China's social credit system and the racial segregation of the South.  Call it the equity credit system based on racial and sexual identity.

Dems' 'Election Reforms' Would End American Democracy As We Know It.  Yes, elections have consequences, and terrible bills like this certainly prove that.  Anyone who voted for the Democrats in 2020 hoping for a "turn to the center" should by now be feeling mighty foolish.  H.R. 1 is but one example.  So far, Democrats have passed a near $2 trillion spending splurge that has next to nothing to do with COVID-19, created a new crisis on our border, alienated our strongest ally in the Mideast, convinced a bullying China that we're weak and vulnerable, and, instead of doing the people's business as they're supposed to, are now "investigating" the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C.  Some 5,000 National Guard troops, totally unnecessary right now, remain camped in the nation's barbed-wire encased capital, despite the fact that the FBI testified last week that no arms were seized by them nor were any shots fired by demonstrators during the supposed "insurrection."  Democrats hope to use the distraction of troops in D.C. and a probe of the events of Jan. 6 to pursue the most radical congressional agenda in history.

The Department of Health and Human Services is Hiring Coronavirus Quarantine Enforcement Officers.
  •   These positions are subject to permanent reassignment to another CDC Quarantine Station or duty station as the needs of the service warrant.
  •   These positions are subject to temporary assignment at any location in the United States and its territories or possessions, in foreign countries, or at sea.
  •   Selectee will be required to sign a Geographic Mobility Agreement.
  •   These positions are subject to shift work, weekend work, irregular work schedule and evening hours.  On call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, independent of shift work assignments.
  •   The incumbents will be required to wear a uniform.
  •   The incumbent must be able to qualify for unrestricted access to secure areas at U.S. ports.
  •   The incumbent must be able to obtain an official U.S. passport.
  •   The incumbent must have a valid State government-issued driver's license.
  •   The incumbent is required to be current in his/her immunizations per ACIP guidelines.  Must undergo baseline and periodic health screening procedures such as respiratory fit testing and PPD tests for tuberculosis exposure.  May be required to wear an N-95 respirator.
  •   The incumbent must be physically fit enough to work long hours and frequently travel on foot to remote gate areas in a short period of time.

The Editor says...
"Remote gate areas" — perhaps at a FEMA camp?

Another black swan in America's future?  In chronological order, the black swans we've experienced in just the past five years are:
  [#1]   the surprise election of Donald J. Trump in 2016,
  [#2]   the Chinese-induced pandemic and the anti-science response of most government officials to it,
  [#3]   the acquiescence to and even open encouragement of the Antifa and BLM riots in the summer of 2020 by large segments of the Democrat party, and
  [#4]   the boldness and success of the election coup of 2020.
Each of these in its own way permanently changed the country.  Of these four, only the first one — the election of Donald Trump — had a positive effect.  The other three left America seriously damaged. [...] Financially, America is in a Bizarro World in which deficits and debt don't matter, real interest rates are negative, yet the stock market climbs to record heights.  A financial day of reckoning is due.  It can happen at any time.  It could take the form of the dollar losing its position as the world's reserve currency, it could be a massive stock market crash, or it could be runaway inflation or a depression.  Any one of these would be a major black swan event catching a large majority of people by surprise.  Given the polarized state of the country and the lack of trust in government and other institutions, anything can happen then.  Anything.

A New Zealander's 9 'Starter Steps' to Save America From Socialism.  Though I'm a New Zealander, I know America and its people well.  I've travelled to every state in the Lower 48 and have addressed more than 500 audiences across this amazing nation.  My message has always been the same:  The United States is heading toward a brutally tyrannical socialist revolution — and if America goes down, every free country follows.  Well, now it's here, people, unfolding before our very eyes.  So, what can be done?  Can the Republic be saved?  Honestly, I don't know.  However, I can suggest some steps that would at least give this country a fighting chance. [...]

Judge blocks bills limiting Beshear's emergency powers.  Gov. Andy Beshear won a court order Wednesday [3/3/2021] temporarily blocking bills passed by the Kentucky General Assembly that threatened to invalidate a series of his executive orders aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.  The Democratic governor's administration made a "strong case" that the Republican-backed bills are likely to "undermine, or even cripple," public health measures needed to protect Kentuckians from the pandemic, Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd said in his ruling.

The Editor says...
The judge appears to be in favor of concentrating all power in the hands of the Governor, rather than the elected legislature.  That's a move in the wrong direction.

While Republicans Slept, Democrats Stole the 2020 Election — Like Communists, They Are Working to Lock In Their Lawless Third World Voting Rules.  This is so serious and Republicans and Big Media do and say nothing.  Now the Democrats are taking their lead from the communist playbook, elections in America will soon be over if they get away with this.  A select few members of the Democrat Party will decide who wins each and every election going forward.  This was why it was imperative to fight for integrity in results in the 2020 election.  We knew if the Democrats got away with stealing President Trump's landslide election they would never relinquish control.  Rush Limbaugh warned America this fall that Democrats were done with elections.  They were tired of having to try and convince Americans of the benefits of higher taxes, open borders, weak defense, anti-American — pro-China trade deals, etc.

ICE locks Twitter account that alerted public of illegal immigrants freed by sanctuary cities.  ICE has locked down a Twitter account that was used to alert the public to illegal immigrants released by sanctuary cities.  @ICEAlerts is now "protected," meaning only those who had already been following the account can see the target names.  Users also can't retweet the old posts, said Jon Feere, a former senior employee at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Trump.  ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the change, but Mr. Feere said the Biden administration doesn't want people to know what kinds of criminals it's no longer actively seeking to deport.

The Editor says...
This part is news to me:  I didn't know the government had direct and immediate control of Twitter.

[Nearly vertical] "Slippery Slope" - Vaccine Passports Are A Technical & Ethical Minefield.  Vaccine passports are essentially certificates that link proof of vaccination to the identity of the holder, a potential silver bullet to return to our pre-Covid-19 lives.  Before the pandemic, the EU was working on plans for cross-border electronic certificates to replace the paper booklets that many travellers carry.  At this week's EU summit some leaders pressed for further steps towards coronavirus passports.  A recent Royal Society report that I led came up with 12 different criteria that would need to be satisfied to make such passports feasible.  This is a complex ecosystem that requires an understanding of everything from immunity and infection to technology, ethics and behavioural factors.  But the underlying question must be: what would a vaccine passport be used for?

There's something happening here.  "There's something happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear," warned a rock band called Buffalo Springfield in 1967 in a song called For What It's Worth.  The song had a hypnotic and ominous melody critical of Uncle Sam and the Pentagon.  That song suddenly seems relevant again. [...] There is a lot of "ain't exactly clear" going on in 2021.  Many question the fairness and outcome of the 2020 election.  Many look at the COVID-19 pandemic and wonder if it was actually a biological attack from China aimed to destabilize the West and unseat China's biggest critic, Donald Trump.  Many wonder and worry about local governments' heavy-handed restrictions in the name of combatting the pandemic. [...] Questioning the government was very fashionable in 1967.  Questioning the government in 2021 or the recent election is called sedition.  We were a lot freer in 1967 than we are now.

Democrats Declare War on Conservative Media.  Henry Ford famously quipped, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."  The Democrats take a similar view about what the public should be permitted to see on broadcast and cable networks.  A Wednesday [2/24/2021] hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology made it abundantly clear that they believe we should be free to view anything we like so long as it fits the Democratic version of the "facts."

FBI Continues Searching for January 6th DC Protestors.  Giving the Chinese, Iranian and Russian state police a run for their money:  Apparently the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ie. the U.S. version of "State Police" enforcement units, have found a cause they are really committed to: finding every person who attended the Capitol Hill protests on January 6, 2021.  In a scene straight out of Orwell's 1984 warning, the FBI is literally calling their effort the hunt for "America's Most Wanted."  To achieve their goal, the FBI has been asking for help from their ideological comrades in the state run media apparatus, and achieving a great deal of success.

The Attacks on the Second Amendment Became Attacks on the First Amendment.  Conservatives had long predicted that the attacks on the Second Amendment would eventually turn into attacks on the First Amendment.  Liberals used to ridicule that until they turned leftward and joined the attack.  The premise of the attacks on the First Amendment are familiar.  Speech is dangerous.  Not everyone ought to be able to exercise it without proper supervision.  Surely the Framers hadn't anticipated the internet and would have agreed that disinformation needs to be restrained because it leads to conspiracy theories and insurrections.  And there's no better way to defang conspiracy theories than by ruthlessly suppressing them.  That has never led to an insurrection or deep paranoia about the government in the history of mankind.  The old parodies of Second Amendment attacks have been wholly embraced by the Democrat establishment.  A contingent of the Left, led by Glenn Greenwald, have gone on the attack, because they don't trust a Democrat establishment with full power over speech not to use that power to crush enemies to the Left.

Mice die in traps because they don't understand why cheese is free
Symbiotic Relationships.  The relationship of government to the people [supposedly] began where the government servants were for the benefit of the people.  Now that relationship has flipped.  You had better do what you're told or else.  Or else what?  We will raise the price of your medication, control the medical attention you can receive, force you to pay for our medical insurance, regulate your business [or shut it down all together, because, you know, COVID], take your guns, brainwash your children and tell you that you better be damn happy while we're doing it.  No, wait, they're already doing that.  Are you enjoying the symbiotic relationship you have with your government?  Federal or local?  Is it a give and take situation that benefits both parties or have you become a slave to 'the man'?  Add to that mixture the current state of big tech and the media.


The Authoritarian Left Is on the March.  This week, Democratic Reps.  Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerny, D-N.J., sent out a series of letters to America's largest communications corporations:  AT&T, Alphabet Inc., Cox Communications, Dish Network, Comcast, Apple, Amazon and others.  Their letters demanded answers from these corporations on one simple topic:  Why would these platforms continue to allow the dissemination of "misinformation" from conservative outlets? [...] The overt move by members of the government to cudgel private corporations into silencing unpopular viewpoints was clearly violative of First Amendment principles.  The Constitution clearly provides that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or the press; Democrats have now hit upon a convenient workaround where they bully private actors into doing their censorious bidding.

Capitol Hill hearing targets Fox News and lays the groundwork for government censorship.  One of the most chilling examples in modern times of the accelerating full-spectrum assault on free speech and the First Amendment took place yesterday on Capitol Hill, courtesy of a subcommittee of the Democrat-controlled House Committee on Energy and Commerce.  For over three hours on Wednesday afternoon, the subcommittee held a virtual hearing titled Fanning the Flames:  Disinformation and Extremism in the Media.  The target was conservative media in general and Fox News in particular.  Conservatives who have bought into the fake meme that Fox News has "gone left" might want to take note of how the authoritarian leftists who have taken control of the Democrat party and their allies in big media have now openly embarked on a carefully crafted and well-orchestrated propaganda campaign to destroy Fox News.  The Democrats are also targeting FNC's two competitors, Newsmax TV and OANN.

Rep. Bill Johnson:  Democrat Efforts to Censor Dissident Media 'Eerily Similar' to Communist China.  Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) said that Democrat efforts to censor dissident media are "eerily similar" to communist China's on Wednesday [2/24/2021] during the House Committee hearing on "Fanning the Flames:  Disinformation and Extremism in the Media."  "Just two weeks ago, China's national radio and television administration banned BBC World News from broadcasting in China, because it found BBC's reports, I quote, 'seriously violate' broadcast guidelines, including, and I quote again, 'the requirement that news should be truthful, and fair, and not harm China's national interests,'" said Johnson during the hearing on Wednesday [2/24/2021].

The Government Censors Are Here.  Congressional Democrats are demanding to know what communications giants such as Comcast and AT&T are going to do about "the spread of dangerous misinformation."  How quickly this country is descending into an authoritarian regime where the government controls speech and the flow of information.  Ahead of a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday [2/24/2021], California Democratic Reps.  Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney wrote a letter to Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox, Altice, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Hulu.  According to the New York Times, which says it has reviewed the correspondence, the pair is not pleased that "the cable, satellite and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets" — likely referring to Fox News, One America News Network, and Newsmax — "have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets."

The Editor says...
Late-night TV "comedians" spread "dangerous misinformation" and nobody's trying to silence them.  John Kerry says we only have nine years left to avoid a climate catastrophe.  That's dangerous misinformation, too.  CNN is a fountain of misinformation.  Several other "mainstream" news outlets are, also.

Congressional Dems Trying to Deplatform Fox News May Have Violated First Amendment.  "Congressional Dems sent a letter to Comcast, Amazon, Google, ATT & others, demanding to know what they plan to do about the 'the spread of dangerous misinformation' from Fox News, OAN and Newsmax — including whether they will continue to carry them," notes Rachel Abrams of the New York Times.  Legal scholars criticized this congressional demand, made by Reps.  Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Jerry McNerney (D-CA), on First Amendment grounds.  Law professor Gus Hurwitz said, "These letters are chilling, in both the [First Amendment] sense and that of the feeling in my bones when I read them.  Effectively demanding distributors impose government-mandated speech codes for content."  Congressional Democrats only object to misinformation on these conservative channels — not progressive ones.

Democrats Move to Silence Non-Liberal Speech.  [Scroll down]  We have seen this in the moves against conservatives and other independent voices by Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Go Fund Me and other tech titans.  While these companies are no doubt motivated in part by ideology in putting their thumbs on the scale of public discourse, the truth is more sinister than that.  The major tech platforms are monopolies with obvious antitrust vulnerabilities, as we saw when the Trump administration brought an enforcement action against Facebook that seeks the divestiture of Instagram.  The Democrats have not only urged tech platforms to silence conservatives, they are at least implicitly (God knows what is said in private) holding out the prospect of immunity from antitrust enforcement, which means many billions more in profits.  This is the ultimate in 21st-century corruption.  But it gets worse:  the Democrats are also trying to drive independent voices off the more traditional broadcast and cable platforms.

House Dems to cable operators:  You're not still carrying Fox, OANN, Newsmax, are you?  Two House Democrats didn't waste much time in attempting to bully these distributors into deplatforming conservative media outlets.  Reps.  Anna Eshloo and Jerry McNerney sent letters to the CEOs of Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Roku, and others demanding to know whether they planned to renew contracts with Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax after "incendiary reports" over the past year — and why they would carry them in the future.

Leftist Naomi Wolf comes out swinging... in favor of the Constitution.  Naomi Wolf became well known over the years as a third-wave feminist, a member of the Clinton camp, an adviser to Al Gore during his 2000 presidential campaign, and a reliable leftist on most issues.  On Monday, though, she surprised the heck out of Tucker Carlson and, probably, most of his audience, when she turned out to be a fierce defender of individual liberty.  A mesmerized Tucker listened as Wolf fluently expounded on principles of liberty and tagged the Biden government as creating "a totalitarian state before our eyes."

All Peaceful Means.  Some say China wants a weakened United States so that it will be easier to conquer.  If China can get the people of the United States to wage war against each other, recognizing that the use of nuclear arms would be out of the question, they achieve the greatest Sun Tzu victory of not having to wage war at all, but to swoop in and commandeer the rubble left behind.  Some say that internal communists are trying to manipulate the right into action, in order to secure a weaponless society that ensures that whoever survives will be subject to any and all draconian sanctions and even make white genocide feasible.  I would not normally delve into these subjects had I not seen the proposals for such actions clearly spoken about by those in Congress; recognized there exists a Trump Voter List held by those in Congress; seen the rogue's gallery of the dogmatically anti-white, anti-constitution cabinet being assembled by Joe Biden, (the beneficiary of vote fraud perpetrated on the nation) and seen the complete capitulation of law to a virus, basically the flu, that has a 99.93% survivable rate, or a .07% mortality rate. [...] Forces are gathering in the capitol to unleash salvos of unconstitutionality on the people of every state.  The desire is to create a nation of susceptible individuals, unarmed and defanged so that they might be compelled to commit any uncivil act at the behest of a totalitarian government official.

No Longer Consenting, Carlsbad California Restaurant Owners Defy Order and Open for Indoor Dining.  The power of government comes from the people; or as we say in the U.S. "from the consent of the governed."  When people lead, the politicians are forced to follow.  Without implied consent the municipal or state government has no power.  None.  The power of the local, regional or state authority comes from the expressed consent of the people.  As soon as the majority of people deny that consent, those officials and state authoritarians lose all of their power.  Yes, it really is that simple.  [Video clip]

"Break Their Will".  When a dog curls its lip and bares its teeth, you know what sort of dog you're dealing with.  One such dog curled its lip in Massachusetts recently.  His name is David Ismay — possibly related to the Bruce Ismay of Titanic fame, but hold that thought.  This Ismay wants to "break the will" — his words — of people who rely on gasoline to power their cars and oil and natural gas to heat their homes, in order to "combat climate change."  And he was in a position to do just that, being until just recently a government worker and having lots of armed government workers available to enforce whatever he decreed as the Undersecretary for Climate Change — yes, such an office exists — of the state of Massachusetts.  A state nominally under the governorship of a Republican — Charlie Barker — it bears pointing out. [...] Ismay — who made $130,000 annually as a government worker, roughly twice as much as the average American family earns — was eventually forced to resign, which is good.

Inoculating Against the Wrong Attitudes.  In an article posted on its homepage, NBC News has already rushed forward to whet appetites over the possibility of inoculating against violent extremism.  Not all extremism, mind you, just the variety that is the latter-day sobriquet for white supremacy, which since January 6 has become a noose for social media to tighten around the neck of Trump supporters and conservatives en masse.  Accompanied by photographs of a "pro-Trump mob" waving Don't Tread on Me flags inside the Capitol building, the article gushes over Biden's plans to turn DHS into an offensive line against those who might carry out Capitol-like insurgencies.  The pre-planned uprising on January 6 has given the left a tailor-made excuse to reset public opinion on what is and what is not violent extremism.  In its opening salvo, the Biden administration has ordered DHS to fund research that will offer the means and method to "take actions to prevent violence before it occurs."

Democrats Work on Plan For Big Tech to Shut Down Dissent.  An interesting article within Reuters points out how the Democrats in congress are working with the White House to craft legislation to make "social media companies accountable for the spread of disinformation."  Or put another way, the Democrats are attempting to eliminate any ability of those who disagree with them; or worse yet, would outline their corrupt endeavors.  Ultimately this level of control is a reaction to fear.  So the logical question is:  what exactly are they fearful of?  Perhaps the answer is in alignment with the reason Democrats have surrounded the capital with military guards, fence and barbed-wire.

Kafka Comes to Scotland, and Free Speech Goes Missing.  You do not defend free speech by demanding it for yourself but by demanding it for others, especially when you reprehend the use to which they put it or what they say.  Freedom to agree with yourself is no freedom at all and inevitably ends in tyranny.  But increasingly a tyranny of self-proclaimed virtue seems to be the aim of university-trained intellectuals who, in the name of their own beneficence, seek to silence those whose opinions they find objectionable.

Where Is All of the Ammo Purchased by the Obama Administration?  That is a serious question.  Looking at recent images of our nation's capital gives me the feeling that the federal government is afraid of something.  Just maybe, a government that wasn't popular with the people, would need to use a bit of force to stay in power.  That got me thinking about all of the arms and ammunition that was purchased by the last administration run by the democrats.  They weren't just buying it for the military.  All kinds of agencies that you wouldn't think needed bullets were getting them.  This was all happening circa 2014.

Biden's Domestic War On Terrorism May Seek To Criminalize Political Dissent.  If domestic terrorist groups are proliferating in sufficient, size, strength, and number to merit a robust new government response, on the scale of the Global War on Terror — as some are telegraphing — the authorities have not demonstrated it.  The administration's hyping of such threats, and the conversion of Capitol Hill to a warzone, without specific evidence of danger, should only increase our skepticism.  It appears politics is trumping the truth.  One can argue that the rush to declare a war on "domestic violent extremism" is one of several logical conclusions of an effort that goes back to the beginning of the Obama presidency, to fear-monger over the threat of "right-wing extremism" and marginalize non-leftists.  The resistance fever dream of Trump-as-Führer with his tens of millions of supporters as Brownshirts was seamlessly incorporated into this information operation.  With Trump toppled, the riot among non-leftists provided the catalyst for completing the total war on the true objects of the ruling class's ire: dissenting Americans.  It has concocted a narrative:  There is a growing "insurgency" among "domestic violent extremists."  The riot was their 9/11.

Woke Politics: The Democrats' Plan for a Permanent Majority.  The Democrats are pursuing a multi-prong strategy to cement a permanent majority.  To accomplish the goal requires upending the constitutional design.  Until the scope of this effort is seen in its entirety, it can proceed in the shadows.  It has six astonishing elements:
  [#1]   Enable Congress to determine who can run for President,
  [#2]   Eliminate the Electoral College without amending the Constitution,
  [#3]   Override the states' constitutionally mandated authority to determine presidential election rules,
  [#4]   Grant statehood to the District of Columbia by statute,
  [#5]   Rewrite the First Amendment to limit political speech, and
  [#6]   Enable open border immigration through executive agreement instead of Congressional action.
Taken together, the program represents a comprehensive challenge to representative democracy.  It deserves to be understood and debated front and center.

Deceptively Titled 'Equality Act' Would Be Giant Step to Destroying Religious Freedom.  [Scroll down]  There are two keys to understanding why this proposal is such a threat to the First Amendment's guarantee of religious assembly and practice without interference from Congress.  First, as with so much else that appears under the rubric of "social justice," this proposal absolutizes the concept of equality into a battering ram against the rights of unfavored groups.  That's precisely the outcome the Founders hoped to prevent.  Here's how that works:  If the secular progressive understanding of equality as equal outcomes — rather than equal opportunities — is combined with moral relativity — the idea that "truth" is whatever any individual decides it is for them — then every other societal value must be totally subordinated, including freedom of political expression and religious freedom, the two bulwarks of American liberty.  That is why the "social justice" movement is the source of the Cancel Culture that is steadily suffocating creativity, individuality, privacy, and everything and everybody else refusing to conform.

Biden Takes 'Death to America' Terrorists Off Terror List, Replaces Them With Republicans.  Democrats say Muslim terrorists aren't terrorists, but their political opponents are.  The Biden administration responded to protests against its stolen election by embedding a domestic extremism office into the National Security Council.  The man in charge of making it happen, Joshua Geltzer, had previously denied that Black Lives Matter was a terrorist threat and had attacked the Trump administration's response to Antifa and BLM violence in Portland.  That means that the only domestic extremists the NSC will be fighting are Republicans.  Even while the Biden administration is preparing to double down on Obama's abuse of the national security state to target his political opponents, it's also giving real terrorists a pass.

An Oppressive Boot on the Neck of Free Speech.  Freedom of speech [...] is under assault today from many quarters as evidenced by speech codes and the cancel culture ready to pounce on any words, spoken or written, not approved by the left.  Colorado State University, several years ago, prepared a draft "Inclusive Language Guide."  This is a modern-day version of George Orwell's "Newspeak," the official language of ficti[ti]ous Oceania, words designed to be politically correct without a hint of rebellion or opposition to the establishment.  Although the CSU guide is a few years old, it is worth revisiting as the cancel culture is in overdrive these days, invigorated by their supposed landslide electoral victory last November.  Those with conservative views are being erased from the corporate world and academia simply because terms like "free expression, tolerance, and diversity" only flow in one direction, to the left.

You have less than a year.  Ladies and gentlemen, you've just witnessed a coup. [...] It certainly wasn't a revolution.  Revolutions are usually more violent or come with force to some extent.  The Democrat Party didn't do that.  They planned, many years in advance, a fraud to gain full control.  It was no accident that mail-in votes and harvested ballots gave Biden, now president for (the remainder of his) life, the presidency.  The vote, in general terms, has been diluted for many years.  You should have seen this coming — but nobody did.  It's not a coincidence that the DNC, wherever possible, wanted no ID checks and more ways to vote.  Not because voter ID is racist, but because more people can vote the 'right' way.  They have fought with success to give everybody they need a vote.  Including dead people.  The trick worked.  Suddenly the bombshell exploded.  Now it is too late.

Pete Buttigieg Says DOT Studying Requiring COVID Tests for Domestic Airline Travel.  Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg made a rather stunning statement during an Axios interview today [2/9/2021].  When discussing domestic travel and transportation as it related to COVID-19, the transportation secretary said: "there is an active conversation within the CDC now" about requiring COVID tests prior to air travel inside the United States.  This ridiculous position was unfortunately one of the issues CTH predicted might happen.  COVID is not a virus inasmuch as it is an opportunity to achieve social-change goals advocated by the far-left.  Remember, one key element within the Green New Deal was to ban airplanes altogether.  The kindergarten class of tree-shouting, algae-cake-eating, everything must be sustainable and stupid, i.e., leftist moonbats, are the ones offering actual policy suggestions.

The Supreme Court Decision Vacating California's Church Attendance Regulations Is Not a Victory and Should Terrify Us.  [Scroll down]  Ever since this pandemic crisis was imposed upon us, I have argued that the regulations imposed upon an initially supine but now restive America had little to nothing to do with public health and everything do with arrogating power to bureaucrats (not the "government"), creating administrative carveout to the Bill of Rights.  If a "public health emergency" brought on by a virus that is not terribly dangerous to anyone who is not already sick or suffering from conditions that would qualify as comorbidities trumps the black-letter right to assemble and to worship, then the First Amendment and Second Amendment have effectively ceased to exist.  At least two state governors have declared "racism" to be a "public health emergency[.]"  Inevitably, gun violence will also attain that status.  It doesn't take a particularly inventive person to see how the ability to declare anything you don't like a "public health emergency" is going to be weaponized to suppress any kind of dissent.

How to create a surveillance state.  Thanks to the technology in our smartphones, each one of us has the capability to contribute, and many on the left seem to revel in the power.  The rest of us must weigh every action we take, every word we say.  If we say or do the "wrong" thing, we may no longer have the right to earn a living.  If our vigilant self-censorship fails, an idle thoughtcrime might occur publicly.  All it takes is a few ill advised words or actions, caught on video, to ruin us.  Censorship is swift, aggressive, and irrational, without regard to either facts or effects. [...] The news reported that a San Jose gym that stayed open got dozens of complaints from "the public"' and was fined $500K. People are turning into self-righteous tattletales, and those in charge of the companies and social media platforms that created the means for recording and for tattling automatically side with the tattler, without any thought to due process.  We no longer have the right to make our own decisions.

You Knew It Was Coming:  AOC, Bernie, and Earl Introduce Bill to Declare National Emergency on Climate.  President Trump declared a national emergency over the novel coronavirus on March 13, 2020.  As the crisis evolved throughout 2020, many governors took that football and ran it as far down the field as they could, implementing ever more severe restrictions on their states as they declared their own state emergencies.  As COVID-19 lockdowns spread across the states, they began to take on an appearance of permanence, despite questionable results in slowing the pandemic's spread.  The populace, often scared into submission, mostly complied out of a fear of the unknown.  This gave those governors a taste of power heretofore resisted by the American public, and many of them found the sensation intoxicating.  Even more intoxicating was the willingness to accept the new normal.  As more despotic governors declare more states of emergency without legislative approval or oversight, or even a light at the end of the tunnel, it seemed the light bulb went on for the far left.  We could finally rid the United States of that pesky republican form of government once and for all and install direct democracy.  This led me to believe that these permanent temporary lockdowns would soon become a dry run for national emergency after national emergency — like climate change — that would create fun new normals ad infinitum.

Here Come the 'Climate Lockdowns'.  PJM's Jeff Reynolds reported on the proposed "climate emergency" legislation that would declare climate change a "national emergency."  If passed, it would give Biden sweeping powers and unlock billions in spending.  Since there is no "climate emergency" at the moment, the radical greens have to create one.  And the more dire and frightening they can make it, the more powerful they will become.  AOC and her cohorts in Congress will do their best but it's likely that the worst of the "Green New Deal" will never be enacted even with the declaration that climate change is a national emergency.  But suppose President Biden and other western leaders were to declare a "climate lockdown"?  In a climate lockdown, "governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban the consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling."

The Editor says...
Even the most ardent Democrat — the most rabid baby-killing abortionist, the most heavy-handed union goon, the queerest LGBTQWERTY+ transvestite — must surely wonder if he or she really voted for this assortment of draconian foolishness.  Does anyone really believe that "consumption of red meat" changes the weather so much that the U.S. economy must be strangled to fix it?  Does anyone really believe that if U.S. oil drilling stops, there won't be any oil exploration anywhere in the world (like the Middle East)?  Did any voter (living or dead) in November 2020 think he or she was voting for "extreme energy-saving measures" — whatever that may mean?

The Military Is Targeting the Wrong Groups & Using Non-Existent Threats in an Attempt to Deprive Americans of Their Rights.  Our military leadership has gone completely around the bend.  It is flat out refusing to focus on building and maintaining the most lethal force in the world, able to deploy at a moment's notice by direction of the National Command Authority and in defense of the national interests of these United States. [...] That brings us to the recent, apparent effort to purge Trump supporters from the military.  If the Left had as its desire, to (re)involve these United States in needless conflicts, I'm pretty sure there would be absolutely no reason to get rid of any military members based on political affiliation.  The culture of our military is generally that when called to the colors, you go and you fight.  Done.  Then there is the other half of the equation.  Note that the target of this stand-down is focused on a statistically non-existent issue, rather than the infiltration of ANTIFA, BLM, and Critical Race Theory into our military's senior leader decision-making process.  What is so egregious about this, is that the leftists are using a flat out lie, as the basis for destroying our institutions.

Was the Allentown teacher suspended after attending 'Stop the Steal' rally within his rights?  Raub Middle School teacher Jason Moorehead's social media posts from the Jan. 6 rally for former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., began circulating in Allentown on the afternoon when the world watched in horror as protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol.  The reaction fell on both sides, some saying it was his First Amendment right to attend a rally, others saying being a teacher usurped that right.  The uproar was enough for Allentown School District to suspend him with pay while it investigated his involvement in the day's events.  "Being a teacher means he is a role model and because of his profession, his personal life is public," wrote one Facebook user.  "We as a community cannot accept nor tolerate this negative behavior."  "What is he doing wrong?" another asked.  "He took a few photos showing he was there.  Thousands of people are there, and only a few are doing the rioting and destruction.  Not everyone there is a rioter."

The War on Disinformation Is a War on Dissent.  The terms "misinformation" and "disinformation" have dominated the political lexicon in recent years.  Whereas misinformation merely refers to inaccurate or misleading information, the label of disinformation implies an intent to deceive.  Both have served as the source of much consternation and hand-wringing from media figures and politicians alike, with countless articles, press segments, academic papers, and political speeches devoted to solving the problem posed by intentionally false or misleading information and "fake news." For its part, the Biden administration has characterized disinformation as a "threat to our democracy," going as far as to lay out a road map for how to combat it.  While our inability as a society to agree on basic facts is certainly a problem, what should be self-evident is that misinformation and disinformation naturally abound when there is very little trust in sense-making institutions.  If the information sources that are deemed "authoritative" are so often wrong or misleading, and inspire little public confidence, is it any wonder that people turn to alternatives?  Misinformation and disinformation are natural consequences of our public institutions' inconsistency and incompetence.

The Left Is Calling the Capitol Riot An 'Insurrection' and a 'Coup Attempt' for a Reason.  The left has been longing for a narrative-furthering event like this for decades, and they got it all in one fell swoop — a mostly-white group of right-wingers misbehaving on a massive scale on the biggest stage of all.  It was too perfect, and now they're using it, as they have COVID-19 and virtually every other 'crisis' that comes, to further their evil ends. [...] If they can paint the right as insurrectionists and coup plotters, they can then justify any method to stop and/or punish the insurrection and coup plotting.

Biden's Banana Republic.  A New York Times reporter has suggested the president appoint a "reality czar," who would lead "a cross-agency task force to tackle disinformation and domestic extremism."  Please tell us, comrade, when the show trials begin.  We don't want to miss them.  The author of this idea is Times technology reporter Kevin Roose, who was writing about "how the Biden administration can help solve our reality crisis."  His is not a lone recommendation on how the ruling class should re-educate, curb, and cancel the unruly masses to the right of center.  Others want the Biden White House to establish various versions of George Orwell's Ministry of Truth, which was itself a ministry of propaganda.  The Democrats and allied activists are itching to shut down speech they don't agree with, but do it under the cover of preserving and honoring "truth." [...] A country and a culture are in trouble when those in authority allow only one voice to be heard, when they decide what is acceptable speech and what isn't, when the controversial and the unpopular are treated as crimes to be punished.

Bank Of America Goes Through Record Of Customers To Flag Anyone Who Went To Trump Event In DC, Hands Over To FBI.  "Tucker Carlson Tonight" has exclusively obtained evidence that Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the country with more than 60 million customers, is actively but secretly engaged in the hunt for extremists in cooperation with the government.  Bank of America is, without the knowledge or the consent of its customers, sharing private information with federal law enforcement agencies.  Bank of America effectively is acting as an intelligence agency, but they're not telling you about it.  [Video clip]

Bank of America handed over customer data to feds following Capitol riot.  There has been an enormous amount of talk — not just this week, but over the last month — about violent extremism and the people who embrace it.  Those people, we're told, are domestic terrorists who must be put down by force.  The war on terror has moved stateside.  Extremists are inside our country, and we must hunt them down.  We're hearing those words nonstop, not just on cable news, but from elected officials, including some Republicans.  We're hearing it from the leaders of federal law enforcement agencies and the intelligence agencies.  We're hearing it from the Pentagon.  Just this week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the entire U.S. military to "stand down" while investigators cleanse the ranks of political extremists.  And, of course, we're hearing it from the business establishment, from Wall Street and the tech monopolies, from the massive multinational corporations that increasingly control the contours of American life.  All of them are now on the hunt for political extremists.

Bank of America is working with the FBI to hunt down Trump supporters.  What we've witnessed in the last twenty or so years is a fusion between big corporations, from big tech on down, and the federal government.  Both institutions have complete fealty to a Democrat-run state and will do all in their power to preserve it. [...] Silly little things like the Fourth Amendment don't matter if the Democrat party is threatened.

The Ministry of Truth:
Biden needs 'reality czar,' 'truth commission' to combat domestic extremists, experts tell NYT.  Academics and technology experts want President Biden to appoint a "reality czar" and a "truth commission" to mitigate the threat of domestic extremists and the spread of conspiracy theories.  A piece by The New York Times titled "How the Biden Administration Can Help Solve Our Reality Crisis" includes experts from Harvard University, Stanford, the University of Maryland, and other organizations with their take on how best to handle "hoaxes, lies and collective delusions." Technology columnist Kevin Roose's piece specifically focuses on QAnon group chats, claims of widespread election fraud leading to Mr. Biden's election, and news disseminated from staunchly conservative media outlets.

The Editor says...
In other words, the Democrats and their appointees will decide what's true and what's not, and suppress any unapproved discussions of things like stolen elections, irrational face mask mandates, skepticism of global warming, the gruesome details of what really happens in an abortion, any misgivings about the Patriot Act, any qualms about the side-effects of vaccines, any doubts at all about the Kennedy assassination, collapse of WTC 7, the Oklahoma City bombing, the crash of TWA 800, or the suspicious deaths of Vince Foster, Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew Breitbart, Dorothy Kilgallen, Karen Silkwood, and several others who knew too much.  When the Ministry of Truth takes over the internet, you won't be allowed to say that a man who wears a wig and a dress is still a man, or that the news media lies constantly, or that the government spends too much money.  You won't be permitted to say that the combustion of coal at a power plant is a net benefit to everyone.  You won't be allowed to say that plastic straws, DDT, Freon, oil pipelines, styrofoam, "light pollution" and "urban sprawl" never hurt anybody.  The Ministry of Truth will protect you from those so-called friends of yours whose opinions are so harmful.  The internet thrives because it allows ordinary citizens to bypass the mainstream media.  The internet allows the free flow of (sometimes dubious) opinions from hundreds of sources.  Ordinary citizens — at least the ones who didn't attend public schools in the last 30 years — are capable of sifting through the noise and determining for themselves what's probably true and what's probably not.

Symptoms, Causes, and Cures.  We as conservatives are experiencing painful symptoms as we enter 2021: Just a short list includes Trump's fraudulent defeat, Biden's many executive orders, calls for obedient unity, Obama administration retreads, a farcical second impeachment, Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote in the Senate, government purges, big tech suppression of speech, subordinating our economy and security to China, etc.  Additionally, we've been told that further "symptoms" await us.  Again, the short list includes no filibuster, an expanded Supreme Court, additional states, new illegal immigrants bringing in disease, a crashing stock market, reentry into the Paris Climate Accord and the Iran Deal, totalitarian rule — and the list of potential symptoms goes on.

The political storm ahead.  It looks to me as if we are about to enter a very dark and dangerous political storm such as our nation has not seen.  The sunlight of a free exchange of ideas, of thought-provoking discussion, of attending church, of tolerating a simple different point of view appears close to being extinguished.  History is being rewritten and even statues of Lincoln are being brought down.  One must wonder, how long it will be until we are no longer allowed to have cities, counties, colleges, or streets named Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Jackson or Roosevelt.  Is Darkness now falling in America?  The cabal of Big Tech, the Deep State, and the progressive/socialist party is for all practical purposes ignoring and curtailing the Bill of Rights.  At this time, the Thought Police appear to be winning. [...] Since the controversial Election of 2020, The left has "disappeared" citizens, outlawed free association, cancelled books, had people fired or made them unemployable because they thought or voted in a different way.  This new regime has actually discussed publicly, re-education camps.  Publishers are being threatened.

Democrats' Climate Agenda Will Mimic Their COVID Tyranny.  If you've enjoyed the last 10 months of foolish, science-denying lockdowns and mask mandates, the widespread destruction of businesses and economies, and the government telling you what jobs are "essential" and how you are to conduct yourself in your own home, then you must absolutely love the Democrats' climate agenda.  For decades, the climate cultists from the "New Religion of First World Elites" have attempted to use fear — the destruction of the planet — and a fake cause — saving the planet — to convince Americans to vote for Democrats and enact the perverse science-denying climate agenda of the modern left.  For a primer on how this would work, look no farther than 2020.

People Pretending To Do Journalism Are Mounting Pressure Campaigns To Silence Conservative Media.  Using the wreckage of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots as leverage, corporate media and the pundit class postured themselves as the de facto arbiters of public opinion, and promptly set their sights on conservative media.  They took almost no time to pounce.  Within hours of the riots, corporate media reporters and pundits pointed to the presence of Proud Boys at the Capitol riots and organizing on social media.  They implied or outright called for more censorship and encouraged the White House to enact new domestic surveillance powers.  Naturally, deplatforming media companies that do not adhere to the dominant liberal orthodoxy became a subject of serious discussion.  Facebook's former chief security officer Alex Stamos alleged during a Jan. 17 segment of CNN's "Reliable Sources" that conservative influencers and media outlets have "abused" press freedom, and advocated deplatforming conservatives from both traditional and social media.

Slowing Killing The American Frog.  If you grant credence to the contention that the election was at least manipulated, methodically, toward the end achieved, it is only a small step to seeing the rest of the story unfold.  The election was one crucial part of a much larger and longer-term plot.  Our coup d'état started long ago, certainly well before the 2016 election. [...]

Crossing the Digital Rubicon.  The authoritarian liberal-left monoculture has crossed the Rubicon.  Behold the Progressive Praetorian Guard — all carefully vetted for loyalty — and their Potemkin Village President now seated in power, whose pitiful popularity is quietly disguised.  Do not be fooled: the barbed wire and boots are a threat to those who dare dissent.  The smearing of Trump supporters as 'terrorists' is justification for a new Secret Police, while Democrats demand wholesale purges from government, evoking the words and associations forbidden by other paranoid Parties.  Merely questioning the Biden ascendance to power is 'sedition,' ignoring the insidious hand of Big-Tech tilting the scales.  This is only the beginning as the CEO of Twitter brazenly declared to his employees as to how 'it' will go on far beyond the inauguration.  Blacklisting and banning for the monoculture is apparently not enough.  The anti-social justice Michael Recetenwald observed: "the means by which a police state is being set up is the demonization of Trump supporters and the likely use of medical passports to institute the effective equivalent of social credit scores."

Here it is — The Bill to Destroy Gun Ownership.  Here we have it.  They are going after EVERYONE who has a gun or ammunition.  They are deeply concerned about a revolution and they want to know every person who has a gun or ammunition.  The object of this bill will be to identify every person who has a gun.  They will be able to revoke a license and confiscate the gun under rules to be created by the Attorney General.  Biden swore he would end the NRA.  He was not joking.  Like a diverse license, once they create this federal license, they effectively limit the Second Amendment claiming if you obey all their regulations which they can change at any time, then you have that right.  But all such rights are eliminated whenever they say so.

Biden's a New Ball Game:  Army Chaplain is Under Investigation After Calling Transgenders 'Mentally Unfit' to Serve.  As noted by The Daily Wire, a religious cleric serving in the United States Army is getting probed for something he recently posted to Facebook.  According to NBC News, Maj. Andrew Calvert went onto a military newspaper's social media page to ask a question.  His query:  "How is rejecting reality (biology) not evidence that a person is mentally unfit (ill), and thus making that person unqualified to serve?"

A Tsunami of Hate.  All politics is divisive.  That's the healthy basis of our constitutional order: the freedom to disagree.  To suppress disagreement, to outlaw it — as many Democrats and their Big Tech and media allies — are demanding these days, is to end democracy as we know it.  The problem is not that we disagree.  We are not suffering as a nation from healthy disagreement.  We are suffering from a Tsunami of Hate emanating from the Democrat Party that seeks to demonize, criminalize and extinguish dissent from the 75 million supporters of Donald Trump.  It is now official Washington dogma that to question an election result — something the congressional Democrats have done in the face of every Republican presidential victory since 2000 — is now "insurrection" and "domestic terrorism," or the incitement thereto, and needs to be prosecuted and suppressed.

Democrats get ready to unleash the IRS for selective enforcement on political opponents.  Democrats have an amazing array of third-world dictator tricks targeting their Republican opponents.  Item A is their bid to use the IRS to cut off Republican freedom of assembly. [...] They're so concerned about superspreader events, they want to permanently shut down conservative groups themselves for thier events so that conservatives can't assemble at all.  Sounds pretty convenient for their purposes.  Not only do they want to take away our freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of religion, they'd also like to take away freedom of assembly.  Just like they did during the Obama presidency when conservative groups such as the Tea Party were targeted by the IRS with long delays for approval and long intrusive questionaires about distant relatives.  That targeting, according to some accounts, actually swung the election to the low-popularity President Obama in 2012.  Now they're back up to their dirty tricks, trying to use COVID as an excuse to shut conservative groups down and deprive them of their constitutionally guaranteed right to assembly.  Instead of fining groups for violations or whatever is normally done, their plan is to shut the groups down.

Senator on Panel that Oversees IRS asks Tax Agency to Strip Conservative Group of Nonprofit Status Over COVID-19 "Superspreader" Events.  Reminiscent of the Obama Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) witch hunt of conservative groups, a U.S. Senator who sits on the committee that oversees the tax agency is pushing it to revoke a student charity's nonprofit status.  The veteran lawmaker, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, says the conservative student organization, Turning Point USA, should lose its nonprofit rating because it held large events that could help spread COVID-19.  In a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig the senator describes the gatherings as "superspreader" events.  He specifically mentions a Palm Beach, Florida winter gala at the Mar-a-Lago Club famously owned by former President Donald Trump.  "According to press reports and social media posts, many participants gathered and mingled indoors without wearing masks, in violation of Palm Beach County's COVID-19 regulations," Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, writes to the IRS chief.  The powerful chamber has oversight over the IRS, among many other government agencies.  "In holding these 'superspreader' events, Turning Point USA knowingly exposed hundreds of young people and staff working at the events to serious risk of infection," the letter continues.  The legislator asks the IRS to review whether the group, which has more than 250,000 student members, should continue to enjoy its tax-exempt nonprofit status.

King Biden? Schumer Wants Biden To Invoke 'Climate Emergency', Use Sweeping Powers.  After years of accusing those of us who want LESS red tape, and LESS centralized government power, of being somehow 'authoritarian', what do we see in the very first week of the Democrats getting their ambitious little hands on the levers of power?  We see their big tech and media accomplices (who helped drag his carcass over the finish line with almost no help from the candidate's part) singling out examples of Orwellian wrongthink for public disavowal, public denunciation (2 minutes of hate) and anyone who refuses to accept their speech codes get unceremoniously thrown off the internet.  That was before Biden even took office.

America's 2020 Election and the 'China Way'.  For non-Americans [...] watching the oath-taking ceremony of Joe Biden as America's 46th president, which I did as a Canadian, became an exercise in distinguishing between what's real and what's fake.  America's Capitol was turned into a caged arena of fences, barbed wire, and armed soldiers while being mostly empty of people, who should have been there to celebrate the peaceful transfer of power that Americans have taken pride in since the making of their republic.  Two weeks earlier, Washington was swirling with an estimated crowd of more than half a million American patriots and supporters of Trump demonstrating against the ratification in Congress of an election, seen as rigged and stolen, and the declaration of Biden as president-elect.  Non-Americans have seen the celebration of the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another as a touchstone of freedom and democracy.

What TSA Did With A Trump Supporter Will Make Your Blood Boil.  You know those First Amendment freedoms, about peaceable assembly?  Trump wasn't the only one our government was ready to play fast and loose with.  At present, while the Capitol is swarming with National Guards, we're seeing some really odd surveillance of citizens who have not been charged with having committed any crimes.  If the details of a story Jack Prosobiec shared are accurate, America is in worse shape than we thought.  A few pundits, like Dennis Prager, who have been concerned that the events on January 6th could be leveraged the very same way a certain group of 1930s German politicians leveraged the Reichstag Fire to eliminate their political competition are increasingly looking like they might be onto something.  We will include the text of the alleged incident which — for lack of any identifying information — we can neither confirm nor disprove.  The credibility of the story, and whether anyone else claims to have had similar experiences, we will leave to those who have more direct knowledge of the events.

Man and daughter detained, questioned at airports for being at the DC Trump rally.  [Scroll down]  I arrived in Newark NJ last night and proceeded to passport control, as I have done numerous times in the past with absolutely no issues, and was stopped at immigration and told I needed to follow them into the back room and be interviewed/interrogated.  At this point I am beyond upset (I'm a tax paying law abiding American with absolutely no record) and asked curtly what is going on???  (They also took my adult daughter in for questioning.)  The officer informed me that due to facial recognition I have been flagged as a participant in the DC domestic terrorist attack on the capitol and they needed to question me!!!  I was shocked.  I told them I did travel to DC on Jan 6th to attend the rally and to listen to the President BUT I was absolutely no where near where the incident occurred and how is it possible for me to be associated at all with the few radicals that went into the capitol when the majority of the people at the rally were peaceful and respectful?  Are we as Americans no longer allowed the right to assemble?  Thankfully the officer was very nice and after my initial shock I was able to answer his questions calmly and we were let go.  Only on my way home did I realize the reality of what had just happened.

Unite and Heal With Show Trials and Fascist Purges.  How do you unify?  The same way every great democratic people's regime did from France to Russia to China to San Francisco — with show trials and purges of the enemies of the people.  Nothing says unity like a city full of barbed wire and soldiers.  Not to mention a one-party system that is obsessed with criminalizing its political opposition using a fake state of emergency. [...] Biden will embed a domestic terrorism office in the NSC, making the NSC's former abuses under Obama routine as a system meant to track foreign enemies is instead used to surveil domestic political opponents.  Heading the effort will be Joshua Geltzman who had formerly falsely claimed, "No, Black Lives Matter is not a terrorist organization."  Inside of a month, Democrats had redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy.  And by "democracy", they mean the Democrat Party.  Popular leaders don't take their false oaths of office in a deserted city surrounded by barbed wire and military checkpoints manned by 25,000 troops.  Nor do they engage in show trials of their predecessors or unroll massive efforts to surveil, arrest, and silence their opponents.  That's not the stuff of healing, but it is how you unite a country at gunpoint under your rule.

Democrats' Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act Shields Jihadists.  How interesting that the familiar array of Islamist-apologist and left-wing groups, notoriously opposed to U.S. counterterrorism efforts, has lined up in support of congressional Democrats' latest push for a "Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act."  Could it be because the proposed legislation goes out of its way to shield domestic terrorists who are catalyzed by foreign jihadist organizations?  You needn't read far into the bill to hear the alarm bells.  Section 2 provides a definition for "domestic terrorism."  Sounds sensible ... until you remember that federal law already has a definition of domestic terrorism.  The term is codified by Section 2331(5) of the criminal code.  It's been there for a long time, and it's perfectly fine.  So why would we need another one?

What Is the Hill for Trump Voters to Die On?  The far-left Democrats in charge of our government are the true extremists who pose the greatest threat to our nation, not Trump voters.  Our side has the facts, the truth, and the moral high ground, and we are not handing over our freedom.  The Biden/Harris edicts last week include weaponizing government against an undefined group of "right-wing extremists" along with a sweeping abortion law that will solidify their financial power base, expand censorship, and exert extreme control over every aspect of American's lives.  In tandem, these pronouncements are death sentences for the nation.  It is no coincidence these poisonous moves were made on the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the most divisive, anti-American, anti-constitutional sham foisted on the American public since the Dred Scott decision.  Along with Doe v. Bolton, the framework was set for a weaponized government against its governed, starting with the voiceless and then moving on to the rest of us.

Are facial recognition programs being used against Trump supporters?  For four years, leftists have been on a maddened rampage of threats, anger, hatred, and actual violence.  Conservatives abided by the law.  However, since taking power in Washington, D.C., the Democrat party has a mission:  It is redefining all 75-80 million Trump supporters as white supremacists and domestic terrorists.  One person's Facebook post suggests that merely attending the Trump rally — and having no connection with the preplanned violence at the Capitol — is enough to get you on a government list. [...] Of that huge number of people, a small fraction went to the Capitol, an even smaller fraction entered the Capitol, and an even smaller fraction engaged in violent behavior.  And it's that last small fraction that gave Democrats the handle they needed to claim that every Trump supporter is a terrorist. [...] The Democrats actually intend to criminalize half the country.  This cannot end well.  The Democrats need to pull back from this behavior.

Rand Paul's Great Speech on the Unconstitutional Impeachment Sham.  [Scroll down]  If I had to make a point, if I had to try to find a way to convince people of one thing, it's that the Democrats are never gonna have to convince you of anything.  They're just going to do it.  If you disagree with them having a 13-seat Supreme Court, too bad.  They're just going to do it.  They're gonna have the votes, and they're gonna do it.  They're not gonna persuade you.  This is what we're missing.  This is not retail politics as it's always been.  The Democrats aren't gonna have to persuade anybody.  Once they get states in Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. — they're gonna have to persuade people now because they've only got 50 seats in the Senate power sharing with Mitch McConnell and so forth.  But their long-term plan is to not need to persuade anybody.  Do not doubt me.  That is the core of their belief.  That is the core of their agenda.  To no longer have to persuade anybody, that they will have such vote power, such majority power, they won't have to persuade [anyone] of anything.

YouTube removes actual Senate videos of doctors testifying about early treatments of COVID.  Senator Ron Johnson tweeted last night [1/27/2021] that YouTube, which is owned by Google, removed two official videos from his Senate hearing last year with doctors testifying about early treatments of COVID: [...] Google and our other big tech overlords have decided that we can't talk about HCQ and how well it works at getting rid of the virus for people.  There were COUNTLESS stories about it working, but because President Trump was pushing it, the media hated it and are trying to rid it from existence as a COVID treatment.  We are at a very dangerous place in our country.  As I've said before we aren't just at a tipping point, we are beyond that now.  We are in the age of information oppression and censorship.  If you don't agree with everyone, then your voice must be silenced.  Pretty soon they will be deleting videos and banning accounts of people disagreeing with Climate Change.  This is where we are now.

One week in, Biden administration shows its exquisite cruelty.  [Scroll down]  How's that for the end of our democratic republic?  And DHS is about to surveil all conservatives as potential domestic terrorists.  They've done this without a shred of evidence or threat.  It is clear that they hope to incite a few militia types to make their case for eavesdropping on us all.  Within one week, this new and illegitimate administration has revealed itself to be the most fascist, the most illiberal in U.S. history.  These people intend to continue to use COVID as a weapon, the vaccine as a weapon, a second faux impeachment as a weapon.  Where is the mass press conference attended by every Republican in Congress?  Why are they not on every cable news program decrying what the left is doing?  We must be grateful for Cruz, Hawley, Johnson, Jordan, Gaetz, et al., who are the precious few doing what each and every one of them should be doing:  fighting back as if our lives depended upon their fighting back.

Acting DC Chief of Police Wants Permanent Fencing Around Capitol.  The reality of DC elites demanding walls to protect them from the common American is a stunning shift in outlook from when the U.S. Capitol used to be considered "the people's house."  Alas the voices are now asking for exactly that:  a permanent fence to keep the American people away from those who run government.

You may "petition the Government for a redress of grievances" from outside the fence.
DC Officials Announce Plans to Erect Permanent Security Fence Around US Capitol — In Same Week Democrats Ended Construction of Border Security Fence.  Joe Biden signed an executive order to stop the building of the border wall immediately after his virtual unattended inauguration.  Walls don't work.  They're immoral.  And racist.  But Washington DC officials announced this week they will erect a permanent security fence around the US Capitol because walls work in DC!

The Maoist Roots of Deprogramming.  The Catholic League has lauded Trump's policies on religious liberty.  We will continue to do so.  But we know that our critics are not content to disagree — they would like to deprogram us, if they could.  Though calls for deprogramming are now routine, they began last summer.  At that time, failed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said those on the left should view Trump supporters, and especially those who worked in the administration, as candidates for deprogramming.  A few days later, CNN's Don Lemon targeted all of those who voted for Trump in 2016.  "And I think a lot of people need to be deprogrammed, right now, before they cast their next ballots."  Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich showed his fondness for Stalinist tactics a few weeks before the election.  "When this nightmare is over," he tweeted, "we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  It would erase Trump's lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe."  After the election, the totalitarians went into high gear, zeroing in on Trump voters.

The Justice Department's Ridiculous Voter 'Disinformation' Prosecution.  On Wednesday [1/27/2021], the FBI arrested a man in Florida on a conspiracy charge, punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment, for the "crime" of peddling disinformation about voting on social-media platforms.  It's a three-fer:  the prosecutorial creation of a crime Congress has not prescribed, the trivialization of civil-rights law, and the intrusion of government as a monitor of political speech.  The charge is based on a complaint filed by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn (the Eastern District of New York).  In conjunction with EDNY and the Bureau, the prosecution was announced by DOJ's acting Criminal Division chief Nicholas McQuaid, a former associate White House counsel in the Obama administration who was installed in his new post when President Biden was inaugurated on January 20.

Pro-Trump Meme Maker "Ricky Vaughn" Indicted For Using Twitter to 'Spread Election Disinformation' to Hillary Clinton Voters in 2016.  A pro-Trump meme maker and Twitter troll was indicted Wednesday by the feds for using the social media platform to 'spread election disinformation' to Hillary Clinton voters in 2016.  "Ricky Vaughn" AKA, Douglass Mackey, used Twitter to post memes and troll Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election cycle.  31-year-old Mackey was arrested in West Palm Beach on one charge of conspiracy against rights and faces up to 10 years in prison.  According to the unsealed indictment, Mackey conspired with others on Twitter to encourage black people to cast their votes via text message.

Alt-right Twitter troll 'Ricky Vaughn' busted for voter disinformation.  The man behind pro-Trump Twitter troll account "Ricky Vaughn" was busted in Florida on Wednesday for spreading disinformation during the 2016 presidential election in a scheme to limit black turnout, officials said.  Douglass Mackey, 31, was arrested in West Palm Beach on one charge of conspiracy against rights, for which he faces up to 10 years in prison.  Between September and November 2016, Mackey allegedly conspired with others to use social media messaging to encourage blacks to cast their votes via text message so their ballots wouldn't count, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors.

A Democrat Was Exposed Committing Same Election Fraud Scheme That Trump Supporter Was Just Arrested For — No Action Is Being Taken Against Her.  News broke yesterday that the Feds arrested and indicted a Trump supporter for using the social media platform Twitter to 'spread election disinformation' to Hillary Clinton voters in 2016.  31-year-old Douglass Mackey, who went by "Ricky Vaughn", was arrested in West Palm Beach on one charge of conspiracy against rights and faces up to 10 years in prison.  He was charged due to memes he posted to Twitter trolling Hillary supporters to stay home and text their votes in.  But, guess what.  Democrats were just caught doing the exact same thing.  And she's still walking around, scot-free.  Could it be that the new Administration has a double standard for "voter fraud"?  Far-left activist and "comedian" Kristina Wong posted the same fake voting meme on Twitter in 2016 — but she targeted Trump supporters!

They weren't very concerned about politically motivated violence last summer.
U.S. terrorism alert warns of politically motivated violence.  The Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement agencies Wednesday [1/27/2021] to remain on high alert in coming months for more violence from domestic extremists emboldened by the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol that former President Donald Trump incited this month.  In a bulletin distributed to police departments across the country, Homeland Security Department officials said the threat of more political violence should be considered "heightened" at least through April 30.  "Information suggests that some ideologically motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence," the notice says.

DHS domestic terrorism bulletin JoeBama Administration Homeland Security Issues Terror Threat Alert Warning of Domestic Violent Extremists.  Comrades, the United States Department of Homeland Security is asking for the public's help in identifying subversives who carry thoughts against the interests of the JoeBama regime.  In a proclamation today DHS officials have elevated the national security alert against U.S. citizens who may engage in wrong-think.  Each good citizen has a responsibility to support the objectives the new Biden regime and report any friends, neighbors or community members who may need to be placed on the subversive watch list.  The FBI is awaiting your contact and information:  [Bulletin]  According to the command and control authority, the greatest threat against the interests of the new state comes from citizens who are questioning the results of the 2020 election and making inquiries into whether manipulation of ballots took place.  These thoughts are enough to warrant good citizens to report subversive activity.  The warning, and enhanced intervention by the control authority, extends from today through April 30, 2021.


John Brennan's Dark Fantasies Become a Homeland Security Bulletin.  In a shocking moment of honesty and clarity, Obama CIA Director John Brennan gave the rest of America keen insight into The Washington DC Establishment's plans and actions for the Trumpsters and other "Deplorables" populating the land.  In an interview, Brennan lies and exaggerates to the public about a supposed domestic terrorist insurgency across the country that is gaining strength and threatening the republic. [...] How do libertarians and authoritarians fit in the same rhetorical political basket?  Very tough to reconcile those positions, unless you really do not care about the "logic" of your assertion.  Why did Brennan leave out communists?  Brennan reportedly voted for Communist Party presidential candidate Gus Hall in 1976, while a student at Fordham University.  What about Islamic supremacists?  Why did Brennan leave them out of the "unholy alliance?"  Answer:  Because it STILL is really all about Trump, Trumpism, and Trumpsters, and destroying any remnant of the MAGA movement.  Anyone outside the Uniparty is suspect.

Rule by Decree:  Joe Biden Sets Record for Executive Orders in First Week.  President Joe Biden has issued more executive orders in his first week in office — not yet complete, as of this writing — than any of his 45 predecessors.  As of January 25, 2021, Biden has "issued 33 executive orders, actions, proclamations, memoranda and agency directives," according to CNN.  Twenty-one of these, according to the White House website, are executive orders.

Tulsi Gabbard:  Brennans, Schiffs, and Big Tech Oligarchs More Dangerous than Mob that Stormed Capitol.  Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard blasted former CIA Director John Brennan, House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and big tech "oligarchs" seeking to censor fellow Americans after the January 6 Capitol riot.  Gabbard shared a video statement online where she criticized them for trying to take away Americans' constitutionally protected rights. [...] The video included a clip of Brennan's remarks in a January 20 interview with MSNBC, where he said that the Biden team is "now moving in laser-like fashion" to uncover "what looks very similar to insurgency movements" that include libertarians.

Milking the Capitol Melee for All It's Worth.  Not surprisingly, leftists are milking the January 6 Capitol melee for all its worth.  There is a simple reason for that:  they wish to use it to introduce a new wave of domestic tyranny into America, just as Republicans did after the 9/11 attacks.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they start referring to the melee as simply 1/6.  That's why they continue to describe the melee as an insurrection, revolution, rebellion, sedition, terrorism, invasion, and a grave attempt to destroy our democratic system and overthrow the government.  It's clear, according to leftists, that the intent of the "invaders" was to take control over the reins of the federal government and make Donald Trump king.  I wouldn't even be surprised if they determine that Russia was behind the "invasion."  Thus, don't be surprised to see a new version of the USA PATRIOT Act.  Anyway, the original one is getting a bit old in the tooth.  And don't be surprised to see a renewed and reinvigorated "war on terrorism," albeit here in the United States, with increased secret surveillance, suppression of speech, indefinite incarceration, torture, and even perhaps assassination (a power that the Supreme Court has upheld with respect to both foreigners and Americans).

Gabbard Sounds the Alarm:  Leftists Are Plotting 'KGB-Style Surveillance' of Conservatives.  On Tuesday, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) issued another important warning about the Democrats like former CIA Director John Brennan who appear to have seized on the Capitol riot as an excuse to crack down on dissent from the Left's orthodoxy.  Democrats seem to be mulling a new domestic "War on Terror" complete with surveillance of American "insurgents" like... Libertarians.  In a short video posted on Twitter, Gabbard began by condemning the mob that stormed the Capitol but went on to issue an important warning about the budding new "War on Terror."

Anti-Trump Scholar: 'Nearly Impossible' to 'Deprogram' Millions of Trump Supporters.  On Monday [1/25/2021], the Washington Post published an op-ed by columnist Brian Klaas whereby he expresses the near futility of attempting to "deprogram" millions of Trump supporters, claiming that many have "gone far enough down the rabbit hole of conspiratorial thinking."  The essay, titled "'Why is it so hard to deprogram Trumpian conspiracy theorists?" depicts millions of Trump supporters as so devoted to "dangerous lunacy" that nearly all hope is lost of bringing them "back to reality."  Referring to President Trump as "a conspiracy theorist in chief" who "injected the toxin of baseless conspiratorial thinking straight into America's political bloodstream," the essay claims that while only hundreds stormed the Capitol, "there are millions of Americans who share their views."

How to Prepare for the Coming Crackdown.  [Scroll down]  As we witnessed with Parler, no platform or app should be considered private — not Signal, not ProtonMail, despite them being advertised as encrypted.  Again, if there's something you need to say that you don't want a public record of, you should not be using any means of technology to communicate it.  Also, if we haven't learned it by now, our smartphones, their cameras and microphones, are windows into our most private spaces, into our very personal lives.  While I personally believe my posts, my pictures and videos should be my data, even when posted in a public facing forum, that's obviously not the case.  If I take a picture and hold it up in the middle of a city, that picture in my hand is still my personal property.  I believe the same should hold true in our online forums, but that's not the case.  If your computer, or Smart TV, occupies a central part of your house where you have honest and potentially controversial conversations, you may look at moving it to a more remote location.  If you don't have a RFID or Faraday box for your phones when you have conversations around the dinner table, you might consider getting one, and practice using it now.  If you don't have a small RFID or Faraday case for your smartphone, for when you're driving around and shopping, you might consider getting one.

The Left Wants to Transform and Nationalize Our Election System.  Democrats intend to save "democracy" by putting themselves in charge of elections.  As absurd as that sounds, it really is a part of the inappropriately named "For the People Act of 2019," or H.R. 1, moving through the House of Representatives.

Democrats Move To Ban Trump Supporters From Federal Jobs Or Joining The Military.  Cancel culture has arrived in Congress in a big way.  Well, to be fair, it's been there for a while now, but Florida Democratic congresswoman Stephanie Murphy is really upping her game in this regard.  New proposed legislation from Murphy would prevent anyone who participated in the January protests and riot on Capitol Hill from being eligible for a security clearance.  Further, she would impose a similar ban on anyone who participated in any "stop the steal" rally or anyone who knowingly engaged with Q-anon.  Given that a security clearance check is required for virtually every person applying for a federal job (and many state or municipal jobs) or enlistment in the military, Murphy would be banning an entire class of people from public service even if they never engaged in any violent activities.

The Police State Is Coming For "Religious Extremists", "Evangelical Christians", "Pro-Life" Activists And "Libertarians".  If you cherish faith, family and freedom, you might want to keep a low profile for a while.  The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021 has been unveiled in Congress, and it has bipartisan support.  It is essentially "the Patriot Act on steroids", and we are being told that it is almost certain that some version of the legislation will make it to Biden's desk for him to sign.  Personally, I am very much against all forms of domestic terrorism, and a law which could help to prevent terror attacks from happening is going to sound like a good thing to a lot of people.  Unfortunately, it appears that this bill is meant to specifically target certain groups, and as you read this article you may discover that you are a member of one or more of those groups.

Democrats Have Released a Roadmap to One-Party Rule.  The Democrats appear intent on instituting one-party rule in the United States.  They're trying to use the U.S. Capitol riots as an excuse to criminalize dissent and banish conservative voices from the public sphere, and at the same time they're hoping to use their temporary, razor-thin majority in Congress to rewrite the rules governing our elections in a way designed to keep the Democratic Party entrenched in power for decades to come.

The Conservative Purge is Just Getting Cranked Up.  Not quite two weeks ago we noted that Big Tech was settling the family business with its suspensions, bans, and deletions of then-President Donald Trump and as many of his supporters as it could pull into its dragnet.  It was only a start.  The left wants to wipe the right from the political map as quickly and effectively as possible.  Playing the role this week of Michael Corleone, who in the first of "The Godfather" installments eliminated his families' enemies, is the Democratic Party.  Congressional Democrats are going forward, with the blessing of the new president, whose plea for unity is clearly a sham, with a domestic terrorism bill in both chambers of Congress.  The public is being told the legislation is needed to thwart "the potential threat of more terrorist attacks in Washington and around the country," says Rep. Brad Schneider, an Illinois Democrat and co-sponsor of the House version.  Among other co-sponsors is Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who in July denied that Antifa, which was wrecking Portland at the time, even existed.

Tulsi Gabbard on Dems' Terror Law: 'We Don't Have to Guess About Where This Goes or How This Ends'.  Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) raised the alarm about the Democrats' disturbing crackdown on "domestic terrorism" in the wake of the Capitol riot on January 6.  She warned that the domestic terror bill that House Democrats have proposed would "undermine our constitutional rights and freedoms," and lead to law enforcement targeting "almost half of the country."  "We don't have to guess about where this goes or how this ends," Gabbard said, ominously, in an interview with Fox News on Friday [1/22/2021].  "When you have people like former CIA Director John Brennan openly talking about how he's spoken with or heard from appointees and nominees in the Biden administration who are already starting to look across our country for these types of movements similar to the insurgencies they've seen overseas, that in his words, he says make up this 'unholy alliance' of religious extremists, racists, bigots, he lists a few others and at the end, even libertarians," the former congresswoman noted.

Tulsi Gabbard sounds alarm:  Biden MUST denounce Schiff and Brennan, dangerous domestic terror push!  Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, has an ultimatum for President Joe Biden.  Speaking on Fox News' "Fox News Primetime" this Friday [1/22/2021], she told host Brian Kilmeade that if Biden truly desires "unity," he must denounce the left's growing radicalism.  More specifically, Biden must denounce House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff and disgraced former CIA Director John Brennan's call for new domestic terror laws to be instituted and then applied against ostensible "domestic terrorists."

Why Post-Inauguration Reminds Me of Post-9-11.  Recent events have broken not buildings and a few thousand lives, but the last weak remnants of the institutions that our founders left us.  We have passed, in the course of a couple months, from a world in which some grudging impulse toward fairness usually prevailed into a world in which raw power is being wielded without the slightest principle. [...] I am a small fish.  But the trawler that is now coming for us has a fine net and, if history teaches us anything, a big appetite.  Our lives are nothing to its operators.  Their grand vision does not include us.  There will always be enough maids to clean their houses and enough workers to assemble their Teslas.  The Chinese, who at least find us useful as a body of consumers, may actually care about us more than many of our own politicians.  If Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi could thin the ranks of American conservatives by eighty million at the touch of a button, I suspect they'd break a finger in their enthusiasm.

Ken Cuccinelli Claims Pelosi Asked For 'Crew-Manned Machine Guns' In Washington.  Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told Fox News' "The Story" Tuesday [1/19/2021] that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked for "crew-manned machine guns" to be a part of security forces in Washington, D.C., ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.  Cuccinelli and anchor Martha MacCallum were discussing the presence of 25,000 National Guard troops in the nation's capital after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol building Jan. 6.  "A division," Cuccinelli said, responding to MacCallum's assertion that the number of troops is greater than the number in Afghanistan and Iraq.  "You have a division.  The last up of thousands of these troops was requested by the speaker through the Capitol Police.  She even wanted crew-manned machine guns in Washington.  That was rejected because there's simply no use for that in a security arrangement for a civilian undertaking.  Just — so some of this has gone beyond any legitimate security need."

The Editor says...
Nancy Pelosi doesn't like guns — especially machine guns — unless her people are pointing them at us.

Acting DHS Deputy Secretary:  Pelosi Wanted 'Crew-Manned Machine Guns in Washington — That Was Rejected'.  Acting DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told Fox News's "The Story with Martha MacCallum" on Tuesday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi requested more National Guards be sent to Washington, D.C., even requesting "crew-manned machine guns" — a sharp contrast between how she reacted when President Donald Trump wanted to use the military to deal with the violence from nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.  "Violence has no place and violence must be addressed," Pelosi told National Public Radio's (NPR) "All Things Considered" in June 2020.  "But there is no reason for the U.S. military to be called out for this."  MacCallum noted that 12 members of the National Guard were pulled from their duty in D.C. for what was described as inappropriate texts or social media.

Obey, America, for Your Own Good!  [Scroll down]  If you refuse to swallow the official state narrative on the 2020 presidential election and instead question the deluge of voting irregularities in battleground states, you will be ridiculed as a nutjob, deprived of your free speech, and threatened with financial and professional harm.  If you gather together with millions of Americans who feel the same way, then you will be branded a terrorist, deprived of your freedom of association, and targeted by the FBI and local district attorneys for crimes you did not commit.  We are herded like dumb animals, whipped and cursed until we learn to accept the politically correct truths fabricated from one day to the next.  Bureaucrats and elected officials entrusted with safeguarding American freedoms instead bully Americans into silence and compliance.  Private companies eagerly join in the persecution parties by throwing people with incorrect thoughts on no-fly lists and banning them from commercial services and common courtesies.  And an army of belligerent tattletales spend their days enforcing every new government edict upon the populace by shaming and threatening thought offenders through the weaponization of anonymous online hate mobs.

The New Domestic War on Terror is Coming.  The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting "terrorism" that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago.  This trend shows no sign of receding as we move farther from the January 6 Capitol riot.  The opposite is true: it is intensifying.  We have witnessed an orgy of censorship from Silicon Valley monopolies with calls for far more aggressive speech policing, a visibly militarized Washington, D.C. featuring a non-ironically named "Green Zone," vows from the incoming president and his key allies for a new anti-domestic terrorism bill, and frequent accusations of "sedition," "treason," and "terrorism" against members of Congress and citizens.  This is all driven by a radical expansion of the meaning of "incitement to violence."  It is accompanied by viral-on-social-media pleas that one work with the FBI to turn in one's fellow citizens (See Something, Say Something!) and demands for a new system of domestic surveillance.  Underlying all of this are immediate insinuations that anyone questioning any of this must, by virtue of these doubts, harbor sympathy for the Terrorists and their neo-Nazi, white supremacist ideology.

White House requesting threat assessment on 'domestic violent extremism'.  The White House is requesting a "comprehensive threat assessment" on the risks posed by domestic violent extremism in the wake of the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.  "The rise of domestic violent extremism is a serious and growing national security threat," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday [1/22/2021].  Ms. Psaki said President Biden is tasking Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, in concert with the FBI and homeland security, with developing a threat assessment on domestic violent extremism.

As social media purge continues, FCC now warns of ham radio crackdown.  After contriving to deplatform conservatives from every tech service and app they could manage, the purge boldly marches on to ham radio.  ["]The US government is warning that groups could rely on radio equipment as an alternative to social media to plan future criminal activities.  In a stark warning Sunday, the Federal Communications Commission's enforcement bureau said people coordinating or conducting criminal activity over radio waves are breaking the law.["]

Blocked from social media, extremists discuss turning to radios to plan attacks, FCC warns.  The laws governing airwaves apply to amateurs broadcasting with personal ham radios, which can reach long distances.  But they also apply to people using Citizens Band (CB) radios commonly used for communication between truckers — or even walkie-talkies.  In the wake of the January 6 Capitol riots, Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR) and other mainstream social networks have become more vigilant about policing people who use their platforms to plan or incite attacks.  They have booted off several high-profile radicals and thousands of groups and users who the platforms say engage in harmful conspiracy theories and other violence or hate speech.

More than 100 Civil Rights Groups Agree:  We Don't Need New Domestic Terrorism Laws.  Civil rights groups across the country are urging President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as Congressional Democrats, not to pass new laws to address any potential threats from white nationalists emboldened by and loyal to former President Donald Trump.  In a letter dated Tuesday, 135 civil rights organizations — ranging from religious groups, immigration advocates, and LGBT organizations to the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — expressed their concerns about calls to pass new criminal laws in the wake of the riot and temporary invasion of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

The Editor says...
Yes, an invasion of the Capitol by Trump supporters — along with an unknown but substantial percentage of left-wing infiltrators and agitators.

What Biden's War On 'White Supremacy' Is Really About.  Last night's Tucker [Carlson] monologue, as usual, was on fire but also very important[,] as he breaks down what exactly the Biden agenda is when during his inaugural speech he talked about going to war against 'white supremacy.'  It has nothing to do with going after actual white supremacy which is a scourge, but about targeting anyone who doesn't conform to the liberal agenda.  [Video clip]

Hail To The Thief.  Through world wars and wars on terror, Washington D.C. has remained a national capital where the hundreds of millions of taxpayers who labor to pay for its grand edifices, free museums, and lavish lifestyles could briefly come to enjoy a little of the life lived by the ruling class in the Imperial City.  Now the ruling class has made it clear that it doesn't want peasants entering D.C.  Even as Biden's team prepped the executive orders that would end the national emergency at the border and shut down construction of the wall, new walls topped by razor wire were rising across the imperial city.  The new Fortress of Government sealed off two miles of the National Mall and parts of downtown D.C. and filled it with more soldiers than are deployed in Iraq.  The Secret Service designated green and red zones.  Some 25,000 National Guard members were dispatched from Vermont, Maine, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Colorado to prepare for a fake invasion that never came.  But the armored vehicles and heavy weaponry did come.

YouTube extended Donald Trump's ban for at least 7 more days amid fears of violence at Biden's inauguration.  YouTube has extended its ban preventing outgoing US President Donald Trump from uploading videos, ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration.  The Google-owned site suspended Trump's account for seven days after removing a video that the company said incited violence in the wake of the storming of the US Capitol, which left five people dead.  On Tuesday [1/19/2021], the firm said it would extend the suspension "in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence" for at least another week as Washington braced for President-elect Biden's highly unusual inauguration, Reuters reported.

The Editor says...
What is the purpose of this seven day extension of an already bizarre military occupation?  Biden's inauguration is already over!  If there was any reason for the National Guard to occupy Washington, other than optics, that reason should have already expired.  This seven-day extension might slip under the radar except for one thing:  Last year's Covid-19 lockdowns were only supposed to last a couple of weeks, but they were extended and extended, and now appear to be permanent in some places.  Is the National Guard now a permanent feature in Washington, DC?

Fascist Democrats are Using a Manufactured Emergency to Create a One-Party State.  Fascist theater is now as common an occupation for the D.C. elite as upscale cocktail bars.  Pelosi's fascist state and its crackdown on enemies is here with a militarized occupation of D.C. by 25,000 troops whose politics had to be cleared by the political commissars at the FBI, a ban on protests, and political opponents being silenced, fired, and banned by corporate monopolies.  Scenes that Americans would have once associated with banana republics and fascist dictatorships are now playing out daily as media propaganda broadcasts warn of a grave threat that requires a military occupation of Washington D.C. and the total repression of the opposition.  The wave of censorship that began with Facebook and Twitter banning President Trump has escalated to a takedown of Parler, a conservative alternative, to media campaigns urging crackdowns on a variety of alternative apps and services like Signal, Telegram, MeWe, and Zello, and a push by CNN to have AT&T and Comcast ban conservative cable networks.  There's even an FCC crackdown on conservatives using ham radios to communicate.  Proposals are percolating through the media and its national security commentariat to transform the FBI from a law enforcement agency to a "domestic spy agency" monitoring Americans.

Democrats Are Framing Americans As Domestic Terrorists So They Can Do To Us What They Did To Trump In Spygate.  Democrats have moved swiftly to use the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol mayhem to push for a frightening expansion of federal surveillance and police powers under their sole control for two years, smearing anyone who voted for Donald Trump as a potential terrorist.  Joe Biden himself called the Capitol protesters "domestic terrorists" and "insurrectionists" and said his administration will prioritize legislation to increase federal crackdowns on what Democrats consider to be "domestic terrorists."  The main problem with that is that Democrats openly link Republican Party affiliation and mainstream conservative ideas to "domestic terrorism," "extremism," "white supremacy," and other evils.  To the left vanguard of the party that Biden's administration is marching behind in both personnel and policy, simply supporting lower taxes and believing that "hard work can help you get ahead" is enough to mark you a "racist" and "white supremacist."  These redefined "racists" and "white supremacists" now face increased FBI surveillance, discrimination in military and other careers, suspension of their right to own guns lawfully based only on another person complaining they are a "threat," public harassment and smears, government and business pressure campaigns and investigations, and more.

What If You Held A Riot And Nobody Came?  It appears that is exactly what happened to the leftists attempting to burn the country down and blame the right for the fires.  The State Capital Rallies — well attended by military, police (yes, the same police that the left wanted to defund last summer) and BLM/Antifa wasn't able to lure many of their arch-enemies (us) into their trap this time.

For the first time in our lives, free speech is about to be criminalized.  We never thought this day would arrive in America.  Last year, we learned that they can shout "COVID" as an emergency, and our life, liberty, and property disappear.  They can shout "racism," and our inalienable right to self-defense disappears.  The last thing we had was the freedom to criticize what is happening, even if there was nothing we can do about it.  Now they can shout "right-wing terrorism" or "right-wing conspiracy" and say that freedom of speech no longer applies.  Leftists in this country claim that their violence is speech and our speech is violence.  That is why they glorified riots last year that burned down numerous cities, caused thousands of injuries, cost billions of dollars, and elevated their cause as the most urgent grievance in need of redress.  At the same time, they are pushing to criminalize not just the violent acts and actors at the Capitol on January 6, but any view or speech or assembly predicated on views that are held by those people.  This is why they seem to be taking direct shots at the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech for Americans, even as they plan to grant amnesty to those whose entire presence in this country is illegal.

Preemptively banning a book before it is written:
Hundreds of writers and book agents sign joint letter demanding publishing industry bans Trump memoir.  Editors, publishing agents and authors have signed-up to a letter in the hundreds, demanding the industry deny Donald Trump the publication of any post-presidential memoir.  The letter, titled "No Book Deals for Traitors," was signed by more than 250 editors, authors and publishing agents last week.  Together, they oppose any Trump administration official from publishing a future book — including the outgoing president, who is rumoured to be considering a memoir.  Barry Lyga, a novelist who organised the letter, wrote that "As members of the writing and publishing community of the United States, we affirm that participation in the administration of Donald Trump must be considered a uniquely mitigating criterion for publishing houses when considering book deals."

Are Pelosi and Hillary Clinton Laying the Groundwork for a New War on Terror?  This week, Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called for a "9/11-type commission" into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol following a pro-Trump rally.  This may suggest the Democrats are mulling a new War on Terror — against domestic enemies.  Both Clinton and Pelosi also returned to the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory, suggesting Russian President Vladimir Putin played a role in the Capitol riot.

Tucker Carlson:  Democratic Party is planning a war on half of America.  'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host accuses Democrats of 'plotting revenge' against the party they just defeated.  [Video clip]

The Great Healing Forward.  [Jack Posobiec on Twitter - Thread reader] WH source:  The NRA, Turning Point USA & Patriot Guard Riders are three of many non-militia groups on the list CID / FBI are using to cross reference in vetting for potential "extremists"  "YAF also on the list"  "They're looking at various TPUSA chapters in almost every university and high school where there is one (for example high school members who are in the future soldier program, which is Army's version of Delayed Entry Program) + college age soldiers obviously already in."  "Investigators also looking for the following in pictures:  MAGA / KAG apparel, Gadsden flag, Confederate Flag, NRA gear, Q stuff"  "Soldiers facebooks, twitters, instagrams, tik-toks and snapchats also being checked, units from deep red states such as Texas being thoroughly examined."  "Left wing, anarchist groups also listed but not a top priority, in fact zero have been investigated as of this evening.  Leaders in both Army + FBI have directed to focus attention on groups with "strong conservative sentiments"  "NCIS, AFOSI, CGIS also expecting to receive that directive from senior DoD officials in the coming days, this goes way beyond the inauguration.  It won't magically stop after tomorrow."

Big Brother has a bullhorn:
Eerie video shows Capitol warning message tested in desolate DC streets.  Eerie video footage shows emergency warnings being tested out before Inauguration Day in almost empty streets around the US Capitol.  A short clip recorded Saturday afternoon shows the usually bustling streets near the Capitol building in Washington, DC, almost completely empty after the district put up a ring of steel amid ongoing threats of violence.  Adding to the unsettling scenes, a loudspeaker repeatedly states, "This is a test of the US Capitol Police audible emergency notification system."

The painful symbolism of the 26,000 National Guard Troops in D.C..  Those of you who are reading this post are the type of people who pay attention to things.  That's why you already know that 26,000 National Guard troops drawn from all over America and from Puerto Rico, have assembled in Washington, D.C., in advance of Joe Biden's inauguration on Wednesday.  (That's about three divisions worth of troops.)  But have you given serious thought to what the troops' presence means?  I've heard from some optimistic people who believe that the troops are the last phase in a Trumpian plan to reclaim America and maintain it as a true constitutional republic, rather than the socialist tyranny the Democrats seem to have planned. [...] What's even more disturbing about the military presence is that, as Tucker [Carlson] points out, it appears that the Pentagon has thrown its weight entirely to the Democrat party.  Certainly, it is following the ludicrous "insurrection" narrative.  We see clearly that the one institution in America that was entirely non-partisan, at least at the upper levels, has become just another part of the Deep State.

The Editor says...
Usually the National Guard is called out AFTER a riot or a hurricane.  This is the only occasion I can remember where the troops came out in a show of force several days before they were needed.  And the impending event is an unknown threat that — whatever it is — surely doesn't require this amount of muscle.  It all looks very Venezuelan.  But then, so did the election.

Stop the Steal.  Using the Capitol breach as a pretense to censure all Trump supporters as insurgents, social media outlets are suspending or canceling the accounts of conservatives.  Deplatformed users are given anemic justifications that ironically overlook the existing accounts of the world's most brutal regimes and thousands of their propaganda posts.  Rebooting a plot line from Revenge of the Nerds, the CEOs and their algorithm wizards at Facebook and Twitter are hard at work giving online wedgies to anyone who dares to question a Biden presidential victory.  Alternative blogging sites, such as Parler and Gab, are demonized as havens for right-wing miscreants and Amazon Web Services has shown a willingness to sever connections to sites that offer sanctuary to such views.  Gone is all debate over partisan perceptions of hate speech.

The Political Theater of the National Guard's D.C. Occupation.  Lackadaisical security check-ins have become common since more than 25,000 guardsmen descended on D.C. last week.  I've heard reports of Capitol Hill workers breezing through security lanes and mantilla-draped church ladies rolling through Chinatown roadblocks uninhibited.  In the most dramatic instance, an office worker near the White House convinced two guardsmen to move a Humvee so he could park his car in a locked-down garage.  Pedestrians wishing to enter The Zone may also do so without much hassle.  The gates hanging off the seven-foot, non-scalable fence encircling the city's core are almost always left open and unguarded.  Inside, concrete barriers designed to prevent crowds from forming are easily stepped over.  National Guardsmen stand on nearly every street corner, holding unloaded guns and chatting amongst themselves.  Many are bused in daily from the Virginia suburbs, where they spend their evenings eating pizza and playing video games.  They're generally pretty friendly people.  This isn't their day job, after all.  They can afford to breathe a little.  But what a bizarre show they're putting on.  When I first visited The Zone, I was expecting an experience reminiscent of Soviet Russia, like something in a Tarkovsky film.

Former Facebook Executive Advocates for Reeducation and Deprogramming to Protect The U.S. Totalitarian State.  They are no longer hiding it any more.  The leftists are publicly demanding that government intervene using the same tactics deployed against ISIS propaganda to target wrong-think by conservative American citizens.  [Video clip]

AOC proposes funding to deprogram white supremacists.  The federal government needs to fund the de-programming of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday night [1/15/2021].  "The White supremacist cause is futile, it's nihilist," AOC, a Democrat who represents parts of The Bronx and Queens, said during a virtual town hall meeting Friday night.  "Their world will never exist.  That's why we're seeing violence right now.," she said, speaking in the wake of the violent siege on the US Capitol by radical supporters of President Trump.  "We have to pick up those pieces."  Ocasio-Cortez said the House subcommittee on civil rights she serves on has held hearings over the prior two years on white supremacy and said there are programs to "de-radicalize" brain-washed adherents.

What's going on in Washington, D.C.?  [Scroll down]  Now, I am seeing pictures of Washington DC preparing to inaugurate Biden to the Presidency, while 25,000 armed troops are parading around, dividing the city into zones, barricading it, and walling it.  Guns bristling from Coast Guard ships in the Potomac.  It's chilling!  I also saw pictures of a mass of armed SWAT guarding Governor Newsom's home in Sacramento.  Against what, exactly?  What don't I know here?  I feel just a tad queasy, worried because this response is so far out of character for our country, and so over-the-top compared to anything that has happened — the incursion into the Capitol was small beer compared to the riots in many other cities all last summer.  There's also been virtually no coverage of who was involved in the January 6th events, other than seeing some BLM/Antifa types that were indeed involved freed without bail.

More U.S. Military Troops Needed To Install Joe Biden Than We Have in Afghanistan.  [There are] 25,000 troops needed at the U.S. Capitol to install the Biden administration.  How many armed soldiers do you need at the inauguration of the "most popular Presidential candidate in American history after the most secure election in history?" [...] The scale of the usurpation of the United States government is staggering to contemplate.  We have less troops in Afghanistan assisting with the implementation of democracy amid a failed foreign nation, than we do in the United States center of democracy.  The effort needed to install the Biden administration is staggering.  The images in Washington DC to pull-off that installation are stunning and heartbreaking.

'Walls don't work' update: 8-foot non-scalable fence around U.S. Capitol replaced by 12-footer.  The fence that was put up around the U.S. Capitol (that is expected to remain in place until at least next month) was replaced with an even higher fence this week:  [Video clip]  For those who spent the entirety of the Trump presidency hearing "walls don't work" it was interesting to find out that apparently they do work.

Biden Inaugural Like Baghdad:  Green Zone, Red Zone, Military Checkpoints to Enter and Leave Downtown D.C., Bridges Into City to Be Closed.  In the days leading up to the Biden inaugural, the nation's capital has been turned into an occupied military zone like Baghdad.  Armed troops authorized to use lethal force are manning checkpoints to enter and leave downtown Washington, D.C.  Green Zone and and Red Zone perimeters have been established.  Several bridges into the city from neighboring Virginia are scheduled to be closed next week for the inaugural.  Sean Spicer, President Trump's first press secretary and current Newsmax TV host, posted video apparently taken Friday night that shows a military checkpoint to leave D.C. near the Lincoln Memorial.  The video also shows cars on 16th Street near K Street parked in rows blockading the roadway.

A Startling Thread on the National Guard Presence in Washington, D.C., for Inauguration Day.  The timeline and nature of events on January 6th at the Capitol continue to unfold.  However, because of what happened that day and what federal law enforcement sees as credible threats, the security around Inauguration Day is taking on an ominous tone with at least 20,000 National Guard troops deployed. [...] To put it bluntly, members of our military have been deployed on American soil in what appears to be a temporary occupation around the area of the inauguration.  The Secret Service has established a "Green Zone" in the heart of the city, and bridges leading into Washington, D.C., will be closed beginning Tuesday.  Virginia State Police and the National Guard will be checking reasons for entry.  Murphy also notes that National Guard members are in full uniform, including ballistic helmets, and are armed.  This is not typical when the Guard is deployed because there are genuine concerns about the optics of the U.S. military being deployed against Americans on U.S. soil.

Apple's Tim Cook Just Comes Right Out and Says It About Canceling Parler: 'We Don't Consider That Free Speech'.  What, in a word, did Parler do, to first be removed from Apple and Google app stores, and ultimately kicked off Amazon servers in a blatant effort to eliminate Parler?  In a clip released Friday of an interview on this week's "Fox News Sunday" with host Chris Wallace [of course; safe space], Cook [said,] "We looked at the incitement to violence that was on there, and we, we don't consider that free speech and incitement to violence has an, has an intersection." [...] Want some more elitist arrogance from Cook?  He reminded Wallace that Apple has only "suspended" Parler, and if they "get their 'moderation' together, they would be back on there."  So who moderates the moderators, Tim?  You?  Dorsey?  The mayor of Zuckerville?  Who bestowed that responsibility on you?

About the resemblance of Biden's DC with Hunger Games and payback.  Biden and the Democrat majority, on the heels of the Covid-induced locked-down, shut down America, have quickly transformed the Capitol into a punitive, heavily guarded power center.  The Democrats scorned the wall on our southern border, erected to bolster America's sovereignty.  Now they have the gall to erect 12-foot walls around a swath of D.C.  What do they fear?  The Democrats who scream "racist" when logical, honest citizens advocate for voter ID, are now demanding identification checks and documentation to enter the city for Inauguration.  The Democrats, who falsely decried Trump's lack of transparency, have induced hotel chains to cancel all reservations for dates surrounding the inauguration, and are drowning out opposing dialog.  The Democrats, who falsely claimed Trump was a rabble-rousing propagandist, have ignited a war against all Trump supporters, elected and citizen.  The Democrats, whose battle cry has been "defund the police," now have twenty to twenty-five thousand National Guard forces protecting DC.

A ban on body armor?  Seriously?  Given the number of incredibly stupid ideas that get cooked up in the New York State legislature, it can be tough to point to any of them that truly stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of idiocy.  But with a recent measure introduced a couple of weeks ago, we may have a candidate.  Democratic Assemblyman Jonathan G. Jacobson of Poughkeepsie has penned legislation that would ban the ownership of body armor for anyone except police officers in the state.  On top of that, Jacobson goes one step further and not only fails to grandfather any body armor purchased before the ban goes into effect, but commands that all currently owned vests be turned over to the police within two weeks or the owners would face fines and/or imprisonment.

Conservatives accuse liberals and Big Tech of using Capitol assault as pretext for censorship.  Conservatives say Big Tech companies, pressured by liberals, are using the Capitol attack to justify the unfair censorship of Republicans and the removal of platforms like Parler.  Nathan Leamer, former adviser to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, said there was a "cabal of reporters, writers, influencers, who generally work at places like MSNBC, the New York Times, and such" who get to decide what is or isn't allowed on social media and who is or is not censored.  "Through their influence, they have a direct line to those in charge of the moderation practices of Twitter," said Leamer, who is now a vice president at the Republican strategy firm Targeted Victory.  Since last week's Capitol riots, almost all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have announced bans, in some form, of President Trump's accounts, justified by arguing that they fear he will incite further violence.

Re-Open Cal Now, Day 2: Sheriffs John D'Agostini and Scott Jones — Constitutionality of the Lockdown Orders and the Rule of Law.  The necessary element of a "Police State" is cooperation from law enforcement to do just that:  "enforce" the orders given, no matter how burdensome, unreasonable, and more importantly, unconstitutional.  Thankfully, there are Sheriffs in certain California Counties who take seriously their oath to the Constitution, the rule of law, and their commitment to serve the people over and above a Governor's or unelected bureaucrat's executive orders or restrictions. [...] Then he laid out simpler questions that even a 6th grader could understand:
  •   What amount of force is appropriate to enforce health orders?
  •   If someone is resisting compliance to health orders, what sort of force is appropriate for us to use against that person?
  •   Are we supposed to cite someone or release them if they are violating health orders or are we supposed to book them in jail?
  •   What if we see a public official violating health orders?  As we've seen on the news, are we supposed to issue a warrant for that public official?
People in the audience actually yelled, "Yes!" to the last question, then everyone dissolved in laughter and applause.  Newsom's French Laundry debacle looms large in our legend.

AOC Says Congress may form commission to "rein' in media after Capital Riot.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed that Congress is looking into creating an investigative commission to "rein in" the media in the wake of the US Capitol siege.  During a lengthy Instagram Live on Tuesday evening where she revealed that she feared for her life during the siege, the "Squad" member accused the mainstream media of "spewing disinformation" ahead of the deadly riot in which five people died.  "There's absolutely a commission that's being discussed but it seems to be more investigating in style rather than truth and reconciliation," she said.  "I do think that several members of Congress in some of my discussions have brought up media literacy because that is part of what happened here," Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) went on.

The left closes in.  The left is, apparently, attempting to impose the complete destruction of First Amendment rights of roughly half of America's citizens.  In cases large and small, massive multinational corporations with no particular allegiance to the United States are colluding with members of the media and Democratic politicians to permanently silence dissent and cement their own power.

What Now?  Indeed, as scary as the situation may be right now, one thing's for certain:  worse is on its way.  The Democrats now control both houses of Congress and are about to be handed the executive branch.  The totalitarian-minded elements in that party are on the ascent, backed up by Silicon Valley, the legacy media, and much of corporate America.  And they're about to party like it's 1793.  In Paris.  The sky's the limit.  And therein lies our hope, long-term though it may well be.  Without doubt, these people will overreach.  Their lists will grow so long, their cancelations so widespread, that, as happened with the Reign of Terror, everyone who isn't clinically insane will finally realize that things have gone too far and will, in one way or another, put an end to the madness.  But how far will things have to go before that happens?

Patriot Act 2 is on the way, from the same author behind the smash-hit original.  Soon-to-be-President Joe Biden promised a new "domestic terrorism bill" back in November, according to the Wall Street Journal.  That is why you're seeing so much usage of the phrase "domestic terrorism" in the last couple of days.  It's the meme-phrase.  The primary talking point for this whole exercise.  It was underlined in all the memos sent out to all the media outlets.  That's why Joe Biden went to such lengths to distinguish "domestic terrorists" from "protesters" in his speech following the riots.  That's why the Council on Foreign Relations had an interview with a "counter-terrorism and national security expert" published within 24 hours of the incident, in which he spends 4 paragraphs arguing that the people who "stormed the capitol" were domestic terrorists.  That's why the Washington Post has got an article dedicated to "lawmakers and experts" arguing that the Capitol Hill protest was an act of "domestic terrorism".  And so have Vox.  And Mother Jones.  That's why ABC had an article about how "domestic terrorism and hate crimes" were a growing problem in America, a week before the riot took place.

The Conservative Purge Won't Stop With Big Tech.  Thousands of Trump supporters were purged on Twitter over the weekend, though the company claims the action was part of a routine audit to remove bots. [...] What should be of even greater concern, however, is the Democrats and their propagandists in the Mainstream Media who are encouraging what has become a political cleansing.  They want to punish anyone who supported President Trump.  It's not about reconciliation, it's about retribution.

Big Corporate Uses Capitol Riots To Push Communist-Style Social Credit System On Americans.  We appear to be at the beginning of a massive crackdown on people who have supported Donald Trump, led by big tech and big media.  These entities are making Trump into an example of their power to frighten the half of America that supported him in November.  We cannot allow them to intimidate us.  But they sure are trying, and on some, they will succeed.  They are using the excuse of an unrepresentative group of fools criminally ransacking U.S. Capitol offices with a lighter touch than many of this summer's often unpunished Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters.  Remember:  Some of those rioters got away with murder, attacking public buildings including in state capitols, arson, and stopping ambulances from bringing wounded police into hospitals for treatment.  They were bailed out with the help of the incoming Democrat vice president.

Big Tech alums flow into Biden administration amid crackdown on Trump allies.  Senior employees of tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter are preparing to join President-elect Joe Biden's administration amid a digital crackdown on President Trump's supporters.  The companies are purging their platforms after Wednesday's Capitol riot and break-in by Trump supporters, in the name of preventing more violence.  But skeptics fear potential government-sanctioned censorship and surveillance akin to the post-9/11 Patriot Act, which federal authorities secretly interpreted as allowing for the dragnet collection of domestic call records.

Biden-Big Tech-Big Media Dictatorship Begins.  Make no mistake, this is flat out fascism.  And it has been brewing in the precincts of the American Left for several years.  Arguably the opening round was in 2009 with efforts by Left-wing church elites to silence Rush Limbaugh.  They started a "So We Might See" campaign to get the FCC to silence Rush.  The campaign failed, backfiring when the rank and file of the churches saw my reveal of the campaign in The American Spectator, realizing it was their offering money that was being used to finance the silence-Rush campaign and even indoctrinate school children with leftist propaganda.  Also targeted was Lou Dobbs, then at CNN, Fox's Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck.  Three years later another campaign was launched to silence Rush, this time by targeting his advertisers.  That failed as well as Rush's listeners rallied to him.  Next, the focus shifted to Fox — specifically Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, with attacks on their advertisers.  Now, in the era of social media, Silicon Valley tech elites have combined with Democrats and Big Media to target any and every conservative outlet, personality or show they don't like.  Free speech, the lifeblood of the American Republic, is being shut down.

Fascism Strikes in Pro-Trump County as School Superintendent Moves to Fire Teachers and Employees Who Attended Trump Rally.  On Wednesday, a crowd of American citizens estimated to exceed 100,000 gathered in Washington, DC, to peacefully assemble and listen to a speech from the President of the United States.  All but a handful of the attendees dispersed peacefully.  Nothing done by the people who carried the demonstration into the US Capitol takes away from the legality and propriety of attending a political rally headlined by the president.  But if you were a teacher in Jefferson County, WV, you just found out that it doesn't matter if the voters in the county voted overwhelmingly to reelect President Trump, all it takes to put your livelihood in jeopardy is to have a fascistic school superintendent who is totally unacquainted with the US Constitution, and your job is in jeopardy.

New California COVID Orders: Residents Can Travel No More Than 120 Miles From Their Homes.  Despite insanely restrictive lockdowns for 10 months, travel restrictions, quarantine requirements, business closures, mask mandates and school closures, California has some of the worst COVID numbers in the nation.  The state currently has a total of just over 3,800 COVID fatalities.  Of course, in a state of 40 million that is .0095% of the population, but we're really not allowed to put perspective on COVID-19 numbers these days.  That little tidbit was for the curious.  In a state like this one, there is no such thing as policy failure.  If a policy isn't working, we just get more of it.  On Wednesday, the California Department of Public Health announced new "guidance" for people in California who have the nerve to want to wander around their free country.  CDPH wants Californians to stay within 120 miles of their residences except for "essential" travel.

The Boot Is Coming Down Hard And Fast.  A lot's been happening really fast.  It's a white noise saturation day and it's impossible to keep track of everything going on, so I'm just going to post my thoughts on a few of the things that have happened.  Biden has announced plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot. [...] Did you know that Biden has often boasted about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?  The first draft of the civil rights-eroding USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks.  Legislators later admitted that they hadn't even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.  This was because most of the work had already been done.

Trump-hating Lincoln Project announces it's assembling a blacklist.  Remember the Trump-hating Lincoln Project?  That was the big-dollar NeverTrump group that included among its luminaries George Conway, the unhinged Trump-hating husband of the unfortunate Kellyanne Conway.  They included many Dubya Bush administration operatives who'd been left out of the Trump administration and wanted revenge. [...] They're now back to their old tricks in the post-election, with a new game to please Democrats:  creating blacklists.  They've announced they've compiled a databasee of all Republicans who worked for President Donald Trump with the aim of ensuring they never land jobs in the private sector.

Liberal Reporter: 'The New... Authoritarian Liberal-left... Is Going to be Absolutely Ruthless'.  Liberal reporter Michael Tracey probably saw this event coming from miles away.  Months ago, he probably predicted it.  Actually, he did — sort of.  He said that Twitter's glorifying violence protocol is arbitrary and can never be fairly enforced.  This was the first wave of the social media giant censoring tweets from the president during the Minneapolis riots.  Last night, Twitter finally followed through on something they've probably have been waiting to do for months: ban Donald Trump.  After flagging and censoring his tweets, the storming of the Capitol Building was probably the last straw.  Trump is done on Twitter.  Yet, Tracey is not popping champagne.  If this company can do this to Trump, they can do it to anyone.  For those who are cheering this, you have no leg to stand on when these tech giants start coming after you.  Give it time.  It'll happen.  Tracey went on a lengthy series of tweets calling out liberals for celebrating this event, while also warning of an increasingly authoritarian future to come.

Silence Will Be the Next Hate Crime.  Attacking so-called "hate speech" has proven an effective Trojan horse technique by BLM and Antifa social justice warriors, who have incorporated Critical Race Theory (CRT) into their pernicious plans to dismantle the Constitution. [...] CRT does not hide its plans.  Quoting Audre Lorde, BLM brazenly declares:  ["]For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.  They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.["]  Note that "genuine change" means attacking good police, burning black businesses, and physically assaulting people whose ideas you don't wish to hear.  Actions speak louder than words:  "genuine change" means destruction, not healing; hate, not love; dictatorship.

Why I Am Joining The Jan. 6 DC March For Trump.  I am angry.  It's not a passing emotion brought on by a single circumstance.  This anger is a deep, painful, abiding anger created by a mix of frustration, despair, hopelessness, and injustice. [...] I'm angry because I've been playing by the "rules":  paying my taxes, being civil and tolerant of my neighbor, accepting without protest the election of past presidents I didn't support, and never threatening physical violence, using name-calling, canceling careers, using government goons to unlawfully spy to invent reasons for impeachment, or using media to misreport, misrepresent or otherwise create dissension and anger.  Yet the other side has carte blanche to do all this and more without condemnation, conviction, or retribution of any kind.

Waving Goodbye to the America We All Knew and Loved.  There is no doubt that our government does not run the way it was intended.  Congress seems incapable of doing the country's business.  What has it accomplished in the last four years aside from the ridiculous impeachment of the president and sending our tax money to countries that call us names?  Using the coronavirus as an excuse, government is trying to insinuate itself into every facet of our lives.  As we allow the government to tell us when we can leave our homes, when we can go to work, and under what circumstances we can run our businesses, we relinquish more and more of our independence.

NY State Pushes to Detain Infected — What is the Bigger Picture?  Let's set the stage with New York's fourth iteration of a bill.  It's a bill they are desperately hoping to pass that could change human rights and life as we know it.  I am going to paint a picture for you — one that ties multiple actions together — all operating under the same agenda, moving toward the same goal, and choreographed by the same united front.  It begins in New York, where a bill awaits a calendar date for a vote to allow the "removal of cases, contacts, and carriers of communicable diseases which are potentially dangerous to the public health."  The keyword here is "removal," but where to?  "A person who is detained in a medical facility, or other appropriate facility or premises, shall not conduct himself or herself in a disorderly manner, and shall not leave or attempt to leave such facility or premises until he or she is discharged pursuant to this section."  Discharged?  Oh yes, there are legal ramifications throughout this bill, including court orders if they need to hold you longer than a 3 or 5-day period, and especially if they need to exceed a 60-day hold.

New York Democrat's bill allowing governor to detain individuals dangerous to 'public health' sparks backlash.  A New York Democrat's bill that would allow the governor or his surrogates to detain individuals who pose a threat to public health "by a single order ... in a medical facility or other appropriate facility" sparked fierce backlash online.  New York State Assemblyman N. Nick Perry is sponsoring Bill A416, which will be referred to the Assembly's Health Committee on Wednesday [1/6/2021].  "So disturbing.  NY bill allows for the *removal and detention* of anyone who 'may be a danger to public health.'  Yes, that's purposely undefined," conservative podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey wrote on Twitter.  "Yes, it will be used, at least one day, to forcibly remove you or your children from your home for whatever reason the state sees fit."

Horns of Jericho
Nationwide Action Alert:  Horns of Jericho — Sound At NOON ET Wednesday.  Many people cannot attend the Washington DC rally to support President Trump.  However, several groups have organized to share an action message that all patriots can take at noon Eastern on Wednesday January 6th. [...] The objective is for people coast to coast, regardless of their location at Noon ET on Wednesday, to blow their car horn in support of President Trump and the rally taking place in Washington DC.  Let the sound of our patriotic message carry with the same intensity as the Horns of Jericho.


It is now ILLEGAL to leave the house in Scotland.  Leaving the house in Scotland is now illegal after the country was thrown back into lockdown this morning after fears over the pandemic eclipsed those of last year.  The hardline crackdown, announced by Nicola Sturgeon, includes the legally enforceable stay-at-home rule.  It came after she described the current pandemic situation as the most concerning since March last year.  And this morning her deputy John Swinney confirmed police will take enforcement action on those breaking the rules.

The Editor says...
Now it is becoming clearer what FEMA camps are for.  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Losing Our Freedoms Without A Fight.  A Mask.  Wearing one isn't about loss of Freedom — it is about saving lives.  Stop the spread of the dread Covid-19!  Besides, it's just a piece of cloth.  You choose not to wear the mask; people vilify you.  Get with the program — put the cloth on... NOW!  In such a short period of time, so many Americans have blindly obeyed.  No one openly points out the 99% survival rate.  Or the fact getting the flu is far more dangerous to our population.  Yet, we act like sheep and go along with the mandate.  Rarely does anyone question a Freedom lost.  It appears Americans have no backbones.  I studied history as a minor in college and remember discussing what happened in WWII Germany could not occur here.  Their citizens mindlessly followed the government.  But now I see how a freedom can so easily be taken away with very little opposition.

2021: The Left Is Serious Now.  [Scroll down]  COVID may have been accidental (I say "may"), but Democrats sure picked up the ball and ran with it, destroying our economy and people's lives for no nobler a reason than to kill Trump's re-election chances.  Leftists do not care about us and are no longer trying to even maintain the pretense that they do. [...] They were ecstatic when China deliberately infected the world with its virus.  The only problem was, it killed only old people with comorbidities and those who were already sick. [...] They had to sell it — so they went wild with the pandemic porn.  They joined with media and Big Tech in overstating the danger, classifying almost every death as COVID to hype the number of cases and increase the panic.  They then used the contrived fear to seize power and destroy the economy. [...] Yet there is only so much our erstwhile kings can do to impoverish their subjects before they begin to realize the danger is not quite as dangerous as was claimed and these kings do not have their people's best interests at heart.  When the sky does not fall, subjects tend to notice that the sky is not falling.  Then you get rebellion.

Los Angeles Superspreader Task Force Detains at Least 900 at NYE Parties.  The Los Angeles County Superspreader Task Force detained at least 900 people after shutting down five New Year's Eve parties.  The task force also arrested or issued 90 citations and recovered at least six guns at the parties, three of them being in downtown Los Angeles, Malibu, and Pomona, KTTV reported.  The Malibu party was held at an upscale home after it had been promoted on Instagram.  The sheriff's department showed up in the middle of the party, warning the crowd via loudspeaker, "This is the LA County Sheriff's Department.  This superspreader party is now over.  Anybody who refuses to leave will be subject to arrest."  Hundreds of people were ordered to leave immediately or face arrest or citation.

The Editor says...
The right of the people peaceably to assemble is guaranteed by the First Amendment.





Note: All material below was once located on an overflow page, but has now been rejoined with the main page.


Let's Start Jailing Lawmakers Who Violate Their Own COVID Restrictions.  [Scroll down]  My commie Democrat mayor is something of an anomaly these days:  she hasn't been caught flouting the COVID restrictions handed down by the government.  Yet.  As we are all now well aware, there are more than a few who have.  California Gov. Gavin Newsom's mask-free mini-superspreader event at the pricey French Laundry is the most infamous of these recent transgressions.  In New York, Gov. Andrew "Fredo the Elder" Cuomo told the good citizens of his state to avoid traveling to see their families for Thanksgiving or having their families travel to see them.  After a few days of his finger-wagging, it was discovered that he was going to bring in his 89-year-old mother for Turkey Day.  Mrs. Cuomo is one of the few elderly people in New York who wasn't sent by her son to die in a nursing home.  It pays to be connected.

The Editor says...
No, don't jail the officials who violate their own restrictions.  Instead nullify and void any restrictions imposed by that official.

How to Steal an Election in Four Steps.  [Scroll down]  Alternately, if the coup succeeds and the Biden presidency is upheld the America we know is deceased.  Fill in the second date on the headstone.  There is no 2024.  If Trump cannot beat the deep state as the incumbent, what challenger will ever displace them?  The USA will become another EU, a puppet democracy with fixed elections, making laws irrespective of the consent of the governed, intentionally hobbling itself via immigration policy, speech restrictions, and legislation that punishes non-pc groups.  By instituting polices that antagonize a would-be peaceful society and blaming it on freedom, leftist governments incentivize the people to want intervention, until a Soviet Union or a China is gradually achieved, leaving the people wondering what happened to their rights, while the puppeteers smirk.  Since the Civil War, this coup-dressed-as-election-fraud may be the most dire threat to America's survival as a free country.

COVID "Mutation" Stories Show That The Lockdowns Are Designed To Last Forever.  For many months now I have been warning that the design behind the pandemic lockdowns is a perpetual one; meaning, the lockdowns are MEANT to last forever.  We can see this in the very commentary of the establishment elites that are pushing for the mandates; their most frequent argument being that the pandemic restrictions are the "new normal". This assertion is outlined by globalists like Gideon Lichfield of MIT in his article 'We're Not Going Back To Normal'. [...] The so-called "great reset" and "Fourth Industrial Revolution" has been in development since at least 2014 when the terms were first being injected into the mainstream economic media.  The ideas of a cashless society, the "sharing economy", biometric mass surveillance, social credit scores, etc, have all been part of the globalist agenda for decades.  The coronavirus is merely a useful crisis for them to exploit as a rationale for the draconian measures they have always wanted.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me a Face Diaper.  We were going to enjoy our unmasked walk no matter how many compliant sheep we had to pass.  Lone bikers, near no one, were masked.  Lone joggers were masked.  One jogger would pull up her mask when she passed someone and then pull it down after passing.  Little kids were masked.  Mothers, fathers, teens on dates, and young guys were all masked.  I couldn't help but think how government school indoctrination had worked wonders on these obedient serfs.  Have years of helicopter parenting created such a pathetic generation of infant like rule followers?  Are they so willfully ignorant they can't do the basic research to realize masks don't work, based on CDC studies and the actual case rates in states and cities with mandatory masking and lockdowns?  Based on my observations, at least 60% of these people, out getting exercise and fresh air (not too fresh with a filthy diaper on their faces), were obeying their tyrannical politicians and bureaucrats, or entrapped in fear by a flu with a 99.7% survival rate.

Silent Obedient Consent.  I am saddened by how easily the totalitarians have been able to use fear, propaganda, lies and misinformation to turn the vast majority of Americans into compliant sheep.  It is so clear to me that this engineered flu panic is nothing more than another chapter in the scheme to enslave global populations under the thumb of global elitist billionaires who want to control us and enrich themselves.

Salon Owner Files Lawsuit Over Oregon Governor Threatening to Have CPS Take Her Kids for Defying Lockdown.  An Oregon salon owner has filed a $100,000 lawsuit against Gov. Kate Brown for threatening to have Child Protective Services take her children away.  The lawsuit also outlines damages she sustained due to extended closures and excessive fines issued against her.  Glamour Salon owner Lindsey Graham says that the governor began "terrorizing" her after she defied lockdown orders and reopened her salon in May.  She was fined $14,000 for the defiance.  "As soon as I tried to open my doors against the governor's mandate back in May, she came at me with the full weight of the state," Graham told Fox News during an interview with The Ingraham Angle on Monday [12/28/2020].

Without Our Constitution, We're Under Occupation.  I don't know if fed up Americans will rise up in the near future and defend their liberties against an ever more abusive and oppressive system of government, but I do know that 2020 has revealed vividly the post-constitutional wilderness the nation has entered.  Not since the days of slavery or internment have federal and local governments attacked the natural rights and freedoms of individual Americans so concertedly as they have this past year.  Arbitrary house arrests; the denial of religious freedoms; the closing of private businesses without any equitable measures of compensation; the intentional disregard for the destruction of private property while anarchists are given general grants of immunity; and the absolute refusal by governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general, and judges to provide for and ensure free and fair elections have combined to produce a lawless year in the United States.

Get Ready for the "Climate Emergency"?  It has been widely noted that many of our government leaders seem to like the air of crisis and the exertion of emergency power that the COVID pandemic has enabled.  And there has been open support among the climatistas applying the kinds of strictures used to battle COVID to climate change as well.  The superficiality of this parallel will be lost on lots of people — after all, how well are the lockdowns and mark-wearing mandates working?  Thus we are starting to hear calls for proto-President Biden to declare climate change to be a national emergency when he takes office.

You're It.  I have a sinking, terrible feeling that the inauguration of Joe Biden will go off uncontested and Americans will have swallowed another helping of humiliation for the sake of peace, in order not to be labeled a cultist for Donald Trump, white supremacists or right-wing extremist.  It's a sobering moment in American history. [...] Once Joe Biden (actually Kamala Harris or some other Obama lackey in the cabinet) takes power over the military, federal law enforcement and commands the higher ground of government authority, it will be too late.  Like many, I would prefer the legal system and the constitution be the answer to a stolen election, but the evidence is there, open and voluminous, but no judge will hear it, no court will review it.  Truth itself is not a weapon, acting as a result of truth is.  The courts don't want to act, because they know the patriot is a civil being, honoring life and liberty and they are not the threat that motivated and protected activists like BLM and Antifa are a threat.  This is one of those times in American history when the peaceful are forced to violence out of the refusal of government to simply follow the law.  They think electing Joe Biden will put the nation back on the path of traditional governance, as corrupt as it is, it's known.  Following the law and revealing the corruption leads them into the unknown.  They seek normalcy, it's sometimes more powerful and reliable than corruption.

Holiday in Handcuffs?  Our state is governed by a petty tyrant.  We've had a mask mandate since June and because he has unchecked power and was just reelected, he extends mandates in perpetuity.  He has done his best to suck joy out of everything.  Unlike Cuomo, our southern king issues edicts in secret.  He actively avoids the press and has deputized a legion of Karens to help with enforcement.  Unfortunately, we ran into one at church.  We arrived to Mass early and sat in our usual pew.  As we have done since the church reopened in May, we went maskless.  I've learned to ignore the stares and no one has ever said anything.

Are We Really Going to Build Back Better After a Dark Winter?  The globalist elites, along with the Deep State and social media tyrants of Silicon Valley are rich, influential, and arrogant.  They have stepped out from the shadows and are now blatantly flaunting their capture of our government, electoral systems, financial systems, mainstream media, social media, and medical complex.  They have gauged the intellectual, ethical, and mathematical aptitude of the masses and found them wanting.  They have no fear of significant pushback as they commit treason by stealing a presidential election, trashing the Constitution, destroying small business owners, impoverishing what remains of the middle class, and imposing totalitarian restrictions upon a compliant obedient populace.  A nation once populated by independent minded, self-reliant, frontiersmen has rotted from within, as the country is now populated by millions of weak minded, submissive, docile sheep, allowing themselves to be bullied and propagandized into paralysis, while texting, tweeting and facebooking their every mindless thought to their followers.  Unless the Trump forces can prove fraud on a multi-state basis or are willing to take the drastic step of utilizing the September 12, 2018 Executive Order regarding foreign interference in elections as justification for using the Insurrection Act in overturning the fraudulent outcome of the election, the end of the nation as we know it will have arrived.  Losing the two Senate runoff elections in Georgia would greatly accelerate the decline.

2nd Circuit Court Takes On 'Essential' Discrimination.  After practically a year of this, the courts are finally tackling some of the basic lockdown questions.  One of the most basic of these is the entire premise that some businesses are essential while other businesses are non-essential.  And that these decisions about which business is essential and which business is non-essential can be made by political leaders.

"I'm Not Crazy!" — This American Has Had Enough.  As [2020] comes to an end, public outcries against various officials' authoritarian orders grow louder in the face of an increasing body of scientific studies exposing the lies (that Fauci just admitted to).  As more and more 'members of the public' educate themselves on the reality of the virus — its contagiousness, its deadliness, the ineffectiveness of mitigation techniques, and the fallacies of COVID test results — at least one American has "had enough", in her own words, "I'm not crazy... I'm done!"

Top Pandemic Scientist Admits Emulating Communist Chinese Model To Strip Civil Liberties Away.  Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist who played a key role in convincing the British government to adopt lockdowns, revealed that the country's lockdowns were meant to emulate those carried out by the Chinese Communist Party — modeled to strip civil liberties and exert authoritarian control over citizens.  In Ferguson's recent interview with The Times, he revealed that lockdowns he championed as part of Britain's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) Board, were rooted in those carried out by the Chinese Communist Party.  Dubbed "Professor Lockdown" by many for his contributions to swaying the British government to adopt stringent lockdown measures, Ferguson ultimately stepped down from the SAGE board after he violated his own lockdown protocols.

The Editor says...
Covid-19 is not about public health.  Maybe it was at first, but now it's about authoritarianism and control.

California Bar Owner Reaches Desperation Point — Blocks COVID Health Dept Enforcer, Confronts Police.  Carlos Roman is the owner of a Bread & Barley restaurant in Covina, California, who reached his breaking point with health inspectors and COVID compliance officers when a public health dept. official ordered his restaurant to shut down.  Mr. Roman decided if he was going to lose everything; if his employees were going to lose their livelihoods; if the system was going to destroy them under the weight of unilateral decrees and fiats; then he was going to block the health inspector from doing his job.  The police were called-in to deal with Carlos Roman's act of defiance.

Rep.-elect Victoria Spartz, raised in Soviet country, says it's 'crazy' for Americans to want socialism here.  Rep.-elect Victoria Spartz grew up in Soviet-controlled Ukraine and saw the "misery" that occurs when socialism fails.  So the incoming GOP representative is alarmed by how the left, especially young people, have embraced socialism here in America as a solution.  She left Ukraine at the age of 21 for America for the promise of love and new opportunities.  Yet 21 years later, Spartz says her journey has come "full circle" as socialism is again at her doorstep.  "[I'm] going full circle in my 42 years of life.  It's unbelievable for me," Spartz, R-Ind., told Fox News in a recent interview in Washington.  "Of all of the countries in the world, our country put so much against this utopic socialistic idea that it's crazy for me to see how quickly we made the turn to the left."

5 Armed Police Disgracefully Shuts Down California Hair Salon!  Without warning, Wednesday, uniformed officers with the California Department of Consumer Affairs entered the Pomp Salon in North Stockton's upscale Lincoln Center.  "About five armed state police officers burst into our salon shouting drop everything you're doing.  Stop, you're being shut down," said Vicki Kirk, salon co-owner.  [Video clip]

Restaurant Owner Gives The Speech Of A Lifetime For Freedom.  Not sure who this gentleman is or which business he owns but his speech about a revolution that needs to be had is one for the ages.  This man is correct, there will never be a return to normal, now that the dark forces have discovered what control America's overlords can have over the people, bypassing the Constitution in the name of a so-called pandemic.  [Indeed], they were even to steal an election in broad daylight while using COVID as a battering ram.  [Video clip]

UNITE, Now is The Time — If Not Now, When?  Now is the time to unite, resist and push back against the unilateral decrees of local and state officials who have weaponized COVID compliance to destroy our nation.  An impassioned plea directly into the heart of patriots from coast to coast. [...] Those who construct the systems of control need to weaponize fear.  Fear of arrest; fear of losing a business; fear of losing liberty or financial security.  Local, regional and state officials rely on fear.  As soon as the people are no longer fearful, the control ends.  The overwhelming majority of dictates around COVID-19 mitigation are not laws.  There was no debate; no input from representative government; and no option for the public to weigh-in on the decisions.

If you want to travel next year, you may need a vaccine passport.  Now that coronavirus vaccines are starting to roll out in the US and abroad, many people may be dreaming of the day when they can travel, shop and go to the movies again.  But in order to do those activities, you may eventually need something in addition to the vaccine: a vaccine passport application.  Several companies and technology groups have begun developing smartphone apps or systems for individuals to upload details of their Covid-19 tests and vaccinations, creating digital credentials that could be shown in order to enter concert venues, stadiums, movie theaters, offices, or even countries.

Rand Paul:  Americans Should Never Have Allowed Governors to Become 'Dictators' Over COVID.  Sen. Rand Paul [M.D.] is sounding the alarm again over our continuing loss of liberty in the age of the coronavirus, and he's certainly not wrong.  In particular, the Kentucky Republican says Americans should really be pushing back — hard — on governors who have become "dictators" with their lockdowns, restrictions, and mandates, none of which, at this point, have anything at all to do with 'the science.'  "You know, nobody ever intended that governors would be sort of czars or dictators in charge of the economy," said Paul in a Christmas morning interview with Newsmax.

Marc Morano:  We Will Go From COVID Lockdowns To "Climate Lockdowns" Under Biden.  Climate Depot publisher Marc Morano warned Biden and Democrats are using the COVID lockdown model to prepare for "climate lockdowns" in an interview Monday night with FOX News host Tucker Carlson.  "The CEO of Harris Polling lamented that climate went from a top-tier issue in his poll, to second to last of all issues in the past year," Morano said.  "So they're freaked out that no one is talking and no one cares about climate among the public." "What they're trying to do, you saw Biden elude to it there with 'Build Back Better.'  They're trying to essentially use the COVID lockdown model for the climate emergency model.  And they are going to go from COVID lockdowns to climate lockdowns," Morano said.  "Senator Merkley (D-OR) came out today and is urging a President Joe Biden to declare a national climate emergency which would give him emergency powers that he could bypass democracy, much in the same way that blue-state governors have already done with the COVID lockdowns," Morano said.  [Video clip]

Will we go quietly into the night?  We've watched the rise of totalitarianism in disbelief as it has taken hold in the form of lockdowns, riots, censorship, and election fraud.  We have, for the most part, been obedient as a handful of "experts" told us what we can and cannot do after the coronavirus swept in.  We've tolerated demands to close our businesses, schools, and churches, not leave our house or have contact with aging loved ones, among other demonic edicts.  We've stood silently by as a "reimagined" police force issued citations, forcibly removed people from public spaces, padlocked doors, and made arrests because someone dared to live as a free American.  We've even been physically attacked while expressing support for the police, as the police stood by and did nothing.  On the heels of coronavirus lockdowns, came riots across the country as law enforcement was told to stand down.  And they obeyed.  Then the left pulled a poison arrow from their quiver and stole the election in their final coup attempt to deny a duly elected President his second term.  And nary a soul went to jail for any of it.  We're living in a world gone mad.  Lawlessness and criminal behavior has become a norm and no one does a thing to stop it.

PA restaurant owner opens in defiance of shutdown orders.  Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has continued to shut down or severely limit the operations of restaurants and bars around his state as part of his COVID response plan.  While this isn't unique in terms of what other states have done, the constant cycle of closing and opening has put a lot of owners on the brink of extinction and kept tens of thousands of workers in the food service industry on the unemployment lines.  But out in Washington County, Pennsylvania, just south of Pittsburgh, one owner of a popular eatery decided this week that enough was enough.  Michael Passalacqua, the owner of Angelo's Restaurant, announced earlier this week that his restaurant would be reopening on Friday with the usual social distancing protocols in place and the public was invited to come down for a meal.  And what will he do when Governor Wolf sends in the troops to bring him to heel?  He says he'll deal with it.

Legislators must reclaim power over health and elections or risk being sidelined.  In the Missouri state House, we represent the people.  Because of state legislators' small districts, we are more accountable to the electorate than either federal representatives or the governor.  The governor is not the "legislators' boss."  Rather, the branches are separate and equal.  It's time to remind legislators in every state of not only our power but also our obligations.  In 2020, when state legislators across the country faced massive executive overreach due to the pandemic and a deeply contentious election, it's more important than ever that we step up to defend our constitutional role as the mouthpiece of the voters.  This year, executive overreach has been more contagious than COVID-19.  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued 192 executive orders with far-reaching consequences, making would-be laws on everything from school closures to turning Michiganders into criminals for operating their businesses — or even boating on the lake.

Dem doc: re-educate Trump voters, purge social conservatives from government.  Congressional Democrats back "Secular America," a group that has sent a 28-page document to the Biden transition team advising him to strip First Amendment rights from Christians who advocate traditional biblical positions on the sanctity of life, marriage, education, and the nuclear family, Harbinger's Daily reports.  The letter was titled, "Restoring Constitutional Secularism and Patriotic Pluralism in the White House:  Prepared exclusively by Secular Democrats of America PAC for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris Transition Team."  The document, presented by Reps Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and endorsed by Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., states that an incoming Biden administration must "educate the American public," particularly those identified as the "religious right," on the need to keep their "religious dogma" to themselves.  The document calls for a purge of social conservatives from all levels of government, labeling them as "white nationalist" and "conspiracy theorists."

Mob Law:  Time 'to Put the Foot Down Firmly'.  Government will collapse, Lincoln warned, when good men who obey the laws become so disgusted with a government that no longer protects them, that they feel they have nothing to lose.  We're getting there.  Today, we've seen the "vicious portion" of our population loot, burn buildings, and beat innocent people "at pleasure" and — shockingly — "with impunity."  They do it in plain sight, repeatedly, and are applauded by political vultures as peaceful protesters.  It's made the legs of government a bit wobbly.  But the street mobs are small beans compared to America's most dangerous hordes:  High-level, white-collar mobs who work like maniacs to uproot the philosophical underpinnings of the American Revolution and the Judeo-Christian ethic.  They are politicians, judges, rogue intel alums, media, activist organizations, celebrities, leftist billionaires, tech companies, and educators who butcher our history, defy our laws, and give moral and financial support to the thugs who loot and burn things to enforce white-collar mob law.

What's happening in Minnesota bodes ill for Democrats.  Across America, the Wuhan virus has allowed Democrats to implement some of their long desired plans for "reforming" America in a properly Marxist mold.  One of the most hallowed plans, which academia promotes, is "de-incarceration" (i.e., ending prisons).  The other one, although it's kept hush-hush, is to end that pesky, morality-driven, hardworking, freedom-loving middle class.  Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz is working on both issues, with disastrous results for good people.  That's why this arrogant societal manipulation could soon prove to be the Democrats' downfall. [...] For the crime of feeding her family, Walz, through the Minnesota attorney general's office, is filing documents to imprison [Larvita] McFarquhar for trying to stay afloat.

Do you see the difference?  In casinos, theaters, and bowling alleys people don't talk to each other.
Michigan extends indoor dining ban but allows casinos, cinemas, bowling alleys to reopen.  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and state officials have extended a ban on in-person dining at restaurants through Jan. 15, while reopening casinos, bowling alleys and stadiums as well as allowing for in-person learning at Michigan high schools.  The casinos, cinemas, bowling alleys and stadiums are allowed to reopen on Monday [12/21/2020] with restrictions, according to a Department of Health and Human Services document obtained by The Detroit News.  Their capacity will be capped at 100 people, food and drink concessions must remain closed and social distancing must be observed.  "These past few weeks, Michiganders across the state stepped up and did their part to slow the spread of COVID-19, and because of our collective hard work, we are now able to begin the steps to carefully lift some of the protocols we have in place," Whitmer said.  "I am encouraged by the progress we have made since early November, and will continue to monitor the data closely during and after the holidays."

A Christmas Message for Dr. Fauci.  No one can be this clueless.  Not even Democrats.  Not even moronic Democratic governors.  Not even nanny-state government bureaucrats like Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Fauci just asked Americans to cancel Christmas.  He said, "...it's just one of those things you're going to have to accept."  He reported he would not even allow his own three daughters to come home for Christmas this year.  He wants all Americans to "painfully" isolate.  He says he and his wife will be spending the holiday alone.  I have a message for Dr Fauci: "[...] This is America.  This is a free country.  If we want to celebrate Christmas, we will.  If we want to go to church, we will.  If we want to spend the holidays with our children, we will.  We're adults.  We make our own decisions.  This isn't a nanny state.  It's not the Soviet Union.  It's not Nazi Germany.  We don't need government bureaucrats telling us what to do, how to live our lives or how to spend the holidays.

Robert Kennedy Jr Warns of COVID Compliance Creating The Dystopian End Game.  There are many issues where we may disagree with Robert Kennedy Jr., the weaponization of COVID fear is not one of them.  In this short video Robert Kennedy Jr, a passionate advocate against forced vaccinations of all types, talks about how professional politicians will lie to create the underlying source of their power, dependency.  [Video clip]

Top Ranking Catholic Cardinal Says COVID-19 Used To Advance 'Godless And Murderous Agenda', Usher In 'Great Reset'.  In early November, an Italian archbishop and Pope Francis foe, Carlo Maria Vigano, launched an attack against those behind pandemic lockdowns across the globe, warning President Trump in a letter of the coming "Great Reset" whose architects are "a global élite that wants to subdue all of humanity, imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit individual freedoms and those of entire populations."

COVID Hysteria Serves Desire for Power.  We finally reached peak COVID-19 madness last week, when a family was ejected from a United Airlines flight because their two-year-old girl could not tolerate a muzzle.  So, on the apparent theory that you can't be too safe or too careful, even from a two-year-old, the airline enforced its zero-tolerance policy and booted the girl and her family from the plane.  "The health and safety of our employees and customers is our highest priority ... everyone onboard two and older wears a mask," said the airline.  "These procedures are not only backed by guidance from the CDC and our partners at the Cleveland Clinic, but they're also consistent across every major airline." In case you're unaware, doctors, immunologists, and epidemiologists are now the highest authorities in the land.  Under their very own mini-Mussolini, Dr. Anthony Fauci, they can override our constitutional liberties, such as freedom of assembly and religion, severely constrict our freedom of speech, limit our movements, commandeer our businesses, and eliminate our livelihoods with complete impunity.

When 2-Year-Olds Are Thrown Off Airplanes, You Know America Has Changed.  You may have seen the video of the family thrown off a United Airlines airplane because the 2-year-old daughter would not wear a mask.  Though the family wore masks and the father promised to cover his daughter's face with a mask that he placed on her face, it made no difference.  Though the child was completely asymptomatic, and though it is exceedingly rare for a child to transmit COVID-19 to an adult — that is why Sweden kept its schools open all spring and summer, with its students not wearing masks — the airline had its orders, and the flight attendant duly obeyed them.

Illegitimate Government and Control Mechanisms Require The Elimination of Communication.  It is not coincidental that bars and taverns have been targeted for closure and control under the auspices of 2020's COVID-19 fear and mitigation.  It is not coincidental that churches and fellowship gatherings have been targeted for closure and control under the auspices of COVID-19 fear and mitigation.  Both of these assembly points and gathering places have a deep history within the American rebellion. [...] Fast forward 250 years later and the modern rebellion against leftist authoritarianism is now facing an identical issue.  Individual members of the rebel alliance are having to use covert methods just to meet and discuss issues, grievances and concerns about liberty.  Additionally, modern social media communication has been intentionally throttled.  As seen in the recent actions by Google/YouTube any challenge to the command and control authority will not be permitted.  Any voices who raise questions about the legitimacy of our government will be silenced.  The effort to block communication is happening in real places (bars and taverns) and in the digital space (the internet).

Angry California Restaurant Owner Confronts Inspectors:  Why Are You Fining Me For Trying To Keep My Business Open?  Via the Daily Caller, which happened to be on the scene interviewing business owner Anton Van Happen when two California health inspectors showed up.  That sounds like an incredible coincidence but it isn't.  He's been trying to organize a little commercial rebellion against the new regional stay-at-home order, which I assume is why the Caller — and the inspectors — wanted to talk to him.

Time To Heel — Or Fight.  I'm infuriated every time I see an Applebees, Wal-Mart, or Amazon commercial touting their bravery and fortitude during these troubled times.  These mega-corporations, with powerful lobbying departments and unlimited financial resources, have reaped tremendous profits and seen their stock prices soar to all-time highs, while hundreds of thousands of small restaurants and retailers have closed for good.  Somewhere between one-third and one-half of all small businesses in America have closed or will close permanently.  The [disingenuous] slogan "We are all in this together" has been beaten to death by the propaganda media, while our wealthy elite overlords work remotely in their multi-million-dollar mansions, doing their daily Peleton workouts, sending their kids to expensive private schools and dining on white truffles and caviar at the French Laundry for $1,200.  We are not in this together.  It's us and THEM.  You know who THEY are.

N.J. Gym Owner Fined $1 Million for Refusing to Close Has a Message for Gov. Phil Murphy.  Atlas Gym has been continuously harassed by the government of New Jersey for refusing to shut its doors or impose mask mandates on its clients.  Owner Ian Smith has made headlines for staying open despite orders from the state to close up shop.  But now he's back with a viral video message he made for Governor Phil Murphy.  I don't think the state's sanctions on him are working, do you?  Filming in a full gym, Smith stands defiant against government interference with his right to work and feed his family.  I wish every business owner in America was this courageous.  That's all it would take to end the unfair targeting of small businesses while huge corporations are allowed to turn profits without fines.  Resist!

The Social Tyranny that Threatens Thoughtful Americans.  What we are witnessing today on our streets, in our businesses, in our schools where we play, and even in our homes is not tyranny by Big Brother, but a social tyranny.  John Stewart Mill's classic political philosophy treaties On Liberty warned not only against tyranny by government but what he called "social tyranny."  Social tyranny, Mill writes, is when we are told what is socially acceptable to think, say, and do.  An influential group in society, not the actual government, makes us do things at first we normally would not do, then over time they make us do things without thinking, to making us do things that are, well, unthinkable!  While Mill warned against a social tyranny by a majority that was promulgating what is customary, today we see social tyranny played out by a small, but growing group of citizens that has a chilling effect on the lives of the majority of Americans.  Do what the street mob wants or risk ridicule, be ostracized, suffer economic ruin, or be labeled a racist; and if this is not enough, we risk bodily harm.

Put on the handcuffs, hide under the bed and stay there.  We've never seen anything like it, have we — some state governments not just advising people on how to spend Thanksgiving with their families, but dictating how they do it or whether they do it at all?  Here was totalitarianism unknown in American history, cops just maybe arresting you if there were too many people at the table, and it did not stop there.  Some states have also dictated how many people can go to church despite precautions being taken.  And, yes, it is totally proper to give advice, to say lives could be at stake from COVID-19 if large numbers were gathering in close proximity, and, to go further, to say this isn't just about you but about the harm you can do to others through transmission.  But here's the thing.  If government travels an autocratic, unprecedented route with the pandemic, what's going to happen to liberty generally and with other matters, such as climate change?

COVID-19 And The Great Reset:  Global Effort "to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies".  Quite a few people today appear to have opted to give up a great deal of their liberty for what they perceive as safety, yet few of them are starving or especially threatened.  What they seem to want is absolute safety or something close to it, as so many people's reaction to COVID has demonstrated.  The COVID pandemic was a big test of an approach called The Great Reset, and the reaction to the rules promulgated in response to the disease has led The Great Reset's leftist boosters to feel that they can go ahead without too much objection.  The Great Reset is no shadowy conspiracy theory, either; its basic outline is right out there in the open.

As COVID-1984 Accelerates, Bill Gates Blames "Freedom" For Spread of the Virus.  Recently, Bill Gates gave an interview to the Rothschild partially owned Economist.  In this interview, Gates was asked about how he views the U.S. response to the outbreak.  His reply was:  ["]Aside from the high 'risk money' the US ponied up for vaccine research and development, he think the U.S. is doing a poor job overall.["]  Gates proceeded to directly blame the poor response on lack of preparation, but also freedom.  Yes, Bill Gates blamed our freedoms for the spread of the virus.  Bill Gates then went on to praise China's authoritarian response and said, despite the fact that people's rights were violated, China's response was really amazing!  This is right out of the 2010 Rockefeller Lock Step document that laid out a scenario for a world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership.

Canadian Restaurant Owner Charged With 'Trespassing' [on his own property] After Reopening in Defiance of Lockdown Orders.  At 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, November 24, Adam Skelly opened his BBQ restaurant in Toronto and began serving customers.  Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been unremarkable.  But on that day, it was an act of political defiance, because a recent lockdown order prohibited restaurants like his from providing indoor and outdoor dining services.  Skelly, a 33-year-old husband and father of two, was specifically ordered to close by Toronto Public Health later that day, but he opened again on Wednesday and made it clear that he would continue operating as normal.  Then, early Thursday morning the police changed the locks on the restaurant to bar his access, and when Skelly showed up later that morning he was met by a significant police presence.  Police allowed him into a back part of the building behind the restaurant, but then he and his employees secretly broke into the restaurant from the back and kicked down the newly locked front door.

The Constitution is immune to coronavirus power-grabs.  In a matter of 244 years, we have gone from the understanding that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed" to "shut up, mask up, and obey your governors."  Amid the reams of debate written on the data, science, math, and policies undergirding the unprecedented governmental response to coronavirus, there is shockingly very little discussion about the legality of crushing the most foundational rights imaginable.  Can executive officials merely tout "COVID" in a sentence at a press conference and rule over our lives in any way they want for as long as they want?  This is the discussion that was needed eight months ago, but there's no time like the present to embark on it.

Cops raid home of fired Florida data analyst Rebekah Jones who accused state of misleading citizens on COVID.  Florida state police raided the home of a former data analyst for the Florida Department of Health on Friday, who claims Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) "sent the gestapo" to get her to "shut up."  Rebekah Jones was fired from her position in the DeSantis administration in May for allegedly modifying the state's COVID-19 dashboard unilaterally without authorization.  She claims the state was misleading citizens on the coronavirus numbers, and now she runs her own COVID-19 tracking sites from her house.  Jones tweeted Friday that state police served a warrant at her home that morning and seized property, claiming that officers "pointed a gun in [her] face" and "pointed guns at [her] kids."  She posted accompanying video showing the purported scene from inside her home as police entered.  Armed officers can be seen walking through the hallway, and pointing their firearms upward as they called for Jones' husband to come down the stairs.  Neither Jones' husband nor the couples' children are seen in the footage.

Cops raid home of Rebekah Jones, who said she was fired for not doctoring COVID-19 data.  Florida police on Monday [12/7/2020] raided the home of a former state data scientist who claimed she was fired from the Department of Health for refusing to doctor coronavirus figures.  Rebekah Jones posted video on Twitter showing officers with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement drawing their guns as they entered her house in Tallahassee.  "They pointed a gun in my face.  They pointed guns at my kids," she wrote.  Jones — who has been a vocal critic of Gov. Ron DeSantis' handling of the pandemic since she was canned in May — said agents seized her phone and computer.  "They claimed it was about a security breach.  This was DeSantis.  He sent the gestapo," she wrote.  [Video clip]

What Leftists Don't Get about Evil and the Law.  [Scroll down]  Churches have been meeting together for prayer and fellowship since before Pentecost.  During the early days, when the Roman Empire declared Christianity an outlaw religion, Christians were forced to meet secretly in caves and basements to avoid arrest, imprisonment, and death by torture, crucifixion, or lions.  Today, we're seeing a return to that same mentality among the secular left.  Governors and mayors around the country have used the excuse of the Wuhan virus to crack down on religious services, particularly of the Jewish and Christian variety (I dare say they're being somewhat more circumspect in their dealings with Muslim gatherings.)  Churches met regularly for services during the Black Plague in Europe (1346-1353) and every other pandemic or disease outbreak before and since.  Individuals were understood to have the capacity to make their own rational decisions about what was best for them and their families without being forced to obey a one-size-fits-none government mandate.

Democrat governors are the new royalty.  Power is intoxicating.  Until the COVID lockdowns I was unaware of the fact that so many Democrat governors and mayors want to destroy the small entrepreneurs — especially restaurant owners — who give our cities so much of their energy and vigor.  Who knew?  Well, now we know.  People are fighting back. [...]

Dehumanizing Americans.  As was the case in the USSR, powerful entities such as the media, academia and radicals in seats of power, visible and invisible, are openly hostile to the majority of American citizens.  Covid-19 regulations have psychologically strip searched every citizen.  Nearly the entire populace has been under the equivalent of house arrest. [...] Isn't it apparent that millions of Americans are enduring the equivalent of solitary confinement as the lockdowns continue indefinitely?  Isn't it clear the universal masking of the human face and the forced distancing from one another has distorted all relationships?  How many millions search for a human glance from individuals rendered featureless?

The Plot Against the Small Businesses.  As we near a year of lockdowns and sheltering in place, the long-term effects of pandemic policy on the economy are becoming clearer.  Almost every piece of legislation ostensibly designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus and protect workers has wreaked devastation on small businesses — while benefiting the largest corporations.  Roughly 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed due to COVID-19, while big-box retailers, tech giants, and pharmaceutical manufacturers have seen record profits.  America's small businesses currently face an attack on all fronts.  First, there are the more visible policies (e.g., lockdowns, mask mandates, and social distancing requirements) that strongly discourage people from patronizing brick-and-mortar retailers and restaurants.  These policies impact small businesses more than large chains and corporations.

The Great Reset and Klaus Schwab.  [Scroll down]  Instead, the Great Reset will remake the world — in Schwab's words, "to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable world going forward," all the platitudes neatly packed into one sentence.  Private property deforms the natural relations between human beings and must be abolished.  Private transportation will not be allowed.  "Contrary content" in the printing or production of materials will not be permitted, at the cost of access to social media and Internet domains.  Fossil fuels will be replaced wholesale by Green technologies.  Home gardens will be outlawed.  The Christian faith will be gradually suppressed (as is happening today).  Vaccines will become mandatory.  Society will become "cashless" and all standard monetary transactions replaced by digital currency and governed by electronic means, which can be cancelled by reigning authority at the slightest provocation.  Debts will be forgiven and creditors will face the prospect of bankruptcy.  The middle class and small entrepreneurs will be wiped out.  Commerce will become progressively "contact-less."

The Deep State and Democratic Party join hands against America.  Voters who imagine that they control what the government does are mistaken.  Our federal government is really at the mercy of the huge unelected bureaucracy, the Deep State, that represents the "big" in our bloated federal government.  Everybody who lives within 15 miles of Washington is part of it, or so it seems.  Of all the ways in which the Left is attempting to redefine America, its support for an enormous bureaucracy has been the most successful.  The people we elect — the president and Congress — are merely a front for the Deep State.  The federal government has become separated from the American public that it is supposed to serve.  Deep State power has reached the point where it is beyond the reach of constitutional safeguards.  "As the administrative state grows," says Mark Levin in Ameritopia, "the vote is less effective and the individual is increasingly disenfranchised."

'Because I Said So' Government Is a Disaster.  If any lesson has been driven home during the last year, it is that the public must stop thinking for itself and let the government do its thinking for it.  Questioning the wearing of masks is called "unpatriotic."  Questioning the authority of local politicians to ban family and church gatherings is called "selfish."  Questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election is called "dangerous."  In the United States, however, the government is not meant to be separate from the people. [...] There is nothing consensual about "because I said so" governing.  That's "rule by authority," a whole other monster that Americans have fought on global battlefields since the country's founding.  It's way past time for Republicans and Democrats holding elected offices to understand that millions of Americans find the wide proliferation of "because I said so" government as dangerous as any virus or any foreign attack.  Representative government in the United States is hanging by a thread, and there's nothing wrong with saying that out loud.

Garcetti issues stronger warning to Angelenos: 'Hunker down ... cancel everything'.  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is again asking Angelenos to cancel all non-essential activities and "hunker down" as the city experiences a dangerous surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.  The city revised its "Targeted Safer at Home Order" late Wednesday [12/2/2020]. While the new restrictions and allowable activities mirror those issued by Los Angeles County last week, the language and messaging is far stronger than before.  "Subject only to the exceptions outlined in this Order, all persons living within the City of Los Angeles are hereby ordered to remain in their homes," the mayor's order states.

What is the difference between this and martial law?
Los Angeles Orders Residents to 'Remain in Their Homes' or Face Fines, Jail Time.  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday ordered residents to stay in their homes, with some exceptions, or face fines and jail time.  "Subject only to the exceptions outlined in this Order, all persons living within the City of Los Angeles are hereby ordered to remain in their homes," Garcetti, a Democrat, said in a public health order.  All public and private gatherings of any number of people from more than one household are prohibited, except for outdoor faith-based services and outdoor protests.  All travel, including travel on foot, bicycle, and scooter, is prohibited.  Only people participating in so-called essential activities are exempt from the order.  Those activities include all health care operations, grocery stores, and all media outlets.

Enough Already: 'Governor, May I?' Must End.  Where do these governors get the nerve to run point on a massive election fraud scheme?  Actually, we the people are giving them this power.  Though our Founders created a government by the people, we are allowing others to usurp that power, to take that power from us.  Enter the "pandemic," where state officials openly reject the Constitution and make government the ruling authority.  We've allowed their tyranny, and now we're trapped in a sick game of "Governor May I" where we need the governor's permission for every move we make.

Webster's New World College Dictionary, Third Edition, 1997.
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Third Edition, 1997, page 92.

The Georgia Runoffs and Our Embattled Constitution.  If Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win Georgia's Jan. 5 Senate runoffs, Democrats will control both houses of Congress as well as the presidency.  The Republican Party, which won nearly half the national vote, will have no check on the Democrats, aside from the Senate's filibuster rule.  Although that rule requires a supermajority to pass some legislation and appointments, it can be abolished by a simple majority when the new Senate convenes.  Preventing one-party rule is one of the strongest arguments advanced by Republican incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.  They are reminding voters of the threat posed by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who proudly announced:  "Now we take Georgia, then we change the world."  That might be a winning line for national fundraising, but it's more problematic for the Georgia electorate.  Not many voters there want to "change the world," so Warnock and Ossoff are downplaying it.

Poll watcher witness says feds showed up at door, made her feel like a criminal after fraud testimony.  Amid all the inquiries into where Attorney General Bill Barr has been in the face of voter fraud allegations, there has been a sighting of federal agents — the question is, what were they investigating?  Leah Hoopes, a Republican poll watcher on Election Day in the state of Pennsylvania, dropped what's being reported as a "bombshell," which is that special agents from the Justice Department paid her a visit at home after she testified before the Senate last week.  Hoopes testified that massive voter fraud may have taken place in Delaware County, Pa., and she appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast "War Room:  Pandemic" on Monday to talk about "special agents from the Attorney General's office showing up at my front door just for speaking the truth."

Conservatives must stop quitting before the battle is over!  [Scroll down]  The overall message is to surrender.  But we don't need to stand down, America; we need to step up.  We have to start with these drunk-on-power governors.  They have no right to issue, much less enforce unconstitutional orders.  And we don't need to wait on courts to set us free.  It's already done with the Constitution and ruled on by the Supreme Court.  Norton vs. Shelby County, 118 US 425, 442:  "An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed."

Thankful for the Rights That Democrats Want to Take Away.  This ungodly Chinese Bat Flu has brought out the worst in a lot of people, most of them Democrat elected officials.  There have been some Republican transgressors as well, but the majority of the bad actors have been liberal leaders in traditionally liberal states and cities.  Basic rights have been getting trampled upon in the name of public health. [...] The plague has amplified leftist assaults on the First Amendment.  We know that if a Democrat returns to the White House the Second Amendment will be under assault.  Democrats hate due process.  So many things in the Constitution that we have enjoyed and taken for granted for so long are being assailed by people who purport to be freedom-loving Americans, many of whom hold some of the highest positions in government.

NYC Will Have Covid Checkpoints at Key Bridges and Crossings.  New York City will have vehicle checkpoints at key bridges and crossings, and will strictly enforce the travel quarantine, Sheriff Joseph Fucito said.  The sheriff's office will conduct spot checks when out-of-state buses drop riders off at the curb.  Test and tracing teams will be on the ground to direct individuals to testing sites and provide education on quarantine, Fucito said.  The 14-day quarantine mandates that travelers quarantine or test out.  Violations of self-quarantine will be enforced, and may carry fines of $1,000 to $2,000, according to the mayor's office.

Fighting Words.  Democrats are not democrats; they are totalitarians.  They have declared war on the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Electoral College, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the election system, and the idea of civil order.  They have called for the Republican President of the United States to be de-platformed and jailed.  Their obvious goal is a one-party state that criminalizes dissent.  To them, support for such basic necessities as borders and law enforcement are racist.  If you oppose their efforts to legalize infanticide, they will condemn you as enemies of women, and if you make videos of their confessions to selling body parts of murdered infants, they will — like Kamala Harris — throw you in jail.  Progressives are not progressive; they are reactionaries.  They are out to abolish liberal value systems and create a status hierarchy where race, gender, and sexual orientation define and confine you to an unalterable place in their new social order.  If you are white or male or heterosexual or religious — Justice Kavanaugh was all four — you are guilty before the fact.

New Mexico governor shuts down grocery stores for two weeks.  A dozen grocery stores around the state have been forced to close for two weeks because of a public health order issued by Gov.  Michelle Lujan Grisham at a time when the state's residents are suffering from record high unemployment and food insecurity, critics say.  The order requires businesses with four or more rapid responses of COVID-19 cases reported within in a 14-day period to close for two weeks.  More than 25 essential businesses were shut down as of Monday afternoon, including a number of grocery stores and major retailers.  The closures include two Walmarts in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe, an Albertson's in Roswell, a Smiths Food & Drug Center in Albuquerque and New Mexico Food Distribution Center in Albuquerque.

New Mexico governor shuts down grocery stores with new public health order.  Just when we thought that liquor sales restrictions in Pennsylvania by Governor Wolf were arbitrary and, frankly, stupid, along comes Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico with a "hold my beer" response.  She has shut down a dozen grocery stores across the state.  Why would a governor make such a draconian move?  A public health order from the governor's office shut down more than 25 essential businesses Monday [11/23/2020] with four or more rapid responses of COVID-19 cases reported within a 14-day period.  The order requires the businesses to close for two weeks.  That's right, any business that reports four or more positive COVID-19 tests in a two week period must then shut down for two weeks, essential business or not.

Will Thanksgiving Mark The Beginning Of The Lockdown Resistance?  A country that's about to observe a holiday in which we express appreciation for our unique American blessings appears ready to shrug off the chains of petty tyrants.  For that, we give thanks.  Governors in, most infamously, California, New York, Oregon, and Minnesota, but also other states, have told constituents to limit their celebrations and travel.  They might not in every case have specifically cited Thanksgiving.  But it's obvious that the nagging has accelerated because of the holiday.  It's just as obvious that, after more than eight months of various lockdowns, some Americans have had enough.  In an unmistakable rebuke to Andrew Cuomo, sheriffs in New York have said they won't be enforcing the governor's 10-person limit at private gatherings.  Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo, for instance, said he didn't "see how devoting our resources to counting cars in citizens' driveways or investigating how much turkey and dressing they've purchased is for the public good." Erie County Sheriff Tim Howard has promised he will do what the busybody governor refuses to do and that is "respect the sanctity of your home."

7 Things That Used to Be "Crazy Conspiracy Theories" Until 2020 Happened.  [#7] Re-education camps:  Remember how we all used to joke about being put into FEMA camps? [...] Finally, for those of us who believed these conspiracy theories were conspiracy facts all along — oh — and for Trump voters — there's the discussion about how to re-educate us so we can rejoin society.  In a Twitter thread run amok, we saw the dark side of some "well-educated" Democrats who were sincerely trying to figure out how to redeem those of us who did not vote for Joe Biden.

From Ruling Class to Oligarchy.  [Scroll down]  And then Election Night.  As predicted, election officials in places controlled by the Left stopped counting until it was clear how many ballots it would take for Trump to be defeated.  The requisite number came, filled out by no one knows who.  And then... who wouldn't have predicted it?  The call came from all of society's commanding heights:  Trump's defeat had been declared.  By whom?  By the folks on these varied heights — certainly not by the authorities designated by the Constitution to decide who wins and loses.  But the more instances of fraud the Trump campaign sought to investigate, the louder and from more sources sounded the judgment that there was nothing to investigate.  It had been decided.  You peons shut up and obey.  That is how oligarchies work.

Time for a New Declaration?  [Scroll down]  Americans worked within the system for change, and the system changed the rules under the pretext of a health emergency.  When those Americans protest, their voices are censored, and their livelihoods are threatened.  There is a presumption among Obama Democrats and Big Government Republicans that Americans who take their freedoms seriously will simply roll over and obey if they are increasingly attacked, punished, and ignored.  If "taxation without representation" was enough to boil the blood of American patriots two hundred and fifty years ago, I have my doubts that "socialism without representation" will fare much better with their descendants.

Governors Cancelling Thanksgiving in Favor of Misery.  [Scroll down]  It started with "15 days to slow the spread" back in March.  Americans dutifully stayed home and washed our hands, as government experts told us.  Did we slow the spread or exacerbate it?  A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that draconian quarantine measures with strict social distancing and constant mask wearing did not stop the spread of COVID in their study population of Marine recruits.  These measures may have actually exacerbated the spread of COVID as the control group of non-participants had almost half the rate of COVID positivity at the end of the study compared to those under strict rules.  But our governors and health experts know better.  Safety measures they imposed on us for months worked so well that nine months into the pandemic, COVID is still not under control.  Or at least positive tests are not. [...] Most of America suffers COVID fatigue and now we are being told to get used to our new normal.

"How Do You Deprogram 75 Million People?" — California Democrat Calls For "Post WWII" Reeducation For Trump Supporters.  California Democrat David Atkins this week called for Trump supporters to be "deprogrammed" in "post WWII" type reeducation camps. [...] Atkins called the 75+ million people who voted for President Trump a "belligerent death cult against reality."  After taking heat for his tweets, David Atkins gaslighted by claiming he doesn't really mean "re-education camps" (he does).

Michigan Republicans Introduce Resolution To Impeach Gov. Whitmer.  Three GOP House members in Michigan have introduced House Resolution 324, which call for the impeachment of their tyrannical governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a woman who has made it clear she will usurp power from the constituents she's supposed to serve and use it to oppress them with reckless abandon.  Folks, this is exactly why our system of government works the way it does.  We have the right to decide who governs over us, and if they go against our wishes and violate our God-given rights, it's our duty to toss these folks out on the street.

Dems Using COVID to Gain Power, Reset US to Tyranny.  Democrats used the pandemic as an excuse to change the manner of voting in 2020 — and to possibly steal the election.  Now, it's being used to fundamentally change our society, our very beliefs, and traditions.  As President Trump was winding up what was arguably the most successful 4-year presidential term in American history, Democratic politicians latched onto the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to enact universal mail-in voting.  Although they didn't quite get what they wanted, a sufficient number of states promoted vote-by-mail that, when added to other irregularities, a significant number of voters lost confidence in the election results.  Now, they're focused on using the pandemic to finish what the previous administration promised — to fundamentally transform the United States, as well as to answer the call of the Senate minority leader — to change the world.

Coronavirus Ushers in an Unconstitutional Hell for America.  Thanks to the dreaded Covid-19, it's good-bye Thanksgiving and, soon enough, farewell Christmas.  And after that, who knows?  Having discovered that Americans have lost their spines and are now easily penned inside their homes like two-legged sheep, the petty potentates who rule — not govern, rule — far too many states and municipalities have concluded that we will never fight back, never resist, and never reject their latest whimsical edicts.  For proof, look no farther than California, where 41 of the state's 58 counties have just been returned to most-restricted status, and a statewide curfew is now being bruited in Sacramento. [...] There are vague promises that things might begin to open again next year, but don't hold your breath.  "Two weeks to slow the spread" and "fifteen days to flatten the curve" have long since morphed into a semi-permanent nanny state in which the very act of slowing and flattening ensures that the virus will go on indefinitely by guaranteeing a continuous stream of new "cases" with which to frighten the public and increase government power.

Flashback: Biden Transition Leader Says He Wants To Restrict Free Speech.  President-elect Joe Biden's transition leader for U.S.-owned media outlets, Richard Stengel, supports restricting free speech and creating new guidelines that would make "hate speech" a crime.  In a Washington Post op-ed published last year, Stengel, who served as President Barack Obama's Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, suggested the government should make "statutes to penalize speech" that is offensive.  "Hate speech has a less violent, but nearly as damaging, impact in another way:  it diminishes tolerance," Stengel wrote.  "Why shouldn't the states experiment with their own version of hate speech statutes to penalize speech that deliberately insults people based on religion, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation?"

Roman Catholic diocese seeks Supreme Court emergency relief over Cuomo coronavirus restrictions.  The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn is turning to the Supreme Court over coronavirus restrictions that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed that include limits on how many congregants can gather for religious services.  The emergency court filing, submitted Thursday [11/12/2020], compares the prohibitions houses of worship face with the relative freedom afforded to many businesses under an order that Cuomo issued in October, in which he designated color-coded zones with varying degrees of limitations.  "While this Executive Order effectively closes churches and other houses of worship, all businesses deemed 'essential' by the Governor — including everything from supermarkets to pet stores, huge hardware stores to brokers' offices — are permitted to remain open without any capacity limitations whatsoever, even in the most restrictive 'red' zones.  In 'orange' zones, even the vast majority of nonessential businesses, including department stores, can remain open without limitation — yet churches cannot," the filing said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci Says It Is Time for Americans to Shut [...] up and Do What Their Betters Tell Them to Do.  Today [11/13/2020] in an interview, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told an audience his solution for stopping the dread Chinese Lung AIDS epidemic dead in its tracks:  ["]I was talking with my UK colleagues who are saying the UK is similar to where we are now, because each of our countries have that independent spirit, I can understand that, but now is the time to do what you're told.["]  Bingo.  [Shut up] and do what you are told.  This is and has always been the agenda.  From the earliest day of this Wuhan pandemic, I've contended that the primary goal of all the "public health" types is not to save your life or keep you healthy because they [don't care] whether you live or die.  The real game is to create a "public health" carve-out to the First Amendment that gives unelected bureaucrats and elected officials the right to rule by fiat.  Early in this self-generated crisis, the first target was church attendance.  Now we're seeing the same nasty little fascists who locked down entire states, while sending patients still infected with Wuhan virus into nursing homes in what appears like a conscious effort to slaughter the elderly and infirm.

He's just now saying this?  Where was he in May and June?
Alito: COVID Has Highlighted 'Disturbing' Trend of 'Lawmaking by Executive Fiat' and 'Rule by Experts'.  During a speech before the Federalist Society on Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said that the coronavirus pandemic has "highlighted disturbing trends" in the law such as "dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat, rather than legislation."  Which he characterized as "the movement toward rule by experts."  Alito began by cautioning that, aside from specific references to any Supreme Court cases, he isn't commenting on the legality of coronavirus restrictions and isn't making any statements as to whether the restrictions constitute good policy.

Justice Alito:  Pandemic Has 'Resulted in Previously Unimaginable Restrictions on Individual Liberty'.  Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday said the coronavirus pandemic has "resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty" and warned that religious liberty is "in danger of becoming a second class right."  Alito's comments came during his virtual keynote speech to a conference of the conservative Federalist Society, in which the 70-year-old justice warned that the U.S. can't allow the restrictions on personal liberty to continue after the pandemic has ended, noting that houses of worship have been treated particularly unfairly.

Pennsylvania Court Rules Secretary of State Improperly Changed Deadline 2 Days Before Election Day.  A Pennsylvania judge ruled in favor of President Donald Trump's campaign on Thursday, saying Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar overstepped her authority to change an election deadline two days before Election Day last week.  "The Court concludes that Respondent Kathy Boockvar, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, lacked statutory authority to issue the November 1, 2020, guidance to Respondents County Boards of Elections insofar as that guidance purported to change the deadline ... for certain electors to verify proof of identification," Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt wrote in her order on Thursday afternoon [11/12/2020].  Boockvar, a Democrat, submitted guidance saying proof of identification could be provided to vote up until Nov. 12.  State law stipulates that voters have until Nov. 9 to deal with problems regarding a lack of proof of identification.  Boockvar, the top election official in the state, issued the guidance after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled mail-in ballots could be accepted three days following Nov. 3.  Boockvar issued the new guidance on Nov. 1, two days before Election Day.  Trump's lawyers had argued that the secretary had no power to unilaterally change the date.

Democratic blacklists and other odious hypocrisies.  In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez complained that she and leftist allies were being placed on a blacklist by Democratic Party regulars.  It turns out that this was not a principled objection, for now, she wants to be the one making the list.  Disturbingly, this seems also to be the view of a wide range of Democrats, which is ironic because four years ago, they were accusing President Trump, baselessly, of course, of trying to take office and then arrest his political opponents.  Now, Democrats and Republican grifters allied to them in the poseur "resistance" are calling for the personal and professional destruction of everyone who has stood by or "enabled" Trump, including even the attorneys now assisting him in various state legal battles.  Their vindictive attitude is absurd and disgraceful on so many levels that it is hard to know where to begin.

AOC & Co.'s loathsome plan to keep lists of pro-Trumpies.  In Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado," a man named Ko-Ko appointed to the job of Lord High Executioner tries to figure out whom he should have killed.  "There will be," he says, "no difficulty in finding plenty of people whose loss will be a distinct gain to society at large."  And then he reveals that he has "a little list" — a list "of society offenders ... who never would be missed!"  Ko-Ko's example is being followed exactly by a group of petty and loathsome enforcers of pious attitudinal orthodoxy who have appointed themselves to the collective post of Lord High Career Executioner in post-Trump America.  They literally talk about the "lists" they are making of people who have committed the grievous evil of working for the administration they hated, with the stated goal of ensuring such people don't find employment afterward.  Last week, there arose something that calls itself the Trump Accountability Project. [...]

Leftist Back Down on Plans to Create Lists to Block Trump Backers From Jobs.  The Trump Accountability Project, which targets supporters of President Donald Trump by adding them to a list and "holding them accountable" after the election, has announced that it is "no longer active."  The announcement was made on the project's website, which has been promoted by former Pete Buttigieg staffer Hari Sevugan.

Organization That Made Public Blacklist of Trump Supporters Shuts Down After Massive Backlash.  The "Trump Accountability Project" was created shortly after media outlets declared Democratic nominee Joe Biden the winner in the presidential election, with its mission being to list those who worked in President Trump's administration to hold them "accountable."  Attention was first brought to the Trump Accountability Project after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) asked if there was such a list being created since Trump did not do everything Democrats perceive as being wrong.

The Editor says...
Did they shut down due to backlash, or did they realize that Biden may not have won the election after all?

Leftist cabal's sleazy plan to blacklist Trump-supporters blows up in their faces.  It looks as though the Trump Accountability Project, a vile, literally fascist scheme to hound and persecute former Trump supporters big and small in the presumed post-Trump era, is shutting down.  It had been touted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Pete Buttigieg spokesman Hari Sevugan as the next order of action. [...] Among other things, the "Trump Accountability Project" didn't jibe well with Joe Biden's call for "unity," making the so-called "president-elect" look like a sleazy, lying, hypocrite.  It may well be that someone from Camp Biden got to whoever these creeps are (which would tell you that they know who they are) and told them to cut it out.  After all, with Biden presumably in on a weak mandate, it was a public relations liability.

Dem activists urge violence, repressions against Trump voters.  Democrat party activists are calling for political retribution against supporters of President Trump and other Republicans.  According to reports on Tuesday [11/10/2020], many Democrats took to Twitter with calls to fire, shame and deny future employment to republicans.

Biden Plans To Create An Army Of 100,000 'Culturally Competent' Contact Tracers.  As if lockdowns and forced mask mandates aren't enough, there is another chilling detail of the hellish authoritarian state that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will preside over if he is installed into the White House.  Get ready for the creation of an army of political enforcers who will be imbued with the power of the federal government to act as "contact tracers" to keep tabs on Americans under the pretense of fighting COVID. [...] Biden has already made it clear that he is going to threaten Republican governors in order to pressure them into lockdowns as well as forced mask mandates but the conscription of at least 100,000 "culturally competent" contact tracers is directly out of the playbooks of history's most oppressive totalitarian regimes.

Of Course The Party Of Moral Authoritarianism Would Cheat On Elections.  We and many others were warning months ago that the Democrats were going to try to steal the 2020 election.  When the counting, recounting, and lawsuits are done, they might well have succeeded.  It's simply in their nature to do whatever they believe is necessary to further their agenda.  The belief in one's own moral superiority eventually erases the conscience.  After all, if one is morally superior to others, then no conscience is needed.  All actions and behaviors are acceptable because they're done in an effort to make the world a better place. [...] Just a few of the many screeds, rants, and tweets that have been issued since Election Day are evidence that the Democrats and progressive left feed on their moral narcissism.  They are convinced that their ideas are so righteous, their judgment so impeccable, their understanding so deep that anyone who disagrees with them must be cast aside, redeemed only after being re-educated.  Their moral narcissism is to be imposed on the rest of us by a moral authoritarianism.

The Coming Purge if Trump Loses.  [Scroll down]  Imagine if Trump had "a list", threatening those who opposed him?  The reality is far from it, as those who certainly deserve a reckoning, think Spygate, remain free, writing books, teaching, and bloviating on cable news shows.  It's the Democrats making lists.  Is this far-fetched?  I'm not suggesting half the country will be sent to a gulag or shot.  A hundred years after Stalin there are now nonviolent ways of purging opposition.  The administrative state, weaponized, can be a figurative gulag.  Look at what the Obama administration did to Trump via spygate.  Weaponizing the intelligence and justice departments against Trump, essentially putting Trump and his presidency into a bureaucratic gulag for most of his first term.  How many Trump supporters would face IRS audits?

The Left Threatens GOP: 'We Have a List' and You'll Never Work Again if You Helped Trump.  Former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden used the power of the office to spy on the media and political enemies, including, of course, Donald Trump.  Obama kept a disposition matrix, an assassination list.  And now the D.C. Left is trotting out a new list.  It goes something like this:  If you complain about potential voter fraud in the 2020 election, you'll never work in this town again and if you ever worked for Trump, you're through.

Your Name Might be on This Nazi-Like Democrat Website Collecting Lists of Trump Supporters.  Democrats have made a website dedicated to compiling lists of thousands of Donald Trump supporters who have donated to his presidency using fec.gov data.  The website claims the list is of "Americans that give money to support a racist".  An individual researcher had found that not only is the website compiling personal information of thousands of Trump supporters, but when accessing the website, it collects your browser data as well.

Dems Start 'Enemies List' to Go After People Who Supported Trump, Including Fed Judges He Appointed.  There are a lot of things to be concerned about if Joe Biden were to win the presidency. [...] Now that some on the left believe that the President has lost and Joe Biden has won, their true colors are coming out.  Not only do they want control information, they want to make you pay if you supported Trump.  Prominent leftists and media folks are talking about making an "enemies list" to go after people.  The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin called for making sure that Trump supporters not be allowed to work or accepted into "polite society."

Ocasio-Cortez Touts Secret List Targeting Trump Supporters For Retaliation.  There is no denying that the American left has become fully totalitarian as a result of the Democratic party's embrace of radical socialists and anti-Semites.  A prime example of the vicious element that has been growing increasingly powerful is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the taco bar revolutionary who in a twisted modern version of the classic fairy tale Cinderella, has become arguable the most powerful member of the Democrat Congress.  Since she burst onto the political scene in the summer of 2018, AOC has shown that she is a petty, vindictive, vicious and cruel person who lies without consequence and has a formidable Twitter mob that will rip any Dems who dare to question her to shreds.

AOC and other Dems' vows of vengeance on Trump supporters ensure a fanatical fight to the bitter end.  Since antiquity, military commanders leading expeditions have burned their boats so that nobody would be tempted to desert the battles ahead and head for the safety of home.  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, by calling for lists of Trump supporters to be compiled, has in effect burned the boats for those Republicans tempted to concede the presidential election and pledge their support to Biden, so that the media and Democrats (they imagine) will be kind to them. [...] While ominous, neither of these avengers specify what they have in mind for those who disagreed with them in a presidential election.  Others were not so shy.  Jennifer Rubin, who poses as a conservative op-ed writer for the Washington Post, wants a blacklist that would deny the opportunity to make a living to those who supported the incumbent Republican president.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Suggests 'Trump Sycophants' Should Be Held Accountable 'In The Future'.  Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested Friday that "Trump sycophants" should be held accountable for their "complicity in the future."  The recently reelected congresswoman tweeted asking whether anyone was keeping track of comments made by "Trump sycophants."  She was likely referring to supporters of President Donald Trump who are alleging that voter fraud is causing the president to fall behind 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.  Trump has not provided evidence that voter fraud is costing him the election.  "Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future," she asked.  "I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future."

Representative Ocasio-Cortez Requests Immediate Enemies List for Targeting After Biden Takes Office.  New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has requested the immediate assembly of a political enemies list so the far-left can target Trump supporters for elimination.  Not surprisingly former President Obama's data-assembly lead, Michael Simon, affirms the list is already being assembled.  Historically, the elimination of political opposition is a consistent approach by far-leftists who prefer to use ostracization, internment and ultimately extermination to avoid any further impediments upon their quest for ultimate control.  A reference is the Tea Party targeting list used by President Obama through the IRS.  A more recent reference was the call to action by President Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe.

Restaurants must collect diners' data under latest Gretchen Whitmer order.  Meals at Michigan restaurants came with a new side dish Monday:  What's your name and phone number?  The latest order kicked in from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's health department.  Restaurants must be able to contact customers if there's a virus case linked to the business.  Michigan's coronavirus cases have risen significantly, setting a new daily high Saturday at 3,792, the health department said.

The Editor says...
This means you can't anonymously buy a pizza, for example, with cash.  You must tell the State what you're doing and where you've been.

Desperate Minnesota Democrats Restrict Size Of Trump Rally.  In a clear sign that Democrats are starting to get nervous, Minnesota's top officials made a drastic move to interfere in the election by placing severe restrictions on the size of a planned rally by President Trump.  According to reports, the attendance for Trump's rally in Rochester has been downsized to a paltry 250 people after Democrat Governor Tim Walz and rabid socialist Attorney General Keith Ellison intervened.  Trump has made numerous trips to the battleground state hoping to capitalize on the public revulsion to the ransacking of Minneapolis this summer when the George Floyd video triggered a wave of violent riots and local Dems pushed to dismantle the police.  The rally was originally expected to draw up to 25,000 attendees before Walz and Ellison's power play which serves as another example of the exploitation of COVID-19 by authoritarian Democrats to abolish the right to free assembly.

The Editor says...
Overplaying the Covid card is even more tiresome than overplaying the race card.  There is no longer any doubt that Covid-19 is an all-purpose excuse for politically-motivated restrictions on the population as a whole, and Republicans in particular.

A New Round of COVID-19 Restrictions Drives Illinois Eateries to Rebellion.  With their survival on the line amidst a new round of government restrictions targeted at slowing the spread of COVID-19, many Illinois restaurants and bars are refusing to comply.  It's the sort of defiance that erupted during the early days of the pandemic, but more widespread and better organized by business owners who say they have nothing to lose, since their only other option is disaster.  This is a rebellion that could have been foreseen by anybody who understands how people necessarily respond when their backs are against the wall.  In fact, it was predicted, repeatedly.  That needs to be taken into account by government officials already imposing new lockdowns and poised to inflict yet more pain on a public growing increasingly unwilling to submit.  "Unless the state of Illinois takes a more reasonable approach to mitigation, thousands of restaurants are at risk of permanent closure," the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA) warned last week.

California's Gavin Newsom goes bonkers issuing Thanksgiving COVID orders.  For someone whose previous career was in San Francisco's trendy restaurant industry, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom has some bizarre ideas about why people gather; what a comfortable dining experience is; and how people, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, will do what they do.  Nope, he's got some weird stuff up, motivated, he says, by a supposed new wave of COVID: [...] Anyone with a lick of common sense knows that neither he nor his constituents are going to observe these ridiculous diktats on the country's biggest family holiday from the comfort of their own homes.  The arbitrariness of these regulations is incredible.  Two hours together?  Why not one point five hours instead?  Thousands of lives could be saved!

I'm Ready to Be Reeducated, Mr. Reich.  I volunteer to be the first guinea pig for Robert Reich's Truth and Reconciliation Commission during the period after the election in which he assumes a Biden victory. [...] I have several reasons I think I would be ideal for this task that I will get to in a minute, but first, for those who don't know or those whose memory is sketchy — it's already more than a week since Reich made his proposal — the former Clinton Labor Secretary wrote the following on Twitter, Oct. 17: "When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  It would erase Trump's lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe."

The American 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' Will Be Coming For You — If Trump Loses.  In South Africa, they called it a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission."  It was set up to deal with the horrific crimes of the Apartheid regime that countenanced murder, torture, and a denial of basic human rights. [...] Actually, the left itself has made a case against a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  Nothing Trump or his supporters and enablers have done rises to the level where a special tribunal is necessary.

Too many Democrats are creepily suggesting Trump voters should be jailed.  Trump voters beware: your ballot could get you jailed after January 20, 2021.  If Joe Biden wins the presidency, and takes the oath of office with one hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible (hopefully not Das Kapital or Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist), open season may be declared on any American morally obtuse enough to believe that 45 deserved four more years.  "Trump must be defeated ... and his enablers, and his supporters ... must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society," ranted the always hot-blooded Keith Olbermann.  The former MSNBC anchor traffics in caustic bombast, and this declaration was not very different from his usual huffy diatribes against Republicans.  But the notion of revenge is going mainstream.

Biden lectures us on character?  C'mon man!  There can no longer be any doubt that the Democrats put party before country, politics before ethics and virtue.  One only has to read Robert Reich or listen to his intellectual peer Keith Olbermann to know that the Democrat party has morphed into totalitarianism.  Democrats vow to punish their opponents if Biden is elected.  Reich recommends "truth and reconciliation" camps, taking his cue from South Africa.  How's that for tyranny?  It is well and truly frightening.  The left has been steering us in this direction for decades, and it must be stopped if America is to survive.

Dems Want a Day 1 Purge if Biden Wins.  Democrats accuse Republicans of the things they do themselves.  And then they use that to justify further abuses.  The Trump administration tolerated and incorporated quite a few Obama holdovers.  Those holdovers often responded by seeking to undermine, leak and sabotage the new administration and its policies.  Meanwhile the media waxed outraged over every attempt to root out the holdovers.  But now the Democrats think they're going to win and are happy to lay out plans for a purge of holdovers.

Michigan Barber Who Defied Shutdown Mandates Has Charges Dropped.  Karl Manke, a 78-year-old barber in Owosso, Michigan, who has been cutting hair for 59 years, can rest a little easier.  Charges for violating local health orders and defying Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's COVID mandates were dropped last Friday [10/16/2020].  Manke gained national attention and notoriety as a "folk hero" among many who saw that Whitmer's edicts went far beyond the law.  When she shut down the state initially, Manke complied.  But after she unilaterally extended her mandates beyond April 30 without gaining approval from the legislature to do so, Manke reopened his barbershop, saying at the time, "I feel the governor is not my mother, never has been."  When reminded that he was violating Whitmer's mandates, Manke said, "I could care less.  If they want to put me in jail, put me in jail. ... I will be governed ... but not ruled.  This is a police state action."

Don't Believe Your Lying Eyes — or Joe Biden's Big Mouth.  The move by Facebook and Twitter to censor a New York Post story about Joe Biden was Silicon Valley's version of an October surprise.  Since publication of a story last week alleging that Hunter Biden was introducing foreign business colleagues to his father, Twitter has kept locked the account of the 200-year-old newspaper until it deletes its tweets about its Biden reporting.  By removing the story from news feeds, locking the accounts of the Trump campaign and White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany, and prohibiting editors of the newspaper from sharing the piece even from their own accounts — actions taken without evidence anything in the story was false — the tech oligarchy signaled it was throwing its weight behind what it believes to be the coming Democratic order in Washington.  It also provided Americans with an authentically shocking snapshot of the type of "managed" society that we now inhabit.  In the new American system, large Silicon Valley corporations use their government-sanctioned and immensely profitable monopoly status to routinely censor information and libel anyone they please at the behest of unelected partisan verticals that have colonized large segments of the federal bureaucracy and security agencies.  As each corrupted interest rubber stamps each other's actions, power is removed from public hands and public view.

As Australia Turns Into Police State, Owners of These Toy Guns Must Register or Surrender Them.  For Australians, the coronavirus pandemic has revealed an entirely new side of their government that is not too pleasant.  Severe lockdowns have been forced on the people, and protests against the strict measures have been met with an overwhelming and hostile police response.  With the pandemic far from over, it doesn't look like the police state down under will be going away anytime soon.  Unfortunately for citizens who want to fight back when this tyranny finally crosses the line, they're out of luck.  Australia passed the National Firearms Agreement after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, a law which saw heavy restrictions placed on firearms.  Buybacks and voluntary surrenders of the newly illegal guns swept the nation as many rushed to hand over their weapons.

Democrats Don't Want to Build a Strong America They Can't Control.  When the government gets out of the way, the economy flourishes and real builders build.  That is what President Trump has been doing these past four years for businesses small and large — getting red tape and regulations out of their way so businesses can grow, hire more people, and pay them better wages.  He understands businesses and how to make them thrive.  The very opposite of what Democrats do and believe.  Democrats love to regulate.  It's what they live for.  They have never met a rule or regulation they didn't like.  They love taxes too.  They would like you to believe that the more taxes they impose on working people, rich people, and businesses, the better off everyone will be.  Unfortunately, that theory has been tried again and again throughout the history of the United States, and it has never worked — indeed, quite the opposite is true.  Higher taxes mean more unemployment, higher prices, and overall economic downturn.

More Melbourne Insanity:  Mom Arrested At Beach For Traveling "Outside Her Permitted 5km Radius".  We've previously detailed protests that have sprung up in various major cities across the Australian continent over authorities' ultra-restrictive coronavirus lockdown measures, which are especially stringent and far-reaching in the southeast state of Victoria.  There's been multiple instances caught on video of police cracking down on elderly people and even pregnant women for merely resting outside on park benches, supposedly in "violation" of coronavirus social distancing measures, even as case numbers have significantly dropped since August.  And now here's the latest incident to go viral as citizens flock to newly reopened beaches, after Victoria slightly relaxed some of its more severe lockdown restrictions: [...]

How Whitmer Plans to Circumvent MI Supreme Court's Lockdown Orders.  The Michigan State Supreme Court on Friday delivered a blow to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and her Wuhan coronavirus lockdown orders.  Whitmer was relying on the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act to lock the state down without legislative approval.  The high court, however, voted 4-3 saying Whitmer's moves were unconstitutional.  A separate law, the 1976 Emergency Management Act, also prevented Whitmer from extending her original shutdown orders without legislative approval.  That means that the lockdown should have expired on Apr. 30th, unless the state legislature decided to extend it.  "Our decision leaves open many avenues for the governor and Legislature to work together to address this challenge, and we hope that this will take place," Justice Stephen Markman wrote in the majority opinion.

Dangerous Talk From Stupid People.  [Scroll down]  Remember, when someone says he wants you dead, he wants you dead.  And the people who want you dead here in the USA intend to use the people you currently rely upon to keep you safe and secure as the means to do it.  It's actually quite cunning — if they can keep the cops, agents and soldiers in line.  We've already seen lots of cops putting pensions over honor as they hassle citizens for mask crimes.  The high-ranking Obama officer corps has already sold its collective soul for a handful of stars, and lots of colonels and generals would gleefully set their forces on uppity citizens — not rioters, but people like you — to please their Democrat masters.  When the Biden administration orders the cops and agents, and maybe soldiers, to imprison or kill gun owners, the uniformed flinkies will be expected to spill blood if necessary, because when you send government officials with weapons to enforce a law, whether to bust a guy peddling loose Marlboros or to confiscate AR15s, you have to assume that a certain number of those encounters will end with dead citizens.

Pritzker Is Keeping Illinois Locked Down Not For Health But For A Federal Bailout.  Having moved past the initial shock and panic due to the frightening presence of an unknown virus, we've learned much about SARS-CoV-2 and have accustomed ourselves to new social practices.  Across the country, state governors are lifting restrictions and encouraging commerce.  We're returning to work, opening our storefronts, and sending our children to school.  Most Americans are, anyway.  In Illinois, unfortunately, life hasn't changed much since spring.  Although hospitalizations and deaths in the state have remained flat since mid-June, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker refuses to fully reopen the state.  While much of the country returns to normal (more or less), he's reimposing and heightening restrictions.  Pritzker says his restrictions are based on science.  In reality, they're political calculations based on opportunism and election-year math.

Michigan Supreme Court rules against Whitmer on emergency powers.  The Michigan Supreme Court issued a split decision late Friday that ruled against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a battle over her power to extend emergency declarations used to mandate COVID-19 restrictions over the last five months.  The court's opinion throws into question dozens of orders issued by Whitmer related to the coronavirus pandemic, appearing to void them.  At the same time, however, since the decision came as a response to questions submitted to the court by a federal judge — and not as part of a state case before it — it wasn't immediately clear what would happen next or when it would take effect.  Whitmer issued a statement denouncing the decision.

Keywords: dictator, monarchy, tyrant.
October Surprise:  Michigan Governor Extends Her Executive Orders.  There has never been a person who has loved bypassing a State Legislature more than Governor Gretchen Whitmer.  I think she dreams of ways to bypass them and can't wait until the morning where she can excitedly run into her staffers with her crazy new idea.  On Tuesday [9/29/2020], Whitmer continued her odd balancing act of allowing the peasants to open stuff up while extending her overzealous control of the State and deciding that she and no one else should have a say in how the State is run. [...] Hopefully, the Michigan State Supreme Court will end this very soon.  They heard a case regarding the authority she is claiming she has in the Michigan Constitution to continuously do this on Sept 9th and a decision should be coming any day now.

People Are Arrested For Not Wearing A Mask During OUTDOOR Prayer Service In Moscow Idaho.  Three people have been arrested after an Idaho church held a psalm-singing event without masks in a city hall parking lot in violation of a town's mask order.  Christ Church pastor and event organizer Ben Zornes told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News that Wednesday's event in the community of Moscow was aimed at criticizing what he called a "largely groundless" mask order.  It was issued by the city council in an effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.  [Video clip]

Biden's Authoritarian America.  [Scroll down]  Under a Biden administration, we will see a colossal escalation in the scope and power of government, projected by authoritarian policies, many of which were put in place under President Obama. [...] Though Joe Biden presents himself as a moderate, his authoritarian policies betray a more radical, Progressive philosophy that is gradually undermining and replacing America's social, political, and economic fabric.  Biden's administration will have no limiting principle to restrain the growth of government power.  By further consolidating control, he will hasten the erosion of numerous constitutional rights, inching us closer to tyranny.

The canary in the constitutional mine is gasping.  Ten years ago, the Affordable Care Act tested the limits of federal powers.  The barely noticed federal takeover of student loans, the mandated purchase of health insurance from a limited list of insurers with a limited list of doctors were only the start.  The federally defined "essential" medical services were a road map for future government controls.  We are now living through the consequences of government deciding what activities are "essential" in the lives of normal, sentient human beings.  Some congresspersons and assorted social justice warriors are treating the Constitution like the COVID-susceptible residents of New York nursing homes:  expendable.  Or like the 26,000 dementia patients whose death was hastened by the isolation resulting from unscientific lockdowns. [...] COVID-19 provided a justification for abridging freedom of assembly and religious freedom.  Is openly professing one's faith not essential to our well-being?  Certainly, religious services where congregations can easily be instructed on safely participating in group worship presents less risk than sauntering through Walmart.

Will the Lockdowns Outlast the Coronavirus?  There is a popularly repeated regret that COVID-19 resulted in the shuttering of so many small businesses and in the loss by so many of jobs.  This rumor is false.  Coronavirus was not the disease that did such lasting damage to the economy of the United States; tyranny was.  Tyranny is a virus that once it develops in the body politic always spreads and infects all the members until the body is left lifeless or until the cure is deemed more traumatic than the disease itself.  After the arrival of the coronavirus, state legislators and governors across the union began issuing statutes and orders mandating that residents remain "quarantined" inside their homes and that businesses close up shop until the healthcare community could catch up to the predicted press of victims of the virus.  This was the so-called "flattening of the curve."  The curve was flattened, but the trajectory of tyranny was ever upward.

William Barr Speaks Truth to (Illegitimate) Power.  The attorney general, bucking the behavior of attorneys generally, displays all the emotion of a mortician, approaches an audience with the calm detachment of a psychiatrist, and speaks in the reading-room volume of a librarian.  His bearing rarely proves contagious.  "The person in the white coat is not the grand seer who can come up with the right decision for society.  A free people makes its decision through its elected representatives," Barr noted in a speech Wednesday [9/16/2020].  "Putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest," Barr explained.  "Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history."  He continued, "Most of the governors ... treat free citizens as babies that can't take responsibility for themselves and others."

Judge rules enough charges against socialist Seattle city council member for recall efforts to proceed.  A Seattle judge has given the green light for a recall petition seeking to remove a self-proclaimed socialist member of the city council to proceed in court.  King County Superior Court Judge Jim Rogers ruled Tuesday [9/15/2020] that the process may move forward to remove Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant from office, according to The Seattle Times.  Four of the six charges brought against Sawant were determined by Rogers to have met the standard allowing the recall process to proceed.

Email Records Show Democrat Nashville Mayor Hid COVID-19 Data To Intentionally Inflict Economic Hardship on Bars and Restaurants.  While the background story of data manipulation to intentionally inflict economic damage is stunning, the severity of the position of Nashville Democrat Mayor John Cooper is actually not a surprise.  It must be remembered this is the same Nashville Mayor who created COVID-19 internment camps to forcibly detain people in a quarantine camp at a fairground.  When one person jumped the fence to escape the police hunted him down and Nashville authorities charged him with "escaping a penal institution."  COVID-19 was criminalized.  Two months after the internment camp incident a non-domiciled Nashville citizen named Joseph Bryant (61) was arrested for refusing to wear a face mask outside.  His bail was set at $500 and he was incarcerated for not wearing a face mask.  So it doesn't come as a complete surprise to discover the same officials hid data showing low COVID-19 infection rates in order to inflict the maximum amount of economic pain on business owners.

The Editor says...
The mayor appears to be making the virus threat look worse than it is, in order to give himself more power.

US District Judge Stickman Rules PA Governor Wolf's Coronavirus Restrictions Unconstitutional.  Governor Tom Wolf's (D-PA) COVID-19 restrictions have been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.  The complaint was filed back on May 7, arguing that the governor's orders, limiting the size of gatherings, the stay-at-home order, and the closure of non-life-sustaining businesses, were unconstitutional.  The original complainants in the suit were the counties of Washington, Butler, Greene, and Fayette, (although the judge dismissed the county governments from the case), Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly, Republican State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, and various businesses including hair salons, a farmer's market vendor, a horse trainer, and drive-in movie theaters.  US District Judge William Stickman IV, ruled on Monday [9/14/2020] in a 66-page opinion that the restrictions were overreaching, arbitrary, and violated citizens' constitutional rights.

Why are Casinos Treated More Favorably than Churches During a Pandemic?  [Scroll down]  Consider the recent decisions of the Supreme Court to deny emergency relief to churches that have been subjected by states to restrictions that are more onerous than to casinos and other secular institutions and businesses.  The churches sought emergency relief under their First Amendment right of the free exercise of religion.  The Supreme Court, in two 5-4 decisions, has denied that relief, with the swing vote being cast by the deeply religious and strongly conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined the four liberal justices.  The other four conservative justices dissented in both cases.  The first amendment's approach to religion is anything but clear or simple.  It contains several relevant provisions:  it prohibits "an establishment of religion."  It also protects against laws "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion.  Finally, it guarantees "the right of the people peaceably to assemble," although that provision seems geared more to political than religious assemblies — a distinction that may be difficult to make in an age in which everything, including religion, is political.

AG William Barr:  Coronavirus Lockdowns 'Greatest Intrusion on Civil Liberties' Since Slavery.  Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday evening "other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint," coronavirus lockdowns were the "greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history."  Barr's comments came during a Constitution Day celebration at Hillsdale College, commemorating the date in 1789 when the Constitution was signed by the Framers in Philadelphia.  Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Barr has expressed alarm at the restrictions imposed by state authorities on First Amendment rights, particularly the freedom of religion.  In April, Barr's Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys to "be on the lookout for state and local directives that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens."  He explained that while there might be "reasonable and temporary restrictions" on some First Amendment rights for the sake of public health, they should not become an "overbearing infringement."

Biden says he may have authority to implement nat'l mask mandate.  Joe Biden has reiterated he will implement a national mask mandate if he's elected president this year.  During a news conference in Delaware, the Democrat presidential candidate said his legal team believes he has the authority to mandate mask wearing.  This came after he previously stated he's not sure whether that order would even be enforceable.  Biden claimed if he can't impose it, he will propose the mandate to every U.S. governor.  He added, "We must do it."

The Conservative Argument Against Mask Mandates is Stronger than the Media Pretends.  [Scroll down]  But it is not just the birth story of mask mandates which has created enormous distrust of them among a significant minority of the population.  There are several other substantive reasons for our resistance which have very little to do with just not wanting to deal with the hassle of wearing one.
  •   In order to justify the extraordinary step of the government forcing the universal use of a mask, the burden of proving that masks are so effective, and the emergency so dire, as to validate such an extreme action is very high.  Far higher, on both counts, than the data/evidence from this pandemic has so far substantiated.
  •   If the government can force you to wear a mask, under penalty of law, what exactly can't they, in this nation once founded on the concept of liberty from tyranny, make you do?
  •   What is the end date for this mandate?  If we are forced to wear them now when only slightly more are dying per day than at the height of flu season, why would this edict ever be lifted?
  •   Joe Biden's promise of a "federal mask mandate" if he is elected has been downplayed because it could not be technically enforced, but it would cause profound problems in large parts of the country.  Imagine being in a "red" state with no mandate but having the "federal mandate" hanging over everyone's head and giving every business, school, sporting event the moral authority to effectively make their own rules in a way which would likely cause chaos and division.

Federal Judge Rules Pennsylvania "Lock-Down Rules", and COVID Compliance Decrees, Unconstitutional.  A federal judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania had ruled that Governor Tom Wolfe's dictates, decrees and rules were/are unconstitutional restrictions on liberty.  U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV concluded the governor's stay at home orders, limits on gatherings and closure of "non life-sustaining" businesses violated citizens' Constitutional rights.  The judge was responding to a lawsuit brought by a group of Pennsylvania businesses.

Akron's Highland Tavern becomes first Ohio bar to have liquor license revoked for violating coronavirus health orders.  The Ohio Liquor Control Commission has revoked the liquor license of Akron's Highland Tavern in connection with three violations of the state's health orders to curb the spread of the coronavirus.  Highland Tavern, on West Market Street in the city's Highland Square neighborhood, has also received a fourth citation, for which the commission has not yet held a hearing.  The bar's liquor permit is set to be revoked effective at the close of business on Oct. 2, according to an order issued by the Liquor Control Commission.

Group tops 400K signatures to repeal Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's virus powers.  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, faced with lawsuits challenging her use of emergency powers to fight the coronavirus, could continue to prevail in court.  But she may be unable to stop a Republican maneuver that would rescind a 75-year-old law that has enabled her to issue and lift COVID-19 restrictions unilaterally.  A ballot drive said Friday it was in the "home stretch" after collecting more than 400,000 signatures in just two months.  Its goal is 500,000.

John MacArthur banned from holding church services AGAIN.  Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church have experienced yet another setback in their court case against the County of Los Angeles.  As most of you know, there's been a lot of back and forth between the government and GCC since JMac FINALLY decided to hold in-person church services after spending months calling on churches to submit to virtually any governmental official's stated declarations, per Romans 13.  Thankfully, Pastor MacArthur came around to take a stand and is now embroiled in a legal battle with the County of Los Angeles, which is attempting to strip churches of their Constitutional Right to worship God as they see fit without governmental interference.  On one hand, it's a positive sign to see a pietist like MacArthur now talking about defending our rights and liberty.  One the other hand, I wish that he would simply come out and explain how he came to this change in his theological understanding of Romans 13.

Judge Grants Injunction Barring Grace Community Church From Constitutional Right To Worship.  Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff of the Los Angeles Superior Court issued a preliminary injunction Thursday [9/10/2020] that prohibits Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church from "conducting, participating in, or attending any indoor worship services."  The ban also extends to services held outside "unless onerous restrictions are followed."  Since the church first began meeting in-person and defying local lockdown orders in July, Los Angeles County officials have threatened fines, arrest, and even terminated the lease held between the church and the county for parking lot space claiming health and safety concerns.

School district suspends student for attempting to come to school.  Officials at William Floyd High School in New York recently hit Maverick Stow, a 17-year-old student, with a five-day suspension for coming to school on a Tuesday in early September, a "designated remote learning day" for Stow.  The school district said Stow believed he should attend school in person five days a week, not four.  That's right, Stow was suspended for not skipping school.  To make matters worse, the student-criminal returned to school on the Wednesday [9/9/2020] and Thursday following his suspension and was promptly arrested by the Suffolk County Police Department for unlawfully entering school grounds.  Though the district said it agrees with Stow's view that in-person instruction should take place five days a week, it also said it was required to follow state social distancing regulations and labeled his actions as "irresponsible and selfish behavior."  And a "publicity stunt."  Huh?  State social distancing regulations allow students to attend school "in person" four days a week but not five?  Do the powers that be think trimming the number of students allowed on campus by 20% makes all the difference?

What are the Stakes?  This is an election like no other.  To treat it otherwise would be a grievous and perhaps irreparable misstep. [...] Currently, the ruling classes mostly disenfranchise undesirables through social opprobrium, labeling them "deplorable" and letting their attack dogs in the media do the rest.  But in the Obama era, they began to belligerently "weaponize" the federal government, using the IRS and intelligence agencies to thwart their political opponents.  If granted control of the White House again, the lesson they will draw from defeating Trump is not only that they will not be held accountable for such tactics, but that such tactics work.  They will use government agencies to kneecap their enemies in every conceivable fashion.  Those are the stakes.

Anthony Fauci, the great 'humanist,' sets U.S. sailing on globalist, anti-freedom course.  National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, along with his agency colleague, the epidemiologist David Morens, warned in a report in the science journal Cell that if humans don't make significant changes in all activities, that more diseases — more terrible health issues like COVID-19 — will soon come.  Beware this report.  It's a globalist dream come true, a real treatise for elites to control nearly every facet of human activity, human life, human freedoms. [...] It's called "Emerging Pandemic Diseases:  How We Got to COVID-19," and it's presented as a scientific look at why we're where we are today with the coronavirus, and more importantly, what we can do to keep from facing such dramatic disease-tied devastations in the future.  But a better title might be, "How to Take Over the World, One Medical Fear At a Time."

The Coming Coup?  Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes.  As if 2020 were not insane enough already, we now have Democrats and their ruling class masters openly talking about staging a coup.  You might have missed it, what with the riots, lockdowns and other daily mayhem we're forced to endure in this, the most wretched year of my lifetime.  But it's happening.  It started with the military brass quietly indicating that the troops should not follow a presidential order.  They were bolstered by many former generals — including President Trump's own first Secretary of Defense — who stated openly what the brass would only hint at.  Then, as nationwide riots really got rolling in early June, the sitting Secretary of Defense himself all but publicly told the president not to invoke the Insurrection Act.

COVID-19 Power Trips of Leftist Politicians, Teachers Unions Must Stop.  The COVID-19 pandemic has brought out political power trips like America has never seen before.  Governors and mayors have seized "emergency powers" that effectively shut down our economic engine and social culture.  Never before had Americans seen the day when they would be told they couldn't open for business, attend worship services, hold weddings or funerals, or send their children back to school.  Americans never anticipated they'd be forced to wear facial coverings if they so much as left their homes. [...] Many of these edicts are obvious political power grabs in order to keep people uncomfortable and inconvenienced, in hopes of affecting the November elections, but they will have destructive consequences we haven't yet fully realized and can't even anticipate.

NYC Restaurants File $2 Billion Suit Against Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Bill De Blasio.  New York City restaurants have had enough.  Even as restaurants across the state have reopened for limited indoor seating, the Big Apple remains limited to only patio dining.  Now, as fall approaches and cool weather returns to the city, restaurateurs are demanding action from Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.  A lawsuit filed last week in NYC lists Il Bacco Restaurant in Queens as the primary plaintiff in the suit that is seeking $2 billion in damages for their business and similarly affected businesses in NYC.  The lawsuit seeks repayment from Cuomo, de Blasio, the Office of the Attorney General of New York, and the city itself.  More than 350 NYC restaurants have signed on to the class-action suit.

Democrats Mistake Orwell's 'Animal Farm' for Instruction Manual.  [Scroll down]  However this worldwide hysteria was launched, its effects are now clearly observable all around us.  Just last night I was horrified to see a video of a young girl in Australia being choked by a police officer during her arrest for the crime of not wearing a mask in public.  We have all been treated for the past several months to the videos of police officers and sheriffs, or city employees sent by these Democratic politicians to
  [#1]   Arrest a solitary man jogging on a beach, or surfing in the ocean.
  [#2]   Arrest a mother pushing her child on a swing set in a park
  [#3]   Weld shut the gates of a park so no one could enter
  [#4]   Arrest hairdressers and other business owners who defied shut down orders.
None of these radical Democratic mayors and governors campaigned on engaging in this kind of behavior. [...] They all hid their true nature until they were established in office.  Had they revealed they would engage in this kind of tyrannical behavior while they were candidates, none of them would have been elected.

If the Vaccine Comes and You are Still Wearing a Face Mask, You're in for a World of Pain.  For twenty years, the average and above-average American alike have been laying in bed, ever since those planes hit the World Trade Center and government said "Go to your room.  We're in charge now."  It can be no surprise that some muscles have since atrophied.  The emergency they said they were handling never came to an end.  The terror alerts never stopped.  Some people never stopped talking about them.  To this day, I don't know what those terror alerts mean or why they matter, and not for the life of me do I care.  People have tried to explain it to me, perhaps not realizing that I stopped listening to them about twenty seconds before they started explaining, right around the moment where their tonality shifted away from the "I-am-telling-you-something-sincere-or-original" voice to the "I-am-now-delivering-a-preprogrammed-message" voice.  We still have alerts.  We still have security at airports that touch passengers' private parts "for the safety of all."

Charlie Baker should become a Democrat and stop kidding himself.  Why doesn't Gov. Charlie Baker just get it over with and switch parties and become a Democrat?  By the numbers, he's the worst governor in America.  Highest unemployment rate in the U.S.:  16.1%.  Third-highest death rate in the U.S.:  131 per 100,000.  Of the 8,791 deaths in Massachusetts, 5,781 have been in the nursing homes the governor is responsible for keeping safe.  And the nursing-home slaughter continues unabated — 26 of the last 36 deaths this week have occurred in those same death houses whose operators gave $52,000 to the governor Joe Biden calls "Charlie Parker."  Average age of Massachusetts decedents:  85.  Charlie Parker's prescription?  Pinball machines (but not casinos) shut down, no high-school athletics.  And now his latest overreach — mandatory flu shots for most children over the age of six months.  No hearings, no legislation, no expiration date — just another imperious, tyrannical order, to be enforced selectively against any parent who gets out of line and needs to be slapped down, like a gym owner who wants to reopen.

South Bay Baptist Pastor Fined for Violating Ban on Indoor Church Services.  A Santa Clara pastor posted a video this week after being slapped with $10,000 in fines for violating the health order.  "This is not a hot spot, we were told that thousands were going to die," said North Valley Baptist Church pastor Jack Trieber.  "There's not a pandemic here."  In the nine-minute video, Trieber uses the county's death rate to justify opening his doors to his congregation.  As of Thursday, the county reported 16,607 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 240 deaths.  Trieber was fined $5,000 twice over the weekend for holding indoor services and singing, which are both against the state's order.  According to the Mercury News, the pastor was fined another $5,000 on Wednesday for, once again, holding indoor services.

Having a party is a crime now?
TikTok celebrities criminally charged after LA house parties.  TikTok celebrities Bryce Hall and Blake Gray are facing criminal charges after they hosted recent parties in the Hollywood Hills despite the city's ban on large gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said Friday [8/28/2020].  The Los Angeles city attorney's office filed misdemeanor charges Thursday against Hall and Gray.  The internet celebrities with millions of followers on TikTok share a home and allegedly held two parties less than a week apart.

America's Woke Red Guards Enforcing Goodthink by Harassing D.C. Restaurants Patrons.  I'm really excited about the new woke America and how everyone is pitching in to help bring truth, justice, and almost the American way to life.  Of course, if you don't pitch in to help, that's something of a problem.  But never fear, our very own version of the Chinese Red Guards are on the job and will ensure that those who are hesitant at giving their full support to the movement will be dealt with severely. [...] Goodthink is a state of mind.  And it's really not that hard to achieve.  Just sit down, shut up, cheer when you're told to cheer, boo when you're told to boo.  And most importantly, do what you're told.

Oregon Business Owner Says State Forces Him to Discriminate Against Certain Customers, Levies Huge Fine.  The only pharmacy in a sparsely populated Oregon county has come under scrutiny by the state's Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) for failing to enforce mask regulations on customers.  The owners are now speaking out, saying that the State of Oregon is requiring them to discriminate against the large number of customers they serve who also have disabilities.  In addition, OSHA has slapped them with $10,000 in fines.

Americans Must Oppose the Tyranny That Is Rapidly Spreading Across US.  As Adolf Hitler rose to power, he took control of churches, shut down businesses, encouraged neighbors to report each other, and created a public surveillance operation system.  If these actions sound familiar, they should.  Public officials and bureaucrats are now putting their own tyranny on full display, using the COVID-19 crisis to impose similar draconian tactics in the United States.  While Maryland officials keep the state in lockdown, they are encouraging citizens not only to snitch on one another for breaking "prevention guidelines," but they are allowed to do so anonymously!  The Maryland Emergency Management Agency, State Police, and Department of Health announced a "COVID Prevention Line" available 24 hours a day as well as an email address where citizens can "report situations of concern where prevention guidelines are being ignored and the potential for the spread of COVID-19 is high."  Reports will be followed up with a visit from the health department or law enforcement.  Since July 2, nearly 40 Anne Arundel County businesses and restaurants have received citations, including my church.  After an anonymous reporting on August 11, a female employee from the Anne Arundel County Department of Health showed up at our Sunday morning service.  The health official presented our associate pastor with a citation and an "Order for Immediate Compliance."

Governor Cuomo Bans Dancing.  Governor Cuomo has become Reverend Shaw Moore from the movie Footloose after issuing a new set of commands for New Yorkers that includes a ban on dancing.  This is not a joke. [...] ["]There is no dancing allowed in New York's bars and restaurants, even at a wedding reception, according to the New York State Liquor Authority.  To control the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's liquor authority has also specifically banned darts, pool, cornhole, karaoke and exotic dancing.["]  Bar owners are already struggling to stay open after being shut down for months.  The new rules are causing a lot of anxiety as business owners are being threatened with their licensing if they don't comply.

Utah Students Who Are Caught Without Masks In School May Be Hit With Criminal Charges, Even Kindergartners.  Students in Utah who are as young as being in kindergarten may be hit with criminal charges if they are caught not wearing a mask in school amidst the coronavirus pandemic.  The office of Republican Governor Gary Herbert reportedly confirmed the potential for K-12 students and staff getting misdemeanors for violating the mask mandate, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.  However, spokeswoman Anna Lehnardt added that it will be up to the schools whether to press charges, which are anticipated to be rarities.  "It's enforced on a district and superintendent level," she added.  "But we're not thinking, 'Let's slap a bunch of kids with misdemeanors.'"  This comes one month after Herbert issued a mask mandate for public schools.  Violators of the mandate can be punished with sentences of up to six months in jail and fines of up to $1,000, which is the same as a first offense for driving drunk.

The Editor says...
What exactly is the name of the law they are allegedly violating?  Disturbing the peace?  Disorderly conduct?  No matter what law the government chooses to criminally prosecute the refusal of a healthy person to wear a mask, it's bound to be thrown out on appeal.

Virginia Health Commissioner says he'll mandate a COVID-19 vaccine.  State Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver told [WRIC] on Friday [8/21/2020] that he plans to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for Virginians once one is made available to the public.  Virginia state law gives the Commissioner of Health the authority to mandate immediate immunizations during a public health crisis if a vaccine is available.  Health officials say an immunization could be released as early as 2021.  Dr. Oliver says that, as long as he is still the Health Commissioner, he intends to mandate the coronavirus vaccine.

Democrats Have Proven They are Unworthy of Power.  If a person or entity has proven to be abusive or irresponsible with power, then it is the duty of the people, while freedom still prevails, to resist and to ensure that such a person or entity is never entrusted with such power ever again or, at least until they have regained the confidence of the people.  Such is the case with today's Democrat party. [...] In six months, with the pandemic and nationwide riots, Democrat leaders have revealed that their natural penchant is not for freedom, but tyranny.  The past six months have shown that we are long past the days of mere policy differences between the two political parties.  Now our battle is against Democrats, a party that has been usurped by the radical left, is literally for the preservation of America as founded.  This election is about whether America will remain a light of liberty or descend into the darkness of Soviet-style communism with elements of Nazism.  This is not hyperbole.

Child well-being check initiative withdrawn after uproar in Tennessee.  The Tennessee Department of Education has withdrawn a $1 million initiative to conduct well-being checks for all children in Tennessee from birth to age 18 after the program sparked uproar this week, with critics calling it a big-brother government overreach.  Gov. Bill Lee and Education Commissioner Dr. Penny Schwinn released the Child Wellbeing Check Toolkit during a news conference Tuesday.  As originally published, the initiative recommended well-being checks for all children in the state to verify well-being as school closures have left gaps for nutrition, health, and abuse reporting services amid the coronavirus pandemic.  Guidelines for the initiative were a collaborative effort of the 38-member Child Wellbeing Task Force, created by Lee in June in response to the pandemic.

Kamala Harris Is Far Worse Than Hillary Clinton.  Kamala Harris laughed uproariously at Joe Biden's suggestion that a president is constrained by the Constitution from ruling by executive fiat.  This clip ought to nauseate any constitutionalist:  Even Hillary Clinton would not have gone so far as to treat the Constitution as a joke.  Harris, moreover, has the most extreme position on abortion imaginable.  And when an undercover journalist, David Daleiden, made the abortion lobby look bad by accurately exposing the inner doings of Planned Parenthood executives, she brought the full force of the state down on his head, raiding his home and launching a vendetta that would result in nine felony charges against him.  Former Obama speechwriter and leftist pundit Jon Favreau calls it "hilarious" that anyone thinks Harris is a moderate because "she has one of the most liberal records in the U.S. Senate."

Wisconsin Forces Employees to Wear Masks at Home Alone During Zoom Meetings.  Wisconsin's state government is forcing government employees to wear masks while at home alone during Zoom meetings. [...] Even if you are in your own home alone (not that that should matter), the fascist Democrats who now run the Wisconsin state government are forcing employees to wear masks during online meetings.

Councilwoman Karen snaps, demands arrest of the unmasked.  A San Diego city councilmember heatedly criticized those not following social distancing mandates or wearing masks in Ocean Beach, urging authorities to arrest non-compliant people.  Covid is "the worst virus in the history of medicine," fumed Councilmember Jennifer Campbell in a press conference next to a popular beach park.  "The county sheriff should be here arresting people who are not wearing masks, who aren't distancing.  Behave or you're going to be in big trouble."

Los Angeles:  Why politicians' COVID bullying attacks will work.  Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has learned how to govern like a third-world dictator.  His threat to shut down the water and power to large house parties that violate the city's coronavirus guidelines is right out of the totalitarian government handbook. [...] Starting on Friday [8/7/2020], Mayor Garcetti announced that the city would shut off the power and water to houses, businesses, and other venues that violated the strict corona virus safety guidelines.  This is in response to a large house party that police attempted to shut down.  It turns out these parties are cropping up because the bars and nightclubs are closed as the city institutes greater restrictions as reported cases increase. [...] And it will work.  In the Third World, which is what many of these cities have come to resemble, practical and authoritarian solutions prevail, especially when there is no one to enforce the rule of law.

East Village Bar That Criticized Cuomo's Food Mandate Has Liquor License Suspended.  Abby Ehmann, the owner of East Village dive bar Lucky, has had her liquor license suspended a week after she started a petition calling for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reverse the state's new mandate that bars must serve substantial amounts of food with any alcohol purchase.  Ehmann says that two State Liquor Authority representatives visited the bar on Monday night at 8 p.m. to observe if the bar's eight customers had ordered food with their drinks.  After the visit, Ehmann received her first warning from the SLA on a piece of paper that did not list out the specific violations, she says.  Shortly afterward, and with no further warnings, Lucky's liquor license was suspended.  Neighborhood news site EV Grieve first reported on the suspension.

Federal Judge Rules Cuomo, De Blasio Exceeded Authority by Restricting Religious Services While Condoning Protests.  A federal judge on Friday [7/31/2020] ruled that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo violated the Constitution by restricting religious services to stem the spread of the coronavirus while simultaneously condoning mass protests that took place across the state.  U.S. District Judge Gary Sharpe granted a preliminary injunction blocking New York from enforcing its stringent coronavirus restrictions on religious services.  The state's current restrictions require houses of worship to operate at 25 percent capacity and later at 33 percent capacity when New York enters Phase Four of its re-opening plan.

Mayor Eric Garcetti Says DWP Will Shut Off Water And Power At Homes That Throw Large Parties.  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday [8/5/2020] announced the city was taking action against those who throw large parties.  He called recent gatherings of mostly young people in the Hollywood Hills and Calabasas "flagrant violations of health orders."  "While we have already closed all bars and nightclubs, these large house parties have essentially become nightclubs," said the mayor.  He then indicated he would hold them to similar scrutiny.  "The same thing we would do with businesses," said Garcetti.  If the LAPD responds to repeated complaints and verifies that there have been violations at a home, the city will within 48 hours have the DWP shut off service at that home.

The Editor says...
Who decides what a "large party" is?

NYC looks more like a terrorist country than a city in a free nation.  On Wednesday [8/5/2020], NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio announced travel checkpoints and fines for those who do not comply with NYC quarantine restrictions.  The new rules were on top of state restrictions on out of state travelers that visit New York.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo had expanded on the already vast restrictions applying to 35 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico.  If you fail to fill out the travel form that is required, you will be fined $2,000, just for landing in a NYC airport.  He announced random checkpoints to be established on the cities bridges and tunnels.  Suppose you break the rules, it is a $10,000 fine.  In his comments, De Blasio said this was not to punish people, but to help them understand the rules.  Just let that sink in a little bit.  Random checkpoints across NYC access points where they will determine if you are compliant or not.  Is this a free country?

States don't have the constitutional power to place travel bans on each other.  We are told that there is essentially nothing state officials can't do to our bodies and businesses in light of their "internal police powers" to somehow arrest an epidemic.  At the same time, those police powers seem to be missing in action as rioters loot, beat, vandalize, and block traffic with impunity.  Now, those internal police powers that seem so impotent and dormant are suddenly resurrected to regulate external affairs, such as interstate travel, with many states now placing travel bans or quarantine requirements on even healthy people from other states.  It's time to speak with one voice against this grossly unconstitutional trend.

A New Prohibition Is Silencing the Deplorables.  Due to the draconian responses to COVID-19, America has been seeing the temporary triumph of the new ax wielders.  A whole network of institutions that are the bedrock of neighborhoods are under attack, including shops, bars, pubs, restaurants, concert halls, movie theaters and churches.  Even some church choirs are silenced by a 'no singing' rule.  The smashers of neighborliness and camaraderie are, like Carrie Nation, doing so in the name of righteousness and the improvement of American's physical health — a principle that seems fair enough.  But if the health of Americans was truly the issue, there would not be so much arbitrariness and inconsistent application of rules and regulations.  The people who are under the laws of the new Prohibition can see the inconsistencies clearly.  It seems odd to them that COVID-19 virus is apparently far more active in churches, small businesses, and eateries, than it is in densely packed crowds of protestors whose righteous ideology apparently immunizes them from the virus's deleterious effects.

Democrats' Policies are Unfit for the Presidency.  The Constitution a president pledges to serve prescribes a government of strict limits, not the unlimited power to take what a person has earned and give it to other people for any desire under the sun.  One of the natural rights the Constitution is supposed to secure is to one's own property.  That's because what a person owns represents his life — his time and labor.  It can never be truly paid back after it is taken, because to take a person's property is to steal hours, days, weeks, years of his life that he will never get back.  It is to enslave him.  Democrats' entire plan for governance is a plan to abuse American citizens' natural rights to life, liberty, and property.  For health care or education or housing or any other material good to be a "right" requires that other people be forced into labor to supply such goods.  It is to proclaim a right to other people's work, which is to say their lives.  A right to control other people's lives is no right at all.  It is an abuse of power.  It is tyranny.  Pledges to accelerate tyranny, which equal treason against the Constitution, utterly disqualify a person and party from United States government.

The left isn't fighting against fascism.  Instead, they are fighting FOR authoritarianism.  [Thread reader]  They claim that their political message transcends the law; that it allows them to control cities; that it allows them to destroy property; that it justifies their designs on canceling heretics; that it permits them to block roads, create no-go zones for non-rioters, prosecute those who stand against them while themselves avoiding persecution.  Leftist-run cities have shown what happens when police and federal law enforcement are demonized and unsupported by elected leaders; when local leadership can seize "emergency powers" — then pick and choose who to punish:  rioters are exempt from lockdowns; you can sing in the streets but not in churches; masks are required, but not for them.  They can tell you what counts as a substantive meal, essentially holding businesses hostage to their arbitrary and incoherent edicts:  pot dispensaries and large warehouse stores can open; gyms and restaurants cannot.  They decide what hate is; what racism is; who is unclean; who is deserving of both punishment and reverence.  They presume to control and police every narrative, and in that way, control and police every person.

Police chiefs, sheriffs refuse to enforce mask mandates: 'You have the freedom to choose'.  Lang Holland, the chief of police in tiny Marshall, Arkansas, said he thinks the threat of the coronavirus has been overstated and only wears a face mask if he's inside a business that requires them.  He doesn't make his officers wear them either.

Michigan county treasurer rebuked for seizing retiree's home over $8 tax debt.  Officials in one Michigan county are demanding answers from their treasurer amid concerns that the county could be on the hook for millions of dollars in payments to former homeowners whose properties were seized under a tough forfeiture practice.  Oakland County commissioners sent an angry letter last week to Treasurer Andrew Meisner after the Michigan Supreme Court rebuked the county's decision to seize one homeowner's house after he underpaid his taxes by $8.41.  The commissioners said that they are forming a special investigative committee to look into the forfeiture practices and "make recommendations to protect the Oakland County taxpayers."

Roaming Mask Cops Writing Tickets for No Masks, Improper Wearing of Masks — 'We'll Arrest You Right Here'.  Another sad day for civil liberties in America — or what's left of it.  [Video clip]

Black Lives Matter v. Molon Labe.  Consider for a moment; we see mobs rampaging, demanding that white people take a knee in subservience and say "Black Lives Matter" to be "forgiven" for something in which they played no part — but this is not a thing that, once done, renders the supplicant absolved.  Those who prostrate themselves do not receive an "ally card" that indemnifies them from further humiliation.  George Orwell best described the never-ending nature of such demands:  ["]Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who's helpless.  If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.["]  And while the "boot stamping" is merely of the verbal variety right now, we have seen enough violence, intimidation, and even murder from these supposedly peaceful protesters to know that physical abuse is not too far away.

Chief Justice Roberts Votes Against Churches, Huckabee Calls On Him To Retire.  Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a supposed conservative and constitutionalist, has seemingly forgotten his oath.  In a stunning decision on Friday the chief justice sided with liberals yet again in keeping Nevada's churches, synagogues and mosques more limited than its casinos and movie theaters, CNN reported.  The decision brought scorn and consternations from the likes of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who called on Roberts to repent and retire.

Outdoor religious gatherings draw warnings and rebukes from health officials.  [T]he evangelical worship event took place on the sand near Lifeguard Tower 20 for the fourth Friday in a row, despite warnings that it was violating public health orders and permitting rules, officials said.  Its organizers estimate as many as 1,800 people attended for nearly two hours of musical performances, baptisms and prayers.  Days earlier, minister and musician Sean Feucht urged his fellow Christians to join him under the Sundial Bridge in Redding for a night of worship.

Americans kept from funerals, work, church fume over jammed demonstrations allowed in city streets.  A growing number of Americans concerned about continued coronavirus restrictions are questioning the need for such policies like business closures and mask mandates as tens of thousands gather in the streets around the country to demonstrate and protest.  Video clips from such gatherings, often involving thousands of mostly mask-less people, are replete on social media, drawing ire from Americans who are pushing for COVID restrictions to be lifted so that businesses can fully reopen, along with schools, sporting and concert venues, and others.  "It turns out you can attend church services in America.  As long as it's the church of social justice," tweeted journalist Barrett Wilson on Friday [7/24/2020], along with a Daily Caller video featuring scores of people in a tightly-packed crowd singing and holding candles.

Supreme Court (by 5-4 Vote) Declines to Exempt Nevada Churches from Gathering Size Limits.  From Justice Alito's dissent:  ["]The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion.  It says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack, to feed tokens into a slot machine, or to engage in any other game of chance.  But the Governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities.  Claiming virtually unbounded power to restrict constitutional rights during the COVID-19 pandemic, he has issued a directive that severely limits attendance at religious services.  A church, synagogue, or mosque, regardless of its size, may not admit more than 50 persons, but casinos and certain other favored facilities may admit 50% of their maximum occupancy — and in the case of gigantic Las Vegas casinos, this means that thousands of patrons are allowed.  That Nevada would discriminate in favor of the powerful gaming industry and its employees may not come as a surprise, but this Court's willingness to allow such discrimination is disappointing.  We have a duty to defend the Constitution, and even a public health emergency does not absolve us of that responsibility.["]

The Problem in Portland Isn't the Law — It's the Lawlessness.  Despite the occasional looting, chaos, property damage, trespassing, rioting, graffiti, assaults, arson, and general mayhem, the media consistently assure us that Antifa "protesters" are "largely peaceful." [...] As far as we know, cops haven't broken any laws in the streets of Portland.  The protesters who cover their faces have broken tons.  With this in mind, it's been instructive watching many of the same characters who cheer on governors who take undemocratic emergency powers and shut down houses of worship without the consent of the people — and who sometimes arrest Americans for playing whiffle ball, attending church, or cutting hair — act as if policing portends the end of democracy.  The same people who incessantly clamor to empower the federal government when it suits their purposes now act as if protecting a federal courthouse is the Reichstag fire.

The Prosecution Never Rests.  In our constitutional system of checks and balances, ambition counteracts ambition.  But what happens when prosecutors are the most ambitious of all? [...] Of course, there are many kinds of prosecutorial ambition.  Some might be ambitious for lucrative law-firm partnership seats, or judicial appointments; others might simply like sending a message to criminals that they are the toughest guy on the block.  And others — surely the vast majority — are simply ambitious to do the best possible job they can, using all the legal tools at their disposal.  But here is the problem: there are many tools — and few practical limits upon their use.  While a prosecutor can't put a defendant in jail without a judge, or a jury, or the defendant's own guilty plea, there remains much that he or she can do to secure such convictions or plea bargains, or at least to make the defendant feel the pain of the criminal process.

Here's what I saw in the first half of 2020.  You told us to shelter in place.  We sheltered in place.  You told us to wear masks and we wore masks.  You told us to practice social distancing so we did.  You blocked entrances to our grocery stores so we used the one that you left available to us.  Then you made rules about which way to point our carts down the grocery aisle so we complied with that.  Then you set up hotlines so that our neighbors could snitch on us if we didn't wear our masks, or if we got in our cars and headed somewhere that didn't look like "essential" work.  You got back total compliance.  Total.  The very few among us who protested mask-wearing or social-distance-practicing or any of your other weird stuff, were put into situations where someone else would force the correct behavior. [...] Herd immunity works.  Masks and social distancing don't work.  And you people who think you haven't been obeyed enough, have started a whole new epidemic.  You are scarier than the actual virus.  You're like straight out of a Twilight Zone episode.  One of the earlier ones, the cautionary tales about Cold War paranoia.  That's you.

Los Angeles mayor says city is 'on the brink' of declaring another stay-at-home order.  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday [7/19/2020] that Los Angeles is "on the brink" of another stay-at-home order.  Los Angeles County has seen a surge of cases recently, with new record high hospitalizations and infections.  The city has more than 150,000 cases.  "A lot of things went wrong," Garcetti said.  He pointed out that cases haven't increased as quickly in LA as in some cities, but said there is "no national leadership" in efforts to slow or stop the pandemic.  "It was politicized when it should have been unified."

The COVID Coup.  Panicked by fears manufactured by the ruling class, the American people assented to being put essentially under house arrest until further notice, effectively suspending the habits, preferences, and liberties that had defined our way of life.  Most Americans have suffered economic damage.  Many who do not enjoy protected status have had careers ended and been reduced to penury.  Social strains and suicides multiplied.  Forcibly deferring all manner of medical care is sure to impose needless suffering and death.  In sum, the lockdowns' medical and economic dysfunctions make for multiples of the deaths and miseries of the COVID-19 virus itself.  Bad judgments and usurpations — the scam, not the germs — define this disaster's dimensions. [...] In short, COVID-19 is not America's plague.  It did not shake America.  The ruling class shook it.  They have not done it ignorantly or by mistake.  They have done it to extort the general public's compliance with their agendas.  Their claim to speak on behalf of "science" is an attempt to avoid being held accountable for the enormous harm they are doing.  They continue doing it because they want to hang on to the power the panic has brought them.

Ohio County Creates Hotline for Neighbors to Report Non-Mask Wearers.  Cuyahoga County, Ohio, has rolled out a hotline for residents to snitch on those of their neighbors who do not wear masks, in line with an executive order by Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, mandating masks in public when "social distancing" is not possible.  County Executive Armond Budish made the announcement, telling the people of Cuyahoga that individuals who witness others not wearing a mask in public spaces should make complaints to the new hotline or file on a website titled "Mask Experience."  Once a complaint has been filed, county workers contact the subject of the complaint, whether it's an individual or business, to let them know.  The complaints are also forwarded to the Board of Health and the relevant village or city.  "This is not intended to be going out and finding people not wearing masks.  We want people to wear their masks....  We want people to do it voluntarily," Budish said.

Chicago threatens to bulldoze churches, lawyer says.  The lawyer representing two churches in Chicago fighting the city's coronavirus guidelines said he never thought he'd see the day when city leaders would threaten to bulldoze a church for allowing its congregation to worship.  That day has arrived.  Matt Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said Wednesday that churches that he represents have received letters from the city's Board of Health that declared them "public nuisances."

Comrade Cuomo Announces Visitors into New York Must Show Papers and Register With State or Face $2,000 Fine.  Comrade citizens, those who travel in the Northeast zone should beware, Minister Cuomo is going all-in with the COVID compliance mandates.  All travelers into New York from "high-COVID" states, must provide their papers upon arrival or face a summons and $2,000 fine.

The Wrong Governors.  [Scroll down]  The decisions of Cuomo, Whitmer, Newsom, and Murphy regarding the movement of infected patients from hospitals to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities might be the worst and most consequential of the crisis.  Whitmer made odd and difficult-to-justify decisions, including banning the purchase of seeds, and her husband apparently "jokes" about being exempt from state orders.  California's coronavirus-testing programs stumbled right out of the gate.  Murphy violated his own order on large gatherings.  Very little of this has affected the job-approval ratings of these governors — in part because only some portions of the media world are interested in the flaws of the records of these governors.  The others prefer to stick to their preselected happy narrative.

Cops Raid Mansion Of St. Louis Couple Who Defended Home From Protesters, Confiscate AR-15.  St. Louis authorities confiscated an AR-15 used by Mark McCloskey, who made headlines with his wife Patricia last month when they defended their historic mansion from protesters who had broken down a gate to trespass on their private road.  Police executed a search warrant Friday evening at the McCloskey's home, seizing the rifle used in the June 28 incident, according to KSDK. The couple said their attorney was in possession of the pistol Patricia McCloskey brandished during the confrontation.  The raid comes two weeks after St. Louis circuit attorney Kimberly Gardner vowed to work with the St. Louis Police Department to conduct an investigation into the incident.  According to the report, there are no charges against the McCloskeys at this time, as the warrant was just for the guns.

Missouri couple who defended home have rifle seized during police search: report.  Authorities in St. Louis executed a search warrant Friday evening [7/10/2020] at the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who made headlines last month when they took up arms to defend their home from protesters.  During the search, police seized the rifle that Mark McCloskey was shown holding during the June 28 incident, KSDK-TV of St. Louis reported, citing information from a source.  The couple claimed the pistol that Patricia McCloskey held during the June confrontation was already in the possession of their attorney, the station reported.

It Would Appear NBC Buried Some Key Details About Their Medical Expert's 'Coronavirus Battle'.  The George Floyd riots killed the lockdowns.  After weeks of being told to stay inside, the officer-involved death of Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 lead to the media forgetting about the virus.  Go out and protest was the message from liberal America, with the media excusing or defending the rioters.  For two weeks, not really a lot of COVID coverage and when the rioting began to subside, we needed to get back inside.  Yeah, not happening.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, one of the most insufferable clowns in office, issued an edict banning large crowd gatherings unless you're protesting in support of Black Lives Matter.  They don't even hide their hypocrisy anymore.  Well, over at NBC News, there was something they tried to hide as well regarding COVID, which is that one of their contributors who they peddled as having the virus... never had it.

Can We be Allowed to be Adults, Please?  We live in unprecedented times.  How often have you heard that phrase recently in the media or from the politicians?  So often, it's become cliché.  The problem is the media and the politicians have it all wrong.  We aren't living in unprecedented times because of the COVID-19 outbreak or even because of the rioting following the death of George Floyd.  We live in unprecedented times because the United States of America has never seen a time in its history where the people's basic rights and liberties have been taken from them so quickly and on a such a large scale without their consent or due process.  The really scary part?  We allowed it all to happen and to a large extent asked for it.  A large majority of the media is gleefully scaring [...] everyone with a daily death count and we eat it up.  Our states' Governors have decided that executive orders allow them to become little kings, in some cases little tyrants, in their respective states making law by fiat without the legislature's consent.  Worse, the legislatures have decided that is just fine with them and we complied without any resistance.  There seems to be no limit to the executive powers that governors can take for themselves.  All of this is done in the name of "protecting" us from a virus.

California's Governor Forbids Christians From Singing in Church Houses.  Golden State Christians have been ordered by California's governor to stop singing in church.  This is a direct assault on the First Amendment, [...] The new guidance for places of worship was issued on July 1.  "Discontinue singing (in rehearsals, services, etc.), chanting, and other practices and performances where there is increased likelihood for transmission from contaminated exhaled droplets.  Consider practicing these activities through alternative methods (such as internet streaming) that ensure individual congregation members perform these activities separately in their own homes," the 14-page order reads.  The previous guidelines only encouraged churches to "strongly consider" ending corporate worship, the Sacramento Bee reported.  The governor's office did not indicate how he intends to enforce the law.  Can you imagine the optics of National Guard troops storming into California church houses and arresting choir members for singing, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God"?

Newsom Bans Singing In Houses Of Worship After Downplaying Spread Of Coronavirus At Protests.  Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has issued new restrictions limiting the reopening of the economy in nearly 20 counties across the Golden State.  One of the more controversial measures introduced Thursday will ban singing and chanting at houses of worships, which are already restricted to allowing 25% of guests or just 100 worshippers (whichever is lower). The Sacramento Bee reported that in late May, Newsom simply encouraged houses of worship to "strongly consider discontinuing singing, group recitation, and other practices and performances."

Anthony Fauci:  The Consummate Unelected, Unaccountable, Technocrat.  One would have thought that the legal lockdowns were sufficiently restrictive.  But once power has been tasted, the human tendency is to grab for ever greater control.  Soon, media pundits and politicians began to refer ominously to a less vibrant, prosperous, and free "new normal."  Flattening the curve quickly metamorphosed from a temporary measure to save hospitals into a permanent effort to prevent anyone from getting sick.  "Experts," such as the bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel — a prime architect of the Affordable Care Act — told us with presumed authority, that we could not return to the way things were until a vaccine was developed, a time Emanuel estimated to be potentially as long as 18 months.  Justifying seizing greater control under the mantra, "if it saves just one life," some of our most influential experts began pounding the drum to make a future COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for everyone.  A committee of the New York Bar Association urged the organization to support legislation toward that end.  Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz went so far as to tell an interviewer that "the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor's office and plunge a needle into your arm."

Judge Nukes Ill.  Lockdown:  Pritzker 'Had No Authority' to Restrict Movement and Close Businesses.  Illinois Circuit Court Judge Mike McHaney ruled on Thursday that Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois had no lawful authority to declare endless disasters past the initial thirty days.  Ruling on a lawsuit filed by State House Rep. Darren Bailey (R-Ill.), Judge McHaney wrote, "The court declares that Defendant had no constitutional authority as Governor to restrict a citizen's movement or activities and/or forcibly close business premises in EO 32."  Bailey's lawsuit alleged that the governor had abused his powers and overstepped his authority by ordering Illinoisans to stay home and shutter their businesses because of COVID-19.

Third Reich Redux.  Major media, government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, and politicians have pressured Americans to follow onerous lockdown orders put out by governors, such as ones from Michigan that both "prohibit in-person work that is not necessary to sustain or protect life" yet allow liquor stores to remain open.  Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued edicts seemingly as whims struck her: allowing hardware stores to open yet not allowing large department stores to sell hardware supplies, allowing kayaking while not allowing boating in motorized boats, and encouraging food delivery but not allowing furniture delivery.  For the most part, those on the ideological left have strongly supported the mandates — in words, at least, if not always in deeds — while those on the right supported precautions so that people could make up their own minds about how to respond to the disease and railed against mandatory lockdowns wherein government chose workplace winners and losers.

Want to Kill the Economy Again?  Keep Threatening More Lockdowns.  The first time governments imposed business closures in the name of fighting the spread of COVID-19, the job market imploded. [...] It remains to be seen if the country even began anything that could realistically be called a "recovery" in June.  After all, new unemployment claims were still at over a million new applicants according to the most recent data.  That's still off-the-charts bad.  Nonetheless, we continue to hear about how, any day now, we'll see evidence of a "V-shaped recovery" in which jobs and economic growth will come roaring back.  But now we're already seeing governments — by which I mean a small cadre of governors and unelected bureaucrats who currently rule by decree — announcing another round of business closures and ongoing government regulations that micromanage every aspect of a business's daily interactions with customers.

The Coming Collapse of the Republic.  [Scroll down]  Democrat presidential sock puppet Joe Biden, echoing the man whose name he couldn't recall a while back (because echoes are all he has left), not long ago said we had to "fundamentally" change America.  But that fundamental change has already occurred.  Does the 2020 U.S. even remotely resemble its few-generations-back former self?  So the question isn't what's coming, but this:  Will you be ready?  When leftists take full political control federally, they'll mercilessly impose their agenda as they always do.  If you have no idea what that agenda is, you're likely not reading this.  But do know that it will be effected no-holds-barred.  For not only is there the critical-mass factor, but Machiavellian leftists have convinced their useful idiots, projecting all the way, that conservatives constitute a hateful, "racist," fascistic, White Supremacist™ threat to civilization.  They thus have an ideal pretext for iron-fistedly crushing opponents.

Stop Making Sense.  [Scroll down]  It's not about making sense.  It never was.  It's about making you kneel.  If you look at everything that is going on, the one common denominator is that every action the woke insurgents take is designed to strip you of your ability to defend your interests, or property, or rights, or life.  The idea is to leave you utterly vulnerable, totally exposed, at which point they can do with you as they see fit.  The nicer ones will merely reeducate you then demand humiliating submission and tribute.  History (and their social media feed) teach that others will happily murder you.  Doubt me?  Just ask your local kulak.  Stripping you of defenses takes many forms.  One form is defunding and abolishing the police.  Oh, someone will be wielding force in society.  It just won't be people accountable to or inclined to protect you.  Another form is literally stripping you of your defenses.  Why is gun control such a fetish for these creeps?  Because you with a gun have the ability to not just say "no" but to exact a price from those who wish to compel a "yes."  So, of course, they want to eliminate your ability to have weapons, but they also want to eliminate, as a practical matter, your ability to use them to protect yourself.

Suburban NYC County Uses Subpoenas as People Resist Contact Tracing.  Officials in Rockland County, New York, say they will have no choice but to issue subpoenas to get people to talk to contact tracers trying to combat the spread of coronavirus.  Local NBC affiliate NYC Channel 4 reports that health officials are looking into at least eight COVID-19 cases in the county that likely are the result of a large party held earlier this month.  But the county is running into a problem: people are not cooperating with contact tracers.  In order to force people to speak to contact tracers, the county says it plans to issue subpoenas.  It won't be the first time, either.  Rockland County issued subpoenas during a measles outbreak several years ago.

Are Americans a Pride of Lions or a Herd of Cattle?  Democrats are using COVID19 to purposely turn Americans into a herd of cattle that can be easily controlled through fear and subtle intimidation tactics.  Governor Cooper just announced he is keeping the State in phase 2 lockdown and is still refusing to allow gyms and bars to reopen.  In addition he is trying to get all of us to wear masks outside if we cannot guarantee the 6 ft. recommended distancing.  Let us look at the facts about the virus. [...] The actual virus death rate nationally is about 5%.  In North Carolina the numbers are similar yet better.  There have confirmed approximately 56,500 people to have the disease.  Yet the Death rate is just over 1300 or a rate of about 2.3%.  In New Hanover County there are 611 confirmed cases with 5 deaths or a rate of .008%. [...] Kids need to go back to school or we will never end this virus lock up.

Mask Wars.  As states begin to reopen and America tries to recreate normalcy, masks have replaced social distancing as the new moral statement.  Just as adherence to lockdowns was framed by many as a sign of virtue — with some arguing that those who refused to abide by the lockdown orders should forfeit medical care for Covid-related indications — masks have become a face-borne signal of righteousness.  As a virologist, I find this perplexing, considering the limited evidence in favor of masks.  More than anything, the scientific rationale behind masks appears to be that wearing them does little harm. [...]The viral particles that spread Covid-19 are tiny bundles of proteins and nucleic acids, about 0.1 micron in size — or one hundred-thousandth of a centimeter.  The CDC generously describes the evidence in favor of cloth face masks' efficacy as "emerging," but by the standards we use to assess clinical interventions, the efficacy of masks, especially nonsurgical masks, is undetermined.

The Editor says...
Okay, for the moment, let us agree that wearing a mask "does little harm."  The harm comes from forcing or coercing people to wear masks when those people don't feel it is necessary.  My local grocery store won't let me in without a face mask now, so I shop in another county!  It's a 25 minute drive to my new grocery store.  But I won't wear a mask just because some downtown bureaucrat tells me to, because I am not sick, and I am not afraid.  Now that July is here, masks are not about protecting public health.  Now it's all about making everyone comply and conform to whatever mandate comes forth from the government.  If the little tyrants discover they can demand that you wear a face mask, and then you actually do it, the next step is mandatory vaccinations, followed by mandatory RFID chips, followed by the day (which, I assure you, will definitely arrive) when one can no longer buy or sell without the right credentials.  These incremental changes don't come and go.  They are irreversible.  You set a precedent by complying to the mask order, and you've lost a little more of your freedom.

Covid-19 pandemic is 'fire drill' for effects of climate crisis, says UN official.  The coronavirus pandemic is "just a fire drill" for what is likely to follow from the climate crisis, and the protests over racial injustice around the world show the need to tie together social equality, environmental sustainability and health, the UN's sustainable business chief has said.  "The overall problem is that we are not sustainable in the ways we are living and producing on the planet today," said Lise Kingo, the executive director of the UN Global Compact, under which businesses sign up to principles of environmental protection and social justice.  "The only way forward is to create a world that leaves no one behind."  She said there were "very, very clear connections" between the Covid-19 and climate crises, and the Black Lives Matter protests around the world, which she said had helped to reveal deep-seated inequalities and "endemic and structural racism".

The Editor says...
This pandemic, or the next big scare (whatever it may be) has nothing to do with global warming, racism, 5G cellphones, Civil War statues, polar bears, or same-sex wedding cakes.  It's all about control.

Wisconsin small-business owner denied coronavirus relief funds after attending lockdown protest.  A small business owner in Wisconsin was denied coronavirus relief funds from the local government after he participated in a rally protesting statewide stay-at-home measures to combat the pandemic.  Dimple and Denis Navratil have owned Dimple's Fine Imports LLC in Racine, Wisconsin, for more than 20 years.  They applied twice for some of the $900,000 the city allocated to small businesses to help offset the financial burden of the health crisis, according to an investigation conducted by the Journal Times and published Sunday [6/28/2020].  Upon receiving his second denial, Denis Navratil was told by the city's mayor that his attendance at a rally in Madison on April 24 protesting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers's "Safer at Home" measures was used as a basis for his rejection.

If We Don't Act, 2% of the People Are About To Control the Other 98%.  There is now a small group of passionate people working hard to destroy our American way of life.  Treason and treachery are rampant and our rule of law and those law enforcement professionals who uphold our laws are under the gun more than at any time in our nation's history.  These passionate 2 percent appear to be winning.  Despite there being countless good people trying to come to grips with everything else on their plates, our silent majority (the indifferent) can no longer be silent.

Federal judge:  Cuomo and de Blasio can't limit the size of outdoor religious services if they didn't care about limiting the size of protests.  The subtext of the ruling, wrote Peter Spiliakos, is that "the NY state and city governments were treating left-wing protest as a de facto state religion and were discriminating against other faiths."  Gotta treat all creeds equally under the law.

Judge: New York State wrong to restrict religious gatherings while allowing protests.  A federal judge ruled on Friday that New York State is violating the First Amendment by restricting religious gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic while simultaneously allowing both much larger protests sparked by the death of George Floyd and the opening of other activities and businesses.  Senior U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpe, who was appointed by President George W. Bush and sits in Albany, issued a preliminary injunction that voids parts of an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo three months ago that included a fine against anyone who gathered in excess of set limits.

Joe Biden:  I Will Force Americans to Wear Masks in Public.  Former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday [6/25/2020] that he would compel Americans to wear masks in public if elected president.  In an interview with Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA, Biden said that he would use federal power to "mandate" masks.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo:  Police May Stop Cars with Out-of-State Plates to Enforce Quarantine.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) warned Wednesday that some out-of-state travelers to New York might be pulled over by police if they have license plates from states with high levels of the coronavirus.  Cuomo said that in addition to law enforcement, he would expect individuals such as hotel clerks and businesses in New York to question travelers from select states.

Counsel of the Woke.  For the first two months following the coronavirus outbreak, public-health experts insisted that we "follow the science" and implement their recommendations, even if it meant millions of lost jobs and significant restrictions on constitutionally protected activities, such as church attendance and freedom of assembly. [...] In hindsight, it's astonishing how quickly Americans ceded political authority to the public-health apparatus.  This isn't only antithetical to self-rule; it also accords constitutional protection to elite causes — and only elite causes.  Attending a Black Lives Matter protest is permissible.  Attending a church service is not.  Left unchecked, the progressive-scientific alliance will penetrate additional domains of life.  Whether it's "housing is healthcare," "harm reduction saves lives," or "antiracism is public health," slogans abound for subsuming science into politics.

Appeals court judges threaten 'contact tracing' for religious services.  The shutdowns mandated by government to minimize the spread of coronavirus have affected schools, stores, government buildings, sports, concerns and much, much more, including churches.  The conflict between the constitutional right to assemble and worship in churches and health officials' demands that people not gather in groups has been stark in many cases.  Dozens of fights have erupted as churches insist they have a constitutional right to exercise their religion, and government bureaucrats say no.  One prominent war over the issue has been going on in Illinois, where Gov. Jay Pritzker ordered no churches could have services involving more than 10 people, an order he later made a recommendation.

Whitmer extends Michigan's state of emergency through July 16.  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer extended Michigan's state of emergency Thursday through July 16 as a federal judge asked the state Supreme Court to clarify the governor's emergency powers.  The declaration, which was set to expire Friday, allows the Democratic governor continued authority to issue the executive orders that have created the framework for the state's coronavirus-restricted activity in recent months.  Whitmer's response to the pandemic has so far included 122 executive orders.  "The aggressive measures we took at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have worked to flatten the curve, but there is still more to be done to prevent a second wave," Whitmer said in a statement.

Federal judge asks Michigan Supreme Court to clarify Whitmer's emergency powers.  A federal judge asked the Michigan Supreme Court Thursday to clarify whether Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has the authority to continue issuing or renewing executive orders under either of the two state laws that govern her emergency powers.  The request came on the same day that Whitmer extended Michigan's state of emergency through July 16. [...] The federal and state lawsuits are seeking answers to whether state law allowed for the governor's emergency powers to continue after April 30, even without legislative approvals, and whether the emergency laws giving Whitmer virtually limitless authority violate the separation of powers between the governor and Legislature in Michigan's Constitution.

Americans Should Never Again Comply With Pandemic Lockdown Orders.  We're told a second wave of coronavirus infections is coming.  As businesses open back up and states relax lockdown orders, the number of new cases is ticking up in a handful of states.  We've heard warnings in recent days from the Centers for Disease Control and various public health experts and elected officials that a new series of lockdowns might be necessary.  What these experts and officials don't seem to realize is that Americans will never comply with their lockdown orders again.  They have burned their credibility to the ground, and they no longer have the moral authority to tell us what to do.  Simply put, the people in charge have shown themselves to be rank hypocrites who care more about politics than science.  For months, we were told that large gatherings were deadly because of the coronavirus, but when protests broke out in late May, large gatherings were suddenly okay.

Where are all the guns and ammo purchased under Obama?  During the last two years of the Obama administration, some unusual purchases were made.  Large quantities of ammunition were purchased, as were firearms, mostly for somewhat obscure agencies or agencies with no real need for such weaponry.  Estimates are that over 1 billion rounds of ammunition were ordered, which resulted in making ammunition scarce for the normal civilian market. [...] The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service spent $4.77 million purchasing shotguns, 7.62mm caliber rifles, night-vision goggles, propane cannons, liquid explosives, pyro supplies, buckshot, LP gas cannons, drones, remote-control helicopters, thermal cameras, military waterproof thermal infrared scopes and more.  The SBA loaded up their arsenals with Glock pistols.  The Fish folks spent approximately $410,000 on their Glocks and rifles and modified their Glocks with silencers.  The Department of Health and Human Services was outfitted with sophisticated weaponry normally carried by Special Forces, stored at an undisclosed location. [...] We now know that Obama and Holder set up selling guns to the Mexican drug cartels in what is known as Fast and Furious.  Perhaps it is high time that the president orders a detailed inventory and audit of these weapons and ammunition.  If anything is missing, where is it?  Also, has any of these weapons been used in any known crimes?

New York's 25,000 Lockdown Violations Give Me Hope for America.  If you are looking for hope in America, I give you Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) whining about "25,000 complaints of reopening violations" in his miserable, fascist state. [...] This is exactly what Americans all across the country should be doing, most especially in states like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina — any state where the Democrat governor treats you like a second-class citizen and left-wing protesters, rioters, looters, and arsonists like first-class citizens.  It is nothing short of obscene for these Democrat governors to lock everyone down for no valid scientific or moral reason, to gleefully destroy the livelihoods and small businesses of millions of Americans, while at the exact same time they allow, legitimize, and, in some cases, join these massive protests that violate every social distancing rule known to man.  Beyond obscene, it is also un-American and un-Constitutional.

When Will We Stand Up To The Tyrants Of Woke Conformity?  Those who speak outside the narrative established by a hard-left mob that has marched through our institutions are blacklisted.  If we fail to mount a forceful resistance, there's a grim future awaiting us.  We've seen this coming.  The casualty list has been growing for years.  The purge is now white hot.  What was a non-controversial statement last week is grounds for a death sentence tomorrow.  It seems every day we see someone caving in with a groveling apology, declaring they suddenly have a lot to learn, swearing they're looking forward to the moment they can meet with their hostage-takers and work toward a resolution that will appease them.

The Federal Reserve Has Its Own Police and Is Part of a Vast Surveillance Center — Should You Worry?  Without any Congressional hearings on the matter, the USA Patriot Act in 2001 bestowed on the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks domestic policing powers.  While the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. is deemed an "independent federal agency," with its Chair and Governors appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, the 12 regional Fed banks are private corporations owned by the member banks in their region.  As settled law under John L. Lewis v.  United States confirms:  "Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in its region."  In the case of the New York Fed, which is located in the Wall Street area of Manhattan, its largest shareowners are behemoth multinational banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.  So what the USA Patriot Act effectively did was to give multinational corporations domestic policing powers in New York City via the New York Fed.

Contact Tracing Is A Fiasco Rejected By Most Americans.  There were supposed to be armies.  Grand armies of contact tracers crisscrossing every county in the country on the hunt for the Chinese virus.  This was the key we were told to a safe reopening, they have been telling us this since back when they still told us not to wear masks.  Soldiers in this army would interview anyone who tested positive and track down the people they spent time with.  Supposedly serious people with TV shows and everything said with straight faces that we might need 100,000 contact tracers, maybe more, maybe everyone needs to be a contact tracer.  In New York, Michael Bloomberg stepped out of ubiquitous presidential ads (remember that?) right into being charged with leading the new public health Manhattan Project.  The result looks more like a middling 4th grade science fair entry.  Oregon reported last week that that the state has no idea how many contact tracers it has in the field.  In New York, several upstate counties are opting out of the program because their own local policies work better for them.  Meanwhile in Gotham, Mayor Bill de Blasio betrayed the deeply unserious nature of his tracing efforts by telling his tracers not to ask if people who test positive had been at a political protest.

The Left's Premature Revolution.  Over the previous three months the nation has been racked with the economic and societal fallout of a lockdown indiscriminately and oftentimes incoherently enforced by various Democrat, thus left-wing, governors and mayors.  All sectors of the citizenry have been adversely affected, but those living in red states have been extraordinarily victimized.  Thus, an ever-growing percentage of the populace is being made aware of not only the mindset of left-wing politicians but the true-life consequences of their guiding philosophy.  After experiencing the devastating economic and societal costs of the lockdown, the bulk of the citizenry is not reacting well to the demands of the left and their militant army as they fan the flames of destruction and beat the drum of obligatory Marxist based fundamental transformation as the only means of curing so-called systemic racism.

If it's OK to protest, how can you ban funerals?  This week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had big news — the city is opening up its iconic Lakefront Trail after months of closing it off as part of a COVID-19 lockdown.  That Lightfoot kept the trail closed even after Chicago had experienced large-scale Black Lives Matter marches — thousands just last weekend during the "Drag March for Change" — is one small instance of the flagrant social-distancing hypocrisy across the country in recent weeks.  If it's OK for throngs of people to pack the streets and shout and chant to protest the death of George Floyd, it also ought to be permissible for someone to ride a bike along the lakeside while keeping to himself or herself.

Police Search Home After Teachers See 11-Year-Old's BB Gun Hanging on Wall During Virtual Classroom.  After schools and businesses across the country shut down in February and March in an attempt to stop the spread of Wuhan coronavirus, millions of office workers, parents, students, and teachers were forced to quickly become familiar with virtual meeting technologies such as Zoom and Google hangouts as school districts transitioned to virtual learning environments. [...] In the world of virtual school, however, there's a very risky flip side to that window into someone else's home, as Baltimore mom Courtney Lancaster found out.  Lancaster's son, a 5th grader and Boy Scout who's conscientiously working toward the rank of Eagle Scout, has taken three levels of archery classes and learned to shoot Airsoft and BB guns/rifles.  His archery equipment and Airsoft and BB guns/rifles are stored in his room on a pegboard.  After his BB gun was spotted during a recent virtual school meeting, a screenshot was taken and sent to the school safety officer with a concern that the "weapon was not secured," the school safety officer contacted police, and police "felt a home visit was warranted."

Baltimore Fines Church For Holding Services While Thousands Protest In The Streets.  In the Baltimore suburb of Dundalk, Pastor Stacey Shiflett made some headlines recently when he stood at the lectern in the Calvary Baptist Church and tore up a cease and desist order he'd received from the government.  Declaring that his congregation was "going to do it God's way," he insisted that if Walmart could be open, then his church would serve the needs of the congregation.  He proceeded to do just that on the following Sunday, while ensuring that congregants observed social distancing rules and had their temperatures taken upon arrival.  Good to their word, the government turned around and levied a fine on the Pastor.  But now, one of Maryland's congressmen is vowing to have the Department of Justice launch an investigation unless the fine is rescinded by Tuesday [6/16/2020].

Gathering Is Essential — Unless You're Republican.  Destroying a business is tolerated, reopening one forbidden.  Democrats are bailing out rioters, and sending salon owners to prison.  Going to church is worse than trying to burn it down.  Protesting is a threat to public health, until experts declare your cause worthy enough.  These are the new, ever-changing rules of Democrats' America.  We'll forgive you if you have a hard time keeping up — but they won't.  After months shaming Americans who had the audacity to want to reopen their businesses safely as COVID-19 cases waned, social distancing is suddenly less important than "social justice," according to the media's health "experts." [...] These infringements must end.  We built up hospital capacity, flattened the curve, and under President Trump's leadership, delivered millions of medical and testing supplies.  The American people must be given the respect they deserve, and be trusted to make the best decisions for themselves and their families, communities, and customers, like many Republican governors have from the start.

Asbury Park, NJ gives restaurants blessing to defy state COVID lockdown.  Restaurants in Asbury Park, New Jersey are clear to resume indoor dining starting Monday, city officials have ruled — in defiance of Garden State Gov. Phil Murphy's coronavirus shutdown.  "We believe indoor restaurants can run in a safe manner provided they are subject to all the requirements outlined in Executive Order 152," said Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn, according to The Asbury Park Press.  A City Council vote in favor of the move was first reported by The Coaster, a local outlet.  Under Murphy's order, outdoor dining can resume on Monday [6/15/2020], but indoor dining remains a no-go.

Riots In Defense Of The Narrative Are No Vice.  It's widely known that our betters say it's OK to protest in massive groups despite the risk of coronavirus transmission, but small gatherings not in support of Black Lives Matter are still unacceptable.  Now we're told that it's also fine for protests to turn violent as long as it happens for the "right" reason.  Imagine, though, the howling that would have pierced our ears had there been a whiff of violence started by the protesters whose only demand was to be set free of the pandemic lockdowns.

We need malls to reopen or property taxes are going up, mayors say to Murphy.  A date for reopening New Jersey malls has not been announced by Gov. Phil Murphy and a group of mayors is pressing him on why.  The mayors of Bridgewater, Elizabeth, Paramus, Wayne and Woodbridge sent a letter to Murphy this week requesting a quicker reopening of malls in their towns.  "Willowbrook Mall is the largest taxpayer in our community and having them closed for so long is hurting our economy severely," Wayne Mayor Chris Vergano said in the letter.

After Stopping Anti-lockdown Protests, Dem Gov Says [he] "Can't Imagine" Stopping "Racism" Protests.  "I feel like we are living in a George Orwell novel." That was one reaction to New Jersey governor Phil Murphy's recent statement that he "can't imagine" telling George Floyd anti-"systemic racism" protesters to stay home.  This is the same politician who not only imagined telling anti-lockdown protesters to stay home, but did so, unabashedly.  Moreover, his state actually arrested a woman for trying to organize an anti-lockdown protest.  Murphy is also the man who's still keeping "nonessential" businesses closed and who just "allowed" (June 9) churches to reopen — with strict attendance guidelines.

Yes, Let's Defund The Police ... At The EPA.  Democrats have met the enemy, and it is the police.  Well, not all police.  They love the heavily armed federal police at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. [...] What's the excuse for federal agencies such as the EPA, Food and Drug Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Education, and National Institute of Standards and Technology to be purchasing military-grade equipment?  A 2016 study by Open the Books found that from 2006 to 2014, more than 60 federal agencies spent a total of $1.5 billion on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment.  The EPA alone spent more than $3 million on such weaponry.

NC Governor Drops Hammer on Local Speedway After They Exposed His Outdoor Gatherings Hypocrisy.  Yesterday I wrote about how the owners of Ace Speedway, located in Elon, North Carolina, had become celebrities of sorts in North Carolina over the past few weeks by continuing to defy Gov. Roy Cooper (D) over the outdoor gathering limit outlined in Phase 2 of North Carolina's "reopening" plan.  To date, owners Robert and Jason Turner (father and son) have done it three times, with the last one being Saturday.  Saturday's race was especially noteworthy as it was held in spite of the fact that Cooper's attorneys had sent a strongly worded letter to Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson demanding that he take action against the owners of the speedway for their failure to obey the state's Phase 2 outdoor gathering limit of 25.  Johnson initially told the media that he would cite the speedway's owners Saturday but didn't, because Saturday's race was billed as being part of a peaceful protest.

Ace Speedway in N.C. ordered to shut down after repeated large crowds.  The administration of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has ordered the closure of a small stock-car track that's allowed large crowds to gather repeatedly for weekend races, declaring it an "imminent hazard" for the spread of COVID-19.  The order signed by Cooper's health secretary says Ace Speedway in Alamance County, 65 miles northwest of Raleigh, is violating the governor's executive order limiting outside mass assemblies to 25 people.

Michigan Supreme Court Unanimously Rules Defiant Barber Had Right To Work Despite Governor's Orders.  In a ruling that could have future ramifications in the event a second wave of coronavirus strikes, a 77-year-old Michigan barber has won a legal battle against Michigan's Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who forced him to shutter his business.  Barber Karl Manke defied shutdown orders from Whitmer and reopened his shop despite state orders prohibiting retail reopenings.  Whitmer, who has drawn heavy criticism for her refusal to bend to demands on reopening businesses, subsequently pulled Manke's license, heavily fined him, and denounced his activity.

Michigan Barber Ordered To Close Wins Big In Court, Has Preliminary Injunction Vacated.  Remember when our biggest outrage was a barber in Michigan being fined and harassed by the state for opening his business?  Good times.  Flouting Governor Gretchen Whitmer's executive order keeping salons and barber shops closed, Karl Manke opened his barbershop at the beginning of May, but was quickly ordered to close.  Manke appealed the decision in court and was eventually ordered once again to shut down while the case weaved through the court system.  On Friday [6/5/2020] the 77-year-old barber got some very welcome news.

Opening up churches is NOT just about my faith.  It's my right!  The freedom of religion.  The freedom of speech.  The freedom of the press.  The right to assembly.  The right to petition the government.  These are the first five freedoms outlined and guaranteed by the First Amendment.  Of all the rights we are guaranteed, these are the first and arguably the most important of any of the freedoms recognized by our government.  But, they do more than just act as rail guards around the government's inevitable attempts to overreach into our lives.  They do more than just beat back the government's insatiable and ferocious appetite for control.  These essential rights also acknowledge out loud, for everyone to hear, that we are human.  As such, we are not the property of emperors or would-be kings or queens.  We belong to ourselves.  But a strange and dubious thing is happening under COVID-19 lockdowns.  Of these five basic human rights only one is not being questioned.  Only one is allowed to operate with impunity.  That is, the freedom of the press.

America in the 21st Century: 20 Long Years of Constant Brainwashing.  Then came the Wuhan Virus campaign to stay at home and wash your hands and wear your masks and never get within 6 feet of anybody, and now that's all gone away because you're supposed to love and respect a bunch of domestic terrorist rioters who aren't practicing any of that.  Oh, and at the same time, you still can't legally get a haircut in Michigan or hold a funeral or wedding with more than 10 attendees in California, Oregon, New York and Illinois.  And if you do those things, Mayors like Lori Lightfoot, who refuse to allow their police to try to control the riots, will send in the cops to shut your funeral home or church or barber shop down.

De Blasio Broke Up a Jewish Funeral a Month Ago — But Today Allows Thousands at George Floyd Funeral Service in Brooklyn.  In late April New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sent the NYPD in to break up the funeral for a popular rabbi in Brooklyn.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Democrat) issued a warning to the "Jewish community" that he would arrest them for gathering in public as they did for a rabbi's funeral in the Williamsburg neighborhood in late April. [...] But today [6/4/2020] thousands of New Yorkers attended a memorial service for George Floyd.  De Blasio spoke at the funeral.  The city is still under de Blasio's quarantine.

Gretchen Whitmer has her 'let them eat cake' moment.  Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer has become a laughingstock for imposing draconian lockdown restrictions on her constituents while her own family violates them.  Her husband was caught red-handed demanding special treatment because of his wife's office in violating her restrictions on boating and use of vacation houses, something she first lied about and then tried to pass off as a joke.  But yesterday [6/2/2020], she topped herself and uttered a phrase that should live on as her emblem of indifference to the suffering of those whom she oppresses.  Like the final generation French aristocrats before the revolution, she causally revealed her cluelessness of the misery of those she oppresses.  For those whose hair is too long, uncomfortable, or whose roots are showing her "let them eat cake" solution is to Google how to do a hair cut.  No kidding!

The Editor says...
If I attempt to cut my own hair, would I then be an unlicensed barber?

Supreme Court rejects church's challenge on mandatory limited attendance.  The Supreme Court ruled against a California church that was seeking to overturn the state's limits on attendance.  The court ruled 5-4 against the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the four liberal Justices.  The church, which says it has crowds of 200 to 300 people, argued that the limitation placed on how many people can attend its services violates its constitutional rights protecting religious freedom.  It specifically made an emergency appeal so that it would have a ruling before services were scheduled to be held on Sunday.

Chicago Pastor Says Mayor 'Militarized' Police to Block Church Parking Lot.  The pastor of Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church in Chicago told "The Todd Starnes Show" on Monday that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot "militarized" the city police department to prevent worship at his church amid the coronavirus outbreak.  Cristian Ionescu, the pastor, laid out the ways he said the city tried to intimidate his congregation prior to last Sunday's service.  He said about three days before the Sunday, city police put up fliers on the blocks around his the church to inform churchgoers and nearby residents that they would not be able to park there on Sunday.

Maine's Governor Janet Mills pulls the rug out from under restaurant owners she had okayed to reopen.  Maine restaurant owners are going to have a lot of rotting food and idled staff on their hands, after their governor suddenly reversed a decision to allow them to re-open on June 1st.  Having made the mistake of trusting their state governor, Janet Mills, the restaurants that were able to survive the lockdown spent scarce funds restocking their supplies and rehiring staff, in preparation for the promised reopening.  But not so fast!

Supreme Court rejects challenge to limits on church services; Roberts sides with liberals.  A divided Supreme Court on Friday [5/29/2020] rejected an emergency appeal by a California church that challenged state limits on attendance at worship services that have been imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus.  Over the dissent of the four more conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's four liberals in turning away a request from the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California, in the San Diego area.  The church argued that limits on how many people can attend their services violate constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and had been seeking an order in time for services on Sunday.  The church said it has crowds of 200 to 300 people for its services.

Roberts joins court's liberals to deny California church's lockdown challenge.  A sharply divided Supreme Court late Friday turned aside a church's urgent plea that California's coronavirus lockdown orders are putting an unconstitutional burden on religious freedom.  Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberals in rejecting a San Diego church's request for relief from Gov. Gavin Newsom's most recent directive limiting churches to 25% of their normal maximum capacity, with an absolute maximum of 100 people at any service.

Contact Tracing:  Your governors, red or blue, are coming after you.  [Scroll down]  All it takes is to spend 10 or 15 minutes sitting or standing within six feet of another human being who was infected.  These are all potentially infected persons who must be tracked down and sent into quarantine, then interviewed to get a list of their contacts.  In the end, one case such as that of James Daggett can ensnare hundreds of healthy, innocent Americans, and send them into lockdown, simply because they happened to breathe the same air that James breathed, or stood next to someone who did.  Contact tracers are trained to make sure all of these people, healthy or not, get thrown into complete isolation, away from their children, spouses and other family members while they get monitored for at least 14 days.

The Democrats' 'Governor Says' America.  Democrats have exploited coronavirus to override the U.S. Constitution to transform America into an evil game of "Governor Says."  By simply decreeing, "Governor says," our right to assemble and worship God is rescinded.  Governor says fake news media elites and government employees are essential and can earn a living.  Governor says Trump supporters are nonessential and cannot earn a living. [...] Out of nowhere, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that practically all Virginia business employees and patrons must begin wearing masks.  Northam's supreme-dictator decree comes on the heels of 35 states reopening and dramatically declining nationwide cases of COVID-19. So why on earth is he doing this?  The answer is political wickedness, folks.  It still blows my mind that by arbitrarily declaring a state of emergency a governor can force you to do something potentially detrimental to the health of yourself and your family.  Numerous health experts say masks are dangerous.

Religious liberty means COVID-19 restrictions cannot target churchgoers.  [Scroll down]  Last month, the city of Greenville, Mississippi, fined attendees at one such service at Temple Baptist Church $500 per person.  Their crime?  Sitting in their vehicles and listening through their car radios to their pastor speak.  This decision, whatever its motive, makes no sense, especially since the drive-in restaurant just down the street from the church had people in their cars eating their dinner and listening to their radios.  That's why the U.S. Department of Justice swung into action.  In the words of Attorney General William Barr, "even in times of emergency, when reasonable and temporary restrictions are placed on rights, the First Amendment and federal statutory law prohibit discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers."  On April 14, Mr. Barr filed a Statement of Interest on behalf of Temple Baptist.  The city of Greenville has dropped the fines, but it is still preventing people from meeting — in their cars, with the windows rolled up and no close social interaction.

Newsom Fiat:  No California Protest Can Have More Than 100 People.  Regressive Supreme Leader Gavin Newsom is angry.  On Saturday more than 2,000 showed up at the Capitol to protest his dictatorship, issuing 40 Executive Orders and changing close to 200 State laws, without a vote of the Legislature or even telling them in advance.  He signed over 400 NO BID contracts — some for firms owned by the Chinese Communist Party.  People are angry — so they protest.  Now, in the name of "safety and health", Newsom has issued another illegal edict — no protest can have more than 100 people.  Watch as that edict is violated in every corner of the State.  This is no different than what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to the people of Hong Kong.

From Speech To Consumer Choice, Democrats Believe Everything Must Be Policed.  The political left is driven by an urge to supervise every aspect of our lives.  It's a corrosive impulse that shouldn't be accepted anywhere in a free nation, let alone practiced.  The backlash needs to begin now.  If not, our liberty will eventually be overrun. [...] Nothing in recent times illustrates the left's inclination to control as does its response to the coronavirus pandemic.  The Democrats want to keep people and businesses locked down while Republicans, with some exceptions, want to free people and unleash commerce.  Don't think the Democratic governors, mayors, and unelected public health officials who have put the most restrictive limits in place aren't enjoying the authority they've given themselves.  It's as if they've waited their entire lives for this moment to exercise raw power over the masses.

Obama, Clinton 9th Circuit Judges Suspend Bill of Rights Until Coronavirus is Cured.  Perhaps these two lefty scholars can point us to where the First Amendment states, "except in an emergency".  [They are] proposing the suspension of the Bill of Rights until there's a cure.  Which may never happen.  Bizarrely, the Democrat judges are quoting a minority dissent arguing that speech could be censored if it was inflammatory.  Jackson was arguing that the authorities should have the right to stop Nazi supporters from saying racist things in public because it would lead to disorder and then America would go the way of Nazi Germany.  Jackson was a great man, but wrong in this case.  That he's being quoted by the majority in this ruling is troubling at best considering the original implications.  The Democrat judges did not address the fact that Newsom is discriminating against religious observance.

It's time to checkmate run-amok COVID-19 states.  Hopefully, many of the things that lie heavy upon the nation right now will be in our collective rearview mirror in the near future.  These things include constant mention of pandemic and crisis — hourly radio reports and TV news reports of coronavirus infections and deaths, face masks, the pronouncements of "experts" like the little gnome man and the scarf lady, and ubiquitous signs and messages that implore us to stay home and stay safe (OBEY!).  All of this is aimed at creating and reinforcing a state of fear and panic because scared people are easier to manipulate.  What will not, and must not, fade from our memory and consciousness is the stench of the actions of state governors and state officials who acted with little regard for the constitutional rights of their citizens.

Stopping Petty Tyrannies Is How We Beat the Serious Ones.  [Scroll down]  Americans are unlikely to tolerate, for long, nonsensical rules or enforcement policies that impede their day-to-day lives.  It was, after all, a long chain of large and small abuses by governmental authorities that led to the creation of this country.  And given the Constitution and remarkable political system created from it, we have a great deal of power to end abusive laws quickly.  Certainly, some of the coronavirus lockdown measures have had more serious implications for civil liberties than simple park closures.  While our federal system gives broad power to states and local authorities to act in the way that best serves their communities, it is still essential that Americans be wary of violations of the Constitution and their fundamental rights.  This important point was made by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who directed U.S. attorneys in late April to be on the lookout for violations of civil liberties by state and local governments.

These Are The Most Illogical Coronavirus Restrictions Still In Place.  While most of the U.S. has begun to reopen, some parts of the country remain under burdensome restrictions that can't be justified by either science or logic.  Most of New York, Michigan and the Washington D.C. metro area remains under lockdown through at least Memorial Day weekend.  Some beaches in Virginia and New York reopened over the weekend, but Democratic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio made it clear that swimming is forbidden, saying beachgoers who swim in the ocean will "be taken right out of the water."

Chicago Mayor Launches Police Raid to Shut Down Black Church's Sunday Services.  On Sunday [5/24/2020], Chicago's first openly gay mayor, Lori Lightfoot, mounted a raid on a black South Side church for holding services in defiance of her coronavirus lockdown orders.  Lightfoot reportedly sent three marked squad cars and two unmarked cars full of officers to the Chicago Cornerstone Baptist Church in the South Side's Woodlawn neighborhood.  Woodlawn is just south of Hyde Park, the area in which the Obamas lived for a short time before Barack became president.

End of 'sanctuary' in Chicago:  Armed cops storm black church service.  On Sunday [5/24/2020], Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, launched a police raid to shut down a black church's Sunday services. [...] Hard to believe, but these Democrats are certainly loving this post-pandemic power, aren't they?  It reminds me of another Chicago story a few years ago.  You may recall that Elvira Arellano, an illegal alien, took refuge in a church in Chicago back in 2007. As you may recall, even the president of Mexico got involved in the story.  Mexico backed the young mother hiding in a church!  Chicago's local leadership warned ICE and federal officials from charging into a church.

I Am Criminal.  Fear is a tool of the tyrant.  Law is another tool of the tyrant.  When you put them together, you do not arrive at freedom, you arrive at more than even tyranny.  You arrive at terrorism, by means of law.  The very idea of a "business license" is one designed to ensure that the state has ultimate control over businesses, otherwise they don't arrive at the neo-communism practiced in America today.  The neo-communists have figured out that "state-owned" means of production is a non-starter, it makes the government responsible for production and when that production does not yield enough goods, people become disgruntled with the government and lean toward revolution.  But, "state-controlled" means of production allows them a buffer between the government and the people, the businesses themselves.  The business license claims all sorts of benefits.  It ensures that people who can't cut hair don't open hair salons.  The further justification is that some chemicals used in dying hair and other hair care procedures can be misused and harm the patron and the business license can be revoked by a bureaucrat with no accounting for due process. [...] The same with liquor licenses.  The license provides the threat.  Sell to underage people and your liquor license can be revoked by a bureaucrat with no accounting for due process, despite the fact that there are laws against it that can imprison the violator.  So, what purpose does the liquor law serve?  Now we know what the purpose serves.  It is all about control, not safety.

Insane News Tidbits.  There are other news tidbits about politicians drunk with power that we Americans have given them.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told city residents who disobeyed her stay-at-home order:  "We will arrest you and we will take you to jail.  Period.  We're not playing games."  Meanwhile, in violation of her own stay-at-home order, Lightfoot slipped out and got her hair done.  She explained her decision, "I take my personal hygiene very seriously."  Ventura County, California, health director Dr. Robert Levin said that his department would forcibly remove COVID-19 infected people from their own homes and put them "into other kinds of housing that we have available."  Facing stiff criticism, Levin later explained:  "I either misspoke or it was misinterpreted.  I'll take the blame of having misspoke."  The biggest casualty from the COVID-19 pandemic has nothing to do with the disease.  It's the power we've given to politicians and bureaucrats.  The question is how we recover our freedoms.

Major changes ahead for American civil liberties are going to 'redefine us'.  As the coronavirus pandemic continues to play out and Americans see many of their leaders adopting draconian lockdowns, mandating business closures, and implementing additional policies that seem to run afoul of the Constitution, scores are concerned about what a 'new normal' may look like.  And not everyone is going to like it. [...] The technology to track people already exists and the concept already has a name:  Contract tracing.  However, the question isn't whether it can be done but whether it's legal to do so.

5 Things I've Learned From COVID-19.  [#3] You Can Understand How Hitler Happened.  Too many people enjoy imposing rules on others.  Corona has unleashed the militant side of busybodies who used to be harmless, grumpy old men and women and are now something akin to the neighborhood Gestapo.  They enjoy telling you how to ride your bike, how far away you have to stand for their safety, and how many times you can walk your dog.  I took my children surfing at a local beach and residents were demanding to know 'where we came from' — like Germans checking papers in the war.  My 15-year-old replied, 'Wuhan,' and that seemed to end the conversation quite effectively.  Stanley Milgram's electric shock studies from the 1960s, in which volunteers were prepared to inflict pain on others when ordered to do so, now make perfect sense.  I never really understood how Hitler brainwashed so many people for so long, until coronavirus came along.

Brainwashing & the New Vocabulary: 12 Words & Phrases I Never Want to Hear Again.  [Scroll down]  The word "essential" has also been corrupted.  If you were able to keep working throughout the entire lockdown, it's because you were an "essential" worker doing an "essential" job.  "Essential" was defined separately by the governor of each state, so it varied from place to place.  My daughter, who works in a beauty supply store, was initially not "essential" but a month in when everyone's roots began to show, she became essential and got the travel papers to prove it.  The word "essential" was also used to describe purchases that the government felt were important enough for you to be allowed to make in person, and for trips outside the home.  It was "essential" to go to the grocery store, the doctor, the pharmacy, and out to walk your dog.  However, the dog had to be walked on neighborhood streets with all the other people essentially walking their dogs, instead of on a trail out in the forest alone, because the trails were closed because they weren't essential.

Can We Sue Our Way Out of Quarantine?  State governors from coast to coast issued coronavirus-related lockdown orders about two months ago, closing businesses and restricting people's movements.  Government officials have taken unprecedented steps, seemingly without much calculation or forethought.  In New York, for instance, Governor Andrew Cuomo insisted on March 18 that he would not approve a shelter-in-place order; by March 20, he praised California's lockdown and announced Gotham's own stay-at-home regime.  New York and many other states have extended these orders indefinitely.  The reasons for the lockdowns have shifted.  Initially aimed at "flattening the curve" — slowing the rate of infection to avoid overwhelming hospitals — shutdowns keep getting extended, even as medical workers are furloughed and temporary field hospitals (set up to handle a surge in cases) are dismantled.  Officials have leaned haphazardly on broadly worded and mostly untested "emergency powers" statutes to justify whatever policies they deem necessary.  The command-and-control mode of leadership has struck many Americans as contrary to limited-government principles.

DOJ warns Los Angeles, Illinois of possible illegality of stay-at-home orders.  The Justice Department warned state and local officials Friday of the possible illegality of their stay-at-home orders, as the agency continues to monitor restrictions meant to contain the spread of COVID-19.  In a letter to Los Angeles officials, Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband said their recent comments suggesting that stay-at-home orders may stay in place longer "may be both arbitrary and unlawful."  The Justice Department also said that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's "sweeping limitations" on Illinois residents raise constitutional concerns.

The end is always three weeks away, yet you never quite get there.
Governor Whitmer extends Michigan's stay-home order to June 12.  Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed another Executive Order extending Michigan's stay-home order until June 12.  "While the data shows that we are making progress, we are not out of the woods yet.  If we're going to lower the chance of a second wave and continue to protect our neighbors and loved ones from the spread of this virus, we must continue to do our part by staying safer at home," said Governor Whitmer. [...] The order extends the temporary closure of theaters, gyms, salons and casinos among other things in an effort prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Police Shut Down Bernardsville Shop On Facebook Live Video.  A live video captures Bernardsville Police shutting down a borough business for repeatedly violating Gov. Phil Murphy's executive order for having a non-essential business open during the coronavirus pandemic.  Katherine Hermes of Peapack and owner of Country Home Store at 21 Olcott Square can be heard on the video making an emotional plea to the officer.  "I am just trying to save my business," Hermes says.  "I am widow with three children who need to eat."

Mandatory vaccination for coronavirus gains support from 'civil libertarian' Alan Dershowitz.  The media, computer modelers, epidemiologists, and the censors keeping dissenting views off of social media have succeeded in terrifying much of the political class and the American public into accepting far-reaching suspensions of civil liberties in the name of suppressing the spread of a Covid-19, a highly communicable flu strain whose lethality principally affects the elderly and those with comorbidities.  At the moment it is an open question whether the lockdown "cure" will end up being more lethal than the disease.  Last week, American Thinker took some flak, including from some conservatives for publishing Peter Barry Chowka's warning, "Mandatory coronavirus vaccination looming on the horizon."  But retired Harvard Law School Professor and prominent civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz has unburdened himself in favor of exactly that.

The Editor says...
If vaccines become mandatory, the any other drug could be mandatory, too.

Minnesota Gov:  Eateries can have 50 people.  Churches?  Ten.  Minnesota is moving into the third phase of its reopening under Governor Tim Walz's plan on June 1st.  After plenty of comments from the public, however, he's been making last-minute changes to the plan.  The most recent update offered more opportunities for people to out for dinner and put some food in their bellies.  Food for the soul, on the other hand, still won't be quite as available.  Restaurants will be allowed to host up to fifty customers on outdoor patio seating, but churches will remain limited to 10 congregants whether they are indoors or outdoors.

The Democratic Party:  A Robbery in Progress.  [Scroll down]  The Democratic Party is attempting to cash in on the nation's current pandemic fears so that they may finally dig themselves out from the mountains of debt they've created through vote-buying schemes and interest group bribes that have kept them in continuous power of their state and city governments while creating the most financially insolvent treasuries in the nation.  The truth is that our present pandemic nightmare has set in motion an event that has been fermenting for over fifty years.  Corrupt Democrat politicos have been fraudulently using the tax-and-spend powers of their offices to keep their natural constituencies financially beholden to their electoral success for generations and generations with no immediate plan for solving their growing financial albatross except the ephemeral hope that one day, somehow, they'd be able to offload the cost of all that graft and corruption onto the federal government's tab for the national taxpayers from faraway states to pay.

Gretchen Whitmer Allows Gay Swinger's Club to Operate While Barber Loses License.  There is perhaps nothing more confusing than Democrat governors' orders during the Chinese WuFlu pandemic.  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is by far the worst.  That was made clear with the news that a gay swinger's club [...] is being allowed to operate under her nose in Lansing while she aims her business-killing death ray on 77-year-old barber Karl Manke for giving haircuts.

No Pandemic Exception to Constitution.  Does the Wuhan virus, which arguably escaped from a Chinese virology lab, supersede the rights guaranteed to American citizens under the U.S. Constitution?  The owners of a New Jersey gym think not.  They want to earn a living and pursue their American dream, and like most business owners and their customers are not stupid, suicidal, or children.  They are American citizens watching their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness being ripped away by dime-store Napoleons who see this pandemic as a chance to pursue the liberal progressive dream of controlling every aspect of our lives. [...] As some states, mostly red states, open up and people begin to regain their lives and their liberty, it is clear this toothpaste is out of its tube.

Oregon Gov. Decrees Residents in Closed Counties Cannot Shop in Open Counties.  Oregon Governor Kate Brown (D-Portland) said that residents of counties that have yet to reopen may not travel to open counties to get haircuts or dine in restaurants. [...] Of course, Brown's lockdown orders have confused Oregonians since they began.  It turns out that many retail outlets shut down when they didn't have to do so.  As we approach the tail end of the pandemic, and as Oregon has consistently ranked in the bottom five states in terms of infections and deaths, Brown's scattershot approach to the virus has raised more questions than answers.

The Editor says...
In a free country, travel from one city to another is not restricted.

Virus Survey Reveals Most, Least Free States:  South Dakota Best, Illinois Worst.  States across the country are implementing their own plans for reopening in the wake of the coronavirus, with some allowing citizens to get back to their lives and livelihoods, while others continue to order people to remain at home and stay away from public places.  The personal finance website conducted a survey to determine which states have the most and least freedom as Americans are posed to celebrate Memorial Day.

We Were Never Asked.  [Scroll down]  Even as some states have started to open, leaders in mostly blue states and urban areas have held fast.  These new measures border on the sadistic.  Mandatory mask orders have appeared in many locales.  In Los Angeles, which has been only moderately affected by the coronavirus, the lockdown has extended through the end of July.  Illinois' governor, J.B. Pritzker, decreed that only two passengers would be permitted on recreational boats, regardless of size and whether everyone aboard lives in the same household.  Michigan's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said her state's harsh and ongoing restrictions were based "on the best science, the best facts."  Skepticism and annoyance are now bubbling into anger and active resistance.  Protesters in Michigan have taken to carrying guns and making vague threats against their governor, who has taken a particularly hard line against all normal human activity. [...] No one likes to be told what to do, whether by a bully cop or a bully doctor in a white lab coat.  This is especially so when the people doing the telling have done so in the form of arbitrary decrees after mayors and governors have handed over the keys to their public health experts.  No one elected Anthony Fauci or the freakishly unhealthy-looking public health commissars in Los Angeles and Pennsylvania.  No one asked us if we would endure universal masking or indefinite shutdowns on their say so.  And, to the extent we were asked to give our consent for any of this, our consent for a lockdown was procured using false pretenses about its necessity, duration, and severity.

Despot-like Government Shutdowns:  Only One Threat to Religious Freedom.  [Scroll down]  In 2020, in the Land of the Free, religious liberty is under attack from those who suffer from the "great and powerful OZ" illusion.  Such attacks upon the people of faith are not yet as bad as the control and subversion of religion in Communist China.  Yet, when state governors can get away with determining that a church service is "non-essential" activity, when legal cases involving internal religious issues are decided by corrupt secularist judges, and when ministers are arrested for "hate speech" for delivering a biblical message, there is a serious disease spreading across America, and it is not COVID-19. Precedents are being set that will determine the future of freedom.

The Shutdown May Soon Collapse in Pennsylvania Thanks to Local Resistance.  As in the rest of the country, life in Pennsylvania has been greatly disturbed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the chaos that has resulted from the state government's attempts to handle the situation.  On March 16, Governor Wolf ordered that all "nonessential" businesses be closed for at least two weeks.  They are still closed today, and as a result, 1.8 million Pennsylvanians have filed for unemployment.  At the end of December of last year, the state estimated that there were roughly 6 million employed persons in Pennsylvania.  If we set aside all the workers whose incomes have been reduced through pay cuts or reduced hours, or who for various reasons have not filed for unemployment, still nearly a third of people who were working in December are now out of work.

Rural America Rebels Against the Madness.  New York City is the center of the Wuhan epidemic in the United States, and in response to the virus, governors across the country have imposed shutdowns that might possibly be appropriate in New York, but are bonkers as applied to local conditions.  Initially, most of us tried to be good sports.  But as shutdowns lingered from weeks into months, and small businesses were destroyed by the hundreds of thousands for no apparent reason, the spirit of rebellion began to grow.  No doubt there were a number of places where rebellion flared today, but the one I know about is Albany, Minnesota, population 2,734, where a bar and restaurant owner stood up for his constitutional rights against the arbitrary power of the state's government.

NJ Governor Goes Full Dictator After Video of Gym in 'Defiance' of Stay at Home Order Goes Viral.  New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is levying new threats against citizens who dare to defy his "orders" after a video of a gym re-opening went viral yesterday [5/18/2020].  For background, here's the video, which includes clapping and cheering after police decided not to enforce the order with arrests.  [Video clip]

Anyone Swimming at NYC Beaches Will Be 'Taken Right Out of the Water:' Mayor de Blasio.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday [5/18/2020] that swimmers at city beaches flouting COVID-19 restrictions would be hauled out of the water by authorities enforcing compliance.  Speaking at a briefing on COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, de Blasio said that "anyone [who] tries to get in the water, they'll be taken right out of the water."  Calling the outbreak "the worst health care crisis in the history of this nation," the mayor said that while social distancing rules applied, there would be "no swimming, no lifeguards, no parties, no BBQs" on the city's beaches.  He said failure to abide by restrictions may mean stricter enforcement, including potentially putting up police barriers on beaches, which the mayor said was not done to give people a chance to comply voluntarily.

County Judge Rules That Oregon Governor Kate Brown's Covid Restrictions are Unconstitutional.  She had no legislative authority for these diktats.  More and more, the left is straight-up endorsing tyranny.  For the public safety and health, you understand!

Wisconsin Supreme Court Invalidates State's 'Safer at Home' Order.  On May 13, 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued its decision in Wisconsin Legislature v. Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm, et al. and declared the state's Safer at Home Order unlawful, invalid, and unenforceable, creating a rush by local jurisdictions to issue orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19, resulting in uncertainty for businesses as to how to operate.

Judge tosses out Gov. Kate Brown's coronavirus restrictions in Oregon.  A judge in rural Oregon on Monday [5/18/2020] tossed out statewide coronavirus restrictions imposed by Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, saying she didn't seek the Legislature's approval to extend the stay-at-home orders beyond a 28-day limit.  Baker County Circuit Judge Matthew Shirtcliff issued his opinion in response to a lawsuit filed earlier this month by 10 churches around Oregon that argued the state's social-distancing directives were unconstitutional.

Georgia Supreme Court Says Yes, Economic Liberty is a Constitutional Right.  The Georgia Supreme Court this morning reversed a trial court decision that had declared that the right to earn a living is not a right protected under that state's Constitution.  In a unanimous ruling, the justices held that "we have long recognized that the Georgia Constitution's Due Process Clause entitles Georgians to pursue a lawful occupation of their choosing free from unreasonable government interference."  The case involves the state's laws regulating "lactation consultants" — that is, people who help new mothers learn to properly breastfeed newborn babies.  In the Peachtree State, you need a government license to do that, believe it or not.  That licensing requirement was challenged by a group of lactation counselors represented by our allies at the Institute for Justice, who argued that requiring government permission to help mothers breastfeed is so irrational that it violates the state's Due Process of Law Clause — a provision of the Constitution that for centuries has been understood as a prohibition on irrational laws.  But the trial court threw the case out on the grounds that there's no such right as economic freedom to begin with.

Tyranny as far as the eye can see.  California governor Gavin Newsom is now warning of the potential for a third and fourth wave of the coronavirus, stating that we must remain humble by what we still don't know about it.  While there may be a lot that we don't know about this sickening virus that was thrust upon the world by communist China, we do know that what is unfolding is unsustainable and unconstitutional.  Our society is nearing a state of partial collapse due to protracted mitigation in blue states as the Constitution is trampled upon and set on fire.  Newsom, like Dr. Fauci, appears to view our lives through the singular lens of this virus.  But life is more complex than that (duh), and Newson is ignoring the larger reality (or at least pretending to) in order to hold onto power.  Citing what we still don't know about the virus leaves the door wide open for him to continue to rule like an evil emperor.

You're Nonessential — Keep Your Mouth Shut.  COVID-19 America has realigned itself into a two-part caste system, one made up of the essential hero, and the other comprised of the selfish, nonessential coward.  Essential heroes, like those who work in grocery stores, hospitals, Walmarts, and deliver for Amazon, are deserving of our admiration and praise. [...] My wife is one of these essential workers.  She's a clinician at a small hospital in Philadelphia, where dozens of people have tested positive for COVID-19.  In the middle of April she too tested positive, and subsequently gave the virus to me.  Luckily, our symptoms were minor, and we quickly recovered.  When my wife returned to work after her 14-day quarantine, there was a big sign on the front lawn that read, Heroes Work Here.  Although she was completely recovered and COVID-free, she still had to take a deep breath to keep from vomiting.  My wife was given special papers from her job to show she's an essential worker, just in case she was out driving around and a cop pulled her over and demanded to know why she was on the road.  I kid you not.

America Is Reopening Itself:  Will Politicians Be Able To Stop It?  As has been widely noted, we were initially told that we needed to shut down and shelter in place so that we would "flatten the curve" of infection growth to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed by people sick with COVID-19.  That benchmark was met a little more than a month into the lockdowns. [...] Yet many Americans are still under shelter-in-place orders, some of which have been extended.  We hate to use a cliche, but politicians have been moving the goalposts.  Flattening the curve isn't good enough.  They want to keep people home until there's a vaccine; or science, which has sadly become a loose term that means whatever the user wants it to, has established an effective treatment; or maybe until there are zero coronavirus cases.  This has rankled more than a few.

Bills could pass with just 22 lawmakers present out of 435 under new House proxy voting rule.  The Democrat-controlled House's recent passage of a measure to allow a final vote on bills with just 22 members present on Capitol Hill is underscoring the partisan divide about coronavirus safety vs. abdicating congressional responsibility.  "A virtual Congress would be a Congress that is connected to the Internet, but disconnected from the American people," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted Sunday.  "Democrats are forever altering American democracy for the worse.  Unconstitutional power grab!"  McCarthy, the House's top Republican, has been at the forefront of the opposition, opposing the idea of proxy voting shortly after the House went into recess in mid-March as a result of the virus and began looking for alternative means of balloting.

Lock Up the Lockdown Governors.  The "never let a crisis go to waste" crowd continues to overplay its hand, which is why this would be the perfect time to begin some real push-back against them.  The expected spike in new COVID-19 cases in states that reopened early never materialized.  In fact, the opposite has been true.  States that have remained shut down have been seeing the spikes.  If we're really all about "SCIENCE!" then it's time to take a serious look at ending all of the lockdowns.  The governors who are arbitrarily extending lockdowns are now just fetishizing power grabs and making everything all about themselves.  They need to be reined in for the financial well-being of the people whose lives they're ruining with their uncontrolled egos.  There is a very real possibility that 20/20 hindsight will show us that little, if anything, was achieved by shutting down people's lives and livelihoods.  It will have been a self-inflicted and wholly unnecessary tragedy.

Lawsuit Against Cuomo Alleges 'Bloodless Coup' Has Stripped New Yorkers of Their Constitutional Rights.  The lawfare part of the lockdowns has begun in earnest with lawsuits being filed across the country against governors who ordered private businesses closed indefinitely with no due process and stripped them of their constitutional rights because of the Chinese coronavirus panic.  The latest lawsuit was filed by New York protesters in Rochester whose businesses have been shuttered by executive fiat.  The filing of the lawsuit was announced at a rally organized by RestartROC on Saturday [5/16/2020].

Some state governments vindictively using all tools at their disposal to ruin lives of lockdown resisters.  We are witnessing a shocking level of evil as tyrannical leaders inflict maximum harm to citizens trying to survive by reopening their businesses.  As most readers know by now, Karl Manke, the barber in Michigan who defied state orders and opened his business, has since had his business license revoked.  The witch of a governor would not tolerate his freedom to work, and one way or another she was determined to put an end to it.  Most recently in Oregon, salon owner Lindsey Graham opened her business in defiance of the lockdown.  She soon found herself the object of multiple investigations involving numerous state agencies.  She was fined $14,000 and has been threatened with having her business license revoked and the licenses revoked for all the hair stylists who work there (which would make it impossible for them to work anywhere in the state in their profession).

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown's Shady Way of Shutting Down Businesses:  Sticking CPS on Parents.  Lindsey Graham, the owner of Glamour Salon in Salem, Oregon, has been harassed by numerous government agencies for reopening her salon despite Gov. Kate Brown's (D) stay-at-home order.  During a Friday [5/15/2020] press conference, Graham said multiple government agencies, including child protective services, have investigated her for wanting to reopen her salon and make a living.  "And, if you can possibly believe this, on May 7th, Child Protective Services showed up at my home," she said, taking a deep breath while holding back tears.  "They questioned my husband and I.  They questioned my child, without me present.  They searched our home.  And I've never expected such a violent, aggressive, vindictive thing ever could have been done to me or my family because I'm trying to earn a living, because I'm trying to work."  According to the salon owner, CPS' case is still open, as far as she knows.

Italian Politician Demands Bill Gates Be Arrested For Crimes Against Humanity on Parliament Floor.  ara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome, blasted Gates during her seven minute long speech on Thursday, claiming that he has been working on a depopulation policy and plans for dictatorial control over global politics.  The lawmaker blasted the shut down orders, handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and vaccines.  Cunial claimed that the "real goal of all of this is total control.  Absolute domination of human beings, transformed into guinea pigs and slaves, violating sovereignty and free will.  All this thanks to tricks/hoax disguised as political compromises."

COVIDictators Beware:  The American Rebel Spirit Is Still Alive.  In the current environment of uncertainty and government overreach into all of our lives, there seems to be some light at the end of the government built tunnel.  This is not because we have actually reached the end, but because as with most things built by the government, it's crumbling.  In the past few months, dollar store dictators from across the nation have been implementing strict draconian regulations, in what appears to almost be an attempt to break the back of the largest economy to have existed on this planet.  Those who have tried to fight back have been punished like Shelley Luther, a salon owner in Dallas, Texas who saw the inside of a jail cell for daring to put food on her own table.  Even more recently, Governor Whitmer of Michigan decided due process was not to be afforded to a 77-year-old barber who had his state licenses stripped after ignoring local health officials orders to close his shop.

Alderman: Mayor's Office Bans Parking On Ravenswood Streets Near Church That Plans To Hold Sunday Services.  People heading to Philadelphia Romanian Church in Ravenswood on Sunday might have a hard time finding a parking spot.  Ald. Matt Martin (47th) said no-parking signs have been put up for several surrounding blocks near the church at 1713 W. Sunnyside Ave.  The signs have been mounted on Sunnyside Avenue between Greenview and Ravenswood avenues, and Paulina Street between Lawrence and Berteau avenues, Martin's office said.  The parking ban is in effect from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.  Sunday, according to Martin's office.  Martin said the signs were put up at the direction of the Mayor's office, in response to plans by the church to hold one or more religious services — in violation of the stay-at-home order for the coronavirus pandemic.

Mitigating Tyranny:  Lockdowns and Flynn.  [Scroll down]  For reasons not based on science, but on fearmongering by the press and autocratic leanings of some governors (for the most part, Democratic Governors Cuomo, Newsom, Whitmer, Evers, Northam, and Inslee) draconian lockdown measures were instituted by executive order.  These orders were often backed up by health commissioners, themselves ill-equipped by education or experience to offer sound advice.  The consequences of these actions have been to jeopardize the health of the poorest and most vulnerable and destroy the livelihoods of those not able to work from home or on academic and government payrolls.  At the same time, they released from prison some really hardcore prisoners, ostensibly to protect them from the virus.  In sum, they have most harmed the members of the very lowest tranches of the economy, which they have always claimed to represent.  The rebellion against the orders by affected citizens and courts continues.  Counties, municipalities, and sheriffs are refusing to enforce these orders.  My favorite is the sheriff of Fresno, California, who said she was too busy rounding up the criminals Governor Newsom had released to bother enforcing his lockdown edicts.

Civil Rights Attorney Warns of First Amendment Lawsuit After Police Threaten Church With $1000 Fines for Holding Drive-In Worship Services.  The Rutherford Institute has warned that it will consider filing a First Amendment lawsuit if police continue to threaten a New York church with prosecution and $1000 fines for holding drive-in worship services that adhere to social distancing guidelines.  In a legal letter to the Chief of Police for the Town of Massena, NY, Rutherford Institute attorneys point out that while federal and state governments have adopted specific restrictive measures in an effort to decelerate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the current public health situation has not resulted in the suspension of fundamental constitutional rights such as religious freedom, freedom of speech and the right of assembly.

The Coronavirus Fifth Column.  As left-wing Democrat-controlled states continue to keep people in lockdown, it is becoming apparent that they are using the pandemic as a means to gain ultimate control of people's lives.  In fact, leftists the world over are exploiting the pandemic in order to create their alleged utopias. [...] This is happening all across the United States.  The governors of states like Michigan, New York, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania continue to hold people hostage to their dictatorial impulses.

The Moral Busybodies Strike Again.  There's a weird cognitive dissonance happening right now that is as revealing as it is alarming.  Just as we learn more details about all the ways Barack Obama and his henchmen weaponized powerful federal agencies to punish Donald Trump, Americans, oddly, are surrendering their own power to the same type of god-like government authorities under the guise of the common good. [...] The effort to stop coronavirus, much like the attempt to stop Donald Trump, has been presented by ardent defenders as their call to duty, a selfless act undertaken not to gratify their lust for power but to protect the public's best interest.  There is no discernible difference between the high-minded hectoring of former FBI Director James Comey and that of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer — their decisions are above scrutiny because, as they often scold their lesser subjects, these decisions are made for your own good.

Covid camp
Covid-19 Internment Camps Being Set Up In Washington!  Internment camps are being set up at county fairgrounds in Washington State to house Covid 1984 patients.  The truth was announced though Rep. Matt Shea with an eyewitness coming forward and providing a photograph of the camps being assembled.  The witness confirmed that she spoke to the Mayor of Goldendale and it was, again, confirmed that these camps are being set up for Covid 19(84) patients.  These mandatory camps are being set up through what can be called a mandatory grant of money, as these counties are being required to set up these camps before they can open any new businesses, yet cannot afford to do so.  Trailers, as well as tiny homes, can be set up at the Fair Grounds, and hotels/motels could be used in some cases.  And it is required that these Internment camps are to be in place before the counties can move to "Phase 2" of Governor Inslee's plans.


More stories of government power grabs — and a new, loud voice in the wilderness.  The phrase "drunk with power" seems relevant to modern times in America.  New information about the Wuhan Virus indicates that it's here to stay and that a total shutdown is both ineffective and counterproductive.  Nevertheless, Democrat politicians are clamping down ever harder on their beleaguered constituents. [...] It seems as if, every single day, even as they murmur vaguely about "opening up," Democrat governments are tightening restrictions on the people unlucky enough to be in their jurisdictions.  The big news on Thursday [5/14/2020] was Washington State governor Jay Inslee's demand that restaurants make customers log information about themselves if they wish to dine.  Of course, this applies only if restaurants don't instantly go broke under the new rules: [...] Restaurants famously have one of the lowest profit margins of any business.  The only way a restaurant can remain in business when filling only 50% of its space is to double the cost of its food.

Governors are grabbing business licenses to punish lockdown violations.  Democrat politicians intent upon perpetuating the Wuhan virus lockdown — even as more data show that the lockdown is pointless — have resorted to snatching business licenses when the owners refuse to allow their primary asset to wither away because of a useless edict.  Revoking permits without due process is a powerful weapon that instantly destroys businesses because it makes the owners criminals if they continue to operate.  In Michigan, power-mad governor Gretchen Whitmer seized 77-year-old Karl Manke's business license when he refused to starve.  He has announced that he will keep cutting hair, even without a license.

NY Tourist Arrested In Hawaii After Posting Beach Photos.  A tourist from New York has been arrested in Hawaii after he allegedly violated state regulations that require travelers to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.  Tarique Peters, 23, of the Bronx, arrived in Honolulu on Monday.  He then posted photographs on Instagram photos showing himself sunbathing at the beach and carrying a surfboard, state officials said.  "He allegedly left his hotel room the day he arrived and traveled many places using public transportation.  Authorities became aware of his social media posts from citizens who saw posts of him — on the beach with a surfboard, sunbathing, and walking around Waikiki at night," said a news release from the Hawaii COVID-19 Joint Information Center.

The Bait-and-Switch Blues.  Years from now, when the American public's memory of the Wuhan virus craze has crystallized into something coherent, it's a good bet most of us will see the economic shutdown that was the governmental reaction as the dumbest, most wasteful, and most abusive error made on this continent since a government not of the people passed the Intolerable Acts of the early 1770s and was shortly thereafter dispatched from the 13 colonies.  Unfortunately, we will not have the benefit of throwing off an out-of-touch foreign government this time.  The stupidity and abuse of the shutdowns comes from people we elected.  Those have been our mistakes.

Police State Dry Run [was] a Huge Success.  We have become part of a mass scale human experiment in government control and it turned out that stripping away our freedom wasn't all that difficult.  Under the guise of concern for our health and well-being, tyrants came out of the woodwork. [...] You tell me if what follows sounds like the United States, or China.  We've been told who can work and who can't, with language that separates us according to who is and who isn't "essential" as the almighty State supersedes individual rights and the family unit.  We've been physically and verbally harassed, threatened, fined, detained, arrested, jailed, and/or placed in forced quarantine.  Business licenses have been revoked.  Going to work without the permission of the government is now a crime.  So is going to the park or a beach.  Children playing together is also in defiance of the government.  So is placing flags on the graves of veterans.  The list of infractions goes on and on and on and on.  Examples read like the manifesto of a demented madman.  [Numerous additional links.]  Stay home.  Do not go out.  Do not earn money.  Do not pay your bills, feed your family, maintain your credit rating, live your life.  Do not make a single move without permission from the State or you will be punished.

If they get away with this, they can arrest you for having any disease.
Michigan Judge Authorizes County to 'Involuntarily Detain' Suspected Coronavirus Victims.  A Michigan judge has granted the Kent County Department of Health the authority to arrest suspected coronavirus victims it deems a "health threat."  On April 6, 2020, 17th Circuit Court Chief Judge Mark Trusock granted an order sought by Kent County Health officer Adam London, who was seeking the power to "involuntarily" detain suspected virus carriers.

Licensing Agencies Threaten Business Owners Who Defy California Governor's Orders.  California regulatory agencies have started threatening business owners who defy the governor's four-phase business reopening plan, and have been notifying barbershops and restaurants that they may have their licenses revoked if they operate outside the state-approved public health guidelines.  The California Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control, one of the agencies, has been visiting restaurants in Yuba and Sutter counties, two areas that have enacted less stringent public health measures than the governor's orders, and threatened to revoke their alcohol licenses if they don't stop in-person dining, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Criminalizing the businessmen is the socialist dream.
15 cops 'raid' restaurant allegedly over too many customers — Coronavirus violation.  [Scroll down]  Dave Carey, managing owner Lee's Landing, told the Whig he was following Hogan's social distancing and crowd size orders "to the letter of the law" and is upset that 15 uniformed officers from four agencies showed up to his establishment Sunday [4/26/2020].  He added to the paper that in addition to state police, deputies from the Cecil County Sheriff's Deputies, officers for the Maryland Transportation Authority, and Perryville police officers also arrived at Lee's Landing.  He said law enforcement found staffers wearing masks and other protective equipment while taking orders, placing them in tied-shut plastic bags, and handing them to customers who were in measured lines with proper spacing, the Whig reported.  In addition, Carey told the paper there were no more than 10 motorcycles in the parking lot, and customers waited for their orders and then departed.  "What exactly did we do wrong?" Carey asked the Whig.  "And who had the authority to take that many resources off the road?"  He added to the paper, "It's hard enough to get two cops at any other time.  If I called for a riot I wouldn't get that kind of response."

GoFundMe picks up the slack:
He's suspended for urging fellow officers to ignore stay-at-home orders — he also seems to be getting rich.  Greg Anderson, a Port of Seattle police officer and Special Forces veteran, has a problem with the direction this country is headed during the coronavirus pandemic.  He's prepared to lose his job over it.  In a viral Instagram video, Anderson urged fellow law enforcement officers to basically allow citizens their constitutional right to flout stay-at-home orders and go about their business.  "I'm seeing people arrested or cited for going to church.  I don't know what crime people are committing for doing nails in their own house," Anderson said in the video last week.  "We have to ask ourselves as officers, 'Is what I am doing right?'"

Seattle Cop Fired for Protesting Lock Down Just As Jay Inslee Declares He Will Confine People Without Food Who Don't Cooperate With Contact Tracers.  Sometimes two stories appear that that fit so nicely together that if you imagine this is all being done by a novelist with a gift for foreshadowing.  [On] Monday [5/11/2020], Port of Seattle Police Officer and Special Forces veteran Greg Anderson was terminated.  His offense, a viral Instagram post which he refused to take down.  You really need to read it.  [Video clip]  ["]I've seen officers nationwide enforcing tyrannical orders against the people and I'm hoping it's the minority of officers, but I'm not sure anymore.  We don't get to violate someone's constitutional rights because somebody in our chain of command tells us otherwise.["]  Bingo.  Across the nation we have seen police departments willingly accept orders to not apprehend many classes of criminals and divert officers to such important duties as arresting parents at playgrounds, rousting people off the beach, threatening ministers and church congregations with fines and involuntary isolation orders.  It is just a matter of time before a SWAT team shows up to shut down a restaurant.  Okay, we've already done that [...]

'Unlawful, invalid, unenforceable': Wisconsin Supreme Court nukes Dem Governor's lockdown extension.  Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers was dealt a blow as the state's Supreme Court struck down his coronavirus pandemic lockdown order and allowed businesses to reopen.  The unprecedented ruling handed down Wednesday [5/13/2020] found that the there was an overreach of authority when the Democratic governor's stay-at-home order was extended without consulting with the state Legislature.  President Donald Trump's son appropriately declared in a tweet that the court had "nuked" Evers' lockdown extension order.

Big police presence expected at Michigan protest of stay-at-home order.  A demonstration protesting Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order is set to take place on Thursday in the state capital of Lansing, with fears some might carry weapons inside the Capitol building. [...] The protest is organized by Michigan United for Liberty, which says it is a nonprofit with nearly 8,000 members, organized and formed in response to Whitmer's first stay-at-home order in April, which it views as unconstitutional.

Florida Gov DeSantis calls out other governors for 'draconian' lockdowns and says 'people have rights'.  Florida Gov Ron DeSantis tore into other governors who have ordered 'draconian' lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday as he took further steps to reopen his own state.  'You're not a dictator, you don't have unlimited authority, and people do have rights,' DeSantis said in an interview with Fox & Friends.  He made the comments after being asked if he thinks 'some of these governors that are just doing a one-size-fits-all for the entire state' are 'being too strict and going too far.'  'I don't think any governor has the authority to restrict anyone unless there's a direct relationship to combating this virus,' DeSantis replied.

Perpetual Lockdown in the City of Angels.  The Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro joins the podcast today to talk about lockdown from the perspective of the West Coast.  With his hometown of Los Angeles now planning to extend shelter-at-home guidelines well into the summer and early fall, what are the prospects that the public will abide by those recommendations?  And what are the chances that those who do will preserve their sanity?  [Podcast]

After She "Received Death Threats" Michigan Governor Says ANY Protester Holding Firearm Will Be Arrested.  A day after armed protesters against Michigan's stay-at-home order entered the statehouse in Lansing, Donald Trump once again expressed support for the rightwing movement.  Michigan's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, should he said:  "make a deal" with the demonstrators.  "The governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire," the president wrote in a tweet on Friday morning.  "These are very good people, but they are angry.  They want their lives back again, safely!  See them, talk to them, make a deal."  She didn't listen to the President's advice.  Protestors in Michigan planning to rally at the state Capitol on Thursday are being warned that if they bring firearms to the event they will be arrested.

Cops Arrest Brooklyn Rabbi for Letting Kids — Ages 11, 8, and 2 — Walk to the Store.  A Brooklyn dad who let his kids walk a few blocks to the local store was arrested on Sunday morning [5/10/2020] and charged with endangering the life of a child.  The charges against Noah Chakoff, a rabbi, were dropped about 12 hours later.  But the ordeal began when New York City police stopped the kids — ages 11, 8, and a 2-year-old in a stroller — as they were simply heading to their local bodega (a small candy-and-everything-else store). "I can understand them stopping the children, just to ask a few questions," Chakoff's attorney, Jason Goldman, tells Reason.  "But obviously I don't agree with them charging the rabbi and keeping him for hours and hours while everything was going on with the pandemic."

Michigan Gov. Whitmer says GOP challenging her 'unconstitutional actions' in lawsuit is 'power grab'.  Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer blasted state Republican lawmakers on Tuesday [5/12/2020] over a lawsuit they have filed challenging her emergency authority to deal with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, ironically accusing them of a "power grab."  Whitmer's office filed a legal response to the suit this week, claiming that while the Republican majority in the Legislature represents a "coequal" branch of government, they somehow don't have the authority to question her, no matter what she does.

Michigan strikes back by suspending elderly barber's license.  State regulators on Wednesday [5/13/2020] suspended the license of a 77-year-old Michigan barber who insisted on cutting hair despite an order to stay closed during the coronavirus pandemic.  Karl Manke has pledged to keep his shop open "until Jesus comes."  A judge declined the state's request to shut down his shop Monday without first holding a hearing.  Regulators took a different path by suspending his barber license and his shop license.

13 May LA County Supervisors:  Flashpoint for the Second American Revolution?  The LA County Board of Supervisors announced on May 12th a three-month extension of lock down or stay-at-home orders.  The LA Times concurrently reported that LA County's death toll stood at 1,613, which is said to be over half of the total for the entire state of California.  California has an estimated population of around 40 million people.  Which means coronavirus deaths in California represent around 0.000075 [percent] of the population, or about one thousandth of one percent.  And for this, all of Los Angeles will be subject to three more months of lockdown.  This is absurd and outrageous on its face.  Lethality rates for Covid-19 based on actual data do not justify this action in any way, shape, manner or form.  There isn't a shred of any 'science' backing up this decision; just political blather about insufficient testing making it too dangerous to conclude the worst is over.

No more anonymous dining in Washington:
State orders restaurants to collect private info of customers, keep logs to open for table service.  Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is facing criticism for demanding that, as part of their upcoming reopening, restaurants begin collecting private information from their customers, including their names, their telephone numbers and their email addresses.  "If the establishment offers table service, create a daily log of all customers and maintain that daily log for 30 days, including telephone/email contact information, and time in.  This will facilitate any contact tracing that might need to occur," a "Phase 2 Restaurant/Tavern Reopening" guidance issued by his office on Monday [5/11/2020] reads.

Coronavirus: Ohio to test 1,200 residents at random.  Around 1,200 Ohioans might soon find out that they have been selected to be tested for the coronavirus as part of a statewide study.  The Ohio Department of Health plans to screen 1,200 residents in their homes for the virus through a nasal swab test and through an antibody blood test.  Screening could start as soon as next week, department spokeswoman Melanie Amato said via email.

The Editor says...
Is the government looking for diseased individuals or gathering DNA for a massive database?  Is it the proper role of government to go door-to-door looking for sick people?  Is it the proper role of government to lock up sick people once they are discovered?  If the government can do this because of the coronavirus, they could do it for any contagious disease.  Election day is coming in six months.  If you remain silent about this creeping tyranny, you deserve the consequences.

A New Day in a Fearful America.  This past week in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's banana republic known as Michigan, a 77-year old barber opened his doors and let the community know he was ready for business.  For this small, essentially non-consequential action, he could lose not only his business, but even his very liberty.  Karl Manke, a barber in the town of Owosso, woke up in a new America where his governor issued an executive order stating all "nonessential" businesses would have to close in order to stop the potential spread of the invisible enemy.  For Manke, his barbershop was one of those "nonessential" businesses.  The decree from up high however ignored an essential truth, that to manke, his shop was essential to his very livelihood.  "I was in despair," Manke told a reporter from the Detroit News.  "I don't have anybody paying me unless I'm doing work."  As word got around that Manke was open for business, customers from towns over lined up for their first haircut in months since the pandemic began.  Word also got around to local authorities. [...] What a new day it is, where 77-year old barbers are now treated as common criminals because they refuse to starve.

A Pandemic of Illogic.  When dealing with politicians, the less logical the statement or action, the more political the statement or action.  This truism is notably evident as we contend with the pandemic of COVID-19 and its attendant pandemic of illogic.  For example, Governors Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), and Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), have instituted continuing lockdowns — some of questionable state and federal constitutional validity — to defeat the novel coronavirus.  In Whitmer's case, she has been notoriously lax about providing the sources of and the actual data driving her decision — now a unilateral one — to extend her emergency powers over the citizenry, not for the purpose of "flattening the curve" (which already has been done), but to prevent a hypothetical "second wave."  One need not be a constitutional scholar to be concerned by the threat of a governor unilaterally imposing constitutionally dubious emergency powers to stop a hypothetical event; however, to be the victim of the pandemic of illogic, it seems one's governor is required not to give a whit.

Orwell: No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it1984 describes the ultimate tyranny to come.  Or the retro-nightmare future that might-have-been, had it not been outdone by reality. [...] For Aldous Huxley, however, Orwell had missed the point.  The Nazis and Soviets were incomplete models for the emerging world order.  The real tyranny was scientific in its approach, sophisticated and slight in its maneuvered hand.  Mankind wouldn't face naked oppression as much as he would be pacified by easily obtained goods, engineered societal rewards and the use of literal opiates — refined pharmaceutical drugs — to make the masses "learn to love their servitude."  This would constitute the ultimate revolution — oligarchical domination administered by a scientific and expert elite.  What Orwell had described would be crude compared to the studied social programs of indoctrinated helplessness.  But Orwell had not missed the point at all (certainly not entirely) — he understood that this was domination nonetheless, no matter how concealed the bludgeoning arm was behind the velvet gloved-hand.  The true purpose of socialism is not the "good of others" [i.e. the masses] but the control by the few — the elite or oligarchy — of the many by an overarching system that made them controllable.

Power-Hungry Governors Must Understand an Economy Is Like Dominoes.  There are governors who fancy themselves kings and queens who want to continue the shutdown and enforce ridiculous executive orders, that for all practical purposes, treat the citizens of their states as if they were in prison, forbidding them to even venture outside for a breath of air, using drones and other spy tools to keep tabs.  What are they going to tell their prisoners when the store shelves are totally empty, there is no gasoline, the drug stores are out of medicine and can't fill prescriptions, because a few more weeks of an idle workforce and the supply lines, including the essentials of life, will begin to dry up?  The system that sustains our economy and very lives is interconnected, codependent, and a few segments cannot long exist without the others.

Georgia kicks off chilling door-to-door COVID-19 blood collections.  Let the government-pressed coronavirus-tied blood collections of citizens begin.  And begin they have.  They have in Georgia at least, where the state's Department of Public Health recently announced, in cooperation with both Fulton County and Dekalb counties' Boards of Health, that "to learn more about the spread of COVID-19," an "investigation" has commenced — and it's an "investigation" that's leading government officials to make random stops at randomly selected residences and ask random citizens for, get this, their blood.  Citizens' DNA in the hands of unelected government officials.  Hmm, what could go wrong there?

The Editor says...
Asking for a blood sample is okay.  (The answer is no.)  Demanding is not okay.  At this point, the virus emergency is all but over.  This blood collection isn't about public safety or studying the spread of a virus.  It is about gathering DNA information for a government database.  It may also be a test to see how much the government can demand without meeting any resistance.

Tennessee Police Arrest Citizen Who Escaped Forced COVID-19 Detention Camp.  Comrades, some readers might not be aware the Ministry of COVID compliance has set up quarantine camps, detention facilities in various areas.  Formerly free citizens who test positive for COVID-19 are forcibly taken to the quarantine camps and held under guard.  Last week one of the non-compliant captives demanded his freedom; he climbed the fence and escaped detention.  After a manhunt in Tennessee the subversive citizen was recaptured, arrested and brought back to the detention facility.  Alarmed yet?

The 'Freesistance' can Prevent Dems from Prolonging the Shutdown.  [Scroll down]  When the Michigan State Legislature tried to remove Gretchen Whitmer's ability to order around Michiganders, she decided to ignore the law and do as she pleased.  In Illinois, Pritzker issues "capricious coronavirus edicts" as if he is a Roman Emperor while insisting that the federal government give him $40 billion dollars so he can fill shortfalls in the state budget caused by years of Democratic Party mismanagement.  He has shut down churches indefinitely — gleefully threatening pastors with arrests and fines.  There can be no god but the state.  In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered nursing homes to accept virus-infected patients.  And since the virus is most deadly to the elderly and those with morbidities, this put New York's most at-risk population at the most risk possible.  While Cuomo has very publicly professed his love for his 88-year-old mother, even using her safety as justification for his prolonged shutdown, he has no problem killing other people's moms.  Out of the 21K+ deaths from the virus in New York State, more than 5K have been from nursing homes.

Trump is Not Weakening.  I characterize President Trump's behavior as strategic rather than weak.  Many Trump supporters are furious that Trump appears to allow Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx to dictate when we reopen America.  At the same time, Democrats and fake news media absurdly claim Trump is responsible for thousands of deaths because he ignores science and health experts.  Fake news media is flooding the airwaves with their claim that over 100,000 people will die if crazy Trump irresponsibly reopens America.  Trump is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.  I am confident that Trump will courageously press forward, doing what is best for We the People.  Out-of-control Democrats are using coronavirus to overrule our Second Amendment right to bear arms, release dangerous felons, and fund extreme leftist causes.  They have selectively implemented unconstitutional restrictions intended to punish Christians and Trump voters.  Insane with their newfound power, Democrats are actually considering going door to door to drag people out of their homes.  In a nutshell, coronavirus has liberated Democrats from the restraints of the U.S. Constitution.  Folks, we are at war with an evil enemy within, the Democratic Party.

Governor Greg Abbott has a Pen, a Phone, and a Tank?  [Scroll down]  The right to work to earn a livelihood is without question an unalienable right.  The government cannot take away that right.  Many in government want to take away the right to bear arms, but their efforts against the Second Amendment have led to conditions, not elimination.  Likewise, the government has no power to suspend or eliminate the right to earn a living.  With regard to the right to bear arms, the Second Amendment could, at least in theory, be abolished.  On the contrary, prior to lawfully suspending the right to produce income to survive, the government would have to first repeal the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."  A silver lining may be that the COVID-19 pandemic has provided us the opportunity to consider the lawful reach of executive orders.  It is one thing to impose reasonable conditions of employment (masking, sanitizing, etc.) in perilous circumstances.  It is quite another to announce complete shutdown decrees from on high.

Dem governors will pay a huge price in November for unnecessarily long lockdowns.  In the nearly half year between now and the time the country goes to the polls, blue state voters are going to wonder why they should be imprisoned at home, their children out of schools, and their finances impoverished while elsewhere in the country it is still the land of the free.  Already, there have been protests in Michigan and elsewhere, demanding loosening of restrictions, and more are planned in Blue states like New Jersey.  Republican Senator Pat Toomey of purple state Pennsylvania agrees with me that American political leaders are "overstating the danger[."]  I think the Democrat governors are making a very bad bet.  Maybe South Dakota and Wyoming will become hot spots of infections, but in the meantime, the carnage of suicide, delayed medical treatments, domestic violence, and diseases of poverty will multiply in blue states.

Michigan legislature's lawsuit is necessary, reasonable.  The lawsuit filed by the Legislature is being broadly miscast as an attempt to strip Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of her powers to manage Michigan through the COVID-19 crisis.  That's not at all what legislative Republicans are attempting to do in suing the governor.  What they're asking for is a restoration of their Constitutional authority to provide oversight of an executive who has unilaterally declared herself the sole and absolute power in Michigan.

Dem Governors Face Dozens of Lockdown Lawsuits.  [D]uring the past two months, the nation's Democratic governors have clearly demonstrated that the temporary possession of emergency powers can unmask the hidden tyrant in even the most unremarkable politician.  Virtually all have overreached their legitimate mandates, and few show any inclination to relinquish their newfound authority.  This has not only produced widespread protests but has also led to dozens of constitutional lawsuits.  These governors behave as if they recognize no legal boundaries.  Consequently, the voters have sought to correct them.  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), for example, is the defendant in at least two federal lawsuits, including a challenge to his prohibition of religious services in the Garden State.  Rabbi Yisrael A. Knopfler of Lakewood has joined Rev. Kevin Robinson in a four-count lawsuit that points out the obvious fact that "churches and synagogues can easily accommodate the kind of social distancing that keeps some commercial businesses open."  Moreover, Murphy refuses to provide the voters with a target date for lifting his "indefinite" lockdown.

Gov Pritzker gives seemingly never-ending five-phase plan to reopen Illinois, churches among hardest hit.  To some Illinois residents, particularly those who practice religion, it may feel as if their state will remain under some state of lockdown until the end of time, in part because Gov. J.B. Pritzker's five-phase reopening plan does indeed seem like it extends until infinity and beyond.  Unveiled by the governor on Tuesday, the plan contains no definitive reopening dates but does offer to keep the religiously minded waiting an exceptionally long time.  The plan specifically calls for not allowing churches to reopen until phase three, which won't begin until May 29th at the earliest.  And even then, churches will be restricted to a maximum of 10 parishioners, which is practically nothing.

With appropriate distancing measures, Virginia churches should be allowed to conduct services.  The Justice Department's recent decision to weigh in on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's (D) stay-at-home order poses a fundamentally important question:  If governments rightly consider physical nourishment an "essential" service, should not the spiritual sustenance that churches can provide receive at least equal consideration?  The Justice Department intervened after the pastor of the Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Chincoteague, Va., received a criminal charge for holding a service that 16 people attended, more than the limit of 10 set out in Northam's order.  Its brief noted that the congregation abided by social distancing guidelines and that other establishments — including liquor stores and big-box retailers — do not have to abide by a 10-person limit on gatherings.

The Editor says...
The First Amendment prohibits any limits on the number of people who may attend a church.

Is California Thinking About Coronavirus Internment Camps?  Gavin Newsom, governor of the "nation-state" of California, is raising what he calls an "army" of 20,000 government employees who will trace the spread of coronavirus across the state.  Those found guilty, or rather, infected, are likely to run into an uncomfortable change in their lives.  In Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, a pilot program was launched this week to trace infections and exposure, according to County Health Director Dr. Robert Levin.  When infected persons are found, he said, they are "immediately isolated."  As more people are tested, Levin continued, "we will find more and more people who have COVID-19."  "We will isolate every one of them, and we will find every one of their contacts, and we will make sure that they stayed quarantined, and we'll check in with them every day."  Seems innocuous, even helpful.  But: [...]

Texas Woman Is Sentenced To 8 Days In Prison For The Crime Of Opening Her Salon.  Shelley Luther is the owner of the Salon À la Mode in Dallas, Texas, and she has been sentenced to seven days in prison and given a $7,000 fine for opening her salon despite the stay-at-home order from Governor Greg Abbott and the state and county's orders to close all non-essential businesses.  On Tuesday, May 5, Luther was sentenced to seven days in jail and fined $7,000.  Dallas County Judge Eric V. Moyé found Luther to be criminally and civilly in contempt of court and said that reopening her salon was a selfish act.  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
As a public service, I would like to introduce you to Judge Moye's opponent on the November ballot:  Jessica Lewis.  Whether you live in Dallas County or not, I'm sure she would appreciate your support.

Uproar when Bill de Blasio, NYPD commissioner declare protests won't be tolerated amid shutdown.  New York City's mayor and police commissioner think social distancing and coronavirus guidelines during the pandemic trump the constitutional rights of Americans.  Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea claimed this week that the First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly have to take a back seat to the executive orders issued in the efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19.

U.S. Constitution is so Meaningless, Leaders Don't Even Think About It.  Wednesday night [4/15/2020] New Jersey's Democrat Governor Phil Murphy appeared on Tucker Carlson to discuss his state's 'stay-at-home order.  Carlson asked him about his legal authority to issue such an order in obvious violation of specific constitutional rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.  Stunningly, Murphy admitted what most of us already knew:  "I wasn't thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this.  We went to all, first of all, the data and the science.  And it says people have to stay away from each other."

Woman Getting Arrested For Not Wearing A Mask Gets Slammed Face First To The Ground.  An altercation between a Birmingham police officer and a woman over the woman's apparent failure to wear a mask at a store was captured on video and now has prompted an investigation.  The incident took place Tuesday night [5/5/2020] at Walmart in Roebuck.  Video of the incident has been shared thousands of times on Facebook and shows the officer handcuffing a woman who is not complying.  He then picks her up and takes her to the ground.  [Video clip]

TYRANNY: Kansas City is Now Requiring Churches to Keep Lists of People Entering Churches.  New reopening guidelines in Kansas City that require churches to keeps "lists" of attendees have worried advocates of religious freedoms in the area, according to a report from Metro Voice.  Mayor Quinton Lucas enacted the policy where houses of worship receive the same treatment as "non-essential" businesses when it comes to keeping information of those who attend a service or anyone who enters the building.  "Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined Nazi-like measures designed to surveil, track and spy upon what was once a free American people," declared Liberty Council, founder and Chairman Matt Staver.  "That is exactly what Kansas City's misguided government officials are now demanding."

The Editor says...
Will the Kansas City mosques get the same treatment?

I'm Not Scared Anymore.  I have to confess that a few weeks ago I was scared.  Very scared.  Not of the coronavirus, which most likely will prove to be just as lethal, or even much less lethal than the flu virus that, coming from Asia, hits us almost every year.  No.  What I was scared of was the people President Trump appointed to protect us from the virus, particularly Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infection disease expert.  Why was I scared of him?  Because after just a perfunctory search on the Internet I found out that Dr. Fauci has been invited at least once to talk to the globalist crowd at the Harold Pratt House in Manhattan, headquarters of the nefarious Council on Foreign Relations.  But the CFR is not a simple organization like the National Association for the Protection of Stray Cats.  It is actually the visible head of the invisible government of the US, and the globalist conspirators do not invite people at the CFR to hear what they say, but to tactfully suggest to them what they must say if they want their careers to advance.

MSNBC: Americans are so 'freedom obsessed,' they are blinded to threats like virus or climate change.  An MSNBC contributor called out "freedom-obsessed" Americans and their aversion to big government amid the coronavirus pandemic.  Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas blamed Americans obsessed with the idea of freedom for creating a vulnerability in the country to threats like climate change, speaking in the topic during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday [5/6/2020].

Illinois governor says churches may not reopen for a year or more because of coronavirus.  It could be more than a year before churches are allowed to resume their in-person gatherings, according to Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.  Pritzker announced a five-phase plan to reopen Illinois that gives guidance to schools, businesses, churches, and other religious centers about when they will be allowed to reopen.  In phase three, gatherings of up to 10 people will be allowed.  In phase four, gatherings of up to 50 people will be allowed.  Gatherings of more than 50 people will not be allowed until phase five.

Dan Crenshaw reacts to jailing of salon owner, says some leaders 'drunk with power'.  Tuesday's jailing of a hair salon owner in Texas for defying a coronavirus shutdown order just doesn't cut it, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw wrote Tuesday [5/5/2020]. In fact, the punishment dished out to Dallas business owner Shelley Luther was another example of public officials overstepping their authority during the crisis, the congressman wrote on Twitter.  "These punishments are NOT just," Crenshaw wrote.  "They are not reasonable.  Small-minded 'leaders' across the country have become drunk with power.  This must end."

Amid Plague, Press Takes a Powder On Religious Liberty.  A Worcester, Massachusetts, pastor, Kristopher Casey, will be punished with a $300 civil fine for convening more than 10 people at his Sunday church service.  If he does it again, the fine will increase to $500, and he could face criminal charges, Masslive.com reports.  Where has the press been in the face of what seems, on its face, to be an egregious violation of the First Amendment's protections of peaceable assembly and the free exercise of religion?  The newspapers have been basically cheering it on.

The Sheeple Are Worshiping at the Altar of Elitist Propaganda — Kiss Your Freedom Goodbye America.  A healthy economy requires freedom.  Locking up healthy people is insanity.  Covid-19 is a trial, a drill, a simulation of what the elitists want to do to America. [...] This is part of the plan for global governance, and few people recognize the massive deception.  Too many Americans have given up their freedoms, and their logic to untrustworthy and deceptive authorities. [...] The government has shown us just how quickly they can take over every aspect of our lives.  Authorities decree only "essential businesses" can be open.  We have allowed our civil liberties (the unalienable Bill of Rights) to be terminated.  You had better comply. [...] The states run by the Democrat Party, and even some run by neo-con Trotskyite Republicans, will not allow full reopening because they want this to last long enough to destroy Trump's economy during election year and they relish their control over the masses.  And what does the Gates Foundation have planned for us with mandatory vaccines?  Nothing good.

California Sheriff: 'I Refuse to Make Criminals Out of Business Owners'.  Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco reaffirmed his stance on not enforcing stringent stay-at-home orders, telling the Riverside County Board of Supervisors this week that he refuses to "make criminals out of business owners, single moms, and otherwise healthy individuals for exercising their constitutional rights."  Eight weeks ago, officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) "participated in something never done before in our nation's history," Bianco began.  Government "ordered residents into their homes, closed their businesses, made them wear masks, forbid them from going to church, and eliminated constitutional freedoms put in place over 200 years ago," he explained.

Continuing The Shutdown Is Downright Immoral.  This lockdown is fundamentally immoral and has been from almost the very beginning.  It took me a while to get to that place, but here I am and here is why.  First of all, let's address how the left views this.  They have framed this as a choice between certain death or making money for greedy CEO's.  They promote the argument that the jobs we have taken from 30 million (and still counting!) Americans should be dismissed as "amoral dollars and cents."  Amoral?  Please!  How is a young couple working entry level jobs to get their start in the work force and to put together a few coins to start a family, amoral?  How is a man working [...] to start and run a family business, who gives people their first opportunity in the labor force, amoral?  They aren't.  Period.  What is amoral, nay outright immoral, is arbitrarily deciding to deprive a certain class of American citizens of their fundamental right to feed their families.  What could be more immoral than restricting the movements of American citizens who have committed no crime.  Compounding said immorality, we did this based on little to no evidence that they posed any real danger to anyone but an extremely small segment of society.  That segment could have been easily protected without trampling on civil rights of the rest of our citizenry.

True Friends of Liberty Are Rare Indeed.  Since March this year, numerous freedoms — freedom of association, property rights, free exercise of religion, freedom of assembly — have been pulverized as the full power of the state has been unleashed by government agencies across the United States.  In genuine emergencies like war or plague, we let governments do things that we would never otherwise authorize them to do.  But the sheer ease with which this has occurred in recent weeks underscores how a strong in-principle commitment to liberty has weakened throughout America.

Democrats Will Sacrifice Americans to Win the Presidency.  We were first told we must "flatten the curve."  Then, as the curve flattened, they explained we needed to "test everyone."  That gave away the game.  America is a nation of 330 million citizens victimized by the Chinese plague.  To acquiesce to the new rules, each person would need to be tested not once, but probably at least twice or even three times.  To accomplish this monumental task, we would need at least a billion tests.  The amount of time necessary to produce, execute, and evaluate each test is not only incalculable, but unfathomable.  If that is to be the criteria, we will never reopen. [...] You see, the Democrat goal is to reopen not one day before November 3, 2020.  You know, Election Day.

Why does returning to normal after coronavirus lockdown have to be a fight?  In 2020 America, we should probably have expected that the eagerly-awaited prospect of a return to economic activity after the nationwide coronavirus lockdown would be greeted not with cheers but with widespread strife.  Understandably, some want their jobs and livelihoods back ASAP, not to mention everyone who simply hopes to retrieve newly-cherished freedoms such as strolls in the park.  And they see local politicians citing public health to exert questionable powers to enforce social distancing and prohibit even small gatherings, once a sacred liberty in this country.  Others, including majorities in some national polls, are not sure our society should move so quickly to restore an ill-defined normalcy, whatever that constitutes in the minds of 328 million people.  Understandably, they've been infected by the virus of fear, another affliction that's swept the land as history's 59th presidential general election cycle moves toward summer.  Fears have fueled some of history's most disastrous election results.

Your governor can't force you to stay in your state.  Period.  Truth be told, even when states were super-sovereigns, during time of the Articles of Confederation, they did not ban Americans from traveling from state to state, because that was recognized as a fundamental liberty interest that even King George didn't try to stop.  Even as states were free to regulate interstate commerce from 1776 to 1789, Art. IV of the Articles of Confederation unambiguously recognized the right of Americans to travel freely from state to state:  "The free inhabitants of each of these states ... shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state."

Wisconsin Sup.  Ct.  Justice:  Isn't state's lockdown order "the very definition of tyranny?".  The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard oral argument via video in the case brought by the Wisconsin legislature contesting the authority of state officials to impose a lockdown order. [...] I didn't have time today to watch the whole argument, so I can't express a view on who did better and who did worse, so draw your own conclusions.  From the reactions I'm seeing on social media, supporters of continuing the lockdown are expecting a loss.  [Video clip]

The third wave of the left's attempted destruction of America.  Personal freedom and free markets have made this the greatest economy and the greatest civilization in the history of mankind.  We have defeated fascism and communism.  Without us, the world would be an unbearably horrible place to live.  It is only because we love God and freedom.  That's it.  Since 2016, there have been three mortal attacks against these beliefs.  The left has attempted to continue Obama's (and Soros's) transformation of America away from its destiny as a savior of humanity into a prison of slaves ruled by their elite masters.  The first attack was a continuation of Obama's weaponization of the government, in orchestrating a coup d'état against the newly elected president.  This started with the attempt to subvert the Electoral College by threatening the delegates.  It ended with the Mueller investigation, the most corrupt government enterprise in American history.  It failed, but it distracted the administration and delayed enacting needed policy.  The second wave was the impeachment of the president by the House of Representatives, based on zero evidence.  From falsified testimony (called satire) from Rep. Adam Schiff to phony "whistleblowers," whose testimony was taken in secret and withheld from the public, this was an obvious sham from the start, quickly killed in the Senate.  But the damage was done.  More distraction and delay.  The third wave is not the coronavirus, but the reaction of the left.  Leftists desperately need to destroy the American economy and American lives and livelihoods in order to enact their agenda by any means necessary.

Yes, thank you, but many other cops don't have any such reservations.
Sheriffs defy 'unconstitutional' order: 'My conscience will not allow me to arrest someone who is trying to make a living'.  Two Arizona sheriffs have vowed that they will not arrest anyone for allegedly violating what amount's [sic] to state-required house arrest amid the coronavirus pandemic.  Mohave County Sheriff Doug Schuster and Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb insist Ariz.  Gov. Doug Ducey's stay-at-home order is unconstitutional and they won't enforce it either through monetary penalties or taking anyone, including a small-business operator, into custody.  Even so, both sheriffs seem to be taking a measured approach to their dissent.  Ducey, a Republican, has extended the shelter-in-place mandate through May 15.  According to Ducey's directive, violators could face up to six months behind bars if convicted for a class one misdemeanor along with a $2,500 fine.

Restaurateur Defied Maine Gov To Open His Business, State Agents Are Moving To Shut Him Down.  State officials pulled a Maine restaurant's health and liquor licenses after the owner opened up in defiance of Democratic Gov. Janet Mills' emergency shutdown order.  Rick Savage, owner of Sunday River Brewing Co. in Bethel, opened his restaurant and bar on May 1 after openly challenging Mills on an appearance on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" the evening before.  After Savage reopened, officials from the state health department revoked the health and liquor licenses he needs to operate.  "We've tried to call the governor; you can't even get ahold of them.  The lawmakers are left in the dark, both Republicans and Democrats.  She's doing this all rogue on her own," Savage said on Fox News on April 30.  "We've had enough of it.  We are encouraging all businesses in Maine to open up.  We never should have been shut down in the first place.  We need to open back up."

Salons And Barbershops Across America Are About To Show How Unnecessary This Lockdown Was.  In the eyes of many, Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther has become the latest face of justified resistance against governmental tyranny for her steadfast refusal to back down on keeping her business open despite the prospect of going to jail.  Luther's Salon a la Mode opened for business last Friday [5/1/2020], then promptly got slapped with a court order to close because of coronavirus restrictions.  Instead of meekly complying, as most others doubtless would have, Luther stood outside her salon and literally ripped the thing to shreds.  Indeed, it was a moment that would have made Patrick Henry proud.  (I'm also pretty sure it would have made another person with the surname "Luther" proud too.)  The salon owner told media she has "had enough" of stupid, nonsensical restrictions on her livelihood and that of her employees, and is more than willing to go to jail to make her point.

MI Governor Abandons Liberty Amid Lockdown Protests.  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) appears to have abandoned liberty in a bid to bend the residents of that state to her will.  On April 30, just hours after protesters entered the Capitol building in Lansing to voice their anger at the Coronavirus lockdown, Whitmer extended those restrictions by executive order.  Some of the Lansing demonstrators were armed, and it is difficult to ignore the possibility that the governor's action was a direct response to the dissenters — as if she signed the order out of spite.  Michigan's emergency measures, which, as is the case in most states, shut down the economy and imposed draconian limitations upon everyday activity, were set to expire April 30. The Republican-controlled legislature refused to extend them beyond Thursday, and Whitmer has now practically granted herself extraordinary powers in defiance of both lawmakers and a large part of her state's population.

Jake Tapper to Governor Whitmer:  Do You See Michigan Stay-at-Home Protesters in the Same Vein as Charlottesville Neo-Nazis?  Thousands of freedom protesters converged on the Michigan capitol in Lansing in late April to protest Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her tyrannical orders during the state economic lockdown.  Whitmer's orders were some of the strictest and illogical in the nation.  The governor banned shopping at JC Penney's but Walmart shopping was approved.  Motor boats were not allowed but canoes were allowed.  Seeds were not allowed for sale during the April planting season.  The governor was drunk on her new-found power.

Say, Who's Up For A Post-Bat Soup Virus New World Order?  Seriously, this won't give the conspiracy theory folks ammunition, right?  Because it's not like former Obama State Department Policy Planning Staff member Edward Fishman is putting it to print, right? [...] Edward is saying that they want giant monster big world government, and will take advantage of the misery, fear, sickness, and even deaths of people to achieve it.

Two more California counties to reopen economies despite Newsom's stay-at-home order.  An additional two counties in California are reopening their local economies despite Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's statewide stay-at-home order.  Modoc County in California announced last week that all businesses and churches might reopen, but people must keep a 6-foot distance from each other.  Yuba and Sutter counties are now joining Modoc in reopening despite Newsom's stay-at-home order that is still in effect.

The Tyrannical Soul of Gretchen Whitmer.  [Scroll down]  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer stepped into this boundless field at the end of April.  The legislature refused to extend her emergency powers as required by the Emergency Management Act of 1976, so she granted herself the extension the legislature refused.  She declared a new, separate state of emergency under a dubious interpretation of the Emergency Powers to the Governor Act of 1945, and granted herself the extension the legislature refused.  Sound statutory construction dictates that when two statutes cover exactly the same ground, the more recent statute governs, and the more recent statute limits the governor's power to 28 days unless extended by the legislature.  Even if both laws are still fully operative, they must be read in a way that is not nonsensical.  Whitmer's construction of the two acts effectively reads, "The governor's emergency power shall extend no longer than 28 days, unless extended by the legislature, unless the governor, according to her own unfettered will, shall choose to extend her own power, in which case it shall last as long as she pleases it to last."

U.S. district judge rules Pritzker's stay-at-home order constitutional.  A U.S. district judge issued a ruling Sunday upholding Gov. J.B. Pritzker's stay-at-home order for Illinois as constitutional.  The Beloved Church of Lena, an Evangelical church located about 50 miles west of Rockford, had filed a complaint Thursday seeking a temporary restraining order and injunction in order to resume worship services with its 80 congregants.  The church and its pastor, Stephen Cassell, still held in-person service Sunday without intervention from police, though the temporary restraining order was denied.

DOJ joins lawsuit against Blackface Northam after police threaten a pastor.  The Justice Department is siding with a Virginia church suing Gov. Ralph Blackface Northam.  Because of his orders, police threatened a pastor with jail time or a $2,500 fine for violating the state's coronavirus lockdown restrictions.  The pastor held a 16-person church service on Palm Sunday.  The DOJ decision came after police in protective garb served a summons to Kevin Wilson, the pastor of Lighthouse Fellowship Church on Chincoteague Island.  The service was held on April 5 and the 16 people were spaced far apart from one another in a church that could fit 293 people.

Anti-lockdown demonstrator falsely accused of holding white supremacist sign.  The lies never end when it comes to demonizing conservatives.  On April 20th, entrepreneurs, and their supporters participated in simultaneous rallies in both Pittsburgh and Harrisburg to send a message to Governor Wolf that it was time to safely reopen Pennsylvania businesses.  Organized by PA Small Businesses Against Governor Wolf Shutdown, the rallies boasted hundreds in Pittsburgh and in Harrisburg and were meant to send a clear message to Harrisburg; "Pennsylvanians want to get back to work again". Governor Wolf ordered a shutdown of nonessential businesses in mid-March.  One of the drive-in participants in the rally to call for the reopening of the state was Jill Cooper of Murrysville, PA.  Jill has been a long-time conservative activist since 2008. [...]

Michigan's Whitmer says armed protesters displayed 'worst racism and awful parts' of US history.  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer slammed the protesters who gathered inside the state's Capitol building on Thursday [4/30/2020] to demand she rescind her stay-at-home orders, saying they represented the "worst racism and awful parts" of U.S. history.  "There were swastikas and Confederate flags and nooses and people with assault rifles," Whitmer said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."  "Some of the outrageousnesses of what happened at our capitol depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country."

The Freedom of Individuals Still Matters — Even If COVID Warriors Say It Doesn't.  Since all action is individual, purposeful, and subjective, in the case of a crisis it is impossible for government to take collective action that would not be coercive to almost everyone.  The coronavirus is a case in point.  At the present time (April 16, 2020), forty-one of the fifty US states have declared some form of what is called a "lockdown."  Supposedly "nonessential" businesses must remain closed, and there are various restrictions on the movement and interaction of the populace.  The stated purpose in all cases is to "stop the spread" of the virus.  Yet there is no way for a government bureaucrat to know which purchases and which businesses are truly "essential."  The individual himself must decide what action he will or will not take in order to both avoid catching the disease AND satisfy his other preferences, such as keeping a roof over his head and feeding his family.  If it were the preference of all people to isolate themselves, close their businesses, not patronize businesses, refuse to show up for work, or refuse to socialize with their friends and neighbors, then the government would not need to implement any of these measures.  The only conclusion to be drawn is that the state-imposed restrictions are violations of the preferences of many individuals.  Since it is only the individual who acts purposefully and not groups, government restrictions upon these individuals are illogical and cannot be justified.

Bill de Blasio warns New Yorkers that 'the nice weather is very much a threat to us'.  The weather in New York City is going to be quite nice this weekend, which gave Mayor Bill de Blasio another reason to remind citizens about what could get them arrested.

The constitutional guarantees of certainty, rule of law, and due process.  Some governors and mayors expanded and extended the restrictions, and the arbitrary nature of these became patent.  In Maryland, the owner of a drive-through car wash was cited for violating the lockdown rules.  In California, Governor Gavin Newsom opened some beaches to the public but not those in Orange County, apparently on the basis of a fake news account and without contacting local officials.  In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order seems remarkably like imprisonment.  She has banned motorized boating, purchases of infant car seats and gardening supplies, and a drive-in movie theater was cited for violating her directives.  Does she imagine the virus travels from closed car to closed car?  If so, she may soon shut down Michigan's roads (and car factories). [...] While promulgating and enforcing (often arbitrarily) lockdown rules, many of the same political figures, actually have made infectious rates soar.  Governor Andrew Cuomo certainly has.

If 'Congress Shall Make No Law...' Why Can Governors?  The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That's unambiguous. [...] Yet governors across the country are ignoring or suspending almost every one of those rights enumerated at the top of the Bill of Rights, with little to no pushback from the press, which just happens to be the only part of the first two amendments not under assault.  It's actually not under assault — it's gone — suspended indefinitely in the name of "the common good."  Governors have declared coronavirus emergencies and wiped clean the rights our nation was founded for the purpose of putting those rights beyond the reach of government.  These suspensions were not done by vote; they were done with the stroke of a pen.  Constitutionally, they can't be done by either.  There is no provision of the Constitution allowing for the waiving of rights under any condition, but most legislatures are content to sit back and watch this all proceed without their fingerprints anywhere near it.

Hawaii Travel Paradise Is Deserted, With Recovery Further Off.  In Hawaii, the number of new cases has dwindled to five on April 30, compared with a peak of 31 on March 17, according to the state's Department of Health.  The state had 618 cases in total, and 16 deaths.  Even as Hawaii's cases fall, Governor David Ige extended the state-at-home order through the end of May and said visitors need to quarantine for 14 days.

Liberate California!  Thousands Protest Crackdown on Civil Liberties Across State.  Thousands of freedom-loving patriots staged massive protests across the state of California from the beaches of Orange County to the capitol building in Sacramento.  The protesters were demanding that Democrats restore their civil liberties and release citizens from what is a de facto house arrest.

Communion Banned in Knoxville, Tennessee Churches.  There's good news and bizarre news for Christians who live in Knoxville, Tennessee.  The government will allow you to return to your church house on May 1st, but there are a number of rules, regulations and hoops you will have to jump through to make that happen.

Is It Time for a Revolution?  It's time for America's business owners to fight back against a tyrannical government.  Some might call that a revolution.  But in this case, I'm talking about a war fought in the courts.  I'm talking about a legal battle.  It's time for lawsuits — lots of them.  It's time to defend our civil rights.  It's time to defend our property rights.  It's time to make tyrant governors understand this isn't a dictatorship and we're not their serfs.

The First Amendment [is] Suffering Under PC Attack.  The First Amendment is beyond doubt under attack.  The five freedoms protected by this most critical Amendment are the freedoms of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly; the Coronavirus crisis has challenged every one.  People are forbidden from congregating and worshiping as they choose.  Those who speak against the set media narrative are pilloried.  For example, try posting information about the China virus and see how long your posts remain up.  Press agencies that do not kowtow to the World Health Organization are censored by big tech.  When protesters tried to assemble and to petition the state government of Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared that they could not.  This Coronavirus crisis has exposed the fragility of our relationship with our rights.  But it is not the first such attack.

Thousands protest at Huntington Beach against California Gov. Newsome's coronavirus lockdown.  [Video clip]

Tucker Carlson On Fire:  "Totalitarianism doesn't shock us any more".  "What are the limits to their power?"  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
The video clip is ten minutes long and well worth your time.

The Peasants Are Revolting — California Rebels Defy Comrade Gavin Newsom.  The Rebel Alliance is pushing back against the insufferable and silly rules of the little blue dictators hiding amid their governor mansions.  Yes comrades, the pesky red subversives have taken to the street and realized 'hey wait, there are more of us, than them.' [...] If the COVID Compliance Ministry tries to stop the uprisings, there could be trouble.

COVID-1984.  [Scroll down]  Made famous by George Orwell in his novel 1984, groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational and dysfunctional decision-making outcome.  The desire for cohesiveness produces a tendency to agree at all costs, minimizing conflicts and resulting in decisions made without critical evaluation. [...] Today, the group demands we stay away from our friends and families and neighbors, that we stay away from our jobs and work and lives, that we stay away from our schools and leisure activities.  The group says people must not attend church, eat at restaurants, or walk in local parks or on local beaches.  The group demands that those who are good citizens report their friends and neighbors who are breaking the lockdowns to police.  People who question or protest these new rules are dangerous.  The group says we have no choice.  This is a pandemic, after all.  Opinions that don't align with the group must be silenced.

Trump says armed Michigan lockdown protesters are 'very good people'.  President Trump says the protesters who stormed Michigan's Capitol on Thursday — some of them armed with rifles — are "very good people" who are angry with the state's restrictive COVID-19 lockdown.  In a tweet on Friday morning, the president weighed in on tensions roiling the state and called on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to negotiate with demonstrators who are demanding parts of the economy be reopened amid the coronavirus pandemic.  "The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire.  These are very good people, but they are angry.  They want their lives back again, safely!  See them, talk to them, make a deal," he wrote.

The Editor says...
We have already made a deal.  The deal is "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  ["]The Petition Clause protects the right to petition all branches and agencies of government for action.  In addition to the right of assembly guaranteed by this clause, the [Supreme] Court has also ruled that the amendment implicitly protects freedom of association.["] [Wikipedia]

Barr: 'Time to Start Rolling Back' Some Coronavirus Restrictions.  During a Twitter Q&A on Friday [5/1/2020], Attorney General William Barr stated that "it's time to start rolling back" some of the restrictions enacted to combat the coronavirus and that "in the appropriate case, we would consider taking action."

Ohio's stay-at-home order [has been] extended through Memorial Day.  Ohio's stay-at-home order is being extended through the end of May, impacting Memorial Day weekend throughout the state.  The state's stay-at-home order — first issued by Gov. Mike DeWine and health officials on March 22 — was set to expire late Thursday, but DeWine said during his daily coronavirus briefing it would be extended with exceptions for certain businesses.  "When retail opens up, that certainly will be a major exception for that," DeWine told reporters, WCMH reports.  "Certainly it's an exception in just few days when manufacturing and other companies are allowed to start back so, it will be extended."

Gov. Lujan Grisham announces lockdown of Gallup.  New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has locked down the City of Gallup.  Outgoing Mayor Jackie McKinney and new Mayor Louis Bonaguidi had both requested the governor invoke emergency powers under the state's Riot Control Act.  "A lot of people just don't seem to take it serious," Bonaguidi said.  "It's an epidemic, it's killing people.  All roads into Gallup were closed at 12 p.m Friday [5/1/2020].  Gallup police and the McKinley County Sheriff's Department will partner with New Mexico State Police, the New Mexico Department of Transportation and the New Mexico National Guard to enforce the emergency order and road closures.  Under the Riot Control Act, the restrictions will terminate automatically at noon on the third day after they become effective.

Wisconsin Police Visit Mom Because She Allowed Her Child to Play at Friend's House.  A video surfaced yesterday [4/30/2020] showing Wiscosin police officers visiting the home of a parent who allowed her child to play at their friends house during stay-at-home orders.  The video starts as the mom answers the door and is greeted by two police officers, one male and one female.

Alito orders Pennsylvania to respond in case asking Supreme Court to halt enforcement of stay-at-home order.  Justice Samuel Alito this week ordered the Pennsylvania government to respond to arguments from a variety of Pennsylvanians asking the Supreme Court to halt enforcement of Gov. Tom Wolf's strict stay-at-home order, aimed at fighting the coronavirus, because they say it is unconstitutional.  The Pennsylvanians behind the suit — called petitioners in Supreme Court parlance — are arguing that their rights under the First, Fifth and 14th Amendments have been violated through Wolf's order.  The petition lays out a variety of grounds on which it says the order is unconstitutional.

City of Dallas Goons Sue Heroic Salon Owner Who Refused to Shut Down.  CBS Local reported that Dallas city officials are filing a lawsuit against Salon À la Mode owner Shelley Luther.  In addition, the city of Dallas has filed a restraining order against Luther for violating the city and county's shelter-in-place orders that were implemented to allegedly fight the Wuhan virus.  BLP reported on Luther's bold action when she opened her salon in violation of the arbitrary order.

Blue States Become Laboratories of Despotism.  A number of Democratic governors have used the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to "experiment" with constitutionally protected civil liberties.  Their states have, in effect, become laboratories of despotism.  California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), for example, has refused to say when his stay-at-home order will expire, even in a purported reopen plan that that he announced last Tuesday.  When asked when Golden State residents would again be able to exercise their First Amendment right to attend church, he vaguely replied, "months, not weeks."  In addition, Newsom was evidently so incensed by the number of people who went to the beach last weekend he decided to order all Orange County beaches and state parks closed to the public, effective May 1.  Such decrees have provoked increased impatience with Newsom, including a rant from Elon Musk, whose Fremont Tesla factory is shut down.

Hundreds Of Protesters — Many Of Them Armed — Enter Michigan Capitol — Police Block Doors To House Chamber.  Michigan Protest:  Hundreds of patriots gathered at Michigan's capitol building in Lansing on Thursday, many gaining entry to the lobby, to protest the state's proposed extension of its "stay-at-home" order.  Hundreds of photos and dozens of videos have been uploaded to the internet as people share a glimpse of what's to come nationwide if the country doesn't re-open soon.  Footage shows officers checking protesters' temperatures before entering the capitol building.

Armed Protesters Flood Michigan Capitol as Whitmer Attempts to Override State Legislature.  Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing as the legislature considered a measure to extend Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's state of emergency declaration.  The House of Representatives voted down an extension of the order, but Whitmer claimed she has broad authority to continue the lockdown regardless.  This response only adds to the evidence she is abusing her authority amid the coronavirus crisis.  Protesters waved American flags and open-carried firearms as some changed, "Let us in!" and "This is the people's house, you cannot lock us out."  Video of the protest spilling over into the capitol building went viral on social media.  Protesters crowded into the hallway and up the staircase as state police and the sergeant-at-arms blocked the entrance to the House floor.

Judge rules against Illinois Dem governor's stay-at-home order: 'Shredded the Constitution'.  An Illinois judge has ruled against Gov. J.B. Pritzker's extended stay-at-home order, citing a violation of civil liberties.  Republican state Rep. Darren Bailey filed a lawsuit last week challenging Pritzker's lockdown extension.  The suit asked that a judge determine whether Pritzker abused his power by extending the order, [...] [Paywall]

North Carolina Police Arrest Man for Attempting to Reopen His Business, Others May Follow Suit.  As RedState managing editor Streiff wrote earlier today [4/29/2020], the "Reopen" rebellion against North Carolina's stay at home order is in full effect.  The arrests of protesters are continuing as well, with four arrested during Tuesday's ReopenNC protest, which was the third one held to date.  But in a disturbing incident that happened around lunchtime today, an Apex, NC man was seen on video being being led away by police from his business in handcuffs after attempting to reopen his tattoo parlor.

Why Can't We Go To the Hairdresser?  The cynic in me thinks the press will urge a nationwide lockdown unless and until a Democrat sits in the White House at which time they will take a harder look at the diminishing Covid-19 fatalities and the increasing cost of the lockdowns.  In the meantime frustrated, increasingly broke Americans are asking what happened to such rights as free speech, assembly, worship, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, right to bear arms, right to due process in criminal cases and privacy.  Fundamentally, why can't we go to the hairdresser or the gym, make routine visits to the doctor, the dentist, get elective surgeries, visit our families and friends, shop without looking like masked bandits?  The answer is not that complicated.  Unless the state governments, which have imposed these often-draconian measures, can justify them in court, you can.  But you have to get them judicially enforced by civil suit or in defending a criminal action against you.  Your rights are not self-enforcing.

'MAGA May Day' Freedom Rallies Planned Across America to Protest Lockdowns.  "MAGA May Day" freedom rallies are slated to pop up across America Friday, May 1, aimed to send a message to "local and state government tyrants" that it is time to safely and responsibly reopen the country.  The "drive-in" rallies for freedom encourage participants to head to their state capitol or local government building to protest the nationwide lockdowns and demand independence from China, not allowing the country to "control trade, supply chains, or anything else that affects the daily life, health, happiness of American citizens."

DOJ Instructs U.S. Attorneys To Lookout For State And Local Governments Violating Civil Liberties.  U.S. Attorney General William Barr instructed U.S. attorneys to monitor cases of state and local governments infringing on citizens' civil liberties Monday as municipalities remain on lockdown nationwide amid the pandemic over the novel Wuhan coronavirus.  "Millions of Americans across the nation have been ordered to stay in their homes, leaving only for essential and necessary reasons, while countless businesses and other gathering places have been ordered to close their doors indefinitely," Barr wrote in a department memo.  "These kinds of restrictions have been necessary in order to stop the spread of a deadly disease — but there is no denying that they have imposed tremendous burdens on the daily lives of all Americans."

CA Gov Newsom Warns Sun-Loving Newport Beachgoers "Aggressive" Measures Coming.  In a livestreamed update on the Golden State's response to COVID-19 this afternoon [4/27/2020], California Governor Gavin Newsom threw down the gauntlet to sun-worshippers in his state, who he was disappointed appeared to be enjoying life over the weekend.  That's something that just can't stand, man!  Newsom began his speech with a smile, by thanking "the 40 million" Californians who "over the course of the last number of weeks have not only bent the curve... but stabilized it."  But the governor's smile only lasted about 24 seconds, when he said this: [...]

Lockdown Protests Confound Anti-Trump Elites.  The Washington Monthly recently singled out yours truly as a typically deluded Republican, "desperately hoping" that Donald Trump's presidency can be saved by anti-quarantine protests, which we envision as "a renewal of the Tea Party spirit."  This fatuous nonsense is presumably based on a hasty perusal of a column warning the Democrats not to belittle the lockdown protestors lest they provoke an electoral backlash similar to that which they endured a decade ago.  The author of the article, Nancy LeTourneau, predictably deploys every demeaning cliché ever circulated about the Tea Party movement and the current protests that she can conjure, including the tired canard that racism has been the animating force behind both.

Mississippi Mayor Suspends Open Carry During Coronavirus Crisis.  Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D) of Jackson, Mississippi, issued an order over the weekend temporarily prohibiting law-abiding citizens from openly carrying handguns during the coronavirus crisis.  The Clarion-Ledger reports that Mississippi adopted open carry in 2013 and Y'all Politics quotes Lumumba claiming that "child deaths by firearms in the South have increased 72 percent."

15 Uniformed Officers From 4 Different Law Enforcement Agencies Rush to Target Restaurant Owner For Violating Maryland's Lockdown Order.  This is not about a virus.  15 uniformed officers from 4 different law enforcement agencies descended on a restaurant in Maryland and cited the owner for violating the state's lockdown order.  Dave Carey, the owner of Lee's Landing Dock Bar is facing prosecution because approximately 70 people were standing in line waiting for their takeout orders.  Mr. Carey said people waiting for their food were following the social distancing guidelines "to the letter of the law" but the police swarmed his establishment anyway.

Our Dress Rehearsal for a Police State.  All my life, I have dismissed paranoids on the right ("America is headed to communism") and the left ("It can happen here" — referring to fascism).  It's not that I've ever believed liberty was guaranteed.  Being familiar with history and a pessimist regarding the human condition, I never believed that.  But the ease with which police state tactics have been employed and the equal ease with which most Americans have accepted them have been breathtaking.  People will argue that a temporary police state has been justified because of the allegedly unique threat to life posed by the new coronavirus.  I do not believe the data will bear that out.  Regardless, let us at least agree that we are closer to a police state than ever in American history.

Why wasn't this memo issued a month ago?
Attorney General Bill Barr Issues DOJ Memo:  "The Constitution is Not Suspended in Times of Crisis".  The U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General Bill Barr, has issued a memo (pdf here) citing a needed balance between COVID-19 mitigation efforts and U.S. civil rights under the constitution.  Notably AG Barr identifies both "religious freedom", and "undue interference with the national economy" within his memo.

Thank You, Democrat Governors, for Re-Electing President Trump!.  Government-imposed totalitarianism is not going over well in the land of the free.  Citizens are rising up across the nation against officials restricting their lives and destroying their livelihoods in ways unheard of here before now.  Sparked by the Operation Gridlock that recently brought ten thousand protesters to the Michigan capitol, citizens in dozens of states are creating their own gridlocks.  On the sunny Sunday of April 19 in Denver, Colorado, thousands staged a drive-by car protest, honking horns and flying flags for hours on streets around the Capitol.  A thousand more families and friends gathered happily on the Capitol lawn to cheer them on with homemade posters pleading with the Democrat governor to let them get back to work.  A fun picnic, but without the deviled eggs.  Facebook censors shut down the main group, Operation Gridlock Denver, the morning of the protest, but since many groups were publicizing the event, it wasn't hard for people to find information.  Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that Facebook has decided that these rallies are "harmful disinformation," so they will protect us by eliminating it.  Oh, thank you, mini-god Mark.  Nevertheless, the Denver Gridlock was a spectacular success.

Will Americans Let Coronavirus Panic Destroy Their Liberty?  There is a rumbling right now below our feet, though, and these tremors may well split the earth around us if our elected leadership do not yield to common sense and shared American purpose.  This moment in history is opening up before us two paths — one in which we reclaim for ourselves the truth that all legitimate power begins with individual consent and another that deviates sharply from our shared past by giving to the State the ultimate authority for determining what rights each one of us may freely call our own.  Down the path of freedom we must take solid steps, for the other path promises to swallow us whole.  I have no illusion that American liberty is destined to prevail over this new breed of socialism and government-by-fiat.  Life gives us no certainties — only choices and opportunities.  It's the other side that denies the existence of God while insisting that our historical fate is predetermined.  Our side has always cherished human freedom precisely because we know how rare it is.

Are Continued Shutdown Orders Constitutional?  Whether government action is constitutional is sometimes relatively straightforward:  Can the government impose prior restraints on speech?  Almost never.  Can it discriminate on the basis of race?  Same answer.  But for most questions that involve a restriction on liberty, courts tend to ask two less direct questions in deciding whether it violates the constitution:  What is the reason for the restriction?  And how is the government going about it?  Put another way:  is the purpose legitimate and are the means chosen properly to achieving that goal?  They are good questions for all of us to ask now.

Dan Bongino pleads with 'brothers & sisters in blue' to fight back against 'outrageous' orders.  With the image of a mother being arrested and placed in handcuffs for taking her children to the park as a backdrop, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino called on his "brothers & sisters in blue" to speak out against "outrageous orders."  "To My Brothers & Sisters in Blue, PLEASE, speak w/your fraternal organizations & speak out collectively against these outrageous orders to arrest Americans for exercising their Rights," Bongino tweeted early Sunday.  "We're losing the support of people who've defended us in crises for years.  This can't continue."

Wait, how long are we supposed to stay in lockdown?  What are we waiting for?  The question can be posed in either a wild, irresponsible way — or a sane, measured way.  In New York, our "pause" will continue until at least May 15, and New Yorkers are asking, in a measured, sane way:  What exactly are we waiting for? [...] We did our part; we flattened the curve.  So why is there no move to loosen regulations?  In February and March, expert and elite opinion seemed to understand that patience with lockdowns would at some point wear thin.  But not anymore.  Last week, Cuomo used a graphic in his daily presentation that listed the lengths of various wars and previous pandemics.  The 1910 cholera outbreak lasted a year.  World War II lasted six years.  And so on.  The message:  We haven't been living through this that long, and our ancestors had it far worse.  But if we are looking at years of lockdown, we need to be informed of it, we need a debate — and we need a plan.

Democrats' Fascism Shines Through.  Someone once said that if fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the guise of fighting fascism.  Updated version:  Fascism has come to America, in the guise of fighting a virus.  Nowhere has Democrats' totalitarian instincts come out more clearly than in their response to the coronavirus.  David Horowitz says:  "Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out."  In the case of Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the totalitarian is not only out but goose-stepping toward the New Reich.  Instead of "Sieg Heil," it's "Obey or Else."  On April 17, 3,000 to 4,000 came to the state capital to protest the shutdown and some of the governor's more outrageous edicts, to wit:  You can't travel between two residences you own.  You can fish in a kayak, but not a motorboat.  You can buy lottery tickets but not garden seeds.

Napolitano warns freedom-stifling consequences of drones monitoring innocent citizens in name of safety.  Responding to the growing Orwellian trend of the authorities using surveillance technology to enforce social distancing protocols, Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said bluntly Thursday that such enforcement methods are illegal.  "We're not talking about a bank robber running out of a bank because there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime, and you don't need a search warrant to watch him," he said during an appearance on FNC's "Fox & Friends."  What "we are talking about," he continued, is using drone technology, as an example, to watch "people peaceably walking down the street or assembling in a public space."  And that is both Orwellian and frightening, not to mention illegal.

COVID Protests:  First Amendment Is an 'Essential' Service.  As anti-quarantine protests spread across America, so does the fight for individual liberty.  At a time when government has never been more powerful, Americans from Pennsylvania to the California are right to question its limits.  The coronavirus has jeopardized public health and wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, but it has also exposed the dangers of an ever-encroaching government into once-protected corners of our lives.  On a daily basis, Americans are coping with the federal, state, and local government deeming what is "essential" and what isn't.  As it turns out, our cherished liberties — from religious freedom to free speech — don't make the cut.  Across the county, pastors and parishioners are being fined for daring to go to church.

Stupidity Kills.  Park authorities welcomed Tom Brady to Tampa by kicking him out of a public field.  Idaho cops arrested a 40-year-old mom in front of her children for the crime of bringing them to a playground.  Beautiful San Clemente dumped sand in ugly fashion on a local skate park.  From the beginning, tax-funded killjoys removed basketball rims from outdoor courts.  Tennis, a sport with social distancing baked into the game, sees its courts closed by order of people who threaten to get up close and personal to ostensibly thwart people who get up close and personal (even though they don't).

Government Goes Too Far.  I find it creepy how eager some people are for authorities to boss us around. [...] In Raleigh, North Carolina, people gathered to protest a "stay-at-home" order.  The police arrested a protester and tweeted, "Protesting is a non-essential activity."  I bet they got a chuckle out of that.  But our Constitution guarantees Americans the right to "peaceably assemble" and "petition the government for a redress of grievances."  The coronavirus doesn't override the Constitution.  Protests also erupted in Michigan, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer imposed some absurd rules.  She declared, "All public or private gatherings of any size are prohibited."  Her executive order stopped people from seeing relatives and banned anyone with more than one home to travel between them. [...] Sweden took a near-opposite approach.  Yes, they encouraged older people to stay inside and sick people to stay home.  They didn't want hospitals overwhelmed.  But otherwise, Sweden is carrying on almost as normal.

Idaho Woman Facing 6 Months in Jail For Violating Coronavirus Lockdown Order by Holding Yard Sale.  Welcome to the new America where law-abiding citizens are arrested while criminals are released from jail.  An Idaho woman is facing 6 months in jail and or a $1,000 fine for holding a yard sale.  Christa Thompson was helping her husband Peter, a truck driver, sell his late father's belongings at a yard sale when police issued her a citation for violating the Governor's Coronavirus lockdown order.  Peter Thompson told the Idaho Freedom Foundation that after his father passed away he had a significant financial incentive to sell his father's belongings because his family took over his storage unit which [...] cost $1,000 a month.

Progressive Governors Indulge Their Inner Despot.  We've all seen the catalogue of overweening unilateral diktats enforced by police power coming down from Democrat governors.  Under the guise of enforcing social distancing in order to slow the spread of the disease, governors have quickly violated the Bill of Rights: closing gun stores at the same time they release felons from prison; shutting down church services while leaving liquor stores open; criminalizing the right to peaceful assembly; arbitrarily deeming some economic activities as "essential," like abortion clinics and pot dispensaries, while proscribing others like buying paint or vegetable seeds.  Even our freedom of movement that doesn't endanger others, such as surfing alone or playing with our children in a deserted park, has been interdicted by overzealous police.

Police Have Started Revolting Against Draconian Coronavirus Edicts From Local Tyrants.  Police chiefs from Texas to Washington are standing up against draconian orders from local leaders demanding strict adherence to extreme social distancing measures to curb the spread of the novel Wuhan coronavirus.  The Houston Police Officers' Union declared Wednesday [4/22/2020] that its members would refrain from enforcing local County Judge Lina Hidalgo's ruling deeming it mandatory for any individual over the age of 10 to wear a mask in public. [...] The police union said it had contacted the state attorney general's office to determine whether Hidalgo's ruling was even constitutional, noting that until then, members were encouraged to use discretion in enforcement of the measure as resources are already stretched thin from the pandemic.

Houston Police Officer's Union to Harris County Judge Hidalgo:  Take Your 'Idiotic' Mask Order and Shove It.  The Houston Police Officers' Union is not shy in expressing how they really feel about Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo's order that all residents of Harris County must wear a mask under the threat of fines and prison.  Governor Abbot began to lift restrictions across Texas earlier this week.  Hildalgo seems to be full of authoritarian glee and is giving Gretchen Whitmer competition for her status as the most hated woman in America. [...] The title "county judge" in Texas counties refers to the county executive and not a judge on a bench who presides over cases.  Hidalgo has been doing her best to unleash chaos in her county by trying to release 4,000 convicted criminals from the county jails.  That hair-brained idea was blocked by a federal judge earlier this month.  Hidalgo announced her newest edict on Wednesday.  It includes $1000 fines and up to 180 days in jail for anyone who will not wear a mask in public even though the infection numbers are flattening out according to Governor Abbot and his medical experts enough to relax some lockdown restrictions.

We Need a New Base Realignment and Closure Commission — Not a New Bureaucracy.  In times of crisis like the one we are now going through, calls to grow an already bloated bureaucracy abound.  Whether it's through more centralization, more powers to the federal government, or the creation of new bureaucracy to address the pandemic, the hope is that next time around, a new arrangement will allow for a better and faster response.  Not likely.  Yet, it happens each time there's a crisis.

In a National Emergency, Does the Constitution Still Apply?  An essential principle of the United States is that it is a free country, with individual liberties guaranteed, and government power limited.  That concept is now being tested. [...] President Trump proclaimed a national state of emergency under the National Emergencies Act on March 13, 2020.  However, nothing in that proclamation closed any businesses, confined anyone in their homes or infringed on any other constitutional rights or liberties.  That, and other actions by the federal government merely cleared away certain regulatory roadblocks that could interfere with the government's response to the pandemic.  By contrast, the orders issued at the state and local level have dramatically restricted the civil liberties of ordinary law-abiding Americans, shutting down all "non-essential" businesses, causing, at last count, 22 million Americans to lose their jobs, and confining the vast majority of the nation to their homes.

Amid COVID-19, Deep State Moves in for the Kill Against Churches.  With churches across much of America being shutdown by government decree as "non-essential," they are facing enormous and potentially existential threats.  On one hand, churches are being terrorized by state and local governments, with pastors and congregations literally being fined or even arrested for simply attending a service.  Then, when the churches try to stream online, Deep State-run Big Tech firms are censoring them or even shutting them down.  At the same time, many churches across America are lining up to receive government bailout money — cash that comes with dangerous strings attached, including LGBT mandates.  This represents a profound threat to religious liberty and the continued independence of the church in America.  It could be a perfect storm.

Governors, not gods:  State executives cannot simply do whatever they want indefinitely.  As soon as the president began talking about opening up the country last week, the media pounced on him and suggested that he is not a king and cannot control the states.  Even House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., tweaked Trump and implied that the 10th Amendment gives states the power to shut down the people and our businesses.  They are right.  A president is not a king.  But most certainly, a governor, county commissioner, or sheriff is not king either.  We have natural rights given by God, and under no circumstances can any of those officials violate those rights indefinitely without due process, oversight, limitations, and checks and balances.  For decades we've been told that everything the Left has ever wanted to do is in the 14th Amendment and anything a state does contrary to those ideals is unconstitutional.  Whether it's early voting, voting without photo ID, affirmative action, abortion, redefinition of marriage, men in women's bathrooms, etc., it's all in the 14th Amendment, and federal courts can use it to strip state officials of their powers to govern.  Except, of course when the 14th Amendment actually applies. [...]

How Dare They Defy My Diktats.  Jobs are being destroyed, mortgages are in arrears, businesses have closed and many will never re-open.  If there's one thing that's becoming increasingly obvious about the coronavirus lockdown, it's that some people are getting really, really sick of it.  The last few days have been rife with protests, as people across the country let their governors know how they feel.  Onerous shutdowns are going to have to end soon or we're going to be facing genuine social disorder and economic collapse.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in Michigan.  Over the weekend, protests erupted in Lansing, and the Governor, Frau Whitmer, is none too pleased that her Michiganders have dared defy her quarantine diktats and her Bizarro-World definitions of "essential" and "non-essential." [...] What is clear is that her state is getting sick of her.  The recall petition has picked up steam.  Fair or not, she's become an avatar for the worst sort of capricious, nanny-state tyrant.  Whatever goodwill she enjoyed outside of Detroit and Lansing is quickly evaporating, and the anti-Whitmer voices are only getting louder.

Connecticut police to test 'pandemic drone' that monitors health of residents.  Police in Westport, Conn., said they will be testing a "pandemic drone" that can scan the body temperatures of residents to determine if they have fevers or other health symptoms in an effort to combat the coronavirus.  Aerospace company Draganfly announced in a news release the drones will be equipped with a specialized sensor and computer vision systems that can display heart and respiratory rates.  They can also detect people coughing in crowds, police said.

Killing Liberty, Coronavirus-Style.  It should now be self-evident for anyone with common sense that the Democrats, liberals, and their convenient Republican allies like "Republicans for the Rule of Law" are using the coronavirus as a cover to advance their deconstruction of America without opposition behind the veil of "saving lives" and "saving democracy."  This has been the dream of liberals for over a century.  Now they will not relent until they deliver the coup de grâce to their enemies:  Christianity, small businesses, and civil society as a whole. [...] Beneath our noses, the "guidelines" and "recommendations" — alongside the actual mandated orders by our political officials — serve as the first stage of widespread social engineering.  The intent is to break the spirit of independent Americans and shape them into a herd of conformity, which permits bureaucratic control over every facet of our lives.

Hobby Lobby Gets Last Laugh Over Dallas Judge Who Forcibly Shut Them Down and Insulted Them On Social Media.  Democrat Dallas County Commissioner Court Judge Clay Jenkins has stepped in it multiple times during this pandemic lockdown.  Not only has he taken the opportunity to exert his will over the people to the point where the rest of the court voted to strip him of his unilateral power during this crisis, he also used it as an opportunity to bash people and businesses he just doesn't like.  One of those businesses is the craft store Hobby Lobby.  Hobby Lobby stayed open after the lockdown of "nonessential" businesses began, making the case that the store sold all the necessary items allowing you to make masks for yourself and others.  Jenkins sent law enforcement to shut down Hobby Lobby locations, and forced patrons out of the store without allowing them to finish shopping.  As Jenkins is wont to do, he made a show of being a tough guy on Twitter and encouraging Dallas country residents to snitch on any business like Hobby Lobby trying to stay open at this time.

Will the Covid-19 PsyOp succeed?  [Scroll down]  Foreign Policy is an American news publication, founded in 1970 and focused on global affairs.  It's now owned by the Washington Post and the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos.  An article published there a week ago says it all:  "Only Surveillance Can Save Us From Coronavirus — Big data offers tools to stop the pandemic right now — if we change our definition of privacy."  And what is the purpose of total surveillance?  Like the Red Chinese model, it's mandated behavior and total control of every aspect of our lives.  Bret Baier, the lead anchor at the Fox News channel, reported last Thursday that high-level sources in the administration now have evidence the Covid-19 did in fact escape from the lab in Wuhan, China — but was not initially designed as a weapon.  The next day, Gordon Chang said that Chinese President Xi was guilty of malicious intent after he witnessed the potential disaster of the virus' release.  So, he dragged his feet on preventing Covid-19 from being exported because he decided to allow it to "level the playing field" according to Chang with other countries in terms of economic and political impact.  According to Business Insider, on Friday [4/17/2020] at the White House, Fauci rejected as a "conspiracy theory" the reports that the novel corona virus was created in a Chinese lab.

Montana County Demands Citizens Wear Government-Issued Arm Bands to Shop at Grocery Stores.  A Montana county is mandating citizens to wear a pink wrist band to go shopping at grocery stores.  The band represents the person has quarantined for 14 days.  You know who else had armbands?

Celebrities and the Media Shouldn't Sneer at Coronavirus Lockdown Protesters.  In their desperation to get back to work, some Americans are taking to the streets to demand that the government end the quarantine. [...] But there are legitimate grievances for protesters to air.  Whitmer's stay-at-home orders were, as Reason's Billy Binion put it, a "hot mess," prohibiting travel between residences (even to relatively uninhabited areas), buying gardening supplies, and motorboats (but not boats without motors).  Authorities in New York City have called on people to report each other for failing to abide by the most stringent social distancing measures.  People have been stopped, shamed, and arrested for merely going outdoors.  Voluntary compliance with social distancing has been remarkable, but forcibly constraining every last person has diminishing returns, and is not a good use of government resources.  That does not mean the quarantine protesters are, as conservative pundit Stephen Moore put it, "modern-day Rosa Parks."  But some of them are justifiably upset, and their frustration should be neither mocked nor ignored.

A Tiny Virus Further Sickens the Fevered Media Mob.  Within the sphere of politics, we have already seen short-term impacts to elections and how legislative bodies do their work, but the question of how the psychology of crisis will translate into permanent changes in the relationship between the governed and the government can only be answered with informed guesses.  Is the rebellion in Michigan against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stringent stay-at-home orders the first shot in a war against the nanny state or the last gasp of "consent of the governed"?  Will the electorate become enamored of receiving "paychecks" from the government for not working, or will it chafe at adding untold trillions to the national debt and demand new austerity measures?

Blue State Governors Demand Facebook Remove Information Organizing Protests Against Their "Orders" — Facebook Complies.  There's some misinformation quickly spreading about Facebook taking down all content where people are organizing protests against state "orders."  In reality what Facebook is doing is responding to requests from state officials to remove content the state dictators claim is defiance of their orders.  Facebook is complying with those removal requests.

Suspending the Constitution:  Police State Uses Crises to Expand Its Lockdown Powers.  [Scroll down]  In fact, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been quietly trotting out and testing a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution.  We're talking about lockdown powers (at both the federal and state level):  the ability to suspend the Constitution, indefinitely detain American citizens, bypass the courts, quarantine whole communities or segments of the population, override the First Amendment by outlawing religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, "stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease," reshape financial markets, create a digital currency (and thus further restrict the use of cash), determine who should live or die.  You're getting the picture now, right?  These are powers the police state would desperately like to make permanent.

America's Huddled Masses Yearn to Breathe Free.  Americans are tired of an oppressive government that, for our own good, they tell us, locks us in our homes based on computer models that have never been right from day one and health guidelines that keep changing so much they might as well be written on an Etch-a-Sketch.  They want to "flatten the curve" by crushing our hopes and dreams.  They seek treatments and a cure for a virus, ignoring the health-care costs of crushed lives and dreams, the human costs of lost jobs and careers, of nest eggs broken on the ground, of people who used to provide for their families fighting in stores over rolls of toilet paper.  We are being guided by the best infectious disease experts in the world, we are told, experts so smart they didn't anticipate or consider the lives lost from depression, suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, and despair in a land where abortion is considered an essential procedure but heart stints and CT scans not so much.  Americans are poor from an economy brought to its knees by an incompetent adversary, China, and a government whose leaders sit at home in their mansions in gated communities eating expensive ice cream stored in refrigerator freezers few Americans could afford when times were good and normal.

Wake up and smell the Alinsky:  Leftists use COVID-19 pandemic to bring about revolutionary change.  Communist-minded community organizer Saul Alinsky, in his prologue to "Rules for Radicals," explained that the most effective activists were those who worked within the established "system," not against it, so as to stir the revolutionary pots of change through fear.  His words:  "Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people.  They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future," Archives.org noted.  This is Coronavirus Chaos, exemplified.

Cooperation vs. Coercion:  The Coming Cultural Conflict.  [Scroll down]  Other protests have sprung up in other places around the country because we've gotten to a point in this crisis where people's health is in far less danger than their livelihood.  The protestors realize that the enjoyment of life and liberty, the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, the right to pursue and obtain happiness and safety is on the line.  Meanwhile, the orders coming from various governors are no longer specifically tailored for the general good of the whole.  Many Democrat governors are doubling down on coercion at the exact moment cooperation is evaporating.  Now we may start to see hair stylists, along with their partially coiffed customers, being dragged out of their stores by the police;  now we may see state troopers blockading trucks carrying items considered non-essential to stores that have been forced to close; now we may be seeing cash-strapped Americans arrested for going to work.  Although these images would have hurt President Trump if they had been broadcast in March, they will destroy the Democrat Party if they're broadcast now.

Stir crazy.  Democrat governors and mayors are going nuts with power.  The pandemic panic has them turning into King George IIIs.  He had an excuse.  He was mentally ill.  For some reason, parks and beaches are closed across the nation but subways aren't.  I fail to see how being 60 feet away from anyone on the shore is a public health threat, but being jammed in a rapid transit car is perfectly OK.

Appeals Court Chills First Amendment Activity by Allowing Cops to Retaliate Against Nonviolent Protesters.  The Rutherford Institute is pushing back against an effort by police to chill constitutionally-protected civil rights protests through the use of retaliatory lawsuits.  In filing an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Mckesson v.  Doe, Rutherford Institute attorneys are challenging a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that allows law enforcement officials to hold protest organizers financially liable when officers get hurt (accidental or otherwise) while carrying out their duties at a constitutionally-protected demonstration, even when the organizers themselves did nothing to cause the injury.  Incredibly, the lower court reasoned that organizers of a protest should be held responsible for engaging in activity that merely has the potential to involve police or require their presence, thereby exposing them to possible injuries.  The case arose after a police officer, positioned near a group that was protesting police brutality in front of police headquarters, was hit by a projectile thrown by an unknown, unidentified individual.  The injured officer sued one of the event organizers, DeRay Mckesson, for more than $75,000, despite the fact that Mckesson engaged in no acts of violence and did not incite or condone violence by others.

The Rutherford Institute's Statement on the Right to Religious Freedom During COVID-19.  At the moment, the government believes it has a compelling interest — albeit a temporary one — in restricting gatherings, assemblies and movement in public in order to minimize the spread of this virus.  Yet these lockdown measures — on the right of the people to peaceably assemble, to travel, to engage in commerce, etc. — unquestionably restrict fundamental constitutional rights.  While these measures might pass muster for a short period of time, they cannot be sustained for longer stretches constitutionally, nor should they be allowed to stand if the days and weeks of the government's social distancing campaign stretches into months-long quarantines.

The strange case of Gov. Murphy's selective drive-through tulip farm shutdown.  Something stinks in New Jersey.  Gov. Phil Murphy is doing his best to style himself as the Gretchen Whitmer of New Jersey by initiating a series of capricious, absurd, lockdown diktats in the name of combating the coronavirus.  In reality, they help no one.  He's a stupid guy all right, given that his fiats are killing his state's economy, for one.  And he was last seen trying to tell Fox News's Tucker Carlson that the Bill of Rights was "above his pay grade."  [Video clip]  More disturbing, he seems to be trying to outdo Whitmer, who banned the sales of garden seeds to locals anxious to grow their own food, with an even stupider measure of his own.  Murphy banned drive-through tulip viewing from inside cars at a farm at the peak of the crop's limited growing season.  And his goons threatened to arrest the owner if he did.

Could anti-lockdown protests be new Tea Party movement?  Growing discontent with stringent state-level restrictions imposed to mitigate the coronavirus is pouring out into the streets near state capitols in ways reminiscent of the last decade's conservative activism.  "They have a very Tea Party feel," said Tea Party Express co-founder Sal Russo of the demonstrations.  "The current protests are because of government overreaching and infringing on our rights," said Tea Party Patriots founder Jenny Beth Martin.  "The protests are an extension of what the Tea Party movement has stood for the last 11 years — constitutionally limited government, personal and economic freedom.  In the time of crisis and to remain on solid ground with those whom they represent, elected officials should lean on the Constitution, not abandon it."

New Jersey Directorate Arrests Subversive Citizen For Organizing Protest Against The State.  A liberty-minded woman in New Jersey has been charged with crimes against the state.  Her infraction was organizing a protest, a rebellion against state interests, and violating Governor Phil Murphy's quarantine.  For the crime of allegedly planning a protest against statewide stay-at-home orders, Mrs. Kim Pagan has been labeled an enemy of the state.  New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal and State Police Superintendent Colonel Patrick J. Callahan identified the woman's infraction in a daily offense bulletin intended to outline the identity of non-compliant citizens acting outside the boundaries of state authority.  Scofflaws will not be tolerated within the confines of the Garden State.  A rogue citizen could put a compliant society at risk of infection.  They may not just carry biologics they could carry a more alarming virus of wrong-thought against the interests of the state.  Rogue citizens would be subversive to our new society.

One US City Is Deploying A Chinese Firm's Drones To Police Americans Who Are Not Social Distancing.  Elizabeth, New Jersey, is using a Chinese company's drones to police citizens who fail to employ social distancing guidelines.  Past reports suggest the drones are feeding China data.  Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage is deploying drones from Chinese-based company DJI to warn Elizabeth citizens who are walking outdoors not to get too close in physical proximity to other people.  The drones blare sirens and issue this warning:  "Stop gathering, disperse and go home."

Baltimore PD to Use Drone Surveillance for 'Social Distancing' Enforcement.  The Baltimore Police Department and "Persistent Surveillance," an Ohio-based company, signed a deal together to spy on the residents of Baltimore, Maryland with drones. [...] This shady company was under fire almost 4 years ago in 2016, for doing surveillance with the Baltimore Police Department and violating their own 45-day data retention policy. [...] The drones will be equipped with high-resolution cameras, capable of posing a real threat to the security of anyone deemed a "criminal."  The ACLU emphasized that this crosses a massive line, explaining that the plan places every resident of Baltimore "under constant aerial surveillance."

Draconian Lockdown Powers:  It's a Slippery Slope from Handwashing to House Arrest.  We still have choices.  Just because we're fighting an unseen enemy in the form of a virus doesn't mean we have to relinquish every shred of our humanity, our common sense, or our freedoms to a nanny state that thinks it can do a better job of keeping us safe.  Whatever we give up willingly now — whether it's basic human decency, the ability to manage our private affairs, the right to have a say in how the government navigates this crisis, or the few rights still left to us that haven't been disemboweled in recent years by a power-hungry police state — we won't get back so easily once this crisis is past.  The government never cedes power willingly.  Neither should we.

Why Politicians Focus on Trivia in the Midst of Disaster.  You've probably heard:
  •   The municipal government of San Clemente, CA trucked in 37 tons of sand, at a cost of at least $100,000 when you count removal, to forcibly close a skateboard park that was being used by no more than a few dozen people per day.
  •   Governor Christine Whitmer of Michigan required that all stores over 50,000 sq. feet close their garden centers, eliminating access to plants, seeds, and other supplies.  The Governor admonished:  "If you're not buying food or medicine or other essential items, you should not be going to the store."
  •   The mayor of Greenville, MS outlawed public gatherings, including religious ceremonies, and sent city police to issue $500 tickets to worshippers who were sitting in the parking lot, windows closed, listening to a "drive-in" sermon on Easter.  The order was later reversed, but the mayor remains unapologetic.
  •   In Rhode Island, National Guard troops have been used at roadblocks, and in some cases for actual house-to-house searches, to find people who have "escaped" from New York to second homes or houses of relatives in the Granite State.

Scores gather in Huntington Beach to protest coronavirus stay-at-home orders.  Scores of protesters defying stay-at-home orders gathered in downtown Huntington Beach on Friday [4/17/2020], rallying for an end to restrictions on businesses and public gatherings that health officials say are needed to save lives during the coronavirus pandemic.  Mobilized largely through social-media posts, several dozens of protesters gathered at Main Street and Walnut Avenue shortly before 1 p.m.  The crowd grew to more than 200 people, according to police.  Many had signs, such as "Live free or die."  Some wore masks.  The group periodically chanted "U.S.A" as some passing vehicles honked in support.

Stand by for a show trial, as the state makes an example of this lady.
Organizer of New Jersey Anti-Lockdown Rally Charged With Violating Lockdown.  A woman who helped organize protests against New Jersey's coronavirus-driven stay-at-home orders is now facing charges for violating those orders, authorities said.  Kim Pagan, of Toms River, allegedly helped organize the small crowds that gathered in Trenton Friday to protest Gov. Phil Murphy's order essentially shutting down the state due to the virus — which has infected nearly 80,000 people and killed almost 4,000 in just six weeks.  A video posted to Facebook by Central Jersey Libertarians shows police writing summonses to honking and shouting protesters in parked cars.  One woman can be heard to yell "we have the right to peacefully protest!" as an officer walks by a car with the word "Playdemic" written in the window.

Texas To Lead The Charge In The Return To Normalcy.  We're a long way from kicking the economy back into high gear, but the good news is there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel.  That's really good news for everyone who would rather be earning a paycheck than getting a handout, especially since there really isn't much 'free' money to go around in the first place. [...] Seven states managed to dodge the bullet, and never had to order stay-at-home measures:  Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, & Wyoming.

Congratulations, You've Just Won A 60-Day Trial of Authoritarianism.  The coronavirus pandemic is a real threat.  COVID-19 has become the leading cause of death in the United States.  I'm not and won't minimize any of that.  But no one should minimize the lengths governments are now going in the name of keeping us safe.  We've had pandemics before.  They didn't result in the strong-arm Big Brother government we are subjected to now.  Welcome to your free, 60-day trial of authoritarian government.  You have been compelled.  Some states have decided what you can buy, and what stores like Costco, Walmart and Target can sell.  Elizabeth, NJ is deploying its own miniature air force to make sure its residents stay the appropriate social distance apart.  Five drones equipped with loudspeakers now shout at people to stay the hell away from each other.  They have cameras on them.  They can and will take your picture.  Face recognition software is now part of most police departments' arsenals.  And you can be fined up to $1000 if you don't do what the drone orders you to do, so never forget to obey your drones.

Texas Protest Reflects Spreading Frustration With Coronavirus Closings.  Millions of Americans have sheltered in their homes for weeks in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, avoiding strangers and friends alike.  Mass gatherings have been canceled.  But in a public act of defiance, protesters in Texas are preparing to converge on the steps of the Capitol building in Austin on Saturday [4/18/2020] and call for the reopening of the state and the country.  It would be the latest in a wave of similar protests from North Carolina to Michigan to Idaho.  By merely assembling, the conservative activists and supporters of President Trump who are expected to participate in the "You Can't Close America" rally would be in violation of state and local stay-at-home orders that have been replicated across the country.  On Thursday, protesters demonstrated outside the governor's mansion, largely without incident.

Washington State Directorate Jay Inslee:  "The president is fomenting domestic rebellion".  Some language, some very specific wording, has a very specific meaning in the United States of America.  One of those words is "rebellion"; and it carries a deeper meaning to a nation of American citizens born into the idea of individual rights, liberty and freedom.  All of the various restrictions coming from state governors in response to the COVID-19 do not come from State House and/or State Senate decisions.  These are not laws.  The rules restricting liberty, in response to the crisis, have been pronounced without any representative voice supporting them.  All of the rules are arbitrary, and many of these rules will be challenged in court.  However, until those court challenges take place, the only option for a redress of grievance comes in the form of public protest.  Currently, there is no way for an citizen to appeal to a representative voice against the decrees from a state governor; other than a public protest.

Let freedom ring.  [Scroll down]  People who seek and obtain authority can be counted on to wield it arbitrarily and tyrannically when given the opportunity.  And so petty tyrants are spreading like contagion.  A father is arrested for playing catch with his daughter in an empty park.  Police try to apprehend a jogger on an empty beach.  Drive-in Easter services are declared illegal and worshippers are ticketed.  While the Chinese puzzle how to become more like America without giving up the iron-fists of their police state, certain American politicians puzzle how to become more like the iron-fisted Chinese.  They delight in the lock down, and relish their authority in enforcing it.  Or maybe they think an America in pain is an America that will vote against the incumbent president this fall.  That incumbent is President Trump.  Defying the lock-downers, this week he announced a plan to reopen America.  The reopening happens in phases in different locales depending on the local circumstances.  The feds will supply data, but the decisions and implementation are up to state governors and local mayors.

Strassel:  Here's Why the Democrats Keep Moving the Shutdown Goal PostsPolitico reports that, according to comments House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made during a two hour conference call with her caucus this week, her conditions for ending the shutdown have changed.  She said that "Trump was putting Americans in grave danger if he rushes to reopen the economy at the end of this month."  The Politico story said, "Until a robust testing and contact tracing system is in place, [Pelosi believes] it would be impossible for the president to guarantee Americans a safe reentry into their normal life." 

The Editor says...
Even in the best years, the President cannot guarantee the safety of every American.  The President should guarantee the freedom of every American, and let us take care of our own safety.

Sheriff Allegedly Threatened Teen's Family If She Didn't Remove Posts About Having Wuhan Coronavirus.  There have been a lot of crazy stories about governmental overreach surrounding the Wuhan coronavirus.  But this one has to be right up there among the wildest.  A high school sophomore, 15-year-old Amyiah Cohoon, from Wisconsin took a spring break trip to Florida with her school band in March.  They returned earlier than anticipated on March 15, because of concerns about the virus.  But a few days later, Cohoon began to feel sick and then had trouble breathing. [...] Translation: she had a diagnosis from the doctors that she had it.  But what happened next is insane.  On March 27, her family got a visit from the police. [...] Police going after a family for what a teen posted on Instagram?  Maybe these guys and the police in Raleigh, N.C. need remedial education in the First Amendment?

Dystopian Drones Are Here to Make Sure You're 'Social Distancing'.  [Y]ou aren't safe anywhere from the dystopian surveillance state if you aren't complying with their commands.  Hence the reason it was so disturbing to see the tweet about this story of drones now being deployed in at least twenty-two states in the U.S. to surveil people to 'check on compliance with social distancing.'  "The drones, donated by DJI, a Chinese company, have gone to 43 agencies in 22  states, all to help enforce social distancing rules."  Oh, goody, we're importing Chinese dystopian ideas now.

The Tyranny of 'Scientism' and the Subversion of Science.  In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Wednesday [4/15/2020], New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy unintentionally defined this critical moment in America's history.  "We weren't thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this," he explained about his draconian decrees, including a ban on religious gatherings, to fight coronavirus.  "First of all, we looked at the data and the science and it says people have to stay away from each other."  Murphy's comments undoubtedly buoyed the egos of academic "experts" across the country.  A leading politician boasted, without the slightest sense of remorse, that his fidelity to the almighty deity of "science" prevailed over protecting the rights of his state's citizens.  The first 10 amendments to the Constitution?  Meh.  The six-foot distancing rule concocted by a handful of careerist bureaucrats in Washington?  Bow and scrape.

California's top cop defends extraordinary virus shutdowns.  What would normally be broad constitutional protections for freedoms of assembly, religion — even buying guns — have their limits when they endanger others during the coronavirus pandemic, California's top law enforcement officer said in an interview.

Coronavirus Crisis:  Our Civil Liberties Are Being Crushed By Authoritarian Edicts.  Driven by fear, panic, and irrational reliance on deeply flawed statistical "models," state governors and local leaders have dangerously jeopardized more than 200 years of constitutional rights and civil liberties with their imposition of mandatory mass quarantine orders.  No exigent circumstances, however well-intentioned, can justify many of these authoritarian tactics employed to fight the COVID-19 contagion.  While it is true that the law authorizes states to respond aggressively during health emergencies, such actions have limits.  Restrictions must be rational, consistent, and justified.  Power is abused when the government orders quarantines that are arbitrary, oppressive and unreasonable because they arguably violate the 5th and 14th Amendments' rights of Due Process and Equal Protection.  Some actions have violated the Bill of Rights.

Four Michigan Sheriffs Say They Won't Enforce Governor's Totalitarian Orders.  Four sheriffs in northern Michigan declared Wednesday [4/15/2020] they would not be enforcing recent executive orders signed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer implemented to slow the spread of the novel Wuhan coronavirus in the state.  Citing concerns over violating civil liberties, sheriffs Mike Borkovich, Ted Schendel, Ken Falk, and Kim Cole who protect counties along Lake Michigan in the northwest part of the mitten said in a joint statement that the governor "has created a vague framework of emergency laws that only confuse Michigan citizens."

Coronavirus Authoritarianism Is Getting Out of Hand.  Under what imperious conception of governance does Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer believe it is within her power to unilaterally ban garden stores from selling fruit or vegetable plants and seeds?  What business is it of Vermont or Howard County, Indiana, to dictate that Walmart, Costco or Target stop selling "nonessential" items, such as electronics or clothing?  Vermont has 628 cases of coronavirus as of this writing.  Is that the magic number authorizing the governor to ban people from buying seeds for their gardens? [...] The criminalization of movement ends with 10 Philly cops dragging a passenger off a bus for not wearing a face mask.  It ends with local Brighton, Colorado, cops handcuffing a father in front of his family for playing softball with his daughter in an empty park.  It ends with three Massachusetts men being arrested, and facing the possibility of 90 days in jail, for crossing state lines and golfing — a sport built for social distancing — in Rhode Island.

Dangerous Distinction.  [Scroll down]  In the interest of public safety, many have tolerated the lockdown, but that limited leash is reaching its end.  Michigan has found a way to resist the communist nature of its governor and that method of resistance should continue and grow across the nation, putting more and more pressure on the oppressive governments to rescind their communist orders.  It does not undo the damage already done.  By once forfeiting the right to make such decisions on our own, we cannot reclaim them without force.  That is the ultimate question to be answered by patriots.  We have now seen communism demonstrated on these shores, the black hand of Marx spread throughout the states.  We have enough evidence of their intent and their methods to determine what they have in mind.  It is ours to start dismantling these forces peacefully, or not.

Ex-Police Officer Arrested in Empty Park for Playing Catch with Daughter During Pandemic.  A former Colorado State Patrol Trooper was arrested and handcuffed this week for playing catch with his six-year-old daughter during the Coronavirus crisis; prompting the Department to ultimately issue a formal apology.  "In an incident caught on video, a former Colorado State Patrol trooper said he was handcuffed in front of his 6-year old daughter on a near-empty softball field Sunday by Brighton police officers enforcing social distancing rules.  The department apologized Tuesday afternoon, calling the incident an 'overreach by our police officers," reports ABC News.

Possible 'Imprisonment' Or Fine Of Up To $5,000 For Violating Maryland's Executive Order On Face Coverings.  On Wednesday, during a COVID-19 press briefing, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced an executive order requiring citizens of the state to wear face masks or coverings while out in various public locations.  Violation of the order could be punishable with a hefty fine or even prison time, according to the text.  The order states that "a person who knowingly and willfully violates this Order is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction is subject to imprisonment not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding $5,000 or both."

Asking Tougher Questions.  On Wednesday's [4/15/2020] "Tucker Carlson Show," the clueless Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey, announced that he had not considered the Bill of Rights when decreeing draconian limits on New Jersians' mobility and, even more concerning, that gathering for church was verboten.  (Hint, Governor, these are rights for every U.S. citizen, not suggestions or advisories). [...] Ask the Guv the kind of questions that would elicit answers outside of the stick-to-the-script monologue the left so often uses:  Governor, why did you arrest Jews in their Synagogue?  I think it's a fair question.  Jews were indeed arrested in their synagogue — for gathering for religious purposes, a right guaranteed since the founding of the country.  I'd have had some follow-ups:  Governor, are you planning on arresting more Jews?  Why are you only arresting Jews?  What do Jews have to do to avoid being arrested?  Do you consider Jews worshipping in their synagogue to be criminals?  Have you arrested, or are you planning on arresting, Muslims or Buddhists or any other religious group if they exercise their absolute right to gather for a religious ceremony?

Civil disobedience can end the coronavirus stupidity.  Most Americans, when first informed of the coronavirus, wanted to simply do the right thing and help their neighbors, help their communities and families, help their country. [...] Then things got stupid.  Really stupid.  Then government ran amok.  The Americans saw tyrannical types, up close and personal, up close and in their own communities, seize powers the Constitution doesn't grant and run roughshod over the rights of individuals and business owners.  And Americans saw how these tyrannies were taking place in the face of failed computer modeling that showed wildly inaccurate coronavirus numbers.  "Michigan cracks down on seed purchases and tiny gatherings," The Post Millennial reported, of Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's ridiculous executive-issued prohibitions against the purchase of plant seeds and grains in the state — and against neighbors from visiting their next-door neighbors.  Police state, anyone?

Lemons into Lemonade: Did President Trump Trick Dems into Going 'Full Authoritarian' during Virus Crisis?  [Scroll down]  Between them, the Democrat governors of California, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, New York, et. al., have run roughshod over civil liberties during the Chinese virus crisis.  Democrat mayors of metropolises like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco have followed suit.  They have used diktats to, among other actions:
  •   Force the closure of lawful businesses and effectively ruin owners without due process or recourse
  •   Prohibit peaceable assembly, regardless of commonsense safety measures
  •   Target and harass religious congregations, including ones using commonsense safety measures
  •   Seize private property without due process and suspend lawful evictions, which amounts to the same thing
  •   Limit or deny access to firearms for qualified citizens
  •   Suspend in-person voting
  •   Force whole cities into a species of house arrest and monitored release absent any proof of wrongdoing or infection
  •   Bully citizens and businesses with arbitrary and capricious 'stop-where's-your-mask?' procedures
  •   Release violent offenders to prey on the population and withdraw law enforcement protection
These were not 'suggestions' nor appeals to public conscience, cooperation, and consent.  These were decrees enforced with fines, handcuffs, threats, and spying.  Millions of Americans have watched the news in horror and disbelief as well-known Democrat executives and lawmakers across the country have gone full authoritarian in just a few short weeks.

Liberate America by Turning the Political Pain up to 11.  [Scroll down]  Don't accept the silly argument I keep hearing that it is too difficult to determine who "the vulnerable" are in order to isolate them and let Americans get back to work.  Politicians wrote their emergency edicts, some of which are incredibly detailed, quickly, not wanting to be blamed if mass death followed.  Figuring out who the people are who still need to be shielded from the Chinese contagion and balancing competing interests in society while making a plan for the liberation of the country has to be easier than policing an America that has been turned into a minimum-security prison. [...] The politicians are listening and they're beginning to get worried.  They took draconian steps because it's what they thought you wanted.  Now you need to correct that impression if you want your God-given freedoms back.

First Amendment at a Tipping Point on Easter Sunday 2020.  Everyone should pause for a moment during the current craziness and read the full text of the First Amendment again.  The genius of our founding fathers is more evident in the full text of the First Amendment than in perhaps any other freedom enshrined in the Bill of Rights.  And as we approach the most important holiday of the year in America's founding faith — Easter — let it sink in that nearly every state has now abolished every one of our rights encompassed in the First Amendment.  We're entering truly scary territory due to our backward response to an historic threat. [...] Without blinking an eye, 41 states abolished the free exercise of religion (except for in mosques, of course) and the right of the people to peaceably assemble.  Church services have been declared "nonessential" in many states.  A pastor in Florida was arrested for defying his states' order and continuing to hold services during the shutdown.

You Might Go to Prison for Singing in a Livestream Church Service in This California County.  Banning music sounds like something out of a dystopian nightmare, but in a northern California county, singing or playing wind instruments — even a harmonica — during a livestream video event can get citizens fined or thrown in prison.  This limitation expressly applies to a worship team's efforts to praise God in a church sanctuary, even if they are spaced out 6 feet apart and even though the order only allows four people in a sanctuary at once.  Mendocino County issued its current health order on April 10.  Near the top, the order includes a warning:  "Please read this Order carefully.  Violation of or failure to comply with this Order is a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both."

"Our basic rights do not go away during a pandemic!"
First Amendment Fail — Raleigh Police:  "Protesting is a non-essential activity".  Our Founding Fathers never once said that the rights given to us by our Creator go out the door in the case of a viral pandemic.  In other words, the Constitution still exists and it still protects us from tyrants.  The Raleigh Police Department had the nerve to tell someone on Twitter that protesting is a non-essential activity. [...] The right to protest and freely assemble is absolutely an essential activity!  Do you know why the Founding Fathers added the freedom of assembly into the amendment?  The tyrannical English monarchy also did not find protesting or freedom to assemble an essential activity.  Quaker William Penn faced charges for simply preaching in public in 1670.  The jury found him innocent, but it made the citizens realize that they have a right to assemble.

Raleigh Police Shut Down #ReOpenNC Protesters In Their Cars, Claim 'Protesting Is A Non-Essential Activity'.  On Tuesday morning, the Raleigh Police Department shut down approximately 100 protesters with the libertarian group #ReOpenNC. The majority of protesters were demonstrating from their cars, abiding by North Carolina's social distancing guidelines.  The group gathered to protest Gov. Roy Cooper's executive order shutting down the state until further notice.  While many governors have given constituents an end date to shelter-in-place orders, Cooper signed North Carolina's order until he decides to rescind it.  "This Executive Order is effective immediately and shall remain in effect until rescinded," it reads.

Michigan Bans 'All Public and Private Gatherings,' Will Still Allow Lottery Sales.  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has issued an updated stay-at-home order — arguably the most constraining in the nation.[...] Some of the levers at Whitmer's disposal appear to be ineffective at best and draconian at worst.  Her directive forbids the in-store sale of paint, outdoor goods, and other allegedly nonessential items. (Home improvement stores can remain open, but they have to tape off those sections from customers.) It shuts down lawncare services.  It bans travel between Michigan residences.  It prohibits "all public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring among persons not part of a single household."  The order carves out a few exceptions, including for critical infrastructure workers and for those who have to take care of a relative.  Critics honed in on the lopsided nature of the order, which blocks the sale of all sorts of goods yet somehow still allows for the purchase of lottery tickets.

Under Pandemic Lockdowns, Bartending Is Illegal.  Is This the New Prohibition?  For bar culture, this is the darkest time since Prohibition.  Consuming alcohol is still legal, but bars and bartending as we have long known them are not.  Pubs everywhere have either shut down entirely or found themselves limited to takeout and delivery service.  The pandemic lockdowns have destroyed our ability to imbibe with friends and strangers, to enjoy the silent comforts of a cheap beer or a well-made cocktail, or to have conversations mediated by oak bartops and the taste of whiskey rather than the dim-blue glow of a screen.  They have destroyed an industry — and a community.

Here's One Thing Officials Can Do to Make Lockdown Life Better:  Stop Being Hypocritical Tyrants.  The sheer scale of the problems we face was unthinkable a few weeks ago and seemingly inescapable now.  Into this crisis has stepped not a generation of serious and sober leaders rising to the moment, but a whole bunch of opportunists who are happily flying their tinpot tyrant flag.  And it needs to stop, right now.  It's making a really bad, no good and quite terrible situation even worse.  Too many of our elected and unelected officials are acting like toddlers testing their boundaries. [...] There are the officials who decided Easter weekend was a good opportunity to start messing with churches struggling like everyone else to deal with the new reality.  California's Mendocino County is banning church singing on a livestream.  How does this help stop the spread of coronavirus?  Kentucky's Democrat governor took to taking down Christians' license plates for going to church in their cars.  How does this help halt the virus from spreading?  It doesn't.

Gretchen Whitmer Desperately Tries to Justify Her Orwellian Orders and Embarrasses Herself.  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer must be feeling the heat from her own draconian methods of dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak as she's now trying to explain why it's not so bad and not doing a very good job of it.  Appearing on "Today," Whitmer explained that her orders to stop people from doing everything from traveling to their own properties in different parts of the state to planting gardens within the bound of their own home won't be that big of a deal because [...] there's snow on the ground.  Apparently snow justifies the suspension of Michiganders to do what they want on their own properties.

One Arrested as Raleigh, NC Police Suspend First Amendment; Declare Coronavirus Lockdown Protest "Non-Essential Activity".  Raleigh, North Carolina police suspended the First Amendment Tuesday [4/14/2020], dispersing a protest against the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus lockdown and arresting one protester for failing to disperse.  The police issued a statement declaring "Protesting is a non-essential activity" that was in violation of an executive order by Governor Roy Cooper (D) prohibiting mass gatherings.

Coronavirus Authoritarianism Is Getting Out of Hand.  It's reasonable to assume that the vast majority of Americans process news and data, and calculate that self-quarantining, wearing masks, and social distancing make sense for themselves, their families, and the country.  Free people act out of self-preservation, but they shouldn't be coerced to act through the authoritarian whims of the state.  Yet this is exactly what's happening.  There has been lots of pounding of keyboards over the power grabs of authoritarians in Central and Eastern Europe.  Rightly so.  Yet right here, politicians act as if a health crisis gives them license to lord over the most private activities of America people in ways that are wholly inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Constitution.  I'm not even talking about national political and media elites who, after fueling years of hysteria over the coming Republican dictatorship, now demand Donald Trump dominate state actions.  I'm talking about local governments.

Authorities begin enforcing shelter in place order with fines up to $1,000.  Some Bay Area residents are learning the hard way - violating the stay at home order can be costly.  But it really depends on where you are in the Bay Area.  Different cities and counties are enforcing the orders in their own way.  At Sea Cliff beach in Santa Cruz County, a San Jose woman who wished to remain anonymous was cited Thursday [4/9/2020] after snapping a photo during what she called a "mental break" from the confines of home.  "A sheriff's officer pulled up and told us that he was going to give us a citation for breaking the shelter in place," she said.

Behind the curtain of corona-madness.  Democrats and their fake news media enforcers cruelly created corona-madness as a weapon to further their failed transformation of America.  In their dream, America, government controls every aspect of our lives and the God of Christianity is banned.  Louisville mayor Greg Fischer decreed that he will not even allow a church to have drive-in parking lot Easter worship services.  Thank God the church is suing his dictatorial derrière.  Drive-in worship services are banned in Raleigh, N.C. Wake County even forbade a pastor from visiting his church members in hospitals and rest homes.  In Greenville, Mississippi, church members were given $500 tickets for sitting in their cars listening to their pastor's sermon on the radio.  Elmira, N.Y. has banned worship services in church parking lots.  Most arrogantly unconstitutional of all, NYC mayor de Blasio threatened to close churches forever.  We are talkin' tyrannical abuse of power on steroids.  Kentucky police recorded the license plates of churchgoers to fine them.

Greenie Gretchen's great war on garden seeds.  Within every liberal, there's a totalitarian dictator, screaming to get out, to paraphrase the great David Horowitz.  Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of Michigan's ambitious left-wing Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer.  She's declared war on garden seeds, forbidding their purchase from big box retailers now that there's a pandemic on, arbitrarily claiming they're not "essential."  This, from a governor who claims, of all things, to be a green, putting "climate change" at the "heart" of her governorship.  That's some green — a green who advocates for brown, at least among the locals.  Seems that changing the world "one act at a time," not to mention "growing local" and "going organic," isn't as important to her as being a tyrant and winning the approval of the Democratic establishment in D.C.  Oh, and she's widely touted as vice presidential material for doddering Joe Biden.  Imagine her giving orders at a national level with this record.

The Coronavirus Is Exposing Little Tyrants All Over The Country.  There's nothing like a crisis to bring clarity.  The response of some mayors and governors to the coronavirus pandemic in recent days has made it clear they think they have unlimited and arbitrary power over their fellow citizens, that they can order them to do or not do just about anything under the guise of protecting public health.  We've now witnessed local and state governments issue decrees about what people can and cannot buy in stores, arrest parents playing with their children in public parks, yank people off public buses at random, remove basketball rims along with private property, ticket churchgoers, and in one case try — and fail — to chase down a lone runner on an empty beach.  All of this, we're told, is for our own good.  The most egregious example of this outpouring of authoritarianism was an attempt by Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Greg Fischer to ban drive-in church services on Easter.

Kentucky worshippers met with nails in road as they defy coronavirus lockdown.  A Kentucky church defied coronavirus-lockdown orders to hold a packed Easter Sunday service — despite a heavy police presence and even nails blocking the parking lots, according to a report.  Maryville Baptist Church appeared to have a near-full house for its Sunday service despite orders to avoid in-person services — and the heightened risk of catching COVID-19, the Louisville Courier Journal said.  Worshippers arrived even after police warned that they would record their car plates to force them into 14-day quarantines.  Many — including the defiant pastor, Rev. Jack Roberts — arrived with their plates covered, with officers instead recording their VIN numbers, the paper said.

Churchgoers Show up for Easter Services, Met With Nails and the Police After Governor Forbid Public Gatherings.  Some folks in Kentucky were determined to go to Easter services today, despite the order of the Governor of Kentucky Andy Beshear against public gatherings during the pandemic.  The Governor had threatened to record license plate numbers and then order a 14-day quarantine for anyone in attendance.  But that didn't stop folks at the Maryville Baptist Church from attending.  But the parishioners found a surprise on the ground in the parking lot — nails at every entrance — obviously an intended effort to hurt the cars of the folks in attendance.

Welcome to Kentucky.  [Thread reader]  I'm at Maryville Baptist Church, which continues to hold in-person services despite orders to cease.  This morning, piles of nails have been scattered at every entrance.  A few guys have finished cleaning all the nails up with about an hour to go until Sunday School.  The parking lot, cleaned of nails, is fast filling with cars now.  At least 2 have covered their license plates to avoid quarantine orders.  The church has set up a speaker outside and is playing the service through it.  "We shall rise."

Taking a bit out of crime!
KSP records license plates of Maryville Baptist churchgoers from in and out of Ky.  Despite governor's orders to postpone or cancel in-person mass gatherings in the state of Kentucky, Maryville Baptist Church hosted Easter services inside their church Sunday morning.  Bullitt County health officials had continued to urge Maryville Baptist Church to prevent spread of the novel coronavirus.  Their efforts had been unsuccessful, and on Sunday morning, cars were lined up in the parking lot to celebrate Easter in-person at the church.


A police state scene out of China appears in the United States.  [Two video clips]  In both China and our country, the individuals being removed resisted the authorities, but they were ultimately defenseless against a small army of state enforcers.  You tell me "social distancing' hasn't become a relatively benign expression for a dangerous experiment in government control?  Just wait until the left comes to power.  This is just a dry run to soften us up.  Trump had better grab the reins, because it appears that a handful of "experts" are running and ruining the country.

The Rise of Karen-ism Means This Lockdown Nonsense Needs To End Soon.  When you have some petty official commanding Christians not to gather together in worship, that's a line that they don't get to cross.  No official gets to ban religious services.  My church is doing its services by video, because that's what we decided.  Government officials don't get to decide.  The question of whether they can ban religious services got decided by the First Amendment, and while they may think it's a really, really good idea to tell us what to do, they don't get to.  As federal judge Justin Walker put it in a powerful opinion that every American of any faith, or no faith, should read in its glorious entirety:  On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter.  That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.  But two days ago, citing the need for social distancing during the current pandemic, Louisville's Mayor Greg Fischer ordered Christians not to attend Sunday services, even if they remained in their cars to worship — and even though it's Easter.  The Mayor's decision is stunning.  And it is, "beyond all reason," unconstitutional.

Enough Already With The Help.  As Benjamin Franklin said:  "Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  Franklin recognized a false trade-off when he saw one.  It took yours truly only a couple weeks to see the same picture.  Every freedom you give up makes you more vulnerable, not safer.  There are two ways despots comes to power.  One is to kill their way into control.  The more insidious way is to promise to "take care of you."  Wannabe despots don't bother explaining the fine print: "They will decide what's good for you, once you've handed that power over to them."

The Worst Governor in America.  One word keeps recurring in online discussions of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's latest orders to fight the state's raging COVID-19 outbreak:  "Insanity."  Last week, the first-term Democrat issued an order extending the state's stay-at-home policy, which had been set to expire April 15, until May 1. [...] But the devil is in the details, and Whitmer's new order instantly provoked a firestorm of outrage.  Among the complaints was that Whitmer had prohibited sale of seeds and other garden supplies, at a time when vegetable gardens need to be planted.  Executive Order 2020-42 is titled, "Temporary requirement to suspend activities that are not necessary to sustain or protect life," and is quite specific about which activities are and are "not necessary." [...] So if Grandma went to Walmart for groceries and hoped to pick up some tomato plants or cucumber seeds while she was there — sorry, Grandma!  You could get a thousand-dollar fine and 90 days in jail for disobeying Whitmer's orders.

Mississippi church sues police after congregants ticketed during drive-in service.  A Mississippi church is suing the city of Greenville after police shut down its drive-in service this week in accordance with a city ban on the practice amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  Attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom filed the lawsuit Friday on behalf of the Temple Baptist Church.  The filing challenges Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons' April 7 executive order that prohibits drive-in church services until a statewide shelter-in-place order is lifted.  The suit comes after eight uniformed Greenville police officers reportedly issued $500 tickets to congregants who refused to leave a parking lot where a drive-in service was being conducted Wednesday, the ADF said in a statement announcing the legal challenge.

[The sale of] Fruit and vegetable plants [is] 'nonessential' under [the] governor's order.  An extended "stay at home" order by Governor Gretchen Whitmer bans selling fruit and vegetable plants.  Workers at greenhouses and nurseries say that makes no sense.  The governor wants people to restrict their trips from home to getting the essentials such as fuel and food.  Retail garden centers have been ordered to close temporarily.  Callie Gafner works at a small garden center.  She says banning fruit and vegetable plants does not help limit the spread of COVID-19.  "If you're growing them yourself, you're reducing the contact between people because you're not going anywhere.  You're going out in your own garden and picking them up rather than going into the store and coming into contact with how many people?" Gafner explained.

Indiana Governor To Churches:  Worship As I Say Or Be Shut Down.  It is a fundamental aspect of constitutional law and historic American practice that no government may tell citizens how to worship.  How one worships is a sacred duty that our laws and traditions have reserved entirely to the individual's conscience, completely outside of the bounds of government interference.  Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, however, has decided that this natural right secured in both the Indiana and national constitutions is something he is allowed to waive.  Yesterday afternoon [4/9/2020], he demanded that churches perform services according to his edicts or be subject to government punishment.  His requirements are not only unconstitutional because they trespass on the constitutionally secured individual right to worship, they are discriminatory because they place restrictions on churches that do not apply to other organizations, groups of people, and establishments.  The governor is telling Christians how worship must be done and with stricter rules than for all other public gatherings.

Liberal Mayor:  You're Not Allowed To Attend Drive-In Church Service.  Judge Disagrees.  When a Christian church in Louisville, Kentucky, was told they were not allowed to attend Easter Sunday church service in their vehicles, the group sued the liberal mayor giving the order, and the city.  A federal judge ruled Saturday that the church was right about their religious liberties being violated, permitted the establishment to hold drive-up service, and offered a firm rebuke of the mayor for attempting to "criminalize" the "celebration of Easter."  On Fire Christian Church sued Mayor Greg Fischer and the city on Friday [4/10/2020], arguing the mayor's order banning drive-up service was in violation of their First Amendment rights, particularly since the churchgoers would be practicing safe "social distancing" recommendations.  According to Courier Journal, U.S. District Judge Justin Walker wrote in a temporary restraining order:  "On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter."

Illinois State Police Warn Worshippers Who Attend Church On Easter Sunday Could Face Charges, Including 'Reckless Conduct'.  The police said that they will not be storming churches that violate the governor's stay-at-home order, but that charges could come "down the line."  Gov. J.B. Pritzker's stay-at-home order prohibits all gatherings of ten people or more through April 30, including church services.  Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly announced the potential for charges on Thursday [4/9/2020].

DOJ: 'Expect action' on government regulation of religious services amid COVID-19 outbreak.  The Justice Department (DOJ) may take action next week against local governments that have cracked down on religious services as widespread parts of the country are shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, a DOJ spokesperson said Saturday [4/11/2020].  "While social distancing policies are appropriate during this emergency, they must be applied evenhandedly [and] not single out religious [organizations]," DOJ Director of Communications Kerri Kupec tweeted.  She said the Attorney General William Barr is "monitoring" such regulations.  The DOJ move would come as some churches are standing up to city governments that have blocked them from holding in-person services during the outbreak — even in "drive-in" formats that keep people separated and in their own cars.

Judge Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Louisville Mayor's Drive-In Church Ban.  Judge Justin Walker on Saturday granted a temporary restraining order against Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer's drive-in church ban on behalf of On Fire Christian Church.  Mayor Fischer doesn't want churches to host drive-in Easter services because somehow people parked in their cars with their windows rolled up risk spreading the Coronavirus.  The First Amendment is under siege right now and Christians across the US are being heavily persecuted by crazed government officials.  It's about time a judge legally slapped down this mayor for targeting Christians.

It's a Wuhan Virus Easter.  Some states clearly have gone too far.  In Mississippi, worshippers who attended a church service sitting in their cars with the windows rolled up and listening to their pastor on their car radios were fined.  In New York a cop demanded a married couple sitting on a park bench near each other maintain six feet of distance even though they explained they were married and lived together.  Not every gubernatorial diktat was smart nor was everyone hired to enforce it intelligent or reasonable.  States that are not densely populated and have few infectious cases can and should have less onerous restrictions than states where the virus is raging.  That's one of the most important lessons of federalism:  Localities can and should tailor laws to suit the circumstances where they live.

Democrats seem to be enjoying this authoritarian moment.  In Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear has announced that if people attend Easter services, the police will photograph their license plates and summarily impose a 14-day quarantine on church attendees.  Governor Beshear is a Democrat.  The Kentucky governor is not alone.  In the city of Louisville, Mayor Greg Fischer has ordered his police department to write down license plate numbers of those who attend Easter services so the attendees can be locked down in quarantine.  Mayor Greg Fischer is a Democrat.  In Greenville, Mississippi, people who sat in their cars, with the windows rolled up, in a church parking lot to listen to their pastor give a sermon on the radio received $500 tickets.  These tickets weren't given just to the driver.  They were given to every person in the car.  Greenville mayor Errick Simmons is a Democrat.

Authoritarian Overreach Is Unnecessary to Fight the Pandemic.  It is the history of the United States that courts do not enter the fray while executive officials are grappling with a crisis — war, natural catastrophe, plagues.  The constitutional issues attendant to the inevitable police-power excesses will not be settled until after the crisis has subsided.  But the legal dispositions are secondary.  As a practical matter, the nation's federal, state, and municipal governments, deploying all their police agencies, could not conceivably enforce quarantines, social-distancing, and interstate travel restrictions against 330 million Americans absent the vast public's assent.  At a certain point, a free people — nearly 17 million of whom have now filed unemployment claims in an economy that was booming just a month ago — comes to realize that the de Blasios are pleaders, not rulers.  Common sense emerges in the clarity of lives torn asunder by willful acts of elected officials and faceless bureaucrats.  Our DNA reminds us that governments derive their just powers only from the consent of the governed.

Philadelphia man not wearing face mask seen being dragged off bus.  A viral video shows police dragging a Philadelphia man off a bus on Friday, seemingly in violation of coronavirus policy at the time.  The video, recorded Friday [4/10/2020], shows the man fighting the police as they lift him up and off of the bus.  He repeatedly shouts at them before demanding their badge numbers.  The man was not arrested or issued a citation.  [Video clip]  One passenger was asked to leave despite wearing a bandana over his face, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has suggested is a viable alternative.

Philadelphia cops drag man off bus for not wearing mask amid coronavirus.  The coronavirus crackdown on social distancing just might be going a bit too far.  This, after a group of cops physically removed a man from a public bus Friday morning [4/10/2020], all of it caught on video by a bystander with a cellphone.  The man's crime:  Not wearing a face mask while hopping on the bus for his morning commute.  As CBSPhilly.com reports, the incident is now under investigation by Philadelphia police.

Also posted under The police state on wheels.

Dr. Anthony Fauci:  National Immunity ID Cards May Be Needed.  This stuff is nuts.  People are seriously becoming unstable with this stuff.  In the latest batch of insanity apparently there is a movement toward a registration system where people will be designated as "immune" or "vaccinated"; and only with appropriate and verifiable registry ID's will citizens be permitted to engage in society.

Fauci suggests Americans should 'carry immunity papers' to 'prove' they are virus-free.  You know, we've been trying to cut Dr. Anthony Fauci a little slack with all of this coronavirus doom-and-gloom because it appears as though President Donald Trump trusts him.  But our patience with the president's lead virus task force health official just ran out.  Fauci appeared on CNN's "New Day" Friday [4/10/2020] — despite reports that the task force leader, Vice President Mike Pence, was banning appearances on that network — and was spoon-fed a loaded question from co-host Alisyn Camerota, who obviously would look much better wearing an "SS" uniform.  She asked Fauci if he could "imagine a time where Americans carry certificates of immunity" — as in, 'Show me your papers, please,' a la Nazi Germany or the former Soviet Union.  Fauci thinks that's certainly doable.

Your papers, please!
Dr. Anthony Fauci:  Americans could eventually carry certificates of immunity to coronavirus.  Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday [4/10/2020] said it's possible that Americans could eventually carry around certificates of immunity to the coronavirus once proper testing is widespread enough.  "That's possible," Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN's "New Day."  "It's one of those things that we talk about when we want to make sure that we know who the vulnerable people are and not," he said.  "This is something that's being discussed.  I think it might actually have some merit."

The expiration date on the "essential business only" doctrine has passed.  The most recent data I could find from the New York Times says that currently residents in at least 38 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and an additional 14 other major cities not in a participating state have been placed under "stay-at-home" directives from authorities in an attempt to quell the spread of COVID-19.  For those keeping track at home, that amounts to nearly 300 million people in our country who are being told not to go to school, or work, or anywhere, unless it is absolutely necessary.  There are exceptions, of course.  "Essential businesses" are exempted in all of these areas.  But what constitutes an "essential business?"  The truth is there is no fair or reasonable way for any governing authority to make such a determination, at least not for the length of time we are already enduring.

If You Like WuFlu Confinement, You'll Love Biden's Promised Green Prison.  [Scroll down]  If there's one thing Americans have always understood, it's this:  where speech and religion and personal defense are all outlawed, be an outlaw.  I, for one, welcome this grand display of government intrusion from coast to coast.  Unlike the invisible Chinese virus hunting us surreptitiously, this overbearing application of government force is right out in the open for all to see.  The more unscrupulous Democrat mayors openly brag about shutting down private businesses, banning gun ownership, and ripping congregants from church pews.  They're closing every house of worship in sight until their constituents learn to supplicate at the steps of City Hall and nowhere else!  Democrats are always gravely warning about creeping fascism from others, but they insist we ignore the rank smell of authoritarianism emanating from their every local executive order.  Lone drivers are pulled over for no other reason than to remind the riffraff that they are powerless before their local lords; neighbors are enticed by official favor and bounty to snitch on isolated joggers running through their streets; married nonagenarians are forcibly separated "for their own good."

Democrat Governor Recording License Plates Of Easter Sunday Churchgoers, Ordering Them To 14-Day Quarantine.  If you're attending a church service on Easter Sunday in Kentucky, the governor has ordered authorities to take down your license plate and report you to local health departments; you will then be ordered to a 14-day quarantine.  Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear "said local officials are being directed to record license plate numbers of participants to pass to local health departments," Kentucky.com reported Friday evening.  "Those who attend these gatherings can expect public health officials to show up at their doors with mandates that they self-quarantine for 14 days, the governor said."  "If you're going to expose yourself to this virus, it's not fair to everybody else out there that you might spread it to," the Democrat said Friday.  "Understand, this is the only way we can ensure your decision doesn't kill somebody else."

The Editor says...
This sounds to me like "an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Democrat Kentucky Governor Announces Plan to Record License Plates of Easter Church Goers and Force Them to Self-Quarantine for 14 Days.  The state of Kentucky is cracking down on Easter weekend worshippers by recording the license plates of people who attend services and forcing them to "self-quarantine" for two weeks afterwards.  The action is to discourage people from attending services.  In a statement provided to the Gateway Pundit, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul slammed the governor's plan.  "Taking license plates at church?  Quarantining someone for being Christian on Easter Sunday?  Someone needs to take a step back here," Senator Paul said.

Mike Huckabee Files Federal Lawsuit Against County and Law Enforcement For Blocking Use of His Private Beach During Coronavirus Lockdown.  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has filed a lawsuit against Walton County in Florida, and their Sheriff's Office, for threatening to arrest him and his neighbors if they use their private beaches.  Huckabee teamed up with several other residents to file a federal complaint over a county ordinance that closed all beaches, including the ones on private property, which they contend stops them from "being able to use or even set foot in their own backyards."

Tucker Carlson blasts 'mindless and destructive measures' imposed in response to coronavirus.  Tucker Carlson addressed some unanswered questions that have arisen from the coronavirus pandemic Friday, asking why America's leaders are making the choices they are during the crisis and questioning whether the country chose the right path in response. [...] Carlson criticized some of the responses to the virus by government leaders, saying "it would have been nice if the authorities had learned a lot more about it before they took such dramatic steps in response to it.["] [...] "Our leaders chose the Chinese model," Carlson went on.  "With every passing day, the response becomes more restrictive.  Requests that people stay indoors have become orders that people stay indoors.  People are being fined and arrested for driving alone, for playing catch in the park, for paddleboarding on the ocean.  How are measures like that keeping us safe?  The short answer is we have no idea that they are keeping us safe."

Crazed Michigan Governor Now Tells Home Depot to Shut Down Unnecessary Flooring, Tiles and Garden Centers.  In late March Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer limited access of doctors from prescribing the lifesaving drugs hydroxychloroquine and Z-Paks to save senior citizens in the state from coronavirus.  Hydroxychloroquine and Z-Paks have are widely used by doctors the world over to treat the coronavirus.  Democrat lawmaker Karen Whitsett said she had to beg for hydroxychloroquine that saved her life because her tyrannical governor limiting access to the drug with an executive order!  Now the far left governor is banning travel between homes for Michigan residents!  So kids can no longer play at their friends' house.  Families cannot travel for Easter.  And now the Democrat governor is calling on Home Depot and Lowes to shut down to close certain sections like flooring, garden centers and plant nurseries.

The Editor says...
Home Depot sells chewing gum at the checkout stand.  Is that really necessary?  In a free country, such a decision is left up to the consumer.  If I want to spend my quarantine time spreading fertilizer, why shouldn't I?

March Madness Without The Basketball.  As of April 1, 38 states and the District of Columbia had announced quasi-martial law, ordering residents to shelter at home except for "essential" purposes such as grocery shopping and medical appointments.  Around 297 million are affected by such orders, and people are already being arrested for violating the legally dubious restrictions.  A man in Charles County, Maryland, was arrested for disobeying Gov. Larry Hogan's order that people not congregate in groups of more than 10.  Hogan said the man's arrest for hosting parties "sends a great message to folks out there that we aren't playing around."  Some communities have gone even further:  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot threatened individuals with arrest for going on runs and bike rides that police deem too long, while Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo sent the National Guard door-to-door to find fleeing New Yorkers and effectively place them under two-week house arrest.  Churches across America are being shuttered.  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened to permanently close any church or synagogue holding services in violation of his emergency order.

Stop this unconstitutional WuFlu insanity.  What manner of hubris is this, that computer 'what if' modeling has suddenly become the standard for violating the Constitutional rights given us in that founding document?  Suddenly, we can't worship; we can't 'peaceably assemble'; we can't travel?  Because of faulty computer modeling hysteria?  Unless martial law has been declared, no such powers exist for our government to take away our constitutional freedoms in such a manner:  even then, without good cause.  'What if' computer modeling IS NOT GOOD CAUSE.  Because, by that standard, EVERY civil right we're guaranteed could be abridged.

New order bans 'travel between residences,' with a few exceptions.  After Friday, Michigan residents will no longer be able to jump in the car — or cross the street — to visit friends and relatives inside the state, or to go to the cottage Up North, with limited exceptions.  That is one of the major changes in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's "stay home" order, issued Thursday [4/9/2020], which also extends the expiration of the order to May 1.

Coronavirus COVID-19: Public Health Apocalypse or Panic and Anti-American?  [Scroll down]  State governors seem almost in a race to see who can cause the most dramatic removal of basic constitutional liberties.  Some states have police officers pulling people over to quiz them where they are going.  Some businesses have printed papers that their employees carry to show they are going to work in an essential business.  All of this for a projected 5909 deaths from the virus!  All of this is reminiscent of Nazi and communist state control of people.  It seems to be working; with their willing accomplices in the media, Americans at this time are seemingly eager to exchange their freedom for what they believe to be security and safety.  What they don't realize is if this is allowed to continue, they will lose their security, safety and their freedom.  What will happen with the next epidemic?  Will we do this for the next outbreak of flu?  Or Strep?  Or drug overdoses?  What type of precedent will this set?  Federal and state leaders are using bad public health policy to promote even worse regulation.  Several have remarked that this epidemic offers those who wish to subdue the population an excellent way to see what works and how long it takes to corral people into almost total submission; it's taking about a month.

San Francisco:  Journalist Gets $369,000 After Cops Raided His Home & Kidnapped Him For Refusing To Name His Source.  In the land of the free, journalists are raided by SWAT teams in an effort to find out their sources and this is in spite of the law protecting journalists from this very act.  Freelance journalist Bryan Carmody fell victim to the police state in California last year as multiple San Francisco cops with sledge hammers and weapons began breaking down his door in an effort to find out his source for a leaked police report.  Now, the taxpayers of San Francisco will be paying him $369,000 for it.

It's time to end the great American COVID-19 police state.  We now have the most severe, widespread, and protracted form of martial law in our nation's history ... except as it applies to dangerous criminals who are undeterred and released.  How much worse will we allow this to get until we call a foul on these gross constitutional violations?  As I observed last week, states have wide latitude to forcibly quarantine individuals or groups of people from the general population.  But they don't have the power to shut down the entire general population.  Also, as the Supreme Court has said many times, there are times when life, liberty, and property can be infringed upon, but it must be narrowly tailored to the least invasive means needed to achieve the compelling state interest.  What is happening now is anything but narrow. [...] At what point will we the people stand up to this capricious nonsense, especially as these same politicians release criminals and illegal aliens, while lying to us about the math and science behind their unilateral edicts? [...] Remember, if we don't rise up now, these tyrants are just getting started.

Ted Cruz Blasts Dems for Treating Americans Like We Live in a Police State.  Sen. Ted Cruz had had enough.  The Texas Republican — like much of the country — apparently has been watching the increasingly extreme steps being taken in some areas to keep residents from violating "social distancing" rules laid down by increasingly authoritarian governments.  But a story out of Pennsylvania apparently pushed him over the line.  Cruz was reacting to the story of a 19-year-old woman who, according to The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, was pulled over by Pennsylvania state troopers on March 29 for allegedly having a taillight out and then fined for failing to obey Democratic Gov. Tom Wolfe's "stay-at-home" order.  It's a violation that could mean a $200 fine, though the woman, identified as Anita Schaffer, told The Patriot-News she plans to fight it in court.

Colorado man handcuffed for playing T-ball with daughter in empty park.  A man in Brighton, Colo., is demanding an apology from the city's police department for handcuffing him in front of his daughter before briefly detaining him in a patrol car on Sunday.  The reason, per Denver TV station KDVR:  He was playing T-ball in an empty park.  Matt Mooney said a group of officers approached him, asked for his identification and said he was violating state social distancing guidelines.  There are no laws in Colorado banning people from going to parks, however; the park Mooney visited has a sign specifically allowing gatherings of fewer than five people.  Mooney's 6-year-old daughter and wife were with him.

Chuck Norris Warns of Rebellion, Martial Law if America's COVID Strategy Doesn't Change.  The nation is gripped with coronavirus panic, but there is also fear about what is going to happen to our freedoms and our economy once the crisis is over.  This pandemic has taken its toll on the United States and that is not lost on conservative actor Chuck Norris, who published an Op-Ed for WND wondering how long it would be until we were under martial law.  The actor said he believes in "being prudent and also being peaceful" but, he added, he had "tough questions" to ask.

Because all violent crime is completely under control...
Chicago Police to Conduct 'Roadside Safety Checks' to Educate Public About 'Stay-at-Home' Order.  Chicago police officers will conduct roadside safety and informational check points in each police district to provide information to motorists about the state of Illinois' ongoing "stay-at-home" order.  According to police, the checkpoints will take place beginning Tuesday night at 10 p.m.  The checkpoints will last approximately 45 minutes each night, and could take place between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.  The checkpoints will also be deployed on Wednesday and Thursday nights, according to the department.

The Editor says...
The police are always on the lookout for an excuse to stop passing motorists, look for drugs and weapons, check the expiration date on your inspection sticker and your license, and sniff around for alcohol and marijuana.  The current virus hysteria is merely a convenient justification to suspend the Fourth Amendment.  After all, what are you going to do about it?

Amid 'Mandatory Lockdown,' Baltimore Officials Approve Spy-Plane To "Collect Images Of City".  For years, we've been documenting how spy planes have been flying over the Baltimore Metropolitan Area, transforming the region into a surveillance state.  To refresh your memory, the federal government used spy planes to monitor the 2015 riots in Baltimore City.  Even before the planes, the military was flying massive spy blimps over the region to "detect cruise missiles."  What you're beginning to understand is that Baltimore has been the testing ground over the last decade of how the surveillance state, now being ushered in by the COVID-19 outbreak, will be built across major metro areas.  Aaron Kesel of ActivistPost laid it out beautifully, "coronavirus outbreak is proving to be the Trojan horse that justifies increased digital surveillance."  Baltimore is dealing with several public health crises at the moment, one is a murder epidemic, and the other is the COVID-19 outbreak.  Blend it all together, and the city is on the verge of turmoil.  Hence why the National Guard was called in several weeks ago, not just to assist local area hospitals dealing with an influx of virus cases and deaths, but also to maintain public order.

Does a Health Emergency Give Government the Extraordinary Power to Violate Our Rights?  [Scroll down]  What kind of a health emergency constitutes the execution of these "extraordinary powers," for example?  To what degree must the emergency threaten the public for the government to employ these "extraordinary powers" that it supposedly has the authority to wield at such times?  And how "extraordinary" can those powers become without excessively infringing upon our rights?  Which civil liberties does the government have the right to infringe in these circumstances, and which does it not?  Are there any that it does not have the right to infringe?  Is it just "health emergencies," or other kinds of emergencies, too?  If arbitrarily-defined "health emergencies" are reason enough for the government to exercise the vague "extraordinary powers" to violate certain civil liberties, then why wouldn't it be so for other kinds of emergencies?  Using this exact logic, a progressive might say, for example, that the spate of mass shootings in recent years constitutes a national emergency which threatens Americans' lives, and in times of such emergencies, "the government has extraordinary powers to confiscate firearms from Americans."  You don't have to fall far down the rabbit hole before concluding that what is implied by that suggestion is a logical vortex toward justifying tyranny, if only on occasion, and especially when the public is crazed with fear.

Albany's Dead-Of-Night Coronavirus Vote Gives Cuomo Sweeping New Emergency Powers.  In the wee hours of Tuesday morning [3/31/2020], the state legislature approved $40 million in emergency funding to help contain the COVID-19 outbreak in New York.  Buried within the legislation is a provision that has alarmed progressive lawmakers and advocates: an extraordinary, broad, and little-understood expansion of Governor Andrew Cuomo's emergency powers.  "I'm scared or concerned because I don't know what the governor has in mind," said Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, the longtime chair of his chamber's health committee.  With the support of both legislative leaders, the emergency funding bill overwhelmingly passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly and State Senate.  Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Senate Majority Leader, and Carl Heastie, the Speaker of the State Assembly, pushed for its passage, overriding the concerns of the health committee chairs in both chambers.

Beware The Creeps Who Enjoy Their New Pandemic Power.  The problem with people referring to this bizarre pandemic life limbo as "the new normal" is that there are people out there, both in and out of positions of responsibility, who are digging this opportunity to boss us around.  And it is troubling to see that there are a number of prominent folks who are in no hurry to curtail their ability to boss us around.  We need to note carefully who these people are and ensure that they never get a chance to control anything again.  You are starting to see more of that as this drags out.  You have got Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and others thinking this is a great time to get our socialism on.  You also have functionaries — all of whom are still getting paychecks — who are way too eager to start issuing orders instead of relying on citizens to behave rationally.  We don't need to be ordered around, but they can't resist the ordering.

When the judge orders an ankle monitor so you don't break quarantine.  Returning to our continuing series on the limits of executive authority during times of declared emergencies, there is yet another potentially disturbing story coming to us from the state of Kentucky.  A Circuit Court judge there by the name of Angela Bisig has begun issuing orders for ankle monitors to be attached to persons who have been exposed to the novel coronavirus and subsequently refused to observe self-quarantine measures.  One person, in particular, a man only being referred to by the initials D.L. lives with an individual who has tested positive for the virus and another who is presumed to be positive.  But despite that fact, D.L. has reportedly been leaving home "often."  This resulted in the order for him to wear the tracking device for two weeks. [...] But once again, stupidity still isn't a crime.  Or at least it wasn't until we ran into a national crisis like this and governors began trampling on any number of constitutional rights, including restricting the free movement of citizens.

St. Louis Federal Reserve Head Says Americans Should Be Tested for COVID-19 Daily And Forced To Display a Badge on Their Clothing with the Result.  In an era when the government is using cell phone data to track our movements, drones to enforce compliance of lockdown orders, thermal imaging to monitor social distancing, pastors are getting arrested for hosting church, and ankle bracelets to ensure people stay quarantined, a Federal Reserve official proposed today yet another surveillance plan; daily coronavirus testing for every citizen, and we publicly display badges showing if we tested negative or positive.

Tyranny on Display - DC Police Shut Down The Wharf's Fish Market After Pics of Crowds Go Viral.  The DC police shut down The Wharf's Fish Market on Sunday [4/5/2020] after photos of crowds there went viral.  Washington, D.C., recently issued a very strict shelter-in-place order in response to the Coronavirus panic.  Residents may only leave their homes to go to the grocery store or to seek medical aid. [...] Apparently food is no longer essential in DC?

Tennessee Supreme Court Allows Police to Carry Out Warrantless, Suspicionless Searches of Probationers' Homes, Undermining Fourth Amendment.  Pushing back against government efforts to chip away at the privacy and security guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, The Rutherford Institute has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a state court decision allowing police to search the homes of probationers without any suspicion or justification.  In an amicus brief filed in Hamm v.  State of Tennessee, Institute attorneys have asked the Court to overturn a Tennessee court's ruling that police have carte blanche to search the residence of probationers, arguing that it violates the Fourth Amendment's overriding purpose to protect the sanctity and security of a person's home.

In What Sense Do You Think We Are Free?  Here's a sensible question.  If the mayor of the most notable metropolis in the country can openly suggest that the government has the right to permanently shutter the doors of a church if it refuses to comply with "social distancing" guidelines, or any other edict the government finds necessary in a given moment, then what can't the government do? [...] Consider this.  A junkie can wake up on a brisk morning in the streets of San Francisco, defecate on the sidewalk in plain view of onlookers, and insert a used needle into his arm to inject illegal narcotics into his veins.  The cops will make no effort to stop him, for, you see, that might be a violation of his supposed "rights." [...] Now, consider that he is far less likely to incur the attention of law enforcement, or even the news media, than you might incur for the crime of choosing to attend your local church, should it have the audacity to be open.  It is you, don't you understand, who is the public health menace.

Anthony Fauci goes nuts.  [Scroll down]  So when Fauci calls for a national order to keep every man, woman and child in America at home, behind closed doors, for the next 30 days or longer, he's only suggesting the best course of action that, in his medical opinion, would keep his patients — whom he's deemed to be all of America — safe and healthy, free of risks of catching the coronavirus.  But that doesn't mean he's right.  That doesn't mean his medical opinion ought to be taken as sacrosanct; all the other considerations — economic, political, social — tossed to the side as secondaries.  Americans are not lab rats, and America is not a science lab.  The country can't come to a grinding halt every time flu season approaches.  Because mark these words:  If we do it once, we'll be doing it again.  This season's coronavirus will be next season's something else.

President Trump needs to set the country free now.  It is very clear now exactly how this nation is divided:  Between those who love this country and the liberty and freedoms once guaranteed by our revered Constitution and those who hate this nation as founded and, like Rep. James Clyburn want to see it "restructured," socialized, communized.  A man was arrested in Malibu, CA for paddling by himself in the ocean.  He was endangering no one.  In a matter of a few weeks, we have become a police state, fascist and menacing.  The left now sees an opportunity to force upon us their regressive agenda which is far more deadly to us all than the Wuhan flu. [...] Wake up Americans!  We are by nature a civil and law-abiding people, but what we are being subjected to is monstrous.

Rebellion: 'This Is Not Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia Where You Are Asked For Your Papers!' Says Maine Sheriff.  Maine's Franklin County Sheriff Scott Nichols has a strong message for the Governor of Maine, Janet Mills, who issued "stay-at-home" orders with threats of police punishment if not followed.  Sheriff Nichols issued a statement on the Franklin County Facebook page saying in no uncertain terms he will not follow the unconstitutional order.  "We will not be setting up a Police State.  PERIOD," he wrote.  "The Sheriff's Office will not purposefully go out and stop vehicles because they are on the road or stop and ask why people are out and about.  To do so puts our officers at risk.  This is not Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia where you are asked for your papers!"  The sheriff's announcement comes as a welcome sign to Americans who have been arrested for inane things like praying outside, surfing, or trying to drive to work.

Dallas County official:  Stay-at-home order will remain in place until April 30.  Hours after Dallas County Commissioners extended a disaster declaration until May 20, the county's top elected official announced on Twitter that the so-called "safer-at-home" orders would continue until April 30.  The late-afternoon tweet is a reversal after County Judge Clay Jenkins stressed early Friday that the strict restrictions he first established last month and were adopted by other large counties would be needed for at least 60 days based on the advice of hospitals and health experts.

Clyburn Defends Calling Coronavirus an Opportunity to 'Restructure Government'.  House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.) on Friday defended his previous claim that coronavirus is a "tremendous opportunity" to advance Democratic policy goals.  "I find it kind of interesting that one of my colleagues said he has a problem with me because I'm a 'restructure government' person," Clyburn told Roll Call.  "Yes, Jim Clyburn is a restructuring government guy and everybody with any common sense, and looking at where we are today, needs to be a restructuring government person."  Clyburn has taken a prominent role in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D., Calif.) coronavirus response.  The speaker tapped the South Carolina Democrat on Thursday to lead her select oversight committee on coronavirus relief, which will monitor the billions in federal dollars spent fighting the pandemic.  Top Republicans criticized the decision, pointing to Clyburn's March comments calling the coronavirus "a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision."

How a Police State is Born.  Over the past four weeks and with little or no legal basis, one state governor has outbid another in their dramatic responses to the Coronavirus outbreak.  Invariably their actions revolve around the curtailing of individual freedom.  Arrest warrants are being issued for holding funeral services, fines are being levied for not maintaining proper distance, people are being arrested for holding gatherings of over ten people, fines and arrests are the order of the day for re-opening a business the state deems to be nonessential, and the national guard has been called out to enforce state borders and lockdowns.  Pastors have been arrested for holding worship services, and in New York City the mayor has threatened to permanently close any church, synagogue or mosque that violates his lockdown order.  The Second Amendment is under assault as 12 states either have ordered or are contemplating ordering all gun stores and retailers closed, thus depriving millions of their right buy a gun.  Neighbors and ordinary citizens, in the best tradition of the Soviet Union and Communist China, are being encouraged to inform the authorities if anyone they know is not adhering to state lockdown rules.  Stores, deemed essential by the state, are being told what in their inventory they can and cannot sell.

Seriously Unserious.  I live in Orange County, California.  Here's a sampling of what my leaders have done to impress — at least in their minds — the seriousness of COVID-19 upon me and my fellow citizens.  Locally, at 2:26 p.m. on March 17, we got an Order from the County (this Order and the aftermath all pre-dated the statewide shutdown, but is still instructive as to our leaders).  Here's what they ordered:  "Effective immediately... the following will be in effect in Orange County:  1. All public and private gatherings of any number of people, including at places of work... are prohibited."  Just to make sure you were paying attention, the County closed with a warning:  "this Order may be enforced by the Sheriff or chiefs of police."  Serious stuff.  Businesses were closed, effective immediately, and the cops could come after you for disobedience.  Where did this strong medicine come from?  This was the valid Order of Orange County's Health Officer.  Who is that and who elected her?  No one knew — before March 17 that is, when, suddenly, no one could go to work and each had ample time to Google this doctor who had just unemployed them.  Turns out she, ultimately, works for the County Board of Supervisors.  They are elected by the People.  But their bureaucrat doctor, seemingly without their approval, shut down by fiat all "non-essential" businesses in a county of over 3 million people.

Mandating a True Great Depression.  nother Thursday in the formerly free United States of America.  Now, we live in the terrified, scared, locked-down shadow of that America.  The streets are empty.  In Beverly Hills, Persians walk down the middle of the streets begging to be run over considering that so many rich kids here have Ferraris and McLarens.  Women run by with their ponytails swinging in the breeze.  But people are in a state of terror.  Out of their minds with fear.  Police give citations for walking in groups of more than two (that's in LA, not Beverly Hills).  The worst of it is the Ministry of Fear that is the combo of government and cable news — injecting dread into the national bloodstream.  I have stopped watching the news and its constant poisoning us with fear.  Our civil liberties are just a memory and all because of a virus that's very bad but not as bad as heart disease or cancer. [...] But we have 340 million people at least in America.  That's an infection rate (assuming 10 times reported cases) of roughly 5/7 of 1 percent.  The death rate is too low to be readily calculated.  But it's far less than what we got with the swine flu 10 years ago, and no one said a word about curtailing civil liberties over that.

Will Trump Betray Us after Corona?  Some people are stunned that government using computer models to predict high coronavirus deaths has many Americans willing to gift Democrats and fake news media their lifelong dream of ending the U.S. Constitution.  Panic-stricken citizens want everyone non-compliant with immediate dictatorial government demands thrown into jail.  Consequently, Democrats are behaving like power-drunk pirates, raping and pillaging our God-given and constitutional freedoms.  Incredibly, New York mayor de Blasio has threatened to close places of worship forever.  Virginia governor (supreme dictator) Northam decreed that residents stay at home until June 10, after the June 9 Republican primary.  Despite practicing CDC guidelines, a pastor was arrested for opening his church while the nearby Home Depot was packed with people.  Planned Parenthood dead-baby-body-parts-chop-shops deemed essential are allowed to remain open.  Across America, thousands of inmates are being released from prison because of the coronavirus.  Disease-infested tent city vagrants ignore corona restrictions while violators of stay-at-home orders are arrested.

Residents in Texas city can face $1,000 fine for not wearing 'some form of covering over their nose and mouth' after new motion.  Under a motion passed by the city council in Laredo, Texas, earlier this week, residents in the town can now face a fine of up to $1,000 for not wearing some form of covering on their nose and mouth in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.  According to the Laredo Morning Times, council members passed the motion in a vote earlier this week.  As part of the measure, all residents over the age of 5 are required to have their nose and mouth covered when entering public buildings, using public transportation and when pumping gas, the body said in a notice detailing the motion, which went into effect Thursday [4/2/2020].

Those Who Would Give Up Liberty for Safety, Deserve Neither.  To frame it in perspective, think of the indignity suffered by law-abiding New Orleans residents during Katrina being yanked out of their homes at gunpoint by government troops using the backdrop of tragedy to forcefully confiscate private arms.  Think of the search for the Boston bombers as government troops went door to door pulling people from their homes, conducting illegal searches in direct violation of their formidable 4th amendment rights.  Think of power-hungry Socialist governors using media coverage of a virus, forcing private businesses to close and putting millions of Americans out of work.  Not only does this threaten our economic survival but our constitutional right to bear arms during a time of media-driven hysteria, as well.  As the dinosaur media continue doing irreparable harm to the bedrock of our society by sowing the seeds of panic and fear over the coronavirus with incessant headlines and coverage worthy of a biblical apocalypse, the true nature of some politicians becomes evident.  None of these events in and of themselves, a storm, two terrorists, and now a virus, are the reason people were yanked from their homes, shut down their businesses, or lost everything they had.  On the contrary, it is the decisions made by a man or woman who has overstepped their legal and moral authority in their quest for power using the cover of these events to do so.

Using COVID-19 to Kill Vote Security.  Probably the worst part of the coronavirus lockdown is the realization that Americans will put up with virtually any edict, no matter how draconian, and any subsidy, no matter how ridiculous, if they are scared about their health and worried about the economy.  Our system will eventually return to normal, but we now know that it doesn't take much to jettison the country's various checks and balances and constitutional protections, at least temporarily.  We've got to be particularly careful, though, about activists and politicians who are using the coronavirus situation to push for far-reaching and permanent changes to our system.  One of the worst ideas now getting a serious hearing involves internet and app-based voting. [...] Yes, some reformers want Americans to vote using laptops and cellphones.  If such ideas get traction, however, it could mean the end of the integrity of our elections.

Governor Northam Closes Virginia Until Day After GOP Primary.  We had a call in the previous hour from woman in Cincinnati very, very worried that elections will never be the same because they're arbitrarily being canceled, delayed, shut down, and, in many cases, they're arbitrarily being delayed, shut down for the benefit of a particular political party. [...] Now, why did Governor Northam in Virginia choose Wednesday, June 10th, as the date that people can finally leave?  Well, guess what?  The Republican primary in Virginia is June the 9th.

Martial Law:  The Trial Balloon Abolishing Civil Liberties.  Many Americans are beginning to feel very uncomfortable with the destruction of our civil liberties.  Being locked in our homes for a couple weeks is one thing, but now New York Governor Cuomo is telling folks it may befour, six or nine months before this is over as the number of confirmed New York City cases surges past 15,000.  Cuomo warns 80 percent will get the virus over 9 months as Mnuchin tells 80m to prepare for 12-week shutdown.  That's not going to fly with the American people, or will it?  Have we become willing sheep being led to the socialist slaughter?  The communist conspiracy is attempting to create a new normal, a normal where citizens are comfortable asking for permission to leave their homes, to close their businesses, and give up their liberty for security.  Our entire economy will not exist after nine months; it is already gravely damaged after only a few weeks.

Floridians Feel The Brunt Of Big Brother.  The "new normal" in Florida hints at startling government encroachment against private property rights and individual human autonomy.  On March 30, Sunshine State Governor Ron DeSantis (R) issued a "Safer-at-Home" order for residents of three heavily populated southeast coast counties and Monroe County in the Florida Keys amid the Coronavirus health pandemic.  The move encourages millions of Floridians to stay inside and be aware of social-distancing protocol. [...] There is no evidence that individuals partaking of these isolated outdoor activities — private beach use, golfing at a private club, or boating — would be violating "social-distancing" directives issued by health officials, which restrict groupings of ten or more people.  Yet all these private pursuits are targeted, and residents are expected to comply, no questions asked. [...] As I stood on a railing by a Florida public beach the very same day this interview was posted on the CBS News website, a dark-painted helicopter swooped in and hovered low over the stretch of sand right near me for a full minute or two.  I gazed around.  Nobody was on the beach below the copter, although a couple of people sat on a section of private beach a bit further up.  Just as abruptly as it came, the helicopter sped off.  There weren't 100 people on the beach.  There weren't even four.  There were two.  And apparently they were on their own private property.

De Blasio threatens to permanently close places of worship that resist shutdown order.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned religious leaders that their places of worship could be shut down permanently if they did not follow the city's order to pause services during the coronavirus pandemic.  "A small number of religious communities, specific churches and specific synagogues, are unfortunately not paying attention to this guidance even though it's so widespread," the New York Democrat said Friday [3/27/2020] at his daily press briefing.  "I want to say to all those who are preparing for the potential of religious services this weekend:  If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church and attempt to hold services after having been told so often not to, our enforcement agents will have no choice but to shut down those services," he added.

New York Mayor Bill deBlasio Announces Immediate Government Suspension of First Amendment.  New York Mayor Bill deBlasio is officially attempting to establish himself as the United States first totalitarian dictator by announcing a revocation of all New York City citizen rights under the first amendment.  A stunning move. [...] In a stunning announcement Mayor deBlasio threatens that all religious services will be forcibly closed by city authorities "permanently" if they do not comply with the established dictates of city government.  [Video clip]

LAPD helicopter orders people to leave skate park or FACE ARREST as city bids to slow spread of coronavirus.  An LAPD helicopter circles over a skate park in the city and orders people leave or face arrest on Saturday [3/28/2020].  Video shows the helicopter circling and a voice over the tannoy saying:  "The park is closed.  If do not leave, will be arrested for trespassing."  [Video clip]

Couple charged with violating N.J. coronavirus lockdown, endangering kids after cops break up big lawn party.  A Lakewood couple who hosted a gathering Sunday [3/29/2020] of 40 to 50 people on the lawn and street in front of the home have been charged with five counts of child endangerment and the husband was charged with violating the ban on gatherings due to the coronavirus outbreak, authorities said.

Florida begins coronavirus checkpoints, threatens jail time for out-of-state travelers who don't self-quarantine.  Florida, falling short of statewide lockdown, is now screening travelers from the New York City area and Louisiana "hotspots" both at highway roadblocks and at airports, threatening them with 60 days in jail if they don't self-quarantine as the number of confirmed cases in the state peaks to over 4,200.  Gov. Ron DeSantis has so far refused to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, similar to those enforced in at least 22 other states, including California, New York and Illinois.  More than 4,200 confirmed cases, with at least 56 deaths were recorded in Florida on Sunday [3/29/2020].

Stop the COVID-19 Insanity Now.  It is the gross overreaction of certain government and business leaders to the Wuhan coronavirus of 2020, otherwise known as COVID-19, that is the danger to the United States, not the virus itself.  The abundance of data show that the virus is far less dangerous than the seasonal flu, and if the overreaction is not stopped and reversed immediately, it will severely damage the economy and the lives that depend on it. [...] So we should be asking questions that the hysteria promoting media are apparently avoiding:
  •   Why haven't states or the federal government ever taken these kinds of measures before for any other illness in history?
  •   If the country is not shut down because of the flu, and wasn't for the H1N1 swine flu of 2009, why shut it down for COVID-19?
  •   How do the confirmed case rates of growth and fatality rates of growth in states with business closures compare with states without business closures? [...]
  •   If shopping at grocery stores is allowed, why is shopping at any other store different?
  •   How is it moral to have the government prevent small businessmen and their employees from earning a living and then demand of them the tax money to pay government employees who are not working during that same period?
  •   Where can people find the constitutional authority for the federal or state governments to shut down businesses, and restrict gatherings and internal travel?

Report: 20% of Detroit Police Officers Are in Quarantine as Fears of Civil Unrest Grow.  Fear is growing in the Detroit Metro area, as word spreads that 20% of the city's police force is now under quarantine.  Citizens are now worried about massive civil unrest unfolding in the city.  Currently, Michigan is under a very strict statewide "lockdown."  All non-essential businesses are closed and if you're an "essential worker" you have a laminated paper you must keep with you in case you're pulled over so you can prove why you're on the road.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Expands Quarantine to Louisiana Travelers, Installing Checkpoints on Roads.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is requiring travelers from Louisiana to self-isolate for 14 days and said the Florida Highway Patrol will install checkpoints on major roads to screen travelers from that area, he announced on Friday [3/27/2020].  DeSantis is imposing restrictions on travelers fleeing to Florida from Louisiana — particularly New Orleans, which is emerging as one of the hotspots of the coronavirus outbreak.

Colorado Governor Polis (D) issues stay-at-home decree.  Not one to let a good crisis go to waste, last night Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) issued a decree ordering all Coloradans to stay at home "due to the presence of COVID-19 in the state."  He made this order claiming authority under the Colorado Constitution and the Colorado Disaster Emergency Act.  Polis originally declared a state of emergency on March 10th.  The order, which took effect at 6 am this morning, was broadcast to cell phones at about 8 pm last night using the weather alert system and again this morning at 8 am.

Rhode Island National Guard To Conduct House-To-House Searches, Texas National Guard House-To-House Coronavirus Checkups.  On March 13th Around 400 National Guard personnel have been activated across six states to support operations to stem the spread of novel coronavirus, the National Guard Bureau said in a press release.  The governors of Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington have all activated components of their Army and Air National Guard.  Guardsmen in California and Maryland are also expected to join their states' efforts today.  Things have become even more serious and some conspiracy theories suggested that we are on our way to martial law.  Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civilian functions by a government, especially in response to a temporary emergency such as invasion or major disaster, or in an occupied territory.

Trump Activates Armed Forces Reserves To Battle Coronavirus Pandemic — Up To 1,000,000 Individual Reservists.  President Donald Trump announced at Friday's coronavirus task force briefing that he has granted the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security the "authority to activate the ready reserve components of the Armed Forces" to help battle the pandemic.  "This will allow us to mobilize medical, disaster, and emergency response personnel to help wage our battle against the virus by activating thousands of experienced service members including retirees," Trump told the reporters gathered in the White House Brady Briefing Room.

The Editor says...
Is this for virus control, or population control?

Eating the Elephant.  There is no legal means by which to quarantine HEALTHY people, other than communist-level restrictions of liberty.  If we were a better educated people, it would be sufficient to request that we do the intelligent things to avoid any spread of the disease, but since the public school system has been utilized to convert logical intelligent people into obedient slaves of governmental dictates, these quarantines are the only means by which to ensure compliance.  Proceeding on the principle that no government has ever returned power once obtained from the people through deception, threat or overreaction we might as well recognize that these levels of restrictions will find a home within government power from now on.  Imagine how many "health issues" can be used to demand papers to allow travel.  How soon will "health" dictate that all travel is inherently dangerous and can be mitigated with permanent travel restrictions. [...] In one fell swoop of a minor pandemic the United States as a nation has abandoned both the republic and capitalism.  Individual rights are destroyed, never again to be seen as rational arguments against the power of the state.  Capitalism has lost out to the political and economic ideology of Soviet Russia allowing for such things as "travel permits" and sequestration of healthy individuals.

Rhode Island police "hunting down" New Yorkers fleeing the city.  With New York City in the grip of the novel coronavirus and looking more and more like a movie featuring Snake Plissken, many of the wealthier denizens of Gotham have been fleeing to vacation homes in nearby states with less viral activity.  As John recently noted, this has been getting on the nerves of many of the locals who aren't used to an influx of tourists over the winter months.  But now, the state of Rhode Island is taking things to another level.  The Governor has dispatched the police to "hunt down" any cars with New York license plates and they're looking to enforce a quarantine on any New Yorkers fleeing to her state.

COVID-19: Lakewood Police Crash Another Wedding.  Lakewood police cited yet another Jersey Shore wedding host for holding a large gathering during the coronavirus outbreak, authorities said.  Officers responding to another call Thursday saw 40 or so people gathered on Wayne Street, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer said Friday [3/27/2020].  They issued a summons to local resident William Katzenstein, 39, for "violating any rule or regulation adopted by the governor," the prosecutor said.  Then everyone dispersed, he said.

The Left is Loving This.  Consider, for a moment, what ideas Americans seem to have generally accepted in the last few weeks. [...] Thirdly, this crisis appears to have nullified any devotion to the concept of individual liberty among Americans.  A friend in Chicago tells me that he and his young daughters daren't risk even walking to the park that his tax dollars built, as he risks a $500 fine for doing so.  The stiffest resistance encountered by the government officials imposing these infringements upon law-abiding citizens is the quiet grumbling that exists beneath all these loud sermons about "social distancing" and "flattening the curve."  And finally, as Americans are left unable to care for themselves because the government is prohibiting their free association in the economic marketplace, the government is now facilitating a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers as cash payments to Americans below certain income thresholds.

Watch LA Mayor Announce Spy Program to Threaten Open Businesses During COVID-19 Scare.  California is bracing for its turn as the nation's hotspot for the COVID-19 outbreak and the state's leaders are flexing their statist muscles with all manner of edicts, spy programs, and threats of prosecution.  The state is currently in shut-down mode, with only "essential businesses" open and people ordered to socially distance from other possible germ carriers.  Restaurants can serve only take-out orders, grocery stores require people to line up outside until the crowds thin out inside.  In the beach communities, "outsiders" are being told to stay out.  Hiking trails, parks and even the beaches — the open-air beaches — are closed.  In the City of Laguna Beach, where drones are forbidden for you to use in public, cops are using drones to monitor whether scofflaws have hit the beaches and if people are keeping a socially acceptable distances from others.  So ingrained are these admonitions that if you're seen walking in a group, citizens will think nothing of calling the cops.

State legislatures must convene to control governors' growing tyranny.  We all went along with the severe social distancing and the termination of all public gatherings to help safety during this epidemic.  Even this is no picnic, because it includes the cancellation of all religious services as well as school.  We must recognize the danger of unilateral executive actions halting the most sacred constitutional rights.  Nonetheless, it was clear that these first actions were called for and passed the rational basis test of using the policies least restrictive of liberty to achieve a vital state interest.  Now, however, that states are moving to indefinite lockdowns without presenting any evidence that this is needed, over and above the severe distancing, it's past time for us to ask questions.  Placing Americans indefinitely under house arrest without any due process, transparency, time limit, guidelines, or checks and balances on a single executive is something that should shake us to our core.  That is true even if we were dealing with Ebola and a 60 percent death rate.

Fear Makes It Easy for Governments to Expand Power.  The coronavirus epidemic has for the past couple of weeks compelled panicked households to flood grocery stores in search of basic goods.  Until this past weekend, however, US governments had refrained from using special powers to order forced business closures and curfews.  Autocratic responses to the health crisis, it seemed, were being put in place exclusively by authoritarian governments such as China's Communist Party, which managed to allegedly contain the spread of the virus through martial law — barricading people in their homes, arresting those who wouldn't comply with quarantine mandates, and issuing passports to households so that authorities could verify whether individuals leaving their homes had already used up their weekly stroll quotas.  Following an announcement from President Trump, however, things changed.  After several states declared a state of emergency, some states took further steps by ordering forced business closures.  Ohio, California, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Indiana ordered owners of bars, restaurants, and wineries to shut down.

In Virgina, Go to Church, Go to Jail.  The Governor of Virginia has decided to ban churches from gathering in groups of ten or more.  The executive order applies to all gatherings, not just churches, so it is arguable constitutional.  But it also directly infringes on the First Amendment right to assemble and to freely exercise one's religion.  It actually makes it a crime to meet for church. [...] Churches should use common sense and avoid gathering right now.  But it is a fundamental right under the Bill of Rights and the Governor should have used the moral power of his office to work with churches instead of the hard power of state demands.

Lightfoot threatens to shut down parks, lakefront, Riverwalk.  Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday made an extraordinary threat — to shut down Chicago parks, Millennium Park, the downtown Riverwalk and the entire lakefront — if residents and visitors continue to thumb their noses at the statewide stay-at-home order aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.  Lightfoot instructed Chicago Police officers to shut down large gatherings and threatened to use what she called "every lever at my disposal" to compel compliance.

Conservative Leaders:  Public Health Measures Must Still Protect Constitutional Rights of Americans.  The public health crisis facing the country is unprecedented, and a whole of government approach is underway.  However, using this crisis as a justification to violate the basic civil liberties of Americans is unconscionable, and in no way justified.  This is also true at the state level, where unprecedented shelter-in-place orders threaten civil liberties as well.  We urge governors to make any movement limitations temporary and tailored.  A federal shelter-in-place order should be avoided at all costs.  Public health must be protected, but so, too, should the rights of Americans under the Constitution.  Americans have mobilized with extraordinary speed and cooperation.  The Trump administration has lifted regulations and expedited actions to begin vaccine testing, facilitate production of necessary medical equipment, and restricted foreign access to the country as appropriate.  These actions are justified.  A dramatic expansion of the police state is not, and we emphatically oppose it.

California Police to Use Chinese-Made Patrol Drones Equipped with Night Vision Cameras to Patrol Streets for Quarantine Busters.  California is really ramping up its efforts to control the population after a couple dozen people died from the Coronavirus.  Governor Gavin Newsom recently said he was considering martial law after 12 people died from the Coronavirus.  Now a California police department is planning on using drones with night vision cameras and loudspeakers to monitor the population amid the Coronavirus shutdown after approximately 28 confirmed deaths in the state.

Drones with bullhorns.  Sounds like 1984 is being used as a how-to manual.
California police consider new uses for drones during coronavirus pan(dem)ic.  A police department in southern California is looking into different ways its drones can help during the coronavirus pandemic.  The Chula Vista Police Department recently doubled its fleet with the purchase of two machines.  The police department told the Financial Times that they would be outfitted with cameras.  "We have not traditionally mounted speakers to our drones, but ... if we need to cover a large area to get an announcement out, or if there were a crowd somewhere that we needed to disperse, we could do it without getting police officers involved," said Capt. Vern Sallee.

Coronavirus Panic is a Trojan Horse for Socialism.  Finally we're blinking our eyes with dawning realization that maybe this pandemic isn't as sickly serious as was once hyped by the same media which pees itself in anticipation for hurricane season.  That's because, in my opinion, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats got greedy, thus exposing their hand.  Instead of providing relief to Americans who've stayed at home all because their state and local governments told them to, Pelosi and her band of ugly men stuffed a relief bill with socialism fan fiction. [...] It's almost like Democrats aren't taking this virus as seriously as they sold it.  It's almost as if they ginned up panic, with the full cooperation of the media, to push big government socialism when American fears were spiked.  It's almost as if Democrats and the media ripped a few pages from global warming alarmism and just doused it with gas, since not enough people were panicking and ceding their freedoms to government in order to save the planet.

Remember this if you ever have the urge to vote for a Democrat.
Yes, Virginia's Governor Has Made It a Crime for More Than 10 People to Attend a Church Service.  Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued an executive order on Monday that is aimed at stopping the new coronavirus — and, in the process, makes it a criminal offense to hold a church service attended by more than 10 people.  Yes, his order makes it a crime for more than 10 people to gather in a church.  There are two passages in the text of the governor's order that are relevant to this. [...] Conclusion:  The governor has issued an executive order that "bans" religious services that bring together more than 10 people.  His executive order expressly states that any "violations" of the paragraph in the order that bans "gatherings of 10 or more persons ... shall be a Class 1 misdemeanor."  Virginia law says that when a governor's executive order states that violating that order is a Class 1 misdemeanor, those violations are indeed Class 1 misdemeanors.  Virginians now live in a state where holding a church service attended by 11 people has been unilaterally declared a crime by the governor.

New Totalitarian Pandemic Power-Grab Idea:  Permanently Close Some City Streets to Cars.  These past few weeks have been far too filled with various attempts at crisis-induced power grabs by politicians, which isn't historically unusual.  A pandemic is the kind of thing that calls for extraordinary measures but politicians almost (I'm being generous there) always try to get a little too extraordinary with their responses.  It is almost as if they are genetically coded to try and take a mile every time a frightened public offers them an inch.  This is a truly bipartisan problem.  The September 11th attacks did prompt a Republican president to create the Dept. of Homeland Security after all, a fact that still makes conservatives cringe to this day.  Very little time was wasted before a host of overreactions were suggested during this crisis.  Over the weekend, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo really let his totalitarian lust slip out for public display: [...]

Eric Garcetti Threat:  Water, Power Shut Off if You Don't Close Up Shop.  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti threatened "non-essential" businesses Tuesday that if they do not obey the city's "stay at home" order to close during the pandemic crises, he will cut off their water and their electricity. [...] Though the streets of the city have largely been deserted, some people have been going to work.  Some retail stores remain open; construction continues on unfinished homes; and gardeners continue to tend to yards and lawns.

Butter, Not Guns:  New Jersey Suspends Second Amendment; Gets Sued.  Firearm ownership may be guaranteed under our Constitution by the Second Amendment.  But it's secondary at best to the New Jersey officials who've closed down gun stores during our Wuhan flu panic, calling them non-essential.  Now two Garden State officials — who some would say are non-essential themselves — are being sued for trampling constitutional rights.  "The case was filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and the New Jersey Second Amendment Society on behalf of Robert Kashinsky and Legend Firearms, a gun shop in the state," reports WND.com.  "Defendants are Gov. Philip D. Murphy and State Police Supt. Patrick J. Callahan."  "'Gov. Murphy cannot simply suspend the Second Amendment, and neither can Supt. Callahan,' said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb," WND continues.  "Yet, under this emergency order, that's exactly what they're doing.  The Constitution, and federal law, don't allow that.  New Jersey may have been the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights, but they're the last state to recognize it."

Residents threatened with jail for leaving homes during pandemic.  The governor of New Jersey warned that "folks need to be jolted," so his attorney general is threatening jail for people who leave their homes in violation of the governer's order Monday.  Gurbir Grewal, the state's attorney general, said those who violate the stay-at-home order could be jailed or fined up to $1,000, NewJersey.com reported.  Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed executive orders that ban unapproved social gatherings and close all "non-essential" businesses.

The Editor says...
Does anyone else find it alarming that the state government has arrogated to itself the authority to approve social gatherings, and to decide which businesses should stay open and which ones should close?  We're no longer on the slippery road to tyranny.  We have arrived.

Inslee orders Washingtonians to stay at home to slow spread of coronavirus.  To combat the novel coronavirus, Gov. Jay Inslee is ordering Washington residents to stay at home, except for crucial activities.  Residents can still leave to buy groceries, seek medical care and go to work at essential businesses, Inslee said in a live televised address Monday evening [3/23/2020], and they can still engage in outdoor activities that can be done 6 feet away from others, such as walking and biking.  But the new order requires the closure of nonessential business places and, the governor said, "is enforceable by law," though broad crackdowns by officers aren't expected.

New Jersey Attorney General Announces That People Who Violate Stay-At-Home Order Could Face Six Months in Jail or Fines.  New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced on Monday that those who break the state's stay at home order could face jail or up to $1,000 in fines.  Gov. Phil Murphy signed executive orders over the weekend bar unapproved social gatherings and shut down all "non-essential" businesses.  The orders closed all retail "storefront and/or brick-and-mortar premises" and ordered that "all recreational and entertainment businesses must close to the public."

'Over My Dead Body': DOJ's request for new 'emergency powers' over coronavirus met with swift condemnation.  The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for new "emergency powers" amid the coronavirus outbreak, including the power to ask chief judges to indefinitely detain people without trial.  The DOJ has proposed numerous emergency measures, according to Politico, which obtained and reviewed documents the DOJ sent to lawmakers.

Two reporters cover the same development.  This reporter is skeptical:
Swift response to unconfirmed reports that DOJ seeks emergency powers during corona crisis.  Keeping in mind that there has been no official announcement, a Politico report that the Department of Justice is requesting new emergency powers during the COVID-19 outbreak went over online like a lead balloon.  The Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Bill Barr, "has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States," Politico reported.  In an article published Saturday, the news source said it had reviewed documents that detailed requests to lawmakers which reportedly included topics such as the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.

On the other hand, this reporter seems quite confident:
The Justice Department is asking for emergency powers.  It's not just private businesses and schools being impacted by the social distancing rules and lockdowns taking place all over the nation.  Our criminal justice system is feeling the pinch also, as courts deal with mandatory staffing reductions and the need to avoid having large groups of people gathered together in front of a judge.  This is restricting the ability of states to process suspects in normal fashion.  In response to this pressure, Politico reports that the Justice Department quietly filed a request to have emergency powers granted to them so they can maintain order without the normal procedures that are generally followed, and some of what they're asking for is disturbing to say the least. [...] There are more requests on the list, including the ability for the chief judge of any district court to "pause court proceedings" when the court is impacted by civil disobedience or other emergency situations.  Such a "pause" could be put into effect for pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures.  In other words, this would effectively throw habeas corpus out the window for the duration of the pandemic.  You could, in theory at least, be arrested and tossed in a cell and left there indefinitely without getting the chance to appear before a judge and ask to be released, have bail set or anything else.

California's Stay-at-Home Order Is a Legal Mess.  California Governor Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order may well be necessary as a matter of public health in the face of the new coronavirus — I will leave that to epidemiologists to determine.  But viewed as a legal declaration, it's a total mess. [...] The order is also drafted so badly that it creates contradictions with the state's own website explaining it, with the governor's own speech rolling it out, and with common sense.  As written, the order does not say clearly that Californians can leave their homes to buy food or medicine or other necessities.  It doesn't say whether they can go out to help family members or friends who are themselves vulnerable or otherwise in need.  It is silent on going out for exercise.  Although context suggests all these may be permitted, the formal legal implication of the text would be that all are prohibited.

New web threat:  Government plan to scan online messages.  A privacy organization warns a bill in Congress would violate privacy and security by requiring "every message sent" to be read by government-approved scanning software.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the EARN IT bill sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., would spell the end of encryption online.  The bill's authors avoided the word "encryption," EFF noted, but they proposed "legislation that enables an all-out assault on encryption."

A Real-Life Story of How Coronavirus Hysteria Oppresses People.  Commentators have noted the dishonest reporting of statistics to buttress the false claim that deaths from the coronavirus (hereafter, COVID-19) are far in excess of mortality from the common flu when in fact the opposite is likely the case. [...] I was indeed shocked when Nathan called me on March 17 to report that the wedding and reception, for which all the invitations had gone out and for which they had planned for over a year, were being canceled on the "Order of the Health Officer of the County of Riverside."  I obtained a copy of the so-called "order" that "prohibits" gatherings of ten or more individuals in the County of Riverside.  According to the text of the decree, "Violation of ... this Order is a crime punishable by fine, imprisonment or both."  The edict exempts gatherings of government officials, including those at the Health Department and their colleagues who drafted the order.  Another curious exemption from the order is those involved in "congregate living settings."  I suppose that's to cover Riverside County, California's resident population of homeless bums, who are stuck living in "congregate living settings" in their feces- and needle-infested encampments.

Are America, and Trump, being played?  [Scroll down]  America has never been brought to her knees to the level happening right now, on Trump's watch.  Not in the Civil War.  Not in WWI or WWII, and certainly not at any time during the Cold War.  Forty million Californians sheltered in place — by order of an American government official?  Schools closed from coast to coast; and restaurants closed in every major state, by order of American government officials?  And movements toward gun control and limited rights to gather — by order of American government officials?  And nationalized healthcare achieved in important practical respects without the inconvenience of having to pass laws?  And all of this to fight a pandemic of still unclear comparative seriousness that originated in anti-American communist China, and is being cheered on, magnified and roiled relentlessly by the anti-American left, including especially the MSM.  If this isn't a deliberate plot to take down America and every safeguard of American freedom, how would it look different if it was?

Scientist with 4 Degrees from MIT Warns 'Deep State' Using Coronavirus Fear-Mongering To Suppress Dissent.  A decorated scientist with four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes the coronavirus pandemic is being used by the "Deep State" for its own purposes.  Shiva Ayyadurai said on Twitter that "fear-mongering" over the outbreak is being used to push an agenda. [...] Think about what has transpired in less than a week's time.  We have handed control of nearly everything in our lives to the government.  In many places, they are telling us when we can leave our homes and when we must return to them.  They have decided what events or religious services we can attend, how many people are allowed to be there and which businesses are allowed to stay open.  In the process, the global economy has crashed with the assistance of the media stirring everyone into a mass panic.  People are hoarding and fighting over toilet paper as if it is the cure for COVID-19 and grabbing every canned and dry food they can find.

Will the Real Victim of the Wuhan Flu 'Crisis' Be Your Rights?  Right now, after nearly three months of the threat, the U.S. has had a total of 3,487 cases of the Wuhan virus, with 68 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control.  That compares to 222,000 flu cases with a range of 22,000 to more than 50,000 deaths.  Yet, we're told repeatedly that, out of "an abundance of caution," we must shut down our economy.  From New York to California, state and local governments have declared "emergencies."  So has the federal government, part of a much-broader "crisis" response.  This gives government officials, including non-elected bureaucrats, extraordinary powers over all of us.  We should be alarmed.  It started with asking people to avoid gatherings of more than 250 people.  Now that's been shrunk to just 10.  And we're told restaurants, churches and other places where people usually congregate are now considered dangerous. [...] [T]he media focus has been hysterical to the point of absurdity, encouraging government to impose the most stringent controls in modern history.  That's bad enough, given the mainstream media's undisguised contempt for President Donald Trump.  But they're providing cover for those who would deprive us of our rights permanently.

San Francisco Initiates Forced Quarantine of all Residents, All Hours.  San Francisco has skipped the interim mitigation efforts and has announced a forced quarantine of all residents inside their homes 24-hours-a-day for the next three weeks.  A totalitarian dream.  All residents must remain confined inside their homes or residences and no-one will be permitted outside except for emergency services or monitored visits to the grocery stores.  The order remains in effect until April 7, 2020, and may be extended.

Executive order in Champaign could include banning sale of firearms, ammunition and alcohol.  Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen has issued an executive order declaring an emergency in the city.  City officials said the emergency is related to the COVID-19, which is anticipated to cause an impact on the health of community members.  Champaign Municipal Code allows the mayor to declare an emergency for a limited time.  Included in the executive order are ordinances that would give the city extraordinary powers to the Mayor.
  •   Violating parts of the Open Meetings Act
  •   Ban sale of firearms and ammunition
  •   Ban sale of any alcohol
  •   Closing of all bars, taverns, liquor stores, etc
  •   Ban sale or giving away of gasoline or other liquid flammable or combustible products in any container other than a gasoline tank permanently fixed to a motor vehicle
  •   Direct the shutoff of power, water, gas, etc
  •   Take possession of private property and obtain full title to same
  •   Prohibit or restrict ingress and egress to and from the City
There are no confirmed COVID-19 cases in central Illinois as of Thursday evening [3/12/2020].

The Editor says...
This is tyranny, whether it is for a limited time or not.

Gov. Inslee to restrict gatherings of more than 250 people, a move aimed at sports and concerts.  In the most drastic move yet to try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Jay Inslee is expected Wednesday [3/11/2020] to restrict gatherings of more than 250 people in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, a move aimed at sports, concerts and other cultural events.  The measure will be announced during a Seattle news conference, according to a source involved in conversations with the governor's office but who has not been cleared to discuss the issue.  The measure would not affect retail stores, according to the source.

The Editor says...
The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the freedom of peaceful assembly.  There is no mention in the Constitution of exceptions due to a public health crisis, real or imaginary.  If the governor can outlaw gatherings of 250 or more people, he can change the limit to 100 people, then to 20.  What if your church has 500 members?  That's not likely in Washington, I suppose, but what if?

Standing Strong on the Constitution.  America, in both its ideal and in its actuality, stands on two feet.  Under those feet is a foundation of Biblical wisdom and a knowledge of history that taught the founders what worked and what didn't.  With enormous care, those great men designed a nation with a stable underpinning of a constitutional rule of law and the right of each individual to have a say in how that rule would be implemented — in other words, the right to vote. [...] The left isn't at all interested in continuing the grand experiment that is America.  The left is about ending it entirely, and they are involved up to their skinny necks and wobbling dentures in pulling those two stable feet of the commonwealth right out from under us.  They are trying to eviscerate the Constitution by attacking every one the of Bill of Rights, and they are undermining the individual vote — local, state, and national.

Secret Babel Street app is being used by Feds to track cell phone 'movement' — without warrants.  As supporters of President Trump wait on Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham to hold people at the FBI and Justice Department accountable for lying to the FISA Court to fraudulently obtain a surveillance warrant to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign, now comes a report that federal law enforcement agencies won't have to do that anymore.  And why?  Because they've spent millions on a contract with a tech company in Virginia that has developed an app the Feds are secretly using to track cellphone movements and, thus, the movements of any individual they choose.  No warrant necessary.

A warning:  Socialist Bernie Sanders vows to govern through executive actions.  As if Bernie Sanders's extremist positions alone weren't enough to give one pause, a look at how he intends to enact them is even more disturbing. [...] Instead of governing through the legislative process, he intends to govern like a dictator, pen and phone in hand, enacting extremely sweeping diktats through one-man rule.  This is pretty much what his heroes, such as Fidel Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and Nicaragua's Sandinistas did:  proclaim the democratic bona fides, quiet the critics and fool the New York Times — and then move in for the kill, going all in on the maximo leader dictatorship model, proclaiming it in the name of "the people."  You want to know how all socialist regimes end up as dictatorships?  This is how, and we all know who Sanders's heroes up to now have been.

Assault Rifle Bans Turn Lawful Gun Owners Into Felons Overnight.  On January 20, 2020, the nation turned towards Virginia as a massive Second Amendment rally took place in Richmond.  Why did this "Right to Bear Arms" rally occur?  Because Virginians were afraid of an aggressive legislative agenda aimed at gun ownership in a historically pro-Second Amendment state.  The gun grab legislation that fueled the pushback was proposed on January 10, when House Bill 961 passed with a 51-48 vote.  This dubious legislation, in short, would have prohibited the sale, transportation, and transferring of newly defined "assault firearms."  The ill-fated bill also would have banned magazines with a capacity of 12 or more rounds, suppressors, and other elements — restrictions that are anathema to many residents of Virginia.

New California Bill Requires Retailers Create 'Gender-Neutral' Aisles For Children.  A new bill introduced in the California Assembly would require retailers to create "gender-neutral" floor-spaces for children's merchandise, with the goal of banning sex-specific labeling labeling such as "girls aisles" and "boys aisles."  The bill proposed by Democratic Assemblyman Evan Low, requires all retail department stores with 500 employees or more to comply with the newfound gender standards of the Left.

The Editor says...
In a free country, businesses are allowed to arrange their stores in any manner they choose.

Alabama Dem Introduces Legislation Mandating Vasectomies for Men at Age 50 or After Third Child.  An Alabama Democrat state lawmaker from Birmingham has introduced legislation that, if passed would mandate, "every Alabama man to undergo a vasectomy within one month of his 50th birthday or the birth of his third biological child, whichever comes first," according to a report from Alabama-based Yellowhammer News.  The bill, filed by State Rep. Rolanda Hollis (D) on Thursday [2/13/2020], is viewed by some a response to the 2019 passage by the state legislature of the Human Life Protection Act, a law that is currently making its way through the federal courts that ban abortion with very few exceptions.

Medical Journal:  CPS Should Take Kids From Parents if They Oppose Transgender 'Treatment'.  At the tail end of last year, the Journal of Medical Ethics published a paper advocating for government intrusion into the family if parents disagree with their kids about dangerous experimental transgender drugs.  Among other things, the paper suggested that Child Protective Services should remove children from their parents if the children identify with the gender opposite their biological sex and the parents do not wish for them to take dangerous experimental "treatments."  According to the abstract, the paper focuses on "how to proceed if a minor and their parents have disagreements concerning their gender-affirming medical care."  After studying "ethical, paediatric, adolescent and transgender health research," the authors "discuss three potential avenues for providing gender-affirming care over parental disagreement:  legal carve-outs to parental consent, the mature minor doctrine and state intervention for neglect."

Sorry, you cannot compel Americans to vote.  Democratic California Assemblyman Marc Levine has introduced a clearly unconstitutional bill which mandates that anyone registered to vote must attend a voting booth and file a response.  Levine says his intended law is justified and necessary because "democracy is not a spectator sport — it requires the active participation of all its citizens ... Those rights come with a responsibility by registered voters to cast their ballot and make sure that their voice is heard by their government."  While registered voters would not have to select a candidate in order to conform with Levine's desired law, they would have to file a ballot return, even if unmarked.  But as I say, this bill is patently unconstitutional.

Alabama: State Kidnaps Newborn From Mother After Falsely Accusing Her Of Drug Use.  Due process is something that is protected under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, but since the Trump administration has been pushing red flag laws and continuing in the Obama administration's footsteps with asset forfeiture, it's as though due process is a thing of the past, even though it isn't.  The latest evidence of the state and its agents violating due process, as well as the rights protected in the Fourth Amendment and engaging in kidnapping comes from the state of Alabama, where a young mother was issued a drug test without her consent that resulted in a false positive, for which the state ripped her newborn baby from her arms.

Coastal States Are in the Fight of Their Lives.  Is the Rest of America Listening?  [Scroll down]  Everyone should be terrified at the blatant stripping of constitutional rights happening right now in the west and the east.  How long before it bleeds into your state?  In Virginia, second amendment rights have been all but obliterated.  There is only one other right we have that it is more vital to a free and prosperous society and that is the very right that the second amendment was designed to protect.  If Americans allow this egregious fascism to stand for their Virginian brethren, a precedent will be set.  How long before that precedent reaches the borders of your own bubbles?  In case you have the audacity to be thinking right now, "It'll be a while" just ask yourself how long it took for the transgender revolution to infect your schools, workplaces and governance in the five years it's even been in the public discourse.

NY Skygazing Permit
Can't Make This Up: New York State Is Now Mandating "Stargazing Permits".  Imagine this:  You're out with your family in one of the parks in New York state where you can actually see the stars when it gets dark.  You look up in the sky, see a constellation, and you point upwards to show your kids.  Along comes a park ranger demanding to see your Stargazing Permit, and issues you a citation because you didn't know you needed such a permit.  That's right, the state of New York is now demanding us peasants give them money so we can look up at the sky.


VA Bill Would Criminalize Criticism of Governor and Associates.  It's another day, another crazy proposed bill in Virginia.  While the state has been making headlines for their assault on the Second Amendment, that's hardly the only bullet point on their agenda.  The state doesn't have much respect for the Second Amendment, and we're about to see if their attitude is the same towards the First.  Bill HB 1627 is titled "Threats and harassment of certain officials and property; venue," and was introduced by Democrat Jeffrey M. Bourne on January 16th.

The Language of Virginia's New Anti-Free Speech Legislation Is Absolutely Unbelievable.  Virginia's current Democrat governance has devolved into an absolute dumpster fire.  Last week, protestors numbering in the tens of thousands took to the streets of Richmond to oppose a slate of new gun control laws which clear violate the letter and spirit of the 2nd Amendment.  For their trouble, the mainstream media smeared them as white nationalists and violent extremists.  In the end, things were peaceful and anchors at CNN were really sad, but the point was made.  Citizens were not going to sit idly be and be subjected to unconstitutional nonsense.  As I write this, hundreds of bodies in Viriginia have passed resolutions of non-enforcement and pledged to not expend resources to help Gov. Ralph Northam (also know as "Coonman" to his racist friends) in his crusade.  With the backlash that has formed toward the state's government in the aftermath of these laws, they've decided to respond in the most insane way possible.  Namely, attempting to legislate the 1st Amendment out of existence.  No, that's not an overstatement.

Virginia Democrats Push Legislation to Make Criticism of Government Officials a Criminal Offense.  In the wake of the Virginia gun rights rally on Monday, Democrats in the Capitol are not slowing down their push for tyranny.  They are moving a bill through the legislature that would effectively criminalize dissent against Governor Blackface Northam and other state government officials.  House Bill 1627 was introduced by Delegate Jeffrey M. Bourne last week.  The legislation "provides that certain crimes relating to threats and harassment may be prosecuted in the City of Richmond if the victim is the Governor, Governor-elect, Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor-elect, Attorney General, or Attorney General-elect, a member or employee of the General Assembly, a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, or a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia."  Language in the bill explicitly criminalizes free speech, in what would constitute a blatant attack on the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.

Schiff Tells Senators They Must Not Allow Trump to Run for Re-Election.  House Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.) told the Senate during the impeachment proceedings on Wednesday [1/22/2020] that it must remove President Donald Trump from office and not allow him to run for re-election.  If the Senate allows Trump to run for re-election, Schiff insisted that we could not know if the election was "fairly won.["]  "Instead, we are here today to consider a much more grave matter, and that is an attempt to use the powers of the presidency to cheat in an election," Schiff told the Senate.  "For precisely this reason," Schiff said, "the president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won."

The Editor says...
If the Democrats get out the vote at the local graveyard, and allow illegal aliens to vote, and allow Motor Voters to vote on both sides of a state line, then there is indeed some doubt that "the vote will be fairly won."

Washington Has a Dangerous Obsession With Secret Courts.  Article One, Section 9, clause 2 of the United States Constitution states, "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."  It says something about the importance of that clause that, to this day, the right of habeas corpus has been suspended only twice in criminal cases: once in the case of Abraham Lincoln's prosecution of the Civil War (rebellion), and once in the case of detaining suspected terrorists during the Bush administration (which, at least in theory, was tied to preventing something like invasion). In other words, the idea of using secret courts to try citizens without their having any knowledge of their accuser, or of the charges and evidence, is fundamentally un-American, and our criminal law has broadly reflected that, in a remarkable show of consistency across our multi-century history.  But there's a wrinkle:  habeas corpus has only remained that foundational to American government in the realm of explicit criminal prosecutions.  When it comes to intelligence gathering, civil suits, and regulatory actions, the results are far murkier.

A Textbook Example of Tyranny.  Virginia introduces a bundle of radical laws to destroy 2nd amendment rights, militias, sale transfer and registration bills, and the People of Virginia says no, and we're going to vote you all out next term.  Virginia government responds by introducing a bill to eliminate voter ID.  Virginia says we're not going to wait, we'll petition your removal from office, and get almost a 3rd of the 240K signatures to remove the governor and starts petitions to remove delegates.  Virginia government responds by introducing a bill to raise the amount of signatures from 10% of the prevailing vote, to 25%.  Folks, this is the a textbook example of tyranny.

Man gets 12-year sentence for keeping phone after being arrested.  Judges have been accused of racial injustice for handing an African-American man a 12-year sentence after he asked a jail officer to charge his mobile phone.  Willie Nash, 39, had been booked in to the Newton County prison in Mississippi on a misdemeanour [sic] charge when the offence [sic] took place.  He was found to have brought the phone in when he asked an employee for "some juice".  The jailer took the request to mean Nash wanted a drink, until he handed over his handset to be charged.  The jailer gave the device to a deputy sheriff, who later unlocked it using a pass code provided by Nash and found he had sent text messages to his wife.  Justice Leslie King, the only African-American on the nine-member Mississippi supreme court, said Nash could have avoided punishment entirely because it was not clear whether he had even been searched, or told not to bring his phone into the jail.

The Potemkin Court.  As set forth below, I pose the question as to whether or not, based on its operations and recent events, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISC") can fairly be described as a Potemkin institution which in reality serves only to give the false impression that it is protecting U.S. citizens by imposing constitutional limits on the government's enormous, comprehensive, and thoroughly invasive powers of electronic surveillance. [...] Whatever its pretensions and judicial trappings, the FISC has been absorbed and co-opted by the surveillance state such that it now serves merely to put a reassuring smiley face on the alarming fact that the government has the untrammeled and unlimited power to inspect, catalog, and lay bare every nook and cranny of our lives.

Judge blocks Trump's attempt to let governors refuse refugees.  A federal judge ordered a halt Wednesday [1/15/2020] to the Trump administration's plan to give states and localities a veto over refugees being sent into their territory, saying the law doesn't allow them a say.  The ruling is a major victory for immigrant rights groups, who had feared some communities would shut their doors thanks to President Trump's executive order last year establishing the veto policy.  Judge Peter J. Messitte, an appointee of President Clinton to the U.S. District Court in Maryland, issued an injunction stopping the policy just days before it was to kick in.

New California Law Prohibits Showering and Doing Laundry on the Same Day.  "So all of the sudden I can smoke marijuana as much as I want but I can't take a shower?," newsman Mark Kriski said.  "Unbelievable.  That's where our state has gone."  KTLA news anchors and reporters debated on LIVE TV the stupidity of a new California law that effectively prohibits showering and doing laundry on the same day.

Why Americans Fear Trial By Jury.  Today, over 90 percent of American defendants waive that right in favor of a prosecutor's proposed plea bargain, because, as Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz notes in his new book Guilt by Association, they are warned that the penalty at the trial stage will be excessively higher.  Dershowitz offers frightening examples.  Two men picked up their uncle after committing a robbery, making him a passenger in a police car chase where a trooper was shot and killed.  The actual murdering robbers copped a plea and went to prison but the unarmed passenger uncle went to trial and was sentenced to death.  A doctor was offered one year if he pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud, but believing he had proof of innocence, ended up sentenced to 11 years after a trial.  Two businessmen accused of financial fraud were offered seven years on a plea but ended up with 80 years after trial.  A young mother accused of health fraud was offered a four year plea and ended up with 20 years after trial.

A Big And Bizarre Drone Mystery Is Unfolding In Rural Colorado.  [Scroll down]  Based strictly on the descriptions conveyed, it sounds like someone or some group is testing a broad-area surveillance capability with lower-end autonomous drones.  This could include something as simple as having a group fly a series of planned routes and return with the information gathered via autopilot.  By doing so, a group of small, relatively inexpensive drones can cover a large area quickly instead of single, far more expensive assets that could take more time and offer less redundancy.  Such a capability could be used for search and rescue, mapping, and general intelligence gathering.  This also doesn't require man-in-the-loop control that would necessitate line-of-sight connectivity.

Vermont rolls out mandatory composting.  Food scraps can't go in Vermont landfills beginning July 1.  Residents will have four ways to handle rotten leftovers and items such as peels, eggshells, seeds, pits, coffee grounds and oils, according to the state's environmental conservation department.  Vermonters can use a household compost bin, buy a Green Cone solar digester to break down the scraps, feed scraps to pigs or leave it to the composting professionals.  The universal recycling law will require trucking companies to provide food scrap collection services to nonresidential customers and multi-unit apartment complexes, the Burlington Free Press reported.  Restaurants, supermarkets and cafeterias must also comply with the law, which is the first state law of its kind.  The state hopes to reach a 60% recycling rate through mandatory composting.

The Editor says...
Recycling and composting may (or may not) be good ideas, but they should be voluntary activities.  In every state, other than Vermont, residents pay a nominal municipal tax every month for garbage pickup, except for areas out in the sticks where the trailer-dwellers have to dispose of their own trash.  The idea of mandatory composting is ridiculous, especially for a restaurant or school cafeteria, where there isn't enough room for a burial ground.  It sounds to me like somebody who owns a composting service has lobbied for the creation of this new law.

The Feds Don't Need To Tell You Or Get A Warrant To Collect Your Emails And Phone Records.  [Scroll down]  These records included calls allegedly with Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the ranking minority member on the Intelligence Committee, and John Solomon, a prominent journalist.  Americans began querying how Schiff could have obtained the phone call records for the report.  Some speculated that a secret warrant had been sought for them, that someone at the carrier (AT&T) had leaked them, that the National Security Agency had been tasked with obtaining them, or that a federal agency had issued a "natsec" letter to acquire them for the intelligence committee.  In reality, the government can obtain these records without taking any such extraordinary measures — and no judge even need be involved for Congress to get them.  It can simply send a subpoena to the carrier.

Virginia Dems Aim to Criminalize "Tactical Training."  A Trap for Gun Owners?  Virginia Democrats have put forth a bill that would strengthen current state law against "paramilitary" activity by criminalizing assemblies of persons with firearms.  The vague wording of Senate Bill No. 64 establishes that a person is "guilty of unlawful paramilitary activity, punishable as a Class 5 felony" if he so much as has the "intent" of intimidating a person or group.  The threat of SB 64 to defenders of the Second Amendment is the uncertainty of how "intent" would be decided.

Virginia Senate Bill No. 64: Declaring Tactical Training Illegal.  This is a remarkable development.  One refreshing thing is that the masks have all come off now.  With control of the Senate, House and Governor's mansion, the controllers want you to know where they stand and are willing to say so out loud and in the clearest possible terms.  Leaving aside the issue of whether one could ever demonstrate intent behind either the delivery or receiving of tactical training, what they really intend is to render illegal any training that involves CQB, small unit fire and maneuver tactics, or any combination of training in long range precision shooting, discrete communications, or battle tactics, techniques and procedures.  Only LEOs can have such training.  The truly remarkable thing is the stated reason: [...]

Virginia to outlaw Krav Maga, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, kickboxing, Tai Chi, firearms instruction and self-defense training under proposed law SB64.  The State of Virginia, now entirely run by truly insane Democrats who support infanticide and child murder, is proposing a new 2020 law known as SB64 which will be taken up by the Democrat-run Senate beginning January 8, 2020.  The law would instantly transform all martial arts instructors into criminal felons.  This includes instructors who teach kickboxing, BJJ, Krav Maga, boxing and even Capoeira.  It would also criminalize all firearms training classes, including concealed carry classes.  It would even criminalize a father teaching his own son how to use a hunting rifle.  Specifically, the law says that a person "is guilty of unlawful paramilitary activity" (a class 5 felony) if that person:  "Assembles with one or more persons for the purpose of training with, practicing with, or being instructed in the use of any firearm, explosive, or incendiary device, or technique capable of causing injury or death to persons..."

The Editor says...
If strictly enforced, such a law would also do away with Driver's Ed, the Boy Scouts, and high school football — all of which teach "technique[s] capable of causing injury or death."  Obviously the baby-killing Democrats would feel a lot safer if they ruled over a bunch of noodle-armed snowflakes.

Natural Rights Versus Political Rights.  A headline I read this weekend proclaimed that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, the Klan-hood-wearing gent formerly known at VMI as "Coonman," was "working on" possible gun confiscation in Virginia now that money on the Left has successfully buried his racism and bought the legislature for their party.  Aside from the obvious commentary about what happens when Democrats obtain power, the headline suggests a far deeper problem confronting our country.  It is only a matter of time before anti-constitutional forces seize control of the Senate, or perhaps the White House, and when they do, what historically American citizens consider to be unalienable rights will suddenly disappear.  The coming purge of natural rights is inevitable.

Who Can Stop Trump Now?  [Scroll down]  The rules of the impeachment process legalized by the House of Representatives turned out to be even worse than all assumptions.  Firstly, this is the first investigation of the current president in U.S. history, sanctioned by members of only one party:  the opposition.  Secondly, the new rules of impeachment legalize the de facto dictatorship of one person: chairman of the Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff.  Schiff gained almost unlimited power.  Now it is Schiff alone who decides who will be called in as a witness, what questions can be asked to the witness, and who exactly will get the right to ask questions.  Schiff obtained the right to terminate the hearing if his version of the events is disputed by some intractable witness.  Republicans were [...] given the right to be able to ask Schiff to call a defense witness, and then only Schiff would be able to decide to admit such a witness.  Only Schiff decides whether the hearing will be open or closed and whether a transcript of the committee's meetings will be made public.

The USA PATRIOT Act:  The Story of an Impulsive Bill that Eviscerated America's Civil Liberties.  The USA PATRIOT Act provides a textbook example of how the United States federal government expands its power.  An emergency happens, legitimate or otherwise.  The media, playing its dutiful role as goad for greater government oversight, demands "something must be done."  Government power is massively expanded, with little regard for whether or not what is being done is efficacious, to say nothing of the overall impact on our nation's civil liberties.  No goals are posted, because if targets are hit, this would necessitate the ending or scaling back of the program.  Instead, the program becomes normalized.  There are no questions asked about whether the program is accomplishing what it set out to do.  It is now simply a part of American life and there is no going back.  The American public largely accepts the USA PATRIOT Act as a part of civic life as immutable, perhaps even more so than the Bill of Rights.  However, this act — passed in the dead of night, with little to no oversight, in a panic after the biggest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor — is not only novel, it is also fundamentally opposed to virtually every principle on which the United States of America was founded.

Democrats' Election Bill Allows The Government To Define 'Legitimate News'.  The House will vote today [10/23/2019] on the SHIELD Act, a Democrat-led and misguided effort to deter foreign interference in American elections.  While both parties agree that foreign interference, especially online, was a serious issue in the 2016 election, in fact, the GOP has its own bill, this Democratic effort fails in two major ways.  First, it threatens First Amendment protections on free political speech, and second, it fails to address the major issue in 2016 interference.  One of the major problems with the SHEILD Act regarding free speech is a provision that allows the federal government to determine what is and is not "legitimate journalistic activities" for the purposes of protecting them from the provisions of the act.  The obvious problem with this is that should the federal government decide a journalistic activity is not legitimate, it will have broad powers to silence it.

O'Rourke's America.  [Scroll down]  Democrats, no longer content to impose confiscatory taxes on income, now propose — here again, Sanders and Warren stand together — to seize Americans' savings, confiscating their property rather than merely levying their income.  If you don't like that, you can organize a political campaign against it — maybe, if the Democrats will let you.  But keep in mind that Democrats today also hold as an article of faith that the federal government should have the power to prohibit the distribution of videos critical of Democratic presidential candidates, which is what the Citizens United case was all about.

Now the Police Are Telling You What Pronouns You Can Use.  Today is International Pronouns Day.  Just in case you weren't aware of it, here's a senior British police officer explaining its significance.  [Video clip]

Political correctness versus common sense.  Not long ago, everyone understood the unchanging commonsense reality that human beings are either male or female.  Today in New York City, the rules have been changed — and failure to keep up can have dire consequences.  New York City's special 31 genders are surrounded by special legal protections.  Businesses can now be fined as much as $250,000 for refusing to address someone by his preferred pronoun.  As we have seen in the news, even in cities that have not yet have caught up with New York City in terms of imposing legal penalties, failing a test of political correctness about genders can result in public shaming or the loss of a job. [...] The important thing to understand is that the masters of political correctness are not done yet.  They have given us a glimpse of the future they have planned for us.  If they continue to have their way, more and more will be required of us, and the penalties will eventually go beyond mere fines and public humiliation.

In NYC the Term 'Illegal Alien' Can Cost You $250,000.  Before we consider the attack on the First Amendment that protects our freedoms of expression to guarantee freedom of thought by the increasingly radicalized Democrats of New York City, we must consider how we have come to this point where our political "leaders" and the mainstream media have, in essence, become the "Ministry of Truth" that is found in Orwell's novel, "1984."  In that novel of a terrifying dystopia future, the Ministry of Truth formulated propaganda and administered the expansion of Newspeak, and was backed up by the Thought Police.  The misuse language to confound understanding, at least where immigration is concerned, can be traced back decades to the administration of Jimmy Carter, who began process of expunging the term "illegal alien" and even the term alien from the official lexicon that pertains to immigration.

Rep. Tlaib: 'No Joke': Democrats Want To Arrest Trump Officials, 'Take Care Of Them'.  Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib says House Democrats are "trying to figure out" how to arrest Trump officials who resist subpoenas during the impeachment process, promising to "take care of them." [...] Tlaib suggested people like Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross could be jailed in Detroit.  "So I just want you to know I will relay your message, I will tell them they can hold all those people right here in Detroit, we'll take care of them, and make sure they show up to the committee hearings.  We won't hurt them.  We'll make sure they come and show, right?  I'll make sure that you're in charge."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib approves of coup, kidnapping.  At a recent town hall meeting with constituents in Michigan, Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib ran with a suggestion from an attendee that Democrats "hunt down" and forcibly remove Trump administration officials from office if they don't comply with their wishes.  Tlaib quickly stated that her fellow Democrats have already been involved in discussions pertaining to who could arrest administration officials, Trump presumably included, if they refuse to leave power in a timely manner. [...] Maybe they will "hold all those people" they've captured at Ford Field.  Sounds like there will be a lot of them.  Whoever "goes and gets them" will have to figure out where to detain the hostages.  Presumption of innocence?  Rule of law?  Due process?  Trial?  Don't be quaint.  Look what they did to Brett Kavanaugh, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, and Paul Manafort, for example.  Today's Democrats are fond of wee-hour raids and drive-by lynchings, aided and abetted by their accomplices in the mainstream media.

This may work in Somalia, but it doesn't fly here.
Rashida Tlaib:  Democrats Exploring Ways to Arrest Trump Cabinet Members.  Far-left "Squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) told constituents on Tuesday [10/1/2019] that her Democrat colleagues are looking into how to arrest White House officials who refuse to comply with subpoenas as part of an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.  Speaking to her constituents at a town hall in her hometown of Detriot, Tlaib said Democrats are puzzled about how to arrest Cabinet secretaries, telling voters in a video captured by America Rising PAC that they could be taken into custody if Congress votes to hold them in contempt.

Unhinged: Rashida Tlaib Agrees US Marshals Should Hunt Down White House Officials.  During a town hall meeting with constituents in Michigan this week, Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib agreed that U.S. Marshals should "hunt down" White House officials and remove them from office if they "refuse to leave power."  This includes President Trump.  The idea was suggested by a man questioning Tlaib, who nodded in agreement, and then admitted Democrats on Capitol Hill have been having a discussion about who can arrest administration officials and where they could be held.

The government can now activate your phone camera to stream live video of whatever you are seeing.  A New Jersey police department recently implemented new technology that allows 911 operators in the area to stream live video from callers' smartphones with the touch of a button.  While callers will still have to give their consent to such monitoring, some media outlets have dubbed the technology a slippery slope towards automatic surveillance, whereby Big Brother will one day have immediate access to people's smartphones without their consent.  In the meantime, some police departments plan to utilize 911eye, as it's called, a product of Capita Secure Solutions and Services, for permission-based surveillance during emergencies, which will allow first responders to see exactly what callers are seeing before they arrive.

30 of The Biggest Lies & Hoaxes Perpetrated on The American People.  [#7] Child Protective Services & Foster Care:  Child Protective Services (CPS), and the foster care system are two of the most deceitful programs on this list.  Though there may be some wonderful people working in these systems or fostering children, those at the top have created these structures for purposes of kidnapping and trafficking children.  Yes, this is the reality.  A simple search will provide story after story, nightmare after nightmare, and report after report of the negligence, abuse, and criminality of these systems.

He'll have more flexibility after 2020 — and he's going to need it.  The swamp is bottomless.  Truly undrainable.  Unlike blood-sucking vampires that can be tamed with garlic necklaces, holy water and a stake driven through the heart, this THING cannot be stopped.  The Leviathan has become a glioblastomic tumor with roots so deep beneath the Potomac that they can never be wrenched out.  Its gnarly fingers of government intrusion slither into every thin cranny of American life.

D.C. Rally:  Tea Party Patriots Warn Against Growing Socialism in America.  Several hundred Tea Party activists gathered Thursday morning on the steps of the Capitol for a "Stop Socialism, Chose Freedom" rally hosted by the Tea Party Patriots and featuring members of the House and Senate and conservative activists, who called on fellow Americans to reject the resurgent socialism among the left.  Speakers pointed to positions of the 2020 Democrat presidential candidates, arguing that they have been skewing further left to meet the demands of progressives on everything from wealth distribution, gun control, health care, and abortion.

A California Court Dealt a Blow to Religious Liberty.  It's Time for SCOTUS to Act.  Several hundred Tea Party activists gathered Thursday morning on the steps of the Capitol for a "Stop Socialism, Chose Freedom" rally hosted by the Tea Party Patriots and featuring members of the House and Senate and conservative activists, who called on fellow Americans to reject the resurgent socialism among the left.  Speakers pointed to positions of the 2020 Democrat presidential candidates, arguing that they have been skewing further left to meet the demands of progressives on everything from wealth distribution, gun control, health care, and abortion.

Don't Smile for the Camera.  Our federal government's 60,000-person strong domestic spying apparatus already captures every keystroke — even those which we think we have deleted — on every device used to transmit digital data on fiber optic cable in the United States.  That covers every mobile, desktop and mainframe device.  The government, of course, will not acknowledge this publicly.  Yet some of its officials have told as much to me privately.  They have also told me that they believe that they can get away with this so long as the data captured is not used in criminal prosecutions.  Why is that?  The last thing the feds and rogue police want is for government agents to be compelled to answer under oath how they acquired the evidence they are attempting to introduce.  Yet the admission of spying assumes that the right to privacy, which is guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, is protected from governmental invasion only for criminal prosecution purposes.

The Bill of Rights Turns 230, and What Do We Have to Show for It?  We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document, but the reality of life in the American police state tells a different story.  "We the people" have been terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.  The bogeyman's names and faces have changed over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, etc.), but the end result remains the same: in the so-called named of national security, the Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded to such an extent that what we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago.  Most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights.

Red flag laws to fight mass shootings?  Fine for an ideal world, but we don't live in one.  In the world we actually inhabit, state-level experiments with "red flag" laws should give all Americans pause before handing over this kind of power to Washington.  First of all, the bedrock of America's legal system is all citizens' guarantee to "due process" before the government infringes on any of their legal rights.  Red flag laws around the country skirt or even trample due process.

The enforcement problems with gun-grabbing 'red flag' laws are even worse than you think.  Everyone is debating "red flag" laws like they're some new thing, but California has had variations of them for decades.  We call them domestic violence restraining orders, civil harassment restraining orders, workplace restraining orders, elder abuse restraining orders, mental health seizures and prohibition orders, and, more recently, gun violence restraining orders.  They're all meant to disarm dangerous people — but they're all fundamentally flawed.  None of these red flag laws would have prevented recent mass shootings.  And in my 23 years practicing law in the heart of Silicon Valley, I have litigated dozens of these cases.  I've seen firsthand the practical enforcement problems that emerge in real-life cases.

Democrat Congressman Reminds You What Life Would Be Like Under Left-Wing Rule.  While there has been some pushback the problem is not one Democrat "doxxing" more Republican donors.  It is much deeper.  The Obama years demonstrated that this is how the Left does its business.  When street thugs like the Black Panthers, BLM, or Antifa can't get it done, find and publish any information you can on anyone.  Send the message.  You could be next.  This is speech suppression, plain and simple. [...] Obama's IRS released Tax information to third parties who then protested and intimidated individuals and companies.  His administration raided and terrorized private business owners.  His FBI and CIA spied on everyone including private citizens, the press, and political opponents.  For one purpose:  to destroy them if the need arose.  It's the sort of thing you'd expect from another Castro family.  The one in Cuba.

Red Flag Laws in the Age of Political Psychiatry.  As a general matter, a goal of every healthy community is to prevent all violent crime.  But there is no way to accomplish this goal in practice without a draconian police state.  Crime has a cost, but so do infringements on civil liberties, such as detentions, convictions, institutionalization, and other lesser measures like injunctions and protection orders.  We know that our ability to detect criminal intent in the absence of a completed crime is a difficult matter.  If everyone who had threatened harm on the internet meant it, for example, our society would be awash in blood.

The Racist History of Red Flag Laws.  The idea that mass shootings are based on mental health issues seems sensible, as we would like to think nobody in his right mind can commit these atrocities, but that line of thought is as wrong as those who choose to blame the gun.  Psychologists understand there is a perfect storm of strain and stress that can cause anybody to go on a rampage when certain factors are culminated and met.  Academic circles know that mental health is often wrongly blamed for these tragedies, mostly by the mass media, who like to diagnose mass shooters themselves postmortem.  However, statistical research shows that less than 5% of those suffering from any sort of mental illness ever become violent.

There is No Actual Law or Justice in the B.E.A.S.T. System.  In the aftermath of the Sandyhook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama issued 23 executive actions and proposed 19 legislative actions on guns.  After the Virginia Tech shooting, new rules were passed that allowed the Social Security Administration to provide information to the gun background check system of people with "mental disabilities". After Vegas and Parkland, it was bump-stocks.  Now, in the wake of the recent Gilroy Garlic Festival, El Paso, and Dayton mass shootings — all committed by crazed individuals and right on schedule, the politicians have announced bipartisan support for Red Flag Laws.  Do you see a pattern?  Unfortunately, the proposed "Red Flag" legislation has the support of President Trump according to his previous comments, and would allow just one of your neighbors to see something before saying something that would enable law enforcement to confiscate all of your guns and with no legal hearing whatsoever.

Skeptical of the government?  You're a potential terrorist.
The White Supremacy Hoax.  The Wall Street Journal on Saturday [8/10/2019] featured an essay by one Clint Watts, formerly of the FBI and West Point's Counter Terrorism Center.  Watts makes those proposals using the word "white" 16 times in 18 paragraphs.  The sociopolitical ideas rife among white people are the main matrix of terrorism in America, Watts contends.  Racial profiling, anyone? [...] Watts proposes legislation that would permit designating persons associated with what the government may identify as "white supremacist ideology" as subject to surveillance to "preemptively assess whether these white supremacists are taking a radical turn toward violence."  Watts also proposes "red flag" laws, that would allow the government to take away weapons from someone so designated.  Loss of weapons would be the least of burdens imposed on anyone so "red-flagged."  Career, reputation, possibly family, would be gone because someone in the notoriously impartial FBI so decided, perhaps with the agreement of the highly scrupulous FISA court, subsequent to ex parte, secret proceedings.

Liberty, If Not Already Annihilated, Is On The Brink Of Destruction.  The road to victory in the next election is narrow.  But it's like that when you have no principles and undercut the very base you used to put you in office.  We are where we are because enough people didn't ask Trump the hard questions on his core belief in gun rights (or enough people didn't listen when I asked the hard questions on core beliefs).  It appears he doesn't have any.

We're All Enemies of the State:  Draconian Laws, Precrime & the Surveillance State.  We've been down this road many times before.  If the government is consistent about any one thing, it is this:  it has an unnerving tendency to exploit crises and use them as opportunities for power grabs under the guise of national security. [...] It's all part of the grand plan for total control.  The government's proposed response to the latest round of mass shootings — red flag gun laws, precrime surveillance, fusion centers, threat assessments, mental health assessments, involuntary confinement — is just more of the same.  These tactics have been employed before, here in the U.S. and elsewhere, by other totalitarian regimes, with devastating results.  It's a simple enough formula:  first, you create fear, then you capitalize on it by seizing power.

Everything They're Telling You About Mass Shootings Is Wrong.  Democrats have complained about police brutality for years.  The police, they assure us, are out of control.  And, the story goes, they have it in for anyone whose skin is not lily white.  You can't trust the racist cops, they tell us.  Remember Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, and others.  But these same Democrats also tell us that the police are the only ones who should have guns, which is to say that the police we're not supposed to trust, who are guilty — in their view — of unspeakable crimes against Americans, should be given a monopoly on physical force and that private citizens should be deprived of their most effective means of defending themselves.

CO2 and the Supreme Power of sovereignty.  Sir William Blackstone defines sovereignty as "supreme power."  This power is unitary.  It cannot be shared or limited in any way.  Thus, "quasi sovereignty" cannot exist.  The Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (2007) that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act.  The result of that 5-4 ruling was that the EPA could be sued by the states for not controlling CO2 emissions.  The states, according to the court, have "quasi-sovereignty." [...] "Quasi" means "pseudo", "mock", "wannabe" or "virtual".  The states thus have the quasi sovereignty to accept the rules set down by the fully sovereign national government.  These rules are set by the nine lawyers collectively referred to as SCOTUS.

In case you haven't heard, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Schumer Calls for Amending First Amendment to Limit Political Speech.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D.-N.Y., has determined there is too much political speech in the United States coming from sources he cannot abide.  So, he stood in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, along with Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D.-Ill., to announce he is backing Democratic New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall's proposal to amend the First Amendment.  The First Amendment, as it now stands, includes 10 unambiguous words about freedom of speech.  "Congress," it says, "shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."  Schumer and Udall do not like this sweeping restraint on government power.  There are speakers whose speech they want to abridge.  The Bill of Rights — as correctly interpreted by the Supreme Court — stands in their way.  So, they are seeking to change it.

School district warns parents:  Pay lunch bill or kids may go into foster care.  A Pennsylvania school district received backlash after warning parents their children could be removed from their homes and placed into foster care if overdue lunch bills are not paid.  The Wyoming Valley West School District in Luzerne County, Pa., said about 1,000 student accounts owe a total amount of more than $20,000 in school lunch debt.  Four parents owe at least $450 each.

PA School District To Parents:  Pay Your Kids' Lunch Bill Or We'll Seize Them.  What happens when a school district needs to collect $20,000 in unpaid lunch fees from parents?  In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, they, um ... repossess your kids.  A letter from the director of federal programs at the Wyoming Valley West School District warns delinquent parents that the district will force their kids into foster care if they don't pay up.

More about school lunches.

This Man Did Nothing Wrong, But He Faces 49 Years In Prison.  The weaklings and fools in the California state legislature decided that guns are bad, bad, bad, so they passed some stupid 'gun control' laws to fight crime.  But Mr [Girard Damian] Saenz was never charged with any crime other than having weapons the state didn't think he should have.  He didn't rob anyone, he committed no crimes using the firearms in his possession.  This is the natural result of the left's insanity when it comes to our Second Amendment rights:  the state legislature made simple possession of firearms it didn't like a crime in itself, but the crime they said that they were preventing never occurred; Mr Saenz was not even suspected of using the firearms illegally.  The Pyrite State created a crime where no crime existed, infringed a man's rights when he had infringed on no one else's.

Renting Your House On Airbnb Should Not Trigger Felony Charges.  A felony is often thought of as reserved for the worst types of criminals — those who commit violent offenses, harming individuals or their property.  But that's not reality.  Aaron Elinoff, a 34-year-old Colorado man, found this out the hard way.  Last week, the city of Denver filed criminal felony charges against Elinoff for allegedly violating the city's short-term rental laws.  The city and others across the country have deemed that people may not freely rent out their property on a short-term basis for extra income (commonly done through the website Airbnb), and sometimes have deemed this transaction worthy of criminal penalties.

FBI, ICE using state driver's license photos without consent for facial recognition searches: report.  The FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have reportedly been using driver's license photos for facial recognition searches without license holders' knowledge or consent.  The Washington Post reports the two agencies have used millions of Americans' photos, largely from driver's licenses, for the purpose of facial recognition searches, citing internal documents and emails from the two agencies that were obtained by Georgetown Law researchers over the past five years and shared with the news outlet.  The photos give the agencies a new layer of information on Americans and a new tool to potentially track both criminals and those who have never committed a crime, according to the Post, which adds that Congress has not authorized any such development of a facial recognition system.

Democrat Proposes 5 years in Prison For "Parody" Videos Of Politicians Before Elections.  Democrat Representative Yvette Clarke from New York is beside herself over something called deep fakes.  These are "photoshopped" or digitally altered videos or images.  And if her bill passes, anyone who fails to mark their production properly could face up to five years in jail.

Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson:  People Who Mock Members of Congress 'Should Be Prosecuted'.  Democrat Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson stated Tuesday that those who mock members of Congress online should be prosecuted.  "Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace, and there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable," Wilson stated as she stood outside of the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Florida.

The Editor says...
Yes, I agree that "there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable."  Wait — is that mockery?  Are you gonna have me arrested?

Rep. Frederica Wilson calls for online pranksters to be 'prosecuted' if jokes target lawmakers.  Rep. Frederica Wilson has no love for social media's meme-makers and pranksters — she literally wants them prosecuted.  The Florida Democrat weighed in on free speech issues this week and told an audience that it should be illegal to mock lawmakers.  "Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace," she said while speaking in Homestead.  "We're gonna shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down, and they should be prosecuted.  You cannot intimidate members of Congress, frighten members of Congress.  It is against the law, and it's a shame in this United States of America."

The Editor says...
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Rep. Frederica Wilson demands prosecution for those who mock Congress online.  Democratic Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson asserted that people who mock members of Congress online should face prosecution.  "Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace, and there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable [sic]," Wilson said during comments made Tuesday [7/2/2019] outside of the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Florida.  "We're gonna shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down, and they should be prosecuted," she continued.  "You cannot intimidate members of Congress, frighten members of Congress.  It is against the law, and it's a shame in this United States of America."

Funny how death threats against mini-Ocasio-Cortez came just as Frederica Wilson called for prosecuting congressional ridicule.  [Scroll down]  Last December, [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez started something with General John Kelly in defense of her friend [Fredericka] Wilson.  She had nothing to gain from it, she just wanted committee seat assignments at the time and Wilson had ties to all the right people.  I wrote about it here.  At the time, Ocasio-Cortez was trying to demonstrate her loyalty to the touchy, egotistic Wilson, who by the way, wears ridiculous hats.  Since then, Wilson has owed her one.  Wilson loudly called for censorship in prosecution form for making fun of congressional members, in an astonishing call to nullify the First Amendment.  It was weird at the time and people assumed it was because people made fun of her hats.  But now we see a little child targeted, first with threats, second with doxxing, all of which serve to silence in a far more brutal manner.  So the timing here is really very strange.

Democrats are Officially the Party of Derangement.  If any of the 20 Democrats win in 2020, we can officially say goodbye to our democracy as we know it.  College campuses have already been destroyed.  The two left coasts are a disaster and demographic changes are leading to several purple states turning blue as the Democrats' refusal to address the immigration crisis proves successful in their quest for power.  More ignorant, arrogant, and bigoted representatives will be elected to Congress in the manner of AOC, Omar and Tlaib and Republicans will find themselves more and more marginalized.  We can only hope that the majority of Americans watching this disaster unfold wake up and realize that intolerance for thee ultimately leads to intolerance for me.  Democrats do not care about Americans' rights — they seek totalitarian power.  They need to be stopped.

Supreme Court:  Police Can Forcibly & Warrantlessly Carry Out Blood Draws On Unconscious Drivers.  In a ruling that gives police greater leeway to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of anyone driving on a public road, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police may forcibly and warrantlessly carry out blood draws on unconscious drivers suspected of drunk driving.  The Court's 5-4 decision in Mitchell v. State of Wisconsin found that an unconscious driver suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol constitutes an emergency situation that allows police to ignore the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement and draw blood from that suspect without consent or a warrant, regardless of whether there is an opportunity to obtain a warrant.

The Left is accumulating hellish power over us.  Project Veritas's latest work of investigative journalism has captured video of Google executive Jen Gennai expressing the company's effort to "prevent the next Trump situation."  She goes on to talk about her job, in drafting fairness algorithms to serve a community of people, "not those who voted for our current president."  Jen Gennai then decries Elizabeth Warren as being "misguided" in suggesting that the industry might be better served by breaking up large "monopolistic" companies like Google.

State GOP Learns to Love Big Brother.  In Great Britain, officials are arresting people who refuse to submit to a random face scan.  Their facial-scan system has proved wildly inaccurate, often leading to aggressive police actions against people misidentified as suspects.  You can't walk around any British city without being monitored by police cameras somewhere — something that has turned once-free citizens into the kind of sheep who have to be careful about anything they say or do lest it trigger a police visit.  American cities are trying to follow this police-state model, emboldened by tech companies that will earn a fortune by opening up this taxpayer-funded marketplace.  California agencies want body cameras not only to record police encounters — something that protects the public from abusive officers and officers from unfounded abuse allegations — but to alert the authorities if the person's face matches that of a suspect on some growing database.  The problems are obvious.

Spokane Pastor Arrested After Reminding Police of Free Speech Rights at Drag Queen Library Event.  A Spokane, Washington pastor was arrested for obstruction and taken to jail for a few hours on Saturday after refusing to move across the street from the Spokane Public Library while trying to protest a "Drag Queen Story Hour" event held at the library.  Pastor Afhsin Yaghtin of New Covenant Baptist Church was arrested after speaking with police officers, telling them the library is public property and that he should be able to protest next to the building rather than across the street, according to ChristianNews.net.

Pastor Jailed During 'Drag Queen Story Hour,' SWAT Team Snipers Positioned Atop Library Roof.  A Baptist pastor was arrested and jailed on Saturday [6/15/2019] after refusing to move across the street from the Spokane, Washington Public Library while exercising his free speech against a "Drag Queen Story Hour."  The event had a significant militaristic police presence, including camouflaged snipers positioned atop the roof to oversee the large crowd that stood both for and against the men dressed like women reading stories to children.  Afhsin Yaghtin of New Covenant Baptist Church was arrested for obstructing an officer as he contended with police that the South Hill Library is public property and that he should be able to speak adjacent to the facility instead of being required to stand across the street.

New York Bans Choice:  Public Health More Important Than 'Freedom Of Religion'.  The state of New York has eliminated the public's right to claim religious exemptions for vaccination.  The move, which was signed into law minutes after the measure passed, infuriated parents and defenders of individual liberty.  Now, in New York, parents do not have any say-so whether their children will be vaccinated or not... if they want to send their kids to public schools.

The Editor says...
In case you attended public schools, let me inform you that the Constitution says little or nothing about public health, vaccinations, or medicine, but it specifically protects freedom of religion.

The Omnipresent Surveillance State:  Orwell's 1984 Is No Longer Fiction1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state.  There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society.  Snitches and cameras are everywhere.  People are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. [...] Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike — facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on — are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming our reality.

Rights Abridged: The Flawed Model for Red Flag Laws.  In fifteen states and the District of Columbia, new Red Flag laws allow judges to take licensed firearms away from individuals even if they have not committed or even threatened to commit a crime.  A simple petition from a third party triggers a court proceeding that could eliminate a person's Second Amendment rights and cause a cascade of consequences.  Florida is a good example of one of those states.  Some civil rights organizations have expressed concern about constitutional principles being violated by such laws, such as the right to due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.  Red Flag laws seem intended to bypass processes that already exist to have someone adjudicated as mentally ill or guilty of a crime.  Initial Red Flag hearings, like other restraining order hearings, often do not allow the accused time to retain an attorney or present a full defense before having their rights abridged.

Heavy-hitter lefty actor warns what they have in mind for us when they win power.  If I have to choose between sneaky radical leftists who pretend to be small-d democratic activists and honest ones who admit they would stop at nothing in punishing people like me should they gain power, I would always choose the honest ones.  Like radical jihadists, they believe that their cause is so righteous that opposition is immoral, and the evil people who oppose them deserve no constitutional protections once they are in power.  In fact, the Constitution itself is an obsolete document, written by evil white slave-owners, and a hindrance to the utopia they believe is in reach if only we submit to their command.

California threatens to upend Catholic 'seal of confession'.  Catholic priests in California would be legally obligated to report to police sexual abuse confessions brought to them by fellow priests and other church employees if a bill quickly moving through the state legislature becomes law.  Religious liberty advocates, including representatives of Catholic dioceses in California, challenge the legislation, saying it would invade a sacred space and direct priests to violate the "seal of confession."

House Democrats' 'Equality Act' Is Both Unnecessary And Unacceptable For Religious Liberty.  House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has proclaimed H.R. 5, the "Equality Act," as a top legislative priority for the current Congress.  This putatively anodyne but actually harrowing piece of legislation would not only add sexual orientation and "gender identity" protections to our nation's civil rights laws, but would browbeat religious dissenters into submission without any remotely resembling proper dispensations.

Democrats Are All About Restricting Ballot Access If It Helps Stop Trump.  Earlier this month, California began to join the growing chorus of Democrat-run states that are restricting which candidates may be listed on the presidential ballot.  Normally, Democrats decry any limits on ballot access, be they for candidates or voters, but this bill is different.  Why?  Because it is an undisguised attempt to keep Donald Trump off the ballot, and when Trump enters the equation, his opponents throw all other calculations out the window.  The bill is dressed up as a law to compel the president to release his tax returns, but it is really a form of nullification of federal law, the act of Resistance enragés who care for nothing so much as the idea that Donald Trump should not be allowed to occupy the White House.  They will allow no law or Constitution to stand in the way of that goal.

D Is for a Dictatorship Disguised as a Democracy.  [Scroll down]  Indeed, while mainstream America has been fixated on the drama-filled reality show being televised from the White House, the American Police State has moved steadily forward.  Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like — all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts — our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.  Our losses are mounting with every passing day.  Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government:  all of these and more have become casualties in the government's war on the American people.  The American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

Couple must pay nearly $600G for removing oak tree from their property, judge rules.  A judge ordered a Northern California couple this week to pay nearly $600,000 for uprooting an almost 200-year-old oak tree from their property that was protected under a conservation easement.  Peter and Toni Thompson removed the 180-year-old heritage oak tree to move it to another home they built adjacent to the property.  More than 3,000 cubic yards of dirt was also removed in the process.

California bill targets Catholic priests first, but the rights of all religions are at risk.  California is considering a proposed law that is nothing less than an attempt to jail innocent priests.  California Senate Bill 360 seeks to change its law to force a priest, when he hears of sins in the confessional regarding sexual abuse, to make a choice.  He must choose to either maintain the confidentiality of the sacrament and face possible imprisonment or to betray that confidentiality and violate his deepest conscience and the laws of God and the Roman Catholic Church.  No priest I know would choose the latter.

The So-Called Equality Act:  Making Some Americans More Equal than Others.  Every totalitarian system has used the tactic of coercing people to affirm the regime's agenda, even when they disagree.  Forcing people to mouth politically correct dogmas that they know are false is designed to break their spirit and their resistance.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said the worst aspect of Communist totalitarianism was not the economic poverty or the lack of political rights; it was being forced to repeat the regime's lies:  "The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie."  Just a few years ago, few imagined that the greatest threat to liberty would come via the sexual revolution.  Its promise of liberation for some has turned into repression for everyone else.  Homosexual and transgender people are not a "vulnerable and marginalized population," as their propaganda puts it; they are now the favored few.

Parents Can't Monitor Autistic Son with GPS Tracker at School, Nevada Ruling Says.  The parents of an autistic child in Nevada who fought to have his school let him wear a GPS tracker with the ability to listen in on his surroundings lost their battle in a case that could resonate in school districts across the U.S.

23 reasons not to reveal your DNA.  DNA testing is a booming global business enabled by the internet.  Millions of people have sent samples of their saliva to commercial labs in hopes of learning something new about their personal health or heritage, primarily in the United States and Europe.  In some places, commercial tests are banned.  In France, you could face a fine of around $4,000 USD for taking one.  Industry giants Ancestry.com, 23andMe, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA market their services online, share test results on websites, and even offer tutorials on how to search for relatives in phone directories, or share results in social media.  They often also claim rights to your genetic data and sell access to their databases to big pharmaceutical and medtech companies.

Elijah Cummings won't let witness have lawyer.  Democrats on the House Oversight Committee want to depose John Gore about his role in the Trump administration's decision to add a question to the 2020 Census about citizenship.  Gore was acting as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights when the decision was made.  Gore is prepared to testify and the administration is fine with him doing so.  Attorney General Barr insists only that Gore be accompanied by an attorney.  Barr is right to attach this condition, one that, according to a Department of Justice spokesperson, is consistent with longstanding DOJ policy.  The lawyer accompanying Gore would be be able to assert any privileges the executive branch may possess, including executive privilege.

Rep. Cummings Throws a Tantrum After Trump DOJ Official Refuses to Give Deposition Without DOJ Lawyer Present, 'Massive Obstruction'.  The Democrat Chairman of the House Oversight Committee accused President Trump and AG Barr of 'massive obstruction' on Wednesday [4/24/2019] for ordering federal employees to ignore congressional subpoenas.  "Both President Trump and Attorney General Barr are now openly ordering federal employees to ignore congressional subpoenas and simply not show up — without any assertion of a valid legal privilege," Dem Congressman Elijah Cummings said in a statement.  Reuters reported that the Justice Department on Wednesday refused to allow John Gore, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division to provide a deposition scheduled for Thursday if the committee would not allow a DOJ lawyer by his side.

Democrats Can't Win Based on Their Ideas, So They Want to Change the Rules of the Game.  One of the biggest criticisms of President Trump is that he violates so-called "democratic norms."  Leading Democrats, think tank officials, and newspaper columnists have continuously wrung their hands over how everything from Trump's tweets to his legitimate criticisms of the mainstream media somehow threatens American governing institutions. [...] Yet these same groups are conspicuously silent on Democrats' blatant and unapologetic attempts to subvert U.S. founding institutions in their lust for power that they cannot achieve through the existing governing framework.  In recent weeks, Democrats have called for abolishing the country's constitutional voting system, allowing children to vote, and packing the Supreme Court.

Brooklyn parents sue to stop mandatory measles vaccinations.  A group of parents in Brooklyn are seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent mandatory measles vaccinations from taking effect.  The parents' lawsuit against the New York City Department of Health called the emergency order "arbitrary and capricious" and the measures it necessitates "drastic."  The order, issued by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last week, demands that all persons, starting at the age of 6 months old, who live, work or attend school within the specified zip codes of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, be vaccinated.

Vaccine injury
Mom Catches CBS Using Image of Her Vaccine-Injured Child, Falsely Claiming Measles Caused It.  For months now, the Free Thought Project has been reporting on the hype and utter hysteria being pushed by the government and the media alike in regards to the 2019 measles situation.  It started in January as mainstream media and social media giants began begging for the government to silence those who advocate for vaccine safety and it came to a head on Tuesday as New York began force vaccinating citizens and charging those who resisted it with a crime.


De Blasio Declares Health Emergency, Orders Measles Vaccinations In Williamsburg.  Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency on Tuesday and has ordered mandatory vaccinations for people who may have been exposed to the virus in parts of Williamsburg amid a growing measles outbreak.  Since September, the city said more than 250 measles cases have been confirmed in the Brooklyn neighborhood.  "We have a situation now where children are in danger.  We have to take this seriously.  Every one of us has to feel responsibility for the situation because measles is so contagious, can spread so quickly," de Blasio said at news conference at a Williamsburg library on Tuesday morning [4/9/2019].

Health Freedom Is Being Destroyed All Over The Western World.  They tell us that we are "free", but it is just a lie.  In every country in the western world, there is layer after layer of rules and regulations that strictly govern just about every area of our lives.  But until just recently, there were certain lines that still had not been crossed.  One of those lines has to do with bodily integrity.  We have a fundamental right to say what goes into our bodies and what doesn't go into our bodies.  When any government violates that fundamental right, no matter how good the intentions are, they have entered the realm of tyranny.  And let there be no doubt — what is taking place in New York City right now is tyranny.  On Tuesday [4/9/2019], New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio used the pretense of "a public health emergency" to order mandatory vaccinations for all of the Orthodox Jews living in Williamsburg.

Media Goes Full Commie:  Christiane Amanpour Asks James Comey Why He Didn't Shut Down "Lock Her Up" Chants at Trump Rallies.  Christiane Amanpour asks James Comey if he is responsible for President Trump's victory in 2016 because HE ALLOWED Trump supporters to chant "Locker her up!" at Trump rallies.  Chistriane says this is "hate speech" and believes these people should have been silenced.

CNN Host Asks If FBI Should Have 'Shut Down' Trump Supporters Chanting 'Lock Her Up'.  CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour called "lock her up" chants by Donald Trump supporters "hate speech" in a new interview and asked James Comey if he wished he had "shut down that language" in his capacity as FBI Director at the time.  Amanpour recounted the frequent chants at Trump 2016 campaign rallies about imprisoning Hillary Clinton for her perceived crimes and wondered if they should have been legal, but Comey responded it was not the role of government officials to censor that speech.

House Democrats attack freedom of the press.  What part of "Congress shall make no law" does House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings not understand?  The Maryland Democrat, suddenly handed the investigative and subpoena powers of the House, must think there isn't enough executive branch misconduct to investigate.  That would explain why, when finally given the power to hold the Trump administration accountable, he is instead recklessly undermining the First Amendment's freedom of the press by questioning whether news organizations went and made editorial decisions he doesn't like.  Yes, it is every bit as dumb as it sounds.

Social media bosses face jail under 'world first' Australian laws.  Social media executives risk jail for failing to take down violent extremist content quickly, under controversial laws passed in Australia on Thursday — a "world first" in the wake of the Christchurch mosques massacre.  Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favour of the laws, which hold firms like Facebook and YouTube — and their executives — responsible for removing "abhorrent material" quickly.  The companies face fines approaching billions of dollars — or 10% of global annual turnover — for failing to enact the "expeditious removal" of footage of terrorism, murder and other serious crimes, while executives could face up to three years in jail.

House Democrats Want 'Oversight' over Fox News' Editorial Decisions.  Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are demanding to know why Fox News did not publish a story prior to the 2016 election about an alleged affair years before between porn star Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump.  House Committee on Oversight and Reform chair Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) wrote to former Fox News reporter Diana Falzone last month demanding that she turn over any documents relating to Trump's alleged extramarital affairs.  An article in the New Yorker last month alleged that Fox News executive Ken LaCorte spiked the story to protect Trump — a claim LaCorte has vehemently denied, saying the story lacked corroborating evidence and that the network was merely practicing responsible journalism, as were other outlets who declined the story.

In New Zealand, a Democracy Turns Against Itself.  One of the oldest criticisms of democracy is that it's prone to degenerating into little more than mob rule, driven by the latest panic, hatred, or revulsion to consume people's attention.  When it comes to stoking such strong emotions, it's difficult to top the effect of the brutal mass murders committed at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.  In the wake of that crime, the country's government has succumbed to blind reaction by restricting speech, depriving innocent people of arms, and heightening domestic surveillance — intrusions into individual rights that are inherent whether or not governments and majorities formally respect them.  It's a grim illustration of just how vulnerable the "liberal" element of liberal democracy can be — as our own country has itself demonstrated in the past.

The Tsunami Approaches.  The European Union has decreed — fatwa'd — that beginning with the 2022 model year, all new cars shall be electronically gelded, forced by software to hew to every speed limit, all the time.  The same software — and hardware — that probably two-thirds of all new cars sold here already have — merely awaiting activation.  Helpful, convenient GPS mapping — so much easier than having to read and handle a paper map, as people used to.  Helpful, convenient "driver assists" — such as the little cameras that enable your car to automatically brake itself when those electronic eyes see another car up ahead, moving more slowly than your car.  These cameras also see — and know, via the GPS mapping data, updated regularly — what the speed limit is on every road you drive.  And the car knows exactly how fast you are driving, in real time — all the time.

The Democrat Leninist Revolution Is Here.  The parallels between the Bolshevik takeover, which begat the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the über-leftward turn of the Democratic Party are impossible to ignore.  Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not significantly differ ideologically from the Romanov monarchical dynasty they ended with their takeover, or from the Mensheviks, from whom the Bolsheviks spilt in 1903, just as the new Democrats don't differ much from the old Democrats.  In the lead-up to Lenin's hijacking, the various Russian factions all sold iterations of socialism, democratic socialism, and communism.  These -isms, at their core, are mostly the same.  Lenin sold a revolutionary narrative of a proletariat revolt, in which the political power rests with the peasants and workers, which would evolve into socialism — equal social ownership of all produced by the workers.

Child Protective Services Has Created A Gestapo Police State.  The Gestapo power that the state now wields over parents is a creation of "child advocates" who believe that it is the function of government to protect children from parents.  One consequence has been to erode parental control and to effectively end it in the case of rebellious children who respond to punishment by calling CPS and reporting their parents.  CPS has powerful incentives to seize children as it justifies the agency's existance and brings a federal payment for each child seized.  There are reports that many of the seized children end up in the hands of pedophiles, but governments seldom want to hear that they are doing harm rather than good.  Why has child safety changed so much over my lifetime that children need a police agency to protect them?  Why could I and my 5 year old classmates walk alone to our neighborhood schools, for example, but such a thing is unthinkable today.  Could the destruction of homogenuous neighborhoods by "diversity" have anything to do with it?  Could the redefinition of the parental control of my day as child abuse have anything to do with it?  Could all the forces that have broken up the family have anything to do with it?

Judge rules against Rockland County's state of emergency over measles outbreak.  A judge has ruled on behalf of several dozen parents who challenged Rockland County's emergency order banning children from public places unless they've been vaccinated against measles.  A state Supreme Court judge made the ruling Friday [4/5/2019] on the legality of Rockland County Executive Ed Day's order, which is part of efforts to stop a measles outbreak that has infected more than 160 people since October.  The 30-day order enacted on March 26 banned unvaccinated people under 18 years old from gathering places including schools, stores, churches and public transportation.

The Editor says...
Obviously the government cannot prohibit anyone from going to church.  That is, it's obvious to anyone who has read the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but apparently it's not obvious to the reporter at WABC-TV, or the officials who run Rockland County.

Swat Team Takes Children from Home because of Political Liability.  On 26 February, 2019, the Chandler Police SWAT team raided a home where the children were sick.  The parents had not committed any crime, nor was any child in any substantial danger.  The raid itself created far more danger than the danger it was supposed to mitigate.  It was a perfect storm of the conflict of rights and the Nanny State, parental responsibility and bureaucratic fear of liability.  In short, it resulted from the basic conflict in our society between those who insist on perfection, and reality.  It shows how creeping tyranny is advancing in society.

Mom Ignores Doctor When Her Sick 2-Year-Old Starts Feeling Better, Child Services Send a SWAT Team.  It was dinnertime on February 25 when the pregnant mother took her 2-year-old to the doctor with a fever of over 100.  The doctor told her to take him to the emergency room, fearing that because the boy was unvaccinated, perhaps he had meningitis — a life-threatening disease.  The doctor called the hospital to alert them.  But by the time the mother and child left his office, the boy was "laughing and playing with his siblings," according to this excellent piece by Dianna M. Nanez in The Arizona Republic.  Mom took his temperature again, and it was almost normal.  So instead of going to the emergency room, the family went home.  The mom called the doctor to say her boy's fever had broken and she wasn't going to the emergency room.  The doctor told her she should go anyway, so she agreed she would — but then she didn't.  That's when the madness began.

Arizona SWAT busts down door to take 2-yr-old unvaccinated boy with 105° fever away from home for help.  After the parents of a sick 2-year-old child refused a doctor's recommendation late last month that they take their unvaccinated son to the emergency room for treatment for the boy's 105 degree fever, he reportedly sicced a police swat team on them via the Arizona Department of Child Safety.  Shocking police surveillance footage released by the media this week shows Chandler Police Department officers busting down the parents' front door and storming into their home as if they were taking down drug dealers or trying to apprehend armed fugitives.  Except they were, in reality, looking for the 2-year-old because they incorrectly believed he was in danger.

Police knock down family's door, take their kids in overnight raid because mom didn't follow doctor's orders for child with fever.  The Arizona Department of Child Safety and the Chandler Police Department in Chandler, Arizona, have fallen under scrutiny, after officers conducted an overnight SWAT-team-style raid on a family's home and took the children because an unvaccinated toddler had a fever.

The Editor says...
We are rapidly approaching the day when your children will no longer be your own.  The state wants total control.  The "local news" on television is an infomercial for big government:  The police are universally depicted as "heroes" and anyone who defies the police is portrayed as a dangerous extremist.  The story above is about a parent who chose not to vaccinate her child, and the child got sick — quite possibly with some illness unrelated to the vaccine she declined.  But that's no reason to withhold treatment, and it does not justify the confiscation of children by the state.   There is apparently no middle ground on the vaccination issue:  On one side, the people who watch too much television say the government is the final authority, and doctors are always right.  On the other side, skeptics have the right to live life without vaccinations, preferring to depend on God's healing power and every normal kid's immune system.  (I had the measles and chicken pox when I was a kid, and so did most of the other kids in my elementary school.  It was no big deal.)  Additionally, you don't know what's in those vaccines.  Consider how many children now have asthma, peanut allergies, ADHD, various degrees of autism, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, previously unknown mysterious diseases, and other problems that were extremely rare or completely unknown until recently.  At this point, one has the right to make informed decisions and proceed accordingly.

N.Y. Suburb Declares Measles Emergency, Bars Unvaccinated Minors From Public Places.  In a move aimed at getting the public's attention, officials in New York's Rockland County have declared a state of emergency in response to an ongoing measles outbreak.  Among the measures: a 30-day ban on any unvaccinated people under the age of 18 from being in public places.  Of course, there's no practical way to enforce the measure.  But that's not exactly the point, anyway, says Rockland County Executive Ed Day.  Officials just want to make sure parents know how serious things are in Rockland.  There have been more than 150 confirmed cases of measles in the county since the fall, officials say.

Michigan's Big Brother Attorney General Will Crack Down Hard on Free Speech.  "Know this: we are watching."  Who makes this kind of threat?  Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious SS general and chief of the Gestapo?  KGB head Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov?  Big Brother?  They all talked that way.  Last Friday, it was Michigan Department of Civil Rights director Agustin Arbulu's turn to say it.  He and Dana Nessel, the new state attorney general, announced plans "to increase the documentation and prosecution of hate crimes and incidents" in the state.  Not just hate crimes.  Hate incidentsWhat's a hate incident? you may ask.  The MDCR press release says, "Hate and bias incidents are those instances where an action does not rise to the level of a crime or a civil infraction."

Court Rules Father Cannot Halt Daughter's Transgender Hormones, or Even Call Her a Girl.  Last Wednesday [2/27/2019], the Supreme Court of British Columbia (B.C.) ruled that a 14-year-old girl may undergo transgender hormone "treatments" to support her transgender identity as a boy — without her father's consent.  The court went so far as to threaten to penalize the father's speech.  If he calls his daughter a girl, that would constitute "family violence," which would be punishable by law.  The B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the girl (referred to as A.B.) "is exclusively entitled to consent to medical treatment for gender dysphoria and to take any necessary legal proceedings in relation to such medical treatment," and that "attempting to persuade A.B. to abandon treatment for gender dysphoria; addressing A.B. by his birth name; referring to A.B. as a girl or with female pronouns whether to him directly or to third parties; shall be considered to be family violence under s. 38 of the Family Law Act."

Chicago Dem Candidate Says Socialism Should 'Control Every Facet of Our Life'.  A Democratic candidate for alderman in Chicago believes that socialism should have "control over every facet of our life." Ugo Okere, running against 35-year incumbent Patrick O'Connor, told the radical left publication Jacobin that socialism was "about Democratic control" of both politics and people's personal lives. [...] Of course, the "progressive left," who want to make our lives "easier," are just as clueless as Okere.  They're just not quite as honest.  In truth, the "transformation" that both the progressive left and radical socialists want would destroy America as we know it and bury human progress and freedom perhaps forever.

Incrementalism:
Cuomo Wants 7-Year Sentences for New Yorkers Who Lose Cool, Attack Transportation Workers.  Currently, some Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers such as bus drivers and station agents are covered under the Class D felony provision that levies a mandatory term of seven years in prison and a fine up to $5,000 for attacks on these workers.  Cuomo's FY 2020 budget would expand protected employees to include highway workers, contractors with the state Department of Transportation and Thruway Authority, municipal highway workers and contractors, and airport staff.  Other covered professions would include fare collectors, station maintenance workers, custodial staff, baggage handlers, ticket counter staff, and more.

A Citizen Suing the Department of Justice Needs More than Just a Winning Legal Argument.  As I fight on with my computer intrusion lawsuit against the U.S. government, it seems to intersect more clearly with current events every day.  And it points to an even larger story.  How widespread is improper government surveillance of journalists, politicians and other U.S. citizens in the name of the fight against terrorism?  A few of us found out we were targeted only because we were lucky enough to be alerted by inside sources or other unique ways.  How many others were targeted, monitored and watched by government officials but still have no idea it happened?

U. Minnesota Backs Off Plan to Punish People for Not Using Preferred Pronouns.  It's amazing that they thought this would fly in the first place.  That's how far we've drifted.

You may soon have to give your DNA to the state and pay $250 for the privilege.  Arizona could soon be one of the first states to maintain a massive statewide DNA database.  And if the proposed legislation passes, many people — from parent school volunteers and teachers to real estate agents and foster parents — will have no choice but to give up their DNA.  Under Senate Bill 1475, which Sen. David Livingston, R-Peoria, introduced, DNA must be collected from anyone who has to be fingerprinted by the state for a job, to volunteer in certain positions or for a myriad of other reasons.

Ten Thousand Commandments 2018.  Ten Thousand Commandments is the Competitive Enterprise Institute's annual survey of the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers, businesses, and the U.S. economy at large.  Written by CEI Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews, it shines a light on the large and under-appreciated "hidden tax" of America's regulatory state.  The current edition marks 25 years since the first report was published as part of the Journal of Regulation and Social Costs in 1993.  Federal government spending, deficits, and the national debt are staggering, but so is the impact of federal regulations.  Unfortunately, the financial impact of these rules gets little attention in policy debates because, unlike spending and taxes, they are unbudgeted and difficult to quantify.

Minnesota:  Christian Pastor Arrested at Mall of America Faces Hearing and Trial After Talking to Muslims.  Ramin Parsa, an ex-Muslim Christian pastor who was stabbed in Iran, imprisoned in Turkey, and then arrested in the Mall of America for sharing his testimony with interested Muslim women, faces a settlement conference in March and likely a trial in April.  The state of Minnesota has continued to prosecute his case, even though the Mall of America was wrong to accuse him of trespassing in the first place.  In late August 2018, Parsa was visiting the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minn.  Two Somali-American women spoke with him and asked him if he was still a Muslim.  When he said he was not, they asked him to explain.  At this point, another lady complained to mall security.  Security took Parsa into custody, holding him handcuffed to a metal chair for four hours without water, and then turning him over to the police.

What if the Deep State wins?  Survival in a Post-Trump Heavily Centralized Socialist Police State.  Put aside your personal feelings, good or bad, about President Trump for a moment.  The undeniable fact is, he won't be President forever.  At some point Trump's Presidency will end — by impeachment, coup, death, defeat in 2020, or when his second term expires in 2024.  Regardless of when or how Trump leaves office, the deep state, the political class, the DC insiders, the collectivists, the socialists, the political & social activists, and the anti-Western elites in business, academia & the media will still be there. [...] Its not hard to predict where the Elites are wanting to take us.  Just look at where Obama was pushing us.  And where Hillary was going to push us had she won in 2016.  And where the Dems are openly saying they will push us.  Just look at where recent social, political, business, and technological trends are taking us.  Just look at the open hostility towards traditional values and beliefs.

Hundreds protest in Washington state for right not to vaccinate children amid measles outbreak.  Hundreds of anti-vaccination supporters demonstrated outside a public hearing in Washington state on Friday [2/8/2019] to protest a bill that would make it harder for families to opt out of mandatory vaccinations for children, the Associated Press reported.  The protest took place amid the state's worse measles outbreak in more than two decades.  Health officials have reported at least 56 cases in Washington and Oregon.  An estimated 700 people demonstrated in Olympia, Washington, most of whom opposed stricter requirements, The Washington Post reported.

Journalist Arrested at Press Conference for Not Being Mainstream.  A rather disturbing situation unfolded in Las Vegas on Wednesday [1/30/2019] as two independent journalists — attempting to exercise their First Amendment right of the press — were arrested and cited for trespassing.  Joey Lankowski, Kelly Patterson, and Ronald Mecklosky were at the Las Vegas police station attempting to cover a press conference about one of their officers shooting at a man for holding a cane.  Lankowski tells the Free Thought Project that he'd been in contact with the Metropolitan Police Department so he could get the details of another press conference over police shooting another man and attend it.  However, according to Lankowski, officials from the department lied to him and refused to tell him when the actual press conference would take place and held it in secret on Monday.

One of the largest at-home DNA testing companies is giving the FBI access to its records.  DNA home testing kits that can trace ancestry and find missing relatives are a dream come true for genealogists.  But as conspiracy theorists have long suspected, the tests are being used for other purposes, too.  BuzzFeed News reported that Family Tree DNA, one of the largest home DNA testing companies, is allowing FBI agents to search its databases in their quest to "solve violent crime cases."  The company's database has about 1,021,774 records, Jezebel.com reported.  Public genealogy databases are often used by police to solve cold cases.  One of the most notable ones that used DNA from a public database was the Golden State Killer case.

Is Big Tech Merging With Big Brother?  Kinda Looks Like It.  China's social rating system, which was announced by the ruling Communist Party in 2014, will soon be a fact of life for many more Chinese.  By 2020, if the Party's plan holds, every footstep, keystroke, like, dislike, social media contact, and posting tracked by the state will affect one's social rating.  Personal "creditworthiness" or "trustworthiness" points will be used to reward and punish individuals and companies by granting or denying them access to public services like health care, travel, and employment, according to a plan released last year by the municipal government of Beijing.  High-scoring individuals will find themselves in a "green channel," where they can more easily access social opportunities, while those who take actions that are disapproved of by the state will be "unable to move a step."

Texas transgender bills to 'ban Christianity' in Texas?  While LGBTQ activists across the Lone Star State are confident that the upcoming state bills will enhance the so-called "gay rights" of Texans, many conservative pastors in the state are fearful that the proposed laws, that would add gender identity and sexual orientation to Texas discrimination laws, will diminish their right to express their faith.

IRS Becoming Big Brother With $99-Million Supercomputer.  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is building a $99-million supercomputer that will give the agency the "unprecedented ability to track the lives and transactions of tens of millions of American citizens," tax expert Daniel Pilla reports.  The IRS is already dangerous enough, notes Pilla.  "The IRS lays claim to your data without court authority more so than any other government agency.  And to make matters worse, they share the data with any other federal, state or local government agency claiming an interest, including foreign governments."  The IRS already receives billions of tax documents annually, and the amount of information the agency receives continues to grow.

Uncle Sam Wants Your DNA: The FBI's Diabolical Plan To Create A Nation Of Suspects.  Actually, if the government gets its hands on your DNA, they as good as have you in their clutches.  Get ready, folks, because the government — helped along by Congress (which adopted legislation allowing police to collect and test DNA immediately following arrests), President Trump (who signed the Rapid DNA Act into law), the courts (which have ruled that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime), and local police agencies (which are chomping at the bit to acquire this new crime-fighting gadget) — is embarking on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

New IRS Spy Software.  The IRS lays claim to your data without court authority more so than any other government agency.  And to make matters worse, they share the data with any other federal, state or local government agency claiming an interest, including foreign governments.  In 2019, there will be about 152 million individual tax returns filed with the IRS.  There will be roughly another 100 million business tax returns filed.  There will be millions more miscellaneous tax returns, including trust, estate and gift tax returns.  On top of that, over 3.6 BILLION information returns (Forms W-2, 1099, etc.) will be filed.  There is quite literally a river of data flowing into the agency.  The flow cannot be stopped, and as far as the IRS is concerned, they need even more.

Oregon Could Become the First State to Require In-Home Surveillance of Newborn Babies.  If Oregon Governor Kate Brown has her way, the Beaver State will become the first to require universal home visits for newborn children in the care of their own parents.  Senate Bill 526, introduced this month in the Oregon Legislative Assembly as part of Brown's budget, orders the Oregon Health Authority to "study home visiting by licensed health care providers."  Lawmakers went so far as to declare that SB 526 is an "emergency" measure — one that requires a resolution by the end of the year.

Twenty Things You Probably Didn't Know about Kamala Harris.  [#2] Harris strongly supports "familial DNA searching," in which police take DNA samples from crime scenes and compare them to existing databases to look for not just any direct matches in criminal databases, but any familial matches.  Police have gradually expanded the practice's reach, from checking DNA collected against existing samples of convicted criminals to checking them against samples in the databases of genealogy web sites and genetic-testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com.  California allows the collection and preservation of DNA samples from anyone who is arrested, even if they're not charged with a crime.

On January 1, I became a criminal in my hometown of Boulder.  It's not the intolerance of progressives that is so insulting.  It is the denial of their intolerance that is so abusive.  When I was growing up it was the liberals who more often held the moral high-ground.  Those of us raised in the 1970's heard it all the time — "the end doesn't justify the means." [...] Progressives have not just rejected that proud tradition, they have remade it into the ugly opposite — the end justifies all:  Coercing speech with speech codes and forcing cake bakers to create statements against their core religious beliefs; social justice warfare and identity politics; the nanny state banning everything from plastic straws to tobacco products; and forcing private health insurance products at gun-point.

If you love free speech, get acquainted with the Lindsay Shepherd case.  A great many people — including many strong advocates of free speech — have only a passing acquaintance with the Lindsay Shepherd matter.  This lack of awareness is unfortunate, because nothing more chillingly reveals the way in which universities are violating the free speech principle.

Boston Mayor's Office to Force Doctors to Identify and Document Patients Who Own Guns.  Joseph Stalin's firearms registration and confiscation was a tremendous success for the Socialist state.  Under the Tsar, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth.  That all changed when Stalin and the communists took control.  Stalin was able to control, starve, punish and imprison a defenseless people, after he took their guns. [...] It's no secret that Democrats are hoping to repeat this history here in the United States.

GAO: IRS Had 4,487 Guns; 5,062,006 Rounds of Ammunition.  The Internal Revenue Service had in its weapons inventory 4,487 guns and 5,062,006 rounds of ammunition as of late 2017, according to a report published this month by the Government Accountability Office.  Included in this arsenal, according to the GAO, were 15 "fully automatic firearms" and 56,000 rounds of ammunition for those fully automatic firearms.  The same report — "Federal Law Enforcement:  Purchases and Inventory Controls of Firearms, Ammuntion, and Tactical Equipment" — says that the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services had 194 fully automatic firearms and 386,952 rounds of ammunition for those fully automatic firearms.

Government Shutdown Or Not, The Police State Will Continue To Flourish.  [N]othing about this government shutdown will diminish the immediate and very real dangers of the American Police State with its roadside strip searches, government surveillance, biometric databases, citizens being treated like terrorists, imprisonments for criticizing the government, national ID cards, SWAT team raids, censorship, forcible blood draws and DNA extractions, private prisons, weaponized drones, red light cameras, tasers, active shooter drills, police misconduct and government corruption.  Shutdown or not, war will continue.  Drone killings will continue.  Surveillance will continue.  Censorship and persecution of anyone who criticizes the government will continue.  The government's efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue.  Police shootings will continue.  Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue.  Corrupt government will continue.  Profit-driven prisons will continue.  And the militarization of the police will continue.  Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that are not affected by a government shutdown, and you'll get a clearer sense of the government's priorities, which have little to do with serving taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.

Incoming House Democrats Ready Bill to Criminalize Private Gun Sales.  The incoming Democrat House majority is readying legislation to criminalize private gun sales.  Ironically, the push comes nearly 227 years to the day after private gun ownership was hedged in by the Founding Fathers via the Second Amendment, which was ratified on December 15, 1791.  Politico reports that Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) is spearheading the current gun control push through "universal background" legislation.  Such checks criminalize private gun sales, making it illegal for a neighbor to sell a firearm to his neighbor, a friend to his lifelong friend, and even a father to his son.

That Giant Liberty-Sucking Sound From the Tolerant Left.  Various leftist grievance groups have insisted for years that they just want equal treatment and equal rights, that they only want to end discrimination and that they come with an attitude of "live and let live."  Nope. [...] There is no semblance of tolerance in their bones.  They are militantly aggressive and spoiling for any opportunity to pressure and intimidate people into submission.  This suppression of our liberties doesn't just emanate from the government; the long arm of the private sector often enforces uniformity of thought with the same coercive power.

California Dem Ted Lieu say he would 'love to regulate' speech, bemoans US Constitution that prohibits him.  California Democrat Ted Lieu bemoaned on Wednesday that though he would "love to be able to regulate the content of speech," including that on Fox News, he can't do it because of the U.S. Constitution.  Lieu made the comments during an interview about the testimony of Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, where he dismissed the allegations that the tech giant amplifies negative stories about Republican lawmakers, saying "if you want positive search results, do positive things."  CNN host Brianna Keilar praised Lieu for his performance but asked whether other Democrats should have used the committee to press Google on conspiracy theories that spread on their platforms.

Congressman:  "I Would Love To ... Regulate The Content Of Speech".  You know, often we react to things emotionally and would love to "regulate" others on things we disagree with, and the representatives of the people are human.  Fortunately, our forefathers put in plain English the First Amendment that specifically states "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech."  Yet, they have done it on so many occasions in violation of their oaths of office and criminal acts against the people.  Now, California Democrat Congressman Ted Lieu says he would love to regulate speech too.  "I would love to be able to regulate the content of speech.  The First Amendment prevents me from doing so..."  Lieu told CNN concerning the testimony of Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Virginia teacher fired for refusing to use new pronouns for transgender student.  "You will be made to care," wrote Eric Erickson in RedState back in 2013.  He was referring to a court case in Colorado of a Christian baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple and was fined for it.  Today, we are being threatened, intimidated, and bullied into caring about people who believe they are trapped in the wrong body — that their biological gender is incorrect and that they are actually someone of the opposite gender — or some other gender created out of whole cloth.  A Virginia French teacher found out the consequences of trying to balance his religious beliefs with the new paradigm of "transitioning" to another gender.

The Editor says...
The people who say they believe in science (above all else) are willing to say that biology is sometimes incorrect.

Mastercard and Microsoft have a frightening plan to create universal "digital identities".  Sometimes a business inadvertently drops the pretense and just tells the world its real intentions.  We saw this yesterday, when Amazon bragged about how it "allowed" an employee to lose 100 pounds by endlessly delivering boxes.  Amazon saw this as a heartwarming tale about how great it is to work for the e-commerce juggernaut.  It completely missed the subtext:  Who needs a gym when someone can physically labor for their corporate overlord and lose weight?  Now we have another, possibly darker example.  Mastercard announced a new partnership with Microsoft that is tackling "digital identities."

Indiana Solicitor General:  It's Constitutional to Seize a Car for Driving 5 MPH Over the Speed Limit.  Civil asset forfeiture is such a farce that it took Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer only about 100 words to twist Indiana's solicitor general into admitting that his state could have the power to seize cars over something as insubstantial as driving 5 miles-per-hour over the speed limit.  Yes, really.

Democrat Congressman:  We Should Confiscate Guns and If You Fight Back, the Government Has Nukes to Deal With It.  California Democrat Congressman Eric Swalwell is calling for government confiscation of all semi-automatic rifles.  In other words, every rifle in America.  [Tweets]  Further, he's warning citizens of nuclear annihilation should people refuse to comply.  [More tweets]  When he was confronted, Swalwell tried to backtrack with some context and further explanation.

Dem Rep. Eric Swalwell:  If We Confiscate Your Guns And You Fight Back, We Will Nuke You.  I know he's running for president in a [very] crowded field and has to strain to get noticed.  But between this and shrugging off death threats aimed at Susan Collins, it seems like there must be a better way. [...] "Find common ground with us or risk incineration by your own government" is a top-ten all-time tweet by a federal elected official.

Dem congressman:  Government can always nuke resistant gun-owners.  [Scroll down]  It's worth noting just how radical [House Democrat Eric] Swalwell's suggestion is.  He isn't arguing for a "ban" of sales or imports, in the vein of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, for example.  He is arguing for federal confiscation of millions of weapons that the federal government may arbitrarily deem too deadly for individual Americans to own.  As should be clear to anyone, the prospect of such legislation implies two distinct outcomes.  Federal agents would be forced to physically visit Americans' homes to seize their weapons if they choose not to surrender or "sell" them to the government, and there will be a penalty of violence for a failure to comply.

Kansas Governor-Elect Wants to Block Law Protecting Religious Adoption Agencies.  The governor-elect of Kansas, Laura Kelly, said in a news conference on Thursday, Nov. 8 that she will try to block enforcement of a new law that protects religious adoption agencies from being forced to place children in homes that violate their beliefs.  The Adoption Protection Act, which took effect in July, allows adoption agencies with "sincerely held" religious beliefs to refuse to place children in LGBTQ homes.  According to the Associated Press, Kelly, who has called the law the "adoption discrimination" measure, "said she will have her staff review how far the state can go to avoid enforcing the law."  "If there is way to direct the agency to not implement that, then I will do that," said Kelly, a liberal Democrat.

Smith Canteen sign
New York coffee shop fined $300 by Sanitation Department for sign announcing how many cups they've kept out of landfill.  A coffee shop in New York was allegedly fined $300 by the Department of Sanitation for a misplaced sandwich board on the sidewalk, which announced that the business had kept over 2,000 cups out of the landfill in 2018.  Smith Canteen's owner, Kerry Diamond, posted about the ironic incident on Facebook, claiming the sign has been in the same spot for the past seven years.  "I've been spending a lot of money and time trying to figure out waste reduction, composting, and single-use plastic alternatives at the Canteen, so this really burns me," she wrote.


It Doesn't Matter If You Love The Constitution If Your Neighbors Don't Know What It Says.  A study conducted last year by the Annenberg Center of Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania showed that only 26 percent of Americans could name all three branches of government, while more than a third (37 percent) surveyed couldn't name even one of the five freedoms or rights guaranteed by the First Amendment — religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.  Former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once lamented Americans' ignorance of the Federalist Papers:  "It is such a profound exposition of political science that it is studied in political science courses in Europe.  And yet we have raised a generation of Americans who are not familiar with it."  Indeed, most states' history and civics classes today are "mediocre to awful," according to a 2011 study published by the American Bar Association.  When states' standards for history classes were graded for "content and rigor" and "clarity and specificity" on scales from A to F, a whopping 28 states earned grades of D or F, while only 9 earned an A- or B.  This self-destruction of our popular constitutional culture has gone hand-in-hand with another dangerous trend.  With civic awareness at dismal lows, the people's unique relationship to the Constitution has also been systematically usurped by lawyers and legal elites.

Leftists Expand Their War Into All Corners of Society.  The simple reality is that from judicial appointments to pop culture, from schools to restaurants, from sports to internet searches, to nearly everything in contemporary life, the political left is waging an ideological war.  So conservatives and libertarians may not be interested in the politicization of all things, but the left's politicization of all things is interested in them. [...] One can't even watch a football game or select shoes anymore without descending into the politicized swamps.  More ominously, that same expanding leftism has entered social realms of greater consequence to everyday Americans, including internet searches and banking.

FBI makes suspect unlock iPhone X in first confirmed instance of forced Face ID.  The incident occurred on Aug. 10, when the FBI searched the house of Grant Michalski in Columbus, Ohio during a child abuse investigation, Forbes reported on Sunday, citing court documents.  Special agent David Knight ordered Michalski to face the iPhone, triggering Face ID.  Michalski was ultimately charged with receiving and possessing child pornography.  The search uncovered related Kik conversations, including a chat with someone who was really an undercover officer.  Only some data was obtained from the iPhone however as the FBI didn't have Michalski's passcode, which put up roadblocks for forensic tools after the device had been locked for more than an hour.

Mom investigated for letting 8-year-old walk dog around the block.  Just after returning home from a walk around the block with her dog, Marshmallow, an 8-year-old Wilmette girl expected a visit from a playmate.  Instead, police officers arrived at the family's door.  An anonymous caller had contacted police after seeing the girl walking the dog alone, said her mother, Corey Widen.  While police never pursued charges, the seemingly common activity launched an Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigation to see if Widen was neglecting her children, she said.

Las Vegas Hotel "Security" Enters The Big Brother Age After The Vegas Shooting.  What would you do if you owned a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip after the Vegas shooting to increase security?  Why, of course... you'd perform surprise security checks on the most paranoid group that visits there — DEF CON.  Caesar's Palace in their stupidity has allegedly implemented a practice where hotel security, using keys to the rooms there, are doing random security checks where they enter the rooms without knocking and seize items from the rooms.  And if Caesar's Palace is doing it, the rest of the hotels on the Strip won't be far behind.  Any highrise hotel will fall in line.  You probably don't have to worry about Best Westerns or Holiday Inns... yet.

Democrats attempt to stifle dissent:
'Survival of our democracy' depends on banning sites like InfoWars, Dem senator says.  Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is calling on other tech companies to ban more sites like InfoWars, and says the survival of American democracy depends on it.  "Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart.  These companies must do more than take down one website.  The survival of our democracy depends on it," Murphy tweeted Monday [8/6/2018].

The Mask Slips In Santa Barbara.  A little noticed detail in Santa Barbara's recent drive to criminalize plastic straws, which culminated in the Santa Barbara city council taking testimony from a nine-year-old about the planetary menace, has come to light in recent days.  During that council session, councilman Jesse Dominguez said the following in response to citizens who asked "what's next?":  "Unfortunately, common sense is just not common.  We have to regulate every aspect of people's lives."  Take that one in for a moment, for it expresses the core impulse of liberalism today.

'We Have to Regulate Every Aspect of People's Lives'.  A Santa Barbara city councilman inadvertently let slip the primary purpose of progressivism in 21st century America.  The city recently criminalized the use of plastic straws.  Speaking to that issue, Councilman Jesse Dominguez said, "Unfortunately, common sense is just not common.  We have to regulate every aspect of people's lives."  Got that?  "We" are smarter than you and know what's best for you better than you do.  Perhaps realizing that his comment revealed a fundamental truth of progressive thought, Dominguez tried to walk back his gaffe: [...]

Drive to Regulate Speech On the Internet Is Gaining Steam.  Last week the House of Commons' Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport released an interim report on fake news and disinformation.  While couched in the usual do-good language, it illustrates the seriousness of the threat to free speech, most of which takes place, nowadays, on the internet.  The report is worth reading in its entirety.

Shock Survey: 40% Of Americans Cannot Name A Single Right Guaranteed By The First Amendment.  The survey of 1,009 American adults was conducted in May and June of 2018 by the Fors Marsh Group in partnership with Lata Nott and Gene Policinski of FFI.  The survey has a margin of error of 3.7%.  When asked to name the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, only one person was able to name all five.  2% of respondents were able to name the right to petition the government for redress of grievances; 12% were able to name the right of peaceful assembly; 13% were able to name freedom of the press; 15% were able to name freedom of religion; and 56% were able to name freedom of speech.

Sen. Mark Warner's Memo Calls for the Government to Regulate Internet.  Axios obtained a memo written by the office of Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, that plans for the government to takeover the internet and regulate digital platforms.

Town Orders Family to Stop Hosting Bible Studies on Farm.  The owners of a Pennsylvania farm have been ordered by the Sewickley Heights Borough to cease and desist holding Bible studies on their private property.  Borough leaders accused Scott and Terri Fetterolf of improperly using their 35-acre farm as a place of worship, a place of assembly and as a commercial venue.  They were served a cease-and-desist order in October 2017, the Post-Gazette reported.

Air Force veteran sells home after being fined $100 a week for displaying US flag in flower pot.  A Florida man had to sell his house after his homeowners association told him to remove a 17-inch American flag he had placed in a flower pot on his front porch.  Larry Murphree, who spent half a dozen years as an Air Force air traffic controller according to the Washington Post, received a letter in the mail from the Tides Condominium in Sweetwater seven years ago telling him to remove the "unauthorized object" or be fined $100 a day.  He refused to remove it and took up the issue with his lawyer after reaching $1,000 in fines.

Democrats Endorse Judicial Tyranny.  For example, legalizing pornography, coddling criminals, declaring abortion to be a fundamental right, redefining libel/slander, and redefining marriage have all been the result of the Supreme Court defining policy, not interpreting the Constitution and the law.  In most cases the Court went directly against the expressed will of the people and imposed laws on Americans that were only supported by the tiny elite who run the Democratic party. [...] 55,000,000 Americans had voted against redefining marriage — even uberliberal California resoundingly passed Prop 8, which declared that marriage was between a man and a woman, but the Supreme Court decided that the people didn't know what was best for them and imposed what Democrats wanted on the people.

UK Doctor Sacked For Blasphemy.  In the UK, the National Health Service has thrown out a doctor:  ["]A doctor has been 'sacked' as a medical assessor for a government department after refusing to renounce his Christian belief that gender is determined at birth, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. [...] The 55-year-old father of four believes sex is genetic and biological, so established at birth.["]  Wait a minute.  Holding the view that people are born male or female is now a theological belief?  Do you see how radical this is?  Here's the theology angle:  this doctor was fired because he blasphemed against the militant new religion.

Mob Violence and Gun Ownership.  The future votes of illegals who will someday attain amnesty is the singular objective of the present version of the Democratic Party.  They have made clear that they will ignore MS-13, drug-trafficking, human-trafficking, rampant violence, and crime across the country by illegals, if that means that one day these future Democrats will control the outcomes of elections in every state the Democrats cannot presently rig, and will provide cheap labor for the Republicans who seem fine with never wielding political power again.

The judicial war on God and the Declaration of Independence.  Poor North Carolina just can't get a break.  It appears that the state's original concerns about joining the federal union in 1788 have been proven correct.  Over the past year, the Fourth Circuit has nullified the state's voter integrity laws; federal, state, and even county-level political maps; and gender sanity laws.  Now the court has banished God from county government prayers.  On July 14, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Rowan County, North Carolina, commissioners can't begin their session with a public prayer delivered by an elected official.  And the vote wasn't even close.  This once conservative panel voted 10-5 to banish God from the public square.

Border patrol agents are stopping people on highways in New England to check their citizenship.  Far from ground zero in the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration along the southern border, US Customs and Border Protection checkpoints on highways in Maine and New Hampshire are catching the eye of civil liberties groups.  On Interstate 95 near the remote northern Maine town of Lincoln this week, the Border Patrol said it made nine drug seizures and two arrests for immigration violations during an 11-hour checkpoint operation in which agents asked motorists about their place of birth and citizenship status.

Florida Candidate Promises To Ban 'Assault Rifles' By Decree.  While I really try not to focus on political parties here at Bearing Arms, sometimes, it's difficult.  The thing is, there are Democrats who support the Second Amendment, and as a writer covering the Second Amendment, I don't want to alienate those readers.  We all agree that candidates who oppose our right to keep and bear arms are a problem, and their party really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.  Their lack of respect for our civil rights, however, does.  However, I can't help but think of how many Democrats are screaming about "fascism" ever since the election of President Donald Trump, but remain completely silent when a political candidate for governor announces that they've figured out a way to ban a certain type of gun by decree, completely circumventing anything resembling democratic process.

California Man Has Home Raided, Guns Confiscated After Trying to Register Firearm.  A California man had his home raided, guns seized, and will appear in court this week to face a dozen state felony charges after attempting to register a rifle in accordance with state law.  Jeffrey Scott Kirschenmann attempted to register an AR-15 with the California Department of Justice last month but instead found himself in significant legal trouble.  The California DOJ accused Kirschenmann of illegally modifying the rifle he attempted to register.  Law enforcement officials raided his home in Bakersfield before ultimately confiscating a dozen firearms and a few hundred rounds of ammunition, then charging him with a dozen felonies, KGET reports.  Kirschenmann was accused of possession of assault weapons, two silencers, and something referred to as a "multi-burst trigger activator."  He does not appear to have been charged with any violent crimes.

Seattle cracks down on renters, free speech — and common sense.  Good luck trying to rent an apartment.  The Seattle City Council seems to think the right to speak is a privilege it can grant or withhold at its pleasure.  It has slapped a year-long ban on the use of certain housing websites that allow renters to place bids on advertised rental housing, while it reviews the sites.  Officials say they fear the sites might violate local housing laws or inflate housing costs, so the City Council wants to study the sites while forbidding their use in the meantime.  While city leaders try to figure things out, landlords are barred from posting ads on the sites, and renters can't even do a simple search for Seattle housing on the sites.  This is a clear restriction of speech protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Today's Two Main Political Camps Are Pro-Thought Versus Anti-Thought.  Let's remember that all of the other First Amendment rights follow in logical order from the first freedom of religion/belief/conscience/thought.  Freedom of speech is the right to express what you think and believe.  Freedom of press means the right to record those expressed thoughts in writing or other media.  In this vein, freedom of association would mean being able to deliver your ideas to anyone willing to listen.  It means the right to peaceably assemble and have open conversation with other people.  The heavy hand of the state has no right to cut off or interfere in our ability to spark thoughtful conversations.  If the state violates our First Amendment rights, the First Amendment also gives us the right to petition as a means of fighting back against that abuse of power.

Clapper: We Need Regulation for Social Media — 'Something Akin' to the FCC.  Thursday [6/7/2018] on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper argued for more regulation of social media.  The embattled critic of President Donald Trump suggested an agency akin to the Federal Communications Commission could be suitable for such a regulatory role.

The Department Of Homeland Security Plans To Compile A List Of All Bloggers, Journalists And "Social Media Influencers".  Many were hoping that once Barack Obama was out of office we would see less of this Big Brother surveillance nonsense, but instead it seems to be getting even worse.  In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has just announced that it intends to compile a comprehensive list of hundreds of thousands of "journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc.", and collect any "information that could be relevant" about them.  So if you have a website, an important blog or you are just very active on social media, the Department of Homeland Security is going to put you on a list and will start collecting information about you. [...] And if I was just a name on a list in some database somewhere, that would be bad enough, but instead it sounds like the DHS will be collecting any "information that could be relevant" about all of us.

The Editor says...
Note to Homeland Security:  Please let me know when I'm on The List, and be sure to spell my name right.

Secret Courts Guarantee Abuse.  I testified against the Patriot Act because I feared the abuse of secret tribunals.  I'm usually far off in my predictions, but it was obvious from the get-go that the FISA courts would be abused by the Intelligence Community, and indeed those secret courts have almost always done what the FBI and CIA asked, even when — as in the case of General Michael Flynn — the IC had to ask several times, and even when the "evidence" consisted of an unverified "dossier" produced by a political campaign.  The Intelligence Community has long considered itself a state within the American state, dating from its creation just after World War II.  Most of the time, the IC has used its power to support presidential policies — the CIA snooped on the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2014, and on the McGovern campaign, and the FBI spied on the Goldwater campaign — but when a president acted against the IC's convictions, the spooks advanced their own interests and beliefs.

Progressives on the Brink.  The left now demands the right to govern permanently and without opposition, regardless of the outcome of elections.  This is evidence that the left today has lost respect for democratic institutions and that, if they were ever to find themselves firmly in control of government, leftists would not willingly relinquish power, even if voted out in a fair election.

New Technologies Nurturing Big Brother.  Our governmental bureaucracy has been growing increasingly out of control over the past few decades, grasping ever more deeply at most aspects of our social interactions.  The government has decided that it knows better than the rest of us what we should think on various social issues, what politically correct language we should use, what views we should have of different racial or religious groups (for example:  Muslims are nice and peaceful, white males are suspect, American patriots are the neo-Nazis, Israel is an apartheid state, and most Christians are bigoted).  The overreaching government has exerted ever growing control over public school curricula, and it even tells us what we should eat (NYC has banned sodas over 16 ounces).  Some of these government initiatives are well meaning, like forcing restaurants to post calorie counts of meals, but teaching students what to think instead of how to think is a scary tendency.  In medical services, the government is already playing a major role and wants to expand it into single-payer, total government control.

Amarillo Man Arrested for Clapping.  Let it be known that clapping is not allowed at Amarillo City Council meetings.  Just ask Kip Billups, who was arrested Tuesday [4/3/2018] at the request of Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson after applauding a speaker during open forum.  Ironically, the arrest was made in an attempt to create a "less intimidating" environment during city council meetings.  "We are not going to clap," Nelson said at the beginning of the meeting.  "I want to make sure that we create an environment that's not intimidating for folks ... If that's not something you can abide by that's fine, you can leave now."  Billups, along with other attendees, applauded in response to public comments made by resident Michael Greene, who expressed grievances with the city council's conduct.  Of those grievances, Greene noted city council's repeated violations of the Open Meetings Act as well as Nelson's "clapping ban" infringing on First Amendment rights.

Amarillo man involved in the "clapping controversy" explains his applause.  Applause is used to express approval, but clapping got one Amarillo man in trouble with the law.  He spoke exclusively with ABC 7 News about the incident at Amarillo city council Tuesday night [4/3/2018].  "You can all clap if you want," said Mayor Ginger Nelson.  It was a statement followed by applause after the Amarillo city council issued a proclamation on child abuse awareness.  Minutes later that changed during public comment.  "We are not going to clap," said Nelson.  She followed that statement with a loud bang of her gavel.

'We are not going to clap' at council meetings, mayor said.  One guy even got arrested.  Clapping may be commonplace at council meetings when officials give out keys to the city or other grip-and-grin awards, but let it be known, there is to be no applause during the public comment portion of City Council meetings in Amarillo, Texas.  You might even be arrested for it, as was Kip Billups, a local homeless advocate, according to the Amarillo Globe-News.

No, Being A Christian Does Not Require You Meekly Submit To Leftist Tyranny.  Maybe you didn't notice, but they do not accept the concept that we have any legitimate interests or rights.  They hate us.  And, if we are weak and stupid enough to allow them to take power, they will act on their bigotry and prejudices.  Baking cakes is only the start.  Resistance is not merely an option.  It is a duty.

California Demands That Christians 'Evolve'.  There's a new legislative proposal banning all conversion therapy as a fraudulent business practice — by not just mental health providers but anyone.  Since the "independent fact-checkers" are quick to swarm around conservative "misinformation," FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and Snopes have all cried "False" at the idea that this bill is a threat to the sale of the Bible.  They declared that a threat against Bible sales is nowhere in the text of California Assembly Bill 2943, offered by gay assembly member Evan Low.  That is correct ... on its face.  It doesn't mention the Bible.  However, the bill would amend the state Consumer Legal Remedies Act, adding the ability to sue for damages for "advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual."  Any efforts to change someone's sexual orientation "in a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer are unlawful."  That's more than therapy.  It's any kind of an argument.

Christians' Munich Moment in California.  Scarcely any moment in American history is as important for America's Christians as the developing crises over religious freedom now happening in California.  The legislature of Sacramento not only is underhandedly banning books opposed to the doctrines of the transgender religion (including the Bible), but also has threatened Christians' rights to free assembly and freedom of speech.  According to its website, Summit Ministries, an organization devoted to advising Christian youths on how to live out a Christian worldview, has canceled its scheduled appearances at Biola University in Los Angeles "due to concerns that California will forbid some of what it teaches."  Summit's concern is real.

Here are 1,366 well sourced examples of Barack Obama's lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc.  [#362] In October 2013, the Obama administration announced the following on loudspeakers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas:  "Inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest."

An Imminent Counterattack Begins the Fight of Our Lives.  Unparalleled government abuses of power are about to become public.  The question is what we, the people, will do in response to this overt attempt by deep state players to strip us of our freedom. [...] The Left's ongoing refusal to accept the results of the 2016 election and live according to the rule of law, along with their willingness to destroy people's lives, are irreconcilable with a constitutional republic of self-governing people.  There can be no negotiated settlement over such fundamental differences.  We must boldly reclaim the righteousness of liberty and equal justice under the law on behalf of all Americans.

They Keep Telling Us Who They Are.  The California legislature is processing a bill to ban and criminalize all speech, all writing, that goes against "LGBTQ priorities".  Assembly Bill 2943, which has already sailed through two committees, would criminalize "efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions."  It seems to be aimed at practicing psychologists, psychiatrists, or counselors whose clients ask them to help them get rid of unwanted sexual attractions; but the bill is so vaguely written that it could be used against virtually anybody — commentators who dissent from the agenda of Organized Sodomy, parents who teach their children that there are only two "genders," and Biblically orthodox churches where homosexual acting-out is presented as a sin.

Socialism's Gateway Drug.  There's open talk of a divorce between individualists and collectivists; i.e., a separation of the US into at least two separate countries.  Can chaos be far behind when so many see the corruption from top to bottom, and are giving up belief in The Great Experiment? [...] The corruption in government is not just for enrichment or power.  It's to sow the seeds of WHY BOTHER? among the population. [...] The flood of third-world immigrants is not just for "diversity".  It's to sow the seeds of violent civil unrest as the natives of America and Europe finally resist at the 11th hour. [...] The deficit spending of every Western government is not just to buy votes.  It's second-level intent is to sow the seeds of an inevitable financial collapse, leading to societal chaos. [...] Look around you at what's happening.  Look at everything — every single thing — the Left does, in the context of trying to precipitate chaos.

A deputy sheriff came to inventory family's property — over a $160 trash bill.  Joe Kirby was at work in Maryland when he got the phone call.  He drove back to his Pennsylvania home, texting his boss that there was an emergency.  His wife, Christina, was hysterical.  There was a member of the York County Sheriff's Office going through every room of their house, taking inventory of their property to eventually put up for sale.  The deputy sheriff told her he'd already done it with the cars in the driveway:  a 2002 BMW 3 Series and 2007 Volkswagen GTI.  It was over their unpaid trash bill to Penn Waste.

Yes, California Is on the Verge of Banning Some Christian Books, Here's How.  Late last week, I wrote an article that caused a bit of a furious reaction in social-justice Twitter.  Activists claimed I was lying, arguing in bad faith, and/or exaggerating the effect of California's AB 2943, a bill that purports to declare "sexual orientation change efforts" to be an "unlawful business practice."  I claimed the bill was so broad that it could even ban books.  And I'm right.  It can and would.

California Bill Would Criminalize Speech, Books Opposing LGBT Agenda.  In a direct assault on the freedoms of speech and religion, the California Assembly on Thursday [4/19/2018] overwhelmingly approved a bill that would, in effect, prohibit the dissemination of traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality and transgenderism.  The Assembly voted 50-14 to criminalize "a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer" that consists of "advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual."  The bill defines "sexual orientation change efforts" as "any practices that seek to change an individual's sexual orientation.  This includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex."

Arizona residents will soon need 'travel ID' to board planes.  The Arizona Department of Transportation has announced that state residents will require a new form of identification to pass through Transportation Security Administration screeners in the near future.  As of Oct. 1, 2020, Grand Canyon state residents traveling out of Phoenix Sky Harbor International, Phoenix Mesa-Gateway, Flagstaff, Tucson International and Yuma International airports will need to carry "Voluntary Travel IDs" or be grounded, AZ Family is reporting.  The new ID will also be requisite to access restricted federal buildings and military bases, as standard credentials will no longer suffice.

The Editor says...
That doesn't sound voluntary to me.

American Greatness and its Enemies.  President Trump's railing against political correctness, and his disparaging of the deep state, show that he has a visceral understanding of these two core fissures in American culture and society.  It is that understanding that resonated with the Americans who voted for Mr. Trump, a group that was enough to hand him a victory in the electoral college.  So committed are his enemies, so unyielding are their beliefs, and so dangerous is the Kafka-esque legislative structure that we have created, that the American understanding of sovereignty and experiment in popular government is now at grave risk.

Homeland Security to Compile Database of Journalists, Bloggers.  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to monitor hundreds of thousands of news sources around the world and compile a database of journalists, editors, foreign correspondents, and bloggers to identify top "media influencers."  It's seeking a contractor that can help it monitor traditional news sources as well as social media and identify "any and all" coverage related to the agency or a particular event, according to a request for information released April 3.  The data to be collected includes a publication's "sentiment" as well as geographical spread, top posters, languages, momentum, and circulation.  No value for the contract was disclosed.

Making the government less larcenous.  On Sept. 21, 2015, [Gerardo] Serrano drove up to the Eagle Pass, Texas, border crossing, intending to try to interest a Mexican cousin in expanding his solar panel installation business in the United States.  To have mementos of his trip, he took some pictures of the border with his cellphone camera, which annoyed two U.S. Custom and Border Protection agents, who demanded the password to his phone.  Serrano, who is what an American ought to be regarding his rights, prickly, refused to submit to such an unwarranted invasion of his privacy.  One agent said he was "sick of hearing about your rights" and "you have no rights here."

They Take the Second Amendment First and the First Amendment Second.  We have talked a lot about the liberal assault on our right as American citizens to keep and bear arms for the defense of ourselves, our families, our communities, and our Constitution, but it is a mistake to think of a disarmed population as their desired end-state.  No, that's merely the first step toward the subjugation of the Normals.  What they want is not only for us to be disarmed, but to be silenced.  They are not going to stop with the Second Amendment.  Next, they are going to move to finish off the First Amendment.  They don't want you to speak freely.  They don't want you to have access to a free press.  They don't want you to practice your religion as you see fit.  And when you are disarmed and silenced, and you are stripped of any god but government — the government they control absolutely and forever — then they will have achieved their dream.  You will no longer be a citizen; you will be a serf.

California Democrat Introduces Bill to Force Websites to Use 'Fact-Checkers'.  California State Senator Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) has proposed a bill, the "Online False Information Act," that would require anyone who posts news on the Internet to verify their information through "fact-checkers."  The bill, filed quietly in late February as SB 1424, requires all California-based websites to develop a plan to fight "fake news," to use "fact-checkers," and to warn readers — including via social media — of "false information."

The Editor says...
Why stop at social media?  Why not require the same of broadcasters and newspapers?  Is CNN always 100% accurate?  Is MSNBC never misleading?  Is The New York Times not biased?

How Federal Surveillance and "Parallel Construction" Undermine the Rule of Law.  When we talk about NSA spying, most people's eyes glaze over.  They just don't think it will have any impact on them.  After all, the surveillance agency only spies on foreigners and terrorists, right?  And if some Americans' data ends up in NSA databases in the process, well, that doesn't really matter.  It's the price we pay for security.  But in fact, federal surveillance and the investigative practices it fosters undermines and subverts the fundamental rule of law in the United States.  State and local law enforcement agencies use the reams of data the NSA collects to prosecute Americans.  Most of these cases have nothing to do with terrorism or national security.  In fact, the vast majority relate to the so-called "war on drugs."  In the process, these state and local cops shred due process, obliterate the Fourth Amendment and make a mockery out of the "rule of law."

Yes, They Are Coming for Your Guns.  Today we have a multitude of reasons to have a high concern about a government that has become far too large, too invasive in too many issues and operated by people who are almost impervious to being fired for normal matters that citizens have to face in their own lives.  When I have discussions with people wanting to shrink the rights of gun owners, they discount this essential aspect of why citizens should be allowed to own guns.  When I ask them to explain the explosion of armed representatives of the government in non-military agencies, they are universally ignorant of that fact.  Here are just a few:
    [#1] The IRS has 2,300 Special Agents armed with AR-15s, P90 tactical rifles and other heavy weaponry.  The IRS recently spent $12 million on ammo and weapons.
    [#2] The Small Business Administration (SBA) spent tens of thousands on Glock hand guns.
    [#3] In 1996 the Veterans Administration had no armed employees.  Today they have 3,700 officers armed with millions of dollars worth of guns.
The list goes on.  As a Jew, I have a problem with any government having all the guns.  The last time we allowed that to happen, it ended with millions of dead Jews.  I believe any Jew who denies that reality puts their own political naiveté above the survival of the Jewish people.

Rep. Debbie Dingell to Introduce Gun Confiscation Legislation.  Debbie Dingell (D-MI) used an April 2 Fox News Live appearance to announce that she is preparing to introduce legislation to create a federal law allowing firearm confiscation orders.  Such laws, generally referred to as Extreme Risk Protection Orders, are already in place in California, Indiana, Oregon, and other states, and Dingell believes the ability to seize firearms is crucial for pubic safety.  During [the] live broadcast Dingell said, "Fred Upton (R) and I are looking at introducing ... legislation ... at the national level."

Boss Hogg and His Ingraham Angle.  There is plenty to criticize about David Hogg's actions and statements, yet that is not permitted.  Hogg is permitted to slander and slime anybody from the president on down.  If you disagree with him, blood is on your hands.  But don't dare mock one of his tweets, as Fox News host Laura Ingraham did.  The tragedy at Parkland has somehow transformed Hogg into an oracle we must honor and worship even as he ironically seeks to transform America into a gun-free zone.  In a rhetorical sense, he has become bullet-proof.

If the Second Amendment falls, our entire Bill of Rights falls.  The startling new proposal by 97-year-old former Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment to our Constitution's Bill of Rights is unwise, dangerous and totally unrealistic.  For 227 years, the amendment has guaranteed that "the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  We should not abandon it.  The first 10 amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights.  These amendments are the foundation of our liberty and the lasting legacy of the Founding Fathers who so wisely created a Constitution designed to protect the freedom of generations far into the future.  These rights are a major factor in what makes America an exceptional nation and a beacon for freedom that attracts people from the world over.

Do Not Give An Inch On The Second Amendment.  [A]s liberals line up behind a shield made of children to march on the Second Amendment, it's important to remember what happens when you attempt to compromise with people whose ultimate goal is your obliteration and why no amount of compromise will ever be enough. [...] There is no compromise with someone who doesn't want you to exist, there is only incrementally losing ground until you no longer exist.  A right diminished will never return, government does not cede back power once seized.  The NRA is right to hold its ground, it's why the organization exists in the first place.  Liberals are not honest brokers when it comes to the issue of guns, and neither is the media.  Trying to appease leftists never works because nothing short of everything they want is ever enough for them.

Bad science puts innocent people in jail — and keeps them there.  Since the onset in the 1990s of DNA testing — which, unlike most fields of forensics, was born in the scientific community — we've learned that many forensic specialities aren't nearly as accurate as their practitioners have claimed.  Studies from the National Academy of Sciences and the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology have concluded that there's insufficient research to support the claims of the broad field of "pattern matching" forensics, which includes analyses of such things as hair fiber, bite marks, "tool marks" and tire tread.  These forensic specialties were never subjected to the rigors of scientific inquiry — double-blind testing, peer review — before they were accepted in courtrooms.  Most are entirely subjective:  An analyst will look at two marks or patterns and determine whether they're a "match."  Most of these disciplines can't even calculate a margin of error.

'Something Smells Like a Rat': Mark Levin Calls for 'Abolishing' the FISA Court.  "Life, Liberty and Levin" host Mark Levin sounded off on alleged abuses committed before the FISA court in relation to the obtaining of a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.  Levin said Congress must look into whether representatives of the Department of Justice and FBI committed acts of "misconduct" before the court — in part by using an unverified dossier linked to an opposition research firm and former British spy as evidence.  He added that the judges on the FISA court deserve scrutiny too.

Arm The Teachers Or Disband The Schools.  It's hard to understand the future from the present. [...] Right now it is impossible to envision a return to liberty where every law is first judged by the impact to personal liberty and whether the government has the right to impose such a law.  It is so distant, this idea of a society based around liberty (the way it was supposed to be before the progressive movement over a hundred years ago got ahold of our government and turned it against liberty) that many can no longer even see it.

The First Amendment Is In Far Greater Danger Than The Second.  On the gender ideology issue, elites have been wildly successful in completely removing debate over transgenderism from the public square and even politics.  On abortion, they have largely failed as pro-life sentiment among the people has proven too strong for elites to overcome.  And on guns, the jury is still out, but elites are engaging in perhaps their most brazenly outrageous effort to silence opposing views to date. [...] We are instead operating in a country now where elites demonize the populist position with such ferocity that many are afraid to voice their opinion at all, which is, of course, the entire point of their strategy.  Our fight is no longer just over political issues — it is a battle against the very tactics being used by elites to stifle debate and destroy the essence of what makes America great.

Counterattack Hard Against Liberal Attacks on Our Gun Rights and Other Civil Liberties.  We're now supposed to give up our guns because it's the 21st Century, people, and the cops will totally protect us and oh, you can't dare criticize the FBI for failing to disarm yet another ticking time bomb and what kind of crazy nut would expect a police officer to actually confront a gunman?  Show of hands:  Who thinks this stops, even slows down, once those mean old not-actually-assault weapons get banned?  That liberals have taken a hard stand in favor of cowardice does not exactly fill one with confidence that once we give up our Second Amendment rights that we'll be safer or freer.

Busybodies battle outbreaks of freedom.  The majority leader of California's state Assembly has introduced legislation that would impose a fine of up to $1,000 on any waiter or waitress who offers a plastic drinking straw to a customer without being asked.  The Washington Post notes that this is part of a growing anti-straw movement, which is driven by alarm over the 500 million straws that are used every single day — which is almost certainly a fake number, seeing as how it is based on an unconfirmed phone survey by a 9-year-old boy.  (Yes, really.)

Parents Lose Custody of Daughter for Opposing Transgender Medical Treatments.  Parents of a 17-year-old girl lost custody of their daughter for opposing her wish for transgender medical treatments.  Judge Sylvia Sieve Hendon of Hamilton County, Ohio has allowed the girl to be taken into the custody of her grandparents — who support her medical transition — allowing them to make decisions that will further along her physical transition to the opposite sex.  According to CNN, Hendon ordered that the family's names not be released.  The parents reportedly continued to call their daughter by her given name, rather than a male name, and refused to consent to hormone treatments that were recommended by her medical team.  The girl claimed she became suicidal as a result of her parents' refusal to accept that she wanted to transition to a male.

The Transgender Totalitarians Can Now Legally Take Your Kids.  An Ohio court has removed a teenaged girl from the custody of her parents because they refused to consent to dangerous and experimental medical treatment.  The teenager wants to undergo irreversible treatment (hormones and probably sex-reassignment surgery) that she hopes will alleviate the depression associated with her gender dysphoria.  Based on 1) the scientific facts that such treatment will convert her into a lifelong medical patient and probably fail to alleviate her suicidal tendencies, 2) their religious belief that created reality is unalterable, and 3) their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their minor child, the parents said no.  But the court concluded they have no right to make that decision.  If they reject the radical new orthodoxy that replaces science with ideology, their authority to act for the good of their child is simply extinguished.

North Carolina mom begins serving jail sentence for baptizing daughter.  A North Carolina mom started serving a week-long jail sentence for having her daughter baptized, according to reports.  The 2016 baptism at St. Peter's Catholic Church when the girl was 2 years old defied a judge's order in a custody battle between unmarried couple, Kendra Stocks and Paul Schaaf, who are no longer together.

The IRS Is Coming for Your Passports.  Beginning this month, the Internal Revenue Service will begin denying passports to some American citizens with unpaid taxes and, in some cases, revoking the passports of Americans with tax delinquencies.  The government will in effect place those with unpaid taxes under arrest, effectively denying them their right to travel.  To be clear:  We are not talking about Americans who have been convicted of tax evasion or tax fraud, or who are awaiting a criminal trial on charges related to tax matters.  These Americans have not been charged with a crime, must less convicted of one.  They simply have unpaid taxes amounting to $50,000 or more.  More precisely:  They have an unpaid IRS liability amounting to $50,000 or more.  The IRS's aggressive schedule of interest and penalties for unpaid taxes ensures that a relatively small amount of unpaid taxes can turn into a $50,000-plus liability with remarkable speed.

Driver's licenses could soon be replaced by cell phone apps.  Your driver's license could be replaced by a cellphone app if a pilot program involving four states and the District of Columbia works out.  "We see great utility in the future with mobile driver's licenses that don't exist today with the physical plastic cards," said Paul Grassi with the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology.  "With innovation occurring on mobile platforms it almost makes too much sense to add this as an option."  NIST provided a $2 million grant to a cybersecurity company called Gemalto to design and test a digital license in a two-year pilot program.

The Editor says...
Interesting.  The government doesn't want you to talk on your phone while driving, but in this case, they would insist that you have your phone handy while you drive.  That's a case of mixed signals, at best.  But the thing about cell phone apps is, they can be turned off at any moment, and at that point, you don't have a license any more.

When Federal Prosecutors Go Bad.  [Sidney] Powell and [Harvey] Silverglate write about the horror faced by regular, even prominent citizens whom the FBI and DOJ destroyed, or tried to destroy, using their unlimited resources and the trust of the courts and the public.  From the very beginning of the prosecution when the affidavits for charges are submitted to the court, the honesty and fairness of the prosecutors is tested, and all too often, ambitious and aggressive prosecutors betray that trust.  Most of all, these books warn that the character and virtue of prosecutors are the critical factor in the proper conduct of a prosecution, the choice of target, the charge made, and the conduct of the discovery and the trial.  Prosecutors have all the cards, and if they don't conduct an honest and fair prosecution, innocent people are harmed, destroyed by their striving for conviction at any cost, even by cheating or by abuse of the process.

Driverless Cars and GPS: The Fearful Master.  Driverless cars contain innovations far too numerous to describe in this article, but the key piece is the GPS connection that allows the car to navigate to its destination. [...] Once your car becomes beholden to a central data center for its destination, you lose control not only of the car's operation from moment to moment, but of your own ability to travel freely on a daily basis.  Remember that GM's Cruise AV has no steering wheel.  You cannot take control of the car yourself.  You must give a destination to the GPS device so that your car can deliver you to that destination.  Programming your car before each trip will be the equivalent of an airplane pilot filing a "flight plan" before taking off.  As fun as this idea might seem, there is a 900-pound elephant in the room that few people are discussing.  Automobiles and transportation are among the most heavily regulated aspects of 21st century life.  If you think that the regulators are simply going to allow you to plug any destination into a GPS and ride off without a care in the world, you are fooling yourself.  The government has policy interests in your travel plans that are too numerous to mention.

The Russia 'Fake News' Scare Is All about Chilling Speech.  [Scroll down]  Democrats have manufactured panic over amateurish Russian propaganda not only to claim that Russian president Vladimir Putin was "meddling" in the election but also to argue that his purported interference had the power to turn the election to Trump.  With this risible idea in hand, they have created paranoia about social-media interactions and rationalized infringements on expression.  Not long before she demanded forensic investigations into hashtags, Feinstein was demanding that Twitter, Facebook, and Google restrict their content more tightly, threatening, "Do something about it — or we will."  Democrats have attempted to control interactions through the Fairness Doctrine or the IRS, and now through the Russia scare.

How a Civil War Happens.  Right now, Federal judges are declaring that President Trump isn't allowed to govern because his Tweets show he's a racist.  How long until they say that a president isn't even allowed to take office because they don't like his views?  That's where we're headed.

Sending Waiters to Jail for Offering Plastic Straws.  It makes absolutely no sense to me that a state that's worked so hard to lower its prison population would even consider passing a law that might clog its jail population full of people whose only crime was asking "Would you like a straw?"

Big Brother on America's Fishing Boats.  The plague on the commercial fishing industry isn't "overfishing," as environmental extremists and government officials claim.  The real threats to Northeastern groundfishermen are self-perpetuating bureaucrats, armed with outdated junk science, who've manufactured a crisis that endangers a way of life older than the colonies themselves.  Hardworking crews and captains have the deepest stake in responsible fisheries management — it's their past, present, and future — but federal paper-pushers monitor them ruthlessly like registered sex offenders.  Generations of schoolchildren have been brainwashed into believing that our seas have been depleted by greedy commercial fishermen.

Trump Needs to Transfer All Federal Land Back to the States.  [Scroll down]  However, most readers will remember the Cliven Bundy incident, the Nevada rancher who refused to pay $1.2 million in grazing fees to the BLM on grounds the land belonged to Nevada, not to the feds.  When the Bureau threatened to seize the ranch in 2014, hundreds of cowboys and militia members poured in from all over the country to defend the property.  Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the feds backed down.  Many Americans were shocked at the appearance of armed citizens, but the reality is that our founding fathers argued in favor of gun ownership precisely for the purpose of resisting government tyranny.  The Bureau of Land Management's police-state actions at the ranch were recently exposed, thanks to former BLM Special Agent and whistleblower Larry Wooten, whose shocking report details the agency's complete disregard for the rights of the Bundy family.

Hate-speech Laws USA? California Prosecutes Man for Anti-Muslim Posts.  California is already flouting federal immigration law with its "sanctuary" status.  Now it's also ignoring the most American of laws — the First Amendment — prosecuting a man simply for posting five anti-Muslim messages to Facebook.  The hapless defendant is 41-year-old Mark Feigin, who expressed his opinions at the Islamic Center of Southern California's (ICSC) Facebook page in 2016.  Feigin is certainly an acerbic, acid-tongued, foul-mouthed fellow, and he admits to sending the messages.  But while many may not like their substance and/or style, they're clearly an example of constitutionally protected speech.

In 'Caliphornia' you can be unconstitutionally prosecuted for exercising your First Amendment right to criticize Islam on Facebook.  California has leveled misdemeanor charges against 41-year-old Mark Feigin after he sent five anti-Muslim posts to the Islamic Center of Southern California's (ICSC) Facebook page in 2016. [...] The Los Angeles Police Department arrested Feigin Oct. 19 and interviewed him.  Feigin is now arguing that his charges should be dismissed because they are based on an unconstitutional application of the law.

California Parents Barred from Opting Kids Out of Mandatory LGBT-Inclusive Textbooks.  California has become the first state in the union to mandate the use of LGBT-inclusive textbooks in elementary schools and have given parents no way to opt out.  The choice has been made for them.  It's the law.  That law requires a "fair, accurate, inclusive, and respectful" treatment of homosexual, bisexual, transgender, and lesbian Americans despite the historical insignificance.

Lawmakers Seek Investigation After Whistleblower Exposes Federal Thugs.  Outraged by new whistleblower revelations of horrifying wrongdoing by federal officials in the Bundy case — one official kept a "kill list," others withheld evidence from the defense — prominent lawmakers in Western states are asking Congress and the Trump administration to investigate.  The government's case, which gained national attention after a 2014 armed standoff in Nevada between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Bundy family and its supporters, appears to be crumbling.  But even as it appears increasingly likely that the defendants will soon walk free, officials say the alleged crimes perpetrated by government officials must not be allowed to go unpunished.  As The New American reported on December 19, a memo by whistleblower Larry "Clint" Wooten, who served as the lead BLM investigator on the case, revealed an incredible array of misconduct by heavily armed bureaucrats.  Among the most alarming revelations:  Special-agent-in-charge Dan Love, already under investigation by Congress, kept a "kill list" as a "trophy" commemorating ranchers whose deaths he contributed to.  Apparently the bureaucrat was proud of his role in driving three Utah ranchers to commit suicide. [...] Throughout the explosive memo, aside from the unethical conduct and the bigotry against Mormons expressed by officials, there is also evidence that some BLM officials wanted to instigate a conflict and even kill some of the defendants and their supporters.  On top of that, there are several allegations that officials withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

Whistleblower: Federal Thug Behind Bundy Fiasco Had "Kill Book".  The government is in big trouble.  At least it will be, if there is justice.  The now-infamous standoffs in Nevada and Oregon could have ended in disaster for liberty and ranchers.  And for some, such as rancher LaVoy Finicum, who was shot dead by government officials while traveling on a public highway, it did end in tragedy.  But after years of terror and pain felt by the embattled Bundy family and those close to them, there may finally be a very happy ending visible on the horizon for the Nevada ranchers and for justice.  It seems the tables have turned, dramatically against the out-of-control Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other elements of the federal bureaucracy.  In fact, rather than putting the liberty-loving ranchers and their staunchest supporters behind bars for life — or even six feet under, as some Obama administration officials apparently hoped — there is now explosive evidence from a whistleblower that could put some of the rogue bureaucrats on the case in prison for extremely serious crimes.

The FBI's Secret State Police.  The FBI's current stonewalling bears more than a passing resemblance to the Geheime Staatspolizei, the National Socialists' secret state police.  The people's representatives have been seeking answers on the probe of Russian influence in the 2016 election.  Former FBI boss Robert Mueller has failed to turn up any evidence of "collusion" in more than a year, but other matters have come to light.  FBI man Peter Strzok has been Hillary Clinton's Odd Job, changing gross negligence to extremely careless, failing to keep records of the interview with the former First Lady, and allowing her aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills to tell more than 300 lies about the unsecured server Clinton used to send classified material.  Representatives such as Trey Gowdy and Jim Jordan want to know if Strzok played a role in the compiling the fake dossier with Russian content.  They also seek to know whether Strzok was the one who deployed the dossier to gain a FISA warrant to enable spying on the Trump campaign and unmask U.S. citizens.

American Gestapo.  Any government agency with law enforcement and surveillance authority that uses those powers for political purposes is the definition of a secret police, no better than the Nazi Gestapo or the Soviet KGB.  There is indeed probable cause to conclude, meaning indictable offenses, that employees of the Department of Justice and/or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sympathetic to the Democrat Party, used the power of their offices and with the assistance of foreign nationals to influence the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton, first to exonerate her and then obtain information to prevent the election of Donald Trump or to provide a basis for his impeachment should he win.  It is also abundantly clear from the Congressional investigations involving the Department of Justice and the FBI that those institutions of government are protecting themselves at the expense of transparency and accountability to the American people.  In other words, the government employees involved consider the survival of the Deep State more important than the survival of the Constitution.  That is the definition of tyranny.

Jail Time for Too Much Meat on a Sandwich?  Time and time again, the federal government has encroached into a sector of the economy and imposed a one-size-fits-all regulation that stifles competition, hurts small businesses, and creates troubling criminal penalties for lack of compliance.  This is epitomized in federal involvement in menu labeling — regulations and requirements for private businesses to disclose caloric information on physical menus.  Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) is leading the charge on rolling back this overreach through the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act, H.R.772, to provide relief for convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and pizza chains alike.

Ohio demands Christian parents provide gender reassignment for daughter.  In the state of Ohio, social workers are asking a court to side with a teenage girl who is asking for gender reassignment treatment at a hospital instead of the counseling desired by her parents.  Filed in Hamilton County Juvenile Court, the complaint is petitioning Judge Sylvia Hendon to order Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center to provide treatment for the girl against her parent's wishes.  Documents filed with the court indicate that the parents do not acknowledge their daughter's desire to transition to a male persona.  The parents are seeking counseling consonant with their Christian beliefs, while they have not approved of her change in appearance to resemble a male.

Nothing About Collusion.  There is a basic lesson here for anyone who enters government service:  do not ever talk to the FBI unless your lawyer is present.  Just ask Scooter Libby, who was punished for making allegedly false statements to FBI investigators.  In the Flynn affair, there was no need for the FBI to ask any questions about the telephone chats, since the transcripts were available from the get-go.  It is said that a skilled prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich, and a special counsel has even greater powers.  Furthermore, prosecutors' motives are not limited to the pursuit of the truth.  The "accomplishments" of aggressive prosecutors often have very little to do with the facts, but rather with the number of scalps they can hang on their war belts.  Rare is the person who can insist on his innocence — of anything — if a special prosecutor is out to get him.  The prosecutor can catch you giving an incorrect or confused answer to questions ... about anything.

Gates Pushes InBloom's Massive Data Tracking System for Everyone in America.  InBloom, which has already been caught selling student information, would store student's scores, attendance, needs, disabilities, disciplinary record.  If you were suspended in third grade, it would follow you for life.  InBloom is working with nine states:  Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina.  InBloom goes hand-in-hand with Common Core and standardized testing and they all mesh together to form a nationalized education program run by the federal government.  It is unconstitutional but this approach does an end-run around the constitution.  Many on both the left and right of the political spectrum are opposed.

Obama's Trans Fat Ban May Force Iconic Cookie Company To Close.  The makers of Berger Cookies in Baltimore, Md., are concerned that that new rules will force them to discontinue their iconic cookie due to federal rules.  Under current proposed rules, companies will no longer be allowed to sell food containing partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats, after June 18, 2018.  That rule will make it difficult for Charlie DeBaufre, president of DeBaufre Bakeries, to continue making the chocolate covered soft German-inspired cookies because the recipe contains trans fats.  DeBaufre has not been able to create the Berger cookie taste without the using trans-fat-free ingredients.

Judicial Tyranny:  William Orrick, a Name That Will Live in Infamy.  The Constitution and the laws passed by Congress define one person who determines and executes U.S. immigration policy and U.S. District Judge William Orrick is not it.  Yet there is Judge Orrick once again imposing his will on the expressed will of the American people through their elected representatives by issuing a permanent ban on President Trump's executive order defunding sanctuary ciies:  A federal judge in California has blocked President Trump's executive order to cut funding from sanctuary cities that don't cooperate with U.S. immigration officials.  U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick issued the ruling Monday in lawsuits brought by San Francisco and Santa Clara counties.  According to the judge, Trump can't set new conditions on spending approved by Congress.

FBI Raids on Homes of Anti-Government Activists.  Repeatedly, the FBI has raided homes on the flimsiest of evidence.  In 2014, it raided the home of prepper Martin Winters, claiming he was some kind of domestic terrorist.  But nothing was found aside from food stocks and other survivalist gear.  Then there's Terry Porter, also a prepper, whose house the FBI raided in 2012 using twice as many agents as in the Branch Davidian raid.  Again, nothing alarming found there.  Since when did anti-government preppers become terrorists?  The FBI raids group meetings as well, such as when it raided a Republic of Texas secessionist movement meeting in 2015.  No one was arrested because no one did anything illegal.  But once again, the FBI treated a handful of elderly men discussing constitutional issues as a terrorist plot.

Media Silent as Fed Committee Quietly Passes Act Allowing Warrantless Searches.  It has been over one month since the latest dangerous piece of legislation meant to infringe on Americans' constitutional rights was introduced, and Congress is now moving forward with the bill that will have serious ramifications for all Americans by blatantly violating the freedoms guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment if it becomes law.  The USA Liberty Act has passed the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 27-8, and as Congressman Justin Amash noted, all privacy advocates should be concerned about the overwhelming support the bill is receiving from Congress.

Doctor who refuses to use computers loses medical license.  Holding manila folders filled with pages of her handwritten reports, Dr. Anna Konopka insisted her system for keeping track of her patients' medical conditions and various prescriptions works fine.  But the New Hampshire Board of Medicine disagrees.

Post-Constitutional America and the Second Amendment.  In a series of articles I wrote last week about post-Constitutional America, I mentioned how everyday Americans have grown complacent with their God-given rights and how this has led to a growing acceptance of the idea that Constitutional rights are negotiable if the government gives them something in return.  The consequences of this mindset has been devastating.  Freedom of speech is silenced on college campuses in the name of political correctness.  Freedom of the press is threatened by the White House and Congress.  Freedom of religion is under attack by politicians and pro-LGBT radicals.  Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is compromised at the hands of a growing police state.  Now, with incidents of mass shootings dominating the headlines, a new threat has risen — the willingness to surrender the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in exchange for a little bit of safety.

School District Orders Coaches to Stop Bowing Heads in Prayer.  Heaven help the coach who bows his head to pray in Coweta County, Georgia.  The Coweta County School District issued an edict banning all coaches and other employees from participating in student-initiated or student-led prayer or other forms of worship while acting in their official capacity.

Europe: Climate Dictatorship Proposed To Solve Global Warming.  [T]he current Paris promises will cost each American $500 per year, each European $600 and each Chinese $170.  Of course, most Americans and Europeans are unlikely to elect leaders that will actually incur a much larger cost than most people are willing to pay.  Moreover, these promises will not solve global warming — indeed, they will together achieve almost nothing:  By the UN's own estimate, the Paris Treaty will reduce emissions by less than 1% of what would be needed to keep temperature rises under 2°C and yet cost $1-2 trillion per year by 2030, mostly in reduced GDP growth.  So Paris will deliver far less than what most people expect, yet will cost much more than most people are willing to pay.  Of course, most smart people would be against paying lots for achieving little or nothing.  If anything, this suggests that democracy works just fine.  But [Professor Jørgen] Randers instead takes this unwillingness to spend fortunes on little benefits as an argument for ending democracy.

What is the deal with those FEMA/DHS AM backup transmitters?  In the light of current government trends where the FBI engages in a one year sting operation on a Amish farmer selling raw milk, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms is running guns to Mexican drug cartels, the US Department of Education employing its own SWAT team to serve warrants for delinquent student loans (they say no but offer no other explanation), Gibson Guitars being repeatedly raided for improperly labeled wood products, and so forth, makes me wonder what the government is doing.

REAL ID Allows Feds to Suspend Driver's Licenses for "Cause".  Thanks to Real-ID, DHS has created a national ID system right under everyone's noses.  [Video clip]

Why Are Federal Bureaucrats Buying Guns And Ammo? $158 Million Spent By Non-Military Agencies.  [Scroll down]  Federal agencies spent $44 million on guns, including an "urgent" order for 20 M-16 Rifles with extra magazines at the Department of Energy ($49,559); shotguns and Glock pistols at the General Services Administration ($16,568); and a bulk order of pistols, sights, and accessories by the Bureau of Reclamation whose main job is to build dams, power plants, and canals ($697,182). [...] The government spent $114 million on ammunition, including bulk purchases by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ($66,927); the Smithsonian ($42,687); and the Railroad Retirement Board ($6,941).  The Social Security Administration spent $61,129 on bullets including 50,000 rounds of ammunition plus 12-gauge buckshot and slug ammo.  The EPA special agents purchased ammunition for their .357 and 9mm revolvers and buckshot for their shotguns.  While Bernie Sanders claimed that the biggest adversary to the United States was climate change, the EPA stood ready to fight in ways we couldn't have imagined.

New California law allows jail time for using wrong gender pronoun, sponsor denies that would happen.  California health care workers who "willfully and repeatedly" decline to use a senior transgender patient's "preferred name or pronouns" could face punishments ranging from a fine to jail time under a newly signed law. [...] The bill itself is aimed at protecting transgender and other LGBT individuals in hospitals, retirement homes and assisted living facilities.  The bill would ensure those facilities accommodate transgender people and their needs, including letting them decide which gender-specific bathroom they prefer to use.  "It shall be unlawful for a long-term care facility or facility staff to take any of the following actions wholly or partially on the basis of a person's actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status," the bill reads.

Florida Threatens Woman with Fines, Jail for Giving Diet Tips.  The State of Florida is threatening a woman with jail unless she stops telling people what to eat.  To clarify:  Heather Kokesch Del Castillo of Fort Walton Beach is not wandering around the supermarket in giving unsolicited advice.  People have been asking her — and paying her — for dietary and nutritional advice.  Though all she is doing is talking to people as a health coach, the state has declared her an unlicensed dietitian and fined her more than $750.  She faces misdemeanor charges if she doesn't shut her mouth, with further fines of up to $1,000 for each incident and possibly even a year in prison.

Detroit-area mom jailed for not vaccinating 9-year-old son.  A suburban Detroit woman was handcuffed Wednesday and sent to a jail for seven days for failing to follow an agreement to have her 9-year-old son vaccinated.

Mother Faces Tough Decision:  Vaccinate Your Child Or Go To Jail — This Is Bad For Everyone.  Do you think that a government has the right to force your child to get vaccinated or go to jail — well that's what one Oakland County mother now has to deal with, and the consequences of not doing it will be rough.  [Video clip]

Are you ready for airport security checks — Just to enter a hotel?  It didn't take long after Sunday's [10/1/2017] mass shooting in Las Vegas for resort hotels there to begin implementing new, far more strict security screenings simply to enter the building.  Hotel guests at Wynn's resort stood in line with a 10-minute wait to be screened.  That's likely to become a new normal as the country's worst mass shooting forces major tourist meccas to radically re-imagine potential threats and expand their thinking about security against a new range of threats.  As they did at any airport before boarding their flights to Vegas this week, patrons of Wynn's now have their bags searched before entering and their bodies scanned by metal-detecting wands wielded by uniformed security guards.

8 Really Bad Laws That Went Into Effect Today.  [#1] Touching your phone in Oregon:  From this day [10/1/2017] forward, Oregon drivers are prohibited from touching their cellphones while operating their vehicles, except to make a single swipe intended to turn a phone off.  While lawmakers passed the prohibition to make it easier for cops to enforce cellphone while driving laws, the "single swipe" exception is sure to muddy that.  The law will apply to cellphones, tablets, and GPS devices, but not for police officers, of course.

The FTC Raided My Office, Found Nothing, And Is Destroying My Business Anyway.  In early May, federal investigators raided my small tech-support company, Vylah Tec LLC, d/b/a "V-Tec," on suspicion of "deceptive" sales practices.  The raid was part of a politically hyped campaign by the Federal Trade Commission with the Florida Attorney General's office, dubbed Operation Tech Trap, to "crack down on tech-support scams."  The problem:  My business is not a scam.

What ARE the mysterious $100M metal towers popping up at tunnels and bridges all over New York and why won't the MTA say?  New York's public transportation system has come under fire for spending a whopping $100 million on mysterious metal towers that have popped up at the entrances of tunnel as many New Yorkers remain baffled over how they work.  The 30-feet-tall MTA Gateway Towers are a part of Gov Andrew Cuomo's $100 million vision to redesign the MTA's bridges and tunnels in the city.  Some people are still unsure about the purpose of these towers, including folks on the MTA board, but according to some officials, the towers will host equipment related to homeland security, such as anti-terror technology.

Tire Tyranny.  You visit the tire shop to buy a new set.  Used to be that you'd either tell the guy behind the counter which tires you wanted or discuss options with him.  Then you'd buy them and he'd install them.  Now the guy behind the counter will scan your car's VIN — which is tied to the DMV — and first find out all kinds of things about you and your car.  Then he will tell you which tires you're allowed to buy.  Yes, really.

Food Truck Giving Free Food to Hurricane Workers, Kicked Out of Town for Not Having a Permit.  After Irma devastated Florida, most restaurants and stores were shut down in certain areas.  Green Cove Springs was one of those places.  So, when Jack Roundtree, owner of the Triple J BBQ food truck, arrived in town, not only was he welcomed with open arms — he was desperately needed.  As he sold BBQ to paying customers, Roundtree used the extra money to feed utility workers for free for all their hard work.  However, once officials saw a man who'd dare sell food in their town without paying them first, police were called in to make quick work of this entrepreneurial good samaritan.

Mystery Surrounds Metal Towers Popping Up In Tunnels & Bridges.  Mysterious metal towers are popping up at local tunnels, and soon they'll start appearing at bridges, too.  But even people on the MTA board in charge of the towers can't say why they're being used or what's in them, CBS2's Dave Carlin reports.  Jose Lugo said the tall metal towers quickly appeared up after the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel tolls booths came down.  "We don't really know what's the purpose of this," he told Carlin.  It's a $100 million MTA project shrouded in secrecy, with 18 of them for tunnels and bridges.  So what are they exactly?

The Editor says...
It doesn't matter if these devices are lights, riot control machines, automatic license plate readers, or surveillance cameras.  If the project costs $100 million and they won't tell anybody what it's for, it's not going to be good.

Governments Turn Tables by Suing Public Records Requesters.  Government bodies are increasingly turning the tables on citizens who seek public records that might be embarrassing or legally sensitive.  Instead of granting or denying their requests, a growing number of school districts, municipalities and state agencies have filed lawsuits against people making the requests — taxpayers, government watchdogs and journalists who must then pursue the records in court at their own expense.

How Obama's EPA Nearly Bankrupted John Duarte's Farm.  EPA Chief Scott Pruitt has set out to transform the agency he leads to a greater extent than any of Trump's other cabinet appointees, pledging to end what he dubbed the agency's "anti-energy agenda" by loosening requirements on carbon emissions and eliminating land use restrictions.

Can You Get Fired for Missing Work During a Hurricane Due to Mandatory Evacuation?  What happens to your job if you flee the path of a hurricane due to a mandatory evacuation order?  What if you would simply rather be safe than sorry?  Many Floridians who have evacuated are currently considering this very question and concerned about the status of their employment upon returning home.

Mayor de Bolshevik.  In a wide-ranging and candid interview with New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio casually noted that the "way our legal system is structured to favor private property" provokes his "anger, which is visceral."  The mayor elaborated on this point, insisting that "people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be."  The mayor begs the question of who would build anything under these strict conditions.

What Country Is This?  Forced Blood Draws, Cavity Searches and Colonoscopies.  Forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases:  these are just a few ways in which Americans are being forced to accept that we have no control over our bodies, our lives and our property, especially when it comes to interactions with the government.  Worse, on a daily basis, Americans are being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are — our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.) — in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States:  we are now guilty until proven innocent.

U.S. Governor Orders Seizure of Privately Owned Guns, Ammo Ahead of Hurricane.  Gov. Kenneth E. Mapp there has activated the National Guard and has now ordered all guns, ammo and property needed by the National Guard seized.  Silly me... I thought that was unconstitutional and illegal.  The wording of the order is tricky as it allows the seizure in the performance of the National Guard's duties.  Mapp issued this emergency order and signed it on Monday [9/4/2017] in preparation for the storm.  It smacks of martial law.

Justice Department Forces Christian Pastor to Testify on Islam Views.  The United State Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to force a Christian pastor in Virginia to disclose under oath his views on Islam.  Pastor Steve Harrelson of the Mt.  Lebanon Baptist Church in Boston, Virginia, has been served with a wide-ranging subpoena by lawyers for the DOJ's Civil Rights Division.  The subpoena demands his presence to testify under oath in response to questions from Justice Department lawyers about his views on Islam as well as several other issues.

Is Your Dog 'Contraband'?  An awful ruling for pet owners has come from a federal court, in a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge George Caram Steeh.  But the threat is not just to Fido and Fluffy, because, as anyone familiar with how precedent becomes corrupted knows, the ruling will be cited and abused far beyond its original, flawed bases. [...] In deciding an unlicensed dog is "contraband" not protected by the Fourth Amendment, the ruling confuses government "licenses" with "title," i.e., private ownership and possession.  The ruling will eventually be cited in cases involving property other than dogs and other unlicensed activity in our overly license-happy statist society.

Federal Court Rules That Officials Can't Block Trolls On Social Media.  I first wrote about a lawsuit brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University a couple of months ago.  As you may recall, it involves a group of people who had been blocked on Twitter by President Trump after some of their "constructive criticism" (read: trolling) apparently generated enough spam in his mentions column to be noticed.  This was somehow interpreted as a First Amendment violation, leading to the pending lawsuit.  While the entire premise sounds like some sort of parody stolen from the pages of The Onion, we may have an early indication of how the courts will be treating such questions.  This case doesn't deal with the President, but instead an obscure fight involving the Board of Supervisors in Loudoun County, Virginia.  The board's chair apparently blocked a constituent, Brian C. Davidson, on Facebook (for a period of 12 hours before unblocking him) and deleted a post of her own which contained a comment from Davidson.  The results from the initial hearing at the federal district court are disappointing to say the least.

Betrayal: Republicans Push Anti-Free Speech Bill Written By Islamic Terror-Linked Groups.  The United States already has strict laws on the books that protect against hate crimes, so one reasonably asks, "why do we need this new resolution?"  Yes, this particular legislation is merely a "resolution" or a formal statement by a legislative body, but might the continued discussion of this matter really seek to prepare us to slowly move toward the next step in the process and expand the concept of what actually constitutes a "hate crime," — perhaps to include speech that some may find offensive?  In fact, its bent is quite the opposite and could end up landing you in federal court for espousing a politically incorrect opinion.

Washington's DUI-E Law Now Makes It Illegal to Text, Smoke and Even Eat While Driving.  The charge of "driving under the influence" used to only apply to drivers who were under the influence of drugs or alcohol — but it will now apply to drivers who text, eat, smoke, read or groom while driving in the state of Washington.  The implementation of the Driving Under the Influence of Electronics Act was expedited from January 2019 to July 23 after Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed a partial-veto, and insisted that "public safety is better served by implementing this bill this year."

Judge to Marine vet:  Give up Second Amendment gun rights to foster grandson.  On Wednesday [7/19/2017], Fox News reported that William Johnson of Ontonagon, Michigan, was told that he would have to give up his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms if he wanted to foster his grandson.  Not only was he told this by caseworkers with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), he was instructed by a county judge that, "if you want to care for your grandson you will have to give up some of your constitutional rights."  As a result, Fox said, a lawsuit was filed in federal court on Monday [7/17/2017].

State officials fume after leak shows how feds planned to use armed troops.  An organization representing top state election officials is complaining it's being kept in the dark by the federal government after a new report showed the Obama administration was quietly making extensive plans — including the possibility of deploying armed troops — in the case of an election day cyberattack or last-minute propaganda efforts from Russia.  Time Magazine reported on a document it obtained showing the administration's plans, which noted that state and local governments would have the primary jurisdiction, but called for the deployment of armed troops to counter a "significant incident."

Amish Man Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison for Improper FDA Labeling.  Samuel Girod is a farmer who belongs to the "Old Order Amish community" and a father to twelve in Bath County, Kentucky.  According to Ricochet, the 57-year-old Girod got in trouble with the government after selling homemade herbal remedies, [...] Girod, who said the FDA had no right to oversight since he made herbal remedies, wouldn't let them in.  His deeply-held beliefs require he "avoid the modern world as much as possible, including modern pharmaceuticals."  Unsurprisingly, the FDA disagreed with his assessment of their level of possible involvement, so the federal behemoth came down on him for the "vague medical claims" on his labels.

FBI Agent Indicted for Lying About Shooting in Oregon Refuge Standoff.  An FBI agent has been indicted for lying to state and federal investigators about firing at Robert "LaVoy" Finicum during a showdown between law enforcement and protesters last year in Oregon. [...] Oregon state police shot and killed Finicum on January 26, 2016.  He was fleeing a surprise traffic stop on a rural highway near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, where he was holed up with other protesters.  He crashed his truck into a snow bank and jumped out.  An autopsy determined that three rounds shot by state police killed him.  The U.S. Attorney for Oregon said the shots were "necessary and justified," since Finicum appeared to be reaching for his gun.  Investigators discovered that someone else fired as well before Finicum left his truck.  One round went into the roof of the truck.  Astarita failed to tell Oregon police officers that he shot two rounds at Finicum.  He also failed to tell the FBI's Shooting Incident Response Team.  Suspicions were aroused when two shell casings disappeared from the scene.

The Charlie Gard Case and Its Obvious Implications.  Most of the people following the macabre case of Charlie Gard were relieved when the British hospital holding the child hostage decided to let the 11-month old live until it has conferred with Perfidious Albion's High Court.  In a statement issued Friday [7/7/2017], Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) added that it had condescended to inform Charlie's parents of the decision, "and will continue to keep them fully appraised of the situation."  In a sane world most observers would shout, "What [if anything] does the court system have to do with this kid's care and why are his parents treated as mere bystanders?"

Worst media moments of the week.  The case of 11-month-old Charlie Gard is every parent's nightmare.  The child has "a rare genetic condition that has damaged his brain and left him unable to breathe without assistance," according to Fox News.  British authorities have refused to follow the parents' wishes to let them transport him to the United States for experimental treatments.  They didn't just give him a death sentence.  They said they get to decide what happens, not his parents.  ABC, CBS and NBC didn't care about the story, though American conservatives were up in arms about it.  None of the three networks mentioned the case.

Court Rules To Kill Baby, Denying Parents the Right To Pay for Surgery.  Charlie Gard is a ten-month-old baby who suffers from a rare, crippling disorder called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome.  Baby Charlie is condemned to die.  But not because of his condition.  No, Charlie will die because a judge ordered that he should.

Court Rules Hospital Can Overrule Parents and Yank Their Disabled Son's Life Support.  Charlie Gard, a little baby on life-support with a debilitating genetic disease, has lost his last court battle.  His parents' heroic battle to bring 10-month-old Charlie to the United States for an experimental medication has lost out to a London hospital evaluation that he deserves "death with dignity."  A majority of seven judges in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Tuesday rejected, as "inadmissible" the plea by Charlie's parents to overturn three rulings in the UK court system against their son.  The ECHR had agreed to intervene June 19th to maintain Charlie's life-support in the interest of preventing "imminent risk of irreparable harm."

State Tyranny Exposed.  The bureaucracy decided that the parents had no rights in [the Charlie Gard] case.  They had raised the money to seek experimental treatment in the United States, and the British courts decided that, even though there was no cost to the British taxpayer, the parents had no rights.  They couldn't even take their child home to die in peace with his family.  I'm sure the experimental treatment was a long shot.  It probably wouldn't have worked anyway.  But God knows, if this were my child, I'd fight to the last, to the most extreme chance possible.  The public largely agreed with them, that's how they were able to raise the donation money in the first place.  But the primacy of the State cannot be questioned by us mere peasants.

Lynching Free Speech:  The Intolerant State of America.  Here's the thing:  if Americans don't learn how to get along — at the very least, agreeing to disagree and respecting each other's right to subscribe to beliefs and opinions that may be offensive, hateful, intolerant or merely different — then we're going to soon find that we have no rights whatsoever (to speak, assemble, agree, disagree, protest, opt in, opt out, or forge our own paths as individuals).  The government will lock down the nation at the slightest provocation.  It is ready, willing and able to impose martial law within 24 hours.  Indeed, the government has been anticipating and preparing for civil unrest for years now, as evidenced by the build-up of guns and tanks and militarized police and military training drills and threat assessments and extremism reports and surveillance systems and private prisons.  Connect the dots, people.

Government bureaucrats now have the power to take children away from their parents if they oppose non-biological 'gender identity'.  It seems like something out of a dystopian novel written by a conservative Christian, but it is actually happening.  A child decides to play at being the opposite sex, but the parents object, perhaps on religious grounds.  In the Canadian province of Ontario (which contains nearly 40% of Canada's population), "child protection" bureaucrats may now remove that child from the parents' care, in order to permit the child to express its chosen identity at variance from the dictates of biology.  Presumably, this could extend to allowing genital mutilation of the child as a so-called "sex change" operation despite the parents' strong objections.

Ontario Makes Disapproval Of Children's Gender Confusion Child Abuse.  American Lens goes on to note (using an article from Gender Trender) that Canada is looking to legalize gender confusion nationally with Bill C-16, which "would establish a government recognized class of people based on their personal feeling that sex stereotypes form an integral and desired component of their legal identity."  This would be a part of the criminal code, so, it should turn out great, right?  Perhaps it is time to stop tolerating this insanity and ruining kids' lives by allowing them to perpetuate fantasies that they're the other sex, which is encouraged by insane leftists with political agendas.

In Canada, Big Brother Is Ready to Raid Your Home and Steal Your Child.  We have not been crying wolf.  We have not been exaggerating the danger.  The unthinkable is now reality in Canada.  And it could be coming to America next.  In 2012, headlines announced, "Homeschooling families can't teach homosexual acts sinful in class says Alberta government."  As the article explained, "Under Alberta's new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk."

Canada's New Law Lets Government Take Children Away If Parents Don't Accept Their Gender Identity.  A Canadian province has passed a law that gives rights to the government to take away children from families that don't accept their kid's chosen "gender identity" or "gender expression".  The Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act of 2017, also know as Bill 89, was passed in Ontario by a vote of 63 to 23, The Christian Times reported. [...] Minister of Child and Family Services Michael Coteau, who introduced the bill, said "I would consider that a form of abuse, when a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently."  "If it's abuse, and if it's within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops."

City: You can't sell blueberries unless you affirm gay marriage.  The Tennes family has been farming in Michigan for generations.  They grow all sorts of crops at the Country Mill Farm — organic apples, blueberries, pumpkins, sweet corn.  And for the past seven years, Steve Tennes and his family have sold their produce at the farmer's market owned by the city of East Lansing.  But this year — city officials told the devout Catholic family that their blueberries and sweet corn were not welcome at the farmer's market — and neither were they.

Farmer Fined $2.8 Million for Plowing His Own Land.  It's a case that involves property rights, due process of law, constitutionally protected rights, and rule by bureaucratic fiat.  A farmer in California's Tehama County will undergo a trial this August in an attempt by the federal government and the state of California to fine him $2.8 million for failing to get a permit to plow his own field and plant wheat.  John Duarte, owner of Duarte Nursery, purchased 450 acres near Modesto in 2012 with the intention of growing wheat.  But the property included land designated "wetlands" by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  Because of this, Duarte employed a consulting firm to determine which areas provided drainage for some creeks, making them "waters of the United States."  This information would enable him to avoid plowing areas that could cause conflict with governmental authorities.

Illinois Purges Social Workers And Foster Families Who Don't 'Facilitate' Transgenderism.  The science-deniers are running the LGBTQ show over at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), and dissenters will not be tolerated.  The department's new "enhanced" policies promoting the "well-being of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) children and youth in the Department's care" ratchet in one direction only: encouraging children towards LGBTQ identities.  DCFS has drawn a rainbow-colored line in the sand, announcing it "will not tolerate exposing LGBTQ children and youth to staff/providers who are not supportive of children and youths' right to self-determination of sexual/gender identity."

The Editor says...
When did "self-determination of gender identity" become a right?

Farmer Faces $2.8 Million Fine For Plowing His Own Field.  A California farmer is facing a $2.8 million fine for failing to get a permit to plow his own field.  John Duarte bought 450 acres of land near Modesto in 2012 and is now being sued by the federal government for plowing near areas the government considers to be "waters of the United States."

He plowed his field; now he faces a $2.8 million fine.  A farmer faces trial in federal court this summer and a $2.8 million fine for failing to get a permit to plow his field and plant wheat in Tehama County.  A lawyer for Duarte Nursery said the case is important because it could set a precedent requiring other farmers to obtain costly, time-consuming permits just to plow.  "The case is the first time that we're aware of that says you need to get a (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) permit to plow to grow crops," said Anthony Francois, a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation.  The libertarian-leaning nonprofit fights for private property rights and limited government.

A new GOP bill would make it virtually impossible to sue the police.  The bill would create new federal crimes, impose federal police over the will of local officials and voters and shield police officers from virtually any civil liability, even in cases of egregious misconduct.  Let's look first at the new federal crimes.  The bill would create new federal crimes for killing, attempting to kill or conspiring to kill a state or local law enforcement officer who works for a police agency that receives federal funding.  Because nearly all police agencies receive some sort of federal funding, including most local sheriff's departments and town police, the bill basically makes it a federal crime to kill, attempt to kill or conspire to kill any police officer (as well as any judge or first responder).  The bill would also allow for the federal death penalty in such cases, and it would impose limits on the ability of defendants to file habeas petitions in federal court after they've exhausted their appeals.

Vermont DMV Caught Using Illegal Facial Recognition Program.  The Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles has been caught using facial recognition software — despite a state law preventing it.  Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont describe such a program, which uses software to compare the DMV's database of names and driver's license photos with information with state and federal law enforcement.  Vermont state law, however, specifically states that "The Department of Motor Vehicles shall not implement any procedures or processes... that involve the use of biometric identifiers."

How Reality Is Being Manufactured.  Reality is being manufactured to manipulate your emotions and actions!  In this video, Melissa Dykes of Truthstream Media brilliantly breaks down how our reality is created in the Information Age using very interesting Google Trend charts.  It used to be if you controlled the oil, you controlled the world.  Now it's if you control the information, you control the world.  That is why they are cracking down so aggressively on independent media.  [Video clip]

Former FEC Chairwoman Calls for 'Regulations' of Political Speech on the Internet.  The former Federal Election Commission chairwoman Ann M. Ravel says that political speech must be controlled on social media.  She presented her remarks in a speech at UC Berkeley, calling for regulations against "fake news."  Speaking at an event called "Future of Democracy," Ravel argued the proliferation of "fake news" and political advertising on platforms like Facebook influenced elections.  She warned that the lack of disclosure by the creators of these campaigns was becoming a huge problem.  "We know that there's a lot of campaigning that's moved to the internet, whether it's through fake news or just outright advertising and there is almost no regulation of this, very little," she said.  "And so that the disclosure that we expect as to who is behind campaigns is not going to exist soon"

Government Burglars.  The legitimate purpose of government?  It is to protect citizens from force and fraud, to defend individuals against violent and criminal attacks on their persons and property, and, beyond that, to leave them at liberty to pursue their own happiness.  Tyranny, conversely, is what we call governments that engage in force and fraud, committing violent and criminal acts against innocent people — even when those crimes are cloaked in the costume of legality.  In these United States, at this modern moment in time, which is it?  Do we live in a legitimately governed country or an abject tyranny?  Or is it somewhere in between?

The Government Doesn't Care About You.  We have reached a point in our nation's history where we have put far too much power in, trust in, and dependence on government.  Shortly after the nation was founded, government began to encroach on our freedom, making us more reliant on the federal government for our daily needs.  In recent decades, that government creep has accelerated exponentially, to the point where every single thing in our lives has some form of regulation touching it.  The more government intrudes through regulation, the fewer rights we have as individuals.

Appeals Court Says Right To Bear Arms Isn't A Right If Cops Are Banging On Your Door In The Middle Of The Night.  Qualified immunity — a legal doctrine that originates from court decisions rather than statute — received another boost from the federal court system last week.  Qualified immunity is the concept that allows overreaching and abusive government employees and officials to stay one step ahead of accountability.  If their actions don't "clearly violate" established law and/or precedent, police officers, etc. can walk away unscathed from deprivations of other people's life and liberty.

How California police are tracking your biometric data in the field.  [Scroll down]  Nine of the agencies have responded to our requests with documents, while many more claimed they didn't have any records.  Of those that did respond, most employed a digital fingerprinting device.  Facial recognition has also been widely embraced among agencies in San Diego County, with Santa Clara County law enforcement agencies close behind.  In addition, In addition, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's biometrics system includes tattoo recognition, while the Orange County Sheriff's Department is also investigating iris recognition.

Cops Given Pass For Shooting Innocent Man In His Own Home.  At issue in this case isn't whether these shootings by cop will continue in the future.  They will, and this case just makes that more likely, but judges should not be deciding cases based on their social import.  In other words, there is an objective standard against which their actions should be judged in this particular case, and that doesn't change one iota based on what may or may not happen in the future.  Judges aren't social workers, soothsayers or witchdoctors — or at least, they shouldn't be.

Cops given pass for shooting innocent man in his own apartment.  There was no warrant and no reason to suspect the apartment resident in Lake County, Florida, of a crime.  But police officers who said they were investigating a speeding motorcyclist, to which the man had no links, pounded on the door at 1:30 in the morning.  When Andrew Scott, 26, answered the door, carrying a weapon for defense because of the vigorous knocking at an unlikely hour, an officer shot and killed him.  Now, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has given the officer a pass for the killing, prompting an outraged dissent from four justices on the panel.

Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail — for Collecting Rainwater on His Property.  A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday [3/29/2017] to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.  Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called "three illegal reservoirs" on his property — and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.

N.Y. bill would require people to remove 'inaccurate,' 'irrelevant,' 'inadequate' or 'excessive' statements about others.  [U]nder this bill, newspapers, scholarly works, copies of books on Google Books and Amazon, online encyclopedias (Wikipedia and others) — all would have to be censored whenever a judge and jury found (or the author expected them to find) that the speech was "no longer material to current public debate or discourse" (except when it was "related to convicted felonies" or "legal matters relating to violence" in which the subject played a "central and substantial" role).  And of course the bill contains no exception even for material of genuine historical interest; after all, such speech would have to be removed if it was "no longer material to current public debate."  [...] But the deeper problem with the bill is simply that it aims to censor what people say, under a broad, vague test based on what the government thinks the public should or shouldn't be discussing.

Today's Riot-Prone Mobs Are A Product Of America's Cult-Like Education System.  Today's street theater is the culmination of decades of radical education revision.  The radical Left's systematic attack on the study of Western Civilization has essentially been an attack against the study of any and all civil societies.  It is an attack on the features that make a society civil and free.  Those features include freedom of expression, civil discourse, the Socratic method of figuring out truth, value of the individual, and a common knowledge of the classics of history and literature that help us understand what's universal in the human experience.  All of that had to go.  Now, as we see students marching to demonize as "fascists" proponents of free speech, their ignorance is in full view.  This is really a full frontal attack on the rule of law, the Constitution, and a system of checks and balances that guards against the consolidation of centralized power.  That's the whole point of the education these students have been fed.

USDA Threatens To Shut Down Farm For Conservative Article In Break Room.  For hundreds of years, the meat-packing industry bore the responsibility for transforming Bessie the Cow into carnivores' favorite source of protein, and more recently the Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture ensured that the finished product was "safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged."  Not so anymore.  Due to agency rules issued during the Obama era, FSIS inspectors enjoy expanded duties, including monitoring facilities for any "disrespectful" or "insult[ing]" communication (no, not among the animals).

Rubber stamp court:
9,400 to Zero:  For 6 Years, Spy Court Denied No Electronic Surveillance Applications.  In the last six years on record (2010-2015), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court did not deny a single application out of the 9,400 the government submitted seeking authority "to conduct electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes" under the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, according to reports filed by the U.S. Justice Department.  The last time the court denied an electronic surveillance application under FISA was 2009.  That year, the court denied one application outright and denied another in part.

FISA Court: Whatever Obama Wanted Obama Got.  FISA became a rubber stamp for the Obama administration.  Between 2010 and 2015, FISA did not deny even one of the 9,400 applications submitted by the federal government.  These applications sought "to conduct electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes," according to reports filed by the U.S. Justice Department.  FISA Court, executive overreachWithout any real checks and balances, Obama could say, "I saw Trump drinking a Black Russian one night, ergo let's put him under investigation."  The Justice Department's annual report provides the status of their 2015 FISA requests.  The court denied a grand total of zero government FISA applications from 2010 through 2015.  However, the court did modify some applications that it approved.  And the government withdrew some of those it submitted.

U.S. Marshals Scan Passenger Retinas to Board Flight.  During the war on terrorism, Americans compromised their liberties to fight for freedom.  Now, during the war on immigration, Americans will again be compelled to sacrifice liberties for American sovereignty.  In the name of security, anywhere, anytime.  All measures will be justified, everyone will be authorized and the population will be controlled.

This Is How Free Speech Slowly Dies.  [Scroll down]  The result is a world like many Americans live in today, where they keep their mouths shut at work, they keep a tight rein on their social-media feeds, and they confine their true opinions to the most private forms of communication.  This culture isn't everywhere, of course, but ask conservative employees in entire areas of public- and private-sector employment if they're as free to speak as their progressive colleagues, and the answer is a resounding "No."  How free are they to disagree with their diversity trainer?  Can they argue against same-sex marriage with the same vehemence that their colleagues ask for "marriage equality"?  Are they as free to discuss, say, the border wall or Trump's executive order on immigration as their progressive friends?  One thing I can say for certain, I have conservative friends who are afraid to test the proposition.  They have mortgages to pay.

The Illusion of Freedom:  The Police State Is Alive and Well.  Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by the antics of the political ruling class that they are oblivious to all else, you'd better beware.  Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you'd better beware.  And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you'd better beware. [...] The gravest threat facing us as a nation is not extremism — delivered by way of sovereign citizens or radicalized Muslims — but despotism, exercised by a ruling class whose only allegiance is to power and money.

Texas bill seeks to label attacks against first responders as a hate crime.  The father of a Dallas police officer murdered in the July ambush says he fully supports a sweeping new hate crime bill.  The father of Patrick Zamarripa says he wants his son's murder to have a purpose and hope a Texas bill, designed to protect first responders, does that.  Rick Zamarripa knows nothing he does will bring his son back.  But he hopes by pushing new legislation to make attacking police officers a hate crime will give his son's death meaning.

The Editor says...
I'm very sorry that Officer Zamarripa was amushed and killed, along with four other officers, but legislation of this sort means that "first responders" will be first-class citizens and everyone else will be something less.

The Real Force Chipping Away at Your Right to Speak Your Mind.  As odious as they are, campus speech codes and angry rioting leftists are not the biggest threat to most Americans' free speech.  No, the much more common and insidious threat to the average American is their employer's human resources department freaking out about a social-media post done off the clock.  Alexandria Brown suggested the actual threat to an American's free speech rights is someone else reporting their off-the-clock private social media posts to the employer's HR department. [...] We're creeping closer to a society and an economy where holding a sufficiently controversial opinion or making a sufficiently controversial remark makes you unemployable or barely employable.

A legal analysis of the Ninth Circuit's dangerous usurpation of presidential power.  What we have here is a creeping constitutional coup.  As long as President Obama was in charge and had a massive open-door policy at our borders and at our airports, in violation of statutory law, the judiciary was content to be silent.  But when Donald Trump became president and tried to use the powers of the presidency to put some national security safeguards into place, the judiciary sprang into action.  The judiciary has usurped the executive branch's powers and has created a parallel constitution — one that bears no relation to the founding document of our nation.

Trump Is Right.  Churches Should Be Free To Express Themselves Politically.  In 1954, Sen. Lyndon Johnson, worried about opposition at home, came up with an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) that prohibited campaign speech by nonprofits and tax-exempt churches.  There was no floor debate on the law, and one assumes, those voting for it saw little downside in quashing church criticism in their own states.  One also imagines that the folks writing the First Amendment didn't expect their pastors would be monitored by a central government agency and forced to watch what they say in the pulpit.  Yet, ignoring our rich tradition of religious activism, which includes the abolitionist movement, we've normalized the idea that pastors, priests, and rabbis should avoid talking about candidates, even when those candidates attack foundational ideas of faith.  We now task the IRS with monitoring every utterance in every church by every religious organization in the United States, and then deciding which of those thoughts constitute acceptable speech or "issue advocacy."

Hate Crime Laws Codify Inequality.  Because hate crime laws elevate some victims above others, their scope tends to expand over time.  If race and religion are covered, doesn't fairness demand that disability, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity be included as well?  A Louisiana law that took effect last summer classifies attacks on police officers, firefighters, or paramedics as hate crimes too.  Similar "Blue Lives Matter" bills have been introduced in several other states.  This unseemly competition, in which interest groups vie for recognition and status, has very little to do with justice, which requires equal treatment under the law.

Oregon Couple Told They Have No Water Rights, Forced to Destroy Their Own Pond.  Remember the Oregon 'Rain Man' or Gary Harrington — who was sent to 30 days in Jackson County Jail and slapped with a $1,500 fine for collecting rainwater on his 170-acre property?  He was ordered to breach his dams and drain his ponds that held more than 13 million gallons of water, enough to fill 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.  Now, an Oregon couple faces a similar fate as Gary Harrington because the rain belongs to the overbearing government, because corporate greed claims water is not a human right, and because Americans are not entitled to do what they please on their private property.

Army, Navy, Air Force, EPA.  During the period covered by the Open the Books report, EPA spent over $3 million on military equipment, including guns and ammo, tanks, drones, helicopters, camouflage, night-vision goggles, and other military hardware. [...] Other agencies with military-style equipment and cops include the Department of Commerce, Internal Revenue Service, Food and Drug Administration, and the Smithsonian Institution (guards to protect museum artifacts are one thing, but drones, helicopters, and SWAT teams?).  The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland has its own cops with a fleet of Crown Victoria police cars, as do the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Library of Congress, National Park Service, Forest Service, BLM, Fish and Wildlife Service, Marine Fisheries Service, and even the Government Printing Office.  Do all these agencies really need police with guns, badges, arresting authority, and military equipment?

EPA May Crack Down on Wood Stoves in Alaska.  Many Alaskans rely on wood-burning stoves, which left-wing bureaucrats regard as offensive to environment. [...] A few weeks ago, it got down to -37°F in Fairbanks.  The high for the day was -27°F.  But never mind keeping warm.  According to liberal theory, global warming will see to that.  The important thing is to comply with the dictates of the regulatory bureaucracy.

EPA To Alaskans In Sub-Zero Temps:  Stop Burning Wood To Keep Warm.  [Scroll down]  But alas, now comes the federal government to tell the inhabitants of Alaska's interior that, really, they should not be building fires to keep themselves warm during the winter.  The New York Times reports the Environmental Protection Agency could soon declare the Alaskan cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, which have a combined population of about 100,000, in "serious" noncompliance of the Clean Air Act early next year.  Like most people in Alaska, the residents of those frozen cities are burning wood to keep themselves warm this winter.  Smoke from wood-burning stoves increases small-particle pollution, which settles in low-lying areas and can be breathed in.  The EPA thinks this is a big problem.  Eight years ago, the agency ruled that wide swaths of the most densely populated parts of the region were in "non-attainment" of federal air quality standards.

EPA To Alaskans:  We Might Fine You For Burning Wood To Stay Warm.  Well, in the Alaskan interior, winters can be brutal.  With temperatures dropping below zero, burning wood is the only viable way for Alaskans in these rather desolate areas to stay warm.  Yet, government thinks this is a problem concerning small-particle pollution.  In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency is so concerned that they're mulling fining people who burn wood to stay warm.

Obama Administration Yanks Second Amendment Rights from SSI Recipients.  Last week, the Obama administration put the finishing touches on a new policy that would deprive recipients of disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) of their Second Amendment rights.  The administration will now characterize those citizens as "mental defectives," thereby having their ability to own a firearm subject to the federal Gun Control Act.  Supplemental Security Income helps blind, disabled, and elderly people with little to no income.  Previously, it was understood that "mentally defective" referred to one's mental health.  Citizens who have been institutionalized against their will are restricted from owning a firearm.  The new definition of "mentally defective" has nothing to do with being mentally ill.

Obama Quietly Signs Bill Declaring War On Independent Media.  The human wrecking ball that is Barack Obama is refusing to be a good lame duck and just go away.  In a flurry of blows to America and a key Middle East ally, Obama stabbed Israel in the back at the United Nations and set the conditions for a total war on independent media.  The fiendish Obama waited until the Christmas weekend to quietly sign off on the creation of a new federal entity to combat "Russian" propaganda and target websites deemed to be sources of fake news.  Snuggled warmly within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to fund the military was a nasty and secretive provision that thanks to Congress, creates an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.

Obama Quietly Signs the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Into Law.  Late on Friday [12/23/2016], with the US population embracing the upcoming holidays and oblivious of most news emerging from the administration, Obama quietly signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorizes $611 billion for the military in 2017. [...] But while the passage of the NDAA — and the funding of the US military — was hardly a surprise, the biggest news is what was buried deep inside the provisions of the Defense Authortization Act.  Recall that as we reported in early June, "a bill to implement the U.S.' very own de facto Ministry of Truth had been quietly introduced in Congress.  As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information.

A Hostile Environment For Truth.  [Scroll down]  There is no way for the owner of a website to know the absolute validity of any information found on the Internet then transmitted to the public.  In fact, without being able to go back and look at H.R. 6480, I would not know for sure that what I had heard was true.  What is known is that any website might fall under the clause (H.R. 6480, Sec 501(a)(1)(A-F)) without knowledge and be held legally culpable.  The thing I find odd about this clause is that it singles out Russia, rather than the more common "by foreign nations."  This has political intent and is not designed to enhance national security, rather it is designed to enhance political security.  It is not just the Democrat leftists who seek protection from the truth, the Republican globalists are shocked, scared and desperate.  If the media establishment cannot control the narrative for globalism, they are in trouble, so they agree with this Title and clause to intimidate websites that call them out for their distortions and extortions.  Trump and his election signals a victory for the unwashed and the globalists are already fighting back in every way they can.  The war has begun and the first battlefield is the Internet.

Very Stupid Idea Arises From Florida.  A government lawyer in Florida would like courts to impose community service and forced speech on you if you're unpleasant, and a prominent Florida newspaper is taking it seriously. [...] I'm not a fan of lunatics shouting at barristas about Donald Trump.  But honestly, I am far more offended by lawyers — especially government lawyers — promoting civic illiteracy by proposing patently unconstitutional policies.

Senate Quietly Passes The "Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act".  While we wait to see if and when the Senate will pass (and president will sign) Bill "H.R. 6393, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017", which was passed by the House at the end of November with an overwhelming majority and which seeks to crack down on websites suspected of conducting Russian propaganda and calling for the US government to "counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence ... carried out in coordination with, or at the behest of, political leaders or the security services of the Russian Federation and the role of the Russian Federation has been hidden or not acknowledged publicly," another, perhaps even more dangerous and limiting to civil rights and freedom of speech bill passed on December 8.  Recall that as we reported in early June, "a bill to implement the U.S.' very own de facto Ministry of Truth has been quietly introduced in Congress.  As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information.

Trump will get power to text all Americans.  President-elect Donald Trump will have access to a system that can send unblockable texts to every phone in the US once he takes the oath of office.  Wireless Emergency Alerts are part of a program created by a 2006 act of Congress.  WEAs can be targeted messages sent to all mobile phones in a particular area, like Amber alerts, or to all phones nationally, like an alert issued by the president, according to a report by New York Magazine's Select/All blog.  The Trump office didn't immediately return a request seeking comment as to how the incoming president might use the system.  The FCC, which provides a guide to the WEA program, also didn't respond to a request for comment.

The State Wants to Raise Your Child.  The state's intervention into everyday life can be worrisome, whether it's a new tax policy, a new environmental regulation, or more government surveillance.  But it's something people can usually live with.  But in her new book, No Child Left Alone, Abby W. Schachter delves into how the federal government has been meddling in the bedrock of human society:  the family.  Whether it's letting your child stay home, packing your child's lunch, or sending your child to daycare, the federal government wants control.  Schachter discusses how the state's involvement has impacted the mental and physical development of children as well as how it strips away the rights of the parents to raise their children as they see fit.

Bureaucratic Tyranny in Trump's Crosshairs.  We have a VA that purposely lets vets die without medical care.  We have an EPA at war with the energy industry.  The Department of Education threatens public schools with loss of federal funds and mandates progressive lies about American history, teaching generations of schoolchildren to be ashamed of America and ignorant of our Constitution and our forefathers.  Universities are forced by the DOJ to hire feminist and racialist thought police under an Obama bureaucrat's interpretation of the Civil Rights Act.  We have an IRS that has a political enemies list its employees punish at the behest of Democrats.  Homeland Security and FBI are under a gag order that forbids them to use the term jihad or Islamic extremism.  Everywhere we look, regulations are strangling business, intruding into the personal lives and property rights of ordinary citizens.

People's Cube Artist Faces 5 Years in Prison for Hanging Up Anti-Terror Posters at GMU.  The artistic genius behind the highly acclaimed conservative satirical site The People's Cube has been arrested and released on $8,000 bail for putting up pro-Israel posters to combat a pro-Islamist conference at George Mason University.  He now faces the prospect of five years in prison for allegedly committing a "class 6 felony."  Beloved satirist Oleg Atbashian (who has contributed to PJ Media) has gotten in trouble for defying authorities before:  "Back in my Soviet dissident days, when I was collecting signatures in defense of Andrei Sakharov, I was screamed at, threatened, and lectured by the KGB and Communist functionaries," Oleg says.  "What I never imagined was that in the United States, the land of the free, I would not only be subjected to similar treatment, but go to jail."

Who Knew It Was A Crime To Hang Anti-Terrorism Posters?  My friend and compatriot Oleg Atbashian found that out the hard way.  Imagine my surprise this morning to find out he had been roughed up and arrested in Fairfax, Virginia.  His crime was hanging anti-terrorism posters on the university campus.  Oh, and bonus... he wasn't even read his rights.  He is now out on $8,000 bail for putting up pro-Israel posters to combat a pro-Islamist conference at George Mason University.  He faces the very real prospect of five years in prison for allegedly committing a "class 6 felony."  Oleg is an artistic genius.  His satirical site, The People's Cube, is one of the very best out there.  Oleg did the graphics for NoisyRoom and has done work for Trevor Loudon and Cliff Kincaid as well.  He is a member of a small circle of commie hunters out there.  We all have very long memories and we take it very personally when one of our own is treated like this.

Obama Quietly Signs Executive Order To Advance Global Vaccination Agenda.  So basically, the agenda is to push vaccines and normalize quarantine procedures across nations during outbreaks. [...] Bill Gates provided the CDC with a surveillance tool that helps identify "district-level measles risk" based on immunization records.  What's more, the HHS recently proposed giving the CDC the power to detain and quarantine people without due Process.

Single Mom Faces Jail Time After Participating in Facebook Food Group.  A Stockton woman faces an impending trial and potential jail time after she joined a social media community food group, and sold some of the meals she cooked, which county San Joaquin County officials say is against the law.  Mariza Reulas was cited by San Joaquin County for selling an illegal substance, but it wasn't a powder, a pill or a plant.  It was her bowl of homemade ceviche.  "It was just like unreal that they were saying you could face up to a year in jail," said Reulas.

State demands pastor turn over sermons, notes.  The state of Georgia is demanding copies of the sermons and related notes of a lay pastor who was fired by the Department of Public Health after it investigated what he said in his church.  But Dr. Eric Walsh is resisting, issuing a statement via his legal team that he will not comply with the demand from state lawyers.  The state's demand is in response to a lawsuit filed by Walsh against the Department of Health charging discrimination based on his religion and other civil rights violations.

Hillary Clinton Is The Greatest Threat to the Second Amendment Ever.  Law-abiding gun owners are preparing for what the Founding Fathers warned us about:  a tyrannical government that is out to limit our Constitutional rights.  We're stocking up on our guns and ammo, and not without good reason.

How The Cloward-Piven Strategy Is Driving The United States To Collapse.  Since Obama took office in 2008, the political elite has tried everything from smuggling illegal guns to Mexican drug cartels, attempting to make ammunition expensive through regulation to convincing banks to refuse to extend credit or loans to gun store owners.  Schemes like these are intended to make gun ownership such an impossible venture, that eventually no one will own any, thereby making any attempts to establish a hard tyranny slightly easier.  Although disarming law abiding Americans is an important step in implementing the Cloward-Piven strategy, the political elite must also establish an enforcement mechanism for the new government they intend to create.  Coincidentally, over the past five years, reports of numerous and excessively large transactions have occurred between federal agencies and ammunition manufacturers.  While some agencies need ammunition for training purposes and to do their jobs, why do agencies such as the EPA or the Department of Education ammunition and weapons as well, especially in an era where there isn't even enough for the military?  One possible answer to this vexing question is that even if the political elite succeeds in gutting the military completely, they likely don't trust the average soldier or Marine to carry out orders for a hard tyranny.  Therefore, the political elite likely intends to use federal agencies to carry out tyrannical orders, all in the name of "law enforcement".  If this is the case, it would likely explain the comments made by President Obama during a speech he made in Colorado, where he argued for a domestic force that was equally as well-equipped and funded as the military.

Obama Calls for 'Truthiness Tests' for Media Companies.  President Barack Obama floated the notion of a test for media organizations, griping about the wide-spread existence of alternative media available in America.  He was critical of the current Wild West online environment where people could say anything on social media or on news websites.  "We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to," he said.

Eric Holder named to lead effort to destroy GOP after Hillary wins the presidency.  This election is for keeps:  plans are being implemented, with President Obama already signed on, staff hired, and money being raised.  Perhaps lulled into complacency by the MSM polls, the Democrats have already constructed and staffed their strategy to permanently disable the Republican Party.  Eric Holder is the perfect henchman, a man above nothing in his quest for political dominance, unbound by old-fashioned concepts of justice.  The GOP will remain in existence as the token opposition, useful for legitimizing the actual one-party regime, the essential element of the election rituals reminding us of the Republic we once enjoyed.

Podesta Pal:  We 'Conspire to Produce an Unaware and Compliant Citizenry'.  One of John Podesta's emails released by WikiLeaks this week exposes how progressive elites seek to exploit the unwashed masses.  The email features one of Podesta's colleagues from the Center for American Progress admitting that the institutional left "conspires to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry," ostensibly to impose their radical agenda on us without much resistance.  The correspondent is Bill Ivey of Global Cultural Strategies, "the online representation of the ideas, writings, and affiliations of author/consultant Bill Ivey."  He is an author trained in folklore and history, a trustee of the Center for American Progress, a former team leader in the Barack Obama presidential transition in 2008, and the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in the Clinton administration.

The All-Out Assault on the First Amendment.  From the IRS targeting conservative groups to those trying to limit the ability of Americans to freely practice their religious beliefs, to membership organizations being forced to disclose their donors, the First Amendment is being assaulted on all sides.  Americans are familiar with the recent attacks on religious liberty, present in everything from forcing religious business owners to oyer abortion-inducing drugs and perform same-sex wedding services that violate their fundamental beliefs to the exclusion of churches from secular public projects.  Cases questioning the government's encroachment on religious liberty continue to come before the U.S. Supreme Court, [...]

Pentagon joins Homeland, FBI in eyeing oversight, control of elections.  Concerns about Russian hacking into the November 8 election have now reached the Pentagon where the military's top cyber official has outlined a plan to help the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to track an election altering attack.  What's more, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, has added his voice to that of Homeland Secretary Jeh Johnson who is considering whether the election system is critical infrastructure, like the power grid and financial sector, and subject to federal oversight.

Clinton Camp "Demands" "Compliant Citizenry" for Her Master Plan.  An email released in the recent Wikileaks dump laid out Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's real plan for the future — and it didn't include justice, equality or fairness.  Instead, Clinton's plan for the future revolved around maintaining political power while working to create an "unaware" and "compliant" citizenry.  The email came from Bill Ivey, who was appointed Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts during President Bill Clinton's second term.  It was sent to Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta on March 13, 2016.

Kansas woman who claimed police told her to stop praying in her home fights court ruling.  [Mary Anne] Sause, a retired Catholic nurse on disability and rape survivor, was at home on the night of Nov. 22, 2013, when two police officers approached her door and demanded to be allowed in.  Sause said the officers did not identify themselves, and she could not see them through her broken peephole, so she did not open her door.  The officers left, but returned later and demanded that Sause let them in.  When Sause came to the door and the officers asked why she didn't answer the first time, she showed them a copy of a pocket Constitution given to her by her congressman.  One officer laughed and said, "That's just a piece of paper" that "doesn't work here," while still not explaining the reason for their presence at her home.

Federal Agents Can Secretly Read Every E-mail of Every American.  Not only is the federal government able to read every e-mail ever sent by every American regardless of any reasonable belief that the target has committed any crime, they have these decisions upheld by secret courts where the owner of the e-mails has no right to question the accusers.  How did the federal government get this power?  They were given it by federal judges who allowed the government to define "premises" in a clever, crafty, and contemptuous way.

A Banana Republic, If We Choose to Keep It.  ## In court documents made public in 2002, an IRS official admitted that legal opponents of former President Bill Clinton were singled out for tax audits, including 10 more than 20 conservative organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and American Spectator magazine, as well as a number of individual Clinton accusers, like Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers.  If Hillary wins, she brings Bill with her to the White House.

Global Bureaucrats Invited By Obama To Inspect US Elections.  Hundreds of foreigners are expected to enter America within the next month in order to observe the American electoral process.  The United States sends representatives to other nations with dubious democratic processes to survey the voting systems and look for fraudulent practices.  But now it seems that America is the one being inspected and scrutinized.  With the help of President Barack Obama, the Organization of American States (OAS) will send roughly 30 to 40 spectators to polling locations across the country for the first time ever, according to The Washington Post.  The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been consigning a small contingent of bystanders to U.S. elections since 2002, but this time it plans to send extra reinforcements.

FEC war:  Dems reject call to protect Internet news, talk radio from regs.  In the latest partisan escalation on the Federal Election Commission, a top Democratic commissioner has ripped a Republican commissioner's bid to protect books, radio and Internet media from regulation as "pitiful."  Ann Ravel, a former FEC chairwoman, joined other Democrats at a meeting this month to block Republican Lee Goodman's proposal to explicitly expand the "press exemption" from regulations to books, satellite radio and Internet-based news media.

No More Accidental Criminals.  Consider the retiree on a snowmobile outing in Colorado who got lost in a blizzard and unwittingly crossed into a National Forest Wilderness Area; the Native Alaskan trapper who sold 10 sea otters to a buyer he mistakenly believed was also a Native Alaskan; and the 11-year-old Virginia girl who rescued a baby woodpecker from her cat.  The first two incidents resulted in misdemeanor and felony convictions, respectively, while the third led to a fine (later rescinded) and threats of prosecution.  All three qualify as federal crimes, even though the perpetrators had no idea they were breaking the law.  The federal code contains something like 5,000 criminal statutes and describes an estimated 30,000 regulatory violations that can be treated as crimes.

Legislation Without Representation — A 2016 Perspective.  [Scroll down]  The analogy is a critical frame of reference because the time for wondering about "what if" has passed.  We have already destroyed the tea.  There is no retreat from this moment, and more importantly, we have nothing left to lose.  There are many who use a frame of reference about 'saving a constitutional republic'; while I do not mean to be dismissive of this benevolent sensibility — in case you have not been paying attention we've long since passed the threshold of that possibility.  The architecture of our own U.S. government is now operating independent of the electorate (Obamacare, Omnibus etc.).  Congress is consistently passing legislation without appropriate representation (PR Bailout, Ominbus, Corker/Cardin amendment, Fast-Track Trade Authorization etc.), and the various operational constructs, divisions, and agencies within the DC UniParty are now fully weaponized against us (IRS targeting, FBI Comey/email non-finding, etc.).

Hillary's Talk of 'Implicit Bias' Should Scare Every American.  You're guilty and you don't know it.  Sure, you think you're a decent person who treats people fairly, judging them on the content of their character and not the color of the skin.  But let's face it:  You're deluded.  Especially if you happen to be white, you're biased and you don't even know it.  You're unaware of your own privilege, and of the extent to which your beliefs, speech, and even mannerisms oppress people of color.  It's time to confess.  It's time to be re-educated.  It's time to rid yourself of your false consciousness.  This is the message of the modern campus radical, of the diversity trainer, and, increasingly, of the Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton.

Police use TEN different types of checkpoints, with more on the way.  Police and the Border Patrol are using 'general crime control checkpoints' to harass and detain motorists across the country. [...] Sixteen years ago, the Supreme Court held that checkpoints established for general crime control purposes are unconstitutional.  So why are police and the Border Patrol stopping innocent motorists?  DHS admits DUI checkpoints are REALLY about checking a person's immigration status.

Pulling the Plug on America.  When the president, the attorney general, the director of the FBI, et al. have conspired to not merely shield a crook from prosecution, but elect her to the highest office in the land, they resemble mobsters who use bribes, threats, and murder to expand their criminal syndicate.  What the Founding Fathers put together is now on life support, and the grasping fingers of criminal collusion and left-wing dogma are about to pull the plug.

Obama's America — transformed indeed.  More Americans than ever now mistrust government.  And although such skepticism can be good, it is not healthy that citizens feel they are neither listened to nor represented by those in power.  Our divided country's rare consensus that Washington can't be trusted has much to do with President Obama.  His failures have taken the hammer to several quaint 20th-century assumptions.  The public no longer believes politicians understand how economies work, or that government has practical solutions to ordinary people's problems.

Nationalizing U.S. Elections — Obama's Most Dangerous Idea?  Not content with taking over health care and virtually nationalizing the financial markets, the Obama administration has another in a long line of great ideas:  Let's put our election system under federal control, too.  It's a terrible idea for which there are vastly better alternatives.

Why Democrats aren't serious about overcriminalization.  Among other things the Democrats want to change policing policy, reform the prisons, reduce sentences, and eliminate the death penalty.  All that is typical fare for Democrats.  But the Democrats don't care a bit about the more foundational issue of who is labeled a "criminal" in the first place.  Their platform says nothing about the average American who accidentally stumbles over an arcane regulatory tripwire, makes a simple mistake of fact, or commits the "crime" of holding an unlicensed croquet game in a national park.  They totally ignore the rapidly-growing tangle of federal criminal laws and the maze of criminally-enforceable administrative regulations, which are estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands.

'Pre-Search' Is Coming to U.S. Policing.  News that the city of Baltimore has been under surreptitious, mass-scale camera surveillance will have ramifications across the criminal justice world.  When it comes to constitutional criminal procedure, privacy, and the Fourth Amendment, it's time to get ready for the concept of "pre-search." [...] Since January, police in Baltimore have been testing an aerial surveillance system developed for military use in Iraq.  The system records visible activity across an area as wide as thirty square miles for as much as ten hours at a time.  Police can use it to work backward from an event, watching the comings and goings of people and cars to develop leads about who was involved. [...] But the technology collects images of everyone and everything.  From people in their backyards to anyone going from home to work, to the psychologist's or marriage counselor's office, to meetings with lawyers or advocacy groups, and to public protests.

Homeland Security to Take Over Elections.  The Washington Examiner reported that the Department of Homeland Security is considering taking control of elections by declaring them "critical infrastructure." [...] The federal government never wastes a good crisis to gain more power, and this is no exception.  Officials are already talking about speeding up the process in the wake of election cyber attacks:  Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said, "We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid."

Homeland eyes special declaration to take charge of elections.  Even before the FBI identified new cyber attacks on two separate state election boards, the Department of Homeland Security began considering declaring the election a "critical infrastructure," giving it the same control over security it has over Wall Street and and the electric power grid.  The latest admissions of attacks could speed up that effort possibly including the upcoming presidential election, according to officials.  "We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.

Regulators Are Running Amok.  Late last week, the Transportation Department issued a proposed rule that would require new commercial trucks and buses to have speed-limiting devices installed in them.  The government says the move is about increasing safety and reducing emissions, but what it's really about is showing how federal regulators can pretty much do whatever they want these days.

The Enemy Is Us.  Your government is on red alert:  between 2006 and 2014, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), an agency of the Department of Agriculture, spent nearly $4.8 million to purchase shotguns, propane cannons, liquid explosives, pyro supplies, drones, thermal imaging cameras, and more. [...] This is one of many revelations found in a new investigative report titled "The Militarization of America:  Non-Military Federal Agencies Purchases of Guns, Ammo, and Military-style Equipment" published by American Transparency, a nonpartisan watchdog group.  Former U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), chairman of the organization, points out that, "In the nine years until 2014, we found 67 agencies unaffiliated with the Defense Department bought $1.48 billion in weapons and ammunition.  Of this total, $335.1 million was spent by agencies traditionally viewed as regulatory or administrative, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the US Mint."

Voting machines should be seen as critical democracy infrastructure.  At the Open Source Election Technology Foundation (OSET), a 10-year old Silicon Valley based nonprofit election technology research institute, we are encouraged by valuable dialog underway about how to protect America's aging and vulnerable voting machinery and evolve our systems with technology for ease and confidence.  Setting aside some misunderstanding about the challenges elections officials face in administering a nationwide patchwork quilt of election technology, there is a critical mass on the left and the right discussing how to protect our "critical democracy infrastructure."

Obama Administration Plotting to Usurp Control Over Elections.  Under the guise of providing increased "security" for "critical infrastructure," the Obama administration is plotting to insert itself and the federal government into the American elections process.  While voting is constitutionally the responsibility of state and local officials, Obama's Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, pointed to the alleged threat of cyberattacks to justify the latest proposed usurpation of power.  The controversial scheme was floated amid growing national concerns, fueled in part by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's warnings of a "rigged" election, that America's electoral system might be vulnerable to major manipulation.  Critics and experts, though, warned that the White House scheming may be a first step toward illegally nationalizing the electoral process — with all the dangers that would entail.

Having solved all other energy problems...
DOE Imposes Efficiency Regulations on Wine Chillers.  The Department of Energy (DOE) has now developed an energy efficiency regulation specific to wine coolers.  On July 15, DOE released a final rule requiring manufacturers to test the energy efficiency of refrigerators used for wine.  It estimated the rule would cost the average small business $12,500 to test whether their equipment meets specifications.  While DOE said the $12,500 testing cost is "unlikely to represent a significant economic impact for small businesses," it did not address the costs to or impact on individual consumers who have or might purchase wine chillers for their homes.  The regulation set standards for temperature settings and energy use for 'coolers' with one or more doors, capable of maintaining compartment temperatures either no lower than 39°F, or in a range that extends no lower than 37°F but at least as high as 60°F," according to the final rule.  The temperature for wine chillers should be 55 degrees under the new rules, the DOE said.

NY bill would make assaulting a cop a hate crime.  Violence against police officers prompted a New York state lawmaker to draft a bill that would make it a hate crime to assault a police officer anywhere in New York.  It comes after recent murders of cops in Dallas and Baton Rouge.  Those who support it say the measure is needed to further deter people from attacking men and women in blue.

Martial Law Coming?  How much violence against authority would it take for President Obama to declare martial law and stay in power?  Less than you think.  Television coverage will make every act of violence seem a hundred times worse than it is.  I don't predict that we will see martial law in this country.  But all of the ingredients are in place.

We Thought We Were Free.  The America we live in, our nation, our people, our society, is not the America most of us were born in at all. [...] The transformation has occurred through the slowly creeping separation of not only the government from the people, but the people themselves from their country.  It has taken place so gradually and so insensibly that the majority of Americans, preoccupied with the latest crisis happening in their own lives, have failed to see the slow motion underneath of the whole process of our government and the spirit of our country growing more and more remote.

There Will Be No Second American Revolution:  The Futility Of An Armed Revolt.  We are poised at what seems to be the pinnacle of a manufactured breakdown, with police shooting unarmed citizens, snipers shooting police, global and domestic violence rising, and a political showdown between two presidential candidates equally matched in unpopularity. [...] For instance, anticipating civil unrest and mass demonstrations in connection with the Republican Party convention, Cleveland officials set up makeshift prisons, extra courtrooms to handle protesters, and shut down a local university in order to house 1,700 riot police and their weapons.  The city's courts are preparing to process up to 1,000 people a day.  Additionally, the FBI has also been conducting "interviews" with activists in advance of the conventions to discourage them from engaging in protests.  Make no mistake, the government is ready for a civil uprising.

Is government preparing for a new war?  [Scroll down]  Perhaps it's propaganda, maybe simple rumors, so take it with a grain of salt.  However, I have gained information on this matter from several sources, a few very hard to question.  This is about rather small military vehicles, apparently a bit smaller than a three-quarter ton, but containing armor on the sides.  According to reports, a rather long train carrying nothing other than such vehicles was observed in the West.

Do you see any navigable water here?
Federal Government Says a Farmer Broke the Law by Plowing His Land.  Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law.  In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA).  The violation:  plowing.  The California court agreed with the federal government's action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation.  This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident.  For decades, the EPA and the Army Corps have aggressively sought to stretch the bounds of the CWA.  When Congress passed the CWA, the federal government was given regulatory authority over "navigable waters," which the statute additionally defines as "waters of the United States."  While the word navigable may seem to have an obvious meaning to most Americans as bodies of water that can be navigated by watercraft, federal bureaucrats have identified these terms as a license for a massive regulatory land grab.


These three FEC commissioners must be removed from office.  Democratic senators are now trying to weaken Second, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights in their push for new gun laws.  They also controversially voted in 2014 to weaken the First Amendment, specifically to let both Congress and state legislators regulate political speech.  Yet even they have not yet dared to launch an attack on the freedom of the press.  But their fellow partisans on the Federal Election Commission do not scruple to take such a step.  They are completely out of control; they voted, it was revealed Wednesday [6/29/2016], to regulate the press and the editorial judgment of its members.  After years of chomping at the bit to go after conservative bloggers and aggregators on the internet, the three Democratic commissioners on the FEC went even further with an unprecedented effort to insert themselves into a cable news network's editorial judgment.

Cafe told to remove 'God Bless America' banner.  [Scroll down]  You would think most folks would appreciate the sentiment behind "God Bless America."  Lord knows we need it.  But rules are rules and the town board does not seem interested in accommodating Jennifer [Aquino]'s patriotic banner.  "The fact that I'm being asked to take it down is wrong," she said.  "It's against my First Amendment rights.  People need to open up their eyes.  If we start letting them tell us we can't do this — it's going to get worse."  Lots of folks seem to agree with Jennifer's sentiment.  Hundreds and hundreds of supporters have posted messages on the café's Facebook page and several customers have dropped off money — to help pay for any fines.  Jennifer tells me she never imagined there would be a day like this in America.

What Is The Government Preparing For?  You may not be getting prepared for a major national disaster, but the government sure is.  I have been informed that in recent months numerous emergency food companies have been contacted by the government, and they have been told that their inventories could potentially be seized in the event of a significant emergency.  And as you will see below, the government recently participated in an exercise that simulated "an unprecedented global food crisis lasting as long as a decade".  In addition, NPR has just revealed details about the very secretive Strategic National Stockpile program that is storing billions of dollars worth of medical supplies in warehouses around the nation.  This is a program that most Americans do not even know exists.  On top of everything else, strange reports of military vehicles with UN markings have been coming in from all over the nation.  So what in the world is the government up to?  Why are they working so feverishly hard to get prepared?

FEMA Contractor:  Unrest After 395% Food Price Spike Coming Soon.  Preparations by various cogs of the national security complex, including FEMA, indicate a coming worldwide food shortage — and a resulting crisis marked by extreme civil unrest around the globe.  As Motherboard noted of two reports published previously by CNA Corporation, but which largely escaped attention, the world's food supply could be insufficient to maintain even current populations much further into the future.  And the crisis — which several factors indicate may already be underway — may begin to worsen considerably as early as 2020.

Why Our Leaders Won't Name The Enemy.  [Scroll down]  The real reason that our leaders won't name the enemy is that they don't like us and they don't trust us.  Running through their heads are nightmare scenarios like Brexit and Trump.  They see their job as shepherding us away from our "worst impulses" toward a proper role within the global community.  They are quite capable of recognizing Islamic terrorism for what it is.  They may not be terribly bright, but people in their positions have more than enough access to information for the conclusions to be inescapable.  But they are determined not to allow Islamic terrorism to disrupt their larger plans for us.  It isn't another 9/11 or 7/7 that worries them, but a resurgence of nationalism in response to it.  That is why they will lie, mislead and even criminalize any dissent.  Their response to every Islamic terrorist attack is to make us feel responsible, ashamed and helpless by transforming Muslims into the victims.  For these same reasons they will push mass Muslim migration no matter what the terror risks are.  They will champion the hijab, even though they know it harms Muslim women.  Why?  Because these policies undermine our values and transform our countries.  And that is their overriding agenda above all else.  That is what we are up against.

America's Constitutional System is Hanging By a Thread.  [Scroll down]  What today means is separation of powers is hanging by a thread.  That is, our constitutional system is hanging by a thread, and the greatest fear that the Framers had:  this concentrated power in a centralized government is here.  You're staring at it.

After Trying to Kill 1st, Democrats Move on to 2nd and 5th Amendments.  In September of 2014, Senate Democrats voted to repeal the First Amendment.  They were enraged by a Supreme Court decision holding that ordinary constitutional protections for free speech prohibited the government from punishing political activists who had shown a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election.  This was a straightforward case of classical political speech — critics of Mrs. Clinton arguing that she'd make a poor president and distributing a film making that case — and Democrats, including every single Democrat in the Senate, insisted that that isn't what the First Amendment is intended to protect.  They started at the beginning, and are making their way down the Bill of Rights, with the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment.

Supreme Court OKs warrant-less breathalyzer tests in drunk driving arrests.  The Supreme Court on Thursday [6/23/2016] issued a split ruling on a trio of drunk driving cases, deciding that while law enforcement may require a breathalyzer for suspected drunk drivers without a warrant after an arrest, a warrant is required for a blood test in the same circumstances.  The consolidated cases, referred to as Birchfield v.  North Dakota, came from three separate drunk driving arrests where the men arrested were prosecuted or threatened with prosecution for refusing a blood or breath test.

The Editor says...
The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution clearly states that "No person [...] shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

Militarized USDA and EPA using SWAT teams to terrorize innocent people including lemon growers and small farmers.  The federal government is becoming increasingly militarized, with numerous agencies now employing their own SWAT teams to conduct raids on raw milk producers, beekeepers, lemon growers — or anyone else who runs afoul of agency policies.  The trend has increased during Obama's presidency and is not only costing taxpayers enormous amounts of money, but also terrorizing citizens who could hardly be considered dangerous criminals by any sane estimation.  The USDA is just one example.

New rule lets feds hack your computer anywhere, anytime.  A proposal that Washington bureaucrats be given nearly unfettered permission to hack into private computers, which WND reported earlier was being described as the ultimate "Big Brother" move, is drawing strong opposition from privacy activists and members of Congress.  "We're in the midst right now of one of the biggest battles in the privacy world that we have faced," said U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, on a website mobilizing opposition.  "If we keep down this path, we're going to wake up in a few years in George Orwell's 1984.  This is why, as we fight for security, any intrusion on privacy needs to be narrowly tailored and aggressively overseen."

There Are Now More Bureaucrats With Guns Than U.S. Marines.  There are now more non-military government employees who carry guns than there are U.S. Marines, according to a new report.  Open the Books, a taxpayer watchdog group, released a study Wednesday that finds domestic government agencies continue to grow their stockpiles of military-style weapons, as Democrats sat on the House floor calling for more restrictions on what guns American citizens can buy.  The "Militarization of America" report found civilian agencies spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between 2006 and 2014.  Examples include IRS agents with AR-15s, and EPA bureaucrats wearing camouflage.

Armed Federal Officers Now Outnumber the US Marines?  Titled "The Militarization of America", the report also confirms the IRS spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition and "military-style equipment" between 2006 and 2014, but they're not alone.  It seems other non-law enforcement related agencies are following suit, buying up heavy firearms, ammunition and tactical equipment in a pattern of militarization repeated throughout the executive branch of the government.  The other primarily administrative federal agencies militarizing their departments include the Environmental Protection Agency, The Department of Veterans Affairs, The Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Inspection Service.

The Militarization Of America.  We quantified $1.4 billion in non-military federal agencies purchase of guns, ammunition and military-style equipment during the last nine years.  We estimate that federal non-military agencies now employ more officers with arrest and firearm authorization than there are U.S. Marines. [...] Sixty-seven non-military federal agencies spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment.  Of that total amount, 'Traditional Law Enforcement' Agencies spent 77 percent ($1.14 billion) while 'Administrative' or 'General' Agencies spent 23 percent ($335.1 million).  Non-military federal spending on guns and ammunition jumped 104 percent from $55 million (FY2006) to $112 million (FY2011).  Nearly 6 percent ($42 million) of all federal guns and ammunition purchase transactions were wrongly coded.  Some purchases were actually for ping-pong balls, gym equipment, bread, copiers, cotton balls, or cable television including a line item from the Coast Guard entered as "Cable Dude".  Administrative agencies including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Small Business Administration (SBA), Smithsonian Institution, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Mint, Department of Education, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and many other agencies purchased guns, ammo, and military-style equipment.  Since 2004, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) purchased 1.7 billion bullets including 453 million hollow-point bullets.  As of 1/1/2014, DHS estimated its bullet inventory-reserve at 22-months, or 160 million rounds.

U.S. Air Force assaults veteran for mentioning God.  On April 3, 2016, at the retirement celebration of a colleague at Travis Air Force Base in California, retired Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez, a 33-year veteran of the Air Force who had been invited to deliver the flag-folding speech, was assaulted and dragged out of the room by four uniformed airmen for mentioning God.

Exclusive Video:  Veteran Forcibly Dragged from Air Force Ceremony for Mentioning God.  When a veteran started offering traditional remarks at a military flag-folding ceremony, several uniformed airmen assaulted him, dragging him out of the room because his remarks mentioned God.  Now First Liberty Institute lawyers representing retired Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez are demanding that the U.S. Air Force apologize and punish those responsible or face a federal civil-rights lawsuit.

Five Ways an Innocent American Could End Up on Obama's Secret Gun Control List.  [#3] The government made a mistake.  The federal government is not perfect, and can often make mistakes.  Sometimes, those mistakes have resulted in lawsuits.  In 2004, an FBI agent erroneously marked California resident Rahinah Ibrahim as a potential terrorist, barring him from boarding a plane in the United States.  Years later, Ibrahim, a doctoral student at Stanford University, ultimately sued the federal government.  But it didn't stop there.  The Obama administration cited "state secrets privilege," according to Wired, which served as an attempted coverup of the clerical error.  In 2014, she won the case after a judge ruled the federal government violated her due process rights.

Judge Rules Seattle's Warrantless Garbage Search Unconstitutional.  King County Judge Beth Andrus ruled Seattle's warrantless searches of garbage violates Washington State's constitution, banning Seattle sanitation workers from looking for possible violations of the city's composting law in residents' trash.  The April 27, 2016, ruling in Bonesteel, et al. v. City of Seattle shows states are able to grant rights beyond those guaranteed in the U.S. constitution.  According to the Washington State Constitution, "No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law."

Why Does the IRS Need Guns?  Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles?  Health and Human Services "Special Office of Inspector General Agents" being trained by the Army's Special Forces contractors?  The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees?  The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000).  In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history.

Report: IRS Spent $11 Million On Guns, Ammo In The Past 10 Years.  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seems to be building an army.  The IRS spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition and "military-style equipment" between 2006 and 2014, according to a new report.  IRS investment in heavy firearms and tactical gear is a new trend for the agency, but it follows a pattern of militarization repeated throughout the executive branch of the government.

6 Things To Know About Tying Gun Sales To A Watch List.  [#6] It is no vice to want to respond forcefully to terrorist attacks.  But in this case the response looks exactly like the Democrats' last call for gun control.  In the months since they last pushed this legislation, the Democrats have not granted even for a second that the due process concerns that defeated it last time are reasonable.  This strongly suggests that the Democrats do not have the due process rights of Americans in mind in this legislation.  One can reasonably wonder why the Democrats' response to terrorism seems to set its sights on something other than terrorism.

NYTimes Editorial:  Congress Should Secretly Suspend Second Amendment Rights.  A New York Times editorial advocates for a new law allowing a secret court to take away citizens' right to own a gun at the discretion of the federal government.  Citing the Orlando terror attack that left 50 dead including the shooter and 53 wounded at a gay nightclub, the piece advocates for a "no-buy" list similar to "no-fly" lists.  Under the law, suspected terrorists would not be able to buy a gun.  In an attempt to ensure the integrity of the lists and preserve due process, the author proposes people only be added to this no-buy list after a secret court rules they are ineligible, similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court hearings where the federal government obtains permission to wiretap.  Under this proposal, an American who has never been convicted of a crime could be denied their right to buy a gun simply because a secret court decided it should be that way.

The Editor says...
If the Bill of Rights is secretly suspended, you could be secretly arrested, tried and imprisoned. That's the kind of country the New York Times wants us to live in.

He Flew a Drone to Take Photos for a Friend.  Now Faces $55K in Government Fines.  Mical Caterina is addicted. [...] But what Caterina has considered a hobby — and an "addictive" one at that — has landed him in trouble with the Federal Aviation Administration, which has levied $55,000 in fines against him for violating five aviation regulations, all of which he disputes.  Caterina's monthslong battle with the government underscores the frustrations drone hobbyists and commercial users have with the FAA as the agency has slowly debated how to keep the rapidly growing drone population under control.

Obama DEA Wants Access to Prescription Drug Records Without a Warrant.  Of course they do.  And with the advent of ObamaCare, it's natural the federal government aparatchiks feel they have every right to snoop into our medical records because, well, they're our boss now.

DEA Wants Inside Your Medical Records to Fight the War on Drugs.  Marlon Jones was arrested for taking legal painkillers, prescribed to him by a doctor, after a double knee replacement. [...] "There were three police officers pounding on the door.  They said they had a warrant for my arrest and they were going to take me in," he said.  "It was the middle of the day, on my front doorstep, in front of my wife and daughter.  I'm handcuffed and stuffed into a police car and they haul me to jail."  Jones was hit with 14 felony counts but all of them were later dropped.  Now the Drug Enforcement Administration wants that same kind of power, starting with access to an Oregon database containing the private medical data of more than a million people.

Crafty plan to give FBI warrantless access to browser histories axed.  A sly attempt to grant the FBI warrantless access to people's browser histories in the US has been shot down by politicians.  Unfortunately, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) Amendments Act of 2015, which would have brought in some privacy safeguards for Americans, was cut down in the crossfire.  The ECPA Amendments Act is very simple:  it amends the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which gives cops and agents warrantless access to any email that has been read or is more than 180 days old.  That 30-year-old act made sense back in the day of 20MB hard drives and when we stored own emails on our own computers:  if we deleted something to save space or to simply destroy it, it was gone.  But in today's cloudy world, where we have no real control over our information, it has proven a privacy nightmare.

Judge Nap Slams Congress Over Web Browsing Access That Promotes 'a Police State'.  The FBI may soon enjoy the authority to access the internet activity of any citizen without a warrant — a continuation of what Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano described as a decades-old "assault" on the Fourth Amendment.  Lawmakers are considering proposed legislation this week that would grant the FBI that uninhibited access.  Critics, including Google and Facebook, have argued such changes would be a violation of Americans' privacy.  But, in Napolitano's view, elected officials will argue under the "facade" that it is necessary for the population's safety.  [Video clip]

FBI wants access to Internet browser history without a warrant in terrorism and spy cases.  The Obama administration is seeking to amend surveillance law to give the FBI explicit authority to access a person's Internet browser history and other electronic data without a warrant in terrorism and spy cases.  The administration made a similar effort six years ago but dropped it after concerns were raised by privacy advocates and the tech industry.  FBI Director James B. Comey has characterized the legislation as a fix to "a typo" in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which he says has led some tech firms to refuse to provide data that Congress intended them to provide.

The Editor says...
If they get this passed, you can be sure that the warrantless access won't stop with terrorism cases.

School sends sheriff to order child to stop sharing Bible verses.  A public school in California ordered a 7-year-old boy to stop handing out Bible verses during lunch — and they dispatched a deputy sheriff to the child's home to enforce the directive.  "This is a clear, gross violation of the rights of a child," said Horatio Mihet, a Liberty Counsel attorney representing the first-grader who attends Desert Rose Elementary School in Palmdale.  They are also representing his parents, Christina and Jaime Zavala.

Obama Regulators Lose Case to Apply Future Laws to the Past.  In a little-watched case in the Midwest, the Obama administration's Medicare regulators were dealt an embarrassing blow this week by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Judges ruled that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) improperly pursued an $800,000 fraud fine against "homebound" therapy provider Caring Hearts, which services Medicare patients, by applying new regulations after-the-fact.  The court wrote that CMS was "unfamiliar with its own regulations" and is "struggling to keep up with the furious pace of its own rule making."

Thanks to EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, American farmers are a newly endangered species.  It is getting harder and harder, and in legal terms more dangerous, to be an American farmer these days, thanks to the aggressive behavior of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  I know, because I'm paid as a consultant to advise farmers in California on how best to comply with federal regulations under the Clean Water Act (CWA).  Increasingly, those regulations are changing at the arbitrary say-so of the Corps regulators who implement the EPA's regulations on the ground, even though most practices followed by American farmers have been exempted from CWA prohibitions since it was written in 1977.  In the past few years, those regulators — many of whom admit that they know very little about farming or agricultural practices — are radically reinterpreting the rules to limit what farmers do, even on land where they have done similar things for decades.

This Is Not The America My Parents Immigrated To In 1957.  This country is ruled by force, not law.  Governmental assassinations of US citizens.  A highly militarized police with almost unlimited powers to harass, intimidate, and brutalize with impunity.  TSA groping whereby in any other setting would be considered sexual harassment.  Overseas detention, torture and assassinations carried out against anyone, including American citizens, without due process — and without recourse if later cleared.  Warrantless GPS tracking by the FBI. The IRS targeting religious groups.  Some people now actually be charged with pre-crimes.  Checkpoints up to one hundred miles inland from all our borders (including the two oceans and Gulf of Mexico) in an area stunningly known as a "Constitution Free Zone".  No Ride / No Fly lists which are extrajudicial, secret, and form a guilty-until-proven innocent framework that subverts freedom instead of protecting it.  A See Something/Say Something program which goes beyond the already high-tech surveillance apparatus of the NSA and turns each of us into an unpaid employee of the police state similar to what the East German Stasi did to their citizens.  Web cameras and surveillance proliferating like a wildfire, data mining, recording all your phone conversations, all your web searches, all your emails, and all without your consent.  An FDA, which has near-total food control and usually renders anything healthy as toxic, and all that is toxic as healthy, and does insane [things] like jailing folks who buy raw milk.  Literally tens of thousands of regulations which literally invade every facet of society, whereby it has been said that almost all of us commit three felonies per day, and every violation of these laws will be met with the full force and fury of the State which promises fines, penalties, forfeiture of properties, or imprisonment.  Does any of this even remotely resemble a representative democracy, or does it sound more like a dictatorship?

Louisiana Passes 'Blue Lives Matter' Law To Make Attacking Cops A Hate Crime.  Louisiana enacted a new law Thursday [5/26/2016] to make it a hate crime to attack police officers.  Democratic Gov.  John Bel Edwards signed the "Blue Lives Matter" bill Thursday afternoon, adding police to the list of protected categories under hate crime law such as race and religion.  Louisiana law adds an additional five years in prison and $5,000 in fines for an offense against one of the listed groups, which now includes cops, firefighters, and EMS personnel.  "The overarching message is that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Louisiana," Edwards said.

Louisiana Makes it a "Hate Crime" to Target Police Officers!  State Rep. Lance Harris introduced the bill after Darren Goforth, a Texas sheriff's deputy who was in uniform, was killed in 2015, while getting gas for his patrol vehicle.  "It looked like it was strictly done because someone didn't like police officers, like a hate crime," Harris told CNN.  "In the news, you see a lot of people terrorizing and threatening police officers on social media just due to the fact that they are policemen," he added.  "Now, this protects police and first responders under the hate-crime law."  A similar bill was introduced at the federal level in March.

Blue Lives Matter bill makes targeting police a hate crime in Louisiana.  Thursday [5/26/2016] the Democratic Governor of Lousiana, John Bel Edwards, signed a bill making it a hate crime to target police officers or other first responders.  The bill is known as blue lives matter, a take off on the Black Lives Matter movement that has been critical of police in the past year.

Louisiana governor signs 'Blue Lives Matter' bill.  Louisiana's governor signed a first-of-its-kind bill Thursday afternoon [5/26/2016] that makes it a hate crime to target police officers and first responders.  Called the "Blue Lives Matter" bill, the measure expands the state's hate crime law to include law enforcement officers, firefighters and other emergency medical services personnel.  "The overarching message is that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Louisiana," Democratic Gov.  John Bel Edwards told FoxNews.com in a written statement.  He added that he has "great respect" for the work that law enforcement officers do and the daily risks they take.

The Editor says...
Criminal justice is supposed to be administered without regard to the class or status of the parties involved.  For example, one does not (ostensibly) receive a lighter sentence for a violent crime if one is caucasian.  Hate crimes introduce variable punishment based on the perpetrator's thoughts.  That idea is bad enough, but this proposed new law features increased punishment based on the status of the victim, regardless of the perpetrators thoughts or intentions.  It puts cops, firemen and paramedics into a new category of better-than-first-class citizens.  Once we get accustomed to it, the law will probably be modified to include all government workers.  This proposed law is nothing more or less than a means of putting more people in prison with longer sentences.

Louisiana governor signs 'Blue Lives Matter' bill.  Louisiana's governor signed a first-of-its-kind bill Thursday afternoon that makes it a hate crime to target police officers and first responders.  Called the "Blue Lives Matter" bill, the measure expands the state's hate crime law to include law enforcement officers, firefighters and other emergency medical services personnel.  "The overarching message is that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Louisiana," Democratic Gov.  John Bel Edwards told FoxNews.com in a written statement.  He added that he has "great respect" for the work that law enforcement officers do and the daily risks they take.

The Editor says...
Hate crime laws will always exhibit "mission creep" — incrementally expanding in one direction only, to include various new features that would never have been approved at the outset.

The FBI Wants To Keep The National Biometric Database A Secret.  In early May the U.S. Department of Justice released a proposal which would exempt the FBI's biometric database from public disclosure. [...] Although the database does contain biometric data on convicted criminals, it also contains information on individuals who were only suspected or temporarily detained under the suspicion of a crime.  The system also features data from people fingerprinted for jobs, licenses, military or volunteer service, background checks, security clearances, and other government processes.  Essentially the FBI is arguing that it will prevent individuals from knowing if their information is in the massive database if the release of information would "compromise" a law enforcement investigation.

Hawaii could be first to put gun owners in federal database.  Hawaii could become the first state in the United States to enter gun owners into an FBI database that will automatically notify police if an island resident is arrested anywhere else in the country.

'Do No Harm Act' Would Forbid Religious Objection to 'Any Healthcare' Service.  Reps.  Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) introduced the Do No Harm Act Wednesday, which would amend the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to specify that religious exceptions should not apply to "protections against discrimination or the promotion of equal opportunity" and "access to, information about, referrals for, provision of, or coverage for, any health care item or service."  The legislation is intended to "clarify that no one can seek religious exemption from laws guaranteeing fundamental civil and legal rights."

NYC Mayor de Blasio to fine businesses that fail to use correct gender pronouns.  Greeting customers as "Mr." or "Mrs." could be costly for New York City businesses under Mayor Bill de Blasio.  The Gotham mayor's Commission on Human Rights says businesses that fail to address customers by their preferred gender pronouns are in violation of the law and could be subject to penalties.  The Commission issued a "legal enforcement guidance" for the New York City Human Rights Law, which apparently "requires employers and converted entities to use an individual's preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.) regardless of the individual's sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual's identification."

Resisting Obama's Transgender Directive:  A Hill to Die On.  [Scroll down]  Specifically, the administration's directive last week requires every public school in the nation to provide transgender students access to all activities and facilities consistent with their gender identity, at the risk of losing federal funds.  The Framers are rolling over in their graves, not just because of this inversion of moral standards but also because of the lawless manner in which this is being forced down the throats of the states, the American people and the public schools.  President Obama knows he doesn't have the legal authority to issue such an order, but he is determined to create as much chaos as he can and to unilaterally impose his iron will to the fullest extent before his term expires.  No one will convince me that this has anything to do with the rights of transgender people.  Rather, Obama and his fellow leftist tyrants are seeing how far they can push the envelope — how much they can fundamentally transform America against the people's will and against the protections guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions.

Indiana High Court Rules People Cannot Resist Illegal Entry by Police Into Homes.  People have no right to resist if police officers illegally enter their home, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in a decision that overturns centuries of common law.

Dems on FEC shift from regulating Drudge to conservative cellphone texts.  The Democrats on the Federal Election Commission, following efforts to muzzle conservative news sites and even an anti-Obama movie maker, voted in secret to regulate conservative text messages despite a staff recommendation that the agency drop the case.  The three Democrats, in dismissing the advice from the FEC's own legal staff, voted to punish a Virginia firm that issued anti-Obama texts days before the 2012 presidential election, a move that would have set a sweeping precedent in advance of the upcoming election.

Obama's Lawsuit Against North Carolina Isn't About Civil Rights.  It's About Crushing Dissent.  Some of us care little about the debate over public bathrooms.  We do, however, care about the ongoing destruction of federalism, individual choice, and good-faith debate.  One reliable way to quash dissent and force moral codes on others is to liken your cause to that of the civil rights fight.  Every liberal issue is situated somewhere on the great historical arc of "equality" and "justice."  If a person stands against even one of these causes — which were once great but are increasingly trivial — they have, according to the cultural imperialists of the Obama administration, aligned themselves with the Klan.  Literally.

DOJ's Lawsuit Against North Carolina Is Abuse of Power.  North Carolina has sustained unrelenting and coordinated attacks from big business, the entertainment industry, the American Civil Liberties Union, and now the federal government over its commonsense bathroom policies.  Gov.  Pat McCrory and the North Carolina Legislature have had enough of this bullying and filed separate lawsuits against the Department of Justice Monday in the reasonable expectation that a federal judge will order the ideologues at the Department of Justice to back off.

Wyoming welder, facing $16M in fines, beats EPA in battle over stock pond.  A Wyoming man threatened with $16 million in fines over the building of a stock pond reached a settlement with the Environment Protection Agency, allowing him to keep the pond without a federal permit or hefty fine.  Andy Johnson, of Fort Bridger, Wyoming obtained a state permit before building the stock pond in 2012 on his sprawling nine-acre farm for a small herd of livestock.  Not long after contruction [sic], the EPA threatened Johnson with civil and criminal penalties — including the threat of a $37,500-a-day fine — claiming he needed the agency's permission before building the 40-by-300 foot pond, which is filled by a natural stream.

The Editor says...
This sounds like an Eighth Amendment issue:  Does the act of building a stock pond justify fines of $37,500 per day?  Does the pond do that much damage?  For that matter, can anyone beyond Mr. Johnson's fence tell if he has stock pond or not?

Judge tosses Seattle ordinance requiring garbage-can searches for food waste.  A state judge threw out a portion of a Seattle ordinance requiring garbage collectors to snoop through residents' trash in search of food waste, calling the provision unconstitutional.  King County Superior Court Judge Beth M. Andrus issued an injunction against the garbage inspections but not Seattle's residential food-waste ban, which forbids throwing away food scraps and compostable paper.  "This ruling does not prohibit the city from banning food waste and compostable paper in SPU-provided garbage cans," the 14-page decision said, referring to the Seattle Public Utilities.  "It merely renders invalid the provisions of the ordinance and rule that authorize a warrantless search of residents' garbage cans when there is no applicable exception to the warrant requirement, such as the existence of prohibited items in plain view."

Fired for preaching:  Georgia dumps doctor over church sermons.  Bi-vocational pastors be warned — what you say from the pulpit on Sunday could get you fired from your public sector job on Monday [4/18/2016].  Dr.  Eric Walsh, a renowned public health expert who also serves as a lay minister, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Public Health alleging he was terminated for delivering sermons on issues ranging from homosexuality to evolution.  "No one in this country should be fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from a pulpit during a sermon," said First Liberty attorney Jeremy Dys.

Licensing Arizona.  [Scroll down]  For decades, states have been putting ever more jobs off-limits to anyone who doesn't have special government permission.  In the years right after World War II, "less than 5 percent of U.S. workers were required to have a license from a state government in order to perform their jobs legally," according to Morris Kleiner, professor of public affairs at the University of Minnesota.  Now it's estimated at nearly 30 percent.  Every now and then, and with great effort, a state will remove the license requirement for a job:  Kentucky, for instance, just eliminated a requirement that hair-braiders be licensed by the Kentucky Board of Hairdressers and Cosmetologists.  But the longstanding trend runs the opposite direction.  Though licenses put up hurdles, if not roadblocks, to people looking for work, states keep adding new occupations to the lists.

Michigan Family Arrested for Overdue Library Book.  After receiving four notices from the library asking them to return the books and pay the resulting late fees, the Duren family did indeed return The Rome Prophecy.  However, they did not return A Hatful of Seuss, as their son had lost it.  Because the Durens did not return the Dr.  Seuss book, the library contacted the Economic Crimes Unit (ECU) of the Lenawee County Prosecutor's Office.  A detective by the name of Robert Kellogg became involved, demanding the family pay the library late fees; the amount owed has not been disclosed.  However, local reporting by The Tecumseh Herald found that between 2013 and 2014, library patrons had a total of 248 overdue items, and those overdue items generated $3,061 in late fees.  That equals, on average, around $12 in fees per item.  The actual amount the Durens owed to the library remains unknown, but the Dr.  Seuss book can be acquired on Amazon for as little as 63 cents.

Michigan couple faces jail time over lost Dr.  Seuss library book.  A Michigan judge told a couple Thursday [4/14/2016] they could get up to 93 days in jail and face a maximum $500 fine for failing to return a Dr.  Seuss book and a novel borrowed from a public library.  Cathy and Melvin Duren, of Tecumseh, appeared in Lenawee County court to each face a misdemeanor charge of failure to return rental property.  The pair owes about $35 in late fees for "The Rome Prophecy," borrowed in April 2015.  They lost a Dr.  Seuss book their son borrowed for their granddaughter in July 2014.  "I can't image [sic] going to jail over it, but I certainly will fight these charges because I'm not guilty," Cathy Duren said.

Microsoft Sues U.S. Over Orders Barring It From Revealing Surveillance.  The software giant is suing the Justice Department, challenging its frequent use of secrecy orders that prevent Microsoft from telling people when the government obtains a warrant to read their emails.  In its suit, filed Thursday morning [4/14/2016] in Federal District Court in Seattle, Microsoft's home turf, the company asserts that the gag order statute in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 — as employed today by federal prosecutors and the courts — is unconstitutional.  The statute, according to Microsoft, violates the Fourth Amendment right of its customers to know if the government searches or seizes their property, and it breaches the company's First Amendment right to speak to its customers.

Lawyers in GWB scandal case argue creating a traffic jam is not a crime.  Lawyers for two former associates of Gov.  Christie accused of engineering massive traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge to exact political revenge have hit back at government prosecutors, insisting that their clients violated no laws.

Obama just gave cops the OK to simply take your stuff.  When Attorney General Loretta Lynch decided late last year that the Justice Department would end the federal civil-asset forfeiture program, criminal-justice reform advocates proclaimed it a "significant deal.  But late last month, less than four months later, the Obama administration reversed itself and reinstated the Asset Forfeiture Fund's Orwellian "equitable sharing" program.  That's a shame, particularly when the only supporters of the policy are the law-enforcement agencies that directly benefit from it.  Indeed, the federal program's combined annual revenue has grown more than 1,000 percent in the last 15 years, filling the coffers of federal, state and local police departments.

Parents to face charges if they approach school to pick up child under new policy.  Texas parents have had enough of an elementary school's new pick up policy that reportedly could have them face trespassing charges if they try to get their child after the school day is over.  Bear Branch Elementary in Magnolia implemented the policy at the beginning of the school year.  Under the new rules, if a student does not take the bus, parents must wait in the mile-long car pick up line to get their child, according to Fox 26 Houston.  Now, some parents have pulled their kids from the school.  "She's threatening to arrest people," Wendy Jarman said about Principal Holly Ray to the Fox station.

School's new policy bans parents from walking children to school.  Pick your child up from school and you could be charged with trespassing.  That's the threat against parents at Bear Branch Elementary School in Magnolia ISD.  This is the school's tactic to keep parents who live close to the school from walking on school grounds.  Bear Branch is losing students over this pick up policy, that's been in place since the beginning of this school year.  The principal has decided that no matter how close the student lives to the school, the student must either take the bus, or the parent must wait in a long car pickup line.  Try to walk your student off the campus and you could face criminal charges.

The Editor says...
No matter how close you live, you can't walk to that school.  Is the school not on public property?  Can pedestrians with no connection to the school walk by?  Why are the schools centrally located in neighborhoods if the kids can't go there on foot?  And aren't these the same nanny-state bureaucrats who preach about childhood obesity?  Maybe walking to school would be good for them.

Texas School Threatens to Punish Parents Who Walk Children Home.  In September, Houston's KPRC 2 News (NBC) reported the new rule prohibited parents from walking to the Magnolia Independent School District campus to retrieve their own children.  Parents cannot drive to the school, park their cars at the school, or go inside to get their children early.  Their options are to send their children home by school bus or drive to the school and wait for their children in a very long pickup car line assembling for the 3:25 p.m. dismissal.

Magnolia ISD threatens to arrest parents for walking kids home from school.  It's a bad time to be a kid at Bear Branch Elementary.  The new principal this year, Holly Ray, may look as sweet as sunshine, but parents says she's got some wicked ways!  For one, she won't let parents walk up to the Magnolia elementary school to get their kids after school.  They have to be in a car.  And she's serious!

The Editor asks...
What if you don't own a car, or your car is in the repair shop?

Texas School Bans Parents From Walking Children Onto and From School Property.  One Texas elementary school is coming under fire after the principal banned parents from walking their children to and from school, and who is threatening parents with arrest.  The trouble began in September when the principal at Bear Branch Elementary School in Magnolia, Texas, decided to implement a policy that not just discourages but prohibits parents from walking their children home from school or walking inside the school to retrieve their children after parents had parked their cars, according to KPRC-TV.

Texas Principal Wants to Arrest Parents Who Let Kids Walk to School.  'They have been threatened, if they step one foot on school property, they will be arrested and charged with who knows what.'

5 Indicators The Left [Doesn't Care] About Freedom.  [#4] Pursuing Legislation To Crack Down On Religious People.  The left wants to mandate that religious people be slapped with a legal duty to serve people whom they feel are engaging in sin.  And they claim that anyone who fights for their right to practice their religion in their daily life is a bad guy.

The Government Wants to Regulate Your Portable Air Conditioner.  The Department of Energy (DOE) recently determined that portable air conditioners meet the criteria set under the Energy Policy Conservation Act (as amended) for efficiency mandates.  Like all other efficiency regulations, mandated appliance standards remove choices from individuals and empower Washington to override personal preferences.  DOE concluded that the average household use of electricity for portable air conditioners exceeds the limit to trigger consideration for regulation.  The energy use threshold for DOE bureaucrats to begin inspecting and testing an appliance is low.

Chase Bank Decides ATM Withdrawals Over $1000 Are Shady.  Not kidding.  Regular Americans must be stopped from taking out $1001 at a cash machine because it's probably shady, but Iran getting $150B is just fine.  The new ATM rule, f[o]r the moment, applies to non-Chase account holders.  Give it a little while and I bet it'll apply to Chase accounts sooner than later.

If You Don't Rent to Criminals, Are You a Racist?  You're a private landlord, renting apartments in a building you bought with your savings from years of hard work and modest living.  You take pride in maintaining your property, keeping it clean, comfortable, and attractive.  You charge a fair rent and treat your tenants with courtesy and respect.  Your tenants, in turn, appreciate the care you put into the building.  And they trust you to screen prospective tenants wisely, accepting only residents who won't jeopardize the building's safe and neighborly character.  That's why you only consider applications from individuals who are employed or in school, whose credit scores are strong, and who have no criminal record.  Most Americans would look at you and likely see a prudent, levelheaded property owner.  Not the Obama administration.

Say goodbye to freedom of association.
Obama Admin Tells Landlords They Can't Refuse To House Criminals.  The Obama administration released a warning Monday [4/4/2016] telling the nation's landlords that it may be discriminatory for them to refuse to rent to those with criminal records.  The Fair Housing Act doesn't include criminals as a protected class, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says refusing to rent based on a criminal record is a form of racial discrimination, due to racial imbalances in the U.S.  justice system.

Obama: Not Renting to Criminals is Racist.  Disparate Impact has been the crazed monster living chained up in the civil rights basement.  No administration dared to completely unleash it because of the madness it would entail.  But Obama is releasing the beast.  Recently, Obama's Lynch declared that fines were racist because they had a larger impact on minorities.  Now we move on to renting to criminals.

The Green Witch Hunt.  Led by agenda-setting New York State and radical left-winger Al Gore the progressive persecution of climate change skeptics by the states is underway.  Top law enforcement officers in several states are joining with the Chicken Littles of green activism to weaponize the scientifically dubious argument that human activity is not only changing the earth's climate but that unprecedented world catastrophe awaits unless draconian, economy-killing carbon emission controls are imposed more or less immediately.  The litigation offensive has nothing to do with justice.  It is aimed at forcing those few remaining holdouts in the business community who stubbornly cling to science to confess their thought crimes and submit to the know-nothing Left's climate superstitions.  It is part of modern-day environmentalism's ongoing assault on knowledge, human progress, markets, and the rule of law.

Killing Knowledge in K-12.  John Dewey and his socialist brotherhood, a hundred years ago, decided they would use the public schools to transform the entire society.  They first had to seize control of what is taught in K-12 classrooms.  Dewey and his successors settled on two major strategies for controlling what educators call "content."  First, they discarded as much of the traditional curriculum as possible — i.e., knowledge was thrown out the window by the boxload.  Secondly, they invented many techniques for scrambling classroom instruction so that knowledge was no longer taught efficiently.  So we have here, across a wide front, a well organized war against knowledge and the transmission of knowledge.  Dumbed down schools were created intentionally in order to create dumbed down students.  That, my research suggests, is the horrible reality.[...] Where does all this go?  The American people are increasingly like a big blob of jelly.  They can't think critically because they don't know much.  If leaders lie to them, who is going to realize this?  If the media tell them only half of what's going on, how could they know the difference?

Elizabeth Warren Wants The SEC To Help Her Ban Free Speech.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to prohibit organizations from "saying whatever they want about Washington policy debates," according to a letter she sent to the agency on Thursday [3/31/2016].  Warren sent a letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White calling for an investigation into alleged discrepancies between statements insurance executives made to their investors and complaints these same individuals made about the impact new government regulations would have on their businesses, The Wall Street Journal reports.  The new regulations stem from a Department of Labor rule change that will make it tougher for investment firms that handle retirement funds to operate.

It may soon be a crime to walk and text in New Jersey.  The US state of New Jersey may keep the inattentive amongst us from walking into brick walls or plunging into manholes, [...] even if it has to throw us in jail or fine us to get the point across.  The Associated Press reports that it's going to do this — in theory, at least — by banning walking while texting.  A new measure recently introduced by New Jersey Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt would ban distracted walking, forbidding pedestrians on public roads from using electronic communication devices unless those devices are hands-free.

The Editor says...
Who will enforce this?  The local cops, of course, who frequently talk on their radios while walking — and occasionally while running as fast as they can.  Hands-free devices free up the hands, but not necessarily the brain.  This is sort of law opens the door to numerous other restrictions on what we may or may not do while walking, or while talking on the phone.  Please don't protect me from myself.

EPA Fines Wyoming Man $16 Million for Building a Pond on His Property.  Farmers and ranchers call the EPA's new water rule the biggest land grab in the history of the world.  It is a massive land grab, especially in a country that has been built on the right to own property.  The administration is changing all that.  A new oppressive water rule gives the EPA jurisdiction over all public and private streams in the United States that are "intermittent, seasonal and rain-dependent."  It will regulate what are normal daily ranching and farming practices and take control of their land.  According to congressional budget testimony, waters of the United States would give the EPA authority over streams on private property even when the water beds have been dry, in some cases, for hundreds of years.

EPA Spends $295,507 to Track Energy and Water Use of Office Workers.  The Environmental Protection Agency is spending nearly $300,000 to develop technology that will track the energy and water use of office buildings, with a colored light bulb system that will send "visual messages" to employees when they are using too much.  Lucid Design Group, a California-based software company, received the funding from the agency with the goal to "change the habits" of Americans at work.  "Through this project, Lucid is focused on reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings by influencing people's behavior," the EPA said in a press release announcing the project.  "With this award, it will further develop, test and commercialize low-cost high-tech approaches that can reduce electricity use in commercial buildings by providing real-time feedback to office workers."

The Age of Mafia Government.  When black-helmeted men circle your home, break down your door, throw your children from their sleeping beds onto the dew-ridden lawn, and shoot you 22 times because some meathead mistook your house for a drug dealer's, it's clear government has gone from protecting you from threats to becoming a threat itself.  More directly, however, thanks to "The Godfather" and "The Sopranos," everyone knows that the mafia's presence means frequent, mysterious deaths.  That's also a hallmark of this administration.  Fast and Furious and the Benghazi massacre are the two most obvious examples.  It's been years, in both cases, and it's still an utter mystery as to why Americans died in foreign lands, where all those guns went, who used what money, where it all came from, and why.  That may have something to do with the Justice Department's utter lack of curiosity about massive crimes being committed on its watch, but remember:  where there are mafia, there are corrupt police, district attorneys, and courts.  The mystery isn't who did it, but proving it.  Part of the reason it's impossible to find evidence to prove what everyone knows is that no one will talk.

Protesting Donald Trump is Now a Federal Crime.  The Orwellian-named "free speech zones" Protected by the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act on college campus and political rallies are nothing new to regular readers of Reason, and suppressing political dissent with the brute force of government has been a feature of the American system since shortly after 9/11/01, when the Secret Service and local law enforcement entities began confining demonstrators to "protest zones."  What might be a surprise is the fact that quietly and right under our noses in 2012, Congress nearly unanimously passed H.R. 347 (a.k.a. the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act) which makes it a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison to "willfully and knowingly" enter a restricted area or to engage in "disorderly or disruptive conduct" that in any way impedes "government business or official functions." [...] Dahlia Lithwick and Raymond Vasvari wrote in Slate that "the law makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest.  Period."  They also assert the words "disorderly" or "disruptive" could be defined down to mean almost anything with regards to "impeding government business."

Charleston's storied history is off-limits to the unlicensed.  [Scroll down]  And of course there's more antebellum mansions than you can shake a stick at.  And if I were telling you all of this while standing on a street in Charleston, there's at least a small chance I'd be arrested for doing it.  That's because anyone who wants to talk about Charleston's history must first obtain a license from the city.  Getting that license means passing a 200-question written exam — a passing grade is 80 percent or higher — and then passing an oral exam conducted by taxpayer-funded city officials.  To pass both exams, would-be tour guides have to memorize pretty much the entire history of Charleston.

Minnesota men facing felony charges for selling beer.  Two men in Maple Grove, Minnesota, were arrested this week and slapped with felony charges of transporting alcohol for resale without a license.  They were nabbed as part of what the Star-Tribune called an "unusual bust" involving undercover state investigators.  Unusual, yes.  Anachronistic too.  The illegal beer was a keg of Spotted Cow, a popular brew made in Wisconsin by the New Glarus Brewing Company.

Wisconsin Farmers Fight Tough Bakery Regulations.  Three Wisconsin farmers are fighting the state government over an obscure safety regulation requiring baked goods made for sale to be cooked in a government-approved "food processing plant" or other commercial-grade kitchen, subject to annual government inspections and licensing fees.  Represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public-interest law firm, the farmers filed a lawsuit in the Lafayette County Circuit Court, in January, asking the court to overturn the state law.  Currently, violations of the "cookie ban" are punishable by six months of jail or fines of up to $1,000.

How Fiduciary Rule May Censor Financial Broadcasters Like Dave Ramsey.  Popular financial radio show host Dave Ramsey caused a firestorm on Twitter last week when he weighed in against the "fiduciary rule" — the controversial pending Department of Labor regulation that would impose new restrictions on a vast swath of financial professionals who handle IRAs and 401(k) accounts.  Yet, Ramsey was only echoing concerns about the costs of the rule already expressed by Members of Congress from both parties.  Ramsey Tweeted, "this Obama rule will kill the Middle Class and below ability to access personal advice."

Donald Trump Is The Next Barack Obama.  Today, nearly all the rules under which we live are made, executed, and adjudicated by agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and countless boards and commissions.  Congress no longer passes real laws.  Instead, it passes broad grants of authority, the substance of the president's bureaucracy decides in cooperation with interest groups.

Trump wants to weaken libel laws amid feuds with reporters.  Feeling maligned by the media, Donald Trump is threatening to weaken First Amendment protections for reporters if he were president and make it easier for him to sue them.

Trump Wants to 'Open Up' Libel Laws to Easily Sue Media.  A freshman senator whose endorsements included Sarah Palin is going after Donald Trump for talking about changing libel laws so he can more easily sue news organizations.  At a rally today in Fort Worth, Texas, Trump railed against major newspapers and said if he wins the presidency he'll "open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money."

Donald Trump: We're going to 'open up' libel laws.  Donald Trump said on Friday [2/26/2016] he plans to change libel laws in the United States so that he can have an easier time suing news organizations.  During a rally in Fort Worth, Texas, Trump began his usual tirade against newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, saying they're "losing money" and are "dishonest."  The Republican presidential candidate then took a different turn, suggesting that when he's president they'll "have problems."

A scheme to say how land is used.  It sounds like a bad dream — a really bad dream — but in a matter of days or at most weeks the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could become our national zoning board.  Some say that, with the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, the chances just became much bigger.  The reason is that the Supreme Court is about to decide whether to give the environmental agency the authority to make land use decisions throughout the nation.  The court will not even have to hear arguments in American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA to do this.  It will only have to decide not to hear the appeal of a Third Circuit decision.

Turning back the leviathan of the administrative state.  There are two stacks of papers in Utah Senator Mike Lee's office that should cause all Americans to pause.  One stack is 400 pages; the other is over 80,000 pages.  The short stack is all of the laws Congress passed in 2014.  The 11-foot tall tower is all federal regulations.  Senator Lee and other members of Congress see this disparity as indicative of not just a growing government, but an erosion of the separation of powers.  They are correct.  When James Madison authored Federalist 47, he gave voice to a sentiment shared widely by the Founders:  consolidating executive, legislative, and judicial power into one entity is "the very definition of tyranny."  To preserve self-government, the Constitution separated those powers into three branches.  As new laws may restrict liberty, separated power ensures that one faction of society cannot run roughshod over another.  Debate, compromise and consensus should ensure that any new regulations are enacted with wide public agreement.

Drone owners are warned that their aircraft will be SHOT DOWN if they fly within 32 miles of the Super Bowl.  Drone owners have been warned to leave their aircraft at home during the Super Bowl.  The FAA has released a statement insisting any unmanned planes flying within 32 miles of Levis Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Sunday [2/7/2016] will be shot down.  The government agency produced a 20-second video that tells people to bring their lucky jerseys, face paint and team spirit to the game — but leave the gadgets as it is a 'No Drone Zone'.

The Editor says...
I suppose they've got to draw the line somewhere, but... 36 miles?  Why not 136 miles?  Most battery-powered drones are barely able to lift a TV camera.  How much damage could such a device possibly do?  If the cops shoot down a drone someplace just inside the 36-mile radius, isn't that (falling debris) a threat to public safety?  Does that not deprive the drone's owner of his property without due process?

The FAA says it will shoot down your drone if you fly within 36 miles of the Super Bowl.  The Federal Aviation Administration is taking a tough stance on drones at the Super Bowl this year:  bring them, and we'll shoot them down.  The "no-drone-zone" spans much further than just the stadium itself too, extending out 36 miles from Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.  The no-fly zone encompasses nearly all of San Francisco to the north and west, Santa Cruz, Morgan Hill and Gilroy to the south, and San Jose and Pleasanton to the north and east.

The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat 'score'.  As a national debate has played out over mass surveillance by the National Security Agency, a new generation of technology such as the Beware software being used in Fresno has given local law enforcement officers unprecedented power to peer into the lives of citizens.  Police officials say such tools can provide critical information that can help uncover terrorists or thwart mass shootings, ensure the safety of officers and the public, find suspects, and crack open cases. [...] But the powerful systems also have become flash points for civil libertarians and activists, who say they represent a troubling intrusion on privacy, have been deployed with little public oversight and have potential for abuse or error.

EPA, FDA stocking up on body armor during President Obama's watch.  As the U.S. engages in a national debate over the militarization of the police, federal data shows that government agencies charged with largely administrative roles are spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase SWAT and military-style equipment.  Since FY 2006, 44 traditionally administrative agencies have spent over $71 million on items like body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition, according to federal spending data from watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.

The Editor says...
What is a cannon launcher?

House Democrats Move to Criminalize Criticism of Islam.  December 17, 2015 ought henceforth to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment.  Sponsored by among others, Muslim Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, as well as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Loretta Sanchez, Charles Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Kennedy, Al Green, Judy Chu, Debbie Dingell, Niki Tsongas, John Conyers, José Serrano, Hank Johnson, and many others, House Resolution 569 condemns "violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States."  The Resolution has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Muslim Student Association demands all 'Islamophobic speech' be punished.  The Muslim Student Association at San Diego State University is demanding that administrators combat Islamophobia by developing a "zero tolerance policy explicitly for Islamophobic speech and actions."  The demands, modeled after similar ones issued by black student associations at campuses across the nation, were lodged after a female Muslim student was allegedly attacked by a white man in a campus parking lot on the afternoon of Nov. 19, about a week after the Paris terrorist attacks, which killed 130 people. [...] Several comments on the article expressed incredulity over the attack, questioning whether it is a hate-crime hoax.

Democrats Pass Resolution Condemning Anyone Who Speaks Against Islam.  Stephen Coughlin alerted me to a House Resolution introduced on December 17th, H.Res. 569, "Condemning violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.114th Congress (2015-2016)."  As of this writing, the country remains clueless about this development.  The resolution was introduced by Virginia Democrat Donald S. Beyer, and sponsored by Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, and endorsed by seventy-one other Representatives, most of them Democrats, and possibly a sprinkling of Republicans.  The resolution has gone into committee, but one can predict with confidence that it will emerge virtually unscathed and unaltered.  After all, the "victims" are Muslims, and the House wishes to put it in the record that certain of its members are against hurting anyone's feelings.

The Omnibus and the Left's Merry Statemas.  The list of victories in the spending package for the Left is so great that Nancy Pelosi had to preemptively warn her caucus not to gloat before it was passed for fear of scaring off any Republicans not fully aware of what the bill contained.  Harry Reid also tweeted that Democrats met all their omnibus goals, including "roll[ing] back sequester."  The forces of big government, in other words, are quite pleased with the outcome.  They have every reason to feel that way.  The omnibus rightly ended the crude oil export ban, a pointless and destructive anti-trade provision.  But that victory was paid for not only by extending wasteful and distortionary handouts to renewable energy, but also by establishing a slush fund to pay for the Paris climate deal, a global redistribution scheme beyond even the wildest dreams of Karl Marx.

Report: Facing Investigations, DOJ Claims Right To Avoid Investigations.  Beset by several investigations, the Department of Justice is claiming the right to avoid being investigated.  As reported by PJMedia, the Office of the Inspector General's job is to combat problems of waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government.  But Attorney General Loretta Lynch has no intention of allowing any investigation.  She told the House Judiciary Committee that her office will simply ignore any request from the OIG at will.

The Democrats' Theme for 2016 Is Totalitarianism.  Donald Trump may talk like a brownshirt, but the Democrats mean business.  For those of you keeping track, the Democrats and their allies on the left have now:  voted in the Senate to repeal the First Amendment, proposed imprisoning people for holding the wrong views on global warming, sought to prohibit the showing of a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton, proposed banning politically unpopular academic research, demanded that funding politically unpopular organizations and causes be made a crime and that the RICO organized-crime statute be used as a weapon against targeted political groups.  They have filed felony charges against a Republican governor for vetoing a piece of legislation, engaged in naked political persecutions of members of Congress, and used the IRS and the ATF as weapons against political critics.

FEC chair who sought to regulate Drudge slams colleagues as 'dysfunctional'.  Since assuming the chair's position in January, [Ann] Ravel has pursued an ambitious regulatory agenda that includes stricter regulation of campaign spending, eliminating some of the commission's members, and, as noted by the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard, new controls over online political content on outlets like the Drudge Report, Google and Facebook.

The Democrats' War on Due Process.  [Y]ou don't actually have to be a terrorist to be "suspected" of being a terrorist.  You don't have to be a terrorist to have been "identified" as one by the FBI.  You don't have to be a terrorist to be arrested as a terrorist or indicted as a terrorist — any more than you have to be guilty of murder to be charged and tried for murder.  Some people who are accused of murder are innocent.  That's why we have trials, instead of sending every "person of interest" straight to the gallows.  Likewise, some people on the no-fly list are not terrorists.  But unlike people accused of murder, most on the no-fly list have never been charged, judged by their peers, or given the chance to prove they're not terrorists.

Gun Control: An Incipient Tyranny's Desperate Last Stand.  The governing establishment sees it coming, is terrified of the people, and desperately wants them disarmed.  It really isn't hard to understand why that would be the case.  After all, if your power and wealth depended upon lying to the people, abolishing their freedom, destroying their livelihoods, and sending their sons and daughters off to die in pointless wars, would you want them to have weapons?  The American people are buying guns and ammunition in record numbers in absolute defiance of a massive and coordinated gun control propaganda campaign.

The Man Who Can't Stop Lying.  As predicted, Barack Obama attempted to misdirect the American people during his prime-time Oval Office address last night.  The absentee President's relatively brief addressed seemed more concerned with protecting his view of the nature of Islam than the lives of American citizens, and he quickly pivoted towards asserting that American gun owners were the real threat.  Toward this end, Obama pushed his call to weaponize his enemies list.  He wants to be able to arbitrarily put American citizens that he doesn't like on one of several list, and then strip them of their constitutional rights by executive fiat.

Agents performing warrantless searches are the hallmark of totalitarianism.  In an effort to draw attention away from the intelligence failures that permitted the attacks of 9/11 and create the impression that it was doing something — anything — to avoid a repeat, the federal government tampered seriously with freedoms expressly guaranteed in the Constitution.  Its principal target was the right to privacy, which is protected in the Fourth Amendment.  At President George W. Bush's urging, Congress passed the Patriot Act in October 2001.  This 315-page statute passed the House of Representatives with no debate, and there was very limited debate in the Senate.  I have asked many members of Congress over the years whether they read this bill before they voted upon it, and I have yet to find a member who did.  In the House, that would have been impossible; the bill was made available to representatives only 15 minutes prior to their vote.

Man charged with felony for passing out jury rights fliers in front of courthouse.  A Mecosta man is charged with a felony for obstruction of justice and misdemeanor of tampering with a jury for passing out fliers about jury nullification rights on the sidewalk of the Mecosta County courthouse.  Keith Wood, 39, faces these charges after handing out about 50 fliers on Nov. 24, which the Fully Informed Jury Association wrote, that describe juror rights that are typically not given by judges during jury instructions before a trial.

Using the Terrorist Watchlist Against Gun Owners.  If you want to keep your right to keep and bear arms, you need to contact your congressman and U.S. senators now.  Amid the horror and outrage over last week's Paris terrorist attacks, on the pretext of stopping terrorism, New York Democrat Congressman Pete King is pushing a scheme to deny your Second Amendment rights — and deny your right to due process in the bargain — by banning firearm sales to anyone on the FBI's so-called Terrorist Watch List.

Three Liberties Being Threatened After the Paris Attacks.  In the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris recently, statists and power-hungry bureaucrats have seized the opportunity to try and expand governmental power.  In the spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, they hope to capitalize on fear to place new restrictions on individual liberties.  Here are three ways in which the forces of ever bigger government are seeking to exploit the Paris attacks to erode personal freedoms.

It's official: 'Homophobia' now a mental disorder!  If you think there might be something wrong with homosexuality, you most likely have a mental disorder, according to a recent study by a team of Italian researchers.  Discussing the study, lead researcher Emmanuele A. Jannini, M.D., stated:  "After discussing for centuries if homosexuality is to be considered a disease, for the first time we demonstrated that the real disease to be cured is homophobia, associated with potentially severe psychopathologies."  That's right.  The research team specifically found that "psychoticism," "immature defense mechanisms" and a "fearful attachment style" were associated with a greater "homophobic" attitude in individuals.

Hackers Catch Prison Phone Company Securus Recording Attorney Calls.  In an example of Aaron Swartz's SecureDrop technology working as intended, the Intercept received a trove of dumped Securus phone records recently.  Securus, for those who have never been jailed in the United States virtually anywhere, is a phone services leader in the justice industry.  That particular part of the prison industrial complex, communication, is worth about $1.2 billion annually.

Obamatrade Isn't Free Trade — It's A 5,544 Page Statist Monstrosity.  Read the TPP's Preamble.  The United States Constitution has a Preamble.  ObamaTrade's Preamble negates the Constitution's.  Note:  the spelling is British, not American.  This pretty well says it all.  The American lawyers and bureaucrats who negotiated this deal know who is on top.  It is not the United States of America.  This deal is the handwork of the New World Order and the multinational corporations that run it.  With this deal, the NWO will get inside the national governments as never before.  This is a massive surrender of national sovereignty.

TPP Trade Deal Hits 5,544 Pages, Longer Than Obamacare PLUS Rubio's 'Gang Of Eight' Cheap-Labor Amnesty Bill.  Rubio's immigration bill — which never cleared Congress — was just under 1,200 pages long, weighed roughly 24 pounds and was criticized for its large size and complexity.

Jeff Sessions: Kill The "Anti-Democratic" Trans-Pacific Partnership In The Crib, Repeal Fast Track Authority Now.  Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, is calling for the immediate destruction of the 5,554-page Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trans-global trade deal introduced on Thursday [11/5/2015].

Why Did the Environmental Protection Agency Spend $1.4 Million on Guns?  "We were shocked ourselves to find these kinds of pervasive expenditures at an agency that is supposed to be involved in clean air and clean water," said Open the Books founder Adam Andrzejewski.  "Some of these weapons are for full-scale military operations."  Among the EPA's purchases:
  •   $1.4 million for "guns up to 300mm."
  •   $380,000 for "ammunition."
  •   $210,000 for "camouflage and other deceptive equipment."
  •   $208,000 for "radar and night-vision equipment."
  •   $31,000 for "armament training devices."
The list goes on.  It's filled with the kind of equipment you'd expect to be purchased by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, not an agency ostensibly designed to protect the environment.  But as it turns out, armed, commando-style raids by the EPA are not unheard of. One such raid occurred in 2013, in a small Alaskan town where armed agents in full body armor reportedly confronted local miners accused of polluting local waters.  Perhaps the agency is gearing up for more operations like that one?

What did the EPA need with $1.4M worth of guns?  This comes on the heels of previous revelations, such as the discovery that the EPA had run up a $92M tab for designer furniture recently.  But this one is even more curious.  Rather than blowing moderately big dollars on designer roll away desks, the EPA has apparently been dumping more than a million dollars into equipping a small army.

Mic Cut, Police Chopper Sicced on Breitbart Event.  We are reaching the point where patriots are no longer able to meet in public.  A Breitbart meetup in the Phoenix suburb Scottsdale Wednesday night was aggressively silenced.

Millions of Americans might need passports to fly domestic.  A decade ago, the U.S. government issued stricter standards for state-issued IDs, including drivers licenses.  But four states have refused to comply:  Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and New York.  The deadline for upgrading is coming up in 2016. If those four states don't upgrade their ID systems by the deadline, the TSA will demand that residents of those four states use passports rather than drivers licenses to board flights next year.  About 9.5 million drivers licenses have been issued in those states, according to government licensing records.

Also posted under the proposed National ID Card.

Google, the NSA & DHS are creating a global DNA database.  According to the Verge, Ancestry.com, is seeking permission from the FDA to create a national DNA database.  Ancestry.com claims they'll use your DNA to assess your families disease risk.  Would it shock you to know that Google, the NSA and DHS are using "front companies" to create a GLOBAL DNA database?

Wow! Just What We Need! Fully Armed EPA Agents!  The Washington Times and The American Spectator have picked up an article by Open the Books, a watchdog group, that has found evidence the EPA has spent millions of dollars on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, and even night-vision goggles to arm its agents in the war on polluters.  Why do they need this and where are we going with this?  I'll tell you where.  CBS News has an article every day on the alleged impending climate change catastrophe.  Today, for example, they reported that Miami and New Orleans could be washed away by rising seas at the end of this century.  This is according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  They can't predict the weather two hours from now, but they can predict what will happen in 85 years.

DHS Goes Alarmist... Brings Back Terrorism Alert System for Domestic Threats.  Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced earlier this month at the UN that she would be working in several American cities to form what she called the Strong Cities Network (SCN), a law enforcement initiative that would encompass the globe.  Now Jeh Johnson has decided what is really needed is an alert system to warn everyone of pending terrorist attacks on US soil.  I'm detecting a very unpleasant trend here.  The old one that these morons came up with was never used.  It went unused.  At least Bush's made sense — this one is only two levels.  'Elevated' and 'We're all about to die.'

What Does The EPA Buy With The Millions Of Dollars They Spend On Weaponry?  The EPA isn't content to trash river systems and destroy the American economy in an effort to prevent the emission of carbon dioxide, which is plant food and a net positive to ecology as its concentrations in the atmosphere increase.  No, the EPA must have a military wing complete with military equipment.

Armed EPA Agents? The Truth Is Way Out There.  According to a report released last week by a watchdog group called Open the Books, the EPA has spent millions of dollars recently on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, and even night-vision goggles to arm its agents in the war on polluters.  The Illinois-based investigative group examined thousands of checks totaling more than $93 billion from 2000 to 2014 by the EPA, and its auditors indicate that about $75 million is authorized each year for "criminal enforcement" of America's clean air and water laws.  This includes cash for a cadre of 200 "special agents" that engage in SWAT-style ops.

EPA spends millions on military-style weapons, watchdog group reports.  The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 "special agents" to fight environmental crime.  Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books.

Braiding without a license: A crime in Texas.  Isis Brantley, an African-American entrepreneur, told a small, but rapt audience Tuesday [10/6/2015] about her two-decade legal battle to operate a braiding business and school in Texas.  Brantley's problem was that for most of her career she operated without the state's approval.  It demanded that she have a cosmetology license even though braiding and cosmetology are two different things.  It wasn't for public safety reasons, either.  It is legal in Texas for anyone to braid hair for free.  But charging a fee made her a criminal.  Brantley's home was eventually raided by seven police officers.

Washington DC may regulate personal trainers.  [Andrew] Killion oversees one of the largest Crossfit gyms in Washington D.C. with six full-time employees — called "coaches" in the Crossfit lingo — who help more than 400 members sweat their way through daily workouts in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse near the booming Navy Yard waterfront.  Now he worries city officials will take it all away.  Killion and other gym owners in the nation's capital could soon be subject to the first set of occupational licensing laws targeting personal trainers.

Obama issues executive order for government use of behavioral data.  A new executive order from President Obama directs all government agencies to use psychological science and data to help connect more Americans to government programs.  The order instructs government agencies to use "behavioral science" — a tactic used by Obama's political campaigns to harness data from their supporters to target them effectively.  The program has already existed in an experimental form, but now Obama has formally established the federal "Social and Behavioral Sciences Team," ordering them to to use psychology and experimental behavior data to make government more user-friendly.

Seattle recycling
Recycling is now mandatory.
Seattle sued over recycling inspectors keeping tabs on residents' trash.  When it comes to garbage, the city of Seattle has launched a waste war.  Nine full-time solid waste inspectors have been hired as part of a controversial program to check city trash to make sure people are recycling.  Additionally, contracted waste haulers have been effectively deputized as trash police, given the authority to tag bins when people fail to recycle and compost enough.  The program is now the subject of a lawsuit, as residents fume over what some call an intrusive government program.


Men's Barber Shop Fined $750 for Not Cutting Women's Hair.  Our rulers' authoritarian obsession with stamping out "inequality" and "discrimination" is not making it easy to do business in Pennsylvania. [...] Once this was a free country in which business owners decided for themselves who their clients would be.  But then came "civil rights."

Pennsylvania Barber Fined For Not Cutting Women's Hair.  A Pennsylvania barber got slapped with a fine for refusing to give a woman a haircut.  The owner John Interval says his shop is a place for men to relax with a cocktail or a beer.  But now, he's facing legal action from the state's Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs.  Interval says he didn't know he has to service both genders.

The Terrifying Tentacles of One World Governance.  Citizens do not understand U.N. Agenda 21's damaging ramifications to their private property, to their ability to make a living, to use their land, grow food in their gardens, sell their fresh produce freely, engage in agriculture, sell their land, and pass it on to future generations.  Local land owners do not have the opportunity to provide their input into the decision-making process; they are at the mercy of "visioning committees" and the board of supervisors, often plants or paid subscribers to the one world government idea.

Who are the Lawbreakers?  We're told that if we don't pay our taxes we will go to jail but we're also told that illegals can break the law and live off our tax dollars with no consequences.  In fact, we're told that we're racists if we don't believe that criminals should have at least as nice a lifestyle as taxpayers.  We're told we can't steal from our children but by spending mountains of money we don't have the DC elites steal from our children with impunity.  We're told we can't steal from our neighbor but the elites steal money from taxpayers to support the lazy and the illegal.  The reality is that that Kentucky clerk is not the lawbreaker.  The real lawbreakers are the Supreme Court Justices who simply dictated that the votes of 55,000,000 Americans don't matter and that the clear intent of the Constitution doesn't matter.  The Constitution says nothing about marriage.  Only by ignoring it could the Supreme Court decide that Americans must submit to the whims of the ruling elite disguised as a "Constitutional" mandate.

Can a Christian Be a County Clerk in America?  This is a question it now appears may ultimately be decided by five Supreme Court justices.  With it, too, will ride such questions as:  Can a Christian be a doctor?  A nurse?  A public-school teacher?  In June, when five justices declared that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment creates a right to "same-sex marriage," Justice Clarence Thomas issued a warning.  "In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution, it is a religious institution as well," Thomas wrote in his dissent.  "Today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter.  It appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples.  "The majority," said Thomas, "appears unmoved by that inevitability."

Nine Signs of the Impending American Collapse.  Race relations in the U.S. have markedly deteriorated under the suzerainty of the present administration, in some places resembling guerilla warfare as black-on-white violence proliferates and race riots are becoming an almost regular occurrence. [...] Civil disorder is radical community organizer Saul Alinsky's formula for revolutionary triumph, and his handbook Rules for Radicals is the Democratic Party's bible.  Alinsky was the subject of Hillary Clinton's senior thesis at Wellesley College and Obama's teaching at Chicago University Law School.

Religious liberty: The Kentucky county clerk and the Muslim flight attendant.  The New York Times and the rest of the national media are giving front page treatment to Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky county clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples on religious grounds. [...] A Muslim-American group plans Tuesday [9/1/2015] to file a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against ExpressJet Airlines for allegedly failing to accommodate a Metro Detroit-area Muslim flight attendant who objects to serving alcohol based on her religious beliefs.

Inhofe: EPA's Trying To Regulate Sewers.  A top Senate Republican is worried the EPA's new Clean Water Rule gives the agency the power to regulate sewers and stormwater systems — giving EPA a much more expansive reach than the agency had previously claimed.  Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe sent a letter to Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and Ken Kopocis, who heads up the EPA's Office of Water, asking them to clarify how the Clean Water Rule would impact city sewage systems.

Supreme Court rules against Kentucky clerk in gay marriage case.  The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against the Kentucky county clerk who has refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, and the clerk will arrive at work Tuesday morning [9/1/2015] to face her moment of truth.

Call Cease-Fire in the War on Cash.  Last summer, London buses stopped accepting money.  To pay your fare, you now have to wave either a prepaid Transport for London Oyster card or a contactless payment bank card at a receiver.  For some, not having to dig out a handful of coins is a welcome relief.  For others, though, the disappearance of cash represents a dangerous threat to our liberty.

EPA Politburo Takes Control of Ditches in 37 States.  U.S. District Court of North Dakota Chief Judge Ralph Erickson put a temporary hold on the EPA's new water regulations on Thursday [8/27/2015], but the EPA, an unelected and unelectable body of bureaucrats, has decided to defy the judge and move ahead on states that did not sue.  Except for the 13 states that filed the North Dakota lawsuit, The Clean Water Rule aka Waters of the U.S. rule is in effect as of August 28.  The EPA has assumed jurisdiction over ditches — ditches that flow from streams — tributaries, streams, and other small waterways.  Every farmer, rancher, land developer and land owner is now subject to federal enrichment actions under the Clean Water Act if they have small waterways on their property.  More taxes, more regulations, more bureaucracy heaped on farmers, ranchers and land developers by an enormous, incompetent government agency.  The EPA says it does not interfere with or change private property rights but that's all they do.

Kentucky clerk asks Supreme Court to intervene in marriage case.  Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who opposes to gay marriage for religious reasons, asked the nation's highest court on Friday [8/28/2015] to grant her "asylum for her conscience."  The Supreme Court ruled in June that the Constitution guarantees gay people the right to marry.  However, Davis contends the First Amendment guarantees her the right of religious freedom.  She stopped issuing all marriage licenses in the days after the landmark decision.  Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her, arguing that she must fulfill her duties as an elected official despite her religious conviction.  A federal court judge ordered Davis to issue licenses and an appeals court upheld the decision.

Appeals court upholds order that holdout Kentucky clerk issue marriage licences to gay couples.  A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling ordering a Kentucky county clerk to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

What First Amendment? Virginia State Police Forced BBC Journalists to Delete Video.  So I assume you have all heard that a homosexual African American shot and murdered to straight whites on live TV.  This was, of course, not a hate crime and never will be labeled as one.  This story from PRI caught my eye and makes me wonder why we even claim to have a First Amendment:  "Virginia police order BBC journalists to delete footage of suspected shooter's crash." [...] What I find especially insulting about this is that it happened to BBC journalists.  I don't know if they are British themselves, but it is galling to have a British media outlet learn just how flimsy our Bill of Rights really is.  What is the point of having a First Amendment if the police can simply order censorship?

More about Vester Lee Flanagan II a/k/a Bryce Williams.

Colorado Baker Case Latest Defeat for Religious Liberty.  The Colorado Court of Appeals has handed the concept of religious liberty for individuals yet another defeat, with its August 13 ruling against suburban Denver baker Jack Phillips.  The appellate court upheld a lower court ruling that the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop had illegally discriminated against two homosexual men by refusing to bake a cake to celebrate their "marriage."  The two men, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, had filed a complaint with the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), citing Colorado's anti-discrimination law.  Phillips told them that to accede to their wishes would violate his religious beliefs.  When the two men ordered the cake in 2012, Colorado did not recognize same-sex marriage; however, the court held that the refusal by Phillips to bake the cake ran afoul of the state's law which prohibits discrimination based upon "sexual orientation."

Judge opens door for cops to storm your home.  The Third Amendment, which guards against the quartering of soldiers in citizens' homes — and which came into being because of the abuse of British troops against American patriots — has just been dinged by a judge who ruled the provision doesn't apply to police.  In essence, that means police on official business could claim the legal right to bust into a private citizen's home and occupy it.  The determination from federal district court Judge Andrew Gordon was rendered when he dismissed a Third Amendment claim from a Henderson, Nevada, family who suffered that very fate.

"There is no area of our lives the leftists won't invade."
Progressives Want to Ban Barbecue Aromas And So Much More.  The city council in Austin, Tex. took up "the smell of barbecue and a proposal to control it," the New York Times reported in April, "in response to some citizen complaints."  They plan to order the restaurants to control the odors because it is a "public nuisance."  Austin is known for its barbecue restaurants and food trucks.  Most would close, perhaps all.  "A public nuisance is an activity that threatens the public health, safety or welfare, or does damage to community resources."  The city of Austin wants to take a handful of citizen complaints and make them into a public health hazard.  We won't ban illegal immigration but we will ban the aromas from restaurant barbecues.

The Editor says...
This problem is easily solved.  Let the left-wing liberal authoritarians shut down all the barbecue joints in Austin.  Better yet, all the restaurants that emit any discernable aroma.  Then sit back and wait for the outcry from the low-information voters who haven't been paying attention.  The restaurants will be back open in a few days, and the experience may make Libertarians out of a lot of hungry citizens.

Florida council official caught on camera telling resident the smoke from his barbecue 'cannot leave the property'.  A bizarre video has emerged out of Florida showing a man who says he is a council official telling a resident that the smoke from their barbecue is not allowed to leave the property.  The video, which went viral over the weekend, shows the male resident arguing with the apparent official and not believing what he is being told.  'I'm only here because of the odor, I'm only here because of the smoke,' the official says the clip.  [Video clip]

Bruce Jenner, Brett Favre, and the cultural totalitarians.  In a truly surreal display, NFL great Brett Favre is being denounced by the left's new cultural commissars for not clapping long and hard enough at ESPN's ESPY awards, as Bruce/"Caitlyn" Jenner received a "Courage" award for his efforts to become a woman.  Oddly, Favre did applaud — not doing so would have been a grave heresy to America's new church of progressive inquisitors.  His sin was not applauding enthusiastically enough.  The New York Post placed a video of Favre's blasphemous insufficient clapping, juxtaposed with Jenner's celebratory ascent to the stage. [...] No, I'm not making this up.  In the New America, not only must we accept transgenderism, but we must literally applaud it — and literally applaud it long, loud, and hard.  And remember, Big Brother is watching you.

The Editor says...
The same thing happens in North Korea:  If you don't applaud the Supreme Leader vigorously enough, you're taken away and re-educated — or worse.

It looks like Lois Lerner may have also been behind conservative targeting in Wisconsin.  Remember those horrifying police raids in Wisconsin a while back?  With no hyperbole, it was modern-day tyranny that should have incensed the entire nation, regardless of political affiliation or viewpoint.  Instead, very few ever even heard about it.  Why?  Because progressives were the perpetrators and conservatives were the targets.  The raids were part of a so-called "investigation" of conservatives who were supporting Scott Walker.  Well new email evidence suggests that Lois Lerner may have been in cahoots with a Wisconsin official regarding the investigation.

H8 Wins: Oregon Threatens Home Of Christian Bakers.  Fox News is reporting that the fascist state of Oregon is ramping up its persecution campaign against Christian bakers who declined to bake a wedding cake for a same sex lesbian couple.  Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, have been told that if they don't pay the $135,000 awarded to the lesbian couple who sued them, a lien will be placed against their home next week.

The Gay Lifestyle Fallacy.  The United States is sinking into the moral decay of tribal warfare.  No longer can Christians state their case without a torrent of hatred coming from both atheists and those in the gay rights cabal.  Any opinion that does not toe the progressive line will not be tolerated.  This comes from the party of tolerance.  Your identity, your lifestyle, even you very dignity will be trashed if you do not comply.  This way of thinking will soon be a coercive force in every citizens life.  Much of it starts with those who speak out from within the gay community, or those who have been raised inside the gay community and have felt its corrosive way of thinking first hand.

We 'refuse to comply': Christian bakers won't be bullied by gag order.  It's going to take more than a gag order from a state bureaucrat to shut up two Christian bakers under assault for refusing to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in Oregon.  As reported by Bizpac Review on Saturday, Aaron and Melissa Klein were not only hit with a $135,000 fine for refusing to bake the cake, but they were also ordered by Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian to stop speaking out about the case.  The Kleins, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, told Fox News' Todd Starnes they have no intention of obeying what they see as a clear violation of their First Amendment rights.

Wasserman-Schultz on Bakers Fined $135K Over Wedding Cake: 'You Shouldn't Be Able to Turn People Away'.  Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said the marriage debate is over.  "The marriage equality decision is settled.  Love is love and now everyone in America enjoys the protection of the United States Constitution when it comes to who they choose to marry legally," Wasserman-Schultz told The Daily Signal.  She also weighed in on the religious liberty debate.  "That doesn't mean that churches and religious institutions have to conduct same-sex marriages and it doesn't mean that religious institutions aren't able to practice their own values.  But, in this country, we do not allow people to discriminate."

Democrat Senator: 1st Amendment Doesn't Apply To Individuals.  Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) says the 1st Amendment's religious liberty protections don't apply to individuals. [...] Democrat Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein already believe that 'freedom of speech' only applies to the mainstream media.  They're both on record claiming that bloggers don't deserve 1st Amendment protections because in their eyes, we aren't genuine journalists.  To them, to be a real journalist you have to work for a nationally recognized media conglomerate, have a degree from an accredited school of journalism, collect a paycheck and be answerable to an editor for what you say.  In other words, they (the government) want the power to threaten to have you fired if you dare speak out of line.  Bloggers, being self employed, in their opinion, are renegades because they have no way to intimidate us into silence.

Cultural aggression, destructive policies, and ceaseless smearing are wearing out a great people.  [Scroll down]  Ask Aaron and Melissa Klein what they think of the state of our civil liberties, after an Oregon judge not only sanctioned the destruction of their wedding cake business but denied them the freedom to discuss their plight.  Ask Brendan Eich, the former Mozilla CEO who committed the crime of writing a check to support organizations opposed to gay marriage.  Ask any conservative attempting to ply a trade in Hollywood or academia.  The Left's cultural fascists have perfected the ability to silence their opposition without the use of jackboots and truncheons as in the past, though as we've seen an angry mob or a riot squad here and there is hardly out of the question.  Next up will be the forfeiting of tax exemptions by churches — unless the Left is willing to make exceptions for those it deems "helpful" to the cause.

United We Stood, Divided We'll Fall.  [Scroll down]  Oh the gay community and their supporters will argue it was a huge win, an in-your-face slam-dunk.  But beneath all the hoopla, behind the well-designed scenes, the gays lost.  We all lost because the real victor, the hands-down big winner is government.  You see, the dirty little secret is that gays, like blacks and Hispanics, are being used to declaw the silent majority.  Politicians have tried over and over again to stop those constitutional nuts who keep waving the American flag and quoting the Constitution.  It hasn't been easy, these conservatives have been the majority since colonial days.  They still are the majority, the silent majority; too silent.  But they're an obstacle to power nonetheless so they must be put down.

Surrender to judicial tyranny? I will protect religious liberty, not retreat.  America didn't fight a revolution against the tyranny of one unelected monarch so we could surrender our religious liberty to the tyranny of five unelected lawyers.  The Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being, and the Court can no more repeal the laws of nature and nature's God on marriage than they can the laws of gravity.  Last Friday's same-sex marriage decision by the Court, which rejected the will of people in over 30 states, is an out-of-control act of unconstitutional judicial tyranny.  While some cowardly politicians will wave the white flag and surrender to the false god of judicial supremacy, I refuse to light a match to our Constitution.  We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.

No Truce With the Left.  Republicans are still trying to figure out a truce on gay marriage.  They retreated to civil unions, then accepted a full defeat on gay marriage and then acted baffled when Christian bakery owners were dragged into court for refusing to participate in gay weddings.  When the left insisted that gay marriage was a civil rights issue, they refused to take them at their word.  Now they're wondering how an accommodation can be made with tranny rights.  A brief look back at gay rights will show that the only possible accommodation is one in which men in dresses have a legal right to use the ladies room and every single closed female space and event.  And yes, that means your business will be shut down if you object to Steve using the female locker room.

Same-sex marriage is only the beginning.  That the majority threw a bone to religious people, their churches and institutions, saying they could continue to preach and teach that homosexual marriage is wrong, will almost certainly be challenged by gay activists and secularists whose goal is to drive religious people, and especially Christians, out of the public square.  What might be a preview of things to come occurred last week when the Fairfax County (Va.) School Board voted 10-2 to approve a "gender identity" curriculum for children starting in seventh grade.  News reports said the crowd that showed up for the vote overwhelmingly opposed the decision, but majorities no longer matter.

'Disparate Impact' Ruling Emboldens Obama's Diversity Cops.  Armed with a Supreme Court-licensed shakedown weapon, President Obama's race cops will wage an even bigger war against lenders, insurers, employers and whoever else fails their "disparate impact" test.  Attorney Gen. Loretta Lynch said she and her civil-rights goons are "bolstered by this important ruling" by the high bench, which by a narrow 5-4 vote upheld bogus disparate-impact theory as a tool to enforce laws against housing, lending and insurance discrimination.

15 Reasons 'Marriage Equality' Is About Neither Marriage Nor Equality.  Same-sex marriage is a notion that contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction.  I doubt many have thought this through, with the ironic exception of the elites who have been pushing the agenda the hardest.  Most people are weary of it all and going along to get along, especially since dissent has become such a socially expensive proposition, almost overnight.  That in itself should deeply concern anyone who values freedom of expression. [...] The same-sex marriage agenda is more like a magic bullet with a trajectory that will abolish civil marriage for everyone, and in doing so, will embed central planning into American life.  And that, my friends, is the whole point of it.  Along with Obamacare, net neutrality, and Common Core, genderless marriage is a blueprint for regulating life, particularly family life.

The Day the Constitution Died.  I have sadly come to the conclusion that many of my colleagues are correct...  our Constitutional form of government is now dead and Obama's transformative 'change' is all but complete.  Things are now snowballing and it is more than most Americans can take or bear.  From gay marriage and the ensuing infringement on free speech and our religious rights, to enforced Obamacare, to forced wealth redistibution in our neighborhoods, to the EPA run amok... our freedoms are being absolutely nullified.  States are now saying they won't comply with the EPA on coal and who can blame them?  Americans will get very dangerous when they are hungry and cold.

[The] Moral Life of [the] Nation Could be Decided by One Judge.  [Quoting Robert Bork:]  There's no end to the gall of some of these folks.  But amending the constitution is the clearest route.  Beyond that, the cures are longer term.  They would involve replacing these judges with other judges.  If it's an elective system, when they come up for reelection, vote them out and get new judges.  If it's not, wait until they retire or die, and then get new judges.  But as long as we insist upon treating judges as the final word no matter what they say, we're in trouble.

Democracy Is Dying; Persecution Is Coming.  You will not be surprised that the majority opinion in Obergefell, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, is full of gaseous eructations from the judicial pyloric, e.g., "the right to marry is fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals."  And who says a two-person union is unlike any other in its importance?  This is groundless assertion.  You really must read the four dissenting opinions in the case.  Even I am shocked by the bracing quality of the rhetoric and the analysis.  If these justices are correct, this is a dark day for American democracy, and for the practice of traditional religion in America.

SCOTUS invents new right to same-sex "marriage," outlawing Christianity.  Let me tell you how this is going to play out.  See what the progressive fascists are doing with the Confederate flag?  See how they're erasing it from every nook and cranny of America?  See the defacement of Confederate monuments?  Hear the calls for censorship of classics like Gone With The Wind?  You ain't seen nothin' yet.  Because the rainbow-shirts are coming.  And they're coming for us.  I figure the first church burning is only hours away.  Within days it'll be impossible to say the words "homosexual" and "sin" in the same sentence anywhere in America.

Scalia: 'This Court' is a 'Threat to American Democracy'.  In his dissent from the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision [6/26/2015] in Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared that same-sex marriage was a right, Justice Antonin Scalia declared that this Supreme Court has become a "threat to American democracy.  "I write separately to call attention to this Court's threat to American democracy," Scalia said.  "This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776:  the freedom to govern themselves."

EPA to Monitor Family's Water Use in Colorado.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to monitor how much water families use in Boulder, Colorado.  The agency submitted a solicitation Thursday [6/18/2015], announcing its plans to hire a contractor for the purpose of "Water Monitoring Equipment and Collection of Data" of apartments in the city.

A Thirsty Colorado Is Battling Over Who Owns Raindrops.  When Jason Story bought an old soy sauce barrel to collect the rain dripping from his downspout, he figured he had found an environmentally friendly way to water his garden's beets and spinach.  But under the quirks of Western water rules, where raindrops are claimed even as they tumble from the sky, he became a water outlaw.

The Government Wants You to Get Its Permission Before Discussing Gunmaking Information on the Internet (or Anywhere).  The NRA notes with alarm last week something that, if it were paying attention, it would realize is not a fear on the horizon but a nightmare certain people are already living: [...] As readers of Reason know well, Cody Wilson is living proof the government has already been acting on the belief they have this power to prevent certain technical details about gun making from spreading to the Internet without their approval — in Wilson's case, CAD files to for a 3D printed plastic handgun.

NRA: Gun blogs, videos, web forums threatened by new Obama regulation.  Commonly used and unregulated internet discussions and videos about guns and ammo could be closed down under rules proposed by the State Department, amounting to a "gag order on firearm-related speech," the National Rifle Association is warning.  In updating regulations governing international arms sales, State is demanding that anyone who puts technical details about arms and ammo on the web first get the OK from the federal government — or face a fine of up to $1 million and 20 years in jail.

Obama Plans To Muzzle Gun-Related Speech.  The foreign-raised President of the United States — who never set foot on the U.S. mainland until he was an adult — has proven throughout his rogue administration that he has no respect at all for the Constitution.  He's proving it yet again with a dual attack on both the First and Second Amendments, with an attempt to twist ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) regulations to ban online speech about firearms, claiming that information posted online is "exporting" data.

Don't be fooled, America, your government is still lying to you.  Last week, we learned that the FBI is operating low-flying planes over 100 American cities to monitor folks on the streets and intercept their cellphone use — without any search warrants.  Earlier this week, we learned that the Drug Enforcement Administration has intercepted the telephone calls of more than 11,000 people in three years — without any search warrants.  We already know that local police have been using government surplus cell towers to intercept the cellphone signals of innocent automobile drivers for about a year — without search warrants.  How dangerous this is.  The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.  It applies in good times and in bad, in war and in peace.  It regulates the governed and the governors.  Yet if the government that it regulates can change it by ordinary legislation, then it is not a constitution but a charade.

NRA: Gun blogs, videos, web forums threatened by new Obama regulation.  Commonly used and unregulated internet discussions and videos about guns and ammo could be closed down under rules proposed by the State Department, amounting to a "gag order on firearm-related speech," the National Rifle Association is warning.  In updating regulations governing international arms sales, State is demanding that anyone who puts technical details about arms and ammo on the web first get the OK from the federal government — or face a fine of up to $1 million and 20 years in jail.

Isn't this what Fort Hood, White Sands and the eastern half of Nevada are for?
City says loud explosions were Army training exercise.  It was a peaceful afternoon, and then residents said it seemingly turned hostile.  "I was standing there, and all of a sudden, boom!" Jean Glenn said.  "I mean it was loud, it blew up the whole sky or whatever, it was like four or five big bangs," Annette Humphrey said.  Explosions you'd expect in a war zone echoed through Flint.  People's homes shook and those inside were caught off-guard.  It all went down Tuesday [6/2/2015] at the shuttered Lowell Junior High on the city's east side.  The blasts are just an Army exercise.

EPA boss threatens to come knocking on doors.  Next time there is a knock at the front door, it just might be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency waiting to deliver a message.  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy dealt a warning Wednesday to Americans who do not place environmental stewardship above everything else.

America's Own FIFA: the EPA.  An unprecedented power grab.  That's the only accurate way to describe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which was made final on Wednesday [5/27/2015].  It twists the plain language of the Clean Water Act, which regulates the "navigable waters" of the United States, out of all recognition, to give the Obama administration powers over any land that might at any time be occupied by water, such as seasonal pools or drainage channels.  Your use of your own property could become subject to veto by the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers — and you might not even know it until they stick you with $75,000 a day in fines.  And if the rule itself is an abuse of power, the way in which it was finalized is just as outrageous.

When They Come for the Smaller Groups...  The Nazis, obviously, used the principle successfully.  One by one, different groups were marginalized and demonized in the public opinion, until it was clear no one would come to their defense, because "we are not them."  Jews.  Socialists.  Trade Unions.  Military personnel.  Gypsies.  Mentally ill people.  Roman Catholic Priests.  Protestant pastors.  Step by step, the general population was divided in groups and subjugated through repressions and terror.  By the time many people realized the murderous nature of the Nazi regime, no one was in a position to unite the remaining groups in opposition to the government.  The Soviet Communists did the same.  They also started with a broad appeal to all the "classes," marginalizing and demonizing only small groups.  The "capitalists."  Then the priests.  Then the "intellectuals." [...] It was Solzhenitsyn who later realized that if the people didn't remain passive but united to shoot at government agents when they came to do arrests, millions of lives would have been spared.

The case for conservative civil disobedience.  [Scroll down]  In parallel, the legal system has become a vehicle for progressive social aims, growing arbitrary and subjective.  Murray points to lower bars for bringing lawsuits, broader rules of discovery and the rise of strict liability that doesn't require specific negligence to find guilt.  All this has conspired to create a system in which defending yourself is prohibitively costly, laws are so complex as to be unintelligible and prosecutors enjoy corrupting discretionary power.  Instead of a world where acts are criminalized because they are malum in se (wrong in themselves), Murray argues that a large proportion of crimes in the federal code are "malum prohibitum — not things that are bad in themselves but things that warrant criminal penalties because the government has said they do."

DOE Secretary Backs Public Boarding Schools: 'Certain Kids We Should Have 24/7'.  Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday proposed the idea of public boarding schools, saying there are "just certain kids we should have 24/7."  "One idea that I threw out ... is the idea of public boarding schools," Duncan said at the National Summit on Youth Violence Prevention in Crystal City, Va.  "That's a little bit of a different idea — a controversial idea — but the question is do we have some children where there's not a mom, there's not a dad, there's not a grandma, there's just nobody at home?"

The Editor says...
In what rent-free "home" would an orphaned minor live without adults?  I assert that no such example exists, and this boarding school idea is simply an incremental step toward the federal takeover of all children.

This took place on an Amtrak train.
DEA to traveler: Thanks, I'll take that cash.  [Joseph] Rivers, 22, wasn't detained and has not been charged with any crime since his money was taken last month.  That doesn't matter.  Under a federal law enforcement tool called civil asset forfeiture, he need never be arrested or convicted of a crime for the government to take away his cash, cars or property — and keep it.  Agencies like the DEA can confiscate money or property if they have a hunch, a suspicion, a notion that maybe, possibly, perhaps the items are connected with narcotics.  Or something else illegal. [...] A Washington Post investigation last year found that local, state and federal agents nationwide have seized $2.5 billion in cash from almost 62,000 people since 2001 — without warrants or indictments.

Also posted under The police state on wheels.

'We Will Not Obey': Christian Leaders Threaten Civil Disobedience if Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage.  "We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line," read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage.  "We stand united together in defense of marriage.  Make no mistake about our resolve."  "While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross," the pledge states.

Obama's Lawyer Basically Tells SCOTUS That Religious Schools Are Toast.  During oral arguments made in the same-sex marriage case heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday [4/28/2015] (Obergefell v. Hodges), Justices Roberts and Alito questioned Solicitor General Donald Verrilli about the rights of religious schools if the Court decides to impose same-sex marriage on the states.  Justice Roberts asked if religious schools that provide housing to married students would be required to offer such housing to same-sex couples.  Verrilli demurred, saying there is currently no federal law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.  "Those issues are going to have to be worked out," he said.

Idaho city's ordinance tells pastors to marry gays or go to jail.  Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, city officials have laid down the law to Christian pastors within their community, telling them bluntly via an ordinance that if they refuse to marry homosexuals, they will face jail time and fines.  The dictate comes on the heels of a legal battle with Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post wedding chapel in the city, but who oppose gay marriage, The Daily Caller reported.  A federal judge recently ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, while the city of Coeur d'Alene has an ordinance that prevents discrimination based on sexual preference.

Largest Bank In America Joins War On Cash.  Just a week ago, the infamous Willem Buiter, along with Ken Rogoff, voiced their support for a restriction (or ban altogether) on the use of cash (something that was already been implemented in Louisiana in 2011 for used goods).  Today, as Mises' Jo Salerno reports, the war has acquired a powerful new ally in Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which has enacted a policy restricting the use of cash in selected markets; bans cash payments for credit cards, mortgages, and auto loans; and disallows the storage of "any cash or coins" in safe deposit boxes.

Gov. Walker Supporters Claim Police Raided Their Homes Over Politics.  Megyn Kelly shared new information tonight [4/23/2015] about a series of terrifying raids which were reportedly a form of political retribution against supporters of Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI).  She explained that a few of the people who were raided came forward and spoke to the National Review about what they experienced.  Kelly reported that Cindy Archer had a raid conducted on her home when she was sound asleep one night.  Archer claims that more than a dozen police officers were yelling and pounding on her door.  She said that police would not tell her why they were there as they ransacked her home, Kelly reported.

America's Soft Police State.  Today Americans live in a soft police state.  We may not sense its severity and doom like runaway slaves or Anne Frank, but the freedoms of the greatest number of Americans have never been more threatened and violated institutionally — both openly and secretively — by our own government.

Involuntary Servitude Returns to America.  Given that America no longer allows involuntary servitude, why do florists, photographers, bakers or printers have to work for anyone who requests his services?  Why are they not protected by the Thirteenth Amendment?

'Free-Range' Parents Will Sue CPS for Grabbing Their Kids.  The Meitivs are lawyering up, and will file some kind of lawsuit against Montgomery County, Maryland, officials who took their children while the youngsters were walking outside by themselves. [...] Aren't prisoners allowed one phone call, or is that just on TV?  Because the Meitiv kids weren't able to contact their parents in the six hours they were held by the authorities.

Green Terrorists are Sabotaging the U.S. Economy.  Environmentalist extremists are controlling our policies at all levels of local, state and federal government.  The environmental terrorists are consuming land in the name of frogs and assorted creatures and putting cost prohibitive regulations on farmers and ranchers, raising the price of essential services and goods such as food and transportation.  They are lowering our standard of living in the name of non-essential wildflowers and prairie chickens.  They have infiltrated the government at every level so that you now see the DOD tweeting their latest green initiative as ISIS, Al-Qaida, and Iran compete for hegemony in the Middle East and do so without resistance.  Americans are afraid to resist the lies on which they build their power.  The majority have been silenced into blindness though truth is hiding in plain sight.  The EPA is a group of unelected bureaucrats — tyrants — who now act as an arm of extremists, pushing regulations on individuals, on every household, and every business without our permission.

The state presumes to own your children.
Maryland Parents Panic When Their Kids Are Once Again Confiscated By CPS.  Danielle Meitiv, the Maryland Mom who lets her children play outside by themselves — despite the government's ridiculous demands — just called me.  She and her husband were on their way to the Child Protective Services Emergency Crisis Center.  Why?  The police picked up the kids while they were outside again sometime Saturday afternoon [4/11/2015], and this time the cops took them without telling their parents.

NYT Writer: Christians 'Must Be Made' to Embrace Gay Lifestyle.  In the wake of the Indiana donnybrook over religious liberty, which somehow was transformed overnight into a question of gay rights, it couldn't be long before the New York Times weighed in against Christians.  Yet who could have expected the draconian measures the Times would propose?  Either Christians fully embrace the gay lifestyle, or you will be coerced into doing so.

No More 'Speeding' for You!  Someday — and that day might be closer than you want to know — we'll look back fondly on speed traps. [...] Tomorrow, you may not be able to "speed" even if you wanted to.  Because your car will not allow you to.

FBI Admits All Registered Motorcycle Owners Are On Classified Gang List.  MSNBC correspondent Jeremy Lancaster sat down with government official Darrin Cornia to discuss recent rumors that have been in circulation in regard to registered motorcycle owners being placed on a classified FBI gang list.

A List Of Things Potential Senate Minority Leader Schumer Has Tried To Ban.  It's long been said that the most dangerous place in Washington is between Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a TV camera. [...] So what kind of leader is Chuck Schumer?  He is among the very most trivial politicians to serve in that crucible of triviality, mediocrity, and dead weight we call the U.S. Senate.  Here's a list of quickly ginned-up headlines of what our next illustrious Senate leader has been up to over his time in Washington.

Dem Suggests Kids Should Be Drug-Tested Before They Can Inherit From Their Parents.  Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez offered a baffling defense of the death tax Wednesday [3/18/2015] during a hearing examining the sometimes unbearable burden it places on family farms and businesses.  People receiving food stamps have to pass drug tests or meet work requirements to receive taxpayer dollars, Sanchez reasoned, so it's only fair that those "lucky" enough to inherit wealth should have to do something to earn it or, in this case, pay a tax.  "What work requirements are there to inherit up to $10 million tax free?" she asked a witness, rhetorically.

The EPA wants to watch you in the shower.  [Scroll down]  You can bet that before too long, there will be a move by the EPA to place one of those gizmos in every single home in America.  It will eventually be connected to the home's water system, with an auto-shutdown valve to enforce their idea of how much water you should be using to get clean.  You may be washing your hair when the water is suddenly turned off, leaving you with a headfull of suds and anger management issues.

EPA wants to monitor how long hotel guests spend in the shower.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants hotels to monitor how much time its guests spend in the shower.  The agency is spending $15,000 to create a wireless system that will track how much water a hotel guest uses to get them to "modify their behavior."  "Hotels consume a significant amount of water in the U.S. and around the world," an EPA grant to the University of Tulsa reads.  "Most hotels do not monitor individual guest water usage and as a result, millions of gallons of potable water are wasted every year by hotel guests."

The Editor says...
No sane person spends any more time in a hotel shower than is absolutely necessary.  But the EPA is to blame for low-volume shower heads in hotel rooms, which cause the guests to spend more time in the shower.  This results in near-zero water savings.  The amount of water "wasted" by hotel customers cannot be determined without a gross invasion of privacy.  In any event, the hotel guest pays in advance for the privilege of a long hot shower.

The Sasquatch carbon footprints of the sanctimonious environmentalists.  While the stars of former and present-day politics and religion get to burp carbon into the environment, the little guy is about to be spied upon by EPA when in the shower.  Not only does the EPA want to monitor how long hotel guests are spending in the shower, they have a $15,000 grant to create a device to "modify" guests behavior.

Obama's EPA Now Wants to Prevent You From Showering Too Long in Hotels.  On vacation?  Want to relax with a nice long shower in your expensive hotel room?  Well, if Obama's EPA has its way, the President's scolds will be there to harass you if your shower lasts longer than Obama has decreed that you are allowed to.

Obama's EPA Prepares a Crackdown on Long Hotel Showers.  The Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to crack down on shower sneaks.  You know who you are.  You're the type of selfish person who steps into a hotel shower and lingers too long.  Maybe you're trying to get clean.  Maybe you're shaving.  Maybe you enjoy the sensory blast of instant hot water on your skin that isn't going on a home water-heater bill.  The EPA doesn't care about such frivolous things.  Its concern is the amount of water you are "wasting."  Whatever it is, it's too much.

Reclaiming Legislative Power.  The power to make laws rests wholly in Congress — at least that is what the Constitution says.  Yet who makes the "laws" in our federal system today?  Vast amounts of legislative power have been "delegated" to independent federal regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission or to the president or his cabinet secretaries.  The sheer volume of these rules is mind-numbing.  Consider that in 2014, the year that just ended, 75,000 pages of new regulations were adopted by the Executive Branch, either by the Obama administration directly or through independent regulatory agencies.  This is in addition to the myriad executive orders the president gives to his various departments regarding how to administrate federal laws.

Backyard burger and wiener roasts targeted by EPA.  The Environmental Protection Agency has its eyes on pollution from backyard barbecues.  The agency announced that it is funding a University of California project to limit emissions resulting in grease drippings with a special tray to catch them and a "catalytic" filtration system.  The $15,000 project has the "potential for global application," said the school.  The school said that the technology they will study with the EPA grant is intended to reduce air pollution and cut the health hazards to BBQ "pit masters" from propane-fueled cookers.

Couple denied role as foster parents over permits to carry guns.  A Nevada couple were denied their request to serve as foster parents because they have permits to carry guns.  Brian and Valerie Wilson, of Las Vegas, told "Fox & Friends" Sunday that they have always planned to become foster parents and eventually adopt, but have been denied permission to do so because of a state regulation that prohibits the carrying of loaded weapons with foster children.

Obama is Looking into Raising Taxes by Executive Order.  We already knew that President Obama was happy to continue waging war in Libya even after his lawyers told him he needed Congressional approval.  We already knew that he was willing to alter and delay major portions of Obamacare, regardless of the statutory language.  And we already knew that he was eager to indefinitely suspend deportations for millions of illegal immigrant adults — and proactively give them legal work papers, making them eligible for billions in tax credits — despite years of explicitly arguing that he didn't have the authority to do so.

Atlanta-area garbage collector jailed for going to work too early: 7 Online.  A sanitation worker in an Atlanta suburb is behind bars for getting to work too early.  Kevin McGill was sentenced to 30 days in jail for violating a Sandy Springs ordinance that says workers can only haul trash between the hours of 7am and 7pm.  McGill was cited for picking up the trash just after 5am one morning.

Elijah Cummings is Knee Deep in IRS Scandal.  Cleta Mitchell, who is representing True the Vote, has filed an ethics probe against Elijah Cummings on February 6th (2014) with the Office of Congressional Ethics.  Last fall, True the Vote started receiving 8 and 9 page letters from Cummings, claiming he was conducting an investigation of their organization as part of the House Oversight Committee.  One problem.  The House Oversight Committee is only allowed to investigate government agencies.  Going after a private citizen is illegal.  Mitchell wants to find out if Cummings is responsible in part or completely for the harassment of Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote.  After Cummings launched his "investigation", Engelbrecht had her business audited twice, her personal taxes once, two visits from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a surprise visit from OSHA, seven visits from the FBI.

King v. Burwell Is Much Bigger Than Obamacare.  John Adams, in a 1775 essay referencing the Roman historian Livy and other sources, wrote that a republic was "a nation of laws, not of men."  As recently as fifty years ago, most Americans would have intuitively understood his point and why it was relevant to their lives.  Today, it isn't clear that the President of the United States, the leaders of the Democratic Party, or the members of our "news" media would grasp the meaning of Adams' words, much less that they still matter today.  We will soon discover if the same can be said of the Supreme Court.

Bozell to CPAC: 'Cultural Fascism Has Arrived in America'.  "Cultural fascism has arrived in America," Media Research Center President Brent Bozell said Friday [2/27/2015] in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.  "Tyranny is knocking at our door," Bozell said.  "Webster defines fascism as 'a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control,'" he said.  "Cultural fascism has arrived in America."

Feds Seeking 'Wearable Alcohol Biosensors' to Track How Much Americans Drink.  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering up to $300,000 for the creation of bracelets that can track how much Americans drink.  The federal agency issued a challenge on Monday for individuals and businesses to invent a "wearable alcohol biosensor" that shows a person's blood alcohol level in real time.  The government envisions a device that can be worn by Americans "in the course of their daily lives."  "Current technologies for real time monitoring of alcohol consumption, used in criminal justice applications, have performed adequately, but have disadvantages for broader use," the NIH said in a notice announcing the challenge in the Federal Register.  The NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) said it wants a device that can store data on how much a person drinks.

The Editor says...
Oh, I see.  The government wants to monitor our alcohol consumption "in the course of [our] daily lives," using a sensor that we will (all) have to wear, presumably 24/7.  For our own good, of course.

Exposed: The Planned Subjugation of America's Population.  Citizens about to be cast into the shadows is only courtesy of the natural order when the current administration in D.C. operates not on the way its own unsuspecting citizens presume, but on a long term in place, carefully mounted 'Shadow Government'.  It was the 'Shadow Government' that built its own "civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the military"; a Shadow Government that gives us a false image as Barack Obama as president when 'Shadow Woman' Valerie Jarrett, for whom not a single vote was cast, is running the show.

Bozell: Left Using IRS, FEC and FCC to End Free Speech.  President of the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday [2/27/2015] the "radical left" is using government agencies in "a relentless campaign to destroy the last vestiges of freedom in America."

"Caveman" blogger wins right to blog advice about food and fitness without a state license.  North Carolinian Steve Cooksey had gone through an intense personal journey he wanted to share with the world.  He had been obese, diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, and almost keeled over, but emerged from his near-death experience to adopt a simple, "Caveman" or paleo diet of meat, nuts, and veggies along with exercise.  He lost a lot of weight, felt great and healthy, and wanted to share with the world, so he started a blog, wherein he dispensed advice about food and fitness.  Recipes, grocery lists, general advice.  The state of North Carolina declared this illegal "counseling and assessing" without a license provided by the state.  For three years, he has been fighting for the right to blog without a license.

State Says 70-Year-Old Flower Shop Owner Discriminated Against Gay Couple. Here's How She Responded.  In a phone interview with The Daily Signal, Barronelle Stutzman said the decision — and its accompanying fines — will put her flower shop out of business, or worse.  After the fines and legal fees, "There won't be anything left," Stutzman said.  "They want my home, they want my business, they want my personal finances as an example for other people to be quiet."

Judge Rules Against Grandma Florist For Refusing To Service Gay Wedding.  A Washington grandmother and florist of 40 years who refused to service gay weddings because of her faith will now be forced to arrange flowers for gay ceremonies, a judge ruled Wednesday [2/18/2015].  On top of that, the woman, Barronelle Stutzman, will have to pay the legal penalties imposed by the judge as well as attorney's fees.  Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom ruled in a summary judgement that Stutzman violated anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws.

The Editor says...
This serves as a warning:  Democrats can and will use any legislation — even something as innocent as "consumer protection" or "voting rights" or "clean air" laws — against us in the future.  That's why it is important to oppose every plank in the Democrat platform:  There's always something rotten under the candy coating.

The Reckoning.  What is terrifying about government now is not just that Obama has made it a tool of fundamental political transformation, by ignoring the enforcement of laws, overriding statutes through executive orders, and expanding entitlements to create new Democratic dependent constituencies.  Scarier is the new 1984 state.  The IRS is a rogue, but politicized organization that considers your politics in choosing audits.  What exactly is NASA doing?  The Justice Department sees the law as a hindrance to social justice.

When letting your kids out of your sight becomes a crime.  One recent Saturday afternoon, six police officers and five patrol cars came to my home in Silver Spring.  They demanded identification from my husband and entered our home despite not having a warrant to do so.  The reason for this show of force?  We had allowed our children to walk home from a neighborhood park by themselves.  A few hours later, a Montgomery County Child Protective Services (CPS) social worker coerced my husband into signing a "temporary safety plan" for our children by threatening to take the children "right now" — a threat she backed up with a call to the police.

President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts.  [For example,]
  •   First President to Triple the Number of Warrantless Wiretaps of U.S. Citizens  (Source: ACLU)
  •   First President to Sign into Law a Bill That Permits the Government to "Hold Anyone Suspected of Being Associated With Terrorism Indefinitely, Without Any Form of Due Process.  No Indictment.  No Judge or Jury.  No Evidence.  No Trial.  Just an Indefinite Jail Sentence"  (NDAA Bill)  (Source: Business Insider)

Dems on FEC accused of taking partisan turn.  Democrats on the federal agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance law are being accused of taking a partisan turn, by voting to give liberal-leaning groups and campaigns a pass for alleged violations — though the agency was tough on conservatives when they were under the microscope.  The claims come as the Federal Election Commission prepares for a hearing on Wednesday [2/11/2015] that will examine, among other matters, the hot-button issue of whether it should regulate election-themed Internet videos — an area that for years has been largely hands-off for the government.

How about banning political discussions over the telephone?  Is there any difference?
Federal Election Commission to Consider Regulating Online Political Speech.  The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is holding a hearing today to receive public feedback on whether it should create new rules regulating political speech, including political speech on the Internet that one commissioner warned could affect blogs, YouTube videos and even websites like the Drudge Report.  The hearing is a response to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC last year, which struck down the FEC's previous cap on aggregate campaign contributions from a single donor in an election cycle.

Seattle's Garbage Police Ticketing Those Who Throw Away Food.  Seattle residents, beware:  The garbage police are on the prowl.  If you put too much food — as defined by the Seattle City Council — into your trash, you will be publicly shamed.  And if you keep doing it, you will be fined.  Last September, the city council, in a move the Seattle Times said did not require a public hearing, made formerly voluntary composting and recycling guidelines mandatory for all Seattle residents.  As of January 1, anyone caught with a trash can containing more than 10 percent food or recyclables gets a big red tag stuck on his can and, beginning in July, an extra dollar added to his garbage bill.

Seattle to Fine Residents for Throwing Food in the Garbage.  In an attempt to shame residents of their city, a new Seattle law will levy a fine on homes that do not properly sort food out of their garbage.  Emblazoned with a red citation tag, violators will start to be fined anywhere from $1-$50 in July.  For now, Seattle residents will be publicly shamed by the 'Scarlet Letter'-like tags.

Is The Global War On Terror Being Used To Bring In A Global Government Of Terror?  We see these officials act rather strangely after these supposed "terror attacks."  They seem to conglomerate on cue and ally themselves to condemn the acts — yet not the actors.  In the end, they ask the people to give up their rights while attempting to disarm them for the "global good."  Additionally, they attempt to forge new powers against the very people they are supposed to represent.  Concerning the current Obama administration, terror is nothing more than a created battering ram to upend government sovereignty in order to implement a new totalitarian government and establish a global government.

Are You Too Shy, Very Sad, Have Senior Moments? You Might Be Crazy!.  Pretty much everyone in the country is crazy and needs medication.  There is another advantage beyond supplying Big Pharma with customers.  The left wants doctors to report patients who might be mentally ill and who have gun permits.  This could provide a pathway to gun confiscation though saying that makes me a conspiracy theorist and possibly crazy.  None of these have a scientific basis but they will do a lot of harm unless you're a drug company which stands to benefit.

The overcriminalization of America.  It is surprisingly easy for otherwise law-abiding citizens to run afoul of the overwhelming number of federal and state criminal laws.  This proliferation is sometimes referred to as "overcriminalization," which affects us all but most profoundly harms our disadvantaged citizens. [...] Congress creates, on average, more than 50 new criminal laws each year.  This has translated into more than 4,500 federal criminal laws spread across 27,000 pages of the United States federal code.

Domino's to Obama Admin: Calorie Rule is 'Unworkable'.  The final Obamacare regulation forcing restaurant chains to display calorie information is causing headaches for companies who say it is "impossible to comply" with the new rule.  Domino's Pizza, one of the regulation's most outspoken critics, said the rule from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is vaguely written and carries the possibility of jail time.

Obama Tells States They Can't Block His Immigration Order.  Obama claims his unconstitutional immigration order is unreviewable.  He has also banned public input.  While we are watching the events in Paris, twenty-five states, that have sued to block Barack Obama's executive order allowing millions of illegals to stay in the U.S., have been told by the federal government that it is above judicial review.  The Dictator is not only ignoring Congress, he is ignoring the courts and he is trampling states' rights.  His goal is to destroy the co-equal branches of government and the constitutional protections against a rogue president.  It is not hyperbole to call him a dictator.  He is dictating.

Lamenting Liberty Lost.  The Framers believed in the presumption of liberty, which declares that we are free to make personal choices, and the government cannot interfere with our liberties unless we violate the rights of others.  Stated differently, the federal government cannot interfere with our personal choices by writing any law it wants; it can only regulate behavior or spend money when the Constitution authorizes it to do so.  But for the past 100 years, the federal government has rejected the Madisonian concept that it is limited to the 16 discrete powers the Constitution delegates to it, and has claimed its powers are unlimited, subject only to the express prohibitions in the Constitution.

Ferguson grand juror sues over gag order.  A member of the grand jury that declined to indict the Ferguson police officer who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown asked a federal court Monday [1/5/2015] to remove a lifetime gag order preventing jurors from discussing the case.

The Editor says...
Never before have I heard of a lifetime gag order imposed upon a juror.

Guns Confiscated after Man Seeks Insomnia Treatment.  In the old Soviet and East German police states of the Cold War, police kept secret files on scores of common people.  Information was fed to the police by thousands of clandestine sources — and a seemingly banal or routine interaction with nearly anyone could lead to a surprise "knock on the door" by authorities.  During the late Soviet era, communist leadership moved away from the executions and purges of the Stalin years and began to increasingly rely upon medical professionals to diagnose "enemies of the state" as insane — thus, a routine trip to your doctor could lead to a visit from police.

FBI Agents Pose as Repairmen to Bypass Warrant Process.  This is a creepy story.  The FBI wanted access to a hotel guest's room without a warrant. So agents broke his Internet connection, and then posed as Internet technicians to gain access to his hotel room without a warrant. [...] Basically, the agents snooped around the hotel room, and gathered evidence that they submitted to a magistrate to get a warrant.  Of course, they never told the judge that they had engineered the whole outage and planted the fake technicians.

Supreme Court Erodes Key Check On Government Power.  Briefly, the facts in Heien v. North Carolina are that a North Carolina police officer pulled over Nicholas Heien because one of his car's brake lights was out.  The state's law requires only one light to be working, so the stop was based on a mistake of law.  After Heien was pulled over, he gave consent for the officer to search his car.  The officer found cocaine in the car, then placed Heien under arrest.  Heien later claimed the initial stop was not legal under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  The Supreme Court ruled that the mistake for the initial stop, which was a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, was reasonable and therefore lawful.

The Obama administration and race-baiting pundits are paving the way for national policing.  Well America, the "change" you voted for is here.  Six years ago, you voted into office a community organizer who vowed to change America.  That same community organizer, while campaigning, argued for a "civilian national security force."  But how can you create a national force when we already have local agencies?  Easy, you sow distrust in the local cops until the divide is so great, people start clamoring for the feds to come to the rescue.

CPS Threatens Dad: Let Your Kids Play Outside and We'll Take Them Away.  I received an update from the Maryland mom of two who was contacted by Montgomery Country Child Welfare Service in November after she let her kids, ages 6 and 10, play at the park two blocks from home by themselves.  She was cited for allowing a child under age 8 "to be locked or confined in a dwelling, building, enclosure, or motor vehicle while the person charged is absent."  The CPS worker decided "confined in a dwelling" was the same thing as "outside in a park."  The higher ups at child services agreed that this was insane, and the case was closed — until this week.

Wisconsin Police Ask Residents To Volunteer For House Gun Search.  In an effort to reduce gun violence, police in Beloit, Wisconsin, have kicked off a new initiative asking residents to volunteer to allow police to search their homes for guns.  "Gun violence is as serious as the Ebola virus is being represented in the media, and we should fight it using the tools that we've learned from our health providers," said Police Chief Norm Jacobs.  Skeptical that people will actually call, Jacobs' hope is that the ones who do will allow the cops to find guns that residents did not even know were there.

Obama Says His Job Is Assuring Equal Protection Under the Law — Really?  When it comes to the great constitutional principle of equal protection under the law in the age of Obama, it is not that there is a black America and a white America.  It is that there are political supporters of the president who get one quality of justice, and political opponents and convenient political scapegoats for whom "justice" is a weapon their government has turned against them.

Fishing without a license in NJ? The game warden has a machine gun, aimed at you.  Why does a New Jersey game warden need an M-14?  Because, shut up.

Should Tour Guides Be Licensed?  When Dan Leger applied for his tour guide's license in Savannah, Georgia, six years ago, he had to strip, give blood and urine samples, detail his sexual history and submit to the dreaded "cough test."  Leger has also had to undergo additional physicals to renew his credentials, per Savannah's ordinance on tour guide licensing.  The city's regulations also require tour guides to pass a background check and a 100-question history test, as well as pay multiple fees.  "This is all simply so you can walk around and tell a story," Leger, who goes by the moniker Savannah Dan, says.  "The city of Savannah shouldn't have the authority to license my free speech."

Crypto Wars II.  There is absolutely no evidence, either statistically or even anecdotally, that criminals are going free because of encryption.  So why are we even discussing the possibility to forcing companies to provide insecure encryption to their users and customers?

How Long Must A Long Train Of Abuses Be?  I say we have been disposed to suffer long enough.  The Founders rose up over less than we are experiencing now.  The Constitution has been overturned in a Stealth Coup that took slightly over a century to achieve.  The current Leftists in Power And Control are merely firing the final shots into it's critically wounded corpse.  How long is long?  You say a century is not long enough a train.  Many of us say it is too long, that it is so long we stand a very good chance of not being able to derail it.  I say the situation is insufferable, intolerable, that it is time to act.

SWAT Team Tasers, Pepper-Sprays Homeschoolers.  A Missouri homeschooling family is suing a sheriff and another officer who forcibly entered their home without a warrant, Tasered the father, pepper-sprayed the mother and put their children in the custody of social service workers.  A court already has ruled that the actions of Sheriff Darren White and Capt. David Glidden of Nodaway County, Missouri, violated the U.S. Constitution, resulting in the dismissal of charges of child endangerment and resisting arrest against the couple, Jason and Laura Hagan, of New Hampton.

This is what a police state looks like:
More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations.  The federal government has significantly expanded undercover operations in recent years, with officers from at least 40 agencies posing as business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers to ferret out wrongdoing, records and interviews show.  At the Supreme Court, small teams of undercover officers dress as students at large demonstrations outside the courthouse and join the protests to look for suspicious activity, according to officials familiar with the practice.  At the Internal Revenue Service, dozens of undercover agents chase suspected tax evaders worldwide, by posing as tax preparers, accountants drug dealers or yacht buyers and more, court records show.

Navy veteran fired for posting Homeland Security vehicles on Facebook.  A Facebooking employee of Chesterfield's Drury Plaza Hotel is out of a job after curiosity over dozens of Homeland Security vehicles in the hotel garage got the best of him.  His photos on social media got him fired.  Mark Paffrath saw the collection of vehicles last Thursday [11/13/2014], and it certainly got his attention.  "It was very odd that there was a bunch of Homeland Security cars there and I was shocked and took a picture and a short video and posted them to Facebook with the status update, 'What are these vehicles doing here?  I wonder if it has anything to do with Ferguson?'"

Redskins War Continues as Bill Introduced to Revoke Team's Tax-Exempt Status.  Congress coming back into session after the long campaign break means quick legislative action — against the Washington Redskins.  D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) introduced on Wednesday [11/12/2014] a bill to amend section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code to "prohibit tax-exempt status for professional sports leagues that promote or allow a member club or franchise connected to that league to benefit from the Washington football team name, a derogatory term that has officially been found offensive."  It's companion legislation to a bill filed in the upper chamber by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

The Editor says...
It's a sad and dangerous day when the government can declare specific terms to be "officially" offensive.

House Committee Demands Answers on Truthy Project.  The Truthy project, being conducted by researchers at Indiana University, is under investigation for targeting political commentary on Twitter.  The project monitors "suspicious memes," "false and misleading ideas," and "hate speech," with a goal of one day being able to automatically detect false rumors on the social media platform.  The web service has been used to track tweets using hashtags such as #tcot (Top Conservatives on Twitter), and was successful in getting accounts associated with conservatives suspended, according to a 2012 book co-authored by the project's lead researcher, Filippo Menczer, a professor of Informatics and Computer Science at Indiana University.

Obama's FEC Wants to Criminalize Political YouTube Videos.  What is it with this administration and YouTube videos anyway?  Obama and Hillary blamed Al Qaeda terrorism on a YouTube video and sent a guy to jail over it.  Now Obama wants to ban political YouTube videos.

Dems on FEC move to regulate Internet campaigns, blogs, Drudge.  In a surprise move late Friday, a key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission called for burdensome new rules on Internet-based campaigning, prompting the Republican chairman to warn that Democrats want to regulate online political sites and even news media like the Drudge Report.  Democratic FEC Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel announced plans to begin the process to win regulations on Internet-based campaigns and videos, currently free from most of the FEC's rules.  "A reexamination of the commission's approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long over due," she said.

FEC Democrat pushes for controls on Internet political speech.  The FEC deadlocked in a crucial Internet campaign speech vote announced Friday, leaving online political blogging and videos free of many of the reporting requirements attached to broadcast ads — for now.  While all three GOP-backed members voted against restrictions, they were opposed by the three Democratic-backed members, including FEC Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel, who said she will lead a push next year to try to come up with new rules government political speech on the Internet.

Democrats Push for New Heavy Regulations on Internet Postings, Drudge, and Blogs.  As the media prepared to vacate newsrooms for the weekend, Democrats snuck in a last minute proposal that the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) be allowed to heavily regulate political content on internet sites such as Youtube, blogs, and the Drudge Report.  Obama FEC Vice Chairperson Ann M. Ravel announced late on Friday that the FEC was preparing new regulations to give itself control over videos, Internet-based political campaigns, and other content on the web.  She insisted that, "A reexamination of the commission's approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long overdue."

A Government Bureau Is The Nearest Thing To Eternal Life We Will Ever See On This Earth.  It is no secret that government today is far overreaching and intrusive.  This past year alone we have seen privacy breaches by the NSA, the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS, and the disastrous consequences of Obamacare on small businesses and families.  Obama has even said, "I can take steps without legislation."  This self-righteous statement underscores that he has no respect for the Constitution — a document meant to protect the rights of all Americans and prevent our government and our leaders from trampling on those rights.  Unfortunately, today we have a President and federal officials who are no longer accountable to the American people because they consider themselves to be above the law.

The feds' 'truthy' new chill on free speech.  Earlier this week, the federal government's National Science Foundation (NSF), an entity created to encourage the study of science — encouragement that it achieves by awarding grants to scholars and universities — announced that it had awarded a grant to study what people say about themselves and others in social media.  The NSF dubbed the project "Truthy," a reference to comedian Stephen Colbert's invention and hilarious use of the word "truthiness."  The reference to Mr. Colbert is cute, and he is a very funny guy, but when the feds get into the business of monitoring speech, it is surely no joke; it is a nightmare.  It is part of the Obama administration's persistent efforts to monitor communication and scrutinize the expressions of opinions it hates and fears.

Houston's 'sermon-gate' and the abuse of subpoenas.  Friday [10/17/2014], the City of Houston filed a revised subpoena removing the word "sermons" among the documents being demanded, but leaving the word "speeches."  Legally, this changes nothing.  It is a distinction without a difference.  City Attorney Feldman apparently didn't bother to check a dictionary (any dictionary will do) which describes "sermons" as "religious discourse or speech."  Pastors are therefore still required to turn over to the city their sermons.  Feldman is fooling no one.

California forces Churches to pay for abortions, immediately.  How soon will Leftists take the next step and force doctors and nurses to participate in abortions or face losing their license?

Houston to pastors: Forget your sermons, now we want your speeches.  Five Christian pastors will no longer have to turn their sermons over to attorneys for the city of Houston.  Instead, they will be forced to turn over their speeches related to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO).  I don't mean to point out the obvious here — but what do those attorneys think a sermon is?  It's a speech.

The Houston Mayor Who Tried Harassing Pastors Says She's the Real Victim.  [I]t's tough being Houston mayor Annise Parker:  "One word in a very long legal document which I know nothing about and would never have read," Parker said on Thursday /10z16z2014=, "and I'm vilified coast-to-coast."  That's Parker's crack defense of the subpoenas, issued to five local pastors, that demand "all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to [Houston Equal Rights Ordinance], the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession."  Among other demands:  communications between the pastors and their congregants (including Facebook messages and text messages) and between the pastors and their attorneys.  First Amendment protections, attorney-client privilege — Parker's legal team has run roughshod over all sorts of rights.

Bozell: Network Censorship of Houston Mayor's Subpoenas Part of Left's 'Relentless Assault on Free Speech'.  According to a new analysis by MRC Culture, over the past two days the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have completely censored liberal Houston Mayor Annise Parker's attempt to subpoena sermons of five pastors critical of the mayor, homosexuality, gender identity, or the city's new "equal rights" ordinance.  MRC President Brent Bozell released a statement in response to the networks' refusal to cover Parker's brazen attack on religious freedom and free speech:  "When the government mandates what a pastor can or cannot say, and criminalizes preaching the Bible, we're no different than Red China. [...]"

Texas Attorney General tells Houston city hall: Stop bullying Christians.  Stop bullying people of faith.  That's the bottom line of a harshly-worded letter written by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to Houston City Attorney David Feldman.  Feldman's office sent subpoenas to five Houston pastors last month demanding that they turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality and gender identity issues.  They also wanted sermons or correspondence that referenced Annise Parker, the city's first openly lesbian mayor.

Houston Mayor Backs Off From Subpoenas to Pastors.  Houston Mayor Annise Parker has backed down from the subpoenas the City of Houston issued to several area pastors, Breitbart Texas has learned.  Breitbart Texas reported earlier about the controversy, stemming from litigation challenging the city's anti-discrimination ordinance and subpoenas asking the pastors for the content of their sermons, speeches and communications with church members.  Texas Senator Ted Cruz weighed in, firmly supporting the pastors in their efforts to fight the subpoenas, while Mayor Parker initially remained adamant that the city had the right to request those records.  Despite posting comments on Twitter just hours before that seemed to indicate she would continue to fight this issue, she told a Houston radio station that she had changed her mind.

City officials try to distance themselves from sermon subpoenas.  Amid outrage from religious groups, Mayor Annise Parker and City Attorney David Feldman on Wednesday [10/15/2014] appeared to back off a subpoena request for the sermons of certain ministers opposed to the city's equal rights ordinance, with Parker calling the request "overly broad."  The subpoena, handed down to five pastors and religious leaders last month, came to light this week when attorneys for the group of pastors filed a motion to quash the request.  The pastors are closely tied to Christian conservative activists who sued the Parker administration this summer when the city announced the group had failed to gather enough valid signatures to force a repeal referendum.  The subpoenas were issued as part of the discovery phase in that case, which will be heard in district court in January.

Pastors to mayor: Don't mess with Texas pulpits.  Christians across the nation are mobilizing to defend a group of Houston pastors who were ordered by the city to turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity issues or Houston mayor.  Their message is simple — Don't Mess with Texas Preachers.  Dave Welch, the executive director of the Texas Pastor Council, is one of the five ministers who received a subpoena.  He said he will not be intimidated by Annise Parker, who is the city's first openly lesbian mayor, nor will he comply with the city's demands.  "My answer to that is — bring it on," he said.

Twitter Blocks Campaign To Protect Pastors From Having To Hand Over Their Sermons and Emails To The Government.  Twitter blocked a petition campaign Wednesday to protect Houston pastors from having to hand over to the city government all of their sermons and personal emails dealing with the issue of homosexuality.  The Christian organization Faith Driven Consumer's Twitter hashtag campaign #HoustonWeHaveAProblem was censored by Twitter minutes after launching so that users could not Tweet the petition and a warning was placed on Twitter-based links to the petition website.  The group's previous campaign #iStandWithPhil defending Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson was also blocked by Twitter at one time.

Houston's Mayor Throws Out Citizens' Petition, Goes after Local Pastors.  'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  Unless you're in Houston, Texas, in which case you had best render everything to Mayor Annise Parker — or else.  Earlier this year Parker, a Democrat, spearheaded the passage of an "Equal Rights Ordinance" (ERO) that added "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the city's non-discrimination provision, which includes, among other things, "public accommodations" — for example, restrooms.  Citizens, among them church leaders, balked.  They launched a referendum petition that, with the requisite 17,269 signatures, would require the city council to repeal the ERO, or to put the measure up for a vote.  They obtained 55,000 signatures.  The city secretary, who has sole responsibility for certifying such petitions, signed off.

Houston's Mayor Backtracks on Church Subpoenas, Tosses Her Own Lawyers Under the Bus.  Houston's power-mad Mayor Annise Parker has backtracked on those subpoenas that she had the city issue to five city pastors, at taxpayer expense.  The mayor made the move as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent a letter to Parker asking that she withdraw the subpoenas "immediately."

Houston Demands Oversight Of Sermons.  Officials with the city of Houston, Texas, who are defending a controversial ordinance that would allow men to use women's restrooms now have demanded to see the sermons preached by several area pastors.  The recent move came in a subpoena from the city to pastors for copies of their sermons and other communications in the city's legal defense of a "non-discrimination" measure that allows "gender-confused" people to use public restrooms designated for the opposite sex.  A lawsuit challenging Houston's move alleges the city violated its own charter in its adoption of the Equal Rights Ordinance, which in May designated homosexuals and transgender persons as a protected class.

Even in Houston, Texas, You Will Be Made to Care.  Houston, TX is not thought of as a bastion of liberalism, but it has gone quite rapidly off the deep end.  Earlier this year, Houston's City Council voted on non-discrimination legislation that provides equal protection to the entire swath of the BLTGCZQDLMAO alphabet silliness.  In short, if a guy decides he's a girl and wants to go hang out in the girl's bathroom, it is a-okay in Houston, or it would be except the law will not be enforced pending a court challenge.

Big Brother in Texas: Houston Demands Pastors Turn Over Sermon Notes, Private Communications.  After decades of warnings on the right about liberal politicians threatening religious liberty, a Democratic mayor in Texas is now subpoenaing pastors to turn over their sermons.  Houston city officials are demanding that city pastors opposed to Houston's "Bathroom Bill" — "a law that allows members of the opposite sex into each other's restrooms" — turn over sermon notes and "communications with church members" to ascertain which pastors have (or haven't) "opposed or criticized the city."

Commission says Christian business owners should leave religion at home.  The Human Rights Commission in Lexington, Kentucky has a chilling message for Christian business owners who refuse service to LGBT organizations:  leave your religion at home.  "It would be safe to do so, yes," Executive Director Raymond Sexton told me.  "Or in this case you can find yourself two years down the road and you're still involved in a legal battle because you did not do so."  On Tuesday [10/7/2014], a Lexington Human Rights Commission hearing examiner issued a recommended ruling that the owner of a T-shirt company violated a local ordinance against sexual-orientation discrimination.

Judge Wants To Force A Printer To Make Pro-Gay T-Shirts.  An administrative law judge has ruled that a Kentucky printer's refusal to print gay pride t-shirts "constitutes unlawful discrimination," and, by extension, that printers cannot refuse to print materials promoting ideas they disagree with.

The Empire of Progressive Poverty.  Western resources are not innately centralized, which makes seizing control of them and routing them through a central point more difficult.  This has to be done legislatively and has to be justified by a universal benefit or a crisis.  One example of this is FDR's Agricultural Adjustment Act which allowed the government to control wheat grown on a farm for private consumption.  Another is nationalizing health care by routing the commercial activity of medicine through government organs.  Both services and commodities can be controlled in this manner.  But the larger challenge is that the West is rich and a water empire depends on scarcity.  Central control is much less potent if there is plenty of the commodity or service available.  It's only when shortages are created in bread or health care that the system really wields power by rationing a scarce commodity or service.

Ebola Patient's Family Ordered To Stay Inside After Trying to Leave.  "There were violations of the request to not leave their premises," Dallas judge Clay Jenkins said of the breach that prompted the Texas Department of State Health Services to order the quarantine.  [Thomas Eric ] Duncan was staying with family members in Dallas when he became ill and is now confined to an isolation unit at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.  His family members, including five school age children, were told to remain at home.

The Editor says...
If it's just a "request," what is the "violation" if one ignores the request?

Forest Service says media needs photography permit in wilderness areas, alarming First Amendment advocates.  The U.S. Forest Service has tightened restrictions on media coverage in vast swaths of the country's wild lands, requiring reporters to pay for a permit and get permission before shooting a photo or video in federally designated wilderness areas.  Under rules being finalized in November, a reporter who met a biologist, wildlife advocate or whistleblower alleging neglect in 36 million acres of wilderness would first need special approval to shoot photos or videos even on an iPhone.  Permits cost up to $1,500, says Forest Service spokesman Larry Chambers, and reporters who don't get a permit could face fines up to $1,000.

The Editor says...
When the government prohibits photography in a large but specific area, it is reasonable to infer that the government is currently working on something, or is about to do something they don't want to publicize.  Like building a FEMA camp, or a missile silo, or something more sinister than just blocking the production of oil — although oil drilling is also out of the question if the area is locked down as tight as they seem to prefer.

"What do you call a man who claims voters' choices have no place in government?"
Brown's Final Nail In Prop. 187 Is Really A Blow To California's Voters.  [I]n 1994, millions of California's voters, by a margin of 59% to 41%, voted in favor of denying "free" welfare, education and other benefits to illegal immigrants on the clear logic that a burglar who breaks into someone else's home doesn't have the right to eat the owner's food.  It was a legitimate decision for a people to make, given that in any democratic system, the participants have the right to control the purse.  But [Governor] Brown's statements and those of his political allies, including those in the press, suggest an imperial contempt for the will of California's voters.

White House May Check Tourists Blocks Away.  As part of the screening, the Secret Service would establish several checkpoints a few blocks from the White House, the officials said. The screening would likely be limited to bag checks and not include measures taken at airports by the Transportation Security Administration, which include metal detectors and body scans. Along with giving Secret Service agents and uniformed Secret Service officers a chance to check for explosives and weapons in bags, the screening would allow them to interact with the visitors and try to identify those who may pose a problem, the officials said.

The Editor says...
The Washington DC version of Checkpoint Charlie won't be anything like the airport screening process — at first!  No, these things have to be done in small increments — small enough so that anyone who objects to such tiny changes can be labeled a paranoid bitter-clinger tea-party bigot.

Silent Coup.  [Scroll down]  Two levels of government would be permitted "to criminalize and censor all issue advocacy that mentions or refers to a candidate under the argument that it supports or opposes that candidate."  Recall that Citizens United, which the Udall amendment is supposed to address, was not about Tea Party Astroturf.  It was about the FEC's attempt to censor a film critical of her royal highness [Hillary Clinton]. The mandarins at the FEC and IRS, as well as their counterparts at the state level, would be responsible for distinguishing political communications that "support or oppose" a candidate from those that do not.  They would penalize the individuals and groups they subjectively deem violators of administrative diktat.  If this is not about "limiting free speech," what is?

An Open Letter To My Friends In Law Enforcement.  Let me just be blunt: ever since Ronald Reagan left office, both Republican and Democrat presidential administrations — along with both Republican and Democrat congresses — in Washington, D.C. are turning the United States of America into a giant Police State. [...] The totalitarian regimes of history could not have succeeded in implementing their enslavements over the people without the submission and cooperation of the citizen-policemen within their countries.  Nor can a Police State be constructed in America without your submission and cooperation.  My concern is, the Police State is already being constructed in this country; and most of you don't seem to even realize it — or don't want to realize it.  In fact, some of you become angry with people like me when we try to warn the American people about it.  This shows that you have already become acclimated and accepting of it.  Here is the problem:  in today's America, virtually every police agency and sheriff's office is being dictated to, intimidated by, and bribed by the federal government.  Much of the policies you operate under — and training you receive — comes straight out of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Justice Department.

Government to Track 'False, Misleading' Ideas on Twitter.  One G-man's "social pollution" is another free man's First Amendment right.  The very term sounds like something out of a 1920s Italian fascist tract.  And why is the federal government even deciding which ideas are "false and misleading," let alone tracking them?  According to the project's grant, the service "could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda, and assist in the preservation of open debate."  In 2004, dissent was "the highest form of patriotism."  A decade later, it's called "subversive propaganda" and categorized as the lowest form of treason.

Feds Creating Database to Track 'Hate Speech' on Twitter.  The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track "misinformation" and hate speech on Twitter.  The National Science Foundation is financing the creation of a web service that will monitor "suspicious memes" and what it considers "false and misleading ideas," with a major focus on political activity online.  The "Truthy" database, created by researchers at Indiana University, is designed to "detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution."  The university has received $919,917 so far for the project.

Anything You Don't Say Will Be Used Against You.  In People v. Tom, California's Supreme Court justices upheld the prosecution of a man based on the district attorney's argument that the defendant's silence was evidence of guilt.  The cop shows make these matters seem simple.  A person is arrested.  The officer reads the suspect the Miranda wording.  Suspects can then clam up and wait for an attorney.  In real life, though, these matters can become more complicated and legalistic.

The Wane of Government by Consent.  From local politicians legally looting their communities to federal government that uses the IRS as a weapon of politics, there are real objections to be made.  In practical terms, we have a government that interferes with our lives and livelihoods far more than did the one our Founders threw off.  Which is not a call for revolution — it's a call for rebalancing, for reestablishing exactly who works for whom.

Liberty vs. License.  As unions decline, occupational-licensing requirements are on the rise, facilitated by back-scratching among industries and legislators both state and federal.  In 2012, the Institute for Justice (IJ) released a study identifying 102 occupations that require licensing somewhere in the nation and in which practitioners made less than the national average income:  EMT and cosmetologist are on the list, as are preschool teacher, vegetation-pesticide handler, florist, and a host of others.  According to economists Morris Kleiner and Alan Krueger, just over one-third of jobs in the United States today require some sort of licensing.

Who rules America?  A shattering new study by two political science professors has found that ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country.  The analysts found that rich individuals and business-controlled interest groups largely shape policy outcomes in the United States.  This study should be a loud wake-up call to the vast majority of Americans who are bypassed by their government.  To reclaim the promise of American democracy, ordinary citizens must act positively to change the relationship between the people and our government[.]

Connecticut Supreme Court Says State Cops Can Detain You Simply For Being In The Vicinity Of Someone They're Arresting.  Gideon, the pseudonymous public defender who blogs at A Public Defender, has a thorough rundown of a very disturbing ruling recently issued by the Connecticut Supreme Court. It involves every Connecticut citizens' civil liberties, which have now been thrown under a bus bearing the name "officer safety."  The court's decision basically makes everyone a suspect, even if they're suspected of nothing else than being in the relative proximity of someone a police officer suspects of committing a crime, or someone simply "matching the description."

Obama's FBI to hire firm to rate 'positive and 'negative' stories about the agency.  The FBI is hiring a contractor to grade news stories about the agency as "positive" "neutral" or "negative," but the agency won't say why officials need the information or what they plan to do with it.  FBI officials wouldn't even reveal how they will go about assigning the grades, which were laid out in a recent contract solicitation.  The contract tells potential bidders to "use their judgment" in scoring news coverage as part of a new "daily news briefing" service the agency is seeking as part of a contract that could last up to five years.

The IRS's God Complex.  Is the Internal Revenue Service a threat to religious liberty?  As the IRS continues to come under well-aimed fire for harassing conservative groups, on Friday [8/1/2014] it secured a final court order formalizing what amounts to a secret agreement to monitor the pulpits of ill-favored churches.  The serious danger, as former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams told Fox News, is that the IRS will start treating "theology as politics," and regulate it accordingly.  Lovers of liberty should be very concerned.

Obama's Rogue IRS Strikes Deal With Atheists To Monitor Churches — But Not Mosques.  Government's assault on religious liberty has hit a new low as the IRS settles with atheists by promising to monitor sermons for mentions of the right to life and traditional marriage.  A lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asserted that the Internal Revenue Service ignored complaints about churches' violating their tax-exempt status by routinely promoting political issues, legislation and candidates from the pulpit.  The FFRF has temporarily withdrawn its suit in return for the IRS's agreement to monitor sermons and homilies for proscribed speech that the foundation believes includes things like condemnation of gay marriage and criticism of ObamaCare for its contraceptive mandate.

IRS Strikes Deal With Atheists To Monitor Churches.  Government's assault on religious liberty has hit a new low as the IRS settles with atheists by promising to monitor sermons for mentions of the right to life and traditional marriage.

Feds raid S.C. home to seize Land Rover in EPA emission-control crackdown.  When it comes to environmental regulation compliance, the Department of Homeland Security isn't playing — as evidenced by a recent federal raid of a South Carolinian's home to confiscate a Land Rover that violated EPA emission rules.  Jennifer Brinkley said she saw a line of law enforcement vehicles approaching her home and wondered what was wrong, the local WBTV reported.  Homeland Security agents then went to her 1985 Land Rover Defender and lifted the hood.  "They popped up the hood and looked at the Vehicle Identification Number and compared it with a piece of paper and then took the car with them," she said, WBTV reported.

Homeland Security Seizing Cars That Violate EPA Standards.  Jennifer Brinkley of North Carolina says when saw a line of law enforcement vehicles coming up her driveway earlier this month she didn't know what to think.  "I haven't done anything wrong."  According to WBTV, the Homeland Security agents were not there to take her away, they were looking for illegally imported Land Rover Defenders.

IRS Strikes Deal with Militant Atheists to Monitor What Your Pastor Says In Your Church.  Democrats routinely campaign from the very pulpit of majority black churches.  It happens every single election cycle.  Pastors in those churches regularly push parishioners to support the Democratic Party, to support specific government social policy, and even specific candidates for office.  The Freedom From Religion Foundation has not sued to get the IRS to investigate any of that.  Its targets are churches that align with the more conservative Pulpit Freedom Sunday movement.  That tells us what the foundation and the IRS will really be investigating.  The IRS will be monitoring churches to listen for pastors supporting the right to life, the sanctity and traditional definition of marriage, traditional values in general, perhaps even patriotism.  Those are the churches, based on the angle that the foundation lawsuit takes, that will potentially find themselves under IRS investigation.

IRS Strikes Deal With Atheist Group to Monitor Content of Sermons.  Alliance Defending Freedom asked the Internal Revenue Service Tuesday [7/29/2014] to release all documents related to its recent decision to settle a lawsuit with an atheist group that claims the IRS has adopted new protocols and procedures for the investigation of churches.  Pastor Holding Bible ca. 2000 [A.D.] submitted the Freedom of Information Act request after learning of the IRS's agreement with Freedom From Religion Foundation in a press release the group issued on July 17 concerning its lawsuit Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Koskinen, which accused the agency of failing to investigate churches the way the atheist group would like.

A Government Feared and Distrusted.  [Scroll down]  The proposed regulations are so onerous, they could literally make farming of some areas impossible.  But if you don't comply, the EPA could label you a "polluter" whose wages should be garnished.  Case example:  the agency has threatened fines of up to $75,000 per day on Wyoming homeowner Andy Johnson.  He built a pond on his rural property.  Think twice before you build that koi pond in your own backyard — or collect rain water on your property, like Gary Harrington, an Oregonian now serving a 30-day sentence for violating water regulations.  An encyclopedia would be required to list all the examples of executive and governmental agency overreach.  But note the theme:  the examples above are violations of Americans trust by non-elected governmental agencies.  You, Joe Average, have no say in what is decreed.  You are not represented when thousands of regulations are enacted.

Terror watchlist can include dead, acquitted suspects.  Federal rules for adding someone to the government's terrorist watchlist are broad enough to include people who are dead or have been acquitted in court of terrorism charges, according to a government document that emerged on Wednesday [7/23/2014].  A 166-page guidance for the government database that includes the "no-fly list" and other lists declared that agents do not require "concrete facts" or "irrefutable evidence" that someone is a terrorist.  Instead, the system requires officials have a "reasonable suspicion" that someone could be connected to terrorist activity, which can include "violent acts" that could harm people or property and "intimidation or coercion" that affects the government or public.

Passionate Farmer Takes On Her Government Harassers.  With her life's dream of being a small family farmer in Virginia, Martha Boneta obtained 64 acres in Fauquier County, Va in 2006 to raise vegetables, herbs, raw honey, eggs, and host small animals.  Little did she know that a birthday party with eight ten-year old girls would trigger zealous county regulators who saw the party as an event needing special exception permits and required a hearing that would impose fees.  Thinking she had all the right commercial permits and licenses, Boneta was still threatened with $5,000 per day fines despite Virginia being a right to farm state, where local governments are considered unable to use zoning laws to bring nuisance suits for customary farm operations.

The Police State we've all feared is already here.  It would make complete sense if one was attempting to create a police state, first disarm the civilian population through crushing legislation and regulations and during that same time, proceed to arm as many different government agencies that were not previously armed before, using "false flag" operations to create public outrage against privately owned weapons and the immediate need to control them, or even outlaw private weapon ownership completely with an executive order.  What lies in store for us in the near future, if the EPA catches you polluting dear mother earth, or contributing to global warming, will they whip-out their sub-machine guns and blow you away for that?  Why on earth would the USDA or the EPA need to be armed at all?  What's really funny, is the fact that so-called "liberals" are leading the charge to curtail as much of our personal freedoms as possible by "Big- government" intervention.  I'd say that the "police state" we've all feared, but never thought would happen in America, is already here!

Federal agents swarm Livingston, Ill.  Homeland security, the US Customs and Border Patrol and other police agencies swarmed Livingston, Illinois.  They all parked in the field of a grade school.  The peacefulness of the town of 850 was broken by all the excitement.  The law officers would not comment about their operation, even to the school superintendent and they were using the school district's land.

Rep. Campbell: Government, IRS, EPA Are 'The Police State'.  Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) called the government, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "the police state" at a Financial Services Committee hearing at the Capitol on Thursday [7/10/2014].  At the July 10 hearing, Legislation to Reform the Federal Reserve on Its 100-year Anniversary, the Federal Reserve Accountability and Transparency Act (HR 5018) was discussed, legislation which would require "the Federal Reserve to provide the Congress with a clear rule to describe the course of monetary policy."  The act would also require the Fed to conduct cost-benefit analysis, require transparency on bank stress tests and international financial regulatory negotiations, and would order the Fed to disclose the salaries of highly paid employees.

Advisor: Obama, NSA use internet to silence critics like Tea Party.  The Obama administration is expanding its online data search of Americans to find potential civil unrest — like the 2010 Tea Party movement — and squash it before they take root, a prominent financial advisor has warned clients.  David John Marotta compared the administration's efforts to those used by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover against his critics and 1960s activists.  Targeting activists isn't anything new.  J. Edgar Hoover made it his life's work.  What has changed is the vigor with which the government has assumed its own activism against certain groups, he said.

The Age of Mafia Government: People Wind Up Mysteriously Dead.  The ultimate way to earn power over other people is to threaten not just their livelihood, but also their lives, and the lives of those they love.  On that note, perhaps it's appropriate to mention that the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of Education each have their own SWAT teams. [...] When black-helmeted men circle your home, break down your door, throw your children from their sleeping beds onto the dew-ridden lawn, and shoot you 22 times because some meathead mistook your house for a drug dealer's, it's clear government has gone from protecting you from threats to becoming a threat itself.

House Leaders Question $461 Million Training Center.  The Foreign Affairs Security Training Center, years in the making, would consolidate similar training operations in one place.  To be built on 1,500 acres of public land that was home to the Fort Pickett Army National Guard in Blackstone, Va., the security training center will look and feel like a real U.S. embassy surrounded by urban-style streets, buildings, and facades, State Department officials announced in April.  Some 10,000 students per year will practice shooting on firing ranges, driving at high speeds on race tracks, and detecting improvised explosive devices.

The Editor says...
I suspect they're training for house-to-house urban combat against us!

America's expanding police state.  Spying is one thing, but control is, in fact, key.  During the Obama administration, most of us have grown concerned about the massive buy-up of ammunition of various federal agencies.  The U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Agriculture, the Commerce Department and even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among so many other agencies, have acquired billions of rounds of ammunition.  In an article for Newsmax, Mrs. Chumley spoke with Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, who asked a telling question:  "Why exactly does a weather service need ammunition?

The Federal Octopus.  [Scroll down]  In pre-Obama times, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had a necessary and narrowly defined mission:  to protect individual achievement from improper infringement.  But under Obama it too is now not a disinterested government agency but an arm of the White House, which can be enlisted in the furtherance of a larger social agenda.  Most recently it waded into the controversy over the name of the Washington Redskins by rescinding the football franchise's trademark rights to its name — on the basis, apparently, that the president finds that name hurtful to Native Americans.

Has the Dept. of Homeland Security become America's standing army?  VIPR task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams have laid the groundwork for the government's effort to secure so-called "soft" targets such as malls, stadiums, bridges, etc.  Some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools.  DHS' Operation Shield, a program which seeks to check up on security protocols around the country with unannounced visits, conducted a surprise security exercise at the Social Security Administration building in Leesburg, Fla., when they subjected people who went to pick up their checks to random ID checks by federal agents armed with semi-automatic weapons.

Panel: Baker must make cakes for gay weddings.  Colorado's Civil Rights Commission on Friday ordered a baker to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples, finding his religious objections to the practice did not trump the state's anti-discrimination statutes.

Make Them Bake Cake!.  The Colorado's Civil Rights Commission has ordered a suburban Denver baker named Jack Phillips to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples, finding that his religious objections do not supersede the state's anti-discrimination statutes.  Because if the Constitution should be subordinate to anything it's the local thought police and nuptial pastries.

Inside the Ring: Directive outlines Obama's plan to use the military against citizens.  A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration's potential use of military force against Americans.  The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers.  The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority for the use of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, in operations against domestic unrest.  "This appears to be the latest step in the administration's decision to use force within the United States against its citizens," said a defense official opposed to the directive.

Police Militarization, Abuses of Power, and the Road to Impeachment.  Never in the history of this country have we been so weakened and polarized by what many view as deliberate government policy. Now anti-gunners in the U.S. Congress, the Obama administration, and legislatures across the country are seeking to exploit the Newtown tragedy to promote their "gun control" agenda that envisions federal, universal background checks on gun purchases, and that could lead to gun registration and confiscation.  At the same time, the increasing militarization of law enforcement, most visibly demonstrated by the growing use of massive, SWAT-type raids on businesses and individuals, sometimes with federal involvement or authorization, is heightening concerns that this country is moving toward a police state.

What's behind the national ammo shortage?  It's a question many hunters and gun enthusiasts across the country have been asking for months:  Where's the ammo?  Subsistence hunters in Alaska usually spend this time of year preparing for the return of seals and migratory birds to the Bering Straits region.  But this year many are preoccupied by the state-wide shortage of .22-caliber shells, one of the most popular and common types of ammunition in the world.

ObamaCare vs. religion: Why Media Research Center has filed suit against the government.  In its attempt to broaden the notion of a "right to health care," the Obama administration has shrunk our rights to practice our religion.  In requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, the government has trampled on people who believe artificial contraception to be wrong as a matter of morality and ethics.  The Media Research Center has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, challenging the HHS mandate.  This lawsuit is about religious freedom and the conscience rights of individuals to operate their enterprises free from government coercion, reprisal, or punishment.

When baloney inspections go bad, you've got to be prepared!
Dept of Agriculture Orders Submachine Guns with 30 Round Magazines.  A May 7th solicitation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeks "the commercial acquisition of submachine guns [in] .40 Cal. S&W."  According to the solicitation, the Dept. of Agriculture wants the guns to have an "ambidextrous safety, semiautomatic or 2 round [bursts] trigger group, Tritium night sights front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore group) and scope (top rear), stock collapsible or folding," and a "30 rd. capacity" magazine.

The Fine Print Everyone is Missing on the New USDA Ballistic Vests Order...  The 6 pouch and tactical vest requirement description on this USDA quote confirm that these are ASSAULT vests.  They're what troops wear in an attack evolution.  This is a full military-styled kit, not designed for typical defensive security work.

Update:
DOJ to Release Federal Weapon Count for First Time in 6 Years.  For the first time in six years, the Justice Department is taking inventory of the guns owned by the various federal agencies and will report that number, as well as the number of agents who "carry guns and have the authority to make arrests."  According to The Hill, this move is in response to "conservative and libertarian complaints about an excessively gun-happy government."  This announcement comes less than two weeks after a Breitbart News report about the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) order of submachine guns with 30-round magazines.

How am I to know what's "technically secret?"
Obama Policy Bans Employee Use of Leaked Material.  The Obama administration is clamping down on a technique that government officials have long used to join in public discussions of well-known but technically still-secret information:  citing news reports based on unauthorized disclosures.  A new pre-publication review policy for the Office of Director of National Intelligence says the agency's current and former employees and contractors may not cite news reports based on leaks in their speeches, opinion articles, books, term papers or other unofficial writings.

First Amendment's worst enemies are in nation's capital.  [Scroll down]  The Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard reported Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee Goodman's warning that "there are impulses in the government every day to second-guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers."  There have already been several proposals before the FEC to regulate conservative media outlets, Goodman said.  The proposals were defeated, but only because the FEC is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.  The Democrats voted for the proposals.

FEC chairman warns agency's desire to regulate media 'alive and well'.  The chairman of the Federal Election Commission warned Wednesday that officials at the agency want to start regulating the media, despite a longstanding congressional ban on doing so.  "The impulse to regulate the media within the FEC is alive and well," Chairman Lee E. Goodman told FoxNews.com in an interview.  Goodman pointed to several recent decisions and developments that stoke concerns about the commission — which is supposed to regulate money in federal elections — sticking its nose in the affairs of the press.

FEC chair warns that conservative media like Drudge Report and Sean Hannity face regulation — like PACs.  Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media's exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.  "I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers," warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview.  "The right has begun to break the left's media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications," he added.

FEC Chairman Warns Conservative Media Could Be Regulated Like PACs.  As conservative media grows, the head of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is warning that he thinks liberals will look for ways to regulate conservative news outlets just like they do political PACs.  Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman is vowing to fight back against such regulations by putting a stop to efforts to undermine the media's exemptions from federal election laws.

FEC chair warns that conservative media like Drudge Report and Sean Hannity face regulation — like PACs.  Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media's exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.

Virginia proposal would limit size of gatherings at private homes.  A plan to ban "frequent and large gatherings at neighborhood homes" is a lawsuit waiting to happen, a Fairfax County supervisor predicts.  Officials will get an idea Wednesday when public-comment hearings begin in Virginia's most populous county.  "I believe the county is risking a lawsuit and/or a Constitution challenge by interfering with peoples' right to assemble," Supervisor Pat Herrity said in a statement.

Can Your County Shut Down Home Bible Studies? Mine Is.  I never imagined when I agreed to host a Bible study in my home that such an action may one day be a violation of law.  Yet that's exactly what my very own Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is prepared to do right here in Virginia.

Federal Regulators Could Be Empowered To Enter Your Property To Inspect Your Cars.  President Barack Obama's $302 billion transportation bill gives federal regulators the power to enter the premises of car dealerships to determine if their vehicles are in compliance with federal fuel-economy mandates.  The Department of Transportation (DOT) could see its vehicle inspection authority expanded if Congress passes Obama's Grow America Act.  Currently, DOT officials are only allowed to inspect records and information from companies that must comply with federal fuel economy standards.  But Obama's bill would allow federal bureaucrats to enter the premises of car dealerships to physically inspect to see if vehicles are in compliance with federal fuel economy standards.

Calif. moves to ban judges affiliated with Boy Scouts.  California is proposing to ban members of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) from serving as judges because the Boy Scouts do not allow gay troop leaders, The Daily Caller has learned.  In a move with major legal implications, The California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on The Code of Judicial Ethics has proposed to classify the Boy Scouts as practicing "invidious discrimination" against gays, which would end the group's exemption to anti-discriminatory ethics rules and would prohibit judges from being affiliated with the group.

The United States of SWAT?  Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle's grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy's ranch.  They shouldn't have been.  Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions.  It's not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them.  But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?  All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.

37% of Voters Fear the Federal Government.  Thirty-seven percent (37%) of Likely U.S. Voters now fear the federal government, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  Forty-seven percent (47%) do not, but another 17% are not sure.  Perhaps in part that's because 54% consider the federal government today a threat to individual liberty rather than a protector.

Governor Sandoval: Send in the Guard.  The fact that this situation could have been pulled from the script of the 1974 movie Chinatown or any of the Godfather movies is well known and must be exposed, but not before immediate action is taken to assure the preservation of life and liberty.  The current critical nature of the crisis cannot be understated.  In alleged response to a 20-year-old battle over "illegal cattle grazing," along with a more recent claim related to ostensibly protecting the allegedly endangered desert tortoise, the federal Bureau of Land Management has been dispatched to the Bundy ranch.  Do not be fooled by the innocuous sounding name of this federal agency, however, as the deployment now consists of some 200 heavily armed federal troops, transported by military troop carriers and equipped with sniper rifles and other military armaments.  It is an army by any other name.

More about the Bundy Ranch and the Nevada Bureau of Land Management.

What Does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Need with 96 Armed Agents?  The proliferation of federal agencies with armed agents is one of the most worrisome aspects of the growth in government.  Just last summer the EPA carried out an armed raid on a mine in Alaska to enforce the Clean Water Act — a bit of government intimidation that residents say was totally unnecessary. [...] And who can forget the Gibson Guitar raid by armed agents of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  The EPA, the USFWS ...the Department of Education?  It's getting ridiculous — and frightening.

Fox News Special Report: Enemies of the State.  Fox News aired a special, Saturday night [4/5/2014] called "Enemies of the State" which focused on everyday Americans who somehow found themselves in the crosshairs of their own government.  Fox News reporter John Roberts talked to Wayne Hage, a rancher battling the Bureau of Land Management over his cattle farm.  Roberts pointed out that in one 105 day grazing season, the family was visited by government employees 70 times and received an additional 40 certified letters containing various citations and notices.

Suit Against SAFE Act Claims it Allows 'Warrantless' Police Searches.  The registry process of New York's SAFE Act allows for warrantless police searches into gun owners' homes, a violation of the Fourth Amendment, according to plaintiffs of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Eastern District.  The law firm representing plaintiff Gabriel Razzano argues the registry process is "essentially secret and results in a mandatory, warrantless Penal Law 400 gun removal visit from police."  "The entire purpose of the registry is a sham to permit intrusions into a person's home on consent without a warrant for a 'gun removal,'" La Reddola, Lester and Associates said in a release.  "The entire registry and database seek to justify warrantless police searches, which my client and I now believe to be the real purpose of the SAFE Act."

NLRB Wants to Stop Businesses From Moving.  Richard Griffin, the new general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, wants to give unions a veto over a unionized employer's decision to relocate.  If Griffin has his way, and he most assuredly will, some unionized businesses will be pinned in place at the discretion of their unions.  The change Griffin is contemplating is unnecessary and inconsistent with both the law and the dynamics of our free-enterprise system.  It will upset the balance mandated by the Supreme Court and should send a chill up the spine of unionized companies contemplating relocating an operation.

Insanity: NLRB Wants Power To Prevent Businesses From Relocating.  In the Leftist dream world, Big Labor would have the most financial influence in politics and be in complete control of the companies they plague (and will eventually bankrupt).  These aren't the unions of old, which genuinely protected the rights of workers.  These are power-hungry madmen who don't [care] about any rights other than theirs to power.

Limbaugh is right about Obama's war on suburbs.  [Scroll down]  Under the regulation, in October the Obama administration will be empowered to condition eligibility for community development block grants on redrawing zoning maps to create evenly distributed neighborhoods based on racial composition and income.  In 2012, HUD dispersed about $3.8 billion of these grants to almost 1,200 municipalities.  And, apparently, if the National Council of La Raza is to be believed, the new rule will help millions of illegal immigrants resettle in communities across the U.S.

Progressivism Unbound at HUD.  [Scroll down]  Why the push to move into traditionally white communities?  It's about power, not what's best for minorities.  President Obama and Shaun Donovan have an ambitious plan to integrate Afro-Americans and other minorities into traditionally white middle and upper-class communities.  HUD is forcing Westchester, N.Y. and affluent areas in Los Angeles and across the country to integrate. [...] HUD calls it de facto segregation.  Not enough blacks and Hispanics live on every block and neighborhood within the county.

The Editor says...
Moving minorities into white neighborhoods is a roundabout means of gerrymandering.

Update:
Obama's Assault on Suburbs Stymied.  Earlier today [6/10/2014] the House of Representatives approved an amendment offered by Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar prohibiting the Department of Housing and Urban Development from implementing President Obama's rule on "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" (AFFH).  This is an important setback for Obama's plans to transform the way Americans live.  The Obama administration has consistently downplayed its "regionalist" policies, delaying the release of successive versions of AFFH until after the 2012 and 2014 elections.  Obama understands how politically unpopular these policies would be if widely known.

Shock verdict — Mark Witaschek guilty of possessing muzzleloader bullets in D.C.  In a surprising twist at the end of a long trial, a District of Columbia judge found Mark Witaschek guilty of "attempted possession of unlawful ammunition" for antique replica muzzleloader bullets.  Judge Robert Morin sentenced Mr. Witaschek to time served, a $50 fine and required him to enroll with the Metropolitan Police Department's firearm offenders' registry within 48 hours.

Witaschek surrenders to D.C. police 'Gun Offenders Registry'.  Mark Witaschek never had a firearm in the District of Columbia, but he is now on the city's Gun Offenders Registry.  This bizarre case has drawn national attention because an upstanding citizen was tried and convicted of possessing unregistered ammunition for muzzleloader bullets, which are simply pieces of lead and copper.

Supreme Court says regulatory law means whatever EPA says it means, today.  On Monday, the [U.S. Supreme] Court declined to accept an appeal from Arch Coal of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's reversal of its 2007 issuance of a 2011 Clean Water Act permit for the company's Spruce Mine operation in West Virginia.  By refusing to hear the appeal, the court upheld EPA's authority to change its mind on a regulatory permit decision, even though doing so inflicts substantial financial and other losses on appellants.  The court's denial also creates a damaging new regulatory uncertainty because it casts potential doubt on the legitimacy on any federal permitting decision, not just those by EPA under the Clean Water Act.

Replica bullets, dud shell earn weapons conviction for former Washington man.  Replica bullets and a dud shotgun shell got a man convicted of weapons charges in the nation's capital, in a case gun rights activists say shows how overzealous authorities are trampling the Second Amendment.  On Friday, just two days after his conviction of attempted possession of unlawful ammunition, Mark Witaschek went to a Washington, D.C., police station to register in the city's Gun Offenders Registry.  The act was part of a sentence meted out after Witaschek lost his two-year legal battle that began when police searched his home and found an inert shotgun shell, a spent shell casing and a box of muzzle-loader bullets.

Political correctness and the slavery of Obamacare.  Some well-known radicals have very publicly written and stated that in order for their idea of a utopian, egalitarian society to emerge in the United States, the government must control health care, which ensures the dependency of the populace on government.  Historical analysis of many countries that have gone this route demonstrates obliteration of the middle class and massive expansion of the poor, dependent class with a relatively small number of elites in control.  This is sobering information, and those who want to fundamentally change America would much rather demonize someone who is exposing this agenda than engage in a conversation that they cannot win.

Ben Carson: America's now 'very much like Nazi Germany'.  Noted conservative speaker and nationally recognized neurosurgeon Ben Carson took his blunt talk about the state of the nation in a direction that deviated from his usual references to God and faith — remarking on America's resemblance to Nazi Germany days.  In a recent public event in New York, Dr. Carson spoke of living "in a Gestapo age," Mediaite reported.  Following, Fox News contributor Mallory Factor asked him to explain.

Wyoming welder faces $75,000 a day in EPA fines for building pond on his property.  All Andy Johnson wanted to do was build a stock pond on his sprawling eight-acre Wyoming farm.  He and his wife Katie spent hours constructing it, filling it with crystal-clear water, and bringing in brook and brown trout, ducks and geese.  It was a place where his horses could drink and graze, and a private playground for his three children.  But instead of enjoying the fruits of his labor, the Wyoming welder says he was harangued by the federal government, stuck in what he calls a petty power play by the Environmental Protection Agency.  He claims the agency is now threatening him with civil and criminal penalties — including the threat of a $75,000-a-day fine.

EPA Wants to Slap $75K a Day Fine on Landowner Who Built Stock Pond on Own Property.  Senators are trying to intervene on behalf of a Wyoming landowner facing $75,000 a day in Environmental Protection Agency fines for building a stock pond on his own property.  The EPA compliance order against Andrew Johnson of Unita County claims that he violated the Clean Water Act by building a dam on a creek without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.  Johnson says it was a stock pond, which would make it exempt from CWA permitting requirements.  The EPA is telling him to restore the creek as it was or face penalties.

Feds to Alaskans: No road for humans, lots of land for animals.  In one of Alaska's most remote outposts, where a thousand hardy souls make their homes, the Obama administration has put the fate of birds and bears above the lives of people, blocking construction of an 11-mile gravel trail connecting a tiny fishing hamlet to a life-saving airport.  For more than three decades the predominantly Aleut fishing community of King Cove has been fighting to build a one-lane, gravel track connecting the Cove to the nearby hamlet of Cold Bay.  What they have gotten is 30 years of flat-out federal refusals or stall tactics.

Obama's Trifecta.  In its violations of the First Amendment, the Obama administration has consistently relied upon self-serving definitions of press, religion, and political speech.  Holder justified violating Rosen's press freedom on the grounds that he somehow wasn't acting as a legitimate member of the press.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has arrogated to herself the right to determine what is and what is not a "religion."  She claims the HHS mandate doesn't violate religious freedom since groups that serve the public aren't religious according to her criteria.  She declared at the time of the mandate's release that only purely sectarian groups are deemed religious under Obamacare and thus worthy of an exemption.  The Federal Election Commission plays the same game on what constitutes political speech, defining the concept ever more narrowly to justify restrictions on ordinary participation.

DHS Contracted To Purchase 704 Million Rounds of Ammo Over Next 4 Years: 2,500 Rounds Per Officer.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is contracted to purchase 704,390,250 rounds of ammunition over the next four years, which is equal to a total of about 2,500 rounds per DHS agent per year, according to a January 2014 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report entitled Ammunition Purchases Have Declined Since 2009.  "If DHS were to purchase all 704 million rounds over the next four years, and if they were used by 70,000 DHS agents and officers, it would be roughly 2,500 rounds per agent per year," David Maurer, author of the GAO report, told CNSNews.com.

Pardon My Paranoia.  In a February 5, 2014 article on Infowars.com, Kit Daniels reported that "The U.S. Postal Service is currently seeking companies that can provide "assorted small arms ammunition in the new future.  The U.S. Postal Service joins the long list of non-military federal agencies purchasing large amounts of ammunition."  What has a growing number of Americans concerned is this arming of government agencies we do not associate with the need to be heavily armed.  "Since 2001, the U.S. Department of Education has been building a massive arsenal through purchases orchestrated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms" reported Daniels.  "Back in July, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also purchased 72,000 rounds of [.]40[-caliber] Smith and Wesson, following a 2012 purchase for 46,000 rounds of .40 S&W jacketed hollow point by the National Weather Service."

Despite setback, the FCC's snout is under the tent.  After a week of mockery, derision, and disdain, the Federal Communications Commission has announced that it won't put observers in newsrooms after all.  FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 10 had alerted the public to the dangers of having government representatives querying news bosses about how they decide what stories to cover — and which ones not to cover.  The implicit threat of such heavy-handed research is that the government could be on the verge of announcing that IT will decide what stories are important to cover, just as it has decided what kind of cars you should buy (no "clunkers"!), what kind of health insurance you should have (Obamacare!) and what kind of dust is the right kind (whatever kind the EPA says!).

Mark Levin: Obama Admin Using The Law Against Us Is The Definition Of Tyranny.  The FCC, call it whatever you want, Barack Obama's henchman, Barack Obama's comrades, there, that's right, all over the federal government have hijacked the institutions of government and are now turning them on the people.  Whether it's the EPA, or the Department of Justice, the Interior Department, NOAA, this, that or the other, they're using the government, they are using a law against us.  Which is the definition of tyranny.

Is Obama trying to kill a free press?  The FCC is launching a new study, taking upon itself the task of deciding what news the public "needs" to hear, versus the news the public wants to hear.  The agency will conduct a "General Population Survey" that will "measure community members' actual and perceived critical information needs."  Got that?  What you think (perceive) you need to know is different from what the government says you need to know.  Next, the FCC will send monitors to newsrooms across the country who will ask questions regarding the "philosophy" of the newsroom, inquire about possible conflicts between reporters and their bosses, and even determine how much influence each individual has in deciding what to report.

More about the FCC.

US Army Builds Fake American Town to Practice War on Americans.  In Virginia, the U.S. Army has built an American city, replete with a church, a mosque, an embassy building, a bank and a working subway system, in order to practice assaulting American cities.  Welcome to Obama's America, folks.  The town took six years to complete, is built on a 300-acre plot of government-owned land in Virginia and cost taxpayers $96 million.  It is designed to, "replicate complex operational environments and develop solutions."  The "training" facility was completed and opened in January of this year and is operated by the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group.

Government's insane hallucinations.  Once upon a time, people could start businesses in America and run them as they saw fit.  People can no longer do that.  Instead, businesses must conform to insanely expensive one-size-fits-all health insurance requirements imposed by a group of people who have never run a business, never met a payroll and never had to worry about making a profit.

USDA Gave $303,890 in Wool Loans to Couple Who 'Owned No Sheep'.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave $303,890 in wool loans to an Iowa couple that "owned no sheep."  Howard "Jack" Aleff and Reena Slominski, of Knoxville, scammed the federal government for six years and were ordered to pay the United States $1,376,670 in a civil judgment announced on Jan. 29.  The married couple filed 132 fraudulent applications for "sheep that were never sheared" to receive loans awarded by the Farm Services Agency intended to encourage wool production.  The program spent $7 million in fiscal year 2012.

Failing Liberals Turn To Oppression To Hold On To Power.  The Federal Communications Commission just floated a trial balloon about going out to radio and television stations to evaluate reporters on how they cover the news.  There was a time when journalists' response to a government inquiry into how they did their job would be "Go to hell, you goose-stepping bureaucratic flunky."  Not anymore.  Now, their response is slavish submission to their progressive governmental dominatrix.  When supposedly independent, iconoclastic liberal journalists let themselves to be dominated by the feds, their safeword is "Hillary."  Liberalism has to muzzle the truth because it operates on lies.  It is built on lies, fueled by lies, and creates an empire of lies.

Man-given rights and government gone wild.  Our formerly constitutional government, in the form of the Federal Communications Commission, has developed a plan to put observers in the nation's newsrooms in order to better understand "the process by which stories are selected."  Of course, they won't just "understand" the process; they will most assuredly and dangerously alter it, merely by the implied threat of their presence in the formerly sacrosanct newsroom.  Just ask anyone who ever worked for a newspaper in Soviet Russia or Hitler's Germany or even Chavez's Venezuela.

The FCC Plan To Police The Newsrooms.  The FCC has cooked up a plan to place "researchers" in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made.  Any questions as to why the U.S. is falling in the free press rankings?

DC Man Set for Hearing After Arrest Over Inoperable Shotgun Shell.  A Washington, D.C. man is facing a large fine and possible jail time after he was arrested for having an inoperable shotgun shell in his home.  The shell was a souvenir that Mark Witaschek decided to keep from a hunting trip years earlier.

Another strange Obama admininstration arms purchase.  On July 29, 2013, the Department of the Army in a Combined Synopsis/Solicitation, Solicitation Number W15QKN13T8513, asked the General Services Administration to procure "592,825 (approx) AK Rifle Magazines: 7.62x39mm Caliber, New Production, Steel, 30 Round Capacity".  That many magazines would require 17.8 million rounds just fill each magazine once.  What nation or even what moderate Syrian rebel group needs that kind of firepower?  That request is far beyond what is needed by any nation that issues AK's to its soldiers except Russia and China.  Of course, the US armed forces do not use AK rifles as standard issue.

Obama's Weaponization of Government.  For all the folks — primarily on the left — who screamed and yelled that the Patriot Act was shredding the Constitution, far more intrusive tactics that have nothing to do with the NSA or Homeland Security are being deployed right under our noses during this Administration.  Those tactics reduce every Americans' personal and economic freedom.  There is a dangerous arrogance of power among the President and senior-level Democrats that should concern every American.  Last week a senior United States Senator gave a speech stating that the IRS should be used to target and punish groups that disagree with the Democratic Party's political agenda.

A sorry state of the union — what if Obama believes he answers to no one?  What if the government spies on all of us all of the time and recognizes no limits to its spying?  What if its appetite for acquiring personal knowledge about all Americans is insatiable?  What if the government uses the microchips in our cellphones to follow us and listen to us as we move about?  What if the Constitution expressly prohibits the government from doing this?

TSA Harasses Police Chief.  Traveling by commercial airlines from Albuquerque, NM to Las Vegas, NV, [Police Chief Shane] Harger was asked by TSA to show his credentials.  Minutes later a man flashed a badge claiming to be a federal agent (agency unknown) also demanding to see Harger's credentials.  Harger was told that he was a person of interest, and the federal agent wanted to know where he was going and why.  Bear in mind, no one is required to provide this information under these circumstances.  Harger said that the federal agent told him that the he, the federal agent, was paid to be suspicious of everyone.

Aggressive SWAT Team in Full Body Armor Raids Home, Confiscates ONE Dud Shell Casing, Federal Charges Laid.  At 8:20 p.m. on July 7, 2012, SWAT agents showed up at Mark Witaschek's D.C. home to execute a search warrant for "firearms and ammunition ... gun cleaning equipment, holsters, bullet holders and ammunition receipts."  Witaschek's 14-year-old daughter answered the door and let about 30 officers, who were in full tactical gear, inside.  The officers immediately charged upstairs and demanded that Witaschek and his girlfriend, Bonnie Harris, surrender, face-down.  Both were handcuffed.

More about SWAT teams.

Oregon: Christian Businesses Must Follow Demands of Gay Customers.  The owners of a Christian bakery who refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple are facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines after they were found guilty of violating the couple's civil rights.  The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said they found "substantial evidence" that Sweet Cakes by Melissa discriminated against the lesbian couple and violated the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, a law that protects the rights of the LGBT community.

Supreme Court Will Review Ohio Law Criminalizing 'Lies' About Politicians.  The U.S. Supreme Court announced on January 10th that it will consider a First Amendment challenge to an Ohio law that makes it a crime to "lie" about political candidates, which a pro-life PAC says was used to censor its political speech during the 2010 mid-term congressional election.

Pennsylvania town's $1,000-a-day fine is for the birds, residents say.  A retired Pennsylvania couple is facing a $1,000-a-day fine for feeding birds at their Bethlehem Township home, The Morning Call reported.  The couple has been feeding the birds for 25 years at their home, which is north of Philadelphia, but their bird feeder has been deemed out of compliance with town code.

EPA Decree Shrinks Size of Wyoming by a Million Acres.  Why is the EPA altering state boundaries in Wyoming — and reversing over 100 years of established law?  Well, apparently the city of Riverton now falls under the jurisdiction of the Wind River Indian Reservation.  This, obviously, isn't sitting well with the governor's office — which is urging the EPA to reconsider its ruling and respect the rule of law. [...] "This should be a concern to all citizens because, if the EPA can unilaterally take land away from a state, where will it stop?" Governor Matt Mead said in a press release on January 6.

Court Rules No Suspicion Needed for Laptop Searches at Border.  A federal court today [12/31/2013] dismissed a lawsuit arguing that the government should not be able to search and copy people's laptops, cell phones, and other devices at border checkpoints without reasonable suspicion.  An appeal is being considered.  Government documents show that thousands of innocent American citizens are searched when they return from trips abroad.

Interior border guard checks spur ACLU complaint.  Border Patrol agents routinely violate the constitutional rights of southern Arizona residents when they stop drivers at interior checkpoints on major highways and state routes near the border, according to an official complaint filed Wednesday [1/15/2014].  The complaint sent to Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties alleges that checkpoint agents conduct searches and detain people without justification and use immigration enforcement as a pretext for "fishing expeditions" for potential criminal activity.

The Real Purpose of Oakland's Surveillance Center.  City leaders have argued that Oakland needs a massive surveillance system to combat violent crime, but internal documents reveal that city staffers are also focused on tracking political protesters.

DOE Plugs Energy Rating For Homes Similar To MPG Rating For Cars.  The Energy Department on Tuesday [1/14/2014] is rolling out new, improved software to help Americans measure the energy efficiency of their homes.  DOE says its energy-scoring software — called the Home Energy Scoring Tool — is like a vehicle's mile-per-gallon rating because it allows homeowners to compare the energy performance of their homes to other homes nationwide.  It also provides homeowners with suggestions for improving their homes' efficiency.

The Editor says...
First of all, it's never a good idea to compare your house to someone else's house.  It only leads to pride and arrogance, or jealousy and envy.  All that aside, this is apparently the government's way of being "helpful" to home buyers that are too stupid to ask the right questions when shopping for a house.  It sounds harmless enough, but that's the way automobile gas mileage ratings got started, and now fuel efficiency standards are mandatory — and constantly tightening.

Does the Constitution Force Bakers to Bake?  Several recent court cases have resulted in small business owners, who create the wares and services that they sell, being ordered by a judge to sell their custom-made products (e.g., wedding cakes and floral arrangements) or services (e.g., wedding photography) to gay couples despite the small business owners' refusal to do so based on their religious principles.

Free Exercise Thereof.  We are in a post-republic America.  There is no rule of law, there is only a rule of judges.  Legislation is equal to a dictate from the king.  That we elect the barons and the lords to rule over us does not lessen tyranny, but it makes us feel better; it gives us faith in the "system" and that is all the government really needs.  Through several supreme court decisions, largely where they have ruled on Obamacare, the message as been sent:  Whatever the government chooses to do is within its power. [...] The laws against privacy and guns are passed by legislators.  The laws against religion are passed by judges.

Labor Department tells Arkansas businesswoman she can't have volunteers.  Ladies and gentlemen, be careful who you volunteer for — you could be doing them a lot more harm than good.  The federal government sometimes takes dim view of such generosity.  Just ask Rhea Lana Riner.  She owns a small Arkansas-based business that organizes consignment sales.  Since August, the Labor Department has been threatening her with stiff financial penalties, saying her business practices are illegal.  It has even been contacting donors to her events and encouraging them to instigate legal action against her.

EPA overrides Congress, hands over town to Indian tribes.  Have you heard the story of the residents of Riverton, Wyo.? One day they were Wyomingans, the next they were members of the Wind River tribes — after the Environmental Protection Agency declared the town part of the Wind River Indian Reservation, undoing a 1905 law passed by Congress and angering state officials.  The surprise decision was made by officials of the EPA, the Department of Interior, and Department of Justice early last month, and has invoked the ire of Gov. Matt Mead, who has vowed not to honor the agency's decision and is preparing to fight in court.

Obama Regime Issued Record 3,659 Economy-Crushing Regulations In 2013.  And they've picked up where they left off, issuing 141 new regs during the first three days of 2014.

Portion control — how the government plans to dictate what's on your dinner table in 2014.  Would you rather sip on unpasteurized milk or a cold glass of soda? Do you prefer Saturday lunch at a fast food joint or a farmers market?  Regardless of your choices, your food freedom — your right to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, share, cook, eat, and drink the foods you want — is under attack.

Former NSA Head: Americans Have No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy.  Former NSA Director Michael Hayden says that collecting billions of phone records in no way violates the Fourth Amendment and that Americans should have no reasonable expectation of privacy.  Major Garrett was guest-hosting CBS's Face the Nation Sunday discussing Judge Richard Leon's recent ruling that collection of telephony metadata is unconstitutional.  For Hayden, though, it is "inherently constitutional."  Still, he said, our history "demands that we be alarmed."

Team Obama Refuses To Allow Small, Critical Road Through Wildlife Refuge.  I'm all for wildlife refuges, protecting the majesty and beauty of nature.  One road won't hurt.

Local courts reviving 'debtors' prison' for overdue fines, fees.  As if out of a Charles Dickens novel, people struggling to pay overdue fines and fees associated with court costs for even the simplest traffic infractions are being thrown in jail across the United States.  Critics are calling the practice the new "debtors' prison" — referring to the jails that flourished in the U.S. and Western Europe over 150 years ago.  Before the time of bankruptcy laws and social safety nets, poor folks and ruined business owners were locked up until their debts were paid off.

Now Hear This: Big Brother Wants to Talk to You. Right Now!.  Apparently, the world has become so dangerous — and Americans, to put it bluntly, so stupid — that the federal government has concluded that it is vital that the president or other "authenticated public safety officials" be able to tell you what to do right now.  Kind of like the loudspeakers the North Korean government has wired into every home.  Only wireless, too.

Also posted under Liberals think you're stupid.

Red flags raised after local drivers asked for DNA samples at police checkpoint.  Drivers in St. Charles County were asked to take part in a government survey that involved the odd request of blood and saliva samples.  One driver who emailed News 4 said a deputy and others dressed in safety vests directed drivers to take part and answer questions about alcohol and driving.  The study is being conducted by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and is supposed to be voluntary.  Constitutional Law attorney Bob Herman said the study does raise some red flags.

Judge Orders Colo. Cake-Maker to Serve Gay Couples.  A baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony must serve gay couples despite his religious beliefs or face fines, a judge said Friday [12/6/2013].

Washington Times sues Homeland over seizure of reporter's notes.  The Washington Times and one of its former journalists on Thursday [11/21/2013] sued the Department of Homeland Security, accusing federal agents of illegally seizing the newspaper's reporting materials during the execution of a search warrant in an unrelated case.  In a motion filed in federal court in Greenbelt, The Times and reporter Audrey Hudson asked a judge to force the federal agency to return all reporting files and documents it seized from Ms. Hudson's home office during a raid in early August.

Photographer sued for refusing to take pictures at lesbian couple's ceremony goes to the Supreme Court.  A photographer sued by a lesbian couple after she refused to take pictures at their commitment ceremony is taking her fight for religious freedom to the Supreme Court.  Elaine Huguenin, who runs a photography business in Albuquerque, New Mexico, refused to take the snaps for the happy day of Vanessa Willock and Misti Collinsworth in 2006.  The women then filed a discrimination lawsuit again Ms Huguenin.  New Mexico law prohibits businesses from discriminating against people based on their sexuality.

Harry Reid's Nuclear Hypocrisy.  On Monday [11/18/2013], for the third time in less than a month, Senate Republicans filibustered an Obama nominee to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  That's the court that's checked the president more than once, as when it said he couldn't make "recess appointments" when the Senate wasn't in recess.  So in a Tuesday closed-door lunch, Reid moved closer to ending the practice, [...]

52 Democrats Change Two-Century-Old Senate Rule: Abolish Filibuster of Nominees.  Sweeping aside a century of precedent, Democrats took a chunk out of the Senate's hallowed filibuster tradition on Thursday [11/21/2013] and cleared the way for speedy confirmation of controversial appointments made by President Barack Obama and chief executives in the future.

Our Kids: Victims of the Rough Grasp of the State.  Wake up, Mom and Dad:  your government has its paws all over your children during school hours — always figuratively, and too often literally.  If parents are taken out of the education equation completely, something will fill the vacuum.  And that something is bound to be the police state.

War on the Little Guy.  Marty the Magician performed magic tricks for kids, including the traditional rabbit-out-of-a-hat.  Then one day:  "I was signing autographs and taking pictures with children and their parents," he told me.  "Suddenly, a badge was thrown into the mix, and an inspector said, 'Let me see your license.'" [...] Marty's torment didn't end with a demand for his license.  "She said, from now on, you cannot use your rabbit until you fill out paperwork, pay the $40 license fee.  We'll have to inspect your home."  Ten times since, regulators showed up unannounced at Marty's house.

Big Government is a Clear & Present Danger to our Liberty.  Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) has been a steadfast supporter and ally within Congress of the Tea Party movement.  Unlike many of his Republican counterparts who attempt to distance themselves from the Tea Party brand, many who actually attack it, Huelskamp embraces it.

Will Government Be Able to Remotely Control Your Car?  In May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published its "Preliminary Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles."  It pointed to a "continuum" of automobile development that "runs from vehicles with no active control systems all the way to full automation and self-driving." [...] But, if the driver does not control the vehicle, who does?

Wisconsin Political Speech Raid.  Americans learned in the IRS political targeting scandal that government enforcement power can be used to stifle political speech.  Something similar may be unfolding in Wisconsin, where a special prosecutor is targeting conservative groups that participated in the battle over Governor Scott Walker's union reforms.  In recent weeks, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz has hit dozens of conservative groups with subpoenas demanding documents related to the 2011 and 2012 campaigns to recall Governor Walker and state legislative leaders.

Political terrorism in Wisconsin: The American Police state begins.  Cops are bursting into homes, seizing computers and other "evidence" while groups are being hit with subpoenas that require them to turn over voluminous and sensitive information — including the names of political donors. [...] In Wisconsin, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz is going after conservative groups that were involved in the fight over the recall of Governor Scott Walker and Walker's union reforms.  Subpoenas are requesting "all records of income received, including fundraising information and the identity of persons contributing to the corporation."  They are seeking lists of conservative donors.

America's descent from rule of law to jungle law via Obamacare.  The Obamacare debacle and the president's attempts to fix it have created yet another notable episode in our political history.  This one will long live in infamy.  The federal government has been directed by President Obama to ignore the Constitution, to which the president and members of Congress have sworn an oath.  Obama has unilaterally delayed implementation of the provisions of Obamacare that have shattered his frequently repeated "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" promise.  The one-year delay is not really the issue here.  The more fundamental issue is that American Citizens have meekly and timidly accepted a blasphemy against our constitutional freedoms.

Americans' personal data shared with CIA, IRS, others in security probe.  U.S. agencies collected and shared the personal information of thousands of Americans in an attempt to root out untrustworthy federal workers that ended up scrutinizing people who had no direct ties to the U.S. government and simply had purchased certain books.  Federal officials gathered the information from the customer records of two men who were under criminal investigation for purportedly teaching people how to pass lie detector tests.  The officials then distributed a list of 4,904 people — along with many of their Social Security numbers, addresses and professions — to nearly 30 federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Food and Drug Administration.

MA Politician Wants Unannounced Home Searches by Police to Enforce Gun Law.  Swampscott, Massachusetts Selectman Barry Greenfield is pushing a measure to give police the authority to conduct home searches to check proper storage of firearms.  Greenfield said "state law requires Massachusetts gun owners to keep their firearms locked away or rendered inoperable."  There are "600 registered gun owners in [Swampscott]," and the selectman wants police to be able to drop in unannounced, enter the homes of each gun owner, and verify compliance.

The Editor says...
The 4th Amendment very clearly prohibits blanket searches of every house in town, looking for guns, drugs, cash, or whatever the cops can find.  If an idea like this were to be met with no resistance, those unannounced searches would become a daily routine, and the 4th Amendment would be an archaic technicality.  Even the mere proposal of such a law (by the state of Massachusetts) is what one would expect to see only in Cuba, North Korea or East Germany.

Minneapolis School Bus Driver Fired for Praying With Students.  A Minneapolis school bus driver was fired from his job after someone complained about his practice of praying with students on his route.  The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that George Nathaniel, who is also a Minneapolis area pastor, was in his second year of service with Durham School Services, the bus company under contract with the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district.  After receiving a previous complaint about Nathaniel's prayers with students, the company gave him a warning and assigned him a new route.

Seattle [is the] Latest City to Install DHS Surveillance Equipment.  Add Seattle to the list of local governments taking money from the Department of Homeland Security to put their citizens under federal surveillance. [...] Perhaps wiring the city with high-tech, federally funded surveillance equipment is what Seattle mayor meant when he described the city's budget as "a moral document.  It puts resources behind our vision of the city we want to see."  Apparently, part of those resources are coming from the federal government and they are earmarked for use to putting the city under the vision of the Department of Homeland Security.

Senior Navy civilians investigated in alleged scheme to defraud military for $1.6 million.  Federal authorities are investigating three senior Navy intelligence officials as part of a probe into an alleged contracting scheme that charged the military $1.6 million for homemade firearm silencers that cost only $8,000 to manufacture, court records show.  The three civilian officials, who oversee highly classified programs, arranged for a hot-rod auto mechanic in California to build a specially ordered batch of unmarked and untraceable rifle silencers and sell them to the Navy at more than 200 times what they cost to manufacture, according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors.  The purpose of the silencers remains a mystery.

The Editor says...
I can see why the Mafia might need such a product, but why is the Navy ordering "unmarked and untraceable rifle silencers"?

Lawsuit: Chaplains Banned From Saying "Jesus".  Two Baptist chaplains said they were forced out of a Veterans Affairs chaplain training program after they refused orders to stop quoting the Bible and to stop praying in the name of Jesus.  When the men objected to those demands they were subjected to ridicule and harassment that led to one of the chaplains leaving the program and the other being ejected, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday [11/8/2013].

The Editor says...
Are there similar restrictions against Islamic, Hindu, Wiccan, or earth-worshiping eco-fruitcake prayers?  What if one of the chaplains prays directly to Barack H. Obama?  Would there be a reprimand or a promotion?

The unspoken success of ObamaCare.  Despite what you are being told, the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA), commonly known as ObamaCare, is already proving to be a resounding success. [...] First, it is vital to understand that the ACA is not now, nor never was, about providing affordable health care.  It is merely disguised as such.  Rather, it is the vehicle that is being covertly used to conduct the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that this nation has ever experienced.  It is being done methodically and for a specific purpose.  It is the vehicle that will ultimately disassemble and destroy significant parts of the United States Constitution and further enslave United States citizens.

Now is the time to support Jana Winter.  [Scroll down]  While Ms. Winter's report was a world class scoop, defense attorneys complained that her law enforcement sources had denied Holmes a fair trial by violating the judge's gag order and leaking her potentially incriminating information.  After 14 law enforcement officials denied having been her source, the Colorado judge in the case ordered her to turn over her notes and testify about who gave her the information.  The court also demanded that New York enforce its certificate, then subpoena Ms. Winter and require her to return to Colorado on January 3, 2014 and testify about her sources, which she has refused to do.

Update:
New York's top court rules Fox reporter cannot be forced to reveal sources in Colorado.  New York's top court today [12/10/2013] spared FoxNews.com reporter Jana Winter from jail for refusing to reveal confidential sources for a bombshell story following the Aurora movie massacre.  In a 4-3 ruling based on New York's shield law, the state Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's decision that could have resulted in Winter being forced to appear in the Colorado murder trial of James Holmes.

Court Rules Fox's Jana Winter Doesn't Have to Reveal Sources in James Holmes Case.  On Tuesday morning, New York's top court ruled that FoxNews.com reporter Jana Winter cannot be forced by a Colorado court to reveal her sources regarding a major story about the Aurora movie theater shooter.  Voting 4-3 in favor of Winter, the New York State Court of Appeals reversed a lower court order and effectively prevented Winter from having to be subpoenaed by the Colorado court.

The tyranny of bureaucracy.  [Scroll down]  Do not millions of people owe their allegiance to the government for the privilege of receiving food stamps, unemployment insurance, welfare, business or individual tax credits, college loans, agricultural subsidies, and now even health insurance?  Is there any branch or even twig of life through which the sap of federal subsidies does not run?  No wonder the Tea Party, with its insistence on turning off the federal spigot, is being painted by progressives as a danger to the national well-being.  The national well-being, after all, is a state of stuporific addiction to entitlements and congressionally approved benefits spooned out by thousands of federal bureaus and agencies that prove their worth by keeping the populace in what de Tocqueville called "perpetual childhood."

The Progressive Degradation of Freedom.  Socialized medicine teaches that you must not value your life above that of other men.  Not only should no doctor care about your personal survival, but you yourself should stop thinking your survival is any kind of priority.  You should wait your turn in the only line in town, and be grateful if you do eventually get what you need from central command.  After all, what choice do you have?

The Drift toward Despotism.  [Scroll down]  But one notes that the Supreme Court has dramatically circumscribed Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure when it occurs at America's border, and post-9/11 the "border" has been redefined to mean anywhere within 100 miles of the actual frontier.  Many European countries are not 100 miles wide in their entirety.  A hundred-mile buffer zone from Belgium's northern border, for example, would be well south of the southern border and deep into France.

Fox Reporter Faces Jail Time for Protecting Sources.  In July 2012, Fox reporter Jana Winter reported that James Holmes, the shooter in the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre who murdered 12 people during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises, had sent a University of Colorado psychiatrist a notebook "full of details about how he was going to kill people."  The notebook had pictures of a stick-figure shooting other stick figures.  She got the information, she reported, from "law enforcement sources."  Now, Winter may lose her journalistic freedom.

Our Cash For Obama's Clunkers.  [Scroll down]  Seventy years in advance, [Henry] Hazlitt gave us the job descriptions of Health & Human Services head Katherine Sebelius, Obama's former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and his master of deception Jay Carney.  If all that is not enough to upset your wallet, despite the dismal failures of their efforts, keep in mind that no matter how bad the results, no one gets dismissed from the Obama administration. [...] That's right, you can waste over $600 million on a website, spend more than Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn combined, have it fail and keep your job.  That's good enough for government work.

Dissent must be crushed — just like in East Germany.
Feds Threaten to Prosecute Merchant for Selling 'Department of Homeland Stupidity' Coffee Mugs.  The Department of Justice, on behalf of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has threatened to criminally prosecute a novelty store owner for selling mugs and t-shirts that say, among other things, "Department of Homeland Stupidity" and "The NSA: The only part of government that actually listens." [...] The NSA and DHS sent "cease and desist" letters to Zazzle stating that the parody products violate statutes that protect their official seals from misuse.

Commentary on the incident described above:
Troubling sign of incipient national security tyranny.  Now that we know the National Security Agency is collecting every telephone call and email we make, and that the Department of Homeland Security is free to grope us and inspect our nude images when flying, we have every reason to fear abuse.  Knowing that the potential abusers will not be mocked is seriously scary.

FCC to police news media, question reporters in wide-ranging content survey.  The Federal Communications Commission is planning a broad probe of political speech across media platforms, an unprecedented move that raises serious First Amendment concerns.  The FCC's proposed "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs," which is set to begin a field test in a single market with an eye toward a comprehensive study in 2014, would collect a remarkably wide range of information on demographics, point of view, news topic selection, management style and other factors in news organizations both in and out of the FCC's traditional purview.  The airwaves regulator would also subject news producers in all media to invasive questioning about their work and content.

Is Obama a Dupe or a Totalitarian, Megalomaniacal Liar?  [Scroll down]  In the progressive era 100 years ago, that presidential attitude brought us the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax, Prohibition, World War I, prosecutions for speech critical of the government and the beginnings of official modern government racial segregation.  That same attitude in our era has brought us the Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to write their own search warrants, government borrowing that knows no end — including the $2 trillion Bush borrowed for the war in Iraq, a country which is now less stable than before Bush invaded, and the $7 trillion Obama borrowed to redistribute — and an NSA that monitors all Americans all the time.

More hot water for Sebelius and the ObamaCare crew.  One of the reasons that allowing Sebelius to keep her job is ridiculous is that under ObamaCare, the HHS Secretary becomes the single most powerful bureaucrat on the planet.  The Affordable Care Act's huge stack of regulations include hundreds of matters left to the discretion of the Secretary.  Another example is the hangman's noose of regulations that have been strangling so many insurance plans over the past few weeks.

Federal agents' pre-dawn raid on reporter's home raises questions.  Audrey Hudson's husband had just left for work on August 6 when suddenly, her dog began barking.  The nationally-known journalist walked over to the curtains and peeked outside to discover her Chesapeake Bay home was surrounded by law enforcement officers wearing full body armor.  The phone rang.  It was her husband.  "I'm in the driveway," he said.  "The police are here.  Open the door."  And so began Hudson's nightmare — held captive by armed agents of the U.S. Coast Guard, Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security as they staged a pre-dawn raid in search of unregistered firearms and a "potato gun."

Exclusive: Feds confiscate investigative reporter's confidential files during raid.  A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

Silencing dissent by SWATing messengers of truth.  [Scroll down]  Ms. Hudson is now speaking out because of what the agents of this Gestapo-like tactic took from her home.  While the search warrant was limited to any alleged guns on the premises — again — stemming from a quarter-century old incident reportedly involving her husband, their reach well exceeded their authority.  What was taken from the home of Audrey Hudson was more valuable than any gun.  What was taken from Audrey Hudson, in addition to her freedoms as an American citizen and a Pulitzer Prize nominee for her journalistic prowess, were her pages of notes and names of sources inside and outside of government who had confidentially provided her information over the years.

Armed agents seize records of reporter, Washington Times prepares legal action.  Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department's Federal Air Marshal Service.  Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland's Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6.

'Clearly Intimidation': Feds Seize Reporter's Files During Pre-Dawn Raid.  A conservative reporter alleges that in a pre-dawn raid, the Feds took her files while searching her home for a toy potato gun.  Audrey Hudson, Washington correspondent for the Colorado Observer, thinks the government may have an ulterior motive for conducting the search.  In her first television interview, Hudson told Gretchen Carlson on The Real Story that the raid stems from her husband purchasing a potato launcher online five years ago.  The search warrant presented said they came to recover the gun.  However, she said, "Once they were in the house, the first thing that the Homeland Security officer asked me was 'Are you the same Audrey Hudson who wrote all of the Federal Air Marshal stories for The Washington Times?'"

Ten Thousand Commandments 2013: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State.  Total costs for Americans to comply with federal regulations reached $1.806 trillion in 2012.  For the first time, this amounts to more than half of total federal spending.  It is more than the GDPs of Canada or Mexico.  This is the 20th anniversary of Ten Thousand Commandments.  In the 20 years of publication, 81,883 final rules have been issued.  That's more than 3,500 per year or about nine per day.

When Frogs Jump.  [Scroll down]  How far would today's American ruling elite go to stamp out real and concerted resistance to their brazen violations of individual liberty?  What steps would they not take to force submission to, and compliance with, their socialized medicine, their compulsory schooling, their EPA violations of private property, and so on?  In short, is there a point of coercive incivility beyond which you are certain they would never step to enforce their anti-constitutional, anti-natural rights, anti-rational plans?

Mission Creep: EPA Agents Enter Drug War.  A large-scale narcotics investigation and sentencing in Montana has revealed that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has entered the enforcement of U.S. war on drugs.  The EPA has full federal law enforcement capabilities, and their charter allows them to participate in the investigation and prosecution of "criminal conduct that threatens people's health," according to the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division (EPA CID).

The EPA's regulatory authority, coming to a stream or estuary near you?  You may recall the egregiously costly saga of the Sacketts, the Idaho couple personally persecuted by the Environmental Protection Agency for developing their half-acre of lakeside private property that the EPA belatedly and arbitrarily deemed a "protected wetland."  The Sacketts fought the EPA's demand that they either stop development and "restore" the property (with non-native plants!) or else face fines of up to $75,000 per day, but the EPA claimed that the Sacketts didn't even have the right to seek judicial review against the EPA's administrative compliance order, because the compliance order wasn't their "final enforcement action" — which is basically made-up hogwash that roughly translates as, "We're the EPA, we do what we want."

D.C. businessman faces two years in jail for unregistered ammunition, brass casing.  Mark Witaschek, a successful financial adviser with no criminal record, is facing two years in prison for possession of unregistered ammunition after D.C. police raided his house looking for guns.  Mr. Witaschek has never had a firearm in the city, but he is being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  The trial starts on Nov. 4.  The police banged on the front door of Mr. Witaschek's Georgetown home at 8:20 p.m. on July 7, 2012, to execute a search warrant for "firearms and ammunition ... gun cleaning equipment, holsters, bullet holders and ammunition receipts."

Who Will Tell Obama He has no Clothes?  Before this phony government "shutdown," if you had asked whether I believed that American military and law enforcement personnel would follow an order from Barack Obama, or any other president, to turn their guns on their own countrymen, I would have said no.  However, after witnessing the behavior of armed National Park Service officers unnecessarily closing our national monuments, parks, and even our military cemeteries in Europe, while simultaneously allowing a protest demonstration by illegal aliens on the National Mall, I am no longer confident in that belief.  It's as though Obama is using every weapon in his arsenal to create civil division among the people.  Why?

The International Monetary Fund Lays The Groundwork For Global Wealth Confiscation.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) quietly dropped a bomb in its October Fiscal Monitor Report.  Titled "Taxing Times," the report paints a dire picture for advanced economies with high debts that fail to aggressively "mobilize domestic revenue."  It goes on to build a case for drastic measures and recommends a series of escalating income and consumption tax increases culminating in the direct confiscation of assets.

ATF's prescription for leaking secrets: A firing squad?  After months of anguished debate over mass shootings, gun control and Second Amendment rights, the Justice Department finds itself on the defensive after a training manual surfaced that suggests federal agents could face a firing squad for leaking government secrets.  A photo in the online manual for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — complete with a photo of a turn-of-the-century firing squad — was obtained by The Washington Times from a concerned federal law enforcement official, and it immediately drew protests from watchdogs who said it showed a lack of sensitivity to gun violence and the continuing hostile environment toward whistleblowers.

I'm From the Government and I'm Here to Spy on You.  The big portals showing the masses what the government is really up to all came last April, and until Obama's gone from the White House, civilian life will never be the same.  It was last April when a judge in Texas denied a request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for what he described as a warrant to remotely "hack a computer suspected of criminal use", raising questions about the legal requirement for the government to use computer hacking techniques in investigations.  (Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2013).  "By "surreptitiously installing software" — a technique typically associated with computer hackers — investigators are able to infiltrate computers and gather extensive information, according to a document in the case.

A Step Toward Facebook.gov?  Get ready for the government to determine what bullying online is (and therefore, what free speech isn't).

An obvious affront to the First Amendment:
TSA introduces loudspeaker warnings threatening travelers with arrest for cracking a joke about airport security.  Travelers who attempt to make a joke about strict security procedures at airports have been warned they face arrest.  A loudspeaker announcement made by the Transport Security Administration warns the public:  'Any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest.'  Concerned passenger Matt Miller recorded the loudspeaker message while passing through George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.

Is Obama Creating a Martial-law-ready Military?  Let's start with a hypothetical.  Let's say you were a hard-left-wing commander in chief who wanted the military firmly in your corner.  You'd certainly note that our armed forces have been a bastion of conservatism and Christian faith, and you'd know that its members generally weren't very fond of you.  So how would you go about changing this?

The Slippery slope of Obama's constitutional contempt.  From where we stand today, it is merely a matter of degree before we are ruled by decree.
  ·   America's Bill of Rights is under assault.
  ·   Federal authority bullies 50 States and over 300 million Americans into unconstitutional compliance.
  ·   Common Core in schools indoctrinates communism and ignores America's founding values.
  ·   Christian belief and speech in the military are unlawfully restricted; Islam and atheism are favored.
  ·   The People's right to keep and bear arms is abrogated by Executive edict and UN treaty.
  ·   SWAT teams swoop in on Americans accused of crimes not criminal, written by nameless bureaucrats.
  ·   IRS is used to target and punish Americans who speak out against Obama and his cronies.
  ·   NSA and a host of other agencies scoop up and log every tidbit of personal communication for review.
  ·   NDAA allows arrest and indefinite detention without warrant, trial or writ of habeas corpus.
Yet this litany of abuses barely skims the surface of the foul stew Progressives have boiled up.

Also filed under The Clamor for Obama's Impeachment.

Faculty: Sexual Harassment Policy Approved by Feds 'Orwellian'.  Of special concern is a requirement that those professors who fail to complete training are being reported to the federal government.  Faculty members questioned exactly what information the university felt obliged to report to the DOJ and asked how the agency plans to use the information in a letter to University of Montana President Royce Engstrom, the Missoulian reported last week.

The Face of Tyranny.  It is beginning to dawn on a lot of people that Barack Obama is the face of tryanny, a man for whom the Constitution, the democratic process and its need for compromise, exist only to be spurned.  Any President who is happy to preside over closing the White House to public tours, who authorizes placing barricades around Washington War Memorial that is normally open 24 hours a day as well as the Normandy, France D-Day cemetery where our soldiers are buried, is more than merely heartless, but represents a level of evil intent never before seen in anyone who has held that office.

Are these the people you want running your health care?  [Scroll down]  The federal government is using its police power to punish the public!  Has this ever happened before?  Not to my knowledge.  We all understand the police blocking a road when there has been an accident or a washout or some other event.  Ditto for closing public spaces for good reason, perhaps unsafe construction or a terrorist threat.  But to close them simply to inconvenience the public or damage it in some other way?  Never!  Think of that!  Never before!

The Audacity of Bureaucrats.  To wit, to be a successful government bureaucrat this past week, you would have had to play your part in closing down parks, lakes, monuments and sporting events that are frankly none of your [...] business.  Whether your job was ordering Barry-Cades, procuring orange warning paint, police tape, or stapling notices to fences, trees and so on, you had to choose between being a good bureaucrat or a good citizen.  This is not an exaggeration. [...] On a positive note, these turbo charged Barney Fifes are finding out that their Park Service badges and yellow tape garnered absolutely no respect.

ATF tries to block Fast and Furious whistle-blower from publishing book.  The ATF agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious has been denied permission to write a book on the botched anti-gun trafficking sting "because it would have a negative impact on morale," according to the very agency responsible for the scandal.  After first trying to stop the operation internally, ATF Agent John Dodson went to Congress and eventually the media following the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

ATF tries to block whistleblowing agent's 'Fast and Furious' book.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is blocking the main whistleblower in the Fast and Furious case from publishing a book, claiming his retelling of the Mexico "gun-walking" scandal will hurt morale inside the embattled law enforcement agency, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.  ATF's dispute with Special Agent John Dodson is setting up a First Amendment showdown that is poised to bring together liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and conservatives in Congress who have championed Mr. Dodson's protection as a whistleblower.

Two D.C. Attacks and a Series of Unfortunate "Coincidences".  No one would have ever believed beforehand that the President might conspire with his Department of Justice and other agencies to funnel weapons to Mexican drug lords in order to precipitate a panic over America's rampant "gun culture" — but indeed, this occurred.  Nor would Americans have thought that the President would clandestinely provide arms to the same Muslim fanatics who attacked us in 2001, then order an attack on the compound facilitating such action when it became a liability.  No one would have believed that Obama would allow American personnel to perish at that compound in order to preserve his power. [...] If that is not definitive of a tyrant — and one who would employ any means necessary in order to attain his objectives — then what is?

I Will Not Comply.  Like most members of the Congress that passed it and, undoubtedly, the president of the United States who signed it, I have not read the entirety of the ill-named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Yet there is one aspect concerning that legislation of which I am certain:  I will not comply.  I will not comply because I am a free citizen of the United States, not a subject of its government.

Bullied by the IRS.  I've always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life.  I am a successful small-business man.  But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business' entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized. [...] Adding insult to injury, federal civil forfeiture law does not even grant me a hearing before or soon after they snatched my account.  They've had my money for 10 months.  I've been forced to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers just to get a hearing before a judge.  Even more bizarre, under civil forfeiture, the government's case is not against me, but against my property.  This is why the official case has the ridiculous name, United States of America v. $35,651.11 in U.S. Currency.  This is not just absurd; it's unconstitutional.

Connecticut judge declares 'No one should have guns'.  A Superior Court judge in Bristol "expressed his contempt for the right to keep and bear arms' in a closed door meeting in his chambers, the state gun rights group Connecticut Carry reported last Thursday in a media advisory.  Judge Robert C. Brunetti "exposed his bigotry for fundamental civil rights in front of at least three defense attorneys," the group explained.  "No one in this country should have guns," the judge reportedly stated, adding "I never return guns."

'Elephant in the Room' Ignored by Prosecutor After Conviction of 'Beat the Polygraph' Instructor.  As someone who spent much of the past four years conducting an exhaustive investigation of the U.S. Government's use of credibility assessment technologies, including the polygraph, I didn't expect MacBride to mention the proverbial "elephant in the room" — that is, the fact so many countermeasures exist to make it possible for any individual to "beat" or pass a polygraph exam.  And he didn't.

Indiana Man Sentenced to Prison for Teaching People How to Beat Polygraph Exams.  Eight months in prison.  That was the sentence handed down to Chad Dixon today by a federal court judge in Alexandria, Va.  His crime?  Teaching people — in particular, government job applicants — how to beat polygraph exams.

The Editor says...
Sounds to me like a violation of the defendant's rights to free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.  He is apparently being silenced because the government does not want the general public (jury pool) to know that it is possible to spoof a polygraph exam.

Another 250 Million Rounds Of Ammunition For An Agency.  In the middle of December 2012, the Customs and Border Protection Agency presented a pre-solicitation for 50,000,000 rounds of .40 S&W caliber ammunition, ostensibly for training.  The contract would provide a total of 250,000,000 rounds over the life of the 5 year contract.  The contract was to be issued on 20 January 2013.  CPB, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has included the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency with this solicitation.

Now The Gov't Wants to Regulate ... Dinner Parties?  I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Bloombergians of the world decided to extend their regulatory impulses to ... dinner parties.  The local CBS affiliate in New York reports on the crackdown on "illegal" dinner parties.

Left With Nothing.  On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb. [...] The duplex in Northeast Washington that Coleman bought with cash two decades earlier was emptied and shuttered.  By sundown, he had nowhere to go.  All because he didn't pay a $134 property tax bill.

A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link.  A Dallas-based journalist obsessed with the government's ties to private security firms, [Barrett] Brown has been in jail for a year, facing charges that carry a combined penalty of more than 100 years in prison. [...] By trying to criminalize linking, the federal authorities in the Northern District of Texas — Mr. Brown lives in Dallas — are suggesting that to share information online is the same as possessing it or even stealing it.

The Editor says...
If you have confidential information that you'd like to keep to yourself, don't put it on the internet.  If you put it on the internet, protect it with a password.  If your sensitive information is available just by clicking on a link, you are giving it away.  Aside from copyright infringement or or other intellectual property issues, you cannot accuse anyone of stealing your stuff if you leave it out in the open.

Warning: D.C. cops under orders to arrest tourists with empty bullet casings.  Washington police are operating under orders to arrest tourists and other non-residents traveling with spent bullet or shotgun casings, a crime that carries a $1,000 fine, a year in jail and a criminal record, according to a new book about the city's confusing gun laws.  "Empty shell casings are considered ammunition in Washington, D.C., so they are illegal to possess unless you are a resident and have a gun registration certificate," pens Emily Miller in her investigative book, "Emily Gets Her Gun: ... But Obama Wants to Take Yours."

The Editor says...
How is an empty shell casing considered ammunition?  It's useless as a weapon.  It's just a piece of brass!

Armed EPA raid in Alaska sheds light on 70 fed agencies with armed divisions.  The recent uproar over armed EPA agents descending on a tiny Alaska mining town is shedding light on the fact that 40 federal agencies — including nearly a dozen typically not associated with law enforcement — have armed divisions.  The agencies employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report.  Though most Americans know agents within the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Prisons carry guns, agencies such as the Library of Congress and Federal Reserve Board employing armed officers might come as a surprise.

E.P.A. is the New Gestapo.  Just recently, a task force including members of 10 state and federal law enforcement agencies descended on a gold mine in the tiny town of Chicken[,] Alaska[,] with a population of 17 last month, in what locals described as a raid.  "Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say "POLICE" emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms," gold miner C.R. Hammond told the Alaska Dispatch. [...] According to the EPA The investigation was into possible violations of the Clean Water Act.  The officers were part of the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force and visited the outpost near the Canadian border during the third week of August to investigate water discharges into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans.  This is how the EPA handles an investigation, with rifles, handguns and bullet proof vests?

Parnell orders investigation of mining raids.  Enforcement officers with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management were armed and wore body armor, according to Parnell.  He said an investigator with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation joined the agents, who said they were looking for violations of the Clean Water Act.

The Editor says...
I suspect this investigation could have been carried out by two little old ladies with a smart phone and a laptop.  Instead they sent a SWAT team.

Where is the Rule of Law?  Maybe the new Rule of Law is now the plain clothes police everywhere, who no longer serve and protect since we don't know who they are to ask for help in an emergency, they just ticket us to death for speeding, or the drones hovering over quiet residential neighborhoods, or the EPA police surprising a few law-abiding miners in Alaska, or the fully geared and assault ready police in the metro, the TSA molesting and irradiating us at airports, or the IRS making sure that we pay all of our taxes, including the Affordable Care Act tax?

Christian bakery closes after LGBT threats, protests.  A family-owned Christian bakery, under investigation for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, has been forced to close its doors after a vicious boycott by militant homosexual activists.  Sweet Cakes By Melissa posted a message on its Facebook page alerting customers that their Gresham, Ore. retail store would be shut down after months of harassment from pro-gay marriage forces.

Every action requires a permit.
Police Stop Effort to Feed the Homeless.  In Raleigh, North Carolina the non-profit religious group, Love Wins Ministries, makes an effort to feed and help the homeless every Saturday and Sunday.  But this weekend was different.  The group was attempting to hand out coffee and sausage biscuits when the police officers arrived.

Airmen Punished for Objecting to Gay Marriage.  A 19-year veteran of the Air Force said he was relieved of his duties after he disagreed with his openly gay commander when she wanted to severely punish an instructor who had expressed religious objections to homosexuality.  "I was relieved of my position because I don't agree with my commander's position on gay marriage," Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk told Fox News.  "We've been told that if you publicly say that homosexuality is wrong, you are in violation of Air Force policy."

New Mexico Takes a Stab at Nullifying the Constitution.  Given that a person exercises his religion by living his life in harmony with his beliefs, any attempt by government to force people to commit sins is a clear and direct repudiation of the targeted individual's First Amendment rights.  Nonetheless, the New Mexico Supreme Court has found that a photographer who declined to photograph a gay "wedding" was at fault.

NM Supreme Court Finds Refusing to Photograph Gay Wedding Illegal.  The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that, by refusing to photograph a gay wedding, a photography studio violated the New Mexico Human Rights Act (NMHRA).  The court found that Elane Photography's refusal to serve Vanessa Willock violated the act, which "prohibits a public accommodation from refusing to offer its services to a person based on that person's sexual orientation," according to the ruling.

New Mexico photographer loses gay marriage case.  A commercial photography business owned by opponents of same-sex marriage violated New Mexico's anti-discrimination law by refusing to take pictures of a gay couple's commitment ceremony, the state's highest court ruled unanimously Thursday [8/22/2013].

Reserving the right to refuse service.  In yet another topic sure to enrage, Sterling Beard — writing at The Corner — catches up with the latest news on a strange case coming to us from New Mexico.  It's now gone all the way to the state Supreme Court, and the story may be at an end.  In case you hadn't heard, wedding photographers can't refuse to take pictures at a gay wedding or they have violated the New Mexico Human Rights Act.

The Editor says...
Notice if you will that the homosexuals have "human rights" but the rest of us don't.

Tolerance, Health and Fascism.  Last week, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that an event photographer's refusal on religious grounds to shoot the commitment ceremony of a same-sex couple amounted to illegal discrimination.  The photographer had never objected to photographing gays.  She did not, however, wish to be part of a ceremony to which she religiously objected.  In America today, thanks to myriad laws and progressive justices, people can go to prison for refusing to participate in an event to which they object.  This is what happened to a florist in Washington state who had always sold flowers to gay customers but refused to be the florist for a gay wedding:  sued and fined.

Judge: Clerks must issue marriage licenses to gay couples.  On Monday, Judge Alan Malott ruled it unconstitutional to ban same-sex couples from getting married in Bernalillo County.  Malott ruled that the Bernalillo and Santa Fe county clerks must grant marriage licenses to gay couples who apply for them.

TSA plans to procure nearly 3.5 million rounds of ammo.  The exact quantity of .357 SIG caliber training rounds sought in the RFP is 3,450,000, which means the TSA could fire off more than 9,400 rounds per day, every day of the year, to consume that entire quantity annually.  However, TSA insists that the manufacturer warrant that the "usable storage life" of the ammunition without degradation is a minimum of three years.

Why Did a Tennessee Grade School Ban Pork?  A Tennessee elementary school banned students from eating ham sandwiches, BLT's and anything else made with pork, but eventually lifted the ban after parents complained. [...] "No meats containing pork," read the memorandum.  "Starting Monday, August 12, 2013 your child must provide their own snack from the above approved snack list." Kids could nosh on raw vegetables without dips or sauces, fresh fruit, crackers, pretzels, and popcorn — but no ribs or pork rinds.

The Editor says...
The ban was quickly lifted, but don't ever forget that they tried to impose Islamic (halal) restrictions on food that the kids were bringing from their homes!  Even the Food Police have never been so brazen, but the Muslims are, and I suspect that's who is at the root of this ill-conceived order.

"They Kidnapped our Child": Why CPS Needs Transparency Now.  In April 2013, police officers and a social worker from Sacramento County's Child Protective Services entered the home of Anna and Alex Nikolayev and took their baby, Sammy, away from them.  They had no warrant.  "What they'd done was, basically, kidnapped our child with the help of police," says Alex Nikolayev.  The young, first-time parents were not notified of where Sammy was being taken and wouldn't find out for a full 24 hours.

Mark Levin's New Book Could Help Americans Regain Their Liberty.  Only those happily trampling on the last vestiges of freedom will deny that our federal government as a constitutional republic has ceased to function.  The president can no longer control (nor does this one want to control) the enormous and ever-expanding bureaucracy functioning as a government by fiat.  The legislative branch, so corrupted, so drunk by the allure of power, so disdainful of its constituents, is unable to stop its bankrupting ways.  The judiciary is perhaps worst.  The Supreme Court is openly rejecting the authority of the Constitution itself.

Capsizing the Republic — Cloward and Piven on the Southern Border.  Glenn Beck pointed out last week that we, as a nation, are being ruled by 535 people in the Congress — 535 politicians are forcing 350 million into accepting Amnesty and the majority don't want it.  Why are we letting this happen? [...] It's an invasion that is being invited in by treasonous individuals on both sides of the political aisle who stand to gain from the destruction of America, the plundering and redistribution of our resources, and the subjugation of the freest society the world has ever known.

Is Obama 'Insuring' Softball Questions?  [Scroll down]  With 80,000 pages of federal laws, rules, and regulations, there is an endless array of charges that can be brought against anyone.  Even frivolous charges, even with charges of prosecutorial misconduct being leveled for bringing a case in the first place, the defendants would be forced to spend enormous amounts of money to defend themselves, plus having to know that part of their taxes are being used to prosecute them in the first place.

Are we a modern-day Gomorrah?  In Florida, the building of a new nuclear-power plant has been canceled, but the residents of the county are still going to be forced to pay the bill for the $250 million facility that will never be built.  Most Americans are now too scared that voicing an opinion will earn them an IRS audit or a visit from Homeland Security, the Secret Service or some other goon squad.  We are buying our own Treasury bonds with money being printed on worthless paper to give the illusion that the economy is doing well, when that is a lie as well.  We have the city of Detroit in bankruptcy, with others to follow.

President Obama is turning up the heat on the melting pot.
HUD Proposes Plan to Racially, Economically Integrate Neighborhoods.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new plan to change U.S. neighborhoods it says are racially imbalanced or are too tilted toward rich or poor, arguing the country's housing policies have not been effective at creating the kind of integrated communities the agency had hoped for.  The proposed federal rule, called "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing," is currently under a 60-day public comment period.

Does White House Want To Say Who Lives Where In America?  If any question remained about the Obama White House's appetite for running everyone's life from Washington, it should be settled now.  This administration even wants to dictate neighborhood makeup.

Time For Third Party.  [Scroll down]  What in the world gives the bureaucrats at HUD the unmitigated chutzpa to think that they have a right to determine who lives where?  Or perhaps even worse, that they are the arbiters of neighborhood "balance?"  In keeping with the true nature of progressivism, this is nothing less than the attempt to regulate society irrespective of talent, ambition and, above all else, liberty.  Once again, it illuminates the left's lust for control and their pathetic misunderstanding of human nature.

The Editor says...
That alone is not a justification for a third party.  The problem is that the second party isn't counteracting the first party.  Unfortunately, everyone with an inclination to get involved in politics is already active in one of those two parties.  If a third party were to organize overnight, where would all if its candidates come from?

Exclusive: FBI allowed informants to commit 5,600 crimes.  The FBI gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times in a single year, according to newly disclosed documents that show just how often the nation's top law enforcement agency enlists criminals to help it battle crime.

Government Police Raise Issues on Liberty.  Earlier this year, agents from the Department of Homeland Security, presenting themselves as national "police," were deployed across the country to "monitor" Tea Party activists who were peacefully protesting the Obama administration regarding the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.  From California to Florida, armed DHS functionaries, according to protesters in attendance, were turned out to intimidate and spy on them.  These DHS agents arrived in large Homeland Security vehicles that were emblazoned with large letters reading "police" and were dressed in "police" uniforms.  Exactly who are these DHS "police?"  They are part of the Federal Protection Service (FPS), a division of the National Protection and Programs Directorate of the DHS.

We're living '1984' today.  It appears that the police now have a device that can read license plates and check if a car is unregistered, uninsured or stolen.  We already know that the National Security Agency can dip into your Facebook page and Google searches.  And it seems that almost every store we go into these days wants your home phone number and ZIP code as part of any transaction.  So when Edward Snowden — now cooling his heels in Russia — revealed the extent to which the NSA is spying on Americans, collecting data on phone calls we make, it's not as if we should have been surprised.

A "Nudge" To Tyranny.  In a bid to make Americans do "what's good for them," Obama administration social engineers have come up with a "Nudge" program to manipulate public choices.  This won't end well. [...] First, the government hasn't a clue as to what's good for the public.  To take one example, take a look at the food pyramid still promoted by the Agriculture Department — a high-carbohydrate recipe that claims to offer a healthy diet.  Studies show that carbs cause obesity, but the government still pushes its old message — which is a guaranteed way to gain weight.  Second, it's doubtful this plan will remain just about heathy diet choices.

Turning public schools into forts.  As surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero-tolerance policies, lockdowns, drug-sniffing dogs and strip searches become the norm in elementary, middle and high schools across the nation, America is on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation — one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government.

San Antonio proposal could set the stage for barring Christians from city council.  The San Antonio City Council is proposing an updated non-discrimination policy that effectively bans any city council member from being elected if he or she has ever "demonstrated a bias."  "No person shall be appointed to a position if the city council finds that such person has, prior to such proposed appointment, engaged in discrimination or demonstrated a bias, by word or deed, against any person, group or organization on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, age, or disability," the ordinance reads.

Dallas suburb cannot bar housing to illegal immigrants, court rules.  A federal appeals court on Monday [7/22/2013] rejected a Dallas suburb's controversial law that would have prevented illegal immigrants from renting housing.

HUD's New 'Fair Housing' Rule Establishes Diversity Data for Every Neighborhood in U.S.  To ensure that "every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of," HUD has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in.  The goal is to help communities understand "fair housing barriers" and "establish clear goals" for "improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation."

HUD Launches Scheme To Racially Diversify Suburbs.  Now even ZIP codes are racist, and according to this race-obsessed administration, you're racist for living in a suburban area with little public housing.  And it plans to change that.

Team Obama Steps Up Racial Standards for Neighborhoods.  The federal government is getting serious about pushing racial and ethnic diversity into America's neighborhoods — and is using big data and big money to achieve its aims.  A new interactive database will help regulators, local housing officials and individuals take action on a newly proposed regulation that would require agencies to "affirmatively further" the inclusion of minority residents in white neighborhoods.

Should 3rd Amendment prevent government spying?  If the government places a surveillance device in your home, is that sufficiently like quartering troops there to trigger Third Amendment scrutiny?  What if it installs spyware on your computer or your cable modem?  What if it requires "smart meters" that allow moment-to-moment monitoring of your thermostat settings or toilet flushes?

Defending American Principles Is Now a Revolutionary Act.  Progressives want to limit the freedom of the press to only those designated media outlets they know will back the status quo, calling their censorship "campaign finance reform."  The government, defending the McCain-Feingold Act, once even told the Supreme Court that it was perfectly constitutional to charge an American citizen with a crime for writing a book critical of a politician.  Think about that.  Our government actually argued that it was A-OK for the feds to stick you in jail for writing a book.  Fortunately, the conservatives on the High Court rejected that insanity.

In a police state, everything is either mandated, prohibited or tightly regulated.
Watch him pull a USDA-mandated rabbit disaster plan out of his hat.  Marty Hahne, 54, does magic shows for kids in southern Missouri.  For his big finale, he pulls a rabbit out of a hat.  Or out of a picnic basket.  Or out of a tiny library, if he's doing his routine about reading being magical.  To do that, Hahne has an official U.S. government license.  Not for the magic.  For the rabbit.  The Agriculture Department requires it, citing a decades-old law that was intended to regulate zoos and circuses.

Homes, Businesses to Pay 'Rain Fees' In Nine Maryland Counties.  Despite a Republican filibuster attempt in the Senate, the Maryland General Assembly has passed legislation that would implement a stormwater pollution fee to raise revenue to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.  Approved by the Senate and House of Delegates minutes before the end of the legislative session, HB 987 requires nine counties and Baltimore City to establish a watershed protection and restoration program.  Senate Republican Leader E. J. Pipkin proposed 12 amendments, none of which were adopted.  Pipkin said the bill was essentially an attempt to tax rain water.

Court Mandates EPA Crack Down on New Emissions.  Should the federal government regulate emissions produced by dead trees?  A federal appeals court said yes, striking down the Environmental Protection Agency's attempt to delay regulation of biogenic carbon dioxide emissions from non-fossil fuel sources on Friday [7/12/2013].  The court affirmed the need for such emissions to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, negating the exemption made by the EPA for "biogenic carbon dioxide."

The Editor says...
When citizens are taxed for activities over which they have no control, that is tyranny.

U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans.  For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences.  But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January.  The result:  an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.

Leaking Distrust.  We understand that the FISC has to operate in secret.  But we know, from various sources, that the court almost never denies the government's applications for orders or even limits them.  Perhaps this is the result of the fact that the court operates unique among American courts in non-adversarial proceedings.  Only the government's side of the case is heard.  There is no "defense" side in any case.

Army apologizes for buzzing helicopters above city in Washington state.  An Army official apologized Friday for conducting an unannounced training mission around the small city of Port Angeles, Wash., using special operations helicopters that the mayor said "terrorized" his city.  Dozens of alarmed residents called police to ask what was going on and said the noise and light from the mystery helicopters buzzing around the city panicked horses and other livestock, The Peninsula Daily News reported.  The Army said the helicopters involved included both twin-engine Chinooks and Blackhawk attack helicopters.

The Editor says...
The Army has plenty of other places to conduct operations like this; for example, Fort Hood.  There is no reason to carry out a drill of this sort in a city, unless (1) they're softening up the populace for some future operation, or (2) they're just trying to see what they can get away with.

Is FISA Out of Line?  The American surveillance apparatus has come under more scrutiny than ever before in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations.  On Saturday [7/6/2013], the New York Times expanded on this theme with a new piece arguing that the FISA courts, which review the constitutionality of the government's data collection programs, have effectively become a "parallel Supreme Court" with little oversight from the public or the rest of the legal system.

EPA Wants Gov't To Control How Cold Your Beer Can Be.  In a seemingly innocuous revision of its Energy Star efficiency requirements announced June 27, the Environmental Protection Agency included an "optional" requirement for a "smart-grid" connection for customers to electronically connect their refrigerators or freezers with a utility provider.  The feature lets the utility provider regulate the appliances' power consumption, "including curtailing operations during more expensive peak-demand times."  So far, manufacturers are not required to include the feature, only "encouraged," and consumers must still give permission to turn it on.

More about the so-called smart grid.

Who is a Journalist?  Sen. Dick Durbin thinks it's time for Congress to decide who's a real reporter.  In The Chicago Sun-Times last week, he wrote:  "Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech.  But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive."  How do you decide who is a journalist?

Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin Wants Government to Decide Who Qualifies as a Real Journalist.  What qualifies as "legitimate journalism" or a "news website" in Durbin's mind?  Anyone can tweet something that constitutes news and the broadcast of which can be deemed journalism.  Tweets of ordinary citizens molested by the TSA have become news stories.  As we've seen repeatedly over the past several decades, so-called journalists can bury stories harmful to powerful politicians or pet causes.

Memo To Dick Durbin: All Americans Are Journalists.  Congress, when controlled by Democrats, already has the mainstream media under its thumb.  So it's not ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post that Durbin is worried about.  It's the bloggers, tweeters and Facebook users that he wants to control. [...] With the mainstream press in their pockets, what Durbin and others truly fear are citizen journalists and the free and open dissemination of ideas that threaten the political class' agenda.

A tip of the hat to Armed and Safe.
Carolyn McCarthy, barrel shrouds and 'assault slings'.  McCarthy, though, apparently thought a ten year prison sentence for a strap would be appropriate — that it would be both desirable and Constitutionally permissible to mandate that rifles be more difficult to carry and to shoot accurately, on pain of a decade in prison.  The intent here is not to claim that gun slings are in danger of being banned, but to illustrate the mindset of fanatics like McCarthy, who has nevertheless managed to be elected to Congress nine times.  McCarthy and her noxious ilk don't care about the specifics of how they attack gun rights — in their twisted minds, any infringement on that which shall not be infringed is a step in the right direction.

Obama's Fundamental Transformation of a Nation He Despises.  [Scroll down]  From the flow per second of your morning shower to the temperature at which you set your thermometer at night, from the car you drive to what you eat, from where and how your children are educated to how you fund your retirement, Obama wants government to control every moment of your existence.  Long ago, in a glorious revolution, Americans rejected this sort of tyranny when it was imposed on them by the British Crown.

Free Justin Carter Now.  In the state of Texas, a 19-year-old man named Justin Carter sits in prison, ruthlessly stripped of his freedom for making an offensive joke. [...] For this he was arrested by Austin police, charged with making a "terroristic threat," and thrown into prison. He may languish there until the start of the next decade. [...] He's been incarcerated since March without trial.

Immoral decision stifles legitimate disagreement.  So now the wrong has been declared right, not by a consensus of Americans, but rather by government fiat, the way they do it in nations where people live under the thumbs of tyrants, having no voice in their own affairs.  We once pitied them.  Now we're beginning to resemble them.  What happened yesterday was an abomination, not only in the way the Supreme Court trashed the institution of marriage, but also in the way its liberal branch slapped a muzzle onto the populace, in effect ruling the will of the people is of no consequence in an issue that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we believe.

Reining in religious freedom.  Think now about the world of big government.  Dallas has an ordinance requiring people who feed the homeless to register and be certified.  Dallas would like to keep Big Heart Ministries from feeding people on the streets.  The city of Alhambra, Calif., has accused the First Baptist Church of violating its zoning and fire codes by hosting homeless families. [...] The state of Montana recently ordered the Hutterite Big Sky Colony to purchase workers' compensation insurance over their religious objection.  The Hutterites take a vow of poverty, hold their possessions in common and self-insure.

Worse Than It Sounds, and It Cannot Be Cabined.  These decisions, handed down by the Court today, [...] lay down the predicates for litigation that will clearly unfold now, and with short steps sure to come, virtually all of the barriers to same-sex marriage in this country can be swept away.  Even constitutional amendments, passed by so many of the states, can be overridden now.

Homeland Security: Stop Complaining or Face Arrest.  [Scroll down]  That's when the trouble began.  A Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deputy director warned the group that "unfounded complaints about water quality could be considered an 'act of terrorism.'  We take water quality very seriously.  Very, very seriously."  Attendees stared dumbfounded as the speaker continued, "You need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there's no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism."  After a brief moment of stunned silence, one audience member asked if the speaker could "say that again, please."

The microwave tax.  The Energy Department is once more deciding what kind of appliances are good for you.  Like the "standards" the federal government imposed on light bulbs, toilets, washing machines and other essentials, the rules are all about taking choices from consumers and requiring them to buy machines that don't work or don't work as well as they once did.  On Monday, the Obama administration published new rules that will make microwave ovens less efficient and more expensive.  It's in the service of the global-warming scam.

No right to silence.  Monday's decision scales back the Miranda decision.  Not only can your words be used against you, but the Supreme Court says your silence can be, as well.  Genovevo Salinas found this out after he was questioned by Houston police regarding the 1992 murder of two brothers.

Big Brother is Listening: Granting DHS Domestic Spying Capabilities Will Open Citizens to Arrest.  [F]ar from apologizing for the betrayals of the public's trust, the Obama Administration has thrown another log onto the fire of public outrage.  According to a Reuters report, the Obama Administration is considering granting the Department of Homeland Security the same kind of powers the NSA has used to monitor the phone usage of millions of Americans who have done nothing more to arouse suspicion than use a cell phone.

Guns, public education, and stupidity.  [Scroll down]  But wait, there's more.  In Calvert County Maryland, the son of Bruce Henkelman, of Huntingtown (an appropriate name) was suspended for talking about guns on a school bus.  "He said, I wish I had a gun to protect everyone.  He wanted to defeat the bad guys.  That's the context of what he said," Henkelman said.  "He wanted to be the hero."  The bus driver took the 11-year-old back to school, where the principal and a sheriff's deputy questioned him.  It gets worse.  The deputy wanted to search the Henkelman residence for firearms without a warrant.

Goodbye 5th Amendment? Supremes rule silence can be used in court.  In a 5-4 decision regarding Salinas v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a potential defendant's silence can be used against them during police interviews prior to arrest and reading of Miranda rights.  In 1992, Genovevo Salinas voluntarily entered a Houston police station to discuss the murder of two brothers, Juan and Hector Garza.  He complied with officer's questions, but when asked whether shotgun casings would match his firearm, he fell silent.  Texas prosecutors convinced jurors that his silence was an admission of guilt.

Big Sister: Homeland Security hopes to get same cyber-spying powers as NSA.  Domestic spying capabilities used by the National Security Agency to collect massive amounts of data on American citizens could soon be available to the Department of Homeland Security — a bureaucracy with the power to arrest citizens that is not subject to limitations imposed on the NSA.  Unlike the DHS, the NSA is an intelligence agency, not a domestic law enforcement agency.  It cannot arrest those suspected of wrongdoing.  That power of the federal government lies with agencies under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, the Treasury, Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies.

The False Excuse of National Security.  Does the Obama Administration actually want to fight terrorism all that much?  Or are they primarily interested in gathering vast amounts of information about American citizens?  Do their actions tell us where their attention is focused?  The proof, they say, is in the notorious pudding.  The government is being highly successful in invading the privacy of Americans and increasing control and surveillance.  The government is not doing so well fighting terrorism.  The actual behavior of the government points to development of a 'Big Brother" surveillance state and exposes national security as a phony excuse.

Our Enemy, the Bureaucrat.  The emerging grassroots movement for smaller government presents an existential peril to bureaucrats — of which they are sharply aware.  Public sector unions have been Democrat bastions for years, of course.  What the Obama presidency has done is embolden federal worker bees to coordinate directly or indirectly with a president who wants hypergovernment.  Barack Obama is a pro-growth president — for Uncle Sam's bureaucrats.  Through the IRS scandal and the NSA phone records sweeps, federal bureaucrats are revealing themselves as enemies of the people [...]

Spying on Americans: the Legal Status of Emails.  This topic has several main issues.  At the top of the list is President Obama's outrageous statement that Americans may need to give up some freedom for security from terrorism.  The president has no right to decide what degree of freedom Americans can have.  The freedom Americans have is defined not by any one elected official but by the Constitution.  The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution has very precise language that directly applies to the NSA's seizure of personal information.

When government can't be trusted.  What has led to this distrust?  The Benghazi cover-up, the IRS fiasco, the Justice Department's monitoring of reporters, the commandeering of phone records of private citizens in the name of national security, "data mining," the so-called "kill list," drones with the power to spy and kill, the proliferation of surveillance cameras, DNA swabs after arrests, ObamaCare, unrestrained spending and unending debt.  This is the federal government encroaching on our civil liberties.  The federal government long ago exceeded its constitutional boundaries.

Mark Levin: The Constitution's Churchill.  Suddenly, awash in headlines about the abuses of the IRS, the Justice Department seizing the phone records of the Associated Press, monitoring the calls and emails of Fox correspondent James Rosen and now the "metadata" gathering activities of the National Security Agency — Levin's constant warnings of the dangers in ignoring the Constitution are gaining considerable traction with Americans well beyond his already huge radio audience.

How much more will Americans take?  The "fundamental transformation" of America proceeds apace.  The erosion of our freedoms and traditions, once incremental and barely perceptible, accelerates daily.  Armies of bureaucrats commanded by political ideologues remarkable mainly for their galactic incompetence intrude on ever more aspects of our lives — aspects both large and small.  They tell us what light bulbs we're allowed to use and how much water we may flush.  They stick swabs in our mouths to collect our DNA and order us to buy health insurance we don't want.  They can seize our land if they think they know how to use it better, or stop us from using our land because a favored amphibian might live there too.

A Little Wisdom from Benjamin Franklin.  [Scroll down]  Just like those unpleasant chaps in Orwell's 1984, the fact that we are now and apparently ever shall be on a war footing means that we are living in a state of perpetual emergency, which in turn means that he, the man in charge, can do pretty much whatever he wants to whomever he wants, and so can his minions. [...] Few people, I think, would deny that extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures. [...] But what we have here is the fabrication of perpetual emergency in order to justify the unlimited and permanent expansion of of government power.  The other word for that process is tyranny.  It doesn't happen all at once.  But it's happening pretty fast.

"Justice is supposed to be blind, not stupid."
US snooping is slippery slope to abuse of civil liberties.  A Top Israeli security official zeroed in on the American system of airline security:  "You worry about what people are carrying.  In Israel we worry about who the people are." [...] The sweeping collection of data on private behavior is every bit as indiscriminate and flawed as the airport-screening system.  In both, everybody is guilty until proven innocent.  Because one terrorist hid a bomb in his shoe, we all must remove our shoes before flying.  Because one terrorist hid a bomb in his underwear, we all are subject to X-ray- like screenings.

Two times the government used its anti-terrorism powers to target Americans not engaged in terrorism.  The revelations detailing the extent of the National Security Agency's espionage capabilities raises the specter that their powers could be misused to target Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism.  In fact, allegations of such misconduct already exist.  Here are two examples where anti-terrorism powers granted to law enforcement were allegedly used to target American citizens not engaged in terrorism.

Mark Levin On NSA Tracking: "We Have The Elements Of A Police State Here".  On Thursday's broadcast of Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," conservative talk show host Mark Levin reacted to recent revelations that the National Security Agency had been collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers.  He said that the NSA news in addition to other openings for intrusion by the federal government are the makings of a "police state."

Good news: Government's recording your conversations on the bus too.  A timely video from Reason TV on the surveillance state's newest venture: Cameras and microphones on city buses, just in case Al Qaeda decides to plan its next attack on municipal transportation within earshot of other passengers.  Not every city does this, but the practice is spreading — early adapters include San Francisco, Baltimore, and Hartford with funding from, you guessed it, DHS.

We should be shocked at the American tapping scandal, and shocked that Obama doesn't seem to care.  You know all those bearded survivalist types holed up in places like Idaho with their paranoid anti-government conspiracy theories?  Suddenly they're looking rather less paranoid.  The rest of us, by contrast, are rushing to adjust our world view.  The revelation that the U.S. Government systematically taps online communications challenges the way we think about freedom, the way we think about privacy, the way we think about the Internet and, not least, the way we think about America.

What is the difference between a hunch and a profile?
Dept. of Homeland Security: Laptops, Phones Can Be Searched Based on Hunches.  U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler's laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study.

Fascism In America.  Ours has become a system of virtually limitless central governmental power.  Whatever one thinks of the IRS and Justice Department scandals — targeting conservatives and evangelical Christian and orthodox Jewish organizations, spying on AP reporters, and labeling a Fox News journalist a felon — their common theme is that the federal government can do anything it wishes.

From Verizon's 'Can you hear me now' to NSA's "Yes, every eavesdropped word".  When "Big Brother is Watching You" was the cold war mantra of the day, there were no cellphones, no iPads, no satellite communications of any kind in the hands of the unwashed masses.  Today Big Brother is not watching you, he's stalking and harassing you — right in the place you call home.  There's nowhere to hide; nowhere to run to and no one to turn to in a world where a government that has learned how to slip being held accountable has all the tools on its side.

Law enforcement applaud ruling on DNA swabbing.  The Supreme Court has ruled that is now legal for law enforcement to take the DNA of people arrested, even though they have not yet been convicted of a crime.  The decision was a big victory to police and victim rights groups in the fight over how and when your DNA can be used, with the justices being nearly split down the middle.

Court: Police can take DNA swabs from arrestees.  A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday [6/3/2013] cleared the way for police to take a DNA swab from anyone they arrest for a serious crime, endorsing a practice now followed by more than half the states as well as the federal government.

Court's DNA Ruling Brings U.S. a Step Closer to 'Gattaca'.  The day that DNA cheek swabs officially became the new fingerprints deserves to be marked and remembered — and not just because of the inevitable march of technology.  No, the Supreme Court's 5-4 holding today [6/3/2013] in Maryland v. King, that anyone arrested for a "serious crime" can have his or her DNA taken without any suspicion, is a landmark because it represents a major step toward a "Gattaca" world.  This means that evidence of a crime can be collected without any particular suspicion, avoiding the pesky requirement of a warrant that the Founding Fathers thought would give us liberty and privacy.

"The Justice Department is trying to curtail free speech by promising increased scrutiny of any Internet posts which mention Islam."
People Power Against the Department of Justice.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) and its allies, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Southern Poverty Law Center, are on the defensive after thousands of people turned out in Tennessee on Tuesday night [6/4/2013] to protest a scheme to censor criticism of Islam.  The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a key component of a network of Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the U.S., called the turnout a "mob" and praised the Obama/Holder Justice Department for standing up to local residents.

Free Speech and Islamic Sensibilities.  Apparently a United States attorney in Tennessee is seeking to use civil rights statutes to criminalize criticism of Islam or inflammatory statements that offend Muslims.  According to the Tullahoma News, Bill Killian, the U.S. attorney for Eastern Tennessee, believes "Internet postings that violate civil rights are subject to federal jurisdiction."  Though the newspaper makes clear that Killian's intent is to promote better community relations and to prevent discrimination against Muslims that is based on the false notion that all are terrorists, his willingness to dump the First Amendment rights of some in order to protect the sensibility of others ought to scare all Americans.

Another Obama Assault on Free Speech.  The Obama Administration's latest assault on the freedom of speech is so audacious that it leaves me speechless — and that's the idea.  According to Politico, Bill Killian, the Obama-appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, "is reportedly vowing to use federal civil rights statutes to clamp down on offensive and inflammatory speech about Islam."  Said Killian:  "We need to educate people about Muslims and their civil rights, and as long as we're here, they're going to be protected."

US Attorney Bill Killian: Posting Something Mean About Muslims on Social Media Might Be a Criminal Action Under Federal Civil Rights Laws.  The First Amendment served us well for a time, but now it's outdated.  Remember reading that England had arrested a guy for anti-Muslim Twitter postings in the aftermath of the Woolrich slaughter?  And remember thinking, "Well, this is America, that can't happen here"?  Oh yes it can.  Obama's Attorney for the Eastern district of Tennessee wants you to know that if you say something untoward about Muslims, the Federal government may imprison you.

DOJ: Watch what you say about Muslims on social media.  How many civil-rights prosecutions are currently in progress against Muslims who say inflammatory things on social media? [...] This is also the same government that flagrantly abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service, and other agencies, to oppress political dissidents.  There are a lot of Tea Party groups who wish the only thing they had to fear from Democrat politicians is offensive Facebook chatter.  No one in this government seems terribly concerned about protecting their hurt feelings, or encouraging the rest of the American public to treat them with dignity and respect.

DoJ places a chill on criticism of Islam.  By "spreading information considered inflammatory against Muslims" — even if it's true — you could violate the civil rights act and be subject to prosecution.  We all know that this new ruling will target those considered to be "blasphemers" against Islam.  Muslims here and around the world have been after western governments to enforce their idea of blasphemy and to punish those who speak out against Islam.

More about President Obama's undeniable favoritism toward the Muslims.

Washington state and the ACLU sue florist for refusing to sell flowers for gay wedding because of Christian beliefs.  The American Civil Liberties Union joined the state of Washington by filing its own lawsuit on Thursday [5/30/2013] against Arlene's Flowers and its proprietor, Barronelle Stutzman, over the woman's refusal to sell flowers for a same-sex wedding.

DOJ Tells Employees to Verbally Affirm Homosexuality.  The Department of Justice has been accused of religious intolerance and viewpoint discrimination after workers were sent an email directing them to verbally affirm homosexuality, according to a law firm specializing in religious liberty and now representing a DOJ whistleblower.  Liberty Counsel said DOJ employees were emailed a brochure called "LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers."  The brochure was created as a resource from DOJ Pride, an association of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees of the DOJ.

Durbin wonders: Does [the] First Amendment apply to bloggers, Twitter?  Thanks to the Obama administration's attacks on the Associated Press and its representation in federal court that Fox News' James Rosen is a spy for asking questions, one has to wonder whether the First Amendment applies to anyone in the Age of Hope and Change.

The VanderSlooting of America.  [Scroll down]  But what the massive abuse of the IRS illustrates is a tyranny of a different sort.  A bloodless yet still quite decided tyranny.  A tyranny of the American Left designed not just to chill free speech — although that is a primary goal.  What has evidenced itself in the Obama era is a tyranny designed not just to silence dissent, but to deliberately, willfully damage if not ruin outright the reputations and businesses of Americans across the land.

More about the use of the IRS as a weapon.

America's cry for help lost in the White Noise.  Tyranny, the same kind that kept the people of the former Soviet Union and environs in the stranglehold of communism for 70 years, is making its way — unhampered — through the USA.  The Obama administration started off by identifying Tea Partiers, returning war vets and Christians as terrorists — and got away with it.  Now news reporters like James Rosen, a Fox News correspondent has been openly branded a "possible criminal co-conspirator" for his alleged role in publishing sensitive security information.  The only difference between soft tyranny and hard tyrannies is that in the latter, those deemed enemies of the state are jailed and killed.  But a cursory read through history teaches that hard tyrannies usually got their start as soft ones.

Congressman: IRS asked pro-life group about 'the content of their prayers'.  During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., grilled outgoing IRS commissioner Steven Miller about the IRS targeting a pro-life group in Iowa.  "Their question, specifically asked from the IRS to the Coalition for Life of Iowa:  'Please detail the content of the members of your organization's prayers,'" Schock declared.  "Would that be an inappropriate question to a 501 c3 applicant?" asked Schock.  "The content of one's prayers?"

Abolish the IRS (and the Income Tax With It).  The Internal Revenue Service has been caught engaging in political profiling while processing applications for tax-exempt status.  In this case it was against organizations with "tea-party" or "patriot" in their names and other right-wing groups.  Next time it could be libertarian or left-wing antiwar and pro-civil-liberties groups.  No dissenter can ever rest assured he is safe from the arbitrary power of the IRS.

Washington bureaucrats use force to suffocate liberty.  Remember Armand Armendariz, the Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator who resigned after regaling an audience of Big Green activists with a history lesson to illustrate his agency's approach to critics of the EPA's harshest policies?  When the Romans conquered a new province, he said, they would "... find the first five guys they saw and they'd crucify them ..." to make the province "really easy to manage for the next few years."  The EPA, he continued, also makes "examples of people who are not complying with the law, you make examples out of them, use it as a deterrent method ... Find people who are not complying with the law and you hit them as hard as you can and make examples of them."

Keene sues six parking meter 'Robin Hoods' who put money in expired meters.  The city has filed a lawsuit against six citizens, part of a group dubbed Robin Hood of Keene that patrols downtown armed with video cameras and pockets full of change to fill expired parking meters.  Also known as Robin Hooders, the six are associated with the Free Keene group.

The Editor says...
Note that the city is filing a civil suit, not a criminal complaint, because the "Robin Hood" people didn't do anything illegal.  The issue has nothing to do with orderly parking.  It's all about money and control.

Lighter gun
Small Business Struggles to Survive, All Because of Gun-Shaped Lighter.  The owner of a small business in New York City is facing a $60,000 fine, thousands in legal fees, and the potential loss of his business — all because he carried a dozen three-inch, gun-shaped lighters which caught the eye of a city inspector.  "When you hear something like this, you're going to have a couple of nightmares," Fred Shayes tells me, leaning across the counter of his midtown Manhattan shop, US Camera & Computer Inc.  Nervous, he won't let me photograph him or tape-record the interview.

New York City Shop Fined $60,000 For Selling Gun-Shaped Lighters.  Not sure what Mayor Bloomberg finds upsetting about a gun-shaped lighter.  Does it have a bayonet attachment making it an "assault" lighter?  Does it ignite 10 times instead of 7?

Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform.  The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.  Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named "photo tool," a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver's license or other state-issued photo ID.

Bill Gives DHS Sec. 'Virtually Unlimited Discretion to Waive Any Manner of Crimes,' ICE Council Warns Congress.  [Scroll down]  The letter concludes that ICE officers would continue to be "powerless" to protect the public and do their jobs if the bill becomes law:  "If this legislation were enacted tomorrow, ICE officers would continue to be powerless to effectively enforce our nation's laws and provide for public safety as S. 744 does nothing to end these dangerous agency- and department-level directives."

DOJ Won't Require Warrants for Email, Chat Seizures.  In blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, the Department of Justice has apparently declared that they do not require warrants for grabbing Americans' emails and Facebook chats.  The ACLU has gotten hold of the documents from the FBI and DOJ that show that a subpoena, which comes from a prosecutor, is all that is necessary to seize emails and chats.

A Federal Takeover of Elections?  On March 28, President Obama issued Executive Order 13639, establishing a Presidential Commission on Election Administration "in order to promote the efficient administration of Federal elections and to improve the experience of all voters."  The ostensible premise behind this effort is the idea that some voters were forced to wait too long in line to cast their ballots.  Yet a growing number of critics see something entirely different:  they see this as an attempt to initiate a federal takeover of elections.

Leave your vuvuzula in the car.
Liquids banned from Obama's Ohio State speech despite past heat-related medical emergencies.  President Barack Obama's speech at the Ohio State University graduation ceremony Sunday will be on tight security lockdown, with graduating students subject to "airport-like security screening" and a strict list of prohibited items for graduates and their relatives attending the event at Ohio Stadium (capacity: 102,329).  Attendees are prohibited from bringing liquids into the stadium, despite high temperatures.

Floridians Encouraged to Report Neighbors Who "Hate Government".  That we actually have a County Sheriff, here in the great Sunshine State of Florida, a man sworn to protect and defend ALL of the Constitution, against every enemy, foreign and domestic, plus each and every word, that would want to even initiate a program like this shows that distrust for the Government is growing and that dissention has been noticed and it will not and cannot be allowed by the Progressive enemies of the Constitution.  This hot line for reporting on Patriots, Conservatives, Christians, Gun Owners, Tea Party members and yes, even probably members of this Foundation, will go into place unless Governor Scott says no and puts a veto in place.

Achtung, Baby: Are People Being Encouraged to Rat On 'Anti-Government' Neighbors?  [Scroll down]  The teams will respond to citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a referral to services, if needed reports the Palm Beach Post.  Bradshaw makes it clear that the kind of behavior which could prompt a visit from the authorities includes anti-government political statements that may be deemed a prelude to violent action.  The program will also include "public service announcements to encourage local citizens to report their neighbors", reports the newspaper.

Ron Paul: Police manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect scarier than attack.  Former Rep. Ron Paul said the law enforcement that swarmed around Boston in the days following the marathon bombings was scarier than the actual terrorist attack. [...] Mr. Paul, a former libertarian political candidate who served in Congress as a member of the Republican Party, said the door-to-door searches police conducted in Watertown for the bombing suspects were particularly alarming.  They reminded [him] of a "military coup in a far off banana republic," he said, Politico reported.  "Force lockdown of a city.  Militarized police riding tanks in the streets.  Door-to-door armed searches without warrant.  Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause.  Businesses forced to close.  Transport shut down."

An Unbearable Aroma of Self-Righteousness in SWAT Nation.  [Scroll down]  The so-called "voluntary lock-down" in Watertown — a more appropriate phrase might be "martial law" — offered a chilling spectacle for anyone who cherishes his personal freedom.  Remember the Fourth Amendment?  That guaranteed that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."  Yet in Watertown, platoons of heavily armed police in combat gear went from house to house, guns drawn, banging down doors, screaming at people to come out of their own houses with their hands on their head.  There were "a lot of big guns pointed at us," said one Watertown resident.  Several news outlets used the word "surreal" to describe this concentrated display of the coercive power of the state.  What worries me is not that it is "surreal" but that it is, increasingly, all too real.

Inconvenient Truths of the Boston Bombings.  It is understandable that a lot of people were relieved when the government was quickly able to identify and locate the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings.  And it is also understandable why some people might want to treat the surviving attacker as an "enemy combatant," given his ostensible beliefs in — and potential ties to — militant Islam.  But that doesn't make any of it right or just — or permissible under our Constitution.

Is this an excuse to get a sample of everyone's DNA?
Federal panel says everyone 15 to 65 should have HIV test.  Citing recent evidence that HIV infections are best managed when treated early, an influential panel of medical experts has finalized its recommendation that all people ages 15 to 65 be screened for the virus that causes AIDS.  The recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force seeks to address one of the key challenges in the fight against HIV/AIDS:  The window during which patients respond best to treatment is also the time when symptoms of the disease are least noticeable.

Surveillance's dark downside.  Cameras follow us like gum stuck to a shoe.  But while official Washington is fixated on law enforcement efficiency in the wake of Boston, you might wonder about the precautions taken by those protecting us.  That's especially true given the rise of facial recognition, zoom technology, biometrics and the overall ability to track us from one camera to another, right across town.

The Pressure is Building!  [Scroll down]  Two of the more dangerous issues, aside from gun CONTROL, amnesty, EPA dictates, Fast & Furious, the Benghazi Massacre, NDAA, drones being used against U. S. citizens within our borders, Dodd-Frank, the Sequester, etc., are U. N. Agenda 21 and Common Core.  The low information voter is blissfully ignorant of these assaults, thanks to the media.  The media will not discuss these issues because if people/parents knew about these assaults, they would get involved.  If people were to become involved, the layers on the onions of lies, fraud and malfeasance may be unwound.

Why Does DHS Need More Bullets Per Officer Than [the] Army?  Homeland Security's procurement officer is grilled in Congress on why federal agents who rarely fire weapons need several times more bullets annually than an Army officer.  Who or what are they shooting at?

Mayor Bloomberg's Personal Reading Of Constitution.  New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that in light of the Boston Marathon bombing, our interpretation of the Constitution will "have to change."  Americans should be appalled at such a statement.

Big Sis: Obama Admin Can Pick Which Laws to Enforce.  During her testimony on the "Gang of Eight" immigration bill before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday [4/23/2013], Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that she, President Barack Obama and other political officials at the top of this administration have the authority to decide which laws to enforce, and which ones to ignore.

Napolitano: Obama Regime can decide which laws to enforce.  In a startling and candid admission, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano argued to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday [4/23/2013] that regardless of oaths to uphold the law, the President and the executive branch can choose what laws are to be enforced.  Tensions rose as the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Napolitano over the enforcement, or lack thereof, of current U.S. immigration policies.

Big Government Mind-Readers.  Like Big Brother, Big Government cannot read minds.  But he can read your emails (at least, the IRS can, and apparently without a warrant) and your social media.  He can obtain your Google history and data.  He knows which candidates you voted for and how much you contributed to political campaigns.  Big Government can calculate how much you're worth, what you earn, spend, and owe, whether you pay bills on time, and how much you dropped in the offering plate at church.  He knows what kind of car you drive, where you drive it, and how quickly it guzzles gas.  If you use public transportation, he can see what you packed for the trip and then pat you down.

Trick Language In Senate Gun Bill Turns All Gun Owners Into Felons.  While President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg talk about "gun sales," the actual legislation moving through Congress aims to regulate far more than sales.  It would turn almost every gun owner into a felon.  The trick is that the language under consideration applies not only to sales but also to "transfers," which are defined to include innocent activities such as letting your spouse borrow your gun for a few hours.

Why Are the Feds Trying to Identify All Gun Owners in Missouri?  They keep telling you they have noting but good intentions, that to worry about the feds coming for your guns makes you part of "the black helicopter crowd."  But then things like this happen:  In Missouri, federal investigators have demanded and obtained from the state government — apparently twice — the entire list of Missouri concealed weapon permit holders.

The IRS is reading your email, and doesn't care a court said they can't.  If you aren't encrypting your email, the IRS is probably reading it right now.

It Wouldn't Take Long for Martial Law to be Imposed.  This is how Obama will impose martial law, if he chooses. [...] It will be done by presidential order, as has been the pattern of most of his illegality.

The Militarized DHS: 5 Shocking Purchases.  The Department of Homeland Security has alarmed people, including members of Congress like Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) and Doug LaMalfa (R-Kan.), with the truly massive amounts of militaristic gear that it's buying.  Why does the DHS need enough gear to equip an army on the move?  Is there an ominous reason behind it or is DHS merely stockpiling gear for training purposes?  While we're waiting for Republicans in D.C. to fully investigate the matter, it's worth taking a look at the sort of purchases that have caused so much concern.

Fight for the right to grow raisins.  Since the 1930s, the Agriculture Department has turned California raisin growers into pawns of its Raisin Administrative Committee, which can commandeer up to half of the farmer's crop and then pay them little or nothing for the product.  Marvin Horne, a 67-year-old raisin farmer in Fresno, Calif., was fined almost $700,000 for refusing to surrender control of much of his harvest to the government committee in 2002.  Horne, who has been growing raisins for more than 40 years, has battled the raisin committee for more than a decade and describes its regime as "involuntary servitude."

"You don't know what freedom is, because you've never lost it."
Gun-rights testimony from a communism survivor.  I am always amazed — amazed — when anyone has the gall to dismiss, even laugh off, the suggestion that the right to keep and bear arms is a smart and necessary provision for a free society.  Human history (not to mention current events!) is too chock-full of examples of nefarious regimes violently abusing and controlling their people, and the freedoms enjoyed by American citizens are the exception, not the rule.

U.S. Army lists Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, and "Islamophobia" as forms of "Religious Extremism".  This is the politically manipulative and ridiculous nonsense that has replaced truthful information about Islam and jihad.  And the implications of it are quite ominous.  Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism and "Islamophobia" are forms of "Religion Extremism" on par with al-Qaeda and Hamas?  Then how long will it be before the Obama Administration goes to war against them, as it has repeatedly declared that it is at war with al-Qaeda?

The Editor says...
That's the handiest part of the "war on terror" — the list of designated enemies can be flexed and expanded at any time.

Army lists Christians, Catholics and Jews as Religious Extremists.  How nice of them to include the Ku Klux Klan on the list of Religious Extremism.  Who knew political ideologies were a religion.

Don't Fire Until You See The Whites of Their Cassocks.  When I first saw the headline, I assumed it must all be a little less obviously bone-crushingly stupid or at any rate more nuanced once you got into the story.  But I invite you to look at the accompanying poster for the Equal Opportunity training brief issued by the Army Reserve in Pennsylvania.  It lists "extremist" groups, starting with "Evangelical Christianity" at Number One, "Al Quaeda" (misspelled under any Roman rendering of Arabic) at Number Five, "Hamas" at Six, and "Catholicism" rounding out the Top Ten.

Has U.S. Army Declared War On Christianity?  It has been said that there are no atheists in foxholes, but like so many things askew in our politically correct modern-day universe, there are apparently some.  An atheist U.S. soldier made a formal complaint about the steeple and crosses on a chapel located at Forward Operation Base Orgun-E.  "We can confirm that those items were removed from the chapel," said a spokesman for the ISAF Joint Command.  "These items were removed out of respect for the beliefs of other faiths."

The Editor says...
Obviously this is just another means of appeasing the Muslims, while diminishing all religious beliefs through homogenization.  There is nothing wrong with standing up for your faith, if it means a lot to you.  The problem with expressing "respect for the beliefs of other faiths" is that some other faiths do not have beliefs that are worthy of respect.

Police Militarization, Abuses of Power, and the Road to Impeachment.  The Internet is abuzz with news that the Department of Homeland Security is purchasing over 1.6 billion rounds of pistol and rifle ammunition, 2,700 Mine Resistant Armored Vehicles (MRAP), and 7,000 fully-automatic "personal defense weapons." [...] Instead of asking why DHS needs 1.6 billion rounds of ammo, the real question we should be asking is, "Why does DHS need 55,000 law enforcement officers?"

Hundreds Of DHS Armored Trucks Are On The Move. Should You Be Freaking Out?  At first glance, it does seem more than a bit strange that the government is buying truly massive amounts of ammunition, body armor and military style vehicles.  That's why even members of Congress like Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) and Doug LaMalfa (R-Kan.) have become concerned enough to publicly request that the DHS explain itself.

A declaration of war against the American public?  Retired U.S. Army Captain Terry M. Hestilow has written his U.S. senator, Senator John Cornyn, Texas, stating that he believes the Department of Homeland Security is preparing for war against, well, us.  He advances in his letter the proposition that the Dept. of Homeland Security is without legal or constitutional authority to have acquired the war powers it has.
No capitalization in original.  (Must be a public school student.)  Corrected by The Editor.

Technologies of Surveillance.  The NYPD is testing a new type of security apparatus that uses terahertz radiation to detect guns under clothing from a distance.  As Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained to the "Daily News" back in January, If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation — a weapon, for example — the device will highlight that object.  Ignore, for a moment, the glaring constitutional concerns, which make the stop-and-frisk debate pale in comparison:  virtual strip-searching, evasion of probable cause, potential racial profiling. [...] We're scared of both terrorism and crime, even as the risks decrease; and when we're scared, we're willing to give up all sorts of freedoms to assuage our fears.  Often, the courts go along.

NYPD Commissioner says department will begin testing a new high-tech device that scans for concealed weapons.  The department just received a machine that reads terahertz [sic] — the natural energy emitted by people and inanimate objects — and allows police to view concealed weapons from a distance.  "If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation, for example a weapon, the device will highlight that object," Kelly said.  A video image aired at a Police Foundation breakfast Wednesday [1/23/2013] showed an officer, clad in a New York Jets jersey and jeans, with the shape of a hidden gun clearly visible under his clothing when viewed through the device.

The Editor says...
No doubt the system is being fine-tuned to search for marijuana.  Overlapping objects could easily appear to be a gun, which could lead to an unfortunate misunderstanding.

DHS Buys Another 360,000 More Rounds of Hollow Point Ammunition.  While you were sleeping — DHS bought another 360,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition.

Is it time to ask: What's Homeland Security up to?  Following the statement by presidential candidate Barack Obama about his Civilian National Security Force, Rep. Paul Broun, in an Associated Press interview, said he feared that then President-elect Obama would establish a security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship.  He said, "It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this National Security Force." [...] The lack of transparency and explanation about the need for such acquisitions certainly has contributed to conspiracy theories similar to that expressed by the congressman.  With all this ammunition, it is useless without a means to discharge it.  The DHS has also attempted concealment of the purchase of 7,000 assault weapons, and has again censored information about its $1.5 million no-bid contract with Remington.  Normally this would be required to be done in an open, full, and competitive bidding process.  What is the emergency that compels them to avoid this legal bidding process?

DHS Won't Answer Congress On Billion Bullet Purchase.  As we have noted, DHS has been buying lots of ammo, enough by one calculation to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraqi War.  Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga., told the Associated Press that the training center and others like it run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.  The massive purchases are said to be spread out over five years and due simply to the best practice of saving money by buying in bulk what comes down to five rounds of ammo for every man, woman and child on the U.S.  That's a lot of practice and training.

DHS Has Declared War On the USA.  DHS is not your friend.  They are not combating foreign terrorists.  Their mission is not to protect you from Al Qaeda.  Their mission is to protect the global elite from you and your anticipated failure to submit to the tyranny being rolled out across the country in the form of an administratively imposed martial law.  I am not going to mix words in this report, DHS is an enemy of the state, the legitimate state, not the state that has been hijacked by foreign bankers on behalf of the globalists.  Janet Napolitano is a domestic enemy of the state and she serves under a foreign enemy of the state, "President Obama."

The Great DHS Ammunition Stockpile Myth.  There are dozens of articles hyping government purchases of ammunition over the last nine months.  After spending weeks researching this topic, this is a collection of commonly held myths that are based more on panic than fact.

DHS Denies Massive Ammunition Purchase.  The Department of Homeland Security responded Friday [3/22/2013] to questions from Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., about why the agency was allegedly planning to buy some 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the next five years.  DHS told Whispers it regularly fills all of its goods and services requirements at one time because it's cheaper for the agency, and that the 1.6 billion number was misleading because the language of DHS's purchase said it would need "up to" a certain amount.

The Editor says...
Still, the central question remains:  Why does the "Homeland Security" department need that many bullets?  All 1.6 billion rounds are intended for use on the "homeland."  If DHS is expecting an invasion of the "homeland," isn't that what the Army is for?  The U.S. mainland has never been invaded because every foreign country knows we all have our own guns, even if the entire Army is defeated — or told to stand down by a traitorous commander in chief.

DHS buys 1.6 billion rounds "for practice"? But they're hollow-points.  Are hollow points used for target practice?  A former Marine says no.  A former Army Major says 'no.'  Here's the thing, hollow points are safer for everyone but the bad guy you're aiming at.  A hollow point will not exit your target and hit the person behind him/her.  Here's the other thing, hollow points are twice as expensive as the full metal bullet.  So why would they be used for target practice, especially when the taxpayer is paying for it, and practicing with either ... aiming with either, doesn't impact for accuracy of the person 'practicing?'

Retired Army Officer: DHS Must Surrender Their War Weapons to Dept. of Defense.  On Saturday March 23, Terry M. Hestilow, a retired Army officer with nearly 30 years of service under his belt, posted this letter he sent to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) this week.  Hestilow wants DHS to hand over their war weapons to the Department of Defense.

First bullets, now assault rifles bought by Feds.  The federal government's grab for bullets is now being matched with a buy of assault-style rifles that would be banned for civilians under President Obama's gun control law.  The Drug Enforcement Agency has just issued a solicitation for AR-15-styled rifles that include other elements that the president and his Democratic allies in the Senate would ban:  30-bullet magazines and a pistol grip.

Police Departments Beg And Barter For Ammo.  The nationwide shortage of ammunition has left many police departments scrambling to get their hands on the necessary rounds — with some even bartering among each other.  Meanwhile, Rep. Timothy Huelskamp (R-Kansas) says the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has failed to respond to multiple members of Congress asking why DHS bought more than 1.6 billion rounds in the past year.

Family's Home Raided over Facebook Photo of Child's Rifle.  New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families officials raided the home of a firearms instructor and demanded to see his guns after he posted a Facebook photo of his 11-year-old son holding a rifle.  "Someone called family services about the photo," said Evan Nappen, an attorney representing Shawn Moore.  "It led to an incredible, heavy-handed raid on his house.  They wanted to see his gun safe, his guns and search his house.  They even threatened to take his kids."  Moore was not arrested or charged.

Family says NJ overreacted to boy's gun photo.  The ruddy-cheeked, camouflage-clad boy in the photo smiles out from behind a pair of glasses, proudly holding a gun his father gave him as a present for his upcoming 11th birthday.  The weapon in the photo, posted by his dad on Facebook, resembles a military-style assault rifle but, his father says, is actually just a .22-caliber copy.  And that, the family believes, is why child welfare case workers and police officers visited the home in Carneys Point last Friday [3/15/2013] and asked to see his guns.

The Other Drone Question: Is Obama Building A Federal Police Force?  [Scroll down]  Put it all together, and it sure looks like Obama is building the backbone for that national police force he wanted the first time he ran for office.  Worse yet, both Democrats and Republicans are now openly discussing a plan to put all the drones flown in America's skies, including those owned and operated by local police departments, under the ultimate supervision of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, consolidating the country's surveillance and law enforcement powers under one powerful federal police jurisdiction.

DHS deploying in Homeland with 'weapons of war'.  Compounded by the administration's now "on the radar" push to further restrict civilian firearm ownership, the recent controversy over the potential use of drones over American soil to kill citizens without due process, and a longstanding and documented train of abuses tied to the militarization of law enforcement activities, those who keep an eye on such things are noticeably distressed.

U.S. to let spy agencies scour Americans' finances.  The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.

DHS Approves Two $4.5 Million No Bid Contracts For More Weapons and Ammo.  According to one estimate, since last year the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm.  DHS also reportedly purchased 2,700 Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) to go with their bullet stockpile.  ATK is one company that won a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to provide 450 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition in 2012.  Now this...

1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo For Homeland Security?  The Denver Post, on February 15th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, so far to little notice.  It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.  As reported elsewhere, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers.

What does DHS need with 2,700 armored vehicles?  You see a story like this — and the one about a billion bullets bought by the government — and you wonder why no one in Congress has bothered to look into it.  I am totally unconvinced there are any dark designs by DHS on American citizens or our democracy.  But this seems a colossal waste of money — if true — and isn't ferreting out waste like this what we are paying those jamokes on Capitol Hill for?

Isn't this what Fort Hood is for?
Special Forces axe their plan to infiltrate Utah and tame the indigenous population.  The U.S. Army chose a quiet community in central Utah as the training ground for Special Forces soldiers needing to develop Jason Bourne-like skills and to learn how to build a resistance movement by infiltrating the town leadership.  With the deeply religious culture present in Manti, Utah and the desert landscape of the area, residents were deemed ideal candidates by the Defense Department to role play with soldiers in the 10th Special Forces as part of a two week training exercise in July on unconventional warfare tactics.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290561/Special-Forces-AXE-plan-infiltrate-Utah-tame-indigenous-populationlocals-complain-exercise-imposing-martial-law.html

DOJ: Children Do Not Need — and Have No Right to — Mothers.  The Obama Justice Department is arguing in the United States Supreme Court that children do not need mothers.  The Justice Department's argument on the superfluity of motherhood is presented in a brief the Obama administration filed in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that amended California's Constitution to say that marriage involves only one man and one woman.

Why Is Obama's Growing DHS Army Buying Armored Vehicles?  The sequestration question du jour is why the Department of Homeland Security, busy releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of deportable and detained illegal aliens due to budget constraints, is buying several thousand Mine Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles?  And just who are they intended to be used against?

The Tyranny of ObamaCare Continues to Unfold .  According to a lawyer for the Obama Regime, the federal government has the authority to compel you to commit the most appalling crimes against your conscience — even to murder children — regardless of how grievously this would betray your religious beliefs.

The Growing Tyranny of the Political Elite.  So much power has now been concentrated in the hands of a handful of appointees, most of them reporting directly to the president, that it is now doubtful whether America can still be considered a democratic nation.  Government has become the enemy of the people, because it is now in the hands of left-wing elitists who are opposed to traditional American values and who have only contempt for the democratic process.

DOJ to Federal Judge: We Can Force Your Wife to Violate Her Religion.  While presenting an oral argument in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last fall, a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department told a federal judge that the Obama administration believed it could force the judge's own wife — a physician — to act against her religious faith in the conduct of her medical practice.  The assertion came in the case of Tyndale House Publishers v. Sebelius, a challenge to the Obama administration's regulation requiring health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

Clearing Away the Rubble...with Black Hawks, Tanks, and Loads of Ammo.  I've lived in this country my entire life and never heard of government agencies stockpiling millions of rounds of the hollow-point "training ammo" listed in its solicitations or shooting blanks from military aircraft over our neighborhoods and cities.  Not until now.  None of this makes sense if things are as peachy as the president claims, and I think these circumstances raise enough questions to warrant a congressional hearing.

Veterans Receive Letters From VA Prohibiting Ownership or Purchase of Firearms.  This must be Barack Obama's way of thanking our veterans for serving.  US veterans are receiving letters from the government informing them that they are disabled and not allowed to own, purchase or possess a firearm.  If the veteran does decide to purchase a firearm he will by fined, imprisoned or both.

Clearing Away the Rubble...with Black Hawks, Tanks, and Loads of Ammo.  What's with the Black Hawk helicopters and urban warfare drills?  The Army took over an empty high school in southeast Houston without warning last month in a Department of Defense drill.  Terrified residents mistook blank fire for live rounds.  At a City Council meeting the next day, Mayor Annise Parker decried "a shocking lack of sensitivity to community concerns" that caught even some in the police department by surprise.  About the same time council members were meeting in Houston, "federal law enforcement" agents were rappelling down ropes from military helicopters hovering over the Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Warrantless Searches Proposed — for the Third Time — by WA Democrats.  In this case, liberal Democrats in the legislature have introduced an assault weapon ban that includes annual inspections of the homes of people that already own assault weapons to make sure that they are being safely stored.  There is no need for a warrant; there is no probable cause requirement; and the Seattle Times columnist writing about this clearly unconstitutional law observes that the sponsors include "Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, a lawyer who typically is hyper-attuned to civil-liberties issues."  After a stream of criticism, the author withdrew the warrantless search section of the bill, calling it a "mistake."

That Could NEVER Happen Here...  On February 19th, 1942 FDR willfully and intentionally violated The Constitution, an act for which he should have been impeached.  I am speaking of the Japanese internment — the rounding up of over 100,000 people who were frog-marched into Concentration Camps on American soil.  Far more than half were American Citizens with a full and complete set of alleged Constitutional Rights.

Feds Buy 2 Billion Rounds of Ammunition.  Something strange is going on.  Federal non-military agencies have bought two billion rounds of ammunition in the last 10 months.  The Obama Administration says that federal law enforcement agents need the ammunition for "mandatory quarterly firearms qualifications and other training sessions."

Mark Levin: US preparing for societal collapse by buying up billions of rounds of ammo.  On Friday's [2/15/2013] night broadcast of his radio show, Mark Levin speculated that the federal government is stockpiling ammunition to ensure the rule of law in the event of a total societal and economic collapse.  On Feb. 8, Investor's Business Daily editorial writer Andrew Malcolm penned a piece about the Department of Homeland Security amassing what he called "sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times — including illegal immigrants," or more than 1.6 billion bullets.

Homeland Security Now Armed With Enough Ammo for 24 Year-Long Iraq War.  The government reportedly repositioned several of their Homeland Security ammunition containers recently. [...] Mark Levin told his audience the government is buying the vast amounts of ammo to prepare for the collapse of our financial system and our society.

An ominous warning from Canada.  Sun News Network news anchor Brian Lilley warns Americans that if we allow our government to create a national firearms registry, it WILL lead to gun confiscation.  He explains how registration led to confiscation in Canada and how a man who recently defended himself with a gun is now being prosecuted by the government.

Would New Gun Laws Spark Widespread Civil Disobedience?  In his State of the Union address, President Obama doubled down on his gun-control proposals, again demanding that Congress ban so-called "assault weapons" and "high capacity magazines."  This is not a surprise.  What has been a surprise are the increasingly open calls for defiance from gun owners, state legislatures, and local law enforcement.  If the president's proposals become law, he may move the country into turbulent waters we haven't seen in many years.

Utah Resident Forced to Forfeit Gun Used to Stop Home Invasion.  In late January, 64-year old Clare Niederhauser was arrested for shooting at burglars fleeing from his property.  At a plea deal hearing, he apologized for firing the shots, agreed to pay a $700 fine, take a weapons class, and forfeit the weapon he used.  Fellow residents of Layton, UT are coming to the aid of the elderly man, who was arrested after firing a shot at a burglar's vehicle and a fleeing accomplice after they attempted to break in to his property with a crowbar.

Obama's license to snoop.  Uncle Sam is downloading the contents of laptops, cellphones and digital cameras belonging to international travelers.  The widespread snooping may help agents discover whether someone illegally downloaded music before boarding a long flight, but it also has chilling implications for personal privacy.  A report released Jan. 29 by the Department of Homeland Security's internal civil liberties watchdog saw nothing wrong with the searches.

A Property Rights Revolution for 2013.  Martha Boneta had a business license for her tiny farm store in scenic Paris, Virginia, yet she was threatened with fines of up to $5,000 per violation per day for selling organic tea and wool products crafted from her rescued animals, and for hosting a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls.  Officials from Fauquier County using zoning ordinances to bully Mrs. Boneta never obtained a warrant nor set foot on her property to gather actual evidence.  Instead a county bureaucrat relied on unscrupulous, unlawful methods to make these charges against Mrs. Boneta.  Her store remains closed out of fear of further uncertain charges carrying even criminal penalties.

Yes, he is a tyrant, just like the Founders warned us against.  [Scroll down]  PDWs of the kind desired by DHS are very fascinating short-range firearms, with a very specific mission profile.  The question is, what sort of mission profile would benefit from extremely short rifles for DHS?  There are only two that I can easily think of.  One is for the security details of high-value individuals, which isn't a publicly-known mission of DHS, and would appear to beyond the scope of their mandate.  The other use for such weapon in the DHS's hands is "door-kicking;" close quarters combat inside structures.  Why does the Department of Homeland Security need to outfit so many agents for close quarters combat within the United States?

Mold? Leaky Roof? Clutter? Obama Administration Says All Americans Must Have 'Healthy Housing'.  Under the broad banner of "health," the federal government not only is telling Americans what to eat, it's also telling us to make our homes safer.  This week, the Obama administration released a "bold new vision for addressing the nation's health and economic burdens caused by preventable hazards associated with the home."

The Editor says...
The maintenance of my house is my business, not the government's — especially if I'm the one paying for repairs and upkeep.

DHS Ammo Purchases: Gun Control by Another Name?  According to reports, the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled over 1.6 billion rounds of ammo for its various agencies, and one of the worst side effects of this appears to be a shortage of ammo for private gun owners.  The question is — what if the shortage is intentional?

Why are the feds loading up on so much ammo?  In a puzzling, unexplained development, the Obama administration has been buying and storing vast amounts of ammunition in recent months, with the Department of Homeland Security just placing another order for an additional 21.6 million rounds.  Several other agencies of the federal government also began buying large quantities of bullets last year.  The Social Security Administration, for instance, not normally considered on the frontlines of anything but dealing with seniors, explained that its purchase of millions of rounds was for special agents' required quarterly weapons qualifications.  They must be pretty poor shots.

Is DHS Ammo For Obama's "National Security Force"?  As Andrew Malcolm has noted on these pages, the Department of Homeland Security has been buying lots of ammo, enough by one calculation to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraqi War.  Some have speculated about a link between the stockpiling between candidate Obama's off-prompter campaign remarks about a national security force and the stockpiling by DHS of more than 1.6 billion (with a 'b') bullets.  DHS has been buying more than bullets.  As [IBD] noted in a recent editorial, DHS is seeking to acquire 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO "personal defense weapons" (PDW) — also known as "assault weapons" when owned by civilians.

Why is the Department of Homeland Security buying so many bullets?  Online rumors about a big government munitions purchase are true, sort of.  The Homeland Security Department wants to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the next four or five years.  It says it needs them — roughly the equivalent of five bullets for every person in the United States — for law enforcement agents in training and on duty.

Mark Levin: Obama Administration is Preparing for Economic and Social Collapse.  This topic has been right-wing blog-fodder for many months, but when the well respected Andrew Malcolm of Investor's Business Daily finally asked, Why are the feds loading up on so much ammo?  on Feb 8, syndicated radio talk show host, Mark Levin took notice. [...] When the welfare checks stop coming, when those EBT cards stop working, when the ObamaPhones turn off — what are those people going to do?  They are going to do what they always do.  Loot and riot in the streets.

Waters: We Have 'Database That Has 'Everything On Everyone'.  "The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life," Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday.  "That's going to be very, very powerful," Waters said.  "That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it's never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. [..."]

This Dog Can Send You to Jail.  [Scroll down]  He said that he was going to write me a warning, and I said, 'OK, that's fine.'  He asked me if I had any drugs in the car.  I said, 'No, sir, I don't do drugs, and I don't associate with people who do.'  He asked me would I mind if he searched my vehicle, and I said, 'Well, yes, I would mind if you searched my vehicle.'"  But thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, the deputy did not have to take no for an answer.  In the 2005 case Illinois v. Caballes, the Court declared that "the use of a well-trained narcotics-detection dog... during a lawful traffic stop generally does not implicate legitimate privacy interests."

The Canary in the Culture.  It may seem that asking Catholics and others who believe that abortion-inducing chemicals are tools of murder and as such something they cannot directly pay for is not that big of a deal.  That's precisely why the HHS mandate is the canary.  It's true that the HHS mandate is not on the same level as China's forced abortion policy.  But the core philosophical assumption that powers the HHS mandate, even in its latest revision, would allow the government to institute a forced abortion policy or reinstitute slavery.

Court Silences Man Who Painted Protest Sign on His House.  William Bowden painted "Screwed by the Town of Cary" on his house after a road-widening project (allegedly) directed runoff onto his property, damaging his North Carolina home.  Within hours, zoning officials paid him a visit, ordering him to remove the sign or pay fines of up to $500 for each day of noncompliance.  When Bowden sued, the town argued the sign was a safety hazard for passing motorists.  Officials presented no evidence for this assertion — no studies or experts.  An estimated 15,000 drivers passed the sign every day for months and, according to court testimony, had precisely zero accidents.

The Tyranny Before Us.  Adolph Hitler was not always a tyrant.  As he rose to political power his vision for a better Germany lifted his nation from the depths of a severe depression and the humiliation of defeat.  But more importantly, he gave his countrymen hope for better future while he returned to them their pride in their homeland, the pride they so passionately desired.  Tyrants are not uniformly evil.  They are capable of great good and small kindnesses.  They smile, they laugh and they love their children.  But eventually they embrace the evil which defines their tyranny, and then those who gave them their power begin to pay a terrible price.  First a tyrant tells you he cares for you, then he presumes to think for you, then he simply tells you what to do.  This is the essence of tyranny.

Cuomo: Gun Control Would Have Never Happened If Public Was Allowed to Review It.  In order to pass the New York SAFE Act, which substantially erodes a citizens Constitutionally granted Second Amendment right to bear arms, Governor Cuomo had to circumvent his own state Constitution.  That document has an amendment requiring a three-day public review of all laws.  By issuing a "Message of Necessity", Cuomo was able to pass the law without public scrutiny, with the Senate actually voting on the bill a mere 30 minutes after receiving it.  The process led to State Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin to say that, "Moscow would be proud of our state Legislature and Executive Chamber, but every New Yorker should be outraged."

Trusting Your Own Government (or Not).  Many in the media and academia who largely reject American Exceptionalism want us to believe instead that our government is exceptional in light of the history of governments.  In how easily they dismiss the Second Amendment as being obsolete, they are telling us that there are no circumstances whatsoever in which some future American government would ever turn feral.  They are willing to stake the lives of their children and grandchildren on that assertion.

Obama Administration: We Will Still Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith.  The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday [2/1/2013] set the stage for a massive showdown between the federal government of the United States and American Christians who believe the government has no right to force them to act against their faith by mandating that they buy, provide or facilitate health-care coverage that includes sterilizations, contraception, or abortion-inducing drugs.

Web of environmental rules threatens Gulf Coast businesses with jail, steep fines.  According to a new report by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, thousands of people are being prosecuted for environmental crimes every day they didn't know were even on the books.  They've been threatened, fined and thrown in jail.  The trend is especially prominent along the Gulf Coast, but is becoming a national issue.

Army drill scares residents on Houston's south side.  The sight of Army helicopters and the sound of gunfire created a lot of concern Monday afternoon [1/28/2013] in one Houston neighborhood. [...] The U.S. Army along with other agencies took over the old Carnegie Vanguard High School near Scott and Airport.  There were armed men in fatigues, plenty of weapons and what many thought were real live rounds.

Feinstein Gun Control Bill to Exempt Government Officials.  Not everyone will have to abide by Senator Dianne Feinstein's gun control bill.  If the proposed legislation becomes law, government officials and others will be exempt.  "Mrs. Feinstein's measure would exempt more than 2,200 types of hunting and sporting rifles; guns manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action; and weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel," the Washington Times reports.

Emphasis in original.

New York Gun Owners [Defy] "Assault Weapons" Registration Law.  New York Governor Cuomo the Junior may have rushed through his new gun control law with such speed that police will avoid its restrictions only through the blessed miracle of selective enforcement, but he may have a little trouble getting the state's firearms owners to attend his party.  The new law requires owners of those scary-looking rifles known as "assault weapons" to register their property (amidst assurances that, oh no, the registration lists will never be used for confiscation), but gun rights activists are actively urging gun owners to defy the new mandate.

Empty gun stores shelves, empty words and memories of ObamaCare.  There is a run on firearms and ammunition and its scope is beyond what the world has ever witnessed.  In the last two months, American citizens have purchased enough guns to outfit the entire Chinese and Indian armies, combined.  Membership in the NRA grew by a quarter million in one month.

Gun stores running low on popular ammunition.  People who have managed to buy a gun despite the high demand and empty shelves at many area gun stores may now be facing a new problem.  Gun stores around Nashville are running out of ammunition.

Gun Owners Must Contact Schools In Proposed Legislation.  Missouri state Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal wants parents to notify schools if they own a gun.  Anyone enrolling in a private or charter school will need to notify the school district or governing body if they own a firearm.  The state senator also wants to make failing to prevent guns getting into the wrong hands a class A misdemeanor.  If someone kills or injures another person with the weapon then it would be a class D felony.  That means spending 2-7 years in prison if someone is injured or killed with your gun if it is stolen or unsecured.

Litmus Test for Top Officers: Willingness to Fire on Americans?  [Jim] Garrow is a respected activist who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work rescuing baby girls from one-child China.  His source is "one of America's foremost military heroes."  This certainly gives the urgent drive to disarm law-abiding citizens some perspective.  It could also help us make sense of massive ammunition purchases by the increasingly frightening Department of Homeland Security.

NJ town proposes flag ban.  The Hudson County town of West New York is considering a widespread sign regulation that could include banning American flags from being flown.  The Board of Commissioners have a draft ordinance for "General Sign Regulations".  Among the prohibited signs under the proposal would be "Flags, banners and pennants."

Gov't: Food allergies may be disability under law.  The Justice Department said in a recent settlement with a Massachusetts college that severe food allergies can be considered a disability under the law.

No Guns, No Freedom, No Country.  Will the gun rights issue be the tipping point for the American public, (over half of which voted for the alien traitor in the White House)?  One major issue after another, robbing Americans of Constitutional rights, has passed before the treacherous Congress of the United States, and no successful effort has been made.  Will the gun control laws be the straw that breaks the camel's back?

Guns and the Government.  The Supreme Court has ruled consistently and countless times that the "police power," that is, the power to regulate for health, safety, welfare and morality, continues to be reposed in the states, and that there is no federal police power.

Study: Environmental regulations turning outdoorsmen into eco-felons.  Five Gulf Coast states have over 1,000 laws that allow prosecutors to target people with criminal sanctions over rather minor infractions related to the environment and outdoor living, a new study shows, even in cases where the accused did not cause any harm or knowingly break the law.

Plead Guilty or Go to Prison for Life.  Chris Williams, a Montana medical marijuana grower, faces at least five years in federal prison when he is sentenced on February 1.  The penalty seems unduly severe, especially because his business openly supplied marijuana to patients who were allowed to use it under state law.  Yet five years is a cakewalk compared to the sentence Williams originally faced, which would have kept the 38-year-old father behind bars for the rest of his life.

This Metamorphosis Will Require a Permit.  [Scroll down]  Yet it wasn't until the workmen we hired had ripped apart most of the first floor that the phrase "building permit" first wafted past us.  Turns out we needed one.  "What, to repair our own house we need a building permit?"  Of course.  Before you could get a building permit, however, you had to be approved by the Zoning Authority.  And Zoning — citing FEMA regulations — would force you to bring the house "up to code," which in many cases meant elevating the house by several feet.  Now, elevating your house is very expensive and time consuming — not because of the actual raising, which takes just a day or two, but because of the required permits.

Obama's Panicked Gun Control Won't Solve Gun Violence.  House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, in an interview last week, very tellingly said regarding new gun-control laws, "the safety of our country cannot go as slow as the slowest ship in the House of Representatives or even the United States Senate."  Translation:  Democrats are determined to bypass the normal, orderly process of congressional hearings and votes by the elected representatives of the American people.  And how coincidental that the House of Representatives has a Republican majority.

Biden: Obama May Use 'Executive Orders' to Crack Down on Guns.  Earlier today [1/9/2013], Vice President Joe Biden addressed the ongoing discussion and debate surrounding gun control.  Rather than relying strictly upon the legislative process, he said that Obama "is going to act" — and potentially without Congress' blessing.  Before meeting with gun safety and victims' groups, the vice president told reporters that "executive orders" may be an avenue that the administration will use to take swift action on firearms.

When the government tells you how to pray, or what to exclude from your prayers, you live in tyranny.
Politically Correct Checklist for Those Praying at Inauguration?  Once again, liberal activists have demanded a theological litmus test for the pastor who will pray at President Obama's Inauguration ceremony.  Pastor Louie Giglio of Passion City Church in Atlanta has been forced to withdraw his acceptance to pray at the inauguration because activists found a sermon from the mid-1990s where he preached the Biblical doctrine defining marriage as one man and one woman.  Because Giglio applied that doctrine to homosexual behavior, activists howled that he must not pray at the inauguration.

Obama Power Grabs on the Horizon.  Almost a dozen new gun control bills were introduced on the first day of the new congressional session.  Joe Biden's task force continues its frenzied pace of activity, even as it broadens its scope far beyond the reinstatement of the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, moving into such arenas as universal background checks for gun buyers, a national database tracking the movement and sale of weapons and measures that Obama could enact by executive order.  Yet such an imperious manner of governance will not be limited to gun control.

Biden: Obama Will Bypass Congress for Gun Control.  Vice President Joe Biden, who has been charged by President Obama with running the task force to prevent situations like the Sandy Hook massacre, announced that he wouldn't be raising legislative solutions at all.  Instead, he said that President Obama might simply declare his preferred gun policy the law of the nation.

Krauthammer: 'Unconstitutional' gun confiscation 'would cause insurrection in the country'.  On Wednesday's "Special Report," Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer acknowledged a link between gun ownership and gun violence, but said Americans would revolt if Congress implemented sweeping, unprecedented gun control legislation.  "I think we are going to end up exactly where we started," Krauthammer said.

Let it begin here.  Word has come down in recent days that the President of the United States may attempt to gut the Second Amendment via an executive order, reclassifying popular self-loading firearms as Title II weapons the same as hand grenades, rocket launchers, and crew-served machine guns.  In doing so, he would force you to register your firearms with the Federal government, pay a draconian tax for merely keeping what you already own, and shred your right to privacy, allowing the federal government into your home unannounced to "check up" on or confiscate your guns at any moment they see fit.

What To Expect On Gun Control In The Coming Months.  If new gun control measures pass to the President's desk (in which case he will surely sign the measures into law), it means more than just new background checks.  All semi-automatic firearms will be taxed, required to be submitted to the ATF for approval, controlled from crossing state lines, and prohibited from being bequeathed to your children or grandchildren in your wills.  Violation of any of these rules will turn you into an instant felon.  Of course, this would mean a resistance for which America isn't prepared.

Armored vehicle
Politicized, Militarized Homeland Security Department Unveils New Panzer Division.  To the list of recent unsettling developments at DHS and other federal agencies — such as FEMA camp expansions, massive DHS ammo buys, a creepy new biometric surveillance system just being rolled-out by the FBI, and drones buzzing our backyards with cameras — we can now add the appearance across the country of not just heavily-armored military grade Humvees, but 'GLS' armored personnel carriers (APC's) such as in the picture [here] — 2500 of them to be exact.

Nobody needs an assault weapon!  We are told that it is a small thing to give up semi-automatic rifles, which the political and cooperating media elites will dutifully call "assault weapons," even though nobody can quite define the term.  In any case, we are told, nobody needs an "assault weapon" with a thirty-round magazine.  Well, actually, almost nobody needs them.  Apparently, Mr. Security Agent and his comrades need them, lots of them.  Tens of thousands of new "assault weapons," enough to shoot all of the billions (with a "b") of .223 and .40 caliber hollow-point bullets recently purchased by our federal law enforcement agencies in unprecedented new acquisitions.  Are we suddenly expecting a foreign invasion I missed reading about?  Wouldn't that be the job of the military?  Why do our federal law enforcement agencies suddenly need tens of thousands of "assault weapons" and billions of new hollow-point (not training) bullets, many times more than in previous years?

Who (or What) Are They Looking For?  TSA is omnipresent.  Trains, planes and automobiles.  Now railroads and buses.  Next it will be dog walkers and model airplanes.  Homeland Security peers through every remote camera and surveillance platform.  The federal decision to see and record everything is approaching total coverage.  You're even recorded and surveilled in many national parks.  Who, or what, are they looking for?

State Rep's anti-Free Stater post draws local, national criticism.  A Democratic state lawmaker's recent web post critical of the libertarian-leaning Free State Project has gone virtually viral in the past few days and, as one might expect, has drawn criticism.

New Hampshire Legislator: We Need to 'Restrict Freedoms' of Conservatives.  A New Hampshire legislator wants her constituents to know that she feels conservatives are the "single biggest threat" her state faces today, and she wants to use her powers to legislate to "pass measures that will restrict" the freedoms of Granite State conservatives.

Gov't Posts 61 New Federal Regulations, Including 500-Page Rule to Protect 'Critical Habitat' of Flycatcher.  The federal government posted 61 new regulations in the Federal Register on Friday [1/4/2013], including the Department of Interior's 500-page document outlining a new rule to protect the southwestern willow flycatcher's "critical habitat" in six states. [...] "The effect of this regulation is to conserve the flycatcher's habitat under the Endangered Species Act," the summary of the regulation states.

Something funny happened on the way to tyranny.  [Scroll down]  There were no less than six clerks working feverishly with the dozen or so customers, so I simply stepped to the side and walked the aisles.  The cases of ammunition that typically lined the far wall were picked to pieces. [...] Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone.  This isn't a society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned.  This is a society preparing for war.

What you'll see in the rebellion.  Let me explain, gun grabbers, how your confiscatory fantasy plays out.  Let us imagine for a moment that a sweeping gun control bill similar to the one currently suggested is passed by the House and Senate, and signed into law by a contemptuous President.  Perhaps 50-100 million firearms currently owned by law-abiding citizens will become contraband with the stroke of a pen.  Citizens will either register their firearms, or turn them in to agents of the federal government, or risk becoming criminals themselves.  Faced with this choice, millions will indeed register their arms. [...] Tens of millions of Americans will refuse to comply with an order that is clearly a violation of the explicit intent of the Second Amendment.

Feinstein: More Power, More Money to ATF to Register All Guns.  As the day on which Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) "assault weapon" ban will be introduced draws closer, another troubling aspect of it has come to light — namely, that it will give new funding and expanded powers to the ATF for the purpose of registering all guns and gun owners in the country.  In other words, in addition to banning "assault weapons" and handguns like Glocks, Sig Sauers, Smith & Wesson M&Ps, and H&Ks, the legislation will also empower the ATF to be sure every gun is placed on a government registry.

Rand Paul Condemns Indefinite Detention.  Referring to indefinite detention as "an abomination," Senator Paul urged his colleagues to vote against the FY 2013 NDAA Conference Report.

Gun Control and the Long Night of Tyranny: a Cuban Exile Speaks.  One of the first steps historically taken by would-be totalitarians is to disarm the population to be ruled:  the Bolsheviks did this in Russia, the Nazis in Germany and the occupied countries, the Maoists in China, the Castroites in Cuba, and on and on.  In some cases, as in Cuba, weapons of limited military value, like single- or double-barrelled shotguns, are allowed — as a privilege and under permit — to be possessed by the well-behaved ... though permitted ammunition is generally limited to birdshot.

Oliver Stone to RT: 'US has become an Orwellian state'.  "He has taken all the Bush changes he basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them," Stone told RT.  "It is an Orwellian state.  It might not be oppressive on the surface, but there is no place to hide.  Some part of you is going to end up in the database somewhere."  According to [historian Peter] Kuznick, American citizens live in a fish tank where their government intercepts more than 1.7 billion messages a day.  "That is email, telephone calls, other forms of communication."

Welcome to the Salazar Wilderness.  [Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar] seems to think that turning a tiny portion of the lovely coastline of California's Marin County (part of the National Seashore) into the first marine wilderness in the continental United States also requires destroying a family-run oyster operation that has conducted business in the same spot for eight decades.  So Mr. Salazar recently ordered the business to close within 90 days — a decision that will spell ruin for the Lunny family, owners of Drake's Bay Oyster Farm, which supplies 40% of California's oysters.

Oliver Stone: Obama-era America is 'Orwellian'.  In an interview with the English language Russian news website RT on Friday [12/28/2012], the oft-controversial filmmaker said the Obama administration was as guilty of violating the Constitution and the rule of law as the previous Bush administration.  "He has taken all the Bush changes.  He basically put them into the establishment.  He has codified them," Mr. Stone said.

Too Much Bipartisanship.  The 112th Congress has not been a bright one for our civil liberties.  While new champions have emerged like Rand Paul and Mike Lee in the Senate and House freshmen like Justin Amash, in national security state matters, the majority of both parties are in agreement.  First, there was the so-called "Patriot" Act reauthorization.  After a drawn out fight over 2011, the statists extended three controversial provisions until 2015.  Then came the FY 2012 NDAA and Section 1021 authorizing indefinite detention of American citizens, effectively turning America into a "battlefield" where anyone captured may be considered an enemy combatant.

Feinstein unveils sweeping gun-control agenda.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., plans to introduce sweeping gun-control legislation at the beginning of the congressional session in January. [...] The senator describes the proposal as a version of the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004.  Feinstein's legislation ban scores of firearms, including military-style "assault" weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.  It also calls for the creation of a federal register that would require millions of gun owners to be fingerprinted and photographed.

The 10 Worst Regulations of 2012.  Most of these rules increase the cost of living, others hinder job creation, and many erode freedom.  Not all regulations are unwarranted, of course, but increasingly, the rules imposed by the government have less to do with health and safety and more to do with whether government or individuals get to make basic pocketbook and lifestyle decisions that affect them.  And it is not just the regulators who are to blame.  Congress writes laws that give unelected bureaucrats the broad powers they wield.

The latest from "DHS Insider".  As Fred states here and I have to agree with his thoughts, make of this what you will.  There are too many incidents, reports, things that just do not 'add up' and when one looks at massive ammo purchases by numerous government agencies, the 'facts' about Newton NOT adding up as reported by the LSM, one had better be thinking about the coming collapse and worse.

The Day The War Began.  If you were a farmer without a radio during Pearl Harbor, you would not have known that the world had just gone to war and it would not end without the deaths of millions and millions.  If you don't know that the American Civil War Deux just started, I pity you for you have no radio. [...] You do not see what is coming your way.  You are going to be drafted into a war you have not even heard of, yet.  You have experienced Pearl Harbor without knowing it.

Presumed Guilty in the Name of Fighting Terrorism.  [Scroll down]  The change in the standards by which the NCTC now is able to troll data means every action a person takes that is logged into a government database, is subject to scrutiny for criminal behavior.  Probable cause or reasonable suspicion — constitutional standards for invading a person's privacy by government snooping — are irrelevant in such a scenario.  We are all presumed guilty of engaging in potential terrorist acts.

Hey Senator Feinstein, You Say You Want A Revolution?  Senator Feinstein and her statist friends want to make America safer by taking guns away from honest people who don't commit gun crimes.  Such is liberal logic.  Feinstein, who knows as much about guns as she does fiscal responsibility, is going to introduce a bill that will "stop the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices."  Her bill will also affect handguns and require registration of firearms with photos, fingerprints, makes and models, and serial numbers.  I know you'll all be lining up to comply!

Feinstein's Gun Control Bill Will Trigger The Next American Revolution.  Over the past two years alone, multiple draconian policies have been enacted through executive order by the Obama Administration which build upon the civil liberty crushing actions of George W. Bush and press far beyond.  The Patriot Acts, the FISA domestic spy bill, the bailouts of corrupt international banks, attempts at CISPA and SOPA, actions like the NDAA authorizing the treatment of U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants" without rights to due process; all paint a picture so clear only a one-celled amoeba (or your average suburban yuppie) would not see it.

Feinstein: All Gun Owners Should Be Registered, Fingerprinted.  Even as news that Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) "Assault Weapon" ban is really a ban on some of the most popular civilian-owned handguns in the U.S., details of her promised legislation also show that it will require gun owners to register their guns with the government. [...] This will require not simply the registration of the specific gun's serial number but also a photograph and fingerprints of the owner as well.  This would necessarily take away the ability of people to sell guns in private sales to friends or family members too.

Democrats Seek the Holy Grail of Gun Control.  Dianne Feinstein has announced that she will introduce sweeping gun control legislation in the Senate.  Under her bill, countless standard handguns apparently would now be banned, and for the first time a federal register that may include many millions of gun owners, fingerprinted and photographed, would be created.

December 27, 2012: The Day Freedom Died in America.  Just two days after Christmas, the American Senate is coming for your guns, in a move that will toss the Founding Fathers' cherished Second Amendment into the dustbin of history.

Softening up the public for the end of the Second Amendment:
Arne Duncan: 'We Have Common Values That Go Far Beyond the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms'.  Americans value their children, their safety, and the right to pursue their dreams without fear — and those "common values" trump the rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last Friday [12/21/2012] in a speech at a Washington, D.C., elementary school.

Just Freeze! EPA Says Burning Wood Is Bad, but so Is Natural Gas, Coal, Oil.  So, you're living in Fairbanks, Alaska, and it's 45 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit.  The high today will be -39 degrees below zero.  The weather services all project lots more double-digit minus numbers in the coming days and weeks, with dips into the minus 50s and 60s.  Heating oil prices are killing your family budget, so you crank up the wood stove and start burning some of the firewood you collected last summer.  Uh-oh!  Now you're in trouble!

What about bubble-gum cigars?
Old fashioned candy store threatened with fine for selling sugar cigarettes.  Owners of an old-school soda shop in St. Paul, Minnesota, have been warned to kick the habit and stop stocking novelty candy cigarettes.  City inspectors threatened a misdemeanor citation and $500 fine if Lynden's soda fountain is caught selling the fake smokes again.

The coming drone attack on America.  Drones on domestic surveillance duties are already deployed by police and corporations.  In time, they will likely be weaponised.

Did someone mention drones?

Beware! Regulations Incoming!  The problem, of course, is not simply the number and cost of new regulations.  The larger concern is about the way these regulations are actually being made and enforced.  The process is often unconstitutional and empowers bureaucrats instead of American citizens.

The government already controls too much.  Last week, a lengthy article in the Wall Street Journal detailed how the federal government's "little-known National Counterterrorism Center" can now, under new authority, examine "the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them."  It "can copy entire government databases — flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others," keeping "data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years ... to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior."

Mandatory Voting: Is This The Obama Administration's Goal?  [Scroll down]  Remember this as the Obama administration mounts a drive to federalize voter registration, a step toward making voting mandatory.  Attorney General Eric Holder considers it self-evidently alarming that 60 million adult citizens were not registered in 2008.  He wants Washington to register everyone automatically.

IRS rule threatens to shut down the small businesses that prepare tax returns.  Small business owners who prepare tax returns for a living every year must either seek additional training or close their doors due to a new Internal Revenue Service regulation set to take effect at the end of this year.

Marxist EPA Wants to Regulate Water As a Pollutant in Virginia.  Ken Cuccinelli likes to call the EPA the "Employment Prevention Agency."  In addition to preventing job creation, the EPA wants other peoples' private property and their money for non-existant or minor problems.

More information — none of it favorable — about the EPA.

U.S. Can't Afford Obama's No-Debt-Limit Credit Card.  The president tells business leaders he wants to do away with Congress when it comes to raising the country's legal debt limit and be able to do it all by himself.

Man sits in jail while unable to pay alimony that exceeds his income.  For nearly seven weeks, John Waldorf has been in the county jail on a "non-support" charge for allegedly failing to pay alimony.  He claims he is a victim of New Jersey's "antiquated" alimony system and many people agree with him.  In late October a small protest was held outside the courthouse.

Regulators R Us: Feds Crank Up Regulations — on Everything.  Get set for the Obama administration's post-election tsunami of business-killing, job-killing, economy-killing federal regulations.  It's already begun.  Take a look at www.regulations.gov, the administration's regulatory website.  The home page informs us that in the last 90 days, the administration has posted 5,934 new regulations. [...] A cost analysis by the Small Business Administration in 2008 found that the cost to our national economy of compliance with federal regulations was an astronomical $1.75 trillion!

New federal law may make replacing your furnace much costlier.  Replacing an aging furnace could cost homeowners thousands of dollars more after May 1, when new federal energy efficiency standards take effect for northern states, including New Jersey.  The new energy-efficient natural gas furnaces aren't that much more expensive themselves, but they must be vented directly to an outside wall rather than through the chimney, which can increase installation costs dramatically, home heating contractors say.

Your Future in Obama World.  Right now, you can wander the USA all day without running into a person in military uniform or a government office more threatening than the Post Office.  That may change.  Recently, the federal government has been issuing regulations at the rate of 68 per day, controlling healthcare, food, energy, education, law enforcement, travel and transportation, commerce, communications, the environment et cetera.  Don't expect its attention to detail to stop anytime soon.  ObamaCare calls for creation of 159 new agencies or programs.

State Dept. Official to Attend OIC Meeting Today on Banning 'Defamation of Islam'.  After the disaster of trying to blame an obscure YouTube video for the attack on the CIA operation in Benghazi and Obama's prophecy at the UN that "the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam," Hillary Clinton's State Department appears to be taking another run at the First Amendment free speech rights of American citizens.

The $4,000 Trash Can.  [Martha] Boneta, a Fauquier County farmer, hosted a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls — an occasion for which she lacked the proper "events permit."  For this, the county slammed her with a $5,000 fine.  She also got in hot water for selling items, such as yarn and birdhouses, that she had not made herself.

California vs. Texas.  Certainly, many government workers are working in legitimate government functions: police, courts, and prisons.  But what are the others doing? They are creating regulations, checking paperwork, inspecting businesses, and generally putting obstacles in the path of citizens living their lives and operating their businesses.  California has substantially more people erecting these arbitrary barriers than Texas.  In short, California has more people snooping and prying into the lives of its citizens than Texas does.

6,125 Proposed Regulations and Notifications Posted in Last 90 Days — Average 68 per Day.  It's Friday morning, and so far today, the Obama administration has posted 165 new regulations and notifications on its reguations.gov website.  In the past 90 days, it has posted 6,125 regulations and notices — an average of 68 a day.

Obama Administration Makes A Mockery Of The Rule Of Law.  Arbitrary ObamaCare waivers are bad enough by themselves.  They are truly ominous as part of a more general practice of this administration to create arbitrary powers that permit them to walk roughshod over the basic rights of the American people.  The checks and balances of the Constitution have been evaded time and time again by the Obama administration, undermining the fundamental right of the people to determine the laws that govern them, through their elected representatives.  You do not have a self-governing people when huge laws are passed too fast for the public to even know what is in them.

Federal Judge OKs Installation of Surveillance Cameras Without a Warrant.  On October 29, a federal district court judge ruled that police can enter onto privately owned property and install secret surveillance cameras without a warrant.  The judge did set forth a few guidelines that must be followed before such activity would be permissible, but the fact that such a scenario is accepted as constitutional by a federal judge is a serious setback for privacy and for the Fourth Amendment.

A National Security Hybrid.  B.H. Obama has issued 139 executive orders since becoming president.  Some are fairly benign; many are deeply troubling, specifically as to the wholesale consolidation of emergency powers into the office of the presidency.  The newest executive order is a breathtaking assault on entire sections of Constitution and the rights, freedoms, and liberties of all Americans, carefully hidden within the stultifying and banal language of bureaucratic doublespeak.

Video: Truck Driver Stands Up To Unconstitutional Checkpoint.  A truck driver who passed through an unconstitutional checkpoint 30 miles from the Mexican border stood up for his 4th Amendment rights by refusing to answer questions in another example of how Americans are re-asserting their liberties. [...] This is just the latest in a series of confrontations caught on video showing Americans standing up to 4th Amendment-violating checkpoints that are creeping further and further inside America, in some cases as much as 100 miles from the border.

The food police inhibit freedom of speech:
Bad Rules.  Steve Cooksey started a blog about low-carb nutrition, which included "Dear Abby"-style advice.  The state told him that giving such advice without a license is illegal!  Cooksey stopped, but enlisted help from the Institute for Justice, the libertarian public-interest law group.  Together they sued the state for the free-speech violation.  Unfortunately, a federal court dismissed the suit, saying that since the state took no formal action, Cooksey was not harmed.  IJ will appeal.

Good news: Interior Department creating their very own climate-change committee.  I'd bet big money that this is not going to be a dispassionate, balanced committee looking for ways to keep bureaucrats noses out of Americans' private property and businesses; rather, it's going to 'inform' the Interior Department's already-made-up collective mind with contrived reasons to further regulate, control, and acquire land.

Interior Dept. creates climate change committee.  The Obama administration is creating an advisory committee on climate change to advise the federal government on future operations.  The Interior Department announced the new bureaucracy in a recent federal registry notice along with a call for nominations by Nov. 19 to seat the 25-member board.  The notice specifically states membership will be comprised of state and local government employees, non-governmental organizations, Native American tribes, academia, individual landowners and business interests.

The Mayor of East St. Louis is the New Baby Sitter.  A new restriction passed by Mayor Alvin Parks of East St. Louis has enacted a new curfew and dress code for the city's youth.  Anyone under 18 that is caught out of class during school hours, outside after 10pm or out of the house or school anytime without a parent or guardian, they will be arrested.  Additionally, the mayor decided that youth should also be prohibited from wearing any blue or red.

Why Sebelius Campaigns So Hard for Her Boss — and Why He Won't Fire Her.  In fact, if the president makes no appointments, or the Senate rejects the president's appointees, then all of IPAB's considerable powers fall to one person: the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  The HHS secretary would effectively become an economic dictator, with more power over the health care sector than any chamber of Congress.  If Obama wins in November, he would have zero incentive to appoint any IPAB members.

Another Obama Executive Order Allows Seizure of Americans' Bank Accounts.  The latest executive order (EO) emanating from the White House October 9 now claims the power to freeze all bank accounts and stop any related financial transactions that a "sanctioned person" may own or try to perform — all in the name of "Iran Sanctions." [...] And if the individual so "sanctioned" decides that the ruling is unfair, he isn't allowed to sue. In two words, the individual has successfully been robbed blind.  But it's all very legal.  The EO says the president has his "vested authority" to issue it, and then references endless previous EOs, including one dating back to 1995 which declared a "state of emergency" (which hasn't been lifted):  Executive Order 12957.

Read This While You Can.  Read this column by Diana West while you can — while we still have journalists brave enough to write the truth, and before the truth is censored.  West, a syndicated columnist and author, noted an astonishing statement within Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly, and dissected and explored its meaning and terrifying implications.

'Overcriminalization' Making Us a Nation of Felons?  Capitol Hill is probably the best place to start if you want more information on overcriminalization — the United States Code — Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure.  There are about a thousand different pages that cover material considered to be a federal crime.  The problem is not all of the estimated 4,500 federal crimes are listed in the code.  There are about 50 volumes that cover all the different federal agencies that have the jurisdiction to enforce and interpret rules and regulations.  When you add all of that up you're somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 to 400,000 rules that could be considered a federal offense.

The TSA is flexing its muscles, just to see how much the public will tolerate.
TSA Lies About Bizarre "Freeze" Drill.  The footage shows travelers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona being caught up in what the TSA calls "Code Bravo," a suddenly announced drill whereby passengers who have already passed through security are required to "freeze" on command.  The You Tube user who uploaded the video commented, "I suddenly found myself in a bunch of travelers who were being sharply told to "STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!  DON'T MOVE!".  A TSA employee was pointing his blue-gloved hand at anyone who moved a muscle (including airport workers) and barking these orders. [...] TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee admitted to the New York Times that travelers are not mandated to obey the order to "freeze".

Euthanasia for Obama-care.  [Scroll down]  For example, Obama-care is making it illegal for anyone in America (with the narrow exception of houses of worship) to freely sell or buy an insurance plan that fails to offer free birth control and sterilization.  But this ban is nowhere to be found in the 2,700 pages of the law itself.  Rather, it came as a decree from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, exercising her newfound power.  If Obama-care isn't repealed, examples of such rule by fiat will proliferate.

Constitution Day: 225 Years in Passage of Time; Light Years in Loss of Liberty.  In increasingly sophisticated and insidious ways, today's national government weaves a web of monitoring that allows the national intelligence apparatus to keep most citizens under some form of surveillance nearly 24 hours a day.  Add to that the passage by Congress and the signing by the president of the National Defense Authorization Act — legislation that grants the president the unprecedented and unconstitutional power to deploy members of the U.S. military to apprehend and indefinitely detain anyone he suspects of posing a threat to national security.  Finally, with the Supreme Court's decision to deem ObamaCare a constitutional exercise of Congress' taxing power, all three branches of the federal government established in the document drafted in Philadelphia 225 years ago have colluded in the creation of a government whose power is nearly immeasurable.

So much for freedom of expression.
New Jersey tells drivers:  You can't smile too much in license photos.  With its infamous long lines, going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get your license is usually nothing to smile about.  These days, it's a mandatory no-big-smiles policy in New Jersey, one of a growing list of states that tell drivers drivers to keep a poker face in their license photos.

Shame.  The people who booed the God of love, now rush to the defense of a hateful Allah.  The people who p***ed on the Christ of redemption, now bewail the hurt feelings of a damnable Islam.  The people who denounced the death of civil liberties under the Patriot Act, now make rationalizations as brown-shirted cops drag a man from his home at midnight for the crime of posting a video on YouTube.

Push to call blasphemy a crime.  Muslim leaders have vowed to discuss the offensive video from their UN platforms, sowing concern among free-speech activists of a fresh push toward an international law that would criminalise blasphemy.  Human rights groups and Western democracies resisted such a law for years and thought they had finally quashed the matter after convincing enough nations that repressive regimes used blasphemy laws to imprison or execute dissidents.

Obama's DOJ Can't Say Criticizing Religion Will Remain Legal.  [A recent exchange], between Representative Trent Franks and Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, occurred in late July, but is particularly relevant today.  Representatvie Franks tries to extract an assurance from Perez that the Obama administration will not push a proposal to criminalize speech "against any religion."  He has a tough time doing so.

DoJ Civil Rights Division chief can't commit to protecting free speech.  Via Eliana Johnson and Michael Totten, the question that Rep. Trent Franks asked Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez in July shouldn't be very difficult to answer — especially for the man who heads up the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and who swore to uphold the Constitution when taking that job. [...] If you read the First Amendment, the answer is simple.  Perez, however, does a two-minute dodge while Franks asks it four times.

ATF's latest gun grab.  The Obama administration is making it easier for bureaucrats to take away guns without offering the accused any realistic due process. [...] That means government can grab firearms and other property from someone who has never been convicted or even charged with any crime.  It's a dangerous extension of the civil-forfeiture doctrine, a surreal legal fiction in which the seized property — not a person — is put on trial.  This allows prosecutors to dispense with pesky constitutional rights, which conveniently don't apply to inanimate objects.  In this looking-glass world, the owner is effectively guilty until proved innocent and has the burden of proving otherwise.  Anyone falsely accused will never see his property again unless he succeeds in an expensive uphill legal battle.

Obama Expands ATF's Right to Seize Guns Without Due Process.  Obama has expanded civil-forfeiture rules making it permissible for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to seize weapons from citizens without the hassle of due process.  This effectively gives Attorney General Eric Holder, of Fast and Furious fame, extended power over guns and gun-related property.  The rules were broadened under the guise of giving the ATF authority "to seize and administatively forfeit property involved in controlled substance abuses."  And if that doesn't strike you as extreme on first glance, consider the fact that this expansion of civil-forfeiture allows the ATF to forego almost all "due process" in making their seizures — in effect, placing the burden of proof on the citizen instead of federal agents.

The FBI's Nationwide Facial Recognition System Ends Anonymity As We Know It.  The FBI has begun installing state-of-the-art facial recognition technology across the country as part of an update to the national fingerprint database, Sara Reardon of the New Scientist reports.  The agency's $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will also include iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification by 2014.  RT reports that as of July 18, 2012, the FBI said the NGI program "is on scope, on schedule, on cost, and 60 percent deployed."

FBI to roll out $1 billion public facial recognition system in 2014.  They're watching you — or at least will be in a couple of years.  That's when the FBI is gearing up for a nationwide launch of a $1 billion project designed to identify people of interest, according to the New Scientist.  Dubbed the Next Generation Identification (NGI) program, the high-tech endeavor uses biometric data such as DNA analysis, iris scans and voice identification to track down folks with a criminal history.

The Editor says...
That sounds harmless enough, but with a large enough database, the government could track anybody's movements — not just criminals.

Activist Forced to Show Papers to DHS or be Detained for 72 Hrs.  Alex talks with Derrick Broze, a founding member of The Houston Free Thinkers.  Broze has covered TSA agents working in the Metro rail is Houston.  [Video clip].

Update on NDAA and drones flying over the US.  Let me challenge readers, the next time you go to church, ask your pastor what he is doing or what he would do to prevent military personnel from taking you off to a military prison without an arrest warrant, without issuing Miranda, without telling you why you are being seized, without allowing you access to an attorney, without recognizing that you have any constitutional rights, without any requirement to release you, or even without any requirement to keep you in the United States of America for a trial or judicial proceeding.  I challenge you:  ask him!

A blogger was dragged off to a mental ward because of his Facebook posts.  Exactly what you'd expect in North Korea, China, or Cuba.
'Outraged' judge frees veteran Raub from Virginia psych ward.  [Scroll down]  His saga began Aug. 16.  That's when [Brandon] Raub was taken into custody at his Richmond home by FBI and Secret Service agents and Chesterfield County Police.  He was not charged with a crime, yet he was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police vehicle.  From there, Mr. Raub was taken to a police station and then to the John Randolph Medical Facility in Hopewell, Va., for a psychiatric evaluation.  He was never formally arrested or charged with a crime, Mr. Whitehead said.  "He was in his underwear, in his living room, he sees a group of police, FBI agents walking up, he talks with them, he's asked about some Facebook postings, they handcuff him," Mr. Whitehead said.

Brandon Raub: Persecuted for Telling the Truth About the Federal Reserve .  Corporate media news reports state that former Marine Brandon Raub was arrested by the FBI and the Secret Service and detained in a psychiatric hospital for anti-government posts on Facebook.  A large part of Raub's post, however, was not directed at the government.  It was directed at the Federal Reserve.  The Fed is not the government.  It is a privately owned financial institution run by a cartel of banksters.

Thought police victim Brandon Raub ordered released from psychiatric prison.  The thought police are hard at work in America, crushing anyone who expresses ideas of liberty and freedom.  The latest case involves U.S. veteran Brandon Raub, who posted text on Facebook saying, among other things, that 9/11 was an inside job, that the country is being run by an evil cabal of insiders, and that the global elite are pedophiles who rape children.  Pointing to these opinion statements, the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and local law enforcement authorities in Virginia raided his home, kidnapped the 26-year-old, and stuffed him into a psychiatric hospital where he was to be detained for any number of weeks, months or even years.  Raub was not charged with a crime, was never read any Miranda rights, and was never given a hearing in front of a judge.  No judge, no jury, no rights, no nothing.  He was simply targeted, kidnapped, stuffed and cuffed because of his free speech posted on Facebook.

Attorney of Former Marine: Psychiatrist Threatened to 'Brainwash' My Client With Meds.  Earlier today [8/23/2012], 26-year-old former U.S. Marine Brandon Raub was released from a psychiatric facility via a judge's order, who ruled that the government had no legal grounds to hold him.  Tonight on Glenn Beck's show on GBTV, soon-to-become TheBlazeTV, John Whitehead, Raub's lead attorney and president of the Rutherford Institute, gave his first interview following his client's release to discuss the case.

Lawyer Says 20,000 'Civil Commitments' in Virginia Each Year Part of Bigger Problem.  Brandon Raub was scooped up in Richmond, Va. by federal and local law enforcement officials on Aug. 16 for making anti-government Facebook posts referring to "revolution" and statements that questioned the official story behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said John Whitehead, Raub's lead attorney and president of the Rutherford Institute.  He was then sentenced to up to 30 days in a psychiatric facility on Aug. 20 — no trial, no arrest warrant, no charges filed.  He was finally released on Thursday [8/23/2012].

Brandon Raub is hauled in for a mental health examination because he's not too keen on the current administration,
while Joshua Scott Albert gets a pass for his unabashed hatred of Romney and cops.
Government Clamp Down on Free Speech: Marine vs. Occupier.  In mid-August, government and law enforcement officials went to former Marine Brandon Raub's door with no warrant.  They questioned Raub about what they considered ominous Facebook postings, handcuffed him, and forced him to undergo a psych evaluation at a local hospital.  The 26-year-old North Chesterfield, Virginia man was taken into custody by FBI and Secret Service agents as well as Chesterfield police for posting anti-government messages on his private Facebook page.  Raub was released on August 23, but not before he was transferred to a veterans' hospital psychiatric unit 188 miles away from his home.

"If you do not have the right to speak freely about food, what do you have a right to speak freely about?"
From Licensing to Censorship.  Every day, millions of Americans dispense advice to friends, relatives, and complete strangers through blogs, websites, and a variety of online publications.  And each time they do so, many of these Americans could be risking substantial fines and perhaps even imprisonment. [...] Across the nation, more than eight hundred different professions require a state license.  Among those professions are:  manure spreaders in Iowa, upholsterers in Utah, and florists in Louisiana.

I'll bet they wouldn't have stopped a Muslim from doing the same thing.
City tells woman she can't pass out free water in 112-degree heat.  The city of Phoenix is facing a possible lawsuit after a woman claimed a city worker told her she could not pass out free water in the Arizona heat without a permit.  Dana Crow-Smith tells ABC 15 she was passing out water bottles in the 112-degree heat along with others in an attempt to share their Christian beliefs with people attending a festival downtown last month, when a city worker ordered them to stop.  She said the worker told the group they would be cited if they continued passing out the water because they did not have a permit.

Presidential race boils down to one issue.  There's really only one issue in the 2012 presidential race; all the rest is trivia.  That one issue is:  Do you want to be in control of your life, or do you want government to control your life?  If you want to keep control over your life, then do not re-elect Barack Obama to a second term in the White House.  Hold tight to your liberty.  If, however, you want your life defined, channeled and limited by Obama's "we can't wait" executive orders and the bureaucratic rules of government agencies, then Obama is your guy.

Why does Homeland Security need 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition?  The Department of Homeland Security has purchased 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition — that is not a typo — during the last six months.  This includes 450 million rounds of .40 hollow point, 200 million rounds of .223 rifle ammunition, and 176,000 rounds of .308 168-grain hollow point boat tail (HPBT) that is used almost exclusively as ammo for sniper rifles. [...] We must never forget that tyrants throughout modern history (Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Mao) always disarmed their opponents before rounding them up and sending them to the killing fields.

Social Security Administration Explains Plan to Buy 174,000 Hollow-Point Bullets.  The Social Security Administration posted a blog on Thursday [8/16/2012] to explain why it was planning to purchase 174,000 hollow point bullets.  SSA posted a "Request for Quote for Ammunition" on the FedBizOps.gov website on Aug. 7.  The request listed the commodity that SSA desired as ".357 Sig 125 grain bonded jacketed hollow point pistol ammunition."  The quantity listed was "174 TH."

Who Does The Government Intend To Shoot?  The Social Security Administration (SSA) confirms that it is purchasing 174 thousand rounds of hollow point bullets to be delivered to 41 locations in major cities across the U.S.  No one has yet said what the purpose of these purchases is, though we are led to believe that they will be used only in an emergency to counteract and control civil unrest.  Those against whom the hollow point bullets are to be used — those causing the civil unrest — must be American citizens; since the SSA has never been used overseas to help foreign countries maintain control of their citizens. [...] If this were only a one time order of ammunition, it could easily be dismissed.  But there is a pattern here.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has ordered 46,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition.

US Homeland Security officials get the okay to amass a vast ammo cache.  According to a report on infowars.com: 'Back in March, Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of .40-calibre hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage, prompting questions as to why the DHS needed such a large amount of powerful bullets merely for training purposes.'  This phenomenal cache of ammunition must be intended for use against Americans, because I understand that hollow point bullets have been illegal in international warfare since 1899.

Agencies tamp down speculation over hollow-point ammo purchases.  Obscure federal agencies triggered a firestorm of conspiracy theories this week after they put out orders for thousands of rounds of deadly hollow-point bullets.  But the agencies, most recently the Social Security Administration, are trying to put a damper on the speculation — noting the ammunition is "standard issue" and simply used for mandatory federal training sessions.

Obama Government On Ammunition Purchases — Move Along Now, Nothing To See Here...  Hundreds of thousands of rounds of hollow-point ammunition is being ordered up by various Obama government agencies, including the National Weather Service, leading for a growing number to question why?  The answer to that question from the Obama administration appears to simply "don't worry about it."

DHS Redacts Quantity of Ammo Order — Issues "Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition".  In a date-redacted document, DHS claimed "Unusual and Compelling Urgency" NOT to inform the public of quantities of ammo purchased with tax money ($4.6 Million) for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Federal Protective Service (FPS).

Why are Gun Ownership Numbers in U.S. Highest since 1993?  Why does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration need to purchase ammunition?  NOAA is devoted to studying the weather and providing notice of events such as hurricanes.  Why would meteorologists need to be armed?  Why does the Social Security Administration need to purchase ammunition?  A spokesman for the SSA compared its investigators to state or local police officers who are armed while on "official duty."  Why would the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) specifically purchase 750 million rounds of hollow-point ammunition in March and follow up with an additional 750 million?

The Ammo Controversy.  Several facets of the government have recently purchased a variety of ammunition in large quantities.  In total, more than 1.2 billion rounds of ammunition was ordered between April and August of 2012.  This ammunition primarily consisted of .223 ammunition, which is used in military style weapons such as AR-15s or M16s.  The largest purchase of ammunition was placed by the Department of Homeland Security.  However, the amounts of ammunition were redacted in a later version of the purchase order.  Additional purchases were made by the Social Security Administration and the National Weather Service.

Bullets, False Flags and Biological Warfare: What Is the US Government Planning?  The Pacific Southwest Region of the US Forest Service has solicited ammunition that is supposedly needed for target practice.  In this instance, the amounts of hollow point bullets, 12 gauge rifle slugs, and other accessories are smaller than the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has requested through other federal agencies.  DHS previously ordered more than 63,000,000 rounds of .40 S&W jacketed hollow point bullets (JHP).  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a solicitation for 16,000 rounds of .40 S&W JHP.  The Social Security Office has also made a solicitation for 174,000 rounds of .357 hollow point bullets.  Earlier this month, DHS requested 700 pounds of high density ammonium nitrate and 700 pounds of A-5 Flake RDX explosives.  These ingredients are known to be very high powered explosives.

Christianity & gun owners in the crosshairs: Chilling tactic exposed.  If you are an outspoken Christian in America, you need to be concerned.  If you are an outspoken Christian in America who happens to be a gun owner, you need to be very concerned.  And if you are a Christian gun owner who disagrees with the Progressive anti-Christian agenda in America and have a platform to inform others, you better believe that you are under intense scrutiny. [...] It appears the war against freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, openly professing one's belief in God and the right to bear arms is now sufficient to earn you a medical diagnosis of "psychosis."

Man Sentenced to 30 Days for Catching Rain Water on Own Property Enters Jail.  Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning [8/8/2012] to begin serving his 30-day jail sentence in Medford, Ore.  "I'm sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty," Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Oregon) Jail.  Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.

Warrantless searches without probable cause:
Local Government Stupidity Contest.  [Scroll down]  Contestant Number Two is the Metro Police in Washington, DC, which has decided to harass random travelers by searching their bags before they board the subway.  This is akin to the TSA's mindless bureaucracy — but even worse. [...] Good intelligence by the CIA and FBI is the way to stop these crackpots, not empty security theater that makes life more difficult for law-abiding people.

At-Home Bible Study Lands Man in Jail.  Gang-member-turned-pastor Michael Salman found himself behind bars after holding a Bible study at his home, reports Fox News.  Authorities say Salman violated zoning laws, and thus his probation, when he gathered some 80 people at his four-acre home, but the Phoenix man and his family are crying foul, saying his constitutional rights have been violated.  "Christians deserve the right to gather at their homes privately just like every other American has the right to gather for their reasons," says his wife.

EPA Moving to Control All Water in the United States.  There is a story in Net Right Daily about landowner, Dexter Lutter of Noble County, who thought he was cleaning up the water supply and creating a healthier environment for years to come.  Instead, he is facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from the EPA, whose main goal is complete control over all land, air and water.

Landowner engages in clean water act; receives EPA fine.  Dexter Lutter was expecting an award; instead he got a $20,000 fine.  He made environmental improvements on his land — his farm — by taking steps to clean up the water supply and better preserve the soil, but the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fined him for his efforts.  "That's how out of touch I am," Lutter says.  "I feel like we should have won a medal for what we did, but the EPA tells us we were wrong."

DOJ Official Won't Say Whether Justice Department Would 'Criminalize Speech against Any Religion'.  Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez refused to say Thursday whether the Justice Department would ever "entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion."  During a House subcommittee hearing examining fairness in voting rights enforcement, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, referenced an article detailing a meeting between top Justice Department officials and Islamist advocates, where the advocates reportedly lobbied officials for "a legal declaration that U.S. citizens' criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination."

Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail — for Collecting Rainwater on His Property.  Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Oregon, says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called "three illegal reservoirs" on his property — and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.

Federal court rules Wisconsin schools' graduations in church were unconstitutional.  A federal appeals court ruled Monday [7/23/2012] that two Wisconsin high schools violated the U.S. Constitution by holding graduations in a church — among the most recent decisions in a long-running debate about the separation of church and state.  A three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September the schools did nothing wrong by hold graduation in Elmbrook Church, in the southeastern part of the state.

Choose your Poison, Communism or Other Dictatorship?  I thought we had choices in a free country but I was wrong.  We moved as far away from the metro area as possible to escape [Home Owner Associations].  We could have bought a parcel of land in the woods somewhere, but I am sure, EPA regulations would have made it impossible since everything is close to marshland.  In Maryland, you can no longer build in an area without an established sewer system.  Governor O'Malley, through executive order, has forbidden septic tanks.  Houses can only be built along an approved corridor, thanks to UN Agenda 21's Smart Growth, which requires that a very large portion of our lands be given back to the wilderness.  We must move into high rises, five minutes' walk or bike from work, school, and play.  We no longer live in a free country; we just have an illusion of freedom.

The Drone Zone.  It took a few seconds to figure out exactly what we were looking at.  A white S.U.V. traveling along a highway adjacent to the base came into the cross hairs in the center of the screen and was tracked as it headed south along the desert road.  When the S.U.V. drove out of the picture, the drone began following another car.  "Wait, you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?" a reporter asked.  One Air Force officer responded that this was only a training mission, and then the group was quickly hustled out of the room.

DHS Labels Liberty-Lovers as Potential Terrorists.  By the Department of Homeland Security's standards, anyone who just celebrated the Fourth of July can be capable of terrorism.  A new study by the DHS states that "those who are reverent of individual liberty" may promote terrorism. [...] But while the report identifies seemingly average Americans as potential terrorists, it completely ignores any references to Islamic terrorism.  In fact, its table displaying the "hot spots" for religious terrorism indicates that there was no such terrorism in New York City in the 1990s — totally disregarding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in that city.

Man Facing Jail For Hosting Home Bible Study.  A Phoenix man has been sentenced to 60 days in jail after he refused to stop hosting Bible studies in the privacy of his home — in violation of the city's building code laws.  However, the Phoenix city prosecutor's office said the violations have nothing to do with religious freedom — and everything to do with public safety.

The Editor says...
I'll bet they don't check for overcrowding at the neighborhood mosques.

Homeowner Jailed for Hosting Bible Study.  A Phoenix man who violated city zoning laws by hosting a Bible study in the privacy of his home has started serving a 60-day jail sentence for his crimes.  Michael Salman was found guilty in the City of Phoenix Court of 67 code violations.  He was sentenced to 60 days in jail along with three years of probation and a $12,180 fine.  A spokesperson for the city attorney confirmed that Salman reported to a county jail Monday afternoon [7/9/2012].

Government's total control.  How much power does the federal government have to control the lives of Americans and dictate our individual behaviors in any and all ways it chooses?  The answer, according to the Court, is that the federal government has complete and total control over all of us — it has the power to regulate everything we do and everything we choose not to do — provided Congress taxes the income of anyone who fails to comply with the government's dictates.

Gulf Coast States Chafe at Feds' Fishing Seasons.  Louisiana and Florida are considering joining Texas in allowing longer fishing seasons in state waters than federal wildlife officials allow in federally controlled waters further offshore.  Federal wildlife officials completely banned red snapper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico during 2010 and 2011, and they are allowing red snapper fishing for only 40 days in 2012.  Scientists and state wildlife officials say the federal restrictions are too stringent and that longer fishing seasons are warranted in states where red snappers are abundant.

4 Foods the Government Should Ban.  New York Mayor Bloomberg has decided that New Yorkers can't be trusted to have access to soda served in anything larger than a 16 ounce cup.  It's clear that New Yorkers can't be trusted in general, so this ban on soda is not so surprising.  The New York City Council is now eyeing popcorn and coffee drinks for a possible ban, because if you can ban one thing you can ban everything.

Pastors plan to defy IRS ban on political speech.  Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from California and 21 other states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse presidential candidates — defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups.  The pastors' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations.

Human Rights: A Governmental Power Grab.  [Scroll down]  This brings us to a dangerous scenario associated with human rights.  Namely, the way governments can use them as a justification for reaching deeper and deeper into the daily lives of their citizens.  A great example of this can be seen in the way President Obama and his surrogates couched many of their arguments for the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare, in the language of human rights.  According to them, health care is a human right which, in turn, justifies putting a system into place whereby every American has health care coverage.

Some laws are on the books just in case the cops can't think of anything else you've done wrong.
Use a Computer, Go to Jail.  If you are reading this column online at work, you may be committing a federal crime.  Or so says the Justice Department, which reads the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) broadly enough to encompass personal use of company computers as well as violations of website rules that people routinely ignore.  In April the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rightly rejected this view of the CFAA, which Chief Judge Alex Kozinski noted could conceivably make a criminal out of "everyone who uses a computer."

This sounds like an idea you'd expect to hear in a communist dictatorship.
Desperation: Obama Surrogate Calls to Make Voting Mandatory.  Peter Orszag, former head of the Obama Office of Management and Budget, is desperate.  With even Roll Call recognizing that President Obama is fighting an uphill battle for re-election, Orszag is floating a trial balloon:  mandatory voting.

Voter Apathy Isn't a Crime.  It's a sure sign someone is losing when he demands that the rules be changed.  That might explain the renewed interest in forcing people to vote against their will.  Peter Orszag, President Obama's former budget director and now a vice chairman at Citigroup, recently wrote a column for Bloomberg View arguing for making voting mandatory.

McConnell: 'Radical, Dangerous' Obama Admin Seeks to 'Shut Up' Opponents.  [Scroll down]  McConnell is incensed over the administration's use of government and nongovernmental resources to target its political enemies.  "They've used the IRS, the FEC, the FCC, the SEC, their allies in the Obama campaign to go after people who disagree with them.  The Obama campaign has rifled through the divorce records of a major donor to an opposing super PAC.  The government itself is intimidating donors.  Appointees at the IRS and other agencies are pursuing similar efforts to ferret out who is contributing to outside groups critical of the administration so that they can scare them off the playing field and shut them up."

Federal Judge Reaffirms Her Order Blocking Indefinite Detention by Obama Administration.  Lest there was any lingering doubt, the federal judge who enjoined enforcement of the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) told the Obama Administration that it may not legally detain an American indefinitely based on a suspicion of support of terrorism unless the government can demonstrate a connection to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Rhode Island House Defends Constitution, Passes Anti-NDAA Resolution.  After overcoming an attempted sandbagging by members of the Republican leadership, at about nine o'clock Tuesday night [6/12/2012], the House of Representatives of Rhode Island overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the repeal of the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012. [...] The text of the resolution pulls no punches in its recrimination of the Congress and President for their role in pushing our Republic closer to the precipice of tyranny.

Meet John Brennan, Obama's Assassination Czar.  A relatively unnoticed article by Associated Press reporter Kimberly Dozier two weeks ago outlined new Obama administration policy changes which consolidated power for authorizing drone attacks and assassinations under political appointees within the White House.  The article identifies White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan as the official assuming the role of Obama's de facto assassination czar, raising concerns even within the Obama administration that the White House is increasingly turning into "a pseudo-military headquarters" under the direction of just a few senior Obama administration officials.  Adding to these concerns are serious questions about Brennan's qualifications for this role.

"Never in the history of the CWA has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as 'waters of the United States.'"
EPA power grab to regulate ditches, gullies on private property.  Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways.  These temporary water sources are often created by rain or snowmelt, and would make it harder for private property owners to build in their own backyards, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities on their own land, lawmakers say.

Wisc. Pastor Gets Two-Year Sentence for Preaching Spanking.  Black Earth, Wisconsin, pastor Philip Caminiti, 55, has been sentenced to two years in prison for preaching a message that was not well-received by some members of the community.  The message that landed Caminiti in prison is that parents should be spanking their children when they misbehave, even those as young as two months old, with wooden spoons and rods.

This Memorial Day, Freedom Is Dying Before Our Very Eyes.  What if Memorial Day reminds us of times when we had more freedom?  What if freedom is dying right under our eyes?  What if the memory of the past is more fulfilling than the reality of the present?  What if the federal government could write any law, regulate any behavior and tax any event, no matter what the Constitution authorized?

Not buckling up your pet in the car can mean big fines.  Judging from the alarming number of summonses issued so far for failing to buckle up in the back seat, motorists don't seem overly concerned about the current Click It or Ticket crackdown.  After all, most unrestrained drivers and passengers can afford a measly $46 fine.  But if you drive with an unrestrained pet, don't expect a slap on the wrist.  Penalties range from $250 to $1,000 and as much as six months in jail.

The Editor says...
Just imagine if they catch you with a box of kittens in the back of your truck!

43 Catholic institutions file suits over HHS mandate.  This is a critical moment for religious freedom in the US.  If the federal government can define religious expression, then it can control or even outlaw it.

When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler

Propaganda that was supposed to target foreigners could now be aimed at Americans, reversing a longstanding policy.
Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban.  The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public.  "It removes the protection for Americans," says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law.  "It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information.  There are no checks and balances.  No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false."  According to this official, "senior public affairs" officers within the Department of Defense want to "get rid" of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies — like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

21 Unanswered Questions That They Don't Want You To Look Into.  [#1]  Why is the TSA being allowed to conduct warrantless searches at bus stations and train stations all over America?  According to an article in the Guardian, the following motto is displayed at the TSA's air marshal training center:  "Dominate. Intimidate. Control."  Why is there no outrage over this?  [#2]  Why does the TSA believe that it is necessary to pat-down a 7-year-old girl with cerebral palsy?  Does touching the private areas of disabled little girls really improve our national security?

Kentucky Supreme Court Rules Highway Checkpoints Illegal.  Kentucky's Supreme Court has ruled that highway checkpoints of drivers who refused to display a $10 city sticker in their window are in fact unconstitutional and therefore, illegal.  The city of Liberty required all 1,850 residents and anyone working within the city limits to purchase and display the sticker, but teachers at a local school had failed to do so, prompting local police to take action.  Those individuals who refused to purchase a $10 sticker and place it in their vehicle windows were targeted by city officials, who mandated that police set up roadblocks.

The Editor says...
This won't be the last case of its kind, as long as there are local politicians willing to implement such a scheme (for as long as they can get away with it), and as long as the local police do whatever they're told, without ever questioning the legality of their orders.  Unfortunately, I think several areas of the U.S. have those ingredients in place.

Federal Government is Keeping Tombstone, Arizona from Accessing Drinking Water.  Tombstone, Arizona, once dubbed "The Town Too Tough To Die," may finally have met its match in the Obama Administration.  According to a lawsuit filed against the United States Department of Agriculture, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and the USDA Forest Service by the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, the Forest Service is endangering the town's supply of safe drinking water and ability to fight fires by cutting off the famous city's access to the mountain springs that has provided the desert town with water since the 1880s.

Y2Kyoto: Rise Of The Green Reich.  Not a minute too soon, the Department of Homeland Security has announced that it is creating "environmental justice" units that will be empowered to oversee regulations in conjunction with local governments throughout the country.  The framework for the Environmental Justice Working Group includes eleven federal government agencies, including the TSA, the Secret Service and FEMA.

The Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK.  U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal.  The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance."

The Editor says...
If the Immigration and Customs people need that many bullets, I'd say it's time to put the U.S. Army on the Mexican border.

21 Unanswered Questions That They Don't Want You To Look Into.  [#19]  Why are federal government agencies stockpiling massive amounts of food and ammunition?  Do they know something that we don't?

Why Does The Department Of Homeland Security Need 450 Million Hollow Point Bullets?  Somebody out there has decided that the Department of Homeland Security needs a whole lot of ammunition.  Recently it was announced that ATK was awarded a contract to provide up to 450 million hollow point bullets to the Department of Homeland Security over the next five years.  Is it just me, or does that sound incredibly excessive?  What in the world is the DHS going to do with 450 million rounds?  What possible event would ever require that much ammunition?  If the United States was ever invaded, it would be the job of the U.S. military to defend the country, so that can't be it.  So what are all of those bullets for?

Homeland Security seeking assault and sniper rifles.  The Department of Homeland Security issued a bid for 36 Colt LE901 rifle systems, which will accept and function any military specification (Mil-Spec) .223 caliber upper receiver, and is thus backwards compatible with all CBP/U.S. Border Patrol M4 upper receivers.  Not surprisingly in this matter is the recent award by DHS, but no solicitation can be found for, .223 caliber Remington Enhanced Performance ammunition.

CISPA Assumes Too Much Trust in Government.  In a surprise move the White House issued a statement on Wednesday [4/25/2012] threatening to veto CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) because of privacy concerns. [...] This is the first time in recent memory that the White House has expressed any such concerns.  When signing into law the controversial National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] the White House blithely ignored its trampling of those same civil liberties through its "indefinite detention" provisions.

Rural kids, parents angry about Labor Dept. rule banning farm chores.  A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress.  But now it's attracting barbs from farm kids themselves.  The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families' land.  Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work "in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials."

Is there a drone in your neighbourhood?  There are at least 63 active drone sites around the U.S, federal authorities have been forced to reveal following a landmark Freedom of Information lawsuit.  The unmanned planes — some of which may have been designed to kill terror suspects — are being launched from locations in 20 states.

Krauthammer On Drones Flying In US: "Stop It Here, Stop It Now".  "I'm going to go hard left on you here, I'm going ACLU," syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said in opposition to the use of drones on the U.S. homeland.  "I don't want regulations, I don't want restrictions, I want a ban on this.  Drones are instruments of war.  The Founders had a great aversion to any instruments of war, the use of the military inside even the United States.  It didn't like standing armies, it has all kinds of statutes of using the army in the country."  "A drone is a high-tech version of an old army and a musket.  It ought to be used in Somalia to hunt bad guys but not in America.  I don't want to see it hovering over anybody's home. [...]"

Democrats And Republicans Together Assault Our Liberty.  Both Romney and Obama are enthusiastic advocates of America's bipartisan statist consensus.  More government, all the time and in most every way.  The United States government was created as an institution of limited, enumerated powers with a duty to preserve individual liberty.  Those who wrote the Constitution and the citizens who ratified that document vigorously debated what authority was to be placed into whose hands.  However, the Leviathan which now exercises its power around the globe has far outstripped its intended role.

Where Are the Rolling Heads from NOAA?  NOAA law enforcement collected close to $100,000,000 in fines and seized goods from fishermen over the past several years.  The Department of Commerce IG investigated and found that only about $60M could be accounted for, while some $40M is just plain gone.  This is not taxpayer money, but money taken in huge chunks from fishermen for infractions, some very minor.  Claims by the fishermen of coercion and extortion were validated by the IG.

Is Big Brother's black box coming to your car?  MAP-21 clearly bears the fingerprints of our nanny-in-chief, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, but it passed the Senate last month by a strong bipartisan vote, 74 to 22.  The massive bill federalizes everything within sight of the feds' roving eye. [...] Perhaps most troubling, at least for anyone who harbors even the remotest interest in privacy, MAP-21 mandates that within three years every single passenger vehicle in the country must be outfitted with a "vehicle event data recorder" — the proverbial "black box."

Big Brother's Next Target: Your Car.  Many are quite concerned about Senate Bill 1813, a massive piece of legislation supposedly devoted to transportation issues.  Besides including a provision allowing the IRS the power to revoke passports belonging to those who are delinquent with tax debt in excess of $50,000, it appears that the potential law may be used to measure the size of your carbon footprint each time you get behind the wheel.

Senate-Passed Bill Would Mandate Black Boxes in Cars, Plus More.  [Scroll down]  Approximately 85 percent of vehicles already come equipped with black boxes, notes the NHTSA, whose own guidelines for vehicles include the devices, even though they are not currently mandatory.  According to those guidelines, the boxes must measure such things as speed, position of the gas pedal, whether or not the brakes were pressed, seat belt usage, and the amount of time it took for airbags to deploy.  In fact, it was a black box that landed Massachusetts Lt. Governor Timothy Murray with a hefty fine following the 2011 accident that totaled his vehicle, because the device recorded that he was speeding and was not wearing a seat belt prior to the accident.  However, critics contend that the data box is part of the slippery slope to total surveillance of the transportation habits and whereabouts of Americans.

The Editor says...
The current generation of "black boxes" may only record what happened right before a crash, but there is no way to predict (the limits of) what future software "upgrades" might include.  The black box might be used to show that a vehicle spends a lot of time idling, or that the driver has a habit of excessive acceleration.  The box might also keep track of your movements and whereabouts.  One thing is fairly certain:  The evidence in the "black box" will only be available to the government.  You would have a hard time extracting the data if you needed it for a legal defense.

'Your' Car Won't Be After 2015.  First, the EDRs [Event Data Recorders] could be — and almost certainly will be — tied into your vehicle's GPS.  (Most new and late model cars, conveniently, already have this, too.)  Then data about your driving can be transmitted — as well as recorded.  To whom?  Your insurance company, of course.  Progressive Insurance already has such a system in place — voluntary, for the moment.  When EDRs are mandated, you will no longer have a choice.  We'll be told it's all for the sake of (groan) "safety" — just like the old 55 MPH highway speed limit and every radar trap in the country.  Of course, it's really for the sake of revenue — the government's and the insurance company's.

New federal agency OFR stirs 'Orwellian' fears.  Starting in July, the OFR [Office of Financial Research] Fiscal Year 2013 budget, estimated at $158 million, will be funded entirely through assessments — also known as taxes — on bank-holding firms with consolidated assets worth at least $50 billion.  But as became clear at Thursday's [4/19/2012] hearing by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, a close reading of the law the president signed provides no limit on the growth of OFR's budget, nor on the taxes the agency can impose on big banks to fund it.

A Government of Waste.  The same Congress that professes outrage over the GSA and the Secret Service escapades does whatever it can get away with every day.  It writes whatever laws it wants; it regulates whatever behavior it chooses; it taxes whatever events it thinks will keep it in power.  And it does so with utter disregard to whether its work is permitted by the Constitution.  The president bombs whatever countries he wants and spies on whatever Americans he chooses and kills whatever persons he fears and lends tax dollars to whatever friends he wishes, as if the Constitution didn't exist.  And the courts look the other way.

TSA harassing and searching a 9 year old.  The only bad thing on our trip was TSA was at the Savannah train station.  There were about 14 agents pulling people inside the building and coralling everyone in a roped area AFTER you got OFF THE TRAIN!  This made no sense!

Sheila Jackson Lee partners with DHS, brings TSA to Houston Metro.  Originally only at the airports, the TSA has since began to expand across America in the form of Visible Intermodal Preparedness and Response or VIPR Teams.  Most recently cropping up in Amtrack stations in Florida and other cities, and setting up illegal checkpoints on state highways in Tennessee.  Now, Houston will be taking part in a national pilot program known as Bus Safe involving the DHS, TSA, Metro Police, Harris County Constables, and Congress woman Sheila Jackson Lee.

TSA expands power, VIPR Squads Roam Florida Train Stations.  Squads of TSA agents conducted random searches and patrols at a train station in West Palm Beach, Florida yesterday [4/21/2011] in yet another example of the expansion of TSA Tyranny beyond the nation's airports.

A Government of Waste.  The same Congress that professes outrage over the GSA and the Secret Service escapades does whatever it can get away with every day.  It writes whatever laws it wants; it regulates whatever behavior it chooses; it taxes whatever events it thinks will keep it in power.  And it does so with utter disregard to whether its work is permitted by the Constitution.  The president bombs whatever countries he wants and spies on whatever Americans he chooses and kills whatever persons he fears and lends tax dollars to whatever friends he wishes, as if the Constitution didn't exist.  And the courts look the other way.

Shredding the Constitution.  The Obama administration has expanded its executive branch powers under a comprehensive czar system and myriad executive orders.  Meanwhile, Congress quietly passes questionable legislation with the potential to limit personal freedoms — and U.S. agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), engage in activities that raise serious concerns about constitutional violations.  Even local law enforcement officials have become increasingly intrusive and hostile to civil liberties.

Michigan government unleashes armed raids on small pig farmers.  NaturalNews can now confirm that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has, in total violation of the Fourth Amendment, conducted two armed raids on pig farmers in that state, one in Kalkaska County at Fife Lake and another in Cheboygan County.  Staging raids involving six vehicles and ten armed men, DNA conducted unconstitutional, illegal and arguably criminal armed raids on these two farms with the intent of shooting all the farmers' pigs under a bizarre new "Invasive Species Order" (ISO) that has suddenly declared traditional livestock to be an invasive species.

Why America is Devolving Towards Absolute Government Control.  The relentless encroachment of socialism upon America's economic, cultural and governmental landscape is like a bad dream to most red-blooded Americans.  When society changes it can seem like the ineluctable drift of evolution or chance.  But in the case of America's ongoing continued expansion of government powers, spiking taxes, and shrinking military, it's all part of a planned elitist push into socialism.  And one need not believe in secret conspiracies when contemplating this shift.

Zoning the ocean.  President Barack Obama has an ambitious plan for Washington bureaucrats to take command of the oceans — and with it control over much of the nation's energy, fisheries, even recreation in a move described by lawmakers as the ultimate power grab to zone the seas.  The massive undertaking also includes control over key inland waterways and rivers that reach hundreds of miles upstream, and began with little fanfare when Obama signed an executive order in 2010 to protect the aquatic environment.

AG Beau Biden, Mandates That Sheriffs No Longer Have Arrest Powers.  Sheriff Jeff Christopher of Sussex County, Delaware, when he was elected to the office in 2010, thought he was handpicked by the people to represent them as the highest-ranking law officer in the county.  Instead, he has found himself in the middle of a fight for the future of American law enforcement as a result of a nationwide effort to abolish the sheriff's office altogether.

The Editor says...
Any time there is a power struggle like this, it's not good — for us.

IRS may be given the authority to restrict travel.  Imagine someday in the not too distant future having to apply for a government permit to sell your home and move somewhere else.  Imagine that you apply for and are denied a permit to visit your grandchildren in another state. ... Americans best sit up and take note of this new encroachment on our rights.

5 New Ways the IRS Is [Harshly and Unfairly Treating] America.  [#2]  The United States Senate on March 14th passed a transportation funding bill that contained a slipped-in section authorizing the "denial, revocation, or limitation of a passport" for anyone with "a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000."  The "revocation" bit is especially heinous:  Even the outrageous and barely-known State Department provision denying passports to those who owe $2,500 in back child support only deals with issuances and renewals.  Now the feds are apparently willing to actively hunt you down and take away your getaway card.

Freedom Is a Smoky Burnout.  How long before it becomes a crime to drive a pre-computer vehicle?

Five Ways that Barack Obama has Decimated the American Economy.  American businesses were vastly over-regulated before Obama got into office, but he has kicked things into high gear.  Hundreds of new regulations are being added each month.  There are different ways to estimate the staggering compliance cost for all of these regulations, but the numbers go as high as 84 billion dollars.  That's 84 billion dollars A YEAR that could be used to expand businesses, buy new equipment, and hire workers to increase production instead of doing paperwork for the federal government.

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Offense.  The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.  Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court's conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs but also public health and information about gang affiliations.

Obama's power grab.  In short, the order gives Mr. Obama the ability to impose martial law.  He now possesses the potential powers of a dictator.  The order is a direct assault on individual liberties, private property rights and the rule of law.  It is blatantly unconstitutional.  The executive branch is arrogating responsibilities precluded by the Constitution without even asking the permission of Congress.  The order gives Mr. Obama a blank check to erect a centralized authoritarian state.  This is a law one would expect to find in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela or Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Martial Law Executive Order: History Should Cause Concern, Not Comfort.  This executive order is but the latest document in President Obama's ever-expanding dossier of dictatorship.  The National Defense Authorization Act permits the President to deploy the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens without charge and without due process.  The Federal Restricted Buildings and Ground Improvement Act revokes the rights of speech and assembly protected by the First Amendment. ... Readers are encouraged to study the history of tyranny.  Demagogues are always crowned by the people with autocratic authority in response to the need for safety, particularly when faced with the exigencies of national emergencies.  Although its mention is nearly cliché, consider the example of Germany in the 1930s.

The Fear of Martial Law.  The President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, has generated so much fear that the most common theme of posted comments and private communications is that he will refuse to relinquish power if defeated in November or that, under some pretext, he will declare a state of martial law.  Many, myself included, did not like the Patriot Act that was enacted following 9/11 but there is little evidence that this law has been abused to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights and freedom, though surely some suspected of being terrorists were detained.  An Executive Order posted on the White House website on Friday, March 16, 2012, has generated a wave of fear.

The states recognize a threat on the horizon.
Virginia's Anti-NDAA Bill Set to Become Law; Ariz. Joins the Fight.  After agreeing to changes suggested by Governor Bob McDonnell, both houses of the state legislature of Virginia passed HB 1160, the bill sponsored (and shepherded) by Delegate Bob Marshall (left) that prohibits state officers and agents from participating in the unconstitutional detention of citizens of the Old Dominion.

Is the CIA in your kitchen?  The war on drugs has regrettably weakened the intended protections of the Fourth Amendment, and the Patriot Act — which permits federal agents to write their own search warrants — has dealt it a serious blow.  That act, which has not yet been ruled upon by the Supreme Court, fortunately has not yet animated the Supreme Court's privacy jurisprudence.  Last year, the court invalidated the police use of warrantless heat-seeking devices aimed at the home, and it will probably soon invalidate the warrantless use of GPS devices secretly planted by cops in cars. ... Relying on the Patriot Act, federal agents have written their own search warrants just like the British soldiers did [in the 18th century].  They have done this more than 250,000 times since 2001.

If our government can do this, what can they not do?  It's always fascinating when people on either side of a partisan divide give each other gifts.  Case in point:  President Obama's approval of a rule ordering Catholic institutions to offer insurance policies covering birth control, sterilization procedures and the morning after pill — all contrary to church teachings.  No one has fully explained why Obama took this step.

The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV.  When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are.  Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home — the rise of 'connected' gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people 'bug' their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.  The CIA claims it will be able to 'read' these devices via the internet — and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home.

CIA Chief: We'll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher.  More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches.  CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.  Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an "Internet of Things" — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm.  "'Transformational' is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies," Petraeus enthused, "particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft."

US Secret Service Says No Anti-Obama Rallies Allowed!  When the US Secret Service discovered that the enterprising group of our Southeast New Mexico Patriots had, also, switched their plans and would drive to Roswell to engage in peaceful and Constitutionally allowed dissent against the Obama policies of the destruction of the United States of America, the SS began to put their respective feet down.  First, the SS made a strong request that the anti-Obama rally not occur... at all.  When the TEA Party members advised them that they still planned to do so, it was announced that the main road (Earl Cummings Loop) into and out of the Roswell airport would be closed.  In other words, ONLY the planned Obama sycophants, adherents and Adoration Groups will be allowed in... all others no longer have any free speech.

End The Tyranny — No Regulation Without Representation.  By 1760, our forefathers had popularized the slogan "no taxation without representation."  That was shorthand for their biggest complaint, that the government of Britain was imposing taxes on the colonists even though the colonists had no voice in the British Parliament.  They described it as a tyranny and our nation was born in the war fought over it.  Today, with Obama openly ruling through regulatory bureaucracies and without regard to Congress, justifying his acts by stating that "we can't wait" for Congress to act, our nation faces essentially the same problem of our 1750 colonialist forebearers — a tyranny.

Fifth Amendment Protects Suspects from Having to Decrypt Hard Drives.  Over time, whether one chooses to like it or not, governments may be forced to accept the reality that increasing amounts of data will remain beyond their abilities to successfully demand, regardless of sanctions and pressures applied to defendants or other interested parties.

Can the Secret Service Tell You To Shut Up?  When the Framers of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment, they lived in a society in which anyone could walk up to George Washington or John Adams or Thomas Jefferson on a public street and say directly to them whatever one wished.  They never dreamed of a regal-like force of armed agents keeping public officials away from the public, as we have today.  And they never imagined that it could be a felony for anyone to congregate in public within earshot or eyesight of certain government officials.  And yet, today in America, it is.

Another Brick Removed.  HR 347 was recently signed into law by President Obama.  This statute had wide support amongst both parties of Congress.  In essence, it criminalizes disruptive behavior upon government grounds, at specially designated national events (Super Bowl, nominating conventions, etc.) and anywhere that Secret Service is protecting "any" person.  Obviously, the goal of this law is to enhance the ability of the Secret Service to protect those persons it is charged to do so; but in extending this power, this law eviscerates the citizens' rights to assemble and petition under the First Amendment.

Business Owner Threatened with Jail Time for Flying American Flag.  A Georgia man was slapped with a ticket and threatened with jail time after he refused to remove an American flag that's been flying outside his business for more than thirty years.  An Albany code enforcement officer alleged that Tom Gieryic's flag was in violation of the city's sign ordinance.  The standard size American flag was posted on a pole outside Gieryic's automotive repair shop.

Justice Department to Force Public Pools to Install Elevators.  A new regulation from the Justice Department will require "public-access swimming pools across the country to install handicapped-accessible ramps and lifts or face a fine of up to $100,000," the Hill reports.  This regulation could cost "hotels and other organizations ...to spend up to $9,000 to stay in compliance with the rule."

Poolmageddon.  Today [3/14/2012] is "Poolmageddon" — the day when sweeping new regulations governing the provision of handicapped lifts for public swimming pools go into effect.  The rule, which Eric Holder's Justice Department somehow found time to promulgate in between gun-running excursions to Mexico, says that "all public access swimming pools must provide a lift capable of moving disabled patrons from their wheelchairs into the water," according to the Washington Examiner.

"Poolmageddon" postponed 60 days by our merciful Justice Department.  CNN brings us the joyous news that our wise and compassionate masters have realized their latest hyper-regulations might be just a wee bit difficult to comply with — by which I mean, "physically impossible" — and have generously allowed us an extra 60 whole days to get with the program.

Thanks again, Obama voters.
ObamaCare Subjects Nearly Every Phone and Computer to Government Control.  On July 19, 2011, the Obama Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released Draft Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff on Mobile Medical Applications[, i.e.,] our smartphone, tablet and computer apps.  The Obama Administration — the most unilateral-power-grab Presidency in our nation's history — is asserting that these mobile medical apps may pose "risks."  And thusly should be regulated as medical devices.

Those 'Rogue' Prosecutors.  North Carolina has no Speedy Trial law; a suspect may literally be jailed for years before trial.  Grand juries keep no transcripts, and a defendant indicted by a grand jury has no right to a probable cause hearing where he may contest the jury's conclusions.  In practice, a district attorney may accuse anyone before a grand jury, falsify evidence to get an indictment, and then hold his targeted suspect for years before releasing him.  This gives a prosecutor almost unlimited power to pressure defendants into accepting plea deals and inculcates in them a sense of invincibility.

Congress Passes Bill Severely Curtailing First Amendment Liberties.  A bill has just passed the House and the Senate that criminalizes protests anywhere near the presence of a designated government official.  On Monday [2/27/2012], the U.S. House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously (388-3) in favor of H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011.  As part of this legislation, Congress expressly forbids trespass onto the grounds of the White House.  Many likely believe that such a law already existed and they are right.  The controversial aspect of this bill's restatement of that statute is that it expands the scope of the federal government's authority to bring charges against those deemed trespassers at any location placed provisionally under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service.  The present state of the law prosecutes White House trespassers under a local Washington, D.C. ordinance.  Prior to this latest federal action, violation of this ordinance was a misdemeanor.

Protests Near Secret Service Protected Folk Effectively Outlawed.  In case you question the value of having a Justin Amash or a Ron Paul in the House of Representatives, they were two of only three votes against H.R. 347, the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011." ... Although [Secret Service] protection isn't extended to just everybody, making it a federal offense to even accidently disrupt an event attended by a person with such status essentially crushes whatever currently remains of the right to assemble and peacefully protest.

Obama is judge, jury and executioner.  In a speech to students at the Northwestern School of Law, Holder asserted that Barack Obama had the lawful power to order "the killing of American citizens overseas" if the president believes, based on secret information, that the American citizen is an "operational leader of al-Qaeda."  Holder went on to state that the presidential power to declare an American citizen an enemy of the state based on secret information and order the death of that person was sufficient "due process."  He declared that the "Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process" overturning 200 years of settled case law in one sentence.

Surveillance without proper authority is illegal.  On June 2, 2009, a janitor in an office building in New Brunswick, N.J., noticed what he thought was terrorist-related literature and sophisticated surveillance equipment in an office he had been assigned to clean.  He told his boss, who called the local police, who notified the FBI.  Later in the day, the FBI and the New Brunswick police broke into the office and discovered five men busily operating the equipment.  Four of the men were officers from the New York City Police Department, and the fifth was a CIA agent.  The conundrum faced by all of these public servants soon became apparent.  Who should arrest whom?

Paying Cash for that Latte? It May Land You on FBI's Terrorist List.  Really?  Yes, crazy as it sounds, in our post-9/11 snitch/spy/surveillance society, if you "always pay cash," you may be marked as a potential terrorist.  That's according to an FBI flyer that appears to be aimed at proprietors and employees of Internet cafés.

Church Ordered to Stop Giving Away Free Water.  A Louisiana church was ordered to stop giving away free water along Mardi Gras parade routes because they did not have the proper permits.  "We were given a cease and desist order," said Matt Tipton, pastor of Hope Church in Metairie, LA.  "We had no idea we were breaking the law."

Death of a nation.  It was bad enough when the Congress told all citizens of this country that we did not control our own health destiny — that we either accepted the dictates of the government or would be fined accordingly.  But now, to be told that the state controls not only our medical choices but also our moral choices — that is really too much to bear.

The Rising Fever of Despotism.  Nowhere in the Constitution do we find that Executive branch appointees, such as those comfortably ensconced at HHS, EPA, or Treasury may write laws that the people are expected to obey.  Congress and her law-writing committees were once responsible for actually writing all the Federal laws and regulations, down to the smallest detail.  Now Congress passes two thousand pages of overview legislation that specifically permits the unelected, unappointed, and unconfirmed bureaucrats to add cauldrons full of the devil brew to the details of new legislation.  The Founders of this country would be aghast at the powers so easily forfeited by Congress and hoarded by the Executive branch.

Impeach Them All.  The government has now grown to Leviathan proportions.  It is into everything from light bulbs to toilets and every other aspect of our lives.  No business is immune from inane and arbitrary bureaucratic regulations, most of which make no economic, environmental or occupational sense.  Faceless bureaucrats now run your life and your business, believing they are more knowledgeable and trustworthy than you.  Via force they have slowly crippled the productivity of American workers and companies.  In doing so, they raise the cost of living for all citizens.

California's New Frisbee Law Just Latest Attempt to Raise Cash.  This week, Los Angeles County okayed a new regulation banning the throwing of Frisbees or footballs on the beaches — which, of course, destroys the purpose of living in Southern California in the first place.  The first offense will earn you a hefty $100 fine; the second, $200; the third and beyond, $500.  You can, of course, apply for a permit.  For parents with industrious children, holes deeper than 18 inches are also banned — so get your kids the cheap plastic shovels or pay a fine.

LA County OKs $1,000 Fine For Throwing Football, Frisbee On Beaches.  When you head down to the beach for a little fun this summer, county officials want you to know about some updated rules.  The Board of Supervisors this week agreed to lift an all-out ban on playing with footballs, other balls and Frisbees on the beach, according to a media statement released by the L.A. County Department of Beaches and Harbors.

Los Angeles County Bans Frisbees on Beaches.  The moonbat micromanagers ruling La-La Land must finally be running out of things to ban.  Now they're suppressing fun on the beach.

Mark Levin: We're Living In A Post-Constitutional America.  We are not a representative republic really in the true sense anymore.  We have this massive administrative state with, you know, hundreds of thousands if not several million bureaucrats who are making laws and issuing them every day, 80,000 pages last year.  So that's not a representative republic.

On the Church, the Military, and the Descent into Tyranny.  If a chaplain can be commanded to change his archbishop's letter calling a government policy unjust; if he can be called seditious for reading the letter; if he can be commanded to change or expurgate the words of his spiritual superior, the archbishop; if the archbishop himself can be commanded to censor statements about Church doctrines and practices, then religious freedom and free speech in this country are dead, and no American is safe from attack by his own government.

Homeland Security: You're All 'Militia Extremists' Now.  A recently published "lexicon" distributed to thousands of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) targets citizens concerned about their Second Amendment rights and the steady encroachment of the federal government, categorizing such as "militia extremists." ... So what drives militia extremism according to DHS now is "belief that the government deliberately is stripping Americans of their freedoms."  It is demonstrated by opposing "many federal and state authorities' laws and regulations, (particularly those related to firearms ownership)."  Would writing about those topics (as I am now) fall under "facilitation"?

The Military Is Now Telling Catholic Chaplains What They Can And Can't Say About The Obama Administration.  All the bishops in the country sent out a letter to be read in their parishes promising that the Church "cannot — and will not — comply with this unjust law."  Even Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is in charge of Catholic military chaplains sent out the same letter.  But after he did, the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains sent out another communication forbidding Catholic priests to read the letter, in part because it seemed to encourage civil disobedience, and could be read as seditious against the Commander-in-Chief.

How states are restricting political speech.  Dina Galassini does not seem to pose a threat to Arizona's civic integrity.  But the government of this desert community believes that you cannot be too careful.  And state law empowers local governments to be vigilant against the lurking danger that political speech might occur before the speakers notify the government and comply with all the speech rules.

Obey the feds or else.  We have a socialist President and an aggressive Administration where disobedience to its new rules will be severly punished.  And, shockingly, such disobedience is already being punished in a park near you.  A single event can beautifully illuminate the darkness ahead.

Labor Dept. Targets the Family Farm.  Yes, sometimes the work is dangerous and accidents do happen.  They can be serious, even fatal.  But the rewards of the culture of the family farm have long been believed to far outweigh the risks, and government historically left parenting and farm family life alone.  That's about to change.  The Obama Administration is proposing to use the force of federal law to usurp the judgment of farm parents and replace it with government regulations.  Led by big labor, union advocate Hilda Solis, Secretary of Labor, the Administration is proposing a sweeping set of new rules ... Solis believes that some farm work is "too hazardous for children to be engaged in."  How she knows this is anyone's guess since she apparently has never lived or worked on a farm, nor do we find any evidence that she has children of her own.

Neither liberty nor safety.  Obama's FBI has obtained a court order against an American woman accused of mortgage fraud to force her to decrypt her PGP-scrambled hard drive so that the FBI can fish around without a warrant in her personal computer for incriminating evidence.  The judge said the Fifth Amendment did not apply.  For Obama, the Constitution (that "list of negative rights") does not apply whenever it acts to restrain his objectives.

Neither liberty nor safety.  "No Child Left Behind" has been expanded to collect not only student test scores and grades, but the government now keeps permanent records on students' disciplinary actions, economic status, and even pregnancies.  Worse, the feds discourage the states from allowing parents to access these "permanent records."  What police state has ever done without such record keeping?

Religious intolerance, California-style.  The Obama administration proved Friday that California laws continue to have national influence.  But this time, the pattern has wrought a serious violation of the First Amendment protection for religious liberty.

Do President Obama and his fellow Democrats seriously believe that "government should not intrude on private family matters?"  Let us count the ways!
Obama's Government vs. Your Family:  [Scroll down]  The idea that liberal Democrats like Barack Obama regard anything as a "private family matter" is ludicrous.  As far as they are concerned, every single thing that you and your family do is a proper subject for government regulation.  The doctrine of "choice" ends once your child is born.  If you think that there is some other aspect of your life, or your family's that is so personal and so private that the Democrats couldn't possibly want to regulate and control it — well, then, you are a fool.

Why is it necessary to conduct military exercises in a big city?
LA Military Exercises.  The training, which a department official said would involve helicopters, has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites, police said.  Police said safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and military personnel involved.  The exercises are closed to the public, police said.

Obama and his Syndicate.  [Scroll down]  Now the extremely bad news for US citizens.  First, on 19 January 2012, multiple videos were made of a shipment — via rail — of hundreds of Bradley armored vehicles and related equipment moving from Northern California Southward. ... The US military, Department of Homeland Security and LOCAL Police are conducting "urban warfare exercises" in recent and unprecedented "showings of force" under the now undeniable (by any intelligent beings) Dictator-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama.  These military forces are inhabiting the streets and air of and over Los Angeles, Boston, Little Rock, Miami and Colorado amongst others.

The Case Against Driver's Licenses:  Even a person merely walking down the street, having committed no crime, can be compelled to produce his ID.  And if that person lacks an ID, that person will very likely be arrested on the spot and held until his identity is ascertained.  This is the reality of Homeland America.  You must have permission to move.  You do not move freely.  Even if you are walking.

Moisturizing the EPA.  The Sacketts had purchased a small lot in Priest Lake, Idaho, to build their home.  The lot was in a residential area and they obtained all the necessary permits, graded the lot, and dumped gravel for the foundation.  Then the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suddenly declared their lot a federally protected wetland under the Clean Water Act, and told the Sacketts they must restore it to pristine condition or face a fine of $37,500 per day.  They were told they could not appeal until they had exhausted all administrative remedies.

FEMA lives at your house.  FEMA is stocking barbed wire camps with food and water as if they are expecting lots of company.  The government does not need to round up people via FEMA.  They already have the ability to control you in your own home.  Government now knows through Smart Meters when you're home or away; how much power you use and effectively curtails your ability to choose certain products, like Mr. Edison's incandescent light bulb.  The Big Government noose around the neck of its citizens has been tightening all along.  The government made a FEMA prison camp out of your home a long time ago.

A Fine for Not Using a Biofuel That Doesn't Exist.  When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.  But there was none to be had.  Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

EPA Fines Companies Because They Didn't Use A Fuel That Doesn't Exist.  The Orwellian nightmare of running a business in the shadow of the Obama Administration is nicely captured in this story from the New York Times, which explains why motor fuel companies are about to be fined $6.8 million for failure to use a biofuel that does not exist.

More about the EPA.

Obama's Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps.  [#4]  Set up an internal surveillance system.  Obama has set up and is setting up a heavy internet surveillance.  DHS has special spy technology capable of seeing through walls and has vans cruising city streets, spying on Americans indiscriminately.  And don't forget Obama's "Truth Squad" in Missouri, where elected Democrats were cruising the internet looking for examples of "misrepresentations" and threatening to use legal means to suppress opponent's "Lies."

Feds Want Judge to Force Suspect to Give Up Laptop Password.  Federal prosecutors want a judge to order a Colorado woman to provide the password to decrypt her laptop, which the government seized with a search warrant.  With backup from digital rights groups, the woman is fighting the feds, arguing that being forced to provide her password violates the Fifth Amendment's protection against forced self-incrimination.

Judge Orders Defendant to Decrypt Laptop.  A judge on Monday [1/23/2012] ordered a Colorado woman to decrypt her laptop computer so prosecutors can use the files against her in a criminal case.  The defendant, accused of bank fraud, had unsuccessfully argued that being forced to do so violates the Fifth Amendment's protection against compelled self-incrimination.  "I conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer," Colorado U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn ruled Monday [1/23/2012].

'Disappearing' dissenters in Obama's new Amerika.  Patriots, who long clung to the hope that in the end the US military would be on the side of the people, will now live in the real fear of being nabbed off their streets by the military and packed off to Gitmo.  The effects of this bill on American society are truly monstrous and were birthed by someone with a never-ending evil hatred of America and its people.

Connecting the dots on the National Defense Authorization Act.  While much of the bill deals with the mundane, sections 1031 and 1032 are raising the concerns of many, including some unlikely allies.  In plain speak, those sections of the bill broadly classifies certain U.S. citizens as terrorists, and allow for military intervention against such citizens on U.S. soil.  The language of the bill is cumbersome and difficult to assess, thus creating some plausible deniability for those who support this piece of draconian legislation.  Representative Justin Amash (D-MI) apparently agrees.  According to Rep. Amash, the language of the bill is "carefully crafted to mislead the public."

The NDAA and Suspension of Habeas Corpus: Not Just for "Enemy Combatants" Anymore.  Remember all those neocons and Republicans who cheered George W. Bush's "indefinite detainment" of "enemy combatants"?  Many of them — though, amazingly, not all — have lost their enthusiasm for trampling the Constitution now that Obama's administration has suspended habeas corpus for American citizens, too, with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA).

Obama on Guns:  [Scroll down]  In fact, there is an undercurrent of Americans who are sick and tired of politicians turning their backs on the Constitution in their attempts to manage our lives and money, and are calling, no screaming, for a return of Constitutional principles of governing.  Now if those same politicians who turn a blind eye to the constraints placed upon them in the Constitution are successful in taking our guns away, we will find an America vulnerable to tyrannical government; a situation that will mark the beginning of the end of our Republic.

Tweeting the word 'drill' could mean your Twitter account is read by U.S. government spies.  The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words — and tracking people who use them.  Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.

The Editor says...
In many other countries, you might be in big trouble if you merely mentioned a word like "dynamite" in your e-mail or telephone conversations.  We in the United States should have the freedom to communicate with almost any combination of words and phrases, especially if those words and sentences are not used in a manner which is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, or defamatory, and as long as these words and sentences do not encourage conduct that would constitute a criminal offense.  Of course, if you're writing to a soldier overseas during a war, naturally your mail will be opened and read before it gets to its destination.  Just in the last 20 years or so, some governments around the world have begun to sift through every email and phone call, especially the ones travelling across international borders.  In the United States, there are fairly well-known systems in place to do this 24 hours a days and report suspicious words and phrases if any are detected.

Obama's Freeloader Economy.  Whether it is bullying people to buy mercury-filled light bulbs, or bullying Boeing to sign up for more union labor, or bullying people into government health care, or forcing the American people to pay good money to crony solar and wind capitalists, or jacking up the price of energy to save the planet, or bullying millionaires and billionaires into coughing up more taxes, it's the new dance at the predator's ball.

The Hitman Cometh.  When the first citizen was felled by President Obama's new citizen assassination program, the act was lauded by members of both parties as a tough and needed measure to successfully prosecute the war on terror.  I counseled that this new and self-declared power would quickly morph into something dangerous to both democratic dialogue and the expression of ideas, potentially putting anyone with the temerity to criticize the President at risk.  Since no one has seen the names of the persons supposedly on the classified "hit list," there is no accountability in the way the new program is leveraged or organized.

DC Resident Fined Thousands For Not Recycling Cat Litter.  Dupont Circle resident Patricia White says she has been fined eight times for throwing homemade cat litter in her trash.  The fines total $2,000.  White says she shreds old newspaper and junk mail to use as cat litter.  She believes she is helping the environment by reusing the paper and avoiding cat litter you will find in stores.  After being fined several times, White says she called the Department of Public Works inspector who issued the tickets.  According to White, the inspector admitted to digging through trash looking for violations.

Obama's Standing Army of Regulators among Us.  The Third Amendment, prohibiting the quartering of government troops in peacetime in private homes, seems irrelevant in modern times.  Yet how is the intrusion of government regulators into every corner of our lives substantively different from quartering troops in our homes without our consent?  While Americans have clashed in sharp debate over taxation from the very beginning, government regulation has, oddly enough, escaped scrutiny.  Yet regulators' destruction of a vibrant economy by strangling industry and commerce while depriving owners of their private property rights is as toxic and pervasive as taxation.

Washington doesn't need to regulate rain.  If the Supreme Court declines to review it, a recent ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will put federal courts into the business of managing every acre of privately owned timberland in America.  Farmers beware.  You could be next.  In May, the 9th Circuit determined that rainwater draining from forest roads into local streams, rivers and lakes is "point source pollution."  As such, it must be regulated in the same way effluent from sewage-treatment plants is regulated.  To make a long story short, rainwater that accumulates alongside logging roads has become a new target of environmental litigators.  Several lawsuits were filed within days of the 9th Circuit's decision.

Indefinite Detention and American Citizens.  I, like most Americans, want to ensure that we punish and prevent terrorism.  However, we must do so in a way that protects the rights of American citizens.  In his recent column, Andrew C. McCarthy simply has his facts wrong when he claims that last week's Senate debate on the 2012 defense-authorization bill was not about American citizens.  It was.

Top 10 Most Needed Government Reforms.  [#5]  Reduce regulations:  America is drowning in red tape, which is choking the entrepreneurial spirit of small businesses and hampering job creation.  The best way to get the economy moving again is to relieve the regulatory burden dumped on the private sector by overbearing federal bureaucrats.

Justice Dept. Targets Freedom of Information Act.  With the U.S. Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder continually under fire these days, it was something of a surprise, even to Capitol Hill insiders, that the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, is now in the crosshairs, and that new rules are being advanced not only to deny the public access to documents, but to lie outright, telling requesters that either the documents never existed or don't exist now.

Secret Bill To Be Voted On Today Would Allow The Military To Sweep Up US Citizens At Home Or Abroad.  Either Monday or Tuesday [November 28/29, 2011] the Senate will vote on a bill that allows the US military to imprison civilians with no formal charges and hold them with no trial.  The ACLU reports even US citizens wouldn't be immune as the legislation aims to declare national territory part of the "battlefield" in the War on Terror.

The Declaration of Independence Defines Our Principles.  Is it not sad that the most fundamental aspects of our ability to live as a free people boil down these days to how nine Supreme Court justices choose to read and interpret a word or phrase?  Is it not sad that most basic violations of individual liberty are not intuitively obvious to so many citizens and members of Congress?  Or perhaps even sadder, that liberty may no longer be the objective?

Hydrophophia.  Americans retain control over their government, throwing the bums out from time to time.  But do we?  80,000 pages of regulations were published last year at the Federal level, alone.  That's just over 220 pages per day.  An unknown number of these federal regulations specify penalties for non-compliance, up to and including jail time.  Do any of them affect you?  Are you sure?  In reality, it is very likely you've already committed a federal crime or punishable infraction, and the day is young.

DOJ: Lying on Match.com needs to be a crime.  The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile at a site like Match.com.

Members of Congress get away with activities that would send you or me to prison.
The Wonk Who Slays Washington.  [Peter] Schweizer had been struck by the fact that members of Congress are free to buy and sell stocks in companies whose fate can be profoundly influenced, or even determined, by Washington policy, and he wondered, do these ultimate insiders act on what they know?  Yes, Schweizer found, they certainly seem to.  Schweizer's research revealed that some of Congress's most prominent members are in a position to routinely engage in what amounts to a legal form of insider trading, profiting from investment activity that, he says, "would send the rest of us to prison."

Justice Breyer warns of Orwellian government.  A Supreme Court justice on Tuesday [11/8/2011] expressed major concerns that the government would engage in round-the-clock surveillance reminiscent of the totalitarian world of the George Orwell novel 1984 if the court ruled in the government's favor.  The court heard oral arguments in the Jones case, in which the outcome will determine whether warrantless GPS tracking by law enforcement is an invasion of Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

Why the Supreme Court GPS Decision Won't Stop Warrantless Digital Surveillance:  On January 23 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that law enforcement authorities do not generally have a right to affix a GPS tracking device to a suspect's car without first obtaining a valid warrant.  Of the many things that can be said about the case, which has been called the most important Fourth Amendment test in a decade, perhaps the most sobering in the long run will be this:  the decision is based on technology assumptions that are rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Levin: U.S. Has Become A 'Post-Constitutional Gov't' Heading For 'Utopian Tyranny'.  Speaking at the Americans For Prosperity (AFP) event at the DC Convention Center on Nov. 5, [Mark] Levin said the U.S. has become "a Post-Constitutional government transitioning into an increasingly Utopian tyranny."

Supreme Court justice: Warrantless GPS tracking 'sounds like 1984'.  The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in United States v. Jones, a case that will determine whether the government has the right to use GPS devices to track the locations of criminal suspects without a warrant.  Several justices reportedly expressed concern over the government's argument, but Justice Stephen Breyer seemed particularly unnerved, bringing George Orwell into the legal debate.

When Did It Become Legal to Spy on Americans?  It just got easier for the federal government to collect information about innocent Americans — and those Americans have had surprisingly little say in the matter.  On October 15, the FBI reportedly implemented new rules that relax restrictions on, and oversight of, the FBI's intelligence collection activities.  Although they are not available to the public, reports indicate the changes permit FBI agents to search an individual's trash with the goal of finding material that might pressure him into becoming a government informant, grant agents the authority to search commercial or law enforcement databases without first opening an investigation, and reduce the type of investigations subjected to heightened oversight because of their relationship to protected First Amendment expression, association, or religious practice.

When Government Knows No Limitation: New DOJ Rules Allow More Intrusive Searches.  Shouldn't law-abiding citizens be able to live their lives free from the fear that our own government would underhandedly manipulate our rights in their pursuit of an investigation?  After all, the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution enumerates a limitation on the federal government, one that prevents "unreasonable search and seizure."  Today, this enumerated protection is being ignored by — of all institutions — the U.S. Justice Department, under the darkened shadow of Attorney General Eric Holder.

TSA's power grope.  As part of a "statewide safety operation," TSA employees fondled travelers at bus terminals in Nashville and Knoxville, hunting for "security threats."  Truckers were harassed at four Volunteer State highway locations between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. — prime time for terrorism, apparently.  Brian Gamble, a Florida firefighter, caught one of these intrusive VIPR operations on video after he got off a train in Savannah, Ga., earlier this year.  "They had the scanners and everything there," Mr. Gamble told The Washington Times.  "They had them pull up their shirts, patted them down, wanded them.  There were a couple ladies in our group getting searched. ... It's kinda ridiculous when you're coming off a train — it doesn't make any sense."

The FBI's latest assault on our privacy.  The FBI wants to track us using its new facial recognition system.  No, really.  The bureau is set to roll it out as early as January.  It's part of the FBI's "Next Generation Identification" program.  And according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), FBI officials explained at a biometric conference last year that one of the agency's goals is "for the program to be able to track people as they move from one location to another."  The FBI's fingerprint database now includes records on nearly one-third of Americans.  But it's now being expanded to include all sorts of biometric information, such as palm prints, iris scans, even voice information.

Bill Approved To Create Massive Surveillance Database Of Internet Users.  Legislation that will force Internet providers to store information on all their customers and share it with the federal government and law enforcement agencies was significantly beefed at the last minute yesterday and approved by a U.S. House of Representatives committee.  Under the guise of protecting children from internet pornographers, the House Judiciary committee voted 19-10 to approve a bill that will require Internet Service Providers to store temporarily assigned IP addresses for future government use.

OSHA is another Obama agency gone rogue.  [Scroll down]  OSHA has issued this directive under the assumption that a vague clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act gives OSHA the power to cite employers for something as specific and unpredictable as workplace violence.  Known as the "General Duty Clause," this provision requires employers to keep their workplaces "free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm" to employees.  Congress intended for this clause to be used only as a temporary measure, until OSHA could draft rules regarding specific hazards that had the agency had not yet addressed.  It was not intended to be used as a means for OSHA to issue citations for anything under the sun.

Why not $100?
Arizona prisons charge visitors $25 to see inmates.  Visitors to Arizona prison are being charged $25 to see inmates in a move believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S., it has emerged.  Relatives and friends of prisoners arriving at the jail have to pay the one-off 'background check fee' on their first visit.

Judge OKs warrantless tracking of suspect's cellphone.  Investigators seeking the location history of an armed robbery suspect's cellphone aren't required to obtain a search warrant before compelling the carrier to turn over the information, a federal judge has ruled.  The decision, issued by US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District of Columbia, said the Stored Communications Act doesn't require investigators to get a warrant based on probable cause to access the suspect's location history pulled from cellphone towers.

More about the police using your cell phone to collect evidence against you.

Phoenix Cops Raid Blogger Critical of Police.  In what should send a frightening chill down the spine of every blogger, writer, journalist and First Amendment advocate in the United States, Phoenix police raided the home of a blogger who has been highly critical of the department.  Jeff Pataky, who runs Bad Phoenix Cops, said the officers confiscated three computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging.  The 41-year-old software engineer said they also confiscated numerous personal files and documents relating to a pending lawsuit he has against the department alleging harassment — which he says makes it obvious the raid was an act of retaliation.

Jackson, Jr: Obama should 'declare a national emergency,' add jobs with 'extra-constitutional' action.  Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate "states in rebellion."  Jackson called for full government employment of the 15 million unemployed and said that Obama should "declare a national emergency" and take "extra-constitutional" action "administratively" — without the approval of Congress — to tackle unemployment.  "I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past," Jackson said.

Rivals from both sides slam Jackson's call to bypass the Constitution.  Political firebrands hit Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. from both his left and his right Thursday afternoon [10/13/2011], reacting to the Illinois congressman's call for the president to bypass the Constitution to deal with the jobs crisis.  During a Wednesday interview with The Daily Caller, Jackson said President Obama should "declare a national emergency" and use "extra-constitutional" measures to create jobs.

Gov't cameras in your car? E-toll patent hints at Big Brotherish future.  Imagine that you couldn't drive on major highways without agreeing to put a camera in your car — one that could film either the occupants or the vehicle's surroundings and transmit the images back to a central office for inspection.  You don't have to read George Orwell to conjure up such an ominous surveillance state.  You just have to skim through filings at the U.S. Patent Office.  It's hard to imagine Americans would tolerate such a direct, Big-Brotherish intrusion.  But they might not notice if the all-seeing cameras were tucked inside another kind of government tracking technology that millions of Americans have already invited into their cars.

DOJ: Feds Can Tell Church Who Its Ministers Will Be.  In yet another stunning attack on freedom of religion, President Barack Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court last week to give the federal government the power to tell a church who its ministers will be.  The case involves a former teacher at Lutheran school, who along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing a claim that a Lutheran congregation should be forced to restore her ministry position.

CA couple ordered by city not to hold home Bible study.  Snooping around garage sales, regulating kids' lemonade stands — anything the government wants to do, can do, it will do.  Who's going to stop it?

State V. Church At High Court.  When government can make the rules for communities of faith, there's little else that stands in its way.  One such threat comes from an Obama administration that is trying to limit the hiring and firing powers of religious institutions.  It has taken up the cause of a teacher, Cheryl Perich, who was fired by a church-run Lutheran school in Michigan after filing a suit under federal disability law.

White House Won't Comment on Reuters Story About Secret 'Kill List' Panel.  Reuters' Mark Hosenball today [10/6/2011] reported that:  "American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.  There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said.  Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate."

Definition of totalitarianism
Senate Dems strip Republicans of power.  Senate Republicans tried to embarrass Democrats who don't support President Obama's job bill by forcing a vote on the measure Thursday [10/6/2011], but Democrats responded by stripping Republicans of legislative power.  The GOP tried to force Democrats to vote on Obama's $447 billion jobs-creation bill to prove that even the president's own party doesn't support the proposal.

Reid triggers 'nuclear option' to change Senate rules, end repeat filibusters.  In a shocking development Thursday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) triggered a rarely used procedural option informally called the "nuclear option" to change the Senate rules.  Reid and 50 members of his caucus voted to change Senate rules unilaterally to prevent Republicans from forcing votes on uncomfortable amendments after the chamber has voted to move to final passage of a bill.  Reid's coup passed by a vote of 51-48, leaving Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fuming.

Obama: Banks Don't Have 'Inherent Right' to 'Certain Amount of Profit'.  President Obama suggested on Monday [10/3/2011] that the nation's banks should "take a little bit less of a profit" rather than raise fees on customers.  In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama was asked if the government can stop banks from imposing a new debit card fee on their customers.

This quote is being posted from multiple sources just so nobody can deny its authenticity.
Perdue suggests suspending Congressional elections for two years — was she serious?  Speaking to a Cary Rotary Club today [9/27/2011], N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.  "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover.  I really hope that someone can agree with me on that," Perdue said.  "You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Democrat Governor Bev Perdue of NC Wasn't Joking.  We have the audio of Bev Perdue suggesting the elections be canceled and she's not joking, as you will hear, and it's quite interesting.  The Democrats, the more they get in trouble, and the more that things unravel, the more they show us who they really are.  She's not the first one suggesting we cancel the elections.  Peter Orszag, the former budget director of the White House, suggested pretty much the same thing in the New Republic last week.

Democrats Emerge From Closet, Oppose Democracy.  How many Democrats are National Socialists at heart?  Quite a few, I suspect, and every now and then the Democrats' totalitarian urges break through to the surface.  Thus, we have the Governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue, suggesting that we "ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years."  The press assures us that she was just kidding.  I would modestly submit that suspending elections is not something an elected executive should kid about.

Dem Governor suggests suspending elections.  During the Civil War elections were not suspended.  During the worst of the "Long Depression" (the Panic of 1873 until 1879) no elections were suspended.  And during the Great Depression, (1929 to 1939) no elections were suspended.  Why now?  What event has occurred that even warrants such obscene speculation?  ObamaCare.  The far left cannot have a new, and hopefully more conservative, Congress (House and Senate) repeal ObamaCare, as it is their not-so stealthy vehicle on which the far-left bases its hopes of destroying our Constitutional Republic.

(Un)Democratic.  Peter Orszag, formerly Obama's budget director and now a vice chairman at Citigroup, recently penned a column in the New Republic titled:  "Too Much of a Good Thing: Why We Need Less Democracy."  No joke, folks.  "To counter gridlock," he wrote, we may need to make our political institutions "a little less democratic."  "A little less democratic"?  As in you no longer have the right to object to what the government does?  Seems Hitler, Stalin and Mao tried that, but it didn't work out.  That's bad enough.  But North Carolina's Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue stuck her foot in it too, suggesting "we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years" so it can run up trillions more debt.

What was Bev Perdue thinking?  On Tuesday [9/27/2011], during a Q & A at a rotary club meeting, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (D) made a very odd suggestion.  Asked what she could do to turn around the economy, Perdue gave a rambling, two-minute answer that included this tidbit:  "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover.  I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.  You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Warning: The threat of suspended elections is real.  It is crucial to not let this day go down without remembering what Perdue said.  Don't let the state-controlled mainstream media lure you back to sleep by saying if there is no election, then why is Obama so diligently campaigning.  Obama is not campaigning.  He is preparing for Stage Two of the Total Transformation of America, using taxpayer money to prepare his Internet-identified "troops" for the coming Marxist Revolution.  He must not be allowed to get away with it.

Democrat Strategies Right Out Of V.I. Lenin Playbook.  Vladimir Lenin, leader of the socialist revolution in Russia, published multiple tutorials for like-minded revolutionaries around the world.  Someone in the Obama administration must be familiar with his writings. ... The theme of "broken government" is popular among liberals — so much so that the governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue, recently said:  "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover."  Peter Orszag, former director of President Obama's Office of Management & Budget, wrote an article titled "Too Much of a Good Thing — Why We Need Less Democracy."  Top mainstream Democrats such as Purdue and Orszag are in alignment with Lenin's teachings.

As Federal Crime List Grows, Threshold of Guilt Declines.  For centuries, a bedrock principle of criminal law has held that people must know they are doing something wrong before they can be found guilty.  The concept is known as mens rea, Latin for a "guilty mind."  This legal protection is now being eroded as the U.S. federal criminal code dramatically swells.  In recent decades, Congress has repeatedly crafted laws that weaken or disregard the notion of criminal intent.  Today not only are there thousands more criminal laws than before, but it is easier to fall afoul of them.

If Obamacare prevails, then what's to prevent Obamajobs?  Liberals assure us that we need not fear the Obamacare individual mandate.  It's simply a way to ensure that individuals behave responsibly, they say.  Fine, if it's such a great idea, then let's mandate that every individual be responsible and get a job.  Unemployment problem solved.

Serfs in Warrenville.  Elizabeth Warren is unsurprisingly a lawyer, even less surprisingly, a Harvard Law professor, still less surprisingly, she had a string of government appointments on influential committees.  Her resume is representative of how unrepresentative Harvard lawyers with government connections are to the people on whose behalf they claim to have abolished private property.

Manufacturers sue NLRB over union poster rule.  The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has sued the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to stop a new regulation by the board that would require employers to post notices informing their workers of their right to organize a union.

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act Sets an Unusual Standard.  In response to attacks on researchers by animal-rights activists, Congress in 2006 passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.  The bill made a critical change to the legislation it replaced:  Demonstrators could now earn a sentence in federal prison if the target of their attention felt threatened, regardless of the protesters' actual intention.

Farmers Worry Over Crop of New Rules.  Farmers are concerned that some new, tighter federal regulations on agriculture are stunting the growth of their businesses and say regulatory uncertainty makes it difficult for them to plan for the future.

More about the EPA.

It Strikes Me As Odd.  How did the federal government come to control the national economy?  The Constitution has only one provision giving Congress some influence over economic matters, the "interstate commerce" clause.  And yet, clinging to this weak reed, Washington manages to wield near-total power over the entire economy on the thinnest, purely legalistic, and often patently risible grounds.

EPA: Fundamental Transformation through Regulation.  What happens when the information our government's "specialists" provide becomes driven by agenda rather than fact? ... The EPA, finding organized resistance to its regulating machine, has turned to offering "guidance," which it then enforces as if said "guidance" were the product of regulatory channels.  The big difference, of course, is that "guidance" is not subject to the same rigors of accountability and oversight that regulations must meet.  These crone-tended kettles at the EPA are really just an end-run around the law.

Obama is using every federal agency to choke the life out of the country.
DOT targets farm tractors.  One of the rites of passage in rural life comes when parents decide a child is old enough to help out by driving the tractor.  If the Obama administration has its way that will be a thing of the past.  The Federal government now proposes to require that motorized farm equipment carry DOT ID numbers and that all users have a commercial drivers license.  Most of these vehicle never travel on public roads unless it is a short trip to another field or a neighbor's farm.

Fertilizer Control:  Another liberty lost.
DHS Creates 'Ammonium Nitrate Security Program'.  The Homeland Security Department on Tuesday [8/2/2011] announced the creation of an Ammonium Nitrate Security Program, which is intended to prevent terror attacks like the ones perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City in 1995; and more recently, by a Norwegian man in Oslo.

The Editor says...
First of all, the actions of a single psycho in Norway should not affect U.S. laws or diminish our freedom.  Secondly, there is considerable doubt that a fertilizer bomb in a truck could have done the damage inflicted in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Team Obama Regulates Goat Herders' Workplaces.  The Obama administration is setting new workplace regulations to assist foreign workers who fill goat herding positions in the U.S., including employee-paid cell phones and comfy beds.  These new special procedures issued by the Labor Department must be followed by employers who want to hire temporary agricultural foreign workers to perform sheep herding or goat herding activities.

What is Liberty, That We May Defend It?  Is American Liberty under attack?  Perhaps more so than any time since the Revolution. ... The Constitution is displayed as an elaborate, ancient joke.  Politicians present themselves as gods, above error, who dismiss dissent as if it were the babble of infants.  Between irrational new laws, and the government's refusal to enforce common sense rules, Americans feel trapped and betrayed by increasingly tyrannical leaders.

DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop.  The Colorado prosecution of a woman accused of a mortgage scam will test whether the government can punish you for refusing to disclose your encryption passphrase.  The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to order the defendant, Ramona Fricosu, to decrypt an encrypted laptop that police found in her bedroom during a raid of her home.  Because Fricosu has opposed the proposal, this could turn into a precedent-setting case.

Dude, Where's My Freedom?  Obama administration officials recently let slip that they are working on new gun control measures "under the radar."  Gun control is the classic example of foolishly exchanging an essential liberty for an illusion of security.  The U.S. states that respect the honest citizen's right to carry firearms in self-defense have consistently lower rates of violent crimes than states with strict gun control laws.

Homeowners' Associations Becoming Unavoidable and Quasi-Governmental.  Homeowners' Associations ("HOAs") are losing money due to the high numbers of foreclosures and are scrambling to make up for it by assessing additional fees on the remaining homeowners. ... To compensate, HOAs are acting like private investigators, even peering into homeowners' yards daily until one weed pops its head up, then nailing homeowners with fines.

These incremental changes only move in one direction.
F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

FBI's New Rules to Give Agents More Leeway on Surveillance.  The changes are expected to be outlined in a new edition of the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, a lengthy 2008 document detailing how far agents can go in tracking suspects.  They will expand the use of techniques ranging from dispatching surveillance teams to digging through trash cans.

High court urged to rethink ruling on resisting police.  A group of 71 state lawmakers is asking the Indiana Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling that says people don't have the right to resist police officers who enter their homes illegally.

Center for American Progress Finally Comes Out in Favor of Tyranny.  Buried deep within the Obamacare bill is the Democrats' plan for lowering Medicare costs — something called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). ... The Center for American Progress is more or less in favor handing off the whole of America's budget issues to a likely unconstitutional panel of democratically unaccountable bureaucrats with no meaningful oversight.  Or to put it more bluntly, this is basically a recipe for tyranny.

One law for us, another for you.  The California state Senate voted 28-8 Wednesday [6/1/2011] to exempt itself from the pointless gun-control laws that apply to the rest of the populace.  Legislators apparently think they alone are worthy to pack heat on the streets for personal protection, and the masses ought to wait until the police arrive.

California Bill Could Protect Cross-Dressing in the Work Force.  A California bill working its way through the state legislature providing more protection for transgender individuals in the workplace could allow for cross-dressing employees to wear whatever they want to work, despite workplace dress codes.

The Editor says...
Apparently the government's position is that employers do not have the freedom to associate — or refrain from associating — with whomever they choose.

Homeland Security system knows when you're even thinking about committing a crime.  The Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) security programme is designed to spot people who are planning to commit a terrorist act.  The U.S. government system can 'sense' when you are planning and measures physiological factors such as heart rates and eye movements.

The Editor says...
You might exhibit the same symptoms if you're just looking for the nearest restroom.

Albemarle Road church fined $100 per branch for excessive tree pruning.  The church was fined $100 per branch cut for excessive pruning, bringing the violation to $4,000.

Grand theft education.  Two cases of what might be called "grand theft education" raise serious questions for many states, especially California.  Tonya McDowell, a single mother from Bridgeport, Conn., was arrested and charged with first-degree larceny for "stealing education" by using the address of a baby sitter to register her 6-year-old son in a Norwalk school district where she didn't live.  Ms. McDowell, 33, could face repayment of more than $15,000 and 20 years in prison.

A Federal No-Fly Zone Over Texas?  Proving that the extortionist tendencies of the Obama administration aren't limited to the NLRB's suit against Boeing, the Department of Justice threatened the state of Texas with a complete suspension of air travel in and out of that state if its Senate approved HB 1937, a bill which would have banned "intrusive touching of persons seeking access to public buildings and transportation."  The penalty for doing so would have been a $4,000 fine and one year in jail.

TSA Threatens To Cancel All Flights Out Of Texas If 'Groping Bill' Passed.  Upset about invasive screening techniques at the airport, the Lone Star State was considering a bill that would make a TSA patdown that involves touching "the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through the clothing" a misdemeanor, allowing Texas law enforcement to arrest TSA officials and charge them with sexual harassment.  It would have meant that TSA officials could be fined $4,000 and spend up to a year in jail for doing their jobs of feeling up prospective fliers.

Emergency manager's autocratic power puts Benton Harbor in national spotlight.  For more than a generation, this city on the shores of southern Lake Michigan has been the state's poster child for poverty, racial division and dysfunctional government.  Now, it's starring on a national stage.

The Indiana Supreme Court Guts the Fourth Amendment.  A ruling by the state of Indiana's Supreme Court last Thursday [5/12/2011] in Barnes vs. Indiana has seemingly vacated the Constitution's Fourth Amendment provision against unreasonable search and seizure.  The case involved a domestic dispute and the Court ruled 3-2 that police can force their way into a person's home without a warrant if they deem such entry is necessary.

Court: No right to resist illegal cop entry into home.  Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday [5/12/2011] that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.  In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

Supreme Court gives police a new entryway into homes.  The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision in a Kentucky case, says police officers who loudly knock on a door in search of illegal drugs and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Department of Pre-Crime.  Moral of this story:  If you hear the cops at the door, quietly get off the john, and whatever you do, don't flush.  Read the whole account of the case, which ought to get your blood boiling.

Indiana Sheriff: If We Need to Conduct Random House to House Searches We Will.  According to Newton County Sheriff, Don Hartman Sr., random house to house searches are now possible and could be helpful following the Barnes v. State of Indiana Supreme Court ruling issued on May 12th, 2011.  When asked three separate times due to the astounding callousness as it relates to trampling the inherent natural rights of Americans, he emphatically indicated that he would use random house to house checks, adding he felt people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal.

Giving too much license to cops.  A series of recent court rulings, including one this week from the US Supreme Court, appear to erode one of our bedrock defenses against the arbitrary, abusive power of the state.  At risk:  the Fourth Amendment guarantee to all American citizens of the right to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

Home Insecurity.  While the U.S. Supreme Court said police may force their way into a home to prevent the destruction of evidence, the Indiana Supreme Court, in a less noticed decision issued the week before, said police may force their way into a home for any reason or no reason at all.  Although the victim of an illegal search can challenge it in court after the fact, three of the five justices agreed, "there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers."  They thereby nullified a principle of common law that is centuries old, arguably dating back to the Magna Carta.

US Police State Begins Exponential Expansion.  The recent Indiana Supreme Court ruling against the US Constitution, rendering the Fourth Amendment null and void in that State by patently leftist activist judges, is only the latest unconscionable step in a series of actions designed to unravel each and every portion of the Bill of Rights.  It is also one of the latest actions designed to compliment and enhance the already jack-booted Obama police State march into our States, our cities and homes.

Rally held in protest of 'unlawful police entry' ruling by Indiana Supreme Court.  Protesters showed up on the south steps of the Indiana Statehouse Wednesday [5/25/2011], to rally against a controversial ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court.  The ruling, which allows police to enter your home without a warrant, sparked threatening emails and phone calls from those angry with the court's decision.

Puddle Power Grab.  Barack Obama's EPA means to implement the major provisions of failed legislation by regulatory means, a massive power grab with frightening implications.  But with the American media preoccupied with a royal wedding and the assassination of Osama bin Laden, almost nobody seems to have noticed when late last month an important announcement was made by the Environmental Protection Agency. ... The administration would have us believe it to be concerned about water quality, but the real issues are land, power and control.  If implemented, EPA guidelines will allow the agency to decide the extent of their jurisdiction over every body of water of any size and eventually result in binding regulations that will affect us all.

'Eat your broccoli': Moms demand it. Can government?  About 20 minutes into Tuesday's [5/10/2011] hearings, Appeals Court Judge Diana Gribbon Motz told Liberty University lawyer Mathew Staver that she was surprised a certain topic had yet to come up:  "the broccoli question."  "There is a lot of talk in the papers about if Congress can do this, it can require people to buy broccoli," Motz said.

Sen. Schumer: Create 'Do Not Ride' list for railways.  Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for a "Do Not Ride" list for Amtrak following reports that terrorist Osama bin Laden was plotting attacks on U.S. railways before his death.  The list would be similar to the "Do Not Fly" registry that is checked before passengers board flights at airports.  Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that it's a lot easier for would-be terrorists to get on trains that it has been for them to board airplanes.

The Editor says...
I'm sure Osama bin Laden wanted to do all kinds of things.  But we should not constrict our society to protect ourselves from suicide bombers on trains, because if they're not on the train, they could be on a bus, or in a supermarket or taxi.

The Education plantation.  We are now approaching the end game with respect to sanity and the public school system.  A homeless woman who registered her 6-year-old son at a Norwalk, Conn. elementary school has been charged with first-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny for ostensibly "stealing" over $15,000 worth of education.  Tonya McDowell, 33, was released after posting a $25,000 bond.  She faces a fine of up to $15,000 and as many as 20 years in jail.

The Best-ever Symbol of Government Incompetence?  America's largest coal mine fire is the marquee for government ineffectiveness and environmental activism's false pretense.  Centralia, PA is home to America's largest coal mine fire — still burning today since May of 1962.  Forty-nine years of government folly, environmentalist demonization, and media sensationalism have managed to fan the flames under Centralia, escalating the costs to end this ecological disaster from under $100,000 in the early sixties to over $600 million today.

Uncle Sam is slow.  As Ronald Reagan once said, "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."  Government fails miserably at virtually everything it does, year after year, day after day, hour after hour.  Government is brutal.  Government violates our rights.  Government steals your money and property.  Government steals your liberty.  Government tries its best to control your thinking and your life.  Government wastes billions every day, trillions over time.  But most of all, government loves to use sleight of hand to distract you.  It manages to do one thing right and then tries to use it to make us forget all the incompetence and the misery it has inflicted on us.

Out-of-control government, unaccountable president.  Rejection of dictatorships and corrupt governments by citizens across the globe is the signature news story of the year.  People are rising up, roaring to demand their rights, defying decades of iron-fisted leadership in Libya, Syria, Egypt and beyond.  By sad contrast, here in the United States — "land of the free" — a huge segment of citizens go about their daily business oblivious to, or apathetic about, the assault on our Constitutional freedoms by the Obama Administration and its congressional supporters.  Unless more Americans wake up, our steady slide will continue into a soft tyranny of unconstitutional, intrusive laws such has Obamacare health reform.

Who is running Boeing?  Imagine you own a company and a five unelected appointees of a government board, among them two unconfirmed appointees, tell you where must open your new manufacturing plant.  Would you ever consider opening another manufacturing facility in the United States?  Is this the tyranny that Thomas Jefferson warned us of?

Can Boeing Really Fight The US Government?  When Boeing announced that it would be moving part of its 787 manufacturing capability from Washington State to South Carolina, it was only a matter of time before the Obama Administration would retaliate.  It wasn't a long wait.  The National Labor Relations Board last week filed a complaint against Boeing, saying that its decision to build a manufacturing facility in South Carolina amounted to unfair bargaining with its labor unions.  Everyone denied that politics were involved, an assertion believed by exactly no one.

Ex-Labor Board Chairman: Union-Backed Case Against Boeing 'Unprecedented'.  The former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board told FoxNews.com that a board attorney's bid to stop Boeing from opening a production line at a non-union site in South Carolina is "unprecedented" and could have serious implications for companies looking to expand.

Pulling Labor Law Out of Thin Air.  Last week, the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel — acting at the behest of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union — filed a complaint against Boeing.  According to the complaint, the company decided to locate a new production line for the Dreamliner 787 airplane in South Carolina (a right-to-work state) instead of Washington (a state in which unions are powerful and strikes have cost Boeing billions of dollars) out of anti-union bias.  Should the general counsel convince the board that Boeing violated the law, the company could be forced to operate the line in Washington.

Justice Dept. to Congress: Don't Saddle 4th Amendment on Us.  The Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would impose constitutional safeguards on Americans' e-mail stored in the cloud.  As the law stands now, the authorities may obtain cloud e-mail without a warrant if it is older than 180 days, thanks to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act adopted in 1986.

What Do Light Bulbs Have to do with the Commerce Clause?  We don't consume power from an interstate enterprise.  We buy power from a local utility.  And how about the homeowner who relies on a propane generator, solar panels, or a wind generator?  What's interstate about that?  Thus the feds cannot regulate residential appliances at least as far as electricity usage is concerned.

Trying to Avoid Regulations? The Department of Energy is Not Amused.  Last month, the Department of Energy issued a "Showerhead Enforcement Guidance" related to flow standards through consumer showerheads.  You see, it turns out that "efficiency standards" tend to upset people, as it usually leads to products being outlawed that people really like.  What happened was that certain showerhead manufacturers were taking a bit of creative license in interpreting the definition of a "showerhead," and selling showerheads that (by the DOE's standards) exceeded the maximum allowable 2.5 gallons per minute.

Tales of the red tape.  For years, there have been rules that restrict the flow of water to a shower head.  That was bad enough but now those rules have been tweaked.  The flow restriction no longer applies to each individual shower head, but to the whole shower.  The Energy Policy Conservation Act of 1992 set the restriction for each shower head at only 2.5 gallons per minute (half what Americans could have before then).  Now, if you install a shower fixture with two nozzles, it's down to 1.25 gallons per minute per shower head — and so on, for those who want to have more than two.

The worst homeland-security menace.  How much of your freedom are you willing to give up in the name of your personal safety?  That question is prompted by the latest news about the Transportation Security Administration, which has reportedly been contemplating expanding its controversial X-ray body-scanning program from airports to public events, mass transit and possibly even the streets where you live.  According to documents obtained by the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, the TSA in 2006 began planning pilot programs that, if ever fully implemented, would expand its reach into the everyday lives of American citizens.

No need to vote on this — the mayor knows what's best for you.
Menino Bans Sugary Drink Sales On Boston City Property.  Mayor Tom Menino issued an executive order to ban the sale of sugary drinks on Boston city property on Thursday.  "I want to make this a healthier choice, the easier choice in people's daily lives, whether it's the schools, the work sites or other places in the community," Menino said.

Menino expands sugary drink ban.  Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday [4/7/2011] that he is expanding his ban on sugar-sweetened drinks in schools to include all city properties and functions, a sweeping restriction that means that calorie-laden soft drinks, juices with added sugar, and sports drinks like Gatorade will no longer be offered in vending machines, concession stands, and city-run meetings, programs and events.

Fed Judge: Now the Commerce Clause covers 'mental activity'.  According to federal Judge Gladys Kessler of the DC US District Court, the powers granted to the federal government on the Commerce Clause extend to regulating "mental activity."  Ruling on an ObamaCare challenge brought by two individuals, the good Judge made the leap from "physical activity" to "mental activity" in extending the reach of the federal government.  This is not a joke.

Federal Judge Rules Congress Can Regulate "Mental Activity" Under Commerce Clause.  In something right out of Harrison Bergeron, [U.S. District Court Judge Gladys] Kessler notes that Washington has the authority to regulate "mental activity":  ["]As previous Commerce Clause cases have all involved physical activity, as opposed to mental activity, i.e. decision-making, there is little judicial guidance on whether the latter falls within Congress's power...["]

Hands off My Mental Activity.  In the sense that so irked [Warren] Harding, Judge Gladys Kessler is a great good friend of Obamacare.  The U.S. district-court judge in Washington, D.C., delivered a more telling blow against the law in the course of ruling it constitutional than critics have in assailing it as a travesty.

It's illegal to recite the Gettysburg Address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  It is illegal to deliver the Gettysburg Address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial without permission from the U.S. National Park Service.  On President's Day — standing where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream Speech" — Phillip Howell, 25, recited Lincoln's famous address and was quickly stopped by a Park Police officer.  He told Howell that he could not give speeches on the steps of the memorial without a permit.

Congress Must Derail President Obama's Backdoor EPA Power Grab.  In last year's budget, President Obama called for Congress to enact cap-and-trade legislation, using a slush fund to disguise the cost of the program.  But cap-and-trade was decisively rejected in the 2010 election, so this year President Obama's budget simply funds the EPA to move forward with regulating greenhouse gases on its own — against the clear wishes of voters and without any legitimate legislative basis.  Congress must take responsibility, step in, and stop this power grab.

In the opinion of The Editor, the EPA is one of the greatest threats to freedom in America today.

Florida Bar vs. Free Press.  According to Mark A. Adams, writing for The Daily Censored, a news blog affiliated with Project Censored, "The Florida Bar has proposed a new rule to eliminate coverage of court proceedings by citizen journalists."  Outstanding investigative journalism by Adams has uncovered this proposed rule which would allow only an employee of a "traditional media outlet" or an official court reporter to bring audio or video recording equipment into a court room.  Not even a laptop computer would escape this infringement of free speech.

Spilled Milk.  Despite the old saying, "Don't cry over spilled milk," the Environmental Protection Agency is doing just that. ... The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has expanded its definition of "discrimination" to include things that no one thought was discrimination when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed.  The Federal Communications Commission is trying to expand its jurisdiction to cover things that were never included in its jurisdiction, and that have no relationship to the reason why the FCC was created in the first place.

GOP All Set To Wimp Out On EPA?  Since the new Congress will not rubber-stamp Obama's socialist legislative agenda, the President will seek to socialize us via regulation — regardless of legality.  The EPA's climate regulation plan is unconstitutional on its face (only Congress, not federal agencies, can change laws).  Another example of the coming socialization-by-regulation is the Federal Communications Commission's recent party-line vote to implement net neutrality rules despite the a federal appellate court ruling that it lacks the statutory authority to do so.

Sisyphus in Boulder City.  Public officials cannot simply throw dissenters into a gulag and govern by decree.  But the city governors in Boulder City, Nevada, have found the next best thing.  Sue the people.  Regularly and repeatedly.  As a method of effectuating an oligarchy, what could be more American?

Your Papers, Please!  I recently received an e-mail from the St. Louis Association of Realtors detailing a new policy being implemented by the Missouri Real Estate Commission (the official governmental board regulating real estate practices).  In the next licensing period anyone licensed to sell or rent real estate will have to be fingerprinted and their fingerprints — along with a tougher background check — kept on file with both the state police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Of course, I will have to pony up $52.20 for this singular honor.  Granted, other states have had this provision, but why implement it in Missouri now?

Fingerprint Registry in Housing Bill.  Fingerprints are considered to be among the most personal of information, and fingerprint databases created and proposed in the name of national security have generated much debate.  Recently, "Server in the Sky" — a proposed international database of the fingerprints of suspected criminals and terrorists to be shared among the U.S., U.K. and Canada — has ignited a firestorm of controversy.  As have cavalier comments by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that fingerprints aren't "personal data."

Are Borrowers Next?  [Scroll down]  I have still not been able to find any debate or justification for it, but it seems now that fingerprint requirements are a simplistic way for polticians to argue that they are getting tough about a particular problem, even if it's questionable how much fingerprinting will contibute to solving the problem.  Some commenters were right to note that this is an issue concerning federalism as well as privacy.  Through the CNET story, comments on the blog, and e-mails I have received, I learned about other state fingerprint registries of questionable justification for various professions.

More about the proposed National ID Card.

Labor Dept: If You Let Girl Scouts Sell Cookies, You Have to Let Unions Come in Too.  Obama's NLRB is trying to push a new rule that would force any business that allows Girl Scouts or any other local groups like baseball or football teams, school bands, charity groups etc. to sell their fundraiser items or solicit donations in front of or inside of their businesses to also allow unions into their businesses to cajole employees to organize.  Even when the purpose of many union actions are meant to drive customers away from the business in order to force the employer to accede to union demands, this rule would prevent a business owner from turning disruptive union activists away from their businesses.

The Perils of a Siege Mentality.  What bothers me endlessly about the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is that they operate on the policy that defeat by our enemies is implicitly conceded. ... What bothers me just as much is also the willingness of Americans to tolerate and endure the airport terminal as a police state. ... Obey, or suffer the consequences.  So, let us suggest here that, for example, the omnipotent IRS, as one controlling agency, has conditioned Americans to that kind of treatment, to sanction the hostage-taking of their values and to concede that they are but the wards of a guardian government.

The government usurps the role of churches and private charities:
City puts a stop to homeless outreach.  Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day.  They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.  That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their "Feed a Friend" effort for lack of a permit.  And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one. ... Anyone serving food for public consumption, whether for the homeless or for sale, must have a permit, said Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department.

When cops knock, can they barge in?  Police came to Maria Huff's Burbank home in 2007 after hearing that her son had written a letter threatening to shoot up his high school.  They asked Huff if they could come in and she said no, not without a warrant.  When they asked if there were any guns in the house, Huff said she would get her husband, then headed inside, followed by her son, who was also at the doorway, and four officers.  After remaining for five to 10 minutes and finding no evidence of a crime, the officers left.  In short order they were hit with a civil suit by Huff, her husband and son — who had written no such threatening letter — for entering the home without any legal justification.

New Jersey may soon require teens and adults to register bikes.  New Jersey residents older than 15 may soon be required to register their bicycles — and attach license plates to prove compliance — if a recently proposed law passes the state assembly.  On Jan. 6, assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker of Newark introduced Bill A3657, requiring registration of all bicycles ridden on public roads.

Texas school police ticketing students as young as six.  School police officers in Texas are doling out more tickets to children as young as 6, who under past disciplinary practices would have been sent to the principal's office instead, according to a report by a Texas nonprofit.

Chafee to Issue Talk Radio Ban.  State officials in Rhode Island will soon be ordered to stay off the airways, provided the interviewer happens to be a talk show host.  A spokesman for Gov. Lincoln Chafee tells the Providence Journal that talk radio is essentially "ratings-driven, for-profit programming," and "we don't think it is appropriate to use taxpayer resources" to have state employees use work time to "support for-profit, ratings-driven programming."

New Food Safety Legislation Gives Gov't Power to Order Recalls, Increase Inspections.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will have the authority to order recalls of food products, increase inspections, and boost paperwork for food packaging companies under a bill President Barack Obama quietly signed into law on Tuesday [1/4/2011].

Outsourcing Democracy:  The past century or so has witnessed Congress outsource these and other powers to the Federal Reserve, the regulatory bureaucracy, the executive branch, and the courts.  This is bad news for the American people, whose direct role in electing congressmen stands in contrast to their indirect role in electing presidents and approving judges — let alone their impotence to hold anonymous bureaucrats accountable.  We have become more a government of, by, and for people unknown to the people.

Manmade famine in America.  It seems inconceivable, but people in America are going hungry en masse due to a famine caused by political authorities.  Fresno, California is not yet a sister city of Kiev, Ukraine, but the two cities, capitals of rich agricultural regions, share a history of mass hunger caused by central governments indifferent to the suffering of their people, in the pursuit of ideological goals.

Court OKs searches of cell phones without warrant.  The California Supreme Court allowed police Monday [1/3/2011] to search arrestees' cell phones without a warrant, saying defendants lose their privacy rights for any items they're carrying when taken into custody.  Under U.S. Supreme Court precedents, "this loss of privacy allows police not only to seize anything of importance they find on the arrestee's body ... but also to open and examine what they find," the state court said in a 5-2 ruling.

PC Airport Safety is an Oxymoron.  Freedom doesn't die all at once.  It gets chipped away, piece by piece, until what we once had becomes unrecognizable.  On December 22nd in Austin, Texas, 56-year-old Claire Hirschkind suffered the kind of indignity that is only possible in a society that is morally confused and, as a result, Constitutionally uninformed.  When she refused to have her breasts groped by a TSA agent at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, she was arrested.

'Civil Rights' Gone Wild.  The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has no time to pursue voter-intimidation cases against black defendants.  But it has plenty of time to pursue local school boards that make common-sense decisions about student dress codes and accommodations for teachers' religious practices.

In England:
Big Brother Police Collecting Data on Those Who Report Crimes.  Millions of innocent people have had their details recorded and stored on police databases after reporting a crime, it has emerged.  Forces across England and Wales have amassed data about people who dial 999 or non-emergency numbers to report their concerns or pass on information.  Details such as age and ethnicity are being kept in databases without the callers' knowledge.

Digital Totalitarianism — The Conspiracy to Abolish Cash.  For many years figures on the political fringe, especially on the right, have claimed that the government and its corporate owners want to transform us into a cashless society.  Their warnings about the conspiracy against paper money fell on deaf ears, primarily because the digitalization of financial transactions seemed more like the result of organic business trends than the manifestation of some sinister conspiracy.  Now, however, those who want to do away with liquid currency are stepping out of the shadows.

The Political War on Cash.  These are strange monetary times, with negative interest rates and central bankers deemed to be masters of the universe.  So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that politicians and central bankers are now waging a war on cash.  That's right, policy makers in Europe and the U.S. want to make it harder for the hoi polloi to hold actual currency.  Mario Draghi fired the latest salvo on Monday [2/15/2016] when he said the European Central Bank would like to ban €500 notes.

Is reading wife's e-mail a crime?  Rochester Hills man faces trial.  A Rochester Hills man faces up to 5 years in prison — for reading his wife's e-mail.  Oakland County prosecutors, relying on a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets, have charged Leon Walker, 33, with a felony after he logged onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife, Clara Walker.

EPA: For 'When Congress Resists Action'.  Surely you remember this dynamic from civics class, or even some more advanced inquiry into our system:  Congress only decides major domestic policy issues until unelected bureaucrats and political appointees decide they can no longer wait for our elected representatives.  Like (as the article also notes) the Department of Interior is for locking up land when Congress resists doing so, the FCC is for when Congress resists action on the Progressives' view of the internet, and so on through the alphabet soup of government.

Obamacare's unbridled bullying power must end.  Authority to enforce the law is inherent in police powers.  Enforcement means investigations into violations of law.  Given Obamacare's "unbridled" police powers, it would be a historic, massive expansion of government authority to investigate or audit businesses and households.  The power to investigate is the power to bully and deprive people of rights, which is why government investigations are subject to the Fourth Amendment.  Protections under the Fourth Amendment, however, have eroded as Congress expanded use of its powers to regulate interstate commerce.

TSA, under the direction of Napolitano, consent of Obama, collecting names, personal information, labeling them as potential "domestic extremists."
Taking names, Napolitano style.  [Scroll down]  As I stated in my original report, the new DHS procedures have everything to do with control and conditioning and nothing to do with actual security.  The TSA enhancements and the DHS databases are noticeably on the uptick, taking aim at law abiding American citizens who threaten the globalist agenda or the allegedly non-existent, once conspiratorial "New World Order" under global governance doctrine.

Al Sharpton Helping FCC Design Rush Limbaugh 'Free Speech' Show Trials.  [Scroll down]  This particular portion of the FCC trend towards the totalitarian may be explained thusly — they have in their employ as their inaugural Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd.  Who in 2007 co-wrote a Center for American Progress-Free Press "report" — entitled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio — that calls on the government to "equalize" Conservative talk radio.  Who wrote a follow-up essay that directed "community organizations" (run one would think by community organizers) to threaten the FCC broadcast licenses of stations with whom they do not agree politically.

Secret BLM Meetings Cause Uproar in Wyoming.  Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) is leading a bipartisan challenge against the secretive nature of bureaucratic planning regarding federal lands in the state.  The U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, which controls how federal lands are used, refuses to open its decision-making process to the public, and Wyoming residents are outraged about it.

The Editor says...
There's only one reason for this secrecy, and that is deception.

Behind the broccoli: Liberalism's war on liberty.  What this country needs is a crop of healthy, hunger-free kids — and now, thanks to the hectoring of Michelle Obama and the terrible swift presidential pen of her husband, it has one:  the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. ... ObamaCare and the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 are the things that expose modern liberalism for the iron fist in the velvet glove.  Can't feed yourself?  Dinner's on us.  Out of work?  We'll pay you to stay unemployed.  After all, you're too stupid to make your own best decisions in what used to be personal matters.  All we ask in exchange for your freedom is your vote.

Napolitano Says DHS to Begin Battling Climate Change as Homeland Security Issue.  At an all-day White House conference on "environmental justice," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operations.  Speaking at the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice on Thursday, Napolitano discussed the initial findings of the department's recently created "Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force."

The Editor says...
This maneuver by Ms. Napolitano is risible as well as ominous.  When ordinary weather is used as an excuse for the creation of a "task force" pertaining to "domestic security operations", it is obvious that the so-called Homeland Security people are hungry for additional power.  There has been no extraordinary climate change, but the threat of change is being used as a justification for expanded government power.  Global warming is a hoax.

No Such Thing as Carbon Neutral.  If you can't stop yourself from driving your car, cooking in your kitchen, heating and cooling your home, exhaling CO2, then 'They' will charge you fees you can't afford.  'They' have set up unelected local authorities through the EPA who have no accountability to voters and who will decide who uses what resources to 'their' ends.  To insure your submission and compliance with 'their' vision of utopia, 'they' will place Smart meters on your home, GPS devices in your car, tax you for your non-compliant appliances, take away your incandescent light bulbs, tax your airline flight, tax your tickets to entertainment venues, tax and cut your water usage, tax your hair-dresser, tax your nail salon, tax your local deli, tax your (exhale CO2) dry cleaner, anything that does or doesn't move.  'Their' will be done on earth.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Feds Force Oklahoma Bank To Remove Crosses, Bible Verse.  A small-town bank in Oklahoma said the Federal Reserve won't let it keep religious signs and symbols on display.  Federal Reserve examiners come every four years to make sure banks are complying with a long list of regulations.  The examiners came to Perkins last week.  And the team from Kansas City deemed a Bible verse of the day, crosses on the teller's counter and buttons that say "Merry Christmas, God With Us." were inappropriate.  The Bible verse of the day on the bank's Internet site also had to be taken down.

Federal Reserve Orders Private Bank to Remove Crosses and Bible Verse.  While the Injustice Department is suing an Illinois school district on behalf of a Muslim teacher and a federal judge has issued an injunction against an Oklahoma measure prohibiting the use of Sharia law in court decisions, a private business in the Sooner State no longer seems to have First Amendment rights.  Outrageously, the Federal Reserve has ordered the small Payne County Bank in Perkins, OK to remove religious symbols and sentiments in deference to an anti-discrimination regulation.

Republicans rip the Fed after examiner tells Oklahoma bank to hide religious items.  The Federal Reserve quickly withdrew an order to an Oklahoma bank to remove religious items from public view on Friday [12/17/2010] after two Republicans blasted the action as an "assault on faith."  Sen. James Inhofe and Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma sent a pointed letter to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday asking him whether he stood by a Federal Reserve examiner who told Payne County Bank officials to remove the religious references from their business.  The Fed examiner told the bank the religious items could discourage a person from seeking an application.

More about the War on Christmas.

Democrat economics borrowed from Marx.  The Democrats lack a winning platform on estate taxes — work hard, save, invest and after death, Uncle Sam gets half.  Why would anyone in their right mind put any effort into work or take any chances on starting a new business if they knew half was going to the government?  It shows hard work and risk-taking isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Democrats don't realize that unlike the Joe Kennedys of this world, children might not keep accumulating wealth.

Does Berwick answer to no one?  Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess-appointed administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, may be the least accountable federal agency head.

The Confiscation Con.  If you've spent enough time in the gold community, you might be under the impression that the most imminent threat to the average American isn't terrorism or unemployment, but rather gold confiscation.  Starting with the fact that FDR confiscated gold during the last Great Depression, and continuing to the quite accurate forecast that we are headed into an even Greater Depression, unscrupulous coin dealers have been pushing investors to buy expensive "numismatic" or "collectible" coins that they claim would be protected from government seizure. ... If the situation really gets this bad, you aren't going to trust some government agent with the intelligence of your average TSA officer to judge whether your coins are "numismatic" enough to be exempt from confiscation.

FCC's "Public Value Test": An Essential Step To Dictatorship.  And so it begins.  Michael Copps, of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has suggested a "public value test" to determine who should, and should not, hold licenses for television and radio. ... Which segment of the "public" is to decide the nature of the "value" being tested?  It doesn't matter.  A few officials at the FCC will take care of that for you.  If this doesn't sound like Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany or any other totalitarian state, I don't know what does.

Another Victory for Islamic Jihad Courtesy of the TSA.  Reading several articles about how the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA's) full-body scans and pat-down "enhanced" security procedures violate the Fourth Amendment, I was struck by the utter irrelevancy of the argument.  Citing that Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures would indeed present an unarguable efficacy if we lived in a political environment in which the rule of law otherwise prevailed.  No court could contradict the argument and still retain any credibility.  But we do not live in such an environment.  We are living in a political era of fiat law.

Obama's Malice Aforethought:  [Scroll down]  Even a "temporary" or "emergency" lock-up of this kind of speech is intolerable.  Under a statist regime, "temporary" means permanently.  The regime also decrees what is an "emergency."  Nazi Germany existed in a state of permanent emergency, from the day Hitler came to power in 1933 to its collapse in 1945.  Obama and his allies in government are pining for a Nazi-style "Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda" that would filter, interpret, suppress, and outlaw news and information they deem harmful to and critical of the government's policies, powers, and actions.  The Obama administration, at first defensive of its powers, policies and actions, has conducted an offensive against any and all who question the motive and wisdom of that administration.

TSA New Enemies List.  The TSA's policy is simply to ignore and overrule the Fourth Amendment, and to resort to brute force.  This is what it regularly tells travelers who question the policy.  It and the DHS will sooner or later decide to ignore and overrule the First Amendment, or freedom of speech.  It can claim that my writing — or anyone else's writing, no matter how calmly or emotionally composed — has caused others to oppose or "disrupt" the TSA's policies.  Whether the actions of those so inspired or so persuaded are criminal in nature, or lawful actions taken under the mantle of the Fourth Amendment, is irrelevant.  The threat implied in that directive is there are certain individuals and organizations that must sooner or later be silenced.

The TSA's "Protection" Racket.  There is a scene in Schindler's List in which all the inmates of the concentration camp are forced to strip naked en masse and run through a gauntlet of outdoor medical checks. ... Too eerily a parallel with the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA's) new "enhanced" security policies at American airports, which include full-body scans that show every detail of one's person beneath clothing and/or intimate "pat-downs" by manqués wearing blue surgeon's gloves, who are authorized to probe and grope infants, school children, adults, nuns, businessmen, well, everyone for combustibles or explosive materials.  Passengers are allowed to "opt out" for the pat-down, should they object to being seen naked, or if they're susceptible to involuntary radiation treatments.  Some choice.  No pressure at all, your choice — unless you choose to stop flying the unfriendly skies.

Obama Must Veto Omnibus Spending Bill.  The omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2011, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dropped on his colleagues yesterday, is more than 1,900 pages long, costs more than $1 trillion, and consists of some 6,600 earmarks.  The entire GOP leadership has come out strongly against the omnibus bill — on substance (it's terribly wasteful and profligate) and process (a lame-duck session of Congress should not be passing legislation of this dimension, which is clearly at odds with what most Americans voted for during the 2010 midterm election).


"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."
James Madison    


Would Your Government Do These Things?  The individual has very little if any protections against a powerful, tyrannical government that has flagrantly and openly severed the bonds on its limits.  Strict adherence to the constitution by the government and the people is the only thing that stands between freedom and slavery.  It is only by banding together en masse, does a society have any hope of gaining control over that government and returning to one that respects and protects individual freedom.

A Tyrant's Thinking.  A member of the Federal Communications Commission appears to want Washington in control of broadcast news.  What a shame that people with such ideas are placed in positions of power.

FCC Commissioner Wants to Control the Content of Broadcast Media.  The First Amendment forbids Congress from infringing on Americans' right to free speech.  But the Federal Communications Commission is not Congress.  And Michael Copps, one of four FCC commissioners reporting to Chairman Julius Genachowski, seems intent on ignoring that pesky part of the First Amendment about "abridging the freedom of speech" when that speech is sent out over the airwaves.

Leasing Your Life From The State.  The right to own property is actually one of the most intellectually challenging aspects of our Constitutional system, as evidenced by how easily people are willing to abandon the defense of that right for others.  There is towering public outrage at the merest suggestion of compromised First Amendment rights for millionaire actors or musicians, but nary a peep at the idea those same millionaires don't have the right to pass their full estates — built with already-taxed earnings — along to their children.  You don't "own" anything that can be taken away from you when you're no longer alive to defend it.

Show Me Your Papers!!  With the introduction of the new body scanners that show what is essentially a nude image of the person being scanned, the American public is getting a taste of what it is like to live in a police state.

Feds Target School Bake Sales.  On December 3, the lame-duck House passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, previously approved by the Senate.  President Obama, doubtless preoccupied with such trivia as taxes, unemployment, Korea, and China, has yet to sign it into law.  A mere two hundred and twenty pages long, it has lots of provisions for allocation of funds, demonstration projects, and the like.  Many may be worthwhile.  However, included in the legislation is a provision authorizing the secretary of Agriculture to regulate school fundraising bake sales to ensure that they are infrequent and that the goodies sold are nutritionally acceptable.  Far from innocuous, that is yet another distasteful and unnecessary intrusion of the federal government into our daily lives.

Jekyll and Hyde Government.  Government is hopelessly out of touch and is trending authoritarian.  It is corrupt and inept.  Ordinary people see a ruling class thriving while they suffer.  Large corporations get preferred treatment while the little guy is supposed to play by the rules and bail out mistakes he did not make.  Politicians ask everyone but themselves and their cronies to "sacrifice."  Government is no longer trusted or believed.  No government can survive when it loses the confidence of the people.  We have nearly reached this dangerous point.

Will The Light Bulb Ban Inspire a Conversion?  Why is the incandescent light bulb ban such a lightning rod for Tea Party-inspired remorse from big government Republicans?  Simple:  it's a liberty-stealing assault on our privacy and common sense, outrageously expensive, and doesn't solve any of the problems it's intended to fix.  That's only for starters.  The most egregious feature is that the ban makes fools of the American people who willingly succumb to such nonsense from Washington, D.C.

The mask has slipped.  We've seen our national treasury looted, with the unaccounted for cash handed out to already fabulously wealthy financial houses.  We've seen core industries taken over and control given to thug unions who caused most of the financial woes the industries suffered from in the first place.  We've seen regulations heaped ever deeper on independent agriculture, making us further dependent on the Third World and large multinational corporations for our food.  Despite the wailing about dependency on foreign oil, Obama and his unindicted Democrat/RINO co-conspirators have — quite illegally — thrown up roadblock after roadblock to domestic oil production.  Bad as all this has been, with the stentorian efforts of the "mainstream" media, the fascists have managed to keep up the pretense that this is all for our own good.

Government By Executive Order.  Because President Obama will now have a tough time getting his liberal agenda through a more Republican Congress, many Democrats are urging him to ram it through using the executive branch's unilateral power.  John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, even issued a list of executive orders and rule-makings last month that Mr. Obama can use to "push the country to a better place."  If the Department of Labor is representative, his advice is in sync with moves already under way.

The Soft Dictatorship.  [Scroll down]  The final piece to the puzzle of the soft dictatorship is the completely unconstitutional creation of executive orders.  Not only is there no basis in the Constitution for executive orders, but executive orders are often used to outright violate the Constitution.  Franklin D. Roosevelt used executive orders to demand the seizure of all gold owned by Americans and imprison all Americans of Japanese ancestry. ... George W. Bush signed executive orders that, among other things, established an alternative government in the case of a presidentially declared emergency.  Barack Obama has continued the tradition of unconstitutional executive orders by granting wide powers to Interpol in America and sealing his own records from inspection, and he is now looking for means to impose gun control through executive orders.

Washington Set to Control Your Light Switch.  Smart Grid sounds harmless and modern, but it will be incredibly intrusive.  Appliances in the future will have microchips installed; when you plug them in, they will handshake with the grid, and a central authority will determine whether that appliance deserves to get power or not.  If a bureaucrat in Washington decides that it's not hot enough for you to put on the air conditioner, your air conditioner will not work.  If the Fed decides that Margaritas lead to too much trouble on Cinco de Mayo, all blenders can be disabled for the day.  They can also turn off radios, televisions and computers.  In the era of electronic information, restricting the freedom of the press is as easy as turning off the light.  The idea is to conserve power, but a Smart Government will be able to use the technology to retain power as well.

America: Closed Due to Terrorism.  [Scroll down]  I asked a friendly Capitol Police officer where I was allowed to go and if I could take pictures.  The fact that I felt it necessary to ask speaks volumes to the extent that the Muslim terrorists have driven America into adopting extreme security measures to combat fear.  I was told I could take pictures, but could only enter the Capitol through an underground visitor's center after being subjected to security measures similar to an airport.  America's government buildings are closed off from the populace in an effort to combat terrorism, resulting in America's government officials being increasingly closed off from ordinary Americans.

First Health Care, Next the Food Supply.  Just because the duck is lame doesn't mean it can't still do terrible damage to American freedom.  Our new Congress, especially the new House, isn't yet seated, and this current Congress can still wreak terrible havoc on our rights if not stopped.  Case in point:  Senate Bill 510, believed to be coming to the floor Wednesday, November 17.  This is the food safety version of ObamaCare.

TSA scanners are a front to implement biometric chips.  You might of heard that the TSA scanners at US airports are a front because the guy that owns part of the company also makes the rules.  If you dont know who this is then dont worry, that is not the story.  The same guy also claims that the TSA scanners are just a front to implement them in schools and make people used to the idea, they would rather choose the machines than being molested by TSA agents.  Their plan is to see a machine in every school, shopping mall and public building.  Just about everywhere.

More about the TSA's abusive and invasive searches.

Obama's Torrent of New Regulation.  The burden of regulation on Americans increased at an alarming rate in fiscal year 2010.  Based on data from the Government Accountability Office, an unprecedented 43 major new regulations were imposed by Washington.  And based on reports from government regulators themselves, the total cost of these rules topped $26.5 billion, far more than any other year for which records are available.  These costs will affect Americans in many ways, raising the price of the cars they buy and the food they eat, while destroying an untold number of jobs.

Why Air Security is the Issue.  One of the great freedoms provided by those resources is the ability to move about.  Those who attack one attack the other.  Citizens who are self-sufficient and on the go are much harder to control than those who are not.  It is no coincidence that liberalism flourishes in the big cities, where people live in close quarters in a high-rise urban lifestyle.  A nation of Seinfelds is easier to keep tabs on than a nation of Palins.  As such, the Seinfelds don't even feel the morphing grip of bureaucrats because they rarely do anything or go anywhere that threatens the bureaucratic state's ability to control.  The Palins of the country instinctively feel this grip and abhor it.

TSA Searches:  Are Trains and Subways Next?  "I understand people's frustrations," said president Obama from Lisbon over the weekend.  Obama said at present naked body scanners and pat down searches bordering on sexual molestation are the best way to prevent Muslims in caves from attacking the American people.  Secretary of State Clinton told Meet the Press on Sunday [11/21/2010] that "everyone, including our security experts, are looking for ways to diminish the impact on the traveling public" and that "striking the right balance is what this is about."  For now, that "balance" means a near minimum wage TSA worker will fondle your testicles and there is nothing you can do about it.  Protesting will only slow down traffic and prevent people from visiting their family and friends.

The Frogs Finally Notice the Water is Boiling.  Maybe it really did need to come to this.  Maybe Americans had to literally have their privates groped by a government bureaucrat to finally realize that they have been the proverbial frogs sitting in a pot of water, unaware that they are being incrementally boiled to death.  For those of you who still don't get it, let me make it clear:  The ultimate destination of Political Correctness is totalitarianism.

More about the TSA's abusive and invasive searches.

Conservatives Should Not Be Celebrating the Election Results.  [Scroll down]  If Congress doesn't know what is in its legislation with its army of lawyers, how likely is it that the average citizen will know what is in it?  We have a situation where there are thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of pages of laws that every citizen is subject to every day.  Do you know them all?  Remember, ignorance is no defense for breaking the law.  After you figure out all the laws that apply, now go work on the regulations.  Regulations passed by the EPA, DHS, HHS, SEC, and so on still have the full force of law, and you can still go to jail for violating them.

Are We Free?  We are required to have a social security number as individuals or a taxpayer identification number as a business.  We need a license to operate a business, get married, drive a car, hold a rally in a park, etc.  We ask permission from the building and zoning department to build a house or change the house we have.  We get fined if we do not wear a seatbelt.  We pay taxes for just about everything we do.  The government controls the airwaves, the waterways, the sky and highways.  They tell us where we are allowed to go in the national forests and parks.  We are charged fees to use public lands.  We are prohibited from using our own land if some rare insect is found there.  Our churches ask the IRS for permission to operate with tax favors.  Our leaders tell us what we can and cannot say.  The first two of the Bill of Rights have been trampled at every opportunity.  This list could go on and on, but you get the message.  We are controlled from cradle to grave.

A Crossroads Election.  Runaway "stimulus" spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues.  It is just that freedom and survival are more important.  For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed.  If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined.

Michigan Woman Prosecuted for Christian Roommate Ad.  A Michigan woman who posted an ad seeking a Christian roommate on her church bulletin board has been charged with violating the law.  The Fair Housing Center of West Michigan filed the complaint against the 31-year-old unnamed woman.  The complaint states the ad "expresses an illegal preference for a Christian roommate, thus excluding people of other faiths."

Seeking Promiscuous Heathen Female Roommate.  Harold Core, director of public affairs with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, recently told the Grand Rapids Press that the Fair Housing Act prevents people from publishing an advertisement stating their preference of religion with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling.  And he made no distinction between an owner-placed ad and one placed by a prospective occupant.  Joel Oster, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is representing the Christian woman free of charge.  He says this case is simply "outrageous."

Update:
Federal government drops case against Grand Rapids woman seeking Christian roommate.  On the surface, an ad posted in a church by a 31-year-old nursing student seeking a Christian roommate does violate fair housing law, but other issues prompted the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to drop its case against her.

Criminal barbering?  Raids at Orange County shops lead to arrests.  As many as 14 armed Orange County deputies, including narcotics agents, stormed Strictly Skillz barbershop during business hours on a Saturday in August, handcuffing barbers in front of customers during a busy back-to-school weekend. ... In "sweeps" on Aug. 21 and Sept. 17 targeting at least nine shops, deputies arrested 37 people — the majority charged with "barbering without a license," a misdemeanor that state records show only three other people have been jailed in Florida in the past 10 years.

Is Unlicensed Yacht Dealing a "Serious Threat"?  The fear that rich yacht-buyers are getting ripped off by scofflaw boat salesmen seems pretty implausible.

Unions target your private retirement savings.  Will the government outlaw your 401(k) plan?  It seems like an absurd possibility, yet earlier this month two Democratic senators, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., held a hearing on Capitol Hill exploring the possibility of doing exactly that.

Europe starts confiscating private pension funds.  Obviously, this is a cautionary tale for America.  If fiscal austerity becomes a real issue in the U.S. the way that it's been reaching critical mass in Europe — don't think that U.S. lawmakers regard your either your personal wealth or money they might owe you as sacrosanct.  Government has a habit of looking out for itself.

European nations begin seizing private pensions.  People's retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don't want to reduce spending or make privatizations.  As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends.

How Safe are Americans' Private Retirement Savings?  In Europe, the cost of socialism is apparently reaching critical mass.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, five countries — Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Ireland and France — are in various stages of confiscating or attempting to confiscate citizens' pension savings as a means of offsetting government revenue shortfalls.  Since most pensions plans in Europe are state-generated, such seizures are relatively easy to accomplish.  Yet while two of the attempts are being made to get back savings invested in national funds, the other three are grabs for "private personal savings."

Stealing Pensions.  Europe is trying to dig out of its budget hole by seizing private pensions.  It's a last-ditch effort to preserve socialism at the expense of the very assets that would sustain its future growth.

Is Your IRA Going To Be Raided?  The notion of government raiding personal retirement accounts for funds may seem extreme.  Perhaps it shouldn't.  Other governments have done it.  Argentina did in 2008.  Ireland has indicated it might.  The worsening financial crisis may eventually move other countries in that direction.  Surely the US would never do so.  Actually, there is little basis for assuming they would not and factual evidence they would.  Here are three good reasons to believe they would...

46 Percent Say Federal Gov't 'Poses Immediate Threat'.  The percentage of Americans who think the federal government poses "an immediate threat" to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens has increased significantly over the last seven years, rising from 30 percent to 46 percent, according to a Gallup poll conducted Sept. 13-16 and released today [10/13/2010].  Only 51 percent of Americans now say they do not think the federal government poses "an immediate threat" to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.

Got student loans?  Feds make an offer you can't refuse.  Worried about how to pay off that student debt?  Head on over to the closest government agency, and you too can score loan forgiveness after ten years of "public service."  Does that sound too good to be true?  Well, Paul Winfree tells us that politicians voted to make these dreams (or nightmares) a reality.

A new threat is coming, and it's called Famlink.  [Scroll down]  Also with how corrupt CPS has been getting it is very easy for the Federal Government to forge documents and records in order to criminalize dissidents and take their children away.  One of these examples of John Irish and his wife losing their child over simply belonging to a Oath Keepers discussion board.  Although the Irish family managed to get their baby back after the court admitted defeat they aren't the only family to be persecuted by CPS.  Now What is FamLink?  Well through searching through many bits and pieces the U.S. Government forgot to cover-up (Save the documents while you can!) I was able to start putting together the pieces of what FamLink is.

The Hubris of NOAA.  Fisherman face declining fishing allocations, stormy weather, and fluctuating prices as routine dangers of their profession.  But federal regulators from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration are becoming even scarier.  This essay gives my assessment of the NOAA Fisheries Service Summary Report, which covers a series of meetings between the NOAA bureaucracy and the northeast commercial fishermen.

Beware the Cyberscare.  The same people who brought you the global warming and Y2K scares have dreamed up a scheme to assert greater federal control over the Internet in the name of cybersecurity.  According to Reuters news agency, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, intends to pass legislation on the subject authored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat.  The forthcoming effort will trade the freedom of an important communications medium for the illusion of safety.

The Fifty Years' War.  This war has been fought over what defines American freedom.  Are Americans freer when they can pursue their dreams without government interference?  Or are they freer when the government ensures that all their needs are provided for?

The Bank of Central Planning.  The prospect of another big-government program is disheartening to all those who believe the federal government has grown far beyond its originally intended scope of authority.  Fear that the massive growth of the federal government will stifle technological innovation, harm the economy, and limit individual freedom is well-founded.  Every society that has relied on central planning has suffered with a stagnant economy, limited mobility, and a low standard of living.

If You Are Not a Leftist, Why Are You Voting Democrat?  The Democratic president and Democratic Party have expanded the American government to an unprecedented extent.  Moreover, they have done so in unprecedented ways:  Never before has such extensive society-changing legislation been passed without a single vote of the other political party; and unprecedentedly vast powers have been given to "czars" and their new federal agencies — with no congressional oversight.

Keen Graphs of the Obvious.  Government has grown by obscene amounts since William McKinley was president.  In 1900, federal, state, and local governments combined spent under 5% of Gross Domestic Product.  Today they spend 40% of GDP or more and account for half of all health care spending.  The federal government alone spends more than 20% of GDP, owns 29% of all land, and controls virtually all ocean activity, including oil drilling, for miles offshore.  This puts us square into the mix of European welfare states in terms of government spending and debt.

FBI agents seek the right to tap texts, emails and websites.  US intelligence services would be allowed to tap text messages, emails and networking websites under new powers being considered by Barack Obama's administration.

The Green Agenda.  In keeping with President Obama's promise to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet, the Energy Department has set new efficiency standards for 26 appliances and household products.  The list ranges from microwaves, to washing machines and dryers, to residential water heaters and dishwashers.  The department reportedly claims the new standards will save consumers from $250 billion to $300 billion on their energy costs through 2030.  But that's what Democrats always say about their green schemes:  "We're doing this to clean up the Earth, and we're going to save you money while we do it."  Don't believe it.

Your Insane U.S. Energy Department.  In mid-September, Cathy Zoi, an Assistant Secretary of Energy, said that the U.S. Department of Energy has a "mandate" to issue regulations about what household appliances should be available to Americans in the future. ... The DOE intends to "set efficiency standards for energy-consuming products."  These will include commercial clothes washers, small electric motors, water heaters, direct heating equipment and pool heaters, among the countless products consumers use on a daily basis.

Predatory Governance.  The American federal government increasingly resembles a redistribution racket that is run by operatives who call themselves public servants.  Many of us have been blind to this because we have been brainwashed by the decades of government propaganda dispensed through the public school system, universities, and the media.  But the behavior of the political class has recently become so brazen and outrageous that scales are falling from people's eyes everywhere.

We, the ruled.  We are not being governed.  We are not being led.  We are being ruled.  Ruled like subjects in a medieval kingdom.  Oh, we have more freedom than our medieval ancestors; we can usually say whatever we want, whenever we want to.  But that's where our influence seems to end.  Just consider a series of recent issues that have arisen and how our "leaders" have told us, in effect, to take our opinions elsewhere.

Random Pat-Downs Turn PATCO Into Police State.  Commuters who ride PATCO trains between southern New Jersey and Philadelphia should expect random searches of their clothing, pockets, bags and vehicles on their morning trip to work.  Twelve Transportation Security Administration screeners, armed with an explosive-sniffing K-9, checked 663 commuter bags randomly selected from the morning rush at the Lindenwold station Tuesday [9/7/2010]. ... "We can conduct any kind of search we want," said [Delaware River Port Authority Police Chief David] McClintock.

Seventy percent of Americans know they've been conned.  [Scroll down]  The 70 percent is appalled by the placebo economics practiced by the president and the Congress over the past two years, shocked by its profligacy with the wealth of the republic, and sickened by the looting of the next generation's opportunities.  The 70 percent did not want Obamacare, but it has been thrust upon them.  The 70 percent did not want federal judges to declare "game over" in the complex discussion of what marriage is and means.

Abridging Too Far.  Philadelphia is charging bloggers $300 for a "privilege" license.  In the city where the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the Constitution signed, a right has become a privilege.  The scheme went virtually unreported until the Philadelphia City Paper ran a story last week noting that the city requires privilege licenses for any business engaged in what local tax attorney Michael Mandale terms "activity for profit."

Next Year's Congress:  Deem and Don't Pass Go?  The very process the Democrats used to pass legislation could be denied Republicans to amend that same legislation next year, even if Republicans regain the House and Senate in November.

Eminent domain, by any other name ... still stinks.  Imagine you come home from work one day to a notice on your front door that you have 45 days to demolish your house, or the city will do it for you.  Oh, and you're paying for it.  This is happening right now in Montgomery, Ala., and here is how it works:  The city decides it doesn't like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a "public nuisance."

Destroying Jobs at 2.5 Gallons per Minute.  In 1992, the Department of Energy managed to promulgate a regulation requiring that showerheads use no more than 2.5 gallons per minute as an effort to save... water.  This is a substance that's in such short supply that 75% of the planet is covered with it. ... For eighteen years, this regulation was interpreted one way — the limitation was per nozzle, so people desiring a more vigorous shower could simply install a couple more showerheads, or a multi-nozzle shower system.  A specialty arose in the marketplace:  the creative design of elegant and invigorating shower systems.

EPA's Gun Control.  The U.S. Supreme Court says Americans have an individual right to keep and bear arms.  The EPA says the bullets for those guns may be banned as an environmental hazard.

More about gun control and the EPA.

Court strikes down mall talk rules.  A California appeals court struck down a mall's rules banning strangers from talking about subjects other than the mall while inside the facility. ... The mall's rules, which were previously upheld by Placer Superior Court Judge Larry Gaddis, allow for conversations between two strangers on non-mall related topics only if an application is submitted 4 days in advance and approved by officials.
[Emphasis added.]

The Tyranny of Google.  In an astonishing interview with The Wall Street Journal, Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has outlined what he believes will be the future of web searches.  His vision is nothing less than the etiolation of free will by, and the surrender of individual autonomy to, the all-knowing, all-seeing priestly class at Google.

America's Slipping Grasp on Self-Governance.  A disregard for the law and the people's will is not confined to the judiciary.  From the bank and auto bailouts, to the stimulus bill and health care overhaul, the elected branches of the federal government have sneeringly answered petitions for fiscal sense with one of the most unreasonable bevies of laws ever passed.  The court decisions in Arizona and California and irresponsible federal legislation are more than maddening news stories.  These events lend stark perspective to America's slipping grasp on the right to self-governance.

Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is out of control.  [Scroll down]  It isn't just the South Carolina prisons in the crosshairs of the Civil Rights Division.  It is mortgage lenders and insurance companies.  It is movie theaters and flat-broke counties that don't print ballots in foreign languages.  It's also Amazon.com, which tried to sell a talking Kindle reader, but Justice said it couldn't because the button to make the Kindle talk didn't have Braille.  Never mind that books neither talk nor have Braille buttons telling them to talk.  The business community would be wise to wake up and recognize the immense power the Civil Rights Division exerts over the private sector.

What Really Happened to Erik Scott?  An accomplished young man is killed by police outside a Vegas Costco, and bystander accounts starkly contrast with official reports.

The Prophet of the Ruling Class.  So now the EPA has been petitioned to ban the use of lead in bullets and fishing weights.  For hundreds of years, human beings have used lead for those purposes, and life on earth has not exactly come to an end.  Now we are told that the lead used in hunting and fishing is harming animals and fish, and it must stop.  The scary thing is that one individual, EPA Director Lisa Jackson, has the power to impose such a ban.

Has the Time Come to Replace the Federal Government?  After Clinton appointed Judge Susan Bolton ruled Wednesday that — for all intents and purposes — Arizona does not have the right to protect itself or its citizens from invading drug cartels and the illegal foreign hordes that are bleeding it dry of its resources, it should have become apparent to even the dimmest that We-the-People no longer exist.  We are now living under a tyranny developed, directed, implemented and enforced by the Marxists in power.

Rep. Pete Stark doesn't believe there are constitutional limits on federal government.  What is Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., thinking?  Following the publication of a video in which the congressman derides his own constituents for their concerns over border security (suggesting that they probably "kill people"), Stark spoke at a town hall in which he noted that there are few limitations on the federal government.

Stark Raving.  The federal government, according to Democratic Rep. Pete Stark, can do anything it wants.  If there are indeed no checks on the state's power, as the congressman claims, then the state is a tyrant.

We the Serfs.  The Constitution of the United States of America under President Barak Obama is being transformed from a nation of "We the People" to "We the Serfs." ... Under this administration, we have seen government takeover of large companies, the implementation of a pay czar to determine compensation in private companies, a health care insurance mandate where you will be forced to purchase insurance or have the IRS withholding your refund or garnishing your wages, cap-and-trade legislation, and the EPA regulation of carbon, which will determine where we can set our thermostats in our own homes.

Convicted:  Woman 'disobeyed' illegal order.  An appeal is challenging a Christian activist's conviction for failing to obey a police officer's order to shut down her camera while she was filming fellow Christian missionaries at last year's Dearborn Arab Festival because the command apparently wasn't legal.  According to the Thomas More Law Center, whose attorneys have filed the appeal with the Circuit Court for Wayne County, Mich., the city ordinances in Dearborn require that if a police officer wants his orders followed he or she has to be acting "in the lawful performance of his duty."

Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police.  That Anthony Graber broke the law in early March is indisputable.  He raced his Honda motorcycle down Interstate 95 in Maryland at 80 mph, popping a wheelie, roaring past cars and swerving across traffic lanes.  But it wasn't his daredevil stunt that has the 25-year-old staff sergeant for the Maryland Air National Guard facing the possibility of 16 years in prison.  For that, he was issued a speeding ticket.  It was the video that Graber posted on YouTube one week later — taken with his helmet camera — of a plainclothes state trooper cutting him off and drawing a gun during the traffic stop near Baltimore.

Update:
Motorcyclist wins taping case against state police.  A Harford County Circuit Court judge ruled this afternoon [9/28/2010] that a motorcyclist who was arrested for videotaping his traffic stop by a Maryland State Trooper was within his rights to record the confrontation.  Judge Emory A Plitt Jr. tossed all the charges filed against Anthony Graber, leaving only speeding and other traffic violations, and most likely sparing him a trial that had been scheduled for Oct. 12.

The War on Cameras.  As citizens increase their scrutiny of law enforcement officials through technologies such as cell phones, miniature cameras, and devices that wirelessly connect to video-sharing sites such as YouTube and LiveLeak, the cops are increasingly fighting back with force and even jail time — and not just in Illinois.  Police across the country are using decades-old wiretapping statutes that did not anticipate iPhones or Droids, combined with broadly written laws against obstructing or interfering with law enforcement, to arrest people who point microphones or video cameras at them.

Bloggericide: Ohio Officials Charge Blogger With Campaign Violations.  Well, folks, this is bound to happen more and more as time rolls onward in this New Media world of ours.  A blogger is in trouble with local Ohio officials who are trying to shut him down using a badly applied campaign finance law all because he has been critical of county officials on his blog.  That's right, a county board is trying to silence the free political speech of a local Ohio blogger because he is critical of them.

Body language police.  Every middle-schooler knows that rolling your eyes at the wrong person can get you grounded.  In Elmhurst, it can get you thrown out of a public meeting.  Deprived of the opportunity to speak to a City Council committee about its plan to hire a $30,000 state lobbyist, Darlene Heslop apparently could not contain herself.  She sighed and rolled her eyes — and was promptly ejected from the June 14 meeting.

This is another step toward 24-hour ownership of your children:
Education secretary calls for 12-hour school days, longer school year.  If Education Secretary Arne Duncan has his way, kids would be spending a lot more time at school — and a three-month summer would be a thing of the past.  Duncan joked with attendees at a luncheon at the National Press Club Tuesday [7/27/2010] in Washington that he would like schools to stay open 13 months out of the year.  Then he told the audience of over 100 that he seriously supports longer school hours.

The most important story in American history, you'll never hear on network TV.  On April 7th of this year Obama authored the Presidential Assassination Program.  It allows for American citizens to be targeted for killing far away from any battlefield.  So be clear, we are not talking about enemy combatants like the so called American Taliban.  No, what we are talking about here is targeting Americans off the battlefield, who in the opinion of the President alone, that is an unchecked accusation by the Executive branch can call for the assassination of an American citizen that the President deems to be a terrorist.

Beware if you make an FOIA request of Homeland Security.  Over the past year, the Department [of Homeland Security] has tried to protect itself from annoying and unwanted requests for information that they were legally required to provide through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to a report by AP. ... Most disturbingly, the requesters themselves became targets of government investigation.

I'm from the Government, and I'm Here for Your BMI.  While the Stimulus Bill requires that the government have access to your Electronic Health Record (EHR) by 2014, it only vaguely defines what the government will do with this information.  Herein lies the danger.  Vaguely defined power in new laws always leads to broad interpretation of power by the government.

Cherry-Picked Constitutionality.  A federal judge ruled that only a state gets to define what "marriage" is in that state, and the federal government can't overrule it. ... At least two things about that line of reasoning are very bothersome, regardless of your opinion of gay marriage.  First, it was not quite the "state" of Massachusetts that redefined marriage in this instance; four justices on its supreme court did.  The state legislature did not redefine marriage.  There was no popular vote to redefine it.  The governor never signed legislation to redefine it.  Four justices on the state supreme court did this.  And now we have a federal judge ruling that the federal government must honor that decision of state judges.  At this point, we have a total of five people redefining marriage as a legal institution for the remaining 310 million of us.

Bill Approved by House Gives Feds Power to Subpoena Any Record from Any Financial Institution.  The final version of President Barack Obama's financial regulatory bill, hammered out in negotations between House and Senate Democrats, contains a provision that grants the federal government the power to subpoena any financial information it wants from any financial institution without showing probable cause that a crime has been committed.

Eric Holder and Federalist 45.  [Scroll down]  Why are the attorney general and the president pursuing this suit?  To show the world that Big Government is even bigger than you may have supposed.  In their view, Washington runs your life.  Washington tells you whether you can enforce the law.  Washington tells you what sort of health care you can have.  Washington tells you how much money you can make.  Washington is the machine:  you are but a cog.  According to Washington, that is.  What would James Madison have thought?

Future of the News.  It's a frightening thought:  government takeover of the media.  But having tightened their grip on health care, financial services, and energy, it's only logical that the Democrats should turn their attention to the media.  Discussions underway at the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission point toward a dangerous new effort to regulate what Americans read and hear.  The takeover under discussion would apply across the board to print media, radio and television, and the internet.  The result of proposed regulations would be nothing less than an end to free speech in America.

The government goes after the victim rather than the perpetrators.
Elderly man facing serious charges for shooting at thieves.  Legal analyst Dan Recht said he believes the Jefferson County District Attorney is "seriously overcharging" a Wheat Ridge homeowner, accused of attempted first degree murder for shooting at two thieves.  82-year-old Robert Wallace said he fired two shots at two men when they tried to run him over while stealing his flatbed trailer.  Wallace now faces twelve felony counts, including four counts of attempted first degree murder, for what he described as an act of defending his property and his life.

Stolen Trailers.  Say you're 82 years old.  Say that you see two people a third of your age with criminal records stealing your trailer.  Say that you run out to stop them and they almost run you over.  You fire two shots.  The thieves are let go, and you find yourself facing life in prison.  It's not a hypothetical scenario.

Racial, Gender Quotas in the Financial Bill?  [Scroll down]  I was searching the bill for a provision about derivatives.  What did I find [was] Section 342, which declares that race and gender employment ratios, if not quotas, must be observed by private financial institutions that do business with the government.  In a major power grab, the new law inserts race and gender quotas into America's financial industry.

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.

America's Road to Serfdom.  Thanks to the attention from Glenn Beck, a recent top seller on Amazon.com is Austria's Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.  The book was written in 1944 to fight the drift from individual freedom and free-market competition to a growing dependence on economies controlled by central planning authorities. ... Hayek's book remains a wakeup call to apathetic citizens who take for granted that the improvements achieved through democracy, individual freedom and capitalism have been "acquired once and for all."  Hayek knew what history confirms; freedom must be earned and reearned in every generation.

Obama's Straws And Our Tired Back.  Some of the more naïve who voted for Obama were taken back by his sudden rush to take over insurance companies, banks, student loans, and the auto industry. ... But then soon, others wondered how a truther and racial demagogue like Van Jones or a Mao aficionado like Anita Dunn ever got into the White House.

And the Voice of the Liar is Heard in our Land.  The [Obamacare] bill will break states.  It will break companies.  It will put a boot down on the head of the American economy.  Which is exactly its goal.  The Obama Administration is not interested in economic prosperity, it is interested in a government takeover.  People who can make their own way and pay their own bills, are poor candidates for a nanny state.  No, the people have to be robbed, browbeaten, left helpless, and only then will they agree to have the chains put around their necks.  Or least stop fighting against them as hard.

Obama's Assaults on Liberty Proceed Unabated.  The socialized medicine nightmare is already beginning.  Many of us warned that Obamacare would serve as an all-purpose justification for government intervention in every aspect of our lives.  Have we become so far removed from our founding principles that we don't grasp the perniciousness of such government encroachments into our private lives and personal liberties?  You must read the executive order*.  Then you'll understand that the council and "Advisory Group" it establishes will not be merely advisory.  The provisions of this "order" underscore the disturbing extent to which Obama and his band of authoritarians intend to control our lives.

Residents get 6 votes each in suburban NY election.  [Arthur] Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation.

The Editor says...
Why stop at six votes?  Why not give a dozen votes to everyone who is not (for example) a white male?  How about allowing ten votes per Democrat, and one vote per Republican?  All in the interest of fairness, of course.

Goodbye to One Man, One Vote.  If you thought that "one man, one vote" reflected the full flowering of representative democracy, think again.  In the village of Port Chester, N.Y., just a few towns north of my locality in Westchester County, there is a new system.  It's "one (minority) man, six votes" — brought to us courtesy of the U.S. Department of Injustice and a lunkhead of a federal judge named Stephen Robinson.

How Is Rigging Elections Fair to Immigrants?  A Nebraska town wants renters to prove they are in the country legally, and Port Chester, N.Y., was forced to swallow a goofy voting scheme that makes sense only if the aim is to erase the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants.  Under the plan, imposed by a federal judge in response to a 2006 Justice Department civil-rights suit, each voter in the board of trustees election got six votes.  A voter could give all six votes to one candidate, or divide them among several.

Vote system that elected NY Hispanic could expand.  The court-ordered election that allowed residents of one New York town to flip the lever six times for one candidate — and produced a Hispanic winner — could expand to other towns where minorities complain their voices aren't being heard.

More about judicial activism.

America's House of Cards:  The Cloward-Piven strategy, the bible for liberal progressives, teaches that to undermine the system one need only do one thing:  Overwhelm the system.  The radicals who occupy the White House, students of Alinsky, are all-too-familiar with the methods that will bring this country to its knees and allow for a remake or "transformation" to an ideal society that will finally be acceptable to their brethren.  Using each and every "crisis" to add another control disguised as government benevolence, the Obama administration is packing regulation upon regulation on the American people.

Cap-And-Traitors.  The Senate just claimed the title of the world's most delusional body by refusing to strip unelected EPA bureaucrats of the power to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.  This was the day freedom died.

Expert:  Photos erased from phone.  The attorney representing businessman James Adkins yesterday said an off-island expert has determined all photographs on Adkins' camera phone were completely erased, either through damage or by a master reset of the device.  Adkins has sued the police department for $3 million in federal court, alleging his civil rights were violated after Guam police arrested him for taking photos of an accident from inside his car on a public road.  They detained him and confiscated his phone.

Census workers can enter your apartment in your absence.  Thousands of census workers, including many temporary employees, are fanning out across America to gather information on the citizenry. ... What many Americans don't realize, is that census workers — from the head of the Bureau and the Secretary of Commerce (its parent agency) down to the lowliest and newest Census employee — are empowered under federal law to actually demand access to any apartment or any other type of home or room that is rented out, in order to count persons in the abode and for "the collection of statistics."

The Spike that broke the people's back.  Governments, Thomas Jefferson wrote so eloquently in our Declaration of Independence, derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed."  This founding idea serves as the most fundamental precept of American governance.  Yet, today it is regularly exiled from our politics.  The latest case is now playing out in North Platte, Nebraska, where city officials seek to scuttle a citizen initiative that residents petitioned onto next Tuesday's ballot.  A Lincoln County district judge offers a powerful assist by ordering that the votes on the measure cannot even be counted or reported.

Bloggers Beware — They're Coming After You!.  Just when you thought it was safe to start expressing your right to free speech, Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a vote on a new piece of legislation to blatantly undermine the First Amendment.  Known as the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), this bill — written by the head of the Democrats' congressional campaign committee — is their response to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Chesapeake principal won't let mom pick up daughter.  The mother scheduled a Wednesday morning doctor's appointment for her daughter.  Come Wednesday morning [5/19/2010], the fourth-grader was taking a Standards of Learning exam.  The mother came to pick up her daughter.  The principal said no.

Bill Would Require Government to Track Body Mass of American Children.  A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are.  States receiving federal grants provided for in the bill would be required to annually track the Body Mass Index of all children ages 2 through 18.

A Legislative Trojan Horse.  The basis of the EPA's regulatory efforts is the agency's finding that carbon dioxide is a "pollutant" that supposedly "endangers" us by causing global warming.  Once the EPA made this unprecedented and unsupported endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act, it put the enormous regulatory machinery of the federal government in gear to generate rules regulating CO2, rules that will damage every aspect of the U.S. economy.  Thankfully, substantive legal challenges to the endangerment finding and the rules the EPA is generating have been filed.

More about the EPA.
And incidentally, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

The next 2,000-page bill.  Big Brother wants to watch you more closely.  Especially how you spend your money.  His latest snooping plan comes from provisions in the banking bill being debated in the Senate.  The bill is being pushed by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Dodd's Bank Bill:  Worse Than ObamaCare.  There are many bad things contained in Chris Dodd's Restoring American Financial Stability Act," ... But the most destructive portions of the bill — the one that would in my judgment go beyond even Obamacare in making the American free enterprise system unrecognizable — has been little discussed even by critics of this bill.  To put it bluntly but absolutely accurately, this bill sets up a mechanism for the Treasury Secretary, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to nationalize virtually any business they deem to be a threat to American "financial stability."

Feds Tell Old Folks They Can't Pray Before Meals.  Big Brother says elderly visitors to federally funded meals at a Georgia senior citizen's center aren't allowed to pray to that absurd, dangerous Christian God of theirs.  Obama's Big Brother government contends that since it has paid for their meals the government has the right to slam its iron boot heel down on the necks of those seasoned citizens that dare to engage in such an apostasy toward the state.

Update:
Prayers Answered:  Seniors Can Pray Before Meals at Georgia Center.  The Georgia senior center that barred its elderly citizens from praying before meals has changed its policy after inquiries from Fox News and other news organizations.

Guilty no matter the intent.  In May of 2004, federal agents in a black sport utility vehicle ran Krister Evertson off the road, piled out of their vehicle in full SWAT gear, trained an automatic weapon at his head, and arrested him.  Evertson's crime?  He failed to put a federally mandated sticker on a UPS package.  A jury acquitted Evertson of the charges, but the feds later charged Evertson for "abandoning" hazardous material.  Evertson is an award-winning scientist working on fuel-cell technology, and the chemicals were both properly stored and necessary for his work.  Nonetheless, he spent 21 months in federal prison.

Does new bill propose 'federal takeover of water?'.  Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and the Congressional Western Caucus have joined in opposition to legislation introduced by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) that seeks to provide the federal government with jurisdictional authority over all water across the entire United States.

And Just A Closing Thought.  You may not realize it, but our country, the United States, is rapidly becoming nothing less than a giant economic support system for government.  We are so very close to the point where Americans will no longer exist to pursue and fulfill their own potentials.  We will exist for one purpose ... to support government and those who depend on government.

Preparations for Reparations.  When the government decides what kind of light bulbs one can buy, what size toilet tank one can install, or how much salt can be added to one's food, then there is no limit to the depth and detail of government intrusion into one's life.  When every aspect of existence is decided or dictated by another, that is not freedom.  That is slavery.

Big Brother loves 'financial reform'.  The next time you make a withdrawal from an automated teller machine, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner might be watching over your shoulder.  Boosted by the sweeping, 1,400-page financial regulatory proposal currently making its way through the Senate, Mr. Geithner would have unprecedented, real-time access to a wealth of personal and corporate financial data — all in the name of protecting the public.

Reid:  'Someone' Should Offer Amendment to Financial Reform Bill.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says he wishes "someone" would offer an amendment to the financial regulatory bill to prevent the federal government from probing Americans' private financial records.  A provision in the bill would allow a new Treasury Department agency to demand "any data or information" from any financial firm and use a subpoena to get that information if necessary.

New recycling bins with tracking chips coming to Alexandria.  Alexandria residents soon will have to pay for larger home recycling bins featuring built-in monitoring devices.  The City Council added a mandatory $9 charge to its residents' annual waste collection fee.  That cash — roughly $180,000 collected from 19,000 residents — will pay for new larger recycling carts equipped with computer microchips, which will allow the city to keep tabs on its bins and track resident participation in the city's recycling program.

Do they have to put RFID chips in everything?

'Sedition' Is Constitutional.  For the past year, the Obama administration, unable to win arguments based on facts and merit, has been moving to criminalize the political opposition in an effort to artificially control the debate.  First, the DHS published reports classifying conservative viewpoints as terroristic.  Then hate crimes legislation was introduced to squash religious speech regarding sexual deviancy.  And finally, Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein claimed the power to ban "falsehoods," an infraction Sunstein in his infinite nonpartisan wisdom would define and determine.  And now, the ultimate political A-bomb has been introduced into the public discourse:  the charge of sedition.

Just who do they think they own?  I have for some time been looking for a model to describe the relationship that currently exists between the people and the federal government.  At different times, I have labeled it as feudalism, serfdom or slavery.  None of them is quite right, and yet they all hint at the problem — the American people, who ostensibly still pride themselves on freedom have long since been co-opted as nothing more than a labor force by their masters in Washington.

Troubled Waters.  Rep. James Oberstar wants to rewrite the Clean Water Act.  If the Minnesota Democrat gets his way, the federal government will have even greater authority to take private property.  This isn't Oberstar's first attempt.  In 2007 he also tried to rewrite the water bill.  He and others weren't happy with Supreme Court rulings that defined the limits Washington has over bodies of water that have no nexus to navigable waters.  They want full federal control over all waters.

Big Government Crushes Christians.  Massive spending means massive government — a system that reaches into virtually every corner of our lives.  From house loans to student loans to light bulbs to toilets and even to the cars we buy and drive, we feel the government's direct hand.  Corporate executives worry about "pay czars," doctors worry about government-set prices for their services, and we all wonder if the Internal Revenue Service will be monitoring our health insurance choices.  Massive government means government control, the strings attached to money, to participation and even to expression as the government goes beyond the original purpose of its multitude of programs and attempts to alter social outcomes, favor certain viewpoints and — most ominously — suppress others.

Congress Becomes Madison's "Overbearing Majority".  The purpose of this bill is — as Pelosi put it — to "kick through this door" to prepare the way for even further "reform."  But what does this metaphor even suggest?  Who kicks through doors, anyway?  It is ordinarily the police — or even the secret police.  Not a constitutional legislative body of the United States of America.  Pelosi's phrase was profoundly aggressive, although perhaps she used it without complete consciousness of what she might be conveying.  But it was no accident.  This is an extraordinary way for a speaker of the House to talk, congruent with the Democratic Party's newly combative attitude towards the wishes of the American people.

DOE's Search and Seizure.  The feds are coming to inspect your home if you want to sell it, according to regulations buried in cap-and-trade legislation and standards decreed by the Secretary of Energy.  But there are numerous legal difficulties inherent in DOE "inspections."  Here are a few:  First, the regulations purportedly require homeowners to submit to a warrantless search of their property.

Federal judge rules Day of Prayer unconstitutional.  A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional Thursday [4/15/2010], saying the day amounts to a call for religious action.

Obama's new tax on... Rainwater!?  Would President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency really force Americans to pay a tax on "rainwater runoff" from homes and small businesses?  You bet they would.  In fact, the EPA, under radical environmentalist Lisa Jackson, is proposing regulations to do just that.

Obama will now have his private army.  Of course, SEC. 430, Establishing a Ready Reserve Corps, lists in detail the commissioned Regular Corps and Ready Reserve Corps that will be trained up, fired up, lined up and controlled by Obama himself.  Naturally the purpose for this army is to stand by in case they are needed at short notice for a national health emergency or emergency response missions. ... In the history of our country, have we ever had such a massive, national health emergency that we needed a militia/military reserve ready to pepper the country and control things?

Using the FBI against the tea party:
Turning COINTELPRO on the tea party?  How comfortable are you with the idea of agents posing as activists to elicit anti-government tirades?  How comfortable would you be if the Bush administration had done the same thing with Code Pink in an effort to get a anti-war activist to threaten a Senator who voted in favor of invading Iraq?

Democrats continue campaign against individual liberty.  It's an absurdity that the federal government has the right to make Americans buy health insurance, but what's worse is the ha, ha, ha of the left that free people making their own decisions about the way they live is selfishness or shibboleth.  Heed that shrug of the shoulders — especially in the context of nanny-state interventions quietly disposing of all kinds of small freedoms all about us — and you have a taste of what's to come if the Democratic darlings of the left stay in power in the elections this year and in 2012.

Meet Your Lords and Masters.  There was a time in this country when the government of the United States followed the Constitution and had greatly limited powers.  Today, the Constitution is largely ignored and our Congress can do almost anything it wants — and it does just that.  Your Congress now essentially controls large parts of the automaking industry, banking industry, and it has put itself in charge of student loans.  It has taken over health care.  It takes tax dollars from your state and then tells you under what conditions it will allow your state to have its money back.  It's in charge of your retirement.  It even picks the lightbulbs you're allowed to have in your house.

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.

There Oughta Be a Law.  Bleary-eyed, I crawl out of bed, shuffle into the bathroom, and flip on the lights, but the bulb is out.  I remind myself to get to Home Depot and stockpile a few cases of good, old-fashioned incandescent bulbs while I still can.  After my morning business, I flush an extra time, since 1.6 gallons just doesn't seem to do the trick.  But at least we're saving water, huh?  Hop in the shower, where the water trickles out at an EPA-limited 2.5 gallons per minute.  I think I'll stay in here for an extra ten minutes or so.

Election Theft Underway in Wisconsin.  The far left has taken over the Democratic Party, and is aggressive changing the rules so as to entrench itself in power, regardless of the will of the people.  The same Alinskyite mentality that rammed through ObamaCare.  Rules are what you make the other guy live up to.  Now, with the same anti-transparency approach used on ObamaCare, Wisconsin Democrats plan to close down scrutiny while they tailor election practices to benefit themselves.  Chicago rules ruthlessness coupled to a far left structural agenda.

Love, Fear, and Tyranny.  We the people must remove the tyrants and preserve the Constitution.  But we must take care.  We find ourselves taunted by holier-than-thou Democrats and soulless media puppets.  "Violent right-wing extremism" would be the perfect excuse for banning the voice of liberty from the airwaves with an emergency "fairness doctrine."  So what can freedom-loving, traditional Americans do?

Without the Consent of the Governed.  Now that Obama & Co. have found the legislative mechanisms to subvert the Law of the Land on the federal health care grab, they intend to rush forward with the passage of "financial reform" — "energy reform" — and "Immigration reform" — none of which are any type of "reform." ... They plan to advance their anti-American agenda no matter how many stand opposed, and in such a manner that it can never be reversed.

Pelosi sends chill.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered a most disturbing promise to PBS's Jim Lehrer on Wednesday [3/24/2010], proudly announcing that the methods employed and nearly employed to force ObamaCare on the American people (formerly the most free people on the planet) would, from this day forward, serve as her "model for future reforms."  Chilling words, indeed.

Congress and the incredible shrinking Constitution.  The House of Representatives [voted] on the SENATE health-care bill, which is illegal.  The Constitution mandates that "all Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."  What happened in this case is that the Senate took an unrelated bill that originated in the House, amended it by completely removing the previous provisions and then substituting 2,400 pages of bureaucracy-creating, money-stealing, rights-restricting health-care reform.  This is a blatant end run around the Constitution, and means that Congress can do anything it wants.

Forbes:  Is a Chavez-Style Media Crackdown Coming to America?  "Many of [Hugo] Chavez's most ardent supporters here in the U.S. come out of the 'media reform' movement, which believes that our corporate media has been thoroughly co-opted by capitalists bent on destroying the benevolent leadership of the likes of Chavez.  They think that our capitalist-plagued media world is in dire need of reform."  So ominously wrote Steve Forbes Wednesday [3/24/2010] in an article guaranteed to make right-thinking Americans from coast to coast wonder what's next in the Left's plans to control the press.

Obama Considers 'Zoning the Oceans'.  In requiring industries to disclose financial risks related to global warming and assessing national security concerns from rising sea levels, the administration has made an end run around Congress to ensure climate change is part of the national agenda.  One of the more insidious endeavors to implement climate change regulations without congressional action has been the administration's recent effort to regulate the oceans.  With very little fanfare, President Barack Obama quietly issued a memorandum last summer establishing an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force charged with developing recommendations for a national policy for oceans and coasts and the Great Lakes.

The coming of an American Reichstag?  While published reports confirm that Capitol Police have been contacted and are addressing security concerns of lawmakers and the incidents of vandalism, the involvement of federal agencies has not been publicly disclosed, nor will it likely be on any official level.  The reason, according to this source, is that high-level discussions between top lawmakers and agency heads are "exploring the application of the Patriot Act against any right-wing individual or group that poses a danger to government operations."

No Limits on Federal Power?  Every power the federal government has through the commerce clause is one the state has never had.  If everything that affects interstate commerce (which, by today's standards, is every imaginable activity) can be federally regulated, then the states never had any power.  If the states have no exclusive regulatory power, then they are simply temporary custodians of federal power until the federal government chooses to retake that power.  That states have no exclusive power is an absurd conclusion.  But it is not easy to see now because the federal government "discovers" one power at a time.  But if all activities affect interstate commerce, then what other conclusion is there?

'Commerce Clause' Totalitarians.  Make no mistake:  Congress is telling Americans that we are required to engage in commerce, whether we like or not — simply because we exist.  And the fundamental question Americans should be pondering as a result, is this:  if Congress can force you to engage in a particular activity against your will, if they can literally eliminate the freedom to choose not to engage in commerce, what is it they can't regulate?  Answer:  absolutely nothing — and that is the essence of tyranny.

Stop kicking in our doors, Madame Speaker.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used an unexpected analogy Monday [3/15/2010] during a conference call with liberal bloggers to discuss Obamacare, saying "once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow."  At least four things need to be said about Pelosi's braggadocio.

Their Real Agenda:  Today's Democrats aren't interested in constitutional or traditional limitations on government.  They want to remake American life based on their notions of what's ideal, and they are more than willing to force leftward change on an ostensibly free people.  While this has been clear for some time, it still rocks us a bit when they acknowledge such plans out loud.  The loudest came Monday when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of bloggers that turning the Democratic Party leaders' health care overhaul into law would embolden them to drive America away from its roots of liberty and independence.  "Kick open that door, and there will be other legislation to follow," she said.  "We'll take the country in a new direction."

Yet Another Government Takeover:  Student Loan Edition.  [Scroll down]  Since 1965, the Federal Family Education Loan Program has helped tens of millions of students and parents by providing low-cost, federally guaranteed loans. ... Yet right now, the Majority in Congress and the President want to make it more difficult to pay for college by putting the government between you and the money you need to pay for higher education.  The Administration wants to end FFELP in favor of a 100 percent Direct Loan program.  Under this approach, the federal government will become the sole originator and collector of student loans, forcing the roughly 4,000 schools who have chosen FFELP to the government-run alternative.

ObamaCare is Tyranny, Not Legislation.  What we're seeing in Washington, D.C. is not "politics as usual" with the arm twisting and "horse trading" that is typical in getting a bill passed; instead, it is ideological warfare.  What Obama, Reid and Pelosi are doing is not legislating; it is an act of tyranny — overturning all the rules and principles of government in a representative democracy. ... Apparently Obama, Reid and Pelosi aren't worried about losing control of Congress in 2010 or even the presidency in 2012, because their higher goal is to irrevocably institutionalize their ideology.

Why Obama, Pelosi, and Reid Won't Quit Pushing Health Care Reform:  Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are decidedly pale reds, or as was said in an earlier generation, "pinkos."  But all three have grand ambitions, make no mistake, to achieve through imposition the social — or should it be said, socialist — democracy that lies with deadening weight across the width and breadth of Western Europe.  These three Democratic leaders are working within our system of government to fundamentally alter government's relationship to the people.  If these three succeed, the American experiment in liberty will effectively end.

The Healthcare Bill Would Be Obama's 'Enabling Act'.  Why are Barack Obama and other Democrat leaders so intent on passing a government takeover of healthcare now…Now…NOW?  They must know that costs will rise and the quality of care will fall, right?  They must know that Obamacare would destroy the economy, right?  Of course they do.  But, they also know that the federal government would tighten its grip on the nation.

We, The People EPA.  It's been a pattern of this administration that if the American people are adamantly opposed to it, ram it through anyway.  So it's been with the health care overhaul, offshore drilling restrictions and now the Environmental Protection Agency threatening to become the uber-regulator of the air we breathe.  The New York Times says in a Saturday [3/13/2010] editorial regarding that last item that if Congress fails to enact cap-and-trade legislation such as Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer, the EPA should jam it down our throats.

Serfs They Want Us To Be And Serfs We Will Become!  That's right.  It's over.  Their guns are bigger.  They control all the money.  They control the energy.  They control the land.  They control the food and they control the water.  Soon they will control our health care, down to the last detail on our electronic health care records being stored in a giant computer in Washington DC, from which they can determine if we are worthy of receiving health care.  The older we get, the less worthy we become.

Should It Be Illegal to Be a Jew in Massachusetts?  New legislation now being proposed in the Massachusetts state legislature to ban circumcision of any male children, including Jewish children, comes very close to saying, "Yes, it should be a crime."  Circumcision of infant males has been a requirement of Jewish faith and identity since the time of Abraham.  Meanwhile, just a year ago this week, two very powerful state legislators in Connecticut proposed a bill that would have had the government take over the finances of the Catholic Church.  (It took a rally drawing thousands of folks to the state capitol to persuade them to withdraw the measure.)

Consent of the governed — and the lack thereof.  According to a recent Rasmussen Poll, only 21 percent of American voters believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.  On the other hand, Rasmussen notes, a full 63 percent of the "political class" believe that the government enjoys the consent of the governed. ... The remainder, presumably, are comfortable being tyrants.  These numbers should raise deep worries about the future of our republic.

What's so smart about 'smart meters?'  Maybe it's just me, but there is something unsettling about having a smart meter tracking my power consumption.  Will there come a day when excessive power usage will be treated as a crime?  Who will determine what is excessive?

The Editor says...
The so-called "smart power grid" is one of several "great ideas" that may not be so great after all.

Obama and the Government Employees:  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, Big Brother, like many big brothers, has become a bully.  The Internal Revenue Service is on a hiring binge to crack down on taxpayers; fees on candy, plastic bags, iPod downloads, sugar, and many other things that make life fun are going up and up; our tax rates are inflating; and studies show that there has even been an explosion in parking tickets and fines for every picayune sort of "violation" that the bureaucrats can dream up in all their spare time — phantom taxes, they have been called.  The leviathan must be fed.

The Nanny State Nightmare with Judicial Teeth.  A bill before Congress would grant extraordinary power to activist judges to implement an agenda that usurps the power of parents.

The Content of Obama's Character.  [Scroll down slowly]  Another disquieting note is the overarching theme of Obama's first year of governance:  the determination to govern against the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, which states that government gains its just powers from the consent of the governed.  The American people do not consent to the $787-billion stimulus.  They do not consent to the cap-and-trade bill.  They do not consent to the federalization of health care.

Obama to California 'Water, Its Not a Right its a Privilege'.  On the list of insane public policy moves we have come to expect from the current administration, Cap and Tax, Obamacare and Union Card Check, a fourth has garnered relatively little attention, although the implications for all Americans may be among the most far-reaching.  The recurring theme is centralized control.

Privacy.  In a hearing at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in an effort to overturn a lower court ruling, the Administration argued that a cell phone user has no expectation of privacy therefore the government can subpoena any and all cell phone records at any time for virtually any reason without the need for search warrant issued by a judge. ... Is the real motive to spy on US citizens?  On the surface it certainly appears so.

EPA's plan to set water-quality standards in Florida, a national first.  In a move cheered by environmental groups, the federal government on Friday [1/15/2010] proposed stringent limits on "nutrient" pollution allowed to foul Florida's waterways.  The ruling — which will cost industries and governments more than a billion dollars to comply — marks the first time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has intervened to set a state's water-quality standards.

More information (none of it favorable) about the EPA.

The Taser's Edge.  The late Sam Francis once wrote about something he called "anarcho-tyranny."  Simply put, it's the growing tendency of the government to harshly treat ordinary citizens over even the most minor infractions while at the same time treating violent predators — real criminals — with disinterest and often minimal punishment relative to their deeds.  The growing use of "shock therapy" — tasers — on motorists who've committed minor traffic infractions such as failing to wear a seat belt or who grumble under their breath while being issued speeding tickets is Exhibit A.

Housing as Busing.  With a Westchester decision, the feds decree that neighborhoods must seek minority residents.

Ray Stevens:  Music Icon Takes On Obamacare.  Ray has been working steadily since 1958 and has won every music award you can imagine.  But he's not concerned about his status; he's worried about the future of his country.  "It's not about health care it's not about cap and trade... it's about control.  These people are socialists and Marxist and they want control and they want to be the elite ruling class and that's not what America is and America needs to wake up, and I think we are, finally, and kick the bums out," he told me.

The impudent tyranny of Harry Reid.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is proving once again the maxim that darkness hates the light.  Buried in his massive amendment to the Senate version of Obamacare is Reid's anti-democratic poison pill designed to prevent any future Congress from repealing the central feature of this monstrous legislation.

Making criminals out of all Americans.  There are now more than 4,000 federal crimes, spread out through some 27,000 pages of the U.S. Code.  Some years ago, analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offenses on the books, and gave up, lacking the resources to get the job done.  If teams of legal researchers can't make sense of the federal criminal code, obviously, ordinary citizens don't stand a chance.

Democracy Under Arrest.  Universal jurisdiction originated centuries ago to deal with hostes humani generis ("the enemies of all mankind") such as pirates or slavers, who were not under any state's control but legitimately concerned them all.  It has grown explosively in recent years, as self-styled human-rights advocates have pushed to criminalize national actions that they find offensive.

The airport is a police state.
Military Blogger Michael Yon Detained, Handcuffed by TSA in Seattle Airport.  [Scroll down slowly]  Yon described the TSA officials as noticeably frustrated by his refusal to answer their questions:  "I always assume everything is being recorded.  I was trying to be professional."  Yon continued, "They said I wasn't under arrest, but I'm handcuffed.  In any other country, that qualifies as an arrest." ... "TSA people are out of control," he said.  "They are not doing their jobs, they are harassing people, creating animosity.  They ask you 'what time is your connective flight?' and they bully you until you miss the flight."

Interpol, In Your Midst.  None of us can object to a police force, or an army, because humankind is too adept at being stupid and wicked.  But, when a police force or army are used against the people they are meant to protect, they become agents of the wicked who wish to control us.

Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?  You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is.  One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law. ... That is, Interpol's property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable.  This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.

Executive Order Amended Immunizing INTERPOL In America — Is The ICC Next?  [Scroll down]  For an added and disturbing wrinkle, INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices.  They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department.  That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with "inviolable archives" from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds. ... American sovereignty hangs in the balance if these actions are not prevented through public outcry and political pressure.

Interpol — From the Inside.  Well, Interpol has certainly started a tidal wave!  My inbox has been crammed with comments, from hostile to accepting, from ignorant to a pretence of knowledge.  I had one, indirectly, from someone who worked in Interpol Europe.  Also, many gun-owners tell me they would shoot it out with anyone who wants to arrest them for having guns.  I can only warn against a Waco conclusion if that happened.

Ron Paul's Hour of Power.  The decades-long campaign of Ron Paul to have the Government Accountability Office do a full audit of the Federal Reserve now has 313 sponsors in the House.  Sometimes perseverance does pay off. ... What opponents of Paul's audit are thus saying is that elected legislators must be kept out of the temple where the great decisions about the economy are made, that these decisions must rest with bankers and economists answerable, as is the Supreme Court, to themselves and no one else.

High Court Considers Whether Feds Can Make Everyone a Criminal.  The problem with government is that it tends to expand, including expanding its ability to throw people in jail.  Fortunately, the Constitution provides a check on this power.  Often these days, "due process" is used as a catchall to advance any number of legal theories, most of them liberal.  But one correct doctrine from the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment is that a statute can be "void for vagueness."

The ObamaCare Leviathan.  As the Democrats inexorably slog toward the finish line, lugging and wrenching their malformed health care bill, the most passionate debate has been on contentious issues like abortion, the public option, and Medicare cuts.  Yet the overriding danger of the Senate bill and its House counterpart is the massive government bureaucracies that will emerge as the legislation takes effect.

Another Federal Bludgeon.  Buried in the House financial reform is a provision that would muscle up the FTC and radically expand its mission.  Pushed by liberal barons Henry Waxman and Barney Frank, the language would empower the FTC to impose civil penalties on companies that are first-time offenders and make it easier for the agency to concoct new rules. ... Imaginative lawmakers will have all sorts of ideas for how to use the new powers.

Global Warming as a Political Tool.  As part of the enduring statist desire to penetrate ever deeper into every nook and cranny of our lives, Greens have wanted to find a way for the government to regulate CO2, a natural byproduct of fire and breathing, for decades.  Now they can.  That is why the White House will use [Lisa] Jackson as a Medusa's head, to petrify cap-and-trade opponents with the prospect of something even worse:  the effective seizing of the means of production.

More about the Environmental Protection Agency.

When government slippery slope goes vertical.  Libertarians often warn about the slippery slope of government intervention:  Let the government run the schools, and it may end up teaching your children values that offend you.  Let the government have new powers to fight terrorism, and it may use those extraordinary powers in the pursuit of ordinary crimes.  Let the federal government give the states money for highways, and it may eventually use its money to impose its own rules on the states.



"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
  is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
Thomas Jefferson          

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2023 by Andrew K. Dart

The U.S. House of Presumptuous Meddlers.  As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.  I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.

Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists.  In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.  The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

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.

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.

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.

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 or tollway charges.]

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?

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.

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.

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.

Ten Thousand Commandments 2011.  Thanks to the bailouts and other amplified spending, CBO projects a FY 2011 deficit of a previously unthinkable $1.48 trillion, greater than FY 2010's actual deficit of $1.294 trillion.  With the unveiling of the 2012 budget, President Obama projects an even larger FY 2011 deficit than CBO does:  $1.645 trillion.  This figure will be the largest deficit since World War II, at 11 percent of the entire U.S. economy.

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.

10,000 Commandments (2010 edition).  Precise regulatory costs can never be fully known, because, unlike taxes, they are unbudgeted and often indirect.  But scattered government and private data exist on scores of regulations and on the agencies that issue them, as well as on regulatory costs and benefits.  Some of that information can be compiled to make the regulatory state somewhat more comprehensible.

Earlier issues of "10,000 Commandments":
[1996] [1999] [2001] [2002] [2003] [2004] [2005] [2006] [2007] [2008] [2009]




"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.

The Editor says...
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.

The Right to Work:  The people of Louisiana must sleep soundly knowing that their state protects them from ... unlicensed florists.  That's right.  In Louisiana, you can't sell flower arrangements unless you have permission from the government.  How do you get permission? You must pass a test that is graded by a board of florists who already have licenses.

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].



FEMA:

This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here.



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."

The Editor says...
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.

The Editor says...
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.

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.


"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  




The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act:

Financial disaster awaits in "reform" bill.  Anytime Congress passes a 2,300-page law that creates more than 500 new regulations and sets up a new, complicated bureaucracy, we should be nervous. ... Its Democratic supporters claim it was necessary to prevent another economic meltdown like the one we suffered in 2008.  But no one knows whether it will do any such thing.

Obama's Latest Monstrosity.  The 2,315 page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that President Obama will sign today [7/21/2010] should not be called "financial reform."  Instead the bill, which passed the Senate 60-39 last week when Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown joined Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to grant cloture, should be called what for what it is:  pages and pages of massively costly, counterproductive and possibly unconstitutional mandates on nearly every type of business except for those government-sponsored enterprises at the root of the crisis.

Fight Over Consumer Agency Looms as Overhaul Is Signed.  President Barack Obama on Wednesday [7/21/2010] signed into law the most sweeping financial overhaul since the Depression, putting the country on a course toward a more muscular regulatory framework.  But one provision that barely survived will have the most direct bearing on millions of ordinary people's lives:  a new agency meant to protect consumers from abusive financial products, called the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Obama's Failing Presidency.  I wouldn't wade through the 2600 pages of the financial reform bill at gunpoint, but I don't have to.  All I need to do is look at the title page featuring the names of the chief sponsors, Dodd and Frank.  The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act.  This is the equivalent of the Capone-O'Bannion crime-control bill.  If any politicians are up to their necks in the chicanery that led to the latest crash, it's that pair.  Frank's most recent paramour held a high position at Fannie Mae, while Dodd was snagging payoffs right and left.  In a just world they'd be in custody, not sponsoring bills.

SEC Says New Financial Regulation Law Exempts it From Public Disclosure.  So much for transparency.  Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Precarious First Amendment.  The DISCLOSE Act — a nefarious attempt to do through the backdoor that which the Supreme Court barred by the front door, namely government regulation of First Amendment?protected speech — is dead for now.  It is a lesson in how precarious is our attachment to basic constitutional values.

Only in Washington Is This Transparency.  The Senate Democrats' "DISCLOSE" Act — "DISCLOSE" stands for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections" — represents perhaps the baldest, if failed, power grab attempted this year.  But you wouldn't guess it reading news stories on the bill.  As The New York Times reported, "The Senate on Tuesday refused to take up a bill that would require more disclosure of the role of corporations, unions and other special interests in bankrolling political advertisements, after Democrats failed to persuade even one Republican to support it."





Temporary (I hope) subsection about Jade Helm 15:

Update:
Jade Helm; they're baaack.  One of our friends sent a link to the news that if you missed Jade Helm 15, the good news is that Jade Helm 16 is in the works.

Jade Helm 16 Is Training to Withhold Food From the American People.  Jade Helm is back and it is back and it is back with a vengeance.  Jade Helm 15 has morphed into Unconventional Warfare Exercise 16 (UWEX 16).  UWEX 16 is about fighting a civil war against rogue American troops who will, presumably, not go along with the imposition of tyranny under the banner of the UN flag with the complicit support of foreign troops.

Somewhat related:
'Earthquake' in Florida was actually a naval explosion.  A tremor reported on July 16 off the coast of Florida was not an earthquake, but a Naval test explosion.  The U.S. Geological Survey now lists the event on its earthquake hazards page as an "experimental explosion by the U.S. Navy." [...] USGS instruments measured the blast as a magnitude-3.7 earthquake, which would have been a rare seismic event in the tectonically quiet region.  Florida sits on the passive margin of the North American continental plate, meaning that temblors are rare.

Army war simulation decried by archconservatives begins in Texas.  Training will occur in Camp Swift near Bastrop and 12 Texas counties, with airborne operations next month at Camp Bullis, near San Antonio.

Controversial Military Exercise 'Jade Helm 15' Ends Without Government Takeover of Texas.  I've got good news about the Special Operations forces military exercise designated Jade Helm 15.  You may recall the many conspiracy theories surrounding the exercise, mostly centered on the notion that the Special Operations forces were rehearsing for a government takeover of Texas in advance of declaring martial law.  That theory was buttressed by a map showing several southwestern states marked as "hostile territory."  Well, you can relax, mostly.  The Pentagon announced that the exercise is now over.

Jade Helm 15: Controversial military exercise starts.  Starting Wednesday, U.S. Army Special Operations Command will take point on a large-scale training exercise in Texas — or if you believe some fringe outlets, they'll take point on the Pentagon's preparation for civil war.  Jade Helm 15, as the exercise is called, will run through Sept. 15 and will involve unconventional warfare involving Army special operators, as well as representatives from the other services.  It will focus on enhancing team-level elements' abilities to operate in asymmetric warfare well-removed from company- and battalion-level organization, said USASOC spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria.

Volunteer watchdog group dispatches to western states to monitor 'Jade Helm'.  A controversial U.S. military training exercise known as "Operation Jade Helm" rolls out this week across several southwestern states — but a group of wary citizen watchdogs will be keeping an eye on them.  Pete Lanteri, a former Marine now living in Arizona, told FoxNews.com that volunteer members he's helped organize will be on the ground as part of a newly formed surveillance campaign called "Counter Jade Helm."  A product of mounting suspicions across western states over the exercise itself, the group has been set up to locate, track and observe U.S. soldiers — Green Berets, Air Force Special Ops, Navy SEALs — training across the Southwest.

Jade Helm 15: Movement In Texas, New Mexico, Florida, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, Indiana.  In this video I cover reports of military movement from across the country. People continue to see convoys and other odd things, in places they have Never seen witnessed this type of activity.  Recent reports cover the states of Texas, New Mexico, Florida, Indiana Kansas Michigan and Illinois.  All of this latest activity coming just days before Jade Helm 15 is set to kick off.  [Video clip]

Texans organize 'Operation Counter Jade Helm' to keep an eye on the federal troops.  The U.S. Military will bring over a thousand troops as well as aircraft and heavy vehicles to Texas and six other southwestern states for Operation Jade Helm — an unprecedented special operations training exercise.  A civilian group has organized to monitor the training, including companies in Texas that plan to post up at each drill site in the Lone Star State.

FBI Now Going Door-To-Door Interrogating Americans About Jade Helm Military Exercises.  Are you being watched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of your concerns about an overbearing government?  The answer should be obvious given the nature of America's budding surveillance state and a new video shows just how far law enforcement officials are willing to go to protect the Homeland from anyone who engages in the dissemination of ideas that are counter to the official narrative.  As you'll see in the footage below, if you show concern or are outspoken about the upcoming Jade Helm 15 military exercises, then you may be getting a personal home visit from the FBI. [Video clip]

Changes needed in Jade Helm military exercises.  Over the past few weeks, my office has been inundated with calls referring to the Jade Helm 15 military exercise scheduled to take place between July 15 and September 15, 2015.  This military practice has some concerned that the U.S. Army is preparing for modern-day martial law.

Why is Jade Helm 15 play spreading way out into West Texas?  As readers know who've been following LU coverage of the Jade Helm saga, I don't believe the exercise is a pretext for invading Texas or violating U.S. law.  I do think it sets a bad precedent by putting U.S. soldiers in local communities, to hold an exercise that will involve running around on private and local public property.  This is not something the American people should ever get used to or agree to accept.  No training requirement trumps the importance of maintaining our non-militarized public environment.  No training requirement, period.  A non-militarized public environment in our communities was a core goal of the American Revolution, and has remained indispensable to our national understanding of liberty.

45 percent fear Jade Helm [is] a government power grab.  A sizable percentage of likely U.S. voters believe that the military's weeks-long, multi-state Jade Helm 15 exercise could lead to increased federal control in the areas where it takes place.  A majority of Americans, however, still say they support the exercise.

Unclear Dangers.  In the past few weeks, a certain map has been causing a lot of discussion online and, particularly, in Texas.  It shows seven states in the Southwest color-coded as red and "hostile" (Texas, Utah), or blue and "permissive" (California, Colorado, Nevada), or designated "uncertain" but leaning toward hostile (New Mexico) or toward friendly (Arizona).  The map also features a circle zeroing in on Texas and acronyms associated with the military.  To numerous observers, its meaning is clear:  it is a plan for a U.S. military takeover of Texas and beyond, or, perhaps, a rehearsal for civil war and the enforcement of martial law. Resistance is anticipated in some areas, such as the part of Southern California marked as an "insurgent pocket."  The Pentagon quickly explained that the map was actually a prop in a large-scale but routine training exercise called Jade Helm 15, scheduled to take place this summer.

The Real Jade Helm Conspiracy Nuts.  Let's say I take that at purely face value, which I am inclined to, particularly reading the NY Times article given the slant they put on it and the accusations made about Texans.  Now please explain, if this is a training exercise for overseas readiness, as the NY Times has claimed, why is it that the DEA and FBI are involved in any way with this exercise, including in providing interrogation services — because they allegedly are. [...] Neither of those agencies have an overseas operational role and in fact they're both prohibited by law from operating outside the borders of the United States.  Therefore I would like the NY Times to explain to this ordinary guy why the DEA and FBI would be involved in any fashion with such an exercise if the intended operational use of such training is overseas [...]

Abbott Asks State Guard To Monitor U.S. Military Exercise.  Gov. Greg Abbott has asked the state guard to monitor a multi-state U.S. military exercise dubbed "Jade Helm 15" in response to concerns about a looming government takeover of some communities in Texas, which, along with Utah and California, is labeled as hostile territory for purposes of the training.  Abbott's request Tuesday [4/28/2015] came after some residents of Bastrop County questioned a U.S. Army commander during a town hall meeting about whether the government was planning to confiscate guns or implement martial law.

Army war simulation in Texas sparks fear, response from governor.  Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday [4/28/2015] asked the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise dubbed "Jade Helm 15" amid Internet-fueled suspicions that the war simulation is really a hostile military takeover.  The request comes a day after more than 200 people packed a meeting in rural Bastrop County and questioned a U.S. Army commander about whether the government was planning to confiscate guns or implement martial law. Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape said "conspiracy theorists" and "fear mongers" had been in a frenzy.

Ted Cruz Says He Has Asked the Pentagon for Answers on Jade Helm 15.  Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Saturday [5/2/2015] that he'd been hearing concerns about Jade Helm 15, a domestic military training exercise that has become a fount of conspiracy theories, and that he wanted questions about it to be answered.

Related story:
Under attack: Army, Air Force helicopters to train at just 200 feet high in D.C.  Washington will shudder with the thump, thump, thump of Army and Air Force helicopters flying just one-third of the way up the Washington Monument — 200 feet — during a training mission Wednesday [6/24/2015], the military announced.  The Joint Force Headquarters said the training will help the services prepare for emergency preparedness for both natural and manmade "disasters."

Another related story:
Mission accomplished in Barstow.  [Scroll down]  Well, it all came full circle last Wednesday night [8/5/2015] when the U.S. Army held a joint forcible entry operation training exercise at Fort Irwin National Training Center called Operation Dragon Spear.  It put the Army's finest weaponry on display during a land assault at sunset and an air assault in the early morning.  Among the three-star and four-star generals, defense officials and Rep. Paul Cook were about a dozen media members.  I joined a photographer to represent the Desert Dispatch. The Riverside Press Enterprise sent a reporter and photographer as well.  A reporter from Army News was a witness.




Obama's use of HUD to forcibly integrate wealthy neighborhoods

Introduction by The Editor:
Barack H. Obama hates America and really hates capitalism.  He can't stand to see luxurious neighborhoods in which the wealthy can live in relative peace and quiet, knowing that the senseless violence against strangers, the random gunshots, the constants stream of sirens in the streets, and the junk cars in the neighbors' yards are all on the other side of town.  No, Barack H. Obama, just like Satan himself, wants to bring chaos into systems where there is currently order.  He wants to fix that which is not broken.  Is he insane?  Maybe.  But what he's really up to is reverse gerrymandering.  If he can't redraw Congressional districts to dilute the white vote, enough to get contested races within the range of voter fraud, he'll integrate the white neighborhood with guaranteed Democrat voters:  America's deadweight.  Those who depend on government checks, EBT cards and housing subsidies.

We Thought We Were Free.  [Scroll down]  For example, on Monday [4/4/2016] the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released new guidelines warning that it is a form of "racial discrimination" for landlords to refuse to rent to those with criminal records due to racial imbalances in the U.S. justice system.  The new federal housing guidance applies a legal standard that was upheld by the United States Supreme Court last year under the guise of "disparate impact" which allows plaintiffs to challenge housing practices that have a discriminatory effect without having to show discriminatory intent.  Meaning, plaintiffs can now sue landlords without having to prove actual discrimination exists by using statistics that show minorities are "disparately impacted."

Farmers fight for the right to repair their own tractors.  Farmers in Nebraska, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New York are staging something of a mechanical revolt.  They're attempting to get legislation passed in their states that would enable them, for the first time since the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to repair their own tractors or get an independent mechanic to help.  At the root of the morass is the software that helps run modern tractors and their sensors, diagnostic tools, and other high-tech elements.  If farmers so much as open the metaphorical hood to check out the computers they could be violating the federal act, reports Modern Farmer.

Obama Is The Last Person To Turn To For Healing And Peace.  [Scroll down]  The Democrats have established their future voting block and re-election efforts on poor people, disproportionately black under the Obama administration, whose population is also disproportionately unemployed and poorly educated with no fathers in the home and whose mothers are swamped with too many welfare children to raise alone on a barely existent welfare budget and living in crime-ridden areas.  And what is Obama's idea to help welfare recipients?  He wants their sub-standard buildings constructed in traditionally middle-class neighborhoods, not to help the welfare recipients, but to stick a finger in the eye of hard-working, middle class Americans, destroy the value of their homes and make them subject to living in high crime neighborhoods.  Every program and policy of the Obama administration, and liberal policy in general, only make matters worse and lessens the quality of life for all Americans.

Federal Officials Push To Urbanize Suburbia Under New HUD Regulation.  In its final months, the Obama administration has set up a strategy to bring inner city living to the suburbs by deploying three federal agencies to dictate to states and local communities how to set up schools, housing and mass transit.  It's all part of a federal push to reduce economic and racial segregation in favor of diversity.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) expanded the reach of its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule to two other federal agencies: the Department of Transportation and the Department of Education.

Forced integration of the public schools — just like 1960!
DOE creating team to bring diversity to elite schools.  The Department of Education wants to bolster minority enrollment at the city's elite high schools with a set of new reforms slated to kick off this summer.  Officials said black and Hispanic students comprise 68 percent of city school students but only make up 11 percent of specialized high school enrollment.  To combat the disparity, the DOE will roll out new initiatives to address the longstanding frustration.  Outreach teams will connect with high performing black and Latino kids at the junior high school level and encourage them to apply to the elite campuses.  They also will provide entrance exam tutoring for minority applicants to improve their chances of admission.

Defunding HUD's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule.  [Scroll down]  In 2008, the city of Dubuque was struggling to meet the needs of its own public-housing residents.  Yet in stepped HUD, declaring that the city's housing policies would fail to meet the agency's fair-housing standards — and that, therefore, the city would be ineligible to receive federal funding from HUD — unless the local government actively recruited Section 8 voucher holders from Chicago.  Unwilling to lose access to federal funding on which the city had come to rely, the small Iowan town acquiesced to HUD's demands.  This imposed an enormous administrative burden on the city's resource-strapped housing agencies, but HUD's real victims were Chicago's public-housing residents who were forcibly displaced to an unknown town 200 miles from the city they used to call home.

Levin: That 'Sleazy, Good for Nothing' Mitch McConnell Screwed the Suburbs Today.  On Thursday evening's [5/19/2016] radio program, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin explained how Senate Republicans worked together to give political cover to the Democrats today, turning their guns on their own side.  Earlier the Senate voted on Obama's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) "war on the suburbs" program, and Sen. Mitch McConnell maneuvered to kill an amendment by Senator Mike Lee to defund it.

GOP Leaders Toss Loin Cloth to Democrats on Obama's War on Suburbs.  Former Sen. Jim DeMint used to say he'd rather have 30 principled conservative Republicans in the Senate than 60 liberal Republicans like Arlen Specter.  Even many conservatives were skeptical of his strategy at the time.  To this very day, many conservatives are convinced that you must always support the GOP nominee for Congress in a general election, even if he wasn't the conservative you wanted in the primary.  After all, it's always better to have some Republican in office than a Democrat, right?  Wrong!  And it's about time we learn that lesson.

The Most Important Battle of the Week:  Blocking Obama's War on the Suburbs.  The AFFH represents the worst form of social transformation without representation and is the capstone of Obama's effort to fundamentally transform America.  It is an ad hoc federal gerrymander to force local governments to impose low-income housing in areas HUD targets for social engineering while funneling funds to left-wing community organizing groups to transfer people from the inner city into suburban neighborhoods.  It represents one of the worst violations of federalism, property rights and the true ideals of equal opportunity expressed in the Declaration of Independence.  Every American has the right and opportunity to purchase property, housing or rentals in any part of the country.  However, the federal government has no constitutional power to mandate the breakdown of natural settlement and development for different neighborhoods and counties in order to enrich their favored NGOs.  Under the AFFH, HUD unilaterally decides that not enough individuals from a given race or ethnicity live in a particular jurisdiction.

Meet Julian Castro, who has big plans.  [Scroll down]  Understand that this means that fewer people will be taken out of truly horrible housing, because money will be directed to enable people to locate in upper-class suburbs, where most of the housing is luxury-class.  The fact that people work hard, earn money, and locate in enclaves of wealth, safety, and privacy is intolerable to the likes of Obama and Castro.  They must be forced to have neighbors who on their own could not afford such digs.  Castro is bringing down the hammer to smash resistance.

Obama's last act is to force suburbs to be less white and less wealthy.  Hillary's rumored running mate, Housing Secretary Julian Castro, is cooking up a scheme to reallocate funding for Section 8 housing to punish suburbs for being too white and too wealthy.  The scheme involves super-sizing vouchers to help urban poor afford higher rents in pricey areas, such as Westchester County, while assigning them government real-estate agents called "mobility counselors" to secure housing in the exurbs.  Castro plans to launch the Section 8 reboot this fall, even though a similar program tested a few years ago in Dallas has been blamed for shifting violent crime to affluent neighborhoods.  It's all part of a grand scheme to forcibly desegregate inner cities and integrate the outer suburbs.

Obama's War on America and Property.  Recently Baltimore County came to a settlement with the City over a scheme to colonize affluent County neighborhoods with HUD housing. [...] First it should be pointed out that integration was never the primary purpose of the Fair Housing Act or any subsequent legislation; the purpose was to grant civil rights to protected classes, allowing them to live where they choose.  Integration was a tool used to enforce civil rights in education, not in housing.  Nowhere is integration even implied as a fundamental right in the Constitution, nor is the benefits of living in a good neighborhood. [...] And since when is opportunity a civil right?

A Tragic Night.  [Scroll down]  [A]s a matter of public policy today neighborhoods are being engineered so that they are not homogeneous.  Government bureaucrats are quietly mixing together the upper class with the middle class with the working class with the impoverished and, of course, the clients of the welfare state.  Populations are being mixed together by government edict so neighborhoods are wondrously heterogeneous, mixing classes, races, and ethnic groups.  Who knows maybe there is a quota for gays and lesbians, or whatever the next trendy American lifestyle might be.  It is a perfect prescription for social unrest, even violence.  Just the other day it was reported that the city of Baltimore was setting aside millions of dollars to implement such social engineering in its suburbs.

Obama Administration Sticking it to Whitey.  [R]ecent events outside of Baltimore, MD suggest that enmity toward whites does afflict some Obama administrators and our proof, though short of the smoking gun standard, is probably as good as it gets.  In a nutshell, thanks to Washington's money and political pressure, thousands of poor blacks will now be re-located from Baltimore's slums to upgraded housing in the surrounding, nearly all-white suburbs.  Baltimore County will spend $30 million over the next decade to help private developers build 1000 homes for low-income African American families in affluent suburbs. [...] Total silence surrounds the inevitable costs for whites: loss of home equity, increased school violence, more crime, and the shredded social cohesion associated with imposed racial diversity and, in the long run, the costs of moving elsewhere.  Indeed, HUD is already anticipating white flight and is trying to impose rules that would forbid real estate agents from openly discussing the negative consequences forthcoming racial shift.

Private Property Ownership — the First American Right To Die Under Barack Obama's Tyranny.  The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule is federal enforcement of Sustainable Development Smart Growth Cities.  Until now there was at least a pretense that Smart Growth development was a local process.  That, of course, is what the American Planning Association (APA), Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and your city council have assured citizens.  Now, through the revelation of AFFH, it is clear that such development is a top-down dictatorship, overseen by the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  Announced July 16, 2015 by HUD Secretary Julian Castro, the excuse for the 377-page ruling is to prevent discrimination and achieve balanced and integrated living patterns for all citizens.  To achieve that goal, AFFH is specifically designed to move people out of rural areas into megacities and tightly control who may stay in reduced suburbs.

Obama's outrageous attempts to dictate the racial make-up of neighborhoods.  The political left has been trying to run other people's lives for centuries.  So we should not be surprised to see the Obama administration now trying to force neighborhoods across America to have the mix of people the government wants them to have.  There are not enough poor people living in middle class neighborhoods to suit the political left.  Not enough blacks in white neighborhoods.  Not enough Hispanics here, not enough Asians there.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the federal government the power to dictate such things.  But places that do not mix and match people the way Washington wants them to can lose all sorts of federal money they currently receive under numerous programs.

Can Obamazone Be Stopped?  Who controls the zoning in your town — your local elected government or Barack Obama?  Who controls decisions in your neighborhood about where schools, shopping malls, and apartment buildings are located — your local elected government or Barack Obama?  Who controls whether you live in a densely packed neighborhood with real barriers to travel by automobiles, or a car-friendly bedroom suburb — you or Barack Obama?  That's what Congress is about to decide.

Congress must stop Team Obama's plan to radically reengineer America's neighborhoods.  The Obama administration's Housing & Urban Development department is embarking on a social engineering experiment that wipes out one of the fundamental functions of local government — making neighborhood zoning decisions.  Through its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation, the president is seeking to diminish both liberty and local autonomy — hoping to supplant the foundational American ideal of equality of opportunity with the far left's vision of imposed egalitarian outcomes.  As former local elected officials, one as mayor of Cincinnati and the other as a town councilman in a small Maryland town, we are appalled at this brazen attempt to override the people's ability to determine where their local schools, strip malls, apartments and other types of homes are located.

America's Culture War Starts Claiming Victims.  Consider what's happening in Chappaqua, New York — hometown of presumed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.  As part of its Orwellian "neighborhood engineering" efforts, the administration of Barack Obama wants to force this Empire State hamlet to nullify its zoning ordinances to erect a low-income housing development.  Replete with racist assumptions of inferiority and intolerance, Obama's compulsory integration permits government meddling in one of our most basic freedoms — where we choose to live.

How Political Machines End.  Ross Douthat, writing in the New York Times ruefully writes "I simply do not believe that the Obama Justice Department is going to indict the former secretary of state and Democratic front-runner for mishandling classified information, even if the offenses involved would have sunk a lesser figure's career or landed her in jail."  The observation is almost tantamount to arguing that the rule of law no longer exists; that the political class can literally do whatever it wants.

Big Brother Barack has a secret town by town, block by block racial database.  Remember last month when I said you should pay attention to the Supreme Court's affirmation of "disparate impact" lawsuits?  You know, the racial grievance industry's statistical tool to "prove" discrimination and guarantee equality of outcome and big paydays for the reparations crowd?  And remember too when I noted that Obama voided every zoning law in America in his quest for affordable housing?  Well, here's how his grand redistributionist scheme is playing out.  While we weren't looking, he took census data and built a humongous database to map the racial makeup of every city, town, neighborhood, and block in America.  It shows exactly how many minorities live on your street.

Obama's next target: The suburbs.  Obama the Utopian hopes to use both the federal Treasury and the federal club to coax Americans into neighborhoods planned by bureaucrats to perfectly reflect the nation's diversity.  No more rich town, poor town.  All towns will be places where everyone lives on the right side of the tracks in blissful harmony without any social barriers to separate them.  That's the vision of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule announced earlier this month by HUD Secretary Julian Castro.  It is a masterwork of social engineering that will allow the federal government to reshape nearly every neighborhood in the country to assure it has the correct income, racial and ethnic balances.

Massive Government Databases "That No One Has Ever Seen Before in Life".  Barack Obama is overseeing the building of massive databases that will be used to infuse social justice into every fiber of society and will redistribute wealth and resources throughout the nation.  He even has databases that will hold every imaginable piece of data on voters and politicians, the purpose of which could include control and manipulation.  Barack Obama is a social engineer with a disdain for many people and it is his conception.  Some of these databases were listed by the New York Post but I've added some they left out.  The Post article focused on the racially-oriented databases which Obama is setting up for social justice activists to exploit for time to come, but it's not limited to that.

Obama Is Building Massive Databases on Every American.  Some of these databases were listed by the New York Post but I've added some they left out.  The Post article focused on the racially-oriented databases which Obama is setting up for social justice activists to exploit for time to come, but it's not limited to that.  The Housing, Mortgage, Credit Card, Employment, and to some degree the Education Databases will be used for his Marxist reparations-redistribution of people and resources to blend city and suburb until the suburbs are no more and the poor and the criminal gangs live with the wealthy. [...] If this sounds Orwellian, it is.  The government is supposed to be here to serve us, not the other way around.  As you go through the list of databases, imagine a gun registry in the hands of this man.

Obama's secret database forces 'racist' smear on innocent citizens.  While Obama has kept public attention on ObamaCare; the flooding of illegal aliens, including criminals and potential terrorists across the open southern border; while hollowing out the military and giving nuclear power to Iran, he has been surreptitiously building a data base that keeps all American citizens on file.  Obama's Orwellian data base will affect every facet of citizen life.  Your every move will be kept on file.  The data base mounted by the president includes a housing database, a mortgage database, a credit and employment database.  Your children, already tracked through school by Common Core, will be millions of statistics in Obama's educrat-run school database.

Obama's Diversity Police State and Government Mandated Racism.  Obama has brought racism to a whole new level in our government.  It's breathtaking in scope and breadth.  He is solidifying his legacy before leaving office with the unprecedented gathering of information on all of us and how we live to be used in racial databases.  Not only does the government already have such databases on police departments, they have created monster ones for almost every area of our lives to be used to forward "racial and economic justice" as we have never seen before as a nation.  Enforced diversity is racism.  Obama is already using the databases against institutions to penalize them and it will get much worse.

Also posted under Is Obama a racist?.

Kiss Chinatown goodbye under Obama data-mined racial quota system?  In the NY Post, Paul Sperry of the Hoover Institution, highlights how massive data mining by numerous branches of the Obama administration is set to light a fire nationwide even where there is no government-sponsored, or intentional private discrimination in order to recreate communities and businesses, Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database: [...] But it's more than government power abuse.  If carried to it's [sic] logical conclusion, the housing diversity initiative should result in communities with concentrated ethnicity — such as the Chinatowns, or Little Italy's, or increasingly, Little Koreas — being forced to diversity.  And don't forget areas, particularly in New York City, with solid concentrations of Orthodox or Hasidic Jews.

Obama's awesome new race database even more awesome than you imagined.  We recently discussed a story that wasn't particularly popular here (to be charitable) which dealt with a new White House plan to implement enforced neighborhood diversity in American towns and cities through the power and influence of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  The rest of the nation wasn't exactly pleased with the idea either, but it did raise some interesting questions.  One of the biggest among those was the puzzle of exactly how the federal government plans to figure out precisely how many people in each racial pigeonhole are living where and how they are interacting.  Is that sort of data even available to be used in making such determinations, assuming you wanted to do it?

Disparate Impact As Official U.S. Policy — White House Administration Gathering Racial Stats on Everything To Support Social Justice.  A key part of President Obama's legacy will be the fed's unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race.  The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of "racial and economic justice."  Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama's racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document "inequalities" between minorities and whites.

Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database.  A key part of President Obama's legacy will be the fed's unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race.  The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of "racial and economic justice." [...] This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make "disparate impact" cases against: banks that don't make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don't offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.  Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.  So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of "racial disparities" and "segregation," even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.

The 'Fundamental Transformation' of America's Neighborhoods.  America is now learning that on the painful road to 'fundamental transformation,' Barack Obama has plans to diversify suburbia.  The president's suburban justice plan is one where HUD tracks the racial and religious composition of American neighborhoods and then, doing away with the choice of established populations, makes changes to reflect Barack Obama's vision for a fairer, more equitable nation.  The policy that accomplishes this progressive goal is aptly dubbed "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" (AFFH).  A 2013 FOX News article titled "Obama administration using housing department in effort to diversify neighborhoods" claims that in conjunction with the federal government HUD will remake neighborhoods using data gathered from a "discrimination database."

Networks Censor Obama's Assault On Suburbs.  ABC, CBS and NBC refused to cover the administration's official unveiling of a policy as ambitious and politically radioactive as its socialized medicine scheme.  Under sweeping new regulations finalized last week, more than 1,250 municipalities across the country now must diversify neighborhoods through rezoning or risk losing billions in federal funding from the Housing and Urban Development Department.  Besides the fact that legal scholars view the federal mandate — whose goal is racially balancing the nation, ZIP code by ZIP code — as patently unconstitutional, it also threatens to import violent crime into the suburbs while lowering property values and negatively impacting local schools.  As kitchen table issues go, this is huge; yet the evening news didn't see it that way.  In fact, newscasts completely blacked out the issue after HUD released the rule last week.

Big 3 broadcast nets deep-six Obama's suburb-busting plan.  This is an issue that literally hits voters where they live, by using the denial of federal funding to override local control and force communities to provide low-income housing distributed to approved minority groups.  Investor's Business Daily reports that all three broadcast networks ignored the story that affects their viewers more directly than almost any other issue. [...] The gamble is that low-information voters simply will not notice.  And that gamble will pay off only if GOP candidates for president refuse to bring up the issue, fearful of offending minorities, and if social media remain silent.

The real goal of Obama's HUD rule.  Conservative commentators are writing about how the Obama administration's new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (AFFH), announced by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julian Castro will be a club to spread the housing wealth around a little. [...] However, I haven't read an article yet that points out what I think is really the goal of this HUD rule:  Voter re-distribution!  You didn't think those Dems really cared for the housing status of minorities did you?  You should know better by now!

Obama: Burn Down the Suburbs!  For years, the cities have been robbing the suburbs but they now have a scheme that will quickly end in a takeover of the suburbs by a leftist federal government.  HUD announced enforcement of its new 377-page rule called the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule which will allow them to move people from poor crime-ridden areas into "wealthy" suburbs.  It was announced by leftist Julian Castro Monday [7/13/2015].  The rule has force behind it.  Federal monies will be withheld and lawsuits accusing residents of racism will be filed.  Any town that takes federal funds will be transformed.

Liberals Should be Careful What They Wish For.  According to Wikipedia, Marin County, which may be America's most liberal, is 80% white, 5.5% Asian, and only 2.8% African-American.  This is obviously a place in need of more affordable housing:  the most recent census shows 61,264 single-family homes, compared with a measly 210 mobile homes and 1,316 multifamily residential units.  Those numbers show that Marin County desperately needs large, subsidized apartment complexes where minorities can live close to good job opportunities and schools.  More mobile home parks, too.  In the 2014 governor's race, by the way, Marin County voted 78% for the Democrat and 22% for the Republican.  So I am sure a majority of its residents will applaud the Obama administration's new "fair housing" initiative and will welcome its application to their communities.

Obama: Federal gov't will integrate races into wealthy communities.  President Obama said Saturday [7/11/2015] he will use the power of the federal government to pressure communities to integrate low-income minorities into affluent areas.  Obama said his administration is implementing a new rule that will require communities to frequently review the racial and socio-economic makeup of local neighborhoods and regularly report the results to the federal government.

You Can't Keep Up with Obama's Incompetence, Corruption, and Hyperactivity.  Having wrecked the medical industry and nationalized the Internet, Obama now wants Washington to dictate the socioeconomic and demographic makeup of America's neighborhoods.  The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule is a 377-page federal regulation unveiled Wednesday [7/8/2015].  Federal ethnocrats now will dragoon local communities into adjusting their racial compositions, housing density, zoning, and other matters according to the whims of America's masters on the Potomac.

Your town doesn't have enough black people. Obama is going to fix that.  It doesn't matter what kind of neighborhood you want to live in.  Obama will dictate who moves in next door.  Obama will dictate what kind of house you'll be allowed to build.  Obama will dictate where you live, where you shop, where you work, and how you get around town.  It's the culmination of decades of "equality of outcome" nonsense spewed by the denizens of "fairness."  Because it's "unfair" that someone who worked hard all his life has a nicer house than someone who is sliding by on Section 8 vouchers.

New Obama housing rules target segregated neighborhoods.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) initiative is designed to diversify America's wealthiest neighborhoods while reinvigorating poor communities around the country.  Areas that don't comply with the new rules risk losing federal funding.  HUD Secretary Julián Castro said the new rules would help America "overcome the legacy of segregation" in this country, and give poor families a better opportunity to succeed.

Housing Redistribution: HUD Plans to Move Subsidized Housing Into Areas 'Rich With Opportunity'.  Although the Fair Housing Act bars discrimination, historic segregation patterns still exist in this country.  On Wednesday [7/8/2015], two weeks after getting the Supreme Court's okay, the Obama administration issued a final rule intended to move poor people "into communities that are rich with opportunity," as HUD Secretary Julián Castro phrased it in his news release.  The new regulation is all about "affirmatively furthering fair housing," HUD says.

Good intentions or power grab? HUD unveils regs to diversify neighborhoods.  The Obama administration announced new rules on Wednesday [7/8/2015] that are meant to racially integrate America's neighborhoods but some conservatives claim are an attempt by Washington to play a heavy-handed role in creating "utopias."  The new HUD housing rule comes on the heels of a landmark Supreme Court decision that reaffirmed the federal agency's power to ban housing policies that hurt minorities.  The Fair Housing Act, which originally was passed in 1968 and barred racial discrimination, demanded the government end segregation.

A Failed Affordable Housing Program in Washington, D.C.  Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro defended his department's new "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" program on Capitol Hill last week.  Designed to integrate low-income families into higher-income neighborhoods, the proposed rules would funnel federal grant money to developers who build medium- and low-cost residences in wealthier neighborhoods.  The basic idea — if you build it, they will come — has been tried before, in the nation's capital.

Feds accused of pushing 'utopias' in wealthy neighborhoods with diversity regs.  Congressional Republicans are trying to thwart a new federal housing rule they claim would allow Washington to play a heavy-handed role in trying to remake upscale neighborhoods as racially and economically diverse "utopias."  The forthcoming regulations, expected to be formally proposed later this month, would leverage grant money to try and bring more affordable options into these neighborhoods.  It would require local jurisdictions to report on their progress; they'd risk federal housing money if they don't.  But while the Department of Housing and Urban Development program essentially aims for more integration and equality, critics see a meddling federal government.

HUD War Against the Suburbs.  An African-American millionaire can buy a home in any expensive suburb.  Color is no longer a barrier.  Despite this progress, President Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development is accusing expensive towns of racism, simply because most minorities can't afford to live there.

Obama now wants to fundamentally transform your neighborhood (into a ghetto).  Obama is now making offers to debt-ridden municipalities that they dare not take. [...] Under the guise of Obama's Utopia, our president has been plotting for years the ultimate wealth redistribution here in America.  It's Marxist social and demographic engineering on a breathtaking scale.

Obama making bid to diversify wealthy neighborhoods.  The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America's wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire from critics who decry the proposal as executive overreach in search of an "unrealistic utopia."  A final Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule due out this month is aimed at ending decades of deep-rooted segregation around the country.

Obama Admin Wants "Economic Diversity" for Wealthy Neighborhoods.  One of the biggest stories of the day is the revelation that Rachel Dolezal, an NAACP leader from Spokane, is actually white and has been passing herself off as black.  The revelation came about by her parents.

Obama Admin Wants "Economic Diversity" for Wealthy Neighborhoods.  The City of Chicago has an interesting Section 8 philosophy that mandates apartment buildings — even the really fancy ones — have a certain number of abodes set aside to serve as Section 8 housing. [...] If the Obama Administration has its way, a similar program will expand from just high-cost high rise apartments to wealthy neighborhoods.

House Passes Gosar Amendment Defunding Obama's AFFH Housing Power Grab.  Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has been ringing alarm bells since 2012 about the "Radical in Chief's" plan to transform suburban neighborhoods by punishing state and local officials who don't integrate what the federal government considers the correct mix of citizens based on income, race, ethnicity, etc.

The Editor says...
In other words, Barack H. Obama is doing away with freedom of association:  the right to associate (or not) with whomever you please.




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