Guess What Else The Scotus Approved No One's Talking About?

 

In another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled today on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project that you can be held liable for housing discrimination whether or not you or anyone in your organization actually intended to discriminate.

Mere thought crimes - or as Justice Kennedy put it, “unconscious prejudice” or “stereotyping” are enough to get you sued in hiring, renting property or numerous other activities if your decision can be found to have 'disparate impact' on the favored protected groups.

This decision was deliberately left quite broad, and it's a wet dream for race pimps or 'community organizers,' not to mention predatory lawyers and the Obama Justice Department.

 

This nonsense has long been a part of employment law, especially in fascist progressive states like California. Asking someone about their criminal record, work history or credit can be seen as 'discriminatory' in the once Golden State, even if this might have a direct bearing on their suitability for a prospective position. Even references are a thing of the past as most employers will only confirm the person once worked there and will not disclose anything else, even if they were discharged for cause.

This is one reason many employers no longer hire employees per se, but independent contractors as needed.

Now this nonsense is going to be extended to the renting of property, extending credit and even local decisions on where to build housing. It can also be used to force property owners to rent to Section 8 tenants whether they want to or not. And again, things like credit, prior rental history or a prior criminal record don't matter provided the prospective tenant is part of one of those 'protected groups.' Somebody who's a registered sex offender wants to rent in your building, even though you have families with young children living there? Provided this person belongs to certain groups, you can be sued for your decision to rent to them or not for any reason based on 'disparate impact.'

In the actual case the SCOTUS ruled on, there's another wonderfully Kafka-esque twist. It involves a decision by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs on the location of low-income housing, and as the dissenting opinion points out, no matter where they decide to locate it, they can be sued on the grounds of 'disparate impact' by one group or another.

This also plays in nicely with the new Obama diktat on forced neighborhood diversity.

And you thought we lived in a free country?

'Constitution? What Constitution?' SCOTUS Saves ObamaCare

 

As I expected, The US Supreme Court today ruled to allow nationwide subsidies on ObamaCare even though they are clearly illegal according to the law as written. The Court's long awaited decision in King v. Burwell was 6-3 for Burwell, ruling that the federal subsidies can still be paid to states that elected not to establish an exchange, a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment as well as the explicit wording of the law.

Voting with Justices Ginsberg, Sontamayor and Breyer were Justices Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, whom wrote the majority opinion. While his opinion is a model of illogic and doublespeak, he at least had the honesty to admit that the Court's majority ignored the actual wording of the law itself as well as the Constitution:

“In this instance,” he wrote, “the context and structure of the act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.”

This was challenging, he said, because there were “more than a few examples of inartful drafting that “does not reflect the type of care and deliberation that one might expect of such significant legislation.”

Or to translate this, the law itself is so poorly written, nonsensical and contradictory that the Supreme Court, in its wisdom had to actually rewrite it in order to continue to foist it on the American people.

Justice Roberts is frankly admitting that in this case, politics trumps not only what the law says but the Constitution. This is a classic case of what Lawyers refer to as a Stare Decisis 'because we said so' ruling. The actual wording of the law is what Roberts and his cohorts think it should be rather than what it actually is.

Justice Scalia had the right if it, as he frequently does. He read his dissent from the bench, a rare sign of profound disagreement.

In his dissent, Scalia said that we should start calling ObamaCare, “SCOTUSCare.” At the end of his dissent, Scalia wrote, “[t]he somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

Or as Senator Ted Cruz said, if these justices want to write law rather then interpret it, "They should run for Congress."

He's exactly right. This is the second time the Supreme Court has rewritten this law, not to mention the times this president has unilaterally (and illegally, I might add) done so.

 

The current ruling went right to the heart of what ObamaCare is all about - reducing benefits, increasing co-pays and raising premiums sky high on the middle class to subsidize all those new migrants the president is bringing in...with, of course, exemptions for the well connected. That includes every member of the Supreme Court, their employees and their families.

Those of the middle class whom can't pay will be fined by the IRS..and those who can't afford the co-pays after paying the high premiums to avoid the fine will simply go without care.

 

This is so far away from the Constitution our Founders bequeathed us or even the normal standards of jurisprudence as to be ludicrous. When judges write law on the fly to suit themselves and their political agenda, then there is no justice and no law.

There are several things to take away from this that are simply self-evident truths.

The Left now noisily celebrating this should understand that this creates a precedent that can be used against them in the future in ways they won't like. Blatant disregard for justice and the law eventually comes home to roost for those whom champion it.

Second, this ruling doesn't change the basic nature of ObamaCare. It merely preserves it as a poorly written law that makes no fiscal or common sense whatsoever. Half of the exchanges are already bankrupt or headed that way, because most of those who signed up are people who are taking advantage of full subsidies and pay no premiums anyway. There's a limit to how far the fiction will stretch until it cracks.

As Europe is now finding out, you can have an immigration society or a lavish welfare state, just not both.Many of the migrants this president is bringing in are going to turn out to be net tax consumers rather than tax payers by a huge margin. States like California are already seeing this at work. Far from helping to cure the deficit, ObamaCare is now estimated to increase the long-term federal deficit by $6.2 trillion, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

As President Obama continues his amnesty by executive order, expect this figure to increase markedly.

Congress, of course, could still use the power of the purse to defund ObamaCare. Under the present leadership, I rate the chances of that as roughly the shy side of zero.

Why this is true is unimportant right now, although as I've speculated on these pages the unprecedented amount of spying on American citizens, the enormous amount of data collected and President Obama's past use of such weapons and tactics against his political opponents might be an answer. Apparently I'm not the only one thinking that way.

None of this matters, really. We can be outraged, justifiably so, but as I pointed out yesterday, what really is important right now is answering Tolstoy's question: what then must we do?

I've said before that America's destiny is either to reaffirm the republic our forefathers bequeathed to us or to become Rome. The powers that be have apparently decided they're fine with Rome as long as their perks and bottom line are taken care of. Unless we're prepared to go along with that as a population of pauperized serfs supporting their rule and whatever they decree, we are going to have to band together to institute massive political change using what left of our republic and our rights as citizens..before we lose those as well.

Think this over:

What principles do you stand for, and what are you not willing to compromise on?

What are you prepared to do to change things?


Stay tuned.

A Few Words On 'Discrimination' And Freedom

Now here's a small item that caught my attention.

Apparently a gay couple stopped at a popular restaurant called Big Earl's Bait House and Country Store in Pittsburg Texas, a middling sized town in the corner of northeast Texas where the Lone Star State meets Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Their story is as follows; they stopped for breakfast,paid up and were told by their waitress not to return because 'we don't serve fags here.'

My, my.

Big Earl Cheney, who owns the restaurant has a somewhat different story. The waitress happens to be his daughter, and Cheney says her choice of words was her own.

“I don’t think I should have to discipline her. I think the parents of those children — or kids or being whatever they are — should discipline them or teach ‘em how to act in public. I don’t think it’s my place to discipline her.”

Cheney's story is that the couple were, shall we say, acting out in public.In other words, their being gay had nothing to do with it, but their behavior did.

“What I saw was one of them half way under the table with his legs stretched out into the other guy’s lap. And he kind of looked really possum eyed at me as they say it in East Texas, he kind of looked at me like ‘uh-oh’.”

“Homosexuality, Blacks, Hispanics — they all come in here — everybody comes in here to eat,” said Cheney. “I’ve served my country for over 20 years; I know what my freedoms are.”

He continued, “I’m not gonna have people coming in here with their butt showing; I’m not gonna have people coming in here naked; I’m not gonna have people coming in here having sex on the tables.”

Now, that is a rather different message than the one his daughter was sending with 'we don't serve fags here.' I'll leave it to the reader to decide which one applies.

The couple claims nothing inappropriate was going on. I can accept that at face value, but I also recognize that what's inappropriate might be very different for a gay couple in say, Austin than for an older, heterosexual restaurant owner in East Texas. I would also have to add that if the couple was just sitting there eating breakfast, one would have to wonder why anyone would single them out as gay. How would they tell? Were they wearing a sign?

Cheney has said he would refuse to admit the couple back into his restaurant. The gay couple maintains they were doing nothing wrong and were discriminated against.

As one of them said, “Nobody deserves to be treated disrespectfully at an establishment that just seconds ago accepted their money.”

Needless to say, the gay couple figured lawfare was the best response, but their attorney was unable to help out because of, in his words, local bigotry:

Gay Rights Attorney John Nechman says there really isn’t any legal recourse for Dewberry and his partner to take.

“We don't have protections in most parts of Texas for Gay and Lesbian people, other than in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso,” says Nechman. “There’s really no protections to go after someone because they’ve made a slur. Now if they made a slanderous statement, a libelous statement, where they claimed for example that the two were committing an act that they didn’t do, there would be legal action to take against them.”

Lawyers, of course, love the idea that people have a right to be insulted and to sue at the drop of a hat. It's called job security.As well as a plague on society.

But let's examine this from a different point of view.

Two people enter a restaurant. They're served. Something about their conduct during that transaction makes the owner of the business uncomfortable, and they're asked not to return, admittedly in non-PC language.

So there are two possibilities...either the couple's conduct was such that they were told not to ever come back, or the staff and owners don't like homosexuals.Actually, both take us to the same place.

Has anyone reading this ever been 86'd from a bar or restaurant because of their conduct? I have, once because I decked someone who was drinking and got aggressive with me that I later found out was the bar's manager and another time because the idiot I was with pinched and groped a waitress.

In both cases, a business decision was made by a privately owned establishment to forgo my future custom by the business in question. Paying money does not give you a license to behave how you please, especially if you're annoying the other patrons or the staff, and that is a decision only the business in question can make.Actually, many restaurants and bars would even tell heterosexual couples to cool it if they were being overly affectionate in public. There's a time and place for everything.

But what if the couple was 'doing nothing wrong' as they put it, and the restaurant in question is being discriminatory, and simply doesn't want homosexuals in their establishment?

Let's say that you own a restaurant and decide, for whatever reason, that everyone who comes in has to wear a tie. The Bel-Air hotel in Los Angeles demands a jacket and tie for all male patrons, and has some particularly gruesome specimens they force any man who comes in without them to put on if he wants to eat and drink there. Because of that, there are a number of people who simply avoid going there, especially in a casual town like Los Angeles.The hotel has made a business decision for a private facility they own to give up a certain amount of income to enforce this policy and ought to have a perfect right to do so.

What about clubs that refuse to admit people if they're wearing what could be construed as gang colors or gang attire, and clearly post those exclusions? That policy disproportionally affects blacks, but undoubtedly has an affect on safety. Are they being racist, or making a business decision that impacts on their possible liability for any injuries patrons might suffer?

Let's say you own a restaurant or bar and decide, for whatever reason, that you can't abide people with blond hair. Same thing. You are making a private decision to indulge your own bigotry at the cost of a fair amount of money, and possibly the hire of some excellent employees.

If Big Earl is telling the truth and he has no problem with homosexual customers provided they act in a manner he feels is appropriate for his restaurant, you can't call him a bigot,merely a business owner who had made a decision he is entirely entitled to make. If he's lying and doesn't want gays in his restaurant, the same thing applies. It is his establishment and his choice to make.

The gay couple likewise have a choice to make. If they feel they were insulted (and it seems they were) there are other places to have breakfast. And they can certainly tell their friends not to patronize Big Earl's as well.

That's how a free society ought to work.

Obama Dept. Of Agriculture SWATS Up With Machine Guns And Body Armor

Under this president, over 70 federal bodies have put together heavily armed SWAT teams, complete with automatic weaponry, drones, MRAPS and other accouterments suited for waging what amounts to domestic warfare. It's already a matter of record that these agencies,including Fish and Game and the EPA have ordered billions of rounds of ammunition and the DHS has ordered training targets designed to 'overcome resistance' to shooting fellow civilian citizens.

The latest buy involves the Federal Department of Agriculture, who also now has their own SWAT team and as some of you know, recently ordered a bunch of submachine guns with 30-round magazines.

Their latest acquisition? Body armor to go along with their new firepower:

A May 7th solicitation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeks "the commercial acquisition of ballistic vests, compliant with NIJ 0101.06 for Level IIIA Ballistic Resistance of body armor."

According to the solicitation, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General," seeks "Body Armor [that] is gender specific, lightweight, [having] trauma plate/pad (hard or soft), [and] concealable carrier." The order includes "tactical vest, undergarment (white), identification patches, accessories (6 pouches), body armor carry bag, and professional measurements."

"All responsible and/or interested sources may submit their company name, point of contact, and telephone number." The solicitation says those sources received in a "timely" manner "shall be considered by the agency for contact."

Now, ask yourself. Why on earth would the Department of Agriculture need a heavily armed SWAT team?

My guess would be that none of these governmental SWAT teams have anything to do with the actual purpose of their agencies, but are designed to operate as that domestic security force President Obama said way back when that he wants in place of our military, 'just as well trained, just as well funded':



The thought also comes to mind..is the Obama Administration planning on taking over agriculture, perhaps even instituting food rationing of some kind?

If a government controls food, medical care, transportation and communications, it controls the populace. Medical care is already under control, and the president already has the authority to shut down the internet whenever he wants. And transportation is the easiest to control of all.

The only thing left is food..that, and disarming the populace while putting a heavily armed domestic 'security force' on the streets to 'keep order'.

Far fetched? Unlikely? Perhaps. But definitely possible, especially considering what's going on in Washington these days.

Cliven Bundy Responds: “That’s exactly what I said." And What The Real Issue Is

 

Well, I said earlier I'd wait to hear what Cliven Bundy had to say about what the New York Times quoted him as saying, and credit where credit is due. He didn't lie, equivocate or issue the sort of faux apology we've come to expect from public figures in his situation. Here's his reply (h/t, The Right Scoop) in full:

“That’s exactly what I said. I said I’m wondering if they’re better off under government subsidy, and their young women are having the abortions and their young men are in jail, and their older women and their children are standing, sitting out on the cement porch without nothing to do, you know, I’m wondering: Are they happier now under this government subsidy system than they were when they were slaves, and they was able to have their family structure together, and the chickens and garden, and the people had something to do? And so, in my mind I’m wondering, are they better off being slaves, in that sense, or better off being slaves to the United States government, in the sense of the subsidies. I’m wondering. That’s what. And the statement was right. I am wondering.”

Now, if President Obama said the sun rose in the west and it didn't poll well, rest assured he and his media sycophants would telling you really said 'sets' instead of rises rather than just admit he said what he said, and that's that. Cliven Bundy is simply a different kind of man, and as badly wrong as he is here, at least he sticks by it. If the two of us were having a conversation and I asked him how he felt about something, I think the chances are good he'd tell me the truth.With President Obama a conversation based on the reasonable premise of truth would be impossible.

While a lot of people who were championing him before are quite properly distancing themselves from his ridiculous remarks, they aren't realizing that they're also distancing themselves from the real issues - that contrary to what you're hearing, he may in fact have had a legal case of sorts (look up 'prescriptive easement' and 'adverse possession', especially as they apply to Nevada law for details), that the Bureau of Land Management tried to seize land under false pretenses, that they illegally seized private property without compensation by stealing Bundy's cattle and shooting them and sent a heavily armed SWAT team to besiege Bundy's home and act like Nazi stormtroopers in general.

Even the 'tax issue' is moot.The normal way the feds act in these situations is to go to court, make their case and if they prevail, slap a tax lien on the property, as well as other legal remedies like vehicle and bank levies. Most of the time, that step isn;t even necessary because the feds and the taxpayer agree to a settlement.The feds didn't tak ethis to court because they were in a hurry to gift the land to Harry Reid's cronies for that bogus solar facility, and because they wanted to make an example of Bundy for fighting back.

Those are the real issues, and whether Cliven Bundy is a 'ra-aaa-acist' as the Left paints him or not, guess what? He has legal rights,constitutional rights and property right too.And I don't have to agree remotely with what he said about blacks and slavery to understand that.

If racism is the criteria of whether people have rights or not, then Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan and a slew of others I could name belong in the same boat.

UPDATE: Here's the original video,

unedited

of Cliven Bundy's full remarks. While I don't agree with everything he says here, I think it's obvious we have a Leftist hit job on our hands if you watch the whole thing. Bundy remarks on 'the Negro' occur about 17 minutes in, but listen to the rest of what he has to say and you get a very different picture.

Is Cliven Bundy A Racist? And If He Is, What Changes?

This comes from Pravda-on-the-Hudson, so it's highly suspicious. It's certainly not like they haven't lied for partisan purposes many times before. But they're claiming that their reporter overheard Bundy say the following (h/t Hot Air):

Cliven Bundy stood by the Virgin River up the road from the armed checkpoint at the driveway of his ranch, signing autographs and posing for pictures. For 55 minutes, Mr. Bundy held forth to a clutch of supporters about his views on the troubled state of America — the overreaching federal government, the harassment of Western ranchers, the societal upheaval caused by abortion, even musing about whether slavery was so bad.

He said he would continue holding a daily news conference; on Saturday, it drew one reporter and one photographer, so Mr. Bundy used the time to officiate at what was in effect a town meeting with supporters, discussing, in a long, loping discourse, the prevalence of abortion, the abuses of welfare and his views on race.

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Hmmmm. If Cliven Bundy said this - and considering the source and the timing let's really emphasize that 'if' - he's going to forfeit a lot of sympathy from me and others. 'Family life' under slavery certainly existed, but whether it was in ancient Rome or 1840's Georgia, it was always subject to the owner's approval and changing financial circumstances at any given time.

That doesn't change the fact that contrary to what you're hearing,  he may in fact have had a legal case of sorts (look up 'prescriptive easement' and 'adverse possession', especially as they apply to Nevada law for details) nor does it change the fact that the Bureau of Land Management tried to seize land under false pretenses, participated in the illegal taking of private property without compensation by stealing Bundy's cattle and sent an armed SWAT team to lay siege to Bundy's home and  act like Nazi brown shirts in general.

This purported statement  does serve quite conveniently to distance Bundy from people that were supporting him politically. As such, the timing is pretty suspicious, but I will merely report this, wait to see what if anything Cliven Bundy has to say about it and let you draw your own conclusions.

Matt Yglesias' Brilliant New Idea - Punish 'The Rich' With Confiscatory Taxes!

 

Matt Yglesias, Soros galley slave and former WAPO columnist has a great new idea.Let's make taxes really, really high on the 'Evil Rich' to punish them and redistribute their wealth for Big Government's social engineering purposes!

The Laffer Curve - the idea that tax cuts can sometimes increase tax revenue - is one of the most influential and widely debated ideas in the past two generations of American politics. Beloved by the right and despised by the left, one thing that both sides have tended to agree on is that knowing what side of the curve we're on should be a key driver of tax policy.

But in an era of surging inequality, it's time to revisit that assumption. Maybe at least some taxes should be really high. Maybe even really really high. So high as to be useless for revenue-raising purposes - but powerful for achieving other ends.

He actually equates seizing the money people earn with 'sin taxes' like the ones on cigarettes. I just couldn't resist shooting him an e-mail:

Yo, Matt!
I always knew you were a totalitarian commie at heart, and I congratulate you on finally coming clean about it.

As someone familiar with several places where this kind of thing has been tried, here's what happens when your charming 'eat the rich' scenario is implemented.

First of all, yes, business talent and business capital flee like potential customers from a hooker with a herpes sore. R&D, patents and innovation disappear. And job killing? Think of it as your boyfriend President Obama's efforts on steroids.We can't all work for the government or live off welfare and food stamps, especially once President Obama implements amnesty. Just look at what's going on in France with a mere 75% taxation rate on 'the rich'.

Here's something else that happens. Contrary to what you might believe, the majority of the rich, even those small business owners grossing over $250K President Obama likes to demonize as 'rich' mostly aren't stupid. So if they don't flee to more inviting climes for their money and talent, guess what? A black market develops, with goods and services being sold under the table for cash.

And all these things kill economic activity and make those tax receipts dear to your Marxist heart plummet alarmingly.

You can play with your cute charts all you want. It doesn't change anything.

You see, Matt, this kind of theft only starts with 'the rich'. Eventually it trickles down to where everyone gets screwed, just like Obama Care where working people will be paying a 40% tax on healthcare in a couple of years.Even you, Matt. After all, why should you get more than one piece of pizza (if that) while others have none? Rising inequality, no?

Imagine, equating punitive tax rates with 'sin taxes' on cigarettes! I can't stop laughing at that one. The kulaks must pay, eh?

Regards,
Rob Miller @ Joshuapundit

Tyranny: Supremes Won't Hear Appeal from Photographer Fined For Refusing to Shoot Gay Wedding

 

The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to hear an appeal from Elane Photography, a Christian-owned New Mexico business who was fined for turning down business that involved photographing gay marriages on religious grounds.

The New Mexico State Supreme Court had ruled against Elane Photography in 2013, ruling she discriminated against a gay couple because she refused to shoot their same-sex ceremony. Since the Supreme Court has clearly decided to ignore Elane's First Amendment rights, refusing even to hear the case, their cowardice means that this tyrannical ruling will stand as a precedent.

The implications are monstrous. What's next...will clergymen be forced to officiate over homosexual weddings and hold them in their mosques, synagogues, churches and temples regardless of their beliefs? Do private businesses no longer have the right to refuse  services to anyone for any reason?

We apparently are no longer a nation of laws anymore. Or a nation of G-d-given freedoms.

Justina Pelletier: Judge Awards 'Permanent Custody' To Mass. DFC

Judge Joseph Johnston has ruled that The Massachusetts Department of Families And Children (DFC) will have 'permanent custody' of 15-year-old Justina Pelletier, taking her away from her parents in spite of her own wishes and her rapidly declining health in state custody.

This case is a textbook example of child abuse promulgated by the legal system and an embedded bureaucracy, and it is worth looking at to see how far out of hand our ruling class has gotten.

Fourteen months ago, Justina, a Connecticut teen was being treated for mitochondrial disease, a group of rare genetic disorders affecting cellular energy production.Her physician who had been treating her, Dr. Mark Korson at Tufts, wanted the girl to visit gastroenterologist Dr. Alejandro Flores at Boston Children's Hospital, who had treated Justina at Tufts in the past. Being loving and concerned parents, the Pelletiers made the appointment with Dr. Flores and duly went to Boston Children's Hospital to have Justina seen.

When they got there, instead of seeing Dr. Flores, Justina was essentially kidnapped. She was taken to emergency where a resident refused to let her see Dr. Flores. Instead, he decided that this was a psychiatric case and sent Justina to a psychologist who diagnosed her with somatoform disorder -- a mental condition in which a patient experiences symptoms that are real but are psychosomatic.

When the Pelletiers rejected the new psychiatric diagnosis and wanted to bring Justina back to Tufts, the hospital first tried to force the girl's parents to sign papers admitting her as a psychiatric patient and when they refused and understandably became insistent at taking their daughter out of Boston Children's, the hospital got the state Department of Family and Children involved and accused the parents of medical child abuse.

They were not permitted to bring Justina home or to another facility. Instead, the teen was kept at Boston Children’s psychiatric ward for nearly a year where her physical condition deteriorated while the parents unsuccessfully fought the system to get Justina released.The DCF has allowed the parents only one hour per week to visit their daughter, but always with DCF personnel present. DCF would not allow the parents to photograph their daughter, and even filed a motion to hold Lou Pelletier in contempt of court for speaking to national media.

"Tufts was working fine with her, diagnosed medically, going to school, ice skating and doing all those things," Lou Pelletier said. "Look at her then and look at her now."

The DCF also has refused to provide the medical care Justina's condition requires, will not allow her access to a priest or to communion (she's Catholic) has refused to make any accommodations for her education, with the result that she is now almost two years behind her classmates in school.

Three weeks ago, Judge Johnston approved a written agreement transferring care back to Tufts Medical Center from Boston Children’s Hospital. That still hasn't been done, as Boston Children's has refused to make any appointments with the doctors there in spite of Justina's condition.

This decision by Judge Johnston was in response to a motion presented by the 15-year-old’s court-appointed lawyer and the lawyers for her parents, Linda and Lou Pelletier. It called for the girl's parents to be awarded “conditional custody” of their daughter.

Instead, the judge has granted permanent custody of Justina Pellatier to the DFC...who have done absolutely nothing to help her.

In his order, Johnston noted that the court considered granting conditional custody to the Pelletiers but “very concerning conduct … does not give this court any confidence they will comply with the conditions of custody.” The evidence? That Lou Pelletier once threatened a DFC social worker, who was afterward removed from the case, and oh yes..the media presence.

“Instead of engaging in quality visits with Justina, the parents use profanity directed at MA DCF personnel in Justina’s presence,” Johnston’s ruling said.

Johnston also included that he thinks Lou and Linda Pelletier should be “psychologically and clinically evaluated,” but refused to have the state of Massachusetts do it, insisiting that it must be coordinated through the State of Connecticut’s own DCF.

You bring your daughter in for medical treatment, she gets kidnapped, you see her dying in front of your eyes and you lose it with some heartless bureaucrat drone who's keeping her prisoner? And when you finally get fed up with doing the dance for months and go to the media to try to shed some sunlight on what's happening to your child, you need to be “psychologically and clinically evaluated?”

To tell you the truth, if the Pellatiers hadn't done that, I'd think they needed to be psychologically evaluated.

This is one of those canary in the coalmine moments. It is the State shoving our noses in the fact that they own our children and they know what's best, and we're just the sperm and egg donors.

What's next? On May 25th, Judge Johnston is expected revisit the decision to award permanent custody in a follow-up court hearing on May 25. His ruling leaves it up to the state DCF to decide whether or when Justina should be returned to her family, which means she could end up in state care until she turns 18. If she survives.

Meanwhile, the Pelltiers haven't given up. They're appealing the decision and have filed a writ of habeus corpus against Massachusetts for wrongful imprisonment. Hopefully this will get Justina freed by order of the Appellate courts, although it might just be that the attention this is generating could get Justina Pellatier freed sooner..perhaps at the review hearing in May.

40 Percent of What You Pay for Beer Goes to Taxes!

Yes, 40%. And that's just an average. In high tax Blue states ( and especially in Democrat run big cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles) it's even higher:

The next time you pour yourself a cold one, give yourself a pat on the back in the name of patriotism. On average, 40 percent of the price you paid for that beer is going straight to Uncle Sam and the state.

Lobbyists in Washington are pushing to reduce those taxes, at least by a few cents. The Beer Institute is supporting legislation cleverly titled the BEER Act, which would reduce the federal excise tax from $18 per 31-gallon barrel (an amount that doesn't actually exist; a keg is 15.5 gallons) to $9 for large brewers. Smaller operations would pay nothing in excise taxes on the first 15,000 barrels they produce, while kicking in a mere $3.50 through 60,000 barrels.

Passing the bill would not only (slightly) reduce the cost of beer, but could also lead to an uptick in the number of breweries in the United States. The industry, which the Institute has tracked since 1887, has been growing rapidly in the last two decades, thanks in part to tax breaks for small brewers.

The original excise tax on beer was levied by the Feds as a small, temporary tax to help pay for the cost of the Civil War. Needless to say, it wasn't removed after the war and has been a reliable 'sin tax' for politicians to plunder ever since.

Lobbyists for the brewers who want the tax lowered are arguing that it would allow them to grow their operations and create jobs, which would actually provide more tax revenues.

While the BEER Act seems pretty much destined to die in committee, it's largely a push back by the industry to prevent even more tax hikes,which have already been proposed at the federal and state levels as well as various municipal levels.

The result, as with most regressive taxes is that people simply buy less. In California, for example, politicians in state and municipal governments raised taxes on tobacco products and then spent the money they anticipated making from those awful smokers feeding their habit. They then passed laws severely limiting where the people they anticipated plundering could smoke.

Caught between massive price hikes and limited areas to smoke, guess what? Tobacco sales plummeted as people either quit, moved to roll your own or to electronic cigarettes and the anticipated tax revenues never materialized.

While that may have been a good thing health-wise (full disclosure, I'm a non-smoker) it turned out to be lousy fiscal policy. And higher taxes on beer would be even a worse idea, since it's comparatively easy to make at home.

In fact, now that you know this, I suggest that every American who enjoys a cold beer on occasion avoid being ripped off by unreasonable taxation that I'm sure you never voted for. Save a ton of money and extend a raised digit to the greedy politicians by making your own at home. It's what our forefathers who founded our beloved Republic did faced with the same situation.

The ObamaCare Xmas Present Obama Plans - Single Payer And A Taxpayer Bailout

Unfortunately, here's a nasty lump of coal for your stocking, courtesy of President Obama and his Democrats.For al the talk about ObamaCare crashing and burning on its own, did you really think our Dear Leader and his friends were going to let that happen just because it's dysfunctional and the American people are finally on to what a plundering of the nation's wealth it is?

Regular readers of these pages will know that I have always said that ObamaCare was merely intended as a gateway to force single payer, government run healthcare on the nation, like it or not. Harry Reid and others have admitted as much. As Dr. Charles Krauthammer explains above, the pathway to single payer was baked into this destructive piece of tyranny from the start, with provisions for a massive, mandated taxpayer bailout if not enough people sign up for the exchanges...exactly what's happening now.

Insurance companies will become government-controlled lackeys, you and your family will be shaken down to pay ultra high rates for rationed, inferior health care and yet another one of those quasi-independent occupations that used to provide Americans with a middle class living will disappear as insurance agents are replaced by ObamaCare navigators.

The president and his team will try to shove this through by executive order if need be, citing massive damage to the insurance industry unless they bail it out. They will, of course, not mention that this is damage they willfully caused.Or that simply revoking ObamaCare would allow the industry to rebuild over time.

One possible prevention is a bill passed in congress that prevents a bailout of the insurance companies in exchange for raising the debt ceiling...if the Republicans unite behind it, a big if. Marco Rubio is pushing for just such a bill right now in the Senate, and provided Boehner and the House go along there might be enough vulnerable Democrats in congress to support it as well.

As an alternative, the House could simply stand up to the president for once, do the job the Constitution mandated them to do and refuse to allocate funds for the bailout.

In any event, you need to contact your members of congress and insist on no bailout for insurance companies. Now.

Your Castle No More - Serviceman Charged With Murder After Shooting Threatening Intruder

"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail - its roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter - the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter." - British Prime Minister William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, commenting on the English common law doctrine of a man's right to be safe in his home, 1763.


Air Force Sergeant Matt Pinkerton was faced with an aggressive intruder who broke into his home at 2:00 AM after being told to leave and threatened his wife and his safety, so he dispatched him with a Glock 9mm.

Believe it or not, the State of Maryland's position is that Pinkerton should have called 911 and just sat there waiting for the police to arrive instead of defending his wife, himself and his property. And they're charging him with murder two:

Pinkerton was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and use of a firearm in a felony or violent crime.

The state argued that Pinkerton could have called 911.

District Court Judge Jonas Legum reduced Pinkerton’s bond from $1.5 million to $250,000.

Legum said he finds it “amazing” that the statement of probable cause against Pinkerton is only two pages long, and included only one sentence about whether or not Green had a weapon.

Pinkerton told police he did not see any weapons in Green’s hands, charging documents state.

Green had staked out the Pinkertons’ home before they arrived early Sunday morning, O’Neill said. When Green knocked on the door, Pinkerton retrieved a Glock 17 9mm handgun, put it in his back pocket and went to see who it was, police said. He wasn’t expecting any visitors.

When Pinkerton opened the door, he found Green on the porch, police said. Green demanded to see Jessica Pinkerton.

Matthew Pinkerton told Green to leave, but he refused and started to shout, police said.

The pair exchanged “derogatory” remarks before Pinkerton closed the front door, police said. Green continued to yell from the front porch, police said.

Pinkerton then heard his screen door being opened, police said. He headed back to the front door as Green broke through it, damaging the door frame, O’Neill said.

Pinkerton pulled his gun and ordered Green to leave, O’Neill said.

Green continued into the residence and was shot twice by Pinkerton, police said.

“He has the right to defend himself against an intruder,” O’Neill said.

Assistant State’s Attorney Glen Neubauer said Pinkerton could have called the police. When Pinkerton grabbed his gun, it was “bizarre behavior in itself,” Neubauer said.

But O’Neill said calling 911 wasn’t an option.

“By the time 911 is called, he’s dead,” O’Neill said.

This should put the citizens of Maryland and other locales where anti-Second Amendment radicals have taken control on notice as to what the lives of you and your loved ones are worth to the politicians in power.

How Obama Leans On Whistleblowers And Intimidates Reporters

My friend and Council mate Debra Heine over at Nice Deb has a fine piece over at Breitbart I recommend to your attention..here's a slice:

When Obama was elected in 2008, his ascension to the White House was deemed "historic" because he was our first black president, and Americans were rightly proud of that. Unfortunately, Obama has been a "historic" president in other ways, too - ways that should horrify and alarm Americans. His administration's brazen efforts to silence whistleblowers, intimidate reporters and businesses that don't play ball with him have been unprecedented. We are living through highly troubling times.

This White House has a long track record of bullying reporters as a tactic to ensure only positive coverage and suppress free speech. And Obama has used the DOJ as a political arm to enforce allegiance to his agenda.

Keith Koffler, who has covered the Bush and Clinton White Houses, as well as the Obama White House has written at length about the Regime's bullying tactics.

When White House officials, particularly members of the press office, see a story they don’t like, they often call and verbally abuse the reporter who wrote the piece.

In diatribes often peppered with obscenities, they complain of profound injustice, bias, lack of relevance – anything they can think of to get reporters to back off their story.
It’s not just a series of uncontrolled outbursts. It is a planned, methodical, and highly artificial effort to either squash a story or get inside a reporter’s head so they think twice about doing a piece next time that negatively impacts Obama.

That this is an actual policy is evident from the consistency of the practice and its implementation by nearly every member of the White House press office staff. They are all nice, affable people who suddenly switch into an unmarked gear and begin running you over at full speed.

Koffler noted that he's "seen this done by press people from the Bush and Clinton administrations. But only on rare occasion, and generally with a legitimate grievance in hand. But never have I witnessed this type of bullying of the press in such a systematic, intense, and frequent manner."

Because the examples of this are legion, I thought it would be a good idea to aggregate a number of these stories in one spot. These are not isolated incidents. They are the result of purposefully thuggish policies perpetrated by nasty, thuggish people. It's the sort of thing you would see in a third world Banana Republic.

Read the whole thing here.

Backdoor Gun Grab - EPA Forces Closure Of Last Lead Smelter In U.S.

The Left badly wants American citizens disarmed and denied their Second Amendment rights, and they'll achieve that by any means necessary...including using Obama Environmental Protection Agency to severely impact the price of ammo:

In December, the final primary lead smelter in the United States will close. The lead smelter, located in Herculaneum, Missouri, and owned and operated by the Doe Run Company, has existed in the same location since 1892.
The Herculaneum smelter is currently the only smelter in the United States which can produce lead bullion from raw lead ore that is mined nearby in Missouri’s extensive lead deposits, giving the smelter its “primary” designation. The lead bullion produced in Herculaneum is then sold to lead product producers, including ammunition manufactures for use in conventional ammunition components such as projectiles, projectile cores, and primers. …

Doe Run made significant efforts to reduce lead emissions from the smelter, but in 2008 the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead that were 10 times tighter than the previous standard. Given the new lead air quality standard, Doe Run made the decision to close the Herculaneum smelter.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration and SWAT teams attached to non-military or police governmental agencies like Fish and Game or the EPA itself have purchased billions of rounds of ammo for themselves...and are training their agents to shoot first and ask question later when it comes to what are euphemistically called 'non-traditional targets' like pregnant women, children and the elderly.


Of course, ammo can be imported, and there are shooters who roll their own and save their cases,but the idea is to deplete the supply of available ammo and make it horrendously expensive. Look for arcane 'taxes' on ammo purchases as well, something California and other Democrat run states are already salivating over.

The national security implications of this are pretty staggering as well. If we get involved in a shooting war in the next three years, there will be a significant delay before facilities like Doe Run can tool up and start production again.

But that's not the primary concern of the Obama Administration. Their focus seems to be on maintaining the ability to guard the elites and impose tyranny from within.

UPDATE:  The EPA regs in question were actually passed under George W. Bush ( after 2006, when the Democrats had a strong majority in Congress), and Day by Day's Chris Muir actually printed a correction. What's different is the way they're being enforced, and a climate where the Feds are pushing radical gun control while buying up as much ammo as they can get their hands on with other people's money.

Obama Lied, Knew Millions Would Lose Their Health Insurance

By now,most Americans are beginning to understand that when President Obama told Americans that if they liked their doctor, their present health plan, they'd be able to keep it, it simply wasn't true.

However, as we're now finding out, it goes far beyond that. The president deliberately lied, knowingly lied, along with his team.



In another, astonishing random act of journalism, NBC, of all places revealed that ObamaCare was deliberately constructed to destroy the health coverage of millions of Americans and force them on to government exchanges, with much less coverage and far higher premiums. And this president knew it all along:

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered.

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

“This says that when they made the promise, they knew half the people in this market outright couldn’t keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldn’t make it either,” said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms. Laszewski estimates that 80 percent of those in the individual market will not be able to keep their current policies and will have to buy insurance that meets requirements of the new law, which generally requires a richer package of benefits than most policies today.

Actually, Laszewski estimates that as many as 16 million Americans will lose their health insurance because of ObamaCare.

Note the part I emphasized.Any changes made to your existing policy after March 23, 2010 when this tyranny became law disqualified it to be grandfathered, even if they were choices you made yourself, such as eliminating coverage for maternity care if you or your spouse was past childbearing age, eliminating an adult child from your policy because he or she obtained his or her own insurance, or increasing the co-pay for yourself and your employees slightly to keep costs down or to add more employees to your policy. It doesn't matter...even if you are perfectly satisfied with your coverage as it is, your insurance company will be told your policy doesn't meet ObamaCare standards and that cancellation letter will go out informing you that you no longer have health insurance come January 2014.

The Democrats are busily spinning this and trying to blame the insurances companies, since the companies are the ones issuing the cancellation letters. But the truth of the matter is they have little choice in the matter. Unless you are employed by a very large company or government agency (like a city or state bureaucracy) that can afford to absorb the expense of compliance with ObamaCare's arcane requirements because they can spread the cost out among a large group of employees, or unless your employer is politically connected enough to get a waiver or a subsidy like members of the governing class, you are likely to lose your insurance because private companies will be unable to absorb the cost of insuring small groups or families with individualized coverage.

Once you're forced to shop the exchanges, you'll discover what so many Americans already have... the sticker price of ObamaCare's Bronze coverage,the cheapest available with the highest deductible and the lowest sticker price is going to cost a family of five, two adults and three children, in excess of $20,000 per year. And that's a conservative estimate, guaranteed to go up as more and more healthy young adults opt to pay the penalty and the system needs more taxpayer dollars to cover the Medicaid patients whom qualify for the subsidies.The Medicaid patients signing up for ObamaCare in droves, and are the vast majority of those signing up for the exchanges. There's always an unlimited demand for free stuff at someone else's expense.

That also applies if you are fortunate enough to get your insurance through a very large company or government agency. At present, you're able to keep your present insurance,but your time is coming. While you may not lose your insurance outright, at least at first, you can expect vast increases in your co-payments to cover the cost of ObamaCare compliance.

Even worse, since ObamaCare unlike most current insurance policies does not allow any payments to 'out of network' doctors whatsoever, all it's going to take is a heart attack, a car accident or a similar emergency where immediate treatment is required at the closest available facility to put the average American who is forced to buy 'coverage' through ObamaCare into bankruptcy. That alone should blow the White House claims that the cancellations are due to insurance companies declining to meet standards for 'increased coverage' out of the water.

ObamaCare's failure is what was planned from the start, with the resulting misery and chaos ending with millions of desperate Americans being herded in single payer and the Sovietization of America's healthcare.Even the Medicaid patients who are happily signing up for their free coverage have no clue about what is ultimately in store for them.

The president bloviated a great deal about being a 'warrior for the middle class' during the 2012 campaign. Given what he knew about ObamaCare at the time, the term 'rapist' would have been more appropriate. Including the parts about the desire for power, domination and control. We've already seen how the president used the IRS to attack his political enemies. Imagine what will happen when they have access to all your data and can decide who gets a medical procedure and how long they have to wait to receive it based on how you voted or whom you donated to.

No wonder the president lied about it.

Here's another thing to consider. The president has the power to call up the HHS and instruct them to change the regulations and honor the promise he made again and again for two years. He isn't doing this because he was always determined to break that promise.

And that's illustrative of one of the main problems with the current occupant of the Oval Office, something that comes up again and again. He has no moral core, no standards of what most of us would refer to as common decency. It's a common thread running through his stance on infanticide, his use of the IRS as his political goon squad, the misuse of a trillion dollars worth of 'stimulus' to pay off his political allies, his cavalier ignoring of Federal Law, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and the myriad of other scandals swirling around the Obama White House. And it runs through ObamaCare as well.

Senate Panel Okays Legislation Attacking Bloggers And New Media

 

The senate judiciary committee just cleared the way for legislation defining who a journalist is..and thus who qualifies for protection from warrantless surveillance, having to reveal sources and secret government subpoenas of phone records, e-mails and personal information.

This emerged out of the Obama Administration scandal involving the Associated Press, when the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed almost two months of telephone records for 21 phone lines used by reporters and editors for The Associated Press and secretly used a warrant to obtain some emails of a Fox News journalist.

The new legislation follows closely on guidelines given to the committee by Attorney General Eric Holder, and they are designed specifically to make it a lot easier to attack bloggers and new media journalists and video makers.

Under these guidelines, a "covered journalist" is defined as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. The individual would have been employed for one year within the last 20 or three months within the last five years.

It would apply to student journalists or someone with a considerable amount of freelance work in the last five years.

'Freelance' in this case is defined as paid work.

For example, writing unpaid freelance pieces for internet outlets like American Thinker, or unpaid op-eds for other publications is not does not protect your rights.

The committee later approved the overall bill on a 13-5 vote.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a chief proponent of the medial shield legislation, worked with Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as well as representatives from news organizations, on the compromise.

"I think journalism has a certain tradecraft. It's a profession. I recognize that everyone can think they're a journalist," Feinstein said.

The overall measure would incorporate many of the changes proposed by Attorney General Eric Holder in July. Criticism of the collection of the material without any notice to the news organizations prompted President Barack Obama to order Holder to review the department's policy.

Holder's revised guidelines called for the government to give advance notice to the news media about subpoena requests for reporters' phone records unless the attorney general determines such notice would pose a clear and substantial threat to the investigation. Search warrants for a reporter's email would only apply when the individual is the focus of a criminal investigation for conduct not connected to ordinary newsgathering.

The bill makes clear that before the government asks a news organization to divulge sources, it first must go to a judge, who would supervise any subpoenas or court orders for information. Such orders would be limited, if possible, "in purpose, subject matter and period of time covered so as to avoid compelling disclosure of peripheral, nonessential or speculative information."

Holder's revised guidelines do not call for a judge to be involved before the government asks a news organization to divulge sources. However, the guidelines call for a new standing News Media Review Committee to advise the attorney general on such requests.

These protections only apply to the new definition of 'journalist'. If you have a blog or a YouTube channel, no matter how well established or reputable and the writers or videographers are unpaid citizen journalists, it's open season.

First amendment? Huh? Wha?

Call your representatives to broaden this narrow definition if you value your freedom of speech and press.

Guess What? Obamacare Provision Will Allow Forced Home Inspections

 

Yet again, proof that no one in Congress actually read ObamaCare before inflicting it on us - least of all our Supreme Court.

According to this provision of ObamaCare, millions of American homes will be subject to forced government inspections, whether they like it or not.

 The HHS website states that under this provision, (or any other subsequent guidelines they come up with at the Secretary of HHS's discretion), you and your family can and will be targeted, especially if you fall into one of these designated 'high risk categories':

Families where mom is not yet 21.

Families where someone is a tobacco user.

Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.

Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

It's no stretch to see where these could be 'expanded' based on your political beliefs and affiliations, ownership of a firearm, whether your children are home schooled, or any other criteria determined to be 'at risk'.

There is no reference to Medicaid being the determinant for a family to be eligible for one of these government sponsored home invasions. And $224 million of your tax dollars have been set aside top fund what is referred to as home visiting programs to “help parents and children.”

Fourth amendment be damned. And Congress is actually debating over defunding this.letting alone repealing this blatant tyranny?


(H/t Tip Louie Louie, via Jim, via Freedom Outpost

Breaking: The Feds Want Your E-Mail Passwords

 

Major internet providers are going public - they're receiving increased request from the federal government to turn over massive numbers of private e-mail passwords.

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

While some of the major internet providers say they've successfully resisted government orders for passwords and encryption codes, a number of others simply refused to answer. And even the ones that claim they haven't could be lying simply to avoid a massive flood of people dropping their e-mail accounts and use of their search engines and web facilities.

The actual legal rationale is, as the article puts it, 'murky'. My first impulse is to say that this is a clear violation of th4e Fourth Amendment's provisions against unreasonable search and seizure, particularly when is comes to massive scooping up of data from people who are under no suspicion of doing anything to warrant it.

And while the surveillance is troublesome, we've has this kind of surveillance before during wartime.The difference now is that for the first time we have a president and an administration willing to use it as a weapon against their political opponents rather than just for national security purposes:

The Justice Department has argued in court proceedings before that it has broad legal authority to obtain passwords. In 2011, for instance, federal prosecutors sent a grand jury subpoena demanding the password that would unlock files encrypted with the TrueCrypt utility. 

The Florida man who received the subpoena claimed the Fifth Amendment, which protects his right to avoid self-incrimination, allowed him to refuse the prosecutors' demand. In February 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed, saying that because prosecutors could bring a criminal prosecution against him based on the contents of the decrypted files, the man "could not be compelled to decrypt the drives." 

In January 2012, a federal district judge in Colorado reached the opposite conclusion, ruling that a criminal defendant could be compelled under the All Writs Act to type in the password that would unlock a Toshiba Satellite laptop. 

Both of those cases, however, deal with criminal proceedings when the password holder is the target of an investigation -- and don't address when a hashed password is stored on the servers of a company that's an innocent third party. 

"If you can figure out someone's password, you have the ability to reuse the account," which raises significant privacy concerns, said Seth Schoen, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Frightening ObamaCare Diktat - a Huge HHS Data Base For Federally Funded 'Community Organizers

 

President Obama does have plans for one kind of job creation - a huge army of 'community organizers' working for the Department of Health and Human Services who will assist people in enrolling in ObamaCare, applying for a myriad of federal benefits, and of course registering these recipients of government largess as Democrats.

And they'll be assisted by something the president and HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius are also creating, a huge consolidation of personal information known as the Federal Data Hub.

The new Federal Data Hub is designed to give these new “patient navigators” access to mountains of of personal information compiled by federal agencies, including the IRS, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, and the Social Security Administration among others.

When you find out more about these "patient navigators" and how they're being hired and trained, it gets even worse.

In May, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were told by HHS that there will be no criminal background checks required for the these new patient navigators. They won’t even be required to have to have high-school diplomas, and at between $20 and $48 per hour, they're going to be some of the best paid dropouts in America.

The fact that convicted felons could be getting their hands on your tax returns, Social Security numbers and every bit of your personal data doesn't concern them.

According to the HHS, all the new navigators will have to do is to take a 20–30 hour online course about how the 1,200-page law works. If you thought things like fraud and identity theft were a problem before, just wait.

Nine U.S. Senators led by Utah's Orrin Hatch wrote to Sebelius, “The standards proposed by your department could result in a convicted felon receiving federal dollars and gaining access to confidential taxpayer information. The same standards allow any individual who has registered with the exchange and completed two days of training to facilitate enrollment, as if the decision to purchase health insurance is similar to the decision of registering to vote.”

Ah, but that's a part of the goal here, to the point that this could almost be called the ACORN employment Act. Just like ACORN, the idea will be to register low information Democrats while discarding Republican registrations, and a number of politicians in Blue States have already begun working to facilitate it. In California, for instance, California’s Democrat Secretary of State Debra Bowen has already designated Covered California, the ObamaCare health exchange as a voter registration agency under the National Voter Registration Act. So Covered California will be incorporating voter registration into every transaction it has with consumers...assisted of course by those helpful "patient navigators" .

The secondary goal of this monstrosity ought to be self-evident by now. This Federal Data Hub will destroy any vestige of privacy for millions of Americans, putting all of your personal details in one place within easy reach of thousands of anonymous federal apparatchniks.

And as we've seen with IRS-Gate, the implications are fairly staggering.Need that kidney transplant? Oh, your tax returns show you donated to the wrong people, so you go to the back of the line. Registered Republican? Big GOP donor??? Let's cross reference and flag this file for an audit by our co-workers over at the IRS. Ex-military, got some counseling after a rough divorce? Let's flag this file so he's not allowed to own or buy a gun. Oh here's a registered Democrat who's never donated yet? Let's hit him with an e-mail barrage.

This is one of the parts of ObamaCare Nancy Pelosi famously told us that"we'd have to pass the bill to see what's in it."

Americans by and large have no clue about this. Congress needs to make this a lot more public than it is, scream bloody murder and get this repealed.

How The Obama Administration Uses Your Car To Spy On You

In yet another infringement on our liberties, Big Government has been using your car to spy on you, withlittle or no judicial oversight or warrants.

And no, this is not tinfoil hat stuff.

According to a new study by the ACLU, the increased use of automated scanners has amassed a huge data base of digital records on the location and movement of every vehicle with a license plate. Affixed to police cars, bridges or buildings, the scanners capture images of passing or parked vehicles and note their location, cross referencing it with the information the DMV has on you. This normally includes your address, your Social Security number, your fingerprints, a complete physical description as well as your address. Since this is all the information needed to run a complete credit report on you, a trained expert can do a pretty good idea of piecing together your financial information as well.

Not only is your personal data accessible. Th enew technology enables the powers that be to check your habits and your daily routine. They can see which bar someone might be frequenting, whom your friends are whether you're joining a protest, getting medical or mental help, cheating on your spouse spouse and much more. The records can be digitally stored and kept for weeks or years, sometimes indefinitely.

And just like PRISM, the technology casts a wide net. It scoops up records the plates of everyone in the vicinity, not just some one whom might be a suspect under investigation.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that a judge's approval is needed to track a car with a GPS, no such judicial oversight is needed for the plate scanners. There's also nothing stopping the feds or other government agencies from accessing it either, and you can rest assured they have.

Land of the free my eye.