Snail-Mail Snoopers – LewRockwell

Snail mail (Photo credit: DazMSmith)

The spymasters are yet again caught with their pants down. While they are down, we shall have to see if Americans will live up to the “exceptionalism” we keep hearing about and give those spymasters the figurative caning they deserve, and dismissal from their jobs, together with the entire surveillance state.

Snail-Mail Snoopers – Lew Rockwell:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/07/joe-wolverton-ii/snail-mail-snoopers/

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There is no Supreme Court decision, no Executive explanation, no Congress, that can hide from us what that paragraph means, no matter how much legalese and torturing of non-logic they pour on it.

Related articles

• RTS #928 – Snail Mail (1000reasonstosmile.com)
• Post Office is tracking your snail mail, too, for Big Brother (thisgotmyattention.wordpress.com)
• Add Snail Mail to Government Spying (politicaloutcast.com)
• The Feds Are Spying On Your Snail Mail Too (personalliberty.com)
• NYT: The Government Is Tracking All Your Snail Mail Too (gizmodo.com)

Saturday review-Important stories from the background news – Signs of the times

Anti-ACLU-2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They were closing the elementary school and sending the kids farther away from where they lived, but these parents decided to teach their children at home instead, and then petitioned the school to take over the abandoned school building, and the board said yes!

It’s official: Evans Valley Elementary School site goes to homeschool group:
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121108/NEWS/211080335

********

The sign outside the West Virginia store says: “If you are for Obama‘s policies, please keep your dumba$$ out of this store.” and his business has doubled since he put it up,
http://www.wowktv.com/story/20102238/sign-outside-of-business-causing-a-boom-in-customers

********

WAIT A DARN MINUTE!  REALLY BAD HEADLINE ALERT!

http://www.wowktv.com/story/20059271/student-forced-to-continue-homeschooling

The judge forced the SCHOOL BOARD to continue educating the kid at HIS home.

********

He’s just renting a part of his home out, but the city requires warrantless inspections whenever the inspectors get a whim, so he’s suing:

A Pennsylvania preacher is taking a fight over his city’s demand for a warrantless search of his residence to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending the requirement forces him to choose between two fundamental civil rights.

The appeal has been filed by the Rutherford Institute on behalf of street preacher and evangelist Michael Marcavage.

Like I said, the ACLU is AWOL on matters having to with rights related to property and self-defense.. And ah, it wouldn’t have anything to do with him being a street preacher, now, would it?

********

Okay, now they’re moving the goalposts for the woman’s right to polygamous marriage:

http://www.7dvt.com/2012love-plus

Good PR strategy. I say get government’s nose OUT of our bedrooms completely.

One “gay” “activist” said there are 10,000 official government “benefits” for married couples, and that’s why they want in on it, except he says that’s why they “deserve” it.

Why should the government have ANY say in it. Marriage benefits were originally purposed to benefit the children of the natural nuclear family, but it’s now they’ve messed it up.

Karl Marx wanted to abolish marriage altogether. There is a strong cultural bias to the tradition, pumped up by the natural chemistry that happens so often (before the movies era too), so they’ll just work on watering it down instead. Using the long gun of government to do it, fixed in the culture by the indoctrination centers owned by the rulers (aka “schools”).

********

Good for Governor Haley of South Carolina, they will NOT participate in the dictates of the Obama-scare medical industry nationalization “exchanges”:
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20121115/WIRE/121119787

Talk about unfunded mandates! The biggest most whopping-sized TAX INCREASE ON THE POOR in American history, and the gullible want MORE of this? Uh, actually, we didn’t. There’s something wrong with those election results.

********
Yeah, you would demand a full recount too:
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/nov/15/wests-attorneys-petition-for-full-machine-in-18/

They almost had all the votes counted, and lo and behold, surprise, Alan West went from 2,000 votes AHEAD to almost the same trailing. So the count flipped the race to the tune of 4,000 votes —that’s FOUR THOUSAND!– in the space of just a few thousand.

And for their puny partial recount, they invited the other candidate to watch but refused access to West’s representatives!

And you thought Florida election counting tricks was a Republican thing? Welcome to bipartisan chicanery!

********

 

Related articles

• Elementary campus goes to homeschoolers (wnd.com)
• See You in Camp? (lewrockwell.com)
• Obama’s frst-term track record on civil liberties (constitutioncampaign.org)
• A Beginner’s Guide to Homeschooling (education.com)
• Supreme Court Tosses Last Chance for Telecom Accountability for Warrantless Wiretapping (news.firedoglake.com)
• Homeschooling Today (education.com)

John Roberts: It was NOT a tax, before it WAS a tax, right in the same opinion

Tax (Photo credit: 401K 2012)

So in 2010 Obama and Pelosi pushed through the biggest tax increase on the poor in the history of the United States, that hits the pocketbook of the poor at a much bigger percentage than it does the rich, and for the middle class raises the price for all insurance plans across the board.

Did you hear that? This is biggest “non-tax” tax (wink wink) on the poor, and it hits people who earn less than $250,000 MUCH harder than it does the millionaire. In percentage terms, and directly. All taxes hit the poor the hardest and the middle class next but this one is straight to the poor.

That’s why Obama had to tell Stephanopolous emphatically that it was NOT a tax, because it hits hardest on the poor and the middle class.

Gomert, on the House floor the day the Unaffordable Obamacare Act was ruled constitutional by the Court, parsed out some important parts of John Roberts‘ “majority opinion” document.

In the first part of the document, Gomert said, John Roberts makes the strong point that Congress knew what it was doing when it used the word “penalty” for the fine they will impose on everybody that does not buy insurance.

Roberts first agreed with Congress and Obama that it was a “penalty” because if it had been called a “tax”, then by legislation and precedent the Supreme Court cannot decide anything until the first “tax” actually is levied and somebody sues.

Having allowed himself to rule on the “penalty”, and after declaring that Congress knows the difference between a penalty and a tax, and therefore the Court has jurisdiction now, not later over this decision, he then goes on to declare by court fiat that the whole thing is constitutional because, he says, it’s really a tax.

That smells like maybe some under-the-table was done, to me. If Congress had called it a “tax” they would not have been able to rule on it till 2014, after the first of us get hit with that part of it. But in 2010 when they passed it they did not dare call it a tax, for it would not have passed.

Dictator in Chief: Unelected bureaucrats wrote the law so don’t talk to us about “unelected”!!*

Jason Bradley at this blog has shared his insight into a side of Obama’s pointed admonition to the “unelected” judges at the Supreme Court:

http://thewesternexperience.com/2012/04/02/obama-delivers-preemptive-against-justices/

Of course Barry Soetoro Obama wants them to do what the Supreme Court has almost always done when the Congress has passed an unconstitutional intrusion into the economic affairs of the states, claiming that the “interstate commerce” clause means anything they want to say is regulation of interstate commerce.

In view of the fact that anything traded on a local basis in 1789 might have had an indirect effect on markets between the states and in other states, and today it’s also true, that can mean anything.

A message that will surely be repeated over the weeks and months is one of “judicial activism” if the Supreme Court justices, who are an “unelectable group of people” go sniffing around too much into the details of Obamacare. Something that should have been done by the “overwhelming majority in Congress” as the president mentioned. Then again, they don’t get paid to read bills — even the bills they supposedly write, which they don’t — so someone has to.

President Barack Obama voiced confidence Monday that the Supreme Court will uphold his health care law in his first public remarks on the issue since the three days of oral arguments last week.

Obama suggested that the Supreme Court would be guilty of “judicial activism” if it overturned the law, and stressed that he believed the justices would see the individual mandate as an integral part of the law.

“I’m confident that this well be upheld because it should be upheld,” Obama said at a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Gay activist control freaks for anti-Christian censorship: Free speech for me, but not for thee

“T-shirt company in crosshairs for saying no to homofest”:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/homosexuals-blast-t-shirt-company-over-beliefs-speech/

A human rights official in Kentucky says it might be perfectly fine for a printing company run by “gays” to refuse to print anti-”gay” literature, but a Christian company refusing to print T-shirts for a “gay” event would not have that same right.

This is the trouble with government thought police inventing “group” rights, totally tramping all over the natural human rights of individuals. Groups do not have natural rights, and using the US Constitution to do it is an exercise of Orwellian Doublethink, because the only rights recognized by, but of course not “given” by, the US Constitution, are individual rights.

One of those is the right to associate with whomever you choose, the “right of assembly“.

The Fourth Amendment does not “grant”, but recognizes, the right to be secure in your property, papers, effects, and your life. Government censorship is a violation of the natural rights of both the First and the Fourth, superior to our Constitution and recognized as such in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself.

That’s the beauty of the US Constitution: it’s written in the common man’s English, and we can point to where “even the Supreme Court” obviously messes it up.

Like seizing private property from a number of individuals to give it to developers.

Related articles

• Left’s Orwellian Censorship Campaign – Matt Barber – Townhall Conservative Columnists – Page 1 (genomega1.wordpress.com)
• What Are Human Rights? (36): A “Right To Something” Always Includes a “Right Not To” (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• Companies Respond to Pakistan’s National Censorship Proposal (eff.org)

Justice says Supreme Court should revisit campaign finance

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness [which] they have prescribed; (Isaiah 10:1)

+———————-+

Ruth Bader Ginzburg is probably the most unconstitutional Supreme Court judge, and she just gave us another proof of it:

Justice says Supreme Court should revisit campaign finance:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/17/justice-says-supreme-court-should-revisit-campaign/

She seems to think that once Congressmen in office they should enjoy the advantage of the incumbent without having to worry about what the private sector or the private economy might have to say about it.

Private money is supposed to be more powerful than the government but not by using government. The incumbent has name-brand recognition and free publicity from their public acts and pronouncements, dutifully reported in the press. Ask any product marketing consultant if that is not already worth millions of dollars (without charge) to somebody who’s already in office. What’s Ginzburg say about that?

Where is the fairness in that? With the incumbent having the built-in advantage, and if the Big Corporate Money IN MEDIA give an advantage without the worry of campaign finance laws, what’s fair about that?

Any restriction on speech, especially political speech above all, of any kind, is an outrageous attack on free speech.

You can’t pass a law to ban flag burning, but you can pass a law that says a group cannot print (or buy print for) an advertisement that says what they think about the government? Or about the policies of government? Or expressing an opinion about candidacy?

Related articles

• Citizens United Part II: Montana Supreme Court Collides With U.S. Supreme Court (the2012scenario.com)
• After Romney Declares Opposition To Campaign Finance Restrictions, Lawyer Behind Citizens United Gives His Support (thinkprogress.org)
• Free Speech? Ya right: Mitch McConnell Is a Poopy-head! (reason.com)
• Public Campaign Financing in Michigan: Driving Towards Collapse (pro2sell.com)
• Mo. Supreme Court strikes down most of ethics law (mysanantonio.com)
• Supreme Court blocks Montana ruling against outside group spending (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Liberal Nullification Watch: Montana Supreme Court vs. Citizens United (reason.com)
• Supreme Court justice Ginzberg: U.S. Constitution inferior (trutherator.wordpress.com)
• Obamacare: IJ Calls on SCOTUS to Check Congressional Overreach (greenmountainscribes.wordpress.com)
• Senators renew push for campaign finance amendment (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Montana Supreme Court Collides With U.S. Supreme Court Over Citizens United (huffingtonpost.com)

Invasion of privacy

I’m here on my sofa watching a recording on CSPAN of a Supreme Court hearing on the Antoine Jones case.

From the discussion, it looks like the police tagged his car surreptitiously with a GPS device to follow his movements.

I’m sorry that this (apparently he is a) defense attorney Stephen Leckar is apparently not more technical. He is relying on the potential massive amount of surveillance that the technology of tiny GPS devices give, but he should just call it the equivalent to a wiretap.

Maybe there’s some kind of precedent he’s stepping around, but I wouldn’t care.

I HATE the police surveillance society, I don’t care what anybody else’s expectations are.

Okay, that’s one thing I like about the United States Constitution. It’s plain English. That way we can review the decisions of the Supreme Court for the smell test. Tha’ts the way it should be.

Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Seems to me rather obvious that the Fourth Amendment covers here, if the scenario was like that.

This is about the “right of the people to be secure”. That’s a whole lot stronger than “feel secure”, it’s a whole lot more than “expectations”. They brought up the zillions of cameras all over England watching the moves of everybody in the country.

And in the same stretch of fifteen minutes they brought up Orwell’s 1984 scenarios several times. Ho hum.

That’s the scariest part, as if a scenario in which video surveillance was ubiquitous, and it was expected, that’s okay. Well, it it’s NOT okay.

People should have an expectation that without reasonable grounds, they are secure in their autos without being tagged or followed.

They think a GPS device is in the same Amendment 4 category as 30 agents doing surveillance on someone and following them around?

Hey guys? 3o agents following someone is more than anyone’s normal expectation of security in the person, ya think? Do that to a Supreme Court judge and they’ll call the police on you, even if you are the police! Do that to a cop, and they’ll have their chief call your chief!

What Amendment was violated in the McCulloch v. Maryland case

Maryland was right, Marshall was wrong, wrong, wrong:

What Amendment was violated in the McCulloch v. Maryland case:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Amendment_was_violated_in_the_McCulloch_v._Maryland_case

A Central Bank has powers way, and far beyond, any of the purported implicit powers contained in the enumerated powers of the US Constitution, and any that somebody today could think up that Marshall did not. There is no way that loan guarantees for private corporations can be considered under any the explicit listed powers, for example, or the creation of fiat currency out of thin air.

There are some quarters who use ‘constitutional’ justifications with an interpretation that the federal government can do anything it wants to, including some that are direct violations of other clauses, and even more that make a mockery of the stated purposes in the Preamble.

The Constitution as a “Supreme Law of the Land” in the real world means that it rules over the Supreme Court and all its decisions too, which also means that when the Court rules against one of its provisions in the name of other provisions or even that provision itself, then the Court itself is in violation of it.

For example, the protections against arbitrary confiscation of property are clear, as is the requirement for a “public purpose” for property, and the purpose of the clause should obviously cover the prevention of arbitrary property transfers between private owners.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul so Paul can pay the thief does not count as a “public purpose”.

The government is not “the public”, the public is the public, and our government has become a thief.