Couple Ordered to Stop Bible Study at Home Without Permit

Developing

Couple Ordered to Stop Holding Bible Study at Home Without Permit

They're backed down... as expected..

County won't force permit on Bible study leaders [This Post Continues after the jump...]

The Illustrated Road to Serfdom

WOW..

I hope everyone reads this.
I'm not saying it IS happening, just that it honestly COULD happen.
The emotion, rather than logic, that got Obama elected is troubling to me, and could be the beginning of something like this. The power of the government over the economy is certainly increasing now, and rather illogically and quickly. And don't forget the speed in which is "must" be done.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
-- Thomas Jefferson (Attributed)

The Illustrated Road to Serfdom [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Obama's So-Called Stimulus: Good For Government, Bad For the Economy

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The Obama presidency: Here comes socialism

Buckle up!! We're in for a rough ride...

TheHill.com - The Obama presidency: Here comes socialism

The Obama presidency: Here comes socialism
By Dick Morris
Posted: 01/20/09 06:12 PM [ET]

2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.

Obama will accomplish his agenda of “reform” under the rubric of “recovery.” Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won’t do much to shorten the downturn — although they will make it less painful — but they will do a great deal to change our nation.

In implementing his agenda, Barack Obama will emulate the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Not the liberal mythology of the New Deal, but the actuality of what it accomplished.) When FDR took office, he was enormously successful in averting a total collapse of the banking system and the economy. But his New Deal measures only succeeded in lowering the unemployment rate from 23 percent in 1933, when he took office, to 13 percent in the summer of 1937. It never went lower. And his policies of over-regulation generated such business uncertainty that they triggered a second-term recession. Unemployment in 1938 rose to 17 percent and, in 1940, on the verge of the war-driven recovery, stood at 15 percent. (These data and the real story of Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s missteps, uncolored by ideology, are available in The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, copyright 2007.)

But in the name of a largely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression, Roosevelt passed crucial and permanent reforms that have dominated our lives ever since, including Social Security, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, unionization under the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage and a host of other fundamental changes.

Obama’s record will be similar, although less wise and more destructive. He will begin by passing every program for which liberals have lusted for decades, from alternative-energy sources to school renovations, infrastructure repairs and technology enhancements. These are all good programs, but they normally would be stretched out for years. But freed of any constraint on the deficit — indeed, empowered by a mandate to raise it as high as possible — Obama will do them all rather quickly.

But it is not his spending that will transform our political system, it is his tax and welfare policies. In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population.

Will he raise taxes? Why should he? With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans.

In the name of stabilizing the banking system, Obama will nationalize it. Using Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to write generous checks to needy financial institutions, his administration will demand preferred stock in exchange. Preferred stock gets dividends before common stockholders do. With the massive debt these companies will owe to the government, they will only be able to afford dividends for preferred stockholders — the government, not private investors. So who will buy common stock? And the government will demand that its bills be paid before any profits that might materialize are reinvested in the financial institution, so how will the value of the stocks ever grow? Devoid of private investors, these institutions will fall ever more under government control.

Obama will begin the process by limiting executive compensation. Then he will urge restructuring and lowering of home mortgages in danger of default (as the feds have already done with Citibank).

Then will come guidance on the loans to make and government instructions on the types of enterprises to favor. God grant that some Blagojevich type is not in charge of the program, using his power to line his pockets. The United States will find itself with an economic system comparable to that of Japan, where the all-powerful bureaucracy at MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) manages the economy, often making mistakes like giving mainframe computers priority over the development of laptops.

But it is the healthcare system that will experience the most dramatic and traumatic of changes. The current debate between erecting a Medicare-like governmental single payer or channeling coverage through private insurance misses the essential point. Without a lot more doctors, nurses, clinics, equipment and hospital beds, health resources will be strained to the breaking point. The people and equipment that now serve 250 million Americans and largely neglect all but the emergency needs of the other 50 million will now have to serve everyone. And, as government imposes ever more Draconian price controls and income limits on doctors, the supply of practitioners and equipment will decline as the demand escalates. Price increases will be out of the question, so the government will impose healthcare rationing, denying the older and sicker among us the care they need and even barring them from paying for it themselves. (Rationing based on income and price will be seen as immoral.)

And Obama will move to change permanently the partisan balance in America. He will move quickly to legalize all those who have been in America for five years, albeit illegally, and to smooth their paths to citizenship and voting. He will weaken border controls in an attempt to hike the Latino vote as high as he can in order to make red states like Texas into blue states like California. By the time he is finished, Latinos and African-Americans will cast a combined 30 percent of the vote. If they go by top-heavy margins for the Democrats, as they did in 2008, it will assure Democratic domination (until they move up the economic ladder and become good Republicans).

And he will enact the check-off card system for determining labor union representation, repealing the secret ballot in union elections. The result will be to raise the proportion of the labor force in unions up to the high teens from the current level of about 12 percent.

Finally, he will use the expansive powers of the Federal Communications Commission to impose “local” control and ownership of radio stations and to impose the “fairness doctrine” on talk radio. The effect will be to drive talk radio to the Internet, fundamentally change its economics, and retard its growth for years hence.

But none of these changes will cure the depression. It will end when the private sector works through the high debt levels that triggered the collapse in the first place. And, then, the large stimulus package deficits will likely lead to rapid inflation, probably necessitating a second recession to cure it.

So Obama’s name will be mud by 2012 and probably by 2010 as well. And the Republican Party will make big gains and regain much of its lost power.

But it will be too late to reverse the socialism of much of the economy, the demographic change in the electorate, the rationing of healthcare by the government, the surge of unionization and the crippling of talk radio.


Morris, a former adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Outrage. To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com. To order a signed copy of their new best-selling book, Fleeced, go to dickmorris.com.
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The “Ideology-Free” Election of 2008

GayPatriot » The “Ideology-Free” Election of 2008

"If people voted this year on which party’s general philosophy more closely matched their own view of government, John McCain would win in a walk"

So as Rush Limbaugh would say, this election is about STYLE over SUBSTANCE. Obama's got Style in spades, but McCain's got substance... not that it matters... [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Sanchez Introduces Border Search Bill

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez - September 11, 2008: Sanchez Introduces Border Search Bill

I have no idea what else the congresswoman has done, but this is VERY MUCH needed and I hope it passes. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border

This is disturbing on so many levels. I personally just bought a laptop and one of the first thing I did was to install "whole disc encryption" on it. I have nothing illegal to hide, but I do have private info on the laptop. I'm more concerned about the laptop being stolen than the "authorities" looking at it.

but now the authorities might "steal it" for an undetermined amount of time. And it's going to be longer since they will try and break the encryption on it. My concern now is that the mere present of encryption software might make them think they are all the more justified to violate my privacy in this manner. So it become a vicious circle feeding on itself.

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border (washingtonpost.com)


PS - Although I would never vote for Obama, just the thought that he might change this policy is a good reason not to be upset if he should get elected. It's THAT significant to me. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

'Road-rage' bill targets lane-blocking drivers

I see a good law suit if this passes. I don't know if there is any legal basis for "consistency" in laws, but there should be.

If this were to pass, it would PROVE that speed limits are NOT really based on public safety, but are in fact a revenue source. This law essentially says that if two people are driving the speed limit side by side, then the driver in the left lane can get a ticket for not "allowing" others to pass, even thought to pass them, the other person would have to be SPEEDING.

If a law encourages and facilitates breaking the speed limit, then I would argue the the speed limit law is inconsistent and therefore should be struck down. Granted, I don't know what legal basis there is for a law to be required to be consistent with other laws, but common sense says there should be such a requirement for laws.

Personally I think speed limits are set more to get money from tickets than for any other reason. Speeds could be raised considerable and only effect a small percentage of truly reckless drivers if safety was the only concern. But they aren't because then there would be no money coming in for traffic tickets.


'Road-rage' bill targets lane-blocking drivers | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Feds might be looking into your finances

Right now, feds might be looking into your finances

Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans — without their knowledge.

This is troubling to me. I realize it is a useful tool to fight crime but it also can be abused. As Christians, it is commonly believed that a day will come that you will not be able to buy or sell things without government approval. This seems like a step in that direction. We just need to be careful what power we give the government to look into our private lives.

Full Story after the jump...

By Thomas Frank
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans — without their knowledge.

The same type of information that raised suspicions about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is reviewed every day by authorities to find traces of money laundering, check fraud, identity theft or any crime that may involve a financial institution.

As concerns about fraud and terrorist financing grow, an increasing number of suspicious deposits, withdrawals and money transfers are being reported by banks and others to the federal government. Banks and credit unions as well as currency dealers and stores that cash checks reported a record 17.6 million transactions to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in 2006, according to a report from the network, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department.

"I don't think Americans understand that their financial transactions are being reported and routinely examined," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Treasury Department's database now contains records of more than 100 million financial transactions going back to at least 1996, said network spokesman Steve Hudak.

Teams of agents from the FBI, IRS, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies regularly review newly filed financial reports and launch investigations. Federal and local authorities search the database to find information about people that can help ongoing probes. Treasury Department analysts study the reports to detect trends in fraud and issue reports alerting financial institutions.

"The government has access to untold volumes of records and can draw all sorts of conclusions about us, and many are going to be wrong," Steinhardt said.

Bankers disagree. "For the typical bank customer, this means very little because there's nothing they're doing that's likely to be viewed as out of the ordinary," said Richard Riese, head of regulatory compliance for the American Bankers Association.

The reporting system dates to the early 1970s when federal agents sought to pinpoint drug dealers by looking for people making large cash deposits.

Financial institutions have long been required to report cash transactions over $10,000. Those reports — simple notices of a deposit or withdrawal — account for more than 90% of the records the enforcement network gets each year.

Far more controversial are secret "suspicious activity reports" filed by financial institutions and reviewed by teams of agents spread around the country. The investigation of Spitzer began when a bank spotted potentially suspicious transfers from several accounts and filed reports with the IRS, according to a federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official did not want his name used because he's not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

The number of suspicious activity reports soared from 413,000 in 2003 to 1 million in 2006, according to the enforcement network.

Federal law requires the reports to remain secret. They are written by officers at financial institutions who specialize in detecting suspicious activity, such as a series of large transactions.

The analysis can protect customers by spotting unusual withdrawals that may indicate fraud, said Robert Rowe, senior regulatory counsel of the Independent Community Bankers of America.

Many of the reports are a waste, said Riese of the bankers association. "We're reporting on a lot of things everybody knows law enforcement doesn't have the resources to pursue," he said.

Hudak said the "vast majority" of reports "are filed for a good reason. … There are law enforcement officials and investigators who use these reports and read them every day."
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Real ID - Not as Bad as You Think?

I for one welcome an ID card that is hard to get and can quickly be scanned by government agencies to prove my identify and to get services from the government.

However, I don't want it scanned to get into a bar, or to rent a car, or by any private company selling me something or providing me something. There needs to be protection against this type of abuse, and the current system does not have it as far as I know.

DHS: Real ID is 'pro-consumer' and 'antiterrorism' | Tech news blog - CNET News.com [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Government is Good?

Yesterday I turned 37. My loving parents (thanks mom and dad!) sent me an amazon gift card for getting older. I immediately went to amazon.com to start looking for some birthday booty. And I came across this:

Government is Good - An Unapologetic Defense of a Vital Institution

I have yet to read through a lot of it, however, there are some things that make my hair stand on end such as the sections entitled: Taxes are Good, The Case FOR Bureaucracy and Why We Need More Government.

This will obviously require a much more in-depth read on my part.

More later...... [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Real ID could mean real travel headaches

Real ID could mean real travel headaches | CNET News.com

The really ODD thing is that there is no published law requiring a person to show ANY ID to fly from state to state. So why is there not a requirement to show a certain TYPE of ID.

The constitution requires that "full faith and credit" be given to documents of states by "every other state". Shouldn't this apply to the federal government too? Especially since the federal government doesn't issue ID cards it self. One would think it would be required to give full faith and credit to the ID cards issued by each state. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

GOP on Earmarks

This is the first I've heard of this executive order. Apparently some "earmarks" are not actually in the law as passed and signed, but in "supporting documentation" or "reports". I've never heard of this before.

But Bush won't stop it because they don't want the next President to be able to stop their earmarks. Which is silly because the next president can "undo" the executive order or write their own. So since the cat is out of the bag (meaning that the idea is getting publicized and not a secret idea of the GOP only) there is no risk to doing it.

Someone should ask one of the candidates what they would do...


Tapscotts Copy Desk: Deja Vu all over again Here comes the big collapse by Bush Hill GOP on earmarks - Examiner.com

*** UPDATE ***

In the State of the Union Address, Bush said he would sign this executive order. This sounds like good news to me. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Copyright Police

Congress' copyright reform: seize computers, boost penalties, spend money

Before you think this only applies to the "real pirates" who profit from copyright violation, keep in mind that many people think coping a CD to a PC is a copyright violation, and this new law would allow police to take your PC just for that reason.

More Here... Copy That Floppy, Lose Your Computer
(http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/10/1522241)
Note that you do not have to be found guilty of ANYTHING to permanently loose your PC.

and Here [This Post Continues after the jump...]

RV parking rules

Brevard revisits RV parking rules | floridatoday.com | Serving Brevard County and Florida’s Space Coast

Our county commissioners have too much time on their hands. Where are people supposed to park their RV's if they can't park them on their own property? What is the point of OWNING property if you can't use it as you want to.

If you want to control your neighbor's property, then BUY it.. otherwise deal with it. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Where Can Sex Offenders Live?

FOXNews.com - Georgia Court Overturns Ban Limiting Where Sex Offenders Can Live - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

Well, this is good news... the laws were a good idea, but they are getting out of hand. Especially the "School Bus Stop" which can change from year to year and are everywhere. I support some, even a lot of limits on where registered sex offenders can live, but if they don't need to be locked up in jail, then they need to be allowed to live somewhere.

I also question the effectiveness of restricting where they live. Do they typically do crimes on kids near their home, or do they travel somewhere else? Do they typically do crimes in areas with LOTS of kids (schools and parks) or do they victimize kids in remote areas? There is a certain safety in numbers, isn't there?

Resticting where they live, IS VALID, but it has to be limited meaning it can effectively ban sex offenders from anywhere in a city. And it has to be "value added" in my opinion, meaning the ban has to make since and not just be an attempt to harass them so much that they go elsewhere. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Eminent Domain Gone Wild

reason.tv - Videos > National City: Eminent Domain Gone Wild

I'm going to have to watch this one, but I'll skip episode 2 .... [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Forbidding Smoking In Private Lives

I don't see how a company can enforce their policy on people's private lives. Smoking is very unpopular right now, so this might be allowed, and strangely might be viewed as a "good idea".

But where does it stop? What other legal activities can an employer ban you from ever doing?

I hope someone stops this before it gets out of hand.


Fla. Companies Forbidding Smoking In Private Lives - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando [This Post Continues after the jump...]

City puts bite in 'no barking' ordinance

With cities like this.... who needs Home Owner Associations....
(For those of you how don't get it... Cities = Friends (normally) while HOA = Enemy)

An outright ban on owning a dog would probably not be accepted, but this round-about-way to ban it is! I wonder why? I guess it is kind of like the frog that get cooked because it cannot sense a slow rise in water temperature. People just don't sense these encroachments on our rights.

The Daily Commercial | City puts bite in 'no barking' ordinance


UPDATE
http://www.wftv.com/news/14100550/detail.html
It seems people are in an uproar over this... as they should be! Which proves my point that "city government" is large enough to have enough diversity (of opinion if nothing else) to protect people's rights. Small HOA simply do not. I'm sure a rule like this would pass easily in a bunch of HOA across the country. People think "I don't have a dog" or "My small dog's bark can't be heard outside the house" so why should I care about and protect other people's rights. It's only when you have enough people, so of which that think "wait a minute, I have a dog, and he barks more than 3 times a day." that people are moved to protect their own and other people's rights.

The best quote form the above link: "I'm a little perplexed myself at how much publicity this has generated," said police chief Randy Scoggins."

Could this guy be any more clueless?? What did he think would happen with a law that tickets a dog owner for having a dog that does ..well it does what dogs do -- BARK.

Also - Mt. Dora's chief of police said he got a telephone call all the way from London, England. A reporter for the BBC believes the city's plan to quiet barking dogs goes too far. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Rosemount going ahead with plans to force sale of land

I'm sure this is a complex issue, and this doesn't cover all the facts.
But this is an interesting case.

I firmly believe that a property owner should have absolute power to set their "asking price" for any property they own. Cities should not be able to lower that price using eminent domain unless it is to be used for something that can only be done at that location (a street widening, dam, flood control, etc..). Even then I think the city should pay 'above' market value for property if it's taking it by force. This would make the city look elsewhere (if possible) for property that is willing to be sold and also give the owner something in exchange for his involuntary lost of property.

But this case seem to be that someone bought the property knowing the city was interested, paid more than the land was worth, and now wants to make profit from the city. In this case the city's ability to "take" the land may be an important counterbalance to pure profiteering by a land owner.

Rosemount going ahead with plans to force sale of land [This Post Continues after the jump...]