Monthly Archives: July 2015

Looking Past The Obvious

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about the June jobs report. Most of the mainstream media is trumpeting the fact that 237,000 jobs were created in June. That is good, but what they fail to mention is that the civilian labor force shrank by 432,000.

The article reports:

The labor force participation rate also decreased 0.3 percent from last month to 62.6 percent.

The country has not seen a labor force participation rate that low since October 1977 when the participation rate was 62.4 percent.

The BLS reports that the civilian labor force also shrank by 432,000 in June, from 157,469,000 in May to 157,037,000 in June.

While people dropped out of the workforce the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) highlighted that the unemployment rate declined to 5.3 percent and payroll jobs increased by 223,000.

The number of people who dropped out of the labor force was higher than the number of jobs created. That is not a good thing.

Civil Forfeiture Has Met Its Match (At Least In Montana And New Mexico)

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I have written a number of articles citing cases of civil forfeiture in various states. Generally speaking these are situations where property was taken from Americans without regard to their Constitutional rights. If you type civil forfeiture into the search engine on this site, you can read the various articles. One example was posted in November of last year.

Some states have decided that they are going to protect the property rights of their citizens. Montana and New Mexico have recently passed laws doing that.

Forbes Magazine posted an article on its website today stating:

Earlier this year, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock signed a law that requires the government to first obtain a criminal conviction before taking and keeping someone’s property through civil forfeiture.  This legislation also shifts the burden of proof onto the government—where it belongs—when spouses, neighbors and other innocent owners try to get back property used by a suspect without their knowledge. Montana’s civil forfeiture reforms are vital to restore due process and protect the property rights of the innocent.

New Mexico went even further and abolished civil forfeiture outright. As in Montana, law enforcement can only forfeit property after a criminal conviction. Crucially, this new law requires that all forfeiture money be deposited in the general fund, preventing it from becoming a police slush fund. Without a single vote cast against it, Gov. Susana Martinez (and a former prosecutor) signed this landmark reform on April 10.

The increase in civil forfeiture cases in recent years is related to the fact that money and property seized can be kept by the police and prosecutors in the civil forfeiture cases.

The article reports:

Speaking at a forfeiture conference, Pete Connelly, then the city attorney for Las Cruces, New Mexico, called civil forfeiture “a gold mine,” and told attendees, “We could be czars. We could own the city.”

…First, lawmakers must remove the profit incentive behind civil forfeiture. Allowing police and prosecutors to keep what they seize has enriched law enforcement at the cost of Americans’ constitutional rights. Since 1985, the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Fund has grown from $27 million to over $2 billion in 2013. Nationwide, more than 500 police departments and task forces have seized the equivalent of 20 percent or more of their yearly budgets. To end this appalling incentive to police for profit, legislators should direct all forfeiture proceeds either to the general fund or to a specified neutral fund, like education.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It shows what can happen when the Constitution is not followed and the average citizen is not paying enough attention to realize what is happening.

Thank you, Montana and New Mexico, for taking the lead on this.

Countering The Move To Push Christians Back Behind The Doors Of Their Churches

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If you listen to the debate that took place last week about same-sex marriage, you realize that those who hold a Biblical view of marriage will be protected–as long as they stay within the walls of their churches. Christian business owners who hold that belief will not be protected–the ‘free exercise of religion’ clause in the Constitution has been quietly changed (in the mind of much of the public) to the ‘freedom to believe what you want to believe inside your church.’ There was another recent example of that in our military.

Yesterday the America Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) posted an article on its website about a recent incident in the U.S. Air Force.

The article reports:

Recently, I told you about Major General Craig Olson, USAF, and how he was attacked by the anti-Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) and its founder “Mikey” Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein claimed that because General Olson publicly shared that he was a Christian believer who valued prayer and gave God the credit for his successes at a National Day of Prayer event, he should be court martialed. Yes, court martialed for expressing his Christian faith.

To Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF, General Olson’s publicly giving God credit for personal successes crossed the line.  Yet, they were flat wrong, and the Air Force fully agreed with us that “Maj Gen Olson did not violate Air Force policy . . . .”

In response to Mr. Weinstein’s demands that General Olson should be “aggressively and visibly brought to justice for his unforgiveable crimes and transgressions,” the ACLJ took action.

We immediately sent a letter to General Mark A. Welsh III, Air Force Chief of Staff, pointing out the outlandish tactics employed by Mr. Weinstein (and the MRFF) when he is offended by the religious sentiments expressed by those with whom he disagrees.

As founder of the Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF),  Mikey Weinstein has fought to keep the Christian faith out of the military. He is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and claims that the Air Force Academy and the military are hostile to Judaism. I have no idea whether or not his claims are true, but he has definitely declared war on letting Christians express their faith. The message the charges sent to General Olson is that he was not legally allowed to talk about his faith–it was okay to be a Christian in the church, but not in the public square.

The article continues with the content of the letter that the ACLJ wrote:

Mr. Weinstein’s allegations that General Olson violated the Establishment Clause is ludicrous on its face. General Olson gave a personal testimony about the importance of prayer in his life. No one was required to do or believe anything. The coercive force of the United States Government was not behind his remarks, and no one was compelled to accede to his beliefs or change theirs. . . .

General Olson’s own words indicated without a doubt that he was giving his personal story. He was not acting as a government official when he made his remarks. Hence, it would be unreasonable for anyone to draw the conclusion that he was “officially” endorsing anything.

The article reports that the Director of the Administrative Law Directorate (Office of the Judge Advocate General), Conrad M. Von Wald, responded with the following:

We have thoroughly reviewed the facts and circumstances involving Maj Gen Olson’s participation at the National Day of Prayer Observance held on May 7, 2015, at the Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC.  Maj Gen Olson did not violate Air Force policy by participating in this Congressionally-supported event.  His remarks were his own personal opinions and did not represent the views of the United States Air Force.

Our military used to allow people of all faiths to express their faith. I think we got along better when people listened instead of deciding to be offended. We were founded as a Christian country with a legal system based on a Judeo-Christian ethic. Unfortunately, we have forgotten that and as a result have wandered down a lot of paths that have damaged our legal system and our nation. We would be a better nation if all of us realized that we were accountable to something bigger than ourselves–regardless of what we believe that something is.

When State And Local Governments Are Totally Out Of Control

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Yesterday Cindy Archer posted an article in the Wall Street Journal explaining why she has filed a civil-rights lawsuit against Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

This lawsuit is the result of serious abuses of power by the District Attorney in an effort to intimidate and silence supporters of Scott Walker as Governor. Please follow the link above to read the background on the story. I am going to focus on some of the abuses of power by the District Attorney and his political allies.

Ms. Archer chronicles some of the events:

Nothing could have prepared me for waking up to the shouts of men with battering rams announcing that they were about to break down my door on that morning in 2011. It was so unexpected and frightening that I ran down from my bedroom without clothes on. Panicked by the threatened show of force, I was then humiliated as officers outside the window yelled at me to get dressed and open up. I quickly retrieved clothing and dressed as I unlocked the door.

Agents with weapons drawn swarmed through every part of the house. They barged into the bathroom where my partner was showering. I was told to shut up and sit down. The officers rummaged through drawers, cabinets and closets. Their aggressive assault on my home seemed more appropriate for a dangerous criminal, not a longtime public servant with no criminal history.

After they left, I surveyed the damage. Drawers and closets had been ransacked. My deceased mother’s belongings were strewn across the floor. Neighbors gathered in small clusters at the end of their driveways and the press arrived in force.

What had prompted the raid? My guess: As an adviser to Gov. Walker, I had played a lead role in drafting and implementing public-employee labor reforms that would propel him to the national stage.

No American should be treated this way.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of her ordeal:

In the months following the raid, I was interrogated by the district attorney’s deputies numerous times on a variety of topics related to the governor’s tenure as Milwaukee county executive, but I was never charged with a crime. I faced seven grueling confrontations that seemed designed simply to intimidate and harass me into providing damaging information about Gov. Walker—though I had none.

I have also been subjected to derogatory headlines and made the butt of jokes on talk radio and anti-Walker websites about everything from my personal appearance to my sexual orientation and mental stability. Neighbors became distant and suspicious.

Ms. Archer concludes:

My reputation and career have been damaged beyond repair. But knowing what I now know, there is a clear legal path forward. There should be no place in America where powerful law-enforcement officials are allowed to misuse their offices for political purposes.

American voters need to wake up and see what is happening to our political system. It has been taken over by thugs and bullies who do not care about our representative republic–they care simply about their own power and preserving it. It is time to get out the broom and do a clean sweep of those local, state, and federal officials who do not understand that they are supposed to represent the people and serve at the will of the people.

With A Stroke Of The Pen…

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about President Obama’s new Executive Order to change the rules for American workers regarding overtime pay.

The article reports:

Currently, businesses that pay salaried workers less than $455 a week have to pay overtime as well. Obama complains that this threshold has been raised only once since 1975. (He conveniently leaves out the fact that the last increase came during President Bush’s “jobless recovery.”)

As a result, he says, too many companies are “skirting basic overtime laws, calling somebody a manager when they’re stocking groceries and getting paid $30,000 a year.”

Obama plans to raise the threshold to $50,400, which he says will make 5 million more workers eligible for time-and-a-half pay.

So let’s take a look at this. If you are working hard, it’s always nice to get a pay raise, particularly if you are putting in a lot of overtime. However, it seems to me that the decision to pay you overtime should be made by the company you work for (since they are going to be required to come up with the money to pay you). If you understand that companies are in business to make a profit (otherwise there is no point in being in business), then you understand that this Executive Order is not going to have the result that President Obama seems to think it will have. The head of a company is now placed in a position where he has to figure out if it is cheaper to pay someone overtime or hire someone part time. He also has to consider if he wants to replace one person who was previously not paid overtime with two part-time people paid less. At any rate, the unintended consequences of this Executive Order are going to hurt workers more than they are going to help them.

Huh????

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Yesterday The American Thinker posted an article about a recent decision by the Supreme Court not to hear a case regarding proof of citizenship for voter registration.

The article reports:

In a commonsense decision, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a case that decided that people registering to vote in federal election don’t have to prove their citizenship.  That means that people registering to vote won’t be bullied into proving citizenship, which now seems to be an irrelevant criterion for voting.

“I am very pleased, obviously,” said Dolores Furtado, president of the Kansas chapter of the League of Women Voters. “It’s a good feeling because we’re truly trying to help” people get registered to vote.

Furtado said the league’s main interest is in increasing participation in the democratic process “rather than trying to make more hoops, more steps, to go through.”

It would have been nice if the Supreme Court had ruled on this; however, there is an interesting consequence of this decision that will give Kansas a more honest election on the state and local level.

On Monday, Roll Call posted an article explaining how the decision of the Supreme Court not to take the case would impact elections in Kansas and Arizona.

The article reports:

The Kansas and Arizona laws stand, meaning that people wishing to register to vote with state forms are required to show proof of citizenship. Kobach said more than 99 percent of Kansans use the state forms. “But because of the Supreme Court decision not to review the case,” he added, “we do have a small limited loophole.” The slim majority that uses the federal form can “refuse to provide proof of citizenship,” he said, “but that will only suffice for federal elections.”

Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

Basically that means that each state can set the standard for who is allowed to vote. Obviously, because there is a federal form people can use in Kansas, there is a way of circumventing that law by using the federal form. However, using the federal form only allows people to vote in federal elections. This is another example of the federal government overriding the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

I really wonder who came up with the bright idea that non-citizens would be able to vote in American elections. That is totally ridiculous and seriously undermines the integrity of our election process.