Sometimes I Hate Being Right

By Tom Rhodes, 6/25/2020

News yesterday is "Hundreds ‘ambush’ Tampa police responding to report of shots fired, 2 officers injured, chief says" This is an example of the people of Tampa seeking justice by other means because because they have no legal remedy to the police abusing their rights.

I predicted this would happen back in 2014 and talked about why, noting the Ferguson Riots were the Early Signs of Revoluion.

I noted a couple years later in 2016 that Civil War II has started, it's a slow burn but it is ramping up and will unfortunately become a shooting war before another generation is born. I rightly stated, "As long as the minions of the elite maintain their quasi-military attitude, their us vs them mentality, and their legal unaccountably, they will increasingly find themselves at war against the American people. It is a war they cannot win."

That same article concluded "No sane person would celebrate the current situation, it has been predicted, but the repeated calls to hold the police and our government accountable have gone unheeded. When the FBI boldly proclaims that yes the elite did break the law, but we won’t prosecute, and cops routinely (hundreds of times a year) shoot the unarmed public without accountability, it clearly demonstrates to the people that the rule of law is dead, and the people cannot expect justice from the government. The people can, and will, seek justice through other means when the government refuses to enforce the rule of law."

I hope I'm wrong, but I predict that Civil War II will be bloodier and more deadly than the War Between the States.

Matt’s Torturous Path

by Pete Bloome, 4/3/2017

On 24 March, Congressman Matt Gaetz told a Shark Tank interviewer “I agree with the President we ought to have every option on the table when it comes to advanced interrogation techniques.” In plain English, advanced interrogation means torture. He thinks torture should be a legal tool of the United States used by the President. That is a self-destructive mistake for the country.

I’m sure Matt doesn’t see it that way. With the war on terror, torture has gained some undeserved popularity. He knows this topic hits an emotional hot button with a lot of folks. Every radical Islamic terrorist attack somewhere stokes a common desire to fight fire with fire. TV shows have gritty public servants thrashing bad guys to within an inch of their lives to find the kidnapped girl. The scariest story line of all is the maniac with an atom bomb who won’t tell people where it is, and it has to be beaten out of him. People want simple solutions, and Matt Gaetz gives it to them. Of course, he doesn’t mention the horrendous price we pay for doing so.

Legalized torture is dangerous to that precious thing known as the American way of life. With the word out that we will use torture, our enemies will be less likely to give themselves up. That will lead to the unnecessary death of our soldiers. It sets the stage for revenge attacks in a never ending cycle of retaliation. It removes any semblance of moral superiority from our legal or military actions. It turns its back on hundreds of years of the progress of civilization starting with the Crucifixion, and violates reams of existing law. It doesn’t recognize individual rights, only the force of the State over a person. It caters to mob rule. The innocent can suffer as readily as the guilty. In addition, it doesn’t work. When Secretary of Defense Mattis stated that “beer and cigarettes” were better than enhanced interrogation techniques, he wasn’t just speaking morally. The Air Force taught me a person under torture will say anything, do anything, to stop it. John McCain himself made all sorts of bogus admissions to crimes on North Vietnamese Radio under torture. These kinds of limitations make the whole idea unreliable in the extreme.

Legalized torture would be like introducing cancer into our Republic. It causes physical and mental lasting harm, with no remedy, to people who could be innocent. It trashes due process. It won’t even work, but it is popular. And to think Matt wants to give such power to the President, a separate and supposedly equal branch of the government. You have to ask yourself, what do we become if we do embrace torture and its threat to liberty? H.L. Mencken wrote to every problem there is a solution that is clear, simple, and wrong. Legalized torture is that kind of solution.

Matt Gaetz is an educated man, lawyer, and officer of the court, but he chose political expediency over representation, tough words over a clear vision, and dangerously advocating an ever increasing Federal power to impose its might over the individual. His cynicism in supporting such a policy is both overwhelming and heartbreaking at the same time. The First District is chock full of people who are at the tip of the military spear. It makes me wonder if he ever bothered talking to them at all.

The lawyers I’ve known say it used to be considered better to let a guilty man go free than let an innocent man suffer under the law.

As a Congressman, Matt Gaetz has chosen a new path, and it ain’t pretty.

Pete Blome is Chair of the Northwest Florida Libertarian Party and a retired military officer

Even Conservative Press Promotes Statism

By Tom Rhodes, 4/13/2015

John Nantz did an article at Townhall.com today trying to say that the killing of Scott by officer Slager was not racist. The entire thing reads like a pro-tyranny you should just obey the government and you won’t get hurt diatribe. Oh he attempts to say cops aren’t racist, but that’s a red herring. The summary is that if you just obeyed you have nothing to fear.

Nantz bases his article on an assertion that is a provable lie, or at minimum purposefully obtuse. Writing, "Cops rarely, if ever, employ force except in circumstances created by the criminal." Every year hundreds and hundreds of videos are posted that show cops using force against people whose only “criminal” activity is to refuse to answer questions and/or refuse to consent to searches. Merely exercising their 4th and 5th Amendment rights.

Couple that with the millions of collars confiscated every year by cops by force or under threat of force without ever even charging anybody with a crime much less due process, it is clear that the police commonly employ force based on circumstances they create. Circumstances like “check points” or “stop and frisk” or hundreds of minor infractions based on overcriminalized society. Hell they don’t even have to know the law, the courts have recently ruled if cops believe something is illegal, even if it isn’t, they can use force against a law abiding citizen, and the citizen has no recourse. Simply consider that it is legal for a cop to lie to people to entrap them, but illegal to lie to a cop.

In as much as the basis for the editorial is demonstrably false, the other assertions he makes are also false. In his description of the video, you will note he conveniently fails to mention the video shows the office in question planting evidence and arranging it to justify his killing of Mr. Scott. In other news this week confessions of cops has demonstrated that planting evidence to insure conviction or to justify killing is common not rare. Nantz’s article is obvious propaganda to justify ever increasing tyranny of the government.

Consider the fact running around that notes the cops have killed more people in the USA this year than England’s did in the last century, and we have an obvious problem that the press and our government don’t want the people to address or acknowledge. Our police act more like enforcer for our royal rulers than protectors of individual rights.

Nantz’s editorial from supposedly conservative Townhall.com, is using a false narrative to attempt to have America ignore the rise in government tyranny that is plainly obvious. The press with rare exception, even the “conservative” press, is promoting the pro-statism line. Look at the results of electing majority GOP to both the house and senate. Cronyism and pro-state legislation has not changed one iota since the Democrats controlled the senate, nor from when they controlled the congress and senate. The fix is in the press and ruling elite are working together to mollify the people to accepting statism as the righteous rule.

Can Cops Make an Unlawful Order?

By Tom Rhodes, 2/19/2015

Today we have LEO’s not Peace Officers, their job is no longer to protect the peace, but to enforce laws. If you don’t know the difference, stop reading and go play Farmville or whatever is popular on FB. Try to look up a legal definition of a “lawful order.” It’s not well defined, and is generally anything a cop tells you to do, legal or not. If a cop gives you an order and you don’t obey it, chances are you will be arrested, often violently, detained and thrown in jail. Doesn’t matter what that order is, or if the LEO has the authority or right to make the order.

Take something as benign as a traffic stop. By Florida statute you are required to “show” your license when a LEO requests it. The law does not require you to surrender you license to the LEO. If an officer asks to “see your license” and you put your license up against the window of your car so he can see it, you are complying with both the law and his order. The question is if the officer asks for your license and requests you hand it to him, is that a legal order?

There is no Florida statute saying you must surrender you driver license to the police if requested. But there is a law that says you must follow all lawful orders. In reality all orders a cop give to a civilian are lawful. Want proof, find any case were a cop was disciplined anywhere in Florida for giving an unlawful order.

Let’s say you show your license as the law requires but refuse to surrender it as requested. What will happen is the cop with get angry, and may be arrest you for disobeying an officer, you will be strip searched and placed in jail. At some point in the future (1-3 days), charges may be dropped and you may be freed. You were not successful even though you didn’t break any law and were within your rights, being jailed for 3 days is excessive punishment for not actually breaking any law other than pissing off a cop. So now that your rights were abused you can’t do anything meaningful. Due to qualified immunity, you will not be able to sue the law enforcement officer. You might be able to sue the department, but the officer is completely in the free and will not be held responsible in any way. Even the department won’t be held responsible because their funding won’t be reduced, instead the municipality that runs the police department will use taxpayer money to pay you.

In reality no order given by a law enforcement officer is ever considered unlawful. No person has ever disobeyed an unlawful order, and had justice prevail. Nowhere in Florida has an officer ever been held accountable for “giving an unlawful order.”

The only way for there to have never been an officer held accountable for “giving an unlawful order,” is either that no order by an LEO is unlawful, or no LEO has ever given an unlawful order. The sad fact is that, today, in Florida, you have no legal right to not obey any order a cop gives you, whether the LEO has been granted that power by law or not. There is no such thing as an unlawful order by an LEO. That is a problem, and it is a problem or government doesn’t even want you to know, much less talk about.

Civil War II has Begun

By Tom Rhodes, 12/21/2014

In NYC two police officers where assassinated, blame has been placed on retaliation for the prosecuted murder of a NYC citizen by the NYPD. This is what the start of Civil War II in the USA is going to look like. Civil War II won't involve troops and defined lines of engagement, it will be a 4th generation war. I suggest you read William S. Lind's book on the subject.

The police today no longer serve and protect, they exist to use force to instil the will of the ruling elite on the populace, they have an us vs. them mentality, and are clearly separate not part of their communities. As such war between the state and the people is inevitable. Vox Day notes that the police “are increasingly corrupt, increasingly frightened, increasingly gunned-up, increasingly feeling at war with the general population, and increasingly of a different ethnicity than the people with whom they are interacting on a regular basis.” Further stating that to avoid Civil War II, the police should “disarm completely, stop playing soldier, abandon the concept of 'law enforcement', and stop their confrontational tactics. This is highly unlikely, however, because most police officers recruited after the Drug War began are psychologically well-suited for confrontation and quasi-militarization. They're neither trained nor psychologically equipped to lower the temperature these days.”

I believe it's too late to prevent a new era of violence in the USA. The simple fact is that today's militarized police have lost their moral authority. In just a couple years, “Don't TAZE me Bro” has become “Don't Shoot me.” The press try to suppress and control the information, but the internet has destroyed the ability of the ruling elite to control what information the people get. We see the oppression of those who don't do as dictated by the police. Look at other news were 4 year old's are put in handcuffs, parents arrested for objecting at school board meetings, sleeping 7 yr old little girls shot by police and ruled justified, police justified throwing grenades into baby's cribs maiming them for life, or the people simply arrested for merely filming the police doing their job. When all legal recourse for true justice is taken away from the people, they have no choice but to seek to limit state power by whatever means they have.

As the government gets bigger and we get more and more laws trying to control every part of our lives, there will be more and more people seeking to terrorize the police into limiting their abuses, "just doing their job" is no excuse. We didn't accept that type of excuse at Nuremberg, and in the USA if the state won't willing limit itself and increases the use of force to make We the People capitulate to laws clearly beyond the authority We the People gave them, then it is not only the right but the Duty of We the People to resist.

The coming war against the state won't look like any traditional war. The people won't attack that military, rather it starts with the police, then moves to the bureaucrats and their families and then the business that supply the state. A direct confrontation against the government's military might would be fatal and stupid. Free people changed the rules of war and won against the mightiest force in the world, don't think that same spirit, determination, and resourcefulness doesn't still exist.

How is the state going to be able to hire people to enforce it's draconian laws, if those people who would take the job know they and their families are the targets. The only hope is for the police to demilitarize, quit using swat teams to make arrests for non-violent pot smokers, quit arresting people feeding the homeless, and return to a limited state with few powers. They forget that the people could eliminate every LEO in the country overnight. I'm not sure LEO's understand that very survival depends upon the good will of “We the People”. They should look up the Sicilian Vespers and sincerely think about their relations with common people.

Unless the majority of officers change their behavior and become willing to cross the thin blue line, and arrest and testify against other LEOs who routinely abuse their authority, no LEO should get any respect, they haven't earned it. Merely being a good cop who doesn't abuse their power isn't enough, they must protect the people from those cops who do abuse their power. LEOs have clearly demonstrated that protecting other cops is more important than protecting the people, thus don't deserve our support.

Are the Ferguson Riots the Early Signs of Revolution

By Tom Rhodes, 11/25/2014

Remember Rodney King? It was the first use of a home video camera to capture police abuse that made national news. Form knocking suspects out of wheel chairs, to kicking handcuffed girls, to lobbing stun grenades at toddlers, the list of abuses by the police that go unpunished, or just result in a slap on the wrist is huge. Youtube has thousands of hours of video showing the not just police’s contempt for the people, but downright violent abuse. Just Googling “cops assault wheelchair” and the number of instances on video of cops beating up wheel chair bound people is astounding. The problem is that cops are only rarely even charged much less convicted of their crimes. The Rule of Law is dead.

No Knock raid on the wrong house resulting in death of black children are not uncommon in the USA. Nor is injury to innocent children uncommon. The fact is the police botch paramilitary no-knock raids so regularly they are now not news worthy. That and many in the press would rather not cover police abuse than become a victim of it.

The fact that the evidence clearly suggest Brown was justly shot as being a violent criminal attacking a cop is irrelevant. The Ferguson Riots now happening are not because in this instance a cop justly shot a criminal who happened to be black, the Ferguson Riots were triggered by a white cop shooting a black youth and not being charged with murder. With such a plethora of examples of the police getting away with assault and murder without being charged, and more so in the black community, it was bound to happen. Because the police have in general, and for good reason, lost all credibility, they are in a lose lose situation. A condition that they created for themselves.

Not all police are evil and abusive. But the Thin Blue Line, that exists that allows the minority of bad cops to literally get away with murder. Means every good cop that doesn’t arrest his fellow bad cop is a coconspirator and just as guilty. The reality is that black people commit a disproportionate amount of murder and assault, and usually against other black people. That means they will have a disproportionate amount of interaction with the police, and will disproportionately be abused by the police. Two decades of video showing disproportionate police abuse against blacks has had its toll.

The truth of the individual event is not relevant. The accumulation of police abuse and increased paramilitary tactics and more violent reaction of the police has systematically transformed the trust in the police and it will take decades to ever regain that trust. It’s not just the black community. All of America now generally distrusts the police. When you can’t drive without being stopped by homeland security and being asked about your citizenship. Watching grandma routinely getting felt up at the airport by the government “for our safety.” The fact is that killings by police outpace gang, drug, child-abuse homicides. BusinessWeek today headlines “NYC Incurs Record $732 Million Cost as Abuse Settlements Rise.” The reason abuse settlements are on the rise is that despite the well documented fact that crime in the USA is dramatically less, abuse by the police is up.

Our government, through our various law enforcement agencies, has clearly decided that they rule the people instead of serve the people. And as the sheer volume of laws increase, the amount of force to make a people who generally believe in freedom and liberty, bow to that ever increasing government is increasing proportionately. Obama announced over 3000 new regulations, without law being passed this week; that over 3000 more instances to use force against the people of the United States. This country was not founded by people, nor is it populated by people, who quietly bow down to government. The character of the USA is such that violence against an oppressive government is not considered immoral. One of the bloodiest wars in history was our Civil War.

The militarization of our police, coupled with Obama’s clear disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution is changing the game. Law enforcement officers routinely get away with disregarding the law. The idea that the law exists to control the people, not limit the ruling elite is pervasive in all levels of our government from the lowest deputy to the Commander and Chief of all the armed forces. That means the laws and duty to obey the state are no longer valid. It is the early signs of the destruction of our republic.

I suspect soon you will see direct threats against law enforcement personnel and their families. Soon after you will see them and their families killed for their abuse as a message to others that the people will not stand for their tyranny anymore. That will be followed by police quitting their jobs and the state finding it difficult to hire people to become LEOs. Small businesses will simply refuse to service or sell to LEOs and other government agents. This is already happening in some parts of the west.

I’m very conflicted about the Ferguson Riots. Rioting over a criminal being shot and the cop not being charged when the evidence is clear it was a just shooting is simply wrong, as is the looting; but the buildup and militarization of the police and clearly observable increase in police abuse with little or no legal means of ameliorating the problem cannot stand. The government has been exposed: exposed as thinking the people are stupid; exposed as not charging and trying big bankers who they know broke the law and destroyed hundreds of thousands of peoples fortunes and futures; exposed as having contempt for the average man; exposed as believing the law is meant to control the masses and not limit the ruling elite. The Ferguson Riots are just a symptom, a symptom of our government becoming tyrannical and the people refusing to acquiesce. Ferguson is just the urban version of the rural Bundy Ranch. The people are rebelling against tyranny.

We can’t escape and live free by moving to the frontier anymore. There is no more frontier. The state wants, nay demands, control of the people cradle to grave. The state is proving it willingness to use force to terrorize the people into capitulation. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these United States, it may now be a necessity to alter our former system of government.

---

UPDATE:
From Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch were some interesting quotes that confirm the above.

Steven Rodriguez, 22, of Ferguson, said, “This violence wasn't planned. This happened because people are sick and tired of being shot and bullied by the police.”

With him was Kenneth Covington, 24, of north St. Louis, who added, “There have been so many black men killed by police but police are never held accountable for it.”

Briana Bobo, 25, Ballwin, stood outside the police station with tears in her eyes. “It seems that nothing that we do matters,” she said. “We can't win for losing.”

Why do we tolerate evil by our government?

By Tom Rhodes, 8/27/2014

Political correctness is leading to the destruction of our society. It has become so pervasive and endemic, that it has twisted the very fiber of society. We are no longer allowed to honestly label that which is evil. In fact using the word evil isn’t even allowed in today’s vernacular.

First let me be clear when I say something is evil I want there to be no mistake about it. Evil is that which is morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked; malevolent; malicious; foul; sinful, etc. The news of the past month has covered what is clearly evil but cannot nor will not mention it, and beyond that is attacking those who would point out that which is evil.

In Ferguson, a young man of very large stature, committed a strong armed robbery, they walked down the middle of the road obstructing other people, got belligerent with a cop who told him to move to the sidewalk, and in the ensuing scuffle the cop got a fractured eye socket, and the young man was killed. The entire episode would have been avoided if the young man simply respected other people and respected legitimate authority and obeyed the cop. The young man’s actions were evil, and he paid the ultimate price for his actions.

On the side of a California freeway, an officer is seen punching a woman on the ground more than 11 times in the face, the video is clear she is not physically resisting. This cops actions were evil.

An on-duty Los Angeles police officer beat a man with a baton as the victim was on his knees with his hands on his head, and it was captured on security video. This cops actions were evil.

Last May, police in Habersham County, Ga., broke into a house in the middle of the night, looking for a meth dealer who no longer lived there. While attacking the house, the SWAT team tossed a flashbang grenade into a crib, severely burning a 19-month-old boy. The action of this SWAT team was evil, as were the actions of the government in creating an environment where using a SWAT team for a military style pre-dawn raid including throwing flasbangs into a house just to issue a search warrant for a non-violent crime is evil.

Two FDNY EMTs who had to intervene to stop four police officers beating a handcuffed patient on a stretcher. FDNY documents show that the cops only stopped when the EMTs bodily intervened. The action of these cops was evil.

SWAT teams routinely use excessive violence resulting in innocent deaths, or far disproportionate force for non-violent crimes, it’s now so routine it doesn’t make the evening news. Internal investigations in almost all cases say the police were justified.

We as a society have perverted what is good and evil so that we are no longer allowed to identify it. We see those who are supposed to protect and serve repeatedly do evil with no consequences. The result is that the people have had enough. When a cop does do the right thing and does stop evil, as in Ferguson, it assumption is that it was the cop who did evil. The reason is so many people assume it was the cops who did evil, is that they so often do evil, and abuse their authority that police doing evil is expected. The natural result is a lack of respect and loss of any moral obligation to obey authority. In fact the very legitimacy of police authority is questionable.

The police have so abused their authority, and when caught so often close ranks and protect their own, that they are losing their ability to legitimately enforce our laws. Our court system is so perverted that unless you are rich and can afford a very expensive lawyer, your screwed. Even with video evidence of government wrong doing, you lose. In the case of the woman on the side of the freeway being repeatedly beaten, the internal investigation says it was justified and not an excessive use of force. No rational person could watch that video and think the cop was justified.

The legitimacy of government police is now in question. The overabundance of evidence that clearly demonstrates that rather than serve the people to protect every individual’s natural rights to life, liberty and property, the police now exist to control the populace, search out petty infractions to raise revenue, and serve the ruling class. The laws are now such that no rational or reasonable person can even travel across town and not violate some law, that can be used as a pretext by police to ticket, search, and otherwise relieve the citizens of their money and liberty.

Brown is dead, he was a young man who did evil and was shot by police. He’s dead because as a society we refuse to call evil what it is – evil. He had no respect nor trust in “legitimate” authority. The people of Ferguson, rioted because of evil. They didn’t denounce the evil actions of Brown because compared to the evil of “legitimate” authority, they were nothing. Accepting the routine cover up by police protecting the thin blue line and the now common place position that internal investigations justify police abusing power is evil.

When the people have no choice but to accept the abuse by police, and no means to meaningfully address grievances against the government using force; watch our leaders in DC ignore the rule of law; watch the rich and powerful get off of crimes that the government uses to destroy the lives of the common man, when we watch our leaders make themselves exempt from the same laws they use force to make the common man obey; we know as a society that evil reigns, and the legitimacy of our government is an illusion.

Looking at what evidence available, Brown’s death was probably a morally and legally justified shooting by the police, and the riots in Ferguson are disproportionate to that specific event. But. . . . . because of the overall evil actions of police, and disproportionate use of force that is now routine by police, and the abuse of power by police, and overwhelming laws making it virtually impossible to exist without braking some law, and laws enforced unevenly by police playing favoritism, the riots are a rational response to a government that is becoming increasingly tyrannical.

The Ferguson riots are the tip of an iceberg, they urban equivalent to the rural Bundy standoff. The people of this country will not tolerate a tyrannical government. Contrary to what the statists in Washington want to believe, and want the people to believe, the people of this country can and will stand up to the government. If the police all across this nation don’t start respecting the people, don’t try to act more like Barney Fife than GI Joe, what little hold they have left on being the “legitimate” authority with the people will die. They will just be considered another violent gang and will be treated as such. Feared and paid deference while necessary, and obliterated by their rivals when caught alone, or outside their territory. Accepting evil and refusing to label evil as evil, even when done in the name of “legitimate” authority, has destroyed our society. Why do we tolerate evil by our government?

RCA of Southern Border Invasion

By Tom Rhodes, 8/11/2014

RCA, common acronym for Root Cause Analysis. We are suffering an invasion of children on our southern border. This invasion is mostly young men, men just ready to enter the labor market, and not children, but even if you accept the MSM propaganda and call them children, it is still an invasion. This invasion is the cause of the President of the United States acting outside his constitutional authority and legislating from the oval office. President Obama brought on this invasion the United States by legislating through executive order in 2012, declaring that he would stop deporting young illegal immigrants. Obama sent the clear, unmistakable, unequivocal signal that children entering the nation illegally would receive amnesty. Knowing existing laws require unaccompanied minors to be sheltered, fed, educated, and taken care of, there is no doubt the driving factor in the current invasion was Obama’s declaration, that he would forsake his oath of office, and usurp unconstitutional authority, and purposely fail to execute the law of the land and protect the constitution.

For the last few DECADES the Democrats promise to cooperate and enforce the border, but routinely and steadfastly obstruct all efforts to do so. The Republicans play lip service, their actions also clearly indicate that they are unwilling to actually secure the border. The reason is clear, corporations want to depress US wages, and an oversupply of cheap labor from the third world, results in lowered labor costs. We don’t need a minimum wage law, there are not jobs Americans won’t do. There are jobs Americans won’t do for the wages corporations want to pay, and lots of third world people who will do those jobs, because even $5/hr paid in cash living as an illegal in the USA is better than anything they have in their third world country. Need to see a doctor, and all you have to do is show up at any emergency room in the USA, they cannot turn you away, and you don’t have to pay them. Compared to medicine and living standards in most of the third world, this is a good deal.

Corporate America isn’t really interested in keeping low or no skill labor cheap. They want to keep skilled labor cheap. The law of supply and demand regulates labor just as it does everything else. If there is a glut, surplus, that exceeds demand, the value of what that surplus is traded is less. So if there is a shortage of unskilled labor, the cost to hire goes up, this dramatically increases the cost of skilled labor. If there is a labor shortage, and to keep a good hard working maid or stockboy you have to pay $15/hr. Then, the semi-skilled oil/tire change tech who was making $15/hr says why should I have to have the responsibility and do the training etc, if I don’t make more than the stockboy. So the semi-skilled wages increase proportionally to $17/hr. Then the certified auto technician who was making $38K per year doing tune-ups, brakes, etc. says, why should I study hard and pay to get and keep my certifications when I can change tires and earn just about as much with less responsibility and cost, so the skilled and certified tech wages increase to over $20/hr, etc. When there is a huge surplus of unskilled labor willing to work without benefits, etc. Then corporate America can tell the maid or stockboy who asks for a raise to pound sand, they can be replaced for cheap, this is trickle up economics, and it results in depressed wages for not just minimum wage jobs, but for all jobs.

Because Obama declared that the USA would not deport children, and the USA has laws guaranteeing unaccompanied minors shelter, food, education, the parents in corrupt third world hell holes are sending their children to the USA. All parents want better for their children than they have themselves, and life as an illegal alien child in the USA is better than anything their parents can offer them in their home countries. You don’t see these law breaking criminal immigrants coming from the well to do of the third world, they are from the poor, oppressed, and hopeless.

Obama has made it clear, his idea of compromise on the border issue is for Republicans to give him whatever he wants. He has made it clear that he won’t accept any suggestions or modifications from what he wants. That is not compromise, not bipartisanship, not leadership, that’s acting like a 4 year old who doesn’t get his way, so takes the ball and goes home. The problem is it’s not even Obama’s ball, it’s congresses ball, not only has Obama thrown a childish temper tantrum, but stolen authority that isn’t his. Obama and his unconstitutional usurpation of legislative authority is the sole cause of the invasion from the third world across our southern border. PERIOD. I wonder what corporations are pulling Obama’s strings to not only keep US labor wages stagnant, but actually depress those wages.

The Obama Administration Declares Women are Not Equal

By Tom Rhodes, 7/31/2014

In a lawsuit filed against the Pennsylvania State Police, Holder and the Department of Justice have clearly stated women cannot do the same job as men. They say that having equal requirements for both men and women is unequal. That is liberal logic.

Here is a cold hard fact, an objective truth, equality is a myth. Equality is no more real than fairies, leprechauns, unicorns, vampires, or werewolves. Appealing to equality as a reason to grant some group favored status is simply engaging in meaningless rhetoric. Feminist appeal to equality is nothing more than attempting to guilt-trip men into giving them power to establish pro-female inequality.

The Pennsylvania State Police are being sued by the Obama administration because they expect female cadets to complete the same minimum requirements as men. How is having the same standards for the same job for everybody regardless of group identification unequal? The fact is that 94% of men and 70% of women pass the state police physical fitness test. What that says is what everybody knows, men and women are not equal. It is not evidence of discrimination.

The Obama administration wants women to have equal treatment, unless of course women can’t compete. Then they want special treatment. What this law suit says loud and clear, is that women cannot compete on equal terms. The DOJ irrational notion of disparate impact, is a tool for feminist hustlers to force preferential treatment for women. They are saying that even if a policy is equal and has no intention of discrimination if women can’t compete it’s sexist and a violation of the Civil Rights Act.

So the Obama administration is saying women are not capable, therefore you must reduce your standards. Sorry to bust your bubble but men and women are not equal, they cannot do the same work and hence won’t have equal outcomes. If you believe otherwise, you might as well believe in the tooth fairy, unicorns, and the DH. It is only unrealistic, utopian, illogical, emotional thinking that could ever justify expecting men and women to be equal in the market place. They are not equal, they are different.

Obama’s DOJ is suing those evil cops for having the audacity to treat female candidates the same as their male candidates. Don’t those evil bastards in Pennsylvania running the state police know that in Obama’s Fiefdom (formerly known as the USA), “equality” means treating everyone differently? In Obama’s utopia, anybody who cannot or will not perform to some standard is entitled to the same outcome as those who exceed or meet any standard. Welcome to the new utopian world of Obama. I hear that next month Obama will sick his DOJ attack dog, Holder, on the NBA and all teams will have to have at least one short fat old non-Hispanic white guy and one Asian woman, in their starting line-ups, the name of equality.

Fraud Legal, Rule of Law Dead.

By Tom Rhodes, 6/16/2014

For centuries fraud has been illegal. The fundamental English Common law pretty much dictated that if you sell somebody something, and then deliver something other than what you said you sold, you are guilty of fraud. If I tell you I’ll sell you a 5 lb sack of potatoes for $3 dollars, and you then take the clearly labeled 5 pound sack of potatoes and later find out it had 5 lbs of rocks you have a clear case of fraud, and could win compensation for the fraud in court. Simple enough principle and everybody agrees advertising and selling potatoes and delivering rocks is fraudulent and illegal and actionable.

Unless of court you’re a bank. The rule of law no longer applies to banks. It is now legal for banks to falsely represent their products to consumers. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) won dismissal of a suit over $450 million in residential mortgage-backed securities, with a New York judge saying that the firms that bought the bonds should have done more research beforehand.

State Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos dismissed the claims against Goldman Sachs today, saying the investors only reviewed data presented in offering documents for the securities and never asked to review files for the underlying loans.

“The true nature of the risk being assumed could, admittedly, have been ascertained from reviewing these loan files and plaintiffs never asked for them,” Ramos wrote.

In no uncertain terms judges have ruled that it is perfectly legal to present someone with a fraudulent document claiming to be selling them a pig in the poke, if you don’t actually look in the crate to see that there is a dead cat, and not a live pig in there, it's your fault.

Singlehandedly Judge Ramos has destroyed the loan security market. You are now responsible for checking every single loan that Is part of a mortgage security to ascertain the risk. The bank offering the security is allowed to legally present you with a fraudulent document that doesn’t reflect the actual risks of the loans making up such securities.

Imagine if food companies could legally tell you that the ground beef you were buying was USDA certified and inspected, and sell you rotten mutton instead. If you didn’t check the actual inspection certificate for that lot and compare it to USDA documents, you couldn’t sue for fraud.

Imagine ordering a computer from Amazon online, you purchase a unit advertised to have a Pentium i7 processor and 8GB of ram, and a 2TB hard drive, when you open the box you get an 4.77Mhz XT with an 8088 processor, a single floppy and 256K of ram. Then you find out you have no legal recourse, can’t return it, and can’t sue you didn’t verify that the components in the box where what was promised. That’s the new standard for Banking.

If you have an IRA, or retirement fund that has any money in financial securities, you can be legally fleeced because the banks have no legal requirement to be honest in their holdings, and if you or your broker doesn’t verify the validity of all the details in any prospectus provided independently, you have no recourse.

Game over people, banks are exempt from the law, just like congress. We no longer live in a nation of laws, but an oligarchy ruled by money changers and political hacks. Now that you cannot get justice from the government, the result will be bad. Real bad. To have justice you will be forced to seek it yourself. Just as if you purchase an ounce of pot and get an ounce of oregano, you can’t go to police. Now if you get a bad prospectus and the bank takes your life savings, you can’t go to the FCC or police. So like drug dealers and users, if ripped off you have two choices, accept being ripped off and write off your loses or seek justice on your own. Drug dealers often die violently because they ripped somebody off. Bankers fraudulently take too many people’s money and the courts and government don’t let them get away with it, and they too might be treated like a drug dealer selling oregano as pot. When enough people lose their life savings and their homes because bankers are legally allowed to present fraudulent documents, and those people have no recourse, you will see violent repercussions. Justice in the USA is looking more and more like the third world; justice depends on who you know and your political status not the rule of law.

Green Energy Scam in DC

By Tom Rhodes, 3/4/2014

In another “Who’d a thunk???” moment we learn that when politician in the most corrupt city in America, Washington D.C., start talking Green this, Green that, Certified Green Technology, and enforcing “standards”, it’s all a scam. Consider research by Environmental Policy Alliance, the free-market group analyzed the first round of energy usage data released by the city of Washington D. C. Friday and found that large, privately-owned buildings that received the green energy certification Leadership in Energy Design (LEED) use more energy than buildings that didn’t receive this green stamp of approval. (LINK).

The brainchild of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a private environmental group, created Leadership in Energy Design (LEED) certification for new buildings. It figures that Washington D.C. is the first city to require LEED certification for new buildings, and that the actual results show that new buildings with LEED certification for being green actually use more power than non-LEED certified buildings.

When the Green Building Council’s Washington headquarters which has the group’s top green-energy accolade, the platinum LEED certification, uses 18% more energy than the average non certified building in Washington, you can pretty much know that LEED is a designed as a front for payola and not any actual improvements to energy use.

The fact is that for profit businesses have a huge incentive to build cost effective buildings that use less energy. It adds to the bottom line. If your office complex is run for less dollars than your competitors, you make more money; it’s not like using more energy than necessary is a business goal. TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, is the driving factor for building energy efficient buildings. You give payola, I mean “incentives” to make a building meet certain “standards” whether the work or not, those incentives will lower the TCO and businesses will pay to certify their building is green. Actually being more efficient isn’t as important as the dollars.

All you need to know about Washington D.C.’s Department of Environment’s “green stamp of approval” called LEED is the simple fact that the city has collected $5.2 million in permit fees from the program since 2010. That “green” is a not so hidden reference to more money for the government; money it uses to reward cronies who offer up payment for their “green stamp of approval.”

CCF Patriots Ordered Not to Share Constitution

By Tom Rhodes, 10/11/2013

According to a report from Young Americans for Liberty, a group with more than 380 chapters and 125,000 students promoting liberty, tried to give out copies of the US Constitution on Constitution day, The College of Central Florida in Ocala, was stopped because they didn’t have permission. In fact to exercise free speech and talk to others on campus the officer told students they would have to go through his office to get permission “any time you want to approach our students.”.

“We can’t hand out Constitutions?” an incredulous student asked.
“That’s right.”

Citing the need for “proper protocol,” the officer said students could submit a request, and school officials would “check our calendar, make sure it doesn’t conflict with what we’re doing, then we’ll approve it or deny it.”

The Young Americans for Liberty report is supported with this video.



Obviously the First Amendment at The state and federally funded College of Central Florida in Ocala does not apply. I hope they file charges in federal court against CCF and hold the officer and officials at CCF personally liable for infringing on these students rights.

The irony is the athletic teams at CCF are called The Patriots.



This means that CCF has told the Patriots Not to Share the Constitution with fellow Patriots. Irony?

Public Schools are Cruel and Unusual.

By Tom Rhodes, 9/29/2013

Let’s start with the first example, Schools claim students have no civil rights and that even their actions on private property, not during school hours, are under the schools jurisdiction. Fox News Reports the following: .

Natural Born Killers

Two seventh-grade students in Virginia Beach, Va., were handed long-term suspensions Tuesday that will last until the end of the school year for playing with an airsoft gun in one of their front yards while waiting for the school bus. WAVY-TV reports that 13-year-old Khalid Caraballo and Aidan Clark will face an additional hearing in January to determine if they will be expelled for “possession, handling and use of a firearm” because the guns were fired at two others playing in Caraballo’s yard. …Khalid claims he never took the toy gun to the designated bus stop or Larkspur Middle School, according to the report. Two other students who fired guns were also suspended.

Government schools say your child can be expelled for playing with toy guns in their own yard. “The school’s so-called “zero-tolerance” policy on guns extends to private property, according to the report.”

One of the suspended (soon to be expelled) boys’ mother said, “My son is my private property. He does not become the school’s property until he goes to the bus stop, gets on the bus, and goes to school,”

Don’t confuse the fact that the boys, are not totally innocent, they are guilty of acting like boys. Some say they may have shot at some kids who weren’t part of their play. That’s something that should be punished, but not without due process, or by the school which clearly has no jurisdiction on the boy’s parents private property.

Don’t thik this is a isolated incident, Public schools now have a pattern of trying to dismiss students civil rights, especially recognition of the second amendment. Don’t take my word for it Google these absurd actions over the past couple years.

Bureaucrats suspended a little boy for taking bites out of a pop tart in such a way that it was shaped like a gun.

Bureaucrats suspended a 7-year boy for pretending to throw a non-existent grenade on the playground.

Bureaucrats suspended a 6-year old boy in Maryland for making a gun shape with his finger.

Bureaucrats busted a 5-year old girl in Pennsylvania for having a pink plastic gun that shoots bubbles.

A teacher in Rhode Island caught an 8-year old boy with some plastic toy army men.

Bureaucrats evacuated a school because an 11-year old boy made a motion detector for his science experiment.

Bureaucrats in Florida kicked an 8-year old boy out of school for a year because he had a plastic gun in his backpack.

In Virginia, not only did bureaucrats suspend a 10-year old boy for a toy gun, called the cops and had the kid arrested.

A third-grader got in trouble for having toy army men on his birthday cupcakes.

Two second-graders got suspended for holding pencils like they were guns.

Bureaucrats suspended a kindergartener for having a lego-sized toy gun.

Bureaucrats wanted a deaf child to change his sign-language name because it required him to shape his fingers in a way that resembled a gun.

Clearly the schools are making a concerted effort to indoctrinate through excessive punishment the children of America to undermine our Second Amendment. Many of these punishments are clearly disproportionate, to the point of being cruel and unusual.

A Large and Sophisticated Banana Republic

Or Why Do We Even Have a Congress Anymore?
By Tom Rhodes, 8/20/2013

The constitution is dead, our government willfully ignores it and openly defies the clear separation of powers and limits to the Federal Government. We live in a banana republic. The only difference between the USA and some third world despotic hellhole is that our banana republic is large and sophisticated mired in bureaucracy that has shadows of former lawfulness.

The wisdom of our forefathers was a result of viewing and analyzing history dialectically terminating in the idea that government is a necessary evil, and that because it is made of men, and men are corrupted by power, the power of government should be divided. Hence a system with checks and balances where those who created laws didn't have the power to enforce them nor judge them, those who enforced the law could not create the law nor judge the law, and those who judge have no authority to create nor enforce the law. When coupled with the idea and reality of the "rule of law" which implies and demands that those in power are not exempt from the law and must live by the laws they create, enforce and judge; he Separation of Powers and the Rule of Law produced the Checks and Balances which our government was famous. Key word WAS.

The Constitution is clear, only Congress, not the President, may create law (regulations are law). Why do we bother having a congress if the President can dictate through executive order or regulatory agency, laws. Why should any citizen have confidence in the law created by their duly elected representative? Congress debates, compromises with all representatives to create law that represents the desires of the electorate, then the president says "screw the law this is what we're doing." That undermines all law. When Obama declares "I'm not going to wait for Congress!" he is boldly claiming to be a dictator, and regardless of the will of the people will dictate the law.

This is a pattern of Che' Obama, who routinely ignores with impudence both Congress and the Judiciary. A very recent example is total disregard for the law, the Constitution, Congress, and the Judiciary happened July of this year when The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals joined the federal appeals courts in D.C. and Philadelphia in ruling President Obama's National Labor Relations Board recess appointments, who by law must be approved by Congress, were unconstitutional. Che' Obama has to date simply ignored the rulings his unlawfully appointed henchmen still run the NLRB.

Why have a body to create law, if the result can be twisted and ignored at a whim. What good will any law be created by congress if the president can unilaterally alter what he signs. To pass Obamacare, provisions were included that made government employees subject to the same rules and regulations mere citizens; on Aug. 14, 2013 Che' Obama dictated to his minions to delay the provision in ObamaCare to cap out-of-pocket health care costs, picking and choosing parts of the law to enforce, which is to exceed its authority; Thus negating the law with neither due process nor legislation, a clear violation of the Constitution's separation of powers.

The issue of the end of the Rule of Law, and the USA's decent into Banana Republic status has even been noticed by more main stream media. Investor's Business Daily published what they call "just a small sampling" of a "Lengthy Legacy of Lawlessness" by Che' Obama and the federal government including:

February 3, 2010: Judge Martin Feldman held the Obama administration in contempt for re-imposing an offshore drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

March 1, 2011: Attorney General Holder lied to Congress, saying "decisions made in the New Black Panther Party case were made by career attorneys in the department." Associate A.G. Thomas Perrelli, an Obama political appointee, overruled a unanimous recommendation for prosecution by DOJ attorneys.

May 3, 2011: When asked when he first heard of Operation Fast and Furious, Attorney General Eric Holder falsely testified, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks." Head of the National Drug Intelligence Center Michael Walther told Holder about Fast and Furious in a July 2010 memo. Subsequent revelations showed he knew all along.

March 27, 2012: EPA issued final rules regulating greenhouse gas emissions on electric utilities that require power plants to use non-existing carbon capture-and-control technology to meet new emission standards, in defiance of the Congress' rejection of cap-and-trade legislation.

April 23, 2012: The administration postponed Medicare Advantage cuts by calling them a "demonstration project" and used funds not approved by Congress to delay effects of those cuts before the election.

June 15, 2012: The Obama administration announced it will stop deporting illegal immigrants under the age of 30 in a "deferred action" policy to circumvent immigration laws. This comes after Congress rejected a similar measure about a year ago. Since then, more than 500,000 illegals have received the deferment and only 20,000 have been rejected. As for the law-abiding applicants who have been waiting in line, well, that's Obama's idea of "lawfulness." The constitution is extremely clear and specifically grants Congress, not the president, the power "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization", Che' Obama has made it clear that not only is he usurping Congress's power but throwing out the idea of a "uniform Rule of Naturalization;

May 10, 2013: The IRS revealed it targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status beginning in March 2010, a direct targeting of political opponents through the tax laws. It's one of the crimes that led Congress to impeach President Nixon.

May 13, 2013: AP reported the DOJ secretly collected phone records of AP reporters and editors, a move completely outside the realm of law. Even the AP - which up until then had been pretty submissive to the Obama agenda - was appalled by the breach.

May 20, 2013: A Washington Post article revealed that Fox News reporter James Rosen was investigated by the DOJ, which subpoenaed his phone records and emails in direct contravention of the First Amendment under the pretense of a leak investigation.

June 25, 2013: The Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Eric Holder that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is "unconstitutional" and that "the formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdiction to preclearance." Instead of complying with the ruling, Holder filed suit to order Texas to submit to preclearance, in defiance of Congress' authority to legislate and the Supreme Court's authority to rule on the constitutionality of the law.

July 1, 2013: The Obama administration unilaterally decided to delay the employer mandate provision of ObamaCare for a year, which is to provide information to the feds about the extent of an applicant's insurance. Never mind that the law states the mandate must go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014 - they are now relying on the "honor system" from applicants to determine if they are qualified for subsidies. drilling moratorium that was struck down by the courts.

The noise and commotion of our congress is now irrelevant and unnecessary as the Che' Obama has thrown off even the suggestion that we actually live in a democratic republic. The evidence is clear, Che' Obama is the despotic ruler of the world's largest and most sophisticated banana republic.

We the Serfs

By Tom Rhodes, 8/5/2013

When you think feudalism, with kings, dukes, princesses, etc., you think of royalty who live off the work of the toil of serfs. The federal government has just confirmed that the US consists now has a two-tiered system of justice and governance. There are two sets of laws: one set for the government and the corporations, and another set for you and me.

The ruling elite, ruling class, government oligarchy,whatever you want to call 'em, no longer is even trying to hide the fact that they don't want to live by and won't accept the same rules for them and their favorites as you and I. The Office of Personnel Management, under pressure from Capitol Hill and Obama, has said that they will issue a ruling that the government can keep making contributions to the health care premiums of members of Congress and their aides in clear violation of the law.

If you weren't paying attention, a feature of Obamacare was put there by Sen. Chuck Grassley that said members of Congress and their aides MUST be covered by plans created by the law or offered through an exchange. You know that "We have to pass the law to see what's in it" bit? Well, it had a good bit of wording that made Congress and their staff subject to the exact same treatment as the rest of us.

As Congress was "finding out what was in the bill", they learned that following the law would result in a massive increase in health insurance premiums for congressional staffers, IRS workers, etc. That meant the government had the same costs that we the common people have to experience. They didn't like it so exempted themselves from the pain and cost that you and I have to endure. They have loudly proclaimed that "We the People" are actually "You the Serfs" and will be forced to pay for Congress and their staff's "Cadillac health plans" and subsidies while hard-working taxpayer lose ours or face enormous premium hikes.

The next example you will see is IRS being made magically exempt from the Obamacare Law without congress actually passing a new law. The rule of law is dead, and if you are a mere serf who if you are lucky enough to work at the big house in DC you too may receive favors by the ruling elite. IRS Chief, Daniel Werfel clearly declared that he wanted to keep his health care and didn't want any part of Obamacare. Those who collect the taxes for the rulers in DC want the same special treatment as Congress. I don't think he has to worry as Chief Potentate Obama will grant him and the IRS special dispensation.

Has the hypocrisy of Washington pushed the American people to their breaking point? When did the Constitution get changed to grant the President dictatorial powers and create law by executive order if Congress doesn't write the laws he wants?

I don't get it. Congress passes a law that specifically says members of Congress and their aides MUST be covered by plans created by the law or offered through an exchange, and some bureaucratic agency has the authority to issue a ruling negating the law. Would somebody please show me where the Constitution grants the power to the Office of Personnel Management to issue rulings that supersede laws enacted by Congress and signed by the President of the United States, or some Supreme Court ruling that grants the Office of Personnel Management more authority than Congress?

The height of Roman Civilization was the Republic with the rule of law and a viable Senate. The fall came with moral decay, the rise of despotic powers, and the end of the rule of law. The fall of Roman civilization was followed by the Dark Ages. The height of western Civilization was NATO's crushing defeat of communism and the end of the cold war. I wonder what history will call the coming dark age, and who's going to write "The Rise and Fall of Western Civilization"?

Tom Rhodes is Chairman of the Platform Committee of the Libertarian Party of Florida

Just Shut Up!

By Tom Rhodes, 6/21/2013

In Salinas vs. Texas, the SCOTUS has just ruled that the government can use a person's silence against them if it comes before he's told of his right to remain silent. Justice Samuel Alito said. "It has long been settled that the privilege 'generally is not self-executing' and that a witness who desires its protection 'must claim it.'" Read More Here What this means is that under no circumstances should you ever talk to the police, even as a witness to a crime - PERIOD!

The SCOTUS has ruled cops can lie to you to get you to talk. What is plainly obvious is that our government cannot be trusted, therefore there can only be one response to any question by any law enforcement officer of any type. "I'm sorry officer, but in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling that says what I say as a witness, even my silence as a witness, may be used against me unless I specifically invoke my 5th amendment rights, I must now inform you that I'm invoking my 5th amendment right and will not answer any questions. I know this makes your job harder, but for my own protection I must invoke my 5th amendment right and cannot answer any of your questions. Even as a witness to a crime, by merely talking to you puts me in jeopardy. So without written documentation by a judge who has jurisdiction saying that nothing I say can or will be used against me and a lawyer present for my protection, I cannot answer any of your questions. Am I free to leave?"

Talk to any law enforcement officer and you'll soon detect the "Us Vs. Them" mentality, they assume everybody is a criminal and have to prove they are not. Law enforcement is not your friend anymore. They can and will lie, cheat, and coerce to prove a person is guilty of something. Since it is virtually impossible for you, or any business to actually follow all the laws we now have, it is vitally important that you protect yourself from the government. This video explains exactly why you should never under any circumstances talk to any government official. Watch the whole thing and play close attention to how the cop explains how he can and will trip you up.


FYI - In the state of Florida you are legally required to give your name and address if a law enforcement officer asks but are not required answer any other questions. You do not have to present ID except: when driving you must provide your driver's license if requested; when hunting or fishing you must present your hunting or fishing license if requested; when carrying a concealed weapon must have in your possession your CCW permit.

The reality is even if you've done nothing wrong and are completely honest talking to law enforcement could lead to your arrest and imprisonment. Under no circumstances is it ever in your best interest to answer any law enforcement officer's questions for any reason, so don't.

Impeach the Tyrant

By Tom Rhodes, 6/7/2013

Yesterday was D-Day: The day we said enough is enough and took action to defeat Nazi Germany and turned the tide of totalitarian evil away from Europe and shown resolve to defend those in need. However Headlines in the USA showed that the once free country of the USA is now just another statist tyranny. Here are the news stories from June 6:

The Obama administration acknowledged that it is collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack.

The National Security Agency has long justified its spying powers by arguing that its charter allows surveillance on those outside of the United States, while avoiding intrusions into the private communications of American citizens. But the latest revelation of the extent of the NSA’s surveillance shows that it has focused specifically on Americans, to the degree that its data collection has in at least one major spying incident explicitly excluded those outside the United States.

U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study. It contends limiting such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits.

The FBI is unhappy that there are communications technologies it cannot intercept, and wants a new requirement that software makers and communications companies create a back door so they can listen in when they want.

Although since modified even the NYTimes opined that Obama’s credibility is gone saying; “The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.”

No longer does the government serve the people, it now rules with different rules for those in the ruling elite, and drastic and severe punishment for the masses who don’t go along. There is now a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably a design to reduce us to absolute Despotism. Such is the patient sufferance of We the People. The history of the present Ruling Elite in Washington DC is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over We the People. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A President whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Obama must be removed from office, otherwise as our forefathers reacted under tyranny, so too will We the People.

NSA is monitoring 1 in 3 people’s phone calls.

By Tom Rhodes, 6/6/2013

AP news has reported that an order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, requiring Verizon to give the NSA on a daily basis information on all telephone calls in its systems within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. Verizon serves over 100,000,000 customers, about a third of the total population of the U.S.

We don’t know if similar order was given to AT&T or the other major carriers. What we do know is that this is clear evidence that the Fourth Amendment to the United States is dead. The Obama administration is collecting the communication records of millions of We The People, indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing.

The 4th Amendment is pretty clear it states: 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. Reviewing the other Amendments, there is no place where the constitution has been amended to create an “exception” for anything, including national security.

Typically and constitutionally FISA court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. This is clearly supported by the 4th Amendment where what is to be searched and who is to be searched and exactly what records are to be seized is specified. This FSIA court order signed by Judge Roger Vinson is so broad and unlimited that it covers a full third of the nation without specifics and is clearly unconstitutional. All the calls you make, and who you call are now classified as “business records.”

The reality is that they don’t have access to just Verizon customers (1 in 3 Americans). Because Verizon serves about a third of the country, and that third calls people not served by Verizon, even those people who are not Verizon customers will be monitored if they call or are called by a Verizon customer. Your calls are being monitored – PERIOD. This complete disregard for the constitution and the end of the Rule of Law, is part of the downfall of this country.

Personally I’d rather live with dangerous freedom, than secure tyranny. What are we going to do to stop the tyrannical government we have who now without justification says it has the authority to monitor the phone calls of every American?

"If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear"

By Tom Rhodes 6/11/2012

The standard response by government and do-gooders of all types to people who express outrage at: Red Light Cameras, FBI bugging without warrant, FBI putting GPS tracker on your car, indefinite detention, cops asking to search your car, etc. is "If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear." Now in Indiana that is exactly what the legislature has said to the police.

Every time police Sergeant Joseph Hubbard stops a speeder or serves a search warrant, he says he worries suspects assume they can open fire -- without breaking the law.

Hubbard, a 17-year veteran of the police department in Jeffersonville, Indiana, says his apprehension stems from a state law approved this year that allows residents to use deadly force in response to the "unlawful intrusion" by a "public servant" to protect themselves and others, or their property.

It is clear that the "public servant" has nothing to fear so long as they are not intruding on the private property of others illegally. If a cop does a no-knock entry into the wrong house, he is committing a armed felony, breaking and entering and the people have the right of self defense, even if it means the cop gets shot dead. But if they are not doing anything wrong, cops have nothing to fear.

It is now being found that citizens have the right to film cops and other public servants when they are doing their jobs in public places. They tend to get feisty and uptight when mere citizens film them violating citizens rights. But of course if they aren't doing anything wrong they have nothing to fear from citizen journalists and youtube.

It is good that, at least in Indiana, a police breaking the law is exactly the same as that of any armed criminal. That is called equality under the law, and applying the rule of law equally to everybody, including those in government, is the hallmark of a free people and the difference between a free country and tyranny.

The sad fact is that because of the blue line, and the deference prosecutors and the courts pay to fellow government employees. Cops can and do get to break the law without the same consequences as the mere public. "Professional Courtesy" is paid from cops to each other, cops can and do get away with speeding, DUI, and a variety of other crimes without notice, as their comrades in the "public service." The vast majority of internal investigations result in officers being cleard of wrong doing, even when they shoot innocent people raiding the wrong house. Since the reality is that most in the public have no recourse against the criminal actions of the government, Indiana's law protecting the rights of individuals from the government is necessary and proper. Unfortunately, if the armed criminal illegally invading your home is cop, your only true recourse is immediate self defense, as the government has proven to be unwilling and unable to protect individuals from the illegal actions of the police. At least in Indiana the people fought for and have chased off the governments infringement upon the oldest right of all men, self defense.

Hopefully this will result in individual officers thinking twice about no-knock raids, double checking to make sure they have the right place, and limit such actions to legitimate circumstances. As they are no longer immune from people exercising their natural, pre-existing, right to self defense. The hope is that all public servants, including armed police, remember their actions and authority is limited, and that they realize that their power is granted by the people, and the people retain power for themselves, including the right to shoot armed government agents when those armed government agents are unlawfully using their power.

To Sergeant Joseph Hubbard and any other "public servant" worried about having their actions recorded, or being shot if they "accidently" raid the wrong house, don't worry "If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear."

Hubris thy name is Obama

By Tom Rhodes 4/10/12
Obama care was passed by the slimmest of margins, with unprecedented increase in government power. After the SCOTUS oral arguments on Obamacare, President Obama shot across the bow of the Justices:
"I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."

The vote was 219-214 in the House, and 60-39 in the Senate. Not what you can truthfully call a strong majority, especially when you consider that the senate would have been filibustered if it weren’t for the fact that 4 of the democrat senators that voted for Obamacare were not democratically elected but were in fact appointed replacements to the senate for Obama and other senators who are joined his cabinet. Former Democrat, Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich is going to prison for corruption related to selling off Obama’s Senate seat. Any reasonable person would have to conclude that saying that Obamacare passed with “a strong majority of a democratically elected” senate is stretching the truth quite a bit. To even imply otherwise is an overt act of hubris.

Obama saying that it is “Judicial Activism” to overturn Obamacare on constitutional grounds, that it is thwarting the will of the people through their democratically elected Congress has to be disingenuous. As Ken Blackwell points out, another modern era law that survived judicial review, was passed by the Democrat controlled house 342-67 and Democrat controlled Senate 85-14, and signed into law by a Democrat President in 1984, Obama calls “Unconstitutional.” This law when put up to referendum, even in liberal California, passes with a huge majority. Clearly the Defense of Marriage Act is the will of the people. But somehow DOMA is “unconstitutional” while Obamacare is; polls show 2/3rds of the people want Obamacare repealed; a majority of States are suing the US Government over its implementation; and it grants unprecedented power with a requirement that all people take some affirmative action and purchase a commercial product just for being alive, and Obama scolds the Supreme Court of the United States over its constitutionality and Obamacare being the will of the people. Hubris, thy name is Obama.

Obama as a professor of constitutional law, clearly knows what is and isn’t constitutional, he quite simply doesn’t want or believe that the constitution should be the supreme law of the land. Obama appears to be actively working to create administrative tyranny to bypass the separation of powers and constitutional limits on the federal government. As he infamously said he has problems with the constitution, doesn’t like the limits, doesn’t like the fact that it doesn’t “obligate” the government to “do” certain things, and limits what he as president can “get done.” Hubris, thy name is Obama.

Obama’s hubris, and willingness to bypass the rule of law is self evident. Consider his almost routine use of the military in defiance of the War Powers Act, or his extortion of BP over the gulf oil spill with no legal authority. There is no question that BP should have been held accountable for the damages they caused in and around the Gulf of Mexico; we have laws for that sort of thing. What legal authority does the President have to capriciously order a private business to make restitution? We have bankruptcy laws, by what legal authority does the President have to capriciously order a private business and individuals to accept 30 cents on the dollar for secured credit which legally have precedence in bankruptcy, while giving unsecured creditors like the UAW far more generous terms? Hubris thy name is Obama.

Obama and statists, who think like him, have the hubris to think that they know what is best for every person, and that they should have the power and authority to dictate how people should live. From what we eat, to what we are allowed to hear or watch on TV and Radio, to what medical services you are allowed to use, they want to regulate every aspect of every person’s life. Ignoring the repeated failures of socialism, from the first Pilgrims to the US to fall of the USSR, Obama and statists continue ignore the historical evidence that the rule of law and the protection of private property rights lead to the highest standard of living and most freedom and liberty for more people than any other economic system in the history of man. Obama exercise extreme hubris, thinking that he and his ilk know better and can centrally control an economy, can centrally control what technologies are developed and succeed, can centrally control what people learn, all through the redistribution of labor. Obama thinks that he can decide, and should have the power to dictate at exactly what point you have enough. Obama is typical of statists, regardless of what philosophy or rhetoric they use to describe their agenda, no matter where in the world they attempt to implement their agenda, their agenda is always the same, preempting the decisions of individuals and regimenting their lives. Hubris thy name is Obama.