Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Judge Napolitano: ‘It Appears Obama Has Given Up His Constitutional Role as President’
Once again, President Obama is looking to use his executive powers to modify ObamaCare, going around Congress. This time, it’s a proposed rule that would expand insurance through the Affordable Care Act to temporary and seasonal government workers.
The law, as it was passed, prohibits extending coverage to temporary employees. The move comes as House Speaker John Boehner pursues a lawsuit against the president for using executive orders instead of seeking changes to laws through Congress.
Judge Andrew Napolitano said this that this is “yet another violation of the Constitution” because once again the president is moving to spend money that was not authorized by Congress.
Steve Doocy said it looks like the White House is “making it up as they go” because President Obama “essentially has given up.”
“It appears as though he has given up his constitutional role as president and has now taken on the role of ideologue in chief to change whatever laws he can by whatever means he can in the two years he has remaining. The Constitution be damned. He may have some interesting ideas, but the Congress writes the law and the Congress spends the money, not the president,” said Napolitano.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Libertarian Wyllie tells DeLand crowd it’s a ‘three-way race’ for governor
Adrian Wyllie stood at the back of a mid-day political rally in a white dress shirt and yellow striped tie, sweating in the Florida heat, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was clearly a politician. But in the past, he’d done this without many people recognizing exactly which one.
That is slowly changing. At least it seemed that way Saturday in DeLand.
“I’m not used to going places where people know who I am when I walk up, so thank you for that,” Wyllie, Florida’s rising third-party candidate for governor, said when he took the stage at a “Patriots United” rally held by the conservative, grassroots Liberty Belles of Florida.
A few days after Quinnipiac University’s latest polling put Wyllie at about 9 percent in the governor’s race, the relatively unknown Dunedin Libertarian was projecting confidence.
“I know there’s some Republicans in the crowd here today, and there’s probably a few people who were thinking about voting for Rick Scott,” Wyllie said. “They’re probably thinking: Hey, (Wyllie) sounds pretty good, but does he have a chance to win? Folks, I do have a chance to win… This race is a three-way race.”
The stump speech that followed was equally scathing toward Gov. Scott (who polled at 37 percent in that Quinnipiac poll) and his Democratic challenger Charlie Crist (who led with 39). Without Wyllie in the race, the poll showed Crist leading 45 to 40.
John Stossel: Why are we giving the police so much power?
I want the police to be better armed than the bad guys, but what exactly does that mean today?
Apparently, it means the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security equip even the tiniest rural police departments with massive military vehicles, body armor and grenade launchers. The equipment is surplus from the long wars we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To a hammer, everything resembles a nail. SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams were once used only in emergencies such as riots or robberies where hostages were taken. But today there are more than 50,000 “no-knock raids” a year.
It’s not because crime got worse. There is less crime today. Crime peaked around 1990 and is now at a 40-year low. But as politicians keep passing new criminal laws, police find new reasons to deploy their heavy equipment.
Washington Post reporter Radley Balko points out that they’ve used SWAT teams to raid such threatening haunts as truck stops with video poker machines, unlicensed barber shops and a frat house where underage drinking was reported.
In New York City, these men in black raided standup comedian Joe Lipari’s apartment.
“I had bad customer service at the Apple Store,” Lipari told me in an interview for my upcoming TV special “Policing America.” “So I bitched about it on Facebook. I thought I was funny. I quoted ‘Fight Club,’” the 1999 movie about bored yuppies who attack parts of consumer culture they hate.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Michigan Dept of Agri Forces Farmer to Dump 248 Gallons of Organic Milk and Break 1200 Free Range Eggs
While Americans in the nearby city of Detroit face life in third world conditions, unable to even afford running water, the state of Michigan decided to direct its resources towards cracking down on a small food co-op in Standish for having the utter audacity to provide milk, butter, cream and eggs to people who bought shares in the organic dairy.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture must be so proud of their deeds, after they forced Joe and Brenda Golimbieski, the owners of Hill High Dairy and Jenny Samuelson, the owner of My Family Co-op, to dump out 248 gallons of milk, to break 100 dozen eggs, and to destroy an undisclosed amount of fresh cream, butter and cheese.
According to a post on the Hill High Dairy page on Facebook, the agents from the MDA stood over the family, watching as the food was destroyed.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Justin Amash’s support for free enterprise earns enmity of Big Business
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has jumped into a Republican congressional primary in Michigan, trying to defeat incumbent Rep. Justin Amash. Amash’s crime: being stubbornly consistent in opposing big government.
The Chamber’s endorsement of Amash’s opponent helps clarify some things that have long been true, but which have been muddled in the public eye and used against conservatives.
The first myth put to rest: Libertarianism and free enterprise are defenses of Big Business.
The second myth exposed: Challenging an incumbent in a primary is somehow impious or unsporting.
Amash is arguably the strongest defender of free enterprise in the House. His rating from the Club for Growth is 100 percent. He comes in second out of 435 House members on the National Taxpayers Union scorecard. This consistency earned him a primary from Grand Rapids businessman Brian Ellis.
Ellis explained that Amash is too beholden to principles and the Constitution: “He’s got his explanations for why he’s voted,” Ellis said, “but I don’t really care. I’m a businessman, I look at the bottom line.”
What has Amash done in his three and a half years in the House to earn the Chamber’s wrath? Look over his Chamber of Commerce scorecard and you see a handful of votes where he gets a demerit from the business lobby.
Amash in 2012 voted against reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that subsidizes U.S. exports with taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign companies and governments. He opposes Ex-Im’s renewal this year, too.