Abbie Hoffman Moment

Abbie Hoffman Moment

Abbie Hoffman Moment

Abbie Hoffman Moment

South Carolina Responsible Journalism Resgistry Law

Republican South Carolina representative Mike Pitts, pictured above, has sponsored a bill in his state's congress, which will be called the South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law if it gets passed. Before covering matters related to government, a journalist would be required to undergo a background check, similar to the background check required before buying a handgun, to report the news. No one who has written anything controversial, or who has written anything that has garnered complaints about government, petitions, or boycotts would be allowed to cover state events. There would also be a non-refundable fee for the background check to report the news, effecting a charge to tell the truth! Also, every journalist in South Carolina would have to be listed in a registry. Hmm....where has your blogger heard something like this before? This sounds an awful lot like the German Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service in 1933, which was aimed at forcing Jews out of any professional field in Nazi Germany.

This bill is such a gross violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution that it will never pass. Still, the question that needs to be answered is this: why is South Carolina so afraid of writers and journalists?

Abbie Hoffman Moment

Abbie Hoffman Moment

 

Yes, this is a book he wrote.

The Six Million Dollar Man

Some new case law is now setting a precedent in the United States. Prior to the disposition of any of the cases filed against the officers charged with the murder of Freddie Gray, of Baltimore, Maryland, the government has agreed to settle with Freddie Gray's family to the tune of 6.4 million for wrongful death. It appears that immunity has been replaced by accountability. While not as much as might be won by going to court, rather than settling, it still looks to be a suggestion of culpability on the part of the state.

Public School Teachers In Kansas And Religion

In Case You Didn't Bother With Church On Sunday

 

To those Northeast Kansans who think that our forefathers founded this country on Christianity, suck on this! No one who loves freedom and common sense wants to see Christianity taken seriously. Allowing religion in public schools is about as un-American as one can get, if Thomas Jefferson is to be taken seriously.

 

Abbie Hoffman Moment

Yet Another Attack On The Fourth Amendment

Here we go again. The Cyber Security Information Sharing Act of 2014, courtesy, once again, of Dianne Feinstein, would allow sharing of personal information between major internet sites and the United States government. You can get in touch with your representative here to request that your Fourth Amendment rights be protected and this bill be scrapped. On the bright side, Apple's new mobile operating system, i0S8, was engineered only to unlock for the owner of the device, even if Apple or the retailer is presented with a search warrant. Of course, this would not even be an issue if the United States Government would just let J. Edgar Hoovers tactics remain in another era.

In Case You Weren't In Church This Sunday

If you missed church this Sunday, don't worry; you can still be in Oklahoma City on September 21 for a planned event hosted by the Angra Mainyu Satanic Temple in the civic building. As the autumnal equinox is a Sabbat, this is no big surprise. While the choice of the civic building is interesting, no complaint or issue should arise as long as the congregation meets all of it's obligations to the city, connected to the use of the building. No problem, right? Wrong! Many of the Christian folks in Oklahoma, the ones who want Neil Degrasse Tyson's show banned from Oklahoma's airwaves, would like to ban this church from conducting it's services. Fortunately, Oklahoma City remembered that it is part of America, and told the nice Christian morons to find something else to do if they were not involved in ritual on September 21. Apparently, that advice was not good enough for them, because a narcissistic  Catholic priest who thinks the world revolves around him and his religion decided to file suit against Angra Mainyu. Since the lawsuit, by itself, had no merit, the reverend made up an untrue story about the church being in possession of stolen property. The court went ahead and accepted this, but refused to deny the Angra Mainyu congregation it's civil right to gather in the civic building, which is what the reverend really wanted. In order to pacify the archdiocese and the crybaby reverend, some wafers that had been ordered by the Angra Mainyu from the internet were delivered to the archdiocese. Now the lawsuit has been either dropped or dismissed, and hopefully, the Sabbat ritual will proceed with no further headaches.

While it is beautiful that any church can practice it's beliefs and teachings in Oklahoma, as per our nation's Constitution, it is disturbing that the Angra Mainyu were required to give what amounts to a de facto payment to a bunch of Christian thugs in order to practice their religion in peace.

Yay Wicca! Yay Supreme Court!

In Bloomfield, New Mexico, a monument on government property which legally does not belong there will have to be removed. Members of Bloomfield's Wiccan community have requested that a cheap statue of the ten commandments be removed from the lawn of Bloomfield's city hall building, because it shows a preference for Christianity. The suit was first filed in 2012, and yesterday, the Supreme Court gave the city until September 10 to load it up on a dump truck and dump it somewhere else.

According to Senior District Judge James A. Parker, the monument "has no place on City Hall property". This is because it shows favor of one religion over others, and the United States Government does not exist in order to play religious favorites. The silly-assed Christians who wanted it to remain tried to argue that it has historical significance, but as it was erected in 2011, history was found to have no significance whatsoever. 

There was also a sign alongside of the eyesore statue, announcing that anyone who objected to it's presence is an "outsider". Now that the Supreme Court has sided with the local Wiccans and Pagans, it appears that the "outsiders" are the federal law breakers who wanted to force their religion on everyone.

In Case You Weren't In Church On Sunday

Does the rhetoric sound familiar? 

More Corruption Within The Energy Industry

When will we learn?

More locally, a conflict was exposed not too long ago, right here, involving two attorneys, the Grain Belt Express, and Marshall County Kansas.

Abbie Hoffman Moment

In Case You Weren't In Church On Sunday

My feelings, exactly! Or at least, kinda sort of.......koolaide is really just koolaide when it all gets mixed together!

The Day We Fight Back

Mass Surveillance. What a concept; it conjures up an Orwellian image of government control extending everywhere, reaching into all affairs, personal and otherwise. The argument can and has been made that there really are no actual secrets and there never were, but what about warrantless grabs of information government agencies against an innocent, but targeted citizen? The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prevents warrantless searches and seizures of our property in person, but where does it fit in electronic communiques?

Right now, there are two important pieces of proposed legislation that need attention from our representatives. First is the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Improvements Act, written by Dianne Feinstein. Her idea of updating and reform would simply legalize all the illegal data mining already done by NSA. It would also allow legitimate spying tactics on actual espionage suspects overseas, the original purpose of FISA, to be utilized here, in America. Because of the obvious conflicts with the Fourth Amendment, this is not a good idea. On February 11, we are asking everyone to call or write their representatives to state opposition to Feinstein's FISA Improvements Act.

The second proposed piece of important legislation is the USA Freedom Act. This act would amend section 215 of the Patriot Act, which is used to mine and store phone records of Americans. Limits would be placed on the data that is collected, the amount of data that can be stored, and the length of time it can be saved. The bill would also amend the FISA Amendments Act, (FAA, 2008) which allows warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. Our representatives need to know that we support this.

To anyone who still thinks that the NSA and that government agencies actually have the best interests of American citizens at heart, think about the fact that despite so much metadata and other information that there is barely room to store it, America still has unsolved missing persons cases.

Cedar Rapids Iowa

I've asked you before, person whose signal hails from Cedar Rapids, Iowa: what do you want? I know of more than one IP address and location from which you browse this site. I have also noticed you on a mobile device or two. I know which posts grab your interest. I also know who you are. You have not; however, told me what you want.

If you want the things I share on this site to change, don't hold your breath. This is my site, and the words I publish are not chosen to please you. They are not chosen to please the subject of most of the posts you read and re-read, either. That is something I do not owe either of you. Your sister initially thought I did, but she was sadly mistaken. Ha! That was certainly amusing! The First Amendment of our Constitution, here in America, grants all Americans the same rights that are enjoyed by your sister. I do not need a special license to publish the truth; I have freedom of speech, and freedom of expression. Since your sister's position is elected, I can tell the general public anything about her that I think will attract their interest. In order to obtain a measure of protection from that, and enjoy some shelter from liable or slander, she would have to resign her elected position. The fact that no one ran against her does not matter.

What was so important on this site that you actually took time away from your family and spent it here, with me, on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day? If there is something you desperately need to know, by all means, email me! Use the information in my profile to do so, or send me a comment, but mark it "private". I will not publish it; I moderate the comments here. Don't cheat your children out of time with their mother on holidays! That's a little old fashioned, I know. It's also something your sister failed to understand about me, and about the family she attempted to destroy. While our rights are guaranteed us by the government, familial affection, obligation, and tradition are not. Those things transcend government control of any kind. Children who are loved are also a lot less likely to drive their parents' vehicles over the cornfields, lawns, and gardens of others.

If you want me to stop sharing the things I find interesting, you will spend eternity waiting. No one who is vested in the government, or the Koch Brothers; as the case may be; is going to tell me what to share on my site. Or in person, for that matter. I will never be blind enough to believe that the government can and should ruin the physical and social environments of people here on Earth. And don't expect my exercise of the first amendment to ever stop, as long as there are humans on this planet. This goes back to why you should spend holidays with your children, rather then scoping the internet, in search of opposition. While the pen is mightier than the sword, the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the nation. Who rocks the cradle in your home?