Private property should mean just that. If you own the property, you should enjoy the reasonable expectation that you are free from government instrutions and that you can keep trespassers from wandering over your property.
Well, not only is that not the case in Pennsylvania, but the Supreme Court ruled in 1975 that property owners are barred from federal courts until they survive a series of expensive, time-consuming procedural traps.
A new law suit seeks to correct this.
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One of the overlooked aspects of the Houston flooding is that some of it was caused by actions of the US Army Corps of Engineers!
The Corps has built many man made reservoirs over the years to control flooding. Although made to control flooding, they quickly become scenic places to build houses to enjoy recreation and scenic views.
Many neighborhoods in Houston actually weren’t flooded out during the disaster. However, as water levels rose, the Corps decided to breach the dams and such that made the reservoirs. Large scale flooding occurred because of this decision.
Do the people have a right to claim damages? …
St. Louis, Missouri is a 487 County, so little of what they do politically is too much of a surprise.
Like many cities with failing public schools, St. Louis has created Magnet Schools, Charter Schools and other alternatives. While the argument is that they are making better choices, in reality most of these “better” schools are designed to keep parents from pulling good kids out of the public school systems. If they can keep them, then scores overall go up and it creates the illusion that progress is being made.
Well, imagine one families surprise to discover that only white children are allowed in these alternative schools! Yes, this very liberal city is denying the opportunity for a child to get an education based on his skin color!
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The Republicans own the Diversity Visa program. It was created and made into law via the Immigration Act of 1990. Those with a good memory will recall that George H.W. Bush was the president in 1990. In the words of the first Bush,
"S. 358 accomplishes what this Administration sought from the outset of the immigration reform process”
Ironically, it never would have passed without the Republicans. Even the Democrats voted against it, and they had the majorities in the House and Senate. Take a look at the numbers and look at who voted for and against it. Sadly, 27 years later you’ll see names of folks who are still around.
Let’s look at the law. Sponsored by Ted Kennedy. Co sponsored by two Republicans. Only 171 Democrats voted for it. It was the 93 Republicans who voted for it that allowed it to pass.
The so called gang of 8 over the years have offered to eliminate the program. But the trade off was to allow for many more to come in. In other words, drop the 50,000 and replace it with programs that allow for millions more to come in.
This is the point in the blog where I usually ask you to write your congress folks to create laws to abolish the diversity visa program. Well, imagine my surprise to find out that there are actually bills to eliminate the program in the house and senate. The senate bill was introduced in February. The house bill in March.
Yes, your conclusions are correct at this point. They have been sitting on them! They haven’t even been sent to committee. Cynics in the political world suggest that the Republicans in the house and senate on sitting on them in order to trade the eliminating the program for some other program that increase the number of immigrants.
So, now we get back to the “contact” your congress folks. How do we influence them? Obviously voting them out of office is the best way, but in the interim, let’s look at what works. According to studies, a live in person visit is the most influential method. That’s impractical for most of us, so let’s look at the best two ways that we can do it. Individualized emails to them and letters to the editor of the local paper where you name the congress folks by name (not merely the issue) are the two most influential. Phone calls are virtually worthless.
Facts on what the Diversity Visa program is and how it’s supposed to work.…
In whatever hell Osama Bin Laden resides in right now, he’s reveling in the fact that he and his 11 followers have produced the biggest bang for the buck in the history of warfare.
His group of followers, limited in numbers, armed with no sophisticated weapons of warfare dramatically changed the United States. We became an oppressive surveillance state. We’ve spent trillions of dollars. We’ve destroyed much of the Middle East and Africa.
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Russia is not actually interested in undermining American “democracy”. In fact, the United States isn’t particularly concerned either. But Russiagate continues to give mainstream media a narrative that it can sell to its dwindling core audience. However, when it comes to the real linchpin of American power, the almighty Dollar, things are very different.
Since it typically takes millions of Dollars at minimum, to even enter major US elections, it is clear that the American electoral system, like just about everything in the US, is as tied in to the power of the Dollar as any other institution. The entire contrived narrative about Russia is really a thinly placed mask which hides the real worry in the US about Russia’s latest geo-strategic moves.
Today, Russia’s Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister took part in an official visit to China where both countries signed agreements to expand bilateral trade in national currencies, as opposed to using the US Dollar as the standard transaction currency.
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The leaks continue.
Most of us were concerned when the Mueller investigation hired a bunch of Obama and Clinton sycophants. Last Friday it was leaked to CNN that Mueller planned to release indictments the following Monday. Imagine the sheer coincidence that on Sunday Hillary had a big strategy meeting with the big players in her seemingly never-ending scandals.
I’m sure they just got together when they realized that they were in the same place. And I’m sure they merely talked about their grandchildren.…
It’s “call to action” time. This is one that you need to take some time to contact your US Senators and Congressmen.
We all know that our government spends a lot of our money on “research”. Some of the more bizarre examples include $3 million to find out how long shrimp can run on a treadmill! Or how about the $315K to figure out if playing FarmVille on Facebook helps people make friends? Or the $300K to study how people ride bicycles? The list goes on and on.
Sen Rand Paul and other have introduced a law to allow we citizens to read and use the research that we paid for. The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act, or FASTR (S. 1701, H.R. 3427) has sat in the House and Senate for four years.
It’s time to get this put into law.…
Another court has ruled that the public still has the ability to play old music that almost everyone believed they lawfully had the ability to play. The Florida Supreme Court, following in the footsteps of New York State’s high court, ruled yesterday that its state law, which governs sound recordings made before 1972, doesn’t include a right to control public performances of sound recordings, including radio play. Both this decision and the reasoning behind it are good news for digital music companies and radio listeners.…
We’ve been highlighting the actions of our government to renew, fix or eliminate Section 702 of the FISA act. Sadly, our US Congress isn’t taking reform too seriously. Protections for US citizens don’t seem in the forefront of their efforts.
Mass surveillance works two different ways. So called upstream surveillance collects information as it travels over the internet backbone. Downstream surveillance collects information from companies like Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
The very international nature of the internet might actually gain us more protection. Foreign countries are starting to use their court system to question the companies involved in the downstream collection of information. Court rulings are challenging those companies actions insofar as it infringes on their citizens protections.
If this keeps up, those companies very existence will depend on our US Congress changing protection laws for us.
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