Sheriff Sis Rides into Town

Imagine that. The Obama administration and Big Sis just stepping in and seizing businesses just because they want to, not from anything like due process. No, they are above that. They haven’t even had Congress pass the law yet and they are already doing it.  It’s their moral duty. 🙂

Imagine that… the Obama administration seizing something… 🙂

Hey, Sis, how about the Border?

Whoops! Politically incorrect. Sorry…Too busy trying to shove Amnesty down again…

How about foreign terrorists? Whoops!…can’t! No Profiling!

The investigative arm of the Homeland Security Department appears to be shutting down websites that facilitate copyright infringement.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seized dozens of domain names over the past few days, according to TorrentFreak.

ICE appears to be targeting sites that help Internet users download copyrighted music, as well as sites that sell bootleg goods, such as fake designer handbags.

The sites are replaced with a note from the government: “This domain named has been seized by ICE, Homeland Security Investigations.”

For instance, borntrade.com, 51607.com, and amoyhy.com have each been seized.

One of the site owners told TorrentFreak that his site was shut down without any notice or warning.

The effort comes as Congress considers the Combatting Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). Critics, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) say it is too heavy-handed. He has vowed to put a formal hold on the bill.

Bill, who needs a Bill…Not Progressives on a mission to save you from the evils of the Internet. Nexzt stop, those evil bastards at FOX News.

Meanwhile, the border violence gets worse and worse and the criminals more brazen, but who cares! We’re been saved from the internet by Big Sis!!

You may not have a job. You may be on the verge of starvation or bankruptcy but damn if you still have your internet connection Sheriff Sis is in town and she going to clean up the poop!!

Rejoice Citizen!

Ninety-six pioneering Internet engineers have signed an open letter calling COICA a dangerous, unsound measure that would “risk fragmenting the Internet’s global domain name system.”(WP)

Congress screw up something that isn’t screwed up for their own political gain, gee, that never happens!

The very liberal Huffington Post: An entire generation has grown up having to battle their impressions of ownership they get from interests like industry associations they perceive as nefarious entities and the common sense notion that people should get compensated for what they create. In a generation of so many artists and entrepreneurs, the value of ownership is still strong. Yet, the disillusion with interests that bully their way through Congress and the courts is stronger. In the case of COICA, Congress shouldn’t burn the house to roast the pig. There is too much to lose.

And the Old Sheriff still wants to pass their own pet projects before leaving town.

Hugh Hewitt: A liberal friend of mine sent out an email this past week urging all of the recipients to urge their Representative and Senator to push for the passage of the Dream Act when Congress reconvenes next week.

I wrote back that such a result would be a disaster for the cause of real immigration reform, no matter what the short-term benefits he imagined flowing from the act. Anyone who wants a comprehensive solution to the problem of illegal immigration, one that begins with the completion of the fence and moves on to regularization of the millions of illegal aliens in the country, cannot hope for a jam down of the Dream Act through a discredited Congress.

Similarly, no proponent of a policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military should be cheering a quick vote on Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell in the next few weeks. Nor should any champion of campaign finance reform urge a vote on the Disclose Act.

In short, no serious proponent of representative government ought to be urging that the sweeping message of November 2 be ignored just so their particular special interest can garner a last-minute “win” in a lame duck Congress.

That lame duck session could and should pass a short term spending measure to allow for the operation of the government through, say, the end of February.

And it would be consistent with the mandate the GOP received at the polls to extend the Bush tax cuts until such time as Congress affirmatively votes to raise them.

But nothing should issue from this lame duck meeting of a discredited and repudiated Congress that in effect nullifies the vote on November 2.

“I won,” President Obama bluntly told GOP leaders at a White House gathering shortly after his inauguration in 2009. Though he might well have been much better served by some humility as well as some of the bipartisanship he campaigned on, the president was simply stating that elections have consequences. He received the powers of his office from the people, and he used them.

But this failed Congress ought not to be legislating as though nothing happened, or as though the people affirmed the recklessness of the past two years. The vote was a national knock-out of the left’s beliefs and program, a complete and utter denunciation of the tax-and-spend policies of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and to ignore that verdict is to strike at the very core of the country’s social compact: Voters are sovereign.

The temptation is great to try and use the last few hours of power to reward political friends and punish political opponents, but the cost is so high that even the most dogmatic liberal ought to refuse the temptation.

There are 23 Democratic senate seats on the ballot in November 2012. Any of those 23 who vote for any of the left’s last-minute agenda, or even for cloture on the bills, are telling their voters that those voters’ don’t matter to those senators. Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, for example, just witnessed a wave of red wash across the Buckeye State. If Brown participates in an anti-democratic jam down in December 0f 2010, that will be all that Ohio’s voters need to know between now and November, 2012 –that Sherrod Brown has contempt for them and their votes.

What Brown and many other Senate Democrats need right now is a does of well-deserved humility as to what they know and don’t know about the country. They completely misjudged the public’s appetite for spending and Obamacare. If they continue to refuse to listen, their countdown to retirement will have certainly begun.

The votes of these 23 over the next three weeks will define many races for 2012. No senator hoping to remain seated in January 2013 will ignore the results of November, 2010.

But since they are so morally superior and it’s for the best that they get in as much of THE AGENDA in before the barbarian hordes take over that they are compelled to do so.

<<Barf bag on standby>>

Oh, and by the way: IN VERACRUZ, MEXICO Exploiting loopholes in the global economy, Mexican crime syndicates are importing mass quantities of the cold medicines and common chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine – turning Mexico into the No. 1 source for all meth sold in the United States, law enforcement agents say.

After several years of declining production, the 2010 threat assessment by the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center said Mexico was again “the primary source of methamphetamine consumed in the United States.” A companion report was not released for fear of embarrassing Mexican President Felipe Calderon on the eve of his trip to Washington in May. (WP)

But don’t worry, Sheriff Big Sis and her posse are on it. 🙂  Internet Scum!

And Big Brother Barack has the North Koreans in a TSA hold. 🙂

Rejoice Citizen.

Think Happy

I don’t claim to be an economics wiz. Never will.

But consider the following from two different sources:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy shed more jobs than expected in July while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.5%, a further sign the economic recovery may be losing momentum.

The U.S. economy lost 131,000 jobs in July, with the private sector adding only 71,000 to its payrolls. The unemployment rate held steady at 9.5%.

Companies in the U.S. added workers in July for a seventh straight month at a pace that suggests the labor-market recovery will be slow to take hold.

Private payrolls that exclude government agencies rose by 71,000 after a June gain of 31,000 that was smaller than previously reported, Labor Department figures in Washington showed today. Economists projected a 90,000 July increase, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Overall employment fell 131,000 and unemployment held at 9.5 percent.

How can you lose 131,000 jobs but have job gains for 6 months in a row??

I don’t get it.

“Non-census payroll growth has averaged just 12,000 in the latest three months, which, no matter how you might try to spin it, is just plain lousy,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR.

Those figures are expected to show that the US economy lost 63,000 jobs in July with the unemployment rate ticking up to 9.6 per cent. However, private sector employment is projected to rise by 90,000.

How does the unemployment rate increase, and employment rise at the same time?

And how can you have job gains and say the economy is recovering if unemployment is still 9.5 %  (and this figure doesn’t even touch the people who aren’t even looking anymore) and have Treasury Secretary Geithner say it’s going up before it goes down. How is that a “recovery”??

It’s not. But it sounds good. It’s Happy News.

Structural unemployment is defined as unemployment arising from technical change such as automation, or from changes in the composition of output due to variations in the types of products people demand. For example, a decline in the demand for typewriters would lead to structurally unemployed workers in the typewriter industry.

And it’s new buzzword.

And so, because of globalization and the the fact that the games has changed the nearly 10% unemployment is here to stay. That the long-term unemployed come to be seen as unemployable or as forgotten.

Shrinkage.

It’s not our fault.

It just is.

That seems to be the new line coming from the Elites.

We can’t do anything about it, so stop bitching about it. 😦

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who were excluded from the Financial “reform” lost $1.5 billion for the 12 quarter in a row!

But don’t worry, everything’s fine. Nothing to see here. Think happy thoughts.

**********************

The fundamental issue dividing America right now is whether the people with power represent those they govern. Democrats certainly won lots of elections in 2008, and they have large majorities in both House of Congress, but have those majorities done their job of accurately representing majoritarian opinion in the U.S.? Or did the president, campaigning as a centrist, usher in a hard left Congress and then himself lurch left?

I believe that there is a deep, deep disconnect between the elites and the mainstream, and the anger that is surging on both sides of the divide grows out of the sense that majorities are being trampled on. Left-wing activists point at the Senate and argue that a minority of Republican senators is blocking the majority’s will. Center-right activists applaud those Republicans as representatives of the genuine mainstream and point to the votes and polls noted above and argue that the current Congressional majorities are false positives, unrepresentative of where the country truly is, delivered in large part by an Obama-awed MSM dominated by Journolistas moving in lock step to promote the left’s agenda.

The self-righteous and angry rhetoric of scorn and indignation employed by Bloomberg (On The Ground Zero Mosque issue) and the opponents of Prop 8 this week, and routinely by the president and his Congressional allies over the past many months, provide the perfect fuel for the fires of the neopopulism of the Tea Parties. The vast majority of Tea Party participants are mainstream Americans who work hard, pay taxes –lots and lots of taxes– and are concerned about the huge lurch left. They are fearful about the incompetence of the economic team and the vast gusher of deficit spending which continues to flow out of D.C. –another $26 billion Wednesday!– and they are concerned that their childrens’ futures are being compromised by ideological zealots. They are sick to death of the media gamesmanship of “summits” and the president’s refusal to answer questions directly or to engage his political opponents with other than sneers. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the “leaders” of the left and they are mean-spirited and do not appear to be either very bright or at all good humored.

So that is where we are, 89 days from what may well be a historic “U Turn” election. The stakes are very very high, and the left has gone a long way beyond their previously announced goals and agendas.

And they will do anything to win. And after all, it’s all Bush’s Fault anyhow! 🙂

The left is, in a word, exposed. Clarity is a wonderful thing, as my friend Dennis Prager likes to say. As August unfolds, there isn’t any need to guess which way the Democrats and the cultural left wants to take the country. The only question is whether the country wants to go along, and that will be answered on November 2. (Hugh Hewitt)

So the counteraction is, REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER and vote them out.

Unless you like the status quo of Orwellian overuse of  “racism”, structural unemployment, debt, deficits, and a government running every facet of your life, that is. 🙂

And Just to make you feel good and happy: Even the innocence of childhood is being trampled by bureaucrats!

It’s hardly unusual to hear small-business owners gripe about licensing requirements or complain that heavy-handed regulations are driving them into the red.

So when Multnomah County shut down an enterprise last week for operating without a license, you might just sigh and say, there they go again.

Except this entrepreneur was a 7-year-old named Julie Murphy. Her business was a lemonade stand at the Last Thursday monthly art fair in Northeast Portland. The government regulation she violated? Failing to get a $120 temporary restaurant license.

Turns out that kids’ lemonade stands — those constants of summertime — are supposed to get a permit in Oregon, particularly at big events that happen to be patrolled regularly by county health inspectors.

“I understand the reason behind what they’re doing and it’s a neighborhood event, and they’re trying to generate revenue,” said Jon Kawaguchi, environmental health supervisor for the Multnomah County Health Department. “But we still need to put the public’s health first.”

It was for your good. Doesn’t that make you feel better that the government is looking out for rogue lemonade stands! 🙂

And in the news story about Riverhead, NY officials using Google Earth to spot unlicensed pools and boy you just gotta thank your lucky stars that the government is there to protect you.

That is, unless you’re in Arizona, then you’re not allowed to do that. 🙂

Julie had become enamored of the idea of having a stand after watching an episode of cartoon pig Olivia running one, said her mother, Maria Fife. The two live in Oregon City, but Fife knew her daughter would get few customers if she set up her stand at home.

Plus, Fife had just attended Last Thursday along Portland’s Northeast Alberta Street for the first time and loved the friendly feel and the diversity of the grass-roots event. She put the two things together and promised to take her daughter in July.

The girl worked on a sign, coloring in the letters and decorating it with a drawing of a person saying “Yummy.” She made a list of supplies.

Then, with gallons of bottled water and packets of Kool-Aid,  they drove up last Thursday with a friend and her daughter. They loaded a wheelbarrow that Julie steered to the corner of Northeast 26th and Alberta and settled into a space between a painter and a couple who sold handmade bags and kids’ clothing.

Even before her daughter had finished making the first batch of lemonade, a man walked up to buy a 50-cent cup.

“They wanted to support a little 7-year-old to earn a little extra summer loot,” she said. “People know what’s going on.”

Even so, Julie was careful about making the lemonade, cleaning her hands with hand sanitizer, using a scoop for the bagged ice and keeping everything covered when it wasn’t in use, Fife said.

After 20 minutes, a “lady with a clipboard” came over and asked for their license. When Fife explained they didn’t have one, the woman told them they would need to leave or possibly face a $500 fine.

Surprised, Fife started to pack up. The people staffing the booths next to them encouraged the two to stay, telling them the inspectors had no right to kick them out of the neighborhood gathering. They also suggested that they give away the lemonade and accept donations instead and one of them made an announcement to the crowd to support the lemonade stand.

That’s when business really picked up — and two inspectors came back, Fife said. Julie started crying, while her mother packed up and others confronted the inspectors. “It was a very big scene,” Fife said.

Technically, any lemonade stand — even one on your front lawn — must be licensed under state law, said Eric Pippert, the food-borne illness prevention program manager for the state’s public health division. But county inspectors are unlikely to go after kids selling lemonade on their front lawn unless, he conceded, their front lawn happens to be on Alberta Street during Last Thursday.

“When you go to a public event and set up shop, you’re suddenly engaging in commerce,” he said. “The fact that you’re small-scale I don’t think is relevant.”

Kawaguchi, who oversees the two county inspectors involved, said they must be fair and consistent in their monitoring, no matter the age of the person. “Our role is to protect the public,” he said.

From Childhood, obviously! 🙂

The county’s shutdown of the lemonade stand was publicized by Michael Franklin, the man at the booth next to Fife and her daughter. Franklin contributes to the Bottom Up Radio Network, an online anarchist site, and interviewed Fife for his show.

As for Julie, the 7-year-old still tells her mother “it was a bad day.” When she complains about the health inspector, Fife reminds her that the woman was just doing her job. She also promised to help her try again — at an upcoming neighborhood garage sale.

While Fife said she does see the need for some food safety regulation, she thinks the county went too far in trying to control events as unstructured as Last Thursday.

“As far as Last Thursday is concerned, people know when they are coming there that it’s more or less a free-for-all,” she said. “It’s gotten to the point where they need to be in all of our decisions. They don’t trust us to make good choices on our own.”

No they don’t.

But they can be pressured into sounding like they care, especially when they’ve been embarrassed into it.

PORTLAND, Ore. — A county official in Oregon has apologized after a 7-year-old’s business venture was soured because health inspectors shut down her lemonade stand.

Multnomah County Chairman Jeff Cogen, the county’s top elected official, said Thursday that running a lemonade stand is a “classic iconic American kid thing to do.”

He says he called Julie Murphy’s mother, Maria Fife, to offer his apology and says she appreciated it.

Fife helped her daughter set up a lemonade stand last week at a local arts fair in northeast Portland. They had to pack up and leave after being approached by two inspectors who said the stand lacked a license.

Cogen says while the inspectors were doing their job, the rules are meant for professional food service operators. He adds he ran lemonade stands as a child.

Cogen said the inspectors were “following the rule book,” but should consider that food-safety laws are aimed at adults engaged in a professional food business, not kids running lemonade stands.

But if someone does it again, what do you want the “fair” inspectors will be back. 🙂

And just what does it say about the mindset that would even go there on a lemonade stand to begin with?

How about this comment on the story: So the moral of this is that if you take your little darling to another location in the city away from your home and have them sell food or drinks from a stand, the health inspectors should do nothing to insure the food or beverage is safe. Great. Why even bother having health inspectors? This is a bad precedent to set. The inspectors did nothing wrong.

The government must be ever-present to save you from yourself!

Personal Responsibility is the Government’s job after all! 🙂

And if they can’t be there every minute of every day to protect you from yourself, anarachy will rain down upon us all!

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

So what happens with us adults when we want to do something the “rules” says we can’t do or we want the government to live up to it’s own rules that it’s ignoring? Or if we want the rules changed?

Like object to Health Care Mandate for instance? Or Illegal Immigration?

Hmmm… 🙂