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Never, ever trust the government. These people bought houses because the government decided to take from future generations to paper over the poor state of the economy. Now, because the incompetent bureaucrats in Washington can't figure out their own underhanded schemes tens of thousands of people will have to come up with thousands and thousands of dollars that they probably don't have. And let me just make a guess here. If they can't find the money the I.R.S. will come calling with the full power of the government, threatening to sieze bank accounts, assets and paychecks to satisfy the debt.
Don Corleone would be so proud.
"Nearly half of all Americans who claimed the first-time homebuyer tax credit on their 2009 tax returns will have to repay the government.
According to a report from the Inspector General for Tax Administration, released to the public Thursday, about 950,000 of the nearly 1.8 million Americans who claimed the tax credit on their 2009 tax returns will have to return the money."
CNN
"In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan."
CNS News
Do we have any expectation of privacy left in this country? Or can the government, any part of it, local, state or federal demand that we comply with any request it makes? When will we say, "NO!"
"Sheriffs in North Carolina want access to state computer records identifying anyone with prescriptions for powerful painkillers and other controlled substances.
The state sheriff's association pushed the idea Tuesday, saying the move would help them make drug arrests and curb a growing problem of prescription drug abuse. But patient advocates say opening up people's medicine cabinets to law enforcement would deal a devastating blow to privacy rights."
News Observer
But how can this be? With our economy on the upswing, at least if one chooses to believe our always honest leaders, the demand for energy should climb. Is somebody fibbin' to us?
I wonder when the prices will go down?
Can we believe anything the government tells us anymore?
"Another improvement in the jobs number. 451,000 for the week is better than the 475,000 that analysts were expecting.
Stocks are rallying, with the S&P 500 up about 0.8%."
Business Insider
The initial jobless claims data was strong(er than expected), but there's a lot of chatter this morning about a note form Bloomberg:
For the latest reporting week, nine states didn’t file claims data to the Labor Department in Washington because of the federal holiday earlier this week, a Labor Department official told reporters. As a result, California and Virginia estimated their figures and the U.S. government estimated the other seven, the official said.
Business Insider
"An Afghan cleric threatened Thursday that U.S. troops in the country's north would face large protests if a small American church burns copies of the Muslim holy book as planned on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Religious and political leaders across the Muslim world, as well as several U.S. officials, have called on the church to call off the plan, warning it would lead to violence against Americans. The Rev. Terry Jones, of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has vowed to go ahead with the bonfire on Saturday, even though he has been denied the required permit.
Abdul Hadi Rostaqi, a member of the cleric council in Afghanistan's largely peaceful Balkh province, said Thursday that, if the burning goes ahead, "a big protest will be held" in the provincial capital Mazar-i-Sharif next Monday. NATO-led troops stationed in the city — one of the country's main centers of the Islamic teaching — would be the primary target.
Meanwhile, about 200 people marched and burned a U.S. flag in the central Pakistani city of Multan."
Yahoo
So, if the crazy preacher burns the Koran the Afghani Muslims will target American troops because of the offense. All this is being said as Pakistanis burn an American flag.
Let's get out of that part of the world. Let's just go ahead and give up the oil and let those people wallow in the 6th century. That's what they want so give it to them. Let Russia have the place if they want it. Pakistan can blow them up if they want. Or Iran can blow everybody else up. I don't care. Europe can deal with its own defenses and the Saudi sheiks can use some of their trillions to defend their own country.
Bring the troops home. We'll have a really tough time as our economy and way of life transforms to accommodate the absence of oil but it's going to happen eventually anyway. Why sacrifice even one more life overseas. Ring our shores with missiles and the military, devote our scant oil resources to supporting our defense and tell the rest of the world to kiss off! Tell the Islamic world to get out of our affairs or we'll flatten Mecca with missiles and reduce Tehran to glass.
Things will be hard here at home but if we do it to ourselves we can reduce voluntarily and with at least some sense of order. There is nothing to gain by engaging the Muslim world, at least for the American people. Nothing we do, short of conversion to Islam, will satisfy them. So screw 'em. The big banks and the Boeing's of the world won't like it but screw them, too. The politicians and all the rest that line their pockets with blood money from perpetual war won't like it, either. Screw 'em.
SCREW 'EM!!! Every last one of these evil bastards that are so willing to sacrifice the young lives of our military so that power and wealth can accrue at their feet. SCREW 'EM!!! America isn't supposed to be about empire and conquest. The founders warned against it.
Get all our people back home, pull up the drawbridge, close the gates, man the towers and inform the world that if they stay out of our affairs we'll stay out of theirs. Make sure that they understand that we want peace, that we want and expect to be left alone. And make sure they understand they if we aren't we will unleash hell on them, destroy them and return to our shores, once again in peace.
Then we can concentrate on changing our lives here at home. We need better sources of power, such as nuclear. If we divert all the resources we squander overseas to developing new energy here at home I would imagine that we'd have our power problems solved in short order which would have the happy effect of even further removing us from the Middle East. Let's rebuild our industries and make the stuff we need here at home. We've got just about everything we need to do it. And no one can beat the American worker at productivity.
If we are to have trade with the rest of the world keep the politics out of it. Make sure that competition is fair and honest. If our trading partners tax goods from America to make their own products more attractive in their countries, we do the same to them. If slave labor is used to make products oversea, we refuse them. We do this right or we don't do it at all. Make sure American companies produce their goods in America. If they want to do it overseas than let them move there. They shouldn't get the benefits of America if they won't work to support her.
Workers in America, especially my blue collar brothers and sisters, need to loose the union mentality, the collectivist, one size fits all, over paid socialist, worker versus employer mindset. And the white collars need to realize that there is value in working with your hands. We're all in this together and if the company profits the workers profit. Everyone get on the same page and work for the good of the business that employs them and then share in the profits. Quit fighting like spoiled children. We'll all float or sink together.
It's time to turn the page. America needs to return to what it was meant to be. We were never intended to be the worlds policemen. Let the world take care of itself. They know that freedom works because we've proven it. Let them either join us or perish.
They aren't our problem any more.
"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."
U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment
Welcome to our brave new world. Doesn't it seem, more and more everyday, that we have crossed some invisible line, that we've crossed over into the intrusive world that is so often pictured in science fiction? How did this happen? When did we forget how to say no?
Is there any action by the government we'll stand up to? Can the threat of terrorism and the protection of the nanny state be used to justify anything?
Does the Constitution have any meaning at all anymore?
"Commuters who ride PATCO trains between southern New Jersey and Philadelphia should expect random searches of their clothing, pockets, bags and vehicles on their morning trip to work.
Twelve Transportation Security Administration screeners, armed with an explosive-sniffing K-9, checked 663 commuter bags randomly selected from the morning rush at the Lindenwold station Tuesday."
NBC Philadelphia
"Holli Powell, a Phoenix medical- software consultant who flies every week, says she avoids getting into airport security lines that end at what she calls a humiliating full-body scanner.
“Those scanners, I feel, are above and beyond,” Powell, 35, said in an interview. They generate “nearly naked images.”
The concerns of travelers such as Powell, which led privacy advocates to sue the government, may soon be eased. L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and OSI Systems Inc.’s Rapiscan, makers of the scanners for U.S. airports, are delivering software upgrades that show a generic figure rather than an actual image of a passenger’s body parts. The new display would mark sections of a person’s body that need to be checked."
Bloomberg
"From the KCMO police: The Kansas City Police Department will conduct a sobriety checkpoint on this weekend at a location in Kansas City that is known for occurrence of DUI related crashes or DUI arrests.
During this operation there will be signs placed in advance of the checkpoint site and officers will be on the street directing traffic. Motorists will be directed to a location where an officer can conduct a brief check to determine if the motorist should be delayed longer. If not, the motorist will be delayed only a very brief period of time."
Crime Scene KC
"The result [of the Patriot Act} is unchecked government power to rifle through individuals' financial records, medical histories, Internet usage, bookstore purchases, library usage, travel patterns, or any other activity that leaves a record. Making matters worse:
The government no longer has to show evidence that the subjects of search orders are an "agent of a foreign power," a requirement that previously protected Americans against abuse of this authority.
The FBI does not even have to show a reasonable suspicion that the records are related to criminal activity, much less the requirement for "probable cause" that is listed in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. All the government needs to do is make the broad assertion that the request is related to an ongoing terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.
Judicial oversight of these new powers is essentially non-existent. The government must only certify to a judge - with no need for evidence or proof - that such a search meets the statute's broad criteria, and the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.
Surveillance orders can be based in part on a person's First Amendment activities, such as the books they read, the Web sites they visit, or a letter to the editor they have written.
A person or organization forced to turn over records is prohibited from disclosing the search to anyone. As a result of this gag order, the subjects of surveillance never even find out that their personal records have been examined by the government. That undercuts an important check and balance on this power: the ability of individuals to challenge illegitimate searches."
ACLU
"Despite complaints by privacy advocates, the number of surveillance cameras is growing and proving increasingly valuable to police for catching criminals as well as protecting against terrorists."
USA Today
"The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that federal law does not require prosecutors to show probable cause when they seek tracking data collected by cell phone providers. But the court said that judges can ask for it nonetheless.
...The records requested, which track the towers and site locations used by the phone subscriber, can track where a person was in the past when making and receiving calls. In urban areas, a person's whereabouts can be tracked to within 200 feet of the exact location."
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
"The FBI and other police agencies don't need a search warrant to track the locations of Americans' cell phones, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday in a precedent-setting decision.
In the first decision of its kind, a Philadelphia appeals court agreed with the Obama administration that no search warrant--signed by a judge based on a belief that there was probable cause to suspect criminal activity--was necessary for police to obtain logs showing where a cell phone user had traveled."
CNET
This guy should be getting a good citizen award.
"He was arrested for protecting his property and family.
But it’s how the Long Island man did it that police say crossed the line.
He got an AK-47 assault rifle, pulled the trigger and he ended up in jail, reports CBS 2’s Pablo Guzman.
George Grier said he had to use his rifle on Sunday night to stop what he thought was going to be an invasion of his Uniondale home by a gang he thought might have been the vicious “MS-13.” He said the whole deal happened as he was about to drive his cousin home.
“I went around and went into the house, ran upstairs and told my wife to call the police. I get the gun and I go outside and I come into the doorway and now, by this time, they are in the driveway, back here near the house. I tell them, you know, ‘Can you please leave?’ Grier said.
Grier said the five men dared him to use the gun; and that their shouts brought another larger group of gang members in front of his house.
“He starts threatening my family, my life. ‘Oh you’re dead. I’m gonna kill your family and your babies. You’re dead.’ So when he says that, 20 others guys come rushing around the corner. And so I fired four warning shots into the grass,” Grier said."
New York CBS
Let's review. A man and his family are threatened on their property. He gets his gun, a dreaded "assault weapon", which is a force multiplier and exactly what the situation demands, and asks those that are threatening his family to leave HIS PROPERTY. When they refuse to do so and in fact more threats arrive and the promises of violence from the threats increase the man fires the only tool at his disposal into the ground as a warning.
The property owner could have shot one of his antagonists or he could have fired into the air and endangered an innocent citizen, but he did neither. He safely and competently, without harming anyone, removed the threat to his family and himself from the area. He also knew that the shot would alert police and bring them to his door.
This guy did the right thing and now he'll be forced to pay massive legal bills just to defend his heroic actions. Should he have waited for the police to arrive? After all, his wife was supposed to call them. Should he have cowered in front of these cowards that were threatening his family and begged for mercy? HELL NO!!!
A husband's primary responsibility is to defend his family and that is just what Mr. Grier did. The police may or may not have shown up on time but the threat was right there in front of him. He had no other reasonable course of action.
My guess is that the cops didn't want to arrest this guy but they're just doing their job. Most of the police I've talked to advise arming yourself for protection because they won't be there when things go wrong to do it for you.
When faced with the number of threats that Mr. Grier faced, especially if they are members of a group known for violence, what would you do? Personally, I may have retreated inside my house because that could have narrowed the areas of attack. I know, because I've thought it through, where the bottlenecks are in my home that will reduce the number of targets to the absolute minimum if I have to defend my family. I want the threats coming through a funnel so I can focus my fire most effectively. A wood frame house with vinyl siding may not be good cover but it will provide concealment.
In Missouri we have the right to defend our homes and property, with deadly force if necessary. It's called Castle Doctrine. In other words, if you enter onto my property, not just into my house, and threaten me then I can use a weapon and defend myself, even if I kill you. If the facts of the case show that I was within the framework for defense allowed in the law I cannot be sued or prosecuted for using deadly force. Castle Doctrine removes the "duty to retreat" laws found in many states and replaces it with "stand your ground", effectively placing the burden of proof on the state to show that the shooter acted improperly in defending his property. In other words, if I shoot someone on my property the law will give me, as the property owner, the benefit of the doubt. If the law in New York was the same my guess is that Mr. Grier would not have been arrested.
When did we became a nation of wussies? When did it become even kind of illegal to defend a mans hearth and home? Why does Mr. Grier's whole life have to be turned upside down just because he did his duty?
What in the hell is the matter with us?
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