Texas Gov. Rick Perry Bills Feds for Housing Illegals

Filed under:General — posted by Jack on 8/27/2011 @ 7:49 pm

“Texas Gov. Rick Perry has asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reimburse the state $350 million to cover costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the top-tier Republican presidential candidate blamed the federal government for not securing the border with Mexico, allowing illegal immigrants to cross over and use taxpayer-funded resources. He said resources for county jails are being depleted as a result.

Perry included in the letter the formula he used to determine the costs and included a memo from state Comptroller Susan Combs supporting his calculations.

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Perry-ImmigrationCosts/2011/08/26/id/408839?s=al&promo_code=CEE3-1

US Government Asset Seizures on the Rise

Filed under:General — posted by Jack on @ 2:43 pm

“The Wall Street Journal published a disturbing article earlier this week entitled “Federal Asset Seizures Rise, Netting Innocent With Guilty.”

You can already imagine the crux of the article.

In the United States, there are hundreds of regulations which authorize dozens federal agencies to confiscate private property– homes, cars, bank accounts, gold, company shares, and even personal effects.

Ironically, most Americans still think that they live in a country where you’re innocent until proven guilty. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it’s just another clear example of how the US Constitution has become a worthless piece of toilet paper for the federal government.

The Fifth Amendment states that “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Tell that James Lieto, a New York businessman who was relieved of $392,000 when the armored car company used by his check-cashing firm was taken down by the FBI.

Lieto was innocent and not implicated in any wrongdoing, but the FBI took his money regardless as it just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Last October, another businessman named Raul Stio was suspected of wrongdoing by the Treasury Department. The government seized over $150,000 from his account, yet in the 10-months that followed, Stio has still not been charged with a crime.

http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/government-asset-seizure

FDA wages secret war on raw milk farmers using KGB-style spying and infiltration techniques

Filed under:General — posted by Jack on @ 1:04 pm

“After weeks of investigation, NaturalNews can now reveal that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is waging a clandestine war on raw milk dairy farmers through a network of government spies who are coached on infiltration and social engineering techniques. Resembling the Stasi East German police or KGB of the former Soviet Union, these undercover FDA agents meet each month for a “spying roundtable” phone conference called the Raw Milk Call during which techniques of infiltration are openly discussed and encouraged.

NaturalNews can now reveal that the majority of these undercover FDA agents are women, who are more easily able to infiltrate the raw dairy community with techniques of social engineering.

The existence of this elaborate spying operation has been confirmed by NaturalNews through three different sources, all of which demanded anonymity as they fear being targeted by the FDA with armed raids, false arrest and destruction of their property, as we recently witnessed with the Rawesome Foods raid. One source told NaturalNews they feared the FDA would stage a Waco-style siege of their farm and invent some justification to assault their farmhouse and shoot them and their family. Yes, this is how much freedom has been lost in America today, where farmers are afraid to speak out for fear they might be killed. And yet, it’s not paranoia: They have legitimate reason to fear their own government is targeting them for termination.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033428_FDA_secret_war.html#ixzz1WFlG0ah1

Why is the Government Driving Folks off Their Land?

Filed under:General — posted by Jack on @ 12:38 am

The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who’ve assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).

The plight of the Valley’s desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.

But Fahey is just one of many who’ve been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county’s tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.

“They’re picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources,” says Melnicoff.

Reason.tv collaborated with Melnicoff to talk with some of the NAT’s targets, such as retired veteran Joey Gallo, who might face homelessness if he’s forced to leave his house, and local pastor Oscar Castaneda, who says he’s already given up the fight and is in the process of moving off the land he and his wife have lived on for 22 years. And, while Antonovich declined an interview, we did catch up with him at a public meeting in order to ask the big question at the center of all this: Why the sudden enforcement of these codes against people living in the middle of the desert, who seemingly are affecting no one?