http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com...rk-county.html

Bunkerville, Nevada – War came to the Western Range that April, a conflict pitting the forces of order and respectability against a restive band of extremists accused of cheating the government of what it was due. The prohibitively stronger side consisted of regulatory agencies allied with powerful non-governmental organizations determined to control the land and expel small private interests who made productive use of it. The unyielding demands of the political elite were met with the unflinching defiance of rural ranchers, leading to talk of a “range war.”

Eventually the ranchers exhausted the patience of the government, which deployed dozens of heavily armed Regulators to the county under orders to put down the rebellion. This would mean arresting – or shooting – anybody who resisted. Rather than submitting, the rebels – with the support of the county sheriff and the aid of several veterans of the most recent war – mobilized to confront the threat. Citizens coalesced into a militia and rode out on horseback to confront the invaders at their staging area.

To the consternation of the government and the respectable media, the rebels held their ground, forcing the Regulators to retreat.

This, in broad outline, is the story that unfolded at an overpass outside Bunkerville, Nevada on April 12, when hundreds of citizens – confronting paramilitary Regulators who were prepared to gun them down – compelled the BLM to return hundreds of cows the agency had stolen from the family of rancher Cliven Bundy to punish him for failing to pay grazing fees the agency had imposed on him without legitimate authority.

This act of government-licensed cattle rustling was carried out by a roundup company from Nephi, Utah, aided by a paramilitary force of roughly 200 people from the Bureau of Land Management, which is, from a constitutional perspective, a bastard agency.

Full piece: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com...rk-county.html

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog...at-gracefully/

When the ATF attacked the Branch Davidians outside Waco in February 1993, the expectation was a quick and painless victory over an eccentric religious sect and a public relations boost for the scandal-plagued agency. This is why the assault was code-named “Showtime.”

The Davidians, however, refused to follow the script. When the ATF stormtroopers arrived at the sect’s sanctuary at Mt. Carmel, David Koresh – who had known of the impending assault, and released an ATF informant rather than holding him as a hostage — attempted to de-escalate the confrontation, only to be answered by a murderous volley of gunfire. Rather than allowing themselves to be shackled or slaughtered, the Davidians stood their ground, killing four of the assailants in a morally unassailable exercise of self-defense and forcing the ATF to retreat.

Because the Regime cannot countenance resistance, the FBI laid siege to the Davidians for 51 days before the final assault that left of scores of Davidians dead from fire, asphyxiation, and gunfire.

Full piece: https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog...at-gracefully/

In 1973, a band of Sioux activists at Wounded Knee held off the FBI and the US military for 71 days, demanding respect for their rights under treaty law, accountability for the corruption of federally installed tribal dictator Dickie Wilson, and investigation of unsolved murders. The Feds replied with the largest domestic military deployment since the last confrontation at Wounded Knee in December 1890, an undisguised slaughter carried out by the vengeful Seventh Cavalry that amounted to an American Babi Yar.

After spending a week whisking away nearly 400 cattle they said were illegally grazing on federal land in the Nevada desert, officials facing a battalion of protesters with horses and guns decided to free those cattle in a stunning reversal Saturday afternoon.

A line of cattle calmly filtered out of a federal holding area at about 3 p.m. as protesters and law enforcement watched from alongside Interstate 15 near the Nevada-Arizona state line.

"Due to escalating tensions, the cattle have been released from the enclosures in order to avoid violence and help restore order," the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said in a short statement.

Federal officials have failed for 21 years to compel rancher Cliven Bundy to pay the fee required to let privately owned cattle use public land.

The government has said the cattle roundup was a “last resort” to enforce court orders ruling that Bundy had failed to pay more than $1 million in fees since 1993. Forcing him either to pay or to give up his cattle is a matter of fairness to the 16,000 ranchers who do follow the rules, U.S. officials said.

Two weeks ago, the BLM and the National Park Service began mobilizing helicopters, trucks, cowboys and rangers to seize Bundy’s 900 cattle.

Full story: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nation...#axzz2yjgPvQv7

Step up men.

Maybe we all are not ready to put it on the front line just yet, but some are, and can and they deserve our support.

OK is a stand-up operation.

Confirmation number: 0ET15039XV67xxxxx
Donation amount: $100.00 USD

The continuing outrage of eminent domain for private interests

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...ate-interests/

It’s been nine years since the infamous Kelo v. New London decision, in which the Supreme Court gave its imprimatur to local governments snatching land from one private party and giving it to another, on the theory that the second party could generate more tax revenue. It was an outrageous decision that essentially allows wealthy interests to use the government to seize from people who don’t wish to sell. Compelling them to give up their property against their will is bad enough, but the injustice is often compounded by the fact that they’re compensated at rates well below market value. And in the case of a business, the compensation is only for the land. It doesn’t include the cost of reestablishing the business elsewhere.

Here’s just one recent outrage in Philadelphia, from Reason.tv.

From the UK, which is about five years down the road to hell from where we are.

Get ready to have your biometrics tracked 24/7
It's already too late to stop the ubiquitous tracking and monitoring of the public through biometrics, says Peter Waggett, Programme Leader at IBM's Emerging Technology Group. We need to stop worrying about prevention, and start working out how to make the most of data garnered from that kind of surveillance.

"We're fighting the wrong battle when we ask should we stop people being observed. That is not going to be feasible. We need to understand how to use that data better," urged Waggett, who was speaking as part of a Nesta panel debate on what biometrics mean for the future of privacy.

"I've been working in biometrics for 20 years, and it's reaching a tipping point where it's going to be impossible not to understand where people are and what they are doing. Everything will be monitored. It's part of the reason why when we put together the definition of biometrics it included biological and behavioural characteristics -- it can be anything."

Full piece:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...e-good-and-bad

When you start getting the straight laced, "law and order" establishment Economist types realizing you have a problem, well, you have a problem.

http://www.economist.com/news/united...ps-or-soldiers

FROM the way police entered the house—helmeted and masked, guns drawn and shields in front, knocking down the door with a battering ram and rushing inside—you might think they were raiding a den of armed criminals. In fact they were looking for $1,000-worth of clothes and electronics allegedly bought with a stolen credit card. They found none of these things, but arrested two people in the house on unrelated charges.

They narrowly avoided tragedy. On hearing intruders break in, the homeowner’s son, a disabled ex-serviceman, reached for his (legal) gun. Luckily, he heard the police announce themselves and holstered it; otherwise, “they probably would have shot me,” he says. His mother, Sally Prince, says she is now traumatised.

...

By Radley Balko - March 11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...ilitarization/

I’ve been covering the militarization of America’s police departments for about eight years now. Over the past 35 years, Congress has generally been interested only in accelerating it. But the tide may be turning. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) has just introduced what may be the first bill aimed at actually reining in the trend.

He explains in an op-ed for USA Today co-written with activist Michael Shank:

Something potentially sinister is happening across America, and we should stop and take notice before it changes the character of our country forever. County, city and small-town police departments across the country are now acquiring free military-grade weapons that could possibly be used against the very citizens and taxpayers that not only fund their departments but who the police are charged with protecting . . .

In fact, in the last several months, the following towns around the country, many of them small, have acquired free MRAPs from U.S. war zones: Texas’s McLennan and Dallas Counties; Idaho’s Boise and Nampa; Indiana’s West Lafayette, Merrillville, and Madison; Minnesota’s St. Cloud and Dakota County; New York’s Warren and Jefferson Counties; South Carolina’s North Augusta and Columbia; Tennessee’s Murfreesboro; Arizona’s Yuma; Illinois’s Kankakee County; and Alabama’s Calhoun County.

Seem like a lot? It is. And that’s only in the last few months. This trend is not only sweeping America’s small cities, it’s hitting American college campuses as well. Ohio State University recently acquired an MRAP. Apparently, college kids are getting too rowdy.

These are just some of the most egregious examples. There are countless stories of police departments getting (and often later selling) assault weapons, drones, and other military-grade equipment that is absolutely ill-suited for America’s main streets. ThePentagon’s 1033 program, which ”provides or transfers surplus Department of Defense military equipment to state and local civilian law enforcement agencies without charge,” is a big part of this disturbing trend . . .

continued: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...ilitarization/

FedBook and high altitude drones...what could go wrong?


Facebook is in Talks to Buy Drone Maker

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...694492892.html

March 5, 2014 12:26 a.m. ET

The battle to bring the Internet to remote parts of the world may be fought in the sky.

Facebook Inc. FB +2.06% is in advanced discussions to buy Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico-based maker of solar-powered drones, according to a source familiar with the discussions. Titan's TWI +3.62% drones, which are still in development, are expected to be able to remain in flight 12 miles high for up to five years, offering a potential solution for beaming broadband to areas that don't have it.

A Titan spokesman didn't respond to requests for comment. The news was reported earlier by TechCrunch and CNBC, which put a price tag of $60 million on the transaction.

A deal could further Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to connect more of the world. Last year, Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook launched Internet.org, a partnership with tech companies including Qualcomm Inc. QCOM +3.37% and Samsung Electronics Co., that aims to deliver Internet access to two-thirds of the world's population that doesn't already have it.

Google Inc. GOOG +1.02% has its own plan to beam Internet from high up in the earth's atmosphere, using balloons that would float in the stratosphere. The balloons are part of Project Loon, which is being developed by Google's skunk works lab, Google X. Google also has another initiative, Project Link, building fiber optic networks to help local Internet service providers deliver faster connection speeds. The first test of the Project was launched in Kampala, Uganda.

American students are well over $1 trillion in debt, and it's starting to hurt everyone, economists say

http://business.time.com/2014/02/26/...he-economy-too

Chris Rong did everything right. A 23-year-old dentistry student in New York City, Rong excelled at one of the country’s top high schools, breezed through college and is now studying dentistry at one of the best dental schools in the nation.

But it may be a long time before he sees any rewards. He’s moved back home with his parents in Bayside, Queens — an hour-and-a-half commute each way to class at New York University’s College of Dentistry — and by the time he graduates in 2016, he’ll face $400,000 in student loans. “If the money weren’t a problem I would live on my own,” says Rong. “My debt is hanging over my mind. I’m taking that all on myself.”

Rong isn’t alone. Across the U.S., students are taking on increasingly large amounts of debt to pay for heftier education tuitions. Figures released last week by the Federal Reserve of New York show that aggregate student loans nationwide have continued to rise. At the end of 2003, American students and graduates owed just $253 billion in aggregate debt; by the end of 2013, American students’ debt had ballooned to a total of $1.08 trillion, an increase of over 300%. In the past year alone, aggregate student debt grew 10%. By comparison, overall debt grew just 43% in the past decade and 1.6% over the past year.

Radley Balko -27 Feb. 2014

I’ll just defer what others have already said about the court’s ruling in Kaley v. U.S. this week.
At Slate, here’s Chanakya Sethi:

Writing for a six-justice majority in Kaley v. United States, thus concluded Justice Elena Kagan that a criminal defendant indicted by a grand jury has essentially no right to challenge the forfeiture of her assets, even if the defendant needs those very assets to pay lawyers to defend her at trial. In an odd ideological lineup, the dissenters were Chief Justice John Roberts and the more liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

The Kaleys’ saga began more than nine years ago when Kelli, a medical device salesperson, learned that she was under investigation by federal authorities for stealing devices from hospitals. Kelli admits she took some devices and later sold them with Brian’s help, but she says the devices she took were unwanted, outdated models that the hospitals were glad to be rid of — in effect, that she couldn’t steal something that was given to her. (It’s not a crazy argument. In fact, it worked for a co-defendant, who was quickly acquitted by a jury after the government failed to find even a single hospital that claimed ownership of the allegedly stolen goods.)

With charges looming, the Kaleys sought an estimate from their lawyers of how much mounting a defense would cost. The answer: $500,000. (That figure may seem high, but sadly the government agreed it was reasonable.) The Kaleys took out a home equity loan and used the $500,000 to purchase a certificate of deposit, which they planned to spend on lawyers.

Full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...-before-trial/

http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/24/ke...-by-individual

Last week, a judge in Nebraska ruled a law that permitted the Keystone XL pipeline to run through the state was invalid. The Public Service Commission, not the governor, should have made the decision to approve the pipeline’s route, which required the use of eminent domain to force some local property owners to hand over their land to the company building the pipeline.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner points out that eminent domain is not part of the discussion for the left or the right, and that in fact:

To many conservatives, Keystone opposition reeks of unyielding liberal opposition to development, a stance conservatives and libertarians deride as NIMBY: Not In My Back Yard.

Our own Shem Kellogg, planning to run for NH State Rep.

His campaign thread:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...w-you-can-help

His website:

http://www.shemkellogg.com/

Donate here:

http://www.shemkellogg.com/donate/

I'll match donations up to $100 for the next 24 hours.

C'mon, just 5 NH folks with $20 apiece can do this.