Do you Own Your Money?

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is in trouble with the Federales...

CHICAGO — Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is facing federal charges in an alleged attempt to conceal large bank withdrawals, used to pay an individual for past “misconduct” on the part of the former veteran politician, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday. (CBS Local - Chicago)

I'll leave aside the salacious possibility of a closet homosexual pedophile high school coach turned famous politician now extorted by one of his victims. We don't really know what went on there, but I'm sure it will come out. 

For this discussion, let's set aside the pedophilia allegation, and simply stipulate that Hastert wronged someone, and that someone demanded money from him to settle the issue.

Two other aspects disturb me

Both involve an overbearing government intruding in our private affairs:
1) A supposedly-free citizen's use of his own money is de facto and de jure tightly monitored and controlled by our Federal Big Brother
2) Law enforcement officials barge in to bust up a supposed extortion despite a lack of a complainant.

Whose Money is it, anyway?

Hastert was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his withdrawals.

Hastert, 73, was charged with one count each of structuring currency transactions to evade Currency Transaction Reports and making a false statement to the FBI, according to an indictment returned by a federal grand jury.

Why are there federal laws requiring us to report private financial transactions?  Worse, why are there laws requiring banks to report on us without a search warrant?

Do we still enjoy a presumption of innocence?

Is the 4th Amendment dead?

What Crime?

The feds moved in because they smelled an extortion of a public figure.  If the public figure, who no longer controls any levers of power, says he does not wish to report a crime, why do they continue to pursue it?

Here's a hypothetical:  Instead of trying to lie his way out of it, what if Hastert had told the FBI that he was withdrawing the money to pay an individual $3.5 million per a private agreement.  Would they drop it?  Should they?   At that point, what business is it of the government?

I know what is at the root of this.  Do you?

Related:  AP News My Way - Hastert Indictment

We're Not as Free as We Used To Be

In a First Amendment Center/AJR survey, nearly half of those responding said they think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. And about the same number said the American press has been too aggressive in asking government officials for information about the war on terrorism. (AJR - Too Free?)

We don't need to invite the world's huddled masses; we ourselves are turning into a shivering, whining huddled mass...

The freedom celebrated on July 4, 1880, entailed a person’s right to live his life any way he chose — responsibly or irresponsibly, healthy or unhealthy — so long as his conduct was peaceful. Drug laws were nonexistent because freedom entailed the unfettered right to ingest harmful or unhealthy substances.

Unfortunately, in our time Americans have rejected our ancestors’ philosophy of freedom in favor of a “freedom” in which the state’s primary role is a paternalistic one. Today, the “freedom” celebrated is the collective power of the state to take care of people in society by taxing them.

John Quincy Adams’s statement to Congress on the Fourth of July, 1821, that America does not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy” is now considered a quaint and obsolete philosophy of foreign policy. “Freedom” now entails an enormous standing army whose mission is to invade and occupy foreign nations with the supposed aim of taking care of their people, protecting them from tyranny or oppression.

How is the domestic policy and foreign policy celebrated as “freedom” by Americans today different from the philosophy that guided King George in 1776? (FFF-Hornberger)

A government vested with the power to fix everything also then has the power to break everything

Crashing around with impunity overseas acts as a societal corrosive that eventually eats through the firewall of us and them, here and over there. A government that can get away with it “over there” will eventually bring it home and turn the technology and tactics on its own people.

Also, when you allow government to advocate for certain protected groups instead of for the good of all, and when you cheer when government tramples the rights of your hated political enemies, how can you complain when that monster goes rogue and starts goring your sacred cows?

Jonathan Turley gives us 10 Reasons Why The US is No longer The Land of the Free.  It's full of good civil liberties stuff, and although he's a liberal, he's an honest one with a strong libertarian streak.  

The kooks at MSNBC and Daily Kos stood up on their hind legs and cheered him when he was calling for Bush and Cheney to be tried for war crimes.  They changed their tune when he lambasted Obama over his serial violation of our civil rights.  Those same lefty loons now resemble a horde of rabid Muslim nutballs screaming and burning over a flushed koran when his name is mentioned.

Here's more from a website called End of the American Dream...

In America today, you do not have the right to say whatever you want. If you say the wrong thing on a blog or a website it can have dramatic consequences.

In America today, you do not have the right to raise your own children as you see fit.

In America today, you do not have the right to grow whatever food you want and you do not have the right to eat whatever food you do grow.

In America today, you do not have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

In America today, you do not have a right to privacy. In fact, you should expect that everything that you do is watched, tracked, monitored and recorded. (12 Signs)

For those misguided souls who think this started with Obama, here's an article from 1994:  FFF – Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberties

America Condemns Itself to Guantanamo

Today I offer you a few news snippets you can put in the handbasket our government is going to hell in...

Picture this...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the federal government secretly encouraged angry bomb throwers to engage in irresponsible and incendiary language in the hope of using the ensuing violence to argue for controversial new speech restrictions.

That didn't really happen.  I made it up.  I wish someone had made this up, but it's all too true...

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. (CBS News)

The ATF is a rogue organization and should be disbanded, along with the entire Heimatlandsicherheit, and Janet Napoleaonitano should be exiled to the island of Elba, along the Minister of Injustice, Eric Holder.

Government actions to steal our 2nd Amendment rights are un-American because they are unconstitutional.   The people and the states promulgated the US Constitution to charge the federal government with protecting our natural rights.  It is now consciously doing the opposite.

Imagine if a government conspired to take away your 4th Amendment rights...  Wait, that's already happened...

You see, such plots and false flag operations (real or imagined) can only work if our constitutional rights are no longer held sacrosanct.  The fact that nefarious progressive forces see our rights as debatable and ripe for the snatching tells me we are already in danger.

CBS News - Government used Fast and Furious
IBD - Just as we suspected

New York Police State of Mind

A US Marine combat vet faces 15 Years in jail for bringing a gun to New York city. He thought he had the law straight, and freely surrendered it when entering a pubic building that had a sign posted stating no guns allowed. That's when he was busted. Since our law enforcement at all levels no longer cares about criminal intent, they are simply making the world safe from responsible gun owners who voluntarily surrender their weapons when asked.

Feel safer, you bed-wetting gun grabbers? Now, if cops could only figure out how to get criminals to give up their guns...

ICE Deports American Citizen

Customs officials deported a teenage girl, while MS-13 gang members here illegally roam free like they own the place. So how will more government fix this? The cheeky young lass gave false information to ICE agents, so they sent her to Colombia, even though that country has never in its history had anyone named Jakadrian... 

This is what an inept and dysfunctional government does when it can no longer catch real criminals: It turns on its own citizens.

Here’s a simple test: Does a law result in more liberty for citizens, or less?

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who would expand and defend personal liberty, and those who would circumscribe it. Emperor Obama belongs in the latter category, but discussing Obama rolling up the constitution and smoking it is getting old...

HR 1540 gave us a clear view of who the liberty-lovers are, and who the stone-cold statists uber alles are. Posse Comitatus is out the window.

There was a time not too may years ago when I would look to certain politicians as a litmus test or shorthand for right and wrong. "If Allan West voted for it, it must be OK!" Well, not anymore.

Are our politicians really so intellectually bereft that this is all they can come up with?

Hundreds of billions spent on intelligence and national law enforcement agencies, and we have to resort to declaring the United States a war zone with US citizens as enemy combatants, subject to indefinite detention and military tribunals?

This sickens and horrifies me, moreso because it does not sicken and horrify good conservatives like Allen West and others. The enemies of the people who voted for this police state nightmare should be shipped off to Guantanamo. Or better yet, put them on Castro's side of the fence so they can see the result of such laws.

And I am pissed that I find myself in agreement with Al Franken.

Al Franken – Why I voted Against NDAA
CATO – NDAA Still Troubled
Emperor Obama Trashes the Constitution
NDAA House Vote
NDAA Senate Vote

Finally, on the lighter side...

Chevy Dolt: It's Not a Recall, It's a Reunion!

Artistry of Chicago Ray

Government Motors (GM) is launching a customer service campaign, which is similar to a recall, on all 8 of the Chevrolet Volts it has sold in an effort to address possible battery fire issues.

We don’t like the word, “recall,” said a GM Spokesman. "We prefer to think of it as a reunion. Come back to the place where you took your financially foolish but morally superior stand! Relive the excitement while we perform some minor enhancements that could keep you from dying in a car fire!"

Ron Paul's popularity with young people is legend…

...If they would only put down the bong and go vote he might have a chance…

Prison America

Rotten turd infesting Britain--We don't need that here

The United States government is letting in people we don't trust.  The result is we are all now being treated like criminals, guilty until proven innocent.

The United States of America is becoming one big prison camp

The federal government's legitimate efforts to keep the nation safe has morphed into a liberty-crushing steamroller.

Tidbits such as this leads the TSA to plot grope and fondle operations at train depots, bus stations, and malls across this formerly-free country:

He was well aware of U.S. counterterrorist defenses and schooled his followers how to work around them, the messages to his followers show. Don't limit attacks to New York City, he said in his writings. Consider other areas such as Los Angeles or smaller cities. Spread out the targets. (My Way – Osama Eyed Smaller Cities)

This has led to such stupidities as Senator Schmucky Schumer’s suggestion that Amtrack use a “No Ride” list similar to the No Fly list.

First of all, anyone who makes this No Ride list should not even be in the country, and that goes to the heart of the problem.  If someone is deemed a danger to America's people and our infrastructure, he doesn't belong here and we must expel him immediately.  Do not pass immigration court, do not collect 200 dollars. 

Instead we get government propagandizing us via cell phone messages and fleets of X-ray trucks prowling neighborhoods to see inside our homes.  Where will it all end?

We are no longer a free people

The right answer is to cut off immigration from lands known to produce America-hating terrorists.  This would block a lot of good people, but it would also stop “lone wolf” plots, like the one just busted up in New York.  We open our doors to people from third world toilets, and they thank us by bringing violent 7th century religious chauvinism to the country that welcomed them.

Here’s the lowdown on the two Jew haters we made American citizens…

Ferhani, a 26-year-old unemployed resident of Queens, is a native of Algeria who traveled to the United States in 1995, claiming asylum.

Mamdouh, 20, also a Queens resident, worked for a local delivery service and came to the United States in 1999 with his family from Casablanca, Morocco.

Both, however, were "committed to violent jihad," telling police that they wanted to kill Jewish people and also hoped to attack New York's Empire State Building, Vance said. (CNN)

In addition to being more circumspect about who we let in, we also need a much longer period of residency before granting citizenship.  Any misbehavior gets the whole family deported.  We don’t want troublemakers plunking down and going “Ahhh…  Made it!  Now let's stir up some trouble.”  We want them on their best behavior and working feverishly to obey our laws and become good Americans lest we bounce them for being a danger to our society.  Once we grant someone citizenship, it's all over.