Liberty Maven

In a parallel universe, public servants would compete to serve the public best.

Today the union leader for the Rochester Private Fire Company ‘won’ a decision by a State judge that ceases the Company’s participation in Rochester City “Cool Sweeps”. In the past, the professional and volunteer firefighters of RPFC would give back to their customers and achieve inexpensive advertising to attract new customers by opening fire hydrants on hot and sticky summer days.

These events were naturally quite popular among children and made them admire the firefighters as role models. Some even showed signs of wanting to become firefighters when they grew up. It’s just another way the RPFC brought value to their community and improved the health of young Rochesterians in the face of dangerous weather.

Last week Judge Jean Doerr ruled that “such tasks represent duties ‘not inherent in the duties of firefighters,’ and therefore constitute an unfair work practice.” Unfair to whom? We’re not quite sure. Chief Firefighter and CEO of RPFC John Caufield said that he is “disgusted” with this decision and believes this ruling to be a public relations disaster.

Caufield told our reporter, “We loved [participating in] the Cool Sweeps. It’s great to be out there in the community. Firefighters have always done more than just fight fires. Pick up any children’s book and you’ll see depictions of us rescuing cats, helping children cross the street and volunteering for Senior Citizens. We don’t find these tasks to be demeaning and we certainly don’t find them to be outside of our duties. In fact, most of us became firefighters to help in any way we could.” Caufield is worried about how the competition might react and has vowed to appeal the decision.

The competition is reacting quickly to the news. The steering committee for West Brighton Fire Service Organization (WBFSO) announced today that they will be opening two new stations on the edge of the city to provide service to residents on the edge of the city. According to a press release WBFSO will be delighted to continue Cool Sweep operations for Rochester residents and will match existing rates in their new service areas.

Other competing fire companies are interested in expanding their coverage as well. The Gates Fire Corporation has announced plans to fast-track construction on a new station in the City. Their CEO announced “We recognize the huge misstep the RPFC has made here and we are reaffirming our commitment to our current customers to put their interests first.”

Although Cool Sweeps are on hold for now, Rochester is not expecting sweltering weather until next month, giving businesses, neighborhood associations and fire companies a window of opportunity to find solutions.

Originally posted on riseuprochester.org

Based on then-Senator Obama’s voting record regarding gun rights, our current president could arguably be considered the most anti-gun president in our nation’s history. That, along with an anti-gun Congress, the United States could be headed for more tyranny.

As Scott McPherson of The Future of Freedom Foundation pointed out, similar to the right expressed in our Second Amendment, the English have a right to bear arms as expressed in English Declaration of Rights (1688).  Nonetheless, in 1997, handgun ownership was completely banned.

Given the leftist atmosphere in U.S. politics currently, alongside the wiggle room that Justice Scalia left in the Heller decision (”Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”), we could be in trouble.  As McPherson puts it,

Don’t bet your life, or your children’s or grandchildren’s freedom, that 50 or a 100 years from now a sufficiently reconstituted and “progressive” Court won’t consider it a “reasonable restriction” of your “not unlimited” right to make firearms so difficult to obtain that armed self-defense becomes a thing of the past.

Government will become more arbitrary, restrained only by good sense and decency — virtues not commonly found in those holding great power. At that point, the American citizen becomes a subject — one step removed from a serf — then a slave. Whatever verbal calisthenics or contortions legislators or judges may employ to convince you otherwise, that was the greatest fear of the Founding Fathers, and the very reason early American statesmen demanded that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed” — period, end of discussion.

McPherson also explains our natural right to gun ownership in a way I’d not heard it before: we don’t need the 2nd Amendment to deem all federal gun restrictions illegal.

Freedom of speech, of the press, of the right to peacefully assemble, to petition for redress of grievances, to trial by jury, and to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure, and even a statement protecting rights not listed — all are found in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Even if there were no Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms would fall under the Ninth Amendment’s protection of unenumerated rights, but gun ownership was considered so important that it too was mentioned specifically.

Read all of Scott McPherson’s article here.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “The legal tender quality is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty.” — Justice Salmon Chase Chief Justice, formerly Secretary of Treasury in President Lincoln’s administration Source: in dissent of Knox vs. Lee (The Legal Tender Cases, 1871)

Subject: Can we please make use of the 80-20 rule?

Yesterday I criticized the misdirected public rage about the AIG bonuses. There is already some buzz on Internet about my “strong words.”

I simply pointed out that these bonuses were authorized by Congress, signed into law by the President, and paid by a government appointed CEO. I also explained how the “Read the Bills Act” could have prevented this from happening.

Which is more rage-worthy? The fact that Congress authorized the AIG bonuses, or the fact that many politicians didn’t know they had done this?

We think the answer is obvious.

That’s why we think people are focusing on the wrong thing.

This same lack of focus is happening with the Federal Reserve.

There’s a big push behind Ron Paul’s “End the Fed” bill. That’s good. But what isn’t good is the relative lack of effort on behalf of his far, far more important “Honest Money” bills.

The “Honest Money” bills are more important because they would pave the way for passing the “End the Fed” bill. Here’s why . . .

Once the “Honest Money” bills pass, private businesses could begin creating the mechanisms for buying things with gold and silver. Businesses could, for instance, allow you to use gold and silver through your credit and debt cards.

This is crucial. There’s no chance we can abolish the Fed until or unless a competing money system is already in place.

Ron Paul’s “Honest Money” bills are the 80-20 approach to abolishing the Fed. We need to . . .
* Repeal the legal tender law,
* Repeal the government monopoly on coinage, and
* End the tax on gold exchanges.

This would give us a competitive money system.  Read More »

This is the type of story that can make any reasonable person’s blood boil:

Another wrongful-paternity case from hell:

When Walter Sharpe received the certified letter on Feb. 6, 2001, he knew the complaint for child support was a mistake.

Andre Sharpe had a different date of birth, a different Social Security number and different previous addresses.

Andre Sharpe also had an 11-year-old daughter with a woman in Harrisburg, and Walter Sharpe knew he had been to Harrisburg only once, to register a car. He also knew he hadn’t fathered a child to a woman named Terri Jones on that trip.

So he ignored it.

Big mistake.

A court entered a default judgment against Sharpe, and for the next six years, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania hounded former trash collector to collect child support for the girl. He lost his job, paid more than $12,000 in support and fines, became estranged from his family (he has four kids of his own), and was jailed four times for failing to make payments. The county denied his repeated requests for a DNA paternity test (and were backed up by the courts), arguing that its domestic relations officials had sufficiently confirmed paternity “after reasonable investigation.”

Walter Sharpe’s attorney alleges that when he appeared in person with personal information proving he couldn’t be the father, county officials merely changed the biographical information on the custody forms to match Walter Sharpe’s.

After looking into Sharpe’s story, the Patriot-News newspaper was able to determine the child’s real father, Andrew Sharpe, in less than an hour. That’s because the girl has been living with him for the last four years. The girl’s grandmother (who had custody for a time) says the real father has supported the girl the entire time. The article isn’t clear on where Walter Sharpe’s support payments have gone.

In May 2007, a judge finally ruled that Walter Sharpe isn’t the girl’s father.  But last October the same judge refused to reimburse Walter Sharpe for any of his past payments, much less all the damage done to him by the mistake.

Read the rest at Reason.com.

As reported by The Future of Freedom Foundation, the SCOTUS has narrowly ruled that the Bush administration’s policy of holding detainees indefinitely without judicial review is unconstitutional:

Once in a while the fading embers of freedom flare with defiant vigor. That happened in June when the U.S. Supreme Court sternly informed the Bush administration that it may not hold people suspected of being terrorists indefinitely without charge and without judicial review at its prison at Guantanámo Bay, Cuba.

In a too-close-for-comfort 5-4 ruling, the Court reminded the American people — indeed, the world — that arbitrary power destroys individual liberty. Where government can lock people up and throw away the key — answerable to no one at all — there liberty does not dwell. That is what the Bush administration has aspired to, but in June the Court drew a line.

In invoking the cherished principle of habeas corpus, the Court was emphatic:

[Protection] for the privilege of habeas corpus was one of the few safeguards of liberty specified in a Constitution that, at the outset, had no Bill of Rights….

The Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom.

The Constitution does not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens when it talks about “privileges.” To be sure, the Constitution permits Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus “when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” But the Court said that the Suspension Clause was not satisfied by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), Section 7, which forbade any court from considering a petition for a writ of habeas corpus for “an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States [i.e., the Bush administration] to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.”

Continue reading the article, written by Sheldon Richman, here.

Finally, we get a little something resembling justice.  The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down a Patriot Act provision that forbids a recipient of a National Security Letters (NSL) to tell anyone that they’ve been served with one.

Title 18, Section 2709(c) reads:

… no wire or electronic communications service provider, or officer, employee, or agent thereof, shall disclose to any person (other than those to whom such disclosure is necessary to comply with the request or an attorney to obtain legal advice or legal assistance with respect to the request) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained access to information or records under this section.

This provision was ruled “unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment because it authorized ‘coercive searches effectively immune from any judicial process, and that the nondisclosure requirement of subsection 2709(c) was unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it was an unjustified prior restraint and a content-based restriction on speech.”

Read more about this at examiner.com and The Michigan Messenger.

When I first started writing on the constitutional eligibility of both Barack Obama and John McCain after the conventions, I thought the issue would be quickly silenced.  Forgive my chuckling and a cheer as the forces of the Constitution continue their valiant charge for that “damn piece of paper.”

by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published December 7, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5606.html

WASHINGTON, DC, DECEMBER 8 – All eyes from the Democratic National Party, and many others from around the nation focused for a moment on the Supreme Court, which has just decided that they would not hear the lawsuit Donofrio vs. Wells, which alleges Obama is not constitutionally eligible to be president per the Washington Post.   A request had been made to postpone the Electoral College vote set for December 15 so that the case could have been heard.

[12/09/08 RETRACTION:  Previously, this article claimed that attorney Leo Donofrio of New Jersey would appear at the WTP press conference as per their WTP website and letter below.  Mr. Donofrio replied writing, "Please correct your story. I am Leo Donofrio and I have nothing to do with the National Press Club event tomorrow. Nobody will represent my case there, and I am not involved with the others who have brought suits."  It appears his name was used by the WTP without his permission.  His website is here, although I profess I cannot check it from where I live in China due to firewall issues.  My humblest apologies to Mr. Donofrio and all. ]

Read More »

We have all heard the claims that neither Obama nor McCain were eligible to become the President of the United States.  In fact, the legal disputes surrounding Obama’s Hawaiian Birth Certificate still abound, as well as the belief by some that he is a “Red Diaper Baby”, having been conceived by Communists for the advancement of the United States Communist Party’s agenda and having “spent his formative years – literally from the moment of his birth — interacting with members and sympathizers of the Communist Party, USA.”

Yet, now we have another angle to look at this, one which stands completely free of any of the previous lawsuits, and is brilliant in it’s simplicity.  According to The British Nationality Act of 1948, Obama was born, in fact, as a British subject, whether he was born in Hawaii or in Kenya:

British Nationality Act of 1948 (Part II, Section 5): Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth.

On August 4, 1961, when Barack Obama, Jr. was born, Kenya was still a British Colony.  His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a Kenyan native and, therefore, a British subject and citizen, making Barack Obama, Jr., a British citizen, as well, and ineligible to become President of the United States of America.

The originator of this suit, Leo Donofrio, is unique in that he is the only individual to have filed a truly bi-partisan suit:

Unlike other law suits filed against the candidates, Berg etc., this action was the only bi-partisan suit, which sought to have both McCain and Obama removed for the same reason.  (Later, Plaintiff also sought the removal of Nicaraguan born Roger Colera, the Presidential candidate for the Socialist Workers Party). The Berg suit will almost certainly fail on the grounds of “standing”, but Donofrio v. Wells, having come directly from NJ state courts, will require the SCOTUS to apply New Jersey law, and New Jersey has a liberal history of according standing to citizens seeking judicial review of State activity.

It’s hard to say how this one will play out, but, if nothing else, it certainly will be fun to watch!

It appears that even though the Libertarian Party had met the requirements for ballot access in the state of Connecticut, a federal judge ruled today that “elections officials cannot be forced to add the Libertarian Party’s presidential ticket to the Nov. 4 state ballot.”  According to the Associated Press:

U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall said the Connecticut Libertarians waited too long to file their challenge, in which they said the candidates were denied a place on the ballot over questions about petition signatures.

Forcing elections officials to change Connecticut’s ballot less than two weeks before the vote would cause confusion and unreasonable expense, Hall said in her ruling Thursday.

And in a letter from the Barr campaign, Russ Verney wrote, in part:

As of this afternoon, we finally know the results of our ballot access efforts throughout this campaign.

A Connecticut judge allowed the state to keep us off of the ballot even though we had met the requirement.

The state employees in Connecticut not only improperly struck signatures that we had collected, but also miscounted our signatures.

After hearing from a technical expert on electronic voting machines, the judge decided that it would be too big of a burden to add Bob to the ballot even though the state was at fault.

I cannot express to you how much this upsets me.

Our republic managed to survive while using paper ballots for 100-plus years.  The state could have printed paper ballots in a matter of days and thrown the electronic voting machines in the river if they are so difficult to deal with!

While an emergency appeal can be filed, our party who was funding the case has decided against it and honestly, after looking at our finances, we cannot afford an appeal.

I pledge to you that we will work together to correct this injustice after the election – and the many others like it in other states.  I’m sure that many of Bob’s supporters will join us in our efforts.

While this last disappointment is our greatest, we have been successful. Bob’s name will appear before 95% of voters across America – more than any other third party candidate in 2008!

I am very thankful for this and expect that, given the failure of John McCain’s campaign, we will garner many more votes than expected.

Voters across America who were uncomfortable voting for McCain but were still willing to do so just for the sake of winning no longer enjoy that option.  Now they can exit the voting booth with their heads held high knowing that they cast a vote for principle by voting for Bob Barr.

According to AP, the Supreme Court refused to intervene in a lower court decision that disallowed Bob Barr to be on the Louisiana ballot.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to intervene in a dispute between Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr and Louisiana over Barr’s bid to get on the state’s ballot.

The justices denied Barr’s request for help in a one-sentence order.

The Libertarians blamed Hurricane Gustav for making them miss the deadline to be included on Louisiana ballot.

Barr is on the ballot in 43 states, though court challenges could change that.

According to Ballot Access News, Barr is on the ballot in 45 states. I’m not sure where the AP is obtaining their numbers. This is yet another time and money consuming distraction from the real issues that the well funded two party duopoly never has to worry about.

Will there be a third party uprising before 2012? I could certainly get behind that.