Maryland Taxes Rain – as mandated by the EPA

Maryland Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley has instituted a tax on citizens for the amount of rain that falls on their property.

This goes to prove that elections have consequences. We were warned what the EPA had in mind to finish off our country. This will bankrupt our cities. The Maryland Dems are just going to do it the old fashion way, Churches and business goes first. Enforced by “surveillance”

Last October 2012 I ran a post EPA turns on the cities – Storm Water Tax coming our way.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Behold the Obama Administration’s new public works plan. Sue cities for polluting waterways and then as part of a settlement require them to spend, er, “invest” billions in extraneous sewer improvements. The White House doesn’t even need legislation to pour this money down the drain. The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency have taken enforcement actions against 25 cities over the last four years for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act, and there are another 772 on their list. In addition to imposing millions of dollars in penalties, the feds have forced these cities into consent decrees that will cost their local taxpayers $21 billion. The decrees spell out in detail what capital upgrades they must undertake—everything down to the size of their pipes. The EPA says this extraordinary intrusion on local sovereignty is justified because cities are discharging waste into waterways during heavy rains. Many older wastewater systems include a safety valve that releases untreated stormwater and sewage into lakes and rivers when underground tunnels are flooded. This is to prevent waste from backing up in basements. The EPA has ordered cities to limit such wet weather overflows to four per year, regardless of how much rain they receive or how little muck they discharge. Many cities have already taken concrete steps to reduce such overflows by developing “green infrastructure” (i.e., permeable pavements, rain gardens, catch-basins) that soaks up and diverts stormwater. Such solutions are easier and less expensive to implement than reconstructing their underground systems as the EPA wants them to do.

Back to the Maryland Fiasco:

The tax, officially known as a “storm water management fee,” will be enforced in nine of the state’s counties. The state legislature passed it in 2012 purportedly to “raise revenue to cleanup [sic] the Chesapeake Bay,” according to MarylandReporter.com.

Former 2012 GOP U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino bashes the tax in a Wednesday afternoon press release. The law “requires individuals, businesses, and even charitable organizations and houses of worship to pay a tax based on the amount of rain that falls on their property and the ‘impervious surfaces’ on their land,” he says.

The tax, mandated by the EPA and enforced locally, will be calculated “through satellite surveillance of your property,” the statement claims.

H.T: Breitbart

Gun Control’s Trojan Horse to be voted on Thursday, April 11

The Senate’s top Democrat says he will force a vote Thursday on whether to open debate on tougher gun laws. Another monstrosity that does not come up through committees, without hearings.

What we do know, is that the ACLU has found enough to be concerned: ACLU attacks Reid’s Gun Law, cites Privacy and Civil Liberties.  One of the major concerns is the background checks that seem to be the most likely to pass. Presently, almost all information obtained in the check is thrown out in 24 hours. There is nothing proposed that would include this 24 hour provision. So your background check information could be retained forever thus by de facto be gun registration.

Under existing law, most information regarding an approved purchase is destroyed within 24 hours when a licensed seller does a [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] check now,” Calabrese said, “and almost all of it is destroyed within 90 days.”

“[U]nfortunately, we have seen in the past that the creation of these types of records leads sometimes to the creation of government databases and collections of personal information on all of us,” Calabrese warned. “

“As we’ve seen with many large government databases, if you build it, they will come.”
“And existing law also bars the use of those records for other purposes,” Calabrese continued, explaining that the government is supposed to be barred by the Privacy Act from transferring database information between agencies without the consent of the individual citizen.

Search as I may for any new information on the gun control bill , I found nothing. Nada. After listening to a rousing and stirring rant by Mark Levin on  the subject, the only thing I can offer is a Mark Levin archive of his program at his website done last night, and I encourage everyone who cares one wit about the subject, to listen to the first minutes, It can be found here for the date April 9, 2013. Scroll  down to audio rewind. 04/09 The Mark Levin Show

Here is a short clip to get you in the mood to hear the full thing:

 

 WASHINGTON — A bipartisan deal seems imminent on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, an agreement that could build support for President Barack Obama’s drive to curb firearms violence.

 Meanwhile, the Senate is ready for an opening vote on restricting guns as Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., set a roll call for Thursday on starting consideration of the firearms legislation. Odds are growing that Democrats will win enough Republican support to thwart an effort by conservatives and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to block consideration from even starting.

H/T:Heraldonline

Police Chief : ‘ Takes one generation to take guns’ recall Kent State?

Sure, the Police will always be on our side, and never turn on us. The same with the Military. Oopsie.. anyone remembers the Kent State massacre? First the video of the Police Chief, then Kent State video.Students unarmed, shot down by the military Just a reminder for the youngins.

The details are offered by Breitbart writer Awr Hawkins:

San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne is fully supportive of the Obama/Feinstein gun grab, and says if lawmakers play it right Americans can be completely disarmed within “a generation.”

Lansdowne has gone on record saying: “I could not be more supportive of the president for taking the position he has. I think it’s courageous with the politics involved in this process. [And] I think it’s going to eventually make the country safer.”

He made it clear that it may take “a generation,” but new laws could eventually take all guns off the streets.

Here is a video of the Chief’s interview on the local PBS station, during which he stresses his support for the President’s position on gun control.

San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne talks to KPBS about his support of gun laws. “I could not be more supportive of the president for taking the position he has,” Lansdowne says. Read more: KPBS

H/T” Legal Insurrection

KENT STATE MASSACRE

AFL-CIO Richard Trumka and the Murder of Eddie York

 A new video as Obama opines about one of his best friends Richard Trumka. This is what we are in for. Fasten your seat belt. The Union thugs will rule indeed. Better yet, Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground will speak to our Kiddie’s teachers:

Left-wing ’60s radical and onetime domestic terrorist Bill Ayers will be a keynote speaker at the Association of Teacher Educators annual conference in Atlanta next month.

Ayers gained notoriety alongside his wife Bernardine Dohrn as a member of the Weather Underground during the Vietnam War. He was involved in Chicago’s “Days of Rage” riot in 1969 and went underground as a fugitive from justice after an accidental Greenwich Village townhouse explosion in 1970 killed three Weather Underground members who were preparing a bomb that prematurely detonated.

Ayers admitted in a 2001 book that he participated in bombings of the New York City Police Department headquarters, the U.S. Capitol Building and the Pentagon in the early 1970s. (RELATED: Inside TheDC’s dinner with former Weather Underground terrorists)

Read more: Daily Caller

Anyone still wondering what the next four years will bring?

Richard Trumka and the Murder of Eddie York- The Morals of the AFL-CIO Boss

From NRTW back in 2009:

As president of the United Mine Workers (UMW) union, Trumka led multiple violent strikes. Trumka’s fiery rhetoric often appeared to condone militancy and violence, especially against workers who dared to continue to provide for their families by working during a strike. As a Virginia judge ruled in 1989, “violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.”

Take the murder of Eddie York, a nonunion contractor, who was shot in the back of the head and killed while leaving a worksite in 1993. Trumka and other UMW officials were charged in a $27 million wrongful death suit by Eddie York’s widow. After fighting the suit intensely for four years, UMW lawyers settled suddenly in 1997 — just two days after the judge in the case ruled evidence in the criminal trial would be admitted.

Later, as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, Trumka pleaded the Fifth Amendment before Congress and a court-appointed election monitor over his role in an illegal fundraising scheme to benefit the Teamsters president Ron Carey’s re-election. Trumka has remained in his position ever since despite an AFL-CIO rule (adopted in 1957) which held that union officials who plead the Fifth have “no right to continue to hold office” in the union umbrella organization.

Read more about Trumka’s history of condoning union violence and corruption in the Foundation’s eye-opening Fact Sheet (PDF).

From an earlier post: Richard Trumka’s ugly history of violence and corruption

VIDEO Sen Rand Paul on Gun Control Executive Order: Obama is Not ‘King’

Reblogged from Reclaim Our Republic:

January 15, 2013 at 11:02 am

“I’m against having a king,” Paul said. “I think having a monarch is what we fought the American Revolution over and someone who wants to bypass the Constitution, bypass Congress — that’s someone who wants to act like a king or a monarch.”

“I’ve been opposed to executive orders, even with Republican presidents. But one that wants to infringe on the Second Amendment, we will fight tooth and nail,” he continued.

Read more… 45 more words

I think this sums up things quite nicely.

Obama: Gun Control Measures ‘I Can Accomplish Through Executive Action’

I tortured myself to watch the whole Presser of our Leader in Chief. Of course, I was waiting to hear his new adventure with our guns and ammo and he didn’t disappoint. If you want to read the whole miserable experience Full Transcript here

So here is a clip by this arrogant man. By the way, it is a bonus day. And boy do we cling to our God and Guns now don’t you say!! Another comment:

Via Daily Caller:

“But it seems as if what’s motivating and propelling at this point some of the House Republicans is more than simply deficit reduction. They have a particular vision about what government should and should not do, so they are suspicious about government’s commitments, for example, to make sure that seniors have decent health care as they get older. They have suspicions about Social Security. They have suspicions about whether government should make sure that kids in poverty are getting enough to eat or whether we should be spending money on medical research.”

DHS Buys 200,000 More Rounds of Ammunition

We are on a bit of a vacation in the great state of Florida, so doing my best to keep up with the coming take down of our guns. Here is the latest purchase of ammo by the government. If this story perks up your ears, check out some of my earlier stories. Enough ammo to kill us ten times over. This makes the fiscal cliff seem like child’s play.

Federal government continues to arm itself to the teeth while Obama administration pushes gun control. First the back story:

August 12, 2012  Why is the Government buying up so much Ammo?

Major General Jerry Curry: Why Are Domestic Government Agencies Purchasing Enough Lethal Ammunition to Put 5 Rounds In Every American?

All of these rounds of ammunition can only be used to kill American citizens, though there is enough ammunition being ordered to kill, in addition to every American citizen, also every Iranian, Syrian or Mexican. There is simply too much of it. And this much ammunition can’t be just for training, there aren’t that many weapons and “shooters” in the U.S. to fire it:

August 27 2012 U.S. Forest Service makes urgent request for more ammo « BUNKERVILLE | God, Guns and Guts Comrades!

Another US agency has submitted a request for a variety of ammunition.

January 4, 2012:

While the Obama administration sets out to eviscerate the gun rights of American Why is the Government buying up so much ammo?er this week it was announced that the Department of Homeland Security has awarded a company a contract worth over $45,000 dollars to provide the DHS with 200,000 more rounds of bullets.

As Mike Adams highlights, “A citizen is considered to be a stockpiling “terrorist” prepper if they own just 1,000 rounds of ammo. The government, however, can purchase billions and the mainstream media doesn’t even question it.”

“Where is all this ammunition going? It’s being stockpiled by the federal government, awaiting some future event during which it will apparently be “activated.” Why else would you stockpile something if you don’t anticipate needing to use it someday?”

“During all this, Obama and his cohorts in Washington are loudly insisting that American citizens have no right to purchase firearms or ammunition, and that new laws will soon be enacted to make sure you cannot do what the government does: stockpile weapons and ammo.”

This new purchase adds to the staggering figure of 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition already secured by the DHS over the last 9 months alone.

A solicitation originally posted on the FedBizOpps.gov website on December 17 on behalf of the DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Center advertised the need for 200 cases of 13–40 Cal, 180 Grain, Jacketed Hollow Point bullets, with each case containing 1000 rounds, to be delivered almost immediately as soon as the contract is awarded.

The bullets are to be delivered to a training site in North Charleston, South Carolina, which “specializes in Maritime Law Enforcement and Port Security Training. Basic and advanced training programs are conducted in concert with the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Law Enforcement Academy, the U.S. Courts Probation and Pretrial Services Training Academy, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Training Academy, the Customs and Border Protection Field Operations Academy, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.”

The winner of the contract to provide the DHS with the ammunition, announced on January 2, was Evian Group Inc., an organization that was formed just five days before the announcement of the solicitation.

 Read more here

Warrantless spying passes with GOP- vote tally count.

GOP and Feinstein join to fulfill Obama’s demand for renewed warrantless eavesdropping

H.R. 5949: FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012 (On Passage of the Bill) Vote and Bill for individual votes here

Tthe Senate on Friday morning passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by a vote of 73-23 and will send it to President Obama’s desk for signature.

No surprise is there? Feinstein makes the remark that there is not enough time to debate the bill. Typical progressive logic. Forget that the Senate has done nothing for months. Barely a ripple in the news. The Obama agenda continues without so much of many GOPer complaints. A few mild amendments were quickly dispatched with. I looked for a good recent video of the event while I still have the right to look at it. .The choices for comments were a piece from Russian news, Young Turks and Rand Paul. Paul gives us a bit of history on the matter. So here we go:

The worst of Dick Cheney while advancing Obama’s agenda.

 

Wyden yesterday had two amendments: one that would simply require the NSA to give a general estimate of how many Americans are having their communications intercepted under this law (information the NSA has steadfastly refused to provide), and another which would state that the NSA is barred from eavesdropping on Americans on US soil without a warrant. Merkley’s amendment would compel the public release of secret judicial rulings from the FISA court which purport to interpret the scope of the eavesdropping law on the ground that “secret law is inconsistent with democratic governance”; the Obama administration has refused to release a single such opinion even though the court, “on at least one occasion”, found that the government was violating the Fourth Amendment in how it was using the law to eavesdrop on Americans

But the Obama White House opposed all amendments, demanding a “clean” renewal of the law without any oversight or transparency reforms. Earlier this month, the GOP-led House complied by passing a reform-free version of the law’s renewal, and sent the bill Obama wanted to the Senate, where it was debated yesterday afternoon.

 The Democratic Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, took the lead in attacking Wyden, Merkley, Udall and Paul with the most foul Cheneyite accusations, and demanded renewal of the FISA law without any reforms. And then predictably, in virtually identical 37-54 votes, Feinstein and her conservative-Democratic comrades joined with virtually the entire GOP caucus (except for three Senators: Paul, Mike Lee and Dean Heller) to reject each one of the proposed amendments and thus give Obama exactly what he demanded: reform-free renewal of the law (while a few Democratic Senators have displayed genuine, sustained commitment to these issues, most Democrats who voted against FISA renewal yesterday did so symbolically and half-heartedly, knowing and not caring that they would lose as evidenced by the lack of an attempted filibuster).

The Guardian

Bloomberg and the Feds:10G bounty to ban cigs in our apartment

I was determined not to post a gun story, we all know the drill.  Anyone who cannot see the big picture regarding what the future holds for our liberties is apparently blind. But this fellow Bloomberg is out of control. Anyone who thought that banning the “Big Gulp” was a bridge too far, has more to hear about. Fiscal cliff? Apparently we have money to burn.

A mere trifle comapred to what he and the Federal government has in store. Grant money of course is available.

“The city is not banning smoking in private residences; as part of this federal grant, organizations can apply to fund projects that, among other things, educate the community on voluntary smoke-free housing policies,” Bloomberg spokesperson Samantha Levine said.

There are no laws prohibiting a landlord from banning smoking, according to real-estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey. Landlords need only change the language of the lease, and once it’s time to renew, the smoker can decide to move or stay.

The city is recruiting foot soldiers for a stealth war against smoking cigarettes in your apartment, planning documents obtained by The Post reveal.

Community groups are being asked to convince tenants and property managers to turn their private buildings into butt-free abodes — the latest front in the Health Department and Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-smoking crusade, according to a recently released “request for proposal” document.

The groups would “work with property managers, tenants, and others on adoption of voluntary smoke-free policies by housing entities reaching one to two multi-unit buildings (containing a minimum of 30 units total),” the document urges.

For their efforts, a community group will collect a $10,000 bounty — paid for out of a Centers for Disease Control grant.

The secret salvo comes a year after the city banned smoking in parks and beaches, and after Bloomberg and Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said there were no plans to expand a butt ban to apartment buildings.

Released by the Health Department’s nonprofit arm, Partnership for a Healthier New York City, the document solicits “neighborhood contractors” to “support and advance” its agenda in four separate areas of concern: tobacco, alcohol, exercise and diet.Full story at NY Post

U.S. Buses Fitted With Eavesdropping Equipment

If the bus story was not bad enough, add this update from Hot Air:

…February of this year, before the Attorney General of the United States signed off on an order allowing the government to access pretty much everything it wanted in the name of counterterrorism. The Wall Street Journal found out about the order and got a FOIA request to force its exposure:

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.

Not everyone was on board. “This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public,” Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.

A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.

I thought the story was worthy of a tin foil hat that buses were now listening to us. At first. But then recall the NSA reveal  by the NY Times Domestic Spying program story:The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data. recorded in September 2, 2012. So they store any and all keystrokes, and now moving on to buses? Lamp posts hold recording devices? Where is the outrage? If you havn’t caught the Binney interview, it is worth the ride and it follows at the bottom of the post.Here we go:

Cities across America are equipping their public transport systems with audio recording devices, potentially storing every word spoken by passengers onboard. Rights activists say the surveillance plan by far exceeds what is necessary for security.

­The multimillion dollar upgrade is underway in several US cities, including San Francisco, Eugene, Traverse City, Columbus, Baltimore, Hartford and Athens, reports The Daily, which obtained documents detailing the purchases.

The money partially comes from the federal government. San Francisco, for example, has approved a $5.9 million contract to install the eavesdropping systems on 357 modern buses and historic trolley cars over the next four years, with the Department Homeland Security footing the entire bill. The interception of audio communication will apparently be conducted without search warrants or court supervision, the report says.

The systems would be able to record audio and video from several locations in a bus for simultaneous playback. In Eugene transit officials explicitly demanded microphones capable of distilling clear conversation from the background noise. The recordings would generally be retained for 30 days. One of the systems produced for transport monitoring supports up to 12 high definition cameras, each with a dedicated microphone.

The system may potentially have additional capabilities added like timing the recording with GPS data from an onboard navigator, using facial recognition technology to identify people recorded or connecting wirelessly to a central post for real-time monitoring.

“This technology is sadly indicative of a trend in increased surveillance by commercial and law enforcement entities, under the guise of improved safety,” Ashkan Soltani, an independent security consultant whom the online newspaper asked to review specifications of equipment marketed for transit agencies, told The Daily.

Transport authorities gave various explanations for beefing up surveillance. A San Francisco contractor says the system will “increase passenger safety and improve reliability and maintainability of the system”. An Arkansas transit agency official said it is needed to deflect false complaints from passengers, describing it as “a lifesaver for the drivers”. Maryland officials openly called it a tool for law enforcement.

In some cases the systems are being installed despite resistance of civil liberties activists and lawmakers. In Maryland a legislative committee rejected a bill that would allow the local transport agency to proceed with its plan over concerns that it would violate wiretapping laws. The state’s attorney general advised the transportation agency to use signs warning passengers of the surveillance to help the system withstand a court challenge.

Privacy law experts say audio surveillance systems on buses pushes the boundaries of what is necessary to protect the law.

“It’s one thing to post cops, it’s quite another to say we will have police officers in every seat next to you, listening to everything you say,” said Neil Richards, a professor at Washington University School of Law.

With the microphones, he said, “you have a policeman in every seat with a photographic memory who can spit back everything that was said.”

Public transport is not the only place where citizens are worried about being constantly monitored by keen-eared recording devices. Similar systems combining audio and video recording with wireless connectivity are being installed in lampposts across the US.  Hot Air