Every US state has a motto. Some are interesting, like “Live Free of Die,” in New Hampshire, and some are sadly truthful, like, “Our Government is Vampiric” in Massachusetts. Just kidding. It’s more along the lines of “We’ll Tax You to Death,” or something like that. Anyway, some, like the motto for the 49th state, Alaska, are very upbeat and offer a sense of adventure. In Alaska, politicians tell us to look, “North, to The Future.”
But, a shocking move by the federal government might inspire Alaskans to change their motto to, “Our Land Is Being Stolen By The Feds!”
The excellent writers at the Tenth Amendment Center have recently reported a huge story that is getting very little pop media coverage: the federal government has just seized 100 million acres of Alaskan land, a tract equal in size to the state of New Mexico.
And, supposedly-conservative Alaskan Governor Bill Walker isn’t doing a thing about it.
The federal takeover has come in three phases, the most recent being a robbery by US Fish and Wildlife Service Bureaucrats on August 3 of 77 million acres of Alaskan land from Alaskan government control. (Read more from “Feds Steal 100 Million Acres of Alaska During Summer of 2016” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Looking_into_the_sun_from_over_downtown_onto_the_Homer_Spit..jpg7681024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-10-04 21:34:282016-10-04 21:34:28Feds Steal 100 Million Acres of Alaska During Summer of 2016
A former Queens biology teacher who allegedly forced an underage student to repeatedly have sex and demanded she have two abortions skirted authorities after a prominent Catholic school quietly fired him, allowing him to work for years in city public schools, officials report.
Rodney Alejandro abused the 15-year-old girl at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens, and then went on to work for the Department of Education, a 2015 probe by the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation charges.
First a city substitute in 1998-99, he worked from 2004 to 2010 at Robert Wagner Jr. Secondary School for Arts and Technology in Long Island City and was fired after his state license expired, officials said. He then went on to teach at a religious school in Georgia.
His reported victim, now 43 and living in Queens, declined to comment but confirmed to The Post horrendous details she published in a 2014 blog. The Post is withholding her name. (Read more from “Feds Hire Alleged Rapist Fired by Catholic School” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/AndrewHallClassroom.jpg12241632Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-08 21:23:412016-05-08 21:23:41Feds Hire Alleged Rapist Fired by Catholic School
The National Endowment for the Humanities released its latest round of projects, which includes studies of the “history of French lesbian activism,” and $20,000 for a new college course on “questions about neighborliness.”
The projects are part of $21.1 million in grants announced this week for the federal agency’s “Common Good” initiative.
Tamara Chaplin, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, received a $6,000 summer stipend for her project “Postwar French Media, and the Struggle for Gay Rights.”
The project is described as a “book-length study of the history of French lesbian activism since World War II.”
Chaplin’s areas of study include contemporary France, the histories of gender and sexuality, feminist and critical theory, and queer studies. She previously contributed to the 2011 book Orgasm without Limits: May ’68 and the History of Sex Education in Modern France. (Read more from “Feds Spend $6,000 Studying ‘History of French Lesbian Activism'” HERE)
In yet another shocking case of the feds using brute, tyrannical power against protesters, law enforcement arrested radio-host Pete Santilli at the Oregon federal refuge several weeks ago and a federal judge just ruled again that he must stay behind bars. Why? Because the journalist is a “real threat” to federal officers.
Many civil libertarians on both sides of the political aisle are disgusted by this latest strong arm tactic with both the conservative Rutherford Institute and now the leftist ACLU of Oregon complaining that federal agencies are increasingly acting without regard to the Constitution.
No matter what you may think of Pete Santilli or his “shock jock” approach to conservative journalism, looking at the criminal complaint against him reflects that before his arrest he was practicing his rights to free speech and assembly in protest against the government. Throughout the federal complaint are Santilli’s quotes, including one where he asked that 100,000 unarmed people come together to protest government actions. Somehow, this was construed by the feds as a criminal act meant to impede their duties rather than a constitutionally-protected gathering of protesters.
Santilli’s past association with the Oath Keepers and the III% Patriots group seems to be a big factor for the U.S. attorneys involved in the case. The feds view such groups as “anti-government” patriot groups, almost on the level of terrorists. Perhaps as a warning to any patriot-protestor, Washington has demonstrated that mere association with the wrong type of groups or saying anything against the government could result in your incarceration.
To some, more disturbing than the Santilli arrest and incarceration themselves are the tactics that were used by the government before the talk show host was even arrested. First, in a clear act of intimidation, he and his girlfriend Deborah Jordan (and co-producer of his radio show) were detained for about an hour in Newtown, Ohio for being suspects on a Terror Watch list. Unsurprisingly, they were not on the list and were released. Some believe that this detention, occurring just a couple of weeks before Santilli’s arrival in Oregon was meant to bully or intimidate him from joining the protest.
Then, on February 9, the rental vehicle driven by Santilli’s girlfriend was seized because it was reported as “stolen.” She called the rental company for more information and discovered that the FBI had made the report that resulted in seizure. The FBI’s explanation? The agency contended the rental car might be used in a crime at the federal refuge. As she had been planning to travel there the next day, this suggests the FBI had been monitoring her activities and that the false report on the car was intended to interfere or harass her.
The Rutherford Institute is raising concerns not just about Santilli’s case but also other protests in which the government has targeted journalists (such as in Ferguson). The conservative legal group contends this reflects a highly disturbing trend of government silencing members of the press. Combine that with what we’ve seen of other anti-press actions of the feds – such as the hacking of journalist Sharyl Attkisson’s computer – and you can’t escape the conclusion that we have a real problem on our hands.
Please contact your elected leaders and pressure them to hold these federal agencies and prosecutors accountable for their unconstitutional approach to press freedom. This is critical: if federal agencies don’t stop their attacks on freedom, you can kiss the American democratic experiment goodbye.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-24.jpg12422208Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-16 22:43:582016-04-11 10:52:35Left and Right Agree: Feds Using Brute Force to Destroy Press Freedom in America
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed a system that can predict the “psychological status” of users with smartphones and hope to private companies to bring the invention to the market.
The technology appeared on a list of NIH inventions published in the Federal Register that are now available to be licensed by private companies. The government allows companies to license inventions resulting from federal research in order to expedite their arrival on the marketplace.
The system uses smartphones to ask people how they are doing mentally during the day and based on the results can “deliver an automated intervention” if necessary.
“The NIH inventors have developed a mobile health technology to monitor and predict a user’s psychological status and to deliver an automated intervention when needed,” according to the notice published Wednesday. “The technology uses smartphones to monitor the user’s location and ask questions about psychological status throughout the day.”
“Continuously collected ambulatory psychological data are fused with data on location and responses to questions,” the NIH said. “The mobile data are combined with geospatial risk maps to quantify exposure to risk and predict a future psychological state. The future predictions are used to warn the user when he or she is at especially high risk of experiencing a negative event that might lead to an unwanted outcome (e.g., lapse to drug use in a recovering addict).” (Read more from “Feds Spend Nearly $10M to Develop App That Predicts ‘Psychological Status’ of Americans” HERE)
Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen urged lawmakers to tread lightly when it comes to overhauling the central bank, warning that proposed changes could undermine its ability to support the economy.
In prepared testimony, Yellen will tout the Fed’s own efforts to boost its transparency as a way to discourage lawmakers from pushing their own proposals to bring the Fed under stricter oversight.
“Efforts to further increase transparency, no matter how well intentioned, must avoid unintended consequences that could undermine the Federal Reserve’s ability to make policy in the long-run best interest of American families and businesses,” she said.
Yellen’s testimony Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee will come one day after that panel held a hearing in which Republicans blasted the Fed as being unaccountable.
While Yellen will argue in her testimony that Fed tweaks could subject the central bank to political pressure and make it less effective, GOP lawmakers have argued the Fed holds up its political independence as a way to avoid scrutiny. (Read more from “Mind Your Own Business!: Federal Reserve Chair Warns Congress to Be Wary of Fed Reforms” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-16 03:56:182016-04-11 10:58:50Mind Your Own Business! Federal Reserve Chair Warns Congress
Photo Credit: AP ImagesThe federal government spent $100 billion providing food assistance to Americans last year, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The lion’s share of spending comes from the food stamp program, which gave benefits to an average 46 million Americans in 2014, at a cost of $74.6 billion, according to a testimony from the GAO’s Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Kay E. Brown before the House Subcommittee on Nutrition Wednesday.
The national school lunch program was second, costing $11.3 billion, followed by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) at $7.1 billion . . .
Brown said there is a potential for overlap and “inefficient use of federal funds” due to the government’s “complex network of 18 food assistance programs, administered by three federal agencies,” which are unsure how effective the programs are.
“In 2010, research GAO reviewed suggested that participation in seven of these programs was associated with positive outcomes, such as improving nutrition among low-income households,” Brown said. “Little was known about the effectiveness of the remaining 11.” (Read more from “Feds Spent $100 Billion on Food Assistance Last Year” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-21 00:53:002016-04-11 11:00:55Feds Spent $100 Billion on Food Assistance Last Year
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is financing the creation of a system for the “automatic detection” of cyberbullying.
The project was awarded this month to Rutgers University, which has received $117,102 so far. The real-time, automatic detection of hurtful online speech is necessary, according to the NSF grant, because cyberbullying is a “critical social problem.” The grant said 40 percent of American teenagers have reported being cyberbullied.
“This project aims to define new approaches for automatic detection of cyberbullying by integrating the relevant research in social sciences and computer science,” the grant said.
The project will involve searching for keywords and studying the relationships between teenagers who send and receive mean online messages.
“Specifically, this research will advance the state of the art in cyberbullying detection beyond textual analysis by also giving due attention to the social relationships in which these bullying messages are exchanged,” the grant said. (Read more from “Feds Spend over $100,000 to Autodetect Cyberbullying” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-03-28 03:25:242015-03-28 03:25:24Where is this in the Constitution?! Feds Spend over $100,000 to Autodetect Cyberbullying
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending nearly $150,000 to test a “mindful eating intervention” on third graders in California.
A grant awarded earlier this month outlined the project that will use the methods of a Zen teacher to try to fight childhood obesity and turn kids into “change agents” to teach others how to eat healthily.
The project, entitled, “Foodie U: The Impact of a Pilot Mindful Eating Intervention on Food Behaviors Among Children and Families,” will focus on low-income Hispanic children.
“The elementary school age is a crucial period for developing life-long dietary habits while parents still significantly influence their food intake,” the grant said. “A school-based mindful eating intervention with parent involvement may positively influence children’s food behaviors.”
Mindfulness is a New Age meditation technique that traces its origins from Buddhism. People engaging in mindfulness are encouraged to focus on the present moment “non-judgmentally.” A 60 Minutes segment on mindfulness showed Anderson Cooper using the practice by eating in silence very slowly, focusing on every bite. (Read more from “Feds Spend $149,890 on ‘Mindful Eating Intervention’ for Third Graders” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-03-26 03:49:272015-03-26 03:49:27Feds Spend $149,890 on “Mindful Eating Intervention” for Third Graders
Bureaucrats from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will weigh and measure children in daycare as part of a study mandated by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.
The agency published a notice in the Federal Register on Friday proposing data collection on what meals are served in professional and home daycare facilities and how much physical activity children perform.
Aside from assessing how healthy the food in daycare is, the USDA will also check the weight and height of roughly 3,000 children . . .
The study is required by section 223 of Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by Mrs. Obama and passed in 2010. The main aspect of the law implemented new standards for school lunches . . .
“The intent of the study is to document the quality of meals and snacks offered in childcare facilities, relative to the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), which are prepared by USDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the types of activities that might promote or inhibit healthy weight and development,” the USDA said. “The study will also provide insights into how nutritional quality and physical activity in childcare might be improved. Lastly, the study will collect data on the costs of childcare meals and snacks in relationship to CACFP reimbursements, other funding, and meal quality.” (Read more from “Feds to Weigh Children in Daycare” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-03-21 02:54:392015-03-21 02:54:39Where is this in the Constitution?! Feds to Weigh Children in Daycare
