Passing Regulations Afforded the Color of Law

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acts everyday more like an autocratic government endowed with superpowers beyond anything every imagined by the men who framed our form of government. Consider this disturbing report filed by the Washington Times on August 1 about a DHS raid on a private residence in South Carolina to seize a car that couldn’t pass Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) muster.

Jennifer Brinkley said she saw a line of law enforcement vehicles approaching her home and wondered what was wrong, the local WBTV reported. Homeland Security agents then went to her 1985 Land Rover Defender and lifted the hood.

“They popped up the hood and looked at the Vehicle Identification Number and compared it with a piece of paper and then took the car with them,” she said, WBTV reported.

She told Fox News that she was told the agents seized the vehicle because they thought it violated the Clean Air Act — though at the time, they weren’t completely sure. She also said her vehicle was just one of 40 that feds seized in various locations that same day for the same reason.

Ms. Brinkley told Fox News that she has no idea where the vehicle is now and that feds won’t tell her.

“I’m sad because I owned the car. It’s just an iconic car. I’m in disbelief … and surprised that somebody can come in and take your property,” she told Fox News. “It’s scary, it’s scary when it happens to you.”

What’s even scarier is that it is happening more and more. The EPA, DHS, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), etc. are all accustomed to unaccountably passing regulations afforded the color of law, enforcing those regulations, adjudicating challenges to those regulations in front of “judges” appointment by the commissioners of those agencies, and imposing burdensome fines on anyone foolish enough to defy these petty tyrants.

Charles Pinto Duclos, a French writer and historian contemporary with the Founders, wrote:

We see on the theater of the world a certain number of scenes which succeed each other in endless repetition: where we see the same faults followed regularly by the same misfortunes, we may reasonably think that if we could have known the first we might have avoided the others. The past should enlighten us on the future: knowledge of history is no more than an anticipated experience.

In the case of these federal agencies terrorizing citizens….”

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“(Reuters) – European stocks rose on Monday and bond yields fell on a banking sector rebound after Portugal prevented the collapse of one of its biggest lenders and shares in the continent’s largest bank jumped in the wake of its latest earnings report.

This dovetailed with easing fears of higher U.S. interest rates following Friday’s U.S. employment report, and eclipsed growing geopolitical concerns over the Middle East and the effect of Western trade sanctions on Russia.

Lisbon on Sunday announced a near 5 billion-euro rescue of the country’s largest listed bank, Banco Espirito Santo, preventing it from collapsing and potentially destabilizing the banking sector regionwide.

“The market’s initial reaction is that it’s pretty reassuring to see Portugal moving quickly to rescue BES. Overall it eases systemic fears that had resurfaced last week,” Saxo Bank sales trader Andrea Tueni said.

On Monday, HSBC reported a larger-than-expected drop in profits, but investors looked instead to the bank’s attractive dividend yield and scooped up the shares, lifting them to a three-month high….”

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If you watch this from begining to end you will come to know fully what willful ignorance means.

There will be no mercy from your maker.

Cheers on your weekend!

[youtube://http://www,youtube.com/watch?v=ydgxje2sC9o 450 300]

 

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0NentNBRlQ 450 300]

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WASHINGTON—Hiring by U.S. employers slowed in July but remained robust with broad-based payroll gains, evidence of continued strength in the labor market and the broader economy.

Nonfarm employment rose by a seasonally adjusted 209,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday.

The unemployment rate, obtained via a separate survey of households, ticked up to a seasonally adjusted 6.2% in July from 6.1% in June. The jobless rate has fallen 1.1 percentage points since July 2013, when it was 7.3%.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected payrolls to rise by a more robust 230,000 and the jobless rate to remain at 6.1%.

Payrolls rose by 298,000 in June, revised up from an earlier estimate of 288,000, and May’s gain was revised up to 229,000 from an earlier estimate of 224,000. Payroll gains have averaged 245,000 over the past three months, compared with an average of 209,000 in the 12 months ended in June.

July’s gain extended a streak that has seen nonfarm employers add 200,000 or more jobs in six consecutive months for the first time since 1997.

The U.S. economy stumbled in the wintry first quarter as gross domestic product-—the broadest measure of output across the economy—contracted at a 2.1% seasonally adjusted annual rate. But growth rebounded in the second quarter, with GDP growing at a 4% pace as companies continued to hire workers and the jobless rate declined at a rapid pace.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday acknowledged improvement in the labor market. But its policy statement warned that “a range of labor market indicators suggests that there remains significant underutilization of labor resources,” and that “a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy remains appropriate” given the state of the economy.

The Fed has kept short-term interest rates near zero since December 2008 to bolster the U.S. economy through a financial crisis, a deep recession and a lackluster recovery. The central bank now is winding down its bond-buying program and officials expect to begin raising rates sometime next year, though Chairwoman Janet Yellen in mid-July said that rate hikes “likely would occur sooner and be more rapid than currently envisioned” if the labor market “continues to improve more quickly than anticipated.”

In July, hiring was broad-based. Payrolls rose in the professional and business services, manufacturing, retail, construction and public sectors….”

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[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvY3v–cLAw#t=11 450 300]

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