What Next From The Department Of Homeland Security?

(Hat tip to Bob Mack for the graphic and the link below)

Look at how the Department of Homeland Security is overreaching its original parameters:

The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE has launched a major crackdown on websites enabling copyright infringement or selling counterfeits of trademarked goods. In just the past few days ICE has seized at least 12 domains, TorrentFreak reports.

[...]

...[T]he sites were seized before the site’s owner heard any charges or had the chance to submit any counter evidence in court. The owners of the sites had their property seized without being allowed to defend themselves.

[...]

In the aftermath of 9-11, when the creation of DHS was being debated, would your opinion have been swayed if you knew that, within just a few years, the proposed agency would be seizing websites peddling fake purses? Did you imagine that the proposed agency would soon demand to take naked photographs of randomly-selected U.S. citizens? Or, insist on its authority to physically grope children?

Now, ask yourself this: What will the Agency be doing 10 years from now? Or, 20? In a little more than half a decade, DHS has morphed from protecting us from terrorists to protecting us from fake merchandise. Who is going to protect us from DHS?

Immediately following 9/11, I cheered the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. Most Americans felt the same way.

But just think of the department's powers now in the hands of an administration which is ever trying to grab more power.

Turn the page ....

Well, Excuse Me!

Note to family and friends: Updates on Mr. AOW are being added to this post.


Added commentary is mine (The Merry Widow)

Bill forces citizens to list guns on taxes?
Firearms tracking act gives authorities access to your 'mental health records'
Posted: October 12, 2009
10:30 pm Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A firearms tracking bill has many bloggers up in arms over a federal requirement that would purportedly force gun owners to list their firearms on federal income tax returns.

But while the bill implements sweeping gun-control measures – including one that would prohibit citizens from owning a gun without a license – the income tax provision doesn't exist.
Praise be to GOD for SMALL favors!
The Blair Holt Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act, or H.R. 45, was introduced Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Il., on Jan. 6. While the bill does not include stipulations about reporting guns on tax forms, it does contain numerous gun-control proposals that are drawing fierce criticism from gun-rights advocates.

If enacted, the bill would forbid any person from owning any handgun or semiautomatic firearm that accepts a detachable ammunition feeding device, not including antiques, without obtaining a license.
Wonder how much THAT would cost, how many classes and psych evaluations would be required(and paid for)?
Under the legislation, a person who is seeking a firearm license must submit to the attorney general an application including the following information:

1) current passport-sized photo

2) name, address, date and birthplace

3) any other name the applicant has used

4) a clear thumbprint

5) a statement that the individual is not a person prohibited by federal or state law from obtaining a firearm

6) certification that the applicant will keep the firearm safely stored and out of the possession of minors
What they consider safely stored and what I consider safely stored would most certainly clash! But then, I spanked my 2 when they were little...
7) certificate showing applicant has passed a written firearms examination on the safe storage of firearms, safe handling of firearms, use of firearms in the home and risks associated with use, legal responsibilities of forearms owners and "any other subjects, as the Attorney General determines to be appropriate"
How many bloody hoops can you jump through in 1 go?
8) authorization to release "to the Attorney General or an authorized representative of the Attorney General any mental health records pertaining to the applicant"
I would probably be disqualified, since I have endogenous depression...even though I'm NOT suicidal.
9) the date on which the application was submitted

10) applicant signature

The bill makes it illegal for "any person to sell, deliver, or otherwise transfer a qualifying firearm [any handgun or semiautomatic firearm that accepts detachable ammunition feeding device, not including antiques] to, or for, any person who is not a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector, or to receive a qualifying firearm from a person who is not a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector" without verifying that the transferee has a valid license. However, this requirement does not apply to "infrequent transfer of a firearm by gift, bequest, interstate succession or other means by an individual to a parent, child, grandparent, or grandchild of the individual, or to any loan of a firearm for any lawful purpose for not more than 30 days between persons who are personally known to each other."
mutter...mutter...mutter...how very generous of them...:spit:
Licensed dealers would be required submit to the attorney general or appropriate state authorities the following information within 14 days of a transfer of a qualifying firearm: 1) manufacturer, 2) model name or number 3) serial number 4) date of transfer 5) number of the transferee's valid firearm license 6) name and address of person who transferred the firearm.
And will we have to be TATTOOED with the above information?
Within nine months of the bill's passage, the attorney general would be required to establish and maintain a federal system to track sales, including all of the identifying information submitted during a transfer of ownership.
Time for the birth of a new bureaucracy.
Under H.B. 45, it would be illegal to fail to report lost or stolen firearms or to fail to report change of address within 60 days of the change.
Wonder about any snowbirds who are down here for the winter? If they are robbed while they are out of town for 3-4 months?
To ensure compliance with the act, the attorney general would be authorized, during regular business hours, to "enter any place in which firearms or firearm products are manufactured, stored or held, for distribution in commerce, and inspect those areas where the products are so manufactured, stored, or held."
Busybodies...
The act does not apply to governmental authorities.
Heck no! Can't let us interfere with the governmental abuse of powers...

"This bill validates the concerns of sportsmen and gun owners about what … Congress and administration portend for Second Amendment rights," Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice-president/general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told ESPN Outdoors.

Keane continued, "The U.S. Supreme Court definitively said in District of Columbia vs. Heller (2008) that the Second Amendment provides individual civil rights to law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms. (They don't have to be in a militia to own and keep guns.) This bill, however, would treat those citizens who exercise their civil liberties like criminals."

National Rifle Association spokeswoman Rachel Parsons told ESPN the bill focuses primarily on guns as instruments as crime instead of penalizing the people who commit criminal acts. She said, under the bill, law-abiding citizens might become violators of the law.
Too right, punish the tool, not the tool user, or misuser!
"Several provisions in this bill would make compliance nearly impossible," she said. "For instance, the bill spells out that if a firearms license holder fails to notify the Attorney General of an address change within 60 days, that person would be subject to a 5 year prison term and a fine of up to $250,000."

She also condemned the licensing requirements in the bill.

"Any kind of bill that would require photographing and fingerprinting for simple possession of a firearm is fundamentally different in opinion from that which the NRA holds," she said. "Any law should target the criminal element, but this law would simply further burden law-abiding people."
I do not need anymore "help", thank you!
The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security and does not have a single co-sponsor, leading many to believe passage is highly unlikely.
Praise be to GOD for that!
Keane said the legislation is far too far-reaching and repressive to become law.

"If this bill passes, Democrats would likely lose (control of) their chamber in upcoming mid-term elections (2010)," he said. "The leadership in the House knows that."
Politics and politicians!
In April, a group of more than 450 gun-rights advocates sent a letter signed by more than 3,000 people to lawmakers in condemnation of H.R. 45.

"We are tired of our rights being denigrated and destroyed," it said. "[A]ny politician who votes for this bill or any bill of this type will be noted, and voted against when they come up for re-election."

The letter noted that more than 200,000 existing gun laws "do nothing to stop or curtail criminals." It states that history and statistics both prove that such bills are destructive to the citizenry.

"If this bills' purpose is to truly 'protect the public against the unreasonable risk of injury and death' then the Congress should realize that the only threats to the public are from a criminal element that this bill … will not address, and from the government itself."
BINGO! We need to fear our government...it is attempting to scarf up everything that makes us Americans. And make us into Amerikans...I AM NOT A SLAVE!
"With guns, we are 'citizens,'" the letter concludes. "Without them, we are 'subjects.'"
I am a subject of GOD Almighty, not human beings!

Turn the page ....

BHO Seeking To Limit ALL Executive Pay At Every Financial Institution?

(Two posts today. Please scroll down)

Trouble of the most serious and the most extreme sort! And, if perpetrated, it WILL touch YOU, not just the AIG fat cats at whom so much anger has recently been directed!
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From this article in the March 22, 2009 edition of the New York Times (all emphases mine):

The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said.

The outlines of the plan are expected to be unveiled this week in preparation for President Obama’s first foreign summit meeting in early April.

[...]

The officials said that the administration was still debating the details of its plan, including how broadly it should be applied and how far it could go beyond simple reporting requirements. Depending on the outcome of the discussions, the administration could seek to put the changes into effect through regulations rather than through legislation.

[...]

The new rules will cover all financial institutions, including those not now covered by any pay rules because they are not receiving federal bailout money....

Read the rest HERE.

Also see "NYT- Obama to limit ALL EXEC pay- ALL? USA-SSR. The end of America" by Epa of Infidel Bloggers Alliance. Excerpt (emphasis mine):

If this is not shot down immediately, then what would we be fighting the war on terror for, again? The right of a federal govt to own me? Own my potential? Own yours?

Barack Obama, if this is true, not only has no right to the office, he is a danger to the republic as it was founded.

Anyone running around thinking, 'well this will never affect me, this is about the head of GM' is in denial. This govt is trying to establish they have the RIGHT to decide what you can achieve, what your mind, your effort, and your thought is worth.

This idea, this principle, if TRUE as the NYT states, is as destructive to this republic as ANY IDEA the alien freaks of Al Qaeda, Shia Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, or KSA ever wanted.

This idea that the govt has the right to determine ANYONE'S (non govt) pay is TREASON.

Read it all and the comments thereto.

Turn the page ....