THE LONG ARM OF THE EPA

Power grabs on the part of the federal government continue apace and at an escalating rate of acceleration. The new EPA rule was quietly announced last week in the Federal Register.

From the Washington Times (dated July 8, 2014):

The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly floated a rule claiming authority to bypass the courts and unilaterally garnish paychecks of those accused of violating its rules, a power currently used by agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service [which puts the burden of proof on the debtor, not on the federal agency].

[...]

...[T]he threat of garnishing wages would be a powerful incentive for people to agree to expensive settlements rather than fight EPA charges.

EPA officials did not respond to repeated questions by The Washington Times about why they thought it was necessary to garnish people's wages.

The EPA announced the plan last week in a notice in the Federal Register, saying federal law allows it "to garnish non-Federal wages to collect delinquent non-tax debts owed the United States without first obtaining a court order."...

Read more details about the above HERE.

KELO TODAY

The tyranny of eminent domain, and at the price tag of $78 million:

‘Kelo’ Revisited: Properties were seized and a neighborhood razed in the name of ‘economic development’ that never came

New London, Conn.
"See that pole with the transformer hanging from it?” Michael Cristofaro asked me. “That was where my family’s home was.”

I looked up at a line of high telephone poles marching diagonally against a blanched winter sky across a vast, empty field​—​90 acres​—​that was entirely uninhabited and looked as though it had always been that way. New London, population 27,000, a rundown onetime whaling port on the Atlantic coast that never recovered after the whaling industry died at the end of the 19th century, is a desolate-looking city. Cristofaro, a 52-year-old New London-born computer network engineer, and I were in its most desolate neighborhood​—​actually, ex-neighborhood, for there was not a residential property left standing on the entire tract. Just below us lay the mouth of Connecticut’s Thames River (unlike in London, “Thames” rhymes with “James,” and the “th” is pronounced as in “thumb”) where it joins the northerly end of the Long Island Sound. An icy New England January wind​—​cold enough to freeze the ink in my ballpoint pen into a gray, spidery scrawl as I scribbled notes​—​ripped across the only signs of life, actually former life, on the deserted incline: waist-high dead weeds, probably the remains of the goldenrod, yarrow, pokeweed, and high grass that grow everywhere during warm months on the North Atlantic coast.

Cristofaro and I were walking through a section of New London called Fort Trumbull, a fist-shaped peninsula jutting out into the Thames. It is the battleground of what must be the most universally loathed Supreme Court ruling of the new millennium, Kelo v. City of New London (2005). The case is named after its lead plaintiff, Susette Kelo, a nurse who had owned a home a few blocks away from the Cristofaro house. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling that the city of New London and a nonprofit quasi-public entity that the city had set up, then called the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), were entitled to seize, in a process known as eminent domain, the homes and businesses of Kelo, the Cristofaros, and five other nearby property owners in the name of “economic development” that would generate “new jobs and increased revenue,” in the words of since-retired Justice John Paul Stevens, author of the majority opinion.

That is, the city and the NLDC were entitled to condemn and then bulldoze people’s homes solely in order to have something else built on the land that would produce higher property taxes​—​such as the office buildings, luxury condos, five-star hotel, spacious conference center, a “river walk” to a brand-new marina, and high-end retail stores that were part of an elaborate “economic development” plan for Fort Trumbull that the NLDC had launched in 1997. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment bars governments from taking private property unless the taking is for a “public use.” Historically “public use,” as courts had interpreted it, meant a road, a bridge, a public school, or some other government structure. But in the Kelo decision, the High Court majority declared that “economic development” that would involve using eminent domain to transfer the property of one private owner to a different but more economically ambitious private owner​—​such as a hotel​—​qualified as a public use just as much as, say, a new city library.

[...]

Meanwhile New London’s financial problems have continued unabated....

Another disaster perpetuated by the Constitution-shredding government and corrupt cronyism  — and a SCOTUS decision that involved the confiscation of private property. To what end?

ABOUT INSPECTORS GENERAL

(with a hat tip to Asylum Watch)

About Inspectors General:

...Established by the Inspector General Act of 1978, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) examines all actions of a government agency or military organization. Conducting audits and investigations, either independently or in response to reports of wrongdoing, the OIG ensures that the agency’s operations are in compliance with the law and general established policies of the government. Audits conducted by the OIG are intended to ensure the effectiveness of security procedures, or to discover the possibility of misconduct, waste, fraud, theft, or certain types of criminal activity by individuals or groups related to the agency’s operation. Misuse of agency funds or equipment are often revealed by OIG audits....

Obama's approach to inspectors general:

...Over the past few years Barack Obama has attempted to starve the beast by refusing to fill vacancies in the ranks of Inspectors General as they have arisen. The White House been routinely chided for years over its negligence. Timothy Smith of the Washington Post reported in May of 2011 that "there were 10 IG vacancies, including five at cabinet-level agencies. Four of them had been vacant for more than 3 years."...

America's system of government has many checks and balances. Obama is deliberately thwarting our system of checks and balances and, at the same time, declaring that Americans need not worry about tyranny.

Wake up, America! This is what you've got sitting in the Oval Office:

UPDATE (RELIAPUNDIT):

 THE HILL: State Department watchdog blasted for keeping hooker claims from Congress.“In a letter to the department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) blasts the agency over a February report that was scrubbed of specific references to misconduct allegations that included eight cases of State Department officials sleeping with prostitutes and other misconduct.” 

The Walpin firing, early in Obama’s first term, was intended to intimidate Inspectors General. It appears to have succeeded. 

Posted at 8:27 am by Glenn Reynolds 

DURBIN ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT

From Breitbart's Big Journalism:

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, senior Illinois Senator, Democrat Dick Durbin, expressed doubt as to whether bloggers deserve constitutional protection for their work online.

On the May 26 broadcast of the Sunday show, Durbin told host Chris Wallace that he wasn't sure if bloggers or "someone who is Tweeting" should be given protections under a media shield law.

Video clip from Sunday, May 26, 2013:


Chilling words - especially in that Conservative bloggers are holding the Obama administration accountable when the mainstream media will not.

Erosion of the First Amendment enables and empowers tyranny.

Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves!

If something doesn't give, if Americans don't insist on strict interpretation of the Constitution, the Constitution will go up in smoke. And tyranny will win.