You are not free. In the one nation imperiously touting freedom as a star-spangled guiding principle, you are not free to enjoy a peaceful existence unmolested by armed revenue-reapers of the State — collecting rainwater, selling lemonade, living off-grid, charitably tending the homeless, and even feeding stray animals, all require you pay up, permit up, or license up — or be remanded to a cage for an intellectually insulting period of time.
Yes, apparently, leaving food and water for a small colony of feral cats gives the State sufficient premise to rob a pair of animal good Samaritans blind — because, nary an issue exists government couldn’t royally mangle — turning otherwise law-abiding people into paupers and criminals, and souring public trust and sentiment in the process.
Kansas couple, Sue and Ray Jones — recently found guilty of feeding and giving water to their Augusta neighborhood’s feral cat community, because the State says that is a thing about which to have guilt — had to file an appeal against the charges and $150 fine for each person, as well as for each finding of guilt.
Considering the pair were originally charged with 21 separate counts, feeding feral cats comprises quite an expensive endeavor in the small Midwestern city, indeed.
“I’ve heard from a lot of people all over the country that say … they’ve never heard of anything like this,” daughter Kate Roggenbaum railed to KWCH of the inane situation. “One comment was this must be fake news.”
Even a thorough perusal of the Jones’ predicament indeed reads like something from a dystopian novel — but this Nanny State authoritarianism wielded against a charitable action wasn’t a tale conjured from the imagination of a keen novelist — this may be 2017, but this real-life anti-kitty script seems ripped from a subtext of Orwell’s 1984.
With their guilty convictions, Sue and Ray face time behind bars if they decide to rebel and … feed stray cats again.
“If they for example went out and violated another ordinance, such as if they went out and the police found them feeding cats and they were charged with that, the court can find that as a violation of their probation and order them to jail,” the Jones’ attorney, John Johnson, averred KWCH following the trial in mid-July.
“I think it was pretty harsh,” he added, noting, “I think the judge was very considerate. I mean, he looked at the evidence and took a very well-reasoned approach to his ruling, and it is what it is.”
Where the couple’s attorney seemed flippantly dismissive, the public has compensated in outrage — some local businesses ostensibly affected by the stray cats even find the judge’s ruling unjustifiable.
“It’s not a problem to us though other than them leaving their trash,” Amber Goff, manager of a Valero, whose dumpster serves as sheltered area for the Joneses to leave food and water for the cats. “I don’t think they should get in trouble for feeding a cat necessarily, but be responsible about it.”
Goff says the felines aren’t a nuisance, and has no issue with the couple’s actions, but would prefer the feeding dishes not be left unattended.
In fact, with the possible only exception of the manager of a nearby NAPA store — who complained to animal control multiple times and expressed frustration with skunks attracted to the cat food and causing a smell nuisance — many locals besides the Joneses have fed the stray cats for some time.
None of them received massive fines or guilty convictions.
Detractors might be inclined to argue feeding scavenging animals only encourages growth and stability in the population, rather than solving the feral issue — or, worse, severely agitating the problem by creating a colony dependent on human handouts.
However, Sue Jones says feeding wasn’t the only care provided — after catching the cats, she brought them outside the city for spaying or neutering, so their return to the local population would not mean an expanding feral colony. While this method might not solve the issue of unwanted animals roaming the streets, it’s certainly a step toward curbing the nation’s sizable feral cat population.
Indeed, this isn’t the first brush with the law for Sue Jones. Johnson, the attorney, told KWCH the city issued a citation to the cat-lover in 2015, for setting up boxes as shelters for strays outside her business. According to the outlet, Roggenbaum launched a crowdfunding page to assist her parents with fines and fees associated with the absurd convictions.
Daily life in the United States increasingly comes laden with untenable penalties — as if the government keeps constant vigilance to ensure that, when it comes forking over income and jumping through hoops to perform otherwise mundanities of everyday life, the citizenry isn’t somehow ‘doing it wrong.’
When the retort to outrage over convictions like that of Sue and Ray Jones comprises snide assertions they should have just followed the law, the laughable overabundance of laws governing every facet of existence in this nation is ignored — and for the worse, if these dangerous legal frivolities remain on the books should the wrong megalomaniac happen to steer this sinking ship.
In the meantime, providing food for needy, homeless animals — and, in a sickening number of states, human beings — should apparently be considered verboten in these Overcriminalized States of America.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
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I had a neighbor who fed the strays. It drew every cat in town. The problem was the cats didn’t stay in her yard. Everywhere I tried to garden in my yard I was digging up cat poo. My yard stunk to high heaven. It took the joy of gardening . No amount of complaining did any good. If you live away from others feed all you want but if you live in a neighborhood others have to be considered.
Put a fence around your garden?
A 6ft fence does not keep cats out. City regulations don’t allow higher and it would be a big expense. Why should I have had to go through that because of an inconsiderate neighbor?
Put up a 6ft fence. Ask the neighbor to share the cost. Then, without telling anybody, run a wire on top of it connected to a low-current high-voltage circuit powered by a battery. It will keep the cats out but won’t harm them or anyone who touches it. Also have your neighbor put a pile of sand on their side as rhondareichel suggested.
When your neighbor touches the fence, what a shock he will get. And what a lawsuit you will get. Here is my suggestion: only plant plants in your garden.
Or put in landmines!
One small excerpt from my oft-posted “The 100% Effective and Permanent Solution”.
… Where cats have already learned to evade all trapping methods for trapping & drowning (and you aren’t confident with firearms or air-rifles (local ordinances permitting), yes, it is legal to kill stray cats on your own property), then inexpensive generic acetaminophen (overseas paracetamol) pain-relievers are a more species-specific vermin poison (though harmful to most reptiles, which won’t be dining on the cat-bait-foods that you’ll be using) — a method condoned by even Audubon, Smithsonian, and National Geographic today.
For an even more species-specific vermin poison check into the toxicity of “Lilium” and “Hemerocallis” species of Lily flowers too.
These particular species of Lilium and “Hemerocallis” plants have been found to be the most toxic for the purpose.
Asian Lily / Asiatic Lily (Lilium asiatica)
Easter Lily (Lilium longiflorum)
Japanese Show Lily (Lilium speciosum)
Red Lily (Lilium umbellatum)
Rubrum Lily ** (Lilium speciosum cultivar)
Stargazer Lily ** (Lilium orientalis)
Tiger Lily ** (Lilium tigrinum)
Wood Lily (Lilium philadelphicum)
Orange Day Lily (Hemerocallis graminea)
(There is now evidence that other Hemerocallis species may be just as effective or more.)
( ** see notes below)
Be sure they are from the Liliacea Family, has “Lilium” or “Hemerocallis” on the plant label. Many plants with “Lily” in the common-name are not of the Lilium or Hemerocallis species, and are in fact toxic to other species of animals besides cats. Lilium & Hemerocallis species of flowers are 100% fatal to cats ONLY, even a bit of pollen on their fur that they lick-off will do. If they even drink a bit of water in which a bunch of these flowers have been kept — that too is fatal, but totally harmless to all other species of animals (including dogs). Much safer for the environment and all other animals than the rat-poisons and antifreeze that cat-lickers have forced everyone into using on their cats. These plants when harvested and dried for year-round cat-eradication use is even better, as the unknown toxin is concentrated during the drying process (the blossoms and pollen being most toxic), and the dried plants are even more palatable to cats. An excellent mulch for anyone’s garden or a ground-up additive for any tins of food left lying around.
** There have been some anecdotal reports of some free-roaming cats that have spent many years around some of these particular species of plants and still survived, though there was no evidence of any cats ever ingesting any of them either. So it is best to harvest, air-dry, and grind-up the plants and mix them into any appropriate bait-foods to be most effective.
One of the things I learned teaching at a juvenile prison is that almost all sadists and serial murderers start out torturing animals. Sick!
Considering that you willingly and gleefully gut-alive and skin-alive 2.4 billion birds (that’s 2,400 million for the mathematically challenged) and 12.3 billion other small animals (that’s 12,300 million for the similarly challenged) per year with your disease-infested invasive-species vermin cats, even dancing around all proud and calling it “being gifted” by your vermin cat when they bring home one of their tortured and mangled animals that YOU caused … It’s about time that you are locked-up for life. A life in solitary-confinement is too good for things like you.
Sir: i have no cats, no pets. I do not eat animals.
Nor do I make the mistake of confusing the natural and hardwired nature of predatory animals with the freewill and moral duty to make choices that humans have.
A cat has no choice but to be a predator; we do: we can renounce violence in our lifestyle and diet. We have the ethical mandate to do the least harm. Cats, and other animals do not live in the moral world of humans and so while I judge humans who choose predation, I do not judge animals who are natural predators.
Your cruel insults confirm that your nature has been poisoned by a sadistic impulse.
To do the least harm then you MUST destroy every last free-roaming man-made house-cat. Now unless you are a 3rd-grade bible-home-schooled disney-cartoon-educated idiot, you’d know that. It sounds like you do not know that.
It is not for you to force your views on me. For me, doing the least harm means making choices not for others but for myself to do no violence. I do not judge animals in their natural behavior but refuse to meddle. i have a world class education and am offended by your rude and condescending and immature response With all due respect, go fuck yourself!
(Replying to the post of yours that the 5-year-old moderator of this site auto-filtered due to a “naughty word” that unhinged his 5-year-old fragile mental and emotional insecurities and sensibilities — would everyone older than 5 please grow the ƒúċĶ-úƥ already?!)
reprint:
Wow, you are a disney-cartoon-educated imbecile. There is absolutely NOTHING natural about your vermin cats. They are a genetically engineered animal, made by man through selective breeding to turn them into relentless ruthless nonstop killers for man’s purposes. They have NO natural nor native habitat ANYWHERE on the planet. Now I suggest you stop drooling cereal on your feety-pajamas, click the remote to turn off the disney-channel, turn around and try to find the first step in your mommy’s basement that leads to the real world. Try to climb the first step. Maybe your mommy can throw down a pacifier as encouragement for you. Once outside you might learn about life and the real world someday. I’d wish you good luck with that, but quite frankly, things like you deserve to rot in your mommy’s basements remaining as ignorant as naive as you’ve already proved to be.
” things like you deserve to rot in your mommy’s basements ”
My mother who would be 105 today, has been dead over 20 years. You are ugly and hate-filled. I feel sorry for you.
Not eating animals does not absolve you from being the faction of humanity that tortures to death the most animals of any other humans on earth.
You should move out to the country, and watch in the autumn as ammonia-gas-clouds waft across the setting-sun, from the 100% anhydrous liquid-ammonia (we’re not talking about that 2%-3% ammonia-water that you buy in your store) pumped into the soils of millions and millions of acres of croplands, that are used to grow vegan diets. Millions upon millions of animals gassed-to-death every year with 100%-ammonia-gas in their lungs (a most excruciating way for anything to die), just so vegans like you can sit there pretending you are holier than thou as you chomp on your slimy-curds of tofu. This doesn’t count all the habitat loss from turning those lands into deserts to only feed vegans and no other animals on earth. Guess how many native animals have soybeans on their diets and survive by soybeans alone? Only to have those animals that managed to live there that year and any offspring gassed-to-death that coming fall or have the crop rotated next year to something that is equally off their diets so the next generation just starves to death, ammonia-gas or no. Yeah, you’re all ƒúċĶingly wonderful vegans who don’t harm any animals, aren’t you. When in fact, you are the biggest animal-torturing hypocrites ON EARTH.
Beckunty Robinson of Alley-Cat-All-Lies is also a strict vegan, yet she has no problem torturing to death 2.4 billion (2,400 million) birds and 12.3 billion (12,300 million) other animals to death YEARLY with her vermin cats. Let’s not forget about all the whales, seals, dolphins, marsupials, manatee, inland and sea-otters, and large cats she is killing worldwide by spreading T. gondii and feline-specific diseases too with her beliefs and cats. She’s even killing-off rare and endangered Florida Panthers by using her cats to spread feline disease to them. She’s a Typhoid-Mary Vegan destroying BILLIONS of animals everywhere on the earth YEARLY and the only ones who can’t see that are her and her brainless T. gondii-hijacked toadies. THE ABSOLUTE WORST CARNAGE AND TORTURING OF ANIMALS IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY BEING SINGLE-HANDEDLY CAUSED BY **A VEGAN**. I’m really surprised that every last vegan on earth hasn’t tarred and faux-feathered her yet.
Do any of you who self-servingly promote the existence of your man-made vermin cats and do so ONLY because “they make you feel good”, absolutely no other reason, even read the labels on cat-food? How many animals did you pay others to boil-alive for you, just this year alone? JUST so you can “feel good”. How many animals did your cats, and those cats that you support being outdoors, torture to death just so you can say, “Awwwww… such a good hunter you are! That’s a good kitty!” The only result of which was to make your own selves feel good, absolutely no other reason.
The only question I never find an answer for, is why any of you self-deceptive vegans were ever born in the very first place. Think how many animals’ lives would be saved from suffering to death each year if you all removed yourselves from the planet — thousands upon thousands of innocent animals who die for your vegan dinner-plate. But no, you still think that it’s even safe for vegans to keep breeding because you do no harm. Guess again. You’re some of the most destructive humans alive on the planet, especially if you promote the existence of even more vegans and your vermin cats — killing animals at a rate that is 1,000 times higher than any other faction of humanity. How nice of you. What a wonderful “vegan” you are! When in fact you all deserve to rot in your well-deserved and well-earned heIIs.
If you truly care about the well-being of animals, then destroying free-roaming cats is the most humane thing to do of all options available (even for the cats themselves). Shooting them to death is even more humane than trapping them and euthanizing them in a shelter. They’re not suffering in torment for days, cringing in fear while locked in a cage from which there is no escape, thrashing their bodies against the walls, tearing out their own claws and teeth on the mesh until they are a blöödy mess. Ever seen a trapped feral cat? It’s not pretty. Then being handled by humans that they dread and fear. Instead they are happily stalking some innocent animal to disembowel-alive and skin-alive for their next play-toy. Then the very next moment they are dead and they don’t even know they’ve been shot. Now THAT is a humane way to die, instantly dying while engaged in the very thing that they loved doing in life. They die in under 3 seconds, more often less than 1 second, not even enough time to bleed-out, not even enough time to make a sound. Now THAT is HUMANE.
Destroy any one invasive species cat = save the lives of thousands of native animals. Saving them from being tortured to death by being disemboweled-alive or skinned-alive and left to suffer to death, or their offspring left to starve to death after the parents are killed or after cats have destroyed all of their ONLY food-sources — and all done to NATIVE animals that actually belong here by just ONE cat.
That’s the true suffering-animal-equation. If you want to end the slow torturous deaths of thousands of animals, you must begin with destroying any one free-roaming cat, NO MATTER HOW you have-to accomplish that.
‘
Do cats like squash and peppers? Do rats?
The only good reason to feed stray cats is that they are people too.
Cat poo is the stinkiest poo….but I’d much rather have them around for the rats and mice. They do perform a service. I’m a gardner too and found out a pile of sand outside my garden served well to keep them out of the garden.
That would depend.
If YOU moved into the neighborhood where these things, or others, were already being done BEFORE you moved there, then it is your own problem to solve as when you moved there you should have done enough research and visiting to the “neighborhood” to see what others who live there do and how it might impact your life IF you move there. It would fall under Caveat Emptor (“Let the buyer beware”).
Those who murdered witches and their cats in the Middle Ages got their just reward — a pandemic of the Bubonic Plague spread by the fleas of rats no longer kept down by cats. Tens of millions of people died horribly! Stray cats are a blessing!
Yes…that’s what kitties do…keep the mouse population in check. We need feral cats.
The myth about cats being good rodent control has been disproved on every island where cats were imported to take care of the imported rodents. Hundreds of years later and there’s nothing but a thriving population of cats and rodents — all the native wildlife on those islands now either extinct or on the brink of extinction — even those native species which are better rodent predators than cats (such as many reptiles and shrews which destroy rodents right in their nests), the cats having destroyed them directly or indirectly.
The rodents reproduce in burrows and holes out of the reach of cats, where they are happy to reproduce forever to entertain cats the rest of their lives, and make your own lives miserable, on into infinity. On top of that, when cats infect rodents with cat’s Toxoplasma gondii parasite, this hijacks the minds of rodents to make the rodents attracted to where cats urinate. (remove all spaces from obfuscated-for-posting URLs) scitizen . Com / neuroscience / parasite-hijacks-the-mind-of-its-host_a-23-509 . html
Cats attracting these adult rodents right to them further increasing the cat/rodent/disease density of this happy predator/prey balance. It has been documented many many times — the more cats you have the more rodents and diseases you get. I even proved this to myself when having to rid my lands of hundreds of these vermin cats by shooting and burying every last one of them. A rodent problem started to appear about the same time the cats started to show up, 15 years of it. And, if you check the history of Disney’s feral cat problem, their rodent problem also started to appear at the very same time their cats showed-up. Coincidence? Not at all. (BTW: All cat-advocates’ beloved Disney’s TNR cats are no more, they’ve all been destroyed by hired exterminators last year. Disney finally wised-up.) All rodent problems around my home completely disappeared after every last cat was shot-dead and safely disposed of. All the better NATIVE rodent predators moved back into the area after the cats were dead and gone. Not seen one cat anywhere nor had even one rodent in the house in over seven years now. (So much for their manipulative, deceptive, and outright lie of the mythical “vacuum effect” too.) You will also find that the cities in N. America with the highest concentration of “community vermin” cats are also the very same cities with the highest concentrations of “community vermin” rodents. Again, coincidence? Answer: NOT AT ALL.
There’s another one of your many LIES. Cats weren’t destroyed until centuries after there were plague outbreaks. You can’t blame something that happened on the actions of humans centuries after the fact.
“The Black Death”, the plague, is now being transmitted to humans in N. America directly from cats. Yes, “The Black Death” (the plague) is alive and well today and being spread by people’s cats this time around. Totally disproving that oft-spewed LIE about having more cats in Europe could have prevented the plague — more cats would have made it far far worse. Many people have already died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA in the last 2-3 decades; all three forms of it transmitted by CATS — septicemic, bubonic, and pneumonic. For a fun read, one of hundreds of cases, Cat-Transmitted Fatal Pneumonic Plague — http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.Gov/pubmed/8059908
http://www.abcdcatsvets.org/yersinia-pestis-infection/
“Recommendations to avoid zoonotic transmission: Cats are considered the most important domestic animal involved in plague transmission to humans, and in endemic areas, outdoor cats may transmit the infection to their owners or to persons caring for sick cats (veterinarians and veterinary nurses).”
There’s another one of your many LIES. Cats weren’t destroyed until centuries after there were plague outbreaks. You can’t blame something that happened on the actions of humans centuries after the fact.
“The Black Death”, the plague, is now being transmitted to humans in N. America directly from cats. Yes, “The Black Death” (the plague) is alive and well today and being spread by people’s cats this time around. Totally disproving that oft-spewed LIE about having more cats in Europe could have prevented the plague — more cats would have made it far far worse. Many people have already died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA in the last 2-3 decades; all three forms of it transmitted by CATS — septicemic, bubonic, and pneumonic. For a fun read, one of hundreds of cases, Cat-Transmitted Fatal Pneumonic Plague — ncbi . nlm . nih . Gov / pubmed / 8059908
(remove all spaces from obfuscated-for-posting URLs)
abcdcatsvets . Org / yersinia-pestis-infection
“Recommendations to avoid zoonotic transmission:
Cats are considered the most important domestic animal involved in plague transmission to humans, and in endemic areas, outdoor cats may transmit the infection to their owners or to persons caring for sick cats (veterinarians and veterinary nurses).”
One office I worked at in Atlanta had a dense hedgerow out front that was home and shelter to about a dozen feral cats. The secretaries and I put out food and water daily for over 4 years and nobody complained.
After moving to Florida, there was a small “jungle” to the rear of my apartment. One Sunday afternoon my two male cats came strolling in from their romp in the sand. Looking closely, they had a black, feral female sheltered between them who promptly ran into my bedroom closet and began delivering kittens. After 8 weeks she was more than happy to turn over the kittens to my two males, but she hung around the house for another year. She never became really “tame”, but she was actually quite a good cat. I managed to find two of the kittens good homes, but kept the other 3 until they finally passed. The kittens were “domesticated”, but always had a wanderlust and would sometimes disappear for a day or two.
Denouncing “the State” because of the exceptional and rare/bizarre misuse of power for feeding the homeless, selling lemonade, etc is dishonest. The State has much to criticize but these stories make headlines BECAUSE they are exceptions. Thousands of children sell lemonade, thousands feed cats and the homeless, but if one or two abuses of police power occur, suddenly “the State” is evil. The State is evil for criminal wars….let’s focus on the real crimes. For instance, Trump just signed a law he claimed was unconstitutional. That is a violation of his oath to protect the Constitution. Let’s make sure he is impeached for violating his oath and stop claiming the crimes of the state are that in one or two towns, someone is stopped from selling veggies on the street.
All people should have the freedom from over regulation! A state doesn’t have to be evil, it should just be reasonable!
We also have the freedom from underregulation such as the lack of a law to prevent the sale of assault weapons to anyone by anyone in 41 states. We need just laws. Soe think banning pollution is “overregulation” but do we not have the right to demand that the laws protect us from pollution. Odd abuses of power are not the issue: systemic abuses such as US criminal wars, the rule by the wealthy elites, and the gradual destruction of the middle class are the issues that focusing on odd abuses distracts us from. It is a matter of perspective.
Most of the “laws”, codes, statutes, zoning, etc used against the American people are “color of law”, pretend laws.
*Color of law: “The appearance or semblance, without the substance, of legal right. Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because wrongdoer is clothed with authority of state, is action taken under “color of law.” Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, page 241.
The ONLY things that those who serve within the federal government have any LAWFUL authority over is (will not list presidential since his authority is mostly dealing with foreign affairs);
Publius Huldah: “In a nutshell, our Constitution authorizes the federal government to handle the following objects for the Country at Large:
— Military defense, international commerce & relations;
— Control immigration & naturalization of new citizens;
— Domestically, to create a uniform commercial system: weights & measures, patents & copyrights, money based on gold & silver, bankruptcy laws, mail delivery & some road building; and
— With some of the amendments, secure certain civil rights.
As stated in the 10th Amendment, all others powers are reserved by the States OR The People….
What would our Country’s financial condition be if WE THE PEOPLE had enforced the enumerated (listed) powers on Congress? It is the enumerated powers which list the objects on which Congress may appropriate funds:
— immigration office (Art. I, §8, cl.4)
— mint (Art. I, §8, cl. 5)
— Attorney General (Art. I, §8, cl. 6)
— post offices & post roads (Art. I, §8, cl. 7)
— patent & copyright office (Art. I, §8, cl. 8)
— federal courts (Art. I, §8, cl. 9)
— military (Art. I, §8, cls. 11-16)
— the civil list (Art. I, §6, cl.1)
[and other objects listed in various other articles, sections, &clauses]
Do you get the idea? The Constitution itemizes what Congress is permitted to spend money on. See also the two geographical areas over which Congress was delegated “general legislative powers”: Art. I, §8, next to last clause, & Art. IV, §3, cl. 2.” (end quote)
“A state doesn’t have to be evil, it should just be reasonable!”
Actually not ours.
You see, the US Constitution is the CONTRACT that all who serve within our governments – state and federal – are under, and to make it a stronger Lawful bond, Oath bound to “support and defend” FIRST, before the orders of superiors and the duties of the position occupied. All of this is in writing. What powers do those who serve within our governments are ALLOWED to use while serving and KEEPING their Oath?
Our US Constitution authorizes the federal government to handle the following objects for the Country at Large:
— Military defense, international commerce and international relations;
— Control immigration & naturalization of new citizens;
— Domestically, to create a uniform commercial system: weights & measures, patents & copyrights, money based on gold & silver, bankruptcy laws, mail delivery & some road building; and
— With some of the amendments, they are also to secure certain civil rights that belong to the people.
Found within the 10th Amendment is that ALL others powers are reserved by the States OR THE PEOPLE…. That is correct, the people did NOT delegate all of their powers over themselves and their actions to the state and federal governments. The framers were well educated and knew that history showed that those that serve within governments ALWAYS try to use governmental force against their own people – it is the “power” thing some people get.
US Presidential Office holds the authority to;
— Commander in Chief of the Army, Navy, Militia when called into the ACTUAL service of the USA
— require the opinion of , in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices,
— and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
— He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and
— he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law:
—- but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
— The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
— He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;
— he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;
— he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers;
— he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
Those that serve within the judicial branch;
— The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;
— to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;
— to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;
— to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;
— to controversies between two or more states;
— between a state and citizens of another state;
— between citizens of different states;
— between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
— In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction
— In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
— The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury;
—- and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed;
—— but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.
Hope this helps!
Which saint are you backing for Naughty Trump’s replacement, Dale?
Holding a President accountable sends a warning to all potential leaders.
Your snarky comment totally misses the point of why it is important to hold leaders accountable and promote the sovereignty of the people.
Trump is not only an admitted sexual predator but unqualified, authoritarian, and illegitimate. He ran on Nazi-style Big Lies and has fucked up more things already than most Presidents do in 8 years, from war crimes to killing 40,000 civilians in Mosel to hiring 7 Goldman Sachs alumni to run the country. He is also the most unpopular President ever. His entire act is bragging, bullying, lying, and firing people.
The Republicans hate him and just voted 54-1 against his removal of sanctions.
He just signed their bill, despite claiming it is unconstitutional, which means he is, in his own view, violating his oath to protect the Constitution. For that alone, he shoud resign. Why are you defending this arrogant narcissist, this selfish and corrupt oligarch?
Trump met the Constitutional qualifications, I was unaware any others existed. Please explain how he is illegitimate.
According to our founding document,the Declaration of Independence, a government which is not based on equality and consent of the governed is illegitimate,and this was the justification for armed revolution.
The public rejected Trump by 2.8 million votes; he does not have the consent of the governed. The loser in a public vote can never claim consent. The 538 members of the slave-era Electoral College overrepresent small conservative states and thus violate the principle of equality.
lack of equality (rural states have 3 1/3 times more voting weight per voters than urbanized states where most Americans live) and lack of consent mean, according to the Declaration,that Trump does not rule justly.
REad it; lack of equality and consent was the argument for violent revolution against the British.
For 2012, Just Facts said, 3.2 million to 5.6 million noncitizens were registered to vote and 1.2 million to 3.6 million of them voted. I highly doubt the number of illegal voters dropped in 2016. Also Just Facts didn’t allow for dead voters or people who voted multiple times.
The way the dems fight every attempt to require voter ID or even to study the problem of illegal voting renders the claim of a Clinton popular win nugatory.
Bush did a 5 yr study of illegal voting and found 86 cases, mostly by mistake.
There is no evidence for the claims you make. Just facts is not objective but clearly right wing.
“A new report from a conservative think tank says as many as 5.7 million Americans voted illegally in the 2008 election, but experts say the survey extrapolates too broadly and there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of it.
The analysis by the think tank Just Facts is based on Harvard/YouGov data, the same source of data for a 2014 study used to support President Donald Trump’s claim that millions voted illegally in the most recent election. Brian Schaffner, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who helps manage the data source the 2014 analysis was based on, debunked that analysis in November, saying it extrapolated based on answers from respondents that were likely errors.
In 2012, Schaffner and his colleagues went back and re-interviewed the 121 people from the earlier study who said they voted in 2010 but weren’t citizens. Of those 121 people, 36 changed their answer and said they were, in fact, citizens. Of the 85 people who maintained they were non-citizens, researchers could not match a single one to a valid voter record’
.”Schaffner continued. “However, the issue here is why would a non-citizen who is going through the trouble of using a fraudulent identity to vote then admit to voting in a survey and give us their actual name and address?”
Conclusion: reliable studies, including the massive Bush study, found virtually no voter fraud. Both Republican and Democratic state officials loudly rejected Trump’s self-serving claim in his attempt to prove he has popular consent. This is debunked by the polls, including pro-Trump Fox news, that show Trump with 35 and 36% approval and Fox finding 41% approval.
It is absurd that if a legal majority voted for Trump, that nearly 2/3 would disapprove of him. He lacks consent. Lying about illegal voters, does not make up for the fact that he lost the vote of the majority of governed.
Justfact is not a reliable source with an obvious pro-Trump bias, and attempts to factcheck their research, which extrapolates 5.8 million illegal votes from 138 alleged admissions find huge inconsistencies as well as the absurd propostion that with a prison term of 5 yrs for fraudulent voting, that people would admit to strangers, giving their name and address, that they broke the law.
Trump, and many of his supporters, are in denial.
Yawn…
OK I got it. You cite old out of date studies, and claim any facts that dispute your position are biased. You also seem to have problems with the concept of time. I’ve never heard of someone claiming a current poll indicating public opinion 8 months in the past. Hate seems to be affecting your ability to think.
The average person commits 2-3 felonies a day, why would they worry about committing an additional one every 2 years?
By the way, I didn’t vote for Trump.
Polls that show a consistent pattern are valid. If polls for the past 15 years show no voter fraud, why should suddenly there be 5.8 million cases of voter fraud?
“The average person commits 2-3 felonies a day, why would they worry about committing an additional one every 2 years?”
1. This is an absurd comment.
2. Undocumented immigrants have a 50% lower crime rate than US citizens (and most of them being lack of papers)…according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Why would people who are the most law-abiding group risk losing their jobs, families and homes (the average undocumented immigrant has lived here over 12 yrs, is employed, and has US citizen children) in order to cast one vote out of 130 million? Absurd.
My motivation is compassion for those denied legal status but accused of crimes and a love of the truth. BTW, I didn’t vote for either Trump or Clinton.
I think your absurd claim of hatred motivating my rejecting the lies about the 5.8 million illegal votes is projection, since you seem to imply that those denied legal status accused of voting by the millions commit many felonies every day. Absurd.
The Bush study which found 86 cases of improper voting (mostly based on mistakes) over many years ended in Sept 2005; the Trump claim is based on a 2008 study.
“WASHINGTON, April 11 — Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.” NYTimes
“Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and author of “The Voting Wars,” referred us to a piece he published on the subject on Slate on Oct. 17, which ran under the headline “Voter Fraud: It would be literally insane to try to steal an election in the way Donald Trump is alleging.”
“The truth is, though, that not only does zero evidence exist that this sort of fraud has taken place on any regular basis, but multiple voting simply cannot happen in any practical sense on a scale to influence a presidential election,” Hasen wrote.
Hasen writes that in researching his 2012 book, “The Voting Wars,” he “could not find a single instance anywhere in the U.S. from the 1980s onward where massive impersonation fraud was used to try to steal an election.” factcheck.org
“A 2012 study from Arizona State University exhaustively pulled records from every state for all alleged election fraud and found the overall election fraud rate to be “infinitesimal.” A 2012 assessment of Georgia’s 2006 election found “no evidence that election fraud was committed under the auspices of deceased registrants.” When Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a longtime proponent of voter suppression efforts, reviewed 84 million votes cast in 22 states in a search for double voting, only 14 instances of fraud were referred for prosecution, which amounts to a 0.00000017 percent fraud rate A Brennan Center study from 2007 put the incident rate of voter impersonation fraud between 0.00004 percent and 0.0009 percent. Most recently, a 2016 report focusing on states where politicians claimed rampant voter fraud found zero successful prosecutions for voter impersonation fraud.
A host of studies and investigations in the intervening years have reached similar conclusions: That comprehensive Arizona State study determined impersonation fraud by voters at the polls to be the rarest fraud of all: only 10 cases alleged in 12 years. A 2014 study that examined impersonation fraud both at the polls and by mail ballot found zero instances in the jurisdictions studied. A 2014 study by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, which included a literature review, noted that the studies consistently found “few instances of in-person voter fraud.”
.” USnews.com
In one of the most comprehensive investigations of fraud, Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles turned up 31 credible instances of voter impersonation out of more than 1 billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014. Some of those cases may have been because of clerical errors. Levitt’s investigation suggests that while voter impersonation does indeed happen, it happens so rarely that the rate is approximately one instance out of ever 32 million ballots cast.
The 2008 study used by JustFact (and which the authors thereof caution aginst drawing conclusions) was based on surveying 1000 people (…..”half of the questionnaire consists of Team Content designed by each individual participating team and asked of a subset of 1,000 people.” harvard.edu)
Finally, the authors of the study that was used to rationalize this wild claim state: “The survey showed that 339 identified themselves as noncitizens — about 1 percent of the total respondents. Then of the 339 self-identified noncitizens, 39 of those claim to have voted, said Brian Schaffner, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, one of the main researchers.
That’s 39 respondents out of 32,800 people who are now being used to extrapolate millions of illegal voters. Schaffner has warned that with a subset that small, the responses might be unreliable.
“Survey respondents occasionally select the wrong response by accident—perhaps because they are rushing through and not reading the questions carefully, because they do not fully understand the terminology being used, or because they simply click on the wrong box on the page,” Schaffner wrote in a Politico magazine article after the November election.”
The argument that Trump is legitimate because nearly 6 million illegal votes were cast for Clinton is not only totally debunked by half a dozen more recent studies but it implicitly admits (as does Trump’s claim) that if the claim is not true, then he is not legitimate, for certainly, the minority cannot confer consent on behalf of the majority.
Facts bore you.
The claim of 5.8 million illegal voters (risking 5 yrs in prison for casting 1 vote out of 130 million) is not a fact but an extrapolation from a right wing “study” based on the comments of 136 out of 32,000, a study that has been repudiated by the researchers from whom the data was taken. When the researchers requestioned the 136 (odd that someone admitting a serious felony would give accurate name and address), they found that many were citizens and that 100 mistakes (none of those claiming to vote illegally could be found on voting records) were most likely mistakes.
100 mistakes out of 32,000 is 0.3 percent of the time…..highly likely give that the claims could not be supported by voitng records.
You may be committing 2-3 felonies a day; most don’t and those denied legal status have only half the rate of incarceration as US natives.
I embrace facts but the extropolation cited is not a fact or even a verifiable assumption. It is pure pro-Trump propaganda, intended to make his rule appear legitimate.
It is not: nearly 2/3 of Americans disapprove of him.
“a 2005 statewide study in Ohio found four instances of ineligible persons voting or attempting to vote in 2002 and 2004, out of 9 million votes cast. An investigation of fraud allegations in Wisconsin in 2004 led to the prosecution of 0.0007 percent of voters. From 2002 to 2005, the Justice Department found, only five people were convicted for voting multiple times. In that same period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for improper voting.”
The idea that people would give name and address while admitting to a serious felony is absurd. “Both federal and state laws include stiff fines and imprisonment for voter fraud. Under federal law, perpetrators face up to five years in prison and a fine of $10,000 for each act of fraud. In Alabama, voter fraud is punishable by up to two years in prison and a $2,000 fine. In Wisconsin, the punishment is up to 31 / 2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Missouri imposes a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. And in Texas, the maximum prison sentence is 10 years.”
“Yes, I committed a crime for which I can go to prison for 5 years; here is my name and address.”
The claim that nearly 6 million people (who it is further claimed voted for Clinton) risked 5 years in prison for ONE vote out of 135 million cast is laughable.
Such are the gullible of whom Trump said: ” “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” He thinks you are idiots and would believe any bullshit he told you.
“The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.” –Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:127
“The will of the people… is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.” –Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waring, 1801. ME 10:236
“The measures of the fair majority… ought always to be respected.” –Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792. ME 8:397
“I subscribe to the principle, that the will of the majority honestly expressed should give law.” –Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793. ME 1:332
This is the principle of our founding document.
Trump is Oath bound to PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND the US Constitution. He can sign an unconstitutional law, but he may NOT enforce it or have it enforced against the American people. He is required to see that all Laws (capital “L” denotes a constitutional legislature/law/statute/etc) are enforced. He is also required to refuse to enforce or commit any other unconstitutional action – such as wars that were NOT declared by those that serve within the Congress. What he can do is use his position to have those people who created that unconstitutional law removed and charged with the felony and Perjury that it is.
But understand, that he needs the American people to back up every constitutional act he does or they will find a way to remove him illegally or by assassination. Then we will have another that we must start requiring answers to, requiring prosecution for.
Why would a person of principle sign a law he considered unconstitutional when he had the right to veto it? Why would anyone support a President who signs unconstitutional laws.
He already committed the mother of all war crimes, attacking another nation that was an imminent threat without either advice and consent of Congress or a UN Security Counsel approval. Why would anyone support a war criminal?
“Why would a person of principle sign a law he considered unconstitutional…”
Because it is only unconstitutional if it is applied to the general American. In other words, it can be used as enforcement or a requirement against those who serve within our governments, etc.
But it was not Pres Trump who created the unconstitutional “law”. It is OUR duty to call the creator(s) of that “law” to account.
Understand that for it, or any other, to be Lawful it must have been created by those that serve within the House of Representatives and the Senate, no other agency, person, office, or branch. Agencies, people can ASSIST by researching, etc what is needed for the “law”, but ALL (Literally “All”) legislation that is to be LAWFULLY binding on the American people MUST have been created by those who serve within the House of Reps/Senate. Everything else is *”color of law”, fake law/legislation.
*Color of law: “The appearance or semblance, without the substance, of legal right. Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only
because wrongdoer is clothed with authority of state, is action taken under “color of law.” Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, page 241.
What that means is that there is NO agency or person, or branch besides the House of Representatives and the Senate which is NAMED in writing within the US Constitution, Article 1 as the ONLY ones who can LAWFULLY create any legislation to be used against the people.
So can the IRS make laws/codes/statues/legislation that can LAWFULLY be held against the people – NO. Nor can they create a “law”, implement it, enforce it, and decide guilt/innocence LAWFULLY. All of those are separate powers of the different branches. Each must be done by a separate body of the different branches with the people themselves deciding guilt/innocence (jury).
Can any agency make a code, statute, rule, law, etc that is to be held against the America people? NO! But can they be enforced against the American people? Yes, but NOT Lawfully (capital “L” always refers to constitutional Law). What happens is ignorant enforcers or willing traitors to our legitimate government enforce them which then makes the enforcers *Terrorists.
*28 C.F.R. Section 0.85 Terrorism is defined as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”.
Hope this clarifies that. Basically those who serve within our government can be held accountable by others who serve within our government in ways that CANNOT be Lawfully used against the American people.
WHY would a President sign an unconstitutional law, since he has taken an oath to protect the Constitution.
He has the power/choice to veto or sign. He is in violation of oath if he signs a bill he considers unconstitutional. The fact that the law originated in
Congress does not excuse his signing it……..Congress clearly does NOT consider it unconstitutional so it is not violating its oath or principles.
Trump is. How can he pretend he is defending the Constitution if he signs a bill he thinks is unconstitutional. Legalistic spin only obscures this question and does not answer it. He should resign for violating his oath.
1. If the President signs an illegal act, he is NOT protecting the Constitution.
2. If he refuses to “faithfully execute” the law, he is in violation of the Constitution.
you are defending the indefensible.
the totalitarian tiptoe…they tiptoe the law into the books…they randomly enforce it here and there…they look to see if there is an outcry…if there is they back off and wait…if not they tiptoe their tyranny a little bit further…
paraoia strkes deep
it starts when your home isn’t free.
The State Deep or otherwise, does not give shit about feeding cats or lemonades stands. They care about starting wars and ripping people off thru corporate fascism.
The odd abuses of power ‘they (the anonymous source of all evil for the paranoid0i” would gladly join with you in condemning if it kept you focused on irrelevant issues rather than the fact that we have an illegitimate government, we are deeply in debt, we are engaged in criminal wars, we are destroying the environment.
The lemonade stand or cat feeding frenzy is a welcome distraction from the issues that enslave us . Paranoia is the useful idiot of corporate fascism, keeping people afraid of undocumented immigrants (the most crime-free part of the population), fear of terrorism which is mostly right wing), fear mongering about losing our precious guns, abortion,etc. Meanwhile,THEY are picking our pockets and starting criminal wars in our name.
The key to totalitarian rule,as Goebbels wrote in Principles of Propaganda, ad which Trump learned well reading the speeches of Hitler,is to “displace anger onto target populations,” focus hatred on the most defenseless groups; for the Nazis it was the Jews, for the Trumpites, it is the Mexicans and refugees, the two most vulnernable and law-abiding groups in the nation.
Focusing on petty abuses is a distractioin, not a gateway to greater enslavement. it enslaves the mind by displacing genuine concerns with petty abuses that are, in fact, very rare.
vote them all out of office
Ha ha…”they hate us for our freedom” ? Can’t use that line anymore.
But they have bleeding hearts for the illegals “breaking the law”. The criminals can can go to sanctuary city’s. But don’t you dare feed a feral cat!
Actually, people who feed and support the existence of invasive species feral cats can be fined and convicted under all bio-warfare and bio-terrorism laws if anyone really wanted to push for that. (The punishment for those crimes and sins against all of nature and all of humanity used to be hanged-until-dead. They need to bring that back for outdoor cat-hoarders.) Go ahead, look up the legal definitions of those terms. People who let cats roam free are in direct violation of both of those crimes and sins against nature and humanity. On a two-fold level no less — their cats are directly destroying all animal life around them AND all the zoonotic diseases they spread with their community-vermin disease-infested cats that destroy all other lives around them. Many of cats’ 3dozen+ deadly zoonotic diseases are ALREADY listed as bio-terrorism agents for having no vaccines against them. THAT would be a fitting punishment for all of them. Maybe then they’d “get it”.
I’ve spent several years working for a 501(c)(3) in Palo Cedro, CA– The Assisi Sanctuary (for anyone who cares to donate, you can look it up online). We’ve captured, spay-neutered and released hundreds of cats, so I can speak to this issue with some level of experience. The capture, spay-neuter & release strategy works by reducing population growth (provided that you can get ahead of the birth rate) and releasing feral cats back into their original area has a way of blocking new cats from intruding into their territories. After that, attrition will reduce the population though health issues, accidents and predation by larger animals.
Our CEO didn’t like that choice, so we gave many of them homes in our rescue complex. About 90% of those feral cats are now able to be handled after months or years of regular food and loving care. Some are quite affectionate in fact. We also work hand in hand with other organizations with similar goals, like Another Chance Animal Welfare League in Palo Cedro and the Haven Humane Society in Redding, California. Networking helps to establish comprehensive programs even if all you have are volunteers.
Fining this couple in Kansas City is a thoughtless solution, especially if they were participating in a capture, spay-neuter & release program. Most municipal animal shelters and Humane Society outlets do not have the funding and manpower available to do this. Much of this work is done by devoted volunteers. I have seen areas of Redding, CA and Red Bluff where the feral cat populations were so out of control that consideration has been given to extreme measures; including mass trapping and extermination. That flies in the face of what a humane society would find reasonable.
In areas where feral cat populations are allowed to thrive without any steps being taken to reduce their population growth, I have personally seen entire flocks of wild quail vanish within two years from depredation by feral cats. Rats and mice are only a small part of their diet in the wild.
Here is glaring proof of how, as cat-hoarders so often and mindlessly respew, “Trap-Neuter-Release is the most effective means of managing feral cat populations. In fact, it is the only proven way to do so.”
The residents of the UK who invented TNR in the 1950’s have been relentlessly practicing that failed ideology nationwide for over 60 years now. And all they have managed to do with TNR is DOUBLE their vermin cat populations — from 4.1 million vermin cats in 1965 to 8.1 million vermin cats in 2015. (One site claims 10.5 million today!) And to help, all this time they are still killing them in shelters and legally shooting them in rural areas under their animal depredation-control laws. By foolishly hoping and praying that their very own TNR concept will reduce vermin cat populations someday they have now even driven their one and only NATIVE cat species to extinction with their invasive-species vermin “moggies” (feral house-cats) — with less than 19 “Scottish Wildcats” left in the whole world. (Along with 421 other species that they have already made extinct in the UK in the last 200 years — OVER TWO SPECIES PER YEAR GONE FOREVER just due to British cultural beliefs, practices, and values.) All the while they still insist that practicing their failed TNR policies will still save their “Scottish Wildcat” from being wiped from the earth forever. You can kiss their “Scottish Wildcat” good-bye too now because 19 individuals is not even enough RNA diversity for a viable/successful species anymore — they are already EXTINCT. (Laughably ironic if it weren’t so pathetically, globally, and permanently sad. The population of the UK have made themselves into the ecological-laughingstocks of the whole world.)
Nice plan. TNR sure does work, doesn’t it!
You know that saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The British have proved the failure of their vermin cat-insanity for over 60 years now. You too can be just as ecologically destructive, ignorant, and just as insane as the inbred mentalities of the Toxoplasma gondii brain-damaged moggie-licking British by practicing and promoting their failed-belief in their TNR concept.
Here too are some wonderful quotes from an article published by their most revered TNR promoters — the very “scientists” that TNR imbeciles always quote out of context to try to support their TNR insanity. Read it and weep.
“Virtually no information exists to support the contention that neutering is an effective long-term method for controlling free-roaming cat populations.”
“Free-roaming cats do not appear to have sufficient territorial activity to prevent new arrivals from permanently joining colonies.”
Levy, Julie K., David W. Gale, and Leslie A. Gale. “Evaluation of the Effect of a Long-Term Trap-Neuter-Return and Adoption Program on a Free-Roaming Cat Population.” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2003, 222(1)
Or these comments from Julie K. Levy’s other study::
“In both counties, results of analyses did not indicate a consistent reduction in per capita growth, the population multiplier, or the proportion of female cats that were pregnant.”
“Implementation of the stage-structured model suggested that no plausible combinations of life history variables would likely allow for TNR to succeed in reducing population size, although neutering approximately 75% of the cats could achieve control (which is unrealistic), a value quite similar to results in the present study.”
Levy, Julie K; “Analysis of the impact of trap-neuter-return programs on populations of feral cats”
Pretty damning conclusion regarding the efficacy of TNR.
“No plausible combinations…. would likely allow for TNR to succeed…”.
In other words – It can’t work.
A Police State is one of the inevitable consequences of government based upon capricious man-made traditions, such as the United States Constitutional Republic. Without the immutable/unchanging standard of Yahweh’s triune moral law (His Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments) law is not only volatile but increasingly more oppressive.
For more on these two polar opposite forms of government, see online Chapter 3 “The Preamble: We the People vs. Yahweh” of “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective.” Click on my name, then our website. Go to our Online Books page, click on the top entry, and scroll down to Chapter 3.
I like it when there is crowdfunding to help people who are being fined for non-offenses like feeding feral cats. But this money should be used to *fight* the fines, repeal or change laws and recall politicians that pass these garbage laws which are really for the purpose of revenue enhancement. Using raised money to pay fines only encourages the bad guys. Fines need to be *fought* not paid.
An informed jury can ” *fight* the fines, repeal or change laws”; while the PEOPLE themselves have the authority for the rest you listed. Go read the US Constitution which is not only the definer of our government, the supreme Law of this land, it is also the supreme contract that EVERYONE who serves within our governments – state and federal – are bound by Oath and the requirements of the position they occupy to support and defend it. State Constitutions are the highest LAW and contract of that state with only the US Constitution, in matters that is written within it, is the supreme.
First, why was this NOT a jury trial? If being put on trial, always insist upon an INFORMED JURY trial. Let me list the reasons why this should ALWAYS be the case, and why everyone who is called to jury should make sure that they are INFORMED jurists.
The jury are one of the tests a law must pass before it assumes enough popular “authority” to be enforced. The US Constitution provides five separate tribunals with veto power — representatives, senate, executive, judges and jury — that each enactment of law must pass before it gains the authority to punish those who choose to violate it. In other words, the JURY also decides if the law is a good law, if the law being used in the case they are on or even if it should be used ever, or if in this case the actions were justified and the law must be ignored; basically the LAW itself is judged by the jury on if it should be used against the people.
James Madison: “In suits at common law, between man and man, the trial by jury, as one of the best securities to the rights of the people, ought to remain inviolate. He continued on to describe that right “as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature.”
In that case involving the civil forfeiture of private property by the state of Georgia, first Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay, Georgia vs. Brailsford, instructed jurors that the jury has “a right … to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.” This was/is the first case that decided that “civil forfeiture” is an unlawful act of those who serve within our governments at any level.
Richard Henry Lee, First Senate: “Trial by jury in civil causes,… trial by jury in criminal causes, [and] the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus… all stand on the same footing; they are the common rights of Americans.”
John Adams, first proponent of the Declaration of Independence and Second President, 1771 2 Life and Works of John Adams 253-255 (C.F. Adams ed. 1856): “It is not only [the juror’s] right, but his duty…. to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience even though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”
John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, charging the jury in Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 Dallas 1, 4, (U.S. 1794).: “You [the jurors] have, nevertheless, a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.”
Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, People v. Croswell, 3 Johns Cas. 361, 362 (1804) as reprinted in Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 167 U.S. at 146-148, dissenting opinion, (1895).: “That in criminal cases, the law and fact being always blended, the jury, for reasons of a political and peculiar nature, for the security of life and liberty, is entrusted with the power of deciding both law and fact.”
Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine: “I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man,
by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald: “By a declaration of rights I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by juries in all cases…”
Alexander Hamilton: “The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty.”
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 1979: “The founders of our nation considered the right of trial by jury in civil cases an important bulwark against tyranny and corruption, a ‘safeguard too precious to be left to the whim of the sovereign.'”
Abolitionist lawyer Lysander Spooner explained the doctrine in Trial By Jury in 1852, page one: “For more than six hundred years – that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 – there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law; and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.”
The predictable instructions by the judge to the jury would most likely declare that if proceedings proved that one had broken or violated the law then the jury therefore, in light of offered evidence, sworn testimony, and one’s own confession, “must convict”, and that then that one must face the court’s appropriate sentence according to scheduled penalties for said crime. That is the customary way it is done in America’s countless courtrooms today.
“If the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant violated the law, you must convict” is the usual and general instruction to the jury by the judge.
But the truth is that the jury has every right to decide that in this particular case, in this particular courtroom, regardless of the facts brought against one and even ones own confession, the law itself, under
scrutiny of each juror’s conscience, may be nullified and rendered inapplicable in that courtroom, in the case. The jury is quite free to, and empowered by law to, weigh other concerns, such as these two
important facts which the court’s instructions to the jury usually omit:
1) there is no victim in the “crime”; and,
2) the law itself denies one the full and constitutionally-protected right of self-ownership (in the juries eyes).
A jury of one’s peers, who of course would be aware individual sovereigns, could, if that jury was so inspired by its collective conscience, excuse ones marijuana-smoking, etc on the grounds that as an American citizen I am expected to own my body as any self-owner would, and that the anti-marijuana law itself deprived me of ownership over my own body by seeking to dictate what I may and may not put into my
body. In such a case the jury simply would nullify the law right there in the courtroom in open defiance of the instructions of the court, and set me free.”
Hypothetical example of the power inherent in America’s twelve-person jury system, and it is one of the last strongholds against tyranny-by-government that still remains for us today. (cannot remember who to give credit to, but paraphrased their data here.)
Go read FISA to learn what an informed juror is so that you can actively take part in holding those who serve within our governments accountable for their actions. No judge has the LAWFUL power to tell you otherwise, and if one is so told otherwise, then that judge must be held accountable for NOT using the “good Behaviour” required of them while serving.
I see more comments here about cats than I do on more serious stuff. Don’t get me wrong I like/care for animals but I like humans even more especially those whom are innocent and are dying because of war. Humans (children) who hunger when they go to bed at night have a place in my heart.
Sorry about this rant. I wish to not offend anyone but it bothers me when some people act like they like/love their pets more than humans. The US has outlawed feeding the homeless and now cats. What is next? Better question is when will we put our foot down and say enough is enough from oppressive govts?