The Left's continued push to control every aspect of your life thwarted, for now

TRUMP ENDS AFFH

The Trump administration has ditched the Obama administration’s “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule (AFFH). As we have often reported, AFFH is a vast social engineering project that enables the federal government to order more than 1,200 cities and counties that accept any part of annual community development block grants to rezone neighborhoods along income and racial criteria. It thus allows unaccountable federal bureaucrats to dictate who lives where, in order to create racially and economically balanced neighborhoods. It effectively abolishes self-government in the suburbs.

I’m surprised that it took the Trump administration three-and-half years to revoke AFFH. To be fair, though, Ben Carson’s Department of Housing and Urban Development effectively rendered AFFH a dead letter during those three-and-half years. The important thing was to take it off the books before Trump leaves office. 

With that now accomplished, AFFH can become an important issue in the presidential election. The Biden campaign will claim that scrapping it is evidence that Trump supports housing discrimination — more evidence of his alleged racism.

But housing discrimination is the refusal to allow people, because of their race, to live in units they can afford to buy or rent. It’s not housing discrimination for a town to abstain, for example, from building low income housing in an affluent area, as has been mandated under AFFH.

That’s why, as Stanley Kurtz observes, Democrats don’t want to talk about what is actually in Obama’s AFFH. It isn’t about preventing housing discrimination, it’s about telling Americans where and how to live. 

The Trump campaign’s task will be explain this to voters. The issue is a technical one in ways that defunding the police, for example, isn’t. Even if the Democrats can’t make the racism charge stick, they can muddy the waters.

That’s why I agree with Stanley that “what’s needed now is a presidential speech explaining what Obama-Biden’s AFFH really did, why it was right to end it, and what will happen to the suburbs if Joe Biden brings his AFFH back.” The speech might also explain that Biden has embraced ideas for federal control of housing that go even further than AFFH.

For now, Trump has taken the necessary first step to make AFFH a campaign issue. America’s suburbs are thought by many to hold the key to the presidential race. Trump now has an issue that, potentially, will resonate strongly in his favor with suburban voters. 

FEC boss who tried to muzzle Drudge now on Soros payroll

Advocates target Twitter political accounts for regulation. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

The former chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, who famously eyed regulating the politics of conservative outlets like the Drudge Report, has joined an advocacy group funded by George Soros and run by his son.

Ann Ravel is the first fellow listed with the California advocacy group New America.

Her fellowship began in March and pays a $30,000 stipend.

"We want to help amplify the work of each of our fellows, both to help them better articulate and reach their target audience, and to raise their profiles as change-makers," according to the group.

Since leaving the FEC, Ravel has continued to speak out for more election regulation,especially on the internet where she sees political advertising shifting to in the next presidential contest.

She has applauded calls for regulating political speech and spending on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and this week endorsed tracing the funding of online ads and regulating individual Twitter accounts.

In a tweet, for example, she drew attention to a report of a Twitter supporter of Donald Trump named "Amy" who the San Francisco Examiner could not find.

Ravel tweeted, "Searching for proof of Amy. FEC allows anonymous internet political ads & refuses to regulate foreign $-leads 2 this."

New America receives funding from the Soros group Open Society Foundations and it is run by Soros son Jonathan Soros.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com

How perfection becomes the enemy of the good....Is this what the ADA was meant to do?

Government over-regulation forces university to delete 20,000 free online educational videos

Brandon Morse  Mar 9, 2017 6:07 pm

BERKELEY, CA - APRIL 17: UC Berkeley students walk through Sather Gate on the UC Berkeley campus April 17, 2007 in Berkeley, California. Robert Dynes, President of the University of California, said the University of California campuses across the state will reevaluate security and safety policies in the wake of the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead, including the gunman, 23 year-old student Cho Seung-Hui. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) 

According to Inside Higher Education, The University of Berkeley was forced to delete 20,000 online educational videos and podcasts due to violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Employees from Gallaudet University, a Washington D.C. school for the deaf, had filed a complaint with the Justice Department about Berkeley’s vast library of content being unavailable for consumption by those with hearing disabilities. The Justice Department investigated, and found that the content was indeed violating the law, and ordered that the university make the material more friendly for the deaf.

These materials include:

16 MOOCs available in March and April 2015 and another 10 in January of this year. The Justice Department also based its analysis on reviews of 543 videos on Berkeley’s YouTube channel, and on 99 lectures in 27 courses on iTunes U.

Going through all this content and adding the necessary material to bring this content up to par would have been extremely time consuming and expensive. So it was that the university decided to just delete all the free public content.

“In many cases the requirements proposed by the department would require the university to implement extremely expensive measures to continue to make these resources available to the public for free,” Koshland wrote in a Sept. 20 statement. “We believe that in a time of substantial budget deficits and shrinking state financial support, our first obligation is to use our limited resources to support our enrolled students. Therefore, we must strongly consider the unenviable option of whether to remove content from public access.”

While the law is the law, this content is now only available to those fortunate enough to attend Berkeley, cutting off any access to those without the means or background necessary to be there. As Reason’s Robby Soave states, “I can’t imagine the authors of the ADA intended to destroy a valuable public resource because it wasn’t perfectly accessible to all, but here we are. Taking the quality out of equality: that’s clumsy federal regulation for you.”

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Time to reign in Federal overreach...Planned Parenthood profits more important then human dignity? For the Left, absolutely!

Federal judge halts controversial Texas abortion rule

A federal judge temporarily blocked the state of Texas on Thursday from implementing a new rule requiring burial or cremation for fetal remains following an abortion or miscarriage, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The Chronicle reported that U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued a temporary restraining order against the new rule, which would have gone into effect Monday.

The temporary restraining order follows a lawsuit to halt the rule filed by pro-choice organizations and activists.

TheBlaze previously reported that supporters of the rule contend that it protects both the dignity of unborn children and public health. Opponents argue that the rule is an effort to increase the costs associated with abortion, which will restrict access to the procedure.

Abortion clinics, which typically dispose of fetal remains as medical waste, would be subject to the rule. Women who suffer miscarriages at home would be exempt.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott authorized the new regulation, arguing that fetal remains should not be “treated like medical waste and disposed of in landfills,” according to the Texas Tribune.

The Center for Reproductive Rights applauded the judge’s decision.

“We are pleased that the court has prevented these outrageous restrictions from going into effect in Texas, where they would have created immediate and dangerous new barriers on women’s access to health care,” David Brown, the organization’s senior staff attorney, said in a statement. “We look forward to demonstrating that these regulations are unwise, unjustified and unconstitutional, and should be permanently struck down.”

According to the Tribune, Texas Assistant Attorney General John Langley said during Thursday’s hearing that disposing of fetal remains as medical waste “is disrespectful.”

“The issue here today is whether or not the plaintiffs can show immediate threat of irreparable harm and they cannot,” Langley said. “These regulations in no way, in any way shape or form, regulate women. They only regulate health care facilities.”

Additional hearings about the rule will take place in the new year.

Tyranny and junk science all wrapped up in one regulation.

Feds to Fine Schools for Not Following Michelle Obama’s Lunch Rules

Proposed reg would punish schools for ‘egregious or persistent disregard’
for sodium limits

/ AP

BY: Elizabeth Harrington 
March 28, 2016 2:40 pm

The federal government is taking steps to fine schools that do not comply with first lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service issued a proposed ruleMonday to codify parts of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by Mrs. Obama.

The regulation would punish schools and state departments with fines for “egregious or persistent disregard” for the lunch rules that imposed sodium and calorie limits and banned white grains.

A West Virginia preschool teacher was threatened with fines for violating the rules by rewarding her students with candy for good behavior in June 2015. The teacher ultimately did not have to pay, but the school had to develop a “corrective action plan” with training on the policies.

The government now seeks to make fines enforceable by regulation. Section 303 of the law requires that the federal government “establish criteria for the imposition of fines” for all the Department of Agriculture’s child food programs.

“Under section 303, the Secretary or a State agency may establish an assessment against any school food authority or school administering the Child Nutrition Programs if the Secretary or the State agency determines that the school or school food authority failed to correct severe mismanagement of any program, failed to correct repeated violations of program requirements, or disregarded a requirement of which they have been informed,” the proposed rule states.

The government insisted that fines would be limited only to schools, school food authorities, and state agencies that have “failed to correct severe mismanagement of any program, disregarded a requirement of which it has been informed, or failed to correct repeated violations of program requirements.”

“It is important to note that the statutory scheme only anticipates assessments be established in instances of severe mismanagement of a program, disregard of a program requirement of which the program operator had been informed, or failure to correct repeated violations [emphasis in original],” according to the proposed regulation. “These criteria suggest that violations that would result in assessments would be egregious or persistent in nature, remaining unresolved after the normal monitoring and oversight activities have failed to secure corrective action.”

The Food and Nutrition Service is targeting schools that refuse to comply with Mrs. Obama’s lunch rules and said monetary penalties are a “useful tool” to get noncompliant cafeterias in line.

“However, there have been cases, albeit few, where program operators have failed to correct Program violations through the normal administrative review requirements and technical assistance,” the agency said. “This proposed rule would provide both the Department and State agencies the authority to establish an assessment after the normal monitoring and oversight activities have been unsuccessful in correcting program violations.”

“The Department anticipates assessments would be established only on rare occasions in securing corrective action,” they added. “However, it should serve as a useful tool when egregious or persistent disregard of Program requirements occurs.”

The fines would be the latest consequence of the healthy eating law that Mrs. Obama lobbied for in 2010. More than 1.4 million students have left the lunch line since the rules went into effect, as students have complained of small portions and unappetizing fare. The standards have been blamed for cafeteria workers losing their jobs, and some kids have even resorted to creating black markets for salt to add flavor.

Calling the fines an “assessment” against a school, the agency said the fines would amount to 1 percent of the total amount the school was reimbursed for lunches for the first fine. A second fine would equal up to 5 percent of the total meal reimbursements, and 10 percent for a third or subsequent fine.

The fines could be hefty if an entire state agency were flagged for persistent violations. For instance, Alabama received $210,937,195 in cash payments through the school lunch program in 2015. One percent would total $2.1 million. A 10 percent fine would cost $21 million.

The Food and Nutrition Service did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed rule, or how much the estimated fines would total.

The agency said in the proposed regulation that the fines are “intended to improve the integrity.”

The proposed rule would also apply to private organizations participating in federal childcare nutrition programs, including “institutions, sites, sponsors, day care centers, and day care providers.”

The agency said they would allow schools to appeal the fines “given the fiscal consequences of this provision.” The rule would also give the agency the authority to terminate any school’s participation in the National School Lunch Program if they do not pay the fines.

Increased monitoring of state agencies as a result of the rule would cost states $4.3 million in 2017, and $22.7 million over five years.

The rule will be open for public comment for 60 days once it is officially published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.

The real goal here has more to do with government control of private enterprise then equal pay. The decision of what is equal is subjective and so it becomes a tool of the government to reward and punish.

Another Bogus Effort To Bridge The Phony Gender Pay Gap 

With Lilly Ledbetter looking on, President Barack Obama signs executive actions aimed at closing a compensation gender gap that supposedly favors men at the White House on April 8, 2014. The signing was timed to mark Equal Pay Day. (AP)

• 1/29/2016 6:16 PM EST

Politics: Using executive orders, President Obama has placed an intrusive new requirement on private employers to provide data about employee wages, gender and ethnicity to “help” enforcers of pay equity and spy on business. This is not about equality, it’s about making big government even bigger.

“Women are not getting the fair shot that we believe every single American deserves,” the president declared, a statement so cynical, an Emory University professor quoted by NBC speculated that it was a likely bid to boost Hillary Clinton’s flailing campaign for president. “What kind of example does paying women less set for our sons and daughters?” Obama asked. His office made a big deal about his signing the new rule on the anniversary of the first law he signed as president, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

This new rule — it’s not a law — will create a massive legal fishing expedition against businesses with more than 100 people, a de facto subpoena for such firms with the presumption of guilt to find “violations” based on highly questionable data about the gender pay gap. It’s also another federal invasion of the privacy of  63 million American workers, whose salary data will now be out there, with or without their consent.

“This step,” the White House press release said, “will help focus public enforcement of our equal pay laws,” as if that were needed, given the size and scope of Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The White House also said that the rule’s purpose was to “provide better insight into discriminatory pay practices across industries and occupations.”

There’s just one problem: It’s all based on junk data.

The prevailing myth, perpetrated by even the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, which issued a brief on the matter Friday, is that women earn only 79 cents on the dollar to men, the result of woman-hating discrimination. Exhibit A of this claim is found not in the private sector but in the White House itself. It pays its female employees 13% less than their male counterparts. One staffer, Anita Dunn, called it “a genuinely hostile workplace for women.”

But studies repeatedly show that the discrimination mantra is a myth. Manhattan Institute scholar Diana Furchtgott-Roth has done considerable research on the matter, finding that the conventional wisdom about women getting less pay for equal work, being discouraged from taking higher-paying jobs and being subject to a “glass ceiling” on advancement are all false.

The studies, she has noted, lump men and women working different numbers of hours above the 35-hour full-time mark, create vastly distorted results. They also lump together dirty, dangerous, physically demanding and disagreeable jobs dominated by men with more conventional lines of work, ignoring the compensation required for the higher stress and physical risk.

Meanwhile, they ignore that many female workers prefer to work part-time and take leaves of absence to fulfill family duties. Those are free choices, and they can contribute to differing levels of pay for comparable work. “It’s not the ‘glass ceiling’ that keeps women out of the corner office, it’s a choice of how much time and effort to put into one’s career,” wrote Furchtgott-Roth in a 2012 essay for MarketWatch.

She notes that in some areas, women’s pay exceeds that of men — particularly for those who work 30-34 hours a week, as well as those who enter fields with low female representation, commanding higher salaries based on the laws of supply and demand. In fact, accounting for all of these variables, Furchtgott-Roth finds that there is virtually no difference in the pay scales of men and women doing equal work.

Which is why Obama’s executive orders are likely to change nothing in pay equity. All they are going to do is politicize the process, vastly expanding the powers of the federal government to fish up new data to obtain the result they want. It’s nothing but another power grab.

What top down authoritarianism looks like. Let no one dissent from the Party line even if the Planned Parenthood is violating the same laws..

U.S. warns states against defunding Planned Parenthood

WASHINGTON | BY MEGAN CASSELLA

A Planned Parenthood clinic is seen in Vista, California, August 3, 2015. 

REUTERS/MIKE BLAKE

The U.S. government has warned states moving to defund women's health group Planned Parenthood that they may be in conflict with federal law, officials said on Wednesday.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency, was in contact with officials in Louisiana and Alabama this month, said a spokesperson for the agency's parent, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

The agency warned those two states that their plans to terminate Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood may illegally restrict beneficiary access to services, the spokesperson said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood has been at the center of a national debate since the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress last month began releasing undercover videos showing doctors discussing the sale of fetal body parts.

Federal law requires state Medicaid programs to cover family-planning services and supplies for anyone of child-bearing age. Ending the agreements with Planned Parenthood would limit beneficiaries' access to care and services from qualified providers of their choice, according to HHS.

Medicaid is a U.S. government healthcare program for the poor; Medicare is for the aged and disabled.

Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens said in a statement on Wednesday that moves to eliminate its funding were "political grandstanding." 

"It's good to hear that HHS has clarified what we already know: blocking women’s access to care at Planned Parenthood is against the law," she said.

Anti-abortion activists said that a sixth video, released on Wednesday, shows Planned Parenthood doctors sell aborted fetal tissue to researchers without the mother's permission.

As it has for weeks, Planned Parenthood said it has done nothing wrong.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, one of 17 contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, earlier this month was the first to lead his state to cut funding of Planned Parenthood, following a failed effort to do that in the U.S. Congress.

On Wednesday, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said in a radio interview that if he became president, he would use the Justice Department to "criminally prosecute" the group.

Carly Fiorina, the only woman in the Republican race, said on CBS the group should be "defunded immediately."

Billionaire businessman Donald Trump, another Republican candidate, said on Tuesday abortions should not be federally funded, but he "would look at the good aspects of" Planned Parenthood.

"I'm sure they do some things properly," he told CNN. "We have to take care of women."

Understanding the core issues in Baltimore.

Po-Po and the Missing Papas

By Deborah C. Tyler


The rage of Baltimore's ghetto boys against cops is not due to an epidemic of police killing black men. That's a big lie of the left
wing. It is mainly caused by brainwashing black youth to hate the only effective discipline they have had in their lives. Subjecting ghetto youth to any discipline is a threat to the idea that they cannot be responsible citizens. Law enforcement in the ghetto is a threat to the creed of victimization, which wealthy, privileged black leaders use to subjugate and control people.
The recent image of Baltimore's “heroine” mother ineffectually flailing against her hoodied teenage son reminds us of the natural limitations women face trying to control boys. What spirited boy would retreat to a fatherless, airless crib with five noisy sisters running the show when all the males he admires have taken over the streets?
It is a healthy impulse for a boy to want to associate himself with masculine energy and escape the world of distaff drama and hair-obsessionality. Fathers have a special authority that instills pride and honor in their sons, and also a natural willingness to relinquish the governing aspects of that authority as the boy achieves his own honorable manhood. The closest absent father ghetto experience you have of masculine authority on a daily basis is invested in men whom everyone despises and trash-talks. You call him po-po, a term of derision of the police, but everybody sleeps better at night because they know he is out there watching.
Even though you don't like the way he looks you over, po-po has always been the only reliable male authority in your life who upholds rules and answers his phone. You can't deny he is the only one with the physical courage to take down out-of-control people with his own hands. Above all, po-po has been the only one who acts as if you're not the helpless victim of your life. He alone says, “Man, you don't have to do this mess.”
Police as father substitutes have been in the lives of ghetto boys from the first cha-ching on mamma's welfare card. And ghetto is the correct term. “Inner city” is a prog-speak euphemism. People of all races and backgrounds live in inner cities, especially the very rich. But every major American city has a section where the economy is controlled by two kinds of interrelated dependency -- government and drug -- and that is the black ghetto. The left-wing leaders whose power and wealth derive from that self- reinforcing dual dependency manipulate the people to blame the in loco patres -- the police -- rather than question why all the billions poured into the hood don't help.
In the face of massive rioting, Baltimore said blame the police and “bring in the mommas.” Three black mommas failed to enforce the law and appealed to the lowest instincts of the mob. Momma #1, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, said, “If three black women can't bring healing... I don't know who will.” She doesn’t know much. After fifty years of affirmative action in education, which has ultimately helped make fathers irrelevant, it is questionable if the mayor understands that black skin and female sex are not the answers to the terrible problems of the Baltimore ghetto. She clearly doesn't know she entered into a criminal conspiracy with a violent mob by ordering the police to give it “space to destroy.” Momma is there to heal. How many of the reportedly 100 injured police officers are fathers? She served them up like meat to the mob.
No healing for the black, Asian and Jewish fathers who lost their means to support their children in the destruction that Rawlings-Blake promoted. The racism that butters her brioche says black fathers don't need to work to support their own children, they need even more programs funded by their white oppressors.
Momma #2, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, raised without a father, promised the mob the revenge it wanted. It is dreadful to hear a state's attorney circumvent the protections of a grand jury and fulminate about “No justice, no peace.” I will get you payback, said Momma #2, who in a matter of hours speed-dialed a list of charges to gratify the mob. What's next? The guillotine?
Momma #3, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, went to Baltimore on May 5 and said, “We're here to hold your hands.” Another

healer. If you have broken bones or a destroyed business you worked years to build, the offer of Loretta Lynch's hand is an insult. What a dereliction for the nation's top law enforcement officer to offer emotional support for lawbreakers at a massive crime scene. It sets the stage for her department to fail to prosecute crimes committed by black people, just like Eric Holder's dereliction. Lynch visited the deceased heroin dealer's family. His is the only name that suits her politics. Nobody knows how he died. Everybody knows what caused the death of the NYC cop the same day as Lynch's healing. But Momma #3 didn't think he was worth mentioning by name.
Mothers are more likely to try to excuse the bad behavior of their children. Fathers are less given to hand holding and healing when their sons behave badly. It is in the nature of men who are not respected in their home to leave. It was essential that fatherhood be destroyed for ghetto life to sink to its current level of crime and dependency. But rudimentary behavioral control functions that are essential for survival were going to be provided somehow. Police are described as a thin blue line against violence. Police in the ghetto are also a psychological line against the excuses of white racism and black victimization, which are the explanatory blithering of progressive apologetics for black crime.
With the moral code destroyed, the po-po are the most important group still acting as if young people there are capable of obeying a legal code. Police do the work of behavioral control that should be done by fathers. They are the ghost of fatherhood lost, the last group of public workers who don't have to submit to the vast victimization hoax that whitey hasn't sent enough money for you to learn how to read; whitey hasn't come across enough for you to control your own breeding; and especially, that in your downtrodden state you can't be expected to obey the law.
But good cops cannot replace good dads. Here is an axiom for human relationships: if you do the work you get the blame. Urban police, many of whom are black, do the dangerous work of protecting black people from each other. They absorb the misdirected rage of young people who have been exploited, deceived and dehumanized by their own leaders, and abandoned by their own fathers. 

Obama's tyranny on display. Making the narrative that anyone not in lockstep with this government is a threat.

FEDS RAID TEXAS POLITICAL MEETING

Fingerprint, photograph all attendees, seize phones

Members of the Republic of Texas, a secession movement dedicated to restoring Texas as an independent constitutional republic, had gathered Feb. 14 in a Bryan, Texas, meeting hall along with public onlookers. They were debating issues of currency, international relations and celebrating the birthday of one of their oldest members. The group, which describes itself as “congenial and unimposing,” maintains a small working government, including official currency, congress and courts.

According to MySanAntonio.com: “Minutes into the meeting a man among the onlookers stood and moved to open the hall door, letting in an armed and armored force of the Bryan Police Department, the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office, agents of the Texas district attorney, the Texas Rangers and the FBI.

“In the end, at least 20 officers corralled, searched and fingerprinted all 60 meeting attendees, before seizing all cellphones and recording equipment in a Valentine’s Day 2015 raid on the Texas separatist group.”

“We had no idea what was going on,” said John Jarnecke, president of the Republic of Texas. “We knew of nothing that would warrant such an action.”

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Information Liberation noted, “The pretext of the raid was that two individuals from the group had reportedly sent out ‘simulated court documents’ — summonses for a judge and a banker to appear before the Republic of Texas to discuss the matter of a foreclosure. These ‘simulated documents’ were rejected and the authorities decided to react with a ‘show of force’ – 20 officers and an extremely broad search warrant.”

The invalid court summons was signed by Susan Cammak, a Kerr County homeowner, and David Kroupa, a Republic of Texas judge from Harris County.

The search warrant against the Republic of Texas authorized the seizure of “all computers, media storage, software, cell phones and paper documents.” Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer said the seized devices “will be downloaded and reviewed to determine if others conspired in the creation and issuance of false court documents.”

Police searched and fingerprinted each person at the meeting, but they did not perform cheek-swab DNA testing as the warrant allowed.

“You can’t just let people go around filing false documents to judges trying to make them appear in front of courts that aren’t even real courts,” Hierholzer, who led the operation, told the Houston Chronicle.

“The Republic has a lengthy list of qualms with the federal government, among them that Texas was illegally annexed in 1845,” wrote the Houston Chronicle. “But most of their complaints have to do with the behavior of the American legislature and executive. Robert Wilson, a senator in the Republic, equated politicians in Washington, D.C., to the ‘kings and emperors’ of the past, and sees Texas independence as part of a worldwide movement for local control.”

Hierholzer determined a “show of force” consisting of officers from city, county state and federal law enforcement to serve a search warrant for an alleged misdemeanor crime was appropriate due to the potential for physical resistance by the group.

The Houston Chronicle reports, “He said he had worries that some extremists in the group could become violent, citing a 1997 incident when 300 state troopers surrounded an armed Republic leader for a weeklong standoff.”

“Contrary to patently false reports by KBTX that the Republic of Texas and its assemblage were a militia group,” states the Republic of Texas website, “the truth is that the Republic of Texas is a self-determined people attempting to throw off the yoke of military occupation of Texas through peaceful and lawful process.”

“We’ve had years of bad press, but we’re not those people,” said Jarnecke of the 1997 incident. “But yes, we are still making every attempt to get independence for Texas and we’re doing it in a lawful international manner.”

The raid has angered many people. “The tactics used went well beyond what was necessary to address a few individuals over a matter of disputed paperwork,” reported Information Liberation. “It is clear that full-blown raid was performed to intimidate and harass every member of the group. … The irony of the situation is that the thuggish tactics employed by the police and federal government actually validate the concerns of the members of the Republic of Texas and other Americans who would prefer independence from the United States federal government.”

No arrests were made, and the case is still under investigation.

Have any of these people who attended this meeting bombed federal facilities like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn? Leftist terrorism is admired by this administration while free speech is an impediment to their goals.