Batchelder and Faber Hand Kasich Hollow Victory, Ohio Loses

The last time we "resolved" the federal debt crisis and kicked the can down the road, a "super congress" was created and power at the federal level was concentrated into the hands of even fewer people. Here in Ohio, we have done the same thing to our state Assembly and have overturned the will of the People thanks to the leading socialist Repugnants Governor John Kasich and House Speaker Batchelder.

Gongwer News reports that the Ohio Controlling Board has approved Governor Kasich's multi-billion dollar request to appropriate funds to expand Medicaid in Ohio. 

• The Board approved the request with a 5-2 vote, Senator Chris Widener and Representative Ross McGregor voting with the two democrats on the panel and the Kasich appointee who serves as the Board's President.
• Representatives Amstutz and Rosenberger were removed from the Board by Speaker Batchelder earlier in the day in order, perhaps, to make way for a stronger majority vote. They were replaced by Representatives Ross McGregor and John McClain with McGregor joining the majority.
• The only two "no" votes on the panel were Representative McClain and Senator Bill Coley both of whom chose to represent the will of the people and constitutional governance over political expediency.

By ensuring the key "yes" votes on the panel, Speaker Batchelder and Senate President Faber have become the unlikely harbingers of universal health care in a state that overwhelmingly rejected Obamacare in 2011 in the vote for health care freedom. To have swapped their conservative credentials in favor of such a legacy is startling and disappointing, especially for their constituents who have stood at the forefront in the fight against Obamacare in Ohio.

But Batchelder and Faber will not only be remembered for the "end" that they achieved today, but also for the "means" by which it was accomplished. They have allowed for major policy to be made through a quasi-legislative panel most Ohioans had not heard of just a few weeks ago and referred to by Politico as an "obscure Ohio board." Batchelder and Faber have circumvented the very state assembly over which they preside and shunned all checks & balances in the process.

Governor Kasich appears to be in denial over the handling of this issue speaking as if he has operated in concert with the state legislature. But the window dressing he applies only serves to underscore the flimsy nature of his façade,

"Together with the General Assembly we've improved both the quality of care from Medicaid and its value for taxpayers. Today's action takes another positive step in this mutual effort. I look forward to continuing our partnership with the General Assembly to build upon the progress we've already made to make Medicaid work better for Ohioans."Read more from Politico at this link.

The last word has not been spoken in this fight. Maurice Thompson of The 1851 Center for Constitutional Law is prepared to file suit against the Controlling Board's actions as early as Tuesday and will be joined by members of the state assembly who signed a letter of protest against Kasich's maneuvers last week. Thompson's suit will argue that the Controlling Board cannot act contrary to the intent of the state assembly.

Donate to the 1851 Center through their website at this link.

OLC members who fought hard to stop Medicaid expansion cannot help but be disappointed in today's outcome. We should take heart, however, in the effectiveness of our campaign. Governor Kasich only achieved Obamacare's Medicaid expansion through extraordinary means. It was a hollow victory at best, one he can only characterize in false terms. Such a victory should not last if justice has its day.

Thank you to all you who fought so hard to stop Medicaid expansion. Do not let yesterday's loss divert you from our goal. We are on the right side of this battle as the failure of Obamacare reveals itself more and more every day.

In Liberty,

Ted Stevenot

President

Ohio Liberty Coalition

www.ohiolibertycoalition.org 

"Just spoke with Governor @JohnKasich and congratulated him for providing insurance for 270,000 previously uninsured Ohioans." 10/21 Tweet from Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama 

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Case Dismissed: Personhood Ohio Wins Suit

I just got word that the case against Personhood Ohio has been dismissed.  Praise God for giving us this wonderful victory!  Go to www.personhoodohio.com to find out how to help us get enough signatures to get our amendment on the ballot.  The Personhood Amendment is the only proposed legislation in Ohio which would protect every unborn baby in Ohio from being murdered.

Petition Circulating Resumes and Lawsuits Begin!

The Personhood Amendment has been certified and petition circulation has now resumed!  And now we are being sued!

Personhood Ohio is being sued by Healthy Families Ohio (arm of Planned Parenthood) in the Ohio Supreme Court 

Hello friends of Personhood Ohio,

Please pray that this suit will not hold up our efforts to protect every preborn Ohioan. This will probably give us a sledgehammer with the abortion industry in the press. We will make it plain that this suit proves that the Ohio Personhood Amendment is dangerous to the abortion industry. Pray that Ohioans will be offended that the abortion industry doesn’t want to let them even gather signatures for protect the preborn or to vote on the subject of abortion. (They even requested the Personhood Ohio pay for their attorney’s fees!).

With God, all things are possible – especially His will, and it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish (Matt. 18:14).

Patrick Johnston
www.PersonhoodOhio.com
(Please forward far and wide.)

So you want to nullify violations of the Constitution

Be Careful What You Post, part 2

Allegations of Rape in the Military

Andrew Breitbart on the Pigford Case

Click here for part 2.

Become an Inside Poll Worker

An inside poll worker is someone who is appointed to work at the polls on Election Day to make sure that the election is being conducted fairly.  You should become an inside poll worker.  Why?  Well, the following story will illustrate the point.

There were several races in my county in 2010 which were very close.  In one such race, only 23 votes separated the two candidates.  The losing candidate claimed that there were some provisional ballots which were not counted, that should have been.  So the case ended up in federal court (where it does not belong).  The losing candidate claimed that there was some “poll worker error” which resulted in some voters voting in the wrong precinct.  She claimed that the federal court had the right to reverse decision not to count these ballots on the basis of the “equal protection” clause of the 14^th Amendment. 

This is really bad for several reasons.  Whether or not the initial result of the election is eventually reversed is only a minor part of this story.  The real danger is that the Federal court could set a new precedent giving them more authority to get involved in local elections.  Imagine unelected, federal judges telling us how we are supposed to conduct our elections, and in some cases telling us who the winner is! 

It might be too late to stop this dangerous precedent from being handed down by these corrupt judges.  If you become an inside poll worker, you can possibly help to stop future cases from being litigated in similar manner. 

Although I believe that the responsibility of finding the proper polling place belongs to the voter, a poll worker may assist a voter.  Doing so will save a lot--both in saving money spend on lawsuits and by saving us from the tyranny of heavy-handed federal judges.  We want inside poll workers who are fair and unbiased and who will help voters (regardless of their party affiliation) to find their proper polling location if they show up at wrong precinct.  We especially need poll workers who are not registered Democrats to work the polls in heavily Democratic precincts so that there is a balance and the Democrats can’t get away with any funny business.

Being an inside poll worker would basically involve the following:

1.  Completing a poll worker training session

2.  Working the polls on Election Day for the entire 13 hours that the polls are open

Contact your local board of elections for more information.

Be Careful What You Post

The following is an article originally published on the Daily Paul.  The DP also reports that U.S Senate candidate Sharron Angle is also being sued by Righthaven LLC.  Be careful.

Daily Paul / Michael Nystrom Sued by Righthaven LLC in Massive Blogger Copyright Shakedown Submitted by Michael Nystrom on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 23:08  

in Daily Paul Liberty Forum

! Reddit !

The first I heard that I was being sued came in an email from Las Vegas Sun reporter Steve Green. Green and the Las Vegas Sun have been doing a tremendous job covering the saga of Righthaven LLC, a firm that has filed 107 suits against bloggers and website owners since March of this year, including one yesterday against yours truly.

Righthaven's standard shakedown seems to go as follows: The firm goes trolling the web, looking for content that from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that has been reposted on other blogs or websites. Once it finds a match, it acquires the copyright from the Review-Journal, then - without first contacting the accused blogger / website owner - files a lawsuit in Nevada Federal court. The standard damages seem to be for $75,000 and forfeiture of the domain name to Righthaven. I assume that is what I am being sued for as well, though I have yet to see it.

Most of the content on the Daily Paul is user-generated, and my understanding has always been that I am protected by the DMCA against liability for user uploaded content. Under the law, standard procedure is for the copyright holder to contact the website owner and ask that the offending content be removed. This is a request that I have complied with numerous times for other parties. In this particular case, I was never contacted by Righthaven, nor the Las Vegas Review Journal, nor, as far as I can tell, were any of the other 107 defendants.

You can see Steve Green's reportage of the suit against me at the end of this article. 

The sidebar of that article contains an excellent archive of the Green's meticulous documentation of each of the 107 suits filed so far, as well as the relevance of these suits in his September 1 article, Why we are writing about the R-J copyright lawsuits 

Many of the smaller bloggers have settled their cases for a few thousand dollars, leading lawyers to term this operation as a 'shakedown.' Some are unable to settle for that sum, as their websitesdon't make any money at all.

Of great interest to our community is that Alex Jones is also being sued by Righthaven. See here, here, and here. Alex is quoted as saying,

“This claim is totally without merit and appears to be purely predatory and I’m weighing all options with counsel including a possible counterclaim, not just to protect myself from being squeezed but also the other sites that have been sued,” said Jones, who said his national talk show is heard on 60 stations around the country.

Also being sued, according to the Las Vegas Sun, are The Armed Citizen (which has since shut down to avoid further legal trouble - see the letter on their website , Free Republic, and NORML, among many, many others.

On August 25th, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced that they will make efforts to assist Righthaven defendants to the best of their ability. I have initiated contact, as I have absolutely no intention of settling.

Also reporting on this story:

Law.com - Birth of the Copyright Troll 

Wired.com - Newspaper Chain’s New Business Plan: Copyright Suits 

LA Times: - Las Vegas Review-Journal bares its claws 

- - -

While it sucks for me personally to be sued, I intend to fight this battle to the end, resources permitting. I am in the process of assembling a legal team to deal with this. After I get an idea of how best to approach this, I may ask for help in creating a legal defense fund, and I hope that I can count on your support in this battle.

I want to thank the members of the Liberty community who gave me great support today as I digested this news, including bigmikedude, Kurt Wallace, Trevor Lyman, Michael Boldin of the 10th Amendment Center, and others.

Based on what I have heard so far from my fellow patriots, and what other defendants are planning, I believe that Righthaven picked the wrong community to mess with!

In the mean time, I suggest that fellow bloggers and webmasters scour your sites for any links back to lvrj.com. Righthaven has sued websites that published just four paragraphs of a 36 paragraph story, including a link. To be safe, I wouldn't even link back to those bastards at all. Who knows - they might even sue you for that.

If you have any information that may be of value, please do not hesitate to contact me using the contact button on this website above.

Thank you again for your support.

Michael

Join up in a class action suit against Obamacare now!

Join up in a class action suit against Obamacare now!

Forward this on to as many as you can.

http://www.obamacareclassaction.com/join.php

National Clean Elections Lawsuit

Click here to read this "dramatic development".

Obituary of Common Sense

I work for a public institution. Someone at this institution (it was not me) was brave enough to send the following opinion essay to everyone in our entire department.

Obituary of Common Sense

I am 72 years old. My parents told me about Mr. Common Sense early in my life and told me I would do well to call on him when making decisions. It seems he was always around in my early years but less and less as time passed until today I read his obituary. Obituary - Common Sense

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin, sun lotion or a band aid to a student; but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know my Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I'm a Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.


Author unknown

Is justice really blind in our courts?

I was on jury duty last week. After being transferred from the Grand Jury to the Petit Jury, I was called with 15 other potential jurors to a courtroom for Voir Dire. Eight of us sat in the jury box and eight sat behind the litigants. The judge asked us if we knew any of the litigants or any lawyers in the case or any lawyers that worked for the same law firm as any of the lawyers in the case. The case was a civil lawsuit, having to do with an automobile accident and medical bills which were allegedly caused by the accident.

Then the plaintiff’s attorney asked if anyone had sued, been sued, had an injury that required surgery, had physical therapy, and other such questions. If anyone said yes, then they asked more specific questions, some very personal. He also asked more questions about any connections to the legal profession that anyone had. One man said his brother was a lawyer and another juror was a legal secretary.

The defense attorney kept asking us a question about whether or not we would think that it is possible for someone to exaggerate an injury in order to win a case. The plaintiff’s attorney kept objecting, and the defense attorney kept rephrasing it. A side bar was called, the defense attorney rephrased the question again, and the plaintiff’s attorney objected again. This was an obvious ploy by the defense to plant an idea in our heads. He knew that it would be objected to and sustained.

Each lawyer seemed to try to act like they didn’t know what they were doing in order to gain our sympathy, clamoring for every inch of advantage. How pathetic.

Then the defense attorney asked us more such questions. He asked me about my occupation. I gave a technical answer about what I do (I am a scientist). One juror asked to speak with the lawyers and the judge in private and when they were done, the judge said that this juror was dismissed “with cause”. One of the other eight potential jurors was called to replace him. Then each attorney grilled this juror as they had done us.

Each attorney was allowed to remove up to three jurors without giving a reason (a peremptory challenge). The plaintiff’s attorney declined this opportunity, but the defense attorney challenged the man whose brother was a lawyer. Then I was the next to go.

I think that it is unfair to force potential jurors to answer such personal questions that have nothing to with the case. The judge’s questions were reasonable for the most part. I think that all Voir Dire questions should limited to those which determine if a juror or someone the juror knows would stand to gain anything by a certain result in the case. Attorneys should not be allowed to choose or reject jurors based on their experiences, occupation, or beliefs. I think it is especially unfair to remove jurors because they have knowledge of some subject, such as science, so that this will be to their advantage if the preponderance of scientific evidence is in favor of the opposing side. I think that peremptory challenges should be limited to one for criminal cases and none for civil cases.