Bravo Tim Thomas

I'm glad to see a high profile person standing up for all of us.

Bruins Goaltender Decides to Stay Home

Goaltender Tim Thomas, one of only two Americans from the 2011 Stanley Cup team, decided not to join his teammates.
Thomas posted the following statement on his Facebook page at 6 p.m. ET:
"I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.
This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.
Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.
This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic. TT"

****************************************************************************

The Supreme Court overturned the ability for law enforcement to put GPS tracking on your vehicle without a warrant.  This is a big step in reclaiming some of our rights.

High Court Backs Privacy Rights in GPS Case
By JESS BRAVIN

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police must obtain a warrant before attaching a GPS tracker to a suspect's vehicle, voting unanimously in one of the first major cases to test constitutional privacy rights in the digital age.

The government argued that attaching the tiny device to a car's undercarriage was too trivial a violation of property rights to matter, and that no one who drove in public streets could expect his movements to go unmonitored. Thus, the technique was "reasonable," meaning that police were free to employ it for any reason without first justifying it to a magistrate, the government said.

The justices seemed troubled by that position at arguments in November, where the government acknowledged it would also allow attaching such trackers to the justices' own cars without obtaining a warrant.

The court split 5-4 over the reasoning behind Monday's decision, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing for the majority that as conceived in the 18th century, the Fourth Amendment's protection of "persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" would extend to private property such as an automobile.

In a surprising departure, Justice Samuel Alito split from fellow conservatives. He held that the search violated not merely property rights, but an individual's "reasonable expectation of privacy"—the test the court has used since 1967, when it held that warrants were required before police could wiretap a call made from a public telephone booth because "the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places."

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined Justice Alito's concurring opinion.

Justice Alito warned that a property-based approach was too narrow to guard against the proliferating threats to personal privacy modern technology posed. Justice Scalia stressed, however, that the majority wasn't repudiating the broader test articulated in 1967, but rather that it was unnecessary to reach it because installation of the tracker was sufficient by itself to trigger the Fourth Amendment.

The decision upholds a federal appeals court in Washington, which voided a drug conviction because police obtained evidence by using the GPS tracker to follow the suspect's movements without a valid warrant.

In fact, police had obtained a warrant to attach the tracker within the District of Columbia, but installed the device after the warrant expired and while the car was parked in Maryland. It was unclear why police didn't seek to renew the warrant after it expired, or obtain one valid in Maryland.

*****************************************************************************

I hope everyone watched the debate last night.  I thought Ron Paul did a great job.  I haven't been able to find Ron's last statement, but it was fantastic.  He continued his message of "how about we follow the Constitution".  If I can find it, I will post it.  Here is a funny comment from Bill Maher about Ron Paul.

****************************************************************************

The Wal-Mart Theme song...

******************************************************************************

I couldn't find the video of Ron Paul's comment but I did find the transcript.


Each of these three candidates have used a preponderance of their time in the last two debates to hammer away at each other’s claim to be the true conservative choice in the 2012 election.  But on Monday night, something strange and wonderful happened.  In a rare exception to the mainstream media’s blackout rule against Ron Paul, the Texas congressman was invited to answer a question about which candidate was truly conservative.  And this is what he said:

“I think the problem is the way we are defining what conservative means. Conservative means we have smaller government and more liberty. And yet, if you ask what have we [the Republican Party] done, I think we’ve lost our way completely.  Our rhetoric is still pretty good, but when we get in charge we expand the government… So if it means limited government, you have to ask the basic question: ‘What should the role of government be?’ “
“The Founders asked that question, had a revolution and wrote a constitution. And they said the role of government ought to be to protect liberty.  It’s not to be a welfare state and it’s not to be the policemen of the world.  How can you be ‘conservative’ and cut food stamps, but you won’t cut spending overseas?  There’s not a nickel or a penny that anybody will cut on the ‘conservative’ side on overseas spending.  We don’t have the money – and they are willing to start world wars.”
“So I say that if you’re conservative you want small government across the board – especially in personal liberty.  What’s wrong with having the government out of our personal lives? We have to decide what ‘conservative’ means, what ‘limited government’ means – and I have a simple suggestion.  We have a pretty good guide.  And if we follow the Constitution, government would be very small and we’d all be devoted conservatives.”

As Dr. Paul lectured the big-government candidates on what a conservative truly is, Santorum, Romney and Gingrich could only stand in silence.  What remains to be seen is whether or not the Republican Party actually still possesses a true conservative base – or if the base has actually shifted far to the left while preferring to wear the conservative label.