YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

[HisDaughter]

"We have a big agenda ahead of us, just as our country faces big challenges across the globe," Kerry said in a statement.

The biggest challenge is putting up with the idiots that run our country!  Liars, swindlers, traitors, back door salesmen.....etc, etc, etc.

[nChrist]

The biggest challenge is putting up with the idiots that run our country!  Liars, swindlers, traitors, back door salesmen.....etc, etc, etc.

Hello Grammyluv,

You spoke volumes there, and I agree. I would add that their greed, corruption, and incompetence caused the worst challenges we face today. There's a long list of politicians who need to go to prison for a lengthy list of criminal violations. They actually did sell-out their country for personal gain, and their actions will cause various kinds of misery for the people they were supposed to be serving for many years.

[HisDaughter]

Hello Grammyluv,

You spoke volumes there, and I agree. I would add that their greed, corruption, and incompetence caused the worst challenges we face today. There's a long list of politicians who need to go to prison for a lengthy list of criminal violations. They actually did sell-out their country for personal gain, and their actions will cause various kinds of misery for the people they were supposed to be serving for many years.

And there are too many to prosecute and not enough narrow arrows to get the job done.  Nope we won't see justice until Christ hands it out.  I'd rather be in my dirty shoes than theirs when THAT time comes!

[Soldier4Christ]

What does Congress do in a recession?

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”

However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.

“They don’t even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise,” Ellis said.

Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.

“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”

[Soldier4Christ]

California Supreme Court allows good Samaritans to be sued for nonmedical care
The ruling stems from a case in which a woman pulled a crash victim from a car 'like a rag doll,' allegedly aggravating a vertebrae injury.


Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier.

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn't immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical.

The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.

Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her "like a rag doll" from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004.

But in a sharp dissent, three of the seven justices said that by making a distinction between medical care and emergency response, the court was placing "an arbitrary and unreasonable limitation" on protections for those trying to help.

In 1980, the Legislature enacted the Health and Safety Code, which provides that "no person who in good faith, and not for compensation, renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission."

Although that passage does not use the word "medical" in describing the protected emergency care, it was included in the section of the code that deals with emergency medical services. By placing it there, lawmakers intended to shield "only those persons who in good faith render emergency medical care at the scene of a medical emergency," Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote for the majority.

The high court cited no previous cases involving good Samaritan actions deemed unprotected by the state code, suggesting the challenge of Torti's rescue effort was the first to narrow the scope of the law.

The three dissenting justices argued, however, that the aim of the legislation was clearly "to encourage persons not to pass by those in need of emergency help, but to show compassion and render the necessary aid."

Justice Marvin R. Baxter said the ruling was "illogical" because it recognizes legal immunity for nonprofessionals administering medical care while denying it for potentially life-saving actions like saving a person from drowning or carrying an injured hiker to safety.

"One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim," Baxter wrote for the dissenters. "Here, the result is that defendant Torti has no immunity for her bravery in pulling her injured friend from a crashed vehicle, even if she reasonably believed it might be about to explode."

Both opinions have merit, "but I think the majority has better arguments," said Michael Shapiro, professor of constitutional and bioethics law at USC.

Shapiro said the majority was correct in interpreting that the Legislature meant to shield doctors and other healthcare professionals from being sued for injuries they cause despite acting with "reasonable care," as the law requires.

Noting that he would be reluctant himself to step in to aid a crash victim with potential spinal injuries, Shapiro said the court's message was that emergency care "should be left to medical professionals."

Torti's liability has yet to be determined in court, and if the Legislature is unhappy with any judgment arising from the immunity denial, it can revise the code, he concluded.

Torti, Van Horn and three other co-workers from a San Fernando Valley department store had gone out to a bar on Halloween for a night of drinking and dancing, departing in two cars at 1:30 a.m., the justices noted as background.

Van Horn was a front-seat passenger in a vehicle driven by Anthony Glen Watson, whom she also sued, and Torti rode in the second car. After Watson's car crashed into a light pole at about 45 mph, the rear car pulled off the road and driver Dion Ofoegbu and Torti rushed to help Watson's two passengers escape the wreckage.

Torti testified in a deposition that she saw smoke and liquid coming from Watson's vehicle and feared the car was about to catch fire. None of the others reported seeing signs of an imminent explosion, and Van Horn said in her deposition that Torti grabbed her arm and yanked her out "like a rag doll."

Van Horn's suit alleges negligence by Torti in aggravating a vertebrae injury suffered in the crash, causing permanent damage to the spinal cord.

Neither Torti nor her attorney, Ronald D. Kent, could be reached immediately. Kent's Los Angeles law office said he was in meetings on the East Coast and may not have seen the decision.

Van Horn's attorney, Robert B. Hutchinson, disputed the notion that the ruling could have a chilling effect on laymen coming to the rescue of the injured. Good Samaritan laws have been on the books for centuries and state that "if a person volunteers to act, he or she must act with reasonable care," Hutchinson said.

"Ms. Torti ran up in a state of panic, literally grabbed Ms. Van Horn by the shoulder and yanked her out, then dropped her next to the car," he said, deeming Torti's assessment of an imminent explosion "irrational" and her action in leaving Van Horn close to the car inconsistent with that judgment.

Hutchinson said it was too early to say what sum Van Horn might seek in damages; her original suit was summarily dismissed in Los Angeles County Superior Court before he could arrange expert assessments of the costs of her life care and loss of potential income. It was her ambition to become a Hollywood makeup artist -- a dream no longer achievable, the lawyer said.

Torti's trial at the Chatsworth courthouse is expected next year.

[HisDaughter]

Pay Raises for Lawmakers Anger Watchdog Groups
Each lawmaker is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living wage hike starting in January, which will amount to a total cost of $2.5 million for taxpayers

FOXNews.com

Saturday, December 20, 2008


Pay Raises for Lawmakers Anger Watchdog Groups
powered by BaynoteAs Americans across the country grapple with one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression, members of Congress quietly are getting a pay raise.

Each lawmaker's annual salary is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living increase starting in January, which will amount to a cost to taxpayers of $2.5 million in 2009, infuriating watchdog groups.

"Members of Congress don't deserve one additional dime of taxpayer money in 2009," said Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.

"While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise," he said in a written statement.

Members of Congress make an average of $169,300 a year, with Congressional leaders making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cailf., makes $217,400, while the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate each make $188,100.

The raise will increase the average salary to about $174,000, up 2.8 percent.

Pelosi's and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's offices did not respond to FOXNews.com's requests for comment.

Pay raises for public officials, whether at the federal, state or local level, usually spark outrage among taxpayer advocates. But the deepening financial crisis has led even a few lawmakers to object.

Earlier this year, Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, introduced legislation that would have stopped the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which drew 34 cosponsors, died in committee.

Two other members of Congress, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind, and Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-SC, also tried to block the wages but didn't get very far. Burton plans to return his pay increase to the Treasury Department.

"As we face the most challenging economic crisis in our history, and with many Americans and Hoosiers enduring personal financial hardships, I am opposed to any pay increase for members of Congress in 2009," he said in a written statement. He said he'll try again next year.

Lawmakers have received automatic raises since 1989. As part of an ethics bill, Congress gave up its ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless lawmakers voted otherwise.

Lawmakers have rejected pay raises six times since then, most recently last year, when Democrats, newly elected to the majority, had vowed to block an increase in their paychecks until Congress raised the minimum wage.

For the past eight years, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has been trying to end the automatic salary hike for House members, arguing that spending priorities in a time of war and economic crisis do not include pay raises for lawmakers.

Matheson wants to put the automatic pay raises to a vote.

"At a time when people are losing their jobs, their homes and their retirement, I think the least we could do is openly debate whether we should take the pay increase this year or do some belt-tightening," he said in a written statement.

As he has done for the past eight years, Matheson plans to donate his pay raise to charity, his spokeswoman said.

The Senior Citizens League asserted the pay raise would rank each lawmaker in the top six percent of American households.

"As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain," the group's chairman, Daniel O'Connell, said in a written statement. "This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter."

The group estimates that a senior receiving average benefits will get a $63 monthly increase to just $1,153 per month next year, increasing their annual total to $13,836.

The pay raises come as the economic recession deepens. The economy lost 533,000 jobs in November, bringing the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent.

[Soldier4Christ]

It makes sense to pay them more for doing a really good job of making us all poorer.

[nChrist]

It makes sense to pay them more for doing a really good job of making us all poorer.

The last I heard, their approval rating from the people they serve is down to a single digit. Their pay and benefit package is ridiculous, even if they were doing a good job. They are supposed to be public servants, and public servants aren't supposed to get rich. They need a drastic pay cut and learn how to do the job the people want them to do. In reality, most of them need to be fired and replaced with honest representatives wanting to serve the people. Most of the ones we have now are only interested in serving themselves. AND, quite a few of them belong in prison - not public office.

[Soldier4Christ]

Brighton, Michigan Bans Speech That Annoys

Suburban Detroit has discovered a missing clause in the First Amendment. We have a right to free speech — so long as no one is annoyed by it.

    The Brighton City Council on Thursday approved an ordinance allowing police in the Livingston County community to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public “by word of mouth, sign or motions.”

    The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus of Howell reports the measure is modeled on a similar ordinance in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.

[nChrist]

Brighton, Michigan Bans Speech That Annoys

Suburban Detroit has discovered a missing clause in the First Amendment. We have a right to free speech — so long as no one is annoyed by it.

    The Brighton City Council on Thursday approved an ordinance allowing police in the Livingston County community to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public “by word of mouth, sign or motions.”

    The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus of Howell reports the measure is modeled on a similar ordinance in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.

This one requires no thought at all. It's brainless, ridiculous, illegal, and Unconstitutional. Those acting under color of law to enforce it would be subject to criminal and civil remedies. This place must not have access to an attorney, or their attorney graduated from the Three Stooges School of Law. I take that back - Three Stooges graduates would know better. As a contrast, there has been Constitutional challenges to ordinances that prohibit fighting words - words designed to start a physical confrontation in public. The Constitutional challenge has been lost in some cases, especially those that didn't escalate to the point of near confrontation. As another example, "drunk" in public has been challenged many times, and it's no longer on the books in many jurisdictions. One has to itemize what the drunk does in public that is probably also against the law.

Many of the new laws being tried in various places are bone-headed to the point of STUPIDITY. They would have to already have a CLUE this law is illegal and Unconstitutional, so that would make the criminal and civil remedies worse. By the way, the taxpayers would foot the bill, but the officials acting under color of law would do the TIME. This one would be hard to convince a jury that they didn't have sufficient common sense to know this law is ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

[Soldier4Christ]

You're right this is not a result of Three Stooges School of Law way of thinking. It is more along the lines of sharia law. The state of Michigan is one of the most Muslim-intensive states. This is just one more thing that is happening in this state that leads it into even further accepting sharia.

[nChrist]

You're right this is not a result of Three Stooges School of Law way of thinking. It is more along the lines of sharia law. The state of Michigan is one of the most Muslim-intensive states. This is just one more thing that is happening in this state that leads it into even further accepting sharia.

Brother,

My first thought was this is another attempt to shut Christians up. I would hope that Christians are the last to shut up until CHRIST takes us home. The ULTIMATE LAW OF FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST won't go away, and neither will HIS Flock. More will accept CHRIST as LORD and SAVIOUR - even in the Tribulation Period - at the peril of death. Why? - HE is the GREAT I AM - THE CREATOR - THE KING OF KINGS - and the ONLY ONE who can rescue the lost from the Curse of Sin and Death. HE LIVES and is our LIVING LORD AND SAVIOUR FOREVER! HE IS THE LIVING WORD AND THE MEASUREMENT OF ALL TRUTH! HE WILL ENDURE FOREVER!

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable GIFT, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour Forever!

[Soldier4Christ]

Hillary moves to widen role of State Department
Obama administration wants diplomacy as 'critical tool in America's arsenal'

Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.

Mrs. Clinton is recruiting Jacob J. Lew, the budget director under President Bill Clinton, as one of two deputies, according to people close to the Obama transition team. Mr. Lew’s focus, they said, will be on increasing the share of financing that goes to the diplomatic corps. He and James B. Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, are to be Mrs. Clinton’s chief lieutenants.

Nominations of deputy secretaries, like Mrs. Clinton’s, would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

The incoming administration is also likely to name several envoys, officials said, reviving a practice of the Clinton administration, when Richard C. Holbrooke, Dennis Ross and other diplomats played a central role in mediating disputes in the Balkans and the Middle East.

As Mrs. Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years. She has sought advice from Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economist who headed Mr. Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president’s office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over American foreign policy.

Given Mrs. Clinton’s prominence, expanding the department’s portfolio could bring on conflict with other powerful cabinet members.

Mrs. Clinton and President-elect Barack Obama have not settled on specific envoys or missions, although Mr. Ross’s name has been mentioned as a possible Middle East envoy, as have those of Mr. Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel.

'Reinvention of the wheel'
The Bush administration has made relatively little use of special envoys. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally handled most peacemaking initiatives, which has meant a punishing schedule of Middle East missions, often with meager results.

“There’s no question that there is a reinvention of the wheel here,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “But it’s geared not so much as a reaction to Bush as to a fairly astute analysis of what’s going to work in foreign policy.”

With so many problems, including Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Mr. Miller said it made sense for the White House to farm out some of the diplomatic heavy lifting.

In addition to the Middle East, one Democratic foreign policy adviser said, Mr. Holbrooke might be considered for an appointment as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and possibly Iran. The adviser said the decision had not been made.

A transition official dismissed as “speculation” reports in Indian newspapers that Mr. Obama was considering appointing Mr. Clinton as a special envoy to deal with Kashmir issues.

But another transition official confirmed that Mr. Obama’s foreign policy advisers were discussing the possibility of appointing a special envoy to India. Mr. Steinberg, who is the dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, would probably coordinate the work of any special envoys, the official said.

The recruitment of Mr. Lew — for a position that was not filled in the Bush administration — suggests that Mrs. Clinton is determined to win a larger share of financial resources for the department. A well-connected figure who was once an aide to Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill, Mr. Lew now works for Citigroup in a unit that oversees hedge funds.

“If we’re going to re-establish diplomacy as the critical tool in America’s arsenal,” a senior transition official said, “you need someone who can work both the budget and management side. He has very strong relations on the Hill; he knows the inner workings of how to manage a big enterprise.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private, said Mrs. Clinton was being supported in her push for more resources by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Obama’s incoming national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones Jr.

For years, some Pentagon officials have complained that jobs like the economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq have been added to the military’s burden when they could have been handled by a robust Foreign Service.

“The Pentagon would like to turn functionality over to civilian resources, but the resources are not there,” the official said. “We’re looking to have a State Department that has what it needs.”

Mrs. Clinton’s push for a more vigorous economic team, one of her advisers said, stems from her conviction that the State Department needs to play a part in the recovery from the global financial crisis. Economic issues also underpin some of the most important diplomatic relationships, notably with China.

In recent years, the Treasury Department, led by Henry M. Paulson Jr., has dominated policy toward China. Mr. Paulson leads a “strategic economic dialogue” with China that involves several agencies. It is not yet clear who will pick up that role in the Obama administration, although Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is frequently mentioned as a possibility.

[Soldier4Christ]

Bush springs drug dealers,
leaves border agents to rot
Ramos-Compean supporter asks:
'Why is the president dug in so deep?'

President George W. Bush today added a convicted methamphetamine dealer, a cocaine distributor and two marijuana suppliers to the list of drug operators he's pardoned while in office, bringing his total of drug suppliers who have been pardoned or had their sentences commuted to 36.

He's also pardoned more than a dozen thieves, seven embezzlers, an arsonist, several mail thieves, a man who violated the Neutrality Act and eight Thanksgiving turkeys, but there's been no clemency for U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler.

Andy Ramirez, of Friends of the Border Patrol, long has been involved in the Ramos-Compean case, and said the questions just start piling up.

"First and foremost is the question that has to be asked, 'Why is the president dug in so deep' on Ramos and Compean?" Ramirez said. "Look at how many members of Congress have sent him letters, and have held hearings.

"You really have got to start to wonder … does this doper (in the Ramos-Compean case) lead to somebody really big?" he said.

Joe Loya, the father-in-law for Ramos, said he, his daughter and grandchildren were "devastated" by word that Ramos and Compean had been denied clemency on the latest list of presidential actions.

"We were praying for a miracle. We just don't understand where the connection is when drug smugglers are getting pardons and commuted sentences, yet two agents who are not criminals, who were just doing their jobs, are in isolation," he told WND by telephone as he traveled to visit his son-in-law in jail on Christmas Eve.

"George Bush could redeem himself," he continued. "Ninety-five percent of our support is coming from Republicans. He certainly has nothing to lose.

(Story continues below)

          

"He could make millions of people feel good about it, or he could make one person (prosecutor) Johnny Sutton," Loya said. "We hope he will do the right thing."

Bush today released a list of 19 more pardons or commutations. Included were a commutation of the life prison term for Reed Raymond Prior of Iowa, convicted of dealing methamphetamine. Pardons were handed out to William Alvis III of Ohio for cocaine distribution and Steve Doyle Cavender of Florida and Marie Elena Eppens of Washington for distributing marijuana.

Prior had admitted having methamphetamine with plans to distribute it, following three prior felony drug convictions. Bush has approved 10 commutations and about 200 pardons in his two terms, about half of those granted by Bill Clinton.

Ramos and Compean, meanwhile, are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, for shooting an illegal alien drug dealer while he smuggled nearly 750 pounds of marijuana across the border. They were convicted of assault, discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence and deprivation of civil rights.

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, full immunity from prosecution for agreeing to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. A ruling, from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, affirmed all convictions except for tampering with an official proceeding, which it vacated and remanded for resentencing.

While Aldrete-Davila was waiting to testify against the agents, he also was involved in another drug smuggling case, but that information was withheld from jurors in the Ramos-Compean trial.

Eventually, the smuggler was sentenced for the second case, but his sentence was considerably shorter than that of the agents who tried to halt his activities in the earlier episode.

Ramos' attorney, David Botsworth, said a petition for writ of certiorari was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court and docketed on Dec. 11. The government has the right to file a response should it choose to do so by early January.

"It's obviously an astronomical uphill battle to get review in the Supreme Court," Botsworth said. "I think the issues are worthy of their consideration."

[HisDaughter]

SWAT raid on food co-op called 'entrapment'
Lawyer says family badgered by agent to 'sell' eggs
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A state agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture pressured a family whose members run a food cooperative for friends and neighbors to "sell" him a dozen eggs, sparking accusations of entrapment from a lawyer defending the family.

The case brought by state and local authorities against a co-op run by John and Jacqueline Stowers in LaGrange, Ohio, came to a head on Dec. 1 when police officers used SWAT-style tactics to burst into the home, hold family members including children at gunpoint and confiscate the family's personal food supply.

Two organizations, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the Buckeye Institute's legal arm, the Center for Constitutional Law, are working to defend the family.

In an audio podcast posted online, Maurice Thompson of the Buckeye Institute said the family has run the Manna Storehouse, focusing mainly on organic supplies, for several years near Cleveland.

The confrontation began developing several years ago when local health officials demanded the family hold a retail food license in order to run their co-op. Thompson said the family wrote a letter questioning that requirement and asking for evidence that would suggest they were operating a food store and how their private co-op was similar to a WalMart.

The Stowers family members simply "take orders from (co-op) members … then divide up the food," Thompson explained.

"The health inspector didn't like the tone of the letter," Thompson said, and the result was that law enforcement officials planned, staged and carried out the Dec. 1 SWAT-style raid on the family's home.

Thompson said he discussed the developments of the case with the health inspector personally.

"He didn't think the tone of that letter was appropriate," Thompson said. " I've seen the letter. There's not anything there that's belligerent."

"Government officials have egos as well. The problem is when government officials have egos, they use the power of government against us," he said.

Thompson explained the genesis of the raid was a series of visits to the family by an undercover agent for the state agriculture agency.

"He showed up (at the Stowers' residence) unannounced one day," Thompson explained, and "pretended" to be interested in purchasing food.

The family explained the co-op was private and they couldn't provide service to the stranger.

The agent then returned another day, stayed for two hours, and explained how he thought his sick mother would be helped by eggs from range-fed chickens to which the Stowers had access.

The family responded that they didn't sell food and couldn't help. When he refused to leave, the family gave him a dozen eggs to hasten his departure, Thompson explained.

Despite protests from the family, the agent left some money on a counter and departed.

On the basis of that transaction, the Stowers were accused of engaging in the retail sale of food, Thompson said.

"You hear people scream entrapment," he said. "But in this instance…"

He said the state agency came from "nowhere" and then worked to get the family involved "in something that might require a license."

Even that remained in dispute, because of a long list of exceptions in the state law, some of which may apply in this case, he said.

The organizations have filed a complaint on behalf of the family naming the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Lorain County General Health District and the state's attorney general as defendants. A spokeswoman at the Department of Agriculture told WND today she was unable to comment, and officials with the local health agency did not answer WND calls to three different office numbers.

A prosecutor assigned to the case previously declined to respond to WND's request for a comment.

Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund said the case was government "overreaching" and was designed more to intimidate and "frighten people into believing that they cannot provide food for themselves."

"This is an example where, once again, the government is trying to deny people their inalienable, fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice," said Gary Cox, general counsel for the FTCLDF. "The purpose of our complaint is to correct that wrong."

In a video posted both on YouTube and on the Buckeye Institute's website, the couple explained how they just wanted to provide a resource for both farmers and consumers.

"We had a sheriff's department group of about 11-12, I don't know, 13 men come into our home. It was violent, it was belligerent, they didn't identify themselves," Jacqueline Stowers said.

She and 10 children were forcibly herded into a room and held there for at least six hours, she said.

"In the meantime we had people with guns inside and outside," she said.

Thompson said officers confiscated the family's personal computers, cell phones and food supplies, even though the Manna Storehouse food supplies were in another building.

Officials with the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutrition education non-profit, said several of its members had been participating in the co-op, but now their food supplies are disrupted.

The raid on Manna was not the first such case of authorities invading a home over issues involving the operations of food co-ops and direct producer-to-consumer arrangements. WND reported several months ago when authorities in Pennsylvania demanded $4,000 in fines from a farmer who provided raw milk to friends and neighbors.

That case also was highlighted by a SWAT team-like raid on Mark Nolt's farm, when government agents confiscated tens of thousands of dollars worth of his products as well as pieces of machinery he used for his milk handling and sales.

Online bloggers raged over the situation involving the Stowers.

"Agents began rifling through all of the family's possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family's personal stock of food for the coming year," said one.

The complaint notes Manna Storehouse deals with wheat, flour, sugar, grass-fed beef, lamb, turkey and eggs from free range chickens, mostly coming from local farmers. The raid was based on an affidavit from Ohio Department of Agriculture agent William Lesho that "makes numerous conclusory and unsubstantiated claims," the complaint said.