“It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.” — Revelation 13:16-17

For years we’ve allowed our pets to be microchipped through a massive program backed by a federal push. Oddly, the SPCA of Northern Nevada is next door to the Regional Emergency Operation Center on Spectrum Blvd., in Reno.

There is nothing nefarious about the two agencies being side-by-side – it’s simply an observation. However, the term ‘spectrum’ comes from the process of regulating the use of radio frequencies for ‘social benefit,’ and microchips are little more than a tiny radio transmitter.

A recent NBC News report is now promoting the idea that since microchipping our pets is a good idea, we should be doing it to our children as well. According to the report, they say that the public will accept microchips as easily as we accept bar codes on consumer items.

When bar codes first came out in the late 1960s, people were fearful of them because they didn’t understand how they worked, but now it’s so commonplace, we don’t even think about them as we shop. If history repeats, it will go from being technology adopted for its ‘convenience and safety’ to mandatory – or else.

Eleven states are suing the federal government over the Obama administration’s directive for transgender students’ bathroom use. The order, telling schools to let students use bathrooms based on gender identity, runs “roughshod over common-sense policies protecting children,” according to the lawsuit.

The Justice Department said in 2014 that discrimination against transgender people was barred under federal laws that prevent discrimination based on sex. The administration has also pointed to a recent federal appeals court ruling in Richmond, Virginia that buttressed that view.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the agency is reviewing the complaint, and added, “the federal government has strong legal foundations to uphold the civil rights of transgender Americans.”

The lawsuit is the latest front in a battle over the rights of transgender people, which erupted when North Carolina passed a law on March 23 requiring transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding with the sex on their birth certificate. North Carolina and the Obama administration then filed dueling lawsuits over the state’s bathroom law, in a legal case that may settle for good the question of whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects transgender people.

The states – including the eleven in this case — must stop asking the King’s Court for the authority to rule against the King! After all as the 10^th Amendment clearly states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

We are a union of free and independent states and it is time our representatives started acting like it! It’s time to tell our King and his Court to go ‘pound sand.’

Chris Kyle, the subject of ‘American Sniper’ is again being accused of embellishing his military record. According to ‘The Intercept’ (an online Progressive news site,) Kyle exaggerated the number of honors he received.

“All told,” Kyle wrote in his book, “I would end my career as a SEAL with two Silver Stars and five Bronze [Stars], all for valor.”

Murdered by a fellow military veteran after leaving the service, Kyle supposedly embellished his military record claims the report.  It goes on to say that during his 11 years of military service and four deployments, Kyle earned only one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars with Valor.

While I’m not looking to drag a true American hero’s name through the mud, this serves as a perfect example of why it is important to place principles above personality. Whether he did or didn’t exaggerate doesn’t matter – men and women are fallible while articles of faith, like the 10 Commandments, and natural law are not.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will seek the death penalty for the suspect in the June 2015 Charleston Church Shootings. Dylann Roof is charged in the South Carolina attack that killed nine people.

“The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.

While I personally believe in the death penalty, it is not within the U.S. Constitutional authority of the DOJ.  That power is reserved in this case only to the state in which this crime was committed.

It is stuff like this leaves my blood boiling. In yet another federal overreach, we are seeing our God-given sovereignty and liberties eroded and not one federal representative has a single word to say against such encroachment.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

21 CFR Part 10

Docket No. FDA-2004-N-0258 (formerly Docket No. 2004N-0456)

RIN 0910-AF23

Food Labeling: Serving Sizes of Foods That Can Reasonably Be Consumed At One Eating Occasion; Dual-Column Labeling; Updating, Modifying, and Establishing Certain Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed; Serving Size for Breath Mints; and Technical Amendments

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Final rule.

SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or we) is issuing a final rule to define a single-serving container; require dual-column labeling for certain containers; update, modify, and establish several reference amounts customarily consumed (RACCs); amend the label serving size for breath mints; and make technical amendments to various aspects of the serving size regulations. We are taking this action to provide consumers with more accurate and up to date information on serving sizes

DATES: Effective date: The final rule becomes effective on July 26, 2016.

Compliance date: The compliance date of this final rule is July 26, 2018, for manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual food sales, and July 26, 2019, for manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales. See Section IV, Effective and Compliance Dates, for more detail.

The federal government does not have the power nor the authority to make such rulings.  Regulations like these are far worse than those established by King George III which brought his subjugated colonies to war against Great Britain thus birthing the United States.  When shall we tire of this illegal and illegitimate federal monarchy and take back our rightful authority and power over it?

It is time for the state’s to say no to such overreaching. As for me — I shall eat until I’m full and should I desire — until I make myself ill and I will allow no federal monarchy to interfere in my private activities!

Back in September 2013, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was accused of colluding to create traffic jams by closing lanes at a main toll plaza for the upper level of the George Washington Bridge. The same-stream Progressive media jumped on the story claiming the resulting lines of backed-up traffic were a result of a political vendetta.

However that same branch of the Progressive movement in the U.S. has yet to connect the dots between the recent refunding of one federal agency and the inconveniences it has caused over the past couple of years. This is because it doesn’t fit the narrative that the federal government wants put forth.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) received final Congressional approval for its request to re-allocate $34 million funds to increase security officers at airport security checkpoints. The refunding comes as lines grow longer at security checkpoints and both passengers and airlines complain to Congress about the number of missed flights.

For their part, the TSA claims that the number of passengers has increased nearly 12 percent since 2011, while the number of screeners has declined by 12 percent since the same time period. Obviously, long-lines, increased wait times and missed flights are more of a concern to Congress than the fact that the TSA not about keeping us safe from terrorists, but about keeping us in fear and under constant control.

Originally, the TSA was supposed to only be in airports for a two-year period beginning in 2003. After that the airport would be allowed to hire its own private security, replacing the TSA.

When the time period expired, several airports did remove the TSA. However as more and more airports joined the removal process, the agency decided not to leave, citing a Department of Justice notice that threatened to make the airspace above and around the facility into a ‘no-fly zone.’

So, in essence, we have one unconstitutional federal agency propping up another unconstitutional federal agency. Meanwhile, we also have the federal government claiming to control airspace around us and worse – Congress has done nothing about this since 2003.

Also, when you purchase a plane ticket you are now forced to nullify your Fourth Amendment right, thus allowing a warrantless search of your person, papers and property. This all makes no sense once you realize that a private plane leaving the same airport as any commercial airliner is not subject to the same illegal screenings rules, meaning anything and anyone can be aboard that unscreened private plane.

We can criticize the alphabet agencies within the federal government all we want for this, but the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of a complacent Congress which has willfully neglected it primary duty, which is to protect the U.S. Constitution. And it’s time to start calling out the members of Congress by name when they fail at their obligation.

In this case, lodge your complaints with Senator’s John Hoeven (R-ND) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH.)

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” 

— Revelation 3:15-17 (NIV)

Lukewarm water is disgusting to drink. Unfortunately, America has become like lukewarm water because it no longer stands for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and this indifference has led to apathy.

All across this nation there are people who believe that their material wealth and the number of personal possessions they own are a sign of God’s blessings. However by openly neglecting to stand for God before money or things, the U.S. has become hardened and self-satisfied and is now destroying itself.

Our wealth, our luxury and ease of life has left us complacent and vulnerable not only to outside forces, but extremely ripe for destruction from within. God is going to discipline this once great nation for our indifference towards Him and we should be fearful of His wrath.

Ridenhour slid from the bar stool and stumbled outside onto the sidewalk. The street was empty and the early morning air bit into his exposed face as he staggered homeward.

He had become the town drunk in less than three years. That was the same amount of time he’d spent trying to drown his sorrow without success.

The Lady Luck was promising – the dirt the five men had pulled from the 300 foot shaft showed a lot of color. While they’d struck a silver vein, they’d also tapped into a gold ledge running parallel with the vein.

For nearly five months they toiled to bring out the dirt and rock for their three-piston stamp mill. They knew they were on the verge of striking it rich – that’s when disaster struck.

A massive collapse left four of the five men buried at the end of the tunnel. Only Ridenhour survived and he was now certain that it was more of a mistake then luck on his part.

He had returned to the small shack that doubled as an office and storage. Ridenhour had forgotten to call his wife Sally before heading into the mine.

But that was three years ago. And now Ridenhour had nothing left — no wife and no home save the small shack that remained a couple of hundred yards from the Lady Luck’s entrance.

Ridenhour wanted nothing more than to flop down on the rusty metal framed bed with its lump-filled and odor-ridden mattress to sleep off yet another drunk. But it wasn’t to be.

Noise and voices disturbed his unfit sleep. And by the time he pulled his boots on and made it outside the sun had already been up an hour.

Amassed near the mines gaping mouth was a collection of official cars and trucks. The town’s police chief, the county sheriff and his deputies and every fire truck in the region.

Ridenhour considered returning to his uncomfortable bed but curiosity got the better of him and he decided to walk over and find out what was going on.

Perhaps it was out of memory or some sort of premonition but Ridenhour grabbed his hard hat with its carbide battery lamp before heading to where several of the towns people had gathered to watch the goings-on.

He leaned more than stood as he listened. The state patrol car was nearly the perfect height for him to rest against as the world still lost its equilibrium form time-to-time.

Though he mind was still heavily laced with booze from the all-night and early morning bender, he understood that a child had disappeared from her backyard and her foot steps lead into the long-unused tunnel. And now those in charge were determining the best approach to entering the ink-black opening without getting and of the rescuers injured or killed.

Ten minutes passed, then half an hour, followed by more than 45 minutes and still not a single rescuer had started into the mine. It became too much for Ridenhour to witness.

“Well, enough of this crap!” he said aloud though no one was listening to him, “I ain’t waiting’ ‘round for this damned hole to take another soul!”

Without permission or intervention, Ridenhour walked the few steps from the hood of the car he’d been leaning against and into the darkness of the once prosperous mine. As he did, he donned his helmet and switched the headlamp on – disappearing into the ink-like blackness.

Behind him he heard the angry and concerned shouts of disapproval. But he knew that there was very little they could do to stop him, so he ignored the threats of arrest and physical abuse from the group of would-be rescuers.

Much of his drunk wore off within minutes of his decision to take action. It was the clearest his mind – his soul – had felt since the collapsed killed his friends, co-workers and employees.

Moving carefully between the rough-hewn walls, he felt a real sense of purpose for the first time in ages. He knew this mine, this deadly Lady Luck, and he had grown determined not to allow it to take even one more life than it already had.

Soon he found who he was looking for: the small girl-child, huddled against the far wall near the collapse, an unlit candle in her hand. At first she didn’t move as his lamp’s light broke across her face.

Her deep blue eyes seemed unfocused and her cheeks had the rosiness of carbon monoxide poisoning. This gave Ridenhour a pause as he feared the worst.

That fear lasted but a second as the child jumped up and ran to him. Without hesitation he scooped her in his arms and turned back towards the entrance.

Minutes later the pair emerged from the old mine shaft to shouts of joy and happiness. He placed the child in the arms of her waiting mother and continued heading towards the shack.

“What’s the big idea risking that girl’s life by walking in there like that?!” barked the sheriff.

“Got tired of waiting for you pansies to go in and get her!” he hollered without looking back, “Besides, I still gotta bit of drunk to sleep off!”

This is a great learning moment that came shortly after I posted this ‘news item’ to my Facebook page:

“Oklahoma’s legislature has passed a bill criminalizing abortion procedures in the state. The bill would penalize anyone found to have performed an abortion with up to three years in prison and revoke the licenses of doctors who take part unless done to save the mother. Governor Mary Fallin has not said whether she’ll sign the bill into law.”

My friend Judy responded, “I’m all for less abortion, but that seems a little extreme.”

A while later another friend named Amy chimed in, “I agree with Judy. Also, how can a state law ignore federal law???”

My response wasn’t to address the states action about what’s considered ‘extreme.’ Rather I pointed out the true fallacy:

“The federal law doesn’t exist constitutionally. It is instead simply an opinion made by the SCOTUS, but never enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Finally, the power is left to the states because of the 10th Amendment which states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.””

The Department of Labor (DOL) has announced a new regulation that increases the salary threshold for paid overtime from less than $455 per week to $913 per week. Currently, salaried workers are only entitled to overtime pay if they make less than $23,660 annually.

Employees who earn yearly salaries of $47,476 or less will be entitled to overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week. The new rule takes effect December 1, 2016, after that, companies will be watched and audited to make sure they are in compliance.

The Obama administration also took the step of ensuring the threshold will be updated automatically, every three years, by indexing it to salary growth in the lowest income region of the country. Also for the first time, the rule will allow bonuses and incentive payments to count toward up to 10-percent of the new salary level.

This new Labor Department policy should be challenged because the Executive branch, to which the DOL belongs, does not have the power to create employee compensation regulations. And while the federal government has often usurped powers not delegated to it via the Legislative branch, in this case, Congress did not pass any legislation expanding the conditions under which employers would be required to pay overtime to their employees.

This new rule came after a memorandum from Obama directing it to do so. Therefore, instead of executing a law passed by Congress, the president effectively legislated by executive memorandum.

Obama took this action despite the fact that the Constitution mandates that all legislative power be vested in the Congress as directed in the 10th Amendment, which reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States [i.e., the federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Reading through the Constitution from beginning to end, no language is found that even remotely suggests that any branch of the federal government has the power to regulate salaries or any other part of the relationship between the employer and employee. That authority’s reserved to the states and to the people.

Shame on Congress for failing to act against such tyranny.