http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63290

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

(CNSNews.com) - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that federal transportation policies will no longer favor “motorized” transportation, such as cars and trucks, over “non-motorized” transportation, such as walking and bicycling.

LaHood signed the new policy directive on March 11, the same day he attended a congressional reception for the National Bike Summit, a convention sponsored by a bicycling advocacy group, the League of American Bicyclists. LaHood publicly announced his agency’s new direction four days later in a posting on his blog—“Fast Lane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation”--where he effusively described it as a “sea change” for the United States.

“Today, I want to announce a sea change,” LaHood wrote. “People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”

LaHood’s policy statement not only called for this change to take place in programs funded by the federal government, but also said the federal government would “encourage” state and local governments to do the same in their own programs.

“The establishment of well-connected walking and bicycling networks is an important component for livable communities, and their design should be a part of Federal-aid project developments,” said LaHood's policy statement.

“Because of the benefits they provide, transportation agencies should give the same priority to walking and bicycling as is given to other transportation modes,” it said.

LaHood's policy statement envisions the development of a transportation system in which people walk and bike for short distances and rely on mass transit for longer trips. “The primary goal of a transportation system is to safely and efficiently move people and goods,” said LaHood's statement. “Walking and bicycling are efficient transportation modes for most short trips and, where convenient intermodal systems exist, these nonmotorized trips can easily be linked with transit to significantly increase trip distance.”

On May 21, LaHood told reporters at the National Press Club that the “Partnership for Sustainable Communities’ his department had formed with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing—sometimes known as the “livability initiative”--was designed to “coerce” people out of their cars.

“Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative,” said the moderator at the National Press Club event. “Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?”

“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,” said LaHood.

The moderator later asked: “Some conservative groups are wary of the livable communities program, saying it's an example of government intrusion into people's lives. How do you respond?”

“About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people's lives,” said LaHood. “So have at it.”

Motorists now pay a federal tax of 18.3 cents on every gallon of gasoline they buy, and 24.4 cents on every gallon of diesel fuel. These taxes fund the federal Highway Trust Fund. According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, 26 percent of the money in this trust fund was diverted in fiscal 2008 to pay for things other than highways and roads. Of the total of $52 billion spent that was spent that year, $9.7 billion went to mass transit, even though mass transit passengers accounted for only 1.6 percent of surface-transportation passengers. The highway trust fund also gave $80 million that year to build trails.
 
 

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/53938.html

A friend asked me that question yesterday. Of course, I said. We know that Homeland Security considers Ron Paul supporters and other libertarians to be potential terrorists (which is all you need to know about the state’s use of that term). In the 1970s, the FBI had agents at the tiny Libertarian party’s conventions. Now the FBI and other spy agencies are vastly bigger. There are the federal and state DHSs. Then there is the CIA, other intelligence agencies, and what used to be called the Red Squads of state and local police departments. There are probably hundreds of thousands of government spies in the land of the free. And as with all such efforts, a number will be agents provocateurs. The police state’s “right-wing extremists,” like the “left-wing extremists” of yore, will set out to cause trouble so as to discredit opposition to the state. For example, recent Tea Party people who allegedly denounced a Parkinson’s patient or spat at gay and black congressmen might well have been agents. Offensive signs might be Made in DC too. Next might come calls for violence by alleged Tea Party types, and perhaps acts, which can be used to suppress dissent. Peaceful resistance is not only right, it is all that works, unless you are with the state. If anyone urges the use of violence, the state’s characteristic action, he is probably an agent.

UPDATE from a friend:FBI planting spies in U.S. mosques, Muslim groups say

The groups claim the FBI has sent undercover agents posing as worshippers into mosques, pressured Muslims to become informants, labeled civil rights advocates as criminals, and spread misinformation…

The FBI has sent “agents provocateur” into California mosques, according to the statement, which says an FBI agent threatened to make one mosque member’s life a “living hell” if he did not become an informant.
 
 

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63182

House Judiciary Chairman Says Constitution's Non-Existent ‘Good and Welfare Clause’ Authorizes Congress to Force Americans to Buy Health Insurance
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter

(CNSNews.com) -- House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said the “good and welfare clause” gives Congress the authority to require individuals to buy health insurance as mandated in the health care bill. However, there is no “good and welfare clause” in the U.S. Constitution.

[video here on source site]

During an interview Capitol Hill Friday, CNSNews.com asked Rep. Conyers, “The individual mandate in the bill requires individuals to purchase health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that never before in the history of the United States has the federal government required any one to purchase any good or service. What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate individuals to purchase health insurance?”

Conyers said: “Under several clauses, the good and welfare clause and a couple others. All the scholars, the constitutional scholars that I know -- I’m chairman of the Judiciary committee, as you know -- they all say that there’s nothing unconstitutional in this bill and if there were, I would have tried to correct it if I thought there were.”

The word "good" only appears once in the Constitution, in Article 3, Section 1, which deals with the Judicial Branch, not the powers of Congress. Article 3, Section 1 says in part: "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."

The Senate health care bill that was passed by the House of Representatives on March 21 mandates that all Americans carry health insurance. If they do not,  individuals and most businesses will be penalized, with the fees collected by the Internal Revenue Service.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), however, the federal government has never before mandated that Americans buy any good or service. In 1994, when Congress was considering a universal health care plan formulated by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, the CBO studied the plan’s provision that would have forced individuals to buy health insurance and determined it was an unprecedented act.

The CBO stated: “A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”