Rebane's Ruminations

About

November 2026
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  

ARCHIVES

OUR LINKS

YubaNet
White House Blog
Watts Up With That?
The Union
Sierra Thread
RL “Bob” Crabb
Barry Pruett Blog

  • The Rising Tide of Civil Asset Forfeiture

    George Rebane

    [This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 6 May 2015.]

    “Civil asset forfeiture is a decades-old tool that gives law enforcement the power to seize property if it’s suspected of being related to a crime. … California has safeguards in place to protect innocent people from the harmful practices of civil asset forfeiture. However, a new report from the Drug Policy Alliance (download here) found that such measures haven’t stopped law enforcement agencies from using federal forfeiture laws to circumvent state policies.”  So advises a recent report in The Daily Signal.  The specifics of how the state’s corrupt law enforcement agencies take advantage of this end-run to enrich their own coffers should enrage all of us.  Unfortunately, even though this is a nationwide problem with many calls for reform, for some reason our media chooses not to report such summary takings from innocent citizens.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , , ,
    105 comments on The Rising Tide of Civil Asset Forfeiture

  • Scattershots – 3may15 (updated 8may15)

    George Rebane

    FedVRealityFed vs Reality.  America’s financial mavens extend their record of missing the mark on predicting our GDP growth.  Why is this important?  Well, it’s their prognostications that not only drive their own policies on things like setting short term interest rates and managing their considerable assets, but these somewhat worthless predictions are still used by businesses and the financial management community to make their own plans and do buying/selling of securities.  In short, our central bank’s hubris driven ‘experts’ have no idea what the economy is doing, and yet they continue to drive monetary policy.  Look at the nearby record of their recent performance – the predicted intervals are large, yet they still missed every actual measure of GDP growth.    

    Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s socialist senator, has laid out his priorities as our next president.  His chances of getting the Democrats’ nod range between slim and none, however, his impact on who runs for the progressive side will be significant.  First, if he starts pulling Hillary to the left, then Lizzy ‘the native American’ Warren will be tempted to jump into the fray.  In any event, having the Bernie Sanders faction of the Democratic Party out in the open before their convention will be very illuminating for those voters who can still be illumined.

    An initiative to study California becoming an autonomous state is now gathering signatures.  Its passing “would create a panel of government officials and private experts to explore establishing California’s autonomy from the United States.”  The thinking behind this initiative is that California is a net donor state to the feds who seem to be intent on the fiscal destruction of America – why should California continue to contribute to such an enterprise when it could do better going its own way? There’s a lot more to be said about how California would operate as a semi-autonomous region that is still tied to the United States.  For openers, California is America’s leading light in socialist policies and programs with a very large fraction of the country’s ignorant and indigent.  If this initiative is to appeal to some latent desire for self-determination, then one must ask what kind of ‘self’ is the California that wants to determine itself.  And if successful, how will it change both its politics and governance to survive as an independent state, or does it intend to show the world how a new Socialist Republic of California does collectivism correctly?

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , , , ,
    35 comments on Scattershots – 3may15 (updated 8may15)

  • Sandbox – 3may15

    [The old sandbox is overflowing again.  In the effort to evaluate and/or design alternatively powered vehicles that was initiated in the 27apr15 sandbox, it would help for our more environmentally concerned readers to recognize that the energy to move a given mass (say, automobile) from point A to B in time interval T requires a certain minimal amount of energy, regardless of the power source employed.  A commenter in the last sandbox summarized it nicely in a restatement of thermodynamical non-negotiables.  gjr]

    Posted at

    in

    188 comments on Sandbox – 3may15

  • EU responsible for illegals from Africa?!

    George Rebane

    Another indication of the ongoing feckless demise of the EU is its handwringing about the fatalities among people attempting to illegally enter Europe from the northern shores of Africa.  Before going any further, I submit that any reasonable person will admit that Africa is essentially a failed continent comprised of failed and dysfunctional states (with Egypt tenuously excepted).

    It is instructive to watch the self-flagellation from the Vatican and noted media outlets like The Economist.  The latter’s 25apr15 edition features a cover photo of a capsized boat on which its hapless passengers are trying to save themselves.  Under the title “Europe’s boat people”, it boldly delivers its judgment that this human tragedy is Europe’s “moral and political disgrace”.

    Given what the Africans and Arabs are doing to themselves, I have a difficult time understanding how these miserable migrants have become Europe’s boat people.  How do countries that have a functional social order and governance suddenly become responsible for not only accepting but also inviting illegal entry into their lands by peoples who have demonstrably dysfunctional cultures and belief systems that are antagonistic toward the lands and people from which they seek succor?  And then it becomes a moral and political disgrace for white Europe when such throngs pay exorbitant amounts to sleazebag smugglers and allow themselves to be cast off in unseaworthy rust buckets that then founder with tragic losses on their short trips north.

    The EU is simply incapable of solving the problems of Africa and the Mideast that give rise to these migrations.  And whatever it does to facilitate safe passage over the Mediterranean and provide a warm welcome on their own shores will do nothing save increase the flow of the unwanteds, keep the smugglers in business, and relieve pressure for any change in the ruthless and incompetent governments from under which these people emigrate.  Yet Europe’s socialists can only blame themselves for the ongoing human tragedies on foreign shores.  So the question remains, how have these migrants become Europe’s boat people and not Africa’s boat people?

    Posted at

    in

    ,
    11 comments on EU responsible for illegals from Africa?!

  • Sandbox – 27apr15

    [For the record, 27apr15 The Union published my letter critiquing Mr George Boardman's column. The letter was also copied into the 23apr15 sandbox's comment stream as its opening comment.]

    Posted at

    in

    150 comments on Sandbox – 27apr15

  • The Liberal Mind – ‘You didn’t create anything, the government did.’

    George Rebane

    The lamestream has been extra silent about the Raisin Takings.  You do, of course, know about Horne v. USDA that started wending its way through SCOTUS last week?  This is where the government trucks pull onto your farm and demand that you fork over a percentage of your harvested crop for which they pay you zilch.  They have been playing these games on and off since the Depression – remember the grainy newsreels showing federal agents pouring milk from those galvanized metal milk cans into the gutters?

    UncleSamGimme2Most people have never heard that our government has been doing such things ever since.  The explanation given is that keeping your product off the market will raise prices, and that will be for the common good.  There is something in the Constitution about that called the ‘takings clause’ which says that if the government has to take any of your property to serve a greater public need, then they have to pay you a fair price – “just compensation” – for it.  Zilch is not just compensation.

    The Horne family has been making raisins in Fresno for decades, and the hoops the federal legal system has asked them to jump through is summarized in this piece, ‘The Incredible Raisin Heist’.  One of my favorites from the report was the feds telling the Hornes that they would be fairly compensated by selling their remaining raisins into a market that would then pay them a higher price when California’s raisin confiscations are figured in.  Oh yes, a runner up was ‘if you don’t want to have your raisins taken by the government, then you shouldn’t grow them in the first place’.  You gotta love the progressive road to tyranny via a nod to socialism along the way.

    I bring this up because Horne will be a seminal property rights case of this century, bigger than Kelo v New London was in the last one.  But this one is being fought within a new understanding ever since people like Obama, Clinton, and Warren started telling their gruberized constituencies that all enterprise and success in the private sector was really due to and came from government.  Therefore the government could reach into your pockets or property and take what they damn well wanted, because it is really theirs to begin with.

    Lately this message has been strongly argued in these pages by readers of various collectivist hues.  The scary part is that we as a nation are now so dumb and coddled that at least a third of Americans would be ready to march under the hammer and sickle in a heartbeat, given the promise that inequality would then be stamped out and they would get their ‘fair share’.

    Notice what brings this to the fore are the ever more frequent statements in the lamestream by liberal politicians and progressive pundits pointing out the common basis for the state’s claim on your property and perspiration.  If what you own or accomplished in any way involved anything that was built, administered, or accessed through the collective, then your rights to those fruits are secondary to that of the collective, i.e. the state.  The state determines its cut and takes it off the top; what’s left over is yours, and if that remnant cannot sustain your enterprise, then it’s too bad – the ‘peepuhl’ come first.

    The saddest thing is that our system was constituted to let us retain the means to oppose the rapid rise of an obvious and palpable tyranny.  It was not designed to handle such bit by piece insults to our liberties through bread and circuses.  Instead, it was designed to be managed by leaders of education, honor, and goodwill, who are vetted and elected by a suitably informed electorate – recall Jefferson’s, ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’  Today’s evaporation of our freedoms underlines the results of ignoring Jefferson’s wisdom – hence liberty, property, and security are on the wane.

    Posted at

    in

    , , ,
    42 comments on The Liberal Mind – ‘You didn’t create anything, the government did.’

  • Sandbox – 23apr15

    [The nearby photo of a massive dredging operation is of the Chinese busily enlarging some Spratly islands in the South China sea to better house their growing military presence there in order to cement their lawless takeover of the islands.

    China_Spratlys

    This is a continuation of the crap that’s going on with Russia in the Ukraine and Iran in Iraq and Yemen, and who knows what else is cooking where.  The common denominator for the world’s bad guys is to ‘make hay while Obama shines’, and I purposely use ‘shine’ in its two meanings.  The man’s weaknesses and incompetence on the world scene are as apparent to all as are his lies to Americans.  gjr]

    Posted at

    in

    144 comments on Sandbox – 23apr15

  • The Con-Con and SoJ debates

    George Rebane

    [This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 22 April 2015.  This commentary is apropos to the recent RR posts 'Constitutional Convention – the debate continues' and 'Suddenly SoJ has become real' and their respective comment streams.]

    Most people around here have probably missed what is happening with the efforts to launch two historical initiatives – to hold a Constitutional Convention or Con-Con, and separate certain northern rural counties from California to form the new State of Jefferson.  The basis for both initiatives are contemplated in our Constitution, and proponents of both assert that they will follow the prescribed legal pathways to the letter in order to bring about these historic changes.

    The Constitution’s Article V provides for holding a national Con-Con as one of the methods the Constitution may be amended.  If the legislatures of 2/3 of the states apply to hold a Con-Con, then Congress “shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments”.  As of today 34 or 2/3 of the state legislatures have passed such ‘applications’ to hold the first ever Con-Con.  However, the never-tried application process is a bit murky because some states have withdrawn, and some have then re-applied.  It will be up to Congress and/or the Supreme Court to resolve the matter.

    There are energetic factions on both the Left and Right who desire such a revisiting of the Constitution.  The Left seeks to do a massive rewrite in order to achieve a “modern constitution” in accord with their socialist tenets, and the Right seeks a very focused approach to insert a balanced budget amendment.  Both sides feel that once a Con-Con is launched, they will be able to control the assembled conclave for their respective ends.  Any work product output by the convention must then be ratified by ¾, or today 38, of the states.  Both sides feel they can muster at least 13 states to block ratification of any adopted amendments that they oppose.

    From the looks of it, I believe the Left has the more accurate view of what can be done to gain their ends once the Con-Con is gaveled into session.  You can google Con-Con or go to my blog, Rebane’s Ruminations, for more information and participate in a debate about the matter.

    The State of Jefferson or SoJ movement is about two years old.  California’s northern rural counties strongly believe that their voices have not been heard in Sacramento, and that the state has been acting contrary to their interests for several decades.  This sentiment, with related initiatives, has been shared by rural Americans in many states.  Here in California six northern counties have passed resolutions asking our legislature to start the separation process which ultimately will reach Congress.  The intended extent of SoJ will be from Placer to Mendocino counties in the south, and reaching up to the Oregon border.

    In addition to the counties that have formally declared for separation and formation of the State of Jefferson, eleven more counties, including Nevada County, have active SoJ formation committees.  All these efforts have been roundly dismissed, denigrated, and mocked by California’s Left.  Then about two weeks ago a new political action committee named ‘Keep it California’ was formed.  The objective of this PAC is to organize strong and vocal opposition to the SoJ movement, thereby giving lie to the assertion that SoJ has been nothing but the frothings of “a small group of extremists”.

    The stated opposition to SoJ centers around a sclerotic analysis of the new state’s economy that grossly misrepresents its financial and commercial prospects.  The real fear is that as SoJ continues to gain momentum, then so will similar movements in other western states.  And that would totally torpedo the progressives’ design for an American future as delineated in the UN’s Agenda21 vision.  But SoJ proponents believe that in this most exceptional country the world has ever seen, the new and never-been-tried has always served as a beacon to innovation, enterprise, and a better life.

    The Nevada County Board of Supervisors will hear a presentation by the county’s SoJ steering committee on 12 May at the Rood Center scheduled for 1:30PM.  There will be an appeal for the Supes to join Nevada County with those in favor of forming the new State of Jefferson.  In attendance will be members of Keep it California who also plan to have their voices heard.  Please consider attending this meeting from which I promise you will emerge either informed or enflamed, or perhaps both.

    My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on georgerebane.com where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

     

    Posted at

    in

    , , ,
    19 comments on The Con-Con and SoJ debates

  • Constitutional Convention – The debate continues

    George Rebane

    In recent years both the Right and Left have launched initiatives to hold a constitutional convention (Con-Con) to settle some real serious issues on the future direction of these United States.  Promoters on both sides devoutly believe that there exist provisions and they have expertise to implement them to insure that the con-con will not veer out of control and result in new amendments deleterious to their respective causes or worse.  I remain a skeptic about whether such control is possible, let alone its being correctly exercised.

    In my continuing study of the matter I have talked at length to eloquent Con-Con proponents like Mark Meckler.  Recently I discovered that Mr Bob Hren, an intellect and learned friend, who has had similar concerns, studied the matter, and written a revelatory summary on Con-Con.  Bob is a retired engineer and lawyer who lives in Nevada County, and now busies himself with more genteel pursuits like making fine wines.  I wanted to share his thoughts with RR readers, and Bob agreed to edit his analysis for more broader audiences interested in this historical undertaking.  You can download the entire six-page document here. Download Con-Con_BobHren_4-18-15

    But before you dive into the specifics, let me give away the punch line by reproducing the paper’s conclusion –

    In summary, advocating for a Con-Con is a very risky path for conservatives to pursue.  It plays into the hands of those extreme liberals who would place the USA under UN governance and thus runs the very real risk of losing the sacred liberties and rights embodied in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Conversely, the potential rewards of restating existing states’ rights or of an ineffective balanced budget amendment are small or insignificant.  There is absolutely no assurance that a Con-Con can be called on a limited number of topics, potentially resulting in a runaway convention that emasculates the Constitutional protections of liberties.

    Reliance on one fourth of the states to ratify only conservative-backed amendments is a false hope given the massive PR and propaganda campaign that would be mounted.  Conservative state legislators in swing states would be faced with overwhelming media and public pressure and virtually unlimited monetary inducements to just go along with a “modernization” of the Constitution that would also include some ineffective conservative amendments.  This is the key backstop that conservative proponents of a Con-Con rely upon, but it is an extremely risky position.  Expecting conservative state elected legislators, especially ones facing a term limit, not to succumb to human failings under such pressure is unrealistic.  The result would be an emasculation of our liberties and rights. 

    By pursuing a top down Con-Con, conservatives are also distracted from more proven methods of effective governance; that is from the bottom up rather than from the top down. 

    We need to back away from this Con-Con precipice, focus on electing good officials at all levels, and take back our country one vote and one election at a time.

    Posted at

    in

    , ,
    22 comments on Constitutional Convention – The debate continues

  • Suddenly SoJ has become real (updated 19apr15)

    George Rebane

    The State of Jefferson movement was started over a year ago to offer northern Californians and the citizens of its thinly populated rural counties an alternative to being ignored by the social engineers, central planners, and bureaucrats in Sacramento.  The cry from these people has been ignored for over a generation, and working within ‘the system’ of a state dedicated to serving the populous coastal urban areas which have totally different interests and goals has not worked, and shows no signs of working in the future.  If anything, the urban voters have sent more legislators to Sacramento to double down on the regulations and strictures they have already imposed on the rural north.

    (more…)

    Posted at

    in

    , , ,
    259 comments on Suddenly SoJ has become real (updated 19apr15)

RR FUNDAMENTALS

About the Bastiat Triangle

Glossary & Semantics

A Conservetarian Credo

Commenting Rules

RECENT POSTS

RECENT COMMENTS

CATEGORIES

105 comments on The Rising Tide of Civil Asset Forfeiture