(Daily Caller)—Numerous House Republicans joined Democratic representatives in voting down several bill amendments designed to strip the salaries of some of President Joe Biden’s most powerful bureaucrats, according to Just the News.
Conservative members of the Republican caucus introduced the amendments to the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024, which appropriates funding to environment-related federal agencies, to effectively eliminate the salaries of key bureaucrats in agencies covered by the appropriations bill under the Holman Rule, according to Just the News. However, all of the attempts to do so were shot down by bipartisan voting blocks that easily outnumbered supporters of defunding the officials.
Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina proposed an amendment to cut the salary of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan to $1, but it failed by a 150-265 vote after 60 Republicans sided with Democrats to kill the amendment, according to Just the News. Norman also introduced two other amendments proposing to reduce the salaries of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning to $1 each, but those amendments also failed.
NEW: The House of Representatives has narrowly passed its sixth govt. spending bill regarding the EPA, which defunds several Biden Admin. climate change initiatives. What else is in the bill? Click on the image to read my @DailyCaller NF story to find out. https://t.co/fi0Qz3jld3
— Arjun Singh (@arjunswritings) November 3, 2023
The Haaland amendment failed by a 156-263 vote, with 59 Republicans joining the Democrats to vote it down, according to Just the News. The Stone-Manning amendment fell short by a 159-259 vote, which saw 55 Republicans vote with Democrats.
Republican Georgia Rep. Richard McCormick pushed an amendment to cut the salary of Matthew Tejada, who runs the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, down to $1, but it failed by a 166-251 vote with 47 Republicans joining Democrats to shoot it down, according to Just the News.
Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona brought an amendment to slice the salary of Brenda Mallory, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, to $1, but 49 Republicans joined Democrats to kill the amendment by a 161-251 vote, according to Just the News.
Republican Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced an amendment to reduce Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Liz Klein’s salary to $1, which failed when 54 Republicans joined Democrats to vote against it, 163-261, according to Just the News. Republican Illinois Rep. Mary Miller introduced her own amendment intending to defund the salary of Ya-Wei Li, who serves as the deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s pesticide programs office, but that amendment also died when 59 Republicans joined Democrats to kill it in a 151-263 vote.
However, not every amendment introduced to the appropriations bill by conservatives failed. McCormick introduced an amendment that would “prohibit funds from implementing certain Executive Orders relating to environmental justice,” which passed by a 217-202 margin, and Republican Alabama Rep. Gary Palmer’s amendment designed to stop the EPA from using any federal funds to grow their cache of guns, bullets and military-style equipment also passed along with the agency’s budget.
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]]>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided to ban Berkey water filters, officially labeling them as pesticides. Berkey has sued the EPA in response to their sudden and unorthodox reinterpretation of their own regulations. Berkey water filters are regarded by many as some of the best filters money can buy, and several of Berkey’s products have been featured on Good Morning America, Martha Stewart, Food Network, Thrillist, Goop and Forbes. Berkey products, which have been on the market for a quarter century, became popular due to their gravity purifier and filtering elements that can remove hundreds of waterborne pathogens and contaminants.
According to Berkey’s website, their products can “dramatically reduce bacteria like E. coli, Chlorine, Chloramines, Parasites, Fluoride, Heavy Metals, Inorganic Minerals, Trihalomethane (THMs), Pharmaceuticals, Petroleum Contaminants, Bisphenol-A (BPA), Perfluorochemicals (PFOAS), Herbicides & Pesticides, Protozoa, Inorganic minerals, VOCs, Petroleum products, Perfluorinated chemicals, Rust, Silt, Sediment, and even Radiological.”
One of the main elements in Berkey water filters that contributes to their successful purification is silver. Silver is an active ingredient in many pesticides, thus partly explaining the EPA’s decision to label Berkey as such. However, there were several decisions made by the EPA before this nonsensical label that shed greater light on their true intentions.
The EPA announced at the beginning of the COVID “pandemic” that they were considering reinterpreting their own regulations regarding water filters capable of removing viruses. Concerned by this announcement, Berkey owner Jim Shepherd contacted an EPA consultant for guidance. They provided none. In fact, they even told Shepherd that Berkey products were exempt from the reinterpreted regulations.
EPA pretends to care about Americans’ health, but does very little to protect us from contaminants in water
Following his lackluster consultation from the EPA representative, Shepherd decided it was best to continue manufacturing Berkey products. Shepherd was confident Berkey products were not only safe for the American people, but also incredibly helpful. Arguably the most important role that Berkey filters play in terms of American health is their removal of fluoride. According to a Harvard study, “results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment.” The EPA identifies fluoride as a dangerous chemical, yet the US government still introduces it to the public water supply to supposedly reduce tooth decay.
As the EPA continued to review its regulations, they did not do anything to reduce the amount of fluoride being spoon-fed to the American people in their tap water. But what they did do was begin banning the filtration product companies that provide effective ways to remove the fluoride. Shepherd said that representatives of the EPA have shut down Berkey’s production plants and delivered stop sale orders to their part manufacturers.
Currently, all Berkey products are listed as unavailable on their website. Shepherd said that he may be faced with having to lay off over 500 American workers if he is unsuccessful in his litigation.
Why would the EPA, out of nowhere, change their minds about this company that so clearly creates a positive impact on American society and health? Even more puzzling is the timing of the decision. As pawns of the Biden administration seem to be preparing for a revamp of COVID, the federal government wants to make water filters that remove the virus unavailable to the American people. Interesting.
Berkey water filters are some of the best filters money can buy, by the way. Use their website below to cover how they filter like 99% of all contaminants, including fluoride, which can cause cancer, brittle bones and lowered IQ. Keep your truth news in check by adding Preparedness.news to your favorites list and tuning in daily for updates on real news about surviving and thriving in the near future, and news that’s being scrubbed from MSM and social media as you read this.
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]]>“There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army.”—Thomas Jefferson, 1789
What does it say about the state of our freedoms that there are now more pencil-pushing, bureaucratic (non-military) government agents armed with weapons than U.S. Marines?
Among the agencies being supplied with night-vision equipment, body armor, hollow-point bullets, shotguns, drones, assault rifles and LP gas cannons are the IRS, Smithsonian, U.S. Mint, Health and Human Services, FDA, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Education Department, Energy Department, Bureau of Engraving and Printing and an assortment of public universities.
Add in the Biden Administration’s plans to swell the ranks of the IRS by 87,000 new employees (some of whom will be authorized to use deadly force) and grow the nation’s police forces by 100,000 more cops, and you’ve got a nation in the throes of martial law.
We’re being frog-marched into tyranny at the end of a loaded gun. Make that hundreds of thousands of loaded guns.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of federal agents armed with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment, authorized to make arrests, and trained in military tactics has nearly tripled over the past several decades.
As Adam Andrzejewski writes for Forbes, “the federal government has become one never-ending gun show.”
While Americans have to jump through an increasing number of hoops in order to own a gun, federal agencies have been placing orders for hundreds of millions of rounds of hollow point bullets and military gear.
For example, the IRS has stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition in recent years, including 621 shotguns, 539 long-barrel rifles and 15 submachine guns.
The Veterans Administration purchased 11 million rounds of ammunition (equivalent to 2,800 rounds for each of their officers), along with camouflage uniforms, riot helmets and shields, specialized image enhancement devices and tactical lighting.
The Department of Health and Human Services acquired 4 million rounds of ammunition, in addition to 1,300 guns, including five submachine guns and 189 automatic firearms for its Office of Inspector General.
According to an in-depth report on “The Militarization of the U.S. Executive Agencies,” the Social Security Administration secured 800,000 rounds of ammunition for their special agents, as well as armor and guns.
The Environmental Protection Agency owns 600 guns. The Smithsonian now employs 620-armed “special agents.” Even agencies such as Amtrak and NASA have their own SWAT teams. Ask yourselves: why are government agencies being turned into military outposts?
What’s with the buildup of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies? Even the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department have their own SWAT teams. Most of those officers are under the command of either the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Justice.
Why does the Department of Agriculture need .40 caliber semiautomatic submachine guns and hollow point bullets? For that matter, why do its agents need ballistic vests and body armor? For that matter, why do IRS agents need AR-15 rifles?
Why do local police need armored personnel carriers with gun ports, compact submachine guns with 30-round magazines, precision battlefield sniper rifles, and military-grade assault-style rifles and carbines?
Why is the federal government distributing obscene amounts of military equipment, weapons and ammunition to police departments around the country?
Why is the military partnering with local police to conduct training drills around the country? And what exactly are they training for? The public has been disallowed from obtaining any information about the purpose of these realistic urban training drills, other than that they might be loud and to not be alarmed.
We should be alarmed. As James Madison warned, “We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.”
Unfortunately, we’re long past the first experiment on our freedoms, and merely taking alarm over this build-up of military might will no longer suffice.
Nothing about this de facto army of bureaucratic, administrative, non-military, paper-pushing, non-traditional law enforcement agencies is necessary for national security.
Moreover, while these weaponized, militarized, civilian forces which are armed with military-style guns, ammunition and equipment; trained in military tactics; and authorized to make arrests and use deadly force—may look and act like the military, they are not the military.
Rather, they are foot soldiers of the police state’s standing army, and they are growing in number at an alarming rate.
This standing army—a.k.a. a national police force—vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution and rule by force is exactly what America’s founders feared, and its danger cannot be overstated or ignored.
This is exactly what martial law looks like—when a government disregards constitutional freedoms and imposes its will through military force, only this is martial law without any government body having to declare it: Battlefield tactics. Militarized police. Riot and camouflage gear. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Drones. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Concussion grenades. Intimidation tactics. Brute force. Laws conveniently discarded when it suits the government’s purpose.
The militarization of America’s police forces in recent decades, which has gone hand in hand with the militarization of America’s bureaucratic agencies, has merely sped up the timeline by which the nation is transformed into an authoritarian regime.
Now we find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of administrative, police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military with little to no regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.
This quasi-state of martial law has been helped along by government policies and court rulings that have made it easier for the police to shoot unarmed citizens, for law enforcement agencies to seize cash and other valuable private property under the guise of asset forfeiture, for military weapons and tactics to be deployed on American soil, for government agencies to carry out round-the-clock surveillance, for legislatures to render otherwise lawful activities as extremist if they appear to be anti-government, for profit-driven private prisons to lock up greater numbers of Americans, for homes to be raided and searched under the pretext of national security, for American citizens to be labeled terrorists and stripped of their rights merely on the say-so of a government bureaucrat, and for pre-crime tactics to be adopted nationwide that strip Americans of the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty and creates a suspect society in which we are all guilty until proven otherwise.
Don’t delude yourself into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the Constitution and reinforce the iron-fisted rule of the police state.
This is no longer about partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.
This is a turning point.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are sliding fast down a slippery slope to a Constitution-free America.
If we are to have any hope of salvaging what’s left of our battered freedoms, we’d do well to start by disarming the IRS and the rest of the federal and state bureaucratic agencies, de-militarizing domestic police forces, and dismantling the police state’s standing army.
WC: 1308
About the Author
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected]. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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]]>The whole U.S. Constitution, the shortest in the world, has only 4,400 words. Yet every two-year Congress since WWII has enacted 4-6 million words of new law. A wise man once told me that if a law can’t be written in a single sentence, it has no business restricting Americans’ liberty. Over 200 million words of imposed law since the last Great War have no doubt stolen a good deal of Americans’ natural rights and liberties.
Do we believe the modern American legislature’s verbiage is a necessary requirement for fulfilling the promises outlined in our founding documents? Or is it more likely that Congress learned long ago that it could bury monumental power grabs underneath an untamed jungle of distracting weeds and has been writing new weeds into law ever since?
Tyranny comes in many forms, yet one of its subtlest is manufactured complexity. Esoteric language + complicated bureaucracy = citizen compliance. If no-one understands the law or how the monetary system works or whether some agency exercising government power is legitimate, then a great deal of corruption and crime can be committed without the public’s objection. Complexity is the favorite poison of those with power.
Consider how the government’s tyranny through complexity makes answering even the simplest questions quite difficult:
- Have you broken any laws today?
- How many departments or agencies exert power over you?
- Is saving money wise?
- What does the Constitution say?
In a society governed by reason and rationality, these four questions should be rudimentary for any citizen. Instead, they are outrageously vexing.
(1) There are tens of thousands of state and federal laws, hundreds of thousands of rules and regulations set forth by administrative decree, and limitless possibilities for judicial interpretation to shape what is legal and illegal. (2) The administrative bureaucracy is always expanding with the formation of new agency subsidiaries of some department’s creation of this group’s authority or that committee’s jurisdiction to take a slice of Executive power for itself to wield against ordinary Americans. (3) Because the Federal Reserve is a private company that manipulates the supply of U.S. currency and because the U.S. dollar is not backed by anything except the Treasury’s promise that its paper has value, saving monetary currency has the obscene effect of debasing wealth. (4) And ever since Chief Justice John Marshall empowered the Supreme Court alone to decide the Constitution’s meaning in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison, courts have magically discovered implied powers, hidden rights, and unknown obligations all appearing and disappearing according to the subjective determination of any given jurist to hunt down unwritten language lurking in the “penumbras and emanations” that miraculously exist beyond the plain meaning of the Constitution’s text.
Just these past two weeks, this last point was driven home when the Court ruled correctly that abortion is not a constitutionally protected right and that New York’s restrictions on carrying guns outside the home violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.
By originally divining a constitutional right to abort a child in the womb, the federal government stole power from state governments. By enforcing a gun restriction that infringes on an individual’s constitutional rights, New York stole power from anyone within its jurisdiction. The first case remedied a misreading of the Constitution that has been law in America for nearly half a century, while the second case remedied an unconstitutional power grab that has been law since 1913. That’s an awfully long time for Americans to endure illegitimate exercises of power. When the Judiciary embraces imaginary complexity to bend the Constitution to its will, either our governing document or society will eventually snap in two.
A regrettably large share of our legal experiences operate not in the shadow of the Constitution and its constraints, but rather in the shadow of explicitly unconstitutional rules, actions, and orders. In the time it takes for improper Executive Orders to be reined, for illicit administrative decisions to be corrected, and for misinterpretations of constitutional power to be overturned, so much of society’s activity is framed by what we might call the not-Constitution — all those acts of government that are deemed illegal only after they have caused enduring harm. A most troubling aspect of government power is its insistence on pushing past constitutional constraints and operating in a blurry legal wilderness of its own creation while forcing Americans to prove that those power grabs lack legitimacy.
Governance is always about overreaction and never about precise remedy. In response to the vast economic aggregation during the late 19th-century industrial boom, progressivism delivered not only curbs on corporate monopoly power, but also the creation of a vast administrative bureaucracy with unchecked powers of its own. In response to unjust Jim Crow laws, the Supreme Court acquired unjust super-legislative powers.
In response to air and water pollution, President Nixon created an Environmental Protection Agency whose power has grown to stifle American industry and threaten private property. In response to a perceived health insurance crisis, Obamacare’s socialized medicine has only exacerbated the cost of healthcare while giving the government a peek at Americans’ private medical records. Every time government identifies a problem, its answer is to expand its own inherent powers and complicate matters further.
Historically, Congress’s budgetary “power of the purse” empowered the “people’s representatives” to restrict Executive overreach and the natural human proclivity to harness unchecked power. The quickest way to arrest illegitimate government power, in other words, was to stop paying for it. A century of central bank money printing, runaway deficit spending, and doomed mandatory spending commitments, however, have handed the “power of the purse” to the bankers and bureaucrats. In exchange for giving away the people’s power over their government, Congress legally encumbered the nation’s property, monetary, and banking systems in such a way as to maximize the federal government’s power over every purse in every kitchen in America.
All these legal and economic charades hide government tyranny behind so many layers of complexity that ordinary people throw up their hands in exasperation. What can possibly be done to thwart the machinations of the State when its illegitimate power grabs opened Pandora’s box long ago? That feeling of hopelessness is exactly what bureaucrats crave.
The more one denies his own agency, the more enslaved he is to whatever system he insists is oppressing him. The more one relies on a socialist system of government, the more he relinquishes individual liberty for the promises of assured survival and subsistence. The more one leans on government to provide human liberation, the further away from freedom he runs. Through the illusion of complexity, one resulting social order becomes guaranteed: a small ruling class controls everyone else.
Here’s the thing, though: once you realize that complex institutions exist largely to tame and subdue the public, then it’s the people with extraordinarily simple yet powerful demands — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — who begin to resonate with everyone else.
Should we ever find ourselves returning to those same basic foundations that were succinctly expressed in the Declaration’s nimble 1,300 words, I propose we dispose with all laws on the book today and begin again with something exceedingly straightforward: All future legislation must be memorized and recited by at least one member of Congress before becoming law.
After all, an easily understood Constitution + a limited bureaucracy = an empowered citizen. That’s the American way.
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