Original Story

California has banned electronic bingo machines, effective Feb 1, 2009, because they are “too close to slot machines”. And why is that a problem? Because it competes with Indian casinos. The casinos have lobbied heavily to the state legislature to attack freedom and the state legislature obeyed.

“It’s going to be a very immediate and devastating thing that takes place tonight, when we’re not allowed to raise funds using electronic bingo machines,” said Topo Padilla, President of the El Camino High School Booster Club, who says the machines helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for the school’s football team and other programs.

Corporate communists have won another victory against freedom.

Original Story

Officials at the New York Fed did not want AIG to submit a critical bailout-related document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission without getting assurances from the regulatory agency that “special security procedures” would be used to handle the document. How special? The AIG’s bailout filing would be kept “in a special area where national security related files are kept.” The New York Fed has gone to great lengths to keep the terms of the bailout secret from the American tax payers whose hard-earned money is being funneled into this boondoggle.

Original Story

The company that runs speed cameras on Arizona’s highways – Scottsdale-based Redflex – is behind a petition designed to change the way violators are served with tickets so as to increase the revenue from the tickets. The law firm Quarles & Brady was the one to write the document, however neither the firm nor the camera company are mentioned in the petition filed on January 8th, 2010 with the Arizona Supreme Court.

The current rule requires people caught speeding on camera to be served in person with a ticket if they don’t pay. The proposed change would allow violators to be considered served by mail.

Original Story

• The Senate rejected a plan Tuesday to allow Americans to import low-cost prescriptions from other countries.
• The vote was 51-48 in favor of the plan however a “special rule” stipulated that 60 votes were needed to pass.
• This plan would have allowed federally approved drugs from Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan – not junk from China.
• Both the pharmaceutical industry and the Obama administration lobbied aggressively against the proposal, contributing to its failure.
• This defeat brings Obama’s health care plan one step closer by keeping prescription drugs unaffordable.

Thanks Derek and Luke!

Original Story

• Jeremy Engelking, of Superior, WI has been arrested for trespassing on his own property.
• Engelking was deer hunting on his property when construction workers who were also on his property told him he was in an unsafe place – the Canadian oil company Enbridge Energy was building a pipeline through his land without paying him an easement – and a short while later a sheriff’s officer pointed a Taser at him and ordered him to the ground where he was handcuffed and arrested.

D.A.G. says: Buffoonery all around.

Anyone with the name of the judge or the arresting officer, send them in for free merchandise.

Mel Watt (D-NC). Opposes an audit of the Fed.

Original Story

• There still remain groups opposing an audit of the Federal Reserve. One of the opposition groups has brought out a posse of eight academics they refer to as a “political cross section of prominent economists.”
• In fact, the so-called “prominent economists” lobbying on behalf of the Mel Watt’s anti-audit bill are in fact deeply involved with the Federal Reserve. Seven of the eight are either currently on the Fed’s payroll or have been in the past.
• The group have written a letter to the House Financial Services supporting a bill that would place restrictions on Congress’s ability to audit the Fed. They did not disclose their Fed connections.

Original Story

• The Obama administration, which has promised sweeping change to some of the moldier conventions in D.C. has kept up one tradition: Handing out the best ambassadorships to his big donors.
• Of the nearly 80 ambassadorship nominations and confirmations since his inauguration, 56% were given to political appointees (a.k.a. sugar daddies) and 44% to actual career diplomats.
• Beatrice Wilkinson Welters along with her husband Anthony, donated between $200,000 and $500,000 in donations for Obama’s campaign and an additional $100,000 for his inauguration. Wilkinson now gets to be the ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.
• Television executive Charles H. Rivkin, who donated $800,000 gets the French ambassadorship. Investor Alan Solomont who donated $500,000 gets Spain. Investor Louis B. Susman who donated $500,000 gets the UK. Volvo dealer Don Beyer who donated $745,000 gets Switzerland. And Nicole Avant, a Motown heiress, who donated $800,000 will get the coveted Bahamas ambassadorship.
• Meanwhile, the far more qualified career diplomats receive backwater postings in Haiti, Zimbabwe, and Serbia.
• While diplomatic positions were once merely ceremonial jobs where the qualifications of the diplomats were largely irrelevant, the positions are now taking on real importance, focusing on issues of war, human and drug trafficking, kidnappings, and intelligence sharing.
• Now, very important ambassadorships are being given to people whose only “qualifications” are their wealth and their ties to the President.

D.A.G. Says: Cincinnatus they ain’t.

Original Story

• The FDA, under the direction of former Monsanto executive Michael Taylor, is planning to ban all oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico unless they are treated for bacteria with an expensive process.
• Tainted oysters only kill around 15 people per year, mainly among those with weak immune systems stemming from liver or kidney disease, cancer, diabetes, or AIDS.
• Oyster aficionados say the treatment process destroys the shellfish’s flavor and far prefer to take the risk of untreated oysters.
• The FDA’s decision will be a crushing blow to the $500 million oyster industry. In Alabama alone, two thirds of the state’s “mom and pop” oyster shops would have to shut down because of the high cost of oyster treatment while only larger corporations would be able to afford it.

D.A.G. Says: Another phenomenal example of government buffoonery. In order to save 15 lives per year – 15 lives ended by their own choice – the bureaucracy is going to destroy a $500 million industry and tip the economic balance further in the favor of large corporations. Fitting behavior from ex-Monsanto goon Michael Taylor.

Thanks Mary Lou!

Original Story

• wifiOneCommunity, an award-winning, non-profit organization serving Northern Ohio by connecting public and non-profit institutions to their fiber-optic network and fostering economic development has been shut down by government bureaucrats acting at the behest of media cartel, MPAA.
• Aside from use by the public, Coshocton’s Sheriff’s department is said to have used the network to file incident reports and with traders using it to check the validity of customer credit cards.
• The network, used by hundreds of people, has been completely shut down by Coshocton County’s Information Technology Department.
• The reason for this government crackdown is that the MPAA filed a complaint that a single movie had been unlawfully shared over the network.

D.A.G. Says: Now, thanks to a whiny trade cartel, many citizens are put out. The MPAA’s ringleaders are criminals, but the real dog here is the the Coshocton IT Department. Whoever bent over to the MPAA goons should be fired.

Anyone with more information on the individuals responsible, submit the info for some free merchandise.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel

Original Story

• San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel passed an injunction against RealNetworks preventing them from selling their DVD-copying software RealDVD.
• The logic used by the judge is that Real’s software violates the unconstitutional Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
• The injunction is the result of a lawsuit filed by the media cartel, MPAA.