http://www.cnn.com/…

Their livelihood was being threatened, and they were tired of waiting for government help, so business owners and residents on Hawaii’s Kauai island pulled together and completed a $4 million repair job to a state park — for free.

Polihale State Park has been closed since severe flooding destroyed an access road to the park and damaged facilities in December.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources had estimated that the damage would cost $4 million to fix, money the agency doesn’t have, according to a news release from department Chairwoman Laura Thielen.

“It would not have been open this summer, and it probably wouldn’t be open next summer,” said Bruce Pleas, a local surfer who helped organize the volunteers. “They said it would probably take two years. And with the way they are cutting funds, we felt like they’d never get the money to fix it.”

And if the repairs weren’t made, some business owners faced the possibility of having to shut down.

Ivan Slack, co-owner of Napali Kayak, said his company relies solely on revenue from kayak tours and needs the state park to be open to operate. The company jumped in and donated resources because it knew that without the repairs, Napali Kayak would be in financial trouble.

“If the park is not open, it would be extreme for us, to say the least,” he said. “Bankruptcy would be imminent. How many years can you be expected to continue operating, owning 15-passenger vans, $2 million in insurance and a staff? For us, it was crucial, and our survival was dependent on it. That park is the key to the sheer survival of the business.”

So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23.

Statists often ask how roads would work in a free market. Here’s a small example. Businesses and private individuals have a need for them and they’d build and maintain them as truly necessary. What we have now is a result of a distortion in the transportation market. Just like government pumped money artificially into the housing market they do so with roads. They’ve put roads where they were unneeded and uneconomic. As with the housing bubble the reversal of socialist and fascist policy will be difficult but an overall positive event.

It’s nice to see the State didn’t try to stop them from doing this. Hopefully Chicago will let KFC do their thing.

http://www.taxtruth4u.com/…

Several states have recently appealed to the 10th and/or the 9th Amendments to assert their state rights over federal government. These amendments state:

Amendment 9 – Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

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.

1. Washington
   http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?year=2009&bill=4009
2. New Hampshire
   http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HCR0006.html
3. Arizona
   http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/1r/bills/hcr2024p.htm
4. Montana
   http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0246.htm
5. Michigan
   http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(sjgu5xbql1n5xf45imuuysrm))/documents/2009-2010/Journal/House/htm/2009-HJ-01-22-002.htm
6. Missouri
   http://www.house.mo.gov/content.aspx?info=/bills091/bills/HR212.HTM
7. Oklahoma
   http://axiomamuse.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/state-legislator-charles-key-wants-to-limit-federal-power/
8. Hawaii
   http://www.hawaii-nation.org/

I hadn’t reported on this earlier because they hadn’t actually been passed or whatever but now with 8 states floating resolutions reaffirming the concept of states rights as defined in the 2nd US Constitution and reinforced by the 9th and 10th Amendments it seems more worthy of posting.

Most of these are too controversal and broad unfortunately to have the likelihood of passing but the fact they have been floated and are getting attention is a good signal. Hopefully the concept of secession will come up more often and in a positive light.

… but not enough to be cold in the Oval Office.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

Anthony, apart from the compulsive-addictive Emperor Worship that suffuses every syllable of this typically wretched Times piece (when is that statist dinosaur going to die?), I’m struck by the unabashed hypocrisy we find in the first two paragraphs:

“The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

`He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?’ said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. `He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.’”

But what of the overpopulated, overheated globe you promised to heal, O Exalted One? What about your carbon footprint? What happened to the austerity you famously promised to impose on the rest of us, whom you rebuked for eating too much and consuming too many resources?

We who compose the hoi polloi have creature comfort needs as well. Should we obey your dictates, or follow your (presumably infallible) example?

I don’t know how this slipped through the libertarian blogosphere but this is pretty hardcore. Looks like it was on 3/13/2008 and the blog is from 6/15/2008.

http://politicalinquirer.com/…

STATE OF OKLAHOMA
2nd Session of the 51st Legislature (2008)
HOUSE JOINT
RESOLUTION 1089 By: Key
AS INTRODUCED
A Joint Resolution claiming sovereignty under the
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States over certain powers; serving notice to the
federal government to cease and desist certain
mandates; and directing distribution.
WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States reads as follows:

“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.”; and
WHEREAS, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and
WHEREAS, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and
WHEREAS, today, in 2008, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and
WHEREAS, many federal mandates are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and
WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and
WHEREAS, a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE OF THE 2ND SESSION OF THE 51ST OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE:

THAT the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all
powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal
government by the Constitution of the United States.
THAT this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government,
as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates
that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated
powers.

THAT a copy of this resolution be distributed to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate of each state’s
legislature of the United States of America, and each member of the
Oklahoma Congressional Delegation.

http://www.okhouse.gov/51LEG/Leg_Votesxx.aspx?include=okh01983.txt

http://www.ok-safe.com/files/documents/1/HJR1089_int.pdf

And as other sovereignty issues arise like with Real ID hopefully the states can exert enough pressure to cripple the federal government. At least slow its march toward total national control.

Pig Book 2008

http://www.cagw.org/…

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released the 2008 Congressional Pig Book, the latest installment in an 18-year exposé of pork-barrel spending.

“When Congress adopted earmark reforms last year, there was hope that the number and cost of earmarks would be cut in half.  By any measure, that has not occurred,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.

In fiscal year 2008, Congress stuffed 11,610 projects (the second highest total ever) worth $17.2 billion into the 12 appropriations bills.  That is a 337 percent increase over the 2,658 projects in fiscal year 2007, and a 30 percent increase over the $13.2 billion total in fiscal year 2007.  Alaska led the nation with $556 in pork per capita ($380 million total), followed by Hawaii with $221 ($283 million) and North Dakota with $208 ($133 million).  CAGW has identified $271 billion in total pork since 1991.

For the first time, the names of members of Congress were added to the projects.  The top three porkers were members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, beginning with Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) with $892 million; Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) with $469 million; and Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) with $465 million.

The Pig Book Summary profiles the most egregious examples, breaks down pork per capita by state, and presents the annual Oinker Awards.  All 11,610 projects are listed in a searchable database on CAGW’s website www.cagw.org.   Examples of pork in the 2008 Pig Book include:

 $3 million for The First Tee;
$1,950,000 for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service;
$460,752 for hops research;
$211,509 for olive fruit fly research in Paris, France;
$196,000 for the renovation and transformation of the historic Post Office in Las Vegas;
$188,000 for the Lobster Institute in Maine; and
$148,950 for the Montana Sheep Institute.

“Americans do not send their hard-earned tax dollars to Washington so that Sen. Daniel Inouye can bring home $173 million in defense pork and receive the Pacific Fleeced Award or get sapped by $4.8 million going to wood utilization research, on which the government has spent $91 million since 1985,” concluded Schatz.

Only the 2nd highest pork year? Come on Congress… next year go for gold. Not like you have to tax us directly for much of it.

http://blogs.enotes.com/…

Asset forfeitures are known as “in rem” actions, meaning that the government is proceeding against a thing, not the owner of the thing. So the “defendant” in an asset forfeiture action is the thing being forfeited. This legal conceit always results in interesting case names, such as “U.S. v. $29,568.23 in U.S. Currency” or, say, “U.S. v. 1981 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz.” But today’s Ninth Circuit decisions bring a case name that takes the crown.This asset forfeiture involves the King Diamond II, a boat operating out of Hawaii. The Hong Kong company Tai Loong Hong Marine Products (TLH) chartered the King Diamond II to meet up with various fishing boats on the high seas to pick up shark fins and then deliver them to Guatemala. The problem for the King Diamond II and TLH is that it is illegal to harvest shark fins. Indeed, under the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000, any shark fins found aboard a fishing vessel without a corresponding shark carcass are presumed to be the result of illegal harvesting. So when law enforcement boarded the King Diamond II off the coast of Guatemala and found 64, 695 pounds of shark fins with no corresponding carcasses, they detained the boat and seized the fins.

Which brings us to the name of today’s Decision of the Day:

U.S. v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins, 05-56294 (9th Cir., March 17, 2008)

Best part? The Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins won. As Robert Loblaw over at Decision of the Day asks: “what is TLH going to do with 32 tons of shark fins that are five and a half years past their prime?” I’d really like to know if they still have them. I’d hope not.