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Residents in South Bend, Indiana, dealing with several feet of flooding following a record-decimating rainfall now also have to deal with costly and time-consuming government red tape in order to rebuild homes and businesses — making them hapless victims of both nature and the State.
Before Hoosiers can pick up the pieces by reconstructing their property, the City of South Bend is forcing them to also pick up a building permit.
According to a media release from the South Bend/St. Joseph County Building Department:
“Repairs and/or construction activities to structures that are located in the floodplain and were damaged due to the disaster will require a local building permit from the South Bend/St. Joseph County Building Department as required by local ordinance.”
Worse, “In addition, depending on a property’s location, a permit may be required from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources prior to the start of any reconstruction activity. Failure to obtain the necessary permits could result in fines.”
Leave it to Big Government to exponentially worsen an already difficult and costly situation.
On Monday, the South Bend area received “its highest rainfall total for a single calendar day since records began,” the Weather Channelreported, officially 7.69 inches of rain, which broke the previous record set in September 2008 by a full inch.
“In one day,” meteorologist Jim Erdman noted, “the city received more than twice its average rainfall for the entire month of August, which is 3.76 inches.”
When including rainfall that continued into Tuesday morning, that total climbed to 8.49 inches — and needless to say, the water inundated local storm drains and paralyzed any ability to alleviate resultant floods.
“Many of the toughest days are actually in the days to come because it’s going to take a very long time for some of this water to go away,” Mayor Pete Buttigieg said. “In the days coming ahead frustration is going to set in.
“People need to understand this is a thousand-year rain event. With the amount of water in some roadways and in some basements, it’s not an amount of water that can be removed by a pump or a truck or draining operation. You just have to wait for it to recede.”
Traumatized residents trying to contend with expensive and horrific damage — one reported eight feet of water in his basement — now also have to cope with the burden of overbearing state bureaucracy, not to mention penalties for failing to comply.
Although such an unprecedented rainfall would be expected to overflow city storm drains and sewers by its nature, one business blames the State for damage incurred.
Chris David, manager of Around the Corner Auto Service, said construction work on a nearby highway bypass left the closest storm drain cordoned off by a fence in the shop’s backyard — which, when record-breaking rains began to fall, acted as a dam for debris, leaving water nowhere to go but inside.
David and three employees have been working nonstop to clean the damage, but he faces an arduous road ahead to reopen the shop’s doors to customers. As he told local CBS affiliate WSBT,
“Insurance is not going to cover it because they think it was the fault of the state, not the fault of ours.”
Total estimated damage to the auto service store has already climbed to a whopping $120,000.
Should any reconstruction be necessary, of course, David would also be forced to obtain what amounts to the State’s permission slip — to repair damage the State haphazardly caused in the first place.
But the Indiana Department of Transportation disagrees with David and his insurance company, placing blame for his woes solely on the rainfall, itself.
“We had record breaking rainfall and many areas flooded,”explained Doug Moats, public information officer for INDOT, “and I don’t think that fence was directly responsible for that.”
Despite David’s description of the dam effect the fence caused during the torrential rainfall, Moats claims the storm drain would have overflowed regardless.
“Utilizing that fence as an excuse as to why that there was additionally flooding there is maybe convenient,” he said. “But to be completely honest, it was the fact that we got 8 to 10 inches in a short amount of time.”
Both fortunately and surprisingly, no injuries or deaths were reported as having resulted from the rains and subsequent flooding.
Damage to properties is nevertheless understandably extensive — two homes collapsed after being inundated — forcing those who can and cannot afford to rebuild into a sudden scramble to file insurance claims and, of course, building permits in order to avoid the further expense of state-imposed fines.
It would be difficult to justify additional red tape during the aftermath of tragedy — nevertheless, the government didn’t even pretend to be apologetic for its additional imposition on the beleaguered residents of South Bend.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/state-permit-flooding-victims/#vJeQ8gWjHIkeMW5F.99
There has never been an honest election. Redistricting, gerrymandering, and ID fraud, double-counting, lost or destroyed ballots, disallowed ballots, recounts, hanging chads, and fraudulent counts are nothing new. They have always been the norm. The only thing that has changed is that we now have the Internet and alternative media outlets to spread the word about what has always been.
It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes.
Free people do not vote. Government will never put liberty on a ballot. You cannot vote yourself to be free.
Remember that Apartheid ended when people stopped voting. Before that people tried to change things in South Africa by voting. Apartheid remained a legitimate policy because the very fact that people participated in the election was touted by the government as proof that they were the legitimate result of the will of the people. When voter participation fell below 6%, the world saw that the government of South Africa was no longer legitimate and that they were not representing the people. That is what killed Apartheid.
Do you think that the U.S. Government legitimately represents you? Perhaps you should rethink your plans to hold your knows and vote for the lesser evil at the ballot box...
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-arrest-mother-tamales/#eUllujRmmgx7ZGk2.99
Carrollton, TX — In modern day police state, USA, exchanging goods and services is a crime unless the state gets their cut. So, even though a Carrollton mother was “stunned” to find a warrant issued for her arrest for selling tamales to her neighbors — it was to be expected.
This week, Dennise Cruz was shocked to receive a yellow postcard from the City of Carrollton stating that if she doesn’t immediately submit to their extortion demands, then she would be kidnapped and locked in a cage.
“That has to be wrong. I don’t have any tickets under my name. That’s just my first reaction. Never would have I thought, tamales,” said Cruz in an interview with CBS DFW. “To know that somebody can be arrested over that, that to me is unbelievable.”.
The yellow ticket was a “warrant arrest notice” stemming from Cruz’ illegal activity a few months prior. Cruz, obviously a hardened criminal worthy of police action, decided to make her famous tamales and post them on the app Nextdoor for sale. Her neighbors loved them.
“It’s just so common. That’s why to me, I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal,” said Cruz.
However, because Cruz did not pay the state to operate this business, their procedure is to rob her under the threat of violence. She was hit with a $700 fine.
“When it hit me, I was like that is a lot of money,” said Cruz.
When Cruz called the city to protest her extortion, the clerk told her that someone reported her for not having a food permit. However, this is not likely as only the government would know such things.
“I don’t understand because if anything I would have rather them come to me first if they had any concerns,” said Cruz.
The city of Carrollton maintains that extorting Cruz is in the interest of the people. According to a city director, tamales are a danger to society. A director said a fine was issued and not a warning because tamales are considered “potentially hazardous food” due to the cooked corn and meat being used, according to CBS DFW.
“I’ve seen so many people doing it. And unfortunately it’s me who’s having to deal with it,” said Cruz. “I’d just rather stay away from that at the moment, making tamales.”
The good news is Cruz intends to fight this tyranny in court. Also, friends set up a GoFundMe account for her that’s made more than quadruple the amount she needs just to pay the fine — highlighting that Americans can’t stand this ridiculousness either.
This absurd arrest warrant comes on the heels of an equally asinine incident, also in Texas, in which two young girls had their lemonade stand shut down by local cops for not having the correct permit. The good news is that, like Cruz, the girls refused to roll over and opened their stand up again the next weekend.
Apparently, Texas officials take their motto Don’t Mess with Texas quite literally. Aside from threatening to arrest a young mother attempting to make ends meet by selling tamales and shutting down little girls’ lemonade stands, they’ll also throw you in a cage for having tall grass on your own property.
Don’t take our word for it, however. Ask 75-year-old Gerry Suttle, who was stunned when she received a call from the local police chief, informing her that she had a warrant issued for her arrest — because her grass was at a length not desirable for the state of Texas.
...for any extended period of time requires some creativity. The collapse of the entire system is inevitable. The object is to keep it going long enough to take all the money and run. As the scheme begins to crumble, more and more new methods of maintaining the illusion of success and wealth are needed.
Negative Interest Rates are the future of Legacy Banking. Legacy Banks are those places where you are currently keeping your money safe - places like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, etc. They are built on a business model that is centuries old and has been frought with corruption for its entire existence.
In order to bolster a failing system, many large banks have decided to build up hoards of cash by charging negative interest rates to their depositors. They believe that this means of punishing savers and rewarding borrowers will supercharge the economy and their business. This is likely to be the final nail in the coffin of the Centralized Banking Systems like the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank that have plagued the world for the past two centuries.
What are negative interest rates? Well, normally when you loan money, you charge an interest rate to the borrower. When you put your money into a savings, checking account, or a CD, you are loaning money to the bank. They offer to pay you an interest rate for borrowing the money from you. In many of those accounts you will see that your interest rate is 0%. If you're lucky it might be 0.5% or 1% if you have a large balance.
The bank then loans that money out to people so they can buy houses, cars, or start a business, etc. But they mark up the interest rate pretty significantly. They also have the ability, through the scheme of Fractional Reserve Banking, to lend out more than they have.
With negative interest rates, you will pay the bank to lend them money. In other words, instead of collecting that 0.5% or 1% interest for depositing money into your account, the bank will charge you interest to lend them money.
Logic says that this will cause a run on the banks - that is everyone will withdraw their money and keep it in a safe or "under the mattress". They are hoping that by offering attractive interest rates on home loans and other loans (which will undoubtedly have deposit requirements) that people will opt to pay the interest on their savings and checking accounts so they can get the great interest rates on their loans.
Q: What happens when everyone withdraws their money? A: That's impossible. Because banks are allowed to lend up to 10,000% or more of the money they are holding in deposits.
In other words: The banks don't have your money. It's gone. So, depositors who clear out their accounts first will be able to do so. Those that wait too long will find that their money was given out to the early arrivals.
Banking is a sinking ship. Honest businesses do not resort to tactics like this.
Get your money out of Government-backed Central Bank Currencies like the U.S. Dollar, Euro, Yen, etc.
Learn about Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Start moving your money into these currencies and practice using them to buy everyday items. When you learn how these currencies and their underlying blockchains work, you will realize that the collapse of central banks (and their currencies) around the world is a mathematical certainty.
What are negative interest rates? Well, normally when you loan money, you charge an interest rate to the borrower. When you put your money into a savings, checking account, or a CD, you are loaning money to the bank. They offer to pay you an interest rate for borrowing the money from you. In many of those accounts you will see that your interest rate is 0%. If you're lucky it might be 0.5% or 1% if you have a large balance. 