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My dear fellow Americans, recently APC published my article concerning the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) on a local level. Thank you for all the feedback I’ve received. This article will give you a first person account of what happened as a result of practicing citizen activism. Read, share and let’s band together! LMT A Local’s Experience: As many of you may know, I make it a point to speak up in my local government as much as I can. Currently, the town of Mooresville, NC is conducting a series of town meetings to invite citizens to weigh in on the...

During his presentations of a bill that would enter the state of Mississippi into an interstate compact with Arkansas and Tennessee, the Senate sponsor completely omitted that, if passed, the law would create an unelected quasi-governmental entity with very broad powers, including eminent domain. The bill went on to pass the state Senate unanimously on February 3. SB2716, sponsored by Republican Senator David Parker (R-DeSoto), is a 17-page document that creates the RegionSmart Development District (District) and the RegionSmart Development Agency of the Greater Memphis Region (RegionSmart Development).

Being a government planner in a free society should be almost as unrewarding aa being a freethinker in a fascist state. The major difference, any bureaucrat can tell you, is that while a free society may thwart your plans, lt allows you to keep your job and your life. The resulting combination of frustration and security gives government planners an attitude of desperate benevolence toward the people they serve. They want to. tell us how to live and, by heaven, we'd better listen if we know what's good for us. Unfortunately, their compulsion to make us listen often turns planners...

I wrote here and here about the Obama administration’s proposed rule on “affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH), an attempt to dictate how we shall live. In essence, President Obama seeks to use the power of the national government to create communities of a certain kind, each having what the federal government deems an appropriate mix of economic, racial, and ethnic diversity. The proposed AFFH rule, issued last July, was expected to be finalized by the end of last year. But the year ended with no further action. 2014 was supposed to be the year Obama’s “year of action” — the...

It will come as a surprise to most Americans that President Obama wants to change the shape of our homes and neighborhoods. So how does Obama hope to make us live? The short answer is, “like sardines.” At least that what the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation said as it filed a lawsuit last week against the Obama-supported bureaucrats who created “Plan Bay Area,” an ambitious blueprint to block the creation of new suburbs and force the next 30 years of development in the nine-county San Francisco metropolitan region into a few hyper-dense, Manhattan-style enclaves.

By PAUL PRESTON The new motto under the bear on the California State flag is going to have to be revised from “California Republic” to California Soviet Republic” if proposed Senate Bill 1 by State Senator Steinberg is passed and signed into law. SB 1 came about following the massive defeat of Prop. 31 in last November’s election which was defeated by California Voters 61% to 39%. Cal Watch Dog’s Wayne Lusvardi in his November 9, 2012 article tilted :http://calwatchdog.com/2012/11/09/prop-31-would-have-ended-californias-republic/“>Prop. 31 would have ended California’s republic”, commented “Republicanism Upheld Only by Accident: The reason attributed to Prop. 31 losing by...

The consensus response to President Obama’s Knox College speech on the economy is that the administration has been reduced to pushing a menu of stale and timid policies that, in any case, won’t be enacted. But what if the administration isn’t actually out of ideas? What if Obama’s boldest policy initiative is merely something he’d rather not discuss? And what if that initiative is being enacted right now? A year ago, I published Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. There I described the president’s second-term plan to press a transformative “regionalist” agenda...

Destroying the sovereignty and freedom of United States citizens is well underway with a new doublespeak plan called Seven50, just another euphemism for Globalism through Regionalism. Flying under the radar, federal bureaucrats and alphabet agencies have joined with local politicians in 7 Florida counties in imposing The Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI), a United Nations created plan which divests Americans of Constitutionally guaranteed liberty by introducing social collectivism. Vero Beach County Commissioner Bob Solari warns that the Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI) being pushed by HUD, the EPA, and the USDOT is representative of a culture which believes “government can never be...

We are two months away from fundamentally transforming the State of California, and barely anyone knows it. With a five to six point lead in the latest poll, Proposition 31 has a solid shot at passage. The measure is meant to bail out California’s failing cities by creating regional super-governments empowered to raid and redistribute suburban tax money. It’s the end of the system of local self-government that has served as the bedrock of American democracy since the time of the Founders — in the nation’s largest state, no less. Yet virtually no one is paying attention...

Burn Down the Suburbs? Not exactly, but Obama is already working to get rid of them. By Stanley KurtzEditor’s Note: This article is adapted from Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities, by Stanley Kurtz, from Sentinel HC. President Obama is not a fan of America’s suburbs. Indeed, he intends to abolish them. With suburban voters set to be the swing constituency of the 2012 election, the administration’s plans for this segment of the electorate deserve scrutiny. Obama is a longtime supporter of “regionalism,” the idea that the suburbs should be folded into the cities, merging schools,...

Italy's general elections two weeks ago resulted in an absolute majority for Silvio Berlusconi's rightist alliance. Mr. Berlusconi thanks his victory to the astonishing and pivotal electoral success of the Lega Nord, a constituent of his alliance. The Northern League completely wiped away the left in the north of Italy. It doubled in size and won a stunning 8.3 percent of the national vote, sending 60 deputies (+37) and 26 senators (+13) to Rome. In some northern regions it had the support of up to 50 percent of the electorate.

New Deals in the Developing World ECONOMIC ACTIVITY between Africa and Asia is booming like never before. Business between the two continents is not new: India's trade with Africa's eastern and southern regions dates back to at least the days of the Silk Road, and China has been involved on the continent since it started investing there, mostly in infrastructure, during the postcolonial era. But today, partly as a result of accelerating commerce between developing countries throughout the world, the scale and pace of trade and investment flows between Africa and India and China are exceptional. (Throughout, Africa is used...

Few parts of the world are as loved and loathed with the intensity that is felt for the American South. Thanks to a long line of contributions to the popular culture from Gone with the Wind to Borat, via Deliverance, Dixie, the great muggy swath of the southeastern United States, from Washington DC to Texas, has a firm grip on the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. To its detractors it is a terrifying and contemptible land full of racist rednecks, Bible-toting hypocrites and downtrodden blacks. To those of a more romantic disposition, and certainly to most of its inhabitants,...

Last year was another instrumental year in the advance of world government. While most commentators will concentrate on popularized events, many will not discuss the latest steps taken to cement the final touches to a world governmental structure, that has been in the making for the last 150 years or so. In order to understand the importance of 2005's global achievements in the march towards global governance, which is the integration of the world's peoples, countries, and philosophies, we must briefly visit the past. Let us recount the 1913 birth of the U.S. tax code. Over the past 92 years,...

Regional governance is here By Henry Lamb web posted March 1, 2004 There are currently six Regional Commissions in place, or pending final approval, which impact states from New York to California; from Florida to Washington. Few people realize that these regional commissions even exist, or the growing influence they have over the lives of ordinary people, by providing the mechanism through which appointed individuals, rather than elected officials, develop public policy. The Appalachian Regional Commission, created in 1965, was the pilot project, created to provide federal funding for the poverty-stricken counties throughout Appalachia. The Commission brought new roads and...

Regional Governance is Here "This commission has become a nightmare, beyond the reach of either state government, or Congress, short of repealing the Act altogether. This appointed commission has absolute authority over all land use within the designated counties, with the authority to override both county and state elected officials..." March 1, 2004 By Henry Lamb henry@freedom.org NewsWithViews.com To submit a Letter to the Editor: newswithviews@newswithviews.com There are currently six Regional Commissions in place, or pending final approval, which impact states from New York to California; from Florida to Washington. Few people realize that these regional commissions even exist, or...

Regionalism - dealing with public policy issues on a level that goes beyond city or county boundaries but is smaller than the state as a whole - gained an official toehold in the 1960s and 1970s with the reorganization of major state agencies along regional lines and the creation of multi-jurisdictional umbrella organizations ... (snip) Regional "councils of governments" that had hitherto been mere gatherers of information and debating forums began exerting some real influence, especially in the transportation field and thus indirectly on land use patterns. As they did, local politicians began jockeying for influence within those COGs, as...

TORONTO -- Recognized worldwide for its commerce and culture, this city on the northern shore of Lake Ontario began 1997 with a population of more than 650,000, nearly twice the size of present-day Pittsburgh. But that wasn't nearly big enough to suit the Conservatives governing the province of Ontario at the time. Toronto, home to gleaming office towers and Broadway-style theaters, entered 1998 with a population of 2.4 million, nearly four times as many people as the year before. In a display of unbridled power, the Conservative Party government that controlled the provincial parliament had adopted legislation merging Toronto and...

<p>If a little-known regional plan proceeds, teachers in Pennsylvania and nearby states soon might find it easier to get a teaching job in a different state.</p> <p>A committee of education and state representatives from Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., are working on a proposal that would allow teachers to seek a regional license honored in those areas.</p>