“I’ve Done A Bad Thing” 5yo Girl Bursts into Tears As Cops Fine Her for Lemonade Stand

Common sense, among those who work inside the state, is a rare commodity. Agents of the state, like those who work in law enforcement, often become so blinded to reality by ‘just doing my job’ they throw logic and reason to the wayside, choosing authority and force instead. Nothing highlights this blind order following quite like police tormenting a five-year-old girl and issuing her a citation for the crime of selling lemonade without a permit.

“She just wanted to put a smile on people’s faces. She was really proud of herself,” Andre Spicer, the father of the five-year-old girl who all of the sudden found herself on the receiving end of the police state over the weekend.

Spicer told the BBC that his daughter set up a table and was selling lemonade in Mile End, east London, while thousands of music fans were on their way to the Lovebox Festival over the weekend.

She was in a prime spot and was making money, that is, until the coppers showed up.

Exactly how many police officers did it take to shut down a five-year-old’s lemonade stand?

Four.

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As Spicer explains, “but after a small time trading, four enforcement officers walked over from the other side of the road.

“I was quite shocked. I thought that they would just tell us to pack up and go home.”

Instead of telling the five-year-old that she should not be selling lemonade without a permit — which would have been atrocious enough — these hero cops protected society by issuing her a fine for £150 (nearly $200 USD).

“But they turned on their mobile camera and began reading from a big script explaining that she did not have a trading license,” Spicer explained.

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At this point, the girl became horrified at the four large officers standing over her, telling her she’d broken the law.

“My daughter clung to me screaming ‘Daddy, Daddy, I’ve done a bad thing.’ She’s five,” Spicer said.

“We were then issued a fine of £150. We packed up and walked home.”

The sheer lack of humanity a person has to have to issue a $200 ticket to a five-year-old girl for selling squeezed lemons mixed with water to willing patrons is disturbing, to say the least.

All hope in humanity is not lost, however. Once Spicer spoke out about the ridiculous fine his daughter received, the city council eventually heard about it.

As BBC reported, a council spokesman said, “We are very sorry that this has happened. We expect our enforcement officers to show common sense and to use their powers sensibly. This clearly did not happen.”

Luckily, for the Spicer family, positive publicity is more valuable than the $200 fine to the city, so they chose to take the high road.

“The fine will be canceled immediately and we have contacted Mr. Spicer and his daughter to apologize,” the council spokesman said.

However, you can rest assured that if Spicer had not spoken out about this fine and, instead, simply chose not to pay it, a warrant would’ve been issued and force would’ve been escalated – for lemonade.

As NBC reports, in his column for The Telegraph, Spicer, a professor at the Cass School of Business at London’s City University, lamented all the rules, regulations and monitoring of children that goes on now — often stifling creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and the confidence gained by giving children a little independence.

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“I think the wider issue here is a question about encouraging children to have a go at things, whether it’s starting a small business or putting on a play or whatever they want to do,” Spicer told ITV. “Children are under a lot of pressure these days and are often not encouraged to take risks.”

It’s turning out to be a hard and fast lesson in how government requirements on business – many of which play no role in protecting people or the environment – put a heavy, unnecessary burden on aspiring entrepreneurs like Spicer’s little girl’s lemonade stand. Revenue collection is often the only driver of government permits and licenses and this collection is enforced with police force.

Bearing down on the age-old tradition of youngsters setting up lemonade stands demonstrates how obsessed the State has become in “regulating” small business.

It appears that Spicer’s daughter made it through the gauntlet, with the help of publicity and social media. Others are not so fortunate, though.

In Portland, Ore. an 11-year-old girl wanted to sell mistletoe from their farm at a holiday market to help her dad pay for her braces, which cost $5,000. But the Parks Bureau refused to let her set up without a permit, lease or concession agreement. She was told she could beg instead.

In 2015, comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s son, Julian, and two friends set up a lemonade stand to raise money for a charity.

However, thanks to a see something say something neighbor, police were notified of the illegal lemonade venture. Hero officers then swooped in to shut down the stand, citing local village law violations.

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After being shut down, Jerry and family posed for an epic pic, trolling both the police and the neighbor who would call the cops to shut down a charitable lemonade stand.

If It Pleases the Crown: Behind the Internet’s Hottest New Anti-Establishment Meme

(ANTIMEDIA) A new meme has been making the rounds on the internet, alluding to the American government as “the crown.” While at first glance this may appear confusing considering America is a “democracy” (or “republic,” depending on who you ask), the ‘If it pleases the crown’ meme is actually making a radical point.

The United States was born out of resistance to monarchy; to excessive taxation, restrictions on trade, and the imposing policies that came with having a “crown.” According to popular American nationalist mythology, the American Revolution changed all this, spawning a nation of free, brave, and independent individuals.

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Never mind that at the same time this “republican” (or democratic, depending on who you ask) government was slaughtering and exploiting indigenous people and codifying slavery into law. Never mind that corruption and abuses of power reared their ugly heads before the ink had even dried on the constitution; the constitutional convention was held in secret, George Washington crushed a tax rebellion, and 2nd president of the United States John Adams limited speech critical of the government and attempted to pack the Supreme Court for political reasons at the turn of the 19th century.

Regardless of the huge extent of misconduct, inefficiency, and violence the American government has routinely committed and continues to commit in 2017, it still enjoys a safe space in most Americans’ hearts as the best form of government “we” could hope to achieve.

‘If it pleases the crown,’ however, turns this notion on its head. The formula of the meme is simple: it begins with ‘If it pleases the crown’ and is followed by an articulation of an absurd government policy that violates freedom on a fundamental level:

The meme “[s]hows how we are in fact not “free people”. We must ask permission and pay for all that we do, seemingly never really seceding from Britain,” said Cathy Higgs, a Facebook user, when explaining the meme in a thread discussing its meaning. Another user, Mike Paster, agreed, noting the meme presents “the idea that there isn’t much difference between a Monarchy and the American Empire.”

Though the meme is an explicit reference to monarchy, it arguably tackles the fundamental nature of government as a whole: that whether it is a monarchy, democracy, republic, or dictatorship, individuals must ask permission from a central authority to engage in otherwise non-violent behavior.

“It’s comparing the current style of governing in the U.S.  to the draconian style of governing practiced by 16th-century Britain, where the common people [were] not citizens, but subjects, which are essentially slaves,” said Rob Gore.

“We’re subjects, and like good subjects, we ask permission first,” added Humberto Misteroni.

This permission is often contradictory because, as the meme demonstrates, those asking permission are the ones financing the authority of the institutions they must ask permission from in the first place.

Two examples of this dynamic are parking enforcement and the DMV. In the case of the former, parking enforcement agents, whose salaries are funded by taxpayers, patrol the streets (paid for by taxpayers) in cars funded by taxpayers, only to charge taxpayers additional fines for parking. In the case of the latter, car owners must pay fines and fees to obtain permission to operate their own property, all in exchange for a slip of paper or sticker — the absence of which yields further fines and fees from government employees whose salaries come from those paying the fines and fees.

As meme maker Ryan Butcher observed, “Those memes beautifully mock the ridiculousness of unnecessary ‘revenue generation’ laws. I love how they highlight the ‘no victim no crime’ mentality that many people abide by.”

“To me, it’s a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that we must ask an arbitrary governing official for permission to do mundane things and then, often pay for the ‘right,’” said Amanda Carrol, another Facebook user describing the meme.

Activist Michael Heise agreed with that assessment, adding that “It’s not just things that require licensing, but also matters of privacy…It’s highlighting how unfree we are.”

On that note, the meme also references what happens if any given action does not please the crown — and how privacy is sacrificed to implement “the crown’s” wishes:

In doing so, this meme illustrates the fundamental violence inherent to the State; that if the “crown” does not approve, it reserves and exercises its authority to point guns at individuals as a means to control their behavior.

As Dylan Hock observed in the thread, the memes are increasingly timely. “[The memes] make me laugh. Most I’ve seen so far seem on point, considering the fascist nature the country is slipping into more and more,” he said.

It appears the meme will continue to gain popularity whether it pleases the crown or not.

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Secret Recordings Expose Crooked Cops Taking Bribes for Illegal Gun Sales

It doesn’t matter how quickly you complete and submit your application to buy and own a firearm in New York City. It still takes a very long time. The whole process, which can take less than 15 minutes in some parts of the country, lasts between 3 and 6 months in NYC. For gun rights advocates, the bureaucracy is unconstitutional. But for gun dealers, the long wait can make or break a man’s business.

For one Brooklyn weapons dealer, Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein, the long wait was too much to bear, leading the gun dealer to offer up bribes to NYPD police officers to expedite the process for his customers. But instead of simply passing money in an envelope, Lichtenstein decided to record thousands of hours of conversations with officers involved in his bribery scheme.

While the NY Daily News identified Shaya as a “crooked gun broker”, some might say the real crooks are the cops who took his bribes. Thanks to his nearly 70,000 recorded conversations, we now know who some of those crooked NYPD cops are. But as The Free Thought Project has faithfully reported, you shouldn’t hold your breath in anxious expectation in seeing crooked cops spending time in prison. No, for police officers, there’s a double standard. Criminals like Lichtenstein spend years in prison, while police officers get the proverbial slap on the wrist, often having their cases dismissed, or losing vacation pay, but rarely spending any amount of time in jail or prison.

It’s unclear what Lichenstein’s motivations were for recording so many interactions with police officers. Maybe he considered the volume of information some sort of protection from prosecution. Or possibly, he wanted to document his difficulties with conducting his business dealings. At any rate, he pleaded guilty November 10^th to bribing NYPD officers into expediting his gun permits.

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“I had a good and friendly relationship with New York City police officers. During these years, I gave police officers in the Licensing Division things of value, including money, knowing that by giving them those things, the officers would do me favors, including expediting gun license applications,” Lichtenstein, 45, said.

The NYPD officers involved are Sgt. David Villanueva, Officer Richard Ochetal, Deputy Chief Michael Harrington and Deputy Inspector James Grant. Only Orchetal pleaded guilty to charges relating to the probe, the others stand accused of various crimes related to the case. Villanueva is accused of accepting gifts in exchange for helping speed up weapons permits. Harrington and Grant are accused of being “cops on call” for Jeremy Reichberg (Brooklyn businessman also accused of doling out gifts to police officers) and Jona Rechnitz (wealthy donor to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio). Reichberg reportedly gave away several lavish gifts to several police officers. According to the NY Daily, he gave away Super Bowl tickets and trips to Brazil, and China.

It remains to be seen whether or not the Feds will aggressively prosecute the gun crimes with which the officers are implicated. But a closer look at the problem seems appropriate. In the past, gun permits weren’t even necessary to purchase a handgun or rifle. In fact, Roses department store used to sell Chinese made SKS semi-automatic military rifles out of fifty-gallon barrels. Adults and teenagers could easily walk by, pick one up out of the barrel, and carry it to the cashier to purchase. But after Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr., and the Brady Law was passed, the federal government decided then to regulate all firearms purchases, later instituting federal background checks for all Americans desiring to purchase firearms.

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Because of the regulations, stores were forced to place all their firearms behind locked cabinets or cease selling them altogether. Left-leaning politicians then began to pass legislation banning firearms, forbidding the possession of firearms within city limits, and making it nearly impossible in places like NYC to legally obtain, possess, and carry a firearm. Without such legislation, Lichenstein and all the officers involved would probably not find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Trump plans to bring manufacturing back to U.S. “big league”

(INTELLIHUB) — President Trump has a lot of new plans for a lot of new items to be built in the United States he said Tuesday in a meeting with U.S. automakers.

“It’s happening big league […] We are bringing manufacturing back to the United States […] It’s the long-term jobs that we’re looking for.”

Trump asserted his opinion on how environmental restrictions need to be opened up and talked about how doing that alone will generate jobs.

“I am to a large extent an environmentalist — I believe in it — but it’s out of control,” Trump said, referring to restrictions.

Trump said he wants the ability to fast-tract permits which typically have a long wait time, holding up crucial business that needs to be done in order to stimulate the economy on a national level.

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