Conservation Easements: A Vehicle for Land Confiscation

Martha Boneta's small 70-acre farm, previously the center of the famous "pitchfork protest", is once again under attack.  She purchased the farm with a Conservation Easement from the Piedmont Environmental Council. 

Conservation Easements are touted as a means to protect resources such as productive agricultural land, wildlife habitat, historic sites or scenic views. They are used by landowners ("grantors") to authorize a qualified conservation organization or public agency ("grantee") to monitor and enforce the restrictions set forth in the agreement. Federal and state governments grant vast sums in tax benefits to the grantor in exchange for relinquishing all or part of the development rights and meeting the specified terms of the agreement.

Mrs. Boneta was not the grantor of the easement on her property nor was she awarded any tax benefits or subsidies. She bought the property with the easement and is bound by the terms of the original agreement that are passed on to any subsequent owner permanently. She had a reasonable expectation that the easement on her farm would assure that the land would be preserved for her intended purpose - farming.

What could possibly go wrong?

One minute she is a responsible organic farmer with the required license to sell her vegetables and fruits; the next, she is bullied and fined for contrived violations by Fauquier County Administrators.

They never obtained a warrant nor set foot on her property to gather actual evidence. Instead a county bureaucrat relied on unscrupulous, unlawful methods to bring charges against Mrs. Boneta. They ignored due process of law which is a common practice used to intimidate citizens into forfeiting their rights and ultimately their property.

One would think the PEC would be in her corner and stand up for her right to farm per the conservation agreement.

But it wasn't enough for the PEC that Martha was bullied into shutting down her farm out of fear of further uncertain charges by Fauquier County carrying possible criminal penalties. The PEC has now put Mrs. Boneta on notice that they intend to inspect the Barn Complex and Smithy "for the purpose of determining if improvements have been made to accommodate residential use".

The conservation easement agreement authorizes the Piedmont Environmental Council the authority to monitor and enforce the terms of the agreement but the notice completely ignores that the agreement allows 1600 sq. ft. of residential space in the Barn Complex.

PEC Vice President, Heather Richards, further believes she can ignore the law by prohibiting Mrs. Boneta from photographing or video recording anyone entering her private property, even to inspect, while asserting the PEC's right to do so.

In essence, Fauquier County Administrators and the PEC are attempting to pull the land right out from under the feet of Martha Boneta without due process of law and totally ignoring the terms of the conservation agreement.

Their position assumes they are above the law and Mrs. Boneta is but a mere serf or tenant on what is her land, while she is still burdened by taxes and other expenses, and subject to the whim and will of Fauquier County Administrators (the king) and the Piedmont Environmental Council (the privileged lords and nobles).

The UN objective of Agenda 21, to extinguish private property rights, is met when wealth and power (property) is transferred to, and accumulated in the hands of the modern ruling elite: government agencies and trusts which form an unholy alliance to defraud rural landowners, like Martha Boneta, of their inherent right of lawful ownership and use of their land.

 Source: Right Side News, Donna Holt, Executive Director, Virginia Campaign for Liberty

Campaign For Liberty's Mission is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.

Related:

 Resource Page for Agenda 21 Information: RSN Agenda 21 and below is the directly related content for further study.

·        Fauquier Cites Farmer for Farming Fauquier Cites Farmer for Farming - 14 July 2012

·        Fauquier Zoning Administrator has Overstepped - 24 July 2012

·        Fauquier Farmers Fight Back - Protest Set for Fauquier Zoning Hearing Warrenton, VA-July 25 2012

·        Fauquier County Agrarian Unrest Comes to America - 03 August 2012

·        Hawkins Case Further Demonstrates Tactics of Fauquier Zoning Administrator 09 August 2012

·        PEC Joins Fauquier County in Opposing Rights of Small Farmers 10 January 2013

·        Rutherford Institute Calls on Virginia General Assembly to Exempt Homes and Small Farmers from Onerous Food Production Regulations

·        15 January 2013

·        Virginians Standing up for Property Rights, Begin Boycott of Farm Bureau 16 January 2013

·        County Lobbyists Seek to Protect Bullying Bureaucrats from Boneta Bill - Where was VACo when Fauquier County charged Martha Boneta for hosting a birthday party for eight little girls? The Virginia Association of Counties (VACo) is quietly opposing H.B. 1430, the Boneta Bill, 18 January 2013

·        Are Conservation Easements Truly Protecting the Family Farm? 08 February 2013

·        Property Rights: Fauquier Board of Supervisors Scores with Popular Vote 21 February 2013

State GOP Chair Forum

This Saturday, April 13, at 9:45 AM at DeKalb GOP HQ.

 The North DeKalb Republican Women will meet at the DeKalb Republican Party Headquarters, located 3583-G Chamblee Tucker Road (Embry Hills Shopping Village) on Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 9:45 A.M.  We will be hosting a Candidate Forum featuring candidates for the Georgia GOP Chair: Alex Johnson, John Padgett and B.J. Van Gundy.

The public is invited.

The NDRW is not just a political association.  We are a non-profit organization heavily involved in public service working with the USO,  Ronald McDonald House, the V.A Hospital and local schools.

Also, please note the NDRW is collecting diapers for the families of our military.  If anyone would like to contribute, please bring the diapers to the DeKalb GOP Headquarters on any meeting date. 

If you have any questions, please contact Natalie Olmi at 770-396-4101. 

Thank you very much.

Tammy Johnson

Past President, NDRW

404-294-6314

 

10 Reasons to Avoid Regional Plans

Planning is not a one-size-fits-all exercise. Yet, that is exactly what regional plans attempt, while gradually silencing local officials and the public.

Here are 10 reasons to avoid implementing regional plans and councils. Cleaner Greener NY [1], also called the Capital Region Sustainability Plan [2], is a model of why community members and local public officials must work together and say "NO" to regionalization and regional planning.

See how many apply to your region's proposal.

1. Planners gain miniscule community participation when forming the regions, the plans or the councils  There over 1 million residents in the proposed Capital Region Sustainability Plan (CRSP). Despite claims of "stakeholder engagement" (CRSP p26), less than 300 participated in planners' workshops. In CRSP surveys, only 96 people, or less than .0001 percent of residents participated. (CRSP Appendix 16, p11)

2. Plans are prepackaged and do not represent unique community needs. In spite of claims to the contrary, most plans encompass the same government sponsored top-down "livability" control features. CRSP includes the same "livable communities" (p99), fewer vehicle miles traveled (p128), and increased compact living (p105) as most regional plans. Cleaner Greener NY (CGNY) further promises the government and non-governmental organization pushed (NGO) standbys of virtually every plan: confiscation of open spaces (p75), forced environmental justice (p58), hi-speed rails (p63), and dilution of privately controlled farmland interests through conservation easements (p90).

3. Plans do not protect individual property rights.

Few regional plans mention the potential individual property rights infringements, tax increases or loss of potential wealth accumulation inherent in most proposals. None offers any method for protection against such losses. The CRSP contains no enforceable landowner protections.

4. Plans fail to protect communities against onerous regulations passed by regional councils. Once installed, regional councils or consortiums, have immense power to pass regulations with minimal or no local input. The CRSP offers a seat for council representatives. However, having a community representative sitting on a larger multi-county consortium is not the same as making planning decisions with local citizens and local public officials working together in your hometown. (CRSP p8)

5. Plans rely on questionable "experts" for critical advice.

The CRSP relies on the Apollo Alliance for assurances there will be green jobs, which are fundamental to the plan's success. Yet, Apollo advised on the 'stimulus program' assuring there would be shovel ready and green jobs if passed. A year later, we learned Apollo exaggerated the job potential. (CGNY p40, p44)

6. Plans release questionable or incomplete statistics, which create false impressions. In the case of Cleaner, Greener NY, the plan optimistically depends on green jobs, stating the US had a 9.1% increase in these between 1998 and 2007. The authors omitted that NY actually lost 1.9% of their green jobs during that same period. They also failed to notify community members that Congressional hearings cast serious doubt on the permanency, quality or even existence of the green jobs claimed. (CGNY p37)

7. Promotes community solutions without explaining the potential negative effects. The CRSP promotes conservation easements to protect farmland from development without addressing the loss of dominant estate status, potential for plan changes, the downsides of 'best practices' and a host of ways in which landowners can lose their property and its value while still technically being the owner. (CGNY p90, p100)

8. Councils open the door for government grants, which often contain restrictive policies to reduce vehicle use while forcing low-income housing and social justice. The CRSP states that future grant monies will be necessary, but not their source nor stipulations that will be attached. (CRSP p8)

9. Regional councils confiscate much of local officials' power, leaving the community with less representation. In the CRSP, 25 local leaders have already diminished their oversight by agreeing to allow Albany to take the lead in all grant processing. To protect constituents, public officials must carefully study all grants and report the implications to their constituents before approval. Grants are the doorway to regulatory control of community members' lifestyles, activities and residential opportunities. (CRSP p8) In NY, communities are already beginning to pay the price for regionalization before the plan is even approved.

10. Once formed, regional councils are virtually irreversible.

Once officials agree to form a region and council, if community members discover they dislike its regulations, how can they disband the entity and roll back the dictates? There is no provision in the CRSP for its break up or regulatory rollback

Source: Published February 6, 2013 | By admin By John Anthony

<http://www.repealregionalism.com/index.php/author/admin/>

 http://sustainablefreedomlab.org/2013/02/06/10-reasons-to-dump-regional-plans/#more-381 Posted in Articles

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Comments:

The Transportation Leadership Coalition (traffictruth.net) is actively seeking the repeal of all Regional Governance authorizing legislation since 2008.  Georgia voters should go to traffictruth.net and repeal regionalism.com. and look up other websites opposing regionalism.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader, Transportation Leadership Coalition Member

Transportation Leadership Coalition Changes Tack,

Transportation Leadership Coalition Changes Tack,
Launches RepealRegionalism.com

T-SPLOST proponents kick off a new strategy, Transportation Leadership Coalition responds.

March, 28, 2013, Roswell, GA – Last night, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and PNC Bank hosted a community forum on Regionalism.  According to the event marketing, the forum was a direct response to the failure of the transportation sales tax referendum last summer.   The companies claim that T-SPLOST was actually a “failure of metro Atlanta’s fragmented communities to work together as a region.”   Transportation Leadership Coalition (TLC) disagrees with this assumption and launches website RepealRegionalism.com in response.

“It isn’t a failure of metro Atlanta’s ‘fragmented communities to work together,’” said Jack Staver, Chairman of the Transportation Leadership Coalition.  “The issue is dysfunctional county governments who are not willing to do the hard work to protect their counties and come up with mutually beneficial solutions with their neighboring counties.  This is highly concerning,” Staver continues, “because regionalism is the fastest growing issue in Georgia that most citizens do not know exists.”

Regionalism was first introduced to Georgians in 2008 when the Georgia General Assembly passed HB 1216 and was signed into law by Governor Sonny Purdue.  HB 1216 reorganized the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.  It established 12 regions and created the governing structure for those who would serve on these regional councils creating regional commissions.  

“The biggest concern with this approach is that the regions are ‘ruled’ by governing councils who were not elected to serve,” said Field Searcy, a key member of the TLC team.  “We citizens have no recourse with regional councils like we have with an elected county commissioner or city council.  If you think about it, appointed officials are not accountable to us, the people.  They are accountable to whoever appointed them.”  Searcy continues, “The United States Constitution ‘guarantee[s] to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.’  That means elected officials, not appointed ones, represent us.  Our own state Constitution provides for Home Rule.  Home Rule protects our individual rights, prevents state government from interfering in city and county operations, and protects the principle of one person, one vote.”

RepealRegionalism.com aims to help educate the people of Georgia on the dangers of Regionalism and stop the growth of an unelected and unaccountable form of government.  

About Transportation Leadership Coalition, LLC

Transportation Leadership Coalition, LLC, is a grassroots, all-volunteer organization that has come together in the belief that the State of Georgia can do a much better job of transportation planning than passing the largest tax increase in Georgia history and encourage the citizens of Georgia to become involved in their local governments to avoid the trappings of appointed government bureaus.  We believe that if Georgians understand the facts about regionalism, they will overwhelmingly reject it.

Source: Web: www.RepealRegionalism.com by Field Searcy

Facebook: Facebook.com/RepealRegionalism

Twitter: @RepealRegionali

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Copyright © 2013 Transportation Leadership Coalition, LLC, All rights reserved.

 

Grandma in Georgia Schools Senator Chambliss

Grandma in Georgia Schools Senator Chambliss on Guns and More!

Note: This is one of the greatest letters I've ever read to Senator!  Any Patriot would be proud of Teri Hinkle who is a grandma from Georgia tired of Washington trying to take her guns!  I've never seen a grandma that is so awake to the new world order and their scumbag agents in DC.  Spread this letter far and wide!   She wrote this letter after all emails to Senator Chambliss began bouncing back!  She wants this letter to go VIRAL so PLEASE share it with everybody you know!

Mr. Chambliss,

You are dangerously wrong..."I believe that the ability of sportsmen, hunters, gun enthusiasts and citizens concerned with their personal safety to own a gun, whether for sport or protection, is clearly defined in the Constitution and must not be compromised."

The founders were VERY clear about the purpose of the 2nd Amendment and it had nothing to do with hunting, sport or personal protection from street crime... it HAS everything to do with protection from treasonous leaders and out of control government. ANY usurpation of gun rights is in direct

violation of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment and ANY representative who votes for or even abstains from voting on a single restriction of the rights of the people PROTECTED by the Constitution and Bill of Rights is guilty of a treasonous act.

Make no mistake Mr. Chambliss the American people have awakened and are watching every single move our representatives are making. The people have reached the line in the sand and are not going to tolerate any more encroachment into their private lives or violations of their rights endowed by their Creator. Governments do not endow rights and only dictators can give and take away privileges. We will not tolerate any more dictatorial and unconstitutional legislation. In fact we will not rest until all of the unconstitutional legislation including the immunity from it for those creating it is reversed!

We are watching while our law enforcement is militarized, our military conducts UNLAWFUL drills such as the gun confiscation in New Orleans during Katrina, the firing of blanks over the citizens of Miami and other cities recently, the movement of heavy arms and military machinery across the nation, the staffing of internment camps (please don't insult by denying that, you don't put gun towers and razor wire around emergency facilities designed to help people), our borders left wide open and our border patrol, state governors and private citizens prohibited from protecting them, our military using biological and chemical weapons on innocent people in the middle east destroying both the lives of unborn infants and our own men and women in uniform, DHS demonizing our returning vets as well as our veterans of other wars, obvious false flag events staged for political agenda, our children drugged on a massive scale in order to control them by a system of indoctrination designed to turn out a robotic work force in the public schools and our churches neutered by the government through the 501c3 and Christians once again being thrown to the lions! According to Agenda 21 and our out of control government I am deemed a domestic terrorist because I still believe in my Constitution and our REPUBLICAN form of government not to mention the ideal of patriotism, secure national borders, free markets and freedom from governmental tyranny!

Honor and truth is now so foreign to our members of Congress in this country that the people are finally realizing that the Fox has clearly decided to surround and destroy the hen house. The only thing standing in the way of a massive banquet featuring chicken soup for the Fox is the fact that the chickens are armed! The chickens are fully aware of what the Fox is up to which should be more than evident in the exponential rise in weapon and ammunition sales since Obama took office the first time and even larger the second. There is no such thing as "Continuity of Government" guaranteed by our Constitution. In fact in our form of Government (Constitutional Republic not Democracy), God is supreme over the people and the people are supreme over the states and the states are supreme over the federal government which has ZERO jurisdiction over the people (read the exact description of its jurisdiction in the Constitution)! No amount of BS or educational spin can change that or convince the American people that they must bow to the will of those in Washington D.C. who are governing by force, deceit and corruption and personal gain.

The American people sure as HELL are not going to bow to the will of the U.N. or the global genocide of Agenda 21. We've had enough and if Congress has become so inconsequential and cowardly as to kiss the feet of the global banking masters and the Communist U.N. instead of serving the people of this great nation, reign themselves in to the lawful parameters outlined by the Constitution and protect this nation and her people, the people will be forced to protect themselves.

That, Mr. Chambliss may be what is planned and being forced on us whether we like it or not and it will cost many innocent lives but any lives lost among those in collusion with the global take over of our country will be treasonous lives and certainly not innocent nor will they be lamented. All of you in Congress need to man up, accept the consequences of whatever dirty deals you have thus far been involved in and remember who you work for.

The people no longer buy the spin, the rhetoric and the excuses or the silly infighting and false red/blue debate. We know the parties are controlled by the same masters. We know it's all a big show to keep us distracted and occupied and we don't buy a word of it anymore. We also know that all three branches of government have been taken over by Lawyers and the one cliche we do believe in is that if any one of them is moving their lips they are lying! We're also well aware of the unlawful and illegal fourth branch of government created unconstitutionally with the passing of the Administrative Act which has resulted in a complete dissolution of due process, law and equal protection. Now we have so called judges who think they are immune from their own criminal actions on the bench! We absolutely know what "human resources" means and we are fully educated on the irrefutable fact that we have been traded on the open market as if we were cattle; unfortunately for those responsible we are not dairy cows, have opposable thumbs and more closely resemble a Texas longhorn! We are aware of the hundreds of thousands

of people in prisons just for the purpose of securitizing them and lining the pockets of the crooks.

The gig is up and the people are fed up. Washington has squandered our nation's wealth, resources and honor and collapse is imminent. So what? We are American's and we know how to act like Americans to stand up and solve the problems we face, help each other and defend our liberty. Which side of the fence do you intend to place yourself on?

All the absurd political distractions streamed at us in the mainstream media have become less entertaining than Sponge Bob Square Pants and we don't even watch anymore unless it's to get a clue as to what you guys would LIKE to see us paying attention to instead of what we SHOULD be paying attention to.

The division isn't working, we don't buy the BS race card, don't care who marries who (my neighbor can marry his dog if he wants to what do I care), don't care if Ms. Whatsherface gets birth control or not so long as we don't have to pay for her lack of moral terpitude, and couldn't care less if the banks collapse due to their massive ponzi scheme of theft and financial rape of the nation. We don't need money that isn't money but nothing more than imaginary zeros on a computer screen. We know what value is and we know how to create and build on a legitimate monetary system. We're not all a bunch of entitlement junkies lining up for "Bama Phones" and food stamps nor do we ever wish to. We know the difference between charity and redistribution and we know the later leads to totalitarian slavery, not buying it.

Shame on you all. It is true what they say you know, what goes around definitely comes around and the guilty know who they are and should be needing sleeping pills and eyes in the back of their heads. They won't escape the retribution they deserve though, fate is funny that way and we all reap what we sew in the end. We the people accept our part as we allowed the D.C. crooks a free reign for far too long and we will willingly step up to save that which has and is being stolen from us. Naturally we need eyes in the backs of our heads too, just to protect ourselves from the domestic enemies we have foolishly placed in office. No more spin Mr. Chambliss, it no longer works.

BTW.... the folks in Georgia now know about the illegal and unlawful Loyalty Oaths and the fact that we currently have not a single legally sworn judge, sheriff, representative, commissioner or any other elected official including Governor and AG. There has been a law suit filed on March 20, 2013, case number 2013-cv-167, for the illegal Loyalty oath and violation of Georgia law on the content thereof, sworn by Judge Thomas H. Wilson in the Superior Court of Munroe County Georgia. At last inquiry the clerk of said court is in direct and felonious violation of her oath of office by refusal to docket the case. Even the Attorney General's office has gotten in on the fun in an attempt to coerce the plaintiff, John Reynolds into dismissing the case. Of course upon further investigation it has been revealed that there are in fact NO lawfully sworn judges at this time to preside over the case, all of them having taken the same unlawful loyalty oath. Anyone care to read the Governor and Attorney General's Loyalty Oaths? No, the judges do not enjoy immunity from anything they have done while illegally presiding in Georgia's courts as they were not legally sworn judges (or elected officials either) when they did it. Unringing a bell is not possible and we cannot make things legitimate retroactively. The final part of the last sentence used in the oath under Georgia law must be: ", and I am not a member of the Communist Party." Just to make it easier you can look that up in Georgia codes 45-3-11 to 45-3-14. Funny how the Communists managed to take over our fair state just by omitting a comma and a few simple words isn't it? The question is, what are the people of Georgia going to do about it... what do you intend to do about it as a Georgian or are you going to try to duck that responsibility too?

Respectfully,

Teri Hinkle... just a grandmother on a porch in Georgia who is not willing to relinquish that which her ancestors fought and died to provide to her.

"A nation...cannot survive treason from within...the traitor ...wears the face of his victims,...and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation-he works secretly...he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared......." Cicero, 42 B.C.E.

Source:  Posted by Glenn Canady March 28, 2013 at 11:01pm

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Home Schooling Attack

Home-schooling family who fled to U.S. from Germany face deportation: Parents face charges and $9,000 fine for taking kids out school as Obama officials prepare to send them back 

A lawsuit against the Department of Justice will be heard April 23 … Federal government based decision on an international law ruling….White House petition seeks 100,000 signatures in 30 days….Germany fines parents for home schooling and sometimes revokes custody….An estimated 2 million children in the US are home schooled

The Obama administration is arguing in federal court that a homeschooling family from Germany should be deported back to their homeland, despite what they say is religious persecution. The German government prevented Uwe and Hannelore Romeike from teaching their five children at home instead of sending them to government-run schools, fining them and threatening to prosecute them if they don't obey.

When they took their three oldest children out of school in 2006, police showed up at their house within 24 hours, only leaving after a group of supporters showed up and organized a quick protest. 

But their legal troubles were just beginning. Germany began fining the family, ultimately racking up a bill of more than 7,000 Euros ($9,000).

After they fled to the United States in 2010, the Romeike family initially were granted political asylum and found a home in Tennessee. They had a sixth child. But then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appealed the asylum decision in 2012. 

The federal Board of Immigration Appeals sided with the government despite a 2011 policy that gives the government broad discretion to pursue only high-priority cases.

ICE would not provide details about the case, or its reasons for pursuing the Romeikes.'We do not comment on pending litigation,' ICE public affairs officer Brandon Montgomery told MailOnline.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike fled Germany with their five children because the government there criminalized home schooling. A sixth child was born after they took up residence and Tennessee and won permanent asylum on human rights grounds. The Obama administration appealed and seeks their deportation back to Germany

The Romeikes teach their five school-age children at home, including computer lessons along with reading, writing, math, history, music and other subjects

The Home School Legal Defense Association sued the US Department of Justice because a judge in that agency's Executive Office for Immigration Review was responsible for the decision.

A three-judge panel in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case of Romeike v. Holder on April 23.

Michael Farris, that organization's founding chairman, told MailOnline in a telephone interview that the even if the federal government doesn't believe home schooling is a human rights issue that qualifies for political asylum, it can still let the family remain in the US and home school their children.

'The attorney general absolutely has the discretion to let these people stay,' Farris said of the devoutly Christian family.

'I really wonder what would've happened to the Pilgrims under this administration,' he said recently on the Fox News Channel.

Christopher Bentley, a Tennessee spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, said his agency was involved in the case early on.

'I can't talk about any asylum cases in particular,' he cautioned, 'but our office would have responsibility for initially determining whether they qualified for asylum in the United States.'

'We're the first step in establishing "credible fear," and then making a determination of whether they qualify for asylum in the United States. They have to claim that their government can't protect them from persecution because they're part of a specific group. That's the basis for any asylum grant.'

'We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the Obama Administration grant full and permanent legal status to Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their children,' the petition reads. If it attracts 100,000 signatures by April 18, it will trigger a response from the administration

At the point where the Romeikes were granted asylum, the Department of Homeland Security was off the case. But after the Board of Immigration Review heard the case and overturned the asylum ruling, DHS re-entered the picture, since it's the agency charged with enforcing immigration judges' decisions.

Farris has started a petition to pressure the White House to let the family remain in the country. It has attracted more than 21,000 signatures toward a goal of 100,000, which must be reached by April 18 in order to trigger a response from the Obama administration.

'Every state in the United States of America recognizes the right to homeschool,' the petition reads, 'and the U.S. has the world’s largest and most vibrant homeschool community. Regrettably, this family faces deportation in spite of the persecution they will suffer in Germany.'

An estimated 2 million children in the US are home schooled.

But the practice is illegal in Germany. An estimated 200 families teach their own children there anyway, even at the risk of fines, criminal prosecution and, in some cases, the loss of custody of their children.

Uwe Romeike supervises one of her daughters during a reading lesson in their Tennessee home. The Obama administration seeks their deportation back to Germany, where home schooling is illegal

Germany made school attendance mandatory in 1918. During the Nazi era, that law was made even more restrictive to ensure that young Germans were indoctrinated with Adolph Hitler's national socialist ideology.

The German Supreme Court has ruled that it wants to 'counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies,' Farris explained. 'And that's a direct quote.'

'We want to give them a safe harbor. That's what asylum is for.'

That court ruled in 2007 that parents who home school their children can have their custody rights limited or eliminated entirely.

German families have sought refuge in both Canada and New Zealand in recent years, citing the same reasons as the Romeikes. Both cases were denied.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. Attorney General Eric Holder could intervene and allow the Romeikes to remain in the country on humanitarian grounds, even if the Obama administration doesn't believe home schooling parents should qualify for asylum as a matter of principle.

The school day in the Romeike household is a conducted around the kitchen table, with Uwe making the rounds as her children study. An advocacy group sued the federal government over their deportation order, and a federal appeals court will hear the case in April

Federal law allows refugees to stay in the United States permanently if they can show they are being persecuted for reasons including their religion or their membership in a 'particular social group.'

But in its argument against the Romeikes' asylum, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement called home schoolers too 'amorphous' to qualify. 

'United States law has recognized the broad power of the state to compel school attendance and regulate curriculum and teacher certification' along with the 'authority to prohibit or regulate homeschooling,' ICE wrote.

When the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the judge's initial grant of asylum, it based its decision on a case where the European Court of Human Rights ruled that 'the public education laws of Germany do not violate basic human rights.'

A science curriculum is part of the Romeikes' home schooling curriculum, including access to a microscope, laboratory equipment and other things they would have if they attended traditional schools. The German government forbids home schooling, and the US government wants them deported back to their home country

The Home School Legal Defense Association's argument is that the federal government should not substitute international law for US law.

'I think we have a really good case,' Farris said.

He believes there are likely only three possibilities that would explain why the Obama administration is working so hard to deport the Romeike family.

'It could be that the government is just anti-homeschooling, or anti-religious-freedom,' Farris said. 'Or perhaps they have some deal with the German government.' 'I don't know which it is, but none of the options is pretty.'

 
Source: Dailymail, By DAVID MARTOSKO

PUBLISHED: 14:48 EST, 28 March 2013 | UPDATED: 16:58 EST, 28 March 2013
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300568/Obama-administration-wants-DEPORT-home-schooling-family-Germany-fined-threatened-prosecution-teaching-children.html#ixzz2PFFl51ws
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More...

Who says home schooling is antisocial? Meet the children who skip high school but still get to go to prom.......British home-schooling parents may face criminal record checks........

UK schools will be 250,000 places short next year: Immigration, baby boom and exodus from private schools blamed

Read more:

The White House petition

The Home School Legal Defense Association

Climate Models Are So Flawed They Fail History

Environment: The alarmists want to place the world in servitude to the models that are predicting global warming. But those models can't even reconstruct the past.

A researcher at Sweden's University of Gothenburg analyzed climate models to see how closely their predictions fit with history, in this case, precipitation in China from 1961 to 2000. What Tinghai Ou found should crimp the alarmists' plans to establish regimes that punish and limit man's use of fossil fuels.

"Only a few climate models were able to reproduce the observed changes in extreme precipitation in China over the last 50 years," says the university's Department of Earth Sciences. Ou himself said that the "results show that climate models give a poor reflection of the actual changes in extreme precipitation events that took place in China" during the period he examined."Only half of the 21 analyzed climate models were able to reproduce the changes in some regions of China," he said. "Few models can well reproduce the nationwide change. "Ou's work is important. If the models can't get the past right, how can they be trusted to predict future climate?

Seems more like guesswork than solid science to us.

Further evidence of the climate models' flaws was offered on March 16 by the London Daily Mail, which published a chart that "reveals how (the United Nations') '95% certain' estimates of the earth heating up were a spectacular miscalculation."

The Daily Mail charted the earth's actual temperatures against the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections of both 75% and 95% certainty. The lines track closely until recent years, at which point the line representing the observed temperatures "is about to crash out of" the boundaries of the lowest projections.

In other words, while the forecasts — to a supposed 95% certainty, which covers a lot of variation — show global temperatures climbing rather sharply from 1990 on, real temperatures haven't followed the rise.

That the climate models have defects and are severely limited shouldn't be a surprise. Four years ago NASA climate modeler Gavin Schmidt acknowledged that the "chaotic component of the climate system ... is not predictable beyond two weeks, even theoretically."

Despite the sobriety of Schmidt and many others, the alarmists keep coming with their predictions of a grim future caused by man's use of fossil fuels. Pay no further attention to them.

Source: Investor’s Business Daily, Posted 3/28/13,

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/032813-649780-climate-models-so-wrong-they-cant-even-reconstruct-history.htm