GOVERNMENT OVERREACH: Had Enough Yet?

I’m currently down here in the free state of Florida for a summit this weekend where I am one of the legal experts on the panel of lawyers (hence me being a day late in posting this week’s Substack). The lineup of speakers here has been phenomenal. Truly brilliant minds, all coming together to share information and knowledge – which you know I just love. Hence, my motto, “Knowledge is power!”

Yesterday my speech focused on our disappearing rights, thanks to the incredible amount of government overreach that we are seeing these past couple of years in the name of “COVID” and “public health and safety.” I spoke about examples we’ve been seeing at the federal level with Biden’s overreach through his various agencies such as the CDC, OSHA and the EPA, and I spoke about a similar phenomenon happening at the state level, particularly in New York with our unelected governor, Kathy Hochul.

I wasn’t sure how well the mostly-Floridian crowd of several hundred people would receive my New York-focused discussion of tyranny and how I, together with a group of NYS Legislators, slayed the proverbial dragon of unconstitutional quarantine camps promulgated by Governor Hochul and her Department of Health in their stunning attempt at truly gross overreach.

However, to my pleasant surprise, from the very start of my speech, it became obvious to me that the audience was with me. They “got it”. They realized that despite the fact that they live in a free state, some 1,000 miles away from me, they know that they should be concerned about what’s happening in New York. They know that New York seems to be the testing ground of all things communist and authoritarian, as Stew Peters pointed out in our interview. The logic is clear: if something as crazy as forced quarantine camps takes hold in New York, it’s just a matter of time until it spreads across the nation like a cancer.

So when I was on stage, I introduced myself as an attorney from New York, and I started to say, “our governor, Kathy Hochul, made a…” the crowd didn’t even let me finish my sentence – they were already booing Hochul! I couldn’t believe it. They were that familiar with (and turned off by) Hochul and her anti-Constitutional ways. To this my response was, “Wow! Even down here in Florida you know what she’s all about.” Then I joked with them that I wished they lived in New York and could vote on November 8th. There was a collective laugh from the crowd.

As I continued my speech, I told how there was a bill (A416) proposed by former Assemblyman Nick Perry, a Democrat from Brooklyn, which would allow the governor and DOH to lock up New Yorkers, no matter your age, for however long they wanted, at a location determined by the State, based only upon their mere suspicion of you having been exposed to a communicable disease – no proof needed!

I explained that for seven years (including during the height of the COVID hysteria in 2020-2021), this legislator tried to get his obscenely tyrannical bill passed into law, but he failed time and again. In fact, of the 213 members of the NYS Legislature, not one other lawmaker would back that bill. Not one. They wouldn’t touch it. It was too dystopian, too shocking to the conscience, too anti-American.

I continued to explain that, in the true fashion of a dictator, Hochul, like Cuomo before her, took the language of that toxic bill and pushed it through the Department of Health in the form of a regulation instead. With just a little bit of backdoor, constitutional run-around, the will of one lone government official became law. Of course you know from reading my prior article that regs have the same force and effect as laws, but oh how they are so much better for authoritarian regimes!

Why? Well, because regs do not require any pesky voter input, or any oversight or influence from the annoying constitutionally-conscious, elected officials in the NYS Legislature. It’s soooo much easier to carry out your edicts as a monarch if you just issue regulations through your agencies and bypass the whole carking separation of powers doctrine of the Constitution.

I digress.

Back to my speech: as I told the story of how I learned of Hochul’s “Isolation and Quarantine Procedures” regulation, its total lack of due process protections, and its glaring conflict with existing NYS law, I explained how I simply could not allow the Executive Branch of government to spiral this far out of control… so I started drafting a lawsuit against the Governor and her DOH. I knew I had to use an unconventional approach to be successful and withstand a motion to dismiss for lack of standing (see my prior article discussing “standing” here).

I explained how I needed some NYS Legislators to come on my case, for they were clearly being injured by Hochul and her DOH making a law disguised as a regulation, and I told how ultimately, Senator George Borrello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, Assemblyman Mike Lawler, and the citizens’ group, Uniting NYS, became my plaintiffs. When I continued to explain that on July 8th, the Judge ruled in our favor, striking down the reg as unconstitutional, a breach of separation of powers, and he thus barred the governor and her DOH from trying to enforce the reg, the crowd cheered!

Tyranny denied! For now.

I then mentioned that, shamefully, Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James plan to appeal my victory. Of course they haven’t moved forward with the appeal yet, since Election Day is fast approaching. Many hypothesize that they are stalling because they don’t want New York voters to know they (Hochul and James) want quarantine camps, since both of them are up for election!

After the speeches and panel discussions had ended, we had some time before the dinner segment began, so we enjoyed a cocktail hour where we were able to mingle with some of the attendees. During this time, one of the people who approached me was an older Floridian who seemed to know something about what was going on in New York.

Our chat got into the truly abhorrent anti-parental rights bills that are currently being proposed in the NYS Assembly: one that would allow minor children to make their own medical decisions without parental consent (including inoculations and sex-altering procedures), and another that would require schools to teach “comprehensive sexuality education” starting in KINDERGARTEN straight through 12th grade. (For more details on those bills, check out my other articles here and here).

This, on top of the federal government overreach examples I had discussed in my speech a short while earlier, prompted this gentleman to tell me that he’d love to walk around with a sign that says:

“Had enough yet?”

Brilliant! It was so short and simple, but so perfectly powerful. It doesn’t tell you to vote the crazy Democrats out. It doesn’t tell you to vote Republican. It doesn’t even tell you to go vote in the first place. BUT, it does make you think critically – something that is sorely lacking in our society today.

This simple question, “Had enough yet?” makes you stop and pause to think about your life: how it is going, do you feel safe, are you struggling to pay bills, are you stressed, if so, what is the source of that stress, and so on… And then it makes you realize that if you are unhappy with the world around you, then you need to change it.

*****
This article was published by Brownstone Institute and is reproduced with permission.