The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a nightmarish piece of legislation moving the House Judiciary Committee currently which Hollywood is pushing hard for. The Tinsel Town lobbyists are in full press on Capitol Hill, doing all they can to get the legislation out of committee and up for a vote. The problem is, SOPA in no uncertain terms is a direct assault on a free internet.

One of the reasons many of us get our news and entertainment from the Net these days is because we find the legacy media lacking. We have turned our backs on old media because it has failed to serve us. We no longer have to tolerate obvious and unceasing news bias, or watch only boxed and packaged melodrama. We are now free to pursue news and entertainment where we like with the click of a mouse or a swipe of the Ipad.

Hollywood, and most of legacy media are unhappy about this and would prefer that we continue to listen to their propaganda and watch their terrible movies. I mean, how many sequels can these guys crank out? SOPA seeks to put we the media consumers back in line.

SOPA is being sold as a way to stop the piracy of movies and music from overseas sites, and this is a problem, but the bill goes much further than just addressing this issue.

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Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has sent the following letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking the appointment of an independent examiner to probe the Solyndra scandal:

Rep. Smith to Atty. Gen. Holder

Sources on Capitol Hill have told Big Government that the House Leadership is pushing for a fast-track vote on radical Patent Reform legislation and the bill could come to the floor as early as this Wednesday. The bill is an affront to conservative values and principles and the Speaker must derail this freight train.

Patent Reform is a long time dream of lobbyists for multinational corporations and Fortune 100 companies looking to get out of the burden of paying inventors for this innovative discoveries. To achieve this goal, the bill will change 250 years of American patent law by turning our constitutional system of “first to invent” into the European version of “first to file.” Under a “first to file” system, lawyers win. Under the American system, inventors and innovators win.

Conservatives have pushed back against this scheme. Phyllis Schafly and Ed Meese are leading the charge on the constitutional principles and last week the Supreme Court signaled their objections are valid. Writing for the Supreme Court in Stanford v. Roche, a patent infringement case Chief Justice John Roberts held that “[s]ince 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.”

In addition to the push to “harmonize” our system with Europe (what’s next the metric system?), the bill contains a special interest handout available only to big banks and Wall Street firms. Section 18 of H.R. 1249 is another billion-dollar bailout for the biggest banks in the nation. Attacking the provision as “special interest legislation, pure and simple,” legal scholar Jonathan Massey argues that it would “shift the cost of patent infringement from financial services firms to the U.S. Treasury,” requiring the public to once again pick up the tab for the banks’ wrongdoing.

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Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tx) appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show today.  When asked about the Pigford Settlement the congressman said “There are still a lot of questions about that money that was spent and whether individuals were discriminated against or not and that would be a right subject for an oversight hearing.”

Attorney General Eric Holder testified the other day before the House Judiciary Committee.   Republican congressman Lamar Smith asked him what seemed to be a pretty simple question.

Regarding the perpetrators in the last three terror attacks (two, thank God, unsuccessful) on our homeland (Fort Hood, the Christmas day bomber, and the Times Square bomber), Smith asked our Attorney General “Do you feel these individuals…might have been incited to take the actions they did because of radical Islam?”

Holder feigned to not understand.   “ Because of…?”

Smith:  “Because of radical Islam.”

Holder: “There are a variety of reasons people do these things.”

Smith re-worded the same question and re-asked it six times, with Holder refusing to acknowledge what is as obvious as the fact that I am typing these words and you are reading them.  That every major incident of terror of recent years has been performed by Muslims and that all of them associate their particular theology with their acts of terror.

The real question today is who is governing America and what exactly is the agenda of those who sit in the seat of power of our own country?

It is no wonder that most Americans are squirming around with the most profound sense of uneasiness.  When the chief law enforcement officer of the United States refuses to acknowledge what is clear and true – that those perpetrating terror today are uniformly Muslim and motivated by Islamic theology of one form or another – how in the world can we possibly feel safe?

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Congressman Steve King, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, made the following statement in response to news reports that ACORN is dissolving its national structure.

“This is not surprising news. ACORN must change its name in order to try and run ahead of the accountability that is catching up with this corrupt organization.

“Even though the one party controlled federal government is using its resources to protect ACORN, entrepreneurial new media investigators and state attorneys general are tightening the noose. Dissolving its national brand does not change ACORN’s faces nor ACORN’s crimes. This organization specializes in subterfuge, but ACORN cannot outrun the wheels of justice that are catching up with this corrupt criminal enterprise.”

On September 16, 2009, with much fanfare, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis announced that ACORN was hiring an independent auditor to review its internal processes.  Yesterday, the former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger produced a report finding ACORN, as a corporation, engaged in administrative negligence.

This of course has not stopped ACORN from declaring victory and calling the report a vindication.  Is anyone surprised that a report paid for by ACORN exonerates them?  The fact that this review didn’t even include an audit of ACORN’s financial statements speaks volumes.  Luckily for taxpayers, there are numerous federal and state investigations currently underway that should ultimately produce a legitimate finding regarding ACORN’s illegal activities.

The reality is ACORN has masqueraded as charitable organization in order to fund and advance a partisan political agenda.  There is no mechanism in place to follow where the use of taxpayer and charitable dollars end and where funds used to pay for their political activities begin.

Despite these findings of obvious negligence on ACORN’s behalf, the Proskauer Rose report was not an audit.  In fact, among the “7,000 pages” (19) Mr. Harshbarger reviewed, none of those pages included:

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This morning, at a hearing of the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) raised the issue of a need for a full congressional investigation of ACORN.  As Rep. King notes, Subcommittee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has said he would consider an investigation as soon as he saw credible evidence of ACORN wrongdoing. (Rep. Nadler apparently doesn’t read Big Government)

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Brian Walsh with the Heritage Foundation has this hilarious, ridiculous, depressing story at the Washington Times:

“You don’t need to know. You can’t know.” That’s what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.

The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris’ longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.

The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with – get this- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.

That’s right. Orchids.

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