Tag Archives: John Yates

Americans are ‘getting whacked’ by too many laws and regulations, Justice Gorsuch says in a new book

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said ordinary Americans are “getting whacked” by too many laws and regulations in a new book that underscores his skepticism of federal agencies and the power they wield. “Too little law and we’re not safe, and our liberties aren’t protected,” Gorsuch told The Associated Press in an interview in his Supreme Court office. “But too much law and you actually impair those same things.” The problem, he said, is that there has been an explosion of laws and regulations, at both the federal and state levels. The sheer volume of Congress’ output for the past decade is overwhelming, he said, averaging 344 pieces of legislation totaling two million to three million words a year. One vignette involves John Yates, a Florida fisherman who was convicted of getting rid of some undersized grouper under a federal law originally aimed at the accounting industry and the destruction of evidence in the Enron scandal. Yates’ case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he won by a single vote. “I wanted to tell the story of people whose lives were affected,” Gorsuch said. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 15:01

The Age of Petty Tyrannies

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves.,,,”  We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the name of the national good by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions. We, the middling classes, are not so fortunate.,,, This is the mindset that tried to penalize a fisherman with 20 years’ jail time for throwing fish that were too small back into the water. John Yates, a commercial fisherman,,, >click to read<

The personalities behind this week’s Supreme Court cases

court-yates-09-07-lnThere’s almost always a real human at the bottom of a Supreme Court case, but the justices’ work this week is notable for the number of easy-to-identify-with personalities whose names will be forever inscribed in law books. will be making his second trip, Florida fisherman John Yates is becoming the face of overzealous prosecution, And former air marshal and whistleblower Robert MacLean would rather be somewhere else altogether, Read the rest here 08:07

John Yates in a TV interview about his Supreme Court Case. “I’m hoping they rule in my favor. Who knows?”

court-yates-09-07-ln“Sarbanes-Oxley Act…which is basically a while collar crime. Fishing is not a while collar job, I guarantee you that.” Yates was later convicted and sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years probation — a situation he calls a nightmare. “I’m raising two grandkids. Lost a time share at Disney, no vacay in seven years, can’t leave the state. It took an act of Congress to go bury her sister four months ago; had to get permission. It has been ridiculous.” Video, and Read the rest here 12:32