First, They Came for the Bar Owners....

Pro Libertate Blog reports:

Chris Penner, owner of the Twilight Room Annex club in Portland, Oregon, had bills to pay and a payroll to meet. He called up his business account only to find that it had been completely drained.

“All my money was gone,” Penner later related to the Oregonian newspaper. He was shocked, but not completely surprised, by this development: “I raced to the bank, kind of having an idea what had happened.”

The criminals who had siphoned away Penner’s earnings were employed by the Oregon State Department of Revenue, who were enforcing a $400,000 punitive damage award against the bar owner for a supposed act of discrimination based on sexual orientation. His alleged victims were the “Rose City T-Girls,” a “diverse, informal social group” catering to males who “identify” as females. That award was imposed by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI), a Soviet-style administrative body whose self-appointed mission is appears to be the annihilation of small businesses.

In keeping with established procedures, Penner had informed the Bureau of Revenue that he was appealing the BOLI’s ruling.

When he rceived no response from the agency, Penner believed that the matter would be put on hold while his case worked its way through the state Court of Appeals. At the same time, he was tormented with persistent suspicions that his bureaucratic tormentors would act without giving him due notice. Those suspicions were fully validated.

“They don’t have to notify you,” Penner observed with of the state-licensed larcenists who plundered his bank accounts. “They just sweep in and take the money” – first, $13,000 from his business account, then more than $3,000 from his personal checking account on the following day. Penner was able to save enough of his personal funds to pay his employees in cash before putting up a sign announcing that the club would be closing on the following Saturday.

An article well worth your time.