Sup Gang,

So here is a funny story. While Miletti Law is very obviously a law firm, it is also very obvious that we are completely unusual type of firm. It would help to give a brief overview of our background, to understanding where we are today.

Miletti Law, as you probably are aware by now, is spearheaded by Vinny Miletti (yours truly). My life has had a million ups and downs. I grow up in a broken home, was a high school dropout, was stereotyped to be a failure my whole life, had no money, etc. Probably a more common story than you would want to believe in this country.

At some point I found bodybuilding (hence the blue jacked gladiator logo—which my Cousin named Bruce) which ultimately gave me confidence as well as taught me structure and consistency. I was pretty heavy into bodybuilding—loved every aspect of it, all the good and all the evils. I loved the meal prepping, I loved seeing my body improve, I loved the struggle and achievement of lifting heavy ass weights, and I loved the drugs (just being real here).

As I got older, I started to wean away from the bodybuilding culture. While I still love it, I still lift and I still try to push my body to the limits, I also have taken a step back from the excess, as well as most of the evils simply because my life is busy now — and if we are going to take the risk, and do naughty things, that risk needs a real reward.

Also during this time, my wife got into fitness as well, however she went a very different path then me. My wife started looking into holistic wellness, organic solutions, and overall natural health. Whereas I was a huge fan of anadrol, trenbolone and dianabol—she was a fan of goji berries, elderberries, essential oils and free range, pasture raised eggs.

Recently, my wife started really placing a strong focus on her circadian rhythms and trying to get adequate amounts of sleep in order to ensure optimal natural healing. I’m known for sleeping 3 hours a night during the week—she does not play games, and will go her ass to bed at 12 midnight on the dot, to wake up at 8 or 9 am.

Here is the thing though—to optimize your quality of sleep, you need to stick to a rigid routine because it is very easy to lose that optimal sleep quality. So here it is—the point of this article—enter DAY LIGHT SAVINGS TIME!!!

THE DAY LIGHT SAVINGS FIASCO, THE ORIGIN AND THE ISSUES.

This is a horrible day of the year for those seeking to optimize their circadian rhythms. You spend the last 6 months trying to get into a good groove, so you can fall asleep easily, sleep sound, then wake up fresh. Suddenly, here comes this stupid shift in time which exist for no reason other than a progressive agenda intruding on our lives, which disturbed your sleep patterns, and forced you to attempt to reign it back in for the next 6 months, just to have it changed again.

Why do we practice this terrible ritual?

Simply put, in our history, we believed that this was necessary to advance our productivity in industry and to make use of more daylight hours. First introduced in the United States in 1918, this was introduced to (a) conserve coal and other energy sources, and (b) promote a more industrial culture.

This practice was made law on March 19, 1918 through Public Law No. 106, codified as 40 Stat. 450, Chapter 24 “An Act To Save Daylight & To Provide a Standard Time For The United States”  This Public Law did the following:

Sec. 1. Established 5 time zones, beginning in Greenwich, Connecticut.  This was to be governed by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Sec. 2. Determines that all common carriers are to follow this particular time structure.

Sec. 3. That at 2 am on the last Sunday of March, the clock shall be advanced 1 hour, and at 2 am on the last Sunday in October, the time will be “retarded” 1 hour.

NOTE: Yes, the statute does in fact use the term “retarded” to move the clock back 1 hour. Who would have thought they would have had such foresight to see what this movement really was!

Sec. 4. This gives names to the time zones. Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific and Alaska.

NOTE 2: Alaska is basically that red-headed, midget, counter-cultured step child.

Then, this got a second level of formalization in the US in 1966, through the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (“UTA”). So we got rid of the plain, boring name, and added this cool name—UNIFORM TIME ACT—the UTA!!! As a culture, we love to give fancy acronyms to useless shit.

The UTA formalized the period of daylight saving time observation in the U.S., as lasting 6 months originally. This ultimately was extended to 7 months by 1986 and now 8 months in 2005. Why 8 months? I shit you not—the Candy Industry Lobbyist—the National Confectioners Association was the driving force.

This is actually hysterical.

So, being a law firm and all—and knowing that we live in a Country which has a Constitution, which was designed to LIMIT GOVERNMENT, what does the Court have to say about the government CONTROLLING TIME. I mean, certainly… there has to be someone, or some entity, in a Country with 300 million citizens, who has spoken up and sought to challenge our Government Overlords in their attempt to control time.

You would think this would be a juicy case for the Courts to take on. Courts have a history of prohibiting overreach from government. Some good examples of prohibitions in overreach would be the prohibitions on the centralized government from controlling speech, controlling morality, controlling private enterprise, controlling how we donate our money and to who we donate that money too—so it would make sense that CONTROLLING TIME would be outright unconstitutional…

Or is it….

Enter the Michigan Farm Bureau…

Michigan Farm Bureau v. the UTA.

Congress passed the Uniform Time Act (“UTA”) in 1966, See 15 U.S.C.S. §§ 260-267, to impose a nationwide uniform daylight saving time. The UTA allowed a state to exempt itself. In this case, taking place in Michigan, the legislature enacted a bill to comply with the UTA, giving the statute immediate effect. See Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 435.211-435.213 (Mich. Stat. Ann. §§ 18.872(1)-18.872(3)).

While the statute was in effect, the referendum petitioners, the Michigan Farm Bureau, obtained signatures to place the issue on a state-wide ballot. Their argument was that this was an unconstitutional act to begin with, that by having the people vote, it would have been an easier and faster way to stop this unconstitutional act, and they were not going to permit Michigan to simply adopt this concept and implement it statewide.

The matter came before the lower level Court, when the Secretary of State opposed the referendum, holding that there was no right for the Michigan Farm Bureau to send this to the public. The Appeals Court, overturned the lower Court, and allowed the petition to happen and ruled in favor of the Michigan Farm Bureau. The State, being the oppressive, big government communist they are and having the Court in their pocket, took the position that while the petition was permitted to go through and be placed for vote—the legal time established by the UTA was still the “controlling time.”

Thus, while the Michigan Farm Bureau was successful in bringing the petition, the legal time underlying the position was still permitted to control while the petition was at issue.  Their complaints about the constitutionality of this was disregarded.  In other words—the change in time was LEGALLY CONTROLLING and the petitioner needed to prevail on their ballot initiative before any change would be permitted to occur.

ISSUES?

While the official holding sort of missed the point—the holding spoke of the actual ballot initiative, and advised that this was no constitutional bar to challenging the enactment of daylight savings time—the question is what was the Courts opinion on the governments ability to outright control time?

I am struggling to understand the Constitutionality here.

So the concept of the government standardizing time is grounded in the Federal Government’s constitutional right to regulate “interstate commerce”—in an effort to promote the convenience and standardization of commerce and the existing junction points and division points of common carriers engaged in interstate or foreign commerce. See 15 USCS § 261.

But this should make sense… they aren’t actually doing anything, they are really just formalizing the recognition of time.  This was never really analyzed, it just sort of focuses on our traditional 24 hour clock, and the Courts simply took “judicial notice” of establishment and adoption of a standard time and of its beneficial and necessary use in operation of interstate commerce. McFarlane v. Whitney, 134 Tex. 394, 134 S.W.2d 1047, 1940 Tex. LEXIS 268 (Tex. 1940). More on point, the intended effect was to remove confusion and in interest of interstate trade and commerce. State v. Badolati, 241 Wis. 496, 6 N.W.2d 220, 1942 Wisc. LEXIS 254 (Wis. 1942).

So while this is kind of benign, where does the concept of “Daylight Savings” find constitutional muster?

While I am unable to find any case law on point, it would make sense that they are invoking congressional power to regulate commerce.

The commerce power, under Article I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution, is the power to regulate commerce overall. Described by the Court as prescribing the rules to which commerce is to be governed. This is a “complete” power in of itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are specifically prescribed in the Constitution

The Court has ruled basically that this power, while almost unlimited in scope, is only limited by the locality of the function it serves.

And even so—even if an activity is local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as direct or indirect. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549

This structure gives Congress 3 specific categories in which they can regulate interstate commerce and exercise the commerce power:

  • Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.
  • Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in Interstate Commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities.
  • Congress’s commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce (activities that substantially affect interstate commerce).

The proper test of whether an activity affects interstate commerce sufficiently to be within Congress’ power to regulate under the Commerce Clause requires an analysis of whether the regulated activity “substantially affects” interstate commerce.

So what does it mean to “substantially affect?”

In determining whether the activity congress is attempting to regulate has a substantial effect on interstate commerce, reviewing courts typically consider the following factors:

  • whether the regulated activity is commercial or economic in nature;
  • whether an express jurisdictional element is provided in the statute to limit its reach;
  • whether Congress made express findings about the effects of the proscribed activity on interstate commerce; and
  • whether the link between the prohibited activity and the effect on interstate commerce is attenuated.

So this sounds a lot like your general Rationale Basis standard.

Recall the Rational Basis Standard—basically anything is ok so long as congress can show some sort of a rational basis behind it, and the Court is required to give deference to the representatives of the people.

But of course, as we have seen in 2020, this is a joke. People do not challenge the Overlords, Courts have willing upheld terrible rules and laws, often citing that the law is silly, but still refuse to push back, and the voting class votes the pocket and nothing else. So while the “Granny Killer,” God-King Emperor Cuomo is molesting and sexually abusing women (it seems like 8 so far), and killing the elderly in record numbers, as long as he continues to authorize those unemployment checks during COVID, people are fine with having no jobs, having no future, relying on the government, being compelled to vaccinate, being compelled to obstruct their face, being compelled to limit their ability to work in a free market, etc.

It’s a shame, because these rules take for granted that people are actually paying attention—which they are not. People just comply—which is awful. People don’t want to fight Big Brother, people want to be safe — children are taught that Big Brother is a friend, not an oppressor. Big Brother is here to help, not hurt. When they take away 42% of your paycheck, you are seen as doing your civic duty, meanwhile you struggle to feed your families. Courts rule on convenience, not on logic. Attorneys look to take the easy way out, and the law often affords an opportunity for the easy way out.

I see no logical basis for an arbitrary “daylight savings hour.”

  • We do not live in a world that is dictated by the amount of sunlight, so we have alternatives to working outside of daylight hours.
  • We do not live in a world where we need to make changes to comply with heavy duty industry—the economy is no longer run using railroads traveling across state lines;
  • We do not have the urgency anymore to convert our day to day factories into war factories, to save more energy based resources and promote military efficiencies in war time.

And quite frankly, all the bad that comes with perverting the concept of time, or modifying circadian rhythms, surely outweigh the benefits of continuing to promote the shift in time.

  • The shift in day light savings (in or out) has been shown to have adverse effects on sleep, wakefulness, mood, and over health up to 7 days.
  • Cardiac and stroke risks are believed to last longer during the darker period.
  • Those already suffering from insufficient sleep are generally impacted the most;
  • 5% to 15% increased risk of having a heart attack during the days after shifting to daylight savings time, and a 24% increase alone on the day after the switch.
  • Traffic accidents and emergency-room visits rise after the time switch, as does the incidence of depression and suicide.
  • A 2020 study in the journal Sleep Medicine revealed an increase in hospital admissions for atrial fibrillation following the transition to daylight savings time but not after the Spring–forward change.
  • The American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that 55 percent of American adults feel drained and inefficient during the week or more after switching to daylight savings time.

We have been here before and this is the kind of situation that becomes a problem. If Congress is permitted to touch our concept of time, and manipulate it as they deem proper, with no true rational basis, with no true science, and with no true data, then this becomes precedent—and unless there is a check and balance to stop this behavior, we suffer overall as a country because as the collective grows (big brother), the individual fades.

It is shit like this why you are all now wearing 2 masks, vaccinated, and still distancing 6 feet. Because the government is permitted to push whatever rules and regulations they want, with no basis, and it becomes fact and law. Moving time in or out in 1 hour intervals at a time makes about as much as sense as wearing 2 masks, mandating vaccinations and still ensuring 6 feet of distance.

So to recap our lesson today.

  • Daylight savings was introduced in America in 1918 as a way to (a) preserve coal and other energy resources, and (b) to align more with industry, as we were actively engaged in world wars at the time.
  • While codified in the laws of the land, it was more formalized in 1966 with the Uniform Time Act.
  • It has never been challenged.  The rationale behind it has never been challenged. And the very limited cases involving the UTA do not touch on the constitutionality.
  • Studies have shown that there is far more harm than benefits to maintaining a Daylight Savings practice.  For instance, negative effects in depression, suicide and health issues are prevalent.  Meanwhile, the original basis for which it was desired isn’t even the case anymore.
  • For the record, Hawaii and Arizona do not have a daylight savings time.

That’s all for today folks. Just exploring something that caught my attention, being that I live in the fitness world and this is a hot topic. Of course, the research results in yet another situation in which Big Government comes in an ruins everything, based on nothing.

Don’t let your individualism fade. Your innate, God given, constitutional freedoms, much like the time you lose, once gone—never seems to come back. Preserve what is yours. Yours is freedom and autonomy, and those who do not defend their freedom or autonomy are those who plan on losing it.

Always be UNUSUALLY MOTIVATED.

Yours in love, law and lifts.