Today I want to openly declare to the current control system what Independence Day means to me and why it is the most important holiday of the year.
Dear controlling (federal) government,

Do you know what today is? That's right. It's the one day of the year where we the little people celebrate Independence from you the larger control system. That is after all at the heart of Independence Day. This is the day when individuals with a conscience, not groups like government and corporations but individual human beings get to reminisce on the idea of freedom. And how can we blame humans for doing that? Freedom, after all is the most prized right to yearn for. It's a right, it's a moral code, it's an expectation and desire that all humans quietly yearn for, hope for and dream of. Freedom from you, the government. Freedom from external control and manipulation. Freedom from coercion, intimidation and forced slavery based on fear of harm, fear of being robbed and fear of being locked up. All three of these threats are the essence of what government does, but you already know that.

Five people have been fatally shot and seven others wounded across Chicago since Thursday, as the Fourth of July weekend opens with violence.

On Friday evening, a 17-year-old was shot to death while playing basketball at a Bronzeville park named after slain teen Hadiya Pendleton.

Vonzell Banks, who would have started a summer job on Monday before entering his senior year at Dunbar Vocational High School, was shot in the back. His 19-year-old cousin was shot in the foot.

According to witnesses, a gunman opened fire before jumping into an SUV which sped away.

The proportion of households facing financial difficulties in Japan hit a record high of 62.4 percent as of July 2014, a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey showed Thursday.

The result partly reflects the consumption tax hike from 5 percent to 8 percent in April last year, the ministry said. The previous record high was 61.5 percent in July 2011.

The proportion of households having "severe difficulty" in living came to 29.7 percent, and 32.7 percent said their financial conditions are "somewhat difficult."

Meanwhile, 34.0 percent said their living is "normal." The proportion of households which said they are "somewhat well-off" stood at 3.2 percent, and 0.4 percent said they are "very well-off."

The survey also showed that the average household income in 2013 fell ¥83,000, or 1.5 percent, from the preceding year to ¥5,289,000, the fourth-lowest level since comparable data became available in 1985. The fall is partly due to an increase in nonregular employees, according to the ministry.

The average income fell 2.8 percent to ¥3,005,000 at elderly households, consisting only of people aged 65 or over, or of elderly people and children under 18.

The average income at all households with children under 18 increased 3.4 percent to ¥6,963,000.

Heartwarming parent-daughter selfies have gone viral on Twitter, thanks to a social media campaign called #SelfieWithDaughter launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an effort to promote gender equality.

During his Sunday radio address, Modi asked parents to tweet photos of themselves with their daughters to highlight the importance of girls and women. The campaign is called "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana" and is roughly translated to "Save Daughters, Educate Daughters." Modi credits the online hit to a local politician in the small Indian village of Haryana. According to a story published in the New York Times, baby boys are valued in Indian society, resulting in nearly 2,000 girls being killed at birth. And while laws exist to prevent expecting couples from using prenatal tests to learn the sex of their unborn baby, per the Wall Street Journal, many parents hold out hope for a son.

A pair of Georgia parents are infuriated by the method a dentist employed to restrain their daughter during a routine procedure.

James Crow told WSB-TV that he and his mother took his daughter, Elizabeth, to a Caarrollton dentist to have a tooth pulled. What ensued he could have never imagined.

Not allowed inside the exam room, Crow waited with his mother in the lobby.

"We were sitting out in the waiting room and all of a sudden, we heard somebody screaming," Evelyn Crow told WBS.

The father rushed into the room and found his daughter bound with a tool called a "papoose board."

"I couldn't see my kid in the body bag just strapped down to the bed, I couldn't handle it," Crow told WSB.

"This little girl was frightened. I had to carry her out, she was shaking so bad," his mother added to the local news station.

An employee of the office told WSB that parents are required to sign a release form before the papoose board is used. Crow said he didn't recall being notified.

Long ago, American colonists took a stance against a government that didn't represent the voice of the people. Fast forward to today and the recent TPP and TTIP treaties essentially silence the voice of the people once again. But is anyone paying attention?

The men, unhappy with the decisions that had been forced upon them by people they had never seen before, decided to do something. Waiting until sunset, they dressed up as Indians, painted their faces, and marched down to the harbor. Upon reaching it, they stormed a ship, grabbed the cargo and threw it overboard. Shouting into the night, "no taxation without representation!" the men made a defiant stance against what they felt was an overreaching government that only saw them as streams of income. In response, the government attempted to crack down on society in a desperate attempt to remain in control. It didn't work and today historians note that the event, which came to be known as the Boston Tea Party, was one of the first shots of the War for Independence.

Of course, if this event were to happen today, media would report it like this —"A local militia, believed to be a terrorist organization, attacked the property of private citizens today at our nation's busiest port. Although no one was injured in the attack, a large quantity of merchandise, considered to be valuable to its owners and loathsome to the perpetrators, was destroyed. The terrorists, dressed in disguise and apparently intoxicated, were able to escape into the night with the help of local citizens who harbor these fugitives and conceal their identities from the authorities. It is believed that the terrorist attack was a response to the policies enacted by the occupying country's government. Even stronger policies are anticipated by the local citizens."

Although these two tales tell the same story, perception is key. And when 90% of American media is controlled by 6 companies, the narrative is tightly controlled. Not for the benefit of the people, of course, but for the benefit of the government. But not even for the government so much any more, as the recent buzz surrounding the TPP and TTIP have revealed. In fact, numerous stories over the last couple of weeks have shed light on just who was behind the treaties, and it reads like a list of who's who in the world of big business.That's right. Corporations wrote the treaties and the politicians, which are elected by the people to represent the people, either didn't read the treaties at all, or chose to play buzzword bingo when publicly discussing the matter. Of course, as the Guardian reports, the tens of thousands of dollars that went to the "yea" votes helped to convince those fence sitters which direction the wind was blowing and more importantly, helped their future re-election campaigns. Addressing this issue, Mansur Gidfar, spokesman for the anti-corruption group Represent. US noted -"It's a rare thing for members of Congress to go against the money these days. They know exactly which special interests they need to keep happy if they want to fund their reelection campaigns or secure a future job as a lobbyist." He went on to ask - "How can we expect politicians who routinely receive campaign money, lucrative job offers, and lavish gifts from special interests to make impartial decisions that directly affect those same special interests?"

The Caribbean territory, whose residents are US citizens, is groaning under $73bn debt forcing it to ration water, close schools and watch its health system collapse.

Facing a crisis of monumental proportions at home, tens of thousands of people are fleeing a Caribbean island in search of a better life in the United States only to find hardship and struggle on American shores. Their stories sound like those of millions of migrants - poverty at home, where the economy lies in tatters - but they differ from millions of others: they're already American.

Unable to pay its $73bn debt, Puerto Rico has begun rationing water, closing schools and watching its healthcare system collapse and 45% of its people living in poverty. Emigration to the mainland has accelerated in recent years, activists say, and data shows that from 2003 to 2013 there was a population swing of more than 1.5 million people.

Mysterious spate of deaths rattle medical community

The recent death of a holistic practitioner in Florida is concerning residents and medical experts alike, as it is the third death of an alternative doctor in almost as many weeks.

On Monday morning, police found the body of Dr. Teresa Ann Sievers, 46, at her home in Bonita Springs after she failed to arrive at work. Dr. Sievers headed a health and wellness practice in Estero, Florida, which focuses on restorative healing through a variety of non-pharmaceutical treatments.

Detectives say they're treating the incident as a homicide, although they are not revealing to media how she was killed, nor if they think it was a random or targeted attack. "We don't know anything but that she was murdered," Sievers' sister, Annie Lisa, told The News-Press.

"Sievers was well-known in Southwest Florida for writing about women's health issues," reports The News-Press. "She wrote for several publications, including The News-Press, and appeared on local television."

Sievers' follows the death of two other prominent alternative doctors from Florida, Dr. Bruce Hedendal of Boca Raton, and Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, 60, who lived in Florida before relocating to Georgia.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders may be an underdog, but a massive crowd of 10,000 people gathered in Madison, Wisconsin to hear him speak - the largest crowd drawn by any 2016 presidential candidate.

Sanders, an independent US senator from Vermont who has described himself as a democratic socialist, has been dismissed as a low-tier candidate ever since first announcing his campaign for the presidency. However, while he may lack the high profile of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he is showing himself to be quite capable of energizing liberals.

This ability has helped him attract more people than other candidate so far, Democrat or Republican.

Just in time for the Fourth of July, states are declaring their independence from civil forfeiture.

Enabled by civil forfeiture laws, police can seize and keep property without the government ever filing criminal charges. Innocent Americans actually must prove their own innocence in court if they ever hope to regain their property. Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies routinely seize property and pad their budgets with forfeiture revenue. Outlets as diverse as The New Yorker and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver have detailed this travesty of justice.

But thankfully, civil forfeiture's days may soon be numbered. Starting July 1, two major reforms from Montana and New Mexico will go into effect.

Earlier this year, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock signed a law that requires the government to first obtain a criminal conviction before taking and keeping someone's property through civil forfeiture. This legislation also shifts the burden of proof onto the government—where it belongs—when spouses, neighbors and other innocent owners try to get back property used by a suspect without their knowledge. Montana's civil forfeiture reforms are vital to restore due process and protect the property rights of the innocent.