Reality: it's specifically your job to understand these things on behalf of your clients(especially since the Lacey act is number two most important law related to your career).

Did you not even the third sentence? "To make matters worse, the Honduran law governing such shipments was not valid at the time of Huang's arrest---a fact that the Honduran government pointed out to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Nonetheless, the federal court found Huang guilty in March 2003 and imposed a two-year prison sentence." Huang's conviction of violating the "laws" (regulations, really) of Honduras was upheld, despite the fact that the Honduran court found that those laws were not valid at the time they were committed.

Beyond that, the very thesis of the site is that there are too many laws for anyone to understand. And your rebuttal is that they should have known anyways? The Lacey Act makes it illegal "to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce--- any fish or wildlife taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any law or regulation of any State or in violation of any foreign law" (emphasis added). And "law" has been interpreted to include all regulations, not just "laws" passed by legislatures.

Do you know every single law and regulation related to fishing in every country? There's no master list that you can look up, and there is physically no way to know that no laws were broken unless you were physically present at every step of the process. Oh, and in this example, it doesn't really matter if the laws were repealed or overturned, either.

"A subsidy is a form of financial or in kind support extended to an economic sector..."

Direct payments are only one form of subsidy. I'm not arguing that we should or shouldn't offer tax breaks to one industry or another, I'm just suggesting that it is you who does not know what that word means. Offering a tax break for one activity over another favors the activity that has a lower effective tax rate.

> Oh, let me add, that this is not the minority. This is now the majority party of the house of commons.

Republicans are the majority PARTY, but it is just a slim margin on that party that is preventing the vote. The majority of the MEMBERS of the House would support a CR at current levels.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/02/the-fixs-clean-cr-whip-count/

They are holding the country hostage because they are destroying EVERYTHING if they don't get their way on ONE piece of legislation. They have already failed to stop it 41 times.

It is NOT the majority of the House holding up the vote, it is the majority of the majority party holding up the vote. If the CR were up to a vote with no changes, the majority of the House would pass it. It is just a faction of one political party that is preventing the vote from occuring.

Remember the Ryan budget plan that was dismissed because it was so extreme? Due to sequestration, we're actually cutting discretionary spending now at a FASTER rate than the Ryan plan proposed. So we've got more budget discipline than the Republicans initially proposed (without raising taxes).

But after failing 41 times to repeal a law that has already passed and been reviewed by the Supreme Court, they are now holding the entire budget hostage. Oh, they're willing to pass a few things that their constitutents like the most, but they're goal is to basically burn everything else until Obama caves.

And don't forget, the majority of the House would very likely vote to pass a CR if it were put to a vote. However, the House is operating under the Hastert Rule. That means it's just a majority of Replubicans blocking this vote. It's a procedural trick that has allowed an extremist faction of one party to hold the entire House hostage.