A pair of hapless bartenders are being criminally prosecuted for felonies. Their alleged crime? Transporting some Wisconsin craft beer into nearby Minnesota and offering it for sale at a Minnesota bar.
Feb 11
Carbon Dioxide Levels Projected to Increase Significantly
Scientists for BP (formerly British Petroleum) carefully analyzed carbon dioxide demands, needs, and outputs in the developing world. See above.
(The red line indicates the CO2 level desired by the dreamers at the 2015 Paris Climate conference; the designation OECD stands for “Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,” or the industrialized, mostly-western countries. “Non-OECD” countries are generally developing countries.)
The BP scientists concluded that it is inevitable that developing societies will need fossil fuels in greater amounts in the future.
This demand will cause CO2 levels to increase steadily over the next generation. And no legal agreements or treaties are likely to alter this inevitable trajectory.
Feb 09
Record number of Americans retiring abroad
At least 375,000 retired Americans are now receiving their Social Security checks overseas. See here.
Many countries are now freer than the U.S., and their costs of living are much lower. While U.S. programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare have driven health care prices higher and higher, medical treatments of the highest quality can be found at low costs in foreign countries.
Feb 09
Everything you need to know about “National Security”: The officials at the top are always the greatest threats to it
In 1998 some government documents were declassified which showed that the government was plotting mass murders of the American people in 1961.
The 1961 plan, known as “Operation Northwoods,” was designed to get the American people to support a war against Cuba. The highest generals and admirals in the U.S. military were planning to crash airplanes (disguised as Cuban) into buildings, sink American cruise ships, and have federal agents dress up as Cubans and mow the American people down with machine guns on the streets of Miami.
All twelve members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on Operation Northwoods. These were the very men who held the keys to the highest-level filing cabinets in the Pentagon. The men at the top of the “national security” hierarchy were the greatest threat to America’s true national security.
The only thing that stopped them was President Kennedy, who refused to sign off on the murder plan. Kennedy even fired Alan Dulles, the CIA mastermind behind the secret plots to get the U.S. into war with Cuba.
Two years later, Kennedy was conveniently assassinated in Dallas. Incredibly, Alan Dulles became the leading member of the Commission “investigating” the Kennedy assassination.
Feb 08
Two Lost Decades for the banking industry
Almost all business regulation harms the poor and small businesses and helps the biggest industry leaders.
And in the big picture, even the good ol’ boys are harmed. Look at the above graph (courtesy of CNBC, see here). It shows that the overall value of the banking industry is about the same as it was in 1996–two decades ago.
Not only has overregulation kept small banks from starting and thriving. But even the big banks who ‘benefit’ from the regulation have not truly benefited. The industry hasn’t grown in 20 years.
Feb 08
The 37-page Glass-Steagall Act was replaced with a thousand pages of banking laws. This is “deregulation” in the world of Bernie Sanders.
“Deregulation” is one of the great phantoms of our time. Pro-government pundits and presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders repeatedly claim that private-sector influence in political elections has produced “deregulation” in American industries.
Yet regulation is easy to measure. One can count pages, paragraphs, sections, enforcement budgets or actions, etc. There has been no deregulation anywhere, in any industry in America in decades.
When pressed, socialists like Bernie Sanders point to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act during the 1990s by Bill Clinton.
But the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act (which merely prohibited investment banks from doing commercial banking) was 37 pages long. It has been replaced by thousands of pages of banking and finance laws and regulations. The Dodd-Frank Act alone runs 848 pages, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act runs another 66 pages. And many thousands of pages of internal regulations have been generated by these acts.
Feb 07
Florida judge sentences 22-year-old man to 60 years in prison for mere possession of ammunition
It is an open secret that judges tend to punish defendants who defend themselves. You’re supposed to plead guilty and take the prosecutor’s plea offer.
Daily Kos, a government-loving website generally, has reported on the case of a Florida man on probation who was sentenced to SIXTY YEARS in state prison for merely possessing a pistol clip with some bullets in it (no pistol).
The Daily Kos story details several other cases where this Florida judge, Matthew Destry, handed out tyrannical, totalitarian justice. (And a few cases where Destry was quite lenient.)
Public defenders now simply advise defendants whose cases are overseen by Judge Destry to simply take whatever deal a prosecutor offers.
Feb 06
Record number of Americans renounce U.S. Citizenship
America was the freest society on earth for generations; perhaps more than a century. People from throughout the world fled tyranny for American shores.
During the past couple generations, however, the U.S. government has steadily increased controls, regulations and taxes.
For the past 3 years, record numbers of American citizens have left or have renounced U.S citizenship.
In fact, each of the past 3 years has set a record for the number of Americans renouncing citizenship. And last year (2015), another record was set: 4,279 Americans renounced citizenship. See here.
Feb 02
U.S. National Debt Hits $19 Trillion
U.S. debt has hit $19 trillion. This is greater than the total annual output of the country, which is estimated to be around $16 trillion.
This outrageous debt has been built even as “limited government” “conservative” Republicans maintain majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. See here.
These “conservative” majorities were gained from millions of promises to voters that Republicans would start cutting government spending.
Feb 01
Montana Government’s Political Witch Hunts are now Attracting National Attention.
Every claim of “campaign finance reformers” is false. Every single claim.
For-profit corporations actually contribute almost nothing to political campaigns. Common law rules of corporate governance (i.e., the rule that corporations must seek profits as their primary interest) prohibit for-profit corporations from wasting money on politics. (And shareholders could sue them if they did waste a lot of money on politics!)
Most of the “corporations” that are active in politics are NONPROFIT political charities (and voters know who they are and who their funders are).
Most voters DO NOT change their political votes or ideologies in response to political advertising. Thus the claim that private-sector donors are “buying” election results is entirely false.
There has been no “deregulation,” no “austerity,” and no shifting of tax burdens from “the rich” onto the poor. IRS data plainly show THE BURDEN OF TOTAL TAXATION borne by the rich has grown, not declined over the past 50 years.
The corporate form is the business model for the little guy; it allows the poor to pool resources and compete with the rich. If corporations are deprived of free speech, the rich will HAVE FAR MORE POWER over elections (to the extent that private political spending influences elections at all).
GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ACTUALLY DO influence elections by spending massively–and such spending goes entirely unregulated by campaign cops. For example, the U.S. military has spent BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on advertising, and even funds fake ‘honor the troops’ events at NFL games to promote government viewpoints.
In Montana, there is a powerful “campaign finance reform” movement–led by the state’s pro-government newspapers. Now the State’s “political practices commission” and its witch hunts are gaining national attention. See here.
