Jun 04

The Ultimate Victims of Socialism: Those Who Seek It

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Fascinating story on Yahoonews today. “Paradise for $20.” The nation of Venezuela was once a thriving, hard-working industrious outpost in South America. Then the country went hard-core socialist, with the elections of Hugo Chavez for more than a decade.

Chavez nationalized industries, drove out evil capitalists, and took command of the Venezuelan economy. Rationing, shortages, censorship, suffering and poverty soon followed.

And today the country is victim to such inflation (having printed so much money to “stimulate” itself in traditional Keynsian fashion) that almost any tourist can travel to Venezuala and live like a king among peasants. There are tales of lobster dinners for under a dollar, lodging at the country’s finest hotels for $5 a night, and guided trips into the rainforest for $25 a day. Hookers can reportedly be had for pennies.

We should wish socialism only on our enemies. Every society that embraces it will inevitably become sick and weak.

Jun 04

NSA Secretly Expands Its Powers Without Authorization–Again!

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The New York Times is reporting today that the TSA has once again expanded its spying on Americans’ internet and email communications, despite the lapsing of the USA Patriot Act and a total lack of congressional authorization.

The new spying apparently does have the approval of President Obama, who campaigned in 2008 that he would carve back on President Bush’s unconstitutional NSA spying on the American people without warrant.

Jun 04

The Government’s TSA Screening Fails 95 Percent of the Time

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by Dr. Roger I. Roots

Back in 2003, I authored a peer-reviewed article entitled “Terrorized Into Absurdity: The Creation of the Transportation Security Administration.” See here. (Scroll down.) I predicted that the TSA (which was brand new at that time) would cost 6 times more than the private-screening efforts that had previously operated at America’s airports, and that the TSA would NOT make air travel appreciably safer.

Now it has come out that the TSA–which now costs MORE THAN TEN TIMES MORE than private-sector alternatives–produces a 95 percent failure rate. See here.

Jun 04

The 3 Greatest Paragraphs ever written on Juries

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Lysander Spooner was not just a brilliant scholar; he was a great writer. He wrote the three greatest paragraphs ever written on trial by jury.

The three paragraphs introduced his readers to his brilliant essay/book Trial by Jury in the nineteenth century:

For more than six hundred years — that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 — there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.

Unless such be the right and duty of jurors, it is plain that, instead of juries being a “palladium of liberty” — a barrier against the tyranny and oppression of the government — they are really mere tools in its hands, for carrying into execution any injustice and oppression it may desire to have executed.

But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence. That is, it can dictate what evidence is admissible, and what inadmissible, and also what force or weight is to be given to the evidence admitted. And if the government can thus dictate to a jury the laws of evidence, it can not only make it necessary for them to convict on a partial exhibition of the evidence rightfully pertaining to the case, but it can even require them [*6] to convict on any evidence whatever that it pleases to offer them.

Jun 02

Ninth Circuit Justice: the Ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus has Collapsed as a Protection for the Powerless

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Stephen R. Reinhardt is one of America’s most premier “liberal” (in the old, traditional, suspicious-of-government sense) judges on the high federal bench. For years he has used his seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to protect criminal defendants from the overreach of the American police state. Now Reinhardt has authored an enlightened article, published in the Michigan Law Review, in which Reinhardt has observed the near-total collapse of the writ of habeas corpus as a protection for those facing the iron heel of prosecution and persecution. The article can be found here.

Jun 02

The New York Times–or at least the business model it is based on–is doomed

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The New York Times reported a net loss of $14.4 million for the first quarter of 2015.

This is startling enough. But the details foreshadow even darker “times” ahead for the Times. It seems that the New York Times corporation, which has long been dominated by a far-left, pro-labor and (generally) pro-government business philosophy, has some far-reaching pension liabilities.

Specifically, The New York Times Company incurred a $40.3 million pension settlement charge in the first quarter of 2015. The Times itself admits that its “qualified defined benefit pension plans” for present and past employees have been underfunded by approximately $264 million as of December 28, 2014.

With ad revenue sinking below half of its former levels, we can expect that the New York Times will continue to operate at a loss for years to come. A fascinating essay on Lewrockwell.com can be seen here.

Jun 02

FBI Now Using Secret Airforce to Monitor Citizens’ Communications and Movements

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It has now come out that the FBI has been operating a fleet of small aircraft to monitor and surveil Americans’ movements and communication without warrants. The story is here.

Jun 01

Rand Paul States the Obvious: Government Has a Stake in Promoting Terrorism So It Can Increase its Control and Power

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Great USA Patriot Act theater as May turns into June 2015. U.S. Senator Rand Paul, arguing to allow the unconstitutional USA Patriot Act to expire, states that many people are hoping for new terrorist attacks on American soil, so that such attacks can be blamed on Rand Paul. The video and commentary are here.

This is obvious to everyone. The forces of intrusive expansive government proclaim that an all-powerful government is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. (They ignore the fact that the PATRIOT Act hasn’t helped crack a single terrorist case in its entire history. See here. )

Shortly after 9/11, it was common for FBI and CIA officials to blame the attacks on the late Senator Frank Church, who did so much during the 1970s to try to place limits on federal domestic surveillance.

As Dr. Roger Roots pointed out in a peer-reviewed 2013 article, terrorists and governments of terrorized societies have common interests.

May 30

Former Speaker of U.S. House, Who Presided over a Vast Prisonization of American Life, Now Indicted by the Feds

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During the 1990s through the 2000s, Americans saw the most extreme criminalization and prisonization of any society in human history. Policymakers at every level created and extended a vast police state, with thousands of prisons, cops all over every street, troopers patrolling every highway and warrantless surveillance of virtually all communications.

At the lead of this police-state transformation was the U.S. Congress, and at its helm was Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the U.S. House during the George W. Bush years. Hastert led the House in enacting draconian measures such as the USA Patriot Act, the Telecom Immunity Acts (to immunize telecom firms which violated client privacy) and a vast expansion of police powers and budgets at the federal level.

Now Hastert has been caught by the web he helped construct. The Justice Department looked into Hastert’s banking habits and investigated why Hastert appeared to be engaging in a large amount of cash transactions. Federal prosecutors have indicted Hastert for lying to FBI agents about the reasons for his cash withdrawals. The real reason for the cash withdrawals? The federal indictment tantalizes us with hints of salacious details, claiming Hastert need the cash to pay off an “individual” who would otherwise go public with embarrassing information about Hastert’s “misconduct.”

The indictment does not specify what “misconduct” Hastert was paying to keep quiet. Adultery? Satan worship? Child molestation? Hiring hitmen? Too many unpaid parking tickets?

Rest assured the Feds will roll out such intriguing details in the coming months. All in the pageantry of the modern American Stalinesque neoSoviet justice system that Hastert helped create and empower.

May 30

More Secret Government Experiments on Unknowing Medical Subjects Come to Light

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We all know of the diabolic experiments performed on political prisoners by the Nazis. A few are aware of the U.S. government’s Tuskeegee experiments, in which black men who went to clinics for checkups and routine treatments were injected—without their knowledge—with diseases and then monitored so that government agents could study the effects of such diseases.

But few are aware of the U.S. government’s ongoing and continuous use of non-consensual medical studies on unknowing victims. Recently it became public that the U.S. Defense Department sponsored a study at the University of Pittsburgh in which bleeding patients were given experimental plasma without their knowledge in order to observe their reactions.

A 2008 review of these consentless experiments found “a significantly increased risk” of heart attacks and death for the unknowing victims.
The Defense Department has defended giving unknowing people experimental drugs and treatments. The Department claims that it spent $6.5 million on “community awareness” and it informed people in the greater Pittsburgh area they could get free bracelets to wear at all times if they didn’t want to be unknowing experimental subjects.
Source: Laura Ungar, “Non-consent medical studies put ethics to test,” USA Today, May 29, 2015, 9A.