Jun 04

The 3 Greatest Paragraphs ever written on Juries

Lysander-Spooner-sepia

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

Reinhardt

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

wash_dees

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

Tanks_dess

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

FED_dees

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

bulb_dees

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

freda-liberty-bell

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.

May 25

Big-City, Government-Supporting Newspapers Are in a Death Spiral.

tvdees

Last year 100 newspapers closed. Newspaper circulation has plummeted nationwide and newspaper ad revenue is down at least 50 percent in a decade.

The major, pro-government, newspapers are dying–and being replaced by alternative sources for news and commentary. A Pew research report indicates that the newspaper industry is already largely unprofitable. Major papers such as the New York Daily News are now up for sale, with very few buyers willing to take on such risk.

May 22

FBI Admits that Mass Data Collection has Never Stopped a Terrorist Act

surveilcops

How Many Terrorist Attacks Has the U.S.A. Patriot Act Prevented?

Barack Obama (2 weeks after Edward Snowden’s revelations that the government was unconstitutionally monitoring all American phone and email traffic): “at least fifty.”

In reality, most “terrorist” prosecutions since 9/11/2001 have been accusations of planning, talking, or training–frequently relying on the testimoney of undercover government informants who “infiltrated” a small group of poor or unemployed males.

The agencies of the U.S. government have employed thousands of highly-paid government spies and bureaucrats for a decade, and have intercepted and unconstitutionally surveilled the phone calls and electronic communicatioons of the American people on a massive scale.

How many terrorist acts have the government’s illegal multi-billion-dollars-per-year data collection efforts stopped?

The answer is zero (0).

FBI Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz has now admitted in a 77-page report that the FBI has never solved a single terrorist-related crime or stopped a terrorist attack by using the USA Patriot Act. The story is here.

May 20

Obama Warns Coast Guard Graduates that Climate Skepticism might be Punished as “Dereliction of Duty”

climatology_dees

President Obama was in New London, Connecticut on May 20, 2015 to deliver the keynote address at the United States Coast Guard Academy commencement. During the graduation speech, Obama warned graduates that denying manmade catastrophic global warming or refusing to deal with it is negligence and “dereliction of duty.”

“If you see storm clouds gathering or dangerous shoals ahead you don’t just sit back and do nothing,” President Obama said Wednesday. “You take action to protect your ship, to keep your crew safe. Anything less is negligence. It is a dereliction of duty. So too with climate change.”

“Denying it or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security.”

Such shreeks of hysteria have now become all-too typical among the ruling class. But according to satellite and weather-balloon data, the earth has been cooling slightly for some 18 years. The south-polar icepack has been growing, and is at or near its highest levels on record. Ice has been building in Greenland and elsewhere, and glaciers appear to have been slightly growing at Glacier National Park and in the north-polar regions. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has essentially doubled in recent decades and now hovers around 400 parts per million.