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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Antiwar Protesters Hold Vigils on Fifth Anniversary of Iraq War

Opponents of the War in Iraq will be holding protests, including vigils, across the country today to commerate the fifth anniversary of the conflict.

Here's an excerpt of the Orlando Sentinel article that ran in the paper today:

WASHINGTON - Opponents of the Iraq war will gather for vigils across the country today in the culmination of a series of protests marking the fifth anniversary of the conflict.

'It has been five years too many. We're in a war that's only for money and oil,' said Kathryn Milholland, 19, a sophomore at the University of Central Florida.

Milholland and six others from Central Florida affiliated with the anti-war group CODEPINK got a jump on the protesting with a week of demonstrations in Washington.

The Supreme Court to Review FCC Profanity Case

The statist-dominated U.S. Supreme Court will formally review a case against the FCC for its profanity rules. Interestingly enough, Fox Broadcasting was the company that brought the case against the government agency, which is heading its way to the courthouse.

Obviously, this is all done in the wake of U2 front man Bono's utterance of a vulgarity when he accepted his Golden Globes award for Best Original Song in 2003 and, of course, Janet Jackson's uproarious right breast exposure (even though her nipple was covered with a pasty) during her half-time performance with Justin Timberlake at the 2004 Super Bowl game. (Yes, I'm referring to the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" incident all right.)

If these rules are upheld by the Court, then it will most likely pave the way for all radio stations to employ "dump boxes," a measure that will be mandated by the state.

Moreover, this is lunacy at the highest. No government agency -- no matter how coercive it will be -- will be able to stop every performer on television or every caller or talk show host on the radio from dropping the F bomb. It just won't happen. People will find more ways around the regulations, creating perverse incentives along the way. Does anyone really think that this will just solve anything at all?

Plus, the atmosphere of regulating speech on the public "government" airwaves is revolting. It paints this erroneous yet idyllic, white-picket-fenced view of what America is, especially since that idea was installed at the time of the 1950s. Americans during that period were swearing back in those days (although in less numbers than they are today), and today's generation is using them more so in record numbers than ever. This is in large part of the federal government and conservative movement's imposition of morality on the American public, injection of puritanism into our society, and creation of the forbidden fruit paradigm that has come to reign in the U.S.

This is all the more reason to abolish the FCC and let TV stations and their viewers and AM and FM radio stations and their viewers decide what content is objectionable and what content isn't. Let them take personal responsibility for what they say and do. By allowing the free market to come back into existenc, it's a win-win scenario for everyone, because, after all, everyone gets what they want in the realm of social cooperation and voluntaryism, not coercion and control by the diabolical state.

Hypocrisy Regarding the Boycott of Chinese Olympics' Opening Ceremony

A bunch of VIPs, made up of government rulers from all over the world, are calling for a complete boycott of the opening ceremony of China's Olympics because the country invaded and occupied Tibet while employing violence to bring order to the land.

So let's get this straight once and for all. It's outrageous that China invades and occupies Tibet to subjugate an entire population and imposes barbarism on it. But, if the U.S. invades and occupies Afghanistan and Iraq to subjugate their populations and imposes barbarism on them, it's extoled.

Wow! Talk about hypocrisy in every step of the way.

Oops! What do you know? I'm starting to sound like the good Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Fed's Days Are Numbered

The Fed has been in existence since 1913 and has been and still is responsible for engineering the business cycles, the depreciation of the dollar, and the redistribution of wealth from the working poor and middle class to the pro-corporate welfare whores on Wall Street, Big Banking, Big Business, the state, and other sections of the powers-that-be. Now its days are numbered.

The need for true monetary reform is stronger than ever: a Rothbardian version of the gold standard.

Ron Paul's Column Now on WND

Ron Paul's column "Texas Straight Talk," which is housed on his congressional website, will be a regular column on WorldNetDaily on Mondays. It starts today, as a matter of fact.

This certainly shows that Ron's pro-freedom message is reaching out to everyone, including conservatives.

(Hat tip to Antoinette Henson of the private RP Meetup Organizers group on Yahoo Groups.)

LP Presidential Candidate Steve Kubby on Economic Stimulus



Here's a full transcript of the speech at Kubby's campaign web site.

Another Female Presidential Candidate for President?

Dr. Mary Ruwart, the author of Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle and Healing Our World In an Age of Aggression (which is an update of her widely-read yet much-beloved book) and a devout libertarian in the Libertarian Party, is said to be a candidate for president on the LP ticket.

According to an excerpt of a post made by LP activist Less Antman, CPA on the Yahoo Groups list lpradicals regarding the timing of her "official" announcement:

I spoke directly with Mary, and she estimated it would be late this week (I said within 10 days to provide a limit she would beat). Obviously, the grapevine wasn't as accurate as the information I received. Keep in mind that she probably contacted me early because I had promised to make the legal maximum contribution as soon as she committed to running, and not because I'm in any way more important than other people.

The reason for the delay is that you only get one chance to make a first impression. She wants her web site to look good and to have the ability to take credit card contributions, and there are a few other matters that protocol requires before making a public declaration.


Ruwart, who is originally from my home state of Michigan, moved to Texas in recent years, I believe, with her husband where she accepted a job at a pharmaceutical company there. I corresponded with her once on the phone, and she seemed like a nice lady. I did it to talk to her about a draft campaign to get her appointed to the FDA as a commissioner which eventually turned out to be unsuccessful. All in all, we had a pleasant conversation on the phone.

Check out this LP survey of LP convention delegates which shows that she beats frontrunner Wayne Allyn Root (who's the most pro-war, anti-immigrant collectivist Republican infiltrator in the party).

New New York Governor Admits His Affairs

Newly-sworned in New York Democratic Governor David A. Paterson is now coming out of his closet full of political sins: he had extramarital affairs. This is all now a revelation, considering many people were going ape over Spitzer's high-paid call girl scandal.

However, when peaceful individuals and entrepeneurs are being persecuted and crucified for breaking draconian vice laws and the evil state is enforcing putrid drug laws and tax laws and invading your private bank accounts (among other things), they are atrociously silent. Where's the justice and fairness in all of that?

The state never gets prosecuted for committing terrible crimes against the law-abiding citizen, but the state always goes after the little guy. That's the real monstrous crime there.

Hungry Taxifornia's New Download Tax

An $8 billion shortfall which is affecting the State of California is leading state legislators to come up with a proposal to tax downloads of music from online stores like Amazon and iTunes.

Here's an interesting excerpt from the Oakland County Register piece that says it all:

New taxes require a 2/3rd vote of the Legislature, meaning some anti-tax Republicans would have to sign onto the proposal, but Calderon got creative.

Instead of proposing a new tax, AB 1956 simply requires the Board of Equalization to amend the definition of 'tangible personal property' to include 'digital property.' That needs only a majority vote, meaning no Republicans necessary.

Voila! A new tax – without a 2/3rds vote.

'This is crazy stuff,' said Michelle Steel, Orange County's representative on the Board of Equalization, who has been the lead opponent of the 'iTax' since before it was even in bill form.

'It's totally illegal,' she said.

To be fair, California isn't the first state to propose the tax. Far from it. A 2006 report by CNET News.com found that 15 states and the District of Columbia tax media downloads. A November survey by the Washington state Department of Revenue found 21 states tax cell phone downloads.

'It's not new,' said Calderon, who readily admits he's trying to cut out Republicans. Calderon said their opposition to new taxes shouldn't get in the way of a legitimate policy debate.

'Our economy's changed,' he said, 'shouldn't our laws?'

Madeleine Albright on One of Things She Misses

Madeleine "the price was worth it" Albright is quoted on one of the things she misses in an intriguing Washington Post piece covering items that are now becoming a thing of the past:

'Network nightly news broadcasts as a source of common information and national unity. Opinions differed, but Americans began thinking with the same images and facts in mind, brought to them by experienced journalists. If you cared about national or world affairs, you scheduled dinner before or after the nightly serving of Cronkite, Rather, Brokaw or Jennings.'


That collectivistic ideology of hers makes one shiver. This is the Washington elites' paradigm: "We must control you; therefore, you may not get your news from anywhere else but us. We own your mind. Accept it or else."

If anything, that speaks volumes of their agenda and their mindset that they want to impose upon us and the rest of the world. Down with traditional news media! Go alternative news media!

Andrew Bacevic on Conservatives for Obama

Conservative author and brilliant university professor Andrew Bacevic, whose only son was butchered by the neocons and their beloved War Party in Iraq last May, penned a piece for the the American conservative, which makes the case for a conservative support of Barack Obama.

Excerpt:

Give the neocons this much: they appreciate the stakes. This explains the intensity with which they proclaim that, even with the fighting in Iraq entering its sixth year, we are now 'winning'—as if war were an athletic contest in which nothing matters except the final score. The neoconservatives brazenly ignore or minimize all that we have flung away in lives, dollars, political influence, moral standing, and lost opportunities. They have to: once acknowledged, those costs make the folly of the entire neoconservative project apparent. All those confident manifestos calling for the United States to liberate the world’s oppressed, exercise benign global hegemony, and extend forever the 'unipolar moment' end up getting filed under dumb ideas.

Yet history’s judgment of the Iraq War will affect matters well beyond the realm of foreign policy. As was true over 40 years ago when the issue was Vietnam, how we remember Iraq will have large political and even cultural implications.

As part of the larger global war on terrorism, Iraq has provided a pretext for expanding further the already bloated prerogatives of the presidency. To see the Iraq War as anything but misguided, unnecessary, and an abject failure is to play into the hands of the fear-mongers who insist that when it comes to national security all Americans (members of Congress included) should defer to the judgment of the executive branch. Only the president, we are told, can 'keep us safe.' Seeing the war as the debacle it has become refutes that notion and provides a first step toward restoring a semblance of balance among the three branches of government.

Ken Gregg, RIP


Last Friday sensational classical liberal blogger Kenneth R. Gregg, the creator of his Classical Liberalism blog on Blogger, passed away at the age of 57, resulting in a wave of eulogies and commentaries from libertarians like "free market anticapitalist" Kevin Carson, paleolibertarians like Karen De Coster, and libertarian publications like Reason Magazine. While LLR was linked to his blog, I never personally corresponded with him, the fact that he doesn't know that LLR exists. But I do wish I had spoken with him in private and had gotten to know, as the personal obituaries made about him, as of late, have been pretty warm and kind. Regardless, in the wake of his untimely demise, I must say that I feel rather saddened that the libertarian movement has lost one of its best writers and intellectual thinkers.

I had noticed that his blog had been on inactive status for a while, although I had wondered why that was so. Now I know: he had been suffering from health problems within the last few years and died of congestive heart failure.

According to some discussion group postings, Ken had lost two of his three children to a series of reckless driving accidents six years ago. The man had experienced some great tragedies in his life, yet this latest shocker takes the cake.

As long as I have been blogging online, I have never heard of anyone say a negative thing about the man. He was a good soul and a valuable asset to the entire libertarian movement. He will be greatly missed.

More Delegates for Ron Paul

And they hail from the good State of Washington.

(Thanks to Lew for reporting this on his blog.)

Monday, March 17, 2008

Jim Cramer's Reponse to His "Bear Sterns Is Fine" Advice

Jim "Insane Money" Cramer attempts to pull an "ends-justify-the-mean" malarkey today on CNBC with a response to his "Bear Sterns is fine" advice by defending his statement. In fact, he even states that he does not regret his "advice" by saying, "If you had your money in Bear, you still would have got it today."

This clod should be fired and hoisted on his own petard, considering he lied on the air, even though he was caught with his pants down.

He kind of reminds me of those used car salesmen that I've been told to stay away from. If a shady salesman tries to sell you a lemon and people try to warn you that it's a lemon, you might want to take heed of their advice and not Cramer's.

Here's the video of his appearance for those who are not in the mood to go to YouTube to see it:

Jim Cramer's Biggest Critic Skewers Him

Jim "Insane Money" Cramer, the state/pro-corporate-welfare whore and shill for the government-insulated, government-protected financial service and housing sectors, suffers the wrath of one of his critics, who happens to be not a fan of his, the Fed, or even Wall Street (given that it's infested with so many corporate welfare drones).

Update: Here's the video of the critic that's currently on YouTube:

Pro-State Donald Trump on the Fed

Pro-state (not to mention government pro-corporate welfare queen) Donald Trump called into Neil Cavuto's Your World with Neil Cavuto show today to talk about the Fed's decision to bail out Bear Sterns in the wake of the imploding financial services and housing industries. (I only heard what Trump said, considering I didn't see the entire broadcast because I was in my computer room updating this blog, but the TV in the family was on, and Trump was on the phone line with Cavuto to weigh in on the mortgage/lending crisis. I managed to walk into the other room and watched the last remaining few minutes of what Trump said on the air.)

Trump said that the Fed needs to cut the subprime interest rate by a point, because, if the central bank doesn't do it, then we will all sink into a recession and it will be our economic meltdown nightmare come true. (I'm paraphrasing here, but that's pretty much the gist of what he said.) Of course, Cavuto, as the pro-Big Business, pro-government/business colluding scum that he is, pretty much concurred with what Trump said, given the fact that Fox News and Trump are big welfare queens and the thought of the government/pro-business environment coming-a-crashin' around them is frightening to them.

Trump is nothing than a pro-corporate state, pro-state, and pro-corporate welfare stooge of the worst kind. After all, this is a statist character who, back in the mid-1990s, employed eminent domain via the power of the state in New Jersey to force Vera Coking, an elderly woman from Atlantic City, out of her home so that the Republican billionaire could use her property to build a parking lot. The New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority condemned her property in a diabolical attempt to prevent Vera from getting a market price for her home and enable Trump to get a bargain basement price for it. Thankfully, the attorneys from the Institute of Justice fought this nonsense, and Coking won her case against the state and Trump.

People should be weary of thugs like Trump, for he is the most vile, most diabolical characters of the pro-government/pro-business/pro-corporate welfare establishment. He even makes your skin crawl anytime you see him.

Even his pathethic reality TV show The Apprentice, which has been on the air for almost eight years, is just crud. It is truly a sad day when he popularizes a stupid catch phrase like "You're fired!," especially when that phrase has been in use for ages.

Update: Actually, after viewing Trump's call into Cavuto's show on FoxNews.com, it turns out that he believes that the Fed did the right thing by cutting the interest rates and says that the Fed needs to cut the interest rate further by a point. He argues for this because, according to him, we've "had a big hit" and that he told Cavuto "two years ago that the country would fall into a recession."

But he terribly says that "we can put money into the economy through the Fed." Furthermore, if we don't get the price of oil down, we'll go into a major recession. Hasn't he figured out by now that we're already in a major recession? Hasn't he figured out that government is the problem -- and not the solution -- to this mess? After all, he thinks that we "don't have a choice" to lower the interest rate by a point. The answer to this, which he refuses to admit, is to move the government out of the way and let the free market take over, not to cut the Fed's rates by a percentage point.

Site Featuring Pictures of Our Rulers

Check out this site which contains pictures of our rulers, past and present. Some of them are actually funny though. Look at the ones of Dishonest Abe and Bush II. One even shows a hilariously doctored illustration of the Roman god Mars bearing Bill Clinton's face while being disarmed by the Roman goddess Venus and the Three Graces. It even shows a copy of Clinton's book My Life right next to his feet, which is not in the original version of the photo.

Some of the pics have been doctored to make Abe look more like Bush II, but it's all laced with political overtones and humor of course.

Jim 'Insane Money' Cramer's Response to His Reader

The pro-state establishment's top investment expert Jim 'Insane Money' Cramer gives hairbrained, ludicrous investment advice to one of his readers:

But, on March 11, Cramer told an e-mailer not to sell the beleaguered investment bank’s stock on his show’s Web site:

'Dear Jim: Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there? --Peter

Cramer says: 'No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear.'


(Via The Drudge Report. Thanks goes to Lew Rockwell for their reporting on this.)

They're Smearing Obama Like They Smeared Ron Paul

Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo on the pro-state sycophants who smeared Ron Paul are now after Barack Obama. More than that, they're doing it for the same reasons as they did with Paul.

Bloomberg Finally Gets It on the Bear Sterns Bailout

Bloomberg is finally realizing that the Bear Sterns bailout made possible by the Federal Reserve and JP Morgan has become a dire catastrophe and is, and has been, producing deleterious effects on the economy.

What will the news organization admit next? That the war in Iraq is, and already has become, a crisis that is wreaking havoc on our economy? That everything that Bush and his fellow neocon thugs in the War Party and the War Party Lite has been, is, and will always be a lie? Will the New York Slimes ever admit that the Iraq-upation has been, is, and will continue to be a lie as well?

The mind posits more questions than answers.

There's A Bright Side to Iraq War

The American empire's reputation, by all accounts, has been tarnished by the debacle we call the War in Iraq.

Unsurprisingly, the empire has now been discredited at the international level because of the fact that it has created negative unintended consequences for innocent Americans. However, there is a silver lining to all of this: given the fact that the neocons are always complaining that we are not talking about the good news coming out of Iraq, we can honestly say that the war will pave the way for the U.S. having a more difficult time starting wars.

The Daily Show Smears and Berates Berkeley

The Daily Show basically smears and berates the Berkeley Left for their opposition to the War in Iraq. I happen to side with the Left on this issue, of course. In the early part of the segment, an aged hippie is being characterized as an idiot for his statement that the Marines are "recruiting people for mass murder." He also says, "The Marines train people to kill people. The Marines are not moral influenced."

Of course, he's absolutely and completely right on this, considering the Marines haven't been employed for any actual defense of this country for decades.

Interestingly enough, one of the street vendors, by the way, happens to be a Communist pinko, yet he seems like a nice and good guy.

This is a clear-cut and obvious indication that the national political climate has sunken to its lowest levels when America's most socialist town, in contrast with the mainstream media (MSM) and the Daily Show, looks pretty sane. And a libertarian would hardly have anything to object to it.

One pacificistic pinko lady on the street truly believes that a world without weapons would somehow end wars (especially war crimes), but that idea is a fallacy. I oppose the idea, simply because crime rates will, all things being equal, most likely go up in the absence of weapons, not because of them. (After all, I'm pro-Second Amendment, whereas these pacifists absolutely oppose that amendment to the Bill of Rights.)

Undoubtedly, I concur with Lew Rockwell blogger Anthony Gregory that the pacificistic lady shouldn't have hesitated on the question of whether getting rid of police would have "eliminated crime." After all, abolishing the police would reduce crime on the streets.

All in all, the DS segment was funny yet disturbing, given the unsavory political climate under which we all labor. However, unfortunately, Berkeley is extrememly too far right on the police state.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Hypocrisy of the State Regarding U.S. Soldiers

The hypocrisy of the state is deafening.

According to a December 2007 piece in the Washington Post, a U.S. soldier, who's recently got medical treatment for a "mental disorder" because of an alleged self-inflicted gunshot wound, was brought on charges of attempted suicide and "endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq." If convicted, the 25-year-old Army veteran reservist could spend the rest of her life in prison.

Although leniency was brought against her, she tried to commit suicide again, underscoring the evils of the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars and unsavory and unsanitary conditions of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other VA hospitals like it.

The state can draft you, train you to be a murderous soldier (a government-paid hit man for the deified state), and send you off to a far-a-way land to fight a war on the battlefield, thus killing and maiming you in the name of "defending freedom and democracy." But once you try to commit suicide and put other soldiers like you out of their misery, the state turns on you and becomes your enemy while building a vile and diabolical case against you.

That's hypocrisy of the worst kind. No wonder the state is its own worst enemy.

Global Bank Run by Monday

Here's an interesting excerpt from Marketwatch:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Acting quickly to prevent a run on major global financial firms, the Federal Reserve cut its discount rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.25% and offered to lend money to a longer list of firms than ever before.


I think the GOP might want to consider switching its support of John McCain to Ron Paul.

Pepsi Raw the New Pepsi?

Pepsi, which is a subsidiary of parent company PepsiCo, is launching a new product called Pepsi Raw, which will be arriving in England first and then most likely the U.S. This new product basically replaces the high fructose corn syrup, which is, by all medical standards very unhealthy, with cane sugar.

Although cane sugar is far from a perfect healthy option next to corn syrup and even aspartame, it will certainly be an improvement over their current line of drinks like Diet Pepsi, Diet Pepsi Max, Pepsi One, etc. Moreover, this cane sugar version of the product will be competing with a cane sugar product that's already in the U.S. -- Jones Soda.

The Booming Gold

Investments in gold have been soaring in a crazy fashion. Although it recently skyrockted to a $1,000 an ounce, now it has gone up to $1,030 an ounce.

This is a reflection of the ever-deteriorating U.S. dollar, thanks to the ominous Fed and its quasi-governmental, monopolistic practices, including its unabated expansion of the money supply. The demonetization of our money is at hand.

The Bear Sterns Bailout Epitomizes Our Ever-Growing Economic Fascism

The recent federal bailout of Bear Sterns by pro-state, pro-government financial firm JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve (a quasi-public central bank that was propped up by the U.S. federal government and many international bankers in 1913) epitomizes and even unveils our never-ending growing system of economic fascism, which is currently under the rubric of "capitalism."

Bear Sterns, for those of you who are not aware, is a colossal mortgage investment bank which has been crumbling financially because of its ties to securities firms supported by shady subprime mortgages. This firm, which has been in business for 85 years, also had two hedge funds that drowned in a sea of red ink last summer, shows exactly how the U.S. federal government, under the rule of George Bush II, has embraced capital as an excuse for the government to intervene with capitalism.

Let's call a spade a spade for once and for all. The subprime crisis has always been the by-product of the wedded government and business intervention. The policies, which are the heart of the problem, are devised to bring assistance to the housing industry and financial lenders who are responsible for writing the mortgages. Unsurprisingly, the economic and financial chickens are coming home to roost. The huge lenders and investors, which have always been attracted to the globs of federal government intervention in the financial sector and the subsidies attached to them, are now mired in this mess. After all, although they are specialized in securitized mortgages, they are completely in over their heads, yet they will collect their bailout check under the "we the big firms can't fail" doctrine. This undoubtedly will set the stage for another round of government interventions in the already government-coddled, government-regulated financial sector that will result in poor decisions. Moral hazard is what it is.

Does this have anything to do with the free market? Yes and no. This certainly is not a free market, but leftists, socialists, and many populists will call out against laissez faire. Why would they? Because corporatism, which is a government-subsidized, government-protected, government-assisted brand of capitalism, will erroneously, although understandably, be associated with laissez-faire capitalism. Kevin Carson, who describes himself as a "free market anticapitalist," is known to have said, "If this is the free market is, then I'm against it."

Why is this not a free market? Because the free market is a profit and loss system devoid of government involvement, control, and regulation, including privilege. If a business fails (and many do), it is supposed to fail, not to be handed over to the taxpayers to underwrite its losses. All we have at this point is a corporatocracy (which is a fusion of Big Business and the government), which is also identified as corporatism, ecoonomic fascism, and state (or crony) capitalism.

If we want to help allies of libertarianism, we must study and understand economics ourselves as well as our own history. One fact that substantiates the existence of this system is that profits are private, yet the losses are socialized. The term "socialized" means that taxpayers are coerced -- at the barrel of a gun -- to cover the losses without actually possessing any political clout.

We must reject vulgar libertarianism and embrace the free market and a return to limited government, personal responsibility, human liberty, and a foreign policy of interventionism. The recognition of abject failure in government because of its interventionistic policies -- both domestic and abroad -- will hopefully pave the way back to the federal republic that we once had.

Big Brother's Secret Meeting on Surveillance Bill

Big Brother -- errm, Congress -- gathered together for a clandestine meeting to discuss and debate a vile, diabolical surveillance bill which would, if passed by Herr Bush, reform the Leviathan's own anti-terrorism/pro-surveillance laws. This closed session, which is the first one since 1983, was requested by the governing body's own GOP minority.

Here's an excerpt of the CNN's coverage of the affair:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives met in secret session Thursday night to debate revisions to federal surveillance laws, closing off the chamber for the first time since 1983 at the request of its Republican minority.


President Bush says the proposal would 'undermine America's security.'

Rep. Roy Blunt, the House minority whip, asked for the closed session to use classified information to argue against a Democratic-backed overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

'I did have some information that I thought would help the debate, that rose to the secret level that all of the members otherwise would not hear,' said Blunt, R-Missouri.

Several Democrats raised concerns about the closed-door meeting but eventually agreed to the request. However, Rep. Dennis Kucinich said he would not stay for it.

'We ought to be proceeding with the utmost caution in going in this direction,' said Kucinich, of Ohio, a former Democratic presidential candidate.

The nearly hour-long session took place late Thursday after a security sweep of the chamber. The House plans to hold an open debate on the Democratic bill at 10 a.m. Friday.


Here's what the next two key paragaphs in the piece say:

President Bush and his GOP allies have spent weeks pressuring the House to grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that took part in the administration's warrantless surveillance program after the September 11 attacks.

The Senate already has voted to protect the phone companies from lawsuits filed by privacy advocates, who argue that the surveillance program was illegal.


Isn't this latest stunt on the surveillance bill just a way for Congress to sell the country down the river and drop the latest salvo on our civil liberties as well as our human liberty at the same time? How are we really being "protected" in the name of fighting the War on Terror if this surveillance bill will be used to intrude upon Americans' privacy while ignoring the terrorists who really attacked us on 9/11?

The insulting part of this insanity is that the phone companies that willingly signed up for Bush's wiretapping program have been granted legal immunity from any civil liability for going along with the administration's imperalistic, nation-building, and hawkish orgies.

This, coupled with the Bush administration's corporatocratic indulgences (which are all part of corporatism - the fusion of government and private enterprise as one governing, ruling body), is indicative of why so many leftists and populists express a strong yet incessant hatred for and contempt for capitalism. As Kevin Carson, a self-described "free market anti-capitalist" libertarian, noted in recent years, these actions are elements of corporatism (a.k.a. state capitalism, crony capitalism, and economic fascism) -- elements that most Americans identify with our current corrupted system of capitalism. As he recently put it, "If this is the free market, then I'm against it."

As for the surveillance bill, if this is devised to "protect our freedoms," then their concept of freedom is atrociously and ridiculously skewed. The administration, in recent years, imposed upon the populace its "enemy combatant" doctrine, which states that the military can be employed to kidnap any American by taking him into custody, implement torture techniques on him, and incarcerate him for the remainder of his life without due process and any allowance of a trial by jury as stipulated and mandated by the Bill of Rights. If an American is subjected to be placed in military confinement (which is really imprisonment) in the name of the War on Terrorism, he will not be allowed any access to a civilian attorney and will be tried before a military tribunal, with the prospect of him being found guilty before the tribunal's panel of judges.

Not only can Americans be apprehended and imprisoned for the rest of their lives, this also applies to foreigners, even though the doctrine is touted only to affect foreigners who are believed to have committed terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. This is definitely how the label is being used for these purposes. This is "protecting our freedoms"?

Not only that, habeas corpus has been eviscerated thanks to the passage of the Military Commissions Act. The law, of course, purports to deny habeas corpus protections to foreigners who are illegally detained without due process and even a trial by jury, especially when the individual arrested for committing the government-recognized sinful act of berating the state for its policies (even if that criticism is unpopular in the eyes of the state). However, the law can also be employed on American citizens who hold unpopular, alleged anti-American views. What makes those who support the law think that this will only apply to foreigners, whether they're legal or illegal? Do we really believe that the law is only limited to that scope? Of course not. There's nothing in the provisions of the MCA that limits it only to aliens.

This surveillance meeting makes it possible for the omnipotent state, as deified as it is, to promote its anti-freedom/pro-socialist, social-engineering agenda on us while shredding what's left of our human liberty here in America.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Iranian Conservatives Split Vote On Parliamentary Elections

The Iranian conservatives split their votes in their country's parliamentary elections, resulting in a showing of approximately 60 percent.

Apparently the rift between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his former supporters is wider than originally perceived in the mainstream American press.

Interestingly enough, some U.S. officials are saying that the Iranian cleric leaders "cooked the votes." But isn't that what the U.S. government has been doing here in the United States as well? Aren't we hearing some hypocrisy from them on this matter?

This latest tidbit gives new meaning to the old phrase "The pot calling the kettle black."

Obama's Pastor vs. Obama

The latest dust-up between Senator (and Democratic presidential candidate) Barack Obama and his minister Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright showcases how disingenuous "pro-peace" Barack and his pro-war cronies are to the electorate.

Here's what Reverend Wright said about our interventionist foreign policy:

'We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,' Wright said. 'We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.'


Obama blasted the reverend's statement, calling it "inflammatory" and "appalling."

'I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies,' Obama said. 'I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue.'


Wright also condemned the U.S. for its assaults on the African-American community, especially with the federal government's agenda of importing drugs, training terrorists, and exporting guns.

Furthermore, he said the following:

'The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing "God Bless America." No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.'


While he is right about the government's past treatment of blacks on American soil, he forgets easily that the African-American community is responsible for its own self-sabotage and acceptance of the modern welfare-warfare state. Furthermore, his disparagement of "America" is not so much directed at the American government, but at the American people. That's where he is wrong on that point, yet he is right to criticize the government's domestic policy on drug abuse prevention and its foreign policy of interventionism.

The Ron Paulites Are Coming, The Ron Paulites Are Coming!

The collectivistic neocon Republican Chicken Littles are terrified of aliens -- that is, principled, very pure Ron Paul supporters who favor pro-freedom ideals.

The Republican Party has been and always will be the party of big business, big militarism, protectionism, mercantilism, jingoism, xenophobia, and economic fascism (socialism for the rich), tyranny, and dictatorship. This certainly explains their great love for evil and diabolical yet insane neocon John McCain and their ardent contempt for and hatred and rejection of Ron Paul.

An Excerpt of Ron Paul's New Book Now Available

An excerpt of Ron Paul's upcoming new book A Revolution: A Manifesto is now available on Amazon.com's website. The online company has done so by adding it to its "Look Inside" program. If you click on the book cover icon on the same page showing the book and the editorial review, you'll notice that it only shows a six-page excerpt of the book.

Some browsers may not work very well when you try to take a gander at the first few pages of the book, so you may have to use Firefox, which allows you to look at those pages. I'm using Internet Explorer, so I haven't had any problems with it. But for those of you who can look at it, the excerpt is well worth reading. I have a feeling that the publisher will be swamped with so many pre-orders that it may expedite its release sooner than it was expected.

For those who are not aware, the book is scheduled to be out on April 30. From what I've read in the pages so far, it's worth every word on which it's printed.

The Obesity of Government

The Ballot Initiative to End the Income Tax in Massachusetts' Carla Howell and Michael Cloud on the tax-hungry, bloated Leviathan with which we're all stuck.

The Election In Which Nobody Voted

Suprisingly, an election was held in Tamarac, Florida in which nobody voted this past Wednesday. Apparently none of the registered voters came to their precincts in the city to decide on the issue of annexing a nearly unincorpoated neighborhood. This latest eyebrow-raising shocker suggests that none of the 68 registered voters in the city believed that their vote was going to count anyway given their feeling that the system is rigged at their expense; therefore, they pondered what the point would be to go their precincts and vote on a proposal that they knew they would not benefit from it in the end.

What's even interesting about this incident is that none of the polling employees were incentivized to vote on the issue as well. It appears that their feelings regarding the proposal and the system of voting were mutual. Of course, the vote probably would have decided the fate of the neighborhood, but it's not as if they were interested in doing that anyway.

If the city really wanted the community to go through with the annexation, wouldn't they have somehow carried it out, the opposition of the electorate notwithstanding? That seems to be the case anyway, except that you won't hear the city officials willingly cop to that.

Here's an interesting excerpt in the AP report:

The cost of keeping a polling site open for 12 hours with no voters: $2,500.


Because the city lost that much money to keep the precinct open for that amount of time, wouldn't they have slapped a tax on the voters to recoup that loss, even if the electorate didn't want it? That revenue wouldn't have necessarily gone to make up for the loss of revenue during the entire time of the election on that day, and the officials probably would have raised that money to make it appear as if the money would have gone to make up the shortfall. Would they really have accomplished that? Not likely, but nothing what the government does, especially at the local level, would surprise anyone (including Yours Truly) at this or any other point.

Here's another disturbing part in that same report:

City officials could take another approach to annexing the area. One option is a mail-in ballot election.


I'm convinced that they would pursue this approach, given the fact that the election was a dud. However, I'm more convinced that, if the voters had shown up and the election was a dud and the vote totals produced an outcome that was unsatisfactory to the city officials, they would have taken another approach just the same because the outcome wasn't exactly what they wanted.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Murray Sabrin Interviewed on Liberty Cap Talk Live

I interviewed Dr. Murray Sabrin, a self-proclaimed "Ron Paul Republican" and a candidate for U.S. Senate representing the State of New Jersey, on my show Liberty Cap Talk Live on NowLive.

Here's Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview.

Update: The end of Part 1 was screwed up because of NowLive's never-ending technical glitches, so when the show ended abruptly during the interview, the last few minutes of the first segment ended up being a repeat of the last 4 minutes of the interview before we were cut off. Apologies are given in advance for the problems with the podcast.

Jessie Ventura for President?

Third Party Watch's Stephen Gordon reports that former Minnesota Governor Jessie Ventura is pondering a presidential run.

If Ventura does put up an independent bid, it could generate a shift in the balance of power in the current race. With pro-war Wayne Allyn Root possibly the Libertarian Party's contender, phony pro-peace Barack Obama most likely being the crowned Democratic frontrunner, and pro-war John McCain the already-anoited victor in the GOP race, what will Ventura offer that the collectivistic establishment already has?

Google Sky

Check out the new Google Sky, offered by Google (my favorite search engine to date).

We Helped Create the New Depression

Martin Feldstein of NBER, the nation's top establishment economist, dishes the truth about the U.S. depression that he and his fellow government-supported cronies helped engineer, install, and tout.

The Price of Gold Hits The $1,000 Mark

The Associated Press reports that the price of gold, in relation to the incessant tumbling U.S. dollar due to the U.S. government-created Federal Reserve's saturation of the money supply, has gone up to $1,000.

If the dollar continues to drop at an unabated rate, what will the price of gold be at that point in time? $2,000? $5,000?

The free market will eventually jump in and make adjustments to the situation by allowing more gold competitors to jump into the fray. That will, in return, result in lower prices.

Of course, the only way for that to happen is to abolish the Fed, repeal the legal tender laws, and replace the current monetary policy with one that favors a gold and silver standard.

Suspended Government School "Skittles" Teen Cleared

The Connecticut government school eighth grader who was suspended for purchasing a bag of Skittles candy from a fellow classmate has now been cleared of the charges brought against him by the school officials.

Now the question that should be asked is - did LLR have anything to do with this latest about-face?

Ron Paul Rally on April 15 a.k.a. "Freedom Day"

Linda Hunnicutt, a.k.a. "Granny Warrior," will be kicking off a Ron Paul rally in D.C. on April 15 a.k.a. "Freedom Day." Ron Paul and his wife Carol will be there as well.

New Animated Ron Paul Spot

Apparently the Ron Paul Revolution lives on in this amazing new, animated supported-created promo ad. If you want to see the high resolution version, surf to here and check it out!!!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Yes to Legalized Gay Sex and No to Unleashed Dogs in Amsterdam's Public Parks

The Dutch government is legalizing gay sexual activity in its public parks, but will take criminal action against dog owners who allow their dogs to wander on them without keeping them on a leash.

While I'm all for getting the government out of our bedrooms and free speech on government-owned, government-funded parks, the problem with this scenario is that they are, more or less, public property. In other words, the "people" own the parks. To break it down even further, the government is the owner, and not truly the citizens of Amsterdam.

The Dutch may be tolerant of trade-offs regarding those state-controlled, state-run, state-owned properties, but the issue here is whether the state should be owning those parks in the first place. This latest episode showcases the need to abolish government-run, government-owned properties and hand them over to the free market. Besides, most parks, even here in the U.S., are not that clean, and at just about every park I've gone to, I've seen litter on the ground. The government employees of those parks do a lousy job of cleaning them up. You can smell the air of bureaucracy when you're at the grounds, and none of the park rangers are nice, cordial, and even helpful as well.

But this is a very contentious yet important issue to consider. Why should they be owned by the state? Answer: in the eyes of the statists, it's because the free market can't handle this problem, but the state can. Who decides what and who benefits from that decisions? Answer: the government, not the "customers" (taxpayers) whom the state is supposed to serve.

As for the Dutch, the bigger questions are of the following: why are the Dutch putting up with that crap by allowing their tax dollars to fund these government-owned, government-operated institutions? What tangible benefits, if any, are they getting out of the entire thing?

The Dutch should be pursuing private property rights in lieu of this decision, but, in the interim, the state shouldn't be in the business of deciding what can or cannot be transpiring on the grounds of these parks.

Hurricane Katrina Homeowners Still Awaiting Government Reconstruction Checks

Irate Hurricane Katrina homeowners have yet to receive their rebuilding checks from the Leviathan. What's worse is that a government-subsidized, government-colluded "private" firm is the one carrying the contract for the subsidies and is a proud member of economic fascism/state capitalism.

Check out the excerpt from the article, as it will make you very queasy:

NEW ORLEANS - Two-and-a-half years after Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of miserable homeowners are still waiting for their government rebuilding checks, and many complain they can’t even get their calls returned. But the company that holds the big contract to distribute the aid is doing quite well for itself.

ICF International of Fairfax, Va., has posted strong profits, gone public, landed additional multimillion-dollar government contracts, and, it was learned this week, secured a potentially big raise recently from the state of Louisiana.

In the waning days of Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration, state officials increased the management contract ceiling from $756 million to $914 million — this, after the Legislature wanted to fire ICF over its handling of the homeowner recovery program, called Road Home.

'I’m flabbergasted that this company could be so inefficient and could mess up so consistently and for so long,' said Bill Yurt, 57, who has been living in a FEMA trailer for 2½ years.

He said ICF hasn’t sent an appraiser to determine the grant amount that will resurrect his gutted house in Gentilly. And his calls to an ICF caseworker have gone unreturned for a month.


Update: I forgot to mention here that the Katrina victims, who should have known better to buy homes in those high-risk areas of those affected neighborhoods, should be angry at themselves for being a part of the welfarism itself and supporting the economic fascistic/state capitalist model devised and engineered by the U.S. federal government.

Fewer Americans Are Aware of Iraqi Civilian Casualties

A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reveals that just only 28 percent of Americans know that the U.S. troop casualties in Iraq are approach 4,000.

Here's a very small yet interesting excerpt taken from that opening paragraph of the Washington Post which covers the survey:

[N]early half thinks the death tally is 3,000 or fewer and 23 percent think it is higher, according to an opinion survey released yesterday.


Interestingly enough, very few Americans at large -- including the mainstream press -- are aware of the fact that the body count of Iraqi civilians now totals 89,573 casualties.

Nonethless, there's no indication in the piece of how many Americans are actually aware of that entire body count. Well, except Yours Truly.

The Further Decline of the U.S. Market

The significant decline of sales in the U.S. market -- specifically the retail, energy, and housing sectors -- is seriously attributed to the government's unfettered and incessant coddling, control, regulation, and subsidization of those industries.

Incidentally, wasn't the recently-passed, recently-signed "economic stimulage" package (it's really a political stimulus package) supposed to seriously boost the economy? After all, the stimulus package originally was proposed to be at $145 billion, then $146 billion, and then it went up to $156 billion. But, as libertarian blogger and columnist Sheldon Richman correctly noted, the economy isn't some machine that the government can just tend to and "fix," what the social engineers, statists, and collectivists often say notwithstanding. That economic stimulus package is merely a welfare redistribution scheme that transfers money that's's already in the economy (steals your money, in other words) to those who don't have it, especially if they pay little or no federal income taxes.

Moreover, it perpetuates the mythical view that one must spend his way into prosperity when that is utter fantasy. Government, by its very nature, is not a progenitor of wealth, unlike the free market which is such by the way; it merely destroys your ability to create wealth via the various machinations imposed by the state. That's the unseen effect of which most Americans have no idea.

The best way to REALLY economically stimulate the economy is to repeal all regulations and taxes and slash spending to the bone, scrap the IRS code, transition our economy from a centrally-planned one to a free, self-regulated one, phase out the Federal Reserve, replace our monetary policy with one that allows the return of the gold and silver standards, a repeal of legal tender laws, and end our foreign policy of interventionism.

That's a real economic stimulus package right there.

Ron Paul's son Rand Paul: "Ron Paul Campaign Is Not Over"

Ron Paul Will Not Endorse John McCain

Alan Bock of the Orange County Register says that Ron Paul, who appeared on CNN with John King last Monday to talk about the future of his campaign, will not endorse the GOP's Anointed One a.k.a. John McCain.

For those of you who haven't seen Ron's televised appearance on King's show, here you go:

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Lew Rockwell Is Right and Wrong About Spitzer

Libertarian-conservative political blogger, columnist, and commentator (not to mention President of the Mises Institute) Lew Rockwell opined about the Eliot Spitzer scandal on his blog early this morning, in which he noted the following:

Eliot Spitzer is not a good guy. He was, after all, a prosecutor. But that doesn't mean he was targeted for legitimate reasons by the Bush administration. First, from a states-rights standpoint, it is disturbing to see the central government bring down the governor of a state for unconstitutional victimless crimes. Yesterday on cable tv, we were assured time and time again that the FBI and US attorneys do not do political prosecutions. In fact, that is their major job. Spitzer was not 'caught up' in an investigation of a prostitution ring. The ring was caught up in a political investigation of Spitzer. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, but still the state-media two-minute hate has its worrisome aspects. Exactly why was he targeted for destruction? Not for his sins, we can be sure.


Lew is absolutely right to point out that Spitzer "is not a good guy." After all, that mongrel's record of abuses of power as a New York State Attorney General and a governor of the state precedes him. And yes, he was a prosecutor. That much is true.

But Lew gets it wrong on this point. He claims that the federal government didn't target Spitzer for legitimate reasons. First of all, at this point in the game, we don't know that. Unless Lew has some special inside knowledge of which I'm not aware, he cannot possibly know that.

Secondly, Spitzer spent a good remainder of his life persecuting and crucifying individuals, entrepeneurs, and other innocent individuals, all the while wielding so much power while being at the helm of the state. No prosecutor or state official was willing to take criminal action against him for his abuses of power at the state level. It wasn't until this scandal that people from all aisles of the political spectrum were calling for his head on a silver platter. Who was going to prosecute him at the state level? As far as I can tell (and what everyone knows), that was never going to happen, even if we wanted it to happen.

Thirdly, Lew points out that the Feds were possibly investigating him for political corruption, not for his acts of cavorting with known prostitutes employed at the widely-publicized Emperor's VIP Club. That is true. He has been probed long before the mainstream press and media got wind of this controversy, and that even goes for the prostitution ring as well. However, the reason I believe that so many investors and libertarian individuals are calling for his crucifixion is because of how he had engaged in these state-sanctioned vile acts of violence against innocent entrepeneurs, individuals, firms, etc.

This is where Lew gets it wrong: as long as the evil state exists along with its oppressive apparatus, Spitzer is to be held to the same standard as many law-abiding businesses and individuals are expected. As long as the legitimate state exists, our rulers, in the interim, need to play by the same rules that they've foisted upon us. I realize that will never happen, and perhaps I'm dreaming when I say that, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Moreover, his states' rights argument does not pass political muster. States, by their own nature, do NOT have rights; only individuals possess rights. This is the problem that I have with the ideology of federalism, because paleolibertarians treat this as if this construct carries some legitimacy of some kind, when it clearly does not.

However, that does not mean that I support laws against prostitution and financial privacy. I share Lew's concerns regarding those policies, and that is strictly why those edicts need to be repealed as soon as possible. Individuals should be free to keep their financial data from the prying eyes of the vile, demonic state and pursue any free market transaction, such as the exchange of money for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with the member of the fair sex.

I fathom perfectly where Lew is going with his concern. However, nothwithstanding the fact that I oppose the state in every area of our economy, especially at the state and local levels, I'm making this incident an exception and not the rule. Moreover, I don't feel sorry for Spitzer, given the fact that he has made his bed; now, his forced resignation notwithstanding, he must lie in it.

If You Taste the Rainbow, You Will Feel the State's Wrath

A New Haven, Connecticut eighth grade public "government" schooler has landed himself into trouble by the officious government school officials for buying a bag of Skittles from one of his classmates.

Read this disturbing excerpt of a CNN article:

Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title as class vice president, barred from attending an honors student dinner and suspended for a day after buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate.


This situation, like the other recent government school incident, is becoming more and more intolerable each day. So the kid broke the rule, not to mention the fact that he didn't know what the rule was. Big whoop!! Even if he did know the rule, there is no legitimate reason -- not to mention an excuse -- for meting out this kind of punishment to the kid, considering it's too extreme.

Let's remember that this is all because of the idiotic, wicked "zero tolerance" policies that have been put into place in the schools for years. Keep in mind that this policy in question has been on the books since 2003. In the old days, if you were caught with munching on candy, the school officials or the teachers would confiscate your candy and warn you not to pull another stunt like this again. If you repeated the same offense, the punishment would be more severe, but that would have required well over a dozen incidents to warrant a punishment like this.

Thanks to these loopy policies, that's why the schools are experiencing a crisis of untold proportions more than ever. And this latest incident is only the tip of the iceberg. What's next? You'll be expelled for hawking (or even buying) home-made cookies and pastries at the cafeteria and even between and during classes? What about student-made t-shirts, letterman's jackets, and sweatpants showing the school's name? Are those activities grounds for expulsion as well?

It's ok to give out free condoms to encourage students to have safe sex or sign abstinence pledges (which only result in students becoming sexually active in other ways), but it's evil to buy (or even sell) candy or any item that isn't given its seal of approval by the state. How pathetic!

No Government School Lunch Permit, No Teenage Entrepeneurship

The state of Missouri's public "government" school thugs are at it again by suspending a teenage government school student for selling tasty, fresh gourmet sandwiches to his fellow peers. Why? Because the adolescent entrepeneur committed two of the gravest of all government sins: not having a permit and not abiding by health regulations.

Because of the vile, diabolical actions of this putrid state, the student's desire for entrepeneurship may have been eviscerated. It's obvious that the students were buying the teenager's sandwiches because, like most other public "government" schools, the school lunch served at their cafeterias is horrendous and terrible. Moreover, the school district's assault on this student's right to start up his own private enterprise and pursue free market alternatives to the disgusting public "government" school lunches showcases the evils of officious government school bureaucrats who are immune to the forces of the marketplace. It shows that they share an immense contempt for the free market and their loving embrace of socialism, which they have been trying to instill in the minds of so many government school students, past and present.

Additionally, this nonsense that he didn't have a permit is ludicrous, because the cost to actually getting a permit is so prohibitive that the student wouldn't be able to afford it. That cost alone would come out of his profits that an artificial increase in his prices would be incurred. That's anti-consumer and anti-free market as well.

The health code violation is also balderdash. The foods prepared at the public schools aren't exactly up to code and aren't even fresh. Plus, the health and working conditions at these schools are questionable, considering these bureaucrats simply couldn't careless about the quality of their own foods, let alone their own schools.

Super Sheep Outruns German Police Thugs

An uber sheep outruns a gang of German police goons after beating up their police dogs. Now the cronies of the state are in pursuit of the animal's owner.

Here's a brief excerpt:

German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep which outran police patrol cars and beat up a police dog.

Police in the northern German village of Guester say the sheep ran through the streets of the town at more than 30mph.

It reportedly leapt over the bonnets of police cars used as a road block to cut off its escape and even chased off pursuing police dogs with a few well aimed head butts.

Don't Think About Dyeing Your Pet

A Boulder, Colorado woman has been slapped with a $1,000 fine by the state thugs just for dyeing her poodle. She stained her dog's hair color pink to commemorate the awareness of breast cancer.

Here's an excerpt of the piece:

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS) ― A Boulder, Colo. woman charged with dyeing her poodle pink will have to wait for her day in court. Joy Douglas asked a judge Tuesday morning to reschedule her hearing after she hired an attorney.

Douglas, a hair stylist, said she colored Cici, her white poodle, pink to help raise awareness about breast cancer. Authorities in Boulder said she has gone too far and the coloring could cost her $1,000.

Douglas is charged with violating a city ordinance that prohibits the coloring or dyeing of animals. It was passed several years ago to discourage families from dyeing rabbits and chicks for Easter.

Three More Soldiers' Lives Claimed in Iraq

Three more soldiers are blown to kingdom come by a rocket in Southern Iraq, bringing the total body count to 12.

The State Is Created to.....

.....micromanage a restaurant for all of our sakes simply by ensuring that we all have an adequate supply of toilet paper.

Canadians Are Freer Than Americans

Canadians pay less taxes than Americans.

Ron Paul on the Global Currency Debasement

Ron Paul appeared on Neil Cavuto's business show on Fox News, opining on the disastrous global currency debasement.

Here's the video for it:



Ron also notes that he is not dropping out of the race as long as there is continual support for his campaign and continue to campaign for as many votes and many delegates as possible, in response to Neil's question as to whether he would be dropping out. Cavuto responded sharply by saying that the GOP has already chosen its candidate, unless there's been a reverse in the decision. Ron responded by saying that it's important to change the direction of the country and get the GOP back to its traditional roots.

The Resignation of Eliot Spitzer

The mainstream media (MSM) in New York and in the District of Criminals are celebrating the resignation of New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer, who, for those who haven't been paying attention to the debacle, has been investigated by the Bush administration for alleged money laundering. The same can't be said for the New York Times, its breaking of the never-ending scandal notwithstanding.

Here's the entire text of Spitzer's publicized resignation:

In the past few days I have begun to atone for my private failings with my wife, Silda, my children, and my entire family. The remorse I feel will always be with me. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the love and compassion they have shown me. From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much: the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.

I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been, but I also know that as a public servant I, and the remarkable people with whom I worked, have accomplished a great deal. There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor. At Lt. Gov. Paterson’s request, the resignation will be effective Monday, March 17, a date that he believes will permit an orderly transition.

I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family. Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children. I hope all of New York will join my prayers for my friend, David Paterson, as he embarks on his new mission, and I thank the public once again for the privilege of service.


Here's the video of Spitzer announcing his resignation.

The Wicked, Diabolical Paradigm of "Money Laundering"

State-worshipping, Big Government-loving, and pro-Eliot Spitzer thug Philip Weiss is dumbfounded and infuriated at the prospect that spending your hard-earned money (which happens to be your private property) -- money that is honestly earned yet dishonestly stolen (in the form of taxation) -- can land you in a federal slammer because of an arbitrary federal felony charge. What he fails to fathom is the fact that spending $10,000 or more of your own financial property (money) without filing a government form that enables them to have unfettered access and control of your cash is a federal "government-constructed" crime.

It should be of no surprise to anyone that spending smaller amounts of your money is a prosecutable offense as well -- that is, if the amounts add up to more than $10,000. Of course, the god whom we call the state tells us that this vile, diabolical draconian, police-state measure is necessary to fight the War on Terror. Of course, similarly the late former President Ronald Reagan was the one who pushed for the creation of these draconian laws in the 1980s by masking them in the form of a lame excuse to combat the War on Drugs. But neither was true then, and it is the same now.

This is a statist effort to monitor and control every dime and penny you spend via the coercive power of taxation. Thankfully we have Ron Paul who fought for our privacy and property rights then and fights for them once again now.

After all, he fought Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and now Bush II by opposing their statist efforts to create the victimless crime we call "money laundering." Ron means what he says on the need for government in constitutional chains and the expansion of human liberty, not the other way around.

Ron Paul's Support of an anti-Bush Torture Bill

Here's Ron Paul's publicly-stated opposition to Bush's veto of H.R. 2062, also known as the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008:

'Mr. Speaker, I rise in somewhat reluctant support of this vote to override the President's veto of H.R. 2062, the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2008. Although I voted against this authorization when it first came to the floor, the main issue has now become whether we as a Congress are to condone torture as official U.S. policy or whether we will speak out against it. This bill was vetoed by the President because of a measure added extending the prohibition of the use of any interrogation treatment or technique not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations to the U.S. intelligence community. Opposing this prohibition is tantamount to endorsing the use of torture against those in United States Government custody.

'Mr. Speaker, we have all read the disturbing reports of individuals apprehended and taken to secret prisons maintained by the United States Government across the globe, tortured for months or even years, and later released without charge. Khaled al-Masri, for example, a German citizen, has recounted the story of his incarceration and torture by U.S. intelligence in a secret facility in Afghanistan. His horror was said to be simply a case of mistaken identity. We do not know how many more similar cases there may be, but clearly it is not in the interest of the United States to act in a manner so contrary to the values upon which we pride ourselves.

'My vote to override the President's veto is a vote to send a clear message that I do not think the United States should be in the business of torture. It is anti-American, immoral and counterproductive.'


(Incidentally, Ron voted in favor of the bill, in case anyone would like to know.)

(Thanks to Lew for originally leaking this onto his blog, which made the first headline. It merely allowed me to follow suit in Ron's honor.)

A Tale of Two Rights

Pro-Russell Kirk and Pro-Ron Paul columnist Jack Hunter on William Buckley and the damage done to the modern (yet morally-and-ideologically bankrupt) conservative movement.

Salon's Juan Cole: "McCain = Bush"

Salon writer Juan Cole sums it up for McCain's quest for the Presidency: "John McCain is George Bush."

Here's an excerpt of the article here:

March 12, 2008 | The most important thing about the endorsements proffered to John McCain by George W. Bush and evangelist John Hagee last week was McCain's reaction to them. The freshly minted Republican nominee for president, who has had harsh words in the past for both Bush's policies and evangelical 'agents of intolerance,' meekly accepted their support. He knows he cannot win in November if the evangelicals and pro-war conservatives stay home. How far will McCain go in presenting himself as Son of Bush in order to energize his party's base? To date, based on his willingness to embrace the Bush agenda and to associate with religious extremists, the answer seems to be pretty far indeed.

When John McCain went to the White House last week, President Bush seemed to be offering him an out. Bush 'welcomed' McCain as 'the Republican nominee' in his official statement, but didn't initially use the word 'endorse.' It was McCain who leapt for the e-word. 'Well, I'm very honored and humbled,' said McCain, 'to have the opportunity to receive the endorsement of the President of the United States, a man who I have great admiration, respect and affection [for].'

McCain's strategists, meanwhile, are said to be privately plotting how best to deploy the deeply unpopular Bush, perhaps by quietly sending him to host fundraisers deep inside red states where he would not risk alienating the general population from McCain. But McCain is hewing so faithfully to Bush's legacy he may need no help from the man himself in alienating the population.

Whereas in his 2000 presidential bid, the Arizona senator sharply criticized Bush for appearing at the anti-Catholic Bob Jones University, which at that time also still banned interracial dating, he is less vocal about such matters now. He is himself behaving as Bush did then. McCain once dismissed evangelicals such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as 'agents of intolerance.' But last week the senator embraced Hagee's endorsement. Talk about an agent of intolerance! Hagee is like Pat Robertson on steroids.

Mississippi's Republican Warmonger Primary Vote

Here's Mississippi's Republican Primary Vote:

McCain 78.9%
Huckabee 12.46%
Paul 3.87%
Romney 1.52%
Thompson 1.50%
Giuliani 0.66%

Reason's Take on the Spitzer Scandal

Reason's Paul Karl Lukas issues his scathing insights on the Eliot Spitzer ruckus.

Here's an excerpt from the piece:

Many publications (reason included) are feasting this week on the all-but-cooked political carcass of New York’s law-and-order governor, Eliot Spitzer. The crusading former attorney general was brought low by the New York Times’ revelation yesterday afternoon that federal wiretaps caught him allegedly arranging an assignation with an overpriced prostitute last month at a Washington hotel. (When news of the underlying federal investigation broke last week, The Smoking Gun website posted screen grabs of the service’s web page, including photos of alleged talent and a price list that ran up to $3,100 an hour.)

If the allegations are true (and Spitzer’s statement that he 'acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family' certainly sounds like an admission), the governor’s hypocrisy—and his belief that there is one set of laws for the little people and another set for Great Men like himself—is obvious. As attorney general and leader of the state's organized crime task force, Spitzer spearheaded the prosecution of two alleged prostitution rings, according to the Times.

But Spitzer’s moralistic crusade against paid sex (by non-Spitzers, at least) wasn’t confined to New York or even the United States of America. As far as Spitzer is concerned, he has the right to prevent people from exchanging cash for cuddles anywhere in the world.

Big Apple Oriental Tours was a Queens-based travel agency with an angle: it marketed vacations for men to destinations such as Angeles City, Philippines, a jurisdiction in which adult prostitution is nominally illegal but is condoned and regulated by the government because of the money it brings in. The militant feminist group Equality Now had been agitating for prosecution of Big Apple Oriental Tours since at least 1996, but had never found a prosecutor willing to take the case. (Big Apple Oriental Tours has never been linked to child prostitution, which would be another matter entirely.)

Reason on Ron Paul - Evolution of a Revolution

Reason's Dave Weigel, a former Ron Paul supporter, takes a gander at the Ron Paul Revolution and to where it's headed. (Remember, this is the same Weigel who, with Julian Sanchez, unearthed evidence of Lew Rockwell's alleged ties to the infamous newsletter scandal that targeted the Ron Paul 2008: Hope for America campaign.)

Here's an excerpt of the piece:

The most libertarian candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, began 2008 with an army of 100,000 enthusiastic donors. Before the primary season began, many of his fans clung to the hope that polls showing Paul stuck in single digits were cooked. Many, more pragmatically, hoped he’d play the kind of role Sen. Eugene McCarthy filled 40 years ago in the Democratic primaries, shaking his party out of its hawkish stupor and relocating its soul.

Neither of those scenarios unfolded. Nowhere was the disappointment greater than in the 'Live Free or Die' state of New Hampshire, where the large independent vote and Paul’s substantial war chest were primed to shock the political system. Before the election, pollsters such as John Zogby and Scott Rasmussen thought Paul might come in third place. ABC News embedded a reporter with the campaign just to see if lightning might strike, and CNN sent cameras to cover Paul’s election night party live.

But Paul finished in a momentum-sapping fifth place, polling worse than he did in Iowa even after spending $3.6 million in the state. Only a second-place showing in Nevada relieved the doldrums of a bleak winter: 6 percent in Michigan, 4 percent in South Carolina, and 3 percent in the make-or-break state of Florida. When the winner-take-all states of Super Tuesday rolled around, Paul placed no better than a second- place showing in Montana and media interest in his movement faded away.

The chance of a Paul nomination, never likely to begin with, became mathematically impossible. Once that became clear, interest turned naturally to the members of Paul’s decentralized, ad hoc movement—often dubbed the rEVOLution, after a slogan coined by Arizona libertarian Ernie Hancock. The big surprise is how many of his supporters want to scrap parts of Paul’s campaign platform. The big question is how many of them will stick around for whatever comes next.

The divisions were already obvious before New Hampshire’s crucial primary. Operation Live Free or Die, a grassroots Paul group founded by ex-Google whiz kid Vijay Boyapati, rented 14 friendly homes and opened them up to Paul volunteers to use as a base for door-to-door campaigning. In one house, a snowy 45-minute drive from the campaign headquarters in Concord, Paul workers from all over the country cooked food, drank beer, and talked about libertarian philosophy and economics.

Top Anti-Iran War Commander Admiral William J. Fallon Is Canned

U.S. Admiral William J. Fallon, the top pundit of the entire, impending neocon aggression against Iran, has been given the axe. This comes in the wake of a piece that was published in the pages of Esquire Magazine last week, a piece in which Fallon was identified by the author known to his Esquire readers as Thomas P.M. Barnett.

According to the Washington Post on the Esquire matter:

The Esquire article, written by Thomas P.M. Barnett, a former Naval War College professor, asserted that if Fallon left his job anytime soon, it could signal that Bush intends to go to war with Iran. Asked about that yesterday, Gates called it 'just ridiculous.'


The next paragraph of the Post piece continued with the following:

Several Democrats were quick to accuse the [Bush] administration of not tolerating dissent. 'It's distressing that Admiral Fallon feels he had to step down,' said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.). 'President Bush's oft-repeated claim that he follows the advice of his commanders on the ground rings hollow if our commanders don't feel free to disagree with the president.' Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) asked whether Fallon's resignation is a reflection that the administration is hostile to 'the frank, open airing of experts' views.'


With that in mind, now that Fallon is out of the way, The Great Leader will continue to not only engage in more acts of violence against foreigners, but he'll also kill them more than ever.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Feds Were Watching You, Eliot

Apparently the Feds had been keeping tabs on Spitzer for quite some time -- that is, long before he was busted for his entanglement with Emperor's VIP Club in February.

Spitzer Gets His Comeuppance

Republicans are now calling for legally and politically troubled Governor Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) to resign from his gubernatorial office.

Here's the Scotland-based News.Scotsman.com site reporting more on this swelling ruckus.

Payment Protection Plans (PPIs) Should Be Avoided At All Costs

Whatever you do, if you have credit cards or car insurance, please don't get protection payment plans (PPIs). They are nothing but a false sense of security.

New Cop Ratings Site Incenses Police and Is Removed

A new website (called RateMyCop.com) that rates more than 130,000 police officers nationwide on the basis of authority, fairness, and satisfaction not only incensed so many police organizations, it also resulted in the removal of the site.

The site that is listed under GoDaddy's domain webhosting service has now been replaced with the following:

This site is currently unavailable.

If you are the owner of this site, please contact us at 1-480-505-8855 at your earliest convenience.


It's funny: GoDaddy does not have a problem with you watching porn on its servers, but the pendulum only swings one way when you're dealing with free speech.

(Thanks goes to Christopher Manion for his thoughts on the GoDaddy site.)

Campaign Finance Laws Hurt Grassroots Causes

The government's own campaign finance machinations are wiping out grassroots causes, according to Jessica Peck Corry of Liberty For All Online Magazine.

The Rightful Persecution and Crucifixion of New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer

The recent hoopla over the federal investigation of New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer over his alleged involvement with a $1,000-an-hour prostitute known to various press accounts and sources as "Kristen" and her high-class brothel known as the Emperor's VIP Club has sent shockwaves to the entire mainstream media, especially the blogosphere housing the Left, "moderates," libertarians, and the Right. Moreover, while many pundits across the political spectrum have been putting different varieties of spin on the latest uproar, some of them -- if not, many -- are either ignoring or neglecting the fact that Spitzer isn't being charged with meeting with the woman or being in sexual congress with the woman or other women from the brothel.

In actuality, Spitzer is being charged with money laundering - that is, the crime of wiring money out of his bank account to the ring in the amount of more than $10,000, which, according to Newsday, appeared to be a front for the service. Interestingly enough, the governor contacted the bank to have his name removed, the fact that his broke the $10,000 amounts into smaller amounts notwithstanding. Moreover, the Feds initially believed that the transfers were part of a blackmail scheme or possibly political corruption on the governor's part. Because of the unusual, red-flagged amounts recorded in his bank account, the bank, required by government edict, reported the transactions to the IRS. (Keep in mind that the banks consistently record these unusually-large amounts and report them to the Feds on suspicion that their clients are possibly engaging in drug dealing and/or terrorist activity.)

This latest incident involving Spitzer is an excellent epitome of why the federal and state governments should stay out of the economic and personal affairs of its citizenry. More than that, it beckons for a repeal of laws criminalizing prostitution (it is, in fact, illegal in 49 states minus Nevada) and a repeal of all federal and state laws and regulations that call for monitoring, snooping in, red-flagging, and even overseeing peaceful economic transactions, especially when that activity involves two parties exchanging money for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.

While we're at it, let's repeal all the federal and state drug and terrorism laws that threaten our domestic and global way of life as well as what we do with our monies that are entrusted to the banks with whom we deal on a voluntary basis. And let's not forget an across-the-board repeal of all laws requiring banks to become snitches to the federal government (i.e. the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the IRs, etc.).

More importantly, let's abolish all unconstitutional federal agencies that are not authorized by the federal government (including the DHS, FBI, IRS, DOJ). Furthermore, let's repeal all the state-imposed laws enforcing morality on the public, especially in the area of illegal prostitution.

On a personal note, while I oppose government intrusion into economic and personal matters (including the act of having sex with a prostitute and/or exchanging money for that purpose), I cannot say, for the life of me, that I feel sorry for Governor Spitzer. This is a man who led a crusade against entrepreneurs, day traders, businesses, and other firms for victimless crimes by supporting the same vile, diabolical, morally-and-politically bankrupt draconian edicts and regulations that were ultimately employed to victimize hundreds -- if not, thousands -- of individuals and businesses for his goal to ascend to the putrid and evil ranks of the authoritarian, pro-state establishment. This man does not really deserve a libertarian defense -- let alone a modicum of sympathy -- for his wicked crimes against his victims whom he has terribly wronged. (I do feel sorry for his family, who did not ask to be put in this position; Spitzer, however, has put his family through this predicament, only that they will politically and legally suffer for what he has done to his victims.)

For that reason above, what has occured to him serves him right. This is a rightful persecution and crucifixion of the governor himself. His comeuppance is truly and rightfully handed to him on a silver platter as it is.