On March 5th, a headline in the left-leaning Mother Jones declared, “Obama Administration Says President Can Use Lethal Force Against Americans on US Soil.” A letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Republican Senator Rand Paul was the cause. (A screenshot of the full letter is ... (more)
Time and again, throughout America’s history, individuals with a passion for truth and a commitment to justice have opted to defy the unjust laws and practices of the American government in order to speak up against slavery, segregation, discrimination, and war. Even when their personal safety and freedom were on the line, these individuals spoke up, knowing they would be chastised, ridiculed, arrested, branded traitors and even killed.
With American drug use levels essentially the same as — and levels of drug-related violence either the same as or lower than — those in countries like the Netherlands with liberal drug laws, public support for the War on Drugs appears to be faltering. This was most recently evidenced in the victory of major drug decriminalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington. Some misguided commentators go so far as to say the Drug War is “a failure.” Here, to set the record straight, are fifteen ways ... (more)
The Associated Press reports that eight former DEA administrators are urging the Obama administration to sue Washington and Colorado over their voter-approved moves toward marijuana legalization.
One former chief, Peter Bensinger, fears that successful legalization efforts will lead to “a domino effect” in the US. Where have we heard that phrase before? Bensin... (more)
On the same day that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was filibustering the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA over the nominee’s involvement in lethal drone strikes, Attorney General Eric Holder defended arbitrary power before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
As we noted earlier, Holder told the Committee that any Congressional action to restrict the targeted killing program would represent an unconstit... (more)
With his 13-hour filibuster of President Obama's nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director, U.S. Senator Rand Paul has drawn the nation's attention to the issue of whether President Obama claims the authority to assassinate American citizens here at home, on American soil.
The president, through Attorney General Eric Holder, initially stated that the president could use the military to kill Americans on U.S. soil but only in an "extraordinary circumstance." Holder emphasized, ... (more)
With the 10-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq upon us, there are three things that I find particularly fascinating.
First, the people who favored the invasion have different rationales for why they favored the invasion. Some of them say it's because Saddam Hussein conspired with al-Qaeda to commit the 9/11 attacks. Others say it's because there were terrorists inside Iraq. Others say that it was to bring democracy to Iraq. Others say it was to find WMDs, including thos... (more)
It took a 13-hour filibuster from Senator Rand Paul to wring this terse statement from Attorney General Eric Holder:
"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: `Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?' The answer to that question is no."
... (more)
In the fashion of Caesar thrice refusing the crown even as he assumed dictatorial powers, tyrants will occasionally engage in self-aggrandizement disguised as self-deprecation. Barack Obama offered a moment of that kind last week when, in reply to a question about the budget sequester posed by a media sycophant, he said, “I’m not a dictator.”
We are now five years out from the worst financial crisis in modern history, and still the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten with every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives. Meanwhile, the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) and the agencies under their command—Defense, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, etc.—have switched their allegiance to the Corporate State with its unassailable... (more)
The state--the organization of the political means--is the institution that allows an idle, unproductive class of parasites to live at the expense of ordinary, working people, whose means are industrious activity and consensual exchange in the marketplace. We ought not assume, however, that the indigent segment of society, those who receive social welfare aid from the state, are necessarily foremost among the parasites of the political means. Rather, free-market libertarians from Albert Jay Nock... (more)
A man goes to his doctor for a routine checkup. The doctor performs a perfunctory examination and informs him that unless he receives an experimental treatment the doctor has devised, he will soon become disabled. "What's it cost, Doc?" the man asks. "Well, unfortunately it's not cheap, Mr. Smith, and I can't tell you exactly how much the total cost will be until the entire treatment has been completed, but unless you get this treatment, you will soon be in big trouble."
Illegal immigrants will flood in! You will be stuck in security lines for hours! Children will go hungry! Planes will fall from the sky!
No, this isn’t a recap of the nightmare scenarios concocted by Y2K maniacs some 13 years ago. Instead, this is what the White House itself has said about puny and largely mythical cuts that will occur with the deadly plague known as “sequestration.”
It’s nothing short of a “devastating list of horribles” — something even worse than... (more)
In response to the sequester savings currently taking effect in the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials reportedly let loose hundreds of detained illegal immigrants in order to comply with budget cuts. Many right-wing commentators were so perturbed by this blatant act of political wailing, their complaints inspired the agency’s head of enforceme... (more)
Police Chief Ed Flynn of Milwaukee believes that his department is at war with the gun-owning public. In his February 27 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Flynn claimed that “in the last 20 years we’ve been in an arms race” with private citizens who supposedly out-gun the police.
Flynn testified in support of a proposed federal ban on so-cal... (more)
What’s called the “music industry” — which really means the big players in recording and performance — just climbed over the mountain. Global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999. That’s 14 years of hell ending with just a glimmer of light on the horizon.
Still, everyone is celebrating the change. And the source is rather obvious. It’s the download services. It’s the aggregator services like Pandora and Spotify. It’s the new reach and new technology. It’s advertising... (more)
Jill Lesser, head of the Center for Copyright Information (an intellectual property lobby posing as an “educational” body), recently assured the public that “six strikes” provisions of an agreement between the music and motion picture industries and several major Internet Service Providers won’t adversely affect provision of free wireless Internet by public libraries, restaurants, coffee houses and other public gathering places.
Nonsense, responded the Electronic Frontier Foundat... (more)
People often ask me “when did you become an anarchist?” It’s not an easy question to answer. Deep changes in one’s intellectual outlook do not happen overnight. You first entertain the idea. Then you assess its plausibility. You might even embrace the idea fully, but only in the abstract. Real intellectual change comes when you can see how the idea works in the real world—even in your daily life. That’s when confidence in an idea comes.
For this reason, it always mystifies me why... (more)
“The unspoken power dynamics in a police/civilian encounter will generally favor the police, unless the civilian is a local sports hero, the mayor, or a giant who is impervious to bullets.” -- Journalist Justin Peters
From time to time throughout history, individuals have been subjected to charges (and eventual punishment) by accusers whose testimony was treated as infallible and inerrant. Once again, we find ourselves repeating history, only this time, it’s th... (more)
President Obama's nomination of John Brennan is being held up over Brennan's refusal to state whether the president's power to assassinate Americans (and others) extends to American soil. The controversy is summed up in a great article by Glenn Greenwald.
The fact that Brennan could not bring himself to immediately say that the president doesn't have the power to assassin... (more)
The controversy over whether the Federal Government should ban the possession by citizens of certain types, or all types, of firearms has been raging back and forth for a very long time. I remember as a child seeing news coverage of horrific acts of violence involving firearms. I also remember the seemingly interminable "national conversation" that inevitably followed these events. It seemed, and still seems, to rouse people's emotions in a way that few other issues do. My parents, like most of ... (more)
While I oppose most gun control proposals, there is one group of Americans I do believe should be disarmed: federal agents. The use of force by federal agents to enforce unjust and unconstitutional laws is one of the major, albeit overlooked, threats to liberty. Too often Americans are victimized by government force simply for engaging in commercial transactions disproved of by Congress and the federal bureaucracy.
For example, the offices of Rawesome Foods in Venice, ... (more)
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