Tag: Politics

Ron Paul Calls for Criminal Charges Against Eric Holder

At least one person in Washington DC is still on the up and up. Ron Paul has officially come out and said Eric Holder should be criminally charged for his involvement in Fast and Furious:

Congress is currently investigating Fast & Furious. Attorney General Eric Holder has already been caught making at least one false statement under oath.

Gun rights advocates have been asking why Republicans aren’t calling for criminal charges against Eric Holder. Many have criticized FOX News for giving the story little coverage. CBS national news has been breaking most of the new details related to Fast & Furious. Recently Eric Holder yelled at a reporter at an event in DC. He blamed the media for public outrage over Fast & Furious, and told a reporter “you guys need to stop it.”

Today, Texas Congressman Ron Paul became the first GOP president candidate to call for criminal charges against Eric Holder.

Speaking to syndicated radio talk show host Alex Jones, Paul called for Holder to be “immediately fired.” Paul went on to say “I think it was criminal,” and called the operation a “false flag.” He said that there needs to be an immediate investigation into Holder himself, and said Holder “deserves charges.”

Kudos to Ron Paul for demanding what nobody else has and brining up the fact that Fast and Furious was a false flag operation to advance gun control. Holder’s false flag operation has lead to the death of both American and Mexican citizens just so the current administration could fabricate a scenario to advocate for more gun control.

Gary Johnson Running for Libertarian Party Presidential Nominee and I Don’t Blame Him

Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson has announced his intentions to run as a Libertarian Party candidate instead

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson will drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination and instead seek to run as a Libertarian, according to the Independent Political Report.

The switch, which has been rumored for weeks, is set to be announced Tuesday.

I don’t blame him, the Republican Party has treated him shittier than they’ve been treating Ron Paul. Johnson has only been invited to two of the debates as far as I know and gets not mention anywhere. At least the Libertarian Party will let Johnson speak and now they won’t have to relegate themselves to running a former spook like Bob Barr.

Obama Was Just Kidding About Vetoing the National Defense Authorization Act

Remember when Obama said he was going to veto the National Defense Authorization Act? Well he was just kidding:

President Obama has dropped his threat to veto the 2012 defense authorization bill after his advisers concluded that revised provisions about detainees would not harm national security.

The new “language does not challenge or constrain the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the American people,” Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

Emphasis mine. I wanted to bring emphasis to his reasoning for threatening a veto. Yesterday I said he had less than noble intentions when he threatened to veto but now we see what those intentions are. Obama was simply pissed because he thought the new language was going to strip him of some precious tyrannical power. Now that he’s sure his ability do whatever the fuck he wants to American citizens is secured he’s more than happy to pass the bill.

The Real Reason Obama is Threatening to Veto the National Defense Authorization Act

Obama has been threatening to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a section that will authorize indefinite detention of anybody accused of being linked to terrorism in any way. His supporters are pointing to this threat as proof of Obama’s willingness to defend the rights of American citizens. Unfortunately, for all of us, that’s not true. How can I make this claim? Easy, his administration were the ones that asked language in section 1031, the section authorizing indefinite detention, exempting American citizens be removed. Don’t take my word for it, let Senator Carl Levin explain [MP3].

If Obama gave a crap about civil rights he would have been demanding the language remain in the bill. Knowing he demanded the language be removed it’s obvious there is an ulterior motive for threatening a veto and it most likely isn’t benevolent.

Even though there were videos of this speech floating around they have apparently been removed from YouTube (I found four instances of the video, all were said to be removed by the user when I tried to view them). Thankfully I was able to find a copy of the speech on No Agenda Show Notes. The copy I linked to is from there but uploaded to my server so as not to waster their bandwidth unnecessarily.

Some Opinions Should be Kept to Yourself

The Letters to the Editor section of the Star Tribune is a source of near infinite entertainment for me. Seldom can I read through the section without finding at least two stupid letters penned by persons ignorant on the subject they’re expressing an opinion about. This is one of those letters:

The U.S. Post Office is vital to the economic and cultural health of our country and should not be treated as a for-profit business.

Actually the United States Post OFfice isn’t all that vital. With the exception of first class letter delivery, which the government maintains a monopoly on, the functions of the Post Office are also performed but numerous parcel deliver services including UPS, FedEx, and DHL. Our economy would suffer little, if any, were the Post Office shut down. Even most of the jobs lost by this move would likely be picked up by private parcel delivery services to cope with the additional surge of business that would have previously went to the Post Office.

It should be subsidized sufficiently so that closures or delayed deliveries are unnecessary. It is an honored and respected department of our government.

Emphasis mine. There isn’t a single department of our government that has one shred of honor not deserves any respect.

A history of the department shows it was responsible for keeping members of the Constitutional Convention informed on a daily basis no matter where they were.

Because of what the Post Office did way back when we should continue to subsidize it now? Should our government have subsidize the horse and buggy industry when Ford came in and stomped that market into practical extinction?

In furtherance of its charter, in 1848 the Post Office Department awarded a contract to the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. to carry mail to California. Under this contract, mail traveled by ship from New York to Panama, moved across Panama by rail, then went on to San Francisco by ship.

Emphasis mine once again. What one man called a contract I call a monopoly. Whenever government contracts with a company to provide a good or service that company receives a de facto monopoly in the government market. Because Pacific Mail Steamship Co. was granted the contract they received an increase in business that was denied to other potential shipping companies. Because of this large surge in business they would have gained more money and therefore would have been better positioned to buy out or otherwise eliminate their competition. It is never good news when the government grants a monopoly contract to a private firm for something.

It was supposed to take three to four weeks to receive a letter from the East, but this goal was seldom achieved. The Pony Express was very competitive in time, but the mail was limited to 20 pounds.

NEIL CLARK, MINNEAPOLIS

Do you know what other company was very competitive with the United States Post Office? Lysander Spooner’s American Letter Mail Company. Of coure the government didn’t have any control over that mail provider so they killed it through costly (to Spooner, not the government as they control the courts) court battles.

We need to face the fact that the United States Postal Service needs to be entirely privatized (not this stupid hybrid of private and public they currently suffer) and made to compete on the free market. Their monopoly on first class letter delivery needs to be revoked and they must be forced to innovate and improve their service just like UPS and FedEx.

Federal Government Censor Websites Using Copyright Laws

With all the debate surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) mission creep we often forget that the federal government has been practicing censorship by hijacking domains of websites. We’re told that SOPA will be OK because the government will only target copyright offenders but the truth is they’ve already used their authority to censor non-infringing websites:

Imagine if the US government, with no notice or warning, raided a small but popular magazine’s offices over a Thanksgiving weekend, seized the company’s printing presses, and told the world that the magazine was a criminal enterprise with a giant banner on their building. Then imagine that it never arrested anyone, never let a trial happen, and filed everything about the case under seal, not even letting the magazine’s lawyers talk to the judge presiding over the case. And it continued to deny any due process at all for over a year, before finally just handing everything back to the magazine and pretending nothing happened. I expect most people would be outraged. I expect that nearly all of you would say that’s a classic case of prior restraint, a massive First Amendment violation, and exactly the kind of thing that does not, or should not, happen in the United States.

But, in a story that’s been in the making for over a year, and which we’re exposing to the public for the first time now, this is exactly the scenario that has played out over the past year — with the only difference being that, rather than “a printing press” and a “magazine,” the story involved “a domain” and a “blog.”

[…]

Okay, now some details. First, remember Dajaz1.com? It was one of the sites seized over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend back in 2010 — a little over a year ago. Those seizures struck us as particularly interesting, because among the sites seized were a bunch of hip hop blogs, including a few that were highly ranked on Vibe’s list of the top hip hop blogs.

[…]

In fact, as the details came out, it became clear that ICE and the Justice Department were in way over their heads. ICE’s “investigation” was done by a technically inept recent college grad, who didn’t even seem to understand the basics of the technology. But it didn’t stop him from going to a judge and asking for a site to be completely censored with no due process.

The story goes into more detail but I’m sure you get the point. ICE has been shutting down domains based on “evidence” collected by completely unqualified individuals. Instead of laughing and tossing out requests for domain seizures judges have simply been saying, “Well I’m an agent of the state and you’re an agent of the state so you must be right. Sieze the domain!” This kind of ineptitude isn’t an exception but is the rule when it comes to government enforcement of almost anything.

Knowing this people still want to grant the government more power. What SOPA will do is allow this kind of incompetence to spread even further. I also guarantee you that many websites that are critical of the federal government will find themselves on the list of copyright offenders, by accident of course.

Donald Trump’s Debate Now a Small Circle Jerk

Will you look at this:

Two more Republican candidates — Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry — said thanks but no thanks to an invitation to participate in an Iowa debate managed by real estate mogul Donald Trump.

The Dec. 27 affair has now just two committed participants, one at the top of the GOP field and one distant aspirant, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, respectively.

The debate is now down to Trump, Santorum, and Gingrich. This debate should be the ultimate neo-con circle jerk filled with endless talk about how we need to bomb the sand people in the Middle East because they hate us for our freedom and such. Trump seems a little confused about the entire ordeal:

But he said he was surprised that Romney backed out. And as for Perry and others: “What do they have to lose?”

Their time and dignity? Let’s face it, if you’re running for presiden there are more productive ways to spend your time then talking to Trump. For example you could play a few rounds of solitarie or twiddle your thumbs. Either way with only those three at the debate it won’t be a debate but and echo chamber.

And to Think, Anti-Gunners Want to Prohibit People on the Terror Watch List from Owning Guns

From the horses fucking mouth:

POSITION: As a way to strengthen the Brady background check system, the Brady Campaign supports closing the Terror Gap.

PROBLEM: There is a gaping hole in our nation’s firearm laws that terrorists can exploit. Federal authorities can’t stop sales of guns – including military-style assault weapons – by federally licensed gun dealers to known or suspected terrorists because of gaps in current law. Our definitions of those prohibited from purchasing guns from federally licensed dealers do not include those known and suspected terrorists.

[…]

SOLUTION: Congress must pass the bill to close the Terror Gap to stop known or suspected terrorists from buying guns.

GET ACTIVE: Contact your Representative and Senators to urge them to support the Terror Gap bill.

I’ve been completely opposed to this because many innocent people appear on those lists. Now we’ve learned that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has been permitted to leave people acquitted of terrorist-related offenses on their lists:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is permitted to include people on the government’s terrorist watch list even if they have been acquitted of terrorism-related offenses or the charges are dropped, according to newly released documents.

[…]

The 91 pages of newly disclosed files include a December 2010 guidance memorandum to F.B.I. field offices showing that even a not-guilty verdict may not always be enough to get someone off the list, if agents maintain they still have “reasonable suspicion” that the person might have ties to terrorism.

There you have it, if your name appears on the list and you’re later acquitted the FBI can simply leave your name on there so long as they have “reasonable suspicion.” This means, beyond any doubt, that what anti-gunners are advocating is the removal of people’s right to keep and bear arms even if those people are innocent of any crime.

You know what’s rather funny about this? I’ve been saying due process is dead in this country for a while now and am often called paranoid for it. This document proves without any doubt that due process is in fact dead in this country. Welcome to the United Police State of America.

By the way, in case this document gets removed I’ve uploaded a copy to my server, which can be accessed here [PDF].

Hats Off to Kaspersky Lab

I would just like to give kudos to Kaspersky Lab for leaving the Business Software Alliance (BSA) because of the organization’s support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA):

Security research company and prominent antivirus software vendor Kaspersky Lab has announced its intent to withdraw from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) because of the Alliance’s support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, also known as H.R. 3261).

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) are the software industry’s two biggest trade groups. Since both groups have strong anti-piracy stances, neither directly opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act. Both expressed interest in working with Congress to design the law.

[…]

“Kaspersky Lab is aware of the public controversy and debates sparked by the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Kaspersky Lab is occasionally mentioned in the discussion as a member of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which supports the SOPA initiative,” a statement from the security company said on Monday. “Kaspersky Lab would like to clarify that the company did not participate in the elaboration or discussion of the SOPA initiative and does not support it. Moreover, the company believes that the SOPA initiative might actually be counter-productive for the public interest, and decided to discontinue its membership in the BSA as of January 1, 2012.”

Good on you guys, I hope other software companies follow suit.

Newt Gingrich Believes We Need to Allow Terrorist Attacks

Do you want to see a walrus stick its flipper in its mouth? If so here’s a video of it:

Yes that was Newt Gingrich saying it would have been smart to allow some terrorist attacks to succeed once in a while to make Americans understand why they need their government. Do we really want such a piece of shit in office?

Truth be told the reason we haven’t had a successful terrorist attack since 9/11 is because the only few attempted attacks had been total failures. Some idiots attempted to blow up airplanes using explosives hidden in shoes, underwear, and water bottles only to be thwarted by passengers because they weren’t about to see another 9/11 happen. These weren’t prevented by the government, they were prevented by people willing to take their self-defense into their own hands.

There was the incident in New York which amounted to nothing although it was interesting to see how the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) basically urged the guy to perform the attack and even provided him with all the explosive ordinance to boot.

Shit heads like this guy have managed to be political players for decades. Reflect on that for a bit, a guy who believes the government should have allowed a few terrorist attacks to succeed has held office in this country and is currently being held up as the star Republican nominee. I’d weep for this country but I’ve already reached the acceptance stage of greif.