Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 24, 2010

Shennile Youhoing-Nanan of Clayton, Georgia was accused of violating a local ordinance forbidding the possession of more than five dogs more than four months of age.

In early March, more than two dozen armed police, some with guns drawn, stormed into Youhoing-Nanan?s home to carry out an early-morning arrest. She was thrown face-down on the floor, and handcuffed while one of the supposed heroes held her down by kneeling on her back. She was dragged from her home half-naked and thrown in jail. While in the cell she started bleeding. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she experienced a miscarriage.

Following the incident, Animal Control admitted that the would-be mother had not violated the ordinance at all. The police raid ? which was an act of criminal overkill to begin with ? was a completely unjustified criminal assault that resulted in the murder of Youhoing-Nanan?s unborn child.

Never forget: Every government enforcement officer ? including the local dogcatcher ? is a potential killer.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 23, 2010

Since December 2006, more than 5,000 people have been killed in a drug-related violence in Juarez, Mexico. The U.S.-dictated militarization of the Mexican government?s counter-narcotics efforts has led to conditions akin to martial law in that city of one million people that shares a border with the United States.

Today, March 23, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Mexico, and the issue of joint efforts to prosecute the so-called War on Drugs occupies a prominent place on the agenda. The Obama administration has displayed no interest in deviating from the course established under the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Mary O?Grady, Latin American affairs analyst for the Wall Street Journal, points out: ?The source of the problem is not Mexican supply. It is American demand coupled with prohibition.? Yet because of the influence of what O?Grady calls the ?drug-warrior industry,? Washington will continue the cynical, hypocritical exercise in murderous futility called the war on drugs.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 16, 2010

While heading the Justice Department?s Office of Legal Counsel (or OLC) during the Bush administration, Judge Jay Bybee helped create a legal framework supposedly justifying the use of torture against terrorist suspects.

There is compelling evidence that he did so in exchange for his current position on the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Washington Post reports that Bybee told then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez of his desire to be a federal judge. Gonzalez asked him first to take a post at the OLC, which ? as Gonzalez knew ? was framing arguments to justify torture.

Bybee, with the help of underling John Yoo (who aspired to Bybee?s post), gave Gonzalez the legal opinion that was being sought. A few years later, Bybee received his coveted federal judgeship.

Torture is a felony and a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Bribery is grounds for impeachment. Congress and the Justice Department must investigate the corrupt quid-pro-quo that institutionalized torture and placed Bybee on the federal bench.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 15, 2010

In mid-February, international affairs commentator Steve Clemons disclosed that ?at the highest levels of the US military, a quiet discussion is going on about putting in place a legal framework that would permit the US government to strip American citizenship from terrorists.?

This would apply to anyone designated a terrorist by the President or someone acting on his behalf. There is already a list of U.S. citizens identified as terrorists who are subject to summary execution without trial. At least one individual on that list, New Mexico-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, was the target of attempted execution by way of a remotely piloted drone.

A bill co-sponsored by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman would create a new category called ?enemy belligerents? that could include U.S. citizens. Such people ? who could include Tea Party activists and others deemed anti-government in outlook ? could be subject to prolonged military confinement, interrogation, and indefinite detention without trial.

Brick by brick, our rulers are building a gulag state.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 12, 2010

Americans are being told that our future will include massive levels of ?permanent? unemployment. Millions of Americans once securely ensconced in the middle class confront the prospect of homelessness.

Yet we?re being told to praise the Federal Reserve ? the architect of the credit bubble and ensuing economic crash ? for supposedly alleviating the crisis that it created.

Several months ago, author Ryan Grim published an essay for the Huffington Post describing how the Federal Reserve, ?so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession.?

Using the dollars it creates, the Fed has effectively purchased that entire academic discipline, save a few principled holdouts. So it?s hardly surprising to learn that a recent survey conducted by a consulting firm tied closely to Wall Street finds that most economists believe the Fed has ?rescued? the U.S. economy.

The criminal syndicate run by the Federal Reserve demands that we sing its praises even as it steals our country.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 11, 2010

On March 10, Congress had an opportunity to extricate the U.S. from the war in Afghanistan. The resolution was defeated by a margin of 356-65, with more negative votes cast by Democrats than Republicans.

This critically important debate ? essentially the first time Congress has ever carefully examined the merits of a war that has now lasted nearly a decade -- received little media attention.

Tennessee Rep. John Duncan, one of five Republican representatives who supported the call to end the war, declared that ?there is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan? and pointed out that ?Fiscal conservatives should be the most horrified at the hundreds of billions that have been spent over there,? much of which has been wasted propping up the corrupt, inept government of Iranian ally Hamid Karzai.

If Congress had carried out its constitutional duty in 2001, rather than surrendering its authority to then-President Bush, Americans may not be trapped in an Afghan war that may prove as endless as it is pointless.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 10, 2010

Dick Cheney once said that it was a ?no-brainer? to give a terrorist suspect ?a dunk in the water? ? as if this were the extent of the procedure called ?waterboarding.?

fill in words hereInternal Bush administration documents recently released to the public demonstrate that the actual practice was immeasurably more brutal than what Cheney described.

This is not fill in words here?simulated drowning?; it was controlled drowning carried out, in 40-second increments, over two-hour sessions several times a day. A special saline solution was used to prevent a potentially fatal sodium deficiency, and subjects were put on a liquid diet to prevent them from choking to death on their own vomit.

Eventually, some waterboarding victims simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown. Interrogators and attending physicians took care to keep them alive ? not out of concern for their welfare, but in order to prolong the torture.

All of this was indistinguishable from tortures carried out by Cambodian Communists and Japanese militarists. How can any American who loves our country countenance this?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 9, 2010

The parents of Rachael Greer and Mason Jammer would be thoroughly justified in exploring the possibility of home-schooling their young children.

Both Rachael, a seventh grade student from Kentuckiana, Indiana, and Mason, a kindergartner from Ionia, Michigan, were suspended for entirely inocuous behavior considered impermissible under so-called ?zero tolerance? policies.

During gym class, Rachael was handed a prescription drug pill by another student. She promptly handed it back, saying ?I don?t want it.? Yet school administrators, displaying the kind of blinkered legalism that might have struck the Pharisees as exessive, insisted that merely by touching a pill she didn?t ask for and promptly disposed of, Rachael was guilty of illicit ?drug possession.?

Mason?s grave offense was to curl a hand into what was described as the ?shape of a gun? and point it at another student. He was playful, not violent. Yet Mason was slapped with a disciplinary suspension.

?Zero tolerance? has nothing to do with fighting drug abuse and violence. It?s intended to cultivate collectivist conformity in children.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 8, 2010

Despite the fact that 22-year old Kane Gorny was a cancer patient at one of England?s finest hospitals, a neglectful nursing staff left the young man dangerously dehydrated.

At one point, when Kane became frantic for a drink, the nurses shook off their indifference long enough to call a security guard to restrain him. Kane finally called the police; when they arrived, the nursing staff insisted that he was all right and sent the police away.

It wasn?t until a day later that Kane received a drink from his anxious mother. He died just hours later after his mother had been ushered away. The government-run hospital did provide trauma counseling ? to the nursing staff responsible for the young man?s death, that is, not his bereaved mother.

According to one authoritative estimate, hundreds of British patients die from malnutrition and dehydration in hospitals each year. This is something to remember as Congress contemplates further government control over our own health care system.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 5, 2010

There are some who, despite ubiquitous and ever-accumulating evidence, dispute the proposition that government is an elaborate criminal racket. A measure before the Washington State legislature might serve as the tipping point for at least some statist holdouts.

Washington House Bill 2565, which purports to be an anti-drunk driving statute, would permit police to seize and hold any automobile on the mere suspicion that its operator is driving under the influence of an intoxicant.

The measure specifies that any police officer ?may take custody of a vehicle, at his or her discretion,? and that the confiscated vehicle is subject to a mandatory twelve-hour impoundment.
Whether or not charges are actually filed, owners will have to pay steep impound and towing fees. This is summary punishment without due process.

Not surprisingly, the measure is eagerly supported by the Towing and Recovery Association of Washington, which stands to profit handsomely from it.

How can this honestly be described as anything other than an officially sanctioned car theft ring?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.