Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 4, 2009

Thirty-two years ago,?Omaha residents Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee were charged with murdering a retired police officer in Council Bluffs, Iowa. ,

The only evidence against Harrington and McGhee was the account of a 16-year-old with a criminal record. That dubious witness had already changed his story twice, first fingering two other men as the killers, and then equivocating about the kind of firearm used in the murder.

Records discovered in 2003 confirmed that the prosecutor and police conspired to frame Harrington and McGhee by suborning perjury, intimidating defense witnesses, and ignoring a more credible suspect.

Thanks to that discovery, the two men went free after 25 years in prison. They have filed suit against the officials responsible for their unjust imprisonment. An attorney representing the defendants insists that ?there is no ? constitutional right not to be framed.? This would mean that corrupt prosecutors who conspire to send innocent people to prison are a protected criminal class.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 3, 2009

Former President Bill Clinton recently visited Pristina, Kosovorecently visited Pristina, Kosovo to witness the unveiling of a monument to his most notable crime ? the 78-day terror bombing of Serbia, a country that never harmed or threatened the United States.

Next to Pristina?s main boulevard ? which is called ?Clinton Street? -- can be found a ten-foot statue of the former president, in tribute to his supposed liberation of Kosovo. In fact, the bombing was an illegal aggressive war that ripped Kosovo from Serbia and turned it over to the rule of a squalid clique of radical Muslim terrorists and gangsters allied with Osama bin Laden.

To be fair, this was a bipartisan accomplishment. That?s why Kosovo?s gangster government has named another street after George W. Bush, whose administration lavished foreign aid on the terrorist junta. Perhaps Bush will soon dedicate a statue of his own in Pristina.

We learn all we need to know about our rulers from the fact that foreign terrorists pay tribute to them.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 2, 2009

As the Obama administration tells it, the ?Great Recession? is over. From July to September, we are told, the Gross Domestic Product grew at an annual rate of 3.5 percent.

In exchange for the $787 billion stimulus spending bill, the administration claims, some 680,000 jobs were either created or ?saved.? Assuming that those figures are accurate ? which they aren?t, but we?ll treat them as if they were -- this translates into a cost of more than $1 million per job.

The much-heralded ?Cash for Clunkers? program is said to have played a large role in the supposed economic revival. According to Edmunds.com, an automobile-focused consumer advocacy service, the Cash for Clunkers program cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle.

A business that pays its employees much more than the value of what they produce would soon have to shut its doors. A government, however, can simply keep extracting wealth from producers until it destroys the economy altogether.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 30, 2009

Government is a form of participatory larceny in which the wealth created through the honest exertions of the productive is taken by force and redistributed according to the whims of the ruling elite.

This is underscored by a proposal from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in his 2010 municipal budget, which includes a ?Tax Whistleblower Program? designed to entice Chicago residents into becoming paid informants.

The Chicago Sun-Times notes that the program ?is expected to include cash bounties for informants who deliver the goods on unpaid business taxes. The cash reward would be a percentage of the amount recovered [.]?

A similar informant program was started in Newark, New Jersey under Mayor Corey Booker: Citizens were offered $1,000 in exchange for anonymous tips that resulted in police seizure of firearms. The victim of the seizure need not be charged with or convicted of a crime.

As Albert Jay Nock observed, government doesn?t seek to abolish crime ? it seeks a monopoly on crime.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 29, 2009

Like many others caught in the undertow of the ongoing economic collapse, Las Vegas resident Delinda Epstein has lost nearly everything. Her well-paying job with a construction company disappeared when the Vegas real estate market went bust. Her truck was repossessed, and she was compelled to move into a tiny apartment in a bad part of town.

Delinda posted an ad on Craig?s List offering various services ? including transportation. Her first customer soon called ? a man called Richie who needed a ride from the airport.

After Delinda picked him up and negotiated a fee, ?Richie? proved to be an undercover agent of the Transportation Authority. Delinda was hit with a $3,800 fine for offering transportation services without a license. That fine was reduced to $250, but her car was seized and impounded. And now the TA wants to seize her cell phone, as well.

At every level, and wherever it is found, government is a viciously predatory parasite.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 28, 2009

Merely describing the ambitions of those who seek to re-order the world can make a critic sound paranoid.

One example is provided by the upcoming United Nations ?climate change? summit in Copenhagen. At that meeting, heads of state from numerous countries ? including, it is expected, President Obama ? will sign a Framework Convention on Climate Change explicitly calling for the creation of a world government.

Page 18 of that document specifies that the treaty will create a global governing body with the power to collect what can only be called global environmental taxes.

Page 127 calls for huge transfers of wealth from the West ? meaning, primarily, the United States ? to what is called the ?developing world.? This would be done until the West makes what the UN would consider a ?full and effective payment of climate debt? supposedly incurred through our purported environmental sins.

Although this sounds demented, it?s what the UN intends to do, with the Obama administration?s enthusiastic support.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 23, 2009

Two years, ago, West Virginia resident Megan Williams, a black woman, told police that she had been kidnapped and tortured by six white captors who beat and sexually assaulted her.

Three men and three women were arrested and strong-armed into plea bargain agreements that resulted in prison terms of up to 40 years.

Days ago, Miss Williams admitted that the entire story was a fabrication. The bruises on her face were inflicted by an abusive boyfriend. Her other injuries were self-inflicted. According to her attorney, Williams is admitting the truth, at the risk of prosecution, because she wants to ?right the wrong? inflicted on the six innocent people in prison.

However, the prosecutor who sent the six to prison insists that the convictions were sound, and that they should remain behind bars ? despite the fact that the supposed crime never occurred.
Remember: In contemporary America, one needn?t commit a crime in order to wind up in prison.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 22, 2009

Author Chris Hedges could fairly be described as a leftist. He is a commentator of a rare and valuable kind, telling the truth as he sees it without regard to ideology or prejudice.

In a recent essay, Hedges observed: ?The right-wing accusations against Barack Obama are true. He is a socialist, although he practices socialism for corporations. He is squandering the country?s future with deficits that can never be repaid. He has retained and bolstered our surveillance state to spy on Americans. He is forcing us to buy into a health care system that will enrich corporations?. He will not stanch unemployment. He will not end our wars. He will not rebuild the nation. He is a tool of the corporate state.?

Hedges is concerned that the coming political backlash against Obama will result in the imposition of a right-wing militarist despotism in America. But the real problem is the centralization of power in Washington, whatever the ideological pretext.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 21, 2009

North Carolina defense attorney Johnny Gaskins was recently convicted in federal court of an offense called ?money structuring? ? making a series of cash bank deposits of just under $10,000, the amount at which banks are required to report transactions to the IRS.

Like most asinine laws of its kind, the statute criminalizing ?money structuring? is an outgrowth of the murderous fraud called the war on drugs. It assumes that large cash deposits must be the product of illicit commerce.

Gaskins earned his money legally, and paid taxes on his income. His only supposed crime was to conceal his own money from official scrutiny.

Professor William Anderson of Frostburg State University observes: ?This was payback, pure and simple. Gaskins had success representing people accused of crimes, and the police and prosecutors paid him back with what only can be a trumped-up charge.?

The persecution of Johnny Gaskins illustrates the ease with which our rulers can turn anyone into a criminal.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 20, 2009

Since the original Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, the New York Yankees have been America?s showpiece sports franchise.

Behind the team?s colorful legacy, however, the Yankee organization is one of the country?s most shameless corporate welfare whores.

Matt Welch of Reason magazine points out that the new, recently opened Yankee Stadium cost nearly $1.6 billion. Of that amount, an estimated $1.2 billion came from city, state, and federal subsidies, including special tax waivers, bond subsidies, and property seized through eminent domain.

Thanks to subsidies squeezed from taxpayers nation-wide, the Yankees can charge extortionate ticket prices that only the rich can afford. Thus the new Yankee Stadium is an architectural metaphor for the emerging American feudalism, with opulent, scandalously expensive prime seating for the wealthy and powerful, separated from over-priced regular seats common people can?t afford.

As the financial collapse deepens, the new Yankee Stadium may someday become an empty relic ? a monument to subsidized greed.

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