Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 16, 2009

The much-derided ?Birthers? ? those who believe that there are legitimate questions regarding Obama?s status as a native-born U.S. citizen ? appear to have a point.

Five years ago, the Nairobi Standard newspaper ran a story headlined: ?Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate.? The lede to that story announced that ?Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race?.?

Also noteworthy is the fact that many Kenyans perceive Obama?s Nobel Prize as ? in the words of the Los Angeles Times ? a ?hometown victory.?

Ironically, there were legitimate questions about the constitutional qualifications of both major party candidates in the last presidential election, since Arizona Senator McCain was born in Panama, not the United States. The larger problem, of course, was that neither major-party candidate took the Constitution seriously, a problem that will most likely persist.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 15, 2009

According to a new report from the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, more than 30,000 single mothers have been deployed to war zones in those two countries. The Army permits mothers of newborns only four months with their children before sending them off to war.

Where both parents are in the military, it?s becoming common for both parents to be deployed simultaneously. Even if both parents return safely, their children are still temporary war orphans.

Children on the receiving end of the war are faring much worse. Multiple reports out of Fallujah, Iraq have documented a terrifying increase in the number of stillbirths and infants born with grotesque deformities and severe cancers. Several years ago, Fallujah was subjected to severe bombardment by white phosphorous and depleted uranium munitions in what the military called a ?shake and bake? mission.

Why are pro-life and pro-family activists silent in the face of such horrible consequences of an unnecessary war?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 14, 2009

?I don?t know how he can get this prize,? complained a 30-year-old resident of Kabul, Afghanistan in reaction to Obama?s Nobel Peace Prize. ?Maybe it's been awarded for all the houses they are bombing, or perhaps it's for all his soldiers that are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq."

It?s been said that once a person develops a reputation for punctuality, he?s free to arrive late at work for the rest of his life. In similar fashion, Obama?s reputation as a peacenik is impossible to reconcile with his performance as president.

He was nominated for the Nobel within days of being inaugurated, and within that brief time frame Obama managed to escalate the Afghan conflict by ordering Predator drone strike into Pakistan. He has also conspicuously left the door open for war with Iran.

Despite all of this, Obama has been embraced by the domestic left and the self-designated international community. Apparently, he?s their kind of warmonger.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 13, 2009

Justice Ministers and law enforcement officials from more than 60 nations gathered in Singapore on October 12 to inaugurate a new joint venture between the United Nations and Interpol that would create the framework for a UN-directed global police force.

Interpol secretary-general Ronald Noble, who was a high-ranking Treasury Department official under Bill Clinton, refers to this proposal as a ?visionary model? that would create an ?alliance of all nations? united by a ?global police doctrine.?

To some, this proposal seems like something out of a campy 1960s television show, and with good reason: During the 1960s spy craze, a program called the ?Man from UNCLE? depicted the exploits of agents working for the United Nations Command for Law Enforcement.

But secretary general Nobel?s background, which includes both participation in and covering up the 1993 Waco massacre, should be enough to convince us that his proposal is neither innocent camp, nor visionary idealism. It?s a blueprint for tyranny.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 8, 2009

Our factories are shuttered and our assembly lines are unraveling, but the government ruling us continues to find new ways to manufacture crimes.

Today?s Opelika-Auburn News reports that twenty-five people in that region of Alabama were arrested on ?meth-related charges.? Of those arrested, only two were charged with either possessing or manufacturing methamphetamine; the others were arrested for what was described as ?unlawful possession of a precursor? ? that is, ?purchasing over the legal amount of pseudoephedrine.?

That is to say that these people were arrested for buying legal cold medicine. Jeffrey Tucker of the Ludwig von Mises Institute points out that ?Before 2005, you could by as many Sudafed packages as you did Big Mac sandwiches?. Now, your 30-allotment is nine grams,? which probably isn?t enough during cold and flu season. And the government-approved replacement is little better than a placebo.

Cold and flu seasons come and go, but the government afflicting us is an unremitting plague.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 7, 2009

During the past several years, Police Chief Edward Locke, Jr. of Bella Vista, Missouri has repeatedly exploited opportunities to molest and humiliate women.

During a 2005 traffic stop involving suspicion of DWI, Locke handcuffed a woman named Diane Cook. After slamming her head against the vehicle, Lokce ? under the pretense of searching her ? groped her intimate anatomy. He also tasered her husband.

During a 2006 arrest over a license plate sticker, Locke injured William Cavataio so badly he needed to be hospitalized. For good measure he briefly detained Cavataio?s wife Mary Lou and fondled one of her breasts. In two other incidents Locke was accused of sexually exploiting arrested women.

Several of Locke?s victims filed a federal lawsuit against Locke and the City of Bella Vista. The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court ruled that Locke is protected by ?qualified immunity? ? the conceit that a government-issued costume confers special protection for crimes committed in the course of official business.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 6, 2009

Leon Trotsky, a founder of the Soviet Union, is remembered for creating the doctrine of permanent revolution. Barack Obama?s chief historical contribution, observes the Asia Times, may be the creation of a permanent depression.

Fervently applying the discredited economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, Obama and his advisors are systematically redistributing what remains of America?s capital into the hands of government and a handful of politically favored financial institutions.

As the Asia Times points out, when the government borrows money it ?has to come from somewhere. Right now, it?s coming from households who choose to save rather than borrow, and from the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve or the banks, as well as foreign investors.?

Foreign investors are walking away. The Banks are bankrupt. Household savings are pitifully small. All that remains is the Fed?s printing press, and the prospect of currency hyperinflation until the Fed runs out of zeroes ? or the dollar is utterly destroyed.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 5, 2009

People in positions of responsibility who claim an economic recovery is at hand are either clinically deranged or criminally dishonest.

Detroit, once the hub of America?s industrial economy, is plummeting into third world status. Unemployment is at nearly 28 percent, and bodies are piling up in morgues because nobody can afford to pay for burials or cremation.

Las Vegas, an oasis of corrupt opulence in a vast desert, is disintegrating. Half-finished construction projects litter the city; home foreclosures ravage the residential sections.

Unemployment has spiked, and stock prices for the MGM Mirage and Las Vegas Sands have dropped as much as 99 percent.

The Guardian of London notes that California, the world?s eighth ?largest economy, is on the brink of becoming a ?failed state.? Unemployment has climbed to 12 percent ? highest in 70 years ? workers are being paid with IOUs, and hundreds of thousands are fleeing the state.

These aren?t low-water marks. They?re portents of dire times to come.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

October 1, 2009

Oregon residents Veronica Rodriguez and Daryl Buck were convicted of first-degree sexual assault and sentenced to roughly a year in prison.

In both cases, the supposed assault didn?t involve violence, seduction, or even skin-to-skin contact. Rodriguez was accused of assaulting a 13-year-old boy by hugging him; Buck?s supposed crime was incidental contact with the seat of pants worn by a 13-year-old girl during a fishing trip.

In both cases, the trial judge set aside the mandatory minimum sentence of 75 months in prison. The prosecution appealed, insisting that under Measure 11, an amendment to the criminal code passed by voter referendum in 1994, judges do not have that discretionary authority. The state supreme court ruled that this application of Measure 11 would violate the state constitution?s ban on disproportionate sentences.

Rodriguez and Buck remain registered sex offenders for acts no reasonable person could describe as sexual assault. Such is the state of criminal justice in contemporary America.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

September 30, 2009

Last March, Sally Harpold of Clinton, Indiana bought a box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband. A few days later, Mrs. Harpold bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her daughter, a mother of triplets.

In July, the police knocked on Mrs. Harpold?s door at daybreak and arrested her for buying more than three grams of pseudoephedrine over a seven-day period.

Like most states, Indiana severely restricts the sale of legal, over-the-counter cold medicines that contain ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which can be used to make methamphetamine. Purchases of those products are carefully logged, and customers must show a photo ID. This absurd policy is mandated by a 2005 amendment to the so-called USA PATRIOT act.

As a result, legal cold remedies are rationed, and innocent grandmothers are sent to jail ? and meth continues to be widely available everywhere, including prison. And this is typical of the antic foolishness called the ?war on drugs.?

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