Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 16, 2008

The Justice Department has until May 1 to comply with a federal court order to turn over documents demanded by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trendatue. Those documents deal with the death of Jesse?s brother, Kenney, in federal custody in August 1995.

Kenney?s body was severely mangled, displaying the marks of a severe beating and strangulation. Yet prison officials in Oklahoma City, where he was confined, insist that Kenney committed suicide. The evidence is that he was tortured to death while in FBI custody, most likely because he was mistakenly identified as Richard Lee Guthrie, a neo-Nazi bank robber and suspected participant in the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Jesse Trentadue has unearthed evidence that the FBI not only had detailed advance knowledge of the bombing, but that the act may have been carried out by federal assets, including Guthrie. Jesse?s brother may have been murdered in an attempt to cover up that secret.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 15, 2008

Why are Americans preoccupied with the potential threat posed by distant terrorists, when the infernal terrorist cabal called the IRS is a tangible everyday reality?

The IRS has been the instrument of immeasurably more human misery than al-Qaeda could ever inflict. Tens of thousands of Americans who have made a good faith effort to comply with the indecipherable tax code have been ruined because of the implacable, concentrated malice of that despicable agency.

Former IRS collection agent Richard Yancey recalls a supervisor telling him, with reference to taxpayers: ?If it were up to me, I?d line ?em all up against a wall and shoot them.? Yancey was told that the agency is ?at war? with the American public. The IRS relentlessly dehumanized taxpayers, the better to harass, plunder, and terrorize them without mercy.

Again, I must ask: When the IRS marinates its agents in such hatred of the American public, why are we worried about al-Qaeda?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 14, 2008

Shortly before midnight on the morning of April 13, a small group of people gathered on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. Armed with Ipods and digital video recorders, this small group intended to hold a silent celebration of Jefferson?s 265th birthday.

The celebrants broke no laws, made no noise, and did nothing to offend anyone. Yet the National Park Police quickly descended on the group and ordered it to leave. One young lady quite reasonably asked what they had done wrong. She was promptly assaulted by a Park Policeman, handcuffed, sworn at, and eventually booked on a charge of ?interfering with an agency function.?

The young lady was quickly released, and the charge against her will probably be dropped. Yet this incident, which took place near a memorial to the most anti-authoritarian of our Founding Fathers, potently illustrates the dismal depths to which our once-free country has sunk.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 11, 2008

49-year-old Iraqi Priest Faiz (Fah-YEEZ) Abdel was murdered in broad daylight outside his home in Baghdad on April 5. His denomination, the Syrian Orthodox Church, has seen nearly half of its membership flee the country since it was supposedly liberated by the US invasion in March 2003.

During that same five-year period, Iraq?s Assyrian Christian Church has seen an even more dramatic exodus. Hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians ? whose language is Aramaic, the same one spoken by Jesus ? have fled to Syria and Lebanon.

More than two-thirds of Iraq?s Christians have been killed or driven into exile. A scant handful of them have been admitted to the United States as refugees.

Abu Noor, a 59-year-old Iraqi Christian, told the New York Times: ?I heartily believe that we were living better under the old regime. No one could threaten the Christians then.?

Those words seal the indictment against that unnecessary and immoral war.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 10, 2008

The Gospel of Matthew -- chapter six, verse 21 -- admonishes us: ?? [W]here your treasure is, there your heart will be also.? Bearing that biblical truth in mind, it is worthwhile to examine some of the investments made by members of the United States Congress.

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that Congress has as much as $196 million in military-related investments. More Republicans than Democrats hold stock in military contractors, but as the International Herald Tribune reports, ?Democrats who are invested had significantly more at stake? than Republicans. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and supposed anti-war radical, has $38 million in military-related investments.

Obviously our country deserves a strong defense. But the Pentagon?s budget exceeds the combined military expenditures of the rest of the world. At least some of it reflects the skewed priorities of politicians whose hearts are set on profiteering.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 9, 2008

Until recently it was common to hear people talk about taking cash out of their home by borrowing against the inflated market value of their house. People who used their houses as ATMs in this fashion often lost them to foreclosure.

Some major cities are now blighted with large tracts of repossessed homes that have been rendered unfit for re-sale. Thieves are literally taking money out of foreclosed houses by stripping copper pipes and wiring from them and selling the booty to scrap metal merchants.

The stolen metal is often more valuable than the houses themselves. Three years ago, copper sold at about 70 cents a pound. The price climbed to nearly four dollars a pound in recent weeks.

This new variety of organized crime is called ?metal poaching.? It?s another illustration of the critical ? perhaps terminal ? weakening of the dollar. And thanks to the de-industrialization of our economy, most of the stolen copper is being sold to China.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 8, 2008

The economy shed 80,000 jobs in March, the most dramatic spike in unemployment in five years. Some people are poised to profit from the accelerating economic downturn.

The Washington Post reports that during the first two months of the year, 18 major US companies ? among them Sharper Image and Atari -- filed for bankruptcy protection. The International Council of Shopping Centers predicts that 6,000 retail stores will go out of business this year.

These grim tidings for the retail sector are welcome news to the legal industry, which is re-tooling to take advantage of the bankruptcy boom: An estimated 85% of American law firms are adding bankruptcy attorneys.

Although the job market is tight, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been hiring: The agency recently added 138 employees to deal with the anticipated wave of bank failures this year.

When people in such positions enjoy job security, we know the rest of us are in trouble.

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

Link: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2008/04/bush-regimes-revolution-in-legal.html

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 7, 2008

It seems as if each month we learn a little more about the extent to which the Bush administration has institutionalized the practice of torture ? which is forbidden by our Constitution, criminalized by our laws, and unsupportable by anybody who understands Christian ethics.

Last week a federal court compelled the release of a March 2003 memo written by former administration legal counsel John C. Yoo. That memo made the astonishing claim that it is permissible for US interrogators not only to torture but also to maim detainees.

Leaving detainees crippled, blind, disfigured, or otherwise permanently mangled is legally defensible, Yoo insists, as long as such acts are committed under presidential authority.

On another occasion, Yoo said it was permissible for the president to order the sexual torture of an innocent child.

A nation that countenances such conduct risks not only the enmity of men, but also the judgment of God.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 4, 2008

Over the past three months, the price of rice has doubled. On account of poor harvests, global wheat supplies are at the lowest levels in the past half-century.

Food riots have erupted in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. Armed soldiers have been deployed to guard wheat and flour deliveries in Pakistan, and in the Philippines, President Arroyo has begun a government crackdown on people accused of ?hoarding? rice and other grain.

Such civil unrest isn?t just the product of harvest shortfalls; it also reflects Washington?s ability to export inflation world-wide. Turmoil triggered by inflated food prices will lead many countries to break the so-called dollar peg. This in turn will severely reduce Washington?s ability to limit or disguise the impact of several decades of dollar inflation.

When this happens, American consumers will have a disagreeable taste of the same kind of desperation that drives food consumers in the developing world.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

April 3, 2008

Economists Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin point out that when the Roman Empire fell in the early fifth century, the value of its currency had decreased by 99.98 percent.

Since creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the US dollar has lost 95 percent of its value.

What took Rome half a millennium -- the complete devaluation of its currency -- Washington has nearly accomplished in a little less than a century. It will be a miracle if the dollar survives this decade.
In fact, as Swedish trade analyst Rick Falkvinge notes, the US has been bankrupt since August 1971. The combined costs of the Vietnam War and the welfare state led foreign creditors to redeem dollars in gold. So Nixon took us off the gold standard.

Since then, our economy has depended on the willingness of foreign governments and central banks to cover our debts. This can?t, and won?t, continue much longer.

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