Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 16, 2012

After Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Cole shot 19-year-old Danielle Maudsley with a Taser, the fleeing detainee struck her head on the concrete sidewalk, leaving her in what appears to be an irreversible coma.

At the time, Maudsley ? who had been arrested on misdemeanor traffic charges ? was handcuffed, which prevented her from breaking the fall. Cole told an inquiry that the Taser strike was appropriate because ?she was already outrunning me.? A dashcam video of the September 19 incident documents that Maudsley was, at most, a couple of feet away. While she was running in the general direction of a highway, she could have been stopped had the officer been willing to exert himself just a little bit.

Cole?s decision to use a Taser against a tiny, handcuffed, non-violent female misdemeanor suspect violated the Florida Highway Patrol?s policy manual, which specifies that ?Fleeing cannot be the sole reason for deployment of the [Taser]).? It likewise dictates that the Taser cannot be used ?On a handcuffed or secured prisoner.?

Nevertheless, Cole was cleared by both the Florida Highway Patrol and the Florida State Department of Law Enforcement ? and, thanks to the legal fiction called ?sovereign immunity,? it?s doubtful a lawsuit by Maudsley?s family will succeed.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 15, 2012

Article One, Section 1 of the Washington State Constitution reiterates the foundational tenet of America?s constitutional system: ?All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed?.?

According to the Washington Supreme Court, however, all political power originates with the political class ? which is why the court invalidated an initiative approved by 71 percent of the voters in the City of Mukilteo to ban the use of red light cameras.

The lawsuit challenging the initiative was filed by ?Mukilteo Citizens for Simple Government,? a one-person front group for the city government and ATS ? the corporate con artists who profit from the red light camera scam.

Wrote the court: ?We hold that because the legislature expressly granted authority to the governing body of the city of Mukilteo to enact ordinances on the use of automated traffic safety cameras, the subject matter of Proposition 1 is not within the initiative power.?

The power exercised by the legislature, of course, is derived from the consent of the governed. The court?s totalitarian reasoning, however, substitutes the word ?submission? for ?consent.?

Institutional arrogance of that kind has led to revolutionary bloodshed before.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 14, 2012

March 7, 2012 may someday be recognized as the day the United States of America formally repudiated the last embattled remnants of our heritage as a constitutional republic.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta pointedly refused to recognize that Congress, not the president, has the constitutional authority to commit the United States military to war overseas. Panetta provoked outrage by claiming that the UN Security Council or NATO could authorize military intervention abroad. However, less attention was paid to the fact that Panetta?s formulation cut Congress out of this matter entirely.

On the same day, FBI Director Robert Mueller was asked about Attorney General Eric Holder?s claim that the president can order the execution of American citizens without trial or due process of any kind. Mueller was specifically asked if that applies to Americans living at home, as well as abroad. He artlessly ducked the question by claiming he would ?have to go back? and check if that was addressed in administration policy.

The president is not bound by the Constitution or the law; he is an elected dictator whose power is limited only by his imagination and ambition.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 13, 2012

On February 18, a 67-year-old Berkley, California resident named Peter Cukor was startled in his home by a 23-year-old named Daniel DeWitt. The intruder, who was visibly agitated, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. Cukor?s wife Andrea called the police, only to be told the department, which was dealing with an Occupy protest, couldn?t spare an officer. Eventually DeWitt dragged the elderly man into nearby bushes, where he was beaten to death. Police did respond to a 911 call following the assault, but by that time it was too late.

Speaking at a meeting organized by City Council member Susan Wengraf, Berkley Police Chief Michael Meehan was barraged with questions about the performance and priorities of his department. That meeting received extensive local coverage, including a short write-up published a few hours later by reporter Doug Oakley of the Oakland Tribune.

Upset over Oakley?s rendering of the meeting, Chief Meehan dispatched Sgt. Mary Kusmiss to Oakley?s home to demand that the story be re-written. Thus it was that Oakley?s wife frantically woke him up shortly after midnight to tell him that the police were at the door.

Chief Meehan?s department may be indifferent when elderly people call to report a prowler ? but they respond with zeal and alacrity when dealing with media critics.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 12, 2012

Oscar-winning Director Davis Guggenheim is the Leni Reifenstahl of the Obama administration ? a talented artist entirely devoted to the cult of the Dear Leader. Guggenheim?s campaign-year pseudo-documentary ?The Road We?ve Traveled? promises to be a work of unalloyed Leader-worship in which Obama is wreathed in sanctity and his every deed is depicted in a heroic light. 

When CNN host Piers Morgan asked ?What are the negatives in your movie about Barack Obama?? Guggenheim replied: ?The negative for me was that there were too many accomplishments.? The only other ?negatives? he could perceive resulted from what he called the ?toxic environment? created by those who dare oppose the Dear Leader?s infallible will and transcendently noble purposes.

The Versailles court of Louis XIV, France?s self-described ?Sun King,? included hundreds of sycophants and lickspittles who shamelessly sought his favor. Historian Jay Winik has described how some of them would literally fight each other for the privilege of "presenting the chair for his daily `natural functions'.?

Guggenheim is the sort of person who would fight for the privilege of hauling the king?s intestinal residue, which ? he would insist ? emits the enchanting aroma of fresh-cut flowers.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 9, 2012

Nearly a year after a SWAT team murdered former Marine Jose Guerena during an illegal raid on his Tucson home, three of the victim?s relatives have been arrested on drug-related charges.

The Arizona Star reports that Pauline Guerena ? who is married to Jose?s brother, Alejandro ? her father, Jose Celaya, and her sister, Denise Ruiz, were arrested outside their home by deputies on the morning of March 8.

The suspects are accused of belonging to an entity the government-aligned media is calling the ?Guerena Drug Trafficking Organization.? Interestingly, although deputies found $30,000 in cash during a vehicle search, the arrests still haven?t turned up evidence of actual drug trafficking.

The deputies managed to take the suspects ? two small women and a man well into middle age -- into custody without laying siege to the home as if they were conducting counter-insurgency operations in Fallujah. This contrasted sharply with the May 5, 2011 raid on Jose Guerena?s home. Guerena, who had been asleep following a graveyard shift at a local mine, confronted the unidentified armed raiders with a rifle, and was mowed down in a 71-shot fusillade. No evidence was found that Guerena was involved in criminal activity ? and no action has been taken against the people who murdered him.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 8, 2012

The Obama administration can obtain ?legal? authority for a military strike on Syria from the UN or NATO, and no congressional authorization is necessary, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta insisted during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

?Do you think you can act without Congress to initiate a no-fly zone in Syria?? asked Sen. Jeff Sessions.

?Our goal would be to seek international permission,? replied Panetta, adding ? as if by way of patronizing afterthought ? that ?we would come to the Congress and inform you? about the progress of the campaign. Once ?legal permission? had been granted by NATO or ?some kind of UN Security Council resolution,? he maintained, Obama wouldn?t need authorization from Congress.

Significantly, the Obama administration?s intervention in Libya was coordinated by the NATO alliance (a regional UN affiliate), which acted on the supposed authority provided by a UN Security Council resolution issued in response to a petition from the Arab League. Congress played no role whatsoever in authorizing the action. The administration seeks to repeat that approach with Syria, most likely as a back door to war with Iran.

With his testimony, Panetta implicated himself, and his president, in high crimes against our Constitution.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 7, 2012

Organizers of the sixth annual ?Border Security Expo? in Phoenix have a very simple pitch for police state profiteers: ?The U.S. Senate has passed a $4 billion increase in Homeland Security spending ? are you securing your share of this market??

The expo is a totalitarian trade show designed to wed tax-subsidized corporate contractors with tax-devouring bureaucrats from across the United States.

Among the gear on display at the event are surveillance cameras and radar systems that can spot a person or vehicle at a distance of eight miles, a large assortment of surveillance drones, and patrol vehicles ?equipped with attack gear like .50-caliber machine guns.?

Motorola proudly unveiled the ?Smart Car? ? a computerized police vehicle that ?responds to verbal commands and uses cameras to capture license plate numbers and run them automatically.? This Gestapomobile would act as a passive surveillance probe for an all-encompassing system of surveillance in which everybody within sensor range would be scrutinized as a criminal suspect.

The focus of this event, as reporter Ryan O?Donnell summarized, is ?not border security, but police security? ? that is, providing for the safety and security of the people who regiment the rest of us on behalf of the political class.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 6, 2012

Supporters of a military attack on Iran claim that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad has expressed a desire to wipe Israel off the map. While Ahmadenijad is obviously hostile toward Israel and the West, he never actually issued the threat frequently attributed to him, and the Iranian government has repeatedly disavowed any intent to commit aggression against Israel or any other country.

The same cannot be said of those who are openly encouraging an aggressive war against Iran.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, members of the Netanyahu government have concluded that ?Iran?s citizens should be starved in order to curb Tehran?s nuclear program.? Policymakers in both the U.S. and Israel routinely speak of ?tightening the noose? around Iran, or even ?obliterating? that nation ? an expression used by Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign.

If we are to pre-empt every nation possessing nuclear capability, this would mean sanctions and military action against more than 40 countries that have both the necessary materials and technical expertise to build nuclear weapons quickly ? or perhaps even the 140 countries possessing the basic technical capacity to do so.

Ahmadenijad may be a madman, but he?s got plenty of company.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

March 5, 2012

Donald Michael Galbraith, former owner of the Hurricane Grill and Wings restaurant in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, will be forced to pay $200,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ? but the Feds will do nothing to punish the cop who had terrorized the restaurant?s female staff for months.

The EEOC lawsuit ?charges [that] the company violated federal law when it permitted female servers to be sexually harassed by a customer, a Palm Beach County sheriff?s deputy,? reports the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

The officer, Deputy Commodore Bradford, barraged the waitresses with the crudest sexual overtures imaginable.

Bradford repeatedly displayed pornographic photographs, including photos of his genitals and of his wife engaging in various deviant acts. He repeatedly fondled unwilling and terrified waitresses.

These accusations don?t describe mere sexual harassment; this is the resume of a violent sexual predator. Under Florida law, his conduct amounted to felonious stalking and aggravated sexual battery. Yet he has not been charged with an offense, nor has he suffered professional consequences. Instead, the Feds have laid all the blame at the feet of the private entrepreneur whose employees were terrorized by Deputy Bradford.

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