Willl Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 6, 2010

When he criticized the Obama administration?s recent escalation in Afghanistan, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele offended the entire War Party , which includes politicians and pundits from both sides of the narrow partisan divide who support an interventionist foreign policy.

Steele correctly noted that history illustrates the folly of getting involved in ?a land war in Afghanistan.? Steele could, and should, have expanded that criticism to include Obama?s predecessor, under whose reign the Afghan mission morphed from one of supposed retaliation for 9-11 into a full-blown nation-building exercise.

In 1843, British Army chaplain GR Gleig, one of the few survivors of England?s Afghan war, described that conflict as ?a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after much suffering and disaster ? [that yielded] Not one benefit?.? The same epitaph will be written for Washington?s misbegotten Afghan war.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 5, 2010

Amid a deepening depression, California?s Shasta County Sheriff?s Office has laid off ten percent of its personnel, scaled back nighttime patrols, and released scores of inmates from the local jail. Yet several months ago, Sheriff Tom Bosenko spent $340,000 to create special team to tramp through the local woods in search of marijuana plants.

That amount was spent in an effort to attract a half-million dollars in federal anti-marijuana subsidies.

The Wall Street Journal notes that federal subsidies have often skewed the priorities of local law enforcement bodies. Current budget crises ?are enhancing this effect, and the result is particularly striking in California, where many residents take a benign view of pot but federal dollars help keep law-enforcement focused on it.?

While Sheriff Bosenko?s task force runs up overtime collecting pot plants, crimes against persons and property are on the rise in Shasta County. The same trends can be seen elsewhere as cash-starved police and sheriff?s departments become full-fledged affiliates of the federal Homeland Security State.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 2, 2010

The State of Illinois has begun the legal process of seizing private property for the supposed purpose of building a third airport to compliment O?Hare International and Midway.

This project is entirely unnecessary: A perfectly serviceable international airport already exists in depressed Rockford, Illinois, and the town would welcome an effort to expand it. But this would deprive the state?s patronage pimps of an opportunity to confer perks, payouts, and other politically useful graft of their favored constituents.

However, most residents in the targeted area aren?t willing to sell. With land values in an historic slump, the state government is moving quickly to condemn the land, grabbing it by force and fraud before the economy recovers and prices go up.

During the 19th Century, ?Manifest Destiny? was the incantatory phrase uttered by the government as it gave itself permission to steal property belonging to Indian tribes. Today, the preferred conjuration is ?eminent domain.?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 1, 2010

In the late 1980s, Michael Milken made a fortune selling high-risk, high-yield ?junk bonds.?

Milken?s success attracted the interest of an ambitious prosecutor named Rudolph Giuliani, who extorted a guilty plea by threatening to file spurious criminal charges against Milken?s brother and his elderly, ailing father. This would continue in perpetuity, even if each case were thrown out or resulted in acquittal.

Milken?s so-called ?junk bonds? helped underwrite the modern high-tech economy. Since 2008, however, taxpayers have been forced to buy hundreds of billions of dollars? worth of utterly useless bonds and other assets through the Wall Street bailout. Bloomberg News reports that Fed Commissar Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ? in an unambiguous criminal act -- deliberately misled Congress and the public by describing useless bonds the Treasury bought from Bear Stearns as ?investment-grade assets?

In a rational world, Bernanke and Geithner would be in prison, and Michael Milken would be their warden.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 30, 2010

Imagine an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in which the self-appointed leader extols the supposed merits of drunkenness, and you?ll capture some of the weirdness of the recently concluded G20 Summit in Toronto.

With nations across the globe mired in debt and the world sinking into depression, Barack Obama actually chided European nations for their tardy and tentative attempts at austerity. Obama and his handlers remain committed to the notion that prosperity can only be achieved through ever-deepening government debt and ever-expanding government control over the means of production.

According to Paul Krugman of the New York Times, the Nobel-winning Keynesian nitwit regarded in some circles as an economist, the formula for recovery is this: ?Spend now, while the economy remains depressed; save later, once it has recovered.? This makes as much sense as saying, ?Feast now while the pantry is bare; diet later, once the larder overflows.?

People of that persuasion literally deify the government. All of us pay an awful price for their blasphemy.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 29, 2010

El Reno, Oklahoma resident Lonnie Tinsley was worried that his ailing 86-year-old grandmother, Lona Varner, had overdosed on her medication. He dialed 911 to summon help from an EMT. Instead, Officer Thomas Duran of the El Reno police department arrived.

Tinsley warned Duran, ?I don?t think she wants you here.? When the officer ignored Tinsley and entered Varner?s room, the bedridden geriatric ? who was blind in one eye and tethered to an oxygen tank ? allegedly grabbed a kitchen knife and told Duran to leave. When Tinsley approached his grandmother to relieve her of the knife, the officer ? who had taken cover ? ordered him away. Duran then called for backup.

Eventually as many as a dozen police officers thronged the home. Varner was shot twice with a Taser. When Tinsley objected he was stuffed into a police car. Eventually Varner got medical attention, but only after being needlessly electrocuted and traumatized by police who turned an emergency into a crisis.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 28, 2010

Denver resident Amy Shroff was awarded a restraining order preventing Greg Kruse, the violent man who fathered her child, from approaching within 100 yards.
The shared custody agreement required that Shroff and Kruse meet at the local police station to transfer their infant daughter. , When Shroff arrived to drop off the child on Feb. 23, 2006 Kruse violated the order by parking his truck behind her car to block her exit. Shroff went into the station to seek help ? and ended up being arrested for violating the no-contact order.

Officer Frank Spellman ? who apparently is a functional illiterate -- was given a copy of the order, which clearly specified that Shroff was the protected party. Yet he arrested the mother, tearing her away from her 4-month-old nursing daughter and subjecting the victim to a strip search and verbal abuse.

The Denver PD has offered $175,000 to settle . Shroff?s federal lawsuit

It sometimes seems as if incurable stupidity and pathological arrogance are prerequisites for a career in law enforcement.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 25, 2010

They have no idea what they are doing, or what will happen as a result ? but the people who presume to rule us are . finishing plans for the comprehensive restructuring of the nation?s financial system

The legislation would ?redraw how money flows through the U.S. economy,? . reports the Wall Street Journal

Predictably, the measure will grant expansive new powers to the Federal Reserve, the agency that created the financial crisis. A financial commissar will be appointed to write and enforce rules and to seize financial firms at whim.

Retiring Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd, the chief sponsor of the legislation, : confesses ?No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.? Despite this admission, Dodd sees nothing improper about inflicting a measure on the country that, in his own words, ?deals with every single aspect of our lives.?
The architects of our financial crisis will now have unlimited power ? and this is supposed to be a good thing?

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 24, 2010

With the exception of the Federal Reserve ? the government?s official counterfeiting arm ? no institution did more to inflate the recently collapsed housing bubble than Fannie Mae.

By acting as a government-guaranteed backstop, Fannie Mae and its counterpart, Freddie Mac, encouraged lenders to issue mortgages to unqualified home buyers. In late 2008, the government formally assumed control of Fannie and Freddie, using money extorted from taxpayers to bail them out, thereby preserving the benefits enjoyed by their well-compensated corporate apparatchiks.

A growing number of homeowners are now in a position of negative equity ? meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. Many people in that position are considering ?strategic default? ? walking away from their mortgages.

Rather than negotiating with homeowners, Fannie and other subsidized Shylocks are prepared to seize other assets ? such as cars and bank accounts -- from people left in an untenable financial position due to machinations over which they have no control.

This is the kind of thing that leads to revolution.

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

Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 23, 2010

Until recently, 51-year-old Sholom Rubashkin ran Glatt Kosher Agriprocessors in Potsville, Iowa. Federal investigators staged a military raid against the plant in 2008.

To investigate allegations of bookkeeping irregularities, the Feds deployed a Blackhawk helicopter and machine-gun-toting troops.After poring over the company?s records, federal prosecutors, claiming that Sholom had overstated revenues, prosecuted him for financial fraud.

At a time when taxpayers are bailing out Wall Street?s fraud merchants, the Regime is imposing a 27-year prison term ? an effective life sentence ? on a Hasidic Jewish kosher butcher who made a bookkeeping error when requesting a loan he intended to pay back.

Sholom?s Hasidic Jewish parents fled the Soviet Union at a time when Stalin and Hitler were at war with each other. Knowing a victory by either would lead to terrible consequences, they came to the United States. Sholom has been imprisoned by a regime that is beginning to emulate the totalitarian monsters his family fled.

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