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Author: James W. Harris

They Said It… With Patrick Cockburn, Jimmy Kimmel, and More

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on They Said It… With Patrick Cockburn, Jimmy Kimmel, and More

(From the They Said It section in Volume 20, No. 3 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) Lew RockwellTHE THREE BRANCHES OF GOV’T: “The Arizona government will now force all students in government schools to pass a government civics test. One proponent complained that students couldn’t name the 3 branches of government, which is shocking because it’s so obvious: CIA, Pentagon, NSA.” — Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Civics: All Hail Government,” LewRockwell.com blog, January 16, 2015. BLOWBACK FROM THE BLOWBACK: “Interior and justice ministers from Europe and the U.S. gathered in Paris on Sunday, calling for increased Internet surveillance and stricter border security to counter attacks like the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo weekly newspaper. … French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that ‘fundamental liberties’ would be still respected under increased surveillance measures.” — Voice of America News, January 11, 2015. BIN LADEN’S VICTORY: “The most important victory of Osama bin Laden did not come on the day the 19 mainly Saudi hijackers took command of the planes, but in the months and years which followed as President Bush led the U.S. into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which American troops fought Muslims. As the U.S. resorted to rendition, the mistreatment and torture of prisoners, expanded security agencies and limited civil rights for its own people it delegitimised itself and acted as recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda and its clones. If bin Laden had been hiding in the attic of the White House giving instructions to those in the rest of the building he could not have devised a cocktail of measures more likely to aid his cause.” — journalist Patrick Cockburn, “Paris attacks: Don’t blame these atrocities on security failures,” The Independent, January 11, 2015. OBAMA-SECURITY: Jimmy Kimmel“President Obama is focused now on cyber security. He’s pushing for new laws to protect companies from hackers. And who better to do that than the people who brought us the Obamacare website? Not only couldn’t hackers get in, no one could penetrate it.” — Jimmy Kimmel, January 14, 2015.

Obama: U.S. Currently Fighting Wars in 14 Countries

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online, War. No Comments on Obama: U.S. Currently Fighting Wars in 14 Countries

(From the Activist Ammunition section in Volume 20, No. 2 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) The War Powers Resolution requires the President to report twice a year to Congress on U.S. military operations being conducted overseas without a congressional declaration of war. President Obama filed his latest such report on December 11. The report went virtually unmentioned in the mainstream press. Yet in it, Obama reports the startling, little-known fact that “the United States has deployed U.S. combat-equipped forces” in no less than… 14 countries. As Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity summarizes: “In other words, the U.S. government is at war in 14 countries!” Here’s the list:
  • Afghanistan
  • Troops Around the GlobeIraq
  • Syria
  • Somalia
  • Yemen
  • Cuba
  • Niger
  • Chad
  • Uganda
  • Egypt
  • Jordan
  • Kosovo
  • Central African Republic
  • Tunisia
The list does not include countries in which the U.S. is engaged in covert activities, or where U.S. troops are stationed in non-combat positions, or where the U.S. has participated in joint exercises with military allies, which, together, would probably include most countries in the world. Asks the Ron Paul Institute’s McAdams: “Where else would the neocons have the U.S. military deployed for the next half-year report? Iran? Ukraine? Russia? North Korea? We can only imagine their wish list. Meanwhile, the $1 trillion spent annually on the military is quickly bankrupting the country, making us new enemies every day, and as a result making us less, not more, safe.”

Marijuana Re-Legalization: Its Effects on Teens

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on Marijuana Re-Legalization: Its Effects on Teens

(From the Activist Ammunition section in Volume 20, No. 2 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) One of the most often-heard arguments against marijuana re-legalization is fear it will encourage marijuana use by teens. Marijuana Use By Colorado TeenagersHowever, reports Paul Armentano, Deputy Director of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), several recent significant studies indicate that hasn’t been the case thus far. Studies indicate no connection between legalization of medical marijuana and teen use. Studies also find a recent decrease in teen use nationwide — including Colorado, which legalized marijuana in 2012. Finally, a new article in Rolling Stone makes the controversial argument that decriminalization in California has brought enormous benefits to teens and to the state as a whole, by removing teen offenders from the criminal justice system. Armentano first points to the University of Michigan’s highly regarded Monitoring the Future study, which tracks trends in substance use among students in 8th, 10th and 12th grades. Each year the national study, now in its 40th year, surveys 40,000 to 50,000 students in about 400 secondary schools throughout the United States. This year Monitoring the Future found that marijuana use among teens declined slightly in 2014, with use in the prior 12 months declining from 26 percent to 24 percent. This small but significant decline follows five years of increasing use. Armentano also reports on Colorado, which re-legalized marijuana in 2012: “Separate data published earlier this year by the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment similarly found that fewer high-school students are consuming cannabis, despite voters’ decision in 2012 to legalize the possession, production, and sale of the plant to adults. “According to the survey, the percentage of Colorado high schoolers reporting having consumed marijuana within the past 30 days fell from 22 percent in 2011 to 20 percent in 2013. High school students’ lifetime use of cannabis declined from 39 percent to 37 percent during the same two years.” (For an excellent analysis of this report, see “Despite Legalization, Colorado Teenagers Stubbornly Refuse to Smoke More Pot” by Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine.) What about states that legalized marijuana for medical use? Armentano reports on a July 2014 paper by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research that examined federal data on youth marijuana use and treatment episodes for the years 1993 to 2011 — a time period when 16 states authorized medical cannabis use. The study concluded: “Our results are not consistent with the hypothesis that the legalization of medical marijuana caused an increase in the use of marijuana among high school students.” As Jacob Sullum of Reason points out, these studies are consistent with earlier data from the Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveys from 1993 through 2011, which show little evidence of any connection between legalizing marijuana for medical use and the use of marijuana by high school students. “Study: Legalizing medical marijuana has not increased teen pot use” was a headline in the April 24, 2014 Washington Post. According to the article: “the first comprehensive study of teen drug use in the states where marijuana is available for medical uses shows that [increased teen use] just hasn’t happened.” The Washington Post was reporting on a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The authors of the study conclude: “Our study suggests that — at least thus far — the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes has not increased adolescent marijuana use, a finding supported by a growing body of literature.” Decriminalization has also had major benefits for youth in California, reports Rolling Stone magazine in an article entitled “The War on Drugs Is Burning Out” by Tim Dickinson, January 8, 2015. In late 2010 California decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Possession of up to an ounce of marijuana became an infraction, like a parking ticket, with a maximum $100 fine. Importantly, notes Rolling Stone, the law applied to users of any age — not just those 21 and over. The result? “The impact of this tweak has been remarkable,” Rolling Stone says. “By removing low-level youth pot offenses from the criminal-justice system, overall youth crime has plummeted by nearly 30 percent in California — to levels not seen since the Eisenhower administration. “And decriminalization didn’t lead to any of the harms foretold by prohibitionists. Quite the opposite: Since the law passed in 2010, the rate of both high school dropouts and youth drug overdoses are down by 20 percent, according to a new research report from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Non-marijuana drug arrests for California youth, meanwhile, are also down 23 percent — fully debunking the gateway theory. “Decriminalization in California, the report [from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice] concludes, has reduced the harms of prohibition for thousands of California teens. ‘Fewer young people, its authors write, ‘are suffering the damages and costs of criminal arrest, prosecution, incarceration, fines, loss of federal aid and other punishments.'” The authors also point out that perhaps the most important result of decimalization is that it gives police “one less pretext to disrupt the lives” of young blacks.

They Said It… With Lew Rockwell, Bruce Fein, And More

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on They Said It… With Lew Rockwell, Bruce Fein, And More

(From the They Said It section in Volume 20, No. 2 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) THE ENDLESS WAR: “The [Afghanistan] war thus far has lasted as long as U.S. David Swansonparticipation in World War II plus U.S. participation in World War I, plus the Korean War, plus the Spanish-American War, plus the full length of the U.S. war in the Philippines, combined with the whole duration of the Mexican-American War.” — author David Swanson, “Renaming Afghan War, Renaming Murder,” DavidSwanson.org, December 29, 2014. FREE SPEECH HYPOCRITES: Lew Rockwell“The big French free-speech march was led by such ‘world leaders’ as Hollande, Cameron, Merkel, and Netanyahu, all of whom enthusiastically jail people for thought crimes expressed in speech or print.” — Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “No Irony in Paris,” LewRockwell.com blog, January 11, 2015. ABOLISH THE UN-AMERICAN CIA: “The CIA should be abolished. … The CIA has made Americans less safe. … It will never accept accountability for its actions — including torture, kidnappings, and extrajudicial killings — because it salutes the motto that the ends justify the means, that savagery is justified to defeat perceived savages. …The CIA is un-American. It sneers at our nation’s signature creed that it is better to risk being the victim of injustice than to be complicit in it. …abolishing the C.I.A. would make Americans safer and their liberties more secure.” — Bruce Fein, constitutional scholar and Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan, “It’s time to abolish the CIA,” Washington Times, December 31, 2014. PLEASE, NO NEW GAS TAX: “Gas tax supporters say that it is time to raise the tax because it has not been raised in two decades. What they leave out of the story is that the gas tax rate more than quadrupled between 1982 and 1994 from 4 cents per gallon to 18.4 cents… Thus, looking at the whole period since 1982, federal gas tax revenues have risen at a robust annual average rate of 6.1 percent (based on Tax Foundation data). So, again, we have a spending crisis, not a funding crisis.”— Chris Edwards, Cato Institute, “Highways and the Federal Gas Tax,” Jan. 10, 2015. WE TAKE MAGIC FOR GRANTED: “The aggregate effect of competitive capitalism is indistinguishable from magic, but we are so used to its bounty that we never stop to notice that no king of old ever enjoyed quarters so comfortable as those found in a Holiday Inn Express, that Andrew Carnegie never had a car as good as a Honda Civic, that Akhenaten never enjoyed such wealth as is found in a Walmart Supercenter. The irony is that capitalism has achieved through choice and cooperation what the old reds thought they were going to do with bayonets and gulags: It has recruited the most powerful and significant parts of the world’s capital structure into the service of ordinary people. And it would do so to an even greater degree if self-interested politicians… would get out of the way. — Kevin Williamson, “McDonald’s is Microsoft,” National Review Online, December 29, 2014. (Hat Tip to Mark Perry, Carpe Diem blog.)

New York Times: Should We Abolish the CIA?

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Communicating Liberty, Liberator Online. No Comments on New York Times: Should We Abolish the CIA?

(From the Activist Ammunition section in Volume 20, No. 1 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) It’s exciting news when a bold libertarian idea moves into the mainstream. We’ve seen this again and again in recent years. Now the New York Times — the very definition of mainstream, Establishment opinion — has asked a critical and timely question in the “Room for Debate” section of its Opinion Pages: Abolish the CIA?“Do We Need the C.I.A.? Would the security needs of the United States be better served if the agency were dismantled?” Writes the Times: “Since Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan introduced bills in 1991 and 1995 to abolish the Central Intelligence Agency and transfer its powers to the State Department, many have continued to share his concerns about the agency’s competence and performance. The Senate intelligence committee’s report on the use of torture is the latest example of the agency’s controversies. … “Would the security needs of the United States be better served if the C.I.A. were dismantled?” That such a question is being asked and debated is great news, says Jacob Hornberger, president of the libertarian Future of Freedom Foundation: “That is a remarkable development. When was the last time you read that question being asked by anyone in the mainstream press? Wouldn’t we ordinarily see the question posed in the following manner: ‘Is It Time to Reform the CIA?’ … “Libertarians have long called for the abolition, not the reform, of the CIA… The fact that the Times even asks the question is a testament to the importance of hewing to libertarian principles rather settling for reform proposals. Over time, ideas on liberty percolate and find their way into the minds of others. And suddenly there are prominent people in mainstream American life asking, ‘Why not abolish the CIA?'” Hornberger gives his own answer to the New York Times’ question. “The existence of an agency like the CIA is totally contrary to the principles of a free society. … It’s not just the post-9/11 torture scandal. The CIA has been engaged in evil, immoral, dark-side activities since its inception, all guided by the mindset of ‘patriots’ who were protecting ‘national security’ from the communists and, later, from the drug dealers, the ‘terrorists,’ and anyone else who could be used to scare Americans into keeping quiet about the CIA’s steady acquisition of secret, omnipotent power. “The CIA knowingly employed Nazis, including ones who had participated in the Holocaust, all the while keeping it secret from the American people. “The CIA destroyed democratic regimes all the over the world and installed brutal and tyrannical dictatorships in their stead. “The CIA initiated horrendous medical experiments on unsuspecting Americans in its MKULTRA program and then destroyed its records so that the American people would not discover the full details of what they had done. … “The CIA initiated a formal program of assassination and, in fact, participated in the assassination or execution of people around the world… “The CIA has engaged in assassination and torture since at least the 1950s… At the risk of belaboring the obvious, it continues to assassinate people in different parts of the world… “From its inception, the CIA has meddled in the affairs of other countries and continues to do so. It is without a doubt the world’s biggest troublemaker, and it is the American people who are bearing the brunt of all the trouble. “Where in the Constitution does it authorize an agency like the CIA? The fact is that the very existence of the CIA has converted the original concept of limited government into unlimited government. For as long as one part of the government has unlimited powers, that automatically means that the federal government has unlimited powers. … “So, New York Times, the answer to your question is: Yes, most definitely, the time for abolishing the CIA is long past due. It’s a key to restoring a free, prosperous, and secure society to our land. Thanks for asking the question because it will almost certainly cause others to ponder it.”

Polls Show Growing Support for Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Communicating Liberty, Foreign Policy, Liberator Online, National Defense. No Comments on Polls Show Growing Support for Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy

(From the Activist Ammunition section in Volume 20, No. 1 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) David Boaz of the Cato Institute points out at the Huffington Post that support for a non-David Boazinterventionist, or at least far less interventionist, foreign policy is growing rapidly in America. Refuting pundits who charge that such ideas have little popular support, Boaz cites some recent major polls. “Perhaps most broadly,” writes Boaz, “a massive Pew Research Center survey in December 2013 found that 52% of respondents said the United States ‘should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.’ That was the most lopsided balance in favor of the U.S. ‘minding its own business’ in the nearly 50-year history of the measure.” Boaz also cites a CBS News/New York Times poll  from June 2014 showing that fully 75% of Americans believe the result of the war in Iraq was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs of the invasion. Only 18% thought it worthwhile. The percentages were about the same whether those surveyed were Republicans, Democrats and independents. It’s hard to imagine a more thorough repudiation. A YouGov poll in March found, Boaz writes, that “the American public has little appetite for any involvement in Ukraine… Only 18% say that the U.S. has any responsibility to protect Ukraine.” Boaz further notes that “Republicans were barely more supportive: 28 percent yes, 46 percent no.” In April, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found strong and deep support for less intervention, and almost no desire for further involvement in the internal affairs of foreign nations. The Wall Street Journal summarized its poll’s findings: “Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs… In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of those surveyed want the U.S. to be less active on the global stage, with fewer than one-fifth calling for more active engagement — an anti-interventionist current that sweeps across party lines. … “The poll findings, combined with the results of prior Journal/NBC surveys this year, portray a public weary of foreign entanglements and disenchanted with a U.S. economic system that many believe is stacked against them. The 47% of respondents who called for a less-active role in world affairs marked a larger share than in similar polling in 2001, 1997 and 1995. Concludes Boaz: “Americans, including Republicans, are getting tired of policing the world with endless wars. Support for the Iraq war is almost as low as approval of Congress. Interventionist sentiment ticked up in the summer of 2014 as Americans saw ISIS beheading journalists and aid workers on video. But even then most voters wanted air strikes, not more troops. “Here’s a prediction: 13 months from now, when the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire begin voting for presidential candidates, Americans will be even more weary of nearly 15 years of war, and U.S. intervention will be even less popular than it is now.” Boaz notes that only one potential major party presidential candidate thus far has rejected interventionism in favor of a far less interventionist policy: libertarian-leaning Republican Rand Paul (R-KY).

They Said It… With Doug Bandow, Judge Andrew Napolitano And More

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on They Said It… With Doug Bandow, Judge Andrew Napolitano And More

(From the They Said It section in Volume 20, No. 1 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) THE DRUG WAR GULAG: “The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly one of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is five to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies… America puts people in prison for crimes that other nations don’t, mostly minor drug offenses, and keeps them in prison much longer. Yet these long sentences have had at best a marginal impact on crime reduction.” — former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Nicholas Turner, “The Steep Cost of America’s High Incarceration Rate,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 25, 2014. DEATH BY FDA: “The paternalist FDA long has delayed the approval of life-saving drugs, thereby killing thousands of people, far more than the number likely saved by preventing the sale of dangerous medicines.” — Doug Bandow, Cato Institute, “Close the Government to Close Bad Government Programs,” Cato Blog, December 31, 2014. POLICE WATCHING YOU ONLINE: Scottish Police on Twitter“Please be aware that we will continue to monitor comments on social media & any offensive comments will be investigated.” — tweet by the Scottish police, Dec. 30. Such monitoring is on the rise in the UK, according to the UK Independent; about 20,000 people in Britain have been investigated in the past three years for comments made online, and some have been arrested and imprisoned. Judge Andrew Napolitano NAPOLITANO ON TORTURE: “All torture is criminal under all circumstances — under treaties to which the U.S. is a party, under the Constitution that governs the government wherever it goes, and under federal law. Torture degrades the victim and the perpetrator. It undermines the moral authority of a country whose government condones it. It destroys the rule of law. It exposes our own folks to the awful retaliatory beheadings we have all seen. It is slow, inefficient, morbid, and ineffective. It is a recruiting tool for those who have come to cause us harm. All human beings possess basic inalienable rights derived from the natural law and protected by the Constitution the CIA has sworn to uphold. Torture violates all of those rights.” — Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, “The CIA and Its Torturers,” syndicated column, Dec. 11, 2014. 100 YEARS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS: Mark Thornton“The War on Drugs … kills thousands of people, destroys untold number of lives, and wastes hundreds of billions of dollars every year. … What has the War on Drugs accomplished? It has not reduced access to illegal drugs. It has not reduced illegal drug use or abuse. It has not reduced the rate of addiction. If anything, the rates of use, abuse, and addiction have increased over the past century. Prison population statistics clearly indicate that it has been used to suppress minorities. “It has also greatly increased the powers of law enforcement and the legal system and reduced the legal rights and protections of citizens under the tradition of the rule of law. It has greatly increased the militarization of the police and the use of the military in police work. It has also led to a significant increase in U.S. political and military intervention in foreign nations, particularly in the drug supply nations of Central and South America. … it is the number one cause of crime, corruption, and violence in the United States, as well as many of the countries of Central and South America.” — economist Mark Thornton, “The War on Drugs Was Born 100 Years Ago,” Mises Daily, December 17, 2014.

Achieve Your New Year’s Goals — John Tierney and Roy Baumeister on Willpower (Video)

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on Achieve Your New Year’s Goals — John Tierney and Roy Baumeister on Willpower (Video)

(From the Libertarian’s New Year’s Resolutions section in Volume 19, No. 27 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) If you’re serious about achieving success with your New Year’s resolutions, here is some hardcore information on how to do that, by two of the leading experts in the field (at least one of whom is a libertarian). “Self-Control is the Key to Success: John Tierney and Roy Baumeister on Willpower” is a one-hour program produced by Reason TV earlier this year. The two are authors of the bestseller Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. “There are two qualities that correlate with success,” says New York Times journalist — and libertarian — John Tierney. “One of them is intelligence and the other is self-control. And so far researchers haven’t figured out what to do about intelligence, but they have rediscovered how to improve self-control.” Tierney spoke at an event sponsored by the Reason Foundation on January 28, 2014 along with his co-author Roy Baumeister, the Francis Epps Eminent Scholar in psychology at Florida State University. Baumeister and Tierney discuss the importance of willpower in determining our success in life and offer tips for improving our self-control. Among the highlights in this video (and where they can be found): laboratory experiments that show how willpower can be depleted (6:20); the effect of glucose levels on self-control (10:15); how to make good on your New Year’s resolutions (16:30); why dieting undermines self-control (20:45); how to make an effective to do list (22:30); Tierney and Baumeister’s experience meeting David Allen, author of Getting Things Done (24:30); why it’s a good idea to weigh yourself every day if you’re trying to shed pounds (25:30); the role of genetics in determining a person’s willpower (31:00); why self-help literature rarely emphasizes willpower (33:00); the victim mentality and Alcoholics Anonymous (35:20); willpower and crime (38:50); procrastination as a tool for getting things done (47:20); and willpower and evolution (51:45). Check it out — and make 2015  your best year yet! About 1 hour and 2 minutes. Shot and edited by Jim Epstein of Reason TV.

VIDEO: Congress Makes Christmas Come Early: Did Uncle Santa Bring YOU a Gift?

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on VIDEO: Congress Makes Christmas Come Early: Did Uncle Santa Bring YOU a Gift?

(From the Libertarian Christmas Video Bonanza section in Volume 19, No. 26 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) The $1.1 trillion budget just passed by Congress sure bought lots of gifts and presents for everyone. Everyone, that is, who’s connected to the feds. The rest of us have to pay… while Congress plays Santa to its cronies and benefactors. Watch this stunning video and see where some of that trillion bucks is going. Then circulate this video far and wide. Approximately 1:30 minutes. From Reason TV, written by Nick Gillespie, produced by Meredith Bragg

VIDEO: Talking Ron Paul Christmas Ornament — at Macy’s

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on VIDEO: Talking Ron Paul Christmas Ornament — at Macy’s

(From the Libertarian Christmas Video Bonanza section in Volume 19, No. 26 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) Understand, we’re not endorsing this. But our jaws drop every time we see it. Mark Dice gives us a wonderful Christmas example of the over-the-top devotion of Ron Paul’s famously fanatical supporters!

VIDEO: Grandma Got Indefinitely Detained

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on VIDEO: Grandma Got Indefinitely Detained

(From the Libertarian Christmas Video Bonanza section in Volume 19, No. 26 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) Yikes! In seasons past, Grandma only had to worry about getting run over by a reindeer. But these days… Grandma got indefinitely detained now coming home to visit Christmas Eve You could say she had a right to counsel but some folks in the Congress disagree… Internet sensation Remy delivers a timely tune about Christmas, Homeland Security, and the joys of… civil rights abuses. Another instant holiday classic from the funny minds at Reason TV, about 2 minutes 25 seconds.

They Said It… Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Fallon And More!

Written by James W. Harris on . Posted in Liberator Online. No Comments on They Said It… Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Fallon And More!

(From the They Said It section in Volume 19, No. 25 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!) THANKS: “Gas Prices: From $3.68 to $2.53 per gallon in 6 months, Thank You Big Oil, Price Manipulators and Greedy Speculators!” — tweet from economist Mark J. Perry, Dec. 15, 2014. WE HAVE A WINNER: “The undisputed winner in this year’s ‘Worst Idea at the Wrong Time’ category is the poor suburb of Ferguson, Missouri … in order to close a municipal budget gap — and keep in mind the prevailing poverty in the region has been widely attributed as one of the reasons for the escalating violence on either side of the law — Ferguson plans to boost revenue from public-safety fines… This means that local cops will now have an even bigger, and more aggressive quota of miscellaneous, petty offenses to fill, in order to collect money from an already impoverished population, and in the process antagonize said population even further, more than likely leading to the same if not worse outcomes that caused the riots in the first place.” — Tyler Durden, “And The Winner In The ‘Worst Idea at the Wrong Time’ Category Is…” Zero Hedge, Dec. 13, 2014. LESS LAWS = LESS POLICE HARASSMENT: “We have criminalized so many behaviors (in the Staten Island case, selling packs of cigarettes!) that we have given the police enormous pressure to perform — and gigantic latitude to act on prejudice, bigotry, and simple anger. The police, in their defense, have an impossible job. They have come to see almost everyone around them, every day, as a lawbreaker and a danger to society. … The answer is not better police or more enlightened officials. The answer is fewer laws. Decriminalize normal nonviolent daily activity, and the police will have fewer excuses to harass people they don’t like — people who often can’t fight back.” — “Michael Munger, “The System Protects the System,” Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Dec. 10, 2014. Glenn GreenwaldSILENCING THE VICTIMS: “Ever since the torture report was released last week, U.S. television outlets have endlessly featured American torturers and torture proponents. But there was one group that was almost never heard from: the victims of their torture, not even the ones recognized by the U.S. government itself as innocent, not even the family members of the ones they tortured to death. Whether by design (most likely) or effect, this inexcusable omission radically distorts coverage. … If you don’t hear from the human beings who are tortured, it’s easy to pretend nothing truly terrible happened. That’s how the War on Terror generally has been ‘reported’ for 13 years and counting: by completely silencing those whose lives are destroyed or ended by U.S. crimes.”— journalist Glenn Greenwald, ” U.S. TV Provides Ample Platform for American Torturers, But None to Their Victims,” The Intercept, Dec. 16, 2014. THEY’RE WATCHING: Jimmy Fallon“Over the weekend the co-chair of Sony Entertainment broke her silence about the recent hacking scandal to apologize for some offensive emails she sent about President Obama. In response, Obama said, ‘Don’t worry. I secretly read those emails months ago.'” — Jimmy Fallon, the Tonight Show, Dec. 15, 2015.