Preserving Freedom

Bipartisan Consensus: The Fifth Amendment is Null and Void

2012-02-11T19:43:00.000-06:00

Young Turks host Cenk Uygur says there is now bipartisan consensus that the Fifth Amendment no longer is in force.

The Fifth Amendment:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The Case for Re-legalization

2012-02-10T20:14:00.000-06:00

Jodie Emery, marijuana activist and wife of imprisoned political pot advocate Marc Emery presents reasons why marijuana should be legal again.

It's All About the Number of Delegates

2012-02-09T19:02:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul on Neil Cavuto's program discusses the campaign. Ron Paul points out that the number of delegates that counts and that he is doing much better with delegates than the mainstream lets on or acknowledges.

No Longer Need to Prove Intent

2012-02-08T20:39:00.000-06:00

Judge Andrew Napolitano and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul discuss how many laws are now enforced on a strict liability basis rather than needing to show criminal intent.

Losing Faith and Trust

2012-02-08T20:22:00.000-06:00

Lionel comments on the increasingly aggressive police tactics are resulting in people losing faith and trust in those who used to be called peace officers.

Ron Paul Interview On ABC This Week February 5, 2012

2012-02-05T13:37:00.000-06:00

Oust the Danger to the Status Quo

2012-02-05T13:30:00.000-06:00

RT talks with Ron Paul supporter Julie Borowski about efforts to marginalize Ron Paul.

Ron Paul at Mayo High School in Rochester Minnesota

2012-02-05T07:19:00.000-06:00

An enthusiastic standing room only crowd turns out to hear Ron Paul speak at Mayo High School in Rochester Minnesota.

Arresting Children

2012-02-04T08:05:00.000-06:00

Lionel comments on the increasing trend of arresting children and treating them like criminals for very minor infractions or even more ridiculous reasons.

The End is Near or Al Gore Wants to be Even Richer

2012-02-01T20:53:00.000-06:00

Lionel says anthropogenic warming causation models are a myth.

Obama's Policy is Just to Kill Them

2012-02-01T20:05:00.001-06:00

Obama’s change from Bush II? From kidnapping and torture to assassination.

From RT:

Not only has the Obama administration blocked torture accountability and refused to investigate and prosecute. He has basically maintained indefinite detention. He has revived military commissions. As well he has expanded targeted killings – they’ve increased under the Obama administration manifold, and he’s even authorized the killing of a US citizen,” explains Maria LaHood from the Center for Constitutional Rights.

World-renowned author and scholar Noam Chomsky believes the Obama administration has changed gears and accelerated illegal practices into overdrive.

“There is a shift between Bush’s policies and the Obama’s on this. Bush’s policy was to kidnap people, take them to Guantanamo or Bagram or some other torture chamber and try to extract some information from them. Obama’s policy is just to kill them. They’re killing them all over the world. And the Bin Laden assassination was a case point,” he told RT.

Lee Wrights: War Breeds War

2012-02-01T19:55:00.000-06:00

Lee Wrights, currently seeking the Libertarian Party endorsement for President, has produced his first TV ad:

Leon Panetta Says the Government May Kill US Citizens Without Due Process

2012-01-30T20:12:00.000-06:00

Defense Secretary was interviewed on 60 Minutes by Scott Pelley. Panetta asserted the claim that the US Government may kill US Citizens without Due Process as long as they are labeled by the US Government as a Terrorist.

From Glenn Greenwald:

Panetta’s answers are suffused with dubious and even factually false claims. It is, for instance, false that the U.S. provides due process to everyone apprehended for Terrorism. To the contrary, the Obama administration has been holding dozens of Terrorism suspects without any charges for years, and President Obama just signed into law a bill codifying the power of indefinite detention for accused Terrorists. But even if it were true that all Terrorism suspects who are detained were entitled to receive due process, that merely underscores how warped it is to assert the power to target them for execution without due process. After all, how can it be that the Government must prove guilt merely to imprison Terrorists but not to execute them?

But this is one of the towering, unanswerable hypocrisies of Democratic Party politics. The very same faction that pretended for years to be so distraught by Bush’s mere eavesdropping on and detention of accused Terrorists without due process is now perfectly content to have their own President kill accused Terrorists without due process, even when those targeted are their fellow citizens: obviously a far more Draconian and permanent abuse than eavesdropping or detention (identically, the very same faction that objected to Bush’s radical whole-world-is-a-Battlefield theory now must embrace exactly that theory to justify how someone riding in a car, or sitting at home, or sleeping in his bed, in a country where no war is declared, is “on a battlefield” at the time the CIA ends his life).

RTs Alyona Minkovski comments on the false arguments used by Panetta:

Always Question Authority: Lies the Government Tells You

2012-01-30T19:13:00.000-06:00

In light of the Seal Team Six rescue of hostages in Somalia, Lionel reflects on the lies governments have told us over the years and how the news media blindly repeats them. Do you remember Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch?

Minority Report Comes to Life

2012-01-30T18:23:00.002-06:00

Lionel comments on the police department in the city of East Orange, New Jersey installing red spotlights to remotely shine on those police believe are about to commit a crime.

From the AP:

Gingrich Would Be Worse Than Obama

2012-01-30T17:17:00.001-06:00

Lew Rockwell, appearing on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano, discusses Newt Gingrich's lie about supporting Barry Goldwater when he really worked for Nelson Rockefeller, Gingrich's declaration that conservatives must support FDR and why Gingrich has got the 'crazy bug'.

Rockwell says a Gingrich administration would be worse than another term for Obama.

We Don't Think in Those Terms

2012-01-29T12:59:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul interviewed on CNN's State Of The Union 01/29/12.

Russell Means Discusses Barack Obama and Endorses Ron Paul for President

2012-01-28T10:51:00.000-06:00

Russell Means discusses Barack Obama and endorses Ron Paul for President.

Ron Paul at the CNN Florida Debate1/26/2012

2012-01-28T08:52:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul Sign Wave at Jacksonville Debate

2012-01-28T08:04:00.002-06:00

Why Get Worked Up Over Super PACs?

2012-01-26T20:10:00.000-06:00

From Reason TV:

Everybody and their brother -- even Stephen Colbert - is freaking out about "super PACs," which are an outgrowth of the Citzens United decision in 2010.

Traditional political action committees (PACs) are subject to federal limits on how much money donors can give in specific election cycles. Super PACS allow groups such as nonprofit corporations and unions to spend unlimited money on political speech as long as they don't coordinate their activity with the official campaign of a given candidate.

But for all the bellyaching, here are three good reasons not to get worked up over super PACS.

1. Billionaires don't need them to influence elections.

In the wake of an anti-Mitt Romney documentary from Winning Our Future, a group tied to billionaire Sheldon Adelson, The New York Times fretted that the film -- which has had little or no effect on Romney's candidacay -- "underscores how [Citizens United] has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election."

Actually, it's always been legal for rich people to spend what they want as long as they make "independent expenditures" that aren't coordinated with official campaigns. Billionares don't need super Pacs to get their message out. But super PACS may just let the rest of us have our say.

2. Super PACS Go Negative -- and That's a Good Thing!

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose campaign finance legislation was rendered moot by Citizens United, complains that super Pacs not only flood elections with money but flood it with negative messages. McCain, who lost a run for presidency, admits that negative campaigning works, but doesn't like the tone.

Yet study after study shows not only that negative advertising works with voters, but that negative ads actually contain more information than gauzy paeans to American and the virtues of the candidates who pay for such spots.

3. Super PACS Take Power Away From the Parties.

There's no question that super PACs seek to benefit some candidates by taking aim at others. Adelson, the moneybags behind the anti-Romney documentary, is known to be a Newt Gingrich fan.

But as long as super PACs don't coordinate with candidates or official party apparatchiks, they take messaging out of the hands of party leaders and spread it around elsewhere in a way that has got to be more representative of more views of more voters.

Super PACs are the latest casus belli in the push for controlling specifically political speech in the name of making elections fairer. There's no doubt that they are a loophole arising from the last round of campaign finance reform and the attempt to limit the amount of money politicians would have to raise to get their message out.

It's time to recognize that the only way to stop creating new loopholes is by ending the always ineffective laws designed to lower the cost office-seekers need to spend to buy our votes.

School Choice is Growing

2012-01-25T20:10:00.001-06:00

From Reason TV:

"We take for granted in our lives, choice, in every other area, whether it's Pop Tarts or cereal or cell phones. But really education is the most important thing," said Reason's Director of Education Lisa Snell, "Especially as a parent, you want your kids to have a solid education."

Snell makes the case that school choice is now at a tipping point. In the United States, more charter schools are cropping up, while tax dollars and voucher systems are now allowing the money to follow the child. Snell says that there is evidence supporting that these new educational options are effective, and less costly, in improving the quality of K-12 education.

"Kids in America have more choices today than they've ever had before," said Snell, "Every empirical study shows a positiive effect, and no study has found a negative effect."

National School Choice Week is Jan. 22-28, and has hundreds of events scheduled promoting these ideas.

TSA Detains Dangerous Terrorist Rand Paul

2012-01-24T18:34:00.000-06:00

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul discusses his recent experience with the security theater of the TSA.

Forcing People to do Useless Things

2012-01-22T07:57:00.000-06:00

Who is the government protecting with this law?

From the Institute for Justice:

Verlin Stoll is a 27-year-old entrepreneurial dynamo who owns Crescent Tide funeral home in Saint Paul, Minn. Verlin has built a successful business because he offers low-cost funerals while providing high-quality service. His business is also one of the only funeral homes that benefits low-income families who cannot afford the high prices of the big funeral-home companies.

Verlin wants to expand his business, hire new employees and continue to offer the lowest prices in the Twin Cities, but Minnesota refuses to let Verlin build a second funeral home unless he builds a $30,000 embalming room that he will never use.

Minnesota's law is irrational. Embalming is never required just because someone passes away and the state does not even require funeral homes to do their own embalming. In fact, it is perfectly legal to outsource embalming to a third-party embalmer. Minnesota's largest funeral chain has 17 locations with 17 embalming rooms, but actually uses only one of those rooms.

Why is Minnesota forcing Verlin to waste $30,000 on a useless embalming room as a condition of expanding his thriving business?

So that the big, full-amenity funeral-home businesses can benefit from a law that drives up prices for consumers and operating expenses for competitors such as Verlin. Verlin's basic services fee is only $250, which is about 90 percent lower than the $2,500 that the average Twin Cities' funeral home charges. Verlin's business model is built on minimizing fixed costs, which is why he does not have a hearse or chapel, and this law—to the advantage of his competitors—stands in the way of him expanding his low-cost, high-quality approach.

The government should not force Minnesotans to do useless things. That is why on January 19, 2012, Verlin and the Institute for Justice challenged the law in state court.

The Minnesota Constitution protects every Minnesotan's economic liberty, which means that it protects entrepreneurs from being burdened by legal requirements that are either useless or designed to suppress honest competition.

A victory here will not only free Verlin from an unconstitutional restraint on his economic liberty, but protect entrepreneurs across the state from pointless laws and bureaucracy.

Business as Usual: Goldman Sachs

2012-01-22T06:41:00.000-06:00

Change again? Or more of the same as always.