Jesse Ventura Pulls Support for Trump

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura slammed President Donald Trump over the weekend for disregarding campaign promises to be a ‘man of the people’ — and that he “is following in the footsteps of every president that came before him: he thinks the Government knows what is best for us.”

In a Facebook post, he wrote:

I thought Donald Trump ran his campaign as ‘a man of the people.’ Someone who vowed to end the corporate takeover of our government, someone who vowed to bring jobs back.Even thinking about reversing state law and making legalized recreational marijuana illegal is going against the people’s will. This is going against job creation and a reliable part of a state’s economy. The citizens of these states VOTED to make recreational marijuana legal. It wasn’t the politicians, it was WE THE PEOPLE. Obviously President Trump is following in the footsteps of every president that came before him: he thinks the Government knows what is best for us.

He's been president for a little over a month, and he's already forgotten that "We the People” are the Government! AND he's planning on reinstating private prisons? Let's connect the dots: Private prisons need to be 80 - 90% full to be profitable. If they aren't, then states pay a fine. Non-violent drug offenders make it possible for private prisons to be full. Reverse legalized recreational marijuana, and private prisons will remain full. That's his plan, people.

And this occurred before Trump announced his 10% increase in the military budget.

Further, Ventura isn't even a libertarian. When are the libertarian Trump supporters going to pull support for the authoritarian?

   -RW

HT Chris Rossini

Sources: Facebook. Free Thought Project

The Game Is Rigged: Why Americans Keep Losing to the Police State

By John W. Whitehead

 “The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens.”—Leo Tolstoy

My 7-year-old granddaughter has suddenly developed a keen interest in card games: Go Fish, Crazy Eights, Old Maid, Blackjack, and War. We’ve fallen into a set pattern now: every time we play, she deals the cards, and I pretend not to see her stacking the deck in her favor. And of course, I always lose.

I don’t mind losing to my granddaughter at Old Maid, knowing full well the game is rigged. For now, it’s fun and games, and she’s winning. Where the rub comes in is in knowing that someday she’ll be old enough to realize that

Top Criminal Says No Time for Criminal Justice Reform

Senator Mitch McConnell told President Trump in a private meeting on Thursday that there is not likely to be enough time to bring a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote this year, reports The New York Times.

On Prison Phone Service Providers and Charges

Mike Cheel emails:

I would be interested in you perspective on this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/prison-phone-companies-fight-for-right-to-charge-inmates-14-a-minute/

It must be understood that high phone fees at prisons are an ongoing situation within the current statist system. It has nothing to do with libertarianism.

In addition, you have the problem of the current criminal system, itself, which would be far different in a libertarian world. This includes large sectors of the current prison population, such as drug dealers, who wouldn't even be considered criminals in a libertarian society.

I suspect the high phone fees are simply part of the crony statist system. It is an easy way for those in cahoots with government officials to make money against the relatively weak. Prisoners are an easy target to abuse. Who wants to spend time fighting for lower phone bills for "criminals"?

Don't get trapped into thinking that there is a libertarian answer for  high phone bills versus low phone bills for prisoners. It's a statist trap.

As far as the phone companies being "private" that is another trap. The word "privatization" has two very different meanings. There is privatization which means getting the government out of a sector, where the government doesn't even set the rules in the sector. That is libertarian-privatization. Then there is "privatization" where the government continues to set the rules in a sector and hires outside contractors instead of using government employees, This is just a government shell game, where it remains a government controlled structure with the payees being changed only in legal structure from government employees to government contractors and employees of government contractors.

True justice from a libertarian perspective would not be focused on the cost of phone charges, It would be on opening the gates of the prisons and letting everyone out and throwing the exces of the prison phone companies, the execs of "privatized" prisons and the crony government officials, in the cells.

If someone has claims against a released prisoner, because of violations of the nonaggression principle, then those should be dealt with in libertarian court systems after they are released.

  -RW

The American Nightmare: The Tyranny of the Criminal Justice System

By John W. Whitehead

How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool’s hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.—Bob Dylan, “Hurricane”

Justice in America is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Just ask Jeffrey Deskovic, who spent 16 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. Despite the fact that Deskovic’s DNA did not match what was found at the murder scene, he was singled out by police as a suspect because he wept at the victim’s funeral (he was 16 years old at the time), then badgered over the course of two months into confessing his guilt. He wase ventually paid $6.5 million in reparation.

James Bain spent 35 years in prison for the kidnapping and rape of a 9-year-old boy, but he too was innocent of the crime. Despite the fact that the prosecutor’s case was flimsy—it hinged on the similarity of Bain’s first name to the rapist’s, Bain’s ownership of a red motorcycle, and a misidentification of Bain in a lineup by a hysterical 9-year-old boy—Bain was sentenced to life in prison. He was finally freed after DNA testing proved his innocence, and was paid $1.7 million

Mark Weiner got off relatively easy when you compare his experience to the thousands of individuals who are spending lifetimes behind bars for crimes they did not commit.

Judge Andrew Napolitano Warns Students: Some of You May Die in Government Prisons

Judge Andrew Napolitano, a senior judicial analyst for Fox News, was a guest lecturer last week at Mises University in Auburn Alabama. During an opening lecture where he discussed natural rights, the development of the Constitution and footnote 4 of United States v. Carolene Products Co., he closed the question and answer period following his lecture by saying he saw dark clouds coming for the country and warned the students that some of them may die in government prisons by standing faithful to first principles.

The full warning is here  (1 minute 33 seconds):

 

-RW

Finger-In-The-Wind Hillary on Coppers

By Chris Rossini

Progressives, Neocons and Keynesians all share a common pattern of behavior. First, they take the world as it is and screw things up with their ideas. Then, after the screw up, they turn around and pose as the saviors to the problems that they've created.

This behavior seems to be on a perpetual cycle of rinse and repeat. Hillary Clinton has made a long career of the process.

Here's finger-in-the-wind Hillary today:

End mass incarceration. Address inequality. Restore trust between law enforcement & communities. Read this & share: http://t.co/WdnFuT8tjo
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 29, 2015

Then there's the former "First Lady" Hillary Clinton, back in 1994 on her husband's "crime bill":

The sad truth is that, unfortunately, there are those who would rather talk about fighting crime than actually give you the tools that you can use to fight crime...Because this crime bill will make a difference in your lives as police officers and in the lives of the communities you serve.

There will be more police on the street, a hundred thousand more police officers, with flexibility given to local communities to determine how best to use them...

We will also finally understand that fighting crime is not just a question of punishment, although there are many dollars in the crime bill to build more prisons...

Hillary went from flooding the streets with coppers and "many dollars in the crime bill to build more prisons" to now calling for an "end to mass incarceration".

Rinse and repeat.

---

Chris Rossini is author of Set Money Free: What Every American Needs To Know About The Federal Reserve. Follow @chrisrossini on Twitter.

On the Problem of 3 Billion Immigrants Crashing the Border

The following email exchange took place between Dr. Walter Block and Drew Brekus.

I will make several comments with regard to the exchange in a post tomorrow.

-RW 

Dear Professor Block: 

I am still trying to come to your final book club meeting for the summer this upcoming Friday. I won't know for sure until the next couple days if I can make it. 

But I saw an email posted on Lew Rockwell's website saying that you changed your mind on open borders. All I have to say is, say it ain't so! Why would you care if 3 billion people use the highways? We can fit the whole world population comfortably into Texas, a fact I'm sure you'll recall from debates on "over-population." If it's voluntary, who cares? 

The Wolf Is Guarding the Hen House: The Government’s War on Cyberterrorism

By John W. Whitehead

“The game is rigged, the network is bugged, the government talks double-speak, the courts are complicit and there’s nothing you can do about it.”—David Kravets, reporting for Wired

Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore. As constitutional law professor Garrett Epps points out, “Big Brother is watching…. Big Brother may be watching you right now, and you may never know. Since 9/11, our national life has changed forever. Surveillance is the new normal.”

Former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction: Epstein's Suicide Makes No Sense

Bernard B. Kerik,  former commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, 1995-2000 and former commissioner of the NYPD from 2000 through 2001, writes:

Accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s death this morning — reportedly a suicide, according to federal officials — is an inexplicable end to a bizarre, tragic case that only got more disturbing the more we learned about it.

The fact that one of the country’s highest-profile federal prisoners could even commit suicide defies all logic and belief.

His death raises doubts about officials’ actions...

In Pennsylvania, It’s Open Season on Undocumented Immigrants

By Deborah Sontag and Dale Russakoff (via  ProPublica)

From the time they first flirted at a party, Anne and Ludvin Franco were inseparable. It did not matter that Anne, a waitress, was Pennsylvania Dutch going back generations, while Ludvin, a cook, had grown up in the scrublands of eastern Guatemala.

It also did not matter to Anne or her open-armed family that Lulu, as they called him, was undocumented. At their wedding in 2013, the Americans and the Guatemalans danced the night away with Latin DJs imported from Queens.

On lawyers' advice, the Francos waited to start legalizing his status through their marriage until late 2016, after he had lived a productive, crime-free decade in the United States. They never anticipated that President Trump's promised immigration crackdown would be so swift, and so ruthless in their region.

By last spring, when Pennsylvania roads were starting to feel like a dragnet for immigrants without papers, Ludvin Franco had mostly stopped getting behind the wheel of a car. Often he relied

Will the Supreme Court Drag Us Further Along the Road to Serfdom?

By James Bovard

At last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, several justices questioned whether a verdict against Obamacare would be “unconstitutionally coercive” to state governments that did not create health care exchanges. Justice Sonia Sotomayor fretted that such a ruling could result in “intruding on the federal-state relationship.” The Supreme Court is sometimes hypersensitive about the rights of state governments at the same time it rubber-stamps the destruction of the rights of private citizens.

For instance, the Affordable Care Act trounces freedom by

On Mass Murders by Lunatics

By Robert Higgs

When libertarians (or simply people with common sense) argue against proposals to solve a certain class of perceived problems (e.g., mass murders by odd-ball lunatics or crazed zealots) by imposing more stringent government controls, closer surveillance, and so forth, the proponents often reply: well, if you don’t think my idea for government action will work, what do you propose instead to solve the problem? They are never happy when told that a better idea is to do nothing to solve it.

Yet, in truth, problems of a certain sort (e.g.,mass murders by odd-ball lunatics or crazed zealots) do not have a solution in anything even close to a free society. These types of problems involve such unsystematic, infrequent, and inexplicable actions that no one can anticipate and preempt them. Lighting will strike people sometimes; nothing can be done about it except to advise people to stay inside during thunder storms and in no event to go outside carrying an iron rod.

So, one might propose, for example, that the U.S. government stop blundering around in the Middle East carrying the “iron rods” that will attract the lightening of aggrieved Muslims whose friends, relatives, or causes have been harmed or killed by American actions. Absent such general palliatives, one must simply resign himself to the reality that occasionally — albeit very, very infrequently — bad things will happen. Even locking every human being in a cell will not solve such problems, either, because bad things happen in prisons, too. Indeed, nearly everything that happens in a prison or an unfree society is bad.

(via Cafe Hayek)

There Is No National Emergency on the Border, Mr. President

By Alex Nowrasteh 

President Trump has declared a national emergency on the border to construct some portion of his promised border fence.  “We’re talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs,” President Trump said during his remarks today. 

Ross Ulbricht at USP Florence Maximum-Security Penitentiary

USP Florence Maximum Security Prison – January 2018

By Lyn Ulbricht

A lot has happened in the past six months as we continue to fight for Ross’s freedom. On December 22, 2017 Ross and his legal team of Williams & Connolly, one of the top firms in the nation, filed a Petition of Certiorari with the Supreme Court. The petition argues that Ross’s case presents two important questions of constitutional law, and has broad significance impacting both

Conservatism and Libertarianism

By Laurence M. Vance

When conservative politicians are trying to get the votes of libertarians and “libertarian-leaning” Republicans, they often tout the supposed affinity between conservatism and libertarianism. They claim that there is a conservative and libertarian confluence of thought on many issues. They maintain that because the real enemy of conservatism and libertarianism is liberalism, conservatives and libertarians stand on common ground. Conservatives are not averse to using libertarian rhetoric to portray themselves as advocates of libertarian principles. They often recite their mantra of the Constitution, private property, the free market, individual liberty, and limited government — as if they actually followed the Constitution, believed in the inviolability of private property, desired a free market in everything, believed in the freedom of individuals to do anything that’s peaceful, and wanted a government limited to anything but one controlled by conservatives.

Reaganism

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) is a conservative icon. Conservatives revere him as they revere the Constitution. They consider Reagan to be one of the greatest American presidents in history. And as the late president’s son, Michael Reagan, has pointed out, “Conservatives love to drop my father’s name and try to find candidates that act and think like he did.” Conservative Republicans who want to sucker their fellow Republicans to get their votes often call themselves Reagan conservatives or Reagan Republicans. Even some libertarians romanticize Reagan.

In addition to using libertarian rhetoric and reciting their phony laissez-faire mantra, conservatives are also fond of quoting what Reagan said during an interview with Reason magazine back in 1975:

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Reagan also said he believed that libertarianism and conservatism were traveling “the same path.”

Yet, the path Reagan trod was anything but libertarian.

The Boring Ronald Reagan

Gore Vidal writes:

I first saw Ronnie and Nancy Reagan at the Republican convention of 1964 in San Francisco’s Cow Palace. Ronnie and Nancy (they are called by these names throughout the book under review) were seated in a box to one side of the central area where the cows—the delegates, that is—were whooping it up. Barry Goldwater was about to be nominated for president. Nelson Rockefeller was being booed not only for his communism but for his indecently uncloseted heterosexuality. Who present that famous day can ever forget those women with blue-rinsed hair and leathery faces and large costume jewelry and pastel-tinted dresses with tasteful matching accessories as they screamed “Lover!” at Nelson? It was like a TV rerun of the Bacchae, with Nelson as Pentheus.

I felt sorry for Nelson. I felt sorry for David Brinkley when a number of seriously overweight Sunbelt Goldwaterites chased him through the kitchens of the Mark Hopkins Hotel. I felt sorry for myself when I, too, had to ward off their righteous wrath: I was there as a television commentator for Westinghouse. I felt sorry for the entire “media” that day as fists were actually shaken at the anchorpersons high up in the eaves of the hall. I felt particularly sorry for the “media” when a former president named Eisenhower, reading a speech with his usual sense of discovery, attacked the press, and the convention hall went mad. At last Ike was giving it to those Commie-wierdo-Jew-fags who did not believe in the real America of humming electric chairs, well-packed prisons, and kitchens filled with every electrical device that a small brown person of extranational provenance might successfully operate at a fraction of the legal minimum wage.

As luck would have it, I stood leaning on the metal railing that enclosed the boxed-in open place where, side by side, Ronnie and Nancy were seated watching Ike. Suddenly, I was fascinated by them. First, there was her furious glare when someone created a diversion during Ike’s aria. She turned, lip curled with Bacchantish rage, huge unblinking eyes afire with a passion to kill the enemy so palpably at hand—or so it looked to me. For all I know she might have been trying out new contact lenses. In any case, I had barely heard of Nancy then. Even so, I said to myself: There is a lot of rage in this little lady. I turned then to Ronnie. I had seen him in the flesh for a decade or so as each of us earned his mite in the Hollyjungle. Ronnie was already notorious for his speeches for General Electric, excoriating communists who were, apparently, everywhere. I had never actually spoken to him at a party because I knew—as who did not?—that although he was the soul of amiability when not excoriating the international monolithic menace of atheistic godless communism, he was, far and away, Hollywood’s most grinding bore—Chester Chatterbox, in fact. Ronnie never stopped talking, even though he never had anything to say except what he had just read in the Reader’s Digest, which he studied the way that Jefferson did Montesquieu. He also told show-biz stories of the sort that overexcites civilians in awe of old movie stars, but causes other toilers in the Industry to stampede.

I had heard that Reagan might be involved in the coming campaign. So I studied him with some care. He was slumped in a folding chair, one hand holding up his chins; he was totally concentrated on Eisenhower. I remember thinking that I had made the right choice in 1959 when we were casting The Best Man, a play that I had written about a presidential convention. An agent had suggested Ronald Reagan for the lead. We all had a good laugh. He is by no means a bad actor, but he would hardly be convincing, I said with that eerie prescience which has earned me the title The American Nostradamus, as a presidential candidate. So I cast Melvyn Douglas, who could have made a splendid president in real life had his career not been rejuvenated by the play’s success, while the actor whom I had rejected had no choice but to get himself elected president. I do remember being struck by the intensity with which Reagan studied Eisenhower. I had seen that sort of concentration a thousand times in half-darkened theaters during rehearsals or Saturday matinees: the understudy examines the star’s performance, and tries to figure how it is done. An actor prepares, I said to myself: Mr. Reagan is planning to go into politics. With his crude charm, I was reasonably certain that he could be elected mayor of Beverly Hills.

The Mysterious Disappearance in Turkey of a Washington Post Contributor

 Jamal Khashoggi

 UPDATE below: Turkish government says Khashoggi killed.  

This sure smells like the dirty work of Saudi Crown Prince  Mohammed bin Salman.

French Presidential Candidate Emmanuel Macron in Profile

Early indications are that establishment French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron will beat National Front candidate Marine Le Pen in the May 7 runoff election.

Here's what you need to know about the likely next French president:

From 2006 through 2009, Emmanuel Macron was a member of the Socialist party. In France, the two major political parties are the center-right Republican party and the center-left Socialist party; the current president of France, François Hollande, is a member of the Socialist party.

However, from 2009 to 2016, Macron did not associate himself with the Socialist party anymore, saying that he is an independent.

When he announced his bid for the presidency, Macron formed his own political movement called “En Marche!” In English, this translates as “Forward!” Macron has described this organization as being post-partisan, combining elements both of the left and the right.

Macron is hardcore pro European Union. He has even said that he wants to make some changes so that the EU can be made stronger.

 He has said that security would “not be better served by closing national borders,” and that controls on migration should not be handled on a national level.

In addition, Macron has said that France’s security policies have unfairly targeted Muslims.

“No religion is a problem in France today,” Macron said during a rally in October 2016. “If the state should be neutral, which is at the heart of secularism, we have a duty to let everybody practice their religion with dignity.”

Macron, who is a former investment banker, has said he will make France more business friendly and lower corporate taxes.

Specifically, he has promised to lower the corporate tax rate from 33 percent to 25 percent. He also wants to keep the legal work week at 35 hours but leave negotiation of real work hours to companies, according to Reuters.

In addition, low-wage earners would not receive certain welfare benefits under Macron’s proposals.

According to Reuters, Macron wants to raise defense spending to two percent of GDP, up from the current figure of 1.8 percent. Also, he wants to build 15,000 new prisons and hire 10,000 new police officers.

In addition, he recently said that there should be international military intervention if there comes to be evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons.

“An international intervention is needed…My preference is that there should be an intervention under the auspices of the United Nations. A military intervention,” Macron said.

Overall, he is a mainstream warmongering global statist.

-RW 

(via Heavy.com)


UPDATE

Eric Margolis writes:

Just who Macron really is remains a puzzle.  He came from an academic background, worked for the mighty Rothschild banking empire, then as an economic advisor and minister to President Holland.  At 39 years old, Macron is blandly attractive, youthful, and so far untainted by scandal except for the oddity of being married to his former schoolteacher two decades his senior.

Macron claims to be a middle way between old antagonists of left and right.  He calls for gentle reforms and revitalization of the European Union.  Women like him.  What he stands for is unclear. His deep links to the Rothschild’s make many uncomfortable.   To others, he’s too smooth and full of bromides

One Giant Step That the President Can Take to Make America Great Again

President Trump is a New York City street hustler that somehow found his way to the presidency.

Having no principled foundational direction, by which he wanted to run his presidency after elected, he surrounded himself at the White House with establishment players who stabbed him in the back at every turn.

His recent pardons appear to be a combination of getting close friends out of hot water or correcting a misjustice fallen upon friends who found themselves on the wrong side of legal assaults because of being associated with him.

The only others that have been pardoned in the last couple of days are the few others that appear to have individuals in their circle with strong connections to Trump and those individuals are close enough to Trump to call in a favor.

But as the dark days of winter approach, if the President wants to take a deep step toward making American great again in a very significant way, he should pardon anyone who is in federal prison, or awaiting trial, for a drug-related charge.

Trump didn't end any wars overseas he merely lowered some troop counts. He has a chance to end the drug war.

The war on drugs, a favorite of the establishment, it could be argued is even a more vicious war than current overseas wars. By far, many more Americans are imprisoned because of the drug war, here in America, than the number of Americans captured and currently held overseas because of U.S. overseas military activity.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that 46.3% of federal prisoners are in prison for drug offenses.

Trump should pardon them all and declare the war on drugs over. And he should do what he can to immediately shut down the activities of any agencies that are part of this ongoing vicious war that is nothing but an attack on the way individuals choose to live their lives.

Making America great again is about returning freedom to Americans. Trump has the power to take a significant step in this direction by freeing prisoners held on drug charges and doing what he can to shut down the drug war.

If he did this, it would make President Trump one of the most significant presidents of all time.

He would be a president that defied the establishment and moved the country away from a horrific domestic war that only damaged Americans.

No other president has reversed such an oppressive program. If Trump does it, it would make him unique---and a great president.

-RW