I’ve officially lost count of the number of times I’ve heard or read a media source assert that Operation Fast and Furious was botched. It wasn’t. It did exactly what it was designed to do: put American guns in the hands of criminals so they could terrorize and kill innocent Mexicans with them and get caught doing so. When they were caught, the guns would be traced back to American gun shops “proving” that smuggling was a huge problem that had to be solved by any means necessary.

Were it not for the whistleblowers, the Obama administration would have built a gun control propaganda campaign upon a pile of dead bodies–exactly has they had planned to. Every single dead body was the result of things going right in the operation, not wrong.

So, why is the media continuing to insist that it was botched? Simple. It allows them to keep the truth of the Republican investigation out of the narrative. They can frame the investigation as looking into a mistake, like so many others. In reality, it’s an investigation looking at the administration’s clear intent to sacrifice innocent and unwilling lives for its own political agenda.

When you hear the word botched, know that it’s an attempt to weave a tale of incompetence when the real story is one of evil.

Marco Rubios new bio/memoir “An American Son”

Full disclosure, his publisher sent me a review copy (as they did to a number of conservative and libertarian bloggers). I’ll be reading it and posting a review shortly. The book will be publicly available starting tomorrow, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon now (links below).

For those who don’t know, Rubio is the junior senator from Florida, and former speaker of the Florida house (a post he held after only 6 years in the statehouse, having been elected at the age of 29, and elected speaker at only 35). One of the youngest senators at only 41, Rubio is the son of cuban immigrants, a devout catholic, and a solid conservative of the tea party persuasion.

For my own tastes… Rubio is great on economics, generally great on business, great on foreign policy, good on guns (not quite great, but a B+ is good enough for a senator), not so great on personal freedom.

My one big issue with Rubio is that he’s VERY socially conservative, and largely religiously based in that regard. As a philosophical libertarian who happens to be a Republican… I’m not thrilled with folks who think the government should be involved in these areas at all, never mind supporting extension of the governments current reach. Also, specifically, he supports constitutional amendments on social and moral issues… something I STRONGLY oppose.

Other than that though… hey, I like the guy.

Rubio was elected by a 20 point margin of victory over his nearest competitor… and that’s a hell of a story…

His nearest competitor was then sitting Republican governor Charlie Crist; who Rubio first beat in the states Republican primary, largely as a result of Tea Party voters.

Rather than drop out however, Crist decided to run as an independent against Rubio in the general election. This was largely taken poorly by both Tea Party oriented voters, and the majority of the states Republican base. Crist’s strategy was to use his popularity among independents, and centrist republicans and democrats, plus his seeming rebellion against the party and particularly “against the radical right and the Tea Party”, to build a “moderate” coalition for victory.

That strategy backfired BADLY.

Rubio earned 48.9% of the vote, to Crist’s 29.7%… with the democratic competitor Kendrick Meek, coming in a distant third with 20.2% (basically he was a sacrificial lamb, and only the hardcore dems voted for him, with about half the democrats voting for Crist).

This made Rubio the poster boy for the “Tea Party Revolution” of 2010 that the media played up so much, and for a time made him the target of speculation about him pulling a Republican version of the Obama play, and running for president in 2012.

Rubio was very clear that he had no intention of seeking either the presidential or vice presidential nomination in 2012… However, Romneys problems with the conservative and libertarian portions of the Republican and independent electorate, have got speculation among the media running high that Rubio will be chosen as Romneys running mate.

My personal opinion, is that Rubio doesn’t want to be vice president in 2012; he wants to be president in 2016 or 2020 (and he’ll be much more “electable” then, simply by getting to look more like what the electorate expects a president to look like… i.e. “Older than 41″)… but it’s a lot easier to get to the big chair from the little chair, than it is from the senate floor, and somehow, I don’t think he’ll say no if he’s asked. \

As to what this book, being released now, might mean?

I stand behind my previous statement.

At any rate, look for a review in this space in the next few days. In the meantime, here’s the links to buy the book, and for Rubios tour events:

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/American-Son-Senator-Marco-Rubio/dp/1595230947

Barnes & Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-american-son-senator-marco-rubio/1108857608

Rubio’s book tour:
http://www.facebook.com/AnAmericanSon/events

Rubios Twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/marcorubio

Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote an excellent article in yesterday’s Washington Post entitled: Killing vs. Squealing. The judge laments that the Republicans in the congress aren’t so much concerned about the fact that President Obama is acting as a third-world warlord thug killing individuals he picks out from a deck of “baseball cards” in Yemen, Pakistan, and elsewhere (foreigners and Americans alike) but the fact that someone, somewhere in the government has leaked this information to the press and the American public. Sen. John McCain and others apparently believe the Obama administration has leaked these facts to the press to show how effectively he is killing the “terrorists” abroad to preempt any attacks from the Romney campaign that Obama is somehow weak on “national security.”

Just about every paragraph in the judge’s article is quotable (seriously, read the whole thing) but I believe he summed up just where the “loyal opposition” is with regard to the president’s arguably impeachable activities best here:

Which is ultimately more harmful to freedom: that the president on his own kills, maims and destroys, or that some people in our own government who have greater fidelity to the Constitution than loyalty to an out-of-control presidency – and who are protected by law when they reveal government crimes – tell us what the president is up to? What kind of politicians complain about truthful revelations of unconstitutional behavior by the government, but not about death and destruction, and, let’s face it, criminal abuse of power by the president? Only cynical, power-hungry politicians who have disdain for the Constitution they have sworn to uphold could do this with a straight face.

[…]

How base our culture has become when the hunt for truth-tellers is more compelling than the cessation of unlawful government killing.

Yeah, the funny thing is, just four years ago when Bush was president, our culture (i.e. the MSM, Hollywood, academia, the anti-war movement, etc.) was very concerned about government secrecy, civil liberties violations, torture, secret prisons, getting out of Iraq & Afghanistan, etc. but now that their guy is in the Whitehouse, these very valid concerns seemingly have fallen by the wayside. If people in the opposition party doesn’t call the president out on this, don’t think for a moment that the president’s allies will. Something tells me that in the event Romney wins in November, all of these concerns will suddenly be back in vogue but not until then.

Brad has posted a version of this comedy routine by Doug Stanhope before. This version has been edited to include images and video by Fr33 Agent Beau Davis with a more honest than the traditional “pledge of allegiance” at the close.

I thought that since today happens to be Flag Day, this video would be an important reminder about the true meaning of liberty albeit with an (at times) crude, comedic delivery. True liberty has nothing to do with a flag*, much less worship for the government for which it stands.

WARNING: some of the material in the video will be offensive as hell to some of you. Enjoy!

Related: The Un-American Pledge of Allegiance

*Of course the flag can mean different things to different people. I think it’s one thing to show appreciation for the flag with its original intended meaning by the founders and quite another to “pledge allegiance” to its government regardless of how hostile to freedom the government becomes. I seriously doubt that Thomas Jefferson (who advocated separating political bonds with any government that becomes hostile to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence BTW) or other founders would have ever pledged allegiance to the flag of the federal government.

David Brooks has fired up Radley Balko. And I highly recommend you go read Radley’s whole piece… It’s worth it.

One bit that I found particularly poignant, regarding why democratic politics, in particular, is not worthy of blind deference:

Politics—the quest for power because you’re sure that you, more than others, know what’s best for everyone else—has always been a profession worth ridiculing, going back to the satirists who found plenty to ridicule in the earliest democratic institutions in Rome and Greece. But here in America we have a political process—another institution subject to 236 years of fine-tuning—that’s particularly cartoonish. The set of skills it takes to get elected and achieve success in politics are not only the sorts of traits you’d never want in the people who govern you, they’re actually character flaws. They’re sorts of traits decent people try to teach out of their children. To be successful at politics, you need to be deceitful, manipulative, conniving, and mostly devoid of principle. (Principled politicians are rarely remembered as “great legislators.” And historians bestow greatness on the presidents most willing to wage war, accumulate power, and exceed their constitutional authority.) The most successful politicians sell voters on their strong convictions and principles, and then, once elected, they do as they’re told, so they can accumulate power and status within the party.

We make a big question over “which candidate we’d rather like to have a beer with” as if it’s a qualification for office. But I’ll tell you one thing — I don’t like drinking beer with pompous self-absorbed assholes. I’m certainly not going to blindly follow them.

Originally posted at United Liberty

Twitter and the Internet in general have gone insane once Rand Paul endorsed Mitt Romney a day after his dad, Ron Paul, conceded the Presidential race. All of a sudden, Rand Paul became a sellout, a traitor, a neo-con, etc. The same Rand Paul whose Senate record has nearly been perfect on issues from civil liberties to fiscal issues. If this is how we treat our own, imagine how we treat non-libertarians. This outburst only adds to the biggest problem most non-libertarians and some libertarians have with the Ron Paul movement, that we’re a lunatic fringe that demands 100% conformity. In order to broaden our outreach and persuade more people to become libertarians, some of us need to learn some basic social skills.

Why Should We Become More Sociable?

People do business with and vote for people they like. It’s human nature. In order to get more people to consider libertarian ideas and candidates, they have to like the people behind them whether it be the person on the phone or the door to door canvasser.

First things, first.

If your political discourse usually includes one or more of the following: Bilderbergers, Bohemian Grove, NWO, Illuminati, fluoride, conspiracy, 9/11 Truth, long form birth certificate, or anything like that; please keep it to yourself. You’re making all of us in the liberty movement look insane. (Full credit to a rant by @TPANick on Twitter for that) Plus, if your newssources are Infowars, Prison Planet, Lew Rockwell.com, or Russia Today (RT); you probably need to open your mind and find other news outlets. They’re all as much propaganda and agenda driven news outlets as the rest of the media. Do your own research and reach your own conclusions. Finally, if you believe that Reason magazine and the Cato Institute are statist, you probably need to find a more productive outlet for your time than politics.

How Should We Treat Our Enemies?

With respect and courtesy. Don’t boo their speeches or heckle them. Let them speak. If they win delegates or races, let them have them; there will be other ones. Be courteous to them, even when they’re not to us. When we are victorious, treat our defeated opponents honorably and try to make them friends. However, we should always argue our points and ideas forcefully and make sure we are treated fairly.

Always remember this: in politics, today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend.

How Should We Treat Ourselves And Allies?

We need to always remember that someone who agrees with us 80% of the time or even 51% of the time is a friend, not an enemy. For example, even though I voted for Ron Paul, I’m sure there will be commentors who will attack me as a Mitt Romney shill, among other things. We should debate ideas amongst ourselves and being that we’re a very individualist ideology, we won’t agree on everything. Everyone in the battle for individual freedom is a friend and ally, even if we disagree on some issues. There is no need for purity tests or other such nonsense. The very idea of which are anti-libertarian. We should show our fellow libertarians respect, unless they do something so egregious such as show vile racism or urge violence or anything else along those lines, then we need to show them the door out of the movement.

What Should You Take From This?

Basically you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. We shouldn’t irritate people who are not libertarians just for the sake of irritating them. Being buffoons and douchebags in general turn off people, most of whom are not ideological and are only looking to see how their lives will be made better. I’ll leave it to a future post for ideas how to reach out to average Americans, but we need to put our best foot forward and look and conduct ourselves professionally and honorably. Anything less than that does our movement a great disservice.

This is one of the most encouraging polls I’ve seen in a long time. Honestly, I didn’t think that Amendment 64 [full text here] would have much chance of being approved by the voters, especially since a similar measure, Prop 19 failed in California in 2010. The Huffington Post reports:

The survey of 500 of likely voters in Colorado conducted on June 6, 2012 shows sixty-one percent are in favor legalizing marijuana if it is regulated the way that alcohol and cigarettes are currently regulated.

[…]

That is the highest percentage of Colorado voter support that any marijuana legalization poll has shown to date. In December of 2011, a similar poll from Public Policy Polling showed only 49 percent in favor of general legalization of marijuana.

I also found this to be interesting (continuing the same article):

Amendment 64 also recently received support from both Republicans and Democrats — in March, 56 percent of the delegates at the Denver County Republican Assembly voted to support the legislation, and in April, the Colorado Democratic Party officially endorsed Amendment 64 and added a marijuana legalization plank to the current party platform.

Bipartisan support for legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol in Colorado? This is quite encouraging and fascinating (in California, you may recall, there was bipartisan opposition from the blue and red teams).

This isn’t to say there that Amendment 64 will sail through unopposed. There are anti-64 groups mobilizing so those of us who want to see 64 pass cannot be complacent. Also, with about five and a half months until election day, anything can happen.

Today, I had the joy of observing an officer of the Newton Police force take a bad situation and make it worse.  The incident showed much that is wrong in the relationship between the common citizen and the government that is there to protect him or her. An elderly person had fallen and a police officer detained her, kept her on a brick side-walk so that EMT’s from an unwanted ambulance could check her out, an operation that blocked traffic and slowed it to a crawl on a major thoroughfare. (more…)

Gary Johnson’s Presidential campaign has released a new web ad, and it may be their most effective to date:

Johnson has managed to get some top-notch political advisers behind him, and he has experience running for office in somewhat hostile territory so things seem to be going well for him right now. The question is whether they’ll be able to make a credible enough case

Journal Sentinel reports the following:

This is most encouraging news and a victory for fiscal responsibility.

On my first day of my staycation (yesterday), I saw the tweet that Neal Boortz has announced his retirement. Just moments ago, I finally got around to reading the full announcement. I am happy to report that his “year of talking dangerously” will not come to an abrupt end as I first thought. Below is the “short version” of his announcement (read the rest here).

I will be ending my daily talk radio show on Monday, January 21, 2013. It’s finally the right time to put away the headphones. Not immediately though. My last day on the air will be inauguration day, January 21, 2013. After that I’ll be around with daily commentaries, fill-in duties and some special projects. Am I going to miss my listeners and callers? Absolutely! But the time has come

Although I have evolved closer to a more hard-core libertarian position than Boortz in recent years (particularly concerning foreign policy, particularly war and interventionism), I have nothing but respect for him and appreciate his perspective. I will miss the sermons from “the Church of the Painful Truth” but I cannot fault him for stepping away from the microphone and enjoying the fruits of his labor.

Thank you for all the great memories, Neal Boortz. I’m looking forward to listening to the final 8 months of your broadcast career and never stop talking dangerously!

More Boortz Related Liberty Papers Posts:
Threat of Teachers Unions by Brad Warbiany (February 26, 2006 – one of Boortz’s major targets over the years: teachers’ unions and government schools.This post became one of Boortz’s “reading assignments” and was a banner day for The Liberty Papers traffic wise)

Somebody’s Gotta Say It (Book Review) by Stephen Littau (March 28, 2007)

RE: Boortz review by Jason Pye (March 29, 2007 – Boortz saw my book review of his book and reposted it on Nealz Nuze; a high point for me personally to be sure)

Virginia Legislators Target Neal Boortz by Doug Mataconis (May 2, 2007)

An Open Letter to Neal Boortz by Jason Pye (December 18, 2007 – Jason expresses his disappointment with Boortz for his supporting of Mike Huckabee in the 2008 presidential campaign)

No Apologies for “Heated Political Rhetoric” Here by Stephen Littau (January 10, 2011 – In the aftermath of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, especially the nasty commentary by those on the Left, Boortz said exactly what needed to be said. I had a few things to say about the aftermath also)

R.I.P. Royal Marshall by Stephen Littau (January 17, 2011 – a very sad chapter for the Boortz family with the passing of Royal Marshall; one of Boortz’s trusted assistants and best friends. The show hasn’t quite been the same since)

Quote of the Day: Americans Cheer the Assassination of the Fifth Amendment Edition by Stephen Littau (September 30, 2011- Here I criticized Neal Boortz and Larry Elder for supporting the attack on Anwar Al-Awlaki)

Shenanigans Afoot at Wikipedia Concerning Obama’s New Campaign Slogan: Forward by Stephen Littau (May 2, 2012)

One thing that always bothers me, is when intelligent, thoughtful people; feel it is necessary to apologize for their ideas and opinions… or for even having ideas and opinions at all (much less opinions contrary to those around them, or which are unpopular).

You don’t have to apologize for your views to anyone, for any reason. They are yours (or at least, they should be… if they aren’t… if you’re just repeating things you’ve been told, or you don’t really understand or believe what you’re saying… well, you’ve got a different problem entirely).

Right or wrong, you have the right to an opinion (I don’t have to listen to you, but I can’t tell you you can’t have them); and unless you are violating others rights in doing so, you have the right to express those views openly, and to act on them appropriately.

The first freedom, is freedom of conscience. Without freedom of conscience, we are not men.

However, having and expressing views, carries an element of responsibility and duty with it.

First you must understand, you have the right to your own opinions, but not your own facts. If facts contradict your opinions, facts win, no matter what you think or what you want; and whether you recognize it or not. Reality is a harsh mistress, and it doesn’t respect your ideas, your opinions, your preferences, or your feelings… Reality respects only fact.

Before you express them publicly, you must always understand your own views as deeply and comprehensively as possible; including both the first principles which are their foundation, and the implications and consequences of them (as well as understanding that there will always be unforseen and unintended effects and consequences, to any action or decision).

You should always be prepared to defend your views; with both this understanding of them, and with examples from reality, when challenged. If you are unable to do this, you risk discrediting your views even if they are entirely and provably correct, simply because you were unable to effectively defend them (this is a very common problem unfortunately).

Finally, you must accept that your views may be wrong; and if proven (by either reasoning or reality) to be incorrect, incomplete, or improperly understood; you must be able to re-examine, and revise, or even replace them.

If you are incapable of this, emotionally or intellectually, you need not apologize for your views… but you certainly should not inflict them on others.

Michael Tomasky penned a sickeningly ignorant and immoral piece in the Daily Beast… even more sickening than he considers sodas and 1/2 pound hamburgers. The most stomach-turning part:

We have this “liberty” business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the public good, God bless him, I say.

Got that? Individual freedom has to be balanced with the public good.

But, wait, you say, ain’t we the public? Not in Tomasky’s view:

The costs to the health-care system are enormous, so the public interest here is ridiculously obvious. Obesity is a killer. Are we to do nothing, in the name of the “liberty” that entitles millions of people to kill themselves however they please, whatever their diabetes treatments costs their insurers?

The health-care system is a hybrid crony capitalist/government enterprise. Health coverage in its current form exists because of myriad laws and regulations. Hospitals and clinics are highly regulated. Doctors and nurses must pass through regulated courses of education. In every way that matters, government has been driving for decades.

Washington has created a system where certain private, individual behaviors create a drag on the system. Therefore, it’s now in the “public interest” to limit commerce to discourage individual behaviors that cost the system money. Unlike with communicable diseases like tuberculosis, obesity inherently affects only the individual. The “public interest” here is entirely a construct of government.

Now, let’s restate Tomasky in a more truthful fashion:

We have this “liberty” business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the well-being of the government and crony capitalists, God bless him, I say.

I’d say those who are opposing this have ‘this “liberty” business’ quite right.

Reason.com has more on this.

I touched on this on yesterday’s post but I think the Obama administration’s redefinition of the word “combatant” as it relates to his secret kill list deserves more exposure. The following comes from a New York Times article written by Jo Becker and Scott Shane entitled: Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will. (The part I’m quoting from appears on this page)

[emphasis mine]

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.[…]

[…]

This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the “single digits” — and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.

Brilliant! If the statistics show that the drone attacks are killing too many civilians, redefine the term “combatant” and the number of civilians killed will show up in the single digits. George Orwell would be proud.

Related:
Are You or Someone You Know a Victim of the Drone Mentality?
Quote of the Day: Americans Cheer the Assassination of the Fifth Amendment Edition
Obama: Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Chief

There it is again. That damned conspiracy theory about Barack Obama being born not in Hawaii but Kenya. An honest question for you birthers out there: even assuming that everything you believe about the birthplace of Barack Obama is true, do you really think that even if you could prove it 100% that people who would otherwise support him/undecided would choose not to or would be declared ineligible to serve as president by some court, perhaps SCOTUS?

IMO the answers to those questions are no and probably not. If the voters are not concerned enough to vote him out (or even call for his impeachment) based on his other, much more damaging assaults on the Constitution, I seriously doubt these same people are going to be upset about Obama’s audacity to be born to an American mother outside the country. As far as violating his oath to defend the Constitution goes, this would be quite a minor assault.

So if the birther issue doesn’t benefit Obama’s opponents, who would it benefit? President Obama and the Democrat Party. The Obama campaign has already released an ad critical of Mitt Romney and his ties to Donald Trump (below).

This is precisely the kind of issue President Obama wants to be a part of this campaign. If the media and the people are talking about the birther question, they are not talking about his failed economic policies, his continued assaults on free market capitalism, ObamaCare, signing extensions to the Patriot Act, signing the NDAA, Fast and Furious, his drug war hypocrisy, his foreign policy befitting that of a warlord, his very Orwellian change in the definition of the term “civilian” to make his statistics for killings of innocent people in foreign lands not look so bad to the casual news consumer, and etc. In other words, Obama’s record as president!

I hear people complain that Obama wasn’t properly vetted in 2008 (and to a certain extent I agree). The media didn’t concentrate enough on the birth certificate, his time hanging out with Marxists in college, his unwillingness to release his college transcripts, his association with Jeremiah Wright. Some of these things are reasonable questions but are distractions to the issues of the greatest importance.

It may be true that we don’t know a whole lot about Obama’s biography or what made him the person he is relative to past presidents but we have had four years to evaluate his job performance as president. In the final analysis, isn’t that all that really matters?

One would think that the politicians who scream the most about the alleged 23% pay gap between men and women would lead by example and pay men and women “equal pay for equal work.” This seems like a safe assumption but according to Andrew Stiles writing for The Washington Free Beacon, you would be assuming wrong:

A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.

Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.

Murray, who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a “war a women,” is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray’s staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.

That is well above the 23 percent gap that Democrats claim exists between male and female workers nationwide. The figure is based on a 2010 U.S. Census Bureau report, and is technically accurate. However, as CNN’s Lisa Sylvester has reported, when factors such as area of employment, hours of work, and time in the workplace are taken into account, the gap shrinks to about 5 percent.

[…]

The employee gender pay gap among Senate Democrats was not limited to Murray, Boxer, and Feinstein. Of the 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus examined in the analysis, 37 senators paid their female staffers less than male staffers.

[…]

Women working for Senate Democrats in 2011 pulled in an average salary of $60,877. Men made about $6,500 more.

While the gap is significant, it is slightly smaller than that of the White House, which pays men about $10,000, or 13 percent, more on average, according to a previous Free Beacon analysis.

And now for the most interesting part IMO. Among Senate Democrats, who has the greatest disparity between male and female staffers? The Socialist (!) from Vermont, Bernie Sanders pays his male staffers 47.6% more than his female staffers!

One has to wonder, why do these Democrats not pay male and female staffers the same? Could it be that the same factors stated above enter into their reasons for paying women less?

Nah. I’m pretty sure it’s because they hate women more than employers in the private sector.

What troubles me about this… I think it’s beyond hypocrisy. I think it’s something to do with class. A lot of people have accused Obama of class warfare, but in the wrong direction. I believe this is Obama chortling with Jimmy Fallon about lower class people. Do we believe, even for a second, that if Obama had been busted for marijuana — under the laws that he condones — would his life have been better? If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he uses, and ‘maybe a little blow’… if he had been busted under his laws, he would have done hard fucking time. And if he had done time in prison, time in federal prison, time for his ‘weed’ and ‘a little blow,’ he would not be President of the United States of America. He would not have gone to his fancy-ass college, he would not have sold books that sold millions and millions of copies and made millions and millions of dollars, he would not have a beautiful, smart wife, he would not have a great job. He would have been in fucking prison, and it’s not a god damn joke. People who smoke marijuana must be set free. It is insane to lock people up.

Watch the segment from “Penn’s Sunday School” non-truncated rant here.

Related Posts:
Song and Open Letter to a President Who is “No Stranger to the Bong”
A Youthful Indiscretion
Reforming America’s Prison System: The Time Has Come

With Congressman Ron Paul’s third presidential run and career coming to an end, what will become of his rEVOLution he inspired? Prior to the 2012 campaign, some suggested that former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson would be the “next” Ron Paul but with Johnson running as the Libertarian Party nominee after being mistreated by the GOP establishment in the primaries, it appears to me that that bridge has been burned and will likely never be rebuilt. Johnson’s activities in furthering the liberty movement will be done outside the Republican Party.

The new heir apparent to lead the rEVOLution appears to be the congressman’s son Sen. Rand Paul. Rand Paul has been one of a handful of voices of reason in the senate voting against renewing the Patriot Act, the NDAA*, standing up to the TSA, and speaking out against President Obama’s unconstitutional “kinetic military actions” in Libya and elsewhere to name a few. For the most part**, Sen. Rand Paul has been a consistent champion of liberty much like his father. Speculation abounds that Sen. Paul will make a presidential run of his own in 2016.

The rEVOLution and the greater liberty movement must be much larger than one person***, however. According to Brian Doherty, author of his new book Ron Paul’s rEVOLution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired, Paul’s movement will continue long after Paul himself has left the political stage. Doherty summarizes the thesis of his book in the Cato forum (video below); David Boaz and Sen. Rand Paul also offer their thoughts on the future of the liberty movement after Ron Paul.

(more…)