Rational Review » RRND Commentary

Forgetting Bradley Manning

Steve Trinward — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:21:22 +0000

“Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is out on bail — apparently headed for the 10-bedroom home of British former army officer Vaughan Smith, described by the Guardian as a rightwing libertarian. Assange’s lawyer joked that it would not be so much ‘house arrest as manor arrest’ while he fights extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. There’s no manor for Bradey Manning. As Glenn Greenwald noted yesterday, the alleged leaker of much of the WikiLeaks information … has been sitting in solitary confinement for seven months under torture conditions.” (12/16/10)

Wikileaks: The touchstone

Thomas L. Knapp — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:20:46 +0000

“WikiLeaks is a touchstone. Amid all the brouhaha and legal shenanigans engaged in by various governments — the Brits, the Swedes, the Americans — the prospect of having a web site devoted to spilling the secrets of the elites has brought out everyone’s true colors. To those truly devoted to liberty, it has evoked cheers; for those with other agendas, it has provided a target for their polemical arrows.” (12/17/10)

US pot assesses Chinese kettle

Thomas L. Knapp — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:19:19 +0000

“Among the diplomatic cables recently released by Wikileaks is a document from last February by Johnnie Carson — Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs — in Lagos, Nigeria. In it he bemoans the ‘aggressive and pernicious’ nature of Chinese policy in Africa. Aggressive, eh? Why, mercy me, whatever could they have done?” (12/15/10)

Reaction to WikiLeaks threatens liberty

R. Lee Wrights — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:18:04 +0000

“The reactions from American politicians and elected officials regarding the latest WikiLeaks publication of classified U.S. documents poses a greater threat to liberty than anything in the documents themselves, R. Lee Wrights, a libertarian writer and potential 2012 Libertarian presidential nominee said in a statement today. ‘The greatest threat to our liberty comes not from anything published by WikiLeaks, but from the irresponsible, irrational and hysterical comments from politicians and government officials,’ Wrights said.” (12/16/10)

Health law ruling a setback for new absolutism

Steve Trinward — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:17:45 +0000

“It’s possible that Judge Henry Hudson has done something big to help save the day from a destructively overreaching government. Maybe, possibly, conceivably, the age’s new absolutism had a setback with a judge’s ruling. He saw the absurdity of thinking the Commerce Clause somehow lets the government tell you what private products you have to buy. Open that door and ‘unbridled police powers’ rush in. The judge is right, of course.” (12/16/10)

The latest New York Times nonsense about Lincoln

Thomas L. Knapp — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:16:31 +0000

“At the outset of the War to Prevent Southern Independence both Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Congress declared publicly that the sole purpose of the war was to save the union and not to interfere with Southern slavery. Lincoln himself stated this very clearly in his first inaugural address and in many other places. This fact bothers the court historians of the Lincoln cult who have in the past forty years rewritten American history to suggest that slavery was the sole cause of the war.” (12/16/10)

Dismantling the filibuster

Steve Trinward — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:07:51 +0000

“Use of the filibuster — debating indefinitely as a means of preventing a vote or other action — has skyrocketed, slowing business to a crawl. Were it not for the Democrats’ decisive majorities in both houses, it’s hard to see how anything would have been accomplished. That advantage will disappear when Republicans take over the House in January. A trio of young Democratic senators is hoping to limit this chronic power to obstruct by reforming Senate rules.” (12/16/10)

Trapped in Bank of America hell

Steve Trinward — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:06:45 +0000

“George Mahoney worked and saved and built his cozy, colonial-style home in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, in 1981. … For many years, the Mahoneys paid down their relatively small mortgage with their local bank — a division of Bank of America (BofA). In 2007, they took out a second mortgage to help a daughter start a small business…. About a year after getting the second mortgage, BofA started notifying George that his payments were late. Soon they jacked his credit card interest rates from 7 percent to 28 percent. Next, they ruined his credit record…. Then one day in the fall of 2009, BofA initiated foreclosure on the house he had built and owned for 28 years. The only problem? The Mahoneys had never missed a single payment on either their first or second mortgage.” (12/16/10)

Beware the military-religious complex

Steve Trinward — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:05:24 +0000

“Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi stood at a lectern last week wearing the kind of size XXL skullcap that is the social marker of Orthodox settlers, praising an army program that is the pride of Israel’s religious right. He looked slightly bashful. Ashkenazi, Israel’s military chief of staff, lives in a rather boring suburb of Tel Aviv, not a West Bank settlement. He’s not an Orthodox Jew, so he usually doesn’t wear a hat or skullcap, except for formal occasions when he puts on his military beret. As a military man, he’s officially not a politician. Then again, you don’t get appointed to head the Israel Defense Forces without a sharp sense of which way the political winds are blowing.” (12/16/10)

Honor Holbrooke: End war in Afghanistan

Steve Trinward — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:03:18 +0000

“When a member of Congress dies, sometimes other members name a bill after him or her that advances some cause with which he or she identified. So, for example, we had the ‘Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act’ — Kennedy was a champion of volunteer service. This tradition has multiple effects. Of course, it honors the departed. But, like the Spanish hero El Cid, whose companions suited him up and placed him on his horse to drive off their foes, it also gives the departed one last ride into battle.” (12/16/10)

City with strictest gun laws has most officers killed by gunfire

Mary Lou Seymour — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:59:08 +0000

“The City of Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Up until a few months ago, it was illegal for a private citizen to own or possess a handgun anywhere within the city, including in one’s own home. For 2010, Chicago also holds another distinction. More Chicago Police Officers were killed by gunfire this year than any other police agency in the nation. The city also boasts one of the highest violent crime rates in the country, with 1 in 89 residents being victims of violent crime last year.” (12/15/10)

Florida school board shooting shows failure of “gun control”

Mary Lou Seymour — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:57:04 +0000

“Superintendent Bill Husfelt, who acted bravely, albeit futilely, had time to say ‘Please don’t’ before assailant Duke opened fire. The rest had to resign themselves to diving for cover in terror. Why? Isn’t Florida one of those states with ’shall issue’ concealed carry and a ’stand your ground’ law …. Yes it is. But that’s trumped — at least in the eyes of the Bay District Schools board — by policy …” (12/15/10)

Hating Wills’n’Kate: the new conformism

Mary Lou Seymour — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:42:42 +0000

“The smart set’s disdain for the royal engagement is driven less by republicanism than by a desire to prove their superiority to the masses.” (12/16/10)

The United States of war criminals

Mary Lou Seymour — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:40:15 +0000

“More than half (53.3%) of US tax dollars go to a criminal enterprise known as the US Department of Defense (sic), a.k.a. the worst polluter on the planet. We hear about tax cuts this and budget that and all kinds of other bullshit from the US government and the corporations that own it … but the reality remains: Roughly one million tax dollars per minute are spent to fund the largest military machine (read: global terrorist operation) the world has ever known.” (12/16/10)

Who is the FBI really trying to entrap?

Mary Lou Seymour — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:37:20 +0000

“So who is the real target of government entrapment? It could not be the individuals sucked into the FBI vortex, since Eric Holder’s men knew they were incapable of independently carrying out the crimes and, therefore, represented no danger to society. No, American society, itself, has been entrapped by the Bush and Obama manipulators. The object is to terrify the American public, so that they will surrender their civil liberties — possibly the greatest extortion scheme in U.S. history.” (12/15/10)

Terrorism by association

Mary Lou Seymour — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:30:07 +0000

“‘I don’t think there’s anything fair about a grand jury,’ says Tom Burke, a central organizer of the committee who was subpoenaed in Grand Rapids, Mich., after the FBI followed him to a coffee shop. ‘There’s no judge, you aren’t allowed to have your lawyer with you. … It’s a totally undemocratic and biased system, and it would be foolish to cooperate.’” (12/13/10)

Bill of Prohibitions Day

R. Lee Wrights — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:06:02 +0000

“Bill of Rights Day was yesterday. Undoubtedly, American statists celebrated the fact that the Constitution and the federal government give them their rights and that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting to protect their politically granted rights. Actually, however, neither the government nor the Constitution gives rights to anyone. Rights are natural and God-given and pre-exist government.” (12/16/10)

What “Undercover Boss” could be

R. Lee Wrights — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:03:15 +0000

“Recently I stumbled across the TV show Undercover Boss. A CEO poses as a new employee at one of his firm’s factories or stores in order to see how the company really runs. In the episode I watched, the CEO of the Johnny Rocket’s restaurant chain spent time working in a couple of stores. For an economist this is a fascinating idea for a show; I’ll explain why shortly.” (12/16/10)

Security theater, DC metro edition

R. Lee Wrights — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:01:22 +0000

“Everyone wants our transportation systems to be safe. But safety must also be balanced with respecting the privacy of citizens, and not wasting money on things that do not make us safer. Sometimes, our safety overlords do things that utilize scarce resources (including taxpayer dollars!) that seem mind-bogglingly dumb.” (12/16/10)

The biggest leak

R. Lee Wrights — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:59:08 +0000

“So much of the debate over Wikileaks, when not focused on what kind of person Julian Assange is, has been centered around whether or not the leaked information has the potential to cause harm or even cost lives; whether releasing it was a public service or an act of gross irresponsibility. While this is obviously an important question, it misses the entire point of Wikileaks and what it represents by a mile. Likewise, most of the media attention completely overlooks the real significance of what Wikileaks has accomplished in releasing the documents.” (12/16/10)