"Why do you hear nothing about the fire fighters killed in the Texas fertilizer plant explosion? Because they were volunteers. You can't be a hero unless you're living off taxes. You can't be a hero if you die serving your neighbors while doing work that is supposed to be a government monopoly. To government, these men were 'scabs.'" Continue reading →
"The tiny Texas town of West continues to struggle to come to terms with the Wednesday fire and explosion at a local fertilizer plant. According to the Associated Press, recovery workers have now pulled 14 bodies from the wreckage, ten of whom were first responders who had rushed to the scene of the fire. Donations of clothing and household items are piling up at local hotels and other donor centers. Texas politicians Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R) have both called upon the federal government to rush aid to the area in spite of both men’s avowed devotion to the idea of 'small government.'" Continue reading →
"Rep. Peter King, the Chair of the House subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and the mastermind behind hearings on the radicalization of Muslim-Americans, argued Friday that in the wake of the Boston bombings, law enforcement should increase surveillance in Muslim communities. 'We can’t be bound by political correctness,' he continued. 'I think we need more police and more surveillance in the communities where the threat is coming from, whether it’s the Irish community with the Westies [an Irish-American gang in New York City], or the Italian community with the mafia, or the Muslim community with the Islamic terrorists.'" Continue reading →
"What if a future suspect implicated in a gruesome and dramatic criminal act next year manages to escape justice for months? Can the police now just shut down cities, transportation, and—as they did on Monday*—cell service for as long as they deem necessary? Should normal denizens really have no say of their own on whether they will risk the violent threats that might await them outside? If they have no right to walk about freely today without expecting, at a minimum, serious harassment from authorities, can the same be true on any other day? People tolerate extreme police powers when they seem temporary. But what if the emergency persists?" Continue reading →
"Since 9/11, law-abiding Americans have been subjected to intrusive 'security' measures and civil-liberties infringements. We have been forced to pay billions of dollars for the Department of Homeland Security and increasingly militarized police departments. What have we to show for it? Two men were able to detonate bombs at the most prominent point in a major city on its biggest day of the year. Intended or not, the bombing was a thumb in the eye of our so-called protectors. Bruce Schneier has aptly described the post-9/11 measures as 'security theater.' Clearly, the emperor has no clothes. Here’s another thing we know: This was a crime, not an act of war." Continue reading →
District 10 GOP Senator Bob Krist withdrew as co-introducer of the bill aimed at an extensive expansion of Nebraska's largest welfare program. So, now what?
"The Group of 20 countries called on Friday for a coordinated effort to stop international tax evasion, urging governments to systematically share bank data. Finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20, meeting in Washington, said in a communiqué that automatic exchange of tax-relevant bank information should be adopted as the global standard. The automatic exchange of tax data, an approach the United States has pushed, would represent a major change from the current procedures, in which countries are expected to provide such information only on request." Continue reading →
"Look at these chilling photos of a major American city under total martial law. The local police force and investigative units have switched over to military assault vehicles on the streets, robo-cop science-fiction soldiers plugged in to all manner of spooky devices looking like the Borg and screaming orders like 'if you want to live, turn off your cell phones.' Let us never forget that Dzhokar Tsarnaev was discovered by a private citizen, who happened to go out and check on his boat (i.e. violating the lockdown order of the cops), see a body inside of it, and call the cops. In other words, the police state achieved nothing but the psychological conditioning of the population." Continue reading →
"Russia and the United States agreed Saturday to step up cooperation in their fight against terror in the wake of news that two ethnic Chechens were suspected of organising the deadly Boston Marathon bombings. The Kremlin said Russian leader Vladimir Putin called US President Barack Obama to once again express his condolences and discuss ways the two sides can work more closely on security in the runup to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. 'I think that contacts will be conducted between our intelligence services,' Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in separate televised remarks." Continue reading →
"All day I was wondering what the heck the deal was and at about 11 pm I figured it out. On Facebook, I found this – a link to a list if tweets that in some way confused Czechoslovakia and Chechnya. Traffic was spiking so heavily because people were confusing the ethnically Chechen Boston bombing suspects with the no longer existent country of Czechoslovakia. I would like to reaffirm the important statement that there has been no such place as Czechoslovakia for over two decades. Maybe we need to better challenge a few trends in our society if we are calling authoritatively for the bombing of countries that don’t even exist." Continue reading →