From RR

• Freddie, Fannie removed from NYSE.
• Turkey set to freeze ties to Israel.
• Want to have the police department chasing cats around for a million dollars an hour?
• Know-Nothings call for state nullification of citizenship.
• The longest lost war. Not learning from the British or the Russians.
• Helen Thomas: an appreciation.
• Regarding Obama and BP, unsurprising: rule of law out the window.
• Now that US taxes citizens abroad (which apparently other countries don’t do) and other countries’ banks don’t want Americans’ business because they don’t want to spy on Americans for their government, more such people are resorting to something occasionally used by the rich: giving up US citizenship. At some US embassies there’s a waiting list up to two years. I understand Campbell’s Soup heir John Dorrance did that, using Ireland’s grandfather clause (if a grandparent emigrated you can get Irish citizenship) because of the US death tax; a tax exile: ‘It’s not that I don’t love my country but my family come first.’
• From good to bad to worse. Next time you lament the loss of life and property — and in many ways, the loss of innocence — represented by 9/11, remember everything else we lost as a result. In much the same way, the next time you’re told you must respect the President and hope for his success just because he happens to be President, consider the damage he and his policies have already done. There may not be any horrifying video footage of collapsing buildings playing over and over again on television today, but the long term effects are just as much the stuff of nightmares.
• Wikileaks vs The Pentagon Papers. Today the media are on the government’s side. Not shocking really because they always were statists and just wanted their side in power.
• The criminalisation of business. Government often uses the threat of criminal sanctions merely to harass corporations or for publicity purposes.
• End the drug war. Which candidate wanted to empty the jails of largely black, mostly non-violent drugs offenders? Hint: his picture’s in my sidebar.
• And the gods laughed. Obama and the ruling class now can barely stir themselves even to offer a convincing appearance of genuine concern for the huddled, oil-slicked masses. And honestly, why should they? Whatcha gonna do, baby? Most Americans sleepwalk through their days. To the extent they’re awake, more and more they struggle merely for survival. That doesn’t leave time for other activities. One notable exception to this somnolence can and will be made operational from time to time: many Americans will enthusiastically support another campaign of destruction against largely defenseless, usually much poorer (and usually darker-skinned) “Others,” especially when they’re five or eight thousand miles away (unless they’re threatening the inviolable sanctity of our “borders” here at home).
• Jon Stewart on Obama’s executive-power record.
• Military cuts: let’s start overseas.
• The US war addiction: funding enemies to fuel a trillion-dollar addiction.

Labels: history, libertarianism, Palestine, peace, politics, television