Constitution

Thieves Steal A Record Amount In Washington

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Well, that’s Washington State not DC where there are undoubtably also record amounts being stolen.
In Washington State thieves and thugs stole a record $270 million dollars of one crop in 2005. The sad thing is that they are not being brought to justice:

The 135,323 marijuana plants seized in 2005 were estimated to be worth $270 million — a record amount that places the crop among the state’s top 10 agricultural commodities, based on the most recent statistics available.
And like any agricultural product, marijuana is very much a commodity, Lt. Rich Wiley, who heads the Washington State Patrol narcotics program, said Wednesday.
“We’re struck by the amount of work they put into it,” Wiley said. “It’s very labor-intensive. They often run individual drip lines to each plant and are out there fertilizing them. It takes a tremendous amount of work.”
But the results are worth the effort, said Wiley, who coordinates pot busts with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and local law enforcement agencies. A single plant can produce as much as a pound of processed marijuana, worth about $2,000, he said.

If the current elected governments will not protect our right as free human beings to engage in voluntary exchange with other free human beings then it is time to put in place institutions that will.

NSA Hearing Scope Too Narrow?

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Orin Kerr picks up on something that’s been nagging at me today as I listened to the judicial committee hearings. There is a lot more going on than the particular program that seemed to be the focus of today’s hearings:

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the AG’s testimony is his suggestion, made at various places, that there are other classified telecommunications surveillance programs beyond FISA and the NSA program.

If these focus at all on domestic surveillance without warrants then they need to be brought out into the light of day.

Oh yea, wasn’t gonzalez adept at saying nothing! But did anyone expect anything different?

End The War Now!

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As Ron says:

While the war in Iraq may outrageous there is another war that is equally outrageous and is truly bi-partisan, the war on drugs.

And Anthony Gregory frames this abomination as we all should:

The drug war is misdirected. It is foolish. It is stupid, unworkable, disastrous, tragic and sad. But beyond all that it is evil.
The drug war is grounded in an evil premise: that people do not own their bodies, that they have no right to control what they do with their own lives and their own property, that it is appropriate to lock them in cages if they produce, distribute or consume chemicals in defiance of the state.
This is a monstrosity. As long as America has the drug war, it is not a free country. Politicians who support it and expand it, knowing the evils it entails, have no business lecturing us on morality.
The ideology of the war on drugs is the ideology of totalitarianism, of communism, of fascism and of slavery. In practice, it has made an utter mockery of the rule of law and the often-spouted idea that America is the freest country on earth.

Read the rest and then consider just how you will start standing up to the jackboots of the drug war. How you will help lead them to their Nuremberg and there is no excuse for any of the drug thugs be they presidents, senators, governors, mayors, narcs, prosecutors, swat teams, etc. They should all know better.

They are all guilty of crimes against humanity.

Taxing the Constitution

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I wonder just why these folks think this will pass constitutional muster(reg):

The governor’s tax-reform commission is considering a new state business tax of around 1 percent on the gross income or gross receipts of all corporations and partnerships on their business in Texas, the panel’s chairman said Tuesday.

Pretty standard looking at first glance, but check out this next bit:

“If you’re out of state and you sell products in Texas but you manufacture those products in California, you’re going to pay higher taxes than if you had built a plant in Texas and hired people in Texas,” he said. “If all your buildings and employees are sitting up in Chicago, you’re going to pay more.”

As noted in Granholm v Held:

(a) This Court has long held that, in all but the narrowest circumstances, state laws violate the Commerce Clause if they mandate “differential treatment of in-state and out-of-state economic interests that benefits the former and burdens the latter.” Oregon Waste Systems, Inc. v. Department of Environmental Quality of Ore., 511 U.S. 93, 99.

If this goes through as is it looks like it will make a few lawyers happy with their future work.

It Could Be Worse

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I’ve done my share of griping about king george and the erosion of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness driven by the bushies, congress, state legislatures, your nearest city council and, yes, your fellow voters.
It could be worse!
In the US, even though you don’t get to see the caskets coming home, you can still see these images.
As Clara points out: if you live in China you will see these pictures instead of these.

Via Jonathon Wilde.

Update (1/30): Via Brad DeLong is this post which finds that spelling can make a big difference at google.cn. So, anyone care to speculate as to how long it will take the chinese masters to get this fixed?