Friday, March 13, 2015 Criminal Violence as Political Theater: Standard Operating Procedure for the FBI   They collected them — and probably sold them, too: Feds pose with firearms confiscated at the border. “The Investigations Division of the Office of the Inspector General has thoroughly reviewed your allegations and concluded that the issues raised do […]

Thursday, March 19, 2015 Cold War II: This Time, The Commies Are In Washington   How the Communist takeover was supposed to look, according to “Red Dawn” (1984) … The Regime in Washington is the only government asserting the supposed right to carry out summary executions anywhere on the face of the globe, so we […]

Sunday, April 5, 2015 From “Civil Rights” to Cultural Totalitarianism The public memory of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement has been shaped by iconic images of state-licensed violence – peaceful protesters being beaten and otherwise abused by police for exercising the right to seek redress of grievances. The civil rights movement began as an effort […]

Tuesday, April 7, 2015 Uniformed Predators in the ER: The Scapegoating of Doug Towell “Lie still – Life Flight’s on the way.” Doug  Towell vaguely remembers hearing those words while prone and bleeding from a head wound on Idaho State Highway 21. His next memory is of being seized by irrepressible panic. “My wife!” he […]

Thursday, April 9, 2015 Michael Thomas Slager: Vocational Sociopath Solidarity, not skepticism: Patrolman Slager’s supervisor comforts the killer as the victim’s life ebbs away. As many have said, were it not for the video, Michael Thomas Slager would have been quickly exonerated – and, most likely, received a commendation – for the killing of Walter […]

Monday, April 13, 2015 Apparently, the Fantasy Cop Package Doesn’t Include “Qualified Immunity” Note: This essay has been updated to reflect the criminal charge against Robert Bates. Some wealthy men of a certain age pay an extravagant fee to attend fantasy camps where they can pretend to be Major League Baseball players, or engage in […]

Sunday, April 26, 2015 Gary Raney, Oath Breaker (Update, April 28)   Already planning his next career move: The double-minded Raney is sworn in, January 2013. When Gary Raney was re-elected as Sheriff of Idaho’s Ada County in 2012, voters who made that unfortunate choice expected that he would remain in office until the end […]

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 Globalizing America’s “Divorce Regime” A “single `no’ vote” by the Idaho Legislature disrupted “the finely crafted choreography” behind a UN child support treaty, laments the New York Times. Unless this is reversed in a special legislative session, the paper tremulously informed its dwindling band of readers, the legal architecture of international […]

Thursday, April 30, 2015 “Nickel Rides,” “Houdini Suicides,” and the American Torture State Like iron filings rearranging themselves in the presence of a magnetic field, reflexive apologists for the police quickly adapt to every official explanation for egregious misconduct. Knowing that official insinuation suffices when facts are withheld, the Baltimore PD leaked the suggestion that […]

Thursday, May 7, 2015 “This is America”: The Day Police Firebombed West Philadelphia “Let it burn”: Osage Avenue, Philadelphia, May 13, 1985 By the time Lt. Frank Powell hurled a satchel bomb onto the roof of a three-story row house on Philadelphia’s Osage Avenue, the siege had gone on for nearly twelve hours. Powell was […]

Tuesday, May 12, 2015 Support Your Local Private Peace Officer: He Has A Dangerous Job Peace Officer Down: The aftermath of the fatal shooting of Alvin Kinney in Houston. At the end of every shift, police officers call their loved ones to assure them that they “made it through another day without injury,” observes a […]

Monday, May 18, 2015 Pity the Poor Stormtroopers: Baby Bou-Bou Ambushed Them (Updated, May 21) The truth in black and white — but don’t believe it: Sheriff Joey insists that this is the face of a criminal. (See the update at the bottom of the essay, or click here.) It was the baby’s fault that […]

Friday, May 22, 2015 Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: None Are Safe from the State’s Plundering Parasites All aboard Amtrak — in Germany, circa 1938. (Still from “The Mortal Storm.”) “Is anyone present carrying more than ten marks, or planning to take out of the country any foreign money, gold, jewels, or other valuables?” demanded the […]

Monday, June 15, 2015 The Trouble with Kids Today: Too Much Deference to “Authority,” Too Little Respect for Property Staking his claim: A state-authorized dispenser of violence asserts ownership of a Mundane. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on […]

Thursday, June 18, 2015 Ain’t That Amerika: Routine State Terrorism in the Imperial Capital “Officer Safety” uber alles, you know. The eleven-year-old girl shrieked in horror as the shower curtain was ripped away, leaving her exposed to the view of a large male stranger. Her sense of  violation was compounded by the threat of immediate, […]