So you've heard that we're sending "humanitarian aid" (warships and commandoes) into Georgia, supposedly to prevent Russia from assisting a couple of Georgian republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, from seceding into Russia.

The truth, of course, is that the we're going there because Georgia is "our ally" and Russia is "the enemy" and Washington will not tolerate any challenge to its supremacy.

Watch the FOX News anchor panic when a 12-year-old eyewitness and her aunt both attempt to explain that it was the Russians trying to help them and the Georgian government that dropped the bombs:

But the real issue here is, why should we even care that a few republics, that few Americans even knew to exist, choose to live under Russia instead of Georgia? Why should our troops have to risk their lives to "protect" a foreign nation from having a few of its states secede? What business is it of ours?

America is broke. $9 trillion in debt. $30 trillion obliged. Bridges collapsing. Troops over-extended overseas. And on top of that, the Bush regime, with the consent of the Democratic Congress, has sent our troops to meddle in a civil war on the other side of the planet.

What better way to ensure the total collapse of the American economy, than to continue this foreign policy?

And with long-time Russia-hater Zbigniew Brzezinski at his side, rest absolutely certain that this policy will continue under the Obama administration.

I met before the event with some other liberty-oriented conservatives prior to the county convention.  We had three goals in mind: first, we wanted to go to the state convention.  Second, we wanted to fill vacancies on the Executive Committee, the decision-making body for the county party.  Third, we wanted a rule change that added an attendance requirement for Executive Committee members.  The way we saw it was simple: for the last several months the Executive Committee was paralyzed because not enough members showed up at meetings to have quorum.  We wanted the county party to better reflect us, and we wanted the county party to be able to move, which they weren't due to the lack of attendance.

We soon found out that none of the preparation mattered.  The convention was not the time to deal with Executive Committee business, and everyone that showed up was registered as a delegate to the state convention.  Oh well.

But there was one interesting thing at the event: David Trent, nominated for Salem Township Clerk by 9 votes over Mary Cowmeadow, announced that he won the election and would win the recount because "[his] supporters were administering the elections throughout the township."

Yes, that's right.  David Trent told a room of 60 people, the most active Republicans in the county, essentially that he rigged the election for himself by allying himself with those that counted the votes. 

You know what the response to this remarkable admission was?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Not even from the Ron Paul supporters—we were too stunned to say anything!

There's really only one lesson to be learned from this.  If you're running for office, the clerks and election administrators had better be on your side.  They wield the power to steal elections, and unless you have people who are dependably honest and won't rook you out of victory, expect to be rooked out of victory.

Next year, the race is on for fair elections—can you become an election administrator?  It's time to look into this.

This appeared in the July 2008 issue of Raw Zine, a monthly put out by Ann Arbor's punk community.  You can get copies by sending a S.A.S.E.  to Raw Haüs, Box 8223, Ann Arbor, 48107.  I can't resist posting an observation this astute, and I would only add that this also shows that the city doesn't expect the average citizens to notice these things.

Anyway, here's the scoop on the new trash bins:

The new green trash and recycling boxes are deceptively nice-looking and seem to promote the sorting of materials in a small effort to save the planet from consumerist destruction.  I think they're kind of big and take up too much sidewalk space.  Pedestrian space is filling with clutter.

In reality, however, the significance of the green boxes is far more nefarious.  Subtle design elements are employed to guide social policy and enact political goals.

FOR EXAMPLE:

1) Park benches have been replaced with individual seating separated by armrests, not because weary travelers need to prop their elbows, but rather to prevent people sleeping on them.

2) Railings have been installed that feature ridges every couple feet.  These are not to help your grip but rather to discourage skateboarders from grinding them.

3) The cement trashcans are covered with pebbles not to resemble ancient seabeds but rather to make it difficult to apply flyers, stencils, or graffiti.

SIMILARLY,

4) The new green metal recycling and trash boxes are not intended to beautify the city or sort recyclables.  The holes are impossible to see or reach through and the boxes are kept locked IN ORDER TO PREVENT PEOPLE FROM RUMMAGING THROUGH THE GARBAGE AND COLLECTING EMPTIES.

Out City has embarked on an agenda to clean up and control the activities that can be conducted publicly.  There shall be no public sleeping skateboarding, or trash picking.  Even flyering has been limited to lamp posts and utility poles, and only within two weeks of the advertised event.

Homeless people (and others) will not find income from empties they cannot reach in the new green boxes.  Nor will we find interesting things in the trash to share with our friends.

[Just today, as we were walking down the street, a friend found a nice pair of shoes in the trash and gave them to another friend --A2planet]

BUT pushing activities out of the public venue does not make them go away.  It simply relocates them to designated places.  Shelters are for sleeping; support is to be found from charities not empties; etc.  Is it right to sterilize our streets and social spaces in this way?  Who decides which aspects of human life shall be made invisible to society?

An Iraqi-British journalist returns to Baghdad to see what the city has become. This is not the sort of footage you will ever see on American television.

The Reverend Pinkney story is too long to tell here. (but it is found at bhbanco.blogspot.com)  I've been receiving e-mails about him for years, and his ongoing battles against corrupt judges.  Here, then, is the latest:

By Atty.  Hugh "Buck" Davis

The campaign of the power structure in St. Joseph/Berrien County, Michigan against the poorest city in the state, Benton Harbor (94% black, 70% unemployed) and the leader of the resistance, the Reverend Edward Pinkney, took a dangerous and destructive turn on July 26, 2008, when Pinkney was found to be in violation of the terms of his probation for "threatening" the trial judge by paraphrasing Chapter 30 of Deuteronomy to the effect that God will punish those who persist in the path of injustice.

To recap, Reverend Pinkney proved in 2005 that you have a right to free speech until you start to make a difference.  He successfully engineered the recall campaign of the corrupt political boss of Benton Harbor who was collaborating with the power structure (Whirlpool Corporation and the Cornerstone Alliance) to take some of the most valuable property owned by Benton Harbor and turn it into a luxury residential/resort/
condominium/marina/Jack Nicklaus golf course, depriving the once proud industrial city of its "in perpetuity" park on Lake Michigan and other valuable riverfront property.

Immediately thereafter, the recalled supervisor and the county sheriff swept through the community, threatening absentee voters and their families in order to obtain evidence that the recall election was tainted by fraud and that Pinkney, the leader of the recall, bought votes.  By threats and bribery, the authorities ultimately came up with a few vulnerable citizens (e.g.- drug addicts, prisoners, probationers, prostitutes, those with loved ones in jeopardy) to claim that Pinkney either paid a few people from a soup kitchen $5.00 to vote absentee ballots or that Pinkney improperly handled otherwise valid absentee ballots by delivering them from the voter to the city clerk.  Interestingly, buying votes is a misdemeanor.  But having possession of an absentee ballot without any criminal intent is a felony.

The prosecutor sued the Benton Harbor City Clerk to set aside the election and the City refused to defend its own clerk.  The local judge, who sat on the election commission and had opposed the recall petition, ruled that the election was invalid because it seemed bad, even though the prosecutor could not show enough "fraudulent" ballots to change the results.  That judge, the Honorable Paul Maloney, has since been appointed by Bush to the federal bench in the Western District of Michigan.

After the election was set aside, the prosecutor brought criminal charges against Pinkney, intimidating his supporters while the establishment put money into the new election and the recall was reversed.

In his first trial, Pinkney had two black jurors and got a mistrial.  In his second trial, despite a jury challenge, Pinkney had an all white jury, which convicted him on all counts.

Prior to sentencing, Pinkney took a polygraph test which exonerated him on every single element of every charge against him, but the prosecutor refused to run an official polygraph, presumably because they already knew that they had framed an innocent man.  The trial judge, Alfred Butzbaugh, former President of the Michigan State Bar and the most progressive judge on the bench, refused the prosecutor and probation department's request to put Pinkney in prison, giving him a year in jail and leaving him out on tether during the post-trial proceedings.

That was May 2007.  In December 2007, the probation department, which had been monitoring Pinkney minutely on his probation and tether, apparently expanded its interest in Pinkney's political activities to reading a story that Pinkney wrote in the November 2007 issue of The People's Tribune, a leftist paper published by the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, published in Chicago.  In it, Pinkney, as he has for years, called the criminal justice system in Berrien County racist, corrupt and ignorant.

Without consulting Judge Butzbaugh, the probation department went to the allegedly worst racist on the Berrien County Bench (Dennis Wiley).  He signed a probation violation warrant against Pinkney based on the premise that Pinkney was forbidden to defame or harass anyone as a condition of his probation.  At the original violation hearing before Butzbaugh, he agreed that it was protected speech and refused to find a violation.

Judge Butzbaugh then sua sponte pointed to another portion of the same article in which Pinkney, naming Butzbaugh specifically, as well as the court and the power structure of St.  Joseph/Berrien County generaly, warned them if they continued in the ways of injustice, then they, their families and the community would suffer consequences at the hand of God.  Judge Butzbaugh adjourned the hearing to consider whether this constituted a "threat" against him in violation of Pinkney's probation.  He later entered an order finding it to be a probable violation, but disqualifying himself from the hearing, which he transferred to Judge Wiley.

Pinkney challenged Judge Wiley as biased, since Pinkney had for years directly accused Wiley of being among "Benton Harbor's most wanted for crimes against humanity" wearing t-shirts to that effect at rallies, demonstrations, in the courthouse and in Wiley's courtroom.  Wiley had Pinkney removed from his courtroom because of the t-shirt at least twice and had forced Pinkney to take off the t-shirt when he was brought in for the arraignment on the probation violation.  Judge Wiley held a hearing and determined that he was not biased.  Pinkney appealed to the Chief Judge, Butzbaugh, to disqualify Wiley and the entire Berrien County bench.  Butzbaugh denied the motion and sent the hearing back to Wiley.

During this entire time, the prosecutor, being confident, never filed a substantive memorandum or paper, put on any witnesses or otherwise attempted to justify their position.  The ACLU filed an amicus brief clearly indicating that making a statement in a publication paraphrasing the biblical prophecies and calling on divine intervention in the iniquitous affairs of society has been found not to be a "true threat" outside the First Amendment.  At the hearing, the prosecution did nothing more than present the newspaper article.

Pinkney testified that it was not intended as a threat to any person in particular, but reflected his belief that injustice would bring about divine retribution.  A prominent pastor, educated at Union Theological Seminary in New York, testified to the history and nature of those portions of the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament and that they did not contemplate any human action, either directly or indirectly, against the objects of the prophecy.

Judge Wiley summoned up a full load of righteous indignation that anyone should make such statements and found them to be true threats, rejecting the ACLU amicus.  He then proceeded to revoke Pinkney's probation and sentenced him to 3 to 10 years in prison, twice what had been asked by the Probation Department and the Prosecutor.

The appeal of this horrendous decision, making Pinkney the only known preacher in the history of America to be imprisoned for quoting the Bible, is a joint ACLU-NLG project in which the ACLU will handle the First Amendment substantive claim and Guild attorneys will handle the disqualification/sentencing issues.

In addition, Pinkney's direct appeal is pending and a petition for clemency has been submitted to Michigan Governor Granholm and the Parole Board.

Write Rev. Pinkney at:

Hiawatha Correctional Facility
Rev. Edward Pinkney #294671
4533 Industrial Park Dr.
Kincheloe, MI 49786-0001

Write of Rev. Pinkney to:

Michigan Department of Corrections
Office of the Parole Board
Pardons and Commutations Coordinator
Post Office Box 30003
Lansing, Michigan 48909

Bad news first: Linda Goldthorpe, running for Congress in Michigan's first district, lost her primary election. In all likelihood, the globalist war-monger Bart Stupak will keep his seat. Even if Tom Casperson manages to win the seat, Casperson, having promised nothing to anybody, will be no friend of liberty at all. Back in Ann Arbor, the more populist, fiscally responsible candidate for City Council, Vivienne Armentrout, lost the Democratic primary to Carsten Hohnke. Unless Armentrout runs independent, the race is over. Remind me to write Vivienne about doing so.

Good news, though: Ken DeVee, a true conservative who will defend civil liberties and fiscal responsibility, won his primary for the 55th State House district. The 55th is Pittfield and various parts of Monroe county (map here).

Also, the repugnant Margaret Connors and Joan Lowenstein both lost the primary to less-evil Chris Easthope and Eric Gutenberg for the 15th District Court vacancy. Between the two, I prefer Gutenberg, though not by much.

Unless I decide to get involved with DeVee's race, I am probably not going to be involved in any particular races until the Campaign For Liberty's website project is completed.

Update: It appears that, in remarkable similarity to Linda Golthorpe's race, the vote totals have changed to make Ken DeVee the loser of the race, not the winner (throughout the 1st District, media reported on election night that Linda had won). Let's hope Ken and Linda will get to the bottom of this...