The Smoking Argus

ATLANTA, GEORGIA – Kurt Wallace, formerly of  Break the Matrix, has undertaken a new project to find the best pro-liberty/freedom movement articles and videos from around the new-media blogosphere. Kurt is seeking to expand upon the niche originally fostered by Matt Drudge of ‘The Drudge Report’ only obviously biased towards the expansion of freedom and a restoration of the Constitution.

Mr. Wallace feels that even in the environment of micro-blogging sites such as Twitter as well as the larger blogosphere itself, there is still a role for media aggregation. The idea first occurred to him after he would spend hours scouring the old-media news sites and blogosphere in preperation for his radio show. Thus last week the ‘Liberty Pulse’ officially went live with a full bevy of pro-liberty news. Currently the site is not monetized, but plans to offer advertising sometime in the near future.

On the Web: LibertyPulse.com

Tarrin Lupo

The 1st Amendment right to a free and open press is under attack at an ever-alarming rate. The stories of two new-media journalists, Sam Dodson¹ and Dave Ridley², jailed in New Hampshire coupled with the arrest of Adam Mueller from the Motorhome Diaries in Mississippi have circulated both the internet and old-media enclaves proving more now than ever, that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Thus, it is our duty to both understand and implement Judge Andrew Napolitano’s sentiment³ that “The Camera, is the new Gun”. Public officials must be held accountable and we must keep our cameras rolling in order to counterbalance the unchecked and growing power of the state.

Source(s): • ¹Carlos Miller’s Photography is Not a Crime “Newly released video of Sam Dodson’s arrest reveal painful screams”, published may 6th, 2009 • ²Happily Oblivious “Freedom Activist Dave Ridley Arrested” published March 3rd, 2009 • ³Freedomwatch with Andrew Napolitano – originally aired May 27th, 2009

Allison Bricker

As someone who did not vote for President Obama, (my vote went to Thomas Jefferson as a write-in) never did my imagination fathom that he would move so quickly in continuing the unConstitutional “Bushian” expansion of the Executive Branch. Case in point, President Obama gave a speech this past Thursday filled with enough doublespeak as it relates to the rule of law and torture to make Mr. O’Brien proud.

Thus proving yet again, holding a degree in Constitutional Law does not necessarily equate to a love or respect for the Constitution. Unfortunately, it seems at least in this case, only to serve as a road map to its circumvention. However, the fact that Ms. Maddow of “The Rachel Maddow Show” rakes him over the coals for such intellectual dishonesty provides further substantiation that the false left/right paradigm’s facade continues to crumble as more and more Americans are awakening. It is becoming plain that regardless of party label/mascot,  a politician’s sole motivation is the retention and expansion of power unto themselves via the bloated state apparatus.

Long Live the Republic, as the answer to 1984 is still 1776.

Joseph Marohl

I’m getting a new look at The Wizard of Oz. Right now, a fair-sized section of “hope you can believe in” has been pulled back to reveal the old quack Professor Marvel, who was hidden there all along—torture, surveillance, high finance, and (despite a recent epistolary assurance to the contrary) the same old same old in health care reform. (I don’t make predictions, but my guess is a good chunk of “reform” change will wind up in the pockets of insurance companies and big pharma—mind you, just a guess.)

I wouldn’t go so far as to deny that Obama has brought some Technicolor rays to our black-and-white world.

Sure, as far as same-sex marriage is concerned, we see some encouraging changes—on the state level (not federal)—from which, shamefully, in my opinion, the new wizard is holding himself just as aloof as the old wizard, under whose watch these state legislative and judicial reforms emerged. And, to be fair, the religious right no longer feel quite as empowered as they did a year ago in resisting these changes, despite a monstrous, shocking victory in California six months ago.

(It is good news indeed that my gay sisters and brothers who want to get married are increasingly enabled to do so—though, I should add, I personally have no desire to get married, and legal and economic inequities towards single people—gay or straight—remain unopposed.)

And while not having quite gotten around to dumping “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—and even continuing to enforce it (ask Lt. Dan Choi!)—Obama still promises further inroads on gay rights … “some time.”

And, sure, the Guantanamo prison-slash-interrogation center is scheduled for closure in just eight months. Fantastic news for those of us with a feeling for human rights fresher than the year 1215! But, at present, closure of the infamous (and barely legal) detention center has no funding.

On the other hand, we have seen a proposed 15% cap on credit card interests defeated this week 60-33 in the Senate—denying indebted consumers the type of safety nets Washington is shitting itself to give to failing banks and other lending institutions. Twenty-one (21!) of the nay votes were Democrats; five more Democrats did not vote at all.

Not to suggest that, for one minute, I placed much confidence in the Democratic Party to stand up for the people against big capital … much less to Republican bullies and loudmouths.

Now, just like Bush, Obama is trying to block disclosure of photographs of Americans’ torture of detainees, on the understandable grounds that they may “inflame anti-American sentiment” (but only just as understandable now as when the Bush White House made the same argument). Meanwhile, the nation engaged this week in the “single deadliest US airstrike” on Afghanistan since 2001—one of a series of attacks designed ostensibly to weaken al-Qaeda while politically proving Obama’s commander-in-chief cojones. So 100 civilian lives have no anti-American propaganda potential?

Also out from behind the curtain is Obama’s indifference to US and international conventions in choosing not to go after the high-level members of the previous administration who blighted America’s global reputation and moral integrity by promoting and condoning inhuman and ineffective techniques of torture (including Cheney and Bush—as well as culpable Democrats).

The media, meanwhile, have responded to these revelations with little heart, brains, or courage … with the continues-to-amaze exception of stand-up comics!

Obama—God help me, I still like him (and do not in fact believe in God)—needs to put some ruby slippers on his rhetoric. And fast!

I admire the man’s style, manners, and his political savvy. But only what he says appeases the left; what he does appeases the right. In trying to show he’s no “socialist,” he panders to war-mongering, corporate capitalist interests. He panders with a great deal of dignity and wit, I have to admit, but it’s time for him to make direct and deliberate domestic and international policy changes of substance.

I can’t help but worry that Obama is squandering the window of opportunity he has had since February. The good news is that, for now, the far right and religious right are in shambles—but they are regrouping … fast … and with a vengeance.

My worst fear (hopefully groundless) is that their present whining over socialism, terrorist threats, higher taxes (after a tax cut, no less), teleprompters, and Dijon mustard will turn the tide entirely back to the dark ages many of us were hoping to escape.

The wicked witch could still use a good bucket of water—and the flying monkeys need a good talking to. Americans are ready for change, equality, liberation, hope, whatever you want to call it. But it (none of it) will come by following the same road we’ve been on for decades now already.

Russell Means

(Original Video Blog) As we all sit awestruck in front of the television, the computer, or the newspaper, Mr. Means offers us a solution to the current Global calamity. In his own beautifully articulated words, Mr. Means, explains both how the World got into this mess and how we can move back towards sanity and wholeness. We must, as he says, return to Matriarchy, a balance, respectful way of life where we celebrate our differences, rather than stifle, or even, destroy them.

Allison Bricker

February 12th, 2009

Dear Fellow Readers,

We would like to thank all of you for welcoming us to the Blogosphere with such an overwhelming positive response. Thanks to your participation and continued readership, SmArgus has become one of the fastest rising blogs in the three short months since our launch. Our number one goal remains providing our readers with sourced, credible insight and commentary on the political issues of the day, that the old media either will not or cannot cover.

We know your time is valuable and that there are literally millions of blogs on the internet. Therefore, in order to make sure you get the most out of the time you invest with us, we would like to know what you; the reader would like to see as a regular feature on SmArgus. Whether it is the addition of podcasts, videos, interviews, or if you have a general criticism, we would love to hear about it.

So if you could take just an additional moment or two, please contact us and let us know what you would like to see become a regular part of The Smoking Argus Daily.

Cordially,

Allison Bricker
Editor & Publisher

Your privacy is important to us and therefore no information provided will be divulged to any third party whatsoever.

Joseph Marohl

Last Monday Nadya Suleman of Whittier, California, gave birth to eight babies, through in vitro fertilization. The eight new babies join six siblings, ages two through seven, Suleman also conceived in vitro. Suleman is unmarried, and according to her mother Angela Suleman, she has been “obsessed” with having children since her teens.

I have to say that I have been immune to this obsession all my life. Even as a child, I was not especially fond of other children. My attitudes were perhaps partly informed by my own status as my parents’ only child.

I can’t go as far as W.C. Fields, who quipped, “I never met a kid I liked,” but I’ve always been dumbfounded by the question “Do you like children?” or “What do you think about children?” You might as well ask me what I think of forty year olds.

Some children are okay, sure, but in general children are no more attractive or interesting than adults in general—that is, the mass majority of them are dullards, an alarming number of them are assholes, and a few, too few, of them are delightful.

Suleman’s obsession, though, besides being a matter for medical ethicists to debate, is another sure sign of the decadence of American culture. The obsession with “bigger” and “more” and “never enough” is a peculiar one to capitalism, I feel.

American capitalism is goal-oriented. Her friends and family tell the media that Suleman’s goal was to be a mother. But for Americans, once the goal is met, new and grander goals have to be set—especially when the original goal proves unsatisfying. To claim that insatiety, whether in matters of childbearing or personal net worth, is a normal and natural human condition is to ignore history: Plenty of people have been able to say “enough,” not through lack of ability or smallness of passion or feeling, but through appreciation for the boundaries of experience.

A sense of accomplishment is a golden feeling—like new love—but also like new love, it is transient. Obsession seems to be a drive to make the transient endlessly and predictably reduplicable, if not permanent.

Furthermore, it’s interesting to me that America’s best-known native religion, the Church of Latter-Day Saints, is based on the potentially limitless expansion of souls and family, as the key to its view of a happy afterlife. It’s a religion that should have been invented on Wall Street.

I suppose a few opponents of abortion also oppose the sort of manifest destiny Suleman’s procreation habit appears to endorse. But, I suspect, too few. Pro-life implicitly suggests prolific and profligate. I generalize, but I sense a connection there. Underlying the pro-life movement is, in addition to a scarily reductive idea of human sexuality, an assumption that women’s fulfillment comes most truly through pregnancy and childbirth. Women like Suleman strike me as the victims of this idea. (I should perhaps apologize—I cannot judge or even fairly evaluate Suleman’s motives, but I find her actions perplexing and disturbing.)

The sterility that stifles some people’s lives cannot be bought off by assembly-line production of even more sterile lives. Technology’s capacity to mass-produce has served the ends of consumer capitalism but not so much the health of the human spirit. To this extent, technology and capitalism, while having done much to improve standards of living viewed through the lens of economics, have usually diminished quality of life from the perspective of humanism.

Allison Bricker

On New Year’s Eve, while Kelly was at work, our youngest son and myself, spent the evening  in his bedroom building the Lego Star Wars ship he received from his Grandparents as a Christmas gift. Our youngest, being the complete Chicago Bears fan that he is, had his little alarm clock radio tuned to 780 AM WBBM, which is the station that broadcasts all the games, etcetera.

During a commercial break, we heard a help wanted advertisement from the CIA, attempting to recruit Americans to apply for a position in “The National Clandestine Service”.  The commercial contains buzz words like “patriotism”, “adventure”, “ambiguity”, and reeks of a Federal Government out of control.

A few question immediately sprang to my mind after hearing the CIA recruitment bulletin. Does a free nation really need a national snoop patrol? Is this in any way connected to President-Elect Obama’s previous remarks at a “Civilian National Security Force”? And what has become of our Republic? Fellow readers our country is indeed changing. As we sit mapping out sushi restaurants on our iPhones, the sacrifice of the Founding Generation is being wholly disposed of carte blanche in favor of “protecting the Homeland” and other ludicrous fear mongering one-liners.

Then again, it is obvious that the government’s definition of patriotism or perhaps more appropriately, neo-patriotism differs starkly from mine. Living under a constant surveillance apparatus coupled along with neighborhood snitches and the NSA’s “Black Widow” FISA approved, random email/phone-call eavesdropping computer program is the furthest thing from patriotic. Quite frankly, you do not defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic by side-stepping its enshrined restrictions against government abuse.

However, many may recall that shortly after September 11th, then Secretary of Defense and torture advocate, Donald Rumsfeld, along with his trigger-happy associate, Paul Wolfowitz pushing the idea of hot line for citizens to report “suspicious activities”.

“counter-surveillance of U.S. civilians is a perfectly understandable thing. In short,it’s no big deal.”
Donald Rumsfeld National Press Club Speech 2006

Source(s):

Allison Bricker

Speaking during the Financial Services Committee, Dr. Paul takes his colleagues to task over the assumption that the answer to scandals like those involving Bernard Madoff, is more regulation. Representative Paul also goes on to admonish the lack of prosecutions for fraud as a means to hold those who abuse the system accountable.

The Smoking Argus

As we get ready to shuffle off the “Crisis of ’08″ for the “Collapse of ’09″ we present to you our loyal readers, a look back at some of the best posts from our 4th Quarter debut…

• “Small Town America” by: Kelly Frahm
  




• “The fairness Doctrine: Internet Censorship Coming Soon to a Web page Near You” by: Allison Bricker
  




• “Ruskin’s 21st Century (an educator’s rant)” by: Joseph Marohl
  




• “Putting the ‘Mental’ in Fundamentalist” by: Mandy Hyndman
  




• “Mindlessness is for the Birds” by: Mandy Hyndman




• “Bailout Will Lead to Economic Depression” by: Allison Bricker




• “Why My Vote for President will not go to Senator Obama” by: Allison Bricker




• “Boys to Men” by: Joseph Marohl

We look forward to providing our insight and analysis in the coming years ahead. Thank you to everyone who has helped make our first 4 months in the blogosphere an absolutely positive experience.