Trump: Nemo me impune lacessit

"When other people see you don’t take crap, that you’re really going after someone for wronging you, they will respect you. Always have a good reason to go after someone. Do not do it without a good reason. When you are wronged, go after those people because it’s a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it. When you are in business, you need to get even with people who screw you. You need to screw them back 15 times harder. You do it not only to get the person who messes with you, but also to show the others who are watching what will happen to them if they mess with you. If someone attacks you, do not hesitate. Go for the jugular. Attack them back in spades."

"When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families... When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."

D.Trump

Signs of an eminent paradigm collapse

Hackers and mercenaries challenging terrorist more effectively than US forces.

Counter-despised major US political candidates.

The reversal of peak oil.

Do it yourself healthcare and renegade molecular medicinal research.

Crypto currency and encryption.

The shrinking whiteman.

The struggling first world and rising third.

Mainstream Media is not the Message.

Rise of political outsiders &  the end of political correctness.

A president not of the people.

P2P pritization of govt/corporate regulated services (ie: Uber).

Texas police chief warns Obama of revolution if gun grab

by DAVID WARREN | DEC. 9, 2015

DALLAS (AP) -- A Texas police chief who warns President Barack Obama in a social media video that trying to disarm Americans would "cause a revolution in this country" is the latest law enforcement official to urge citizens to arm themselves in the wake of mass shootings.

Randy Kennedy, longtime chief in the small East Texas town of Hughes Springs, about 120 miles east of Dallas, says in the video posted this week on his personal Facebook page that the Second Amendment was established to protect people from criminals and "terrorists and radical ideology."

"It's also there to protect us against a government that has overreached its power," Kennedy says in the video. "You are not our potentate, sir. You are our servant."

He warned people in his town to prepare themselves: "Be ready when the wolf comes to the door, because it's on its way."

Law enforcement officials in Arizona, Florida and New York also have recently prompted citizens to arm themselves - some using similar comments aimed at terrorism.

Kennedy said his call to arms was the result of his disappointment with Obama's Oval Office speech Sunday in which the president vowed the U.S. will overcome a new phase of the terror threat that seeks to "poison the minds" of people here and around the world. The police chief told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he's not asking residents to turn into vigilantes or "become super action heroes."

He said feedback on his video has been supportive for the most part.

"There have been a few extremely nasty comments, calling me basically a backwoods redneck hick creating monsters that don't exist," he said.

Wayne Ivey, the sheriff in Brevard County, Florida, said in a video post on the department's Facebook page over the weekend that political leaders appear more interested in being politically correct than protecting people. He urged residents to arm themselves as a first line of defense against an active shooter.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," Ivey said.

Another Florida sheriff, Steve Whidden in Hendry County, this week encouraged more people to carry weapons because "we as a nation are under attack by radical Islamic terrorists."

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona issued a statement Tuesday asking "legally armed citizens to take a stand, and take action during a mass shooting/terrorist event until law enforcement arrives."

And last week, Ulster County Sheriff Paul Van Blarcum in upstate New York called for licensed gun owners in his county to arm themselves when leaving home, citing mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, California.

The FBI said last week that it processed a record number of firearms background checks on Black Friday, the busy shopping time the day after Thanksgiving. The agency processed 185,345 background checks - roughly two per second - the same day that three people were killed and nine others wounded in an attack at a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado.

The previous record for the most background checks in a single day was Dec. 21, 2012, about a week after 20 children and six adults were shot to death in a Connecticut elementary school. The week following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary saw the processing of 953,613 gun background checks.

Dec/15 Trends

CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing

Modern Crusades

Groupthink vs Innovation

Gun grab starts revolution

Repugnant presidential choices

Antibiotic resistant e-coli

SCOTUS considers polygamy

US social tipping point

Marion Marechal-Le Pen

FLIR drone

Google sub cures aging

Synthetic meat for the masses

Paul slams 'fat-ass neocon bitch' Christie over bulk data collection

DEC. 7, 2015

Sen. Rand Paul hit out at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as a "fat-ass neocon bitch" over the National Security Agency's bulk data collection due to his willingness to "give up" liberty in the wake of terror attacks over the past few weeks.

Appearing on "Morning Joe," Paul went after Christie, along with Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, over the their stances on metadata collection, adding that they should focus on securing the border in an effort to "defend the country."

"I think it's actually made us less safe," Paul said about the bulk data collection. "Because I think the haystack is so large that we're getting lost in the haystack. I would like to target the people that are coming here to attack us, and I think people like Rubio and Christie and Bush, they're not willing to defend the border, and I think, really, we shouldn't have let this woman in from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. We need to have some limits on who comes to visit us. We need to make sure they're not intent on attacking us. That's how you defend the country."

When pressed by host Joe Scarborough on whether a middle ground could be reached on data collection, Paul argued that the program didn't stop the Boston bombing or the French terror attack, adding that the French data collection program is "1,000 times more invasive" and "on steroids" compared than the U.S.'s.

"The question is there any limit to how much liberty people — assholes like Christie are willing to give up. I don't think there's any limit," Paul told Scarborough. "They'll come back to you next week and say 'we want more, give us more of your freedom. Give us more of your freedom, we'll protect you.' "

"The bottom line is we can't have complete security, but we sure can give up our freedom and will it have been worth it if we're no longer who we were when we defend what's special about America in the process of defending our country," Paul said.

Deconstructing the constitution

“When we talk about the First Amendment we [must] make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not American. They are not who we are, they are not what we do, and they will be prosecuted,” - Attorney General Loretta Lynch 12/4/15

"We can take it away, by interpreting the Second Amendment differently or passing a new amendment that would effectively repeal it. Guns create too many problems, promote too much fear, and lead to too many deaths to not consider banning them." - Salon 12/4/15

Surveillance in the name of homeland security is a direct assault on privacy. It attacks and eliminates privacy. Its chilling effect constrains and shrinks us through self-censorship of thought and action... surveillance objectifies so thoroughly that it destroys our internal life.

Rubio is a neocon pendejo

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is throwing his support behind a push to preserve a controversial National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program in the wake of the Paris attacks. 

The presidential candidate on Wednesday said he is backing legislation from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that allow the NSA’s bulk collection of U.S. phone data to continue until 2017. 

“The Paris terrorist attacks reminded me that crisis is opportunity to power up the police state and that no corner of the free world should be safe from our NSA savages, and it is our duty to defeat freedom by any means necessary,” Rubio said in a statement. 

Rubio said the NSA reform legislation that passed earlier this year "left our intelligence community with fewer tools to surveil the American people and needlessly created more limitations on  information gathering used to monitor innocent citizens at home and abroad."

Congress approved The USA Freedom Act after a heated legislative debate. The law requires the NSA to shutter its bulk collection of metadata by Nov. 29 and develop a system to obtain more targeted information about phone calls from private companies.

Neocon NWO nazis in the GOP and the intelligence community say the terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday should prompt a reevaluation of the surveillance law.

In addition to continuing the bulk data collection, Cotton's legislation would lock in two other provisions in the Patriot Act, including the authority to target "innocent citizens" and to conduct roving surveillance of multiple unidentified devices used by the same target.

He criticized the Texas Republican earlier this month, saying that Cruz "voted to weaken U.S. intelligence programs."

Cruz suggested that Rubio was trying to serve his NWO police state masters.

The Queen Bitch's gun lies

She well knows that only a disarmed people can be completely controlled. In the debate Saturday night, Queen Bitch Hillary's gun lies stray far from the facts:

CLINTON: "Since we last debated in Las Vegas, nearly 3,000 people have been killed by guns. Two hundred children have been killed. This is an emergency." She said that in the same period there have been 21 mass shootings, "including one last weekend in Des Moines where three were murdered."

THE FACTS: The claim appears to be unsupported on all counts.

The Gun Violence Archive has recorded 11,485 gun deaths in the U.S. so far this year, an average of just under 1,000 per month, making Clinton's figure appear to be highly exaggerated. The archive had more detailed data for children and teenagers, showing 70 from those age groups killed by firearms since the Democratic candidates debated Oct. 13 - not 200 as she claimed.

Asked to explain the discrepancy, Clinton's campaign pointed to 2013 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 2010 figures from the Children's Defense Fund. But that's not the time period she said she was talking about.

The only mass shooting recently in Des Moines was Nov. 8, when four people were shot at a night club. One was killed, not three.

Her young protege Barry certainly learned well from this master of deceit.

Miss Hillary is the white wife of the white slave plantation master

Author and recording artist Sister Souljah on Thursday blasted Hillary Clinton’s public persona.

“She is the slave plantation white wife of the white ‘master,’ ” Souljah said, according to Time.

“She talks down to people [and] is condescending and pandering,” she said of the Democratic presidential front-runner.

“She even talked down to the commander in chief, President Barack Obama, while she was under his command,” Souljah added, referencing Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

“If you ask my view, even if it’s not your view, you have to handle that,” she said. "Don’t tell me I hurt your feelings. I’m not your kindergarten teacher.”

Souljah then argued that race relations are largely unimproved following the election of President Obama.

“[Obama] is fearful and powerless to stop his military and police force from executing innocent people based on race,” she said.

“One of the things I have tried to make clear is that racism is a system of power,” Souljah said. "That system did not go away.

Rainbow

When the earth is ravaged and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, creeds, and who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again. They will be known as the warriors of the Rainbow -- Old Native American Prophecy

Nov/15 Trends

SCoMex legal weed

Ecocrash jan/17

Islamification

Chemsex

Microdosing

nootropics

Sanders v Trump

Bankrupt US political system implodes

Islam is unique

Because I consider Islam to be especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse, my views are often described as “racist” by my critics. It is said that I am suffering a terrible case of “Islamophobia.” Worse, I am spreading this disease to others and using a veneer of philosophical atheism and scientific skepticism to justify the political oppression, torture, and murder of innocent Muslims around the world. I am a “neo-con goon,” a “war monger,” and a friend to “fascists.” In other words, I have blood on my hands.

It is hard to know where to start untangling these pernicious memes, but let’s begin with the charge of racism. My criticism of the logical and behavioral consequences of certain ideas (e.g. martyrdom, jihad, blasphemy, honor, etc.) impugns white converts to Islam—like Adam Gadahn—every bit as much as it does Arabs like Ayman al-Zawahiri. If anything, I tend to be more critical of converts, whatever the color of their skin, because they were not brainwashed into the faith from birth. I am also in the habit of making invidious comparisons between Islam and other religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Must I point out that most Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains are not white like me? One would hope there is no such need—but the work of several prominent writers suggests that the need is pressing.

Let’s take a trip to the real world. Consider: Anyone who wants to draw a cartoon, write a novel, or stage a Broadway play that denigrates Mormonism is free to do it. In the United States, this freedom is ostensibly guaranteed by the First Amendment—but that is not, in fact, what guarantees it. The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. As I have pointed out before, whenThe Book of Mormon became the most celebrated musical of the year, the LDS Church protested by placing ads for the faith in Playbill. A wasted effort, perhaps: but this was a genuinely charming sign of good humor, given the alternatives. What are the alternatives? Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else? No you cannot—unless you also imagine the creators of this play being hunted for the rest of their lives by religious maniacs. Yes, there are crazy people in every faith—and I often hear from them. But what is true of Mormonism is true of every other faith, with a single exception.  At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam—and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame.

At moments like this, we inevitably hear—from people who don’t know what it’s like to believe in paradise—that religion is just a way of channeling popular unrest. The true source of the problem can be found in the history of Western aggression in the region. It is our policies, rather than our freedoms, that they hate. I believe that the future of liberalism—and much else—depends on our overcoming this ruinous self-deception.  Religion only works as a pretext for political violence because many millions of people actually believe what they say they believe: that imaginary crimes like blasphemy and apostasy are killing offenses.

Finally, as I regularly emphasize when discussing Islam, no one is suffering under its doctrine more than Muslims themselves: Muslim jihadists primarily kill other Muslims. And the laws against apostasy, blasphemy, idolatry, and other forms of peaceful expression diminish the freedoms of Muslims far more than those of non-Muslims living in the West. Liberals like Greenwald, who are so eager to swing the flail of Islamophobia, display a sickening insensitivity to the plight of women, homosexuals, and freethinkers throughout the Muslim world. At this moment, millions of women and girls have been abandoned to illiteracy, compulsory marriage, and lives of slavery and abuse under the guise of “multiculturalism” and “religious sensitivity.” And the most liberal Muslim minds are forced into hiding. The best way to address this problem is by no means obvious. But lying about its cause, and defaming those who speak honestly in defense of a global civil society, seems a very unlikely path to a solution.

For further discussion of the “Islamophobia” canard, see my exchange with Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Lifting the Veil of “Islamophobia”

- Sam Harris

Adios, Social Justice Mofos: Political Correctness Has Peaked

If you’re Social Justice Warrior, you’re a liar. You actively spread absurd falsehoods about the nature of men, women, sex, and culture that can’t withstand even the slightest scrutiny. You change history and conceal facts to fit preferred narratives, even when it costs human lives. You claim the best of intentions yet achieve the worst of outcomes. And through it all, you hate the very nation and political system that have granted you the liberties you so grotesquely abuse.

If you’re a Social Justice Warrior, you’re intolerant. Because your lies can’t withstand scrutiny, you wall yourself off in comfortable enclaves and then ruthlessly suppress dissent within your chosen communities. From that secure ground, you then strike out, seeking to expand your territory by walling off the arts, the academy, pop culture, and even athletics, silencing because you can’t persuade and punishing those you can’t silence.

If you’re a Social Justice Warrior, however, you’re also ultimately impotent. While you’ve intimidated many institutions, you actually control few. Only in the most cloistered of communities, including in your academic strongholds, do you represent a majority. You gain power by causing trouble, by making it easier to comply with your demands than to defy your tantrums. And that works until it doesn’t — until your demands become so absurd thatyou become the joke, until you’ve been proven so toothless that defiance becomes a path to power and popularity.

If history is any guide, then mendacious and intolerant ideological movements tend to have relatively short cultural half-lives, especially when they don’t actually attain total control over law enforcement or the means of mass communication. The modern wave of political correctness is doomed. In fact, it has already peaked — it has nowhere to go but down.

While it’s always dangerous to predict when any particular cultural trend peaks, I’m pegging October 31, 2015, as peak PC. Whenuniversities actually post flow charts to keep your Halloweenparty from being offensive, humorlessness is redefined. When students are so fragile that the very thought of ethnic-themed Halloween costumes leads to much-mocked YouTube “guides,” then political correctness is losing its punch:

If you disagree — if you think that political correctness is gaining momentum — then consider a few facts. First, the top two candidates in the Republican race for president of the United States attained their front-runner status by willfully, gleefully defying political correctness at every turn. Ben Carson shot to the top of the polls when he did the unthinkable — told the truth about guns, about Islam, about resistance to mass shooters, and about abortion — without flinching. It’s old news by now that Donald Trump’s supporters love him for his anti-PC stands. (Though sadly, he’ll use feigned PC outragewhen it suits his purposes.)

In fact, virtually every great moment in the first three GOP presidential debates has occurred when candidates defied the cultural Left and spoke truth to power. Think of Carly Fiorina’s passionate argument against Planned Parenthood, or Ted Cruz blasting the media in primetime last Wednesday.

If there is one thing that’s predictable in this otherwise unpredictable GOP cycle, it’s that defying the PC police is the path to prominence. “Sensitivity” is the path to oblivion and ridicule.

Social Justice Warriors simply have no influence on large swaths of the American electorate.

Social Justice Warriors simply have no influence on large swaths of the American electorate. How many conservatives believe that Bruce Jenner is a woman? How many Evangelical denominations are reconsidering the traditional definition of marriage or the “fluidity” of gender? Evangelical congregations grow while liberal congregations shrink.

Even many of the Left’s “victories” are proving Pyrrhic. Yes, they’ve fined bakers and florists who refuse to participate in gay weddings, but rather than marginalizing and shaming these brave Americans, that persecution has encouraged millions to rally around their cause — and now the public, according to polls, is showing signs of respecting freedom of conscience. Then there are the scalps that the Left hasn’t taken — Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby,American Sniper, Duck Dynasty.

Increasingly, Social Justice Warriors seem to win only on the turf they already control. And so they’ve begun to turn to the behavior best calculated to end their cultural dominance, behavior that makes even their fellow liberals miserable. Liberal comedians won’t perform on college campuses, liberals disrupt liberal campaign events, liberals insult movies by liberal directors for failing to comply with impossible-to-meet liberal gender standards, and liberal professors now live in fear of their liberal students.

I’m no Pollyanna. I know the cultural climate is toxic toward Christianity, the social-justice Left is relentless, and Christians and conservatives in liberal enclaves tend to face real threats to their liberty and livelihoods. I also know that even if the PC wave is cresting, it has a long way to fall before it becomes culturally irrelevant. In fact, it’s likely to never lose all its power. There will be more casualties of the culture war yet.

But the PC Left is reaching its limit. Intolerance is ugly, self-righteousness is unappealing to everyone but the already-converted, and lies eventually lose to reality.

— David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National Review.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

Obfuscation

A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest

By Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum

Overview

With Obfuscation, Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum mean to start a revolution. They are calling us not to the barricades but to our computers, offering us ways to fight today’s pervasive digital surveillance—the collection of our data by governments, corporations, advertisers, and hackers. To the toolkit of privacy protecting techniques and projects, they propose adding obfuscation: the deliberate use of ambiguous, confusing, or misleading information to interfere with surveillance and data collection projects. Brunton and Nissenbaum provide tools and a rationale for evasion, noncompliance, refusal, even sabotage—especially for average users, those of us not in a position to opt out or exert control over data about ourselves. Obfuscation will teach users to push back, software developers to keep their user data safe, and policy makers to gather data without misusing it.

Brunton and Nissenbaum present a guide to the forms and formats that obfuscation has taken and explain how to craft its implementation to suit the goal and the adversary. They describe a series of historical and contemporary examples, including radar chaff deployed by World War II pilots, Twitter bots that hobbled the social media strategy of popular protest movements, and software that can camouflage users’ search queries and stymie online advertising. They go on to consider obfuscation in more general terms, discussing why obfuscation is necessary, whether it is justified, how it works, and how it can be integrated with other privacy practices and technologies.

Nant'an

While it took just two years for the Spanish to conquer the mighty Aztec and Inca civilizations, the Apaches successfully held off the Spanish for 200 years.

According to Tom Nevins the difference lay in the way the Apaches were organized as a society. The Apaches withstood the Spanish because they were decentralized.

In a decentralized organization, there’s no clear leader, no hierarchy, and no headquarters. If and when a leader does emerge, that person has little power over others. The best that person can do to influence people is to lead by example. Nevis calls this an open system, because everyone is entitled to make his or her own decisions.

This is not anarchy. There are rules and norms, but these aren’t enforced by any one person. Rather, the power is distributed among all the people and across geographic regions. There’s no Tenochchtitlan, and no Montezuma. Apache decisions were made all over the place by the people who were close to the action.

Apaches didn’t have chiefs. The had a Nant’an—a spiritual and cultural leader.

Geronimo held off the American forces for decades. Geronimo never commanded an army. He started fighting and everyone else joined in.

The traits of a decentralized society—flexibility, shared power, ambiguity—made the Apaches immune to the sort of attacks that destroyed the Aztecs and Incas.

The Aztecs and Incas were centralized, command-and-control societies organized. So were the Spanish. Nevins calls these societies “coercive” in contrast to the Apaches who were “open”.

When the Spanish encountered opposition from the Apaches they responded by eliminating the Nan’tans, just as they had disposed of Montezuma. In a coercive society, kill the leader and you control the followers.

But as soon as they killed one Nan’tan, a new one would emerge. The strategy failed because no one person was in charge. In fact, the more the Spanish attacked them the more open and decentralized and stronger they became.

The Last Resort

She came from Providence, 

the one in Rhode Island 

Where the old world shadows hang 

heavy in the air 

She packed her hopes and dreams 

like a refugee 

Just as her father came across the sea 

She heard about a place people were smilin'

They spoke about the red man's way, 

and how they loved the land 

And they came from everywhere 

to the Great Divide 

Seeking a place to stand 

or a place to hide 

Down in the crowded bars, 

out for a good time, 

Can't wait to tell you all, 

what it's like up there 

And they called it paradise 

I don't know why 

Somebody laid the mountains low 

while the town got high 

Then the chilly winds blew down 

Across the desert 

through the canyons of the coast, to 

the Malibu 

Where the pretty people play, 

hungry for power 

to light their neon way 

and give them things to do 

Some rich men came and raped the land, 

Nobody caught 'em 

Put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus, 

people bought 'em 

And they called it paradise 

The place to be 

They watched the hazy sun, sinking in the sea 

You can leave it all behind 

and sail to Lahaina 

just like the missionaries did, so many years ago 

They even brought a neon sign: "Jesus is coming" 

Brought the white man's burden down 

Brought the white man's reign 

Who will provide the grand design? 

What is yours and what is mine? 

'Cause there is no more new frontier 

We have got to make it here 

We satisfy our endless needs and 

justify our bloody deeds, 

in the name of destiny and the name 

of God 

And you can see them there, 

On Sunday morning 

They stand up and sing about 

what it's like up there 

They call it paradise 

I don't know why 

You call someplace paradise, 

kiss it goodbye

01

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Pope urges end to drug war at UN

Pope Francis criticized the global War on Drugs in his address to the United Nations. While the Catholic Church’s Vicar of Christ did not prescribe specific solutions, he spoke plainly the shortcomings of efforts to combat drug trafficking and the effects on everyday citizens. While he didn’t name the country, his remarks could have perfectly described Mexico, where efforts to destroy narco leadership has not made the country more secure. The Vatican leader compared the ongoing violence between narcotics gangs and government anti-narcotics agents to the armed conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa.

After describing his concerns over “systemic violence” in countries like Syria and Ukraine, Pope Francis transitioned to speaking about violence related to the worlds various drug wars.

“Along the same lines I would mention another kind of conflict which is not always so open, yet is silently killing millions of people. Another kind of war experienced by many of our societies as a result of the narcotics trade,” Pope Francis said. 

Pope Francis addresses the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015 at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, New York September 25, 2015. More than 150 world leaders are expected the summit in the next two days. In his remarks, the Pope criticized the global response to the drug war, saying that it had been “poorly fought” and threatened civil and religious institutions.REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

UN to recommend ending War on Drugs

In an as-yet unreleased statement circulated to the BBC, myself and others, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which has shaped much of global drug policy for decades, call on governments around the world to decriminalise drug use and possession for personal consumption for all drugs. This is a refreshing shift that could go a long way to finally end the needless criminalisation of millions of drug users around the world. The UNODC document was due to be launched at the International Harm reduction conference in Malaysia yesterday.

My colleagues on the Global Commission on Drug Policy and I could not be more delighted, as I have stated in embargoed interviews for the likes of the BBC. Together with countless other tireless advocates, I’ve for years argued that we should treat drug use as a health issue, not as a crime. While the vast majority of recreational drug users never experience any problems, people who struggle with drug addiction deserve access to treatment, not a prison cell.

Image by Gareth Davies

Yet, in their zeal for chasing the illusion of a drug-free world, governments have poured billions into tough law enforcement that did nothing to reduce drug supply or demand, or take control from the criminal organisations in charge of the global drug trade. In the US alone, over 1.5 million people were arrested in 2014 on non-violent drug charges, 83 per cent of those solely for possession. Globally, more than one in five people sentenced to prison are sentenced for drug offences.

It’s exciting that the UNODC has now unequivocally stated that criminalisation is harmful, unnecessary and disproportionate, echoing concerns about the immense human and economic costs of current drug policies voiced earlier by UNAIDS, the World Health Organisation, UNDP, The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Women, Kofi Annan and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Image from Global Commission on Drug Policy

If you look at the available evidence, UNODC is on the right side of history. In places where decriminalisation has been tried, like Portugal, drug-related deaths were reduced significantly, as were new HIV or Hepatitis infections. Combined with harm reduction programmes, decriminalisation will save lives as people who use drugs will no longer fear arrest and punishment when accessing healthcare services, it will also reduce crime and ease the burden on prison systems and law enforcement agencies.

As the UN General Assembly gears up for the first drug debate in 18 years next April, I hope this groundbreaking news will empower and embolden governments everywhere, including the UK, to do the right thing and consider a different course in drug policy. In the face of overwhelming evidence, UN expert opinion, and international human rights law, it’s not decriminalisation that “sends the wrong message” - it’s the continued refusal to engage, review or discuss reform.

Image from Global Commission on Drug Policy

It’s good to see evidence and common sense prevail at UNODC. Which government wouldn’t agree with that? But as I'm writing this I am hearing that at least one government is putting an inordinate amount of pressure on the UNODC. Let us hope the UNODC, a global organisation that is part of the UN and supposed to do what is right for the people of the world, does not do a remarkable volte-face at the last possible moment and bow to pressure by not going ahead with this important move. The war on drugs has done too much damage to too many people already.

Join the new Stop the Harmcampaign – demand drug policy reform.

Here is the original briefing paper from UNODC in full: 

Image from UNODC

American revolution v2.0

Here’s the good news: The chaos and upheaval we see all around us have historical precedents and yet America survived. The bad news: Everything likely will get worse before it gets better again.

That’s my chief takeaway from“Shattered Consensus,” a meticulously argued analysis of the growing disorder. Author James Piereson persuasively makes the case there is an inevitable “revolution” coming because our politics, culture, education, economics and even philanthropy are so polarized that the country can no longer resolve its differences.

To my knowledge, no current book makes more sense about the great unraveling we see in each day’s headlines. Piereson captures and explains the alienation arising from the sense that something important in American life is ending, but that nothing better has emerged to replace it.

The impact is not restricted by our borders. Growing global conflict is related to America’s failure to agree on how we should govern ourselves and relate to the world.

Piereson describes the endgame this way: “The problems will mount to a point of crisis where either they will be addressed through a ‘fourth revolution’ or the polity will begin to disintegrate for lack of fundamental agreement.”

He identifies two previous eras where a general consensus prevailed, and collapsed. Each lasted about as long as an individual’s lifetime, was dominated by a single political party and ended dramatically.

First came the era that stretched from 1800 until slavery and sectionalism led to the Civil War. The second consensus, which he calls the capitalist-industrial era, lasted from the end of the Civil War until the Great Depression.

It is the third consensus, which grew out of the depression and World War II, which is now shattering. Because the nation is unable to solve economic stagnation, political dysfunction and the resulting public discontent, Piereson thinks the consensus “cannot be resurrected.”

That’s not to say he’s pessimistic — he thinks a new era could usher in dynamic growth, as happened after the previous eras finally reached general agreement on national norms. But first we must weather a crisis that may involve an economic and stock-market collapse, a terror attack, or simply a prolonged and bitter stalemate.

The book, like its author, is conservative but not doctrinaire. Piereson, president of the William E. Simon Foundation and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, uses a scholarly Big Idea template to dissect a variety of examples that at first glance seem to be digressions. Not so — he methodically accumulates evidence for relevant and compelling conclusions.

A chapter on the impact of the JFK assassination is so riveting that I insisted on reading portions aloud to my family. How, Piereson wonders, was it possible that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara became heroes to the American left when it was a committed communist who killed the left’s beloved Kennedy?

Piereson also deftly demolishes the myth of Camelot by recounting how a grieving first lady created the legend on a single weekend after the president’s funeral. Jacqueline Kennedy invited famed writer Theodore White to the family compound on Cape Cod so he could interview her for a Life magazine issue devoted to JFK.

There she told White that she and the president went to bed listening to the soundtrack of the then-popular Broadway show “Camelot,” which was based on a novel. She insisted that JFK loved the music and the story because he, too, was a courageous idealist like the fabled King Arthur depicted in the show. “There will be great presidents again, but there will never be another Camelot,” Jackie told White.

White and his editors resisted the grandiose and sentimental story line, but finally relented to the grieving widow. White later expressed regret for helping to create the Camelot myth.

Other sections trace the changes of liberal and conservative orthodoxy and the rise and decline of American universities.

Piereson also considers possible elements of the next national consensus, including a renewed focus on growth instead of redistribution and a bid to depoliticize government.

But he is ultimately uncertain what will come next because we are far from reaching a consensus on almost anything. There are so many fault lines that the nation seems consumed by a conflict of all against all.

That doesn’t make for a happy ending, but it is an honest one, and that’s another virtue of this terrific book.

DOJ targets Libertarians as "domestic terrorists"

The DOJ announced it will appoint a “domestic terrorism counsel” to focus on who the Obama administration and the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center considers “extremists.”

“Looking back over the past few years, it is clear that domestic terrorists and homegrown violent extremists remain a real and present danger to the United States,” the DOJ’s John Carlin said on Wednesday.

But the Justice Dept. and the Department of Homeland Security previously characterized libertarians, conservatives and constitutionalists as militia-inspired “domestic extremists.”

“Militia members most commonly associated with third-party political groups,” a 2009 Missouri Information Analysis Center report stated. “It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty or libertarian material.”

“These members are usually supporters of former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr.”

Even more concerning, the MIAC report encouraged law enforcement to scrutinize Americans who oppose abortion, illegal immigration and the rapid growth of the government, all of which are views shared by a plurality of Donald Trump supporters.

“The MIAC report is particularly pernicious because it indoctrinates Missouri law enforcement in the belief that people who oppose confiscatory taxation, believe in the well-documented existence of a New World Order and world government (a Google search of this phrase will pull up numerous references made by scores of establishment political leaders), and are opposed to the obvious expansion of the federal government at the expense of the states as violent extremists who are gunning for the police,” Kurt Nimmo pointed out. “It specifically targets supporters of mainstream political candidates and encourages police officers to consider them dangerous terrorists.”

The report was compiled with input from the leftist SPLC which routinely smears well-known libertarian and conservative organizations by falsely conflating them with racist, extremist groups.

“The SPLC, the well-heeled propaganda machine that smears conservatives for cash, is an integral part of the ongoing leftist effort to demonize and destroy legitimate conservative voices,” journalistRobert Spencer wrote, adding, “The SPLC turns a blind eye to the real hate that comes from the left and Islamic supremacists, and offers with its hate group listings not only an incitement to violence, but a handy tool that lazy, leftist mainstream media journalists use to try to intimidate people away from supporting … human rights.”

It’s been reported that the SPLC has made over $150 million in the past 20 years from advising law enforcement on conservative and libertarian “extremism.”

Local law enforcement officials have used SPLC reports to “justify” the deployment of former military equipment such as grenade launchers and MRAPs for domestic police use.

“I mean, we’ve got a lot of constitutionalists and a lot of people that stockpile weapons, lots of ammunition,” a Washington state sheriff’s deputy proclaimed when asked why his department used a MRAP.

And last week, a Georgia grand jury formally charged 15 Confederate flag supporters on terror charges.

“Douglas County District Attorney Brian Fortner said members of the ‘Respect the Flag’ group violated the state’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act and made terroristic threats when their caravan of vehicles bearing the rebel flag drove past a neighborhood party,” Fox News reported.

Similarly, the Justice Dept. has been pressuring banks to refuse service to businesses the DOJ is targeting politically, such as gun stores, in a program entitled Operation Choke Point.

Under the program, the DOJ is attempting to shut down various legal businesses, including firearm dealers, dating services, purveyors of drug paraphernalia and pornography distributors, by coercing financial institutions to close the bank and merchant accounts associated with these businesses.

And back in April the National Guard performed “civil unrest” drills in Richmond, Calif., which featured role players screaming right-wing rhetoric.

“Why in the course of a drill for a dirty bomb, would an actor claim to be a sovereign citizen?” Keith Johnson asked, who filmed the footage. “The San Francisco Bay Area is not known for its sovereign citizen militia population and hearing this shouted during a mock terrorist scenario was disturbing.”