Author: William Norman Grigg

It is one of the nature’s ironic mercies that the same disease responsible for disfiguring Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman’s face left, him blind, thereby sparing him the sight of his Gorgon-like features. The sheik died from complications of that disease – diabetes – at age 78 in a federal prison cell in North Carolina, a peaceful end to a long life largely devoted to terrorist violence. He had lived at taxpayer expense for roughly one-third of that life. For the better part of a decade prior to his June 1993 arrest, Sheik Omar had covertly been on the federal payroll as … Continue reading →

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To understand why the public cannot confide in government-employed police to protect private property, it is useful to consider how frequently police steal from each other – and members of the public who ingenuously donate to police-operated charities. This isn’t because police officers are underpaid; it is because their occupation cultivates a sense of privilege and contempt for other people’s property. The median annual household income in Idaho is roughly $49,000. Mark Furniss, 46, was making almost $20,000 a year in excess of that figure when he resigned from his job as a Boise Police Officer on October 20, the … Continue reading →

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Former police detective John Lawrence Kimpton had crested the biblical threescore-and-ten in 2011 when he passed away in the company of loved ones in a Reno hospital room. He should have died in the prison cell that by that time been occupied for more than thirty years by Cathy Woods, an innocent woman whom he had helped frame for murder. In 2015, after DNA evidence cleared Woods of the murder, she was released from prison. She was 66 years old, and her entire adult life had been stolen by Kimpton and his accomplices. In a society actually ruled by law, … Continue reading →

The post The Stolen Life of Cathy Woods appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Perhaps you can account also for the bullet which has so obviously hit the window?” “By George! How ever did you see that?” “Because I looked for it.” Sherlock Holmes chides the indifferently attentive Inspector Martin of the Norfolk Constabulary, in “The Adventure of the Dancing Men.” Critical evidence will sometimes evade the notice of an inattentive or inept investigator because he is not looking for it. When that evidence has been found, documented, and then ignored by the investigator, something worse than incompetence – most likely malice or corruption — is at work. This is true of what Idaho Attorney … Continue reading →

The post No Justice for a Murdered Rancher appeared first on LewRockwell.

In every encounter between a police officer and a citizen, only one life matters to the former – and it isn’t the latter. “Follow the commands of a police officer or risk dying,” snarled Major Travis Yates of the Tulsa Police Department in a recent essay for Law Officer. Requiring police officers to respect the rights of the citizens they detain, or to practice de-escalation when citizens assert their rights, would be tantamount to asking that “police stop being police” – that is, commissioned ministers of violence acting on behalf of the divine State. Whenever a police officer inflicts himself … Continue reading →

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“You have to trust the government,” Justice Department attorney Richard Roberts unctuously told Jesse Trentadue. Seeking to understand why his younger brother Kenneth had died while in federal custody, Jesse, a trial attorney in Salt Lake City, had asked to see the findings of a federal grand jury investigation of the case. In an incandescent response to Roberts’s patronizing dismissal, Trentadue reminded the Justice Department functionary that the proper relationship between citizens and the government is not one of “trust,” but rather of “accountability from that government to the citizens.” “The Department of Justice has yet to account to the … Continue reading →

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“Somebody is going to die tonight,” a visibly agitated Anthony Lord told a close friend on July 16, 2015. Lord, a resident of Benedicta, Maine, was a registered sex offender who displayed symptoms of violent derangement. His anger had been kindled by a voice mail message from the Maine State Police reporting that a woman named Brittany Irish had accused him of sexually assaulting her, and asking him to visit a local barracks to be interviewed about the matter. Lord’s entirely plausible threat was reported to Jaime Irish, Brittany’s brother. His frantic phone call to Brittany interrupted a conversation in … Continue reading →

The post We Have a Duty To Submit appeared first on LewRockwell.

When one says of Don Barnhill that a given challenge confronting him is “not his first rodeo,” the expression is not a wearisome cliché. Rodeo championships figure prominently in Barnhill’s life, which is cluttered with enviable achievements. As a younger man, he was a private firefighter, which means that he actually worked to contain and defeat fires, rather than maximizing expense while minimizing results, which is the government sector approach. He pursued a degree in archeology and is a self-taught historian of the Oregon Trail who helped organize the first reenactment of the Three Island Crossing on the Snake River. … Continue reading →

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Dave Bundy was working at his home in Delta, Utah, when a caravan of at least 20 federal vehicles invaded his property last March. The vehicles decanted a platoon of FBI personnel, some of them clad in a battle dress and carrying assault weapons. In what must have been a disappointment to them, Bundy – who wasn’t armed – surrendered without offering the Feds a pretext to dispose of him as they had LaVoy Finicum a few weeks earlier. Bundy had been indicted on federal conspiracy charges for his role in de-escalating the standoff between his family and the BLM … Continue reading →

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Shortly before dawn on April 30, Steve Nelson was robbed and fatally beaten by three assailants at near Lake Lowell in Canyon County, Idaho. Nelson had contacted Kelly Bryan Schnieder, who has admitted his role in the attack, through the “male escort” section of the “Backpage” social media site. After they met at Gotts Point trailhead, Nelson offered to pay Schneider for sex – not knowing that he was about to fall prey to a “trick-rolling” gang led by a charming specimen named Jayson Woods.  An equal opportunity predator, Woods later admitted to police that “he sets people up for … Continue reading →

The post The Hate Crimes Enforcement Regime appeared first on LewRockwell.

Two Democratic congressmen, always seeking madder music, stronger wine, and new ways to punish people for holding opinions they despise, have introduced a bill they call the  “Do No Harm Act.” The purpose of that measure is to abolish the religious liberty and free speech rights of business owners who hurt the feelings of those who belong to “specially protected groups.” This would be done by weaponizing a legal concept called “dignitary harm.” The case of Leo Soell, which we will examine anon, offers a perfect example of that concept in action. The “Do No Harm Act” is, in part, … Continue reading →

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During her years as a Magistrate Judge in Pinedale, Wyoming, Ruth Neely performed dozens of civil marriage ceremonies. State law (Sect. 20-1-106[a]) specifies that magistrates, like “every licensed or ordained minister of the gospel, bishop, priest, or rabbi … may perform the ceremony of marriage in this state.” Presiding at a civil wedding is a discretionary function of the magistrate’s office, not a mandatory duty. Neely had an unqualified right to decline a request to preside at a wedding, for any reason that suited her. Prior to December 2014, she had never performed a same-sex wedding ceremony, because they were … Continue reading →

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Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian bears a strong resemblance to Mikhail Gorbachev. That comparison is misleading: There’s no reason to believe that the former Soviet ruler was ever as passionately devoted to Communism as his doppelganger from the Beaver State. Unlike Avakian, furthermore, Gorbachev conceded that there were limits to his power, and eventually stopped trying to abolish property rights by decree. Commissar Avakian has just gotten started on that mission. Since 2008, Avakian has afflicted Oregon business owners as chief commissar of the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI). Seeking to expand the compass of his power to visit … Continue reading →

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Philadelphia resident Francis Rawls has been in solitary confinement for seven months, despite the fact that he has not been accused of a crime – let alone convicted of one. He may spend the rest of his life in that condition as punishment for invoking his unconditional right, supposedly protected by the Fifth Amendment, against self-incrimination. Apart from the seventeen years he spent as an officer with the Philadelphia Police Department, Rawls has never done anything to threaten the public. He has no criminal record. He is suspected of possessing child pornography, which would evince an unspeakably vile appetite and … Continue reading →

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Faith, we are reliably informed, is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The troubled 16-year-old girl from Gloucester, Virginia who calls herself Gavin Grimm, and insists on being treated as if she were a boy, is acting on something other than faith by denying substantive facts that are plain to be seen by fellow high school students who would share bathroom facilities with her. Those students, and the school faculty have unwisely indulged Grimm in her delusion to the extent of providing her – and others who have qualified for the trendy and politically … Continue reading →

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