The Morning Roar: Rand Wants To See Drone Memos, $474M Wasted On Failed Obamacare Exchanges, and Mexico Legalizes Vigilantes
Good morning and good Monday. Let's get to roaring.Rand Paul Wants To See Drone Memos From Obama's Appeals Court NomineeAs I covered in an earlier TMR, Obama has nominated David J. Barron to the United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit. This wouldn't stand out as something to oppose if not for the fact that Barron wrote memos justifying the use of drone attacks on American citizens.While Rand Paul has drawn quite a bit of my ire lately for his neocon cuddling ways, let it not be said that he doesn't stand up for the right thing once in a while. Rand contributed this Op-Ed to the NY Times calling for Barron's memos to be released prior to any hearing on his nomination:
On April 30, I wrote to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, urging him to delay this nomination, pending a court-ordered disclosure of the first memo I knew about. Since that letter, I have learned more. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to all senators on May 6, noting that in the view of the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, “there are at least eleven OLC opinions on the targeted killing or drone program.” It has not been established whether Mr. Barron wrote all those memos, but we do know that his controversial classified opinions provided the president with a legal argument and justification to target an American citizen for execution without a trial by jury or due process.
I believe that all senators should have access to all of these opinions. Furthermore, the American people deserve to see redacted versions of these memos so that they can understand the Obama administration’s legal justification for this extraordinary exercise of executive power. The White House may invoke national security against disclosure, but legal arguments that affect the rights of every American should not have the privilege of secrecy.
When you're right, you're right. Rand just raised his liberty batting average a few points. 4 Failed Obamacare Exchanges Cost $474 MillionObamacare has always and will always be a money sucking, liberty crushing affront to the vast majority of Americans. The latest tally from four failed healthcare exchanges in Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Maryland have only further cemented that fact. After these very public, very expensive failures, the states now have to choose between starting from scratch, turning to Healthcare.gov (with it's own horrible issues) or finding some other solution. From Politico:
Nevada, for one, is still trying to figure out its future. Oregon has decided to switch to HealthCare.gov. Maryland wants to fix its own exchange, maybe by incorporating what worked in Connecticut. Massachusetts actually wants to do both — build a portal from scratch while planning a move to the federal exchange as a backup.Massachusetts’ dual-track approach could require more than $120 million on top of the $170 million it already has been awarded. That cost is nearly twice as much as if the state were to simply bail on its Connector, but officials seem to be banking in part on the Obama administration’s greater interest in helping the Massachusetts exchange — the once-pioneering model for Obamacare — survive.
Utterly ridiculous.Mexico Legalizes Vigilante Defense Groups Fighting Drug CartelsFor a moment, let's ignore that drugs should be legalized in both Mexico and the US, and instead concentrate on an interesting move by the Mexican government to help fight the powerful and murderous cartels.
Mexico's government plans on Saturday to begin demobilizing a vigilante movement of assault rifle-wielding ranchers and farmers that formed in the western state of Michoacan and succeeded in largely expelling the Knights Templar cartel when state and local authorities couldn't.
The ceremony in the town of Tepalcatepec, where the movement began in February 2013, will involve the registration of thousands of guns by the federal government and an agreement that the so-called "self-defense" groups will either join a new official rural police force or return to their normal lives and acts as voluntary reserves when called on.
The new rural forces are designed to be a way out of an embarrassing situation, in which elected leaders and law enforcement agencies lost control of the entire state to the pseudo-religious Knights Templar drug cartel. Efforts to retake control with federal police and military failed. Eventually government forces had to rely on the vigilantes because of their knowledge of where to find the cartel gunmen.
It's no shock that when private citizens took things into their own hands and out of the control of the State that results were fast and lasting. The government is now forced to save face by legalizing these forces that made them look so foolish, but at the same time, there should be no reason for these forces to become "legal" in the first place. Defending one's life and property are basic tenets of liberty - and there is no legalization that should ever be required to assure one's rights.Our own government doesn't understand this, and apparently neither does Mexico's. However, I doubt the US would react in the same manner. More likely an FBI hit squad would be sent in to take care of what would surely be labeled as a danger to the State's monopoly on violence.Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
