The Cigar Industry vs. The Empire

A week or so back I noted the federal government’s considerable efforts to destroy the premium cigar industry in America. I’m planning a major story on the subject. Fortunately, I will be able to add this part – the industry strikes back:

Here’s the LAWSUIT.

I have glanced over the complaint. While it is not as extreme as I would like, it is a good start. We cannot take this or any other government abuse lying down. Hats off to Enrique and Co.

Divorce is Murder

What’s worse than a divorce? A divorce that ends in homicide. This is a case of that anti-family law I wrote about hating several years ago.

TALLAHASSEE — The shooting of a Florida State University law professor in his upscale neighborhood two years ago was part of a murder-for-hire scheme that may have been set in motion by a bitter divorce between Daniel Markel and his ex-wife, according to court records released Thursday.

…

Markel and his wife divorced in 2013, but before it was finalized court records show that the two fought over Wendi Adelson’s push to move her two small children to South Florida to be closer to her family. At the time of Markel’s death, the records show, the two were battling over money, with Adelson contending that Markel did not pay her as much as he was supposed to under their divorce agreement. Markel also complained that his mother-in-law was disparaging him and wanted the court to prohibit her from having unsupervised visits with his children.

• Tampa Bay Times, June 2, 2016.

Sometimes one part just can’t rely on the system alone – hit-men make things a little easier and faster. A death in such a case is usually the man. (Men, like this poor fellow, only receive justice from the system once they are dead – if at all). Make of this case what you will.

More Proof From the District of Corruption

John W. Whitehead again does a masterful job pointing out the incomprehensible evil that flows out of D.C.

Writing for the New Yorker, investigative reporter Maria Bustillos concludes, “the machinery of our government seems to have taken on an irrational life of its own. We live in a surreal world in which a ‘transparent’ government insists on the need for secret courts; our President prosecutes whistle-blowers and maintains a secret ‘kill list’; and private information is collected in secret and stored indefinitely by intelligence agencies.”

It’s no coincidence that almost exactly three years after Snowden began his steady campaign to leak documents about the government’s illegal surveillance program, Congress is preparing to adopt legislation containing a secret provision that would expand the FBI’s powers to secretly read Americans’ emails without a court order.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The government is planning to push through secret legislation that would magnify its ability to secretly spy on us without a warrant.

After three years of lying to us about the real nature of the government’s spying program, feigning ignorance, dissembling, and playing at enacting real reforms, it turns out that what the government really wants is more power, more control, and more surveillance.

A secret provision tacked onto the 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act will actually make it easier for the government to spy on Americans’ emails as well as their phone calls.

If enacted, this law would build upon the Patriot Act’s authorization of National Security Letters (NSL) which allows the FBI to secretly demand—without prior approval from a judge and under a gag order that carries the penalty of a prison sentence—that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose the demands to the person being investigated or even indicate that they have been subjected to an NSL.

You can read more about the Intelligence Authorization Act, S.B. 1705, HERE.

None of this, none of it, surprises me. Everything that comes from the government is as toxic as mercury. You may not care about cigars, murder, or being spied on but, rest assured, big brother will eventually do something that will concern you. If you keep on voting for this band of criminals, you deserve what you get.