1- Supreme Court rules father has no standing for pledge lawsuit
"Wimp-out" was the first thing to come to mind on this. Like so many other cases, going back 150 years or more, the Supremes have decided NOT to take a stand. However, I wonder if it isn't going to backfire on them - millions of non-custodial parents still stand up with (and for) their kids in schools and elsewhere - is that now "illegal"? As for the real issue, here - does anyone remember just what it was? Many libertarians (and others) have already decided the origins and gist of the Pledge are unacceptable and gone to something else, as the nation fragments.

2- U.S. gov seeks immunity for contractors in Iraq
Most people don't realize this is an issue that was argued and decided decades ago in occupied Germany, Austria, and Japan, and its resolution was part of gradual, slow transition to restored "sovereignty" or (as I prefer) independence. But in the case of Germany or Japan, that was a process that took most of a decade, or more, although (at least in Germany's case) the cultural divide was very small compared to that of Iraq and the western Allies. In this case, the immediate (and maybe, too fast) working-out of this deal will be a key test not for Iraq, but for the United States: just how corrupted have we become in 50 years?

3- EPIC sues TSA, Justice over airline passenger data
GO FOR IT, EPIC! Who knows - maybe all that stuff got erased!

4- Son of Patriot Act still around
"ATITIA"? What kind of acronym is that? "ATTILA" might be closer in spirit - the attitude behind this appears to be more like the famous Hunnish mindset (exhibited last in the Third Reich of 1933-1945) than a free republic's attitude. "Hoghousing" is what we call this in South Dakota and other states: taking big chunks (if not the whole hog) of a bill that didn't make it and wedging it into something else. What is needed, of course, is not an improvement of "intelligence tools" but an improved intelligence.

5- U.S. troops still not re-upping
Although "new" to the press, such as the R.M. Mews, this drop is not unexpected to everyone from the SecDef on down to the squad leader - everyone has known it is coming. Too many people are getting burned out - a fact that has been headline news in the Army Times and other specialized publications for months. For spin purposes, it may be "surprising" but only to be expected after the last sixty months. But to claim that "re-enlistments" have anything to do with "enlistments" (people joining up for the first time) is a great indicator that this writer and his editor don't know the first thing about what they are reporting on.

6- "Suicide fever" claiming U.S. border patrol agents?
While I have no love lost for border agents or their ilk, it is still sad to think that they may be suffering from the "cafard" of long-term occupying soldiers, both from the point of view of the agents and their families AND that of their victims. Expect this to get worse. [Cafard, literally, the "bug" is what the French Foreign Legion named the suicidal depression that hit its troops so hard in longterm garrison situations or when on occupation duty, especially in places like Mexico of the 1860s or Algeria in the early 1900s.]

7- Has anyone ever been in charge of the CIA?
Hmmm. One person's problem is another person's... goal? dream? No matter how much various people may "lament" the lack of a single head, both republics and tyrannies have found throughout history that a single intelligence organization is a highly dangerous commodity unless you are the one in charge of it - not his boss, but the one running things day to day. WIth a single agency and boss, the usual course of events is for the inmates to take over the asylum, with their boss as the new El Jefe. Fortunately, the CIA (supposedly created to coordinate and organize American intelligence efforts) remained (as it does today) just one of a myriad of agencies, including the FBI, MI (Military Intelligence), NavInt (Naval Intelligence), and Defense Intelligence Agency, to name just a few. So if we have to suffer with these, it is far better to have several than one. [If anyone is interested in why this is so, I recommend Victor Suvorov's "Inside the GRU" and a careful reading of some of Weber's Honor Harrington series about StateSec/InSec in the People's Republic of Haven, plus any good book on the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.]

8- Light slowly shining on U.S. secret court
Another example of a subtly growing tyranny, fully capable of becoming our Star Court. Expect other courts to try and imitate the secrecy - for the protection of the judges, witnesses, and police, of course.

9- Florida regatta arrangers charged with "trading with the enemy"
Note that it is NOT the doing this (visiting ports etc.) that has their shorts in a twist, it is doing it "without permission."

10- Chicago county law prohibits judges from "moving on up"
Oh, dear... how sad. This bit of trivia (outside Chicago, that is) reminds me of the history of the christian church, in which attempts to correct or get rid of one heresy by fixing the results led instead to opportunities for a bunch more - I think medical folks call it "treating the symptoms, not the disease." It seems if they want to move someplace, they can just resign and go back to their pre-election criminal careers. [I think it was Mark Twain that said America had just one habitual criminal class - lawyers.]

11- Detroit mayor tweaks federal welfare rules
From the very beginning of the Pendergast Machine in Kansas City (and for that matter, all the way back to Roman Republican bread and circuses), the real winners in the welfare game have been the administrators and politicians, and not the theoretical recipients. Detroit is a basket case as a result, and this shows it won't get better soon.

12- Nichols avoids death penalty
Expect fresh calls for the "reform" of the jury system from the right- and left-wing over this one, folks. Of course, a decent justice system would have had this trial back, what, about six weeks after they tracked these guys down?

13- Denmark leans more toward EU collectivism
This is sad news for a beautiful nation and a lot of wonderful people, although not hardly unexpected. After all, isn't it sort of oxymoronic to run for election to a body that you want to dissolve, or at least greatly reduce in power, and that you really don't want your country/state/town in?

14- Japan's top court upholds Japanese-only national games
http://www.free-market.net/rd/198504647.html
One of those odd things - where do we stand on this from a zero-aggression point of view? Well, it probably really doesn't matter - what business does government have being involved in sports in the first place?

15- Kiwi dog-fine scheme backfires
I had to read this one through twice. It is a wonderful tail, urrr, tale of zero-tolerance gone mad, of course. But part of it is also quite strange and wonderful: the fines were raised in the first place to make them "hurt" the offending parties (like our famous doubling fines in construction zones), but now the fact that many people supposedly can't afford to pay is a reason for backing off? And "offences deemed too minor" seems such a perversion of the English system of justice that even a bunch of politicos should have understood the inherent stupidity. Actually, of course, what they probably meant was "offences that really aren't offenses and that we don't want to take the time or money to do anything more than print out and mail a few notices about."

16- Socialists score big in French elections
Of course, calling Chirac and gang "conservatives" (at least by American standards) instead of "right-wing socialists" as they are is silly. Sadly, France continues to be the classic case study of what 300 years of bloodletting and inbreeding can do to a nation.

17- Israel high court ends pork-sales bans
Another example of the unintended consequences of government mandates, in Israel's unique version of political correctness and prohibition. It seemingly is not that the ban-promoters don't want to let non-Jews buy (and presumably, eat) pork, but that they are offended by having to walk by a smelly loin or chop hanging in a butcher's stall. These guys are like the prohibitionists and neo-prohibitionists who don't have the guts (or the political backing) to make the consumption of alcohol illegal (or who want to decriminalize some rec-drugs like weed), but are staunchly for the banning of manufacture of such.

By the way, it's Flag Day, as Mary Lou pointed out in her "Liberty Action of the Week." Any of the "Don't Tread on Me" flags makes a great and subtle statement, and her idea of flying a Betsy Ross flag is great - but a few of us may prefer that "other" 13-star constellation, the one on a blue saltire in a red square, that might drive home the point a bit more. Oh, and it is also the US Army's 229th Birthday - however corrupted it has become, it was still the first military force ever organized to defend an idea and an ideal, rather than a people or a land or a religious point of view. So celebrate the birthday of an army of liberty!

(Editor's note: Readers may want to consider flying the U.S flag upside down instead, or as well. See an excellent commentary of this idea at JPFO.

Nathan Barton is a christian, a libertarian, a husband, a father, an engineer, and an Army officer, in that order, with way too much to do and not ever enough time to do it.

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Freedom headline news: Commentary 6/14