Chris Christie thinks I am dangerous, and I am glad.

Looks like the old boy in New Jersey finds libertarian views "dangerous":

The House earlier this week narrowly voted against a reduction in funding for the National Security Agency’s program collecting Americans’ phone records, as libertarian-leaning members from both sides joined together to vote for the amendment. 

“As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said.

Glad to see I still don't have any common ground with him.

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ

The future of Bitcoin Users

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ

Of Bitcoin and Empire

Maybe I am a bit slow on the uptake, but I am just now noticing how the US government reaction, especially in the courts, to Bitcoin is similar to the British discovering that they stopped running the world after WWII.

Of course, everybody but the British knew they were not running the world anymore long before they did.  At the end of WWI they had the roughest, toughest military in all of history and they dismantled it to the point that the could barely defend their own little home island cluster by the time Hitler came a callin'.

What does this have to do with the peaceful, utopian world of the Bitcoin?  Everything actually.  The United States held a prestigious place in the world of money for quite some time.  This prestige was built in a laissez-faire manner, to great extent.  Our central bank came and went, the shining jewel in Andy Jackson's crown was its abolishment.

This arrangement went on until a central bank was reestablished, designed in part to prevent great depressions, it came on line just in time to create a worldwide depression.  How did the US central bank manage to do this?  By hijacking the good name of the US Dollar, and misusing the gold standard:

Note to the goldbugs out there:  In the video, Dr. Friedman gives a very concise and informative lecture on how the gold standard was used.  For some reason, my government gold standard friends can mention returning to the gold standard in the same breath as they use it as an example to prevent financial calamity.

Then World War II came along, Stalin won and let the West keep some of their own stuff.  The communists were already operating on a purely fiat currency, they didn't have a real price system to help with rational decision making.  Of course, the brightest Economists in the West loved this system and placed in charge of dismantling any vestiges of free market economies folks like Henry Dexter White:

Harry Dexter White was the architect of the post-war financial system, which paved the way for the West to dominate the 20th century and win the Cold War. 

But it has now emerged that the brilliant economist was in fact a staunch anti-capitalist who privately praised the Soviet Union's communism.

Something funny about that article is the shock and amazement by the Daily Mail writers "discovering" this fact in early 2013 when it was known for decades.  Actually they mention this in their article while continuing to be amazed.

So, what is going on now?  A peaceful public uprising and the US government is amazed that they are not running the world anymore in the realm of currency.  What is really amazing is that they act surprised.  Surprised that they have reduced what is supposed to be a stable, easy facilitator of exchange (money in general, the dollar in specific) to worthlessness and people created something else as a substitute.

The bureaucracy jumped into the game first, from what I can tell, with the courts, which lead to a Homeland Security seizure of accounts.  The courts are still leading the way too, one court just ruled that Bitcoin is "money" in the sense that it is something that can be regulated by various tentacles of the US government.  This strikes me as a the actors in the current government reacting like the post-WWII British, wishing to cling to a prestige that no longer exists.

What is the whole purpose of the Bitcoin anyway?  I'll spare you the faculty lounge claptrap and skip to the short answer.  Bitcoin is a facilitator of exchange, and nothing more.  Just like any fiat currency in some aspects.  However, the Bitcoin makers established controls to prevent inflation (actual inflation of over creation of money, not relative price appreciation of individual goods).

One important feature of the Bitcoin, that is a desired feature in coined or printed money, is forgery prevention.  The stuff is as impossible to forge as you can get, from what I understand.  More difficult to forge than government money.

So now we have a real competitor for the US dollar and the US is pissed.  The only thing the competitors had to do was make a currency that doesn't suck, and from all appearances, they did.

Also posted in my column at Freedom Bunker.

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ

My Latest at The Freeman - "Time Bomber: The Forgotten Yippie"

"Mr. Esposito, if you keep writing like this people will think you are some sort of fringe radical." - Mark Zanides, fmr. Assistant US Attorney ref. this article, in a telephone interview about this case that he prosecuted. August 14, 2013

Time Bomber: The Forgotten Yippie

How a Pacifist Accidentally Infused the FBI with Cash

JULY 17, 2013 by STEVE ESPOSITO

Back in 1972, when I was a 10-year-old technology and news geek in Chicagoland, a particular story grabbed my attention. Someone had planted time bombs in safe deposit boxes across the country. Their timing systems could be set up to seven months in advance—an impressive feat in 1971—using common wireless electric clocks. 

Read more: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/time-bomber-the-forgotten-yippie#ixzz2Zv6L4lLx

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ

Ronald (Ron) Kaufman Bank Warning Note from 1972

Disclaimer (October 28, 2013): This article was written not long after I finally tracked down news articles about this bombing plot and perpetrator. I have been looking for details about this for decades, and the miracle of Google finally came through.

However, the articles from 1972 were riddled with errors and inaccuracies, that I was not able to refute until recently (October, 2013). Now armed with more information, including court documents, I can say that any relation between Ron Kaufman and the Weathermen was coincidental. I have no doubt that their members and he crossed paths in the New Left of the day, but it does not look like he was an actual “member” at any time.

My book length project blog for this is the Time Bomber Book blog, which I update when I can as I work on the manuscript.

PVT James Edward Jensen aka Ronald Kaufman

UPDATE:  This post and those related to this case are "spoilers" now.  I am writing a book about this while keeping the bomber a bit of a mystery in the early chapters, staying in theme with how the plot unfolded in real life in 1972.

Below is page one from the 1972 Kaufman safety-deposti box bomb warning note to news writers and anchors, from Walter Cronkite to The Seed.  The one below was sent to the Chicago Daily News.

Prototype Bombs In Symbolic Banks

During July 1971 nine unusual prototype bombs were planted in different banks across the country.  These bombs were placed in safety deposit boxes in the vaults of the banks listed below.  Enclosed is one key to one of these boxes.

* [Key No. 305637 to Box No. 47440 in First National Bank of Chicago, attached with clear tape]

New York City
First National City Bank - 107 William St.
Box No. 6160  Key No. ____
Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. - 40 Wall St.
Box No. 215  Key No. 59
Marine Midland Grace Trust Co. of N.Y. - 140 Broadway
Box No. 1716  Key No. 372

Chicago
Continental Illinois National Bank - 231 S. La Salle St.
Box No. E-396 Key No. E-396
The First National Bank of Chicago - 1 First National Plaza
Box No. 47440  Key No. 305637
The Northern Trust Company - 50 S. La Salle St.
Box No. 7936  Key No. 2002

San Francisco
Bank of America - Market - New Montgomery
Box No. 1508  Key No. R537
Crocker-Citizens National Bank - 1 Montgomery St.
Box No. 2511  Key No. ____
Wells Fargo Bank - Market - Montgomery
Box No. 3114  Key No. 3114

This is proving an interesting research project.  With every day comes more information that seemed lost just the day before.

More to come.

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ

Why Can't My City Be More Like My County?

(Warning: Video has bad language!)

Related story at Freedom Bunker.

"Why can't the city be more like the county?"

I asked that question of a City Councilman just a few months ago.  Councilman Marshall W. Stair was representing an insurance company as their lawyer, and after we wrapped everything up, he gave me his City Council business card and asked if there was anything my little community needed in the way of city services.  I replied, "Why can't you do less?"

Just off the top of my head, trash service came to mind.  Out in the county one has a choice between competing trash companies.  The county does not even try to pick up your trash.  Waste Management will pick up your trash every week, for a fee, and they are from Texas!  If you like, you can take it to a county run trash collection center (limited to one pickup truck load per day).  Sure, I would be happier of the county got out of the trash business all together, but at least I should have a choice in whose truck is coming by to empty the can, and one of those choices should include me.

When I was flying in the National Guard here, one of my fellow Officers owned a trash collection business in Chattanooga.  Sounded pretty easy to setup.  Just one truck, that was not outrageously expensive.  I forgot how many people he hired.  He ended up selling his business to a competing company, for what sounded like a decent profit too.  There is paperwork, of course.  Even a hot dog cart here required three licenses and a periodical health inspection certificate, so I am not sure what number to multiply four by to cover taking away things people don't want anymore, vs. giving them something they do want.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, I attended the same church as a woman who owned AAA Trash, a very successful company that competed with BFI and Waste Management.  Her firm was there long before I arrived, and I am sure it is still there. It appeared to do nothing but grow.

What choice do we have in the city?  They put out a bid and one big company wins, then they pick up all the trash until time to recompete the contract.  How do the wife and I pay for it?  Out of the various taxes we pay as city dwellers, on top of the taxes we pay as county dwellers.  We really have no idea exactly how much we are paying for that "service", since the cost is hidden in our already high taxes.  The notion that if the government does not pick up your trash, nobody will, is pure rubbish.

The next item I mentioned was the police force.  There are two towns in this county, and only one of them has its own cops.  Mine.  I used to live in the other one, Farragut, TN, and they rely on the Sheriff's department, the same one that ALL of us pay for anyway because we are all county residents too who pay county taxes.  By the way, there is plenty of county that is not in any town or city and the Sheriff's department covers them just fine too.

Mr. Stair's position was that people who choose to live in a city expect more services than people who live outside of cities.  Which is all well and good, but I had to ask, "So what services are the city providing that the county doesn't?"  Neither of us could think of anything in particular.  The government library system is a county operation, as is the school system.  The way the government school system became a county-only operation is worthy of another column.

Of course, there are more laws to break in the city than there are in the county.  Someone I interviewed recently mentioned the "mask ordinance" (19-062 Wearing Mask/Hood/Disguise $114.50 fine), which happens to be the same fine as for evading arrest, having an unprotected hole/pond/quarry, or discharging a firearm.  A 17 year old environmental protestor ran afoul of the mask ordinance last month.  And, to go along with those extra laws, the city has extra courts like, Traffic Court Plus!  I suppose it is just like Google Plus, just more expensive.

No roosters allowed!

If you want to raise your own chickens, Knoxville has a license for that.  The application is only 13 pages long, so that is over two pages per bird if you go to the six hen limit.  Hens only, no roosters, and permission costs $75.  Okay, the county is pretty jack-booted about that one too.  You have to be in an agricultural zoned area to raise chickens in the county.  A couple of years ago they debated "allowing" residential zone residents permission to raise chickens, but I haven't found where the measure passed.

So how about it Knoxville, how about a little Anarchy?

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ

Ronald (Ron) Kaufman: Just the Facts

Disclaimer (October 28, 2013): This article was written not long after I finally tracked down news articles about this bombing plot and perpetrator. I have been looking for details about this for decades, and the miracle of Google finally came through.

However, the articles from 1972 were riddled with errors and inaccuracies, that I was not able to refute until recently (October, 2013). Now armed with more information, including court documents, I can say that any relation between Ron Kaufman and the Weathermen was coincidental. I have no doubt that their members and he crossed paths in the New Left of the day, but it does not look like he was an actual “member” at any time.

My book length project blog for this is the Time Bomber Book blog, which I update when I can as I work on the manuscript.

The complicated basics of confessed bank bomber Ronald Kaufman

Date of Birth: 5 February 1938
Place of Birth: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Raised: Bayside, WI
Parents: George Kaufman (Russian immigrant; President, Cream City Glass Company 2803 S. 13th Street, Milwaukee, died 1969); Sonia (Cogan) Kaufman
Uncle: Allergist Dr. Leo Cogan
Education: 1955, Riverside High School
1961, Bachelor's Psychology, University of Wisconsin - Madison
1962 Master's Psychology, Stanford
1966 PhD, Stanford
Aliases:
Christopher Charles Mohr (alias used to rent safety-deposit boxes)
Christopher Curtis Mohr (alias used to rent safety-deposit boxes)
James Edward Jensen (born May 20, 1946 at Kentfield, Marin County, Mo, alias for second Army enlistment)
Charles E. Owens (Identity he used with the SDS)
Thomas Roy Gifford (Name he married Martha Leicester with and was using while living in San Francisco up until capture)

Nicknames: Abbie's Jewish Mama/Momma; Captain Gentle

Military Service: US Army 1956-1958, SP-4, Anti-Aircraft Missile Fire Controlman (under his given name)
US Army 1971, PVT, Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training (Ft. Polk, LA) under the alias James Edward Jensen (Enlisted 10 AUG 1971 in St. Louis, MO, failed to report to Ft. Jackson, SC 8 JAN 1972)

As James Edward Jensen

Civilian Employment:
1967/1968, Research Project Associate as a field worker to study stress on the aged, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago
1974 - 1984, Maintenance Supervisor in an unnamed nursing/convalescent home, Los Angeles, CA
1984 - 1986 (when captured), Building Manager, The World Affairs Council, San Francisco, CA

Addresses:
3035 N. Farwell Avenue, Milwaukee, WI (boyhood home)
560 West Arlington Place, Chicago, IL Address used under Mohr aliases for safety deposit boxes, Decemnber 1970. Passed himself off as a Physicist from Boston.  Building manager Dan Madori said Mohr's references were impeccable.  "Mohr" introduced a part-time roommate to Madori as a Southern Illinois U., Carbondale student, turned out to be a UI Chicago Circle Campus student.  Madori refused to identify the roommate further in any interviews.
From the Washington Post, 16 Jan, 1972, p. A3 - The Alumni Records Office at the University of Wisconsin confirmed last week that Charles J. Mohr, of New York City, was an undergraduate there at the same time as Kaufman in the late 1950s. But Mohr died on April 17, 1960, of injuries suffered in the ring during'an NCAA collegiate boxing tournament.
Also, there was a real writer named Charles Mohr who died in 1989.  Kaufman listed "writer" as the occupation of his Mohr identity when renting safety-deposit boxes.
1314 Poe Street, Berkeley, CA (Forwarding address, 1971)

Spouse: Married in California under the Gifford alias in Jan or Feb 1985 to Martha Leicester (Kaufman never revealed to her his true identity, or that he was a fugitive).

A social security number for the Gifford identity was issued in 1970.  The real Thomas Roy Gifford died in 1945, at the age of 13 months.

Social Security Numbers: 398-XX-XXXX (the FBI broadcasted that in the 1970s, the San Francisco Chronicle repeated it, but I will not.).
389-34-8220 issued between 1953 and 1954 in Wisconsin
398-XX-XXXX issued between 1953 and 1954 in Wisconsin
398-34-3220 issued between 1954 and 1955 in Wisconsin
572-58-1398 issued in California
572-98-4495 issued in California

Social Work: 1964, Participated Freedom Summer voter registration drives in Mississippi

Hobbies: Students for a Democratic Society conventions1966 (Clear Lake, IA), 1967, 1968 (Ann Arbor, MI), 1970 (Chicago); Housed Abbie Hoffman during the 1968 Democratic National Convention; Purchased and supplied bull horn for Yippies at 1968 Democratic National Convention; Urged Yippies to get communicate with "Greasers" (New Left synonym for "umpmen" from lumpen-proletariat"); Talked Hoffman out of doing things too outlandish; Attended a 1960s Pentagon protest; Built time bombs and placed them in banks.

Bank Bombing: 12:45 AM 7 September 1971, Safety-deposit box #1508 Bank of America, corner of Market and Montgomery, San Francisco, CA. (premature explosion) That box was rented 16 January, 1971 and the other two in San Francisco listed below were also rented that month.  Final visit to the BoA box was July 16, 1971, the same day he visited a Chicago bank box.

Additional Time Bombs Planted: Safety-deposit box #2511 Crocker-Citizens National Bank, 1 Montgomery, SF, CA
Safety-deposit box #3114 Wells-Fargo National Bank, 44 Montgomery, SF, CA

(Chicago boxes rented December, 1970 while an SDS convention was held in that city)
Continental Illinois National Bank, Chicago, IL
First National Bank of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Northern Trust Co., Chicago, IL

(New York boxes were rented January, 1971, same as San Francisco boxes)
First National City Bank, New York, NY
Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., New York, NY
Marine Midland Bank, New York, NY

Lawyers: John Philipsborn and Leonard Weineglass.

Ronald Kaufman Wanted Poster (buy an original at FBImostwanted.US)

Captured: 15 July 1986, a police officer aquatinted with Martha Leicester recognized Kaufman from the April 1986 edition of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (online archives only go back to the 1990s).  At a 17 July 1986 hearing, it was revealed by his lawyer John Philipsborn that Kaufman had been "testing the waters" for a surrender for three years.

Plea Bargain: 28 April 1987, plead guilty in exchange for a nine year prison sentence.

Sentencing: July, 1987 sentenced to nine years in prison.

Released:  16 April 1991, prisoner number 80927-011

Mentions in media since release:
1995(?), ROUGH DRAFT

ISSUE #1 03 (41 5) 665-0351 APRIL 1 995 

THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CACOPHONY SOCIETY

Cacophony Comments 

The search for... hummm... supreme truth continues. Luther Blissitt (link by me) has announced his April 1st plan to place blocks of dry ice wrapped up in wet newspapers on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train just before it enters the Trans-Bay tube. 

Not to be outdone, Ronald Kaufman has implanted a soft hardware device which is wired to go off in July. 

For those with plans for poetic terrorism on a global scale, the Nuclear Winter issue of The Blab contains detailed instructions on how to construct a nuclear bomb which is small enough to fit into the trunk of a Japanese car. To get a copy this informative and humor-filled publication, send $1 cash to The Blab, 3073 Rio Bonita St, Indialantic, FL 32903.

(additional info as I discover it)

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ