Heritage Foundation: The 10 Worst Regulations Of 2012

by Diane Katz and James Gattuso.      During 2012, virtually every aspect of American life was subjected to government meddling, ranging from how many calories you consume to how efficient your dishwasher is. These rules affect us in a variety of ways. Most increase the cost of living, others hinder job creation, and many erode our freedom.   ... MORE

Will Congress Stop Warrantless E-Mail Snooping?

by John Stanton.   Senate backers of new protections against warrantless monitoring of private citizens’ emails said Wednesday that Congress has a good shot of passing digital privacy legislation next year — despite complaints that a bill passed last week didn't include the provisions. Although the Senate Judiciary Committee on Nov. 29 passed a package of video      ... MORE

ViDEO: The Free Market Is Not Allowed To Work


A talk by Dr. Walter E Williams.

Sometimes A School Needs An Intervention

by A. Barton Hinkle.        For many years, the public schools in Petersburg, Va., turned in dismal academic performances. State officials did what they could to galvanize improvement. In 2006, the district and the state signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at boosting results. A similar previous agreement had failed to move       ... MORE

Emily Goff: 5 New Year's Resolutions For Congress In 2013

Resolving to do what's right.  While many Americans resolve to make 2013 the year they really do slim down, exercise more, and spend less, Congress could afford to commit to a few such resolutions of its own. Call them budget resolutions—something Congress hasn’t had in a while. Here are five suggestions: 1. Cut spending. The federal government is  ... MORE

VIDEO: Is There Income Mobility In America?

Obama's Cap-And-Trade Scheme For Cars

by Rachael Slobodien.    Ever since the Senate rejected President Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme in 2009, his administration has been hard at work to find other ways to implement a radical, environmentalist agenda. Obama made these intentions clear at a press conference in 2010 when he explained, “Cap and trade was just one way of skinning   ... MORE

DC Traffic Cameras To Double Amid Record Revenues

Politicians exploit another cash cow.     Traffic camera fines are poised to dip in the District, but one aspect of the controversial program is set to surge in 2013: the number of the devices that generate tickets for common traffic offenses like speeding and running stoplights. Over the course of 2013, the District government will add 134 traffic       ... MORE

Tax Hikes & Fees Coming With ObamaCare Next Year

by Billy Hallowell. Starting in 2014, President Barack Obama’s health care law will expand coverage to some 30 million uninsured people. At the same time, insurers no longer will be allowed to turn away those in poor health, and virtually every American will be required to have health insurance — or pay a fine. Insurance will be available through     ... MORE

John Stossel: Charity Begins With Wealth Creation

Wealth must be created before it is given.  Charity -- helping people who have trouble helping themselves -- is a good thing two times over. It's good for the beneficiary and good for the donor, too. Stephen Post's fine book, "The Hidden Gifts of Helping," reveals that 76 percent of Americans say that helping others is what makes them most happy. Giving money  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - ObamaCare and Religion

Dave Gahary: Government Crosses New Privacy Line

Feds collect data on those not suspected of crimes.   Documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests and interviews conducted with officials at numerous government agencies by The Wall Street Journal uncovered the behind-closed-doors creation this year of “a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S.    ... MORE

Naked Passenger Images Provide Laughs For TSA Officers

by Paul Joseph Watson. A former TSA screener turned blogger who is now causing embarrassment for the federal agency has revealed that TSA officers routinely laugh at and make fun of passengers’ nude body scanner images in back rooms. In a blog entitled Taking Sense Away, the anonymous ex-TSA worker reveals how he, “Witnessed light   ... MORE

VIDEO: The Role of Profit

The Three Not So 'Wise Men Of Washington, D.C.

These politicians are cooking the books.    Washington politicians are scaremongering that if no deal is reached between President Obama and congressional Republicans, taxes will go up on all of us January 1, when Bush tax rates expire. Nonsense. Most people have their taxes withheld gradually during the year. The president has the       ... MORE

Daren Jonescu: The Case Against Public Education

Salvaging a civilization.   If public education is allowed to survive, all efforts to resuscitate the inert husk of modern civilization will fail.  It is time to unravel the most wasteful and destructive entitlement program of all.  Cancer cells do not divide into healthy cells.  A corrupted, power-intoxicated political class will not willingly raise a freedom-loving,   ... MORE

Half The Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong

by Ronald Bailey.     Dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Increased K-12 spending and lower pupil/teacher ratios boost public school student outcomes. Most of the DNA in the human genome is junk. Saccharin causes cancer and a high fiber diet prevents it. Stars cannot be bigger than 150 solar masses. In the past half-century, all of the foregoing facts     ... MORE

Who Will Defend Capitalism If Not The Capitalists?

Cowardly CEOs throw capitalism over fiscal cliff. The fiscal cliff is exposing some brassy hypocrisy on Wall Street. Eager to score points with the White House, one CEO after another is throwing capitalism over the edge. Remarks by leading captains of industry over the past few weeks have sounded alarmingly anti-market. Some of these         ... MORE

Video: F A Hayek - Arbitrary Wealth Redistribution

Nathan Lewis: 40 Years Of Floating Money

40 years of the average worker getting poorer. The reason we have floating currencies today is to enable economic management via currency manipulation. Central banks attempt to guide macroeconomic factors like unemployment, economic growth, interest rates, inflation and so forth by jiggering the currency. This idea is very old,    ... MORE

People Are Buying Guns And Ammo For A Reason

by Neil Snyder.  It's 2:00 a.m. You are at home in your bed sound asleep. Your wife is sleeping beside you, and your children are asleep in their rooms down the hall. The muffled sound of a window breaking interrupts your slumber.  You're groggy and you wonder if it was just a dream, so you lie there quietly and listen.  A few seconds later, you hear other     ... MORE

VIDEO: Software Patents Last Too Long


Are copying and innovation implacable enemies.

Dr. Randy Short: Obama Even More Fascistic Than Bush

U.S. being pushed toward a police state.      President Barack Obama has been following the path of attacking civil liberties and pushing the U.S. towards totalitarianism, says Randy Short, a member of Dignity, Human Rights and Peace organization in Baltimore. “The cybersecurity bill that President Obama seems to want to pass without submitting ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Middle East Democracy

We should mind our own business.  Here's the first paragraph of my last year's column "Democracy Is Impossible": "After Moammar Gadhafi's downfall as Libya's tyrannical ruler, politicians and 'experts' in the U.S. and elsewhere, including French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, are saying that his death marked the end of 42 years of tyranny and the        ... MORE

Brooks & Watkins: How The Welfare State Stole Christmas

The drive for guilt over happiness.    “We Could End Homelessness With The Money Americans Spend On Christmas Decorations,” announces a headline from Think Progress blogger Adam Peck. So far as we can tell, Americans haven’t exactly been taking to the streets demanding that people trade Christmas ornaments for welfare programs,      ... MORE

VIDEO: Santa Claus arrested by Capitol Police


Arrested for being nice. Passing out chalk to children will not be tolerated.

Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

Observations on life as it is.        When I was growing up, an older member of the family used to say, "What you don't know would make a big book." Now that I am an older member of the family, I would say to anyone, "What you don't know would fill more books than the Encyclopedia Britannica." At least half of our society's troubles   ... MORE

Jeffrey T. Kuhner: Why The Left Hates Guns

Armed citizens a bulwark against state power.     Liberals have declared war on gun rights. Following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., gun-control zealots have seized on the murder of 20 children and 6 adults to push their longtime goal of rolling back the Second Amendment. The bodies of the victims  ... MORE

Speech Codes: Biggest Scandal On College Campuses Today

by Greg Lukianoff.     Today’s conventional wisdom seems to be that university speech codes banning “offensive” expression on campus are a distant relic of the heyday of political correctness in the 1980s and 90s. But in truth, speech codes—university policies prohibiting expression protected by the First Amendment in society at large—are nearly  ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Why Drugs Should Be Legalized

Media Fabricates Test To Demonize Pot And Driving

by Michael Suede.  Fox News Denver recently did a story on the effects of driving high on cannabis.  In the process of doing the story, they had people drive a video game simulator to test the effects of impairment. However, Fox rigged the driving simulator to force crashes so they could bias the story against cannabis users. One of the test participants  ... MORE

Obama Announces New Wave Of Proposed Regulations

by Dave Boyer.   After taking criticism for missing an October deadline, the Obama administration Friday released its list of proposed government-wide regulations that it plans to consider in the next year. The administration put out its notice, called the unified regulatory agenda, online around 3 p.m. on the Friday before Christmas, after most   ... MORE

VIDEO: Remy - I Saw Daddy Pat Down Santa Claus


(A Very TSA Christmas Song)

Douglas French: Down And Out In California

Golden State is fast losing its luster.     Gas in Vegas is a dollar cheaper a gallon than in the Golden State, or so a friend and recent LA transplant tells me. He went on to say the top tax rate in California is over 13%, while, of course, Nevada has no state income tax. Over dinner at Del Frisco’s, he explained how industries are being ruined by         ... MORE

David Harsanyi: The Auto Bailout Failure Is Now Complete

Another big-time loser for taxpayers. You may recall that during the presidential election, the Treasury Department refused requests by General Motors to unload the government's stake in the giant automaker. Taxpayers had sunk $50 billion into a union bailout in 2009 and were now proud owners of 26.5 percent of the struggling    ... MORE