Tibor Machan: On Rape And Pragmatism

Principles in the age of the pragmatist.   Something not often noted in the discussion of rape across the globe is that in an age that prizes pragmatism as opposed to firm principles of conduct, even rape can be excused based on the expected benefit to the rapist versus injury to the victim. If one doesn't care about the basic principle of consent,  ... MORE

John Harvey: Trusting Your Own Government (Or Not)

The masters who pose as servants.      Earlier this month, Geraldo Rivera asked a caller: "How could you not trust your own government?" Putting aside big and little episodes of untrustworthy government in the history of this country like the Trail of Tears, the internment of Americans of Japanese descent, Kent State, Waco, ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Affirmative Action

Walker Baird: It Is Time To Reclassify Marijuana

Introducing common sense to American drug policy.    Recent voting in Colorado and Washington exposes a striking discrepancy in the national legal status of marijuana. Under current federal law, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I Controlled Substance, which places it in the same category as heroin, peyote, LSD and Ecstasy. To be qualified as a ... MORE

Jillian Kay Melchoir: The EPA Vs. Reality

Push toward cellulosic biofuel is out of control. The Environmental Protection Agency has been demanding the impossible of refiners and then penalizing them when they fail to comply. A new ruling from a federal appeals court stops this shakedown. For the past few years, the EPA has required refiners to purchase vast quantities of cellulosic biofuel,  ... MORE

VIDEO: You Can't Ban Evil

David Harsanyi: Stagnation, The New Normal

The only growth is in Obama's popularity.      So, U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly plunged in January to its lowest level in more than a year. The U.S. economy unexpectedly posted a contraction in the fourth quarter of 2012 -- for the first time since the recession -- "defying" expectations that economic growth is in our future. If the    ... MORE

John Stossel: Obama Is Not King

A dangerous agenda putting the country at risk.       Watching President Obama’s inaugural, I was confused. It looked like a new king was being crowned. Thousands cheered, like subjects worshipping nobility. At a time when America faces unsustainable debt and terrible economic troubles, why such pomp? Maybe it’s because so many people tell   ... MORE

Barry Farber: Females At The Flanks?

Men should do the fighting.    This is a column opposing the use of women in combat, but let me tell you what kind of column this is not. It’s not going to slam you with the same old arguments about women being weaker, less able to carry a wounded man to safety, destroyers of “unit cohesion” and the “Band of Brothers.” And we know in Israel,    ... MORE

Tim Kelly: Who Will Protect Us From Our Protectors

The crisis is the government power grab.  It didn’t take long for the megalomaniacs and opportunists in Washington to exploit the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, as a pretext for another attempt to annul the Second Amendment and expand their power. Never one to let a good crisis go to waste, President Obama signed a series of executive     ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Business Of Bad News

Rob Kampia: Ending Marijuana Prohibition In 2013

Possible accomplishments this year.     Unless people have been hiding under a rock this past couple months, they know that more than 55 percent of voters in Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana on November 6. As a result, many people have grand expectations of how we're going to get closer to ending marijuana prohibition in the  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: What's An Assault Weapon?

CNN, President Obama and many others don't know. Last week Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a new, supposedly improved version of the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004. But like that earlier law, which the California Democrat also sponsored, Feinstein's bill prohibits the manufacture and sale of guns based on characteristics that   ... MORE

VIDEO: President Obama Cuts Spending?!

AP: GDP Shows Harsh Drop From Government Estimate

The continuing saga of hope and change.    Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the “advance” estimate    ... MORE

Dustin Hurst: Bipartisan Opposition To Domestic Drones

Parties join forces to curtail surveillance society.    Drones are wildly popular on the battlefield. Now they can claim victory elsewhere. The use of drones within U.S. borders—in car chases, to monitor wildfires, or for simple surveillance—is uniting political parties and people more often at odds. Their concern: the widespread use of drones     ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Whose Welfare?

Theories about culture trump welfare of humans.    If there is ever a contest for the law with the most grossly misleading title, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 should be a prime candidate, because the last thing this Act protects is the welfare of Indian children. The theory behind the Indian Child Welfare Act is that an American Indian ... MORE

William A. Levinson: Never Let A Dead Child Go To Waste

Let's act quick, before their heads clear.    Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Michael Bloomberg, Andrew Cuomo, and their cohorts followed Rahm Emanuel's advice to "never let a good crisis go to waste" when they used the Sandy Hook shooting to renew their assault on the Bill of Rights. Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell added, in effect, that    ... MORE

VIDEO: George Gilder - Wealth And Poverty

A Former Drug Czar Advisor Compares Pot To Child Porn

by Matthew Feeney.     If you thought former drug czar advisor Paul Chabot couldn’t top his claim that alcohol prohibition “actually worked” you would be wrong. Chabot recently appeared on HuffPost Live and compared marijuana to child pornography. From the Huffington Post: When asked by HuffPost Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Shouting Louder

Volume is a poor substitute for substance.     An old-time trial lawyer once said, "When your case is weak, shout louder!" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted louder when asked about the Obama administration's story last fall that the September 11th attack on the U.S. ambassador's quarters in Benghazi was due to an anti-Islamic video  ... MORE

VIDEO: You Have A Duty To Protect Yourself


Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke knows the value of gun rights.

Charles W. Baird: On Paying Our "Fair Share"

Marketing legalized theft.      President Obama often asserts that fairness requires everyone "to play by the same rules." He then calls for raising tax rates paid by "millionaires and billionaires," but no one else. Well, Mr. President, you cannot have it both ways. Logically, if we are to enjoy what the Constitution calls "equal protection of the law,"   ... MORE

Emily Miller: The Cop-Killer Bullet Myth

Going after ammunition to get your guns. Give the administration credit for its creativity. The theatrical show President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. are putting on in their effort to foist gun control on the public disguises a more subtle push to disarm America in the name of protecting cops. On Monday, Mr. Obama invited police    ... MORE

Allysia Finley: Mickelson And The Sports Star Migration

Move from California saved Tiger $100 million.    America's top-grossing golfer Phil Mickelson drove himself into a bunker on Jan. 20 when he said that federal and California state tax hikes had made him contemplate making "drastic changes" in his life—including, it was widely assumed, moving to a no-income-tax state such as Texas or Florida. ... MORE

DEA Seeks Prescription Records Without A Warrant

Eric W. Dolan on the efforts of the ACLU to block them.    The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking to block the Drug Enforcement Administration from obtaining prescription records without a warrant in Oregon. The state of Oregon filed suit against the DEA last year after the agency sought to access the Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring   ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Consumer Scare Tactics

Washington State Prepares Gun Control Nullification Bill

by Mikael Thalen.     As the call for more gun control continues, governors, lawmakers, sheriffs, and citizens across the country are taking a stand. After the tragic Sandy Hook shooting, gun control advocates immediately jumped on the opportunity to dust off old gun control legislation, specifically advocating for a ban on "assault weapons." ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Drug Dealing And Legal Stealing

Feds try to take motel because guest broke the law.     At the Cosmopolitan, a luxury hotel and casino in Las Vegas, “just the right amount of wrong” is the naughty fun you get for $200 a night. At the $57-a-night Motel Caswell in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, just the right amount of wrong is what the federal government says it needs to  ... MORE

VIDEO: Choose Your Own Crime Stats


EYE-OPENER: Did you know the U.S. crime rate has steadily fallen since 1992?

Walter E Williams: Official Lies

Let's expose presidential prevarication. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama warned that Social Security checks will be delayed if Congress fails to increase the government's borrowing authority by raising the debt ceiling. However, there's an issue with this warning. According to the 2012 Social Security trustees report, assets in Social Security's  ... MORE

LA Times Editorial: The DEA's Marijuana Mistake

Creating a ridiculous circle of denials.    For a muscular agency that combats vicious drug criminals, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration acts like a terrified and obstinate toddler when it comes to basic science. For years, the DEA and the National Institute for Drug Abuse have made it all but impossible to develop a robust body of research on the medical ... MORE

Jim Cardoza: Handing Gangs The Gun Concession

Time for us to check our premises.   The tragedy of the American drug war is not just that it has been a failure. It has been an act of national self-destruction. It is one thing that it failed to diminish the availability of street drugs. It is quite another that it has provided vicious gangs with a lucrative black market funding mechanism while locking up scores ... MORE

Government Targets Vicodin In War Against Painkillers

More pain for patients helps fight drug war.   The DEA for nearly a decade has pushed for tighter restrictions on Vicodin, the nation's most widely prescribed drug. The chronic abuse of such painkillers, and devastating toll associated with this abuse, has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. The agency could get its wish  ... MORE

VIDEO: Political Correctness And Common Sense


Excerpts from a speech by Charlton Heston at Brandeis University.

Larry Kudlow: Obama's Declaration Of Collectivism

Not what the Founders had in mind.   One of the least remarked upon aspects of President Obama’s inaugural speech was his attempt to co-opt the Founding Fathers’ Declaration of Independence to bolster his liberal-left agenda. Sure, the president quoted one of the most important sentences in world history: “We hold these truths to be self-   ... MORE

Louis Woodhill: Time To Bury The GOP And Start Over

Death to clueless conservatism!    In his January 18 article, “Go for the Throat!”, John Dickerson, Slate’s chief political correspondent, called on President Obama to “declare war” on the Republican Party. Calm down, John. There is no need for Obama to get (politically) violent. At the national level, the Republican Party is near death anyway.     ... MORE

VIDEO: Treason - The End of Liberty

Hans Bader: Government Control Is Bad For Your Health

Economic freedom declines again under Obama.      Economic freedom has declined under the Obama administration, and America’s rank has repeatedly fallen on the Index of Economic Freedom and other rankings issued by think-tanks and research foundations. (The Heritage Foundation just released the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom.) In their      ... MORE

A Fisher: 6 Unbelievably Dumb Congressional Hearings

Sex, violence and satan.      In the wake of last December's school shooting, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) has proposed yet another congressional study on violent video games (he's joined in his effort by Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns). Such studies are typically accompanied by hearings where members of the World's Greatest   ... MORE