Happy holidays from the Obama administration. Federal agencies are currently working on rolling out hundreds of environmental regulations, including major regulations that would limit emissions from power plants and expand the agency’s authority to bodies of water on private property. On Tuesday, the White House released
its ... MORE
Militarizing Local Police Forces Should Raise Concerns
The police seem to be gearing up for war. From war zones to city streets, some military vehicles are getting a new life -- and not everyone is happy about the recycling. The Defense Department recently announced it would be giving domestic law enforcement forces hulking vehicles designed ... MORE Related: SWAT Vehicle Runs Over Citizen
TSA Spent Nearly $1 Billion To Detect 0 Terrorists
So much for behavior detection officers. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spent approximately $900 million over the last 5 years for behavior detection officers to identify high-risk passengers but, so far, according to the General Accountability Office (GAO), only 0.59% of the passengers flagged were arrested and among those ... MORE
Robert W. Merry: The Real Purpose Of Obamacare
A steppingstone to single-payer. President Obama’s Affordable Care Act is practically dead. Meanwhile, the old system it was meant to replace is dead. Thus, Americans face a long and bitter struggle over what kind of health care system they will have. Looking at it from Mr. Obama’s political philosophy, the situation isn’t all bad. True, he took ... MORE
NSA Collecting Porn Activity To Discredit "Radicalizers"
by Ed Morrissey. Does the latest NSA revelation
show the agency creating newer and more humane efforts to defuse
potential terrorist situations through discrediting their leaders — or a
dangerous new direction for government snooping? Perhaps this might be a
little bit of both. The NSA collected data on six potential targets
about ... MORE
A New Flu Season Of Pain, Profit And Politics
by Gary Null & Richard Gale. According to all official health reports, we are now fully in flu season. It is that time of year when public health officials, physicians pediatricians and pharmacists warn that everyone over 6 months of age should protect themselves and get vaccinated. Most Americans, believing the government’s ... MORE
John Stossel: Thankful For Property
Thankfully avoiding the tragedy of the commons. Had today's politicians and opinion-makers been in power four centuries ago, Americans might celebrate "Starvation Day" this week, not Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims started out with communal property rules. When they first settled at Plymouth, they were told: "Share everything, share ... MORE
Ten Obamacare Talking Points To Ruin Your Thanksgiving
by Ben Domenech. We probably all know at least one: the person who comes to a family gathering primed to talk about politics – particularly, to let you know why their view is right, and yours is dead, dead wrong. These are the worst kind of guests. They have no interest in catching up and spending a brief moment in time out of the ... MORE
High Hopes: The Marijuana Movement's 2014 Playbook
by Miranda Green. After years in the political wilderness, marijuana lobbyists find themselves in a strange position as 2014 approaches: Suddenly their power and support are growing, lawmakers are courting them, and the prospects look brighter to build on major progress the movement made in 2012. Last year, voters in Colorado and ... MORE
Labels:
cannabis,
drug war,
law,
legalize,
liberty,
marijuana,
medical marijuana,
politics,
prohibition
Guy Adams: Is Your TV Spying On YOU?
The answer is not so simple. You are sitting in bed in your pyjamas, drinking a cup of cocoa. A loved one lies next to you, watching late-night television. Pillow talk is exchanged. An alarm clock is set. Eventually the lights are turned out. Earlier, you sat on the living-room sofa eating supper, before loading the dishwasher and heading ... MORE
Giving Free Money Is Better Than The Welfare State
Matthew Feeney on a guaranteed income. The Swiss are set to vote on whether their country should introduce a basic national income of 2,500 Swiss Francs ($2,800) a month for every adult, regardless of their salary or net worth. A date for the vote has yet to be announced. Without the Swiss proposal being attached to drastic welfare reforms ... MORE
Victor Davis Hanson: The Politicization Of Everything
The ceaseless hunt for victims and oppressors. The Obama presidency has had very little legislative success. Even the signature Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is imploding, and was dubbed a “train wreck” by one of its own Senatorial authors. The lead-from-behind retrenchment abroad from America’s traditional leadership ... MORE
Labels:
Democrats,
Federal Reserve,
government,
health care,
immigration,
Obama,
ObamaCare,
politics
Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene
Pearls of wisdom from a brilliant mind. Many people take pride in defying the conventions of society. Those conventions of society are also known as civilization. Defying them wholesale means going back to barbarism. Barbarians with electronic devices are still barbarians. After the government shutdown crisis, the one thing that ... MORE
Proposal Bans Snacking, Smoking Behind The Wheel
Nannied in New Jersey. Drivers could possibly be pulled over for snacking, smoking or putting
on make-up behind the wheel under a bill that has been advanced in the
New Jersey Assembly. The proposed law would fine drivers found to “engage in any activity unrelated to the operation of a motor vehicle in a manner that that interferes ... MORE
Labels:
automobile,
freedom,
government,
legislation,
nanny state,
politicians,
regulation,
restrictions
Why Voters Are Finished Believing Obama's Promises
by Byron York. In April, Real Clear Politics' average of polls showed that 47 percent of Americans opposed Obamacare, while 41 percent supported it — a 6-percentage-point edge for opponents of the president's health care law, which at the time was still months away from implementation. The latest average of polls, less than two ... MORE
Washington Times: Revenue Camera Shakedown In D.C.
Gimmicky traps are about money, not safety. Officials in the District of Columbia waited until Friday to bury the announcement that 130 new revenue-enhancement cameras are being deployed on the streets of the nation’s capital. Locals have learned a speed camera lurks hidden behind the “Welcome to Washington” sign, and they’re jamming ... MORE
Ronald Bailey: Watched Cops Are Good Cops
One way to improve policing. Requiring law enforcement to wear video cameras will protect your constitutional rights and improve policing. This summer, after a civil suit challenged the New York City
Police Department's notorious program of patting down "suspicious"
residents, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Federal District Court
in ... MORE
Walter E Williams: Masking Totalitarianism
Slavery by any other name still stinks. One of the oldest notions in the history of mankind is that some people are to give orders and others are to obey. The powerful elite believe that they have wisdom superior to the masses and that they've been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Their agenda calls for an attack ... MORE
Labels:
coercion,
force,
freedom,
government,
individual liberty,
liberty,
rights,
totalitarian,
tyranny
Jeffrey T. Brown: What The Know-Nothings Know
Our poor, hapless, uninformed, clueless president! He campaigned on the promise to fundamentally transform our country into his idealized socialist wonderland, and as soon as his efforts began to bear fruit, he begged us to believe he had no idea how. It's amazing the surprises with which our poor president has been blind-sided ... MORE
Curt Chancier: The Power Of The Jury
What you don't know can hurt you. Our courts have systematically stonewalled juries when it comes to the
knowledge of their right to decide not only the case but the law. Even Black’s Law Dictionary (Sixth Edition)
defines “jury” as “a certain number of men and women selected according
to law, and sworn to inquire of certain matters of ... MORE
Labels:
authority,
Constitution,
individual liberty,
jury,
jury nullification,
justice,
law,
obligation
Rick Jenson: The Death Of Personal Freedom
Push to make warrantless searches the norm. Massachusetts Democrat Barry Greenfield is pushing for legislation to allow police to enter your home unannounced, without warrant, and take your guns. Greenfield actually believes it is a “problem” that police don’t have the authority to enter peoples’ homes and inspect their firearms ... MORE
Monty Pelerin: Hyperinflation Is A Political Choice
Markets will stop what politicians will not. The situation with the Federal Reserve (and other central banks around the world) is not very different than what prevailed in the early 1920s and ended in Germany’s horrendous hyperinflation. The notions that “this time is different” or “it can’t happen here” are naive. It is happening ... MORE
States Should Cut Taxes To Boost Economic Growth
by Ben Wilterdink. There was a strong trend of states cutting taxes this year, with 18 states passing significant tax cuts into law during the 2013 legislative session. With one-third of the United States cutting taxes, it is clear economic growth has become a top priority for states that want to dig out of the dismal economy that followed the ... MORE
FAA Announces Impending Launch Of Surveillance Drones
Serious data-collection on Americans begins. Surveillance monitors and bracelets; key cards; Smart Cards; Radio Frequency Identification tags, labels, and toll collectors; followed by the newest wave of subdermal implants (ostensibly to keep the kids and Grandma safe). Hidden GPS satellite tracking; concealed webcams; ... MORE
Labels:
data mining,
drones,
government,
police state,
spying,
surveillance,
tracking,
warrantless search
The More Doctors Know, The More They Dislike Obamacare
by Mark J. Perry. Some pretty devastatingly negative results about Obamacare from a
November 8-12 survey of 3,072 practicing physicians in all 50 states,
and reported this week by the Atlanta Business Chronicle: 1. Most physicians didn’t like Obamacare when Congress passed the health-care reform law in 2010. Fifty-nine percent of ... MORE
When Did To 'Serve & Protect' Become To 'Seize & Profit'?
by Jesse Lava and Sarah Solon. Leon and Mary Adams had been living in their Philadelphia home for nearly five decades. They were eating breakfast one morning last year when armed cops streamed out of a bunch of vans and said the couple had 10 minutes to grab their things and leave. Permanently. As in, Leon and Mary wouldn’t be allowed ... MORE
Mario Loyola: How The Minimum Wage Hurts Poor People
Raising the cost of employment is a bad idea. Progressive policies are usually advanced by reference to their
intended beneficiaries, without any reference at all to the social
losses they create. It’s important to see how the supposed benefits fail
in the case of the minimum wage, and Kevin Williamson does a typically great job ... MORE
Driver Arrested For Secret Compartment Full Of Nothing
by Scott Shackford. Norman Gurley, 30, is facing
drug-related charges in Lorain County, Ohio, despite the fact that
state troopers did not actually find any drugs in his
possession. Ohio passed
a law in 2012 making it a felony to alter a vehicle to add a
secret compartment with the “intent” of using it to conceal drugs
for trafficking. Gurley is the ... MORE
Labels:
authority,
automobile,
drug war,
law,
law enforcement,
police state,
property rights,
suspicion
John W. Whitehead: Kennedy Was Right
We are the heirs of the First Revolution. The year was 1961. I was fourteen years old, the only child of blue-collar workers living in Peoria, Illinois. Lacking any great understanding of the winds of change that were blowing through our nation and the world, I sat transfixed in front of our small black-and-white television as John F. Kennedy ... MORE
Labels:
freedom,
government,
individual liberty,
justice,
police state,
power,
revolution,
rights,
virtue
Tenn Hearings Demonstrate Absurdities Of Asset Forfeiture
by Radley Balko. Here in Nashville, the state legislature held hearings this week on "policing for profit," the catchy name the libertarian public interest law firm the Institute for Justice has given to the practice of civil asset forfeiture. The hearings were inspired by some terrific reporting
done by local television journalist Phil Williams over ... MORE
Labels:
asset forfeiture,
civil forfeiture,
government,
law enforcement,
police state,
profit,
theft
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