Barry Farber: Obama's U.N. Insult To Every American

Our president seems ashamed to be American.    A hen lays one egg and cackles an hour. A sturgeon lays 10,000 eggs and never lets out a peep. We call it “caviar.” President Obama laid at least 10,000 eggs in his U.N. speech last week, but caviar it was not. They were all rotten. At one point Obama reached probably the worst 60 seconds of his a    ... MORE

Guess What Happened When The Police Went On Strike?

by Jeff Berwick.        It all started over a month ago, right here in Acapulco, Mexico, when I commented to a good friend, "Have you noticed how much better traffic has been lately?" He responded, "Yes, traffic flow has been so much better... it's because the Transit Police went on strike." It turned out that was the case.  The Transit Police in Acapulco   ... MORE

VIDEO: George H Smith - Checks And Balances

How Liberals Became the New Book Banners

by A. Barton Hinkle.   Justice Anthony Kennedy: "Well, suppose it were an advocacy organization that had a book. Your position is that under the Constitution . . . the book itself could be prohibited." Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart: "If the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy."—Exchange during oral arguments over    ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Clapper Under The Bus

The buck stops there.   When President Obama attributed the rise in Iraq of the Islamic State, or ISIS, to the failures of the U.S. intelligence community earlier this week, naming and blaming directly National Intelligence Director Gen. James Clapper, he was attempting to deflect criticism of his own incompetence. He was discussing the fact   ... MORE

VIDEO: How Jay Leno Changed The Politics Of Late Night

Nick Sibilla: This Federal Program Lets Cops Seize Cash, Evade State Laws And Keep Over A Billion Dollars

Police incentives 101.     John Yoder and Brad Cates, who headed the Asset Forfeiture Office at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1983 to 1989, slammed civil forfeiture as a “complete corruption” and “fundamentally at odds with our judicial system and notions of fairness,” in an op-ed for The Washington Post. Thanks to civil forfeiture    ... MORE

Woman Jailed 47 Days For Spahettios-Encrusted Spoon

Another drug warrior just "serving the public."      An innocent woman had several months of her life destroyed when she was arrested and charged with a felony because of a spaghetti-encrusted spoon found in her possession. Ashley Gabrielle Huff, 23, had no criminal history and insisted that “there’s no way in hell” that there could have     ... MORE

Does Obama Believe He Should Have Gone To Prison?

from Students for Liberty.   As President Obama has admitted since long before entering politics, he’s done his fair share of illegal drugs. In his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, he wrote that he’d used marijuana and “maybe a little blow[1].” Despite this, he continues to oversee a federal war against others who’ve done the same. What I have in  ... MORE

America’s Dirty Little Secret: Sex Trafficking Is Big Business

by John W. Whitehead.       Eighteen-year-old Hannah Graham is not the first girl to vanish in America without a trace—my hometown of Charlottesville, Va., has had five women go missing over the span of five years—and it is doubtful she will be the last. I say doubtful because America is in the grip of a highly profitable, highly organized      ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Frack Attack

Small Restaurants Feel Pinch of Minimum Wage Hike

by Kevin Mooney.    Bad news for mom and pop. As far as Rob Pluta is concerned, New Jersey lawmakers who say they want to help restaurant workers by raising the state’s minimum wage for tipped employees have it all wrong. If Trenton wants to help these workers, says Pluta, who owns and operates Leonardo’s II, an Italian eatery in Lawrenceville, it  ... MORE

Anit-Freedom California Nannies Now Ban Plastic Bags

by Fenit Nirappil.     Good news: repeal referendum already planned. Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed the nation's first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores, driven to action by pollution in streets and waterways. A national coalition of plastic bag manufacturers immediately said it would seek a voter        ... MORE

VIDEO: Nanny Of The Month - September 2014


The strained relationship of government and transparency.

John Stossel: It's Better Now

Contrary to what you may see on television.   Americans now face beheadings, gang warfare, Ebola, ISIS and a new war in Syria. It's natural to assume that the world has gotten more dangerous. But it hasn't. People believe that crime has gotten worse. But over the past two decades, murder and robbery in the U.S. are down by more than   ... MORE

Cop Pulls Car Over for Nonexistent Traffic Violation, Then Tows It To Search For Evidence Of Nonexistent Crime

by Jacob Sullum.   Drug war incentives strike Vermont. Last March, according to a lawsuit filed this month by the ACLU of Vermont, a state trooper pulled Gregory Zullo over for a nonexistent traffic infraction, then towed his car away so it could be searched for evidence of a nonexistent crime. Trooper Lewis Hatch stopped Zullo, a 21-year-old resident ... MORE

California Governor Approves Benefits For Illegal Aliens

by Jonah Bennett.    Pass Go and collect $200. Thanks to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, millions of dollars of aid will now be available to California’s illegal immigrants, in order to help them navigate the complexities of the legal system, the Washington Post reports. Illegal immigrants have been streaming across the the southern U.S.    ... MORE

Police Captain: To Avoid Cop Rape, Don't Break Any Laws

by Elizabeth Nolan Brown. In less than two months, three Oklahoma police officers have been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting women while on duty. One of the officers, state trooper Eric Roberts, was accused of raping women he pulled over for traffic violations. In the wake of this, Tulsa news station KJRH interviewed Oklahoma Highway   ... MORE

VIDEO: Lawrence Reed - Federal Bureaucracy Nitwittery

Jacob Sullum: New Survey Data Deflate Two Drug Scares

The drug war is dependent on deception.   Survey data released this month by the federal government cast doubt on a couple of widely accepted beliefs about drug use trends: 1) that the nation is in the midst of an escalating "heroin epidemic" and 2) that loosening marijuana prohibition encourages teenagers to smoke pot. In the National  ... MORE

Rigged Gold Price Distorts Perception of Economic Reality

by Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler.    The Federal Reserve and its bullion bank agents (JP Morgan, Scotia, and HSBC) have been using naked short-selling to drive down the price of gold since September 2011. The latest containment effort began in mid-July of this year, after gold had moved higher in price from the beginning of June and   ... MORE

VIDEO: Bad Rules Make Bad Cops - Civil Forfeiture Schemes

Jaana Woiceshyn: Business As A Moral Endeavor

The ones who make our lives better.     When I tell people that I teach business ethics, I am often told that it is an oxymoron because business cannot be moral. That view is common, thanks to the wide acceptance of altruism as a moral code. The view is also mistaken, and we should be concerned because such a view hampers the ability    ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts On The Passing Scene

Musings of a genius.    What a non-judgmental society amounts to is that common decency is optional — which means that decency is likely to become less common. The biggest issue in this fall's election is whether the Obama administration will end when Barack Obama leaves the White House or whether it will continue on, by appointing federal    ... MORE

A Very Real Introduction To The Growing Police State

by Heather Wilhelm.      A few years ago, when my husband and I lived in the Chicago area, we joined a Bible study group through our church. It was a nice, well-mannered, cordial collection of eight couples who met monthly for dinner and discussion. Upon reflection, our approach was a little unorthodox. After about five to 10 minutes of valiant     ... MORE

Chef Emeril Lagasse Says Obama May Drive Him Broke

by Brian Preston.  Government needs to kick it down a notch. Famed chef Emeril Lagasse says that it’s becoming all but impossible to be a successful restaurateur in America today. The government just gets in the way too much. Lagasse specifically singled out the current president’s policies. “It’s becoming a very challenging industry to become a ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel: The Green Monster

Walter E Williams: Will The West Defend Itself?

The barbarians at the gate.   The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), sometimes called ISIS or IS, is a Sunni extremist group that follows al-Qaida's anti-West ideology and sees a holy war against the West as a religious duty. With regard to nonbelievers, the Quran commands, "And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from  ... MORE

Cynthia Walker: Common Core Is Un-Common & Not Core

Making math hard.    I became a math teacher by a circuitous route.  My degree is in engineering.  I spent five and a half years refurbishing nuclear submarines, and then I quit work to bear, rear, and eventually homeschool our three children. As a homeschool mom, I participated in co-ops, taking turns teaching groups of homeschooled children   ... MORE

VIDEO: Underwood Award For Most Underhanded Villan

Henry I. Miller: Life-Saving Drugs And Deadly Delays

Curious incentives on display.    The Food and Drug Administration just granted permission for “expanded access” to an experimental medicine for Ebola. It’s OK as far as it goes, but it’s an exception to the FDA’s reluctance to approve the use of life-saving products. Safety and efficacy testing of the drug, designated TKM-Ebola, has barely     ... MORE

Allan C. Brownfeld: Highway Robbery By The Police

Civil asset forfeiture.    Under current law, government can take your car and everything in it, including cash, tools and electronics, even if you are not charged with any crime. Getting your property back can take many months and cost thousands of dollars in legal fees. A three-part series in the Washington Post in September showed that law enforce-   ... MORE

IBD Editorial: Press Helps Obama Censor The News

It's not often that the press exposes its own bias.     But a Washington Post story this week reveals both the Obama administration's attempts to censor the news and the media's complicity in that effort. For decades, news outlets have relied on pool reports from a rotating group of White House correspondents who follow the president  ... MORE

Fay Voshell: The Unabombers At The EPA

The dangerous true believers.       Students of recent history will remember Ted Kaczynski as the man who is responsible for three murders and sixteen bombings over a period of eighteen years. These actions were fully excusable from Kaczynski's point of view.  As he dispassionately puts it, “In order to get our message before the public with some   ... MORE

VIDEO: Judge Jim Gray: Judging The Drug War

Damon Root: Two Jeers For Eric Holder

His real "signature achievement."     In an interview conducted yesterday with The Daily Beast, outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder cited criminal-justice reform as his "signature achievement" as America's top law enforcement official. "After years of over-reliance on incarceration as a criminal-justice strategy, we finally started to  ... MORE

Ed Krayewski: The Role of the Media in the War on Drugs

The strategic air support.     The media's often called the fourth estate. Where's that come from? In the Middle Ages in Europe the first estate was the nobility, the second estate was the clergy, and the third estate was peasants, everyone else. Together the three estates constituted a feudal "realm." The king existed outside the     ... MORE

VIDEO: Statism - The Most Dangerous Religion


featuring Larken Rose.

Lisa Leff: Marijuana Legalization Effort Begins In California

One less victimless crime in Golden State?   A national marijuana advocacy group took steps Wednesday to begin raising money for a campaign to legalize recreational pot use in California in 2016, a move with potential to add a dose of extra excitement to the presidential election year. The Marijuana Policy Project filed paperwork      ... MORE

USPS - Where Customer Service Is Always Last

by Katie Kieffer.   Bang! Lee looked up from addressing a package while she waited in line for service at the post office. Despite a lobby packed with customers—without notice—a postal worker slammed down the service window gate and went to lunch, leaving Lee and the other patrons to fend for themselves. The U.S. Postal Service excels   ... MORE