Andrew Napolitano: What Free Speech?

What exactly does free speech mean in France?   The photos of 40 of the world's government leaders marching arm-in-arm along a Paris boulevard on Sunday with the president of the United States not among them was a provocative image that has fomented much debate. The march was, of course, in direct response to the murderous   ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: From Neighborhood Cops to Robocops

The changing face of American police. “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” ― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means  If 2014 was the year of militarized police, armored tanks, and stop-and-frisk searches, 2015 may well be the year of technologized police, surveillance blimps and       ... MORE

VIDEO: Andrew Napolitano - The First Jury Nullification

The Patriot Act Is Cannibalizing America’s Economic Edge

by Amit Patel.   You would think that when tech companies, the ACLU and the NRA unite for the same cause, the federal government would listen. That was not the case in this year’s USA FREEDOM ACT vote where the Senate voted against reforms that would stop the NSA from collecting phone metadata. The majority opinion prioritized protectionism  ... MORE

N D Lawmakers Recognize Checkpoints Invade Privacy

One state concerned with individual liberty.  Some North Dakota lawmakers say sobriety checkpoints are a nuisance, and an invasion of privacy. They want to do away with them, saying there is a better way to catch drunk drivers than pulling people over by random. The Republican sponsored bill would require police to have reasonable suspicion  ... MORE

VIDEO: 2014 - A Year Of Rescuing Liberty

Neil MacDonald: More State Power, Not Free Speech, Likely To Be The Actual We-Are-Charlie Result

Well, everyone must at least feel better now,    having chanted and declared for days that we're all Charlie. It was, or it seemed, a cry for freedom of speech, ringing outward from one of the world's first secular democracies. In reality, though, with all due respect to the sentiment behind it, Sunday's great march through the centre of Paris,  ... MORE

The IRS Customer Service Will Be Extra Bad This Year

by Lori Mongomery.   Taxpayers will face the worst levels of service in more than a decade from the Internal Revenue Service this filing season, with as few as 43 percent of callers getting through to an agent and then only after waits of 30 minutes or more, according to a report released Wednesday. In her annual report to Congress, National    ... MORE

Child Protective Services & The Child Snatching Business

by Rob Hustle.     Across the country, children are being taken from loving homes by government agencies collectively known as Child Protective Services. Although these agencies are supposed to protect children, they are actually the engine that drives a multi-billion dollar industry. This industry, which includes social workers, psychol- ... MORE

What Dallas's Murder Rate Can Teach Us About Policing

by Radley Balko.  Here at The Watch, we’ve praised Dallas Police Chief David Brown and his staff for the department’s community-oriented approach to policing, openness and transparency about excessive force, its rejection of law enforcement as a revenue generator, and its First Amendment-friendly approach to protest. Now, there’s some    ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Obscene Obedience

Study Finds Local Taxes Hit Lower Wage Earners Harder

by Patricia Cohen.   When it comes to the taxes closest to home, the less you earn, the harder you’re hit. That is the conclusion of an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that evaluates the local tax burden in every state, from Washington, labeled the most regressive, to Delaware, ranked as the fairest of them all. According to the  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Despite Stand Against the Terrorist's Veto, France Treats Offensive Words and Images as Crimes

Charlie Hebdo in the dock.       On Sunday, as more than a million people marched through the streets of Paris in support of the right to draw cartoons without being murdered, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication declared that "artistic freedom and freedom of expression stand firm and unflinching at the heart of our common European  ... MORE

VIDEO: Should College Athletes Be Paid?

SWAT Kills Man In ‘Drug Raid’ That Finds $2 Of Marijuana

One less pot smoker, America is safe!      Original story. Jason Westcott had no criminal record to speak of, and yet he died in a SWAT “drug raid” on his house which yielded only $2.00 in marijuana. It all started when a confidential informant lied to police about Westcott. That informant, who approached the Tampa Bay Times in July using   ... MORE

John Stossel: The Better Way

It's easy to "fire" a business that rips you off.   Just go to a different one. It's a lot easier to patronize another business than to get government to fix the problem. But bad businesses and the politicians they own, I mean influence, often don't want you to have that choice. I've written about how taxi companies don't like competition   ... MORE

Lessons For Winning Liberty In A World Of Statism

by Richard Ebeling. Friends of freedom often become despondent when it seems that every day brings another growth and intrusion of government over people’s lives. But there is no reason to be disheartened, because there are lessons for winning liberty – from the opponents of freedom. Let’s take the case of socialism. On March 14, 1883, a German philosopher living in exile in London passed away.   ... MORE

Katie Kieffer: We Could Be Heroes, You And Me

"What is the point of my life if I’m a coward?”    Twelve Charlie Hebdo staffers who died for free speech and 25 Republicans who voted against U.S. Speaker John Boehner are heroes. We too could be heroes, me and you. “We could be heroes, me and you,” are lyrics from Heroes (We Could Be)—a 2014 number one hit single by Swedish DJ   ... MORE

VIDEO: Education Is NOT The Same As Schooling

This IS CNN: Cowards, Cowards, Cowards!

Afraid to show offensive cartoons of "the profit." "CNN will not show you the new cover, which depicts the Prophet Muhammad, because it is our policy not to show potentially offensive images of the prophet," the host declared this morning. See the image CNN (and others!) refuse to show you and hear their commitment to free speech.          ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Obama's New Year's Irresolution

The leader of the free world is cowering before terrorism. President Barack Obama's absence from the great gathering in Paris of national leaders from other countries, to show their solidarity with France in its opposition to Islamic terrorists, was another sign of the Obama administration's continuing irresolution in the face of terror.    ... MORE

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - A Losing Proposition

Citizens Take Innovative Action To Combat Police Brutality

Keeping a sharp eye on the enforcers.      Citizens in Stockton, California have taken a new approach to activism. Rather than sticking to the traditional form of protest in which signs are held and slogans are chanted, these citizens have taken direct action and offered a grassroots, crowd-funded incentive structure to end police brutality   ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Basic Economics


Knowledge is power.    "Whether one is a conservative or a radical, a protectionist or a free trader, a cosmopolitan or a nationalist, a churchman or a heathen, it is useful to know the causes and consequences of economic phenomena." That quotation, from Nobel laureate George J. Stigler, is how Dr. Thomas Sowell begins     ... MORE

The Most Brazen Drug Thieves On The Texas Border

by Josh Eells.      America's dirtiest cops. The temperature was nearing triple digits when Jonathan Treviño strapped on his bulletproof vest, slipped his .40-caliber Glock into his ankle holster and got ready to go to work. It was Thursday, July 26th, 2012, one of those summers in South Texas when the hot air settles on the Rio Grande Valley like a  ... MORE

Have Prescription Drug Abuse Regulations Gone Too Far?

by CJ Arlotta, Forbes.     Policy of more pain, less drugs questioned. Many health care professionals are concerned with the growing usage of opioids among the general public, but does this mean the answer to the problem is tightening regulations on physicians prescribing controlled substances?   “I think what we have seen with regulations in this  ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell: The Democratic Fallacy

Jeffrey H. Anderson: GOP Wimping Out On Obamacare?

Lots of big talk, but no action.    Republicans have now won two Obamacare elections, the first in 2010 and the second in 2014. (In 2012, their presidential nominee chose not to engage on the issue.) In the lead-up to their latest victory, Republicans ran far more ads against Obamacare than either party ran for or against anything else. Voters      ... MORE

It's Official: Harry Reid Should Be Committed

by Jonathan Emord.      Rubber band causes broken face, rib cage, and head injury. In most jurisdictions, civil commitment proceedings are commenced when an individual poses a danger to himself or others.   By that definition, Harry Reid should be civilly committed.   We know based on his public actions that Reid poses a danger to others.         ...  MORE

VIDEO: The Shocking Truth About Student Debt

Oklahoma And Nebraska Turn On The Tenth Amendment

by Jacob Sullum.    Politicians and their fear of liberty. At the end of last month, seven Republican members of Oklahoma's legislature, including five of the most conservative, publicly criticized that state's Republican attorney general, Scott Pruitt, for trying to reverse marijuana legalization in Colorado. "Oklahoma has been a pioneer and a   ... MORE

California Legislature Seeks To Reign In Police Violence

Cops likely to get cameras and lectures.     After a year in which the use of lethal force by police officers spurred nationwide protests and bared outrage about the intersection of race and law enforcement in America, California legislators have returned to Sacramento determined to pass laws blunting police violence. “It will be probably the    ... MORE

Jeffrey Tucker: Legalize Drunk Driving

Criminalize bad behavior, not consumed chemicals.       Most people have been there: a few drinks at a restaurant or bar and then into the car to get home. Am I over the legal limit? Hard to say. Is my driving impaired? It doesn’t seem to be. But what if I get stopped? Will I lose my license, go to jail, and be disgraced in front of the community?   ... MORE

Glenn Greenwald: Some More Blasphemous Cartoons

In solidarity with a free press.     Defending free speech and free press rights, which typically means defending the right to disseminate the very ideas society finds most repellent, has been one of my principal passions for the last 20 years: previously as a lawyer and now as a journalist. So I consider it positive when large numbers of     ... MORE

VIDEO: Carl Sagan - Drug War Questions

Robert D'Onofrio: Protecting Individual Liberty From Evil

Evil persists when good men do nothing.       Aside from the stunning brutality of the tragedy in France, the most striking thing about the cowardly murders is how unambiguous the enemy is in both intent and action. It’s uncensored, chilling and very real. This isn’t just a U.S. problem or a gun problem. It’s also not a group problem,    ... MORE

California Legislature Is Back To Work & Full Of Bad Ideas

by Steven Greenhut.         California residents should hold on to their wallets. On Monday, the state legislature headed back to the Capitol for the new session. Legislators' short stint at the Capitol in December offered a preview of what's coming down the pike, and some of it reinforces Judge Gideon Tucker's famous quip: "No man's life,     ... MORE

VIDEO: Most Important Economic Principle To Know

Record 92,898,000 Americans Not In The Workforce

by Caroline May. But no worries, government also says unemployment rate drops to 5.6%. A record 92,898,000 Americans 16 years and older did not participate in the labor force last month, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS defines people not in the work force as people 16 years and up who are not employed and      ... MORE

"Hands Up Don’t Shoot" Activist Shoots Unarmed Man

Discovers police shootings are not so cut and dry.       An outspoken “Hands up don’t shoot” activist in Arizona recently went through multiple police training scenarios, including one, where he shot at an unarmed man. Reverend Jarrett Maupin is a self described progressive baptist preacher and a radical political activist,   ... MORE