Ed Krayewski: Help The Cops Chill Out

Policing can be more compatible with liberty.    An Associated Press poll conducted last month found that the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, which led to protests in Ferguson, New York City, and around the country, ranked as the "top news story of 2014." Nevertheless, the issue of police brutality is not new and,    ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: How Uncle Sam Became A Bank Robber

Legalizing theft.   During her confirmation hearings last week, Loretta Lynch, President Obama's choice to succeed Eric Holder as attorney general, called civil forfeiture, a form of legalized theft in which the government takes people's property without accusing them of a crime, "a wonderful tool." Lynch, currently the U.S. attorney for the     ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Prices And Price Fixing

John Stossel: The Parasitic Nature Of Politicians

The money grabbers.   Politicians and lawyers pretend that they are important people doing important work. But often they're important because they are parasites. They feed off others, while creating no wealth of their own. We all complain about businesses we don't like, but because business is voluntary, every merchant must offer us something  ... MORE

AP: Obama Relies On Accounting Tricks To Pad Numbers

by Andrew Taylor.   President Barack Obama’s budget is relying on a series of familiar accounting tricks to show $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade, an amount that would shrink by almost half if they were excluded. But so-called “pay-go” rules officially require tax cuts and new spending on the mandatory side of the ledger to be balanced by  ...  MORE

VIDEO: Ayn Rand's Philosophy For Living On Earth

Words Matter In ‘ISIS’ War, So Use ‘Daesh’

by Zeba Khan. The militants who are killing civilians, raping and forcing captured women into sexual slavery, and beheading foreigners in Iraq and Syria are known by several names: the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and, more recently, the Islamic State, or IS. French officials recently declared that   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate?

Does the government own our bodies?      New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie unwittingly ignited a firestorm earlier this week when he responded to a reporter's question in Great Britain about forced vaccinations of children in New Jersey by suggesting that the law in the U.S. needs to balance the rights of parents against the       ... MORE

Jim Clifton: The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment

Official lies from government.        Here's something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don't know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading. Right now, we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall    ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Scary School Stories

Poor education is not stemming from racism. New York's schools are the most segregated in the nation, and the state needs remedies right away. That was Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch's message to New York's governor and Legislature. She said that minority children are disproportionately trapped in schools that lack teaching talent,  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Government Vs Entrepreneurs

Michael Heise: 22 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Trust Police

The police aren't making too many friends these days.     It seems like there isn't a day that goes by where some tragic and outrageous story doesn't come out involving the cops somehow violating someone's rights, or even killing them. But, no matter how much we see this behavior, no matter how frequent it becomes, there seems to be  ... MORE

Pot Is Making Colorado So Much Money The State May Have To Give Some Of Its $50 Million Windfall To Taxpayers

by David McCormack.   Colorado has generated so much money from recreational pot taxes that the state is bound by law to pass some of the tax money directly on to residents. Voters legalized marijuana in 2012 on the understanding that revenue raised would go to schools, but a 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment means some of the   ... MORE

VIDEO: The Economics Of RoboCop

Public Health Nannies Won't Admit: E-Cigs Save Lives

by Bill Godshall.     In sharp contrast to the Trib's fear-mongering headlines and Adam Smeltz's news story “Western Pa. cancer specialists call for electronic cigarette crackdown” , the scientific and empirical evidence indicates vaping is 99 percent less hazardous than smoking cigarettes, is more effective for quitting smoking than are FDA-   ... MORE

Healthcare.gov Shares Your Personal Data With Marketers

by Rob Hustle.    HealthCare.gov is sharing your private personal health data with over a dozen online marketing companies. These companies provide tools that allow HealthCare.gov to track, analyze and record anyone who visits the site. But, despite its promise that “no personally identifiable information is collected by these tools,” the     ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Jurors Can't Know Pot Growers Are Patients

Federal prosecutors determined to hide the truth.     Imagine you are a juror in the federal trial of five people charged with growing and distributing marijuana in northeastern Washington. The prosecution cannot present any direct evidence that the defendants sold marijuana to anyone, and the defendants say they were growing all 74 plants ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Obama Versus America

Irresponsible and immature.    In his recent trip to India, President Obama repeated a long-standing pattern of his — denigrating the United States to foreign audiences. He said that he had been discriminated against because of his skin color in America, a country in which there is, even now, "terrible poverty." Make no mistake about it, there is   ... MORE

VIDEO: DEA Data Mining

Jacob Sullum: Busted Over $80 Worth of Pot, College Student Turns Police Informant, Then Turns Up Dead

This is the way everybody does it, says police chief. Last week North Dakota's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) released a report that finds no wrongdoing in the way an anti-drug task force handled a young confidential informant who turned up dead last June. Andrew Sadek, a 20-year-old student at North Dakota State College of Science in   ... MORE
 

Did Border Crisis Trigger Measles Outbreak?

by Joel B. Pollack.    More than a coincidence. A quick review of the U.S. State Department visa requirements for immigrant visas reveals that applicants must be vaccinated for measles prior to their approval. Measles vaccination is not required for tourist visas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nor is it required for any     ... MORE

VIDEO: What To Do When The Police Question You

Todd Krainin: Glenn Greenwald - The Outsider

Exposing a government with no constraints.   Glenn Greenwald is a lawyer who has lost all interest in making legal arguments. The reason for his indifference should terrify anyone who believes that the law, and not arbitrary decision-making by government officials, should govern a nation. Asked whether NSA mass surveillance is legal under    ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Stormy Weather And Politics

The political utility of dire predictions.    It was refreshing to see meteorologists apologize for their dire — and wrong — predictions of an unprecedented snow storm that they had said would devastate the northeast. It was a big storm, but the northeast has seen lots of big snow storms before and will probably see lots of big snow storms  ... MORE

Right From The Dashcam: Seattle PD’s Arrest Of Black Man Is Every Problem With The Justice System In A Nutshell

A law unto themselves.  If there were a video and accompanying story that could be used as a textbook example of every problem with our criminal justice system, this is it. First, watch the cruiser cam video (you only need watch from 1:40 to 7:40). What the video shows is Wingate standing motionless at the crosswalk and Officer Whitlatch    ... MORE

Jeffrey Tucker: Another Reason Uber Gets Banned

Depressing drunk drivers costs government revenue.  I live in a college town where drunk driving is a way of life. I once asked a policeman what his main job was in my town and he said very plainly: “stopping and arresting drunk drivers.” I asked how he knows whom to stop. His answer is that he has developed a nose for this.    ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Trust and Reputation

Stephen Moore: Why Wages Aren't Rising

Obama is scooping up job creation money. President Obama has wisely abandoned his lead-filled trial balloon of taxing college savings plans. Congressional offices were deluged over the last week with indignant calls from voters on this middle-class bait-and-switch scheme and finally Democrats caved. Good riddance. But the worst    ... MORE

New Surgeon General Should Prescribe Honesty On E-Cigs

by Sally Satel, Forbes.        Early last week, the nation’s new Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said health officials are “in desperate need of clarity” on electronic cigarettes to help guide policies. The technology should be embraced, he said, if evidence shows e-cigarettes are able to help those who otherwise have trouble quitting smoking. Dr.    ... MORE

VIDEO: The Progressive Income Tax - A Tale Of Three Bros

The Authoritarianism Of The American Police State

by Matt Peppe.   Shielding accountability. Two days before Christmas, a “thug” launched an “unprovoked attack” on a female MTA employee on a Bronx subway platform, “choking her” and causing injuries, according to the Daily News. The “hulking brute” then fled the scene, “grinning as he made his may through the turnstile.” The newspaper description  ... MORE

Is Hillary The HealthCare.Gov Of Presidential Candiates?

by Peter Suderman.   Coronation of the status quo. For a sense of how crowded and chaotic the potential Republican presidential field is, it’s worth reading Sean Trende’s RealClearPolitics analysis of the coming race, “What If No One Wins the GOP Presidential Nomination?”   Trende makes a compelling argument—complete with a simple but smartly      ... MORE

The 7 Most Egregious Examples Of Civil Asset Forfeiture

by Casey Harper.    Great moments in legalized theft. Cops across the country are padding their budgets with hundreds of millions of dollars by seizing property from American citizens, even when they have not been charged with a crime. This process–called asset forfeiture–allows police to take property for themselves if they suspect it is being used for   ... MORE

Supreme Court Upholds Auto Stop With No Traffic Violation

by Marjorie Cohn. Ignorance of the law is no excuse -- that is, unless you're a police officer.  For the first time, in December, the Supreme Court upheld a traffic stop even where there was no traffic violation. The court, in Heien v. North Carolina, continued its steady erosion of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and    ... MORE

VIDEO: Licensing and Cronyism

How The Feds Can Legally Steal Your Money

by Rand Paul and Tim Walberg.   There are many reasons why the Internal Revenue Service is perhaps the least-loved agency in America -- a tax code so complex that it seems like you need an advanced degree to understand it, the dreaded audit process and revelations that certain groups have been targeted based on their political beliefs.      ... MORE

Radley Balko: The Supreme Court's Massive Blind Spot

What can't be seen looking down from high.     This term, the Supreme Court heard two cases involving the actions of police officers during traffic stops. How the court comes down on the two cases will likely have significant repercussions far beyond the facts of the cases themselves. The court’s decisions could affect how police target   ... MORE

VIDEO: The Top 5 NFL Hits To Taxpayers

Amy Radil: Seattle Will Fine You For Tossing Food In Trash

Government's newest innovation in revenue collection.     In Seattle, wasting food will now earn you a scarlet letter — well, a scarlet tag, to be more accurate. The bright red tag, posted on a garbage bin, tells everyone who sees it that you've violated a new city law that makes it illegal to put food into trash cans. "I'm sure neighbors are going  ... MORE

Dustin Volz: Government Privacy Board Tells Obama Administration To Shut Down NSA Mass Spying Now

White House quiet since USA Freedom Act crumbled.    An executive-branch privacy watchdog is renewing its call for President Obama to unilaterally end the National Security Agency's domestic phone records dragnet amid growing uncertainty over Congress's willingness to reform government surveillance. The bipartisan Privacy and Civil  ... MORE