John W. Whitehead: Jesus Died In A Police State

Challenging power can be dangerous.  It is fitting at a time when the nation is grappling with moral questions about how best to execute death row prisoners, whether police should be held responsible for shooting unarmed citizens, and to what extent we allow the government to dictate, monitor and control every aspect of our lives, that we   ... MORE

A Lawsuit Pushes To Make Prostitution Legal In California

by Chris Sieroty.     When it comes to legal prostitution, Nevada has welcomed brothels in certain counties and in exchange has taxed the industry and demanded strict medical testing for prostitutes to protect both the sex workers and their clients. Even an attempt by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to have lawmakers in Carson City   ... MORE

VIDEO: Vaclav Klaus - Reincarnations Of Communism

More Citizens Refusing to Answer Questions at Checkpoints

by Philip Hodges.   We’re told that we have a right to remain silent. How ironic it is that these days we get arrested for doing just that – remaining silent. These particular checkpoints are run by the Border Patrol, but they’re nowhere near the Mexico-U.S. border. They’re within 100 miles of the border. So, the people they end up stopping and  ... MORE

DOJ Will Not Prosecute IRS's Lois Lerner For Contempt

by Susan Jones.       After all, she took one for the team. President Obama's Justice Department is refusing to prosecute Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress, a decision that "is disappointing and exhibits a disregard for the rule of law," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform       ... MORE

VIDEO: NY Cop On A Vulgar Power Trip Reveals Why The General Public Is Seeing Law Enforcement As Them, Not Us


Context: The driver had pulled around and gestured that the officer should use his turn signal, casually and non-offensively, and kept driving.  What followed was a horrifying glimpse of power going to someone’s head when they are granted a shiny badge and forget who they work for.    ... MORE

Daniel J. Mitchell: Liberty, Morality, and Discrimination

Decent people should not obey immoral laws. When describing their view of government and public policy, libertarians and constitutional conservatives sometimes use a variation of this phrase: “Not everything that’s illegal is immoral, and not everything that’s immoral should be illegal.” To put this in tangible terms, consider the fact that    ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Indiana And The Constitution

Clarifying the law of the land.      The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2015 is constitutionally infirm and legally troublesome. The circuitous constitutional route that brought about this statute began in 1990 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment may not be used as a defense to violating the  ... MORE

A. Barton Hinkle: Courts Let Cops Get Away With Murder

Government protects itself, because it can. The police can break into your home unlawfully and shoot you dead, and nobody is at fault for that except you. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, once considered one of the most conservative in the country, has moved to the left in recent years. But if you think that means it is showing a greater    ... MORE

John Stossel: The Next Bubble

They're doing it again!      When the last housing bubble burst, politicians blamed "greedy banks." They said mortgage companies lent money recklessly, making loans to people with dubious credit, for down payments as low as 3 percent. "It will work out," said the optimistic bankers. Regulators didn't disagree. Everyone said, "Home prices  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Concealed Carry On Campus

The Proper Way To Make Mistakes In Drug Policing

by Radley Balko.    A couple in Owego, New York was recently wrongly targeted by local police, who had apparently mistaken them for some pretty big time drug distributers. From local TV news outlet WNBF: Steven Dunlap says he was pulled over by police while he was on his way to meet some friends for pizza. He says they took him into custody at   ... MORE

TSA'S Secret Behavior Checklist To Spot Terrorists

by Jana Winter and Cora Currier.        Fidgeting, whistling, sweaty palms. Add one point each. Arrogance, a cold penetrating stare, and rigid posture, two points. These are just a few of the suspicious signs that the Transportation Security Administration directs its officers to look out for — and score — in airport travelers, according to a confidential TSA   ... MORE

VIDEO: Mandatory Minimums - Why Liberty?

Ted Cruz’s Presidential Campaign Launch: Good And Bad

by Craig Biddle.   Senator Ted Cruz—who may prove to be the best (or least-bad) candidate America will see in the 2016 presidential race—just launched his campaign for the presidency in a markedly mixed way. He launched it at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University and did so with additional pandering to the so-called “religious right” (which, in fact, is not ... MORE

New Study Is A ‘Death Blow’ To Global Warming Hysteria

by Michael Bastasch.  A new study out of Germany casts further doubt on the so-called global warming “consensus” by suggesting the atmosphere may be less sensitive to increases in carbon dioxide emissions than most scientists think. A study by scientists at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology found that man-made aerosols had a much     ... MORE

The Beginning Of The End Of The War On Drugs

by Ryan Cooper.    50 years of failure is enough. One of the many depressing aspects of the 2004 election was the crushing defeat of pro-gay marriage forces. Republican operatives, cynically stoking turnout with outright lies, put gay marriage bans on the ballot in 11 states, every one one of which was passed overwhelmingly. So it's jarring that gay  ... MORE

United States Supreme Court Refuses To Protect The Right Of Students To Wear American Flag T-Shirts To School

High Court rules against right of free expression.     The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a case in which California public school students were prohibited from wearing American flag t-shirts to school, allegedly out of a fear that it might be disruptive. In refusing to hear the appeal without giving any reason for the decision, the Supreme    ... MORE

VIDEO: Kennedy - Operation Choke Point

Thomas Sowell: Etiquette Versus Annihilation

The negotiations of a fool.  Recent statements from United Nations officials, that Iran is already blocking their existing efforts to keep track of what is going on in their nuclear program, should tell anyone who does not already know it that any agreement with Iran will be utterly worthless in practice. It doesn't matter what the terms of the agreement   ... MORE

OK To Leak Government Secrets If It Benefits Politicians

by Trevor Timm.  When it comes to classified information, some leaks are more equal than others. If you are a whistleblower like Edward Snowden, who tells the press about illegal, immoral or embarrassing government actions, you will face jail time. But it’s often another story for US government officials leaking information for their own     ... MORE

VIDEO - Nanny Of The Month (March 2015)


Busybodies minding our own business.

Josh Fatzick: Study Shows Global Poverty Is At Its Lowest Rate In History, And It Is All Thanks To Capitalism

The recipe for prosperity is freedom.    Capitalism gets a bad rap these days, often conjuring up images of greedy oil barons, sweatshop factories and polluted oceans, but a recent study shows exactly how much capitalism has helped the poorest of the world. The study, conducted by Max Roser of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford   ... MORE

Ian Hanchett: Jeb Bush Is 'Nervous' About NSA Criticism

Hostility to the Fourth Amendment.  Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush stated that he is “nervous” about criticism of the NSA and that he wished the president would do a better job defending government surveillance systems on Monday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.” Bush said that lone wolf terrorism “is a serious threat in a world where we’re so   ... MORE

Being A Good Mom Puts Her At Odds With Her Government

by John Pendygraft.   Mom of epileptic son caught in Charlotte's Web medical marijuana bureaucracy. Just as 13-year-old Branden Petro flops into the passenger seat of his mom's car, his eyes roll back. His face twitches uncontrollably. He curls into a fetal position. It is his third seizure on a particularly bad day. His mother, Renee Petro, 36, jumps   ... MORE

Shane Goldmacher: Rand Paul’s Big, Risky Bet on Youth

Can appeal to the young win with the Grand OLD Party. When Sen. Rand Paul makes his first visit to Iowa as an official presidential candidate next month, he will head to the campus of the University of Iowa. The location—one of the state's biggest liberal strongholds—seems unusual for a Republican, but Paul is headed there in the hopes  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Students For Liberty

What's Next For Police State America? Armed TSA Police

Are you ready for an armed TSA? The NY Times reported the union that represents the TSA renewed its push for armed agents at checkpoints of the nation's airports. Using a violent attack by a machete-wielding taxi driver in New Orleans as an excuse.  Another pilot allegedly crashed a plane on purpose with 150 people on board, why doesn't the   ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Self-Enforcing Discrimination

How do-gooders handicap the poor. Black politicians, civil rights organizations and others who say they are concerned with the welfare of poor black people often support harmful measures. One of the most effective tools for disadvantaged people is to be able to charge a lower price for what they sell and pay a higher price for what they buy. ... MORE

VIDEO: Is Pot Legalization A Huge Win For Civilization?

Matt Agorist: Florida Woman Had To Film Herself Being Raped By A Cop So That Police Would Believe Her Story

Badges don't grant special rights.   A man whose job was to help guide people after they’ve been released from prison, has been arrested himself, after being accused of vile criminal acts. A parole officer in South Florida was arrested this week for sexually assaulting a woman on probation. The woman was so scared of violating her probation   ... MORE

Off-Target: California GOP Embraces Gun-Grab Program

by Steven Greenhut.     With friends like this, who needs enemies? Republican legislators are known for their support of gun rights, yet a letter they sent regarding state Attorney General Kamala Harris last week has a man-bites-dog quality about it. A dozen state GOP senators called for an oversight hearing to examine why Harris has been too    ... MORE

Radley Balko: Absurd Fourth Circuit Ruling Embodies Everything That’s Wrong With SWAT Drug Raids

Some police state bootlickers have robes.  Earlier this month, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an appalling decision in a lawsuit stemming from a fatal 2005 drug raid in Maryland. In fact, the opinion encapsulates everything that’s wrong with sending militarized police barreling into homes to serve    ... MORE

Tyranny: An Essential Feature of Socialism

by Doug Reich.   I recently heard a television pundit lament the likely outcome of his own prediction that the liberally biased media, after a temporary fit of outrage over the egregious scandals engulfing the Obama administration, will return to its sycophantic posture just in time for the next election cycle. While I agree with this prediction, the more  ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter Block - What Is Libertarianism?

More Executive Overreach, This Time from the EPA

by Ilya Shapiro.      Power brokers and their dictates. The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday in Michigan v. EPA, asking whether it was unreasonable for the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore costs in determining the appropriateness of regulating mercury emissions from power plants. The EPA’s proposed regulations are expected ... MORE

Why No Real Change Is Likely: Ron Paul Supporters Bolt Rand Paul Camp In Response To Mainstream Concessions

by Ben Schreckinger.   As he pulls together his expected presidential campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sen. Rand Paul is confronted by defections from an unexpected quarter: the die-hard idealists whose energy powered his father’s campaigns. That network of committed supporters was expected to convey to Paul, the natural successor  ... MORE

VIDEO: Why Supreme Court Justices Serve For Life


Should they?

Meet Chuck Schumer, The Next Senate Minority Leader

by Nick Gillespie.     A partial listing of some of things that the NY political hack has tried to ban. It's long been said that the most dangerous place in Washington is between Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a TV camera. With news of the resignation of the historically awful Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the odds are good that Schumer will now ascend  ... MORE

California Bill Requires Warrant For Stingray Searches

by Cyrus Farivar.   A toothless Fourth Amendment makes it necessary. A California state bill that would require a warrant to access all kinds of digital data passed its first hurdle after being approved by the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday. Among other sweeping new requirements to enhance digital privacy, the bill notably imposes  ... MORE