Battlefield America: The War on the American People

by John W. Whitehead.     We have entered into a particularly dismal chapter in the American narrative, one that shifts us from a swashbuckling tale of adventure into a bone-chilling horror story. As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, “we the people” have now come full circle, from being held captive    ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Not Your Grandfather's FBI

Official lies and falsifications that kill innocents.    Does the FBI manifest fidelity, bravery and integrity, or does it cut constitutional corners in order to incriminate? Can the FBI cut the cable television lines to your house and then show up pretending to be the cable guy and install listening devices? Can FBI agents and technicians testify falsely  ... MORE

VIDEO: Is America Any Different Than Rome?

Jeb Bush Agrees With Obama On Secretive, Warrantless, Privacy-Violating Mass Surveillance Program On Citizens

Just like bro.  It’s reasonably rare for potential Republican presidential candidates to compliment the Obama administration, so any time they do, it ends up being fairly revealing. For example, when former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—who is currently in the process of “actively exploring” a presidential run—was asked yesterday for his thoughts on “the ... MORE

Above the Law: New Report Finds Extensive Civil Asset Forfeiture Abuses by California Law Enforcement Agencies

Momentum for reform accelerates. Civil asset forfeiture laws allow the government to seize and keep cash, cars, real estate, and any other property – even from citizens never charged with or convicted of a crime. Because these assets often go straight into the coffers of the enforcement agency, these laws have led to a perversion of police priorities,  ... MORE

VIDEO: The Economics Of The Shawshank Redemption

Do We Want High Prices Or Low Prices?

by Fernando Herrera-Gonzalez.      Prices should be signals, not manipulations. In an almost daily debate over economic and monetary policy politicians complain if prices — such as home prices — do not rise, and some complain if they think other prices — such as health care prices — are going up too much. This situation begs the question:    ... MORE

Publius Huldah: Nullification is a Natural Right!

Understand your history & you will understand nullification. What did our Framers really say we must do when the federal government usurps power? They never said, "When the federal government ignores the Constitution, amend the Constitution." They never said, "File a lawsuit and let federal judges decide." Instead, they advised two manly   ... MORE

FBI Lies May Have Led To Execution of 14 Innocent People

The Washington Post reports:  The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000. Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s   … MORE

David French: Wisconsin Deploys Police To Intimidate Political Opponents With Terrorizing Late Night Raids

from National Review.     Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house —    ... MORE

VIDEO: What Should You Be Scared Of?

Who is John Galt? Ayn Rand, Libertarians And The GOP

by Gene H. Bell-Villada.      Ayn Rand (1904-82) has arisen from the dead. Over the last decade the pop philosopher and propaganda fictionist extraordinaire has moved steadily from the cultish margins to the mainstream of US conservatism. Her ghost may even haunt the current presidential race with the candidacy of Republican Senator Rand ... MORE

John Stossel: The Next President

Why John Stossel endorses Rand Paul.    It's not smart to get too enthusiastic about any politician. I've been disappointed often. I believed Bill Clinton when he said, "the era of big government is over." I thought George W. Bush was a "small government guy." And Barack Obama ... Well, never mind. If I want limited government and individual freedom, ... MORE

VIDEO: Regulating Our Property Rights Out Of Existence

Damon Root: Property Rights Vs. USDA Crop Seizures

Gov't takes without paying just compensation. According to the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government must pay just compensation when it takes private property for a public use. Three years ago, in the case of Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that command, declaring that    ... MORE

Common Core Resistance Gains Steam In New York

When the state won't act, individuals must.    The resistance to one-size-fits-all education is gaining steam. This is evidenced by the latest display of power from concerned parents who are saying no to the Common Core State Standards while the New York legislature fails to do so. An excess of 175,000 parents in the state of New York alone     ... MORE

Paul Gessing: New Mexico's Civil Asset Forfeiture Success

Tyranny takes one in the shorts.   They say it’s better to be lucky than good. Of course, it’s even better to be lucky and good! That is exactly what happened in New Mexico during the 2015 legislative session with regard to reforming the process of civil asset forfeiture. To recap, during the 2015 legislative session, New Mexico’s deeply-divided    ... MORE

What One Cop’s Acquittal Reveals About Police Violence

by Katie McDonough.     A license to kill. The trial of a Chicago police detective who killed a young woman after opening fire on a group of unarmed people ended Monday with the judge finding the officer not guilty on all charges. Detective Dante Servin shot and killed Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old black woman, in April 2012 and was charged with    ... MORE

VIDEO: Redistribution And The Death Tax

J.D. Tuccille: Will The Minimum Wage Protesters Order Fries From Their Burger-Flipping Robot Replacements?

Going the way of gas attendants and theater ushers.     The Momentum Machines website is low-key right now, but that may have something to do with high-profile arguments in the press and protests in the streets demanding that fast-food chains pay workers $15 an hour to do the job the company's robots are designed to fill. Even before   ... MORE

Environmentalists Spoil The Planet For Human Beings

by Michael J. Hurd.      From the HuffingtonPost.com 4/6/15: Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Monday blamed environmentalists for what she called a “man-made” drought in California, which has led to the state’s first water restrictions. “With different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided,” Fiorina, a likely 2016     ... MORE

VIDEO: Liberty Hangs By A Thread

Thomas Sowell: Chaos In The Primaries

Rationality in politics is a formidable long shot.   Painful as it is to realize that both the Democrats and the Republicans will still be holding their primaries a year from now, that is one of the high prices we pay for democracy. Seldom does the initial "front-runner" in either party's primaries end up being the actual candidate when election    ... MORE

Damon Root: How Libertarians Are Changing Conservative Views on Economic Liberty And The Constitution

A long overdue return to the Founder's vision.     This month marks the 110th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Lochner v. New York, in which the Court struck down an economic regulation on the grounds that it violated the 14th Amendment right to liberty of contract. In the early decades of the 20th century, Lochner     ... MORE

Michael Grable: The California Drought & The Free Market

Free markets free people.  Controlled markets control people. A long story in The Desert Sun (a Palm Springs daily) recently manufactured a lake out of a puddle in California's perennial water problems.  Maybe it's just Governor Moonbeam's gang feeding propaganda to the fourth estate, but it's a good example of how government regulation and media     ... MORE

Thousands Dead From Police Shootings, Few Prosecuted

from the Washington Post.    On a rainy night five years ago, Officer Coleman “Duke” Brackney set off in pursuit of a suspected drunk driver, chasing his black Mazda Miata down rural Arkansas roads at speeds of nearly 100 miles per hour. When the sports car finally came to rest in a ditch, Brackney opened fire at the rear window and repeatedly  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Those Evil Koch Brothers

Stephen Moore: Greens Against The Poor

How the climate change agenda hurts the poor. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and the whole gang of Democratic leaders claim that one of their highest priorities is to lift up the middle class and reduce the income gap between rich and poor. That goal collides with what they admit is their very highest priority: stopping   ... MORE

State Seizes 11-year-old, Arrests His Mother After He Defends Medical Marijuana During A School Presentation

by Radley Balko.  From the website run by investigative journalist Ben Swann: On March 24, cannabis oil activist Shona Banda‘s life was flipped upside-down after her son was taken from her by the State of Kansas. The ordeal started when police and counselors at her 11-year-old son’s school conducted a drug education class. Her son, who had previously ... MORE

VIDEO: Free Range Kids & Gov't Fear Of Healthy Childhood

Walter E Williams: Some Thoughts And Questions

What's the true test of one's commitment to free speech?  It does not come when he permits people to be free to say or publish ideas with which he agrees. Not by a long shot. The true test of one's commitment to free speech comes when he permits others to say and publish ideas he deems offensive. In March, a video surfaced of   ... MORE

Jesse Walker: How About A Religious Nanny For President?

Mike Huckabee is your guy.     Mike Huckabee didn't confirm tonight that he's running for president, but he told us when he'd let us know. Interviewed by Fox News' Bret Baier, the Republican said he'd make a formal announcement in Hope, Arkansas, on May 5. Huckabee, who served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, last ran for president  ... MORE

Sheldon Richman: Lessons For The Liberty Movement

Patience and empathy are key in presenting concept.   It goes without saying—I hope—that we libertarians should be patient and empathetic when we talk political economy with non-libertarians. Patience and empathy are generally virtues, of course, but libertarians have an additional reason to practice them in their political lives: they  ... MORE

Copyrights & Patents Have Become A Religion

by Tim Cushing.   If you've read Techdirt for any length of time, you'll have noticed that intellectual property laws have been decoupled from logic for several years now. Because the entities heavily-reliant on IP protections (and who mostly serve as gatekeepers and middlemen, rather than perform any creative work of their own) have trouble    ... MORE

VIDEO: Johan Norberg - The Power Of Economic Freedom

How To Break The Internet

by Geoffrey A. Manne & R. Ben Sperry.     "Net neutrality" sounds like a good idea. It isn't. As political slogans go, the phrase net neutrality has been enormously effective, riling up the chattering classes and forcing a sea change in the government's decades-old hands-off approach to regulating the Internet. But as an organizing principle for the      ... MORE

NY Times Gets Confused About Minimum Wage Again

by Tim Worstall.    The editorial page has been dumbed down. There was a glorious time, when America was young again, that the New York Times actually had the right idea about the minimum wage. The rate should be zero of course. No, really, here’s their headline: "The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00." That’s not an Op/Ed, that’s an editorial.  ... MORE

VIDEO: Freedom To Give - Why Liberty?

Ex-Drug Cop Says He Stole Cash, Planted Drugs Many Times

by MaryClaire Dale, AP.      A disgraced ex-police officer testifying against his drug squad colleagues acknowledged Tuesday that he stole drug money, planted evidence and lied on police paperwork too many times to count. Jeffrey Walker told jurors that the Philadelphia Police Department drug squad targeted white "college-boy ... khaki-pants types"   ...  MORE

John W. Whitehead: No Matter Who Wins The White House, The New Boss Will Be The Same As The Old Boss

Liberty is an individual, not a political, choice.    The American people remain eager to be persuaded that a new president in the White House can solve the problems that plague us. Yet no matter who wins this next presidential election, you can rest assured that the new boss will be the same as the old boss, and we—the permanent underclass in  ... MORE