Entitled To Loot: Why Are There Riots In Baltimore?

by Michael Hurd.    Nothing happens in a vacuum. It’s easy enough to call the rioters in Baltimore “thugs;” and it’s entirely true. But when they take the actions they do, they are acting on ideas. Personally, they are acting on their own impulses and emotions. But even their own, thuggish, range-of-the-moment impulses and emotions rest on ideas.     ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Turning America Into A Battlefield

A blueprint for locking down the nation.     Americans now find themselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain ... MORE

VIDEO: Voting And The Non-Aggression Principle

Radley Balko: If The Government Decides To Destroy Your Property To Fight The Drug War, You're Just Out Of Luck

The drug war means never having to say you’re sorry.      A Houston-based federal judge ruled that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration does not owe the owner of a small Texas trucking company anything, not even the cost of repairing the bullet holes to a tractor-trailer truck that the agency used without his permission for a wild    ... MORE

New DPA Report Finds 'Policing for Profit' Gone Wild

by Jag Davies.       Did you know police are allowed to seize and keep your cash, cars, real estate, and any other property -- even if you're never convicted or even charged with a crime? It's called civil asset forfeiture -- and if it sounds like legalized burglary, that's because it is. In cities and small towns across the country -- Baltimore jumps to mind at   ... MORE

VIDEO: Whose Life Is It? Should It Be Legal For A Terminally Ill Patient To Try Risky, Non-FDA Approved Drugs?

Donald Bradley: After State Takes Her Child, A Kansas Woman Is At The Center Of National Marijuana Debate

Treat your disease or raise your child.   You can't do both. Shona Banda says she had a clear choice: Live in misery or use medical marijuana to ease her Crohn’s disease and risk going to jail. Turned out to be an easy call for the Garden City, Kan., woman. She said her symptoms eased to the point where she could return to work and once again play with   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: The Tyranny Of One Man's Opinion

Having your own kill list.         Thomas Cromwell was the principal behind-the-scenes fixer for much of the reign of King Henry VIII. He engineered the interrogations, convictions and executions of many whom Henry needed out of the way, including his two predecessors as fixer and even the king's second wife, Queen Anne. When Cromwell's son,  ... MORE

Want To Fix Baltimore? End The Drug War

by Christopher Ingraham.     No, The Wire does not explain what's happening in Baltimore this week, as my colleague Alyssa Rosenberg wrote yesterday. Still, the show's creator and former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon knows a lot more about the city than most of us. And in a wide-ranging and riveting interview with The Marshall Project    ... MORE

Pizza Shop Goes Under Thanks To Minimum Wage Hike

by Tina Patel.   On Seattle's minimum employment incentives. It may be one of the first casualties of Seattle’s new minimum wage law. The owner of Z Pizza says she’s being forced to close her doors, because she can’t afford the higher labor costs. Devin Jeran was happy to get a raise, when Seattle’s minimum wage went up to $11 an hour at the beginning  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Personal Liberty Vs. The Nanny State

The Time To Limit NSA Snooping Is Now

by Jacob Sullum.      Reauthorizing unamended PATRIOT Act would be reckless. When Congress passed the PATRIOT Act in 2001, it did not intend to authorize the indiscriminate collection of personal information about every American. But that is what Congress will be doing if it renews the law next month without changes aimed at protecting our privacy  ... MORE

John Stossel: What Creates Jobs

Regulation kills options.     I took a camera to Times Square this week and asked people, "What creates jobs?" Most had no answer. One said, "stimulus!" What? Government creates jobs? No! I suppose it's natural that people think government creates jobs because politicians always say that. "We've now created more than 10 million," said President    ... MORE

VIDEO: Nanny Of The Month - April Winner Jerry Brown


Hose the little guys, shower the cronies.

U.S. Economic Growth Nearly Grinding To A Halt

by Chico Harlan.       The U.S. economy ground nearly to a halt in the first three months of the year, according to government data released Wednesday morning, as exports plunged and severe winter weather helped keep consumers indoors. The gross domestic product grew between January and March at an annualized rate of 0.2 percent,      ... MORE

Lynch’s Confirmation A Step Backward For Asset Forfeiture

by Mitchell Colbert.     Another proponent of government theft at the helm. After nearly three months of debate the Republican-controlled Senate has allowed Loretta Lynch to become the nation’s next Attorney General, replacing Eric Holder. Barack Obama has now appointed both the nation’s first black man and first black woman to serve as    ... MORE

Did You Know Police Have Their Own Bill Of Rights?

by Eli Hager.   Why the public is still in the dark about Freddie Gray. It has been more than two weeks since Baltimore police dragged Freddie Gray into the paddy-wagon from which he would emerge, half an hour later, with a fatal injury to his spine. But as another day ticks by, Gray's neighbors and fellow citizens remain largely uninformed about  ... MORE

VA Blocks Injured Vets From Access To Medical Weed

by Lori Denman-Underhill.      War veterans of Los Angeles wait patiently to be given the freedom to toke up. A VA policy known as VISN-22 was modernized to let veterans use medical marijuana as well as opioids while getting care, a blessing to vets who suffer pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, anger issues and suicidal tendencies. The policy change  ... MORE

VIDEO: A Question Of Accountability/Why Baltimore Burned

NSA Spreads Its Message By Producing Coloring Books

Conditioning kids to the police state.      By the time I found the National Security Agency booth on the expo floor at last week’s RSA Conference, all the best shwag was gone. The most prized giveaway was a faux-leather Post-it Note kit bearing the agency’s seal. “We can’t print enough of those,” the agency rep manning the booth told me.   ... MORE

American Small Business Struggles Under Heavy Regulation

by Paul Ebeling.    What big business pays politicians to do. Heavy US regulation putting a damper on American small businesses, but larger businesses are able to surmount regulatory burdens and might even thrive from them, a new American Action Forum (AAF) study released indicates. The survey was conducted by a policy analyst for AAF, a center- ... MORE

VIDEO: Playing Without Protection - Reducing Concussions


A lesson on moral hazard. 

Thomas Sowell: Anti-Trust Law And Lawlessness

Law should not be sacrificed to political expediency.    We all make mistakes and some of us learn from them. What is even better is to learn from other people's mistakes, where they pay for those mistakes while we learn free of charge. Many Americans who say that we should learn from other people, especially Europeans, mean that       ... MORE

Rioting Threatens Public Safety. Police Unions Are Worse .

by Ed Krayewski.    How much does a lack of police accountability and transparency contribute to the anger that helps turn protests violent? Protests in Baltimore over the Freddie Gray's unexplained death while in police custody from a fatal spine injury are turning violent. As usual, authorities blame outsiders for the violence, a spurious claim.   ... MORE

The Scorpion And The Frog: A Tale Of Modern Capitalism

“A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river.   The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog then agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is    ... MORE

Sheldon Richman: U.S. Capitalism Isn't A 'Free Market'

Too much government distortion.   In 1970 country singer Lynn Anderson had a hit recording of a Joe South song that opened with the line: "I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden." I often think of that song in connection with the libertarian philosophy. You may be asking: for heaven’s sake, why? Because it’s what I want to say  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Game Of Risk

Walter E Williams: California's Water Problems

A water policy that leaves the public thirsty.    Californians are experiencing their third year of drought. Headlines read: "Current California Drought Is Driest In State's History; Scientists Fear 'Megadroughts' On Their Way." "Global Warming Upped Heat Driving California's Drought." Then there are scientific claims such as, "There's a rapidly   ... MORE

How 10 years Of YouTube Transformed The Internet

A laissez-faire approach to copyright.     It all began with a 19-second video clip recorded at a zoo. One of the founders of YouTube, Jawed Karim, uploaded the video on April 23, 2005, showing him describing the length of an elephant's trunk. "Anyone could be a star and there was no gate keeper," CNET.com senior editor Bridget   ... MORE

VIDEO: Cop On Power Trip Intimidates & Explains Quotas


Public servants caught in the act of being themselves. Do they really work for you?

Supremes Rule 6-3 That Police Cannot Prolong Traffic Stops In Order To Instigate A Search By A Drug-Sniffing Dog

Fourth Amendment holds on by narrow margin.  Rejecting the idea that some violations of the Constitution are insignificant, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that police may not extend the time needed to conduct an ordinary traffic stop in order to subject the vehicle and its occupants to an examination by a drug-detecting dog unless   ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: E-Cigarettes Are Not Tobacco Products

The CDC misleads the public about vaping.     For years anti-smoking activists and public health officials have tried to justify their irrational hatred of electronic cigarettes by arguing that vaping leads to smoking, especially among impressionable young people who otherwise would never touch tobacco. But that is not happening. To   ... MORE

Jury Nullification: A Concept Every American Should Learn

by Kevin Mathews.     A juror can insist on justice. Did you know that, no matter the evidence, if a jury feels a law is unjust, it is permitted to “nullify” the law rather than finding someone guilty? Basically, jury nullification is a jury’s way of saying, “By the letter of the law, the defendant is guilty, but we also disagree with that law, so we   ... MORE

Police State America: Watch Cop Harass, Then Tackle A Woman Who Had Just Reported Her Son Kidnapped

A disturbing story out of Sacramento: Paul and Suzanne Guzman's car was stolen out of their Fairfield home's driveway—with their 8-year-old son Brock in the backseat. So the Guzmans did what most people would do and called the local police. The boy and car were eventually found, abandoned unharmed, with the help of a family friend who   ... MORE

VIDEO: Libertarianism - Ideas Of The American Revolution

Texas Knows Sobriety Checkpoints Are Unconstitutional

by Lily Dane.        Sobriety checkpoints (or "DUI checkpoints") are roadblocks that law enforcement officers set up on roads for the purpose of catching people driving under the influence of alcohol. Some of us also think they are used to generate revenue for police departments and the State, since the stops often result in citizens being slapped     ... MORE

Political Correctness: The Antithesis Of Science

by J.T. Young.     Despite attempts to cloak itself in science, political correctness is the very opposite. The political correctness movement’s real emphasis is on politics, not correctness. Its goal is to have prevailing thought determined by a political dynamic. As repeatedly witnessed, political correctness is about installing its subjective version of    ... MORE

VIDEO: Why You Should Love Fossil Fuel

Mike Masnick: GM Says That While You May Own Your Car, It Owns The Software In It, Thanks To Copyright Laws

You buy but you don't own it.  Last week, we noted that Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Jared Polis had introduced an important bill to fix a part of the DMCA's broken anti-circumvention laws found in Section 1201 of the DMCA. For whatever reason, some people still have trouble understanding why the law is so broken. So here's a story that  ... MORE

The Worst U.S. Government: Here And Now

by Barry Farber.    “Your computer gypped me out of $80 this week,” the worker complained to the boss. “I’ll look into it,” the boss promised. A day later the boss said to the worker, “You’re right. Our computer did cheat you out of $80 this week. But that same computer gave you $80 too much the week before last. Isn’t that true?” “Yes,” admitted    ... MORE