Don’t Be Fooled: The Illusion Of Freedom In America

Put away the sugarcoating. It is what it is.    Being a citizen in the American corporate state is much like playing against a stacked deck: you’re always going to lose. The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, most stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that their luck will change.        ... MORE

Zeynep Tufekci: Why ‘Smart’ Objects May Be A Dumb Idea

Creating vulnerability.   A fridge that puts milk on your shopping list when you run low. A safe that tallies the cash that is placed in it. A sniper rifle equipped with advanced computer technology for improved accuracy. A car that lets you stream music from the Internet. All of these innovations sound great, until you learn the risks that this type of connect-   ... MORE

VIDEO: Walter E Williams - The Enemy Of The People

Andrew Napolitano: Chris Christie vs. Rand Paul

Or, King George vs. Thomas Jefferson.  The dust-up between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul over presidential fidelity to the Constitution – particularly the Fourth Amendment – was the most illuminating two minutes of the Republican debate last week. It is a well-regarded historical truism that the Fourth Amendment was   ... MORE

Political Correctness Makes College Students Mentally Ill

by Daniel Greenfield.      The biggest emotional bully wins. First, complaints of emotional distress are way up. Nearly all of the campus mental-health directors surveyed in 2013 by the American College Counseling Association reported that the number of students with severe psychological problems was rising at their schools. The rate of   ... MORE

VIDEO: What Is A Gold Standard?

Timothy Williams: Facial Recognition Software Used To Identify Terrorists Now Deployed By The Local Police

'Public servants' treat citizens as potential suspects.   Facial recognition software, which American military and intelligence agencies used for years in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify potential terrorists, is being eagerly adopted by dozens of police departments around the country to pursue drug dealers, prostitutes and other conventional     ... MORE

Kristie Eshelman: Big Government Is Hurting Millennials

Is political greed gobbling up America's future?       USA Today recently pointed out: One in seven young people neither works nor goes to school. This group of Americans is roughly the size of Minnesota's population. And today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its job numbers report. While the youth unemployment rate is down    ... MORE

Conservative Coal Towns Are Being Destroyed

by Stephen Moore.      Here’s today’s political quiz question: what do these five states — Rhode Island, Vermont, California, Oregon and Maine — have in common. Yes they are blue states ruled by Democrats, but that’s not all. These are the states that use the least amount of coal — less than 2 percent — for electric power. In fact, almost all of the states   ... MORE

Lloyd Marcus: Why Liberals Are Dangerous

The emotion over reason advocates.  The Left (liberal mainstream media) practically had a ticker tape parade for Ohio Gov. John Kasich for answers he gave on two issues during the GOP debate. Liberals' praise of Kasich shows they have chosen emotion over logical, reasoned thinking. This makes liberals irresponsible and dangerous. These people   ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Champions Of Liberty

Explaining Jury Nullification To A Sitting Judge

by Scott Shackford.    I spent a day last week immersed in Los Angeles County's immense judicial system downtown after being summoned to jury duty. My experience was not quite as vividly terrible as Matt Welch's in New York, partly because Los Angeles lets you complete your questionnaire and orientation videos online well in advance, and thus I was   ... MORE

Chris Christie And Rand Paul Reflect The Clash Between The GOP's Authoritarian And Libertarian Tendencies

by Jacob Sullum.     One of the most telling moments in last week's Republican presidential debate came when moderator Megyn Kelly asked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to defend his position that Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator, should be held responsible for the next terrorist attack on Americans because he opposes the National Security Agency's   ... MORE

VIDEO: Football Law - Changing The Rules Of The Game

Augur Could Be The Greatest Gambling Platform In History. Is There Anything The Government Can Do To Stop It?

by Jim Epstein. The wisdom of the crowds. An online gambling platform could do to the neighborhood bookie what electric refrigerators did to the ice delivery man. Coming this fall, Augur will allow participants to wager money on any future event of their choosing. Software will set the odds, collect the bets, and disperse the winnings. The price alone    ... MORE

Fiscally Responsible Republican? Scott Walker To Commit $400 Million In Taxpayer Dollars For New NBA Stadium Deal

by Nick Gillespie.      While ongoing reportage of the Donald Trump Traveling Tijuana Donkey Show crashes into the latest revelations from Hillary Clinton's Personal Email Server Fun Times Revue, there's a more pedestrian scandal taking place in plain sight. This one involves Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who's running on his tough-as-nails budget  ... MORE

Nico Sell: It’s Time To Build The Private Web

A place for private communication and uncensored info.  The establishment of the U.S. Postal Service was one of the most visionary civil liberties ideas of its time. It was deeply rooted in George Washington’s belief that a strong state and society can only exist if every citizen has access to uncensored information and can freely communicate,   ... MORE

Drug War Update - Jacob Sullum: Texas Cops Sexually Assault Another Motorist In The Name Of Pot Prohibition

Another warrantless roadside cavity probe.      What is it with Texas cops and roadside vaginal searches? Last May I described three strikingly similar cases in which Texas troopers fruitlessly looked for marijuana in the private parts of women pulled over for minor traffic offenses. The incidents were outrageous enough to inspire a new  ... MORE

VIDEO: Rand Paul - Domestic Spying

Prison Sentences Based On Crimes Not Yet Committed

by Barry-Jester, Casselman and Goldstein.   Criminal sentencing has long been based on the present crime and, sometimes, the defendant’s past criminal record. In Pennsylvania, judges could soon consider a new dimension: the future. Pennsylvania is on the verge of becoming one of the first states in the country to base criminal sentences not only on  ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: A Debatable 'Debate'

An illustration of what's wrong with the media.     The so-called "debates," among too many Republicans to have a debate, are yet another painful sign of how much words and ideas have degenerated in our times. No one expects these televised sound bites and "gotcha" questions to be anything like the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates on the   ... MORE

VIDEO: Subsidizing Our NATO Allies - Your Tax $$ At Work

The Disturbing Messages In Police Recruiting Videos

by Radley Balko.   According to the New Mexico Watchdog Web site, this is a new recruiting video being used by the police department in Hobbs, New Mexico. Note the aspects of policing the video emphasizes: Shooting stuff. K-9 enforcement. Nabbing the bad guys. The SWAT team. This is the first step in the process. There’s also the separate  ... MORE

Brian Doherty: Environmental Protection Agency Dumps A Million Gallons Of Orange Mine Waste Into A Colorado River

Pollution is fine, as long as government does it.     Disturbing news of a real make-work program from the Environmental Protection Agency, reported by Associated Press via Huffington Post: A million-gallon mine waste spill that sent a plume of orange-ish muck down a river in southwest Colorado on Thursday was caused by a federal mine   ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Academic Fascism

Boogeymen everywhere.   George Orwell said, "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them." If one wants to discover the truth of Orwell's statement, he need only step upon most college campuses. Faculty leaders of the University of California consider certain statements racism and feel they should not be used in   ... MORE

Charles Hugh Smith: I Sure Am Glad There's No Inflation

Don't believe your lyin' eyes.       I sure am glad there's no inflation, because these "stable prices" the Federal Reserve keeps jaw-jacking about are putting us in a world of hurt. We are constantly bombarded with two messages about inflation: 1. Inflation is near-zero 2. This worries the Federal Reserve terribly, because stable prices are deflationary  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Fight For Education Freedom

10 Outrageous Excuses Cops Used To Kill Unarmed People

by Justin Gardner.       Informed readers are well aware that US police have the dubious reputation of killing lots of civilians, compared to other countries. The War on Drugs provides much of the basis for this abomination. In four days US police killed as many people as Chinese police did in 2014, and more than five European countries’    ... MORE

Tim Cushing: Getting Behind The Wheel Is Pretty Much Kissing Your 4th Amendment Protections Goodbye

Cars are for criminals.       There's been more good news than bad concerning the Fourth Amendment recently. In addition to the Supreme Court's ruling that searches of cellphones incident to arrest now require a warrant, various circuit court decisions on cell site location info and the surreptitious use of GPS tracking devices may see the nation's    ... MORE

VIDEO: Why Thieves Hate Free Markets

Katie Lapotin: Recovered E-Mails Reveal Lois Lerner's Contempt For Conservative And Tea Party Organizations

She labels them “crazies” and “a–holes”.        According to a bipartisan report released earlier this week by the Senate Finance Committee, emails sent by Lois Lerner during her time at the Internal Revenue Service show that she was deeply committed to the Democratic Party and had a strong dislike for conservative, Tea Party      ... MORE

G Bentley: Paper Explodes Feminist Myth That Women Are As Horny As Men And Calls For Legalization Of Prostitution

It is what it is.   Men’s demand for sex far outstrips that of women and the gap is set to widen with major implications for laws surrounding prostitution, according to a new paper from the Institute of Economic Affairs. One of the key claims in the IEA paper is that there is a major gap between men and women in sexual desire. “Male sexual      ... MORE

Ilya Somin: Rethinking Jury Nullification

The jury's equivalent power to prosecutorial discretion. Jury nullification occurs when jurors choose not to convict a defendant they believe to be guilty of the offense charged, usually because they conclude that the law in question is unjust or the punishment is excessive. When I first thought about jury nullification as a young law student,    ... MORE

NSA Grooming And Recruiting Children To Be Hackers

by William Lawler.    Recruitment posters show multiple young people placing their hands on a basketball sized earth as digital streams flow around the planet. The image conveys the distinct impression that these children control the world utilizing technology. This may be a powerful draw for children viewing the poster. Of course it does not hurt   ... MORE

VIDEO: M Friedman - Prospering In The Global Economy

Anti-Pot Hard-Liner Chris Christie Admits The Drug War Is A 'Failure,' Even Though He More Or Less Wants To Restart It

by Matt Ferner.  New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said on Monday that the war on drugs has been a "failure" -- even though he has vowed to enact a federal crackdown on marijuana, a substance that has been a primary target of the drug war for decades. "This is a disease and the war on drugs has been a failure -- well-intentioned, but a failure," Christie  ... MORE

Record 93,770,000 Americans Not In Labor Force

by Caroline May.   The number of people not in the labor force reached another record high in July, according to new jobs data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS reports that 93,770,000 people (16 and older) were neither employed last month nor had made specific efforts to find work in the prior four weeks. The number of people    ... MORE

VIDEO: The "Living, Breathing" Lie

James Queally: Why The Police Killing Of This Unarmed White Man Has Not Provoked A National Media Outcry

Black lives matter, but ...  Zachary Hammond, an unarmed white 19-year-old, was in the middle of a seemingly routine vehicle stop in South Carolina last week when a police officer fatally shot him. Police have said the officer fired in self-defense during a drug sting, but a subsequent autopsy seems to counter the officer’s claim that Hammond     ... MORE

Free Consumers From Renewable Power Mandates

by Thaddeus G. McCotter.   Jean Jacques Rousseau, the philosophical forebear of the left, argued that civilization must be forcibly dismantled and remade because it had corrupted humanity from its original state of noble savagery. Today’s progressives, like Rousseau, would turn back the clock and command rather than persuade us to accept their   ... MORE