The Unelected Shadow Government Is Here To Stay

by John W. Whitehead.      America’s next president will inherit more than a bitterly divided nation teetering on the brink of financial catastrophe when he or she assumes office. He will also inherit a shadow government, one that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country. To be precise,       ... MORE

What Climate Alarmists Want: 'A World Without Capitalism'

Investor's Business Daily editorial.   Climate Change: Researchers from developed nations who insist that humans are warming the planet have inadvertently given Third World nations a weapon to shake down capitalist nations. Or was that the plan all along? Third World nations haven't developed their economies because their governments  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Allison - Ayn Rand & Objective Self-Interest

Supreme Court Considers Boundaries For Legalized Theft

by Doug Mataconis.    How much of your stuff can government without conviction of a crime? Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Luis v. United States, a case that deals with the issue of whether, and when, the government can seize assets prior to conviction when those assets are being used to pay for a Defendant’s criminal defense:   ... MORE

Andrew Follett: Obama Policies Exacerbate Wildfires

It is not global warming.      Scientists and lawmakers are placing the blame for recent wildfires on President Barack Obama’s policies, not global warming. “Our nation’s forests are sick and flammable, but they don’t have to be. Proper management would increase their resilience to wildfires.” said Julia Slingsby, Press Secretary of the House     ... MORE

VIDEO: Turning A Spark Into A Firestorm For Liberty

Richard M. Ebeling: War, Big Government & Lost Freedom

Roots of the regulating and redistributing state.      We are currently marking the hundredth anniversary of the fighting of the First World War. For four years between the summer of 1914 and November 11, 1918, the major world powers were in mortal combat with each other. The conflict radically changed the world. It overthrew the pre-1914   ... MORE

Why Rand Paul Was The Stealth Winner Of The GOP Debate

by Peter Weber.   Fox Business wanted the fourth presidential debate to show that the network respects the Republican presidential candidates, unlike more successful financial news rival CNBC, and it proved that by letting the candidates largely run the show. That tended to favor candidates eager to jump in and assert themselves, so Ohio Gov.  ... MORE

Matt K. Lewis: Let Rand Be Rand!

The lesson learned.      The reviews are in — and it looks like Rand Paul had a good night. Libertarians say he hit his stride. Slate says he’s best when he has nothing left to lose. It was clearly his finest performance of the four debates. As I noted on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday morning, his heated exchange with Marco Rubio was good for both      ... MORE

J.D. Tuccille: If Prohibitions Cannot Work Within The Prison System, How Can They Work In The Outside World?

Answer: they can't.   Last week, Karl Jensen and Lisa Mary Hutchinson were sent to the lockup for smuggling a knife, drugs, and a McMuffin into the UK's Wormwood Scrubs prison. Maybe somebody still on the outside will toss a sandwich over the wall to help them pass the time. In a related story, at about the same time Larry Michael Webb and Holly    ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Campus Censorship

Democrat's Propaganda Battling The Motivated Voter

by Barry Farber.     There’s one battleground where the Democrats are walloping the body fluids out of the Republicans. It’s fitting nobody talks about it because that battlefield is beyond obscure. In fact, few know it exists! It can be summed up in one word Americans never got the hang of in the first place. The word is “propaganda”! Americans tend to  ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: The President And The Rule Of Law

Shackling an unconstitutional loose cannon.  Earlier this week, a federal appeals court in New Orleans upheld an injunction issued by a federal district court in Texas against the federal government, thereby preventing it from implementing President Barack Obama's executive orders on immigration. Critics had argued and two federal     ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: The Real Issues That You Won't Hear From The 2016 Presidential Candidates This Election Year

Government's stealth tyranny.    We now have less than one year until the 2016 presidential election. Despite the dire state of our nation, however, you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to undermine our freedoms will be addressed in any credible way by the presidential candidates—certainly not if doing so might        ... MORE

VIDEO: The Environmental Case For School Choice

Video Reveals Motorist Had His Hands Up Before Police Officers Executed His 6-Year-Old Son Strapped In Seat

by Michael Kunzelman.  Good thing the cops were black and victims white.  A police body camera recorded the father of a 6-year-old autistic boy with his hands up and posing no threat as police fired into his car, severely wounding the motorist and killing his son, the man's lawyer said Monday. "This was not a threatening situation for the police," ... MORE

John Stossel: My Trump Problem

Using government as a weapon.  Sometimes I like Donald Trump. He makes me laugh when he mocks reporters' stupid questions. Sometimes he's smart. When Maryland's lefty governor said a tax on rich people would "raise revenue," Trump told me why it wouldn't. The taxpayers would just flee: "I know these people! They're international people!     ... MORE

Two Years After Edward Snowden's Exposure, The NSA To End Bulk Collection Of Data From American's Phone Calls

At least, that is the official line.   The NSA is ready to end later this month collecting Americans' domestic call records in bulk. It will move to a more targeted system, meeting a legislative deadline imposed earlier this year, according to a government memo seen by Reuters. The memo, sent on Monday from the NSA to relevant committees in the U.S.   ... MORE

When You're Popular, You Don't Need Freedom Of Speech

by Andrew Sirios.    The rise of the left, the demise of the west. Free speech is not something that people would normally see as a realm of economics, but in many ways, an economic understanding of the support and opposition to free speech can shed a lot of light on what’s happening now in the West. The first thing that needs to be noted is that  ... MORE

VIDEO: Rand Paul - Vision For America

How Law Enforcement Can Track Your Every Move

by Jana Winter.   The recent expansion of Google’s Timeline feature can provide investigators unprecedented access to users’ location history data, allowing them in many cases to track a person’s every move over the course of years, according to a report recently circulated to law enforcement. “The personal privacy implications are pretty clear ... MORE

To The Paranoid Missouri Crybaby Children Unable to Cope With The Crushing Effects Of Hurtful Speech: Call The Cops

by Eugene Volokh.   Prof. Thom Lambert (Truth on the Market) passes along the following Missouri-University-wide e-mail: Subject: Reporting Hateful and/or Hurtful Speech. To continue to ensure that the University of Missouri campus remains safe, the MU Police Department (MUPD) is asking individuals who witness incidents of hateful and/or hurtful ... MORE

VIDEO: The Size Of Policing For Profit Visualized

This Is What A Social Justice Warrior Looks Like

by David French.      Pitching a fit as a path toward power. The video below has been making the rounds on the internet. It shows a young woman screaming in the face of Yale professor Nicholas Christakis about the alleged plight of minority students. Why the hysterical shrieking? Because the professor’s wife (a Yale lecturer) had the audacity   ... MORE

Watch The Amazing 'Love Gov' Series

See all five episodes.    Love Gov portrays the federal government as an overbearing boyfriend — Scott “Gov” Govinsky — who foists his “good intentions” on a hapless, idealistic college student, Alexis. Each episode follows Alexis's relationship with Gov as his intrusions wreak (comic) havoc on her life, professionally, financially, and socially. Alexis's loyal  ... MORE

Economic Liberty Vs. Big Government Illusions

by John Hayward.      Economic freedom is the practical expression of liberty – if we’re not free to sell our goods and labor, spending and investing the proceeds as we see fit, we’re not truly “free” to do anything except complain about how the government treats us. And if we don’t have access to valid information about the government, and    ... MORE

Jury Nullification Has Long History Of Righting Wrong Laws

by Frank Parlato.     Because justice is a result, not just a process. In 1215, when the Barons of England compelled King John to sign the Magna Carta, trial by jury was established. The King now had to seek permission through 12 citizens unanimous in their verdict before he could take anyone's freedom away. That’s why we have jury trials: To    ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Censorship In The Name Of Islam

Victor Davis Hanson: The Oldest Divide - Urban Vs. Rural

The freedom culture is outnumbered.  Of all the growing divides in America—red-blue, conservative-liberal, Republican-Democrat, white-nonwhite—none is sharper than that between city and country. The nation’s urbanites increasingly govern those living in the hinterlands, even as vanishing rural Americans still feed and fuel the nation. At the  ... MORE

As If There Are Not Enough Crooks In Government, Obama To Sign Executive Order Forcing The State To Hire More

by Ben Shapiro.           Ever in search of benefits to hand leftist constituencies, Democrats have decided to give goodies to their most natural constituency of all: criminals. According to the Associated Press, President Obama will announce executive orders Monday attempting to prevent screening for prior criminality in government hiring.   ... MORE

VIDEO: Students Debt - The Game Of Loans

Walter E Williams: Attacking Our Founders

History, without context, is of negligible value.      Many of my columns speak highly of the wisdom of our nation's founders. Every once in a while, I receive an ugly letter sarcastically asking what do I think of their wisdom declaring blacks "three-fifths of a human." It's difficult to tell whether such a question is prompted by ignorance or is the fruit  ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: The Ben Carson Flap

Conservative blacks disrupt the MSM narrative.      Dr. Ben Carson's whole life has been very unusual, so perhaps we should not be surprised to see the latest twist — the media going ballistic over discrepancies in a few things he said. Years ago, when I was writing some autobiographical sketches, I dug up old letters, to check out     ... MORE

Police State Update: 5 Stories That Speak Volumes

Stephen Moore: Does EPA Need Guns, Ammo And Armor?

Government's environmental SWAT teams.  The Environmental Protection Agency spent millions of dollars over the last decade on guns, ammo, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new   ... MORE

VIDEO: Free Trade Debate - Trump Vs. Friedman

More Trouble For Jerry Brown's Rail Boondoggle

by Steven Greenhut.    Moonbeam's plan no longer resembles original proposal. One of the biggest problems with California Gov. Jerry Brown's efforts to battle climate change is the "do or die" nature of the situation. Based on his rhetoric, there's little room for debate over costs, benefits, details and oversight. When the future of the Earth is at stake,   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: The Mistress of Deception

Don't trust that tongue, even if it's notarized. The self-inflicted wounds of Hillary Rodham Clinton just keep manifesting themselves. She has two serious issues that have arisen in the past week; one is political and the other is legal. Both have deception at their root. Her political problem is one of credibility. We know from her emails that    ... MORE

VIDEO: What If There Were No Prices?

Charles Seeburger: 10 Facts About The Economics Of Weed

From black market to free market. From the legal markets thriving in states like Colorado and Washington, to the underground trade that generates billions of Mexican cartels, the economics of weed are crazy. Ganja. Smoke. Dro. Chronic. Spliffage. The names are as varied as the opinions about it: from rather innocuous plant, to cure all, to   ... MORE

Marcus E. Howard: The Pentagon Has Squandered Millions Paying Pro Sports Teams To Honor Soldiers At Games

It's like paying a whore to say, "I love you."   The Pentagon and National Guard paid professional sports teams to publicly honor soldiers at sporting events, according to a Senate oversight report released Wednesday that labeled the practice “inappropriate and frivolous.” Since the end of 2011, the military has spent $6.8 million on sports     ... MORE