Juries Should Rein In Prosecutors With Too Much Power

by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Washington Post.    If there’s strong evidence that you’ve committed a crime, there’s still hope. Despite the evidence, those responsible for convicting you may choose to let you go, if they think that sending you to jail would result in an injustice. That can happen through what’s called “prosecutorial discretion,” where  ... MORE

Terence P. Jeffrey: Obama Claims Power To Make Illegal Immigrants Eligible For Social Security And Disability

Democrat vote-buying 101.  Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which  ... MORE

VIDEO: Carl Hart - The Science Of Illicit Drugs

The $15 Minimum Wage Will Kill Jobs. Should You Care?

by Peter Coy.   Mandated unemployment for low-skill workers. This is a story about ethics and economics, winners and losers, and the philosophical muddle on both ends of the political spectrum, as told through two of the hot-button issues of the 2016 U.S. presidential race: the minimum wage and free trade. Start with an unpopular but  ... MORE

Doug Casey: Why Debt Is Not Money

How you should think about gold. Gold’s main use, contrary to the belief of some, isn’t in jewelry or dentistry—although those uses are important. Its main use has almost always been as money. But gold’s ancillary uses are growing in importance because, given its physical characteristics, it’s a high-tech metal. It’s one of the most resistant to chemical reaction, one of the most ductile, the most malleable  ... MORE

VIDEO: VA Strips 250,000 Vets Of 2nd Amendment Rights


When government no longer protects individual rights, but instead threatens them.

Let's Hope For Jury Nullification: Prosecutor Wants Man To Serve 20 Years In Prison For Stealing $31 Worth Of Candy

by Josie Duffy.    What if justice was a result and not just a process? Louisiana has the dubious honor of being the most incarceratory state in the world's most incarceratory country. In New Orleans, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizaro has been hailed as a reformer—organizations like Court Watch NOLA and others have publicly    ... MORE

What If The Minimum Wage Increase Is A Fraud?

by Andrew Napolitano.      What if the latest craze among the big-government crowd in both major political parties is to use the power of government to force employers to pay some of their employees more than their services are worth to the employers? What if this represents an intrusion by government into the employer-employee       ... MORE

Paul Bedard: Americans Are Now Spending More On Taxes Than They Do On Food, Clothing And Housing Combined

After April 24, you get to work for yourself.    A tax advocacy group on Wednesday revealed that Americans spend more on taxes than their whole budget for food, clothing and housing. The Tax Foundation, in its annual report on when the nation as a whole has earned enough to pay its taxes, announced the date as April 24. "Tax Freedom Day  ... MORE

Jurors Need To Take The Law Into Their Own Hands

by Paul Butler, Washington Post.  I learned about jury nullification while serving as a prosecutor in the District in the 1990s. As a rookie, I was warned that in nonviolent drug cases, it would be tough to get a conviction, no matter how strong my evidence was. The experienced prosecutors explained that the African American jurors “didn’t    ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Students And Socialism

How Obamacare Just Made Filing Your Taxes Worse

by Nathan Nascimento.    It’s that wonderful time of year again: tax season. Some 150 million American businesses and individuals are expected to file taxes by this month, covering thousands of arcane provisions that determine how much you and your family will pay Uncle Sam and state governments this year. But this filing season is the second     ... MORE

Panama Papers About Gov't Corruption, Not 'Tax Evasion'

by Ed Krayewski.     The "Panama Papers" are the largest leak in world history, revealing millions of documents related to the offshore accounts of politicians, former politicians, and billionaires around the world. Despite much of the media's focus on tax evasion as the primary theme of the Panama Papers story, which embarrassed governments are   ... MORE

VIDEO: Grandma Schools DUI Checkpoint Cop - Inspiring!

John Stossel: Freedom To Disagree

To each his own.    "Should a Jewish baker be forced to bake a cake for a Nazi wedding?" I asked that strange but important question during last week's debate between three Libertarian presidential candidates. You can see the second hour of that debate Friday, on my Fox Business Network TV show. If you're disappointed by Democrats' and Republicans'    ... MORE

Severin Johnson: Smartphone App Allows Citizens To Use Each Other For Emergency Services Instead Of Police

Given the danger of calling for police assistance.  We live in a world where we are forced to pay for services that are unreliable, corrupt and brutal. We are taught from a young age that you pick up the phone and dial 911 at the first sign of trouble. But sadly, we increasingly see the responders to our pleas for help showing up and making matters  ... MORE

Robert Gebelhoff: How Powerful Should Our Juries Be?

Justice is a result, not just a process.  In 1986, Leroy Reed faced criminal charges he didn’t understand. A mentally disabled ex-convict from Milwaukee, Reed was charged with illegally possessing a firearm after his parole office discovered that he had purchased a .22-caliber pistol to go with a mail-order private detective course. While it was obvious  ... MORE

That Weirdly Interesting Libertarian Party Debate On Fox

by Jeffrey Tucker.      Hooray for John Stossel! He has dedicated two issues of his wonderful show on Fox Business to hosting a debate between Libertarian Party aspirants to the presidency. The format is great. The questions in part one were solid. John does an excellent job. And the candidates were fascinating to watch. Within the LP itself, this    ... MORE

VIDEO: Richard Epstein - ObamaCare

Thomas Sowell: Dangerous Donald Trump

A serious, mature president is needed.  Donald Trump's victories in the Republican primaries may make him seem like a sure winner. But those victories have been achieved by receiving either somewhat less than 40 percent of the votes or somewhat more than 40 percent, but never a majority. The fragmenting of the Republican vote among many   ... MORE

Scott Shackford: Jerry Brown Admits $15 Minimum Wage Does Not Make Economic Sense, Approves It Anyway

Smart economics is not a consideration. California Gov. Jerry Brown simply does not care about what will happen to citizens in non-urban parts of the state under a $15 minimum wage. He didn’t literally say that, but what he did say when today was that he understood that there may be some bad outcomes for such a massive, unprecedented mandate. And then he signed it into law anyway. ... MORE

VIDEO: Baseball - As Unique As America

Sharon Harris: Free Market or… Freed Market?

Unschackle our regulated economy.   Here’s a neat little phrase that can be very handy when talking about economics: “freed market.” No, not “free market.” Freed market. Here’s why. As we’ve discussed in the past, “capitalism” is often not a very useful word for libertarians to use to describe the economic system we advocate. Sheldon      ... MORE

A. Barton Hinkle: Coming Out of the Drug War Haze?

Cautious optimism may be appropriate. President Obama's recent speech on the opioid overdose epidemic offers a ray of hope that the country's approach to drugs might one day adopt what has been called the first rule of American business: When all else fails, try doing it right. Noting with considerable understatement that "treatment is    ... MORE

Why You Need To Be Concerned About The War On Cash

Doug Casey interview.     Louis James, the editor of International Speculator, sat down with Doug Casey to discuss the ongoing “War on Cash.” Doug reveals what people looking to protect their money should do. Louis James: There have been a lot of government moves recently, making it harder for people to do business in cash. What do you think,    ... MORE

Richmond California Establishes A New Low By Paying Criminals Up To $1000 A Month Not To Shoot People

by Jennifer Cruz.  A San Francisco suburb has taken an unconventional approach to fighting crime by essentially paying a sort of monthly salary to ex-cons in exchange for them staying out of trouble and helping others to do the same. The program, known as Operation Peacemaker Fellowship, targets some of the most violent offenders in Richmond,     ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Students Argue Liberty Vs Regulation

Walter E Williams: Campus Lunacy, Part II

Erasing memory via political correctness.  Professor Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He recently wrote an article titled "The hypocrisy behind the student renaming craze." Students, often with the blessing of faculty, have discovered that names for campus buildings and holidays do not  ... MORE

Don't Blame Food Companies For What You Feed Your Kids

by Baylen Linnekin.    It's parents that feed babies candy, soda, and chips. A study of infant diets in one British city has revealed some uncomfortable truths about what many parents feed their children. The study, by lead author Pinki Sahota of Leeds Beckett University and several colleagues, tracked the diets of more than 1,250 babies in the   ... MORE

VIDEO: The Cost Of The War On Drugs


Law enforcement's spending addiction.

Obama's ‘Catch & Release’ Policy Fuels Illegal Immigration

by Kristian Hernandez.    Officials last week spoke up about the Obama administration’s so-called “catch and release” policies blamed for hindering Border Patrol operations and encouraging illegal crossers from coming into the United States. A recent letter from the National Border Patrol Council states a high-ranking member of the Obama    ... MORE

Bathroom Boycotts Flush Safety Of Women And Girls

by Jan LaRue.  Here’s a question for the mayors and governors who are boycotting North Carolina because of its single-sex public restroom law: “Is your taxpayer-funded, executive office bathroom open to the public, including every Tom, Dick and Harry pretending to be ‘Mary’”? North Carolina enacted a law on March 23 that bans individuals from   ... MORE

Jack Hellner: Prosecuting Free Speech

Speak up now or forever hold your peace.     The U.S. attorney general and the Democrat attorneys general in several states are indicating that they are considering legal action against people who believe that current climate change is natural and cyclical, as it has been throughout billions of years, instead of caused by humans.  Is it any wonder  ... MORE

Deirdre Reilly: Chalk It Up To Lifelong Coddling

More 'poor baby' accommodations.    Good thing today’s college students aren’t frequenting America’s suburban driveways or playground blacktops. Fanciful chalk drawings and scribbles are routinely found there — the handiwork, in most American towns, of the happy-go-lucky pre-K set. But words or scribblings in colorful chalk are too much to  ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Worst President Ever

Mark Levin: The Three Top Federal Gov't Responsibilities

by Michael Morris. On his new television show Levin TV on Wednesday, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin asked and answered a question similar to the one posed to Donald Trump at a recent CNN Town Hall: “Well, what then are the three top responsibilities, let’s say, of the federal government?” “Well, what then are the three top     ... MORE

The Clinton Investigation Enters A Dangerous Phase

by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.      The FBI investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's failure to protect state secrets contained in her emails has entered its penultimate phase, and it is a dangerous one for her and her aides. Federal law enforcement sources have let it be known that federal prosecutors and the FBI have   ... MORE

VIDEO: It's Back: Federal Asset Forfeiture Laws


Government gives itself a license to steal. No crime necessary.

Anthony L. Fisher: How Distrust Of Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Have Made the Libertarian Party Relevant

The dawning of a libertarian moment? Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the likely presidential nominees of America’s two major political parties, would be among the best-known and most-disliked candidates in history. What better time for the Libertarian Party (LP), the only third party that will be on all 50 states’ ballots, to make its move    ... MORE

Police Humor: Cops Scam Woman Into Her Bringing Meth In For Ebola Contamination Test, Then Toss Her Ass In Jail

by David Kravets.    Some hooks don't require bait. A Central Texas police department issued a "breaking news alert" on Facebook, cautioning residents that meth and heroin in the Granite Shoals area "could be contaminated with the life-threatening disease Ebola." Last week's fake Facebook alert urged the public "NOT" to ingest those illicit drugs  ... MORE