The TSA's latest ritual humiliation of an innocent traveler. On June 18, officers of the Transportation Security Administration forced a wheelchair-bound, 95-year-old leukemia patient to remove her adult diaper, lest it contain a bomb. As always when the TSA commits some new atrocity—like last April's "freedom fondle" of a 6-year-old girl—a designated bureaucratic ... MOREGene Healy: Beware The Depends Bomber
The TSA's latest ritual humiliation of an innocent traveler. On June 18, officers of the Transportation Security Administration forced a wheelchair-bound, 95-year-old leukemia patient to remove her adult diaper, lest it contain a bomb. As always when the TSA commits some new atrocity—like last April's "freedom fondle" of a 6-year-old girl—a designated bureaucratic ... MOREPreviews Of Coming Health Care Attractions
Shoddy Swedish health care is headed our way. Sweden's socialized healthcare is sometimes used as an example that America should follow. It proves that you can get good care for everybody. Does it? In the Swedish media there has been one report after another of people not getting any healthcare at all. In fact, they do not even get an ambulance. ... MOREBreaking Down How Government Spends Your Money
by John Sides. The notion that Americans should get a "tax receipt" has gotten a lot of attention. Third Way has promoted the idea and developed an on-line calculator that actually provides one. The White House has a calculator too. The idea is that any American should be able to see where their tax money goes - what percent to Medicare, national defense, education, and so ... MORECharles Krauthammer: Who Takes Us To War?
Is the Libya war legal? Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, it is not. President Obama has exceeded the 90-day period to receive retroactive authorization from Congress. But things are not so simple. No president should accept — and no president from Nixon on has accepted — the constitutionality of the WPR, passed unilaterally by Congress over a presidential veto. ... MOREFeds Crack Down On Campus Flirting & Sex Jokes
by Michael Barone. All of which means that just about any student can be hauled before a disciplinary committee. Jokes about sex will almost always make someone uncomfortable, after all, and usually you can't be sure if flirting will be welcome except after the fact. And how do you define "elevator eyes"? Given the prevailing attitudes among faculty and university administrators, it's not ... MOREJohn Stossel: Who Is Gary Johnson?
What the libertarian Republican brings to the race. Someone was missing from last week's Republican presidential debate, and that's too bad. He's an announced candidate who was a two-term governor of New Mexico, and he makes a case for strongly limited government. Who is he? Gary Johnson. He was left off the platform because the sponsors say he didn't meet their criteria: ... MORESteven Pelerin: Atlas Is Shrugging In The U.S.
... and flexing his muscles elsewhere. Ayn Rand was mostly correct when she wrote her magnum opus "Atlas Shrugged." She was incorrect in one important area. She assumed the final option for the wealthy and entrepreneurial class was to go on "strike" and retire to Galt's Gulch. In the modern world the movers and shakers don't strike, they migrate ... MOREVIDEO: Four Decades Of Drug War Futility
On June 17, 1971 President Richard Nixon launched the modern-day drug war.
Steve Chapman: Another Texas Republican For President
The Republican presidential field looks less like an assemblage of candidates than a collection of fatal mistakes and irreparable flaws, with occasional embodiments of one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins. Mitt Romney? A flip-flopper who inspired ObamaCare. Tim Pawlenty? A too-bashful critic of Romneycare, with a sleepy persona. Newt Gingrich? Serial adultery and terminal hubris. ... MOREWhat You Don't Know Can Hurt You
by Harvey Silverglate. The Soviet Union enacted an infamous law in 1922 that criminalized “hooliganism.” The crime was in the eye of the beholder, the beholder of consequence being the Soviet secret police. Because it was impossible for dissidents to know in advance whether they were violating this prohibition, they were always subject to arrest and imprisonment, ... MOREVIDEO: John Stossel - The State Against Blacks
Walter E. Williams joins John to discuss government "poverty measures."
Rob Natelson: A Victory For The Tenth Amendment
Two years ago, I posted an item on the Tenth Amendment Center website entitled, “It’s the People’s Right.” My point was that federalism was not created primarily for the benefit of the states or state officials, but for the protection of individual liberty. I didn’t invent this argument—many others have recognized that it is the better reading of the ratification-era ... MORE"Our Children And Grandchildren Will Never Forgive Us"
by Marco Rubio. Last week, President Obama touched down in Miami to raise money for his reelection campaign, just a year after his administration kicked off its “Recovery Summer” campaign to celebrate the failed trillion-dollar stimulus spending bill. Today, Florida struggles with a 10.6 percent unemployment rate, far higher than the national average of 9.1 ... MOREWalter E Williams: America's New Racists
The late South African economist William Hutt, in his 1964 book, "The Economics of the Colour Bar," said that one of the supreme tragedies of the human condition is that those who have been the victims of injustices and oppression "can often be observed to be inflicting not dissimilar injustices upon other races." Born in 1936, I've lived through some of our openly ... MORESteve Chapman: The Obsolete Allaince
Has NATO outlived its usefulness? Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to Europe recently to announce that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization may have a "dismal future" and that before long, American leaders "may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost." Why does he make that sound like a bad thing? "Watch out! We may have to stop ... MOREVIDEO: Drug Decriminalization in Portugal
Since 2001, drugs have been decriminalized in Portugal. So how has it worked out? Glenn Greenwald's reports his findings to CATO.
Republicans Flicker On Light Bulb Ban Repeal
by Geoffrey P. Hunt. The Republican House is flinching on passing the simplest and most symbolic piece of legislation this term: repeal of the incandescent light bulb phase out. Amidst great fanfare and promises to restore limited government, the new majority is proving it isn't much difference than the old majority. The incandescent phase out required under the so-called Energy ... MOREDavid Brooks: The Biggest Scandal Since Watergate
Most political scandals involve people who are not really enmeshed in the Washington establishment — people like Representative Anthony Weiner or Representative William Jefferson. Most scandals involve spectacularly bad behavior — like posting pictures of your private parts on the Web or hiding $90,000 in cash in your freezer. But the most devastating scandal in recent ... MOREPeter Suderman: Spend More, Save More
Medicare is on the path to bankruptcy. By 2024, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the seniors health program will be insolvent. It’s not just the program’s fiscal health that’s at stake either. In the long term, the program is the single biggest drive of the federal debt. Yet reforming the program remains a dicey proposition. During the ObamaCare debates, Republicans ... MOREJohn Stossel: Down The Money Hole
America is falling deeper into debt. We're long past the point where drastic action is needed. We're near Greek levels of debt. What's going to happen? Maybe riots — like we've seen in Greece? We need to make cuts now. Some governors have shown the way. You know about Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Rick Scott, John Kasich, etc. But you probably don't know about Luis Fortuno. Fortuno is governor ... MOREDavid Harsanyi: What Would Ayn Rand Do?
Religious conservatives can learn from the Objectivist author. For a group that claims to be offended by the mere whiff of politics and religion's intermingling, the left sure does bring up Jesus quite a lot. The most recent outburst is the work of a progressive outfit called American Values Network. In this instance, God is being dragged into the debate as a ... MOREWalter E Williams: Our Moral Dilemma
Most of our nation's problems are a direct result of our being immune, hostile or indifferent to several moral questions. Let's start out with the simple and move to the more complex. Or, stated another way, let's begin with questions that generate the least hostility, moving to those that generate the greatest. If a person benefits from a hamburger, a suit of clothing, an apartment or ... MOREJacob Sullum: The High Price Of Prohibition
Forty years ago this Friday, President Richard Nixon announced that "public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse." Declaring that "the problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency," he asked Congress for money to "wage a new, all-out offensive," a crusade he would later call a "global war on the drug menace." The war on drugs ended ... MOREChristopher Chantrill: Economics For Babies
Economics is too hard for liberals and many others. Who can tell from deficits and multipliers, after all? So it is time to dumb economics down and make it simple enough for a baby to understand. "Economics for Babies." This could be a publishing sensation to equal the Dummies phenomenon. Here is how it works. Drill, Baby Drill Our liberal friends are convinced, because ... MOREDaniel Oliver: Concripts in a Ponzi Scheme
The spit turns slowly over the Social Security roasting fire but there is no whimpering from the children being cooked. Yet. Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal (one of English literature's great satires) for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or their country, and for making them beneficial to the public was: to eat them. Our ... MOREA. Barton Hinkle: Tolerance For Me But Not For Thee
Freedom of association includes the right to discriminate. Gay-rights organizations have been quick to defend the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank after it came under attack for hoisting a gay-pride flag on a pole directly beneath the American flag. The Fed did so at the request of, and to show support for, its gay, lesbian, and transgender employees. Republican Del. Bob Marshall ... MORERich Lowry: Unemployment Catastrophe
Pres. Barack Obama is given to cute vehicular metaphors about the state of the economy. We were "in a ditch," then got out and hit a "bump in the road." This is studiously folksy. It also vastly understates the nature of our situation. President Obama is presiding over an unspooling social catastrophe in the form of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment. For all those ... MOREAffordable Housing Means Your House Is Worth Less
by Anthony Randazzo. Martin Luther King famously once proclaimed, “I have a dream, that one day my children would not be judged by the color of the skin, but by the content of their character, and that they would have a right to a home at an affordable price.” Okay, that’s not exactly what he said. But an unusual coalition of financial institutions and community housing advocates ... MOREThe Case Against Raising the Debt Ceiling
by Robert P. Murphy. A recent NPR story on the debt ceiling seeks to correct the American public's "misunderstanding" of the issue. But as we'll see, whether through ignorance or deception, the analyst on whom the story relies makes claims about the debt ceiling that are simply not true. It turns out that the public's gut reaction to politicians' piling on ever more red ink is ... MOREIt's Not The Debt Ceiling, It's The Dollar
by Lewis E. Lehrman. Today, the chorus line of the debt ceiling and dollar bears is "all fall down." The missing issue of this President election is monetary policy -- America's need for a stable dollar. But massive Federal Reserve credit expansion, QE1 and QE2, has forced the volatile dollar down to such a depreciated level on the foreign exchanges that, absent QE3, a ... MOREGene Healy: The Lessons Of Weinergate
Politicians are less responsible and much dumber than those they seek to rule. Ah, Weinergate, you are the gift that keeps on giving, the crotch-shot that launched a thousand puns. Yet, sadly, some people fancy themselves far too serious to embrace the hilarity. "Just pathetic," an example of "American Puritanism," journalism professor Jeff Jarvis pronounced ... MORE
The FDA War On Elderberry Juice
U.S. marshals have seized elderberry juice concentrate products distributed by a Mulvane area-based company because a federal agency said the products make false claims about prevention and treatment of diseases. The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that Wyldewood Cellars has been distributing products that are nonapproved and misbranded drugs. ... MOREVIDEO: John Stossel - Watching The Watchmen
Do citizens have a right to record the public behavior of cops?
John Stossel: The Cancer Of Regulation
Politicians care about poor people. I know because they always say that. But then why do they make it so hard for the poor to escape poverty? Outside my office in New York City, I see yellow taxis. It's intuitive to think that government should license taxis to make sure they're safe and to limit their number. It's intuitive to believe that if anyone could just start picking up passengers, we'd have ... MOREThomas Sowell: Different Decisions
Two unrelated news stories on the same day show the contrast between government decisions and private decisions. Under the headline "Foreclosed Homes Sell at Big Discounts," USA Today reported that banks were selling the homes they foreclosed on, at discounts of 38 percent in Tennessee to 41 percent in Illinois and Ohio. Banks in general try to get rid of the homes they ... MOREA. Barton Hinkle: Declare Defeat And Go Home
The war on drugs has failed. Let's try something else. "The war on drugs has failed," declared the editors of National Review in 1996, back when the nation’s foremost conservative periodical promoted ideas more intellectually rigorous than cheerleading for the Republican Party. "It is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction. ... MOREHerman Cain: The Answer To Our Problems
More liberty, less government. We hear all about America’s problems every day. We can’t get away from them, especially when the bad news is compounded with more bad news about natural disasters. The latest economic and jobs news is yet another indication that this nation’s problems are getting worse and stifling our prosperity. And every time this administration or ... MOREThe Obamas - Childogs, Couture and Hypocrisy
by Jeanne DeAngelis. In these perilous times, people accuse me of being obsessed with pap like Michelle and Barack Obama's food and clothing. But it should be obvious that it's not about the food or the clothes; it's about double standards, arrogance, and hypocrisy, all of which impact policy and governing, whether directly or indirectly. The truth is, Mr and Mrs. Obama are ... MOREStar Parker: Why 2012 Looks Like 1860
As the season of presidential politics 2012 unfolds, I’m struck by similarities between today and the tumultuous period in our history that led up to the election of Abraham Lincoln and then on to the Civil War. So much so that I’m finding it a little eerie that this year we are observing the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. No, I am certainly not predicting, ... MOREJohn Stossel: The Government Against Blacks
How the state perpetuates poverty. The other day, I went to Times Square to ask people what government should do to help poor people. Most everyone agreed on the answer: "more social programs and a higher minimum wage." It's intuitive to think that way. I used to think that, too. When President Johnson declared a "war on poverty," he said "compassionate ... MORE
VIDEO: Walter E Williams - Minimum Wage as a Racist Tool
How do labor unions make sure employers don't hire cheaper labor?
Global Commission On Drugs: Drug War Has Failed
by Eric Lach. The Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes several former heads of state and UN officials, has released a report calling the global war on drugs a failure. "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," the report reads. "Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single ... MORESupreme Court To California: Release The Hounds
by Larry Elder. "Today the court affirms what is perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation's history." So began Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's enraged dissent. Release up to 46,000 convicted felons, the court recently ordered the state of California. In a 5-4 decision, the court gave California two years to reduce its prison "overcrowding" -- or set ... MOREA. Barton Hinkle: Separating Charity And State
Why should taxpayers be forced to support charitable groups? Shortly after taking office, George W. Bush created an office of faith-based initiatives, making it easier for religious groups to receive federal funds in order to minister to the poor, conduct emergency relief operations, and perform similar good works. Social conservatives cheered. But many liberal skeptics ... MOREWalter E Williams: Do We Deserve Our Fate?
The latest Social Security Trustees Report tells us that the program will be insolvent by the year 2037. The combined unfunded liability of Social Security and Medicare has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars. That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the national debt. Those entitlement programs, along with others, account for nearly 60 percent of federal ... MOREJeff Clancy: Obama And The Frog Pot Boil
We all know the metaphor for dangerous incrementalism: put a frog in a pot, slowly raise the temperature, and the frog will boil to death. For generations, liberalism has cleverly coordinated the country's slow, incremental push leftward: exploiting sympathies for the poor and sick to expand all things government and hammering the benefits of social justice, diversity, and multiculturalism ... MOREVIDEO: Cellphone Alert System Announced in NYC
Alert system gives government new powers to track citizens.
Thomas Sowell: Seductive Beliefs Part I and II
One of the painfully revealing episodes in Barack Obama's book "Dreams From My Father" describes his early experience listening to a sermon by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Among the things said in that sermon was that "white folks' greed runs a world in need." Obama was literally moved to ... MORECops Kill Marine Hero In Botched Pot Raid
by Radley Balko. On May 5 at around 9:30 a.m., several teams of Pima County, Ariz., police officers from at least four different police agencies armed with SWAT gear and an armored personnel carrier raided at least four homes as part of what at the time was described as an investigation into alleged marijuana trafficking. One of those homes belonged to 26-year-old Jose Guerena ... MOREEconomic Stagnation Explained, At 30,000 Feet
by Stephen L. Carter. The man in the aisle seat is trying to tell me why he refuses to hire anybody. His business is successful, he says, as the 737 cruises smoothly eastward. Demand for his product is up. But he still won’t hire. “Why not?” “Because I don’t know how much it will cost,” he explains. “How can I hire new workers today, when I don’t know how much they ... MORE
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