Nov 21, 2018

Thomas Sowell: Moral bankruptcy

fromCreators: The Democratic Party's attack on charter schools. "Denying children what can be their one chance in life is a new low, even for politicians." If only children had as good of a union as the teachers.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption     The Government is Not Us

The government says falconers have to give up their privacy and free speech rights in order to own birds

fromReason: Now the Falconers Are Suing. "I'm treated no differently from a common felon on parole." 
Regulation Nation       The Government is Not Us

Justice Department discloses no FISA court hearings held on Carter Page warrants

fromJudicialWatch: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants without holding one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team. 
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Opponents of campus free-speech laws forgot the history of the civil rights movement

fromForbes: "In short, we all need the First Amendment. We all need legal protection of our right to question and debate, without which democracy declines into stagnancy".
Indoctrination and Censorship

AMA decries the impact of the CDC's opioid guidelines on pain treatment

fromReason: Politicians should not overrule doctors when it comes to pain control. The physician group says widespread "misapplication" of the guidelines is hurting patients. 
Regulation Nation      The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Walter E Williams: Fruits of college indoctrination

fromCreators: "Much of today's incivility and contempt for personal liberty has its roots on college campuses, and most of the uncivil and contemptuous are people with college backgrounds". 
Indoctrination and Censorship

September 3, 2018

Justice department discloses NO FISA Court hearings held on Carter Page warrants

fromJudicialWatch: This is no small story. The FISA court has been exposed as simply a government rubber stamp for warrantless searches. NO review.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process      Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

New lawsuit shows your phone is unsafe at American borders

fromEngadget: It appears that now everyone's phones, despite country of origin or cause, are subject to nonconsensual seizure and search -- even if we refuse to give up our passwords.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The incredible, rage-inducing inside story of America’s student debt machine

fromMotherJones: Why is the nation’s flagship loan forgiveness program failing the people it’s supposed to help?
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

John Stossel: Social media censorship

fromCreators: Now that Google can search everything you've said, YouTube may flag it as misinformation. Facebook can track what all your friends have said, too. Activists stand ready to get angry about all of it.
Media Bias on Parade

A young mom was justified in a shooting, but a past marijuana charge means prison time

fromReason: Authorities say Krissy Noble was justified in shooting and killing a home intruder while she was pregnant. Jury nullification was created for cases like this. Learn it.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange    Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Coffee does not merit cancer warning label ordered in California, FDA says

fromNPR: Not that facts matter in California, but just so YOU know.
Regulation Nation    Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

December 28, 2017

Federal agents can still seize marijuana at California checkpoints despite legalization

fromLATimes: California legalizes marijuana for recreational use Monday, but that won't stop the greedy hand of federal agents from seizing the drug — even in tiny amounts — on busy freeways and backcountry highways.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange    The Government is Not Us    Police State America

Time to defund the U.N.

fromCreators: Ben Shapiro column. The U.N. has always been a foolish fantasy, a League of Nations knockoff that's been about as productive and twice as irritating. It's an outmoded organization that's outlived whatever small usefulness it once had.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Study: Most ticketed pedestrians are innocent, only cited because cops don’t know the law

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: A recent study found that hundreds of innocent pedestrians are paying the price after they were issued erroneous tickets for crossing the street improperly.

Police State America

Congress Kicks Surveillance Debate into 2018

fromReason: Short extension of FISA snooping powers shoved into temporary spending bill.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

VIDEO: Karen Straughan - In Defense of Men

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: From the Tom Woods Show, writer-commentator Karen Straughan comments on feminism, sexual misconduct, the evolution of the boy scouts and the role of men in today’s society.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

New stricter California gun laws to take effect in 2018

fromKRON4: The California option destroyers never sleep. Now, California residents are restricted from buying ammo online among other freedom-reducing measures.

2nd Amendment Assaults    Regulation Nation

November 1, 2017

Reconsidering surveillance law raises anew issues of privacy

from FoxNews: What Americans need to know about domestic surveillance policy, as Congress considers the privacy implications of Section 702 of the FISA Act.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

One year later, is Trump a blessing or a curse to the deep state?

from Rutherford Institute: The American police state is still alive and well and flourishing. Rather than draining the corrupt swamps as he repeatedly promised, Trump and his brand of reality TV politics have merely redirected our attention.
The Government is Not Us

The fragile generation

from Reason: Bad policy and paranoid parenting are making kids too safe to succeed.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Walter E Williams: Let's help our media friends

from Creators: Williams offers a bit of sympathy to the mainstream media and other Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers one year after their trauma.
Media Bias on Parade

Professor calls reason itself a “white, male construct”

from DownTrend: A kooky college professor argues that nonwhites are all naturally irrational.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Presidents are reckless with soldiers' lives

from Creators: The problem is not that Trump is tactless about soldiers' deaths but that he and his predecessors have been reckless with their lives.
Defense Versus The War Machine

September 15, 2017

230 years after the Constitution, we’re walking a dangerous road 

from The Rutherford Institute: A look at what it means to live under the Constitution today.
The Government is Not Us

🎬  Walter E Williams - What is a Right? 

from LibertyPen: There are many misconceptions about what constitutes a right. Professor Williams provides clarity.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Court lets DEA keep evidence from warrantless search 

from TechDirt: The government's lawyers with robes conveniently decided that possible cause is just as good as probable cause. The state may do as it pleases. The Constitutional protections of the Fourth Amendment are now officially gutted.
The Government is Not Us

A case against the minimum wage 

from Forbes: The case AGAINST minimum wage is the case FOR economic liberty. Supporters focus only on the beneficiaries without regard to those shut out of the job market each time the entry bar is raised.
Regulation Nation

What does child porn smell like? DHS is training dogs to sniff it out 

from ReasonTV: This may not qualify as politically correct, but it is hard to contest this being filed under other nitwittery.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Permanent reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA 'borders on insanity' 

from The Caldwell County News: The This would be a final and permanent nail in the coffin for the Fourth Amendment.
Say goodbye to the notion of the "sovereign citizen".
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Congress Created a Monster

Those of us who believe that the Constitution means what it says have been arguing since the late 1970s that congressional efforts to strengthen national security by weakening personal liberty are unconstitutional, un-American and ineffective. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress passed in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon's use of the CIA and the FBI to spy on his political opponents, has unleashed demons that now seem beyond the government's control and are more pervasive than anything Nixon could have dreamed of.  ... MORE

VIDEO: The NSA Hasn't Actually Stopped Spying

Secret Court Allows Resumption Of Metadata Spying

by David Kravets.    Thought Congress halted the snooping program Snowden exposed? Think again. A secret US tribunal ruled late Monday that the National Security Agency is free to continue its bulk telephone metadata surveillance program—the same spying that Congress voted to terminate weeks ago. Congress disavowed the program NSA     ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: The Wolf Is Guarding The Hen House

The government’s war on cyberterrorism. Nothing you write, say, text, tweet or share via phone or computer is private anymore. This is the new normal in America today. A process which started shortly after 9/11 has grown into a full-fledged campaign of warrantless surveillance, electronic tracking and data mining, carried out by federal agents who have been given carte blanche access to the vast majority of electronic communications in America. Their methods completely undermine constitution safeguards, and yet no federal agency, president, court or legislature has stepped up to halt this assault on our rights. 

... MORE

Verizon Reveals More About Federal Spying on Customers

by Josh Peterson.            They can hear you now (the Feds, that is). Verizon updated its transparency report Monday to include orders issued by the nation’s spy court. During the first six months of 2013, the nation’s spy court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, ordered Verizon between zero to 999 times to hand over content for 4,000 to     ... MORE

Will You Choose Dangerous Freedom Or Peaceful Slavery?

by John W. Whitehead.       “All governments are run by liars.”—Independent journalist I.F. “Izzy” Stone.  President Obama has managed, with singular assistance from Congress and the courts, to mangle the Constitution through repeated abuses, attacks and evasions. This is nothing new, as I’ve documented in my book A Government    ... MORE

Secret Court Approves More NSA Phone Snooping

Stephen Dinan on gov't giving gov't more power.         The secret court that oversees the nation’s intelligence activities renewed its approval of the National Security Agency’s telephone-records program on Friday, granting the government a new three-month window to collect data on all Americans’ phone calls. Director of National         ... MORE

Bob Barr: 2013, The Year Of The Lie

Deception as a primary political weapon.         According to the Chinese calendar, 2013 was the Year of the Snake. For Americans, however, the year just drawing to a close will be known as the Year of the Lie. Not since the Nixon Administration -- which ended with Richard Nixon resigning in order to avoid being impeached -- has the credibility ... MORE

Fred Branfman: America's Creeping Police State

Can the rapid growth of authoritarianism be stopped?     For those alarmed by the steady growth of lawless, violent and authoritarian U.S. Executive power for the last 50 years, the events of the past few months have been exciting. The emergence of a de facto coalition of progressives and conservatives opposing the National Defense    ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Is The FISA Court Constitutional?

A court where only one party can make an argument.     After President Richard Nixon left office in 1974, a bipartisan congressional investigation discovered many of his constitutional excesses. Foremost among them was the use of FBI and CIA agents to spy on Americans in violation of federal law and the Fourth Amendment to the       ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Spying And Lying

You can trust the government to lie.      When Edward Snowden first revealed the spying the NSA has been conducting on what was then thought to be only customers of Verizon, the government was embarrassed, but it reluctantly acknowledged that Snowden revealed a truth. He had, after all, displayed an accurate and faithful copy  ... MORE

Brad Bannon: Building The American Police State

The Founders' worst nightmare has begun.       These days the Constitution isn't worth the parchment it's written on. The Fourth Amendment is currently under siege in New York City and in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story which indicated that the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operation      ... MORE

The NSA Has Violated Privacy Rules At Least 2,776 Times

by Scott Shackford.     The Washington Post has the latest Edward Snowden-provided bombshell: The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.  ... MORE

VIDEO: Fox News - NSA Tracking Of American People

Anthony Gregory: The War On Terror Is A War On Freedom

Terrorism isn't the primary threat to our freedom.     In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush guided the Patriot Act through Congress, unilaterally expanded surveillance of Americans, amplified executive detention authority and took other dramatic measures that shifted the balance between liberty and       ... MORE