May 9, 2019

No, Mr. President, tariffs do not cause prosperity

fromAIER:  Taxing your own people and hobbling their trading relationships does not create more wealth. 

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Denver voters approve measure to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms

fromForbes:  Voters in Denver, Colorado made their city the first in the U.S. to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms by approving a ballot measure on the issue on Tuesday.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Walter E Williams: Discrimination and disparities II

fromZeroHedge:  Different social classes raise their children differently. Studies have shown that children whose parents are professional heard more words per hour than children whose families are on welfare.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Major Mueller report omissions suggest incompetence or a coverup

fromZeroHedge:  Robert Mueller's report contains at least two major omissions which suggest either incompetence, or purposeful concealing of major crimes committed against the Trump campaign and the American people.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Vilifying gun owners doesn't lead to a better society

fromReason:  Progressives push their luck with their totalitarian insistence that everybody is with them or against them on guns and so much else.

2nd Amendment Assaults

Man arrested, facing a year in prison for telling police they are ‘pissing on the Constitution’

fromFreeThoughtProject:  After police refused to respond to his calls for assistance, a Texas man gave police a peaceful piece of his mind, but it landed him in jail. So much for free speech.

Individual Liberty: America's First Principle        Police State America

April 29, 2019

Key body camera footage missing after Chicago police officers raid wrong homes, point guns at children

fromCBSChicago:  While every patrol officer is required to wear a body camera – 8,200 have been issued to officers, including tactical teams. Still, it is amazing how often the cameras fail during unflattering events.

Police State America

The Immorality of student loan forgiveness and free college

fromReason:  If college students have skin in their own game, they'll think more seriously about going to college in the first place and be more motivated to be serious and to finish. 

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery       Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

New bill will force owners of hybrid & electric cars to pay fees to offset gas they don’t buy

fromFreeThoughtProject:  If ever you thought the government cares about possible solutions to environmental problems — like electric cars — the following case out of North Carolina proves just how much of a farce their “caring” is.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption         Regulation Nation

Walter E Williams: Discrimination and disparities

fromLibertyPen:  If historical injustices and persecution were useful explanations of group disadvantage, Jews would be some of the poorest and least-educated people in the world today.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

VIDEO: Paul Harvey - Bad News in America

fromLibertyPen:  From Landon Lecture Series (2003), Legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey shares his insights about all of the bad news in America.

Media Bias on Parade

San Francisco's war between the rich and homeless Is at "boiling point"

fromZeroHedge:  With 7,500 people homeless, affluent sections of SF have become borderline dangerous with open-air drug use, tens of thousands of discarded needles, and, sadly, overflowing human excrement.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

June 29, 2016

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Disparity is Not Discrimination

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Professor Sowell looks at why economic and other outcomes often differ greatly among individuals, groups and institutions.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Trump's trade war requires handing more power to unelected bureaucrats

fromReason: One government intervention into the economy begets another, and American businesses are caught in the chaos.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Supreme Court will decide if civil forfeiture is unconstitutional, violates the Eighth Amendment

fromForbes: The U.S. Supreme Court will review the constitutionality of civil forfeiture laws, which allow the government to legally steal a citizen's property if law enforcement suspects them of crime.
Police State America        Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Why "Permit Patty" called the cops on an 8-year-old entrepreneur

fromFEE: This is a symptom of our society's "entrepreneurial decay." 
Regulation Nation

Three glaring examples proving Snopes and the AP have no business being official ‘fact checkers’

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: Snopes and the Associated Press have been given power over social media to define truth but they are often wrong and the consequences are grave.
Indoctrination and Censorship

30 years of global warming forecasts all failed

fromLewRockwell: What actually happened, they got $1 billion for research by scaring the HELL out of everyone.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

April 4, 2016

The deep rooted crisis of police violence in the USA

fromReason: Executive Producer Eddie Conway and David Correia, author of Police: A Field Guide, examine police propaganda that criminalizes victims of police violence and works to halt any radical responses to it. See video
Police State America

Students stage walkout in support of Second Amendment

fromPJMedia: Unlike the first student walkout, this one was self-motivated and not under penalty of suspension from school officials. 
2nd Amendment Assaults

'Being cash-free puts us at risk of attack': Swedes turn against cashlessness

fromReason: Sweden’s central bank governor has called for public control over its payment system. Others say a fully digital system is vulnerable to fraud and attack. 
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Walter E Williams: Discrimination and disparities

fromWalterEWilliams: I don’t mind saying that this column represents a grossly understated review of “Discrimination and Disparities,” just published by my longtime friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell. 
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The unintended consequences of the minimum wage

fromCapitalismMagazine: The federal government began dictating the minimum lawful amount an employer must pay someone working for them in 1933, as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. 
Regulation Nation

Don't look to the state to keep social media companies from imposing ideological conformity

fromReason: Facebook, Google, and Twitter may be smug and presumptuous, but we can go elsewhere. 
Indoctrination and Censorship      Media Bias on Parade

March 8, 2018

It begins: Seattle cops conduct Nazi-style gun confiscations: no laws broken, no charges, no arrests

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: Using a new law, Seattle police raided a man's home and confiscated his guns with zero due process for entirely legal behavior. 
The Government is Not Us       2nd Amendment Assaults

Age discrimination suit against Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart for refusing to sell rifle to 20-year-old

fromReason: Oregon law bans discrimination in selling goods based on age, so this lawsuit looks like a winner. 
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

NRA memberships surge in wake of anti-NRA protests, ‘media bias’

fromBreitbart: The Daily Mail reports that Google searches for “NRA membership” rose “4,900 percent” since the Florida attack. 
2nd Amendment Assaults      Media Bias on Parade

VIDEO: Ayn Rand - Phil Donahue Interview 1979

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand enlightens Donahue on a variety of topics.
Regulation Nation      The Pursuit of Happiness       Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

SF to charge vacant-lot owners for rainwater that runs down the drain

fromCreators: They've finally did it. They are taxing you for the rain that falls on your property. 
Regulation Nation      The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: Stand Straight Up

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: From the Rubin Report, Psychologist Jordan Peterson discusses rule one of his new book, “12 Rules for Life”.
The Pursuit of Happiness

Thomas Sowell: Football and Fallacies

This is a football story with both political and legal implications.

It was fourth down in a National Football League game, and the punting team came onto the field. The other team went into their formation to defend against the punt. Then somebody noticed that the man set to kick the punt was black.  ... MORE

VIDEO: Do Women Earn Less Than Men?

Walter E Williams: Sloppy Language And Thinking

Words mean things.      George Orwell said, "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Gore Vidal elaborated on that insight, saying, "As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate." And John Milton predicted, "When language in common use in any country  ... MORE

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Disparities In Income

Walter E Williams: Unappreciated Tax On The Poor

High risk neighborhoods are taxing themselves.  A few years ago, BET had a commentary titled "Where Are the Grocery Stores in Black Neighborhoods?" One wonders whether anyone thinks that the absence of supermarkets in predominantly black neighborhoods means that white merchants do not like dollars coming out of black hands.      ... MORE

VIDEO: How Donald Trump Answers A Question

Thomas Sowell: Attacking The Truth

They just can't take the inconvenient truth.  Among the many sad signs of our time are the current political and media attacks on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for speaking the plain truth on a subject where lies have been the norm for years. The case before the High Court is whether the use of race as a basis for admitting students  ... MORE

Walter E Williams: The True Test Of Free Speech

Are most Americans hostile to liberty?      Recent events at the University of Missouri, Yale University and some other colleges demonstrate an ongoing ignorance and/or contempt for the principles of free speech. So let's examine some of those principles by asking: What is the true test of one's commitment to free speech? Contrary to   ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Who's Responsible?

What do we make of Hillary's observation?    Hillary Clinton told a mixed audience, "I mean, if we're honest, for a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear". Before we get into the nuts and bolts of that observation, I'd like to ask a question. Would well-meaning,      ... MORE

VIDEO: Richard Epstein - Income Inequality

Thomas Sowell: Charlatans And Sheep

A closer look at the dynamics of disparity.     One of the many painful signs of the mindlessness of our times was a recent section of the Wall Street Journal, built around the theme "What's Holding Women Back in the Workplace?" Whenever some group is not equally represented in some institution or activity, the automatic response in some     ... MORE
Charlatans and Sheep: Part II                      Charlatans and Sheep Part III

Walter E Williams: Wasn't Always This Way

A conclusion not supported by the facts.   Academics and public intellectuals, who should know better, attempt to explain the highly visible and publicized pathology witnessed in cities such as Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Ferguson and others as a legacy of slavery. The argument is made that the problems encountered by many black Americans  ... MORE

VIDEO: Problems In The Black Community

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

Walter E Williams: Legal And Academic Equality Nonsense

Disproportionality is not inequality.     A particular act or policy might not have a discriminatory intent, but that doesn't let you off the hook. If it has a disproportionately negative impact on so-called protected classes, it is said to have a disparate impact and risks being prohibited by law. The uninformed assumption made by judges, lawyers and    ... MORE