March 10, 2018

America's war on pain pills is killing addicts and leaving patients in agony

fromReason: The government's efforts to get between people and the drugs they want have not prevented drug use, but they have made it more dangerous.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

WaPo columnist openly pimps Marxism: 'It's time to give socialism a try'

fromCBSPittsburgh: A least give them credit for kicking off the shackles of deception.
Economic Policy: Statism Vs The Free Market

Squashing free speech on campus

fromTownhall: Over the last few years, leftists have been the authoritarians on campus, squashing speeches by speakers they deem "fascist" and claiming that ideas they don't agree with are somehow tantamount to "violence."
Media Bias on Parade

Understanding jury nullification and why it may save America from the deep state, police state

fromArtVoice: If liberty has a future, this could be it.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - Influential Experiences

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Professor Friedman looks back at the factors which influenced him most.
Economic Policy: Statism Vs The Free Market       The Pursuit of Happiness

Video of cop beating man for crossing the street so horrific, he was actually arrested

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: Because the body camera video of a police officer savagely beating a man for crossing the street was so disturbing, the violent cop has actually been arrested and charged with multiple counts.
Police State America

February 13, 2018

Why Americans trust CEOs more than politicians

fromTheDailyBell: Just 15% of Americans think the government will bring us to a better future. 59% say the government is the most broken institution, followed by 21% who think the media is the worst.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

China’s surveillance police glasses could usher in a new age of government tracking

fromSanvada: China's cops will wear sunglasses with facial recognition technology capabilities as their police state marches on.
Police State America

John Stossel: Silk Road

fromCreators: Give me a break. Locking some people up forever will not stop sales of drugs. Americans should have learned that from our last attempt — Prohibition. 
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process     The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

VIDEO: Insights of ex-CIA Ray McGovern - Corruption@FBI 9

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Ray McGovern knows a lot because after 50 years in the CIA, he has seen a lot. Closely examining the recent facts revealed regarding FBI corruption, McGovern shares his take.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Libertarian Party spotlights jury nullification

fromDailyInterLake: “Jury nullification is a tool, and like any tool you can use it in a lot of ways. And one of the ways is to uphold the rule of law when government is violating the rule of law.”
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Here’s what’s wrong with Ayn Rand’s Philosophy

fromTheObjectivistStandard: An accounting of some of the problems created by this philosophy.
The Pursuit of Happiness      Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

January 19, 2018

The Case for Jury Nullification, Part I

fromPeoplesPundit: Nullification occurs when a jury votes “not guilty” because a law is either unjust or wrongly applied, not because a defendant is actually innocent.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Police now conducting mouth swab checkpoints to test drivers for marijuana

fromFreeThoughtProject: With the legalization of marijuana comes the bolstering of the police state and the new mouth swab checkpoints for weed are evidence of it.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange     Police State America

The Case for Jury Nullification, Part II

fromPeoplesPundit: Nullification occurs when a jury votes “not guilty” because a law is either unjust or wrongly applied, not because a defendant is actually innocent.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

VIDEO: Our Corruption Coma

fromBillWhittle/YouTube: Remember when the world made sense and movies showed us evil just long enough to be vanquished? What happened? What spell have we been under?

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption      The Government is Not Us

You can't get $1 out of the bank in Venezuela. I tried.

fromCNNMoney: End-stage socialism is always a tragic sight. Cash is gone.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Ayn Rand - Duty, Charity and Love

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: The brilliant philosopher expounds on three powerful concepts.

The Pursuit of Happiness

January 4, 2018

Will the Government Ban Human Driving?

fromReason: Do we need a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to drive?
Regulation Nation

Stop Pretending Sober Drivers Are Stoned

fromCreators: A 2016 report from the AAA Foundation noted that THC blood levels do not predict performance on roadside sobriety tests. It said "there is no evidence...that any objective threshold exists that established impairment."
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange   Regulation Nation

California’s marijuana legalization aims to repair damage from the war on drugs

fromHuffingtonPost: It didn’t just legalize weed, the state also enacted one of the most progressive criminal justice reforms in the country.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Badly strained UK hospitals to delay non-urgent procedures

fromYahoo: The joys of socialized medicine. Take a number.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Neil Cavuto - Resolved to Fail

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Neil Cavuto opines on the laughable political deception of instituting spending cut resolutions, then reneging each and every time.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption     Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Mike Tyson revolutionizing weed industry

fromFreeThoughtProject: Mike Tyson looks to revolutionize the marijuana industry as he breaks ground on a mega-resort for cannabis in Southern California.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

December 23, 2017

The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook

from Politico: An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah's billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House's desire for a nuclear deal with Iran.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption   Defense Versus The War Machine

Cops kill 7-year-old boy while executing unarmed woman in a neighborhood full of kids

from TheFreeThoughtProject: Multiple deputies opened fire on an unarmed woman in a neighborhood full of children on Christmas break and they killed a 7-year-old boy.

Police State America    The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: The Vision of Harry Browne

from LibertyPen/YouTube: From C-Span (2000), former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne shares his philosophy on the gun rights, affirmative action, taxes, Social Security, drug laws and other political topics.

Individual Liberty: America's First Principle   2nd Amendment Assaults

Rand Paul: Obama administration against Trump might be 'worse than Watergate'

from WashingtonExaminer: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., argued Thursday that senior Obama administration officials might be guilty of trying to keep President Trump from getting elected last November.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption   The Government is Not Us

The trillion dollar welfare program

from FFF: What is especially significant about fiscal year 2017 is that total outlays of the Social Security Administration (SSA) exceeded a trillion dollars for the first time

The Welfare State: Promoting Dependency

The myth of the playground pusher

from Reason: In Tennessee and around the country, "drug-free school zones" are little more than excuses for harsher drug sentencing.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

December 8, 2017

Police in two states use hospitals to take motorists’ blood without a warrant 

from Activist Post: Some police chose to not enforce the law, but to get around the law. "Trooper Dunlap did not need to get a warrant, because he knew that the hospital would take motorists’ blood without a warrant and give it to them."
Police State America   The Government is Not Us

Legislators dust off medieval methods to address the opioid crisis

from Reason: Mandatory minimums are a favorite scheme of knee-jerk authoritarians dealing with victimless crimes.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

VIDEO: Harry Browne: How to Make Decisions 

from LibertyPen/YouTube: From Harry Browne's brilliant work, "Rule Your World, an empowering message of morality and individualism. http://www.LibertyPen.com

The Pursuit of Happiness

Wall Street Journal calls for deep state dirty cop Mueller to step down

from DownTrend: The jackleg scoundrel appointed to be the Trump slayer is having a few public relations problems this week after the triumphant news that he had flipped General Michael Flynn against President Trump had the left jumping for joy.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Another ugly civil asset forfeiture tactic -- highway stop 'waivers'

from Forbes: The national revulsion against abusive civil asset forfeiture has not kept police from trying to pocket as much as they can from people who are innocent of any wrongdoing.
Police State America   The Government is Not Us

Wealth creation is not a zero sum game

from CapitalismMagazine: Freedom, and not income equality, should be our goal—if we want human flourishing and prosperity.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

December 2, 2017

We live in a police state, and our legal system is the cause 

from InsiderSources: Things have gotten so ridiculous in the search for victimless criminals that police have even taken to setting each other up, if only inadvertently. Recently, Detroit officers posing as drug buyers brawled with officers posing as dealers.
Police State America   The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

A non-political strategy for freedom

from LibertarianRepublic: You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. -- R. Buckminster Fuller
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle   Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

It's too easy for the government to invade privacy in name of security

from LibertarianRepublic: The use of the cellphone as a surveillance tool is at the heart of a major privacy case heard by the Supreme Court this week in Carpenter v. United States. At issue may be the very future of privacy in America.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Bill expanding concealed-carry gun rights advances in House

from NY Times: Gun rights legislation that would allow concealed-carry permit holders from one state to legally carry their guns to any other state passed a key House panel and appeared to be headed for a vote on the floor of the House.
2nd Amendment Assaults

When legal drugs harm and illegal drugs help

from ScientificAmerican: The frequently arbitrary nature of our drug classification schemes is causing more and more confusion.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Libertarians: Our rulers are wearing no clothes

from the Libertarian Institute: Libertarians have always said that our rulers are wearing no clothes.  Now it’s turning out that this figure of speech is the literal truth.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

November 29, 2017

Supreme court cellphone case puts free speech – not just privacy – at risk 

from Guardian: Carpenter v United States has rightly prompted concerns over surveillance. But it could also have drastic implications for personal freedom in the digital age.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

This awful SCOTUS decision helped create today's civil asset forfeiture racket

from Reason: Bennis v. Michigan should be overruled.
Police State America   Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Teachers attend 'LGGBDTTTIQQAAP' sensitivity training (WTF?)

from PJMedia: The alphabet soup of PC gender nitwittery in Canada.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Nervous about traffic stops? I am. You should be too 

from Rutherford Institute: We’ve all been there before. You’re driving along and you see a pair of flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach.
Police State America 

The real reason the media pushes “sexual liberation”

from The Daily Bell: When you pursue personal liberation, individual freedom, your life will only improve, right up until your last moments on this Earth. When you pursue so-called sexual liberation, your prospects of happiness decay day by day.
The Pursuit of Happiness

State courts say early-morning pot raids were gratuitous and illegal

from Reason: These cases show how blithely drug warriors resort to terrifying and potentially deadly tactics in response to "crimes" that violate no one's rights, even when safer alternatives are readily available.
Police State America   The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

November 20, 2017

The Clintons’ day of reckoning

from LewRockwell.com: When the Harvey Weinstein story broke about a month ago, I offered that the reason (after decades of such behavior) might have something to do with the democrats getting tired of telling Hillary to go away.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Trump brags about his deregulation—and he may be right

from Reason: Pruning back regulation doesn't have to be a partisan issue.
Regulation Nation

The FISA amendments reauthorization act restricts Congress, not surveillance

from EFF: The bill squanders several opportunities for meaningful reform and, astonishingly, manages to push civil liberties backwards, restricting surveillance reforms, not surveillance itself.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The disappearing right to earn a living

from The Atlantic: Want to become a florist in Louisiana? A home-entertainment installer in Connecticut? Or a barber anywhere? You’re going to need a license for that—and it’s going to cost you.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Why people will happily line up to be microchipped like dogs

from Zero Hedge: First come the sheep voluntarily, then come the holdouts brought in by force.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

What National Review gets wrong about the opioid crisis and the war on drugs

from TheDailyBell: Libertarians understand that drug prohibition itself has been the cause of the widespread use of hard drugs, while many conservatives remain blind.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

November 18, 2017

The spurious move to stifle speech on campus because it is 'dehumanizing'

from Reason: The latest tactics for intolerant leftists to silence opinions academics and like-minded students disagree with.
Indoctrination and Censorship

FCC approves TV technology that gives better pictures but less privacy

from Reuters: Of course they approved the technology, government likely subsidized it. It allows third parties to tap into television recording devices (cameras, voice activation), a fundamental piece of the puzzle if 1984 is the instruction manual.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

New rules with hefty fees set for growing, selling marijuana in California

from KTLA5: An array of licenses, permits and fees insure the black market will flourish in the Golden State for the foreseeable future.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

FDA loyalty to Big Pharma exposed in move to ban plant that’s CURING opioid addiction

from The Free Thought Project: Sometimes the goals of crony capitalism and the drug war clash.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange   The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - Can Government Force Speech Against Your Beliefs? 

from LibertyPen/YouTube: Can state politicians demand a Catholic pregnancy center to pimp pro-abortion propaganda. The state of California says yes. Attorney Thomas Glessner is filing a lawsuit that says no.
Indoctrination and Censorship

High schoolers win $3 million against sheriff for warrantless drug search molestation

from NY Daily News: The molesting cops continue on the job, ever vigilant in their quest to rid drugs from bras everywhere.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange   Police State America

November 15, 2017

Financial tyranny: ‘we the people’ are the new permanent underclass in America

from Rutherford Institute: Americans can no longer afford to get sick. That’s because they are struggling to stretch their dollars far enough to pay their bills, get out of debt and ensure that if and when an illness arises, it doesn’t bankrupt them.
The Government is Not Us

Feminization of America is bad for the world

from Creators: Last week, The New York Times published an article, "Sweeping Away Gender-Specific Toys and Labels," that contained three sentences that explain one of the most important phenomena in American life.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Detroit cops posing as drug dealers brawl with colleagues posing as customers

from Reason: Maybe this is how the war on drugs should be fought from now on.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

How the left uses blacks like stalking horses

from Creators: Professor Walter E Williams provides his customary dose of wisdom.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Rand Paul says he will propose individual-mandate repeal

from Breitbart: Rand Paul Tuesday took up President Donald Trump’s challenge to Republicans to include the repeal of the Obamacare individual-mandate in their tax overhaul legislation.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

12-year-old sues Attorney General Jeff Sessions to legalize medical marijuana

from NBC News: A young girl files a lawsuit attempting to educate an old fart.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

September 27, 2017

When the government declared war on the First Amendment

from Reason: It all started with President Woodrow Wilson a hundred years ago.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Mel Brooks: Political correctness 'is the death of comedy'

from CNS News: Blazing Saddles could not be made today. Too many snowflakes might melt.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The coming war on business

from NY Times: So much more than the title suggests. A great article to explain how racism has polluted an otherwise worthwhile move to embrace traditional American principles.
The Government is Not Us

Brazil’s latest outbreak of drug gang violence highlights the real culprit: the war on drugs

from The Intercept: Legalization is their answer. "The data show that, judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success.”
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

John Stossel: Entrepreneur saves free college courses from government ban

from Reason: An internet entrepreneur saved 20,000+ free online college lectures after the government declared them illegal.
Indoctrination and Censorship

California considers following China with combustion-engine car ban

from Bloomberg: This makes sense -- but only in explaining where California's goofy Governor Brown gets his guidance.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

The War On Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Latest Update: July 25, 2017

Sessions suggests Trump lied when he advocated marijuana legalization be left to the states
The DEA says ‘marijuana is not medicine’ — reality says otherwise
The states are revolting; marijuana legalization not just happening at the ballot box 

Trump doubles down on failed drug war; wants more prisons less freedom

Kratom could be a cure for the Opioid Epidemic, yet the DEA wants to ban it

On 4/20, it’s a mixed bag for backers of pot legalization

The deadly war on drugs, waged by your local SWAT team

The war on drugs is a war on people

What was Behind America's War on Drugs?

From the History Channel, essential information you were not taught in school.

Another Sexual Assault In Service Of The Drug War

by Jacob Sullum.   Public servants or simple perverts, you decide. Yet another case of a driver sexually assaulted in the name of the war on drugs dramatically illustrates the dangerously broad power that police officers have to mess with motorists. According to a lawsuit filed last September, described in a February 3 ruling by federal judge in         ... MORE

Federal Drug Warriors Push For Pill-Tracking Databases

Gov't wedging itself between doctors and patients.     The nation's top health officials are stepping up calls to require doctors to log in to pill-tracking databases before prescribing painkillers and other high-risk drugs. The move is part of a multi-pronged strategy by the Obama administration to tame an epidemic of abuse and death tied to   ... MORE

VIDEO: Carl Hart - The Science Of Illicit Drugs

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

VIDEO: The Cost Of The War On Drugs

Law enforcement's spending addiction.

VIDEO: It's Back: Federal Asset Forfeiture Laws

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