June 6, 2020

From 9/11 to COVID-19, it’s been a perpetual state of emergency

fromTheRutherfordInstitute: "Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support.” —Étienne De La Boétie, The Politics Of Obedience
Police State America

Joe Biden basically admits libertarians were right all along: cops shouldn't have military gear

fromReason: Biden voted for the 1997 bill that created the Pentagon's 1033 program, which allows surplus military gear to be passed along to local cops. It took 23 years, but he finally changed his opinion.
Police State America           Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Policing for profit: How civil asset forfeiture has perverted American law enforcement

fromAmmo: Asset forfeiture is having devastating consequences: In 2014 alone, law enforcement took more stuff from American citizens than burglars did.
Police State America

The state’s priority is protecting itself, not you

fromLibertarianInstitute: The state is far more punitive against those that threaten the comfort and authority of government institutions and workers than they are against crimes against citizens.
Police State America

The lockdowns are now a scandal

fromNationalReview: Last week, the media, politicians, and many experts decided that every argument they made for destroying the lives of millions of people in America could be deferred to advance a preferred political cause.
The Government is Not Us

Lockdown supporters embraced wildly wrong COVID-19 projections that fit their preconceptions

fromReason: The episode illustrates the perils of confirmation bias on both sides of the debate about disease control measures.
Police State America           Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

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 Gore: How To Defeat Your Government

This outcome does not require a plan.     In a recent article, “How to Defeat Your Enemies,” SLL maintained that governments and their people were natural enemies, and that the most powerful adversarial tactic is “getting one’s enemies to fool themselves.” The article detailed the effective use of this tactic by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. ... MORE

VIDEO: Does Fear Cost Us Our Liberty?

Emergency Room Visits Continue to Rise Under Obamacare

by Peter Suderman.   Another Obamacare promise bites the dust. In September, 2009, President Obama gave a prime time speech to the joint Congress making the case for the health care law that would come to be known as Obamacare. Much of the speech was devoted to explaining and justifying the law’s major components. Subsidies, he argued,   ... MORE

Why Ending FEMA Will Improve Disaster Response

by Chris Edwards.  Under the U.S. Constitution, the powers delegated to the federal government are “few and defined,” as James Madison noted in Federalist 45, while the powers of the states “will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.” That decentralized    ... MORE

Woman Calls 911 For Medical Help, Gets Beaten By Police

by John Vibes.     Last month, an epileptic woman from California was attacked by police and arrested after she called 911 to report that she was having seizures and needed medical attention. When police arrived on the scene, Andrea Starr was still having seizures and was unable to respond to their commands. Not understanding that the woman   ... MORE

Special Report: America's Perpetual State Of Emergency

by Gregory Korte. The United States is in a perpetual state of national emergency. Thirty separate emergencies, in fact. An emergency declared by President Jimmy Carter on the 10th day of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 remains in effect almost 35 years later. A post-9/11 state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush — and       ... MORE

ObamaCare Sends Patients Flocking To Emergency Rooms

by Laura Ungar.     It wasn't supposed to work this way, but since the Affordable Care Act took effect in January, Norton Hospital has seen its packed emergency room become even more crowded, with about 100 more patients a month. That 12 percent spike in the number of patients — many of whom aren't actually facing true emergencies — is      ... MORE

VIDEO: How To Save A Heart Attack Victim's Life

Because without life, there is no liberty.

Study Finds Uninsured Get Better Care Than Insured

Why insurance seems to insure inferior care.      According to a recent study, severely injured patients are less likely to be transferred to a trauma center if they have health insurance. Researchers from the Stanford University of Medicine found that patients with insurance are less likely to get the best care than those who do not have        ... MORE

A Barton Hinkle: Let's Hear It For Price Gouging

Government has no business dictating prices.       Snow, sleet, and freezing rain weren’t the only things to come down last week. So did a weather-related proclamation from Mark Herring. “Attorney General Herring Highlights Price Gouging Protections Ahead of Winter Storm,” it read. “Laws protect consumers from ‘unconscionable prices’     ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Good Business From Bad News

Amy Payne: Uproar Over Bloated Sandy Aid Package

Bloated governor decries selfishness.   Leaders from New Jersey and New York blew up yesterday after House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) postponed a vote on an aid package related to Hurricane Sandy. But the bill is so loaded with pork projects that these officials should consider directing their anger at the Obama Administration, which is    ... MORE

Stranded Sandy Victims Tangled In FEMA Red Tape

by Joe Schoffstall.  Nearly two months after homes in Staten Island, NY were devastated by Hurricane Sandy, residents say they’re still struggling with red tape as they try to get the government to help. FEMA “really hasn’t done much, if anything, and they’re making people go through a whole bunch of bureaucratic tape,” one resident told MRCTV.   ... MORE

NYers Say FEMA Ignored Obama's Cut Red Tape Pledge

"FEMA ain't doing nothing."       Storm-ravaged New Yorkers say President Obama’s promise to cut red tape and get them aid in the aftermath of Sandy has proven to be hot air. Angry citizens vented at FEMA officials at a town hall meeting held by the disaster relief agency Thursday, with tempers boiling over. Some 1,000 people,      ... MORE

FEMA: Welfare Masquerading As Disaster Relief

by Shikha Dalmia.    Hurricane Sandy hadn't even touched down when liberals started blowing kisses to FEMA, or Federal Emergency Management Agency, the federal disaster relief agency. A New York Times editorial declared that the impending storm proved that the country needs FEMA-style "Big Government" solutions more than ever. Salon, New    ... MORE

Art Carden: Price Gouging In A Picture

What can we say about price gouging?     In open defiance of what everyone learns in an introductory economics class about the laws of supply and demand, politicians in New York and New Jersey (and elsewhere, no doubt) are vigorously enforcing their laws against “price gouging” and implementing alternative rationing mechanisms like even-odd    ... MORE

Do FEMA Camps And Martial Law Foretell America's Future?

by Darren Weeks.   During the 1980s Iran Contra hearings, Lt. Col. Oliver North was questioned by Congressman Jack Brooks concerning North’s role in the development of a continuity-of-government plan called “Rex 84” (“Readiness Exercise 1984”), under which the U.S. Constitution would be suspended, and people moved into FEMA camps in the event   ... MORE

Long Lines Caused By Government Price Gouging Laws

by Karl Dickey. New York and New Jersey are not much different from Florida when it comes to one aspect of reacting to a hurricane or major storm - price gouging laws. What is often hailed as a great idea by the masses and politicians looking for re-election has become another of government's unintended consequences. And what dire            ... MORE