July 25, 2016

More and more of what we do depends on government permission

fromReason: The granting or withholding of that approval is a powerful lever over our lives.  
Regulation Nation     The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: Tony Podesta Vs Paul Manafort - The Equality Under the Law Myth

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: The myth of equal justice under the law exposed for all to see.  
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process       The Government is Not Us

New Kamala Harris bill asks federal taxpayers to subsidize California's high housing costs

fromReason: Expensive tax credits for renters are not the solution to America's housing woes. As with high speed rail, California asks the nation's taxpayers to save them from their own nitwittery.  
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Trump to propose blocking California’s clean car standards: report

fromTheHill: Revokes California's waiver from the Clean Air Act. Would end mandate to continue making cars lighter and less safe. Throws a monkey-wrench into Brown's plan to force electric cars.  
Regulation Nation

Trump administration plans to offer $12 billion in emergency aid for farmers hurt by tariffs

fromCNBC: Crony capitalism kicked up a notch. Trump ushers in a new era of tariffs, subsidies and bailouts.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Walter E Willliams: Can we trust experts?

fromCreators: People whom we've trusted as experts have often been wrong beyond imagination. 
It's nothing new.  
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market     Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

September 14, 2017

📹  Our Amazing Debt (Cosmos Parody) 

from ReasonTV: The national debt just skipped past $20 trillion, which puts America's indebtedness at "unfathomably staggering." (And the chunk you owe personally at "a lot.") The math is so complex that Reason TV decided to lean on "Cosmos" to explain it.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Maine is nullifying federal regulations that cripple local farmers 

from Mises Institute: This is one path for the future of freedom. State nullification is the remedy for federal overreach and tyrannical anti-liberty regs.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Has the NYT Gone Collectively Mad? 

from Consortiumnews: "For those of us who have taught journalism or worked as editors, a sign that an article is the product of sloppy or dishonest journalism is that a key point will be declared as flat fact when it is unproven or a point in serious dispute – and it then becomes the foundation for other claims, building a story like a high-rise constructed on sand."
Media Bias on Parade

Calls to imprison "climate change deniers" grow in the wake of Hurricane Irma 

from Mises Institute: Environmental fanatics continue to grow more radical and intolerant. The movement seems to be dropping the guise of science, developing into a full-fledged religion.
Indoctrination and Censorship

In surprise vote, House passes amendment to restrict asset forfeiture 

from The Intercept: Could pass the Senate on anti-Sessions, anti-Trump sentiment, but if Trump is the tyrannical authoritarian some suspect, he will veto it.
Police State America

This new database is tracking how many cops are charged with crimes 

from Reason: A new database tries to answer one of the most vexing questions in the national debate over policing. The truly amazing thing is this hasn't been done before.
Police State America

Jack Healy and Kirk Johnson: This Land Is Your Land

The folly of federal land management.    Ken Ivory, a Republican state representative from Utah, has been roaming the West with an alluring pitch to cattle ranchers, farmers and conservatives upset with how Washington controls the wide-open public spaces out here: This land is your land, he says, and not the federal government’s. Mr. Ivory,   ... MORE

Victor Davis Hanson: The Oldest Divide - Urban Vs. Rural

The freedom culture is outnumbered.  Of all the growing divides in America—red-blue, conservative-liberal, Republican-Democrat, white-nonwhite—none is sharper than that between city and country. The nation’s urbanites increasingly govern those living in the hinterlands, even as vanishing rural Americans still feed and fuel the nation. At the  ... MORE

Daren Bakst and Katie Tubb: Lawmakers Need To Kill EPA’s And Army Corps’ Water Rule: Property Rights Are At Stake

Regulators gone wild.     Congress appears to be stepping up to the plate to kill the Environmental Protection Agency’s and Army Corps of Engineers’ water rule (known as the “waters of the United States” or WOTUS rule). Lawmakers just need to bring it home by sending legislation to the president. In doing so, Congress will be protecting       ... MORE

Baylen Linnekin: Right-to-Farm Debate Heats Up

All you need to know about right-to-farm laws. If I asked you to think of an agricultural-law issue that’s been making news in states across the country recently, you’d probably throw up your hands in the air. Maybe you’d shrug and suggest something to do with genetically modified food (GMO) labeling. And if I told you, as I am, that the answer to   ... MORE

Henry L. Miller: The Dirty Truth About "Organic"

In denial of reality.       Passionate advocates of organic farming and foods resemble members of a religious cult, one founded on a “back to Nature” mentality. They are not so fundamentalist, however, that they do not make concessions to reality. For example, organic standards arbitrarily define which pesticides are acceptable, but allow “deviations”   ... MORE

VIDEO: World Poverty Vs. Charity That Actually Works

VIDEO: Trees Are The Answer

VIDEO: Are GMOs Good Or Bad?

VIDEO: How California Could Have Avoided Its Water Crisis

VIDEO: What Do Prices Know That You Don't?

Farmers Unable to Repair Tractors Because Of Copyright

by Rick Falkvinge.  Stories are starting to appear about farmers unable to repair tractors and car aficionados unable to tinker with cars because of copyright legislation. That's not a side effect. It was the whole idea of the law. This week, there have been stories about farmers who can’t legally repair their John Deere tractors, as copyright monopoly   ... MORE

Baylen Linnekin: The GMO Debate Heats Up (Again)

Federal, state, and local laws. The debate over GMOs has heated up again. It's been only a month since I last wrote about the issue. But a host of new developments at the federal, state, and local levels have drawn widespread attention. In Oregon, a heated public hearing took place over a ridiculous and unconstitutional proposed county ordinance,    ... MORE

Damon Root: Property Rights Vs. USDA Crop Seizures

Gov't takes without paying just compensation. According to the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government must pay just compensation when it takes private property for a public use. Three years ago, in the case of Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that command, declaring that    ... MORE

VIDEO: Redistribution And The Death Tax

Californians Can Now Be Fined For Long Showers!

by Leslie Eastman.     Jerry Brown sells out to agricultural interests. I reported that California Governor Jerry Brown unveiled the state’s first water restrictions in response to the “mega-drought”. As I foresaw, the rules have turned out to be more about revenue generation than resource protection. What I did not predict is that my teen son and his    ... MORE

The Bad Policy That Created The Great Chocolate Shortage

by Tim Worstall.  The last few days have seen us regaled with a serious of stories about how the world is going to run out of chocolate. That would be, I think we can all agree, almost as bad as running out of bacon. So it’s worth thinking through the reasons as to why we might be running out. After all, cocoa, from which chocolate is made, is a plant,   ... MORE

Katie Kieffer: Why Farmers Need Keystone XL

It’s harvest time!    But oil shipments out of the Bakken are causing dangerous and costly rail delays for farmers. The oil boom in the Northern Plains is a boon to the U.S. economy, creating thousands of jobs and increasing our supply of American energy. With nearly 3 million Americans out of work, the Bakken is like a pool of cool water in an arid    ... MORE

Big Labor, Big Government Are Oppressing Farm Workers

by Matt Patterson.    The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, part of a package of amendments designed to secure civil liberties for all Americans. Unfortunately, farm workers in California’s Central Valley are finding their civil liberties stripped from them today — by a government    ... MORE