June 27, 2020

Venezuelans take extraordinary steps to beat water shortage

fromAP: Critics of the socialist government blame chronic infrastructure failures on years of corruption and mismanagement that have also left the electrical grid fragile and destroyed Venezuela’s once-thriving oil industry.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Will government mandate COVID-19 vaccinations?

fromTheHill: Government mandated vaccinations for adults would be a major and controversial step. But then government has taken a number of major and controversial steps recently, such as shutting down the economy.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

California agency blocks release of police use of force and surveillance training, claiming copyright

fromActivistPost:Our elected officials can pass laws regulating the police, and watchdog bodies can review law enforcement policies, but if training materials are kept secret, it provides a back door for manufacturers of surveillance technology and private organizations to influence police practices without oversight or accountability.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make        Police State America         Regulation Nation

Walter E Williams: Insults to black history

fromCreators: Both blacks and whites can benefit from a better appreciation of black history.
Indoctrination and Censorship

The pandemic's economic carnage looks worse than expected

fromReason: If you thought the economic toll wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic was only going to be horrendous, you may have been overly optimistic.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Black Wisdom Matters - Good Intentions of the Welfare State

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Thomas Sowell, Walter E Williams, Star Parker, Jason Riley, Bob Woodson and Larry Elder share their insights on how a half century of the welfare state has changed America and the American family.
The Welfare State: Promoting Dependency

June 25, 2020

What the data do and don't say about policing and race

fromVolokhConspiracy: Harvard's Roland Fryer argues both Left and Right misunderstand or misrepresent the empirical evidence.
Police State America

The triumph of the country mouse

fromNationalReview: A column by the very excellent Victor Davis Hanson. Cities lose their charms when they’re engulfed in chaos, crime, and mobs — and run by virtue-signaling appeasers.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Andrew Napolitano: The afterlife of America's original sin

fromCreators: You can escape reality. But you cannot escape the consequences of escaping reality. Those consequences will be the inevitable repetition of a past we should never forget.
Indoctrination and Censorship

VIDEO: Black Wisdom Matters - The Promise of Black Politicians

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Thomas Sowell, Jason Riley, Bob Woodson, Walter E Williams and Shelby Steele look at the promises and delivery of politicians representing the ethnic grievance industry.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Was the search warrant for the drug raid that killed Breonna Taylor illegal?

fromReason: The information in the no-knock warrant application was based purely on guilt by association.
Police State America

College to remove word “freedom” from ID cards after petition says it’s offensive to some minorities

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: The students passing around the petition believe “freedom” is offensive to black students who may have had relatives who were slaves 160 years ago. When freedom is vilified, only the state wins.
Indoctrination and Censorship

June 17, 2020

Engineering a race war: Will this be the American police state’s Reichstag fire?

fromRutherfordInstitute: The Deep State, the powers-that-be, want us to turn this into a race war, but this is about so much more than systemic racism. This is the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand.
The Government is Not Us                  Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Democrats clarify that black lives will only matter until November

fromBabylonBee: History indicates that the Democrats only interest in blacks has been to keep them dependent on government and rise to power on their backs.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Why economists are so often accused of being indifferent to social problems

fromMises: "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Walter E Williams: Now what?

fromCreators: "Poor people are more dependent on law and order than anyone else. In the face of high crime or social disorder, wealthier people can afford to purchase alarm systems, buy guard dogs, hire guards and, if things get too bad, move to a gated community. Their only protection is an orderly society."
The Government is Not Us

Vermont principal put on leave for not agreeing with Black Lives Matter

fromJonathanTurley: We have never had any organization treated as so inviolate that it cannot be challenged by anyone in their private or personal discourse.
Indoctrination and Censorship

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - How to Cure Marxism

fromRutherfordInstitute: From Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, Thomas Sowell tells how he was enticed by Marxism as a youth and how the real world cured that notion.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

May 5, 2020

Your freedoms don’t have to be muzzled just because you’re wearing a mask

fromTheRutherfordInstitute: The government may act as if its police state powers suppress individual liberties during this COVID-19 pandemic, but the Bill of Rights—still stands in theory, if not in practice.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Walter E Williams: The nation's report card

fromCreators: The DOE just released results of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in U.S. history, civics and geography given in 2018 to thousands of American eighth-graders.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Fever-reading drones just first of a wave of privacy challenges, civil liberties advocates say

fromPLiberty: Police departments in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Connecticut unveiled what was initially touted as a potential new tool against a pandemic: drones capable of taking a person’s temperature from 300 feet in the air.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

A diseased progressive dream

fromAccuracyInMedia: Progressive ideas and global pandemics go together like a strain of COVID-19 and a mucous membrane. One progressive policy after another has been found to be a major cause of the spread of COVID-19.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

VIDEO: Why wouldn't someone buy weed from the legal market?

fromReason: Answer contained within.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

How the CDC and the FDA wrecked the economy

fromReason: The failure to conduct early and wide testing left politicians ignorant of basic facts about the COVID-19 epidemic.
Regulation Nation

January 27, 2020

Population control isn't the answer to climate change. Capitalism Is.

fromReason: "Wealthier, more developed societies are both better positioned to adapt to issues, to problems like climate change and climate impacts," says Nordhaus. 
Economic Policy: Statism Versus the Free Market

Two different Americas

fromZeroHedge: America is not the country it was founded to be. Twelve major differences that beg the question: Was the abandonment of America’s sound founding principles the reason for the dysfunction today?

The Government is Not Us

Joe Biden’s ‘conspiracy theory’ memo to U.S. media doesn’t match the facts

fromJohnSolomon: Fact: Ukraine law enforcement reopened the Burisma investigation in early 2019, well before President Trump mentioned the matter to Ukraine’s new president Vlodymyr Zelensky.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

People rarely die after using opioids prescribed for them

fromReason: The focus on pain pill prescriptions has led to policies that deprive bona fide patients of the medication they need while pushing black-market substitutes, which are far more unpredictable and dangerous.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Amazon Echo’s privacy issues go way beyond voice recordings

fromActivistPost: Major privacy concerns are starting to emerge in the way Alexa devices interact with other services – risking a dystopian spiral of increasing surveillance and control.

Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Male trans MMA fighter who beat up women dubbed ‘bravest athlete in history’

fromDailyBell: Why this requires courage—much less the most courage of any athlete ever—is never explained. More likely, he is just a woman-hating bully.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

November 21, 2019

10 reasons why this impeachment ‘inquiry’ is really a coup

fromNYPost: Analysis from the incomparable Victor Davis Hanson.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Colorado's growing Second Amendment sanctuary movement

fromReason: What happens when cities and counties have their own ideas about a law that authorizes the seizure of guns from people who are mentally ill?

2nd Amendment Assaults

Walter E Williams: Young people ignorant of history

fromCreators: Today's leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from that of past tyrants. But ...

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Pending ban on flavored e-cigarettes in Massachusetts authorizes forfeiture of vapers' cars

fromReason: The bill, which the state House passed yesterday, says police may seize vehicles in which they suspect untaxed vaping products. It was never about safety. It was always about property.

Regulation Nation          Police State America

Biden vows to keep marijuana illegal - right after Pew reveals 80% of liberals want legalized

fromZeroHedge: "The truth of the matter is, there's not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug," he said.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption           The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

One bad apple? Over 1,000 cops caught illegally accessing police database to stalk citizens

fromActivistPost: ust as in other even more serious crimes involving law enforcement personnel, often records request violations resulted in very little punishment if any towards cops.

Police State America

May 29, 2019

"The most destructive breach In history": Hackers use NSA code to grind Baltimore to a halt

fromReason: It has now been revealed that a key component of the malware used by cyber-criminals was actually developed just a short drive from Baltimore - at the NSA, according to the New York Times.

The Government is Not Us

Walter E Williams: Slavery is neither strange nor peculiar

fromReason: The favorite leftist tool for the attack on our nation's founding is that slavery was sanctioned.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

IRS defends giving refunds to illegal immigrants

fromFoxNewsInsider: In a letter to Congress, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen defended the decision to allow illegal immigrants to get refunds from the agency.

The Government is Not Us

Weapons of war on our streets: A guide to the militarization of America's police

fromAmmo: The only people with “weapons of war” on America’s streets are, increasingly, the police.

Police State America

“Truth ultimately Is all we have:” Julian Assange appeals for public support

fromGlobalResearch: “The US government or rather those regrettable elements in it that hate truth liberty and justice want to cheat their way into my extradition and death rather than letting the public hear the truth."

Indoctrination and Censorship

The inside story of how Denver decriminalized magic mushrooms

fromReason: Decriminalize Denver campaign director Kevin Matthews speaks about his winning strategy and the new frontier of drug policy.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

April 9, 2016

Cops kill innocent 84yo woman while trying to kill her mentally ill son in a hail of bullets

fromTheDailyLiberator: Police fired a hail of bullets at a covered window in an attempt to kill a mentally ill man—but they killed his elderly mother instead and blamed it on the fact that they were both wearing red shirts. 
Police State America

John Stossel: Poisonous taxes

fromCreators: Philadelphia gave $4 million of its new soda tax funds to a bureaucracy that spent the money on things like "hip-hop dance...to teach youth empowerment and social issues." 
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market   

Columbia Student offended by professor who said negro was correct term in the '60s

fromReason: It doesn't take much to melt a snowflake. History will do the trick. 
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Walter E Williams: Black political power means zilch

fromCreators: The challenge for blacks is to take advantage of existing opportunities, and that involves addressing the anti-social, self-defeating behaviors and habits and attitudes endemic to the black underclass. 
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery      Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

New photos reveal Robert Mueller and Paul Manafort both worked with former Ukraine president in 2013

fromTheDuran: Robert Mueller is investigating Paul Manafort for working with Viktor Yanukovych in 2013. 
Mueller also worked with Yanukovych in 2013. 
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption    

My family's peashooter is now an illegal 'assault weapon' in this Illinois town

fromReason: Legalizing extortion does not change the morality of the act. 
2nd Amendment Assaults      Regulation Nation

December 20, 2017

University teaches white employees how to overcome the ‘discomfort’ of being white 

from TheCollegeFix: The goal was to help participants in “unpacking Whiteness” to support students and staff with issues and efforts “related to identity and social justice,” the website added.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Walter E Williams: Fascism and Communism

from Creators: Death by government. The reason leftists give communists, the world's most horrible murderers, a pass is that they sympathize with the chief goal of communism: restricting personal liberty.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Bus drivers have become 'true police informants'

from MassPrivatei: For years, DHS and law enforcement have been turning buses into rolling surveillance platforms, outfitting them with surveillance cameras inside and out and using microphones to spy on passengers.

Government is Watching Every Move You Make

VIDEO: The Vision of Barry Goldwater

from LibertyPen/YouTube: Barry Goldwater was a champion of the traditional American values of individual liberty and economic freedom. Excerpts from his 1964 Republican Presidential Nomination Speech.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Political journalists have themselves to blame for sinking credibility

from Reason: Sloppy work creates self-inflicted wounds.
Media Bias on Parade

Thomas Sowell: 'Tax Cuts for the Rich'?

from Creators: How is the claim of "tax cuts for the rich" false? Let me count the ways. More important, you can easily check out the facts for yourself with a simple visit to your local public library or, for those more computer-minded, on the Internet.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

October 4, 2017

Feds Give Americans the frog treatment

from Reason: A plan by the Department of Homeland Security to collect social media information on American citizens,
including their "handles" and even their search results.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

CNN continues to solidify its place atop the fake news dung heap

from American Spectator: 24/7 party politics disguised as news.
Media Bias on Parade

Studies confirm, free people are happier

from TheDailyBell: Even people who think that the government should be less involved in daily life are happier than
people who think society needs more rules.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

⭐️  The deep theory behind stifling speech

from The Savvy Street: A brilliant, but long, piece on how philosophy is responsible for the rise in political correctness and
how philosophy can also fix it.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Stop manipulating the worst shooting in U.S. history to support your political views

from LongRoom: Those eager to make this tragedy about gun control are going to run into a lot of factual difficulties,
not just political ones.
2nd Amendment Assaults

John Stossel: Disabled by Government

from Creators: After government nitwittery removes 20,000 university lectures from access, an entrepreneur comes
to the rescue.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

October 3, 2017

Freedom of conscience is the foundation of all freedom

from Liberty.me: The essence of freedom is the ability to be true to oneself.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

⭐️  Flip-flopping on free speech

from NewYorker: Great piece on the fight for the First Amendment, on campuses and football fields, from the sixties to today.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Marijuana prohibition turns 80

from NORML: The government propaganda that has dictated marijuana policy for the past eight decades is withering, but still prevails in some of the union's most backward states.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

California seeks ban on fossil fuel cars, laying the groundwork to ban human driven cars

from Activist Post: Looks like the nitwits who make up California's ruling class would have out-of-state drivers check their cars at the border since no fuel will be sold. That should be great for tourism.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Smart billboards target individual motorists and spy on license plates and cellphones 

from MassPrivatel: A new age of "advertised spying" is dawning.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

PC Stalinism: the EU bans cartoons critical of the EU

from Spiked!: In a move totally unsurprising to anyone who has been paying attention, the EU has shown its authoritarian colors by banning cartoons from one of its own exhibitions.
Indoctrination and Censorship

VIDEO: Stossel - Trump: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Juries Were Supposed To Be Able To Overturn Laws

by Clay Conrad.   History is clear. The law is unclear on exactly what a jury is. Juries can range from four to 12 members, depending on the state and case. In two states, criminal juries need not reach unanimous judgments. In some states, jurors can question witnesses. There have even been arguments for so-called professional jurors. Some believe   ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Attacking Our Nation's Founders

Undermining the Constitution to gain greater control.  During Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign visit to Liberty University, he told the students that our nation was created on racist principles. Students at a Christian-based university, such as Liberty, do not often hear the founders-as-racists argument. But it is featured at many other universities, ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Campus Lunacy, Part II

Erasing memory via political correctness.  Professor Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He recently wrote an article titled "The hypocrisy behind the student renaming craze." Students, often with the blessing of faculty, have discovered that names for campus buildings and holidays do not  ... MORE

Sheldon Richman: Conceived In Tyranny

The move toward centralization.  If the American Revolution was in some large measure a tax rebellion, we should appreciate the bitter irony that the U.S. Constitution was in some large measure a reaction to a tax rebellion. It’s another reason we can reasonably view the move toward the Constitution — toward, that is, the concentration of power in a   ... MORE

Obama's Feckless Defense Of Human Rights In Cuba

by Nat Hentoff & Nick Hentoff.   On January 8, the Associated Press reported that President Barack Obama “may travel to Cuba as early as this spring if he feels the rights situation here is improving and a presidential trip will help.” The Castro dictatorship’s response was immediate and severe. According to Elizardo Sanchez, the president of the      ... MORE

IBDaily Editorial: Obama's False Equivalency

1776 wasn’t anything like Castro’s 1959 Putsch. In one of his last acts in Havana, President Obama threw out a false equivalency between the American Revolution and Cuba’s 1959 communist takeover. What are we to make of a U.S. president who embraces such hoary Marxist equivalencies? In his Tuesday address to the Cuban people,   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: Hope For The Dead

The judge's Easter thoughts.     What is the connection between personal freedom and rising from the dead? When America was in its infancy and struggling to find a culture and frustrated at governance from Great Britain, the word most frequently uttered in speeches and pamphlets and editorials was not "safety" or "taxes" or "peace";   ... MORE

Bob Unruh: How Much Power Do Juries Really Have?

Answer: much more than they are told. A case against a Michigan man for handing out informational leaflets on jury nullification in front of a courthouse could impact what juries can do and how much control judges and prosecutors have of their decision-making process. “Freedom of speech is not absolute,” argued Brian E. Theide, who is        ... MORE