Nov 17, 2018

Rand Paul: Next A.G. must defend individual liberty from power-hungry deep state

fromBreitbart: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) offered his thoughts on who should replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions during an interview with Breitbart News Deputy Political Editor Amanda House.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption    Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

The Pentagon fails its first comprehensive audit

fromReason: According to Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan, no one expected it to pass anyway.
Defense Versus The War Machine

Venezuela is rolling out a new ID card manufactured in China that can track, reward, and punish citizens

fromBusinessInsider: The ID transmits data about cardholders to government computer servers, and is increasingly linked to subsidized food, health, and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

CNN’s Acosta back at White House after judge’s ruling

fromAP: Anti-Trump reporter Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, was back in the saddle this afternoon. However, the White House said it would be developing new rules for orderly press conferences.
Media Bias on Parade

US gov’t accidentally reveals they’re charging Julian Assange

fromFreeThoughtProject: The US government accidentally copied and pasted information from sealed documents indicating that they have already charged Julian Assange for his journalism.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

British school bans expensive coats so poor students won't 'feel stigmatized'

fromReason: Bans like these just encourage a victim mentality.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

June 17, 2016

Apple to undercut popular law-enforcement tool for cracking iPhones

fromReuters: The setting change is certain to draw criticism from U.S. law enforcement officials who have been engaged in ways to force technology companies to maintain access to users’ communications. 
Government is Watching Every Move You Make     Police State America

⭐️  VIDEO: The Rise and Fall of American Freedom

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: LP's magnus opus on freedom. Features Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Paul Harvey, Andrew Napolitano, Walter E Williams, Tom Woods, Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Penn Jillette and more.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption      The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: Tate Fegley: The Case for Private Policing

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: From the Tom Woods Show, a look at why private policing would serve the public better than government policing.
Police State America     Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

A closer look at extreme FBI bias revealed in OIG report

fromZeroHedge: Horowitz: "These texts are “Indicative of a biased state of mind but even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the Presidential candidate’s electoral prospects."
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Trump should hurt Sessions by helping drug offenders

fromReason: Commutations for people serving absurdly long sentences would not only serve the cause of justice but be a great new way to torture little Jeffy.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Liberal doctors claim gun ownership is a disease

fromConservativeHQ: The problem, of course, is that some physicians who generally pride themselves on being men and women of science act on pure emotion and leftwing politics when it comes to guns.
2nd Amendment Assaults       Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Let's Hope For Jury Nullification: Prosecutor Wants Man To Serve 20 Years In Prison For Stealing $31 Worth Of Candy

by Josie Duffy.    What if justice was a result and not just a process? Louisiana has the dubious honor of being the most incarceratory state in the world's most incarceratory country. In New Orleans, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizaro has been hailed as a reformer—organizations like Court Watch NOLA and others have publicly    ... MORE

Jurors Need To Take The Law Into Their Own Hands

by Paul Butler, Washington Post.  I learned about jury nullification while serving as a prosecutor in the District in the 1990s. As a rookie, I was warned that in nonviolent drug cases, it would be tough to get a conviction, no matter how strong my evidence was. The experienced prosecutors explained that the African American jurors “didn’t    ... MORE

How Obamacare Just Made Filing Your Taxes Worse

by Nathan Nascimento.    It’s that wonderful time of year again: tax season. Some 150 million American businesses and individuals are expected to file taxes by this month, covering thousands of arcane provisions that determine how much you and your family will pay Uncle Sam and state governments this year. But this filing season is the second     ... MORE

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

Richmond California Establishes A New Low By Paying Criminals Up To $1000 A Month Not To Shoot People

by Jennifer Cruz.  A San Francisco suburb has taken an unconventional approach to fighting crime by essentially paying a sort of monthly salary to ex-cons in exchange for them staying out of trouble and helping others to do the same. The program, known as Operation Peacemaker Fellowship, targets some of the most violent offenders in Richmond,     ... MORE

4-Year-Old Boy Recommended For Counter-Terrorism Program After Saying 'Cooker Bomb' Instead Of 'Cucumber'

by Lenore Skenazy.  In Britain, the inmates are running the asylum. A 4-year-old boy who mispronounced the word "cucumber" as "cooker bomb" so freaked out his pre-school teachers that they recommended him for a de-radicalization program. This happened in Britain, where nursery staff clearly couldn't keep a stiff upper lip when faced with all the     ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 2 Ranchers, 2 Fires, Too Long Behind Bars

The injustice of mandatory minimums.        The occupation of buildings at Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by a group of armed and disgruntled ranchers has brought national attention to a case that illustrates the injustices wrought by mandatory minimum sentences. The men who took over the buildings on January 2, led by Nevada   ... MORE

That Obamacare Penalty Will Be Bigger Than You Think

by Dan Mangan. The stick's getting a lot bigger — but it's not clear that many more people will choose the carrot as a result. Households that opt to go without health insurance in 2016 are set to get hit with an average Obamacare fine of $969. That is 47 percent higher than the average $661 penalty per uninsured household for this year, a new analysis  ... MORE

VIDEO: Andrew Napolitano - The Presumption Of Innocence

Robby Soave: Man Jailed For Traffic Ticket Dies In Cell After 17 Days of Torture - Officers Watched It Happen

In the state's custody.   It was a death sentence. David Stojcevski, a 32-year-old resident of Roseville, Michigan, was arrested for failing to pay a $772 fine stemming from careless driving. A court ordered him to spend a month in the Macomb County jail. Over the next 17 days of his incarceration in a brightly lit cell—where he was denied clothing  ... MORE

Jordan Richardson: A Serious Problem In Our Legal System

Justice is a result, not simply a process.       A life sentence. For Sharanda Jones, a first-time, nonviolent cocaine offender, it wasn’t sinking in. “I was numb,” she remembers. “I was thinking about my baby. I thought it can’t be real life in prison.” Having grown up in a disadvantaged family, Sharanda started working at the age of 14, later opening ... MORE

How Obamacare Lets Companies Punish Fat Employees

by Abby Ellin. Obesity police to issue fat fines. A few months ago, Tracy Raymond, a first-grade teacher in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, discovered that she was too fat for her school. A 50-year-old mother of two, Ms. Raymond has always carried around extra padding, but it never bothered her. “I know I’m heavier than I should be for my height, but I’m not   ... MORE

Robert Gore: The Best Novel Nobody Has Read

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin    is the most well-known American novel that nobody reads. Histories of the Civil War invariably mention its role in stoking abolitionist sentiment, and President Lincoln greeted Stowe as “the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” The book’s characters have become part of   ... MORE

VIDEO: Milton Friedman - End The Drug War

President Obama’s Department Of Injustice

by Alec Karakatsanis.  The policy should be considered a crime. Last month, President Obama used his clemency power to reduce the sentences of 46 federal prisoners locked up on drug-related charges. But for the last six years, his administration has worked repeatedly behind the scenes to ensure that tens of thousands of poor people — disproportionately ... MORE

Prison Sentences Based On Crimes Not Yet Committed

by Barry-Jester, Casselman and Goldstein.   Criminal sentencing has long been based on the present crime and, sometimes, the defendant’s past criminal record. In Pennsylvania, judges could soon consider a new dimension: the future. Pennsylvania is on the verge of becoming one of the first states in the country to base criminal sentences not only on  ... MORE

Ilya Somin: Rethinking Jury Nullification

The jury's equivalent power to prosecutorial discretion. Jury nullification occurs when jurors choose not to convict a defendant they believe to be guilty of the offense charged, usually because they conclude that the law in question is unjust or the punishment is excessive. When I first thought about jury nullification as a young law student,    ... MORE

Felony Murder Case Linked To Marijuana Deal Illustrates The Need For Jurors To Know About Jury Nullification

Because justice is a result, not just a process.    A murder case that prompted a Wichita woman’s run for governor last year is in the hands of a Sedgwick County jury. Kyler Carriker, the son of former gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Winn, faces a life sentence without parole eligibility for 20 years if he is convicted of first-degree felony murder in the  ... MORE