July 3, 2020

Revolutionary spirit of individual liberty with minimal government embraced America in 1776

fromWashingtonTimes: What once was a government that needed the consent of the governed not only to exist but also to do anything is now one that requires of us its permission to do nearly everything.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle              The Government is Not Us

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - The Fight for Inequality: Racial Division by Design

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Tucker Carlson explains how the concept of equal rights under the law is now openly and blatantly under assault by the left. Discrimination and racial division is now the demand of the mob.
Indoctrination and Censorship

As delayed tax day approaches, consider what you get for your money

fromReason: Do you appreciate the incompetence, in-fighting, obstructionism, authoritarianism, and waste that you pay for?
The Government is Not Us                 Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Black Wisdom Matters - The State of Racism in America

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Thoughtful black commentators look at the state of racism in today's America. Thomas Sowell, Walter E Williams, Jason Riley, Shelby Steele, Larry Elder, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Lil Wayne.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Want to kill the economy again? Keep threatening more lockdowns.

fromMises: After a period of only one month of "reopening," governments are already enacting new business shutdowns and claiming the authority to engage in these shutdowns indefinitely.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Walter E Williams: An underappreciated American scholar

fromCreators: Thomas Sowell may be underappreciated by the masses, but LibertyPen considers him among the greatest scholars and thinkers of all time.
The Pursuit of Happiness

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

April 8, 2020

The Covid-19 "lockdowns" are what twenty-first-century mob rule looks like

fromMises: The "solution" favored by these government employees is clear: more lockdowns, more business closures, harsher punishments for violators.
The Government is Not Us

How the CDC and the FDA wrecked the economy

fromCreators: Lack of early and wide testing left politicians ignorant of basic facts about the Covid-19 epidemic.
Regulation Nation

Earth Day founder dies in prison after murdering and composting girlfriend

fromGatewayPundit: Ira had claimed that he founded Earth Day and certainly was popular with enviros. He lived the lifestyle by composting the woman he murdered.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Donald Trump takes aim at 'China-centric' World Health Organization; will consider cutting its funding

fromDailyMail: The president blamed WHO for helping China cover-up the initial coronavirus outbreak. 
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Walter E Williams: Manipulation through racial hoaxes

fromCreators: We black people are so convenient and useful to America's leftists. Whenever there's a bit of silencing to be done, just accuse a detractor or critic of racism.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

What did Sanders achieve?

fromNationalReview: He ended the candidacies of Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

February 24, 2020

Why it's so hard to escape America's "anti-poverty" programs

fromMises: The state has created a permanent underclass.

The Welfare State: Promoting Dependency

Rand Paul: End the Afghanistan war and bring our soldiers home

fromNewsweek: Just as government cannot provide absolute safety at home, it cannot guarantee perpetual stability abroad. Nation-building only endangers our troops.
Defense Versus The War Machine

Death by socialized medicine

fromDailyMail: Laura Hillier, 18, died after waiting for a bone marrow transplant during a hospital bed shortage in Canada, despite having willing donors available.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus the Free Market

VIDEO: Ayn Rand - Racism is the Lowest Form of Collectivism

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Ayn Rand identifies the true nature of racism and the steps that can be taken against it.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

California bill would require occupational licenses for porn actors, strippers, cam girls

fromReason: Adult performers are outraged at the proposed licensing requirements.
Regulation Nation

This is what happens when you take 550 doses of LSD at once

fromVice: A mindblower. You don't know what you think you know.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

September 10, 2019

Why cats pay a lower price for CAT scans in Canada

fromEconomicPolicyJournal: In Canada, with socialized medicine, pets get an immediate MRI; human beings can wait months. The reason: pets are paying customers; humans are not.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - The Student Debt Crisis

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: From Tucker Carlson Tonight, the inconvenient truth about student loan debt. 
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Trump Admin is considering using Amazon Echo to determine if citizens should own a gun

fromDailyCaller: Being considered: a proposal that would use Google, Amazon and Apple to collect data on users who exhibit characteristics of mental illness that could lead to violent behavior.
2nd Amendment Assaults             Government is Watching Every Move You Make

A man spent 82 says in jail on meth charges. The "meth' was actually honey.

fromReason: Government incompetence made an innocent man spend months in jail and lose both of his jobs.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Race and Economics

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: In excerpts from Tony Brown’s Journal (1984), Dr. Sowell shares timeless insights from his research on the economics of race and culture. 
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Democrats propose mandatory free speech buyback for dangerous ideas

fromBabylonBee: What the Babylon Bee says today, the Democratic Party will say tomorrow.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Feb 4, 2019

Walter E Williams: Demonizing white men

fromCreators:  The new racism. "There are only two ways to explain the silence by people who should know better. Either they agree with the sentiments expressed or they are out-and-out cowards."

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

‘I’m not going to enforce that’: sheriffs disobey new anti-gun laws—refuse to disarm citizens

fromPJMedia:  We see "the behavior of a police state where the laws are written to help the government achieve its ends, not to guarantee the freedom of the people — and where police break the laws they are sworn to enforce."

2nd Amendment Assaults

⭐  VIDEO: The proper social system for man.

fromAynRandInstitute/YouTube:  A short lesson from Ayn Rand herself.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market         Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

VIDEO: Don't talk to cops

fromRegentUniversitySchoolofLaw/YouTube:  Information is Power. Know Your Rights

Police State America      Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Apocalyptic debt crisis in America: 63 of America’s largest 75 cities are completely broke

fromSHTFPlan:  Most of the debt is due to unfunded retiree benefits such as pension and health care costs.  That means those depending on that money, likely won’t see a dime of it. 

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Kamala Harris hopes you'll forget her record as a drug warrior and draconian prosecutor

fromPJMedia:  The senator and presidential hopeful went to bat for dirty prosecutors, opposed marijuana legalization, and championed policies that endanger sex workers.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Nov 13, 2018

The real winner of the 2018 midterms: individual liberty

fromTheHill: The most important takeaway is that we will have a divided federal government, with the executive branch and Senate controlled by the Republicans and the House controlled by the Democrats.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Civil forfeiture is worse than its proponents proclaim

fromSaltLakeTribune: For the uninitiated, this is a law that allows the government to legally take possession of your property without even having to charge you with commission of a crime, let alone secure a conviction.
Police State America

Pot proponents claim victory, set sights on national legalization

fromNBCNews: "Marijuana has now been legalized for adult use in one out of every five states, so I think it's safe to say federal laws are in need of an update," he said.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - Racism as a Political Tactic

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: From Tucker Carlson Tonight, a look at how racism has been reduced to virtually a meaningless political tactic. Christopher Harris.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery     Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Gov’t denies homeless people food by raiding charity, pouring bleach on food to destroy it

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: Earlier this month, the kind folks over at Free Hot Soup Kansas City hosted a picnic at their local park and invited hundreds of homeless people to partake in the food. 
Regulation Nation     The Government is Not Us

DEA and ICE 'are hiding secret cameras inside streetlights and traffic barrels across the country'

fromDailyMail: The US Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies have hidden a number of covert surveillance cameras inside street lights, according to federal contracting documents.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

September 21, 2018

2 hours in jail for cop who killed Botham Jean. 2 nights for people protesting His Death.

fromReason: The state serves and protects its own agents. The public, not so much. 
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process       Police State America        The Government is Not Us

FBI, DOJ plan redactions despite Trump’s document order

fromBloomberg: So where is Jeff Sessions in all of this? The little rat-faced tyrant is probably too busy spreading lies about medical cannabis to do his job. 
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process     The Government is Not Us

Walter E Williams: Reasoning about race

fromCreators: In ordinary, as well as professional, conversation, we use terms such as discrimination, prejudice, racial preferences and racism interchangeably, as if they referred to the same behavior. 
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

New e-cigarette restrictions could be lethal

fromReason: The state serves and protects its own agents. The public, not so much. 
Regulation Nation

Medical marijuana patients decry state crackdown on pot purchases

fromOregonLive: The shameless government in Oregon, angry that citizens went over their heads with a cannabis-legalizing proposition, refuses to stop harassing medical users by pretending to fight the black market. 
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange        The Government is Not Us

Why the elites prefer a centralized legal system

fromMises: In America's beginning, the vast majority of legal matters were extremely localized. And it stayed that way up until the ruling class decided they wanted the power dictate. 
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process        The Government is Not Us

September 19, 2018

Vigilantes with a badge: warrior cops endanger our lives and freedoms

fromTheRutherfordInstitute: “There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal.”—Hunter S. Thompson
Police State America

Here are 202 companies hurt by Trump's tariffs

fromReason: The debate over tariffs has mostly emphasized their impact on economic growth and jobs, which overlooks specific stories of suffering caused by President Donald Trump's trade war.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The economists versus the special interests

fromBloomberg: In spite of claims they will benefit society overall, interventionist policies designed to benefit certain interest groups ultimately only help certain groups at the expense of everyone else.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Drug War Statistics: Money spent: $50+ billion,   Arrests: 1,572,579 (2016)

fromDrugPolicy.org: The debate over tariffs has mostly emphasized their impact on economic growth and jobs, which overlooks specific stories of suffering caused by President Donald Trump's trade war.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange         Police State America

Britain turns offensive speech into a police matter

fromReason: The nation that gave the world John Milton and his cry for the “liberty to utter” is now at the forefront of shutting speech down. Could this policy be coming to a tyranny near you?
Police State America

Newspaper Publishers Association honors Maxine Waters with ‘leadership’ award

fromTheAmericanMirror: Honor for Maxine is dishonor for the Newspaper Publishers Association.
Media Bias on Parade      Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

July 11, 2016

San Francisco’s crisis looks like New York’s future

fromNYPost: Both SF and NY are one-party towns. They’re incubators of uber-liberal policies. Both cities have produced astonishing inequality, an ever-shrinking middle class and a deepening homeless problem.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery                   The Government is Not Us

California university works to reduce number of white people on campus

fromTheCollegeFix: “In 2011, the campus was 63 percent Caucasian,” the May 2 report informs readers, “in fall of 2017, it was less than 55 percent … but there is still much work to do.”
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

MSNBC does not merely permit fabrications against Democratic Party critics. It  rewards them.

fromTheIntercept: NBC News and MSNBC have essentially merged with the CIA and intelligence community and thus, use their tactics. The network is filled with former generals and CIA officials.
Media Bias on Parade

How government caused 'the boy crisis’

fromReason: Author Warren Farrell says welfare programs encourage fatherless households.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The rise of mass knife attacks around the world shows the problem isn't guns. It's people

fromZeroHedge: In China, where firearms are tightly restricted, it’s probably no surprise that those who want to hurt people found another way to do it.
2nd Amendment Assaults

How the United Kingdom became a police state

fromMises: Hopefully, a cautionary tale. More likely, a preview of coming attractions
Police State America

March 5, 2018

Inside the intellectual dark web

fromSpectatorLife: Thanks to the internet, millions now have access to views mainstream media considers ‘forbidden’. Douglas Murray examines the freethinkers leading the charge.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Trump's tariffs will crush the beer industry

fromReason: And they'll make lots of other things more expensive too.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Chuck Schumer votes against South Carolina federal judge nominee because he's white

fromTedxTalks: An ugly self-hating racist seems to believe that whites are incapable of administering justice.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

VIDEO: How real is fake news?

fromTedxTalks: Was the effort to focus America's attention on the idea of “fake news”—itself a propaganda effort? Connect the dots and learn who’s behind it and why. It’s not what you think.
Media Bias on Parade

VIDEO: Thomas Sowell - Brilliant Economic Insights

fromTedxTalks: Sparkling insights from Professor Sowell captured from various episodes of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Trump: 'take the guns first, go through due process second'

fromReason: This from a guy who bemoaned the lack of due process just weeks ago.
2nd Amendment Assaults

February 28, 2018

Armed and dangerous: If police don’t have to protect the public, what good are they?

fromRutherfordInstitute: In the American police state, police have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. So when police in Florida had to deal with a school shooter, what did they do?
Police State America    The Government is Not Us

How environmentalists keep heating bills high

fromCreators: Making the poor poorer is merely collateral damage for those with a religious devotion to environmentalism.
Regulation Nation    Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

VIDEO: Victor Davis Hanson: Obama's Legacy of Identity Politics

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: A look at how the Obama administration deployed tribal affiliations to divide the American people by creation of a majority grievance culture.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption    Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Walter E Williams: Another Liberal-Created Failure

fromCreators: The dollar cost of the liberal vision of deinstitutionalization of mentally ill people is a relatively small part of the burden placed on society. Many innocent people have been victimized by mentally ill people.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The pension nightmare for California’s cities is getting scarier

fromSacramentoBee: For politicians who have long been buying votes from the public employees union, the chickens are coming home to roost.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market    The Government is Not Us

Venezuelan inmates eating rats and pigeons to avoid starvation

fromBreitbart: Venezuelan prisoners are eating rats and pigeons as a means of survival as food supplies continue to dissipate in the failed socialist state, according to a report published this weekend.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market 

November 28, 2017

These laws are eroding public trust with police. And they are hurting good officers too

from Sacramento Bee: Here is the point that always gets lost in discussions about police brutality: The system is rigged in favor of the police every time it is alleged.
Police State America

The Motherboard guide to avoiding state surveillance

from Motherboard: A straightforward guide to privacy, messaging, and keeping yourself safe from passive and active surveillance.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Mother, Air Force vet kidnapped, sent to Rikers for traveling in NY with her legal Texas handgun

from TheFreeThoughtProject: For carrying her legally purchased and licensed handgun in her vehicle as she traveled through New York, a mother of two and honorably discharged veteran was arrested and charged with a felony.
Police State America    2nd Amendment Assaults

Walter E Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

from Creators: How long will black people accept the educational destruction of black youngsters — something that only benefits the education establishment?
Indoctrination and Censorship

Trump calls for media competition to win FAKE NEWS trophy

from DownTrend: The smart money is on CNN.
Media Bias on Parade

Legalization a boon to more than just marijuana markets

from the Las Vegas Sun: “Let’s put it like this: A rising tide takes all ships,” said Stuart Titus, CEO of San Diego-based General Hemp. “It’s incredible to see the growth in the industry.”
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

November 1, 2017

Reconsidering surveillance law raises anew issues of privacy

from FoxNews: What Americans need to know about domestic surveillance policy, as Congress considers the privacy implications of Section 702 of the FISA Act.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

One year later, is Trump a blessing or a curse to the deep state?

from Rutherford Institute: The American police state is still alive and well and flourishing. Rather than draining the corrupt swamps as he repeatedly promised, Trump and his brand of reality TV politics have merely redirected our attention.
The Government is Not Us

The fragile generation

from Reason: Bad policy and paranoid parenting are making kids too safe to succeed.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Walter E Williams: Let's help our media friends

from Creators: Williams offers a bit of sympathy to the mainstream media and other Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers one year after their trauma.
Media Bias on Parade

Professor calls reason itself a “white, male construct”

from DownTrend: A kooky college professor argues that nonwhites are all naturally irrational.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Presidents are reckless with soldiers' lives

from Creators: The problem is not that Trump is tactless about soldiers' deaths but that he and his predecessors have been reckless with their lives.
Defense Versus The War Machine

October 14, 2017

A nigger and an Uncle Tom

from SlowtoWrite: Samuel Sey: The term Uncle Tom is a racial slur for Black men perceived as submissive to White people—Black men like me. I am perceived as submissive to White people because I do not submit to Black people.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

How we learned not to care about America's wars

from Common Dreams: Sixteen years of autopilot wars, but who’s counting?
Defense vs. The War Machine

⭐️ John Stossel: Let Them Leave

from Creators: America was founded on an act of secession from England. So why do so many people now see secession as a terrible thing?
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

How the minimum wage entrenches inequality and economic privilege

from the Federalist: Early minimum wage proponents knew what they were doing, by pricing “undesirable” workers out of the labor force to perpetuate minority poverty. Let’s not finish their work for them.
Regulation Nation

New TSA screening means airport security hell is about to get worse 

from The Manual: “Well, at least it can’t get any worse.” These days, that seems to be the mantra for most air travelers just before the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) enacts some new program that does just that.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The federal government never lets a serious crisis go to waste

from Reason: "The expansion of federal power has not been steady and inexorable; it has grown through sudden, quantum leaps in times of emergency, most especially war. The crises eventually subside, but many of the powers remain—to be built upon later when the next crisis unfolds."
The Government is Not Us

Walter E Williams: Educational Sabotage

Nationally, black junior high and high school students are suspended at a rate more than three times as often as their white peers, twice as often as their Latino peers and more than 10 times as often as their Asian peers. According to former Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the "huge disparity is not caused by differences in children; it's caused by differences in training, professional development, and discipline policies. It is adult behavior that needs to change."   

... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Black Lives and Social Policy

Thomas Sowell: Football and Fallacies

This is a football story with both political and legal implications.

It was fourth down in a National Football League game, and the punting team came onto the field. The other team went into their formation to defend against the punt. Then somebody noticed that the man set to kick the punt was black.  ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: Black And White, Left And Right

A deeper look at politics and race.   Much is made of the fact that liberals and conservatives see racial issues differently, which they do. But these differences have too often been seen as simply those on the right being racist and those on the left not. You can cherry-pick the evidence to reach that conclusion. But you can also cherry-pick the evidence ... MORE

Sharon Cohen: Chicago's $662 Million Police Misconduct Bill

But few officers punished.   In this city's troubled history of police misconduct, Eric Caine's case may be unrivaled: It took more than 25 years and $10 million to resolve. For decades, he maintained he didn't brutally kill an elderly couple. The police, he said, beat him into a false confession. Locked up at age 20, he was freed at 46, bewildered by a world  ... MORE