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

Walter E Williams: Blacks And The Confederacy

The War of 1861 was not about freeing slaves.      Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey,     ... MORE

Calls For Boots On The Ground, Curbing Immigration And More Surveillance Powers Coming In Wake Of Paris Attacks

by Peter Suderman.   The politics of panic. CNN’s Jim Acosta captured the prevailing mood in the corridors of political power today when he asked President Obama about America’s willingness to step up attacks on ISIS following the terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday.  “I think a lot of Americans have this frustration that they see that the United    ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Unnecessary Loss Of Life

Politically correct rules of engagement.   War is nasty, brutal and costly. In our latest wars, many of the casualties suffered by American troops are a direct result of their having to obey rules of engagement created by politicians who have never set foot on — or even seen — a battlefield. Today's battlefield commanders must be alert to the  ... MORE

VA Blocks Injured Vets From Access To Medical Weed

by Lori Denman-Underhill.      War veterans of Los Angeles wait patiently to be given the freedom to toke up. A VA policy known as VISN-22 was modernized to let veterans use medical marijuana as well as opioids while getting care, a blessing to vets who suffer pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, anger issues and suicidal tendencies. The policy change  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Game Of Risk

Special Operations Troops Doubt Women Can Do The Job

by Lolita C. Baldor.  Expect lower standards to come. Surveys find that men in U.S. special operations forces do not believe women can meet the physical and mental demands of their commando jobs, and they fear the Pentagon will lower standards to integrate women into their elite units, according to interviews and documents. Studies that surveyed   ... MORE

Jesse Walker: The Public Turns Against War

Saber rattling doesn't poll well anymore.      After a civilian airline was shot down over Ukraine last week, America's hawks stepped up their calls for a more muscular intervention in the country, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) calling the White House "cowardly" because it hasn't armed the government in Kiev. But a new YouGov survey shows  ... MORE

VIDEO: Fox News - Militarized Cops

Andrew Napolitano: Another Pointless War?

Reopening the soldier slaughterhouse.         As we watch the collapsing government in Baghdad surrounded by a highly disciplined and serious force of Sunni-oriented fighters that has taken control of the most populous third of the country, we must, in John Adams' words, resist the temptation to slay the world's monsters. This time around,      ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: A Bitter After-Taste

Squandering the sacrifice of soldiers.       The news from Iraq that Islamic terrorists have now taken over cities that American troops liberated during the Iraq war must have left an especially bitter after-taste to Americans who lost a loved one who died taking one of those cities, or to a survivor who came back without an arm or leg, or   ... MORE

Thomas Sowell: The Prisoner Swap Deal

Obama wins; America loses.     People are arguing about what the United States got out of the deal that swapped five top level terrorist leaders for one American soldier who was, at best, absent from his post in a war zone. Soldiers who served in the same unit with him call him a deserter. The key to this deal, however, is less likely to be    ... MORE

VIDEO: Fox News - The Bergdahl Swap

American Soldiers Did Not Die Defending Our Freedom

by Jacob Hornberger.     An indoctrination proclamation. I was at the Washington Nationals baseball game last week. Whenever I attend a Nats game, there is an air of militarism surrounding the game, but attending on Memorial Day helps to remind us what a truly militarized society America has become. After all, what in the world does baseball, a quite    ... MORE

Remembering Our Ultimate Defenders Of Freedom

by Rob Woodall.      It was President James A. Garfield who said, “For love of country they accepted death,” and in that brief sentence we find a simple, solemn truth. It’s a truth for which we set aside a special day each year to pay tribute to the sacrifice of so many. Their sacrifice is a gift for which we are grateful, and on Memorial Day we pause to    ... MORE

Selwyn Duke: The Plan For Police Nullification

First persecutors or first protectors?     “I [sic] give my left n** to bang down your door and come for your gun,” said the cop. This statement, made by Branford, Ct., police officer Joseph Peterson in a Facebook conversation earlier this month, created quite a news-cycle firestorm. Internet commenters from Sacramento to Saratoga   ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Military Budget Cuts

Guest: Ron Paul.

Steve Chapman: Our Wasted Effort In Afghanistan

What the world's only superpower cannot fix.     The United States government and the Taliban don't agree on much, but they have found one point of convergence: Both think someone needs to get a hose and put out the flames engulfing Hamid Karzai's pants. The Afghan president has often criticized the Americans for carrying out     ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Rise Of The Warrior Cop

featuring Radley Balko.

John Stossel: Beware The Warrior Cop

To serve and protect who?      We need police to catch murderers, thieves and con men, and so we give them special power — the power to use force on others. Sadly, today's police use that power to invade people's homes over accusations of trivial, nonviolent offenses — and often do it with tanks, battering rams and armor you'd expect   ... MORE