LibertyPen

May 21, 2016

Google’s Selfish Ledger is an unsettling vision of Silicon Valley social engineering

fromTheVerge: This internal video shows a Google concept for how total data collection could reshape society.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Study: Voters worried about political correctness flocked to candidate Trump

fromReason: "Support for Trump (and opposition to Clinton) is especially likely amongst people who feel emotional reactance to restrictive communication norms."
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Video of a bully cop getting owned by an informed citizen

fromTheDailyMail: Cops should learn the law just to avoid embarrassment if nothing else.
Police State America

It's time to put our federal meat inspection law out to pasture

fromReason: Outdated regulations are hampering the beef meat industry.
Regulation Nation

Want to listen to police scanners? Cops say no more

fromTheWallStreetJournal: In a police state, authorities operate in secret. Their actions are seldom made public.
Police State America

State sets massive precedent, passes law to effectively ban the NSA

fromTheVerge: Michigan seeks to become a sanctuary state from the privacy invasions of federal snoops by honoring the Fourth Amendment.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

May 19, 2016

Rhode Island governor signs executive order to seize guns

fromConservativeDailyPost: Gina Raimondo’s overreaching order allows law enforcement officers to take guns away from those in “red flag” cases.
2nd Amendment Assaults

Socialist Seattle deploys another tax against employment

fromConservativeDailyPost: Seattle's idiotic tax on workers put the tyranny of local government on full display.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

House passes another violation of the Tenth Amendment to federalize criminal law

fromConservativeDailyPost: This time they deploy a hate crime bill to codify cops as above the average citizen.
The Government is Not Us Police State America

The Protect and Serve Act could make the fight against police brutality more difficult

fromPaste: Pimped by police unions, that was the whole idea.
Police State America

California cities are free to regulate gun stores out of existence

fromConservativeDailyPost: A "sanctuary" from the 2nd Amendment liberty? More setbacks in the Golden State as the Supreme Court declines to take a case about city zoning.
2nd Amendment Assaults

Why regulations are another elite war against common folk

fromTheFederalist: Regulation creates unforeseen issues, which are papered over by more regulations. Eventually what we’re left with is a 20,000-page bill destined to fail.
Regulation Nation

May 17, 2016

Supreme Court strikes down federal law that prohibited states from legalizing sports gambling

fromReason: “A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.”
The War Against Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Seattle plans to punish the productive in order to subsidize bums

fromDailyMail: Democrats take care of their constituency. Seattle will tax companies including Amazon and Starbucks $275 per employee to provide shelter for the homeless in $48million scheme.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The issue is liberty, not gambling

fromTheWallStreetJournal: The high court takes a rare stand in defense of the Tenth Amendment.
The War Against Unapproved Voluntary Exchange Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

The University of New Hampshire earns FIRE’s top rating for free speech

fromFosters: The free exchange of ideas continues to survive in some quarters.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Stop asking what happened before someone started filming police brutality

fromTheIntercept: Most folks don't wear camcorders and only start filming when things start turning ugly.
Police State America

Justices Thomas and Gorsuch just hinted they would end privacy as we know it

fromTheDailyBeast: The rights of the individual continue to shrink as the authority of the government continues to expand, as Thomas and Gorsuch seem to have joined the parade.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

May 15, 2016

California politicians are hellbent on telling you how to live

fromReason: Now, our so-called "representatives" are seeking to force you on to buses and trains by making life more inconvenient. This is called public service.
Regulation Nation The Government is Not Us

Walter E Williams: Kanye and Democrats

fromCreators: West raps, "See, that's the problem with this damn nation. All blacks gotta be Democrats.
Man, we ain't made it off the plantation."
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

This Taco Bell can't get a liquor license because city officials don't like Taco Bell

fromReason: But the pizza place next door can have one.
Regulation Nation

California's boneheaded solar remedy for climate change

fromReason: Good intentions are a possibility, but awful policies are the routine reality.
Regulation Nation

Mueller may have a conflict — and it leads directly to a Russian oligarch

fromTheHill: A corrupt political weapon known as the FBI is slowly but steadily being exposed.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

On marijuana and opioids — the DEA has no clue what it’s talking about

fromTheHill: This is hardly breaking news but it is at least being finally acknowledged in some media.
The War On Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

May 13, 2016

How a “location API” allows cops to figure out where we all are in real-time

fromCreators: Last week, The New York Times reported on Securus, a prison telecom company that has a service enabling law enforcement officers to locate most American cell phones within seconds.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make Police State America

Texas Health Department considers cracking down on CBD

fromCreators: Why would government keep patients from a harmless pain-relieving substance? Because they can. They are regulators and the mission of regulators is to destroy options.
Regulation Nation The War Against Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Feds collect record taxes through April; still run $385.4B deficit

fromCNSNews: Politicians succeeded to transfer more wealth from individuals to themselves but could not constrain their drunken-sailor spending.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

New law: Kansas cops can no longer have sex during traffic stops

fromCreators: This is no doubt about revenue. Good news: traffic citations can no longer be bartered away.
Bad news: the police unions are not happy.
Police State America

The new battle over genetic privacy: How DNA sites became a police weapon

fromNewstatesman: Police are using sites such as GEDMatch.com to revive historic crime investigations.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

VIDEO: Cop savagely beats his own daughter at school, and no one tries to stop him

fromTheFreeThought: Do you really think he treats the general public better than his own daughter?
Police State America

May 11, 2016

The lethal success of pain pill restrictions

fromCreators: Restricting access to pain pills also seems to be increasing the percentage of opioid users who begin with heroin. No wonder the drug warrior lobby wants this.
Regulation Nation The War Against Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Promoted as a law enforcement tool, this practice is actually highway robbery

fromKMBC9: How the state has set itself up to legally steal you stuff even though you are never even charged with wrongdoing.
Police State America

Man protests police department's violation of speech rights, so cops arrest him

fromReason: Stamford, Connecticut, police chief objects to salty language on a sign. That’s not a crime.
Police State America

Illinois police claim if marijuana is legalized, they'll have to kill their police dogs

fromCreators: Dog gone. Cops now argue that nonviolent people must be imprisoned as a dog-saving program.
The War Against Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

John Stossel: Hating DeVos

fromCreators: An administrator who is fighting to empower parents and cut government is a natural target of the left.
Regulation Nation

Seattle’s proposed employment tax is just the city's latest self-inflicted wound

fromCreators: City officials seem dedicated to driving away the businesses that create prosperity. They are behaving as if they are in California.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market Regulation Nation

May 9, 2016

Andrew Napolitano: Prosecutors and the rule of law

fromCreators: The practice of indicting a person for a matter utterly unrelated to the core of the government's investigation in order to turn the indicted person into a government witness is commonplace.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

VIDEO: FBI as a Political Weapon

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Once a primary tool of justice, the FBI has now shown itself to be a weaponized political instrument, relentlessly harassing a series of political opponents.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption The Government is Not Us

Walter E Williams: Before and after welfare handouts

fromCreators: Before the welfare state, charity embodied both a sense of gratitude on the behalf of the recipient and magnanimity on the behalves of donors. There was a sense of civility by the recipients.
The Welfare State: Promoting Dependency

Over-regulation is making us more vulnerable to disease

fromReason: Regulatory precaution, not rising temperatures, is the main driver for the increase in vector-borne disease.
Regulation Nation

In dysfunctional California, libraries are 21st century homeless shelters

fromUSNews: The Golden State is looking more like Venezuela every day.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

The GOP needs a dose of Jordan Peterson

fromReason: The Republican Party needs to seek professional help. Badly. Perhaps it should consult with Dr. Jordan Peterson.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

May 5, 2016

Spy agency NSA triples collection of U.S. phone records: official report

fromForbes: The U.S. National Security Agency collected 534,000,000 records of phone calls and text messages of Americans last year, more than triple gathered in 2016, a U.S. intelligence agency report released on Friday said.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Surveillance oversight across the Golden State

fromEFF: Too often, law enforcement makes unilateral decisions about surveillance equipment in the dark, driven by the sales pitches of vendors rather than an open dialogue about the public safety needs of the community.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Venezuela hikes minimum wage by 155% -- should McDonald's and Walmart match it?

fromForbes: The ugly truth about Venezuela’s minimum wage hikes: they are part of the country’s problem rather than solution.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

John Stossel: Propaganda Networks

fromForbes: Why does American journalist Abby Martin do propaganda for socialist murderers? Few viewers know that teleSUR is funded by the tyrants who control Cuba and Venezuela.
Media Bias on Parade

VIDEO: Cathy Areu - Sherpa Guides Tucker Carlson Through Leftist Nitwittery

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: From Tucker Carlson Tonight, Cathy Areu (publisher of Catalina magazine) explains the finer points of progressive thinking (also known as leftist nitwittery) to the traditional-thinking host.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Public support for marijuana is growing. Will lawmakers follow?

fromPBS: Politicians may wind up under so much duress that they are actually forced to represent the will of the people.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

May 3, 2016

Tariffs are self-imposed sanctions

fromReason: We restrict trade to punish our enemies. Why would we do the same to ourselves?
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Are restrictions on opioids a threat to human rights?

fromWashingtonPost: When government imposes regulations that make it near impossible for a physician to prescribe an essential medication, or for a pharmacist to stock the medication, that becomes a human rights issue..
Regulation Nation The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Walter E Williams: Colleges: anti-diversity and pro-exclusion

fromCreators: It is a cowardly act for a professor to take advantage of student immaturity by indoctrinating pupils with his opinions before the students have developed the maturity and skill to examine other opinions.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Feinstein finally catches up with her voters, abandons her opposition to marijuana legalization

fromReason: A tired old drug warrior checks into rehab.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

In Venezuela, inflation quadruples to 18,000 percent in two months, with no end in sight

fromMiamiHerald: Venezuela's inflation rate spiked from 4,966 percent to nearly 18,000 percent in just March and April — a trend that, if it continues, could push the country's annual rate to more than 100,000 percent.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

CNN hosts porn star's lawyer Michael Avenatti 59 times in less than two months

fromNewsbusters: The newest incarnation of CNN's anti-Trump fetish.
Media Bias on Parade

May 1, 2016

The economic case for free trade is stronger than ever

fromReason: But working-class identity politics threaten to ruin everything.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Why Americans are avoiding the doctor

fromMarketWatch: Despite having insurance, the costs are too high.
Regulation Nation Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Good drivers are creating a budget shortfall, proving gov’t needs you to break the law to fund itself

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: One state has found that relying on a significant percentage of its budget to be derived from traffic fees and fines leads to a massive shortage when drivers fail to break the law.
The Government is Not Us

Democrats lose ground with millennials

fromReuters: An online survey of more than 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34 shows their support for Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about 9 percentage points over the past two years.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption