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

Here is why North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons

fromTheNationalInterest: Kim's declaration that promises the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula is about survival.
Defense Versus The War Machine

Republicans love federal snooping

fromReason: (Unless it's against Trump).
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

April 29, 2016

Kelo's 'Little Pink House' stands as a monument to injustice

fromTownhall: A powerful new film portrays an infuriating act of eminent domain abuse.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

800,000 people are about to flee New York and California because of taxes, say economists

fromTownhall: Conservative economists are predicting a new mass exodus of wealth from New York and California because of the new tax law. Other economists say no, folks really don't mind exploitation.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Joe Biden, Dems and the race card: they don't leave home without it

fromCreators: Former Vice President Joe Biden recently told MSNBC's Rev. Al Sharpton that the GOP wants voter identification laws because they seek to prevent all blacks from voting.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Los Angeles Is ending its war on street food

fromReason: After years of treating the city's richest cultural resource like contraband, L.A. flirts with sensible street food policy.
Regulation Nation

Jerry Brown shafts Californians again with bait and switch gas tax

fromReason: No mention about the $2.4 billion of the tax revenue going to light rail and electric bus networks.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

WATCH: Cop shoots fleeing teenager in the back multiple times, then turn off body cams

fromFreeThoughtProject: While a police officer claimed that a teenager was pointing a gun at him before he opened fire and shot the boy in the back, the body camera footage tells a different story.
Police State America

April 27, 2016

The danger of political party mobs

fromTownhall: Mob mentality, group identity, and groupthink  - actions that individuals take when under the influence of a group, do irrational things not in their individual best interest.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption     Indoctrination and Censorship

Andrew Napolitano: War and the separation of powers

fromCreators: The constitutions of many totalitarian countries pay lip service to free speech, privacy and due process, but none has the strict separation of powers that the U.S. does.
Defense Versus The War Machine

How high are recreational marijuana taxes in your state?

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Government proclaimed marijuana "demon weed" until they found a formula to profit. When people voted liberty, government wasted no time to exploit the new revenue source.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange       The Government is Not Us       Regulation Nation

VIDEO: The Real James Comey

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: The fall from America's top cop to America's dirtiest cop. Everything you wanted to know about James Comey but were afraid to ask.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption       The Government is Not Us

John Stossel: Teachers with guns

fromCreators: The fall from America's top cop to America's dirtiest cop. Everything you wanted to know about James Comey but were afraid to ask.
2nd Amendment Assaults

‘I Think He’s Dead’: Horrific video shows raging cop repeatedly smash man’s head into the floor

fromYahooNews: A police officer has been suspended after a gruesome video was uploaded to Facebook showing him repeatedly smash a handcuffed man's head into the floor until he fell unconscious.
Police State America     The Government is Not Us

April 25, 2016

Is the U.S. government evil? You tell me

fromRutherfordInstitute: This is a government that treats its citizens like faceless statistics and economic units to be bought, sold, traded, tracked, tortured, and eventually eliminated once they’ve outgrown their usefulness.
The Government is Not Us

Walter E Williams: Educational fraud continues

fromCreators: "I'm not sure about what can be done about education. But the first step toward any solution is for the American people to be aware of academic fraud at every level of education."
Indoctrination and Censorship

Public transit becomes another tool for total government surveillance

fromReason: City’s new bus system comes with 24-7 camera feeds.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Former federal prosecutor: Pay attention to what Andrew McCabe lied about

fromTownhall: After nearly two years of digging, there is still no proof of Trump-campaign collusion in Russian election-meddling. But we have collusion all right.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Trump assured Rand Paul that he intends to end wars in Afghanistan and Syria

fromGatewayPundit: Paul reversed course and voted for Mike Pompeo to become Secretary of State after assurances that President Trump intends to end the wars in Syria and Afghanistan and reform FISA.
Defense Versus The War Machine      Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Man's joke video of dog giving Nazi salute lands him U.K. hate speech fine

fromReason: Court feels "menaced" by a pug. The Brits seem a bit tightly wound.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

April 23, 2016

14 Years Ago Today, Pat Tillman was killed and gov’t covered up the truth to his death to sell war

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: On this day 14 years ago, former NFL player Pat Tillman was shot and killed by his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan, and the events surrounding his death still remain a mystery.
Defense Versus The War Machine

The rapid rise of San Francisco's surveillance camera network

fromSFGate: What started out as a pilot program with six privately-owned cameras around Union Square has morphed into a highly coordinated surveillance network of 350 cameras that share footage with police.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

In defense of cash

fromReason: Around the world, governments are trying to kill paper money. It's a terrible idea.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Bipartisan coalition emerges to support jury nullification appeal

fromTheLibertyConservative: First Amendment: Congress can make no law abridging free speech. They don't have to. The courts do it for them.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle       Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Andrew Napolitano: President Trump and the Attorney-Client Privilege

fromCreators: Records of whatever work Michael Cohen has been doing for him in the past 10 years will soon be in the custody of federal prosecutors who expect it to be evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the president himself.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Media war on Trump continues around the clock, and other proof of media bias

fromCreators: Every hour of every day, somewhere a major media outlet is attacking the president. It might be with a news show. It might be on an entertainment program.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption      Media Bias on Parade

April 20, 2016

Closed for the holiday