Paul Gessing: New Mexico's Civil Asset Forfeiture Success

Tyranny takes one in the shorts.   They say it’s better to be lucky than good. Of course, it’s even better to be lucky and good! That is exactly what happened in New Mexico during the 2015 legislative session with regard to reforming the process of civil asset forfeiture. To recap, during the 2015 legislative session, New Mexico’s deeply-divided    ... MORE

What One Cop’s Acquittal Reveals About Police Violence

by Katie McDonough.     A license to kill. The trial of a Chicago police detective who killed a young woman after opening fire on a group of unarmed people ended Monday with the judge finding the officer not guilty on all charges. Detective Dante Servin shot and killed Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old black woman, in April 2012 and was charged with    ... MORE

VIDEO: Redistribution And The Death Tax

J.D. Tuccille: Will The Minimum Wage Protesters Order Fries From Their Burger-Flipping Robot Replacements?

Going the way of gas attendants and theater ushers.     The Momentum Machines website is low-key right now, but that may have something to do with high-profile arguments in the press and protests in the streets demanding that fast-food chains pay workers $15 an hour to do the job the company's robots are designed to fill. Even before   ... MORE

Environmentalists Spoil The Planet For Human Beings

by Michael J. Hurd.      From the HuffingtonPost.com 4/6/15: Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Monday blamed environmentalists for what she called a “man-made” drought in California, which has led to the state’s first water restrictions. “With different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be avoided,” Fiorina, a likely 2016     ... MORE

VIDEO: Liberty Hangs By A Thread

Thomas Sowell: Chaos In The Primaries

Rationality in politics is a formidable long shot.   Painful as it is to realize that both the Democrats and the Republicans will still be holding their primaries a year from now, that is one of the high prices we pay for democracy. Seldom does the initial "front-runner" in either party's primaries end up being the actual candidate when election    ... MORE

Damon Root: How Libertarians Are Changing Conservative Views on Economic Liberty And The Constitution

A long overdue return to the Founder's vision.     This month marks the 110th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Lochner v. New York, in which the Court struck down an economic regulation on the grounds that it violated the 14th Amendment right to liberty of contract. In the early decades of the 20th century, Lochner     ... MORE

Michael Grable: The California Drought & The Free Market

Free markets free people.  Controlled markets control people. A long story in The Desert Sun (a Palm Springs daily) recently manufactured a lake out of a puddle in California's perennial water problems.  Maybe it's just Governor Moonbeam's gang feeding propaganda to the fourth estate, but it's a good example of how government regulation and media     ... MORE

Thousands Dead From Police Shootings, Few Prosecuted

from the Washington Post.    On a rainy night five years ago, Officer Coleman “Duke” Brackney set off in pursuit of a suspected drunk driver, chasing his black Mazda Miata down rural Arkansas roads at speeds of nearly 100 miles per hour. When the sports car finally came to rest in a ditch, Brackney opened fire at the rear window and repeatedly  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Stossel - Those Evil Koch Brothers

Stephen Moore: Greens Against The Poor

How the climate change agenda hurts the poor. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and the whole gang of Democratic leaders claim that one of their highest priorities is to lift up the middle class and reduce the income gap between rich and poor. That goal collides with what they admit is their very highest priority: stopping   ... MORE

State Seizes 11-year-old, Arrests His Mother After He Defends Medical Marijuana During A School Presentation

by Radley Balko.  From the website run by investigative journalist Ben Swann: On March 24, cannabis oil activist Shona Banda‘s life was flipped upside-down after her son was taken from her by the State of Kansas. The ordeal started when police and counselors at her 11-year-old son’s school conducted a drug education class. Her son, who had previously ... MORE

VIDEO: Free Range Kids & Gov't Fear Of Healthy Childhood

Walter E Williams: Some Thoughts And Questions

What's the true test of one's commitment to free speech?  It does not come when he permits people to be free to say or publish ideas with which he agrees. Not by a long shot. The true test of one's commitment to free speech comes when he permits others to say and publish ideas he deems offensive. In March, a video surfaced of   ... MORE

Jesse Walker: How About A Religious Nanny For President?

Mike Huckabee is your guy.     Mike Huckabee didn't confirm tonight that he's running for president, but he told us when he'd let us know. Interviewed by Fox News' Bret Baier, the Republican said he'd make a formal announcement in Hope, Arkansas, on May 5. Huckabee, who served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, last ran for president  ... MORE

Sheldon Richman: Lessons For The Liberty Movement

Patience and empathy are key in presenting concept.   It goes without saying—I hope—that we libertarians should be patient and empathetic when we talk political economy with non-libertarians. Patience and empathy are generally virtues, of course, but libertarians have an additional reason to practice them in their political lives: they  ... MORE

Copyrights & Patents Have Become A Religion

by Tim Cushing.   If you've read Techdirt for any length of time, you'll have noticed that intellectual property laws have been decoupled from logic for several years now. Because the entities heavily-reliant on IP protections (and who mostly serve as gatekeepers and middlemen, rather than perform any creative work of their own) have trouble    ... MORE

VIDEO: Johan Norberg - The Power Of Economic Freedom