“Slavery Is Freedom” and “Tax Hikes Are Tax Relief.” So we didn’t go over the fiscal cliff and instead got a deal that delivers no cuts in government spending, raises taxes on “the rich” (the definition of which consistently changes), expands the size and role of government, keeps the red ink flowing at record levels, and provides ... MORE
Alaskan liberty goes up in smoke under new air regs. Not-so-unintended consequences of overregulation are in the air. Newly adopted rules limiting airborne soot imposed by bureaucrats in Washington threaten to freeze the choices — and toes — of individuals living more than 4,000 miles away in subarctic Alaska. ... MORE
Lachlan Markay on an inconvenient truth. A new film starring Matt Damon presents American oil and natural gas
producers as money-grubbing villains purportedly poisoning rural
American towns. It is therefore of particular note that it is financed
in part by the royal family of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. The creators of Promised ... MORE
Test-taking frauds. Nearly two years ago, U.S. News & World Report came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal." It reported that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history." More than three-quarters of the ... MORE
Big Brother is in the building. TechDirt notes: In a radio interview,
Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin (who’s been one of the best
at covering the surveillance state in the US) made a simple observation
that puts much of this into context: the US surveillance regime has more data on the average American than the Stasi ever did on East Germans. ... MORE
The gutting of the Fourth Amendment. Until 1990, sobriety checkpoints were illegal
in California and the United States. But a Supreme Court decision
overturned 200 years of protection from illegal search-and-seizure. The Supreme Court case Michigan Department of State Police vs. Sitz changed how we party and how we view the police. ... MORE
The New York Times comes on strong. For three years running, I've closed the Old Year with a
seasonal burst of bile, my annual Five Worst Op-Eds column. As before, this year's malicious listicle rewards bad arguments and bad writing, with extra points for warped values. 5. Eric Posner, "The World Doesn't Love the First Amendment," ... MORE
Congress needs to order a slice of wisdom. This week, as a new Congress was being sworn in, the Food and
Drug Administration
released two sets of controversial and long-delayed food-safety
rules. Another FDA rule that’s been long in the making is the agency’s proposed menu-labeling rule. The purpose of that rule, first proposed
in 2010 as ... MORE
Lawmakers pay lip service to liberty while trampling it. This year’s Rose Parade in Pasadena, California featured the Department of Defense’s “Freedom Isn’t Free” float. While nothing is close to free when DOD is involved—the B-2 bomber that made a fly-by as parade-goers cheered cost more than twice its weight in gold—the rose- ... MORE
A lesson in political double-talk. Do a Google search for the term “subsidies for oil companies” and you’ll get more than 600,000 results. Try a search for “subsidies for Big Oil” and you’ll get almost 700,000 results. The term “tax breaks for Big Oil” has almost half a million results. Then do a Google search for “tax breaks for green energy”
and you’ll only ... MORE
by Grace-Marie Turner. The third wave of ObamaCare taxes began on January 1, the latest
blitz before the tsunami of changes from the health overhaul law hit in
2014. These new and higher taxes are being levied to partially pay
for ObamaCare’s massive new subsidies for private health insurance and
expansion of Medicaid. The most controversial of ... MORE
A populace designed to serve. In the sub-discipline of economics known as public choice, an important concept is the theory of "rational ignorance." First articulated by political scientist Anthony Downs in the 1950s, and expanded upon by economist Gordon Tullock and others, the theory of rational ignorance holds that it is perfectly rational for ... MORE
See: Eye-opening Feinstein wants to ban guns video. Politician after politician have joined the television talking heads in calling for a new “assault weapons ban” patterned after the ten-year Clinton ban that was allowed to lapse in 2004 after Justice Department and private studies concluded it had no impact whatsoever on murder and violent ... MORE
A tax increase for everyone but the favored few. In praising Congress's huge new tax increase, President Obama said Tuesday that "millionaires and billionaires" will finally "pay their fair share." That is, unless you are a Nascar track owner, a wind-energy company or the owners of StarKist Tuna, among many others who managed to ... MORE
by Awr Hawkins. According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle. This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats' feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course. ... MORE
4,371 arrested in a month; more than 30,000 citations. Nearly 4,400 people statewide were arrested on suspicion of DUI between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve by officers participating in regional saturation enforcements, according to the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. Officers arrested 4,371 people between Nov. 24 ... MORE
An attempt to explode the natural gas revolution. If you don’t have the facts on your side, make some up. That’s Hollywood’s typical scheme for pushing its left-wing views on American audiences. Tinseltown’s “Promised Land” puts a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of Big Green in its battle to vanquish the natural-gas industry in the ... MORE
Laissez-faire, anyone? In the short time since President Obama was re-elected, government has issued hundreds of new regulations. The bureaucrats never stop. There are now more than 170,000 pages of federal regulations. President Obama wants still more rules. Cheering on increased financial regulation, he said, "We've got to keep moving forward." ... MORE
by Lee Davidson. Like the fictional "Big Brother" who was always watching, new machines now give police a growing ability to record license plate numbers of vehicles almost anywhere — at crime scenes, on freeways or in parking lots. So a legislative debate has begun about controlling how such data may be used, and how long it may be. ... MORE
The custodians of our currency are abusing it. The nifty thing about a gold-backed currency is: they aren't making any more gold. The alchemists have tried to make the stuff, but have failed. Of course, a currency can be backed by other precious metals, like silver. But the supply of those other metals isn't getting any bigger either. ... MORE
The injustice of mandatory minimums. Chris Williams, a Montana medical marijuana grower, faces at least five years in federal prison when he is sentenced on February 1. The penalty seems unduly severe, especially because his business openly supplied marijuana to patients who were allowed to use it under state law. Yet five years is a ... MORE
Not so fast. The beginning of a new year is often a time to look forward and look back. The way the future looks, I prefer to look back — and depend on my advanced age to spare me from having to deal with too much of the future. If there are any awards to be given to anyone for what they did in 2012, one of those rewards should be for prophecy, ... MORE
Tyrants insist on a defenseless public. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings, said: "The British are not coming. ... We don't need all these guns to kill people." Lewis' vision, shared by many, represents a gross ignorance of why the framers of the Constitution gave us the Second Amendment. How about a few ... MORE
Evidence of out-of-control government spending. The chief of detectives shoved his hands into the pockets of his
trenchcoat and tugged at the brim of his fedora. “We’ve got a
murder on our hands, gentlemen.” Aw man, on New Year’s Eve? Who’s the stiff?” asked the sidekick
character. (One thing about detective stories, starting ... MORE
Nutrients for irrational fears. Drug control policies, like
gun control policies, tend to be driven by irrational fears
rather than a calm assessment of the facts. When Congress banned
marijuana back in 1937, the few legislators who had heard of the
plant knew it as the "killer weed" supposedly responsible for
horrifying homicides. Several years ... MORE
Obama pushes GOP off fiscal cliff. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts. When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. ... MORE
Obama wins another election. Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2012 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list includes: Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) ... MORE
Conquering one form of mental illness. Here are twelve comical but true resolutions that every liberal should make for 2013: 1.) Resolve to spend time with gun-owners. I have a liberal friend who says she would rather be in the same room as a cobra snake than a gun, even an unloaded gun. Guns really, really scare her. But guns don’t kill. ... MORE
No probable cause necessary. Police state might be a tad bit strong. Police city might be more appropriate. However, it’s still a pretty scary thing to watch. Paragould, Arkansas Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall offered up a “solution” for the towns crime problem. That solution? Well, it looks like something out of a dystopian novel: ... MORE
Efficient only as a bird killer. President Obama likes to talk about making sure “the biggest corporations pay their fair share.” Treasury secretary Tim Geithner calls for tax reform to close loopholes and subsidies. Budget hawks say federal spending must be curbed. Congress and federal environmental regulators claim they are doing ... MORE
by Joe Schoffstall. Nearly two months after homes in Staten Island, NY were devastated by Hurricane Sandy, residents say they’re still struggling with red tape as they try to get the government to help. FEMA “really hasn’t done much, if anything, and they’re making people go through a whole bunch of bureaucratic tape,” one resident told MRCTV. ... MORE
by Michael S. Rozeff. Do you know what the NSA is? It’s the National Security Agency. The NSA has collected an estimated 15 to 20 trillion communications involving Americans. Government spying on Americans and surveillance of Americans are rapidly increasing. The government has forced telecommunications companies to participate. This is ... MORE