What motivates our self-appointed conservators. Jonathan Gruber's several videotaped remarks about the gross deceptions that got ObamaCare passed in Congress should tell us a lot about the Obama administration. And the way that the mainstream media hesitated for days to even mention what Professor Gruber said, while they ... MORE
Erin Alberty. In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members. Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse. And so far this year, deadly force by police has claimed more lives — 13, including a Saturday shooting in South Jordan — than has violence between spouses and dating partners.As the tally of fatal police shootings rises, ... MORE
No place for such in a free society. At the core of the American founding is protecting the civil rights
of the people. The list of “repeated injuries and usurpations,” by King
George III, as delineated in the Declaration of Independence, were never
far from the minds of those who drafted the Constitution and for good
reason. They wanted a ... MORE
by Walter E Williams. Jonathan Gruber, MIT economist and paid architect of Obamacare, has shocked and disgusted many Americans. In 2013, he explained to a University of Pennsylvania audience: "This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure (the Congressional Budget Office) did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate ... MORE
The undue influence of stereotypes. Police officers keep claiming that they genuinely thought their
unarmed victims had lethal weapons. Ferguson police officer Darren
Wilson, who shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown,
claims in his grand jury testimony that Brown put his right
hand “under his shirt in his waistband” and then lunged at ... MORE
Cops get seed money to troll for violators. Taxpayers fund their own harassment. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) has received a federal “Reducing
Impaired Driving” grant, which will fund 150 sobriety checkpoints, 75
DUI task force operations, proactive DUI enforcement patrols through
September 30, 2015, and at least 100 safety ... MORE
by Tim Worstall. The last few days have seen us regaled with a serious of stories about how the world is going to run out of chocolate. That would be, I think we can all agree, almost as bad as running out of bacon. So it’s worth thinking through the reasons as to why we might be running out. After all, cocoa, from which chocolate is made, is a plant, ... MORE
by Thomas J. Donohue. How do regulations stifle innovation? Let me count the ways. Across our economy, and in sector after sector, regulations put a stranglehold on innovation – in some cases stopping advancement in its tracks and in others preventing it from happening in the first place. Overregulation is a millstone around the neck of ... MORE
What a conservative Congress should do. Property rights are a fundamental value of political conservatives, and the new conservative majorities in Congress and the state Legislature have early opportunities to enhance those rights. Those rights most often have become controversial in eminent domain cases, where governments ... MORE
Propaganda repository gets new blood. MSNBC: The place where ex-White House aides go to be unbiased. Or, well, something like that. There was a time, years ago, when MSNBC was still pretending to have straight news reporting by not letting hosts like Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews anchor election coverage. But that’s clearly a ... MORE
from the Washington Times. Invoking the Constitution is the common rhetoric of many politicians who swore to follow and defend it, but a lot of them have obviously never read it, or if they have, didn’t understand it. The Founding Fathers wrote it in plain English, simple enough for even a lawyer to understand, but some politicians ... MORE
by Steven Greenhut. In 1966, the then-Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas warned
about an "alarming trend whereby the
privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled
away." Each step is imperceptible, he
wrote, "but when viewed as a whole, there
begins to emerge a… society in which government may intrude into
the secret regions ... MORE
by Kira Davis. American pop culture is filled with darlings. “America’s Sweetheart” has been everyone from the original 1920’s Sweetheart Mary Pickford (actually a Canadian) to Sandra Bullock to Jennifer Lawrence. “America’s Little Sister” was precocious Laura Ingalls. “America’s Mom” was ever-kind and tidy June Cleaver. But it was “America’s Dad” ... MORE
by John W. Whitehead. Is this really a government of consent? “Who needs direct repression,” asked philosopher Slavoj Zizek, “when one can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse?” In an Orwellian age where war equals peace, surveillance equals safety, and tolerance equals intolerance of uncomfortable truths and ... MORE