LibertyPen

September 12, 2017

End warrantless deep state spying: don't renew 702

from WND: One more chance to rein in warrantless domestic surveillance before it's too late.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The largest threat to our prosperity is government spending and we are all to blame

from Creators: The fabulous Walter E Williams explains that politicians are doing precisely what the American people elect them to office to do — namely, use the power of their office to take the rightful property of other Americans and deliver it to them.
Economic Policy: Statism vs. The Free Market

Entire student section detained, forced to have blood/urine tests after beer can found at football game

from The Free Thought Project: After high school officials found a single beer can during a football game, 75 students had their rights violated with forced blood draws and urine samples.
Police State America

Net Neutrality rules threaten internet free speech

from The Competitive Enterprise Institute: Advocates of net neutrality regulation profess preservation of free speech online as their motivation for heavy-handed government control of the Internet, but recent events show that just the opposite is true.
Indoctrination and Censorship

Feds spend $138,000 asking four-year-olds about their ‘internal sense of gender identity’

from The Washington Free Beacon: "Our current research study is recruiting children aged 3–12 who are transgender, gender nonconforming, and siblings of gender nonconforming children," Your tax money at work.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

September 11, 2017

If you hand out a pamphlet, you could be arrested

from WND: Stunning legal battle over 'historical weapons in the defense of liberty'. Thomas Paine would be in trouble these days
The Government is Not Us

The Deep State: How it came to be and why it fights so hard

from Intellectual Takeout: Members of the Deep State are fighting not only for money and power, but their very sense of being.
The Government is Not Us

New York mayor to property owners: drop dead

from Reason: De Blasio literally wants to tell people what to do with their land.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Why Cliven Bundy keeps beating the government

from Fox News Radio: Jury nullification are words periodically appearing in American history. Jury decisions reflect current culture and at the moment there is great distrust of the US government.
Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Read More: Why Cliven Bundy Keeps Beating the Government (Opinion) | http://newsradio1310.com/why-cliven-bundy-keeps-beating-the-government-opinion/?trackback=tsmclip

NBC, AP publish article saying crooked democrat Menendez on trial in New Jersey is a Republican

from Gateway Pundit: Fake news, dishonest reporting, call it what you will. At least the lefties at the NY Times neglected to give Menendez's party affiliation.
Media Bias on Parade

Fast-growing green energy 'scam' puts taxpayers and homeowners at risk

from The Washington Examiner: "Solutions" to our "global climate crisis" always seems to rely on the heavy hand of government.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

September 9, 2017

Defend Our Online Communities: Stop SESTA

from EFF: Don’t endanger our online communities. SESTA would swap responsibility for online posts from the individual to the web platform, providing the platform with incentives to censor. Stop SESTA.
Indoctrination and Censorship

🎬 Walter E Williams - Tyranny of the Elites

from LibertyPen YouTube Channel: Professor Williams explains how those that pretend to represent you really strive to control you. In fact, they will kill you if necessary to make that point.
The Government is Not Us

Public sector unions are beginning to panic

from Hot Air: When mandatory dues (extortion's first cousin) are gone, unions will be in a heap of trouble.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Teen marijuana use falls to 20-year low, defying legalization opponents’ predictions

from The Washington Post: Adolescence seems to be about rebellion. Legality ruins the fun Go figure.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Victor Davis Hanson: Media bias, bureaucracy drive liberal narrative

from Reason: Raising the bar to enter the job market always results in unemployment for the lowest skilled workers.
Media Bias on Parade

VIDEO: Minimum Wage: Bad for Humans, Good for Robots

from Reason: Raising the bar to enter the job market always results in unemployment for the lowest skilled workers.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

September 8, 2017

House rules committee blocks amendment protecting medical marijuana

from Reason: Politicians demonstrate -- in direct opposition to voters -- that would rather sick people not get medicine than to lose the slightest bit of power.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Transactions

No state constitutional right to assisted suicide, New York high court rules

from the Washington Post: You would only have a right to assisted suicide if you owned yourself, for one is free to destroy any property they own. However, as state property, you have no such right.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

CNN caught creating fake news again

from Activist Post: This time they were caught adding words to a Syrian witness’ statement to forward their chosen narrative.
Media Bias on Parade

London police’s use of facial recognition falls flat on its face

from Naked Security: It couldn’t even tell the difference between a young woman and a balding man.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

College activists march on the cafeteria: what do we want? hydroponic cilantro!

from Activist Post: Students across the U.S. are making some very precise demands of school chefs and dining halls, including a churrascaria, a gelateria and a sushi bar.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The bubble is now so massive even Wall Street is getting nervous

from ZeroHedge: The market has steadily gone up for quite a while now, even though the economy has performed rather poorly and the debt risen at a rapid rate. The increase was largely fueled by low interest rates and government spending, not the production of wealth. The Trump bump is also a move based on perception not reality. It all spells market bubble to me (jim).
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

September 7, 2017

National Guard Authorized to Seize Guns Ahead of Hurricane Irma

from The Daily Bell: Is this a testing ground to see what the U.S. National Guard can get away with?
2nd Amendment Assaults

Laws against 'gouging' are simplistic and wrong

from Reason: So-called price gouging helps send important signals to buyers and sellers. It is a necessary function to attract resources to where they are most needed.
Economic Policy - Statism vs The Free Market

Berkeley wimps out on free speech

from the NY Post: You really didn't think a leopard could change its spots, did you?
Indoctrination and censorship

CNN gets embarrassed again trying to tie Trump to Russia

from The New York Times: CNN's elite reporting team has been exposed again. Story retracted.
Media Bias on Parade

Government barriers to private solutions hinder hurricane relief efforts

from Creators: "Raising prices of goods and services to the highest level the market will bear is not only what entrepreneurs do on a daily basis but also the mechanism that gives people access to a supply of goods they wouldn't otherwise have access to."
Economic Policy - Statism vs The Free Market

September 6, 2017

The maximum price of the minimum wage

from The Washington Times: When the bill for feel-good economics comes due, only the ignorant scream.
Regulation Nation

When cowards give in to looters, the American people are the losers

from The American Spectator: Republicans wave the white flag on Obamacare as RINO senators and governors move toward a blueprint for surrender. When they ran for election, the GOP put on their masks. When they failed to act, they took them off.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Wisconsin moves to be first state ever to nullify federal cannabis prohibition through legislation

from The Free Thought Project: State nullification of federal marijuana prohibition is completely constitutional, with the feds having little, if any, recourse to stop the process. Until now, cannabis has been legalized ONLY through direct initiative of the people, not by our so-called representatives.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Internet censorship bill would spell disaster for speech and innovation

from Electronic Frontier Foundation: The bill, named the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, would not stop sex traffickers (its stated pretense), but it would chill free expression.
Indoctrination and Censorship

A 2020 Democratic agenda is emerging

from The Washington Post: Intolerant and unrealistic, the party ditches pretended moderation and will openly fight for their left-wing agenda.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

September 5, 2017

Prices should rise during crises like Hurricane Harvey

from Reason: Prices serve an important function. They attract resources to where they are needed most. This is not price gouging, it is the beauty of capitalism at work.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Trump quietly nominates mass surveillance advocate to “protect” your privacy rights

from Activist Post: Like those who came before him, Trump is an authoritarian and as such wants to empower the state at the expense of the individual. The government is not us.
The Government is Watching Every Move You Make

The Utah nurse is not alone — police have a history of abusing professionals rendering aid

from The Free Thought Project: The Body Cam footage of a nurse being violent arrested for doing her job and refusing to break the law may be shocking, but it's not uncommon. Badges do not put one above the law.
Police State America

REPORT: America’s top universities deny students fair hearings

from FIRE: A new survey reveals that the overwhelming majority of America’s top universities fail to provide students accused of serious misconduct with the most basic elements of fair procedure.
Indoctrination and Censorship

September 4, 2017

The greening of Gore's bank account

from Forbes: How crony capitalists used environmentalist propaganda to justify fattening their accounts with taxpayer dollars.

Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

How society grew cold

from The Daily Bell: Compelling essay about how dependence on institutions is now out of control. A far more interesting piece than the title suggests.

The Government is Not Us

How Facebook, Twitter silence conservative voices online

from The Hill: The intolerant left recognizes they cannot win the arena of ideas. Therefore, censorship.

Indoctrination and Censorship

Congress is finally working to defund civil asset forfeiture

from The Hill: Jeff Sessions may be thwarted in this ratcheting of the police state.

Police State America

September 2, 2017

Hollywood & New Yorkers Agree: We should aspire to be more like starving Venezuelans

from Squawker: The Bernie Sanders' mentality of imposing universal poverty as a means to achieve equality.
Leftists would be wise to grasp the wisdom of Milton Friedman: “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.
A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”

Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Ohio’s Campus Free Speech Act helps build free minds, free people

from The Hill: Free speech is the best antidote for poisonous ideas. That is why the intolerant left is so scared of it.
Students need to explore their ideas, not constrain them. Education is about learning how to think, not being told what to think.

Indoctrination and Censorship

FDA pushing forward with terrible menu-labeling rules

from The Hill: Unless this idiotic provision of ObamaCare is repealed, menu labeling will continue to be abnormally costly and ineffective (since costly and ineffective is the normal state of government).

Regulation Nation

September 1, 2017

Cop attempts to force a nurse to violate hospital policy and US Constitution

from Salt Lake Tribune: Video shows Utah nurse being dragged into police car after refusing to let officer take blood from unconscious victim. Some cops seem to forget they are public servants and not kings making up the law as they go.

Police State America

Memos show Comey cleared Hillary before interviewing her and 17 other key witnesses

from the Free Thought Project: Now we know for certain. The fix was in.

The Government is Not Us

Battlefield America is the new normal. We are not in Mayberry anymore

from LewRockwell.com: “If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”— Arthur Rizer, former police officer

Police State America

When government can't take "not guilty" for an answer

from Reason.com: The federal government cannot let go of legal proceedings resulting from the 2014 Bundy ranch standoff over control of western lands. The feds are engaged in an extended grudge match against western dissidents, without regard for the cost to justice or the taxpayers.

Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

Terrorism? You stand a higher chance of being crushed by a vending machine

from the Daily Bell: Human beings have a 1 in 3,000,000 chance of suffering from a terror attack. Yet there is currently a 100% chance that Social Security runs out of money in 2034. Only one of these manages to find its way into the news.
Defense versus the War Machine