The war on terror has come home. "Do I think al Qaeda is going to target Pumpkin Fest? No, but are there fringe groups that want to make a statement? Yes." That's the police chief of Keene, N.H. (pop. 23,000), justifying his decision to buy a BearCat armored personnel carrier with a federal Department of Homeland Security grant. After all, you ... MOREGene Healy: Homeland Security Grants Subsidize Dystopia
The war on terror has come home. "Do I think al Qaeda is going to target Pumpkin Fest? No, but are there fringe groups that want to make a statement? Yes." That's the police chief of Keene, N.H. (pop. 23,000), justifying his decision to buy a BearCat armored personnel carrier with a federal Department of Homeland Security grant. After all, you ... MOREThomas Sowell: Taxing The Poor
How the poor are made to pay. With all the talk about taxing the rich, we hear very little talk
about taxing the poor. Yet the marginal tax rate on someone living in
poverty can sometimes be higher than the marginal tax rate on
millionaires. While it is true that nearly half the households in the country pay
no income tax at all, the ... MOREWalter E Williams: Government-Created Financial Crisis
Suppose you saw a building on fire. Would you seek counsel from the
arsonist who set it ablaze for advice on how to put it out? You say,
"Williams, you'd have to be a lunatic to do that!" But that's precisely
what we've done: turned to the people who created our fiscal crisis to
fix it. I have never read a better account of our doing just that than
in John A. ... MOREWill Congress Rein In Warrantless Spying On Americans?
Congress has a brief chance to pass key reforms. The US government's warrantless surveillance powers largely remain a mystery, even to most of the members of Congress who are set to reauthorize them this week. A small group of senators, however, is planning to introduce a handful of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ... MORECol. K Allard: Sequestration Spotlights Real Defense Abuses
Billions lost in cozy bureaucratic status quo. A panel of defense-industry executives complained last week to a National Press Club audience about the defense budget cuts known as sequestration. Calling those reductions “irresponsible,” TASC CEO David Langstaff said sequestration would shatter “our ability to execute U.S. national ... MORESheldon Richman: Romanticizing Taxation
The irresistible temptation to spend other people's money. In the debate over avoiding the "fiscal cliff"—especially over whose taxes should and shouldn't be raised—I detect an annoying attempt to romanticize taxation. I read this as an act of desperation on the part of those who want higher taxes on the wealthy, for there is nothing romantic about ... MOREKatie Kieffer: True Drone Lies
Superheroes often live double lives. But so do super-villains. For
four years, the Obama administration has been living a double-life
regarding drones. Publicly, the president and his leadership tell us they are using
drones to protect our borders and promote national security. The
administration dismisses challenges to its drone policies as ... MORE
Michael Barone: Mexican Migration May Be Over
A historical view. Is mass migration from Mexico to the United States a thing of the past? At
least for the moment, it is. Last May, the Pew Hispanic Center, in a
study based on U.S. and Mexican statistics, reported that net migration
from Mexico to this country had fallen to zero from 2005 to 2010. Pew
said 20,000 more people moved to Mexico from the ... MOREDespite New Taxes, California's Revenues Are In Freefall
The rich are voting with their feet. California State Controller John Chiang has announced that total state revenue for the month of November 2012 fell $806.8 million, or 10.8%, below budget. Democrats thought they could hammer “the rich” by convincing voters to pass Proposition 30 to create the highest state income tax in the nation. But it now ... MOREDavid Rosen: The Police Know Where You're Driving
Cameras focused on collecting license plate data. Departments have already begun deploying Orwellian license-plate reading technologies across the country. A building at 55 Broadway, in lower Manhattan, is home to the Lower
Manhattan Security Coordination Center, the locus of the New York Police
Department’s massive intelligence-gathering ... MOREVIDEO: A Cop Reveals How To Manufacture Drug Busts
The drug war is a war on YOU. Lodging in Collinsville (with Michael Reichert)
Becky Akers: Gutsy Granny Stumps The TSA
How to treat the government groppers. A reader who wished me to identify her by name and location until I talked her out of it offered this advice for Women of a Certain Age who must endure aviation’s gulag: …I never go through the back scatter machine -- and in [the airport closest to her home], there are no options, the regular metal detectors ... MORECaroline May: Food Stamp Use Hits Another Record High
Spending has doubled in last four years alone. Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, reached another high in September, according to new data released by the United Stated Department of Agriculture. The most recent data on SNAP participation were released Friday, and showed that ... MOREScott Holleran: The Bum, The Cop And The Facts
The moral of the story. This is about the barefoot Times Square bum bestowed with a pair of
boots on a cold November night by a policeman whose act of charity was
photographed by an Arizona tourist. The bum, it turns out, was seen last
Sunday on the Upper West Side. The new boots, valued at $100, were
nowhere to be seen. The policeman, ... MORE
There Is A Snitch Riding In Your Car With You
Black boxes in cars raise privacy concerns. Many motorists don’t know it, but it’s likely that every time they get behind the wheel, there’s a snitch along for the ride. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday proposed long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders — better known as “black boxes” — ... MOREBetsy McCaughey: Obama Dives Over Constitutional Cliff
The president's unprecedented power grab. President Obama went over the constitutional cliff this week, demanding more power than the U.S. Constitution allows any president to have. All Americans — regardless of party affiliation — should shudder at the president's attempted power grab and say no. Compromising on taxes and ... MOREAnother State To Consider ObamaCare Nullification
Four and counting. Since the Supreme Court rendered its opinion on the constitutionality of a mandatory federal health care system last summer, many Americans consider the matter settled. But others recognize that despite the pronouncement of five robed federal employees, the Constitution still does not delegate Congress the ... MOREVIDEO: Censorship and "Unlearning Liberty"
Greg Lukianoff (FIRE), spoke with Reason TV's Nick Gillespie about his new book.
The Enterprise Of Law: Justice Without The State
A book review by George C. Leef. Nearly everyone agrees that a few core government functions —foremost among them the provision of law and justice—can’t be performed in a free market. A handful of rogue thinkers, however, questions this conventional wisdom. Foremost among them is Florida State University economics professor Bruce ... MOREPeter Schiff: The Fantasy Of A 91% Top Income Tax Rate
An Edsel of an economic idea. Democratic Party leaders, President Obama in particular, are forever telling the country that wealthy Americans are taxed at too low a rate and pay too little in taxes. The need to correct this seeming injustice is framed not simply in terms of fairness. Higher tax rates on the wealthy, we're told, would ... MOREMajority Of Young Voters Favor Bigger Government
Public school is serving its purpose. A Pew Research post-election poll found that a majority of young voters who were 18-29 years of age preferred bigger government. According to the survey, 59% of young voters said “government should do more to solve problems” while only 37% felt “government is doing too many things better left to businesses ... MOREDefending The World, Bankrupting Ourselves
by Steve Chapman. The argument for leaving 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 is more or less reasonable on its face. The Kabul government is fragile; our gains might be reversed; the Afghan military is not ready to stand on its own. Here's the unreasonable, unavoidable part: If we don't leave then, we probably never will. The lesson of the past ... MORECalifornia's Prop 30 Hits Entrepreneurs Hard
By Ethan Anderson. Nothing terrifies investors or entrepreneurs as much as the concept of expropriation.
When governments decide to expropriate legally obtained assets,
entrepreneurs who worked tirelessly to build businesses and investors
who risked scarce capital end up with little to nothing for their
troubles. In fact, developing countries often ... MORERichard Branson: War On Drugs A Trillion-Dollar Failure
Time for a reality check. Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, with global branded
revenues of $21 billion, and a member of the Global Drug Commission. In 1925, H. L. Mencken wrote an impassioned plea: "Prohibition has not
only failed in its promises but actually created additional serious and
disturbing social problems throughout ... MOREJohn Stossel - Food Bunk
We'll all be poisoned! With America's "fiscal cliff" approaching, pundits wring their hands
over the supposed catastrophe that government spending cuts will bring. A
scare newsletter called "Food Poisoning Bulletin" warns that if
government reduces food inspections, "food will be less safe ...
(because) marginal companies ... ... MOREWarren Beatty: Global Warming Meets Economic Reality
Is global warming a myth or a reality? It all depends upon who you ask. This study says "yes." This study says "no." That world famous climatologist AlGore says that there is a "scientific consensus" that global warming is real. Really? From Skeptical Science, we get this. "There is no consensus. The Petition Project features over 31,000 scientists ... MORECops To Congress: We Need Logs Of Text Messages
Government's relentless war on privacy. AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would
be required to record and store information about Americans' private
text messages for at least two years, according to a proposal that
police have submitted to the U.S. Congress. CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement ... MOREThomas Mullen: Juries Can Nullify ObamaCare & Drug War
Nullification and secession? For libertarians, the reemergence of ideas like secession and state
nullification couldn’t be more welcome. Both are attempts to resist the
exercise of arbitrary power, which is power never delegated to the party
attempting to exercise it. They should remain the last resort for free
people to resist tyranny. ... MORELucy Madison: Poll Shows Voters Support Pot Legalization
Split on same-sex marriage. A month after voters in Colorado and Washington voted to legalize the use of recreational marijuana, a new poll from Quinnipiac University shows
a majority of Americans support the legalization of pot, signaling
potential support for similar ballot measures nationwide. According
to the poll, conducted between November ... MOREZach Walton: Verizon Patents A DVR That Spies On You
Cameras and microphones that monitor your home. Verizon is moving into the targeted ad business in a big way. The wireless carrier announced a new campaign yesterday called Verizon Selects
that would allow them to share a customer’s info with advertisers. Now
the carrier has patented a device that makes its previous tracking
efforts ... MORESylvia Bokor: Limiting Government
Individual rights have been bastardized. There is no such thing as "a right to a job," "a right to health care," "a right to a decent home," et cetera. No one can transform the actions of those that create products and/or services into another's purview. Today, violations of individual rights are so pervasive that many Americans are ignorant of ... MOREThomas Sowell - Fiscal Cliff Notes - Part II
Anything to expand the size and scope of government. One of the big advantages that President Obama has, as he plays "chicken" with the Congressional Republicans along the "fiscal cliff," is that Obama is a master of the plausible lie, which will never be exposed by the mainstream media-- nor, apparently, by the Republicans. A key lie that ... MOREThomas Sowell: Fiscal Cliff Notes
Like a laser cutting through fog. Amid all the political and media hoopla about the “fiscal cliff” crisis, there are a few facts that are worth noting. First of all, despite all the melodrama about raising taxes on “the rich,” even if that is done, it will scarcely make a dent in the government’s financial problems. Raising the tax rates on everybody in the ... MORELarisa Brown: Switzerland Selected Best Place To Be Born
U.S was 1st under Reagan, has now fallen to 16th. Switzerland is the best place to be born in the world in 2013, and the U.S. is just 16th. A new study produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit says American babies will have a dimmer future than those born in Hong Kong, Ireland and even Canada. The EIU, a sister company of The ... MOREWalter E Williams: Future Generations
Behaving like there is no tomorrow. Is there any reason for today's Americans to care about what happens to tomorrow's Americans? After all, what have tomorrow's Americans done for today's Americans? Moreover, since tomorrow's Americans don't vote, we can dump on them with impunity. That's a vision that describes the actual behavior ... MOREIsaiah Thompson: The Philly Cash Machine
The Philly D.A. has a license to steal. When Philadelphia Police officers stopped Dwayne Marks as he was driving north on Broad Street near Temple University last year, Marks says he wasn’t particularly worried. Marks, who is a black man in his late 30s from East Mount Airy, has faced drug charges in the past — but he’s straightened up, ... MORESupreme Court Makes Ruling In Favor Of Private Property
Government no longer free to cause flooding. Supreme Court boosted property rights Tuesday, ruling unanimously government is not automatically exempt from liability when it causes flooding. In an Arkansas case, the justices said there is no automatic exemption from the Constitution's takings clause in the Fifth Amendment -- ... MOREIra Stoll: Why AT&T's CEO Wants Higher Taxes
They a lot of business with the U.S. government. AT&T customers, pay attention: your phone company is trying to raise your rates. No, not your phone rates: your tax rates. And therein lies a story. If federal campaign contributions are any guide, the CEO and
chairman of AT&T, Randall Stephenson, is, or was, a solid
Republican. In ... MORE
Katie Kieffer: Push The Fed Over The Cliff
Stop worrying about the ‘fiscal cliff.’ Spending cuts would feel
therapeutic after watching Standard & Poor's and Egan-Jones
downgrade our credit rating and seeing President Obama add $6 trillion
to the national debt. The way to avert another recession and massive
inflation is to eliminate the unconstitutional Federal Reserve. There are ... MOREAllyson Mitchell: Obama Making Up Drone Rules As He Goes
Americans need transparency of conventional warfare. The Obama administration has not yet answered concerns regarding the
secrecy, legality and efficacy of the drone warfare program. During the
presidential elections, to avoid leaving business unfinished, a
last-minute effort surfaced in the White House to create a secret rule ... MORE
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