Nov 11, 2018

Debt ceiling will be set to record high of $22 trillion

fromWashingtonExaminer: The federal government is set to reinstate its borrowing limit to a record $22 trillion but it won’t provide enough money to fund the government past summer.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Privacy vs. security: Why the widespread use of encryption is essential to national security

fromCNSNews: Government may not like it but privacy and security go hand in hand. The widespread use of strong encryption both guarantees individuals’ right to privacy while hardening society against waves of data breaches.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

FLORIDA: Rick Scott files suit accusing Dem officials of 'trying to steal the election' after his narrow Senate victory, while a mystery ballot box is found two DAYS after the vote... then Trump wades in

fromTheDailyMail: Florida Governor and Senator elect Rick Scott announced he was suing Broward County and Palm Beach County elections officials alleging 'rampant fraud'.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

8 ways in which Jeff Sessions sucked

fromReason: The former attorney general's worst hits -- and they were bad.
Police State America

A badge of shame: the government’s war on America’s military veterans

fromRutherfordInstitute: In recent years, military veterans have been increasingly targeted for surveillance, censorship, involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and stripped of their 2nd Amendment rights.
Defense Versus The War Machine      The Government is Not Us

It's time for Congress to acknowledge the collapse of pot prohibition

fromReason: Two-thirds of the states have now legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

July 9, 2016

Government calls it forfeiture, but it’s theft

fromBloomberg: If America is a Christian nation, why is stealing okay?
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Smart technology sees through walls to track and identify people

fromNBCNews: A group of researchers and students at MIT have developed an intelligent radar-like technology that makes it possible to see through walls to track people as they move around.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Defying Congress, Jeff Sessions keeps blocking medical marijuana research

fromReason: Two years after accepting applications, the DEA has yet to grant licenses to growers.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

If civility is out of style, where do we end up next?

fromReason: Yearning for the days when interrupting your debate opponent was considered the height of incivility.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Caribbean nations agree to consider marijuana legalization

fromMarijuanaMoment: Caribbean nations agreed to consider marijuana reclassification, noting “human and religious rights” issues as well as “the economic benefits to be derived” from legalization.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

The next Supreme Court Justice must uphold the principles of individual liberty

fromDailyTorch: There is always an adversary looking to limit freedom, and our surest line of defense is the Constitution.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle      The Pursuit of Happiness

April 18, 2016

Feds taxed and borrowed $4.47 trillion since last tax day

fromCNSNews: That means the federal government taxed and borrowed approximately $13,736.85 for every man, woman and child in the country.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

California progressives launch (another) attack on free speech

fromNationalReview: The California State Assembly is set to vote on a bill that would actually — among other things — ban the sale of books expressing orthodox Christian beliefs about sexual morality.
Regulation Nation      Indoctrination and Censorship

US police forces buying hack-vulnerable 'GrayKey' box to crack into encrypted phones

fromTheDailyMail: The $15,000 device that can unlock ANY iPhone
Police State America

Crimes of a monster: your tax dollars at work

fromTheRutherfordInstitute: We are living in an age of war profiteers. We are living in an age of scoundrels, liars, brutes and thugs. Many of them work for the U.S. government. We are living in an age of monsters.
Defense Versus the War Machine

Tucker Carlson warns against intervention in Syria (Video)

fromTheDailySheeple: Fox News’ Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue Monday night warned the U.S. against intervention in Syria.
Defense Versus The War Machine

Congress killed efforts to undo Sessions's civil forfeiture expansion, despite unanimous house votes

fromForbes: More than half the country has enacted civil forfeiture reform since 2014. Eight of those states have either completely banned or sharply restricted their agencies from participating in adoptive forfeitures.
Police State America

February 16, 2018

A lawsuit against Sessions could be the one to legalize marijuana

fromForbes: The government contention that there is no medical benefit to cannabis is being exposed in court as moronic.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange      Justice is a Result, Not Just a Process

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson - Trump's Immigration Plan

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Tucker Carlson looks at Trump's immigration plans and examines the complaints of Democrats
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Walter E Williams: Black History Month

fromCreators: Black Americans, as a group, have made the greatest gains, over some of the highest hurdles, in a shorter span of time than any other racial group in mankind's history. But what about now?
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano: A Million Dollars a Minute

fromCreators: President Obama's and President Trump's own military and intelligence chiefs have argued that the national debt is the greatest threat to freedom and security that we face today. Why is no one listening?
Defense Versus The War Machine    Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Endangered gestures: the kiss on the hand

fromLewRockwell.com: Disappearing along with hierarchies, order and politeness.
The Pursuit of Happiness       Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Democrats forming marijuana legalization consensus

fromForbes: Smart, very smart.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption     The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

January 15, 2018

Seattle's minimum wage killed the 'five-dollar footlong'

fromReason: Unfortunately, that's not all it's doing.

Regulation Nation

Jeff Sessions gives a boost to legalization of pot

fromCreators: Just hours after his announcement, the Vermont House of Representatives approved a bill to allow recreational use of cannabis, which the Senate had passed last year, and Republican Gov. Phil Scott supports the idea.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

‘Don’t be evil’? Google is becoming a police state

fromTheFederalist: Google employees are creating their own enclave of mandatory wokeness, but they're not content to keep this ideological policing within their own walls.

Government is Watching Every Move You Make     Police State America

Video of cop beating, sexually assaulting handcuffed woman so bad, he’s now in prison

fromTheFreeThoughtProject: Body camera footage of a Las Vegas cop abusing a woman was so bad that the cop was actually sentenced to prison this week.

Police State America

What has government done to our bathrooms?

fromAIER: People who have traveled the world, or are of a certain age and have long memories, are conscious, however inchoately, that something has gone very wrong in our bathrooms. Maybe you are among those who have noticed.

Regulation Nation

TSA detains ‘terrorist’ college student for flashing a finger gun

fromDownTrend: The list of stupid things you can’t bring on an airplane just got a little longer and a lot more stupid. Apparently you can’t bring your own hand if it is pointing.

The Government is Not Us

January 11, 2018

British National Health Service cancels 50,000 surgeries

fromDailyWire: British single-payer system forced to ration care for tens of thousands.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market       Regulation Nation

VIDEO: Eugene Volokh - Threats to Academic Freedom

fromLibertyPen/YouTube: Law professor and columnist Eugene Volokh looks at troubling trends against academic freedom at American college and universities.

Indoctrination and Censorship

How the government hides secret surveillance programs

fromWired: Cops can determine a suspect’s precise location, outgoing and incoming calls, and even listen-in on a call or see the content of a text message using a device called Stingray.

Government is Watching Every Move You Make

As the Clinton Foundation scandal deepens, the media yawn

fromInvestors: Any voters outside the Clinton bubble who negotiated their way around the "who cares?" media in 2016 could clearly see that the Clintons have filled a 50-car train with scandal baggage over the decades.

Media Bias on Parade

Just Say No to Jeff Sessions — Ron Paul

fromPatriotRising: Sessions’ usurpation of state marijuana laws is the type of federal intrusion into state issues usually opposed by conservatives. Sadly, too many conservatives are willing to sacrifice individual liberties for the war on drugs.

The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange      The Government is Not Us

NSA surveillance bill would legalize loophole that lets FBI spy on Americans without a warrant

fromTheIntercept: With major NSA surveillance authorities set to expire later this month, House Republicans are rushing to pass a bill that would reauthorize existing powers and codify into law some practices that critics have called unconstitutional.

Government is Watching Every Move You Make

January 9, 2018

Jeff Sessions goes to pot on marijuana policy

fromAmericanSpectator: An attorney general at odds with his own president, Republican public opinion, and federalism.

The Government is Not Us     The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Thousands of Americans’ electronics illegally searched at border

fromDailyBell: Imagine the helplessness of having your phone taken by an Agent, and searched without your consent. No suspicion of any crime. No probable cause. Just some thug using brute force to violate your privacy.

Government is Watching Every Move You Make

In another blow to Obama’s legacy, food stamp recipients plunge under Trump

fromDownTrend: Adding to the growing list of accomplishments that can be credited to the POTUS, food stamp use has taken a big drop since Barack Obama left the White House.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market   The Welfare State: Promoting Dependency

Seattle soda tax prompts price increases, small business pain

fromReason: Similar taxes in other cities have led to lost jobs and without bringing in the expected revenue.

Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

CNN reporter: Talk of Oprah Winfrey for president shows Democrats have ‘thin bench’ for 2020

fromTheFreeBeacon: Bernie, Pocahantas and Biden are the best they have.

Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

A tale of two Americas: Where the rich get richer and the poor go to jail

fromRutherfordInstitute: Jeff Sessions has made a concerted effort to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant.

The Government is Not Us     The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

January 2, 2018

Walter E Williams: Dangers of Government Control

fromCreators: There are seven unelected people who have life-and-death control over our economy and hence our lives — the seven governors of the Federal Reserve Board.
Indoctrination and Censorship

The tyrants go after free speech in the Golden (not the metal) State

fromReason: California prosecutes man for insulting posts on Islamic Center's Facebook page. The government's theory would equally criminalize insulting posts on a NRA page, or on a pro-Trump organization's page, or on a Communist Party page.
Indoctrination and Censorship

The top 5 most disturbing police brutality videos from 2017

fromPowerlineBlog: Police brutality in America has gotten so rampant that it is no longer rare to see entirely innocent individuals being beaten or killed by US cops.
Police State America

VIDEO: The worst of MSNBC in 2017

fromPowerlineBlog: A look back at the leftist propaganda outlet in the first year of Trump
Media Bias on Parade    Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

What Americans should know about the Constitution

fromFFF: There are about 30 powers given to Congress throughout the Constitution. Everything else is reserved to the states — even without the addition of the Bill of Rights and its Tenth Amendment.
Individual Liberty: America's First Principle

Reason Magazine: 4 things that pissed us off

fromPowerlineBlog: Assaults on free speech, war on sex-trafficking, everything about Jeff Sessions and the Trump-Russia fake news.
Media Bias on Parade    Indoctrination and Censorship    The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

November 24, 2017

Good Samaritans shutdown, ticketed for feeding homeless during Thanksgiving holiday

from TheFreeThoughtProject: Feeding the homeless is now illegal in Atlanta and you will be ticketed and extorted unless you pay the state for permission beforehand.
Regulation Nation

VIDEO: Libertarian Car Talk

from LibertyPen/YouTube: From the Tom Woods Show, Eric Peters on the latest libertarian car issues.
Regulation Nation

NSA Internet surveillance under Section 702 violates the First Amendment

from EFF: It’s not just our Fourth Amendment rights to privacy that are in the crosshairs, but also our First Amendment rights. These rights to anonymously speak, associate, access information, and engage in political activism are the bedrock of our democracy, and they’re endangered by the NSA’s pervasive surveillance.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

How Jeff Sessions plans to end medical marijuana before the year is over

from Newsweek: Sessions is known for being one of the nation's toughest critics of legal pot. He once said the KKK was "OK until I found out they smoked pot."
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai: Killing Net Neutrality will set the Internet free

from Reason: Promises that "we're going to see an explosion in the kinds of connectivity and the depth of that connectivity" like never before.
Regulation Nation

Pro–net neutrality graphic makes argument against net neutrality

from Reason: Do net neutrality advocates fear consumer choice?
Regulation Nation

November 15, 2017

Financial tyranny: ‘we the people’ are the new permanent underclass in America

from Rutherford Institute: Americans can no longer afford to get sick. That’s because they are struggling to stretch their dollars far enough to pay their bills, get out of debt and ensure that if and when an illness arises, it doesn’t bankrupt them.
The Government is Not Us

Feminization of America is bad for the world

from Creators: Last week, The New York Times published an article, "Sweeping Away Gender-Specific Toys and Labels," that contained three sentences that explain one of the most important phenomena in American life.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

Detroit cops posing as drug dealers brawl with colleagues posing as customers

from Reason: Maybe this is how the war on drugs should be fought from now on.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

How the left uses blacks like stalking horses

from Creators: Professor Walter E Williams provides his customary dose of wisdom.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Rand Paul says he will propose individual-mandate repeal

from Breitbart: Rand Paul Tuesday took up President Donald Trump’s challenge to Republicans to include the repeal of the Obamacare individual-mandate in their tax overhaul legislation.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

12-year-old sues Attorney General Jeff Sessions to legalize medical marijuana

from NBC News: A young girl files a lawsuit attempting to educate an old fart.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

November 10, 2017

TSA fails most tests in latest undercover operation at US airports

from ABC News: Procedures that are highly effective in eroding individual rights are not so effective at detecting contraband.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Marijuana Legalization 2017: States and cities where weed won this November

from Inverse: Pot remains illegal at a federal level and is still seen as a “life-wrecking” substance by the country’s Attorney General. But cannabis advocates made enormous strides in elections across the country this week.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Could giving property rights to the world's poor unlock trillions?

from BBC: Some of the most important parts of our modern economy can't be seen - but they can be heard. That's what one Peruvian economist concluded while walking through the idyllic rice fields of Bali, Indonesia, in the 1990s.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Congress is blowing its shot at real NSA reform

from The Verge: This year’s 702 reauthorization is the best chance in years to rein in the NSA.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Senate pushes to eliminate Jeff Sessions' civil asset forfeiture program

from Civilized: A bipartisan group of senators released a letter yesterday in which they called on the legislative body to pass a law to restrict the ability of the Department of Justice to enact civil asset forfeiture programs.
Police State America

Founder of web browser Opera says worried about online privacy

from Reuters: People should worry about online data collection by technology companies because it gives them unparalleled insight into users lives, the creator of one of the biggest web browsers, Opera, said on Thursday.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

November 2, 2017

Civil forfeiture: The ransacking of the American people 

from The  Villanovan: Civil forfeiture may be one of the most sordid rackets of the last couple of decades, a scheme so devious, so heinous, that it would make swine like Bernie Madoff and Charles Ponzi blush.
Police State America   The Government is Not Us

Is federal government flooding of Houston homes a taking?

from Washington Post: A "controlled flooding" inflicted extensive damage on thousands of homes and businesses that might otherwise have been spared the effects of the storm. Government argues that is not a taking.
The Government is Not Us

AG Jeff Sessions suggests prosecutions for marijuana growers, sellers and users in legalized states 

from ActivistPost: Sounds like bluster. Any serious move in this direction would be the end of Trump. Two thirds of Americans support marijuana legalization.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

John Stossel: Communism Turns 100

from Creators: This year marks the hundredth anniversary of one of the worst mistakes ever made: the Communist revolution in Russia.
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Halloween is over — but surveillance state boosters still want to scare us

from Salon: Senate Intelligence Committee hopes to pass off major expansion of NSA’s spy powers as “reform.” No thanks.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

🎬  New from Remy: Trigger (Thriller parody)

from Reason: A very scary Halloween video for fragile snowflakes, since we now know triggers cause meltdowns.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

October 27, 2017

When it comes to surveillance, watch the watchmen

from NY Times: The relationship between security and liberty is often described as a balancing act. This act can’t take place if we’re not informed about the technology used to safeguard our security.
Government is Watching Every Move You Make

Hashd al-Sha’abi commander calls for US forces withdrawal from Iraq

from PressTV: "To the US secretary of state, your military forces must prepare now to get out of our homeland Iraq immediately and without delay once the ISIS elimination excuse is over."
Defense Versus The War Machine

Health care is not a right

from Capitalism Magazine: If your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue their happiness.
The Pursuit of Happiness

Major study shows legal weed reversed a decade of rising opioid deaths in Colorado

from FreeThoughtProject: The end of cannabis prohibition is paying many dividends for society.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Identitarianism and the Splintering of Democracy

from Quillette: This very good piece looks at how identity politics plays out in a representative democracy.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption

Sessions continues to push 'gateway drug' myth about marijuana

from Reason: "Much of the addiction starts with marijuana." Jeff Sessions attempts to peddle 20th century propaganda long after the train has left the station.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

October 20, 2017

Cambridge University students given trigger warnings for Shakespeare plays

from Independent: Underdeveloped children protected from using their minds. Ideas and emotions should be challenged, not protected -- particularly in institutions of learning.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

US health care system: A patchwork that no one likes

from Washington's Top News: Overpriced and underperforming, almost all parties agree that the health care system in the U.S., which is responsible for about 17 percent of our GDP, is badly broken.
Economic Policy: Statism vs. The Free Market

Jeff Sessions announces new scheme to strengthen and expand legalized theft

from CBS News: Civil asset forfeiture. Question: If we have a government of consent, why does this practice exist? After all, citizens have no right to simply take the rightful property of others and therefore cannot delegate such powers to politicians.
Police State America

New Orleans D.A. sued for using fake subpoenas to coerce witnesses and crime victims

from Reason: After the media revealed the threatening, fraudulent notices, a lawsuit has targeted the practice. Public servants or public masters?
The Government is Not Us

U.S. judge orders taxpayers to pay for illegal alien abortion

from Washington Post: These politicians -- and make no mistake, judges are politicians -- are very generous and compassionate with other people's money. Are they imposing their agenda or administering justice? You decide.
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

FBI informant "threatened" after offering details linking Clinton Foundation to Russian bribery case

from ZeroHedge: A whistleblower with knowledge of scandal is silenced by the FBI and the Obama Administration.
Politics and Other Official Acts of Corruption