Obama’s Willful Foreign-Policy Blindness by Sheldon Richman May 30, 2013 Republicans are upset about President Obama’s May 23 foreign-policy address, yet politics aside, it’s hard to say why. “We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News Sunday. But four days later in his Memorial Day remarks, Obama said, “Our nation is still at war.” Why did the ...
Conservatives Are Clueless by Laurence M. Vance May 30, 2013 All eyes are on the Supreme Court as it gets ready to issue its decisions in the cases of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, and United States v. Windsor, the challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Court heard oral arguments on both cases in late March. The intense media focus on these cases ...
Close Guantánamo, Free the Afghans by Andy Worthington May 29, 2013 In the coverage of the ongoing, prisonwide hunger strike at Guantánamo, which is now in its fourth month, there has been widespread recognition that it is unacceptable to indefinitely detain the 86 prisoners (out of 166 in total) who were cleared for release more than three years ago by the president’s own interagency task force. These men ...
The Libertarian Angle: May 28, 2013 by Future of Freedom Foundation May 28, 2013 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the Memorial Day, foreign policy, and the war on terrorism.
TGIF: The Greatness of Peace Activist John Bright by Sheldon Richman May 24, 2013 As we approach Memorial Day — or what I like to call Revisionist History Day — it’s fitting to contemplate the words of one of the world’s great peace activists, John Bright (1811–1889). Bright, a Quaker and Nonconformist, is best known for leading (with Richard Cobden) Britain’s Anti-Corn Law League, the organization that fought successfully to abolish ...
Bangladeshi Workers Need Freed Markets by Sheldon Richman May 22, 2013 Since November, more than a thousand Bangladeshi garment workers have perished in two tragic factory calamities: a fire in Tazreen and a building collapse in Savar, outside the capital, Dhaka. Bangladesh is a major exporter of apparel to the West and “is set to become the world’s largest apparel exporter over the next few years,” the Economist reports. ...
The Libertarian Angle: May 20, 2013 by Future of Freedom Foundation May 20, 2013 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the IRS scandal and the income tax.
TGIF: Government Is the Problem by Sheldon Richman May 17, 2013 Barack Obama recently told the graduating class of the Ohio State University, Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.… They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that ...
Abolish the IRS — and the Income Tax with It by Sheldon Richman May 16, 2013 The Internal Revenue Service has been caught engaging in political profiling while processing applications for tax-exempt status. In this case it was against organizations with “tea-party” or “patriot ” in their names and other right-wing groups. Next time it could be libertarian or left-wing antiwar and pro-civil-liberties groups. No dissenter can ever rest assured he is safe from the
Crises and Opportunities by Jacob G. Hornberger May 16, 2013 The following 7-minute speech was delivered to 240 people at a meeting of the Charleston Meeting, a prestigious monthly discussion club in Charleston, South Carolina. Other speakers were U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C), Congressman Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Congressman-elect Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), Jim Capretta (American Enterprise Institute), Alex Nowrasteh (Cato Institute), Ken Abramowitz (New York financial planner), and Mark Mix ...
Obama’s Bid for Unilateral Power over Elections by Wendy McElroy May 14, 2013 “I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.” — Joseph Stalin (1923), as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary by Boris Bazhanov. To glimpse the political future of America, turn off the news, ignore public statements from officials, and ...
The Libertarian Angle: May 13, 2013 by Future of Freedom Foundation May 13, 2013 The Libertarian Angle features FFF vice president Sheldon Richman and president Jacob Hornberger. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.