Daily Articles

Food Safety: A Market Solution

by Paul Schwennesen May 1, 2013

The FDA is trumpeting, with unseemly giddiness, sweeping implementation of new rules within the now thoroughly moldered food-safety bill, passed two long years ago. Like any dish served past its prime, this one smells a bit off. As a producer in the ascendant food renaissance (defined by a sudden respect for all things small and local) I’ve noticed a curious ...

Regulatory Herding, Regulatory Stampedes

by Richard W. Fulmer May 1, 2013

Perfect storms occur when many factors align. Sandy was one of the most damaging hurricanes in the history of the United States, but it took the confluence of a number of elements to make it so. Under normal conditions the storm would have moved northeast, away from the U.S. coast. Instead, a high-pressure cold front forced Sandy to turn ...

Book Review: What Reality Teaches Us

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2013

No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails — But Individuals Succeed by John Stossel (New York: Threshold Editions, 2012), 324 pages. John Stossel is the well-known host of Stossel on Fox Business. A graduate of Princeton, he has won an incredible 19 Emmy awards, is a five-time honoree for excellence in consumer reporting, and is a New York Times bestselling ...

Did President Obama “Radicalize” the Tsarnaevs?

by Sheldon Richman April 30, 2013

If the Brothers Tsarnaev’s bombing at the Boston Marathon is an argument against immigration, then Tim McVeigh’s bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is an argument against reproductive freedom. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev came to the United States from the Caucasus as youngsters. On what grounds should they have been barred from the country? That their family ...

The Prisoners Speak: Reports from the Hunger Strike in Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 29, 2013

On Friday, I received an alarming message from inside Guantánamo, from a reliable source who described the impact of the prisonwide hunger strike, now nearing the three-month mark. He stated that the guards were “putting people in isolation and all day long making lots of noise by speaking loudly, running on the metal stairs and leaving their ...

TGIF: Liberty, Security, and Terrorism

by Sheldon Richman April 26, 2013

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” It would be nice if Benjamin Franklin’s famous aphorism were as widely believed as it is quoted. I doubt that Sen. Lindsey Graham and his ilk would express disagreement, but one cannot really embrace Franklin’s wisdom while also claiming that ...

Republicans Just Don’t Get It on Gun Control

by Laurence M. Vance April 26, 2013

Because of the horrific nature of the shooting last year at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut — a shooting in which 26 people were shot dead (most of them children) — the subject of gun control has been in the news ever since like never before. It was preceded by the deadly shootings at a theater in Aurora, ...

The Ethics of the Pressure Cooker

by Pierre Lemieux April 25, 2013

The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th was an epoch of rapid technological and political change, accompanied by doubts, fears, and often violence. Anarchists (of the collectivist variety) roamed over Europe and exploded bombs made of the recently invented dynamite. A German anarchist had announced, “It is within the power of dynamite to destroy ...

Take Gun-Control Proposals Elsewhere

by Scott McPherson April 24, 2013

“NH State House Unmoved by Newtown Shootings” is the headline of a Portsmouth Patch story about a recent gathering of “area gun violence prevention experts.” The meeting at the public library in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was hosted by the Portsmouth Democratic Committee (of course) and included a representative of States United to Prevent Gun Violence. A more accurate ...

Why I Want High-Capacity, Military-Style Weapons

by Benedict D. LaRosa April 24, 2013

During testimony at a legislative hearing in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 28, 2013, Neil Heslin, father of a Sandy Hook victim, asked, “I ask if there’s anybody in this room that can give me one reason or challenge this question: Why anybody in this room needs to have one of these assault-style weapons or military weapons or high-capacity clips.... ...

What If the Tsarnaevs’ Motive Was Revenge for U.S. Foreign Policy?

by Sheldon Richman April 23, 2013

On the day of the Boston Marathon bombings, President Obama stood in the White House briefing room and said, “We will find out who did this; we’ll find out why they did this.” What motivated the murderous acts allegedly committed by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarvaev is the question on everyone’s mind. We would be surprised if it were ...

“It is Indisputable that the United States Engaged in Torture”: So When Do the Prosecutions Begin?

by Andy Worthington April 23, 2013

“It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture.” These powerful words are from “The Report of the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment,” a 577-page report involving a detailed analysis of the treatment of prisoners following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (PDF). The project took two years to complete, ...