Republicans versus Freedom by Laurence M. Vance July 25, 2012 House Republicans have voted once again to repeal Obamacare — for the thirty-third time. By a vote of 244-185, all the House Republicans, along with five Democrats, voted in favor of repealing the whole of Obamacare. The simple 8-page bill (H.R.6079), called the “Repeal of Obamacare Act,” finds with respect to the impact of Public Law
Reviving a Peculiar Institution by Tim Kelly July 24, 2012 In a recent New York Times op-ed column, Thomas Ricks called for reinstating military conscription. He quoted Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who said at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival, “I think if a nation goes to war, every town, and every city needs to be at risk. You make that decision and everybody has skin in the game.” Ricks, ...
Don’t Let Aurora Shooting Curtail Right of Self-Defense by Sheldon Richman July 23, 2012 The shooting in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater has incited the usual debate over guns. One side says tighter gun restrictions could have prevented the horrible incident that night. The other responds that more guns in the hands of law-abiding people might have prevented it. While the theater chain prohibits firearms, it is hard to say that the alleged shooter, ...
Obama, Romney Rhetoric Risks Trade War by Sheldon Richman July 20, 2012 When economic times are bad, animosity is directed at foreigners: “They’re taking our jobs!” So it’s unsurprising that the presidential campaigns feature charges and countercharges about outsourcing, the employment of foreign labor by American companies. This is a dangerous game because it sows the seeds of trade war. Economists understand the benefits of the division of labor. If you and ...
Uncle Sam Is a Sugar Daddy by Laurence M. Vance July 19, 2012 When the government of a foreign country tells companies in a particular industry how much of its product it can sell; guarantees minimum prices; provides nonrecourse loans; restricts imports of foreign product; buys up excess product; and seeks to stabilize, support, and protect the industry, it is denounced as socialism or central planning. But when the same thing occurs in ...
Bagram: Still a Black Hole for Foreign Prisoners by Andy Worthington July 19, 2012 In March 2009, three foreign prisoners seized in other countries and rendered to the main U.S. prison in Afghanistan, at Bagram airbase, where they had been held for up to seven years, secured a legal victory in the District Court in Washington, D.C., when Judge John D. Bates ruled that they had habeas corpus rights. In other ...
U.S. Honors Deal to Release Convicted Bin Laden Cook from Guantanamo to Sudan by Andy Worthington July 13, 2012 Getting out of Guantánamo is such a feat these days (with only three men released in the last 18 months) that it is remarkable that Ibrahim al-Qosi, a Sudanese prisoner who agreed to a plea deal at his war-crimes trial in Guantánamo in July 2010 guaranteeing that he would be freed after two years, has been repatriated as ...
The Two Little Cities Who Can’t by Wendy McElroy July 12, 2012 The Department of Justice (DOJ) is stomping its jackboot down on two little towns that straddle the Arizona-Utah border. The Civil Rights Division has brought an unprecedented and vague federal religious discrimination lawsuit against the cities and their utility companies (PDF). In its June 21 announcement, the DOJ stated, “This is the first lawsuit by the ...
Government Shows Itself Impotent on Economy by Sheldon Richman July 11, 2012 It should finally have dawned on the American people that the politicians who presume to guide the economy have no bloody idea what they’re doing. We’re long past the time when knowledge of economics was required to see that the government is impotent when it comes to creating economic recovery. If you want evidence of that impotence, just look ...
Why the War on Drugs Should Be Ended by Laurence M. Vance July 10, 2012 The War on Drugs is a monstrous evil that has ruined more lives than drugs themselves. Taking drugs harms the person who partakes, but not those who abstain; the War on Drugs harms everyone, even those who abstain from taking drugs. Yet the Drug War enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, is supported by the majority of Americans, is cheered by ...
Big Pharma and Crony Capitalism by Wendy McElroy July 9, 2012 A friend just experienced a terrible drug problem. Not with illegal drugs, but with a prescription from her doctor. Her eighty-year-old memory sometimes stumbles, and so, without diagnostic tests, the doctor prescribed a potent Alzheimer medication. Within a week, I received phone calls from her about two men and a woman who were breaking into her house repeatedly despite carefully ...
The United States in Talks to Return the 17 Afghan Prisoners in Guantánamo by Andy Worthington July 6, 2012 Earlier this year, there was much discussion in the U.S. media about the possibility that, as part of negotiations aimed at securing peace in Afghanistan, the United States would release five high-level Taliban prisoners in Guantánamo to Qatar, where they would be held under a form of house arrest. Those plans came to nothing, but last week the