Daily Articles

Obama’s Campaign Sop to Women

by Wendy McElroy May 14, 2012

Barack Obama is buying votes. The Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) is a blatant sop thrown to a voting block on which his next presidency may depend: women, specifically, liberal women. Obama also hopes it will weaken Mitt Romney, who is trying to woo women himself and, yet, cannot endorse the PFA without alienating conservatives. The PFA ...

Soldier of Empire

by Scott McPherson May 12, 2012

Soldier, soldier, how you soar Aloft in that elevated status Reserved to those who trade In war and oppression. Soldier, soldier, do not fear; You’ll never hear an unkindness — Insulated from the truth Of murder and rapine. Soldier, soldier, may you take This blue-blood daughter’s hand? Honored would her father be To hear tales of empire. Soldier, soldier, how is it that Across the spectrum of politeness We speak of hope and ...

Government-Created Racism

by Wendy McElroy May 10, 2012

A destructive belief seems poised to unfold within the public-school system in the form of new policies. The Department of Education (ED) is threatening to conduct “disparate impact” inquiries on schools that have a higher punishment, expulsion, or suspension rate for black children than for whites or Asians. A racial quota system may soon be imposed on ...

Chaos at Guantánamo as the 9/11 Trial Begins

by Andy Worthington May 9, 2012

On Saturday, the eyes of the world were on Guantánamo, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of planning and facilitating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, and Walid bin Attash — appeared in a courtroom for the first time since December 2008. All were ...

Does the First Amendment Protect the Freedom of Association?

by Laurence M. Vance May 9, 2012

The Augusta National Golf Club — where the Masters golf tournament has been played since 1933 — is in the news again, and not because Tiger Woods failed to earn a fifth green jacket. The exclusive club has come under fire again because of its male-only membership policy. And although the club has traditionally extended membership to the ...

Britain’s “Fat and Fags” Health Policy

by Wendy McElroy May 8, 2012

A terrible term has entered the healthcare debate now raging in Britain: “lifestyle rationing.” Given the predictability with which social trends cross the Atlantic, and given a looming Obamacare, Americans would be wise to eavesdrop closely on this conversation. “Lifestyle rationing” refers to denying medical care to those who make unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking and becoming obese. At ...

Torture: The Bush Administration on Trial

by Andy Worthington May 7, 2012

Law-abiding U.S. citizens have been appalled that Jose Rodriguez, the director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service until his retirement in 2007, was invited to appear on CBS’s 60 Minutes program last weekend to promote his book, “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,” in which he defends the use of ...

Obama, bin Laden, and Mitt

by Sheldon Richman May 7, 2012

The partisan squabbling over the killing of Osama bin Laden is a typical election-year distraction, effectively squelching discussion of more important matters one year after the execution of the al-Qaeda chief executive. Aided by cable-TV talking heads, Americans are spending too much time speculating over whether presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would have given the order to get bin ...

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 13

by Gregory Bresiger May 5, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |Part 12 |Part 13 Well, when the president does it that means it is not ...

Constitutional Conservative or Libertarian?

by Laurence M. Vance May 3, 2012

Libertarians — those who believe that violence is proper only in the defense of person or property and who believe that people have the fundamental right to do anything that’s peaceful — have an image problem, according to some “libertarian-leaning” conservatives. Although those conservatives claim to espouse many libertarian viewpoints, they prefer to shy away from the term “libertarian” ...

HR 1983: Good Idea, Wrong Reason

by Rich Schwartzman May 2, 2012

The world is changing its view on drug laws and drug use — at least, most people and many countries are doing just that. Here in the States, recent polls indicate 50 percent of people favor full legalization of marijuana, while 80 percent advocate medical marijuana use. The federal government is lagging behind, however. Portugal decriminalized the use of all ...

Florida Doubles Down on Cuba Restrictions

by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2012

It is not just the federal government that violates Americans’ liberties; state governments can be just as tyrannical. From the Alien and Sedition Acts in the eighteenth century to the USA PATRIOT Act in the twenty-first century — and many other things in between — the U.S. federal government has ignored its own Constitution and sought to weaken or destroy ...