Daily Articles

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 ...

The Roots of America’s Financial Crises

by Martin Morse Wooster May 1, 2012

Inflated: How Money and Debt Built the American Dream by R. Christopher Whalen (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2010); 393 pages. It is obvious by now that the massive U.S. debt cannot be sustained. Last year’s downgrading by Standard and Poor’s of the U.S. government’s credit rating is but the latest signal that the Obama administration’s policy of an ever-expanding ...

Political Capitalism in Action

by Wendy McElroy April 30, 2012

On April 26, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 248 to 168. CISPA seeks to grease the sharing of data about people between government and big business. CISPA states, The Director of National Intelligence shall establish procedures to allow elements of the intelligence community to share cyber ...

No Sweat: How Sweatshops Improve Lives and Economic Growth (video)

by Benjamin Powell April 30, 2012

On April 23, 2012, Benjamin Powell gave the following speech at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s “Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed below in its entirety. Benjamin Powell is an associate professor of economics at Suffolk University, the President of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, a senior economist with the Beacon Hill Institute, and a senior ...

The Evil of the National-Security State, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 30, 2012

Part 1 | Buy the eBook The two most important words in the lives of the American people for the past 60 years have been “national security.” The term has transformed American society for the worse. It has warped the morals and values of the American people. It has stultified conscience. It has altered ...

Canada’s Shameful Treatment of Omar Khadr

by Andy Worthington April 27, 2012

Last week, the Canadian government received a formal request for the return of Omar Khadr from Guantánamo Bay. Julie Carmichael, an aide to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, told the Globe and Mail, “The government of Canada has just received a completed application for the transfer of prisoner Omar Ahmed Khadr. A decision will be made on ...

Opposing Imperialism Isn’t Isolationism

by Sheldon Richman April 26, 2012

When pundits and rival politicians call Ron Paul an “isolationist,” they mislead the American people — and they know it. They know it? How could they not? Ron Paul is for unilateral, unconditional free trade. He believes any American should be perfectly free to buy from or sell to any person in the world. In that sense — the laissez-faire ...