Daily Articles

The American Nightmare That Is Civil Asset Forfeiture

by Wendy McElroy October 18, 2011

Being innocent does not matter. Not being arrested or convicted of a crime is no protection. With amazing ease, the government can take everything you own. And to recover it, you must prove your innocence through an expensive and difficult court proceeding in which a severely lowered standard of evidence favors the government. This is civil asset forfeiture.

The Jacob Hornberger Show: October 15, 2011

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 17, 2011

The Jacob Hornberger Show broadcasts live Saturday nights at 7pm EST. Visit FFF's Ustream Channel to watch the show live.

A Call to Close Guantánamo on the 10th Anniversary of the War in Afghanistan

by Andy Worthington October 13, 2011

As the war in Afghanistan begins its second decade, the reasons for it to be brought to an end are compelling: the ruinous financial cost ($460 billion and counting), the ruinous human cost (over 1,400 U.S. military deaths , and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians killed), and the utter pointlessness of the occupation itself. Having driven ...

Prison-Yard America

by Wendy McElroy October 12, 2011

Since September, a public-school district in Florida has been taking fingerprint scans at the entrance to schools as a way to monitor attendance. The scans are compared against a database of students to detect truants. As in most highly intrusive school policies, parents are thrown a bone of control by allowing them to request an “opt out” for ...

Why Did the United States Invade Afghanistan?

by Tim Kelly October 12, 2011

The tenth anniversary of the U.S. led war in Afghanistan came and went with very little attention from the mainstream media. U.S. policymakers are nevertheless confronted with many questions regarding that conflict, such as its affordability, the effectiveness of various strategies, and even whether U.S. forces should remain in that country at all. Those are all important issues, but the ...

A Real Jobs Bill

by Rich Schwartzman October 11, 2011

There is a jobs bill being bandied about in the U.S. Senate. As with most government-based plans, it’s political — with warm, fuzzy rhetoric that’s designed more to garner votes at the polls than to accomplish anything truly productive. The rhetoric, as is so often the case, is based on class warfare. Let’s soak the rich, taxing them to create ...

The Supreme Court and Obamacare

by Laurence M. Vance October 11, 2011

The new term of the Supreme Court has just begun. All eyes are on the court, as it is expected to hear for the first time a case against Obamacare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more popularly known as Obamacare, passed the Senate on Christmas Eve of 2009, passed the House on March 21, 2010, and was ...

The Military-Industrial Complex: The Enemy from Within

by John W. Whitehead October 11, 2011

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes ... known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst ...

Wall Street Couldn’t Have Done It Alone

by Sheldon Richman October 10, 2011

The spreading Occupy Wall Street movement, despite a vague worldview and agenda, properly senses that something is dreadfully wrong in America. The protesters vent their anger at the big financial institutions in New York’s money district (as well as other big cities) for the housing and financial bubble, the resulting Great Recession, the virtual nonrecovery, the threat of a ...

The Al-Awlaki Murder and the Rule of Law

by Tim Kelly October 6, 2011

There is no mention in the U.S. Constitution of a presidential power to order the summary execution of any person. In fact, that power is expressly denied to the government by the Fifth Amendment, which states: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. What that means in layman's terms is the government ...

Is This Any Way to Run a Republic?

by Sheldon Richman October 6, 2011

The assassination by drone of American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen raises questions that should disturb anyone who holds the rule of law as essential to protecting individual rights and limiting the arbitrary power of government. The Obama administration alleges that al-Awlaki committed a variety of bad acts, but the key word is “alleges.” We are taught that ...

Death from Afar: The Unaccountable Killing of Anwar al-Awlaqi

by Andy Worthington October 4, 2011

What a strange and alarming place we’re in when the U.S. government, under a Democratic president, kills two U.S. citizens it dislikes for their thoughts and their words, without formally charging them with any crime or trying or convicting them, using an unmanned drone directed by U.S. personnel many thousands of miles away. And yet, that is what happened on ...