The Other Casualties of War by Rich Schwartzman June 2, 2011 It was a typical Memorial Day weekend around here. There was a ceremony with an honor guard at a local church in my town of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, while nearby Kennett Square hosted a parade. The Brandywine Creek was filled with people tubing, canoeing, kayaking, and picnicking. There were also a slew of war movies on TV. Most were WW ...
Admiration for Monarchs by Fergus Hodgson June 1, 2011 President Obama has just returned from a how-do-you-do with the British royals and other European officials, engagements of such apparent importance he chose to sign off on federal lawlessness at home with an extension of the Patriot Act by remote control. During the same week Canadians celebrated Victoria Day, their historic ruler’s birthday, and throughout the ...
Strong Helmets and the Stronger Hand of Government by Laurence M. Vance May 31, 2011 Concussions among youth who play sports are said to be on the rise. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), more than 920,000 athletes under the age of eighteen were treated in emergency rooms, doctors’ offices, and clinics for football-related injuries in the year 2007. Sports injuries are the second leading cause of traumatic brain injury ...
An Open Letter to the Troops: You’re Not Defending Our Freedoms by Jacob G. Hornberger May 31, 2011 Dear Troops: Yesterday — Memorial Day — some people asserted, once again, that you are “defending our freedoms” overseas. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those people are just repeating tired old mantras. The reality is that you are not defending our freedoms with your actions overseas. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Your actions overseas are placing our ...
Lessons from the Middle East, Part 1 by Jacob G. Hornberger May 30, 2011 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The widespread revolts against dictatorships in the Middle East hold valuable lessons for the American people. Time will tell whether Americans focus on those lessons and heed them or simply turn away and ignore them. The lessons involve principles of liberty, democracy, and the role of government in a ...
The Jacob Hornberger Show: Ron Paul and Gary Johnson Conservatives, Liberals, and Libertarians (video) by Jacob G. Hornberger May 28, 2011 The Jacob Hornberger Show broadcasts live every Saturday night at 7pm EST. Visit FFF's Ustream Channel to watch the show live. Download the MP3 here, or subscribe to the RSS feed
Autocracy on the Run in the Middle East by Sheldon Richman May 28, 2011 No lover of liberty can be anything but inspired by the Egyptian people’s peaceful toppling of the U.S.-armed and -financed dictator, Hosni Mubarak, last winter. The “pharaoh” is gone. Will another rise in his place? That is the question. Mubarak’s exit followed on the heels of a similar change in neighboring Tunisia. Revolutionary fervor has been spreading across the Arab ...
An Intoxicating Hypocrisy by Rich Schwartzman May 27, 2011 Today’s socially conservative Republicans are reminiscent of the proverbial Puritan who had trouble sleeping because he knew that, somewhere, people were enjoying themselves. These are the same Republicans who say they’re for small government, unless, of course, they think you’re doing something of which they don’t approve. Then they need to create laws against those things. Not all the members of ...
Close Down the IMF by Sheldon Richman May 27, 2011 International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is out after being charged with sexual assault against a hotel maid in New York. Unfortunately many members of the world’s governing elite stand ready to take his place. Who should succeed Strauss-Kahn — a European or someone from the developing world? If the criterion is the welfare of ordinary people, the answer ...
Hidden Inflation and Debilitating Deficits by Anthony Gregory May 26, 2011 After the 2008 financial collapse, many of us called on politicians to let the market correct itself. The government’s expansion of the housing sector and the Fed’s artificially low interest rates caused an unsustainable and thus ultimately destructive boom, which eventually leads to a bust. This explanation of the business cycle won F.A. Hayek the economics Nobel Prize in ...
The Supreme Courts Failure to Tackle Torture, Now and Forever by Andy Worthington May 26, 2011 Since the dying days of the Bush administration, when the Supreme Court savaged the indifference of the executive branch and of Congress towards the cruel mess they had created at Guantánamo, by recognizing that the prisoners had constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights, it has, sadly, all been downhill when it comes to judicial oversight of the national-security ...
The PATRIOT Act in the Crosshairs Again by James Bovard May 26, 2011 The most controversial provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act are coming up for renewal this year. There is hope that Americans will finally learn more about how the feds have been prying into their lives with this law for almost a decade. Some members of Congress are fighting tooth and nail to avoid giving the Justice Department an extension ...