Daily Articles

A Cheer and a Half for the Tea Party

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2011

Were it not for the Tea Party, the debt-ceiling controversy might never have taken place. Kudos on that count alone. It comes as no surprise that the governing class and its boosters in the media portray the Tea Party folks as a collection of bumpkins and idiots who “don’t know the difference between campaigning and governing” — indeed, who would ...

Lessons from the Middle East, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger July 30, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Two of the primary complaints made by the protesters in the Middle East have been the refusal of government officials to lift decades-old emergency legislation that permits the dictatorial regimes to arbitrarily arrest people, detain them indefinitely, torture them, and even execute them; and the horrible economic conditions that ...

Some Neglected Questions on the Attempted Fort Hood Attack

by Anthony Gregory July 29, 2011

AWOL Army private Naser Jason Abdo, a Muslim, has been arrested for plans to attack the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. Two years ago, another Muslim American soldier was arrested for killing 13 people at that base. These and other mass shootings and attempted acts of mass violence have increasingly made the news in the last few years, ...

Shared Sacrifice: Obama’s Demagoguery

by Sheldon Richman July 29, 2011

The most offensive claim made during the debt-ceiling controversy is that there’s a moral equivalence between cutting government spending and raising taxes. President Obama asks for “shared sacrifice” to reduce the budget deficit. In his view, if the government spends more than it takes in — it currently borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar spent — the ...

The Collateral Is Us

by Rich Schwartzman July 28, 2011

The witching hour is nigh and the threat of the U.S. defaulting on the federal debt is being bandied about as if it were the boogeyman. Fear mongers from the left and right both say the country will go belly up unless the debt ceiling is raised by the Aug. 2 deadline, that it will no longer be able to ...

The Budget Mess: A Crisis in Legitimacy

by Sheldon Richman July 28, 2011

Reality has finally caught up with the ruling elite, and its members inside and outside of government are in a panic. They have freely spent the taxpayers’ money for generations, building a corporatist warfare-welfare state, and when that wasn’t enough to finance their projects, they borrowed just as freely. For a long while it paid off handsomely in power ...

Immigration Chaos

by Fergus Hodgson July 27, 2011

The presence of illegal immigrants in the United States continues to generate ineffectual political initiatives, from employment verification mandates to referendums against in-state tuition access. These fail to resolve the underlying causes for the presence of illegals, such as the arbitrary (see the immigration lottery), expensive, and humiliating immigration process (and I speak from ...

Guantánamo and the Death of Habeas Corpus

by Andy Worthington July 27, 2011

Last month, the third anniversary of Boumediene v. Bush (on June 12) passed without mention. This was a great shame, not only because it was a powerful ruling, recognizing that the Guantánamo prisoners had constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights, but also because, after that bold intervention, which led to the release of 26 prisoners who ...

Liberty and License

by Laurence M. Vance July 26, 2011

Same-sex couples in New York City can now apply for marriage licenses using online forms that feature gender-neutral terminology. This follows the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, the New York law that legalized same-sex marriage. The bill became law on June 24, 2011, and took effect thirty days later. Marriage licenses in New York City cost $35. The state ...

The Soviet Union’s Continuing Influence on America

by James Bovard July 26, 2011

It has been almost 20 years since the Soviet Union officially dissolved. While the nation of that name no longer exists, its legacy continues influencing political thought and practices in many places in the world. The glorification of the Soviet Union by American intellectuals from the 1920s onwards helped spur the creation of federal programs that continue plaguing the ...

The War on Terrorism Is a War on Freedom (audio)

by Future of Freedom Foundation July 25, 2011

On July 15, 2011, the Future of Freedom Foundation sponsored a panel at FreedomFest 2011 entitled "The War on Terrorism Is a War on Freedom." Panelists included FFF president Jacob G. Hornberger, FFF senior fellow Sheldon Richman, and FFF policy adviser James Bovard. The panel was moderated by American Conservative magazine editor Daniel McCarthy. Download the MP3 here.

Rupert Murdoch and Freedom of the Press

by Wendy McElroy July 21, 2011

A scandal rocking the British Isles is slopping onto American shores. In its zeal to scoop the news, a British paper within Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire engaged in illegal and immoral activities. Specifically, the News of the World (the News) bribed police officers for confidential information and hacked into private phone messages. The well-founded accusations are currently ...