Daily Articles

War: The Republican’s Real Priority

by Laurence M. Vance April 6, 2011

In their “Pledge to America,” House Republicans promised “to stop out-of control spending and reduce the size of government.” But other than promising to repeal Obamacare, no specific mention is made in the Pledge about eliminating any federal department, agency, or commission. Indeed, the Republicans’ stated ambition was merely to “roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout ...

Holder, Obama, and the Cowardly Shame of Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 5, 2011

Since May 2009, when President Obama first bowed to Republican pressure on national-security issues and abandoned a plan by White House Counsel Greg Craig to rehouse on the U.S. mainland a couple of cleared prisoners at Guantánamo who were at risk of torture if repatriated, it has been apparent that no principles are sufficiently important to the administration ...

The Forgotten Failures of the Peace Corps

by James Bovard April 1, 2011

This is the fiftieth anniversary year for the Peace Corps. Prior to the creation of AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps took the cake as the most arrogant and overrated government program in Washington. At a time when the agency is being hailed for idealism and almost saving the world, it is worthwhile to consider its early record of debacles and ...

Torture and Terrorism: In the Middle East It’s 2011, In America It’s Still 2001

by Andy Worthington April 1, 2011

The gulf between what’s happening on the ground in the Middle East and the way it is perceived by the U.S. intelligence services — as well as the gulf between how critics perceive America’s counterterrorism policies in the Middle East, and how those policies are perceived by U.S. intelligence — were recently exposed in an article in the Wall ...

No One Is Safe under the Espionage Act of 1917

by Wendy McElroy April 1, 2011

According do a Wall Street Journal editorial (December 7, 2010), “Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Dianne Feinstein called for the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange because he ‘continues to violate ... the Espionage Act of 1917.’” Assange’s sin? He leaked thousands of diplomatic cables that embarrassed the American government, especially in the realm of foreign policy. Many ...

The Best Introduction to Libertarianism

by Laurence M. Vance April 1, 2011

Libertarianism Today by Jacob H. Huebert (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010), 254 pages. Major books on libertarianism seem to come in pairs. First, in 1973, there was Murray N. Rothbard’s For a New Liberty (Macmillan, with a revised edition in 1978) and John Hospers’s Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (Nash Publishing). The year 1997 saw the publication of David ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show: The War on Drugs and War on Terrorism Are Wars on Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 31, 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

Deference to Authority, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 30, 2011

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Many years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Cuba, a country that holds valuable lessons in freedom for the American people, albeit not in ways that one might imagine. As a prerequisite to traveling to Cuba, the U.S. government requires Americans to secure a license from the U.S. Treasury Department. ...

Republican Hypocrisy on Budget Cuts

by Laurence M. Vance March 28, 2011

With the national debt fast approaching $15 trillion, no member of Congress of either party, and no American citizen of any political persuasion, would argue against the proposition that the federal budget needs to be cut, and cut drastically. The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting a $1.5 trillion budget deficit for fiscal year 2011, giving us the third straight year ...

Obama’s Imperial Adventure

by Sheldon Richman March 25, 2011

President Obama’s entry into Libya’s civil war can be criticized on many levels: The mission as explained is incoherent; Congress was not asked for a declaration of war as the Constitution requires; events in Libya do not affect the security of the American people; bombing another oil-rich Muslim country aggravates the conditions that create anti-American terrorism; killing innocent civilians ...

Afghanistan: A War of Choice, Not Necessity

by Sheldon Richman March 25, 2011

In December Barack Obama received his awaited assessment of the war in Afghanistan, then reported to the American people that the mission is “on track” and troops would begin to withdraw next July. But the semi-upbeat assessment was less than persuasive because, as the Washington Post reported, “The overview of the long-awaited report contained no specifics or data to ...

Bush, Torture, and the Rule of Law

by James Bovard March 22, 2011

Last November, George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, hit the streets. And Americans could see firsthand the former president bragging about ordering torture. Bush wrote that when he was requested to approve the CIA’s waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he responded, “Damn right.” Six months before his memoir was released, in a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he told ...