Daily Articles

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 ...

Why Is the U.S. Fighting Mexico’s Drug War?

by Laurence M. Vance May 25, 2011

In December of 2006, Mexico’s new president, Felipe Calderón, declared war on drug cartels. “We need to win. And we will win. That’s my idea. I’m sure about that,” he said in an “ABC News” interview. But winning this war is coming at a heavy price: assassinations of government officials, horrific gun battles in Mexican streets, kidnappings, ...

The Road to the Permanent Warfare State, Part 1

by Gregory Bresiger May 24, 2011

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 In modern political society it is probably a fact that national leadership can heighten foreign crises to the point where war becomes almost ...

The Drug of Choice for Public Schools

by Rich Schwartzman May 24, 2011

Dependency on government is as detrimental to a society as drug addiction is to an individual. A situation in Pennsylvania — likely similar to situations in other states — reflects a continued unhealthy dependence on the federal government. Briefly, Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed 2011–2012 budget had $1.1 billon less for education. That’s the same amount of money the state didn’t ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show: Gun Control and Middle East Dictatorship

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 21, 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

How Does He Get His Reputation Back?

by Wendy McElroy May 20, 2011

On January 12, 2010, a 12-year-old sixth-grader did an unremarkable thing that almost destroyed a good man and his family. She lied about being touched “inappropriately.” Under a reasonable legal system, the transparent lie of an angry child would have caused little damage, but the current legal system does not resemble anything reasonable. Among the preposterous maxims it now embraces ...

The Only Way Out of Guantánamo Is In a Coffin

by Andy Worthington May 20, 2011

Despite sweeping into office promising to close Guantánamo, President Obama now oversees a prison that may well stay open forever, from which the only exit route is in a coffin. The last living prisoner to be released from Guantánamo was Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, an Algerian who was repatriated against his will in January. Since then, an Afghan ...