Daily Articles

The Political Philosophy of Oscar Wilde

by Wendy McElroy February 25, 2010

The renowned playwright Oscar Wilde once said, “A man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.” At the height of his career in 1895, Wilde dominated London dinner-tables, stages, and opinion. Two of his plays opened that year to rave reviews by both critics and the public. His epigrams and activities were repeated — often by ...

Obama’s Phony Populism

by Sheldon Richman February 23, 2010

President Obama likes to portray himself as a man of the people. But a look behind the veil shows this to be a deception. Take the financial regulatory overhaul brewing in Washington. I know what you’re thinking: What could better illustrate Obama’s bona fides as a champion of the people? He wants to regulate the banking industry after the recent ...

Torture Whitewash

by Andy Worthington February 23, 2010

The long-awaited report by the OPR (the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility) into the conduct of the lawyers in the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel), regarding their role in approving the use of torture, has finally been published (PDF). The report largely focuses on two memos dated August 1, 2002, and a third dated March 14, ...

CPAC 2010: “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism” (Video) by Kelly Torrance, Philip Giraldi, Karen Kwiatkowski, Bruce Fein,

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 22, 2010

Is Americas current War on Terror essential to keeping our nation safe? Or is it yet another vehicle for the federal government to increase its power over our lives and take away our liberties? Is the War on Terror actually weakening our national defense and increasing opposition overseas? The panel, co-sponsored by The Future of Freedom Foundation, Ladies of ...

Once Again, Democracy Is Not Freedom (and We Are Not the Government)

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 21, 2010

President Bush and his neoconservative supporters were practically teary-eyed on election day in Iraq. No longer did it matter that the weapons of mass destruction that had been used to scare the American people into supporting the war didn’t exist. Or that thousands of U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis were now dead or maimed. Or that ...

GOP, R.I.P?

by Sheldon Richman February 11, 2010

I don’t usually come to the defense of conservatives, but I am perplexed that they are being attacked because they don’t support John McCain’s presidential bid. Self-anointed Voices of Responsibility are chiding conservative spokesmen and spokeswomen for criticizing McCain on several counts and for going as far as promising to vote for Hillary Clinton if she’s the alternative to ...

Repeating Pentagon Lies on Gitmo Recidivism

by Andy Worthington February 8, 2010

What is to be done about the idiocy that has spread, like a poisonous but imperceptible gas, from the Pentagon to Congress, and is now wafting through the White House, deranging all it touches? As it travels, this dismal infection transforms statistical impossibilities into magic numbers, which appear, to the uninformed observer, to confirm the most shameless lies of ...

The Road to Health-Care Serfdom

by Sheldon Richman February 5, 2010

I sensed a bit of frustration during President Obama’s state of the union address when he said, “The longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became.” I’m not totally sure what point he thought he was making. After all, it wouldn’t speak well for a proposal if prolonged discussion of its particulars created doubt about ...

When the Military Serves as Police

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 4, 2010

What happens when the military is used in a police capacity? You get a “war on terrorism,” one in which people think that the laws of war now apply to the situation. But in actuality, nothing could be further from the truth. What you actually get is a criminal-justice problem that inevitably goes horribly awry, causing the problem to ...

The CIA and the Assassination of John Kennedy, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 One of the strangest aspects of the investigation into John Kennedys murder was the reaction of federal officials. Whenever government officials are assassinated, the normal reaction of law enforcement is to pull out all the stops in an attempt to ensure that no one who was involved in the crime escapes punishment. Yet ...

The Political Economy of Health Care

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2010

Trouble begins the moment health care becomes a matter of government spending. From then on, unless the policy is reversed, society is on the road to state intervention in peoples most personal decisions. Its easy to see why. If government starts picking up the tab for some peoples medical services, those people will not face the full costs of those ...

The Feds’ Post–9/11 Airport-Worker Purge

by James Bovard February 1, 2010

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the federal government feared that people would lose faith in the government’s promise to protect them. The feds had dismally failed to stop the 19 hijackers who took down four planes and sowed panic from coast to coast. So the government did what it does best: Round up the usual suspects. Starting in ...