Daily Articles

It Can Happen Here

by Scott McPherson August 11, 2009

You think you’ve private lives Think nothing of the kind There is no true escape I’m watching all the time I’m made of metal My circuits gleam I am perpetual I keep the country clean... — Judas Priest, “Electric Eye” England’s Daily Express reported on August 4 that “thousands of the worst families in England are to be put in ‘sin bins’ in ...

Guantánamo and The Courts, Part 2: Obama’s Shame

by Andy Worthington August 10, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In the first part of this three-part series examining the Guantánamo prisoners’ attempts to secure their release via the U.S. courts, I examined the Bush administration’s record in the seven months after the Supreme Court’s ruling, in June 2008, that the prisoners had constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights, and ...

Cash for Clunkers

by David Dorn August 5, 2009

As I was standing in a long line at the Post Office in Scottsdale, Arizona, at about 4:30 p.m., I said just loud enough for those around me to hear, “If you like this, wait until National Health Insurance.” There were some chuckles. But what I was really thinking about in ...

Obama’s Health-Care Snake Oil

by Sheldon Richman August 5, 2009

Barack Obama is an extraordinary politician, but not even he can defy the laws of economics and logic. Obama promises that with enough power government will (1) ensure that everyone has the wherewithal to buy ample medical services, (2) lower the price of care, but (3) not interfere with our choices. He sounds like the Wizard of Oz. The reason Obama ...

Reciprocity for Concealed Carry

by Scott McPherson August 4, 2009

No American would for one moment consider the possibility that, once issued a driver’s license by his state of residence, he should not then be free to drive in another state. Thus, your driver’s license is valid in Virginia, even if you live in Hawaii; your marriage license and birth certificate and property titles must be respected, regardless of ...

Judge Orders Release from Guantánamo of Kuwaiti Charity Worker

by Andy Worthington August 3, 2009

By sheer coincidence, I had just been alerted to the publication of a number of documents relating to the ongoing habeas corpus cases of the Guantánamo prisoners last Thursday, and was reading, with mounting disbelief, the government’s supposed case against Khalid al-Mutairi (PDF), one of the last four Kuwaiti prisoners, when I received an email notifying me ...

Appoint a Special Prosecutor in the JFK-Joannides Matter

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 2, 2009

While we’re discussing whether a special prosecutor should be named to investigate and prosecute CIA officials for violations of federal laws against murder, kidnapping, and torture, why not use the occasion to do the same in the matter of George Joannides? For it would be difficult to find a better example of obstruction of justice and fraud on the ...

Ten Tenets of Freedom, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2009

Part 1 | Part 2 Even while resisting the steady erosion of liberty in America, it is important that we keep in mind an overall vision of what a free society looks like. For if people lose sight of the “big picture,” the risk is that they end up settling for — and even celebrating — an unfree society ...

Obama’s Betrayals

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2009

After President Obama announced he would fight the release of photographs showing American soldiers abusing “war on terror” detainees, Richard Haass, president of the quintessentially mainstream Council on Foreign Relations, said that Obama had learned the difference between campaigning and governing. He wasn’t being ironic. It was said during the presidential campaign that one of the candidates was running for ...

The Media As Enablers of Government Lies

by James Bovard August 1, 2009

Why do politicians so easily get away with telling lies? In large part, because the news media are more interested in bonding with politicians than in exposing them. Americans are encouraged to believe that the media will serve as a check and a balance on the government. Instead, the press too often volunteer as unpaid pimps, helping politicians deceive ...

Obama’s Link to “Old Iron Pants”

by Jim Powell August 1, 2009

Since Barack Obama pledged a “New New Deal” for the American people, he has been favoring a combination of more government spending, more government regulations, and more power for labor unions. This has led some observers to conclude that he might be drawing inspiration from “Old Iron Pants” — the hard-drinking, fast-talking Gen. Hugh Johnson, Time magazine’s 1933 “Man ...

Imprisoning Musical Creativity

by Jennifer Warren-Baker August 1, 2009

I am a composer. Since the age of 12, I have been painting canvases of sound at the piano. But my teachers never cared. In fact, my type of talent was deemed worthless by the government’s public-school system. Growing up in the D.C. area, I didn’t have any real models to follow. In the shadow of the nation’s capital, ...