Daily Articles

Does John Ashcroft Understand the Constitution?

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 22, 2004

Learning that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the rights of habeas corpus, right to counsel, and due process of law in the Yaser Hamdi, Jose Padilla, and Shafiq Rasul cases, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft commented, “The Supreme Court accorded to terrorists, in a variety of cases this ...

Men Without a Country

by James Castagnera October 22, 2004

A 19th-century writer, Edward Everett Hale, once published a story called “The Man without a Country.” The protagonist is Philip Nolan, a young U.S. Army officer who unwisely deserted to join the ill-fated effort of Aaron Burr to establish an independent empire west of the Mississippi. In Hale’s ...

Field of (Bad) Dreams

by Samuel Bostaph October 20, 2004

Washington, D.C., will soon begin construction of a new taxpayer-funded baseball stadium at an estimated cost of $400 million, give or take $50 million. Thirty-three years after the Washington Senators left town to become the Texas Rangers, a majority vote of the D.C. city council will fill the vacancy by ...

Honor the Country by Distrusting the Government

by Sheldon Richman October 18, 2004

President Bush and his supporters base their case for his reelection ultimately on an appeal for trust. Bush asks us to trust that he acted in good faith when he invaded Iraq, even though the intelligence now looks bad. He asks us to trust his strategy for domestic security, even ...

The Welfare State Rewards Liars

by Sheldon Richman October 18, 2004

Many bad things can be said about the welfare state the political arrangement, as the 19th-century French liberal Frdric Bastiat wrote, by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. But one largely unnoticed feature is that it rewards people for suspending their moral sense. Frankly, it makes winners out of liars. How so? If it is ...

How Conservative Is George W. Bush?

by Anthony Gregory October 13, 2004

Given that so many conservatives have come out in favor of George W. Bush, who supposedly isnt as bad as John Kerry, an important question arises: Exactly how conservative is George W. Bush? Bush has expanded the welfare state and increased discretionary spending at a faster rate than any president since ...

Kerry Doesn’t Know What a Right Is

by Sheldon Richman October 13, 2004

Not that this disqualifies him from being president, but Senator John F. Kerry proved in Fridays debate that he misunderstands Americas founding philosophy and the U.S. Constitution. (If that disqualified someone from being president, few would qualify.) Kerry showed his ignorance when asked why someone who regards abortion as murder should be forced to pay for it. Regardless of ones ...

No WMD but Plenty of Death and Destruction

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 8, 2004

President George W. Bush’s handpicked investigator charged with investigating whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has now rendered his final report: There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Period. No stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. No nuclear weapons. No factories ...

The No-Fault No-Fly List: Washington’s Most Irresponsible Agency Strikes Again

by James Bovard October 8, 2004

The Transportation Security Administration got another black eye recently when Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) revealed that he had been blocked from flying five times because his name triggered an alarm on the feds’ No-Fly list. Kennedy’s staff had to make multiple calls to high-ranking federal officials before the attempted travel ban was lifted on ...

Bush’s Brave New World

by Sheldon Richman October 6, 2004

President Bush’s little-publicized New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has proposed comprehensive mental-illness screening for all Americans. If this proposal is carried out, which is Bush’s intention, no adult or child will be safe from intrusive probing by “experts,” backed by drug companies, who believe that mental illness ...

The Hamdi Case Mocks Justice

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 4, 2004

Surrendering to the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Pentagon and the Justice Department have decided to release “unlawful combatant” and accused “terrorist” Yaser Esam Hamdi from the bowels of the Pentagon’s military brig in South Carolina. Any day now, a U.S. military plane is due to ...

The Bill of Rights: Searches and Seizures

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2004

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is rooted in the horrific government abuses arising from “general warrants” in English history and “writs of assistance” in British colonial history in America. With the aim of protecting the American people from similar abuses at the hands of U.S. federal officials, the Fourth Amendment was worded as follows: The right of ...