Economist Donald Marron:
I often tell my students that, in my humble opinion, one purpose of government is to help people be happy. The DC government did a good job on Wednesday.
I disagree with that on so many levels. The government’s job is to secure people’s rights, and as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently said, one [...]

I have to think that’s the only acceptable reaction to this:
The Transportation Security Administration is spreading airport body-scanner technology across the country.
A TSA official said Friday that units will be fielded next week in Chicago, and in the coming months at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Jose, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; San Diego; Charlotte, N.C.; Cincinnati; [...]

Those of us who truly believe in limited government* tend to be simultaneously amused and irritated hearing the folks at CPAC speak of limited government as though it’s a principle they truly support. Yesterday, the Libertarian Party’s Executive Director Wes Benedict, monitoring the CPAC festivities from afar, said some of the things that many of [...]

From The Associated Press:
Crystal Mangum, 31, was arrested late Wednesday on charges including assaulting her boyfriend, Durham police said in a press release.
Durham County jail records indicate she also was charged with identity theft, communicating threats, damage to property, resisting an officer and misdemeanor child abuse. A judge ordered that she remain in jail on [...]

From tonight’s State of the Union address:
“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign [...]

In this country, it has become socially acceptable to use internet or over-the-phone consults with a fraudulent “ailment” for prescriptions of a recreational drug (Viagra/Cialis).
In this country, it is still socially unacceptable (in the areas where it is legal) to go see a doctor in-person with a moderately fraudulent ailment for prescriptions of a recreational [...]

By driving a stake through the heart of McCain-Feingold:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on business efforts to influence federal campaigns.
By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies [...]

I’d like to claim that I’m not one to pick nits — but I’d be lying. So here is exhibit 10,483 in the “Brad takes part of a post he agrees with and spins it way out of context.”
The base post is about marriage and in support of gay marriage. But I found [...]

Brad just asked what people are reading today.  President Obama just provided some interesting reading material indeed. Here’s the opening text from an Executive Order dated January 11, 2010:
EXECUTIVE ORDER
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COUNCIL OF GOVERNORS
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including [...]

This has been making the rounds, and I’d be remiss not to post it here considering how much time I spend in the air.

Homeowner associations [HOAs] are a bit of a prickly issue for libertarians. On one hand, they are voluntary, so you don’t have to choose to move into an area that has one. On the other hand, they are common enough (and arbitrarily nasty enough in many situations) that it is a significant limit [...]

From Jonah Goldberg, re: airline security:
Anyone who flies regularly will tell you, the hellishness of airline travel is not primarily derived from the outrage of lost privacy, it’s derived from the outrage of inefficient, time-consuming idiocy. I would gladly trade the privacy invasion that would come with those body scanners in Total Recall in [...]

Okay, maybe not. But I sure have a great way to do so (and maybe to turn a few readers).
I’m in Chicago visiting family, sadly with little internet access (sitting outside Panera Bread Co in the car with my napping son in the back). Today we celebrate my grandmother’s 90th birthday. This [...]

Democrats are addicted to saying that there is a right to health care, and subsequently hammering anyone who opposes their disastrous reform bill as opposing that right. The truth is, there is a right to health care, and it is consistently opposed by the left, not the right.
Put simply, each person has the right [...]

Meet Congressman Alan Grayson, a punk ass bitch and wannabe thoughtpoliceman
Not everyone thinks imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
In fact, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson of Orlando took such offense at a parody Web site aimed at unseating him that the freshman Democrat asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the Lake County activist [...]

Here’s a perfect song to complement my recent call to action to pass the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.

System of a Down
“Prison Song”
Toxicity (2001)
Written by: Tankian, Serj;Malakian, Daron;Odadjian, Shavarsh; and Dolmayan, John
They’re trying to build a prison,
They’re trying to build a prison,
Following the rights movements
You clamped on with your iron fists,
Drugs became conveniently
Available [...]

It’s not often when I come across something so bone-chillingly despicable that I want to post about it but can offer nothing to say beyond the mere actions taken… So look at what Iran is doing:
His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It [...]

In April of 2009, I wrote a post entitled “Reforming America’s Prison System: The Time Has Come”
A full 8 months later, the time has truly come. Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) bill S.714, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009, is scheduled to be before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow.
The purpose of the bill [...]

In the “call their bluff” department, a California man is trying to protect the sanctity of marriage — by banning divorce:
Til death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.
In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte [...]

With my busy work schedule as it is, I managed to miss the very encouraging news that Cory Maye will get a new trial!
I think it will be very interesting how his second trial unfolds now that he will have a better legal team with better expert witnesses to debunk the dubious testimony of [...]