40 years of corruption down the drain. Might as well have joined the f’in Peace Corps: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that threatened to end the 40-year career of Alaska’s political patriarch in disgrace. The verdict, coming barely a week before Election Day, increased Stevens’ difficulty [...]

Steve Chapman, writing for Reason, pontificates on California’s Proposition 8, the question of whether gays in California should be officially allowed the right to marry. California already grants legal recognition to same-sex civil unions, but a recent court decision expanded that to open the name “marriage” to those agreements. Chapman suggests that such a decision [...]

As with most third party campaigns, the Barr/Root campaign has had an uphill battle to make the ballot in certain states. In Texas, however, Bob Barr is the only presidential candidate on the ballot. The McCain and Obama campaigns have failed to meet the August 26th deadline to file the necessary paperwork and are not [...]

As many of you (especially those here in California) are aware, there is a new law, effective yesterday (July 1) requiring handsfree devices for anyone using a cellphone while driving. I could offer plenty of libertarian arguments against this regulation, and I’m sure we could all have a long debate about ownership of the roads [...]

This morning, I’m noting a lot of ill informed …or perhaps just informed by misunderstanding of the text… opinions and statements regarding the historic Heller ruling on the scope and applicability of the 2nd amendment. This of course is unsurprising when many people of varying levels of knowledge about law, history, and firearms have just [...]

This week Boston’s Mayor Menino testified before the Congressional Task Force on Illegal Guns. He had this to say: We share a common disdain for what we have seen happen in our cities, to our residents and to our police officers as a result of illegal guns. So, we signed a statement of principles and [...]

I watched/listened to the oral arguments in DC vs. Heller this morning, and in my view (solely based on my knowledge of the justices, and the questions and arguments raised today; which is always iffy) we’re looking at a mixed bag. Well, first the good news. It seems clear that the entirety of the court, [...]

Britain has long been a bellwether for what is coming to the United States. First it was smoking bans, soon it will likely be national health care. And shortly to follow will probably be a federal DNA database. What will follow that? The inevitable stories of DNA database abuses: IT IS an object lesson in [...]

I think we can all agree that gender equality is a Good Thing™. I think we can all agree that there should not be any barriers, legal or otherwise, to women reaching the highest levels of the workforce. And I think we can mostly, if not all, agree that the “old boy’s club”, to the [...]

After speaking with multiple sources (many of them off-the-record) and going through a publishing history, Reason Magazine has added weight to the suspicions of many on who was responsible for the Ron Paul newsletter…current Ron Paul advisor Lew Rockwell.  From the tone of the article nobody else seems to come close as a prime suspect, [...]

Many years ago, coach Hayden Fry of the Iowa Hawkeyes chose to paint the visiting team’s locker room pink. In the world of big-time college football, he believed that putting his opponents into a pink locker room would pacify them and give the Hawkeyes a better chance for victory. Such a sentiment, though, doesn’t quite [...]

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday said judges may impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhancing judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder. By a 7-2 vote, the court said that a 15-year sentence given to Derrick Kimbrough, a veteran of the 1991 war with Iraq, [...]

The Constitutionalism of Ron Paul has ignited a debate that’s sorely needed in this country. The Founding Fathers envisioned a nation of individual States, each with its own quirks and ideas, and each with wide latitudes to set its own internal laws and policies as it saw fit. The central government was tasked only with [...]

However, Mr. Duke, you are right in claiming that your views are far more closely aligned with those of the founding fathers than mine. Some, like Benjamin Franklin, were even more hardcore than you, with his opposition to permitting “ruddy-complexioned” Germans from immigrating to the U.S. This is not to their or your credit. Where the principles of the Declaration of Independence were betrayed, the motivation was generally a racist one. In past generations, white Americans were quite willing to betray or give up the freedoms hard-won by their ancestors rather than extend them to black people, Chinese people, Mexicans or Filipinos.

Last week’s 5-4 Georgia Supreme Court ruling in the Genarlow Wilson case is not only great news for Genarlow Wilson but also great news for others who have found themselves in a similar situation. With the ruling being as close as it was it’s clear that the court could have easily ruled the other way. [...]

So, for the last few years, supporters of gay marriage have pretty much given up on the legislative route; and have been depending on judges to try and impose their agenda on the states. While I have no problem with the concept of gay marriage (the state should not be involved in religious marriage; and [...]

As a general rule, I believe that most police officers are brave, respectable, and truly do their best to honor their mission statement: to serve and protect. As with any organization, there are some bad apples, however. And what happens when a police officer abuses his or her badge to break the law or harass [...]

In two decisions today the Supreme Court severely limited the ability of public school systems to use race as a factor in assigning students to schools: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected integration plans in two major public school districts but left the door open for the limited use of race to achieve [...]