“Scientist” — what an abused term! When a journalist needs an authority to write about some nutty, wildly improbable affront to common sense, a “scientist” will do. Case in point, turn to Newsweek: “Tanning salons are more likely to be located in U.S. neighborhoods with higher numbers of same-sex male…
The brazenness of governmental assaults on freedom of speech continues apace. In addition to “aggressive IRS scrutiny” of conservative groups, using campaign finance regulations to suppress speech, and FBI raids on homes of perpetrators of journalism, we are seeing government officials openly demand that private firms suppress speech. In September,…
Maybe it’s just me . . . and all other normal people. But I’m more worried about policemen who abuse authority than those too “culturally insensitive” in their cheerful greetings. Yes, that’s the latest crisis: Bobbies who say “Good evenin’ all” as they walk the beat. Or so says a…
One thing you can say about the political establishment in Washington is that at least they're consistent. They consistently ignore what the American people think. Consider public funding, or matching funds, given to presidential candidates. The program just doesn't work. And the American people know it though Washington, DC isn't…
Those who like Big Government tend to dislike Big Business. So it must be just an unintended effect that shiny, new government programs invariably harm small businesses, aiding big ones. There are many examples of this. Today’s comes from the biggest new kid on the block, the new health care…
There’s a famous quip by one English intellectual about another. “Oh, you know what so-and-so’s idea of a tragedy is: A beautiful theory killed by an ugly fact.” Well, don’t I know it. I wrote a column, recently, for Townhall.com, entitled “The Buxom Bailout Babes of the Umpteenth Brumaire.” In…
Not spending millions more to hire and train swarms of Internal Revenue Service agents to poke, audit, investigate and squeeze more tax dollars from wealthier Americans would be — you knew this was coming — racist. That’s the new argument for siccing the IRS on wealthier Americans; they’re more likely…
I don't get too excited about either major political party. When the Democrats are in, I think, "Oh my goodness, the Democrats are in!" With the Republicans in, I think, "Oh my goodness, the Republicans are in!" When everything is nice and bipartisan, I think: "Oh my goodness, another pay…
President Barack Obama is not targeting the country’s 99 percent against the wealthiest 1 percent. In a news conference, yesterday, he instead singled out the top 2 percent. Even though they account for 46 percent of all income taxes collected, Obama says members of this group don’t pay their “fair…
On issues, politicians love to tell us how much they care, but they hate to tell us where they stand. Last year, Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania ran a different kind of campaign. No poll-driven, mushy sound bites. He didn't tell voters what they wanted to hear, but what he really…
In one way, President Obama has had it hard: He inherited a mess. In another, he has had it easy: His predecessor blew it big time. As James Bovard put it in his 2004 book, The Bush Betrayal, “George W. Bush came to the presidency promising prosperity, peace, and humility.…
Blasé about sweeping government surveillance? Think you have “nothing to hide”? I bet you do. Ever draw curtains? You have “something to hide.” If you balk when a con man says, “I need your birthday and Social Security Number,” you have “something to hide.” When you feel comfortable giving certain…
President Obama is blasting what he calls “the furious efforts of industry lobbyists” to fend off tighter regulation of the financial industry. Pretending that Fed credit expansion and governmental incentives to take on temporarily cheap mortgages had no part in the current crisis, officials carefully direct our attention elsewhere. Widespread…
Do not look at the liability behind that curtain! Or: Do not mention that we don’t know what the liabilities are. Some things are too painful to report. Apparently. The folks who audit the Social Security Administration are late on a set of reports. The reports in question account for…
Spending sprees are fun. The responsible cut-backs after such sprees? Not so much fun. Seems the recent gubernatorial election made a difference in New Jersey. There’s change there. Also hope. Last November, running on a platform of fiscal sanity, Republican challenger Chris Christie defeated the Democratic Governor Jon Corzine. And…
Government is out of control. This statement sadly seems to require no additional explanation or defense. Whether one is conservative or liberal, progressive or libertarian, Americans increasingly regard this proclamation as a self-evident truth. But perhaps some Rip Van, catatonic through previous decades, just now awakening, might seek further details…
The important group Democrats Against Democratic Obstruction of Justice (DADOOJ) has yet to be formed to denounce ongoing cover-ups by the Obama administration. If a DADOOJ did exist, though, its two or three members would surely cite a recent Hill column by Rick Manning, “More lost emails—When will Democrats have…
Ronald Bailey, online at Reason.com, quotes a press release from a group of renewable energy outfits whining and moaning to keep their huge tax breaks. It’s all for the good of the country, they say. But Bailey notes that when such tax credits go to businesses not favored by environmental…
Retail sales taxation became vogue among the states of the union during the Great Depression. When other revenue sources dried up, many states decided to nab potential taxpayers at each transaction. We’re in a depression again, and numerous legislatures are looking to expand their retail sales tax base by targeting…
When President Obama granted to himself the power to execute American citizens without due process, it wasn’t just Judge Napolitano who became alarmed. Now, citizen activists are honestly nervous, some now thinking that the government is targeting them with assassination. Sounds paranoid. But, as is often said, just because you’re…
Should Lincoln Chafee invert a boot and place it on his head? It might help him compete. The famous Republican turned Democratic politician from Rhode Island — former U.S. Senator and Governor, both, and sometime presidential hopeful — has filed to run for the presidency. But as a Libertarian. The…
U. S. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont “independent” who caucuses with the Democrats and calls himself a “democratic socialist,” announced this week that he is seeking the Democratic Socialist Party’s nomination — er, I mean the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. One of the Vermonter’s most visceral claims to left-wing…
As conflict grows week by week, month by month — left vs. right, black vs. white, insider vs. outsider — and as good will is quickly being abandoned for fear, hatred, and loathing, one American organization is dedicated solely to tracking “hate groups.” Or is it? Click on over to…
“Ideas are forces: the existence of one determines our reception of others.” This is more than just a statement of associationist psychology. Take the politics of “welfare.” The modern project has placed government at the heart of society, construing its basic mission as that of “rescuing” people who make mistakes…
Standing with Rand, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced yesterday his candidacy for the U.S. Presidency? A banner: “Defeat the Washington Machine — Unleash the American Dream.” I know and like Rand, both personally and politically. I love that message. Yet, today, I come not to praise Dr. Paul but…
Getting rid of Obamacare has proved not so easy. The GOP House majority, won in late 2010, voted dozens of times to get rid of the program, but without Senate support to pile on (much less override a presidential veto), they could vote to repeal every day of the year…
Russian politics — does it consist in anything but the progressive unraveling of what modest liberalization of civic life the Russians benefited after the crackup of the Soviet Union? The latest assault on liberty? The government targeting of Russian bloggers. The most popular ones — those with 3,000 or more…
Seeing how the IRS flagrantly violates the civil rights of Americans, do we really need more government agents, more bureaucracies to ride herd over our political endeavors? Arkansas’s Senate Bill 821, an unconstitutional slap at citizens who dare propose ballot measures, was passed despite my many, many, many complaints, and…
All we have is the word of Department of Justice whistleblowers. They told the New York Post that over the last 19 months, Facebook has been cooperating with the FBI to spy on “private” messages of users “outside the legal process and without probable cause.” The targets were gun enthusiasts…
While statistics are generally unreliable, data about gun crimes often qualify as “anti-data.” “This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, ‘nearly 240 schools . . . reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting,’” National Public Radio told us yesterday. Like previous stats…
When Donald Trump called our country’s electoral process a “rigged system,” he was not wrong. The system is a legally secured duopoly. I’ve discussed a number of the elements of this system previously. But one I may not have explored enough is the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). The League…
Is the republican form of government unnatural? People in government tend to balk at republican imperatives, anyway. You know, like transparency. Citizen control sure seems unnatural to politicians. Case in point: Detroit. “The Rochester Community School district is determined to keep the sun from shining on its operations,” writes Kaitlyn…
Suppose suggested legislation outlaws both murder and walking. How could you oppose it? Are you, a dedicated perambulator-peripatetic, also a murder-supporter? Obviously, this would be an attempt to foist a package deal consisting of unrelated or mutually contradictory elements. Consider a more true-to-life example. In the Wall Street Journal, Philip…
After Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton legally challenged how several states conducted the 2020 election, dozens of lawyers submitted complaints. To the state bar. Their idea: disbar the Republican officeholder for daring to oppose the current Democratic narrative about “election denialism.” The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel dismissed those initial…
Being a clever person is hard work. Many of the truly clever things about everyday life have already been said. New and innovative cleverness? A rare thing indeed. But if you are in the business of being clever, that puts you in a pickle, if “being relevant” and “worth our…
Is Google working for the Chinese government? The group Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights believes that pro-Chinazi partisans have been targeting its YouTube videos, triggering sanctions against Atajurt’s channel. Many of its thousands of videos provide testimony about how family members have been hauled off to internment camps in China’s Xinjiang…
Paul Jacob on ideological suppression in Europe.
Can crime be defined out of existence? “Attorney Ben Crump proposed a solution to the issue of high crime that is plaguing the black community,” YouTube commentator Anthony Brian Logan reports on a story that an aging white fellow like myself was not apt to spot. “He said it is…
Rotterdam police are gearing up for a new crime reduction scheme. “They’ll soon begin a pilot program targeting young men in designer clothes that the police believe they couldn’t afford legally,” reports Quartz. “If it’s not clear how the person paid for the clothing, the police may confiscate it.” A…
Sen. Marco Rubio’s charge in last week’s presidential debate, that the mainstream media functions as a SuperPAC for Democrats, was not only accurate, I wrote at Townhall, it has deeper implications. Consider the relentless media drumbeat for restrictive campaign finance regulations. If the Federal Elections Commission mutes, at Congress’s instruction,…
Last night, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, where Chaffetz was asked how he would know if the Justice Department fully complied with subpoenas issued by his committee for documents. “Look, we have a storied and horrific background on this,” explained the…
Yesterday, we discovered that modern America asks police to do “too much.” Which prompts the next question: What should police stop doing? Here are two immediate reforms where police can do less, while protecting the public more: (1) End the War on Drugs. Preventing violence and fraud is…
“It’s one thing to let people post UFO content about crop circles in Arkansas,” Ciaran O’Connor was quoted in a recent Washington Post article, talking about YouTube competitor Rumble. “It’s another to allow your platform to be used by someone claiming vaccines are actively harmful and that people should not…
“Oakland to give low-income residents $500 a month,” reads the headline, “no strings attached.” Well, actually there may be just a little itty bitty filament attached to what CBS News calls “the latest experiment with a ‘guaranteed income,’ the idea that giving low-income individuals a regular, monthly stipend helps ease…
The enemies of freedom usually pretend to be engaging in their outrageous and over-bearing coercion "for the people's sake." Don't believe them. See Sunday's column at Townhall — and then come back here for links and hints on further reading. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair — free from Project Gutenberg Dracula, by…
How specific do requests for records of unconstitutional activity have to be? In February, the Federal Bureau of Investigation pretended an inability to fulfill America First Legal Foundation’s freedom-of-information request for documents about the FBI’s pre-election efforts to censor Twitter users. The agency declared the request to be “overly broad.”…
Roger Stone is suing Twitter for kicking him out. Without saying exactly why they booted him, Twitter implies that the reason is abusive language. For his part, Stone accuses the social media giant of targeting right-wing tweeters while letting left-wing tweeters off the hook for the same or worse alleged…
The GOP has just issued a 1,000-page report about corruption in the Department of Justice and its Federal Bureau of Investigation. Based largely on the disclosures of 14 whistleblowers, plus what’s in plain sight — what we’ve all been able to see for ourselves over the last several years —…
A recent email from Amy White of MoveOn.org — an activist outfit that got its start defending Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions — theorized that, this election, “the GOP strategy to win is to use their billionaire donors to flood battleground states with fearmongering, racist ads. . . .” The snuck-in assumption that Democrats…
Occasionally, an outlier appears in politics, someone who follows through on campaign promises. Many people say that Donald Trump was one of those outliers, being someone who actually delivered to his voters the most conservative administration of our lifetimes. I have heard precisely the opposite, too. But that is not…