The Continuing Economic Crisis by Tim Kelly
Twelve Victims of the Drug War by Laurence M. Vance
The Jacob Hornberger Show: June 17, 2011 by Jacob G. Hornberger
The Natural Right to Be Free by Laurence M. Vance
The Supreme Court Abandons the Guantánamo Prisoners by Andy Worthington
Slow, Predictable Hearing on Fast and Furious by Wendy McElroy
Bloomberg’s Soda Policy: The End Doesn’t Justify the Means by Sheldon Richman
The Constitution versus the Executive-Branch Departments by Laurence M. Vance
The Jacob Hornberger Show: June 10, 2012 (video) by Jacob G. Hornberger
Abolish the Postal Monopoly by James Bovard
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HOLDER IN CONTEMPT!
The House panel investigating operation Fast and Furious has voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. Holder has not been formally held in contempt of Congress. The House will still need to approve a resolution by a floor vote on the matter. Rep. Darrell Issa said that the floor vote could still be avoided if the documentation requested was provided by the Justice Department… |
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Gov Criminalizes Self Reliance: Woman’s Survival Garden Seized and Destroyed by Authorities
A woman from Tulsa, Oklahoma is suing the city’s code enforcement teams after they illegally cut down her entire survival garden. Denise Morrison, who started the garden after becoming unemployed, had over 100 medicinal and edible plants in her front and back yard. She told local Tulsa reporters that she started her garden, after becoming unemployed, as a way to feed herself and treat a variety of medical issues…. |
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$9B IN ‘STIMULUS’ FOR GREEN JOBS MADE ONLY 910 JOBS
The Obama administration distributed $9 billion in economic “stimulus” funds to solar and wind projects in 2009-11 that created, as the end result, 910 “direct” jobs — annual operation and maintenance positions — meaning that it cost about $9.8 million to establish each of those long-term jobs. At the same time, those green energy projects also created, in the end, about 4,600 “indirect” jobs – positions indirectly supported by the… |
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NOW WE LEARN OBAMA RAISED
IN SINGAPORE? On the heels of the discovery of a 1991 publicity brochure stating Barack Obama was born in Kenya comes the unearthing of a 1990 Vanity Fair article stating Obama grew up in Singapore, not in Indonesia. In both instances, the question immediately arises: Who was the source of the information that contradicts Obama’s accepted narrative? In the case of the “born in Kenya” brochure… |
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Issa Moves Forward With Holder Contempt Vote
Darrell Issa , Chairman of The House Oversight Committee, announced that he has decided to move forward with a vote to consider a report holding Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over the Attorney General’s failure to hand over documents related to the “Fast and Furious” investigation. The vote on a resolution is scheduled at 10 a.m. on Wednesday…. |
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SELL YOUR USED IPAD, GO TO JAIL
There is another copyright battle emerging over intellectual property, and this time you, John or Jane Q. Citizen, could be smack-dab in the middle of it, for one of the most innocuous acts you could imagine – selling your used iPad. At present the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to rule on a case that will affect whether you can sell that iPad of yours, or any of dozens of… |
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ARE DEAD ANIMALS BEING REGISTERED TO VOTE?
When Tim Morris got his mail last week he found a pretty big surprise, a document asking his dog Mozart to register to vote. Not only is Mozart a dog but he’s been dead for two years. “I opened it up and looked at it and I just laughed,” Morris said. “I thought it was a joke at first and it turns out it’s real.”… |
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Andrea Mitchell Smears Romney with Deceptive Edit
MSNBC continued its tradition of leaning so far forward that its corporate head became lodged in its corporate backside today with a story on Mitt Romney and Wawas. Andrea Mitchell attempted to use a deceptively edited clip to persuade her audience that Romney is out of step with the average voter. Sooper Mexican compared the edited clip with the full Romney remarks…. |
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OBAMA ATTORNEYS ARGUE HE’S NOT DEMOCRAT NOMINEE
Attorneys arguing on behalf of Barack Obama’s re-election plans today urged a Florida judge to decide that Obama is not yet the Democratic nominee for president and ignore evidence challenging his eligibility. The arguments were raised by attorney Mark Herron on behalf of Obama in a hearing before Judge Terry Lewis in Florida, who is best known for presiding over the 2000 Bush v. Gore election dispute… |
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OBAMA VIOLATES OATH OF OFFICE
Following President Obama‘s new immigration policy announcement, former George W. Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales voiced some concern about the means through which the president accomplished his goal. In issuing an executive order, he said, Obama may have violated his oath of office… |
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Foreigners Bought Hawaii
Birth Certificates The lead investigator for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse – which already has found probable cause that Barack Obama’s publicly released birth certificate is a forgery – says any Hawaii documentation for Obama’s birth that exists would probably be of little value. Mike Zullo, a retired New Jersey detective now heading Arpaio’s volunteer investigative team… |
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RON PAUL WINS IOWA
DELEGATE MAJORITY Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul emerged from the Iowa state convention with a clear majority of the delegates being sent by the state to the GOP national convention in Tampa in August. Paul won 21 of the 25 contestable delegates, and will have 23 of the 28 total delegates Iowa will send to Tampa. The Iowa victory marks the third and final time Iowa has had a “winner” of its… |
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Zombieapocalypse? Congress investigates air leak, possible safety lapses at CDC lab
WWII Veteran Being Forced Out of Home and Forced to Exhume Wife’s Body
The US State Department Goes Bad
Israel demolishes Arab village 38 times
Google reports ‘alarming’ rise in government censorship requests
Obama administration will grant work permits to younger illegal immigrants
Pentagon to hold its first gay pride event
U. S. military completes planning for Syria
America’s next bank holiday will be a nightmare
Know your ‘troll’: UK considers law disclosing users` identities
Sales of ‘Zombie Bullets’ on the rise
Navy drone crashes in Maryland
Image resembling Jesus found in mold
How much do we really hate the TSA?
Where’s the outcry on the U.N. push to regulate the Internet?
The government knows what’s good for you
‘Flame’ spyware infiltrating Iranian computers
Homeland Security Releases List of Keywords That Cheese Them Off
| Alejandra’s family could lose their home because of a bank error. Tell PNC Bank to admit their mistake and negotiate a loan modification. |
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Sign Alejandra’s Petition
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It was no ordinary morning. Police arrived at 4am and broke down the door to Alejandra Cruz’s family home with a battering ram. PNC Bank was trying to take her family’s Minneapolis home after a bank error, and their friends and neighbors were in the home to defend it. The police forced everyone to leave — but now Alejandra is fighting back to save her family’s home.
Alejandra’s family made every online payment on their home for seven years. But one month, PNC Bank didn’t withdraw it. Instead of admitting their error, they demanded two months’ payment as penalty.
Alejandra says there was no way her family could have come up with so much money on such short notice. So PNC put them into foreclosure and forced them to leave the house in 48 hours.
But now, Alejandra is fighting back. She’s started a petition asking PNC to sit down and negotiate — and this Thursday, she’s traveling to the the bank’s headquarters to deliver her message. It could decide the fate of her family’s home — and if thousands of people join her before then, she knows the bank won’t be able to ignore her message.
Alejandra says her family has worked incredibly hard to meet their mortgage payments. Her father worked two jobs, and she and her brother worked part time through school to help. The foreclosure has already forced them to move out of their home, and when friends and neighbours tried to stop the bank from taking the home, police arrested them.
But Alejandra knows there is hope. Just last week, another Minneapolis resident named Nick Espinosa started a Change.org petition to save his mom’s home. Thousands of people signed in a matter of days, and the bank was forced to back down and let Nick’s mom keep her home with a reduced mortgage.
Local media are already taking interest in her family’s battle, and if PNC Bank hears from thousands across the country right now, Alejandra is convinced they’ll decide to negotiate rather than face a public relations nightmare.
Curing the Healthcare Crisis
The American healthcare system is fraught with bad incentives that raise the cost of healthcare, reduce its quality, and make care less accessible than it should be. To fix it, the United States should move away from a third-party payment system and lift the impediments to free-market prices in healthcare. Unfortunately, Obamacare takes the diametrically opposite approach and will make many problems worse. This is the theme of the provocative new Independent Institute book, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, by John C. Goodman, an economist noted for his development of the concept of Health Savings Accounts. In addition to explaining the origins of the current mess and the fatal flaws of the Affordable Care Act, Goodman offers numerous correctives that draw from common-sense economics and a recognition that American healthcare is a complex system that cannot be micromanaged by government bureaucrats or other third parties.
“Under the conventional approach, every doctor, every nurse, every hospital administrator will get up every morning and ask, ‘How can I squeeze more money out of the payment formulas today?” Goodman writes in his Introduction. “My answer is just the opposite. Under the approach I will recommend, all these people will be encouraged to start each day by asking, ‘How can I make my service better, less costly, and more accessible to patients today?'”
With the U.S. Supreme Court expected to decide the constitutionality of parts of the new healthcare law within a week, the publication of Priceless is very well timed. In addition to the law’s individual mandate, Goodman identifies the provisions most in need of repeal and replacement. Those include various measures that create perverse incentives for insurers to attract the healthy and avoid the sick, and for individuals to game the system by dropping their coverage after they receive care and their medical bills are paid. Goodman concludes by explaining the principles for healthy healthcare reform, including promoting genuinely portable insurance policies whose prices are determined in a free market. “Portability, we have seen, is about the only rational solution to the problems of pre-existing conditions,” he writes in his final chapter. “Without it, employers and employees face all manner of perverse incentives in the labor market.”
Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, by John C. Goodman
“John Goodman has long been the clearest and most insightful healthcare thinker…. It’s time we acted on his common sense, fact-based wisdom inPriceless.” –Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana
And please be sure to catch John C. Goodman on the following programs:
- Tues., 6/19, 11:20 a.m. Eastern Time: Geraldo Rivera’s radio show
- Wed., 6/20, 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time: Fox andThurs., 6/21, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time: Stossel
The White House would like to show its “toughness” on Iran by imposing stringent economic sanctions, but it fears that higher oil prices from a smaller world supply of oil would hurt President Obama’s re-election prospects. Luckily for the administration, Saudi Arabia, a staunch foe of Iran, has signaled its willingness to increase oil production in order to offset any reduction of Iranian oil exports (and, truth be told, Iran will likely find ways to work around the sanctions). Moreover, greater Saudi production–along with increased energy supplies from Brazil and Canada, improved energy efficiency, and lower energy demand due to a weak world economy–make it likely that oil prices will fall before November, according to Ivan Eland, director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty. This is good news for the White House. READ MORE
Smoke and Mirrors in Energy Policy, by Ivan Eland (6/13/12) Spanish Translation
No War for Oil: U.S. Dependency and the Middle East, by Ivan Eland
“Ivan Eland has produced a devastating indictment of the ‘oil rationale’ for the intrusive, counterproductive U.S. military presence in the Middle East. No War for Oil should help debunk the most prominent justification for that misguided policy.” –Ted Galen Carpenter
Anyone who has watched CSI and similar television crime shows is aware that forensic science has made great strides since the days of LAPD Sergeant Joe Friday on Dragnet. And yet, the science is only as good as the practitioner, as a 2009 report from the National Academy of Science revealed. Case in point: digital forensics–the investigation of evidence left on computer hard drives, cell phones, and the like–is still an “emerging” discipline that many forensic analysts have yet to master. In fact, inexperienced forensic “experts” run the risk of creating false convictions that send innocent people to jail, as Independent Institute Research Fellow Roger Koppl and digital forensics consultant Monique M. Ferraro explain in a new op-ed. READ MORE
Digital Devices and Miscarriages of Justice, by Roger Koppl and Monique M. Ferraro (The Daily Caller, 6/15/12)
Steps to Take to Resolve Crime Lab Problems, by E. James Cowan and Roger Koppl (The National Law Journal, 5/21/12)
The Pursuit of Justice: The Law and Economics of Legal Institutions, edited by Edward J. Lopez
Obamacare Cronyism Makes Bad Medicine
David Theroux (6/18/12)
Segway Police: Unsafe at Any Speed?
Edward Lopez (6/15/12)
Social Science 101: Three Ways to Relate to Other People
Robert Higgs (6/13/12)
Is There a Trade-Off Between Economic Growth and Equality?
Randall Holcombe (6/12/12)
Craig Eyermann (6/18/12)How to Save Money on Medicare
Craig Eyermann (6/16/12)
Doing Austerity Right
Craig Eyermann (6/12/12)
