The Libertarian Angle: NSA and Syria (video) by Future of Freedom Foundation June 17, 2013 Jacob Hornberger and Sheldon Richman discuss the recent revelations about the NSA surveillance program and Obama's decision to arm the Syrian rebels. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Download audio here. Subscribe to the RSS feed.
U.S. Military Admits Only 2.5 Percent of All Prisoners Ever Held at Guantánamo Will Be Tried by Andy Worthington June 17, 2013 It’s official: Eleven and a half years after the “war on terror” prison opened at Guantánamo, the maximum number of prisoners that the U.S. military intends to prosecute, or has already prosecuted, is 20 — or just 2.5 percent of the 779 men held at the prison since it opened in January 2002. The news was announced on Monday, June ...
TGIF: It’s Not Edward Snowden Who Betrayed Us by Sheldon Richman June 14, 2013 When you cut through the fog, the NSA controversy is about whether we should trust people with institutional power. Edward Snowden’s courageous exposure of massive secret surveillance separates those who say yes from those who say, “Hell no!” The trusting attitude can be found among progressives and conservatives alike (with notable exceptions), and even some who have identified themselves ...
Where Is the Conservative Outrage over the IRS? by Laurence M. Vance June 13, 2013 The ongoing scandal concerning the IRS’s targeting conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status shows just how close conservatives are to liberals and how far they are from libertarians. It has come to light that the IRS singled out conservative organizations that included the words “Tea Party” or “patriot” in their applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status. Lois Lerner, ...
The Fixed Economy and Central Banking by Tim Kelly June 12, 2013 Last month Rolling Stone carried an article by investigative journalist Matt Taibbi with the provocative title “Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever.” Taibbi begins the piece by writing, Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. ...
Obama Speaks with Forked Tongue on Surveillance by Sheldon Richman June 11, 2013 It’s bad enough the federal government spies on us. Must it insult our intelligence too? The government’s response to Edward Snowden’s leaks about the National Security Agency’s secret monitoring of the Internet and collection of our telephone logs is a mass of contradictions. Officials have said the disclosures are (1) old news, (2) grossly inaccurate, and (3) a blow to ...
The Libertarian Angle: Surveillance-State Tyranny by Future of Freedom Foundation June 10, 2013 In this week's edition of The Libertarian Angle, Jacob Hornberger and Sheldon Richman discuss the recent disclosures about the National Security Agency's surveillance program. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Download the audio here.
TGIF: The Lie Factory by Sheldon Richman June 7, 2013 In his latest major address on foreign policy, President Obama said this: So after I took office … we pursued a new strategy in Afghanistan, and increased our training of Afghan forces.… In Afghanistan, we will complete our transition to Afghan responsibility for that country’s security. Our troops will come home. Our combat mission will come to an end. ...
Solitary Confinement: Cruel, but Not Unusual? by Wendy McElroy June 6, 2013 An estimated 103 prisoners have been on a hunger strike for well over three months at the American prison called Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba). The protesters seem willing to die rather than live in the savage conditions that some of them have endured for a decade without so much as being charged with a crime. Human rights
Marx, the Once “Anti-Communist,” Who Brought Socialist Ruin to the World by Richard M. Ebeling June 5, 2013 Some people may have missed it on their calendar, but May 5th was Karl Marx's birthday. It is worth recalling, also, that there was a time when Marx was an anti-communist. Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in the German Rhineland town of Trier, and died on March 14, 1883 in London. It is said that by its fruit ...
The U.S. Base on Diego Garcia: An Overlooked Atrocity by Sheldon Richman June 4, 2013 The largest criminal organizations in the world are governments. The bigger they are, the more capable of perpetrating atrocities. Not only do they obtain great wealth through compulsion (taxation), they also have an ideological mystique that permits them uniquely to get away with murder, torture, and theft. The U.S. government is no exception. This is demonstrated by, among many other ...
Will Boston Bombings Be a Boon to Beretta Banners? by Michael Tennant June 4, 2013 As with other recent crises, the Boston Marathon bombings have prompted calls for radical reductions in Americans’ liberties. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York — he of the super-sized soda ban — told reporters that in the interest of public safety “our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution ... have to change” to allow for greater ...