Daily Articles

Scottish Independence Vote Holds Important Lessons — And Possibilities

by Scott McPherson November 16, 2012

In 1998 the people of Scotland, part of the United Kingdom, gained a considerable measure of self-government. For the first time in almost three centuries their parliament met in Edinburgh, the capital, after a referendum among Scots in the previous year resulted in 74.3 percent of voters answering “Yes” to the statement, “I agree that there should be a Scottish ...

Republican Reconsideration of Immigration

by Sheldon Richman November 15, 2012

“Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.” — Groucho Marx Apparently Groucho has been elected chairman of the Republican National Committee. Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama has so shocked the Republican Party that it now is willing to question long-held positions. If defeat prompts Republicans to abandon anti-freedom convictions, that’s all to the good — ...

The Disparate Impact Is Nigh

by Wendy McElroy November 15, 2012

A racial agenda is about to be unleashed on America. According to Investor’s Business Daily (Nov. 8), the Obama administration intends to eliminate the “persistent gaps” between whites and minorities “in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates.” Almost every organization and business in America could be held legally accountable for policies that ...

The Japan Problem

by Laurence M. Vance November 14, 2012

There were no issues of any real substance debated by Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the presidential campaign leading up to the recent election. With foreign wars raging, the USA PATRIOT Act and the NDAA threatening Americans’ civil liberties, the police state and surveillance state increasing, drone attacks killing foreign civilians, the drug war destroying Americans’ freedoms, the ...

First Shots in the New War on Guns

by Scott McPherson November 13, 2012

Gun-control advocates commonly say they just want “sensible gun laws” that will “keep guns out of the wrong hands.” Yet none of their ideas ever work. That’s not just hyperbole: an intensive study of U.S. gun-control laws by the Centers for Disease Control found that they had done nothing — zip, zero, nada — to reduce crime. That ...

The Jacob Hornberger Show – November 11, 2012

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 13, 2012

The Jacob Hornberger Show broadcasts live every Sunday night at 6:30 pm EST. Visit FFF's Ustream Channel to watch the show live.  

Supersized Fries, Downsized Jobs

by Wendy McElroy November 12, 2012

On November 2 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that America added 171,000 jobs in October. President Barack Obama lost no time in proclaiming to crowds, “Today we learned that our companies have created more jobs in October than in any of the last five months.” Meanwhile his unsuccessful presidential challenger, Mitt Romney, called the jobs report ...

Conservative Judges Demolish the False Legitimacy of Guantánamo’s Terror Trials

by Andy Worthington November 9, 2012

When is a war crime not a war crime? When it is invented by the executive branch and Congress and implemented for six years until a profoundly conservative appeals court strikes it down. The invented war crime is “providing material support to terrorism.” On October 16 a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, threw out the conviction ...

The Election’s Unanswered Question

by Sheldon Richman November 8, 2012

Thank goodness the tedious presidential campaign is over. It was enough to put a caffeine freak into a coma. If all you cared about was the horse race, you missed how anemic the past year was. Rhetoric aside, the differences between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were virtually inconsequential; big government was never in doubt. That being the case, ...

Republicans Miss the Point on Tax Cuts

by Laurence M. Vance November 6, 2012

At the same time Republicans are adamant that more people should pay income taxes and lukewarm on the idea that Social Security taxes should be cut, they are also calling for the so-called Bush tax cuts to be extended, individual marginal income-tax rates to be lowered, the corporate income-tax rate to be lowered, and certain taxes to ...

Life without FEMA?

by Sheldon Richman November 2, 2012

Advocates of big government never miss a chance to capitalize on a natural disaster. Even before the storm has passed, they will boast that without activist government, recovery would be impossible. Peddlers of this line ask us to imagine what life would be like today — in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy — without FEMA and the state and ...

Legal Earthquake Rocks the Scientific Community

by Wendy McElroy November 2, 2012

On October 22, an Italian court found six seismologists and one government official guilty of multiple involuntary manslaughter for failing to accurately predict an earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, which killed around 300 people. The trial lasted from September 2011 until October 2012, but it took a judge only a little over 4 hours to decide it. Each man ...