Guantánamo: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics by Andy Worthington February 16, 2009 On January 22, in an executive order relating to the closure of Guantánamo, President Barack Obama established a comprehensive review of the cases of the remaining 242 prisoners, to work out who could be released and who should continue to be held. The executive order explained that the review was to be “conducted with the full cooperation and ...
Bipartisan “Stimulus” Nonsense by Sheldon Richman February 12, 2009 The cynicism and shallowness of politics have been abundantly on display throughout the debate over the “stimulus” bill. The Democrats insult the intelligence of the American people by peddling the following sophistry: Republicans were big spenders when they controlled the government. Republican criticism of Democrats for being big spenders is ...
Don’t “Compromise” on the Bogus Stimulus Bill by Sheldon Richman February 10, 2009 As the misnamed “stimulus” bill works its way through Congress, we once again see compromise equated with responsibility. The political “leadership” and establishment media seemed to have a vested interest in portraying anyone who refuses to compromise as recklessly unconcerned with the well-being of the country. The problem with this ...
Guantánamo’s Refugees by Andy Worthington February 9, 2009 The continued imprisonment of at least 61 prisoners at Guantánamo, who have been cleared for release after multiple military review boards (or, in recent months, after rulings in a U.S. court), was an affront to notions of justice when the Bush administration was in power, and is even more so now that Barack Obama, who has pledged to ...
The Twin Threats of Socialism and Gun Control by Scott McPherson February 9, 2009 The confirmation of Eric Holder as the new U.S. attorney general is being celebrated as one more “historic” moment in American politics. Holder is the first African American appointed as the nation’s highest-ranking law-enforcement officer. He may also be the most anti-gun attorney general in U.S. history. Reason magazine called ...
Don’t Forget Guantánamo by Andy Worthington February 6, 2009 At first glance, this might seem to be an unnecessary headline, given that Barack Obama has been president for only two weeks and that one of his first acts was to sign a presidential order declaring that the notorious “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay will be closed within a year. However, I believe it is appropriate, not ...
The Founding Father of Economic Statism (video) by Thomas J. DiLorenzo February 6, 2009 On February 2, 2009, Thomas J. DiLorenzo gave the following speech at the “The Economic Liberty Lecture Series.” The speech can viewed below in its entirety.
Real Change on Cuba by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2009 A good place for Barack Obama to begin his program of change would be U.S. policy on Cuba. The change would move America toward three important principles on which our country was founded: economic liberty, civil liberty, and a limited-government republic. Economic liberty First, the Obama administration should lift the U.S. government’s 40-year-old embargo against Cuba. Not only has the embargo ...
The Wizards of Washington by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2009 Remember that telling scene in The Wizard of Oz when Toto reveals the “great and powerful wizard” as nothing but a homunculus operating an imposing thunder-and-lightning machine? “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” he bellows, not knowing enough to quit even when he’s exposed. The government’s response to the current economic turmoil reminds me of that scene. ...
The Campaign-Reform Crime, Part 2 by James Bovard February 1, 2009 Part 1 | Part 2 We saw in the last issue how the McCain-Feingold Act — the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) — sought to fundamentally change the American political landscape. Politicians did not allow the Act’s power to lie idle in the first presidential election after its enactment. The BCRA’s issue-ad ban — the peril that Justice ...
Regime Change: Promise and Peril, Part 3 by Stephen Kinzer February 1, 2009 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 This article is a transcript of Stephen Kinzer’s speech given on June 6, 2008, at The Future of Freedom Foundation’s conference “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties.” I talked about unintended consequences. In the period immediately following the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (see Freedom Daily, ...
The Financial Crisis: 9/11 Redux by Michael Tennant February 1, 2009 Perhaps the one bit of shiny interior in the black cloud of the financial crisis is that most mainstream conservatives, heretofore bootlicking worshippers of George W. Bush and the Republican Party, have come to realize that there’s literally not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties when it comes to their willingness to bail out their Wall ...