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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Sheldon Richman Posted on 02.07.10 by R. Lee Wrights “I sensed a bit of frustration during President Obama’s state of the union address when he said, ‘The longer it [the health-care overhaul] was debated, the more skeptical people became.’ I’m not totally sure what point he thought he was making. After all, it wouldn’t speak well for a proposal if prolonged discussion of its particulars created doubt about its value. But surely he didn’t want to convey that message.” (02/05/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/comment/com1002c.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Freedom Politics Author: Thomas J. Lucente Jr. Posted on 02.07.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Is the biggest hoax in human history finally collapsing? In light of the revelation late last year — thanks to the unauthorized (stolen?) release of e-mail correspondence among themselves — that climatologists have been essentially lying to the rest of the world for years, it came as no surprise that other manmade climate change claims would begin to unravel.” (02/07/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yh4sxrs Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Foundation for Economic Education Author: Sheldon Richman Posted on 02.07.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Barack Obama, the current White House occupant, says that the people have a growing sense that ’something is broken’ in Washington. He attributes this to hyper-partisanship and a consequent lack of civility. As he put it Wednesday, ‘Those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we should. At times, it seems like we’re unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate.’” (02/05/10) Link: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/tgif/obama-public/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute Author: John Berlau Posted on 02.07.10 by R. Lee Wrights “In news accounts about fights over new regulation, the story is almost always the same. The media portray the drama as that of well-intentioned experts wanting more regulation to protect the public good versus the business lobby ferociously opposed to the imposition of these new rules. Media outlets have largely followed this narrative in covering the financial regulatory legislation that passed the House in December and is pending in the Senate.” (02/02/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yg4lup8 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: Peter Schiff Posted on 02.07.10 by R. Lee Wrights “With today’s unexpected decline in December payrolls, the cry for more job-related stimulus will grow even louder. But the sad truth is that any new stimulus or jobs bills will ultimately swell the ranks of the unemployed, thereby raising calls for an even bigger federal effort. If we are not careful, government regulations, subsidies, and spending, all designed to fight unemployment, could push the labor market into a death spiral.” (02/06/10) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=589 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Kevin Tuma Posted on 02.07.10 by R. Lee Wrights Cartoon. (02/06/10) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3787 Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Liberty Unbound Author: Russell Hasan Posted on 02.07.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “As a libertarian I want the policies I prefer to actually become the law. But libertarian policies will never be enacted in a democratic society if poor and lower-middle-class voters stand against libertarian ideals. A significant number of Americans can be classified as the working poor. It is inherently difficult for laws to come into being that oppose their perceived interests. The solution to this problem is not to rail against the poor. The solution is to convince the working poor that free-market capitalism does not oppose working-class interests and that the free market favors the working class just as much as it favors the rich.” (01/10) Link: http://libertyunbound.com/article.php?id=468 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Fr33 Agents Author: Szandor Blestman Posted on 02.07.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Lately there’s been a controversy playing out over an organization known as LEAP and an outspoken member over there named Bradley Jardis. LEAP stands for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and Bradley Jardis was a law enforcement officer who was against laws prohibiting drugs. The controversy played out over a blog post in which Mr. Jardis claimed that he could no longer, in good conscience, enforce laws calling for the arrest of people smoking marijuana for medical purposes. He claimed that doing so would be a violation of his oath to uphold the constitution of the state of New Hampshire. This declaration caused LEAP to remove Mr. Jardis as a spokesman for them and resulted in his eventual exit from the organization.” (02/06/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yksank3 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: QandO Author: Bruce McQuain Posted on 02.07.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “As most of us who read pundits on the left have come to realize over the years, they don’t have a very high opinion of the proletariat. In fact, truth be told, they’re pretty sure we should all just be glad they’re around to save us from ourselves and should shut up and let them do it. And when we’re not compliant in that regard, we get rants like this which Weisberg penned entitled, ‘Down With the People’ and which he further subtitles, ‘Blame the childish, ignorant American public — not politicians — for our political and economic crisis.’” (02/06/10) Link: http://www.qando.net/?p=6967 Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Albuquerque Libertarian Examiner Author: Kent McManigal Posted on 02.07.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Someday people will be amazed we ever settled for government-owned roads. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you aren’t already paying to drive on roads. Private road companies would not collect fares if their roads were impassable, and would be liable for damages if poor maintenance led to accidents and vehicle damage. If businesses financed the roads that serviced them, they would refuse to pay if the road conditions did not permit customers to reach them.” (02/05/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yk7duhh Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: AntiWar.Com Author: Justin Raimondo Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “For years, the US military has proscribed, tracked down, harassed, prosecuted, and imprisoned lesbians and gay men, entrapping them, depriving them of their pensions, and disrespecting them as people — and now that they’re desperate, and backed up against a wall, with an unpopular couple of wars to fight, suddenly they need us, they want us, and, by the way, they’re oh-so-sorry about the past. Anyone who agrees to such a deal — far from being noble, or even patriotic — must be suffering from an enormous lack of self-esteem. We hear so much about ‘gay pride,’ these days — so what kind of ‘pride’ is that?” (02/05/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzprk2c Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: J. Neil Schulman @ Rational Review Author: J. Neil Schulman Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “You don’t need to convince me that David Letterman’s jokes are caustic and just nasty. They are, and the meaner Dave gets the harder Letterman’s audience laughs, with bandleader Paul Shaffer as the Voice of the Angels scolding his boss when Letterman skirts the edge of what passes for good taste these days. But if you’re going to run for high office on conservative family values — as Sarah Palin did — having your unmarried daughter knocked up by a boyfriend who manages to escape the shotgun wedding is an obvious politically liability. It’s not traditional. It’s not sanctified. It’s not done. Publicly embracing your pregnant-out-of-wedlock daughter on the campaign trail squashes the guideline that children of politicians are off-limits, opening the subject up to journalists and comedians alike.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yeewr3e Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: LewRockwell.Com Author: Walter Block Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “It is no news that free market economists would oppose rent control, root and branch. It is, however, a bit ‘man bites doggish’ that even economists with sterling left wing credentials would oppose it too, and just about as bitterly. … Why? It is because this law, which supposedly helps impoverished tenants, actually does no such thing. Indeed, its effects are just about 180 degrees off, in the opposite direction.” (02/05/10) Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block146.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Rad Geek People's Daily Author: Rad Geek Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “It’s not just that legalization campaigns mostly don’t work. And it’s not just that their end results will inevitably be to sink millions more people into a slightly-liberalized version of the same exploitative government-corporate bureau-economy that legalized workers are already sunk into. The real problem here is that legalization is just plain boring, and lazy, as a recommendation. It’s always supposedly motivated by a concern for ‘practicality’ — but practically speaking, what illegalized people need is not to get good and legalized like everyone else. What they need is not government recognition, it’s social solidarity and minimal security. Specifically, security against the threat of government violence against those who don’t have official papers. And there are two ways to try and get that. One way is to try to get everybody papers. The other way is to make it so that you don’t need papers to live your life.” (02/04/10) Link: http://radgeek.com/gt/2010/02/04/against-legalization-contd/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Friends of the membership Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “We strongly oppose the imposition of a floor fee by the LNC for credentialing of national delegates. The By-laws and Convention Rules are quite clear in saying that delegates are chosen by the states and do not allow additional requirements to be added by the national party. A floor fee will restrict the delegates’ participation in party business, hindering their ability to carry out their responsibilities to the state parties.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3779 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Reason Author: Katherine Mangu-Ward Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The government has decided to stop doing something that it does badly. That’s a rare occurrence, so pause to savor it. This week, President Obama announced that he was putting the kibosh on George W. Bush’s $100 billion Constellation program, which had the short term goal of getting Americans back on the moon by 2020. This was a reasonable response to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) recent history with manned missions — a long, sad tale of bureaucratic woe, complete with unreliable cost estimates, missed deadlines, and limited scientific payoff. And even this big move is far from revolutionary: NASA’s overall budget will continue to grow, if only by a modest 2 percent. ” (02/04/10) Link: http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/04/are-all-jobs-created-or-saved Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: Abhinandan Mallick Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Science is united by its use of logic and deductive reasoning. It remains objective and formally governed by the principle that an argument based on true premises cannot yield a false conclusion. It is, of course, possible to derive true conclusions from false premises. To give a simple example, we may say that pigs are birds, birds cannot fly, and hence pigs cannot fly.” (02/04/10) Link: http://mises.org/daily/4061 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Heartland Institute Author: James M. Taylor Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Raj Pachauri, the embattled head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shocked global warming analysts yesterday when he told reporters he wished IPCC critics would rub asbestos on their faces every day. ‘They are the same people who deny the link between smoking and cancer,’ said Pachauri.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yftc655 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “What happens when the military is used in a police capacity? You get a ‘war on terrorism,’ one in which people think that the laws of war now apply to the situation. But in actuality, nothing could be further from the truth. What you actually get is a criminal-justice problem that inevitably goes horribly awry, causing the problem to escalate into a deadly and destructive horror story.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/comment/com1002b.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Foundation for Economic Education Author: Steven Horwitz Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “One of the most championed causes in the world of higher education and elsewhere is ‘diversity.’ Diversifying the workforce, student body, or cabinet, it is said, will create better outcomes for all concerned. Making such entities ‘look like America’ goes almost unchallenged as a desirable goal.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yfez38m Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute Author: John Berlau Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Labor unions, left-leaning foundations and activists declare their support for ’shareholder democracy’ in calling for the adoption of shareholder resolutions at corporate annual meetings. But their efforts to gain shareholder proxies to endorse policy positions, restrict CEO pay, and replace company directors is really about shifting power from management to special interest groups. It’s also about changing the mission of the corporation from maximizing profits for shareholders to serving their own social and political goals.” (02/01/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yloxvcg Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: Jake Towne Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Not only has the government and the Federal Reserve caused the financial crisis with excessive money-printing, reckless spending, bailouts and corporatism, but the government is fully responsible for the rampant unemployment we see in our country today. While the newspaper headlines of 10% use the Bureau of Labor and Statistics U-3 figure, the government’s broadest indicator of unemployment, the U-6 figure, which includes ‘discouraged’ and ‘marginally attached’ workers plus part-time workers who desire a full-time job is currently over 17%.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=583 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Ed Lewis Posted on 02.04.10 by R. Lee Wrights “By ‘it,’ I mean direct taxation on our private personal property, including our homes, our motorized conveyances, our right to travel, our right to earn a living as we see fit, our marriages, and so on down the list of rights that are taxed, regulated, and then taxed and regulated some more. … Hey, if it is our property and it is private and its is obtained by right, then government has no say-so whatsoever in when, how, where, or if we can use it, as private means ‘not under government control.’” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3771 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: John Stossel's Take Author: John Stossel Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “OMG, even one of the most economically clueless New York Times correspondents occasionally gets one right. This morning I was shocked to read Gail Collins and find her making sensible points that suggest that she might actually understand the Big Government problem: Cutting a federal program is next to impossible because there’s usually somebody who cares much more about keeping it than the White House does about making it go away.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yjqvdsj Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Matthew Yglesias Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Pretty much everyone agrees that China is the only nation with any chance of challenging American military superiority in the foreseeable future. So it’s awfully strange that the Department of Defense’s new Quadrennial Defense Review has little to say about the country.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_real_chinese_threat Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: S. Rob Sobhani Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The international conference about Yemen held in London last week reminded me of one of Saudi King Abdullah’s favorite quotes from the Koran: ‘Truly never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.’ That statement sums up his approach to what we in the West call nation-building. As Yemen slides toward a failed state through a combination of bad governance, suspected Iranian support for Houthi separatists, unchecked Al Qaeda proselytizing and recruitment, a secessionist movement in the south, and 35 percent unemployment, the United States should consider asking King Abdullah to offer his vision of nation-building to save the Yemeni state. But in seeking to contain the security threat, Washington must not repeat the errors of the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the US focused excessively on solving immediate security problems without addressing the larger context of the terrorist threat.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzha9tl Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Lawrence Lessig Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “We should remember what it felt like one year ago, as the ability to recall it emotionally will pass and it is an emotional memory as much as anything else. It was a moment rare in a democracy’s history. The feeling was palpable — to supporters and opponents alike — that something important had happened. America had elected, the young candidate promised, a transformational president. And wrapped in a campaign that had produced the biggest influx of new voters and small-dollar contributions in a generation, the claim seemed credible, almost intoxicating, and just in time. Yet a year into the presidency of Barack Obama, it is already clear that this administration is an opportunity missed. Not because it is too conservative. Not because it is too liberal. But because it is too conventional.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100222/lessig Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Barry Lando Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “It is amazing how Henry Kissinger has been able to retain his aura of invincible genius in international relations, continuing to counsel presidents, foreign governments and major global businesses, while occasionally writing lofty Op Ed pieces advising the U.S. on what it should or should not be doing next. This mind you, despite Kissinger’s own history of monumental cynicism and duplicity when he was guiding foreign policy for President’s Nixon and Ford. Indeed, it’s a tribute to the ability of mainstream American media to forgive and forget. The latest example is an Op Ed piece Kissinger just wrote for the New York Times warning American leaders that they are no longer giving Iraq the attention it deserves.” (02/04/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/lando02042010.html Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Libertarian Enterprise Author: IL Fettucinni Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “I always loved the works of Rand because many of the ideas that I had worked out for myself which were contrary to American standards of the 20th Century were given clarity and definitions by her. She agreed with me! I knew that in order to give something to others one had to produce it first. Which means that production is the important first part of the whole equation … not simply redistributing others’ efforts! This is why I fully understood why socialism is so evil and unworkable. It is contrary to man’s nature. It also explains why Americans have been the most benevolent people on earth. We have been free to produce all the unheard of wealth which makes the rest of the world envy us and as a natural result we are the biggest givers of charity and for the right reasons ever in history.” (01/31/10) Link: http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle555-20100131-06.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Cato Institute Author: John Samples Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “In recent months, the most influential political party in the country may not be the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, but the Tea Party. This murky, largely leaderless grassroots movement has been the driving force behind the derailment of President Barack Obama’s dearest agenda items, notably health care reform and climate change legislation. What are the goals of this movement? In part, that is the wrong question. The Tea Party effort rejects the notion that a politician or a pundit should define their movement. Rather, citizens themselves will tell us what the movement means.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11198 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Reason Author: Veroninque de Rugy Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Given his firm grasp of the consequences of the situation, you would have thought that the president would cut government spending and try to reduce the deficit. Sadly, the table below shows that you’d be wrong. Indeed, contrary to the promises Obama made last year, the deficit grew by over 10 percent between FY2009 and FY2010. And spending, which was projected to go down in FY2010 to $3,552 billion from its $3,938 billion FY2009 level, will actually climb by an estimated 6 percent. In total dollars, the deficit for FY2010 is projected by the government to reach $1.56 billion (last year, Obama projected it would be $1,171 billion).” Link: http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/04/all-the-presidents-budget-assu Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: AlterNet Author: Janine Wedel Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “This new breed of players is the product of an unprecedented confluence of four transformational developments that arose in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: the redesign of governing, spawned by the rising tide of government outsourcing and deregulation under a ‘neoliberal’ regime, and the rise of executive power; the end of the Cold War — of relations dominated by two competing alliances — which intensified the first development and created new, sparsely governed, arenas; the advent of evermore complex technologies, especially information and communication technologies; and the embrace of ‘truthiness,’ which allows people to play with how they present themselves to the world, regardless of fact or track record.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ylmayb7 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Disloyal Opposition Author: JD Tuccille Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “I’ve never understood the urge that some people have to ‘register’ allegedly dangerous objects, substances or creatures with the government. Fans of registration act shocked that anybody could object — after all, we get to keep our dogs, guns, cars and what have you — without acknowledging that their preferred policies fail to minimize the supposed risks of whatever they’ve targeted while maximizing the dangers inherent in forcing public interaction with law-enforcement. Take the case of Joe Fiorito. He’s a columnist for the Toronto Star and a citizen of the land up north where ownership of anything that goes ‘BANG’ is tightly regulated by the government. A generally reliable fan of the expansive state, Fiorito has acquired a new-found skepticism toward gun registration after a recent run-in with the law.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/y9ldu7o Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: TCS Daily Author: Bill Costello Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “While researching education systems in Asia, I had the opportunity to visit schools and universities in China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan. What I observed was a scarcity of creative thinking. While students in those education systems achieve some of the highest scores in the world in math and science, they have problems when it comes to ‘thinking outside the box.’ This is problematic for the future of these Asian nations because creativity is increasingly becoming one of the most important skills in the global marketplace according to several distinguished authors.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=020310A Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Mother Jones Author: Kate Sheppard Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “After [the CPS/NRG reactor project] debacle, one would think the government would be wary about underwriting projects with such dicey finances. Yet the Obama administration’s 2001 budget proposes tripling the loan guarantee program — from the $18.5 billion that Congress has already approved to $54.5 billion. The program’s expansion is just one of several signs that the Obama administration is throwing its muscle behind the nuclear industry’s push for a massive expansion.” (02/04/10) Link: http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/02/obamas-nuclear-giveaway Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Classically Liberal Author: CLS Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The beware-of-warming crowd is starting to feel the heat. And it isn’t because of a warming planet either. It almost seems as if everything that could go wrong for them, is going wrong.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhod648 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: WendyMcElroy.Com Author: Wendy McElroy Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Conspiracy theories abound in the U.S. about everything from who killed JFK to America’s alleged involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Most of us, while we may not agree with them, tolerate them nonetheless. That’s what freedom of speech is all about. Unless, of course, you are Obama Administration Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.3057 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Salon Author: Glenn Greenwald Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “[T]he U.S. Government — like all governments — has a long history of viewing ‘free speech’ as a violent threat or even Terrorism. That’s why this is exactly the type of question that is typically — and is intended to be — resolved by courts, according the citizen due process, not by the President acting alone. That’s especially true if the death penalty is to be imposed. But Obama’s presidential assassination policy completely short-circuits that process. It literally makes Barack Obama the judge, jury and executioner even of American citizens.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yac6bzf Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Partial Observer Author: James Leroy Wilson Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “What is truly remarkable about the Constitutional system of government in the U.S. is that, of all nations, it is the best adapted to a multi-party system. Parliamentary forms of government usually have multiple parties leading to fragile coalition governments and frequent elections. The U.S.’s independent executive in the Presidency, and the fixed election cycle, guarantees some continuity. But will new parties arise? Only if there’s greater commitment by the people to break up the two-party monopoly. Which is unlikely.” (02/04/10) Link: http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3407 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The New Republic Author: John B. Judis Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Here is a fact: Barack Obama has trouble generating enthusiasm among white working class voters. That’s not because they are white. He would have had trouble winning support among black working class voters if they had been unable to identify with him because he was black. He has trouble with working class voters because he appears to them as coming from a different world, a different realm of experience, a different class, if you like. And that’s because he does.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/hes-yuppie Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Adam Smith Institute Author: Amy Dicketts Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Nor, is there such a thing as a free degree. From the moment that government started subsidizing higher education, it has been those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale who pay without benefiting. Although many make the case that poorer people can’t afford a place at university under the current system, they seem to overlook the other ways in which university could be paid for. To answer this question we need only look overseas.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/education/still-no-free-lunch/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The American Spectator Author: W. James Antle III Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “To win back the Senate, Republicans would have to run the table: capture all the at-risk Democratic seats while retaining all of their own. That’s a tall order. But in recent election cycles, Senate races have overwhelmingly favored one party over the other. In 2004, Colorado’s Ken Salazar was the only Democrat to win a competitive Senate race. Two years later, Tennessee’s Bob Corker was the only Republican to do so. Democrats effectively ran the table in 2008, falling short only in their reach states of Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky.” (02/04/10) Link: http://spectator.org/archives/2010/02/04/running-the-table Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Center for a Stateless Society Author: Kevin Carson Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “It’s misleading, in my opinion, to refer to the ‘unintended consequences’ of legislation. Most of the powers government exercises, and the bread and butter of its functionaries, are probably ‘unintended consequences’ of legislation. Despite the role that industry lobbyists play in drafting legislation, there are still probably a considerable number of idealistic Congresscritters and legislators who actually intend the legislation they churn out to achieve its publicly stated aims. These people may be statists, but they’re sincere; when they pass ‘A Bill to Do X,’ it’s because they want to do x. The problem is, such people are useful idiots for the interests that really benefit from the legislation. And from the standpoint of the latter, the ‘unintended consequences’ are the whole damn point of it. Functionally, unintended consequences are what legislation is really all about.” (02/03/10) Link: http://c4ss.org/content/1805 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Liberty Unbound Author: John Goodman Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Future World healthcare has three features that are often considered abhorrent in our own era: 1. Almost all rationing decisions are made by patients, based on their own preferences and their own financial resources. 2. Health insurers are completely free to price and manage risk in competition with one another. 3. The marketplace allocates healthcare resources almost everywhere. One way to describe Future World is to say that it gets the economics right. People choose what they want. And they pay for what they get. So Future World satisfies the economists’ desire to maximize utility, produce efficiently, avoid waste, and so forth. However, Future World faces a continuing moral dilemma.” (01/10) Link: http://libertyunbound.com/article.php?id=467 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Fr33 Agents Author: Ziggy Encaoua Posted on 02.04.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Back in May 2008 Owen, a guy who had been my best friend, committed suicide. A few months back Nick, somebody I had been friendly with also, took his own life. In less than two years I’ve lost two acquaintances, one of whom I was very close to. On both occasions, substance abuse was a contributing factor to them taking their own lives. However, I still oppose drug prohibition and the war on drugs. Oh, I’m sure the anti-drug zealots will snipe how it is I can take the stance I do when I know the damage drugs can do. It’s because there’s plenty of other stuff in this world of ours that can do damage and kill which isn’t prohibited. The bottom line is that my friends were adults and made their own choices.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.fr33agents.com/2144/owen-nick-me-drug-prohibition/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Independent Institute Author: Ivan Eland Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “President Obama has presented Congress with a spending request of $3.8 trillion for the next fiscal year in 2011, but with a third of it not paid for with taxes, thus resulting in a $1.3 trillion deficit (a whopping 8.3 percent of GDP). The small piece of good news is that this deficit is smaller as a portion of the nation’s economic output than this year’s gargantuan 10.6 percent for FY 2010 (that $1.6 trillion deficit is a post-World War II record). Budget deficits of this magnitude have occurred before, but only during cataclysmic wars — the Civil War and World Wars I and II. Contrary to the rhetoric of congressional Republicans, who are stridently criticizing Obama for his excessive spending, these budget deficits are largely the result of George W. Bush’s new entitlement program (Medicare prescription drug coverage), the usual Republican fake tax cuts (tax cuts without concomitant reductions in government spending), bank and insurance bailouts, and the conduct of two disastrous U.S. occupations of foreign countries. Of course, Obama is far from blameless.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2724 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Center for a Stateless Society Author: Thomas L. Knapp Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The conservative niche marketing device commonly known as ‘constitutionalism’ — a device which massages the libertarian impulse in a way that makes it an ideal fetish for ’smaller government’ types to wave at anarchists — boils down to the notion that government could be made to ‘work’ if only we herded it back into the corral of constitutional limitations. While that’s a very debatable notion, it’s one we don’t really have to reach, because the question it raises is answered in the negative at the word ‘if.’ Government can’t be herded back into the Constitutionally OK Corral. It trampled down that corral’s fences long ago; the corral no longer exists.” (02/03/10) Link: http://c4ss.org/content/1831 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: John Stossel's Take Author: John Stossel Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Phil Lumbang is an artist who creates charming drawings of bears, raccoons and other happy creatures; his work appealed to Amy Seidenwurm and Russell Bates. They commissioned Lumbang to paint a mural on the wall in front of their home. Everyone seems to love the mural; people stop to take pictures in front of it. Everyone was cool with it, it seems, except one neighbor who complained the mural made the street ’seem ghetto.’ You know where this is going …” (02/03/10) Link: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/02/03/the-aesthetics-police/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: Becky Akers Posted on 02.03.10 by R. Lee Wrights “The Census is indeed a mistake, not only in its concept but in the phrasing: given the latitude of ‘in such Manner as they shall by Law direct,’ it’s hard to argue that any question bureaucrats ask, whether via mail, phone, or personal visits, violates the Constitution once legislation authorizes it. Indeed, that document’s elasticity enables the Census Bureau to justify even its annual ’surveys’ by claiming they help with its gargantuan, decennial task.” (02/02/10) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=575 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Libertarian News Examiner Author: Garry Reed Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “So what will happen if California and Colorado and New York and every other state with fiscal afflictions get the increases they want? History tells us that in a year or so they will each spend 150% of their new taxes, face yet another fiscal emergency, and go looking for more things to tax. Giving more tax money to politicians is like giving a shot of Jose Cuervo to a stumbling blind slobbering drunk. They could tax everything in the country with a pulse and never have enough money.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yzh6ld5 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: AntiWar.Com Author: Philip Giraldi Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “On Christmas Eve I reported about a group of ‘Christian leaders’ who were calling on the US government to initiate harsh sanctions against Iran. Their lobbying contributed to an overwhelming House of Representatives vote (412-12) in support of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which seeks to cut off Tehran’s importation of refined petroleum products, amounting to 40% of its energy needs, and bring the country’s economy to its knees. The supporters of the House resolution believe that pressuring Iran in that fashion will somehow convince its government to alter its nuclear energy policy.” (02/04/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/y9plxnq Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: LewRockwell.Com Author: Brian Stanley Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “In the 1868 case of Texas v. White, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700, a case dealing with the title to some U.S. bonds, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas’, and hence the South’s, attempted secession in 1861 was unconstitutional. But the opinion also contained some wording that might give secessionists a way around White.” (02/04/10) Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/stanley-b1.1.1.html Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Last Free Voice Author: Rhys M. Blavier Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Ballot access is a major goal of the Libertarian Party, so much so that we seem to be more concerned with keeping or gaining ballot access for whatever election is next rather than with any Libertarian actually winning in whatever election is before us today. Ballot access seems to have become that tail that wags the dog in third-party politics. Yes, it is important to have our candidates on ballots, but doing that should not come at the cost of using our resources, time and efforts to actually get Libertarians elected to higher offices than city councils, county commissioners and Justices of the Peace.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/y8cvemh Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Orange Punch Author: Mark Landsbaum Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Up to now the government has used computer modeling to estimate greenhouse gas emissions in California. We know how well those things work. So far they have failed to predict the flatline or declining temperatures for the past decade. These snooping devices ‘will be to see if actual concentrations of methane match those estimates,’ says the Times. Incidentally, why do you think they want to know? Idle curiousity? Scientific knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Not quite. They want to force everyone to ‘comply,’ which is the government’s word for it, not ours.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ya9bpuj Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Robert Farley Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “On Monday, the Obama administration released a pair of critical documents indicating the path it intends to take on military and defense issues. One of these documents was the budget for fiscal year 2011, which calls for an increase in defense spending as well as the restructuring of a couple of major weapons programs. The other document was the Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR. Every four years, the Department of Defense reports to Congress on its long-term strategic and procurement plans. The QDR gives the White House the opportunity to both lay the tracks of future equipment procurement and to make a statement about its strategic orientation.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=an_end_to_the_long_war Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: Walter Rodgers Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Americans with no experience deceive themselves about torture. A friend told me that when the US tortured people it was somehow more humane. But talk to torture victims at the annual gathering of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) and they tell you that torture, whatever its guise, is always immoral.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yehv7hq Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Robert Scheer Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Finally President Barack Obama has come to his senses on financial regulation. His endorsement of what he calls the ‘Volcker Rule’ for once puts him squarely on the side of ordinary Americans as opposed to the banking bandits who have so thoroughly fleeced the public. The proposal from former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker basically involves restoring the spirit, if not the letter, of the 1930s Glass-Steagall banking regulations to prevent another Great Depression. It means separating the activities of commercial banks, entrusted with the deposits of ordinary folks, from the antics of the financial high rollers who are presumably dealing with wealthier and more knowledgeable investors.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100215/scheer Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Libertarian Enterprise Author: Russell D. Longcore Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Economic collapse in the United States is inevitable. But because the dollar is currently the world’s reserve currency, when the US gets sick, so will the rest of the world. Tragically, the worst of the consequences for regular people will happen here in America.” (01/31/10) Link: http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle555-20100131-05.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: CounterPunch Author: Paul Craig Roberts Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Is the financial crisis over? Is the recovery for real and, if not, what are Americans’ prospects? The short answer is that the financial crisis is not over, the recovery is not real, and the U.S. faces a far worse crisis than the financial one.” (02/03/10) Link: http://counterpunch.org/roberts02032010.html Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: P2P Foundation Author: Kevin Carson Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “What’s variously called the ‘cognitive capitalism’ model, or Paul Romer’s New Growth Theory, assumes that technological progress and increased efficiency will lead to ‘economic growth’ in the sense of the total volume of monetized economic activity. But this presumes the use of ‘intellectual property’ and other forms of artificial scarcity to capitalize efficiency improvements as a source of rents, rather than allowing market competition to pass reduced costs on to the consumer in the form of lower prices. But similar assumptions are found, in a weaker form, even among people who aren’t exactly friends of the proprietary content industries.” (02/02/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yfknjob Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Fr33 Agents Author: Surrealpolichick Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “I appreciate that ending Prohibition is not everyone’s cuppa, and some local activists may be hesitant to support this issue. To them, I say, Big Mike’s act of civil disobedience — smoking a joint in public — is not what he was arrested for, he was arrested for touching a tax-feeder. He is a political prisoner. He is a poster child for abuse of power. Your support would be against the system itself, against their incessant bullying. They arrest and terrorize peaceful people for victimless crimes because they can. Because we let them.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.fr33agents.com/2158/are-you-willing-to-get-arrested/ Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Liberty Unbound Author: Randal O'Toole Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “As many supporters of the free market have observed, the mainstream environmental movement firmly supports big government. Yet this wasn’t always true, and it is conceivable that it won’t always be true in the future. I worked as a free-market environmentalist within the environmental movement for many years, and I still have many friends within the movement who support free-market ideas. I’ve found that the environmental movement is really many different movements, although they mostly fall into two categories. My friend John Baden likes to call them ‘romance and sludge.’” (01/10) Link: http://libertyunbound.com/article.php?id=466 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Center for a Stateless Society Author: Darian Worden Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The US Navy is being sued by more than 7,000 residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The island contains a former bombing range where immense amounts of toxic chemicals have been released into the environment. … The government’s response to the lawsuit rests on ;sovereign immunity,’ a doctrine holding that peons may not sue the king. They will try to hide the harm they’ve done and go on poisoning humans.” (02/03/10) Link: http://c4ss.org/content/1835 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: SM Oliva Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “So it’s now illegal to simply refuse to sign a contract, because the buyer’s ‘need’ for a service outweighs the seller’s right to control the disposition of their own labor. Remember, it’s not illegal for a federally-recognized labor union to coerce [sic] its members to work (or strike) under certain conditions, but it is illegal for a purely voluntary group to act out of shared self-interest. But the main lesson here is that the FTC considers Medicare-based rates to be ‘market’ prices — and any price level above such rates is presumptively anti-competitive.” (02/02/10) Link: http://blog.mises.org/archives/011598.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Freedom's Phoenix Author: Jeff Clark Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Adjusted for inflation, gold’s peak at $850 in 1980 would equal about $2,300 today, more than double its current price. Guaranteed? Of course not. Where would I find a guaranteed investment? But I’ll put the 5,000-year history of gold ahead of anything that is touted as ‘guaranteed’ in the popular press.” (02/02/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ydehhpz Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Adam Smith Institute Author: Dr. Madsen Pirie Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “I was live on CNBC when the 50 percent top tax rate was announced. Asked for an immediate reaction, I predicted emphatically that the new would raise less money, not more. Now The Times reports that the Treasury has ’significantly reduced’ (as Lord Myners puts it) its estimate of the revenue to be yielded. The increase, which publicly broke Labour’s solemn manifesto pledge not to raise tax rates, has led people to shelter income.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ycw6xpt Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The American Spectator Author: William Tucker Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “[T]hrough the magic of federal mortgage guarantees, the U.S. taxpayer will soon be shouldering the burden of subsidizing 25,000 regulated tenants in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, a city-within-a-city on the East Side of Manhattan that is New York’s biggest housing complex. Tishman Speyer Properties, one of the world’s largest real estate companies, inauspiciously bought the property in 2006, confident it could drive a wedge into New York rent regulations. It was the biggest real estate deal in American history. Four years later, it has discovered what every Polish-speaking landlord-janitor living in his basement apartment has known for decades — in New York the rent-controlled tenant always wins.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yba2p8o Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: A Passion for Liberty Author: Tibor R. Machan Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Actually, no one thinks corporations are persons but some do believe they are groups of persons. No one thinks orchestras, or football teams or universities are persons but many do think they are variously configured people. If this is so, then they, as groups of persons, have rights, including the right to private property and freedom of speech. When people come together for some common purpose, they do not lose their basic human rights. So all the hollering about how the recent Supreme Court ruling about whether corporations have the right to engage in political advocacy, based on the allegation that corporations aren’t persons, is off base.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yf9ykt6 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The New Republic Author: Abbas Milani Posted on 02.03.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Is the Green Movement finished? That is what the Iranian government wants the world to believe. And it has recently been trumpeting a few pieces of evidence to make its case. First came a statement by Mir Hossein Mousavi on New Year’s Eve, which offered five conditions for ending the current impasse. But because it did not directly repeat Mousavi’s oft-quoted notion that the June elections were rigged, Kayhan and Rajanews — the two news outlets closest to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad — tried to claim the statement as a major victory for the regime.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.tnr.com/article/world/green-energy Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Larken Rose Posted on 02.03.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Despite all the lovey-dovey rhetoric about the supposed greatness of ‘democracy,’ there’s only one thing its proponents want it for: to get moral permission to force their preferences, opinions and ideas on other people. People vote, hoping ‘their guy’ will win. Why? So their own interests and agenda, and not the interests and agenda of the people who voted for ‘the other guy,’ will be served by the machine of ‘government.’” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3767 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: Brian Foglia Posted on 02.03.10 by R. Lee Wrights “We live in an age rife with oppression. No group of Americans is better aware of this than our nation’s youth. Young people today will most likely become the first generation in US history not to surpass their parents’ living standards. Consider the increasing proportion of young adults who are choosing to either remain living with their parents, or move back in with them.” (02/03/10) Link: http://mises.org/daily/4040 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Heartland Institute Author: Steve Stanek Posted on 02.03.10 by R. Lee Wrights “President Barack Obama was correct last week when he said, ‘There is no reason why other countries can build high-speed rail lines and we can’t.’ We can do what other countries have done to build high-speed rail. And like those other countries, we would lose huge piles of money doing it.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhevgdd Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 02.03.10 by R. Lee Wrights “You see, in the eyes of the U.S. Empire and mainstream reporters, it is considered ‘muscular’ — as in flexing one’s muscles — as in getting too uppity or big for one’s britches — to fail to go along with official U.S. imperial policy. Never mind that Chinese officials might think that imposing sanctions on Iran might be immoral, especially when sanctions are causing plane crashes that are killing crews and passengers.” (02/03/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-02-03.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: FreedomWorks Author: Julie Borowski Posted on 02.03.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Proponents of net neutrality often claim that they want to keep the internet open and neutral — some even refer to it as ‘Internet freedom.’ Yet, in reality, net neutrality regulations would involve significant new controls on the internet that would have significant implications for investing in innovation and broadband deployment. Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem, with no evidence that broadband providers are restricting any Internet users access to websites on the Internet.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ykf5lud Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Foundation for Economic Education Author: William L. Anderson Posted on 02.03.10 by R. Lee Wrights “I guess now I’ve seen it all. President Obama plans to bring the heavy hand of the Entity Formerly Known as the U.S. Department of Justice into the college football mix. Egged on by Sen. Orrin Hatch, Obama promises to see whether the Bowl Championship Series that determines the Division-I football national champions each year is, well, legal.” (02/03/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/ybn3nmu Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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