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Liberty and Power

  • Nov 17, 2010

    Scott Horton Hits the Big Time

    by Liberty and Power

    My good friend, Scott Horton, host of must-listen to daily show on the Liberty Radio Network, now has a weekly program on Pacifica Radio. His started off with a bang with Philip Giraldi on the alleged Iranian nuclear theat. Listen here.
  • Nov 15, 2010

    Election Day At The Bar With the New York Times

    by Liberty and Power

    I spent this just passed, most Historic of Elections as any right-minded citizen stranded in a democracy should – at my favorite dive bar, as apolitical a place you can hope for to take refuge from America’s favorite pagan ritual. While it’s a toss up whether or not my bar has been upgraded, maintained, or cleaned since her doors first opened, at no time have I ever seen the television move off a sports channel nor heard any patron discuss anything other than their team’s chance at a championshi
  • Nov 10, 2010

    Notes on Bernanke’s Apologia for QE2

    by Liberty and Power

    On November 4, an op-ed article written by Ben Bernanke, “What the Fed Did and Why: Supporting the Recovery and Sustaining Price Stability,” was published in the Washington Post. In this article, Bernanke presents an apologia for the Fed’s decision to undertake QE2, the purchase of $600 billion of longer-term U.S. government bonds during the next eight months. I reproduce the text of Bernanke’s art
  • Nov 8, 2010

    Election Day

    by Liberty and Power

    Light rain falls from the leaden skies
    As the slaves proceed to the hall.
    No light shines in their languid eyes.
    They mark their X, and that is all.

    They take their leave, having been polled.
    A sick one falls; they file past her.
    They can do no more: they’re controlled.
    But soon they’ll have a new master!

  • Nov 4, 2010

    A Homage To Counterfeiters Everywhere

    by Liberty and Power

    Forget mulling over the Republican gains or tomorrow's employment number - $600,000,000,000 is even now still a boatload of money and it makes me think of my dear, departed Uncle Louie. In his time (during the 1920s and 1930s) he was a rather well-known counterfeiter on the Lower East Side and kept my family in bread during some hard times and, it must be admitted, some rather not hard times. He was good at what he did, and enjoyed it.

    I remember stories told us by my Aunt Gurdy (Un
  • Nov 3, 2010

    Why Is Jonah Goldberg Still Considered Respectable?

    by Liberty and Power

    I glanced beyond my history books the other day and see America continues to surf a surging wave of insanity. This is no surprise and it’s bound to continue; the longer any people are at war the more the crazy that’s usually deep within comes rising to the surface, bloated, fish-eaten, yet lively. And now floats up a Mr. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of National Review Online and one of our country’s more prominent political commentators, his rational sense abandoned and a large part of what m
  • Nov 3, 2010

    U.S. “Intelligence” Spending: A Whale of a Bad Joke

    by Liberty and Power

    The government has announced that total spending on “intelligence activities” in fiscal year 2010 was $80.1 billion. According to a report in the Washington Post,
    The National Intelligence Program, run by the CIA and other agencies that report to the Director of National Intelligence, cost $53.1 billion in fiscal 2010, which ended Sept. 30, while the Military Intelligence Program co
  • Nov 1, 2010

    In Defense of the "Rich"

    by Liberty and Power

    With the mid-term elections having arrived, I would like to take a moment to defend the people among us, those designated as"rich", who seem to be considered less fellow citizens than sheep to be shorn. In the prevailing attitude towards those so designated, in the redistributionist policies promised by craven office seekers to the voting mob, we treat these people less as human beings than as lambs to be slaughtered for the gratification of our greed and envy. We need to take a moment and think
  • Nov 1, 2010

    Kosmos Interview on Effective Teaching

    by Liberty and Power

    Many of you are likely familiar with the new Kosmos networking site run by the Institute for Humane Studies. Chris Martin of IHS interviewed me recently, and we talked about being a good teacher and how that relates to classical liberalism and conveying good economics in the classroom.  It's audio only and about 40 minutes long.
  • Oct 31, 2010

    Jon Stewart is No Good Corporal

    by Liberty and Power

    After watching his interview with President Barak Obama and his rally on the National Mall it is clear to me that Jon Stewart is not the rabid leftist ideologue that some would have us believe. He does, however, share with most of the media and seemingly all politicians the pernicious habit of avoiding unpleasant subjects, no matter how important they are. When Stewart spoke with Obama he took his cue from practically every politician running for office this year and made no mention of our three
  • Oct 30, 2010

    Defense Secretary Gates Goes Begging

    by Liberty and Power

    Duke University is a top school and the students at such prestigious universities – the breeding ground for our next generation of leaders – do their damnedest to stay the hell out of America’s endless foreign adventures – exactly as did our current generation of leaders. Who can blame them? Apparently, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (who spent Vietnam stateside). With the military stretched a bit thin globally, Mr. Gates went begging and used a recent speech at Duke to try and drum up som
  • Oct 29, 2010

    Hamid “Bags O’ Money” Karzai

    by Liberty and Power

    In the perennial race to the bottom that is our endless War of Terror our man (sort of) in Afghanistan (that’s “President” Hamid Karzai) has admitted to his American sponsors that yes, yes he does receive bags of cash from his latest pals – the Iranians.

    “They do give us bags of money – yes, yes it is done”, says the man himself. While his American handlers reacted with shock, at least when the news camer