National ID cards have been atop the command-and-control political wish list for decades. In the 1990s, Republican Congresses shot down efforts to move toward national identification cards. However, after 9/11, “everything changed” and politicians seized the chance to unleash far more snooping and create potentially hundreds of millions of dossiers on American citizens. Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005 as part of an enormous piece of legislation dealing with military appropriations and...

Dear Portlandia progressives: a federal government big enough to take care of you is a federal government big enough to "take care of you." Scary unidentifiable police, federal black sites, and procedureless snatching of individuals from the streets are the wholly predictable and natural consequences of the very policies you advocated for decades. Why do you imagine a big government with lots of power will restrict itself to the cozy "social issues" and economic takings you support? Government...

Motorcycle accidents ruled Covid deaths? In the rush to paint Florida as the epicenter of the “second wave” of the coronavirus outbreak, government officials and their allies in the mainstream media have stooped to ridiculous depths to maximize the death count. A television station this weekend looked into two highly unusual Covid deaths among victims in their 20s, and when they asked about co-morbidities they were told one victim had none, because his Covid death came in the form of a fatal...

Panicked by fears manufactured by the ruling class, the American people assented to being put essentially under house arrest until further notice, effectively suspending the habits, preferences, and liberties that had defined our way of life. Most Americans have suffered economic damage. Many who do not enjoy protected status have had careers ended and been reduced to penury. Social strains and suicides multiplied. Forcibly deferring all manner of medical care is sure to impose needless...

A woman in Kentucky, Elizabeth Linscott, who tested positive for COVID-19 has been ordered by local health department authorities to stay at home — ordered, and then when she balked, slapped with court papers and shackled around the ankle with a monitor that basically sounds an alarm if she leaves her residence. Linscott’s husband, Isaiah, received the same treatment. It’s happening, America. Wake up and smell the contact tracing — the “new normal” that allows government to knock on doors and...

When two countries who are supposed to be military allies fall out and almost get themselves into a shooting match, you know there’s going to be trouble ahead. The problem for NATO is, this time, it may prove terminal. For a story that involves high seas skullduggery, clandestine gun-running, a punch up between people who are supposed to be friends, and an incident that could be fatal for the world’s biggest military alliance, this one started mundanely enough. Back on June 7, 2020, a...

When it comes to the topic of clown cars, we’d say Dr. Fauci gets a limo version all to himself. Yesterday he uttered the following incoherent babble, saying the recent surge in new cases is because the Virus Patrol didn’t go far enough in throwing 50 million Americans out of work: 'We did not shut down entirely,' Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said. 'We need to draw back a few yards and say, "OK, we can’t stay shut down forever." …You’ve got to...

Last month, I wrote a piece here condemning the Trump administration for refusing to disclose the beneficiaries of bailouts authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). The following day, the Trump administration reversed course and promised to reveal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan recipients.  On July 2, Trump proclaimed that PPP is “saving and supporting the jobs of tens of millions of American workers” and the program “has been a tremendous...

Imagine an articulate chief lemming bragging that not only had his followers jumped off a cliff, but that they had done so in far greater numbers than any other slice of the rodents. This is the position occupied by the US regarding testing for COVID-19.We’ve done more testing than any other country and bragged a lot about doing so; but no one seems to have survived to give a proper interpretation of the results. To begin with, the tests currently in use do not test for the entire virus,...

Throughout the Trump years, various reporters have presented to great fanfare one dubious, thinly sourced story after another about Moscow’s supposedly nefarious plots against the United States. The unsupported allegations about an illegal collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government spawned a host of subsidiary charges that proved to be bogus. Yet, prominent news outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC ran stories featuring such...

For many weeks, there has been an incessant drumbeat of articles with titles touting the "the failure of the country's no-lockdown coronavirus strategy," that "Sweden Has Become the World's Cautionary Tale," and "How Sweden Screwed Up." It is common to read articles stating that Sweden has one of the world's worst death rates for COVID-19. This, however, remains a matter of perspective. Sweden's total deaths per million in population as of July 14 is 549. That's considerably lower than the...

“If we confuse dissent with disloyalty—if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox—if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and...

As part of its continued “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, the Trump administration is pushing to extend a UN arms embargo on the Islamic Republic that is set to expire in October. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently presented the UN Security Council with a list of grievances against Iran, a list full of unsubstantiated claims and half-truths. And like most things Washington accuses Tehran of, the US and its allies in the region are guilty of similar or worse offenses. The arms...

Make no mistake about it: no matter what your take on the coronavirus pandemic, most people seem to understand that the media is likely making the situation out to be far more dire than it is. And why wouldn't they - most media outlets spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of live coverage looking for anything possible to undermine the Trump administration. As it relates to coronavirus, the media rarely ever offers details when it touts awful sounding things like the "death count". MSM outlets...