Economist Anna Schwartz devoted ten years to gathering and analyzing the data that went into her book with Milton Friedman, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. It was the empirical rigor of that book that reminded economists and central bankers of a truth many of them had forgotten—namely, that excessive growth of...
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Many property owners came forward to tell their horror stories at the meeting the State Advisory Committee (which I chair) of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Something is rotten in the home of the modern civil rights movement. I’ll post photos later today (time permitting). Here is the story in the Montgomery Advertiser:...
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The Bush team said waterboarding was not a crime and was painless, but Reagan’s DOJ prosecuted a sheriff for using it to get confessions. This story also demonstrates the depravity of our justice system here at home.

The District Attorney of Contra Costa County, California—one of the wealthiest regions in the United States, with a median household income of $86,709—has announced that his office will no longer prosecute assaults, thefts, burglaries, felony drug cases, shoplifting, trespassing, and a host of other crimes, due to budget cuts. Needless to say, an uproar...
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NRO‘s “The Corner” has run my post on tomorrow’s meeting. If you value property rights, please come! Here is an excerpt: What is happening to property owners in Montgomery? Jimmy McCall would like to know. Last year, the city government went back on an agreement and used a “blight” law and demolished his house,...
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Statists across the spectrum are playing up the swine flu as more evidence that we need more state action and government power. Liberals see it as an excuse for more public health programs. Conservatives see it as a reason for clamping down on the border (not just conservatives — a Democratic Congresswoman has called...
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A few months back, Alex Tabarrok, the Independent Institute’s visionary Director of Research, spoke at TED on the prospects for long-run economic progress. His theme: ideas trump economic crises. (You can now see his talk online here.) The continuation of global economic integration, he explained, will bring more and more benefits to ordinary people...
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On Wednesday, Alabamans who have charged violations of their property rights by local governments can bring their complaints to a public forum in Montgomery sponsored by the State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In this story from the Tuscaloosa News, I provide some specifics on the people who will appear:...
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As more evidence of the bipartisan torture state, Nancy Pelosi denies having known about waterboarding, although she was briefed on such “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Finally some good news. The British are upset with the police state protection of the G-20 summit, and police there are worried about the public relations backlash. In America as well as Britain, the police have become increasingly criminal, lawless and brutal in their enforcement of an increasingly long list of immoral, unjust laws....
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