Thank goodness for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—the $57 billion per year super-agency created when the already bloated Department of Defense turned out to be incapable of defending even its own Pentagon headquarters. I mean, if it didn’t exist, how else could Americans learn that vats of boiling oil pose a danger? For...
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In the aftermath of the Solyndra cronyism debacle, the Los Angeles Times now reports that a no-bid contract was awarded last May to a firm controlled by a billionaire Obama supporter for the highly unlikely national security threat of a small pox attack: Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a...
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In the “everything old is new again” category, USA Today reports: Sixty-six former aides to lawmakers serving on a congressional panel charged with finding ways to slash the federal deficit have represented powerful defense and health care industries that face colossal cuts in government spending, a new analysis shows. Meanwhile, as the article also...
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The Fall 2011 issue of The Independent Review is hot off the press! We have posted selected articles and all book reviews online, as indicated below. This issue addresses a host of fascinating questions on topics as diverse as intellectual history, economic development, political theory, and government policy: Why do progressives and social democrats...
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After the Japanese government surrendered to the Americans and their allies in 1945, the U.S. military occupied the Japanese home islands and ruled the nation for several years. In due course, however, Japan’s situation was normalized, and, moreover, in 1946 the Japanese adopted a new constitution that renounced war as an instrument of national policy: CHAPTER...
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In a recently released report, the Commission on Wartime Contracting concludes that waste and fraud have consumed at least $31 billion and perhaps as much as $60 billion of the $190 billion or so that the U.S. government has expended in grants and contracts with private individuals and companies for work in Iraq and Afghanistan since fiscal 2002. According to...
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The U.S. stock market tanked on Monday in the aftermath of Standard & Poor’s lowering its long-term credit rating of the United States—itself a consequence of last week’s debt deal. Superficially, the deal seemed to be a “perfect” political compromise: it split the difference between the White House and congressional Republicans. To be more...
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The provision of justice and security has long been linked in most people’s minds to the state. But are the state’s monopolies on lawmaking and law enforcement really necessary? Those who say “yes” typically assume that any alternative arrangement for law and order would favor the rich at the expense of the poor—or would...
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If want to add your name to this distinguished list, which includes many people well known to libertarians (see below for the names), you have until Wednesday (5:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Eastern). Just send an email to Kevin Zeese at KBZeese@gmail.com and provide a brief descriptor of what you would like next to...
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It’s not a question of “If,” but “Which” union TSA employees will soon use as their armed representative against taxpayers and as protection against travelers who haven’t yet fully resigned themselves to treatment worthy of the Gestapo or KGB. From the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) “Welcome TSA Employees” web page urging TSA employees...
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