United Liberty

Contributor Jason Pye recently reported on the government report emanating from Missouri which labeled supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr as possible domestic terrorist suspects.  Because of the immense public outcry, the report has been rescinded and apologies issued.

From John Tate, Executive Director of the Campaign for Liberty-

Dear Friend of Liberty,

Although it sometimes seems that freedom is shrinking everywhere we turn, the fact is a powerful grassroots stand can still stop Big Government bureaucrats in their tracks.

It’s about two months in and far too early for a final analysis of Barack Obama’s presidency. Unsurprisingly, however, Ed Morrisey at Hot Air seems to view a recent article in the Economist arguing that Obama is providing insufficient leadership as warranting an obituary on the only two month old Obama administration.

On the main issue of the economy, Obama hasn’t parted the sea or transformed America into a land of gumdrops and lollipops equally shared amongst all citizens. That may prove a disappoint to some of his supporters.

Jim Harper at the Cato Institute thinks the transparency from the Obama Administration is a publicity stunt:

President Obama promised to make his administration the most open and transparent in history, and taking questions from the public kind of looks like that. But it also kind of looks like a gimmicky, canned publicity stunt, rather than true openness in government.

Real transparency would include fulfilling his campaign promise to post bills online for five days before signing them. The president has now signed 10 bills into law and not subjected any of them to that five-day public review.

From the New York Times:

As widely expected, former President George W. Bush, like many past occupants of the Oval Office, is writing a book. But rather than delivering a more traditional presidential memoir, Mr. Bush plans to explain 12 difficult personal and political decisions he has made.

Mr. Bush mentioned the book Tuesday in his first speech since leaving office, delivered in Calgary, Alberta. The book, tentatively titled “Decision Points,” is to be published in 2010 by Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House.

S.E. Cupp elaborates on the demise of the newspapers:

The death of newspapers will likely come when I can get up-to-the-second web content (from Politico.com, say) on an airplane — I know some carriers already have web access inflight, so this isn’t a far-off prospect. Having worked for newspapers in some form for a decade, it’s more than sad, it’s downright scary. “Small-town America” as we know it ceases to exist without viable and self-sustaining local newspapers, and real folks on the ground reporting on real issues of import to locals. With the government’s grabby fingers in our banks, our healthcare, our manufacturing, our schools, our energy production and our homes, who will be our watchdogs in places like Wichita and Tuscaloosa? Will MSNBC or The Huffington Post dispatch reporters to Greensboro to investigate reports of voter fraud or police corruption?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pushing a government run “option” in the Democrats healthcare plan and trying to fast track in through Congress:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House this year will consider health-care legislation including an option for a government-run program that would compete with insurers.

“This is a big agenda, and I believe it should have a public option in it for it to be really substantial,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference in the U.S. Capitol.

Yesterday President Obama laughed at those who have consistently been making it clear on change.org that they want him to address marijuana legalization.

Notice how he ‘answers’ the question by saying he does not think it is a good strategy for growing our economy. He does not say that it would cause too many social ills or it was addictive or any of the other mainstream reasons for keeping marijuana illegal. Instead he says that he does not think it is a good strategy for growing our economy.

I ♥ Robert Higgs because his book, Crisis and Leviathan, tells you more about the history (and future) of US foreign policy than Reagan’s favorite palm reader. I also ♥ the fact that he won’t stop reminding us about the value of his book. Writing for the History News Network the other day, Higgs minced no meat:

Attorney General Eric Holder made a speech commemorating Black History Month in which he made controversial remarks regarding the American discourse on race:

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we — I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month.

Several pundits have critcized Holder for those remarks, including, as CNN notes, the ever-rational Michelle Malkin: