Self-defense is upheld, but control advocates aren’t done by a long shot.
By Brian Doherty
June 27, 2008
The Supreme Court’s decision in the District of Columbia vs. Heller case settles a long, heated debate, finding the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to own weapons for self-defense — not merely a right related to membership in a [...]

Semiautomatics banned
Gary Emerling
Saturday, June 28, 2008
The Supreme Court decision overturning the District’s handgun ban won’t trigger an open season for guns, Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said Friday, because D.C. law still bans all semiautomatic weapons — such as the common 9 mm pistols used by police and the military.

By Michael Doyle
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s landmark decision Thursday striking down the District of Columbia’s gun ban will have wide-ranging legal, political and public safety consequences.
There will be more lawsuits, probably lots of them. Some guns laws will survive, while others will fall. The decision will help showcase the Supreme Court as [...]

NH Executive Council
I’ve been asked to pipe in on the issue of gun control, no doubt, due to the fact the Supreme Court is reviewing yet another law effecting the People’s ‘Right’ to keep and bear arms.

(This AIN’T Over, Kiddies…Keep Your Eyes Open…)
WASHINGTON - Silent on central questions of gun control for two centuries, the Supreme Court found its voice Thursday in a decision affirming the right to have guns for self-defense in the home and addressing a constitutional riddle almost as old as the republic over what it means to [...]

June 26, 2008
(Washington, DC) — Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles and Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier announced their disappointment in today’s ruling of the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Court ruled that District of Columbia statutes banning private handgun possession at home and [...]

Bill Bonner
Americans are on the losing end of the “biggest transfer of wealth in history,”
“Terrorism will be reduced…weapons of mass murder will be limited, people will be safer around the world, human rights and democracy will be unleashed in the Middle East, and the fragile outlook for world prosperity will be improved… The uncertainty [...]

By Scott Lanman
June 26 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve is sounding the alarm on inflation without committing to raise interest rates.
The Federal Open Market Committee left its benchmark rate at 2 percent yesterday and said “upside risks” to prices have picked up. The statement also said consumer spending is “firming,” while acknowledging that [...]

By Rich Miller
June 26 (Bloomberg) — Most Americans say they are feeling the pain from rising gasoline prices and many are tightening their belts in response, a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times survey shows.
“It costs me double to fill up the tank,” says J.L. Harder, a 75-year-old retiree and poll respondent in Peoria, Texas. “We [...]

In short: No.
Justin Raimondo
The idea that warfare helps the economy is a prime example of Bizarro logic, which has pervaded our collective consciousness since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ideological fallout from the explosion of national hysteria that followed. In Bizarro World, as we all know, the laws of nature and logic are inverted, so [...]

by Butler Shaffer
Chance is a word devoid of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
~ Voltaire
Whenever regulatory schemes of the state go awry, urgent campaigns are undertaken to find scapegoats upon whom to unload explanations for the ensuing failures. We saw this in the so-called “savings and loan scandals,” when governmental restrictions on the industry [...]

by Don Bacon
threat: an expression of intention to inflict evil, injury, or damage
from “threat central” – the White House:
There are five Threat Conditions, each identified by a description and corresponding color. From lowest to highest, the levels and colors are:

William N. Grigg
Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen. —
Nietzsche
Terror must be maintained, or the Empire is doomed. It is the logic of history. –
Wise Fictional Character to be named later*
Couldn’t the county simply have paid him for the damage to his well?

By Thomas Black
June 25 (Bloomberg) — More than a century and a half after Mexico lost Texas to the U.S., Virgilio Garza wants a piece of it back.
A “Texas for Sale” sign and cowgirls in boots and white hats greeted Garza at the Convex center in Monterrey, Mexico, earlier this month. A Monterrey [...]

By Michael Cutler
June 26, 2008
The news article “Man accused in border agent’s death said freed in Mexico” provides graphic evidence of why it is all but impossible for the United States to enter into a working relationship with the officials of the Mexican government.

‘It Is Clear Most People Regard This as a Serious Privacy Invasion’
By JOSH GERSTEIN
June 26, 2008
Americans coming home from business trips or vacations abroad are unwittingly offering the federal government a valuable souvenir: a copy of all the data on their laptops, digital cameras, and cell phones.

Wednesday, Jun. 25, 2008
On March 4, three Midwestern University professors wrote to warn the Army Corps of Engineers that its concrete navigation structures in the Mississippi River were intensifying floods, and that its plans to build more wingdikes and weirs would “exacerbate a severe and growing problem.” They called some of the structures — designed [...]

By Rand Clifford
6/25/08
Bodies of evidence by the millions make the dumbing-down of Americans the most successful federal program of all time…. Not that a great challenge has been surmounted, nor much of a fight put up, nor any bounds of day-to-day comfort grossly exceeded; insidious is the motif. With shrewd play on human emotion—especially and [...]

By Robert Spencer
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The war against free speech is advancing rapidly: Associated Press reported Thursday that “Muslim countries have won a battle to prevent Islam from being criticised during debates by the UN Human Rights Council.” Council President Doru-Romulus Costea explained that religious issues can be “very complex, very sensitive and very [...]

A trial is raising questions about the balance between free speech and tolerance.
Mark Steyn, my friend, colleague and arguably the most talented political writer working today, is on trial for thought crimes.
Steyn — a one-man media empire based in New Hampshire — was published a few years ago in Maclean’s. Now the magazine and [...]

By Terence P. Jeffrey
June 25, 2008
One of the most dramatic changes in American life in the years since World War II involves the way we raise our children.
We used to do it ourselves. Now, convinced we have better things to do, many of us leave the job to others.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
25/06/2007
The Bank for International Settlements, the world’s most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood.

Frustration rises, officials caught off-guard as thousands turn out for flood assistance
By ANNYSA JOHNSON, LINDA SPICE and GREG J. BOROWSKI
The chaos that erupted outside Milwaukee County’s main welfare office Monday over disaster-related food aid had more to do with a weak economy and crushing poverty in parts of this community than the devastating floods that [...]

American Express Says Late Card Payments Increasing (Update1)
By Erik Holm
June 25 (Bloomberg) — American Express Co., the biggest U.S. credit-card company by purchases and cash advances, said customers are falling further behind on their debt, signaling the economy is worsening.

NJ Salutatorian has critical speech cut off
A student intending to make a speech at her high school graduation criticizing school administrators was cut off in mid-sentence and told she had to leave the ceremony.
Jennifer Chau, the salutatorian at Mainland Regional High School, started to criticize school administration Thursday night for allegedly playing favorites among [...]

By: Michael_Swanson
Jun 24, 2008
It has been almost ten full months now since the Fed first lowered interest rates. If you remember at first there was a lot excitement over the Fed cuts. The DOW and Nasdaq rallied to new 52-week highs a few weeks after the first rate cut in September. The rally and [...]

By The Mogambo Guru
Jun 26, 2008
Goldnews.Bullionvault.com notes that Henry Hazlitt, economist extraordinaire and erstwhile Newsweek and New York Times editor, categorically stated that “The word ‘inflation’ originally applied solely to the quantity of money. It meant that the volume of money was inflated, blown up, overextended.”

Adam B. Ellick
June 25, 2008
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico: When George Terrazas was mugged at gunpoint in this Mexican border city several months ago, he vowed never to return.
That, however, was before gasoline hit $4 a gallon in his hometown, El Paso, just across the border.

By Bob Ivry and David Mildenberg
June 25 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp.’s $3 billion takeover of Countrywide Financial Corp. will be financed by 138 million tax-paying Americans.
Bank of America, led by Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis, can use tax write-offs to pay for Countrywide, the country’s biggest mortgage lender, said Robert Willens, [...]

by Ron Paul
Statement on HR 6304, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments before the US House of Representatives, June 20, 2008
Mr. Speaker, I regret that due to the unexpected last-minute appearance of this measure on the legislative calendar this week, a prior commitment has prevented me from voting on the FISA amendments. I have [...]

by Gary North
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly (Proverbs 26:11).
We are about to be thrown back into the tender mercies of Keynesian economists. In the current setting, this will push the economy lower rather than higher.

by William S. Lind
A person my age has watched many things decline in America, and few get better. As one of my neighbors says, everything good is gone or going. In that category we must now include good reporting. When I started work in Washington in 1973, it was axiomatic that a newspaper reporter talked [...]

By James P. Tucker Jr.
Powerful world leaders ran like dogs to the whistle to champion Bilderberg’s decree (AFP June 23, 2008) to put a lid on surging oil prices. Meanwhile, Bilderberg’s world government project suffered another severe setback when Irish voters killed the latest version of the European Constitution.

Wed Jun 25, 2008
COSTA MESA, California (Reuters) - Only World War III would prompt Republican presidential candidate John McCain to bring back the military draft, McCain said on Tuesday.
Many Americans are fearful the U.S. government will be forced to reinstitute the draft given the prolonged Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Bush Administration Weighs Striking Iran’s Nuclear Complex, Which Could Trigger 3rd War In Region
June 24, 2008
Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say [...]

Administrator calls for language program amid soaring illegal immigration statistics
By Chelsea Schilling
June 24, 2008
Dissatisfied with teaching in Spanish 85 percent of the time, a North Carolina superintendent is pushing for a $10 million budget that includes a plan for a school where only Spanish is spoken.

Michael Mayo
The question isn’t whether a Pembroke Pines police officer was justified in fatally shooting Vincent Hodgkiss in his home early Thursday morning, or whether illegal drug activity was taking place there.
The real question is this: Was a paramilitary-style dawn raid the best way to go about serving a drug-related search warrant?

(”Nothing to see here…Move Along”…)
JAMIE KOMARNICKI
June 24, 2008
A man died in custody after he was tasered by police following a confrontation near Simcoe, Ont., yesterday morning.
Provincial police responded to a report of an “unwanted male” causing a disturbance near Fishers Glen Road in Norfolk County at about 10:30 a.m. yesterday.

By Scott Horton
Late last week, the House Democratic leadership (which is to say, Congressman Steny Hoyer) announced a “breakthrough” in discussions with the White House and the Republicans which would produce a “compromise” in the long fight over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I have taken several days to look over the legislation and have [...]

A controversial customs practice creates a legal backlash
By Alex Kingsbury
June 24, 2008
Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan’s luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or [...]

By Mark Gilbert
June 24 (Bloomberg) — Rising consumer prices will leave more U.S. consumers unable to pay their debts and may lead to a “financial tsunami,” according to Bennet Sedacca, president of money manager Atlantic Advisors LLC in Winter Park, Florida.

By Peter S. Goodman
June 24, 2008
ELIZABETH, Colorado: Suddenly, the economics of American suburban life are under assault as skyrocketing energy prices inflate the costs of reaching, heating and cooling homes on the outer edges of metropolitan areas.

Robin Bromby | June 23, 2008
PERHAPS it is time to hoist the storm warning flags and, at the same time, take as calm a look as possible at what this might mean for resources portfolios.
What we’ve read in the past week suggests that, while companies producing oil and metals can continue to expect firm [...]

By Simon Denham
24/06/2008
So the US is getting hot and bothered once more about those nasty ‘speculators’ who are apparently driving up the price of oil. The Senate looks to be at odds on whether to pass some type of law restricting ‘non end user’ trading in commodities.

by Eric Margolis
PARIS – After a sea of lies and a tsunami of propaganda, the ugly truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars finally emerged into full view this week.
Four major western oil companies, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, BP and Total, are about to sign US-brokered no-bid contracts with the US-installed Baghdad regime to begin [...]

The US government is taking action against people involved in the sub-prime mortgage crisis that has infected the entire financial system and which threatens a recession.
By Stephen Foley
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
It’s that time of the boom-and-bust cycle when the Feds crack out the handcuffs.

by Darryl Schoon
Fiat money is an oxymoron. Traditionally, money has been both a storehouse of value and a medium of exchange. Fiat money exists by mimicking both; but when its ability to do so ends, fiat money exposed for what it is, reverts to what it is—government issued coupons with expiration dates printed in [...]

By Toby Harnden
24/06/2008
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush’s successor is sworn in.