In a recent speech to the Mortgage Bankers Association, Sen. Ben Sasse — a freshman Republican from Nebraska — jokingly accused his colleague Elizabeth Warren of wanting to remove all risk from the economy. Presumably he means that Warren wants to insulate ordinary people from risks like mortgages with unsustainable payments relative to their unexpectedly…

The U.S. government has charged into another civil war in the Middle East. When you find yourself repeatedly asking, “Will they ever learn?” the answer may be that the decision-makers have no incentive to do things differently. What looks like failure may be the intended outcome. Quagmires have their benefits — to the ruling elite…

With the second anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing upon us, NPR is running a series called “The Road Ahead”. In its daily segments, NPR examines how everyday lives have been affected by the horrific events two years ago. One unfortunate but seemingly inevitable part of that road entails law enforcement’s stepped-up abuses of its…

Right now the usual suspects are united in joy by Hillary Clinton’s official announcement of her candidacy for president (although anyone who seriously believed she was previously undecided on the issue probably also still believes in Santa Claus). By “usual suspects,” I mean self-styled “progressives” who think the Red/Blue divide reflects a serious disagreement in…

On April 12 at the Summit of the Americas, US president Barack Obama publicly spoke with Cuban president Raul Castro about ending the tension between the two countries. This marks the first time Cuba has participated in the summit and hopefully marks the beginning of freer exchange and travel between the two countries. Obama had…

The New York Times revealed April 7 (Bernice Dahn, “Yes, We Were Warned About Ebola“) that there was adequate prior warning of an Ebola outbreak in Liberia, but nobody drew the proper conclusion from the data and acted on it because the necessary information was all hidden behind academic journal paywalls. An article in Annals…

A recent story on the British elections reports on a letter warning voters that a Labour government would prove harmful to the country’s economic recovery. Endorsed by leaders in Britain’s business community and submitted to The Telegraph, the letter argues that the election of a Tory government would signal to the rest of the world…

A recent headline from The Week says “NSA: We were just about to stop spying on everyone before Snowden spoke out” (March 30, 2015). At first glance this may seem like a good imitation of an Onion headline but truth is stranger than fiction. The Associated Press tells us, “The proposal to kill the program…

California Governor Jerry Brown’s April 1 decree (Executive Order B-29-15) for rationing water has gotten lots of undeserved positive coverage on the center-left. If you read the fine print, it doesn’t actually reduce the state’s total usage by 25% (although that’s the impression you’d probably get just reading the headlines). It only applies to “potable…

On April 1st, Indiana Governor Mike Pence requested a revision of his state’s recent “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” which, potentially allows for-profit businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexuality. The law spurred widespread boycott campaigns and in which individuals, as well as, state and local governments refused to do business in Indiana. Corporations such…

Recent investigations by the Associated Press into the practices of Tennessee prosecutors during plea-deal negotiations have alerted Americans to one of their government’s most gruesome and supposedly forbidden traditions: forced prisoner sterilization. According to AP reporter Sheila Burke, a recent example of this practice involved a mentally ill Tennessee woman whose infant child died under…

I hear expressions like “I don’t see race” or “I’m color-blind” a lot from people who want to ignore the issues of structural power imbalance or privilege in race issues. The same people are fond of equating racism to simple bigotry; by this standard, white bigotry against blacks and black bigotry against whites are equally…

Usually when right-libertarians defend gentrification, they do so by framing it as an entirely spontaneous free market phenomenon, and minimizing or ignoring the state’s role in promoting it. That’s bad enough. But we don’t usually expect them to come out explicitly in favor of direct state intervention to evict poor people for the sake of…

After over two weeks in theaters, Disney’s live-action Cinderella is going strong. A true-blue rendition of a 65-year-old cartoon has reaped a follow-through to make modern rivals jealous. Its second week nearly upstaged The Divergent Series: Insurgent’s first. For many, Cinderella director Kenneth Branagh’s shift from filming unabridged Shakespeare to churning out blockbusters embodies Hollywood’s squandering of creative talent. Jacobin’s…

On March 23rd a Wall Street Journal piece appeared, alleging that an Obama administration official  accused Israeli intelligence of spying on close door nuclear talks between the US and Iran and leaking the details to congress. The claim was denied by both Israel and top ranking US Legislators. This comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin…

This election cycle’s crop of uninspiring presidential hopefuls, now including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, must be a relief to those favoring mass disillusionment with electoral politics. No candidate, Rand Paul included, represents a convincing alternative to the status quo. Contrast this with the current president, whose appeals to “hope” and “change” convinced many Americans of…

A story over at Estado de S. Paulo (“Brasil que se vire com arenas vazias, diz FIFA. ‘O problema é de vocês’”, Estadão Esportes, March 21) notes that FIFA isn’t at all interested in Brazil anymore, and that the useless stadiums the 2014 World Cup left us are not their problem and should be dealt…

Voltairine de Cleyre, the 19th and 20th century anarchist without adjectives, stated in her essay, “Anarchism and American Traditions” that, “…the nature of government is to become a thing apart, an institution existing for its own sake, preying upon the people, and teaching whatever will tend to keep it secure in its seat.” If the…

Ongoing Brazilian Federal Police investigations of construction companies involved in the billion-dollar Petrobras bribery scandal have predictably ruffled some feathers. Naturally, many who worry about the investigations wear white collars. However, according to the president of the Unified Workers Central (CUT) Vagner Freitas, if we put the suits behind bars, the biggest losers will be……

After the large scale protests throughout Brazil last Sunday, politicians, bureaucrats and the pro-government media are hurrying to talk about “political reform” as an answer to popular dissatisfaction — as opposed to the “coup-supporting” opposition who longs for president Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. Marcelo Zero, for instance, preaches the party line and states that “those who…