We Can't Hide from the National Security Agency | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary

We Can't Hide from the National Security Agency | Nat Hentoff | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'How many Americans know that as of September 2013, all of us engaged in any form of communication will be subject — with the approval of President Barack Obama and the silence of Congress — to continuous tracking and databasing by the National Security Agency?'

'I’ve already asked if any of you are at all worried about inexorably losing what’s left of your privacy outside of our rule of law. You won’t be able to go to a judge to get the government to justify how it now suspects you of being associated with an enemy of the U.S. or some other evildoer.

And where are the protests of those in Congress and around the country as James Bamford demonstrates that “there is no doubt that (the NSA) has transformed itself into the largest, most covert, and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created”?

There’s more: “For the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration, the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the U.S. and its citizens.”

We now live in a country — the former land of the free and the home of the brave — where the NSA “has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas.'

Why the Washington Post Is Wrong about Stand Your Ground Laws | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary

Why the Washington Post Is Wrong about Stand Your Ground Laws | Walter Olson | Cato Institute: Commentary: They represent not a rise in the rate at which some group is getting killed — as mentioned, homicide rates per capita in Florida are down from 2005, not up, and violent crime rates in the state are sharply down — but rather successful assertions of self-defense, in other words, a shift from one category of homicide to another. Of course the whole idea of the law was to make the self-defense justification more available where a homicide had occurred. Many casual Post readers will assume that dozens of persons a year now die in Florida who would have lived otherwise, but they will be wrong in that assumption.'

'Their opening paragraphs tell of a youth who innocently “knocked at the wrong door” and was greeted by an irate homeowner who, seemingly without reason or provocation, blasted him in the chest, only to be set free by the police, since in Florida, the victim’s father sorrowfully avers, it seems “the shooter’s word is the law.”'
'it was 4 a.m. and the youth, bipolar and “blitzed” on alcohol that night, was ignoring repeated pleas to leave a property with a young mother and baby inside; the husband/shooter (whom the Post never managed to reach for his side of the story) told police that he had asked his wife to call 911, which hadn’t shown up; that he had warned the intruder many times, and fired only after being “lurched” at; he was then arrested, “but Assistant State Attorney Manny Garcia concluded that his actions were ‘justified.’”'

A Consumerist, Not "All of the Above" Energy Policy | Robert L. Bradley Jr. | Cato Institute: Commentary

A Consumerist, Not "All of the Above" Energy Policy | Robert L. Bradley Jr. | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'A smarter approach would be to avoid playing favorites. No one in the energy market should be given preferential treatment. Unless the government has good reason to deny a new project, it should be approved and allowed to compete on the open market. Remove government to let customers and private investors decide what’s worth pursuing in energy subject, of course, to the hundreds of pages of existing regulation and protocol.'

President of the Twilight Zone | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

President of the Twilight Zone | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'For instance, the president denounces the Ryan budget as “thinly veiled Social Darwinism.” One would think that Social Darwinism would mean actually cutting the budget. But in reality, Ryan’s budget increases federal spending by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years.'

'The president suggests that this means that children could no longer go to college, the weather service would be abolished, and roads and bridges would crumble into dust. In reality, the largest gap between the president’s spending plans and Ryan’s would occur in 2016, when Ryan would spend $43 billion less on domestic discretionary programs than the president. That amounts to roughly 1.1 percent of projected total federal spending that year.'

'And, of course, what presidential speech would be complete without a denunciation of Ryan for wanting to “end Medicare as we know it.”'

'The president manages to leave out his own proposal for Medicare, which is to have an unelected 15-member board further reduce payments to physicians. Even Medicare’s own actuaries warn that those cutbacks could lead to hospital closures and reductions in access to care or the quality of care.'

'the president claims, “I’ve eliminated dozens of programs that weren’t working.” Well, maybe. But the total savings from those cuts amounts to less than $100 million. That’s million with an “M,” out of a $3.7 trillion budget. That’s trillion with a “T.”'

'Actually, the Buffett Rule would raise less than $3.2 billion per year on average according to the Congressional Budget Office, enough to pay for eight hours of federal spending. '