March 2010

By Matt Cockerill at 4:52PM

Mar 31, 2010

Jane Hamsher, Adam Kokesh to be interviewed for YAL!

I am lucky to have two great guests lined up for a special doubleheader edition of the "The Matt Cockerill Show" on Saturday.

First, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake. Hamsher is a prominent voice in the progressive blogosphere who, like the principled Glenn Greenwald, has not kowtowed before any of President Obama's Bush-lite policies. In fact, she has gone so far as to compare his war escalation in Afghanistan to the War in Vietnam.* I'm hoping to get Hamsher, who has been very respectful to the Ron Paul movement (even attending the 2008 rally for the Republic), to try to help form a left-right coalition in opposition to the corporatism, aggressive war, and civil liberties incursions of the ruling Republicrat duopoly.

Second is Adam Kokesh, a well known activist in the peace and liberty movement. As most of you know, Adam is currently seeking the Republican nomination for US Congress in New Mexico's 3rd district and is an antiwar Marine Corps veteran of Iraq. YAL cannot endorse candidates for public office, so talk about the election will have to be dispassionate and informative. However, I plan on asking him some interesting personal questions.

Read more here

Posted in:

By Matt Cockerill at 4:50PM

Mar 31, 2010

Palmer on the Broken Window Fallacy

In a lucid explanation of the Frederic Bastiat's broken window fallacy, Cato's Tom Palmer explains why destruction of property and mass murder doesn't stimulate the economy, contra Keynesians like Paul "9/11 could do economic good" Krugman:

Posted in:

1 comment

By Matt Ciepielowski at 4:48PM

Mar 31, 2010

Prohibition through Taxation

Even as some pro-liberty activists push for marijuana legalization in California (Richard Lee, the sponsor of the ballot measure, even describes himself as a "Libertarian Republican") others are trying to use the referendum system to impose draconian taxes on alcohol. A proposed ballot measure would impose:

a 2700% increase in the excise tax for hard liquor (from $0.65 per 750 mL bottle to $17.57), a 5500% increase for beer (from $0.11 per six-pack to $6.08) and a whopping 12775% increase for wine (from $0.04 per 750 mL bottle to $5.11)

We'll probably see more and more sin taxes like these, on everything from tobacco to soda, as the government takes a bigger and bigger role in health care. Soon the state will be involving itself in everyone's unhealthy habits "for the greater good."

Posted in:

1 comment

By Adam Fowler at 2:23PM

Mar 31, 2010

Truth in Labeling?

According to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, it looks like just about anything can be deemed energy-efficient by the federal government these days. The GAO covertly submitted fake products to the Energy Star program to see if they would be approved. No surprise: Most of them were.

In total, 15 of the 20 dubious products submitted were awarded the certification. One product was actually a gas-powered alarm clock ... let the thought of that set in for a minute. Another was a feather duster attached to a space heater, dubbed a "room cleaner." One of the fake products was actually approved within 30 minutes of submission. Now, that's efficiency!

What's particularly troubling is that Americans are often incentivized through various subsidies and tax rebates by the federal government to purchase products with the Energy Star seal as a means of saving the environment and reducing energy costs -- much to the glee of the lobbyists for those producing such items. Americans could be nudged to actually purchase non-energy-efficient products.

So, not only can lobbyists for actual energy-efficient products use government to boost their sales, lobbyists for non-green products can as well. Everyone is on board this gravy train.

Read more here

Posted in:

By Barry Kuzay at 2:17PM

Mar 31, 2010

RE: Two Sides of the Same Card

Bonnie, you got me perusing that interesting website and I came across some more humorous political artwork, but this time in the form of crafts and sculptures! Take a look at the "Dick Cheney Shredding Secret Documents" snowglobe:

Cheney shredding documents

Other amusing, somewhat darkly humorous, items can be found here.

Posted in:

Add new comment

By Sam Swedberg at 2:16PM

Mar 31, 2010

Tax Day Ideas

Friends of YAL,

If you have any activism ideas in regards to Tax Day, please share them on the blog or send them into activism@yaliberty.org. Don't be shy; the more ideas we receive the better.

Here's my first idea. Think you can do better?

IRS THUGZ

IRS THUGGIN'

The IRS THUGZ will "make it rain" with the tax payer's money:

Members dress up as IRS agents
Buy a lot of fake money at a dollar store or some kind of thrift store
"Make it rain" with the money whenever you have a high amount of student traffic walking by
Play the "make it rain" song or some other thuggin' music
Signs and handouts about Gov't/IRS going wild with YOUR money

Posted in:

2 comments

By Shaun Bowen at 2:07PM

Mar 31, 2010

The New Cops: Interpol

Those who are concerned about national sovereignty: I hope you're sitting down. The agency known as Interpol now has jusidictional supremecy over any American law enforcement agency.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Interpol let me give a brief discription. Founded in 1923, Interpol was created to help facilitate law enforcement across international lines. So if a bank robber burrows a tunnel into a French bank and then flees to Sweden, Interpol will help facilitate cooperation between the two nations to bring these men to justice. The agency also acts as an international police force to enforce international law.

In 1983, then-President Reagan signed Executive Order 12425, which allowed Interpol to operate within American soil. However, the agency was bound to operate within the same constitutional limits as any other agency. This means that American operations were subject to FOIA requests, Miranda rights, and constituional protections that bind our law enforcement.

With Obama's recent amendment he has stripped Interpol of those constraints and has basically given them diplomatic immunity for operation.

Read more here

Posted in:

By Alex Kharam at 2:04PM

Mar 31, 2010

Is Obama's new student loans bill good for students?

Short answer is no. Let's analyze why.

The argument for the bill seems simple enough, right?

The Administration essentially wants to cut companies out of the game and run the system itself. Democrats claim the move will save $87 billion over 10 years, which can be used for a laundry list of education priorities, including increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grants, expanding Perkins Loans and investing in community colleges and other programs

But consider what increasing Pell Grants actually does. In a free market, colleges would only be able to set their prices so high before demand decreased because people would not be able to afford tuition. But when goverment starts giving out handouts for college, schools can jack up prices by the same amount. This results in perpetually rising tuition no matter the state of the economy -- and remember, not everyone gets a government handout, but they still have to pay the school they attend.

But don't take my word for it.

Read more here

Posted in:

By Bonnie Kristian at 9:52AM

Mar 31, 2010

Two Sides of the Same...Card?

This is a little late for the election, but that works out well since YAL doesn't support or oppose candidates. Click on the image for the source, but beware that some of the other works by the same artist are of a more scandalous nature.