The Humble Libertarian original

Picture above is a common type of skin cancer (called basal cell carcinoma) that TSA agents in Boston may have contracted as a result of repeated exposure to the TSA's poorly-tested and controversial naked body scanners. TIME Magazine reports : Could radiation from full-body scanners be responsible for a "cancer cluster" among airport security workers? That's what Transportation Security Administration union representatives in Boston have claimed. Now, the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has obtained documents from the Department of Homeland Security, which EPIC says provide evidence that the government failed to properly test the safety of full-body scanners at airports, and dismissed concerns from airport agents about excessive exposure to the machines' radiation. The documents, which include emails, radiation test results and radiation studies, were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by EPIC and relea...

Video: June 29, 2011 State Rep. David Simpson, (R) Longview, delivers his "personal privilege" speech after the Texas House of Representatives fails to pass his anti-TSA groping bill. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

When I interviewed Ron Paul earlier this month for the June 5th money bomb, I asked him if it would be better to donate as much as we can upfront instead of holding back for future money bombs. While showing concern for the finances of his supporters, Ron Paul agreed that more money earlier on helps make headlines and lend credibility to his presidential campaign. Now as Ron Paul pushes for $5M by the end of this FEC fundraising quarter tonight at midnight (with less than a million left to go as of 6pm Eastern), he's making a stronger appeal on his campaign website , saying: "Right now, every dollar is worth as much as five dollars later on. This is a critical moment in our Revolution, and I hope you can contribute as you can before the deadline. -Ron Paul" So if you plan on holding back $100 for a future money bomb, if you can afford to do so right now in terms of your monthly finances, it'd be even better to give just $25 right now , today. Today The Daily Pa...

It's easy to get despondent when every time you turn around another insane idea is about to become policy and shove America and the rest of the world even further down the slippery slope to ruin. Don't! A couple Facebook friends of mine were recently agreeing in a comment thread that this country might be a lost cause, past the point of saving and inevitably headed toward its own destruction. It certainly feels that way sometimes and the day of reckoning for a century of bad policies is frighteningly near, but America is NOT a lost cause yet! I just wanted to share what I said to encourage them: Come on guys. There's hope. There used to be slavery in this country. Think about that. There used to be a military draft. A bottle of whisky used to be illegal. Under Nixon there were actual wage and price controls on the economy. We have made progress in a lot of ways and overcome some pretty egregious violations of liberty and entrenched attitudes that supported them. Not all i...

Michele Bachmann had a rather bizarre 36 hours. She did Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and the interviewer asked her to respond to the charge that she is a “flake.” It was a softball question and he personally apologized for it. In 2007 Ron Paul made the case that we should be out of the Middle East, among other reasons, because they don’t want us there and Wallace shot back by saying , “You’re basically saying we should be taking our marching orders from al Qaeda?” Might that have had a little more buckshot in it than (paraphrasing) "How does it make you feel when some people kinda think that, maybe, you might be a little bit of a flake, not that I think you’re a flake?" Wallace’s public and then private apology to Bachmann sandwiched her announcement on Monday that she was officially running for president in Waterloo, Iowa. Earlier she had said it was the birthplace of John Wayne. Of course, John Wayne the actor wasn’t born in Waterloo, but the serial killer John...

Lindsay Lohan talking monetary policy and arguing against the Federal Reserve's inflationary bubble? It's got to be The Onion, right? Wrong. In a tweet this Monday, the Hollywood star said one of the smartest things I've ever heard of an actor saying: "Have you guys seen food and gas prices lately? U.S. $ will soon be worthless if the Fed keeps printing money! http://spn.tw/t1exbE #ad" Now before getting too excited, do note that the tweet was an ad for the National Inflation Association (who must have a savvy marketer working or consulting for them), served via SponsoredTweets.com , which allows celebrity users to make revenue by tweeting paid links to advertiser's websites. But when one of Lindsay Lohan's followers tweeted that she doesn't really care about food and gas prices, Lindsay insisted that even though her tweet was a sponsored ad, she really does care about monetary policy and its effects on people, and that inflation is something...

In a CNN interview Wednesday with Wolf Blitzer, Senator Rand Paul says Congress should cancel their vacation and solve the nation's debt crisis. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Senators at a recent hearing responded with skepticism to the Obama Administration's claim that U.S. warplanes aren't engaged in hostilities with Libya. State Department legal adviser Harold Koh, whose opinion forms the basis of Obama’s assertion, testified in defense of the Obama Administration's definition of "hostilities," saying that "we are not in hostilities" with Libya because "exposure of our armed forces is limited, there have been no U.S. casualties, no threat of U.S. casualties" and "no exchange of fire with hostile forces." But as Tea Party Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) pointed out in a Facebook update early Wednesday, under this definition of hostilities, the Obama Administration is actually claiming that it could go as far as dropping a nuclear bomb on Libya, and that would not constitute hostilities: 'Under the President's astonishing and indefensible definition, the United States' dropping a nuclear bomb...

Think Michele Bachmann is a true Tea Party candidate, an advocate for limited government and more freedom? Why? At MockPolitics.com Aaron Rainwater takes a look at her legislative record and exposes votes against tax cuts, for more regulation of the Internet, and for more executive power for a president that already illegally exercises way more power than he is Constitutionally entitled to exercise. Michele Bachmann's voting record should seriously concern any Tea Party goer who really wants to limit the size, role, and influence of government. Read the entire article here . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Over at U.K. libertarian blog Samizdata , Jonathan Pearce has written an excellent piece on an action of the IRS that should, by any account, be considered an act of Western imperialism, yet we've heard not so much as a peep out of the anti-imperialists about it, because it concerns the source of funding for their precious welfare state: It bemuses me that a certain type of commentator will often - sometimes rightly - be angered at the over-reach of Western powers' foreign policy but be quieter about other, less obvious, intrusions if they happen when a more leftist government happens to be in power. And a lot of this sort of double-standard occurs with the United States. Such critics appear to have been silent on the following issue: under the current Democrat presidency of Mr Obama, the US last year passed a stunningly badly crafted piece of legislation, known as FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). The law was passed at a time of what can best be described as hys...

From my most recent CAIVN article: In all fairness, critics of the Robert Court's First Amendment decisions don't seem to base their opposition on judicial philosophy and interpretation of the law as written. For them, the issue is not whether a law violates the Constitution's prohibition on abridgements of free speech, but whether they happen to like the outcome of the free exercise of a particular kind of speech. Note that their objections to the court's recent rulings are rooted in the negative results they perceive as stemming from speech they don't like, whether it's political speech or video games that they find obscene. Read the entire article here. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

In his most recent video op ed, Jack Hunter takes a sober look at Ronald Reagan's foreign policy, revealing some things about Reagan foreign policy that might surprise you. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

The ever-shifting American populace is temporarily sick of deficit spending and bailouts. Not necessarily because they disagree with the fundamental principles behind them, but rather, they simply don't like what the current economy looks like. So, more and more are jumping on the Paul Ryan bandwagon that says shallow spending cuts will solve everything. But did anyone else catch this video of John Stossel on Bill O'Reilly, translating Ron Paul's views on Keynesian economic policy for him? Perhaps it shouldn't have, but this clip completely shocked me. Bill O'Reilly, a leading political commentator and conservative voice, is wholly unfamiliar with the man the United States bases its entire macroeconomic model off of!  How much more so the average American voter!?!? It's as if we've conceded Keynesian theory as de facto best practice and inarguable economics. Because of that, the current economic debate in this country is overly-simplified and, fro...

This is an extremely well done video that showcases vintage Ronald Reagan applied to our current circumstances. Whatever you may think of his administration's deficits, "The Great Communicator's" words themselves are flawlessly delivered in this video and remind me of the ideas of F. A. Hayek in his Road to Serfdom . Every word of it is so true and so on point. Washington's planning is doomed to fail and a detriment to our liberty. Hat Tip: Memorandum Daryl Luna , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page

With Americans crying foul as the TSA defends its decision ( m ) to force a 95-year-old, cancer-stricken, wheel-chair bound woman to remove her adult diaper for a screening sexual assault, here's a reminder of nine other egregious and revolting TSA actions for a list of just ten (out of many, many more) reasons we need to abolish the TSA immediately! 2. TSA Sexually Assaults Miss USA, Susie Castillo Susie Castillo , who held the 2003 Miss USA title, posted an article and video to her blog this April to courageously share with her readers an experience that no woman should ever have to go through-- a sexual assault by a TSA agent at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport-- and urge her fans to take action to end the TSA's invasive pat downs. Here's the video that Susie Castillo recorded moments after the assault happened, relating how her vagina had been fondled four times by a TSA officer: My full report on Susie's story here . 3. TSA Sexually Assaults Six Year Ol...

Michele Bachmann , who formally entered ( m ) the 2012 presidential race today, threw a fit when asked by Chris Wallace "Are you a flake?" Contrast this with the kind of calm and self-assured response that Ron Paul has given interviewers for years now as they've consistently maligned him with unserious and insulting questions. And now that Chris Wallace has apologized-- which is absolutely absurd; the sky will fall the day a news anchor is bullied into apologizing to Ron Paul for being rude, and honestly Wallace's question wasn't rude at all-- Michele Bachmann is refusing to accept his apology ( m ) . Critics have asked it about Sarah Palin, and I'll ask it about Michele Bachmann ... if she's really that thin-skinned does anyone actually want Michele Bachmann to have the nuclear football? Someone as sensitive, emotional, and vindictive as Michele Bachmann is frankly-- pretty flaky, and lacks the poise, self-assurance, and magnanimity necessary fo...

Is George Soros trying to "stack" U.S. courts with judges favorable to his political agenda in order to circumvent legislatures and democracy by writing law from the bench? That's what critics are saying , who charge that George Soros has spent $45 million through his Open Society Institute fund in a systematic "campaign to reshape the judiciary." As a blogger at Left Coast Rebel recently noted , "progressive" and Democratic groups and politicians love using the scaaary Koch Brothers and all their corporate money as a bogeyman to raise funds from their constituents and supporters. He provided quotes from fundraising emails all from this past week alone that used the Koch Brothers as a political foil to rile up donors. In just one week, donors got emails from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), and Democratic strategist James Carville asking for donations to combat all that dirt...

In the following video, a Ron Paul activist shares some excellent ideas and important campaigning principles to encourage you to get more involved in your local Ron Paul meet up group and take specific actions that will move us closer to a 2012 victory. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Reporting on the Republican Party of Iowa’s Straw Poll Auction, The Iowa Republican noted Ron Paul's big auction win: Ron Paul: The Ron Paul Revolution will take center stage at the Iowa Straw Poll now that Paul has purchased the same lot that has hosted the previous two winners of the event, Mitt Romney and George W. Bush. Paul had to pay a hefty price, $31,000, but the space is the closest of any other to the voting locations. The elevated walkways that will surround the Paul compound make it an ideal spot for the media to use as a backdrop. This is how your donations to the Ron Paul campaign (which is trying to raise another $1.5 million in the next four days by the next FEC filing deadline) are making a difference. This is why Ron Paul needs our help. He is not afraid to throw his weight around this campaign season and mobilize in all the most important ways to win key early voting states in the Republican Party primary. This is very, very good news for the R evol uti...

This April, I reported that Miss USA title holder Susie Castillo had gone public with the details of a sexual assault at the hands of Washington's brutal TSA at Dallas Fort Worth airport. Now she's teamed up with Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty to bring you the following video calling for an end to the TSA's body scans and invasive pat downs: User Waskily Wabbit writes at The Daily Paul : Susie Castillo truly deserves the title Miss USA. A beautiful, sweet and articulate woman who embraces liberty and Fourth Amendment rights. What could be more American! The 2003 Miss USA graciously agreed to speak at our Ban the Scan Rally in NYC June 10, 2011. We held it to push the NYC Council to introduce bills criminalizing / banning unconsensual grope-downs and nude scans throughout NYC, including airports. Please share this video and help activists in Texas & NYC. We are continuing the push for liberty & sanity at the local level. Wes Messamore , Editor i...