Fall 2013 • Vol. 8, No. 3

Exposes the fundamental causes of the Internal Revenue Service’s “closer scrutiny” of Tea Party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, identifying the constellation of laws that effectively authorized the IRS to target such groups, showing how these laws operate in practice, and shedding light on the deeper premises that support these laws and fuel their enforcement.

Explains why nuclear power is safer and cleaner than other forms of energy production and dismantles several myths propagated by anti-nuclear groups.

Discusses the nature of concierge medicine, Dr. Umbehr’s own version of this revolutionary approach to health care, and the various ways in which his approach results in higher-quality, lower-cost, higher-profit health care that both sidesteps and undermines ObamaCare.

A recent post by Ari Armstrong about the wonders of 3D printing applied to the field of medicine concluded, “What’s next we can only imagine.” Now, just a few weeks later, we have an indication. Researchers are on course to print functional, customized human tissues and organs. On May 3,…

The Freedom from Religion Foundation recently threatened to sue public schools in the town of Muldrow, Oklahoma, if they refused to remove plaques inscribed with the Ten Commandments from classrooms. Unfortunately, when Republican State Representative John Bennett weighed in on the controversy in his district, he upheld the popular yet…

Should municipal and county government be permitted to own and operate local high-speed Internet systems—Community Broadband Networks (CBNs)? Timothy Karr of Freepress.net and Gerry Smith of Huffington Post (among other writers) argue that governments should be permitted to own and operate CBNs because this provides “competition” against big Internet service…

What is morally outrageous about Apple’s highly publicized tax avoidance is not that Apple (legally) avoided paying taxes—for that, Apple should be praised. Rather, what is outrageous is that the government is harassing Apple for legally avoiding taxes—and that various commentators are smearing Apple for it. The root injustice is…

Todd Starnes of Fox News recently ignited a firestorm of controversy when he reported: Religious liberty groups have grave concerns after they learned the Pentagon is vetting its guide on religious tolerance with a group [the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, or MRFF] that compared Christian evangelism to “rape” and advocated that…

For decades in California, oil producers have successfully used hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract vast quantities of oil from the earth, and recent technological advances could unlock orders of magnitude more oil from California’s Monterey Shale. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the shale may hold 15.4 billion barrels…

The cost of college is skyrocketing, and students are graduating with record levels of debt in order to meet the expense. Since 1978, college tuition and fees have increased by 1,120 percent—outpacing inflation four times over and racing past other core consumer costs such as medical expenses and food. In…

At a recent press conference, President Obama declared, Quality care is not something that should be a privilege. It should be a right. In the greatest country on earth, we’ve got to make sure that every single person that needs health care can get it. The proper purpose of government,…

Sarah Murnaghan is a ten-year-old girl suffering from cystic fibrosis. If she does not get a lung transplant, she will die, likely within weeks. But so far she has been unable to receive a lung transplant because a federal agency—the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—has decided that children…

The little girl who swore she was “never going to quit, never, never,” now has a fighting chance to live. Ten-year-old Sarah Murnaghan previously had been put on the bottom of the list to receive an adult lung (the only type likely to become available) because the Department of Health…

The new Superman film, Man of Steel, is a good movie with a great theme. It is a competently directed story of a powerful alien who grows up on Earth with human parents; who comes to love his adopted planet and the people living on it; and who, as an…

The Washington Post has revealed the details of a heroic story that emerged from last year's armed conflict in Mali. In April 2012, the Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Dine invaded the city of Timbuktu and began a reign of terror, destroying historical sites and imposing sharia law. The terrorist leaders…

The well-documented abysmal failure of government schools has prompted a homeschooling boom, as many parents have chosen to retain or regain control of their children’s education instead of leaving it in the hands of the state. One inspiring example comes by way of the Harding family. The parents, Kip and…

Yesterday I appeared on the Larry Elder radio show to discuss the food stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Through Elder, I learned that more than two dozen members of Congress took what they called the SNAP Challenge, through which they protested proposed cuts to…

When Roy Costner IV of Liberty High School delivered his valedictory speech, he chose to express his Christian faith and to recite The Lord’s Prayer—ostensibly as a form of protest against the school district’s new policy of not permitting prayer at graduation ceremonies. Although his speech was met with overwhelming…

The Catholic Church claims the late John Paul II enacted a miracle. As if that were not remarkable enough, the pope is alleged to have enacted his miracle posthumously! Nick Squires reports for the Telegraph: The Vatican has secretly attributed a mystery miracle to the late John Paul II, clearing…

Relative freedom and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in Texas continue creating business opportunities and attracting capital investment from around the world. Austria’s largest steel company, Voestalpine, has signed a lease to build a $716 million iron-ore pellet plant in Corpus Christi, Texas. CEO Wolfgang Eder stated, “It would have been impossible…

Regarding Barack Obama’s speech yesterday on so-called “climate change,” the Washington Post asks, “Is Obama waging a ‘war on coal’?”—and answers, “To a large extent, the answer is yes,” in that he is seeking to expand costly regulations of coal-fired plants. But it’s worse than that. Among other things, Obama…

Did the Miami Heat win the NBA Finals championship against the San Antonio Spurs June 20 because the Heat’s players acted unselfishly, on the premise that “there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’”? That’s the view Magic Johnson—the former pro turned ABC sports analyst—expressed when talking with the Heat’s Dwyane Wade after…

This week marks the 150th anniversary of two pivotal Union victories during the American Civil War: Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The Battle of Gettysburg is widely known. Sparked by Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of northern territory, where he hoped to put the Union on the defensive, the three-day clash…

Seven-month-old Brandon Schaible died from bacterial pneumonia, severe dehydration, and strep—while his parents watched and prayed and, in accordance with their religious beliefs, refused to provide the child with medicine. Herbert and Catherine Schaible of Philadelphia now await trial, facing third-degree murder charges for Brandon’s death. The atrocity is magnified…

In the August 1920 edition of Oil and Gas News, an excited reporter wrote about a region that “is attracting much attention due to the good [oil] wells that are being brought in.” Oil had been discovered on the Bertha Hickman farm in Oklahoma, a discovery that started the industrial…

Today U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled against Apple in an antitrust suit, claiming that the company “conspired to raise the retail price of e-books,” NPR reports. What did Apple allegedly do wrong? Bloomberg summarizes: The U.S. sued Apple and five of the biggest publishers in April 2012, claiming the…

In his Salon article “Ayn Rand Could Have Learned from the Arizona Firefighters,” Robert Reich presumes that the nineteen firefighters who lost their lives June 30 while battling a wildfire in Arizona chose their dangerous profession based on “something other than rational self-interest”: Like the first-responders to 9/11 and other…

Earlier today, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed House Bill 2, banning most abortions after twenty weeks and severely regulating the state’s abortion clinics and certain birth-control drugs. For now, I want to leave aside the regulations the bill imposes both on abortion clinics (restrictions so severe that “only five of…

Zachary Huffman reviews Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper.

Ari Armstrong reviews Oz the Great and Powerful, directed by Sam Raimi.

Ari Armstrong reviews the original Star Trek films, featuring the cast of the original television series.

Alexander V. Marriott reviews The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire, by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy.

Michael Dahlen reviews The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy—How to Save Yourself and Your Country, by Peter D. Schiff.

Mikayla Callen reviews Living Proof, by Kira Peikoff.

Daniel Wahl reviews The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander.

Ari Armstrong reviews Killing Floor, by Lee Child.

Richard Salsman answers a letter about central banking.