GMU Law Professor on Why the Individual Mandate is Unconstitutional

by Jon Caldara | 12:22 pm, March 16, 2012

George Mason University law professor, Volokh Conspiracy blogger, and colleague of our constitutional scholar Dave Kopel, Professor Ilya Somin joined in the fight against Obamacare and its individual mandate. Professor Somin authored this amicus brief against the mandate, which, like our individual mandate amicus, focuses a lot on the necessary and proper clause.
Here is Professor [...]

Seeing Stars: Santorum Sweeps but Does it Matter?

by Randall Smith | 6:00 am, March 14, 2012

Alabama and Mississippi held primaries yesterday and there were caucuses in Hawaii and Samoa. Hot Air has the exit polls for all your stat geekiness.

Mississippi was basically a three way split with Romney, Gingrich and Santorum each pulling over 30 …

Podcasts: Obamacare Goes to the Supreme Court

by Jon Caldara | 12:25 pm, March 12, 2012

When the Supreme Court declares that they will hear a case, they ask for and receive “amicus briefs” from interested 3rd parties called “amicus curiae.” Amicus curiae means “friend of the court.” The brief is essentially a paper written to convince the Supreme Court to either affirm or overturn the decision of a lower court. [...]

State mandated "affordable healthcare" may be a great idea – but it ain’t a "right."

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 10:49 am, March 4, 2012

Freelance writer Lisa Wirthman has a long defense of state involvement in health care in today’s Denver Post. (See “Health vs Faith: The debate over insurance for contraceptives.”)One early paragraph in her column sums up the issue and explains wh…

Independence Institute Writers In The News

by Mike Krause | 8:24 am, February 27, 2012

Freeing Colorado’s cottage food entrepreneurs, medical privacy snatching bureaucrats, and new teacher effectiveness evaluations are all topics of recently published opinion pieces by Independence Institute writers.
In the Denver Post, Krista Kafer explains that lawmakers have an opportunity to pass “one sweet piece” of cottage foods legislation. Writes Krista:
Commendably, two Colorado legislators, Sen. Gail [...]

Government perverts “transparency”

by Amy Oliver | 7:20 am, February 24, 2012

When government uses “transparency” to watch citizens, that’s a strong signal that transparency has been perverted. Originally, a movement for citizens to shine a light on government, government now is passing laws so that it can collect legally your most private health care information. Linda Gorman and I authored a column that originally appeared in [...]

Seeing Stars: I Know of This Debt of Which You Speak

by Randall Smith | 7:00 am, February 18, 2012

Linking to interesting news stories is easy. Writing headlines? That’s hard.

Anyway, the observant among you will notice that nearly everything in the “Everywhere else” section is budget related. That’s actually a happy accident but all of the storie…

This First Amendment Defense Fails

by Jon Caldara | 2:35 pm, February 14, 2012

The religious and conservatives among us might not want to hear this, but I think it’s important to point out. Our Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson just wrote on the contraceptives and Catholic Church controversy. Many are making a First Amendment case against the Obamacare mandate forcing the church to provide products and services they find [...]

How Leviathan Works: FDA to Regulate Medical Apps

by Bob Adelmann | 2:50 pm, February 13, 2012

The underlying argument for government regulation is that regulation to protect consumer safety can’t be done in the private sector. After all, left by itself, free enterprise will “run wild.” Little if anything is ever heard about how the free market can provide its own regulation to protect consumer safety through private institutions like Underwriters Laboratory.

Inverting the State/Civil Society Relationship

by Joshua Sharf | 1:09 am, February 10, 2012

That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Status for Religious Freedom You can quote Jefferson like scripture.  But this is one of the three acts he had put on his tombstone, so I’d wager [...]

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