Free Republic

Would you lend $1.66 million dollars on a house that was worth $100,000? You wouldn’t even take the idea seriously. Bankers would laugh at someone asking for such a loan, and they should. To make the example even more ridiculous, suppose that the home owner has a negative income - a negative income of $2.3 million last year. That the home owner is expected to lose a lot more money over the next couple of years, and that even if things work perfectly, he might simply stop losing money after 2011. That he lives in a bad neighborhood where almost...

The stimulus bill had to be passed quickly. President Obama warned that not passing it would result in disaster. He warned that any delay was “inexcusable.” The 1,071 page stimulus bill had to be voted on quickly — so quickly this last week that the House and the Senate couldn’t even provide politicians the 48 hours they were supposed to have to read it. The legislation was not put up on the Web until 11 PM on February 12 and the House passed it just 12 hours later. The Senate started voting on it only hours after that. Politician after...

The Am Law Daily was fascinated by the conclusion in "Freakonomics" that the huge drop in crime in the 1990s could be attributed to the legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade. But there's a single paragraph in that discussion in which the book's co-author, Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago, discusses the possibility that laws allowing people to carry concealed weapons might be responsible, in part, for a drop in violent crime. The best-known proponent of that argument is a conservative scholar named John R. Lott, now at the University of Maryland, who wrote the book...

President Obama and the Democrats’ “stimulus” package will increase the unemployment rate. The changes they propose will also make us poorer, with fewer, less productive jobs. The most obvious explanation is the $36 billion in increased unemployment insurance benefits. Larger benefits at least for this year will encourage some people, who may be unhappy with their jobs, to be unemployed while they look for something better. Others will be a little more reluctant to take a new job when they are offered it. Unlike the rest of the “stimulus” package that is over two years, since the increased benefits are...

Well, even though Adrian Monk couldn’t get the gun out of the gun safe at least the safe itself could be used as a weapon. This is one of the very few TV shows that have made fun of gun locks. Monk’s line, “Don’t move there is a gun in here.” is classic. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that, unlike most of the biased media coverage on guns, this humor gets across the research that gun locks actually make it significantly more difficult for people to defend themselves against criminals. . . .

Guns have figured frequently in “Boston Legal,” with Denny Crane (William Shatner) using them defensively from time to time. Recently, in episode 3 of season 5 (”Dances with Wolves“), Denny fired a gun to defend himself from a robber who also had a gun. The robber was not really threatening, and as Denny’s friend and fellow partner Alan Shore (James Spader) asked him: ”Did you absolutely have to shoot [the robber]? Three times? In both feet?” Obviously the answer to all three questions was, “No.” I don’t mind the humor in these shows. In fact, I laugh along with everyone...

The Law Review article can be found here. I guess that I felt that this was also likely simply because Obama won the election.

“One of the most popular legislative initiatives in recent years is the movement allowing qualified law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms,” says Snyder, Treasurer of the Second Amendment Foundation. “Studies by scholars such as John R. Lott, Jr., author of More Guns Less Crime, demonstrate that in jurisdictions where such a public policy is implemented, violent crime takes a nosedive. Forty states now have some kind of right to carry policy. “What has been missing is federal right to carry concealed legislation so that persons permitted to carry in a state may carry in other states, in much the same...

Despite a huge Democratic Senate majority, Eric Holder’s confirmation hearings are going to be difficult. He has a long record to defend. Whether it is his involvement and inconsistent statements about Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich’s or his pushing Clinton’s clemency of the FALN terrorists or his failure to disclose his work for troubled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich after Blagojevich's legal problems surfaced, he faces tough questions. But Holder’s nomination raises other questions about what President-elect Barack Obama claimed he believed during the campaign. Numerous times he promised that he supported an individual’s right to own guns...

But Holder’s nomination raises other questions about what President-elect Barack Obama claimed he believed during the campaign. Numerous times he promised that he supported an individual’s right to own guns and that he wouldn’t do anything to take away people’s guns. Just last year in a brief to the Supreme Court, Holder argued that “the Second Amendment did not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms,” that it only protected government militias’ rights to guns. He claimed that the Second Amendment posed no obstacle to implementing gun bans. I can’t find even one gun control law that Holder...

How would you like elections without secret ballots? To most people, this would be absurd. We have secret balloting for obvious reasons. Politics frequently generates hot tempers. People can put up yard signs or wear political buttons if they want. But not everyone feels comfortable making his or her positions public -- many worry that their choice might offend or anger someone else. They fear losing their jobs or facing boycotts of their businesses. And yet the mandatory public disclosure of financial donations to political campaigns in almost every state and at the federal level renders people's fears and vulnerability...

The Canvassing Board overseeing the vote recount for Minnesota’s tightly contested U.S. Senate race isn’t quite done examining disputed ballots, but using their numbers the Minnesota Star Tribune issued a projection Saturday night that Al Franken will pick up 270 votes when the board is finished. Currently the board is determining voter intent in disputed ballots. If the projection proves correct, Franken will beat incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman by 78 votes. Vote totals have changed a lot since Nov. 4, when Coleman led Franken by 725 votes. Correcting typos cut Coleman’s margin to 215, and a recount by all the...

The Canvassing Board overseeing the vote recount for Minnesota’s tightly contested U.S. Senate race isn’t quite done examining disputed ballots, but the board issued a projection Saturday night that Al Franken will pick up 270 votes when it finishes. Currently the board is determining voter intent in disputed ballots. If the projection proves correct, Franken will beat incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman by 78 votes.Vote totals have changed a lot since Nov. 4, when Coleman led Franken by 725 votes. Correcting typos cut Coleman’s margin to 215, and a recount by all the counties reduced it further to 192. Yet, the...

One need only peruse media watchdog sites like News Busters to see the scope and depth of bias among the mainstream media. Whether discussing political parties, corporations, or gun rights, you can generally count on one-sided promotion of their agenda (Republicans, business, and guns all 'bad'). Such bias deserves to be exposed, because it signifies the failure of the journalistic institution to faithfully perform its public duty to tell people the truth, so that informed citizens may make better choices when voting, and hold elected officials accountable regardless of political affiliation. But that is for another column. Today, I write...

With the media and Democrats referring to the nation's financial crisis as the "worst financial crisis since the Depression," the economy keeps on showing signs of resilience. Weren't Christmas sales supposed to be down this year? But Black Friday's sales were not down, they were not even flat, they were up 3 percent over last year. Yet, possibly President-elect Barack Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, put everything in perspective and explained why little attention will be paid to such good news when he recently said, “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities...

Politicians pose as the ultimate experts. They may never have worked in an industry or studied an issue before, but after few months of time on a topic they know everything: the types of cars that should be produced, the science of global warming, and how much doctors should charge for different types of surgery. Outside of studying law, few in Congress even have backgrounds that are closely related to some of the issues covered by government. Just take the Senate this year, almost half, 45, are attorneys. Only one doctor, four farmers, 13 business people, seven teachers, four professors...

Banning guns is in the news. India practically bans guns, but that didn’t stop the horrific Muslim terrorist attacks this last week. cut ..... Given that the terrorists smuggled their machine guns in with them, would anyone argue that India’s extremely strict gun licensing and artificially high prices for guns helped prevent the terrorist attacks? victims watched as armed police cowered and didn’t fire back at the terrorists. A photographer at the scene described his frustration: “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything. At one point, I ran up to them and...

Banning guns is in the news. India practically bans guns, but that didn’t stop the horrific Muslim terrorist attacks this last week. A football player concerned for his safety violates New York City’s tough gun control regulations by carrying a concealed handgun, and people call for everything from banning NFL players from carrying guns to demanding that the athlete serve many years in jail. Where is the sympathy or debate in either case over letting people defend themselves? Given that the terrorists smuggled their machine guns in with them, would anyone argue that India’s extremely strict gun licensing and artificially...

Al Franken’s unusually large vote gain in the Minnesota Senate race since the Nov. 4 election has generated a lot of anger. Just correcting “typos” in how the votes were recorded has made the difference -- reducing incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman’s lead from 725 to 206 votes when Minnesota counties certified the votes on Monday, Nov. 10. Correcting these typos supposedly produced a net swing of 459 votes to Franken and took 60 votes from Coleman. Last week, using the vote totals from Sunday, Nov. 9, I pointed out that Franken’s net gain was huge -- “new votes for Franken...

Minnesota is becoming to 2008 politics what Florida was in 2000 or Washington State in 2006 - a real mess. The outcome will determine if the Democrats get 58 members of the US Senate, giving them an effective filibuster-proof vote on many issues. When voters woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday night, it was down 336, By Friday it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to 221 -...

When voters woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday night, it was down to 336. By Friday, it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 -- a total change over 4 days of 504 votes. Amazingly, this all has occurred even though there hasn’t even yet been a recount. Just local election officials correcting claimed typos in how the numbers were reported. Counties will certify their results...

IF Al Franken wins his Minnesota race, Democrats will get at least 58 US senators, giving them an effectively filibuster-proof majority. When Franken woke up on the day after the election, his GOP opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, led by what seemed a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By that night, Coleman's lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday, it was 336. Friday, 239. By late Sunday, the difference had gone to just 221. When counties finally certified the results on Monday, Coleman's lead had been cut to 206. A pickup of 519 votes over 5 days - pretty impressive when you...

The following is from an interview of John Lott by Dave Bose, substituting for Michael Medved on the Michael Medved radio show. Lott is currently a professor at the University of Maryland and is the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" and "Freedomonics." Lott taught at the University of Chicago the same time Obama was an instructor at Chicago. The transcript picks up approximately half way through the audio file... Dave Bose: Just before the break, Professor Lott, I was mentioning that actually know Barack Obama. You met at the college. John Lott: We were both at the University of...

Barack Obama claims he is a friend of gun owners. He certainly has convinced the media. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times said the NRA's opposition to Obama seemed strange because "Obama does not oppose gun rights. He has made a point of pounding this home to rural audiences, telling them he has no intention of taking their guns away: not their shotguns, not their handguns, not anything." From the Boston Globe to FactCheck.org, the media and their watchdogs have uncritically recited Obama's statement that he believes there is an individual right to own guns. How does Brooks Jackson, FactCheck.org's...

The candidate says he supports the right to bear arms. The record says otherwise. Barack Obama claims he is a friend of gun owners. He certainly has convinced the media. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times said the NRA's opposition to Obama seemed strange because "Obama does not oppose gun rights. He has made a point of pounding this home to rural audiences, telling them he has no intention of taking their guns away: not their shotguns, not their handguns, not anything." From the Boston Globe to FactCheck.org, the media and their watchdogs have uncritically recited Obama's statement that he...

The media is ferociously attacking the McCain campaign’s new Web-based ad linking Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. The ad is very short: Obama's blind ambition. When convenient, he worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When discovered, he lied. Obama. Blind ambition. Bad judgment. Congressional liberals fought for risky subprime loans. Congressional liberals fought against more regulation. Then, the housing market collapsed costing you billions. In crisis, we need leadership, not bad judgment. A second longer ad released on the Web at the same time continues this point and argues: Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, friends. They have worked together for years,...

Something happens to Democrats on the gun issue when they run for president. For John Kerry during 2004, it was awkwardly posing in brand new hunting gear at a seemingly endless series of hunting photo-ops. But in what will probably be the most improbable change, the Politico reported on Saturday that Barack Obama was making a big play for gun votes in Pennsylvania. It is not particularly surprising that this change is occurring with the crucial Pennsylvania primary soon approaching. With about one million of the country’s 12.5 million hunters, Pennsylvania is number one in the nation in the amount...

When you interview for a job, here is a hint: make sure you know what the job is. Joe Biden failed that test last Thursday. He couldn’t even get right what a vice president does, but the media didn’t notice. The media is all over itself about how smart and experienced Biden is. Political analyst Charlie Cook is quoted in the Washington Post on Saturday as saying “Biden is clearly so much more knowledgeable, by a factor of about a million.” Saturday Night Live does a skit about Biden being smart, if slimy. Meanwhile, Governor Sarah Palin is treated as...

Many see last week's reported spike in unemployment insurance claims as a signal of the economy's weakness. There will be more questions this Friday when September's unemployment numbers are released. In fact, it is a sign of Washington at work. The number of new unemployment claims soared last week to 493,000. Fox Business's Donna Fuscaldo spun the news as “underscoring the dour state of the U.S. economy.” After starting to rise in early January, initial jobless claims peaked this last March. New jobless claims either fell or leveled off after that -- until July, that is, when they started to...

Guns have become an important issue for Barack Obama’s campaign. Starting around the Pennsylvania primary, Obama and his campaign surrogates began strenuously assuring gun owners that he supports gun ownership, and it appears to be paying off. A poll in August showed that John McCain led Obama among hunters by only 14 percentage points, just about half the 27-point lead that President Bush held over John Kerry in 2004. If McCain had a similar lead, he would be ahead in most polls, particularly in many battleground states.This past weekend, Joe Biden, campaigning in southwest Virginia, called any notion that...

Does John McCain represent a third Bush term? The Obama campaign claims the two are almost indistinguishable. It was the mantra during the Democratic convention, and it is the theme of new ads Barack Obama is running. The ads claim that McCain is "no maverick when he votes with Bush 90 percent of the time." This week Obama has begun a constant refrain that there is "not a dime worth of difference" between Bush's and McCain's views. It is a... Is this the same McCain who drove Republicans nuts on campaign finance, the environment, taxes, torture, immigration and more? Where...

Vice presidential choices aren’t supposed to make much difference. Yet, Sarah Palin’s impact is undeniable and extremely large. Twelve days ago, presidential election futures markets indicated that Barack Obama had a 62 percent probability of winning the election. By Sunday, Obama’s probability had fallen to 46.5 percent, with John McCain at 52.1 percent. With the election at stake and Palin so crucial to the outcome, Democrats have sent “a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers” into Alaska. The media has also understandably descended in large numbers in Alaska. Despite Palin’s name being on the short list of potential...

“Judgment” has become the byword of the election. Barack Obama has always wanted the election to be about the importance of “good judgment,” not experience. While Obama claimed last week that he had more executive experience than Sarah Palin, he has generally stuck to this theme. During the primaries, Obama’s claim to “good judgment” largely focused on his early opposition to the Iraq war. But, with the exception of picking Joe Biden as his running mate, virtually all the discussion of Obama’s good judgment still rests on his opposition to the war. Obama still has some work to convince people...

Democrats are expected to make strong gains in state legislatures this fall, but what do these stronger Democratic majorities mean? A look at Washington State may show what is in store for the rest of the country. Public employee unions are handing over vast amounts of money to the incumbent governor's re-election campaign, while the governor is simultaneously sitting at the bargaining table negotiating contracts with these very unions. If it seems inappropriate for the governor, Christine Gregoire, who is locked in a very tight re-election, to benefit personally from the parties that her office is negotiating with, that's just...

“Judgment” has become the byword of the election. Barack Obama has always wanted the election to be about the importance of “good judgment,” not experience. While Obama claimed last week that he had more executive experience than Sarah Palin, he has generally stuck to this theme. During the primaries, Obama’s claim to “good judgment” largely focused on his early opposition to the Iraq war. But, with the exception of picking Joe Biden as his running mate, virtually all the discussion of Obama’s good judgment still rests on his opposition to the war. Obama still has some work to convince people...

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign just won't let the gun issue rest. Mr. Obama and his campaign surrogates continue to assure gun owners that he is on their side, and it appears to be paying off. John McCain only leads Mr. Obama among hunters by 14 percentage points, just about half the 27-point lead that President Bush held over John Kerry in 2004. If Mr. McCain had a similar lead, he would be ahead in most polls, particularly in many battle ground states. Yet, despite all the Democratic claims to the contrary, Mr. Obama is undoubtedly the most anti-gun candidate ever...

By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits. But in the meantime check out professor John R. Lott's "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." His first chapter, "Are You Getting Ripped Off?," addresses myths about predation where it's sometimes alleged that corporations will charge below-cost prices to bankrupt their rivals and then charge unconscionable prices. There's little or no evidence that corporations would choose predation as strategy; there are too many pitfalls. A major one is that in order to recoup losses from...

Few presidential candidates in modern times have been identified with a large urban area like Barack Obama is with Chicago. And sometimes, that can present a problem. This election season, for instance, the residents of Obama's hometown are being murdered at a clip not seen in five years. Murders have risen 18 percent over a year ago. Assaults in the city involving guns are also rising. City officials, Police Supt. Jody Weis and the police force are increasingly coming under criticism. But some Republicans say part of the blame also lies with Obama. They argue that while serving Illinois as...

By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out professor John R. Lott’s “Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works.” His first chapter is “Are You Being Ripped Off?” It addresses myths about predation where it’s sometimes alleged that corporations will charge below-cost prices to bankrupt their rivals and then charge unconscionable prices. There’s little or no evidence that corporations would choose predation as strategy; there are too many pitfalls. A major one is that in order to recoup losses from charging low prices...

This is still a free country, right? Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to more closely regulate the wages that firms pay workers and to more strictly regulate tobacco products by putting them under FDA supervision. The Los Angeles City Council also approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile low-income area in the city; the poor, after all, have “above-average rates of obesity” and must be protected from themselves. Perhaps the government may just want to ask people if they are poor before we let them enter certain restaurants. Barack Obama promises a...

The first convention of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) featured at least one speaker who said college students bearing arms on campus would not make anyone safer. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, a gun control advocacy group, said studies show that college students are more likely to engage in risky behavior than the general population. “When I look back on my college days, maybe it was a different era in the late ‘60s, but most of my fraternity brothers didn’t have criminal records – not yet, most of them, even those who were in ROTC and...

Does government do enough to help the poor? John McCain and Barack Obama could not be more divided on their approach. Obama’s Web site even has a section entitled “poverty,” with a large list of new antipoverty programs, while McCain's doesn’t. Yet, this is part of a bigger difference between the campaigns in whether to single out specific groups for help. While Obama’s Web site includes issue headings for “women,” “rural,” “seniors” and “disabilities,” McCain’s Web site generally focuses only on broad "issues" that affect everyone, such as “energy,” “education,” and “economic plan.” Both Web sites have sections on veterans....

The Supreme Court may have confirmed that Americans have the right to own guns for protection, but the gun debate is hardly over. The District of Columbia, whose handgun ban was struck down by the Supreme Court, is still planning on banning most handguns. And the court decision has spurred the media into overdrive to paint guns as dangerous to their owners. No one who has taken even a quick glance at the crime data can seriously argue that the D.C. gun ban lowered murder or violent crime rates. The concerns being raised are not the threat from criminals, but...

Banning handguns is all the rage. Mayor David Miller's push for a national ban has been joined by other Canadian big-city mayors. Yet, dissatisfied with progress at the national level, Miller successfully asked city council this week to approve measures to further discourage gun ownership in Toronto, such as shutting down city-owned gun ranges. While it may seem obvious to many people that banning handguns will save lives and cut crime, the experience in the United States suggests differently. Two major U. S. cities -- Washington, D.C., and Chicago --have tried banning handguns. (The U. S. Supreme Court is soon...

YOU CAN'T FUEL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIMEJune 25, 2008 Liberals dismiss studies that show a link between abortion and breast cancer, claiming they are biased because the people promoting the studies are "anti-choice." For the same reason, no one should believe the Democrats' "energy" policies. Democrats couldn't care less about high gas prices. The consistent policy of the Democratic Party, going back at least to Jimmy Carter, has been to jack up gas prices so we can all start pedaling around on tricycles. Environmentalists are constantly clamoring for higher gas taxes as the cure-all to their...

If a product is in short supply and if you really wanted more to be produced quickly, would you want companies to think that they could earn a lot of money making it? You would think that the answer is pretty obvious: No profits, no oil. To encourage more production, companies need to think that there are more profits to be made. With all the anger over high oil prices, more production to lower prices would seem to be a high priority. But outside of most congressional Republicans, particularly those in the Senate who successfully filibustered a new wind-fall profits...

What is the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? To many, the answer, at least from 2001 through 2007, is $473 billion — about a quarter of total defense expenditures over those years. It has averaged less than 1 percent of GDP. $473 billion is probably an underestimate simply because the fighting has already lasted past 2007 and some wounded veterans will require long-term care. But how much more is it? In a new book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes argue that this emphasis on what the government has already spent dramatically understates the...

With oil prices closing above $125 a barrel of oil on Friday, angry politicians are blaming the higher prices on everything from speculators to greedy oil companies. Last week some Democratic Senators demanded “urgent action . . . to adequately investigate whether speculators are driving up prices.” Democrats are proposing to protect the American people from “greedy oil traders who manipulate the market.” Senator Barack Obama wants price gouging by oil companies to be a federal crime. Everyone wants lower prices, but many politicians seem unable to understand that speculators actually smooth out wild swings in prices. Speculators make profits...

How would you like elections without secret ballots? To most people, the notion of getting rid of secret ballots is absurd. This is modern-day America. Such an idea could not be seriously considered, right? People support secret balloting for very obvious reasons. Politics frequently generates hot tempers. People can put up yard signs or wear political buttons if they want. But not everyone feels comfortable making his or her political positions public. Many would rather vote without fearing that their choice will offend or anger someone else. Secret balloting has solved another potential problem: vote buying, which they essentially ended...

John R. Lott Jr. is a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland Philadelphia had 406 homicides in 2007, and, at 28 per 100,000 people, it also had the highest murder rate of any major city in the United States. No wonder Philadelphians want things done. Recently, the city focused on a new tragedy, the murder of a 12-year police veteran and father of three, Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, by three bank robbers with long, violent criminal records. To Gov. Rendell, Mayor Nutter, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, and freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, the solution is simple: more gun control....