Porkers Of The Month For September 2010 Senators Blanche Lincoln And Patty Murray : Reason Tv

All The President's Wars How Foreign Policy Became One Man's ...

Added 09/09/11
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All The President's Wars How Foreign Policy Became One Man's Prerogative

[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 23:28:39 09/09/11
As Barack Obama announces the beginning of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, a far bigger issue - one that goes to the heart of American history and government - remains unaddressed. "That the President has the right to start a war at his pleasure is just completely divorced from the original meaning of the Constitution," says constitutional scholar Gene Healy. President Bush declared a war on terror that could theoretically extend into any country accused of harboring terrorists, including the United States itself. President Obama not only expanded the war in Afghanistan soon after taking office, he decided to bomb Libya without consulting Congress. Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency and an analyst at the Cato Institute, offers a forceful critique of the increasingly expansive role of the president in not only conducting wars but in declaring them. While the Constitution delegates the declaration of war to Congress, Healy stresses that its members are usually more interested in "handing out the bacon and getting re-elected" than in being held accountable for the success and failure of military interventions. Michael Ramsey, a constitutional scholar and law professor at the University of San Diego, believes that the Constitution grants the president fairly broad war powers, especially in response to attacks, but even he argues that President Obama's recent Libya intervention has no Constitutional justification. Is this any way to run a country's foreign policy and military might? Ramsey and Healy sat down with Reason.tv to discuss how presidential war powers have expanded over time - and whether that's a good thing for the United States and the rest of the world. Produced and Edited by Zach Weissmueller; shot by Paul Feine, Josh Swain, and Jim Epstein. About 9 minutes. Visit Reason.tv for downloadable versions of the video and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

You're Killing Me! Was A Police Related Jailhouse Death An Acc...

Added 08/11/11
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You're Killing Me! Was A Police Related Jailhouse Death An Accident Or A Homicide?

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 16:47:41 08/11/11
The recent police-related deaths of 43-year-old Allen Kephart in Lake Arrowhead, California and 37-year-old Kelly Thomas in Fullerton, California have sent shockwaves through the their respective communities. Indeed, both are being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The death of Thomas, a homeless schizophrenic beaten into a coma by Fullerton police, is also being investigated by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. His case is not the first time Orange County law enforcement has been accused of applying excessive force to a mentally ill homeless man. In October 2007, 28-year-old Michael Patrick Lass was living on the streets of Santa Ana when police stopped him for having an open container of alcohol. At the time of his arrest he was alcohol-dependent, schizophrenic, bipolar, and had a history of seizures. The altercation that led to Lass's death took place at the Orange County Central Jail, where Lass was sentenced to serve five days after pleading guilty to public intoxication. The day Lass would have been able to leave he felt ill and asked for medical attention. Lass was ordered to leave his cell and after repeatedly looking over his shoulder while being directed by a deputy, he was tackled to the ground and a melee ensued. “He wasn't fighting or anything and he was already in a contained area, locked in a contained area,” Lass's father Frederick, says of the incident. “Immediately there was a second deputy there, a third deputy, a fourth, a fifth, and on and on it went. There was so many deputies that you couldn't count how many deputies were there.” Lass was shocked with a Taser nine times and the county's autopsy said he had multiple contusions on his body, “involving the head, neck, torso and extremities.” The struggle was captured on film. “I can remember viewing the film and at one point while they are beating him Michael tells them, 'You're killing me.' Literally: 'You're killing me',” says Frederick Lass. Frederick Lass sued Orange County and six deputies involved in the incident. Although neither was found liable in that case, Orange County later revised its Taser policy so that deputies would not be able to use Tasers on restrained suspects unless they display "overtly assaultive behavior." While an improvement, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California says the policy didn't go far enough. Executive Director Hector Villagra sent a letter to Sheriff Hutchens in January 2009 urging still-stricter use of Tasers, pointing to five people who have died since 2005 after being stung with the weapon. Like the cases of Allen Kephart and Kelly Thomas, the death while in custody of Michael Patrick Lass raises troubling questions about police procedures - and the power of surveillance videos to shine a bright light on the workings of the criminal justice system. The following video includes graphic violence and viewer discretion is advised. Written and produced by Paul Detrick. Camera: Paul Detrick, Zach Weissmueller, and Alex Manning; edited by Detrick. Special Thanks: Frederick Lass. Music by Audionautix.com. Go to http://www.reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos, and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.

Carmageddon Or Lameageddon? Billion Dollar Project Isn't Apoca...

Added 07/18/11
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Austrian Economics And Pedagogy A Conversation With Universid...

Added 07/06/11
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The Killing Of Allen Kephart How The Police Lost The Trust Of...

Added 07/05/11
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"No Knock Raid" A Song About The Drug War's Deadliest Tactic...

Added 06/21/11
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"No Knock Raid" A Song About The Drug War's Deadliest Tactic By Lindy

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 19:29:05 06/21/11
Note: This video contains graphic images of violence and mature language. Viewer discretion is advised. "No Knock Raid," written and performed by Toronto-based musician Lindy, is a searing indictment of one of the most aggressive, ubiquitous, and mistaken tactics in the War on Drugs. Consider only the most recent raid to cause a national outrage: On May 5, 2011, 26-year-old Jose Guerena, who survived two tours in the Iraq War, was shot and killed during a raid on his house by a Pima County, Arizona SWAT team that fired dozens of bullets through his front door. Guerena, married and a father of two, had just finished a 12-hour shift at a local mine. Law enforcement sources claim he was involved in narco-trafficking but have yet to produce any evidence supporting that claim. Officers involved in the death have been cleared of wrongdoing. Guerena's death is not an isolated incident. As USA Today reports, an astonishing 70,000 to 80,000 militarized police raids take place on a annual basis in America, many of them on mistaken suspects and many of them ending with injury or death for police and citizens alike. As Reason Contributing Editor Radley Balko and others have documented, the militarization of standard police practice is a direct consequence of the modern-day War on Drugs, started 40 years ago by President Richard Nixon - and perpetuated by every administration since. (For a comprehensive report on the failure of the drug war to achieve any of its stated goals, read "Ending the Drug War: A Dream Deferred," by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.) For supporting links to all stats cited above, longer clips of raid footage, and more, go to http://reason.tv/video/show/swat-no-knock-raid-lindy "No Knock Raid" written and performed by Lindy. Produced and directed by Hawk Jensen. Performance footage directed by Victor Tavares and Zachary Koski About 4.50 minutes. Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions of the video and mp3 and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

Stephen Cox On Libertarian Literature And Prisons As Failed Pl...

Added 06/20/11
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Author Paul Cantor On The Economics Of Literature

Added 06/18/11
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Liberty For Africa Q&A With Adedayo Thomas

Added 06/18/11
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The Big Government Conspiracy Q&A With Steve Malanga Of The M...

Added 06/18/11
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Http //Www Youtube Com/Watch?V=U Gcdth Bc Gbo

Added 06/18/11
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Richard Epstein On Barack Obama His Former Chicago Law Colleague

Added 06/17/11
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Richard Epstein On Barack Obama His Former Chicago Law Colleague

[LESS INFO] 4 VIEWS | ADDED 22:00:19 06/17/11
Few legal scholars have blown as many minds and had the tangible impact that Richard Epstein has managed. His 1985 volume, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain is a case in point. Epstein made the hugely controversial argument that regulations and other government actions such as environmental regulations that substantially limit the use of or decrease the value of property should be thought of as a form of eminent domain and thus strictly limited by the Constitution. The immediate result was a firestorm of outrage followed by an acknowledgment that the guy was onto something. As Epstein told Reason in a 1995 interview, "I took some pride in the fact that [Sen.] Joe Biden (D-Del.) held a copy of Takings up to a hapless Clarence Thomas back in 1991 and said that anyone who believes what's in this book is certifiably unqualified to sit in on the Supreme Court. That's a compliment of sorts.... But I took even more pride in the fact that, during the Breyer hearings [in 199X], there were no such theatrics, even as the nominee was constantly questioned on whether he agreed with the Epstein position on deregulation as if that position could not be held by responsible people." Born in New York in 1943, Epstein splits faculty appointments at the University of Chicago and New York University; he's also a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a contributor to Reason. In books such as Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (1992) to Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995), and Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (2003), Epstein pushes his ideas and preconceptions to their limits and takes his readers along for the ride. A die-hard libertarian who believes the state should be limited and individual freedom expanded, he is nonetheless the consummate intellectual who first and foremost demands he offer up ironclad proofs for his characteristically counterintuitive insights into law and social theory. Indeed, Epstein's enduring value may not be any particular legal or policy prescription he's offered over the years but rather his methodology. He believes in robust and unfettered argument and debate as a way of gaining knowledge. If you don't put your ideas out in the arena, you can't be doing your best work, he argues. "The problem when you keep to yourself is you don't get to hear strong ideas articulated by people who disagree with you," he says. Reason's Nick Gillespie interviewed Epstein at NYU's law building in October. The conversation was wide-ranging and high-energy--another Epsteinian virtue. They talked about legal challenges to ObamaCare, the effects of stimulus spending and TARP bailouts, and a former University of Chicago adjunct faculty member by the name of Barack Obama, with whom Epstein regularly interacted in the 1990s and early 2000s. "He passed through Chicago without absorbing much of the internal culture," says Epstein of the president. "He's amazingly good at playing intellectual poker. But that's a disadvantage, because if you don't put your ideas out there to be shot down, you're never gonna figure out what kind of revision you want." Filmed and edited by Jim Epstein with help from Michael C. Moynihan and Josh Swain. Approximately 12.30 minutes. Go to Reason.tv for HD, iPod, and audio versions of this and all our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.

David Stockman On Tarp The Fed Ron Paul And Reagan [Short]

Added 06/17/11
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David Stockman On Tarp The Fed Ron Paul And Reagan [Short]

[LESS INFO] 7 VIEWS | ADDED 22:00:19 06/17/11
At the very start of the "Reagan revolution," David Stockman exposed the myth that Ronald Reagan and the modern Republican Party are dedicated to small government. In 1981, the 35-year-old Stockman gave up his Michigan seat in Congress to become Reagan's budget director. A vocal critic of what he continues to call the "welfare-warfare state," Stockman had signed on because he believed in the limited government rhetoric that Reagan espoused. Once inside the White House, Stockman quickly became disenchanted, and gave an interview to journalist William Greider that became the basis for an explosive Atlantic Monthly article in which Stockman admitted that Reagan's proposed spending cuts had been a "Trojan horse" used to justify tax cuts. In his 1985 memoir, The Triumph of Politics, Stockman chronicled Reagan's reluctance to fulfill his campaign promise of shrinking the size and scope of government and balancing the budget. The result? The gross federal debt tripled while Reagan was in office. Last fall, Stockman was the GOP-defector du jour once more, arguing against extending George W. Bush's tax rates in the New York Times, on 60 Minutes, the Colbert Report, Parker-Spitzer, ABC, NPR, and MSNBC. Stockman's argument - that it's irresponsible to cut taxes when cumulative U.S. debt is steadily mounting as a percentage of GDP - is based on the simple principle that balanced budgets come only when revenues actually meet expenditures. If we're not willing to actually shrink government spending, he says, then we should pay full freight now, rather than forcing our children and grandchildren to foot the bill down the line. Here's what didn't come across in Stockman's media blitz: Since writing The Triumph of Politics he says he has "completed his homework" by reading libertarian economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Murray Rothbard. He thinks TARP was a big-government boondoggle and the bailouts of GM and Chrysler unconscionable. Stimulus spending is a hoax. He sees the abandonment of the gold standard in favor of floating exchange rates as the root cause of both the country's fiscal problems and the 2008 financial crisis. He says that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the only politician today "who gets it" and he's hopeful that Paul's growing power may begin to shed light on "the scholastic arrogance" of the Federal Reserve. He's still against the welfare-warfare state and he thinks government should be cut down to size. . Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Stockman for a wide-ranging discussion that touched on tax cuts, monetary policy, TARP, Ronald Reagan, his tenure as a Michigan Congressman, and the gold standard. Approximately 7.30 minutes. To view the complete 42-minute version of the interview with David Stockman, click here: http://bit.ly/hVpHGj Camera by Jim Epstein and Hawk Jensen. Edited by Epstein and Joshua Swain. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable version of this and all our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.