The Justice Department is challenging Alabama’s new immigration law, which permits police officers to detain people during traffic stops whom they suspect may be illegal immigrants. The DOJ filed a lawsuit against the Alabama law, contending it conflicts with the federal government’s jurisdiction. The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in an Alabama federal court, asserting that Alabama’s law allows the Alabama police to have entirely too much power, and that it would increase the incarceration of illegal immigrants by creating new immigration crimes.  

Police Officer Daniel Harless, of Canton, Ohio, is making quite a name for himself, having garnered a reputation for his outrageous tirades against those he engages in traffic stops. Two weeks ago, The New American reported on Harless’ encounter with a legal gun owner, in which he berated the driver for several minutes and made several threats against the driver. Now, a new video has emerged of a traffic stop that took place in July 2010 between Harless and a car full of passengers, in which Harless threatens to kill them. In the video, Harless is heard threatening a group of passengers engaged in a traffic stop, and grows angry after he found a gun in the car. Unlike the video that was exposed last month, however, these passengers do not appear to have a permit for the weapon.

Boston Logan International Airport has announced that it will be adopting Israeli-style behavior screening procedures. The new procedures were introduced yesterday at the busy airport and involve screeners at the Transportation Security Administration engaging in more conversations with travelers in order to assess potential threats. Boston Logan International Airport is the first airport in the United States to adopt Israel’s enhanced airport screening methods. Fox News reports: Under the new program — part of a nearly $1 billion national program called the Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT — behavior officers will ask passengers non-intrusive questions and look to see how passengers respond. Those who exhibit suspicious behavior like avoiding eye contact and struggling with answers will be pulled aside for more screening.

President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 on August 2,  just hours after the U.S. Senate approved the measure, which would raise the debt limit as much as $2.4 trillion. Obama then launched into a public and phony political attack against the same tax "loopholes" that the White House website is promoting for energy companies. The Budget Control Act of 2011 would trim about $900 billion of an expected $7-8 trillion in projected deficit spending increases over the next 10 years and set up a 12-member super-committee of Congress charged with finding an additional $1.5 trillion in savings. The so-called "Super Congress" would be authorized to find spending cuts or tax increases, and its findings would be fast-tracked through Congress (i.e., voted on without amendment and limited debate). The bill wouldn't actually cut any spending in an absolute sense; spending would continue to increase. But the bill would trim projected future spending increases.

I was researching REAL ID, the Feds’ scheme to turn driver’s licenses into a national ID, when I stumbled across this bombshell at the National Motorists Association: Eliminate the Driver License Georgia State Representative Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta) introduced House Bill 875 in November 2009. The first two sentences of that proposed legislation, better known as the “Right to Travel Act,” summarize what the bill is about: “Free people have a common law and constitutional right to travel on the roads and highways that are provided by their government for that purpose. Licensing of drivers cannot be required of free people because taking on the restrictions of a license requires the surrender of an inalienable right.”

It feels like we’re dealing with an Amy Winehouse form of governing. “These overdoses happen because these guys drink 20 beers and then reach for their heroin,” a friend of mine said after the late star’s recent death, at 27. “You can’t think straight once you’re totally blitzed.” It seems the same with our politicians, overdosed on their own importance. Their non-straight thinking and out-of-control spending has already put us $14.3 trillion in the hole at the federal level, not counting the tens of trillions in unfunded entitlement liabilities, and they’re still racking up $4 billion per day in new red ink.   Even with the new debt deal to supposedly cut $2 trillion or $3 trillion in federal spending over the next 10 years (a cut in projected future spending, not a cut in the absolute sense), the national debt would still firmly be on a trajectory to increase by another $8 trillion to $10 trillion over the coming decade.

Even before the July 22 terror attacks in Norway, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was hyping fears about terrorism coming from average Americans — conservatives, veterans, Tea Party types, and others. Prior to mass-murderer Anders Breivik’s rampage that killed over 75 people, DHS released what critics labeled a “propaganda” video that “characterizes white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists.” The film showed various minorities calling authorities to report suspicious whites in almost every scenario. Outrage ensued as the original Infowars story went “viral,” being picked up by Fox, the Drudge Report, and even foreign newspapers. And as the news spread commentators promptly blasted the Homeland Security campaign as essentially racist.

During a July 20 Department of Education event in Washington, D.C. — the third of its kind this summer — area schoolchildren were given access to free books, two of which featured Nickelodean's cartoon icons Spongebob and Dora the Explorer pushing an environmentalist agenda and encouraging children to accept the widely debunked notion of man-made global warming. The books are part of Nickelodeon’s “Big Green Help Series,” a campaign launched by the network in order to teach children to help protect the Earth. As noted by CNS News, however, one of the books takes a particularly controversial position, purporting not only that global warming exists, but that it is in fact a man-made phenomenon, and can only be solved if humans change their behavior:  

The Islamic “conscientious objector” collared while plotting an attack in Killeen, Texas, left the court shouting the name of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Islamic jihadist who murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in November, 2009. And the federal criminal complaint against Army Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo, which charges him with possessing explosives, says he was planning to bomb a restaurant where GIs frequently gather. The evidence federal gumshoes collected from Abdo’s motel room shows he intended to continue Hasan’s bloody but failed jihadist insurrection.  

What does it take to be able to own and operate a taxi and earn $30,000, $40,000 or more a year? You need to purchase a used car and liability insurance. Compared with other businesses, the startup cost to become a taxi owner/operator is modest; that's until you have to come up with money for a license. In May 2010, the price of a license, called a medallion, to own one taxi in New York City sold for $603,000. As referenced in my recent book, Race and Economics, New York City is not alone. In Chicago, a taxi license costs $56,000, Boston $285,000, and Philadelphia $75,000. It's not rocket science to understand the effect of laws that produce these prices: They discriminate against anyone getting into the taxi business who lacks tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars or bank credit to be able to get a loan.