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.

New health insurance requirements announced by the Obama administration on Monday will force health insurance plans to cover birth control and voluntary sterilization — with no co-pays — as preventive care for women. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service disclosed that the new guidelines, drafted by the Institute of Medicine, will take effect on or after August 1, 2012, and they are expected to apply to both individual and employer-based insurance plans. The regulations will be imposed as an extension of the Affordable Care Act’s preventive-care measures. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated in a press release, “These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need.”

The Governor’s Eugenics Compensation Task Force advocates that North Carolina provide reparations to surviving victims of the state’s past sterilization program. The program, which spanned from 1929 to 1974 — most popular during the 1930s — subjected 7,600 residents to forced sterilization, of whom analysts estimate 1,500 to 2,000 are still alive today. Former Gov. Mike Easley apologized to the sterilization victims in 2002, but no compensation was ever agreed upon. Although about half a dozen states have issued public apologies for their own sterilization programs, North Carolina is the first to mull over a concrete reparation plan.  

If there were a contest for the most misleading words used in politics, "poverty" should be one of the leading contenders for that title. Each of us may have his own idea of what poverty means -- especially those of us who grew up in poverty. But what poverty means politically and in the media is whatever the people who collect statistics choose to define as poverty. This is not just a question of semantics. The whole future of the welfare state depends on how poverty is defined. "The poor" are the human shields behind whom advocates of ever bigger spending for ever bigger government advance toward their goal.  

In voting to hike the federal debt limit, Republicans in Congress have violated more than one of their campaign promises. One of the vows they broke was articulated in the House Republicans’ 2010 “Pledge to America” under the heading “Our Plan to Restore Trust”: “We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives.” The laughably named Budget Control Act of 2011, which raises the debt ceiling in exchange for minor (and mostly future) spending cuts, was posted on the House Rules Committee website on August 1 at 1:45 a.m. The House voted on and passed the bill later that same day. Not even 24 hours — let alone the three days promised in the “Pledge to America” — had passed between the posting of the bill and the vote.

A federal appeals court has ruled against a county board in North Carolina over its tradition of opening meetings with mostly Christian prayers. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled in favor of two residents of Forsyth County after the county’s Board of Commissioners allowed an invocation at a December 17, 2007 meeting in which a local pastor “thanked God for allowing the birth of his son to forgive us for our sins and closed by making the prayer in the name of Jesus,” reported the Associated Press. According to the Beaufort, N.C. Observer, the invocation “also made a number of references to specific tenets of Christianity, from ‘the Cross of Calvary’ to the ‘Virgin Birth’ to the ‘Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.’”

The Tea Party is upset with at least four House members who rode to victory in November of 2008 on promises of cutting government spending and then changed sides and voted for the Boehner bill last Friday. The four “defectors,” according to Tea Party Express, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Founding Fathers, and United West, are James Lankford (R-Okla.), Allen West (R-Fla. — pictured), Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), and Bill Flores (R-Texas). The strongest criticisms were directed at Allen West, who ran on the promise of standing firm in his convictions and not compromising his principles. Tom Trento, director of the Tea Party Founding Fathers, called the four lawmakers “Stupak defectors”, comparing them to the former House member who at the last minute changed sides on ObamaCare and “betray[ed] conservatives.” The uproar then was so great that Stupak decided to end his career and step down. As Trento noted

Two weeks ago, concerned about news reports that President Obama would order the investigation of citizens buying two or more rifles at a time, a licensed Texas gun dealer contacted his local Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) official to find out if the reports were true, so he could be in compliance. The ATF official assured him that he was aware of such legislation having been considered, but added, “The law is not going to pass, and we can’t enforce something that isn’t law.” This week, however, gun dealers and pawnshop owners across the country received a certified letter from the ATF requiring just such compliance. The letter received by the dealer (viewable at Infowars.com, and personally examined by this writer) requires gun dealers in the states bordering Mexico (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California) to report the sale or disposition of two or more semi-automatic rifles of certain types to the same person during a five-day period. Compliance with the new demand is to begin on August 14, 2011. The rifles in question are those capable of accepting a detachable magazine and with a caliber great than .22 (including .223/5.56 caliber).

Admitted Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik was making wild demands from jail, saying he would only reveal more information about the attack and other “cells” waiting to unleash more terror if and when the government and the monarchy resigned. The killer was also demanding that he be installed as head of the armed forces, according to officials cited in news reports. During his second police interrogation on July 29, Breivik originally said he would not discuss anything until Norwegian King Harald V, the ruling Labor Party-led government, and the nation’s top military leaders all stepped down. Apparently he wanted to be in charge. But all of his demands were denied outright.