Europe’s struggles prove that “austerity” fails! So say the Big Spenders. With a condescending sigh, they explain that Europe made deep cuts in government spending, and the result was today’s high unemployment.

Oil must be sucked out of the ground, sometimes from war zones or deep beneath oceans. The drills now bend and dig sideways through as much as seven miles of earth. What they discover must be pumped through billion-dollar pipelines and often put in monstrously expensive tankers to ship across the ocean.

The British captured him and made him a servant for British officers. When one ordered Jackson to clean his boots, Jackson refused, and the officer slashed Jackson’s hand with a sword. When Jackson became president, he showed off the scar..

Arizona and Texas also gained, which made me wonder if Americans just move to states where it’s warm. “No,” said Darcy Olsen, president of Arizona’s Goldwater Institute. “Weather explains just 5 percent of the migration... the Census Bureau asks, and they say, ‘to find a job.

Most Americans — even those who are legislators — know very little about the details of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare. Next year, when it goes into effect, we will learn the hard way..

In1787, when delegates at the Constitutional Convention were divided and at an impasse regarding how to build our government and frame the US Con- stitution, 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin appealed to the other delegates to pray for divine intervention to help them darkness:.

They have a near monopoly on first-class mail delivery. You want to deliver something to someone? You better not put it in their mailbox — that’s illegal. The US Postal Service doesn’t pay sales tax or property tax. They don’t even pay parking tickets..

The political class claims the economy would have been destroyed in 2008 without a bailout of the big banks. Stockman says that’s a myth: “The Main Street banks were not going to go into a.

The Environmental Protection Agency just announced it will boost gas prices (“only” a penny, al though industry says 6 to 9 cents) to make another minuscule improvement to air quality..

They hold power because the government’s monopoly on K-12 education eliminates most competition. Kids are assigned to schools, and a bureaucracy decides who goes where and who learns what. Over time, its tentacles expand and strangle.

Celebrities are now upset about fracking, the injection of chemicals into the ground to crack rocks to release oil and gas. With everyone saying they want alternatives to foreign oil, I’d think celebrities would love fracking..

In his State of the Union, he said, “The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem.” But then he went on to list how, under his guidance, government will solve a thousand problems, including some (like climate change and a loss of manufacturing jobs) that are probably not even problems.

Maybe it’s because so many people tell themselves presidents can solve any problem, like fairy-tale kings — or gods. Before America’s first inauguration, John Adams suggested George Washington be called “His Most Benign Highness.” Fortunately, Congress insisted on the more modest title, “President.

The scheming lawyers behind the “Food Poisoning Bulletin” argue that without regulation companies will “cut corners.” After all, they say, sanitation costs money, so lack of regulation “creates a competitive disadvantage for companies that want to produce quality products.

It’s easy to hate the rich — and in our bailout economy there are reasons for suspicion. But capital doesn’t find the best outlets by itself. Hedge funds spot promising opportunities and quickly direct capital that way. Their reward is profit. When government interferes with that, we all suffer.

Also, Washington and Colorado voted to allow any adult to use marijuana. (But users beware. Your newfound freedom may be short-lived thanks to that extraordinary human being in the White House — you know, the one who smoked pot when he was in school.

My science-challenged mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said the storm makes it imperative that America do something about climate change. He said this even though hurricanes have not increased and little evidence exists that man has much effect on climate. With Obama’s re-election, we now will spend billions more on “green” strategies.

Many colleges now impose “civility codes.” Civility is nice, but enforcing a “civility rule” against offensive speech would put an end to lots of useful provocative speech. As a University of North Carolina student put it, “A picture of Mitt Romney would offend 70 percent of residence hall students.

Now maybe people will listen when Mitt Romney says things like, “The genius of America is the free enterprise system, and freedom, and the fact that people can go out there and start a business.... The private market and individual responsibility always work best.

All political candidates call themselves freedom-lovers, but they are not. Neither major party really opposes government control of the economy or of our personal lives. I’m a libertarian because I see the false choice offered by political left and right: Democrats talk about personal liberty; Republicans talk about economic freedom.