Publius Awakened

A Federal District Judge in San Francisco ruled last Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of warrantless wiretaps of American phone and e-mail conversations is illegal, The New York Times reported. Created secretly by the Bush Administration in the days after 9/11, the NSA surveillance program was the subject of countless attacks by prominent [...]

The legislative battle over health care reform is over. Through procedural tricks and the purchasing of votes, the Obama Administration succeeded in passing historically intrusive legislation.
Recognizing that Congress failed to protect individual freedoms, Americans must now turn to the states and the courts to defend our Constitutional liberties.
Appropriately, 13 states filed suit against the federal [...]

For many, college is the time when they venture out on their own ideologically, discarding the beliefs of their family and friends in favor of new ideas that they either stumble upon or are exposed to in their new setting. Indeed, the way in which the college experience severs the social and geographical bonds that [...]

Being a Libertarian, a classical liberal or a political individualist is about imagination. It’s about imagining alternatives to the way we live today and these alternatives are often as foreign and impossible as living on Mars. The focus on imagination in our politics differentiates us from most political tendencies whose adherents seek incremental changes of [...]

Pittsburgh City Council’s unwavering determination to make doing business in Pittsburgh more burdensome — see prevailing wage law, nonprofit baiting and even price controls for towing services – was front and center in today’s Council meeting.
At issue was the decision of Aramark – the company contracted to provide concessions at the Mellon Arena – to [...]

I know I haven’t been posting frequently in the last few weeks as midterms are currently taking up a great deal of my time but something I read today blew my mind: the United Nations General Assembly elected a stooge of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to serve as that body’s president in September 2009.
I don’t [...]

Ending the Democrat’s legislative dominance last month, Massachusetts voters elected Scott Brown the 41st Republican Senator of the 111th Congress and simultaneously killed Democratic hopes for statist health care reform.
But like Lazarus from the grave, Democratic health care reform reappeared Monday as a new proposal, drafted by the White House, that combines elements of both [...]

The City’s response to last week’s storm illustrated that government is better suited to making regulations and collecting tax dollars than it is to providing services. Although it’s important to praise the employees of the Departments of Public Works and Public Safety for their admirable efforts, it should be recognized that city politicians failed once [...]

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat reported that Pittsburgh’s road salt budget for 2010 is $559,640 – down $400,000 from last year’s budget. I’m not sure where this $400,000 went but I’m pretty certain that it didn’t end up back in taxpayer wallets.
Instead, I’m willing to bet that City Council siphoned this money away to a pet [...]

Student Government Board President Charlie Shull said that the University asked for his opinion on make up days and gave him three options: hold class during Spring Break, hold finals week past graduation or hold classes on Saturday.
Of these options, Shull said that he recommended holding classes on Saturday because it was the least disruptive [...]