Check out this highly informative infographic from Mercatus! We’ve been recently discussing crony capitalism here at WFP (e.g., Crony Capitalists Invent the “SIFI” Shield for Protection from Competitors and Taxpayers and What is cronyism, and why does it grow?), and we highly commend this graphic as a compact and highly instructive means to learn more about the subject.

(Scroll over each form of cronyism to learn more, and read the full paper “The Pathology of Privilege: The ...

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They’re not listening to the people closest to the problem

The greatest irony of the immigration reform debate has been the exclusion of the law enforcement officers most responsible for border security and the detention of illegal immigrants.

When the Gang of Eight in the Senate unveiled its reform bill last month in a major Capitol Hill news conference, no law enforcement officials or officers were invited to speak. Instead, the event featured speakers from a wide array of special intere...

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Check out this striking graphic from John Stossel, followed by a few of Stossel’s comments

Texas grows, while Pennsylvania doesn’t.

Could one reason be that Texas has fewer legislators?

Pennsylvania has half Texas’ population, but almost twice as many legislators, and they meet EVERY year, while the Texas legislators meet every OTHER year.

Pennsylvania legislators pay themselves more too.

Fewer politicians leads to growth.

The House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee hearings about the September 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya have concluded. Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the September 11, 2012 attack.

Supporters of Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton say that the hearings, led by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), were nothing more than a partisan attempt to smear the current president and a likely Democratic cont...

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Following up from our post Did Murray Rothbard have good reason to despise Ayn Rand?, here is an actual performance of the play “Mozart Was a Red” by Murray Rothbard.

A little rough around the edges, but still quite funny, especially if you’ve read the post ahead of time.

I really do get a kick out of the terrible grammar in evidence in a lot of comment spam. The example I gave you in The awful grammar of email and comment spam! was good, but I think we have a new winner:

Commenter “formation” said:

Thanks for making the Essay to interact this, I expect strongly over it and coitus acquisition regarding this volume. If at all behave able, since you wax skillfulness, do you fear updating your website with unscheduled assemblage? It is kind of effective ...

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The Obama White House has released the latest installment of its ongoing and self-congratulatory video series, West Wing Week. But despite touting itself as “your guide to all things 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,” the new episode seems to be missing some of the key stories that have hit the headlines over the past few days.

There’s no mention, for instance, of Benghazi or the AP phone tapping – and the IRS scandal is barely mentioned in passing.

Perhaps the White House is just...

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. . . but they didn’t do much of anything about it.

Today, we can:

Lots more:

And “now the story of a dysfunctional Democratic majority that’s costing American jobs, and the one president who had no choice but to make it worse.”

From Speaker Boehner’s office:

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Rep. Schweikert went on CNBC’s The Kudlow Report to respond to the breaking news that the IRS had wrongly flagged and profiled conservative groups

From Politico:

Republicans want to make sure the most vulnerable Democrats they’ve failed to take out in the past don’t survive again next year.

The National Republican Congressional Committee on Thursday will launch Red Zone, a program aimed at unseating seven elusive House Democratic incumbents who occupy conservative districts.

The seven Democrats whom Red Zone will focus on are: John Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah, Ann Kirkpatrick and Ron Barber, both of Arizona, North Carolina...

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A solid answer in under three minutes:

Interesting data from Michael Barone:

Psephologists—the fancy word for election analysts—like to talk about change and transformation. One party or the other, they say, is on the verge of forging an enduring national majority. One party or the other is doomed.

What I have come to see in my number crunching is not change and transformation, but continuity. Three presidents in a row have been re-elected with 49%, 51% and 51% of the vote. Over the past two decades, Democrats won four of six pre...

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From Heritage:

Received via email:

President Obama on one of his vacations to Hawaii felt like he needed some time alone so early one morning he slipped away from his quarters and the ever present secret service and took an early morning stroll on the beach, walking barefooted in the surf.  A rogue wave washed up behind him and pulled him out to deep water where he was struggling to stay afloat.  Two young men out surfing saw the emergency and brought him to shore.

“You have saved the life of the most po...

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