If you don’t visit Freedom Pub and the Heartlander digital magazine every day, you’re missing out on some of the best news and commentary on liberty and free markets you can find. But worry not, freedom lovers! Heartland Weekly is here for you every Monday with a highlight show. Subscribe to the email today, and read this week’s edition below.
Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Make Credit Freezes Free Verges Nonsensical
Peter Ferrara, The Observer
If Jesse James were alive today, he would probably be a progressive Democratic senator from Massachusetts. When they asked Mr. James why he robs banks, he replied, “Cuz that’s where the money is.” There is no better summary of the economic philosophy of Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Whatever you produce and sell, Warren seems to think it would be only fair to require you to give it away for free. If she was on the Indian Affairs Committee, she would probably be introducing the Free Tomahawks Act of 2017. READ MORE
Washington’s Worship of Big Data Threatens Individual Liberty
Robert Holland, Breitbart
E Pluribus Unum was the unofficial motto of the United States until Congress, in 1956, made it by law, “In God We Trust.” In view of a recent bipartisan initiative in the Republican-led Congress to pool data from every federal agency on every American in the supposed interest of “evidence-based policymaking,” you have to wonder if a new motto is taking shape, whether ever explicitly enacted or not. Call it, “In Big Data, We Trust.” READ MORE
Why Democrats Lose on Global Warming
Joseph Bast, Freedom Pub
Robinson Meyer’s November 15 piece for The Atlantic, titled “Democrats Are Shockingly Unprepared to Fight Climate Change,” is an important article because it accurately reports some of the history of the debate over global warming in the United States. What he misses though is the influence of The Heartland Institute and one man, Arthur Robinson. Starting in 2007, Heartland began distributing what would eventually be millions of copies of books, brochures, and videos explaining why man-made climate change was not a crisis. Heartland focused much of its efforts on the nascent Tea Party movement, providing its leaders with free publications, speakers, and other types of support. READ MORE
Featured Podcast: Tim Bishop: Recent Endangered Species Act Ruling Threatens Property Rights Nationwide
Attorney Tim Bishop explains how a recent court ruling allows the government to convert non-habitable areas for endangered species into habitable ones by seizing the private property, threatening property rights across the nation. The fundamental question: Does a frog, or any species, count more than people’s private property rights? Unless the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case, a dangerous precedent will be set. LISTEN TO MORE
Support Heartland Over the Holidays!
Put The Heartland Institute on your gift list this year! A great way to support us all year long is to set up a monthly giving plan – the easiest and most efficient way to support us. You are in total control. You can easily start, change or stop your gift at any time online or by phone. You’ll receive less mail because we don’t need to send you reminders – which means more of your gift goes directly to support our programs. You’ll receive uninterrupted membership benefits, ensuring you never miss an issue of our popular QPR-Quarterly Performance Report. Learn more about monthly giving to The Heartland Institute. CLICK HERE
It’s Time to Rethink Crony Capitalism
David D’Amato, American Thinker
The Niskanen Center’s Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles have been making the rounds of late, promoting their new book The Captured Economy. In it, Teles, who teaches political science at Johns Hopkins University, and Lindsey, a long-time think-tanker whose previous experience includes several years at the Cato Institute, argue “the powerful have rigged the economic game in their favor.” The authors’ acknowledgment that government is actively tipping the scales in favor of the rich and their economic interests is refreshing. READ MORE
Associated Press Accuses Charter Schools of ‘Racial Isolation’
Teresa Mull, School Choice Weekly
The Associated Press thinks charter schools are bad, apparently, because minority families like them so much. According to a recent AP report, “Charter schools are among the nation’s most segregated, an outcome at odds, critics say, with their goal of offering a better alternative to failing traditional public schools.” What the AP fails to account for is that minority students are flocking to charters because they desperately want an alternative. Universal school choice provides alternatives all families want, regardless of race or class. READ MORE
On Peer Review, Polar Bears, and Ad Hominem
H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Change Weekly
A recent paper in Bioscience concerning the effects of climate change on polar bears—or more accurately, concerning why more people don’t fear human greenhouse gas emissions are having a deadly impact on polar bears—exposes how weak the peer review system for science journals is today with regards to alarming climate claims. Noted climate scientist Judith Curry tweeted, “This is absolutely the stupidest paper I have ever seen published.” I couldn’t agree more. It never should have been published in a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. READ MORE
Bonus Podcast: Why Are Wisconsin’s School Choice Programs So Successful?
Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, shares insight into new data showing that Wisconsin’s school choice programs excel the academic achievements of the state’s most disadvantaged students. Flanders talks about what the research found, why the programs are so successful, what other states can do to mimic their successes, and what lawmakers and parents need to know about the education choice movement to keep its momentum going. LISTEN TO MORE
Clintons’ Russian Ties Should Also be Investigated
Justin Haskins and S.T. Karnick, Free Lance-Star
Both the Democratic and Republican parties have over the past few decades been all too willing to pay lip service to Abraham Lincoln’s ideal of a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” while they fatten their own wallets and those belonging to their most loyal special-interest groups. Perhaps no scandal over the last 50 years better encapsulates the corrupt heart of the administrative state than the Clintons’ dealings with Russia. READ MORE
What Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Agreed On
Peter Ferrara, Townhall
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton didn’t agree on much last year. But one thing they did both agree on was that so called “carried interest” involved a special interest loophole that should be closed. However, they were both wrong. There is a fundamental reason for those preferential capital gains tax rates. Capital gains taxes inherently involve double taxation of the property. That double taxation can effectively involve taxation of mere inflation, which doesn’t involve any real income to pay the tax. READ MORE
The Demand for Private Schools is Up, So Let Parents Choose
Teresa Mull, News-Sentinel
As Americans have slowly recovered from the now 10-year-old recession, enrollment in private schools has increased dramatically. When given the opportunity, parents across the country flock to private schools, and military families, say they’d like to participate in school choice programs, too. So why are education choice programs still available to so few U.S. families? Families yearn for the same freedom in education they enjoy in nearly every other aspect of their lives. READ MORE
Talk With Heartland Experts!
You are cordially invited to participate in an exclusive monthly conference call for supporters who give $250 or more to The Heartland Institute. The first Wednesday of each month we will host a 20- to 30-minute call with a short presentation by one or more of Heartland’s senior staff.
Please RSVP to Gwendalyn Carver at 312/377-4000 or [email protected]. You will receive dial-in information upon confirmation of your participation. DONATE HERE
Help Us Stop Wikipedia’s Lies!
Have you visited Heartland’s Wikipedia page recently? The good news is that it is more complete than it was just a couple months ago, after leftists took it over and trashed it. Most of the new information is accurate and unbiased. But the lies and libel about our positions on smoking and climate change remain. Other conservative and free-market sites suffer, too. Wikipedia refuses to make many of the changes we request and deletes and reverses the changes made by others. We need your help! READ MORE
Jim Lakely is the Vice President and Director of Communications of The Heartland Institute.
Joseph Bast is a Senior Fellow at The Heartland Institute. He cofounded Heartland in 1984, serving as executive director then as president & CEO until January 2018. His research and writing focuses on climate change and energy policy.
