Click the photo for a larger version. This is the Aliak Glacier, near Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska. I made a large print of this one for a charity auction earlier this year, and it came out really nice. If you’re interested in ordering one of your own, drop me a line.

(Shot with a Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR.)

So if I understand the Democrats’ logic correctly, health insurance companies are evil profit mongers who do everything they can to avoid paying for their customers’ needed procedures.

Therefore, the government will now at the point of a gun force every American to give said health insurance companies a portion of their money, whether they want to or not.

I don’t doubt that there are people in Washington who honestly believe this makes sense.

A couple of months ago I put up a post about federal prosecutors’ pursuit of Dr. Roger Weiner, an outspoken Mississippi cardiologist who was charged with Mann Act violations for using a Memphis-based website while in Mississippi to meet and date adult women. FBI agents posting as prostitutes repeatedly tried to get Weiner to agree to for money for sex. Each time, he explcitly turned them down, at one point writing to one in a chat room, “I’m not interested in a hooker.” They arrested him and charged him anyway.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. dismissed all charges against Weiner, ruling that the federal courts didn’t have jurisdiction in the case. Biggers’ opinion strongly suggested the case against Weiner was politically motivated, and came down hard on federal prosecutors, concluding:

The agents repeatedly played the roles of inducers in the present case. Their actions were nothing less than blatant, though unsuccessful, attempts to manufacture federal jurisdiction and are reminiscent of the behavior of the agents in one of the seminal cases on manufactured jurisdiction.

Biggers then goes on to compare Weiner’s case to the facts in United States v. Archer, in which, as indicated, federal agents blatantly manufactured a federal crime.

Of course, Weiner won’t be compensated for the time, money, and personal stress he spent defending himself from these phony charges. And if you think think there’s a chance in hell the federal agents who set Weiner up or the prosecutors who brought this bogus case against him will be sanctioned or disciplined in any significant way, well, I’ve got a judge in Mississippi I’d be willing to sell you.

(Hat tip: NMissCommentor.)

I spend a lot of time pointing out bad cops on this site, not because they’re indicative of the profession, but to point out the improper incentives we’ve set for police, and how poorly the criminal justice system deals with its own bad actors.

But it’s worth taking the time to praise one unquestionably brave and honorable cop: Sgt. Kimberly Munley. Munley took a bullet and nearly died after rushing to the scene where Nidal Hasan was massacring soldiers at Ft. Hood last week. But not before engaging Hasan, and bringing him down.

She single-handedly ended the killing. She almost certainly saved lives. She’s a hero.

Yep!

I have a post up at Hit & Run smacking Media Matters around for a slimy hit on the Heritage Foundation.

Here’s a question for the folks in the comments section still clinging to the damnable notion that communism as a philosophy isn’t responsible for the mass murder, human rights abuses, and general evil perpetrated by communist regimes: Can you name a single communist country that didn’t suppress political dissent, free speech, freedom of religion and other human rights? Has there been a single communist country whose citizens could feel free to speak out against the government without retaliation?

Communists believe a country’s citizens are the property of the state. That makes them dispensable. It isn’t difficult, then, to see how and why the philosophy has turned out piles of bodies and widespread subversion of fundamental freedoms everywhere it’s been tried.

My crime column this week is an analysis of last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments in the prosecutorial immunity case Pottawattamie v. McGhee.

There was a beautiful moment where former Bush Solicitor General Paul Clement threw the judicial activism argument back at Bush appointees Roberts and Alito. He didn’t actually use the term, but it’s clearly what he was getting at.

And he was right!

The historian R.J. Rummel estimates 110 million dead by communism.

Today, Berlin celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of The Wall. Sadly, much of Europe is already beginning to forget the atrocities wrought by communism. We libertarians regularly make the point that while Nazism is still regularly and justifiably vilified, communism periodically enjoys rebirths of chic. The point can’t be made enough. Not to diminish the horrors of Nazism, but to confront the cultural whitewashing of the horrors of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Il, and the others.

This weekend at the Students for Liberty conference I was privileged to hear the great historian Alan Charles Kors give a rousing and inspiring speech demanding an accounting for the horrors of communism. I don’t think the speech is available online, but here’s an essay Kors wrote for Reason several years ago that touches on the same themes. The concluding graph is stirring.

No cause in the history of mankind has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than communism. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. No one honors those dead. No one does penance for them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them. It is exactly what Solzhenitsyn foresaw in The Gulag: “No, no one would have to answer.” Communism was not a “god that failed.” Rather, it was an intellectually organized slaughter and slavery that succeeded, but that could not sustain itself against the productivity and resistance of free men and women.

I’m speaking today at 5pm at the Students for Liberty’s Mid-Atlantic Conference. Topic: Myths of the Criminal Justice System.

If you’re in the Philly area, I’ll be out with conference attendees at the Marathon Grill tonight at 8ish. Come out and have a drink!

MORE: Apparently there are several Marathon Grills in town. I’ll be at the one closest to Drexel University.

“Still Alive,” by Jonathan Coulton.

This song is apparently about a video game. I have no idea what he’s talking about most of the time. But I love it. Also, he mentions cake.

Philadelphia.

Great commercial. It’s part of a pretty ingenious viral campaign by a company called MicroBilt, which sells information technology to small businesses. They’re doing free commercials like this one for small companies around the country. And getting lots of free attention for it.

This ACLU video profiles the Gitmo prisoners detained, tortured, and then released without charge.

You might keep the recent 2nd Circuit ruling my colleague Jacob Sullum wrote about yesterday in mind while watching.

Chicago.

Over at the blog In the Agora, Joshua Claybourn notes that libertarian (and Ron Paul offspring) Rand Paul has taken an early polling lead for the Republican nomination to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.). Paul has already raised far more money than his opponent, Kentucky’s GOP establishment-backed Secretary of State Trey Grayson. But Paul has also been able to convert dollars into poll points. He has jumped 14 points in the last three months.

Claybourn, an attorney and writer just across the Ohio River in Evansville, Indiana observes:

Rand Paul is a strong states’ rights advocate who wants the federal government out of people’s lives. He opposes federal drug laws and says the U.S. government should not outlaw gay marriage because only churches should be in the marriage business. He is skeptical of foreign interventionism and doggedly Constitutional about any engagement. But more than anything he likes talking about fiscal issues and the need to scale back government intrusion in economics and reform the nation’s fiscal policies…

Libertarian intrusions into Republican primaries are nothing new. But what separates Rand Paul from most other libertarian candidates (including his father) is that Rand is not a novelty act. He is a known commodity as a long-time practicing ophthalmologist in western Kentucky. Along with tremendous intellectual heft, Rand is a polished public speaker with a professional presence. In short, he is an ideal candidate for the libertarian cause.

All of which would explain why the national GOP is trying like hell to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination.

Encouraging story from Iran, where star math student Mahmoud Vahidnia confronted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on national television last week, challenging Khamenei on free press, free expression, and the crackdown on last summer’s protests.

More encouraging, a week later Vahinia appears to remain not only alive, but free from a jail cell.

Scott Greenfield has thoughts on the Maricopa County court video I posted about yesterday.

Cory Doctorow summarizes leaked portions of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, an international copyright treaty that the last two U.S. administrations have ridiculously classified from public view as a matter of national security. I mean, unless you happen to be an executive or lobbyist for one of the corporations who are essentially writing the terms of the agreement.

And man. This thing looks terrifying.

I did a segment on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch yesterday discussing the use of jailhouse informants.

Not my best TV spot. I usually have them turn off the studio monitor, but forgot this time. Can’t tell you how distracting it is to see yourself out of the corner of your eye on a TV just below the camera, with a couple-second delay, as you’re trying to talk. Live and learn.

Self-flagellation aside, the judge’s show is fantastic. Here’s hoping Fox is smart enough to bump it up from a web show to the actual cable network.