Representatives Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley just introduced the Student Debt Emergency Relief Act to provide student debt relief during the coronavirus pandemic. In reality, the crisis is a pretext to push through student loan forgiveness of as much as $30,000 per borrower. This should hardly come as a shock. Outstanding student debt is bordering …

In 2010, Chicago police commander Jon Burge was convicted on counts of perjury and obstruction of justice and sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Although he was convicted of lying under oath, his real crime was what he was lying about. Over the course of his career, he participated in or oversaw …

A Car for the Masses When Henry Ford came up with the Model T, his goal was to build a car for the masses. Although history teachers typically present this as pertaining to price, Ford actually had to do much more than make his automobile cheaper. In fact, when the Model T was released in …

Bernie Sanders loves baseball. He loves it so much, that when he learned of Major League Baseball’s decision to phase out 42 of their 160 minor league teams, he called for the government to pressure the MLB to keep the teams, protecting the jobs of minor league players while raising their annual salaries. He has …

In Why Not Socialism?, G. A. Cohen presents the scenario of a camping trip to highlight the desirability of socialism as the best form of social organization. After outlining a trip where the friends work together to provide food and firewood, rather than engaging in the division of labor and exchanging competitively, Cohen poses his …

In 1992, Mark Young was sentenced to life in prison for trafficking marijuana. His conviction came from the testimonies of two other convicted marijuana dealers who turned on Young in order to get their own sentences reduced. The two informants, Ernest Montgomery and Claude Atkinson, depicted Young as a marijuana kingpin — the primary broker …

In the classic video game Sim City, players acting as the mayor of a simulated city begin by allocating space by industrial, residential, and commercial zones. There is no option in the game to have overlapping districts, where a department store might sit next to a middle-class home. The very idea would seem absurd to …

When Donny Clark was arrested in 1990 as part of a twenty-eight-man conspiracy to grow marijuana, he was the only defendant who refused to accept a plea bargain. Clark insisted he was innocent. Five years earlier, Clark was convicted in a Florida court for growing marijuana, but he served his time and was now working …

When Paul Hayes was arrested in Kentucky for writing a fraudulent check, he faced his third felony charge. At the time, Kentucky had a law in effect known as the Habitual Criminal Act, which imposed a life sentence for any third-time felony conviction. The prosecutor in the case, however, was at liberty to decide whether …

The Brennan Center for Justice recently published a collection of essays, all written by far-left politicians, about how the United States might solve the problem of mass incarceration. Bernie Sanders contributed an essay titled “Abolish For-Profit Prisons.” His essay should come as no surprise; during the 2016 election, he made headlines after proposing the Justice …

In 1984, as part of Ronald Reagan’s renewed war on drugs, the Drug Enforcement Administration launched Operation Pipeline. This program was inspired by the strategies employed by state troopers in New Mexico who, after pulling somebody over, asked specific questions designed to determine whether the driver might be a drug trafficker. Combined with the financial …

When Israel Leija, Jr. was picking up food at a drive-through in 2010, police officers approached his car to arrest him. Leija was guilty of violating his probation, and when the officers informed him that he was under arrest, he sped away. For the next twenty minutes, Leija led the police on a high speed …

In March 1919, the Communist Party headed by Vladimir Lenin stated in its newly drafted program that among the party objectives was the complete abolition of money. The State Bank of Russia would be “abolished and turned into the central bookkeeping office of the Communist society.”1 In theory, the ruling party could have simply decreed …

Under Warren’s plan for higher education, Warren won’t make you go to college — but she’ll make you pay for it.Original Article: “Elizabeth Warren Shows Us Why Government Must Get Out of the Student Loan Business”.

As candidates in the 2020 Democrat primary race try to outbid each other with grandiose promises to voters, the rising level of student loan debt makes for attractive campaign fodder. Making headlines with a plan aimed at addressing the student loan problem is Elizabeth Warren, whose loan forgiveness plan already enjoys the support of more …

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. Since Joe Biden’s recent announcement that he’s throwing his hat in the 2020 presidential ring, his abysmal stance on the War on Drugs has been the source of a great deal of criticism, even from those inclined to support him. Four years ago, he claimed …

The Time magazine article creating “the gateway drug” myth in the 1970s provided no citations for its claims, except ambiguous references to unnamed “experts.” The evidence remains elusive forty years later. Original Article: “The Gateway Drug Myth”.

The true aim of these “scholar activists,” as many academics have begun calling themselves, is to propagate socialism by redefining capitalism to encompass every evil of human history. Which means they’re mostly attacking straw men. Original Article: “How College Profs Push Students to Socialism”.

After the collapse of the housing market in 2008, professional historians gave birth to a new sub-field of history usually referred to as “the new history of capitalism.” Economic history is hardly novel, but the new history of capitalism takes the approach that capitalism is the “thing” that needs to be explained. In the past …

Season 3, Episode 54 After Grant’s army moved on from Pittsburg Landing, the horrors of the battle remained for the people living there. Focusing primarily on the story of nine-year-old Elsie Duncan, Chris recounts the terrible years that followed the Battle of Shiloh for the civilians left in its wake.  Chris Calton recounts the controversial …

This episode features a talk Chris Calton gave to Auburn’s Young Americans for Liberty on April 20, as part of the Reclamation of Liberties event. In the talk, Chris offers an overview of the history of the governmental efforts to stigmatize marijuana in order to justify criminalization and draconian enforcement policies. He traces the changing narrative and …

Hosted by Young Americans for Liberty at Auburn University and the Mises Institute. Recorded 20 April 2019 at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

Season 3, Episode 53 “Professor CJ” of the Dangerous History Podcast joins Chris Calton to tell the story of Shiloh from the perspective of two soldiers, from their own personal memoirs of the battle. One story follows the experiences of Henry Morton Stanley, a twenty-one-year-old Confederate. The other story involves the sixteen-year-old John Cockerill, a …

Season 3, Episode 52 The second day of battle brought fresh Union soldiers to the battlefield. They could hardly comprehend the destruction they witnessed from the day before. The bloodshed resumed until the overwhelmed Confederates were forced to retreat to Corinth. This episode also tells the oft-neglected story of the Battle of Fallen Timbers, in …

Season 3, Episode 51 As the Union line fell back, they condensed at the bottom of a ravine. As the thousands of soldiers in each army crowded in to fight in the narrowest portion of the battlefield, the area earned the nickname “The Hornet’s Nest.” Before the day was done, thousands of men would fall, …

Season 3, Episode 50 At the beginning of the Battle of Shiloh, the Confederacy caught the Union by surprise. However, one Union Colonel suspected that an attack was coming, and he formed his men into a defensive line that bought the rest of the Union troops time to join the fight. Instead of a quick …

Season 3, Episode 49 Following the victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, Grant’s commanding officer still wanted to remove him from command. During this time, he formed a strong friendship with William Tecumseh Sherman. As the Union army was amassing troops at Pittsburg Landing, the Confederate forces in the West were concentrating at Corinth. The …

In the United States, the newest model of any cell phone is usually going to be sold as faster and smaller. Even as large-screen phones have gained popularity, they depend on being thin and light to attract customers. Bulky phones don’t fit well in the back pocket of skinny jeans, and they aren’t as fun …

Season 3, Episode 48 While Confederates were facing disaster at Leetown, General Van Dorn and his Confederates at Elkhorn Tavern were fighting the Union forces with more success. But after pushing the Union forces back on the first day of fighting, they found out that they would not be reinforced by General Ben McCulloch’s 7,000 …

In 1991, Maui police officers showed up at the home of Frances and Joseph Lopes. One officer showed his badge and said, “Let’s go into the house, and we will explain things to you.” Once he was inside, the explanation was simple: “We’re taking the house.” The Lopses were far from wealthy. They worked on …