“If you wanted to destroy a city’s housing – short of bombing – the best way to do it is rent control,” says Cato legal associate Trevor Burrus.

While most cities in America long ago got rid of rent control, New York remains a bastion of government-mandated limits on what landlords can charge renters. About 50 percent of New York’s rental market is affected by rent control or rent stabilization, policies that keep rents artificially low and produce housing shortages, higher overall housing costs, and all sorts of corruption.

The court case Harmon v. Kimmel may finally bring an end to rent control laws that have been on the books in one form or another since the 1940s. James D. Harmon owns a building in Manhattan where the tenants are paying rents that are about 60 percent below the going market rate. After losing various legal battles at lower levels, Harmon has petitioned the Supreme Court to hear his argument that rent stabilization is a form of takings that should be prohibited under the Constitution. The Court has not yet announced whether it will hear the case but has asked the state and city of New York to respond to Harmon’s argument.

Cato’s Burrus wrote a friend of the court brief on the case and explains why rent control and rent stabilization are bad at promoting affordable housing and abridgments of economic freedom. (more…)

It’s a curious thing, the sudden and bizarre demonization of true constitutional conservatives like Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tennessee) by some conservative online agitants.

Most conservatives understand that Rep. Blackburn is one of the more reliably intelligent and sober figures in contemporary politics.  That’s particularly true when it comes to technology policy.  While most political leaders speak in simplistic talking points, Rep. Blackburn is known for developing real knowledge about, and applies her steady conservative principles to, the issues.

As the most prominent example, Rep. Blackburn remains one of the most steadfast and informed opponents of so-called “Net Neutrality,” which truly will launch governmental micromanagement of Internet service.

So it’s especially odd and ironic that some conservatives suddenly slur her.  Said RedState’s (and CNN’s) Erick Erickson, “I am pledging right now that I will do everything in my power to defeat her in her 2012 re-election bid.”  His rationale?  Erickson has joined the likes of MoveOn.org, Demand Progress, the Marxist group Free Press and others on the left in fanatically opposing legislation to stop foreign Internet piracy, H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  In doing so, he and other generally reliable conservatives are promoting lawlessness and outright theft by foreign pirates over constitutionally protected property rights.

So what is SOPA, and why all of the fuss?

(more…)

We’ve begun a battle of enormous consequence to our entire nation here in the great state of Mississippi.  Abortion is on the November 8 ballot in Mississippi, in the form of an initiative to change the state constitution by defining “person” as any human from the moment of fertilization.  The amendment is based on statements made by the judges who voted in favor of abortion during the Roe v. Wade oral re-arguments.

Unlike some other states, it is very difficult to get a voter initiative on the ballot in Mississippi; this year, we have three initiatives that would amend our state constitution, a truly remarkable feat.  All three are key conservative issues in an overwhelmingly conservative state:  abortion, voter identification, and eminent domain abuse.Personally, I’m hoping for a triple play, and voting “YES!” on all three.  The issue that I am working on, however, is abortion.

When this battle is won in Mississippi, it doesn’t just set up a challenge to Roe v. Wade, it eviscerates that case and all of its unholy progeny.  It gives a method by which every state in the nation can extend the most basic civil rights to the most innocent and deserving members of the human race — our unborn children.

When is a person a “person”?

All humans deserve equal protection of the laws and the right to due process, but the law only extends these rights to every “person.”  Thanks to the outstanding work of Personhood Mississippi, we in Mississippi will have the chance to be the first state in the history of our union to define a “person” to include all unborn humans.  Initiative 26 will define the term person as follows:

SECTION 33.  Person defined.  As used in this Article III of the state constitution, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.

If Mississippians vote Yes on Amendment 26, all human beings would be ensured equal rights in our state and protection under law, regardless of their size, location or developmental stage.  Calling abortion “murder” will no longer be merely a moral judgment, but an established legal determination.  In other words, abortion will be illegal.

(more…)

From AFP:

A federal judge overturned California’s ban on same-sex marriage US media reported Wednesday, the latest twist in a legal saga which could have nationwide implications for the divisive social issue.

In a written opinion, Judge Vaughn Walker found in favor of rights activists who argued that a November 2008 referendum which barred gays and lesbians from tying the knot was discriminatory and therefore violated the US Constitution.

Wait until the facts are in.

Mainstream Media, ACORN, Media Matters (all the supposed defenders of due process and journalistic ethics) are jumping to conclusions over the arrest today of James O’Keefe, with the clear intention to smear and, if possible, convict O’Keefe and his alleged co-conspirators in the court of public opinion in order to taint the “jury of their peers.”

The ACORN story was a huge black eye for the organized left and their allies and cohorts in the mainstream media. So they are relishing every minute of this breaking story, making it their top story – while they ignored the initial ACORN story until they no longer could.

MSNBC and other “news organizations” are even billing this developing story as “Watergate”. What do  Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow know? And when did they know it?

(more…)