Guns drawn, a SWAT team kicks in the door of a private business. Are the cops there for drug dealers? Mafia mobsters? Terrorists?

No, the long arm of the law is out for the real dangerous contraband: raw milk and grass-fed chickens.

Nick Gillespie sits down with Kristin Canty, director of Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Farms, a new documentary about small farms and co-ops that have been raided by the Food & Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and state-level agencies and have had their products seized and destroyed. One particularly gruesome case involved a flock of sheep being killed because of the non-existent threat of the sheep acquiring Mad Cow Disease.

Farmageddon does more than document government overreach; the movie also takes issue with FDA claims that raw milk and other products popular with foodies are unsafe and filled with dangerous bacteria. In a country where more and more folks are embracing small-scale and organic agriculture, the government is on a collision course with a growing subculture.

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Mark Steyn joins us late and Peter Robinson leaves early in this guest packed episode. Author Drew Klavan joins us for a fascinating discussion of being a conservative and working Hollywood and pop culture in general. Then John Dennis the Republican trying to unseat Nancy Pelosi, followed by Dr. George Savage who discusses some of the amazing technology advances he is helping to bring to the market. Finally, John Yoo gives us his expert insight into the machinations involved in catching and charging the Time Square bomber. Questions? Comments? Write us at podcast@ricochet.com or come join the discussion on our Facebook page.

As Congressional leaders debate omnibus health insurance reform proposals, American consumers face the threat of dramatic changes to health care delivery that 100% misses the point. The entire debate is a quintessential study in “lipstick” on a pig.

The “pig” is the federal government intrusion into health insurance at all.   Let me restate, the health care marketplace is so fouled up BECAUSE of government involvement, not because of too little government involvement.

Americans are frustrated and the tea partiers are an expression of this because people see both parties as totally tone deaf, failing to limit the central role of the federal government.  So while the statists want to expand the role of government into a total single-payer plan, the rudderless GOP proposes a “market-based” government role in which government empowers people.  Huh?

The fact is, there is no more proper Congressional role in health insurance than there is in car, home or life insurance.  Insurance regulation is properly handled at the state level.  So how did we get here?

The fateful machinations happened in the forties, when price and salary controls put in place by an increasingly socialistic government forced businesses to look for creative ways to attract and compensate their employees.  The result, a loophole of sorts where employers could gift their employees with health insurance and deduct the premium as a cost of doing business.   Voila!  Just like that, the camel’s nose was under the tent and the negative ramification have perplexed patients and policy-makers ever since.

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