Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste: Happy Sedition Act Day!
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, it’s an opportunity to do things you could not do before.”—Rahm Emanuel Following Rahm’s rule for expanding government power, 216 years ago today, the US Congress, controlled by...
Potential Daylight Saving Time Changes in Utah
“It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.” –Aristotle Perhaps it was this Aristotelian proverb that led Congress to pass the Standard Time Act of 1918 establishing both a...
Hobby Lobby Case Shows the Importance of Congressional Limits on the ‘Despotic Branch’
“The Constitution… meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in...
Crony Capitalism: America’s Cancer Epidemic
America has cancer. I’m not talking about the various forms of deadly and debilitating biological cancer that many American’s suffer and die from, like those often related to years of smoking. No, I am talking about a cancer...
New Rules for Hemp Extract in Utah: HB105 Implementation
The Controlled Substance Advisory Committee in Utah recently discussed regulatory implementation of the bill allowing the use of hemp extract for persons with intractable epilepsy. Libertas Institute was in attendance to hear...
New Judicial Federalism: How Utah Can Avoid Recent Supreme Court Erosion of the Fourth Amendment
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision in the case of Navarette v. California which has potentially grave consequences for Fourth Amendment rights. The decision upheld the stop of a vehicle precipitated by an anonymous...
Crime and Punishment: Utah’s Voluminous Laws
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. —James Madison, Federalist 62...
Criminal Justice Reform Coming to Utah
In his 2014 State of the State Address, Utah Governor Gary Herbert said: Addressing population growth also involves improving our criminal justice system and providing structure for individuals to become productive members of...
Federal Public Land Ownership in Utah—Feudalism vs. Federalism
In a throwback to English feudalism, the United States Government currently claims ownership of over 60% of Utah’s land mass and even higher portions of land in many other western states. The vast ownership and retention of land...
Socialism in Utah: Subsidies and the Chains of Fiscal Coercion
Part Two in the “Dollars and Nonsense” Series. Click here for part one. In part one of this series we brought to your attention the state appropriations process and the expenditure of state funds in the form of...