Over at Bloggingheads.tv, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch talks with Washington Times foreign policy reporter Eli Lake about Ron Paul, the resurgent limited-government sentiment at CPAC, the Bush-Obama War on Terror continuum, Glenn Greenwald, the split between F.A. Hayek and Murray Rothbard, AntiWar.com, Justin Raimondo, something called “Michael Moynihan libertarianism,” whether we are living in a “libertarian moment,” whether libertarians are all freakazoids, whether David Frum gets to be the big Jell-o Sheriff of the Republican house, and whether Bo Belinsky was a rapist
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Reason Writers Around Town: Matt Welch Talks Libertarianism With Eli Lake at Bloggingheads
Over at The Root , where Slate magazine sequesters black journalists, Michael Arceneaux decides it’s time to excommunicate certain undesirables from the African-American brotherhood. Because “while we love our own,” he writes, “we sure do dream of erasing a few of them from the history books.” I know the feeling, Michael. There are lots of embarrassing white people I’d like to Stalinize from history too—Ulrike Meinhof, Calvin Schiraldi, Yngwie Malmsteen

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The Root: Clarence Thomas the Mugabe of the Court
There was, of course, the dumb faux populism of Tim Pawlenty and the requisite Glenn Beck chalkboard and denunciations of Woodrow Wilson. But a few interesting moments are worth noting from this year’s CPAC.
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You Know the Lowlights. Here Are a Few Highlights from CPAC…Seriously
The CPAC straw poll is in, and the winner is Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the doctor of the rEVOLution (he’s got the cure you’re thinkin’ of! ). From the Wash Post ’s coverage: Texas Rep

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Ron Paul: In Your Straw Heart, You Know He’s Right
Via the Washington Examiner comes news of a brewing showdown in Fairfax, Virginia, where the school system is looking for a whopping tax increase to pay for teacher retirements and benefits.

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Even More on The Coming War Over Public-Sector Pensions
CNET has a preview of a case argued yesterday morning that could eventually decide the issue of whether police need to secure a warrant before searching an arestee’s iPhone.
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Police Seek Warrantless Searches of Smartphones
Earlier this week, Ralph Nader took the pages of the Wall Street Journal to attack last month’s Citizens United ruling for its “dire consequences for the nation’s constitutional premise of ‘we the people,’ not we the corporations.” University of Illinois law professor Larry E.

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“Of course, Nader is simply wrong about what the Supreme Court did”
I haven’t seen the much-praised picture Precious , so I don’t have an opinion of the movie myself. But I found this critique , written by frequent Reason contributor Brendan O’Neill, pretty interesting. Here’s an excerpt: At one level, Precious — based on the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire — is your average, super-patronising story of a dumb, fat, black girl from the ghetto being rescued by caring outsiders.

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Precious Stoned
In a write-up following a debate with Chris Riley of the pro-Net neutrality group, Free Press, the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Barbara Esbin succinctly captures the essence of the Net neutrality debate : I argued, as I have in the past , that net neutrality remains a solution in search of a problem, and Riley argued, as Free Press has , that it is required to ensure a fair and open Internet. In my presentation, I focused on the lack of evidence of a market problem or consumer harms to be redressed by this regulatory remedy; the FCC’s lack of “ancillary” jurisdiction to impose the proposed net neutrality mandates; and the possibility that the rules would be found to infringe on the First Amendment rights of broadband Internet service provider.
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Demystifying Net Neutrality
The Washington Examiner comes through with that rarest of finds — an unsigned editorial from the left-side stack that adds something to the news: First, the drop to 9.7 percent unemployment does not reflect the creation of new jobs that normally accompanies an economic recovery. The number of new jobs is actually declining

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The Good News Is the Bad News Isn’t Over