Stossel goes where most fear to tread.

John Stossel, the libertarian reporter at Fox, tackles sex and the law—that one area where faux "limited government" types become raving banshees for Big Brother. In this first clip he discusses the case of Ricky, who I have discussed on this blog several time. Appearing with Ricky is his mother Mary Duval, who has commented here several times.



Similarly this blog has regularly challenged the absurd and counter-productive sex registry laws. Radley Balko, from Reason, tackles the hysteria. People on the Left, who worry about these sorts of absurd laws, should be applauding Stossel for doing this.

Crony Capitalism

One of the great myths, pushed by both Right and Left, is that Big Business is needs Big Government to keep it under control. In reality, Big Business usually advocates Big Government because it knows that it is able to control the regulatory process for its own benefit. And it does. The political Left, some of whom are well-meaning but naive, often plays up this alleged conflict to their benefit. Obama, in his State of the Union speech, played that same note over and over. He denounced Wall Street and Big Banks yet he has lavished billions of dollars on the groups he attacked and his own administration is riddled with officials he picked directly out of the very companies he was deriding. It's a con job from start to finish.

John Stossel discussed crony capitalism in this episode of his new show and I thought it well worth watching.

Stossel vs. O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly is clearly disappointed with John Stossel's premier performance on his show. He wanted Stossel to tell viewers that his former network friends attacked him for going to Fox network. Stossel denied that he received any such treatment but O'Reilly continued to push him to claim this happened.

Next O'Reilly moves on to drug legalization and keeps peppering Stossel with questions and then denies him the opportunity to answer the questions. Stossel finally says: "Do I get the last word?" The hilarity of O'Reilly is that he is a fake interviewer. He doesn't interview. He brings people on and then lectures them, using almost all the time for himself. Stossel remained a gentleman throughout and even said: "I'll have to work on my answers," as if O'Reilly would give him the chance to give those answers.