Politics Highlights

Formerly dog-friendly New York City which has banished man's best friend from any establishment that serves food or alcohol. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyner tackled childhood obesity by introducing a database to keep tabs on kids' weight. In San Juan Capistrano City, California, Attorney Omar Sandoval is trying fine a family for having a Bible study group at home.

"It's not a radical position...to say that decriminalization or legalization ought to occur," says U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). Reason.tv caught up with Kucinich at Seattle's 2011 Hempfest, where he spoke with Nick Gillespie about growing political support for marijuana legalization and the need for citizens to speak up frankly about their drug use."The cost of enforcing these laws is prohibitive" says Kucinich.

Liberia's long-entrenched culture of war leads youth to join the fighting in neighboring Ivory Coast.

There's no way to appreciate fully the contributions of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006), who would have turned 99 years old this weekend, to the growth of libertarian ideas and a free society. This is the man, after all, who introduced the concept of school vouchers, documented the role of government monopolies on money in creating inflation, provided the intellectual arguments that ended the military draft in America, co-founded the Mont Pelerin Society, and much more.

Paul A. Rahe discusses the danger that a consolidation of government poses for the people of the United States, the psychological disposition that makes democratic peoples vulnerable to servile temptation, and the institutions that once, in some measure, shielded Americans from these propensities. Asserting that the Obama administration is pursuing tyrannical ambitions, he offers some of the reasons why it is now possible for the nation to recover its original liberty.

Acclaimed writer and political scholar Christopher Hitchens may just be the only writer to have recently visited Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Hitchens - known for his keen wit, sharp political insight and often controversial opinions - examines the differences between the countries once linked as the "axis of evil," while revealing intriguing connections between the nations.

The Los Angeles Police Department raided Occupy LA in the early morning hours of November 30, 2011. There were more than 200 arrests made by the 1,400 officers on hand to clear out the park surrounding Los Angeles City Hall. Reason.tv was on the scene when the raid happened and documented what may be the end of Occupy LA's encampment, but the beginning of a new chapter in the movement.

Human trafficking is basically a form of slavery. WatchMojo speaks with Benjamin Perrin, a leading expert on the subject, to learn how this problem affects the United States and Canada.

Michelle Lieberman is the founder of Freedom Friend. She is trying to promote the ideas of freedom to young women like herself.