Americans See the Federal Government as a Threat to Civil Liberties, Poll Finds

Reason 24/7ReasonSo, after a steady flow of unsavory revelations in recent weeks about the federal government's use and abuse of power, and the Obama administration's oversight of the same, just how are Americans feeling about their Uncle Sam and the role he plays in their life? As it turns out, a survey of 1,013 registered voters conducted from May 18-20 finds that the residents of this oversurveilled and IRS-beleaguered nation are a bit sour on the old guy. In fact, they find him downright threatening. President Obama has taken a ding in his approval, too, though not half as bad as that suffered by the federal government (and Congress's ratings are in the toilet).

From Fox News:

After a week of revelations about government spying on reporters and the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives, most voters feel “like the federal government has gotten out of control and is threatening the basic civil liberties of Americans.”  

At the same time, a new Fox News poll finds disapproval of President Obama’s job performance is above 50 percent for the first time in a year, his honesty rating is at a new low and half of voters already think he’s a lame-duck.

More than two-thirds of voters -- 68 percent -- feel the government is out of control and threatening their civil liberties.   About one quarter disagree (26 percent).  

Nearly half of Democrats (47 percent), as well as large numbers of independents (76 percent) and Republicans (87 percent) feel Uncle Sam is taking liberties with their liberties.  

The full results can be found here, and they're worth reading. Among other results: 60 percent believe that the seizure of Associated Press records "went too far," though the public sees the IRS scandal and Benghazi as more concerning. Forty-nine percent say President Obama is now a lame duck.

Of course, one hundred percent will have to suck it up as our masters in D.C. do what they will. But we can still make life as difficult as possible for government officials and relish their discomfort.

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Eric Holder Acknowledges U.S. Killed Four Americans in Drone Strikes, Pentagon Asking for $450 Million for Gitmo; President Obama to Talk Targeted Killings, Closing Gitmo Tomorrow

next time same as the last?White HouseBarack Obama will speak at the National Defense University tomorrow, where’s he’s expected to address his counterterrorism policies, including targeted killings, the war on Al-Qaeda, and closing Guantanamo Bay.

The administration has now acknowledged killing four Americans in its targeted killing campaign, though only Anwar al-Awlaki, already widely reported to have been killed in a U.S. strike, was identified as an intentional targeted killing. In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder also admitted the U.S. killed two other Americans in the strike against al-Awlaki, including his teenage son, and another American, June Muhammad, in a drone strike in Pakistan, all unintentionally.

Prior to the election, Obama and his team pushed the idea that they had decimated Al-Qaeda and left its remnants on the run. The Justice Department’s seizure of phone records from the AP suggests the source of a leak that contradicted that message in May 2012 (by providing the AP info about an alleged foiled Al-Qaeda plot) is now being aggressively sought out. Was revealing the plot a threat to national security or to the narrative of a defeated Al-Qaeda that presents no threat, as the government insisted even as it allegedly foiled a terror plot?

As for the detention facility in Gitmo, the president blames Congressional intransigence on his inability to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and Democratic lawmakers agree. But what’s Obama doing for his part? The AP reports the Obama administration is requesting upward of $450 million to spend on Gitmo, including $200 million for upgrades of the “temporary” facility. The prison at Guantanamo Bay was opened in January of 2002 and the president promised to close it, signing an executive order to that effect, more than four years ago. A now more than a hundred-day-old hunger strike by many of the prisoners at Gitmo helped push Obama to last month renew his promise to shut the facility down. The ACLU said then it “welcomed the president’s continued commitment” to closing Gitmo. The Pentagon’s budget request provides a price tag on the commitment to keeping it open.

But the reality probably won’t prevent the president from giving a speech rich in the rhetoric of the rule of law and respect for human rights.

British Man Beheaded in London in Possible Terrorist Attack, Chicago Set to Close Schools, Tornado Damage Estimated: P.M. Links

  • Credit: KingAdelV/TwitterCredit: KingAdelV/TwitterA British man, reportedly a soldier, was murdered in London and beheaded by two men with large knives in what PM David Cameron is characterizing as a possible Islamic terrorist attack.
  • Chicago’s Board of Education is poised to vote today to close 53 schools, amid protests.
  • The Army has suspended the commanding general at Fort Jackson in South Carolina over allegations of adultery.
  • Reporters from Scripps uncovered tens of thousands of what were supposed to be confidential records publicly available online. In response, they’re being accused of hacking and have been threatened with legal action.
  • Damaged caused by the deadly tornado in Moore, Okla., may top $2 billion.
  • Due to the already significant struggles in passing immigration reform legislation, an effort to add protections for gay couples affected by immigration policies has been dropped.

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Jesse Walker on Dan Brown's Inferno

Dan Brown's been around long enough by now that we should know better than to enter his books expecting graceful prose or a reliable guide to the world; we might as well move on to asking if there's anything he gets right. Jesse Walker finds one thing to praise in Brown's new thriller Inferno: a current of sheer strangeness running beneath the Dante-for-dummies lectures and the formulaic plot.

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Pussy Riot Member Banned From Her Own Parole Hearing, Begins Hunger Strike

Credit: Denis Bochkarev/wikimediaCredit: Denis Bochkarev/wikimediaJailed Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina has begun a hunger strike, protesting a court decision banning her from attending her own parole hearing.

Alyokhina and two of her fellow Pussy Riot members were sentenced to two years in prison for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" after performing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral. Yekaterina Samutsevich, another member of Pussy Riot, had her sentence suspended after her lawyers successfully argued she was restrained by guards outside the cathedral before she could get her guitar out of its case.

From The Guardian:

Maria Alyokhina, 24, also forbade her lawyers from further representing her during the parole hearing, becoming the most high-profile prisoner to reject taking part in a justice system widely criticised as absurd.

A regional court in Berezniki, a small city in the Urals region of Perm where Alyokhina's prison colony is situated, had denied the activist the right to appear at her parole hearing on Wednesday. She appeared via videolink, and was required to file all motions by fax, requiring regular breaks in the hearing.

At the end of the day-long hearing, she announced she would start a hunger strike. The parole hearing was due to continue on Thursday.

"Let the troika sitting here – the judge, the prosecutor and the colony employee – decide my fate," Alyokhina said at the close of Wednesday's proceedings, referring to the Soviet-era three-person commissions that issued sentences to perceived enemies without a trial.

The European Union recently expressed concern over Russia’s human rights record, and last month Human Rights Watch released a report stating that, "The Russian government has unleashed a crackdown on civil society unprecedented in the country's post-Soviet history."

Democrat Warns of Special Prosecutor After IRS Official Pleads the Fifth, Bill Keller Wants One to Dismiss the “Distraction”

not the only one not answering questionsC-SPANLois Lerner, the IRS official in charge of the office processing 501(c)4 applications, plead her fifth amendment right against self-incrimination in declining to answer questions in a Congressional hearing earlier today. Her defense lawyer previously warned the committee she would plead the fifth, and Massachusetts Democrat Stephen Lynch warned that there’d be “hell to pay,”  possibly in the form of a special prosecutor, if IRS officials obstructed or refused to answer Congress’ questions. (Follow Reason 24/7 on Twitter to follow the obstructions).

Yesterday, former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller suggested Obama appoint a special prosecutor on the IRS scandal and call Republicans’ “bluff” in an exercise in the politicization of everything par excellence. Keller seems to be continuing to lead the way for the Times on that account. Keller manages to dismiss the other scandals in the recent “trifecta” (on Benghazi, spin’s no big deal, on government’s aggressive pursuit of leakers, chilling but not quite illegal) before dismissing Republicans as uninterested in “the truth” on the IRS scandal and suggesting Ken Starr (who was charged with investigating Whitewater) or Patrick Fitzgerald (who prosecuted Scooter Libby for leaking Valerie Plame’s identity) for the role of special prosecutor. An independent investigation, Keller concludes, can determine whether IRS actions were criminal or dumb, and in the meantime “we [??] have some governing to do.”  The scandal for Keller, then, is a “distraction” from the “serious business” of government.

Aside from Keller’s complete ignorance of how scandals work their way through the media, the attempt to sequester the IRS’ actions from the broader debate on governance is highly disingenuous. The IRS scandal goes to the heart of questions about government and governance. As J.D. Tuccille explained yesterday, scandals like the one in which the IRS is embroiled point to a larger problem about the kind of vast power government wields when it “governs.” And earlier this week, Peter Suderman rightly noted that the IRS used its power the way it deed for the simple reason that it could. Government apologists, meanwhile, defend the IRS’ action by justifying the targeting of Tea Party groups (Keller himself scoffs at the notion conservative groups might be intimidated by the IRS action). They cheer the scrutiny of dissident groups for using the same kind of tax labels as Organizing for Action, which runs BarackObama.com, even as Democrats like Vermont’s Peter Welch complain about the criticism 501(c)4s levy against members of Congress in political advertisements making their jobs harder. Special prosecutor or not, the IRS scandal ought to press issues like getting the IRS out of the speech business all together. "Congress created this [100-year-old bureaucratic] monster," freshman Republican Thomas Massie told his colleagues. It should make sure something like this “never happens again,” something politicians seem quick to say in any occasion except the ones involving government abuse of power.

IRS Official Says She Did Absolutely Nothing Wrong, Then Invokes the Fifth

Rumor has it the bus is being gassed up so she can be thrown under it.As reported yesterday, IRS official Lois Lerner, who oversaw the part of the agency that looked over applications for tax exemptions for nonprofits, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer any questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. She did give a brief statement, though. The Associated Press reports:

The Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the storm over the agency's targeting of conservative groups told Congress on Wednesday that she had done nothing wrong in the episode, and then invoked her constitutional right to refuse to answer lawmakers' questions.

In one of the most electric moments since the IRS controversy erupted nearly two weeks ago, Lois Lerner defended herself during a brief appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee is investigating the agency's improper targeting of tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012, and Lerner oversees the IRS office that processes applications for that designation.

"I have done nothing wrong," said a stern-looking Lerner, sitting next to three other witnesses and reading from a written statement. "I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee."

There was some debate among congressmen following her statement as to whether she actually waived her Fifth Amendment rights by stating that she had done nothing wrong and broke no laws, but she was dismissed from testimony today with the understanding that she might be called back following investigation.

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What The New York Times Missed When It Tried to Explain Conspiracy Theories

Superman is skeptical.Maggie Koerth-Baker has an article in The New York Times that surveys some recent research on the psychology of conspiracy believers. As a summary of what those researchers are saying, the story is solid enough. Unfortunately, most of their research is framed in question-begging ways.

I don't have space to list all the problems I have with the claims in the Times piece, but my biggest issue is illustrated by this sentence:

63 percent of registered American voters believe in at least one political conspiracy theory, according to a recent poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

That is indeed what the poll says, but phrased that way the figure is approximately 37 percent too low. Virtually everyone who has any political beliefs at all believes in at least one conspiracy theory. Imagining conspiracies is just part of how human beings tend to perceive the world: It's where our drive to find patterns meets our capacity for being suspicious, particularly when we're dealing with other nations, factions, subcultures, or layers of the social hierarchy. This habit manifests itself across the political spectrum, and it always has. And it is intensified by the fact that conspiracies, unlike many of the monsters that haunt us, do sometimes actually exist. (Koerth-Baker acknowledges that last point -- she mentions Watergate, Iran-contra, and the Tuskegee experiment -- so presumably when she writes "political conspiracy theory" she means "political conspiracy theory that is not accepted historical fact.")

LOST: one alt-text. If found, please call (202) 456-1111.As a result, the article's attempts to generalize about conspiracy believers fall flat. When Koerth-Baker quotes the psychologist Viren Swami, who says "The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories," Swami isn't really talking about conspiracy theories in general; he means a particular sort of conspiracy theory that stresses that "the official story" is wrong and that powerful people are covering up the truth. There have been plenty of conspiracy theories through the years that are not especially interested in debunking "the official story" (sometimes they are the official story) and that aim their suspicions at people who are not particularly powerful. Koerth-Baker cites a review-essay that Swami co-wrote for The Psychologist, reporting that it reveals "a set of traits that correlate well with conspiracy belief." But the Psychologist piece brushes too quickly past an important sociological question: What gets defined as a "conspiracy theory" in the first place?

The answer has more to do with who is promoting a theory than with what it contains. If you announced in the 1970s that a network of underground Satanic sects was kidnapping kids and sacrificing them to the devil, you may well have gotten tagged as a fringy conspiracist. In the 1980s, on the other hand, allegations that once were confined to Jack Chick comics were broadcast on mainstream TV shows, from Oprah to 20/20. (Several of those programs featured "expert" commentary by a guy with a history of claiming he was a former high priest of the Illuminati.) Officials took those stories seriously too: People across the country went to jail for allegedly engaging in ritual Satanic child abuse. And then, gradually, the hysteria faded, and the sorts of conspiracy claims that had been uncritically endorsed on 20/20 in 1985 went back to being framed as fringy "conspiracy theories."

The Satan scare was particularly bizarre, but it is hardly the only or even the largest moral panic to seize the government and mass media in the last few decades; and moral panics, which are paranoid by their very nature, frequently include fears of conspiracy. But they only appear in the literature that Koerth-Baker is reviewing to the extent that they intersect with the X-Files model of an outsider chasing the Enemy Above, not a powerful figure fearing an Enemy Below, an Enemy Outside, or an Enemy Within.

So when the Times piece concludes like this...

Psychologists aren't sure whether powerlessness causes conspiracy theories or vice versa. Either way, the current scientific thinking suggests these beliefs are nothing more than an extreme form of cynicism, a turning away from politics and traditional media -- which only perpetuates the problem.

Doesn't count!...all I can say is: At the same time that American slaves were whispering that white doctors were plotting to kidnap and dissect them, the planter class was constantly seized by fears of slave conspiracies. At the same time that the Populist Party's rabble-rousers were warning about East Coast banking cabals, Eastern elites were perceiving Populism itself as a product of a conspiracy. At the same time that the New Left was formulating conspiracy theories about Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson was pushing the FBI for evidence that the Communist bloc was behind the country's riots. In the past few years, the paranoia of some of the activists opposed to the current adminstration has provoked yet more paranoia from the administration's defenders. Now, people who wield power can still have anxieties about the things they can't control, so you can certainly argue that even powerful people's suspicions are driven by a sort of powerlessness. But I don't see them reacting by turning away from politics or traditional media. I see them spreading fear there.

Bonus advertisement: Hey, I just wrote a book about this stuff! Read about it here! Pre-order a copy here!

Gay Rights and Gun Rights Linked in Seattle Posters, Causing Control Freaks' Heads To Explode

Gay rights and gun rights posterThe StrangerAcross Seattle, reports alt-weekly The Stranger, posters are appearing linking gay rights and gun rights in ways that are just freaking out the usual control-freaky suspects. Some of the posters suggest that disliking guns is just like disliking homosexuality: a personal foible that ought not be turned into legislation. Other posters suggest that armed gays "aren't going to take shit from homophobes." It's clearly inconceivable that anybody could actually hold in his or her mind, simultaneously, a regard for the right of people to love who they want and respect for the right of self-defense, so it must be some horrible, trollish plot. At least, that's what The Stranger's Cienna Madrid suspects.

From The Stranger:

I just find it striking that a traditionally conservative movement is branching out to recruit gays and lesbians.

It's hard to know who's responsible for putting the posters up all over Capitol Hill. "Nale Dixon," who's credited for drawing the cartoon of the gay couple, returns no search results online. The pro-gun website is run by a dude named Oleg Volk, "An American," but that doesn't necessarily mean he's responsible for papering the hill with them. Without someone to credit, it's impossible to glean the posterer's intentions.

Perhaps being courted by a traditionally right-wing, conservative movement is refreshing and progressive, but it could also just be really effective concern trolling. What better way to make people feel unsafe in gay-friendly Capitol Hill than by slyly referencing homophobia and hate crimes in pro-gun propaganda plastered on every street corner?

Gay rights and gun rights posterThe StrangerHaving visited the Pacific Northwest to view the rooftop mosses (a traditional pastime in the region), I know that Seattle is a strange and cloistered place where new ideas may only rarely tread, so may I suggest that, rather than an outreach effort by a "traditionally right-wing, conservative movement," the posters display a certain libertarian sensibility? In fact, the posters could easily have been created by the Pink Pistols, which has a chapter in Tacoma, Washington. While, to judge by its Yahoo! Groups page (and the simple fact that it's based on Yahoo! Groups) the chapter isn't very active, somebody wth Pink Pistols-ish views is creating those posters.

Oh, and Cienna ... It really is possible to advocate personal freedom in all sorts of ways at the same time. C'mon and give it a try ...

Ronald Bailey: Are Savages Noble?

Credit: mlhradio / Foter.com / CC BY-NCCredit: mlhradio / Foter.com / CC BY-NCModern anthropological research may be settling the great debate between the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Was the state of nature a “war of every man against every man” in which life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” as Hobbes wrote? Or did “savages” live in utopian bliss, thanks to “the tranquility of their passions and their ignorance of vice,” as Rousseau believed?

Two new books, Marlene Zuk’s Paleofantasy and Jared Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday, examine the data on how hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers have eaten, loved, socialized, fought, reared children, and lived. As Ronald Bailey reports, both side mostly with Hobbes.

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Some Senators Think We Should Arm Rebels in Syria Because Assad's Opposition Includes Extremists

Credit: VOA News; Scott Bobb reporting from Aleppo, SyriaCredit: VOA News; Scott Bobb reporting from Aleppo, SyriaYesterday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to authorize the arming of some rebels in Syria. The bill passed by the committee would allow the Obama administration to arm elements of Assad’s opposition that have been vetted by the government. The relevant text of the bill reads as follows (Under Title V, page 34 of the bill):

 

The passing of the bill is only the latest evidence that when it comes to foreign intervention the differences between the two major parties are hard to find.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) yesterday said, “The time to act and turn the tide against Assad is now,” and his Democratic colleague Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) said, “…we’ve all been frustrated that our country hasn’t done enough to be responsive.” Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) stood alongside her Republican colleague Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to demand that action be taken in response to the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Sen. Marco Rubio has perhaps one of the most bizarre and interesting opinions on the conflict in Syria. While the presence of Al Qaeda-linked fighters being involved in Assad’s opposition has been one of the strongest arguments against intervention, Sen. Rubio believes that it is because of the rise of Al Nusra and other groups with links to Al Qaeda that the U.S. should arm rebels in Syria. 

From The Daily Beast:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) also said Tuesday that he supported arming the Syrian rebels somewhat reluctantly but that the rise of the al-Nusra Front, an al Qaeda-affiliated group fighting against the Assad regime, made it necessary for American to arm the other Syrian rebels.

“The U.S. cannot solve every conflict on the planet,” Rubio said. “But I believe it’s in the national interest of the United States to ensure that the strongest, best-organized, and best-funded elements in a post-Assad Syria and even before his fall are interests that are aligned with us and are friendlier to us than the alternative.”

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) pushed back against Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who tried unsuccessfully to add an amendment to the bill that stated any intervention in Syria could not be authorized by the authorization of use of force that followed 9/11 by making a similar argument. 

Again from The Daily Beast:

Corker pushed back against Paul by emphasizing that the idea of arming the Syrian rebels was to counter al Qaeda’s influence, both now and after the war ends.

“It’s the second war now that is of greater concern than even Assad, and that is who is going to control the country the day after Assad,” Corker said. “Sitting on our hands and not getting involved, it’s almost assured that al Qaeda or at least extremists with similar views are going to control the country. That’s what we are trying to prevent.”

The presence of Al Qaeda-linked fighters is now being used as an argument for and against intervention. That it would be impossible to guarantee that any weapons we send to “vetted” rebels wouldn’t end up in the hands of the worrying elements of Assad’s opposition remains an issue that legislators have yet to explicitly address with anything approaching reassuring clarity. 

The Obamacare Nightmare Scenario

Whitehouse.govWhitehouse.govAt a congressional hearing yesterday with Gary Cohen, the Health and Human Services official charged with managing the implementation of Obamacare, Republican legislators charged that Cohen’s agency may be improperly allowing some states to run “assister” programs that pay people to help individuals sign up for the health law’s coverage options. Republicans charged that HHS may not have the statutory authority to fund those programs in states running their own exchanges. That includes states like California, which plans to use a significant part of the $910 million it has received so far in federal implementation grants to pay 21,000 such assisters $58 for each person successfully enrolled in new Obamacare coverage.

To most observers, this probably looked like a strictly technical dispute over the rules governing Obamacare’s implementation funding. But at the heart of the dispute is something much larger—the growing liberal concern over what might be called the Obamacare Nightmare Scenario: that too few people, who are too sick, will sign up for coverage under the law, that premiums will rise in the exchanges, and that this will reinforce public skepticism of the law as an unworkable burden whose primary effect is to cause costs to rise.

You don’t need to read between the lines to see this fear creeping into the left’s conversations about the law.

You can see it in former White House health adviser Ezekiel Emanuel’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, which warned that enrollment efforts needed more attention, because there’s no certainty about how many people will sign up for coverage under the law. “This uncertainty,” he wrote, “could set off a negative reinforcing cycle that undermines the entire exchange system.”

You can see it in Kathleen Sebelius calls to insurers, to friendly foundations, and to tax prep organizations asking them to “support” Enroll America, a nonprofit that is practically an extension of the administration—it’s led by a former Obama administration health official, and its entire mission is to sign people up for the new health law.

You can see it in the anxiety over California’s enrollment promotion. As The L.A. Times reported last year, “federal officials have a lot riding on the California effort,” which will be “an important test” of Obamacare in the face of GOP opposition. But it all “depends on getting enough people — healthy and unhealthy, uninsured and insured — to enroll. If that doesn't happen, the state could lose billions in federal dollars and insurance premiums could soar.” The piece says that California authorities expect to enroll 2 million people in private insurance through the law, and describes the challenge of getting people to enroll as “daunting.”

Whitehouse.govWhitehouse.govThey’re right to worry. In part because, as Emanuel notes in his piece, this sort of enrollment push has never been tried at this scale. But also because a version of what they worry about—low enrollment, an unusually sick population, and spiraling costs—has happened before, in Obamacare’s first, smaller-scale attempt to expand coverage to the uninsured.

For the period between when the health law was passed and when its major coverage expansion kicked in, Obamacare set up a stopgap option for hard-to-insure individuals with troubled health history—the Preexisting Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP). The initial worry with this program, one I shared, was that it would go over budget as a result of high enrollment.

That concern was half right. Somewhere between 350,000 and 400,000 people were expected to enroll in the program. Instead, just 135,000 signed up—and then only after the administration went on an aggressive enrollment push. Yet even as The New York Times reported this week, even with far lower than expected enrollment, the cost of claims in the program has “far exceeded White House estimates, exhausting most of the $5 billion” the legislation provided to fund the program.

It wasn’t just that too few people signed up. It was that the people who did sign up were, on average, very sick. And thus, very expensive to cover. 

Which left states with very costly programs helping very few people: Last year Alaska said that its PCIP would cost $10 million in 2012—and cover just 50 people. New Hampshire enrolled just 80 people in its program, but spent twice its allotted federal funding. California had the highest enrollment of any state in the nation, but per-beneficiary costs came in three times higher than expected.

And what is the administration doing in response? Cutting payment rates to providers in order to hold costs down. 

This could be Obamacare’s future: Not a broad middle class benefit, but an expensive program with low enrollment that mainly covers the very sick and serves as a catalyst for driving doctor reimbursements down. Granted, this is far from the only possible future for the law, and far from the only way it could go wrong. But right now, I suspect, it's the disaster scenario that many liberal supporters of the health law fear the most. 

John Stossel on New York's War Against Airbnb and Roomorama

AirbnbAirbnbNew York recently passed a law making it very difficult for people to offer short-term rentals via popular websites like Airbnb and Roomorama, which connect room-owners and room-renters. New Yorkers could be fined $25,000 if they rent to tourists through those services. This is ridiculous, argues John Stossel, because there’s no need for authoritarian governments to ban consenting adults from renting to each other.

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Britain Accuses Iran of “Propping Up” Syrian Regime

feels like...Reason 24/7The British foreign secretary William Hague blames Iran and Hezbollah for the persistence of the Assad regime.

From Reuters:

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday Iran and its militant Shi'ite Lebanese ally Hezbollah were "propping up" Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and giving him increasing support.

"It is very clear that Syrian regime is receiving a great deal of support, increasing support in recent months from outside Syria from Hezbollah and Iran. This is a regime that is increasingly dependent on external support,"Hague said in a news conference with his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh.

Hague announced earlier this year Britain was sending military aid to rebels in Syria. Syrian rebels recently blamed Russia’s support of Bashar Assad for their inability to topple the government thus far, while the State Department has accused Iran of sending soldiers to Syria to support the Assad regime.

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A. Barton Hinkle on the Evolution of Big Government

Wikimedia CommonsWikimedia CommonsGovernment, an aggressive and complex multicellular organism, can be found in nearly every region and climate of the planet, including those such as North America where the natural habitat is often inhospitable. In order to thrive in such climates, government has evolved a variety of sophisticated survival strategies. These have enabled it to co-exist with, and often out-compete, other species. 

A full examination of these strategies falls beyond the scope of this paper, writes A. Barton Hinkle, but a brief summary should suffice to acquaint the lay reader with the more salient ones.

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“Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom.”

Writing in The New York Times, James C. Goodale, one of the attorneys who represented the New York Times Co. in its legal battle with the Nixon Administration over the Pentagon Papers, says President Barack Obama is on track to “pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom.” He writes:

The government's subpoena of The Associated Press's phone records was bad enough. But the disclosure of the search warrant in the [Fox News reporter James] Rosen case shows President Obama has delved into territory never before reached by previous presidents....

Until President Obama came into office, no one thought talking or emailing was not protected by the First Amendment. President Obama wants to criminalize the reporting of national security information. This will stop reporters from asking for information that might be classified. Leaks will stop and so will the free flow of information to the public.

Read the whole thing here.

Denver TV Station Finds Three Pot Smokers Who Don't Drive So Well When They're Stoned

CBS4CBS4In a recent experiment by KCNC, the CBS station in Denver, three daily cannabis consumers performed poorly on a driving course after smoking pot and achieving THC blood levels ranging from more than twice to more than five times Colorado's new presumptive legal limit of five nanograms per milliliter. The results contrast with those of experiments by Denver's Fox station and by the CBS affiliate in Seattle, in which marijuana users performed competently (on a simulator and a driving course, respectively) at THC levels far above five nanograms. The differences highlight the wide interpersonal variability in marijuana's impact on driving ability, which is a good reason to be wary of any attempt to equate a particular THC level with impairment.

Unlike its sister station in Seattle, KCNC, a.k.a. CBS4, did not have a police drug recognition expert observe the subjects as they navigated the course, relying on the judgment of the driving instructor who accompanied them, supplemented by images captured by 10 cameras on and near the car. Although the instructor never had to take the wheel or use his brake, he said all three volunteers seemed impaired after smoking marijuana, which they did repeatedly. CBS4's description is rather hazy on the question of how impaired the drivers were and at which THC levels.

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Los Angeles Voters Choose to Cap Number of Pot Dispensaries

Smoke it if you got it. And hurry! They're coming!Credit: Dank Depot / Foter.com / CC BYProtectionism wins in the young medical marijuana industry in Los Angeles. Voters have approved Proposition D, which caps the number of pot shops allowed to operate in Los Angeles at 130. The proposition won by a vote of 62.6 percent to 37.4 percent. The proposition protects the first crop of dispensary operators and forces shut the hundreds that opened later. This is assuming, of course, the city can figure out which is which.

Two other ballot initiatives, one of which would have prohibited a cap, are going down in defeat. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Backers of Measure F, which called for additional regulations on dispensaries such as city audits and tests of cannabis for toxins, said they weren't ready to give up.

David Welch, an attorney who supported that measure, said he was prepared to sue if Proposition D was declared the winner. He said the proposition was unconstitutional because it favored dispensaries based on an arbitrary date. He also predicted that Proposition D would be difficult to enforce, saying that many shops that opened after 2007 probably would continue to operate until the city identifies them and orders them closed. "The city has no idea who qualifies and who doesn't," Welch said.

The contentious campaign over how to regulate pot shops divided the city's dispensaries, employees and customers, as well as the City Council.

Measure F supporters warned that Proposition D would create a monopoly for older shops and allow the rise of "pot superstores." Backers of Proposition D, including a coalition of older shops and a labor union that has organized workers at many of them, cautioned that Measure F could lead to thousands of new dispensaries.

Yes, Los Angeles is fully capable of screwing up liberty even when allowing people to smoke marijuana.

Oh, also: Eric Garcetti was elected mayor.

A.M. Links: Weiner Announces Run For NYC Mayor, CBS Reporter Says Her Computers Have Been Compromised, Kerry To Address Backers of Rebels in Syria

United States CongressUnited States Congress

  • Former Congressman Anthony Weiner has announced that he is running for Mayor of New York City. Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after it emerged he sent a photo of his crotch to a woman using twitter and then lied about his account being hacked. 
  • A CBS reporter who had reported on the gun-running Fast and Furious program as well as green energy spending says that her personal and work computers have been compromised. 
  • Secretary of State John Kerry is set to meet representatives from countries backing the Syrian opposition as part of his effort to secure a peace conference.
  • Councilman Eric Garcetti has been elected as Mayor of Los Angeles. 
  • The University of Central Florida has reinstated a professor who was suspended for making an in-class joke.  

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Read "Obama's War on Journalism," by Nick Gillespie

I've got a piece in The Daily Beast called "Obama's War on Journalism," which attacks the president and his administration for their concerted efforts to shut down investigative journalism in the name of "national security." And takes issue the president's support for a "media shield law" which would consolidate even more power in the government's hand:

It’s easy to understand why he would be bothered by unwanted leaks in his administration. But his problem is the press’s gain. By definition, any media shield law is predicated upon the government defining just who counts as a “journalist” and is thus worthy of protection – and who doesn’t count and is thus subject to prosecution. 

Thanks, President Obama, but we don’t need no stinking press badges, especially in an age where all sorts of decentralized reporting and unconventional news gathering come online faster than the next second-term scandal. The First Amendment is all the shield law any American needs, especially when it’s supplemented by the protections offered by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. What we really need is a president who lives by the Constitution more than he nods to it.

Read the whole thing.

Of Renaissances and Improbable Comebacks, Comparing Coverage of Mark Sanford’s Return to Politics to Anthony Weiner

apple and orange?South Carolina/U.S. HouseAnthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress over a scandal involving sending racy pictures to female followers on Twitter, has announced a bid to run for mayor of New York City in this year’s election. He’s not the first politician attempting a comeback this year. Mark Sanford ran in, and won, the special election to fill the Congressional seat vacated by Tim Scott in South Carolina earlier this year. It’s a good opportunity to compare coverage of somewhat similar subjects.

Here’s the New York Daily News on Mark Sanford, a politician in another part of the country:

Disgraced former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is hoping that the campaign trail will pick up where the Appalachian one left off. 

Two and a half years after revelations of an extramarital affair ended his political career, Sanford is poised to announce that he will seek an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, The Weekly Standard reported. 

Here’s the Daily News on local pol Anthony Weiner:

Nearly two years after he resigned from Congress because of a sexting scandal, Anthony Weiner is running for mayor…

The unconventional campaign launch culminates a comeback tour that began in early April with a magazine interview and continued with the posting of a policy booklet online filled with ideas for the next mayor.

Although the sexting scandal made Weiner a national punchline, he has the potential to be a force in the mayoral race.

MORE »

Jacob Sullum on the Bipartisan Abuse of Recess Appointments

White HouseWhite HouseEd Meese, Ronald Reagan's attorney general, spoke for many Republicans when he called President Obama's 2012 appointment of four federal officials without Senate approval "a breathtaking violation of the separation of powers." But according to a recent federal appeals court decision, abuses like Obama's have been a bipartisan practice in recent decades, with Republicans, including Meese's former boss, more sinning than sinned against. Senior Editor Jacob Sullum explains how modern presidents have transformed a constitutional provision aimed at allowing them to fill posts when the Senate can't approve their choices into a tool for filling posts when the Senate won't approve their choices.

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Brickbat: Oh, What a World!

Free.clipartof.comFree.clipartof.comSwaziland's Civil Aviation Authority has threatened to fine witches who fly their broomsticks higher than 150 meters. An official with the agency said broomsticks are covered by the same law that bans kites and toy helicopters from flying too high. A local newspaper said it wasn't clear if he was being serious.

With Government Abuses, The Problem is the Power, Not the Person

Jay CarneyWhite HouseAs delicious as it is to watch White House minion Jay Carney squirm under questioning about the targeting of journalists, and to hear that tax agency apparatchik Lois Lerner will take the Fifth when called before a congressional committee investigating improper scrutiny of conservative groups by the IRS, it's important to remember that the problem lies in the existence of the power that's being abused, not just in the individuals doing the abusing. To punish Justice Department officials, IRS agents, or even the Obama administration might bring an end to the current round of scandals, but it will inevitably leave us repeating some version of this exercise in a few years, at best. The end goal should be to strip politicians and government officials of the power to punish journalists and political opponents — not to make sure that Republicans get their (next) turn.

Last week, the most excellent journalist and scrutinizer of creatures governmental, James Bovard, had a piece in the Wall Street Journal outlining the Internal Revenue Service's long history of dirty tricks on behalf of whoever is in power. Wrote he:

Many Republicans are enraged over revelations in recent days that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative nonprofit groups with a campaign of audits and harassment. But of all the troubles now dogging the Obama administration—including the Benghazi fiasco and the Justice Department's snooping on the Associated Press—the IRS episode, however alarming, is also the least surprising. As David Burnham noted in "A Law Unto Itself: The IRS and the Abuse of Power" (1990), "In almost every administration since the IRS's inception the information and power of the tax agency have been mobilized for explicitly political purposes."

Bovard sketches how "President Franklin Roosevelt used the IRS to harass newspaper publishers who were opposed to the New Deal" and "Kennedy ... used the IRS to strong-arm companies into complying with "voluntary" price controls. Steel executives who defied the administration were singled out for audits." He points out that the "IRS was ... given Nixon's enemies list to, in the words of White House counsel John Dean, 'use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.'"

We discovered in the 1990s, Bovard points out, that not just presidents, but members of Congress, had used the IRS to target political enemies for audits.

Likewise, the Justice Department's surveillance of Associated Press reporters and Fox News correspondent James Rosen was no isolated incident. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, media screams may have been raised when professional journalists found themselves on the receiving end of security-state tactics, but the government has been wielding such secretive and intrusive power against the general public for years. Write Cindy Cohn and Trevor Timm for EFF:

The AP detailed in its letter to the Justice Department how its privacy was grossly invaded even though the government accessed only the call records of its reporters and not the content of their conversations. We completely agree. Unfortunately, this isn’t just a problem in the AP investigation. Law enforcement agencies routinely demand and receive this information about ordinary Americans over long periods of time without any court involvement whatsoever, much less a full warrant.

The magic phrase "national security" is often invoked to justify these transgressions — often in transparently convenient ways (Attorney General Holder claimed the AP had put "lives at risk" with the story that sparked the scrutiny, even though John Brennan had said there was no such risk.) But intrusive surveillance is increasingly wielded in routine criminal investigations with no appeal to a supposedly higher purpose that trumps constitutional protections.

It's a joy watching government officials dodge questions, insist on blissful ignorance of the world's evils and invoke their right against self-incrimination. Such great theater. But, at the end of the day, disposing of those officials without doing anything else just clears the way for a new crop of power-abusers and useful drones effectively identical to the last batch, though with a slightly different list of targets for mistreatment.

We should get rid of the abusers sure, if only to remind the next batch that there can be consequences. But it's much more important to get rid of the agencies and powers that are inevitably abused, year after year, so that we don't have to act surprised, yet again, that we can't trust government officials to use power with restraint.

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