HIT & RUN BLOG

Reason TVScott Shackford blogged The Richmond Times-Dispatch endorsement of Libertarian Gary Johnson for president. The major daily located in Virginia's capital argues that Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico and a successful businessman, is "the most capable and ethical candidate running this year."

In a companion piece to its endorsement, the editorial board (which includes Reason contributor A. Barton Hinkle), discusses more of what they consider Johnson's selling points:

Our instincts had pointed us toward Johnson. His meeting with the editorial board removed all doubts. Our endorsement conveys enthusiasm. His person and his policies embody what either the Democrats or the Republicans ought to offer the electorate. The formal endorsement of Johnson appears on the front of the Commentary section. It cites specific reasons for our choice. The editorial above explains the endorsement in the context of the Creed, our annual recitation of our philosophical roots. In endorsing Johnson, we remain true to ourselves. Indeed, he and running mate William Weld are true to the ideals that have motivated us for many years. Johnson represents a future one of the major parties ought to adopt as its own. He appears immune to the social Darwinism that infects extreme Libertarians and misguided conservatives; he projects empathy. Trump's temperament is not first-class; there is no evidence of an intellect. Clinton's ethical lapses are disabling. Johnson enjoys a decisive edge.

Read the whole thing here.

It's worth lingering for a moment over the above paragraph for at least two reasons.

First is the observation that Johnson and his running mate, former two-term Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, are not "extreme Libertarians." Indeed, the ticket has taken a huge amount of abuse among longtime LP members and small "L" libertarians precisely for not being super-doctrinaire when it comes to ideological orthodoxy. Some of this is simply concern trolling (especially from conservative Republicans) and much of it is overstated (Johnson is, for instance, against carbon taxes and fully defends Second Amendment rights). But there's no question that Johnson and Weld depart from standard-issue libertarian positions on things such as anti-discrimination laws; the attention he pays to Black Lives Matter bothers not just conservatives but some true-blue libertarians as well who eschew invocations of race in almost any context. This sort of tension is widely misunderstood, I think. The issue isn't really whether the LP has run candidates who weren't perfectly in sync on issues (think former congressman Bob Barr in 2008). It's more that Johnson-Weld are truly credible and serious candidates. That shifts the party's identity and role from one of ideological outreach to actually being serious about winning and influencing elections. With that shift comes serious questions about the level of orthodoxy in candidates vs. their electability (something similar was at play in the recent Virginia campaigns by Robert Sarvis for governor and senator). It's not a small sort of growing pain, but given that Johnson is polling far, far better than any other presidential nominee in LP history, fighting over orthodoxy and specific candidates is a sign of success.

Then there's this: "Johnson represents a future one of the major parties ought to adopt as its own." I think this is not only true but likely. If the Libertarian Moment is in any sense taking place (and it is), major politicial parties of the near future will indeed be shrinking the size, scope, and spending of government. They will become "fiscally conservative and socially liberal," as Johnson says. That's driven less by ideological commitments and more by pragmatic concerns. The reality is that entitlements, defense spending, and interest on the debt are writing a check the future can't cash. We're already at a place where about 3/4 of federal spending is mandatory and yet both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are talking about spending even more money than we already do. Clinton would raise taxes, which has the benefit of not totally blowing out the debt levels even as it will help make economic growth that much more sluggish. Trump would simply give up on anything approaching fiscal sanity. But it's also true that Americans consistently say that we want a government that does less and spends less. It's easy to say that people always say that in the abstract, but as the deadlines for actual cuts in Medicare and Social Security benefits come into view, Johnson is the only candidate who is trying to have an adult conversation about the purposes and sustainability of safety nets. When it comes to social issues, formerly controversial topics ranging from gay marriage to pot legalization to abortion are losing their ability to whip voters in to frenzies. The future belongs to a party that says something like: We will do fewer things but do them competently; we will spend less of your money even as we help those truly in need; we will give individuals more choices in living their lives when it comes to education, marriage, and work; and we will be fair.

On Labor Day weekend, it looks less and less likely that Johnson will be in the presidential debates, which get started later this month. The candidate himself has said if he's not in the debates, it's "game over" for any chance to win the election. But that ultimately isn't the real measure of his—and the LP's—influence on 21st-century politics. Keep a copy of Johnson's platform tucked away somewhere. Over the coming years, we'll see most if not all of what he's proposing will be baseline assumptions for one or both major parties.

Matt Welch and I did a Facebook Live interview with Johnson at the Democratic National Covention in Philadelphia. Take a look now:

Screenshot via Mark Schierbecker / YoutubeGonzaga University must be a forgiving place. Melissa Click, the former University of Missouri communications professor who was fired after assaulting a student-journalist during a campus protest, has been hired by the Catholic college.

It's a one-year, non-tenure track appointment. Click will once again teach communications.

In a statement, Gonzaga acknowledged the controversy surrounding Click but expressed confidence that she has "learned much from her experiences" at Mizzou.

"Dr. Click was hired through an extensive national search process that revealed her to be the most qualified and experienced candidate for the position," said the university, according to The Kansas City Star. "Dr. Click has excellent recommendations for both her teaching and scholarship, which includes an extensive record of publication. We are confident she has learned much from her experiences at the University of Missouri and believe she will uphold the rigorous standards of academic excellence demanded of Gonzaga faculty and students."

To recap: Click was caught on camera trying to persuade participants at a public protest to forcefully eject a student-journalist who was covering the event. She was charged with a misdemeanor and eventually fired.

It's difficult to tell whether she is genuinely sorry for her actions. In subsequent interviews, Click has come off as completely clueless. She also suffers from an inflated sense of self-worth. "I'm not a superhero," she told The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Yeah, you think? Jeez.

I don't really think Click's life should be ruined over one ill-considered moment, and Gonzaga is free to employ her if it wants to. But I'd prefer to see some actual contrition from Click first. How can it possibly be the case that she is currently the most qualified person to teach communications (of all things), when she doesn't even seem capable of learning from her own mistakes?

Gage Skidmore, FlickrIn 2015, about 3.5 million people were prescribed an EpiPen, an injection device with a pre-measured dose of epinephrine used to treat potentially fatal allergic reactions. Controversy over the fast-rising costs of the device has been used to indict the American health-care system as a playground for corporate greed. Over the past five years or so, the list price of a two-pack of EpiPends has increased about 400 percent, to $600. (Of course, what any customer might pay out-of-pocket is dependent on many factors such as insurance company, income level, and more.)

Well, there's no question that the maker of the EpiPen, Mylan, is in business to make money. The CEO of the company, which is the largest maker of generic drugs in the country, says, "I am a for-profit business. I am not hiding from that." It's actually kind of great to hear a CEO unapologetically say so. But as Scott Shackford recently noted at Reason.com, the main problem is that Mylan has been granted a de facto monopoly over the market for epinephrine injectors. That isn't because it built a better mousetrap but because the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has shot down virtually every alternative device for one reason or another.

As I write in a new Daily Beast column,

Mylan's path to monopoly pricing in EpiPens has everything to do with politics and nothing to with laissez-faire economics. The approval process isn't just long and expensive, it also opens things up to politics.

That's one of the reasons why Mylan, which bought the rights to EpiPen in 2007, spent more than $2 million lobbying Washington in 2015. The company's PAC has spent about $80,000 so far in the 2016 election cycle. Maybe it's just coincidence, but Mylan, one of the largest generic drug companies on the planet, faces little competition from other companies that want to make devices similar to the EpiPen.

As the pseudonymous doctor Scott Alexander documents at Slate Star Codex, the amount of epinephrine in an EpiPen's pre-measured dose costs about 10 cents a shot. But every time a new company tries to bring a rival product to market, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finds a reason to just say no. Sandoz, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, and Adamis have all tried and failed. That seems more than a little fishy given the relative simplicity of the basic drug and delivery system involved. We're not talking brain surgery here—we're talking about a pre-loaded, single-use syringe.

Let's be clear: The basic protocols that the FDA uses to approve drugs and devices are outdated and make new products far more limited and far more expensive than they need to be. Indeed, as medical researchers push forward into an era of hyper-personalized "molecular medicine" that is based on individual genomic differences among patients, the FDA insists on clinical trials that are based on average experiences. Some drugs work for some patients but not others, notes researcher Peter Huber of the Manhattan Institute. It costs somewhere between $1 billion and $5.8 billion and between 10 years and 15 years to bring new drugs to market (where maybe 20 percent become blockbusters). Yet for politicians on both sides of the aisle, the fix to the EpiPen is to threaten price controls. Here's an excerpt from a letter released by Hillary Clinton, in which she avers that the EpiPen price hike is

just the latest troubling example of a company taking advantage of its consumers. I believe that our pharmaceutical and biotech industries can be an incredible source of American innovation, giving us revolutionary treatments for debilitating diseases. But it's wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them.

"That's why I've put forward a plan to address exorbitant drug price hikes like these. As part of my plan, I've made clear that pharmaceutical manufacturers should be required to explain significant price increases, and prove that any additional costs are linked to additional patient benefits and better value. Since there is no apparent justification in this case, I am calling on Mylan to immediately reduce the price of EpiPens.

Mylan publicity photoNow that Mylan has announced plans to release a generic version of the EpiPen, Clinton and others (such as Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who sent Mylan a letter of his own) can claim a short-term win. But Mylan isn't taking advantage of customers. It is simply working a political system to its own advantages. And Clinton's solution to that is to give even more power to political players.

But as Reason's science correspondent, Ronald Bailey, has long argued, it makes much more sense to open up the approval process and empower patient choice if you want more and better treatments. Why not, for instance, have multiple approval agencies whose reputation and market power will be directly related to the accuracy of its ratings (Underwriters Laboratories provides one prototype)? Or allow terminal patients to more easily circumvent strictures on drugs that have not passed into the FDA's final approval stage? This is in fact already happening, with state after state passing "right to try" legislation that hopes to do just that.

Price controls don't work—just ask Venezuela. They result in less innovation, chronic shortages, and ultimately fewer products. Medical innovation obeys the same basic economic laws as every other commercial process.

No system of checks and balances is perfect but there's simply no way to make drugs cheaper without speeding up and lowering the cost of developing them. And there's no question that delaying approvals and squelching competition has costs too—ones that range far beyond a $600 EpiPen....

The plain fact is that the real problem with costs and innovations in the medical world isn't that companies are run by "greedy" bastards such as Mylan's Bresch ("I am a for-profit business," she told the Times. "I am not hiding from that.").

It's that powerful and well-connected companies can use politics to rig markets and that it takes too damn long and costs too much money to develop new drugs and services to us all. That's something politicians, not capitalism, are responsible for and only politicians can—and should fix.

Read the Beast article here.

Oxford University PressAfter Republican governments in Texas and Georgia lent their conservative imprimatur to criminal justice reform, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Ohio followed with substantial legislative packages. In general, the new laws entailed lower penalties for nonviolent crimes, non-carceral sanctions for parole and probation violations, drug court diversion, credits given for good behavior in prison that applied for early release, or a rollback of "truth in sentencing" laws. With no great fanfare, against the run of the recent past and in the face of pressures from within their own party, red states have emerged as leaders in criminal justice reform.

Prison Break is an elegant account of these developments, Kathleen Frydl writes in her review. But it misses some significant parts of the story, such as the red-state drug problems that helped to trigger red-state criminal justice reforms.

ReasonThe editorial board of Virginia's second-largest newspaper declared in a weekend commentary that they are breaking with a lengthy tradition of endorsing Republican candidates for president and throwing their support toward the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch serves Virginia's capital and boasts a daily circulation of about 90,000. The endorsement was posted yesterday evening, and is already being widely shared on social media. The endorsement came at the end of the week after Johnson met with their editorial board. They conclude:

These are unsettling times. Americans across the political spectrum worry that our once-great institutions no longer work in the interests of the people — and sometimes don't work at all. Why not take this chance to reject the binary choice between Clinton and Trump that was created by our two-party system? We strongly urge the debate commission to invite Johnson onto the stage to give voters an opportunity to hear his positions, to evaluate his temperament, and, perhaps most important, to compare him with the candidates nominated by the two traditional parties.

We are confident that, if given the opportunity to make his case, Gary Johnson will persuade millions of Americans that he is the most capable and ethical candidate running this year. We endorse him and look forward to a rejuvenating surprise in November — a new birth of freedom.

They also analyzed Johnson's positions and compared them with the editorial creed of their board, which spells out the ideals that drive the stances that they take. They compare the positions of Johnson, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton (the Green Party's Jill Stein is a total non-starter for them) to explain how Johnson won their support. Read those comparisons here.

It's also worth noting that the columns of A. Barton Hinkle, a member of the Times-Dispatch's editorial board, run regularly here at Reason. It's probably safe to say that while they may be diving into new waters by endorsing a Libertarian Party candidate, the ideals of libertarian philosophy are not new to them.

University Press of KansasWriting in the October 2016 issue of Reason, Jay Kinney reviews the book Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism. It's a work of history that tells the story of post–World War II conservative thought, and as Kinney observes, it sheds real light on the state of the GOP in 2016. For example, Kinney writes, the fact that Donald Trump has proven popular with some of the strains covered in the book—all but the libertarians, basically—is unsurprising, as Trump has given voice to many opinions shared by those who criticize conservatism from the right.

Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire/NewscomThe police union in Santa Clara, Calif., where the NFL's San Francisco 49ers play, says police officers may decide not to work at Levi's, the 49ers' stadium, if the 49ers organization doesn't take "corrective action" against Colin Kaepernick for critical comments he made about police officers while explaining why he'd decided to sit through the national anthem, as the local NBC affiliate, which obtained a copy of the police union's letter to the 49ers, reports.

In the letter (the NBC copy of the letter does not include who signed it), the union argues that Kaepernick's statements (the union calls them actions) "threatened our harmonious relationship" with the 49ers organization. Yet as public employees, the police are supposed to be public servants, not equal partners with the communities they are paid to protect. Threatening not to perform your duties because of critical comments goes beyond most reasonable people's definitions of a "boycott."

The union went further, claiming it had to act because it was responsible to create an environment "free of harassing behavior." The idea that critical comments amount to harassment ought to be a ridiculous one on its face, except that elements of the left have been pushing the idea that words can be harassment and even violence. The appropriation of such thinking should by no means be surprising to any thinking person. Police officers have similarly glommed on to the idea of hate crimes, arguing, with some success, to be protected by hate crime statutes. The original advocates of hate crime laws insist that was not the purpose of the legislation, but critics have long warned that such laws will inevitably be used by those in positions of power to protect themselves.

The union argues that Kaepernick made "inflammatory statements" while working for the 49ers, and therefore that the 49ers need to do something about it. Police unions, of course, rarely apply this kind of thinking on their own. Across the country, police unions have protected cops who have said awful things, and more, cops who have done all kinds of inappropriate things, up to and including the use of excessive and deadly force. It shouldn't be surprising. Despite the propaganda, public unions' primary aim is to protect their employees, not to improve the services they represent. In that context, it's hard to blame the police unions for the tone-deaf things they have done in the wake of police violence becoming a national issue.

For years, unions have been identified as one of the problems contributing to police violence. Critics of public unions have been warning about the power imbalance created by extending the privilege to public employees to collectively bargain with the government. The time to push for police union reforms came long ago. Those, especially on the left but also on the right (Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin who helped establish the first nominally independent state agency to investigate police officers, specifically exempted police unions from his broader public union reforms) who claim to be concerned about police violence but do nothing to bring attention to or otherwise work toward necessary police union reforms, ought to read the Santa Clara police union letter carefully and understand that such an attitude is not an aberration but the inevitable product of permitting those who exclusively carry guns for local governments to also unionize against them.

Pang Xinglei Xinhua News Agency/NewscomPresident Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou today that both countries will join the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The White House must be annoyed that lots of headlines are declaring that President Obama is "ratifying" the the agreement. The Paris Agreement will come into effect 30 days after 55 countries emitting at least 55 percent of the world's greenhouse gases commit to it. The U.S. and China emit about 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. In March, 2015, President Obama submitted the U.S.'s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution pledge to cut by 2025 U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below their levels in 2005. At the Hangzhou conference, President Obama reaffirmed those cuts and President Xi restated that China would begin cutting its emissions around 2030 or so. But what about that pesky "ratification" issue?

The Constitution provides that the President "shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur." In order for a treaty to be ratified two-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor of a resolution of ratification. If the resolution passes, then ratification takes place when the instruments of ratification are formally exchanged between the United States and the relevant foreign governments.

The Paris Agreement was specifically crafted during the United Nations negotiations to try to get around this provision of the Constitution. As I reported in my article, "Obama's Possible Paris Climate Agreement End Run Around the Senate," back in 2014 from the United Nations Lima climate change conference:

A 2010 Congressional Research Service (CRS) legal analysis of climate agreements ... notes that a 1992 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report dealing with the ratification of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) flatly stated that a "decision by the Conference of the Parties to adopt targets and timetables would have to be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent before the United States could deposit its instruments of ratification for such an agreement." The 1992 Senate report also explicitly added that any presidential attempt "to reinterpret the Convention to apply legally binding targets and timetables for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to the United States" would also require the Senate's prior advice and consent.

Franky / Dreamstime.comThis Labor Day weekend, as millions of Americans mourn the end of summer, many of us will fire up our grills to sear various hunks of animal flesh for one last seasonal family gathering. (The upside, besides the meat, is that with any luck we won't have to see most of these people again until Thanksgiving.)

Much of the meat we'll grill this weekend will be store-bought. Some of it will be purchased at the farm. Some will have been fished or hunted. And some—an almost imperceptible amount—will be harvested from the animal carcasses that dot America's roadways.

Yes, Baylen Linnekin talking about roadkill, and how states (often needlessly) regulate who may take and consume it.

Jason KeislingIn the October issue of Reason magazine, Anthony L. Fisher takes a look at how the major party conventions are now being paid for in the wake of a new law passed in 2014:

Here's one bright spot in a bleak election year: This summer's Democratic and Republican conventions were not subsidized by taxpayers.

In 2012, the public contributions to those distinguished demonstrations of democracy—the shows where you could see Clint Eastwood hectoring an empty chair or a weepy video tribute to Ted Kennedy—ran upwards of $18.2 million each (not including the cost of security), according to a May 2016 report from the Congressional Research Service. But this year, for the first time since 1972, the parties and their host cities' host committees were on the hook to raise all the money to stage their own four-day infomercials. Under the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, passed in 2014, funds that once went to subsidize political conventions have been diverted to pediatric health care research.

Craig StanfillClaremont McKenna College President Hiram Chodosh penned a terrific defense of free speech and intellectual diversity in a recent letter to students responding to the controversy created by the University of Chicago.

While many college administrators are working overtime to reassure their students that they are not like Chicago—that protection from emotional harm is a paramount goal—Chodosh has committed his own institution to the principles of free and open inquiry. Indeed, Chodosh's letter actually improves upon the Chicago statement: it clarifies that there is no contradiction between permitting unlimited free speech and asking for civil discourse.

The Chicago letter drew criticism for appearing to prohibit trigger warning and safe spaces, which would actually violate professors' rights. The administration later clarified that academics were free to use trigger warnings, they just wouldn't be required to do so. Claremont avoided this ambiguity entirely.

We encourage our professors to challenge our students intellectually," wrote Chodosh and Dean of the Faculty Peter Uvin. "We teach sensitive material. We do not mandate trigger warnings. We invite controversial speakers. We accord these rights to our students as well, whether they agree or disagree with faculty, administrators, or one another."

The letter goes on to note that such a commitment to free speech is, by its very nature, inclusive:

To benefit fully from the free exchange of challenging ideas, we must ensure that all people with different viewpoints, experiences, and analyses are included in our conversations. We protect the freedom of association as an individual and collective right. We reject exclusion and ad hominem attacks as barriers to learning. All of us—students, faculty, and staff—must commit to high standards of civility, respect, and appreciation for differences. All of us must value and support one another in challenging ourselves to analyze issues from many sides, to develop rigorous tools of intellectual inquiry, and to cultivate the habits of mind of an educated citizen.

Chodosh and Uvin also write that freedom of speech and diversity of opinion are "foundational" for Claremont McKenna.

"Both the faculty and our Board of Trustees have endorsed the University of Chicago's Principles of Free Expression as consistent with our own," they observe.

Claremont's president and dean deserve praise for refusing to promise their students safety from offensive ideas—thereby treating students with the respect they deserve. All institutions of higher learning should strive to follow this example.

Read the full letter below.

Dear All:

In recent days, we have seen much debate about free expression on our campuses, in part provoked by a letter from the Dean of Students at the University of Chicago to incoming students. Some have asked about CMC's position.

Freedom of speech and diversity of opinion are foundational to the mission of the College. Both the faculty and our Board of Trustees have endorsed the University of Chicago's Principles of Free Expression as consistent with our own.

We encourage our professors to challenge our students intellectually. We teach sensitive material. We do not mandate trigger warnings. We invite controversial speakers. We accord these rights to our students as well, whether they agree or disagree with faculty, administrators, or one another.

Our new Campus Resource Center is equally resolute in its commitment to inclusivity, openness, and pluralism. To quote from its charter:

First, the Center will be inclusive and open to all, regardless of background, identity, viewpoint, or values. It will aspire to be inviting to all students and to actively create opportunities for the broadest possible range of students to learn.
…
Second, … the Center will be dedicated to the principle of pluralism in thought, beliefs, and perspectives. It will not institutionalize a single way of thinking, but will instead reflect the core values of the college in focusing on complex issues in ways that are thoughtful, critical, respectful, and interdisciplinary.

To benefit fully from the free exchange of challenging ideas, we must ensure that all people with different viewpoints, experiences, and analyses are included in our conversations. We protect the freedom of association as an individual and collective right. We reject exclusion and ad hominem attacks as barriers to learning. All of us—students, faculty, and staff—must commit to high standards of civility, respect, and appreciation for differences. All of us must value and support one another in challenging ourselves to analyze issues from many sides, to develop rigorous tools of intellectual inquiry, and to cultivate the habits of mind of an educated citizen.

This is the work of the Athenaeum. This is the mission of our institutes. This is the purpose of our upcoming dialogue event (You. Me. Together CMC.). This is what happens in our classes, our residential life, and throughout our student experience. This is what we have done since our founding seventy years ago, and it remains the bedrock of our work today.

Very best,

Hiram and Peter

Hiram E. Chodosh, President
Peter Uvin, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty

Celeste Guap/FacebookSomething doesn't sit right about the recent arrest of Celeste Guap, a 19-year-old California woman who's now being held in a southeast-Florida jail. For the past year, Guap* has been central to a controversy involving officers from at least five Bay-Area police agencies, including Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco. The daughter of an Oakland police dispatcher, Guap claims she had sex with more than two dozen cops—some while she was still under 18—in exchange for cash or protection from prostitution stings. The first officer she claims to have been involved with wound up killing himself last fall.

Last Friday, Guap—a resident of Richmond, California—checked into a residential detox facility in Stuart, Florida, for what her mother described as heroin addiction. Three days later, she was in the Martin County Jail facing felony charges for aggravated battery. Bail was set at $300,000.

Guap and her mother both told the East Bay Express that the drug-treatment was funded through the Richmond Police Department (RPD), an allegation that has raised eyebrows among people following the investigation into Guap's prostitution claims (which include RPD officers). "I'm not saying rehab is a bad idea, but there are rehab programs here," said civil-rights attorney Pamela Price, who is leading a call for the state to take over the investigation from individual agencies involved.

Talking to ABC-7 reporter Dan Noyes, Guap explained that the treatment money came from RPD's victim's compensation fund. "They said it was a paid vacation," Guap told Noyes, "to consider it a paid vacation."

Lieutenant Felix Tan, RPD chief of staff, would not confirm or deny whether the agency was involved with Guap's treatment. "It would be irresponsible and inappropriate for any public agency to comment on anyone's rehabilitation progress," he says. "We are not commenting."

Any investigation into California cops' involvement with Guap may now be hindered by the Florida felony-battery case. According to charging documents, Guap told police Monday that she did not remember anything about the incident that led to her arrest. Guap "stated she blacks out when she gets angry," police reported.

Guap's alleged victim, a detox-center security guard named Joseph Sanders, claimed Guap was getting (verbally) upset with a facility care staffer so he and two other security guards entered the room. At that point, Guap tried to pull a safe off of the room's countertop and, "when the security officers intervened, [Guap] began resisting, starting a physical altercation," according to an arrest affidavit. Guap began "screaming at the employees then lunged at one of the female security officers. Sanders attempted to restrain" Guap, at which point she bit his right forearm.

Security-camera footage of the altercation allegedly backs up Sanders report—except for the biting, which was not caught on video. The sheriff's office has not yet seen the footage, Public Information Officer Christine Weiss said Friday afternoon.

After Guap refused to talk to police Monday, she was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car. After slipping out of the handcuffs, Guap began to repeatedly bang her head against the window and was then placed in a police hobble, according to the incident report.

In the Express, Guap's mother wonders why a detox and recovery center would call the police on someone for acting-out in the throes of drug withdrawal. It's a fair question. An aggravated battery charge for this incident also might seem harsh—the charge is supposedly reserved for assault involving a deadly weapon or attacks that cause "great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement." In Guap's arrest affidavit, officer Michael Trent McCarthy reports that he observed "teeth marks" on Sanders' arm but mentions no bruising or bleeding.

But according to Weiss, aggravated battery is the standard charge in cases that involve biting. Weiss also said that the $300,000 bond was nothing unusual. "We have in Martin County very high bonds."

Weiss added that the department was "not even aware" of Guap's situation in California until it began receiving calls from California media today.

* Not her real name.

PraxisMatthew Sheffield, editor of the metapolitical journal Praxis, has taken to the Washington Post to point out some of the connections and similarities between the Donald Trump movement and the late-1980s "paleolibertarian" strategy of Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell and others, which found expression in (among other places) foul newsletters from a quarter century ago produced under the name of Ron Paul.

The paleo/Trump overlap is an interesting potential ground for examination, and has been looked at this cycle (usually stressing Buchananite paleoconservatism) by the likes of Michael Brendan Dougherty and Jim Geraghty. But in making the highly reductive leap that "Trump and Paul speak the same language," Sheffield demonstrates that he's more interested in dot-connecting than a genuine understanding of different ideological and tactical strains. This comes through loud and clear in a false aside about Reason:

There had always been some sympathy for racism and anti-Semitism among libertarians—the movement's house magazine, Reason, dedicated an entire issue in 1976 to Holocaust revisionism and repeatedly editorialized in defense of South Africa's then-segregationist government (though by 2016, the magazine was running articles like "Donald Trump Enables Racism").

There have been many journalists who have learned the hard way not to trust information from Mark Ames, the source behind the Reason material above. To put it plainly, Reason never editorialized in defense of South Africa's then-segregationist government. Sheffield's claim is false, and I look forward to the Washington Post's correction.

As I wrote when the charge first came up, in a piece that links to and describes the entire relevant archive,

If defending apartheid was a "matter of faith" in Reason during the '70s and '80s [as Ames claimed], you would expect editors and staffers and contributors to routinely make that case when the subject of apartheid came up. Instead, from the editor in chief to the writer of Brickbats to book reviewers to the anti-apartheid activists themselves, the South African policy of forcible racial discrimination was described as "bigoted," "repressive," "thoroughly racist," an "absurd anachronism," "an anathema," "bad for business," and worse. Essayists wrote treatises on "how to dismantle apartheid"; feature writers celebrated developments they hoped "ultimately destroys...apartheid," Editor Robert Poole asked Zulu leader Gatsha Buthelezi questions like "What's the best thing the United States government could do to help end apartheid?", and on and on.

The entire case for Reason's allegedly institutional pro-apartheid bias rests on three pieces written not by an employee of the magazine, but by a single South African freelancer, Marc Swanepoel. As I indicated in my post, I disagree strenuously with what Swanepoel wrote back when I was in elementary school. But even he described the apartheid regime as a "dictatorship," and called for the abolition of "omnipotent government, whether in black or in white hands." To repeat: Reason never editorialized, let alone "repeatedly," in defense of the apartheid regime. Sheffield and the Washington Post need to correct the record.

ReasonNor is it true that Reason "dedicated an entire issue in 1976 to Holocaust revisionism," as Sheffield parrots from another misfired Ames attack. That February 1976 issue, as Nick Gillespie pointed out at the time, was surely not the magazine's finest hour, but the theme was revisionism-revisionism (i.e., challenging popular storylines Americans tell themselves about the country's pristine motives for going to war), rather than questioning the veracity of the Holocaust. "That scurrilous topic is not the focus of any of the articles in the issue," Gillespie wrote; instead the pieces were about things like what Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance about Pearl Harbor, and whether any actors other than Germany played a role in starting World War II.

It is true that, in Gillespie's words, "the inclusion of contributors such as James J. Martin, who would go on to join the editorial board of the contemptible denialist outfit the Institute of Historical Review, is embarrassing," as is the presence of Gary North (who would "later be excoriated in this 1998 Reason article for arguing in favor of violent theocracy and the stoning of gays and others"). But it is not true that that was an "entire issue" dedicated to "Holocaust revisionism." Sheffield and the Post should correct.

I'll mostly leave comment on the rest of piece—which was headlined "Where did Donald Trump get his racialized rhetoric? From libertarians"—to others. Aside from saying that I'm the opposite of a paleolibertarian fan (my first editor's note for Reason was titled "Ron Paul's Mistake"), I just cannot wrap my head around the present-tense assertion that Paul and Donald Trump "speak the same language." Unless the GOP nominee has been slipping in a few malinvestments here and there, or Paul has suddenly developed a fondness for taking other countries' oil.

• Screenshot via Screen Slam / YoutubeLena Dunham and Amy Schumer engaged in this terrible conversation where they treated two black male celebrities as sex objects. (The conversation was later edited.)
• Incarceration rates are rising in rural, white, conservative areas of the country.
• Judge says fraternity's lawsuit against Rolling Stone shouldn't be tossed.
• New York magazine: "How Fox News Women Took Down Roger Ailes."
• Gabrielle Union, one of the actresses in Nate Parker's film, has written an op-ed about his rape controversy.

Ron Chenoy The Photo Access/NewscomToday, right before Labor Day weekend, the FBI dumped some heavily redacted summary files of its interview and investigation of the private email and communication systems set up by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state.

Hey, at least they released the information early enough so that journalists can search through it before dumping their findings onto a populace that is currently stuck in traffic.

Here's a very quick summary from the Washington Post:

The documents, which total 58 pages, do not seem to provide any major revelations about Clinton's actions — though they paint her and her staff as either unaware of or unconcerned with State Department policies on email use. The materials also show that the FBI was unable to track down all of Clinton's devices, including phones, it sought, and that made it impossible for agents to definitively answer every question they had, including whether Clinton's emails were hacked.

"The FBI's investigation and forensic analysis did not find evidence confirming that Clinton's e-mail accounts or mobile devices were compromised by cyber means," the author of the report wrote. "However, investigative limitations, including the FBI's inability to obtain all mobile devices and various computer components associated with Clinton's personal e-mail systems, prevented the FBI from conclusively determining whether the classified information transmitted and stored on Clinton's personal server systems was compromised via cyber intrusion or other means."

When they say "all her devices," they're talking about 13 different mobile devices and 5 tablets, most of which were never found or turned over to the FBI for inspection. That information has been raising a lot of eyebrows, given how Clinton's defense of her secretive and private email and communication methods was because she wanted to handle it all from one device for ease. Maybe she meant only one device at a time? (Update: Also, a laptop used to archive Clinton's emails is missing.)

The other big eyebrow-raiser is that it appears, at least based on what the FBI was told, that Clinton had very little grasp of what classified markings on documents even were or what they meant. She did not know that a "C" marking meant that she was dealing with "confidential" information and told investigators she speculated "it referenced paragraphs marked in alphabetical order."

Clinton sent a memo warning staff not to conduct Department of State emails from personal accounts but then later told the FBI she didn't recall sending that memo. And the State Department sent out warnings frequently to staff about the security dangers of not using mobile devices not "configured to State security guidelines."

Oh, and the FBI has recovered more than 17,000 emails that she didn't turn over to the FBI, like she says she did. They're a mix of both work-related and personal emails.

Chris Cillizza over at the Washington Post has a great look through the components of the investigation that hadn't really been made clear already from FBI Director James Comey's previous public statement. A deep look paints a picture of a secretary who was at least completely disengaged in appropriate security protocols, even though she herself was at one point concerned she had been hacked.

At its worst, we're looking at somebody who is deliberately playing dumb about the handling of classified materials in order to avoid accountability, and that person is now asking to us to vote for her as president. Even without proper labeling, somebody with the duties of secretary of state should know what sort of information they're dealing with. Comey said exactly that in July. Remember, part of Clinton's campaign is essentially calling Donald Trump dangerously uninformed and reckless.

Peter Suderman has written extensively at Reason how this entire scandal has highlighted Clinton's problems with honesty and why voters don't trust her. Read some previous analysis here and here.

You can download the FBI documents and analyze them yourself here.