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Weekly Archives
Sharon Presley on Libertarian Feminism
"Many libertarian men are fairly ignorant about women's issues. Some of them are outright hostile to feminism because they've never bothered to find out what it is," says Sharon Presley, Ph.D.
Presley is a founding figure in the libertarian movement and author of the book, Standing Up to Experts and Authorities. She sat down with Reason.com's managing editor, Tim Cavanaugh to discuss libertarian feminism and what libertarianism looks like in 2012.
Shot by Tracy Oppenheimer and Paul Detrick. Edited by Detrick.
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Sheldon Richman on MSNBC’s Pro-Government Fairy Tales
It’s easy to be amused by the unceasing economic
and political malarkey that flows from the pundits at MSNBC. Many
of these gems come during its promos, which, as viewers of the
network know very well, promote not its programs but all-pervasive
government. In his latest column, Sheldon Richman rebuts the
fallacies featured in two recent promos, one starring Rachel
Maddow, the other starring Lawrence O’Donnell.
Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on the Borderline Tyranny of the Left and Right
If there was ever any doubt that the totalitarian temptation identified by economist and Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek in his brilliant tract, “The Road to Serfdom,” is alive and well, even in this sweet land of liberty, two current crusades of the left and the right ought to put it to rest, noted Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia in her column at The Daily last week.
Hayek’s genius was to recognize that eliminating feudalism and monarchy didn’t mean that the West had eliminated the danger of tyranny. Modern-day central planners restricting the peaceful, voluntary activity of individuals in the name of achieving some grand collectivist end open up new dangers. Since their plans inevitably leave individuals worse off, people find ever-new ways to circumvent them.
But the government doesn’t take its failure as a sign that there might be something wrong with its ends — that perhaps they are out of sync with the normal aspirations of people. Rather, it blames the failure on an insufficient use of force. Thus an initial round of coercion inevitably spawns subsequent, even harsher rounds, putting the country on Hayek’s “road to serfdom.”
It is exactly this logic that’s unfolding in the right’s crusade to get rid of illegal Mexican labor in the name of national sovereignty — and the left’s crusade to redistribute wealth in the name of social justice.
Read the whole thing here and enjoy Memorial Day!
Watch "Advancing Age," Award-Winning Comic Short by ReasonTV's Meredith Bragg
Showcasing the talents of ReasonTV managing editor Meredith Bragg and his brother Austin Bragg (currently back working at the Cato Institute after a stint with Reason as well), this short film "Advancing Age" won top honors at The 48 Hour Film Festival held recently in Washington, DC in the "thriller/suspense" category. For more info on the contest, where teams rush to produce a complete short project from conception to execution in just two days, go here.
And for more work by the Bragg brothers (and their talented co-conspirators), check out their YouTube channel for The Big Honkin' now (channel contains full run of cult favorite Defenders of Stan and much more).
Baylen Linnekin on Organic Food and Anti-Social Behavior
Do organic consumers shop exclusively at the jerk
store? It sometimes seems that way, especially as self-described
foodies increasingly treat the act of grocery shopping as a
political statement. In his latest column, Baylen Linnekin of the
nonprofit Keep Food Legal reviews a new academic paper titled
“Wholesome Foods and Wholesome Morals?” which looks at whether
people exposed to organic food marketing are so self-satisfied that
they are less likely to express empathy toward others.
John Yoo: The Real Thing to Worry About With Drones is Their Use by Private Citizens
If you start reading too many
libertarian or just generally government-skeptical writings,
sometimes you begin to forget that the world is full of people who
are more nervous about private citizens doing something than they
are government doing it. Former Bush Attorney and pro-torture
advocate
John Yoo is, unsurprisingly, one of those
private-citizens-make-me-nervous kind of guys.
Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf notes that Yoo correctly identifies that a brave new world of every tabloid from Gawker to TMZ having a drone, and one where parents can creep on their children all day long (or, more than they do already) will be bizarre and maybe bad. But Yoo also wrote this:
So more important than worrying about whether the NYPD or DHS uses drones, are what rules our society will choose to govern and constrain the private use of drones. It may ultimately be difficult to control; as drone technology allows for smaller and cheaper drones, the government will have less and less ability to regulate them.
No. That is not what is more important.
Writes Friedersdorf:
Yoo has got it exactly wrong: the rules governing NYPD and DHS drone use are of vital importance, regardless of what's happening in the world of private drones, because coordinated government spying is more problematic than spying by parents or celebrity gawkers.
Yoo ought to understand why that is so. He's the sort of complacent lawyer that power-hungry leaders rely upon when they want to torture or spy without warrants or extrajudicially kill in secret. The monopoly on force that the state enjoys, the tremendous power wielded by its functionaries, the incentives to target political enemies, and the frequency with which abuses occur are all reasons why restraining official use of this technology ought to be an urgent priority. There's also the reality that, whatever the future brings, government use of drones is now much more common.
And, the Huffington Post noted recently that the age of drone lobbyist is upon us as well. This will of course involve a depressing collusion of government and private sector industries. No doubt government will benefit and the private sector will be too cozy with government, what with the estimated 23,000 jobs that drone tech will add by 2025.
So yes, the day is definitely coming where TMZ will get their scoops from some 14-pound creeping drone. Weird privacy problems will come up. So will the potential for dangerous crashes (not that government-drones are immune to such things.)
But in this land of the militarized drug war, where the Fourth Amendment cannot keep up with the existence of smartphones, or airplanes, it's hilarious to think that the occasional creepy neighbor or pushy tabloid with a drone will be the real problem. Especially when a few police departments are already hoping to arm their drones with tear gas and rubber bullets.
It doesn't need to be said, except that the existence of people like Yoo demands that it be said, but Yoo is completely wrong. The longer that drones are only in the hands of cops and the government, the more regulations that we have on private usage, and the longer we will have to wait for the TacoCopter to move from theoretical start-up to sweet reality.
Really, Yoo, sometimes it's as simple as, which institution may legally kill people? The answer is government. But considering how much the man trusts presidents, nothing about this is a surprise.
Let's let one of the co-founders of TacoCopter sum it up:
"Current U.S. FAA regulations prevent ... using UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, like drones] for commercial purposes at the moment," Simpson said over Gchat. "Honestly I think it's not totally unreasonable to regulate something as potentially dangerous as having flying robots slinging tacos over people's heads ... [O]n the other hand, it's a little bit ironic that that's the case in a country where you can be killed by drone with no judicial review."
Reason on drones.
Reason Writers on The Alyona Show: Lucy Steigerwald on the 15-Year-Old Intel Science Fair Winner, Schools Tracking Students with RFID Chips, and The Japanese Artist Who Cooked His Genitals
Associate Editor Lucy Steigerwald discusses the 15-year-old who won the Intel Science Fair, schools tracking students with RFID chips in their IDs, the Japanese artist who cooked his own genitals, and the phenomenon of "trayvonning" on The Alyona Show's "Happy Hour." Airdate: May 25, 2012.
About 7.30 minutes.
Ron Paul Roundup: Paulites Cement Control in Nevada, More on Progress in Minnesota, Fed Audit Bill Up for Vote, and More
The non-Paul factions continue to flee the now largely Paulite official Republican Party in Nevada, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports:
Hours after the top two leaders of the Clark County Republican Party resigned, Ron Paul supporters took complete control.
They changed the locks at party headquarters and announced Thursday they could now focus on electing "genuine" conservatives, leaving infighting behind.
The sudden departure of Chairman Dave Gibbs, Vice Chairman Woody Stroupe and several others completed a purge of establishment GOP officials since Paul backers took over the executive board by sweeping elections at the Clark County Republican Convention this year.
The old guard are forming their own Romneyite "shadow party":
The moves also marked a permanent election year split in the GOP at the county and state levels, with Gibbs and Stroupe both saying they would join forces with "Team Nevada."
The Team Nevada organization is run by the Republican National Committee to help elect presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other Republicans. The RNC plans to run its campaign ground game money through Team Nevada to bypass the Clark County GOP and Nevada Republican Party.
The official Party is still doing the business of a political party:
Cindy Lake, the county party secretary and a Paul supporter, was elected acting chair. In a statement, she said the new leaders would focus on electing Republicans who share their values. Paul promotes smaller government, less spending and taxes and more personal freedoms, for example.
"After months of turbulence and instability following the Executive Board elections held at the Clark County Republican Convention, the CCRP Executive Board is now able to concentrate on the task of developing a consistent, accessible message that will allow the Party to take a large role in electing genuine conservative candidates to office," Lake said. "The CCRP Executive Board is looking forward to working together with Republicans across Clark County towards increasing Republican registration, building a strong, robust party, and achieving electoral success in the November elections."
22 of 28 delegates from Nevada to the national convention are expressed Paul supporters, but they are bound by state rules to mostly vote for Romney based on his majority in the state's caucus.
*Paul's latest Fed audit bill heading for House vote.
*One poll: 93 percent have a favorable opinion of Ron Paul.
*Profile of John Ramsey, moneybags behind the latest Paulite SuperPAC Liberty for All, which spent quite a bit on Thomas Massie's primary victory in Kentucky Tuesday.
*Paulites angry at Massachusetts decision to not count provisional ballots from April caucus meetings that could have sent more Paul-leaning delegates to Tampa.
*The Weekly Standard takes a close look at Paul's clean win of control of the delegation in Minnesota. Highlights:
Marianne Stebbins, Paul’s 2012 Minnesota campaign chair and one of the national delegates selected in St. Cloud, is the brains behind the Ron Paul revolution in the Minnesota GOP....
There’s a larger purpose to the “liberty” crowd’s fight. Though they won't have a chance to get concessions by threatening to block Romney's nomination at the August convention, Stebbins and company are looking long-term at remaking the Republican party, state by state, in Paul’s image. Paulites in Minnesota, like those in Iowa, Nevada, and Kentucky, are now in control of their party’s rules and platform. They’ll be recruiting candidates for local, state, and federal offices, too....
Stebbins predicts the Paul delegates won’t cause a fracas in Tampa. “The people who were elected as national delegates are a little more refined,” she says. “I don’t think you’re going to see any disruptions at the national convention.”
My new book, Ron Paul's Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired.
Cross posted at dedicated blog/site for Ron Paul's Revolution.
Q and A With California House Candidate Christopher David, a "Ron Paul Republican"
Christopher David, a candidate for Henry Waxman's federal House seat in California's 33rd District, who I interviewed for my book Ron Paul’s Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired, tells me he came into the Ron Paul world in 2007 from the left, attracted to the only candidate speaking a believable antiwar message. At antiwar rallies during the Bush years, he recalls, he was “surrounded by lefties holding signs for every left cause under the sun, which got me thinking I guess I was a leftist; I didn’t see anyone else vocally opposing the warmongering of the Bush administration.” David figured early in the last race he’d vote Obama; he couldn’t vote Kerry in ’04, thinking him just “Bush lite.”
Then he saw Ron Paul’s famous moment (the moment at the start of Ron Paul’s Revolution) at the May 2007 South Carolina GOP presidential debate, speaking intelligently and passionately about blowback and 9/11 and not backing down when Rudy Giuliani bullied him about it. “It was the first time ever I heard any elected official use the term “blowback” and know what they talking about,” David says. “It was amazing to me, and the fact on that it was a Republican doing it was just shocking. That got me looking into Ron Paul, because I knew that took courage for him. Getting familiar with Paul and his philosophy, within two months I was the card-carrying libertarian spouting Rothbard to anyone who would listen.” He was part of the army of youth campaigning for Paul in the blistering cold leading up to the 2008 Iowa caucus.
David went on to live for a while in the Free State of New Hampshire “in a house with seven other Free Staters in the middle of the woods with a firing range in the backyard” and to work with the Paulite youth group Young Americans for Liberty (where he tried to launch a national “Year of Youth” campaign to encourage young people to not just help other candidates but to run themselves, advice he’s now following) and launched the Paulite new media site Revolutimes and moved out to Los Angeles, from which he is running for Henry Waxman’s House seat in the 33rd district as a Republican. (Among his competitors are Libertarian Steve Collett and Democrat Bruce Margolin, famous for his work as a defense attorney in pot cases.)
Reason: Tell us about yourself.
Christopher David: I am a 25-year-old entrepreneur and activist running for the U.S. House in California’s 33rd congressional district, which spans the coast of Los Angeles from Malibu to Palos Verdes and includes Beverly Hills. A number of factors brought me to run, one of the biggest is that I believe there are too few advocates in Washington for the kind of real systemic transformative change that I think voters really want, and despite an array of very flawed candidates they have been trying to send that message that they are looking for something completely different. We saw that in 2008 with Barack Obama and the beginning of the Ron Paul movement, saw it more in 2010 with the Tea Party and I think we will see it even more this year. I think the action this year will be with the liberty leaning candidates, candidates inspired by Ron Paul.
It’s completely obvious if you look at Romney and Obama that there is a huge absence of excitement, excitement that only really Ron Paul is channeling, and so I think Ron Paul will go out with a bang at the Tampa convention. This will be a year of Ron Paul passing the baton not to any one person but to a whole movement. The great strength of the Ron Paul movement has been its very decentralization and though it’s obvious Rand Paul will probably be a candidate in 2016 for president, you’re going to see an explosion of people inspired by Ron Paul entering.
Ted Stevens' Prosecutors Punished for Withholding Evidence
Yesterday the Justice Department
announced that it has suspended two prosecutors who sat on
evidence they were legally obligated to share with the lawyers
representing Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who was convicted
of failing to report gifts right before losing his 2008 bid for a
seventh term in the U.S. Senate. The following April, the
government withdrew
all of the charges against Stevens (who died
in a plane crash four months later), citing the withheld evidence,
which included notes from an interview with a prosecution witness
that undercut the government's claims about the value of renovation
work on Stevens' home in Alaska—the alleged gift at the center
of the case. While a special investigator appointed by the
federal judge who oversaw the Stevens case concluded that the
prosecutors at fault, Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke,
"intentionally withheld and concealed" evidence, the Justice
Department's report on the matter attributes their failures to
"reckless professional misconduct." They were suspended for 40 and
15 days, respectively, without pay.
Light as those penalties may seem, they are a welcome reminder that defendants have a due process right to evidence that is "material either to guilt or to punishment." Although that has been the law of the land for half a century, prosecutors often seem to forget, and they rarely face consequences for that failure, aside from overturned convictions.
Another positive outcome from the Stevens fiasco: Two months ago, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced the Fairness in Disclosure of Evidence Act, which would require federal prosecutors to share evidence "that may reasonably appear to be favorable to the defendant...without delay after arraignment and before the entry of any guilty plea." Evidence comes to light after then must be shared "as soon as is reasonably practicable." If the prosecution fails to do so, the remedies include "postponement or adjournment of the proceedings," "exclusion or limitation of testimony or evidence," "ordering a new trial," and "dismissal with or without prejudice." If the failure is due to "negligence, recklessness, or knowing conduct," the court may order the government to cover the defendant's legal expenses. Murkowski explained the motivation for the bill this way:
What happened in the trial of Senator Stevens is unfortunately not an isolated incident, but most American do not have the wherewithal that he did to push back against prosecutorial misconduct. While I do believe most federal prosecutors are adhering to the law, it's clear the rules in place are not preventing "hide the ball" prosecutions in cases across the country. There are a few prosecutors out there willing to put a finger on the scales of justice to get more convictions—and this bill seeks to stop that. Justice should be blind, not blindly ignored.
Schumer Shocked Over Push-Back on Ex-Pat Bill, Etan Patz Suspect Arrested, UK Goes on Spending Binge: P.M. Links
Senator Charles Schumer is
appalled —
appalled, he says — that anybody would compare his proposed
legislative plan to fleece anybody who wants to leave the country
to a similar law enacted decades ago and wielded by a famously
nasty regime.- The case that haunted the headlines in 1979 may finally be solved. Pedro Hernandez, a former convenience-store clerk, was arrested and charged with murdering Etan Patz.
- Gary Johnson's so-far Internet-only "Peace is Cheaper" advertisement is "red meat" intended to reach antiwar activists and fiscal hawks alike. See it here.
- Curt Schilling's 38 Studios is the latest government-favored, taxpayer-subsidized company to go belly-up amidst the stink of fail. The video-game outfit was lured to Rhode Island in by a $75-million loan guarantee from the state.
- Berkeley, California, Police Chief Michael Meehan assures critics that he would send ten cops to retrieve anybody's iPhone, just like he did for his son.
- Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's tolerator-in-chief, says there's no place in his country for homosexuals. Left unspoken is that there's not much place in the country for anybody else, either.
- UK government spending hit record levels, despite an official policy of "austerity." With the country's recession worse than anticipated, economists describe the binge as "unsustainable."
- The SpaceX Dragon private spacecraft dropped by the International Space Station for a cup of coffee and a chat. Well ... Something like that, anyway. It was historic.
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Brian Doherty on Why Ron Paul Is the Best Hope for Progressives
As the presidential field has shaped up to a
certain Obama vs. Romney in the major parties, the desire for a
challenger championing either the serious right or the serious
progressive left grows. And Ron Paul—though he continues to deny
any third party plans and his political machine has clearly hitched
itself to the GOP for now—is strangely a viable candidate for
either role, should he choose to accept it.
As Senior Editor Brian Doherty observes, Paul is in many ways the rightest of right wingers, with his desire to kill the income tax, end government interference in medical care, and get to a balanced budget in three years with no tax hikes. Yet despite Paul’s impeccable Tea Party credentials on tax and spending issues, he would be a more appealing choice to progressives dissatisfied with President Obama. Even while running for the GOP presidential nod, Ron Paul has presented a political vision in many respects to the left of the Democratic Party.
But What Does Every Black Celebrity in America Think About Gay Marriage?
Just as the appearance of a
black presenter at the Academy Awards prompts the camera to track
down the most famous black celebrity in the audience (Will Smith,
Samuel L. Jackson or Halle Berry), President Barack Obama’s
declaration of support for gay marriage has prompted the media to
seek out quotes from some black household names in America.
Jay-Z approved of Obama’s evolution in a CNN interview. Smith gave gay marriage a thumbs up while promoting Men in Black III in Germany (just don’t try to kiss him). Other rappers like T.I. and 50 Cent have given their support with a “it doesn’t affect me so why should I care” slant, though in 50 Cent’s case, he’s terribly concerned about gay guys wanting to “grab your little buns” on the elevator and thinks straight guys need a support group for that. The Root even has a slide show of black notables who support gay marriage.
Samuel L. Jackson had already declared his support and participated in activism against Proposition 8 in California in 2008. Then after Proposition 8 passed, blacks were blamed for voting in favor of banning gay marriage in higher numbers than other races, though after the numbers were analyzed, blacks only voted in favor of Prop. 8 in numbers six percent higher than the rest of the population. Given that blacks make up only six percent of California’s population, it seems a bit of a reach to blame it on them, but the narrative has stuck (well, them and the Mormons).
The argument over blame was strange and a little telling. I was left wondering what the 42 percent of the blacks who voted against Prop. 8 felt about being blamed for its passage anyway. But that has always been a problem with collective or tribal politics – the voting booth makes a mockery of it. Looking at blacks or gays as a monolithic group has always been profoundly stupid, and a barrier to actual engagement between individuals within these groups, and yet it continues.
Homicide Isn't Prosecutable When You're a Federal Agent
An old joke about committing murders is that "the first is expensive, the rest are free." They can only execute you once, after all. But if they can't even prosecute you, let alone execute you ... Well, then, killings are all pretty much on the house, aren't they? And that seems to be the case with Cole Dotson, who won't be prosecuted for killing three women and injuring two children, because he was on the job at the time as an agent with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement when he decided to play bumper cars at an intersection in Imperial County.
According to the The San Diego Union-Tribune:
U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia said long-standing federal law gives immunity from state prosecution to federal law enforcement officers accused of crimes committed in the course of their duties.
That means Cole Dotson, a special agent with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, will no longer face three counts of gross vehicular manslaughter brought by the Imperial County district attorney.
On December 29, 2009, Dotson was apparently a laggard member of a surveillance team following a suspected meth smuggler. While trying to catch up with his buddies, he drove "his government car at speeds of more than 100 mph, according to the California Highway Patrol. When he went through the stop sign, his speed was estimated at 80 mph. Though the car had lights and sirens, they were not on."
Stop signs are there to modulate the flow of traffic, and people expect that drivers coming from other directions might actually pause, however briefly. When you blow through them doing 80, you tend to do things like piling into vans containing women and children. Killed in the crash were Sandra Garcia, who was driving, along with Maria Nieto and Patricia Reyes. Two children were injured.
The federal government forked over $11 million to the families of the victims in February — an indication that Dotson's actions were not universally considered praiseworthy. Another such indication was the attempted prosecution by Imperial County officials, who said federal agents get immunity only if their actions are "necessary and proper" to their duties, and that Dotson's didn't qualify.
Battaglia disagreed. While he said that Dotson’s actions were negligent, he said making the agent face criminal charges would have a “chilling effect” on all federal law enforcement officers who are in emergency situations.
The most famous such assertion of federal immunity in recent memory is that of Lon Horiuchi, the FBI shooter who ultimately skated away from an attempt by Idaho officials to hold him to account for his lethal conduct at Ruby Ridge only after the case bounced back and forth between courts before being dropped by a newly elected prosecutor.
Spurred by the Horiuchi case, the Yale Law Journal looked for the limits of federal immunity in 2003. Authors Seth P. Waxman and Trevor W. Morrison concluded that there was surprisingly little clear guidance to go on, but that:
[O]nce we are confident that the federal government is competent to act in a certain area, federalism properly imposes few judicially enforceable barriers to that action. Rather, we generally defer to Congress’s judgment about how best to reconcile overlapping federal and state power in areas where both are legitimately exercised. ... [T]he role of federalism in this area properly becomes quite modest. Rather, the governing constitutional rule is simply that of the Supremacy Clause itself, under which federal law is supreme and the only real question is how the federal government has chosen to express that supremacy.
How the federal government has chosen to express that supremacy? Well, Horiuchi was never prosecuted at the federal level, and Dotson still works for ICE, in an administrative capacity, with no hint of a federal prosecution in the wind.
With the federal government involving itself in ever-more aspects of American life, it might be a good time to look around really carefully at stop signs. Or anywhere else. (HT jasno)
Ray Kelly Outlines Measures to Curtail the Illegal Police Stops He Says Are Not Occurring
Last week, after a federal judge certified
a class action challenging the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program,
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly
outlined measures he is taking to curtail the unlawful
stops that he says are not occurring. In a
letter to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Kelly said "we
have republished the Department order that specifically prohibits
racial profiling." That's good, because Kelly's cops seem to have
lost their copies. Last year, the New York Civil Liberties Union
(NYCLU)
reports, 87 percent of the people stopped, questioned, and
(most of the time) frisked for nonexistent weapons were black or
Latino. Kelly says that's because police are focusing their efforts
on high-crime neighborhoods that are disproportionately black and
Latino. But as NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman
notes in today's New York Daily News, that explanation
does not quite fit the facts:
Though they make up only 4.7% of the city’s population, black and Latino males between the ages of 14 and 24 accounted for 41.6% of stops in 2011. The number of stops of young black men exceeded the city’s entire population of young black men.
The commissioner contends that this happens only because officers go where the crime is. But last year, large percentages of blacks and Latinos were also stopped in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, where 77% of people stopped were black or Latino.
The racially disproportionate impact of the stops is especially troubling because the supposedly suspicious people detained by police are innocent nine times out of 10: Only 10 percent of stops result in an arrest or summons. The hit rate for pat-downs is even less impressive: Only 2 percent find weapons of any kind. Although taking guns off the street is one of the most commonly cited justifications for the stop-and-frisk program, Lieberman notes that "guns are recovered in less than 0.2% of stops—an astonishingly low yield rate for such an intrusive, humiliating and often unlawful tactic." Kelly nevertheless claims the program has saved thousands of lives during the last decade by reducing violent crime, an assertion that Lieberman calls "demonstrably false." She notes that homicides were already falling in New York before Kelly launched the stop-and-frisk program in 2003 and that since then they have declined more quickly in other big cities.
The program's meager results also raise constitutional issues. Under the 1968 Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio, a stop must be based on "reasonable suspicion" that someone has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime, while a frisk is justified only when there is reasonable suspicion that he is armed.How reasonable is a suspicion that is wrong nine times out of 10, let alone 98 times out of 100? These numbers strongly suggest that police routinely ignore the "reasonable suspicion" requirement (as Mayor Michael Bloomberg has implicitly conceded).
But don't worry: Kelly says the department plans to remind police officers of their constitutional duties. It has a new training curriculum that "provides personnel with an additional level of clarity in determining when and how to conduct a lawful stop." It has approved the script for "the fifth and final part in our series of training videos regarding street encounters." Kelly also plans to keep a closer eye on the stop-and-frisk "report worksheets" that cops fill out for each encounter, which indicate the supposed basis for reasonable suspicion. The most popular excuse: "furtive movement." Finally, in an effort to improve community relations, which tend to be undermined by a decade-long program of hassling and searching innocent people with dark skin, the NYPD is encouraging officers to hand out "informational cards" durings stops that "provide a written description of the legal authority for such stops and a list of common reasons individuals are stopped by the police." Here is the short version of the text on the cards: "WHY WE ARE FUCKING WITH YOU: Because we can."
Robert Zubrin: Radical Environmentalists and Other Merchants of Despair
"We have never been in danger of running out of resources," says Dr. Robert Zubrin, "but we have encountered considerable dangers from people who say we are running out of resources and who say that human activities need to be constrained."
In his latest book, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, Zubrin documents the history of dystopian environmentalism, from economic impairment inflicted by current global warming policies to the Malthusian concern over population growth. "Just think how much poorer we would be today if the world would have had half as many people in the 19th century as it actually did. You can get rid of Thomas Edison or Louis Pasteur, take your pick."
Zubrin sat down with Reason Magazine editor in chief Matt Welch to discuss his book, the difference between practical and ideological environmentalism, and how U.S. foreign aid policy encourages population control.
Runs about 9.30 minutes
Produced by Meredith Bragg. Camera by Meredith Bragg and Josh Swain.
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Is It Even Possible to Lower Property Assessments "Improperly"?
A strange political scandal in
Los Angeles raises a tough question about real estate and
taxes.
L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley is investigating corruption in the office of County Assessor John Noguez. There is some reason to believe that Noguez has made the most of his power to decide how much property owners must pay in taxes.
Earlier this week, former Noguez underling Scott Schenter was arrested up in Oregon on charges of falsifying documents and unlawfully lowering property values. According to the L.A. Times’ Ruben Vives and Jack Dolan, Schenter is accused of “improperly slashing the value on more than 100 Westside” properties, resulting in a tax break of “$172 million for multimillion-dollar homes and businesses.” Property owners reportedly contributed to Noguez’ campaign in payment for the reduced assessments.
Schenter left office in January 2011 after a supervisor got wind of his alleged activities. In the intervening time he spilled the beans to Vives and Dolan, which had the immediate effect of expanding the story to include a local consultant named Ramin Salari who, again allegedly, acted as a middleman/fixer for property owners seeking relief on their tax bills. Schenter also may have incriminated himself with this loose talk, though I have no idea whether his statements to the paper had any impact on his own case. Most recently, Schenter relocated to the Beaver State and was, at age 49, living back in his dad’s house when he was arrested.
Noguez has his own
saga, including credible reports of threats and physical
harassment against opponents during a 2007 mayoral race in the
suburb of Huntington Park. These threats apparently resulted from
questions about
whether the then-mayor’s real name was John Noguez. It may be
Juan Rodriguez or Juan Noguez or Dick Whitman.
The grownup thing might be to say “Hey, even Jesus hung out with corrupt tax collectors,” and leave it at that. But it’s illustrative of how far from a free market real estate has wandered that you have to bribe public officials to get a lower assessment in a county where 30 percent of all mortgages are underwater. It’s true that the West Side, where Noguez’ office is said to have done much of its business, has less negative equity than other parts of L.A. County. But this interactive map from the L.A. Times (a fine national newspaper), shows Santa Monica’s beachfront zip code with 20 percent negative equity, Brentwood with 11 percent, Malibu with 16 percent and Marina del Rey with 21 percent.
Here in the land of the million-dollar starter home and the half-million-dollar teardown, in an era that has given us the deathless phrase “repenetrated bottom,” the idea that real estate can only go up remains so stubborn that we don’t even have language to describe the decline. Predictably, local pols are agitating for re-assessments, and I'm guessing they don't expect those assessments to be lower than Schenter's.
Nationwide, housing will mark its sixth straight year of deflation next month. Yet to this day you only get in trouble if you say a house has lost value. If you pretend the price is still inflated, nobody will bother you.
Well, You Wonder Why I Always Dress in Black...
So we
have a
new Men in Black movie? I've always resented this
series. It's not that I object in principle to taking a
fantastically creepy piece of American folklore and reducing it to
a string of jokes. It's just that if you're going to do that, the
jokes had better make me laugh, and most of the gags in the first
two MiB flicks fell far short of that. Alex Trebek and
Jesse Ventura were far funnier with just a fraction of the
screentime when they played Men in Black in "Jose
Chung's From Outer Space," and they managed to
preserve the eerie weirdness of the legend in the process.
Thankfully, Fortean folklorists are still collecting tales of sinister black-clad beings, and these tend to be much more entertaining than Hollywood's contributions to the genre. As an antidote to what I suspect will be another dull movie, here is an encounter with the Men that purportedly happened in 1955. Not only is it creepy, but there's a goofiness to its creepiness; when the alleged contactee reports his "impression" that one of the Men "was wearing a mask (the elastic band of which I distinctly remember seeing amidst the kinky, red, close-cropped hair of his head)," there's a hint of deadpan humor in the horror -- not surprisingly, since the tale almost certainly began as a prank. A good Men in Black story is both funny and frightening, as though someone crossed the Cthulhu mythos with a slapstick comedy; it suggests a world plagued by conspiracies that will never make sense to human minds because the forces behind them are not human themselves. I'd love to see a Men in Black movie like that. I strongly doubt that one is opening this weekend.
Ryan Ekvall and M.D. Kittle on the Wisconsin Recall Election and Milwaukee’s Crime Stats Controversy
The combatants in Wisconsin's historic
gubernatorial recall election brought the heat on the campaign
trail Thursday, after a newspaper story about the Milwaukee Police
Department improperly identifying hundreds of violent crimes. As
Ryan Ekvall and M.D. Kittle report, Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign
shifted the spotlight on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett after a
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found that, since
2009, the city's police department misreported more than 500
incidents to the FBI as lesser offenses.
Why Is Banning Private Anti-Gay Discrimination Less Controversial Than Insisting on Equal Treatment by the Government?
Damon Root's
post about the Defense of Marriage Act's legal troubles in
California highlights a puzzling aspect of the debate about gay
rights. He notes that the Supreme Court, which may soon
decide whether states are constitutionally required to treat
gay and straight couples equally, already has said that states may
not prevent local governments from adopting bans on private
discrimination against gay people. In the 1996 case
Romer v. Evans, the Court overturned a voter-approved
amendment to the Colorado constitution that prohibited such
anti-discrimination laws at the state or local level. In a majority
opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court reasoned that because
the amendment "seems inexplicable by anything but animus toward the
class that it affects," it "lacks a rational relationship to
legitimate state interests," meaning it failed even the highly
deferential "rational basis" test used in equal protection cases
that do not involve a fundamental right or a "suspect class" such
as race. Although the Court did not quite say that states
must ban private discrimination against gay people,
it did say they cannot preclude such legislation. But 16 years
later, with Kennedy still the swing vote, it is entirely possible
the Court, confronted by the equal protection challenge to
California's Proposition 8, will allow states themselves to
continue discriminating against gay people when it comes to
recognizing marriages.
This combination of positions is not at all unusual. Mitt Romney, who promised during his unsuccessful 1994 run for the U.S. Senate to be more gay-friendly than Ted Kennedy, supports banning anti-gay employment discrimination. In other words, if a nosy fundamentalist with a dry cleaning store refuses to hire anyone he considers a sinner, including non-celibate homosexuals, Romney says he must be forced to act against his own deeply held religious beliefs. Yet if a gay couple applies to the government for a marriage license, Romney insists that they should be turned away, going so far as to endorse a constitutional amendment that would prevent any state from taking a more evenhanded approach. Polling data likewise show that Americans are much more willing to compel nondiscriminatory treatment of gay people by employers and landlords than to insist that the government stop discriminating based on sexual orientation. In a 2008 Newsweek survey, 87 percent of respondents supported "equal rights for gays and lesbians in terms of job opportunities," and 82 percent endorsed "equal rights for gays and lesbians in terms of housing." Yet only 39 percent favored "legally sanctioned gay and lesbian marriages."
These opinions seem completely backward to me. Contrary to what Kennedy said in Romer, anti-gay bigotry is not the only reason why people might think that individuals should be free to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Bans on private discrimination impinge on religious liberty, property rights, freedom of contract, freedom of association, and freedom of speech—rights we should not sacrifice simply because we disapprove of the way some people exercise them. By contrast, government discrimination based on sexual orientation should not be tolerated, because the government has an obligation to treat all citizens equally under the law. Why are people more willing to accept bans on private discrimination, which violate liberty, than a ban on government discrimination, which would enhance liberty? Probably because they conflate civil marriage, the legal arrangement recognized by the government, with "the sacred institution of marriage" upheld by religious tradition. Opponents of gay marriage fear they and their religious communities will be compelled to accept homosexual unions that are anathema to them. But this is all the more reason to insist on the freedom of individuals and private organizations to discriminate while demanding neutrality from the government.
I discussed the crucial difference between private and public discrimination against homosexuals in a 2009 column.
“This is an issue of obfuscation, lies and mistrust in the food system,” admit anti-biotech crop activists.
Sadly, the headline is really
what anti-biotech crop activists are actually trying to achieve in
their campaign against modern biotech crops, not what they say they
are doing. The New York Times today
quotes Stonyfield Farms CEO and organic yogurt purveyor Gary
Hirshberg as saying, "This is an issue of transparency, truth and
trust in the food system." What he and other anti-biotech crop
activists are trying to do is convince consumers that something is
wrong with foods made using ingredients from biotech crops. Their
nefarious plan is to get state and federal government agencies to
mandate labels on such foods, e.g., "Warning: May Contain GMOs
(Genetically Modified Organisms.)"
The Times identifies anti-biotech vandals, e.g., one Cynthia LaPier, who go around sneaking their own hand-made labels on foods in grocery stores. So what's wrong with labeling foods in this way? This is where the obfuscation, lies and mistrust being peddled by anti-biotechies come into play. In the United States regulators only require labels on foods that provide either nutritional or safety information. In the case of foods made using ingredients from biotech crops, neither applies. Every independent scientific panel that has ever evaluated biotech crops finds that the currently available varieties are nutritionally indistinguishable from conventional crops and that they pose no health risks to human beings. No nutritional differences and no risks mean no labels.
By the way, organic labels are entirely voluntary and are basically used as a marketing technique to extract extra money from unwitting consumers.
However, anti-biotech activists and, dare one add, organic crop and food production competitors know that some signficant portion Americans would innocently mistake required labels on foods made using biotech crops as some kind of safety warning and thus steer clear of them. Because they want to encourage this mistake in consumers, the goal of anti-biotech and organic foods activists can be reasonably characterized as profitably promoting obfuscation, lies, and mistrust.
In the future some biotech crops will provide improved nutrition, e.g., soy beans improved to supply additional health-promoting omega-3 fatty acids, at which time foods using these ingredients will be usefully labeled with this nutritional information.
In a comprehensive review of the scientific literature and of the claims made by the organic foods lobby, Rutgers University food scientist Joseph Rosen concluded [PDF]:
Organic food proponents do more than act as unreliable sources of information; they actually cause harm. ... Any members of the media who rely on organic food proponents for information without checking the facts are complicit in defrauding their readers. And any consumers who buy organic food because they believe that it contains more healthful nutrients than conventional food are wasting their money.
It's clear that the organic lobby promotes disinformation to sell its products. It's about time that consumers and reporters wake up to that fact.
J.D. Tuccille Sounds Off About Cops Tracking Your License Plate
You can never get too much of a good thing, of course. And that good thing is me sharing my insights about new license plate recognition toys that let law-enforcement agents at the federal, state and local level track your movements by positioning cameras along the side of the road that photograph, identify and record your license plates. I wrote about the creepy-licious phenomenon a few days ago, and yesterday I appeared on RT to have my say.
D.A. Suspends Grand Jury Investigations of Police Shootings in Albuquerque; No Shooting Ever Ruled Unjustified
The district attorney in Albuquerque will be suspending the practice of sending police shootings to grand juries to determine that they were justified, the Albuquerque Journal reports.
There were 24 cop shootings since 2010; 17 were fatal. While cop shootings will no longer be handled by a grand jury, there are nine cop shootings still pending with the D.A.’s office, including one by a cop who listed his job description on Facebook as “human waste disposal.”
The Journal on what the D.A. (who’s up for re-election!) might do next:
“I think what we have done in the past has a lot of integrity, but times are changing,” [Kari] Brandenburg [the District Attorney] said in an interview. “More transparency is always a good thing, and I am going to do what I said I would do and look for alternatives.”
Brandenburg said a preferable alternative would be to take each police shooting case before a judge in a preliminary court hearing. But that option would require charging each officer with a crime, she said.
“Ethically, we just can’t charge someone with a crime if we don’t believe a crime has been committed,” she said. “So if we were to try and go that route, we would have to have a rule change.”
Other options include appointing a special prosecutor for each case, which Brandenburg dismisses as too expensive, or forming a “review board” composed of citizens, attorneys, judges and law enforcement officials.
Brandenburg’s opponent in the upcoming Democratic primary race for the DA’s Office, public defender Jennifer Romero, has joined critics in denouncing the practice.
Brandenburg, who is seeking a fourth four-year term, has said the special grand jury process provides a second set of unbiased eyes to look at the work prosecutors in her office have done to determine whether police shootings are justified.
Reason-Rupe: Wisconsinites Favor Increasing Public Union Retirement Contributions to Address Budget Deficit
The latest Reason-Rupe poll of 708 Wisconsin adults on landline and cell phones suggests Wisconsin voters favor reforming public employee unions, over raising taxes and cutting education and health care spending, to address the state budget deficit.
When Governor Scott Walker took office in 2011, the state faced a projected $3.2 billion deficit. The approach Walker took to close the budget gap included reducing state spending on public employees. To do so required government workers to contribute more toward their own health care and retirement benefits. However, this also effectively served as a pay cut for many public employees.
The Reason-Rupe poll asked Wisconsinites how the state should raise funds to pay government employee retirement benefits if the state did not have enough money to fund these benefits.
72 percent oppose “increasing sales, income, or property taxes” to help fund government worker retirement benefits, 25 percent favor.
75 percent oppose “cutting spending on government programs, such as education and health care” to help fund public employee retirement benefits, 23 percent favor.
49 percent oppose and 46 percent favor “reducing public employee benefits.”
However, 74 percent favor “requiring public employees to contribute more toward their own pensions and health care,” and 24 percent oppose.
The poll followed by asking “if the state and local government had to reduce spending, which of the following areas would you reduce spending on first?” The plurality of Wisconsinites (38 percent) chose reducing spending on “pensions and benefits for public employees” followed by “prisons and courts” (29 percent).
These results suggest that when tough trade-offs have to be made to fund public employee retirement benefits, the public favors requiring public employees to contribute more over raising taxes, or cutting spending on education and health care.
Full poll results can be found here and cross tabs here.
ORC International conducted fieldwork for the poll, May 14th-18th 2012 of both mobile and landline phones, 708 Wisconsin adults, margin of error +/- 3.7%. Likely Wisconsin voters (609, MOE +/-4%) include registered respondents who said they are absolutely certain to vote or very likely to vote in the June 5th recall election for governor.
Emily Ekins is the director of polling for Reason Foundation where she leads the Reason-Rupe public opinion research project, launched in 2011. Follow her on Twitter @emilyekins.
Barack Obama Punishes People for Getting High; It Used to Be, He Punished Them for Not Getting High Enough
As Nick Gillespie noted below, President Barack Obama was a serious pot smoker in his younger days back when it was legal. We know more about this golden age of abandon thanks to David Maraniss' new book, Barack Obama: The Story. BuzzFeed has put together a list of a young Obama's pot techniques and habits. Perhaps the most striking, considering Obama's current role as chief drug warrior? He used to punish people for not getting high enough:
When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. "Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated," explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.
Reason Writers at the Movies: Peter Suderman Reviews Men in Black III
Writing in The Washington
Times, Senior Editor Peter Suderman reviews the sci-fi action
comedy Men in Black III:
Men in Black 3” marks the third weekend this month that Earth has been invaded by aliens — following “The Avengers” and “Battleship” — thus making failed extraterrestrial takeovers an official journalistic trend. It’s as if Earth was recently ranked at the top of this year’s list of must-invade interstellar hotspots by “Galactic Conqueror” magazine.
The good news is that Will Smith is on hand to respond. As one of Hollywood’s most practiced defenders against alien threats — in “Independence Day” as well as two previous “Men in Black” films — he’s demonstrated his effectiveness and reliability in situations that require swift action to repel space invaders in about two hours, give or take. You hire Mr. Smith because you know he can get the job done.
Which is exactly what he does here, no more, no less. “Men in Black 3” is an exercise in competence — amiable, enjoyable and entirely forgettable.
Michele Leonhart's Office Declines to Comment on Reports That DEA's Mexican Law Enforcement Partners Are Murdering and Torturing People
The Drug Enforcement
Administration has offices in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Hermosillo,
Ciudad Juarez, Matamoros, Mazatlan, Merida, Monterrey, Nogales,
Nuevo Laredo, and Tijuana, but it doesn't have anything to say
about a recently issued State Department report that says its
partners in Mexico's security forces have "engaged in unlawful
killings, forced disappearances, and instances of physical abuse
and torture" while fighting the war on drugs.
Earlier today, I emailed the DEA's public affairs office with this request:
The State Department recently released a report on human rights abuses in Mexico. That report found that Mexican military and LEOs "engaged in unlawful killings, forced disappearances, and instances of physical abuse and torture" while fighting TCOs.
I was wondering if your office could provide me with a statement about the new report in light of Administrator Michele Leonhart's earlier claim, made to the Washington Post, in which she said, "It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs....[cartels] are like caged animals, attacking one another," as it seems cartels are not the only people in Mexico committing violence.
Here is how the DEA responded:
We will let the State Department and Mexico speak to this rather than us
I wrote back:
If the DEA won't comment on the report, can you at least tell me if Administrator Leonhart stands by her claim that the "the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success" in the war on drugs?
The DEA:
She has been consistent that the violence represents the pressure cartels feel from Mexican law enforcement/military and the U.S.
Me:
But [she] has no comment on violence perpetrated by DEA partners in Mexican military and law enforcement?
The DEA:
nope
The agency's silence is a bit surprising, considering that in January 2010, a U.S. diplomat praised the DEA's training of the Mexican military: "Our ties with the military have never been closer in terms of not only equipment transfers and training, but also the kinds of intelligence exchanges that are essential to making inroads against organized crime."
Friday Fun Utterly Horrifying Link: Meet Blasty the Drone!
(Apologies for annoying non-embeddable video. Click on the image to watch.)
More Reason on drones.
Steven Greenhut on When Government Privileges Trump the Rights of Citizens
Democrats and Republicans in the California
Legislature have once again broadcast this troubling fact: They are
far more concerned about the ever-expanding demands of a relatively
small group of public sector union members than they are about the
public welfare of the citizenry. As Steven Greenhut reports, the
latest outrage comes courtesy of AB 2299, a bill that would allow a
broad swath of public officials—police, judges, and various public
safety officials—to hide their names from public property records.
So much for transparency and accountability. As Greenhut notes, the
state is about to destroy the most significant source of public
records, and create an open invitation to fraud and theft.
Drug Busts As Make-Work for Superfluous Cops
A new report from
the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) shows that as violent and
property crime rates have fallen since their peaks in the early
1990s, arrests have not fallen commensurately. Instead police have
shifted their resources to drug offenses:
Violent and property crime rates have fallen 47 percent and 43 percent since 1991, when the crime rate was at its highest, but arrests have fallen only 20 percent. Instead of making arrests for violent and property crime, police focus on drug offenses, especially small amounts of drugs. Arrests for drug offenses have increased 45 percent between 1993 and 2010, while arrests for violent and property crime have fallen 27 and 22 percent, respectively.
While "crime is at the lowest levels it has been in over 30 years," the JPI notes, "funding for police has increased 445 percent between 1982 and 2007." That's in nominal dollars; taking inflation into account, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports, the increase was 171 percent. During the same period, the U.S. population grew by about 30 percent. Since the violent crime rate today is substantially lower than it was in 1982, something seems to be out of whack, presumably a ratchet effect that drives spending up when crime rates rise but does not allow spending to decline when crime rates go back down. The JPI report notes that the increase in spending on law enforcement has been driven largely by federal initiatives such as Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, but crime rates were already declining when these programs were established. As the amount of money devoted to policing has risen, so has the incarceration rate, which was 732 per 100,000 in 2010, 39 percent higher than in 1993.
In this context it is easier to understand why marijuana arrests have skyrocketed since the early 1990s, rising from about 327,000 in 1990 to a peak of more than 858,000 in 2009 before falling slightly the following year. Even if it made sense to treat pot smokers like criminals (and most Americans seem to think it doesn't), this trend cannot be explained by an increase in marijuana consumption. Nor has it led to a decline in marijuana consumption, although it has roughly doubled the risk that any give pot smoker will be busted. All those cops need something to do.
For more on the policies that have given the United States a world-beating incarceration rate, see our July 2011 "Criminal Injustice" package.
Obama Still Bogarting Nation's Joints, Man.
David Maraniss' forthcoming biography of Barack
Obama tells tales of a young dope-smoking president-to-be who was
always quick to bogart that joint:
Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted “Intercepted!,” and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.
As Mediaite's Andrew Kirell notes, the president is still "intercepting" the nation's drug supply.
Stories like these about a young adult are actually kind of funny, even humanizing — like something straight out of a stoner comedy. But when you realize it’s about President Obama, it becomes a little less humurous.
Less humorous because President Obama has repeatedly laughed off and dismissed serious discussion about drug policy, like in that 2009 virtual town hall where the president mocked online voters for picking a question about marijuana legalization.
Less humorous because the president shuts down medical marijuana dispensaries with a frequency that would make Richard Nixon stand up and cheer. He presides over a DOJ, IRS, and DEA that have threatened, audited, and shut down legal pot sellers in California, Colorado, Montana, and Washington. All this despite once promising to respect state laws regarding medical marijuana.
The good news is that an increasing majority of Americans are starting to push back. Rasmussen polls show that a healthy 56 percent of likely voters think pot should be treated like booze rather than a Schedule I drug.
Sing along, America:
Space X Success!: Dragon Hooks Up With International Space Station
This morning, the first private spacecraft was captured by the robotic arm of the International Space Station. It happened very, very slowly, starting at around the 19 minute mark:
So that was pretty awesome.
And here's your cheesy, quotable line from the mission:
When the craft reached a distance of 10 meters (33 feet), NASA astronaut Don Pettit used the station's 17-meter-long (60-foot-long) robotic arm to grab hold of the Dragon's grapple attachment at 9:56 a.m. ET. "Capture is confirmed," NASA mission commentator Josh Byerly said.
"It looks like we've got us a Dragon by the tail," Pettit told Mission Control.
If all goes well, the Dragon will disgorge food, a laptop, and other supplies for ISS residents tomorrow. We are now officially in a bold new era of privately provided space services. Read all about it here.
Reason-Rupe Poll Finds Support for Public Union Reforms
Despite controversy over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walkers’ efforts to reform public employee unions, the latest Reason-Rupe poll of 708 Wisconsin adults, on both landline and cell phones, finds considerable support for many of the law’s key provisions.
Walkers’ proposal, which was later passed into law last summer, significantly changed the laws regarding public employee unions in Wisconsin. The law altered the way state officials and union leaders negotiate contracts and compensation and also what public employees will contribute toward their retirement benefits and health care.
72 percent of Wisconsinites favor “increasing the amount that government employees contribute to their own pensions from less than 1 percent to 6 percent of their annual salaries," 24 percent oppose.
71 percent favor “increasing the amount that government employees contribute to their own health care from 6 percent to 12 percent of the cost of their health care,” 27 percent oppose.
50 percent favor “ending automatic union dues deductions from government employee paychecks,” 41 percent oppose.
However, other provisions in the law received less support. 47 percent favor and 46 percent oppose “limiting government employee collective bargaining to just negotiating wages, and excluding bargaining on benefits, working conditions, pensions, and rules.” This provision in the law effectively limited collective bargaining of public employee unions, and the public has not yet reached a consensus on this provision in the law.
Wisconsinites oppose a provision in the law that exempted police and firefighters from law changes by a margin of 57 percent to 38 percent.
In sum, these results show that Wisconsin voters favor particular provisions in the law more strongly than they oppose them. This may explain why Governor Scott Walker leads Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett 50-42 among likely voters in the upcoming recall election.
Full poll results can be found here and cross tabs here.
ORC International conducted fieldwork for the poll, May 14th-18th 2012 of both mobile and landline phones, 708 Wisconsin adults, margin of error +/- 3.7%. Likely Wisconsin voters (609, MOE +/-4%) include registered respondents who said they are absolutely certain to vote or very likely to vote in the June 5th recall election for governor.
Emily Ekins is the director of polling for Reason Foundation where she leads the Reason-Rupe public opinion research project, launched in 2011. Follow her on Twitter @emilyekins.
Patterico, Brett Kimberlin, and the Super-Chilling of Free Speech
Over the years, various Reason writers have had their differences with Patrick Frey, the fellow behind the widely read and interesting Patterico's Pontifications blog. The story he's telling today is a call to arms to defend free speech from the worst sort of politically and personally motivated infringements.
Frey begins a long and harrowing post thus:
It’s a phone call that could have gotten me killed.
In this post you will hear that audio clip. You will also read about a months-long campaign of harassment carried out by at least three individuals: Ron Brynaert, Neal Rauhauser, and Brett Kimberlin — much of it directed at critics of Brett Kimberlin. This harassment includes repeated references to critics’ family members, workplace complaints, publication of personal information such as home addresses and pictures of residences, bogus allegations of criminal activity, whisper campaigns, frivolous legal actions, and frivolous State Bar complaints.
And finally, you will hear a comparison of one of those men’s voices to that of the man who made the call that sent police to my home. And you’ll read a declaration from a forensic audio expert comparing those two voices.
The Patterico post is part of an effort promoted by Instapundit, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, The Other McCain, and others as "Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day." For more on Kimberlin, who is probably best-known as the "Speedway Bomber," the guy who said he was Dan Quayle's pot dealer, and the subject of Citizen K, Mark Singer's account of investigating Kimberlin's claims, go here.
A. Barton Hinkle on the Virginia Court Nominee Who Was Discriminated Against Because of His Sexuality
As a rule, appointments to
state general district courts do not make national headlines. So
the nationwide uproar that ensued last week when the Virginia
General Assembly shot down the nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland
because he is gay has the look about it of a watershed moment. The
question now, writes A. Barton Hinkle, is whether the lesson drawn
will be narrow or broad.
How Medicare's Payment System Discourages Quality and Innovation
Politicians are always quick to declare
that America's seniors depend on Medicare for their health. But
seniors also depend on innovation in medical practice and
technology. And Medicare's top-down payment system represents a
significant burden to improving both. In remarks given at a recent
Harvard debate, Neil Minkoff, the founder of FountainHead
Health and a commissioner on the Massachusetts Group Insurance
Commission, does a good job of summarizing how Medicare's
centralized payment system discourages quality in medical
servicing:
Government is harmful to medical innovation by setting so much of the reimbursement process. By being, by far, the largest payer of healthcare claims in America, the Medicare fee schedule drives the market for all other private payers. In essence, this sets a floor for clinical reimbursement. Hospitals then set budgets based on expected revenue, not based on the cost of providing specific services.
Patient experience, convenience and quality of care do not effect, or at least significantly effect, clinical reimbursement in the standard, traditional fee-for-service Medicare program. There is therefore no incentive to find ways to create new value in the system. By law, a physician or hospital cannot charge premium pricing for a Medicare-reimbursed service or procedure. I first notice this while treating patient maybe 15 years ago. A first- or second-year physician, I was treating a patient with a serious lung impairment caused by a blood clot in his pulmonary artery. I was transferring this patient from a poorly run suburban hospital, soon to close, to arguably the world’s expert on these types of clots at the Brigham and Women’s, which is consistently rated as one of the nation’s ten finest facilities. Medicare was paying both physicians the same fee and both hospitals the same fee.
This is wrong. This encourages a sense in the market of care that is “good enough.” Nowhere do Medicare providers have any incentive, outside of their integrity and drive, to develop, improve and excel.
The whole thing is worth reading. It's worth noting that Medicare is America's only single payer system, and even though it's not universal, it still exerts a signficant pull on the whole of medical practice. A universal single-payer system, or even a slightly softer set of universalized price and payment controls foisted on private insurers, like Massachusetts lawmakers are considering now, would only increase the size and scope of the problem.
Read "Medicare Whac-A-Mole," my 2011 magazine feature on the history of Medicare's payment controls.
Another Federal Judge Strikes Down the Defense of Marriage Act
Back in February, Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection, which appears in the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause but has also been read to apply to the federal government via the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. "The imposition of subjective moral beliefs of a majority upon a minority cannot provide a justification for the legislation,” White wrote. “The obligation of the Court is 'to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.'" That decision has since been appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which will hear the case this fall.
In the meantime, another federal judge in California has added to the anti-DOMA chorus. In a ruling handed down yesterday, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken also found the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Here’s a portion of her ruling:
The notion that civil marriage may only sanction a union between a man and a woman posits that there is something inherently objectionable about homosexuality or that same-sex intimate relationships are irreconcilable with the core characteristics of marriage. Singling out same-sex spouses for exclusion from the federal definition of marriage amounts to a bare expression of animus on the basis of sexual orientation and, under Romer, this rationale does not satisfy rational basis review.
Romer refers to Romer v. Evans, the 1996 case where the Supreme Court struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that had forbidden state officials from taking any action designed to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. “The amendment imposes a special disability upon those persons alone,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. “Homosexuals are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint.”
At this point, we’re essentially looking at a race to the Supreme Court between these various DOMA challenges (including the DOMA case from Massachusetts) and the legal challenge filed against California’s Proposition 8, which had amended the state constitution to forbid gay marriage. That case, which is being spearheaded by the all-star tag-team of Republican lawyer Ted Olson and Democratic lawyer David Boies (last seen together when they faced off in Bush v. Gore), has already won before a 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit, and is now awaiting review by a full 9th Circuit panel. So whether it’s the case against DOMA or the case against Prop. 8, one or more of these lawsuits is very likely to hit the Supreme Court, which could rule on the constitutionality of gay marriage as early as next year.
Update: This post has been edited for clarity.
State Department: Mexican Security Forces Engaged in "Unlawful Killings, Forced Disappearances, Instances of Torture"
A new report from the U.S.
State Department reveals that Mexican police and the military have
"engaged in unlawful killings, forced disappearances, and instances
of physical abuse and torture" while carrying out the U.S.-backed
war on drugs.
The report is yet another reminder that no matter what Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske and other members of the Obama administration may say in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election, the war on drugs is not over.
The report also contradicts a statement made last year by Drug Enforcement Administration Chief Michele Leonhart, who told the Washington Post, "It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs....[cartels] are like caged animals, attacking one another.”
Here are some of the most disconcerting findings from the State Department's report:
Nidal Hasan Was Not A Terrorist For Purple Hearts Purposes, But Was for Kill List Purposes
In the latest back-and-forth over the NDAA, the
White House
listed 32 concerns that may lead to a veto. No civil liberties
concerns in the White House statement, but there is this:
The Administration objects to section 552, which would grant Purple Hearts to the victims of the shooting incidents in Fort Hood, Texas, and Little Rock, Arkansas. The criminal acts that occurred in Little Rock were tried by the State of Arkansas as violations of the State criminal code rather than as acts of terrorism; as a result, this provision could create appellate issues.
PJ Media’s Bridget Johnson takes this to mean the Administration doesn’t consider the Fort Hood shooting by Nidal Hasan an act of terrorism. From the New York Post:
Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army major who had e-mail communications with senior al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, awaits military trial for the Nov. 5, 2009, massacre at Fort Hood, in which 13 were killed and 29 wounded. How were these attacks not terrorism? Not for the Obama administration, evidently. After the Fort Hood shootings, the FBI quickly said there was no evidence of a greater terrorist plot; the Defense Department called it an “isolated” case; and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Hasan’s actions didn’t represent his Muslim faith.
The cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, was put on a kill list, and later killed, along with his teenage son, by the U.S. government, because the government claimed he was a dangerous terrorist. (The specific legal justification has not been released by the government) He was not indicted on a single count of terrorism, nevertheless the government considered him a terrorist threat grave enough to be become a target for assassination. His e-mail relationship with the Fort Hood killer was widely cited in the press after al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike.
So the victims at Fort Hood are not deserving of Purple Hearts because the Fort Hood incident was not an act of terrorism, but insofar as it can be used to justify the targeted assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, we’re led to believe that U.S. officials believe he “inspired” terror attacks like… the shooting at Fort Hood.
All part of the rhetorical acrobatics this administration has performed to keep prosecuting a war on Muslim populations abroad and at home while eschewing the language of a war on terror in an effort to obfuscate the definitions of the war. And now those acrobatics leave us with a situation in which one U.S citizen is killed for inspiring a terror plot, but the troops killed in that terror plot aren’t eligible for medals because it wasn’t a terror plot. All while Congress passes laws making the whole planet a battlefield and everyone a potential enemby combatant in an ill-defined war on terror that was never declared and the government doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge exists, except when they fight it. But don’t ask questions. It’s all a secret, even when it isn’t.
Advertising in the Olympic Corporate State
Everyone knows the Olympics are an advertising bonanza for the event's corporate sponsors. That's been true since the 1984 games in Los Angeles. What isn't as well known is that the urban authorities today do not merely promote the Olympics' officially approved commercial speech; they suppress commercial speech that does not have the games' approval. Kosmograd reports:
The most carefully policed Brand Exclusion Zone will be around the Olympic Park, and extend up to 1km beyond its perimeter, for up to 35 days. Within this area, officially called an Advertising and Street Trade Restrictions venue restriction zone, no advertising for brands designated as competing with those of the official Olympic sponsors will be allowed. (Originally, as detailed here, only official sponsors were allowed to advertise, but leftover sites are now available). This will be supported by preventing spectators from wearing clothing prominently displaying competing brands, or from entering the exclusion zone with unofficial snack and beverage choices. Within the Zone, the world's biggest McDonald's will be the only branded food outlet, and Visa will be the only payment card accepted.
This brand apartheid is designed to prevent "ambush marketing", the gaining exposure of an brand through unofficial means. One of the best known examples of this was in the World Cup in 2010, where a bevy of 36 Dutch beauties in orange dresses provided by Bavaria beer gained considerable media attention, to the chagrin of the official World Cup beer, Budweiser. At London 2012, branding 'police' will be on hand to ensure that nothing like this happens, with potential criminal prosecutions against those responsible. Organising committee LOCOG will also take steps to ensure that no unofficial business tries to associate itself with the Olympics by using phrases like 'London 2012', even on such innocuous things such as a cafe menu offering an 'Olympic breakfast'....And it's not just London. All the venues for the 2012 Olympics will be on brand lockdown. In Coventry, even the roadsigns will be changed so that there is no reference to the Ricoh Arena, which is hosting matches in the football tournament. Even logos on hand dryers in the toilets are being covered up. The Sports Direct Arena in Newcastle will have to revert back to St. James Park for the duration of the Olympics.
Via Gawker, which adds: "Expect running street battles between brand police and guerrilla marketers to rage throughout the Games." Occupy Marketing!
Elsewhere in Reason: In 2005 I asked, "Why would you want to host the Olympics?"
Note to President Obama: Research Shows that Private Equity Investments Create Jobs
One of the more irritating features of electoral politics is the disinformation that politicians spew with regard to their records and those of their opponents. President Barack Obama obviously intends to ride class warfare back into the White House this fall. One tactic of this class warfare strategy is to assert that private equity companies like Bain Capital that Mitt Romney headed back in the day destroyed jobs while enriching vulture capitalists. Unfortunately, recent economic research contradicts the president's claims that private equity firms destroy jobs.
For example, consider a 2010 National Bureau of Economic Research 2010 study, Private Equity and Economic Performance [PDF], by researchers from Columbia and Harvard Universities and the Swedish Institute for Financial Research. They report:
Industries where PE [private equity) funds have been active in the past five years grow more rapidly than other sectors, whether measured using total production, value added, or employment. In industries with PE investments, there are few significant differences between industries with a low and high level of PE activity....
PE industries appear to grow significantly faster in terms of labor costs and the number of employees. The annual growth rate of total labor cost is 0.5 to 1.4 percentage points greater for PE industries, and the number of employees grows at an annual rate that is 0.4 to 1.0 percentage points greater. These findings are particularly surprising, since a common concern is that PE investors act aggressively to reduce costs with little concern for employees. This concern is not necessarily inconsistent with our results. Despite initial
employment reductions at private equity-backed firms, the greater subsequent growth in total production ... may lead to subsequent employment growth in the industry overall.
Considering the specifications with PE activity quartiles, industries with more PE activity appear to have more rapid growth of total labor costs, but the growth rate of the number of employees is fastest in industries with more moderate levels of PE activity. Regardless of the level of PE activity, however, the PE industries’ growth rates of labor costs and employment always exceed the rates for non-PE industries.
When will the president and his advisors get it through their heads that in the long-run propping up badly managed companies is not the way to create more jobs?
Government Shrinkage and Economic Growth
We examined the 28 OECD countries defined as "advanced" by the IMF between 1965 and 2010. Using regression analysis to control for the growth rates of the factors of production (physical capital, labor and human capital) and initial GDP, our results suggest that reducing the ratio of taxes or spending to GDP by five percentage points increases the growth rate of GDP per capita by 0.5 to 0.6 percentage points per year.
A broader sample of all "advanced" countries (again, as defined by the IMF) over the past 10 years seems to support these findings. Over this period, countries whose governments tax and spend less than 40% of GDP have grown more quickly than the big-government countries.
These differences in growth rates are important. Small differences in percentage growth rates roll up to huge differences in wealth generation over a number of years. If the differential of the last 10 years were to be constant over 25 years, then the economies of those countries with small governments would have more than doubled (an increase of 115%) while big government countries would have only seen growth of 64%.
Is this conclusive proof that cutting the size of government will always increase growth? Of course not. The accumulation and quality of other factors are also important. But this evidence shows that other things equal, countries with small governments and with small tax burdens grow faster.
That's from a WSJ op-ed by Tim Knox and Ryan Bourne of the Centre for Policy Studies, where a full-length version of their study is available.
Reason.com on government spending.
Another view on shrinkage, significant shrinkage:
Kurt Loder Reviews Men in Black III and Moonrise Kingdom
Men in Black III reenlists the talents of
Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, writes Kurt Loder, and it’s good to
have them back, togged out in their black suits and shades and
riding herd over America’s vast alien-creature community. But what
really energizes this third installment of the franchise is Josh
Brolin, who plays a younger incarnation of Jones, and seems to have
inhaled the older actor’s grumpy essence and to be exuding it
through his pores. It’s a flawless comic performance.
Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, meanwhile, which opened the Cannes Film Festival last week, is a movie whose pleasures are largely formal. Anderson acolytes will welcome another demonstration of his deadpan visual strategies—the locked-down shots facing off on split screens, the camera panning slowly past a series of rooms to introduce some of the characters—and his detached narrative style. Those who find the director’s work flawed by preciousness, however, Loder writes, may grow impatient well before the movie reaches the 90-minute mark.
Take the Memorial Day Challenge and Watch "Honor Flight" Trailer!
In November 2009, then-ReasonTV staffer Dan Hayes produced the immensely moving documentary "Every Day is a Bonus: Veteran's Day November 2009 in D.C." The five-minute film followed the adventures of World War II vets being flown by the charity Honor Flight to the World War II Memorial in the nation's capitol (click here to watch that or scroll down).
Hayes left ReasonTV to make a full-length documentary about Honor Flight's activities and that film, co-produced with Clay Broga through their company Freethink Media and Stars and Stripes Honor Flight of Wisconsin, will debut on August 11 at Milwaukee's Miller Park (home to baseball's Brewers).
Go here to learn more about the film and Honor Flight's activities, and how you can support the film and its goals of thanking vets and energizing Americans to think about how best to live their own lives. From the website:
In a time of economic uncertainty and political division, Honor Flight is a unifying story about gratitude and freedom. The film is meant to inspire viewers to reflect on the freedom and opportunity they have been gifted. Honor Flight prompts viewers to recognize the Greatest Generation, not just by saying “thank you,” but by striving to lead lives worthy of their legacy.
The filmmakers are hoping to generate 50,000 views this Memorial Day weekend to help raise the visibility of Honor Flight. Click above to watch and follow the hashtag #domore on Twitter.
Those of us who had relatives who fought in World War II or served at other times in the military are personally familiar with the service that soldiers perform, but all of us benefit from constant reminders of the costs they bear. Memorial Day is the nation's offical observance of those who paid the ultimate price of dying during wartime and is the perfect time to reflect on the often-casual heroism of fallen fighters and the larger questions raised by military action, national purpose, and individual conscience.
Here's Hayes' 2009 film for ReasonTV that got his current project rolling:
A.M. Links: Muslim Brother Leads Egypt Vote, Hollande Visits Afghanistan, China Reacts to U.S. Human Rights Report
The Muslim
Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi appears to be
leading former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq out of
13 candidates as ballots in the first round of Egypt’s presidential
elections are counted.- Newly elected French President Francois Hollande visited soldiers in Afghanistan. He intends to withdraw France’s 3,500 troops by the end of the year.
- According to China’s Xinhua state news agency, the United States latest annual human rights report ignored “the obvious achievements made by China in protecting its citizens’ rights and freedom” and “groundlessly slammed China for continued ‘deterioration’ in key aspects of its human rights situation in 2011.”
- City cars in Youngstown, Ohio will be equipped with GPS devices to monitor city employees’ movements and starting next month city employees will have to clock in and out too.
- The family of an unarmed man shot to death by a cop at a traffic stop earlier this month is suing the Jacksonville’s Sheriff’s Office. Cops claim the man had crack cocaine in his socks, but surveillance video shows him complying with police orders.
- A Nebraska man using the moniker “Dr. Don Dough” won’t be allowed to hand out flyers as part of his planned HyperTextPsychoDrama during President Obama’s visit to the Iowa state fair, a federal judge ruled.
Don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily AM/PM updates for more content!
New at Reason.TV: "Scott Walker Will Survive Wisconsin Recall: Reason-Rupe Poll Results"
Henry Payne on Obama's Mandates and Historical Omnipresence
Henry Payne updates the history of the settling
of America to include President Barack Obama's contributions.
Brickbat: Hacked Off
For their senior prank, three students at Lawrence High School in Kansas decided to partially shave the heads of some younger friends and siblings. The haircuts took place off campus, and the younger students volunteered for the haircuts. Still, school officials charged the seniors with hazing and bullying and suspended them. Even after parents explained they had given the OK for the head shaving, officials would not lift the suspensions.
Americans Elect: Don't Give Up!
As Americans Elect, the attempt at a internet-based third party, fails to meet its own stated standards for demonstrated public support for its would-be candidates and tries to punk out (after winning coveted and hard-to-get ballot access in at least 29 states), some would be candidates are pissed, reports California Watch:
Complaining that the group’s leadership hasn't listened to the membership, the insurgents are pushing for Americans Elect to forge ahead. They don't want the $35 million the group raised to get on the ballot in 29 states, including California, to go to waste.
Involved in the effort is a Bay Area activist and filmmaker who ran for the Americans Elect nomination and came in third place, after former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer and former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. Michealene Risley, a resident of Woodside in San Mateo County, said she was shocked when she heard – via press release – that Americans Elect was shutting down the nomination process....
Americans Elect had bulldozed through the tremendous hurdles alternative parties face in getting on ballots, gathering more than a million signatures to become the first new official party in California since 1995. But in its announcement last week, Americans Elect explained that its rules mandated an end to the process because no candidate achieved the "national support threshold" necessary to enter its online convention in June.
Roemer, for example, needed 10,000 supporters among those who registered as Americans Elect delegates online, but he came up with only 6,293. Risley and Anderson needed to collect 50,000 supporters – more than Roemer because they didn't have high-level political experience.....
Americans Elect always faced long odds in its quest to field a viable, centrist presidential candidate who would shake things up. The group also drew criticism for not disclosing the donors who bankrolled the effort. In a previous story, California Watch found that one of the main funders, board Chairman Peter Ackerman, once had to pay millions of dollars in delinquent taxes and penalties for an alleged tax shelter scheme.
"They haven't been the most transparent group from the outset," Anderson said. "Nobody really knows how the rules were set from the beginning or how Americans Elect has been financed."...
Risley said the group's top-down decisionmaking "feels like more of the same" instead of an alternative to the traditional two parties.
Given their insistence on a transpartisan "centrist" choice, it never really promised to be anything but more of the same, alas. A fascinating experiment in conquering ballot access restrictions, though. I only wish people would throw money at such problems with a better idea than "transpartisan centrist." Of course, if they followed their own rules and enough people cared to meet their numerical triggers, any number of interesting things might have happened. Alas, they did not.
Guess who is number one in the Americans Elect "draft" with more than twice as many picks as his nearest competitor, GOP also-ran Jon Huntsman? Ron Paul, subject of my new book, Ron Paul's Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired.
QQ Rhode Island Noobs: You Paid $75 Million for Failed Game Company
Mighty Curt Schilling has struck out.
The
former Red Sox pitcher’s video game company, 38 Studios,
laid off all its staff today, shutting down its Rhode Island
and Maryland offices, Brian Crecente reports for Polygon.
The company’s failure may well leave Rhode Island taxpayers on the hook for the $75 million loan given to them by the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation to lure them to move there from Massachusetts, even though the company had yet to actually release a game at the time:
The news came as a surprise to nearly everyone involved, including the state of Rhode Island and Governor Lincoln Chafee who during an afternoon press conference said that as of this morning they hadn't heard a word about possible layoffs or a closure.
During the evening press conference Chafee attributed the sudden studio closure and financial plummet to their first game, Age of Amalur: Reckoning, which he said "failed."
"The game failed," he said. "The game failed. That was integral to the success of the company."
He told reporters that experts told them it would have had to sell 3 million copies to break even. Schilling has said that the game sold about 1.2 million copies in its first 90 days.
Chafee said that despite the company layoffs and shutdown, he’s hoping somehow to get it back on its feet (insert gamer joke about not bringing any healers to the party here):
If the 38 Studios remains closed, the state says it has the money to make the first year of payments on the loan from a reserve they set aside pulled out of the loan amount. But after that the state would then have to start making the payments to the bank.
'We do have some time," a state official told reporters during today's press conference. "There wouldn't be a debt service default within the year."
According to Crecente’s report, a number of officials at the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation have either resigned over the disaster or have asked not to be reappointed.
As we reported previously, the loan was not for the game that was actually released. It was for the building of a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) that will now likely never see the light of day. But they did release a video flyover of the world they were creating:
Pretty, but yeah, another fantasy RPG clone corpse (with no loot) littering the videogame landscape, this time paid for with the public's money.
Ronald Bailey on Separating Church and State Money
In January the Obama administration unveiled new
health care regulations that require organizations run by the Roman
Catholic Church to offer health insurance that covers women’s
reproductive services, including contraception. The U.S. Council of
Catholic Bishops denounced the mandate as a violation of the First
Amendment’s ban on laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of
religion. As the contraception controversy illustrates, writes
Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey, conflicts between church and
state in this country typically arise from the way that benefits
supplied or mandated by the government are distributed. So if
religious institutions want to be left alone, Bailey notes, they
should stop begging alms from the government.
Scott Walker Will Survive Wisconsin Recall: Reason-Rupe Poll Results
Will Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) get bounced from power for busting public employee unions? And what message does the June 5th recall election against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) hold for other states struggling to balance their budgets? For the coming showdown between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney?
The latest Reason-Rupe Poll reports from the Badger State. Passed last year, Walker's controversial Act 10 restricted collective bargaining rights for many public employees, causing the backlash that led to the recall election. Walker says such actions were necessary to contain costs and balance a budget facing a multi-billion-dollar shortfall. His opponents say that Walker is paying for tax cuts to the wealthy by cutting salaries and spending that help middle-class residents. (For more on the issues involved, watch this video.)
The Reason-Rupe Poll surveyed 700 Wisconsin residents during May 14-18th and found that while a large majority (71 percent) want public employees to contribute more to cover their health benefits, residents are not clearly against collective bargaining per se (51 percent want to see it "limited"). Fully 57 percent thought that police and firefighters - exempted under Walker's plan - should also pay more their benefits.
Although more residents support Barack Obama (46 percent) than presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney (36 percent), 50 percent want Scott Walker to keep his current job, with just 42 percent favoring Tom Barrett.
"A quarter of those who plan to vote for Scott Walker have a favorable opinion of Barack Obama," says Reason Polling Director Emily Ekins, who oversaw the survey. "[That] demonstrates that the desire to reform public employee [compensation] extends beyond partisan lines."
For full results and more analysis, go here.
About three minutes long. Produced by Jim Epstein, with help from Meredith Bragg, Joshua Swain, and Nick Gillespie.
Make Your Own Damn Movie With Collaboration Filmmakers Challenge: LAST DAY TO REGISTER
Write, shoot, cut and edit your
own movie.
Get your work in front of Reason.com movie critic Kurt Loder, freedom-loving filmmaker Tim Minear and other luminaries in Hollywood.
Make the best movie and win $5,000.
The Collaboration Filmmaking Challenge starts May 24. Join up now!
Details:
The $5000 top prize is awarded to the team who creates the CFC’s top film, as awarded by the jury panel at our festival screening at the beautiful Harmony Gold Theatre in Hollywood. We’ll be bringing in some of Hollywood’s brightest creative minds, such as Tim Minear (Firefly, Wonderfalls, The Inside) and Kurt Loder to watch and review our participants’ submissions! The audience will also select its favorite film, whose creators will be awarded a $1500 prize!
The third prize is our $1500 Key Collaborator Award, an individual award given out to the person who contributes most to the efforts of his/her fellow filmmakers. That’s right: you could win $1500 by helping someone else win the contest. What makes the CFC a truly unique experience is that it goes beyond simple competition. As the name suggests, this challenge is about bringing filmmakers together to transform one person’s vision into a masterpiece through powerful creative partnerships.
So how does it work? At the beginning of the contest, the CFC will announce the filmmaking theme, which all filmmakers will express through their films. This year we’ve been inspired by the brilliant P.J. O’Rourke, but that’s all we can tell you for now…
The contest runs for two weeks, with all participants working in randomly assigned teams of two: one filmmaker and one collaborator.
Who is this challenge for? It’s for anyone! Industry pros, student filmmakers, amateur enthusiasts—all are welcome. The beauty of this experience is that you’ll be working alongside many other people with a similar passion for filmmaking, and anyone could win.
What’s the catch? One, you’ve got to submit an application and $35 registration fee. Two, you must be able to commit to BOTH weeks of filmmaking. Participants must complete both weeks of filmmaking to qualify.
You must register before the mandatory orientation on Thursday, May 24. The filmmaking dates are 5/30-6/12, and the screening will take place on Friday, June 22nd.
For more information about the Collaboration Filmmaker’s Challenge, including a calendar and the complete rules, visit our website at:www.collaborationchallenge.com. Email any questions to info@collaborationchallenge.com!
Here Are the 15 Senators Who Voted to Stop Armed FDA Agents From Conducting Warrantless Raids on America's Farmers (Not One of Them is a Democrat)
Earlier today an amendment proposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would have prevented Food and Drug Administration agents from carrying guns and from raiding farms without warrants, was voted down on the Senate floor by 78 senators. These 15 senators, meanwhile, supported the amendment by voting against tabling it. Not a single one is a Democrat:
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
John Boozman (R-AR)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)
Mike Lee (R-UT)
Rand Paul (R-KY)
Jim Risch (R-ID)
John Thune (R-SD)
Pat Toomey (R-PA)
David Vitter (R-LA)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)
The Greek Tragedy Continues to Unfold
For the last few days European leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to the failed experiment that is the euro. Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council President, has said that the EU wants Greece to remain in the eurozone, a position reiterated by European Commission President Jose Barroso. In the UK the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, has said that it would not be rational to support a Greek exit. Neither this rhetoric nor hints that the Greek government may already have made plans for a currency switch have reassured the markets. Yesterday the euro fell to a twenty-two month low against the dollar. While the elected and unelected officials of Europe continue to speak of a rescue plan that will keep Greece in the eurozone, outside of the political bubble analysts are predicting a Greek exit.
At Citi Group chief economist Willem Buiter has predicted that Greece will leave the euro within the year and that the new currency Greece uses will be severely devalued. Academics such as Nouriel Roubini, Hamish McRae, and Stergios Skaperdas have argued that not only is a Greek exit from the euro inevitable, but the sooner the exit the better.
For the many Europeans who are not unelected officials on six-figure salaries the attempted salvaging of Greek membership of the eurozone will make this exit more painful than it would have been if Greece had been let loose from the currency earlier. So much money has been poured into attempted bailouts that who will owe who what when the dust is settled is far from certain. Philip Booth of the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs highlighted some of these problems last week.
That European policy makers seem intent of keeping Greece in the eurozone while claiming that spending increases are indications of some sort of “austerity” is especially worrying. All across Europe the myth of austerity is taking hold. Almost every government in Europe has increased spending as a percentage of GDP. In countries like the UK, where the government claims to be implementing an austerity program, spending is nominally increasing, and it is only thanks to inflation that we are seeing modest reductions in government spending.
The only suggestion of realism coming out of Brussels comes from an as of yet unseen document obtained by Reuters which indicates that countries inside the eurozone have been instructed to make plans for a Greek exit. The document also suggests that a 50 billion euro package could be given to Greece to help ease the transition out of the euro. The Greek finance ministry has denied that these plans have been made.
This Greek tragedy has dragged on for far too long, and the final chorus is long overdue. The political posturing that we have seen will only make the inevitable exit worse. Unfortunately, it is the Europeans outside of the political class who will have to endure the austerity that follows.
Mitt and Barry Spar Over Free Markets, ACLU Sues Over Domestic Surveillance, Euro May Be All Over for Greece: P.M. Links
In the latest round of an
almost-substantial exchange between Mitt and Barry, Romney charges
that the incumbent is "attacking
capitalism" and doesn't understand basic economic concepts —
productivity, in particular.- The U.S. Department of Justice faces an ACLU lawsuit intended to force the government to release data about the domestic warrantless use of surveillance tools known as pen registers and trap and trace devices.
- Targeting what they call "mean-spirited and baseless political attacks that add nothing to the real debate," a cabal of mostly Republican lawmakers in the Empire State want to ban anonymous online comments. The usual suspects (we know who they are) call the legislation unbelievably unconstitutional. (HT Eduard van Haalen)
- Now that Americans Elect has broken your wishy-washy, centrist heart, you should know that Gary Johnson is polling at nine percent in Arizona and five percent in Wisconsin.
- With Facebook's messy IPO sparking both chatter and legal inquires, the company may be considering a switch from the NASDAQ Stock Market to the New York Stock Exchange.
- A second Missouri circuit court judge ruled that red-light cameras violate due-process rights, and so the tickets they issue are unenforceable. The ruling boosts the chances of the state's high court considering the issue. Meanwhile, a New Jersey state senator wants to reinstate his state's ban on the cameras, which was partially repealed in 2008.
- Greece will leave the Eurozone in 2013, says a Citigroup senior economist, with an immediate 60 percent drop in the drachma likely to prove contagious, but also boosting the country's competitiveness.
- Want to rein-in the stupid decisions? Try thinking things through in another language! Doing so improves the chances of rational decision-making and accepting greater risk, according to a study in the journal Psychological Science. Vraiment, très intéressant.
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Greg Beato on Positive Electronic Monitoring
How did two students of Timothy
Leary and B.F. Skinner almost turn the electronic incarceration
model on its head? Greg Beato tells the story of Robert and Ralph
Kirkland Gable, who demonstrated electronic monitoring could be a
tool in the process of positive reinforcement rather than a means
of deterrence, a way for individuals to document instances of good
behavior. “My brother’s advisor was Tim Leary – there was a lot of
crazy, creative stuff going on with that,” says Robert Gable. “I
was a student of B.F. Skinner. He was mostly working with pigeons
and was very boring as a lecturer, and I wasn’t interested in doing
anything in the lab. But my brother came up with this idea—why
don’t we try the stuff that Skinner’s doing with pigeons on
juvenile delinquents?”
“It’s nice to see a popular Democrat take a strong stance against the drug war.”
At Mediaite, Andrew Kirell gives a big cheer to Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker, who “took to Twitter to give a brilliant rant against the drug war and the disproportionate impact it has on blacks in America.” After presenting Booker’s best tweets on the subject, including the irrefutable observation that “Drug war is a failure costing billions of tax dollars annually AND destorying lives,” Kirell remarks:
It’s nice to see a popular Democrat take a strong stance against the drug war. But this is a rare position among mainstream politicians. I can think of only a handful of well-known politicians besides Booker who openly advocate for a rethinking of the drug war.
In a perfect world, this Twitter rant, plus the latest Rasmussen poll that 56% of Americans support marijuana legalization, would convince President Obama to “evolve” on the drug war and, at the very least, stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries with a frequency that even Richard Nixon would have applauded.
Read the whole thing here.
Rand Paul Amendment to Stop Armed FDA Agents From Raiding Farms Fails, 78-15
The amendment Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced yesterday to demilitarize the FDA failed in the Senate today by a vote of 78-15.
Paul's amendment would have prohibited FDA employees (as well as all other Health and Human Services employees) from carrying weapons and making arrests without warrants.
"We have nearly 40 federal agencies that are armed. I’m not against having police, I’m not against the army, the military, the FBI, but I think bureaucrats don’t need to be carrying weapons and I think what we ought to do, is if there is a need for an armed policeman to be there, the FBI who are trained to do this should do it," Paul said yesterday on the Senate floor. "But I don’t think it’s a good idea to be arming bureaucrats to go on the farm to, with arms, to stop people from selling milk from a cow."
The amendment would also have allowed the makers of prune juice to advertise that their products help relieve constipation.
Andrew Sullivan Nominates Tim Cavanaugh for Trig Palin Award
Newsweek
afterbirther Andrew Sullivan briefly leaves off rescuing
abandoned Palin family infants from rocky mountaintops in order to
chart
my claptrap.
According to Sully, my belief that under President Barack Obama America has experienced "vast unemployment, soaring inflation, a moribund economy, record deficits, and a manically ill-conceived energy policy" is not merely wrong. It is so wrong as to make me eligible for a "Malkin Award" (which I had never heard of prior to my nomination but which I assume is a raspberry named in honor of Holy Spirit High graduate Michelle Malkin, of whom I shall not speak well because she went to Holy Spirit High).
Points in order:
• I believe I am neither the first nor the last to note that U-3 unemployment currently is higher than the rate Obama’s economic advisors predicted it would be were the $800 billion ARRA stimulus not adopted. (It was adopted, one month into Obama’s presidency.)
• I’d like to take "soaring inflation" and "moribund economy" together: Sullivan posts two charts, one showing GDP growth averaging flat-or-flattish since 2007, and another showing inflation in every quarter except one. During that period, inflation has been a cumulative 10.97, according to a Koch-funded rightwing hate group called the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I suggest Sullivan take a look at the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Fund reports to get a sense of how much household net worth Americans have lost over those same four years, while the value of their money has been literally decimated. That’s a double-whammy called "stagflation," which like the name of Voldemort I don’t care to pronounce because I remember the original.
All caveats about the falsehood of both CPI inflation and GDP measurements also apply. I have left Sully’s Keynesian church and am only using its false dogma for the sake of argument.
• As for record deficits, Sullivan is following the latest don’t-believe-your-own-two-eyes fad, which claims that you when see clear evidence of at-or-near-record peacetime spending hikes since 2009, you’re just showing that you don’t understand how the federal budget really works. (If the preceding is too much of a mouthful, here's the shorter version: It's Bush's fault.)
I have another neat chart, from James Pethokoukis, which takes President George W. Bush spending hikes into account and still shows what Obama’s done with the place. Sullivan seems to think I have a problem admitting Bush was a big spender too, which (since he says nothing interesting about energy policy) brings me to his final error:
• I voted for Obama in 2008, and documented that vote more than once. So in saying my description of the economy’s performance over the past four years is a "knee-jerk" response of the "right," Sullivan is, as always, wrong.
Sullivan's early-aughts star-turn as the Prince Hamlet of the liberal hawks cured me of any hope that he might deal honestly with his formerly held positions. But I think he should spare a thought for the throat-clearing bore who wrote the following in 2009: "But it also seems to me that this president and this new Congress were elected in part to address this issue, that their more interventionist stand was clear, and that they should both get the benefit of the doubt - as well as full responsibility for the consequences."
Details About The Bin Laden Raid Are Secret Unless You Plan to Make a SEAL-Aggrandizing, America-Cheering, "Heroic" Film About It
Over at Gawker, John Cook reports that the
rumors seem to be true about the May 2011 raid that ended with the
death of U.S. enemy numero uno Osama Bin Laden; The White House,
while they were busy changing their story about the raid numerous
times, were also chatting like ladies at a hair salon to
director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal so that they
could in turn the heroic story into a no-doubt-heroic movie.
The originally planned October 2012 —AKA a month before the presidential election — release date for Zero Dark Thirty was changed to December 2012. Nobody, especially not Bigelow, has admitted to anything gross about the little-too-perfect timing of the original date, but now it's indeed bumped back.
It's important not to influence public opinion or anything. Or to look untoward about serious issues like presidential elections and killing important terrorist. Except that, writes Cook:
The documents, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, which had to sue to get them, show a level of access to CIA facilities and intelligence personnel that would make a national security beat reporter blush. CIA flacks spent an enormous amount of time last summer setting up interviews between Boal and senior CIA officials, including a tour of the room where the raid was planned and access to a CIA-built recreation of the bin Laden compound. All while the White House was engaged in a concerted effort to squelch "leaks" of classified information.
As Politico's Josh Gerstein points out, some of the email traffic in the CIA setting up Boal's visit acknowledges the apparent hypocrisy of opening the door on one of the Agency's most sensitive operations to a Hollywood production while vigorously working to shut down reporting on the incident by news outlets. "We're trying to keep [Boal's] visits at HQs a bit quiet, because of the sensitivities surrounding who gets to participates in this types of things," CIA spokesman Marie Harf wrote in one email. "I'm sure you understand." Another email from a Pentagon official to his colleagues notes an "increase in detailed requests in conjunction with books, documentaries, and film projects.... On behalf of [Defense] Secretary [Robert] Gates and [Under Secretary for Intelligence] Dr. [Michael] Vickers, I request that you decline any direct requests for information regarding the UBL operation.... Recently there have...been a number of sensitive items appearing in the press, which is quite troubling."
That email is particularly ironic seeing as how Vickers himself sat down with Boal for a 45-minute interview in which he disclosed a previously unreported detail about the intelligence that led to the raid.
This tidbit was the fact that back in 2009, U.S. forces lost the Bin Laden courier who eventually lad them to the terrorist leader's Pakistan abode. That was a narrow miss for the Obama administration who maybe could have started off their White House tenure even earlier with this smashing success in terrorist-killing.
Notes Cook, this detail seems to be missing from actual journalism from the last few years and:
"I can't definitively say that no one has ever reported that," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col James Gregory told me. "But as far as I know those words had not previously been spoken in public."
But at least filmmakers now know, thank God.
CBS notes that there are folks who have other reasons to criticism this kind of snugness between government and Hollywood. It's not that sharing information with Bigelow and Boal and not sharing it with journalists or, ya know, the rest of the world is gross and aggrandizing and transparent. No, it turns out it might have jeopardized national security:
A House committee chairman charged Wednesday that the CIA and Defense Department jeopardized national security by cooperating too closely with filmmakers producing a movie on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King. R-N.Y., first raised questions about the bin Laden movie last summer, but said newly released documents confirm his suspicions.
The filmmakers are director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who won Academy Awards for the motion picture "The Hurt Locker."
King referred to documents obtained by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act request. He said the filmmakers received "extremely close, unprecedented and potentially dangerous collaboration" from the Obama administration.
Unsurprisingly, various officials dispute the suspiciousness of this thing:
Pentagon press secretary George Little disputed some of the allegations. He said that while a planner was suggested as a possible point of contact for information on the bin Laden raid, a meeting between that planner and the filmmakers never occurred.
He said the Defense Department engages on a regular basis with the entertainment industry on movie projects, and the goal is to "make them as realistic as possible. We believe this is an important service that we provide."
Little added that Pentagon officials did meet with producers of the film but said, "We have never reviewed a script of the movie."
Little also denied that the cooperation was an attempt to boost President Barack Obama's election chances, and said the movie would not be out until after the election. Sony Pictures confirmed that the projected release date of the movie is Dec. 19.
CIA spokesman Preston Golson disputed the allegation that the filmmakers were given access to a secret "vault."
"Virtually every office and conference room in our headquarters is called a 'vault' in agency lingo," he said. The 'vault' in question, that had been used for planning the raid, was empty at the time of the filmmakers' visit."
Golson added, "The CIA has been open about our engagement with writers, documentary filmmakers, movie and TV producers, and others in the entertainment industry. Our goal is an accurate portrayal of the men and women of the CIA, their vital mission and the commitment to public service that defines them. The protection of national security equities is always paramount in any engagement with the entertainment industry."
Well, that's one thing the CIA is open about. So that's...something.
This is indeed one of those terrible things that is not that new. The Pentagon clearly adores Hollywood and Hollywood's willingness to trade the army looking good for moviemakers' access to sweet technology. Hollywood also digs getting permission to use a disclaimer which thanks the army for their assistance.
Obviously propaganda has been around as long as movies (and World War II Hollywood obviously was the opposite of a bastion of Catch-22 or The Americanization of Emily type of tough questioning of the fundamental problems of even the "good war"). And perhaps the information wasn't that big of a leak, but the principle is clear; the U.S. government continues to be too arrogant to believe it should have to prove that the details of the Bin Laden are as described. They are not going to release Bin Laden death photos or video footage because that would risk national security.
But if you plan to write a gritty war-drama that is sure to make the SEAL team look amazing...Well. It will probably be a gritty film, and with more shallowly nuanced war-is-tough-and-national-security-is-shouty-and-serious themes than you would get from Michael Bay, sure. But it's hard not assume that the movie will make government and the armed forces look like anything but doers of good. As Bigelow said last year "This was an American triumph, both heroic and non-partisan." Maybe she does know better than we do.
Reason on propaganda and the war on terror
New Poll: Obama Leads Romney In Wisconsin, But Gary Johnson Could Impact the Race
While a majority of Wisconsin voters plan to vote for Republican
Governor Scott Walker in the June 5th recall election,
Wisconsinites plan to vote for President Barack Obama by a margin
of 10 percent over Mitt Romney. (46 percent to 36 percent)
Among likely voters, Obama’s margin over Romney shrinks to 44-41 percent. Consequently, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s 5 percent of the vote could potentially impact the results of thisswing-state. Depending on whether Johnson takes more votes from Romney or Obama could swing which presidential candidate receives the state’s electoral votes.
Gary Johnson voters in Wisconsin are difficult to categorize, as they agree with Mitt Romney supporters to end automatic union dues deductions, and think public employee unions have too much power and get better benefits than private sector workers. However, they are more like Obama supporters in that they are less comfortable limiting public unions’ collective bargaining, and are slightly more likely to vote for Tom Barrett (38 to 33 percent). They self-identify as Independent, but tend to lean Republican.
Full poll results can be found here and cross tabs here.
ORC International conducted fieldwork for the poll, May 14th-18th 2012 of both mobile and landline phones, 708 Wisconsin adults, margin of error +/- 3.7%. Likely Wisconsin voters (609, MOE +/-4%) include registered respondents who said they are absolutely certain to vote or very likely to vote in the June 5th recall election for governor.
Emily Ekins is the director of polling for Reason Foundation where she leads the Reason-Rupe public opinion research project, launched in 2011. Follow her on Twitter @emilyekins.
Kirsten Adshead on the Outdated Law Behind the Scott Walker Recall
Reporting from Madison, Wisconsin, Kirsten
Adshead takes a close look at the Wisconsin law allowing for the
recall of elected officials. The law’s intent was to remove
criminals from office, Adshead explains. But policy disagreements
are the driving force behind today’s effort to recall Gov. Scott
Walker—specifically the collective bargaining limitations put on
most public union employees under Act 10, which Walker pushed
and the GOP-led Legislature passed.
Flashing Headlights to Warn About Speed Traps Is Protected Speech, Sez Judge
Meet Ryan
Kintner, 25,
American hero:
According to his suit, Kintner was home Aug. 10 when he saw a deputy park along a street and pull out his radar gun. Kintner then got in his car, drove a couple of blocks away, parked and pointed his vehicle at oncoming traffic and began flashing his lights.
He was ticketed a short time later.
On Tuesday, a judge in Sanford, Florida, ruled that flashing headlights with the purpose of communication—"hey neighbors, the freaking cops are trying to meet their ticket quotas on our block today," for example—is constitutionally protected speech.
Hero #2 is Kintner's lawyer, J. Marcus Jones:
"He felt the police specifically went out of their way to silence Mr. Kintner and that it was clearly a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights," said his attorney, J. Marcus Jones of Oviedo.
Jones has filed a similar but much broader suit in Tallahassee against the Florida Highway Patrol.
A hearing in that case is scheduled next month.
"This stuff is fun," Jones said after Tuesday's hearing.
Via Walter Olson.
Why Didn't Greek and European Leaders Think About the Inevitable Greek Exit From the Euro Until Three Weeks Ago?
There are plenty of horribles contemplated in
this
Bloomberg piece from yesterday on war-gaming the Greek exit
from the Euro, but the subtheme that jumps out at me is how
basically no one even contemplated the step-by-step
practicalities of this inevitability until about three weeks
ago:
The specter of Greece leaving the euro was evoked when ECB executive board member Joerg Asmussen told Germany's Handelsblatt in an interview published May 8 that Greece couldn't renegotiate its bailout terms if it wanted to stay in the euro. [...]
The remarks followed elections May 6 that propelled the Syriza party, which calls for reneging on the bailout accords, into second place. [...]
"Although such a scenario is unlikely to materialize and it is not desirable either for Greece or for other countries, it cannot be excluded that preparations are being made to contain the potential consequences of a Greek euro exit," the Wall Street Journal quoted [Former Greek Prime Minister Lucas] Papademos as saying. CNBC television separately quoted Papademos as saying there aren't preparations underway in Greece for a euro exit.
You can blame this stunning
lack of foresight on basic incompetence, or a kind of
Euro-conformity, where no one (outside of the UK, anyway) dare even
to think out loud anything that might be seen as sidetracking the
integration juggernaut. But I favor the catch-all explanation that
Nick Gillespie and I offered in the opening
chapter to The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian
Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America (soon out in an
updated paperback): "Massive, fast-paced change, whether
liberational, destructive, or just plain weird, is always and
everywhere underpriced." Humans have a hard time grappling with
their worlds being rocked, so they just don't.
This tendency, I fear, is playing a big role in U.S. domestic policy and politics right now. Since we can't really contemplate a debt crisis, both parties essentially pretend we'll never have one, and instead propose jacking up federal spending and debt over the next 10 years, a decade during which the eternally predictable Baby Boom retirementpocalypse will be upon us. We can't really imagine the suddenness with which bond-buying sentiment could turn against us, so we keep kicking the fiscal can down the road as if it axiomatically stretches out forever. We can't really imagine America as being anything else but the world's hegemonic policeman, and we really can't imagine being unable to afford that job description overnight, and so the presidential nominee from the party of "limited government" wants to dedicate 4 percent of the national economy to military spending forever and ever, amen.
So, enjoy whatever's Greek for schadenfreude, and know that the planning disaster playing out in Brussels right now is not remotely an event for Continentals only.
Breitbart.com Finds Unretouched J.Lo-as-Selena Poster
While scouring the kingdom in
Breitbart.com’s quest for vetting-worthy material about the past
life (lives?)
of President Barack Hussein Obama, Joel B. Pollak finds a real
piece of American history.
This faded, apparently original poster captured Jennifer Lopez in a pivotal moment: Had she bombed in the 1997 biopic about Tejano superstar Selena, there would have been no On the 6, no Glow by J.Lo, maybe even no What to Expect When You’re Expecting feature adaptation. Fortunately for all of us, Lopez failed to bomb in Selena and went on to enjoy a lustrous career.
Folks of a certain age will no longer chuckle when I note that the poster here has the back of an Obama for Congress 2000 card, which heralds the then-state senator’s losing race against incumbent Bobby Rush.
"Obama’s got specific plans to cut prescription drug prices and to stop racial profiling," said an attack ad on Rush that Obama bought during a debate commercial break. "And Obama can help bring jobs back to the South Side."
Pollak draws an inference from Rush's complaint about the ad. He also quotes Slate.com’s Dave Weigel at length concerning Obama’s negative campaigning in 2008.
I'd like to see microvetting of Obama's promises by some of our country's thousands of idled history majors.
Offhand, I'd say: Obama can't really claim credit for Medicare Part 2, which cut prescription drug prices to $0.00 (adjusted for inflation), because that passed before he got to the U.S. Senate. I have no idea how the racial profiling and Southside jobs numbers are going.
Here are Obama, Rush and friends debating at the dawn of a new millennium. :
Terry Michael on How Liberal Christianists Pit Luke Against Leviticus
Since his election, perhaps over-compensating for
nonsense about fealty to Muhammad, President Barack Obama has his
TelePrompTer permanently programmed to seek God’s blessing for
America in every speech. With the religious right's influence
waning, writes Terry Michael, perhaps liberals will be restored to
secular sanity and stop trying to emulate what they scorned for
several decades.
How Long Can Obama Continue Supporting a Federalist Approach to Gay Marriage?
The Washington
Post asks
whether President Obama, having announced his support for legal
recognition of gay marriages, will take the additional step of
arguing that such recognition is constitutionally required. Two
weeks ago, when Obama, in an interview with ABC News, explicitly
endorsed
gay marriage for the first time
since 1996, he immediately
added:
Part of my hesitation on this has also been I didn't want to nationalize the issue. There's a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized.
And what you're seeing is, I think, states working through this issue—in fits and starts, all across the country. Different communities are arriving at different conclusions, at different times. And I think that's a healthy process and a healthy debate. And I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue, what's recognized as a marriage.
But as the Post notes, this federalist approach seems to conflict with Obama's position on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In February 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder said the Obama administration would continue to obey DOMA's ban on federal recognition of state-licensed gay marriages but would no longer defend it in court, having concluded that the provision is unconstitutional. In his ABC News interview, Obama said DOMA "tried to federalize what has historically been state law." But Holder did not make a 10th Amendment argument against DOMA, saying it impermissibly intrudes on a power that the Constitution reserves to the states. Instead he argued that the law violates the guarantee of equal protection implicit in the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Specifically, he said "the President and I have concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation warrant heightened scrutiny" and that DOMA's distinction between heterosexual and homosexual couples could not pass that test. If so, it is hard to see how the same distinction at the state level could pass muster under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Stanford law professor Michael McConnell tells the Post:
If you believe the matter should be left to the states, that means you think the Constitution permits the states to take a different view. I don’t see how that can be squared with Attorney General Holder's claim.
In fact, Holder and Obama implicitly have staked out a stronger position regarding state bans on gay marriage than the one taken by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in his 2010 ruling against California's Proposition 8 and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in upholding his decision last February. Walker and the 9th Circuit both applied a "rational basis" test, the highly deferential standard used in equal protection cases that do not involve a fundamental right or a "suspect class" such as race. Under this test, the government need only show that the challenged law "bears a rational relation to a legitimate end." The fact that Walker and the appeals court nevertheless deemed Proposition 8 unconstitutional does not reflect well on the arguments mustered by its supporters. But the standard favored by Obama, "heightened scrutiny," would make their task even harder, requiring them to show that a state constitutional amendment eliminating gay couples' right to marry (which had been recognized by the California Supreme Court) is "substantially related to an important government objective."
Obama may prefer to delay admitting the implications of his constitutional case against DOMA until after the election. But if the Supreme Court agrees to hear an appeal of the 9th Circuit's decision against Proposition 8 during the term that begins in October, the Post notes, "it could ask the administration for its view on whether marriage is a fundamental right that cannot be withheld from gay couples." A ruling endorsing that view would "sweep away state decisions on same-sex marriage, as well as the bans in 30 state constitutions," just as the 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia swept away state bans on interracial marriage. Obama presumably would not have favored "different communities...arriving at different conclusions" about the latter issue. His challenge is to explain why the current situation is fundamentally different, which will be hard in light of the constitutional logic he already has endorsed.
Scott Shackford recently discussed federalism vs. nationalization as applied to gay marriage and interracial marriage.
George Soros and Other Lefty Moneybags Types Aren't Primarying Lousy Old Democrats Because the Party Is More Ideologically Diverse! Wait, What?
Former Reasoner David Weigel has an
interesting article up that seeks to answer why there aren't
any Club For Growth/Freedom
Works/Tea Party/Paulista-style primary-election
challenges to the worst of the Democratic Party's status quo (like,
say, the
execrable Dianne Feinstein). This section in particular is
unintentionally revealing:
Two months ago, Progressive Insurance founder Peter Lewis left the Democracy Alliance, a lefty donor coalition. Earlier this month, billionaire George Soros made his first 2012 political donations—$1 million each to America Votes and American Bridge 21st Century. That’s $23.5 million less than he gave to liberal groups in 2004. According to David McKay, chairman of the Democracy Alliance and board member of the Priorities USA super PAC, most big liberal money is going toward grassroots organizing. “There’s a bias towards funding infrastructure as it relates to the elections,” he told the New York Times’ Nicholas Confessore.
Why no money to change the Democratic Party itself? The big guys aren’t interested, and don’t think it’s possible. “The reason there's not a Club for Growth-like organization on the left,” says Soros spokesman Michael Vachon, “is that there is a greater diversity of views in the Democratic Party than there is in the Republican Party. There's less of a hierarchically enforced ideological structure."
For the sake of this argument, let's imagine what a "hierarchically enforced ideological structure" might look like. Start with someone high up in the Republican Party's hierarchy; say, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). Mitch McConnell enforces ideology in part the same way all powerful politicians do: by backing particular candidates in primary elections and then throwing the party's machinery behind them. For example, Trey Grayson in the race to be the junior senator in McConnell's home state of Kentucky. The Club for Growth (and the Tea Party, and the Ron Paul movement, and other groups) in this case felt strong enough about their diverse-from-McConnell ideology that they rejected GOP hierarchy and backed outsider Rand Paul instead.
By this method Republicans who truly believe in limited constitutional government, as opposed to merely mouthing vague rhetoric in that direction whenever Democrats hold power, are attempting to change their own party into something more responsive to those beliefs. Such Republicans, it should be stressed, are still a wholly outnumbered group within the party.
I don't know which of the major parties is more ideologically diverse, but it's clear that (with a few exceptions), Democrats have elected to eschew open ideological competition for the soul of the modern party, which may help explain why Democrats in power are able to perpetuate policies that many of their voters strongly dislike: drone warfare, mass deportation, targeting Americans for assassination, maintaining the Guantanamo Bay prison, raiding legal medical marijuana facilities, laughing off pot legalization, starting new and expanding old wars, reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act, and so on. If settling for this status quo is a function of diversity, then maybe it's time for a little monomania.
As I wrote about in "What the Left Can Learn From the Tea Party," the aforementioned Soros and Peter Lewis can be seen as poster children for the limits of using major parties to advance your strongly felt beliefs, particularly when you decline to influence primary contests:
Consider that three of the biggest supporters of the Democratic Party since the end of Bush’s first term have been George Soros, Peter Lewis, and John Sperling—who also happen to be three of the country's most generous supporters of drug policy reform.
Soros in particular is a case study in how giving blanket support to a political party can undermine your favorite causes. According to a 2004 New Yorker article about anti-Bush billionaires by Jane Mayer, Soros' bill of particulars against Obama's predecessor included Bush's attempts to spread democracy at gunpoint, his expansions of presidential power, and his prison camp in Guantanamo Bay. In every one of those areas, as in the drug war, Obama has not been significantly better than Bush.
Here's hoping that the Soros/Lewis retreat from funding Democratic politics as usual so far this year is actually an expression of their dissatisfaction with the way their pet issues have been treated. Because as we've seen with gay marriage (on both sides of the aisle) ideological competition among campaign donors can help focus political minds as well.
California Fixing to Have to Pimp-Slap Cities to Get Redevelopment Funds Back
One of the few correct calls California Gov.
Jerry Brown has made in his return to office – eliminating the
corrupt redevelopment agency system and returning the money to the
state (to be directed back to union interests the
schools) – may require Brown to send goons to city halls across the
state to beat the money out of government officials.
After Brown successfully killed off redevelopment agencies across the state, the tax money they were redirecting to their various scams projects did not automatically revert back to their original sources. The state tasked each municipality with a redevelopment agency to determine what their “enforceable obligations” were. Which contracts did the redevelopment agencies get themselves into that must be continued by their cities even after the agencies were dissolved?
As The Orange County Register discovered, cities are pretty much trying to claim everything under the sun as an enforceable obligation, and the state is challenging cities’ efforts to keep from having to stop spending money on certain projects. In Orange County alone, the state is challenging nearly $2 billion in claims of enforceable obligations. (Teri Sforza does an excellent job documenting all the challenges for The Register. Every metro paper in California should do this.)
Furthermore, the state is discovering that several redevelopment agencies appear to have rushed to enter into new agreements after the law dissolving the agencies passed and cities are trying to preserve them.
Given California’s budget deficit of $16 billion (it’s probably higher by now), the state needs to wring this money out of the cities to try to get its house back in order or else it might have to do something crazy like actually reduce spending.
Tim Cavanaugh wrote in January about the massive debts redevelopment agencies have built up in California and what can be done about it.
John Stossel on Why Business's Desire for Profit Is a Good Thing
To get our money, businesses—if they can't look
to the government for favors—need to give us what we want. Then
they must make continuous improvements and do it better than the
competition does. That competition is enough to protect
consumers. But that's not intuitive. It's intuitive to assume that
competition isn't really consumer protection and that experts must
protect us, even if, writes John Stossel, they ultimately do more
harm than good.
Will Americans Come to Love ObamaCare’s Insurance Mandate?
It’s conventional wisdom that
the individual mandate to purchase health insurance is ObamaCare’s
biggest public liability: Polls consistently show that large
majorities of the public are opposed to it and have been since
before the law passed.
But might opposition to the mandate soften in the future? The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn looks at public opinion about the Massachusetts mandate, which has been in effect for several years and is less controversial than its federal cousin, and argues that it might:
In last year’s poll by the Boston Globeand Harvard School of Public Health, the most recent comprehensive survey I’ve found, 51 percent of respondents said they supported the requirement that almost everybody get insurance or pay a fine, while 44 percent said they opposed it. Opposition to the mandate was higher than it had been one year previously, but support for the law as a whole had increased during that span. Sixty-three percent said they supported the Massachusetts scheme, while just 21 percent said they opposed.
Cohn suggests that “there are reasons to think that the mandate would gain public acceptance, or at least become a lot less controversial, if it survives the Supreme Court and congressional Republicans.”
Predicting the swings of public opinion in advance is obviously tricky business, so it’s possible that opposition to the mandate could slip. But I wouldn’t be too confident. There’s a big difference between how Massachusetts residents perceived both RomneyCare and its mandate prior to passage and how the U.S. public felt about ObamaCare and its health coverage requirement before it became law: Namely, a majority of Massachusetts residents were in favor of RomneyCare-style health reform and its mandate before it passed. But that’s just not true of ObamaCare.
According to a 2008 survey of public opinion
about the Massachusetts health law published
in Health Affairs, there was "a favorable political
environment" in the state before the law was passed. The mandates
and expansions of government care that are now driving opposition
to the national plan were supported by solid public majorities. In
2003, for example, majorities supported an employer mandate (76
percent), an individual mandate (56 percent), and an expansion of
state-run health programs (82 percent). In 2005, the year the bill
was passed in the state legislature, the report notes that 66
percent of the state reported supporting a universal coverage
ballot initiative. And immediately after passage, before most
residents had had the opportunity to interact with the system,
support remained high, with 61 percent of state residents
supporting the law.
Compared with the Harvard poll Cohn cites, the numbers haven’t
changed much: Support for the mandate is down by five points since
2003. Support for the law as a whole is up two points since
immediately after passage.
That just doesn’t match the national mood, where the political
environment has consistently been far less favorable to President
Obama’s health law. Since before the law’s passage, more of the
public has opposed the law than supported it. Indeed, in the months
following the law’s passage in 2010, opposition was so strong that
several political scientists have
reported evidence that it may have cost Democrats as many as 25
seats in the House — and majority control.
Cohn suggests that national feelings about the mandate may evolve to look more like they do in Massachusetts. But I think the more convincing story here is that the public’s opinion doesn’t change much over time: Massachusetts residents liked their health care law and its mandate prior to passage, and they like it still. If the national polls follow a similar pattern, it’s quite possible that Americans will continue to dislike both ObamaCare and its insurance mandate.
The Costs of Police Brutality: Fresh Out Of Bankruptcy, Vallejo Pays $4.5 Million for Warrantless Entry That Led to Spinal Cord Injury, Permanent Disability
Two cops in Vallejo, California entered Vietnam veteran Macario Dagdagan’s home in 2007 investigating an assault that allegedly occurred earlier in the day. They found Dagdgan in his bed, sleeping, so they woke him up, Tased him and put him in a chokehold. City attorneys insist the man “failed to follow even basic lawful demands” when cops entered into his home without a warrant and woke him up from what cops say was an intoxicated state.
Now the man has been awarded a settlement from the city of Vallejo to the tune of $4.5 million, which will be paid through the city’s insurance. Meanwhile! From the Times Herald:
On Tuesday, Vallejo city leaders grappled with a question rarely faced by municipalities - is a spending deficit acceptable in the city's first year out of bankruptcy, or is it an avoidable trap?
City Manager Dan Keen presented his proposed 2012-2013 budget with its $3.4 million deficit to the City Council, which has until the end of June to decide whether to lean on city reserves to cover the shortfall.
While several council members said generally they're opposed to spending beyond the city's means, they offered little in specific alternatives to avoiding it.
The two officers, Jason Wentz and John Boyd, are no longer employed in Vallejo. They’re cops in Richmond.
"Record low are 'pro-choice'" Yet 75 Percent Support Abortion Rights
A recent Gallup Poll on
attitudes toward abortion is making headlines for documenting, as
Politico headlines it, "Record low
are 'pro-choice'."
A record-low 41 percent now identify themselves as “pro-choice,” down from 47 percent last July and 1 percentage point down from the previous record low of 42 percent, set in May 2009. As recently as 2006, 51 percent of Americans described themselves as “pro-choice.”
Meanwhile, 50 percent of Americans now consider themselves “pro-life,” one point below Gallup’s record high on the measure.
Does that presage a rollback of reproductive technologies, including abortion?
Despite what the Nancy Pelosis of the world might fear and the Rick Santorums might desire, it seems really doubtful. People support reproductive choice. As a different Politico story noted, fully 89 percent of Americans (and 82 percent of Catholics) believe that contraception is "morally acceptable."
When it comes to abortion, the percentages that believe abortion should be legal under at least some circumstances hasn't been changing very much since Gallup started asking the question back in 1975:
The total percentage of respondents who believe abortion should be legal under at least some circumstances comes in at 77 percent. That's down from a few peaks in the low 80s, but doesn't seem to be part of a major shift in one direction or another. People resolutely against abortion in all circumstances hasn't shown much sustained change either. The number has stayed in the high teens and very low 20s for a long time.
What's interesting is that downticks in "legal under any circumstances" seem to be offest by upticks in "legal only under certain circumstances." That suggests that as reproductive technologies ranging from ultrasounds to contraceptives to morning-after pills get better and more widespread, people have less tolerance for what they see as irresponsible behavior. Put another way, late-term abortion has always been more controversial than early-term abortion because people see fetal development as a continuum; the moral issues get dicier the more developed the fetus is. Virtually all abortions (90 percent) take place in the first trimester, when the fetus is less developed than it is closer to birth. Which makes sense. I've always found the bumper sticker "It's a child, not a choice" to be a strong statement. But the fact is, people are far less likely to view things that way in the early stages of a pregnancy.
As I wrote on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, treating abortion on a sliding scale doesn't comfort categorical believers who are either pro- or anti-abortion, but that sort of rough calculus seems to work well enough for the public at large, which wants abortion available but also seems willing to draw certain lines. I can only imagine (and hope) that as we gain more and more control over reproduction - it's worth remembering that contraceptive pills for unmarried women were only legalized in the early 1970s - abortion will continue to recede as a political issue. It's a serious issue but also one for which politics is particularly ill-suited. As it stands, only 1 percent of voters rate it as the top issue in the 2012 presidential race.
Abortion comes up a lot in discussions about libertarianism, in part because there doesn't seem to be an axiomatic position on the matter among libertarians (though most are clearly pro-choice). Here's a relevant clip from last year's "Ask a Libertarian" series, in which Matt Welch and I fielded questions from readers:
Steve Chapman on Why Chinese Communists No Longer Put Much Stock in Communism
Wal-Mart has 370 stores in China, and Starbucks
has more than 570. Mao's masses thronged the streets on bicycles.
Today's Chinese sit in late-model cars in endless traffic
jams. All this began some three decades ago, when the People's
Republic gave up trying to forcibly redesign human nature in favor
of making the best of it. So thorough is the outward
transformation, writes Steve Chapman, that it's often hard to
remember—or quite believe—that this is an officially communist
country.
Iran Sanctions Bill Out of Senate Does Not Authorize Military Force
Thank goodness for small favors, and thanks to Sen. Rand Paul. Al Arabiya News on the measure out of the Senate earlier this week:
The bill also allows President Barack Obama to impose sanctions on any country or company that enters joint ventures with Iran to develop its oil or uranium resource, or provides technology or resources to help Iran with such development.
The legislation targets Iran’s national oil and tanker firms, its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and would for the first time widen sanctions on Iran’s energy sector to any joint venture anywhere in the world where Iran's government is a substantial partner or investor.
The bill calls for a travel ban and freezing of U.S. assets of individuals and firms that provide Tehran with technology--everything from rubber bullets to surveillance equipment--used to repress dissent.
It would require firms competing for U.S. government contracts to certify that they and their subsidiaries have not had “significant economic transactions” with the Revolutionary Guards or individuals or entities connected to it.
As we--with no hostile intent, natch!--order the world not to do business with Iran, the bright side:
The bill also includes language introduced by Senator Rand Paul stating that the measure does not authorize the use of military force....
What might this mean down the line?
a former CIA analyst for the Near East and Persian Gulf region said the sanctions could be counterproductive ahead of the Baghdad talks on Iran’s nuclear program by making Tehran think that the West is less interested in a deal than in undermining the regime.
“The biggest requirement now for getting an agreement is not to pile on still more sanctions, but instead to persuade the Iranians that if they make concessions the sanctions will be eased,” said Paul Pillar, now a security studies professor at Georgetown University. '
The Senate bill will have to be reconciled with a similar House bill passed in December. The bill does not authorize military force as per Rand Paul; still, as CNN notes, "Passage came after senators agreed to add language warning that military force would be an option available to the United States if Iran seeks to build a nuclear weapon."
As Jason Ditz argues at Antiwar.com, sanctions are a long-lasting thing. And Nathan Fuller also at Antiwar.com analyzes some of the dangerous language in a recent House resolution on Iran:
The resolution passed the House 401-11, with a few representatives absent and a few abstaining. This means it had massive bipartisan support — for those of you who only consider Republicans to be warmongers, 166 of 190 Democrats voted in support, including some of its ostensibly most progressive members, such as Barney Frank and Rush Holt.
The language used bodes terribly for the United States’ already disastrous and destructive foreign policy. The House affirms not merely that Iran will not be allowed to manufacture nuclear weapons, but that it will not be permitted the capability to manufacture them. Never mind that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta observed that Iran is not actually pursuing these weapons....
The worst part about the bill, though, is not what policies it specifically introduces or accusations it announces but rather what it signifies more broadly: the U.S. is taking the next step in the war on Iran that has already begun.
For one thing, Israel has already teamed up with a U.S.-backed terror group within Iran to assassinate nuclear scientists, serving both the temporary, practical purpose of inhibiting Iran’s nuclear progress and the long-term, psychological purpose of instilling fear within Iran and its fledgling nuclear program.
More insidiously, the U.S. has imposed severe sanctions on Iran that most describe as “crippling” and that all should describe as acts of war. On Monday, the Senate votedunanimously to escalate those very sanctions....
We should also look to Iraq to understand how this bipartisan process of escalation works, from sanctions to bombing to occupation. Arguing against sanctions on Iran in April 2010, Rep. Ron Paul recalled how sanctions on Iraq led inevitably to war:
"Some of my well-intentioned colleagues may be tempted to vote for sanctions on Iran because they view this as a way to avoid war on Iran. I will ask them whether the sanctions on Iraq satisfied those pushing for war at that time. Or whether the application of ever-stronger sanctions in fact helped war advocates make their case for war on Iraq: as each round of new sanctions failed to “work” — to change the regime — war became the only remaining regime-change option.
This legislation, whether the House or Senate version, will lead us to war on Iran. The sanctions in this bill, and the blockade of Iran necessary to fully enforce them, are in themselves acts of war according to international law. A vote for sanctions on Iran is a vote for war against Iran. I urge my colleagues in the strongest terms to turn back from this unnecessary and counterproductive march to war."...........
President Obama called last month’s “negotiations” with Iran that country’s “last chance,” effectively threatening to escalate sanctions or attack if Iran didn’t cease its nuclear enrichment program entirely. How are those “negotiations”? How is that “diplomacy”?...
On the kind of bright side, and we'll see if it means anything when Obama decides to prove how tough he is, perhaps pre-November, Common Dreams reports that both houses of Congress seem to have effectively "un-declared" war on Iran:
The House was the first chamber to 'un-declare war', with its inclusion of a proviso in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that this legislation does not authorize war with Iran. This stipulation that "nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorizing the use of force against Iran" is a remarkably sober note of caution and common sense in an otherwise dangerous and reckless piece of legislation...
Rep. John Conyers (MI) championed this amendment to 'un-declare' war with Iran with a bipartisan group of representatives: Rep. Ron Paul (TX), Rep. Keith Ellison (MN), and Rep. Walter Jones (NC). In less than a week, Congress received more than 1,000 calls through FCNL's toll-free number from grassroots activists across the country who support this and other anti-war, pro-peace amendments that FCNL was working on. Partly as a result of your advocacy against war with Iran, the Conyers/Paul/Ellison/Jones amendment was considered so uncontroversial that it made its way into the NDAA as part of a package (called 'en bloc amendments') of non-controversial amendments, rather than going to the House floor for a separate vote.
I wrote back in March on "Why Rand Paul Associated Sanctions with War."
Rand Paul Introduces Amendment to End the FDA's Insane Police Powers: "I see no reason to have the FDA carrying weapons." [UPDATED]
"I think we have bigger
problems in our country than sending armed FDA agents into peaceful
farmers’ land and telling them they can’t sell milk directly from
the cow," Rand Paul said yesterday in a rousing speech calling for
an end to the Food and Drug Administration's police powers. More
from the transcript, provided by Paul's office:
Some of you might be surprised the FDA is armed. Well, you shouldn’t be.
We have nearly 40 federal agencies that are armed. I’m not against having police, I’m not against the army, the military, the FBI, but I think bureaucrats don’t need to be carrying weapons and I think what we ought to do, is if there is a need for an armed policeman to be there, the FBI who are trained to do this should do it. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to be arming bureaucrats to go on the farm to, with arms, to stop people from selling milk from a cow.
I think we have too many armed federal agencies, and that we need to put an end to this. Criminal law seems to be increasing, increasingly is using a tool of our government bureaucracy to punish and control honest businessmen for simply attempting to make a living.
Historically the criminal law was intended to punish only the most horrible offenses that everyone agreed were inherently wrong or evil, offenses like rape, murder, theft, arson – but now we’ve basically federalized thousands of activities and called them crimes.
If bureaucrats need to involve the police, let’s have them use the FBI, but I see no reason to have the FDA carrying weapons.
Paul's amendment to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act has two parts: Part I would allow the makers of health products to advertise their benefits. "There’s no earthly reason why somebody who markets prune juice can’t advertise it helps with constipation," Paul said. Part II of the amendment would prohibit FDA employees (as well as all other Health and Human Services employees) from carrying weapons and making arrests without warrants.
Watch the speech here:
Reason "Hero of Freedom" Larry Flynt's Latest Stunt? Photoshopping a Penis into Mouth of Conservative Pundit S.E. Cupp
In 2003, Reason celebrated its
35th anniversary by compiling a list of "Heroes of Freedom" who we
thought had helped to "make the world groovier and groovier since
1968," when the magazine started publishing. "Honorees needed to
have been alive at some point during reason's run," ran the intro.
"The list is by design eclectic, irreverent, and woefully
incomplete, but it limns the many ways in which the world has only
gotten groovier and groovier during the last 35 years."
Some of the entrants were obvious jokes (John Ashcroft and Richard Nixon, for instance, were cited for their ability to fire people up to protect their rights), some were libertarian superheroes (Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand), and others were just controversial picks, even for our core audience. (The full roster is here.)
In the latter categry was Hustler founder Larry Flynt, of whom we wrote:
Larry Flynt. Where Hugh Hefner mainstreamed bohemian sexual mores, hard-core porn merchant Flynt brought tastelessness to new depths, inspiring an unthinkable but revealing coalition between social conservatives and puritanical feminists - and helping to strengthen First Amendment protections for free expression along the way.
Flynt's latest stunt involves photoshopping a penis into the mouth of conservative commentator S.E. Cupp of GBTV.
Under the headline “Celebrity Fantasy,” the text beside the picture asks, “What would S.E. Cupp look like with a [d**k] in her mouth?”
S.E. Cupp is a lovely young lady who read too much Ayn Rand in high school and ended up joining the dark side. Cupp, an author and media commentator who often shows up on Fox News programs, is undeniably cute. But her hotness is diminished when she espouses dumb ideas like defunding Planned Parenthood. Perhaps the method pictured here is Ms. Cupp’s suggestion for avoiding an unwanted pregnancy.
A disclaimer follows: “No such picture of S.E. Cupp actually exists. This composite fantasy is altered from the original for our imagination, does not depict reality, and is not to be taken seriously for any purpose.”
The Hustler picture has drawn the scorn of a wide-range of people from all around the political spectrum, including birth-control advocate Sandra Fluke and Planned Parenthood. So Flynt is yet again inspiring a new and revealing coalition of ideological opponents. This one is healthier than the earlier version, as those offended by the image as truly pathetic, sad, and indecent (count me in) aren't talking about censorship but about public shaming.
Flynt's statement on the controversy, also published by The Blaze, is simply:
"That’s satire. I’m able to publish this because of the Supreme Court case I won in 1984, Flynt v. Falwell."
Among many other things,
Hustler and Flynt remind us once again that
satire is not the equivalent of funny or
insightful, particularly when it trades in the rankest
form of misogyny. Really, if your best response to someone you
disagree with is to put a cock in her mouth, it's well past time to
consider retirement. Or at least to consider repeating the 6th
grade.
Cupp told The Blaze she "was horrified and disgusted" when she first saw the picture: “It’s uncomfortable. I’m not in this business to talk about myself, I’m not in this business to talk about my character... I‘d much rather be talking about Obama’s economic record or his foreign policy than myself and having to defend myself against [this photo].”
In December 2010, Cupp attended Reason's New York event celebrating adult filmmaker John Stagliano's victory over federal obscenity charges (yes, we defend free speech unreservedly). We asked a variety of attendees -- ranging from Stagliano himself to Fox News' Greg Gutfeld to Andrew Breitbart -- what they consider to be the biggest threat to free speech. Cupp shows up around the 2.20 mark and her answer will suprise most people, I think.
And note the opening soundbite by Andy Levy of Fox News' Red Eye: "Ultimately, the right to free speech is the right to be an asshole. What makes this country great is assholes." I agree with him, and yet somehow want to disagree at the same time.
Wisconsin Recall: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42 Among Likely Voters
Governor Scott Walker leads Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 50-42 among those likely to vote in Wisconsin’s June 5 recall election, according to a new Reason-Rupe poll of 708 Wisconsin adults on cell phones and landlines. At the same time, Wisconsin residents favor Obama 46 percent to 36 percent in the potential swing state.
Favorability toward public sector unions plays a critical role in vote choice. Fifty-four percent of Walker voters have an unfavorable opinion of government employee unions. Yet 65 percent of Barrett voters have a favorable opinion of these unions.
Significant differences emerge between the two voter blocs over Governor Walker’s controversialWisconsin Budget Repair Bill. Walker voters favor the major provisions in the law, but only a narrow margin favor exempting public safety unions from law changes. Barrett voters oppose most major provisions in the law, except increasing pension contributions.
Favor Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill Major Provisions
Nearly three-fourths of Walker voters worry that public sector unions have too much power negotiating their contracts, only 16 percent of Barrett voters agree. Sixty-nine percent of Walker voters also support what essentially is a right to work law in Wisconsin, compared to 34 percent among Barrett voters.
Perceptions of unions also differ greatly between these two voter groups. A majority of Barrett voters believe public sector unions have helped the state and local economy, but 62 percent of Walker voters say these unions have hurt the economy. Over half of Barrett voters think teachers’ unions have helped educational quality in the state, compared to 62 percent of Walker voters who think teachers’ unions have hurt education quality. Walker voters also overwhelmingly (88 percent) believe public sector retirement benefits are better than benefits in the private sector for similar jobs. Instead, only 46 percent of Barrett voters agree.
Nearly half of Walker voters identify with the Tea Party movement, while over half of employed Barrett voters are public sector employees. About a quarter of those who plan to vote for Walker also have a favorable opinion of President Obama’s job performance. This demonstrates Wisconsin’s recall election extends beyond partisan lines.
Panic at the Jazz Club
George H. Smith describes the jazz scare of the '20s, which may remind you of the rock and rap scares of later days:
Anne Faulkner -- music chairperson of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, and author of What We Hear in Music and The Opera and Oratorio -- was alarmed by a new type of music that was sweeping across America. She called her article Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?
Faulkner wrote her article to explain the "evil influence" of jazz on American culture. Jazz inspired a style of dancing that originated with the "voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian to the vilest deeds." The fact that the syncopated rhythm of jazz, which causes "brutality and sensuality," has "a demoralizing effect upon the human brain has been demonstrated by many scientists." Jazz "almost forces dancers to use jerky half-steps, and inspires immoral variations."
Faulkner was especially troubled by the detrimental influence of jazz on the morals of women. Women who liked to dance to the music of jazz orchestras frequently availed themselves of "corset check rooms," which enabled them to shed both physical and moral restraints; and over-stimulated young women sometimes wandered off with their dates during breaks.
Jazz, according to Faulkner, is an "expression of protest against law and order, that bolshevik element of license striving for expression in music."...The "demoralizing effect" of jazz on factory workers was also evident. "This was noticed in an unsteadiness and lack of evenness in the workmanship of the product after a period when the workmen had indulged in jazz music."
It is "universally recognized," Faulkner wrote, that "the human organism responds to musical vibrations." Marches and patriotic songs -- tunes with a simple melody, harmony, and rhythm -- cause us to feel "contentment or serenity" and inspire us to acts of "valor and martial courage." Jazz, in stark contrast, "disorganizes all regular laws and order; it stimulates to extreme deeds, to a breaking away of all rules and conventions; it is harmful and dangerous, and its influence is wholly bad."
To read Smith's whole article -- which is mostly about neoconservatism, but there's some more about the jazz panic too -- go here. To demoralize your coworkers with a Bolshevik beat, click below:
A.M. Links: Walker over Barrett, Obama over Romney in Wisconsin, Honor Roll Student Roughed Up in Bloomberg’s New York, Mother of Deported American Girl Suing
A new Reason-Rupe poll
shows Governor Scott Walker leading Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett
in the Wisconsin recall election set for June 5. Though Walker
leads 52-41 among likely recall voters, President Obama leads 45-41
in that group as well. Topline
results, crosstabs.- Oh look, the San Diego civilian police review board is chock-full of cops and pro-cop sentiment, according to a grand jury report.
- A fifteen-year-old honor student in Brooklyn spent three hours handcuffed to a bench at a police station after being mistaken for a shoplifting suspect and roughed up by cops. “I feel my daughter was racially profiled,” her father said. “They had no proof, just a description of a black young lady with braids.”
- Mayor Bloomberg thinks the federal government should force cities to take in immigrants. “[T]hat’s the only solution for these big, hollowed-out cities where industry has left and is never going to come back unless you get some people to move there,” he said.
- The mother of a 14-year-old American girl deported to Colombia after providing authorities with a fake name has filed a federal civil rights law suit against top officials, accusing them of illegally detaining and deporting her daughter.
- The police and firefighters unions in DC suspect foul play in personnel documents found burning in a dumpster outside the Fire Department’s training academy last week. They may have included documents sought through FOIA requests.
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New at Reason.TV: "Haiti's Pepe Trade: How Secondhand American Clothes Became a First-Rate Business"
Reason-Rupe Poll on Wisconsin Recall: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42, Obama Leads Romney 46-36
Gov. Scott Walker leads Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett 50-42 among those likely to vote in Wisconsin’s June 5 recall election, according to a new Reason-Rupe poll of 708 Wisconsin adults on cell phones and landlines.
In the presidential race, 49 percent of all adults surveyed approve of the job President Obama is doing and 45 percent disapprove. President Obama leads Mitt Romney 46-36 in Wisconsin, with 6 percent selecting the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson. Obama’s margin over Romney shrinks to 45-41 among those likely to vote in June’s recall election, with Johnson taking what would be a crucial 5 percent of the vote.
The Reason-Rupe poll finds voters overwhelmingly support many of the key changes Gov. Walker and the legislature implemented on public sector pensions and health care last year. Reason-Rupe finds 72 percent favor the change requiring public sector workers to increase their pension contributions from less than 1 percent to 6 percent of their salaries. And 71 percent favor making government employees pay 12 percent of their own health care premiums instead of the previous 6 percent.
Taxpayers actually wish state lawmakers had cast an even larger net with their reforms. Police and firefighters were exempted from the pension and health care adjustments but 57 percent of taxpayers say they should not have been.
The public supports asking government workers to pick up more of the tab for their own retirement benefits, as 65 percent say public sector workers receive better pension and health care benefits than private sector workers. 22 percent say benefit levels are about the same, and just 7 percent believe private sector retirement benefits are better than those in the public sector.
When asked what state and local officials should do if pensions and health benefits are underfunded, 74 percent favor requiring government employees to pay more for their own health care and retirement benefits. In sharp contrast, 75 percent oppose cutting funding for programs like education and 74 percent oppose raising taxes to help fund government worker benefits.
To deal with rising retirement costs, 69 percent favor shifting future state employees, those who haven’t been hired or promised pensions yet, to 401(k)-style retirement plans instead of the current defined-benefit plans.
If state and local governments have to reduce spending, voters were asked what should be cut first: 38 percent say public employee pension benefits, 29 percent believe prison and court cuts should be made first, 17 percent would reduce funding for roads and infrastructure, 5 percent chose education, and 4 percent would target health care spending.
Government employee unions are viewed favorably by 35 percent of those surveyed and unfavorably by 31 percent. Voters remain split on limiting the collective bargaining power of public sector unions, with 47 percent in favor of, and 46 percent opposed to, restricting unions’ ability to negotiate things like health care and pension benefits.
The Reason-Rupe poll finds significant differences in attitudes between public and private sector employees. For example, 65 percent of government employees have a favorable view of public employee unions and just 11 percent view unions unfavorably. In contrast, only 27 percent of private sector employees have favorable opinions of public employee unions, while 37 percent view them unfavorably.
And while 72 percent of all respondents favor the law requiring public sector workers to increase their pension contributions, only 48 percent of government employees favor the change, while 80 percent of private sector employees favor it.
The complete Reason-Rupe survey is online at http://reason.com/poll and here (.pdf).
This Reason-Rupe poll, conducted May 14-18, 2012 by ORC International, surveyed a random sample of 708 Wisconsin adults on cell phones and landlines. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. The poll includes 609 likely voters who are registered and said they are certain or likely to vote in the June 5 recall election. The margin of error for likely voters is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
This is the latest in a series of Reason-Rupe public opinion surveys dedicated to exploring what Americans really think about government and major issues. This Reason Foundation project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation.
Emily Ekins is the director of polling for Reason Foundation where she leads the Reason-Rupe public opinion research project, launched in 2011. Follow her on Twitter @emilyekins.
Andrew Napolitano on Why This Memorial Day, Freedom Is Dying Before Our Very Eyes
What if, on Memorial Day, we remember times that
were more free than today? What if, on Memorial Day, when we think
of those who died for our freedom, we end up recognizing that the
freedom they died for is dying? What if it becomes fashionable for
the government to ignore the Constitution? What if the Constitution
dies because the government stops following it? What if, writes
Judge Andrew Napolitano, next Memorial Day, freedom is just a
memory?
Brickbat: Chekov's Gun
Officials at Center High School in Texas have barred Avery Tindol from attending the prom after they caught him with a prop gun from the drama department. Tindol and some other students were cleaning out the prop room when one of them handed him the fake firearm. A teacher spotted him with the weapon, and the school also suspended him for three days.
The Drone Program Officially Exists as Confirmed By Counter-terrorism Chief John Brennan, But How Classified is the Program?
After years
of pretending the program wasn't real, it was sort of nice last
month when White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan
confirmed that drone strikes are indeed happening. But that's based
on the low, low standards with which we are dealing.
Years of denials, even after
Obama admitting to and occasionally
joking about the methods of delivering Hellfire missiles to
alleged terrorist throughout Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan,
means that admitting the program actually exists is progress.
But what does Brennan (and the president) admitting the program's existence at last actually mean for the release of more details about the picking and choosing process, and for general transparency?
So the question is, by publicly acknowledging the use of drones, even going into detail about why the United States uses them, was Brennan also delivering a message from the president that the program had been declassified?
After all, here was the president's top counterterrorism adviser saying, in effect, "Yeah, we do that."
The question is whether such a public acknowledgment about a program that was classified thereby makes the program "declassified."
There is a formal, technical process for declassifying information, but the president isn't obligated to follow a paper trail, according to Washington lawyer Jeffrey Smith, who currently sits on the external advisory board for the director of Central Intelligence, and is former general counsel for the CIA.
According to Smith, the president can simply declare that something is declassified and, poof, it is declassified. The hard part is understanding whether there has been a "poof."
"The classification system is based entirely on an executive order from the president; there is no statutory authority for this. The president sets the criteria for classification and for declassification," says Smith.
As previously reported, there were two different lists. One list was picked by the CIA, who even targeted unnamed subject in so-called "surgical strikes," the other was full of targets chosen by the White House/Pentagon — and there only so-so interaction and overlap between the lists; though the White House has on occasion tried to step on the CIA's toes about their strikes. The latter generally has more rules in place for who they may target.
Now the White House is making the Pentagon less important, says the Associated Press:
The effort concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones within one small team at the White House.
The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan's staff consults with the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the target list, making the Pentagon's role less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government goes after terrorists.
In describing Brennan's arrangement to The Associated Press, the officials provided the first detailed description of the military's previous review process that set a schedule for killing or capturing terror leaders around the Arab world and beyond. They spoke on condition of anonymity because U.S. officials are not allowed to publicly describe the classified targeting program.
One senior administration official argues that Brennan's move adds another layer of review that augments rather than detracts from the Pentagon's role. The Pentagon can still carry out its own internal procedures to make recommendations to the secretary of defense, the official said.
The CIA keeps its own list of targets, though it overlaps with the Pentagon's. It never included the large number of interagency players the Pentagon brought to the table for its debates
Brennan's effort gives him greater input earlier in the process, before making final recommendation to President Barack Obama. Officials outside the White House expressed concern that drawing more of the decision-making process to Brennan's office could turn it into a pseudo military headquarters, entrusting the fate of al-Qaida targets to a small number of senior officials.
Under the new plan, Brennan's staff compiles the potential target list and runs the names past agencies such as the State Department at a weekly White House meeting, the officials said.
Previously, targets were first discussed in meetings run by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen at the time, with Brennan being just one of the voices in the debate. Brennan ultimately would make the case to the president, but a larger number of officials would end up drawn into the discussion.
The new Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has been more focused on shrinking the U.S. military as the Afghan war winds down and less on the covert wars overseas.
With Dempsey less involved, there is an even greater need to draw together different agencies' viewpoints, some in the administration believe, showing the American public that al-Qaida targets are chosen only after painstaking and exhaustive debate. This could be especially true in an election year, when drone strikes can be politically sensitive.
Some of the officials carrying out the policy are equally leery of "how easy it has become to kill someone," one said. The U.S. is targeting al-Qaida operatives for reasons such as being heard in an intercepted conversation plotting to attack a U.S. ambassador overseas, the official said. Stateside, that conversation could trigger an investigation by the Secret Service or FBI.
But Brennan, notes Glenn Greenwald, was a CIA official who withdrew his name for nomination for the position of director after some of his pro "enhanced interrogation" and pro rendition beliefs proved controversial in the early, hopeful and Bush-hating days of the Obama administration (insert joke about damaging the good name of the CIA here). Worse still, writes Greenwald:
Undeterred by any of that unpleasantness, President Obama instead named Brennan to be his chief counter-Terrorism adviser, a position with arguably more influence that he would have had as CIA chief. Since then, Brennan has been caught peddling serious falsehoods in highly consequential cases, including falsely telling the world that Osama bin Laden “engaged in a firefight” with U.S. forces entering his house and “used his wife as a human shield,” and then outright lying when he claimed about the prior year of drone attacks in Pakistan: “there hasn’t been a single collateral death.” Given his history, it is unsurprising that Brennan has been at the heart of many of the administration’s most radical acts, including claiming the power to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA without due process and the more general policy of secretly targeting people for death by drone.
Meanwhile, as Reason and a whole lot of other outlets have reported, domestic drone use is drawing closer and closer. CBS reported today that the Montgomery Country, Texas police department is considering equipping drones with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Reason on drones.
The Collusion of Big Government and Big Business, Stadium Welfare Edition
Writing at The Huffington Post, the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro and Nick Mosvick explain how the deal recently struck by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton to build a new publicly-subsidized stadium for the Minnesota Vikings will leave taxpayers “stuck with the check.” They write:
The stadium costs $975 million on paper, with over half coming from public funds, $348 million from the state and $150 million from Minneapolis -- not through parking taxes or other stadium-related user fees, but with a new city sales tax. In return, the public gets an annual $13 million fee and the right to rent out the stadium on non-game-days....
The reality of the Vikings deal is that the owners will gain the most, not taxpayers or fans. Taxpayers will bear most of the risk, while the expected increase in the franchise's value will accrue wholly to the owners -- who will also be free from facility-financing costs. The owners will also have new revenue opportunities in the form of higher ticket prices, club seats, stadium-naming rights, and advertising. With all these luxury goodies, the only fans who will be able to actually attend the games are those with luxury incomes, many of whom will surely be writing the cost off their taxes as a business expense.
Read the rest here. For more on why stadium welfare is such a lousy deal for taxpayers, check out Reason.tv’s “Take Us Out of the Ballgame: Are sports subsidies worth it?”
St. Louis Cops Worry That In-Car Cameras 'Are Being Used Against Them'
Last year the St.
Louis Police Department began using cameras mounted in patrol cars
to record officers'encounters with suspects and other aspects of
their on-the-job behavior. Such dash cameras, which have been used
in this country for 15 years or so, can help cops as well as the
people they arrest by backing up details of police reports,
providing evidence of crimes such as driving while intoxicated, and
disproving false complaints of misconduct. But some cops see only
the downside. Citing union grievances, the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch reports
that "city police officers believe in-car cameras are being used
against them, and they are trying to find ways to avoid driving
cars equipped with them." About half the city's police cars have
cameras so far. Capt. Mary Edwards-Fears responded to the problem
posed by camera-shy cops in an April 13 memo to supervisors:
We are missing critical evidence for our cases when we allow [officers] to avoid using vehicles with cameras in them, for fear of being caught in a compromising position. Your job as managers in the business is to assist your officers in following the rules and regulations, not assisting them in circumventing them.
The Post-Dispatch describes a few incidents that have contributed to officers' leeriness of dash cams:
Two probationary officers [were] investigated after a woman said they planted guns and drugs on her 16-year-old son. Video exonerated them of that claim but revealed that one struck the handcuffed teen, which led to the firing of both....
In-car cameras caught Officer Jason Stockley brandishing a personally owned rifle at a drug suspect, who was later shot and killed by police Dec. 20. The department does not allow officers to carry personally owned rifles and still is investigating the matter internally.
Officer David Wilson was seen striking a handcuffed teenage suspect in January. He was criminally charged with assault in April, and an internal investigation is under way.
What's the world coming to when cops can no longer punch handcuffed prisoners or violate firearm rules with impunity? The local police union wants restrictions on supervisors' authority to review camera footage, so officers will be have a clearer sense of when they're being watched. Police Chief Dan Isom replies that "I'm not going to draft a policy for those who violate our policy," saying the cameras help "make sure people are following the protocol of the police department." That seems about right to me, although I might have put it this way: If cops are not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear.
More on cops and cameras here.
[Thanks to Mark Sletten for the tip.]
Addendum: Whoops. Ed Krayewski beat me to it.
Sen. Alan Simpson Kindly Provides Example of Those Thank You Letters He Went on About
Former Sen. Alan
Simpson complained back in 2011 about kids not sending thank you
letters anymore and listening to enemas and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg
and generally behaving like a cranky old man, giving him some brief
publicity while his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility
and Reform failed to actually provide any decent fiscal
responsibility or reform.
Let it not be said that Simpson doesn’t practice what he preaches. Politico today received a copy of a letter Simpson sent to the California Alliance for Retired Americans after they protested a West Coast visit, accusing him of wanting to gut the Social Security system:
To Whom It May Concern:
Erskine Bowles and I thoroughly enjoyed our time on the West Coast and received an excellent reception from folks — at least those who are using their heads and have given up using emotion, fear, guilt or racism to juice up their troops. Your little flyer entitled “Bowles! Simpson! Stop using the deficit as a phony excuse to gut our Social Security!” is one of the phoniest excuses for a “flyer” I have ever seen. You use the faces of young people, who are the ones who are going to get gutted while you continue to push out your blather and drivel. My suggestion to you — an honest one — read the damn report. The Moment of Truth — 67 pages, and then tell me if we’re not doing the right thing with Social Security. What a wretched group of seniors you must be to use the faces of the very people that we are trying to save, while the “greedy geezers” like you use them as a tool and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap. You must feel some sense of shame for shoveling out this bulls**t. Read the latest news from the Social Security Trustees. The Social Security System will not “hit the skids” in 2033 instead of 2036. If you can’t understand all of this you need a pane of glass in your naval so you can see out during the day! Read the report. Get back to me. My address is below.
If you don’t read the report, — as Ebenezer Scrooge said in the Christmas Carol, “Haunt me no longer!”
Best regards,
Alan Simpson
That’s how it’s done, kids!
Nick Gillespie (with some master remixing by Austin Bragg) explained a year ago how Simpson's efforts to save Social Security (not gut it) won't work.
Reason Writers on RT: Lucy Steigerwald Discusses the Propaganda Amendment to the NDAA on RT News
On May 22, Reason magazine associate editor Lucy Steigerwald went on RT News to talk about the Smith-Thornberry amendment to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which would lessen restrictions on domestic propaganda in the U.S..
About 7.24 minutes.
The Obama Spending Binge
Liberal bloggers have been passing
around a
piece by Rex Nutting at Market Watch arguing that although
“almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive
increase in federal spending,” in fact, “it didn’t happen.”
Except, well, it did.
Nutting’s evidence consists of the a chart showing that the annualized growth of federal spending from 2010-2013 is 1.4 percent, compared with 7.3 percent from 2002-2005 during George Bush’s first term and 8.1 percent from 2006-2009 during Bush’s second term.
Nutting has a half a point: Federal spending did rise considerably during the 2009 fiscal year: Between 2001 and 2008, federal outlays (spending) rose from $1.8 trillion to $2.9 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s historical spending data. That’s a steep enough rise. But it’s nothing compared to what happened during the next year: In 2009, outlays spiked, rising from the $2.9 trillion spent in 2008 to $3.5 trillion.
But what Obama did in subsequent budgets was stick to that newly inflated level of spending. Outlays in 2010 were just a hair short of $3.5 trillion. In 2011, they rose further, approaching $3.6 trillion.
So even if you absolve Obama of responsibility for the initial growth spike, he still presided over unprecedented spending that was out of line with the existing growth trend. Obama’s average spending is far higher than under Bush or Clinton on both adjusted dollar levels and as a percentage of the economy. James Pethokoukis of The American Enterprise Institute has a handy graphic comparing annual Obama’s spending as a percentage of the economy to George W. Bush’s average spending as a percentage of GDP:
Make no mistake: George W. Bush was a tremendous spender, and he deserves some of the non-credit for making Obama’s federal budget binge possible, especially during Obama’s first year. But Obama and his fellow Democrats share the responsibility for allowing a spending spike to continue on at newly high levels, for posting record outlays and running record deficits — and for taking few if any effective steps to get the nation’s economic and fiscal houses in order.
Damon Root on Montana’s Attempt to Nullify Citizens United
Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Attorney
General of Montana should have been an easy case for the
Montana Supreme Court. At issue was the state’s 99-year-old ban on
corporate spending in political campaigns. Because the U.S. Supreme
Court had struck down a nearly identical federal restriction on
political spending by corporations and unions for violating the
First Amendment in Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission, the Montana court was duty-bound to follow this
precedent and nullify the state law. But instead the court voted to
uphold it, arguing that “this case concerns Montana law, Montana
elections and it arises from Montana history.” Senior Editor Damon
Root explains why this argument fails to measure up. Montana
officials may not like it, Root writes, but they're still bound by
the First Amendment.
Fewer Choose Choice, Not-Obama a Popular Candidate in Democratic Primaries, Zimmerman Witnesses Change Stories: P.M. Links
School choice is back on the agenda,
as Mitt Romney
makes vouchers a plank in his campaign platform.- Fewest Americans ever say they're pro-choice on abortion, finds Gallup. Just 41 percent pick that description now, compared to 51 percent in 2006. (But support for gay marriage is up to 53 percent.)
- While he's certain to be the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama is consistently bleeding support to unknown challengers and "uncommitted." In the Arkansas primary, an obscure lawyer took 40% of the vote.
- Careful, critics of the Obama administration! The White House is taking a lead role in picking targets for drone attacks.
- Across the country, Ron Paul-inspired libertarian activists are running for office and seizing control of local and state Republican organizations.
- Deterred by complexity and costliness, the vast majority of eligible small businesses are simply ignoring a federal tax credit intended to subsidize health coverage for employees.
- At least four key witnesses have changed their stories about what they saw the night George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, potentially hurting Zimmerman's self-defense case.
- Cops can't turn traffic stops into excuses for open-ended questioning and searches, says the Delaware Supreme Court.
- Have a heart! Israeli scientists reprogrammed skin cells into stem cells that generate healthy, beating heart muscle cells.
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Low-Cost Bionics, Upcycled Rope, and Other Innovations In the Not-So-Fringey Fringes
The booming
shadow economy around the world is getting a lot of attention
this year, as people struggle to escape tanking currencies,
crippling taxes and intrusive red tape. Robert Neuwirth brought the
term "System D" into wide use with his book, Stealth of
Nations, an excerpt of which became a chat-fueling Foreign
Policy
article, which suggested that two out of three workers are
likely to work in the shadows by 2020. There are big implications
for policy and planning in the discussion over the shadow economy,
but much of the chatter misses just how frigging cool underground
entrepreneurial activity can be.
In Foreign Policy, Neuwirth cited a 2009 OECD study which says informal businesses and workers "often represent the most dynamic part of the economy." That's an awfully dry way of pointing out that people who duck into the shadows often have promising ideas that might not survive the taxes and red tape of the official economy. And not just ideas — really interesting ideas.
Adding some juice back into the topic is Makeshift:
a quarterly print and online magazine about creativity in unlikely places, from the favelas of Rio to the alleys of Delhi. These are environments where resources may be scarce, but where ingenuity is used incessantly for survival, enterprise, and a self-expression. We believe in an industrial future fueled by networks of makers, from roadside engineers to co-working creatives. We are documenting a movement of hackers, sharers, and entrepreneurs innovating under resource constraints. Makeshift is about people, the things they make, and the context they make them in.
Makeshift fatures a regular column, "The Misfit Economy," on black-market innovation. The column is penned by Alexa Clay and Kyra Maya Phillips, two economists with a forthcoming book on exacty that topic. The inaugural installment examines the similarities in entrepreneurial dynamics between street gangs and Google.
Another feature, "From the Makery," surveys the Web for evidence of innovation in odd places, including kitchen-table workshops and street markets. The latest edition looks at a home-made powered prosthetic leg from Poland, as well as a healthy market in Ahmedabad in rope spun from plastic and foil packing material.
The sit also features a video presentation about Anil Gupta, a management professor who travels India researching (and promoting) grassroots entrepreneurship. Much of what he looks at is low-tech or traditional techniques that address common concerns in ways that may be saleable elsewhere — everything from tree-root bridges to hinge springs made from old tires.
And there are features on traditional black markets, like the one for smuggled Vietnamese gasoline in Cambodia.
Gasoline is more expensive in Cambodia than anywhere else in Southeast Asia because the country imports virtually all of its oil. As a result, informal entrepreneurs began smuggling gasoline from Vietnam—where gas is cheaper thanks to domestic oil production and state-subsidized prices—and reselling it in Cambodia. The lucrative trade has grown into a booming industry—so much so that Vietnamese authorities announced a plan to limit the operating hours of border gas stations and require them to issue receipts in an attempt to combat cross-border gas running. In March 2011 alone, Vietnamese officials seized 520,000 tonnes of gasoline.
Nonetheless, smugglers still find workarounds, exploiting sparsely manned crossings, outrunning law enforcement with speedboats, and bribing border guards. Much of this smuggled gasoline finds its way to dusty mom-and-pop roadside stands dotting city corners and rural roads throughout the country.
Makeshift looks like it's coming out a makeshift phase itself, and starting to come together. It's turning into a good place to see just how innovative people can be when necessity and opportunity meet.
A Skin Deep Big Brother Proposal
Each week on the BBC a “global thinker from the worlds of philosophy, science, psychology or the arts is given a minute to put forward a radical, inspiring or controversial idea.” This week’s idea comes from the science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon. Her proposal is that everyone be implanted with a chip at birth that would provide a fast and inexpensive way to identify people. Ms. Moon cites a reduction in friendly fire incidents during war and crime investigations as some of the benefits of such a system.
While the proposed system is almost self evidently insane, what is especially worrying is Ms. Moon’s justification for such a system. Ms. Moon argues that governments already surveille us using numerous methods. Why should our skin be a barrier of entry to government when it already wiretaps phones and installs surveillance cameras? Although Ms. Moon might not have realized it, she is providing a perfect example of why government-backed surveillance measures need to be opposed more vehemently.
A proposal such as the one discussed would only be given time by an international news organization if some level of government intrusion were not already accepted. While the U.S. does not have mandatory ID cards the government still regulates forms of identification that we use every day such as driving licenses. Every single tweet and facebook posting is stored in the Library of Congress, and other online communications are easily accessed by government agencies.
What is constantly overlooked is how powerful a tool these sorts of proposed measures would be in the hands of a more oppressive government. In times like these, when external threats such as fundamentalist Islam seem to pose a greater threat than our government, people become more willing to sacrifice privacy for security. However, once the war on terror is over (most likely abandoned), the legislation and measures put in place by successive administrations will not disappear. It is hard to imagine governments in the future resisting the urge to use some of these intrusive tools at their disposal.
The abolition of privacy is a problem libertarians will increasingly have to deal with. Developments in fields such as nanotechnology, in particular, require some sort of response, societal or legislative. David Friedman addressed the issue in Future Imperfect (free here). Whatever the response is going to be as privacy-destroying technology develops further, we must not forget to act against the powers already at the government’s disposal.
Survey Says NPR Listeners Least Uninformed, Fox Viewers Most, How Informed Are You?
According to a
survey by Farleigh Dickenson University, of these nine
questions, the Fox viewers could answer about 2, the NPR listeners
about 3 and a half:
• To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in removing Hosni Mubarak?
• How about the opposition groups in Syria? Have they been successful in removing Bashar al-Assad?
• Some countries in Europe are deeply in debt, and have had to be bailed out by other countries. To the best of your knowledge, which country has had to spend the most money to bail out European countries?
• There have been increasing talks about economic sanctions against Iran. What are these sanctions supposed to do?
• Which party has the most seats in the House of Representatives right now?
• In December, House Republicans agreed to a short-term extension of a payroll tax cut, but only if President Obama agreed to do what?
• It took a long time to get the final results of the Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates. In the end, who was declared the winner?
• How about the New Hampshire Primary? Which Republican won that race?
• According to official figures, about what percentage of Americans are currently unemployed?
How many can you?
Haiti's Pepe Trade: How Secondhand American Clothes Became a First-Rate Business
"Haiti has practically become a trash can," says Ketcia Pierre-Louis, "where everything people in other countries don’t need comes here."
Pierre-Louis is a businesswoman and affiliate of the Croix-des-Bouquets Chamber of Commerce, just outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Like many critics of imported second-hand clothing, which is known locally as "pepe," she believes the practice undercuts domestic businesses and industries. Some have even called for the government to ban the practice.
But Haiti's pepe trade is decidedly a business—not a charity. In fact, it starts with Haitian Americans buying goods at U.S. thrift stores and shipping products to Port-au-Prince and other ports. Pepe may include hand-me-downs, but the clothing is high-quality, stylish, and cheap. More important, average Haitians prefer the choice of wearing such apparel—and brands like Polo, Lacoste, and Converse—to not having access to such products at all.
Far from turning Haiti into a trash can, the market in pepe shows how buyers and sellers enrich each other through exchange.
Produced by Tate Watkins and Jon Bougher.
Approximately 4 minutes.
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Nick Gillespie on MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, Talking Debt, War Against Women, You Name It.
Last Saturday, May 19, I was on the MSNBC show Melissa Harris-Perry, talking a blue streak with the eponymous host, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Ezra Klein of The Washington Post, Elon James White, Victoria DeFrancesco Soto of University of Texas, and Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.).
We covered a lot of ground, ranging from the Violence Against Women Act to European budgets to Trayvon Martin.
To read the writeup of the show at MSNBC, go here.
To read Mediaite's review of the section about debt debates, go here.
They Can’t Just Fire the Shitty Teachers
The Newark public schools have too many teachers
and a shrinking student population, according to the new
superintendent, Cami Anderson. Newark was the recipient of a $100
million donation from Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg last
year, and CBS News
reports Newark leaders are considering buying out some teachers
with the Facebook donation. From CBS News:
"If we could fire the 300 or 400 lowest-performing teachers, she wouldn't have a financial crisis," Booker said, speaking of the schools superintendent. "But her crisis right now is based on the fact that she can't get rid of teachers that way."
Booker said Anderson has been trying to avoid layoffs because she would be hamstrung by tenure rules requiring them to be based on seniority.
The superintendent is "finding every way to hold off on laying off hundreds of teachers that could be the best quality teachers," Booker said.
"If we can't figure that out, Newark will lose," he said.
What’s keeping Newark from doing what any business looking to remain productive would do and just fire the teachers that suck? The teachers’ union, naturally. It’s the same story across the public sector; teachers, cops, even tax-dodging federal employees who ought to be fired are protected by union rules that simply wouldn’t fly in the private sector because any business saddled with so many un-fireable employees couldn’t survive. Not without lots of bailout money anyway.
Years of Absurd Outcomes (and Maybe Real Competition?) Prompt Reconsideration of “Zero Tolerance” School Policies
Today the Los Angeles Times explores the possibility that states and school districts might finally be easing off on its various “zero tolerance” policies that have frequently led to absurd, overwrought responses to normal child misbehavior.
The
trigger in Colorado was the recent suspension of 6-year-old
D’Avonte Meadows for singing LMFAO’s “[I’m] Sexy and I Know It” to
a girl. The song, a vicious indictment of delusional overconfidence
(well, that’s my reading of it – no doubt scholars will be
debating the subtext for centuries to come), prompted his
elementary school to label Meadows a sexual harasser:
One week after D'Avonte was suspended, Colorado lawmakers passed a bill easing disciplinary policies in schools.
Colorado joins a growing number of states rethinking zero-tolerance policies requiring expulsion or suspension for behavior or actions that might once have meant a stern talking to or a visit to the principal's office. Now lawmakers want to give educators flexibility.
In California the Legislature is considering nine bills aimed at limiting school discipline. One would require schools that suspend more than 25% of their students to adopt strategies aimed at reducing behavior that leads to suspension.
"Schools are too prone to send kids home from school — by imposing out-of-school suspensions — even for behavior that doesn't pose a safety threat, and the Legislature has made it too easy," said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) in a recent news release. He's written several of the bills.
The Times story documents a number of other absurd outcomes that have come from zero tolerance policies (we have reported plenty here in our Brickbat section if you feel the urge to facepalm) and points out groups like the American Bar Association and American Psychological Association question the effectiveness of the policies.
But the Times story doesn’t delve into two other significant developments in the education market that may be contributing to administrators and lawmakers looking for reasons to stop kicking kids out of school:
The rise of charter schools: The Colorado League of Charter Schools lists more than 150 charter schools in their state. California has nearly 1,000 charter schools serving more than 400,000 students. Gone are the days where school administrations could push unreasonable policies onto families and students and ignore the outcries. In the Times story, D’Avonte’s mother discusses the possibility of transferring her boy to another school rather than continuing to tolerate the nonsense. Each kid that switches from public to charter school costs that public school money. Education unions have been fighting charter schools tooth and nail, but they are losing. And those losses lead to …
We are out of money: In the current economic environment, schools simply can’t afford to be kicking kids out. School funding is tied to attendance. Every suspension, every expulsion results in a loss of school funding for that student’s absence. With layoffs on the line, the schools need adolescent butts sitting at every desk. The pressure to pull back on suspensions was mounting in California even before Dickinson’s bills. Truancy sweeps are common occurrences California, and school administrators are not shy about admitting they’re partly about capturing that daily funding.
Now, if only the NYPD would take note.
Jay Beeber on L.A.’s Foolish Ban on Plastic Bags
There’s a crisis in Los Angeles. Is it the city’s
projected $250 million budget deficit? The city’s $10 billion
shortfall in pension obligations? Its crumbling infrastructure? A
public school dropout rate approaching 50 percent? No, writes Jay
Beeber, the City of Angels is facing catastrophe in the form of
grocery bags. So great is the menace that the City Council is
poised to impose on the good people of Los Angeles the country’s
strictest grocery bag ban, prohibiting the distribution of both
plastic and paper bags. Yet as Beeber explains, not only will
the proposal provide no environmental benefits, it will deepen the
city’s economic depression.
Public School Psychologist: "Young Black Thugs who won't follow the law need to be put down not incarcerated. Put down like the Dogs they are!"
Your daily reminder that Americans need more choices when it comes to educating their children:
A civil rights organization that has been issuing complaints about the Jefferson Parish school system's treatment of black and special education students is adding to its grievances by spotlighting racially incendiary comments posted on the Internet by a school psychologist in Jefferson. The comments under scrutiny appeared on NOLA.com and Twitter.
The school psychologist, Mark Traina, has worked with alternative schools and in central administration with the process of referring children to those campuses. Traina argued on Monday that his online opinions are well-reasoned and that they do not reflect on the way the school system operates.
His posts on Twitter, also using his real name, are more heated, including a January comment that, "Young Black Thugs who won't follow the law need to be put down not incarcerated. Put down like the Dogs they are!"
In a March comment about an article on a violent incident in New Orleans, he wrote, "Quick someone call David Duke before the NAACP gets here!"
Remarking in March about the Republican presidential primaries, he wrote, "I grew up in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana - I am a Wallace Man at Heart!"
Do Fire Retardants Work? And Since They Don't, Why is Their Use Mandated in Furniture?
Dr. David Heimbach knows how to tell a story.
Before California lawmakers last year, the noted burn surgeon drew gasps from the crowd as he described a 7-week-old baby girl who was burned in a fire started by a candle while she lay on a pillow that lacked flame retardant chemicals.
"Now this is a tiny little person, no bigger than my Italian greyhound at home," said Heimbach, gesturing to approximate the baby's size. "Half of her body was severely burned. She ultimately died after about three weeks of pain and misery in the hospital."
Heimbach's passionate testimony about the baby's death made the long-term health concerns about flame retardants voiced by doctors, environmentalists and even firefighters sound abstract and petty.
But there was a problem with his testimony: It wasn't true.
Great (read: depressing) Chicago Tribune story about rent-seeking by makers of flame retardants that get used in furniture foam and other products, all under EPA and other governmental agencies approval.
DEA-Backed Honduran Commandos Put Gun to Honduran Boy's Head, Tell Him, "If you don't talk we'll kill you."
Apparently, the United States’
Central American law enforcement partners didn't get the
memo about Obama ending the “war on drugs," because after
killing two pregnant women from a helicopter in which DEA agents
were riding shotgun, the Honduran military (and, allegedly,
several American contractors) then
raided a small village:
Villagers say the drug bust that left four passengers of a riverboat dead after helicopters mistakenly fired on civilians continued into the predawn hours when commandos, including some they think were Americans, raided their town.
One chopper landed in front of Hilaria Zavala's home at about 3 a.m. and the six men who got out kicked down her door. She said a "gringo" threw her husband on the ground and put a gun to his head demanding to know about a trafficker named "El Renco."
"They kept him that way for two hours," said Zavala, who owns a market near the main pier in Ahuas. "They asked if he was El Renco, if he worked for El Renco, if the stuff belonged to El Renco. My husband said he had nothing to do with it."
Celin Eriksson 17, whose cousin Haskel Tom Brooks Wood, 14, died in the boat, was waiting on the dock for his family before the shooting when he saw a white truck and about 50 men coming from Ahuas. He hid because he knew they were traffickers, but saw them load bundles into a boat. When the helicopters appeared, the men ran. He said he heard no gunshots coming from the ground. The boat with bundles went drifting by itself down the river.
The commandos who came off the helicopter handcuffed him, Celin said, and put a gun to his head. Some spoke to him in English, which he also speaks.
"If you don't talk we'll kill you," the boy said he was told. "Where is El Renco? Where is the merchandise?"
The response from the Feds to these two incidents—the killing of two men and two pregnant on the river, and the night raid on the village nearby—has been inconsistent: The DEA has said that its agents were involved in the river mission, but didn't fire, and weren’t present in the village; the Pentagon has said none of its personnel were involved in the village raid, but has said nothing about the river kill. The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa, meanwhile, said the helicopters used were piloted by contractors, but would not reveal the contractors’ nationality. Which brings us back to what villagers told the Associated Press: The men who interrogated their family members were gringos, had some pretty hi-tech gear, and spoke English.
Whether American agents or contractors pulled the trigger that killed two pregnant Honduran women who were headed to a mother’s day celebration, whether they put the gun to the head of a Honduran teenager and then left him bound in the jungle, are disputable facts. Why the Honduran government is waging a war against it people is not: The American government has instructed it to, and is training and equipping its military and law enforcement agencies.
Ron Paul Roundup: New York Times Respects His Movement's Power, Rand Paul Endorses, and Remember the Christian Right?
The New York Times, our national paper of record and don't you forget it, notices that Paulism extends beyond Ron Paul this morning in a front page above-the-fold headline story. Highlights with comments:
With their favorite having lost the nomination for president, Mr. Paul’s dedicated band of youthful supporters is looking down-ballot and swarming lightly guarded Republican redoubts like state party conventions in an attempt to infiltrate the top echelons of the party.
“Karl Rove’s fear-and-smear-style Republicans are going to wake up at the end of the year and realize we are now in control of the Republican Party,” said Preston Bates, a Democrat-turned-Paulite...
In Minnesota, Paulites stormed the Republican gathering in St. Cloud last weekend, bumping aside two conventional Republican candidates to choose one of their own, Kurt P. Bills, a high school economics teacher, to challenge Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, this fall.
Backers of Mr. Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas, crashed Republican conventions in Iowa, Maine, Minnesota and Nevada in recent weeks, snatching up the lion’s share of delegate slots for the Republican National Convention in Tampa this August, a potential headache for the national party and its presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.
It's not "crashing," New York Times. These conventions are open to Republicans of all sorts to follow the rules and vote as they wish. Winning elections on any level is not "crashing." It's succeeding at politics, which the Ron Paul people are proving unexpectedly good at. Ahem, OK, back to the Times's wisdom:
And Paulite candidates for Congress are sprouting up from Florida to Virginia to Colorado, challenging sitting Republicans and preaching the gospel of radically smaller government, an end to the Federal Reserve, restraints on Bush-era antiterrorism laws and a pullback from foreign military adventures.
“I’d call it a strict constitutional approach,” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and Ron Paul’s son. “And I think it’s spreading.”
Republican Party officials say they are in daily contact with Representative Paul, in a delicate effort to harness the energy around him without inciting his supporters. “We have had open dialogue with Dr. Paul and his campaign to ensure we are all focused on winning in November,” said Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee’s communications director.
As first discussed here on Hit and Run by me last week, the story talks about the Paulite "Liberty for All" SuperPAC and its support of Kentucky House candidate Thomas Massie, who won his primary yesterday:
Mr. [John] Ramsey [the 21-year-old main financier of Liberty for All] said that other Paul supporters had brought the Kentucky race to his attention and that he would spend whatever it takes “to get this country moving in a freer direction.” “How much money would you spend for freedom?” he asked Tuesday, after buying airtime from Lexington to Louisville with money he inherited from his grandfather in 2010 as he was being pulled into the libertarian orbit of Mr. Paul.....
The sprawling Fourth District of Kentucky presents competitors with a challenge. To reach all its voters, a candidate must advertise in four media markets in Kentucky and Ohio. Mr. Massie acknowledged that he could not do that, but that Liberty for All could. Soon, the advertising for his rivals was drowned out by attacks on his behalf.
“They owned the airwaves, everything from the Food Channel to Court TV,” he said of the PAC.
Liberty for All appears to have a taste for the obscure. Its next candidate is Michael D. Cargill, a gay, black gun store owner running for constable in Travis County, Tex.
But the political action committee will have money to spend. Mr. Ramsey said that between his wallet and a fund-raising push, the PAC expected to have $10 million this summer.
Paul people are everywhere:
And lightly regarded Paulites running for Congress could become forces with the right amount of money. Tisha Casida, an independent in Colorado, is running against Representative Scott Tipton. Calen Fretts is chipping away at Representative Jeff Miller in Florida’s Panhandle, and Karen Kwiatkowski is challenging Representative Robert W. Goodlatte in Virginia.
*In other Paul news, Roll Call on Rand Paul's endorsements:
The Kentucky freshman has given his blessing to Florida Senate GOP frontrunner Rep. Connie Mack IV — who is staunchly entrenched in the establishment — as well as to tea party darling Ted Cruz, who is running in Texas’ May 29 Senate primary. Paul hasn’t always picked winners, having backed losing Nebraska GOP Senate candidate Don Stenberg and New Mexico Lt. Gov. John Sanchez, who ultimately dropped out of the Senate race in the Land of Enchantment. Paul has since endorsed long-shot candidate Greg Sowards in the New Mexico primary.
But the Senator insists that all of his endorsees share certain traits, including support for a smaller government that adheres more closely to the Constitution. In today’s Kentucky GOP primaries, Paul helped recruit open 4th district candidate Thomas Massie, the tea-party-affiliated Lewis County judge-executive.
*A Ron Paul festival planned in Tampa for right before the GOP national convention. (Paul isn't necessarily attending.)
*Newt to Mitt: Beware those Paul delegate in Tampa!
*The Washington Post aptly notes, as I've said to a dozen or so talk radio folk and print reporters this past week, that the Paul strategy maps the Pat Robertson/Christian right strategy of the late '80s/'90s in interesting and telling ways.
*The Christian Science Monitor on "Five Things Ron Paul Wants" from the GOP convention.
*Video interview with me by Grace Wyler (who does great reporting on Paulworld regularly) for Business Insider on my new book Ron Paul's Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired.
Cross posted at dedicated blog/site for Ron Paul's Revolution.
David Harsanyi on the Church of the Holy Contraception
At some point, contraception
was transformed from a godsend to those wanting to avoid unwanted
pregnancy, to a "public health" concern, to a moral societal
imperative that must be mandated, lest we abandon our daughters,
science, decency, "choice" and freedom.
The Advantages of Accidental Job Creation
Writing in The New York Times, Steven
Rattner, who oversaw the Obama administration's car industry
bailout as a Treasury Department official,
defends his former boss's
attacks on Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital. Rattner, who
co-founded his own private equity firm, the Quadrangle Group, after
working as an investment banker, is embarrassed about appearing in
a Romney ad that shows him defending the presumptive Republican
nominee's former line of work. To atone for that, he criticizes
Romney's boasts about the value of that work, noting that the
former Massachusetts governor wants to take credit for every job
added at businesses in which Bain invested while he was there, even
if the employees were hired years after he left Bain, yet disclaims
responsibility for jobs shed at those companies if it did not
happen when he was running Bain. More to the point, Rattner says,
creating jobs was not Romney's job:
In fact, Bain Capital—like other private equity firms—was founded and managed for profit: ideally, huge amounts of gain earned legally and legitimately. Any job creation was a welcome but secondary byproduct.
The language in one prospectus seeking Bain Capital investors was clear: "The objective of the Fund is to achieve an annual rate of return on invested capital in excess of the returns generated" by other investments. Any job creation was accidental.
But that is true of every successful business. A company that sees job creation, as opposed to profit, as its goal will not stay in business long. It will keep hiring and employing people even when the cost is not justified by the return. While the goal of making a profit leads a company to minimize costs, the goal of creating jobs means maximizing costs: rejecting every labor-saving innovation, shunning organizational efficiencies, and hiring people just for the sake of putting them to work, even if the work is not worth the wage or not worth doing at all. A company operated that way eventually would employ no one.
Rattner knows all that, of course. Regarding Bain Capital's efforts to make companies more efficient (which often means employing fewer people), he says, "That's not wrong; it's part of capitalism. Whatever its flaws, private equity has made a material contribution to sharpening management." But Rattner echoes the Obama campaign by contrasting Romney's work at Bain with Obama's work at the White House. While creating jobs was not Romney's job, he implies, it is the president's job. Here is how Obama put it on Monday:
"If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, 'I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,' then you are missing what this job is about," Mr. Obama said, stressing the words "this job" in his answer.
"It doesn't mean you weren't good at private equity," Mr. Obama added. "But that's not what my job is as president. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some."
Mr. Obama said he views private equity firms like Bain Capital as a "healthy part of the free market" designed to "maximize profits." He said there are "folks who do good work" in that line of work.
But he made clear that he views those who work in private equity — and Mr. Romney in particular — as limited by a view of the economy that prioritizes profits above all else. The president said that view was too limited at a time of economic struggles in the country.
"Their priority is to maximize profits, and that's not always going to be good for businesses or communities or workers," he said.
Referencing the videos his campaign has released in the past two weeks that featured workers laid off by Bain companies, Mr. Obama said: "I've got to think about those workers in that video just as much as I'm thinking about folks who have been much more successful."
In other words, Romney's job as Bain's general partner was to wring inefficiencies out of the economy (one company at a time), while Obama's job as president is to put them back in. Obama's job fetish—as reflected in the way he measured the success of his stimulus package and in his embrace of the broken planet fallacy, which sees global warming as a boon to the economy—prizes waste. As far as Obama is concerned, the more people it takes to accomplish a given task, the better. Given his background, Romney probably is not used to thinking that way, but he already has conceded that boosting employment is one of the president's most important functions (one that nevertheless is mysteriously absent from the Constitution), arguing that voters should choose between him and Obama based on how many jobs they promise to create. Hence Romney is not well positioned to present an alternative view: that the government's job is not to create jobs but to create the conditions in which jobs are apt to be created—not by employment-maximizing central planners but by self-interested, profit-seeking individuals who create jobs by creating value.
GOP Rep. Considers Bill to Allow Adult Children to Stay On Parents' Health Insurance Plans Until Age 31
Here's how radical the GOP's class of crazy Tea
Party freshman in Congress actually are: A Wall Street
Journal
article about conflicts within the Republican party about how
to move forward should ObamaCare be repealed or struck down notes
that Steve Stivers, a Republican Rep. from Ohio, is considering
legislation that would force health insurers to allow adult
children to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of
31.
Not even ObamaCare went that far: The president's health law only required insurers to cover adult children up to the age of 26. Previous estimates indicated that ObamaCare's requirement would add to the already mounting cost of health insurance premiums; extending the age to 31 would presumably add even more.
St. Louis Police Officers Association No Fan of Dash Cams
The St. Louis
Police Department's vehicles are being equipped with dash cams and
some police officers are not pleased.
From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
Jeff Roorda, business manager of the Police Officers Association, complained about inconsistent use of the recordings. "Officers should know what the cameras are going to be used for, when the cameras are activated and how they will be reviewed and what the discipline will be if you have a violation that results from the cameras," he said. "Right now, all that is in constant flux."
Knowing what they’re going to be used for, when they’ll be activated and how they’ll be reviewed would be nice for all the surveillance cameras on public streets, too, but don’t hold your breath. To his credit, the St. Louis police chief is resisting union demands for a policy on what kind of discipline might result from dash-cam video: “I’m not going to draft a policy for those who violate our policy,” said Dan Isom, the police chief.
The complaints largely stem from two probationary officers who were accused by a suspect of planting drugs and guns. Dash cam video showed the claim wasn’t true, but also revealed one of the officers struck the suspect after he was handcuffed, so both were fired. The union’s argument, apparently, is that the dash-cam video was viewed to corroborate or dismiss the claim of planted evidence; since that’s what police investigators were looking for on the video, they shouldn’t use evidence they found of excessive force on the video against the officers. Doesn’t quite sound like the same standard police use on people does it? When police suspect someone of one crime, it doesn’t mean evidence of other crimes is dismissed during the investigation.
Farewell to Eugene Polley, Inventor of the Wireless Remote
Some people change the way we view the world. Jesus. Marx. Freud. And Eugene Polley, inventor of the wireless TV remote, who passed away Sunday at age 96. More specifically, Polley created the Flash-Matic, a device whose place in the history of broadcasting was described by Greg Beato in a 2006 Reason column:
The first [remote], dubbed the Lazy Bones, was a small, grenade-shaped unit with a cable that literally tethered it to the TV. It was good for changing channels and tripping pets and old people. Zenith's second remote used "a magic beam of light" to change channels and adjust volume. The "Flash-matic" looked like a prop from a low-budget sci-fi movie and worked slightly better, especially in cloudy climates. In sunnier regions, however, light streaming in from an open window could duplicate the Flash-matic's actions. Just when you were about to find out if Meta Bauer really had murdered her ex-husband on The Guiding Light, all might go silent. Zenith founder E.F. McDonald felt a better solution was needed.
The Space Command had quirks of its own. The ultrasonic tones it emitted, undetectable to the human ear, often caused dogs to flinch and howl. Jangling key chains and ringing telephones could inadvertently change the channel. But the Space Command worked well enough to satisfy McDonald, and it stayed in production long enough to normalize the idea that TV could be a more interactive, two-way medium....
Once viewers started conducting their own Nielsen ratings every few seconds, TV had to grow more responsive, more competitive. Good night and good luck, Edward R. Murrow and Playhouse 90. We wanted Jethro and Ellie Mae on The Beverly Hillbillies, people devouring pig rectums on Fear Factor, cops tasering protesters on YouTube. Thanks to the Space Command, we got exactly the media we desired, and deserved.
Polley didn't invent the Space Command and its successors, but those other engineers stood on his shoulders, or rested on his barcalounger, or whatever the appropriate metaphor is for a topic like this. So even with their sunshine problems, Polley and his Flash-Matic have as good a claim as anyone to the shift in perception that came when we gained the power to change everything onscreen with a small movement of a finger. Film editors had already altered our worldview with wipes, dissolves, and cuts; but now the viewer could insert her own cuts, jumping merrily from Kraft Television Theater to I've Got a Secret to the static on channel four. As the number of channels multiplied, our private montages grew ever stranger, one disconnected image piling onto another as we groped toward a program worth watching for more than a few seconds at a time. Every Man an Eisenstein.
In 1951, four years before Polley's invention
arrived, the surrealist capo Andre Breton
described his favorite way to watch movies. As a young man, he
wrote, he had appreciated
nothing so much as dropping into the cinema when whatever was playing was playing, at any point in the show, and leaving at the first hint of boredom--of surfeit--to rush off to another cinema where we behaved the same way, and so on (obviously this practice would be too much of a luxury today). I have never known anything more magnetising: it goes without saying that more often than not we left our seats without even knowing the title of the film which was of no importance to us anyway.
What was too much of a luxury then is cheap and easy now. The surrealist practice became standard suburban behavior, something to do from the comfort of your couch while munching on some Cheetos and drinking a beer. Thank you, Eugene Polley.
Peter Orszag's Secret Service Recovery Plan: "Stimulate Now," Pay Later
Former Obama budget director
Peter Orszag is now a columnist for Bloomberg, where his latest
offering amounts to what might be called
The Secret Service Plan for Fiscal Policy: "Stimulate Now" and
Pay Later.
Those who are most worried about our long-term fiscal health shouldn’t fret too much about additional stimulus today, if it is combined with future budget cuts. Stimulus now would have only a modest long-term impact on national debt. So if it can lead to a deal, while also easing short-term pain from unemployment, what’s not to like?
Opponents of a combination approach make two arguments. The first is that it’s too complicated. I have never seen much evidence presented for this argument, and I would like to give Congress and the public more credit for being able to do two things at once.
The second argument is that any delayed deficit-reduction legislation would be reversed by future Congresses. Why bother?
History suggests a rosier view. The increases in Social Security’s retirement age were legislated in 1983 -- almost 30 years ago -- and Congress has allowed them to take effect. The same holds for most Medicare changes Congress has passed, even those phased in over time.
Read "History Shows U.S. Can Stimulate Now, Cut Later."
For those of you still wondering how we got to point where federal spending has essentially doubled (in nominal terms) over the course of the 21st century, Orszag's column is a master class. Whether under a Republican administration or a Democratic one, the federal government has been jam-packed with people for whom today is all about writing a check that tomorrow will cash. In the long run, we're all dead, Lord Keynes quipped. And the best part is that once you're dead, someone else will pay for your funeral.
Let's leave aside the not-inconsiderable point that the president's stimulus didn't work. Why? Because fiscal stimulus tends not to work. The basic idea of a government multiplier, where a dollar of public money kicks off more than a dollar in activity, just ain't so.
Orszag looks back to the 1983 Social Security
reforms that have done such a good job at rescuing that program
that it started running a
cash-flow deficit in 2010. That means it is no longer funding
current benefits solely from the taxes it takes in. And unless
something odd happens, it never will again until all the money
accrued in its various trust funds runs out in 2033 (the date of
reckoning keeps getting closer, another bad sign).
More to the point perhaps, Social Security is already a bad deal for most workers. As Urban Institute researchers C. Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane calculated last year, most categories of beneficiaries who retired in 2010 or later will receive less in payouts than they paid into the system via payroll taxes.
To call Reagan-era Social Security reform a triumph for anything other than the persistence of a program that transfers increasing amounts of money from relatively poor and young people to relatively wealthy and old people is strange talk. To compare Congress' willingness to let the retirement age for full benefits to drift upwards over three decades with a willingness to reduce deficit spending in the future is pretty weak.
Orszag admits that his upbeat assessment of
Medicare reforms - "Congress has repeatedly adopted measures to
produce considerable savings in Medicare and has let them take
effect" - doesn't include the "doc fix," which has precluded
scheduled reductions in physician reimbursement fees to take place.
And he doesn't mention the creation of Medicare Part D or the fact
that the inflation-adjusted costs of Medicare (like Social
Security) are headed sky-high. And that's after a decade of massive
increases (see table!). If Medicare spending was in any way
declining or even leveling off year over year, he might have the
semblance of an argument. Between 1975 and 2010, for instance,
Medicare spending per enrollee more than tripled in real dollars,
from
$1,985 to $9,828. I just don't see the savings, considerable or
otherwise. (And
talking about recent slowdowns in the rate of increase in
health costs don't get you very far.)
Orszag writes, "Those who favor a combined approach shouldn’t be characterized (as I have been) as pro-austerity and anti-stimulus." I'm not sure what he means by a "combined approach," but to the extent that he's talking about a need to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, he should take a look at how succesful austerity programs (ones that tip overwhelmingly toward spending cuts, liberalization of labor markets and trade policies, and structural reform of government entitlements) correlate strongly with economic growth.
The FBI's New Tech Spy Shop: "They're doing the best they can to avoid being transparent."
The FBI continues to be determined to find ways
to pry open the digital locks that safeguard privacy on the
Internet. Earlier this month, CNET's Declan McCullagh
reported that the domestic spying agency is pushing tech
companies to build fed-friendly backdoors into their software in
order to facilitate online wiretapping.
Now he reports that the FBI has started up a special unit responsible for figuring out technological hacks to circumvent built-in software safeguards: the Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC), which has a far-reaching mandate to intercept digital voice and text traffic to build analysis tools capable of sorting the massive amounts of communication data that flows through communications networks. At times, the unit may be called upon to develop digital eavesdropping tools that allow the FBI access to a single company or individual:
During an appearance last year on Capitol Hill, then-FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni referredin passing, without elaboration, to "individually tailored" surveillance solutions and "very sophisticated criminals." Caproni said that new laws targeting social networks and voice over Internet Protocol conversations were required because "individually tailored solutions have to be the exception and not the rule."
Caproni was referring to the DCAC's charge of creating customized surveillance technologies aimed at a specific individual or company, according to a person familiar with the FBI's efforts in this area.
But it's hard to know exactly how the new center will be used, because, as McCullagh reports, the FBI isn't exactly being forthcoming with details:
The FBI has disclosed little information about the DCAC, and what has been previously made public about the center was primarily through budget requests sent to congressional committees. The DCAC doesn't even have a Web page.
"The big question for me is why there isn't more transparency about what's going on?" asksJennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco. "We should know more about the program and what the FBI is doing. Which carriers they're working with -- which carriers they're having problems with. They're doing the best they can to avoid being transparent."
How much will the new tech spy shop this cost? McCullagh points to an appropriations report indicating that that last month the Senate tagged $54 million for domestic surveillance. But the report doesn't indicate whether all of that money will be spent on the DCAC.
California Public Pension Contributions Up 304% Over the Last Decade
Want to know what a drag the California Public
Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) is putting on the Golden
State's perenially beleaguered budget? An
Orange County Register editorial does the math:
In fiscal 2002-03, $545 million went to CalPERS pension payments, just after the Legislature started allowing pension spiking. The contribution rises to $2.2 billion for 2012-13, the fiscal year beginning July 1 – an increase of 304 percent the past decade.
The Great Recession especially has taken its toll. The percentage increases in payments have risen 13 percent in 2010-11 and 8.8 percent in 2011-12, and are projected to rise another 15 percent in 2012-13. This at a time the state economy has been stagnating, and other areas of the state budget have been cut. [...]
If Gov. Brown's $91 billion budget is passed, the $2.2 billion CalPERS hit for 2012-13 would amount to a 2.4 percent of the general fund. That's money that won't go to schools, roads or taking care of the poor. Instead, it will go to CalPERS retirees, including the 9,111 people who pull down more than $100,000 year.
Whole thing here. Link via the indispensable Pension Tsunami, which also points to a revised $100,000 Club calculation of 12,199 recipients.
Read Reason on CalPERS, including two cover stories: Jon Entine's "The Next Catastrophe: Think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a politicized financial disaster? Just wait until pension funds implode" (February 2009) and Tim Cavanaugh's "Farewell My Lovely: How public pensions killed progressive California."
Gene Healy on Why Drones Pose a Threat to Americans' Privacy
In several cases, the Supreme Court has held that
warrantless surveillance by manned aircraft doesn't violate the
Fourth Amendment. But small, cheap, maneuverable, and often
undetectable drones may create cases, writes Gene Healy, in which a
difference in degree becomes a difference in kind.
Protest Votes Embarrass Obama in Arkansas, Kentucky
Barack Obama's string of poor primary performances -- poor, that is, for an incumbent not facing a serious challenger -- continued in Arkansas and Kentucky last night. In Arkansas, protest candidate John Wolfe received 41.6% of the ballots and carried 36 of the state's 75 counties. In Kentucky, 42.1% of the voters (and an actual majority of the counties) backed Uncommitted, which is about as pure a vote for Not Obama as you can cast. (It is also the best showing I can recall Uncommitted receiving since the general election of 1960, when the wily devil carried a state.)
Meanwhile, on the Republican side:
in Kentucky, Obama actually compiled more votes than Republican winner -- and general election challenger -- Mitt Romney. Both contests are now symbolic, of course, but Republicans still have more of a reason to go out and vote in their primary. Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Republicans' version of "Uncommitted" combined for about 33 percent in Kentucky.
Ron Paul carried Trigg County, Kentucky, in what I'd like to believe was a late-breaking protest against the TVA's land-grabs and the crackdown on moonshine.
Update: I wouldn't read too much into the fact that more Kentucky voters backed Obama than Romney. The Democratic winner regularly outpolls the Republican winner in that state's presidential primaries. In 2000 Al Gore, running against no one but Bill Bradley and Lyndon LaRouche, got more votes than George W. Bush, who was in a situation similar to Romney's, and Bush still beat Gore easily in the general election. (In Kentucky, that is. Not everywhere.) Chris Mallory suggests that this reflects which downticket races will be contested in the fall: When there's more than one Democrat seeking an office and no one on the Republican side, Dems have more reason to turn out. Having lived from 2002 to 2006 in Baltimore City, where the Democratic primary is the local election, this sounds plausible to me.
Will This Election Be About Mormon Massacres and Obama's SAT scores?
Yesterday, Matt Welch noted the
publication of a satire about Mitt Romney's treatment of dogs by
two NPR journos, headlining the piece, "Seriously,
This is What Our Elite Journalistic Institutions Are Writing
About." He pointed readers to the Washington Post, which
covered the important story.
Here's another WashPost story in the same vein, though this one has the trappings of historical information and electoral seriousness.
Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith tangles with a quirk of Arkansas history
CARROLLTON, Ark. — On the wildflower-studded slopes of the Ozarks, where memories run long and family ties run thick, a little-known and long-ago chapter of history still simmers.
On Sept. 11, 1857, a wagon train from this part of Arkansas met with a gruesome fate in Utah, where most of the travelers were slaughtered by a Mormon militia in an episode known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Hundreds of the victims’ descendants still populate these hills and commemorate the killings, which they have come to call “the first 9/11.”
Many of the locals grew up hearing denunciations of Mormonism from the pulpit on Sundays, and tales of the massacre from older relatives who considered Mormons “evil.”
You got that? Mormons are sometimes considered evil - even in the Ozarks, that redoubt of enlightened thinking and representative thinking of this vast land of liberty. In case you don't fully understand the stakes, the Post spells it out for you:
There aren’t many places in America more likely to be suspicious of Mormonism — and potentially more problematic for Mitt Romney, who is seeking to become the country’s first Mormon president.
When you've lost the Ozarks, man, you've lost America, right? I wonder how often in other contexts the Post goes to the hills to take the pulse of the nation.
After learning that Mitt Romney is a
solid member of a religion that is strange and cultish to most
Americans - and one implicated in a horrifying murder rampage in
the 19th century - we learn something funny:
There is scant evidence that Romney’s religion is making much difference in how voters here are thinking about the presidential election and whether they are willing to back the former Massachusetts governor....
Eight out of 10 Republicans and Democrats said Romney’s faith was not a major reason to support or oppose him, according to an April Washington Post-ABC News poll. And a recent study by the Brookings Institution found that Romney’s religion may actually increase his support from conservative voters, including white evangelicals.
This is a classic sort of news story formula, in which the reporter's first impulse is totally thwarted by actual reporting but the journalist doesn't want to give up the lede that got him or her interested in the first place. You can almost see the wheels turning: They've got to hate Mormons and hence Mitt Romney in this place! What a great way to talk about how weird Mormonism is, even if it clearly is not going to have much if any effect on the outcome of the election! "Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith tangles with a quirk of Arkansas history" is such a better headline than, say, "Romney's religion not a big factor in whether people think he should be president."
Hat tip: AllahPundit of Hot Air.
To judge from recent pieces at Breitbart.com, opponents of President Obama are also happy to focus on tangential issues almost as much as the mainstream media (see, they're not so different, are they?). As part of its "vetting" process of the incumbent,
Breitbart News has established that Obama's grades and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores may have been even lower than those of his supposedly less capable predecessor, George W. Bush.
Breitbart News has learned that the transfer class that entered Columbia College in the fall of 1981 with Obama was one of the worst in recent memory, according to Columbia officials at the time....
As I wrote when Breitbart News released the 1991 book agency bio of Obama that mistakenly identified the aspiring memoirist as having been born in Kenya (the editor of Breitbart underscored that he believes the president was born in the U.S.), this sort of thing is a mug's game at best. Obama has a truly dismal record to run on and to the extent that his detractors focus on inessential matters that have no bearing on the current and future governing of the United States, they are not helping their side win the hearts and minds of undecided voters.
Lest they forget, Obama is the guy whose stimulus failed every benchmark for effectiveness he set, whose bailouts and "transformational" health care plan are genuinely unpopular, who has OK'ed killing U.S. citizens without judicial review, who has deported record numbers of immigrants, who raids medical marijuana dispensaries, kills school choice programs for poor kids in D.C. - and what really matters is whether his SAT or GPA is lower than George Bush's? His record as president is worse than Bush's - or at least it's in the same rotten neighborhood. That's the ticket, folks, to defeating him.
Breitbart News is not the Washington Post, of course, in terms of audience and representing itself as objective, but in such types of stories, both organizations display a similar willingness to chase butterflies rather than stay on track of serious issues. In this, alas, both are eerily like the dogs that evil Mitt Romney strapped to the top of his family wagon and secret Muslim Barack Obama ate as a kid in Indonesia.
Disclosure: ReasonTV's videos appear at the Breitbart News site Big Government.
A.M. Links: NSA Looking to Universities for Cyber Ops, Facebook IPO Lawsuits, Lawmakers Target Anonymous Online Speech
The NSA is
teaming up with select universities to find “quality cyber
operators”.- Less than a week as a publicly-listed company and Facebook is already facing several lawsuits over its IPO. The stock is also down 18%.
- New York lawmakers want to ban anonymous online speech, because it’s mean.
- A New Orleans painting contractor has spent nearly four years trying to get the police to return a handgun they confiscated from him. The ACLU is now involved.
- The Secret Service said there were no security breaches resulting from agents hiring prostitutes in a coastal Colombian town earlier this year.
- Over the next two days Egypt will be voting for a president.
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New at Reason.TV: "Joel Stein on His Stupid Quest for Masculinity"
Pro-Legalization Congressional Candidate Primarying a Democrat in El Paso
In The Declaration of Independents (now
pre-orderable in updated paperback form for just $10.19!) and
elsewhere, Nick Gillespie and I have long been arguing that the
most opportune way for Democrats to emulate the tactical lessons of
the Tea Party is to challenge their own party's drug warriors in
primary elections. So I am very heartened to see this development,
as reported by
Mother Jones:
When a new congressman heads to Washington from Texas' 16th congressional district, he tends to stick around a while. The 16th, a border district that includes the city of El Paso, has been represented by just three men in 48 years; primary challenges are virtually unheard of. So it was noteworthy when, earlier this month, the area's largest newspaper asked its readers to fire eight-term incumbent Rep. Silvestre Reyes.
In Reyes' place, the El Paso Times recommended Beto O'Rourke, a 40-year-old former El Paso councilman who's running neck and neck with the incumbent ahead of Tuesday's Democratic primary. O'Rourke is an outsider in two key respects. He is a white man of Irish [descent] in a district that's 77 percent Latino. And he is, as the author of a new book proposing the legalization of marijuana, an outspoken critic of federal drug policy. That makes O'Rourke's clash with Reyes more than just a story of an insurgent taking on the machine—in a border district, the contest is partly a referendum on the War on Drugs itself.
Reason wrote about Beto O'Rourke in February.
Jacob Sullum on Warrantless Cellphone Tracking
In January the Supreme Court
unanimously ruled that tracking a suspect's movements by
attaching a GPS transmitter to his car counts as a "search" under
the Fourth Amendment. But because the majority
opinion emphasized the physical intrusion needed to
surreptitiously install the transmitter, it did not resolve the
constitutional implications of surveillance using cellphones, the
tracking devices that Americans voluntarily carry in their pockets
and purses. In the absence of clear guidance, says Senior
Editor Jacob Sullum, law enforcement agencies are making up the
rules as they go along, often obtaining location data from
cellphone carriers without a warrant even for routine
investigations. Last week a House
subcommittee considered a bill that would address this
threat to privacy by requiring a warrant for geolocational
surveillance, regardless of the method used.
Brickbat: 50 Shades of Banned
The Brevard County, Florida, public library system has pulled all of its 19 copies of 50 Shades of Grey from the shelves. Library services director Cathy Schweinsberg says the best-selling novel is pornographic.
Rand Paul-approved Thomas Massie Winning GOP Primary for a Kentucky House Seat
Currently his 47-28 lead with 18 percent reporting is still being described as "slim" by Associated Press, but it seems sizable to me.
The liberty-movement-beloved Thomas Massie (profiled here by Mike Riggs in March) looks set to be the Republican Party candidate in Kentucky's 4th Congressional district.
Rand Paul endorsed Massie earlier this month.
From Riggs' Reason Online profile of Massie:
Much like Rand Paul and his father Ron, Massie’s small-government instincts extend far beyond keeping a tight grip on the checkbook. He’s also opposed to the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping, the police state, the drug war, and military adventurism. Massie’s views on civil liberties put a lot of daylight between him and his most well-known competitor for the GOP nomination, state legislator Alecia Webb-Edgington. A former member of the Kentucky State Police and the Department of Homeland Security, Webb-Edgington also helped launch Kentucky’s DHS-funded Fusion Center and told the crowd at a 2010 Lincoln Dinner, “We don’t need any more socialists, communists, or libertarians in the Republican Party.”
“So she tries to peg him as a survivalist or a libertarian,” Hogan said, chuckling. “And the other candidate has been in government for 16 years. Well, a lot of other people know the two main candidates and have had to deal with them for a while, and a lot of them just necessarily don’t like them too well. Thomas is a breath of fresh air.” With the number of libertarian Republicans in the House approaching zero, Kentucky’s Fourth District isn't the only place in need of some fresh air.
Keep up with results via Kentucky Board of Elections site.
Matt Kittle on the "Recall Walker" Investigator Leading a D.A.'s Probe of Walker's Office
Milwaukee County District
Attorney John Chisholm is investigating former aides to
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s former aides. But Chisholm's
chief investigator has his yard and home festooned with "Recall
Walker" and blue-fist signage. “I do not regulate or control
the constitutional freedoms of my employees’ families in their
private lives,” Chisholm wrote in defense of chief investigator
David Budde. “They have the right, under state law, and in this
case, county civil service rules, to express their political views
as does any other citizen." But WisconsinReporter.com's Matt
Kittle shows how Budde's activities cast doubt on the objectivity
of Chisholm, a Democrat, and his office in a county that is a
stronghold for union Democrats.
Most People Distrust the Government, and Themselves
The political powers that be are not
popular.
A recent poll from YouGov showed that most Americans are tired
of political partisanship and believe that they are not well
represented. Yet, while the political establishment is widely
viewed with suspicion and frustration, a majority still believes
that most people are not capable of making good decisions about
political issues. It seems that many would rather entrust
legislative concerns to incompetent and corrupt officials rather
than risk the results of increased choice and personal
responsibility. Unfortunately for libertarians, it looks like most
people conform to what the Roman historian Sallust remarked on over
two millennia ago, “Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for
a just master.” We are in a situation now where not only are
liberty and just masters are hard to find, but government intrusion
is normalized.
Standard public choice economics explains why the political machine is inept and corrupt. What is harder to explain is why people remain so hesitant to embrace even a little more personal responsibility and freedom. Institutions that are now embedded in the political and economic establishment, such as the departments of education, health, and transport, were all formed well within living memory. Americans were winning Nobel Prizes, healing the sick, and travelling on roads before these departments, yet there is not a libertarian who has not had to endure baffling questions such as, “Then who would make the roads/heal the sick/educate our children?”
What the situation in Europe shows us is how quickly moronic government measures become part of the cultural landscape. Government-issued ID cards in France are now perfectly accepted as normal. In the UK the National Health Service, the seventh largest employer in the world, is practically a national institution that enjoys an almost religious level of faith and devotion. Even in the midst of the worst financial crisis in decades there continue to be demonstrations demanding free education and an expansion of welfare and public pensions. Recent elections in France and Greece reflect the delusion that is taking hold in much of Europe, namely that growth in the middle of a recession is possible without austerity.
Thankfully, the U.S is not as culturally wedded to government as Europe. But this is not a historical inevitability. How best to convince people to desire liberty I am not entirely sure, but I do think it a more worthwhile pursuit than seeking out ‘just masters’. Politicians like Ron Paul do good work, and he in particular has done well to move libertarianism into mainstream politcs. However, we will need more than legislative agendas to quell the popular urge to be slaves.
How in the World Did a Case About Speech Restrictions Become a Battle Over Government Censorship?
In a recent
New Yorker article
about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the
2010 case in
which the Supreme Court overturned restrictions on political speech
by corporations, Jeffrey Toobin focuses on the notorious book
question during the first round of oral arguments: Given that
Congress had prohibited corporations (including nonprofit advocacy
groups) from airing TV and radio ads mentioning federal candidates
close to an election, could it also stop them from publishing books
aimed at boosting or tearing down a candidate during the campaign
season? Because Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said yes,
Toobin writes, "a single question changed the case, and perhaps
American history." A case that could have been decided on narrower
grounds—by ruling, for example, that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform
Act's ban on "electioneering communications" did not apply to
nonprofit groups like Citizens United or by exempting full-length
documentaries such as the FEC-proscribed Hillary: The
Movie—became the basis for throwing out not only that
provision of BCRA (a.k.a. McCain-Feingold) but also the
pre-existing ban on "express advocacy." In Toobin's telling, things
would have turned out very differently if only Stewart had answered
that question correctly. But it not clear why Toobin thinks Stewart
was wrong, as opposed to dangerously candid, in laying out the
government's position. Here is Toobin's explanation:
Stewart was wrong. Congress could not ban a book. McCain-Feingold was based on the pervasive influence of television advertising on electoral politics, the idea that commercials are somehow unavoidable in contemporary American life. The influence of books operates in a completely different way. Individuals have to make an affirmative choice to acquire and read a book. Congress would have no reason, and no justification, to ban a book under the First Amendment.
Commercials, of course, were not truly unavoidable even back in 2002, when BCRA was passed, and the proliferation of DVRs since then makes that premise even more questionable. People choose whether to watch a commercial and whether to buy what it is selling, just as they choose whether to read a book and whether to accept its arguments. Campaign finance regulators surely could build a case for restricting election-related books on the grounds that they allow corporations to exercise undue influence on voters by presenting seemingly substantive briefs that not only persuade people directly but generate free publicity via TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. The question is whether there are constitutional grounds for distinguishing between political messages on paper and political messages on TV or radio. Stewart did not offer any. In fact, he not only suggested that extending the ban on electioneering communications to print would be constitutionally permissible; he noted that corporations were already barred from publishing books that include express advocacy—unambiguous support for a candidate's election or defeat. So if Citizens United had published a book explicitly opposing Hillary Clinton's selection as the Democratic presidential nominee, that would have been illegal too.
Stewart did note that the ban on express advocacy made an exception for media corporations such as book publishers (though not for advocacy groups such as Citizens United), without committing himself on whether such an exception was constitutionally required. It would be difficult to argue that it is, since "freedom of the press" refers to a technology of mass communication, not to officially recognized news organizations. It hardly seems consistent with this guarantee to say that some corporations, such as the one that publishes The New Yorker, have unfettered freedom to comment on politics while others, such as the NRA or the ACLU, have to respect government-imposed limits.
Toobin notes that during the second round of oral arguments in Citizens United—provoked largely by Stewart's response to the book question—newly appointed Solicitor General Elena Kagan declared that "the government’s answer has changed" (a statement that drew laughter from the audience). But like Toobin, Kagan never gave a satisfying constitutional (as opposed to strategic) explanation for drawing a line between media, as I explained in my December 2010 Reason article about the reaction to Citizens United:
Although the express advocacy ban "does cover full-length books," Kagan said, “there would be a quite good as-applied challenge to any attempt to apply [it] in that context" because (as she explained during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings last summer) "nobody uses books in order to campaign"—a surprising assertion, given all the biographies, manifestos, and policy books that candidates and their supporters have produced over the years. Kagan added that the FEC so far had not tried to ban any books. That reassurance prompted Chief Justice John Roberts to object that "we don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats."
If books might be out of bounds, Roberts asked, "what about a pamphlet?" Kagan said "a pamphlet would be different," since "a pamphlet is pretty classic electioneering." This newly invented constitutional distinction between books and pamphlets raised new questions. "When does a pamphlet become a book?" asks former FEC Chairman Brad Smith, co-founder of the Center for Competitive Politics. "Is Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which is about 50 pages, a pamphlet or a book? How could you decide?" During Kagan’s confirmation hearings in June, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) asked her whether she really believed that “the protection of the First Amendment should depend on such things as the stiffness of a cover, the presence of a binder, or the number of words on a page."
The proposed distinction between documentaries like Hillary: The Movie (which the Court described as "a feature-length negative advertisement") and the "commercials" that Toobin says were Congress' real target raises similar problems: How short can a permitted documentary be without becoming a prohibited ad? Justice Anthony Kennedy posed another puzzler: Since BCRA's ban on electioneering communications refers to "satellite" communications, wouldn't it apply to an electronic book mentioning a federal candidate "if it comes from a satellite"? What about books read on radio or TV? Do they retain their talismanic paper value when converted to audio? Contrary to the way Toobin presents it, the book question—posed initially by Justice Samuel Alito, then pressed by Kennedy and Roberts—was not a trick that "turned a fairly obscure case about campaign-finance reform into a battle over government censorship." The battle was always about government censorship; the question merely highlighted that point.
Mexican Congressional Candidate Wants to End Drug War. Also, She Poses Topless.
The campaign involves a 34-year-old philosophy professor named Natalia Juarez, who's running for the Mexican congress. When Juarez realized her bid for office was off to a slow start a few weeks ago, the leftist candidate quickly decided she was going to be transparent with voters in a way they didn't expect.
Juarez decided to appear topless on a billboard surrounded by half-a-dozen supporters of her party, the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution). The billboard shows the seven women, including Juarez, naked from the waist up and covering sensitive areas with their right hands while they raise their left fists.
Juarez (shown above in the center of the billboard) is apparently trying to shock a society she describes as “lethargic” into paying attention to the race. She put up two billboards in Guadalajara. The professor claims female college students support her campaign, as well as her family. She’s also promising that her next round of campaigning will be even more shocking.
She also describes herself as a radical candidate (obviously) with radical views for Mexico about the drug war:
"When it comes to drugs and the violence generated by drug trafficking, we need to start thinking in a radical way. What do I mean by that? Well, we need to start a debate. Let's legalize (drugs), tax them and use the money for other things," Juarez said.
Mexico’s elections are on July 1.
“They think of someone they knew… who has been deported,” Democrats May Lose Latino, Immigrant Voters
More than 400,000 illegal immigrants were
deported in the fiscal year 2011, a record for the United States.
There have been more deportations under President Obama’s three
years in office than under the entire eight years of George W.
Bush. Nevertheless, Democrats say they still deserve the votes of
Latinos and other immigrants who want to see reform in U.S.
immigration policies. Roll Call
reports Democratic leaders like Dick Durbin and Harry Reid
acknowledging that the immigration system sucks, even though,
apparently, President Obama’s done more than any other president to
reform the system. You didn’t notice? Neither did immigrants. From
Roll Call:
“I think that there are a large number of voters, both immigrant and Latino voters, that when they first think of the president, they don’t think of additional Pell Grants, or expansion of health care, or revamping of Wall Street, or a fairer tax [system]. They think of someone they knew, either personally or related to them, or a neighbor or friend, who has been deported. And that is what first and foremost comes to mind,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said last week.
Frank Sharry, executive director of left-leaning immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said the failure to properly implement the policy has wreaked havoc on the Latino community and — along with a weak economy and the unmet expectation of immigration reform — could discourage them to turn out to vote for Democrats.
Might supporters of immigration reform move to Mitt Romney? Actress Rosario Dawson thinks so. From the Daily Caller:
Actress and activist Rosario Dawson told The Daily Caller that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney can “use” his heritage to make immigration issues “very personal” in the general election.
Addressing the Latino vote, Dawson predicted that Romney will “draw a lot of people in,” but said he faces some challenges because “the Republican Party has really sort of pushed away the Latino vote” in the past.
TheDC asked Dawson, the co-founder of Voto Latino, if Romney could garner support from the Latino community, given that his father was born in Mexico.
“Having his heritage be something that’s going to be really exciting for a lot of people to talk about and be really important for him to be speaking about what that’s meant to him as an immigrant — part of an immigrant family and story, that’s going to be really important and obviously Obama, who’s done a lot of deportations in his administration, that’s another thing that’s going to be something that people are really going to have to pay attention to,” Dawson [said]
Not that Republicans haven’t done their best to alienate Latino voters. From over-the-top state laws to whipped up hysteria over “anchor babies,” Republicans have made themselves even less appealing than our record-breaking deportations president.
What about Gary Johnson? As the former
governor of a border state, he knows immigration issues. Even Texas
Governor Rick Perry admitted a border wall is stupid and denying
children of illegal immigration access to higher education is
heartless, though he quickly
apologized for his sober comments as they didn’t play well at
all with the Republican base he was trying to woo.
Gary Johnson, too, opposes a border wall. He also supports making it easier to immigrate into the country legally and legalizing marijuana, which would help break the control Mexican drug cartels have in the border region. Running as the Libertarian nominee and not a Republican candidate lets Johnson focus on this issue, and gives immigrant voters who have seen their families and communities ripped apart by Obama’s deportations the opportunity to reject Democrat fear-mongering over Republican xenophobia and just vote for Johnson instead.
Ronald Bailey on the Upsides of Egg Freezing and "Fertility Insurance"
More and more American women
are waiting until they are older to have children. Why? Because
they are building their careers and waiting for Mr. Right. But what
if Mr. Right fails to come along before age 35? As the biological
clock ticks along the chances of having biologically related
children steeply diminish. Some women are now taking advantage of
"fertility insurance" by having fertility clinics retrieve and
freeze their eggs. Reason Science
Correspondent Ronald Bailey argues that egg freezing should be
celebrated as another way in which technological progress is
reducing and ameliorating inequalities between women and men,
reproductive and otherwise.
Wisconsin Recall Effort Limps, Cory Booker's Words Resonate, Europe Threatens World Economy: P.M. Links
- Cory Booker may be backing away from his criticism of the Obama campaign's attack on Bain Capital, but his words seem to have taken on a life of their own.
- With polls showing their candidate between four and nine points back, Wisconsin Democrats are facing the likelihood that their once-vigorous campaign to unseat Governor Scott Walker is falling short.
- The OECD sees the world economy growing by 3.4 percent this year — so long as Europe's financial woes don't turn into an international buzz-kill.
- Staying classy, and perhaps a little sexually confused, an NYPD sergeant was recorded threatening to sexually assault a man who had illegally parked along a Brooklyn street.
- A federal judge struck down a Utah law that would have restricted the Internet publication of material that is constitutionally protected, but might be deemed "harmful to minors." Such restrictions interfere with the First Amendment rights of adults, said the court.
- After years of heavy spending to "stimulate" the economy, Japan has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio of any major economy, and a brand-new, two-level credit downgrade.
- A new Quebec law intended to muzzle student protests has, not surprisingly, invigorated demonstrations. Before taking to the street against the law, students were ticked off about hikes to the province's lowest-in-the nation public-university tuition.
- After the imposition of trade restrictions and currency controls, and the seizure of a foreign-owned oil company, Argentina's economy is, shockingly, starting to sputter.
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Does the Artist Treated Like a Terrorist Still ♥NY?
Over the weekend
New York City police arrested Takeshi Miyakawa over an unauthorized
art project that involved hanging illuminated "I♥NY" shopping bags
from trees and lampposts in Brooklyn. A friend
told The New York Times that Miyakawa, a
50-year-old Japanese-born artist and furniture designer who
moved to the city in 1989, "wanted to promote a positive message."
That clearly was not the NYPD's aim. After somebody called the bomb
squad, the cops treated Miyakwa like a terrorist, a lunatic, or
possibly both. They ominously described one of his bag signs as "an
assembly consisting of a plastic box containing wires which was
connected by a wire to a plastic bag containing a battery suspended
from a metal rod." In a development reminiscent of Boston's 2007
Mooninite panic, Miyakawa has been charged with reckless
endangerment and placing "a false bomb or hazardous substance." His
lawyer calls the whole thing "a gross misunderstanding."
ObamaCare's Defenders Keep Forgetting How Unpopular the Law Is
At the Volokh Conspiracy, George Mason University law professor (and occasional Reason contributor) Ilya Somin highlights the weaknesses of the most common non-legal arguments made in defense of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the notion that a ruling against ObamaCare will undermine the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. As Somin writes:
Claims that a decision striking down the mandate will undermine the Court’s “legitimacy” founder on the simple reality that an overwhelmingly majority of the public wants the law to be invalidated. Even a slight 48-44 plurality of Democrats agree, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll. Decisions that damage the Court’s legitimacy tend to be ones that run contrary to majority opinion, such as some of the cases striking down New Deal laws in the 1930s. By contrast, a decision failing to strike down a law that large majorities believe to be unconstitutional can actually damage the Court’s reputation and create a political backlash, as the case of Kelo v. City of New London dramatically demonstrated.
Read the whole thing here, including Somin's argument for why a ruling aginst the individual mandate would not be inconsistent with conservative judicial principles. For more on ObamaCare’s unpopularity, see this post by Reaason-Rupe polling director Emily Ekins, which notes that just 32 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the president’s health care overhaul.
Seriously, This Is What Our Elite Journalistic Institutions Are Writing About
Oh hey look, a couple of NPR satirists have
written a new book (pictured) of illustrations and poetry called
Dog on the Roof!: On the Road with Mitt and the Mutt.
From
the WashPost write-up:
The book follows the Romney family, packed in a Chevy station wagon, on an imaginary cross-country trip. At each stop, Mitt Romney waxes eloquent about the scenery, while Seamus bemoans his precarious position.
A sample from the book: In New York, Mitt enthuses, "Wall Street's a temple,/our nation's salvation./ And we are among/its elite congregation," while Seamus frets: "As long as you're talking/ 'bout wheeling and dealing,/a bailout is needed/ on top of this ceiling!"
Let's see how other respected media outlets are treating the pressing national issue of how a 2012 presidential candidate reportedly treated his dog in 1983 (according to a 2007 article in the Boston Globe):
* U.S. News & World Report: "Why We Care About Mitt Romney's Dog and Bullying."
* The Atlantic: "Romney Treated His Dog the Same Way He Looks and Talks: 1960s-Style." (With the great B.S. subhed "Public fascination with the saga of Seamus Romney reflects a massive transformation in how Americans view their pets.")
* The Financial Times: "Animal cruelty, or Mutts for Mitt?"
And as many others have pointed out, bafflingly regular New York Times columnist Gail Collins has written about Seamus at least a dozen times.
Seriously, historians are going to look back at the coverage of the 2012 election, with its backdrop of totally predictable debtpocalypse and entitlementgeddon, and instead of responsible journalism they're going to find this shit.
DEA Wants to Track Your License Plate, and You May Already Be Tagged!
I distinctly remember, when I
was a kid, watching an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild
Kingdom, during which Marlin Perkins lounged safely in a camp
chair, while Jim Fowler put a lion in a headlock, bit a hole in the
cat's ear, and then attached a tag for easy tracking. Well, it went
something like that, anyway. It's been a long time. Too bad Fowler
didn't work for the DEA, or even a biggish police department. He
could have saved himself a little sweat and blood by tracking
Americans instead of animals, by the simple expedient of setting
cameras by the side of the road to capture license plates as they
speed by.
The ACLU reports on a DEA plan to scan each and every license plate that passes along Interstate 15 in Utah, with the intention of storing the data for future reference.
The DEA wants to capture the license plates of all vehicles traveling along Interstate 15 in Utah, and store that data for two years at their facility in Northern Virginia. And, as a DEA official told Utah legislators at a hearing this week (attended by ACLU of Utah staff and covered in local media), these scanners are already in place on “drug trafficking corridors” in California and Texas and are being considered for Arizona as well. The agency is also collecting plate data from unspecified other sources and sharing it with over ten thousand law enforcement agencies around the nation.
With the DEA involved, of course the up-front rationale for the plan is to track and catch drug smugglers. But even as the DEA and two cooperating sheriffs presented the plan to the Utah legislature, they allowed mission creep to seep in immediately, suggesting that the data could be used against kidnappers and violent criminals.
The Salt Lake Tribune says the idea elicited some discomfort from lawmakers:
That, however, wasn’t the concern of skeptical legislators on the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee. They were worried about the DEA storing the data for two years and who would be able to access it.
"It’s not against the law to drive down I-15 from Utah to Nevada to gamble," said Utah Senate President Michael Waddoups, "but there are a lot of Utahns that would be pretty embarrassed by that."
Committee members asked for more information about the scanners and the data storage and agreed to discuss the issue at its June meeting.
The chairman of the committee hearing the DEA's pitch wound things up by cautioning a DEA representative, "A lot of us in Utah don’t trust the federal government."
The scanners, which are already in place in
California and Texas, and are being considered for placement near
Kingman and Flagstaff, in Arizona, record the license plate, the
GPS coordinates and the direction of travel. That's quite a lot of
information for government officials to record and store for future
reference. Once in the system, license plates aren't just tracked —
they can also trigger alerts, if they've been put on a list to be
stopped.
Last year, the Washington Post pointed out that automated license plate scanners, costing about $20,000 each, are already in place all around the nation's capital.
Scores of cameras across the city capture 1,800 images a minute and download the information into a rapidly expanding archive that can pinpoint people’s movements all over town. ...
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
A 2010 study (PDF) from George Mason University's Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy revealed that "[o]ver a third of large police agencies have already adopted [license plate recognition]" even though there's been little discussion of its use, or of community concerns, and "the question still remains as to whether this technology is more effective in reducing, preventing, or even detecting crime."
Are California Rail Authorities Looking to Cover Their Tracks with Email Purge?
It’s almost as though California’s high-speed rail officials are actively trying to piss people off at this point.
Kathy Hamilton of the Community Coalition on High Speed
Rail, a group opposing the proposed $68 billion train line
connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco (eventually!), had
requested copies of e-mails between the California High Speed Rail
Authority (CHSRA) staff and some experts who had criticized the
project's financial projections. According to
California Watch, the CHSRA rejected Hamilton’s request,
explaining they had implemented a new policy purging e-mails after
90 days.
The CHSRA quietly filed paperwork in February with the state for this new policy. Thomas Fellenz, chief counsel and acting CEO for the CHSRA (after the previous CEO quit in January) gave California Watch the perfectly reasonable explanation that they implemented the policy because they realized they didn’t currently have any e-mail retention policy at all. There’s nothing to be suspicious about when an agency under intense scrutiny for its unrealistic ridership and operational cost projections, currently under investigation by Congress and the Government Accountability Office and facing lawsuits from train opponents suddenly decides it’s time to purge all these silly old emails. It’s just a process!
Fellenz says rail authority staff will retain documents they think they may need for legal or business reasons and dump the rest.
Fortunately they haven’t actually purged anything just yet under this new policy. California Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Vista, head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is investigating the project's use of federal funds and has ordered the CHSRA to keep its last two years of documents. The agency has promised to comply. They have also reversed their response to Hamilton and will be providing her the e-mails she requested.
But some important information may have already been lost, policy or not, California Watch discovered:
David Schonbrunn, a plaintiff in an environmentalist lawsuit that challenged the high-speed rail project’s proposed route over the Pacheco Pass in Santa Clara County, said he suspects the rail authority routinely destroys e-mails that would provide useful insights into its decisionmaking.
Schonbrunn said part of the lawsuit turned on whether the rail authority had altered a computerized “travel mode demand model” that had been used to plot the best route to link the Bay Area with the Central Valley. The plaintiffs believed the model had been tweaked to make the Pacheco Pass route seem more attractive than an alternative route over the Altamont Pass, he said. During pretrial investigation, the plaintiffs found evidence that the model had indeed been changed, said Schonbrunn, a paralegal who worked on the case.
“But because the e-mail was destroyed, we were unable to get somebody giving the instructions for that to be done,” he said.
Elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal calls the train “California’s Kafka Express” (subscription required) while flogging Gov. Jerry Brown over his insistence on keeping the project going even as the state’s gargantuan budget deficit grows.
Attention Los Angeles-Area Reasonoids! Doherty talking Ron Paul's rEVOLution at Book Soup on Sunset, Tuesday 7 p.m.
That's tonight! You've (probably) read him talking about Ron
Paul here on Hit and Run--now see and hear him do it in person at
Los Angeles's best stocked and coolest vendor of new books, Book
Soup, and tell him what you really think. 
It's free and open to all, even Hit and Run commenters. It's great if you buy a book, but not an obligation. Freedom is popular, as Ron Paul says.
WHEN: Tuesday May 22, 7 p.m.
WHERE: Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA (Los Angeles)
WHAT: Doherty will talk a bit about the book and the past present and future of the Ron Paul Revolution, and will sign copies of said book.
Details from Book Soup's website.
Government Spending Claims Two More Victims
Recently, two more countries have felt the bite of Keynesianism. Today, the credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded Japan’s economy and the AP reported that the Argentinian economy is likely to decline sharply. While Japan and Argentina might be different kinds of economies performing differently in different markets, their recent bad news can be attributed in part to a fondness for government spending.
Japan’s explosion in government spending is in part a response to the March 2011 tsunami caused by a once-a-millennium earthquake that released energy equivalent to 600 million times that released by the Little Boy bomb and knocked the globe a few degrees off its axis. The Japanese government spent a huge amount of money on reconstruction, and the Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has pledged 20 trillion yen ($259 billion) more on reconstruction — money that has to be borrowed. Even before the tsunami, Japan had a worrying debt to GDP ratio. Japan has the world’s highest debt to GDP ratio, 211%. This figure is more staggering when you consider that in 2002 the debt to GDP ratio was 151.7%. Long before last year’s tsunami Japan was developing a taste for expansive government. The only reason why Japan is able to last with this level of debt is that most of the country’s debt is held domestically.
In Argentina the future is looking grim. The Argentine government has engaged in government spending on welfare programs and industry subsidies that were only made possible after President Kirchner refused to pay back lenders in full. A low rainfall and the devaluing of the Brazilian currency have not helped the economic situation in Argentina, but it is unlikely that even without these unforeseen circumstances that Argentina would have been able to insulate itself from the consequences of its overspending, especially with major economies in recession.
Of course Japan and Argentina are not the first economies to face diminished growth or downgrades. The U.S. and France have both been downgraded, and the U.K recently entered a double-dip recession. However, more and more economies are seeing the consequences of fiscal and monetary expansion. It would be nice to think that governments might learn from the current situation and not repeat the mistakes that contributed to the current crisis. Events in Europe in particular do not seem to be offering any indication that we might be able to look forward to such a future.
Kevin Binversie on the Amazingly Bogus Scott Walker ‘Divide and Conquer’ Video
Much has been said of the highly edited 38-second
YouTube video in which Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is
caught saying he would “divide and conquer” the state.
Listening to critics of the governor, you’d think it was almost
like finding the smoking gun still at the scene of the crime. Yet
as Kevin Binversie writes, if the complete clip is so damning, why
won’t Walker’s opponents release it?
Support for Pot Legalization Crosses 50 Percent, With 56 Percent of Americans Now In Favor of Treating it Like Booze
"A solid majority of voters nationwide favor legalizing and regulating marijuana similar to the way alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are currently regulated," reports the polling firm Rasmussen.
"A new national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that 56% favor legalizing and regulating marijuana in a similar manner to the way alcohol and tobacco cigarettes are regulated. Thirty-six percent (36%) are opposed to such a legalizing and regulating pot."
That's up nine percentage points from March 2012, when Rasmussen found that "47% [of Americans] now believe the country should legalize and tax marijuana in order to help solve the nation’s fiscal problems. Forty-two percent (42%) disagree, while 10% are undecided."
Earlier this month, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research reported that "75% of Democrats, 67% of Republicans, and, notably 79% of Independents said that President Obama should respect state medical marijuana laws."
In October 2011, the polling firm Gallup reported that for the first time 50 percent of Americans thought marijuana should be legal, while 46 percent felt that it should remain illegal.
H/t Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
Obama Administration Required to Spend $20 Million Advertising ObamaCare
For the last two years, the
Obama administration and its allies have been unsuccessfully
attempting to boost ObamaCare’s consistently struggling poll
numbers through various messaging strategies. They tried telling
people that in fact they
really liked the law, Jedi mind-trick style. They tried
not talking about the law at all. They tried selectively
highlighting the parts of the law they thought people would
like. They published ObamaCare-themed electronic
Mother’s Day cards, so you could tell her, really tell
her, just how special she is to you.
Mom didn’t come through for the administration. Neither did the rest of the public. Despite the various efforts, the law’s poll numbers have remained stubbornly low.
But maybe a new $20 million ad campaign will succeed where previous messaging efforts have failed? Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sebelius has her fingers crossed: According to PR Week, marketing firm Porter Novelli — the ad wizards that gave us both the USDA food pyramid and the Truth antismoking campaign — has won a $20 million contract to promote the law through a multimedia advertising blitz. The campaign will “inform the American people about the many preventive benefits now available to those with Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act,” an HHS official told the trade publication.
You can’t pin this campaign on desperation
because it’s required by the health law itself.
According to The Hill, “The campaign was mandated by
the Affordable Care Act and must describe the importance of
prevention while also explaining preventive benefits provided by
the healthcare law.” How convenient: The law’s authors set aside
$20 million to advertise the law’s benefits during an election
year. Don't like the existence of the campaign? Don't blame the
folks in the Obama administration: They had to do it.
How big is a $20 million marketing campaign? Big enough that when independent political groups spend the same amount on ads criticizing President Obama, the expansive adjectives start to roll: When Crossroads GPS, a conservative activist group led by former Bush adviser Karl Rove, announced a $20 million ad effort attacking the current administration’s economic record, National Journal called the first $5 million ad rollout “significant,” while ABC described the entire project as a “massive $20 million TV ad campaign.”
It seems only reasonable, then, to describe this as a “significant,” even “massive,” expenditure of taxpayer funds to promote the president’s health law during an election year.
Space X Launch Successful, Plans to Dock With Space Station on Friday
Early this
morning, private space company Space X sent its Dragon capsule into
orbit. On Friday, if all goes well, it will rendezvous with the
International Space Station, thus kicking off a beautiful $1.6
billion, 12 mission friendship with NASA to ferry cargo back and
forth in the post-Shuttle era. Eventually, that cargo may include
astronauts as well.
On this mission the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket did carry some human cargo, actually. Exactly 308 people made the trip. They were already dead, though, which made the craft less crowded that it would otherwise be, and the mission somewhat lower risk. Among the ashes: Actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on the 1960s television series "Star Trek," and Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper.
Reactions around the Web ranged from capitalistically ecstatic:
"I think this is an example of American entrepreneurship at its best," Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's commercial crew and cargo program, said in a briefing before the launch.
To semi-grudging:
Admittedly, having seen the last two shuttle launches in person, we didn't know how we'd feel about watching this test of launch and rendezvous by Space Exploration Technologies, otherwise known as SpaceX. So we choose to keep our distance....SpaceX is neither future nor failure. Based on this recent launch, SpaceX is the necessary present.
If you're feeling the need to gird your loins for the new private space era now upon us, why not check out Reason's special space issue with all the answers.
Reason.tv: Joel Stein on His "Stupid Quest for Masculinity"
"I went into the book thinking that being a man, in reality, was about being loyal, and being present, and being honest," says Joel Stein, author of the new book, Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity. "And then I found out that's bullshit. Being a man is about being kneed in the face by [mixed-martial-arts fighter] Randy Couture."
Stein sat down with Reason's Tim Cavanaugh to discuss Man Made, for which he embarked on a journey to become more manly so that he can properly raise his newborn son. In writing the book, Stein hunted for the first time, became a day trader, endured Army boot camp, and wrestled Randy Couture.
"Each of these things I did actually made made me manlier," says Stein. "It gave me...more of a code to live by and it made me more confident, more capable."
About 6:30 minutes. Shot by Paul Detrick, Tracy Oppenheimer, and Zach Weissmueller. Edited by Weissmueller.
Visit http://reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications when new material goes live.
A. Barton Hinkle on Gary Johnson's Reputation
“When researchers announced the discovery of a
mountain taller than Everest on the asteroid Vesta, Gary
Johnson had already climbed it.” So said “Gary Johnson Facts”
on Twitter a while back, after noting that “A duck’s quack does not
echo. Gary Johnson is solely responsible for this
phenomenon.” Like Chuck Norris, who inspired this genre of
humor, Gary Johnson is not viewed with gravity by a great many
people these days. This is too bad, writes A. Barton Hinkle,
because—unlike Norris—he should be.
Cato Relaunches Police Misconduct Tracker, Assuring Regular Online Diet of Face-Stomping, Groin-Crushing ‘Professionalism’
This week
marks the official relaunch of the National Police Misconduct
Reporting Project under the auspices of the Cato Institute, taking over for the
now-defunct Injustice Everywhere blog.
David Packman, operator of Injustice Everywhere (a police abuse news feed that was a frequent source of tips for Reason.com), had announced in April that his blog was struggling. After mulling over his options, he announced in a goodbye blog entry last week he was handing the site and the duties over to the Cato Institute. Injusticeeverywhere.com now redirects to Cato’s site.
Tim Lynch, Cato’s director of their Project on Criminal Justice, is overseeing the blog now. The project’s Twitter feed (@NPMRP) is the best way to keep track of new abuse report links. This morning they have a link to a story at The Jersey Journal about a $185,000 excessive force settlement. They’ve got a form to report any misconduct reports they might have missed. They’ll also be compiling all the incidents into quarterly and annual statistical reports.
Below: Reason.tv on the outrage in Fullerton, Calif., by residents over their officers' violent beating of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas and his subsequent death.
NY Times Columnist: Glass-Steagall Wouldn't Have Prevented the JPMorgan Loss or the Financial Crisis
"Dealbook" columnisst Andrew Ross Sorkin
pokes a liberal sacred cow:
A meme around Glass-Steagall has been created, repeated so often that it has almost become conventional wisdom: the repeal of Glass-Steagall led to the financial crisis of 2008. And, the thinking goes, has become almost religious for some people, that if the law were reinstated, we would avoid the next crisis.
The facts — basic facts — just aren’t that convenient. While the repeal of Glass-Steagall has seemingly become the sine qua non of the financial crisis, it is pure historical revisionism. [...]
Glass-Steagall wouldn't have prevented the last financial crisis. And it probably wouldn't have prevented JPMorgan’s $2 billion-plus trading loss. The loss occurred on the commercial side of the bank, not at the investment bank. [...]
The first domino to nearly topple over in the financial crisis was Bear Stearns, an investment bank that had nothing to do with commercial banking. Glass-Steagall would have been irrelevant. Then came Lehman Brothers; it too was an investment bank with no commercial banking business and therefore wouldn't have been covered by Glass-Steagall either. After them, Merrill Lynch was next — and yep, it too was an investment bank that had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall.
Next in line was the American International Group, an insurance company that was also unrelated to Glass-Steagall. While we're at it, we should probably throw in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which similarly, had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall.
More in that vein
here. My favorite part of the column comes when Sorkin gets
Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren to reluctantly admit
that the restoration of Glass-Steagall probably would not have
prevented everything she likes to rail against, despite her
constant messaging to the contrary.
In my conversation with Ms. Warren she told me that one of the reasons she's been pushing reinstating Glass-Steagall — even if it wouldn't have prevented the financial crisis — is that it is an easy issue for the public to understand and "you can build public attention behind."
She added that she considers Glass-Steagall more of a symbol of what needs to happen to regulations than the specifics related to the act itself.
What the world needs less of: symbolic governance.
Reason came to similar conclusions about Glass-Steagall a little earlier in the debate.
UPDATE: I should point out, since commenters seem to be confused about it, that the "Elizabeth Warren says" image here was put there by me (note alt text), and is not an ingenious (or foolish) advertisement.
Reason Writers on The Alyona Show: Matt Welch Talks Cory Booker, Peter Thiel, and Big Government's Mutual Attraction With Lobbyists
On Monday, May 18 21, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch Appeared on the "Hangover" segment of The Alyona Show to talk about all of the above and more with co-panelist Jake Brewer:
Tim Cavanaugh on Why the GOP Is Losing
Why would a president who gave America vast
unemployment, soaring inflation, a moribund economy, record
deficits, and a manically ill-conceived energy policy be coasting
toward re-election? For the same reason, writes Tim Cavanaugh, that
an establishment Democrat like Sen. Dianne Feinstein is a lock for
re-election in California. Republicans have spent so long in
ideological hibernation that the only challengers they can field
are clones of the Democratic incumbents. And who would choose a
clone when you can buy the original?
Multi-Millionaire Tax Avoider Bono of U2: Only "brain-dead, heart-dead ideologues or professional controversialists" Are Against Government Aid For His Preferred Charities
As a longtime U2 fan -
and someone who shelled out hundreds of dollars to take my kids to
see Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, featuring music by Bono and The
Edge - I must acknowledge that the group's lead singer is a major
jackass.
Via Andrew Kirell of Mediaite comes this latest pearl of wisdom from tha artist formerly known as Paul Hewson:
Bono spoke to the crowd about Europe’s debt woes, conceding that “we’re broke.” He continued on to explain that during these tough economic times, when he goes busking for foreign aid in Western capital cities, “the word ‘aid’ sounds like an expletive. It’s like you brought a bad smell into the room.” But despite the resistance, Bono insists, “we need aid.”
“Of course we still need aid. Of course we do,” he declared. “Does anyone disagree? Anyone apart from brain-dead, heart-dead ideologues or professional controversialists? Come on. Every sensible person knows that.”
U2 famously bases some
of its business dealings in Holland to reduce its tax bill. Nothing
wrong with that, but it gets a bit rich when Bono, who admits that
Europe is broke, pushes for more overseas aid. What's especially
galling, I think, is that such aid hasn't worked so well so far. As
Kirell writes:
World Bank economic studies confirm that foreign aid actually does great harm because “higher aid levels erode the quality of governance.”
In the past 40 years, Western governments have given Africa more than half a trillion dollars in aid. Yet Africa is even poorer than it was before the money started rolling in. A study from the London School of Economics further confirms the failure of foreign aid. By reviewing the aid given to more than 95 countries, the study finds that ‘‘aid does not increase investment and growth, nor benefit the poor as measured by improvements in human development indicators, but it does increase the size of government.’’ Another comprehensive study by the IMF also found no relationship between aid and growth.
Foreign aid hasn’t accomplished its goals. Instead it has financed mostly authoritarian governments, whose destructive policies — trade protectionism, insurmountable licensing schemes, price and wage controls, nationalization of industries — have all been supported in some fashion by our foreign aid programs.
Kirell points to some things that actually do work. Read his piece here.
Land Use Wars: George Lucas Strikes Back
After a long battle to build a new studio facility on his ranch in Marin County, California, George Lucas has given up the fight. "We love working and living in Marin, but the residents of Lucas Valley have fought this project for 25 years, and enough is enough," the Star Wars director writes [pdf]. "Marin is a bedroom community and is committed to building subdivisions, not business." And so, in the spirit of building bedrooms, Lucas has announced a new plan for his land. The New York Times reports:
Mr. Lucas said he would sell the land to a developer to bring "low income housing" here.
"It's inciting class warfare," said Carolyn Lenert, head of the North San Rafael Coalition of Residents.
Mr. Lucas said in an e-mail that he only wanted "to do something good for Marin," waving away accusations of ulterior motives.
"I've been surprised to see some people characterize this as vindictive," he said, adding that there was a "real need" for affordable housing here. "I wouldn't waste my time or money just to try and upset the neighbors."
Whatever Mr. Lucas's intentions, his announcement has unsettled a county whose famously liberal politics often sits uncomfortably with the issue of low-cost housing and where battles have been fought over such construction before.
"If everyone feels that housing is less impactful on the land," Lucas explains in his statement, "then we are hoping that people who need it the most will benefit." A Lucasfilm official told the Times: "George, being the great guy that he is, doesn't want to build more housing for rich people since Marin is loaded with them."
Lucas hasn't always been a force for good in land-rights fights: His same statement that complains about the barriers to building on his property also complains that he wasn't able to put up similar barriers himself when a developer built a neighborhood nearby. But that's forgiven now. You have to appreciate a move that will simultaneously achieve four worthy goals: making housing more affordable for the poor, showing up the hypocrisies of the local limousine liberals, taking revenge (whether or not Lucas wants to call it that) on the people who restricted his property rights, and setting off a reaction that promises to be far more entertaining than any of the director's recent movies.
De Rugy: Why "Balanced" Austerity Isn't Helping Europe - And Why Spending Cuts Just Might
Instapundit points to Reason
columnist and Mercatus Center
economist Veronique de Rugy's recent post at National
Review's The Corner. It's her latest entry in an ongoing argument
about what counts as austerity policy for governments and what sort
of austerity is more likely to get a country's economy up and
running again.
Characters such as Paul Krugman keep saying that austerity - by which they usually mean significant cuts in government spending - has been tried in Europe and has simply tanked the economies over there (and here). De Rugy has consistently made a few related points that Krugman, folks at the Wash Post and Economist, and elsewhere, have gotten around to acknowledging. Most European countries tried what's called "a balanced approach" to reducing debt and deficits. That is, they raised taxes (rarely a good idea and a really bad one during a weak or contracting economy as it punishes activity) while either cutting relatively small amounts of spending or simply promising to cut spending while in fact raising it:
Tax increases (private-sector austerity), especially in times of economic contractions, are never a good idea or a good way to promote growth. That’s true even in a Keynesian model. Yet, we aren’t hearing anti-austerity advocates complain loudly that Europeans are raising taxes. Where are the headlines saying, “Europe needs to stop raising taxes”? Instead, we read that spending, and the lack of it, is to blame for austerity. Maybe that’s because acknowledging that austerity through spending cuts and tax increases has produced terrible results in Europe makes it hard to continue calling for tax increases–even if only on the rich–in the the US’s weak economy.
De Rugy has marshaled research showing that the better austerity plan is to cut spending, which shows a country is serious about reforming ruinous policies, while pursuing related policies that allow an economy to catch its breath ("easy monetary policy, liberalization of goods and labor markets, and other structural reforms"). Her post is especially timely, as various analysts are urging Germany, which spent a decade folding the fourth-world economy of the former GDR into its operations and then tackled structural reforms in a way that very few European countries have managed, to start stimulus spending to help Greece and other basket-case nations in the euro-zone.
De Rugy notes that there are limits to what monetary policy can accomplish - "it is mistake to oversell it and it certainly won’t achieve our long term goals without serious reductions is government spending" - which I think is right. We've had relatively easy monetary policy in the U.S. for a very long time, after all; what we haven't had is reduction in federal expenditures over the same period or clear signals that we're seriously pursuing the same.
Read her post, which includes great links to Scott Sumner's The Money Illusion blog, and watch this interview with her about European austerity and the failure of the "balanced approach" of tax hikes and little-to-no-spending cuts.
A.M. Links: NATO Gets Drones , Obama Pans Maximizing Profits, Pepper Spray Lawsuit Settled
NATO
closed the deal on purchasing five Global Hawk drones for its
“Allied Ground Surveillance” system, signing a $1.7 billion
contract with Northrop Grumman.- Iraq is buying drones, too, from the U.S. to patrol its oil fields and infrastructure. It may have even bought them already. "Iraq's navy has purchased U.S. drones to protect the country's oil platforms in the south, from where most of Iraq's oil is shipped," an unnamed Iraqi security official told Reuters.
- New Jersey’s Muslim leaders are returning to Trenton this week for a follow-up meeting with the state's Attorney General. They’ve demanded a formal investigation into what role New Jersey government agencies may have played in abetting the NYPD’s Muslim surveillance program in the state.
- Focus on “maximizing profits” is not always “good for communities or businesses or workers,” according to Barack Obama, who doubled down on his campaign’s Bain attacks at a press conference at the close of the NATO summit in Chicago yesterday, saying the issue “is what this campaign is going to be about.”
- The Prince George’s County Police Department settled a lawsuit filed by a mother and daughter for $400,000 after a traffic accident last year turned into a pepper spraying when the seventeen-year-old took a picture of the responding officer’s patrol car. The teenager was booked on assault but the officer never showed up to court so the charges were dismissed. He is on desk duty and has been treated at least twice for mental health issues since the incident.
- New research shows effects of a common crop chemical on pregnant rats lasting up to three generations. The researchers suggest a similar phenomenon could be occurring in humans. "There is no doubt that we have been seeing real increases in mental disorders like autism and bipolar disorder," lead author David Crews of the University of Texas said.
- SpaceX tries again.
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New at Reason.TV: "DC Capitol Hemp Shutting Down: Obama's War on Drugs to Blame"
Shikha Dalmia on Islamic Extremism and the Egyptian Presidential Election
There is no predestination in human affairs, so
it is impossible to predict what a post-Arab Spring Egypt will
ultimately look like. It might well degenerate into a totalitarian
theocracy more odious than the secular autocracy that the Egyptian
people overthrew, as some neoconservative worrywarts warn. But as
Shikha Dalmia observes, the run-up to the presidential election
this week suggests that Egyptians are desperately looking for a
system of checks and balances to keep authoritarians of every
stripe at bay. This itself is reason to be cautiously optimistic
about Egypt’s future.
Brickbat: He Had a Dream
Colorado's Meridian Ranch Elementary School held a "wax museum" day recently and asked students to come dressed as some historic figure. Second-grader Sean King decided to come as Martin Luther King Jr., so he put on a suit and a fake mustache. And since, King is white, he decided to use makeup to darken his face. One faculty member complained the "blackface" was offensive. So the principal ordered him to remove the makeup or leave school. King's parents opted to take him home.
In an Echo of Vietnam Protests, Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Throw Back Medals During the Chicago NATO Protests
Via The Guardian, here's April 23, 1971 where hundreds of classic hippie-looking folks who were once fighting in Vietnam threw back their medals from that war and did things like call those medals "a bunch of bullshit." One said, "I got a purple heart here and I hope I get another one fighting these motherfuckers."
And here is Sunday in Chicago where a more diverse group (at least, there were multiple ladies, though a few mothers apparently joined in the '71 protest in honor of their deceased sons) of around 50 veterans who repeated that symbolic gesture. They threw their medals earned in Afghanistan and Iraq back in the general direction of NATO. Some apologized to the people of those countries as they did so. One said "I don't want any part of this anymore. I chose human life over war, militarism and imperialism."
The protesters included Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen who was famously injured last October during the Occupy Oakland protests. Olsen was hit in the head with a tear gas canister that was possibly purposefully aimed at him by police, leaving him with a traumatic brain injury. Olsen once thought he was doing good as a soldier, but "I came back to reality," he said before throwing his medals. "I don't want these anymore."
There are plenty of reasons to scorn most protesters, and Reason has aimed a fairly critical eye towards the Occupy movement of late. But there's being wrong on economics, and then there is this same story of veterans making that "not easy decision" after years of souring towards, what this vet referred to as "the most important experience of your entire life." Indeed, how hard it must be "to say that I was wrong."
Back in 1917, gifted British soldier and poet, as well as victim of shellshock Siegfried Sassoon was thought to have thrown his Military Cross into the Mersey River. Turns out he may have only thrown the ribbon, though he definitely expressed his anger at what "the war to end all wars" had turned into. He was nearly court martialed for it.
Though they chose to join the military as well, these men and women have seen actual wars. So the fact that they are protesting rings a little more true than most shows of in the streets, marching outrage. A 180 turnabout always cuts a little deeper than a professional agitator does. Vets who go rogue-hippie (and some of the 2012 ones look so similar to the ones from '71, hippie-beards and sorrowful anger and all) are more than weekend radicals advocating for Fidel Castro, or frees stuff, or any of the usual offenders and parades of naive pests who show up at every protest.
Veterans were told, as we all are to greater and lesser degree by the propaganda in the air, that the best thing you can do is to join the military. Their feeling of betrayal, that they ended up on different missions than ones of liberation or freedom like they were promised, is palpable. Like cops in Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, these soldiers should be listened to because they have been in the thick of what they now despise. And then they get abandoned by the bureaucratic mess that is the military, to deal with their nasty mental health problems, leading to more of them committing suicide than have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
At least these folks are not basing their disapproval of the wars on who is in the White House.
Obama discussed on Monday, the last day of the summit, that in 2014 the Afghanis will have to run their own country. Except that just means that American troops will be "largely" withdrawn. The Afghan armed forces will have help "training" for another ten years after that. A May A.P. poll noted that 66 percent of Americans now disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, suggesting that these medal-tossing vets are not entirely alone.
And it's not like everything is all fixed up in Iraq, either, now that the U.S. is all gone. Except for that embassy, that is.
Reason on the anti-war movement and on Occupy, And Reason.tv on "What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?"
Cop Doing “God’s Work” Threatens to Face-Rape Petty Crook
NYPD Sgt. Lesly Charles wants Brooklyn men to know his dick is bigger than theirs, and he’s not afraid to use it to get them to stop parking their cars illegally.
A rant by Charles back in April was captured by cellphone video and provided to the New York Post by the target of the sergeant’s ire:
The footage includes Charles berating a young man in the roadway near a silver BMW, telling him: “This is my street. All right? If you got to play tough, that’s your problem . . . I do whatever the f--k I want.”
A short time later, Charles followed the group into the nearby No. 1 Chinese Food restaurant, flanked by two plainclothes cops.
“I have the long d--k. You don’t,” the cop bragged.
“Your pretty face — I like it very much. My d--k will go in your mouth and come out your ear. Don’t f--k with me. All right?”
The unidentified 21-year-old who shot the video was arrested later and charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to leave. According to the Post, the man with the pretty face Charles would like to fuck has been arrested more than 20 times for petty larceny, weapons, and marijuana charges (though there’s no information whether he was convicted or pleaded guilty to any of them).
Charles is now under investigation by the City’s Civilian Complaint Board. Reached by the Post, Charles said only, “I’m just doing God’s work. You know I can’t comment ... Have a blessed day.”
Enjoy the video below (bleeped for your sensitive ears).
Another Botched ObamaCare Estimate
Business groups have complained bitterly about
the costs imposed by the president's 2010 health care overhaul, and
the administration has often responded by insisting that in fact
there are
provisions in the law designed to help business: for instance,
the small business tax credit, which last year the administration
predicted would provide "an estimated $6 billion in premium
relief in 2010 to 2011." The Department of Health and Human
Services pointed to a Commonwealth Fund study estimating that more
than 16 million workers would be eligible for the tax credits under
the law.
But elgiibility does not mean accessibility, and neither the savings nor the number of projected beneficiaries have matched early predictions. The value of the credits claimed so far is just $468 million, according to a Government Accountability Office study released today. The number of employees who worked for businesses that claimed the tax, meanwhile, was about 770,000.
Why the lower-than-expected utilization? The GAO report suggests that initial estimates overestimated the popularity of the credit in part because they didn't account for either the complexity of the eligibility rules or the large amount of time needed to calculate the exact value of the credit (remember, this is a credit for small businesses that probably aren't generally interested in investing lots of time or effort in tax prep).
The law's backers, in other words, underestimated the complexity involved with complying with the law and thus underestimated the accessibility of the benefits they thought they were handing out. I suspect we'll see more of this as implementation continues.
This certainly isn't the first time the law's early projections have proven wrong. The law's $5 billion early retiree program handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to government unions and big employers and had to be shut down early (the administration decided to declare this a "success"). Enrollment in the law's high-risk pools for individuals with preexisting conditions has been dramatically lower than expected, with about 61,000 enrollees versus the 375,000-plus projected, while per-member costs have come in at double initial estimates.
The lesson going forward, then, is one that should be familiar by now: When it comes to ObamaCare, don't trust the optimistic spending or utilization estimates touted by the administration. We don't always know how they'll go awry, but it's a pretty good guess that the original estimates won't match the practical outcomes.
Asset Forfeiture: “A Process of Government Enrichment That Often Is Indistinguishable from Robbery”
The case of United States of America v. 434 Main Street Street, Tewksbury, Massachusetts is currently awaiting trial in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. At issue is an attempt by the federal government, acting in cooperation with local law enforcement, to use federal asset forfeiture law to seize a family business, the Motel Caswell, because a tiny fraction of the motel’s guests have been arrested for drug crimes over the past two decades. In his latest Washington Post column, George Will comes out swinging against this case of government abuse:
The Caswells have not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime. They are being persecuted by two governments eager to profit from what is antiseptically called the “equitable sharing” of the fruits of civil forfeiture, a process of government enrichment that often is indistinguishable from robbery....
Since 1994, about 30 motel customers have been arrested on drug-dealing charges. Even if those police figures are accurate — the police have a substantial monetary incentive to exaggerate — these 30 episodes involved less than 5/100ths of 1 percent of the 125,000 rooms Caswell has rented over those more than 6,700 days. Yet this is the government’s excuse for impoverishing the Caswells by seizing this property, which is their only significant source of income and all of their retirement security.
The government says the rooms were used to “facilitate” a crime. It does not say the Caswells knew or even that they were supposed to know what was going on in all their rooms all the time. Civil forfeiture law treats citizens worse than criminals, requiring them to prove their innocence — to prove they did everything possible to prevent those rare crimes from occurring in a few of those rooms. What counts as possible remains vague. The Caswells voluntarily installed security cameras, they photocopy customers’ identifications and record their license plates, and they turn the information over to the police, who have never asked the Caswells to do more.
Read the rest of Will’s column here. For more on asset-forfeiture abuse, see Radley Balko’s 2010 Reason feature “The Forfeiture Racket.”
Reason Writers on TV: Brian Doherty Talks Ron Paul and Ron Paul's Revolution on the RT Network
On Friday, as you can tell by the backdrop speaking from surprisingly mild and pleasant Manhattan, New York City, USA, I talk of the continued energetic relevance of Ron Paul and his fans moving forward, and accurately predict his weekend win in Minnesota:
My new book, Ron Paul's Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired.
What the World is Coming To: Teen's Pancreatic Cancer Diagnostic Wins $75,000 Intel Prize
Jack Andraka, 15, won top prize at this year's
Intel International Science and Engineering fair for his new method
to detect pancreatic cancer. As the Intel press release
notes:
Based on diabetic test paper, Jack created a simple dip-stick sensor to test blood or urine to determine whether or not a patient has early-stage pancreatic cancer. His study resulted in over 90 percent accuracy and showed his patent-pending sensor to be 28 times faster, 28 times less expensive and over 100 times more sensitive than current tests. Jack received the Gordon E. Moore Award, named in honor of Intel co-founder and retired chairman and CEO of $75,000.
The Washington Post adds that a patent is pending for the test. Andraka's test is a true dianostic breakthrough since there are currently no non-invasive tests for detecting pancreatic cancer. Early detection of this cancer would be a boon to patients since the five-year survival rate for localized pancreatic cancer is 23 percent. While that doesn't sound great, it's a hell of a lot better than the 5 percent overall five-year survival rate for patients diagnosed with the disease.
Hearty congratulations to Mr. Andraka and also to the other 400 participants who won prizes in the competition.
Taping Cops Gains Support, NJ Considers Decriminalizing Dope, Greeks Maneuver For Next Election: P.M. Links
Feel like you've been chatting
on a party line? It may be for good reason. The U.S. Supreme Court
has
agreed to hear arguments in an ACLU challenge to warrantless
wiretaps of international phone calls and emails. The justices will
decide whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue.- After slamming as "nauseating" the Obama campaign's attack on private equity firms (as well as Mitt Romney's attack ads), Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker, a rising star in the Democratic Party, is carefully trying to reframe his criticisms.
- Dharun Ravi, who used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate who then killed himself amidst the resulting embarrassing exposure, was sentenced to 30 days in jail plus three years probation.
- Courts are increasingly pushing back against efforts to ban recording police while they perform their official duties, and even the U.S. Department of Justice is backing the right of individuals to tape cops.
- With reports surfacing that Greece has been threatened with expulsion from the eurozone, the conservative New Democracy party and the small, free-market Democratic Alliance are joining forces in an effort to outmaneuver surging socialists.
- The New Jersey Assembly's judiciary committee gave thumbs-up to a bill that would decriminalize possession of 15 grams or less of marijuana, so that those found in possession would face only relatively small fines.
- NATO summit protesters allege they were mistreated by police after their arrest during a raid staged before the gathering. "For 18 hours, we were handcuffed to a bench and our legs were shackled together. Some of our cries for the bathroom were either ignored or met with silence."
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Ira Stoll on Eduardo Saverin and Echoes of the Reichsfluchtsteuer
The Reichsfluchsteuer, or Reich
flight tax, that the Nazis imposed on Jews trying to flee in the
1930s was 25 percent; Mr. Schumer and his Senate
colleague Bob Casey, writes Ira Stoll, want Facebook
co-founder Eduardo Saverin to pay 30 percent.
Palm Beach Deputy Sheriff “Forced” to Shoot Unarmed Man Checking In on Family Business
Seth Adams was shot to death by a police officer on his way home last Wednesday night. As usual, police officials say the officer was “forced” to shoot the unarmed 24-year-old. Here’s how the Palm Beach Post described the encounter, from the police point of view:
As Seth Adams drove his truck home to Loxahatchee Groves from a bar Wednesday night, he saw a man in a car parked in the lot of his family's business.
He lowered his window. The man did the same.Adams said something like, "What are you doing here?" Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at a news conference Friday about the incident, in which Adams died from gunshot wounds.
The man in the other car was Sgt. Michael Custer, who was doing surveillance [in an unmarked vehicle]. Custer, Bradshaw said, made it clear he was a law enforcement officer. He was dressed in a black sheriff's tactical-unit shirt and showed Adams his badge.
"There's no doubt that the sergeant made every effort to make sure this guy knew he was a deputy sheriff," Bradshaw said.
Both men got out of their vehicles. Adams lunged at Custer and tried to choke him. Custer got away and ordered Adams to the ground. Adams didn't comply, Bradshaw said.
Instead, Adams went to his truck and appeared to be trying to get something out of it, Bradshaw said. After ignoring more orders to get to the ground, Adams turned and faced Custer, a 14-year veteran.
Custer fired at the 24-year-old, who died at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach.
Bradshaw helpfully added: "There's only two witnesses here: the suspect and the deputy. And the suspect was not able to be interviewed. Why he decided to assault the deputy? We may never know that."
The police officer is on paid administrative leave, standard operating procedure when an officer is involved in a deadly shooting. A vigil was held in Palm Beach Sunday, where residents were not convinced by the police version of events. A state’s attorney will decide whether the shooting was justified.
No further details are available right now as to what exactly the police officer was surveilling in the parking lot of Adams’ family’s business, a garden store whose website now includes a link to a petition demanding a fair investigation into the killing of Seth Adams.
One customer of the family business described Adams: “He kind of went out of his way to talk to me and he just seemed like a great guy, very passive person, a kindred spirit," a description matched by other friends and family quoted throughout press reports. He was also, however, arrested in 2007 on narcotics charges. We know this because it seems every time the cops shoot and kill someone, the victims’ criminal record, no matter how minute, is aired. As for the cop, though he remains unidentified, the police department has noted he’s won numerous awards and never been involved in a shooting before.
Bonus points: The sheriff won't even say how many times the deputy shot Adams (four times, according to his family). Nevertheless, he's certain the deputy was right
Supreme Court Will Hear Arguments Over Warrantless Wiretaps
The
federal government has long claimed the authority to paw through
our personal communications in search of something that
threatens the broadly-defined public good and just might get the
current crop of officeholders hailed as saviors of the moment (was
that too cynical?). One loophole the feds claim to have found is an
exception to the Fourth Amendment for any communication that
crosses an international boundary. Without bothering with warrants,
they've happily been listening in on phone calls and reading emails
when one party to the exchange is located outside the United
States. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a challenge to
that policy.
Says the American Civil Liberties Union:
The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to consider whether plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union have the right to challenge the constitutionality of a controversial law that authorizes the National Security Agency to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international emails and phone calls.
At issue is an appeals court ruling that allowed the ACLU’s challenge to the law – called the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 – to move forward.
“The appeals court properly recognized that our clients have a reasonable basis to fear that the government may be monitoring their conversations, even though it has no reason to suspect them of having engaged in any unlawful activities,” said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU’s deputy legal director and lead counsel in the case. “The constitutionality of the government’s surveillance powers can and should be tested in court. We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will agree.”
The U.S. government argues that the plaintiffs should have to prove their calls have been monitored before they can sue — but that the government has no obligation to reveal who has been wiretapped. Should the court accept this line of reasoning, it would present certain ... challenges to anybody caring to file suit. And in the absence of recourse to the courts, there's really no limit on the federal government's ability to listen in. The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out the problem not too long ago:
Former member of the Obama administration’s Office of Legal Counsel Marty Lederman explains section 702 of the FAA “permits the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and a foreign location, without making any showing to a court and without judicial oversight, whether or not the communication has anything to do with al Qaeda—indeed, even if there is no evidence that the communication has anything to do with terrorism, or any threat to national security.” All told, the “collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications” every day, according to the Washington Post.
But according to Holder, since secret FISA courts approve executive branch requests to collect “identified categories of foreign intelligence targets, without the need for a court order for each individual subject,” the law is “subject to appropriate checks and balances.” Given it targets large swaths of email—much of which undoubtedly involves Americans with little recourse to challenge the surveillance—due process is lacking from the entire procedure. And after the collection, the government has fought any judicial overview at all.
In fact, says the EFF, "the government has argued even if all the allegations of warrantless wiretapping are true, that the plaintiffs cannot challenge the constitutionality of FISA because exposing the program in court would compromise national security."
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government's arguments last year. That means the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the government's appeal, and at stake is not just the ACLU's case, but a small vestige of our ability to ask for due process before our privacy is violated by the federal government.
Wired Tours Patent Trolling Company Founded by Microsoft, Apple
In January, Reason Science
Correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote about a
consortium of tech firms that included Microsoft and Apple
paying $4.5 billion for a portfolio of thousands of patents. The
purchase followed Google’s snapping up of Motorola Mobility’s
25,000 patents for $12.5 billion. As Bailey wrote at the time, the
patent purchases were part of a complicated, expensive, and
counterproductive “nuclear standoff” between various tech firms in
a legal game of patent trolling deterrence.
Today Robert McMillan at Wired takes readers inside this patent cold war and the inevitable anti-innovation fallout. Microsoft, Apple, Research in Motion, Sony and Ericsson are putting those patents to use in a specialized company, called Rockstar Consortium:
The 32-person outfit has a single-minded mission: It examines successful products, like routers and smartphones, and it tries to find proof that these products infringe on a portfolio of over 4,000 technology patents once owned by one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies.
When a Rockstar engineer uncovers evidence of infringement, the company documents it, contacts the manufacturer, and demands licensing fees for the patents in question. The demand is backed by the implicit threat of a patent lawsuit in federal court. Eight of the company’s staff are lawyers. In the last two months, Rockstar has started negotiations with as many as 100 potential licensees. And with control of a patent portfolio covering core wireless communications technologies such as LTE (Long Term Evolution) and 3G, there is literally no end in sight.
Rockstar CEO John Veschi gives Wired the perfect quote to anybody wanting to see patent reform in the United States: “Pretty much anybody out there is infringing, I would think. It would be hard for me to envision that there are high-tech companies out there that don’t use some of the patents in our portfolio.” Rockstar hasn’t filed any lawsuits as yet, but Veschi expects to.
Creating a special company entirely for the purpose of sniffing out any potential violations also helps protect the tech giants from some patent war consequences:
Rockstar is a special kind of company. Because it doesn’t actually make anything, it can’t be countersued in patent cases. That wouldn’t be the case with Apple or Microsoft if they had kept the patents for themselves. And because it’s independent, it can antagonize its owners’ partners and customers in ways that its owner companies could not. “The principals have plausible deniability,” says Thomas Ewing, an attorney and intellectual property consultant. “They can say with a straight face: ‘They’re an independent company. We don’t control them.’ And there’s some truth to that.”
And while these big boys are battling each other for market domination, the threat of patent suits or the possibility of unexpected licensing fees is keeping small, developing innovators from accessing America’s consumer base. Julie Samuels of the Electronic Frontier Foundation hears from them regularly:
“The creation of these conglomerations of patents … what this does is create a barrier to entry for the little guy. It makes it so much harder to break into the market if you are a creator or an innovator.”
From our July 2010 issue, Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, explains how our modern patent system damages enterprise rather than advances it.
Penn Jillette, on Obama Locking Up People for Doing the Same Drugs He Did: "It's not a goddamn joke!"
Our favorite magician has uncorked one hell of a righteous rant about our pot-smoking president and his life-destroying Drug War hypocrisy:
Amen.
Re-read Jacob Sullum's October 2011 cover story: "Bummer: Barack Obama turns out to be just another drug warrior." And re-watch Nick Gillespie's Reason.tv interview with Jillette below:
How to Get Into the White House: Bring a Lobbyist
Want a meeting at the White House? Find a
lobbyist. Better yet, be one.
The Washington Post mines the Obama White House's visitor logs with predictable results:
The visitor logs for Jan. 17 — one of the most recent days available — show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access.
More than any president before him, Obama pledged to change the political culture that has fueled the influence of lobbyists. He barred recent lobbyists from joining his administration and banned them from advisory boards throughout the executive branch. The president went so far as to forbid what had been staples of political interaction — federal employees could no longer accept free admission to receptions and conferences sponsored by lobbying groups.
“A lot of folks,” Obama said last month, “see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count.”
The White House visitor records make it clear that Obama’s senior officials are granting that access to some of K Street’s most influential representatives. In many cases, those lobbyists have long-standing connections to the president or his aides. Republican lobbyists coming to visit are rare, while Democratic lobbyists are common, whether they are representing corporate clients or liberal causes.
Lobbyists, it turns out, aren’t merely regular visitors to the court. They are also its gatekeepers:
Andrew Menter, the chief executive of Vivature Health, said that Downey helped set up a meeting for him in December 2010 with Michael Hash, a top health-policy official. The group discussed how the new health-care law might affect Menter’s business, a Texas-based company that provides billing services for college health programs.
“The whole process was interesting for me. It’s a little scary,” Menter said. “You need a lobbyist to get a meeting.”
Is it any surprise that an administration which presided over wholesale regulatory overhauls of multiple major sectors of the economy, that allowed budgets for regulatory agencies grow by 16 percent and employment at those agencies grow by 13 percent to some 281,000 souls, that added regulations to the books costing businesses more than $46 billion each and every year — in addition to $11 billion in start-up costs — would also be so close with the professional influence peddlers it claims to despise? Indeed, in the Obama White House lobbyists are not only guests, they are part of the president’s team: Despite Obama’s promise to employ no lobbyists, the administration has, by Washington Examiner columnist Timothy Carney’s count, hired at least 50. Under Obama’s watch, the executive branch has crafted 95 percent as many rules as Bush — and the overall cost has been greater.
The consequences of this approach — decrying lobbying on the one hand while making their influence more valuable on the other — are all too clear clear. Rules and regulations empower lobbyists by making access and influence more valuable: The more a business’ interests are tied up in regulatory minutiae, and the more regulations cost any given industry, the more those industries will invest in influencing the rule makers. Inevitably, that means special treatment for the administration’s friends and allies, a preference for those it knows and likes over those it doesn’t. Want to reduce the value and influence of corporate lobbying on government? Reduce the influence of government on the private sector.
Don't Read This W/ Netscape: Google Chrome Now Most Popular Web Browser, MSIE Second, Firefox Third
Via
Business Insider comes news that Google Chrome is the most
popular browser on teh Intertubes (with a 32.8 percent market
share), followed by Microsoft Explorer (31.9 percent) and then
Mozilla Firefox (25 percent, and getting suckier every single day,
it seems, at least to me).
As it happens, I finally got around to installing Explorer 9 after years of never looking at the World Wide Web through anything other than Chrome (and occasionally Firefox). I was an Explorer stalwart long after the browser had become a pretty buggy piece of junk, though I had consciously demoted it to a distant second place after Chrome debuted for Windows (what was that, back in late 2008?). I'm not sure why I stuck with Explorer as long as I did or why I ditched it so thoroughly, but who knows why people do the things they do, right?
Back in 2001, Reason published a great story (and a godawful cover!) about how most (if not all) federal antitrust actions are misguided at best and totally irrelevant to consumers at worst - even while they can be costly to companies, which ultimately costs consumers money too. Among the "greatest hits" the authors recounted was the government's attack of Standard Oil back when John D. Rockefeller's market behemoth was selling oil more cheaply than it ever had - and was about to get its ass kicked due to a shift from kerosene to gasoline.
It's hard to remember these days that Microsoft got in trouble for "bundling" its web browser with its operating system back when it released Windows 95. But that move - clearly designed with the customer in mind - was seen as a dangerous restraint of trade that was somehow supposed to make it impossible for other browsers to compete (despite the fact that everyone I knew back then simply used Explorer to download Netscape or whatever they wanted and then went on their way). Dave Kopel and Joe Bast reminded us
A group of Microsoft's competitors -- Netscape, Oracle, Sun, and MCI -- urged government action so that Microsoft would not "gain control of the Internet," arguing that suppressing Microsoft would "ensure the accessibility and affordability of information technology and the Internet." Netscape's Jim Clark offered a similar warning regarding Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer: "If Microsoft owns the browser as well as the operating system, there will be no Yahoo!, no Infoseek, no Excite, just Bill standing at the gate, pointing out where he wants to go. Microsoft will be the one and only 'portal'." Sun's Scott McNealy fretted: "How are you going to compete if Microsoft won't put you on the Microsoft Shopping Center -- which will be the opening screen of everyone's computer?"
What indeed? And who the hell is MCI again? In late 2001, after about three years of trialing, the antitrust case was settled in a pretty grand anticlimax. The settlement allowed Microsoft to keep Explorer on the boot-up screen most users saw. Depending on what sort of Wintel (nostalgia!) machine you bought, you might also have seen a bunch of other preloaded crap that you could fire up or ignore, or even delete.
So here we are, a decade on from the big Microsoft settlement. Does anyone think that the antitrust settlement is the reason why Explorer faded from prominence? Or explains why Netscape is a dim (but happy!) memory to most webheads? Or is that creative destruction that we hear about so much more responsible?
Hat tip on Chrome story: Cathy Reisenwitz
Robin Gibb, R.I.P.
One of the loveliest and strangest voices of the pop era, and part of a songwriting team that more or less carried the record industry on its back circa 1977-79, has died. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, dead at 62 of colon and liver cancer.
The Bee Gees were lovely and weird orch-pop, totally slammin' R & B and disco, and certainly among the most gifted melodists of the modern pop era all the way. They wrote more good songs than most of us have had good meals in our lives, most likely, and deserve way more respect than the disco backlash has gotten them.
Rolling Stone with a decent basic obit.
My essay on the meaning of the death of a Bee Gee from February 2003 after Robin's twin Maurice Gibb died, "Death Before Disco."
I wrote about Robin's freakout of a first solo LP during the Bee Gees brief early '70s breakup, Robin's Reign, in the great book Lost in the Grooves, an encyclopedia of neglected pop mastepieces.
Some of the Bee Gees' most perfect moments through the years:
At their intense weird scariest proto-indie-orch-pop madness, "Holiday" from 1967 :
"Nights" on m-f'in "Broadway". What can one say? Rare live on Midnight Special, 1975:
How many melodic hooks can one song have? A whole bunch when the Bee Gees wrote it. "Love You Inside Out," 1979:
Even at their end, 2001, they still had it. "This is Where I Came In":
Failed Strategies On Repeat in Yemen
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that at least 20 U.S. special operations forces are in Yemen. Reuters reported yesterday that one of these soldiers has been seriously wounded after being shot near Hudaida. These troops are principally in Yemen to provide the Yemeni government support in its operations against Al-Qaeda. The presence of U.S. military personnel in Yemen is only the latest escalation of the War on Terror, and there is little indication that the airstrikes that these troops are assisting in actually provide any incentive for Islamic fundamentalists to stop killing Americans, or are as accurate and civilian-friendly as the administration likes to claim.
According to Business Insider, the number of U.S. troops in Yemen is expected to rise. There were American troops in Yemen for some time, but they were withdrawn during the Arab Spring. However, the recent terror plots that have been organized and launched from Yemen have provided an incentive for a renewed involvement in the region.
What is most disturbing about the situation in Yemen is that the administration admits that there is no strategy other than killing as many Al-Qaeda operatives as possible. That such a strategy has been tried for over ten years in Afghanistan and Pakistan without any tangible reduction in Al-Qaeda’s ability to conduct acts of terrorism seems to have escaped the powers that be. It should not fill anyone with confidence that last week Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, remarked that, “None of us know where this is going.” Nor should it reassure Americans that Major General Kenneth Tovo, head of U.S. Central Command’s special operations force, said that the Yemeni army “will receive the necessary support that would enable it to destroy al Qaeda," Considering that the Yemeni Army still uses weapons supplied to it by the Soviet Union in the 1960s it is likely that many more troops will be needed than the twenty or so already in Yemen in order to “destroy al Qaeda.”
Any offensive against Al Qaeda in Yemen will almost certainly involve drone strikes that (contrary to popular belief) kill many civilians and encourage more anti-Americanism that Al-Qaeda can exploit.
In 2010, Obama said that he had “no intention of sending U.S. boots on the ground” to Yemen. Our recent adventures in Yemen provide yet more examples of not only how fickle the President’s foreign policy has been, but also how fruitless strategies are being blindly recycled in the ‘War on Terrorism’.
The Book of Anti-Mormon
Jeremy Lott on the politics of anti-Mormonism:
Anti-Mormonism played a highly exaggerated role in Romney's defeat four years ago....That heavily evangelical Republican primary voters didn't buy into his candidacy right away does not mean that they were passing judgment on Romney's religion. There were plenty of reasons not to vote for him that had nothing to do with his religion. He was considered a centrist from Massachusetts in a party that is more conservative and now has a Southern base. Romney had learned his moderation in the cradle. His father, auto exec and Michigan governor George Romney, had been the preferred candidate of the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party against Richard Nixon in 1968.
Mitt Romney flip-flopped and zigzagged a lot and then shamelessly turned around and attacked people for taking the very positions he used to hold. This enraged his primary opponents. Their political consultants found that one of the best ways to attack him was with robocalls that simply replayed Romney's old words to would-be voters. They could quote him distancing himself from President Reagan, say, or endorsing insurance mandates, or huffily and unambiguously endorsing the right to abortion.
Few of the reasons shouted publicly or whispered privately against Romney four years ago had a thing to do with his Mormonism. At best, it was a sweetener for evangelical voters: "Vote for Huckabee/McCain/Fred Thompson because he agrees with us and, by the way, he's not a Mormon." Many Romney backers refused to admit their candidate's own qualities had something to do with his loss. They blamed the whole tackle box on anti-Mormon bigotry and worried that persistent prejudice would prevent Romney from running a successful campaign in the future.
Go here to read the whole piece, which discusses the current race as well as the last one. And stay tuned to Reason for more on the subject: I have an article coming up in the August/September issue arguing that, despite some high-profile moments of anti-Mormon bigotry on the campaign trail, by historical standards Mormonism enjoys a high level of acceptance in America today. Strange stories about the church still circulate, but we are a long way from the days when the popular perception of the faith featured a wild mélange of mind control, assassinations, secret sexual lodges, and conspiracies to subvert the republic.
Ron Paul, Still Running for President, Wins Minnesota
Just like he told you, Ron Paul is continuing to rack up delegates and outright state wins in his continuing race for the Republican Party presidential nomination. In the Minnesota state Republican Party convention on Saturday, he came out controlling 32 of 40 delegates from the state.
The Park Rapids Enterprise reports on how Paul, who showed up to talk to his people at the convention the day before the final delegate vote, was received:
To chants of “President Paul,” 2,000 Minnesota convention delegates welcomed the Texas congressman and presidential candidate.
“There are a lot of friends of liberty in this town,” Paul said....
U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills endorsed Paul and Paul endorsed Bills. The Senate candidate said he will continue to back Paul until he is out of the race.
Several convention observers said that while Paul was well received, they did not hear probable Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney mentioned during the day-long convention.
Paul, who finished second to Rick Santorum in this year’s precinct caucuses, told the Republicans that it is not just their party that latches onto his ideas.
“It is much, much bigger than this,” he added, saying that independents “and even Democrats” support his ideas.
Things have changed for Paul since 2008 as his liberty movement grows:
Paul’s Friday appearance was in stark contrast to four years ago, when he was banned from speaking to the Minnesota convention in Rochester. Instead, he talked in a light rain outside the convention center.
Many of the 2,000 convention delegates attended a state event for the first time.
A Paul campaign press release sums up all the good news for the campaign over the weekend, in a long game that extends beyond Tampa in August:
In Minnesota, Paul organizers won a decisive 12 of 13 delegates to the RNC at the Rivers Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud, wrapping up the North Star State’s two-tier nominating contest. Earlier this spring, Paul supporters won 20 of 24 delegates at district conventions. In all, the Paul camp has swept the state of Minnesota winning 32 of the state’s 40 national delegates.
In addition to Paul’s consequential victory in Minnesota, Paul organizers won delegates in Mitt Romney’s home state of Michigan. There, Paul supporters estimate that they have won eight voting slots plus one non-voting delegate and 11 alternates. Of the 14 Congressional District voting contests held this weekend, Paul organizers won RNC delegates in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 9th Districts, denying Detroit-born Romney a clean sweep of his home state. The Michigan victory occurred despite a heavy Romney campaign presence promoting a win for the establishment pick and presumptive nominee.
At the Vermont Republican State Convention this weekend, Ron Paul supporters won two of 14 national delegates, with two more considered potential allies, and they won 10 of 14 alternates. In all, Vermont has 17 delegates including super delegates.
Finally in Virginia, 11 district conventions have been taking place in recent weeks and have ended this weekend. In those contests Ron Paul supporters won 17 of 33 national delegates selected, with the remainder of the state’s 49 delegates including super delegates to be selected at the June 16th state convention. Also in Virginia, Paul supporters elected a Republican Congressional District Chair in the Third District, over a dozen liberty-oriented Republican State Central Committee Members five of whom are Ron Paul supporters, dozens of Republican county and city committee chairs, and hundreds of county and city committee members.
From the Alaska Dispatch via Christian Science Monitor, a fair summation of where the campaign stands now:
[I]n Minnesota Saturday[,]“The Paul crowd pulled off a bloodless coup,” the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. “Unlike other states where brawls broke out between Paul fans and Romney supporters, the Minnesota convention was a relatively civil affair. There were no fistfights or shouting matches on the convention floor.”
In a nutshell, that sums up what Rep. Paul needs to do as the Republican Party works its way toward the nominating convention in August: Keep supporters of his “revolution” revved up, laying the groundwork for what he hopes will be a prominent role in Tampa, Fla., while not coming across as a political curmudgeon trying to undermine the candidacy of presumed front-runner Mitt Romney (with whom, it’s been reported, he has a good personal relationship).....
"The ball is in the court of the Republican Party and the court of Mitt Romney," Jesse Benton, national chairman of Paul's campaign, told reporters this past week. "We're bringing forward an attitude of respect, and we're also bringing forward some very specific things that we believe in. If our people are treated with respect, if our ideas, their ideas are embraced and treated seriously and treated with respect, I think the Republican Party will have a very good chance to pick up a substantial number of our votes."
"On the flip side," Benton warned, "if they're treated like they were in 2008, a lot of people are going to stay home and a lot of people are going to sit on their hands."....
“Ron Paul started what his supporters call a revolution,” Maggie Haberman and Emily Shultheis observe on Politico.com. “Now, that revolution is threatening to march on without him.”
Which seems to be exactly what Paul wants.
My April Reason cover story on "The Ron Paul Moment." My article last week on why the GOP must mind Ron Paul. My new book, Ron Paul's Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired.
Cross-posted at dedicated blog/site for Ron Paul's Revolution.
Dharun Ravi Gets 30-Day Jail Sentence, Plus Probation
Today a New
Jersey judge sentenced
Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail, plus three years of probation, 300
hours of community service, and a $10,000 "assessment," for the
"colossal insensitivity" he showed by using a webcam to spy on his
Rutgers University roommate, Tyler Clementi, while the latter was
making out with another man, and for seeking to conceal his actions
from police. Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Glenn
Berman said he would recommend that Ravi, a legal resident who
came to the U.S. when he was 5, not be deported (although that's
not his call). Since Ravi was convicted of invading Clementi's
privacy with the intent of intimidating him because of his sexual
orientation, he faced a possible sentence of five to 10 years, with
a presumption of a prison term except when it would result in a
"serious injustice." Berman concluded that the mitigating
factors—including Ravi's clean record, the unlikelihood that he
will commit another offense, and his failure to anticipate the
emotional impact of his actions—outweighed the aggravating factors.
He emphasized that Ravi was not charged with complicity in
Clementi's suicide, which occurred a few days after the spying
incident.
More to come.
Previous coverage of the case here.
Addendum: Although Berman noted that "the defendant is not charged with causing or contributing to Tyler's death," it is unlikely that Ravi would have been charged at all, let alone with a crime punishable by 10 years in prison, if Clementi had not jumped off the George Washington Bridge on September 22, 2010. Addressing the court before sentencing, the defendant's father and his lawyer, Steven Altman, both argued that Ravi was being punished for driving Clementi to kill himself, and they complained that Berman had not allowed the admission of evidence (presumably including Clementi's suicide note) that would have suggested a different motivation. The influence of Clementi's suicide was inescapable as his heartbroken mother and brother addressed the court, saying Ravi (who chose not to speak before sentencing) should serve time behind bars because he had not shown sufficient remorse for his "cruel" and "evil" actions. But the most emotional testimony came from Ravi's mother, who repeatedly broke into tears at the prospect that her son would be treated the way the Clementis demanded. She emphasized the toll that Ravi's vilification had taken, saying, "Dharun's dreams are shattered, and he has been living in hell the last 20 months." Ravi's father noted that the prosecution's own witnesses had testified that "he never had any hatred or said anything derogatory against gays," and he pleaded with the judge not to impose a sentence that would trigger deportation. "This is my country and my home," he said. "Don't force us to go back."
While the prosecutor, Julia McLure, presented a crisp summary of her case, emphasizing Ravi's "malicious" behavior in spying on and tweeting about his roommate, Altman seemed to be flailing, saying "it's not impossible" that Ravi would avoid prison, but "I'm climbing a mountain." He appeared distracted by the animosity he believes Clementi's parents feel toward him, repeatedly saying that he was only doing his job in representing Ravi. "We might have made some mistakes," he said defensively, "but we tried to keep it within the rules." Altman's speculation about the Clementis' feelings later drew a rebuke from the judge, who said they had conducted themselves calmly and with dignity. Altman did manage to note that Ravi had sent a text-message apology to Clementi and that he had tried to communicate with Clementi's parents but was rebuffed.
Altman's uneasiness (he said he was "1,000 times" more nervous that he had ever been before a client's sentencing) was especially puzzling given that Ravi's presentence report recommended probation in light of his immaturity, sheltered upbringing, and lack of foresight as an 18-year-old college freshman. It called him "an excellent candidate for community-based supervision." Berman evidently took the report to heart, repeatedly calling it a "neutral" evaluation and agreeing with most of its conclusions. Initially he seemed inclined to punish Ravi more severely. "I haven't heard you apologize once," Berman told him, calling the letter he wrote for the presentence report "unimpressive." Berman seemed most indignant about Ravi's "cold" and "calculated" attempts to cover up his spying and gossiping, which included deleting tweets and trying to influence what a witness told police. But contrary to what you might expect in a "bias crime" case, Berman did not describe Ravi as a bigot, perhaps because there is little evidence suggesting he is. "This individual was not convicted of a hate crime," the judge said. "He was convicted of a bias crime."
At the same time, Berman expressed doubt that the state legislature had this sort of case in mind when it enacted the bias crime statute, which heretofore has been used to prosecute people who commit or threaten violence. He also disagreed with the state's description of Ravi's underlying invasion-of-privacy offenses, which contrary to the charges did not involve viewing sexual penetration or genitalia. He worked hard to arrive at the 30-day jail sentence despite the presumptive prison term, employing a series of maneuvers that no doubt will be challenged by the prosecution. In the end, except for the month in jail, the sentence is similar to what would have happened if Ravi had accepted the plea deal offered by prosecutors (who, like Berman, said they would try to prevent his deportation). This is a pretty good outcome for Ravi, if you ignore all the reasons why he should not have been prosecuted or convicted on these charges to begin with.
Earlier this month I explained how Ravi's "wildly inappropriate" behavior (as Clementi called it) became a felony subject to a 10-year prison sentence. Today's New York Times notes that various gay commentators urged leniency for Ravi.
Addendum II: Judging from some of the comments, there is still confusion about a point that Altman raised in his remarks before sentencing: Contrary to a popular misconception, Ravi did not watch Clementi having sex (he saw just a few seconds of kissing), did not record what he saw, and did not post it online. Nor did he "out" Clementi, who was not trying to conceal his sexual orientation. For more on these points, see Ian Parker's thorough report in The New Yorker.
One Virginia School District Still Demanding Search Warrants
The Chesapeake School District in Virginia seems
to have a grasp on the Fourth Amendment, demanding warrants on at
least 12 occasions in the last 18 months before handing over
material or information to police officers. According to the
Virginian Post, this stands in
stark contrast to practice in nearby school districts, which
tend to happily hand over to police anything police may say they
need. The Virginian Post reports:
Virginia Beach police Officer Grazia Moyers, a spokeswoman, said when city police have needed school surveillance video, schools willingly provided copies. Filing a search warrant, she said, is "just extra time for the investigators." When told that Chesapeake Police school resource officers sometimes had to go to court to obtain video surveillance footage or statements, Moyers said: "I'm shocked. I am in your school protecting you, and you're going to make me go through these steps?"
A large part of the argument centers largely around custody of school surveillance videos. Because they’re held by administrators, the Chesapeake School District, rightly it would seem, considers them “student records,” which are protected by law. and require warrants for release. But it’s not stopping local police for trying to change the school district’s practices:
[Police Chief Kelvin] Wright said in an interview Wednesday that he is aware other school systems readily provide video surveillance evidence to officers, and that he is talking with school officials in Chesapeake to see whether that can change. "We are trying to work out a solution between us and the appropriate attorneys," he said. "As to whether we get there or not - stay tuned."
But you don’t need to stay tuned to know that the Fourth Amendment is increasingly becoming little more than a parchment promise.
DC Capitol Hemp Shutting Down: Obama's War on Drugs to Blame
“The government is forcing a form of censorship on us," says Adam Eidinger, co-owner of Capitol Hemp, a two-store chain in Washington, D.C. that is closing its doors for good on August 1, 2012. "They are saying you can’t talk about certain subjects if you’re going to sell pipes.”
Capitol Hemp sells clothing and soaps and a vast array of glass and other types of pipes. Police raided Capitol Hemp last fall after an undercover cop reported “unnatural and deceptive” behavior at the company’s Adams Morgan branch. What raised the cop’s suspicions? According to the police report, employees corrected his use of the word bong and changed the subject whenever he brought up marijuana. The store’s book selection, which included titles on drug legalization, was also cited as proof that the place was really a criminal enterprise.
Veronique de Rugy on America’s Small-Business Fetish
On February 12, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
(R-Va.) sent a message to his 62,550 followers on
Twitter: “Small business is the job growth engine in this
country and we need to pursue policies that reflect that reality to
create jobs.” Yet as Reason economics columnist Veronique de Rugy
observes, Cantor was wrong on both counts. Despite overwhelming
conventional wisdom to the contrary, small businesses are not the
engine of growth. And the small businesses that do create jobs
rarely stay small for long, which makes crafting policies that
favor those fast-growing firms both difficult and unnecessary. When
it comes to job creation, de Rugy writes, size doesn’t matter.
China's Red Nobility and the Non-Rule of Law
The scandal involving Chinese Politburo
Princeling Bo Xilai is shaking up the autocratic elite coaltion
that runs China. Bo and his wife are accused of abusing their
political position to massively enrich themselves and their family.
Bo's wife is also being investigated for murdering a British expat
with whom she had business dealings. Her crime was reported by a
former ally of Bo, Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun, who was so
afraid of retribution that he even sought protection at the U.S.
consulate.
As numerous reports make clear, Bo is far from being the only member of the Red Nobility to use political power to enrich themselves. Last week, the New York Times reported on how the children of Politburo members extract wealth from businesses eager to operate in China:
For example, Wen Yunsong, the son of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, heads a state-owned company that boasts that it will soon be Asia’s largest satellite communications operator. President Hu Jintao’s son, Hu Haifeng, once managed a state-controlled firm that held a monopoly on security scanners used in China’s airports, shipping ports and subway stations. And in 2006, Feng Shaodong, the son-in-law of Wu Bangguo, the party’s second-ranking official, helped Merrill Lynch win a deal to arrange the $22 billion public listing of the giant state-run bank I.C.B.C., in what became the world’s largest initial public stock offering.
Much of the income earned by families of senior leaders may be entirely legal. But it is all but impossible to distinguish between legitimate and ill-gotten gains because there is no public disclosure of the wealth of officials and their relatives. Conflict-of-interest laws are weak or nonexistent. And the business dealings of the political elite are heavily censored in the state-controlled news media.
The spoils system, for all the efforts to keep a lid on it, poses a fundamental challenge to the legitimacy of the Communist Party. As the state’s business has become increasingly intertwined with a class of families sometimes called the Red Nobility, analysts say the potential exists for a backlash against an increasingly entrenched elite. They also point to the risk that national policies may be subverted by leaders and former leaders, many of whom exert influence long after their retirement, acting to protect their own interests....
“This is one of the most difficult challenges China faces,” said Mr. [Minxin] Pei, [an expert on China’s leadership and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California]. “Whenever they want to implement reform, their children might say, ‘Dad, what about my business?’ ”
There are also growing concerns that a culture of nepotism and privilege nurtured at the top of the system has flowed downward, permeating bureaucracies at every level of government in China. “After a while you realize, wow, there are actually a lot of princelings out there,” said Victor Shih, a China scholar at Northwestern University near Chicago, using the label commonly slapped on descendants of party leaders. “You’ve got the children of current officials, the children of previous officials, the children of local officials, central officials, military officers, police officials.We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people out there — all trying to use their connections to make money.”
China is a "natural state" still run by patron-client networks in which patrons distribute a bit of looted wealth to clients as a way to obtain their support if factional fighting breaks out among the elites. However, if a patron looks like he or she is going to lose a factional fight, clients will head for the hills. The Times today details just such a hasty retreat by former supporters of the fallen princeling Bo. Three leading businessmen with close ties to Bo tried to smooth over the rift between Bo and his police chief Wang Lijun. They failed, so they fled abroad. As the Times reports:
The most famous of the three [Bo associates], Xu Ming, 41, listed by Forbes as China’s eighth-richest person in 2005, had flown in on his private jet. He and the others held separate meetings with Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang. The damage was irreparable. The former intelligence agent, Yu Junshi, rushed home and stuffed a bag with 1.2 million renminbi, or nearly $200,000, to take to a bank with Ma Biao, the other businessman, known for his girth. Then all three fled to Australia within days, fearful of the fallout from a possible investigation of Mr. Bo.
Unfortunately for these Bo clients, they decided to return to China 10 days later when it looked like their patron would weather the scandal. They are now being held by the authorities as chief witnesses in the investigation against Bo.
For more background see my column, China Needs the Rule of Law, detailing why this scandal bodes very ill for China's future political and economic prospects.
Reason Writers in the Boston Review: Matt Welch Responds to the Claim That Markets Are Crowding Out Morals (and That Kidney Sales Should Be Banned)
Boston Review has a
cover
package out centered around a lead essay by Harvard University
professor of government Michael J. Sandel on "How
Markets Crowd Out Morals." Sandel's piece starts like this:
We live in a time when almost anything can be bought and sold. Markets have come to govern our lives as never before. But are there some things that money should not be able to buy? Most people would say yes.
Consider friendship. Suppose you want more friends than you have. Would you try to buy some? Not likely. A moment's reflection would lead you to realize that it wouldn't work. A hired friend is not the same as a real one. You could hire people to do some of the things that friends typically do—picking up your mail when you're out of town, looking after your children in a pinch, or, in the case of a therapist, listening to your woes and offering sympathetic advice. Until recently, you could even bolster your online popularity by hiring some good-looking "friends" for your Facebook page—for $0.99 per friend per month. [...] Although all of these services can be bought, you can't actually buy a friend. Somehow, the money that buys the friendship dissolves it, or turns it into something else.
This fairly obvious example offers a clue to the more challenging question that concerns us: Are there some things that money can buy but shouldn't? Consider a good that can be bought but whose buying and selling is morally controversial—a human kidney, for example. Some people defend markets in organs for transplantation; others find such markets morally objectionable. If it's wrong to buy a kidney, the problem is not that the money dissolves the good. The kidney will work (assuming a good match) regardless of the monetary payment. So to determine whether kidneys should or shouldn't be up for sale, we have to engage in a moral inquiry.
I was among the people invited to respond to said inquiry. An excerpt from that:
Every day, eighteen people die in the United States while waiting in vain for a kidney transplant, according to the National Kidney Foundation. The Department of Health & Human Services reports that nearly 92,000 patients were on the kidney waiting list as of April 6 (up from 66,000 six years ago), but that only 16,812 transplants were made in 2011. That deadly math is part of the reason that, according to the National Institutes of Health, more than 380,000 Americans are on dialysis, a punitively expensive and physically grueling death-postponement procedure. The imbalance cannot be meaningfully addressed via cadaver-harvesting alone. As the writer (and kidney donor) Virginia Postrel observed in 2009:
If every single person who died the right way became an organ donor, an optimistic estimate would be that 7,000 more kidneys a year would be available for transplant. Since the [waiting] list is now increasing by 6,000 a year, that would be enough to end it—in 80 years.
So we know that maintaining prohibition—letting the law be guided by our moral revulsion toward placing price tags on human organs—will certainly increase the body count. We know that boosting the number of kidney donations from the living is the only real way to whittle the waiting list down. And we also know, from such procedures as egg donation, that legalizing monetary rewards is a guaranteed method for expanding the pool of living donors. Your morality may vary, but mine says that sentencing more than 6,000 people a year to an avoidable death falls well short of the Golden Rule. My inquest therefore concludes that the burden of argumentative proof on the legality of kidney sales should fall squarely on those who back the lethal status quo.
My whole response here, the entire package here. Read Reason's archive on organ sales, and watch this old-school Reason.tv video on the topic:
Cory Booker Goes Through the Looking Glass: The 12-Hour, 180-Degree “Evolution" Away From Common Sense
Newark Mayork Cory Booker went off-script
while appearing on Meet the Press Sunday morning as an
Obama surrogate, and was punished for it. You are not allowed to go
off-script in politics, only kayfabe.
Pushed to defend the Obama campaign’s aggressive anti-Bain ads, Booker declined to “indict private equity,” pointing to the role of companies like Bain in encouraging job growth, noting that Americans were sick of political attacks on both sides, equating the Bain issue to Jeremiah Wright, and characterizing the attacks as “nauseating,” or, basically, the kind of commentary you’d get from a typical American paying some attention to politics but not rah-rah’ing it for one team or the other.
That little bit of truth-telling, though, was apparently too much for the truth squad at Obama 2012. First the mayor took to the Twitter, defending the substance of his opinion while re-enforcing his support for the president. “I will fight hard for Obama to win. But just as his 08 campaign did, I believe we must elevate & not denigrate. This is the Obama I know,” he tweeted. Not controversial, just your typical post-partisan fare, the kind of rhetoric Obama traded in liberally in the 2008 campaign.
But this is not 2008! So, that Sunday night Booker’s political staff rushed out a video where the Newark mayor basically said, never mind, Bain’s fair game, and even “encouraged” the Obama campaign’s focus on Romney’s time at Bain to continue.
The eagle-eyed commentators at DailyKos were quick to suggest Cory Booker is a crypto-Republican who takes Wall Street money anyway. Because we know, naturally, that Cory Booker is the only Democrat in office today who takes donations from Wall Street.
Of course Booker’s 12-hour 180-degree evolution on private equity is emblematic of Democrats’ perplexed relationship with private equity, and Wall Street generally. Just as President Obama was ramping up his attacks on Bain, he called on private equity titans in New York City, hat in hand. Liberals admit regulatory capture’s occurred in the banking industry, but insist more regulation is the answer.
Cory Booker’s break neck flip flop is a dangerous indicator, too, of the ideological rigidness being enforced in President Obama’s Democratic Party, lethal when mixed with economic illiteracy.
A local Democratic power-broker in the state assembly tried to school Booker: "It’s not about whether private equiity is good or bad, it’s how Mitt Romney, at Bain Captal, utilized his position at a private equity firm to choose to create wealth as opposed to jobs," Assemblyman John Wisniewski said. "And it is a real issue, when you have the Romney campaign talking about job creation."
See? Attacks on Bain aren’t naked attempts to paint Mitt Romney as some sort of after-school special corporate super-villain. They’re meant to explain how wealth destroys jobs!
North Carolina High School Teacher Tells Students That They May Not Criticize President Obama, Because It Is a Crime
Happy Monday! Here is some audio of a high school teacher in North Carolina telling her students that it is illegal to criticize President Obama:
Some transcription, via the Salisbury Post:
One student asks, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?”
The teacher responds: “Not to my knowledge.”
In response to the Romney story, conservatives have recently been pointing to a passage in Obama’s book, “Dreams from My Father,” in which the president writes that while in grade school he shoved a little girl, the only other black student in his grade, after other students called him her boyfriend.
When the student tells the teacher that Obama admitted to bullying a girl in school, the teacher goes on the defensive.
“Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” she says. Romney, she says, is “running for president. Obama is the president.”
When the student says they’re both “just men,” the teacher continues to argue that Romney, as a candidate for president, is not to be afforded the same respect as the president.
The teacher tells the class Obama is “due the respect that every other president is due.”
“Listen, let me tell you something, you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom,” she says.
The student replies that he’ll say what he wants.
“Not about him you won’t,” the teacher says.
Later in the conversation, the teacher tells the class it’s criminal to slander a president.
“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she says of former President Bush. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”
Police Tell Woman to Pay Son's Bail in Cash, Then Steal it
Here's a
Wisconsin story that needs more attention, care of former
Reasoner Radley Balko:
On Feb. 29, a judge set [Joel] Greer's bail at $7,500, and his mother called the Brown County jail to see where and how she could get him out. "The police specifically told us to bring cash," Greer says. "Not a cashier's check or a credit card. They said cash."
So Greer and her family visited a series of ATMs, and on March 1, she brought the money to the jail, thinking she'd be taking Joel Greer home. But she left without her money, or her son.
Instead jail officials called in the same Drug Task Force that arrested Greer. A drug-sniffing dog inspected the Greers' cash, and about a half-hour later, Beverly Greer said, a police officer told her the dog had alerted to the presence of narcotics on the bills -- and that the police department would be confiscating the bail money. [...]
The Greers had been subjected to civil asset forfeiture, a policy that lets police confiscate money and property even if they can only loosely connect them to drug activity. The cash, or revenue from the property seized, often goes back to the coffers of the police department that confiscated it.
The good news: The Greers eventually got their money back. The bad news: This kind of organized police theft of property from people who are not even charged with a crime is common nationwide.
Read all about it in Balko's February 2010 Reason feature, "The Forfeiture Racket: Police and prosecutors won't give up their license to steal."
Will Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Win Recall Election in a Walkover?
The latest sign that embattled GOP
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is going to survive a recall election
slated for June 5? The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, that state's
largest paper and no uncritical fan of his (despite endorsing him
in 2010), editorializes
"We recommend Walker; his recall isn't justified."
We recommend him in the June 5 recall election.
Walker's rematch with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was prompted by one issue: Walker's tough stance with the state's public-employee unions. It's inconceivable that the recall election would be occurring absent that. And a disagreement over a single policy is simply not enough to justify a vote against the governor.
A Marquette Law School Poll in January showed that many people in the Badger State agree. In that poll, 72% of Republicans, 44% of independents and 17% of Democrats said recalls should be limited to criminal wrongdoing. Republican state Rep. Robin Vos has proposed tightening the recall mechanism; he should continue to push for that after the election, regardless of who wins....
While we think Act 10 - the law that clipped the wings of most public-employee unions in the state - was an overreach of political power, we understand and supported the need to rein in the state's labor costs. Municipalities and school districts as well as the state needed more control over their budgets, which Act 10 provided.
But Walker's zeal to give governments more control over their destinies was, we believe, matched only by his zeal to deal a harsh blow to a key Democratic constituency. That has made him a national hero to Republicans.
It's time to end the bickering and get back to the business of the state. We've had our differences with the governor, but he deserves a chance to complete his term. We recommended him in 2010. We see no reason to change that recommendation. We urge voters to support Walker in the June 5 recall election.
Recent polls show Walker with a 5 percentage point to a 9 percentage point lead over his challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Observers on all sides agree that this recall is important in terms of sending a message about collective-bargaining rights for public-sector employees. A Walker win, goes this line of thinking, shows that voters are serious about restraining compensation for teachers and other public-sector workers. Maybe, maybe not. Voters in Ohio last fall spiked a law doing just that.
Are public-sector workers overcompensated relative to their private-sector analogues? All signs point to yes. Are states and localities massively overextended due to salaries and benefits accorded public-sector workers? Again, all signs point to yes. Does that mean that states will start reeling in the amount of money they're paying out now, not to mention the future? Not so much. Consider even Wisconsin, where's Scott Walker's two-year budget increases total spending by 3 percent.
Note: Read my colleague Shikha Dalmia's blog post on the MJS endorsement of Walker here.
Watch "3 Lies at the Heart of the Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Recall Election" for more.
Explicit content warning: This video contains images of cravat-wearing hipsters playing protest songs on ukeleles. Viewer discretion is advised.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorses Scott Walker
Newspaper endorsements are usually not worth a dime (much less the 50 dimes you have to pay for them), especially in prominent races where people know more about the candidates than the pompous editorial writers doing the endorsing. (I know, I was a such a writer for a decade at The Detroit News.) But the fact that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, no fan of Scott Walker's, endorsed him this morning might have some symbolic value. It might not win him any voters given that there are very few undecideds in this election, but despite its mealiness, it might give him some aid and comfort if and when he completes his term. Via the Wall Street Journal, here is what it said:
No governor in recent memory has been so controversial. No governor in America is so polarizing. Everyone has an opinion about Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
Here's ours: We see no reason to remove Walker from office. We recommend him in the June 5 recall election.
Walker's rematch with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was prompted by one issue: Walker's tough stance with the state's public-employee unions. It's inconceivable that the recall election would be occurring absent that. And a disagreement over a single policy is simply not enough to justify a vote against the governor. . . .
Walker brought some of this animosity on himself. He chose an in-your-face style from the start. To his credit, the governor now acknowledges that he did a poor job of building support for his policies. "The one thing if I could go back in time is I would try to spend a little bit more time building the case," he told the Editorial Board earlier this year. . . .
To his credit, Walker has helped to right the state's finances with a minimum of gimmicks—the governor reported recently that the state may be able to book a $154 million surplus next year. This good news has been lost in the clutter surrounding an unnecessary recall election that will cost as much as $18 million just to stage, according to the Government Accountability Board. . . .
And while we think Act 10—the law that clipped the wings of most public-employee unions in the state—was an overreach of political power, we understand and supported the need to rein in the state's labor costs. Municipalities and school districts as well as the state needed more control over their budgets, which Act 10 provided. . . .
It's time to end the bickering and get back to the business of the state. We've had our differences with the governor, but he deserves a chance to complete his term.
What's more, it says that the state's lacklustre job perrformance is not Walker's fault.
Go here for the full endorsement.
Alabama Cops Arrest 18 Strippers for Disrobing Without the Proper License
More occupational licensing madness, this time in Alabama:
An early-morning bust at a Birmingham nightclub led to the arrests of 18 dancers and their manager.
The Birmingham Police Department's vice and narcotics team raided the Black Magic Club on Lomb Avenue just after midnight, making more than two dozens arrests total and seizing drugs and guns, police said today.
Police targeted the club after receiving complaints about illegal nude dancers and other illegal activity at the club, said vice and narcotics Lt. Ron Sellers.
Officers did surveillance on the business, and put undercover officers inside the club before carrying out this morning's operation.
The dancers and the club manager were arrested for doing business without a license. Sellers said dancers are licensed to work at a specific club, and these dancers were not licensed for the Black Magic Club. "A lot of these places bring dancers in from outside of Birmingham," Sellers said.
The Institute for Justice released a depressing report on the evils of occupational licensing earlier this month. Among IJ's findings: "States consider an average of 33 days of training and two exams enough preparation for EMTs, but demand 10 times the training—372 days, on average—for cosmetologists."
CNBC wrote up IJ's report last week.
Read more on occupational licensing from Reason and the policy team at the Reason Foundation.
Student Loan Subsidies Redux: For Just $10 a Month, You Can Subsidize Privileged Children
George Will looks at the latest fooferaw over
subsidized federal student loans, which includes the humanitarian
intervention of keeping loans at 3.4 percent fixed interest rather
than going back to the pre-2006 level of 6.8
percent:
The average annual income of high school graduates with no college is $41,288; for college graduates with just a bachelor’s degree it is $71,552. So the one-year difference ($30,264) is more than the average total indebtedness of the two-thirds of students who borrow ($25,250). Taxpayers, most of whom are not college graduates, will pay $6 billion a year to make it slightly easier for some fortunate students to acquire college degrees.
The standard payback period or such loans is 10 years. What's the difference in monthly interest payments between 3.4 percent and 6.8 percent?:
The 6.8 percent rate – private loans for students cost about 12 percent – was itself the result of a federal subsidy. And students have no collateral that can be repossessed in case they default, which 23 percent of those receiving the loans in question do. The maximum loan for third- and fourth-year students is $5,500 a year. The payment difference between 3.4 percent and 6.8 percent is less than $10 a month, so the “problem” involves less than 30 cents a day.
Will also notes that the lower rate was the result of bipartisanship and that presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has already signaled his approval of keeping the rate at 3.4 percent, which costs taxpayers about $6 billion a year.
Last November, ReasonTV offered up 3 Reasons Not to Bail Out Student Loan Borrowers. Take a look:
A.M. Links: Karzai Thanks U.S. Taxpayers, 2,000+ Wrongful Convictions Since 1989, Bilderberg to Choose Rubio for Romney
U.S. taxpayers got a
shout out from Hamid Karzai at the NATO summit in Chicago. "I'm
bringing to you and to the people of the United States the
gratitude of the Afghan people for the support that your taxpayers'
money has provided Afghanistan over the past decade and for the
difference that it has made to the well-being of the Afghan
people," the Afghan president said.- A new registry shows at least 2,000 people have been wrongly convicted in the U.S. since 1989. "Nobody had an inkling of the serious problem of false confessions until we had this data," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University.
- The former Rutgers University student charged with bias intimidation and other crimes related to an incident leading to the suicide of his gay roommate faces sentencing today as gay rights advocates from Jim McGreevey to Dan Savage are calling for him to be spared jail time.
- Conspiracy theorists say the Bilderberg conference will choose Marco Rubio as Mitt Romney’s 2012 nominee. Like Bilderberg picked Hillary in 2008!
- The latest allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the almost-President of France and former IMF chief, include gang rape.
- The Oregon state board of education banned the use of American Indian mascots, because they might be offensive.
Don't forget to sign up for Reason's daily AM/PM updates for more content!
New at Reason.TV: "The Swing Vote: Why Independent Voters Will Decide the 2012 Election"
Nick Gillespie on Varney & Co., Talking Eduardo Saverin, Greek Bailouts, & Why NATO Shouldn't Exist Anymore
"This is the gesture of a nation in decline."
That's me, talking about Sen. Charles Schumer's attempt to tax Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin on Fox Business' Varney & Co., the fast-moving and always-edifying business show. The topics also Greek bailouts, the NATO summit, and calls for a "Robin Hood" tax on financial transactions.
About four minutes. Go here for more.
Steve Chapman on China and the Lure of the Status Quo
A rising Asian power with an unstoppable export
machine, rapidly growing wealth and a sense that our time is past
and its time has come: China in 2012? Yes, writes Steve Chapman—but
also Japan in the 1980s.
Brickbat: The Benefits of Home Ownership
Crowley, Texas, resident David Englett found when he tried to renew his driver's license that he had several outstanding warrants. The warrants were all for code violations at his former home in Arlington. Englett hasn't lived in the house since it was foreclosed two years ago, and he said that he thought it was the bank's responsibility to keep the grass mowed and yard clean. He had to pay Arlington $150 to remove the hold on his license, but officials are still demanding hundreds more in fines.
A Report From Obama’s “Humane” Drug War: “My son screamed for his mother for what seemed like an eternity”
At 5:30 a.m. on May 10, armed
men broke into the bedroom of Kirk Kyle Farrar’s 12 year-old
daughter and shook her awake. The men led her downstairs at
gunpoint and forced her to lie on the floor next to her mother and
father, with her hands behind her head. Another armed man took
Farrar’s two-year-old son from his crib, and would not let his
parents hold him. “My son screamed for his mother for what seemed
like an eternity,” Farrar wrote in an email to friends, obtained by
Reason. “I will never forget the hopeless feeling of not being able
to comfort my son or daughter.”
The armed men who broke into Farrar’s home were officers with the Meridian, Idaho, Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration. They were executing a federal warrant for Farrar’s arrest for the crime of selling bongs.
Bipartisan House Coalition Seeks to Lift Domestic Propaganda Ban
Two House members—Rep. Mac
Thornberry (R-Texas) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.)—have
proposed an amendment that would "neutralize" the Smith-Mundt
Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987, both
of which strictly govern the creation of propaganda and ban its
dissemination on U.S. soil:
The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee's official website.
The bill's supporters say the informational material used overseas to influence foreign audiences is too good to not use at home, and that new techniques are needed to help fight Al-Qaeda, a borderless enemy whose own propaganda reaches Americans online.
The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”
According to this official, “senior public affairs” officers within the Department of Defense want to “get rid” of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Unhappiness of June Cleaver
Liberated by feminism from the June Cleaver role model, I noted in my recent column, "Jack Welch vs. Feminists: The Dumb Debate Over Female CEOs," women have done a better job of striking a work-life balance compared to men whose identities, not having experienced the male version of the feminist revolution, remain wedded to rather backward notions of workplace success. But between stay-at-home moms and career moms, who is happier?
A recent Gallup poll found that it is quite clearly the latter:
The degree of difficulty of being a stay-at-home parent is evident in a new Gallup analysis of more than 60,000 U.S. women interviewed in 2012. Non-employed women with young children at home are more likely than women with young children at home who are employed for pay to report experiencing sadness and anger a lot of the day "yesterday." Stay-at-home moms are also much more likely to report having ever been diagnosed with depression than employed moms. Employed moms are about as emotionally well-off as working women who do not have children at home.
What’s more, found Gallup, it doesn’t matter if moms stay at home out of their own choice or circumstances. They are unhappier than working moms, regardless. Notes Gallup:
non-employed moms who are looking for work and those who are not looking -- to distinguish between those who may not be employed because of circumstance rather than by choice -- are [both] more likely to report anger, sadness, and depression than are employed moms. It is also important to note that these findings are not related to age -- that is, even when controlling for age, stay-at-home moms are emotionally worse off than employed moms…
Stay-at-home moms also lag behind employed moms in terms of their daily positive emotions: They are less likely to say they smiled or laughed a lot, learned something interesting, and experienced enjoyment and happiness "yesterday." Additionally, they are less likely than employed moms to rate their lives highly enough to be considered "thriving."
And does the income of stay-at-home moms matter? In other words, are rich stay-at-home moms better off than poor stay-at-home moms? Interestingly, both groups report the same level of sadness, anger, and depression. However, middle-income and wealthy stay-at-homes moms report more “laughter, enjoyment, happiness, worry, stress, learning something interesting, and having a high life evaluation rating” than poor stay-at-homes." In fact, on these counts, middle- and high-income stay-at-home moms for the most part do as well as employed moms. All of this suggests that although a rich husband can mitigate some of the ennui that comes from feeling unproductive and disengaged with the outside world, he can't mitigate it all. Some aspects of one’s soul’s wellbeing simply can’t be outsourced.
Gallup summarizes:
While many mothers are rightfully dedicated to parenting as an important and fulfilling vocation, those who desire to work should feel encouraged by these data to pursue it. And for those who choose to stay home, more societal recognition of the difficult job stay-at-home mothers have raising children would perhaps help support them emotionally.
And that's where Gallup should have left it. But it couldn't resist slipping in some silly policy advice:
Of course, for stay-at-home moms who wish to pursue employment, the cost of child care may be prohibitive. Increasing employer-sponsored or other types of subsidized and low-cost child care may be a means to helping create more choices for stay-at-homes. (Emphasis added).
Ensuring that stay-at-home moms are in good emotional shape is critical not only for the sake of these mothers, but also for the sake of their children's and families' wellbeing.
Oh puhlese!
Greg Beato on How Michelle Obama Helped Kill the King-Sized Snickers Bar
Mars Inc., the manufacturer of Snickers, is
phasing out chocolate products that exceed 250 calories per portion
as part of an agreement with Partnership for a Healthier
America (PHA). Founded in 2010 in conjunction with the Let’s
Move! program, First Lady Michelle Obama’s government
initiative aimed at shaping up the nation’s youth, PHA has a
mandate to “monitor and publicly report on the progress” of
partners such as Mars and, more generally, to “make the healthy
choice the easy choice.” Call it “yes, we can’t!” progressivism,
observes Greg Beato. Under the mantle of “choice,” Mars and the PHA
are eliminating consumer options.
Matt Welch Talks SuperPAC/Rev. Wright Politics on MSNBC, Chuck Schumer's Disgusting Ex-PATRIOT Act on Fox Business News
On Friday, May 18, I appeared on a couple of cable news shows to discuss the pressing news of the day. For MSNBC, that was whether a reportedly proposed (then withdrawn) SuperPAC political ad criticizing President Barack Obama's past associations with Rev. Jeremiah Wright represented a new low for politics and whether the controversy was either bad or terrible for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney:
For Fox Business News, it was the Facebook IPO, about which I slipped in some commentary regarding the political and government response co-founder Eduardo Saverin's renunciation of his U.S. citizenship:
Sheldon Richman on Whether There Is a Libertarian Case for Organized Labor
Who do you imagine said this? “[Trade-unions]
seem natural to the passing phase of social evolution, and may have
beneficial functions under existing conditions.”
If you guessed some wily labor leader or social democrat, you are wrong. British laissez-faire advocate Herbert Spencer wrote those words in his Principles of Sociology (1896). Because Spencer was the most prominent and respected individualist philosopher of his time, his statement may surprise some readers. But it shouldn’t, writes Sheldon Richman. Our libertarian forebears put the plight of workers at the top of their concerns.
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