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Reason Morning Links: Tories, Drones, and Mavericks

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• Bernie Sanders waters down the Audit the Fed bill.

• The Tories take a plurality in Britain's elections.

• How the CIA expanded its drone strikes in Pakistan.

• Argentina's lower house votes for legal gay marriage and adoption.

• The unintended consequences of "whole body image" scanners.

• Who are the real mavericks in Congress?

NEXT: L.A. May Day: Live from the country's largest protest against Arizona's immigration law

Books Editor Jesse Walker is the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

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  1. TP

    Bernie Sanders waters down the Audit the Fed bill.

    Never trust a fucking Socialist.

    As long as the mutual cocksucking between Bernanke and Obama officials continues, so will ZIRP and QE. Exit strategy my ass.

    1. John

      Yeah. What a fraud. For all of their faults, socialists are supposed to “fight for the little guy”. Current socialists are not even that. They are just defenders of the powerful and the status quo. Being a socialist means that you fight for the rights and privileges of government workers and the powerful at the expense of everyone else.

      1. .

        I thought socialism meant bringing everyone down to the same level of misery. I guess it’s whatever you want it to mean, huh?

        1. John

          I guess so. You would think that a good “socialist” would want to hold a big capitalist institution like the fed. I guess “socialist” doesn’t mean what you think it does.

          1. .

            The term has become nearly meaningless.

          2. robc

            The Fed is doing a good job of helping the state control the means of production. Thus, seems a socialist would support the Fed.

            1. .

              Sounds like fascism, then.

            2. John

              or more likely paying off Sanders in some way. The whole “we can’t audit the Fed” crowd kill me. It is so transparent. Auditing doesn’t take away their independence. They know that auditing will reveal any number of embarassing things. Just pathetic.

              1. Rich

                This.

                And along those lines: it could discourage financial firms from using lending facilities when needed, because such disclosure could make them appear weak would highlight their actual weakness

                1. Rich

                  @ John’s comment. FTP!

              2. Bob #2

                That’s the thing; it’ll undermine Fed independence if they’re doing anything so ridiculously, patently awful that could rile voters.

      2. West Texas Boy

        Exactly. You would think the only socialist in the Senate would be all about making government more transparent for “the people.”

        Seriously, are some pigs more equal than others, or what?

    2. I also enjoy the way the linked article (from CNBC) displays total journalistic objectivity in describing the Sanders amendment:

      ‘Sanders picked up the support of Christopher Dodd, the Democrat overseeing the financial-reform bill in the Senate, after he modified it to protect the Fed’s independence.’

      Then it describes precisely how that independence is to be protected:

      ‘Sanders modified the measure to limit congressional investigators to a single audit of the Fed’s use of emergency-lending authority since December 1, 2007. That would close the door to further audits.’

      It bears repeating: Under the original, pre-Sanders proposal, the Government Accountability Office have the same authority to investigate the Federal Reserve as it has to investigate other agencies of the federal government. A GAO investigation of the Fed would be mandated, but the GAO would be free to do other investigations in the future.

      Normally, when politicians want a volatile issue to be investigated by a nonpartisan body like the GAO, it’s considered the ultimate moderate, goo-goo stance to take.

      In this case, though, the people who want an investigation by the nonpartisan GAO are branded as extremists. Isn’t political branding wonderful?

      1. goo-goo = Chicago slang for ‘good government’ – a derogatory way of referring to the ideas of reformers who want honesty and accountability in government operations.

      2. John

        How could an audit be objectionable unless you have something to hide? The media is pathetic on this. They never touch this story. Never show any outrage.

        1. Ska

          It’s hard to blame the country’s financial downfall on evil corporations and accounting tricks when you are shown to engage in the same fuckery yourself.

          1. Tulpa

            That information is already out there even without an audit. Anyone who wants to know can easily discover all the accounting gimmicks that hold our fiscal house of cards together.

            Problem is, most people don’t want to know.

    3. How do you know the Sanders amendment wasn’t just a compromise intended to make the bill easier to pass? That’s how it seemed to me.

  2. ed

    The unintended consequences of “whole body image” scanners.

    Having read the article, it’s more about the unintended consequences of being an Hispanic male. What’s the Spanish language version of, “There was shrinkage!”

    1. sage

      “I was in the pool, gringo!”

  3. Peetsker

    TSA employees are just fucking trash. This body scan thing is only going to get worse. Just wait till some underage Disney rising starlet, who is still not famous enough to fly private jet yet, ends up with her body scans all over the net.

    And you know some Jersey-talking quido will do it. I bet someone’s already got a stockpile of airport scan pics stuffed under his stained mattress now.

    1. Pervy McPeeper

      Sounds like projection bias to me, Peetsker.

      1. Peetsker

        wah, wah, wah

    2. John

      I know the people who do their employment litigation. Trash doesn’t even begin to describe it. And the body scans are just fucking outragous. It depresses me to no end people are putting up with them.

      1. Federal Dog

        This.

        I too cannot understand why people have no objection whatsoever to perfect strangers having pictures of their genitalia. People presumably would not walk naked down the street and accept having the government photograph them doing so. Yet they obediantly submit to having their genitals photographed by low-level government functionaries.

        Given all the hysterical ranting about self-esteem, how did people get so abject that if a government worker demands a photographic record of what’s between their legs, they meekly spread on demand?

        1. John

          Don’t forget our insanity over child pornography. If some pervert had a set of goggles that did this and was out looking at 10 year olds, he would rot in prison forever. Nancy Grace would do a three hour special on it. But somehow it is okay if it is the TSA.

          1. LibertyBill

            Because its in the name of catching those super terrorists! Dont you know the game by now?

          2. robc

            Not Safe for Work

            In addition, Im not sure how everyone who has seen that movie or owns a copy of the DVD isnt in jail as a child pornographer. Michelle Johnson was 17 when it was filmed. Her parents had to sign a permission slip. Since when does parental permission allow underage porn.

            The argument could be made that it isnt porn, but its no different, I would imagine, from your typical sexting photo.

            So, what changed between 1984 and today?

          3. Zeb

            I take it as a slight positive sign that not everyone goes for the naked=sex idiocy.

        2. TrickyVic

          “””I too cannot understand why people have no objection whatsoever to perfect strangers having pictures of their genitalia.”””

          Ever heard of the Internet? Everyone is posting pics of their genitalia on that thing.

    3. anonprof

      I don’t like this screening, but our fear based society seems to demand that someone, anyone do something to save us. If the TSA is going to demand that we give up our privacy to fly, they should all (from the head of DHS on down) be willing to have their body scan posted on the web. Who doesn’t want to see the outline of Janet Napolitano’s naked body? They could charge $2.99 for access and close the deficit!

      1. Rich

        Maybe not JN, but out of *all* DHS …

        Hey, why not just make the security scan an MRI as part of Obamacare? Security *and* health!

      2. SugarFree

        Who doesn’t want to see the outline of Janet Napolitano’s naked body?

        I can help with that.

        1. gaijin97

          OMG. Thanks. Thanks alot.

        2. Almanian

          Jesus christ, I just had to look…

        3. TP

          WT…………………………………………………………………………………..Fuck?

  4. robc

    I thought last night, and its more clear now, the British election results look a lot like US results…well, actually the England results do, not Scotland/Ireland/Wales. In England, Labour did well in the cities, but the map looks solid blue, because the Tories won the suburban and rural districts in England.

  5. Johnny Longtorso

    Guy Goes Crazy While Giving A Stock Market Webinar During The Crash

    1. robc

      What crash? Oh, you mean that blip between 2:30 and 3. Whatever.

      1. Mike M.

        To me, it’s a bit depressing that our economy today is on such a fragile, thin line that a mere misprint can cause the markets to nosedive almost ten percent in about twenty minutes.

        We’re supposed to be confident in the strength of our system? They must be joking.

    2. ed

      That guy’s brilliant! He can predict a crash months before it (temporarily) happens!

  6. About Sanders:

    You have to remember that even more than “sticking up for the little guy”, socialists believe in state [or collective] power and the abasement of the individual before state [or collective] power.

    A fiat currency helps to abase the individual before state power. A non-fiat currency is not dependent upon the state for its value and can survive the state’s destruction [as gold currencies did many times – some gold coins remained in use for hundreds of years following the total destruction of the issuing polity].

    Sanders on some conscious or unconscious level knows that goldbugs like Paul aren’t really his allies, and also knows that the central bank is his ally, even if the people who work there wear expensive suits.

    1. John

      I don’t think Sanders thinks that deeply. I think it is more of just a reflexive response. People he doesn’t like don’t like the Fed, so the Fed must be defended. I don’t give him or his puny intellect enough credit to think deeply enough to have your thought. For someone like Sanders, their whole identity is wrapped up with who you oppose. Ideas and thougthts really are not a part of it. It is about emotion.

  7. Thanks for such wonderful advice. I always wondered thit theme.

  8. By the way, Hillary Clinton signed on to the Lieberman bill today because she says that citizenship is “a privilege and not a right”.

    Um, as far as I can tell the Constitution does make citizenship for some individuals a right. Certainly my citizenship is mine by right, since I was born here and meet the Constitutional definition of who is a citizen.

    Also, since the Constitution specifies that a Treason conviction can result in forfeiture of citizenship but not “corruption of blood”, but does not present any other language about forfeiture of citizenship, isn’t there already a mechanism for stripping someone of their citizenship [get a Treason conviction] and no power granted to the Congress to make up another one?

    1. John

      “By the way, Hillary Clinton signed on to the Lieberman bill today because she says that citizenship is “a privilege and not a right”.

      I am hardly someone who is soft about stopping terrorism. But even I find that deeply fucking disturbing. That is truly playing with fire.

      1. TrickyVic

        Give the government an inch, they will take a mile.

        The funny thing about supporting government’s noble efforts (preventing terrorism), is while the citizenry may get them started, they can’t drawn the line where they should stop.

        People who equate terrorism to war should expect government to deploy extra-ordinary efforts that would not be ok in peace time.

        1. Aresen

          Give the government an inch, they will take a mile.

          Also your income, car, house and children.

      2. Tulpa

        I’d have to see the context on that one. For people born in the US it is essentially a right. However, Congress is free to decide who can become a naturalized citizen and who cannot, so in that case it is a privilege.

    2. Pro Libertate

      I have ancestral lines in North America back to the late 1600s. Like fuck is my citizenship a privilege.

      Just more of the increasingly common collective-is-all talk.

      1. John

        Mine have been here since the 1700s. And most of the generations fought in some kind of war or another. I cannot describe how offended I am at the notion that my citizenship is a “priviledge”.

        1. Pro Libertate

          Not that the long history is the key–citizenship is. It means something to be an American citizen, and this political system is centered very much on individual rights, not collectivism.

          1. John

            Exactly. I don’t care if you just fell off the boat. Citizenship is sacred in many ways. How dare that bitch claim it is some fucking priveledge like a welfare check.

            Sometimes you think that Hillary is reasonable. Then she reminds you why you hate her so much.

        2. TrickyVic

          “” I cannot describe how offended I am at the notion that my citizenship is a “priviledge”.””

          Some believe there is no rights, just priviledges. Ever hear the term, 4th amendment priviledges? Usually from the LEO crowd.

          But that’s the way they are trying to justify the idea that you can be stripped of citizenship upon accusations.

          It truly is sad. If the Bush admin did this, it would be a much bigger deal for some reason. Perhaps we are becoming numb for all the government overreach since 9/11 and burned out from complaining.

          1. nekoxgirl

            Well if a Democrat does it the Left doesn’t care. Bombing Iraq was just great when Bill Clinton was doing it but apparently Bush is some sort of Nazi for invading the same country.

            The Right isn’t going to say much because most of them have totally bought into the “existential threat of Islamofascism.” Anything to beat those darn terrorists.

      2. robc

        1600s, 1700s and at least 1 who crossed the land bridge between asia and alaska.

        Interestingly, from my Mom’s geneology work, I have no immigrant ancestors. Colonists, yes. Immigrants, no. Well, except some german immigrants to British colonies. And some Irish immigrants to England. But no immigrants to the US.

        Yet. The tree isnt completely full (although that is in least in part to KY heritage – first cousin marriage is against the law here, but it seems they were subsidizing higher order cousin marriage).

        1. Pro Libertate

          I’ve got some German ancestors that showed by in the early 1800s.

          We’ve got mass murderers who are still citizens, for the love of God. It’s not something you just casually weaken.

          1. EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy

            We’ve got mass murderers who are still citizens, for the love of God. It’s not something you just casually weaken.

            This.

      3. BeavisAndButthead

        My North American ancestral lines run back at least 20,000 years. Fuck all good that’s done for me.

        1. Pro Libertate

          Your ancestors should’ve bought some stock at the beginning.

          1. BeavisAndButthead

            I think they invested in real estate instead. Made a killing in the blankets and beads trade at one point….

            1. Pro Libertate

              Ah, the famous Bauble Bubble.

              1. Clich? Bandit

                Holy crap that is funny…sad but funny.

                +1

    3. Mo

      Fortunately, it sounds like she’s the only on in the administration that is anything close to warm to it. Gibbs says the administration is not supportive of the bill.

    4. Paleocon

      As long as it doesnt affect White people who cares?

    5. sage

      Yeah, that bill would not be a slippery slope at all.

      Arrested for having narcotics? Oh, you want a lawyer? Maybe we’ll just revoke your citizenship and waterboard your ass until you drop a dime on your source…or until you agree to be an informant and get in the line of fire.

      1. John

        Instead of three strikes and you got to jail, it can be three strikes and you lose your citizenship.

        1. TrickyVic

          “”Instead of three strikes and you got to jail, it can be three strikes and you lose your citizenship.””

          At least in your example, there has been some due process. These morons what to take your citizenship without due process.

    6. Presumably the bill applies only to naturalized citizens. The Constitution explicitly grants Congress to regulate naturaliz’n. What’s not clear to me is how, once you are naturalized, new provisions potentially de-naturalizing you are Constitutional. It looks to me like a 1 way street.

      1. EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy

        I seem to recall that the courts have allowed exceptions to this idea for ex-nazi’s and for lying on the forms. Or maybe those were the same exception.

        I lean towards your interpretation, but the Constitution is not unarguably clear on the matter, and hard cases lead to bad law…

  9. No prizes for guessing who is the most maverick-y member of Congress. (Hint: he wants to audit the Fed).

    1. John Thacker

      Yeah, though for the most part the “mavericky” thing is entirely predictable. Members of the majority party are more likely to be “mavericks.” In the completely simplistic linear analysis, when there are 60 Senate Democrats then 10 of them are more conservative than the median senator.

      Unsurprisingly, McCain’s “maverick” score is much higher when Republicans have a majority, and highest under GWB and unified Republican control. He opposed a lot of GWB programs, including spending, but votes right with the Republican party line in opposing Obama programs.

  10. Johnny Longtorso

    The Further Left You Are the Less You Know About Economics

    1. John

      Jesus Johnny that is one run down of ignorance.

      ?67% of self-described Progressives believe that restrictions on housing development (i.e., regulations that reduce the supply of housing) do not make housing less affordable.
      ?51% believe that mandatory licensing of professionals (i.e., reducing the supply of professionals) doesn’t increase the cost of professional services.
      ?Perhaps most amazing, 79% of self-described Progressive believe that rent control (i.e., price controls) does not lead to housing shortages.

      1. Ragin Cajun

        I’m not sure if the actual article is a non-biased account, better to read it for yourself.

        Guess which political group scores best, according to the authors?

      2. Ragin Cajun

        Not sure if the actual article is a non-biased account, better to read it for yourself.

        Guess which political group scores the best, according to the authors?

        1. BeavisAndButthead

          I don’t know. I think I need to meet Zeljka and discuss this at length….

        2. John Thacker

          Interesting is that “conservatives” and “very conservatives” are the least likely be overly nostalgic for the past, with only 13.8% and 12.0% falsely claiming that the standard of living was worse than 30 years ago. 21% of “libertarians” said so.

          “Very conservative” does better than “libertarian,” though it’s essentially a tie. “Conservative” is only a little bit behind (but significantly) and “moderate,” “liberal,” and “progressive” do increasingly worse.

          College for the most part doesn’t seem to affect economic knowledge, with the exception that those who call themselves “conservative” who have been to college do slightly better than those who have not, but it does seem to compress the results. In other words, going to college is a lot more likely to make someone think the same as other people who self-describe with the same label.

          1. John

            My experience is that liberals know very little about history. Every history geek I know is a conservative. I don’t know one liberal who is overly interested in history. So, it makes sense they would as a group have a false view of the past.

            1. TrickyVic

              But if someone majored in history at NYU, you probably would call them a liberal, leftist, and a few other words I’m not going to mention. 😉

          2. BeavisAndButthead

            I saw that as well… but the ‘very conservative’ and ‘libertarian’ groups don’t seem to be overall statistically different – 1.30 vs 1.38 with SE of .06 and .09 respectively. I think that means it is within the margin of error.

            1. John Thacker

              Yes, that’s why I said “essentially a tie.” A difference within the margin of error still means that, without any other evidence or prejudice, you should believe that the one is better than the other, but you shouldn’t have a lot of confidence and wouldn’t be much surprised if it went the other way.

              It’s self-identification anyway. Little-l “libertarians” score worse than big-l registered as “Libertarians.”

        3. BeavisAndButthead

          Wow, that table is really enlightening. In most categories 4/5 progressives are incorrect. In most categories 4/5 libertarians are correct.

          I approve because it fits my world view….

          1. Joe

            We’re also smarter, better-looking, and better in bed.

        4. John Thacker

          Self-described “libertarians” do worse than the most selective “actually rei

          Among religions, it’s a near tie for “atheist/realist/humanists” and “born-again/fundamentalist/evangelical Christian” for most economic knowledge.

          However, those who “never” attend worship do much worse (it gets worse steadily as people attend less), so people who profess a religion (vaguely or not) but never attend score worst.

          People who consider themselves “citizens of the world” really hate free trade, whereas those who consider themselves Americans first like it.

          People who like NASCAR know more about economics, as do people who shop at Wal-Mart.

          1. BeavisAndButthead

            There are some real stereotype busters in this report… but the notion that people who shop at Wal-Mart understand economics is astounding… who’da thunk it? 🙂

            It really does underscore something that should be obvious to anyone observing the lefty obsession with Wal-Mart. They protest building volume discount stores and insist that we all (but particularly the poor) patronize small, local, expensive alternatives that have less selection. They wonder why these ideas have little traction outside their clan….

            1. John

              I know a lot of A students with high dollar educations who think some pretty crazy things about economics.

              1. Ragin Cajun

                Look at Figure 3 in the article. That might explain it. Kind of depressing, when I look at it.

                1. John Thacker

                  There are some real stereotype busters in this report.

                  Such as the result “Jews don’t know economics?”

              2. Tony

                Yeah mostly students who majored in economics.

                1. John Thacker

                  Tony, these questions were ones about which the science is settled. Maybe some question about the magnitude of the effect, but the overall principle is sound. It’s disappointing to see so many deniers out there among progressives and liberals.

            2. Rhywun

              There is a big difference between “people who shop at Wal-Mart” and “people who would shop at Wal-Mart if there was one nearby”.

  11. ?

    Sanders on some conscious or unconscious level knows that goldbugs like Paul aren’t really his allies, and also knows that the central bank is his ally, even if the people who work there wear expensive suits.

    I give Sanders full credit for knowing what he was doing when he showily signed on with Paul to make “Audit The Fed!” a “liberaltarian” thing: stopping it.

    That’s how left-libertarian “alliances” work. It’s what they are. “Wrecking,” as the lefties used to say.

    No exceptions.

    1. LibertyBill

      The right isnt much better in the right-libertarian alliance either. They just use us to get elected and throw us in the scrap.

  12. Rolando Negrin

    I have a very small cock.

  13. Jo Wawawa

    Some pretty crazy stuff. BTW< drone pilots are cowards with no balls.

    Lou
    http://www.anonymous-web-surfing.cz.tc

  14. J sub D

    How can an indedependent (Bernie Sanders) be mavericky? By voting with the majority on a bill?

    1. Almanian

      Ooo – that’s a good question!

  15. P Brooks

    My family name/bloodline arrived in 1620.

    FUCK YOU HILLARY CLINTON.

    —-

    the Constitution specifies that a Treason conviction can result in forfeiture of citizenship but not “corruption of blood”

    “Corruption of blood” you say; wasn’t the the abolishment of an entire family and hereditary line?

    Those crazy government-hating guys who wrote the Constitution had a clear and distinct recollection of Cromwellian England (unlike the vermin who populate Our Nation’s Capitol currently).

    Some of these “ideas” appear to me to be, per se, impeachable offenses.

  16. Mike M.

    B.S. “official” unemployment rate rises back up to 9.9 percent.

  17. Mike M.

    B.S. “official” unemployment rate rises back up to 9.9 percent.

  18. Mike M.

    “Official” unemployment rate rises back up to 9.9 percent.

    1. John Thacker

      Yeah, but be honest, I’ll take a higher unemployment rate if it’s accompanied, as this is, by more jobs and the rate’s going up because more people are looking for jobs. I suspect that this means that U6 went down.

      1. Mike M.

        Nope.

  19. My Scottish scumfuck people came here just in time to kill Englishmen for George Washington. Fuck you, Hillary Clinton, you vile leaking cunt.

    Have some morning stoner rock, cockfags.

  20. Almanian

    My Scotch/Irish/Heinz 57 scumfuck ancestors got here sometime. No idea when. I can go back at least to my great grandparents – good enough for me.

    Love when people refer to me as “of European ancestry”…um, no – we’re of “US ancestry”. For as long back as any of us knows.

    That’s why I mark job applications and stuff “Native American” – cause I was born here, my parents were born here, their parents were born here…so, I’m a native.

    And fuck Hillary Clinton (with Barack Obama’s dick, not mine)

    1. sage

      Thanks for the visual.

    2. Ska

      And fuck Hillary Clinton (with Barack Obama’s dick…)

      But who are you going to blame it on?

      1. Almanian

        I blame Bush

  21. P Brooks

    Hillary Clinton signed on to the Lieberman bill today because she says that citizenship is “a privilege and not a right”.

    Definitely Supreme Court material.

  22. R C Dean

    The unintended consequences of “whole body image” scanners.

    Quoth the Iron Law:

    Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.

    1. GORGES

      your epidermis is showing

      1. SugarFree

        “See, epidermis means your hair. So, technically it’s true. That’s what makes it so funny.”

      2. Tulpa

        You know you’re in trouble when your epididymis is showing.

  23. x,y

    so people who profess a religion (vaguely or not) but never attend score worst.

    Completely anecdotal, so take it for it’s worth: In my experience, this covers most liberals and Democrats.

  24. alan

    I had an uncle who was a boot camp sarge on Paris Island by the first and middle names of Edward Domingo. When his brother, another uncle (dad had nine brothers and sisters — Catholic, obviously), researched our genealogy he found the first person on our paternal side to have arrived from the Canary Islands was named Edwardo Domingo in 1755 whose occupation was a Man at Arms for the boat of settlers that arrived.

    Pretty wild, as it is doubtful my grandparents were at best vaguely aware of this history.

    My maternal side goes back a century further and its a mix of Germans, English, and some of that Celtic based rabble, and likely a Moravian or two.

    What Clinton said goes way too far. It was out of bounds of civil discourse and she should lose her job over it. It really was much worse in substance than what got Watt thrown out during the Reagan administration.

  25. Everyone here have a different viewpoint about the topic. But its nothing new for me. They are all same shame

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