Politics

Tonight on The Independents: Judge Napolitano, Rep. Thomas Massie, Shikha Dalmia, TV's Andy Levy, and the Return of Two Minutes Hate!

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Wednesday night episodes of The Independents, as a perusal through the Reason archives will attest, tend to be chock full of libertarian red meat. Tonight is no different.

Batting leadoff, playing natural-rights field (ducks), is Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst and Reason.com columnist Andrew Napolitano, who will talk about 1) CVS' decision to stop selling cigarettes, and whether that's an example of a private business living life by its own lights, or an example of a lobbying heavyweight working the borderline between P.R. and corporatism; 2) the move by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to make Attorney General Eric Holder disclose the administration's legal rationales for Barack Obama's once and future executive orders; and 3) an outrageous Circuit Court decision allowing the city of Orlando to eminent domain a church (!) and give it to a Major League Soccer franchise (!!!!).

In the two-hole come TV's Andy Levy of Red Eye fame plus "Conservative Black Chick" Crystal Wright, who will discuss the latest developments and pharmacological hysteria over the heroin overdose of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and also the news that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is creating new school days off in honor of Muslim and Asian holidays. The third hitter, fittingly, is Liberty Movement superstar Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who will talk about 1) the latest Edward Snowden/Glenn Greenwald nonsense emanating from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Wisc.); 2) the latest promising developments in the fight to roll back mandatory minimums for drug sentencing; 3) whether he's ready to go full legalization; and 4) his weird & wonderful off-the-grid farm. (Speaking of the latter, that's the theme of Friday's show, which will discuss Bitcoin, preppers, sovereign cities, and all kinds of wonderful don't-track-me-bro arcana.)

Beloved Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia comes on to talk about the latest in immigration-reform politics, and whether Roger L. Simon's modest proposal to withhold voting privileges for amnestied illegal immigrants is a clever way to depoliticize the issue. There will also be discussion of the latest awful farm bill, the latest idiot e-cigarette ban, the proposed upcoming boxing match between George Zimmerman and the rapper DMX, and the school that wants to ban the advertisement for banning guns at school because it shows a gun, at school.

And to put a cherry on that sundae, there will be a second installment of Two Minutes Hate, a reading of your worst viewer mail. Send your tweeted appreciations out to @IndependentsFBN!