10/04 -- Left-wing panic over Gary Johnson, part 1; After Peres, is peace possible in the Middle East?
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Thomas L. Knapp
Oct 4, 2016, 6:41:21 AM10/4/16
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Freedom News Daily, 10/04/16
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Today's Freedom News:
1) US suspends talks with Russia on Syria cease-fire
2) Ron Paul criticizes Gary Johnson, praises Jill Stein
3) SCOTUS takes a pass on Redskins, NCAA, immigration cases
4) Assange cancels balcony speech over security concerns; new Clinton info dump apparently still on for Tuesday
5) NY: AG orders Trump Foundation to stop fundraising
6) Trump campaign sponsors Roku showings of libertarian movie
7) Syria: Suicide attack on wedding kills 22 according to "Observatory"
8) Trudeau says Canada to implement carbon tax
9) Oregon to launch recreational cannabis sales on Saturday
10) Canada: Judge temporarily suspends Montreal pit bull ban
11) Politicians take aim at Wells Fargo for acting like politicians
12) CA: Protesters at Gandhi statue unveiling claim he was racist, sexist
13) US mediates major oil deal with Iraq, Kurds for ISIS war to win back Mosul
14) Poland: Thousands protest against planned abortion ban
15) Report: Alternative medicine may be linked to lower vaccination rates
16) How Ford police vehicles will get even sneakier
17) Brace yourselves -- source code powering potent IoT DDoSes just went public
18) Deutsche Bank aims to reach settlement with extortionists before presidential election
19) France: Kim Kardashian robbed at gunpoint, suspect stole more than $10 million in jewelry
20) Greece: Police fire tear gas at retirees in anti-austerity rally
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Left-wing panic over Gary Johnson, part 1
22) After Peres, is peace possible in the Middle East?
23) Two things that don't really bother me about Trump, two things that do
24) There's nothing new about third parties -- or fourth or fifth or sixth
25) Pipeline brings a property rights fight to Virginia
26) When body cameras are not enough
27) Childhood and self-ownership: Is there a libertarian way to parent?
28) She blew it off
29) Arizona is ground zero for ObamaCare's death spiral
30) Oversight transition isn't giving away the Internet, but won't fix ICANN's problems
31) The United States is an oligarchy, not an "Idiocracy"
32) In defense of Gary Johnson
33) Bugs
34) 45 years after Attica uprising, prisoners are rebelling again
35) Why Colombia said no to peace
36) Gun control in the Third Reich
37) The choice that isn't
38) Even with Johnson's gaffes, he remains the sanest choice for president over Trump or Clinton
39) Putin's Middle East gamble is paying off dividends
40) From "come and take it" to "go and make it"
41) Is the DEA high? The agency's emergency ban on kratom has to make you wonder what they're smoking
42) The Donald's 180 on not paying taxes
43) Short-term government built short-term capitalism
44) Taxes, free-riding, and federation
45) Fedzilla's land grabs, part 2
46) No candidate for homeschoolers
47) Will Wells Fargo's scandal change Wall Street?
48) Hillary to Havana: Drop dead
49) The Trumped-up myths behind "trickle-down" economics
50) Breakfast with Bill Weld
51) Don't mention the V.A.R.!
52) Free Talk Live, 10/02/16
53) Freedom Feens Radio, 10/03/16
54) An introduction to Austrian economics, part 6
55) Growth of school choice perturbs government lords
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FREEDOM NEWS
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1) US suspends talks with Russia on Syria cease-fire
Source: USA Today
"The United States said Monday it was suspending 'bilateral' talks with Russia on trying to end the violence in war-torn Syria and claimed Moscow has not lived up to its terms of agreement last month to restore the cease-fire. 'The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities,' State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. 'This is not a decision that was taken lightly.' He said the U.S. will also withdraw personnel dispatched to take part in the creation of a U.S.-Russia joint implementation center that was to have coordinated military cooperation and intelligence had the cease-fire lasted." (10/03/16)
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2) Ron Paul criticizes Gary Johnson, praises Jill Stein
Source: Washington Post
"Ron Paul, whose 1988 Libertarian presidential bid and two Republican bids made him the 'liberty movement's' best-known figure, told MSNBC today that he couldn't support Gary Johnson for president and saw reasons to back the Green Party's Jill Stein. 'If you tend to lean toward progressivism, you can lean toward the Green Party,' Paul said. 'She's probably the best on foreign policy.' ... since the LP's Memorial Day weekend convention, Johnson has run as a cross-ideological candidate, attempting to build 'a six-lane highway between the two parties.' When asked about the details of the Libertarian Party platform, he has made clear that he does not stand by all of it. Paul hinted at his problem with that in the MSNBC interview. 'He doesn't come across with a crisp Libertarian message,' said Paul of Johnson. 'I'm voting for the nonaggression principle.'" (10/03/16)
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3) SCOTUS takes a pass on Redskins, NCAA, immigration cases
Source: Forbes
"The Washington Redskins will have to remain on the sidelines while the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether the government can refuse to register offensive trademarks in the case of a rock band whose Asian frontman named The Slants. The high court also refused to hear an appeal of an antitrust ruling against the NCAA over how much financial aid colleges can award to athletes and declined the Obama administration's request to rehear the appeal of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that halted the administration's plan to award semi-legal status to millions of immigrants. The decision not to combine the Redskins case with that of The Slants wasn't a surprise, since Pro-Football Inc., the firm controlled by billionaire Dan Snyder that owns the NFL team, is still awaiting the outcome of an appeal to the Fourth Circuit." (10/03/16)
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4) Assange cancels balcony speech over security concerns; new Clinton info dump apparently still on for Tuesday
Source: New York Magazine
"WikiLeaks has cancelled a much-anticipated announcement set for Tuesday, citing security concerns at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lives under effective house arrest .... The announcement was widely believed to be the long-promised reveal of leaked emails from the Democratic Party that Assange has said will be devastating for Hillary Clinton's campaign. ... It looks like Assange will still appear in a video for a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday morning. It's unclear if he will take that opportunity to make his big reveal." [editor's note: Most of the mainstream media seems to be hyping the appearance cancellation and burying the fact that a Tuesday event is still on, presumably in hopes of minimizing the potential damage to Clinton; I expect a slew of "Assange is with !THEM RUSSIANS!" hit pieces, too - TLK] (10/03/16)
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5) NY: AG orders Trump Foundation to stop fundraising
Source: NBC News
"New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office on Monday ordered the Donald J. Trump Foundation to 'immediately cease soliciting contributions' after a report that the charity lacked the proper authorization to seek public donations. 'The Attorney General's office is the sole regulator of charities in New York State, and when evidence of clear misconduct is brought to our attention, we take action,' a spokesman for the attorney general's office said in a statement." (10/03/16)
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6) Trump campaign sponsors Roku showings of libertarian movie
Source: J Neil Schulman @ Rational Review
"The presidential campaign for Republican candidate Donald J. Trump began today sponsoring showings of the libertarian movie 'Alongside Night' -- based on the Prometheus-award-winning 1979 first novel by J. Neil Schulman endorsed by Nobel-laureate Milton Friedman, 'A Clockwork Orange' novelist Anthony Burgess, and Dr. Ron Paul -- on the Roku 24-Hour Movie Channel. The movie, released in limited theatrical runs in 2014 and subsequently playing on iTunes and Amazon Video/Amazon Prime, as well as release as a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack -- began playing October 3, 2016 on The 24-Hour Movie Channel, with sponsorship mostly by the Donald J. Trump for President campaign." (10/03/16)
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7) Syria: Suicide attack on wedding kills 22 according to "Observatory"
Source: Daily Mail [UK]
"A suicide bomber killed at least 22 people Monday in an attack targeting a party in the northeastern Syrian province of Hasakeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and medics said. 'A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a hall in Tall Tawil village during the wedding of a member of the Syrian Democratic Forces, killing at least 22 civilians,' Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP." (10/03/16)
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8) Trudeau says Canada to implement carbon tax
Source: Lompoc Record
"Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada will implement a tax on carbon emissions by 2018 to combat climate change. Trudeau made the announcement in Parliament on Monday as debate started over whether Canada should ratify the Paris accord on climate change. It is expected to pass. Trudeau says provinces and territories can either put a direct tax on carbon emissions or adopt a cap-and-trade system. If they don't do so by 2018 the federal government will implement one." (10/03/16)
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9) Oregon to launch recreational cannabis sales on Saturday
Source: Smell the Truth
"Oregon is set to open its first group of dispensaries to sell recreational pot this weekend. After two years since voters passed a legalization measure, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission recently announced the approval of 26 retailers now licensed to sell recreational marijuana, reports the Associated Press. In a conference call with press, OLCC executive director Steven Marks said 12 of those retailers are cleared to operate as soon as Saturday. 'We're right on time. It's Oct. 1 and we're ready,' Marks said. Under the OLCC and Oregon Health Authority, both medical and recreational cannabis products will now be tested for pesticides, potency, and other elements. All products must meet new standards set for testing, packaging, and labeling, although shops will initially be allowed to sell products tested from the old regime to provide a smooth transition for retailers to sell their remaining inventory." (10/03/16)
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10) Canada: Judge temporarily suspends Montreal pit bull ban
Source: Fox News
"A Quebec Superior Court judge temporarily suspended Montreal's pit bull ban on the same day the new law was to come into effect. The local SPCA humane society took the city to court over the ban, which place restrictions on owning a pit bull. Judge Louis Gouin on Monday suspended the parts of the animal control law that deal with pit bull-type dogs until Wednesday evening while he evaluates the SPCA's request." (10/03/16)
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11) Politicians take aim at Wells Fargo for acting like politicians
Source: Charlotte Observer
"The fallout over a fake accounts scandal widened Monday for Wells Fargo, with officials in Illinois pulling business from the bank and Democrat Hillary Clinton targeting the company on the presidential campaign trail. Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs on Monday said he was suspending $30 billion in investment activity with the San Francisco-based bank, while Chicago Treasurer Kurt Summers said he is divesting $25 million invested with Wells. The move follows a similar step by California's treasurer last week." (10/03/16)
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12) CA: Protesters at Gandhi statue unveiling claim he was racist, sexist
Source: Fox News
"Protesters tried shouting down a crowd of hundreds who turned out in a California park on Sunday to witness the unveiling of a bronze Mahatma Gandhi statue, FOX40 reported. A few demonstrators used megaphones to shout that Gandhi was a 'racist' as the 'Gandhi Statue of Peace' was unveiled on what would have been Gandhi's 147th birthday, The Sacramento Bee reported. Gandhi, largely viewed as a symbol of peaceful resistance, is seen as paving the way for leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. But some of the Davis protesters (many of whom were Sikh activists opposed to the Indian government) cast Gandhi in a far different light. 'They want you to believe, and they want Davis to believe, about this peaceful myth, when Gandhi was really an agent for sexism, horrible bigotry,' Amar Shergill told FOX40. 'And they just don't want people in Davis to know about that. And we're here to change that.'" [editor's note: Okay, Dr. King was known to be a philanderer, Jefferson had slaves, Vaclav Havel had his skeletons; NO wonder "who is your favorite world leader" is so hard to answer! - SAT] (10/03/16)
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13) US mediates major oil deal with Iraq, Kurds for ISIS war to win back Mosul
Source: Chicago Chronicle
"The U.S., in a deft act of shuttle diplomacy, is said to have negotiated a crucial oil deal between Iraq and its Kurdistan Region to keep America's battle against the Islamic State on track to win back Mosul. The deal, first reported by Reuters quoting diplomats and officials, is essentially an oil revenue-sharing pact sealed in August that is vital to getting central and regional governments to coordinate planning for a bigger offensive on the ISIS, whose stronghold is Mosul." (10/04/16)
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14) Poland: Thousands protest against planned abortion ban
Source: Reuters
"Thousands of Poles dressed in black marched through city streets in Poland on Monday, closing down government offices, restaurants and other businesses in protest against a petition for a total ban on abortion. The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has put forward the proposal (from a group called Ordo Iuris) for debate in parliament. Critics of the new rules say PiS may back them for fear of angering the church in staunchly Roman Catholic Poland. Poland's already restrictive laws only allow abortion in the case of rape, incest, a threat to a pregnant woman's health, or when the baby is likely to be permanently handicapped. Women and doctors could face prison if convicted of causing what the proposed rules call 'death of a conceived child,' and critics say doctors would be discouraged from doing prenatal testing, particularly if that carried the risk of miscarriage." (10/03/16)
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15) Report: Alternative medicine may be linked to lower vaccination rates
Source: Raw Story
"Children that visit alternative medical practitioners like acupuncturists and chiropractors may be less likely to receive flu shots than their peers, a U.S. study suggests. Roughly 33 percent of kids who saw providers of so-called non-Western medicine for services like acupuncture or homeopathic care got vaccinations for influenza, the analysis of national survey data on about 9,000 kids found. About 35 percent of kids who went to practitioners of what's known as manipulative and body-based therapies such as chiropractic care or massage got flu vaccinations. In comparison, 43 percent of children who didn't see these types of alternative medicine providers got vaccinated, researchers report in the journal Pediatrics. 'Some complementary and alternative medicine practitioners have anti-vaccine or vaccine-hesitant viewpoints,' said lead study author William Bleser of Pennsylvania State University in State College." [editor's note: Watch out for this being the latest Big Pharma tactic to make non-alllopathic healing illegal - SAT] (10/03/16)
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16) How Ford police vehicles will get even sneakier
Source: USA Today
"Ford said Monday it is introducing rear emergency lights that are built into the spoiler. The system means that in states where officers in unmarked cruisers are allowed to pull over speeders, it may be harder to recognize their vehicles -- until those lights go on. Just when it seemed like undercover police cars couldn't get any stealthier, along comes this. After adding red- and blue-emergency lights inside the front visors of unmarked police cars, Ford said Monday it is introducing rear emergency lights that are built into the spoiler." (10/03/16)
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17) Brace yourselves -- source code powering potent IoT DDoSes just went public
Source: Ars Technica
"KrebsOnSecurity's Brian Krebs reported on Saturday that the source code for 'Mirai,' a network of Internet-connected cameras and other 'Internet of things' devices, was published on Friday. Dale Drew, the chief security officer at Internet backbone provider Level 3 Communications, told Ars that Mirai is one of two competing IoT botnet families that have recently menaced the Internet with record-breaking distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks -- including the one that targeted Krebs with 620 gigabits per second of network traffic, and another that hit French webhost OVH and reportedly peaked at more than 1 terabit per second." (10/02/16)
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18) Deutsche Bank aims to reach settlement with extortionists before presidential election
Source: Cyprus Mail [Cyprus]
"Deutsche Bank is throwing its energies into reaching a settlement before next month's presidential election with US authorities demanding a [bribe] of up to $14bn for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities. The threat of such a large [bribe demand] has pushed Deutsche shares to record lows, and a cut-price settlement is urgently needed to reverse the trend and help to restore confidence in Germany's largest lender." (10/03/16)
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19) France: Kim Kardashian robbed at gunpoint, suspect stole more than $10 million in jewelry
Source: The Denver Channel
"Kim Kardashian West was unharmed after being robbed at gunpoint of more than $10 million worth of jewelry inside a private Paris residence Sunday night, police officials said. A spokeswoman for Kardashian West said the reality TV star, who was in Paris attending fashion week shows, was 'badly shaken but physically unharmed' after masked men dressed as police officers also tied her up in the flat's bathroom before fleeing the scene." (10/03/16)
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20) Greece: Police fire tear gas at retirees in anti-austerity rally
Source: US News & World Report
"Greek police fired tear gas and pepper spray at pensioners during an anti-austerity protest in which some of the elderly demonstrators tried to tip over a riot police bus blocking a road to the prime minister's office. More than a thousand people, some of them with canes, took part in Monday's demonstration against more cuts to pensions. Dozens chanted 'Shame on you, shame on you!' as they tried to break through a police cordon. Others were trying to push over a bus when officers fired the pepper spray." (10/03/16)
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FREEDOM COMMENTARY
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21) Left-wing panic over Gary Johnson, part 1
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
"Leftists are in a full-blown panic over Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. I've never seen anything like it. After ignoring the LP candidate for president for years, suddenly there is a spate of op-eds and editorials from all over the mainstream press feverishly coming out against Johnson and exhorting young people to vote for Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton instead. Why the panic? The reason is that an increasing number of young people are rejecting both Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump and supporting Johnson. Even worse for the Clinton and her leftist supporters, Johnson is pulling more votes from Clinton than Trump." (10/03/16)
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22) After Peres, is peace possible in the Middle East?
Source: Campaign For Liberty
by Ron Paul
"Shimon Peres was in favor of real negotiations with the Palestinians and he several times inserted himself into the process to urge the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu to start talking rather than saber rattling. ... Former Jerusalem Post editor Steve Linde wrote a fascinating article last week in his old newspaper detailing a meeting he and the Post's managing editor had with Shimon Peres in 2014. According to Linde, Peres was asked what he thought was his greatest legacy. He replied that he had personally intervened to stop Netanyahu from ordering a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear sites. Asked by the journalists when they could report this revelation, Peres responded, 'when I'm dead.' So it came to pass last week. How much for the worse things have become in Israeli-Palestinian relations with the passing on of anyone preferring negotiations to violence." (10/03/16)
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23) Two things that don't really bother me about Trump, two things that do
Source: William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism
by Thomas L Knapp
"The US embargo on Cuba is an evil law which has helped keep the tyrannical Castro regime in power for half a century. Anyone who violates it is doing a heroic deed, striking a blow for freedom and for the Cuban people. Unfortunately, Trump is inconsistent on this point. He recently stated an intention to 'cancel' the progress US president Barack Obama has made toward opening up relations between the US and Cuba." (10/03/16)
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24) There's nothing new about third parties -- or fourth or fifth or sixth
Source: HubPages
by Garry Reed
"If we've learned nothing else from this presidential election circus it's that politicians can't be judged on the basis of their current political party labels. A candidate doesn't have to be a Republican to run as a Republican. Trump was a Reagan Republican, switched to the Reform Party, then became a Democrat, then a Republican, then an Independent and is now a Republican again. A candidate doesn't have to be a Democrat to run as a Democrat. As a University of Chicago student Sanders joined the Young People's Socialist League (the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party of America), later joined the Liberty Union Party, then became Independent, then a Democrat, identified as a socialist while mayor of Burlington, Vermont in the 1980s and again during his 2016 bid as the Democratic Party presidential nominee. Even Hillary Clinton was a Republican once." (10/03/16)
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25) Pipeline brings a property rights fight to Virginia
Source: Reason
by A Barton Hinkle
"Eighty-three-year-old Hazel Palmer could become the Suzette Kelo of Virginia -- the face of a property-rights revolution. She has a piece of land in Augusta County along the proposed route of the 600-mile, $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline. It has been in her family for four generations, and she does not want surveyors for the pipeline traipsing across it -- especially if said surveying leads to what she fears: a staging area for drilling inside her property line. A state law says the pipeline's surveyors don't need her permission to step onto her property. The state's constitution might say otherwise. Virginia's Supreme Court will decide the matter." (10/03/16)
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26) When body cameras are not enough
Source: The American Prospect
by Mark Obbie
"When a Charlotte, North Carolina, police officer pumped ten bullets three years ago into Jonathan Ferrell, a black man who had been seeking help after a car accident, the city responded with a push for better training of police in tactics and racial attitudes. On went the body cameras, and in came Kerr Putney, a black police chief unafraid to talk about his profession's racist history. Good intentions had turned into action. Would action translate into results? On September 20 of this year, Charlotte's police force got its answer when it seemed to land right back where it started. An officer in that same department, already trained in de-escalation tactics, shot yet another black man, Keith Lamont Scott, under disputed circumstances. Now the city has entered a new and even more intense spasm of anger and frustration, with protesters demanding that Putney be fired." (10/03/16)
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27) Childhood and self-ownership: Is there a libertarian way to parent?
Source: The Libertarian Republic
by Avens O'Brien
"Is there a Libertarian parenting style? Does non-aggression begin in the home? People ask me all the time, as a second generation libertarian, what that must be like. People who are raising their own second generation libertarians ask me how my parents dealt with certain childhood challenges. Is there a way to raise free children?" (10/01/16)
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28) She blew it off
Source: Authority!
by Timothy J Taylor
"Hillary Clinton was absolutely required to take certain mandatory government intelligence training courses dealing precisely with how to handle classified material while she was Secretary of State. Now we have learned that she didn't take any of that important mandatory training. Why not? Well, because she just blew it off; that's why. Knowing how to handle classified material was never important to her." (10/02/16)
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29) Arizona is ground zero for ObamaCare's death spiral
Source: Cato Institute
by Jeffrey A Singer
"The Affordable Care Act's defenders have spent the past six years dismissing the law's critics for predicting that it would enter a 'death spiral.' But it turns out we were prophets -- just look at what's happening all across Arizona. The past couple of months have seen the Affordable Care Act's -- Obamacare's -- online exchanges crumble in our state. Three years in, health-insurance companies have discovered that the law's top-down, one-size-fits-all approach is a bureaucratic and financial disaster. So naturally, they're abandoning the law in droves." (10/02/16)
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30) Oversight transition isn't giving away the Internet, but won't fix ICANN's problems
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Jeremy Malcolm
"At midnight last Saturday morning, Washington DC time, oversight over the performance of ICANN's IANA functions -- notably its maintenance of the root zone database of the Internet's domain name system (DNS) -- passed from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to ICANN's global multi-stakeholder community. Despite several weeks of heated discussion within the United States, we haven't commented much on this transition. That's because there has not been much to say: the talking points over ICANN have been mostly a product of American party politics (and the election season) rather than a debate on a substantive technical or policy issue." (10/03/16)
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31) The United States is an oligarchy, not an "Idiocracy"
Source: In These Times
by Kate Aronoff
"Tuesday, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Art House Convergence (a theater chain and network of independent movie houses, respectively) will team up with League of Women Voters chapters around the country to offer screenings of 'Idiocracy,' Mike Judge's 2006 comedy in which America kills itself with its own stupidity. Promoting the screenings, the theater chain's website announces that, 'We are approaching the end of the most bizarre, absurdist presidential race in U.S. history. Over the past months, thousands have questioned in social media whether 'Idiocracy' was actually a documentary.' The subtext isn't hard to make out: America might just be dumb enough to elect Donald Trump, and 'Idiocracy' shows that fate carried to extremes." [editor's note: Actually it has been the former for decades, if not centuries; it is becoming the latter mostly by default - SAT] (10/03/16)
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32) In defense of Gary Johnson
Source: Antiwar.com
by Justin Raimondo
"The Clinton smear machine, having finally noticed that Gary Johnson is cutting into what they regard as Hillary's rightful share of the so-called 'millennial' vote, has set its sights on the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate. It wasn't supposed to be this way: the conventional wisdom was that the Libertarian ticket of Johnson and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld would split the traditionally Republican base, providing an outlet for the 'Never Trump' crowd to vent their spleen. ... While Johnson-Weld went out of their way not to criticize Mrs. Clinton except in the mildest possible terms -- saving their venom for Donald Trump, whom Weld likened to Hitler -- what everyone overlooked is that Trump was defining the race. One was either for Trump, or against him -- and the Libertarians wound up splitting the anti-Trump vote." (10/03/16)
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33) Bugs
Source: EconoLog
by Bryan Caplan
"I've previous defended what I call the Argument from Conscience. The gist of it: 1. If even morally scrupulous advocates of view X don't live in accordance with X, the best explanation is that they don't really believe X. 2. If even the dedicated advocates of X don't really believe X, X is probably false. By this logic: If even morally scrupulous animal rights activists don't sincerely believe that killing bugs is wrong, it's probably not wrong. And once you proverbially throw bugs under the bus, why not other pests like mice and rats? And once you abandon mammalian pests, why not cows and pigs? But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself." (10/03/16)
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34) 45 years after Attica uprising, prisoners are rebelling again
Source: The Intercept
by Alice Speri
"At the height of Attica, if you look at public opinion polls, there was quite a notable degree of support for prison reform and for better guard training and more humane conditions in prisons. After Attica, that door closes. The carceral state was a backlash to the civil rights movement, and Attica was the pinnacle of that link between the civil rights movement and the prison rights movement. Today, people are still very hostile to the idea that prisoners are people. But I feel like we're in a changing moment right now." (10/03/16)
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35) Why Colombia said no to peace
Source: The New Republic
by Steven Cohen
"Hesmar Agudelo Granada has what you need, even if you don't know you need it yet. Saws, herbs, pot handles, a dusty but lightly worn copy of The Modern Girl and Sex, by Dr. Juan F. Night. He sets up his cart on the same corner every morning, one block over from the main plaza in Puerto Asís, a boom town in Colombia's southern coca-growing region, along the border with Ecuador. The merchandise varies, depending on availability, but if he doesn't have what you're looking for, he probably knows where to find it. 'I've always been a hard worker, an entrepreneur,' he says, 'not like those shameless motherfuckers they signed that deal with in Cartagena.' Hesmar has nothing against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) per se. For the most part, he got along with the guerrillas just fine, back when he used to park his old cart on the other side of the river, over by the FARC's main camp in the area." (10/03/16)
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36) Gun control in the Third Reich
Source: Strike The Root
by Alex R Knight III
"Enacted in late 1931, not long before Hitler would become chancellor and the Nazi Party would proclaim a political monopoly for itself in the Reichstag, near-universal registration of personal firearms was characterized (as might well be expected) as a crime fighting measure. In addition, in 1932 -- and with ominously ironic foreshadowing -- the German interior minister ordered that the lists of gun registrants be securely stored so that they could not fall into the hands of 'radical elements.' He also issued an alleged promise of a 'very high level of security of the data.' All of this would become utterly meaningless, of course, when in less than a year's time Hitler and his underlings would order the cross-referencing of said gun registration lists with both new and old state registry office census data which -- with the help of punchcards courtesy of IBM corporation's German subsidiary -- enabled the Nazi authorities to identify Jews, as well as others considered, for whatever reasons they cared to formulate, 'politically unreliable.'" (10/03/16)
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37) The choice that isn't
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
"Americans are used to being betrayed by their political representation. This long series of infidelities has led to the current predicament, where the Republican and Democratic parties present us with the opposite of what most Americans want. Why this vexing stalemate? History." (10/03/16)
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38) Even with Johnson's gaffes, he remains the sanest choice for president over Trump or Clinton
Source: Palm Beach Free Press
by Karl Dickey
"[W]hile both Clinton and Trump have a large amount of baggage, Johnson seems the sanest choice of the three presidential candidates who will be on the ballot in all 50 states in November's general election. But many Americans remain fearful to vote Johnson as they feel they may be 'wasting' their vote." (10/02/16)
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39) Putin's Middle East gamble is paying off dividends
Source: Reuters
by Amir Handjani
"Vladimir Putin has made an art of turning weakness into strength. As Russian and Syrian forces pound Aleppo in the biggest assault of Syria's five-year civil war, the Russian president clearly has emerged as a dominant force in the Middle East. Two years ago Russia had virtually no presence in the region, aside from a naval base in Syria. Today Moscow's fighter jets and missiles fly over Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi airspace. Over the last year, Putin has inserted Russia into the Syrian conflict and shored up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad as it was on the verge of collapse. The Russian leader has forged a quasi-military alliance with Iran that has allowed him to project power in the Persian Gulf -- something that has evaded Moscow since the end of World War Two." (10/03/16)
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40) From "come and take it" to "go and make it"
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Isaac M Morehouse
"For thousands of years, revolutionaries who wanted to change the world had few options: They could play politics, protest, or fight. (The latter was a last resort to violence. The former was simply a threat of violence -- not much better, and a marginal improvement at best.) Inherent in all of these strategies is an 'us versus them' mentality -- a tribal paradigm and a zero-sum game of we win, they lose. Today, more and more people are looking for another way. It turns out, we don't have to fight for a better future. We can create one." (10/03/16)
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41) Is the DEA high? The agency's emergency ban on kratom has to make you wonder what they're smoking
Source: Salon
by Conor Lynch
"Hasty and ill-considered, the claim that kratom is an imminent public health and safety threat is enough to make you wonder whether they are getting high on their own supply over at the DEA. Indeed, policy experts seem to overwhelmingly agree that this knee-jerk measure will only worsen the current heroin and opiate epidemic in America by forcing many kratom users to turn to more dangerous and addictive drugs in treating their pain -- thus exacerbating a legitimate public health crisis." (10/02/16)
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42) The Donald's 180 on not paying taxes
Source: Free Press Publications
by Darryl W Perry
"I applaud anyone who finds a way to avoid having money stolen, even if that person is Donald Trump. However, in the case of Donald Trump, it is a bit hypocritical to claim it's smart to avoid federal income taxes while deriding other for not paying federal income taxes, and also profiting from other forms of theft, specifically eminent domain." [text, Flash audio and MP3] (10/02/16)
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43) Short-term government built short-term capitalism
Source: USA Today
by John A Allison IV
"Hillary Clinton recently highlighted a major problem in the U.S. economy: The business community increasingly pursues short-term profits at the expense of the long-term investments that increase employment, wages and innovation. This weakens the economy and leaves the American people worse off. I applaud Clinton for identifying this issue -- I witnessed it firsthand during my tenure as CEO of BB&T Bank. But if she's serious about solving it, she needs to identify the real culprit: the federal government, especially the vast (and growing) regulatory state. Not only do current federal regulations incentivize short-term decision-making, so does the constant threat of future rules and mandates, which can disrupt long-term investments before they bear fruit." (10/03/16)
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44) Taxes, free-riding, and federation
Source: Notes On Liberty
by Brandon Christensen
"Why didn't the UK just federate with its North American colonies? [Adam] Smith cited British fears of an unbalanced political constitution that the North American colonies might bring to such a union, and North American fears of being completely dominated by a faraway parliament were they to join such a federation. He countered both fears well, but check out what he predicted would happen if such a federation were to actually take place .... Smith argued that the American colonies would become so rich and so populous that the capital of his proposed British federation would 'naturally' move from London to somewhere in North America. Smith was wrong in a general way, but correct in an even more general way." (10/02/16)
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45) Fedzilla's land grabs, part 2
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Bradley Harrington
"If you want to gauge just how far down the intellectual ladder we've slid in the last 200 years, however, get a load of this: 'I'm not aware of anything in the Constitution that would preclude the federal government from owning land in these Western states.' Barack Obama's Hypothesis of the Unlimited State, right? Wrong ... That was John Malcolm, a legal scholar for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank .... A man who, after all of his studies, has still not grasped the fact that it's not what the Constitution precludes on the federal level that matters, but what it specifically authorizes instead. With 'friends' such as these, who needs enemies?" (10/02/16)
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46) No candidate for homeschoolers
Source: The American Conservative
by Matthew Hennessey
"Neither major presidential candidate has made homeschooling an issue during the campaign. Most of my fellow homeschoolers interpret this as a good sign. We know from bitter experience that it's best to be ignored. Without a candidate to back, however, homeschoolers are feeling anxious about the future. What will become of us?" (10/03/16)
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47) Will Wells Fargo's scandal change Wall Street?
Source: Our Future
by Richard Eskow
"Big-bank CEOs have presided over a cornucopia of criminality in recent years. Their misdeeds are so varied and numerous that Wall Street begins to loom in the mind like some Hieronymus Bosch landscape, a scene whose occupants stun the imagination with the scope of their diversity and perversity. And yet these top executives have managed to avoid being held accountable (legally, financially, and even socially) for their actions. Is that finally about to change? The Wells Fargo scandal may be remembered as the moment when top bankers finally began to pay a price for their actions." (10/03/16)
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48) Hillary to Havana: Drop dead
Source: CounterPunch
by Ben Burgis
"When a report in Newsweek revealed that one of Donald Trump's companies had engaged in (extremely trivial) violations of the U.S. embargo on Cuba during Bill's Presidency, Hillary was to tell reporters on her campaign plane that Trump had put 'his personal and business interests ahead of the laws and the values and the policies of the United States of America.' ... Back up. The embargo is evil. It should be violated. That Trump's violation was motivated by profit rather than politics is beside the point. A grocery store owner in the Jim Crow South who illegally served black customers at his lunch counter because he wanted their business would be less praiseworthy than one who did the same thing because he wanted to take a principled stand against segregation laws, but both are better than a store owner who dutifully carried out those laws." (10/03/16)
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49) The Trumped-up myths behind "trickle-down" economics
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Gary Galles
"In the post-debate spin, few noted Hillary Clinton's pride in coining 'trumped-up trickle-down' economics to accuse Donald Trump of policy malfeasance. However, it is important, because every time anyone has ever used the term 'trickle-down' economics (or its rhetorical cousins, 'tax cuts for the rich,' 'voodoo economics,' etc.) it has been a trumped-up, intentional misrepresentation. No supply-side economist ever promoted 'trickle-down' economics." (10/03/16)
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50) Breakfast with Bill Weld
Source: The Atlantic
by Molly Ball
"The question that always haunts third-party tickets is whether they will play spoiler to one of the major parties. This year, the Libertarians were initially assumed to be a problem for the Republicans: The ticket consists, after all, of two former Republican governors, Weld and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. For the many GOP voters repulsed by Trump, the Libertarians could be an appealing alternative. But Johnson and Weld also appear to be drawing votes from Clinton, particularly from young people who prefer their live-and-let-live idealism to her baggage-laden wonkery. This is not the way Weld thinks it ought to be. He believes Clinton is wrong on policy, particularly fiscal and military matters -- but Trump is unthinkable." (10/03/16)
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51) Don't mention the V.A.R.!
Source: The Cobden Centre
by Tim Price
"The 2015 annual report for Deutsche Bank runs to some 448 pages, so one rather doubts if even its CEO, John Cryan, has read it all, or has a complete grasp of, for example, its €42 trillion in total notional derivatives exposure. Is Deutsche Bank technically insolvent? We'd suggest that it probably is, but we have no dog in the fight, having never either owned banks, or shorted them. And like everybody else we assume that some kind of fix will soon be in -- probably one that will further vindicate exposure to gold, both as money substitute and currency substitute." (10/03/16)
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52) Free Talk Live, 10/02/16
Source: Free Talk Live
"National Service aka Slavery is Back in the News :: US Govt Gives Up Control of Internet :: Free Market Education :: Creepy Clowns :: Fear of Clowns :: Zero Tolerance :: National Service Reserve :: Johnson Weld Not Libertarian :: Ralph :: Talk Radio :: NYPD Loaded With Cash." [Flash audio or MP3] (10/02/16)
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53) Freedom Feens Radio, 10/03/16
Source: Freedom Feens Radio
"Michael W. Dean, Jeremy HizenBugler and Dianna Keiler get jubilant on the radio and discuss logical fallacies, the unclear ending of the Netflix show 'Bloodline,' how cops are behaving slightly better now that everyone has a camera in their pocket, the US fed-gov produced film 'Hemp for victory,' why the Feens are not making the Feens app for iPhone, and the small light 13-dollar Android phone that work with WiFi and will run the Feens app for all you people stuck in the Apple cult on your iPhones." [various formats] (10/03/16)
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54) An introduction to Austrian economics, part 6
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling
"Austrian Economics is the most powerful explanation of why governments, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the knowledge, wisdom and ability to direct the lives of multitudes of people better than those people can do for themselves. In this series of easy-to-understand lectures, economist Richard Ebeling introduces you to the central ideas in Austrian Economics, as well as their importance for us today." [Flash video] (10/03/16)
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55) Growth of school choice perturbs government lords
Source: Heartland Institute
by Robert Holland
"Federal laws and regulations oblige public school districts to provide so-called 'equitable services' under IDEA and Title I to eligible students who attend private schools. Reading tutors and speech therapists are the sort of providers dispatched to the private schools. Districts are authorized to find the private school children in need and decide who needs which services the most. Until recently, affected special-needs students have been those whom public schools have farmed out willingly to designated private schools. Now that parents themselves are opting out of the public system and choosing their own private schools or service providers, some bureaucrats say they are confused -- or perhaps they just have their noses out of joint." (10/02/16)
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