Month: May 2018

Georgia Kidnapped This Boy Because His Parents Used Marijuana to Stop His Seizures

Georgia recognizes cannabis as a treatment for epilepsy and notionally lets certified patients possess up to 20 fluid ounces of “low THC oil,” an extract that contains a negligible amount of marijuana’s main psychoactive component but a substantial amount of cannabidiol (CBD), the ingredient that seems to help control seizures. That privilege is mainly theoretical, however, since there is no legal way to produce or obtain cannabis extract in Georgia. Given that glaring defect in the state’s medical marijuana law, it is easy to understand why Matthew and Suzeanna Brill let their 15-year-old son, David, smoke cannabis in a desperate attempt to control his epileptic seizures. It is harder to understand why that decision led the state of Georgia to forcibly separate David from his parents.

David was having several seizures a day, the Brills say, and the drugs he was prescribed for his epilepsy did not work. But after he started smoking marijuana in February, he went more than two months without a seizure. “For 71 days he was able to ride a bike, go play, lift weights,” Matthew Brill told The New York Times. David’s doctors knew why he was suddenly doing so much better, and they did not object. But his therapist ratted out the Brills, which led to a visit by Twiggs County sheriff’s deputies, who demanded that David stop taking his medicine. “We complied, and within 14 hours of complying we were rushing our son to the hospital,” Suzeanna Brill told the Times. “It was one of the most horrific seizures I’ve ever seen.”

The Brills were charged with reckless conduct, a misdemeanor, and Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services took David away. He has been living in a group home for a month now, away from his parents, his medicine, and the dog that is trained to detect imminent seizures. His parents are fighting to get him back, a process they say may take as long as a year. They are trying to raise money to cover their legal expenses on GoFundMe, where they are more than halfway toward their goal of $30,000.

The Food and Drug Administration may be close to approving cannabidiol as a treatment for epilepsy, and Georgia has already acknowledged its medical utility. Yet when the Brills gave David access to this medicine, the state claims, they endangered his “bodily safety” by “consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk,” which constituted “a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise.”

The Brills do not see it that way. “For 71 days our son rode his bike, woke up, went to school, played with friends, played outside, and the terror for his life that gripped our hearts and souls began to lift,” Suzeanna Brill writes. “The smiles on our faces reflecting our child getting to be a normal child. Safe in his bed. Doing better in school. Having a great quality of life. We were breaking the law. We saved our son….This is our job as parents, to protect our child even with our own lives.”

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Ukraine Faces International Fury Over Staged “Fake News” Murder Of Russian Journalist

On Tuesday, headlines were filled with reports out of Ukraine – which not a single journalist decided to fact-check – that a prominent anti-Putin journalist, Arkady Babachenko, had been murdered in his Kiev apartment – “shot three times in the back” after returning from the store to buy bread. Immediately, the echo chamber shouted “Putin’s fault.”

The next day, Babachenko showed up at a press conference, where Ukrainian authorities announced that his death had been an elaborate hoax in order to catch his actual assassins who they claim are now in custody. 

The scheme has received massive international backlash – from horrified journalist colleagues who were kept in the dark and thought, to the Kremlin, to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) – which called the staging “intolerable” and “inadmissible.”

“Arkady Babchenko is still alive and can continue to do his job as a critical journalist: the news is excellent,” said Philippe Leruth, the president of the IFJ, in a statement. 

“But in falsely spreading the news of his murder, the Ukrainian authorities have gravely harmed the credibility of information, and their brief communication risks being seen as a propaganda operation,”

Journalist Sophie Pinkham writes in The Guardian of the rollercoaster of emotions she and fellow journalists experienced over their friend, concerns they had for their own safety, and the damage this has done to Ukraine’s credibility. 

No one had trouble believing this story; no one even considered questioning it. It was gruesomely familiar, similar to the many horrifying stories we’d already heard from Russia, Ukraine, and other countries where journalists are killed for their reporting.

…

Would they be killed, too? We agreed that it was unlikely that the Ukrainian government would find Babchenko’s killer. If anyone would discover the truth, it would be journalists. And by investigating the killing, they might very well be risking their own lives.

…

For me, for my visiting friend, and for many others, relief soon gave way to doubts about the ethics and the wisdom of this “special operation”. On Facebook, the Ukrainian MP Anton Herashchenko tried to explain why it had been necessary to disseminate an artist’s sketch of a supposed killer “with a Caucasian appearance”.

…

Ukraine has an increasingly serious problem of ultranationalist attacks on ethnic and other minorities, as well as journalists.)

…

In its endless one-upmanship against Russia, Ukraine has once again cut off its nose to spite its face, severely undermining its own credibility and that of journalists. This stunt also seems a gratuitous blow to what is left of public sincerity, compassion, and trust. Next time a journalist is killed in Ukraine (and, unfortunately, it seems certain that there will be a next time), even the least cynical observers, the kinds of people who wept all night over Babchenko’s supposed death, will likely wonder whether they should believe in a tragic death until they’ve inspected the corpse themselves. –The Guardian

According to Tuesday’s media “reports”, the journalist, Arkady Babachenko, was shot three times in the back in his apartment building in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev last Tuesday after going out to buy bread – his wife finding him in a pool of blood after she came out of the bathroom following the “murder.” He was pronounced dead in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. 

Following his “death,” Ukrainian officials confirmed Babachenko had been shot and said it was believed he had been targeted due to his work as an anti-Putin journalist. Ukrainian lawmaker Anton Gerashchneko told the BBC that the killer waited for Babachenko near his Kiev apartment and then shot him from behind. 

A neighbor told local media that the assassin had probably used a silencer, since they didn’t hear any shots. 

Ukrainian authorities patted themselves on the back during Wednesday’s press conference, while Gerashchneko likened it to a spy novel. 

“After all, the hero of Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes successfully used the method of staging his own death for the effective investigation of complex and intricate crimes. No matter how painful it was for his family and Dr. Watson,” he wrote on Facebook.

And in doing so, Ukraine has significantly damaged its credibility when it comes to making sweeping claims of aggression by Vladimir Putin. What’s more, as we noted earlier, the number of Russian journalists killed under Putin has actually dropped from an average of 5 per year to between 1 and 2 per year.

Still not great, but it certainly dispels the notion that the problem has worsened under Putin. Meanwhile, Ukraine also continues to be a deadly place for journalists – though who knows if anyone will believe it the next time one goes down. 

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YouTube Won’t Host Our Homemade Gun Video. So We Posted It on PornHub Instead: New at Reason

Reason has a new video out today explaining how to put together a homemade handgun using some very simple tools and parts you can buy online.

But you won’t find it on our YouTube channel. After the March for Our Lives rally, YouTube announced that it would no longer allow users to post videos that contain “instructions on manufacturing a firearm.”

If YouTube doesn’t want to post our video to their site, its loss. We’ll just post it to another platform. That’s what the free and open internet is all about. So if you want to see our video, you can watch it here at Reason.com—or head over to PornHub and see how to make your very own unregistered firearm.

Click here for full text and downloadable versions.

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Comedian Wins Award For “Social Change”, Calls Ivanka Trump A “Feckless C**t”

On the same day as President Trump (and Sarah Sanders) highlight the utter hypocrisy of the liberal media, TBS comedian Samantha Bee ‘jumped the shark’.

On the night before she is set to receive an award from the Television Academy for “advancing social change,” The Daily Caller’s Derek Hunter reports that the so-called comedian called presidential adviser (and first daughter) Ivanka Trump a “feckless c**t” in her show’s monologue.

“You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child,” Bee said,

“but let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices you feckless cunt!”

The crowd then screamed and cheered.

“He listens to you,” Bee continued.

“Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to fucking stop it,” she said.

And here is the icing on the cake…

Bee will be receiving an award from the Television Academy Thursday night for “advancing social change.”

The White House has issued a statement in response to this (via Jack Posobiec):

“The language used by Samantha Bee last night is vile and vicious.

The collective silence by the left and its media allies is appalling.

Her disgusting comments and show are not fit for broadcast, and executives at Time Warner and TBS must demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of this administration will not be condoned on its network.”

– Sarah Sanders

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5-Star, League Reach Agreement On Government: Savona To Be Minister Of EU Affairs

The Italian political crisis may be (almost) over (for now).

According to La Stampa, Italy’s populist ruling parties, the 5-Star and the League have reached an agreement, in which the controversial nominee for finance minister Paolo Savona will instead become EU affairs minister, while Giovanni Tria will take the sensitive post of finance minister. Meanwhile, Enzo Moavero-Milanesi will be Foreign Minister.

Paolo Savona

Bloomberg confirms as much:

  • *FIVE STAR, LEAGUE DEAL EXCLUDES BROTHERS OF ITALY: OFFICIAL

The news spiked risk assets in the US…

… while the 2Y ITA-GER spread collapsed by 40 pips in kneejerk response.

And so for all the badmouthing, it appears that the EU’s German budget minister Oettinger, who said that the market will dictate the Italian government, was correct.

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The Americans Was a Show About Marriage, the Cold War, And Why Politics Is the Worst Way to Engage With Another Human Being

The Americans, which ended an outstanding six-season run last night with a remarkable series finale, has always been a show about marriage, about the day-to-day trials of domestic life, but heightened and sharpened by being set against a backdrop of intense Cold War conflict.

It was a domestic drama cloaked as a spy thriller, a show about what it’s like to raise children and keep a peaceful home, and the myriad ways that the compromises necessary to do so can both drag a marriage down and bind a couple together.

The more sensational aspects of the show—the sex, the murders, the spy-agency plots and counterplots—served as both a genre-inflected entry point for its domestic drama and a grand metaphor, in which the great powers struggle of the 1980s often reflected the household struggles of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, the pair of Russian spies at the center of the show. But that metaphor worked in both directions, with the Jennings’ marriage serving as a mirror for the larger international struggle.

If the Cold War was a metaphor for the Jennings marriage, then their marriage was also a metaphor for the Cold War. So The Americans was a spy thriller about the mundane difficulties of marriage, yes—but it was also a show about geopolitics and the ways in which powerful international rivals interact, conflict, and, maybe, forgive each other, by insisting on treating people as individuals rather than as political and ideological adversaries. (This post includes some spoilers about the series finale.)

That dynamic was at the heart of the series’ long-running dispute between Philip, who is exhausted by spy life and at times wants to defect, and Elizabeth, the determined patriot who is driven by her cause. The series often used that conflict, which hinged on a blend of ideology and personality, to drive the two apart. In the final season, they effectively ended up spying on each other as part of a fracturing of the KGB.

But although the series never shied away from depicting the horrors of Soviet communism, it also never resolved that conflict by deciding that one side was right and the other side was wrong. Instead, it tended to fall back on ideas of familial commitment and devotion. Philip and Elizabeth were forced together by the KGB, which set them up as deep-cover agents operating inside the United States, but eventually, somehow, they fell in love, or something like it, and it was always that love—their deep commitment to the other person, as a person—that kept their marriage from completely falling apart.

Over and over again, the show came back to the idea that political conflict—and the Jennings’ marriage was divided by an essentially political conflict—by looking past politics, and treating the other side as individuals first. Politics, it seemed to say, was the worst way to interact with someone, especially someone you loved.

The same sort of fraught and complicated humanistic impulse was similarly on display in the best, and perhaps most controversial, scene in last night’s finale, an extended standoff between the Jennings (including their daughter, Paige) and their neighbor, FBI agent Stan Beeman.

Part of the genius of the show has always been the way it localized and compressed a sprawling international conflict, making it more relatable while giving it a greater emotional valence. So of course the KGB spies living just outside of Washington, D.C., have an FBI agent for a neighbor, and of course he would become their family’s closest friend, and of course, in the finale, he would discover their true identities, and attempt to place them in custody. In The Americans, the personal and the political are always intertwined—but they are not always inseparable.

The moment when Beeman finally confronted the Jennings and Philip confessed their true identities was the dramatic center of last night’s episode and, arguably, of the series as a whole. And in that moment, Beeman makes a choice that is in some ways difficult to accept: He allows them to go free. Beeman is an FBI agent sworn to protect his country, and the Jennings are KGB spies equally committed to their own nation. But they are also friends and neighbor. And in the end, that is how Beeman chooses to treat them—not as mortal ideological enemies, but as friends, as people, as the family next door.

This negotiation, which is as much about what is unsaid as what is said, requires some lying; Philip denies murders that Elizabeth committed, and Elizabeth denies that they are murderers at all. And given the violence that and mayhem that the two have committed over the year, one could reasonably argue that it doesn’t offer justice, at least not in the way we normally think of it. Instead, when Beeman allows them to run, it is an act of humanity, of forgiveness, of letting go. It is personal, not political.

It’s the defining choice of the show, which over six seasons, consistently returned to the idea that the way to survive (if not resolve) the heated, drawn-out political conflicts that inevitably appear within families and cul-de-sacs, as well as within nations and across international lines, is to focus less on politics and ideology and more on people, who, after all, are our neighbors and family members, our international allies and partners, whether we chose them or not.

You can obviously draw a more explicit contemporary lesson from this idea, if you want, viewing the series as a plea for decency and forgiveness in a time of ideological tension and polarization. That wouldn’t be wrong, necessarily, and in some ways it would even be welcome.

But I’m also not sure it would be entirely in keeping with the spirit of the show and its wariness of putting politics above all else. So I’ll remember The Americans mostly as sublime television, a delicate-yet-gripping drama about flawed people, flawed countries, and the difficulty and necessity of treating people as individuals rather than as avatars of nations or ideologies.

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Leaked Military Report: UFO “Rendezvoused” With Something Big Under Ocean

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

An in-depth government report “prepared by and for the military” and obtained by a Nevada newsroom, details a 2004 incident involving an alleged “UFO” sighting recorded by the US military off California’s coast 14 years ago. Dubbed the “Tic Tac” incident, the unidentified flying object “rendezvouses” with a huge underwater object.

So named for the white, fast-moving, mint-shaped object that was involved, the video’s release made waves last year when it was first revealed by the New York Times. Over the course of two weeks in 2004, a 13.7-meter-long (45-foot-long) Anomalous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) defined as “aerodynamic” with “no visible means to generate lift” was detected by US naval ships in short glimpses.

According to IFLScience, based on the recently leaked report, the undated document suggests there may have been something in the water as well. F-18 aircraft were called into the area after the USS Princeton wasn’t able to lock on to the AAV (Anomalous Ariel Vehicle.) The report details the moment a pilot noticed a disturbance under the surface of the water resembling a “barely submerged reef or island”. As the pilot flew away, the object reportedly disturbed the water underneath it in “frothy waves and foam” resembling water that was “boiling.” The unidentified flying “Tic Tac” object was potentially rendezvousing with the massive underwater one, according to the report.

Earlier this year, the Department of Defense released three separate videos showing an encounter between a Navy fighter jet and an unknown object. For years, the department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was kept secret until last year when the Pentagon announced its then-defunct program never gained evidence of alien life visiting Earth.

“The AAVs would descend ‘very rapidly’ from approximately 60,000 feet down to approximately 50 feet in a matter of seconds,” the report noted.  Pilots also indicated there may have been something in the water as well. One pilot detailed a disturbance up to the size of a football field:

“The disturbance appeared to be 50 to 100 meters in diameter and close to round. It was the only area and type of whitewater activity that could be seen and reminded him of images of something rapidly submerging from the surface like a submarine or a ship sinking.”

A submarine in the vicinity did not detect anything unusual underwater.

If an object was indeed in the Pacific Ocean, “it would represent a highly advanced capability given the advanced capability of our sensors.”

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WTI/RBOB Jump After Surprise Crude Draw

WTI rolled over (but RBOB rallied) this morning ahead of the EIA data which showed the biggest (surprise) crude draw since March but the biggest (surprise) build in distilates since Feb. US crude production rose once again to a new record high.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s Energy Analyst Fernando Valle noted that the summer driving season will provide its customary demand jolt for crude, yet a counterweight will be the unexpected might of production in the U.S. while price differentials are wider across regions. Exports offer a relief valve amid wide discounts, which should also instigate greater utilization on views of constructive crack spreads. Crude oil differentials blowing out to more than $9 a barrel and domestic production estimated above 10.7 million barrels a day set the tone.

U.S. crack spreads are on a high despite economic and political headwinds in Europe and Latin America threatening economic activity. Tight gasoline inventories and strong demand have pushed cover back down to the lowest since 2014, while supply disruptions, even if not as dramatic as last year’s hurricane season, could lead to a blowout in margins.

API

  • Crude +1.001mm (+450k exp)

  • Cushing -132k

  • Gasoline -1.682mm

  • Distillates +1.466mm – biggest build since Feb

DOE

  • Crude -3.62mm (+450k exp) – biggest draw since March

  • Cushing -556k

  • Gasoline +534k

  • Distillates +634k – biggest build since Feb

EIA data showed almost the exact opposite to API with a big crude draw and notable builds in products…

 

And it’s another record for crude production, rising 44,000 barrels per day to 10.77 million bpd. A 24,000 bpd rise in production from Alaska erased the declines from last week’s report. The Lower 48 also rose 20,000 bpd.

 

“You had the API showing a strong build in crude oil and nothing fantastic on the products,” says Olivier Jakob, managing director of consultant Petromatrix GmbH. “Going back above $80 is going to be difficult.”

WTI was weaker but RBOB rallied into the EIA print but both rallied after the unexpected crude draw…

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Roseanne Barr and the Persistence of Prejudice: New at Reason

The tweet that caused an uproar that led to the cancellation of Roseanne Barr’s ABC sitcom, writes Steve Chapman, was a reminder of the most illuminating and depressing reality of our time: the stubborn centrality of race and racism in our national life.

ABC should have known what it was getting with Barr, whose show it dropped after she likened Valerie Jarrett, a former aide to President Obama, to an ape. But the network had been willing to overlook her nasty side in hopes of appealing to those forgotten souls who voted for Donald Trump.

View this article.

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Fox Dominates May’s Top Cable News, As CNN Primetime Audience Collapses

In a new television ratings report published Wednesday by Nielsen Media Research, Fox News Channel continues to reign supreme in the cable news wars, while CNN’s primetime audience collapsed 25 percent.

” Fox News extended its run of consecutive months at number one to a staggering 197, while building hitting another impressive milestone: Fox News has now beaten every other network in basic cable for 23 months straight, based on total day ratings, with an average total day audience in May of 1.4 million viewers,” said Forbes.

“In prime time, Fox News destroyed its competition, with an average total audience of 2.381 million viewers, compared to MSNBC’s 1.384 million and CNN’s 835,000. Among viewers 25-54, the group most coveted by advertisers, Fox News shook off a challenge in recent months from MSNBC to claim a clear victory: 461,000 viewers, well ahead of MSNBC (329,000) and CNN (265,000).”

Nielsen reported that Fox News secured a staggering ten of the top fifteen shows in all of the cable news, with Fox News’ Sean Hannity finishing in the top most-watched cable news show in May. Aside from ESPN and the NBA playoffs, Hannity had more viewers than any other show on cable.

In total viewers, “Hannity” had 3.261 million, followed by MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” (2.627 million), and Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (2.617 million), “The Ingraham Angle” (2.617 million) and “The Five” (2.153 million).

On a year-over-year basis, Fox News viewership increased +6 percent to 2.381 million viewers during primetime. MSNBC declined -2 percent to 1.654 million viewers, and CNN collapsed -25 percent in viewers to 888,000.

Regarding demographics, the prime working age American (25- to 54-year-old) coveted by corporations for advertising purposes, Hannity gained the top spot with 650,000 of these viewers. A handful of companies late last year dropped their advertisement programs with Hannity over the Roy Moore interview. Reflecting on that decisions, well, it seems like those companies made a terrible advertising mistake. Maddow secured second, with 513,000 prime age working Americans, while Laura Ingraham finished in the third slot, with 523,000.

When it comes to financial news, most Americans have now gravitated to Fox Business for their daily dose of mainstream economics. Fox has been leading the financial segment of news for twelve consecutive months in a row over its rival CNBC. “Lou Dobbs Tonight” has been a grand slam for the network — now ranked most-watched cable business program, with 319,000 total viewers. “Varney & Co.” with Stuart Varney placing second, with 232,000, and “Countdown to the Closing Bell with Liz Claman” was third, with 178,000.

Wrapping up the top five were “After the Bell” on Fox Business, with 176,000 viewers, and CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street/Squawk Alley,” with 172,000. Mad Money with Jim Cramer was nowhere to be found.

In total views during market hours of 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Fox Business had an average of 187,000 viewers to CNBC’s 165,000. However, CNBC did surpass Fox Business in the total views for the prime working age cohort, but not by much – possibly due to CNBC’s crypto trader segment.

Americans who get their daily dose of news, politics, and economics from mainstream news outlets have received the memo from President Donald Trump that liberal media is fake news. The gravitational shift is quite impressive so far, as CNN ratings collapse. The Fourth Estate is not collapsing as some may believe – it is just shifting to conservative media.

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