Category: reason

What Does Bernie Sanders Really Mean When He Calls Himself a Democratic Socialist? Q&A With Jim Pethokoukis

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has rocketed to the top of the Democratic presidential primary field by proposing a massive expansion of government: single-payer health care, free public college tuition, student loan forgiveness, universal pre-K, and more.

His plans could cost as much as $60 trillion dollars over the next decade, more than doubling the federal budget.

More than any single policy, however, Sanders has run on an idea: Democratic socialism, with the economies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as models.

At times in his life, however, he’s also had kind words for socialist revolutionaries and regimes that are more authoritarian—although he has also condemned their harshest practices.

So what is Sanders’ vision of democratic socialism? And what would it mean for the country? To find out, Reason Features Editor Peter Suderman spoke with Jim Pethokoukis. He is the Dewitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes and edits the AEIdeas blog.

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What Does Bernie Sanders Really Mean When He Calls Himself a Democratic Socialist?Q&A With Jim Pethokoukis

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has rocketed to the top of the Democratic presidential primary field by proposing a massive expansion of government: single-payer health care, free public college tuition, student loan forgiveness, universal pre-K, and more.

His plans could cost as much as $60 trillion dollars over the next decade, more than doubling the federal budget.

More than any single policy, however, Sanders has run on an idea: Democratic socialism, with the economies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as models.

At times in his life, however, he’s also had kind words for socialist revolutionaries and regimes that are more authoritarian—although he has also condemned their harshest practices.

So what is Sanders’ vision of democratic socialism? And what would it mean for the country? To find out, Reason Features Editor Peter Suderman spoke with Jim Pethokoukis. He is the Dewitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes and edits the AEIdeas blog.

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Mikhail Mishustin Is an Unexpected Putin Pick for Prime Minister

Vladimir Putin shocked the West when he dismissed longtime prime minister Dmitri Medvedev after announcing plans in January to completely overhaul the Russian constitution.

Yet his pick for the new PM, former tax minister Mikhail Mishustin, shows Putin is aiming for more than his usual placeholder. His technological experience provides Putin with a vehicle to strengthen authoritarianism while giving people the impression that he wants to improve the dwindling economy.

“Mishustin was a suitable choice for Putin, because his obscurity makes it unlikely for people to see him as an official successor,” Alexander Morozov, an expert at the Boris Nemtsov Academic Center for the Study of Russia, told Reason.

Mishustin will also be adept at appropriating funds for the government’s infrastructure projects, Morozov added, as inadequate government spending is a pressing issue for the Kremlin.

He also has a reputation in the Russian business community of getting things done, economist Sergei Guriev said in an interview with Echo of Moscow Radio. Putin might use him to show Russian citizens that the country’s public development projects are continuing, giving them the impression that Putin is concerned for their welfare.

Prior to entering the public sector in 1998, Mishustin worked in information technology. In 1992, after graduating with a systems engineering degree, Mishustin worked at the International Computer Club, a nonprofit organization that collaborated with Western tech firms to help modernize the Russian system. With the help of Boris Fyodorov, Russia’s first finance minister, Mishustin gained substantial exposure to finance and government affairs before being named tax chief of Russia in 2010.

Using Mishustin’s technological prowess, former White House economist Joseph Sullivan points out in Foreign Policy, Putin likely intends to bolster a form of “techno-authoritarianism” similar to that of China:

As taxman, Mishustin developed a set of futuristic technologies that allowed Russia’s government to raise revenues. But these technologies also enhanced surveillance capabilities of Putin’s authoritarian state. For it’s not as if Russia’s tax authorities simply set an algorithm on heaps of data to do the impersonal bidding of state administration. Putin’s political appointees, like Mishustin, also maintain the ability to identify subjects and dredge up transaction-level data at their own discretion.

During his tenure as a government official, Mishustin revamped the tax collection system through rapid modernization and eased regulatory burdens on international traders.

In a 2010 interview with Russian newspaper Vedomosti, Mishustin touted electronic services as invaluable for catching “corrupt officials.” Later, in 2018, he claimed that Russia’s tax revenue had increased by almost 70 percent in the past five years.

Despite the emphasis Putin and Mishustin place on fixing government spending, they have also made plans to expand the country’s social welfare program. Shortly after Mishustin was appointed as PM, Putin’s new executive cabinet introduced a bill in the Duma, the parliament’s lower chamber, that would allocate approximately $31.2 billion in federal funds for services such as free school lunches, financial aid for low-income individuals, and healthcare system improvements.

At the very least, Mishustin has a better reputation than Medvedev, whom the public has regarded as increasingly corrupt as the years progressed. Putin’s selection also provides more clarity about his plans after the 2024 presidential election: Even if he leaves office, Putin’s recent changes to the Russian constitution will ensure that he maintains a substantial influence over the state.

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Mikhail Mishustin Is an Unexpected Putin Pick for Prime Minister

Vladimir Putin shocked the West when he dismissed longtime prime minister Dmitri Medvedev after announcing plans in January to completely overhaul the Russian constitution.

Yet his pick for the new PM, former tax minister Mikhail Mishustin, shows Putin is aiming for more than his usual placeholder. His technological experience provides Putin with a vehicle to strengthen authoritarianism while giving people the impression that he wants to improve the dwindling economy.

“Mishustin was a suitable choice for Putin, because his obscurity makes it unlikely for people to see him as an official successor,” Alexander Morozov, an expert at the Boris Nemtsov Academic Center for the Study of Russia, told Reason.

Mishustin will also be adept at appropriating funds for the government’s infrastructure projects, Morozov added, as inadequate government spending is a pressing issue for the Kremlin.

He also has a reputation in the Russian business community of getting things done, economist Sergei Guriev said in an interview with Echo of Moscow Radio. Putin might use him to show Russian citizens that the country’s public development projects are continuing, giving them the impression that Putin is concerned for their welfare.

Prior to entering the public sector in 1998, Mishustin worked in information technology. In 1992, after graduating with a systems engineering degree, Mishustin worked at the International Computer Club, a nonprofit organization that collaborated with Western tech firms to help modernize the Russian system. With the help of Boris Fyodorov, Russia’s first finance minister, Mishustin gained substantial exposure to finance and government affairs before being named tax chief of Russia in 2010.

Using Mishustin’s technological prowess, former White House economist Joseph Sullivan points out in Foreign Policy, Putin likely intends to bolster a form of “techno-authoritarianism” similar to that of China:

As taxman, Mishustin developed a set of futuristic technologies that allowed Russia’s government to raise revenues. But these technologies also enhanced surveillance capabilities of Putin’s authoritarian state. For it’s not as if Russia’s tax authorities simply set an algorithm on heaps of data to do the impersonal bidding of state administration. Putin’s political appointees, like Mishustin, also maintain the ability to identify subjects and dredge up transaction-level data at their own discretion.

During his tenure as a government official, Mishustin revamped the tax collection system through rapid modernization and eased regulatory burdens on international traders.

In a 2010 interview with Russian newspaper Vedomosti, Mishustin touted electronic services as invaluable for catching “corrupt officials.” Later, in 2018, he claimed that Russia’s tax revenue had increased by almost 70 percent in the past five years.

Despite the emphasis Putin and Mishustin place on fixing government spending, they have also made plans to expand the country’s social welfare program. Shortly after Mishustin was appointed as PM, Putin’s new executive cabinet introduced a bill in the Duma, the parliament’s lower chamber, that would allocate approximately $31.2 billion in federal funds for services such as free school lunches, financial aid for low-income individuals, and healthcare system improvements.

At the very least, Mishustin has a better reputation than Medvedev, whom the public has regarded as increasingly corrupt as the years progressed. Putin’s selection also provides more clarity about his plans after the 2024 presidential election: Even if he leaves office, Putin’s recent changes to the Russian constitution will ensure that he maintains a substantial influence over the state.

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Is Bernie Sanders a Democratic Socialist? Or Just a Socialist? Q&A With Jim Pethokoukis

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has rocketed to the top of the Democratic presidential primary field by proposing a massive expansion of government: single-payer health care, free public college tuition, student loan forgiveness, universal pre-K, and more.  

His plans could cost as much as $60 trillion dollars over the next decade, more than doubling the federal budget.

More than any single policy, however, Sanders has run on an idea: Democratic socialism, with the economies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as models. 

At times in his life, however, he’s also had kind words for socialist revolutionaries and regimes that are more authoritarian—although he has also condemned their harshest practices. 

So what is Sanders’ vision of democratic socialism? And what would it mean for the country? To find out, Reason Features Editor Peter Suderman spoke with Jim Pethokoukis. He is the Dewitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes and edits the AEIdeas blog.

Interview by Peter Suderman. Edited by Ian Keyser. Intro by Paul Detrick. Cameras by Austin and Meredith Bragg.

Photos: Sen. Bernie Sanders rally, Bob Daemmrich/Polaris/Newscom; Sanders at podium, Michael Mullenix/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sanders with hands in air, pointing, Aaron Jackendoff/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sanders giving speech, Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sanders at speech, Michael Vadon via CC license Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic; Dollars, ID 19971251 © Nicku | Dreamstime.com; TV, ID 36230840 © trekandshoot | Dreamstime.com; Sanders sign, TERRY SCHMITT/UPI/Newscom; Frame of picture L0051763/4—A philosopher with a celestial globe Wellcome Images Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0

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Is Bernie Sanders a Democratic Socialist? Or Just a Socialist? Q&A With Jim Pethokoukis

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has rocketed to the top of the Democratic presidential primary field by proposing a massive expansion of government: single-payer health care, free public college tuition, student loan forgiveness, universal pre-K, and more.  

His plans could cost as much as $60 trillion dollars over the next decade, more than doubling the federal budget.

More than any single policy, however, Sanders has run on an idea: Democratic socialism, with the economies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as models. 

At times in his life, however, he’s also had kind words for socialist revolutionaries and regimes that are more authoritarian—although he has also condemned their harshest practices. 

So what is Sanders’ vision of democratic socialism? And what would it mean for the country? To find out, Reason Features Editor Peter Suderman spoke with Jim Pethokoukis. He is the Dewitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes and edits the AEIdeas blog.

Interview by Peter Suderman. Edited by Ian Keyser. Intro by Paul Detrick. Cameras by Austin and Meredith Bragg.

Photos: Sen. Bernie Sanders rally, Bob Daemmrich/Polaris/Newscom; Sanders at podium, Michael Mullenix/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sanders with hands in air, pointing, Aaron Jackendoff/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sanders giving speech, Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sanders at speech, Michael Vadon via CC license Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic; Dollars, ID 19971251 © Nicku | Dreamstime.com; TV, ID 36230840 © trekandshoot | Dreamstime.com; Sanders sign, TERRY SCHMITT/UPI/Newscom; Frame of picture L0051763/4—A philosopher with a celestial globe Wellcome Images Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0

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Has D.C. Found the Right Way To Do ‘Free’ Public Transit?

The trains and buses might not be on time, but the movement for free public transit keeps on rolling.

On Sunday, Washington D.C. City Councilmember Charles Allen announced his intention to introduce new legislation that would provide every District resident, regardless of income, with a $100 monthly stipend they could spend on public buses and trains.

Residents would have to sign up each year for the $100 benefit. Any money they don’t use in a given month would be recycled back into the pool of available funds. Allen’s proposal would also create a new fund to improve bus service in D.C.’s lower-income neighborhoods.

The program would cost between $50 million and $150 million a year. The final figure would be dependent on what kind of bulk discount on fares the city might be able to negotiate with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA), says Allen. He says that the program will be funded by excess tax revenue the city expects to collect, and therefore will not necessitate tax increases or service cuts.

Allen’s proposal is different from a lot of other free transit proposals that have been proposed or passed in other U.S. cities. Those, like the program implemented in Kansas City, Missouri, in January, simply make riding public transit fully free.

The D.C. proposal, which the Washington Post reports has the backing of seven of 13 city councilmembers, would instead function more like a universal transit voucher. That’s a major improvement over other programs.

For starters, it wouldn’t blow a hole in WMATA’s budget. Other free transit proposals that just abolish fares leave transit agencies themselves scrambling to make up the money they would have gotten from riders.

So long as these agencies are covering some of their operating costs, they should keep doing so, Baruch Feigenbaum, a transportation policy expert with the Reason Foundation (which publishes this website), said back in December.

“Whether it’s 20 percent of the recovery rate or 40 percent of the recovery rate, it’s a lot better than zero percent of the recovery rate,” he said. “From a fiscal perspective, you should do it just because you need the funding.”

By giving a subsidy to the rider, and not WMATA, Allen’s bill also maintains the agency’s incentive to retain and grow ridership.

“By providing a subsidy to residents, there’s a market-based incentive for WMATA to earn riders. If service isn’t reliable, safe, and predictable, people with options won’t change their transit habits,” reads a summary of Allen’s proposal tweeted out by NBC reporter Adam Tuss. In contrast, if a transit agency’s revenue is totally disconnected from ridership, riders become just another cost to bear.

There are still a number of problems with Allen’s transit voucher idea. For starters, it’s a universal benefit, meaning that even the wealthiest D.C. residents could take advantage of it. This is deliberately done to encourage ridership across all income groups. “We don’t want to ‘other’ our public transit. It’s for everyone and a shared public good,” reads a summary of the legislation.

I don’t quite understand how not giving a transit voucher to someone making $200,000 a year will make that person “other” public transit more than they already do, in the same way that I don’t imagine giving only low-income people food stamps encourages the othering of grocery stores.

As Allen already acknowledges, wealthier commuters’ decision to take transit has less to do with the price of a trip and more to do with the level of service being offered. Rather than give the least price-sensitive commuters a voucher, why not just take that money and spend it on more service improvements?

According to a 2019 survey from TransitCenter, riders—including low-income riders—prioritize service improvements over fare cuts.

The argument that the program is already paid for by excess tax revenue might be technically true but is still misleading. If the D.C. government is collecting more money than it needs for current levels of spending, the best thing to would be to undo recent tax hikes. We can then have a discussion about whether taxes should be raised to pay for additional benefits.

Allen’s proposal has not been officially introduced, and will surely change as it works its way through the city council. It’s better in design than many other free transit policies being proposed in other cities. It would nevertheless see a lot of tax dollars being spent on wealthy riders who don’t need a subsidy to get to work.

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Has D.C. Found the Right Way To Do ‘Free’ Public Transit?

The trains and buses might not be on time, but the movement for free public transit keeps on rolling.

On Sunday, Washington D.C. City Councilmember Charles Allen announced his intention to introduce new legislation that would provide every District resident, regardless of income, with a $100 monthly stipend they could spend on public buses and trains.

Residents would have to sign up each year for the $100 benefit. Any money they don’t use in a given month would be recycled back into the pool of available funds. Allen’s proposal would also create a new fund to improve bus service in D.C.’s lower-income neighborhoods.

The program would cost between $50 million and $150 million a year. The final figure would be dependent on what kind of bulk discount on fares the city might be able to negotiate with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA), says Allen. He says that the program will be funded by excess tax revenue the city expects to collect, and therefore will not necessitate tax increases or service cuts.

Allen’s proposal is different from a lot of other free transit proposals that have been proposed or passed in other U.S. cities. Those, like the program implemented in Kansas City, Missouri, in January, simply make riding public transit fully free.

The D.C. proposal, which the Washington Post reports has the backing of seven of 13 city councilmembers, would instead function more like a universal transit voucher. That’s a major improvement over other programs.

For starters, it wouldn’t blow a hole in WMATA’s budget. Other free transit proposals that just abolish fares leave transit agencies themselves scrambling to make up the money they would have gotten from riders.

So long as these agencies are covering some of their operating costs, they should keep doing so, Baruch Feigenbaum, a transportation policy expert with the Reason Foundation (which publishes this website), said back in December.

“Whether it’s 20 percent of the recovery rate or 40 percent of the recovery rate, it’s a lot better than zero percent of the recovery rate,” he said. “From a fiscal perspective, you should do it just because you need the funding.”

By giving a subsidy to the rider, and not WMATA, Allen’s bill also maintains the agency’s incentive to retain and grow ridership.

“By providing a subsidy to residents, there’s a market-based incentive for WMATA to earn riders. If service isn’t reliable, safe, and predictable, people with options won’t change their transit habits,” reads a summary of Allen’s proposal tweeted out by NBC reporter Adam Tuss. In contrast, if a transit agency’s revenue is totally disconnected from ridership, riders become just another cost to bear.

There are still a number of problems with Allen’s transit voucher idea. For starters, it’s a universal benefit, meaning that even the wealthiest D.C. residents could take advantage of it. This is deliberately done to encourage ridership across all income groups. “We don’t want to ‘other’ our public transit. It’s for everyone and a shared public good,” reads a summary of the legislation.

I don’t quite understand how not giving a transit voucher to someone making $200,000 a year will make that person “other” public transit more than they already do, in the same way that I don’t imagine giving only low-income people food stamps encourages the othering of grocery stores.

As Allen already acknowledges, wealthier commuters’ decision to take transit has less to do with the price of a trip and more to do with the level of service being offered. Rather than give the least price-sensitive commuters a voucher, why not just take that money and spend it on more service improvements?

According to a 2019 survey from TransitCenter, riders—including low-income riders—prioritize service improvements over fare cuts.

The argument that the program is already paid for by excess tax revenue might be technically true but is still misleading. If the D.C. government is collecting more money than it needs for current levels of spending, the best thing to would be to undo recent tax hikes. We can then have a discussion about whether taxes should be raised to pay for additional benefits.

Allen’s proposal has not been officially introduced, and will surely change as it works its way through the city council. It’s better in design than many other free transit policies being proposed in other cities. It would nevertheless see a lot of tax dollars being spent on wealthy riders who don’t need a subsidy to get to work.

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Coronavirus Death Rates Controversy Heats Up

Coronavirus update: Cases of COVID-19, or coronavirus, continue to climb in the U.S., and the disease seems to pose a special risk to older adults, especially if they’re in poorer health to start. But fears about coronavirus death rates are likely inflated.

The numbers: Over 100 U.S. cases of coronavirus have been confirmed now, including six cases that were fatal. The deaths all occurred in King County, Washington, including four residents at a single nursing home. Overall, 15 states have reported coronavirus cases but only Washington has so far seen fatalities.

Where in the U.S. has coronavirus been diagnosed?: Cases are being treated in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Why it’s still not time to panic: “Misleading arithmetic,” as the Cato Institute’s Alan Reynolds puts it:

Assuming the number of people who have reportedly died from COVID-19 is reasonably accurate, then the percentage of infected people who die from the disease (the death rate) must surely have been much lower than the 2–3% estimates commonly reported. That is because the number of infected people is much larger than the number tested and reported.

The triangle graph [here], from a February 10 study from Imperial College London, shows that most people infected by COVID-19 are never counted as being infected. That is because, the Imperial College study explains, “the bottom of the pyramid represents the likely largest population of those infected with either mild, non‐​specific symptoms or who are asymptomatic.”

As the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom, explained in his February 28 briefing, “Most people will have mild disease and get better without needing any special care.” Several studies have found that about 80% of all the COVID-19 cases have relatively minor symptoms which end without severe illness and therefore remain unreported.

As of yesterday, there were 89,253 confirmed cases worldwide (about 96 percent of them in Asia). Reynolds also points out that there have “been 45,393 known recoveries from COVID-19 (compared to 3,048 cumulative deaths) and, importantly, recoveries have been outnumbering new cases.”

To put that in perspective:

… the SARS coronavirus killed 774 people out of 8,096 known cases in 2003, which was a death rate of 9.6% before it vanished the next year. Bird flu in 1997 was predicted to be a deadly pandemic, but it killed very few people before it disappeared.

More from Reason:

FREE MINDS

Today is International Sex Worker Rights Day (ISWRD). And this year, there’s actually something to celebrate, suggests sex worker, author, and Reason contributor Maggie McNeill. “In the past two years, the tide of sex worker rights has completely turned,” she writes on her blog, The Honest Courtesan. More:

The government’s violent suppression of sex workers has, instead of winning more support for bigotry, instead turned a majority of Americans against the prohibitionists for the first time since such polls have been a thing; a few politicians (even at the presidential election level) have begun to recognize that sex workers and or clients are voters, and that among younger voters support for sex worker rights is as normal as support for LGBT rights was among that age cohort a generation ago.  Even “sex trafficking” hysteria has begun to backfire… Sex workers of all business models and socioeconomic levels are organizing and speaking out, and most people who aren’t dyed-in-the-wool racists are finally being forced to recognize how much more severely the consequences of criminalization fall upon people of color, trans women, migrants, and other marginalized groups.  Even mainstream feminism, which has been trying to destroy sex workers since the late ’80s, is beginning to fragment as more and more chapters of old-guard feminist organizations forsake the pearl-clutching harridans who pretend to speak for everyone with a vagina.

Read the rest here. And check out the #ISWRD hashtag on Twitter for information about sex work criminalization and sex worker rights activism around the world.

FREE MARKETS

Federal drug warriors get grabby in Ohio. “Federal prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of more than $356,000 from an Akron man they say made money from trafficking drugs,” reports Cleveland.com. They also seized marijuana edibles, a gold Rolex watch, and $67,000 worth of jewelry. But the man, Cory Grandison, “has not been charged with a drug crime.”

Grandison did plead guilty to owning a gun and some ammunition, which is prohibited since he has a felony conviction in his past. The gun charge comes with at least two and a half years in federal prison and possibly a bit over three years.

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Coronavirus Death Rates Controversy Heats Up

Coronavirus update: Cases of COVID-19, or coronavirus, continue to climb in the U.S., and the disease seems to pose a special risk to older adults, especially if they’re in poorer health to start. But fears about coronavirus death rates are likely inflated.

The numbers: Over 100 U.S. cases of coronavirus have been confirmed now, including six cases that were fatal. The deaths all occurred in King County, Washington, including four residents at a single nursing home. Overall, 15 states have reported coronavirus cases but only Washington has so far seen fatalities.

Where in the U.S. has coronavirus been diagnosed?: Cases are being treated in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Why it’s still not time to panic: “Misleading arithmetic,” as the Cato Institute’s Alan Reynolds puts it:

Assuming the number of people who have reportedly died from COVID-19 is reasonably accurate, then the percentage of infected people who die from the disease (the death rate) must surely have been much lower than the 2–3% estimates commonly reported. That is because the number of infected people is much larger than the number tested and reported.

The triangle graph [here], from a February 10 study from Imperial College London, shows that most people infected by COVID-19 are never counted as being infected. That is because, the Imperial College study explains, “the bottom of the pyramid represents the likely largest population of those infected with either mild, non‐​specific symptoms or who are asymptomatic.”

As the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom, explained in his February 28 briefing, “Most people will have mild disease and get better without needing any special care.” Several studies have found that about 80% of all the COVID-19 cases have relatively minor symptoms which end without severe illness and therefore remain unreported.

As of yesterday, there were 89,253 confirmed cases worldwide (about 96 percent of them in Asia). Reynolds also points out that there have “been 45,393 known recoveries from COVID-19 (compared to 3,048 cumulative deaths) and, importantly, recoveries have been outnumbering new cases.”

To put that in perspective:

… the SARS coronavirus killed 774 people out of 8,096 known cases in 2003, which was a death rate of 9.6% before it vanished the next year. Bird flu in 1997 was predicted to be a deadly pandemic, but it killed very few people before it disappeared.

More from Reason:

FREE MINDS

Today is International Sex Worker Rights Day (ISWRD). And this year, there’s actually something to celebrate, suggests sex worker, author, and Reason contributor Maggie McNeill. “In the past two years, the tide of sex worker rights has completely turned,” she writes on her blog, The Honest Courtesan. More:

The government’s violent suppression of sex workers has, instead of winning more support for bigotry, instead turned a majority of Americans against the prohibitionists for the first time since such polls have been a thing; a few politicians (even at the presidential election level) have begun to recognize that sex workers and or clients are voters, and that among younger voters support for sex worker rights is as normal as support for LGBT rights was among that age cohort a generation ago.  Even “sex trafficking” hysteria has begun to backfire… Sex workers of all business models and socioeconomic levels are organizing and speaking out, and most people who aren’t dyed-in-the-wool racists are finally being forced to recognize how much more severely the consequences of criminalization fall upon people of color, trans women, migrants, and other marginalized groups.  Even mainstream feminism, which has been trying to destroy sex workers since the late ’80s, is beginning to fragment as more and more chapters of old-guard feminist organizations forsake the pearl-clutching harridans who pretend to speak for everyone with a vagina.

Read the rest here. And check out the #ISWRD hashtag on Twitter for information about sex work criminalization and sex worker rights activism around the world.

FREE MARKETS

Federal drug warriors get grabby in Ohio. “Federal prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of more than $356,000 from an Akron man they say made money from trafficking drugs,” reports Cleveland.com. They also seized marijuana edibles, a gold Rolex watch, and $67,000 worth of jewelry. But the man, Cory Grandison, “has not been charged with a drug crime.”

Grandison did plead guilty to owning a gun and some ammunition, which is prohibited since he has a felony conviction in his past. The gun charge comes with at least two and a half years in federal prison and possibly a bit over three years.

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