Category: reason

Pay close attention when a party’s voters are willing to risk a loss in November to make a point in August. Tuesday’s nail-biter of a Kansas GOP primary contest between incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer and controversial Secretary of State Kris Kobach demonstrates that the Republican Party is still gripped by dystopian fears of illegal-immigrant misbehavior, no matter how elusive the evidence. Primary season, writes Matt Welch, is revealing two parties rapidly sorting between democratic socialists on the left and Mercantilist nativists to the right.

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The Trump Administration is throwing its full faith and credit behind the idea of creating an honest-to-God, no-holds-barred Space Force. Seriously.

On Thursday morning Vice President Mike Pence addressed a crowd of senior military officials at the Pentagon where he called for creating a Space Force as a sixth co-equal branch of the military by 2020.

“It’s not enough to have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space,” said Pence, declaring that a new Space Force would be able to respond to growing security threats presented by Russia and China’s own space capabilities, and “carry the cause of liberty and peace into the next great American frontier.”

According to a plan outlined by Pence, this would happen in stages. First, the administration would create a new Space Command—similar to the military’s current Cyber or Special Operations Command—by the end of the year. This would be followed by the training of “elite war fighters specializing in the domain of space”, the creation of a new assistant secretary of defense position to oversee those elite space warriors, and a new Space Development Agency which would purchase new satellites and space-related equipment without the current “duplicative bureaucracy and red tape.”

Pending authorization from Congress, these would all be folded into a full-fledge Space Force within two years.

Should Trump proceed with this plan of action he would be creating the first new military branch since the Air Force was spun off from the Army in 1947. He would also be acting against the advice of his own defense chiefs who’ve explicitly and publicly criticized the idea of a Space Force as unnecessary, inefficient, and ultimately counterproductive to the military’s space operations.

When plans for a mere Space Corps subordinate to the Air Force were being floated as part of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, Defense Secretary James Mattis came out strongly and publicly against the idea.

“At a time when we are trying to integrate the [Defense] Department’s joint warfighting functions, I do not wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations,” said Mattis in a July 2017 letter to Rep. Mike Turner (R–Ohio).

Much the same was said by Trump’s Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson.

“This will make it more complex, add more boxes to the organization chart, and cost more money,” said Wilson of the same proposal in June 2017. “I don’t need another chief of staff and another six deputy chiefs of staff.”

As Trump’s enthusiasm for a Space Force has grown, however, both Mattis and Wilson have muted or retracted their opposition. Yet their criticisms still stand.

It is not like the U.S. military has no space operations currently. The U.S. already has the largest constellation of military satellites in the world—159 according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, compared to 75 for Russian and 35 for China. The Air Force, the service which handles most of the military’s current space operations, spends some $8.5 billion a year on space-related endeavors, and plans to invest another $44.3 billion in space systems over the next five years.

That’s a staggering amount of money, and it would only grow with the creation of a new Space Force. Given that the Defense Department already wastes $125 billion on administrative inefficiencies a year—inefficiencies that folks like Mattis and Wilson warn will only be exacerbated with the addition of a new military branch—there is a high chance that taxpayers would get little return on the creation of a separate Space Force.

This says nothing of the mission creep that would inevitably follow. Without a single branch dedicated to militarizing space, the current branches have to make trade offs between how much they prioritize space over other land, sea, and air operations.

That’s ultimately a good thing, as it constrains the time and energy the government can put toward expanding the reach of an already overpowered, oversized military. A new Space Force, by contrast, would have every incentive to hype any potential space-related threats in the pursuit of more funding, more influence, and more power.

Not only would that impose a burden on taxpayers—who already shell out some $700 billion a year for the largest military on the planet—it could also crowd out investment in the peaceful, private exploration of space.

A huge new military bureaucracy dedicated to space would inevitably have to draw from the same talent pools that our burgeoning private space industry does. Every engineer, scientist, or pilot recruited into the Space Force means one fewer civilian figuring out how to send tourists to low earth orbit, to create research bases on Mars, or to set up strip mines on the moon.

That would be a real loss for those who believe the U.S. is already too involved in terrestrial conflicts, and who have looked forward to the freedom-enhancing potential of private space exploration.

A lawsuit filed Thursday accuses an Arkansas judge of running an unconstitutional debtor’s prison, locking up defendants for low-level misdemeanor crimes, and suspending their driver’s licenses unless they fork over thousands in fines, even if they’re poor or unemployed.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has filed a class action suit representing six named clients and others against Arkansas state District Judge Mark Derrick, accusing him of violating citizens’ rights by locking them up in White County because of their inability to pay court-imposed costs and fees. Derrick oversees eight low-level courts in different towns in White County (population: 79,000) and two in nearby Prairie County. These district courts handle non-jury cases like traffic and contempt proceedings. Judges are elected to four-year terms.

The lawsuit describes Derrick’s practices as among “the most extreme” among judges who do whatever they can to extract fines from defendants:

Judge Derrick routinely levies substantial fines, fees and costs against persons convicted of even the most minor infractions, and requires them to pay monthly amounts of at least $100, and sometimes several hundred dollars, towards court-imposed debt. If they fail to pay this amount in full, he subjects them to arrest, driver’s license suspension, and incarceration, as well as an additional $450 to $670 in fines and costs. He imposes these punishments without conducting any inquiry—let alone an adequate one—into the person’s ability to pay or the reasons for non-payment.

It’s important to note here that Derrick is handling misdemeanors, not felonies. He’s accused of imposing 30-day sentences for missing payments for fines for very low-level crimes. In fact, the lawsuit notes that these sentences are frequently twice the length of the sentences for the most serious of misdemeanors under state law. Defendants in his courtrooms are being punished more harshly for missing payments than for the underlying crimes. And the lawsuit notes that once somebody gets caught up in this cycle of missing payments, their jail time is not credited against this debt. The jail time is in addition to the debt imposed.

The 50-page lawsuit is full of horror stories of poor people stuck in this brutal cycle. One plaintiff, Kimberly Snodgrass, has been convicted by Derrick 10 separate times solely for her failure to pay fines. She has spent a third of her days since 2014 in jail because of these compliance issues and payment issues, not because she’s committing new crimes. The lawsuit claims she’s been kicked out of her place of residence four separate times because of these jailings. And because Derrick also suspended her driver’s license (which itself demands a fee to restore), she has a hard time maintaining a job. She owes the courts $500 a month for various fines and fees. If she fails to pay a single cent of that she faces a new warrant and more jail time.

Meanwhile, Christopher Snodgrass, the father of two children with Kimberly, has accumulated $5,000 in debt mostly due to traffic charges. He’s had his driver’s license suspended at least five times by Derrick over the past four years.

Dazarious Braggs owes $300 a month solely due to traffic charges. He ended up arrested on a “failure to appear” warrant for a court date he said he had never received. Defendants saying they’ve never received a court date is a recurring theme in this lawsuit, and one section of the complaint is devoted to criticizing the poor record-keeping of Derrick’s courts. Braggs was jailed for three weeks because he couldn’t afford bail of $1,120. His family eventually bailed him out with the money they got from a tax refund. Then the failure to appear charge was dropped.

Oh, and about the cash bail: Derrick’s courts offer a terrible twist on the narrative about problems with our judiciary’s pretrial detention and release system. According to the lawsuit, Derrick wouldn’t allow defendants to go through bondsmen to get released by paying only a portion of the bail and promising to show for court. They had to pay it all up front to get out.

That defendants couldn’t get out on just a percentage of the bail demand matters because Derrick runs several courts and in some of the smaller courts, he appears only once per month to hear cases. This means that if you get arrested on one of these warrants and can’t afford cash bail, you can end up serving your whole sentence while waiting to enter your initial plea. Two of the plaintiffs in the case were detained for weeks on “failure to appear” charges for which they were ultimately not convicted.

These plaintiffs, and others, are “trapped in a vicious cycle of repetitive court proceedings, subject to incarceration and perpetual debt,” explained Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in a press call. “These people have lost homes, jobs, cars, and custody of children…. This is nothing short of a moral failing of the court.”

This not the Lawyers’ Committee’s first lawsuit over this mechanism of incarceration. The group previously represented plaintiffs in their suit against the criminal courts in New Orleans for using fines and fees as a revenue source, backed by the threat of incarceration for those who couldn’t pay. Last week a federal judge ruled that that court’s behavior was unconstitutional. Asked by Reason whether the organization believed similar revenue generation was driving Judge Derrick’s actions, Clarke said they would be investigating how much money his courts received from all these fines.

The new lawsuit, filed in the circuit court of Pulaski County in Arkansas, is asking the court to find that Derrick’s practice of loading up misdemeanor defendants with fines and then jailing them and suspending their licenses—all without any sort of prior determination of whether they could actually pay—is a violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A clerk at Derrick’s court in Beebe, Arkansas, said he was unavailable Thursday and that nobody was currently able to answer questions about the lawsuit.

The lawsuit can be read here.

Bonus link: In 2015 Judge Derrick was attacked by a zebra, owned by his father.

Bonus link II: I’ve put together a proposal for a panel at 2019’s South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, about the bail reform movement. Check it out and vote for us!

Republicans in Congress are reportedly mulling a proposal to make permanent the tax cuts passed last year, with some members of the House GOP pushing for the passage of what’s been called “Tax Reform 2.0” as soon as next month.

Currently, the lower individual and corporate income tax rates established by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would expire in 2025. Extending them, according to a newly released analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would cause the already terrifying trajectory of America’s national debt to spike even higher over the coming decades—potentially doubling the size of the entire economy before 2050.

Under this so-called alternative fiscal scenario, current spending plans would remain unaltered but future tax revenues would be reduced by the permanent extension of the tax cuts. With the gap between revenue and spending already on pace to hit $1 trillion annually within a few years, it’s not hard to see how reducing future tax revenue—without a commitment to seriously curb spending—could cause the debt to skyrocket.

At present, the national debt is expected to bump up against the record of 106 percent of GDP (a level reached at the height of World War II) sometime in the late-2030s. Extending the tax cuts without cutting spending would see that mark eclipsed by 2029, the CBO says.

“Lawmakers should not accept ever-growing federal debt as a share of the economy, nor make it worse by continuing deficit-increasing policies,” advises the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan think tank that favors balanced budgets. “They should take steps to slow and reverse its growth.”

Instead, the CBO projections show the exact opposite happening, as the growth of the national debt is set to accelerate over the next decade.

Congressional Republicans never really intended for last year’s tax cuts to expire, something that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) admitted even as the tax bill was still being debated.

“Those are sunsets that will never occur, we don’t believe will ever occur, we don’t intend to ever occur,” he told the The Washington Examiner last year, adding that the temporary nature of several key elements of the GOP tax plan was meant to satisfy Senate rules that limit the extent to which bills can affect the long-term deficit.

Though Ryan was, in that instance, talking about a handful of tax credits—including one that rewards parents simply for having children—the same general logic applied to other parts of the tax bill, including the rate cuts for individuals and corporations. The lower rates passed by Congress last year are technically scheduled to reset to their previous, higher levels in 2025. Those expiration dates allow projections of the cost of the tax bill to appear lower because they took into account additional revenue from after the expiration dates.

Those gimmicks allowed Republicans to make the tax cuts look less bad for the deficit—though the bill was still projected to add at least $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

Even if Congress allows the tax cuts to expire, as the CBO expects in its “current law” projection, the national debt is expected to spiral in future years without a serious effort at cutting spending. Things get really ugly in the alternative scenario, which envisions a future where Congress allows not only the tax cuts to expire, but also extends other planned tax breaks (including the politically popular tax break for parents) and permanently repeals some health care taxes tied to the Affordable Care Act.

This alternative future—one that actually seems more likely in many ways than the “current law” projection that relies on Congress making several sure-to-be-unpopular decisions in the middle of the next decade—would put “increasing pressure on the noninterest portions of the budget, limiting lawmakers’ ability to respond to unforeseen events, and increasing the likelihood of a fiscal crisis,” the CBO warns. The number-crunching agency concludes that “such a situation would ultimately be unsustainable.”

Of course the real problem is Congress’ inability to cut spending. After passing the tax cuts last year, Republicans earlier this year approved a two-year spending plan that obliterated Obama-era spending caps once championed by Ryan and other budget hawks. In doing so, the GOP has signaled quite clearly that it does not give a damn about the deficit—despite years of claiming otherwise as Presidents Bush and Obama added to the national debt. And if Republicans don’t care about the deficit, why should Democrats?

But even a party that has abandoned fiscal conservatism should take a good, long look at the CBO’s latest release before pressing ahead with a plan to put more tax cuts on the national credit card.

Saudi Arabia and Canada are officially in disagreement over the topic of human rights. As the criticisms between the two countries mounts, a recent crucifixion is overshadowing Saudi Arabia’s accusations that between the two, Canada has the worse record on human rights.

Saudi King Salman recently endorsed a court’s decision to crucify a Myanmar man accused of theft and murder. The man, Elias Abulkalaam Jamaleddeen, was charged with breaking into a woman’s home and stabbing her to death. He was additionally accused of stealing weapons, trying to stab another man, and attempting to rape a woman.

Crucifixions in Saudi Arabia, as explained by the Associated Press, involve beheading an individual and placing their body on display. Though the practice of crucifixion is admittedly rare, Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty at a higher rate than most other countries. Amnesty International reported in 2015 that China and Iran were the only two countries that used capital punishment more than Saudi Arabia. Just this past year, the country was criticized for killing 48 people over the span of four months. About half of those executed by the Saudi government were convicted of nonviolent drug charges.

Just before this latest execution was carried out, Saudi Arabia accused Canada of having a poor human rights record. The accusation was part of a larger fight that began when Canada called for the release of Saudi women’s rights activists on Twitter. One of the activists named, Samar Badawi, and her brother, Raif Badawi, were arrested in 2012 after Raif blogged criticism of Islam. He was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison. Earlier in the year, his wife and children became citizens of Canada, which has since joined other western countries in calling for the Badawi siblings’ freedom.

Saudi Arabia responded by ordering Canada’s ambassador to leave the country while recalling its own ambassador from Canada. The country has also called on its citizens currently present in Canada to return home, has suspended various operations in Canada, and has placed sanctions on the country.

Saudi Arabia also accused Canada of hypocrisy by bringing up the arrest of Ernst Zündel. Though he was born in Germany, Zündel operated a Nazi publishing house in Canada for several years. He was arrested and held in solitary confinement in a Toronto jail before Canada deported him back to Germany in 2005. In 2007, Zündel was sentenced to five years in prison for Holocaust denial and inciting racial hatred under German law.

The disagreement only escalated when a verified, pro-Saudi government Twitter account shared a digitally altered picture of an Air Canada plane flying towards the Toronto skyline with the caption “sticking one’s nose where it doesn’t belong.” The picture seemed to evoke the 9/11 terrorist attacks that targeted New York City and Washington, D.C. The picture was deleted and the Saudi Ministry of Media announced an investigation.

(Note: Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied its involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A U.S. district court judge ruled in March that the families of the victims had a right to sue Saudi Arabia for damages under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act.)

Saudi Arabia is currently a member of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.

In the latest signal that Gary Johnson is revving up a run for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, his 2016 presidential campaign manager, Ron Nielson, announced Monday that he was forming a new fundraising vehicle called Elect Liberty PAC. The move came after the Libertarian Party’s unanimous decision Saturday to nominate the two-time former governor to replace State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn, who vacated his candidacy late last month while urging Johnson to run.

“Aubrey Dunn just did what statesmen do. He put the best interests of New Mexico before his own personal interests,” Nielson said in a statement. “Now it’s time for New Mexicans and other supporters of good government to take the next step and seize this opportunity to give the state a powerful, independent voice and vote in the U.S. Senate. Governor Gary Johnson can be that Senator, and we want to show that he has the support he needs to win.”

Johnson still hasn’t officially thrown his hat in the ring; the L.P. gave him two weeks to decide. “I am giving the race my most serious consideration,” he said in a statement following the party’s vote. “A major factor is, simply, whether I can win…. If I choose to run it will be for all New Mexicans, Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians and Greens. I will be an independent voice for our state.”

Democratic incumbent Martin Heinrich has until now been considered a shoo-in for re-election in this solidly blue state, and sits on a campaign war chest estimated at $4 million. Republican nominee Mick Rich, a political novice with 1/24th that amount of cash on hand, has been emphatic about not dropping out should Johnson run.

“I’m in all the way to the end and I intend to win this thing,” Rich told NM Political Report this week. As for calls from some Libertarians to step aside, Rich said: “What really surprises me, is the message they’re putting out there is, ‘Gary’s a weak candidate and he can’t win on his own.'” (Retorted the unofficial Gary Johnson for Senate fan page on Facebook: “Nope. We’re saying Mick Rich is the difference between Johnson winning by a close margin and winning by a landslide.”)

The injection of the high-profile Libertarian—who received 9.3 percent of the presidential vote in New Mexico two years ago—would spark media interest in what has been a yawner of a race.

“Rich is duller than last night’s dishwater. Few are contributing to his moribund campaign,” Santa Few New Mexican political columnist Milan Simonich wrote last week. “For Heinrich, Johnson is the far more dangerous opponent. Rich isn’t going to catch fire. Johnson might.”

Is free speech still free if you have to pay for it? That’s the question to ask after the National Park Service (NPS) unveiled 14 regulations it’s considering implementing for demonstrations and special events in the Washington, D.C., area.

According to an NPS press release, the agency hands out about 750 permits for “First Amendment demonstrations” in the D.C. area every year, plus 1,500 more for special events. The NPS handles events on the National Mall, next to the White House, and at popular monuments around the city.

The agency now says it wants the groups organizing such events to foot the bill. “The federal government and taxpayers shouldn’t be required to underwrite the cost of somebody’s special event, whether it’s a concert, wedding, or gathering of some sort,” NPS spokesperson Mike Litterst tells WAMU, Washington’s local NPR station. Apparently, that includes political protests too. “There is an enormous cost to putting on or assisting with some of these larger First Amendment demonstrations,” Litterst says.

The NPS notes it “has the authority to recover all costs of providing necessary services associated with special use permits.” Currently, the agency charges fees for special events, but not “if the proposed activity is an exercise of a right,” like free speech. Those rules could be changing for the first time since 2008, though it’s not a done deal yet. Starting Tuesday, the public will have 60 days to comment on the rule changes.

Charging demonstrators fees to protest isn’t the only notable proposed change. The agency might also require structures bigger than podiums to have a permit, in addition to banning events at various memorials in the city and establishing security zones in the area surrounding the White House.

Acting National Capital Regional Director Lisa Mendelson-Ielmini thinks the proposed changes will help maintain the First Amendment rights of “groups wanting their voices heard.”

“The role the National Park Service plays in facilitating these groups’ First Amendment rights—regardless of their views—is not something we take lightly,” she say in the NPS’s press release. “These proposed changes would provide much needed clarity to regulations while ensuring those unalienable rights remain.”

“Libertarian Party Rebuffs Mises Uprising,” ran the headline on my first dispatch from the L.P.’s biennial national convention, which talked about how the party’s growing Mises Caucus fell far short in its effort to dislodge Party Chair Nicholas Sarwark.

This analysis did not prove popular among the Libertarian friends of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI) in Auburn, Alabama. “Reason Editor Gets it Wrong,” was the headline on Eric July’s video response. “Someone’s been eating Gary Johnson’s edibles,” tweeted Comic Dave Smith. Mises Caucus Chair Michael Heise, in a rebuttal email to me, wrote (among many other things): “We have been directly credited by Tom Woods and Dave Smith joining the party which has caused a number of new members to join the party and the caucus. We are the biggest and quickly coming up on the strongest caucus in the party. We were able to knock down resolutions that downplayed the importance of property and I spoke against them which rallied the delegation floor.”

Then something interesting happened. Rather than wash their hands of a party they have criticized for drifting too far from core philosophical principles, the friends of the Mises Institute doubled down on their involvement. Smith and podcaster Jason Stapleton announced post-convention that they were joining the L.P. The biggest fish of all to become a sustaining member of the party was LvMI Senior Fellow and popular podcaster Tom Woods. In August 2017, in the wake of the Charlottesville riots, these people and Libertarian Party leadership were engaged in a war of words. Eleven months later, they’re all under the same big tent.

It was in that spirit that the quick-witted anarchist media weirdo Michael Malice invited Tom Woods and myself to a bread-breaking edition of Malice’s “YOUR WELCOME“ show. The three of us discussed any number of internecine divisions within both the libertarian and Libertarian movements, perceived snubs from Reason, incrementalism vs. Evangelism, Murray Rothbard, the old Ron Paul newsletters; you name it. You can watch here:

Related reading: Brian Doherty’s 2009 essay “A Tale of Two Libertarianisms,” our magazine debate forum that same year on “Are Property Rights Enough?“, and this 2011 piece from me. Bonus Michael Malice-related content here. ALSO: Watch your mailboxes for a forthcoming issue of Reason that includes all manner of libertarian debates.

A convicted murderer on death row in Nevada has one simple request: He wants the state to kill him.

By all accounts, 47-year-old Scott Dozier is a bad man. He already had one second-degree murder conviction under his belt when he was sentenced to death in 2007 for first-degree murder. In the latter case, the torso of Jeremiah Miller was eventually found crammed in a suitcase and dumped in the trash. The body was missing its head, arms, calves, and feet.

Dozier denies having committed both murders. But he says he’s ready to die anyway, especially after his lethal injection was postponed for the second time last month. Nevada should “just get it done, just do it effectively and stop fighting about it,” he tells the Associated Press.

Civil libertarians and classical liberals have long argued against capital punishment on the basis that the government shouldn’t kill its own citizens. “The death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice,” the ACLU argues. “Well-publicized problems with the death penalty process—wrongful convictions, arbitrary application, and high costs—have convinced many libertarians that capital punishment is just one more failed government program that should be scrapped,” Ben Jones writes at Libertarianism.org.

But what about cases where the defendant wants to die? In this case, one might argue that the state wouldn’t be murdering Dozier; it would simply be granting his last wish. Then again, while the state of Nevada wants to kill Dozier, it has no desire to let him go out on his own terms: he was put on suicide watch following the most recent postponement of his execution.

Dozier claims he’s not suicidal. He doesn’t even want to die that much; he just prefers death to prison. But his execution has turned into a complicated legal affair that sheds still more light on the messy business of capital punishment.

Hours before Dozier was set to be executed in July, Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez of Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court said the state couldn’t use a sedative called midazolam. That’s because the drug’s manufacturer, Alvogen, successfully argued that “serious harm” would be done to its business if the sedative was used in an execution.

Since then, the makers of the other two drugs that were set to be administered Dozier have also joined the fight. Neither Hikma Pharmaceuticals—which makes the opioid fentanyl—nor Sandoz Inc.—which manufactures the muscle relaxant cisatracurium—want the state to kill Dozier with their products.

Dozier, though, just wants it to all be over. “I want to be really clear about this. This is my wish,” he tells the AP. “They should stop punishing me and my family for their inability to carry out the execution.”

It’s not like the state of Nevada disagrees. The attorney general’s office says the drug companies are simply trying to improve their public image. “For Alvogen (and similarly situated drug manufacturers), this lawsuit has little downside. Whether it ultimately wins or loses, Alvogen scores points in the public relations arena just for bringing this lawsuit,” lawyers for the AG’s office wrote late last month in a petition to the Nevada Supreme Court. On Monday, 15 states filed an amici curiae with the Supreme Court expressing similar sentiments.

Dozier agrees with what those states are saying. “It just seems like they’re a little late to the party on that whole theory,” he told the Reno Gazette Journal earlier this week, referring to the drug companies. “I don’t really think they care. I think they started caring when it started affecting them, bottom line.”

As Reason has documented in the past, states often operate in the shadows when it comes to obtaining and administering death penalty drugs. In one instance, Texas even sought to procure banned drugs from a shady Indian company. There have also been questions regarding how humane death by lethal injection really is. Transparency is sorely needed, particularly in Dozier’s case, where Alvogen has accused Nevada officials of illegally purchasing midazolam.

For now, Dozier has no choice but to keep waiting. The next court date for the case isn’t until September 10, and prison officials want his execution to be rescheduled for November. “To be clear, this is actually a state of torture, without question,” he told the Gazette Journal. “I mean at least now I know nothing’s going to happen before September 10, so that’s better.”

And while he’s no suicidal, the whole ordeal has made think about whether state-assisted suicide might be the way to go. “I’ve been thinking about writing them and telling them, ‘You know what, would you let (the drugs) be used for state-assisted suicide, because I am in a terminal situation and I’m suffering?” he told the Gazette Journal.

Tax cuts and other fiscally conservative positions are in the backseat of Republicans’ 2018 campaign rhetoric. In fact, the Associated Press (AP) found in a new report that tax cuts have been replaced by something much more alarming: fear.

In December 2017, President Trump signed off on tax-cut legislation that he promised would lead to positive outcomes “for businesses, for people, for the middle class, [and] for workers.” Following passage of that legislation, reports indicated that as many as 90% of employees nationwide would take home more money as withholding rates were lowered. The tax cuts were hailed as such a success that Lowe’s announced it would give bonuses and expand benefits packages in response.

One would think Republican candidates might campaign on these tax cuts, but it appears more are interested in playing up their constituents’ fears of immigration, socialism, and House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.).

“We wish it got the pitch forks out and it doesn’t,” GOP ad maker Will Ritter told the AP in reference to the shift from promoting economic policy success to fearmongering.

In July, at least two congressional Republican candidates in states that don’t touch the southern border gained national attention for their heavily Trump-centric ads. Jason Emert of Tennessee created his own version of a 2013 insurance ad featuring the disgraced former University of Tennessee coach Butch Jones. Unlike Butch Jones, Emert promised, “When I say I’m going to do something, I actually mean it.” Emert went on to pledge his support to the president and his tough immigration policies by literally building a wall in his own yard.

Later in the month, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R—Fla.) released a campaign ad where his wife insisted he was “so much more” than just a Trump supporter. DeSantis demonstrated this by using a “Make America Great Again” sign to teach his children how to read and also building a physical wall with them in the middle of their living room. Unlike Emert’s wall, however, DeSantis’ wall was created with toddler building blocks.

The heavy focus on the wall signals a shift away from fiscal conservatism not just as a campaign talking point, but as a policy goal. Just weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Congressional Republican leaders revealed that U.S. taxpayers would have to pay for a border wall, with one estimate putting the price of the first phase at $18 billion. That does not include maintenance costs, which would be an additional $48.3 billion during the wall’s first decade. Both estimates are likely too low, as the Cato Institute found they rely on “unrealistically cheap construction costs.”

The tribalistic fears that Republicans are running don’t connect well on paper, but Republicans are tying them together regardless and hoping the emotional impact will overshadow the intellectual dissonance. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R—N.Y.), for example, has released several ads tying Democrat challenger Anthony Brindisi’s “dangerously wrong” views on immigration—including claims that he desires open borders—to alleged support for Pelosi. Tenney only mentions tax cuts in one of her ads, and only after accusing Brindisi of supporting Pelosi. Brindisi, who has already announced that he would not support any bid from Pelosi to lead the party in the future, responded to the strategy by saying, “I’d think after almost two years of being in Congress, the first advertisement that my opponent would run would be something about her accomplishments.”