Category: reason

With the exception of Colorado, Washington, and
Uruguay, cultivation of marijuana for general use is illegal pretty
much everywhere on Earth. That includes Australia, Austria, Canada,
Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great
Britain, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea,
Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, and Ukraine. Yet all of those countries allow
cultivation of industrial hemp, a nonpsychoactive version of
cannabis used in textiles, cosmetics, food products, fuel, and
building materials. According to the Hemp Industries Association,
the United States is “the only industrialized nation in the world”
that has not managed to reconcile these two policies—an impossible
feat, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. It looks
like the U.S. will soon lose that dubious distinction. The farm
bill approved
by the House yesterday included a
provision allowing pilot hemp cultivation projects in 10
states.

“This is big,” Vote Hemp
President Eric Steenstra
told the Associated Press. “We’ve been pushing for this a long
time.” The hemp provision, which allows cultivation by colleges,
universities, and state agriculture departments for research
purposes, was introduced in the House by Reps. Jared Polis
(D-Colo.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). Its
main champion in the Senate, which is expected to pass the farm
bill as soon as next week, was Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), who
took up the cause of farmers in his state who see hemp as a
potentially lucrative business. “In 2011,” A.P. notes, “the U.S.
imported $11.5 million worth of legal hemp products, up from $1.4
million in 2000.”

The 10 states that notionally allow hemp cultivation are
Colorado, Washington, California, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North
Dakota, Oregon, Vermont, and West Virginia. With the exception of
an experiment in
Hawaii that was abandoned due to DEA resistance, hemp has been
produced only in Colorado, where Amendment 64 legalized it along
with marijuana. Although the Colorado Department of Agriculture has
not gotten around to awarding hemp cultivation licenses yet, a few
farmers went ahead and planted crops anyway. Last October, Baca
County farmer Ryan Loflin
harvested the country’s first quasi-legal hemp crop since the
late 1940s.

Maybe the next time a
hemp flag flies over the Capitol, it will be made of fiber
produced in the USA.
The horror.

The House GOP, it appears, is finally getting serious about
doing something
lame (as Ed Krayewski
explained this morning) to reform our
inhumane and irrational immigration system. So, naturally,
restrictionists have started spilling vast quantities of fake bile
and warning GOP leaders of dire consequences if they don’t cease
and desist.

The peerless (thank god) Ann Coulter got the ball rolling.
She didn’t take the tack of Republican
“pussies” who limit their opposition to illegal immigration. No
siree. She wants a war on all immigrants – even the good, high
skilled variety – lest they ruin America forever. How? By voting
against Republicans. “Immigrants — all immigrants — have always
been the bulwark of the Democratic Party,” she harrumphs.

Setting aside the fact that 45-plus percent of Hispanics voted
for George W. Bush, what’s bad for Republicans is ipso facto bad
for America? Got it.

Famous nativist and Zullu-basher
Pat Buchanan
chimed in on Laura Ingraham’s radio show that House Speaker
John Boehner would sing his “last hurrah” if he pushed for reform.
“You will have a war inside the Republican party — a Balkan war —
this year,” he snorted.

So the way for Republicans to maintain peace is by continuing a
war on immigrants? Got that too.

Implacable immigration foe Sen. Jeff Sessions
accused the House’s leadership of – horror of horrors! –
consulting with “Democrat activists” before their own
obstructionist members in their  “rush to pass an immigration
bill.”

 Rush.

A reform effort that has been in the works since at least 2006
(when George W. Bush first proposed) is a rush job? The good
senator obviously has a watch in geological time. But,
whatever.

Meanwhile, the National Review
predictably declared any reform effort that did not first erect
a Berlin Wall on the Rio Grande as a “fraud” on the American
people.

Less predictably, however, the Weekly Standard, which
used to once have sensible views on immigration, seconded that
sentiment
claiming that reformers were playing “skeptics for fools” by
even considering any form of legalization before the borders are
sealed.

Such pre-emptive biliousness against reforms has worked well for
restrictionists in the past. But how long can they go on without
getting acid reflux?

My pieces on how Republicans can stay the party of limited
government and still win minorities a la Canada’s Tory Party

here and
here.

Congress may be about to repent its
uncharacteristic act of fiscal rectitude and environmental
protection by rolling back its flood insurance reforms from 2012.
Prior to the reforms, government flood insurance program subsidies
over the decades had encouraged lots of people to live, work, and
build in flood-prone areas. Why not? It’s really nice to live along
the banks of a river or enjoy a sunset from the balcony of your
oceanfront McMansion. And if a hurricane or flood knocks it down,
cheap government insurance will pay for the rebuilding.

Eventually recognizing that the flood insurance program was a
fiscal disaster and an environmental menace, Congress passed the
Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act. Yesterday, the
New York Times reported:

The Biggert-Waters measure sought to reform the nation’s nearly
bankrupt flood insurance program, ending federal subsidies for
insuring buildings in flood-prone coastal areas. Over the past
decade, the cost to taxpayers of insuring those properties has
soared, as payouts for damage from Hurricanes Katrina, Irene, Isaac
and Sandy sent the program $24 billion into debt.

The aim of the measure was to shift the financial risk of
insuring flood-prone properties from taxpayers to the private
market. Homeowners, rather than taxpayers, would shoulder the true
cost of building in flood zones.

Deficit hawks liked the idea because it would curb a rapidly
rising source of government spending. Environmentalists liked the
bill because they said it would reflect the true cost of climate
change, which scientists say is ushering in an era of rising sea
levels and more damaging extreme weather, including more
flooding.

Well, that was last year. It turns out there was a reason why
private insurance was not offering flood insurance to lots of the
folks who were taking advantage of the government subsidized
policies. The risks were too high for the premiums being paid. Who
knew? From the Times:

But a year after the law passed, coastal homeowners received new
flood insurance bills that were two, three, even 10 times higher
than before.

In Beach Haven West, N.J., for example, Diane Mazzuca, a
furniture showroom designer, had been paying $595 annually for
flood insurance on her $90,000 home. After Biggert-Waters ended
federal flood insurance subsidies last June, she got an updated
bill — for $4,492….

Ms. Mazzuca has plenty of company. The insurance rate increases
hit many of the 5.5 million coastal home and business owners
covered under the National Flood Insurance Program, and came as the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, which runs the program, was
updating flood maps and placing thousands of homes inside flood
zones for the first time. Last summer and fall, homeowners near
coasts, rivers and wetlands saw their insurance rates soar and
their property values plummet.

The homeowners’ frustration erupted into a grass-roots lobbying
campaign to roll back the Biggert-Waters act, and lawmakers in
Washington quickly got the message.

For example, the pro-rollback interest group, the New
Orleans-based
Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance issued a press
release arguing: 

To be clear, if Biggert-Waters 2012 goes forward unabated,
hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of Americans who have
played by the rules, built where the government told
them (emphasis added), maintained insurance, and never
flooded will lose everything.

And so it appears that bipartisan majorities in the Senate and
the House will be voting for the Homeowner Flood Insurance
Affordabiiity Act. Did you catch that the National Flood Insurance
Program is right now $24 billion overdrawn?

For more background, check out John Stossel’s classic 2004
Reason article “Confessions
of a Welfare Queen” in which the architect for his new
oceanfront house tells him not to worry:

In 1980 I built a wonderful beach house. Four bedrooms — every
room with a view of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was an absurd place to build, right on the edge of the ocean.
All that stood between my house and ruin was a hundred feet of
sand. My father told me: “Don’t do it; it’s too risky. No one
should build so close to an ocean.”

But I built anyway.

Why? As my eager-for-the-business architect said, “Why not? If
the ocean destroys your house, the government will pay for a new
one.”

What? Why would the government do that? Why would it encourage
people to build in such risky places? That would be insane.

Recall that one good definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over yet expecting to get a different result. Sounds
a lot like the normal operations of Congress.

Disclosure: I have bought flood insurance from FEMA for my
cabin for the past 18 years.

Congress may be about to repent its
uncharacteristic act of fiscal rectitude and environmental
protection by rolling back its flood insurance reforms from 2012.
Prior to the reforms, government flood insurance program subsidies
over the decades had encouraged lots of people to live, work, and
build in flood-prone areas. Why not? It’s really nice to live along
the banks of a river or enjoy a sunset from the balcony of your
oceanfront McMansion. And if a hurricane or flood knocks it down,
cheap government insurance will pay for the rebuilding.

Eventually recognizing that the flood insurance program was a
fiscal disaster and an environmental menace, Congress passed the
Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act. Yesterday, the
New York Times reported:

The Biggert-Waters measure sought to reform the nation’s nearly
bankrupt flood insurance program, ending federal subsidies for
insuring buildings in flood-prone coastal areas. Over the past
decade, the cost to taxpayers of insuring those properties has
soared, as payouts for damage from Hurricanes Katrina, Irene, Isaac
and Sandy sent the program $24 billion into debt.

The aim of the measure was to shift the financial risk of
insuring flood-prone properties from taxpayers to the private
market. Homeowners, rather than taxpayers, would shoulder the true
cost of building in flood zones.

Deficit hawks liked the idea because it would curb a rapidly
rising source of government spending. Environmentalists liked the
bill because they said it would reflect the true cost of climate
change, which scientists say is ushering in an era of rising sea
levels and more damaging extreme weather, including more
flooding.

Well, that was last year. It turns out there was a reason why
private insurance was not offering flood insurance to lots of the
folks who were taking advantage of the government subsidized
policies. The risks were too high for the premiums being paid. Who
knew? From the Times:

But a year after the law passed, coastal homeowners received new
flood insurance bills that were two, three, even 10 times higher
than before.

In Beach Haven West, N.J., for example, Diane Mazzuca, a
furniture showroom designer, had been paying $595 annually for
flood insurance on her $90,000 home. After Biggert-Waters ended
federal flood insurance subsidies last June, she got an updated
bill — for $4,492….

Ms. Mazzuca has plenty of company. The insurance rate increases
hit many of the 5.5 million coastal home and business owners
covered under the National Flood Insurance Program, and came as the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, which runs the program, was
updating flood maps and placing thousands of homes inside flood
zones for the first time. Last summer and fall, homeowners near
coasts, rivers and wetlands saw their insurance rates soar and
their property values plummet.

The homeowners’ frustration erupted into a grass-roots lobbying
campaign to roll back the Biggert-Waters act, and lawmakers in
Washington quickly got the message.

For example, the pro-rollback interest group, the New
Orleans-based
Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance issued a press
release arguing: 

To be clear, if Biggert-Waters 2012 goes forward unabated,
hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of Americans who have
played by the rules, built where the government told
them (emphasis added), maintained insurance, and never
flooded will lose everything.

And so it appears that bipartisan majorities in the Senate and
the House will be voting for the Homeowner Flood Insurance
Affordabiiity Act. Did you catch that the National Flood Insurance
Program is right now $24 billion overdrawn?

For more background, check out John Stossel’s classic 2004
Reason article “Confessions
of a Welfare Queen” in which the architect for his new
oceanfront house tells him not to worry:

In 1980 I built a wonderful beach house. Four bedrooms — every
room with a view of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was an absurd place to build, right on the edge of the ocean.
All that stood between my house and ruin was a hundred feet of
sand. My father told me: “Don’t do it; it’s too risky. No one
should build so close to an ocean.”

But I built anyway.

Why? As my eager-for-the-business architect said, “Why not? If
the ocean destroys your house, the government will pay for a new
one.”

What? Why would the government do that? Why would it encourage
people to build in such risky places? That would be insane.

Recall that one good definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over yet expecting to get a different result. Sounds
a lot like the normal operations of Congress.

Disclosure: I have bought flood insurance from FEMA for my
cabin for the past 18 years.

Yesterday, the New York State
Department of Financial Services (DFS) concluded a
two-day fact-finding hearing on how to regulate Bitcoin and
other virtual cryptocurrencies. The purpose of the hearing was to
consider whether or not Empire State regulators should have a
direct role in overseeing the use of virtual cryptocurrencies, or
if existing federal regulations suffice.

In his opening remarks, New York State Superintendent of
Financial Services Benjamin M. Lawsky made it clear that the
question wasn’t so much if New York should regulate
cryptocurrencies, but how. “Right now, the regulation of
the virtual currency industry is still akin to the Wild West,” said
Lawsky. “That lack of regulation is simply not tenable for the
long-term.” Lawsky also expressed a desire not to “clip the wings”
of a promising new technology, and acknowledged the potential of
cryptocurrencies to revolutionize the money transmission
industry.

View this article.

Yesterday, the New York State
Department of Financial Services (DFS) concluded a
two-day fact-finding hearing on how to regulate Bitcoin and
other virtual cryptocurrencies. The purpose of the hearing was to
consider whether or not Empire State regulators should have a
direct role in overseeing the use of virtual cryptocurrencies, or
if existing federal regulations suffice.

In his opening remarks, New York State Superintendent of
Financial Services Benjamin M. Lawsky made it clear that the
question wasn’t so much if New York should regulate
cryptocurrencies, but how. “Right now, the regulation of
the virtual currency industry is still akin to the Wild West,” said
Lawsky. “That lack of regulation is simply not tenable for the
long-term.” Lawsky also expressed a desire not to “clip the wings”
of a promising new technology, and acknowledged the potential of
cryptocurrencies to revolutionize the money transmission
industry.

View this article.

According to a poll conducted by ComRes and
published in the U.K.-based
The Independent on Sunday, the euroskeptic United
Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is the U.K.’s favorite political
party and its leader, Nigel Farage, is the second most popular
leader of a major British political party (he follows Prime
Minister David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party).

Ed Miliband, the less than awe-inspiring leader of the Labour
Party, and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who has had to deal
with a lot of unfair criticism from ungrateful members of his own
party, are the least favorable political leaders.

Breakdown of the poll results below:

What’s interesting about the popularity of UKIP is that it
could deny the two largest parties (the Conservatives and
Labour) a majority at the next general election, leaving the U.K.
with its second hung parliament in a row. In this May’s European
elections UKIP could do very well by taking advantage of
euroskepticism in the U.K.

While UKIP may be enjoying some popularity, it is important for
British classical liberals to remember that the party is not,
despite what its constitution says,
a libertarian party. UKIP’s hostility to to free trade and
capitalism was highlighted last year by Farage’s
rhetoric surrounding
Bulgarian and Romanian immigration.  

I have written before about how UKIP
is not a libertarian party, but it is
especially worth highlighting months away from European elections.
The European Union is an institution that is worthy of the mockery
and anger that Farage is known for (see clips below):

However, the hostility Farage and his UKIP colleagues have
towards the undemocratic and regulation-obsessed European Union is
not reason enough for those who calls themselves libertarians to
support UKIP.

I don’t understand the appeal of politics, but if British
libertarians do want to get involved in politics they should not
forget that there are classical liberal or classical
liberal-leaning politicians outside of UKIP. In the Conservative
Party Steve Baker MP,
Alan Duncan MP,
Douglas Carswell MP, and

Daniel Hannan MEP each have libertarian sympathies. Even in the
Liberal Democrats, a party that is wrongly categorized by many in
the U.S. and the U.K. as being part of “the left,” politicians like
David Laws MP
and other so-called
Orange Bookers are sympathetic to competition and economic
liberalism. The exception to this description of the Orange Bookers
is Vince Cable MP, who contributed to The Orange Book but
is more of a social democrat than a Gladstonian liberal.

May is still a few months away
and recent news

suggests that the British economy is improving, which may help
the Conservatives and make some people more hesitant to support
UKIP, which includes many disillusioned Conservatives.

According to a poll conducted by ComRes and
published in the U.K.-based
The Independent on Sunday, the euroskeptic United
Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is the U.K.’s favorite political
party and its leader, Nigel Farage, is the second most popular
leader of a major British political party (he follows Prime
Minister David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party).

Ed Miliband, the less than awe-inspiring leader of the Labour
Party, and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who has had to deal
with a lot of unfair criticism from ungrateful members of his own
party, are the least favorable political leaders.

Breakdown of the poll results below:

What’s interesting about the popularity of UKIP is that it
could deny the two largest parties (the Conservatives and
Labour) a majority at the next general election, leaving the U.K.
with its second hung parliament in a row. In this May’s European
elections UKIP could do very well by taking advantage of
euroskepticism in the U.K.

While UKIP may be enjoying some popularity, it is important for
British classical liberals to remember that the party is not,
despite what its constitution says,
a libertarian party. UKIP’s hostility to to free trade and
capitalism was highlighted last year by Farage’s
rhetoric surrounding
Bulgarian and Romanian immigration.  

I have written before about how UKIP
is not a libertarian party, but it is
especially worth highlighting months away from European elections.
The European Union is an institution that is worthy of the mockery
and anger that Farage is known for (see clips below):

However, the hostility Farage and his UKIP colleagues have
towards the undemocratic and regulation-obsessed European Union is
not reason enough for those who calls themselves libertarians to
support UKIP.

I don’t understand the appeal of politics, but if British
libertarians do want to get involved in politics they should not
forget that there are classical liberal or classical
liberal-leaning politicians outside of UKIP. In the Conservative
Party Steve Baker MP,
Alan Duncan MP,
Douglas Carswell MP, and

Daniel Hannan MEP each have libertarian sympathies. Even in the
Liberal Democrats, a party that is wrongly categorized by many in
the U.S. and the U.K. as being part of “the left,” politicians like
David Laws MP
and other so-called
Orange Bookers are sympathetic to competition and economic
liberalism. The exception to this description of the Orange Bookers
is Vince Cable MP, who contributed to The Orange Book but
is more of a social democrat than a Gladstonian liberal.

May is still a few months away
and recent news

suggests that the British economy is improving, which may help
the Conservatives and make some people more hesitant to support
UKIP, which includes many disillusioned Conservatives.

Yesterday, Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper testified before the Senate Intelligence
Committee about the foreign threats that menace the peace of the
United States. I have no doubt that such threats exist, but why
anyone would trust the way that Clapper would interpret (and
strategically withhold) intelligence about those threats is beyond
me. As all the world knows, Clapper lied last
March in sworn testimony to Congress about the extent of National
Security Agency spying on American citizens.

During the hearing yesterday, NSA critic Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
began his questioning by stating that Clapper and the NSA had
previously made “misleading
and deceptive statements” in their testimony. Wyden then
added: 

Let me start by saying that the men and women of America’s
intelligence agencies are overwhelmingly dedicated professionals,
and they deserve to have leadership that is trusted by the American
people. Unfortunately, that trust has been seriously undermined by
senior officials’ reckless reliance on secret interpretations of
the law and battered by years of misleading and deceptive
statements that senior officials made to the American people. These
statements did not protect sources and methods that were useful in
fighting terror. Instead, they hid bad policy choices and violation
of the liberties of the American people.

For example, the director of the NSA said publicly that the NSA
doesn’t hold data on U.S. citizens. That was obviously untrue.

Justice Department officials testified that Section 215 of the
Patriot Act is analogous to grand jury subpoena authority, and that
deceptive statement was made on multiple occasions.

Officials also suggested that the NSA doesn’t have the authority
to read Americans’ e-mails without a warrant. But the FISA Court
opinions declassified last August showed that wasn’t true,
either.

Earlier in the week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)
sent a letter signed by five other congressmen – both
Republican and Democratic – to President Obama asking him to fire
Clapper. The letter read:

The continued role of James Clapper as Director of National
Intelligence is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in
our security programs and ensuring the highest level of
transparency. Director Clapper continues to hold his position
despite lying to Congress, under oath, about the existence of bulk
data collection programs in March 2013. Asking Director Clapper,
and other federal intelligence officials who misrepresented
programs to Congress and the courts, to report to you on needed
reforms and the future role of government surveillance is not a
credible solution.”

Unfortunately, in a
reply to the letter a spokesperson for President Obama
stated:

The president has full faith in Director Clapper’s leadership of
the intelligence community. The director has provided an
explanation for his answers to Sen. Wyden and made clear that he
did not intend to mislead the Congress.

Not intend to mislead the Congress? That is what happens when
you start lying, you have to keep lying. 

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee
approved what the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) calls “the
biggest overhaul in federal drug sentencing in decades.” The
Smarter
Sentencing Act, introduced by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)
and Mike Lee (R-Utah) last July, would cut mandatory minimum
sentences in half for some drug offenses, make the reduced crack
penalties enacted in 2010 retroactive, and expand the category of
defendants eligible for sentencing below the mandatory minimums.
“The Smarter Sentencing Act is the most significant piece of
criminal justice reform to make it to the Senate floor in several
years,”
says Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties
Union’s Washington Legislative Office.

The Durbin-Lee bill does not go as far as the Justice
Safety Valve Act, introduced last March by Sens. Rand Paul
(R-Ky.) and Pat Leahy (who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee),
which would have made mandatory minimums
effectively optional by alllowing judges to depart from them in
the interest of justice. It is neverthless a big improvement. The
crack provision alone could help thousands of prisoners serving
sentences that almost everyone now concedes are excessively long.
It would dramatically reduce the penalties for certain nonviolent
drug offenses, changing 20-year, 10-year, and five-year mandatory
minimums to 10 years, five years, and two years, respectively. It
allows more nonviolent offenders to escape mandatory minimums
entirely by loosening the criteria for the “safety valve,” allowing
two criminal background points instead of just one.

“Extreme, one-size-fits-all sentencing has caused our federal
prison population to balloon out of control, and it’s time to
change these laws that destroy lives and waste taxpayer dollars,”
Murphy says. DPA notes that the Smarter Sentencing Act is supported
by “a strange bedfellows group of senators,” including Durbin, Lee,
Paul, Leahy, Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Carl Levin
(D-Mich.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). “The tide has turned
against punitive drug policies that destroy lives and tear families
apart,” says Bill Piper, DPA’s director of national affairs. “From
liberal stalwarts to Tea Party favorites there’s now consensus that
our country incarcerates too many people, for too much time, at too
much expense to taxpayers.”