Tag: hit&run

After FBI Director James Comey announced yesterday, more or less, that Hillary Clinton likely broke the law but wasn’t going to be prosecuted for it, the Libertarian Party issued a press release condemning the lack of any potential legal punishment for Clinton.

Nicholas Sarwark, chair of the Libertarian National Committee, was quoted:

“This is a serious miscarriage of justice,” says Nicholas Sarwark, chair of the Libertarian National Committee. “One key criteria for laws to be just is that they must be applied equally to all.” Countless other people who have served in roles handling classified information have been prosecuted, fined, and jailed for far lesser breaches of protocol and security.

I asked the Johnson campaign for a comment yesterday given the latest. “As this unfolded the Govs have been traveling and we don’t have a statement,” was a response sent overnight from the campaign’s press office.

The most recent detailed comment on Clinton and her email troubles from Johnson I found were on CNN and were quoted in the Washington Examiner on July 3:

“I don’t think there’s been criminal intent on Hillary Clinton’s part, so I don’t see an indictment,” the former New Mexico governor told CNN on Sunday morning.

“I’m not a stone thrower when it comes to Hillary Clinton and her emails and her server…”

Johnson and Weld were already being written off by many Libertarians as overly solicitous to Clinton who they are, it should be remembered, running against. One might expect them to at least occasionally take the time to critique when appropriate.

Asked about Clinton on their CNN Town Hall appearance in June, Johnson praised her as a “wonderful public servant” and vice presidential candidate William Weld truthfully referred to her as an “old friend.”

Johnson’s manifest unwillingness to play what he might see as a right-wing gotcha game against Clinton almost certainly comes from a sincere place where policy is more important than a process scandal. He may perhaps be a staunch defender of mens rea and think, even after Comey’s statements, that a prosecution is unjust.

Whatever the case may be, a campaign currently running nearly entirely on free earned media should consider taking advantage of news cycles to his benefit and to remember that on all sides he is trying to appeal to—disaffected Democrats or progressives who preferred Sanders, or Republicans who can’t abide Trump—there is much to gain and little to lose in being willing to point out political or personal flaws in his competitors, whether or not he sincerely believes she should face jail time for it. Even if it is merely using that news hook to point out where he thinks Clinton does deserve censure or criticism.

The Green Party’s Jill Stein quickly condemned Clinton in the aftermath of the Comey announcement, openly calling for Clinton’s prosecution, saying “All the elements necessary to prove a felony violation were found by the FBI investigation.”

I’ve seen a whole lot of annoyance and anger coming Johnson’s way over his lack of interest in condemning Hillary Clinton over this, particularly among fans of Austin Petersen, who came in second to Johnson in the Party’s nomination process. 

Petersen released a video dinging Johnson for his previous comments above about Clinton’s email. And he contrasts it with his willingness to call Trump a racist on CNN.

“Unless you are just a Gary Johnson sycophant, you won’t be a big fan” of how Johnson has dealt with this issue, Petersen said. “Even the FBI said she was grossly negligent…it is a crime, so it doesn’t make any sense from a political standpoint to defend Hillary Clinton unless there is some weird ulterior motive.” Petersen notes that Weld is a very old friend of Clinton’s, and goes on to condemn what he sees as an overly “social justice warrior” vibe to Johnson’s “effete liberalism” and calls his defense of Clinton “egregious.”

In my column, Minimum Wage and Magical Thinking, I reported on a couple of recent studies that tried to estimate what the effect of raising the minimum wage on employment would be. A 2014 study in the Journal of Labor Research calculated that raising the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 as promoted by President Obama would result in the loss of between 550,000 to 1.5 million jobs. A second National Bureau of Economic Research study estimated that as a consequence of raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 the U.S. economy had up to 1.4 million fewer jobs than it would otherwise have had.

Earlier this year, the Democratic Party Platform adopted a plank in favor of mandating a $15 per hour national minimum wage.

In today’s New York Times, Stony Brook University economist Peter Salins declares that this is a recipe to further impoverish the already poor. From his op/ed:

One of the more conservative estimates, issued by the Congressional Budget Office in 2014, projected that 500,000 jobs could be lost if the federal minimum wage were raised to $10.10 (the level then recommended by President Obama), though it acknowledged the losses could be lower. By my own estimation, based on a model of the national labor market developed by Jonathan Meer of Texas A&M University and Jeremy West of M.I.T., raising the minimum wage to $15 could reduce the total number of jobs nationally by three million to five million (emphasis added).

He further points out that the folks newly unemployed as a result of this kind of economic central planning will be ineligible for earned income tax credits (since they have no income). In addition, their unemployment benefits, which will be lower than what they were earning before being tossed out of their jobs, will run out in half a year or so. And since the new minimum wage is now too high to justify the hiring of low-skilled workers, their chances of getting at a new job are virtually non-existent. He concludes that proponents of the $15 minimum wage …

…are likely to visit grievous harm on some of the very individuals and families they claim to be helping. By blithely discounting the economic realities of the labor market in many parts of the country, the proponents of such increases risk putting millions of Americans in low-skill jobs out of work, thus making them ineligible for the tax credit and possibly in danger of destitution.

Absolutely right. Salins’ alternative is an expansion the earned income credit; a topic for another time.

Californians may not get an actual choice between candidates for Senate, because the state’s top-two post-primary run-off system has left everybody with two establishment Democrats as nominees. But they still get a whole host of ballot initiatives to weigh in on.

California is well-known for regularly having a large number of ballot initiatives put before the voters every November. This November, Californians will have 16 of them. Some have been pushed along by special interest groups, which is a very bad corrupting influence on democracy unless it matches your particular ideology, then it’s just the people’s voice being heard! I kid, but that tends to be what it feels like sometimes. On the other hand, it’s not clear that, despite whining about how some things should be put to a public vote, California’s state legislature actually fundamentally operates any differently. Capitulating to special interests? That’s a job for the experts!

But anyway, there are quite a few issues of interest to liberty-minded folks in California. Those who are not terribly impressed with their presidential or Senate choices can still have a say in matters of importance. Here’s a look at some of the more significant initiatives:

Recreational Marijuana Legalization. California famously attempted to pioneer legal use with a ballot initiative in 2010 that failed. Now that other states ended up leading the way, it’s back and altered to hopefully appeal to more voters. Proposition 64 will legalize recreational marijuana use and cultivation with heavy regulation and taxes. The state estimates the increased sales tax revenue could surpass $1 billion dollars a year. Read more about the initiative from Jacob Sullum here.

Plastic Bag Bans. The California legislature enacted a law 2014 that would bag single-use plastic bags from most grocery stores and pharmacies and mandate a 10-cent charge on recyclable or reusable bags. A referendum has pushed the issue onto the fall ballot as Proposition 67. In order to keep the law on the books, a majority must vote yes on Prop. 67. Read how awesome plastic bags actually are in a Reason cover story from last October by Katherine Mangu-Ward.

The Death Penalty. There are two competing ballot initiatives on the death penalty in November. Proposition 62 would eliminate the death penalty in California and replaces it with life in prison without parole. On the opposite side, Proposition 66, favored by some county district attorneys around the state, would actually speed up the process for executing prisoners in the name of saving money. More importantly, this pro-death penalty proposition has a poison pill counter to Proposition 62. It states that if Prop. 66 receives more affirmative votes than other voter-approved measures about the death penalty, Prop. 66 will overrule them. So both initiatives could pass with a majority vote (which doesn’t make logical sense, but could technically happen). If 62 passes with fewer votes than 66, the death penalty will remain intact.

Condom Mandates in Porn. Proposition 60 would require performers in all adult films to wear condoms. It also requires adult film producers to pay for performer vaccinations and testing. The initiative’s big supporter is the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which, wouldn’t you know it, helps provide such services. The ballot initiative also permits any state resident to sue noncomplying porn producers for thousands of dollars in fines. If they succeed, they get to keep 25 percent of the money and legal fees. The rest of the money goes to the state. Elizabeth Nolan-Brown wrote about these porn mandate efforts in our April issue of Reason.

Gun Control. Even though a whole bunch of gun control bills just made it to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk, that’s apparently not enough for some. Proposition 63 controls ammunition sales, bans the possession and demands the destruction of large-capacity magazines, requires background checks to purchase ammunition, and for ammunition sales to be approved by and reported to the Department of Justice. Oh, and of course, law enforcement officers and retired law enforcement officers are exempt from the large magazine ban. The state predicts that regulating the sale of ammunition will likely cost tens of millions of dollars, which will probably be offset by regulatory fees (which means: price hike!).

Citizens United. A chance to vote against the First Amendment! How lucky it is to be a Californian. This utterly pointless “advisory” proposition is to encourage California’s legislators to propose a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court decision that affirmed that corporations, non-profits, unions, and other group entities have the right to independently pay for and publish political speech.

Tax Increases. But of course! Proposition 56 would increase California’s cigarette (and e-cigarette) taxes by another $2 to increase funding for healthcare programs. If the tax increase results in less revenue due to decreased consumption (or, you know, black market purchases), it authorizes offsetting the losses by pulling revenue from elsewhere. Proposition 55 would extend for 12 years what was originally sold to Californians a temporary income tax increase on  higher-level incomes to fill holes in education budgets. Guess they found some more holes! Imagine that.

Criminal Justice. Proposition 57 offers some sentencing reform that allows for some earlier parole consideration for those convicted of non-violent felonies. It also provides for judges, not prosecutors, to determine whether to treat juveniles over the age of 14 as adults for crimes.

More information about all the ballot initiatives that qualified for November’s vote, as well as links to the text of each initiative, is all here.

In moderation, fat doesn’t harm health or cause weight gain. Who knew?

A. Barton Hinkle writes:

If you have even a passing acquaintance with current events, then you’ve probably seen a host of headlines about the ostensible revolution in dietary thinking. “Eating Fat Is Good for You: Doctors change their minds after 40 years,” blared a London newspaper in 2013. “Why Experts Now Think You Should Eat More Fat,” explained Men’s Journal the next year.

Last month The Economist made “The Case for Eating Steak and Ice Cream.” Last week Time argued that “The Case for Eating Butter Just Got Stronger.” That article cited an earlier Time cover story noting that “fat had become ‘the most vilified nutrient in the American diet’ despite the scientific evidence showing it didn’t harm health or cause weight gain in moderation.”

The new dietary bugbear is sugar, now the target of “Twinkie taxes,” soda taxes, and the opprobrium of public scolds everywhere.

This is pretty big news, given the drumbeat of advice Americans have been receiving for so long. Starting in the 1980s the federal government’s urged people to shun fats and cholesterol and load up on carbs. A 1990s food pyramid from the USDA placed bread, rice, and pasta at the base, suggesting a person eat six to 11 servings a day—but only two or three servings of meat or eggs and even less of fats.

View this article.

While FBI Director James Comey recommended the Justice Department not pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, he didn’t exactly stint on criticism of her actions and those of her staff. Indeed, given his long list of particulars, his prosecutorial cop-out was a non sequitur.

Be that as it may. Over at Bloomberg View, national security writer Eli Lake (an occasional Reason contributor) lays out “the conservative case for letting Clinton skate.” It is to my mind pretty creative and pretty unconvincing.

Part of Lake’s case is that much of the classified and top-secret stuff that was almost certainly what Comey was talking about was already widely known and discussed in the media.

Many outlets have reported that some of [the Clinton materials] dealt with the U.S. targeted killing program. Until recently these drone strikes were considered top secret. At the same time they were widely reported and discussed in Washington, to the point where President Barack Obama himself joked about his drone strikes at a White House Correspondents Association dinner.

“We know that until very recently the administration considered the discussion of specific targeted killing operations to be highly classified, and in fact covert action,” said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. “Outside of government most people find that ridiculous because it has been reported around the world.” 

And there’s this larger point Lake makes:

Conservatives have an interest in diminishing state secrecy, not empowering it. Even for something like the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, the mishandling of classified information played a crucial role in exposing the White House narrative that the attack was really a demonstration gone awry. Had it not been for timely leaks of classified assessments, the public would not have known until after the 2012 election how many U.S. officials on the ground contradicted the White House line.

Read the full article here.

Come on, get real. “Conservatives” and Republicans are interested in diminishing state secrecy only when a Democrat or liberal is in the White House. Or perhaps even more narrowly, only when it suits their political or electoral ends. I remember very few right wingers being happy when whistleblowers such as William Binney, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, or Edward Snowden came along. At the start of the War on Terror, characters such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and John Ashcroft were never slow to suggest that loose lips sink ships and that even congressional demands for information were either not really necessary or advisable.

And when it comes to Clinton specifically, she has a long record of trying to lower the biggest boom she can on people she thinks compromised state secrets.

That said, I do appreciate the gesture Lake (disclosure: a friend) is making here and I do think it touches on a larger point.

Whether the powerful like it or not, or know it or not, transparency is upon us and it’s going to be harder and harder—if not downright impossible—for governments, corporations, churches, you name it, to keep things hidden. There are just too many ways for the beans to be spilled. The proper and effective response to this new age is not to double or triple down on secrecy laws but for governments to live in the light of the day and have fewer secrets. That means giving up the ability to act however a government wants, but it also means that the decisions for which it makes convincing arguments will actually be supported by its citizens. The same goes for corporations and other organizations.

When Wikileaks dumped a huge cache of diplomatic messages in 2010 conservatives called for “whacking” the organization even though the United States came out looking relatively good. Unlike many other countries, we didn’t say one thing publicly about our intentions and something very different during private communications with other members of the American government. THAT sort of honesty and integrity is the only defense against revelations in the Age of Transparency, but it also means a willingness (or even necessity) for actually being, well, honest and having integrity. That’s something that is all too often in short supply in governments and their functionaries.

Fourteen teen girls from the Bronx—all young women of color, ages 12 through 19—have gone missing since July 2014, according to New York City Councilman Andy King. He worries that their disappearances indicate the presence of a prolific youth sex-trafficking ring operating in the area. “Every other week our young girls are just vanishing off our streets,” said King at a June 29 press conference, explaining with creepy gusto that the missing Bronx teens had all been “attractive girls.” 

There’s just one problem with the Councilman’s lurid speculation: the vast majority of those 14 missing girls have already been reunited with their families. 

The day after the New York Daily News reported on King’s fears of forced prostitution and widespread teen abduction, the paper ran an update with input from the New York City Police Department (NYPD). According to NYPD officials, 11 of the 14 Bronx girls who had gone missing are now back home. 

“Not all names were removed from the missing persons list, which is how the confusion arose,” the Post reported. 

At King’s press conference, he and other demonstrators held signs featuring photos of the girls (photos that have since been spread widely by the media) and information about their disappearances. Apparently, however, King hadn’t bothered talking to the families of these props teens before sounding the alarm about them.

“There is a valid active prostitution ring that is occurring up here in the Bronx,” said King, brandishing pics of girls now back in high-school. “We need to find ways to shut it down.” 

A retired racecar driver on a snowmobile outing in Colorado gets lost in a blizzard and unwittingly crosses into a National Forest Wilderness Area, where motorized vehicles are prohibited. A Native Alaskan trapper sells 10 sea otters to a buyer he mistakenly believes is also a Native Alaskan. An 11-year-old Virginia girl rescues a baby woodpecker from her cat. The first two of these incidents resulted in misdemeanor and felony convictions, respectively, while the third led to a fine (later rescinded) and threats of prosecution. All three qualify as federal crimes, even though the perpetrators had no idea they were breaking the law—a kind of injustice that would be addressed by reforms that opponents falsely portray as a special favor to corporate polluters and other felonious fat cats.

The federal code contains something like 5,000 criminal statutes and describes an estimated 30,000 regulatory violations that can be treated as crimes. The fact that no one knows the precise numbers is itself a scandal, writes Jacob Sullum. And it’s compounded by the fact that many of these provisions include minimal or no mens rea requirements, which specify the mental state required for conviction.

View this article.

37-year-old Alton Sterling was shot and killed early Tuesday morning after being shot multiple times to the chest, while being pinned to the ground on his back by two Baton Rouge (La.) police officers. 

Police had responded to an anonymous call that a man matching Sterling’s description had threatened someone with a gun while standing outside of the Triple S Food Mart. 

Cellphone video shot by a bystander was obtained by The Advocate, which shows an officer tackling Sterling to the ground, followed by another officer forcing Sterling onto his back. One officer screams, “he’s got a gun!” and the second officer pulls out his gun and holds it inches away from Sterling’s chest.

Then the sound of multiple gunshots is heard. The bystander holding the camera turns away from the incident at this point and a woman can be heard sobbing and screaming “Oh my God!” The entire exchange takes place in less than 30 seconds. 

The body cameras worn by the officers reportedly fell off during the altercation, but apparently police dashcam and store security camera footage of the shooting exists.

Sterling was a father of five, known locally as “the CD man.” Triple S Food Mart owner Abdullah Muflahi reportedly gave Sterling his blessing to peddle his wares outside the store. Muflahi told CNN he never saw Sterling get into an altercation with anyone and was not aware of any incident where Sterling had pulled a gun on someone, though he says Sterling recently started carrying a weapon after being mugged.  

The Advocate reports:

“His hand was nowhere (near) his pocket,” Muflahi said, adding that Sterling wasn’t holding a weapon. After the shooting, an officer reached into Sterling’s pocket and retrieved a handgun, Muflahi said.

“They were really aggressive with him from the start,” Muflahi said about the officers.

Sterling appeared to die quickly, Muflahi said. Just after the killing, the officer who fired the bullets cursed, and both officers seemed like they were “freaking out,” Muflahi said.

The store owner said he heard one of the officers say, “Just leave him.”

The two officers have been placed on administrative leave, and Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely told The Advocate that “We give officers normally a day or so to go home and think about it” before questioning them after a shooting, adding that the stress can cause “tunnel vision” and produce bad information. McKneely says the officers will likely be interviewed Wednesday morning, though the Louisiana Police Bill of Rights allows officers to delay interrogations for up to 30 days. 

Louisiana is an open carry state, which allows for anyone over the age of 17 and legally permitted to carry a firearm to possess one in public. It’s highly unlikely Sterling would have been permitted to carry a weapon, given his extensive rap sheet which included drug, theft, domestic battery, and weapons charges. The New York Daily News reports family members have said Sterling was on probation at the time of his death and had been living at a transitional shelter where he was known as a “a friendly man who stayed clean.”

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), who represents Baton Rouge, has called for a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the shooting.

You can watch video of the shooting below (after the jump), but be warned, it is graphic and disturbing. 

• A seven-year U.K. inquiry into the Iraq War has concluded, with officials determining that the U.K. chose military action “before peaceful options [were] exhausted,” that the invasion was based on “flawed intelligence,” and that fears of Hussein possessing “weapons of mass destruction” were “not justified.” 
• The fatal shooting of black Baton Rouge resident Alton Sterling by white police officers early Wednesday morning set off protests after video showed Sterling being shot in the back by officers while they were already pinning him down.
• This is what real sex trafficking looks like.
• Inside the deadly world of private prisoner transport.
• Psychoactive compounds in marijuana could help fight Alzheimer’s disease by cutting cellular inflammation and obliterating the toxic amyloid beta protein that builds up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. 
• People aren’t taking kindly to Donald Trump’s support for Saddam Hussein. 

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How do you introduce someone to libertarianism?

John Stossel writes:

A century ago in the U.S., government at all levels took up about 8 percent of the economy. Now it takes up about 40 percent. It regulates everything from the size of beverage containers to what questions must not be asked in job interviews.

How can people be expected to keep up with it all?

Libertarianism for Beginners author Todd Seavey points out that it’s backward to expect them to try. Instead of just looking at the complicated mess government makes, we need to review the basic rules that got us here.

Instead of the rule being “government knows best” or “vote for the best leader,” says Seavey, what if the basic legal rules were just: no assault, no theft, no fraud? Then most waste and bureaucracy that we fight about year after year wouldn’t exist in the first place.

View this article.