Students for a Freer Future: New at Reason

These are not encouraging times for libertarians on campus. Studies show millennials’ political views are much more reliably liberal than those of the population at large, and college students increasingly lean to the progressive left. In 1981, about 20 percent of freshmen described themselves as “liberal” or “far-left” (as opposed to “middle of the road” or “conservative”); today, more than a third do.

Students and professors who dissent from leftist orthodoxy often keep their views to themselves, for fear of suffering social or reputational harm. That can make it difficult for libertarians to identify each other. Some of the most elite colleges in the country maintain academic departments that teach, with a quasi-religious fervor, that capitalism is the root of all the world’s problems. The activist left increasingly views free speech with skepticism or even outright hostility.

The right, meanwhile, occasionally makes overtures to libertarians; young conservatives tend to be much more in step with libertarians on issues such as drug legalization and gay marriage. But many conservatives aren’t interested in discussion either, writes Robby Soave.

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Facebook Marketplace Has Awesome Food, and Regulators Can’t Stand That: New at Reason

While Facebook is largely a waste of time, it turns out that Facebook’s Marketplace, the social media giant’s hugely popular two-years-old classifieds section, is a great place to buy almost anything, including homemade foods.

Not surprisingly, though, such sales have caught the attention of regulators across the country. Recent news reports suggest some health officials are casting a wary eye at Facebook Marketplace food sales. They join those in other states who, in recent years—including before the Marketplace debut—have targeted food sales facilitated through social media.

But don’t let the scaremongers, well, scare you, writes Baylen Linnekin. You can find some very tasty—and perfectly safe—homemade foods on Facebook.

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Let Daylight Saving Time Die Already

|||Vladimir Nikulin/Dreamstime.comEveryone not named Franklin D. Roosevelt hates Daylight Saving Time. The constant back and forth is confusing, especially for those who have an early Sunday morning commitment. The Standard Time Act of 1918 gave the federal government power to oversee national time zones. That power was extended with the passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which allows the Department of Transportation (DOT) to set Daylight Saving Time for the entire country. Why DOT? Because “time standards are important for many modes of transportation,” or something like that. Despite decades of observance, however, more and more Americans are rebelling against the pointless concept.

Arizona, Hawaii, and territories like American Samoa and Puerto Rico have broken free of oppressive time changes. If a state wishes to follow suit, including those who choose to keep their state in the Daylight Saving Time zone year-round, it must seek approval from DOT.

In March, Florida signed off on the appropriately named Sunshine Protection Act. But thanks to the federal government, residents must wait on Congress to change federal law in their favor. They, too, will begrudgingly observe the time change this year.

Californians hoping to ditch the practice are planning to vote yes on Proposition 7, yet must similarly wait for congressional approval. Massachusetts is also considering a change to its laws, with more states following suit. The federal government still reserves the ability to deny a state’s request.

As more states begin to rebel against changing their clocks twice a year, an important question remains: Why do we still do this inane practice?

The century-old justifications related to farming, war, and light bulb conservation no longer apply in the modern world. We do this simply because we’ve always done it, except, of course, we haven’t always done it. In the case of Massachusetts, actual harm results from the practice. As you wind your clock back this weekend, and then find yourself gassed earlier than you should be come Monday afternoon, blame Washington, D.C.

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Cops Showed Up To Stop This Sacramento Restaurant From Selling CBD-Infused Cocktails

A Sacramento restaurant’s general manager recently decided to try something new and offer customers a cannabidiol-infused cocktail. Thanks to California’s marijuana regulations, though, he had to stop.

The Sacramento Bee first reported on Joel York’s creation, which consisted of “an infusion of pineapple, vodka, hop flowers,” and cannabidiol (CBD) mixed with lemon juice, triple sec, and sugar.

“It’s something that I’ve seen at other restaurants in L.A. and San Francisco on their social media or websites,” York tells Reason. He started selling it last month, charging customers at the restaurant he manages—R15—$10 per drink.

York didn’t break any laws in gathering the ingredients for his concoction. CBD comes from marijuana but does not contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—the compound that gets you high—and it’s pretty easy to obtain legally in California. “I went to the local grocery store and bought it over the counter,” says York. “I didn’t show an ID or anything.”

But while buying and consuming CBD is legal, selling food or drinks infused with CBD isn’t. “CBD is an unapproved food additive and NOT allowed for use in human and animal foods per the FDA, and thus it is not approved in California,” the California Department of Public Health said. The California’s government’s cannabis website makes it clear this applies to alcoholic drinks as well. And a bill signed into law in September by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) further codified these rules.

After interviewing York about his drink, the Bee said it contacted the Sacramento Police Department for comment. Officer Marcus Basquez later told the Bee that police then came to the restaurant and had one of the managers take the infusion off the shelf.

York, for his part, doesn’t really have an issue with what happened. “They came in right away, told us to cease and desist,” he says. “I don’t want to insult ABC or the police department by going against anything that they want.”

York can’t sell the drink anymore, though thankfully, police did not issue any citations. Still, California should encourage these sorts of creations, not impede them. Marijuana infused-drinks—including cocktails and hemp beer—are often delicious. And if it’s legal to sell marijuana for recreational use in California, it should certainly be legal to mix alcohol with weed extract that won’t even get you high.

Then again, this is California, where residents can assume that everything which is not allowed is forbidden.

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Is This Gary Johnson’s Last Campaign? New at Reason

With only 12 days remaining until election day, Gary Johnson brought Reason along for an intimate look at his campaign for a U.S. senate seat.

Not only did the former New Mexico governor grant Reason privileged access to his political life, he also showed a surprising willingness to cast aside rehearsed talking points. From the back seat of his SUV, Johnson spontaneously shared many of his private hopes, fears, ambitions, jokes, as well as insights into his personality.

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Sarah Lawrence Professor’s Office Door Vandalized After He Criticized Leftist Bias

SLCAfter penning an op-ed for The New York Times decrying the ideological homogeneity of his campus administration, a conservative-leaning professor at Sarah Lawrence College discovered intimidating messages—including demands that he quit his job—on the door of his office. The perpetrators had torn down the door’s decorations, which had included pictures of the professor’s family.

In the two weeks since the incident, Samuel Abrams, a tenured professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence, has repeatedly asked the college’s president, Cristle Collins Judd, to condemn the perpetrators’ actions and reiterate her support for free speech. But after sending a tepid campus-wide email that mentioned the importance of free expression, but mostly stressed her “commitment to diversity and inclusive excellence,” Judd spoke with Abrams over the phone; according to him, she accused him of “attacking” members of the community.

“She said I had created a hostile work environment,” Abrams said in an interview with Reason. “If [the op-ed] constitutes hate speech, then this is not a world that I want to be a part of.”

What’s more, when the two met in person, Judd implied that Abrams was on the market for a new job, he said.

“I am not on the job market,” he said. “I am tenured, I live in New York. Why would I go on the job market?”

Abrams interpreted Judd’s remarks as a suggestion that he might be better off leaving the school. Judd did not respond to a request for comment.

Abram’s op-ed criticized the “politically lopsided” events hosted by the college’s Office of Student Affairs, including seminars on microaggressions, understanding white privilege, and “staying woke.” It also included original research: a nationally representative survey of 900 administrators. According to this data, liberal administrators outnumber conservatives 12 to 1. This would mean the ranks of the administration are even more uniformly liberal than the faculty.

“While considerable focus has been placed in recent decades on the impact of the ideological bent of college professors, when it comes to collegiate life—living in dorms, participating in extracurricular organizations—the ever growing ranks of administrators have the biggest influence on students and campus life across the country,” wrote Abrams.

Many Sarah Lawrence students and alumni did not appreciate Abrams calling attention to this issue.

“There was an emergency student senate meeting, to my knowledge,” said Abrams. It was his understanding that the meeting produced a declaration calling for him to be stripped of tenure and dismissed from the college. Judd sent a campus-wide email about the meeting, which she described as “not only thoughtful, but thought-provoking.”

“The Senate asked me to publicly affirm that Black Lives Matter, that LBGT+ Lives matter, and that Women’s Justice matters,” wrote Judd in the email. “I emphatically did.”

The student senate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Abrams’ office door was vandalized on October 16, hours after the op-ed’s publication. The perpetrators posted a sign on the door that read, “Our right to exist is not ‘ideological,’ asshole,” and was signed “transsexual fag.” Another flyer demanded that he apologize to residence life staff and the director of campus diversity, students of color, queer students, trans students, and other marginalized persons. Multiple messages instructed Abrams to “quit,” and one told him to “go teach somewhere else, maybe Charlottesville.”

Abrams believes the perpetrators tried to break into his office; some of his books had fallen off their shelves as if the sign-posters had slammed the door and the walls.

“I’m really shaken,” he said.

Abrams’ dealings with Judd have further unnerved him. During their conversation, she implied that he should have cleared his public writings with her before submitting them, something he described as unacceptable.

Several of Abrams’ colleagues met with Judd to discuss the vandalism and express their view that such acts could not be tolerated. Judd agreed, but did not pledge to take any further actions. These professors thought she seemed scared that the students might hold more protests, creating a public relations disaster, according to Abrams.

This incident is an example of a concerning phenomenon: college administrators going soft on free speech in an effort to appease a handful of extremely aggressive students. Administrators should take greater care to avoid explicit ideological bias, and they must defend the free speech rights of professors who speak out against it. A college that attempts to muzzle, discourage, or rid itself of speech that offends the far left is failing its mission.

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Will Cronyism Doom Scott Walker’s Re-election? Here’s What to Watch in Next Week’s Gubernatorial Races.

Two years ago, it was Donald Trump’s victory in Wisconsin—an unexpected result that he seemingly never tires of recapping—that effectively clinched his win over Hillary Clinton.

Next week, another close race in Wisconsin will go a long way towards determining whether Election 2018 is a blue wave or a tsunami.

The Badger State is one of three places—along with neighboring Iowa and Illinois—where incumbent Republican governors appear to be in danger of losing to Democratic challengers. In a year where there are few high-profile gubernatorial bouts, the Midwest offers Democrats the best opportunity to make gains at the state level. It will also provide the first test of whether Trump’s Rust Belt success in 2016 was an outlier result or a sign of things to come for both major parties.

For Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, it’s another campaign with national implications. He’s running for a third term in office, but has already won three statewide elections—in 2012, he became the first governor in American history to survive a recall election, spurred by organized labor groups angry about Walker’s public sector union reforms. After an early exit from the 2016 GOP primary, Walker has seen his status as a rising Republican star fade a bit.

Tony Evers, the state superintendent of public education, has promised to spend more money on education and is backed by the same political coalition that has lost to Walker three times before. But this year is different. The most recent Marquette University poll, released on October 31, found the race deadlocked at 47 percent for both candidates—while Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Phil Anderson got 5 percent.

The race is close, in part, because the state’s Democratic base is eager to deliver a blow to Trump, who has a negative approval rating in Wisconsin. But Walker has hurt his own case for reelection with a high-profile giveaway of taxpayer dollars to Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn, which says it will bring 13,000 jobs to a new plant in the Milwaukee suburbs after Walker promised $4.5 billion in state and local tax incentives. The deal also includes the use of eminent domain to remove residents of Mt. Pleasent, Wisconsin, from where the new facility is to be built.

The deal, in short, is exactly the kind of thing that should turn off principled conservatives—and pretty much all taxpayers. A September poll by Marquette University found that only 39 percent of Wisconsinites believed the Foxconn deal was worth it. In a close race, Walker may rue the marginal political costs of the giveaway.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds is facing a stiff challenge from businessesman Fred Hubbell, a Democrat and political neophyte seeking elected office for the first time. Even moreso than in Wisconsin, this race is being driven by national issues. Trump’s tariffs have angered farmers and helped boost Democrats’ chances—and the backlash against Rep. Steve King’s (R–Iowa) support for European white nationalists could be a factor, too.

The Republican incumbent who most certainly appears doomed is Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who trails Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker by double-digits in most polls. It’s tempting to look at this as the pendulum swinging back. After all, Illinois is a solidly blue state. But GOP governors who scored equally surprising victories in Maryland and Massachusetts in 2014 are both cruising towards re-election. Illinois is a mess, and even though that’s not Rauner’s fault, voters appear ready to punish him for a protracted budget stalemate in 2014 that didn’t materially improve the state’s fiscal condition.

Rauner had some good ideas (though struggled to communicate them effectively) that could have helped Illinois’ sad state of affairs, but his impending defeat is a reminder of how difficult it can be to steer a state back from the edge—and, relatedly, how important it is for policymakers to avoid following Illinois’ path in the first place. Pritzker wants to hike Illinois’ income tax rates, which is unlikely to solve the state’s spending problems (and likely to drive more people out of the state).

Outside the Midwest, the most watched race is likely to take place in Georgia, where Stacey Abrams could become the first black woman elected governor of any state. Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey have campaigned for Abrams, who finds herself in a virtual dead heat with Republican Brian Kemp, the current secretary of state. Kemp’s office is responsible for overseeing elections in the state, and his refusal to recuse himself in the event of a recount is a bad look. Libertarian Ted Metz is polling in the low single-digits, but could play a role if the race is particularly tight; under Georgia election rules, a runoff election is required if no candidate gets an outright majority of the vote.

Other close races are expected in typical swing states like Ohio and Florida; traditionally red Kansas; and deep blue Connecticut.

But the results in Georgia and Wisconsin are likely to drive the narrative on Wednesday morning.

In Abrams, Democrats have a potentially history-making candidate in a state that’s crucial to the party’s hopes of cracking the Republican stronghold in the Deep South.

A defeat for Walker, meanwhile, might signal to Republicans that there are consequences for espousing one thing and doing another. The man who is in many ways the face of the GOP’s Tea Party era abandoned those small government principles by embracing massive corporate subsidies and kicking people out of their homes. The actions that have Wisconsin voters so angry right now are a microcosm of the GOP’s corporatist behavior in the age of Trump.

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A Brutal New Poll for Gary Johnson’s Senate Bid Has Him Down to Just 8%

Gary Johnson, sunset. ||| Matt WelchCarroll Strategies released a new poll today in the race for U.S. Senate from New Mexico, and the news is brutal for Libertarian Gary Johnson: just 8.4 percent, compared to 50.7 percent for incumbent Democrat Marin Heinrich and 37.9 percent for Republican Mick Rich. That’s lower than the 9.3 percent Johnson received in New Mexico for president in 2016.

The poll had more respondents (1,202) and thus a lower margin of error (+/- 2.8 percent) than any survey taken of the New Mexico Senate race this year. It also comes days after another unhappy poll for Johnson—16 percent, compared to 48-32 for the frontrunners, from Emerson College, which is the same pollster that had Johnson in second place two months ago.

The candidates’ average in the five independent polls taken since Johnson jumped into the race 10 weeks ago now stands at 46 percent for Heinrich, 27 percent for Rich, and 17 percent for Johnson. FiveThirtyEight currently forecasts the race as 51.1-33.0-15.9, respectively.

Reason on Gary Johnson here.

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Hulu Anthology Series Into the Dark Offers Gruesome Fun: New at Reason

'Into the Dark: The Body'Hulu’s new anthology series Into the Dark offers a darkly comic slasher story in its first episode, The Body, more akin to Alfred Hitchcock than Rod Serling. Television critic Glenn Garvin takes a look:

The bloodshed is already well underway when The Body gets started. It opens with Halloween-night a shot of a bloody corpse at the feet of a dapper fellow we’ll soon come to know as Wilkes (Tom Bateman of last year’s Murder on the Orient Express), a renowned and rather cosmopolitan hitman. (Go-to conversation starter: recitation of Dante’s Inferno. Midnight snack of choice: casu marzu, a dish of Sardinian cheese and live maggots.)

Wilkes must deliver the corpse—it’s somebody famous, though we never learn exactly who—to his client, and after casing it in Saran Wrap, drags it downstairs from a penthouse, confident it will be mistaken for part of a costume. That works, but his car has been trashed into immobility by Halloween vandals.

To get a ride, he has to fall in with a collection of self-important and dazzlingly airheaded millennials, impressed by what they think is an amazingly realistic corpse prop. (“Super sick!” gasps one in admiration.) If he’ll stop into a hipster party and boost their cred, they’ll take him on his way.

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Nigerian Army Justifies Killing Protesters With Trump Video on Stone-Throwing Migrants

Nigeria’s military today justified the deaths of Shia protesters using U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks suggesting American soldiers might fire on rock-throwing migrants.

In a speech from the White House yesterday, Trump said U.S. troops—5,200 of which he deployed to the border earlier this week—won’t tolerate members of the migrant caravan who throw stones. “They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back,” the president said. “I told them to consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks like what they did to the Mexican military and police I say consider it a rifle.”

Indeed, there were reports of clashes between migrants in the caravan, which started from Guatemala last month, and Mexican authorities. According to the BBC, some migrants threw stones, prompting police to respond with tear gas.

The Nigerian Army, meanwhile, seized on Trump’s words. The army’s official Twitter account posted a clip of his remarks to Twitter, along with the caption: “Please Watch and Make your Deductions.”

The post, which seems to have been deleted, came days after Shia protests in Nigeria turned deadly. An Amnesty International report published Wednesday said 45 peaceful supporters of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) were killed by the Nigerian military and police. Six people died after protests on Saturday, Amnesty International said, while 39 were killed on Monday.

“Video footage and eyewitness testimonies consistently show that the Nigerian military dispersed peaceful gatherings by firing live ammunition without warning, in clear violation of Nigerian and international law,” said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria. The group also claims soldiers used automatic weapons on Monday.

The Nigerian military tells a different story. Just three protesters were killed, the military says, according to The New York Times. Meanwhile, AFP reports that the military says six people died. The video of Trump speaking, Nigerian defense spokesperson John Agim told AFP, “was posted in reaction to the Amnesty International report accusing the army of using weapons against pacifist [Shia] protesters.”

“Not only did they use stones but they were carrying petrol bombs, machetes and knives, so yes, we consider them as being armed,” he added.

According to the Times, videos posted to social media did show some protesters throwing rocks before being shot in the back as they ran away. But throwing rocks is not the same thing as shooting with live ammunition, said IMN spokesperson Ibrahim Musa. “Rocks are not equal to bullets,” he told the Times. “The use of force is disproportionate.”

The Nigerian military has a “long and disturbing history of violence,” as Reason‘s Nick Gillespie noted in 2015. Amnesty International reported in January that “more than 1,200 people have been unlawfully killed by the military,” with many of those deaths serving as “reprisals following attacks by Boko Haram.” Thousands more have been tortured, the group said. The country has a checkered history when it comes to human rights, so it’s not like we can blame Trump for the Nigerian military’s behavior.

But as with recent acts of domestic terrorism, we can criticize Trump for spouting dishonest, thuggish, and hateful comments that autocrats and terrorists alike cite to justify their own atrocious behavior. And should the U.S. military use disproportionate and deadly force against rock-throwing migrants, we certainly can—and should—lay the blame at Trump’s feet.

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