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Paul Stanton, the Libertarian Party’s candidate for Senate, seems to meet the stated criteria to be included in a televised debate with incumbent Republican Marco Rubio and Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy, with the results of a new poll released today by Public Policy Polling, according to a press release from his campaign.

The poll (which Rubio leads, with 42 percent) has Stanton at 9 percent (with 15 percent undecided).

Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association are co-hosting on October 26 a one-hour debate that Rubio and Murphy are already committed to. It will be aired live in 11 different Florida markets and on Florida Public Radio and will be held at Broward College in Davie, FL.

The publicly stated criteria for candidates to be invited says that:

A qualifying candidate must have at least 12.5% support (including the full benefit of a 3.5% +/- margin of error based on a sample size of 815 among all likely voters who will participate in the general election as determined by a poll conducted by a credible and reputable independent poll as to be determined exclusively by the Debate Partners (see 1.F.).

Such poll shall be conducted, completed and in the possession of the Debate Partners between September 1, 2016 and September 30, 2016.By way of example, if a poll shows a candidate receiving 10% support among all registered voters, and the poll’s margin of error is 3.5%, the candidate’s support, including the full benefit of the margin of error, is 13.5%.

Now, there is ambiguity in the above when applied to today’s poll.

The first sentence’s parenthetical implies the debate hosts themselves are giving a 3.5 margin of error, while the later sentence seems to qualify that if the poll itself has one, it shall be fully applied.

This is important because the actual stated margin of error in today’s PPP poll is 3.4. If he’s held to that standard, he’s one-tenth of a percentage point down in this poll even with full benefit of the margin of error. If he is getting the full benefit of 3.5 regardless, then he’s in.

More maddeningly, another PPP poll released on September 7 shows Stanton at 10 percent with a stated 3.6 margin of error. That would make him a shoe-in, except that the number polled was 744, under the stated 815 qualification.

The campaign feels that, since the polled number in the PPP is 826, more than the required 815, and considering the language about “including the full benefit of a 3.5” percent margin of error, they should qualify.

Campaign media director Brian McLauglin says the campaign has reached out to officials with the organization running the debate but have not yet gotten an official invitation or confirmation (or denial) that indeed Stanton is considered to qualify. I was unable to reach a media spokesperson for the event organizers this afternoon. I will update this post when the question of Stanton’s qualification is settled.

Other interesting aspects of today’s poll: Stanton is polling far higher in Florida than the national presidential ticket; Gary Johnson is polling at only 3 percent in this particular poll.

And despite Marco Rubio’s initial promise as the guy who would win Hispanics back to the GOP, Stanton’s polled Hispanic support is double his overall statewide polled support, at 18 percent. Rubio is only 12 percentage points ahead of Libertarian Stanton with polled Florida Hispanics, with 30.

Stanton is pulling 15 percent of independents, and a whopping 19 percent of 18-29-year-olds, according to PPP today.

For those who remember a previous contender for the L.P.’s Florida Senate nod, the controversial Augustus Sol Invictus, Paul Stanton, who won the primary, is a different person entirely.

The Burton C. Gray Memorial Internship program runs year-round in the Washington, D.C. office. Interns work for 12 weeks and receive a $5,000 stipend.

The job includes reporting and writing for Reason and reason.com, helping with research, proofreading, and other tasks. Previous interns have gone on to work at such places as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, ABC News, and Reason itself.

To apply, send your résumé, up to five writing samples (preferably published clips), and a cover letter to:

Gray Internship
Reason
1747 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009

Electronic applications can be sent to intern@reason.com; please include “Gray Internship Application — Spring” in the subject line.

Spring internships begin in January. Exact dates are flexible.

Application deadline is November 1.

Jeb Bush suggested to attendees of a private luncheon hosted by the Manhattan Institute on the topic of educational reform that they ought to vote for Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, according to the New York Daily News, which spoke to a number of those who were present at the luncheon. Bush, the former Florida governor and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, was an early advocate of school reform.

“If I did get a call several weeks after the election, what would I tell President Johnson—I mean, President whoever,” Bush reportedly joked in his speech, audio of which the Daily News says it has obtained but has not released. Then, when one attendee at Bush’s table complained to him afterward that he couldn’t vote for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Bush reportedly mouthed the word ‘Johnson’ to him.

Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor of K-12 education at the University of South Carolina, tweeted that he attended the event and also confirmed the Daily News reporting.

A spokesperson for Bush said the former Florida governor did not deny the remarks but insisted that Bush had still not made up his mind about who to vote for in the presidential election, which is five and a half weeks away.

Marvin Bush, a brother of Jeb’s, said he would be voting for Gary Johnson back in July. Reports earlier this month suggested the former President George H.W. Bush, their father, was voting for Clinton. Former President George W. Bush, brother of Jeb and Marvin, has not made any public comments about who he would be voting for in November.

Last night on MSNBC, Chris Matthews asked Gary Johnson to name three foreign leaders that he admired. Rather than rejecting the question for its implicitly pro-government bias and as a silly thing to ask someone running for president, Johnson tried to answer by listing former Mexican president Vicente Fox and blanked on the name, saying it was another “Aleppo moment.” (Maybe soon they’ll be calling them Gary Johnson moments)

Within minutes, social media was ablaze with users who probably couldn’t name a world leader (except maybe for Justin Trudeau, who’s become something of a favorite of social media progressives) claiming that Johnson couldn’t name a foreign leader at all, when the question was about leaders you respected.

It was a dumb question to ask someone running for president of the United States, yet it was a totally unsurprising question from a worshipper of the state like Chris Matthews (who is one of a few media personalities that supported both Obama and President Bush before him).

Today, Green party nominee Jill Stein, who has some common cause with Gary Johnson around the exclusion of third parties from the mainstream presidential election process, decided to pile on, tweeting out that she could name three world leaders she admired—Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party of Canada, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, and the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil.

Politico‘s Daniel Strauss jumped in to breathlessly report that Stein had also failed to name any world leaders. Stein’s answers “aren’t technically world leaders, as none holds a top position in their country’s government.” Technically, of course, that’s not the definition of a “world leader.” It’s almost as arbitrary distinction as Matthews’ definition, which included current and former leaders, but not dead ones. Strauss also referred to João Pedro Stédile as one of the three leaders, but technically the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil does not have a formal leadership structure.

The Politico article, which caught my attention when it was shared by Clinton supporters on my Facebook, is illustrative of a number of somewhat overlapping phenomena in mainstream media today. It illustrates the willful obtuseness displayed by some members of the media about the things politicians say. I find it difficult to believe that Strauss actually believed Jill Stein thought Corbyn, May, and a leaderless movement were heads of state or government. But didn’t he didn’t believe that, then the article was intentionally deceptive. It illustrates the stupidity of gotcha moments and the stupidity of trying to exploit the gotcha moments of others. It illustrates the complexity of the so-called “fact check” (is Jeremy Corbyn a foreign leader? Fact check: depends on your facts) and it illustrates the often vacuous-masquerading-as-deep critiques of candidates some of the media offers up. There are substantive critiques of Jill Stein, and every candidate, that can be made. Willfully misreading tweets and the things candidates say is not one of them.

Responding to my comment based on Twitter, Stein suggested that Politico was “just trying to play gotcha to distract from their favored candidate’s awful foreign policy record.” It’s hard to disagree with that assessment.

A student has taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by University of Michigan’s new pronoun policy, which allows students to list their chosen pronouns on the official bios that are sent out to their teachers.

The student, Grant Stroble, has listed his pronoun as “His Majesty.”

He is stunning and brave. Applaud his courage. Weep openly, if you must.

Are you finished? Still reading? It’s quite a moving story, I know.

Stroble’s heroism will no doubt be celebrated by the university, which recently gave students the option of selecting their own pronouns in order to foster “an environment of inclusiveness.” According to the university:

Students can designate pronouns in Wolverine Access through the new Gender Identity tab within the Campus Personal Information section. This page can be used to enter, update or delete pronoun information.

Designated pronouns will automatically populate on all class rosters accessed through Wolverine Access. Rosters pulled from other systems will not have designated pronouns listed. If a student does not designate a pronoun, none will be listed.

In other words, when professors receive the list of students enrolled in their classes, there will be a designated pronoun next to their names. Strobles’s is “His Majesty.”

Stroble—a conservative student and member of Young Americans for Freedom’s Board of Governors—told The College Fix that he has no problem with students asking to be identified in the manner that makes them most comfortable. But he found the university’s new policy to be absurd:

In an interview with The College Fix, Strobl said that “I have no problem with students asking to be identified a certain way, almost like someone named Richard who would like to be called Dick. It is respectful to make a reasonable effort to refer to students in the way that they prefer.”

However, he added that he does have a problem when the university institutionalizes the use of pronouns that are completely arbitrary and may possibly sanction people for referring to someone different than their preference.

Strobl continued, “So, I henceforth shall be referred to as: His Majesty, Grant Strobl. I encourage all U-M students to go onto Wolverine Access, and insert the identity of their dreams.”

If this isn’t the feel-good story of the year, I don’t know what is.

An Oregon magistrate had a few choice words when sentencing defendant Marcell Lee Daniel Jr. for the 2014 shooting of a Portland man. Judge Kenneth Walker took several moments during a hearing Wednesday to condemn not just the perpetrator, but also the type of weapon he used to kill his victim.

After briefly conceding that the law allows Americans to own firearms, Walker proceeded to deliver a scathing indictment of gun ownership, according to The Oregonian. “If I could,” he said to the courtroom, “I would take all the guns in America, put them on big barges, and dump them in the ocean.”

But he didn’t really mean that all guns should be eliminated, right? In fact, he quickly qualified his remarks by adding that “no one would have guns—not police, not security. We should eliminate all of them.” Oh.

Walker went on to say that the 11,000 homicides and 20,000 suicides that that involve guns in America could be prevented if gun ownership were abolished, noting that in Australia, where authorities “rounded up all the guns … they don’t have nearly the death that we do here in this country.”

Similar arguments in favor of gun control have been advanced before, and Reason has responded to them here, here, and here.

The judge wasn’t simply interested in pointing out the negative effects of guns on society, however. Instead, he denied there was any possible rationale for owning firearms, period. “There’s no defense to guns.” he said. “There is no reason to have them.”

Walker is certainly entitled to his opinion; the First Amendment guarantees the individual right to freedom of speech, after all. Of course, the Second Amendment protects the individual right to gun ownership.

As a judge tasked with upholding the Constitution, it seems ill-advised to openly call for the elimination of rights protected by the Constitution while acting in his official capacity. It’s hard not to wonder how Walker would react if people started calling for the elimination of the Sixth Amendment—you know, the one ensuring people’s right to a trial by jury.

Elon Musk delivered a much-anticipated speech Tuesday at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he laid out his vision for colonizing Mars. There’s no doubt that taming our celestial neighbor would be a testament to human innovation and determination. Today, however, it might be more impressive if Musk could provide a vision for how his companies can succeed here on Earth first, especially without heavy reliance on taxpayer support.

SpaceX, founded by Musk in 2002, has never hid its ambition to one day enable people to live on other planets. In the meantime, the company has relied on income from the more mundane business of launching payloads into space with its Falcon 9 rockets. Earlier this year, SpaceX won an $82.7 million Air Force contract by promising to save taxpayers millions of dollars. (The bid was 40 percent less than what the government had estimated the mission would cost.) Cost savings are great, but only if they materialize. It’s too soon to tell, but as of now, the probability isn’t zero that SpaceX’s super-cheap launch cost will be illusory, especially if its rockets—and their expensive cargoes—keep blowing up, writes Veronique de Rugy.

View this article.

• One person is dead and over 100 are injured in a commuter train crash in Hoboken, N.J., during this morning‘s rush hour.
• Mitch McConnell is shocked…SHOCKED that he and other congresspeople hadn’t considered “the potential consequences of a piece of legislation was obviously very popular,” despite President Obama’s long-standing warnings against passing the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA)—which allows 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia and could also lead lawsuits against U.S. officials and military personnel.
• One of Donald Trump’s companies reportedly violated the U.S. embargo of Cuba by doing business there.
• The disturbing trend of George W. Bush nostalgia continues.
• South Park’s take on last Monday’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Mr. Garrison is pretty great.

When the Transportation Safety Administration was rolling out its brand new body scanning machines in 2010, the response was pretty much exactly what you would expect: 94 percent of public comments on the policy were opposed.

None of that made much of a difference to the TSA—neither, apparently, did the technical problems with the machines—which were installed in airports across the country and are still being used today.

Maybe the TSA should have spent some time reading through the 5,129 public comments opposing body scanners in airports. They might have noticed that, mixed in with concerns about the efficacy, cost and violations of personal privacy, there were a number of people—more than 80 of them—who said the use of the body scanners would cause them to reconsider flying at all.

One commenter at the time said they would prefer to drive across the country twice instead of “being subjected to what is clearly a violation of privacy by this intrusive form of airport passenger inspection.”

Today, that person might be dead—and even if they’re not, the TSA’s use of body scanners has increased the likelihood, however minutely, that they are.

That’s the premise of a lawsuit filed against the TSA by Iain Murray and Marc Scribner, research fellows at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

In a brief filed this week in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Murray and Scribner argue that the TSA knew its body scanners would cause some segments of the public to switch from flying to driving, creating a safety issue because flying is mathematically safer than driving.

Despite that knowledge, the TSA didn’t do the math to determine whether the body scanners would

Scribner and Murray did.

They looked research by economists at Cornell University showing that a decline in 1 million passengers on planes would lead to an additional 15 fatalities on highways. Combining that with data about how many Americans fly every year and mixing in the fact that an estimated 1.5 percent of people (based on the comments on the TSA’s policy shift) would rather drive than go through the body scanners, they had the ability to determine—in a rough way—how many people over the last six years might have died because they didn’t want to fly.

The final tally?

“We came up with 184 additional road deaths due to that effect, of people driving rather than flying,” Scriber told Reason on Thursday.

If this all sounds a little bit theoretical, that’s because it is. The lawsuit isn’t claiming that anyone in particular has been harmed by the TSA’s scanners—though Scribner claims he has standing for the legal challenge because he, like many Americans, regularly travel on airplanes and by car—but merely that the TSA didn’t do the proper amount of math before rolling the hulking machines into airports and making passengers queue up for them.

The interesting thing is that the government actually does these assessments of theoretical trade-offs all the time.

The best example might be the federal rules for taking small children on planes. Under current regulations, parents are allowed to take children under two years old onto planes without buying a separate ticket and without putting the child in a seat belt. Occasionally, that puts kids’ lives at risk—mostly from severe turbulance, rather than actual plane crashes.

About two decades ago, the Federal Aviation Administration considered banning those so-called “lap children” and requiring separate seats for them. Then, they did the math. The FAA found that making that policy change would lead many parents of young children to choose to drive instead of fly.

For every life saved by requiring small children to wear seat belts on planes, there would be an additional 16 fatalities on the road, the FAA concluded.

Morbid? Yes. But logical.

“This is an effect that aviation safety regulators have dealt with before, and this is a major effect,” Scribner said. “All we’re asking the court to do is require the TSA to go back and do this proper analysis.”

By not doing that analysis, he says, the TSA is in violation of the law.

It’s an interesting case, but not one that will probably be resolved anytime soon. Scribner says it’s unlikely that there will be a ruling before next year.

There’s always the chance that Congress could step-in and tell the TSA to do the assessment—or pull the body scanner machines out of airports entirely, if we dare to dream.

For what it’s worth, the TSA says this whole thing is too much funky math for them to handle.

“It is unclear to TSA how the risk associated with motor vehicles should influence TSA’s decision making on airport screening,” the agency said in its explanation of the body scanner policy. “Regardless of the safety or security risks associated with other modes of transportation, TSA should pursue the most effective security measures reasonable available so that the vulnerability of commercial air travel to terrorist attacks is reduced.”

That’s either a laudably intense focus on its mission or an example of tunnel vision.

It’s understandable that the TSA wouldn’t want to consider the possibility that making one form of travel so completely secure that no terrorist can get through could make other forms of travel slightly more dangerous. If it accepts that premise, it might have to accept other theories about its usefulness as a government agency.

The reality is that security always involves trade-offs. Understanding those trade-offs is essential to knowing whether invasive security measures are worth it.