California’s Bipartisan Push Against Occupational Licensing: New at Reason

Adjusted for cost of living, Caliifornia has the highest poverty rates in the nation. Now, a potential bipartisan push against occupational licensing regimes may remove barriers to entrepreneurship for the poor. Steven Greenhut reports:

California’s Little Hoover Commission, an independent oversight agency, recently held a hearing in Sacramento to evaluate the situation. It eventually will make some recommendations to the Legislature. Panelists pointed to the myriad inconsistencies and counterproductive elements in California’s array of occupational-licensing laws.

“In California, barbers and cosmetologists devote about one year to education or experience, and EMTs (emergency medical technicians) only one month,” explained (in prepared testimony) panelist Dick Carpenter, of the libertarian Institute for Justice. “Comparisons like these lead one to question the public safety rationale underlying licensure of many occupations in our sample.” California has some of the tightest restrictions in the country.

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Bernie Sanders & Hillary Clinton Are Running For President of Geritol Nation

Over at Literature R Us, Alan Vanneman lays out simple, mostly unobjectionable fixes to various woes that should be no-brainers for liberal politicians and voters. These range from ending “restrictive land-use policies” that jack up housing costs in places such bluer-than-blue environms as San Francisco and D.C. to “reduc[ing] the burdens of occupational licensing” (because really, why do barbers need to shell out thousands of dollars and spend hundreds of hours when apprenticeships would get the job done).

More controversially, Vanneman says that liberals of all people shoud support GMO foods (they represent “progress,” he says, “something liberals used to believe in”) and they should support fracking (especially since in California and New York). “This is another case where liberal concern for the middle class is eclipsed by their concern for ‘pristine’ views from the decks of their vacation homes.”

The starting point of Vanneman’s common-sense list is this observation:

It’s no secret that a large chunk of the American people are very upset these days, mad as hell and not going to take it any more, and also no secret that family incomes that have flat-lined for the past 15 years are a large part of the problem and also no secret that neither Donald Trump nor Bernie Sanders have any good ideas of what to do about it.

That last point is most important. While Trump and Sanders benefit from a sense of pent-up frustration and social and political lassitude, it’s also clear they have no way forward. They are the last gasp of what might be called the long 20th century. They’re not harbingers of a new way of looking at the world and reshaping our policies to engage how technology and other forces have changed our economy, our culture, and our politics. They—and their true-believing, ardent fans—are the equivalent of old men yelling at clouds. The anger is real and meaningful and needs to be appreciated, but it hardly provides a path to a future where power has been disrupted, decentralized, and disintermediated.

Read the whole thing.

It’s worth puzzling over the inability of liberals and Democrats in particular to figure out a forward-looking set of policies. It should be a source of shame that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are explicitly anti-Uber and other elements of the sharing economy (being hypocritical about it makes it even worse). Conservatives at least have the excuse of wanting to maintain the status quo or, better yet, return to the status quo of five or 10 or 15 years ago. That’s their whole point as an ideological group and it explains their consistent resistance to virtually all forms of social change that give more power to individuals.

Liberals are at least supposed to be less hung up on the past and captivated by efficiency that makes life better for all of us, especially the poor. And yet, as Vanneman points out, their politics seem much more focused on keeping things exactly as they are for a middle- to upper-middle class group.

Earlier this year, Gallup reported that party identification for Democrats is a 27-year low, at just 29 percent (as awful as that is, it’s still better than the GOP’s 26 percent). When you look at the two presidential candidates on the Democratic side, it’s easy to understand why folks are vacating the brand. Sanders and Clinton are not simply chronologically old but, more important, ideologically ancient, proper representatives only for a Geritol Nation that has nothing but tired blood to offer.

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Stealing Music Was the Late 90s Version of Drug Experimentation in the 60s (New at Reason)

“Widespread copyright infringement is like a generational shift and ignorance of existing law, similar to massive experimentation with illegal drugs in the 1960s,” says Stephen Witt, author of How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, The Turn of the Century and the Patient Zero of Piracy

In an interview with Reason TV, Witt discussed talked about the quirky German engineers who invented the MP3, and why he thinks they’re hypocrites for claiming to be against piracy when they owe their own personal fortunes to it.

Also discussed were the lawsuit which led to the legalization of the MP3 player and the subsequent devastation to the industry’s bottom line, as well as the North Carolina factory worker who personally leaked thousands of the biggest albums of the 2000s. 

Watch above, or click the link below for the full text, associated links, and downloadable versions of this video. Subscribe to Reason TV’s YouTube channel for daily content like this.

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Trump: Now More Than Ever?

Donald Trump won easily in South Carolina over the weekend, though by a smaller margin than recent polls showed, prompting naysayers to declare his ship is finally sinking. And most people believe that Jeb Bush’s dropping out will throw support away from Trump (likely to Rubio or Kasich).

Nate Silver disagrees:

A reasonable person might adjudicate the case as follows: Yes, if the Republican nomination becomes a two-man race between Trump and Rubio, it could be pretty close. But that might not happen, or it at least might not happen for a while, not until Trump is off to a pretty big head start in delegates. What happens in a three-way race between Trump, Rubio and Cruz is a little murky. This reasonable person would concede that Rubio had a chance. But who’s the favorite? Trump!

The Trump skeptics might bring up one last line of argument. They’d claim, perhaps more tentatively than they did before, that GOP elites still have some ability to influence the race. Maybe voters don’t care about what “the establishment” thinks, but individual Republican politicians can still have some influence — South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s endorsement of Rubio very probably helped him, for instance. These elites have quite a bit of money to throw around, especially with Bush out.

Silver notes that betting markets have Trump’s chances of being the nominee at 50 percent, Rubio’s at 40 percent, and everyone else’s at 10 percent, which he says sounds about right.

More here.

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Trump Wins South Carolina, Jeb Bush Drops Out, NASA Releases Audio of ‘outer-space type music’: A.M. Links

  • At least 140 people died in Syria after twin ISIS bombings in Damascus and Homs.
  • Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary, while Hillary Clinton just barely beat out Bernie Sanders in the Nevada Democratic caucus. Jeb Bush dropped out of the race after a poor showing.
  • The FBI insists Apple help it break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, a county health inspector, even though the agency had the county government, which owned the phone, reset the iCloud password. Without the password reset, Apple says it would be possible to access information from the phone without dealing with encryption. Apple CEO Tim Cook, meanwhile, called for a commission on technology and intelligence gathering.
  • An Uber driver allegedly shot at people randomly in Kalamazoo in between picking up rides, killing at least 6.
  • A bill proposed in California would make accessing internal reports on police abuse easier and more in line with the process in states with more open records, like Texas and Florida.
  • The United States will reach record oil output by 2021, according to the International Energy Agency.
  • NASA released audio of “outer-space type music” that Apollo 10 astronauts on the far side of the Moon reported hearing.

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New Study Confirms That Molly Users Don’t Know What They’re Taking

A new study provides additional evidence that pills or powders sold as MDMA—even ostensibly pure “molly”—frequently contain synthetic cathinones (a.k.a. “bath salts”) or other substitutes. Beginning with a sample of “679 nightclub and festival attendees in New York City,” the researchers focused on 48 subjects who reported MDMA use in an electronic survey and provided adequate hair samples for drug testing. Of the 34 who reported no use of “bath salts,” other recently popularized stimulants, or “unknown pills or powders,” two-fifths nevertheless tested positive for a “novel psychoactive substance” (NPS), most commonly butylone. Reporting their findings in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, NYU public health researcher Joseph Palamar and his co-authors say “our results suggest that many ecstasy users are unintentionally or unknowingly using synthetic cathinones and/or other NPS.”

This sort of adulteration, a familiar side effect of prohibition, is worrisome not just because consumers are getting ripped off but because MDMA substitutes may be more dangerous than the real thing. While poisoning reports involving “bath salts” fell by 92 percent between 2011 and 2015, Palamar et al. note, “rates of poisonings related to [MDMA] use have increased in the US, and this may be due, in part, to users unknowingly using NPS such as synthetic cathinones in their ecstasy.” To help address this problem, the authors suggest “prevention and harm reduction education,” pill testing “for those rejecting abstinence,” and more systematic analysis of purported MDMA seized by law enforcement agencies.

“Ecstasy wasn’t always such a dangerous drug, but it is becoming increasingly risky because it has become so adulterated with new drugs that users and the scientific community alike know very little about,” Palamar says in an NYU press release. “Users need to be aware that what they are taking may not be MDMA.”

Apparently none of that was sexy enough for Ars Technica, whose story about this study was headlined “Violence-Inducing Bath Salts May Be Common Hidden Ingredient in Party Drug.” In their report, Palamar and his colleagues do not mention violence at all, let alone an increase among MDMA-popping electronic music fans. Nor does Ars Technica reporter Beth Mole cite any evidence that synthetic cathinones induce violence. The one incident she mentions—”a 2012 case in which a Miami man ate a homeless man’s face”—involved an attacker who tested negative for synthetic cathinones, as she herself acknowledges. 

“A lot of people laughed when they gave us their hair,” says Palamar, recalling comments such as, “I don’t use bath salts; I’m not a zombie who eats people’s faces.” He adds that “our findings suggest many of these people have been using ‘bath salts’ without realizing it.” In other words, the vicious attacker who supposedly was high on “bath salts” had not actually taken them, while people who take them but think they are taking Molly behave about as violently as the average MDMA user. But one thing we know for sure: Bath salts make people violent.

[Thanks to Ron Steiner for the Ars Technica link.]

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This Presidential Race Short on Calls for Peace: New at Reason

When President Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election in 1916, as Europeans slaughtered each other on an unprecedented scale, his slogan was, “He kept us out of war.” If Barack Obama were allowed to run for re-election, he could use this slogan: “He kept us out of Syria.” 

Will his successor? Steven Chapman notes that, given that the United States has been continuously at war for more than 14 years, you might think this topic would be a focus of the presidential campaign. But it’s been largely ignored. Military involvement in foreign conflicts is no longer unusual enough to warrant much attention from the candidates or the electorate.

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Brickbat: Professional Courtesy

Sgt. John GatelySpokane Police Sgt. John Gately has been charged with felony rendering criminal assistance and obstructing a law enforcement officer. Gately, who is also president of the Spokane Police Guild, allegedly tipped off another sergeant in the department that he was under investigation for the rape of another officer.

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Liberal Activism Is Giving Students Panic Attacks, Depression, Failing Grades

CollegeIt’s exhausting work, being offended all the time. But is activism actually ruining college kids’ mental health? A report on the emotional state of Brown University student-protesters—who suffer from suicidal thoughts, sleeplessness, panic attacks, and failing grades as a result of their advocacy—paints a weirdly alarming picture. 

Brown University’s inattentiveness to students’ demands for greater diversity is slowly killing them, according to The Brown Daily Herald: 

“There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus. 

His role as a student activist has taken a toll on his mental, physical and emotional health. “My grades dropped dramatically. My health completely changed. I lost weight. I’m on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills right now. (Counseling and Psychological Services) counselors called me. I had deans calling me to make sure I was okay,” he said. 

As students rallied to protest two racist columns published by The Herald and the alleged assault of a Latinx student from Dartmouth by a Department of Public Safety officer, David spent numerous hours organizing demonstrations with fellow activists. Meanwhile, he struggled to balance his classes, job and social life with the activism to which he feels so dedicated. Stressors and triggers flooded his life constantly, he said. 

I don’t begrudge students choosing activism over classes. If that’s what they want to spend their time on, fine. 

But their anguish seems grossly disproportionate to their situation. The publication of two racially problematic columns does not exactly suggest that Brown is in the midst of a great civil rights crisis. In fact, if this is students’ paramount concern, then they are enormously fortunate and privileged people. 

National Review‘s Katherine Timpf suggests that students struggling to balance their mental and emotional needs with the demands of their coursework might consider giving up on school entirely. One doesn’t need a degree to be a full-time activist, after all. 

But there’s a problem with that idea: when separated from their precious campus safe spaces, ex-students might encounter some actual injustices in the real world (police brutality, the War on Drugs, warrantless government spying, unauthorized foreign interventions—you name it). And I’m just not sure people who burst into tears every time they encounter some mild pushback on a relatively trivial issue—like an offensive column—are ready to turn pro.

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The FDA Is Still Denying Terminally-Ill Patients Access to Experimental Drugs

Next week, the Goldwater Institute will release a new study on the failure of the FDA’s Expanded Access program, which is designed to provide a way for patients to try medications that haven’t yet cleared the FDA’s stringent regulatory process. 

The program isn’t far reaching enough, and frequently denies terminally-ill patients potentially life-saving medicines, according to the study.

As Reason TV reported recently, Goldwater crafted its own wildly successful model legislation known “Right to Try,” which does give dying patients access to experimental treatments. Versions of the bill have passed in 24 states.

Click below to watch the story:

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