Category: reason

Even if Democrat Terry McAuliffe wins today’s Virginia
governor’s race, the
generally Democrat-friendly Mother Jones will be
disappointed. Reporter Stephanie Mencimer has covered him since
the 1990s and she is:

dumbfounded that he (according to the polls) is poised to
become the next governor of Virginia.

Allow me to explain. McAuliffe represents an unseemly slice
of Washington. His primary role in politics for the past two
decades or more has been raising money—most notably, for the
Clintons. He cooked up the idea of essentially renting out the
Lincoln bedroom during the Clinton administration as a fundraising
vehicle, and he smashed all previous presidential fundraising
records in the process. When McAuliffe was the Dems’ top
fundraiser, a campaign finance scandal besieged the Clinton White
House. Coincidence? No. McAuliffe was all about pushing the
envelope when it came to the political money-chase.

That alone might not be enough to render him a distasteful
political candidate. What’s diff#mce_temp_url#erent
about McAuliffe is his brazen mixing of his campaign
fundraising activity and attempts to enrich himself
personally. Many of McAuliffe’s business deals
have come about due to his place in the political cosmos, not
because he possesses a wealth of business skill. That tangled
history has linked him to a long list of unsavory
characters. 

The rest of the story details many of those specific unsavory
associations.

In other Virginia race news, revisit various Reason
pieces examining surprisingly high-polling Libertarian candidate
Robert Sarvis, including hopes that he can cause permanent breaks
in Virginia’s crummily choiceless party system from
Ronald Bailey and
Skip Oliva, Nick Gillespie’s
stirring defense of Sarvis from accusations of allegedly
stealing votes from a somehow worthwhile Republican, my
interview with Sarvis from last month, and Scott Shackford on
polls indicating
that if he’s “stealing” votes from anyone, it’s McAuliffe, not
GOPer Ken Cuccinelli.

Advertise
on MotherJones.com

That alone might not be enough to render him a distasteful
political candidate. What’s different about McAuliffe is
his brazen mixing of his campaign fundraising activity and attempts
to enrich himself
personally. Many of McAuliffe’s business deals
have come about due to his place in the political cosmos, not
because he possesses a wealth of business skill. That tangled
history has linked him to a long list of unsavory
characters. 

Even if Democrat Terry McAuliffe wins today’s Virginia
governor’s race, the
generally Democrat-friendly Mother Jones will be
disappointed. Reporter Stephanie Mencimer has covered him since
the 1990s and she is:

dumbfounded that he (according to the polls) is poised to
become the next governor of Virginia.

Allow me to explain. McAuliffe represents an unseemly slice
of Washington. His primary role in politics for the past two
decades or more has been raising money—most notably, for the
Clintons. He cooked up the idea of essentially renting out the
Lincoln bedroom during the Clinton administration as a fundraising
vehicle, and he smashed all previous presidential fundraising
records in the process. When McAuliffe was the Dems’ top
fundraiser, a campaign finance scandal besieged the Clinton White
House. Coincidence? No. McAuliffe was all about pushing the
envelope when it came to the political money-chase.

That alone might not be enough to render him a distasteful
political candidate. What’s diff#mce_temp_url#erent
about McAuliffe is his brazen mixing of his campaign
fundraising activity and attempts to enrich himself
personally. Many of McAuliffe’s business deals
have come about due to his place in the political cosmos, not
because he possesses a wealth of business skill. That tangled
history has linked him to a long list of unsavory
characters. 

The rest of the story details many of those specific unsavory
associations.

In other Virginia race news, revisit various Reason
pieces examining surprisingly high-polling Libertarian candidate
Robert Sarvis, including hopes that he can cause permanent breaks
in Virginia’s crummily choiceless party system from
Ronald Bailey and
Skip Oliva, Nick Gillespie’s
stirring defense of Sarvis from accusations of allegedly
stealing votes from a somehow worthwhile Republican, my
interview with Sarvis from last month, and Scott Shackford on
polls indicating
that if he’s “stealing” votes from anyone, it’s McAuliffe, not
GOPer Ken Cuccinelli.

Advertise
on MotherJones.com

That alone might not be enough to render him a distasteful
political candidate. What’s different about McAuliffe is
his brazen mixing of his campaign fundraising activity and attempts
to enrich himself
personally. Many of McAuliffe’s business deals
have come about due to his place in the political cosmos, not
because he possesses a wealth of business skill. That tangled
history has linked him to a long list of unsavory
characters. 

Maybe it’s not
just Obamacare.
Maybe NSA spying
revelations,
rough treatment of critical journalists, a
lack of transparency, and other presidential foibles have also
played a role. However it breaks down, though, Gallup reports that
President Barack Obama’s
approval rating now stands at 39 percent, which is the lowest
it’s been in the past year. It’s also only one point higher than
his all-time low, which he hit October 14-16, 2011. That’s a bit of
a tumble from the early hopey-dreamy period, when he scored 69
percent in January 2009. Oh, how jaded we’ve all become. Our once
shiny, new president has lost our favor. Well…Maybe he actually
pushed the favor away.

Interestingly, Gallup has a tool that allows you to compare
approval ratings over time among presidents. It seems that
Americans have become a bit tougher on national chief executives
than was once the case. Of course, we’re probably a bit less naive,
and more knowledgeable of their flaws than we used to be, too. How
does the current guy stack up? Well, Obama may rank generally lower
than his predecessor (and let’s concede that 9/11 gave George W.
Bush an early advantage, public-perception-wise) though it’s
practically a dead heat this far into their administrations, but he
at least pulls greater support at this point relative
to…(drumroll, please)…Richard M. Nixon.

So…He has that going for him.

Of course, approval rating or no, we’re stuck with the guy.

Maybe it’s not
just Obamacare.
Maybe NSA spying
revelations,
rough treatment of critical journalists, a
lack of transparency, and other presidential foibles have also
played a role. However it breaks down, though, Gallup reports that
President Barack Obama’s
approval rating now stands at 39 percent, which is the lowest
it’s been in the past year. It’s also only one point higher than
his all-time low, which he hit October 14-16, 2011. That’s a bit of
a tumble from the early hopey-dreamy period, when he scored 69
percent in January 2009. Oh, how jaded we’ve all become. Our once
shiny, new president has lost our favor. Well…Maybe he actually
pushed the favor away.

Interestingly, Gallup has a tool that allows you to compare
approval ratings over time among presidents. It seems that
Americans have become a bit tougher on national chief executives
than was once the case. Of course, we’re probably a bit less naive,
and more knowledgeable of their flaws than we used to be, too. How
does the current guy stack up? Well, Obama may rank generally lower
than his predecessor (and let’s concede that 9/11 gave George W.
Bush an early advantage, public-perception-wise) though it’s
practically a dead heat this far into their administrations, but he
at least pulls greater support at this point relative
to…(drumroll, please)…Richard M. Nixon.

So…He has that going for him.

Of course, approval rating or no, we’re stuck with the guy.

Paying for sex may become a
thing of the past, and the Internet could be the cause. A
nationally representative survey suggests that the percentage of
men who pay money for sex, or get paid, is at its lowest point on
record.

The numbers come from the General Social Survey
(GSS), a massive, decades-long project of the independent National
Opinion Research Center (NORC). The Los Angeles Times

reports some of the most interesting facts:

In a string of surveys between 1991 and 1996, nearly 17% of men
said they had ever paid for or received payment for sex; that fell
to 13.2% between 2006 and 2012. Last year, that number hit the
lowest point since the question was first asked — 9.1% — though
statisticians caution the unusually small number could be a
fluke.

The survey drew no distinction between buying and selling sex,
but men are widely assumed to be customers far more often than they
are sellers.

The numbers seem to be shifting with the generations: Older men
are much more likely to say they have bought or sold sex at some
point in their lives. Younger men, in turn, have been less likely
to report doing so than men of the same ages a few decades ago.

[…]

The sweeping survey, funded principally by the National Science
Foundation, has questioned more than 57,000 Americans since 1972.
Nearly 11,000 men have answered the question about paying or being
paid for sex since it was first asked in 1991.

The question is: Why? A range of possibilities exist,
from fear of AIDS to changing dynamics in the military. Another
possibility the Times points to is that the Internet makes
it so easy to get off for free.

The scale and
scope of online dating and the niche-conducive culture of the
web make finding sexual partners easier than ever. As BuzzFeed

points out, “ugly schmucks,” diaper-fetishists, and even people
with mullets have their own Web sites to find like-minded
mates.

For those not into commitment to other people, the Internet’s
endless terabytes of free, instantaneously accessible pornography
satisfies the appetite. As an added bonus, statistics have
shown for years that there is a correlation between the rise of
porn and the fall of sexual crimes.

Although most Americans have a negative outlook about our
collective moral well-being, as Nick Gillespie
suggests in “Society is Coarser But Better,” the growing
ubiquity of porn (and the relaxing of other taboos) is a pretty
good trade-off for a society in which “youth violence, sex, and
drug use are all trending down.” The GSS data indicates something
even better. Consenting adults do not need to make a trade-off; The
goods they want simply became more freely available.

Paying for sex may become a
thing of the past, and the Internet could be the cause. A
nationally representative survey suggests that the percentage of
men who pay money for sex, or get paid, is at its lowest point on
record.

The numbers come from the General Social Survey
(GSS), a massive, decades-long project of the independent National
Opinion Research Center (NORC). The Los Angeles Times

reports some of the most interesting facts:

In a string of surveys between 1991 and 1996, nearly 17% of men
said they had ever paid for or received payment for sex; that fell
to 13.2% between 2006 and 2012. Last year, that number hit the
lowest point since the question was first asked — 9.1% — though
statisticians caution the unusually small number could be a
fluke.

The survey drew no distinction between buying and selling sex,
but men are widely assumed to be customers far more often than they
are sellers.

The numbers seem to be shifting with the generations: Older men
are much more likely to say they have bought or sold sex at some
point in their lives. Younger men, in turn, have been less likely
to report doing so than men of the same ages a few decades ago.

[…]

The sweeping survey, funded principally by the National Science
Foundation, has questioned more than 57,000 Americans since 1972.
Nearly 11,000 men have answered the question about paying or being
paid for sex since it was first asked in 1991.

The question is: Why? A range of possibilities exist,
from fear of AIDS to changing dynamics in the military. Another
possibility the Times points to is that the Internet makes
it so easy to get off for free.

The scale and
scope of online dating and the niche-conducive culture of the
web make finding sexual partners easier than ever. As BuzzFeed

points out, “ugly schmucks,” diaper-fetishists, and even people
with mullets have their own Web sites to find like-minded
mates.

For those not into commitment to other people, the Internet’s
endless terabytes of free, instantaneously accessible pornography
satisfies the appetite. As an added bonus, statistics have
shown for years that there is a correlation between the rise of
porn and the fall of sexual crimes.

Although most Americans have a negative outlook about our
collective moral well-being, as Nick Gillespie
suggests in “Society is Coarser But Better,” the growing
ubiquity of porn (and the relaxing of other taboos) is a pretty
good trade-off for a society in which “youth violence, sex, and
drug use are all trending down.” The GSS data indicates something
even better. Consenting adults do not need to make a trade-off; The
goods they want simply became more freely available.

It’s not yet time to break out the phony passports or head for
the secret compound in the mountains, but the United States is
taking a bit of a drubbing this year when it comes to assessments
of the country’s freedom and, more specifically, the direction in
which the government is moving in terms of its respect for
individual rights. While the U.S. still gets high marks relative to
the vast majority of the world for the degree to which it respects
the liberty of the individual, those standings are slipping. In two
major rankings of economic freedom, one of Internet freedom, and a
report on freedom of the press, the land of the free has been
called out this year for being a little less free than it has been
in the past, and for signs of a troubling trend toward greater
surveillance and control.

In the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, the
United States had already slipped out of the Free and into the
Mostly Free
category even before further losing ground
this year.

The United States, with an economic freedom score of 76, has
lost ground again in the 2013 Index. Its score is 0.3 point lower
than last year, with declines in monetary freedom, business
freedom, labor freedom, and fiscal freedom. The U.S. is ranked 2nd
out of three countries in the North America region, and its score
remains well above the world and regional averages.

Registering a loss of economic freedom for the fifth consecutive
year, the U.S. has recorded its lowest Index score since 2000.
Dynamic entrepreneurial growth is stifled by ever-more-bloated
government and a trend toward cronyism that erodes the rule of
law.

The Fraser Institute’s Economic
Freedom of the World: 2013 Annual Report (PDF) agrees that
the country is on the wrong path.

Throughout most of period from 1980 to 2000, the United States
ranked as the world’s third-freest economy, behind Hong Kong and
Singapore. As Exhibit 1.5 indicates, the chain-linked summary
rating of the United States in 2000 was 8.65, second only to Hong
Kong. By 2005, the US rating had slipped to 8.21 and its ranking
fallen to 8th. The slide has continued. The United States placed
16th in 2010 and 19th in 2011. The 7.74 chain-linked rating of the
United States in 2011 was nearly a full point less than the 2000
rating.

What accounts for the decline of economic freedom in the United
States? While the US ratings and rankings have fallen in all five
areas of the EFW index, the reductions have been largest in Legal
System and Property Rights (Area 2), Freedom to Trade
Internationally (Area 4), and Regulation (Area 5). The plunge in
Area 2 has been huge. In 2000, the 9.23 rating of the United States
was the ninth highest in the world. But by 2011, the area rating
had slid to 6.93, placing the United States 38th worldwide. The
2.30-point reduction in the Area 2 rating of the United States was
tied with Venezuela as the largest reduction among the countries
rated.

Unshockingly in the year of Edward Snowden, the United States
also won a booby prize for its treatment of Internet freedom.
Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2013
found:

The United States has a robust legal framework that supports
free expression rights both online and offline, and the U.S. does
not typically prosecute individuals for online speech. The broader
picture of user rights in America, however, has become increasingly
complex as a series of U.S. government practices, policies, and
laws touch on, and in some cases appear to violate, the rights of
individuals both inside the U.S. and abroad. Government access to
phone and internet records is a major concern, especially following
newly revealed information about NSA surveillance practices.
Aggressive prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
(CFAA) has also been criticized. In addition, the privacy of NGOs,
companies, and individual users is threatened by a growing number
of cyberattacks initiated by both domestic and international
actors.

Not just NSA surveillance, but also the prosecution (really,
persecution) of Aaron Swartz rated
mention in the report. As a result, the U.S. suffered a
“significant” loss in ratings of Internet freedom—an assessment
that put it in the company of India, Brazil, and Venezuela in terms
of slippage, though not (and, hopefully, never) in final
ranking.

Freedom House still gives the United States high marks in

press freedom, but that review predates revelations this year
about
secretive Justice Department investigations of reporters at the
Associated Press, Fox News and elsewhere, and controversy over
targeting of whistleblowers and other assaults on transparency by
the Obama administration. Reacting to those developments, the
Committee to Protect Journalists issued a not-so-rosy assessment

warning:

U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open
government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and
transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure
of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the
press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information
and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources
from speaking to journalists.

The developments former Washington Post executive
editor Leonard Downie Jr. highlights in his report aren’t new, nor
are they unique to the Obama administration. But they have worsened
with time and seem to be hitting critical mass, representing a sea
change in the federal government’s treatment of aggressive scrutiny
by journalists and of government employees who talk to the press.
Downie describes the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 as a
“watershed” that triggered growth in the security state and
hostility to independent scrutiny.

Again, the United States still ranks higher than most countries
in terms of civil liberties, economic freedom and overall
government respect for individual rights. But, across-the-board
slippage in these areas, especially when it seems to be a
continuing trend, isn’t exactly a good sign.

It’s not yet time to break out the phony passports or head for
the secret compound in the mountains, but the United States is
taking a bit of a drubbing this year when it comes to assessments
of the country’s freedom and, more specifically, the direction in
which the government is moving in terms of its respect for
individual rights. While the U.S. still gets high marks relative to
the vast majority of the world for the degree to which it respects
the liberty of the individual, those standings are slipping. In two
major rankings of economic freedom, one of Internet freedom, and a
report on freedom of the press, the land of the free has been
called out this year for being a little less free than it has been
in the past, and for signs of a troubling trend toward greater
surveillance and control.

In the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, the
United States had already slipped out of the Free and into the
Mostly Free
category even before further losing ground
this year.

The United States, with an economic freedom score of 76, has
lost ground again in the 2013 Index. Its score is 0.3 point lower
than last year, with declines in monetary freedom, business
freedom, labor freedom, and fiscal freedom. The U.S. is ranked 2nd
out of three countries in the North America region, and its score
remains well above the world and regional averages.

Registering a loss of economic freedom for the fifth consecutive
year, the U.S. has recorded its lowest Index score since 2000.
Dynamic entrepreneurial growth is stifled by ever-more-bloated
government and a trend toward cronyism that erodes the rule of
law.

The Fraser Institute’s Economic
Freedom of the World: 2013 Annual Report (PDF) agrees that
the country is on the wrong path.

Throughout most of period from 1980 to 2000, the United States
ranked as the world’s third-freest economy, behind Hong Kong and
Singapore. As Exhibit 1.5 indicates, the chain-linked summary
rating of the United States in 2000 was 8.65, second only to Hong
Kong. By 2005, the US rating had slipped to 8.21 and its ranking
fallen to 8th. The slide has continued. The United States placed
16th in 2010 and 19th in 2011. The 7.74 chain-linked rating of the
United States in 2011 was nearly a full point less than the 2000
rating.

What accounts for the decline of economic freedom in the United
States? While the US ratings and rankings have fallen in all five
areas of the EFW index, the reductions have been largest in Legal
System and Property Rights (Area 2), Freedom to Trade
Internationally (Area 4), and Regulation (Area 5). The plunge in
Area 2 has been huge. In 2000, the 9.23 rating of the United States
was the ninth highest in the world. But by 2011, the area rating
had slid to 6.93, placing the United States 38th worldwide. The
2.30-point reduction in the Area 2 rating of the United States was
tied with Venezuela as the largest reduction among the countries
rated.

Unshockingly in the year of Edward Snowden, the United States
also won a booby prize for its treatment of Internet freedom.
Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2013
found:

The United States has a robust legal framework that supports
free expression rights both online and offline, and the U.S. does
not typically prosecute individuals for online speech. The broader
picture of user rights in America, however, has become increasingly
complex as a series of U.S. government practices, policies, and
laws touch on, and in some cases appear to violate, the rights of
individuals both inside the U.S. and abroad. Government access to
phone and internet records is a major concern, especially following
newly revealed information about NSA surveillance practices.
Aggressive prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
(CFAA) has also been criticized. In addition, the privacy of NGOs,
companies, and individual users is threatened by a growing number
of cyberattacks initiated by both domestic and international
actors.

Not just NSA surveillance, but also the prosecution (really,
persecution) of Aaron Swartz rated
mention in the report. As a result, the U.S. suffered a
“significant” loss in ratings of Internet freedom—an assessment
that put it in the company of India, Brazil, and Venezuela in terms
of slippage, though not (and, hopefully, never) in final
ranking.

Freedom House still gives the United States high marks in

press freedom, but that review predates revelations this year
about
secretive Justice Department investigations of reporters at the
Associated Press, Fox News and elsewhere, and controversy over
targeting of whistleblowers and other assaults on transparency by
the Obama administration. Reacting to those developments, the
Committee to Protect Journalists issued a not-so-rosy assessment

warning:

U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open
government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and
transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure
of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the
press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information
and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources
from speaking to journalists.

The developments former Washington Post executive
editor Leonard Downie Jr. highlights in his report aren’t new, nor
are they unique to the Obama administration. But they have worsened
with time and seem to be hitting critical mass, representing a sea
change in the federal government’s treatment of aggressive scrutiny
by journalists and of government employees who talk to the press.
Downie describes the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 as a
“watershed” that triggered growth in the security state and
hostility to independent scrutiny.

Again, the United States still ranks higher than most countries
in terms of civil liberties, economic freedom and overall
government respect for individual rights. But, across-the-board
slippage in these areas, especially when it seems to be a
continuing trend, isn’t exactly a good sign.

The Obamacare website’s roll out has been
almost universally seen as a disaster. But that doesn’t mean the
contractor behind the fiasco can’t still gorge at the federal
trough.

From Fox News:

CGI Federal Inc, the company that created large parts
of the error-plagued ObamaCare exchange website, which it says it
is scrambling to fix, has recently been awarded several other
government contracts.

Since the ObamaCare exchange website launched on Oct. 1, government
officials have signed at least five different agreements with CGI
totaling $7 million, according to USASpending.gov, a government
website that lists government contracts. The contracts were for
computer and software development at the Department of Health and
Human Services, the Department of Commerce, and the Environmental
Protection Agency.

Meanwhile, Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski, who is not up for
re-election until 2016, said in a hearing that the rollout of
Obamacare has created “fear,
doubt, and a crisis of confidence.” Obamacare may
also be to blame for CNN’s recent abysmal ratings and the
doctor shortage Obamacare is helping exacerbate
could in turn exacerbate Obamacare’s problems.

Follow these stories and more at Reason 24/7 and don’t forget you
can e-mail stories to us at 24_7@reason.com and tweet us
at @reason247. 

In October, Reason Intern Jess
Remington
updated readers with the latest about Atlanta’s war on street
vendors. The city revoked the business permits of independent
vendors and handed the rights to sell to a monopoly. The Institute
for Justice represented some of the affected vendors and fought
back. A judge ruled in their favor last year, but rather than
comply, Mayor Kasim Reed shut down all street vending. In October,
the judge ruled yet again that Reed must allow the street vendors
back their permits.

But the city and the mayor still hadn’t complied and are now
facing a potential contempt ruling for defying the judge’s
orders.

In order to get the judge off the city’s backs, Atlanta’s City
Council passed an ordinance Monday creating more regulations and
conditions for vendors to operate. The Institute for Justice is not
impressed.

“The ordinance is a step back for Atlanta vendors,” Institute
for Justice Attorney Rob Frommer told Reason. Among the problems
with the new rules, Frommer explained, is that it replaces the
proposed private monopoly with the government instead. The
government will still control where vendors can sell goods, mandate
how they sell things, and even control exactly what goods they may
sell. A street vendor may not sell items that are the same as
what’s being sold in nearby brick-and-mortar shops.

“The end result is the same,” Frommer said. “There’s less
opportunities, less choice, and less benefits for consumers.” He
described the anticompetitive product restrictions as “patently
unconstitutional.”

Frommer said the Institute for Justice will have to assess the
ordinance more thoroughly before deciding their next steps, as it
was rammed through in just two weeks, and there’s been little
analysis. In the meantime, they’re still pushing forward to try to
have the judge rule Mayor Reed in contempt.

“For 11 months, Mayor Reed violated the law by preventing honest
entrepreneurs from working,” Frommer said. “We expect the court to
call him to account for his lawless actions.”

Below, the Institute for Justice’s video explainer about the
ongoing fight. According to the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the city is not
providing in these new rules an option for street vendors around
Turner Field, where the Braves play: