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Lauren Cooley, a 22-year-old journalist and
conservative activist, canvassed Broward College last week asking
students there whether they agreed that “big government sucks.” The
question soon answered itself: Campus police officers interrupted
Cooley, told her that she had to restrict her activities to the
designated “free speech zone,” and threatened to arrest her unless
she left the campus.

Broward is a Miami-area community college and public institution
that hosted a debate between Florida gubernatorial candidates Rick
Scott and Charlie Crist last week.

According to The College
Fix:

She spent nearly 90 minutes there asking students “Hey, do you
think big government sucks?” as she worked to find students
interested in signing a petition to launch a Turning Point student
club on campus, she said in an interview with The College
Fix.

As Cooley was leaving the Davie, Florida campus she saw a
male student and asked him if he thought big government sucked, and
at that point she was told by a campus security guard that she
needed to go to the “free-speech area,” she said in an interview
Friday with The College Fix.

Cooley recorded the incident. The cops insisted that she was not
allowed to speak to students about a political topic outside the
free speech zone, even though many students—having just attended a
political debate—were actively discussing politics out in the open
(how shocking!). Cooley was wise enough to ask whether she was
being detained and declined to hand over her ID. Eventually, an
officer told her to leave the campus at once or be arrested for
trespassing.

“Alright,” Cooley said as she walked away. “Remember, big
government sucks.”

“Yeah, I know,” the officer can be heard saying in the
background.

After being told in absolute terms by a police officer that she
was not permitted to speak to students and would be arrested if she
remained any longer, Cooley left the campus.

According to The College Fix, Cooley is a resident of
Broward County. “It’s literally the college my taxdollars go to
partially fund,” she said.

Free speech zones are pernicious and manifestly unconstitutional
staples of many campuses. That a public institution of higher
learning would want to prevent a young person from discussing
politics with students is inexcusable.

That the cops would aggressively enforce this restrictive policy
is even worse.

While 73
percent of Americans say most members of Congress do not deserve to
be reelected this November, Reason-Rupe
finds that 53 percent are yet still satisfied with the
candidates running for Congress in their own districts.
However, only 9 percent report being “very satisfied” while 44
percent are “somewhat satisfied.” Thirty-four percent are
unsatisfied (20% somewhat, 14% very), while 12 percent don’t have
an opinion.

In keeping with America’s federalist tradition, Americans are
more supportive of candidates closer to home. Fifty-seven percent
say they are satisfied with candidates for state level offices, and
a third are dissatisfied. Slightly more, 62 percent, are satisfied
with candidates for local level offices, and a quarter are
dissatisfied.

Strong Democratic (60%) and Republican (56%) partisan voters are
about equally likely to report satisfaction for their districts’
House and Senate candidates for the upcoming midterm elections.
Only 3 in 10 report dissatisfaction with state-level
candidates.

However, independent and
independent-leaning Republican voters are least likely to be happy
with candidates running in their districts. Instead, 53 percent of
non-partisan independents and 48 percent of independent-leaning
Republican voters say they are dissatisfied with the
House and Senate candidates running in their districts.
Independent-leaning Democrats are similar to strong Democrats with
only 30 percent dissatisfied.  

Similarly at the state-level, pluralities of Independents and
independent leaning-Republicans are dissatisfied (roughly 46%) with
state level candidate options, while about 4 in 10 are satisfied.
Conversely, majorities (6 in 10) of strong partisans are satisfied
with state-level candidate choices, and 27 percent are
dissatisfied.

Independents are more supportive of local-level candidates. Both
partisan and independent leaners are satisfied with candidates for
local level offices—roughly 60 to 70 percent. About a quarter are
dissatisfied.

Only at the local level do a plurality (48%) of non-partisan
independents report satisfaction with candidate options, with a
third dissatisfied.

Taking a closer look at who these dissatisfied voters are
reveals they tend to come disproportionately from independent and
independent-leaning Republican voters, are more male (57%), and are
more likely to favor
smaller government and free market solutions to complex economic
problems.

These results comport with oft-found
survey results that Americans dislike Congress but like
their own member of Congress. They also demonstrate that candidates
running closer to home receive higher marks than federal-level
candidates.

These data also suggest that Republican
candidates must deal with more unpredictable voters, as
independent-leaning Republicans are considerably less happy with
their candidates than independent-leaning Democrats and partisan
voters.

The Reason-Rupe national telephone poll, executed
by Princeton Survey Research Associates International,
conducted live interviews with 1004 adults on cell phones (503) and
landlines (501) October 1-6, 2014. The poll’s margin of error
is +/-3.8%. Full poll results can be found here including
poll toplines (pdf) 
and crosstabs (xls). 

A state lawmaker in Maine is having a hard election season after
some comments he made about rape decades ago resurfaced. “If a
woman has the right to abortion, why shouldn’t a man be free to use
his superior strength to force himself on a woman?” asked Rep.
Larry Lockman (R-Amherst) in 1990. Now that phrase features
prominently
in a new anti-Lockman mailing from the Maine Democatic
Party. 

Apparently Lockman’s political career has been dotted with
controversial commentary. In February, Bangor Daily News
writer
Mike Tipping noted that Lockman—a first-term representative who
has “quickly established himself as a vocal leader” of the Maine
GOP’s tea party wing—was once active in campaigning against income
taxes but switched focus in the mid-1980s to HIV fearmongering and
denouncing gay men. In one 1987 letter to the Lewiston Sun
Journal, Lockman wrote:

In the overwhelming majority of cases, people are dying because
of their addiction to sodomy. They are dying because progressive,
enlightened, tolerant people in politics and in medicine have
assured the public that the practice of sodomy is a legitimate
alternative lifestyle, rather than a perverted, depraved crime
against humanity.

He also called anal sex “biologically-insane” and the
“normalization of homosexuality” one of the most pressing moral
issues of our time. In the early 1990s, Lockman became highly
concerned with protesting abortion. A letter-to-the-editor of the
Lewiston Sun Journal
quotes Lockman saying the following: 

If a woman has (the right to abortion), why shouldn’t a man be
free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At
least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most
cases) result in anyone’s death. 

A woman’s bodily autonomy comes second to either an embryo’s
or a man’s claims on it, but certainly somebody other than the
woman herself has a right to it, of that much Lockman is
certain! (And can we just pause to recognize the utter
creepiness of the phrase “the rapist’s pursuit of sexual
freedom”?) 

After the Bangor Daily News column came out,
Lockman released a statment saying “I have always been
passionate about my beliefs, and years ago I said things that I
regret. … today I am focused on ensuring freedom and economic
prosperity for all Mainers.”

• Having just recently denounced
  the Kurdish Peshmerga as “terrorists,” Turkey’s government is
  now
  allowing Kurdish reinforcements through to Kobani to battle
  ISIS. The enemy of my enemy…
• Obamacare, assaults on civil liberties, and hostility to
  entrepreneurs and business might not have torpedoed Democratic
  election hopes, but
  fumbling the response to Ebola has them bleeding from the
  eyes.
• Voting is
  already underway in 34 states by the way, so get ready for smug
  hectoring from those who have already chosen institutional party
  Candidate A over institutional party Candidate B.
• British gun owners now face
  unannounced, warrantless visits to their homes by the cops,
  just because. All the more reason to keep your guns off the
  books.
• Marijuana-based edibles such as brownies, cookies, and candy
  
  will be banned if Colorado officials have their way, because—
  Oh, let’s not pretend there’s any logic behind this.
• “He’s been giving us descriptions, cooperating and accompanying
  us to locations,” Hammond, Indiana, Police Chief John D. Doughty
  
  says of Darren Deon Vann who, apparently, admits to at least
  seven murders over 20 years. Better late then never.

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“Megarich Plaintiffs, Legally Adrift,” is the
headline The New York Times ran over the latest article by
Steven Rattner, the money manager and former Obama administration
official. As the Times headline makes clear, Rattner’s
argument concerns less the merits of the case than it does the
wealth of the plaintiffs. But as Ira Stoll observes, the fact that
one party to a legal dispute is rich should be entirely irrelevant
to the merits of the case. That’s why the classical portrait of
justice has her wearing a blindfold.

View this article.

While Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is not exactly a libertarian’s
best friend, he has been one of the
loudest critics of the National Security Administration’s (NSA)
surveillance program. He may also be en route to losing his Senate
seat. The
most recent polls give his opponent, Rep. Cory Gardner
(R-Colo.), a narrow lead.

A Udall loss could be grim news for civil libertarians hoping to
rein in the NSA.
The Hill reports:

Udall’s possible defeat would leave a void in the Senate and on
the powerful Intelligence Committee, civil liberties and
anti-secrecy advocates fear.

Udall has long been one of the Senate’s biggest fighters against
government secrecy, tough spying programs,
the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and other issues
important to civil libertarians.

On the campaign trail, however, the NSA and the security state
have become non-issues—not least because of Udall’s own
bungling campaigning:

Part of the problem for Udall is that the focus of his efforts
are just not a top issue for most Americans. Americans consistently
rate economic issues as the most important problem facing the
country…In Colorado, Gardner and Udall have focused their attacks
largely on women’s health and energy issues. 

Recently, Udall has taken to emphasizing his national security
and surveillance positions, but it’s probably too little, too late.
Real Clear Politics
notes that Udall needs a big break in order to pull even with
Gardner, who has won all polls but one since mid-September.

In 2011, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Udall
anticipated the Edward Snowden leaks by
warning of gross overreach under the PATRIOT Act. He
called for the resignation of CIA Director John Brennan after
it came to light that the agency was spying on Senate computers. He
sponsored
a bill designed to limit the NSA’s power—and tried to
strengthen the bill when its key provisions were weakened.
Udall has also teamed up with
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in
criticizing NSA dragnet surveillance.

Gardner himself has expressed tepid support for Udall’s
efforts—though his past voting
record belies
this agreement. And even if Gardner’s support is real, civil
libertarians fear what the loss of a staunch supporter on the
Intelligence Committee could mean:

“I do think it would be a significant loss for the movement,”
said Laura Murphy, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s
Washington office.

“What Udall has is the institutional memory, and the
relationships in the civil liberties community, in the Democratic
Party and in the tech industry so that we don’t have to start over
again with someone new,” she added, while noting that her concern
would be the same if Republican civil liberties advocates were also
at risk of losing their seats.

Whatever one might think of his other positions, it’s clear that
if Udall loses, it will further dim the prospects of real reform to
America’s burgeoning surveillance state.