Hit & Run

Even Politicians Tire of Failure-Prone, Freedom-Threatening Fusion Centers

2013-05-24T19:28:00-04:00

The Department of Homeland Security's pet fusion centers, intended to "serve as focal points within the state and local environment for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information between the federal government and state, local, tribal, territorial (SLTT) and private sector partners," have instead managed to enrage people across the political spectrum by finding bogeymen under every conceivable bed. They've targeted Occupy protesters and Ron Paul supporters as threats to the republic, and even listed the American Civil Liberties Union on a map detailing "terrorism events and other suspicious activity." Just about the only people they haven't targeted are actual terrorists — an omission that has drawn criticism for the Massachusetts franchise of the DHS network. No wonder politicians are starting to question whether the money dedicated to these factories of Fail are well-spent.

From Northwest Watchdog:

PORTLAND – The funding for a data collection center aimed at identifying and defusing terrorist threats in Oregon is in flux.

The Oregon Terrorism Information Threat Assessment Network is one of several Federal Fusion Centers spread across 77 U.S. cities that collaborate with local law-enforcement agencies on suspected terrorist threats.

But from Portland to Boston the effectiveness of these centers, along with their potential to violate free speech and privacy rights, is being questioned. Federal lawmakers critical of the programs have accused the centers, an after effect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, of collecting “crap intelligence.”

For a pithy assessment of fusion centers' efforts, look no further than a report prepared by Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Try this on for size:

The investigation found that DHS intelligence officers assigned to state and local fusion centers produced intelligence of “uneven quality – oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.”

Ouch.

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Japan to Implement National ID Numbers For All Residents

2013-05-24T19:14:00-04:00

A bill to set up a national identification number system in Japan cleared the upper house of parliament (the Diet) after passing the lower house last month. The Emperor’s “approval” of legislation is purely symbolic so the bill is set to become law. From the Japan Times:

The system, to be introduced in January 2016, will assign a “my number” to each citizen starting around fall 2015 to integrate all of their financial information. This is expected to help public offices collect information more accurately and make it easier to distribute welfare benefits and tax credits to citizens.

Individual ID numbers will be assigned to foreign residents as well, except for short-term visitors.

It’s actually not the first time Japan has dabbled with a national ID number system. A March op-ed from Sentaku Magazine (via the Japan Times) explains concerns the “my number” system was devised as a boon for the IT industry:

Koji Ishimura, a professor of tax laws at Hakuoh University, says it would be anachronistic for Japan to introduce a new national ID numbering system at a time when other countries are giving such systems a second look [for privacy and security reasons].

“I cannot think of anything other than the interests of the IT industry as a factor in pushing such a scheme,” he says, “because once it is launched, the industry will enjoy enormous business opportunities, larger than those created by the Basic Resident Register Network system” (started in 2002), which assigns an 11-digit number to every citizen.

This BRRN system, which cost the government a huge sum of money, was initially hailed as the way to improve social security services, but in reality it has proved to be of little value.

As if oblivious to this failure, the government is now trying to introduce an entirely new numbering system on top of the existing BRRN. This has led a well-informed journalist to criticize the government’s scheme as a “wasteful public works project” that will necessitate enormous yearly maintenance costs, which in turn will benefit only the IT industry.

Wikipedia identifies identity numbers in at least 66 countries. In America, the Social Security number’s become a de facto ID, and helps fuel identity theft, which cost Americans more than $1 billion in 2011.

Unlike Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Suspected British Beheaders of Soldier Unlikely To Be Questioned at Hospital

2013-05-24T16:55:00-04:00

On Wednesday, a British soldier was murdered on a street in London. Both of the suspects, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, were shot and arrested at the scene and have been taken to separate hospitals.

After the Boston Marathon bombing the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was also injured and taken to hospital.

Unlike Tsarnaev, Adebolajo and Adebowale are unlikely to be questioned by police while they are in hospital. Ben Moshinsky and Erik Larson of Bloomberg explain:

Unlike in the U.S., Britain’s police code of conduct prohibits officers from interviewing suspects about offenses anywhere other than a police station or another authorized place of detention, unless a delay could harm others or lead to a loss of evidence.“

Sometimes we have clients interviewed in hospital and we could argue that the evidence is inadmissible,” Ruth Hamann, a lawyer at law firm Hodge, Jones & Allan LLP in London, said in a telephone interview. “The police would probably be cautious about asking questions while the suspects are in hospital. It’s a gray area.”

Earlier this month Jacob Sullum wrote on the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and why it was not necessary for the FBI to invoke a public safety exception to the Miranda rule so that he could be questioned in hospital about the whereabouts of potential unexploded bombs.

DHS Says 3D Printed Guns Impossible To Control, Eric Holder To Lead Investigation into DOJ, Chinese Government Hoping To Expand Role of Private Businesses in Economy: P.M. Links

2013-05-24T16:30:00-04:00

The Department of Homeland Security has told law enforcement officials that it is “impossible” for the government to stop 3D printed guns from being made which is, you know...kinda the point.

President Obama has ordered a review of the Justice Department’s processes for investigating reporters. The review into the DOJ’s behavior is to be led by Attorney General Eric Holder. Say what you want about the government, it certainly never fails to provide ample irony.

The scandals that have surrounded the Obama administration recently have had little impact on Obama’s approval rating, which stands at 49 percent.

A man and a woman have been arrested in connection with the recent murder of a British soldier.

The Chinese government is planning to let market forces and private businesses take a more active role in the economy. Better late than never, right?

Medical marijuana dispensaries in Massachusetts will have to pay an annual $50,000 fee thanks to regulations recently released by the state Department of Public Health.

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Wayne Allyn Root Calls His Daily Show Interview a "Fraud."

2013-05-24T16:26:00-04:00

Earlier today, I posted, via Mediaite, a Daily Show segment with Wayne Allyn Root, the one-time Libertarian Party office-seeker, best-selling author, and gambling/investment guru (his website is here). During the bit, Root complains against IRS profiling of anti-government taxpayers and groups but speaks in favor of profiling of certain racial, ethnic, and religious groups. It's a classic Daily Show set-up, in which the interviewer ends up looking pretty bad, though in a humorous way. I can't imagine any subject wouldn't know that's going to happen going in.

You can read that post and watch the video here.

I just received the following email from Root, which I'm happy to publish in its entirety:

I'm really surprised at you Nick.

I do over 1000 interviews annually.

The reason most hosts have me back again and again is I give great interview...and their audience loves me.

Only once in the past year has media literally committed fraud...The Daily Show.

That was a TWO HOUR interview in a broiling hot room...with bright lights hitting me in the face...

with Daily Show doing same questions over and over again...asking me to re-start my answers...or to answer slightly different...

Obviously so they could take 1 answer completely out of context...and use smiles and nods from different questions completely out of context...

That's by any definition fraud.

I wasn't there to discuss profiling. I was there only to discuss the IRS scandal. After two hours in that hot room they suddenly brought up profiling by police...

And you NEVER saw my answers, now did you?

Because I gave very fine answers...they didn't want you to hear that.

Nor did you hear me converse with the 3 guests of Muslim, African American, or Hispanic origin they brought on the show, did you?

We agreed on 90% of our discussion.

They committed FRAUD by only using the sentence or two they wanted to.

Then they left out the most important part...where they asked the Muslim woman how to resolve these difficult issues...

And she said..."I like what Wayne Root says. I think we should elect him and give him a chance to solve these problems."

After 30 minutes of discourse...a Muslim female agreed with most of what I believe and boldly supported me on camera...

And it was never shown.

Would you call that fraud? Staging? Media hypocrisy? Whatever words you'd choose...it's wrong.

My interview was a very good interview...until it turned out they only had me there to interogate me for 2 hours and use 30 seconds to stage the responses they wanted (ewith multiple takes)...and edit all of it out of context.

And you fell for it? You've obviously never had that done to you.

If you had, you'd be sick and angry.

Feel free to print my response.

I do 1000 to 1200 interviews per year...and you decide to only skewer me with ONE...and that one is a staged set-up. You wonder why the public sees the media more negatively than even politicians.

And here's a follow-up email from Root:

You might also mention the worst part of this "journalism"...where in the interview did I state I support profiling? I didn't. I stated loudly on multiple occasions in the interview that I do not support profiling based on race, religion, or any other genetic criteria. I do support Israel's system at airports...which has resulted in no successful terrorist attack EVER on an El Al airplane. America should be looking at that system and adopt the best and most realistic parts.

Israel's system is NOT based on race, but rather knowledge of terrorist's "tells." Israel has stated on many occasions that they do not profile Muslim men, as an example, because if they did a Norwegian blonde woman would be used. They look at everyone and try to analyze everything from blinking eyes to tapping feet to sweating...that might indicate a person is overly nervous. As an example they stopped my daughter on her way back from a visit to Israel last year and pulled her out of the line and asked her many questions. She is white, Jewish and American. But if she is to fly safely that is the price to pay. That is not "profiling" nor is it in any way wrong.

I stated that at least a dozen times in the interview...and told the Muslim woman sitting opposite me that I do not support her being stopped "for being Muslim" nor do I accept African Americans being stopped for DWB (Driving While Black). They should only be stopped if the police notices they are exhibiting strange actions- and that goes for me or anyone else. The color of their skin should not enter into it.

So explain to me why none of that appeared in the interview? Because those answers did notr fit the agenda of The Daily Show.

How about the when the interviewer asked the 3 guests for their opinion of me...and all 3 said something nice. The director said, "Cut. C'mon guys. This is supposed to be funny. Please say something funny or negative about Wayne. Like 'rich white guy" or "Fox News guy."

And then they turned the camera back on...and each guest said something negative about me.

And I protested. They must have realized they could not use that...because I witnessed it being staged, so they never used that.

Now do you understand the fraud and corruption of the media?

They don't report the news...they try to MAKE it, no matter who they hurt.

And when it was over...everyone from producer to reporter said what a good sport I was and I'm the only conservative willing to come on the show.

Well now we know why.

I never turn down media. I say YES to all of the invitations. I walk into the lion's den again and again. That takes great courage and chutzpah. Well I won't be saying yes to Daily Show ever again. They burned this bridge.

After a quick search of the Google, I found this 2010 piece by Root in which he calls for the abolition of the TSA, and privatized "terrorist threat profiling" by airlines while explicitly admonishing racial profiling. A snippet:

...private airlines can best prevent terrorism by adopting the Israeli model of PROFILING. No, not racial profiling, but rather “terrorist threat profiling.” No need to argue -- it works to perfection.

Here's an interview Matt Welch did with Wayne Allyn Root for Reason TV at the 2009 Freedom Fest (note: Root left the LP in 2012).

The Wonkocracy: Why Can't People Be Reasonable and Do What We Say?

2013-05-24T15:55:00-04:00

An inspiring rant from James Poulos at Forbes (inspired itself by a very uninspiring current round of chatter about Josh Barro, but you don't need the boring context) about the mentality of the American wonkocracy.

Choice excerpts:

The logic of the neoliberal wonkocrat dictates that “government” is this accumulation of authority, this attribution of legitimacy, and the entitlement to implement policy that flows from it. That’s what governing means. Oppose that, and you oppose not just “an ideology” or “your partisan opponents” — you oppose governance itself. It’s a simple model, really: Be Krugtron the Invincible, follow Krugtron the Invincible, or get out of the way.

These are the sorts of claims that expose themselves to critical appraisal whether there are 5000 or 50 or 5 or zero intransigent Republican lunkheads standing athwart wonkocratism. “The point is not that I have an uncanny ability to be right,” Krugman stunningly says; “it’s that the other guys have an intense desire to be wrong.” That is exactly the point, which would be laid scandalously bare if only those dumbass conservatives wised up long enough to go on political strike. Those obdurate dingbats are a wonkocrat’s best friend — they make it possible for people to believe that wonkocrats want to recommend, not command.

Krugman and any other wonkocrats are just lying when they insist that the foundational issue is political bad faith of an “ideological” kind. No matter how real or important that issue is, it will never transcend the really fundamental claim animating and self-justifying the wonkocracy: that, whatever else is the case, they deserve the power to see their policies implemented.

.....the best way to prove a wonkocrat wrong is to let them have their way. Stand clear of the path of progress, and watch how quickly it narrows. Over time, that narrow path will encounter a mountain too high, a sea too deep, or a cliff too sheer to navigate. We cannot all stand clear of the path of progress, alas. Sadly, as we already know all too well, when it fails us, we will always be around to blame.

Read the whole thing.

All the President’s Leaks Prosecutions

2013-05-24T15:39:00-04:00

The revelation that Fox News reporter James Rosen was tracked by the government in their effort to prosecute Stephen Jin-Woo Kim for passing “national defense information” (the ill-defined term used in the Espionage Act) comes on the heel of news that the Department of Justice seized a number of phone records from the AP in an effort to root out another leaker. The president insists he believes in an “unfettered” free press, but that nevertheless the government must balance that with the interests of “national security.” So what information was Kim accused of passing? That North Korea might launch more nuclear tests in response to more sanctions, in 2009. The North Korean regime has conducted several nuclear tests in the intervening years.

In the AP case, reports suggest the Department of Justice is trying to ferret out the leaker behind a story about an alleged foiled terrorist plot in May 2012. News of the plot ran contradictory to the campaign narrative that Al-Qaeda posed no threat. The White House asked the AP to withhold the story until the government could announce the foiled plot itself; the AP waited until concerns about the ongoing intelligence operation were allayed. But it appears the source of the information that the plot was an inside job by a double agent could’ve been John Brennan, then the president’s chief counterterrorism advisor, who told a conference call of talking heads the plot was never a threat to the U.S. because there was “insider control” of it.

As for the national security merits of other leakers prosecuted under the Obama administration, one of the first, Thomas Drake, was indicted in April 2010 for “mishandling” documents related to the leaking of information about the NSA’s data collection efforts. The original charges were all dropped a year later. Also in 2010, a former FBI translator, Shamai Leibowitz, was sentenced to 20 months in prison for passing unidentified documents (even the presiding judge didn’t know what was in them) to an unidentified blogger. Leibowitz said he believed the documents showed the government broke the law. In January 2011, Jeffrey Sterling was charged with passing information to a reporter about a Clinton era effort to sell bad nuclear weapons designs to Iran.

In January 2012, John Kiriakou, the first government official to acknowledge CIA waterboarding, became the sixth person during Obama’s time in office charged under the Espionage Act for passing the names of CIA interrogators to journalists. Kiriakou eventually pled guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in jail.

The most well-known of the Obama administration’s anti-leaks cases is the one against Bradley Manning, who President Obama announced had “broke the law” before any trial had begun Manning is accused of facilitating the largest leak in U.S. history, a cache of State Department cables and material related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars published by Wikileaks. The judge in the Manning case has told prosecutors they will have to prove not just that Manning leaked the information, but that he knew he was aiding the enemy. In 2010, the Pentagon said none of the documents published by Wikileaks jeopardized U.S. intelligence or military operations, and a 2011 review by AP found that sources identified in leaked documents were not threatened. Manning’s trial is set to begin next month.

The New York Times last year provided a run down of these six cases and the three like it that occurred before Obama’s term in office, and here’s a 1986 Time magazine article on Reagan’s campaign against leakers (which yielded one of the three pre-Obama cases, that of Samuel Morison, who was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001).

FDA Targets Its First Medical App

2013-05-24T15:33:00-04:00

In 2011, the Food and Drug Agency released proposed guidelines for the regulation of mobile medical apps—health programs for devices like the iPad and iPhone. At the time, there were about 200 million such apps in use, but the FDA said its rules would only pertain to a small segment of the market: apps that, say, controlled blood pressure cuffs or insulin pumps, or that were intended to be used to make clinical decision.

Two years later, those rules still aren’t finalized. But the agency has begun questioning one medical app maker. Via Bloomberg News:

An iPhone application that lets users check levels of blood, protein and other substances in their urine is the first target of U.S. regulators seeking boundaries in a burgeoning industry for medical diagnosis on-the-go.

Biosense Technologies Private Ltd.’s uChek system isn’t cleared by the Food and Drug Administration and the agency said it wants to know why not, in a first-of-its-kind letter to a maker of a mobile-device application. The app relies on users, such as diabetics checking their glucose, to dip test strips in urine and use the smartphone’s camera to allow the system to processes and generate automated results.

One of the big worries with this sort of target was that it could stifle innovation. App makers are going to be less inclined to build medical apps if they’re also going to have to deal with a lot of burdensome FDA compliance issues. And uChek, the app in question, seems like it has the potential to be a fairly innovative and useful tool for a lot of people. Basically, the app lets users perform a urinalysis at home. Mashable explained how the app works, and the problems it solves, after Biosense’s founder introduced the tech at a TED talk last February:

There are a couple of problems with those commercially available [urinalysis] test strips: They're hard for you to examine on your own, and they consist of 10 confusingly colored pads that intentionally change color a couple of times after you dip them in urine.

What's more, to get a proper read on them, doctors and hospitals have to buy one of six expensive urine-analysis machines — all of which are incompatible with anything but their own brand of urine strips.

Uchek reads the color of those strips the way other apps read barcodes or QR codes. The app asks you to take a couple of shots of the strips at intervals of a few minutes. It then delivers the chemical composition of your pee, what that means, and how it is changing over time.

So, it’s an app that provides valuable health status information, without leaving home, and without an expensive medical professional or expensive medical equipment. This seems like the sort of beneficial, efficient health care innovation that we would generally want to encourage. But adding a new layer of FDA regulation is likely to have the opposite effect.

Paul Ehrlich Sounds the Trump of Doom Again: And This Time It's A "Consensus"

2013-05-24T15:20:00-04:00

Way back in 1968, Paul Ehrlich asserted in The Population Bomb:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s* hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.

How did that work out for you Paul? Oh, yes, that pesky Green Revolution came along and ruined the prophecy.

But this time Ehrlich's got it right, because he's got a Consensus Statement to back him up over at the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere. It forthrightly declares:

Earth is rapidly approaching a tipping point. Human impacts are causing alarming levels of harm to our planet. As scientists who study the interaction of people with the rest of the biosphere using a wide range of approaches, we agree that the evidence that humans are damaging their ecological life-support systems is overwhelming.

The Five Horsepersons of the Ecological Apocalypse are:

Climate disruption—more, faster climate change than since humans first became a species.

Extinctions—not since the dinosaurs went extinct have so many species and populations died out so fast, both on land and in the oceans.

   Wholesale loss of diverse ecosystems—we have plowed, paved, or otherwise transformed more than 40% of Earth’s ice-free land, and no place on land or in the sea is free of our direct or indirect influences.

   Pollution—environmental contaminants in the air, water and land are at record levels and increasing, seriously harming people and wildlife in unforeseen ways.

   Human population growth and consumption patterns—seven billion people alive today will likely grow to 9.5 billion by 2050, and the pressures of heavy material consumption among the middle class and wealthy may well intensify.

Never mind that estimates of climate sensitivity and thus the pace and severity of future man-made climate change are trending down; that humanity has reached peak farmland which will have big follow-on benefits with regard to species extinctions (which have been exaggerated in any case) and the restoration of more land for nature; that pollution levels in modern countries have been falling for decades and there is every prospect that they will do so for developing countries as they become wealthier; and finally, economic growth and wealth creation is increasingly decoupled from material resource use.

It just so happens that I am working on a new book, The End of Doom, showing that the balance of the scientific and economic evidence, well, contradicts this "consensus."

*Actually he added the "1980s" to the 1973 edition. In 1968, massive famines were definitely going to happen in the 1970s.

Drug Czar Report on Crime and Drug Use Is Really a Report About Being Poor and Getting Caught

2013-05-24T15:17:00-04:00

Yesterday afternoon the Office of National Drug Control Policy released a report (which you can read below) that found a majority of arrestees in five metropolitan areas had marijuana in their system when they were booked, and that many others had recently used harder drugs. During his speech before the Urban Institute yesterday, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske argued that the report is evidence that we shouldn't legalize marijuana. Members of the media naturally jumped on his claims. Here's a typical headline and lede, courtesy of McClatchy:

MARIJUANA IS DRUG MOST OFTEN LINKED TO CRIME, STUDY FINDS

WASHINGTON — Marijuana is the drug most often linked to crime in the United States, the U.S. drug czar said Thursday, dismissing calls for legalization as a “bumper-sticker approach” that should be avoided.

Gil Kerlikowske, the White House director of national drug-control policy, said a study by his office showed a strong link between drug use and crime. Eighty percent of the adult males arrested for crimes in Sacramento, Calif., last year tested positive for at least one illegal drug. Marijuana was the most commonly detected drug, found in 54 percent of those arrested.

We're going to see versions of this story everywhere, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw most of them written up the way McClatchy's was, which is to say, without any indication that reporter Rob Hotakainen actually read the 2012 Annual Report on the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program II (or ADAM II in ONDCP shorthand), which is 122 pages long--far too long for Hotakainen to have examined it before firing off a dispatch about Kerlikowske's speech. And yet, reading the report is the only way to tell whether Kerlikowske is spinning the results. (He is.)

First, here's how the study was conducted: Over the course of 21 days in 2012, researchers in five metropolitan areas--Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Sacramento, and NYC--asked male arrestees in large urban jails to submit to voluntary interviews and urine tests. The requests were made as close to booking as possible, "and always within 48 hours of arrest." Arrestees were asked about their education, living arrangements, employment, and health insurance. They were also asked about their drug use. It's here that we encounter the report's first problem: In addition to asking arrestees how often they used illegal drugs in the last year, interviewers also asked them how often they consumed five or more alcoholic drinks in a sitting. The drug use statistics are included in the report, but the alcohol data is not.

According to a 2006 report from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, "crimes attributable to alcohol cost 84 billion dollars, more than two times the 38 billion dollars attributable to drugs." I'm not saying that's why the alcohol data--which we know ONDCP collected--was omitted from the report; but if you're timing the release of your report to coincide with a speech about the need to force users into treatment while keeping drugs illegal, you don't want alcohol getting all the attention. (I've filed a FOIA request for this data, btw, and will post it when I get it.)

The report's problems don't end there. While ADAM II is incredibly detailed with regard to the types and frequency of drug use, it's far less clear why suspects were arrested in the first place. The most detail ADAM II provides is whether the arrest was for a violent crime, a property crime, a drug crime, or "other." If you're going to argue (as Kerlikowske has) that the link between marijuana and crime is so troubling that it precludes the possibility of legalization, it certainly matters whether an arrest is the result of a traffic stop in which officers claimed to smell weed, an unconstitutional stop-and-frisk, or an undercover officer convincing an autistic student to buy him a joint. These are not hypotheticals, by the way: In New York last year, where ADAM II says 29.8 percent of arrests were for drug crimes, the NYPD stopped, frisked, and arrested 5,000 people for marijuana, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. Which means that If Kerlikowske were being honest, he would've said there was a strong correlation between using marijuana and getting arrested for marijuana.

That's not to say that the ADAM II research doesn't tell us anything noteworthy. Thanks to the ONDCP's report, we know that in Atlanta, 82 percent of arrestees last year were black, 39 percent of arrestees did not finish high school, 52 percent had been arrested 1-2 prior times in the past year, and that 74 percent did not have health insurance. We know that in Chicago, 76.2 percent of arrestees were black, only 3.4 percent of arrestees had a college degree or higher, 56.7 percent of arrestees did not own or rent their own home, 41.8 percent of arrestees were unemployed, and 78.7 had no health insurance. We know that in Denver, 53.8 percent of arrestees were white, 43.8 percent were over the age of 36, 18.4 percent lived in a shelter or had no fixed residence. We know that in Sacramento, 41 percent of arrestees were over the age of 36, 48 percent were white, 41 percent were unemployed and looking for work, and 19 percent were homeless.

If there's a correlation between drugs and crime, there's an even stronger one between being poor and getting caught.

Oh, and there's one other thing we know from ADAM II: "One of the questions of interest to policymakers is whether there are significant differences between arrestees who have illegal drugs in their systems at the time of arrest and those who do not. With the exception of citizenship status and employment, there were few significant differences between these two groups across all or almost all sites."

Simply put, this is a report about poverty.

2012 ANNUAL REPORT: ARRESTEE DRUG ABUSE MONITORING PROGRAM II

Republicans Looking For 2016 Contenders, Poll Suggests Clinton Would Beat GOP Rivals in Iowa

2013-05-24T15:00:00-04:00

To many people the 2016 elections may seem too far away to start with polling and serious discussions about possible contenders.

Not so for some Republicans, who have already begun the search for a candidate that will not repeat Mitt Romney’s 2012 performance. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is one of the Republicans being widely discussed as a possible presidential nominee, as are Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Republican Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin are also contenders.

From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Seeking to raise money for the New Hampshire Republican Party, state chairwoman Jennifer Horn recently called the party's national boss, Reince Priebus, with a question: Could he get Rand Paul to visit?

The request, and Paul's appearance here last Monday in a room packed with 500 Republicans, spoke volumes about the party as its followers - some energized by the scandals surrounding Democratic President Barack Obama's administration - are already looking to the 2016 elections.

With no clear presidential front-runner in their party, Republicans are in shopping mode.

Whoever gets the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 may end up facing Hillary Clinton who, recent polling suggests, would beat at least two of the GOP’s current 2016 favorites in Iowa.

From the Huffington Post:

Hillary Clinton would lead two potential GOP rivals in Iowa in the 2016 presidential election, according to a poll released Friday by Quinnipiac University, while Vice President Joe Biden would narrowly trail his potential GOP opponents.

The poll found Clinton ahead of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) by 48 percent to 37 percent. She led Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who recently traveled to Iowa, by a narrower 46 to 42 percent.

Follow this story and more at Reason 24/7.

Vid: Forget Angelina Jolie: How Obamacare Endangers Your Breasts

2013-05-24T15:00:00-04:00

Even as male moviegoers are slow to let go of Angelina Jolie’s amazing technicolor dream breasts, women are asking themselves: What about my boobies?

"Forget Angelina Jolie: How Obamacare Endangers Your Breasts" is the newest Reason TV video. Click above to watch now or click below to go to full article page, featuring links, resources, text, and more videos.

About 2 minutes long.

View this article.

Peter Suderman Reviews Fast & Furious 6

2013-05-24T13:36:00-04:00

Reason Senior Editor Peter Suderman reviews the sixth installment in the auto-centric action Fast & Furious franchise. Suderman says it's the best one yet:

"Fast & Furious 6” conjures up a world that consists of little but muscle car mayhem and macho showdowns. And for those who can appreciate that sort of thing — and the series’ box office to date suggests that there are plenty who do — there’s an awful lot to like.

Indeed, the “Fast” films offer a rare, possibly unique, example of a franchise that takes six installments to truly find itself. “Fast & Furious 6” takes everything that “Fast Five” did right, and then does it more: It’s louder, it’s funnier, it’s bigger — more exciting, more over the top, and more delightfully absurd. In every way, it is a movie that is truly faster and, yes, furiouser than any of its predecessors.

Virtually all of the credit for the film’s success has to go to director Justin Lin, who has overseen the franchise since the third installment. When Mr. Lin took over, it was a flagging, mid-budget series about urban illegal racing culture that had lost all of its original cast. But starting with the fourth entry, he made the smart decision to bring back the stars of the original, and open up the series’ appeal to a wider audience. Later, he added to the cast former wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who now anchors the series along with Mr. Diesel.

Over time, Mr. Lin has slowly transformed the franchise from its modest origins into a sort of streetwise, auto-centric “Ocean’s 11” — broad, big-budget, comic heist films with roaring engines at their core. Each entry has improved on the last, but it’s never quite worked all the way — until now.

Read the whole review in The Washington Times.

3D-Printed Guns 'Impossible' To Control, DHS Tells Law Enforcement. Well, That's the Whole Idea.

2013-05-24T13:34:00-04:00

Firearms created by 3D printing technology are likely beyond the ability of governments to restrict or control, the Department of Homeland Security advises law enforcement agencies in a bulletin prepared by the Joint Regional Intelligence Center. The bulletin, obtained and quoted by Fox News, apparently frets over the relative difficulty of detecting 3D-printed guns, as well as the ease with which they can be produced. It acknowledges the daunting task inherent in trying to prevent the distribution of designs for such guns, comparing that challenge to stopping the trading of music and movie files online.

From Fox News:

A new Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin warns it could be "impossible" to stop 3D-printed guns from being made, not to mention getting past security checkpoints.

A May 21 bulletin distributed to numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies and obtained by FoxNews.com states that the guns, which can be made by downloading blueprints into cutting edge computers that mold three-dimensional items from melted plastic, "poses public safety risks" and are likely beyond the current reach of regulators. The guns threaten to render 3D gun control efforts useless if their manufacture becomes more widespread.

Under orders from the State Department, Defense Distributed pulled its designs for the Liberator handgun, depicted above, offline, while it prepares for a legal challenge to the order. But those plans had already been downloaded over 100,000 times and remain available from venues including Pirate Bay. The plans have already been modified, including to create working firearms on low-cost printers that are more readily affordable than the device used by Defense Distributed. With the plans released, endlessly replicable and morphing, the bulletin concedes that the cat is out of the bag:

"Proposed legislation to ban 3D printing of weapons may deter, but cannot completely prevent their production," the memo says. "Even if the practice is prohibited by new legislation, online distribution of these digital files will be as difficult to control as any other illegally traded music, movie or software files."

As a result, the memo concludes, "limiting access may be impossible."

I noted recently that preventing the DIY revolution that brings us easily produced homemade guns, and so much more, is now a goal confined to wishful thinking. And that, of course, is the whole idea of developing and spreading the technology — to put its control beyond the practical reach of the control freaks, even if that means frustrating a fearful majority.

Find more of Reason's coverage of 3D-printed guns and the related controversy here.

Ronald Bailey: Do You Have a Right to Genetic Ignorance?

2013-05-24T13:30:00-04:00

Whole genome testing is becoming ever cheaper and more widespread, enabling testing clinics to find not only the genetic mutations relevant to specific illnesses being investigated but also incidental genetic variants that may be associated with other disease risks. In response to this rapid progress, a panel of experts convened by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics issued a new policy statement in March on the medical and ethical implications of incidental genetic findings for patients and physicians. Some prominent bioethicists object to the college's recommendations, claiming that they violate your right to remain ignorant of your genetic risks. Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey wonders if protecting genetic ignorance is such a good idea.

View this article.

New York State Proposes "Bowling Shoe Law"

2013-05-24T13:15:00-04:00

As reported by WGRZ-TV Albany, the notoriously corrupt New York state legislature is considering a bill which would require bowling alleys to post signs warning patrons to not wear bowling shoes outside, "lest they become wet and increase the likelihood that a bowler could slip and fall when they come inside."

The bill has been sponsored in the Senate by Patrick Gallivan (R-59th District) and in the Assembly by Robin Schimminger (D-140th District), with the goal of mitigating the liability of bowling alley owners and helping them lower their insurance costs. Included in the proposed law is the prevention of lawsuits against bowling alley proprietors if their customers ignore the warning signs and injure themselves by falling on slick bowling alley surfaces while wearing bowling shoes that are specifically designed to be slippery.

This law was deemed necessary after an increase in lawsuits "in the decade since the state made smoking in bowling alleys illegal, tempting many bowlers who smoke, to sneak out for a few puffs between frames, perhaps when it's raining or snowing....who then come in, slip, and then sue."

While a new nanny state initiative creeps its way into law as a direct result of an earlier one, please check out "Smoking Bans Are No Match For New Yorkers," Reason TV's documentary on smokers finding ways to work around government attempts at social engineering:

The Wild Campaign Film That Barry Goldwater Disowned

2013-05-24T12:21:00-04:00

I think the first place I read about the 1964 film Choice was in Mostly on the Edge, an enjoyable memoir by Sen. Barry Goldwater's speechwriter Karl Hess. At one point in Goldwater's presidential campaign, Hess wrote,

there was a briefing to review a television ad that supporters had put together to exploit the ever-present, always popular issue of moral decline in America. It was the sort of slimy self-righteous imagery that has come to dominate American politics today. It showed topless (but appropriately censored) women at a public beach and had the stern voice-over, holier-than-thou condemnation of the country's slide into moral decay. Before a word could be said, the senator turned to my son -- then sixteen years old -- and asked his opinion. Young Karl said the ad was silly, had nothing to do with the ideas of the campaign, and was dirty politics to boot. Goldwater agreed. That was it; the ad was pulled, and the campaign stuck to the high ground of principles and substantive issues.

Over at The American Conservative, Daniel McCarthy notes that Choice can now be seen online. He adds some more historical context as well:

It's a doozy: fast cars, fast women, John Wayne. And more problematically, scenes of riots and civil rights protests portrayed in a way that led Goldwater to call it "a racist film" and demand that "Choice" not be shown on his behalf.

Clif White had been indispensable in helping Goldwater win the Republican nomination, but after that the candidate entrusted his campaign to others. Getting to make "Choice" was something of a consolation prize—but as Rick Perlstein writes in Before the Storm, in giving White permission to do a film on the "morality issue," Goldwater "didn't realize he had just become Truman giving MacArthur what the general thought was a green light to cross the Yalu." The film wasn't an official campaign product, but the campaign got the blame—both for the film itself and, from right-wing activists, for canceling it.

The movie is embedded below. If nothing else, watch the first minute and 40 seconds, which have a great early-'60s exploitation-flick vibe. And check out the minute-long montage that starts around 11:55 -- whatever else went into making this half hour of agitprop, the filmmakers clearly were having a blast. Oh, hell, just watch the whole thing:

Bonus link: Earlier this week I posted another video. Karl Hess was actually in that one.

Steven Greenhut on How the IRS Scandal Highlights the Dangers of Big Government

2013-05-24T12:15:00-04:00

The ongoing IRS scandal has been a good teachable moment for Americans about the nature of the federal Leviathan, writes Steven Greenhut, but few people will glean the most important lesson: Both parties need a powerful tax agency to collect the funds that support the programs they, and the constituencies they represent, favor.

View this article.

Daily Show Talks with Wayne Allyn Root re: IRS, Racial Profiling. Hilarity Ensues.

2013-05-24T11:00:00-04:00

Former Libertarian Party stalwart Wayne Allyn Root was recently on The Daily Show discussing the IRS scandal and other forms of profiling. Hilarity ensues.

Click above to watch.

Hat tip to Mediaite's Andrew Kirell, who notes, "Last night’s Daily Show took a hammer to what the show deemed a hypocrisy in the conservative cries of 'profiling' during the IRS scandal while vigorously supporting the police profiling of Muslims, Latinos, and black people."

Unions Upset With Unexpected Consequences of Obamacare

2013-05-24T11:00:00-04:00

Nancy Pelosi said Congress had to pass Obamacare to find out what was in it, and the legislation’s supporters, including many of the country’s largest unions, seemed just fine with that arrangement. Now that they’re finding out what’s in it, they don’t like that some of the consequences were unexpected (but not unforeseeable).

From CBS News:

When President Obama pushed his health care overhaul plan through Congress, he counted labor unions among his strongest supporters.

But some unions leaders have grown frustrated and angry about what they say are unexpected consequences of the new law -- problems that they say could jeopardize the health benefits offered to millions of their members.

The issue could create a political headache next year for Democrats facing re-election if disgruntled union members believe the Obama administration and Congress aren't working to fix the problem.

"It makes an untruth out of what the president said, that if you like your insurance, you could keep it," said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. "That is not going to be true for millions of workers now."

Last month, the Roofer’s Union, which endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012, called for the full repeal of Obamacare. Peter Suderman explained earlier this year how Obamacare ends up undermining unions.

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.

The Sad Tale of How Feds Helped a Crook Cost Some Helpful People a Half a Billion Bucks

2013-05-24T10:42:00-04:00

A sadly morality-free tale from the June issue of Wired called "Drugstore Cowboy" about how the federal government helped get someone demonstrably out to cheat and harm other people out of jail quicker by supporting him on a complicated multi-month program trying to entrap some helpful people at Google into doing what Google does--selling ads and helping its customers.

Alas for Google, this help ended up costing the company half a billion bucks paid over to the federal government because the customer they were helping was apparently helping Americans buy drugs and medicines from overseas that the government has decided we can't buy unless a member of a protected guild (a "licensed physician") waves his magic pen over a piece of paper on our behalf.

It's a sordid and terrible tale, told well enough, but without the moral dudgeon--against the Feds and for Google--that it deserves. In fact, the reporter Jake Pearson even seems to think we should be upset about Google over this.

We shouldn't be. The federal government's behavior over this was gross, and that it cost Google that insane amount of money is a crime. That the whole procedure involved helping out a guy with a career of trying to defraud people at the expense of a company that has done an enormous amount at no cost to all of us to make our lives better makes it even more disgusting.

Obama’s 'Anguish' Makes His Bush-Like Warmaking So Much More Palatable!

2013-05-24T10:09:00-04:00

As I said yesterday, President Barack Obama's big War on Terror speech will be praised by those "who like words." Sure enough here comes The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, who knows all about "the dark side" of the WoT, with an almost perfect encapsulation of the mindset that perpetuates the very conservative warmaking liberals spend so much energy claiming to loathe:

One first impression left by President Obama's much-anticipated speech re-casting U.S. counter-terrorism policy is that of the contrast between Bush's swagger and Obama's anguish over the difficult trade-offs that perpetual war poses to a free society. It could scarcely be starker. While Bush frequently seemed to take action without considering the underlying questions, Obama appears somewhat unsure of exactly what actions to take.

War, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention and extrajudicial assassination are just so much better when the president is conflicted about it all!

George W. Bush never droned innocent Americans to death, least as far as we know. Yet marvel here in a passage about drone assassinations as Mayer miraculously absolves the current president while slamming his predecessor:

[H]ere, too, Obama's evident pain over the program, whose civilian deaths he said would "haunt" him and his command "as long as we live," seemed a telling change from the secrecy and winking smugness of the past.

In case the superficial contrast between "swagger" (BAD!) and "anguish" (GOOD!) isn't clear enough, watch Mayer extend Obama all sorts of moral cover while waving aside the little matter of his actual actions as commander in chief:

Obama embraced both constitutional and international legal limits, at least in principle, even as he struggled to define them in practice. In fact, his speech was a paean to the theory of "just war," which requires a balance between means and ends, demanding proportionality whenever the state resorts to the use of force. It's a sophisticated and nuanced moral theory, on which the law of conflict rests. Obama has openly grappled with the most difficult questions posed by the most serious thinkers in this area.

Back when it was Republicans in charge of the warmaking apparatus, I was fond of saying that neo-conservatism is just Wilsonianism with a "Fuck France" T-shirt. I think it's time to assert the corollary: "Just war"ism is just Dick Cheneyism with more crocodile tears.

Mayer, in her conclusion, does finally get to the non-trivial question of bridging the wide chasm between the president's words and deeds. By, of course, blaming Republicans:

Much of the burden of moving forward, however, is not in Obama's hands. Within minutes of his speech, conservatives on Capitol Hill had already begun jumping on him for having a "pre-9/11 mindset"—as if, somehow, the 9/11 mindset should last forever.

Always remember this point, next time we have a Republican president. Democrats are, at best, temporary doves.

Two Men Arrested For Tweets After Murder of British Soldier

2013-05-24T09:51:00-04:00

The murder of a British soldier on the streets of London on Wednesday prompted the depressingly predictable attacks on mosques as well as demonstrations by the nationalist group the English Defence League.

One of the suspected attackers, Michael Adebolajo, told a passerby that the attack was motivated by Britain’s foreign policy:

We swear by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth. We apologize that women had to see this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you.

Unsurprisingly, some people took to twitter to express their outrage. Two men in their early twenties were arrested for their tweets following the soldier's murder on suspicion of inciting racial or religious hatred.

From The Independent:

Detective Inspector Ed Yaxley of Avon and Somerset police said: "On Wednesday evening, we were contacted by people concerned about comments made on social media accounts.

"We began inquiries into the comments and at around 3.20am two men, aged 23 and 22, were detained at two addresses in Bristol.

"The men were arrested under the Public Order Act on suspicion of inciting racial or religious hatred. Our inquiries into these comments continue.

"These comments were directed against a section of our community. Comments such as these are completely unacceptable and only cause more harm to our community in Bristol.

The two suspected attackers are being treated in separate hospitals after being shot by police at the scene.

ACLU Calls Bullshit on Obama's Drone 'Due Process' Promises

2013-05-24T09:48:00-04:00

As Ed Krayewski noted yesterday, not everybody was impressed by President Obama's national security speech, in which he vowed to make himself be extra specially careful when raining death from the sky on suspected terrorists (and collaterally damaged civilians), including American citizens, with drones. Sen. Rand Paul may have been the pithiest, when he remarked, "I still have concerns over whether flash cards and PowerPoint presentations represent due process." At greater length, the American Civil Liberties Union also expresses some doubts that "Presidential Policy Guidance," whatever in hell that is, is the same as due process.

Says, in part, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU:

To the extent the speech signals an end to signature strikes, recognizes the need for congressional oversight, and restricts the use of drones to threats against the American people, the developments on targeted killings are promising. Yet the president still claims broad authority to carry out targeted killings far from any battlefield, and there is still insufficient transparency. We continue to disagree fundamentally with the idea that due process requirements can be satisfied without any form of judicial oversight by regular federal courts.

President Obama tells us, "I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen -- with a drone, or with a shotgun -- without due process," but his idea of "due process" still seems to involve little more than a concerned expression. After all, in the same speech he fretted that court oversight of drone use "raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and judicial authority" in a way that just unilaterally choosing asassination targets somehow doesn't, and that even "an independent oversight board in the executive branch ... may introduce a layer of bureaucracy."

Oh, and the ACLU isn't too impressed by Obama's vow to, eventually, transfer Guantanamo detainees elesewhere, either. While applauding the promise, Romero notes, "While the president expressed appropriate concern about indefinite detention, he offered no clear plan for ending this unconstitutional policy for those who have not been tried or cleared for release."

Rand Paul's Hipster Outreach Mofo Party Plan

2013-05-24T09:17:00-04:00

Via Dan Foster of NRO and James Poulos of Forbes comes word of Sen. Rand Paul's recent trip to New Hampshire to spread a much-needed message of inclusion to Republicans. As this appearance and recent showings in Iowa and elsewhere attest, Paul is openly testing the waters for a presidential run in 2016.

From the USA Today account of the Kentucky Republican's spiel:

"The main thing is not to talk about me so much but about how to grow the party," the senator told a press conference before the dinner.

And that is what he focused on at the podium.

"We need to be like the rest of America," Paul told the gathering. "We need to grow bigger. If you want to be the party of white people, we're winning all the white vote."

"But we're a diverse nation," he said, to a crowd that was almost entirely white. "We're going to win when we look like America. We need to be white, we need to be brown, we need to be black, we need to with tattoos, without tattoos, with pony tails, without pony tails, with beards, without."

More here.

While I've been critical of some of Paul's recent comments to an audience of Christian conservatives in Iowa, there's little question in my mind that he is potentially the most transformative national politician on the scene. Between his glorious filibuster, his foreign policy speech at Heritage, his dialogue with students at historically black colleges such as Howard in D.C. and Simmons in Louisville, and his great "free minds and free markets" speech at CPAC, no figure in either party is laying down a generally consistent and principled case for libertarian policies at the federal level.

That he is openly exhorting the Republican party to open itself up to tattoo-wearing, ponytail-rocking, multi-ethnic folks is all to the good. As I noted after Glenn Beck's September 2010 rally, the crowd there looked like the America that shops at Walmart - and that's not a dig. Tattoos, piercings, and skulls are worn with American flag pins and shirts and ultra-casual fashions everywhere. If the GOP can't embrace not just the ethnicizing of America but the gothicizing and ZZ-Topification of America, it's done.

On a political and ideological level, the Rand Pauls and Justin Amashes and Tom Massies of the Republican Party are at their most powerful when they envision a federal government that does less in economic and social life. They are not nihilists but radical decentralists who think that classical liberal and libertarian ideals are all about creating a basic framework in which different people and groups can peaceably get on with the business of living the good life as they define it (this of course was precisely the message that underwrote Ron Paul's immense appeal, especially among younger people). The ideal America under such a plan is one in which people are constantly running their own experiments in living and learning and adapting from one another. Top-down controls and uniform appearance in style and skin are equally incompatible in such a world.

Forbes' Poulos makes some very interesting and funny points about what he dubs semi-ironically as Rand Paul's "crash hipster outreach project." Read the whole thing, but here's the conclusion, which speaks to how a looser, more explicitly libertarian GOP is a legitimately interesting undertaking:

...it’s not very surprising to me that the hipster outreach pitch is being made by the son of the guy whose most ardent supporters are still unironically calling for a Love Revolution. You can laugh at the “Paultards” all you want, but I tell you this: America could use a lot more citizens calling unironically for a radical infusion of love into our public dealings. And if Republicans don’t figure out how to get on board with that project, they’ll find that in short order they’re feeling very little love indeed.

Democrats and their partisans in the press have been digging the intra-party fighting among Republicans of late - the Angry Birds vs. the Wacko Birds dust-up between establishment pols and the more-libertarian wing of the GOP. That's understandable, because it plays into a comforting narrative of the Party of Lincoln as practically about to go out of business. I prefer to read the in-fighting as a sign that the Republican Party still might have a future (especially if it embraces a libertarian outlook). And at the very least, at the Republicans are talking about what they stand for in a meaningful way. What is the Democrats' game plan after Obama, who has been just a big disaster for his party as George W. Bush was for his? Who are the next generation of Democratic leaders, either in statehouses or at the national level? The GOP may not be particularly vital, but compared to the Democrats, you can easily pick out a dozen figures who have a pulse and are under 60 years old. You turn to the Democrats and there's nobody that comes to mind.

A.M. Links: Eric Holder Approved Seizure of Fox Reporter's Records, Boy Scouts Accept Gay Kids, Fold Your iPad (Eventually)

2013-05-24T09:00:00-04:00

Reportedly, 'twas Eric Holder, himself, who signed off on the seizure of Fox News reporter James Rosen's emails. No recusal this time, Eric!
After taking the Fifth, IRS apparatchik Lois Lerner was placed on administrative leave, amidst calls for her (and other officials) to be fired for the targeting of conservative groups.
The Boy Scouts have voted to accept gay scouts, but they're still not ready for gay scout leaders.
The leader of a United Nations inquiry into the use of drones says he welcomes President Obama's speech vowing to keep killing people with drones, but to eventually wind things down.
Insured losses as a result of the Oklahoma tornadoes may top $5 billion, say experts.
Maine lawmakers follow the lead of Texas in moving to require warrants to track people's locations via their cellphones
New developments in the printing of graphene-based electronic patterns may allow for foldable electronic devices in the near future.

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Kurt Loder Reviews The Hangover Part III and Before Midnight

2013-05-24T09:00:00-04:00

The aching unfunniness of The Hangover Part III shouldn’t be a surprise, writes Kurt Loder. Any franchise chained to the premise of wedding-related debauchery can only stagger downhill after its first installment. Still, this movie rarely rises to the level of even our most minimal expectations.

In Before Midnight, on the other hand, director Richard Linklater devised a way to examine the mysteries of love without boring us all stiff. The method he employed involves little in the way of plot or action, but lots and lots of talk, captured in very long takes. The talk had to be really good, of course, and it is.

View this article.

Lois Lerner Notwithstanding, Here Are 3 More Reasons to Fear The IRS

2013-05-24T08:33:00-04:00

As IRS official Lois Lerner tangles with Congress over whether she has waived her Fifth Amendment rights, let's not lose sight of the big picture: Even apart from the current revelations and admissions that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups for politicized scrutiny, there's a ton of reasons to be leery of the federal government's tax collection operation.

Click above to watch a 90-second vid that details 3 More Reasons to Fear the IRS. We released this originally on May 21 and here's a snippet of why we all should be afraid - very, very afraid - of business as usual at the IRS:

1. It’s always been a political weapon.

John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon all sicced the IRS on enemies and dissenters. And they were just following in the footsteps of Franklin Roosevelt, whose son said his father was “the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution.”

2. Its rulings are super-complicated and capricious.

The federal tax code is longer than Atlas Shrugged, Ulysses, and the Old Testament put together. It’s so complicated that even former IRS commissioners need help preparing their returns.

3. It's Obamacare's enforcement mechanism.

Starting next year, the IRS will be the cop patrolling the Affordable Care Act’s mandates, with the agency overseeing some 47 tax provisions related to Obamacare. You won’t just be reporting income anymore. You’ll be explaining when, where, and how you bought health care as well.

More details, links, and vid versions here.

Friday Funnies: Graduation Day

2013-05-24T07:00:00-04:00

Brickbat: The Biggest Bully

2013-05-24T06:00:00-04:00

In California, Arroyo High School principal Larry Smith singled out one student during an anti-bullying assembly and accused him of bullying another student. Specifically, in front of more than 400 other students, Smith accused the boy of circulating an inappropriate photograph of a female student. The boy immediately denied the charge. Smith later called another assembly and admitted he had been wrong and apologized. School officials refuse to say whether Smith will face any discipline.