Morning links

The FDA won’t allow vaping companies to tell their customers the obvious truth that vaping is far safer than cigarettes.  This blatant censorship is just one in a string of new regulations designed to suffocate the industry that could have been the preeminent extinction-level event for combustible tobacco.  It’s a tragedy that will be measured in the lives lost to deadly cigarettes that, absent the regulation, would have been saved through vaping.

There’s a civil war being waged within the U.S. military.  A military needs enemies if it wants a bigger budget, and who better to take that place than the Russians?  Senior military officials want the gold to keep flowing uninterrupted, so they hype a nonexistent threat from Putin.  But how many U.S. troops would be willing to die so that the gravy train can keep rolling?  Some within the military establishment are beginning to call BS on the endless fear-mongering.

Hillary isn’t the only State Dept. official careless with classified communication.  It’s everyone.

A thoughtful essay, accompanied with video, of why it’s probably bad in the long run for cops to lose their cool so easily and slap around teenagers.  Some may watch the video of the cop smacking the kid and feel a catharsis of the “he got what he deserved!” variety, but what is lost is the remnants of goodwill that police have with the young and the poor.  But hey, for some, it just feels too good to watch a mouthy youth get punched.

This suspect might be imprisoned indefinitely for not decrypting hard drives.  This is scary.  The suspect hasn’t even been charged with a crime, but prosecutors just know that there’s child porn on this guy’s hard drives, which he’s refusing to decrypt.  So he’s been locked up for seven months, held in contempt of court for refusing.  So, should government be able to jail someone indefinitely for refusing to decrypt?  Just one battle in the Surveillance State’s war on encryption.

Canada to allow prescription heroin.  Voices of reason were able to cut through the cacophony of the drug warriors’ paranoia long enough to get something positive accomplished.

Three US states are down to only one Obamacare insurer.  Vox’s Sarah Kliff ponders what would happen if that number dropped to zero.

Remember: The cancerous growth of the medical bureaucracy didn’t begin with Obamacare.  It’s roots are far deeper, and far older.

Max Hill offers excellent reasons we should be getting paid in Bitcoin.  Decentralized, anonymous, digital money is a black eye for the Surveillance State, a victory for liberty.

 

 

 

Author: S. Smith