Improved relations with Iran and Cuba are the only positive aspects of Obama’s presidency, says Ron Paul

How much safety did $4 trillion buy American taxpayers during the War on Terror?

The economic collapse, and resulting human toll, of Venezuela won’t affect the appeal of the system that caused that collapse.  Socialism is the total, top-down control of society.  What is so appealing about that system?

Robert Tracisnki exposes the seemingly innocuous sentiments that led to the starvation of Venezuela

New York state cops may soon be granted the power to subject drivers’ phones to an intrusive “textalyzer”, if they suspect the driver of texting while driving

Unsurprisingly, marijuana, one of the world’s safest drugs, drops in price following legalization.  It also becomes far safer, as it leaves the black market and enters the open market, where producers and consumers have recourse to courts of law.

Also, Germany will legalize medical marijuana next year

Of course Russia is mad that the U.S. sent tanks within miles of their border.  This is reckless provocation in the extreme.  How would we feel is Russia lined our border with tanks?

British-made cluster bombs are being used in Yemen, according to Amnesty International.  Cluster bombs, bombs that scatter many smaller bombs over a large area, kill innocents.  16 Yemen civilians have been killed in the last year by accidentally picking up these unexploded mini-bombs.

The arrival of the age of quantum computing

How does one feed a T-Rex?

When is it worth running a red light in a busy intersection at high speed and risking the deaths of women, children, entire families, etc.?  Blue Privilege means you don’t have to weigh that cost. Yahoo

The lessons to learn from Colorado’s experience with legal marijuana

Police will lie if it helps them, which is why filming the police is so crucial

Cops and prison guards oppose marijuana legalization in California because they’re addicted to the torrent of taxpayer dollars used to fight the Drug War

License plate scanners, just one among many spy tools for the Surveillance State

Cops disguised surveillance van with Google Maps logos

Experts say Obama’s new overtime rule will be devastating for the economy

Chinese planes intercept US spy plane in South China Sea

Families of 9/11 victims can now sue the Saudi government for its involvement in the attacks

New Snowden documents are coming.  The Intercept is planning a big release.

The US doesn’t need the Saudis.  Time to put an end to the Saudi’s taxpayer-funded gravy train.

Texas will build a gold depository

Ilya Somin gives us three reasons why we must remember the atrocities committed by Communist governments

Politicians should probably start checking what tabs they have open before sharing a screenshot from their computer.  Actually, they shouldn’t.  The fallout is too hilarious.

Should the answer to mind-numbingly long TSA lines be more TSA workers?  Toss the wretches out of airports, abolish the TSA, and let airports handle their own security.

Sweden rejects NATO membership.  One less international tripwire, one less country on the military dole.

So, the U.S. is going to send weapons into Libya.  Who’s going to get them?  There are no good guys to arm in that dumpster fire.

Mexico’s drug war cost the country over $100 billion worth of instability and violence

Felony charge dropped against woman after video surfaces of her being beaten by cops while 8 months pregnant.  ALWAYS film the police.

Former St. Louis cop charged with murder.  $900,000 settlement over the 2011 shooting.  Trigger-happy cops are costing these cities a ton of money.

Psychedelic mushrooms alleviate severe depression in clinical trial.  Expect a pushback from Big Pharma as it threatens their toxic anti-depressant monopoly.

The War on Drugs: a trillion-dollar failure

CIA “accidentally” destroys its sole copy of Senate torture report

Mother stands up to SWAT team attempting to kidnap daughter for the purpose of doping her with Big Pharma’s anti-psychotics.  Sadly, the State did kidnap her child and force her to take the dangerous meds.

Socialism has utterly ruined Venezuela.  Socialism is really just the end result of cronyism; what happens when cronyism consumes its host.

Ron Paul on the NDAA: the military/industrial complex jackpot of 2017

Pretty good tradeoff, right?  Maybe those long lines are designed to push people into making a deal with the surveillance devil in exchange for more convenience.

More on this at the New York Times: PreCheck Expansion Plan Raises Privacy Concerns

Yikes.  Hard to tell which government agency to be the most afraid of. Wired

Federal agents hid cameras and microphones in an Oakland courthouse for 10 months, spying on everyone within. East Bay Express

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.

Years of the War on Terror have weakened U.S. ability to fight an actual war

23 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in the past three months.  We should care about what thug states that we fund do with our money.

Speaking of thug states: Saudi Arabia continues its brutal U.S.-backed/funded war of attrition on Yemen’s civilian population

Neocons have a deep-seated fear of peace with Iran.  Too wedded to the narrative of a threatening Iran.  It’s a lucrative business, the spreading of war propaganda.

The creeping militarization of America, the sheepening of American citizens.  We’ve been taught from birth to always submit to someone wearing a badge or military uniform.  So the police state comes waving a flag, carrying a cross, and most people aren’t able to anything but put up signs saying “we support our police!”.

Mandatory maternity leave for new mothers means less women being hired.  How much thought really goes into bills like this?  Raising the cost of hiring someone will make it more likely that they won’t be hired.  The same logic applies to the minimum wage.

FBI director says that filming cops increases crimes rates.  In reality, it decreases crime committed by cops.  Not surprising coming from someone who demands total secrecy on the part of the Surveillance State, combined with total transparency of the population.

Speaking of the FBI, they apparently planted surveillance microphones all over San Francisco, ostensibly to catch a real estate fraud ring.  They always have a ready-made excuse in case they get caught.