Reason.  Pretty good, but probably much easier to come out in favor of encryption now that we all know Obama is against it.

John Kerry is doing the finger-pointing at ISIS to gin up some coalition airstrikes, probably.  The “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine of endless war will be dusted off and paraded around the media outlets most favored by the Political Class.  An “imminent” mass attack by ISIS will be zero hour, and the Warfare State will finally get it’s regime-change war in Syria.  CNN

From Reason.  US blew $113 billion since 2002 in Afghanistan, $8.4 billion of that going to counter-narcotics.  It’s been a miserable failure.  Opium has been the most successful cash crop since the US invasion.  The source of the problem is the US war with the Taliban, who had opium under control until Uncle Sam invaded.

The Guardian.  Interesting sentences: “One famous product was Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, a morphine and alcohol concoction that was marketed to parents of fussy children as a “perfectly harmless and pleasant” way to produce a “natural quiet sleep, by relieving the child from pain”. After the civil war, even more potent drugs entered the market, including the opiate heroin (introduced by Bayeraround the same time as aspirin) and the stimulant cocaine, which was used in everything from cough syrups to Coca-Cola (despite the company’s stringent denials).”

Sheesh.

Obama may settle, giving them $5 billion.  Inside Sources

The Guardian: “An official investigation into the fatal shooting of Oregon militia leader LaVoy Finicum has raised questions about whether federal agents lied about their actions and removed bullet casings from the scene, adding to accusations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) engaged in a cover-up…

…Further bolstering theories of evidence removal, law enforcement sources told the Oregonian this week that they had seen an FBI video that showed an agent appear to bend over twice and pick up something near where the two shots likely occurred.”

“Us yokels out here in flyover country”…et cetera.  I had always assumed it was because the Political Class fly *over us, rather than land, as they crisscross the continent between the coasts.  National Geographic.

Due to their battle with an overweening Surveillance State.  CNET

Third-party encryption options means that the FBI’s battle with Apple is largely futile.  If the feds get their “backdoor”, just install one of many open-source encryption apps.  betanews

Sheldon Richman on Trump’s aggrieved-Empire routine.  Antiwar.  Relevant chunks:

The key to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign – the feature that explains nearly everything else about that toxic dump – is his aggrieved-nation shtick. Just about everything Trump says (when he’s not adoring himself or belittling others) is about how the once-great American nation has been humbled by the rest of the world. To hear him tell it, the United States is a 99-pound weakling who repeatedly has had sand kicked in his face by everyone. “We don’t win anymore,” he says. “We don’t win with trade. We don’t win with the military. We don’t win…

…Trump promises to get even, to turn things around so that we eat their lunch, finally. For Trump a deal – and he is the self-proclaimed master of the art – is for the purpose of dealing someone a defeat. “I beat China all the time,” he told an interviewer, referring to his private business. (In reality trade is free cooperation for mutual benefit, a win-win endeavor.)

In Trump’s view (or in his view of what others want to hear), foreigners are not the only ones who abuse America. There’s also a fifth column that’s stabbing “us” in the back. These are the forces of political correctness – the pansy “liberals” who aren’t tough on protesters, illegal immigrants, Muslims and lots of other Others. These appeasers are as much the enemy as those outside the country. It’s a vast conspiracy aimed at real Americans to keep “our country” from being great again. And so they must all be stopped, even if it takes a little strong-arming.”

I will always find it hilarious that Trump voters believe they’re the vanguard of some revolution to “re-take America”.  But Republicans always, always run on a platform of “taking our country back”.  Trump doesn’t care about liberty, or peace, which are the only truly revolutionary platforms.