REPUBLIC REBORN

MICHAEL DOUGHERTY: One cheer for Tulsi Gabbard Ed: Important article for “conservatives” and libertarians. Gabbard will steamroll over her Democratic rivals, and, barring a third Ron Paul campaign, I’ll be voting for her.

Kansas City Star: Rand Paul accuses McConnell, other senators of forming ‘war caucus’

Do we want more Barney Fifes with a Punisher complex? This is how it happens: Alabama police officer won’t be charged for killing wrong person after mall shooting

The next chapter in the end of the drug war: Denver to vote on whether to decriminalize magic mushrooms

Bloomberg: Major DNA testing company sharing genetic data with FBI

Reason: Are you a woman travelling alone? Marriott might be watching you.

Also Reason: Marine vet films traffic stop from porch. California cop gives him a concussion.

Forbes: Could Apple ban unethical facial recognition and become patron saint of privacy?

High Times: Florida judge rejects limits on medical marijuana dispensaries

AMITY SCHLAES: America needs to relearn economics

SHIKHA DALMIA: President Trump: Market-based visas can buy you a lot of border security: “Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh has proposed creating an additional visa category called the gold card that would give foreigners the option of working and living legally in the United States— but not citizenship—after paying a tariff. Congress could adjust tariff rates by age and education to guarantee that all immigrants make a net positive fiscal contribution. This would potentially cut back illegal flows and give the country much greater operational control over the border than physical barriers ever could. It would also generate additional funds to go after drug traffickers or criminals who pose a genuine security threat.”

Ed: This is a wonderful idea, and such a reasonable alternative to the black-and-white choice of either full citizenship or undocumented status. Given the reality of how much the human smugglers charge to get people into the US illegally, why not create a situation where that money isn’t funding human trafficking?

Military Times: Did Defense officials hide details of border mission from Congress?

BONNIE KRISTIAN: America’s abuse of national emergencies is the real national emergency : “Trump’s moseying course toward an emergency declaration is revealing, but not only where his border wall nonsense is concerned. Our entire national emergency system, governed in its present form by the National Emergencies Act of 1976, is ill-considered and ripe for abuse. It provides the president with a convenient sidestep of the legislature and Congress with yet another opportunity to abdicate responsibility to the executive. It is overdue for reform.”

RYAN MCMAKEN: The unseen costs of humanitarian intervention

FEE: If you’re warm right now, thank capitalism

The Intercept: Police make more than 10 million arrests each year, but that doesn’t mean they’re solving crimes

Forbes: Scientists rethink psychedelics as attitudes change toward formerly illicit drugs

Yes, I’m using “Daily” in the title, despite my inconsistent blogging habit, mainly with the hope of committing to a daily routine here again. And today’s quote comes from page 83 of Jose Ortega y Gasset’s 1932 masterpiece, The Revolt of the Masses:

“Liberalism, it is well to recall this day, is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak. It was incredible that the human species should have arrived at so noble an attitude, so paradoxical, so refined, so anti-natural. Hence it is not to be wondered at that this same humanity should soon appear anxious to get rid of it. It is a discipline too difficult and complex to take firm root on earth.”

The term ‘liberalism’ here used is referring to 19th century “classical liberalism”, the liberalism that held as its noblest ideal that of liberty, and the noblest goal being that of extending the sphere of voluntary cooperation between consenting adults as far as possible, of breaking down the legal prison that every government on the planet had up to then placed around their subjects. That term may be lost today, but the ideas behind it are burning as bright as ever, whether in the marijuana legalization movement, the vaccine choice movement, as well as the various movements to halt and reverse the rapid growth of the total Surveillance State. The most effective way to empower each and every single person in this country, and give them the greatest chance for success in this life, is to expand their ability to choose, to remove every possible barrier to their choices. To advocate for liberty is to advocate for an ideal of unrestricted choice.

KFOR: Officials: Over 35,000 Oklahoma patients have medical marijuana licenses

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: St. Louis officer accused of killing fellow officer in Russian-roulette shooting is booked into jail

Reason: When Reason requested the new L.A. sheriff’s disciplinary records, the deputies union got an injunction to block us

Also Reason: The cops were the aggressors in this week’s deadly Houston drug raid. Ed: A gang of Barney Fifes, living out their Punisher-esque fantasy, busted down the door in a no-knock drug raid, immediately killed the middle-aged couple’s dogs, and then proceeded to murder the couple when confronted with the natural armed response. There is a pattern of police departments hiring those with military fantasies yet could never hack it in the actual military. The end result: innocent dead, a lawsuit, and a city’s taxpayers on the hook for millions.

The Week: The forensic pathologist who shed light on police violence

Slate: We are completely overreacting to vaping

The Verge: San Francisco proposal would ban government facial recognition use in city

TED GALEN CARPENTER: Washington’s incoherent policy towards dictators: “It’s been either self-serving fawning collaboration or hostile meddling. Will Venezuela be any different?”

Libertarian Institute: Venezuela needs to sort itself without US intervention

Independent: US no longer in top 20 least-corrupt countries, major survey finds

Activist Post: Walgreens, Nestle, Coors, and more use iris-tracking cameras to spy on shoppers

Inverse: Tripping brains reveal how the drug creates the psychedelic experience

RCS: Physicists made a flying army of laser Schroedinger’s Cats

Reason: Homeschooling produces better-educated, more-tolerant kids. Politicians hate that.

FEE: The media needs to keep you angry. Don’t feed into it.

Techdirt: Seattle newspaper wins federal court case, opens up reporting on secret law enforcement surveillance

PETER VAN BUREN: Can the new tabloid media ever be redeemed?

High Times: Massachusetts rakes in almost $25 million in first two months of cannabis legalization

Reason: Oklahoma cops jail four men for transporting legal hemp: “Jamie Baumgartner of Colorado, whose Panacea Life Sciences was the intended recipient of the hemp, tells Fox31 that his company ordered the plant from Kentucky, that a manifest on the truck identified the cargo as hemp, and that Panacea Life Sciences’ contractors received “pre-clearance from the State of Oklahoma” to transport hemp through the state on its way from Kentucky to Colorado. This should have been enough to ward off police harassment.”

Techdirt: Judge recommends vacating sentence of one of the FBI’s handcrafted “terrorists”

JIM BOVARD: Attorney General nominee Wiliam Barr’s connection to Ruby Ridge, defending FBI snipers

FEE: Canada’s new drunk driving law will make you thankful for the 4th Amendment

Consortium News: Bases, bases, everywhere…except in the Pentagon’s report

TAC: NATO is a danger, not a guarantor of peace

PAT BUCHANAN: At age 70, time to rethink NATO

Common Dreams: Bring the troops home, but also stop the bombing

The Hill: Amazon shareholders push to halt facial recognition contracts with police

High Times: Terminally-ill patients in Australian hospital to be treated with psilocybin

Futurism: China claims US police are using its facial recognition software

Geek: US cops can’t force you to unlock your phone with face, finger

Barney Fife thinks he’s the Punisher: Mom fights back against cop who pulled gun on her child at bus stop

Washington Examiner: Report: Immigration loophole OK’d 8,686 child marriages in US

Reason: Supreme Court to consider whether police can order blood draws from unconscious drivers

The Intercept: Democratic Party voters are becoming more pro-war than Republicans Ed: Democrats don’t care about Democrat wars, and Republicans don’t care about Republican wars. Party trumps principle every time.

The Federalist: New York Times reveals FBI retaliated against Trump for firing James Comey Ed: Internecine conflict within government should be celebrated.

High Times: Is psychedelic healing in your genes? A team of scientists seeks to find out

Reason: Why drug traffickers laugh at Trump’s border wall

FEE: Canada’s Laffer Curve lesson: government collects less revenue from high-income earners after Trudeau tax hike

Motherboard: AT&T to stop selling location data to third parties after investigation

The Week: The shameful insubordination of John Bolton

JIM BOVARD: Karl Marx and the great socialist revival

RAND PAUL: Americans have a right to boycott, even when it’s wrong

Wired: Synthetic organisms are about to challenge what ‘alive’ really means

Activist Post: “Internet of roads”: Colorado goes all-in with increased radiation and surveillance

Truthdig: The mystery military bases the Pentagon doesn’t want you to know about

Reason: Having won the war against straws, California mulls a crackdown on paper receipts

FEE: Data show California is a living example of the good intentions fallacy

High Times: Vermont Supreme Court rules marijuana smell is not grounds for search

TheFreeThoughtProject: Cop tries to kill woman’s dog, shoots fellow cop in the back instead

Motherboard: The decline of American peyote

Futurism: Physicist: Black holes could be portal for hyperspace travel

The Intercept: Newly-released FOIA documents shed light on border patrol’s seemingly limitless authority

DeepStateBlog: The CIA’s rising profile in politics

Activist Post: DHS has equipped 400 police departments with military-grade sound cannons

Reason: Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel will finally lose his job, over a year after the Parkland shooting

Techdirt: California Supreme Court rejects police union’s attempt to block new open records law

Mises: Ending the war on the non-drug known as hemp

Verge: Carriers can sell your location to bounty hunters because ISP privacy is broken