Loyola University Economics Professor Walter Block did not hold back in responding to the Trump administration’s plan to ban flavored e-cigarettes, as well as efforts by local and state governments to impose various types of vaping-related bans. Interviewed Wednesday at RT by host Rick Sanchez, Block derided banning vaping products as “fascist,” as well as “idiocy,” “moronical behavior,” and “utter nonsense.” Like other prohibitions of adults engaging in nonviolent activities, Block categorizes prohibitions on vaping as improper paternalist actions by government.
Continue readingLast month the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), who many people would expect to support the United States government butting out of marijuana matters, was urging the US government to tightly regulate the marijuana market. On Wednesday, two major marijuana industry associations joined in, urging the US government to impose regulations on marijuana businesses.
Continue readingPresident Donald Trump announced Tuesday morning at Twitter that John Bolton is no longer his national security advisor. Who might replace Bolton in this position the holders of which have a history of playing a significant role in shaping United States foreign policy? On July 23, Steven Nelson wrote at the Washington Examiner that insiders said retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor was being considered as a potential replacement for Bolton.
Continue readingMany states have for decades imposed difficult to virtually impossible hurdles that third parties must jump over for their candidates to appear on general election ballots. But, it is not only Libertarian, Green, and other third-party candidates who can be denied their places on election ballots. Alex Isenstadt reported Friday at Politico that the state Republican parties of Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina were “poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers.”
Continue readingThe Extreme Risk Protection Order Act (S 506) is legislation proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the United States Senate. The bill seeks to subsidize the operation of state red flag law programs in which, via ex parte and low-proof-threshold determinations, people are denied the legal ability to possess guns and subjected to gun confiscation.
Feinstein’s bill, however, does not go far enough: It should be amended to also subsidize ensuring some of those people so deprived of the ability to legally possess guns are also thrown into involuntary mental treatment. That is the recommendation of D.J. Jaffe in a Friday National Review editorial.
Condemning and even barring people who support, or refuse to oppose, boycotting, divesting from, or sanctioning Israel from being employees or contractors of state or local government entities has been the rage in American state legislatures over the last few years. Kentucky has become one of the latest states to impose one of these anti-boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) laws, with Governor Matt Blevin having signed such legislation last week.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that calls for treating people and businesses who have interacted financially with the National Rifle Association (NRA) much as states with anti-BDS laws treat people with particular ideas related to Israel. The resolution terms the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” and declares that “the City and County of San Francisco should take every reasonable step to assess the financial and contractual relationships our vendors and contractors have with this domestic terrorist organization” and “should take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization.”
Continue readingIn a Tuesday memorandum to employees, Walmart Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Doug McMillon declared that Walmart, the huge retailer that is among the 50 largest public companies in the world, would be ending some gun and ammunition sales and making other changes to gun policies in its stores. McMillon, in his memo, also says he would be writing that day to United States President Donald Trump and Congress leaders calling for action on several restrictions on the exercise of gun-related rights. McMillon calls these restrictions “common sense measures.”
Continue readingWe have reached the point when over 90 million Americans live in states that have legalized marijuana and when legalization seems set to expand to more states soon. The United States government has already backed off from prosecuting and incarcerating people complying with either this recreational marijuana legalization that varies from state to state or with the medical marijuana legalization in place in many more states. This situation suggests a clear path to the US government adopting a national legalization policy in which it just butts out, leaving marijuana matters to state and local governments.
Continue readingSen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), soon after his presidential run announcement this year, proclaimed his advocacy for ending the war on drugs. Many people would take such a declaration as indicating Sanders, as president, would work to stop the United States government from arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people for the possession, use, transfer, or production of now-illegal drugs.
However, it turns out Sanders supports a mere curtailment of such government actions, not their elimination. In a couple interviews this month, Sanders makes clear that, even if he gets his way as president, much of the US government’s war on drugs will continue.
Argued as needed to prevent mass shootings, government schools across America are operating surveillance programs targeting students. Like surveillance pursued by the United States government’s National Security Agency (NSA), the schools, with the assistance of private companies, are extensively tracking the activities of all students, including students’ social media posts, emails, and use of programs such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office.
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