By the numbers: Illinois two-year colleges with lowest graduation rates

By Watchdog News - October 31, 2018 at 09:46PM

Northwestern College-Chicago Campus was among the 10 two-year colleges in Illinois with the lowest graduation rates, according to a Watchdog analysis of federal education data.

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By the numbers: Colorado two-year colleges with lowest graduation rates

By Watchdog News - October 31, 2018 at 09:33PM

Truckee Meadows Community College was among the 10 two-year colleges in Colorado with the lowest graduation rates, according to a Watchdog analysis of federal education data.

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By the numbers: Louisiana two-year colleges with lowest graduation rates

By Watchdog News - October 31, 2018 at 08:33PM

Delgado Community College was among the 10 two-year colleges in Louisiana with the lowest graduation rates, according to a Watchdog analysis of federal education data.

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By the numbers: Minnesota two-year colleges with lowest graduation rates

By Watchdog News - October 31, 2018 at 07:57PM

White Earth Tribal and Community College was among the 10 two-year colleges in Minnesota with the lowest graduation rates, according to a Watchdog analysis of federal education data.

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By the numbers: Virginia two-year colleges with lowest graduation rates

By Watchdog News - October 31, 2018 at 07:21PM

J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College was among the 10 two-year colleges in Virginia with the lowest graduation rates, according to a Watchdog analysis of federal education data.

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Medicaid work requirement supporters concerned about expanding exemptions

By By Tyler Arnold | Watchdog.org - October 31, 2018 at 06:55PM

Conservatives and Republican lawmakers in Virginia are concerned that expanded exemptions from work requirements for state Medicaid recipients might render the requirements ineffective.

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By the numbers: Pennsylvania two-year colleges with lowest graduation rates

By Watchdog News - October 31, 2018 at 06:49PM

Harrisburg Area Community College was among the 10 two-year colleges in Pennsylvania with the lowest graduation rates, according to a Watchdog analysis of federal education data.

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Central Illinois businesses denied again in unfair taxation suit against county

By By Cole Lauterbach | Watchdog.org - October 31, 2018 at 06:22PM

A business owner who sued an Illinois county claiming officials singled him and other local business owners out for tax hikes plans to continue the legal fight despite another setback.

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Wave of Burning Man-Related Drug Arrests Won't Go to Trial

By Brian Doherty - October 31, 2018 at 06:00PM

As reported here back in August, a cabal of federal and state agencies conducted a campaign of onerously harassing car stops and subsequent drug arrests on the main road heading to the Burning Man festival in the weeks ramping up to its start.

Many of those stopped, and the Burning Man organization itself, made noise, complaining that there were obvious Fourth Amendment issues raised by the excuses for the stops and the subsequent dog-triggered searches, ticketing, and arrests. The feds insisted the Burning Man connection was pure coincidence, and that this was just part of an existing Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) campaign to stop opiate trafficking in tribal lands.

Now the Reno Gazette-Journal reports that the courts are agreeing with those who saw something fishy about the pullovers and arrests. The Washoe County District Attorney's Office "chose not to pursue seven of the nine cases." According to documents obtained by the Gazette-Journal, the district attorney's office said "the cases would not hold up in state court."

Despite the "opioid eradication" excuse, none of the drug arrests were for opioids.

The Gazette-Journal also reports that:

During one of the stops, the officers appeared to hold the suspect beyond the designated time limit in Nevada for a Terry stop, or a brief detention under reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

"Police must diligently pursue a means of investigation during a Terry stop that is likely to dispel their suspicions quickly," the district attorney's office wrote, noting the 79-minute length of the suspect's detention...

"The Fourth Amendment issues are troublesome," wrote the district attorney's office in one of the cases submitted.

In the case, no probable cause is listed for the initial traffic stop, which later led to a search and seizure of what appeared to be cocaine, according to the arrest report. The report did not specify the quantity of the controlled substance...

In another case, the report lacked enough information about the time of the stop, the reason for the stop and the length of the stop. The stop led to a K9 search of the vehicle and a federal agent found mushrooms and acid tablets during the vehicle search, according to the arrest report.

"I do not believe I can prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial," wrote the district attorney's office.

As reported in August, the Burning Man organization was contemplating suing over the apparent rights violations and their effect on the event's operations, but such a suit has not yet been filed. However Burning Man spokesman Jim Graham told the Gazette-Journal they still consider it "clear from the outset the BIA was targeting Burning Man participants with their traffic stops."

I wrote the first history of the Burning Man event in my 2004 book This is Burning Man.

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By the numbers: Florida two-year colleges with lowest graduation rates

By Watchdog News - October 31, 2018 at 06:15PM

Miami Lakes Educational Center and Technical College was among the 10 two-year colleges in Florida with the lowest graduation rates, according to a Watchdog analysis of federal education data.

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Retaliation case against Speaker Madigan moves forward with discovery

By By Greg Bishop | Watchdog.org - October 31, 2018 at 05:32PM

A lawsuit filed by a former campaign worker against the Democratic Party of Illinois alleging harassment and retaliation is moving forward after a judge denied the party's motion to dismiss the case.

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San Diego County Officials Said They Could Take Children Away From Parents and Examine Their Genitals, a Court Disagrees

By Robby Soave - October 31, 2018 at 05:10PM

San Diego County may not remove children from their homes and subject them to highly intrusive physical examinations without parental permission, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ruled.

This ruling was eight years in the making. The case stems from an April 2010 incident involving Michael and Melissa Mann and their four young children. The Manns had apparently spanked at least one of the kids with a wooden spoon as a form of punishment—a dreadful thing, to be sure—which attracted the attention of San Diego's Health & Human Services Agency. The county took the children away from their parents and placed them in a temporary shelter, the Polinsky Children's Center, while the parents went to court to regain custody.

At Polinsky, a doctor performed a 22-step medical exam requiring "blood samples and a gynecological and rectal exam," according to the Associated Press. The 9th Circuit's decision elaborated on what this entailed:

For the gynecological exam, Dr. Graff testified that she asked the girls to "kind of drop their legs into a frog leg situation," and "separate[d] the labia and look[ed] at the hymen . . . ." Staff also administered tuberculosis tests, requiring pricks of the children's skin, and the children gave blood and urine samples for drug screening. If staff observed signs of abuse, the County required them to photograph the abuse for the children's records. No one notified Mark and Melissa that their children were examined.

County officials did not obtain a court order authorizing these examinations, nor did the parents sign off. Indeed, the Manns didn't even know what had been done to their kids until one of them said something about it later.

The county's actions violated the Manns' Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, the court ruled:

The Manns were deprived of their right to raise their children without undue interference from the government, the right to make medical decisions for their children, and the right to privacy in their family life. The Mann children were subjected to invasive, potentially traumatizing procedures absent constitutionally required safeguards. Although we must balance these fundamental rights against the state's interest, we conclude that the County is constitutionally required to provide parental notice and obtain parental consent or judicial authorization for the protection of parents' and children's rights alike.

This case calls to mind the insane actions of police in Manassas, Virginia, who sought—and obtained—a warrant to give a 17-year-old boy an erection so they could photograph it as evidence in a teen sexting matter. To protect children from things like spanking and sexting, the authorities evidently believed it was necessary to subject them to sexual abuse.

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Sterigenics says lives at risk if its Illinois medical sterilization operations stop

By By Greg Bishop | Watchdog.org - October 31, 2018 at 04:59PM

After being sued over allegations it polluted the air with a cancer-causing chemical, a sterilization company said that if operations at its Willowbrook facility are interrupted, medical surgeries would be delayed and patients' lives would be put at risk.

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Let’s Not Treat Koch’s Libertarian Opposition to U.S. Military Action in Yemen as ‘Unexpected’

By Scott Shackford - October 31, 2018 at 04:45PM

Over at The Daily Beast, Spencer Ackerman takes note of the cross-ideological alliance trying to put an end to the U.S. military's participation in Saudi Arabia's deadly activities in Yemen. The alliance itself is not new. Libertarian-leaning Republicans like Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) and Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) have long been critical of our involvement with and funding of military actions that have killed innocents, especially since we are not officially at war with any of the nations involved.

What's new, Ackerman notes, is that the Charles Koch Institute is briefing conservative lawmakers about a resolution introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) that would direct the president to end all military action in Yemen that is not covered by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). To keep U.S. forces involved in the conflict, the White House would need to seek an explicit declaration of war from Congress.

The resolution has 69 co-sponsors right now, only three of which are Republicans (Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky among them). The Koch Institute and libertarian-conservative FreedomWorks are going to be pushing Republicans to try to get a vote in November, after the midterms. Whether such a resolution would actually change anything is a question that deserves our skepticism. Every presidential administration since that of George W. Bush has used the AUMF to justify military activity against any terrorist organization overseas.

The subheadline of Ackerman's piece calls the Koch Institute's involvement "unexpected." Media companies should be past this by now, particularly since they've obsessed over the Kochs for nearly a decade. The Koch Institute's foreign policy page is very clear that while it supports a strong military, it's opposed to the sort of interventionist adventures associated that have defined our activities in the Middle East for years now. Here's a blog post from 2016 expressing concern about military actions in Yemen and the negative consequences of our alliance with Saudi Arabia.

In fairness, Ackerman's reporting does not treat it like an unexpected development. He notes that FreedomWorks has been lobbying for a year on a failed effort by Lee and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to force a vote on military action in Yemen.

But it's nevertheless frustrating that the headlines tend to treat the Koch brothers' very common libertarian attitudes toward a number of policies as surprising. We saw it happen years ago where people seemed to be surprised at David Koch's position in support of gay marriage recognition in 2012, even though he, like many libertarians, had felt that way for quite a while (before many Democratic leaders, in fact). Media outlets seem to frequently feign surprise that the Kochs favor criminal justice reforms, even though they've supported such efforts for years.

There's a tendency among some media outlets to approach the Koch's libertarian brand of conservatism as though the brothers' deviation from typical Republican stances are unusual for them. They're not. When media outlets write this way, it tells libertarian audiences that they know very little about the Kochs and what separates libertarians from conservatives. Disappointing libertarians may seem like small potatoes, but it also misinforms people who know little about what distinguishes libertarians from Republicans. I would argue that this is actually bad: it allows Republicans to pass as lovers of liberty even when they're not, and—perhaps in rarer instances—it allows libertarians to join ranks with Republicans when they shouldn't. Treat them as distinct, and you make it harder for both groups to say one thing and then do another without consequence.

Disclosure: David Koch sits on the Board of Trustees for the Reason Foundation, which publishes this site.

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It's OK Not to Vote

By Katherine Mangu-Ward - October 31, 2018 at 04:30PM

You're probably a good person, or at least you try to be. You want to do the right thing. But are you having trouble shaking the sense the you might have better things to do next Tuesday than voting?

Instead of trying to motivate yourself and others to do a thing that feels pointless, why not stop to consider the possibility it actually is pointless? And not in a "all of human endeavor is pointless" kind of way. In a highly specific way that can actually be dealt with productively.

First things first: Your vote is wildly, insanely, hugely unlikely to influence the outcome of an election. No presidential election has ever been decided by a single vote. Academic surveys of close elections have turned up one 1910 Buffalo contest that may have been a true single-vote victory, and that's in 100 years of congressional races. In four of the 10 closest congressional and state legislative races dating back to 1898, further investigations and recounts nearly always unearthed margins significantly larger than what initially appeared in the official record. Your vote is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very unlikely to change the outcome of an election.

But what about the cascade effect, you ask? Won't my decision not to vote influence others, reducing voter turnout and thereby the legitimacy of our very form of government, hastening the demise of the American experiment?

Probably not! People are hard to convince. I'm not even convincing you right now! You're probably not going to vote anyway, and you're still not convinced by this post! That's OK. You're just making my point for me. Your actions are unlikely to influence others in this instance, so you should do what's right for you. (Alternately, you could skip voting and simply mislead others into thinking you did so. You can order a roll of "I Voted" stickers right now and have them in time for this Election Day and every single one thereafter.)

And listen, if you're in it for the warm fuzzies and the people-watching, that's fine. Maybe your own pleasure in the act of voting is the best you can do with your time to make the world a better place. That's OK. It's good to do things that make you happy! But for goodness' sake, stop looking askance at the stickerless.

We have parent-teacher conferences (Why, D.C. Public Schools? Why!?). We have columns to write about the nature of civic virtue. We have a shift at the soup kitchen. We have one stamp and two envelopes to mail. We have weddings or funerals to attend. We have Kenyan cows to Kickstart. We have a vacation later this year. We have jury duty. We have to correct someone who is wrong on the internet. We have puppies to pet. We have burritos to microwave. Exactly 100 percent of the activities listed above will have more tangible benefit in the world than voting.

To be clear: If someone said to me, "KMW, you are the only voter in this election. What you decide will in fact determine the outcome of the election," then I would vote. I do not think the act of ballot casting is (necessarily) intrinsically bad for all humans. But neither is it intrinsically good.

If you do want to dig deeper on that intrinsic badness angle angle, may I suggest philosopher Jason Brennan's book on the topic? In 2012, I was raring to go on the idea that voting might in fact be immoral. But I've mellowed in my old age. I don't want to fight you about whether an uninformed vote may actually cause harm by incentivizing stupider party platforms and rhetoric. I don't want to squabble about whether believing the candidates or the system are ethically flawed or produce bad results makes voters complicit in the subsequent abuses by the powerful. I don't want to holler about how damaging the cliche "if you don't vote you can't complain" is to the fundamental tenets of free speech. (Hm. I guess I actually still do want to fight about those things.)

Bless this lineup of "young people" who explained to New York magazine why they are not voting. They seem to be the only ones in this crazy world who understand opportunity cost. The article has been shared a lot, and I suspect mostly in the service of vote-shaming and fostering generational warfare. I am in favor of both shame and generational warfare, but this is not the way to go about it. Because, to be honest, nearly each and every one of these 20-somethings is making solid points.

"The idea of leaving work, forwarding all of my calls to my phone, to go stand in line for four hours, to probably get called back to work before I even get halfway through the line, sounds terrible," says Maria, 26. She goes on to note that she cares deeply about certain issues, including immigration and reproductive rights, but rightly recognizes that standing in line to vote is not an efficient way to further those causes. And there's Thomas, 28, who says: "Over the years, I've started to think maybe we don't have to frame this so much as an individual act with these moral consequences and that I need to stop being so dramatic about it." Wise. And of course Tim, the hero of the forum who bravely proclaims: "I hate mailing stuff; it gives me anxiety."

So here's a simple a proposition: Instead of voting on Election Day, just do the things that actually benefit you, your family, your community, or the world. Instead of queuing up to enact a symbolic ritual with a vanishingly small chance of altering the course of events, take the time and money you would have spent voting—even if it's very little time and/or money—and do literally anything else as long as it has real world impact. Including fighting with me on Twitter about this post, if you like.

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Wild Animal Populations Down 60 Percent Since 1970

By Ronald Bailey - October 31, 2018 at 04:15PM

Twenty-six million elephants roamed Africa before 1500, according to one estimate. That dropped to around 10 million just before the outbreak of the First World War and now stands at around 350,000 today. Some 200,000 wild lions hunted in Africa a century ago; now only 20,000 do. Between 30-50 million guanacos grazed the South American Pampas before the arrival of Columbus; now 2 million or so do.

In North America, 30 to 60 million bison used to ranged from the Appalachians to the Rockies, from the Gulf Coast to Alaska. By 1889, there were just 1,091 left. Today, the private and public herds number about 500,000 bison. Before 1500, North America was home to 60 to 400 million beavers; today 10 to 15 million live in the wild.

In 1900, India was home to 20,000 to 40,000 wild tigers. That number had fallen to just over 1,400 by 2006, but has since risen to more than 2,200 in 2014, when the last census was done. In 1800, about 1 million rhinoceroses lived on earth. Today there are fewer than 28,000. (The Chinese government just announced that it will allow the use of rhino horn and tiger parts for cultural and medical purposes.)

The new Living Planet Report amply confirms these anecdotal declines in wildlife abundance and goes further by aggregating data on overall vertebrate species population trends. The 2018 report's Living Planet Index, compiled by the Institute of Zoology and the World Wildlife Fund, measures biodiversity abundance levels based on 16,704 populations of 4,005 vertebrate species across the globe and shows an overall decline of 60 percent between 1970 and 2014. Basically, the number of animals living in the wild—mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians—has declined by 60 percent.

"The main drivers of biodiversity decline continue to be the overexploitation of species, agriculture and land conversion," notes the report. Overexploitation is exemplified by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization's 2018 finding that the percentage of marine fish stocks exploited at biologically unsustainable levels increased from 10 percent in 1974, to 33.1 percent in 2015.

Declining numbers of wild animals is not a new trend, but it might be reversible.

The historical trajectory of how animal populations have changed over the millennia is captured in a fascinating study on global biomass distribution published last June in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

The PNAS study notes that "human activity contributed to the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction between ≈50,000 and ≈3,000 years ago, which claimed around half of the large (>40 kg) land mammal species." Among the 178 now extinct mammal species are the woolly mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, ground sloths, toxodons, Irish elks, and woolly rhinoceros.

The study estimates that the biomass of wild land mammals measured in gigatonnes (1 billion metric tonnes) of carbon (GtC) prior to the period of extinction was at ≈ 0.02 GtC. The present-day biomass of wild land mammals is approximately sevenfold lower, at ≈ 0.003 GtC.

Despite these wild species extinctions and reduced numbers, the biomass of land animals has never been greater. Today, the PNAS study reports, the biomass of livestock (≈0.1 GtC) is an order of magnitude larger than that of all the terrestrial wild megafauna before the extinction period. Even the total biomass of humans (≈0.05 GtC) is around twice the biomass of all wild megafauna before the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction event.

Thus in a real sense, "the natural state of the world—to be full of large herbivorous animals and carnivores that eat them—continues to the present day," suggests York University conservation biologist Chris D. Thomas in his riveting book, Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction. Now the herbivores are cows and chickens and we're the carnivores.

As I have written earlier: I mourn the loss of species. Each species embodies complex genetic libraries, behavioral repertoires, and evolutionary histories that are both scientifically fascinating and aesthetically fulfilling. As a relatively well-off First Worlder, I have had the intense pleasure of walking in the wild within 40 feet of grazing rhinos and of swimming with Galápagos penguins. It would be a shame if future generations do not have an opportunity to enjoy such experiences.

There is good news with regard to the Living Planet Report's concerns about land conversion—the amount of land used to grow crops is declining. As a likely result of this trend, a recent study using satellite data found that global tree cover has expanded by more than 7 percent since 1982.

Jesse Ausubel, a researcher at Rockefeller University, calculates that we are on the verge of peak farmland. An area nearly double the size of the U.S. east of the Mississippi could be restored to nature by 2060. It is feasible that new production technologies will greatly reduce the amount of land and other resources devoted to crops and livestock even more.

As more people voluntarily move from subsistence agriculture to take advantage of better life opportunities in cities, ever more land will to revert to nature. Signatories to the Convention of Biological Diversity adopted, in 2010, the goal of setting aside at least 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas for conservation by 2020 (the U.S. has not signed). Since 2000, the amount of land incorporated into protected areas has grown from 11.9 to 15 percent. The area of oceans has increased from 0.7 percent to 7 percent.

Given these trends, there is scope for the expansion of wild nature over the course this century. In my review of Chris Thomas's book, I note that he argues that since ecological change is inevitable, we need to throw aside static notions of restoring local ecosystems to some imagined prehuman Edenic state. "Our aim should be to maintain robust ecosystems (however different from those that exist now or existed in the past) and species, rather than defend an unstable equilibrium," urges Thomas. "We can let change happen."

"We can think about engineering new ecosystems and biological communities into existence, inspired but not constrained by the past," explains Thomas. Employing such strategies also means that "we can protect plants and animals in places where it is feasible to do so, rather than where they came from."

For example, why not "rewild" parts of North America that once contained mammoths, camels, and saber-tooth tigers with ecologically similar species from other parts of the world? Let's loose elephants, lions, cheetahs, camels, and llamas to roam unpopulated regions of the West. In place of the now-extinct woolly rhinoceros and European hippopotamus, why not settle the Sumatran hairy rhinoceros and African hippopotamus in the Camargue wetlands of southern France? Or transplant giant flightless birds—ostriches, rheas, cassowaries—to New Zealand, where they can fill the ecological niches of the giant moas eaten to extinction by the Maoris' Polynesian ancestors?

Three researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society argued in their June BioScience article that humanity is poised to move in this century from an ecological bottleneck to a conservation breakthrough. "For the first time in the Anthropocene, the global demographic and economic trends that have resulted in unprecedented destruction of the environment are now creating the necessary conditions for a possible renaissance of nature," they argue. "Drawing reasonable inferences from current patterns, we can predict that 100 years from now, the Earth could be inhabited by between 6 and 8 billion people, with very few remaining in extreme poverty, most living in towns and cities, and nearly all participating in a technologically driven, interconnected market economy." These fortunate trends, they contend, will result in vast expanses of land and sea being returned to the natural world.

The Living Planet Report is describing the current bottleneck, but the Wildlife Conservation Society researchers marshal strong arguments that we are well on the way toward the breakthrough period that relaxes the current anthropogenic pressures on species and ecosystems, and which will enable nature to recover extensively by the end of this century.

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Nevada voters to decide whether to end 'pink tax'

By By Andrew Burger | Watchdog.org - October 31, 2018 at 04:32PM

Voters in Nevada have the opportunity to decide whether the state's so-called “pink tax” on feminine hygiene products should remain on the state's legislative books or be eliminated altogether.

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Local News Spreads Panic About Under-18's Taking Uber and Lyft Unaccompanied

By Christian Britschgi - October 31, 2018 at 04:00PM

Local news has seized on a new terror plaguing the nation: minors riding unaccompanied in Ubers and Lyfts.

Las Vegas ABC affiliate KTNV warned viewers yesterday that this "dangerous practice is rampant across Las Vegas and drivers say no one is trying to stop it." On Monday, Nashville's FOX 17 ran with a hard-hitting investigation of a 15-year-old who went undercover for the station in order to take an Uber to a coffee shop.

In February, D.C.'s FOX5 did a segment featuring a 12-year old who was shuttled from one parent's house to another alone, via Uber. That same month, NBC's Bay Area affiliate warned of a "state loophole" that "leaves minors at risk while riding Uber and Lyft."

The danger all these children are in apparently is that they run the risk of being kidnapped, assaulted, or worse, by whichever random psycho they connect with via ridesharing apps.

Amy Sulam-Gibbs, the mother of the 15-year-old in the FOX 17 story, told the station: "They can't do full psych evals on these drivers. You really are taking a risk. You're getting into a stranger from the internet's car."

The "loophole" that NBC believes is endangering minors is the fact that Uber and Lyft drivers do not need to be fingerprinted the same way daycare providers and school bus drivers are. Other stories blame the ridesharing companies for failing to better enforce their own terms of service, which specifically prohibit those under 18 from using the app.

Yet, for all the fearmongering, crimes committed against minors by ridesharing drivers are mercifully rare.

The KTNV story mentions only two examples of a minor being assaulted by their driver, one in Orange County, California the other in the Miami, Florida area. The NBC story mentions a third incident in which a driver exposed himself to a 16-year-old passenger.

All three incidence are, of course, terrible. However, in the two assault cases, the information collected by ridesharing companies meant the perpetrators were quickly caught.

In the Miami case, police were able to subpoena Lyft for information on the driver after the victim reported the assault. In the Orange County case, the family member who had ordered the Uber ride for the underage victim was able to use the app's tracking feature to find her and her assailant after she did not return home on time.

In the story reported by NBC, Uber proved particularly unhelpful, but that was, ironically enough, a byproduct of the company not allowing minors to use its app.

When the 16-year-old in question tried to report her exhibitionist driver to Uber, her account was deactivated because she was under 18, making it more difficult for her to give identifying information about him to law enforcement. (Uber also declined to give the driver's information to law enforcement without a subpoena, which police were, according to NBC's telling, unable to get because the underlying crime was only a misdemeanor.)

An exhaustive CNN review of assaults by rideshare drivers turned up 103 cases that've occurred in the last four years, and by far, the most likely people to get assaulted by their driver were not children, but adults, usually intoxicated women travelling alone.

There also seems to be little evidence that more extensive background checks—beyond the type that both companies already perform—would reduce the incidences of assault.

A 2016 story from the Associated Press was unable to say one way or another if passengers were more likely to be assaulted by rideshare drivers or traditional cabbies. A Cato Institute study the year before found that Uber and Lyft's requirements for drivers were more strict than those governing taxis and other for-hire vehicles.

It's important to recognize too that while there are risks for minors taking Uber and Lyft—which is against the companies' terms of service—there are also risks to finding a way to prohibit youths from these services.

Rideshare companies can provide a sober ride home for under-18s who are too drunk to drive and too embarrassed to call mom or dad. It could also help children of single parents (or overworked couples) get where they need to go before and after school, or to and from part-time jobs.

Indeed, there's already budding demand for these services, as evidenced by smaller, kid-focused ridesharing services like Zum and Sheprd.

It's natural for parents to be concerned about the dangers of teenagers and younger children getting rides from complete strangers. That said, there is little evidence that this means of transportation is especially dangerous to minors.

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Police Detained a College Student Over Terminator Costume

By Zuri Davis - October 31, 2018 at 03:45PM

An incident on the University of Central Florida's campus is a reminder that not everyone is willing to suspend their fear and paranoia for the sake of Halloween.

The campus was put on alert Tuesday when unnamed student decided dress up like the Terminator. The student decided to take his costume to the next level by pairing his dark clothing with a bandolier containing real ammunition. According to a police statement, someone made a call to 911 to report the student as suspicious. Police arrived "swiftly," detained the student, and questioned him. University police determined that he was not a threat and decided against making an arrest.

University police shared a picture of the student's costume, warning that real ammunition and weapons "scares others" and "puts safety at risk."

According to university policy, the possession of weapons and firearms is prohibited. This includes obvious items like swords, knives, chemical devices, and the like. Not mentioned on the list, however, is ammo. University police acknowledged that while possessing ammo was not against the rules, using it for Halloween props was discouraged.

Bonus links: Alarmists will likely spend the remainder of what should be a super fun holiday worrying about sex offenders, cultural appropriation, and drugged candies.

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Kansas Finally Admits It's Okay to Put Hemp in Beer

By Eric Boehm - October 31, 2018 at 03:30PM

Alcohol regulators in Kansas have finally admitted what everyone else already knew: just because a beer is brewed with hemp, doesn't mean it will get you high.

Let's back up. In April, Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing Company introduced a hemp-infused brew called The Hemperor HPA—which stands for "hemp pale ale," because they really want you to know it was made with hemp. The beer does not contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabidiol (CBD), two psychoactive compounds found in marijuana, because it is brewed with unshelled hemp seeds; THC and CBD, meanwhile, are found in the stalks, leaves, and flowers of the cannabis plant. In addition to the hemp seeds, New Belgium uses a mixture of hops and non-cannabis florals to simulate the pungent aroma and flavor commonly associated with weed.

Because the beer doesn't actually contain any THC or CBD, New Belgium's beer can be sold anywhere other beers are—unlike the CBD-containing beers and cocktails that are starting to enter the market in places where marijuana has been legalized.

Anywhere, that was, except for Kansas. The state's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) agency banned The Hemperor from Kansas liquor stores and bars soon after it was introduced, on the grounds that hemp was an illegal food additive. It took more than six months, but after a secondary review of the state's industrial hemp statutes, the Kansas ABC reversed its earlier decision and will now allow the beer to be sold in the state.

The change comes after Kansas state lawmakers in April approved a bill allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp and approving research into the commercial viability of the crop. While that bill did not directly affect New Belgium's beer or the state ABC, the general loosening of the state's hemp laws may have nudged the regulators towards accepting The Hemperor.

"It could also be that Kansas, like many other states in our glorious union, finally got a whiff of how versatile and sustainable of a crop industrial hemp can be, and how it could play a much bigger role in our economy," said Jesse Claeys, a spokesman for New Belgium Brewery, in a statement.

As I wrote in a July feature for Reason, New Belgium has positioned The Hemperor to be more than just a novelty. The beer has become something of a political statement too, since New Belgium has partnered with Willie Nelson's GCH Inc. and Vote Hemp to create the American Hemp Campaign. For every barrel of The Hemperor sold, the brewery donates $1 to the advocacy group's efforts to get industrial hemp legalized at the federal level.

Meanwhile, other cannabis-infused brews continue to face legal battles. Beers made with CBD are likely to become more common thanks to increased state-level legalization. Brews made with CBD are already on the market in Colorado, California, Oregon, Vermont, and elsewhere. Even the hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, which has partnered with a series of six breweries around the world to produce beers named after some of the group's songs, is planning to release a CBD-infused pilsner with a German brewery.

But there will continue to be issues with individual states and perhaps at the federal level. Even though recreational marijuana became legal in Massachusetts on July 1 of this year, for example, the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission has prohibited CBD-infused beers made by Vermont-based Long Trail Brewing from being sold in Massachusetts.

Federalism can be messy. Still, raise a glass to the regulators in Kansas who finally got this one right.

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Despite Donald Trump Jr. Retweet, Libertarian Senate Candidate Rick Breckenridge Did Not Drop Out

By Brian Doherty - October 31, 2018 at 03:15PM

Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a tweet this morning saying that Libertarian Party Senate candidate Rick Breckenridge of Montana had dropped out and endorsed Republican challenger Matt Rosendale to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester.

This is huge news in #Montana. This is Conservatives (Republicans & Libertarians) finally working together to promote liberty and the conservative principals that have allowed us to do so much over the last allow years. Vote for @MattForMontana. #mtsen #mt https://t.co/QZE8QWbTFw

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 31, 2018

If this were true, it would have been pretty significant. The Libertarian Breckenridge has been polled beating the spread between the nearly evenly matched major party contenders. Indeed, in 2012 a different L.P. candidate did beat that spread between Tester and losing Republican Denny Rehberg.

But as Breckenridge clarified in a phone interview this morning, it is not true. The reporter on the original tweet misunderstood the meaning of Breckenridge declaring he had more trust in Rosendale on a particular issue bugging him this week: the use of political "dark money" to send anonymous mailers; in this particular case, one slamming Rosendale for wanting "to use drones and patrols to spy on our private lives," while seeming to endorse Breckenridge as "a true conservative" who "opposes government intrusion into Montanans private lives."

"No, I am not dropping out" Breckenridge says, though he grants he used the word "endorse" to reporters regarding Rosendale over Tester, but only on the issue of rooting out dark money, which this anonymous mailer has now made personal to him.

"I live here, these people are my neighbors, people I have to do business with." Breckenridge says he doesn't want voters thinking he actually supported something he sees as an unsavory direct public attack on his political opponents, neither of whom he views as an enemy, and both of whom he agrees with on certain issues.

Breckenridge admits that he is likely to only get 2-3 percent of the vote, but he's proud of how much traction he's gotten, despite having raised, he says, only around $3,000 in campaign funds.

But he stresses this morning he is still running and wants people to vote for him. "I did not say 'do not vote for me, vote for Matt.' I'm a Libertarian through and through, I'm not a Republican. I'm not going to be campaigning for [Rosendale], won't be on stage with" him. He characterizes his statement about Rosendale regarding dark money as "an issue bigger than my candidacy, and I had to do something from a citizen standpoint."

He says he's known Rosendale and his family for over 10 years and appreciates his character, but "I'm for liberty and the cause of liberty." Breckenridge says he agrees with Tester on the Fourth Amendment and the Kavanaugh Supeme Court appointment (Tester was opposed to Kavanaugh's appointment and confirmation), and he disagrees with both men on the border wall (Tester and Rosendale are both for it). He also notes, regarding the anonymous pamphlet that tried to paint the Libertarian as a "true conservative," that he's "very socially liberal."

Breckenridge is proud that his presence and polling in the race have seemingly raised enough of a fear in Republicans that the likes of President Trump and his son Donald Jr., and Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) have come to the state to campaign for Rosendale.

He says he resents the use of anonymous outside money in this Montana race and would be OK with criminal penalties for whoever sent it. While he can't know for sure, Breckenridge is confident it came from someone whose goal was to help make sure Democrat Tester wins; and that the mailer was printed in New Jersey.

Despite his preference for Rosendale on the "dark money" issue, Breckenridge says he's not afraid if the outcome next week has Tester winning with the Libertarian vote beating the spread between him and Rosendale. "I'm fine with [accusations of being a spoiler for Democrats]. I'm fine with it."

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Op-Ed: As a registered voter you have one job. Do it.

By By Dan McCaleb | Watchdog.org - October 31, 2018 at 03:34PM

Voter apathy has been a problem in the United States for, well, much of this country's existence.

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Georgia Sheriff Says Registered Sex Offenders Aren't a Danger to Trick-or-Treaters, Will Humiliate Them Anyway

By Joe Setyon - October 31, 2018 at 02:45PM

Candy-seeking children in one Georgia county aren't more likely to be molested today simply because it's Halloween, but that didn't stop Butts County Sheriff Gary Long from ordering his officers to put "no trick-or-treat" signs in front of the homes of each of the county's registered offenders.

Long announced his office's actions in a Saturday Facebook post. "This Halloween, my office has placed signs in front of every registered sex offender's house to notify the public that it's a house to avoid," he said. "Make sure to avoid houses which are marked with the attached posted signs in front of their residents."

He also attached a picture of one of the signs:

Georgia law does, in fact, require that sheriff's offices "inform the public of the presence of sex offenders in each community." In the past, Long told CBS News that his deputies would put signs on doors letting trick-or-treaters know where registered sex offenders in the county—of which there are currently 54—live. But this time around, CBS reports Long hoped to "increase visibility."

Why the change? Long cited the cancellation of an annual Halloween event where firemen and police officers handed out candy to local children in the town square. This year, Long believes children will instead go door-to-door looking for candy.

Long admitted chances are slim that any of the registered sex offenders in the county would try anything. But he'd rather be safe than sorry. "I'm not trying to humiliate 'em or anything like that. Let's face reality: We have a greater chance of children getting run over by a car [on Halloween] than being a victim of sexual assault by a repeat offender," he told CBS. "But at the end of the day if, in fact, we had a child that fell victim to a sexual assault, especially by a convicted sex offender, I don't think I could sleep at night."

Some sex offenders have emailed Long to tell him the signs are an "embarrassment," he said. That doesn't phase him. "I don't care if they do like it or if they don't like it," he told CBS. "My job us to ensure the safety of the children and the community and that's what I'm going to do."

Long's motives aren't bad, but his actions are an unnecessary indignity for people who've already served their punishment. For one thing, sex offenders are less likely than other criminals to commit the same crime again. As Reason's C.J. Ciaramella pointed out last week:

Study after study has found that same-crime recidivism rates for sex offenders hover between 3 and 4 percent, lower than other types of crime and nowhere near the 80 percent rate once falsely cited by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, for instance.

Moreover, it's not as though Halloween presents additional risk to children. In a piece for Reason earlier this month, Lenore Skenazy discussed the results of a study that looked into 67,000 cases of child molestation. The study found no increase in sex crimes on Halloween.

That hasn't stopped the hysteria. Whether it's the small-town Georgia mayor who wanted to confine sex offenders to city hall on Halloween, or Long's ridiculous signs, people are overly fearful of sex offenders targeting children on this one specific day of the year, regardless of whether the offense that landed them on the registry involved children, adults, or adolescents.

Sex offenders themselves aren't the only ones negatively affected. One Butts County woman whose husband is on the registry told WXIA that "threats have been made" thanks to the sign in her yard. "That poster that is causing that hysteria is posted at my property and I have not done anything wrong," the unidentified woman said.

Plus, she claimed her husband is only on the registry due to a relationship he had with a woman when he was 20 and she was 16. "There's so many levels," she said. "There's such a gray area...but yet they happen to be treated all the same."

She's right. Having your name on the sex offender doesn't equate to be being a child molester. And though some on the registry have sexually abused children, they're probably not going to target random kids on Halloween.

Long's signs might make him feel better, but they're actually harming more people than they're helping.

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Calvin Bryant Was Serving a Draconian Mandatory Minimum Sentence. Now He’s Free

By C.J. Ciaramella - October 31, 2018 at 02:30PM

After 11 years behind bars, a Tennessee man whose mandatory minimum sentence for a first-time drug offense drew local and national attention will be freed today, his lawyer announced.

Calvin Bryant was sentenced to 17 years in prison, 15 of them mandatory, for a first-time drug offense under Tennessee's drug-free school zone laws, which rank among the harshest in the nation. Since then, his supporters—family, friends, criminal justice advocacy groups, members of the Nashville City Council, and even one of the prosecutors who put Bryant behind bars—have worked to free him. Reason reported on Bryant's case last year.

According to Bryant's lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, the Davidson County District Attorney, Glenn Funk, convinced the Tennessee Attorney General's office to drop its opposition to Bryant's appeal of his sentence, and instead let him plead guilty to a reduced charge and be released on time served.

"We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support for Mr. Bryant from across the city, the state, and the nation," Horwitz said in a statement. "Without so many people standing behind him—and without a District Attorney who was willing to use his discretion to remedy a gross and obvious injustice—this result would never have been possible, and after more than a decade of purposeless incarceration for a first-time non-violent drug offense, Mr. Bryant would still be counting the days until the end of his seventeenth year in prison."

Bryant was once a college student, well-liked in his community, and a former high school football standout who dreamed of going pro in the NFL. As Reason reported:

Police arrested Bryant in 2008 for selling 320 pills, mostly ecstasy, out of his Nashville apartment to a confidential informant who'd been bugging him. Tennessee treats this as a serious offense under any circumstances: Normally he would have faced at least two and a half years in prison. But because Bryant lived in a housing project within 1,000 feet of an elementary school—roughly three city blocks—his sentence was automatically enhanced under Tennessee's drug-free school zone laws to the same category as rape or second-degree murder.

Indeed, as someone with no prior adult criminal record, Bryant would have been eligible for release earlier if he'd committed one of those violent felonies.

As a 2017 Reason investigation showed, Tennessee's drug-free school zones cover wide swaths of urban areas—27 percent of Nashville, for instance—and apply day or night, indoors or outdoors, even when school is not in session. And drug-free school zone offenses, according to interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys, almost never involve actual sales of drugs to minors. When prosecutors charge a defendant with a drug-free school zone offense, it automatically enhances the felony level, turning low-level felonies into long, mandatory prison sentences that rival those of the worst crimes.

Funk was elected D.A. in 2014, and his office has a policy of not charging defendants with a drug-free school zone enhancement unless the offense actually involves minors.

"In places like Nashville, almost the entire city is a drug-free zone," Funk told Reason last year. "Every church has day care, and they are a part of drug-free zones. Also, public parks and seven or eight other places are included in this classification. And almost everybody who has driven a car has driven through a school zone. What we had essentially done, unwittingly, was increased drug penalties to equal murder penalties without having any real basis for protecting kids while they're in school."

FAMM, an advocacy group that opposes mandatory minimum sentences, applauded bryant's release and called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to issue clemency orders for similar cases.

"Tennessee's broken law mandated a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence for Calvin, for which Tennessee has enjoyed no legitimate public safety benefit, while his family and friends suffered for more than a decade," FAMM president Kevin Ring said in a press release. "While Calvin was able to receive the relief he so clearly deserved through the courts, FAMM will continue to call on Gov. Bill Haslam to consider clemency for the hundreds of other Tennesseans serving wasteful, unjust sentences under this law."

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Yes, White Kids Can Dress Up As Black Panther for Halloween

By Robby Soave - October 31, 2018 at 02:15PM

Every year, Halloween prompts much handwringing over cultural appropriation and whether it's okay to let kids dress up as fictional characters who belong to other cultures. In 2017, I wrote about a mom who didn't want her little girl to be Disney's Princess Moana.

This year, it's Black Panther. People's Jen Juneau warned white parents to "think twice" before dressing their sons up as T'Challa, king of the fictional African country of Wakanda, or any of his retainers. Activist mother Steph Montgomery overruled her 8-year-old son's decision to trick-or-treat as Black Panther, writing, "Maybe, in a future where there are more black superheroes, I might feel differently, but for now my answer stands." (Her son eventually decided to be the dinosaur Yoshi, which Montgomery is "totally okay with," even though Yoshi was created by a Japanese company.)

Thankfully, some of the people involved in the creation of Black Panther don't see things the same way.

"The idea that only black kids would wear Black Panther costumes is insane to me," Reg Hudlin, a filmmaker who worked on the animated Black Panther TV series, told The Washington Post.

And Ruth Carter, a costume designer who helped craft Black Panther's clothing, said,"If we don't embrace other cultures and let other ethnicities embrace ours, then we're hypocrites."

That's exactly right. Kids of various ethnicities all wanting to celebrate the coolness of Black Panther should count as a much-needed win for tolerance and diversity. By all means, go trick-or-treating as T'Challa.

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Casey credits Obama, Barletta favors Trump for policies leading to strong economy

By By Dave Lemery | Watchdog.org - October 31, 2018 at 02:12PM

According to their statements in their most recent debate, Lou Barletta and Bob Casey agree that preserving protections in health care laws for those with pre-existing conditions is important. They both think a hike in the federal minimum wage act…

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