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New at Reason!—No Child Left Alone: Getting the Government Out of Parenting

Interview with Author Abby Schachter on her book "No Child Left Alone: Getting the Government Out of Parenting"

"Every rule that gets written has a cost," explains Abby Schachter, author of the new book No Child Left Alone: Getting the Government Out of Parenting. "I don't know if parents [understand] that under the headline 'we're going to keep your children safe' [or] 'we're going to protect the kids' that that is really code for 'we're taking your rights away.'"

Schachter credits a personal experience with Pennsylvania's restrictive regulations over swaddling in daycare to her interest in documenting how the government is getting more involved in raising children and restricting parents' choices. "I had to go find the people who made up this rule about swaddling and they weren't in my state and they weren't even accountable," Schachter says.

Reason TV's Nick Gillespie sat down with Schachter to talk about her book, her fight to have her youngest child swaddled (0:57), how government officials take obese children from their parents (2:52), the loss of unsupervised play among kids (4:01), warning labels (8:06), and the connection between her work and college students' demand for safe spaces (11:03).

Edited by Joshua Swain and Ian Keyser. Camera by Todd Krainin and Austin Bragg. Music by Podington Bear.

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Poll: Millennial Men More Likely to Vote Hillary Clinton Than Young Women Are

Meanwhile, twice as many women supported third-party presidential candidates.

AL DIAZ/TNS/NewscomAL DIAZ/TNS/NewscomMillennial men are more likely than their female counterparts to support Hillary Clinton for president, according to the latest USA TODAY/Rock the Vote Poll. While two-thirds of the men surveyed said they're with her, less than half of millennial women said they would vote for Clinton.

The online survey, conducted October 11-13, included 1,020 U.S. adults ages 18 to 34.

Among women, Clinton was the top candidate for 47 percent and Donald Trump was tops for 18 percent. Another 18 percent of women respondents dug third-party candidates, pledging support for either Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Just 6 percent of men said they planned to vote third-party.

The complete poll results have not yet been released, so it's unclear how support breaks down between the Libertarian and Green candidate.

For millennial men, Clinton was the top candidate for 65 percent and Trump for 20 percent.

Just 400 of the millennial poll respondents—about 39 percent—said they were likely to vote next month. Among this group, 68 percent planned to vote for Clinton, 20 percent for Trump, 8 percent for Johnson, and 1 percent for Stein.

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Shhhhh! Don’t Tell Russia, but We’re Totally Gonna Cyber Their Asses!

Maybe focus on protecting American data, not seeking revenge for Clinton’s embarrassment?

Joe BidenBrett Marty/Polaris/NewscomIt's not clear what to make of NBC's weekend report that the CIA is plotting a cyberattack against the Russian government (Vladimir Putin in particular) or why sources decided to go public about it.

To summarize: The CIA has apparently been planning a cyber counterstrike to expose information intended to "embarrass" the Kremlin and "unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin." Why this has been made public is anybody's guess, but Vice President Joe Biden confirmed with a wink and a nod to Meet the Press that America is "sending a message" to Russia. When asked whether the public would know about this message, Biden responded, very Bidenly, "Hope not."

While we try to wrap our minds around the idea of the public not finding out about a cyberattack Biden is openly promoting on a Sunday talk show, NBC does get a sense of the internal conflict with the administration about whether it's possible to retaliate against Russia in any meaningful way:

A second former officer, who helped run intelligence operations against Russia, said he was asked several times in recent years to work on covert action plans, but "none of the options were particularly good, nor did we think that any of them would be particularly effective," he said.

Putin is almost beyond embarrassing, he said, and anything the U.S. can do against, for example, Russian bank accounts, the Russian can do in response.

Really, what exactly is America going to be revealing about Russia or Putin at this point that its citizens don't already know? The winter Olympics in Russia were an absurdly costly, cronyist affair for a country where average citizens suffer remarkably low standards of living. Critics of Putin tend to wind up dead. Yes, Putin's hold over the media in Russia tends to help him withhold critical information from citizens, but you'd have to be naïve to think Putin is in power simply because Russians don't know the kind of guy he is.

What's remarkable about the story, though, is how little it engages in the actual content that (allegedly) Russian hackers have leaked about Democratic politics and Hillary Clinton and how this information has ended up feeding the polarized political discussion made entirely out of soundbites and carefully managed outrage.

As I noted back when hackers leaked internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, Putin wasn't responsible for the party treating Bernie Sanders like crap. And as embarrassing (and yes, criminal) as it is to have Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails getting put out there by Wikileaks, it's also not Russia's fault voters are getting reminders that Clinton is exactly the calculating politician she's often accused of being.

And yet the Democratic response appears to increasingly be this ad hominem-driven deflection that the problem here is the source of the information. Yes, it is bad that our political institutions are being hacked by Russians, don't get me wrong. But is there any attempt by Clinton partisans to learn at all from the outraged response by some citizens to the contents of this information?

One of the stories coming out today from files released about Clinton's private server scandal is that Pat Kennedy, a State Department official under Clinton, attempted to pressure the FBI to downgrade the classified ratings of a bunch of emails in her private server as "unclassified" last year in exchange for the State Department allowing more FBI agents to operate in foreign countries where they normally were not allowed. The FBI declined.

The FBI responded today that this request came prior to the investigation of Clinton's server use and was connected to Freedom of Information Act requests, not accusations of improper handling. As for the request by the FBI for more staff in foreign country, the agency says that was discussed in the same conversation but denied there was any sort of "quid pro quo." And it will be difficult to prove otherwise because neither side agreed. The files remained classified.

The Clinton campaign has responded, as they typically have, that this is all just complicated negotiations about classification ratings and nothing special or odd. So in this case, Clinton in her staff are all super-savvy about classification, though when the FBI interviewed Clinton, she claimed to not even know what the "C"-classification stamp even meant.

The entire manner by which Clinton and her enablers have handled her email controversies have inspired a lot of cynicism from those who aren't already planning to vote for her. While this new news isn't directly connected to the Podesta leaks, the natural inclination to deflect the criticism and concerns to something else entirely continues to help explain why Clinton is not running away with this election.

The alleged pending cyberattack on Russia is also a very helpful reminder that we are operating under a federal government and intelligence agency that seems to be prizing the ability to engage in hacking and infiltration over the desire to protect Americans from intrusion. Note that this debate is over whether to punish Russia for embarrassing the Democratic Party and Clinton, not about how to prevent future breaches. This is why it's so important to have private companies devoted to developing encryption tools for our use and why it's important to stand against a government that wants to corrupt it. They seem more interested in playing cyber-wargames than protecting our data.

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Chuck Todd Asks Joe Biden: Why Is There Not a No-Fly Zone Over Aleppo?

NBC NewsNBC NewsIn an interview with Vice President Joe Biden on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd continued the tradition of journalists shamelessly asking questions that incorporate their own worldviews and political preferences into the questions themselves.

"Why is there not a no-fly zone over Aleppo?" Todd asked in an exasperated tone of the situation in Syria. There's a long answer to that and a short one. The long one involves, among other things, the misconceptions people have about the effectiveness of no-fly zones, the lack of a clear strategic U.S. interest, disagreement about the facts on the ground in Syria and the difficulty of imposing a no-fly zone there specifically. The short answer is Russia operates in Syria, increasing the risk of conflict escalation significantly.

Much of the media and political class, however, worked up into a frenzy over Donald Trump and his supposed connections with Russia and Russia's alleged attempts to interfere in the U.S. election, have chosen to ignore Russia as a complicating factor in Syria. When Hillary Clinton callously suggested a no-fly zone, which she had previously admitted would inevitably lead to civilian casualties, could be used to create leverage that could force Russia to the negotiating table over Syria, no one asked her what the purpose of forcing Russia to the negotiating table would be.

The U.S. government's only clear goal in Syria is the removal of Bashar Assad. While President Obama acknowledged failing to plan for the aftermath of the intervention in Libya was the greatest mistake of his presidency, no one seems particularly concerned that Clinton (who was secretary of state during the Libya war) has not explained what the plan for a post-Assad Syria is. That so-called moderate rebels are in danger of joining extreme groups absent U.S. support suggests there are no substantive moderate forces in Syria, let alone ones the U.S. could with any kind of confidence support as a new Syrian government. Even if there were, the strategic benefits to the U.S. of toppling Assad are murky at best.

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Democracy Now Host Amy Goodman Faces 'Riot' Charges For Covering North Dakota Pipeline Protests

Prosecutor argues against Goodman's First Amendment rights because she sympathized with protesters.

Journalists can have a POVScreenshot/Democracy NowDoes a journalist's point of view make them complicit in any potential crimes they report on?

North Dakota State's Attorney Ladd Erickson appears to think so, which is why after dropping criminal trespassing charges against Democracy Now host Amy Goodman, he has upgraded charges against the venerable leftist journalist to the far more serious accusation that Goodman participated in a riot when covering protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline this past September.

The protests against the pipeline took a violent turn when private security guards pepper-sprayed demonstrators and unleashed dogs on them. Goodman—who makes no secret that she's in full support of the protests—covered these incidents for Democracy Now. In Erickson's view, that forfeits her First Amendment rights as a journalist. Per the Bismarck Tribune:

"She's a protester, basically. Everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions," said Erickson, adding that her coverage of the Sept. 3 protest did not mention that people trespassed during the incident or the alleged assaults on guards.

"Is everybody that's putting out a YouTube video from down there a journalist down there, too?" he asked.

If this is all Erickson is going on for charging Goodman, he is demonstrating a frightening misunderstanding of the concept of a free press. One does not require special accreditation from the government, nor a a demonstrated "objectivity," to report on news as it happens.

Goodman's case is not the only Dakota pipeline-related arrest making news. Documentary producer Deia Schlosberg—who works with Gasland director Josh Fox—is reportedly facing felony charges for "conspiracy to commit theft of property and services" while she was covering what protesters themselves described as "sabotage" of the pipeline's emergency valves in a coordinated action earlier this month. These protesters freely admit they cut down fences, broke into valve stations, and manually shut down emergency valves. As Vice noted last year, this is a surprisingly easy but potentially dangerous thing to do (especially if caring for the environment is a concern):

The momentum of the contents in the line running into a shut valve, especially one shut very quickly, can cause major pressure build-up and that pressure could release in unpredictable ways. Yes, it is within the realm of possibility that something could burst and cause a spill. It's a pipeline, they can and do break.

On his Facebook page, Fox wrote that authorities "threw the book at Deia for being a journalist." Fox says she wasn't an active particpant in the protest, but merely covering it. It's unclear at this point what exactly Schlosberg was doing while covering the pipeline sabotage, though if the protest involved breaking and entering, trespassing, and disrupting energy infrastructure, it begs the question of whether or not the First Amendment indemnifies journalists who accompany people engaging in criminal activity.

In Goodman's case, however, it's been more than a month since the protests she covered, and Erickson has not publicly released any evidence that Goodman rioted or incited a riot or did anything other than report on the scene.

It appears the prosecutor intends to use her publicly stated point of view as evidence against her. If that's all he's got, it's a chilling affront to the concept of a free press and should not be permitted to stand.

Watch Goodman's report that has now led to charges against her below:

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Reason Is Heading to SXSW Next Year!

Three of our panel proposals were accepted to the Interactive conference.

Success! Thanks to all those who voted for us, Reason has had three panels accepted to South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), the huge tech and entrepreneurship festival next March. If you'll be in Austin for the festivities, be sure to check us out on stage:

Making Law on Mars, featuring Reason's Peter Suderman and TechFreedom's Berin Szoka

Get a Warrant: The 4th Amendment and Digital Data, featuring Reason's Scott Shackford, R Street Institute's Mike Godwin, the ACLU's Neema Guliani, and Demand Progress' Sean Vitka

Reporters' Perspectives on Marijuana Legalization, featuring Reason's Jacob Sullum, The Denver Post's Ricardo Baca, and Fox Business' Kennedy

Dates, times, and locations for individual panels are TBA, but you can browse the over 750 sessions that have been accepted so far at the SXSW website. And if you want in on the action, note that badge prices go up this Friday. Register here.

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Utah Poll Shocker: Trump 30%, McMullin 29%, Clinton 28%, Johnson…5% (UPDATED)

Independent conservative surges far ahead of the Libertarian and tantalizingly close to the lead.

They're pumped in Provo. ||| Evan McMullin campaignEvan McMullin campaignEvan McMullin, as reported in this space, had two great poll results last week in his home state of Utah—22 percent and 20 percent, respectively, while Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, whose campaign is also headquartered in the Beehive State, was at 14 percent and 9 percent. The weekend brought a third good local poll result for the previously obscure former CIA agent and Goldman Sachs investment banker, from CBS/YouGov, which had him tied with Hillary Clinton for second place at 20 percent; far behind Donald Trump's 37, though ahead of Johnson's 7.

Then this morning saw the release of a new poll taken over the weekend by PPP Rasmussen Reports, as reported by Heat Street:* (See correction below.)

DT 30% EM 29% HC 28% GJ 5% JS 1% UN 4% OT 2% (Oct. 15-16)

(JS = Jill Stein, UN = undecided, OT = other)

That is a remarkable surge for McMullin, and collapse for the guy he baits as not being a "real libertarian."

Even before digesting this latest poll, FiveThirtyEight had McMullin's chances of winning Utah almost even with Hillary Clinton's: 1.9 percent compared to 2.0 (Johnson was at 0.3). The site's pre-PPP projected vote share was Trump 41.2 percent, Clinton 27.2, McMullin 19.6, Johnson 9.8. (For reasons explained in this post, I think Nate Silver et al are overestimating Trump's support, though less so now that they're factoring in the #NeverTrumper.) UPDATE: FiveThirtyEight has updated; McMullin has now lapped Clinton in chances of winning, 5.2 percent to 3.2 percent (with Johnson down to 0.2); meanwhile, the overall picture is now Trump 38.9, Clinton 27.2, McMullin 22.6, and Johnson 9.1.

McMullin's competitiveness in Utah should give extra impetus to pollsters to include his name on presidential surveys, particularly in battleground states like Utah and Colorado, plus nearby states (such as Idaho and New Mexico) with heavy concentration of Mormon voters. As of right now, the only other of his 11 states in which he has appeared on polls is Virginia, where he has averaged two percent.

Below, watch Reason TV's recent video about why voters in reliably Republican Utah are running away from Donald Trump:

* CORRECTION: A previous version of this post made the very stupid error of attributing this poll to PPP instead of Rasmussen, and then further extrapolating an apples-to-apples comparison to a prior PPP poll. (Thanks to Torchiest for the catch.) Rasmussen had not previously polled Utah, so all four recent polls under discussion have no prior survey to compare to. Deep apologies for the error.

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Constitutional Originalists Against Trump

Why top libertarian and conservative legal scholars oppose the GOP candidate.

Gage Skidmore / Flickr.comGage Skidmore / Flickr.comToday a group of 29 leading libertarian and conservative advocates of constitutional originalism signed their names to a statement titled "Originalists Against Trump." It begins, "We, the undersigned lawyers and scholars, are committed to the original meaning of the Constitution of the United States. We write to oppose the election of Donald Trump."

There are some impressive names on this list. Among them are Northwestern law professor Steven Calabresi, one of the original founders of the Federalist Society; Case Western Reserve law professor Jonathan Adler, one of the intellectual architects behind the 2015 Obamacare legal challenge in King v. Burwell; and New York University law professor Richard Epstein, author of the highly influential 1985 book Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain.

Why do they oppose Trump? Here's what they have to say:

Trump's long record of statements and conduct, in his campaign and in his business career, have shown him indifferent or hostile to the Constitution's basic features—including a government of limited powers, an independent judiciary, religious liberty, freedom of speech, and due process of law.

But what about the Supreme Court?

We also understand the argument that Trump will nominate qualified judicial candidates who will themselves be committed to the Constitution and the rule of law. Notwithstanding those he has already named, we do not trust him to do so. More importantly, we do not trust him to respect constitutional limits in the rest of his conduct in office, of which judicial nominations are only one part.

But what about Hillary Clinton?

We are under no illusions about the choices posed by this election—or about whether Hillary Clinton, were she elected, would be any friend to originalism. Yet our country's commitment to its Constitution is not so fragile that it can be undone by a single administration or a single court. Originalism has faced setbacks before; it has recovered. Whoever wins in November, it will do so again.

Originalism is a commitment to the Constitution, not to any one political party. And not every person who professes support for originalism is therefore prepared to be President. We happen to see Trump as uniquely unsuited to the office, and we will not be voting for him.

Read the complete statement here.

There is one name that I was surprised to find missing from the "Originalists Against Trump" list. That's the name of Alan Gura. Gura is perhaps the single most influential originalist lawyer at work in America today. In 2008 Gura argued and won District of Columbia v. Heller, the landmark Supreme Court case in which the Second Amendment was recognized as an individual right. Two years later, Gura argued and won McDonald v. City of Chicago, the landmark Supreme Court case in which the Second Amendment was applied against the states via the 14th Amendment. And, to say the least, Gura is no fan of Trump. Here's a snippet of what Gura recently told me about whether or not SCOTUS is a good reason to support the GOP candidate:

Donald Trump has effectively identified the horrific prospect of Hillary Clinton appointing at least one and perhaps several Supreme Court justices, to say nothing of the lower courts. But shall we entrust that task to an insecure lunatic, a fascist caudillo, an autarkist, a proud ignoramous and conspiracy theorist, the aspiring leader of a "Workers' Party" who plays footsie with racists and anti-Semites and might well be a Russian agent? I have no illusions about what Hillary would do to the federal bench. Sad! But there is something deeply contradictory about the notion of electing a power-hungry strongman on the theory that he'll appoint judges that respect and enforce constitutional limits on government. Did Hugo Chavez appoint great judges? Did Putin, Mussolini, or Erdogan? Would it have mattered had they sort-of kinda suggested that they would?

Related: My thoughts on why Trump can't be trusted on Supreme Court appointments.

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Progress! John Oliver Mocks Third-Party Candidates Because They Are as Awful as Trump and Clinton

As Election Day nears, even the alt-MSM starts slagging choices beyond Dem/Rep duopoly.

HBOHBOOn Last Week Tonight, HBO's John Oliver laid into third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, mocking them for being basically as silly and stupid as...well, not Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but Joe Exotic, who runs a big-cat park and is given to statements such as "current politicians...rape you of your rights."

To his credit, Oliver openly grants that he is only talking about Stein and Johnson because between them they are pulling close to 10 percent in national polls, more than enough to cover the spread in an election where the winner is likely to get less than 50 percent of the popular vote. Unlike, say, Carl Hiaasen, he also grants that folks voting for someone other than a Democrat or Republican might actually be doing something more than making a childish protest by voting third party. Oliver says that you might be actively embracing an alternative set of politics.

But of course, the main point is to delegitimize third-party candidates by showing them to be fundamentally unserious. Stein is written off as an anti-vaxxer and, if not quite a 9/11 truther, then close enough to disqualify her for government work. She also, Oliver demonstrates, doesn't seem to understand that the Federal Reserve does quantitative easing, not the Treasury Department.

Johnson gets slapped around for getting angry when, in a scene from the excellent documentary Rigged (watch online here), he goes off on a Bloomberg reporter who asks whether he's just a spoiler. The Great Aleppo Gaffe and (truly disturbing) The NBC Tongue-Biting Debacle make appearances, of course, as they should.

Then Oliver gets more serious. When it comes to policy, Oliver admits that "there's a lot to like there. He supports marijuana legalization and opposes the death penalty, civil forfeiture, and police militarization. But scratch beneath the surface and there are some positions you may be less comfortable with. For instance, he opposes having a minimum wage and when he says he's for smaller government, he's not kidding around." Oliver plays a clip of Johnson calling for the abolition of the federal Departments of Education, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development and then stumbling over a follow-up question about whether these departments do anything that should be continued after their dissolution. More substantively, Oliver says that Johnson's proposed consumption tax is "overly simplified" and would hurt poor people by levying up to a 28 percent bite on everything we purchase. Citing a 2005 report, Oliver says that for Johnson's plan "to work, [the report concluded] the sales tax would have to be way more than 28 percent...and to avoid all that there might have to be savage government cuts. But rather than honestly admit that, Johnson tries to wriggle out of the problem."

Well, no. While you can argue that he's way off or that it's difficult to hit such a target, Johnson has geared his plan to be revenue neutral with current receipts of about $3.2 trillion a year. More important, at every mention of government spending, the former two-term governor of New Mexico recites that his top order of business would be to submit a balanced budget to Congress within 100 days of taking office and that the balancing would be accomplished via spending cuts (such as eliminating whole departments of the federal government). Johnson is totally up front about his desire (and, he would argue, the mathematical need) to cut government spending year over year. There's no need to "scratch beneath the surface" about that at all.

And if the litmus test is whether a candidate is serious about spending and taxes, Johnson comes out looking less delusional than either Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both of whom increase spending while walling off entitlement programs from any sort of reform needed to keep ever-rising and job-killing national debt in check.

But such attacks on third-party candidates sometimes work out in funny ways, often throwing publicity rather than shade in the direction of non-traditional candidates. In fact, several times during the writing of this post, I tried to call up Joe Exotic's official website, but the site apparently can't handle the traffic coming its way courtesy of Oliver's treatment from last night. In a similar way, the more that the media (and the major parties) must engage third parties (if only to dismiss them), they often achieve a very different end than the one they intend.

Here's the segment.

....

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Poll: 48 Percent of Voters Want Clinton—and 53 Percent Want Republicans to 'Check and Balance' Her

Does the public want divided government?

dividist.comdividist.comA new poll from NBC and The Wall Street Journal shows Hillary Clinton way ahead of Donald Trump, 48 percent to 37 percent. (Seven percent favor Gary Johnson, and two percent back Jill Stein.) But the survey also shows most voters—by an even wider margin—wanting some roadblocks in the winner's way:

By a 53 percent-to-40 percent margin, the poll also finds registered voters saying they'd be more likely to support a [downballot] Republican candidate who will be a check and balance to Hillary Clinton and congressional Democrats, versus a Democratic candidate who will help Clinton and Democrats pass their agenda.

Even if you assume that all of Johnson's supporters will agree with that, those voters plus the Trump faction only get you to 44 percent, not 53. So what's going on here?

Some possible ways to interpret this:

1. Voters may prefer Hillary Clinton to that doofus she's running against, but that doesn't mean they support all of her platform.

2. Voters like the idea of a functioning opposition party, especially when the question is put to them in abstract terms rather than with reference to whichever Republicans are actually on the ballot in their districts.

3. Voters think divided government is valuable in itself, because it means grand schemes can't be passed without compromise.

4. Voters remember their social studies classes well enough to respond favorably to the phrase "a check and balance"; if the poll had asked about "gridlock" instead, they would have said something else.

5. All of the above, to different degrees. Don't kid yourself that we're talking about one big bloc with the same views and motives.

If you've got another theory of your own to offer, our comment thread awaits your contributions.

(Via Charles C.W. Cooke, who optimistically suggests that a "majority is consciously in favor of gridlock.")

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Sheldon Adelson And the Raiders Get Their $750 Million in Public Funding For New Las Vegas Stadium

Taxpayer subsidy for one America's richest men and one of its worst NFL franchises sneaks through Nevada legislature.

Score another one for crony capitalist boondoogles.

The Nevada legislature narrlowly approved $750 million in public financing for a new NFL stadium to be operated by Sheldon Adelson's casino corporation, Las Vegas Sands, and the NFL's Raiders, who currently call Oakland (Calif.) home. Adelson's group will contribute $650 million to the stadium (they will not be sharing profits with the public), and the Raiders will pay $500 million toward the construction of their new home field (which will not be granting free admission to Las Vegas taxpayers).

The plan was originally proposed by The Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee (SNTIC)—a group of "key community leaders and stakeholders," a.k.a. politicians and well-connected Las Vegas businesspeople—as a means of providing economic stimulus to a city which already relies primarily on tourism and its casino businesses to stay financially solvent. Nevada's Republican Governor Brian Sandoval, who created SNTIC in 2015 and vociferously supports public financing for the new stadium, is expected to make the deal official with his signature today.

ESPN reports, "A cadre of lobbyists for the project strained over the past week to overcome conservative anxiety over a tax increase and liberal objections to subsidizing one of the world's richest men, eventually securing the bare minimum of Assembly votes to hit the required two-thirds majority." The official legislative tally was 28-13 in the state Assembly and 16-5 in the Senate in support of the stadium deal.

In its article reporting on the deal's approval, The New York Times wrote breathlessly concluded, "Laborers testified they needed the estimated 25,000 construction jobs the project would bring after the industry was devastated in the recession. The stadium is expected to bring 14,000 permanent jobs to the Las Vegas area."

Unmentioned by the Times is that nearly every publicly-subsidized stadium project promises thousands of "permanent jobs" which never come to be, nor that the public is on the hook for the $750 million whether or not the increase in Las Vegas hotel taxes raises sufficient revenue, nor that Gov. Sandoval wants over $300 million in budget cuts to offset losses from other under-performing taxes, nor the fact that no evidence exists to back up the idea that publicly-financed stadiums add any financial benefits to their communities.

Also unmentioned by the erstwhile "newspaper of record" is that Sheldon Adelson currently ranks 14th on Forbes' richest people in the U.S. list, and doesn't need to dip into the public coffers of a struggling city to get his buildings built.

Read more Reason coverage on publicly financed stadiums here, and watch a Reason TV video on the subject below.

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The U.S. Might Be About to Declare War on Canada Over Lumber

A trade war is brewing.

LumberjackAnne LaBastille / Wikimedia Commons2016 has been an absolutely dismal year for the prospects of free trade, what with the two major party presidential candidates working to outdo each other on who can be the most protectionist. Last week things got even worse with news that a trade war is brewing between the United States and—wait for it—Canada.

On Wednesday the U.S. Lumber Coalition—which represents this country's timber industry—put out a press release saying that it had "no choice but to move to initiate trade cases against" Canada for the allegedly unfair practices of its logging industry.

These actions came on the heels of the expiration of the U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) on October 12. The SLA was signed back in 2006 as means of ending a decadeslong trade conflict between the United States and its northern neighbor over the supposed dumping of cheap Canadian lumber onto the U.S. market, to the detriment of American loggers.

The U.S. lumber industry's complaint centers around "stumping" fees Canadian provinces charge timber companies to log on publicly owned land. American loggers assert that these fees are too low and thus amount to an unfair subsidization of a domestic industry.

Since 1986, the U.S. Department of Commerce has tended to agree with American loggers, imposing trade duties that at times have reached as high 27 percent on Canadian imports.

But this has prompted counteraction from the Canadians, who have repeatedly dragged the U.S. before North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and World Trade Organization tribunals. Both bodies, in turn, have ruled multiple times against the U.S.'s protectionist actions. The most significant of these ruling came in March 2006 when a NAFTA panel ordered the U.S. to refund to Canada some $5 billion in import duties.

These international rebukes at last brought the U.S. to the table, and in July of that year, American and Canadian officials signed the landmark SLA. Under the terms of the deal, Canadian provinces would adopt a series of self-imposed duties and quotas designed to limit Canadian exports to at most 34 percent of the U.S. market. In exchange, the American timber industry agreed to drop its complaints over those notorious stumping fees.

For a blessed 10 years under this managed trade deal, relative peace prevailed, but with the expiration of the accord last week, that delicate calm looks like it's about to to shatter.

The result is likely to be higher prices for U.S. consumers, along with mill closures and job losses north of the border. And all this is happening under President Barack Obama, a man who at least pays lip service to free trade. It's hard to imagine the prospects for open lumber trade will get better under either of his likely successors.

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Instead of Erecting New Barriers For Ridesharing, Cities Should Deregulate Taxis

That allows for fair competition on a level playing field, and lets consumers choose which service they prefer.

Screenshot of Uber app (Eric Boehm)Screenshot of Uber app (Eric Boehm)Outdated transportation regulations might limit competition from ride-sharing services in places like Philadelphia, but in the long run those same regulations are spelling doom for taxi companies.

Right now, many cities and states are trying to find ways to jam ride-sharing services into old regulatory structures that have been around since the Great Depression. Often, they are doing so at the behest of taxi companies, taxi driver unions and other incumbent interests.

"It gives the established taxi companies almost a veto power over new taxi companies," says Michael Farron, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center. "We're kind of at a point where the old horse-and-buggy whip manufacturers are complaining about the new automobiles, except now it's the taxi drivers complaining about ride-sharing."

Is there a better way for public officials to deal with this conflict between taxis and Uber?

On this week's edition of American Radio Journal, I chat with Farren about how taxi companies could also benefit from broad deregulation in the transportation sector.

By requiring taxi medallions and using other regulatory mechanisms to limit the number of cabs, government agencies like the Philadelphia Parking Authority have protected taxi companies' bottom lines for decades. That's led to a stagnant market with little room for innovation or entrepreneurialism, Farren says. In short, that's why taxi services haven't changed much in decades: there's been no motivation to evolve.

Philadelphia is still trying to freeze out ride-sharing in the name of protecting taxis, but other cities, like Miami, have taken a smarter approach by removing regulatory hurdles for taxi companies rather than trying to erect new ones for ride-sharing. That allows for fair competition on a level playing field, and lets consumers choose which service they prefer.

Listen to my whole conversation with Farren here.

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Lobbyists Raise $11 Million for Clinton Since Summer, Trump Claims Election Rigged by Media and at Polling Places, Local NC GOP HQ Bombed: A.M. Links

  • YouTubeYouTubeLobbyists have reportedly raised $11 million for Hillary Clinton since July. Donald Trump says the election is being rigged, by the media and at polling places. Gary Johnson did not qualify for the final presidential debate.
  • A local Republican headquarters in North Carolina was firebombed.
  • The Iraq military says it's advancing on ISIS-controlled Mosul.
  • France and Britain are pushing the European Union to condemn Russia over its actions in Syria.
  • The president of the Philippines says he's open to the country participating in war games with Russia and China.
  • Wikileas claims internet access for Julian Assange was severed by a "state party."
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Brickbat: Concerned Father

SextingPro Juventute / CC BYAn Australian judge has sentenced Ashan Ortell to one year probation and placed him on the sex offenders registry after was convicted of child pornography. Ortell had found his 15-year-old stepdaughter had been sexting with her boyfriend and copied images off her phone to show to police.

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