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Oversized headline catchup

Mark Penn: FBI Trump-Russia investigation shows deep state was worse than we thought



The Shutdown Is Providing Evidence Of Private Businesses Making Government Obsolete



The shutdown’s real lesson: Government has taken hostage too much of the economy



Political Nightmares Multiply for Europe Ahead of Davos



Feds Can't Force You To Unlock Your iPhone With Finger Or Face, Judge Rules



The Game of Pseudo-Authenticity



Supreme Court to Consider Whether Police Can Order Blood Draws from Unconscious Drivers



Public Disdain For Russia Probe Intensifies, Trump Approval Climbs — IBD/TIPP Poll



Trump's Terrible Record on Property Rights

“The President's recent threat to use "the military version of eminent domain" to seize property for his border wall is just the tip of a larger iceberg of policies and legal positions inimical to constitutional property rights.”

California prohibits gender-based auto insurance: report

Ladies, expect your rates to go up

Democrats Failing to Control Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green Revolution

If Republicans were smart, they'd keep quiet while the Democrats self-destruct

Second Thoughts On Pot



Dems fly to Puerto Rico on chartered jet, meet with lobbyists, see 'Hamilton' as shutdown drags on

Just the Hispanic Caucus.

US approved thousands of child bride requests



Oh My: Catholic Archdioceses Admit Wuerl Knew Of McCarrick Abuse Allegation In 2004



Philly residents defy the city’s controversial ‘soda tax’



Inside Facebook’s ‘cult-like’ workplace, where dissent is discouraged and employees pretend to be happy all the time



5 Things To Do About Our Culture’s Antagonism Against Men



Gab Promotes Bitcoin as 'Free Speech Money' to Over 850,000 Users




The Recession Will Be Unevenly Distributed

“Those households, enterprises and organizations that have no debt, a very low cost basis and a highly flexible, adaptable structure will survive and even prosper.”

How Facebook Borrows From the NSA Playbook



5 reasons why there’s still no end to the shutdown

“They can’t end the standoff because Democrats and Republicans are trying to solve different problems”

The only acceptable answer: “None of your f(ornicating) business!”



Who gave National Review the power to excommunicate?



Employee at Ford Office Fired After Disagreeing With Transgender Post



Majority Preservation Act

“The first House Democratic bill aims to hamstring opponents.”

Nobel secretary regrets Obama peace prize



This Reporter Took a Deep Look Into the Science of Smoking Pot. What He Found Is Scary.



Carriers Swore They'd Stop Selling Location Data. Will They Ever?



Cory Doctorow: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me


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Friday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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NeoNotes — Trump's facts & examining the 2016 election

I remind you that no American political fact for the last two years has been easily ascertained. Or static.

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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Monday roundup

House Advances Bill That Would Expand the DEA's Power to Make Legal Highs Illegal

Government can't keep up with regulating new products, so you have to loose freedom.


How Trump Can Avoid Impeachment: Order NSA to Declassify All Intel On Democratic Email Leaks

This is a Really REALLY good idea!


Why Middle America Doesn't Care About The Trump Jr. Narrative: Reuters Explains

Maybe the mainstream media should pay attention to what their audience wants


Tens of Thousands of Muslims Gather to Denounce Islamist Terror – Mainstream Media Ignores It

This is important. The Islamists will never be defeated until most Muslims decide to defeat the extremists. It can't be done from the outside.


VISA takes its War on Cash to US Retailers

“We’re focused on putting cash out of business.”


5 Cities That Won't Be Hosting the 2024 Olympics, and Why That Makes Them Winners

The Olympic Games lose money for the host city. I think the International Olympics Committee may have started the stadium scam, where the local government is on the hook for the bills and the sports team gets most of the revenue with no risk.


Congress is fleeing its warmaking responsibilities

“Congress is permanently in “Annie” mode. It will deal with its war responsibilities, like its myriad other forfeited powers, tomorrow, which is always a day away.” — George Will


Phoenix Taxpayers Lose $200 Million on Sale of Largest Hotel in Arizona

Government should NEVER finance private enterprise. Government is so bad at it that it never ends well for taxpayers.


Can property survive the great climate transition?

Here we get to the nub. Private property is the the foundation of prosperity, as explained in Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. Without private property, there can be no free market. Without a free market, the economy is screwed. The climate alarmist movement exists to redistribute wealth "for the greater good."


L.A. County sheriff can't give prosecutors the names of problem deputies, appeals court rules

So even if they lie, falsifiy reports, and stolen, the deputies are ABOVE THE LAW.


Is Russiagate Really Hillarygate?

The most important question of the 2016 election.

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Still think libertarians are paranoid?

NSA selfies

The question isn't if the NSA watches everything. We now know that they do.

Libertarians have been watching this for a very long time. Ever since the
Inslaw affair we've known. Rumors have been flying since the days of minicomputers that certain machines were modified to report to the various spy agencies.

So let's talk about the story headlines from yesterday.

Donald Trump and his associates were under surveillance, but not directly. They were incidentally surveilled because of active surveillance on other parties. This may have been taking place for up to a year before the 2016 election. At least one source dates the surveillance to 2011.

This is where we start getting into legalisms. Because Trump and associates were not the direct targets of surveillance, intelligence officials say that Trump was not under surveillance. Technically true and absolutely false.

By American law, the names of American citizens are "masked" in surveillance reports unless they too are under investigation. Or unless an authorized government official orders the names unmasked.

So the NSA spies on everyone but Americans are supposedly shielded and protected by a legal process. Even there the names would have only have been unmasked for that one official. Except President Obama had recently changed the regulations, some intelligence would be shared among 16 different agencies.

Washington is a political town, gossip rivals actual intelligence as trade goods. While it was illegal to share those unmasked names with those who did not have clearence, that's also business as usual.

And so far no one is asking what Hillary Clinton and her associates were doing for the same time period.

So the NSA spies on everyone on the planet.

One government official can unmask the American names in intelligence reports, even if those Americans had done nothing wrong.

And it all could be denied because the denial is technically true while absolutely false.

Your government. Working to protect you.

I'm going to tell you some secrets now.

The NSA can't monitor everything on the internet. They may record it to batch examine later, but there's no computing power that can watch everything in real time.

Despite all the enhanced algorithms, despite the focus on encrypted data streams, and despite the probability matrices, the system is half blind.

I don't remember which one, but when I was a teenager I read a novel about WWII spies. There was a bookstore in the novel, and every couple of hours a certain book was moved. From the noon position to the two o'clock, from the two to the four o'clock, and so on. The first thing that the spy ring did was check the window, if the book wasn't in the right spot they knew their cover had been blown.

So imagine a Facebook page and the picture on the top is a border collie. One day the picture changes to a pinto mare. Two hours later something blows up.

Imagine a reddit about French cooking. One day a newbie signs in and asks about substitutes for heavy cream. The next day a newspaper gets a tip about the L.A. water supply being contaminated.

Do you see?

All this spying can't reliably predict what might happen except by blind chance. It's amazingly good about putting all the pieces together after.

All these intelligence agencies are subject to political corruption.

So, does all this spying really protect you?

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