Category: Uncategorized

Let’s face it: 2015 has been a bumpy ride across the board — government intruded into our private lives by clandestinely passing CISA and laughed in our face by passing the ironically-monikered USA Freedom Act; the Police State kicked into high gear, with cops having killed at least one person in all 50 states by the time Christmas rolled around; and the attack in San Bernardino codified the presidential candidates’ push for war, while threatening to further erode any number of liberties for all of us. And that’s just a taste of what happened in the United States.
In order …read more

On January 13, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Puerto Rico v Valle, 15-108. Although this is a criminal law case, it requires the Court to determine if Puerto Rico is sovereign or is simply a dependency of the United States. Lyle Denniston has this interesting article about the case. Thanks to HowAppealing for the link. …read more

The Ohio Secretary of State has rejected Martin O’Malley’s petition to be placed on the Democratic presidential primary ballot. See this story. He needed 1,000 signatures and submitted 1,175. He has been told that only 772 signatures are valid.
Ohio voter registration forms do not ask about party affiliation. However, signatures on Ohio primary petitions are not valid if the signer voted in some other party’s primary in the last election. Signatures on O’Malley’s petition would have been invalidated if the signer voted in the Republican, Green, or Libertarian primary in 2014. Also, of course, …read more

New York City, NY — Like an Orwellian wet dream come to life, the NYPD has announced that more than 6,000 cops will be herding Times Square attendees into spectator pens this New Year’s Eve while violating their Fourth Amendment right prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. Instead of deterring further acts of violence, the excessive show of force merely reinforces the notion that the terrorists have already won by utilizing fear to turn the state against its own people.
Armed with rifles, radiation detectors, and bomb-sniffing dogs, over 6,000 uniformed NYPD officers will descend upon the one million spectators expected to …read more

Newsweek has this sympathetic article about John McAfee and his campaign for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. …read more

We’ve seen the Bitcoin ecosystem mature in many ways over the past year. Here are some of the most important Bitcoin trends of 2015:

Bitcoin transactions per day more than doubled

In December 2014, the Bitcoin network averaged 86,038 transactions per day. In December 2015, the Bitcoin network averaged 202,869 transactions per day (as of 12/23/15). This means that daily transactions on the bitcoin network more than doubled (136% growth year over year) in 2015.

Despite the strong growth in transactions, no single use case has broken out to the mainstream. This is something to keep an eye on in 2016 and beyond.

Bitcoin …read more

Bal Harbour, FL – The village of Bal Harbour, population 2,513, may have a tiny footprint on the northern tip of Miami Beach, but its police department had grand aspirations of going after international drug traffickers, and making a few million dollars while they were at it.
The Bal Harbour PD and the Glades County Sheriff’s Office set up a giant money laundering scheme with the purported goal of busting drug cartels and stemming the surge of drug dealing going on in the area. But it all fell apart when federal investigators and the Miami-Herald found strange things going on.
The two-year …read more

Weber County, UT — Enedina Stanger is a wife, a mother of two, and now, thanks to the state of Utah, a convict. She also suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Ehlers-Danlo Syndrome (EDS).
Stanger, who relies on a wheelchair to move around, has been battling EDS for most of her life. Stanger’s EDS causes her excruciating pain because of the disorder’s tendency to cause joint dislocation.
“When that happens there is nothing that we have been able to find that stops those spasms and those cramps,” explains Stanger to FOX 13 News in Salt Lake City.
After countless prescription drugs …read more

Florida State Senator Arthenia Joyner has introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to be considered by the 2016 session of the legislature. It would create a nonpartisan redistricting commission. The existing system, in which the legislature draws the districts but is required not to let partisan considerations sway the plans, hasn’t worked very well. See this story. …read more

This Policy.Mic article has the dates of major party presidential debates, and dates of presidential primaries and caucuses. A slight flaw in the article is the tendency to refer to some caucuses as primaries. …read more