America Can Aid Syrians without Military Intervention | Cato Institute

America Can Aid Syrians without Military Intervention | Cato Institute: "So far, neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey have taken in more than 1.7 million of the refugees. Sweden has announced that it will grant permanent residency to the 14,700 Syrian refugees already there, as well as some subsequent arrivals. Germany has also decided to take in 5,000 Syrian refugees.

In contrast, in 2011 and 2012, the U.S. allowed just 374 Syrians to gain asylum status, while only 60 refugees were approved."

"The United States used to be the world’s safety net for refugees, especially religious ones. The Pilgrims fled the Netherlands, Irish Catholics escaped English oppression, Jews from Eastern Europe escaped pogroms, and Armenians fled genocide and war to settle in California. But then America changed its immigration laws in 1921, and the government shamefully turned away German Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and Chinese fleeing the Japanese invasion.

The United States could help avoid an even worse humanitarian crisis in Syria by guaranteeing TPS status to all peaceful Syrians who make it to the U.S. It’s important to note that TPS is not a green card and cannot lead toward citizenship. Furthermore, any war criminals or individuals affiliated with criminal or terrorist activity would be excluded. TPS status could be a game-changer for Syrians and it could be done just by changing a few words in the U.S. code."

Three Defunding Myths | Cato Institute

Three Defunding Myths | Cato Institute: "In reality more of the government is likely to stay open than to close. For example, government activities that have “some reasonable and articulable connection between the function to be performed and the safety of human life or the protection of property” will continue regardless of whether Congress passes a CR. This includes not only such obvious things as military operations and homeland security, but also air-traffic control, health care at Veterans Administration hospitals, law enforcement and criminal investigations, oversight of food and drug safety, nuclear safety, and so forth. In fact, much as we might wish it otherwise, even the IRS would continue to function under such a “shutdown.” Moreover, since entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare, are not subject to annual appropriations, they would also continue."

Insider Trading at The Federal Reserve and Investment Giants? - Campaign for Liberty

Insider Trading at The Federal Reserve and Investment Giants? - Campaign for Liberty: "Holding 91 percent of your assets in one thing is extremely risky. Unless, you have inside knowledge that the government is going to continue pushing prices higher in perpetuity."

The IPCC Political-Suicide Pill | Cato Institute

The IPCC Political-Suicide Pill | Cato Institute: "How does it back down from a quarter-century of predicting a quarter of a degree (Celsius) of warming every decade, when there’s been none for 17 years now?"

"the reigning suite of climate models has now officially failed, with the difference between them and reality now statistically significant at the 1-in-20 level"

Counting the High Cost of Obama's Libya, Syria Debacles | Cato Institute

Counting the High Cost of Obama's Libya, Syria Debacles | Cato Institute: "As political scientist Alan J. Kuperman recently explained, NATO intervention “increased the duration of Libya’s civil war by about six times and its death toll by at least seven times, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors.”

In a new article in the journal International Security, Kuperman tallies up the meager benefits and considerable costs: “Human rights conditions in post-intervention Libya,” which according to Human Rights Watch include abuses “ ‘so widespread and systematic that they may amount to crimes against humanity,’ are considerably worse than in the decade preceding the war.”

The Washington Post’s recent look at Libya two years after the revolution describes a hellscape “governed” by hundreds of armed militias, where “even minor disputes escalate into frequent gun violence on the streets.”"

"thousands of portable surface-to-air missiles, useful for shooting down civilian aircraft, have been “privatized,” with some possibly in the hands of terrorists.

Outside Libya’s borders, Kuperman notes, “the most obvious negative impact has been in Mali,” where Tuareg soldiers with Moammar Gadhafi’s former security forces fled with their weapons and sparked an insurgency in the country’s north."

"hopes for outside aid encourage risk-seeking behavior by those expecting rescue.

“When NATO started bombing Libyan forces in March 2011,” Kuperman writes, “Syria’s uprising was mainly nonviolent and its government’s response — although criminally disproportionate — was relatively circumscribed.

But after Gadhafi’s fall, “in the summer of 2011, Syria’s uprising turned violent,” with “a fifteenfold increase in the killing rate” by 2013."

Politics: HR 2300: Yes, there is a Republican plan to replace ObamaCare | Best of Cain

Politics: HR 2300: Yes, there is a Republican plan to replace ObamaCare | Best of Cain: "Even during the ObamaCare debate, there were any number of Republican proposals. The most significant one at the moment was recently introduced in the House of Representatives by U.S. Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia), a doctor who is the lead sponsor of HR 2300. He calls it Empowering Patients First.

The basics of the bill are these:

It extends tax deductions for health insurance to those who buy as individuals, thus eliminating the perverse incentive that favored employer-purchased insurance.
It gives patients true portability by making them the owners of their insurance – not their employers.
It gives doctors the real power to make treatment decisions, not insurance companies or the government.
It reforms medical liability laws and thus saves money by reducing the practice of defensive medicine."

How Europe's Economy Is Being Devastated by Global Warming Orthodoxy | Cato Institute

How Europe's Economy Is Being Devastated by Global Warming Orthodoxy | Cato Institute: " The German government has arranged for renewable energy producers to sell the power grid their electricity at more than 6 times the wholesale electricity market rate."

"The most bizarre case involves an offshore German wind farm about nine miles from the North Sea Island of Borkum, where diesel engines make the blades spin."

“More than one third of Germany’s wind turbines are located in the eastern part of the nation where this large concentration of generating capacity regularly overloads the region’s power grid, threatening blackouts. In some extreme cases, the region produces three to four times the total amount of electricity actually being consumed, placing a strain on the eastern German grid. System engineers have to intervene every other day to maintain network stability.”

"Austria imports nuclear power from the Czech Republic to pump water uphill, then lets it flow downhill through turbines, generating hydropower for Germany"

Why Do Our Military Installations Remain “Gun Free Zones?” - Absolute Rights

Why Do Our Military Installations Remain “Gun Free Zones?” - Absolute Rights: "if there is any place in the United States where firearm restrictions should have worked at preventing a shooting tragedy, it is the Navy Yard -- a highly secure military installation in a city with some of the most stringent gun control laws in the nation; not to mention the most advanced security systems on the planet."

Senator Rand Paul's testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee on “Reevaluating the Effectiveness of Mandatory Minimum Sentences.” - Rand Paul 2016 | U.S. Senate | Rand Paul 2016 | U.S. Senate

Senator Rand Paul's testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee on “Reevaluating the Effectiveness of Mandatory Minimum Sentences.” - Rand Paul 2016 | U.S. Senate | Rand Paul 2016 | U.S. Senate: "If I told you that one out of three African-American males is forbidden by law from voting, you might think I was talking about Jim Crow 50 years ago.

Yet today, a third of African-American males are still prevented from voting because of the War on Drugs."

"The majority of illegal drug users and dealers nationwide are white, but three-fourths of all people in prison for drug offenses are African American or Latino.

Why are the arrest rates so lopsided? Because it is easier to go into urban areas and make arrests than suburban areas.

Arrest statistics matter when applying for federal grants. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand that it’s easier to round up, arrest and convict poor kids than it is to convict rich kids."

"John Horner was a 46-year-old father of three when he sold some of his prescription painkillers to a friend.

His friend turned out to be a police informant, and he was charged with dealing drugs. Horner pleaded guilty, and was later sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 25 years in jail.

Edward Clay was an 18 year old and first time offender when he was caught with less than 2 ounces of cocaine. He received 10 years in jail from a mandatory minimum sentence.

Weldon Angelos was a 24-year-old who was sentenced to 55 years in prison for three marijuana sales.

Federal Judge Timothy Lewis recalls a case where he had to send a 19-year-old to prison for 10 years for conspiracy. What was the “conspiracy?”

This young man had been in a car where drugs were found. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure one of us might have been in a car in our youth where someone might’ve had drugs.

Before the arrest, this young man was going to be the first in his family to go to college."

The Rational Choices of Crack Addicts - NYTimes.com

The Rational Choices of Crack Addicts - NYTimes.com: "“Eighty to 90 percent of people who use crack and methamphetamine don’t get addicted,” said Dr. Hart, an associate professor of psychology. “And the small number who do become addicted are nothing like the popular caricatures.”"

" “They didn’t fit the caricature of the drug addict who can’t stop once he gets a taste,” Dr. Hart said. “When they were given an alternative to crack, they made rational economic decisions.” "

"when he raised the alternative reward to $20, every single addict, of meth and crack alike, chose the cash. They knew they wouldn’t receive it until the experiment ended weeks later, but they were still willing to pass up an immediate high."

“If you’re living in a poor neighborhood deprived of options, there’s a certain rationality to keep taking a drug that will give you some temporary pleasure,”

“Addiction always has a social element, and this is magnified in societies with little in the way of work or other ways to find fulfillment.”

" “Eighty to 90 percent of people are not negatively affected by drugs, but in the scientific literature nearly 100 percent of the reports are negative,” Dr. Hart said. “There’s a skewed focus on pathology. We scientists know that we get more money if we keep telling Congress that we’re solving this terrible problem. We’ve played a less than honorable role in the war on drugs.” "