House committee passes cannabis legalization bill

MORE Act: Step Toward Decriminalizing Marijuana - Robert M. Kline (McDermott Will & Emery), National Law Review:

November 25, 2019 - "For the first time in American history, a congressional committee approved a marijuana legalization bill. On November 20, 2019, after more than two hours of debate, the House Judiciary Committee approved the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2019 (H.R. 3884) in a 24 to 10 vote. If the MORE Act becomes law, it would effectively end the federal prohibition of cannabis in the United States.

"Currently, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD, under the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I drugs are those that the federal government considers to have no proven or acceptable medical use and a high abuse potential. The MORE Act, if passed into law, would remove marijuana from Schedule I....

"Under current federal law, doctors at the VA can discuss marijuana use with patients, but they cannot recommend it, even in states where marijuana is legal under local law.... Medical marijuana, prescribed by physicians, is legal in 33 states. But veterans can lose all VA benefits if they are found to be using cannabis, even if lawfully prescribed by a physician outside the VA....

"[T]he MORE Act also would require federal courts to expunge certain convictions for marijuana offenses, and ... create a Cannabis Justice Office focused on reinvesting resources into communities that have been disproportionately affected by cannabis prohibition. A 5% tax imposed on the sale of legal cannabis products would cover the costs of the initiative, which would provide job training, legal assistance and treatment for substance abuse in communities most impacted by the war on drugs. If enacted, the law also would ... allow the Small Business Administration to issue loans and grants to marijuana-related businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.

"Although the bill received votes from two Republicans, ... the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Doug Collins (R-GA), said that the bill 'is nearly devoid of bipartisan support'.... Many Republicans in Congress recognize that federal marijuana laws much change, but they believe that the MORE Act is too aggressive....

"[T]he MORE Act still faces significant hurdles.... The bill has been referred to seven other House committees, each of which could influence the debate. Moreover, even if the bill passes the Democratic-controlled House, it is unlikely to be considered in the Senate."

Read more: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/congressional-committee-takes-historic-step-toward-decriminalizing-marijuana
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Privatized toll highway 407 benefits all Toronto

Why Toronto needs more toll highways like the 407 | The Toronto Star - Peter Shawn Taylor:

November 18, 2019 - "Highway 407 ETR ... Toronto’s east-west toll highway is the road everyone loves to hate. Some critics say it’s robbing taxpayers blind, others accuse it of causing congestion across the GTA. Both views are nonsense. Rather all Torontonians should celebrate its mere existence. Whether you pay the tolls or not – and even if you don’t drive at all − everyone benefits from this freeway that isn’t free.

"A few months ago the road’s owners, which include majority stakeholder Canada Pension Plan, released a report from the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CCEA) totalling up its wide-ranging impact. The highway boasts an average 413,000 trips every weekday, a substantial chunk of daily commuter traffic. (More trips than GO Transit.) And these trips are smooth and fast. During peak hours, 85 per cent of vehicles on the 407 ETR are travelling at or above 100 km/h. By comparison, 85 per cent of drivers on the equivalent portions of the 401, are going below 50 km/h at the same time.

"The toll road is also substantially safer than the alternatives. The 407 ETR’s annual collision rate is less than 0.30 accidents per million vehicle kilometres travelled; on other freeways in Ontario the collision rate is nearly double that. The gap for fatal collisions is wider still.

"Because of its striking lack of congestion and accident delays, the CCEA study estimates Highway 407 ETR users save a cumulative 22.7 million hours every year, as compared to driving on roads as congested as an un-tolled GTA freeway ... equivalent to more than 12,000 full-time jobs. If we add in the effect on businesses of employees travelling during the workday, the time savings grow by another 7.7 million hours per year, or a further 3,700 full-time jobs.

"These effects are real and tangible, and have an immediate impact on families and employers. They cannot be ignored or waved away as part of any ideological crusade. While many transit or cycling advocates either tacitly or explicitly argue in favour of greater road congestion in order to push drivers out of their cars and into more-virtuous modes of transportation, such an argument crumbles on the basis of economic efficiency.

"A Metrolinx estimate once put the cost of congestion in the GTA at $3.3 billion per year in lost time and environmental impacts. The 407 ETR is a practical, on-going response to those costs....

"It is true only drivers willing or able to pay the tolls can reap these direct benefits. But by capturing a significant share of traffic volume, the road has a beneficial spillover impact on all the other public thoroughfares. In the absence of the 407 ETR, congestion everywhere in the GTA would be much worse. Plus, these time savings provide society-wide benefits in terms of lower greenhouse gas emissions and, due to reduced collision rates, lower health care expenses as well. So even folks not using the road should feel thankful.

"And let’s be clear: the benefits arising from this highway are as a direct result of its tolls. Invent a new social obligation for the CPP to provide cheap travel for Torontonians by dramatically reducing fees, as some toll-road detractors do, and these advantages disappear. Plus, this would fatally undermine the pension plan’s higher-level duty to professionally manage its contributors’ money."

Read more: https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2019/11/18/why-toronto-needs-more-toll-highways-like-the-407.html
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5 running for UK Libertarians in 2019

General election 19: Sevenoaks voters have unique opportunity to vote for Libertarian candidate Sean Finch - - Alan Smith:

November 16, 2019 - "Voters in Sevenoaks have an opportunity in this General Election that no other voters in Kent have. They can vote for a Libertarian Party Candidate.

"The Libertarian Party (LP) of the United Kingdom is relatively new - it was founded in 2008 and has just 1,000 members across the country, but its supporters look for inspiration to America where the Libertarian Party is the third largest party after the Republicans and Democrats. LP UK is fielding five candidates in the election on December 12 and one of them, Sean Finch, will be standing in Sevenoaks.

"Mr Finch, 32, lives within the constituency, in Swanley. He was born and brought up in Lewisham, but moved to Sevenoaks 10 years ago to take up the opportunity of becoming a retained fire-fighter. He works as a postman and is single. He said he has a strong sense of civic duty and has previously served in the Territorial Army and as a volunteer with St John Ambulance.

"He said he had always been interested in politics and in his youth joined the Green Party attracted by their environmental ethics. He left because they 'swung too far to the left.' Prior to the referendum, he was a member of the Liberal Democrats ... but he left after the referendum result. He said: 'It was immediately apparent that the Lib Dems were not going to accept the result - they are not actually democrats.'

"The Libertarian Party stands on the principles of reducing the role of the state to one of protecting [the] individual's rights, reducing the burden of taxation and devolving decisions as close to the people whom they affect as possible – and it wants to see those principles enshrined in a written constitution for the United Kingdom.

"Mr Finch will be chiefly be campaigning in favour of Brexit. He said the country needed to honour the will of the people.... He previously contested council seats in Orpington and Swanley and also contested the Lewisham By-election in 2018 ... where he came 11th in a field of 14 candidates.

"The Libertarian Party leader Adam Brown said: 'We have seen from the last three years that our political system which so far has existed on a form of gentlemen’s agreement, is not fit for purpose. We have a Parliament that is more unwilling than ever to honour the manifesto promises of its members. The time is right therefore for a written constitution which secures the rights of individuals and holds politicians to account.'”

"You can contact Mr Finch on sean.finch@libertarianpartyuk.com. For more information click here."

Read more: https://www.kentonline.co.uk/sevenoaks/news/general-election-2019-libertarian-party-fields-sean-finch-in-sevenoaks-216638/
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PATRIOT Act extension buried in funding bill

Why the Hell Did Democrats Just Extend the Patriot Act? | The New Republic - Sam Adler-Bell:

November 20, 2019 - "Tuesday ... the House of Representatives voted to fund the government through December 20 ... to prevent a government shutdown and forestall a debate about border-wall funding.... Democratic leaders had slipped something else into the bill: a three-month extension of the Patriot Act, the post-9/11 law that gave the federal government sweeping surveillance and search powers and circumvented traditional law-enforcement rules.  Key provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire on December 15, including Section 215, the legal underpinning of the call detail records program exposed in the very first Edward Snowden leak.

"'It’s surreal,' Representative Justin Amash told me on Tuesday, just before the vote. Amash, an independent who left the Republican Party over his opposition to President Trump, pointed to the hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle. Republicans have 'decried FISA abuse' against the president and his aides, he said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 'and Democrats have highlighted Trump’s abuse of his executive powers, yet they’re teaming up to extend the administration’s authority to warrantlessly gather data on Americans.'

"By tucking the measure into a must-pass bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced many members who oppose the Patriot Act to vote in favor of its extension.... Amash submitted an amendment to strip the Patriot Act language from the budget bill, but the amendment was blocked by Democrats on the Rules Committee.  Just 10 Democrats defied the leadership to vote against the resolution....

"There’s no other way to spin this,' a progressive staffer on the Hill told me. 'This was a major capitulation. The progressive caucus has touted itself as an organization that can wield power and leverage the votes of its 90 members. And they didn’t lift a finger. Democratic leadership rammed this down their throats.'"
Read more: https://newrepublic.com/article/155793/hell-democrats-just-extend-patriot-act

Trump signs temporary spending bill, punting government-shutdown risks to just before Christmas | Markets Insider - Gina Heeb:
November 21, 2019 - "President Donald Trump on Thursday approved a measure that would stave off the threat of a government shutdown until just days before Christmas.... The short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, was signed into law just hours before a critical midnight deadline. Federal funding was scheduled to expire after that point, and several federal agencies would have been forced to shutter. But it will keep the government running only until December 20....

"Border-funding issues were avoided in [the] stopgap measure signed on Thursday, but other major provisions were tucked in. The legislation reauthorizes parts of the Patriot Act through March, raises the pay for members of the military by about 3%, and increases the Commerce Department budget ahead of the 2020 census.... The Senate passed the continuing resolution 74-20 earlier on Thursday."

Read more: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-punts-government-shutdown-threat-just-before-christmas-spending-bill-2019-11-1028709853

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Hong Kong protesters driven by desperation

Hong Kong Protests: Inside the Chaos - The Atlantic - Zeynep Tufecki:

November 12, 2019 - "For months now, I’ve been told that Hong Kong’s protests would end soon. They’ll end when school starts, I heard during the summer.... Next, the mask ban of early October was supposed to slow protesters down, but the very first day after that ban, I watched streams of protesters in masks and helmets.... The government shut down many of the subway lines that day, a practice that has become a de facto curfew, because Hong Kong’s über-efficient subway system is the way most people get around. No matter; the protesters ended up walking....

"One of the most popular chants in Hong Kong is 'Five demands, not one less.' These include the full withdrawal of the anti-extradition bill, which originally sparked the protests in June; an independent commission to investigate police misconduct; retracting the riot charges against protesters; amnesty for arrested protesters; and, crucially, universal suffrage.

"Nothing animates the Hong Kongers I’ve been talking with as much as that final demand. Yesterday, the police shot one protester in the stomach at point-blank range, and another police officer drove into the protesters with his motorcycle.... Later in the day, Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam ... called the protesters the 'enemy of the people.' She was voted into office by 777 people from the 1,200-person 'Election Committee,' many of whose members are businesspeople with close ties to mainland China..... Polls in October showed her popularity around 22 percent, with just over one in 10 Hong Kongers saying that they would vote for her voluntarily. No wonder the protesters want the right to elect their own leaders....

"Some surveys suggest that more than 80 percent of the people of Hong Kong may have been exposed to tear gas.... Some neighborhoods close to protest sites have been so repeatedly drowned in the noxious clouds that the protesters held a rally on behalf of their pets.... Almost every protest results in videos of protesters being beaten by the police. Many are live-streamed, to horrified viewers.... Fearful accounts are coming out of the police stations, alleging torture, sexual assault, and rape....

"Many protesters believe that people were killed by the police on the night of August 31 in Prince Edward station, when the police shut down the subway station with protesters trapped inside. Videos emerged of young people cowering on the floor, as they were pepper-sprayed from a close distance and beaten. Medics weren’t allowed in.... Almost every night now, protesters show up at the entrance of the subway at Prince Edward, right next to the Mong Kok police station.... They shout slogans and obscenities at the police. Often they get tear gas and rubber bullets in return....

"Hong Kong’s government, backed by mainland China, ... seems to have decided that the best way to reestablish control is to crack down even more. Meanwhile, about half of Hong Kongers say that, on a scale of zero to 10, they would rate their trust in the police at zero....

"Last week ...I chatted with two young women, of the many thousands of people who had shown up, right before the police teargassed the [Victoria] park.... This is our last chance, they said very matter-of-factly. If we stand down, nothing will stand between us and mainland China, they said. They talked about Xinjiang, and what China had done to the Uighur minority. I’ve heard about the fate of the Uighurs from so many protesters over the months. China may have wanted to make an example out of the region, but the lesson Hong Kongers took was in the other direction — resist with all your might, because if you lose once, there will be a catastrophe for your people, and the world will ignore it.

"The two women weren’t sure whether they would win.... 'But we cannot give up,' one insisted, 'because if we do, there will be no future for us anyway. We might as well go down fighting.'”

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/escalating-violence-hong-kong-protests/601804/
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Humanitarian aid groups turning to blockchain

PolloPollo: The crypto project putting chicken back on the table in Venezuela - Decrypt - Adriana Hamacher:

November 9, 2019 - "In a TV broadcast last month, Venezuelan President Maduro suggested installing hen coops in classrooms to feed the country’s starving children. It’s a measure of the enduring humanitarian crisis that he’s persistently insisted does not exist. And this stance, say aid workers, makes it impossible for international agencies, like UNICEF and the World Food Programme, to airlift and distribute the supplies that Venezuelans so desperately need....

"But a new initiative, PolloPollo, is hoping to put poultry, and other groceries back on the table once again. PolloPollo is using blockchain to deliver on its promise, but also to address questions of transparency and accountability that have been levied against other donation programs....

"It’s not the only one. Further afield, the World Food Programme has also been using DLT [distributed ledger technology] to distribute aid to those who need it most since early last year, and is now both expanding the ground it covers and improving on the technology....

"Casper Niebe, PolloPollo’s founder, told Decrypt [that aid] recipients don’t even need a smartphone. They simply have to register on the platform’s website, and post a request.... When a third party responds to the request and makes a donation on the platform, the person requesting food gets a text message or an email. They then pick up and digitally sign for their supplies from a food retailer or producer nearby. The shop or farm then receives payment for the produce in 'bytes,' the cryptocurrency of the Obyte platform PolloPollo is built on. The final step is when an Obyte representative visits the supplier and converts the cryptocurrency into Venezuelan Bolivars, or another crypto.

"Niebe said that the project was born out of his frustration at the lack of transparency in current aid distribution platforms. Transaction fees and costs eat up around 3.5 percent of the average donation, according to estimates, and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that up to 30 percent of development funds are lost to corruption.... Niebe believes PolloPollo is a better solution, one that offers more accountability. With their digital signature, the aid recipients activate the smart contract that ensures suppliers are paid. And donors are notified via the PolloPollo platform.....

"Since early in 2018, the World Food Programme has been using blockchain to address the food shortages that dog the 106,000 refugees who have fled Syria, and set up temporary homes in Jordan’s camps. 'Currently, we’re exploring the foundational blockchain layer, rather than cryptocurrency,' Houman Haddad, the UN executive behind the project, told Decrypt.

"His initiative, Building Blocks, provides food vouchers for the refugees to redeem in local stores. It uses a 'permissioned' or private version of the Ethereum blockchain, together with iris scanning technology, to manage the data underpinning the delivery of the vouchers. To buy food, a recipient need only go to a participating supermarket, where their iris is scanned and the price of the food they need is deducted from the family’s account....

"Instead of furnishing refugees with crypto, Haddad’s dream is to roll out a more decentralized version of Building Blocks; one that all 40 of the organizations assisting people in the camps can use.... Meanwhile, Building Blocks is expanding to Bangladesh and rolling out a blockchain that Haddad hopes will — eventually — service more than 800,000 Rohinga refugees."

Read more: https://decrypt.co/10972/pollopollo-the-crypto-project-putting-chicken-back-on-the-table-in-venezuela
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Chafee joins Libertarian Party as life member

Lincoln Chafee dances around question of presidential run | WJAR 10, Bill Rappleye:

November 20, 2019 - "Lincoln Chafee took to Rhode Island airwaves Wednesday morning to tout his new political party -- Libertarian -- and dance around the question of whether he will run for president.

"The former mayor, senator and governor registered to vote as a Libertarian in his new home state of Wyoming, and also attended the Libertarian National Committee meeting in Miami last weekend, where he became a lifetime member of the party, according to his posting on a new Facebook page titled "Virginia for Lincoln Chafee 2020."

"Wednesday morning on WPRO, Chafee told host Tara Granahan that the Libertarian Party is a good fit for him, because it is 'anti-war and anti-deficit. The two go together.'

"He would not commit to running for president, noting that there are 43 Libertarians who have said they are running. He said the party’s national convention is not until May, in Austin, Texas."

Read more: https://turnto10.com/politics/lincoln-chafee-dances-around-question-of-presidential-run

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