Daily Archives: July 19, 2017

‘Euthanasia’? Call it what it is: killing – The Citizen – The Citizen.com

Posted: July 19, 2017 at 4:40 am

Like many fellow Fayette County taxpayers, I was disappointed in the July 13 decision by the Fayette County Board of Commissioners, despite listening to hours of respectful, heartfelt, insightful opposition statements, to vote 4-1 in favor of a regressive euthanasia policy for population management in the Fayette County Animal Shelter.

That was their right, and the shelter director made the proposal to set guidelines for managing a shelter that is way too small and antiquated, with a staff and budget inadequate for Fayette Countys growing, affluent population.

But euthanasia for managing the shelter population is a euphemism. Its euthanasia when you put a terminally ill, suffering animal out of its misery. When you end the life of an animal so you can keep 25 percent of your cages empty, and the only thing wrong with the animal is that it doesnt have a home, you are killing.

The new policy is about killing, not euthanasia. Lets have the courage to call it by its proper name.

Sharon Marchisello Peachtree City, Ga.

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'Euthanasia'? Call it what it is: killing - The Citizen - The Citizen.com

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The Second Most Horrendous Thing About Euthanasia – Discovery Institute

Posted: at 4:40 am

As noted already (here and here), evolutionary biologistJerry Coyne recently endorsed euthanasia for seriously handicapped babies, which I believe is deeply immoral.

Of course, the most horrendous thing about euthanasia is that it is the intentional killing of a sick or handicapped person. But there are other aspects of euthanasia that are nearly as horrendous. Most notable is the corruption of the medical profession itself by the act of killing patients.

To reflect on this, consider this question: In what way is killing a part of medical practice? Doctors spend years studying anatomy and physiology and pharmacology and surgery in order to heal, of course, but also in order not to kill. Im a neurosurgeon, and I devote a great deal of my time professionally to trying not to kill people, because killing a patient is a very real risk in neurosurgery. There are textbooks written on avoidance of serious complications in my specialty, and before every operation I review what could go wrong, how I can avoid it, and what I can do to correct it if the worst happens.

I teach medical students, and one of the things I stress to them is that there is one overarching ethical principle in medicine: when you are interacting with a patient, your only intent should be to make the patients life better. It is a rare privilege to be a member of a profession that is solely devoted to the well-being of every person for whom you provide care. There is a sacred aspect to the physician-patient relationship the physician always acts for the patients best interest. It is part of the essence of medicine to learn how not to cause harm. And deliberate killing whatever the motive is intrinsically to cause harm. Killing the deliberate elimination of the person is the ultimate harm.

Euthanasia turns the essence of medicine this principle of benevolence on its head. Euthanasia is the deliberate killing of patients by their doctors. Doctors practicing euthanasia must calculate how much of lethal drug to give a patient in order to ensure that it kills him. A doctor fails at euthanasia if he is an insufficiently skilled killer. What kind of medical practice is it in which it is malpractice if the patient survives? What kind of medical profession is it in which students are trained to kill? What kind of medical profession is it in which a doctor has a bad day at the office when a patient doesnt die by his hand?

Euthanasia by physicians is analogous to a teacher deliberately lying to a student, or a parent deliberately harming his child. It is a betrayal. It matters not what the motive for the killing is.

Killing is not a medical treatment a fact implicitly confirmed by the universal prohibition by medical societies against physicians participating actively in legal executions. Killing is no more a cure for suffering than it is a cure for cancer or a cure for depression or a cure for acne. Killing is simply the elimination of the patient. Elimination of the patient isnt a cure for anything, any more than demolishing your house is a cure for a leaky roof.

There are many legitimate ways a physician can alleviate suffering there is a whole medical specialty, palliative care, devoted to the alleviation of suffering when a cure is not possible. Hospices provide wonderful care for the terminally ill, and prevent much suffering. No patient needs to suffer at the end of life. No patient ever needs to be killed.

Its reasonable to ask: Why do euthanasia enthusiasts want doctors involved in killing anyway? It takes no real medical skill to kill someone (murderers have been doing it just fine without training for millennia). The reason that euthanasia enthusiasts enlist doctors is obvious: It provides a medical imprimatur to homicide. Killing a handicapped baby doesnt seem so bad when it is dressed up as medical care. Enlisting doctors in euthanasia is a way to keep the fingerprints of euthanasia advocates off of the act of killing. Doctors orders! puts lipstick on a very ugly act.

The ethical response of the medical profession to medical killing is: Not in our name. In reply to Dr. Coynes call for medical killing of handicapped babies, I reply: Dont involve the medical profession in your atrocity. It takes no skill to kill a baby. If you want to kill, out of mercy or whatever, leave doctors out of it. Do it yourself.

Image: Hippocrates, Stuyvesant Polyclinic, New York, NY, by Tony Fischer via Flickr.

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Robbers covered in blue dye after stealing cash box from Liverpool bank – Liverpool Echo

Posted: at 4:40 am

Bank robbers who stole a cash box from a security guard were sprayed with blue dye after breaking it open.

At around 10am today a security guard was making a cash collection at Barclays bank on Mill Lane, West Derby when a man approached him from behind and pushed him, demanding he hand over the cash box.

The man, who was wearing a dark coloured tracksuit and had his face covered, took the box and is believed to have made off from the scene in a white Transit-type van.

It was driven by a man in a grey tracksuit who also had his face covered. A short time later the Transit van and cash box were found nearby.

This afternoon the bank remained taped off and there was a sign on the door saying the branch was closed.

Forensic officers were at the scene and could be seen working both inside and outside the building.

People working in businesses around the bank and local residents said the first thing they knew about the robbery was when they heard an alarm at the bank and then police cars arriving.

One woman said: I assumed there had been a robbery but no-one was around. There was smoke coming out of the bank and then lots of police arrived

Detective Inspector Phil Mahon said: Robberies of security guards are not victimless crimes and it is unacceptable for this guard to be subjected to this ordeal while he was just carrying out his job is unacceptable.

We are carrying out a number of enquiries in the area including the examination of CCTV and forensic enquiries.

We know that when the offenders broke open the cash box it sprayed them and the cash with blue dye, so we are particularly keen to hear from anyone who may have seen two males with blue dye on their clothes after the incident, or anyone who has been given cash with blue dye on it since the incident.

The guard was not injured but left very shaken by the incident.

DI Mahon added: Wed be keen to hear from anyone who witnessed the incident itself or who saw the offenders acting suspiciously in the Mill Lane area to get in contact on 0151 777 4065 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Any information no matter how small will be treated with the utmost confidence and could assist with our investigation.

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Robbers covered in blue dye after stealing cash box from Liverpool bank - Liverpool Echo

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55 Years Behind Bars – Slate Magazine

Posted: at 4:40 am

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Michigan Department of Corrections.

When Sheldry Topp was a child, his father whipped him regularly with an extension cord. At the age of 13, Topp was involuntarily committed to a state hospital and received electroshock therapy for an undefined mental illness. Four years later, in 1962, he ran away from the institution, broke into the home of an attorney in Oakland County, Michigan, and stabbed the man, who then died. Topp fled and was caught by the FBI. At the age of 17, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

At 72, Topp is the oldest person in Michigan serving a life-without-parole sentence for a crime he committed as a youth. Even though the Supreme Court has held that such sentences should be reserved for the rarest of juvenile offenders and 19 states plus the District of Columbia have eliminated them entirely, Topp is still in prison. The current county prosecutor, Jessica Cooper, wants to keep him there until he dies.

Topp told researchers from the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, that he never meant to kill anyone. I only wanted to escape from the [state] hospital, he said. I spent most of my life from the age of about 13 in various juvenile [homes] and hospitals because of my attempts to escape from a father whom I feared so much that I constantly trembled in his presence. Topp earned college credits in prison (before the program was cut) and received certificates in welding, plumbing, mechanics, and computer programming. But he may never get to use them.

Since the Supreme Court rulings in Miller v. Alabama in 2012 and Montgomery v. Louisiana in 2016, states have scrambled to figure out how to give those sentenced to life without parole as kids a meaningful opportunity for release. In the wake of those decisions, every state has been left to reassess its juvenile life-without-parole cases. Michigan has more than 350 cases requiring resentencing, the second-highest number in the nation after Pennsylvania.

While some states have opted to grant parole hearings to prisoners whove served a certain amount of time, others including Michigan have decided to hold resentencing hearings before a judge, who then determines whether each individual should get a parole-eligible sentence. This means prosecutors must comb through old filessome of which are missingand attempt to reconstruct an individuals mindset and history at the time of the crime. While the judge makes the ultimate decision, prosecutors are the ones who decide how to pursue each case. In many counties, prosecutors have declined to seek life without parole and allowed inmates to plead their cases to parole boards. But not in every county.

While the Supreme Court clearly mandated that life-without-parole sentences for youth should be rare, they arent in Oakland County, Michigan. Cooper, the county prosecutor, decided that 44 out of the 49 juvenile life-without-parole defendants in her district deserve to have those sentences kept intact.

When Cooper ran for re-election in 2016, she promised the harshest sentences for juvenile lifers, dubbing them heinous and the worst of the worst. She has consistently defended her support of life without parole in the press, arguing that youth is not an excuse for murder and pointing to defendants records in prison, some of which contain citations for misbehavior. In a phone conversation, she told me that in about half of the 49 cases, the defendants were older than 17, which in Michigan meant they were automatically charged as adults. The Oakland County sheriff, who supported Coopers campaign, compared those sent to prison as kids to Hannibal Lecters. Cooper, who was a judge before becoming a prosecutor, failed to recuse herself from three cases in which she herself had handed down the sentences. She assigned life-without-parole sentences in each of these cases from the bench and is seeking the same results as prosecutor.

No one from the victims family has opposed Topps attempts to seek commutation.

Coopers office has granted the chance for release to just a handful of offenders. One of them is Thomas Anzures, who was resentenced to 30 to 60 years and released on parole this spring. Almost four decades ago, at the age of 17, he was convicted of shooting someone in the course of a robbery gone wrongcircumstances that seem similar to those in Topps case. Cooper told me Anzures had shown a great deal of growth in prison and was not the primary culprit in the crime.

As for Topp, Cooper explained to me that her decision was based on materials from his 1962 trial that she felt indicated he was either a psychopath or a sociopath and not redeemable. Coopers brief arguing for a life-without-parole sentence for Topp cites his sociopathic personality diagnosis, which an expert suggested prior to his sentencing. (This diagnosis is no longer in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.) One assistant prosecutor feebly defended the assertion, saying, Theres just a nagging feeling in me that theres something that could snap in this individual again.

Topps prison record does not support the argument that he is a danger to society. Reviews call him a good worker who is never absent and gets along with others. No one from the victims family has opposed Topps attempts to seek commutation. He has been housed in minimum securitymeant for only the most well-behaved of inmatesand has never tried to run away. A majority of the parole board has also recommended Topps release on two occasions.

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This article would have been better if the writer had mentioned the name of the man Sheldy Topp murdered. As it stands it seems kind of incomplete -- as if Topp is being punished for a victimless crime. More...

Topps situation is particularly complicated because, according to a recent court filing, substantial portions of the original case file were destroyed after the trial. Records indicate that Topp requested a copy of the file after his conviction but was denied because he could not afford to pay for the copies. Now those records, including the original psychological report, are gone. His current lawyer argues that the sentencing hearing cannot proceed without the transcripts and that Topp should therefore automatically be eligible for parole. This would not mean an immediate release for Topp, but would at least give him the chance for freedom before he dies.

Prosecutors like Cooper have argued that they are acting in the best interests of crime victims, who relied upon a promise that some defendants would be in prison forever. But in cases like Topps, so much time has passed that this argument no longer carries much weight. More and more states are outlawing juvenile life without parole in growing recognition that it is cruel and unfair to treat young people as throwaways. Topp is just one of thousands of prisoners still suffering from prosecutors unwillingness to give those who committed crimes as children a second chance.

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55 Years Behind Bars - Slate Magazine

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Steve Bannon’s Devastating Paul Ryan Burn Will Make You Want to Crawl Into a Hole and Die – GQ Magazine

Posted: at 4:39 am

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Make it stop.

Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist composed of two parts vile racism and one part Jabba the Hutt, doesn't do many public appearances these days. But the nuggets that do trickle out about what he says in private indicate that he is equipped with an unsurprisingly sharp (and occasionally anti-Semitic) tongue. A new book profiling Bannon's meteoric rise from xenophobic blogger to West Wing confidante has already yielded some batshit details about his private life, but this onean insult he used to describe Paul Ryan, whom Bannon feared would try to steal the nomination from Donald Trump at the GOP conventionis so devastatingly cruel that it made me want to lay down on the floor and quietly wait for death's sweet release.

Revisiting Ayn Rand’s anti-religious philosophy | Religion News … – Religion News Service

Posted: at 4:38 am

EDITORS NOTE:This column originally appeared in Sightings, a publication of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Sign uphereto receive Sightings in your inbox on Mondays and Thursdays. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Ayn Rand, in the years of her prime, told Playboy her overarching philosophy was that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself. A recent chronicler, Mark David Henderson, said that [s]he wanted to be known as the greatest enemy to religion that ever lived. She put together this philosophy that is all throughout her writingfrom Atlas Shrugged written in 1957, which is still the bestselling novel of all time [sic]. Henderson summarized Rands creed, which she professed and expounded in her novels and endless short writings, talks, and interviews: She believed that the individual is the highest possible occupation of any one person. She believed that one should always occupy their minds, will, and emotions with the highest possible occupation and she believed that would be the self.

The Russian-born immigrant turned American celebrity, still known best for Atlas Shrugged (which bombed as a film), has been getting mugged by reality and by critics, but she has to be described as down but not out. James B. Stewart, whose article on her in The New York Times (July 13) prompts this revisiting of Rand, headlined his story: As a Guru, Ayn Rand May Have Limits. Ask Travis Kalanick. Stewart begins by noting how many biggies in Washington, New York, and Silicon Valley continue to stand by her, but some on this roll call of Rand power-acolytes have been learning their own limits and/or meeting with disaster. To wit

Travis Kalanicknow former CEO of Uber, the Internet ride-hailing service with $50 billion in assetsexperienced the latest Icarus-like plunge of a prominent executive identified with Rand. Hedge fund manager Edward S. Lampert, seen by many as a purist advocate of Randism, has driven Sears and Kmart close to bankruptcy. And Whole Foods founder and CEO John Mackey, who is an ardent libertarian and admirer of Rand, was forced to cede control of his company. Stewart also cites government leaders who live by Randian principles but are not making much of a positive mark.

To the point of Sightings, with its accent on religion, many counsel that this would be a good moment to appraise why and how so many conservative (and other) Christians could buy into a philosophy which, on its face and all the way down, is opposed to religious faith and, in the Christian case, manifestly contradicts all the stories, counsels, commands, and promises of that faith. Of course, Christians and other kinds of believers do not necessarily expect their faith commitments to offer a neat surface match to all, or any, philosophies. Theologian Paul Tillich pointed out the obvious: that Paul the Apostle and believers through the ages have lived with, even relished, paradox. Paradox, however, is not contradiction.

Most of the pages of Rands long tomes, in their celebration of the individual self as the absolute measure of life, militantly, boldly, and without even a hint of secrecy or subtlety, contradict and undercut the Christian view(s) of the redeemed self. Such contradictions have been interpreted away or glossed over by those Christians who have devoted themselves to Rands selfish principles. Yes, this can be a time to revisit these contending creeds and to refresh our language and commitments. A shrug wont serve or solve anything in the current situation.

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Libertarian gubernatorial candidate calls for ‘real changes … – Quad City Times

Posted: at 4:38 am

CEDAR RAPIDS The politics-as-usual approach to state government by Republicans and Democrats is unsustainable and hurting vulnerable Iowans, according to Jake Porter, a Libertarian who is joining the race for governor.

Were having this huge budget crisis, and I dont see other candidates proposing real changes, Porter said Tuesday.

Instead, Statehouse lawmakers and the governor are using the budget as a weapon, according to Porter, who will formally announce his candidacy on The Simon Conway Show on WHO Radio between 4 and 7 p.m. Thursday.

Theyve decided were having a budget crisis, so were going to cut the services people use most, whether its mental health services, sexual abuse hotlines, domestic abuse shelters (or) hearing aids for kids, Porter said.

Theyre not actually going after any of the waste that could easily be cut. Theyre going after the things that are going to hurt the most people, probably as an excuse to raise the sales tax next year.

Porter, 29, a Council Bluffs business consultant long active in the Libertarian Party, previously ran for secretary of state. He thinks his views and priorities are more closely aligned with voters than either the Democratic or Republican platform.

He wants to make medical cannabis available, restore voting rights for felons who have served their time, end corporate welfare, return Medicaid to its pre-privatization status and phase out the state sales tax.

He opposes corporate welfare on libertarian principles. Its wrong, Porter said, to ask Iowans to pay millions of dollars to financially sound corporations. He singled out the Research Activities Credit that refunds tax money to corporations even if they have no tax liability.

Theyve put the tax bill on the smallest Iowans and smallest companies, he said. I dont think the state should favor one business over another.

Porter called turning over Medicaid management to private companies an example of big government cronyism by former Gov. Terry Branstads administration. He would return management responsibility to the Department of Human Services and then make improvements.

The state has messed around for far too long while people who could benefit from medical cannabis have suffered, Porter said. While he would favor legalization of marijuana for recreational use, I dont think the Legislature is going to pass that.

Despite the changes the Legislature has made, current law makes it difficult, nearly impossible, for Iowans who need cannabidiol to get it, he said.

As a Libertarian, Porter said, he would have the advantage of being able to work with and around the major political parties by using the governors bully pulpit to open a dialogue with voters and pressure lawmakers to act on his priorities.

As governor, you can go around and talk about issues and you can pound the issues until (lawmakers) basically have to do something about it, he said.

Porter said his campaign website, jakeporter.org, will go live Thursday afternoon.

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Libertarian gubernatorial candidate calls for 'real changes ... - Quad City Times

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Meet Your Libertarian Candidate for Governor, Cliff Hyra – WVTF

Posted: at 4:38 am

The race for governor has more than two candidates, although the third man in the race is getting far less attention. Michael Pope spent some time with him on the campaign trail.

Michael Pope has this profile on Cliff Hyra, the Libertarian candidate for governor.

Outside the Clarendon Metro station in Arlington on a sweltering afternoon, a candidate for governor is struggling against the summertime heat to get the attention of voters.

Hi Im Cliff Hyra. Im the Libertarian candidate for governor of Virginia.

Oh yeah?

Yes sir. Im running for a more inclusive and innovative Virginia. I want to reform the tax and regulatory system. I want to reform the criminal justice system, and make things more fair for everybody here in Virginia."

"Thats cool, man.

Cliff Hyra will be on the ballot statewide as a candidate for governor. But you may not have heard of him. The patent attorney from Northern Virginia is running as a Libertarian, a party he describes as conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues. If elected governor he says he would use the power of the office to ramp down the War on Drugs.

Thats something I could do immediately as soon as I came into office I could order law enforcement to deprioritize marijuana use. I dont want to see anybody whos arrested only for marijuna use. Its certainly a very poor use of scare resources.

He would also take aim at the criminal justice system.

The sentences that are handed down are very often disproportionate. If you look at surveys showing the levels of use between African American and other communities and then the levels of arrests are very disproportionate.

The last Libertarian candidate to run for governor was Robert Sarvis, who ran against Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli. He did better than any other third party candidate in the last 40 years. But that still wasnt enough to crack 10%.

Sarvis was out campaigning with Hyra. The problem is that we dont actually have a level playing field. We have to spend a lot of effort just to get on the ballot. Once were on the ballot, theres an effort to keep us out of the debates.

Sarvissays he should have been included in the debates. I was polling at 10%. I got 145,000 votes and I still wasnt allowed in the debates, and I think thats a tragedy.

"If this race is as close as I think it could be, then the Libertarian candidate could play the spoiler and in that case he would hurt Ed Gillespie."

So far, Hyra has yet to receive an invitation to any of the debates this year. The Virginia Bar Association will be conducting the first debate this weekend, and they wont be including Hyra because he doesnt have the necessary polling numbers and he hasnt raised enough money.

But Christopher Newport Universitys Quentin Kidd says that doesnt mean he wont have an influence over the outcome of the election.

"Remember the last time Ed Gillespie came within 17,000 votes of beating Mark Warner. If this is a 17,000 vote race then you could be in a situation where the Libertarian candidate does in fact play the spoiler.

If this race is as close as I think it could be, then the Libertarian candidate could play the spoiler and in that case he would hurt Ed Gillespie.

On some issues, Hyra and Gillespie arent all that far apart. Take the issue of expanding Medicaid.

Expansion is forever. Its almost a poison pill because once you get that expansion its really hard to roll it back."

And then there's abortion.

In general, on abortion issues I would defer to the legislature. So the exception to that would be if theres something that I feel is unconstitutional.

But then theres the controversial issues of the pipelines.

Well Im opposed to the pipelines, and Im opposed to them mainly for property rights reasons. You have the federal government, and theyre taking private property and its for the benefit of a private company, Dominion Power.

Back on the campaign trail in Clarendon, Hyra is making an elevator pitch at the top of an escalator.

I think its very unfortunate some of the rhetoric that weve seen recently thats been very discouraging to people who want to visit here from overseas. But I think they are a wonderful asset, and I hope that we can reverse the trend in that respect."

Thats cool, man.

OK, very nice meeting you.

I really hope you make it.

Meet Your Libertarian Candidate for Governor, Cliff Hyra - WVTF

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Dist. 16: Libertarian Senate candidate says his party is growing converts – The Union Leader

Posted: at 4:38 am

By KEVIN LANDRIGAN New Hampshire Union Leader July 18. 2017 10:34PM State Senate District 16 special election When: Tuesday, July 25.

Where: The district includes Manchester Wards 1,2 and 12, and the towns of Bow, Candia, Dunbarton and Hooksett.

Who: Republican David Boutin of Hooksett, Democrat Kevin Cavanaugh of Manchester, and Libertarian Justin Dubrow of Dunbarton.

Since Novembers election, three members of the 400-member New Hampshire House of Representatives two Republicans and one Democrat have switched to become Libertarian.

I suspect we will see more Libertarian switches, said Dubrow, a 38-year-old computer engineer.

Libertarians won automatic status on the ballot by getting at least 4 percent of the vote in the race for U.S. Senate last fall.

Dubrow moved to New Hampshire from Massachusetts nearly 10 years ago but not as a follower of the Free State Project, a national call by the Libertarian Party for like-minded citizens to move here and make the Granite State a major political beachhead for the cause.

In his only other elective office experience, Dubrow ran as a Republican in a 2010 primary for state representative and lost.

He and his wife, Becky, have two daughters, Cassiopia, 6, and Callista, who is 15 months old.

Dubrow faces two better-known and more well-financed opponents in this State Senate District 16 race that voters will decide next Tuesday.

Republican nominee David Boutin held the seat for eight years but decided not to run in 2016. Manchester Ward 1 Alderman Kevin Cavanaugh is the Democratic nominee in District 16, which includes Manchester Wards 1, 2 and 12 along with the towns of Hooksett, Bow, Candia and Dunbarton.

Dubrow is best known among political activists as a gun rights supporter and he applauded the Republican-led Legislature last spring for making New Hampshire one of a small number of states that let people carry a concealed gun without a permit.

We finally passed constitutional carry that needed to be passed for many years, Dubrow said. We would have passed in 2010 if not for Senator Boutin back then.

At that time, Boutin served on a House-Senate conference committee trying to resolve differences between competing versions of the concealed carry bill, but negotiators failed to reach an agreement.

Some gun advocates blame Boutin for the collapse; Boutin insists he wanted to reach a deal and that pro-gun groups have given him good grades for his voting record on the issue.

Dubrow faulted lawmakers for passing a two-year state budget that increased spending from state revenues by nearly 10 percent.

I would definitely say that any increase in spending is bad. It was a lot more than I think it needed to be, Dubrow said.

Dubrow agrees with the Libertarian Partys support for abortion rights.

From a government point of view, I dont think it is the governments role to regulate them. From a personal point of view, I hope there comes a day when we dont need abortions, Dubrow said.

Dubrows views on drugs is consistent with the Libertarian Partys approach.

He believes New Hampshire should start reform by decriminalizing possession of all drugs.

If users are non-violent, they have a medical problem; they dont have a criminal problem, Dubrow began. Lets look at the cost of people losing their lives through criminal convictions. I believe decriminalization is a good step and legalization is a laudable long-term goal.

As for fighting the opioid epidemic, Dubrow said he believes lawmakers from all three parties would work together to expand access to drug treatment and more prevention programs.

On Northern Pass, Dubrow said he doesnt favor letting Eversource acquire private properties by eminent domain if lands are needed for right-of-way along the electricity transmission project.

We need to make sure there is no environmental impact from this project but we do have a serious problem with generation in New Hampshire, Dubrow said. We definitely need to look into whatever options we have to lower our high electric rates.

Dubrow said he converted his home energy use to solar four years ago.

Renewable energy has a place in the market but I dont support government mandates like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Dubrow said.

On health care reform, Dubrow said the federal Affordable Care Act is not sustainable and New Hampshire and other states should be able to pursue deregulation efforts on their own.

Dubrow said he likes the suggestion of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. to make sure all Americans have catastrophic care coverage, which can be much more affordable than the mandated set of benefits contained in Obamacare.

klandrigan@unionleader.com

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Dist. 16: Libertarian Senate candidate says his party is growing converts - The Union Leader

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Letter: Give Libertarian candidates more coverage – NorthJersey.com

Posted: at 4:38 am

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NorthJersey Published 4:42 p.m. ET July 18, 2017 | Updated 4:42 p.m. ET July 18, 2017

Peter Rohrman(Photo: Mitsu Yasukawa/ Staff Photographer)

Regarding Residents invite gubernatorial hopefuls (Page A4, July 14):

Is there any reason why this story did not mention the Libertarian Party candidate Peter Rohrman for governor, who is on the ballot, in your voting block article today? Is there a reason why the media continually give plenty of free press to the Democrat and Republican candidates and yet rarely mentions any other choices on the ballot? The Record should be informing readers about all the choices on the ballot for governor, not just those from the two parties that have created all of the problems our state currently faces?

Please provide information on the real choices for governor in New Jersey, not just the two disaster parties.

Mike Mazzeo

Waldwick, July 14

Read or Share this story: https://njersy.co/2vfSiXm

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Daily Archives: July 19, 2017

‘Euthanasia’? Call it what it is: killing – The Citizen – The Citizen.com

The Second Most Horrendous Thing About Euthanasia – Discovery Institute

Robbers covered in blue dye after stealing cash box from Liverpool bank – Liverpool Echo

55 Years Behind Bars – Slate Magazine

Steve Bannon’s Devastating Paul Ryan Burn Will Make You Want to Crawl Into a Hole and Die – GQ Magazine

Revisiting Ayn Rand’s anti-religious philosophy | Religion News … – Religion News Service

Libertarian gubernatorial candidate calls for ‘real changes … – Quad City Times

Meet Your Libertarian Candidate for Governor, Cliff Hyra – WVTF

Dist. 16: Libertarian Senate candidate says his party is growing converts – The Union Leader

Letter: Give Libertarian candidates more coverage – NorthJersey.com

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