The Humble Libertarian original

One of this week's main news stories is the proliferation of fake news websites and their potential effect on US elections. One purveyor of fake news drew heavy fire for boasting , "I think Trump is in the White House because of me." Meanwhile Google and Facebook announced they would be banning fake news websites from their advertising networks, citing the immense popularity of fake news with partisans on social media the election cycle. So it's important now for the independent, critically-minded reader and sharer of news to note and reflect on the amount of fake news stories propagated by mainstream media sources, sometimes unknowingly through unacceptable carelessness and lack of proper journalistic rigor, other times knowingly and deliberately to influence elections or support a policy agenda. Remember that after this election, even the New York Times, America's "newspaper of record," has had to apologize and "rededicate" itself t...

In a watershed electoral victory for drug policy liberalization in the United States, an astounding eight states voted to legalize marijuana for recreational or medicinal purposes Tuesday. That’s an especially resounding win for marijuana legalization considering that nine states had marijuana on the ballot, putting marijuana reform at an 88% success rate on election day. In four states—Florida, Arkansas, North Dakota, and Montana—voters passed medical marijuana initiatives, and voters in four others—Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, and California—passed initiatives to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults 21 and older. Read the rest at The Independent Voter Network .

In a presidential election with record-setting unfavorable ratings for both major parties’ nominees, no small number of people will be voting against a candidate instead of for the candidate whose name they check on the ballot. Many are calling this election the ultimate choice between “the lesser of two evils.” In fact, that very phrase was repeated over and over again when CNN went on a tour through two major swing states, Ohio and Florida, to talk to voters about their concerns and motivations this election. But for “the lesser of two evils” argument to even make any sense for supporting one candidate over another, there has to be some substantive difference between the two candidates. The following, well-sourced list shows that on major, substantive issues of public policy there is no such difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In fact, Hillary Clinton is just like Donald Trump. For those of you weary of how the mainstream media has covered this campaign, pleas...