Double standard: Mugabe ‘was leasing out land to whites’, says report

"As recently as late October, Mugabe said black owners who invited whites back to rent and work seized fields would lose their farms. But the Zimbabwe Independent reports that the former first family was doing exactly that: leasing out part of Mazowe Citrus Estate to a company in which some of the main shareholders were white."

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Senate Tax Bill’s Marginal Rates Could Top 100% for Some

"The possible marginal tax rate of more than 100% results from the combination of tax policies designed to provide benefits to businesses and families but then deny them to the richest people. As income climbs and those breaks phase out, each dollar of income faces regular tax rates and a hidden marginal rate on top of that, in the form of vanishing tax breaks. That structure, if maintained in a final law, would create some of the disincentives to working and to earning business profit."

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Arizona Citizens Tracked In REAL ID Facial Recognition Database

"But the use of the system to prevent identity theft isn’t what people are worried about; the problem is the lack of oversight in government programs that allows anyone with access to look into the database. As such, state-run facial recognition databases are dangerous and can lead down a slippery slope to allow other operations the technology wasn’t intended for."

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Enter the ‘petro’: Venezuela to launch oil-backed cryptocurrency

"'Venezuela will create a cryptocurrency,' backed by oil, gas, gold and diamond reserves, Maduro said in his regular Sunday televised broadcast, a five-hour showcase of Christmas songs and dancing. Ironically, Venezuela’s currency controls in recent years have spurred a bitcoin fad among tech-savvy Venezuelans looking to bypass controls to obtain dollars or make internet purchases. Maduro’s government has a poor track record in monetary policy. Currency controls and excessive money printing have led to a 57 percent depreciation of the bolivar against the dollar in the last month alone on the widely used black market."

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NYC not liable for processing fake deed allowing theft of woman’s home

"Merin, 74, had sued the city for not catching the forgery when the paperwork was first filed, but lost on appeal when the court backed a judge who said she couldn’t prove the city was negligent. The feisty homeowner is fuming and has vowed to fight the decision."

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A Government That Gives Licenses Won’t Hesitate to Take Them Away

"Without a license, one is no longer legally permitted to work. This is to say, barbers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, and pilots (the list is extensive) who are otherwise skilled at their occupations can be removed from the legal workforce if the governing body deems their student loan repayment unsatisfactory."

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Millennials Get It Wrong about Socialism

"I’m left to conclude that they have no appreciation for how socialism actually works in the real world. The economic track record of socialism is as dismal as its human rights record. But we need not direct Millennials to history books to see it. They need only look at what has happened to former socialist countries during their own lifetimes, as these countries have moved away from socialism and towards capitalism."

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Congress Needs to Put a Stop to Asset Forfeiture

"Revenues generated through forfeiture may be spent with virtually no oversight. Funds distributed to local or state agencies via the equitable sharing program are similarly beyond the reach of state or local lawmakers. Perhaps this lack of accountability explains how funds supposedly reserved for 'law enforcement purposes' wind up getting spent on margarita machines, training trips to Hawaii, and chrome accents for Harley Davidson motorcycles."

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