Stupid State Stories

The Fourth Amendment didn't die, it got outsourced. The government can't search you without a warrant, so it stopped searching you and started subscribing, with your money. Our guest Susan Peena of Third Party Solutions walks us through the catalog: doorbell footage requests that got reformed in 2024 and quietly un-reformed in 2025, a geofence warrant program that worked backwards from everyone at the bank to one name until the Supreme Court said six-to-three in June that it's a search, gunshot microphones whose algorithm pleads the trade secret, body-cam evidence held hostage behind a storage subscription, AI-written police reports carrying on...

Democracy's got a math problem. In 1951 Kenneth Arrow proved that with three or more candidates, no ranked voting system can satisfy four reasonable fairness conditions at once, and picked up a Nobel for it in 1972.

Play with the math yourself: https://ncase.me/ballot

Sources:

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arrows-theorem

- https://arxiv.org/html/2303.00108v2

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington,_Vermont_mayoral_election

- https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska_Ballot_Measure_2,_Repeal_Top-Four_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Initiative_(2026)

The deadliest killer of the twentieth century wasn't war, and it wasn't crime. It was government. R.J. Rummel's democide tally counts 262 million people murdered by their own states, six times the century's combat deaths, and nearly every regime that ran up that number took the guns first. From the Weimar Republic's gun registry to Cambodia's killing fields, from Chavez's gun ban to Bondi Beach, the recipe never changes: register, reassure, restrict. The state keeps its rifles. You get a brick.

Sources:

https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM

https://reason.com/2014/05/15/be-antigovernment-and-proud

Elon Musk just became the first trillionaire then settled back to ~$947B. Schrödinger's billionaire. Washington finally has the boogeyman it needs.

The mathing on why Warren and Sanders' wealth-tax proposals don't work, and why they sell votes anyway.

The printer never stops going "brrrrr."

Sources:

forbes.com/profile/elon-musk

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Millionaire_Tax_Act_of_2021

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax · usdebtclock.org

Thomas Massie (R-KY), 8-term congressman, lost his primary on May 19, 2026 to Trump-backed sock puppet Ed Gallrein.

The most expensive House primary in US history

$32M+ in ad spending

BBB Adds ~$3T to national debt over a decade

Only Congress makes war H.Con.Res.38

Pentagon conceded no evidence of imminent Iranian strike

Massie pushed for release of files which may implicate the elite.

Hasn't ruled out 2028 presidential run

Chuck and Megan try to untangle Schrödinger's ceasefire, a confusing Middle East agreement that is somehow simultaneously happening and not happening. We also examine Lindsey Graham's unique interpretation of war powers, where he essentially treats the Constitution's mandate for congressional approval like a decorative throw pillow. Meanwhile, normal shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has plummeted as Iran sets up a lethal new toll booth system backed by threats of absolute destruction. Back at home, we break down the math-defying absurdity of Donald Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget as the national deficit continues to balloon out of c...

https://reason.com/2026/03/06/jobs-are-down-while-the-u-s-spends-2-billion-a-day-on-war-with-iran/

https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/02/24/proposal-to-create-counterintelligence-unit-receives-bipartisan-pushback/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://reason.com/2026/03/06/the-federal-government-was-told-to-make-a-list-of-everything-it-funds-15-years-later-there-still-isnt-one/

• ICE Legal Observer Added to Terrorist Database https://reason.com/2026/01/23/ice-tells-legal-observer-we-have-a-nice-little-database-and-now-youre-considered-a-domestic-terrorist/

• WH Domestic Terrorism Memo Sept 2025 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/

• Arrested for Observing ICE https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/01/arrested-for-observing-ice-minnesota-lesson.html

• Ben Jordan: Flock Camera Security Exposé 40min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY

• Flock Security Vulnerabilities https://www.privacyguides.org/news/2025/11/17/ben-jordan-exposes-severe-security-vulnerabilities-in-flock-surveillance-cameras/

• Flock Safety Security Research https://gainsec.com/2025/11/05/formalizing-my-flock-safety-security-research/

• Campus Protests Fail vs History https://www.aei.org/society-and-culture/performative-politics-why-todays-campus-protests-fail-where-historys-movements-succeeded/

• Diminishing Power of Protests https://thesciencesurvey.com/editorial/2025/02/12/the-diminishing-p...

- The U.S. Navy under Trump: A Tool of Modern Piracy - Global Research

- Assange's war crimes accusation: Nobel Prize faces criminal complaint over 2025 winner - Natural News

- Donald Trump's squeeze on Venezuela - The Week

- How oil, drugs and immigration fueled Trump's Venezuela campaign - Times of India

America's longest government shutdown shows why we must free air traffic control from politics

Congressman Thomas Massie's Official Website - Information on his work to reform the appropriations process and restore regular order in government spending

Congress Should Pass 12 Separate Spending Bills, Not Omnibus - Analysis supporting Massie's approach to budget reform

- [The War on Poverty After 50 years](https://www.cato.org/policy-report/may/june-2015/war-poverty-after-fifty-years)

- [EconTalk: Robert Chitester](https://www.econlib.org/econtalk-with-bob-chitester/)

- [The Ballad of Price Controls](https://redcircle.com/shows/nebuphony/ep/63d2b1ca-b763-4edf-84fe-a264fa4fa99c)

- [Food Stamps and Mises’ Theory of Intervention](https://mises.org/mises-wire/food-stamps-and-misess-theory-intervention)

- [Drug War History](https://drugpolicy.org/drug-war-history/)

- [Human Cost of Post 9/11 Wars](https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/sites/default/files/papers/Costs-of-War_Direct-War-Deaths_9-1-21.pdf)

Occupational Licensing

Hours required to braid hair

AMA

Flight 328

The Machinery of Freedom

https://www.influencewatch.org/labor-union/national-education-association-nea/

https://fee.org/articles/power-grab-how-the-national-education-association-is-betraying-our-children/

FDA Delays Patients’ Access to a New Alzheimer’s TreatmentProfits and DrugsPrice Controls for Medicines Risk Harming InnovationA Blueprint for FDA ReformAn FDA Report Card

That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen

https://mises.org/articles-interest/which-seen-and-which-not-seen

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-beltways-energy-transition-relies-on-the-broken-window-fallacy/

Basic EconomicsTaxation, Forced Labor, and TheftThe Ethics of Liberty

Real ID - bringing 2005 to you with a side of authoritarian inconvenience.

https://mises.org/mises-wire/real-id-not-about-keeping-you-safe

https://reason.com/2023/03/31/tsas-biometric-screening-may-not-be-optional-for-long/

From one ribbon cutting ceremony to the next, Public Choice explains why we can't have nice systems.

But don't take it from us, Mike Munger wrote the book on Public Choice

Is Capitalism Sustainable?

https://amzn.to/44uEtYl

https://rzadek.medium.com/mike-munger-is-taking-public-choice-seriously-e4832ffdd649

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRNjQP3UuAY&ab_channel=AustralianTaxpayers%27Alliance

DOGE cuts violently, while congress spends more than ever.

https://reason.com/2025/03/12/the-houses-budget-bill-cuts-earmarks-but-spending-will-be-going-up-anyway/

https://thenewamerican.com/us/politics/trump-massie-feud-highlights-gop-refusal-to-get-serious-about-spending/

This St. Patrick's day, remember: Tariffs are taxes.

https://reason.com/2025/03/15/pour-one-out-for-purchasing-power-this-st-patricks-day/

https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/fiscal-economic-and-distributional-effects-20-tariffs-china-and-25-tariffs-canada-and-mexico

"Why, sometimes I’ve devalued six currencies before breakfast!" boasted the Mad Chairman, tipping his hat to the Fed's fine feast of fiscal folly.

D.S.T. is D.U.M.B.

https://www.standardtime.com/proposal.html

https://enddaylightsavingtime.org/

Hallucinations of Critical State Theory