- What’s worse than undermining Section 230, charter of Internet freedom? Turning it all into a pinata for trial lawyers [No go, NRO; earlier on SESTA and FOSTA] Carve-out to Section 230 in name of fighting sex trafficking could erode protection for other businesses against being sued [WSJ editorial] More: Karol Markowicz;
- “If You Owe the IRS Over $51,000, It Can Trap You in the United States” [Brian Doherty, Reason]
- How far can a theft ring go in stealing a rental vehicle before the police step in? [related Twitter threads, Sharky Laguana and Noah Lehmann-Haupt]
- “Federalism as a Check on Executive Authority,” panel at Federalist Society 2017 Annual Texas Chapters Conference with Caitlin Halligan, Scott Keller, Ernest Young, moderated by Hon. Jeff Brown [video]
- Revisiting an auto scare: “Will the Corvair Kill You?” [Larry Webster, Hagerty, earlier here and here]
- No, peacocks-in-the-airline-cabin isn’t really some failure of “fetishizing [individualism over] communal well-being.” It’s a failure of collectivized legal compulsion overriding contract and choice [David Leonhardt, New York Times; Elizabeth Preske, Travel and Leisure on underlying episode; earlier on emotional-support and other service animals]
Archive for March, 2018
Yale: “We expect [applicants] to be versed in issues of social justice.”
I’m in today’s WSJ talking about the Yale admissions official who wrote that accepted students are expected “to be versed in issues of social justice.” With bonus appearance by Friedrich Hayek and his study “The Mirage of Social Justice.” Parting shot: “Yale started out as a base for the training of Puritan clergy. One wonders whether it has really changed all that much.” (& welcome Instapundit, Scott Greenfield, Charlotte Allen readers)
Banking and finance roundup
- SCOTUS by 9-0, Ginsburg writing, agrees with Cato amicus (and disagrees with Sen. Grassley amicus) that Dodd-Frank doesn’t cover “whistleblowers” who never told the SEC [Digital Realty Trust v. Somers: Ilya Shapiro/Harvard Law Review, Joel Nolette/Least Dangerous Blog, earlier]
- Claim: “rolling back bank regulations is a good way to trigger a financial meltdown.” How much truth in that? [George Selgin, Cato]
- Crosstown hypocrisy: a closer look at the cities who tell judges and bond investors as needed that their infrastructure will or won’t face future destruction owing to climate change [Dan Walters, CalMatters; Jay Newman, Wall Street Journal, earlier]
- Mortgage systems in Canada, Germany appear to operate with less risk and lower default rates. Would Americans accept the trade-offs? [Arnold Kling]
- Tag-along private suits following regulatory action, familiar in US courts, now crop up in Australia [Kevin LaCroix]
- Regrettable Lovenheim ruling turned liberal shareholder groups into boardroom players [Prof. Bainbridge] The law of corporate social responsibility and shareholder accountability [same]
“Two Criteria to Distinguish between Good Lawyers and Bad Lawyers”
Attorneys may or may not be pleasant to deal with, or wise in the ways of the world, or skilled with the spoken and written word. But watch out for the ones who don’t know how to handle and evaluate their cases, or are untruthful [Jeremy Richter]
Crime and punishment roundup
- Why Baltimore’s Civilian Review Board hasn’t done much to fix its police crisis [J.F. Meils, Capitol News Service/Maryland Reporter]
- Three prosecutors with high national profiles who’ve put up dogged, maybe too dogged, resistance to actual-innocence claims [Lara Bazelon, Slate]
- Carceral liberalism: Advocates press to do away with statute of limitations for sex assault prosecutions [Scott Greenfield]
- “No charges have been filed against the cops. All of the officers involved are still employed by the department.” [Christina Carrega, New York Daily News on nearly $1 million award to Oliver Wiggins, unsuccessfully framed for DWI after police car ran stop sign and crashed into his vehicle]
- Founding-era views of duty-to-retreat vs. stand-your-ground might be more complicated than you think [Eugene Volokh]
- The trial penalty “is among the most important features of America’s criminal justice system, and yet there is no reference to it in the Constitution” [Clark Neily, Cato]
Compelled marketplace speech and the First Amendment
California law compels “crisis pregnancy centers” whose mission is to provide alternatives to abortion to advise clients that the state of California offers free or low-cost abortion, contraception, prenatal counseling, and other services to eligible women. An instance of compelled speech that rises to the level of a First Amendment violation? [Ilya Shapiro as part of SCOTUSblog symposium on NIFLA v. Becerra; Shapiro, Trevor Burrus, and Meggan DeWitt, Cato]
Related: Courts should apply strict scrutiny to compelled-disclosure laws requiring firms to disparage own products or take part in public debate [Shapiro and DeWitt on cert petition in CTIA v. Berkeley, on Berkeley, Calif. law requiring cellphone vendors to warn customers of radio frequency exposures even though the FCC has found no scientific evidence to link to any illness]
That sign will get you in trouble, you know
Gilmanton, New Hampshire: residents who put up lawn and window signs critical of the town administration “got letters from the local building inspector warning that their posters violated the local zoning code and potentially state political advertising disclosure laws” and mentioning $275/day fines [New Hampshire Public Radio]
“Michigan’s Long ‘Bad Driver Tax’ Nightmare Will Finally End”
“A revenue-grab from the state’s lost decade left a trail of social costs and broken lives” [Jack McHugh, Mackinac Institute]
President imposes steel and aluminum tariffs
“Despite the myth that US manufacturing is in decline — and despite the very real decline in manufacturing employment— US industrial output is nearly double what it was 30 years ago. Very often, American manufacturers are in the business of making things out of steel and aluminum.” [Josh Barro] While, to paraphrase Trotsky, you may not be interested in trade war, trade war is interested in you [Axios on prospects for retaliation and economic damage] On the aluminum angle, Virginia Postrel in November. On the defense angle: Peter Coy, Bloomberg. More commentary: Dan Ikenson/Cato, Mickey Levy/Manhattan Institute. Will Trump quietly change course, as he earlier reversed an order that the Keystone XL pipeline be built only with American steel? [Simon Lester]
I’m quoted saying “that the tariff decision could be a big step backward for U.S. economic policy under Trump” [Trey Barrineau, trade journal DWM Magazine]:
Walter Olson, a senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., said in a Facebook post on Friday that the tariff decision could be a big step backward for U.S. economic policy under Trump.
“There are few topics on which economists of different stripes are as unanimous in their opinion as in their disapproval of protectionism and tariffs,” he said. “It would take only a few policy mistakes like this to cancel out a lot of the positive economic value contributed by this administration through such measures as regulatory relief, tax reform, and permit streamlining.”
The U.S. Constitution entrusts tariff policy squarely to the legislative branch, so if senators don’t like how Trump is handling things, they should promptly repeal the laws they passed delegating their power to him, and instead take back for themselves direct authority over the issue [Ira Stoll] “It’s time for Congress to step up to the plate.” [Colin Grabow, The Hill]
Schools roundup
- “Wyoming: Efforts to strip state courts of jurisdiction to hear K-12 funding lawsuits reintroduced; courts could declare funding system unconstitutional but could not order more funding” [Gavel To Gavel, more on school finance litigation]
- Coalition of accusers’-rights groups sue Education Department demanding restoration of earlier Obama versions Title IX guidance [KC Johnson Twitter thread pointing out weaknesses in suit]
- “A High School Student Faces Expulsion for Noticing the Square Root Symbol Looks Like a Gun” [Scott Shackford]
- How a political machine based on the schools lobby ran one affluent suburban county (Montgomery County, Maryland) before fumbling its grip [Adam Pagnucco, The Seventh State]
- Costs approach $1M in Southern California special ed dispute over one student’s education [Ashly McGlone, San Diego Union-Tribune]
- Japan: “Of course, this ignores the absurdity that students are being required, or feel required, to dye their hair because of a policy that was supposedly meant to prohibit students from dying their hair.” [Lowering the Bar]