“98% Of Harvard Law Faculty Political Donations Go To Democrats” [Paul Caron, TaxProf]
If I say so myself, my book Schools for Misrule makes a good place to start in understanding how American legal academia came by its distinctive ideological leanings. There’s a Kindle version you can download right now.
As surmised earlier, Maryland knife law has emerged as an issue in the Freddie Gray story; Gray’s death in police custody has now resulted in the filing of charges against six police officers, the most serious charge, “depraved heart murder,” being leveled against the driver of the police van from which Gray, unbelted, emerged with fatal injuries. [Washington Post] More links on “rough rides” here, here, and here. “The Baltimore police union defended the officers involved…. ‘none….are responsible'” [Baltimore Sun, The Hill, Ed Krayewski/Reason] Some obstacles for the prosecution [Associated Press]
Update, Colin Campbell, Baltimore Sun:
The separate investigations by police and prosecutors have some conflicting findings.
While Mosby said Friday that the officers had made an illegal arrest because a knife Gray was carrying was not a “switchblade,” a violation of state law, the police task force studied the knife and determined it was “spring-assisted,” which does violate a Baltimore code.
More from Twitchy link roundup (investigators have not yet released picture of knife or other information that could help identify model and resolve dispute), Andrew Branca (Baltimore code bans “spring-assisted” weapons not banned under Maryland law; also, reasonable mistake of law on illegality of weapon might still support probable cause finding).
Socialist Seattle councilor “allegedly structured her employees …to avoid payroll taxes, overtime, and insurance.” [Jason Rantz, MyNorthwest]
If you’re Seattle, you put it on YouTube [Tyler Cowen]
The federal government officially recommends salt intake drastically lower than what most Americans consume — 2,300 milligrams a day compared with 3,500. Yet a vocal body of scientific critics say not only are such drastic reductions unneeded for those without specific risk factors such as high blood pressure, but cutting salt intake below 3,000 milligrams can pose its own health risks. [Washington Post]
This Wall Street Journal editorial may be under a paywall or registration for some readers, but its highlight comes in its headline: settlement monitor Richard Bromwich, appointed by a federal judge in 2013 to oversee Apple, “bills for reading our editorials.” More on settlement monitors at our tag; more on Apple and antitrust.
From Twitter, some further thoughts on the Baltimore riots and their implications:
Why – paradoxically – the poor need property rights even more than the rich. http://t.co/iTsoz2Atip
— Jason Kuznicki (@JasonKuznicki) April 30, 2015
In response, Twitter user @hamilt0n cites this NBER paper by William J. Collins and Robert A. Margo on the (very harmful) labor market effects of the 1960s riots, adds: “Riots=more spending, higher taxation, rich are mobile and flee, poor get stuck with the bill”
Sweetness and light in a New York Times “Crips and Bloods gangs come together to save Baltimore” story:
uh hold up a sec guys http://t.co/zQfYc6Ndrq pic.twitter.com/OaEtsVSfiK
— Matt Bors (@MattBors) April 28, 2015
More from Liz Mair on how the rights just go to show what you already believed; Cathy Young (arguing, inter alia, that any system is going to accord police suspected of wrongdoing some advantages over other citizens in those circumstances and we might just as well accept this). Meanwhile, the seven-day 10 p.m. curfew threatens the livelihoods of thousands of Baltimoreans and small businesses [New York Times, Baltimore Sun]
In 1983 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Bob Jones University in South Carolina could be denied an otherwise applicable tax exemption because of its then policy of forbidding interracial dating among its students; since then, despite much speculation, there has not been widespread yanking of exemptions from other institutions over widely disfavored or execrated but otherwise not unlawful internal policies. Now an exchange between Justice Samuel Alito and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, at Tuesday’s oral argument in the gay marriage cases, is raising some eyebrows. Verrilli’s comments, if seen as reflecting considered Obama administration policy, might be seen as leaving the door open to wider denial of exemptions. [Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post; Michael Greve, Library of Law and Liberty]