It’s pretextual and cronyish in motivation, argues Jim Epstein at the Daily Beast (earlier).
Wrong-person arrests: “Mistakes happen”
“Shannon Renee McNeal was torn from her screaming children by police who were seeking a woman with a similar name — a woman who they should have known had been murdered seven months before.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch via Radley Balko]
More of the week’s awful-police-happenings coverage: Atlantic City beating and canine attack [Tim Lynch, Cato]; Ames, Ia. police shoot and kill son after dad calls to report he’s taken truck without permission [Des Moines Register]; “Man Dies In Jail Cell After Misdemeanor Pot Offense” [Snohomish County, Wash., severe allergies; Radley Balko again]; New Mexico man’s lawsuit alleges “worst traffic stop ever” [Jalopnik, Popehat, Lowering the Bar and more, Orin Kerr, Michelle Meyer/Faculty Lounge]
Oral argument in Bond v. U.S.
A testy exchange between Justice Stephen Breyer and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. “was not the only signal that the administration may have difficulty winning in the case of Bond v. United States, which began as a ‘lover’s triangle’ dispute from Pennsylvania but has mushroomed into a major test of the power of Congress to implement international treaties in ways that may interfere with the prerogatives of the 50 states.” [Tony Mauro, NLJ, Daniel Fisher, earlier on Bond] Michael Greve finds the administration’s stance “breathtakingly aggressive. … when the government stumbles into Court with no principle, rule, or line to cabin its assertion of power, it loses. That’s Lopez, that’s Morrison, that’s NFIB.” [Liberty Law] Related, Peter Spiro/OJ.
Food roundup
- As we warned at the time: Food Safety Modernization Act shaping up as severe burden for many small, local and artisanal producers [Tom Philpott, Mother Jones via Tim Carney, Dave Runsten and Brian Snyder, CivilEats]
- Bloomberg’s City Hall wants to keep secret the inputs to its food-scold policies. Open up, says Keep Food Legal [Reason]
- More coverage of Heritage food freedom panel I was on [Sihan Zhang, Scripps Howard Foundation Wire, Joe Daly/Accuracy in Academia, earlier]
- How shipping unions sunk food aid reform [Center for Public Integrity]
- California enacts a strong cottage food law, but needs to work on farmers’ markets [Baylen Linnekin; related on Texas]
- Law and public health profs inveigh against “Mountain Dew Mouth,” but is it a real thing? [Reason, Bill of Health, Andrew Sullivan]
- Canada’s OPEC-like maple syrup cartel fights thieves and legitimate competition alike [Lowering the Bar]
FDA moves toward trans fat ban
“The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it is taking the first step toward banning dangerous trans fats that are found in a variety of processed foods. The agency said in a statement that the fats, used in a number of products from margarine and coffee creamer to frozen pizza, are a major health concern for Americans despite lower consumption of the dangerous, artery-clogging fats over the last twenty years.” [Chicago Tribune, our earlier coverage] More: Julie Gunlock, IWF; Scott Shackford, Reason; Michelle Minton, CEI (logic of removing ingredient from GRAS list based on long-term cumulative health effects could point toward regulating salt, sugar).
From comments: “Trans fats are pretty rare in my experience at this point outside of, ironically, military rations.” [L.C. Burgundy] More: Via Jacob Grier, Olga Khazan at The Atlantic recalls the days when the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) denounced restaurant chains for using saturated fat. The ensuing pressure campaign resulted in a widespread switchover to supposedly healthier trans-fat.
Upcoming speeches and appearances
I’ll be at these events in coming weeks:
Fri., Nov. 8, Air Force lawyers CLE, Arlington, Va., discussing Supreme Court term (not a public event)
Mon., Nov. 11, U. of Chicago Federalist Society lunch
Tues., Nov. 12, NYU Federalist Society afternoon panel on NYC food initiatives
Thurs., Nov. 14, Federalist Society Lawyers’ National Convention, Washington, DC, afternoon panel on litigation finance
Thurs., Nov. 21, Univ. of Baltimore Law School, speak to Ron Miller’s insurance-law class (not a public event)
How government transferred value from shareholders to managers
Marc Hodak: “The golden parachute became popular after passage of the Williams Act [of 1968, which insulated managements against “hostile” takeover offers] because the Act effectively gave CEOs a veto over the acquisition of their firm. … Note that this ‘rent extraction,’ as it’s termed by economists, was not the result of managerial power granted by a lazy or corrupt board to a greedy CEO. This was managerial power created by law.”
Free speech roundup
- Arizona water utility sues customer over criticism [Popehat, which also has a free-speech-themed Blawg Review tribute and the year in blasphemy law]
- Harvey Silverglate, “The Slow Death of Free Speech at Harvard” [Minding the Campus] Cato’s Free Speech Week coverage includes video of recent Jonathan Rauch panel [Tim Lynch]
- Arrest warrant issued after Connecticut man tells Facebook readers he plans to take toy guns into school to prove point [Volokh]
- In Florida, it’s illegal for two or more people to join together and spend more than $500 on a state ballot issue [Ilya Shapiro; Jacob Sullum on other grassroots-activist chill effects] Brad Smith on the fight at the Supreme Court between Shaun McCutcheon and the FEC [WSJ]
- “Florida Condo Developer Sues Residents Over Website” [IJ]
- Lawmaker to introduce anti-SLAPP bill to curb vexatious plaintiffs in Pennsylvania, and no state needs it more [Philly Law Blog; cf. Michigan which also could use a hand]
- Will measures to criminalize revenge porn erode Section 230, the provision that shelters online media operators from liability for user-added content? [Mark Bennett, Scott Greenfield] At European Court for Human Rights, notice-and-takedown policy not enough to insulate Estonian website from liability for racist user comments [Stanford CIS]
#LifeUnderDeBlasio
Enjoying the genre of #LifeUnderDeBlasio satire tweets from New Yorkers, such as: “I remember when the screens in the back of taxis showed light entertainment, not statistics about iron production.” [@tomgara] “I thought de Blasio gave a good speech but am just not sure how the Five Year Plan for the Park Slope roof gardens will turn out.” [@stuartpstevens] And the one about considering teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten as schools chief.
Wait a minute. That one’s real!
Washington voters reject GMO labeling
Following the example of California voters, Evergreen State voters were turning down the measure by a 45-55 margin at latest count [KING]. Less happily, the town of SeaTac south of Seattle will now experiment with a $15 minimum wage [same], and those in New Jersey are inscribing an indexed minimum wage into their state constitution. [Star-Ledger] Voters in Westchester County, N.Y. chose to retain County Executive Rob Astorino, whose battles with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have been chronicled in this space. [White Plains Patch]
More: Quirky soapmaker Dr. Bronner used its own product labels to crusade for the unsuccessful GMO bill. Thank you, Citizens United, for protecting its freedom to do so! [Caleb Brown]