Redefining obesity as a disease

Aside from the important employment law implications linked last week in this space, the American Medical Association’s decision to reclassify obesity as a disease has implications for Medicaid and private reimbursement of therapy (“now coverage policy must catch up to that consensus,” exulted an officer of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery) and more pervasively for nanny-state initiatives: “Already, Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, has cited the AMA declaration to boost his group’s efforts to ban junk food and tax soft drinks.” [Mike Tanner] (& welcome Joe Palazzolo, WSJ Law Blog readers)

July 8 roundup

As the prosecution rests

One view of the Florida trial: “After the killing of Trayvon Martin, I was disturbed that George Zimmerman was not arrested, and was glad that charges were brought and would be resolved in court. I was wrong; I did not understand how weak the evidence was.” [Jack Chin [UC Davis Law], PrawfsBlawg] More from Jacob Sullum here and here. And from Jack Shafer, a defense of cable TV’s coverage of sensational trials.

“Bill of Rights a live wire, 222 years later”

At Utah’s Deseret News, reporter Eric Schulzke writes on how “the U.S. Bill of Rights remains a work in progress 222 years after it became law — a continuing struggle between government claims for order and security, and the individual’s interest in clarity and freedom. This past year, the struggle played out in numerous areas, including free speech and search and seizure rules, to touch just a few.” He quotes me on the hope of bright-line rules establishing the public’s right to take pictures of law enforcement (recent Hawthorne, Calif. cause celebre here), on the need to focus on state and local police use of DNA databases before the inevitable abuses establish themselves, and on how four significant Fourth Amendment cases made it to the Supreme Court this year: “‘Here we are 200 years later, and a lot of big, interesting questions still haven’t been settled on what the Bill of Rights says about search and seizures,’ Olson said.” A sidebar reviews the year in civil liberties controversies.

The Very Model of a State Attorney General, cont’d

Following a letter from 22 state attorneys general, Urban Outfitters has agreed to stop selling a humorous mug with a “Prescription: Coffee” design. The AGs argued that prescription drug abuse is a very serious matter and not something to be joked about. [via Eugene Volokh]

The humor-impaired AGs participating (is yours on this list?) included those from Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming, as well as Guam. According to Maggie Thurber at Ohio Watchdog, “the Partnership at Drugfree.org went further and categorized [the mugs and related coasters and other trinkets] as ‘prescription drug paraphernalia products.'”

Aside from a few core functions such as defending their states in litigation and issuing legal opinions to guide state agencies, state attorneys general have far too much discretionary authority to butt into whatever controversial areas may suit their taste for popularity and political advancement, even when, as here, there is no evident basis to think that Urban Outfitters had violated any actual law. It seems highly unlikely that the novelty mugs send any particular message that undermines public respect for prescription drug laws, but if for some reason they did, they would be entitled to more protection against AG bullying, not less, since expressive objects that send a symbolic message of disrespect for government policy will often qualify for First Amendment protection.

Congratulations to the 28 AGs who resisted the temptation to join in this busybody intimidation. (cross-posted at Cato at Liberty)

Kickback allegations — and fountains of unearned cash — at the BP gulf spill fund

A “staff attorney at the Deepwater Horizon Court Supervised Settlement Program… was suspended after being accused of accepting fees from law firms while processing their clients’ claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.” [Bloomberg] And that’s just the start of what may be much wider problems, according to a cover story by Paul Barrett at Bloomberg Business Week. “The craziest thing about the settlement,” one lawyer wrote in a client-solicitation letter, “is that you can be compensated for losses that are UNRELATED to the spill.” [Bloomberg Business Week] Barrett’s account tells, in his own words, “how the private-claims process following BP’s (BP) 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill devolved into a plaintiffs’-lawyer feeding frenzy.” [BBW]

Campus sex “blueprint”: a convenient typo?

Defending the Obama administration’s new rules governing discipline at colleges and universities, ThinkProgress makes it all sound more reasonable by erroneously reporting that the crackdown is on “unwanted contact”; the actual phrase is “unwanted conduct,” with “verbal conduct,” i.e. speech, very much part of that [Will Creeley, FIRE]

In the July Commentary I have an article on the controversy over the new blueprint (“Sentence First, Verdict Afterward“). It’s behind a paywall, but you can purchase it individually, or better yet subscribe to Commentary which is full of other great articles as well.

Schools for Misrule excerpt: how the Ford Foundation reshaped law schools

As much as any other institution, the Ford Foundation has shaped the modern American law school, having provided key backing for developments such as clinical legal education, public interest law, identity-based legal studies, and transnational law. Whether you agree or disagree with Ford’s ideological thrust — and as a libertarian, I regularly disagree — it’s a pretty remarkable set of accomplishments. I give an overview and brief history in this new article for the Capital Research Center’s Foundation Watch, adapted from my book Schools for Misrule. (cross-posted from Cato at Liberty; welcome readers from George Leef, NRO)

More: some essays on Ford’s crucial support during the formative period of public interest litigation [Steven Schindler, more, Scott Kohler]