Senator decries detergent pods as hazard

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says the little wrapped pods of laundry detergent that have become popular recently are too easily mistaken for candies or other treats, and that when he saw one on a staffer’s desk he wanted to eat it himself. “The only way to make them more attractive to Chuck Schumer would be to shape them like little TV cameras.” [Jim Treacher, Daily Caller]

Constitution and Supreme Court roundup

  • Coming up next Tuesday, Sept. 18, in Washington: Cato Constitution Day. Be there! [schedule]
  • In the unlikely event Congress enacts federal limits on state malpractice suits, Prof. Randy Barnett says he expects to help with a court challenge [Andrew Cochran, earlier]
  • Michael Uhlmann reviews Michael Greve’s The Upside-Down Constitution, and Greve responds [Claremont, Liberty and Law] A New Hampshire story: our “cooperative federalism” can’t replace a simple bridge [Mark Steyn]
  • Broad discretionary search of citizens’ private papers? FISA strains Fourth Amendment [Julian Sanchez]
  • Paging Akhil Amar: Romney on Meet the Press says “I am as conservative as the constitution” [Tucson Citizen] Randy Barnett vs. Amar on progressive constitutionalism [WSJ, Volokh]
  • “Constitutional Places: The Carolene Products Factory That Straddled The Border Between Missouri and Oklahoma, But Did Not Engage In Interstate Commerce” [Josh Blackman, with picture and diagram of filled-milk plant]
  • “More thoughts on Justice Sutherland” [Magliocca, ConcurOp]
  • Seize first, compensate later? Cato files amicus in raisin-farmer takings case [Ilya Shapiro]
  • “What Were They Thinking: The Supreme Court in Revue 2011” [John Elwood & Eric White, Green Bag, PDF]

Blogging’s loss…

…is the FTC’s and the nation’s gain, as President Obama nominates Josh Wright of Truth on the Market and George Mason University to a Republican seat on the Federal Trade Commission. Among our many links to his work: Posner and expert witnesses, Spanish professor sued by recording industry, e-book antitrust case, forum-shopping in Philadelphia, Chicago on law and econ, Google antitrust, executive debarment, cheap calories, behavioral law and econ, unisex insurance rates, Dodd-Frank, and many, many others. More reactions: Stephen Bainbridge, Ted Frank (“Best thing Obama’s ever done”).

“NLRB Goes Back to the ‘80s To Justify A Union-Notice Rule”

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has adopted a rule that

would require virtually every private company in the country to post a Notice advising employees of their right to organize a union and to strike. In justifying the rule, the NLRB explained that most employees do not know about their labor rights … as evidenced by surveys of high school students in the 1980s. The NLRB also relied on anecdotal evidence from “West Germany” and a remarkably contorted statutory analysis. If the circuit courts split, as the district courts split below, the cases could easily wind up in the Supreme Court.

[Asheesh Agerwal, Library of Law and Liberty]

Food roundup

  • Prop 37: Oakland Tribune thumbs down [editorial] “Natural” language a flashpoint [Glenn Lammi, WLF] Earlier here, here;
  • “Danish government may scrap its ‘fat tax’ after only one year because it simply doesn’t work” [Mark J. Perry, AEIdeas]
  • “Mouse in Mountain Dew saga comes to an end” [Madison County Record, earlier]
  • Food safety and local producers: “FDA Rules Won’t Work, Will Harm Small Farmers” [Ryan Young, CEI] “How Farmers’ Markets Dodged a Regulatory Bullet in Pennsylvania” [Baylen Linnekin, Reason]
  • “On the roads, on the cheese board… many Europeans now have more freedom than Americans.” [Mark Steyn]
  • Mayor Bloomberg extends his healthy-beverage solicitude to the youngest consumers [Steve Chapman]
  • In France, raw milk in vending machines [Mark Perry] FDA ban on interstate shipment of raw milk dates back to lawsuit by Public Citizen’s Sidney Wolfe [Linnekin]

BATF’s new asset forfeiture powers

My Cato Institute colleague Nita Ghei, writing at the Washington Times, has more on the newly expanded authority of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to “‘seize and administratively forfeit property involved in controlled-substance abuses.’ That means government can grab firearms and other property from someone who has never been convicted or even charged with any crime.” Earlier here and (podcast) here. More: Americans for Forfeiture Reform.

Hamowy on Hayek and the English common law

I’ve got a tribute at Cato at Liberty to the great libertarian scholar Ronald Hamowy, who specialized in intellectual history and in particular the Scottish Enlightenment of David Hume, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. Hamowy was a friendly but nonetheless acute critic of Friedrich Hayek, and I quote Daniel Klein’s summary of Hamowy’s bracing critique of Hayek on English common law as spontaneous order:

The final critical essay concerns Hayek’s tale of the common law. Hayek’s idea of spontaneous order is most prominently applied to the complex workings of the economy — “the incredible bread machine” — but also finds application in the evolution of customs, language, law, and science. Hayek was keen to show the viability of capturing a dynamic system of law under the conceptual umbrella of spontaneous order. In making his case, he portrayed the English common law as such a system. Hamowy looks hard at the history and character of English common law, and concludes that Hayek’s historic tale fails on two counts: first, its substance was not all that libertarian, and second, its evolution was not all that spontaneous. Hamowy advises us against citing the English common law as an example of spontaneous-order law.

More: David Boaz.

“Obama *did* ‘let Detroit go bankrupt'”

Good Tim Carney column on the Dems’ absurd posturing in Charlotte on the auto rescue. “Here’s the truth: what Romney proposed for Detroit was more or less what Obama did.” (For extra credit, observe the parallel with some GOPers’ insistence that RomneyCare was utterly dissimilar to ObamaCare in every respect.) More: National Review; Reuters on the Chevy Volt.

Related: Romney’s ridiculous “jobs I’ll create” commercials [Ira Stoll]