Roe v. Wade hasn’t been overturned. The rule of law might have been; The Washington Post, Erwin Chemerinsky Dean at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky; “The majority was mute on the right to privacy, abandoned its constitutional role and held, indirectly but unmistakably, that the Constitution is a mere inconvenience that states are at liberty to violate if they can come up with cunning statutory...
Read More »The Federal Courts Engaging in Foreign Affairs
Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars calls it; “SCOTUS is throwing down the gauntlet that this president’s (Biden, in case you forgot) power derives not from the law, but from the conservative majority’s feelz about what a Democratic executive should or should not be allowed to do. Just a bit of history, this was not a Trump Executive Order which Biden eliminated as he did many of Trump’s and Trump did with Barack Obama’s Executive orders. For the...
Read More »The ShotSpotter system and the value of diverse juror perspectives
Erik Loomis points to this AP story on ShotSpotter, a system that police and prosecutors use to identify gunshots, react to potential crimes, and prosecute suspects. The AP story raises serious questions about the accuracy and integrity of the system. You can click through for their story, which is gripping and definitely worth a read. The ShotSpotter story reminded me of an experience I had as a juror several years ago. The charges in the case...
Read More »The war on the war on covid intensifies: an attack on vaccine mandates
Yesterday Donald Boudreaux published a letter to the Wall Street Journal about the Zywicki lawsuit against George Mason University that I posted about here. Let’s take a look at classical liberalism in action: Today’s edition contains three letters critical of my colleague Todd Zywicki’s defense, in your pages, of his lawsuit against George Mason University’s vaccination requirement. Each letter-writer, alas, misses a point that’s central to the...
Read More »The war on the war on covid continues: vaccine mandates and judicial review
George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki has filed suit against GMU over its policy of requiring students and staff to be vaccinated against covid. Zywicki does not argue that any vaccine mandate is unconstitutional. Instead, he claims that GMU’s vaccine mandate violates his constitutional rights to bodily integrity and medical choice because he has recovered from covid and has natural immunity. In his view, only a mandate with an...
Read More »Using insurance to encourage vaccination
The most common proposals for pressuring people to vaccinate involve either vaccine mandates or vaccine passports. As some of the comments on my previous post suggest, there is another option, viz., making the unvaccinated responsible for the cost of their covid treatment. In theory, this can be done either by denying insurance coverage to people who are unvaccinated without medical justification, or by raising health insurance premiums for...
Read More »Private Equity invests in “Primary Care” Medicine
I am adding a brief comment here (it fits and is on topic) rather than going back to the earlier post which I believe to be titled correctly; “Little Good can Come from Private Equity in the Healthcare Industry.” As my source of information I had identified two different articles taken from Modern Healthcare and also MedPage Today. Both I read religiously and from both I get email notifications. My three points to my titling are as follows:...
Read More »Distraction*
So … . What was the House Un-American Activities Committee (1945-1975, with a few interesting precursors) really all about? Looking back through the lens of history, it was much about distracting the Nation’s attention from the racist atrocities being committed in southern states. Still today, all a red state Republican politician needs do is yell, “Communist!”, “Socialist!”, “Nancy Pelosi!” or “Hillary Clinton!” and their constituents forget to even...
Read More »Reply to the USPS: The new service standards will cause geographic discrimination
Steve Hutkins at Save the Post Office, “Reply to the USPS: How the new service standards will cause geographic discrimination” The Postal Service’s plan to reduce service standards is now being reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission for an Advisory Opinion. On Friday, June 25, the Postal Service and several of the intervenors in the case submitted their Reply Briefs. (You can find the briefs and replies here.) Below is my Reply Brief....
Read More »Postal Service Reform May Slow Delivery of the Mail
Steve Hutkins at Save The Post Office, “How the postal reform bill may help the Postal Service slow down the mail” In August 1970, Title 39, aka the Postal Reorganization Act, created the Postal Service. The first section, 39 U.S. Code § 101, is entitled “Postal Policy.” It’s just over 400 words long, but it is probably the most frequently quoted passage in the history of postal legislation. It’s often cited in litigation, academic articles, and...
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