The New York Times reports: Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk with a rock-star following in Myanmar, sat before an overflowing crowd of thousands of devotees and launched into a rant against what he called “the enemy” — the country’s Muslim minority. “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to […]
Archive | June, 2013
Council on American-Islamic Relations Asks University to “Thoroughly Review[]” Professor’s Classes, Based on Professor’s Public Lecture on Islam and Terrorism and Membership in Group Critical of Islam
ClickOrlando has video and text on this. The video in the program seems to come from this nearly hour-long lecture (available on YouTube) by the professor; the lecture starts about 25 minutes into the video, following the remarks from then-Rep. Sandy Adams. You can read the CAIR letter here; CAIR argues closes the letter by […]
Social Worker Reliance on Article About Domestic Violence in Iranian Society
From F.M. v. Commissioner of Children & Families (Conn. App. Ct. June 25, 2013) (some paragraph breaks added): The plaintiff father, who is self-represented in this court, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dismissing his administrative appeal from the decision of a department of children and families … hearing officer who found that […]
A Warning to Lawyers and Law Firms
Several times, I’ve seen people trying to promote law firms in ways that struck me as quite counterproductive. A couple of times, this was using spam comments pitching the lawyer’s services. Most recently, I got an e-mail asking whether I would take guest posts from a law firm’s lawyers — but the e-mail was badly […]
Objectivism Not a Religion for Religious Freedom Restoration Act Purposes
What counts as “religion” for constitutional provisions and for various statutory exemption schemes is a complex and unsettled question; the Supreme Court has said that Secular Humanism qualifies, though lower courts have doubted how broadly this sweeps, and some courts have said the same about the Society for Ethical Culture; the government has also treated […]
Federalist Society Executive Branch Review Conference
As previously noted, last week was the Federalist Society’s inaugural Executive Branch Review Conference. The Federalist Society has posted video of all the programs on its website here. I was on the Dodd-Frank panel, which had the unfortunate fate of being scheduled at the same time that Jonathan was speaking on the Obamacare panel, which […]
Public Ignorance about Obamacare Revisited
By Ilya Somin on June 21, 2013 11:15 am in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Health Care, Insurance Exchanges, Obama, Political Ignorance
The recent Kaiser poll on health care linked by co-blogger Jonathan Adler reveals more evidence of public ignorance about Obamacare. Most notably, 45% of respondents say they have heard “nothing” about the health care reform law’s insurance exchanges, and 34% say they have heard “only a little.” This despite the fact that the exchanges are […]
When May the Government Require Groups to Endorse Certain Views in Order to Get Government Benefits?
That’s the question the Court considered in today’s Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l, Inc.; and the Court held that government’s power in this area is distinctly limited. Here’s the opening of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion for six Justices (Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented, and Justice Kagan was recused): […]
But Enough About You …
More than two weeks ago, when the first Guardian/Greenwald leaks about NSA were appearing, I suggested that Americans would be a lot less exercised about the “collection first” approach to phone data if they understood how NSA’s minimization procedures constrained the agency in dealing with US person data: I would not be surprised to discover […]
Removing High School Student from Class for Saying “I Don’t Accept Gays” Violates First Amendment
So holds yesterday’s decision in Glowacki v. Howell Public School Dist. (E.D. Mich. June 19, 2013): Members of the Howell High School Gay Straight Alliance wanted to participate in a national campaign aimed at raising awareness of the bullying of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth on October 20, 2010. As such, the student group […]
The Plight of Star Wars’ Droids
Erik Sofge has an interesting Slate article about the oppression to which droids are subjected in the Stars Wars universe: George Lucas doesn’t care about metal people. No other explanation makes sense. In a kid-targeted sci-fi setting that’s notably inclusive, with as many friendly alien characters as villainous ones, the human rights situation for robots […]
Still Waiting for the Koontz Decision
Among the many important decisions not issued by the Supreme Court this week, it’s easy to forget about Koontz v. St. John’s River Water Management District, which I described here. As co-blogger Jonathan Adler wrote in January, “this could be a very important case — easily the most important property rights case heard by the […]
The Six-Person Jury in the Zimmerman Case
There’s a six-person jury in the Zimmerman case — why six rather than twelve? The Supreme Court has held, in Williams v. Florida (1970), that the right to trial by jury doesn’t require the traditional jury of twelve people; six suffices. (Ballew v. Georgia (1978) held that juries of five or fewer are unconstitutional.) Nonetheless, […]
Holder Responds to Critics on the Rosen Search Warrant
I’ve blogged here and here about the weakness of the criticisms of Eric Holder relating to the James Rosen search warrant. Holder has now responded to his critics here in responses to questions submitted by Rep. Goodlatte of the House Judiciary Committee. One interesting detail in Holder’s responses is that it sheds light on Holder’s […]
What’s in a Name? (ObamaCare Edition)
From Wonkblog: According to the nonpartisan [Kaiser Family Foundation]’s June tracking poll, support for the health law among Democrats jumps dramatically when labeled “Obamacare,” vs. the plain old “health reform law” language some of us old school media types prefer. . . . According to the poll, overall favorability of the law jumps from 35 […]