A very interesting 2008 Heritage Foundation report, based on 2006-07 data. Here’s one finding: Enlisted recruits are somewhat more likely to come from middle-class and wealthier neighborhoods than from poorer ones: Individual or family income data on enlistees do not exist. The Defense Department does not maintain records on the household income of recruits or […]
Archive | July, 2013
Review: Attman’s Deli, Potomac, Maryland
There hasn’t been a good Jewish deli in the D.C. area in … well, forever, as far as I know. Many years ago, someone wrote to Phyllis Richman, food critic for the Washington Post, asking where he could get good Jewish deli in the D.C. area. Richman responded to the effect of, “if you live […]
Baptists, Bootleggers, and Marijuana Prohibition
Public choice economist Bruce Yandle famously developed the concept of a “baptist-bootlegger coalition” to describe situations in which regulation is supported by a strange bedfellow alliance of groups who favor it for narrowly self-interested reasons and those who support it out of moral or ideological considerations. The paradigmatic example was the way in which Baptists […]
Skepticism About the Third Circuit’s Rejection of Organizational Free Exercise Claims
The Third Circuit today split with the en banc Tenth Circuit (and less directly, some other courts) in rejecting a Free Exercise and RFRA challenge to the contraceptive coverage mandate. The majority decided that a closely-held, secular, for-profit corporation cannot assert Free Exercise or RFRA rights at all, and also that its members cannot assert […]
Joey Fishkin on “Shenanigans” After Section Five
Joey Fishkin has an excellent post on some of the many voting changes that previously-covered jurisdictions are implementing (or may implement) now that they are not covered by Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. He devotes particular attention to some suspicious-sounding “shenanigans” (his word) in Beaumont, Texas, and makes the general observation: [T]he greatest […]
Sports Stadium Corporate Welfare Continues in Detroit
By Ilya Somin on July 26, 2013 3:38 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance, Public Choice, Sports and Games
Despite the having filed for bankruptcy, Detroit is going ahead with plans to spend over $400 million in public funds on a new hockey arena for the Detroit Red Wings [HT: Josh Blackman]: Detroit’s financial crisis hasn’t derailed the city’s plans to spend more than $400 million in Michigan taxpayer funds on a new hockey […]
U.S. Government Getting Password Information? (And Why the Story Raises More Questions Than Answers)
Over at CNET, Declan McCullagh has an article claiming that “the U.S. government” is requesting passwords from service providers in online investigations, at least “according to two industry sources familiar with these orders.” I have a hard time understanding what is going on, or if there’s actually a “there” there from a legal perspective. Here’s […]
Boyce Martin’s Final Death Penalty Opinion
Judge Boyce Martin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is retiring. Martin, a former chief judge, has long been the Circuit’s liberal lion. He was a central player in some of the Circuit’s internecine squabbles and, over time, became a forceful critic of capital punishment. Today in Nichols v. Heidle, a […]
How Not to Correct the Record – TNR Edition
Earlier this month, The New Republic posted an article by Stanford law professor Richard Thompson Ford on the Zimmerman trial. As noted by my co-blogger David Bernstein and Michelle Meyer at The Faculty Lounge, this article included some factual inaccuracies. Most notably, the article (as originally published) contained the following sentence: . . . Zimmerman […]
Republicans Dispute Federal Power to Regulate Abortion
By Will Baude on July 25, 2013 5:03 pm in Abortion, Commerce Clause, Federalism, Fourteenth Amendment
Politico has a story about Marco Rubio’s attempted sponsorship of federal anti-abortion legislation. Apparently the bill is being delayed, however, by a dispute about federal power to regulate abortion: Rubio and 27 other Republican senators signed onto a bill from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in 2011 that would require lawmakers to point to which piece […]
On Radio Tonight
I will be on the John Batchelor Show on WABC in New York City (770AM) tonight at 10:15EST, discussing Israeli settlements, European policy, and related diplomatic developments. Streaming and podcast available online.
DOJ Decides to Mess with Texas
So the big Voting Rights Act news of the day is that the Department of Justice will be asking a court to “bail in” the state of Texas for preclearance under the Voting Rights Act. (This involves a separate provision of the Voting Rights Act, Section 3, codified at 42 U.S.C. 1973a(c).) Rick Hasen has […]
NY Times Room For Debate on CFPB
Following the Senate’s confirmation of Richard Cordray as Director of the CFPB, the New York Times Room for Debate did a segment on the CFPB. I was asked by the editor to contribute on what the CFPB should avoid doing. My contribution is here. The full forum is here.
Alex Chaufen Reviews “The American Illness”
Alex Chaufen has a review today at Forbes.com of The American Illness (mentioned yesterday as well).
“Hermann Göring’s Younger Brother Albert, of All People, Rescued Jews from the Nazis”
Commenter Katja pointed to this fascinating Der Spiegel story; apparently there’s been a good deal written about him recently, but I’d never heard of it, so I thought I’d pass the story along.