In 2006, Ohio voters approved a ban on smoking indoors, including bars and restaurants. The ban took effects in December 2006. One would think that the prohibition would reduce smoking rates, right? After all, the prohibition increases the costs of smoking quite significantly for many smokers (particularly in the winter). Yet according to this story, […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
AG Mukasey Says No Pardons Necessary:
The NYT reports that Attorney General Michael Mukasey does not believe the Bush Administration needs to consider whether to pardon officials who were involved with the development of interrogation policies. Mr. Mukasey, whose nomination as attorney general last year was threatened by his refusal to say whether he considered waterboarding to be torture, said the […]
About-Face on Torture?
Are key Senate Democrats moderating their unequivocal opposition to the use of torture or less-severe coercive interrogation techniques? Glenn Greenwald thinks so. In particular, he notes that Senators Dianne Feinstein (who is the incoming Senate Intelligence Chair) and Ron Wyden had previously insisted that the CIA comply with the Army Field Manual when conducting interrogations, […]
Is This the “Most Conservative Court Since the Mid-1930s”?
In a forthcoming essay in the Wayne Law Review, “The Roberts Court at Age Three,” Dean Erwin Chemerinsky makes the fantastic claim that the Roberts Court “is the most conservative Court since the mid-1930s.” In the paper, he explains what he means: What does it mean to say that the Court is more conservative than […]
Saudi Arabia’s Accolade:
Last week, the New York Times profiled The Accolade, an all-girl rock band from, of all places, Saudi Arabia. They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom. But the members of Saudi Arabia
Sunday Song Lyric:
Ray Davies was impressed by American Thanksgiving. So much so, he wrote a song about it. “Thanksgiving Day” was initially released on a benefit EP of the same name, and then Davies’ solo album Other People’s Lives. Here’s a bit of the lyrics: Are you going on Thanksgiving Day To those family celebrations? Passing on […]
Habeas Porpoise – Marine Mammals vs. Navy Sonar:
I never got around to posting on Winter v. NRDC, the Navy’s challenge to a federal court injunction limiting its use of sonar in training activities due to its failure to adequately assess the potential impacts of sonar use on whales under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The result — a 7-2 or 6-3 […]
Perverse Incentives and Historic Preservation:
The perverse incentives created by uncompensated environmental land-use controls are well documented. The Endangered Species Act (ESA), in particular, is notorious for encouraging the destruction of species habitat on private land. By restricting the use of land with ecologically desirable characteristics, the ESA effectively punishes private landowners for maintaining habitat on their land. As a […]
“Why Don’t We Hang Pirates Anymore?”
Piracy appears to be on the rise in the Indian Ocean. Is it because international law and individual nations are too light on pirates? Bret Stephens thinks so. By the 18th century, pirates knew exactly where they stood in relation to the law. A legal dictionary of the day spelled it out: “A piracy attempted […]
Speth’s Green Bridge to Nowhere:
I reviewed The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability by James Gustave “Gus” Speth in the latest issue of The New Atlantis. It’s an important book, if for no other reason than Speth’s influence on contemporary environmental thought. But it fails to offer a viable […]
Bush Pardons 14, Commutes Two Sentences:
President Bush pardoned 14 individuals, and commuted the sentences of two others, today, including hip hop artist John Forte. Other prominent pardon seekers, including Michael Milken, and others seeking to have their sentences commuted, such as former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) and former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards (D-LA), are still waiting. President Bush has […]
Lessons from the Great Depression:
Tyler Cowen on the lessons for today from FDR and the Great Depression: In short, expansionary monetary policy and wartime orders from Europe, not the well-known policies of the New Deal, did the most to make the American economy climb out of the Depression. Our current downturn will end as well someday, and, as in […]
Eric Holder and the Marc Rich Pardon:
I have been unsure whether Eric Holder’s role in the controversial pardon of billionaire fugitive Marc Rich should raise concerns about his nomination to be Attorney General. George Lardner, who covered the pardon for the Washington Post at the time, makes the case suggests Holder has been less-than-fully forthcoming about his role, and that the […]
Will Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB Go Up?
Last Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied the Free Enterprise Fund’s petition for rehearing en banc in Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB, a challenge to the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, by a vote of 5-4. Chief Judge Sentelle and Judges Griffith, […]
AG Mukasey on How to Handle Detainees:
Today’s WSJ has an op-ed by U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey that addresses similar issues to the speech he was delivering last night at the Federalist Society’s Annual Lawyers’ Convention before he was incapacitated. Among other things, he called upon Congress to enact new legislation concerning the treatment and trial of detainees in accordance with […]