Whether or not you believe the PPACA has been or will be good for the American people, it has certainly been good for the lobbyists and legislative staffers who wrote it, as Tim Carney explains. Glenn Greenwald comments further: This is precisely the behavior which, quite rationally, makes the citizenry so jaded about Washington. It’s […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
The Uniformity Clause – Another ObamaCare Challenge?
In NFIB v. Sebelius the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate penalty as a constitutional exercise of the federal taxing power. Although little of the briefing (and even less of the oral argument) considered the question, the Court concluded the penalty did not constitute a “direct tax.” This conclusion was necessary to sustain the penalty […]
Georgia Fact-Check Fail
The election may be over, but the work of “fact-checkers” continues. Last week, Politifact-Georgia waded into the debate over whether states should create health insurance exchanges with a fact check of my occasional co-author Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute. Specifically, Politifact evaluated the claim, made in this article, that: operating an Obamacare exchange would […]
Video of University of Iowa Ideological Bias Case
A University of Iowa law student alerted me that video of Wagner v. Jones, the lawsuit against the University of Iowa law school alleging ideological discrimination against a conservative legal writing instructor, is available here. The student also writes: “While I do not know Ms. Wagner, I know, and have taken classes from, a number […]
Is the Sixth the New Ninth? – Revisited
The ABA Journal reports that in recent years the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has surpassed the Ninth Circuit as the most reversed circuit court. This isn’t news to regular VC readers, as we reported the Sixth Circuit’s 0-5 record in habeas cases in the 2009-10 term and noted the Cincinnati Enquirer‘s […]
Sixth Circuit Rejects Ohio Pension Fund Suit Against Rating Agencies
In November 2009, then-Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray (now head of the Consumer Financial Protection Board) filed suit on behalf of state pension funds against the major credit rating agencies for giving high credit ratings to mortgage-backed securities. The suit may have made for good politics (or perhaps not, as Cordray lost re-election), but always […]
Pat Robertson: Young-Earth Creationism Is “Not the Bible”
Noted televangelist Pat Robertson firmly rejected young-earth creationism on “The 700 Club.” As CNN reports, when asked by a viewer how to respond to those who believe “the Bible could not explain the existence of dinosaurs,” Robertson suggested his viewers should not “fight science.” “You go back in time, you’ve got radiocarbon dating. You got […]
Stewart Baker Touched a Nerve
Stewart Baker’s “Sex Secrets of the Security Line” (aka “50 Shades of TSA”) seems to have touched a nerve out there. Here are comments by Ken at Popehat, Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice, and Mark Bennett at Defending People. (Note: Credit for the “Fifty Shades of TSA” line goes to Max Kennerly.)
Jurors in Bias Case Believe University of Iowa Engaged in Ideological Discrimination
The Des Moines Register ha an interesting article following up on the lawsuit against the University of Iowa law school alleging ideological discrimination in hiring. The judge declared a mistrial because the jury was deadlocked. According to interviews with jurors, however, there was genuine agreement that Teresa Wagner was denied a position because of her […]
Are Law Schools Violating Antitrust Law?
Thom Lambert at Truth on the Market thinks U.S. law schools may be engaged in anticompetitive (and illegal) practices with regard to lateral recruiting. Apart from harming individual employees, non-poaching agreements occasion a societal harm: They preclude labor resources from being channeled to their highest and best uses. To poach a competitor’s star employee, you […]
Turkey Day and TSA
Thanksgiving weekend is usually the most traveled in the United States. With so many travelers, TSA screening incidents are inevitable. According to reporter Scott MacFarlane, the TSA has received over 17,000 formal complaints about pat downs since October 2009. Since the agency is averaging around 15 complaints per day, some Turkey day mishaps are inevitable. […]
Former Ohio AG’s Law License Suspended
The Ohio Supreme Court has suspended the law license of former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann for various campaign funding-related ethics violations. The National Law Journal covers the decision here. My prior posts on Dann are here and here.
FWT, aka “Frustration with Truncation”
BLT reports on Judge Laurence Silberman’s frustration with the excessive use of abbreviations in cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Little Change in Global Drought
Evidence of global warming can be found in a global increase in the frequency and severity of droughts, right? That’s what scientists thought, but a new paper in Nature finds no evidence that warmer temperatures in recent decades have correlated with (let alone caused) an increase in droughts. Contrary to what the IPCC had concluded […]
Alito on Citizens United
By Jonathan H. Adler on November 17, 2012 11:12 am in Freedom of Speech, Restrictions on Campaign Contrbs. and Expenses, Supreme Court
BLT reports that Justice Samuel Alito addressed criticisms of the Supreme Court’s Citzens United decision in a speech at the Federalist Society’s annual lawyers’ convention in Washington, D.C. on Thursday night. Alito said arguments can be made for overturning Citizens United, but not the popular one that boils down to one line: Corporations shouldn’t get […]