GMU law professor (and FTC commissioner nominee) Joshua Wright and Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg have a new paper in the Northwestern Law Review, “Behavioral Law and Economics: Its Origins, Fatal Flaws, and Implications for Liberty.” Here’s the abstract from SSRN: Behavioral economics combines economics and psychology to produce a body of evidence that individual choice […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Oklahoma Challenges IRS Rule on Tax Credits in Federal Exchanges
Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt today filed an amended complaint in the state’s lawsuit against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that, among other things, challenges the legality of an IRS rule that would authorize tax credits for the purchase of health insurance in federally run exchanges, and thereby expose Oklahoma employers to […]
CBO: Six Million People to Pay Individual Mandate Penalty Tax in 2016
The Congressional Budget Office has just released new estimates of the number of people who will be subject to the individual mandate penalty tax for failing to obtain qualifying health insurance in 2016. According to CBO’s new analysis, the penalty tax will be paid by six million people. The penalty tax will generate an estimated […]
Offend Anyone and Everyone But Me
Ken at Popehat makes a good point: If the state has no business policing YouTube videos that are offensive to specific religious groups, why would is be okay to prohibit burning an American flag? Many Republicans have been quick to condemn the Obama Administration for its failure to defend First Amendment principle in the wake […]
Judge Stays Injunction Against Indefinite Detention Law
Last night, Judge Raymond Lohier of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a temporary stay blocking a lower court’s injunction against a law authorizing the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects, pending appellate review later this month. Last week, a federal district court judge had issued a permanent injunction against the law. […]
Administration Seeks to Have “Innocence of Muslims” Removed from YouTube
By Jonathan H. Adler on September 14, 2012 2:38 pm in "Hate Speech", Blasphemy, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech Restricted by Thugs
The LA Times reports: Administration officials have asked YouTube to review a controversial video that many blame for spurring a wave of anti-American violence in the Middle East. The administration flagged the 14-minute “Innocence of Muslims” video and asked that YouTube evaluate it to determine whether it violates the site’s terms of service, officials said […]
Assessing Gary Johnson’s Environmental Views
At LegalPlanet, Dan Farber takes a look at the environmental policy positions of Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson.
Could Presidential Electors Defect?
The AP has an interesting story about three Republican electors who might refuse to vote for the Romney-Ryan ticket if they are elected. At least three Republican electors say they may not support their party’s presidential ticket when the Electoral College meets in December to formally elect the next president, escalating tensions within the GOP […]
Gary Johnson on Ballot in 47 States
Politico reports that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson is on the ballot in 47 states and the District of Columbia. In 2008, former Rep. Bob Barr was on the ballot in 45 states. The Libertarian Party is still seeking to place Johnson on the ballot in the remaining three states.
Carbon-Free Carbohydrates?
By Jonathan H. Adler on September 11, 2012 9:32 am in Junk Science and Quackspertise, Politicizing Science
What’s wrong with this picture? (Or this site?) I generally have a laissez-faire attitude toward product claims, so long as they are arguably true. If a claim is literally false, however, I think that’s a problem. (Ht: Hanah Volokh)
Could Individuals Have Standing to Challenge IRS Rule Creating Tax Credits in Federal Exchanges?
The PPACA provides for tax credits and subsidies to help eligible taxpayers purchase health insurance in state-run health insurance exchanges. Although the text of the statute only provides for the issuance of credits in exchanges “established by a state,” the IRS has issued a regulation providing for the issuance of tax credits and subsidies in […]
U.S. Complicity in Katyn Cover-Up
Newly declassified documents reveal that the U.S. government concealed evidence that the Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn forest massacre of several thousand Polish POWs. In all, over 20,000 Poles were killed in mass executions. The USSR had consistently denied responsibility for the killings until 1990. The newly released documents show U.S. officials were […]
District Court Rejects New Rules Limiting Gitmo Detainee Access to Attorneys
Yesterday Judge Royce Lamberth rejected the federal government’s effort to place restrictions on Guantanamo detainee access to their attorneys. Specifically, the government maintained it was the Executive Branch’s prerogative to limit attorney access for those detainees not currently seeking habeas relief. (Those detainees with ongoing habeas proceedings were unquesitonably subject to a 2008 Protective Order […]
Democratic Platform Abandons Civil Liberties
Changes to the Democratic Party platform regarding the status of Jerusalem and the mention of God may have received the most attention, but there are other platform changes that should be of greater concern to libertarians. As Adam Serwer documents at Mother Jones, the 2012 Democratic Party platform largely abandons the commitment to civil liberties […]
Maine Sues Over Medicaid MOE Requirements
NFIB v. Sebelius may be over, but the litigation against the PPACA continues. The latest lawsuit comes from Maine, which is challenging the constitutionality of the “maintenance of effort” provisions which require that states maintain whatever Medicaid eligibility standards they had in effect as of the PPACA’s enactment in March 2010. Failure to maintain these […]