The Sunlight Foundation reports on Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) innovative approach to raising campaign funds: selling endorsements to other politicians. The Los Angeles-area representative, who faces ethics charges in the House for intervening on behalf of a bank in which her husband had invested heavily, has found a way to take large sums of money […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Coffin Cartel Knocks Casket-Making Monks
The Benedictine monks at St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana, saw much of their timber felled by Hurricane Katrina. To make the best of the situation, they began turning their downed trees into hand-crafted caskets. Business was brisk, prompting complaints from funeral homes and an investigation by the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral […]
Why Small Business Isn’t Hiring
My Case Western colleague, Scott Shane, has a brief item linking the lack of hiring by small businesses to the collapse in home prices. Specifically, he identifies five reasons the “residential real-estate mess” is holding back small business job creation: Declining house prices have softened demand for small businesses’ products and services. Small businesses are […]
ObamaCare on Campus
Kaiser Health News has an interesting report on the effects recent health care reform could have on health care plans some universities offer to students. Colleges and universities say that some rules in the new health law could keep them from offering low-cost, limited-benefit student insurance policies, and they’re seeking federal authority to continue offering […]
Who Owns Your Dead Son’s Brain?
Do parents have a constitutionally protected property interest in the dead body of their child, including all organs? Not necessarily is the answer given by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Albrecht v. Treon, at least under Ohio law as interpreted by the Ohio Supreme Court. The Albrechts brought a Section […]
Monday Bear Blogging
No pictures today, but an interesting bear story. A Cleveland area man was mauled by a captive bear last week. Sam Mazzola owned the bear and used to make money hosting “bear wrestling,” but his license was revoked, so he just kept this bear and other dangerous animals as part of personal menagerie that reportedly […]
Only Legal Because It’s Legal
From today’s NYT editorial on the Justice Department’s decision not to bring charges against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay comes this gem: Mr. DeLay, the Texas Republican who had been the House majority leader, crowed that he had been “found innocent.” But many of Mr. DeLay’s actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen […]
“This Is NOT a Voluntary Plan”
Since were all remembering Social Security’s birthday I thought I’d post something on my one bit of Social Security memorabilia: the text of notices employers were required to post giving notice of planned payroll deductions. NOTICE Deductions from Pay Start Jan. 1 Beginning January 1, 1937, your employer will be compelled by law to deduct […]
Sunday Song Lyric
Somewhere along the way former Fugee Wyclef Jean got the idea he should be the President of Haiti. And as the Washington Post reported just last week, he could have been a contender. Haiti’s electoral council had other ideas, however, disqualifying him for failing to satisfy the residency requirement. Although he was born in Haiti, […]
Lessons from an Unlicensed Barber
Center for American Progress house blogger Matthew Yglesias confesses that he has an unlicensed barber, and has no regrets. Regulation of this sort seems totally unnecessary. People don’t die of bad haircuts, and since hairstyle is a quintessential matter of taste there’s absolutely no reason to think consumers can’t figure out for themselves who has […]
Solar Stimulus
When I was in Montana with my family in July, we happened upon Vice President Joe Biden’s security detail. He was apparently in the area to, among other things, give a talk in Yellowstone National Park about the economic and environmental benefits of federal stimulus projects. In today’s WSJ, Roger Meiners looks closely at one […]
Are Locavores Loco?
Stephen Budiansky loves eating vegetables from his own garden and appreciates the value of fresh ingredients, but still wonders whether the “local food” movement has gone overboard. From his recent NYT op-ed: the local food movement now threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas. Arbitrary rules, without […]
Oil’s Well that Ends Well?
The oil spill from BP’s Deepwater Horizon well is just about all cleaned up, right? Maybe not. As reported in today’s Washington Post, academic researchers are challenging recent Administration and media reports suggesting that most of the oil is gone. Academic scientists are challenging the Obama administration’s assertion that most of BP’s oil in the […]
Cleveland’s Trash Police
Cleveland is preparing to launch a new “high-tech” trash collection system in the city and begin policing whether city residents recycle. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer: The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips […]
Hasen on Ninth Circuit’s Stay in Prop. 8 Case
Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog reads the tea leaves of the Ninth Circuit’s granting of a stay in Perry v. Schwarzenegger at the ACSBlog. His bottom line: The grant of the stay request by the motions panel tells us very little about the Ninth Circuit’s likely resolution of the merits. for those who want […]