Anton Anton / Dreamstime.comScott Mann, a member of the United Kingdom Parliament, is being mocked after suggesting the nation needs a national knife registry to battle knife-related crimes. "Every knife sold in the UK should have a gps tracker fitted in the handle," Mann said in a tweet.
KPRCToday Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo updated a city council committee on the reforms he is implementing in response to the January 28 drug raid that killed a middle-aged couple, Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, in their home on Harding Street. The changes, outlined by Houston Chronicle reporter St. John Barned-Smith, are aimed at limiting the use of no-knock search warrants and expanding the use of body cameras, goals that Acevedo had previously announced.
Gerald Goines, a Houston narcotics officer, obtained the no-knock warrant in this case from a municipal court judge based on a false claim that a confidential informant had bought heroin from Tuttle. When they executed the warrant, Goines and his colleagues burst into the house without warning and immediately shot one of the couple's dogs, setting off an exchange of fire that killed the residents and injured four officers. Police found no heroin or any other evidence of drug dealing in the house.
From now on, Acevedo said, officers who want to conduct a no-knock search will have to get clearance from him or a supervisor he designates and apply to a district court judge rather than a municipal court judge. Only SWAT officers will be allowed to execute such warrants. When narcotics officers search homes, they will knock and announce themselves, and they will be supervised by a lieutenant.
They also will be wearing body cameras, the absence of which has made it harder to figure out what happened during the operation that killed Tuttle and Nicholas. Heretofore the Houston Police Department (HPD) has focused on equipping patrol officers with body cameras, on the grounds that they have the most interactions with the public. Under the new policy, narcotics officers will wear and activate cameras whenever they serve search warrants.
The HPD, the Harris County District Attorney's Office, and the FBI are continuing to investigate the Harding Street raid. Goines is likely to face criminal charges for lying in his search warrant affidavit, which is aggravated perjury under state law and seems to violate a federal statute making it a felony to violate people's constitutional rights under color of law. Local prosecutors are reviewing some 1,400 cases in which Goines was involved, plus 800 or so handled by Steve Bryant, a narcotics officer who was mentioned in the warrant affidavit and participated in the raid.
"We have got a lot of eyes, assets, folks from multiple agencies conducting investigations into the Harding Street raid," Acevedo told city council members. In a recent interview with KPRC, the NBC station in Houston, he said he expects Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg to announce her findings by the end of April.
Acevedo repeatedly patted himself on the back during that interview. "When I got to that scene," he said, "some things made my antennae go up a little bit, including the fact that we lost two individuals in the home...four officers shot and another one injured. To be honest with you, I was actually asking for the search warrant and affidavit at the scene, which really ruffled some feathers. But for a police chief that actually knows what he is doing and is engaged, we wouldn't be having a conversation about the things that we might have done wrong in that raid...This police chief is the one that asked the tough questions."
In reality, Acevedo at first credulously accepted the accounts of the officers who conducted the raid, as you will see if you go back and review the first few press conferences he conducted. He praised the heroism of the officer he now says lied to justify the raid, reported Goines' account of a controlled buy that never happened as fact, blamed Tuttle and Nicholas for the violence initiated by police, described their home as a locally notorious "drug house" and "problem location," claimed neighbors were grateful for the raid (although all the neighbors who spoke to local reporters said they'd never noticed any suspicious activity at the house), expressed skepticism about the value of body cameras and the special risks posed by no-knock searches, and reacted angrily to the suggestion that officers might have been injured by friendly fire, even though the revolver Tuttle reportedly fired at them held just six rounds.
It was not until February 15, after information about HPD's investigation of the raid was leaked to the press, that Acevedo revealed the search warrant had been obtained under false pretenses. Even then, he insisted that the investigation of Tuttle and Nicholas was justified and continued to call them "suspects."
"You and other members of your department have made factually incorrect, but globally disseminated, statements about Rhogena Nicholas and her husband, Dennis Tuttle, from the date of their deaths and going forward," an attorney for Nicholas' family wrote to Acevedo this week. "These statements have not been publicly corrected or retracted to date."
In an interview with the Chronicle, Nicholas' mother said her daughter was not involved in drug dealing, "respected the police," and would have cooperated if the officers had knocked on the door and identified themselves. "I want them to clear her name," she said.
Nicholas' brother told the Chronicle he still hopes Acevedo will set the record straight. "Maybe they'll wake up and say, 'We messed up and we need to change our ways of doing things,'" he said. "Clear her name. And hopefully, it won't happen again."
Oliver Contreras/Sipa USA/NewscomPresident Trump criticized colleges and universities for failing to protect the free speech rights of students during his remarks at a press conference Thursday. He then signed an executive order that will push universities to do more to protect freedom of speech if they wish to continue receiving federal research dollars.
"Many [universities] have become increasingly hostile to the First Amendment and free speech," said Trump. "Under the guise of speech codes, safe spaces, and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity, and shut down the voices of great young Americans like those here today. All of that changes starting right now. We're dealing with billions and billions and billions of dollars."
Trump repeatedly praised the many conservative activist students who have brought free speech issues to light—he twice referenced Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk—and promised to support them.
"You've fought bravely for your rights and now you have a president who is fighting for you," said Trump. "I'm with you all the way."
The text of the order, though, does not make it exactly clear what standard various government agencies will use to decide whether universities are violating students' rights. As such, it mostly serves as a declaration of support for the First Amendment, and a sign that the Trump administration is paying attention to what's happening on campuses.
The president also lamented skyrocketing tuition prices and the crushing burden of student loan debt that many students face. He also made reference to the connection between government-subsidized loans and increasing tuition costs., and signaled that his administration is looking at doing something to help graduates drowning in debt.
"The reason is there's no incentive for [colleges and universities] to watch costs," he said. "People at the heads of the institutions, being paid a fortune, they don't care because the government loans the student the money, they pay the money to the college, and then the student graduates the college or university and they're stuck with $200,000 in loans they won't be able to pay for a long time."
Kyle Mazza/ZUMA Press/NewscomMany people are speculating this week about President Donald Trump's motivation for expelling fresh new buckets of spittle in his long-running feud with John McCain's ghost. Daughter Meghan McCain says Trump just knows "he will never be a great man." Vanity Fair's Tina Nguyen reckons the president is haunted "by a sense that his enemies are closing in." Maybe it's "because McCain always had Trump pegged for what he was," writes Commentary's Noah Rothman. Washington lawyer and Kellyanne Conway husband George Conway famously (and flippantly) suggests narcissistic personality disorder.
Any of these are certainly possible, but ultimately unknowable. What we can better assess, however, is the practical impact of Trump's rhetorical barrage. And it is this: By making this feud a top political issue of the week (with the help of an always-willing media), the president is forcing elected Republicans and other high-profile conservatives to respond—with support, opposition, subdued subtweets, mealy-mouthed half-criticism, or silence. Through this ritual the Grand Old Party becomes more Trumpified and less McCained. And the braintrust that surrounded the late senator gets pushed further out into the #NeverTrump fringes of the GOP, or out of the party altogether.
Take John Weaver, a key strategist in both of McCain's presidential campaigns, though he was jettisoned from the second one in July 2017 after a disastrous first few months. Weaver's response to the president's attacks sounds like a declaration of political independence, maybe even war:
What the actual fuck? hey @realDonaldTrump you fucking faux bone spur lying traitorous coward. John earned his send off, the old fashioned way. He served his country ALL of his adult life & suffered for doing so. Can't wait to be part of the majority of Americas kicking your ass. https://t.co/J82j2WMTDg
— John Weaver (@jwgop) March 20, 2019
Weaver has been orchestrating the not-quite-happening presidential campaign of CNN contributor John Kasich, who sent out a fundraising email in response to Trump v. McCain. ("When we don't speak out about these things, we become numb to them and we simply can't let that happen," the former Ohio governor said in the mailer.)
Just about every potential #NeverTrump presidential challenge has a senior McCainster in the middle of things. Who's running the not-quite-declared campaign of independent Howard Schultz? McCain 2008 senior campaign advisor Steve Schmidt, who quit the GOP in 2018 over Trump's family separation policies, and promptly declared that the Trumpified party must "burn to the ground." McCain alter-ego and longtime co-author Mark Salter reportedly gave a hand to the second inaugural address of Maryland Gov. and #NeverTrump hopeful Larry Hogan, and has been saying stuff like "I would prefer a Democratic nominee who appeals to centrists like me and not to the fringes of his or her party." Even Bill Weld's threadbare staff includes on it Jennifer Horn, who while not a McCain intimate, did campaign with the maverick in New Hampshire, and took succor from the senator in her opposition to Trump.
The president's attitude toward these maverick remnants and their class cohorts along the Acela corridor is clear—score-board! Also, don't let the door hit you on your way out. Until proven otherwise, this is Trump's party now, which means that those McCain intimates who wish to stay on golfing terms with the GOP leader are going to have to almost ritually debase themselves, like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did this week:
MORE »
RICHARD B. LEVINE/NewscomThe rapid social and commercial acceptance of marijuana and marijuana-related products continues apace, with America's largest pharmacy chain announcing it will begin carrying cannabidiol (CBD) oil.
Curaleaf Holdings Inc. announced Wednesday that some of its CBD products would be sold at CVS stores in at least eight states, Marketwatch reported Thursday. In a statement provided to Marketwatch, CVS said it was already selling CBD products in eight states—Alabama, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, and Tennessee. Recreational marijuana is legal in California and Colorado, while medical marijuana is legal in Illinois and Maryland, and the other four states have legalized CBD products that are low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the more potent compound contained in marijuana.
The federal government's excruciatingly slow acceptance of CBD means that only one product, the anti-siezure drug Epidiolex, has received FDA approval. Other CBD products made from marijuana remain illegal under federal law, while CBD products made from hemp now reside in a legal grey area after the 2018 Farm Bill saw hemp decriminalized at the federal level.
As Reason's Mike Riggs explored in a February feature, there's still a raging debate over the medical value of CBD even though most states have realized that there's nothing dangerous about letting people use it:
The idea that CBD is a vitamin, or should be treated like one, is an increasingly popular argument among cannabis reform advocates. Armentano and Cotte both mentioned it in interviews as perhaps the ideal way forward. The FDA could require marketers of cannabis products to undergo facility inspections, and it could enforce strict labeling requirements, as it does with nutritional supplements. But it wouldn't require cannabis products to undergo extensive clinical trials, as it does now...
Treating CBD products like nutritional supplements would, of course, require the FDA to cede some of its power. The agency can entirely prevent a pharmaceutical drug from going to market, because pharmaceuticals are expensive to make and their value is explicitly tied to FDA approval. By comparison, nutritional supplements are cheaper to make and don't require FDA approval before going to market. Nutritional supplement companies are like the turtles in a Mario Brothers game. The FDA can and does bop them, but the ratio of regulators to regulatees favors the latter.
That sort of regulation sounds far better than the type of overzealous enforcement that was on full display earlier this week in Duncanville, Texas, where armed police officers raided two stores and seized more than $50,000 in CBD products, according to local news reports.
As CBD goes more more mainstream, such raids will be increasingly difficult to rationalize. It's one thing for cops to claim that a small tobacco shop was selling a dangerous product, but much more difficult to make the case that a national chain of pharmacies is endangering the public in the same way.
The war on drugs won't be won only in state capitols and county counthouses, it seems, but also under the flurescent lighting of the neighborhood drug store where you get your multivitamins and 99-cent cans of Arizona iced tea.
Kyodo / NewscomAmerican gun control supporters are citing the firearm restrictions that New Zealand's government plans to impose in response to last week's mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch as an example that should be emulated by American politicians. But the broad gun and magazine bans that legislators expect to enact by April 11 would never pass muster in the United States. If we can learn anything from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's reaction to the attacks, it has less to do with the merits of her policies than with the slippery language she used in announcing them.
"The guns used in these terrorist attacks had important distinguishing features," Ardern said at a press conference in Wellington today. "First, big capacity, and also their delivery. They had the power to shoot continuously, but they also had large capacity magazines."
Contrary to that description, the guns used by the perpetrator of the mosque attacks, which killed 50 people, did not "shoot continuously." They were semi-automatic rifles, meaning they fired once per trigger pull. And while Ardern referred to "important distinguishing features," the only one she mentioned (twice) was "big capacity," which is a characteristic of the magazine rather than the gun itself.
Ardern does plan to ban "high-capacity magazines," meaning those holding more than five rounds. There will be an exception for magazines holding up to 10 rounds of .22-caliber or smaller rimfire ammunition.
Ardern also intends to "ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons" (MSSAs), which under current law include semi-automatic rifles that have pistol grips, folding or telescoping stocks, bayonet lugs, flash suppressors, internal magazines holding more than seven rounds, or detachable magazines that have "the appearance of holding more than 10 cartridges" (15 for .22-caliber rimfire ammunition). MSSAs already require a special license. Ardern wants to make them entirely illegal, and that includes firearms currently owned by license holders, who will be required to surrender them. They are supposed to receive compensation, but this "buyback" won't be optional.
In addition to banning the guns already classified as MSSAs, New Zealand is expanding that category to include all semi-automatic firearms capable of accepting magazines that hold more than five rounds (or 10 in the case of .22-caliber or smaller rimfire ammunition). That's a big deal, because the prohibited guns will include many models of handguns and rifles that accept detachable magazines but were not heretofore considered MSSAs. The Christchurch shooter reportedly bought two semi-automatic rifles with a standard gun license, then "modified" them to fire more than seven rounds, meaning he switched to bigger magazines. Now Ardern wants to ban not only larger magazines but the guns capable of accepting them.
"We will also ban all assault rifles," Ardern said. If that category is supposed to be distinct from MSSAs, it's not clear what Ardern means. Traditionally, "assault rifles" were military guns capable of automatic fire, but those are already deemed "restricted weapons" in New Zealand, meaning they can be legally owned only by special license holders such as collectors or movie producers, who are not allowed to fire them.
In the United States, politicians, journalists, and gun control activists who talk about "assault rifles" often treat the term as interchangeable with "assault weapons," an arbitrary category defined by law. While the criteria vary from one jurisdiction to another, "assault weapons" in the United States are similar to New Zealand's original definition of MSSAs in the sense that the category includes guns with "military-style" features, such as folding stocks, bayonet lugs, and flash suppressors, that do not make the weapons any more deadly in the hands of a mass shooter.
By contrast, New Zealand's new definition of military-style semi-automatics, which will now be not just restricted but banned, hinges on a functionally significant distinction: the ability to accept detachable magazines. At the same time, that criterion is so broad that it renders the term military-style meaningless and sweeps in a wide range of firearms used for lawful purposes. In the United States—which, unlike New Zealand, has a constitution that guarantees the right to armed self-defense—such a sweeping ban would be inconsistent with Supreme Court rulings rejecting bans on semi-automatic handguns. Yet it is more logical than American-style "assault weapon" bans, which focus on looks rather than lethality.
The "military-style semi-automatic weapons" New Zealand plans to ban (which may or may not be synonymous with the "assault rifles" Ardern "also" wants to ban) include many guns that never fell into that category before and do not necessarily have anything to do with the military. It is therefore more than a little confusing to continue using the same term for them, especially for Americans who imagine that the category is equivalent to what U.S. politicians have in mind when they refer to "assault weapons."
Since the rationale for such laws is that they make it harder to obtain guns that are especially suitable for mass murder, the details matter. "Assault weapon" bans tend to draw distinctions that make no sense in light of that goal. New Zealand's government is implicitly acknowledging that problem by focusing on function instead of appearance. But that also means imposing a much bigger burden on law-abiding gun owners, who now will be required to give up detachable magazines and the guns that accept them, which are surely more widely useful than bayonet lugs or flash suppressors. In that tradeoff, there is a lesson that American gun controllers should take to heart.
Ron Sachs/CNP/AdMedia/NewscomPresident Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday requiring colleges and universities that receive federal research grants to make more of an effort to protect freedom of expression on campus.
The official announcement is coming later this afternoon, but the text of the order is already available. The key section is below:
"It is the policy of the federal government to encourage institutions to foster environments that promote open, intellectually engaging, and diverse debate, including through compliance with the First Amendment for public institutions and compliance with stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech for private institutions," the order states. "To advance [this policy], the heads of covered agencies shall, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, take appropriate steps, in a manner consistent with applicable law, including the First Amendment, to ensure institutions that receive Federal research or education grants promote free inquiry, including through compliance with all applicable Federal laws, regulations, and policies."
The order differentiates between research grants and other types of federal funds, and notes that financial aid will not be imperiled by noncompliance with the above. It also instructs the federal government to publish information regarding "strategies for increasing student success, especially among students at high risk of not completing a postsecondary program of study."
It's very difficult to see how much of an effect—if any—this order will have on colleges and universities. As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes, "the order does not specify how or by what standard federal agencies will ensure compliance, the order's most consequential component."
As I've written previously, while there is indeed a free speech problem on college campuses, I'm concerned that an executive order is the wrong way to solve it. For one thing, students themselves are often the ones doing the censoring, and it's not clear to me that universities' research funding should be at risk just because the institutions are not doing enough to discourage illiberal activism. It's also easy to imagine a world in which universities over-interpret a mandate to support free inquiry, and end up stifling the free speech rights of certain students and professors who are at odds with the Trump administration's position on this.
Under the Obama administration, federal guidance to colleges instructing them to do more to address sexual misconduct resulted in an avalanche of unintended consequences that gravely threatened students' due process rights. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wisely rescinded this guidance.
Indeed, DeVos has maintained that "government muscle" is not the right way to address the campus free speech problem. During a speech in September, she said:
A solution won't come from defunding an institution of learning or merely getting the words of a campus policy exactly right. Solutions won't come from new laws from Washington, D.C., or from a speech police at the U.S. Department of Education.
DeVos is right; unfortunately, Trump's executive order is in tension with his secretary's preferred, superior approach.
That said, the executive order is light on specifics relating to enforcement. As a mere declaration that free inquiry on public university campuses ought to matter, and a reminder that the First Amendment exists, it's not particularly objectionable.
Iurii Golub / Dreamstime.com"They need to be allowed to be children rather than having to constantly think about equalities and rights."
That's the explanation Fatima Shah has given for temporarily pulling her 10-year-old daughter out of school in Birmingham, England. She is one of apparently hundreds of Muslim parents who object to a newly developed school program to teach children the basics of LGBT issues.
Now some primary schools in England are suspending this program, called No Outsiders, developed by educator Andrew Moffat, in order to discuss the issue with parents who object to Moffat's curriculum. A petition signed by 400 parents calls for it to be dropped from the schools.
Here's more from Shah in The Guardian in January:
Shah claimed her children were becoming "confused" about homosexuality and that the local community's concerns were not being taken on board. She said: "We have nothing against Mr. Moffat – we are as British as they come. We respect the British values … but the problem is, he is not respecting our ethos as a community.
"We don't send our children to school to learn about LGBT. We send them to school to learn maths, science and English."
There are, of course, people who support and have defended the Moffat program, arguing that schools should continue the classes and require all children to attend them. I suspect these op-eds are much kinder and more respectful of the religious objections of Muslims than they would be of Christians.
But I'm not here to participate in the culture wars. Rather, I'd like to point out how poor a job the school system clearly did in engaging with these people when developing the program in the first place; the belief of government education bureaucrats that they are responsible for teaching students and their families to be "better" people; and the inability of many people in the education system to recognize what services parents actually want from them.
Shabana Mahmood, a member of Parliament for parts of the Birmingham community, explained that the parents she had spoken to weren't even against teaching children about LGBT issues. She herself has backed gay rights measures and voted in favor of same-sex marriage recognition. What she heard is that parents are uncomfortable with the early age at which this is all happening. They want these lessons to begin in secondary school, not when their kids are under the age of 10.
The fight is as loud as it is dumb and unnecessary. Learning about LGBT issues, families, and relationships is something that should be handled on the cultural level, not via standardized government lessons. Western nations have become far more accepting of LGBT people over the past 30 years, but it wasn't government that drove the change. Rather, it was a result of passionate activism and cultural engagement with the communities themselves.
Whenever there's a conflict between educators and parents about what children should be learning, there's a clear and obvious solution: school choice. This fight doesn't have to have winners and losers. Parents who want their children to learn about gay families at a younger age and parents who want their children to wait can both get what they want.
But that would require government officials and educators to see parents as customers, and accept that their business must be won, not assumed. And that's not very British at all.
Allison Dinner/ZUMA Press/NewscomIf you want to understand the current state of the Democratic party's internal debate on health care, it's worth looking at how Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) responded to a question about the issue at a CNN Townhall earlier this week. Warren is a supporter of Medicare for All, the single-payer plan put forth by her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), so you might have expected her to respond by pointing to her support for the plan.
But the question was about the problems that single-payer would cause for labor unions, and Warren, faced with a criticism from the left, didn't jump to a defense of the idea. Instead, she outlined a number of possibilities for expanding Medicare—letting more people buy in, or altering the age range so that it covers people younger than 65, and so on. She closed by saying she would get all the stakeholders together to discuss options.
Warren has a very specific, very detailed plan for everything, right down to which iPhone charging cables you should be able to buy. Her campaign so far has been structured as a series of policy briefings designed to demonstrate her command of policy details, as if she is running for White House legislative director rather than president.
But for once, she didn't have a plan—just options and possibilities. She appears to have discovered that being very specific about health care plans makes those plans much easier to criticize. For a presidential candidate, a potential and vague health care plan can be more valuable than a full-fledged proposal. Which is why her answer was effectively a punt: I don't have a plan—but elect me president and I'll figure one out.
Warren's uncertainty mirrors the larger debate that is going on in the Democratic party right now.
MORE »
Teachers at Meadowlawn Elementary School in Monticello, Indiana, allege they were pelted with airsoft gun bullets by police during an active shooter drill in January.
Gail Zeharalis, a representative for the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), testified about the incident at an Indiana Senate hearing Wednesday, RTV6 reported. "During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles—resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn," the teacher's union wrote on Twitter:
The teachers were terrified, but were told not to tell anyone what happened. Teachers waiting outside that heard the screaming were brought into the room four at a time and the shooting process was repeated.
— Indiana State Teachers Association (@ISTAmembers) March 20, 2019
Two anonymous teachers confirmed what happened to the Indianapolis Star. "They told us, 'This is what happens if you just cower and do nothing," one of the teachers said. "They shot all of us across our backs. I was hit four times."
Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Sipa USA/NewscomThe incident took place as part an active shooter training program called ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate). It's a nationwide program, though it usually does not involve shooting teachers with pellet guns. County Sheriff Bill Brooks' office oversaw the training, though he couldn't go into specifics because he only took office that month and said he was not there when the airsoft guns were used.
Still, Brooks offered a confusing defense of the practice to the Star. While seemingly refusing to confirm that teachers were shot at all, he also said the teachers "all knew they could be" because "it's a shooting exercise."
"It's a soft, round projectile," he told Star of the plastic pellets used in the airsoft guns. "The key here is 'soft.'" The practice ended, he added, after a teacher complained.
The ISTA went public with the allegations as part of an effort to amend a proposed school safety bill to clarify that teachers shouldn't be shot. It seems like a pretty reasonable demand. After all, it's hard to understand how shooting teachers with pellet guns makes anyone safer.
Incidents like these highlight the oftentimes needless and extreme measures taken during active shooter drills. In 2014, Lenore Skenazy wrote for Reason about armed police who swarmed into a middle school in Florida without warning teachers or students that it was a drill:
The fear that teachers might suffer heart attacks, that kids might experience psychotic breakdowns, that someone with his own weapon might shoot real bullets in defense—none of that seemed to occur to our peacekeepers. Nor did the notion that distraught parents might race frantically to the school, endangering anyone in their path.
As Reason's Jesse Walker has argued, these sorts of overly realistic simulations don't prepare students and teachers for disasters as much as they pointlessly reenact past tragedies. They're also not terribly effective, as Erika Christakis has written in The Atlantic.
The truth is, schools are actually relatively safe. School shootings are tragic, but thankfully, very rare. In fact, some research suggests schools might even be safer now than they were in the 1990s, as Robby Soave has pointed out.
With that in mind, it's very hard to defend the kind of institutionalized self-harm that Indiana teachers say they were subjected to.
Oliver Contreras/picture alliance / Consolidated/Newscom
From the moment Donald Trump stepped into the Oval Office, he has acted deliberately to restrict the number of immigrants coming to the United States. His administration has not only been cracking down on unauthorized entry to the country but also closing off legal avenues for immigration.
The administration initially curtailed admission from Muslim countries and slashed refugees. And despite Trump's pledge to help persecuted Christians, America admitted only about three dozen Christian refugees from the Middle East in 2018, a number that could comfortably fit in a school bus. The administration argues that it would rather support refugees overseas. But that's just spin: The president's 2020 budget proposes to slash overseas assistance to refugees.
In his most recent State of the Union address, Trump declared that he wanted "people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever." But his words are constantly overshadowed by his actions, like a recent Homeland Security proposal to cut legal immigration by a roughly 20 percent drop. The lesson is clear: Ignore what Donald Trump says and instead watch what his administration does, writes Stuart Anderson in his latest at Reason.
View this article
leah mills reuters via newscomGiven how much America's military footprint has grown under previous presidents, it would certainly be nice if a president tried to pull back. But is President Donald Trump is doing that, as his isolationist cheerleaders claim?
Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia does not think so.
Trump's much-hyped pullouts from Afghanistan and Iraq aren't in fact full withdrawals. The government indicated this week that America will leave 1,000 troops in Syria. And the Pentagon's plan right now is to withdraw only half of the 14,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan, America's longest war. This has prompted Sen. Rand Paul to introduce legislation demanding a full withdrawal.
Meanwhile, Trump is boosting military spending and tearing up existing treaties without signing new ones. And he is increasingly wielding America's economy as a weapon to achieve foreign policy objectives, hardly the behavior of a non-meddlesome power.
View this article
Katarzyna Bialasiewicz/Dreamstime.comWhen a cannabis cooking show graces your Netflix suggestions, it's a pretty good indicator that national attitudes toward the substance are shifting. For an even bigger indicator, check out a recent poll by the University of Chicago's General Social Survey (GSS).
According to the survey, a record-breaking 61 percent of Americans believe that weed should be legalized. This number is considerably larger than the mere 16 percent who supported legalization in 1990.
Who specifically supports legalization? Well, just about everyone.
When the Pew Research Center reported similar percentages for support last year, it included a demographic breakdown. Most groups, regardless of race, education, or religious affiliation, expressed majority support for legalization. Those that did not were nearly evenly split on the issue.
As Reason's Steve Chapman observed in 2017, these ideas have become the political norm. Listing the reasons for the growing acceptance of marijuana, Chapman credited a better understanding of disproportionate arrests by race, access to propaganda-busting statistics about adolescent use and crime in legalization states, and even the ongoing opioid crisis.
Those 1990 results, by contrast, followed a decade of drug hysteria, overhyped anti-drug initiatives such as the DARE program, and increasingly harsh convictions for drug convictions, which contributed to the rapid growth of the prison population.
Unfortunately, in several states that have legalized recreational marijuana, governments have yet to fully bring the criminal justice system up to speed with the new laws. While states that are currently taking up legalization are adding provisions to forgive old drug convictions, states that adopted legalization earlier than others are only now addressing those who are still serving time for something that is no longer a crime. Washington, for example, became one of the first states to legalize recreational use in 2012. It wasn't until January of this year that Gov. Jay Inslee announced clemency for residents who had been convicted for possession—and even then, only if those convictions were misdemeanors.
Yang/FacebookCongressional Democrats ask the FBI to investigate the former owner of a Florida massage parlor. "I'm Chinese. I'm Republican. That's the reason the Democrats want to check me," Li "Cindy" Yang tells NBC News. "I love Americans. I love our president. I don't do anything wrong."
Yang once owned Orchids of Asia Day Spa, where police recently conducted prostitution stings and arrested Patriots owner Robert Kraft. But Yang sold that business years ago. Now she's being accused of a different kind of illicit activity: selling "access" to the president on behalf of Chinese officials. The basis for these allegations is thin at best—and at worst smacks of both anti-immigrant bigotry and weaponizing law enforcement for partisan purposes.
A naturalized U.S. citizen, Yang moved here from China about two decades ago and settled in south Florida. She's now a member of Trump's Florida-based Mar-a-Lago Club, and she recently took a selfie with the president at a Super Bowl party at Trump International golf resort in West Palm Beach.
Since 2017, Yang and her husband have run GY US Investments, a company that provides branding and business consulting services to Chinese and Chinese-American entrepreneurs, including helping them get access to elected officials.
Neither congressional Democrats nor the myriad media reports on Yang have provided any evidence of wrongdoing to accompany their insinuations that she has ties to Chinese authorities or is working some secret angle. And what GY US Investments offers is hardly different from what many a well-respected D.C. firm peddles, too. It seems that just because Yang is Chinese, people are assuming she couldn't be a Trump fan and a Republican supporter (or just a shrewd businessperson who saw an opportunity) without having a hidden and nefarious agenda, or without being too stupid to realize that she's being used by China's government somehow.
Democrats in Congress have asked the FBI to investigate Yang. On what grounds, it isn't quite clear. In a March 15 letter to the FBI, Democratic members of the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees wrote that ''although Ms. Yang's activities may only be those of an unscrupulous actor allegedly selling access to politicians for profit, her activities also could permit adversary governments or their agents access to these same politicians to acquire potential material for blackmail or other even more nefarious purposes."
Yang's company website describes GY Investments as an "international business consulting firm that provides public relations services to assist businesses in America to establish and expand their brand image in the modern Chinese marketplace." As part of its marketing materials, GY says that past "activities for clients" have included "the opportunity to interact with the president, the [American] Minister of Commerce and other political figures." It also says it can arrange "taking photos with the President."
So...what? None of that is illegal. And whether you call it "public relations," "lobbying," "political consulting," or whatever, this is exactly what entire fancy industries in this country are set up to do.
Yang tells NBC that her business was about business, not an ideological agenda—"nothing to do with politics, just like business networking." She says the president took a selfie with her, as he does with many fans but doesn't know her personally, and that she wanted the picture to put on her company's website as a marketing tool. She adds that she was "so scared" by all the recent media attention that she has lost 15 pounds and has had trouble sleeping.
In Ohio, the Columbus Division of Police just abolished the entire vice unit. The move comes following revelations of a range of disturbing activity from members of the unit, including the suspicious "officer-involved shooting" death of a sex worker, the arrest on false pretenses of Stormy Daniels, a lawsuit from other strip club staff arrested in the Daniels sting, and last week's FBI announcement that Columbus Vice Officer Andrew Mitchell had been indicted on federal charges. Mitchell is accused of abducting women "under the guise of an arrest" and forcing them "to engage in sex for their freedom."
Interim Columbus Police Chief Thomas A. Quinlan said Tuesday that he was abolishing the assignments of all current vice officers. "While today's decision is not a reflection on all the officers assigned to vice, it has become clear there's a better method of addressing the community's needs when to it comes to the enforcement of prostitution, alcohol and gambling," he said in a video posted to Twitter. "Soon I am meeting with the deputy chiefs to develop a new model for enforcement. Following this meeting, I will share the division's plans with the community."
How law enforcement learned to love Touch ID. "Court documents unsealed Tuesday reveal the breadth of technical information federal investigators were permitted to collect on President Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen," reports CNN:
Notably, the FBI made use of Cohen's use of Touch ID and Face ID on his Apple devices, which allow users to quickly log into iPhones and computers by scanning their face or fingerprint rather than typing in a password. Those features are marketed as faster and more secure ways to securely log into one's devices, as it's harder, though not impossible, to replicate someone's fingerprint or appearance.
But that gives law enforcement an additional means to access those devices. In one warrant application for Cohen, an FBI agent requested authorization "to press the fingers (including thumbs) of Cohen to the Touch ID sensors of the Subject Devices, or hold the Subject Devices in front of Cohen's face, for the purpose of attempting to unlock the Subject Devices via Touch ID or Face ID."
While the issue has never come before the Supreme Court, tech civil liberties experts warn that a warrant can compel a suspect to use their face or fingerprint to give up access to an otherwise locked device.
Tariffs on Chinese goods will still be around "for a substantial period of time," President Donald Trump said Wednesday. Asked about U.S. tariffs on about $250 billion worth of Chinese exports, Trump said "We're not talking about removing them, we're talking about leaving them for a substantial period of time. Because we have to make sure that if we do the deal with China that China lives by the deal."
Reminder: the United States government has been stealing people's children and is not giving them back. It is doing so to deter them from exercising a legal right under US and international law, applying for asylum. https://t.co/OM3d7mMY5J
— Michael Paarlberg (@MPaarlberg) March 20, 2019
Both Hope Hicks and AMI, the owner of the National Enquirer, have agreed to turn over documents to the House Judiciary Committee in response to their request for documents for an investigation into the Trump administration obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
— Rebecca Kaplan (@RebeccaRKaplan) March 20, 2019
A journalist has been accused of a hate crime, after she misgendered a trans person on Twitter. Hate crimes have a maximum two-year prison sentence.
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) March 20, 2019
But with knife crimes soaring across the UK, should police be investigating incidents such as these?@SwainITV with more. pic.twitter.com/eyh1NJfT1W
"There's no money in solving murders. There's money in drug busts and civil asset forfeiture and those kinds of things." — @BlanksSlate on the impacts of institutional and historical racism in America... https://t.co/isfWhxV4gi
— Kat Murti (@KatMurti) March 20, 2019
Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS/NewscomAlan B. Krueger, who died on March 16 at age 58, was a highly regarded economist best known for his empirical research into the consequences of government policies on labor markets—including research that helped identify occupational licensing laws as a barrier to employment and spurred much of the ongoing effort at reforming those state-level laws.
His career included stints as an advisor to two presidential administrations, but Krueger also conducted a wide range of research into everything from the consequences of minimum wage laws to the economics of rock 'n' roll concerts—the subject of his final book, due to be released in June.
Among many important contributions, his work on licensing stands out. Without Krueger, occupational licensing reform would not be on the radar today, says Morris Kleiner, a labor economist at the University of Minnesota.
During a decades-long personal and professional relationship, Kleiner and Krueger co-authored three papers together. The first, which was published in 2010 in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, helped define the scope of licensing laws in America by using survey data to show that nearly 30 percent of American workers were required to have government-issused licenses to work. Later papers exploring the effect of licensing on workers' wages, hours, and mobility helped spur reform efforts at the state and federal level.
Research that Krueger started at Princeton University's Survey Research Center—where he added occupational licensing questions to Gallup polls—continued when he moved into a gig as chief economist at the U.S. Treasury during the Obama administration (he previously served in the Clinton administration as chief economist in the Department of Labor). The information gleaned from those government surveys have helped economists and policymakers better understand how licensing raises wages for workers lucky or privileged enough to be licensed while acting as a barrier to employment for others.
Krueger's work played an instrumental role in getting the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisors to study occupational licensing and, in 2015, to issue a report calling for states to ease their licensing rules for many professions.
"He helped move occupational licensing from a backburner issue to very much being a discussion in mainstream economics," Kleiner told Reason. "Absent his ability to get those surveys and analyze the numbers, these things just would not have happened."
On the political left, Krueger's work is probably most commonly associated with a 1994 paper that examined the empirical effects of a minimum wage increase in New Jersey by comparing employment at fast food restaurants in the state with those in Pennsylvania, where there had been no change to the minimum wage. The study found no significant impact caused by the higher minimum wage in New Jersey, challenging the prevailing economic theory about the link between jobs and higher wages.
Still, that landmark study demonstrates the limitations of empirical economics, too. One common criticism is that the study looked only at fast food restaurants—which are generally part of national chains—and not at other local businesses that might have been less able to handle the wage increase. Another limitation is the tendency to assume that results in one place can be applied somewhere else. What happened in New Jersey in the 1990s when the minimum wage increased to $4.25 per hour does not guarentee the same results in other places when the minimum wage is hiked to $15 per hour, or more—understanding the latter requires yet more empirical study.
Even so, studying the real-world consequences of economic policy is important—and Krueger played a huge role in convincing people we need to study policy outcomes rather than simply trusting in theories and the good intentions of policymakers.
"Krueger helped turn the economics profession into a more empirical, more scientific enterprise," Bloomberg's Noah Smith writes. "He constantly concerned himself with the betterment of the lives of poor and working people, but refused to naively assume that programs designed to help these people always had the intended effect."
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
Digg
Delicious
Reddit
Google