The accompanying narrative from Reason: We’ve got Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal demanding clean urine in exchange for welfare benefits (a bad idea that also doesn’t work as advertised, but hey, at least the boozers are safe!), North Carolina regulators busting a blogger for praising the paleo diet (an offense that can get you tossed in…
Laws/Regulations
Education, Laws/Regulations
Ten down, forty to go
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Wisconsin’s still stuck: The Associated Press has learned that President Barack Obama on Thursday will free 10 states from the strict requirements of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law. The move gives long-sought leeway to states that promise to improve how they prepare and evaluate students. A White House official says the states are…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Local Government, Planning
The Williamsburg Neighborhood in Brooklyn
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
I mentioned that I would write a bit about the Williamsburg neighborhood. Brooklyn’s huge (millions of residents) and there are many neighborhoods (themselves large) within that borough. One of them is Williamsburg, a diverse and eclectic community, with both Hasidim and hipsters, and a thriving arts scene. These groups within the neighborhood do not always…
Business, City, Laws/Regulations, Planning
The Overpowering Fear of a … Sports Bar
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Perhaps some fret all day, dreading the prospect of a sports bar in a business district in a town that has too few businesses of any kind. I am not among them. In small-town Whitewater, the main thoroughfare is called, creatively, Main Street. Along it one finds dozens of commercial businesses. Fast-food restaurants, strip malls,…
Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty, Technology
The ACLU on SOPA/PIPA
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The ACLU’s Rights Blog posted today on the controversy over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the post mentions the ACLU’s constructive role in limiting this latest regulatory overreach. (See, Online Protest Over SOPA Helps » Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.) I have reproduced parts of their post…
Law, Laws/Regulations, Libertarians
LP Calls for Regulating Marijuana like Wine
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America regulates marijuana, mostly, by prohibition. Despite criminalizing cannabis, and spending vast sums to find, fine, arrest, and jail pot smokers, the level of actual consumption seems unchanged. (Americans, by the way, are increasingly supportive of marijuana decriminalization. Government officials can only sell expensive ineffectiveness for so long. The trend toward decriminalization is clear.) I’ve…
Free Markets, Law, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Institute for Justice fighting the good fight
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
From the IJ, highlights of ongoing work: Litigating for Liberty. The Wall Street Journal featured IJ’s founder and president, Chip Mellor, this past Sunday. Read the in-depth interview here. Georgia property owners are fed up with forfeiture. The state’s forfeiture law allows law enforcement to seize the property of innocent owners without convicting or even…
Free Markets, Immigration, Laws/Regulations, Politics
The GOP’s Wrong Turn on Immigration
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at National Review, libertarian Daniel Griswold makes the case for liberalized immigration policies, by reminding Republicans that current GOP Candidates Betray the Spirit of Reagan on Immigration. Commenters at the site will have none of it, and are highly critical of Griswold’s views. Their criticism matters no more than if flat-earthers railed against the…
Federal Government, Laws/Regulations
Dallas teen missing since 2010 was deported to Colombia
by JOHN ADAMS •
Some of the same gentlemen who campaign on the need for small government are willing to support aggressive federal immigration enforcement. Their confidence in the efficiency and fairness of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is absurdly misplaced: There are still many unanswered questions about how an African-American girl who speaks no Spanish is mistaken for a…
City, Laws/Regulations, Politics
For Whitewater, some contested races are better than none
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater will see two contested Council races this year, for a district and an at-large seat. The at-large race will assure the city at least one new Council member from the two candidates; the district race has one incumbent and one challenger. (The school district has no contested races.) If our laws were less burdensome,…
Foreign Affairs, Freedom of Speech, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
China’s President Pushes Back Against Western Culture
by JOHN ADAMS •
BEIJING — President of Hu Jintao of China has said that China must strengthen its cultural production to defend against the West’s assault on the country’s culture and ideology, according to an essay in a Communist Party policy magazine published this week. The publication of Mr. Hu’s words signaled that a new major policy initiative…
Crime, Laws/Regulations
The Wrong Strategy on Synthetic Marijuana
by JOHN ADAMS •
When a society’s drug enforcement focuses on the supply of a drug, drug traffickers will (1) alter the concoctions they sell and (2) change the way they sell those concoctions. Sure enough, in response to a ban on synthetic marijuana, dealers are altering their formulas to circumvent existing local laws, and are now selling though…
City, Laws/Regulations, Politics
How to Keep Roma or Bedouin from Dominating Whitewater, Wisconsin’s Politics
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here in our exceptional city of 14,622, we can’t be too careful about outside influences, nefarious plots, and the reputed scheming of Madisonians to force every man, woman, and child in the city to wear tie-dye clothing. And yet, and yet, there’s something even worse than these unsettling threats: at any moment, hordes of Roma…
Law, Laws/Regulations, Wisconsin
The Journal Sentinel on Justice Gableman’s Receipt of Free Legal Services (and a bit about the story, itself)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over the the Journal Sentinel, there’s a story about Justice Gableman’s deciding votes on cases in which the Michael Best & Friedrich firm represented the victorious party, despite his receipt of free legal services from that firm: State Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in two cases cast the deciding vote in favor of parties represented…