Jul

4

A Happy Fourth of July to all our readers.  Enjoy the fireworks.

Jul

3

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Arcosanti come to mind:

"Singapores Supertrees Light Up the Night"

"The Supertrees, which vary in height between 80 and 160 feet, are made of four parts: reinforcement concrete core, trunk, planting panels of the living skin, and canopy. Just like non-mechanized forests, the large canopies operate as temperature moderators, absorbing and dispersing heat, as well as providing shelter to visitors walking below. This suite of technologies can help to achieve at least 30% savings in energy consumption, compared to conventional methods of cooling, according to the project’s website. Special sky bridges connect a few of the trees, for those brave enough to walk above Earth at the height of the top of skyscrapers. "

Jul

3

In my quest to bore everyone to death, I have been working my way through the Coinage Acts. My favorite so far is still the first - The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792

The dollar was made the unit of account and defined by a weight and purity of gold and silver and the ratio between the two metals was fixed at 15 to 1. The provisions say nothing about the money supply; but they say a great deal about the assaying and engraving of the coins. They also provide for a 1/2 of 1% seignorage charge for the immediate exchange of bullion for gold coin. All coins shall be "legal tender". To make certain the Mint was doing its job properly, there would be an annual inspection by a committee of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Secretary and Comptroller of the Treasury, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, with a quorum being 3 persons. The inspection was to be held on the last Monday of July and was to assay coins taken from each batch produced by the Mint during the preceding year.

As in most things legislative, the important provision is at the end.

The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792

(1 Stat. 246)

Statute I.

April 2, 1792 Chapter XVI.–An Act establishing a Mint, and

regulating the coins of the United States.

Mint established Be it enacted by the Senate and

at the seat of House of Representatives of the United States

government. of American in Congress assembled, and it is

hereby enacted and declared, That a mint for

the purpose of a national coinage be, and the

same is established, to be situate and

carried on at the seat of the government of

the United States, for the time being; and

that for the well conducting of the business

of the said mint, there shall be the

following officers and persons, namely, –a

Director, an Assayer, a Chief Coiner, an

Engarver, a Treasurer. …

Species of the And be it further enacted, That

coins to be there shall be from time to time struck and

struck. coined at the said mint, coins of gold,

silver, and copper, of the following denomi-

nations, values and descriptions, viz.

Eagles EAGLES–each to be of he value of ten dollars

or units, and to contain two hundred and

forty-seven grains and four eighths of a

grain of pure, or two hundred and seventy

grains of standard gold.

Half Eagles HALF EAGLES–each to be of the value of five

dollars, and to contain one hundred and

twenty-three grains and six eighths of a

grain of pure, or one hundred and thirty-five

grains of standard gold.

Quarter Eagles QUARTER EAGLES–each to be of the value of

two dollars and a half dollar, and to contain

sixty-one grains and seven eighths of a grain

of pure, or sixty-seven grains and four

eighths of a grain of standard gold.

Dollars or Units DOLLARS OR UNITS–each to be of the value of

a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now

current, and to contain three hundred and

seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts

of a grain of pure, or four hundred and

sixteen grains of standard silver.

Half Dollars HALF DOLLARS–each to be of half the value of

the dollar or unit, and to contain one

hundred and eighty-five grains and ten

sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or two

hundred and eight grains of standard silver.

Quarter Dollars QUARTER DOLLAR–each to be of one fourth the

value of the dollar or unit, and to contain

ninety-two grains and thirteen sixteenth

parts of a grain of pure, or one hundred and

four grains of standard silver.

Dimes DIMES–each to be of the value of one tenth

of a dollar or unit, and to contain thirty-

seven grains and two sixteenth parts of a

grain of pure, or forty-one grains and three

fifths parts of a grain of standard silver.

Half Dimes HALF DIMES–each to be of the value of one

twentieth of a dollar, and to contain

eighteen grains and nine sixteenth parts of a

grain of pure, or twenty grains and four

fifths parts of a grain of standard silver.

Cents CENTS–each to be of the value of the one

hundredth part of a dollar, and to contain

eleven penny-weights of copper.

Half Cents HALF CENTS–each to be of the value of half a

a cent, and to contain five penny-weights and

a half a penny-weight of copper.

Of what devices And be it further enacted, That,

upon the said coins respectively, there shall

be the following devices and legends, namely:

Upon one side of each of the said coins there

shall be an impression emblematic of liberty,

with an inscription of the word Liberty, and

the year of the coinage; and upon the reverse

of each of the gold and silver coins there

shall be the figure or representation of an

eagle, with this inscription, "UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA" and upon the reverse of each of

the copper coins, there shall be an

inscription which shall express the

denomination of the piece, namely, cent or

half cent, as the case may require.

Proportional value And be it further enacted, That

of gold and silver the proportional value of gold and silver in

all coins which shall by law be current as

money within the United States, shall be

fifteen to one, according to quantity in

weight, of pure gold or pure silver; that is

to say, every fifteen payments, with one

pound weight of pure gold, and so in

proportion as to any greater or less

quantities of the respective metals.

Standard for gold And be it further enacted, That

coins, and alloy the standard for all gold coins of the United

how to be regulated States shall be eleven parts fine to one part

alloy; and accordingly that eleven parts fine

to one part alloy; and accordingly that

eleven parts in twelve of the entire weight

of each of the said coins shall consist of

pure gold, and the remaining one twelfth part

of alloy; and the said alloy shall be

composed of silver and copper, in such

proportions not exceeding one half silver as

shall be found convenient; to be regulated by

the director of the mint, for the time being,

with the approbation of the President of the

United States, until further provision shall

be made by law. And to the end that the

necessary information may be had in order to

the making of such further provision,

Director to report It shall be the duty of the director of the

the practice of mint, at the expiration of a year commencing

mint touching the the operations of the said mint, to report to

alloy of gold Congress the practice thereof during the said

coins. year, touching the composition of the alloy

of the said gold coins, the reasons for such

practice, and the experiments and

observations which shall have been made

concerning the effects of different

proportions of silver and copper in the said

alloy.

Standard for silver And be it further enacted, That

coins–alloy how the standard for all silver coins of the

to be regulated. United States, shall be one thousand four

hundred and eighty-five parts fine to one

hundred and seventy-nine parts alloy; and

accordingly that one thousand four hundred

and eighty-five parts in one thousand six

hundred and sixty-four parts of the entire

weight of each of the said coins shall

consist of pure silver, and the remaining

Alloy. one hundred and seventy-nine parts of alloy;

which alloy shall be wholly of copper.

Penalty on de- And be it further enacted, That

basing the coins. if any of the gold or silver coins which

shall be struck or coined at the said mint

shall be debased or made worse as to the

proportion of the fine gold or fine silver

therein contained, or shall be of less weight

or value than the same out to be pursuant to

the directions of this act, through the

default or with the connivance of any of the

officers or persons who shall be employed at

the said mint, for the purpose of profit or

gain, or otherwise with a fraudulent intent,

and if any of the said officers or persons

shall embezzle any of the metals which shall

at any time be committed to their charge for

the purpose of being coined, or any of the

coins which shall be struck or coined at the

said mint, every such officer or person who

shall commit any or either of the said

offenses, shall be deemed guilty of felony,

and shall suffer death.

Money of account And be if further enacted, That

to be expressed in the money of account of the United States

dollars, etc. shall be expressed in dollars, or units,

dimes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and

the milles or thousandths, a dime being the

tenth part of a dollar, a cent the hundredth

part of a dollar, a mille the thousandth part

of a dollar, and that all accounts in the

public offices and all proceedings in the

courts of the United States shall be kept and

had in conformity to this regulation.

Jul

3

As Anne O'Connell, a professor at University of Cal Berkeley, said "there are important cases in which the chief justice has to put the court's interests above his own ideological or jurisprudential views. This was one such case."

One would suggest that the court acts to survive and prosper like the badger or any other organism subject to incentives and emoluments.

Gary Rogan writes: 

We may never know whether he wanted to keep getting invited to all the cocktail parties or they made him an offer he couldn't refuse, but he did change his mind at the last minute. In either case, a man with a lifetime appointment somehow has to side with card-carrying communists while making basic mistakes (like a tax law cannot be challenged until the tax is actually collected, and several others), and redirects trillions of dollars of economic activity. All this to make sure that the rest of them with lifetime appointments and no known personal threats of any kind have no chance of being marginalized? Never has so much been sold out for so little even if this subhuman was threatened. 

David Lilienfeld writes: 

Two comments:

1. It's significant how many in our country have as low regard for the SCOTUS as they do. Even more so when one has a Senator questioning whether the court has any standing to rule something as being constitutional or not. The dysfunctionalities present in our government are manifesting at the SCOTUS, and the populous is none too pleased about this. Given that we live in the iPhone Society, one might wonder when the populous would expect anything else.

2. At the time Truman desegregated the military, 65 percent of the country opposed the action. When Brown v Board of Ed was decided, 60+ percent of the country opposed integration of the schools (though this was to change rapidly in the wake of the decision). Courts and politicians are political animals, but they are also leaders–or at least at times in the past, have been leaders. Unfortunately, as we have been without political leadership for sometime, it isn't surprising that this case was decided in such a manner as to defy just about any and all expectations. (There are a lot of people on Intrade who got hosed in this decision).

Rocky Humbert writes: 

Have you even read Robert's opinion? I did. He didn't do any favors for the left in it; he takes a swipe at Wickard and he is very clear that upholding the mandate should not be construed as any expansion of government power. Essentially, he wrote that if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, smells like a duck, then it's a duck. Substance over form. He blew away the government on every other substantive argument.

In the future application of this ruling, I believe that his opinion won't be used as opening the door further to govt intervention; quite the opposite is true! But unless you read the opinion, you won't know this and the MSM won't report it. I find it disappointing that the court ruled this way, but as I noted yesterday morning, this was not an easy decision and the opinion reflects that.

I find it reasonable for you to quarrel with the substance of his opinion only after you have read it. But judging from your comment, you haven't. And you comment is vacuous and snarky.

Read the opinion and then comment on the substance.

Gary Rogan adds: 

This ruling is a tortured conclusion looking (and failing) to find reasonable arguments as far as the "tax" portion of it is concerned. What is being taxed here?

It was sold as a mandate and this legal genius finds it to be a tax. If someone sells you a duck claiming to be an elephant, and you find that it's OK because you have a license to sell ducks instead of finding fraud, you are not operating in good faith. Especially if the duck isn't even a normal duck but some mutated monster resulting from an unfortunate breeding of a duck with a goose.

He cuts one type of power found in the "living breathing Constitution" by progressive activists and adds another power of similar flawed pedigree. He did no favors to the left? He SAVED the damn left, to continue their abuse of the Constitution and the country. This man is a snake.

Garret Baldwin writes:

"It was sold as a mandate and this legal genius finds it to be a tax."

Respectfully, it was sold as a mandate to the American people and to representatives in Congress. But when it went to the high-court, it was sold as both a mandate and as a tax. There were two arguments provided on behalf of the Administration. One was that the mandate fell under the commerce clause. In essence, Congress was ruling that it could create commerce in order to regulate it. They were creating a program that forced people to buy something, and that would fall under the clause. Could Congress then make you buy anything it wanted, became the question.

Roberts ruled that down. Even Sotomeyor disagreed with that logic.

But then the issue of a tax did in fact come up in discussion. Though the President said that it wasn't a tax on ABC in 2009, the administration argued in front of the court that the mandate fell within Congress' taxing power… but attempted to argue that it was not a tax… They argued that PENALTIES are within the reach of Congress' taxing power, but that this was not a "revenue generating policy" which is what a tax technically is.

What Roberts ruled is that Yes, this does fall under Congress' taxing authority, but you're not allowed to call it a penalty. It's a tax. Congress can tax whatever it wants, soda, medical devices, and even inactivity. For the optimistic on the right, and for people who have being saying this is a tax all along, the ruling isn't necessarily the worst in the world. First, it shuts down Congress' ability to create markets under the guise of the commerce clause. This was especially concerning for me because I feared they would try to create Cap and Trade through similar means. Second, Democrats are now the "Tax Party", and Roberts has given Romney ammo. This is a tax. And the President swore that no new taxes on the middle class would hit them. There are 21 new taxes in this law, and seven of them directly impact the Middle Class.

"It you think healthcare is expensive now… wait until you see what it costs when it's free." PJ O'Rourke

Rocky Humbert writes: 

This will be my last post on this subject, so Mr. Rogan et al should feel free to label me a "snake," "commie," or whatever choice epithet that he uses for people who don't agree with his self-declared (and as yet unproven) "superior" weltanschauung.

I am starting to see non-legal analyses on the the web, which may over time cause the currently-celebrating liberals to realize that by bringing this case to the Supreme Court, they have opened a Pandora's Box which they will rue. Sure, you can bitch and moan that they didn't strike down the ACA. But this ruling will have a much more important effect in the months and years ahead in terms of LIMITING government. Sure, I had hoped that they would strike the ACA down, but I'm starting to believe that what Roberts did here may be vastly superior IN THE LONG TERM.

If Mr. Rogan can turn off his kneejerk reaction for just a moment and read the following URL, I think he will begin to see that Roberts may have just proven Voltaire's Maxim: "The perfect is the enemy of the good." It's quite possible that in 50 years, the historians will look back and see this as a defining moment when the pendulum which started in the 1930's begins to swing back.

While I believe the ACA is bad economics and bad policy, I believe that the precedents which this ruling establish (and to which lower courts will be bound) are vastly more important and more supportive for freedom and long term prosperity. I am hopeful that as today's scoreboard and November's election fade from memory, the lasting positive consequences (for those on the right) of this ruling will come into focus.

Jul

1

I'm glad to see that an acquaintance of the Chair has brought up the additional (secondary?) opinions. Too often we concentrate on the "big picture" while the real drama is played out in relative obscurity. One of my sideline activities involved promoting and selling tickets for the Golden Gloves. One of the benefits (?) was the provision that we could watch the fights for free. Every year there were several matches which received a big hype because of current win/loss records, past matches, on-going grudges, and the sure-fire big-draw match: two loud mouths with dis-similar socio/economic/ethnic backgrounds (Black/Hispanic, Irish/Italian, Catholic/Protestant, privileged neighborhood/housing project).

With few exceptions the fights rarely lived up to expectations and ended quickly. The real interesting matches, those that promised on-going animosity and future rematches, were found on the under-card. The winners generally prevailed because of a final round "lucky punch" or a very close, highly disputed decision by the judges. In any case, though the result might have been settled for the time being, there was little doubt that rematches were in the future.

In our current conflict over "tax or penalty?" I believe too little attention has been paid to the under-card opinions submitted (authored) by Ginsburg and Scalia. (A confession: for a number of years, long ago, I read old SC opinions regularly - my interest was not in their conclusions, but in the elegant manner the authors employed in laying out the problem, recorded the influences and previous events that guided their reasoning, the flaws in those of their opposition, and why their conclusion ought to ultimately prevail.)

In her opinion (arguing that Congress can use penalties to enforce participation), Ginsburg is unnecessarily lengthy (in my opinion) in repeating portion of the Bill that could just as easily been footnoted or referenced. That said, I believe much of her case can be summed up from the following excerpt:

The Framers understood that the "general Interests of the Union" would change over time, in ways they could not anticipate. Accordingly, they recognized that the Consti­tution was of necessity a "great outlin[e]," not a detailed blueprint, [see McCulloch v. Maryland,] "explained by the context or by the facts of the case," Letter from James Madison to N. P. Trist (Dec. 1831)… "Nothing . . . can be more fallacious," Alexander Hamilton emphasized, "than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from . . . its immediate necessities. There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies[,] as they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, it is impossible safely to limit that capacity." The Federalist No. 34…"

Her points seem to follow those embraced by the "living Constitution" segment of the legal community. Of course, I have reproduced only a small fragment of her entire argument and others may feel a more lengthy exposition of them is required. They are invited to go at it.

Scalia's opinion is one in which he disputes both Roberts' majority opinion and Ginsburg's minority dissent. Although his opinion is not quite as lengthy as Ginburg's, it is substantial and others may examine it for more telling excerpts. In the following I believe he addresses the cases put forth by both Roberts and Ginsburg:

"It is important to bear this in mind in evaluating the tax argument of the Government and of those who support it: The issue is not whether Congress had the power to frame the minimum-coverage provision as a tax, but whether it did so…" He finds they did not. Further:

"Our cases establish a clear line between a tax and a penalty: "'[A] tax is an enforced contribution to provide for the support of government; a penalty . . . is an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act.'" … this Court has held that a "tax" imposed upon private conduct was so onerous as to be in effect a penalty. But we have never held—never—that a penalty imposed for violation of the law was so trivial as to be in effect a tax. It is one of the canons of interpretation that a statute that penalizes an act makes it unlawful: "[W]here the statute inflicts a penalty for doing an act, although the act itself is not expressly prohibited, yet to do the act is unlawful, because it cannot be supposed that the Legislature intended that a penalty should be inflicted for a lawful act."

I've gone through this exercise because I believe the two "minor" opinions will be used to establish arguments for and against future Congressional taxing/penalty legislation. While others might find Roberts' decision Solomonesque, I think future developments will prove otherwise. Currently, a recommended tax increase, for whatever purpose or on whatever constituency, is negatively received. However, we are quickly approaching that magic moment when the number of voters required to pay no federal taxes will surpass that of those who do.

For years, the well-off, the middle-class, and the just-getting-by majority has done an admirable job in approving (many times with great reluctance) beneficial programs for the poor, the working-poor, the physically and mentally challenged, and otherwise disadvantaged minorities.

I chose the word "admirably" purposely. I realize there are those, many perhaps, who will disagree with the descriptor. If that's the case, fine. My concern is that when that current minority achieves majority status, that view will linger and bring about tax/penalty legislation that force current Roberts' admirers to reconsider their position. The fight is not over - it has just begun.

Jul

1

Some non partisan predictions based on the ACA implemented as it appears it will be. Simple supply and demand tells me with an additional 30-50m people having subsidized access it must drive up health care costs. If there was a pure index on health care costs I would go long. Premiums on average will go higher as the costs are just passed through and the incentives are structured to consume more not less heath care.

Health insurance only companies I think will be driven out of business by two factors; they can no longer perform their basic function which is actuarial expertise. Second their gross margins are capped at 20% and most margins will be lower as premiums won't be able to keep up with the rising cost. I would not want to be in that business.

However, the more diverse companies like Wellpoint and United Health have a valuable asset. This is decades of health care record on millions on individuals. So these companies and other like them will convert themselves to care providers, administrators of self insured plans, and offer diagnostic or preventative care services. These I see as big growth areas. Retail companies with direct access to consumers like Walmart will expand further into providing heath care services to meet rising demand.

From the market reaction this week it seems the ruling was a non event. The added burden to large Fortune 500 companies will be passed on to employees in the form of higher co pays. As long as the expense deduction is there, providing health insurance is still a good way to transfer compensation to employees void of taxed. The middle range companies (50-100 employees) will do the same or can opt our entirely and pay a fine. Of all the articles I read in last two weeks I found Sowell and Asness had some insightful writings on the subject.

Stefan Jovanovich adds: 

The Armed Forces have been privatized. Conscription is no longer -politically - available. Intraservice competition among what are now 4 branches of the service - Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines - and the effective abolition of the draft have forced the official dealers in death and destruction to continue to innovate. It no longer requires 55,000 bullets to kill a single enemy (that was the effective kill ratio in the Viet-Nam war). If we had the "single payer" system David wants and the one Truman wanted for the defense department as well as for American healthcare, we would have seen the U.S. follow the disastrous path the Canadians and Europeans and now - sadly - even the British have followed. The budgets would have remained largely intact (as they have for NATO), but the ability to break things would have disappeared.

As with so many quasi-political arguments on the List, this debate really comes down to the fact that "yes, the conservatives want the government to cheat just the way the liberals do". As, I hope, David would agree, political conservatives like DeMint wave the bloody flag for freedom but still want the full-employment act for prison guards and cops (aka the drug laws). But, this is hardly news. Adam Smith observed the phenomenon over 200 years ago. The fact that Jim DeMint also argued for a monopoly system is hardly an argument in favor of autarky; it is a reminder that liberty - like virtue - needs to be practiced in the small things every day no matter how tempting it is to believe that cheating just this once won't really do any harm.

As for the defense contractors, they have been going broke since the end of WW II. The process has been masked - just as it has in American farming - by the fact that the losers have sold up to their larger, better financed competitors rather than simply sold off their assets at auction (that, too, has happened); if large medical insurers and hospital companies had faced the same competitive pressures, there would be - as there is in the weapons business - half a dozen suppliers, not the hundreds that not only exist but continued to thrive and prosper under a cost-plus system that would have made even the pirates at Ling-Tempco-Vought blush for shame.

P.S. American medicine still has conscription - for the customers. People are not allowed to sell their organs, to get pricing information about medical services in advance of purchase, to buy catastrophic only insurance coverage. The absence of fundamental liberty - for the providers and the customers - in the area of medicine is truly staggering.
 

And further, why is 20% of GDP the magic number for healthcare spending? Shouldn't people be free to spend their money as they choose? If people, as opposed to the government, want to spend half their incomes on everything from Botox to liver transplants, isn't that their choice?

There have, in fact, been numerous proposals to abolish single payer. Here is one.

As for no one having much trouble with Medicare, you have got to be kidding. No sensible doctor in private practice is willing to accept Medicare patients any more; they will - out of loyalty to their existing patients - continue to treat those who shift from private insurance to Medicare; but for new patients with only Medicare and no supplemental insurance, forget it. I know this because I have just gone through the process of finding a new cardiologist and internist here in North Carolina; if it is any comfort, this part of the nationalization of medicine has succeeded - my internist and cardiologist back in California told me the same thing years ago.

Very few people think we have a "high quality system" in medicine any more than we have a "high quality" system in plumbing fixtures. There is an awful lot of crap out there. What people know is that, if competition is allowed to flourish, the mediocre providers who are now sheltered by government monopoly protections - those at the VA and government hospitals and those in private practice who use government payers as their sole source of revenue - will have to face the intolerable discipline of the marketplace.

The arguments used in favor of drug regulation are the same ones used in favor of zoning, gun control and all other bureaucratic restraints in the name of the public good. They rely on the horror stories to justify restraints whose costs are far more murderous. A hundred times more people die every month now because they cannot buy organs from willing donors than died or were maimed from thalidomide. But no one takes photographs of their slow declines or charts their pain unto death. We can't let people use their money to save their own lives; that would be against the greater good - i.e the full employment of professional minders of other people's business.
 

Jul

1

This is a complicated ecological subject of a cyclical nature:

"This may be the largest epidemic we've experienced, but it's far from our first," says Sky Stephens, entomologist for the Colorado State Forest Service. "We had a lot of forests of uniform age, very limited forest-management activities, and we've spent a lot of time suppressing fire. All of this allowed a very large percentage of Colorado's pine forests to enter their most susceptible life phase at the same time. And then we had a significant period of drought."

Beetles thrive in drought years. Pines respond to beetle attacks by oozing resin, "pitching out" the invaders, but a lack of water weakens that defense process. Well-watered trees have been known to drive out thousands of beetles; a drought-plagued tree can succumb to a handful. If the beetles manage to set up house in the tree bark, they infect the tree with a blue-stain fungus that serves to nourish their young while strangling the tree's hydrology and eventually killing it.

……"The forests are going to look more like what they were when the European settlers came to Colorado," Mitton says. "That's not an awful thing. Once the aspen are doing well, the lodgepole will come back and shade them out — and there we go again."'


Are the beetles setting the stage for larger, more severe wildfires? And are fires bringing on beetle epidemics? Contrary to popular opinion, the answer to both questions seems to be "no."

Jul

1

"Roberts Switched Views to Uphold Health Care Law"

This is highly unusual, especially so soon after the decision. (Since CBS requires two sources, it must have come from two of the Justices or their clerks.)

IMHO one thing this case demonstrates is the excess power and prestige of the Supreme Court. The Justices are treated as almost rock stars by the NYTimes set. In fact, they are old and isolated in their Washington environment, with little feel for the country as a whole (they do not "ride circuit" getting around the country as the original SC Justices did) or use of modern technology by which their isolated thinking could be vetted before being imposed on 300 million of us.

Compare highly sophisticated and expert legal blogs or even the dailyspec where a decision such as Roberts' (relying on a tax argument that legal experts have been able to immediately demolish), while ineffectively trying to establish the principle that the Commerce Clause has teeth for the future, would have been denounced as nonsensical or even downright stupid.

Jul

1

I respectfully disagree with Rocky and Stefan (happily without fear of counter-argument, since each has said it is his last post on the ACA decision and thus will not be able to respond).

If it was Roberts' attempt to throw a false gift to the liberals by upholding the ACA, while at the same time establishing the principle that the individual mandate violates the Commerce Clause, he did a pretty incompetent job of it.

Because his tax justification of the ACA has provided a new road map to Congress, broader than the Commerce Clause, under which roadmap virtually any infringement of our liberties can be upheld.

If the President and Congress wish to require each of us to purchase an electric car, simply pass a law that each person must purchase an electric car or pay a tax of $5,000.

If the President and Congress wish to require each of us to eat certain low fat or locavore foods, simple pass a law that each person must purchase such foods or pay a tax of $2,000.

I will forego the broccoli example and countless others, but they are obvious.

In the words of Richard Epstein, a favorite law professor of a number on this list, Roberts was "too clever by half":

"On the crucial issue of the individual mandate and the taxing power, Roberts sounds like a lawyer who is too clever by half. The point here is ironic, for without question, the Chief Justice came to his decision by self-consciously marching to the beat of two drummers: judge and statesman… The entire edifice that underlies the ACA on this critical mandate rests on a constitutional house of cards. If the legislation fails under the Commerce Clause, there is no reason to resurrect it by engaging in extravagant machinations with the words "tax" and "penalty." No umpire would accept such a shaky result. No statesman should either."

And in his half-baked approach, he squandered a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strike a blow for the Constitution, limited government, and individual liberty.

Jul

1

What a day. And was it so unexpected that the various flexions would arrange to use their trillion war chest and ability to print money, to bail out the less wealthy countries at the expense of the common man.

Gary Rogan writes: 

Also puts that "we recommend positioning for 5% down" Goldman note from a week ago in perspective.

Jul

1

What a glorious graffito of glamorous niceness NYC can be. Case in point, Thursday, 28 June. (When one needed a relief from Supreme Court doings of earlier that same day…ugh.)

Acquired two tickets for a reception and play for 6 pm, down at the Manhattan Theatre Club on West 43rd. The producers seek to make Hell's Belles into a perennial song-fest and fun evening like the long-running Forbidden Broadway (since 1982!) or the equally jolly perennial Nunsense (from 1985). They plan to open it for four perfs a week at a 150-seat house, Off-Broadway.

Having seen both Forbidden and Nunsense, I think the producers here have a safe bet–this is nonstop laughter and giggles.The reception was wine, cheese, chunky chip cookies, crackers, gooey Devil dogs, and soft drinks–with women in purple hair and exotic duds greeting each guest, welcoming comers to the evening. The revue, at 6:30, a cabaret in Hell for the more famous denizens of the deep, following the reception, was an hour of hilarious songs and movement.

The revue called "Hell's Belles" features hilarious quick-change sketches of famous people in Hell. Included: Eva Braun ("I saved hitler's [sic] brain"–hands-down favorite for this viewer), Janis Joplin ("Sex, drugs, booze–and Rock 'n' Roll"), Marilyn, Queen Guinevere ("I-N-F-I-D-E-L-I-T-Y"), Judy Garland, Lizzie Borden ("I got off scott-free–because I had a good LAWYER!"), Bette Davis & Joan Crawford ("I am twice as camp as you!"), Eva Peron ("Andrew Lloyd Webber made me famous") Princess Di ("All the best people are here"), Calamity Jane, Lady Godiva et al. Lyrics were screamingly funny, and the MC, Lester, was the devil. The three multi-talented female singers changed clothing, hats, capes, etc. They were in fine voice, and were not afraid to be funny, ridiculous or hilariously scathing.

When it was finished, I raced uptown to the Paris, where I was seated in the VIP section next to one of the Damages producers, I noted. SRO seating, and many speeches from directors, producers, etc., in a very posh crowd, indeed–lots of bling, of sky-high heels (among them, Glenn Close, who seems shorter than I am, but wore 6" heels, so she came up to my navel). The new season of the riveting law-and-mayhem series itself was dark and terrific, tense and dramatic, with gorgeous Boston backdrops–features Ryan Philippe, a terrific Jenna Elfman, John Hannah and gorgeous Rose Byrne as well as the pluperfect villain, Glenn Close, all did themselves proud. Afterwards, all these fab folks walked the 30 paces to the Plaza, where all ate and drank deep into the sweltering night.

A great, quintessentially NYC evening.

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