“Looking at the current federal bench, you’ll notice certain patterns: Going to an elite law school, working for corporate law firms, and spending time as a prosecutor (or otherwise representing the government) are all common career trajectories. Indeed, as one of us documented in a study for the Cato Institute … lawyers whose formative professional experiences include serving as courtroom advocates for the government are vastly overrepresented on the federal bench. Former prosecutors outnumber former defense lawyers by a ratio of 4‐to‐1, with those representing government in criminal or civil proceedings outnumbering those litigating against the government by a ratio of 7‐to‐1. President Donald Trump only made this imbalance worse, appointing 12 times more judges who had worked exclusively as government advocates than judges with backgrounds in criminal defense or plaintiff‐side civil rights litigation.” (07/22/21)
“The Summer Olympics, which open July 23 in Japan, promise to be one of the most unusual Games in modern history. For one, they will be performed before very few in-person spectators. They also are a year late, a result of the pandemic. They are officially still the 2020 Olympic Games. But one thing won’t be new: the suspicion that a sizable percentage of athletes will have broken the rules of fair play and used banned performance-enhancing drugs. Just how many athletes will cheat in this way is difficult to know, but some estimate it could be thousands of the 11,000 or so who will compete.” (07/21/21)
“The January 6 Capitol clash may be the gift that keeps on giving to cynics everywhere. In the coming months, Americans will likely see jaw-dropping bureaucratic debacles, stunning abuses by federal prosecutors, and appalling bloodlust by angry Biden supporters. Perhaps the least likely outcome is that the coming train wreck will restore faith in American democracy.” (07/22/21)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Felicia A Jones
“The success of libertarianism is independence from the state’s influence. Increasing one’s reliance on free markets, where personal responsibility and decision-making prevail over complacency, makes for an effective patriotism. Stopping the Randian motor of the world so that libertarians may thrive in the hypothetical Galt’s Gulch beyond government’s grasp (i.e., in external markets) requires exit. Leave a school or healthcare system which does not deliver desired ends.” (07/22/21)
“Last week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that COVID-19 is ‘becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.’ President Joe Biden said much the same shortly after. They are technically correct. Even against the fast-spreading Delta variant, the vaccines remain highly effective, and people who haven’t received them are falling sick far more often than those who have. But their vulnerability to COVID-19 is the only thing that unvaccinated people universally share. They are disparate in almost every way that matters, including why they haven’t yet been vaccinated and what it might take to persuade them.” (07/22/21)
“Are you getting deja vu? ‘Market Meltdown: Dow Plummets 900 Points on Covid Fears,’ said one headline. It’s been 16 months since the infamous stock market crash in March 2020. I argued back then that the market sell-off was overdone, and even encouraged by corporate media that were welcoming anything that could place then-President Trump in a bad light. I also stressed if you could see through that media noise, it was a buying opportunity, because no matter how challenging the coronavirus would become, we are a capitalist nation. Smart companies would develop vaccines. The nation would open back up, and in time, America would be back on its feet. I was right. We got vaccines in record time (something the former administration gets little credit for), and sure enough, the economy bounced back.” (07/22/21)
“The Israeli government’s panicked reaction to the announcement that Ben & Jerry’s would no longer sell its products in the occupied Palestinian territories has been amusing to watch, but it is part of a chilling campaign to stifle free speech here in the U.S. and to delegitimize all protest of Israel’s illegal occupation. Senior government officials have labeled the decision to respect international law and not sell in the occupied territories as anti-Semitism and terrorism, and they have called on almost three dozen American state governors to enforce their blatantly unconstitutional anti-BDS laws against the company. On one level, this is absurd and the Israeli government is making a mockery of itself, but this is no laughing matter.” (07/22/21)
“Congress is considering using budget reconciliation — one of the budget’s most powerful tools — to help pass President Biden’s agenda. As a former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I am uniquely familiar with budget reconciliation. I have seen it used wisely, and I have seen it used recklessly, and I urge the Senate to reinstate the rule we put in place in 2007: the ‘Conrad Rule,’ which prevents any reconciliation bill from increasing the deficit. … When we originally instituted the Conrad Rule in 2007, the deficit totaled $161 billion, or 1.1 percent of the economy, and debt totaled 35 percent of GDP. Today, the deficit has swelled to $3 trillion — and will remain about $1 trillion per year even once the economy recovers — while debt is larger than the economy and headed to a new record as a share of the economy.” (07/22/21)
“Like many culture war battles, the debate over critical race theory has an almost impenetrable noise-to-signal ratio. It’s a struggle to find the serious critiques amid the posturing and performative outrage. But one compelling objection raised by opponents of critical race theory is the problem of ‘collective guilt,’ or the idea that [w]hite people today are complicit in the sins of [w]hite people in the past. … while it’s one thing to point out that [w]hite people still benefit from these policies, it’s quite another to say all [w]hite people today are complicit in those atrocities simply because they have the same complexion as the people who perpetrated them. And yet the people who rail against collective [w]hite guilt often make very similar arguments about race, crime and the criminal justice system.” (07/21/21)
