Category Archives: regulation

Idiocy in the Nanny State

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Starting in May, the Food and Drug Administration will require chains like Applebee’s and TGI Fridays to list calories next to all their menu items. That includes alcohol.

Because we need to know that stuff.  Or so says Government.  And of course, we’ll pay for that knowledge in higher prices for our drinks, because generating and posting that information—and defending against lawsuits over trivial errors in the postings—doesn’t come free.

Never mind that most of us don’t care.  Nana Government knows better.

Never mind, either, that Government already provides those data for free, for all who actually do care.  Here’re some data for beer.  Nana clearly thinks we’re just too stupid or lazy to make use of those data.  Or not smart enough to know we should care.

A Better Answer

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The Supreme Court might take up a case involving cy pres, the policy of handing class action suit settlement fund “leftover” money to third parties.  It’s especially used where the number of plaintiffs in the class is huge.

In privacy or data-breach cases, where the number of potential plaintiffs reaches into the millions, the majority of a settlement can go to cy pres recipients.

A 2015 class-action settlement involving Alphabet that centered on its Google subsidiary would have led, after the lawyers’ cut, to four-cent checks being sent to each of nearly 130 million plaintiffs, for instance.

Cy pres also becomes a player when the bulk of the funds are distributed and the remainder is impractical to distribute (“impractical” generally is determined by the court involved, or by the court’s acceptance of an agreement between plaintiffs and defendant(s)).

The Court should take the case and strike the practice.  Part One of a better answer, which the Court can impose, is to reduce the permissible per centage of the total payout that can go to the lawyers.  That would leave more money for the payout and reduce, if only by a little, one of the problems: the pennies distributed were all the monies disbursed to the plaintiffs.

Part Two of the better answer is a political decision, and so it’s beyond the reach of the Court; although, the Justices can, and should, inveigh Congress to address the matter.  That political decision is to bar the leftover monies from going to third parties.  By definition, those entities were not victims of the misbehavior that led to the payout, and so they should not receive any of it.  Instead, the leftovers should be delivered to the Federal or State Treasury, depending on whether the case was a Federal or State one.

Part Two-a of the better answer likely would find the most use in those privacy or data-breach cases, where all of the plaintiffs might each get impractically small payouts.  In this sort of case, all of the settlement funds should go to the Federal or State Treasury.

Free Speech

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The Supreme Court has taken up the case of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (Nifla) v Becerra, whose proximate subject centers on abortion rights but whose real subject is freedom of  speech.

California’s Reproductive FACT Act, the law in question in NIFLA, requires pro-life centers to advise their clients of the availability of abortion centers.  This is forced speech, and it destroys the 1st Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech, since speech cannot be freely spoken if it cannot also be freely not spoken.  This is as true for factual speech as it is for opinion speech.

The Supreme Court expressly held as much…when it rejected a distinction between compelled statements of opinion and compelled statements of fact, finding that “either form of compulsion burdens protected speech.”

Indeed. And one obvious consequence of losing that distinction (by, for instance, ruling for Becerra rather than for NIFLA) would be to expose all news outlets to lawsuits over their editorial choices of what sets of facts to publish and what to withhold in every single article they publish.

Violent Illegal Aliens

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Recall Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s warning to illegal aliens in the city for which she’s responsible that ICE officers were coming.  Recall further the litany of violent crimes for which many of those warned were previously convicted or accused, and that many of those violent illegals escaped ICE as a result of Schaaf’s warning.

Now we see an outcome of Schaaf’s concern for violent non-citizen criminals.

Three illegal immigrants, who avoided capture after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf blew the whistle on a raid by federal immigration authorities last month, have since been re-arrested for new crimes including robbery and spousal abuse, ICE officials said.

They were these:

One was a Mexican national arrested for robbery and gun crimes, who was released back into the community for a prior offense despite an ICE detainer request in November.
Another Mexican national was arrested for a DUI, despite having been deported three times and prior convictions for false imprisonment, DUI, and battery of a spouse.
The third was a Mexican national who was arrested for corporal injury of a spouse, despite being deported twice and criminal convictions including drug possession, hit-and-run, DUIs, possessions of narcotics equipment, and a parole violation.

Others of this ilk remain on the loose.

This is how the Oakland Mayor seems to prioritize drug abuse and the safety of women relative to her city’s legal residents.

Side note: the gun crimes charges demonstrate the degree of effectiveness of gun control laws in keeping firearms out of the hands of those with no respect for law.

School Shootings and Gun Control

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At a Parkland high school, a thug went in and killed 17 while injuring several more; he was captured elsewhere and after several hours.  At a Maryland school, a thug went in, wounded two, and was killed.

There are some critical differences in the two situations.

The Parkland thug had a semi-automatic rifle, while the Maryland thug had a hand gun.

The Parkland thug obtained his rifle legally, if with some trouble (one potential seller refused the sale, having developed his own suspicions while interacting with the thug).  The Maryland thug obtained his pistol illegally.

At Parkland, the armed responder was a cop, stationed outside the school (I’m eliding his failure to enter).  At the Maryland school, the armed responder was inside the school.

There are a couple of lessons here.  One is that gun control laws didn’t keep the Maryland thug from getting his illegal weapon.  The other is that possessing guns while inside the target and being trained in their use shortened the shooting incident and yielded far fewer casualties and far less lethality.

Those lessons are universal.  They apply in schools, in supermarkets and other public gathering places, and around in the home.

There is a role for gun control.  Training in the use of guns is critical.  Practice so the defender can fire accurately is critical.  That’s critical gun control.