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Entries by Paul Moreno

Monday, February 8, 2010

Dairy farmers have induced the Attorney General of Vermont to investigate their complaint they are being exploited by a milk-processing monopoly. And Vermont’s Socialist Senator, Bernie Sanders, has also urged the Justice Department to investigate, in his effort to ensure that Vermont dairy farmers get “fair prices” for their product. They received a six million dollar payment at the end of last year.

http://sanders.senate.gov/legislation/issue/?id=90c28ee4-5607-4eaf-90b4-1e400d5458d3

Whatever the merits of this particular grievance, it is rather amusing to hear complaints about the abuse of power from dairy farmers, who were pioneers in interest-group politics. They have been adept in using the power of government, as Adam Smith put it, to launch “conspiracies against the public” and “contrivances to raise prices.” And their efforts have had far-reaching constitutional implications.

Posted on Monday, February 8, 2010 at 1:54 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

When "Empathy" Goes Awry

President Obama is said to be choosing Supreme Court Justices on the basis of "empathy." There are quite a lot of precedents for this standard--the twentieth century is full of ironic stories as to how it has played out.

Posted on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 1:12 PM | Comments (5) | Top

Saturday, February 21, 2009

How Many Czars Does a Republic Need?

The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses Obama administration plans for an arts and humanities “czar.” Former NEH chairman William J. Ivey thinks that we will end up with only a few “mini-czars.”

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i23/23a00801.htm

Of course, the question is not whether there should be one humanities czar or many humanities czars, but whether the federal government should be involved in the humanities business at all. The article title, after all, is “Humanities Endowment Should Get Back to Basics, Scholars Say.” What could be more basic than reading the Constitution?

Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 12:41 PM | Comments (1) | Top

Monday, January 26, 2009

The Judge Who Gave Us Gitmo

Now that President Obama has ordered the closing of the prison at Guantatmo Bay, we should take a moment to consider how we stepped into the constitutional anomaly that created Gitmo. The story upsets some progressive-liberal iconography.

Posted on Monday, January 26, 2009 at 9:52 AM | Comments (4) | Top

Sunday, December 28, 2008

"Change to Win" or "Pay to Play"?

Governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged scheme--that he would appoint a union-friendly Senator to Obama’s vacant seat, and receive in return the national directorship of the “Change to Win” labor federation—-and the upcoming “card check” battle in Congress have one thing in common: They remind us that unions are political, not economic institutions. Congress gives unions the power to recruit members, who then vote for the party that empowered them.

Posted on Sunday, December 28, 2008 at 9:19 AM | Comments (1) | Top

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

"A Tax on Stupidity"

I'm sure that I'm not the first one to suggest that good cultural effects might accompany this economic downturn. Depressions can be "sobering." And, after all, the 1930s were a great decade in popular music, film, and fashion. An NPR Report

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98640025&;ft=1&f=1006

on state lotteries supports this hypothesis. It also suggests that government gambling policy is perverse.

Posted on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 8:08 PM | Comments (2) | Top

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Obama and the "Second Bill of Rights"

Have we given up not just the Constitution, but the Declaration of Independence as well? An Obama presidency, with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, could go a long way toward the completion of a European-style social welfare state that was begun in the New Deal.

In a 2001 interview on Chicago public radio, Obama lamented that “the Supreme Court never ventured into the issue of the redistribution of wealth.” The problem, he said, was that the court “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution… that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberty.”

In this perhaps unguarded moment, Obama became one of the few liberal politicians candid enough to admit that the Constitution poses a fundamental obstacle to their agenda.

Posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 7:26 PM | Comments (5) | Top

Monday, November 3, 2008

Academic bias

Here's a NY Times story on liberal bias in higher ed. It seems that professors have little impact on the views of their students--though it's not for lack of numbers or effort:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/books/03infl.html?ei=5070&;emc=eta1

Posted on Monday, November 3, 2008 at 12:19 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, August 18, 2008

political politcal science

Below is a message from the president of the American Political Science Association, which appears to take the side of union workers "site unseen."

Dear APSA Member:

The Annual Meeting is upon us and all the necessary preparations for a challenging and successful program have been made.

If you are attending the Boston meeting you will learn of a labor action involving the food and beverage provider in the Hynes Convention Center. You may question how the labor action will bear on the Association’s ability to provide the needed services for a successful meeting.

The labor dispute between Local 26 of UNITE HERE and the Aramark Corporation involves food and beverage services at the Hynes. APSA has arranged to have no service contracts with Aramark and will not be using them for any food functions in the Hynes Center. There are no labor disputes involving the Hynes Center itself, or the conference hotels. All food functions have been moved to the Sheraton and Marriott hotels, which are not facing labor disputes. Local 26 has responded positively to this, and we understand they will refrain from demonstrations during our 2008 Annual Meeting. APSA has taken these steps consistent with Council policy adopted in Fall of 2007 stating that the Association "shall make every effort to give preference to a suitable unionized hotel and/or service provider, cost considerations being otherwise equal." and to assure access to and availability of services fo r members at the meeting. While these food and beverage matters arose quite late in our planning for the meeting, we are confident that the arrangements we have made for the meeting will provide full services for attendees without added cost and will allow attendance at the meeting without encountering labor disputes.

Sincerely,

Dianne Pinderhughes, President

Posted on Monday, August 18, 2008 at 7:50 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Saturday, August 9, 2008

McGovern on Unions

Former Senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern has a piece opposing the "Employee Free Choice" bill, the main item on the AFL-CIO legislative agenda. (McGovern wrote his dissertation on organized labor.) McGovern was the only Democrat who did not get the AFL-CIO's endorsement, when he ran in 1972--mostly due to Vietnam, but also because the New Left didn't always see eye-to-eye with the Old Left on organized labor.
The last time the Democrats controlled Congress, they were unable to enact the "Caesar Chavez" bill against permanent replacement workers; in 2009 they may have a fililbuster-proof majority.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121815502467222555.html

Posted on Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 7:40 AM | Comments (0) | Top

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