Category: reason

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit last spring, Louis Goffinet, a teacher in Connecticut, started a Facebook fundraiser to buy groceries for families affected by the disease. He raised more than $40,000, which he used to fund 140 family grocery trips, 125 family dinners, 80 Thanksgiving pies, 31 Thanksgiving dinners, and rental assistance for five families, as well as helping 20 people buy Christmas gifts for their children. And this February, the IRS sent Goffinet a 1099-K form, telling him the money he raised was taxable income. He owes $16,000, but with the help of an accountant he hopes to fight that bill.

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In 2019, the Trump Administration adopted the so-called “public charge rule,” which imposed more stringent requirements on those seeking visas to enter the country to demonstrate that they would not become dependent upon public assistance in the United States. The rule prompted numerous legal challenges, one of which made its way to the Supreme Court.

The justices initially accepted the Trump Administration’s petition for certiorari in February, only to dismiss the case two weeks later once the Biden Administration had the opportunity to reverse course and have the case voluntarily dismissed. Other cases remained pending in lower courts, however, so the Biden Administration withdrew government appeals of adverse decisions, leaving a district court ruling in place that had vacated the rule as a basis for rescinding the “public charge” regulation without having to go through notice–and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act.

States that had supported the Trump Administration rule cried foul, and sought to have the Supreme Court ensure their ability to intervene to stay the lower court injunction and defend the rule. In today’s orders list, the Court denied that request, but also left open the possibility of revisiting the question.

The relevant order reads:

In 2019, the Department of Homeland Security promulgated through notice and comment a rule defining the term “public charge.” The District Court in this case vacated the rule nationwide, but that judgment was stayed pending DHS’s appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. On March 9, 2021, following the change in presidential administration, DHS voluntarily dismissed that appeal, thereby dissolving the stay of the District Court’s judgment. And on March 15, DHS relied on the District Court’s now-effective judgment to remove the challenged rule from the Code of Federal Regulations without going through notice and comment rulemaking. Shortly after DHS had voluntarily dismissed its appeal, a group of States sought leave to intervene in the Court of Appeals. When that request was denied, the States filed an application for leave to intervene in this Court and for a stay of the District Court’s judgment. The States argue that DHS has prevented enforcement of the rule while insulating the District Court’s judgment from review. The States also contend that DHS has rescinded the rule without following the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. We deny the application, without prejudice to the States raising these and other arguments before the District Court, whether in a motion for intervention or otherwise. After the District Court considers any such motion, the States may seek review, if necessary, in the Court of Appeals, and in a renewed application in this Court.

Although the states’ effort failed, the degree of detail in the Court’s order is somewhat curious. It suggests the states’ petition–filed against the background of an unusual number of cases in which the federal government has altered its position in light of the change in Administration–caught the eye of at least a few of the justices. This suggests the lower courts might want to give the states’ motions some extra consideration.

Somewhat relatedly, in American Medical Association v. Becerra, the Court also asked the Acting Solicitor General to “file a letter brief addressing the following question: Whether the Government intends to continue to enforce the challenged rule and regulations outside the State of Maryland until the completion of notice and comment; and, if further litigation is brought against the challenged rule and regulations outside of Maryland, how the Government would intend to respond.” More evidence the Court is paying close attention to the federal government’s sudden change in positions.

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When I opened my Yahoo! News page today, I found a list of stories including this one: “Mom Issues Terrifying Warning After Being ‘Hunted’ at Target: ‘I Will Never Forget.'”

Many readers will never forget, either—and that is the problem. There is not a single shred of evidence that this woman was hunted by anything more than her imagination or desire for clicks.

The mom—whose real name was not provided—left the house “with several legal self-defense items, parked directly next to the store and took note of the vehicles parked nearby.”

That sounds like someone pretty ready to see an ordinary Target run as quite possibly her last. And sure enough: “I had been browsing for only 10 to 15 minutes when I noticed a young gentleman,” wrote the mom. “He was tall, skinny, dressed in a dirty grey two-piece sweatsuit, and brown work boots. He looked over at me, I smiled and said hello but his facial expression was blank.”

Scary, right? A guy shopping and not smiling? And not using a shopping cart? My blood would run cold.

And he wasn’t even the only scary man at Target! There was another guy, and then another guy “in the exact same situation.”

The “situation” being shopping while male. “I had a bad feeling about these three men, and it became clear that something was a bit off,” she wrote.

Mom continued to wander around the store, getting more and more distraught, and darned if she didn’t keep seeing the guys doing their shopping, too. How unusual and disturbing.

“It felt as if I was being surrounded like a wild animal—hunted, even,” she wrote. “They were no longer trying to be inconspicuous, which was the scariest part of it all, and everything instinctual was screaming at me to get out of there.”

And this is why Yahoo! News stinks for running this story: It is contributing to that very same “instinct” that isn’t instinct at all—it’s a car alarm of fear that goes off when a leaf falls on the hood.

This mom (if there really was a mom; the whole story is based on something someone wrote on Reddit) went to the store already taking the precautions you might take in Kandahar if you were wearing an American army uniform: watch out for the enemy, always be alert, note your surroundings.

Unsurprisingly, she sees the enemy everywhere.

When she finally left the store—with a male employee walking her to the car, per her request, she was horrified to spot a white van. Be afraid, be very afraid. (Or  better yet, don’t be.)

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This Wednesday, at noon EDT, the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law is hosting a webinar, “Adapting to Climate Change: Economic and Legal Perspectives,” featuring Matthew E. Kahn, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Economics and Business and Director of the 21st Century Cities Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, and Robin Kundis Craig, James I. Farr Presidential Endowed Professor of Law, University Distinguished Professor, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Here’s a brief description of the event:

Some degree of significant climate change is inevitable. Even aggressive greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies will not eliminate the need to adapt to ongoing environmental changes. Adaptation will be an essential element of the climate policy toolkit. In the new book, Adapting to Climate Change: Markets and the Management of an Uncertain Future, economist Matthew Kahn explores how decisions about where we live, how our food is grown, and where new business ventures choose to locate are impacted by climate change and suggests new ways that big data can be deployed to ease energy or water shortages to aid agricultural operations and proposes informed policy changes related to public infrastructure, disaster relief, and real estate to nudge land use, transportation options, and business development in the right direction. The law, however, is not always attentive to ecological demands, and to the broader environmental changes wrought by climate change. How climate adaptation occurs will be influenced and shaped by legal rules, both in the context of environmental law and more broadly.

In this webinar, Matthew Kahn, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Economics and Business, and Robin Craig, James I. Farr Presidential Endowed Professor of Law, will examine the law and economics of climate adaptation.

It is hard for me to think of two people I would rather discuss and learn about climate adaptation with than Kahn and Craig, so please join us for what will be a fascinating conversation.

The webinar is free and CLE approval in Ohio is pending. Registration information is here.

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On this Monday’s Reason Roundtable, Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie compare standings on masks and D.C. statehood.

Discussed in the show:

1:24: Coronavirus check-in. Do we need to wear masks outside? Are we just doing this because everyone else is?

20:31: Weekly Listener Question: The rash of dangerous disinformation regarding all things related to the pandemic is making me waver on my maximalist commitment to free speech and to think that maybe we should censor just a few of the most dangerous voices. Please tell me where I’m wrong in thinking about this.

28:56: D.C. statehood: retrocession into MD, or stick to the status quo?

41:57: Biden’s first 100 days.

51:12: Media recommendations for the week.

This weeks links:

• “How To Talk to Your Young Kids About Weed,” by Katherine Mangu-Ward
• “Americans give Biden mostly positive marks for first 100 days, Post-ABC poll finds,” by Dan Balz, Scott Clement, and Emily Guskin
• “Decision to pause Johnson & Johnson vaccine causes public confidence in vaccine to sink,” by Kathy Frankovic
• “An Interview With the Guy Who Yells ‘Mortal Kombat’ in the Theme for Mortal Kombat,” by Matthew Dessem
• “The War on Free Speech Is About To Get a Lot Uglier,” by Matt Welch
• “Much to Forgive,” by John Tierney
• “Did Politics Ruin the Oscars?” by Peter Suderman

Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today’s sponsors:

• Get an up-close look at the history of the Constitution with the Institute for Justice’s new podcast, Bound by Oath. Available wherever you check out podcasts.
• On October 2, 2018, respected Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He was never seen alive again. From the Academy Award–winning director Bryan Fogel, The Dissident is now streaming on On Demand.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.
Assistant production by Regan Taylor.
Music: “Angeline,” by The Brothers Steve.

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In his inaugural address this past January, President Biden quoted, of all people, the Fifth-Century Christian saint, Augustine of Hippo. In City of God, Augustine famously defined a “people”–what we would today think of as a political society–as “an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love.” President Biden paraphrased that definition to make a point about Americans today:

Many centuries ago, Saint Augustine, a saint of my church, wrote that a people was a multitude defined by the common objects of their love.

What are the common objects we love that define us as Americans?

I think I know.

Opportunity.

Security.

Liberty.

Dignity.

Respect.

Honor.

And, yes, the truth.

I have been puzzling over this appropriation of Augustine. Let’s leave aside the switch of “reasonable beings,” which for some reason discomfited the speechwriters, to “a multitude.” In what sense are Americans today united by common objects of affection? The president listed several values he believes we share–several things that all of us love, as Americans. But one doesn’t have to probe too deeply to see that, even if we share some abstract commitment to these values, Americans do not agree on what they entail in any particular context. Everything, it seems, has become partisan; even a pandemic has failed to bring us together. President Biden was no doubt trying to bridge our divisions, which is understandable and an old tradition in inaugural addresses. But it’s hard to see how his words reflect our present reality.

My colleague Marc DeGirolami and I discuss all this, as well as other aspects of City of God, in our most recent episode of Legal Spirits, our podcast series on issues in law and religion. You can listen to the episode here.

 

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