Category: reason

From Health Vermont:

ELIGIBILITY

People 50 years and older

People 16 years or older with high-risk health conditions

Parents and primary caregivers of children with high-risk health conditions

Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC)

HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS OF BIPOC VERMONTERS

If you or anyone in your household identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color (BIPOC), including anyone with Abenaki or other First Nations heritage, all household members who are 16 years or older can sign up to get a vaccine….

But such race discrimination violates the Equal Protection Clause, for reasons that Hans Bader (Liberty Unyielding) explains, with citations.

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The U.S. economy added 916,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department said Friday, far exceeding the Dow Jones estimate forecasting that payrolls would increase by 675,000. Unemployment fell to 6 percent.

It’s the fastest growth the country has seen since August 2020 and a sign that the U.S. is rebounding after a year of COVID-19 restrictions that hamstrung the economy. Hospitality and construction added the most positions, coming in at 280,000 and 110,000 respectively. Notably, the uptick materialized without manipulation, casting doubt on the idea that we need President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan to chart a return to productivity.

The proposal would pour $2 trillion into U.S. infrastructure. True to the plan’s name, it’s not really about that. It’s about creating jobs—specifically union jobs, the likes of which directly contribute to the dizzyingly-high price of American infrastructure.

“Prevailing wage laws that require federal infrastructure projects to pay union rates to workers are a known contributor to America’s outrageously high infrastructure costs,” writes Reason‘s Christian Britschgi. “So are Buy America provisions that generally mandate federally-funded infrastructure projects procure (often more expensive) domestic parts and materials.”

The result: “Biden’s $2 trillion spending plan will buy a lot less infrastructure than it otherwise could.”

About $621 billion would go toward transportation, including revamping bridges and expanding Amtrak. Another $650 billion would address “quality of life,” which Biden would spend on constructing or giving makeovers to affordable housing, public schools, and various commercial buildings. He endeavors to replace every lead pipe and water service line for $11 billion, notes USA Today.

An additional $400 billion would go toward caregivers for the elderly and those with disabilities, and another $300 billion is set aside for manufacturing projects. He would devote $180 billion to research and development, focusing on fleshing out clean energy solutions.

It’s certainly true that U.S. workers experienced quite the shock this past year in the face of government-imposed lockdown orders and individual caution over the COVID-19 pandemic, upending livelihoods across a slew of sectors. Luckily, the country already has a solution: the vaccine, which is the key to rebounding both to normal life and a normal economy. Though Biden has reportedly sought to style himself after former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the U.S. does not actually need a 21st century New Deal.

Despite fearmongering to the contrary, the lifesaving vaccines are already helping to curb hospitalizations and deaths related to COVID-19. The national percent positive test rate for the virus currently sits at 4.7 percent, down from January’s 13.9 percent. California, which was slammed as the coronavirus hotbed through fall and winter, boasts a percent positive test rate of 1.5 percent, the lowest in the country.

And though case counts are seeing a slight bump in certain parts of the U.S., raw cases were never an appropriate metric to evaluate the severity of the virus in the first place. The elderly are far more likely to suffer should they contract COVID-19, and they have been prioritized nationwide for inoculation.

In other words, once the vaccine becomes even more widely available—as it is expected to be come May 1—cases, hospitalization, and deaths will continue to trend downward as the arc of the U.S. economy naturally follows the opposite direction. According to Axios, one estimate predicts the economy will grow by a full 8 percent—”the largest economic expansion for the U.S. in generations.”

“Business activity has returned to close to normal levels in much of the country despite the restrictions, with a tracker by Jefferies indicating that activity is at 93.5% of its pre-pandemic level,” reports CNBC. “Data from Homebase shows that employees working and hours worked both gained sharply over the past month, with significant improvements in both hospitality and entertainment. Those have been the hardest-hit sectors, but have improved over the past two months as governments have loosened up on some of the harshest restrictions on activity.”

And what about manufacturing, which Biden has specifically put a multibillion spotlight on in his plan? The sector “is enjoying a boom,” adds the network, “with an Institute for Supply Management gauge of activity in the sector hitting its highest level since late 1983 in March.”

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In Sabetian v. Fluor Enterprises, Inc., decided a week ago by the California Court of Appeal (Justices Feuer, Perluss & Segal), Houshang Sabetian worked in Iran from 1959 to 1979, as an Iranian citizen, for the National Iranian Oil Company. He claimed that asbestos exposure at the facility caused testicular mesothelioma, and because of that the loss of his right testicle; the jury agreed, and found that the defendants, who were involved in constructing the facility, were negligent.

One question was what law applied—the law of Iran, or the law of California, the state to which Sabetian eventually moved after the asbestos exposure took place. In McCann v. Foster Wheeler LLC (Cal. 2010), the California Supreme Court dealt with a similar situation but involving Oklahoma law, and concluded Oklahoma law applied:

In light of the relevant facts of this case, we conclude that a failure to apply Oklahoma law would significantly impair Oklahoma’s interest. The conduct for which plaintiff contends Foster Wheeler should be held liable—plaintiff’s alleged exposure to asbestos during the application of insulation to a boiler designed and manufactured by Foster Wheeler—occurred in Oklahoma in 1957, at a time when plaintiff was present in Oklahoma and was an Oklahoma resident. As already discussed, the circumstance that Foster Wheeler is not an Oklahoma company—the circumstance relied upon by the Court of Appeal—is not a persuasive basis for finding that the failure to apply Oklahoma law would not significantly impair Oklahoma’s interest. Oklahoma’s interest in the application of its statute of repose applies equally to out-of-state businesses that design improvements to real property located in Oklahoma and to Oklahoma businesses that design such improvements situated within that state.

But here the Court of Appeal refused to apply Iranian law, in this case the Iranian law of damages:

[D]efendants filed a declaration from Mahmoud Katirai, an Iranian lawyer and scholar of Iranian law. On the issue of compensatory damages for personal injury, Katirai opined, “Under Iranian law, [p]laintiffs’ remedies are limited to a statutory compensation (‘diyeh’) pre-determined by the legislature, plus financial damages such as medical expenses and loss of income…. This statutory compensation, which is based on Islamic law, has been codified in the Islamic [Penal Code of Iran], but are of [a] civil nature….

“Statutory compensation … calls for payment in certain commodities[;] … since payment in such commodities is no longer practical, however, the price of such commodities is determined each year by virtue of a decree of the Department of Justice[,] and Iranian courts are required to award [a] remedy based on such decision. Presently, the amount of the statutory compensation in cases of death is 2,310,000,000 Rials. During certain lunar months (i.e., Zel-ghadeh, Zel-hajeh, Rajab, and Moharam) which are called ‘haram’ (celebratory months), the amount of the statutory compensation in cases of death is 3,080,000,000 Rials.” … Sabetian’s recovery for his physical injury was … limited to a maximum of two times the amount allowed for a single injury, 5.4 billion Rials (approximately $128,000)….

[Under the California choice of law rule,] we must “examine ‘each jurisdiction’s interest in the application of its own law under the circumstances of the particular case to determine whether a true conflict exists.'” The Fluor defendants do not dispute California has a legitimate governmental interest in having its law applied. The principal purpose of a damages award under California tort law is “to compensate a wrongfully injured party for injury to person or property.” As the McCann court observed, application of California law “to a current California resident who suffers an … illness as a result of his … prior exposure to asbestos in another jurisdiction would assist such residents in obtaining compensation for their injuries and in not becoming dependent on the resources of California for necessary medical, disability, and unemployment benefits.” Thus, California’s interest is substantial.

We disagree, however, with the Fluor defendants’ characterization of Iran’s interest as the promotion and protection of foreign investment in Iran. We must evaluate Iran’s interest in the context of the particular Iranian law the Fluor defendants seek to apply.

The Fluor defendants assert the salient Iranian interest at issue is embodied in its Foreign Investment Act, which protects foreign companies doing business in Iran by applying Iranian law to claims arising from conduct in Iran. But the Fluor defendants seek to impose the limitation on compensation for personal injury actions as codified in the Islamic Penal Code of Iran “based on Islamic law,” which provides statutory compensation as “provided in the [holy] religion” to compensate for unintentional conduct resulting in the “loss of a member.”

The evidence submitted by the Fluor defendants highlights this interest served by Iranian law. They submitted an Iranian news article characterizing statutory compensation as the amount due to “a Muslim male” in a particular calendar year, as well as evidence showing the amount of statutory compensation depended on whether the victim’s loss occurred in one of the “sacred” months of the year. In the case of the loss of a testicle, the Islamic Penal Code of Iran specifies payment of one-third the amount of full statutory compensation for removal of the right testicle, and two-thirds of the amount for the left, plus an additional proportion of the statutory compensation for impairment to general health. There can be no dispute these rules are “based on Islamic standards.”

{Evidence submitted in support of the supplemental declaration indicates, without qualification, “during the sacred [haram] months, the [statutory compensation] amount would be increased by one third.” Regardless of whether the rule would apply to Sabetian in this case, the variation in prescribed recovery by reference to the sacred months of the Iranian calendar illustrates the essential religious nature of Iran’s law of statutory compensation.} …

[O]ur task is not to determine … [which] rule is the better or worthier rule, but rather to decide—in light of the legal question at issue and the relevant state interests at stake—which jurisdiction should be allocated the predominating lawmaking power under the circumstances of the present case.”

The Fluor defendants are correct that “a jurisdiction ordinarily has the ‘predominant interest’ in regulating conduct that occurs within its borders, and in being able to assure individuals and commercial entities operating within its territory that applicable limitations on liability set forth in the jurisdiction’s law will be available to those individuals and businesses in the event they are faced with litigation in the future.”  McCann. That argument has some force here, where Sabetian’s injury was caused by conduct that occurred in Iran while he was a resident of that country.

But the concern in McCann—that applying California’s law would prevent Oklahoma from providing “any reasonable assurance … that the time limitation embodied in its statute would operate to protect … businesses in the future”—does not apply with the same force to the present circumstances where the Iranian law at issue does not seek to promote and protect foreign businesses with domestic business dealings, but rather, to ensure damages awards are consonant with state-endorsed religious teachings.

California’s interest in protecting recovery of damages for injuries suffered by its residents would be severely impaired if Iranian law applied in light of the significant reduction in recovery under Iran’s statutory compensation scheme. Sabetian suffered his injury while a resident of California [presumably because the initial exposure when he was an Iranian citizen led to disease after he moved to California -EV], and California has an interest in ensuring that Sabetian is fully compensated so he does not become dependent on California’s resources for necessary medical, disability, and unemployment benefits. By contrast, Iran’s interest in limiting damages paid by a foreign company to a California resident in accordance with the tenets of Islamic law (the same as Iranian companies) is relatively weak. Thus, California law applies to the Sabetians’ recovery of compensatory damages.

I’m pretty skeptical about this analysis, but in any event I thought some of our readers might find it interesting.

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The fight in Philadelphia to open the nation’s first facility for intravenous drug users to safely inject drugs faced another setback last week when a federal court declined to reconsider a ruling that put a halt to the site’s opening.

A “safe injection facility” (SIF) is an indoor location where people can use intravenous drugs under medical supervision and safe from arrest. Proponents of these facilities say they save lives by treating overdoses, offering guidance for people seeking addiction treatment, and providing drug users with a sterile and safe environment.

Several SIFs exist in other countries, but none operate openly in the United States. There have been pushes to allows SIFs in cities with high numbers of people who inject drugs in public, like San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

Last year, a district court ruled in favor of Safehouse, the nonprofit attempting to open a SIF in Philadelphia. But this past January, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit issued a 2–1 decision against Safehouse. The court ruled that opening the facility would be in violation of a provision of the federal Controlled Substances Act known as the “crackhouse statute.” This provision makes it illegal to “knowingly open, lease, rent, use, or maintain any place, whether permanently or temporarily, for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using any controlled substance.”

“Congress has made it a crime to open a property to others to use drugs,” the opinion said. “And that is what Safehouse will do.”

On March 24, the same court dismissed a motion for the case to be retried before a full panel of circuit court judges.

Ronda Goldfein, an attorney and the vice president of Safehouse, tells Reason that there are still legal avenues available to continue the fight for a SIF in Philly.

“We can go to the Supreme Court [to challenge the application of the crackhouse statute],” says Goldfein. “We can also go back to the district court because one of our original claims is that, as people of faith and conscience, we are compelled [to do this work] by our religious beliefs.”

Safehouse’s board of directors includes two members of the clergy and a former seminarian. Goldfein says that these members became involved because their religious convictions motivate them to save lives. She argues that, by preventing Safehouse from opening, the court has substantially burdened their exercise of religion and has therefore violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Goldfein says she hopes to get tacit support from the Biden administration similar to the Cole Memo, an Obama-era document that instructed federal agencies not to prosecute most marijuana-related offenses.

Safehouse has had to endure more than just legal battles in its effort to open the country’s first SIF. The project has also faced backlash from residents near the proposed site.

In South Philadelphia, the announced location of the facility, some residents felt blindsided and accused Safehouse of trying to sneak the injection site in under their noses. The first public meeting that Safehouse held regarding opening a SIF there was a press conference announcing the facility would open in a week.

“We were told, not asked,” says Billy Lanzilotti, a local Republican ward leader who helped organize protests against the proposed injection site. “They just told us a week before. That’s not how we do things in South Philly.”

Lanzilotti tells Reason that he and other residents were concerned about the injection facility’s close proximity to several daycares and schools, including some housed in the same building as the proposed site.

“After they get high where are they going to go? They are going to wander out into the street and past the three daycares within two blocks [of the site].”

Goldfein denies the characterization that Safehouse acted surreptitiously. She says that board members, like former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, had been talking to local politicians and community leaders about a South Philadelphia location for some time before the announcement.

“If we were trying to sneak this in,” says Goldfein. “We would not [have had] a press conference to tell [the community] what we were doing.”

Eventually, Safehouse’s landlord caved in to pressure from the community and canceled the organization’s lease.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that vaccinated people are extremely unlikely to spread COVID-19 to others, and thus can safely travel with minimal risk.

But also, it’s theoretically possible for the vaccinated to infect others, and people still shouldn’t travel, according to…the CDC.

Confused? Blame CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, who constantly delivers good news about the amazing efficacy of the vaccines and then undercuts this seconds later by asserting that the fully vaccinated should continue to wear masks, socially distance, and avoid travel if they can.

At a public briefing on Friday, Walensky said that vaccinated people “can resume travel at low risk to themselves.” She even conceded that the vaccinated do not need to take COVID-19 tests or quarantine after travel.

“Fully vaccinated grandparents can fly to visit their healthy grandkids without getting a COVID-19 test or self-quarantining, provided they follow the other recommended prevention measures while traveling,” she said.

But just because vaccinated folks can travel doesn’t mean they should travel.

“While we believe that fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk to themselves, CDC is not recommending travel at this time due to the rising number of cases,” said Walensky.

This may sound contradictory, but it’s standard fare for the CDC, which doesn’t want people to do anything that carries even a slight of risk of harm. Indeed, Walensky admitted earlier this week that all available evidence suggests “vaccinated people do not carry the virus” at all, meaning the risk of transmission from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated is likely quite low. Fearful that this terrific news might make people less cautious, the CDC immediately walked back the guidance.

“Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview,” a panicked CDC spokesperson told The New York Times. “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get Covid-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence.”

To close off the possibility that someone, somewhere might conclude that vaccination is good because it offers a ticket back to normality, the Times story added quotes from other alarmist health officials:

“There cannot be any daylight between what the research shows — really impressive but incomplete protection — and how it is described,” said Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“This opens the door to the skeptics who think the government is sugarcoating the science,” Dr. Bach said, “and completely undermines any remaining argument why people should keep wearing masks after being vaccinated.”

That door is open, and it’s because of the science. There is little reason to think that people who are fully vaccinated do need to continue wearing masks in most circumstances: Given that COVID-19 does not spread easily outdoors, and it likely doesn’t spread from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated except in rare cases, health officials could just admit that post-vaccination outdoor–mask wearing is safety theater.

They never will. At best, experts will admit the science shows virtually no transmission between unmasked, vaccinated people who congregate outdoors—but still insist that everyone follows all the same mitigation protocols. It’s not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it’s just the Center for Control.

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